So just who is JL Miller? I am no one, and I am everyone. I've been on this journey for much longer than I expected. I've had some experiences that I may share with you along the way. Bob Dylan once wrote in a song, "if my thought dreams could be seen, they'd probably put my head in a guillotine..." I'll try to keep that in mind.

There is so much happening lately, but what's happening is probably a good place to start. We're seeing phrases from the major news outlets about an urgently need economic stimulus package needed to avert recession and economic meltdown. Wasn't it just a month ago that the Decider told us how strong and robust the US economy was? What happened? Before I continue much further, I should say that I am neither Democrat nor Republican. I don't see the world in black and white. My voter ID says NP (no party), but as I watch these two sides bicker and backstab, I wonder where's the party? I believe in fiscal responsibility, but I sure don't see it from this administration. Politics...let's break it down (in case you've forgotten). Poli means many, and tics are those little blood suckers. You have to conclude that when the Decider said the economy was in good shape way back in December, he was either misinformed or telling fairy tales. So what else is new?

The headlines were filled with a new report from the Center for Public Integrity regarding the administration's "campaign of deception" that led us into war. Nearly 1000 public, well placed lies about weapons of mass destruction and links to the September 11 tragedy led us to war. Well, duh!!! I guess if people had been listening to the weapons inspectors, they would have known the whole case for war was a fabrication. All the major news outlets jumped on the lies and sold the American public on an unjust and unwarranted war. By the way, I'm a veteran of a similar war. Unfortunately the country was too busy watching the Simpsons and American Idol to notice the blitz of misinformation. We wanted vengeance. Opps!

So what do an economy in meltdown and an ill begotten war have in common? Some would have us believe they are totally unrelated; those would be the same people that got us into this mess to begin with. While I'm asking questions, can a democracy have a "Decider" and still be considered a democracy? Thought dreams...guillotine...ouch...enough!

There is someone whose blog I recommend everyone read from start to finish. Please use the archives which begins 08/01/2003. The young lady goes by the name Riverbend. She lived in Baghdad until this last summer. Riverbend is a refuge now. She is very special, and I pray that she will make it through.

- Posted by JLM - 1/23/08 23:27

Balance
Friday, January 25, 2008

Congress is scurrying around trying to finish up on the economic stimulus program to save us from the "meltdown". Band-Aid on a cancer comes to mind. Many of us will have an extra $500 or so in our tax return. Whoopee! Cause and effect. If one is to cure a disease, it's always best to establish the cause of the disease. It should be obvious that you can't reduce your income (taxes), while increasing your expenses (war) and compound it by sending your economic base (jobs) to China. Compounding the problem by making up for your shortfall by borrowing trillions from China is not a smart move either. Our leaders(?) would have us believe that our $500 or $600 tax rebate will solve the problem. Is it any wonder so many people believe in UFOs? Our leaders seem to be from another planet.

So here we are at the root of the problem, which we may think of as the "other planet syndrome". The old saying that we all put our pants on the same way.one leg at a time, is not necessarily true. What is true is that we are all connected to each other and to the earth. Our bodies are essentially just dirty water; even the so-called "blue bloods" are just dirty water. When we forget (or don't understand) our connection to the earth, it's easy to lose our connection to each other. Middle Eastern religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) teach us that we humans are three part creatures; body, mind (or soul), and spirit. Likewise, they separate us from the other creatures with which we share the earth. They teach that the earth is a temporary stop, and paradise or heaven (or hell for most) is the permanent home for us, but only for our spirit. The body is left behind, "ashes to ashes, and dust to dust" as it were.

American Indians teach that we are of four parts, which correspond to the four directions. According to them, we encompass the physical, mental, spiritual, and environmental. They teach that we are part of the earth, and thereby all connected. Not only are humans connected to each other, but also to all animals and even plants and the earth itself. As we study ourselves, our environment, and the creatures that share our home, we learn that we indeed do seem to be connected. Accepting the connection seems to lend itself to our ability to live in harmony with each other and with our environment. Rejecting the connection seems to place us in conflict.

Again, according to the teaching of the American Indians, a cause of conflict (both within ourselves, and in relation to others) is a lack of balance. Draw a circle, then put the points of the compass (north, south, east, and west) on the circle. Draw a straight line from north to south and another from east to west. You have just drawn what is referred to as the "medicine wheel". On the west, write physical or body ; on the north, write intellect or mind ; on the east write spiritual ; and on the south, write natural. The two lines intersect in the middle; there write balance . The idea is to bring balance into your life. If you are two busy attending to your physical self, you need to adjust to the east and focus more on the spiritual. If you're too busy thinking, then you should sit by a waterfall or work in the garden. Think about it.you won't be in conflict even with your Christian, Jewish, or Muslim beliefs. If we can accept our connection to each other and to our environment, if we bring ourselves into balance and harmony, we'll all be better off. Chief Dan George, whom you may remember from the movies "The Outlaw Josie Wales" and "Little Big Man", once said, " Of all the teachings we receive, this one is most important: Nothing belongs to you of what there is; of what you take, you must share ."

- Posted by JLM - 1/25/08 9:49

Accountability
Thursday, January 31, 2008

The Republican debate was hosted by CNN last night, and the lead off question from Anderson Cooper was "are we better off now than we were seven years ago?". Of course, the Democrats in Congress already had posted an interesting comparison of now vs. seven years ago on their website. It's been a busy week, politically speaking. We've had a primary election in Florida, which only counts if you're a Republican since the Democrats are disallowing Florida delegates, and Independents aren't allowed to vote in the primaries. Such is democracy. We also had the Decider giving his final (hoping that he doesn't attack Iran and declare marshall law) SOTU address. I've always said that you can't fix a problem unless you know there is a problem. In response to the SOTU, American Progress lists 99 problems the Decider ignored. It would be wonderful if we could fix one.

Hopefully, you saw through the attempt of the media to separate the economy from the war in their exit polling. Which do you feel is more important, the economy or the war? Once again, America says "it's the economy, Stupid". The only problem is the two don't easily disconnect. The cost of the war, coupled with the cost of tax cuts for the wealthy and tax cuts for corporations (especially those that send our jobs to China) are major factors that are chocking our economy. Those that are beguiled by the propaganda that the surge has worked, need to read Juan Cole every day for a week or two.

Interestingly, the White House still has the imaginary WMD list posted on it's website. Of course, the real reason for the war was oil (as some of us believed even before 'shock and awe'), which was verified by one of the men who brought us the war.

The US deputy defense secretary, Paul Wolfowitz - who has already undermined Tony Blair's position over weapons of mass destruction (WMD) by describing them as a "bureaucratic" excuse for war - has now gone further by claiming the real motive was that Iraq is "swimming" in oil". -- The Guardian, 6/4/2003

The real reason for the war was confirmed by the Decider in a November 2006 article in the Washington Post, and also by Alan Greenspan in his book in 2007. More interesting reading on the subject can be found at Energy and Capital.

Of course none of this illegal, immoral debacle could have been perpetrated without the enablement of key Democrats such as the Clintons. It's not about political parties; they're just two sides of the same wooden nickel. It's about what is right and what is not. It's about the law, and being subject to it, rather than above it. When the Democrats took impeachment "off the table", they nullified the constitution. Whether impeachment is used or not is beside the point. You cannot take a major provision of the constitution "off the table". Thank you Madam Speaker Enabler! I've always said that those that make up the rules as they go along, aren't likely to lose. Instead we lose. Our freedom is dependent on that constitution; our government is obliged to adhere to it! It's up to us to hold them accountable.

- Posted by JLM - 1/31/08 19:49

Who Made This Mess?
Sunday, February 3, 2008

Sound bytes! Aren't they special? If only it were that easy. Hillary's favorite sound byte seems to be "it takes a Clinton to clean up after a Bush". Please don't give your bank account number to anyone wanting to move money from Nigeria, and don't swallow Hillary's sound byte! They are two major problems (well, more than two, but two is enough for now); 1) the mess is much bigger this time, and 2) Bill had some unusual help that Hillary cannot have. For the size of the mess, please re-read 99 problems. As for the help, let's talk about Y2K.

You remember Y2K, that famous "non-event" that everyone went bezerk about in 1999. It was supposed to have been caused by the inability of some computers to properly discern the correct date. The problem was supposed to be serious enough to bring the world's infrastructure to a grinding halt. You may look back and think it was 'no big deal', but it wasn't a non-event; far from it. We in America and most other countries in the world spent trillions of dollars to avert disaster. We can thank Clinton and Gore, that the much needed massive infrastructure update received the top level attention it deserved. The dollars were spent in the high-tech industry, which is why that industry was so robust during the 90's. Clinton took the cudos for a robust economic turn-around, but he should thank Y2K for the opportunity. The money was easy to come by, because the corporate giants were merely protecting their own interests.

You'll recall that during the 90s we also saw the passage of major trade agreements (such as NAFTA), and MFT (most favored trade) status for China. As electronics manufacturers began to gear up to meet demand, the trade agreements made it oh so easy for them to maximize profits by sending excess production to Mexico and especially to China.

About mid-way through 1999, most of the new equipment needed for the Y2K computer update had been manufactured, and the reprogramming was complete. It was now time to reduce manufacturing in the technology sector. New major equipment wouldn't be needed again for at least ten years, and small business and office computers wouldn't need to be updated again for at least three years. The CEOs of these giants saw that it would be more profitable to close plants in the USA where wages were $10 - $20+ per hour, and continue manufacturing where wages were more like $2 per day. Clinton's days of prosperity were rapidly coming to a close.

As plant's were closed, sales declined, and folks began to find themselves without a job, the market began to tip. The "tech-heavy" NASDAQ would go from over 5000, down to under 2000. Seven years later, it has not even made it back to 3000, and the dollar has since dropped to half the value of what it was in 2000. The end of the run-up to Y2K brought a precipitous freefall, and waiting in the wings was the Decider. He decided to extend the MFN status with China, and he has doggedly gone after more NAFTA-like agreements. We were bleeding from the right wrist, so he "decided" to slit the left one. That should slow down the flow of blood from the right wrist, right? Wrong!

There has been another problem brewing (oh, yeah), with "black gold". An excellent article, by Michael Klare entitiled How Oil Burst the American Bubble, has been recently published. Please read it. As we have seen, oil is what has us hovering around the Middle East like a bunch of vultures. Unfortunately, the oil men that run this country still believe oil is the solution; they're wrong...it's the problem.

So that in a nutshell is the mess that needs to be cleaned up. Hillary's hubby helped tremendously in making the mess with those free-trade agreements. The agreements will need to be cleaned up or scrapped if we're ever to solve this problem, but the agreements are only one head of the hydra. The war is another head, and sorry Hillary...no free pass on that one! Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, and there was no WMD. They all knew it. He is "the Decider", not the Convincer; they (Congress) knew it was for the oil. Iraq was a tidy little power play that backfired. Hillary may say she wants us out of the war now, but just check her voting record.

Oil is one of the main heads of the beast. Until we sever oil as the power that runs the world's ecomonies, the problems will persist. Does Hillary have the will and courage to do that? Does anyone?

- Posted by JLM - 2/3/08 16:28

Tipping Point
Sunday, February 10, 2008

Back in 2004, Colin Powell referred to the "pottery barn rule" regarding Iraq. "You break it, you own it". I believe the actual rule is you buy it, not "you own it". We're still buying that which would seem beyond repair. We're looking at $2 trillion, do I hear $3 trillion? It's one thing to buy something at a scratch and dent sale, but to buy a 60" Plasma HDTV that fell off the wall, and broke into a thousand pieces is another. Many years ago, I learned that some things are beyond repair, and it would seem that we have broken Iraq to a point beyond repair. For my Republican friends that fantasize how swimmingly the "surge" is going, I suggest you read Scott Ritter's report on the subject. Ritter was the UN's Chief weapons inspector in Iraq from 1992 to 1998. He tried to warn this administration that 1) the WMD problem was already alleviated, and 2) Iraq would be a hellish quagmire if we invaded. It turns out that Ritter (although being attacked vehemently by his fellow Republicans) has been dead-on correct about Iraq every step of the way. Please read the article.

Why would I want to spoil you're day by having you read about the real situation in Iraq? I know it's not good news, but how can we fix what we don't know is broken? Can it even be fixed? And would we call the Maytag repairman to fix that Plasma TV? That brings us to the other item that has been broken...our economy.

Do you think you're doing well, and this little downturn won't touch you? I sincerely hope you're right (I also hope to win the Lotto, but seldom buy tickets). Let's review where we are:

1. The high price of oil, and the weak dollar is transferring a tremendous portion of our wealth to the Middle East, and particularly Saudi Arabia. You remember Saudi Arabia; that's where Usama Bin Laden and nearly all the 9-11 hijackers came from.
   
2. The high price of oil not only affects our driving and heating habits, it also affects our food and manufacturing prices, and all transportation costs. Since the price of oil is only expected to continue to rise as sources are depleted, let's call that runaway inflation.
   
3. We've given our main sources of income away: Manufacturing to Asia, and agriculture to Latin America. We're left with a service industry that is serving a clientele that is rapidly loosing its ability to pay for the services offered.
   
4. We spend more on Military that all other countries in the world combined. Since we don't have the money to spend, we borrow it from Saudi Arabia, China, etc. Think of it as a mortgage; if we can't make the payments, foreclosure will follow.
   
5. Russia has become wealthy due to the high price of oil, and huge reserves. They don't like it that we continue to threaten them with missiles, and missile shields. We continue to bait and criticize them for not being democratic enough to please us (while our administration completely ignores our constitution).
   
6. Russia, China, and the oil producers in the Middle East are all putting renewed efforts into building their militaries, mostly in response to our saber rattling. The arms race has begun anew, and we're already working on borrowed money and borrowed time.

The list could go on for a day or two, but you get the point. So who's our repairman? Will it be the warrior, John Mc Cain? He's strong on war and admittedly weak on economics. How about Hillary Clinton. She wants us to think she knows how to fix this mess but isn't real specific on how, and her husband helped get us into the mess in the first place. How about Mike Huckabee? He thinks we should change the constitution to read more like the Bible. What will he do when he gets to "Thou shalt not kill" and "Love you enemy"? Now there's a dilemma.. Then there is Barak Obama, who promises change. He's an excellent speaker with a lot of splash, but we're still waiting for the substance. Does he know how to fix this mess? Ron Paul is still in the mix, but statistically he's out. Besides, any Republican that's against the war and against huge outlays for the military, and against huge tax breaks for the very wealthy...well, do you think he'll get the Republican nomination? Bob Herbert asks in today's NYT, "do we have any real sense of what Senator Obama will do to stop the stagnation of the middle class and resuscitate the American dream? Do we have any reason to believe that during a Clinton presidency we'll see a transformation of the nation's decaying infrastructure? Does John McCain have the stuff to lead us from a long debilitating period of dependence on foreign oil to a new and exciting world of energy efficiency and innovation?"

So who will fix our nation, or have we already passed the tipping point?

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasure. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most money from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's great civilizations has been two hundred years. These nations have progressed through the following sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith, from spiritual faith to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty
to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to
complacency from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependency, from dependency back to bondage."  
- Alexander Tyler - Regarding the Athenian Republic

Where on that road are we?

- Posted by JLM - 2/10/08 11:45

Half Full?
Sunday, February 17, 2008

It's a trick question, you know. Is the glass half full, or is it half empty? If you say, "half full" you're an optimist; if you say, "half empty" you're a pessimist. What if you're a realist? Well, you would have to say, "it depends." You have to take evaporation into consideration. If you don't have a steady replenishment to compensate for evaporation, then the glass is half empty. If you have a nice drip going, then the glass is half full. That is not a trick answer to a trick question; it's a lesson for life. Unless you are in the process of refilling, then you are half empty. So many questions are similar; our allowed choices are either yes or no. Life isn't like that; there usually are circumstances and conditions to be examined, and solutions to be found. Either you're a Republican or a Democrat; either you're black or you're white; either you're with the Decider or with the terrorists! Give me a break!

Let's talk about "pro-life" or "pro-choice". This so-called choice has divided our country for far too long. Once again, there are circumstances and conditions to be examined, and solutions to be found. First, let me say to all the Evangelicals and Catholics that you are being imprudent to expect a resolution from the GOP. Ever since Roe v. Wade, the GOP has made it part of their divine appeal to reverse the decision. Every election, they build a religious fervor around an anti-abortion push, but it is not real. Consider, From 2001 to 2007 we had a "pro-life" president, a "pro-life" congress, and a "pro-life" supreme court, but they yielded no results. Sorry folks, but it's a smoke screen. The problem we face lies with the circumstances and conditions.

When I was a boy and Elvis was king, the earth's population was around 2.5 billion. Today it's over 6.5 billion. The population has nearly tripled, and remains on a strong growth curve. 9.5 billion of us are expected by 2050. Think of the earth's resources as a nice apple pie. If there are two of us, we can eat pie for several days. If there are six of us, everyone gets one nice piece and no more. If there are nine of us, someone should have baked two pies. The problems we are beginning to face in the world are resource related. There are currently too many of us eating the same pie, and it's going to get much worse. So that's one problem, and we'll probably need to get back to it soon. For now, let's look at another.

I don't know about you, but most couples (married, and otherwise) like to enjoy intimacy. Most of us are looking for love and not for sixteen gaping mouths to share our one and only apple pie. Sixteen mouths can result from unconstrained and unprotected intimacy. If we depend on 'just say whoa' to control our propagation, we'll be looking at 30 billion (give or take a few) people by 2050. Doesn't it seem that an acceptable approach would be prevention, rather than abortion? We seem to be thankfully moving in that direction, but it's time to stop bickering and get it done. I'm sure I'll have the pope and Jerry Falwell's disciples mad at me, but we need prevention to be readily available and free to all that want it. Yes, a woman should have control over her own body. Morning after solutions should be involved in the mix. Conception usually takes a few days, so give us a little break here, please! Prevention should include both temporary and permanent solutions, and (again) should be without charge. It's a lot less expensive to prevent than to deal with the alternative. Unfortunately, it's our children that need the availability most. It's time to put an end to unwanted teenage pregnancy, that does nothing but ruin young lives and add to the problem. Maybe you don't like my solutions, but the point is that there are circumstances and conditions to be considered. A good solution will unite us, not divide us. There is an answer.

Now, let's get back to the pie (or lack thereof). Resource wars are not coming.they're here! I haven't spoken of Africa yet, because frankly it's too depressing for even me. Resource wars.food, energy, the basics of life are getting harder to come by. Oh, I know, we live in America and few of us actually give a hoot about starving children Africa, but we had better. Africa is a harbinger for the world; what happens there will be coming soon to a theater near you. It's not just Africa either. Iraq as we have seen is actually a resource war. The "undocumented immigration" problem is a resource war. Watching our jobs go to China is a resource war. As Chief Seattle once pointed out, it's a web and it's all connected.

Then we have the folks that push it farther. We have the Decider that says, "bring 'em on!" We have those that would set the Middle East ablaze, and call it Armageddon. To those I say, be careful what you wish for; you just might get it. I sincerely doubt that God will scoop up all the true believers for the simple reason that they were stupid enough to start a world war. It's similar to kids wanting to move up Christmas by a day, a week, or a month so they can open their presents earlier. It doesn't work that way. We have our marching orders, but starting wars is not among them. Our orders are more about making peace, giving forgiveness, caring for those in need, and so on. Then again, there are those among us that seem to have traded in their Bible, Tanakh, or Quran for Mein Kampf, and that is a most unfortunate circumstance and condition.

- Posted by JLM - 2/17/08 11:45

The choice is yours
Sunday, February 24, 2008

My purpose here is to share my thoughts. They are my thoughts and nothing more. If I can encourage you to read beyond the headlines, to hunger for more information, then I'm quite pleased. If you allow any one person to form your opinions for you, that's unfortunate. I don't offer answers, only questions. If we are thorough in our questioning, then hopefully we can reach consensus that works for the good of all.

I'm quite sure that I upset some with my comments about pro-life and pro-choice. As I see it, we need to improve upon the options of choice. No one wants to choose between two grievous options. It would seem that the problem stems from what we believe is human life, or what stage of development our humanity begins. The most vibrant pro-lifers believe that the moment sperm penetrates ovum a human being exists. Let's examine the facts, and see if there isn't some room for a less divisive solution.

The penetration of sperm into the ovum can take anywhere from a few minutes up to five days. Remember that normally only one ovum is released per month, so the timing is critical. From the time the ovum seals itself from further intrusion to the time it divides into two cells takes about 24 hours. It takes another 12 - 20 hours to divide again. From the medical sources that I've found on the internet, the consensus is that the cells that are being formed at this point will mostly serve as nourishment for the embryo that has not yet formed. That's kind of like plants existing before animals to me. If you don't have anything to eat, you're not going to be around long. In the period between three to five days, the zygote begins to attach to the uterus wall, and during this time the beginning of what will become the embryo begins to form. If the zygote doesn't attach, it will be expelled while still in the pre-embryonic state. Now, I see some room for compromise here. I see a window of opportunity to offer a choice that most can live with. We'll never convince everyone. I'm sure the Taliban would never go for compromise, but would you?

I also feel that if we are to discuss the right to life, then we must be consistent when it comes to items like pre-emptive war (I say pre-emptive because I believe our right to life includes the preservation of our own lives). Far too many that fly the right to life banner also walking around singing, "bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran". Let's have a little consistency please. We must also consider capital punishment when we consider the right to life, but we'll save that for another day.

If we're going to claim the moral high ground, then we should very carefully examine what our leaders are doing in our name. Understand that the major news outlets (especially TV) have become little more than propaganda tools for the rich and powerful. In order to do our "due diligence" to keep them honest, we need to take the time to search and read. Adolph Hitler said, "How fortunate for governments that the people they administer don't think." Let's not fall into that awful trap.

Speaking of moral high ground, a documentary has been recently released. We should probably all see it. Below is the preview from YouTube.

- Posted by JLM - 2/24/08 11:28

Left, Right, Left
Sunday, March 2, 2008

You'll notice a couple of additions to the news and comment list. Truthout and Truthdig both use a lot of different sources to go deeper into the daily news. You need to go beyond your daily newspaper and your headlines on Yahoo or AOL, and these links will certainly broaden things a bit. You may feel that my sources lean to the left, especially if you believe the divisive propaganda that defines left and right. To me it's rubbish. Let's play with that idea a bit and see where we go.

You are on the left if you are against this war. Since we've established that the war was based on falsehoods about weapons of mass destruction and connections to 9/11, isn't being against the war right (correct in this case)? By the way, any alleged success of the so-called "surge" doesn't alter the fact that we went in illegally, killed about 4000 of our young people; either killed, or directly or indirectly caused the deaths of approaching one million Iraqi's; caused another 4 million to loose their homes and livelihoods and go into exile; and wounded countless numbers both physically and mentally, ours and theirs. Staying the course is like saying we can't leave the bank robbery now, because we've almost made it inside the vault. Leaving Iraq is what the overwhelming majority of Iraqis want us to do, and it is the only right course of action.

The left wants the government to solve all their problems. They on the left like 'big' government. This one just slays me! The last I looked, the government is supposed to be "we the people". You know, "government of the people, by the people, for the people". These days, if you say "power to the people", those who claim to be on the right accuse you of being a communist! Hamilton and Jefferson are rolling over in their graves, but King George the "W" is loving it! Isn't the military part of the government? Don't we pay for it with our taxes?

Why does a population that equals about 5% of the worlds total have to pay more taxes to support the military than the rest of the world combined? Are we that paranoid? Wouldn't it be nice for some of our tax dollars to be used for "we the people"? A small portion of our military budget could end hunger and provide for the education of our people, and take care of our poor veterans that have been used as cannonball fodder. Do you remember when Donald Rumsfeld referred to our troops as "fungible"? Did it make your blood boil? It would seem that those on the right seem to want everyone else to remain barefoot and pregnant. I don't mind barefoot so much, but pregnant just isn't for me.

It's interesting how those who call for smaller government are actually calling for privatization. In short, we pay a private company to do what could be done by government. The workers doing the job get paid less than government workers, but the cost of the job is actually more (think Halliburton and Blackwater). The service is still paid for by our taxes, but since it's "privatized" more of the people's money is spent. It doesn't seem right, does it? Yet the "right" is the party putting lipstick on that pig!

The left is fiscally irresponsible. Ha! I hear the talk of "tax and spend" Democrats, and I see the walk of borrow and spend Republicans. We probably don't need to talk much about deficit spending, or tax breaks for the unimaginably rich. We can look at charts and see how incredibly well the "well off" have been making out compared to the rest of "we the people" in the last 25 years. It's ironic that a balanced budget came under a "tax and spend" Democrat. It would seem that sending our wealth to the King of Saudi Arabia, and our jobs to the communist nation of China is fiscally responsible. If you disagree with that kind of fiscal responsibility then you must be a lefty.

When I was growing up, I learned that helping those that are less fortunate was not the communist thing to do, but the right thing to do. You know.."what would Jesus do?" We make sure our pets have a place in out of the rain. We feed them, and take them to the vet when they need a little help. Hey! It's the right thing to do! We should extend that help to our citizens as well, because it's the right thing to do. Instead, we get answers like this:

"We were told four years ago that 17 million people went to bed hungry each night. Well, that was probably true. They were all on a diet." - Ronald Reagan

"I mean, people have access to health care in America . After all, you just go to an emergency room." - George W. Bush

By the way, that 17 million that Reagan referred to is now over 33 Million people in America (not to mention the 40 million without health insurance).

It's time for "we the people" to stop trying to divide the nation into left and right, Democrat and Republican, black and white. Remember the old saying "divided we fall"? We're falling, folks. It's time we began looking at right and wrong, and do the right thing (even if some would call it the left thing).

- Posted by JLM - 3/02/08 12:50

Running on Empty
Sunday, March 9, 2008

There was an article in the Falls Church, VA News-Press this week that you really should read. It concerns a phenomenon referred to as "Peak Oil", of which I first became aware several years ago. The effect that this phenomenon will bring to us all is astounding! Most of us are not exactly enamored with $3 per gallon gasoline, but we will soon long for the good old days of 'cheap' $3 gas. The inflation caused by rising fuel costs is already beginning to be felt in many other sectors including food, and will likely bring this great nation to it's knees. You can find a more detailed analysis and full report at www.peakoilassociates.com. I recommend you read it, save it, print it, and send it to everyone you know that actually reads.

Here is the crux of the matter. Their is a finite amount of oil on (or in) the earth. This can be divided into to general categories; that which is economically accessible, and that which is not (the cost of attaining it is too high to bother with it). You've heard the term "light sweet crude", which means it's near the surface, and takes little refining to make it useable. Our problem is that in a little over 100 years of the industrial age we have manage to deplete half of the world's supply of economically available oil. In that time, our population and our usage has soared so that it is expected we will drain the rest of our sources within 40 years. That doesn't mean we have 40 years of low gas prices and readily available fuel. Right now, for every nine gallons of fuel we use, we are only finding one to replace it. The trend will worsen, it will never improve.

We are an oil based economy. Aside from burning our most important resource, we also use it to make everything from synthetics and plastics to fertilizers and pesticides. Our manufacturing, the food that we eat, the clothes that we wear, our electricity, our heat in the winter, air-conditioning in the summer, and transportation of it all is based on oil. Without oil, we're toast; soon we'll be without oil.

"Oh, but we have alternatives!" you say. What we have are possibilities. We have waited too long to call them alternatives. There will be massive pain, and severe reduction of population before the alternatives are in place. Resource wars are just the beginning; we really can't fathom the reality that we and / or our children are about to face. Rather than dwell on that awful scenario (far to dark and apocalyptic even for me), let's look at the alternatives.

Biofuels (ethanol) are really being pushed, but it's not an answer. People point to Brazil, and say they have replaced most of their oil needs with sugar cane. Yes, but at what cost? For those that have been smoking the ethanol pipe, I suggest you read what MSNBC and The Wall Street Journal have to say on the subject. Other than stating that ethanol is not only the wrong answer, but also a dangerous and counterproductive alternative, I'll leave further research on the problems to you. Furthermore, I don't believe it's wise to trust any politician that is pushing biofuels as an alternative (not that I trust politicians at all). They who do so are either ignorant, on the take, or sniffing ethanol; none of which is a preferred characteristic for someone who would attempt to lead us out of this mess,

Ultimately, for the sake of the air we breathe and the climate we depend upon we need to stop burning carbon based fuels of any kind, and that includes ethanol. Hydrogen is a good alternative, since the after-product of a hydrogen burn is water. Since water is the best source for the hydrogen and oxygen in the first place, we have a nice clean cycle. Unfortunately the bodies of our scientists and inventors of this technology are piling up in the morgues.

The key to hydrogen is "on demand". This means, the fuel is stored and carried as water until it's ready to be used. Salt water actually works better than fresh water, so we have a substantial supply. Again, the exhaust is pure water, so we have a cycle rather than a depletion. Technologically speaking, this is probably our best current hope for an alternative. Practically speaking, the powers that control our economies are not ready to allow us this solution. If we could power our cars and our lives from a garden hose, the geopolitical implications would be profound. Yet, we really need to come to this point, and we need to get it done rather quickly, because we're running on empty. Below is a short video, and a link to much more.

Either Google Video or You Tube are the places you'll want to go to find more on the subject. Water fuel cell is what you're looking for. Distractions the industry puts out there are Hydrogen fuel cells which only last around three years, and hydrogen storage which is difficult and expensive. If we aren't storing and transporting the hydrogen in the form of water, we're barking up the wrong tree.

Two other technologies make a lot of sense, the first being geothermal and the second being sunlight. Geothermal is a natural, since we live on a crust that floats above a huge molten mass. The drawbacks here are the expense of tapping into the earth that deep, and the obvious dangers involved. Sunlight however, is an incredible alternative. We're making progress, but we're still far from making sunlight a practical option. Still, this is the nation that has sent men to the moon, and space crafts beyond our solar system. We just need to get our priorities straight. Again, it would seem the problem is that those with the power don't want "we the people" to have free and abundant power. There is a line in the movie The Matrix Reloaded that states, "the only thing that powerful people really want is more power". Therein lies the problem. Power to the People!

- Posted by JLM - 3/09/08 11:55

Editorial by William R. Polk
Tuesday, March 11, 2008

This morning, Juan Cole posted a guest editorial by William R. Polk regarding the true cost of the war, and possible scenarios we will face. It's a very pertinent piece, and I'll refrain from further comment; it speaks for itself. I hope you'll read it and share it.

- Posted by JLM - 3/11/08 09:33

The Slight of Hand
Sunday, March 16, 2008

A tried and true technique of magicians is diversion. Your focus is on one thing, while the magician uses his talented hands to pull off something unnoticed. Presto! Magic! Those who control the puppet strings of our world use a similar technique. Did you notice this week that we lost 15 American soldiers in Iraq? If you did, congratulations! Corporate media was so busy telling us that the governor of New York hired a prostitute, they scarcely had time to mention the slaughter of our young ones. Oh, I know there is nothing more fascinating to the American public than yet another sex scandal, but there is something besides news media profitability going on here.

''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality".
Bush aide; Ron Suskind, New York Times Magazine 10-17-04

This is a fascinating statement for two reasons; 1) the claim that we're an empire, and 2) that we create our own reality. First things first: Empire ...while it is true that we have troops in over 150 countries around the world (which leaves less than 50 without US troops), and military bases in at least 64 countries (it's hard to keep up), are we not under the illusion that we're living in a democracy? The problem with empires is that they are generally run by emperors of one sort or another. What would JFK say?

"WE MUST FACE THE FACT that the United States is neither omnipotent nor omniscient-that we are only 6% of the world's population-that we cannot impose our will upon the other 94% of mankind-that we cannot right every wrong or reverse each adversity-and that therefore there cannot be an American solution to every world problem."- John F. Kennedy

Is it just me, or does it seem that empire building and maintaining are a costly enterprise for a nation so deep in debt as we? If 'we the people' is the best form of government in the world (and I believe it is), then why are we so insistent that the only way the rest of the world will leave us in peace is by threatening their peace? The Decider (emperor) believes that's true. He said, "They hate us for our freedom". Frankly, that's one of the most absurd and bare faced lies I have heard in some time. They hate us because we're in their countries, building our bases, plundering their resources (oil), and bringing our debauchery (I used to be in the US military; I understand debauchery). If we leave these places where we're not wanted and be the shining example of liberty at home, maybe their own 'we the people' will once again look up to the US. Thomas Jefferson described the problem our Decider is now having when he said, "By oft repeating an untruth, men come to believe it themselves."

As for 'creating our own reality', it's downright terrifying that such arrogance has always occupied the seats of power. The practice of controlling the corporate media, and eliminating the free press is not new. Sound bytes proliferated through television news(?) channels are what the empire wants to feed us. Sex scandals instead of real news about our dire situations with oil, with war, with finances, with climate, with the welfare of our people is what were fed over and over and over again.

A free press is so important that the first amendment of our Constitution guarantees it. Now it's up to the government, the military industrial complex, and the media that they control to make sure very few of us actually use the free press. Corporate mergers have reduced the number of major news organizations to just a handful of major corporations. These companies are anxious to sell whatever it is the emperor is peddling, since their fortunes depend on his role as an abetter. It's a whore's waltz, and the unfortunate losers are 'we the people'.

What's to be done? Sir Francis Bacon gave us the phrase 'knowledge is power'. We need to use the free press regardless of where it's hiding. We need to share information. We need to become aware. Fear makes enemies of people who should be friends. We should recognize fear mongering for what it is, and search for the truth.

When I was a young man and ready for college, our involvement in Vietnam was beginning to heat up. I didn't mind doing my serving my country, and felt I could best serve as a college graduate. I explained that to a recruiter, who guaranteed me that I would be deferred until graduation (as long as I graduated on time and kept my grades up). "Sign here, Son", and I did. I started college and one week later I got my orders. I was Vietnam bound. I supposed I haven't trusted the government's word since then. In my lifetime, the powers that be have never demonstrated that their word can be trusted. Maybe it's that small measure of Cherokee heritage that makes me skeptical. Unfortunately, my search for the truth generally leads me to the conclusion that skepticism is more than warranted; it's essential.

- Posted by JLM - 3/16/08 15:16

New World Order
Sunday, March 23, 2008

It's Easter. 'Spring has sprung' as the say. I hope you are enjoying the day, and for a few precious hours can put aside the troubles of the day. Unfortunately, the diversion is just that ...a diversion.This is traditionally a time of renewal, and yet our nation and our world continues it's downward spiral. As we watch our ruling elite continue to make what we perceive to be gross miscalculations, we can ask "are these people stupid?" Great sport is made of the Decider's dimwittedness, but when it's all added up a pattern appears. Could it be that our way of life is being systematically and covertly eliminated?

Many of us look to the Bible and specifically to the Book of Revelations to try and decipher some of the events of the day. Good! I recommend that you add to that, a good knowledge of history, and not necessarily the history that is being taught in schools. Harry Truman once said, "The only thing new in the world is the history you don't know." There is an esoteric history of the world that is like a giant jigsaw puzzle. If you consider it as such, you'll do your investigations and assemble your pieces; eventually a picture begins to emerge. Our leaders are merely puppets, and they are methodically moving us in a direction that is not necessarily in our best interest.

Hopeful Christians, Jews, and Moslems all look to a similar "end-time" scenario where each sees their own faithful in triumph. However, these may not be that "end-time" of prophecy. There have been several periods of history where a downright evil individual has ruled over the known world, yet we're still here. Nonetheless, the direction we are being pushed today includes one world government, one world currency, one world religion, one world ruler over it all; in short, a NEW WORLD ORDER. The unsettling truth is that although we may see all of the above, "no man knows the day and the hour." Power and greed may make life fairly miserable for we the people, but I for one will make my objections known; maybe you will too. I'll attempt to share what I discover as long as I can continue this blog. As Emilio Zapata put it, "It's better to die on your feet than live on your knees."

So let's take a look at the events of the week that continue to plunge us down the path of destruction. U.S. News has a must read article entitled Signs the US May Be Headed for War In Iran. I believe this warrants a lot of emails and action on our part, because a war with Iran would 1) bring disaster on our troops in Iraq, 2) virtually destroy what's left of our economy, and 3) destroy the last semblance of morality we have in the eyes of the rest of the world. It isn't helpful when John Mc Cain spreads misinformation that Iran is training al Qaeda. Mc Cain needs to remember that 1) al Qaeda is Sunni, and archenemies of Iran (it's absurd that Iran would train them), and that 2) Iran is extremely cozy with the Iraqi government that the Decider's minions brought to power. Either Mc Cain is stupid (not ignorant because he has certainly been informed), senile (a definite possibility), or a bare-faced liar when it comes to Iran (bingo!). He says we should stay in Iraq for 50 or 100 years (give or take a year), but if we "bomb, bomb Iran" (as he likes to sing) we won't have the military might to keep America together, much less occupy Iraq. I hope I'm wrong. The Decider seems hell-bent to blast away before he leaves office, so we may very well find out. Be prepared for a total collapse of the dollar, and all the misery that will bring.

Also this week, the Clinton's have made it clear that they want the presidency back so badly that they would tout Mc Cain over Obama. "Mc Cain is a good man", "I am ready to be Commander-in-Chief and so is John Mc Cain". I suppose that makes sense, when you review the record and find that Hillary has been one of the Enablers-in-Chief for the Decider's disastrous war policy including the "tough stance" on Iran. It would seem that Obama is the only 'major' candidate left standing that is not anxious to 'bomb bomb Iran'. One little item that should be pointed out regarding Obama is that he (like Hillary and Mc Cain) is a member of that exclusive elitist group, the Council on Foreign Relations. The CFR is about one world government and domination and coordination of the press. It's nearly impossible to find a viable candidate for President (one that we're actually allowed to elect) that isn't CFR or Trilateral Commission. Since CFR members control the mainstream media and press, it's easy to understand why outsiders are always left outside. Even as a member, Obama received some serious attacks from the media this week for which he delivered an eloquent response in a speech he calls "A More Perfect Union". He probably made history with the speech, yet the fact remains that the CFR is about controlling information.

"Some of the biggest men in the United States , in the field of commerce and manufacture, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they had better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it."      - Woodrow Wilson

Have you ever wondered how the Decider's grandfather Prescott Bush could be elected to the Senate in 1952, after being president of a company that was shut down because they were financing the Nazi war effort? Some of us call that treason, but you know the old saying.."no bad deed ever goes unrewarded". Maybe financing Nazi Germany doesn't make Prescott Bush a Nazi, but why would it make him a Senator, his son a head of the CIA and then President, and his grandson well, you know...the Decider? Media control sure helps does it not? It also helps that all three were members of the Yale secret society the Skull and Bones .

Happy Easter, and I hope your search goes far beyond colored eggs.

- Posted by JLM - 3/23/08 13:30

Follow the Money
Saturday, March 29, 2008

Associate Director of the FBI W. Mark Felt once recommended Bob Woodward of the Washington Post to "follow the money". Code named "Deep Throat", Felt's advise to Woodward was followed far enough to bring down the presidency of Richard M. Nixon. Most of us are familiar with the story which is chronicled in Woodward's best selling book All the President's Men. Follow the money. If we want to find out what really goes on in our world, we too should follow Felt's advise. Unlike Woodward, we shouldn't stop with who authorized the check (written to pay the Watergate burglars). We can continue to follow that money right to the top.

Let's start at your house. Do you own your house, or do you carry a mortgage? If you carry a mortgage, you know that a bank owns 'your' house. If you don't make your payments, they take it away. If you own the house, and fall behind on taxes, you could still loose that house. How about your car? Do you own it, or does a finance company (bank)? Do you have credit cards and/or personal loans? Have you noticed that if you loan a bank your money (savings, they call it), they pay you maybe 3%. They then loan you your own money (credit card) at 15%. They somehow miss sending you a statement, and before you know it you are a day late. You now pay a penalty, and your interest rate has increased to 24%. That's OK; they're still paying you 3% on your savings. It's not so much who has the money that's important. Who controls the money and who writes the rules of the game makes all the difference in the world.

We like to think that as a share holder in a public corporation, we are part owners of a great company ...a piece of America. Once again, your money is being used. Sure, if you're savvy (or lucky) you can do well with stock investments. You can also loose your shirt! Have you noticed lately that some corporate CEOs can run a company into the ground and walk away with a huge bonus? This is happening now with Countrywide Mortgage; the company was driven to the edge of bankruptcy by issuing bad loans, and along comes Bank of America to buy then out. The Countrywide CEO walks away with $10,000,000 just to retire! Did the B of A or the Countrywide shareholders vote to give him that little bonus for making such a mess? Again, you must look for control. If you do that, you'll find amazing similarities in the control of defense companies, pharmaceuticals, oil companies, media, insurance companies, investment companies, and banks. In short, through a web of companies and relationships that would dizzy even the most industrious spider, a small group of individuals controls our lives.

When we think of oil, we think of Saudi royalty and Hugo Chavez, but they only have limited control over their oil. If they want it pumped, refined, marketed, distributed, and sold, then they must depend on companies such as Exxon-Mobile, Texaco, Royal Dutch Shell, KBR, and the list goes on. So who controls the oil companies? The same folks that control banking, insurance, defense, etc. Banking ...those folks again! Well, the banks control the money, but who controls the banks?

The biggest names in banking in the US are Rothschild and Rockefeller. Control over the Federal Reserve lies with them, since they are the major shareholders of what is a privately held corporation (not a government agency). The control of US financial policy and even the printing of money is in private hands. We all know the name Rockefeller (at least we should), but Rothschild is not such a household name here in the US. Mayer Anschel Rothschild was the 18th century patriarch, and actually changed his name from Bauer to Rothschild. He is credited for developing much of what we consider modern banking. Through his sons, he set up (or took over) central banks throughout Europe. You would definitely recognize many of the names that act as agents for the Rothschilds; J.P. Morgan, the Lehman Brothers, and John D. Rockefeller were perhaps the biggest household names.

The Rothschilds made an immense fortune in such endeavors as funding both sides of a dispute and then provoking a war. They would then sell arms, and loan money at substantial interest rates to both sides. Most of us are somewhat aware that the US was involved in arming both sides of the Iran - Iraq war in the 80's. The Iran side was more covert, and came out in the Iran Contra hearings. 'We the people' did not do that; it was orchestrated by the same folks that have been doing it for a couple of hundred years, and the profits went to them, not to us. By the way, you'll find Rothschild finances and manipulation at the heart of WWI, WWII, Korea, and Vietnam. War is profitable if you know how to play the game, and especially if you are making up the rules. It's like 'house rules', which could take us to Las Vegas or Monte Carlo, but that's another story.

The titular head of the family today is Sir Evelyn de Rothschild. He is known as Grand Vizier to the Queen. This isn't an elected office, but it is one of incredible power, such as holding controlling interest in the Bank of England, as the Rothschild family controls most central banks throughout Europe (including the Federal Reserve here in the US). The close relationship with the British monarch has been a generational phenomenon. You remember hearing about the opium wars from world history in school. This happened when the Rothschild controlled trading company The East India Company was bringing opium from India to China at tremendous profit. The Chinese objected, and were met with British military might. The British won, the Chinese had the opium trade forced upon them and lost Hong Kong in the process. The wealth of both the house of Windsor (Queen Victoria) and the house of Rothschild increased dramatically as a result. When it comes to following the money, one invariably end up with the Rothschilds.

There are things seen and things not seen. There is wealth known and wealth hidden. We can look at Forbes list and maybe believe that Bill Gates is the wealthiest person in the world at $46.5 Billion. That's visible wealth. The Rothschilds are thought to 'control' around $500 Trillion. That's invisible wealth.

The Rothschild's have always been an esoteric (secretive) group, but it's not just them. They are but a prominent tip of an iceberg that runs throughout the powers that control our world. I'll not list all the families; that's not my purpose. I simply want you to open your eyes, and dig a little. You have to understand that the secret societies, and even the occult are involved in the scheme of things. You may want to research the Bohemian Grove and the Bilderberg Group. An interesting documentary can be found on YouTube called the The Secret Rulers of the World. It's about five hours long, but well worth the watch. Is it accurate? A lot of it is known history, and a lot is speculation. It's still worth the watch. The important thing is that these power families see history differently than what we have been taught in school.

Be careful with your research, because the more you learn the more you will be referred to as a "conspiracy theorist". "Conspiracy" seems to have that nasty sound, like "liberal". The heads of the banking empire wouldn't call it a conspiracy, they would call it 'sound business'. Language is amazing. You can do anything with it, including ruin the reputation of innocent people. So call me a "sound business theorist"; but know that many actions in the name of sound business are the acts of predators. The important thing to remember is regardless of the wealth and power, these are just people. They are vulnerable. They're weakness is their greed, because along with greed comes mistrust, hatred, and fear. They make mistakes. It all comes back to balance, and these folks are definitely on the edge. Weighted between the physical and the intellectual, they lack the balance of the spiritual and the natural. They're dangerous...but vulnerable.

- Posted by JLM - 3/29/08 17:3

The Anniversary
Sunday, April 6, 2008

Friday was the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Forty years seems so long, yet I remember that evening so vividly, and the rage and feeling of devastation that welled up inside of me. America erupted as well it should. The same old 'lone assassin' story was sold to America, yet there was a little publicized civil trial in 1999 that confirmed so-called 'conspiracy theories'. One Lloyd Jowers was found guilty of receiving $100,000 to arrange the King assassination, and it was found that "governmental agencies were parties" to the assassination plot. Governmental agencies? There is also some question as to who actually fired the shot. The important question is why our government found it necessary to eliminate such an icon to that which is right and moral. Could it be that King's change of emphasis to include an end to an immoral and illegal war and his "Poor People's Campaign" were the real reason for his demise?

On this 40th anniversary we hear catch phrases about his dream and the mountain top, but our corporate media seems to avoid his message regarding the redirection of national resources from the war to the elimination of poverty and the establishment of equality. That said, we should give kudos to CNN and Soledad O'Brien in her Eye Witness to Murder: The King Assassination. The story is best understood by listening to the man himself. Please double-click the video below to listen to one of the messages that caused his life to end. May his message and his spirit live forever!

Dr. King once said, "One who condones evils is just as guilty as the one who perpetrates it."

I've stated before that the elite's quest for world domination has taken us into wars that are in actuality resource wars being sold to us as a response to 9/11. The video below is a short five minutes, and shows that technological solutions to the problem really do exist. Please check it out.

It seems that democracy would be such a refreshing relief, if we only had the courage to give it a try. Award winning historical author Gore Vidal had this to say:

The two things the founding fathers hated were majoritarian rule and monarchy. So they devised a republic in which only a very few white men of property could vote. Then, to make sure that we never had any democracy at work at the highest levels of governance, they created something called the Electoral College, which can break any change that might upset them.

..but that's a story for another day.

- Posted by JLM - 4/6/08 11:20

Terra Firma
Sunday, April 13, 2008

Much of the plight of man is attributed to "human nature". Violence, greed, lust for power and the like are part of our nature, we're told. One can generalize and come to the conclusion that we're a violent specie, yet there have always been people in the world that set that conclusion on its ear. The age old sociological question always comes down to heredity or environment, however in reality the two are intertwined and are probably inseparable. A friend of mine has devoted his life to his ministry in a particular Christian sect. His message is always one of peace, love, and turning the other cheek. You can imagine how ironic it seemed when he told me we should just 'nuke' all the Muslim countries. So much for peace! So what is the answer? If we kill all killers, doesn't that make us killers as well? We can follow these arguments and soon feel like a dog chasing its tail, so let's instead look again at a way that is not so well known.

You may recall that we considered balance and something called "the medicine wheel" back in January. This comes from our Native American heritage, and my studies on the subject have been mainly from the Cherokee. When we think of medicine, we generally think of pills. In order to compensate for language differences, you might try thinking of the medicine wheel as the power wheel, or maybe even better the wheel of life. To help with the concept, consider the drawing below.

You'll notice the four directions are labeled, but don't be deceived by the simplicity. These descriptions are simply a starting point; the teachings from the medicine wheel are as deep and wide as the experience of life. The colors that depict the four directions are significant, as is the concept that the wheel is more properly represented laying flat on the earth. The direction below being earth, and above being the sky. We could think of the wheel as a sphere, but then it would have boundaries. This wheel has no boundaries. Let's start with the basics.

By the labels, you can tell that the wheel has something to do with our human make-up, although confining it to 'human' would be limiting the lessons you can learn from it. Cherokee teaching indicates our goal should be "balance" which resides at the intersection in the center. In order to be balanced, it's important to understand something of each of the four directions. We that have been raised in Middle Eastern teachings (Christian, Judaism, and Muslim) learn that we are three part beings (mind, body, and spirit) and we struggle in an attempt to separate ourselves from the natural. By Cherokee standards, we must include and embrace the natural along with the others in order to find balance. The natural is where we are at birth. Some talk of being 'born a sinner' and 'original sin', and others (sometimes the same folks) speak of the 'innocence of babes'. To the Cherokee, natural is just a part of all things. Our bodies are made of the same ingredients as not only the other creatures on the earth, but that of the earth itself. We are hydrocarbons. Cherokee understand that and consider other creatures as part of the family. They refer to 'brother wolf', 'brother bear', 'brother racoon', etc. We of a less natural understanding seem to consider these creatures as aliens that should be shot and stuffed.

We of the less natural persuasion seem to get hung-up in the west-northwest. The physical is most important to us. We strive all our lives to fill the I want / I need urges. We are consumers, takers of the resources of the earth that seldom give back. Very little of what we do has anything to do with the natural. We surround ourselves with an altered world and swear that our existence depends on those alterations. We have become aliens to the earth from whence we come. That's a small taste of the west, but what of the northern element?

We think. "I think, therefore I am." Our thoughts are limited by our knowledge of language, but we think. Most of the time we think that we are right. Consider this: We live on a planet that revolves around a smallish star, which is one of unknown billions in a galaxy we refer to as the Milky Way (sounds like a candy bar). This galaxy, from what our astronomers can determine is a smallish galaxy among trillions (an unknown, uncountable, unimaginable number) of other galaxies. We live on this planet with approximately 6 billion other people, but our language inefficiency limits our ability to communicate with the majority of other people on the earth. Yet, with our thought process limited by a puny language, we have concluded that we are right! The absurdity of it all is striking. The chances of any of us mere mortals being right about anything at all (let alone God and the universe), are so small that we might just call it impossible. Winning the lottery (even without buying a ticket) is much more likely than us being right in our beliefs. Since I'm obviously limited by language and thereby likely to be wrong, let's move on the the east and spirituality.

It seems that our ventures to the east are hindered by our feet being solidly stuck in the west-northwest (as opposed to the terra firma of the south). Psalms 46:10 says, "Be still and know that I am God". We have a lot of trouble with this concept. We are so busy talking and doing that being still is incomprehensible. We are taught to pray...we talk to God, and ask for things like God is Santa Claus. "Please take care of Mommy and Daddy and don't let them die, but if they die.." Hey! Nobody gets out alive! Our so-called communication with God is limited by our chosen language and focused on our perceived needs (west-northwest). The Cherokee point out that we are human beings, not human doings. We need to learn to just be...to be quiet and know that we are but a small part of the whole of creation. We start singing and praising the Lord, and we get a big release of endorphins and think that's being spiritual ...it's physical. We read our Bible, and go to Bible study and think that's spiritual ...it's mental. So what is spiritual? Be still and know. From one that has trouble being still, you won't get a lot of help here, but understanding that you are simply a very tiny speck in the whole of the universe is a very good start. To love and respect all life is a very good start. To realize that we possess nothing insomuch as we all transition into death, and our so-called possessions remain helps us to put things into perspective. To realize that we don't speak for God is essential. Most of the trouble in this world comes from people who believe they speak for God. It seems that man has created God in his own image; it's time we realize that our understanding is not only limited, but severely limited.

Obviously we creatures of the west-northwest need to find our feet in the south and our hearts in the east. We are simply part of a marvelous and unfathomable creation, and we would do well to simply learn to be.

- Posted by JLM - 4/13/08 12:05

Shallow Water
Sunday, April 20, 2008

Twenty years ago Edie Brickell astutely sang, "Shove me in the shallow water, before I get too deep" (yes, it was twenty years ago). Our look at the medicine wheel last week was not an attempt to spring some new philosophy and most definitely not some new religion on anyone. In the 60's we used to question authority and never trust anyone over thirty. Then all our heroes demonstrated that we can't trust anyone under thirty either. As I pointed out last week, the chances of anyone being right are virtually nonexistent, so please shove me in the shallow water!

That being said, there seems to be two major dangers to the world as we know it. Aside from greed and lust for power, we suffer the danger of people believing they know what's best for all the rest of humanity. The earth is far too small to contain an errant ego that large. We learn that "leaving our mark" is a good thing, but dogs also leave their mark and at least the rain can wash it away. Sure there are marks of beauty, but more frequently the marks are scars. Scars are simply wounds that have healed not enough to remove the mark. Abraham Lincoln once said, "I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live by the light that I have. I must stand with anybody that stands right, stand with him while he is right, and part with him when he goes wrong." The trick is to realize when "he goes wrong". Since the odds of being right are so slim, it is probably best to simply maintain your independence of thought.

The second major danger stems from those who believe they know best. Our separation from the natural world (an essential part of what we are), may cause our little world (not the earth) to come crashing down. Consider the contrast of this from the Iroquois, "In our every deliberation, we must consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations"; and this from author Jack Catran, "Real wealth is generated by the conversion of energy in the ground into products and services."

The consequences of our consumerism, our greed, and our hell-bent quest to refashion the earth into who knows what is beginning to become all too evident. Glaciers are dissolving, big chunks of Antarctica are slipping into the sea, and an ocean passage is opening in the Arctic, yet some reasonably intelligent individuals still doubt the climate change that is unfolding before our eyes. Their are those that say it's a normal cycle, and yes the earth goes through climate cycles. House fires happen too, but it's no reason to host a candle party for a bunch of five year-olds at your home. How long is seven generations? Two hundred years or so? Consider what we have done with oil in about one hundred years. Now that demand is outstripping our ability to supply the current foundation of our civilization, where will we be in just the next two generations? I strongly recommend that all of us become as informed as possible considering our dependence on a substance that is quickly loosing its availability. Consider the implications on our economy, on our food supply, on your job, your home, and your family.

It's fascinating and ironic that power structure so carefully assembled by the so-called elite of our world is quickly leaving their control because of the greed based decisions they've made. Follow the money. The money is following the oil. Russia was considered crushed just twenty years ago (when Edie Brickell sang her song), but Russia is now an energy superpower (maybe the only one). Europe receives most of it's oil and natural gas from Russia. Isn't Russia a nuclear power as well? The Muslim world of course controls most of the world's oil. Try as he has, the Decider just can't seem to get these folks to behave to his liking. Our country is ruled by oil men and women, and they seem to keep digging us into a deeper hole.

For years now, I've considered lawns to be the bane of our civilization. That's right ...lawns! We want our yards to resemble green carpet, so we pour precious drinking water on them. We use chemicals made from oil to make them grow and protect us from insects (insects that usually feed the birds). That pesky grass responds and grows! Now we must either waste our precious time cutting it, or our precious money having it cut. This act of course consumes more oil and pumps more carbon into our atmosphere, not to mention the noise of these machines. We can't even sweep anymore; we now have to blow (ridiculous in that the offensive dirt isn't removed, it's simply moved temporarily). Our fetish with lawns is yet another evidence of our difficulty in embracing the natural. Meadows are beautiful, and forests are magical. If we insist on lawns, let's at least find alternatives to all the gas it takes to maintain them. You could say that's making the lawns more green in more ways than one.

Lawns are simply a symptom. We need to rediscover the natural, and love and embrace it for what it is ...an essential of life. If we can discover how to be still for a bit, we'll likely recognize that the earth is alive. Our missteps may make the earth uninhabitable for many species including ourselves, but it will heal given time. The question is, are we an essential part of the earth, or a cancer to the earth. The beauty is that we have a choice. So what can you do? That's a question that only you can answer.

- Posted by JLM - 4/20/08 12:33

Mud Cookies
Sunday, April 27, 2008

Over the last year, the price of wheat and rice has quietly doubled. Until recently, this disturbing trend has been ignored by the mainstream news source, but now these staples are even being rationed in some areas. Even the media must make comment, as rationing leads to violence around the world. We've briefly touched on the appearance of resource wars, and we certainly don't want to now consider people having to go to war in order to eat, yet here it comes. The situation in Haiti is utterly heart wrenching. Several weeks ago, I read of folks there making "cookies" from mud, a little sweetening, and a little cooking oil (when they can get it) simply to fill an empty stomach. Haiti is one of our next door neighbors so to speak, and our neighbors are eating mud! How long can a person live eating mud? What's happening here that they are so desperate for food?

After Katrina, Fidel Castro offered to send 1000 doctors to New Orleans, to help the situation. These doctors spoke English, and they were ready to go, but our Decider said no, and the people of New Orleans suffered. Hugo Chavez of Venezuela is vilified by the press as anti-American, yet each winter he provides a low cost heating oil program for our less well-off citizens in the Northeast. Now, what are we of the most giving, most caring country in the world doing about the food problem in Haiti? Unfortunately, we seem to be letting them eat mud!

Once again, the problem begins with oil. When you consider that the foundation of our civilization is a toxic sludge (oil), it's disconcerting. The price of food is so dependent on the price of oil that the two are inseparable. Best estimates seem to be around 75% of food cost is actually oil cost. Oil to run the machines, oil to fertilize and eliminate pests, oil to package, and oil to carry the products to market are all factored in to the overall cost of food. Obviously it wasn't always so. There was a time that oil was not at all a part of our agricultural system, but increasing population demands increasing productivity in providing sustenance. As we have seen, oil is power, and the power of oil is in the hands of people of questionable benevolence. As the price of oil skyrockets, the price of food follows. To compound the problem, the bogus bio fuels program has farmers planting corn for ethanol instead of food crops. Adding to the problem, drought in Australia, and other agricultural areas has decimated wheat and rice crops. Climatologists indicate the drought is related to climate changes brought on by the warming of the earth. Does oil have anything to do with global warming? Well, ..so they say.

Television adds tell us that the oil and gas industry, and the coal industry are going to save us by solving all our problems. It seems to me, that the folks that caused the problem may not be the best choice for fixing the problem. Solutions are available, but I would be willing to bet my winning lotto ticket (if I had one), that the oil and coal industries will never ever be the solution. It would be wonderful if we could trust our government to take leadership on this problem, but our government is part of the problem, and we know it. We are not totally without power to change the situation, but unfortunately most of our population is oblivious to the problems we face. Sure, paying $3 for a loaf of bread and $4 for a gallon of gasoline is hitting us where we live, but most of us choose to depend on TV news and here say for all our information. We have a choice. We can do something (find out, speak up, and demand better from our leaders and their TV news propaganda machine), or we can do nothing but watch our prosperity and our way of life disappear.

The next few years are going to but very interesting, but it won't be pretty. Are you having a tough time with gas approaching $4? You'll soon be wishing for $4 gasoline. Food costs will continue to follow oil, resource wars will continue to take our sons and daughters, and our jobs will continue to disappear.

You assist an evil system most effectively by obeying its orders and decrees. An evil system never deserves such allegiance. Allegiance to it means partaking of the evil. A good person will resist an evil system with his or her whole soul.     -Gandhi

- Posted by JLM - 4/27/08 21:05

Rocks in the Head
Sunday, May 4, 2008

As a young man, I lived in Hawaii for several years. Paradise.. I had a beautiful and caring wife, and a young son that was the pride of my life. Life was good, to say the least. Occasionally, the waves were a bit too big and caused me a bit of trepidation concerning my survival, but a little adrenalin rush puts a little more life in life. Those days are gone, and I am thankful for having lived them. I fear for current and future generations.

Last week, we briefly considered the state of the food supply, and before we drift too far from the subject, I want to share an article I saved a few years ago, entitled Why Our Food Is So Dependent on Oil. Our understanding of the relationship between food and oil may be essential to our survival, so please take the time to read it and share it.

As we watch the cost of oil and food ascend, we're also watching the equity in our homes, and the value of the dollar descend. We have a triad of food, energy, and economy. All are inter-related, and essential to civilization. Life however, is much more dependent on food than the other two elements. From the beginning of our existence as a specie, we have always found it necessary to eat. We can go on a months vacation in the woods, and live without power or money, but we better remember the food. If we didn't bring any, we better hope that we can return to effective hunter-gatherers in a hurry, or we'll become food! It doesn't seem wise then to make our food supply dependent on a finite resource such as oil. OK, let's go a little deeper.

We understand that there are very powerful individuals and especially families in the world who seem to have incredible control over our daily lives. From where does that power come? Could it be based on gold reserves? Wealthy people seem to have a lot of power, and they usually have gold somewhere. We considered the Rothschild family, which is arguably one of the most powerful families. They control (I like that word better than 'own') in the neighborhood of $500 trillion according to some estimates. Remember, that they and the Rockefellers (another very powerful family), control nearly all the banking, insurance, and petroleum in Europe and the US. The original patriarch of the Rothschilds, Mayer Anschel Rothschild started building his fortune as a goldsmith. It occurs to me, that gold is a mineral, and seems to either be found as dust or nuggets ...dirt or rocks. Why would we allow power to people because of the color of the dirt and rocks they possess? Queen Elizabeth is among the most wealthy people in the world. All contracts in all the Commonwealth countries as well as Great Britain are executed in her name.. all of them. Allegiance of the citizens of the British Isles, Australia, Canada, Belize, New Zealand, the Bahamas, Barbados, Jamaica, and about nine other countries. is given to the queen. She got to be the queen because of her parents, and it looks as though Prince William will be the next King because of his parents. Much of their wealth is held in something known as "the Crown Jewels". These jewels always 'belong' to the remaining monarch. They are made from gold, diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and other kinds of rocks and dust. They're pretty ...so I'm told. I haven't seen them, but I'm sure they must exist. The British Empire depends on it!

The British have always been very big on dirt. When they first came to what would be called America, they immediately started taking over all the land. Our indigenous people didn't quite understand the concept. True, they like pretty rocks, but they believed that people were a part of the earth. Certainly not owners! The British would hand them some trinkets and have them put their little X on a piece of paper. Then the land belonged to the King! Then the killing started. Dirt! What if we decided to value the pretty rocks and yellow dirt at the same price as landfill dirt. A handful of yellow dirt could only buy a handful of brown dirt. I'm going to let you continue with that thought, wherever it may lead.

Were you taught that respect must be earned? I was. It seems that we should respect our leaders, maybe we should respect them before allowing them to become our leaders. Maybe we would end up with no leaders, and would that be a bad thing? I suppose so. We have become so dependent on one another, that we can't conceive of living without paper (or plastic) based on dirt (we call it 'money') and certainly not with out oil. It seems though, that it isn't so much the oil as it is what the oil can do. Oil makes our world run. Oil is not a bad thing. True, it's toxic, and it poisons our atmosphere. It's also very useful; we make plastics, fabric, medicines, fertilizers, pesticide, out of oil. Something as useful as oil is probably worth more than a handful of pretty rocks. Something as useful as oil shouldn't be burned, especially when burning it is so destructive to our environment. Our 'leaders' want us to burn salad oil (ethanol), but only because they can make a lot of money that way.

We have seen that our world can be powered by the hydrogen in water (fresh or salty, clean or dirty), and we have also seen that we can power our world using magnetics and even sunlight. Our tax dollars meanwhile are primarily going to the oil companies (Rockefeller - Exxon Mobile, and Rothschild - Royal Dutch Shell), and secondarily to the ethanol industry. A mere dribble is going to real viable alternatives; just enough for the government to claim they're paying attention. During the 60s, when we were trying to end an unjust war, we used to hear the phrase "question authority". We need to do a little more than question at this point. 'Authority' has us on a path to ruin. Those that lead should be held accountable as are the rest of us. As John Adams once told Thomas Jefferson, "Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views beyond the comprehension of the weak; and that it is doing God's service when it is violating all His laws."

As always, I ask you to do your research. Find out what is really happening. Think things through and find in your heart that which is right. Then, decide what you can and what you must do.

- Posted by JLM - 5/4/08 14:28

Between Iraq and a Hard Place
Sunday, May 11, 2008

An avalanche seems to be gathering, preparing to obliterate Hillary Clinton's campaign for President. Barring a successful political assassination, Barak Obama will be facing John McCain in the November contest. Should McCain win the presidency, we know the war(s) will go on until victory. McCain has a fantasy about what victory would look like, and seems to have great difficulty in identifying the enemy. Every opposition to American occupation is labeled "al Qaeda", and by golly they're everywhere! Those of the "kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out" persuasion simply refer to "the bad guys", which refers of course to anyone conveniently in their line of fire. With McCain as president, we would likely "bomb, bomb Iran" as he likes to sing. You'll remember that he was busy bomb, bombing Hanoi when he was shot down, but that's a subject for another day. In short, if McCain is victorious in winning the presidency, he will look for an illusive victory in the Middle East regardless of the cost in lives and resources, or the many years involved in pursuing an illusive victory. Expect $10 per gallon coming soon to a gas station near you. Incidently, the collapse of the Soviet Union is attributed in great part to their nine year war in Afghanistan, which was fought against what army? The Mujahedeen? Really! Do we see a trend here?

Let's say Barak Obama wins the nomination of his party. He tells us that he will begin an orderly draw down with an end to combat operations. We'll remain to protect our citizens (you know, Blackwater and Halliburton employees) and continue training the Iraqi army and police. This too is a fantasy. As we "draw down", the many factions of the civil war will intensify. The "Iraqi government" is nothing more than a prop. A draw down will cause this puppet government to implode. So far, their have been an estimated million deaths in Iraq due to our invasion. Additionally, 2.5 million have left the country, and are living as refugees in mainly Syria and Jordan. Another two million are wandering homeless around Iraq, victims of ethnic cleansing. Virtually no one in Iraq has been left untouched by this war. All have losses, all are crying for vengeance, none will forget the hatred and the pain. When we draw down, the fighting will heat up. As we discontinue the constant bombing of towns and villages, people will emerge with a cry of revenge on their lips.

Meanwhile back in the USA, tremendous pressure will be placed on Obama to end the 'cowardly retreat'. American troops will be under heavy attack, and will respond in kind. "Circumstances on the ground" will delay the redeployment, and in three short years Obama will be engaged in the fight of his life trying to get elected for another term. Gas will be about $6 per gallon by this time.

Not to rain on anyone's parade, but there are no good options thanks to the Decider and his minions. Instead, we need to face up to reality. The reality is that we attacked and now occupy a country, and we based our tragic actions on lies about WMD and connections to 9-11. The invasion and occupation was illegal then, and it is illegal now. You can't asked a bank robber to stay and clean up after himself. That we cannot clean up that which we've already destroyed should be obvious, but obviously it is not. Logic would dictate that profuse apologies should be extended, perpetrators of the crimes against not only the Iraqi people, but the American people as well should be put on trial. American presence in Iraq should be terminated without further hesitation. John Kennedy once said, "We must face the fact that the United States is neither omnipotent nor omniscient-that we are only 6% of the world's population-that we cannot impose our will upon the other 94% of mankind-that we cannot right every wrong or reverse each adversity-and that therefore there cannot be an American solution to every world problem."

The Iraqi people shouldn't be left to face the chaos without help, but we are the cause of their misery. We are not the answer. Until we acknowledge that we are not the cure, the problem will languish and perhaps destroy our great nation. We went in for the oil; it's time for a new foreign policy and a new energy policy. The oil baron's are destroying all that we have. Enough is enough! That's my fantasy. My expectations .more of the same until there is no more.

Among the news this week, there were some items worth sharing. Scientists at the University of Tel Aviv in Israel claim they have found a way to construct efficient photovoltaic cells costing at least a hundred times less than conventional silicon based devices, and with similar or better energy conversion efficiency. The interesting part of this is that they're using photosynthesis like plants do. Amazing energy comes to us from the sun in the form of light. We are capable of harnessing this light to power our world. We simply need to apply the needed resources to solve the puzzle.

On another note, the LA Times published an article about "hidden laws" that" deeply affect Americans' privacy rights, and yet Americans don't know about them because they are not allowed to see them. Very few members of Congress have been allowed to see them either." Absurdly diabolical comes to mind, when you think that our government can hold us accountable to laws that it keeps in secret! Back in high school, I read a book called "Atlas Shrugged", by Ayn Rand. Not that I ascribe to her philosophy, but these hidden laws remind me of something she said in the book. "There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible to live without breaking laws." Interesting...

Happy Mothers' Day!

- Posted by JLM - 5/11/08 14:45

White, Blue, and Red
Sunday, May 18, 2008

Divide and conquer. Those that have been watching the race to the presidency, particularly on primary night election coverage, have noticed a lot of discussion about demographics. Demographic obsession is especially noticeable as we learn that "white blue collar workers" and "Hispanics" support Hillary or McCain, while "blacks" and the "Volvo driving Starbucks people" (Starbucks and Volvo must love all the free advertising) support Obama. Are we tired of being categorized yet, or do we just accept it all with fascination? Demographic breakdowns are not meant to inform us, so much as to divide us. It seems we are meant to believe that white blue collar constituencies are the most patriotic, and I suppose if their necks are red the color scheme would support that argument.

What about the blue white color people? You know, they are the professional people who have the blues as they watch their middle-class demographic vanish before their eyes. They don't have jobs, they have careers. I suppose a career is an occupation that is expected to last a life-time (but it isn't slavery). Those with a career live to work, while those with a job work to live. It seems that this group of blue white collar workers either support Obama or McCain. Obviously, if you are a Republican you either support McCain, you become a "turn-coat" and support anyone but McCain, or you crawl into a hole in total disgust and frustration. I suppose blue white collar workers are patriotic as well, if they are seeing red when someone suggests the system has gone astray.

Blacks... I've noticed that you can't be half black, or a little black. The demographics that we're fed on a daily basis tells us that if either your mother or your father has an African somewhere in their lineage, then you are black. Since DNA tracing indicates we all have our roots in Africa if you go back far enough, then shouldn't we conclude that we're all black? The problem with that logic is that the element of divide and conquer becomes more difficult. People that find themselves categorized as black seem to be more than happy to include nearly anyone else who wants to be categorized as black. This is a fairly inclusive demographic that includes any shade of brown. Even the groups that generally try to separate themselves from the so-called "white world" seem to be more than willing to include folks of lighter brown shades such as Mohammed Ali and Malcolm X (at least as long as they're willing to sing off the same song sheet). Of course, any demographic that wouldn't want to include Halle Berry and Denzel Washington must be totally whacked, but hey... that's just me.

Then we have the "Hispanics", which seems to be a group more based on language than lineage. The majority of Hispanics are of ancestries that have little to do with Spain other than living in a country that was once invaded and governed by Spain. Spanish people are of course considered European, and generally feel insulted to be referred to as Hispanic. When you go beyond the veneer and really analyze demographics, you find the boundaries to be porous to say the least.

When I was in grade school, we were taught that their were three main races which were negroid, mongoloid, and caucasoid. Many Christian preachers expound on that premise, saying that these three races were all descended from the three sons of Noah. Additionally, they say that the negroid race were turned black because they were cursed by God. There is no way that these preachers would ever admit that they themselves were in all probability descended from African ancestry. Cursed by God? Teachings like that can do nothing but divide and cause fear and hatred. I don't believe that is what Christianity is supposed to be about.

After being indoctrinated with the concept of three races, imagine my surprise when I started hearing that Jews, Arabs, Greeks, Indians (both American and Asian) were all different races. Every problem between people of different historical background seemed to be racial. My conclusion after much thought and total confusion is that there are but two races where people are concerned: the human race and the rat race. Which do you prefer? Let's look more at the current use of demographics.

As I mentioned before, demographics are used to divide and conquer. Certainly, it's interesting to study and analyze what group does what to whom, etc. The end of these studies however, does nothing to unite us. Again, you have to follow the money, and understand the common techniques used to keep wealth and power concentrated in the hands of the few. An age old technique is to provoke disagreement between various factions. As long as those factions are feuding, the provokers (the elite) are free to manipulate events in their favor. The rest of us are so busy worrying about our counterparts of a different demographic, that we are oblivious to the manipulation that lies at the heart of the disputes.

Jiddu Krishnamurti once wrote,

"When you separate yourself by belief, by nationality, by tradition, it breeds violence. So a man who is seeking to understand violence does not belong to any country, to any religion, to any political party or partial system; he is concerned with the total understanding of mankind."

If we realize that we have more in common than we have as differences, and that we are all the same color on the inside we will find a unity and a power that the elite will find difficult to control. If we discover the beauty and power of diversity, we will overcome the fear that is being used against us. Democracy means the people govern. The people have the power. Once we overcome the fear and loathing that we hold based on demographics, good things will come.

- Posted by JLM - 5/18/08 13:45

In Memory of
Sunday, May 25, 2008

Tomorrow is Memorial Day, but I've noticed the difficulty of remember something about which you never knew. Sure, we're reminded daily that we've lost 4,083 and counting in Iraq. Sometimes we hear about the 29,978 and counting that have been wounded. One item we don't hear so much about is the tragedy of PTSD. The Hartford Courant (newspaper) carried a story that we should find in the headlines, but is unfortunately fairly well hidden. Click, read, and understand:

CBS News did its own extensive research, finding that more than 6,250 American veterans took their own lives in 2005 alone. That comes to slightly more than 17 suicides every day.

It isn't only our nation's fallen that we should be remembering. We have no idea how many citizen's of the nation of Iraq have fallen due to our misadventure. Some estimates approach one million. Certainly, every Iraqi has a friend or loved one that is no longer with them due to our nation's actions.

We were assured that our invasion would be met with flowers and people dancing in the streets. Where have all the flowers gone? They've gone to graveyards (if you remember the song). "Shock and Awe" assured us that although a hated dictator was removed, a more hated power (us) would take his place. There is nothing "collateral" about the damage when a family member is bombed or shot by an invader. Imagine if some foreign power decided to eliminate our Decider and your spouse and child were lost by their not-so-smart bombs. Would you greet them with flowers? Of course not! They would be your mortal enemies for life! I'm not sure which is worse, the asinine assertion that we would be greeted as "liberators", or the gullibility of our nation to buy that rotten lie.

This administration was not the first to carry us into a misbegotten war on a magic carpet of lies, and regrettably it won't be the last. The US is the number one manufacturer and exporter of weapons (including those of mass destruction), and war is considered good business. The war in Vietnam was one such war, based on lies and economics. There are innumerable parallels between Vietnam and Iraq, and since one of our presidential candidates is basing much of his campaign on his claim to being a bone fide war hero of the Vietnam conflict a little forgotten history to refresh our memories may be in order on this Memorial Day.

It seems that Vietnam has always been fighting for independence. The Chinese ruled the Indochina peninsula off and on for about two thousand years. China's last attempt to invade was in 1979. The French colonized Vietnam in the 1800's, and during WWII the Vietnamese found themselves trying to chase out both the French and the Japanese. Following that war, the French attempted to set up business as usual, which was essentially feudalism.

By that time, the country was about 20% Catholic, and that was mostly by convenience. You see, in a French ruled country the Catholics were in charge. The Viet Minh continued to resist the French rule, under the leadership of European educated Ho Chi Minh. In 1949, Ho Chi Minh requested U.S. support in establishing Vietnamese independence, but he was turned down by President Truman. In 1954, the Geneva conference set up a cease-fire and the country was split between north and south with the Catholic (sort of) General Ngo Dinh Diem presiding over the south and Ho Chi Minh in the North. An election for unification was to be held in 1956. The U.S. managed to cancel the election, fearing that Ho Chi Minh would be elected president. Instead, A low grade CIA supported civil war developed from there.

In August of 1964, an attack on two U.S. Naval destroyers (referred to as the Gulf of Tonkin Incident) gave President Johnson all the reason he needed to get Congress to sign-off on a full-scale escalation. The incident however, was bogus. The Pentagon papers, which were leaked to the New York Times in 1971 exposed the Gulf of Tonkin Incident as a fabrication to justify an all out escalation. The plan was to bomb North Vietnam into submission. Bombs cost money; people get rich.

After ten years, more bombs were dropped on North Vietnam than all the bombs dropped in Europe (by both sides) during WWII. It was during this time that a young Navy pilot flew about two dozen bombing raids on and around the city of Hanoi. The most common targets were infrastructure, power stations, water, etc., the kind of places where civilians are employed. The bombs weren't very smart back then, so there was a lot of collateral damage. Where the bombs were lacking in accuracy, they made up in volume ..."carpet bombing". It's impossible to say how many and of what age and gender were killed during our young pilot's bombing raids before his plane was struck by anti-aircraft fire and brought down. The young pilot lived, but found himself imprisoned in Hanoi.

There are tales of torture that come from that prison in Hanoi, and I have no doubt they are true. After all, we had our own CIA designed system of torture and assassination called "the Phoenix Program". About 1/3 of the interrogations carried out under the Phoenix Program, ended in the death of the prisoner, a number reported to be in excess of 20,000. Our young hero was lucky his interrogation came at the hands of the Vietnamese rather than the CIA. He was eventually released and lived to become a candidate for President of the United States of America. War hero? You decide.

In the end, somewhere between 2.5 million and 3 million Vietnamese died in our futile attempt to control their land and their destiny. The survivors obviously didn't give up. "When you've got nothing, you've got nothing to lose". I'll leave you to draw your own parallels between Iraq and Vietnam. We remember well, the "Holocaust" in which 6 million people of Jewish ancestry were horribly killed, and we should never forget. Neither should we forget the million or so Vietnamese that LBJ managed to bomb into oblivion, or the promise of the end of the war given by Nixon. The promise that yielded another 1.5 - 2 million Vietnamese deaths by bombing. Never forget the 54,000 American boys cut down in their youth, or the hundreds of thousands that have suffered from wounds, PSTD, and agent orange exposure. Never forget.

Since I brought up the Holocaust, I should comment on the Decider's statement in Israel this past week regarding Nazi appeasers. Better than my comments, though is an article from Consortium News. Please click the headline below for some very interesting reading.

The irony of George W. Bush going before the Knesset and mocking the late Sen. William Borah for expressing surprise at Adolf Hitler's 1939 invasion of Poland is that Bush's own family played a much bigger role assisting the Nazis.

I hope you have an enjoyable Memorial Day holiday.

- Posted by JLM - 5/25/08 14:03

More or Less
Sunday, June 1, 2008

The Libertarian in me (and there seems to be quite a bit) has me yearning for less government. Actually, I have this fantasy that tribal government is best. I think about a council of elders sitting around a camp fire passing who-knows-what around in their pipe ...ah, the good old days! The problem with that notion is that our numbers are far too great. The camp fire would be the size of Missouri. The challenge that faces Libertarians is to sort out all the illusion found in modern day talk of smaller government. The "privatizing" of government does not make government smaller, just more expensive. We the people always have to pay the bill, so we need to make sure we're getting our money's worth.

For the last 7 1/2 years, the country has essentially been ruled (not governed, but ruled) by the former CEO of Halliburton. Is it any wonder then, that Halliburton has prospered beyond the imagination because of our actions in the Middle East, and our (lack of) action in New Orleans. Halliburton and its subsidiaries have been given enormous "no-bid" contracts to do what would normally be done by the military or other government agencies. This would seem to be in keeping with a smaller government. The result however, is that the contract costs the tax payer from 10 to 100 times more to accomplish the same job. In many cases, we've found that Halliburton has a tendency to take the money and leave the job undone (especially in Iraq). So does Cheney control Halliburton or does Halliburton control Cheney? Neither; those who control Halliburton also control Cheney. They don't sit on the board at Halliburton; they have agents to do their bidding.

Halliburton is just the tip of the iceberg. We have seen attempts at privatizing a huge portion of our traditional government services, and many of those attempts have proved successful (at least, for the corporation with the contract). The consequences are that we are paying much more for our services, or receiving less or lower quality service for the same money. There was a time in this country when fire departments were private companies. Too often a town would burn because the negotiations weren't going well (think New York City, mid 1800's). If my house is burning, I want the Fire Department there in a hurry, with minds only on putting the fire out. Additionally, I don't want to be handed a bill for $10,000 while I stand gazing upon the ashes that were once my home. In short, there is a value to many of our government agencies.

One of the essential functions of the government is regulation. We have all seen what happens when the stock market regulates itself (the market crash of 1929), or the banking industry regulates itself (sub-prime mortgage crisis of today), or Opec regulates the price of oil (ouch!!!). Opposition to a national health plan always cites a "big government administered program", but in fact would be a government regulated program. That's a huge difference! The plan doesn't call for doctors to be government workers, nor hospitals to be government institutions. Certainly there are a few doctors, such as Beverly Hills plastic surgeons that make huge incomes. That wouldn't change; vanity always carries a high price. Currently, the bulk of the profits from our health care system goes to insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies. Regulation would rein in the tendency for insurance companies to pay lawyers to help them weasel out of paying claims. Additionally, ads for prescription drugs with nasty side effects would likely not been seen on television. "Ask your doctor if Lipitor is right for you", indeed! Drug companies have turned our nations doctors into drug pushers! It's no wonder that we pay far more for our medical care than any other country in the world. Are we getting great care for that money? According to the WHO world health report the United States ranks #37 in the world! Excuse me? Well, maybe if we give the insurance and drug companies full control it will get better ...oh yeah, that's how we got here in the first place! By the way, Canada is #30 so let's stop the illusion that their system is the only alternative. Number one in the world is France. You remember France. That's the country that said Iraq was not a threat to world peace, there was no WMD, and advised us not to invade. We thanked them by boycotting their wine, renaming french fries (freedom fries), and making nasty jokes about them. Well, the joke is on us, and the joker lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

We need to understand the difference between smaller government and corporate rule. Remember that corporations are not actually people; but they are controlled by people. Forget the idea that because you can own stock and vote, you have some control over that corporation. Your investment simply gives those who control the corporation(s) the use of your money. Corporate rule is actually rule by the elite. It is totalitarianism, it is fascism, and it has nothing to do with we the people. Both major political parties in America are pushing the corporate agenda, because the corporations (your stock purchases) are financing the politicians of both parties. It may be your money, but the politicians allegiance goes to the corporate hands that handed them the money, not to you.

Bill Clinton is a Rhodes Scholar, and we all are impressed. Cecil Rhodes (the man that established the scholarship) believed in one world government. A world ruled by Anglo-Saxons. The Scholarship brings students from the proper bloodlines to study globalization at Oxford. The scholarship is closely tied to Free Masonry because that is how Rhodes envisioned it. Is it any wonder that Clinton gave us NAFTA, promoted the WTO, and gave China MFN (most favored nation) trade status, all of which are moves toward globalization. What I have previously described as "two sides of the same wooden nickel", they being Republicans and Democrats may squabble a lot (the rivalry is intense to say the least), but they ultimately march to the same drummer. "We the People" in reality does not apply. Joseph Stalin,said: "Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything." We need to be very careful who is counting our votes or our votes won't count! The globalization push has ushered us past a financial crisis and on to the brink of a national financial disaster. Enough is enough!

I've always believed that knowledge truly is power. We owe it to ourselves and our children to be knowledgeable and to hold our leaders accountable. Additionally, once armed with knowledge we should stand up and let our voices be heard. That's an uncomfortable concept of course, but the alternative can be found in an ant colony. You only count if you are the queen. Are we insects or are we the people?!

I came across an interesting article this morning. Actually, it's not an article but a speech by Chris Hedges called The Corporate State and the Subversion of Democracy. Remember, "Liberty cannot be preserved without general knowledge among people."
-John Adams, August 1765

- Posted by JLM - 6/01/08 11:43

Dirty Little Secrets
Sunday, June 8, 2008

The propaganda machine otherwise known as corporate media (especially television news) has been so focused on the campaign for President, that extremely important news is often ignored. Certainly, the triumph of Barak Obama is historic, and demands recoginition and respect for capturing his party's nomination for the highest office in the land. The other party's candidate, John McCain keeps talking about the wonderful progress being made in Iraq. Unfortunately, no one really challenges the misrepresentation. Real news from Iraq is being systematically ignored by the media giants, and unless you have the discipline to stay informed via other reliable sources you might conclude that no news is good news. If it were only true...

British newspaper The Independent published an article on Thursday entitled Revealed: Secret plan to keep Iraq under US control. In short, our Decider is attempting to Blackmail the Iraqi government into signing an agreement that would 1) give the US 50 permanent military bases in Iraq, 2) allow US troops to remain in Iraq permanently, and 3) exempt US personnel from Iraqi law. Those are at least the high points. The US holds $50 billion of Iraqi money at the Federal Reserve Bank, and is threatening to keep it forever frozen if Iraq refuses to sign the agreement. Bush is determined to have the agreement signed by July 31st. Additionally, Iran radio is claiming the Iraqi Members of Parliament are apparently being bribed to sign the agreement. I suppose that bribery is not that far-fetched when it is being counterbalanced with blackmail. Meanwhile, the Iraqi public and religious leaders are overwhelmingly against the agreement.

So how does this affect us? For one, the agreement will make it much more difficult (if not impossible) for the next administration to end this fiasco. Secondly, an agreement to keep US troops in Iraq on a permanent basis is sure to create such a backlash in Iraq that the previous five years will look like peace. You can expect the war to grow well beyond Iraq, since permanent occupancy would enrage most countries in the region. Thirdly, the war is being financed with debt to countries such as China. This debt must be repaid with interest, typically within three years. Draw your own conclusions.

The Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday rebuked President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney for making prewar claims -- particularly that Iraq had close ties to Al Qaeda -- that were not supported by available intelligence. In short, the Decider and Darth Vader and their minions lied us into the war in Iraq. Other than the rebuke, no further action was recommended by the Senate committee. Now, (as shown above) they are engaging in blackmail and possibly bribery. So much for "justice for all". Sometimes I feel like retiring to a cave in southern France and drawing buffalos on the walls.

Next: The deviants that trumpet small government are typically the people that bring us a break-the-bank sized military budget. We are out-spending the rest of the world put together on military weaponry, all while leaving our military drastically under-manned. Robert Scheer explains it well in a LA Times article entitled Indefensible spending. I strongly recommend that you read it, since it's your money they're spending. If it's "the economy, Stupid", these fools are bringing it down around our ears. The fiduciary irresponsibility of our government is going to get Christmas cancelled yet!

Finally, I have in the past mentioned depleted uranium. I have been following this for some time now, and you should be too. Depleted uranium is radioactive waste from nuclear power plants. Since no one wants to dispose of hazardous materials in their backyard, the nuclear industry was happy to supply the Defense Department all they wanted of this deadly material. This dangerous material is used in any projectiles that are "armor piercing", or "bunker busting"; anything from cruise missiles to 45mm rounds. If you followed the Pentagon's cover-up of Agent Orange (and it's still going on), be aware that DU (deplete uranium) is much worse and the cover-up is much more sophisticated.

I came across an award winning documentary that was made for German television. It's eye opening to say the least. It is about 53 minutes long, so give yourself some time to watch. Also, it's disturbing. It affects our troops, and if you claim to "support our troops" you need to be informed. Exposing anyone to DU is a crime; exposing our own soldiers to DU is unspeakable. The documentary is below; full-screen is available.

- Posted by JLM - 6/08/08 13:38

Connecting the Dots
Sunday, June 15, 2008

John Adams once said, "Liberty cannot be preserved without general knowledge among people". Certainly today we are inundated with information from many more sources than Adams and Jefferson had in their day. Most of us though, feel we are too busy to look beyond the old reliable television for our news. Unfortunately, this is to our detriment. A prime example is Iraq. Every day we here someone tell us how wonderful things are going. Every day, McClatchy reports violence from the war, and this is sent to television, newspapers, and radio, but it is systematically ignored. McClatchy, Reuters, and the Associated Press are primary news sources for the networks. Networks subscribe to these news resources, but even news from these major mainstream sources is systematically blacked out (like the daily bad news from Iraq) if it is off message with management. Management dutifully follows the lead of the ownership, which always looks after it's bottom line. In most cases, ownership is also involved in defense, oil, pharmaceuticals, etc. You know the pattern ...follow the money. In short, though the news is out there, but we are typically left with "talking points" and propaganda. If you search for the truth and begin to understand the patterns, you must be a "conspiracy theorist", oh my!

Former CBS News anchor, Dan Rather made the mistake in 2004 (election year) of reporting on the Decider's poor performance during and constant absence from service in the Texas Air National Guard during the early 1970s. It cost Rather his job. Since that time, he has been shedding light on how the media circus works. You can read his recent blistering critique of corporate news at the National Conference for Media Reform hosted by Free Press. We occasionally see real reporting, but it is the exception rather than the rule. Those that deliver the truth do so at their own risk.

Dan Rather mentioned "connecting the dots" in his critique, and that's what we need to do. Staying with Iraq as an example, we have learned from many sources (including former members of the Administration) that stories of weapons of mass destruction, Iraqi ties to al-Qaeda, and the threat Iraq posed to the world (mushroom clouds) were all fabrications. The Decider told us "the United States doesn't do torture", and then we find that a systematic program of torture was overseen by his administration. The lies, the violations of the Constitution, and violations of international law that are perpetrated by our government is breath-taking. This information has not just recently come to light. It has been staring this country in the face for years! Everyday, more revelations and collaborations are unearthed, and yet a large portion of our population still believes that Saddam had something to do with 9/11. If there is a "conspiracy", then the the democrats are co-conspirators as they willfully enabled the liar-in-chief to conduct this abomination of an oil war. The truth, my friends shall set you free!!!

It isn't just Iraq, though. It's the oil crisis, the financial crisis, the housing crisis, the Katrina debacle, the depleted uranium cover-up, the despicable treatment of our veterans, and the continuous deluge of official lies! Maybe it's time we all risk a little of ourselves. Conspiracy theorist? So be it! If we can't trust our leaders, then they shouldn't be our leaders. We are the only ones that can rectify that aberration. It's time we set our feet on that road.

Occasionally, you find a voice (such as Dan Rather's) in the mainstream media, that has the courage to speak out. You have to wonder how long before that rare voice is silenced. Case in point: Keith Olbermann on MSNBC.

- Posted by JLM - 6/15/08 13:05

The Clean Machine
Sunday, June 22, 2008

If you've watched the TV news this week, you know that the Decider and his clone (or is that clown?) have been trumpeting a push for off-shore drilling for oil. Enough of this Bu--sh--! After nearly eight years, even those of his own party should realize that if the Decider's lips are moving, he's lying. He talked about our huge reserves of shale oil, but he failed to mention the high of extraction. Assuming we're ready to tear up the Rocky Mountains in order to keep our SUV's rolling, all we do is continue the age of high priced oil. Any attempt to drill ourselves out of the situation that drilling has put us in is counter-productive. Additionally, it furthers the peril created by burning carbon based fuels. Burning hydrocarbons continues to pollute our air and heat our earth. Juan Cole has a very informative posting on this misguided drilling scam.

It's always easy to point out what is wrong, but a little more difficult to settle on what is right. Please check out the short video below, and you'll see what the alternative can and should be.

If you did the math, you know that this little care is getting well over 200 mpg of water! I know... It's a roller skate, and you like muscle cars. You want a Mustang that will do 60 mph in less that 4 seconds. So, check it out! Not bad for an electric. I want that Mustang! However, I want it for under $20,000.

As I have indicated before, electrical independence of our homes is part of the equation. We're beginning to see that independence become a reality in various instances around the country, but it's time to move it in to the mainstream. Imagine the interest if one of our major home builders began to offer new homes that have no need of the electrical grid. We are slaves to the energy we consume, but free energy will free we the slaves.

So what's to be done? Most of us are not scientists or engineers. We need some help to get the conversions accomplished. We just put a little robot on Mars to see if we could find a little ice. Billions of dollars were consumed in that search. Those are dollars and scientists that should be diverted to solve our little problem here at home. We've heard of the "law of supply and demand", but I guarantee there will be no supply until we demand. A faucet outside your home can have a slow drip, and it can drip for years without any attention. If that faucet is in the bathroom next to your bedroom, you can bet it will get some attention first thing in the morning. So talk about it to your friends. Tell people that are influential. Challenge an engineer. Become a dripping faucet to every politician you can find. Demand, demand, demand! Don't let up until we have supply!

We don't need another oil-slick in the ocean; we don't need to tear down another mountain. We don't need to hand nuclear waste to the Pentagon, so they can poison our troops. We do need to learn to use the free and abundant energy that has been so graciously provided us. We need to learn that now.

Most importantly - DON'T TRUST THE DECIDER!

- Posted by JLM - 6/22/08 14:08

What You See Isn't Always What You Get
Saturday, June 28, 2008

You don't have to be a "conspiracy theorist" to recognize a news blackout. The media circus has turned the contest for the Presidency into another installment of American Idol. Meanwhile, the catastrophes and carnage continue. It's the old "slight-of-hand" and the classic "bait-and-switch". Our young men and women that find themselves in combat or preparing for combat always refer to the "bad guys". They have been trained to do that, so they never question what they're being told to do. Take Afghanistan for example: We're fighting the Taliban. Why? Bin Laden and the boys are in Pakistan making video tapes and creating cool web sites, while we're fighting a group that we used to support. Bad guys... We aren't there because of 9/11. That was just an excuse. We're there to insure a natural gas pipeline is built. If you think I'm wrong, I invite you to read the book Jawbreaker by Gary Bernsten. Bernsten was the CIA field commander at Tora Bora in Afghanistan. He had Bin Laden trapped, but was refused the cordon needed to finish the job. Bin Laden and his buddies then slipped away to become aspiring media moguls. Our kids are left fighting the Taliban ...bait-and-switch.

Why is the question that begs to be answered. Why the bait and switch? I really wish I could end this discourse by saying the search for Bin Laden was botched. Unfortunately, other pieces of the puzzle keep showing up in the box. Maybe I have become a "conspiracy theorist" because I have never been able to swallow the "magic bullet" fantasy that explained away the assassination of JFK. The way those buildings in NYC came down sticks in my throat and won't let me breathe. We've seen the 9-11 Commissions dog-and-pony show, but what do we say to Architects and Engineers for 911 Truth? If you take the time to watch the slide presentation they've assembled, well... You tell me. The 911 story is buried, but it isn't dead.

Similarly, the real story of Iraq is buried. The Decider and McClone want us to think that Iraq is becoming such a success story. The media falls in line, and in lock-step they eliminate the real story. Fortunately, (if we still care) we can go around the stone wall and find out the truth of the matter. Brave souls like Juan Cole are still exposing the Real State of Iraq. Sometimes you can get a glimmer of what is going on from the NY Times. Last week they published a piece called "Deals with Iraq Are Set to Bring Oil Giants Back." Should you decide to read it, you'll notice that oil giants mentioned are Exxon Mobile, Shell, Total, and BP. Controlling interest in these giants is maintained by the likes of the Rockefeller and Rothschild families. I hope that by now you are beginning to connect the dots. The Bill Moyers piece below may be helpful in those connections.

I have added a news link to the column on the right called theREALnews network. This is a great link for people who like TV style news, but would rather have news that matters than talking heads trying to add sinister spin to the words of Michelle Obama or Cindy McCain. Here's a short clip regarding the apparent agenda by corporate media to keep real news out of your living room.

- Posted by JLM - 6/28/08 16:1

Independence Day
Friday, July 4, 2008

Today is the Fourth of July, and many of us will spend the evening partying with friends and watching fireworks. Some of us will take time to reflect on the meaning of independence and the meaning of patriotism. Our politicians will take the time to strut their patriotism before the crowds and cameras, and media pundits will do their obnoxious best to befuddle the people as they always do. As we celebrate the founding of our country, it may be best to contemplate some of the words of our founders regarding the matters of patriotism, freedom, and independence:

• "Beware of pretend patriotism." -- George Washington
  
• "Perhaps it is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to provisions against danger, real or pretended, from abroad." -- James Madison
  
• "Liberty cannot be preserved without general knowledge among people." - John Adams
  
• 'If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." -- Thomas Jefferson
  
• "Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she ( America ) goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy." - - John Quincy Adams

It's sadly interesting that some of our best President's find it necessary to warn us of danger in their farewell addresses. George Washington warned us of "pretend patriotism"; Abraham Lincoln warned us of "enthroned" corporations, and the "reign" of "money power"; and Dwight Eisenhower warned us of "misplaced power" of the "military-industrial complex". What about the Decider? Will he have a warning? Maybe he'll warn us to beware of free and fair elections, or beware of the rule of law. More likely, he would warn us of a phantom danger. One of the Decider's more clandestine close advisers, is Henry Kissinger. Their meetings are said to occur privately, several times a month. A quote from Kissinger may give us some insight to a potential warning from the Decider; it may even give us a bit of déjà vu.

• "Today Americans would be outraged if U.N. troops entered Los Angeles to restore order; tomorrow they will be grateful! This is especially true if they were told there was an outside threat from beyond, whether real or promulgated, that threatened our very existence. It is then that all peoples of the world will pledge with world leaders to deliver them from this evil. The one thing every man fears is the unknown. When presented with this scenarios, individual rights will be willingly relinquished for the guarantee of their well being granted to them by their world government."
  -- Henry Kissinger in an address to the Bilderberg organization meeting at Evian, France, May 21, 1992. Transcribed from a tape recording made by one of the Swiss delegates.

You may want to Google Bilderberg to find out more about the organization. They have a profound impact on our world as the next quote will indicate:

• "We are grateful to the Washington Post, the New York Times, Time Magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost forty years." He went on to explain: "It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subjected to the lights of publicity during those years. But, the world is more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The supernational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national autodetermination practiced in past centuries."
  --David Rockefeller speaking at the June 1991 Bilderberger meeting in Baden-Baden, Germany (a meeting also attended by then Governor Bill Clinton and Vice President Dan Quayle).

Today is the Fourth of July. It's a good day to reflect on the past 232 years. It's a good day to determine where we have come so far, and where are we headed. As we allow ourselves to slip into servitude and wallow in ignorance, we lose our moral authority. We lose our greatness. Our "elected representatives" must truly be elected and must represent us, or we must truly reject and renounce them. Two years ago, the voters established a mandate to end the misguided adventure in Iraq; this week Congress voted $162 billion toward maintaining the fiasco for one more year. The corporate media barely let out a peep. Dissent across the nation is ignored by the media in hopes it will go away...and it's working. Out of sight, out of mind. What will you do?

I wish you a safe and happy Fourth of July.

- Posted by JLM - 7/04/08 12:55

Untouchable - Unfathomable
Friday, July 11, 2008

The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution took a serious nose dive this week as Congress voted the Decider, Darth Vader, and their willing accomplices the telecom giants yet another get-out-of-jail-free card. W signed into retroactive law a provision that would protect his administration and their corporate enablers from prosecution for wire-tapping and eaves-dropping on the conversations of millions of Americans without bothering with a pesky warrant. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978 was adopted in order to clarify the constitutional limits of electronic surveillance in light of today's technological advances. To make a long story short, the Decider wanted massive surveillance of virtually all calls to or from any country outside the US. FISA allowed this, however a warrant was needed. If time would not allow for the expedient request of the warrant, FISA allowed the surveillance but the request for warrant must come within three days of the commencement of said surveillance. Well, that leash wasn't long enough for this administration. Instead, they decided to ignore FISA and the Constitution. They (the Bush Administration) broke the law. Now, instead of prosecuting, the Democratic led Congress (including Barak Obama) has granted retroactive immunity to the Criminal-in-Chief. Why? Well, money of course! Check out the little news video below, and let the light shine in.

Legal action is already being pursued to over-turn this affront to the Constitution, and will undoubtedly reach the Supreme Court before it can be remedied. Of course the action could die prior to reaching that level, in which case we have just witnessed another nail being set in Freedom's coffin. Should the action reach the Supreme Court, well ...this Court is a quirky bunch to say the least. We certainly have the biggest government that money can buy.

Once again, I am reminded of why I declared my independence from political parties. Having NPA (no party affiliation) stamped on the voter card is a personal declaration that says, "no, I won't get in that box." Why should we declare a party affiliation anyway? This isn't college football with the red team and the blue team. The dominance of the two-party system is not healthy for America. Us against them. Maybe party affiliation makes sense if you are running for office, but we the voters should be left our privacy and our obligation to always seek the moral high ground. That being said, there is no way I would ever let any grandson of John McCain move in next door and marry my daughter! Well, maybe if he paid me what the Telecoms paid him... Nah!

You have to wonder though, about Democrats that would protect a man who evidence suggests did not actually win a presidential election; protect him though he allegedly lied to them to get them to grant him permission to attack a country that was little threat to us (and had nothing to do with 9/11), and then proceeded to destroy that country; a man that tortures in violation of international law; a man that has our country reeling economically; a man that has destroyed our reputation abroad; a man that thumbs his nose at the writ of habeas corpus, imprisoning people for years without even filing charges against them; a man who oversees the illegal exposure of a CIA agent, thus endangering the lives of people who's job it is to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of terrorists and rogue states; a man who ...well this is getting absurd and I won't go on. Nonetheless, why would the so-called "opposition party" enable him and protect him from prosecution? Does this make them (including Obama) guilty of obstruction of justice? Will they protect him long enough for him to attack Iran? Should that happen, industry experts are saying $12 per gallon of gas is a real possibility within a few months of any such attack. Yes, $12 per gallon.

For those that read the Bible, you may want to take a look at 2 Corinthians 6:17. Maybe it's time to confront our leaders, both Democrats and Republicans. Maybe it's time to use our voices ...and our keyboards. Maybe it's overdue.

- Posted by JLM - 7/11/08 22:55

Living in Fantasy Land
Friday, July 20, 2008

A friend sent me a link yesterday that shows a video which describes the linear system of consumerism in which we find ourselves. The Story of Stuff is about 20 minutes long and a bit simplistic, but entertaining. It rightly shows that we have been led into an unsustainable system that is on the steep slope to disaster. A very few folks have been able to amass incredible wealth from this dysfunctional system to the detriment of all. Additionally, they have and are continuing to con us into believing that the best way to get out of a hole is to dig deeper. The problem is, that we're deep enough now that when we attempt to shovel dirt out of the hole, it only ends up back on our heads. We're burying ourselves.

The Story of Stuff tells us we have become a nation "of the corporation, by the corporation, and for the corporation". Incredibly, the laws of our nation have made corporations into persons; not ordinary persons, but especially privileged persons in respect to tax and bankruptcy protection laws. The incredible thing is that we the people accept this manure. We should change our Pledge of Allegiance to say one nation under corporations, unsustainable, with liability protection for them! Again I'll ask, why did the Robert Nardelli, the CEO who led Countrywide Home Lenders to the point of bankruptcy get paid over $200 million to resign and walk away? You try resigning and walking away, and see what happens! I'll bet you don't do as well as Robert Nardelli. In our blessed country it is one for one and all for one. Sorry, you are probably not the one. Follow the money ...it's all about greed.

Two myths about greed are 1) greed is good, and 2) greed is human nature. Greed is destructive, and it's addictive. It is taught in our society at a very young age. Someday, I may get into that subject in detail, but not today. I'll just add that we need to be teaching compassion, mercy, forgiveness, sharing, and charity. We claim that's what we believe, but our actions don't necessarily prove that to be true. If we began to treat greed like the egregious sin and shame that it is, maybe we could get down to the business of functioning as a people for the good of all.

Thursday, Al Gore gave us a challenge. All the Gore haters on the propaganda channels went into high gear about his lunacy, but the real loony tunes are those that deny the situation and the solution. Gore points out that "we're borrowing money from China, to buy oil from the Persian Gulf, to burn it in ways to destroy the planet." He talks about the common thread in the areas of the economy, the environment, and national security. The abbreviated version is in the video below; to hear the whole speech (well worth the 20 minutes), follow this link.

The fascinating part of the whole concept of energy from limitless sources, whether light, wind, or salt water is that that the inexpensive power we can tap into not only powers our cars, homes, and industry. Inexpensive power for all the people of the world can translate into political power as well. We the people can grow some teeth with this inexpensive, non-polluting, renewable, accessible power!

While we're watching videos, you may want to check out an interview with Congressman Dennis Kucinich. Since it's Kucinich that introduced the 35 articles of impeachment against Bush and Cheney, you may want to find out how that's going. I wouldn't hold my breath, but it's a valiant effort to bring back the rule of law in this country nonetheless, and Kucinich is refreshingly hopeful.

Scott Ritter, former chief weapons inspector in Iraq (the guy that said the weapons had been eliminated, and that attacking Iraq was unwarranted) has and interesting report on Iran. Ritter has proven to be very accurate, and insightful regardless of how the Decider's propaganda machine tries to discredit him, and the article is absolutely worth a read.

One last item for the day; since an extremely critical election is coming up in a few months, we need insist on fair and accurate elections this time around. We can all see the results when we lose that essential of democracy. Here's a little article on Diebold Corporation (the leading manufacturer of computerized voting machines) and a case of apparent voter fraud.

Have a great week, and make a difference.

- Posted by JLM - 7/20/08 23:35

The Answer is Blowin' In the Wind
Sunday, July 27, 2008

The songs Blowin' In the Wind and The Times They Are A-Changin' by Bob Dylan heralded a time of growing awareness and change in America. They were turbulent times (the 60's), to be sure, but change is rarely welcomed by everyone. Change often shifts fortune and power, and those that hold fortune and power resist anything that doesn't represent further rapid amassing of more fortune and power. Ironically, change is the only constant. Sometimes change doesn't come fast enough to please us, and sometimes it doesn't bring the hoped for results; but it always comes.

Often times a visionary will help move that change along. Famed billionaire oil man T. Boone Pickens sees change on the wind, and for a nice change an oil man is becoming part of the solution. Pickens sees $300 oil unless U.S. cuts crude imports according to the Washington Post. $300 per barrel oil isn't the visionary part; anyone with sense enough to come in out of the rain knows that oil prices will continue to rise. It's T. Boone's plan that is interesting (or more significantly that it's an oil man that is pushing this plan). He put together about a 10 minute video outlining his plan utilizing wind and natural gas which can be seen at www.pickensplan.com. It's a must see (so see it).

The sad and shameful truth is that Pickens' Plan could have been and should have been put in motion 20 years ago. Instead, we got trickle-down economics. The only thing that trickled down did so as the elite relieved themselves from a great height on all of humanity. They tried to tell us it was rain, but I knew better. Rain smells good and makes things grow.

If we would have moved to alternatives to oil in the 80's, do you suppose we would be experiencing a safer, cleaner healthier world now? Do you suppose things in the Middle East would be different if we didn't need their oil? Woulda, coulda, shoulda... we're supposed to be grateful that help is finally on the way. We watch the North Pole melt and countless tons of methane gas released into the atmosphere from beneath the once frozen tundra, and we hope it's all going to be all right. I have great faith that the earth will heal. Before the healing can begin, the disease must necessarily be eliminated. As you climb into your car and face the morning rush-hour traffic, ask yourself if we humans are the cure. Yes, I believe the earth will heal; I'll be long gone before then; of that I am sure.

On to the excitement of the day... like who's going to save the world (yeah, right!). I have to hand it to Obama; he is absolutely one of the great orators of our time. Hopefully he'll take note that troop escalation in Afghanistan didn't work too well for the Russians. Anyway, all the talk in the media is about his speech in Berlin. If you missed it, it was called A World That Stands as One. Watch it below.

Meanwhile, a bit of a circus is forming in the House Judiciary Committee around the idea that justice should prevail in the form of an impeachment. Lip service about "high crimes and misdemeanors"... You can read the latest about the impeachment effort at The Nation. Don't expect to see anything about it on CNN anytime soon. None of the major networks are going to cover this. News isn't what they provide. High crimes were certainly committed by this administration, but law is not about justice. Our laws are based on English law, which is about the preservation and "sanctity" of property (the deity of things). Thus it is legal to rob, to kill, to lie, and generally ignore the Ten Commandments as long as you are the government. You then become above the law.

"It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets." - Voltaire

"Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views beyond the comprehension of the weak; and that it is doing God's service when it is violating all His laws." - John Adams

"So long as governments set the example of killing their enemies, private individuals will occasionally kill theirs." - Elbert Hubbard

Follow this link for more coverage of the House Judiciary Hearings.

- Posted by JLM - 7/27/08 14:25

Iran Around... Again
Sunday, August 3, 2008

We experienced the first Iran Around in the 80's. We referred to it as "Iran-Contra", but Iran Around is more apropos. As a brief re-cap, we can recall when on November 4, 1979 the American Embassy in Tehran was overrun by militant followers of Ayatollah Khomeini and embassy employees (about 70 of them) were taken captive. Under the direction of the CIA a secret deal was struck with Iran to release the captives, which subsequently occurred immediately upon the inauguration of Ronald Reagan as the US President (January 1981). The secret deal included US arms to be sold to Iran.

The notion that Congress would approve such a deal, was remote enough that it was not even considered. Instead, a secret operation at the Pentagon (remember Ollie North?) in conjunction with a group at the CIA conspired to secretly sell so-called surplus weapons to Iran, and use the money to finance a covert war against the democratically elected (but too left-wing for the Reagan administrations tolerance) government of Nicaragua. The war was "covert" because again, Congress would never approve. To sum up, weapons payed for by we the taxpayers were sold to the Ayatollah Khomeini regime (at a discount) to finance an illegal war against a Central American country that did not threaten the US. That was Iran Around #1.

Unfortunately, enough of the key players from #1 were able to escape jail that a much needed example was not set. Now we're faced with Iran Around #2. Yes, it's a quite different situation; the similarities are the lies we are being told, and the crimes being committed in our name. For several years now, there have been threats and "saber rattling" coming out of this Administration regarding Iran. They're on the verge of having a "nuculer" bomb, we're being told. I suppose it's like the one that Saddam had(??). Maybe as long as you say "nuculer" instead of nuclear it really isn't a lie?? Well, we've seen worse logic coming out of Washington... Anyway, W the Decider and especially his Darth Vader sidekick Dick Cheney are trying to force a war with Iran. According the the Bible, "...the truth shall make you free", so let's see if we can find the truth and hope it will prevent a war. After all, war with Iran would promise at least a doubling of oil prices, and I'll leave you to your imagination for the rest.

Unfortunately, we have already committed acts of war against Iran. Along with economic war of sanctions and the like, we are also financing a terror group known as the MEK for sabotage and assassinations within Iran. Former U.N. weapons inspector and Marine intelligence officer Scott Ritter is a source that the Bush Administration hates and tries to discredit, because he keeps turning over rocks to expose the slimy creatures hiding beneath. Check out Ritter's article Acts of War to find out what our miscreants in Washington are up to now. Additionally, Seymour Hersch has published an article in the New Yorker, The Bush Administration steps up its secret moves against Iran.

An article by Michel Chossudovsky Iran: War or Privatization: All Out War or "Economic Conquest"? shows the economic aspect of this war with Iran. "Follow the money". It always seems to work, doesn't it. Were you surprised when Exxon and the other giants of the oil industry posted the largest quarterly profits in history this quarter? How were your profits? Were they the biggest in history, or like mine (leaving much to be desired). "But, I have Exxon in my 401K", you say. "That must be good". Have you looked at your 401K lately? If you factor in the strength (opps! weakness) of the dollar, you won't be happy. The wealthiest 1% of the population owns over 50% of all US corporate stock. With that 50% ownership, they control virtually all of it. Market prices are manipulations, mostly aimed at consolidating assets and therefore power. "Mission Accomplished!" as they say.

We have the Washington snake oil salesmen telling us that if we'll just allow the oil companies to do whatever they want, everything will be fine. If you'll send me a check for just $10,000, I have some beautiful swamp land... sorry. Interestingly, we have seen a small fallback on gas prices lately, due to a slow down in demand. It seems $4 a gallon is putting the squeeze on many of us. So, if we lower demand, the supply goes up and the price comes down. That's the way they always taught us in school. Another way to increase supply, is to follow the advice of the following article: Want Lower Gas Prices? Lift AIPAC's Sanctions on Iran. Fortunately, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice are having second thoughts about the "Bomb bomb Iran" (as McCain puts it) scenario. The two of them are bucking the wind, and evidently feel that time is to short, and there's too much at stake to sit idly by. The article Warmongering Loses Ground in Washington gives us a glimpse at what you're not hearing on Fox News.

The sad situation in Haiti is being made worse by the high price of oil, and the soaring price of food (caused by the high price of oil and the quest for bio-fuel). We talked about these folks eating mud before, but now it's becoming a staple. Read all about it: Haiti: Mud cakes become staple diet as cost of food soars beyond a family's reach. And Secret report: bio-fuel caused food crisis.  These people are our neighbors, and you won't hear about this on Fox News either. Somehow, we need to remove greed as the power and the rationale behind governance. Job one is to ensure that our elections in November are free and fair, and that every vote is counted. We must not allow the computerized election charade to continue.

As for encouraging news, some folks from MIT have made a breakthrough regarding solar energy, or at least I hope so. The article is 'Major discovery' from MIT primed to unleash solar revolution Scientists mimic essence of plants' energy storage system. After reading the article, I found it was a bit technically deficient, but we're certainly ready for some serious progress on the solar front. The MIT folks are working off a grant from a private investor, which shows the low priority it has. I mean, what oil man in his right mind would want the world to have free and abundant clean energy?

- Posted by JLM - 8/03/08 15:05

Diversion of Olympic Proportions
Sunday, August 10, 2008

The Olympics are off and running, so to speak. I tuned in for a couple of brief moments this week. The Lithuanians beat the Americans in beach volleyball, and then of course there was the Montenegro team with their eyes fixed on the prize in water polo. Oh my, and I thought the Simpson's were a terrible waste of time... Does the US have an underwater basket weaving team this year?

Meanwhile, life goes on. We find that Russia and Georgia (the country, not the state) have either a small war or a large skirmish in progress. The Iraqi government is now demanding an American time table for withdrawal. Dick Cheney and his clone army of neocons are pushing for an Israeli attack on Iran (right after the election, but while the Decider is still emperor). The oil and coal industries continue to spend millions on lobbying and advertising to make us all accept that they are the future, and to imagine that coal is "clean". Not to mention that McCain talks about Obama more than Obama talks about Obama. I suppose McCain has little to say about himself ...or so it would seem. Yes, life goes on.

A little time to reflect on China is probably apropos during this time of Olympic splendor. After all, China owns enough American debt (US Government bonds) that we need to pay very close attention. The Decider may bloviate about China's human rights short-comings, all the while his administration is promoting torture, suspension of habeas corpus, extraordinary rendition (kidnapping), and spying on Americans without a warrant. In spite of the rhetoric we really need to stay on China's good side. Why? Because if they decided to suspend loaning the US money on a daily basis, our beloved country would find itself in an unimaginable financial crisis. We would be essentially bankrupt (think, banana republic).

How did we become so dependent on a communist country? To call it treason may be harsh, but if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck it just may be a duck (as they say). China is however, not your 'typical' communist country. The Chinese capitalist tradition goes back to ancient times. As a people, the Chinese are second to none in entrepreneurial drive and fascination with financial risk. They are among the greatest capitalists in the world. The Real News Network interviewed famed author and journalist Naomi Klein, who offers fascinating insight on China.

Whether we perceive the events in China to be threatening or not, one thing is certain. China is a major player in the world. Along with the fastest growing economy, they're military might is formidable. I recommend we pay attention to China... and learn to use chopsticks.

- Posted by JLM - 8/03/08 15:05

Foot in Mouth Diplomacy
Saturday, August 16, 2008

A few weeks ago, Georgian troops rolled into South Osentia. Two thousand civilians died, and 40,000 residents were sent on the run. The largest ethnic group in the provence is Russian. They have been have been attempting autonomy for some time, and Georgian leadership felt a little ethnic cleansing was in order. The US media ignored this action, but Russia noticed and acted. Suddenly, John McCain declared "I speak for all of America... we are all Georgians now!" Excuse me? What did he say? More to the point, why would John McCain take the time to spit in the face of Russia? Didn't he learn anything from the Cold War? Was there something unseen in his agenda? Some interesting perspectives regarding the situation came out this week, which take into account the relationship between McCain and his advisors with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili. Robert Scheer, Editor-in-Chief of Truthdig sheds some light on the subject with his article Georgia War a Neocon Election Ploy?

Ah, but McCain is a war hero! He must have a superior perspective about all this! Does he? Does 5 1/2 years in a Hanoi prison cell give him that special perspective? Maybe his time in Hanoi actually gave him PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder). If this is the case, he deserves our respect and our sympathy, but not the keys to our country.

A gentleman who has been fighting the war machine for most of his life is Steve Weismann. Two of his articles were published this week on Truthout, regarding this situation. In the first, Weismann asserts that McCain is far more dangerous than Bush. In the second article he discussed Big Bad Russkies and Nasty Neocons. These are not the types of articles anyone enjoys publishing. We would all prefer to concentrate on the Olympics, or where to go on a summer vacation. Unfortunately, those that would love to corner the Russian bear are not on vacation.

John McCain reminds me of an old song by jazz musician Mose Allison, Your Mind is on Vacation, but Your Mouth is Working Overtime. McCain and his bosom buddy the Decider are already busy trying to stir up war with Iran. That in itself would wreak havoc on our American dream. War with Iran would cripple our military and give us double digit inflation, but risking war with Russia is unthinkable. Would China be our ally? I tend to see China standing back to pick up the pieces, small as they may be. War with Russia would leave this country in a state that would make Haiti look like a wonderful place to raise a family.

Maybe you don't trust Obama. Maybe you think he has a secret agenda. You think he may want to raise our taxes, not to mention his sinister religious / racial agenda. Maybe you believe it because you saw it on Fox News (see the clip below).

If you feel Obama is dangerous, then you should definitely not vote for him. Vote for Ron Paul, or Bob Barr. Maybe Ralph Nader should have a chance, or where's old Ross Perot when you need him? What? Do you think that would be wasting your vote? A vote for Ron Paul is like throwing your car keys out the window? Is it better to throw away your car keys, or to run your car off a cliff? The more McCain tries to drag us into more war, the clearer the cliff scenario becomes. Back in 1968, we used to talk about "exercising your right not to vote". Unfortunately, that got us Richard Nixon.

I remember there was a day that even Dick Cheney seemed reasonable. Here he is speaking about Iraq in 1994.

Ah, the good old days! This must have been before Cheney drank the Kool-Aid. Whatever happened to sanity in government? Whatever happened to "Thou shalt not kill"? Whatever happened to "Blessed are the peacemakers"? Oh yes... that was before Peacemakers became missiles. That was before "onward Christian soldiers". Who is right, the man that sings "bomb, bomb Iran", or the one that sings "all you need is love"?

- Posted by JLM - 8/16/08 14:13

Medicine Wheel Revisited
Sunday, August 24, 2008

There are times when we need to reflect on the basics. We need this reflection in order to make the adjustments that bring us to balance, and to make sense of (or to better understand) the nonsense in which we find ourselves entwined. We've taken a cursory turn around the Medicine Wheel before, but let's take a closer look now. As a reminder, the Medicine Wheel comes to us from our Native American heritage. While our European and Middle Eastern tradition speaks of the "three part man" - body, mind, and spirit -, our Native American tradition includes the element of the natural, or the environment as shown in the adjacent diagram. The four elements of our nature, correspond to the four directions of the compass. The ability to live in harmony with all things is best achieved when we find balance in the center. For Native Americans an understanding of the four elements of the Medicine Wheel is key to the understanding of ourselves.

Life follows a progression clockwise around the wheel beginning in the south. At birth, we know only the natural. We breath, we suckle, we eliminate, we fuss when uncomfortable, and nap without a lot of thought or care. It doesn't take us long to begin the progression toward the physical. We never really leave the natural, we just tend to ignore it as we mature. The phrases "I want" and "give me" herald the development of the physical. This is a very critical time, because though developed at an early age the physical most often dominates the rest of our lives. The desire for ownership and control over others resides in the physical, and the beginnings of these desires come very early in our development. These desires are either brought under control, or enhanced as our intellect is developed. We don't develop in a vacuum; we learn from our parents, our siblings, our friends, and those that are hired to teach us. If we are taught that our achievements are measured by our accumulation of things or power over others, we become lodged in the physical. We may become rich by accumulation by whatever means is available, or we may be come powerful and control those around us. We may just become extremely frustrated because the accumulations do not make us whole and fulfilled. The physical of the west needs to be balanced by the spiritual of the east.

Unfortunately, what little we are taught regarding spirituality usually comes from teachers that have not ventured too far down that path. We're taught to pray, but usually for things rather than for understanding. We pray for health for ourselves or our loved ones, and when we're really feeling "spiritual" we might pray for peace (or victory). Though our motives are pure, we're actually praying for physical enhancements whether for ourselves or others. That said, now consider the purity of the Lords Prayer. We are instructed to ask three things; 1) provision of our natural needs (daily bread), 2) forgiveness for our shortcomings in the physical (debts or trespasses), and 3) guidance on our life's journey (lead us...). That's all; no frills.

Native American spirituality (that of the wheel) is somewhat different than what we learn in our European/Middle Eastern traditions of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. If you were to ask a definition for spirituality of these three great religions, you would find that the central premise is man's relationship with God. Conflict arises when two or more people believe they are spoken to by God, but they aren't being "told" the same thing. When you realize that the whole turmoil in the Middle East revolves around what God allegedly gave to whom, you see that it's all about physical possession and power over the land and now the oil that lies under the land. This is not a spiritual conflict, but one fueled by greed and arrogance.

Now, if you were to ask a Cherokee or a Cheyenne about spirituality, you would hear about the relationship of all things. You would be shown that the Creator made the earth and all it's inhabitants of the same ingredients (proven by science and now common knowledge). True, you wouldn't hear about streets of gold, or celestial virgins; you would hear about transition back to the natural (the completion of the one journey and the beginning of the next) and the connectivity of all things in the universe. You would learn that a toad, a tree, and a rock are all a part of the earth as we are, and that they are also important. We spend billions of dollars looking for "intelligent life" in the universe, but the universe is alive. The Sioux and the Navajo would say to you we are all a part of a living universe.

Consider, most of us have not seen very much of this earth (except on TV), and we consider it vast. Earth is a medium small planet revolving around a medium small star on the outskirts of an ordinary sized galaxy which is one of an estimated trillions (unfathomable in number) of other galaxies that make up what we call the universe. By definition, the universe is everything. By definition, God is the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end (everything). I propose that we save billions of our tax dollars by confining our search for "intelligent life" to Washington D.C., Rome, London, and the other capitals around the world. Who knows, we might get lucky ...probably not.

Our great challenge is to get beyond the physical and begin to understand our relationship with one another and the others that share this earth. Remember that harmony is more likely when balance is achieved. The spiritual is needed to balance the physical, and the natural is needed to balance the intellectual. The key to living in peace and harmony may be to understand the urgency that we go beyond succumbing to the physical as the dominate element of our lives. The beginning of a better world comes as we teach our ourselves and our children to control and balance the lust for power and property, with love for and understanding of the connectivity of us all.

- Posted by JLM - 8/24/08 16:55

Storm Clouds
Sunday, August 31, 2008

Three years after Katrina we await what will hopefully be a storm not quite as intense making its way to a somewhat better prepared New Orleans. One thing is certain, people remember the pain and the horror of Katrina; the evacuation for Gustav is proceeding more orderly and with less resistance. Our thoughts and prayers should all be with the folks living in and around the Mississippi Delta area. Our eyes should be on this storm as well as several other that seem to be lining up in the Atlantic.

We should also keep our eyes on other storm clouds. Our great nation and indeed our world is depending on us to make the right preparations to ride out an approaching storm. Our warming climate has taken us to the tipping point. As the permafrost melts and the tundra becomes not all that frozen, huge amounts of methane gas are being released into the atmosphere. Methane is perhaps the most effective of naturally occurring greenhouse gases. The more the ice melts, the more methane is released. The more the methane is released, the more the ice melts. So what do we do? Drill more? Burn more oil and coal to add more fuel to the fire so to speak? Wishing and talking and arguing won't make the problem go away. The Pentagon reported that global warming is an extremely serious strategic threat that could destroy us.

We've also seen much more than clouds in the Middle East. Our involvement in chasing the oil in the cradle of civilization has nearly bankrupted our country. Not only oil, but the sixty year demise of the Palestinian people assures our status as a most-hated nation. Unfortunately, non of our presidential candidates are showing any promise of helping the Palestinian marathon of horror come to a reasonable end.

Barak Obama said in his DNC speech, that this election is not about the little things; it is about the big things. Wars, economics (jobs going to China), climate, presidential rejection of the rule of law, disregard of the Constitution, torture (yes Virginia, water-boarding is torture as evidenced by several drowned and dead detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan), treason,,, we're on the verge of loosing our country. Yes, this election is more than important. It's critical that we get this ship turned around, if it can still be turned around.

Someone doesn't seem to think correcting America's course is all that critical. Why else would Sarah Palin be selected as candidate for running-mate on the GOP ticket. Aside from being governor of a sparsely populated state for all of 18 months, what has she done? Please note, that having been born in Alaska, I have nothing but endearing thoughts for the state, but who is Governor Palin? Before she was Governor, she was a mayor of a small town. In fact, the town is substantially smaller than the high school I attended! Her husband iworks for oil giant BP, and she sure believes in drilling! Even though burning oil is helping to destroy Alaska, she believes in drilling. McCain first met her in February, and since then has had very little contact. Sunday, he called her and asked her to be his running mate. Well, he's always been a sucker for a pretty face (she is a former runner-up for Miss Alaska). I'm sure she's a very nice woman, and the oil workers in Alaska seem to think she's great, even though she's being investigated for impropriety. It seems she may have fired a State official because he refused to fire her ex-brother-in-law from his position with the Alaska State Troopers. So it begins (and hopefully ends).

The Democrats must none-the-less be especially cautious and watchful of storm clouds. Just as things seem to be going their way is when strange things begin to happen. For a fascinating look at how they are able to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, I recommend you read Robert Parry's article How Republicans Win.

The Democratic National Convention should give Obama a big boost. This man may very well become our next President. If you missed his speech, you should hear what he had to say, so here it is:

- Posted by JLM - 8/31/08 19:21

Déjà vu All Over Again
Sunday, September 7, 2008

Tear gas, percussion grenades, pepper spray, arrests, detention, and release without charges... my, doesn't it sound like the old days! Ah, but it was just last week. We heard a little about it on the news (a token here and a slip-of-the-tongue there), but very little. It makes little sense to report actual news, when you can just put on two political pundits and watch then try to kill each other with sound-bytes. All that spin makes me dizzy. It's interesting though, that this week in St. Paul it was the press that was a major target for the "authorities", who seemed especially intent on singling out independent journalists and activists covering the Republican convention for the Internet and other alternative forms of media.

I remember the smell and the burn of tear gas. I lived in Berkeley in the late '60's and watched the disruption, not as people were "protesting" or rioting and being disruptive. Publicly speaking out against the war in Vietnam was all it took to bring riot police who would proceed to riot. They were well trained to riot, you see. I remember once walking out of my apartment to the sight of three policemen kicking an individual in the head, the ribs, between the legs as a young lady was crying and pleading "don't kick him, don't kick him". Their nightsticks, handcuffs, and all were neatly stowed in their little holsters. I would like to say that I did something about it. I was about 145 lbs. The police totaled about 700 lbs., and they were armed. I kept walking. Where do you go to report that? To the police? You've got to be kidding! It was dangerous then, and it's dangerous now.

When the authorities use violence to quell people as they exercise their right to peaceful assembly, and freedom of speech, the authorities are the criminals. When the authorities arrest and harass reporters that are trying to record the abuse of power, the authorities are the criminals. The right of peaceful assembly, and freedom of speech are rights that are guaranteed to us by the Constitution of the United States of America. The authorities are not the the law (regardless of what they think). They have sworn an oath to protect and defend the law; when they act counter to that oath, they break the law. This is very important. We need to realize, that uniforms and weapons are not the definition of the law. We send our children off to war to fight totalitarian regimes. Shall we then tolerate totalitarianism at home?

"Without free speech no search for truth is possible... no discovery of truth is useful... Better a thousandfold abuse of free speech than denial of free speech. The abuse dies in a day, but the denial slays the life of the people, and entombs the hope of the race."
      -- Charles Bradlaugh

We have seen and discussed ad nauseam the abuses of the Decider's administration. We have witness total disregard for our Constitution, and indeed even attempted reversals of the constitution by the Bushies. This is why in June Congressman Dennis Kucinch introduced 35 (yes 35) articles of impeachment against Bush. Read it, save it, send it to everyone you know. The impeachment will never happen, since (when you include turn-coat Joe Lieberman) the Republicans have the numbers to never allow justice to prevail against this alleged president. Additionally, enough spineless Democrats have had enough of impeachment to last them a lifetime. Nonetheless, the Bush Administration has broken the law (a lot), and violated the Constitution (a lot). If you'll read the Articles, the word treason may come to mind.

In Sicko Michael Moore's award winning documentary on health care, Moore asked why things are so different in France, compared to the US. The answer he received was that in France, the government is afraid of the people; whereas in the US, the people are afraid of the government. I'm not sure that's the answer, but it does cause one to reflect. Here's a quote from Alexander Tyler. He wasn't writing about the United States; Tyler was writing about the fall of the Athenian Republic .

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasure. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most money from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's great civilizations has been two hundred years. These nations have progressed through the following sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith, from spiritual faith to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependency, from dependency back to bondage."

I hope we haven't progressed to dependency, though it would appear so. We need to turn this ship around, and that should be apparent. This upcoming election is extremely important. Please make sure you are registered at your current address. Make sure of your registration now, and in November VOTE! If you're like me and don't like lines, you can request a ballot by mail by contacting the supervisor of elections by phone or on-line. If they only allow that for absentee ballots, make something up. Have your mommy write you a note, but VOTE!

Now let's lighten up a little:

I heard Governor Palin announce that the difference between a mayor of a small town and a community organizer is that the mayor has actual responsibilities. In a town of less than 10,000 isn't the mayor more like the president of a home owner's association? I wonder if she realizes that Jesus was more of a community organizer, and certainly not a mayor. Hmmm...

- Posted by JLM - 9/7/08 18:51

Issues? What Issues?
Sunday, September 14, 2008

It is quite unfortunate that a large percentage (maybe a majority) of the population of America is functionally illiterate. That is... they don't read. Consequently, the future of our great country is dependent on TV pundits and talking heads. Instead of issues, we (as a country) decide who will lead us based on personality, sound bytes, prejudices, and often lies. Paul Krugman of the New York times gave us an article this week entitled Blizzard of Lies. We need to be looking at such issues as, where all our wealth is going (hint, we spend more on military than the rest of the world combined). Where are our jobs going (China, if you haven't noticed)? What happened to the value of our homes (deregulation of the financial industry, i.e. "free market"). When will we be free of foreign oil (never if the oil companies have their way, and they do)? Instead we get fed diversions, and downright stupidity.

I was listening to a debate this morning, and the right-winger declared that Iraq has everything to do with 9-11 as evidenced by the fact that we're fighting "al-Qaeda in Iraq". The lefty let him get away with that falsity. You should understand that the Pentagon calls any anti-American insurgent of the Sunni sect al-Qaeda. It doesn't matter that they are Iraqis that had nothing to do with al-Qaeda, bin Laden, or any attacks on America (with the possible exception of American force now occupying Iraq). Of course if you're John McCain, you expand that definition to include any Muslim that's fed up with American hubris, which explains why he thought that Iran was training al-Qaeda. In fact, Iran and al-Qaeda are bitter enemies, and Iran was the first Middle Eastern nation to offer condolence and assistance following 9-11. How times have changed! Remember those days when America was respected? Middle Eastern expert Juan Cole has an interesting perspective on the realities that exist in the Middle East. His posting - Time to Declare the original al-Qaeda Defeated is must reading for anyone that cares about the future of America. Bottom line, we can't continue to squander our fortune and our future as we have in the last seven years.

Back to McCain, as I watch his "deer in the headlight" expressions, and listen to his stumbling, bumbling responses to questions that really matter (like al-Qaeda, the economy, energy, and on and on), I have to wonder if Alzheimer's is beginning to manifest itself. Actuarially speaking, there's a very good chance that were he elected President, he could not fulfill his first term.

Pop Quiz
Sunday, September 21, 2008

Well, it's been a busy week. The big news item of course is the disaster on Wall Street. You could throw a cliché party to describe the melt down, but we can settle on "chickens coming home to roost". More later... Then there was the "terror DVD" that was delivered by major newspapers in the so-called swing states. It is yet another attempt to frighten the nation into an unwise choice on election day. So many crazy things are happening, that it's very easy to become confused and make a choice based on the last 30 second commercial you saw on TV. Let's put things into perspective with a little pop quiz that I found in Truthout this week. I'm copying it here, not because plagiarism saves time, but because it's essential that we look beyond what corporate media shows us. Don't feel bad if you didn't know any of the answers, but rather be glad that now you have a better understanding. Looking at just one side can of anything can give one the impression that the world is flat. We have enough of those flat-world types in Washington, and we don't need more. So here's the quiz:

  1. How many deaths are there worldwide each year due to acts of terrorism?

    Answer: The US State Department reported there were more than 22,000 deaths from terrorism last year. Over half of those killed or injured were Muslims. Source: Voice of America, May 2, 2008. "Terrorism Deaths Rose in 2007."

    2. How many deaths are there worldwide each day due to poverty and malnutrition?

    A: About 25,000 people die every day of hunger or hunger-related causes, according to the United Nations. Poverty.com - Hunger and World Poverty. Every day, almost 16,000 children die from hunger-related causes - one child every five seconds. Bread for the World. Hunger Facts: International.

    3. 1n 1965, CEOs in major companies made 24 times more than the average worker. In 1980, CEOs made 40 times more than the average worker. In 2007, CEOs earned how many times more than the average worker?

    A: Today's average CEO from a Fortune 500 company makes 364 times an average worker's pay and over 70 times the pay of a four-star Army general. Executive Excess 2007, page 7, jointly published by Institute for Policy Studies and United for Fair Economy, August 29, 2007. The 1965 numbers from State of Working America 2004-2005, Economic Policy Institute.

    4. In how many of the more than 3,000 cities and counties in the US can a full-time worker who earns the minimum wage afford to pay rent and utilities on a one-bedroom apartment?

    A: In no city or county in the entire USA can a full-time worker who earns minimum wage afford even a one-bedroom rental. The US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) urges renters not to pay more than 30 percent of their income in rent. HUD also reports the fair market rent for each of the counties and cities in the US. Nationally, in order to rent a two-bedroom apartment, one full-time worker in 2008 must earn $17.32 per hour. In fact, 81 percent of renters live in cities where the Fair Market Rent for a two-bedroom rental is not even affordable with two minimum-wage jobs. Source: Out of Reach 2007-2008, April 7, 2008, National Low-Income Housing Coalition.

    5. In 1968, the minimum wage was $1.65 per hour. How much would the minimum wage be today if it had kept pace with inflation since 1968?

    A: Calculated in real (inflation-adjusted) dollars, the 1968 minimum wage would have been $9.83 in 2007 dollars. Andrew Tobias, January 16, 2008. The federal minimum wage is $6.55 per hour effective July 24, 2008, and will be $7.25 per hour effective July 24, 2009.

    6. True or false? People in the United States spend nearly twice as much on pet food as the US government spends on aid to help foreign countries.

    A: True. The USA spends $43.4 billion on pet food annually. Source: American Pet Products Manufacturers Association Inc. The USA spent $23.5 billion in official foreign aid in 2006. The US government gave the most of any country in the world in actual dollars. As a percentage of gross national income, the US came in second to last among OECD donor countries and ranked number 20 at 0.18 percent behind Sweden at 1.02 percent and other countries such as Norway, Netherlands, Ireland, United Kingdom, Austria, France, Germany, Spain, Canada, New Zealand, Japan and others. This does not count private donations, which, if included, may move the US up as high as sixth. The Index of Global Philanthropy 2008, pages 15-19.

    7. How many people in the world live on $2 a day or less?

    A: The World Bank reported in August 2008 that 2.6 billion people consume less than $2 a day.

    8. How many people in the world do not have electricity?

    A: Worldwide, 1.6 billion people do not have electricity and 2.5 billion people use wood, charcoal or animal dung for cooking. United Nations Human Development Report 2007/2008, pages 44-45.

    9. People in the US consume 42 kilograms of meat per person per year. How much meat and grain do people in India and China eat?

    A: People in the US lead the world in meat consumption at 42 kg per person per year, compared to 1.6 kg in India and 5.9 kg in China. People in the US consume five times the grain (wheat, rice, rye, barley, etc.) as people in India, three times as much as people in China, and twice as much as people in Europe. "THE BLAME GAME: Who is behind the world food price crisis," Oakland Institute, July 2008.

    10. How many cars does China have for every 1,000 drivers? India? The US?

    A: China has nine cars for every 1,000 drivers. India has 11 cars for every 1,000 drivers. The US has 1,114 cars for every 1,000 drivers. Iain Carson and Vijay V. Vaitheeswaran, "Zoom: The Global Race to Fuel the Car of the Future" (2007).

    11. How much grain is needed to fill an SUV tank with ethanol?

    A: The grain needed to fill an SUV tank with ethanol could feed a hungry person for a year. Lester Brown, CNN.Money.com, August 16, 2006.

    12. According to The Wall Street Journal, the richest one percent of Americans earns what percent of the nation's adjusted gross income? Five percent? Ten percent? Fifteen percent? Twenty percent?

    A: "According to the figures, the richest one percent reported 22 percent of the nation's total adjusted gross income in 2006. That is up from 21.2 percent a year earlier, and it is the highest in the 19 years that the IRS has kept strictly comparable figures. The 1988 level was 15.2 percent. Earlier IRS data show the last year the share of income belonging to the top one percent was at such a high level as it was in 2006 was in 1929, but changes in measuring income make a precise comparison difficult." Jesse Drucker, "Richest Americans See Their Income Share Grow," Wall Street Journal, July 23, 2008, page A3.

    13. How many people does our government say are homeless in the US on any given day?

    A: A total of 754,000 are homeless. About 338,000 homeless people are not in shelters (live on the streets, in cars or in abandoned buildings) and 415,000 are in shelters on any given night. The 2007 US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Annual Homeless Report to Congress, page iii and 23. The population of San Francisco is about 739,000.

    14. What percentage of people in homeless shelters are children?

    A: HUD reports nearly one in four people in homeless shelters are children 17 or younger. Page iv, the 2007 HUD Annual Homeless Report to Congress.

    15. How many veterans are homeless on any given night?

    A: Over 100,000 veterans are homeless on any given night. About 18 percent of the adult homeless population are veterans. Page 32, the 2007 HUD Homeless Report. This is about the same population as Green Bay, Wisconsin.

    16. The military budget of the United States in 2008 is the largest in the world at $623 billion per year. How much larger is the US military budget than that of China, the second-largest in the world?

    A: Ten times. China's military budget is $65 billion. The US military budget is nearly 10 times larger than the second leading military spender. GlobalSecurity.org

    17. The US military budget is larger than how many of the countries of the rest of the world combined?

    A: The US military budget of $623 billion is larger than the budgets of all the countries in the rest of the world put together. The total global military budget of the rest of the world is $500 billion. Russia's military budget is $50 billion, South Koreas is $21 billion, and Irons is $4.3 billion. GlobalSecurity.org.

    18. Over the 28-year history of the Berlin Wall, 287 people perished trying to cross it. How many people have died in the last four years trying to cross the border between Arizona and Mexico?

    A: At least 1,268 people have died along the border of Arizona and Mexico since 2004. The Arizona Daily Star keeps track of the reported deaths along the state border, and it reports 214 died in 2004; 241 in 2005, 216 in 2006, 237 in 2007, and 116 as of July 31, 2008. These numbers do not include deaths along the California or Texas borders. The Border Patrol reported that 400 people died in fiscal 2206-2007, while 453 died in 2004-2005 and 494 died in 2004-2005. Source The Associated Press, November 8, 2007.

    19. India is ranked second in the world in gun ownership with four guns per 100 people. China is third with three firearms per 100 people. Which country is first and how widespread is gun ownership?

    A: The US is first in gun ownership worldwide with 90 guns for every 100 citizens. Laura MacInnis, "US most armed country with 90 guns per 100 people." Reuters, August 28, 2007.

    20. What country leads the world in the incarceration of its citizens?

    A: The US jails 751 inmates per 100,000 people, the highest rate in the world. Russia is second with 627 per 100,000. England's rate is 151, Germany's is 88 and Japan's is 63. The US has 2.3 million people behind bars, more than any country in the world. Adam Liptak, "Inmate Count in US Dwarfs Other Nations'" New York Times, April 23, 2008.

Now, back to this weeks disaster; the Decider wants taxpayers to pay $700 billion to bail out Wall Street for its reckless investments in mortgage-backed securities. That's on top of $800 billion for other recent bailouts, including A.I.G., Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and Bear Stearns.  Even I can figure out that adds up to around $1.5 Trillion. If you think that will be the end of the mess, you most be drinking that funny cool-aid. Unfortunately, the trillion figure is far to great to be within our comprehension.

The current financial disaster is the direct result of deregulation, corruption, and greed (business as usual). I spent a few years of my life as an registered agent (series 7 & 24), helping folks with investments and retirement planning and personal insurance. The education that I gained in per suit of licensing led me to realize that Wall Street is little more than a huge casino. You may win, or you may loose, but the firm that handles your account always wins. It seems that casinos are actually better regulated than Wall Street. I have often said that when you make up the rules of the game, you generally win. Now we have CEOs strapping on their "golden parachutes" and sailing away with millions at tax payers expense.

Actually, since the US is already in a terrible financial situation of indebtedness, the money will initially come not from taxpayers (we're broke), but from (you guessed it) China, Saudi Arabia, etc. In short, a $1.5 trillion bailout is not a solution; it's a band-aid on a cancer. It's a shovel to dig us into a deeper hole. If you are curious as to the diabolical mechanisms that got us into this mess, I suggest you read an article in Global Research entitled Financial Bailout: America's Own Kleptocracy by Michael Hudson.

What can you do for yourself in this situation? Remember to buy low and sell high (which means this is no time to sell). If you're going to invest, take the time to understand your investments, and the rules of the game. Don't react on emotion; you will lose. To end with another cliché - been there done that! Oh yes, and it's high time to throw the bums out!

- Posted by JLM - 9/21/08 11:55

Debate Results are Always Debatable
Sunday, September 28, 2008

Candidate debates are generally farcical to me, in that results are always just a matter of opinion. After the much anticipated debate, do we really think any McCain supporter has a changed view, and likewise for Obama supporters. The old adage, "do confuse me with the facts, I've already made up my mind" usually applies. Actually, Friday night was a characterization of misdirection and muddle. Fact checks abound on-line, but most sites have an agenda exposed by which facts they actually check. PolitiFact.com seems fairly straight-forward, and has a fun "Truth-O-Meter" for counting the score. Even the "Truth-O-Meter" has trouble with politicians, and has to include the categories of "mostly true", "half true", and "barely true". With so many categories of truth, will the truth ever set us free?

Amazingly, after 7 1/2 years of Republican rule in the Executive, Judicial, and Legislative branches (with the exception of stalemate power of both parties in the Legislative branch for the last 20 months), some people are still unsure about whether or not a change is desirable. You may think of these folks as cave dwellers, but please have a little patience, and encourage them along. I'm not much for polls, but the following my be of interest:

CBS News and Knowledge Networks conducted a nationally representative poll of approximately 500 uncommitted voters reacting to the debate in the minutes after it happened.

Thirty-nine percent of uncommitted voters who watched the debate tonight thought Barack Obama was the winner. Twenty-four percent thought John McCain won. Thirty-seven percent saw it as a draw.

Forty-six percent of uncommitted voters said their opinion of Obama got better tonight. Thirty-two percent said their opinion of McCain got better.

Sixty-six percent of uncommitted voters think Obama would make the right decisions about the economy. Forty-two percent think McCain would.

Forty-eight percent of these voters think Obama would make the right decisions about Iraq. Fifty-six percent think McCain would.

Uncommitted voters are those who don't yet know who they will vote for, or who have chosen a candidate but may still change their minds.

The margin of sampling error could be plus or minus 4 percentage points for results based on the entire sample.

If you weren't able to see the debate, you may want to watch it now (or later).

A little change of subject; I thought you might find this article on Chryslers electric sports car, jeep, and minivan interesting and encouraging.

- Posted by JLM - 9/28/08 12:12

Shuffle and Grin
Sunday, October 5, 2008

One more month and we can refocus our attention away from the election and toward other subjects that deserve some attention. For now though, let's turn to Thursday night's VP candidates debate. I don't recall ever seeing a debate where a participant was so blatantly allowed to ignore the questions. Moderator Gwen Ifell was doing her best not to appear biased in any way, after the McCain camp had been declaring her preference for Obama all week. Consequently, Mrs. Palin enjoyed ignoring many questions, and addressing only areas where she was well rehearsed. Instead of debate, we ended up with bait and switch.

Palin has a nicer smile than Biden, along with a cute wink (maybe learned from George Bush), but did she win? Once again, in order to identify the true winner it is best to look at the opinions of the uncommitted (thus eliminating the cheer leaders for each side). According to the CBS Poll of Uncommitted Voters Biden walked away with the debate. Pundits can spin it any way they like, but November 4th is what counts. The debate appears to have moved the advantage toward the Obama/Biden camp. Still, the Governor didn't fall on her face, and had a good showing; unless of course you consider the evasion of the question technique. Apparently, her recent flubs in media interviews convinced her handlers that shuffle and grin is better than straight answers. As for the facts, it was fairly even, with Biden slightly ahead - CNN Fact check. If you missed the debate, here it is:

This week's other item of interest of course, is the bailout of Wall Street. We all we're resigned that this would take place, and we're being threatened with a Great Depression re-run if the bail-out did not happen. The skeptic in me (formidable, I know), tells me that this was not caused so much by "greed on Wall Street" as it was a major manipulation to transfer a huge amount of power into the hands of the few that already hold a near monopoly on power. The subject is lengthy and complex, but for now and in the next several months it will be interesting to see who (aside from taxpayers) takes a dive, and who profits and gains power. "Follow the money". These folks are not invincible as they would have us believe. There is power in knowledge, so let's keep our eyes and ears open. After all, it's our lives and way of life that are in play.

- Posted by JLM - 10/05/08 12:25

Filthy, Grimy, and a Little Bit Slimy
Tuesday, October 14, 2008

By the title, you probably think the reference is to this weeks political nastiness. Actually, it refers to another obnoxious situation, but the beyond-the-pale attacks will need addressing as well. I was listening to a discussion between a "clean coal" spokesman and an environmentalist on Democracy Now, which was quite enlightening (click here for the video). We hear a lot about "clean coal" these days ...for something that doesn't exist! There are no (zero, zilch, nada) clean coal plants in existence. There are blue-prints, but no plants. If they started to build one today, it's estimated that the plant would exist in 8 - 10 years. The plan is that carbon emissions would be captured (but not eliminated). Of course, coal mining operations would continue to remove mountain tops and generally pillage the land. Eight years is a long time for a power plant; about the same time it takes to build a nuclear plant (or nucular plant if you are of the Bush/Palin persuasion). Likewise, if we "drill, Baby, drill" we're looking at 5 - 10 years before we reap the dubious blessing of bringing up any of that slimy earth killing goo.

Why then, do we hear Obama repeatedly calling for "clean coal", and McCain (who also likes "clean coal" and unicorns) is whistling "drill, Baby, drill" and "nuke the juke"? All together now... FOLLOW THE MONEY! In fact, the environmentalist in the above mention discussion mentioned two web sites that shed some light on the lunacy: followtheoilmoney.org and its cousin followthecoalmoney.org. You'll notice that oil contributed $1.2 Million to McCain and $435 Thousand to Obama. Now we know why McCain likes the taste of oil. Coal didn't contribute near as much (though still quite substantial), and they spread the money more evenly. It seems both candidates are deluded regarding coal. Of course the fact that the principle owners of Exxon/Mobile (the Rockefellers) are also the dominate force in the coal industry undoubtedly enters into the fray, but that's another story.

We've touched on T. Boone Pickins' plan of immediately beginning to switch cars to natural gas, and the electric grid to wind and solar. This is an very good plan, even if it was described in detail in a 1992 book called "Earth In the Balance" by then Senator Al Gore. Very few are mentioning the best fuel on earth. Once again, we need to consider that the ocean is made up of hydrogen and oxygen; each gallon of water contains over 1800 gallons (by volume) of hydrogen and oxygen gas. Hydrogen and oxygen gas is what propels the space shuttle, and from what I've seen that baby hauls! When you burn hydrogen, your emission is water; you can never use it up, because it recycles itself. It doesn't pollute, nor does it contribute to global warming. So what's the hold-up? It would seem that the politicians are waiting for some water tycoon to come along and fund their campaign. Until that day, I recommend that whenever a politician spouts off about an energy plan, we chew on some of our favorite antacids.

Speaking of pollution, we can get back to politics now. Check out the benediction for a McCain rally. The cleryman actually gives God a warning (threat??) of the consequences of a loss by McCain. Interesting...

While we're on the subject of the lunatic fringe, check this out:

Not only is it getting crazy, it's getting downright dangerous out there. If Obama wins, it will definitely be God's fault.

- Posted by JLM - 10/14/08 17:15

The Great Heist
Sunday, October 19, 2008

The past week has been very good to Barak Obama. He finished the debate Wednesday night with another win, giving he and Joe Biden four wins for four debates. The polls continue to show him gaining, and many battleground states are showing a tendency toward the Obama ticket. This mornings endorsement by General Colin Powell may have been the icing on the cake. Still, there is an election in three weeks, and we all know how (I'll be kind) unpredictable US elections can be.

First on the agenda of the next president will have to be the great heist. What great heist? The Wall Street bailout, of course. You'll notice that the government's bailout is being aimed primarily at the financial institutions rather than the homeowners and the defaults on mortgages that are supposedly at the root of the crisis. The better solution would be directed at refinancing the suspect mortgages and paying off the foreclosed ones. This action would restore the value of the mortgage-backed securities that are threatening the financial institutions. If the value was restored, the crisis would be over.

We hear that the homeowners irresponsibly took on loans they could not afford to pay, and that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were trying to expand home ownership in a reckless fashion, which helped create this increasing number of defaults. While that may be part of it, that's not the entire problem. Many of the mortgages were fraudulent, with interest rate escalator clauses that were not adequately explained to the buyers. These adjustable rates push up rates beyond the homeowners ability to pay. All this was based on an easy-money policy at the Fed, which pushed interest rates so low that it created a housing boom. A lot of people were given 100% (+) mortgages, because the rise in the housing price was expected to provide the equity. Oops! Talk about lipstick on a pig! This policy hit lower incomes groups, but it also hit middle and upper-middle income home buyers as well. Naturally, the home buyers are not the ones that will benefit from the bailout. Instead, the bailout goes to the banks and mortgage companies that duped the public. As they say, "them that gots, gets. Them that don't, don't".

Treasury Secretary Paulson's original plan was to give the Secretary of the Treasury $700 billion with no accountability and give him complete control over the financial system. Democracy? Hardly. If you control the financial system, you control the economy. Instead of this dangerous dismantling of the constitution, it makes so much more sense to just refinance mortgages, like they did during the Great Depression. This bailout instead takes troubled financial instruments off the balance sheet of the banks and puts them on the balance sheet of we the taxpayers. We're bailing out of the financial institutions that caused the problem. We're rewarding the thieves. The only problem the bailout addresses is the problem of the banks. The foreclosures and the defaulting mortgages will continue as the economy worsens, while nothing is being done to stabilize the defaults or to stop these foreclosures. The money is essentially being stuffed into the pockets of the banking elite that finance the campaigns of our Washington degenerates.

Some Democrats say that this is the end result of a deregulatory frenzy that began in the Reagan administration, but the Reagan administration didn't do any financial deregulation. In 1999, in the Clinton administration repealed the Glass-Steagall Act, which was the Depression-era legislation that separated commercial banks from investment banking. Of course that both houses of Congress were controlled by the Republicans, but Clinton willing added his rubber stamp. In 2000, they deregulated all derivatives, which made Wall Street more exciting than Vegas (hopefully tax payers won't be asked to bail out the casinos next). In 2004, Hank Paulson, the current Treasury Secretary, was the chairman of Goldman Sachs. He convinced the Securities and Exchange Commission to remove all capital reserve requirements for investment banks, and thus they were able to drive up their profits by amazing leverage. For example, when Bear Stearns finally went under, it had $33 in debt for every dollar in equity. Now, they claim that they had new mathematical models that assessed risk and that they didn't need these reserves. So Paulson, who was a big part of the problem, wants us to believe we should give him total control over the bailout! Instead of a bailout, these folks (including Treasury Secretary Paulson) need jail time, and a forfeiture of all the billions they fleeced from the American public!

The worst part is that the US is now a financially dependent country that foreign lenders can close down at will. The savings rate in the United States is essentially zero. The government is running huge budget deficits which are financed by foreigners who lend the money. The daily operation of the United States government is financed by the Chinese, Japanese, the OPEC (mostly the Saudis). This is not exactly the financial position of a superpower. American consumption is out-of-whack as well. We consume about $800 billion a year more than we produce. We have an enormous trade deficit, which is also financed by foreigners. They (the Chinese or Saudis) can control American policy just by calling in the debt, or just stop financing the our budget deficit. In short ...we're toast!

We clearly cannot afford a war that costs us $200 billion a year. We can't afford a military spending budget of somewhere around $700 billion a year. When you think of it, it's the Chinese and Saudis who are financing our wars.

Our next President will need to take action to balance the budget and to do something to reduce the enormous trade deficit. Handing $700 billion to the thieves of Wall Street is not a good start. Unfortunately, he will simultaneously need to give our economy a kick-start, and that means more deficit spending (probably on infrastructure). So did Obama have a good week, or did he really step in it now?

On the lighter side, there's always Sarah...

- Posted by JLM - 10/19/08 15:50

Plan Colombia
Sunday, October 26, 2008

The subject of a free trade agreement with Colombia came up in the last debate, with a lively (though brief) exchange between Obama and McCain. It's likely that 99% of the audience glazed over at that point. Media coverage of the affairs of all our neighbors to the south is sketchy, and characteristically slanted. Obama mentioned the targeting of "labor organizers" to be killed. McCain smirked that Colombia is our closest friend in Latin America. At that point, the subject of the debate quickly changed.

Before you glaze over because Colombia doesn't "affect" you, you should understand that it does. When our government spends the money that we pay in taxes to perpetrate a program of crimes against humanity, it affects us. Is "crimes against humanity" an exaggeration? You decide.

You have probably heard that Colombia has been involved in a civil war for several decades; it's not quite that simple. The US instituted a strategy with the Colombian government in the so-called "war on drugs". The strategy, deemed PLAN COLUMBIA actually has much more to do with oil (surprise) than it does with drugs, and although costing we the people billions of dollars it has done nothing to slow the flow of drugs. Why? The drug-traffickers are not the ones being targeted. Their are four main Colombian groups involved:

1) FARC - the rebels - generally made up of indigenous population (Indians), and former farmers that have been forced off their land.

2) Farmers - growers of anything from cocaine to plantains and yucca. In short, anything it takes to keep their families fed.

3) The "paramilitary groups" - Essentially right-wing death squads that are actually controlling the flow of drugs (they support, protect, and often are the traffickers).

4) The Colombian military - generally in league with the paramilitary death squads.

In addition, the US supplies mercenaries (not sure if Blackwater specifically, but similar groups) and the CIA. The focus of what has been called Plan Columbia has been two fold. Herbicides are sprayed from aircraft over farms "suspected" of growing coca. Herbicides are carcinogenic poisons, and they are dumped on all the crops, the farmers, the children, animals, and water supplies. The results of our eradication program is what I refer to when I speak of "crimes against humanity". The toll on the small farmers of Colombia has been appalling. Consider how we would feel if Colombian planes flew over the farmlands of America dumping poisons on the crops and people.

Do we consider this a good use of our tax dollars? Well, maybe (some idiot might say) ...if it cuts the flow of cocaine. It hasn't. It hasn't even substantially increased the price of cocaine (which of course would make the product more profitable). What it really accomplishes though is to make it more difficult for the FARC rebels to receive the food, water and supplies they need to continue their war against the government and it's efforts against the small farmers. The most important thing to realize is that FARC is occupying the space that the oil and natural gas companies want to access. Dead farmers and dead rebels don't hinder oil operations.

The "union organizers" to which Obama referred, are in opposition to the government's efforts to eliminate all who are occupying much sought after oil lands. Accusations are hurled at both sides. Organizers are called "communist" (like those that would vote for Obama are being called her at home). Not to fear; the US has lots of money, spies, and assassins to help stir the pot. What would be a more reasonable approach?

First and foremost we need to stop spraying farms, sending entrepreneurial assassins, and our tax dollars to exacerbate the problem. We should do all we can to bring about a political solution to a civil war that has raged on for decades. We need to end the CIA mission of destabilization of democratically elected Latin American (or any other) governments that are intent on improving conditions for their poor (health care, education, you know ...all that socialist stuff).

You've hear it said that you cannot spread democracy by gun-point, and it's true. You end up with quagmire (i.e. Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, et al). Dr. Martin Luther King once said, "One day we must come to see that peace is not merely a distant goal we seek, but that it is a means by which we arrive at that goal. We must pursue peaceful ends through peaceful means", or as John Lennon put it, "all we are saying is give peace a chance".

It's a privilege to pay taxes in America, but I remember a preamble to the Constitution that reads:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

For promoting the general welfare, we can proudly pay taxes; for crimes against humanity? For torture? For fomenting unjust wars? To pad the pockets of the rich and powerful? Maybe it's time to say, "thanks, but no thanks".

You have to wonder why it seems that our government is involved in so many nasty little secrets, and the press is so well behaved in not reporting these deadly and immoral deeds. Jack Nicholson's famous line in the movie "A Few Good Men" says it all, "The truth? You can't handle the truth!" So our government chooses to keep us barefoot and ignorant; they believe we can't handle the truth. Actually they're afraid of an informed public. A 2003 documentary on the subject is available through Netflicks and Amazon. It's called, Plan Colombia: Cashing in on the Drug War Failure. I strongly recommend it.

But speaking of "thanks, but no thanks", here's John Stewart.

- Posted by JLM - 10/26/08 18:24

The Closing Argument
Tuesday, October 28, 2008

- Posted by JLM - 10/28/08 18:58

When Nine is More Than Ten
Sunday, November 2, 2008

You can't move on until you get your wheel out of the ditch. Likewise, we can't move on from so-called "questionable" elections until the problem is fixed ... and it isn't ... yet. In 2000 the Supreme Court transcended the law of the land by interfering with the election in Florida (stopping the vote count). Consequently, although nationwide over 500,000 more people voted for Gore than for Bush. Bush won the election by one vote by a Supreme Court justice. So much for justice. That day said volumes about democracy in America; we don't have it. Between hanging chads, illegal confusing ballots, missing ballot boxes from predominately democratic precincts in key states (i.e. Palm Beach County, Florida), election day intimidation of voters and registered voter purges it was obvious that some very powerful people replaced an election with a three-ring circus.

In 2004 we returned to the Big Top, and "electronic voting" took the center ring. The number one provider of voting machines that year was Diebold. The CEO of the Ohio based company guaranteed "W" the election in Ohio. Between Ohio and Florida, several precincts turned in more votes for Bush than they had registered voters ... a lot more. It was so bad that Congress investigated (Ohio only). The results of the congressional investigation were published in a book, What Went Wrong in Ohio. That link is the whole book, so be patient with the download. If you want the short version ... the election was stolen; Kerry actually won the election. Two questions come up. How was it done, and why wasn't the election overturned. The answer to the first question, is answered in the book. There was so much going on, it's breathtaking. Remember that the investigation didn't cover Florida or New Mexico, both of which had similar evidence of theft. A Kerry win in any of these three states would have given Kerry the election. The answer to the second questions ... when the party that stole the election controls the House of Representatives, the Senate, the Supreme Court, and the Presidency we get what we got (and it isn't democracy).

In 2006, the Democrats took back the House, and broke even in the Senate. Once again the election had irregularities (I'm being kind), and it could have been much stronger win for the Democrats. Sour grapes? I don't think so. Laws, especially election laws should be enforced to the maximum; they protect our democracy. Because the laws weren't enforced, our great nation is in serious trouble.

That brings us to this year. I heard some pundants say that Obama will need to win be at least 10% in order to actually take office, do to election shenanigans. Some things have improved; Florida is now back to paper (chadless) ballots, but optical scanners that count the ballots can be easily hacked as well. At least there's a real paper trail. A computer programer from the Orlando area, Clint Curtis was asked by a powerful Republican legislator to create vote-rigging software for electronic voting machines. This video tells the story.

It doesn't stop with machines or the vote counts. Disenfranchisement is also a major problem. The Colorado Independent reports more than 3,000 registered Coloradans barred from voting. That's the tip of the iceberg. Once this "rogue regime" is no longer in power in the US, we need to make righting the election ship an absolute priority (along with saving the country from bankruptcy, ending the illegal war, dismantling the Bush doctrine of preemptive war, fixing health care, etc., etc., etc.) A good place to start fixing the election process would be with that Congressional report on Ohio. How difficult can it be to have a fair and open election? They did it in Venezuela.

Two weeks ago, in The Great Heist, we looked at the financial situation the new president will face. A must read (and not too lengthy) article on the subject is Death of the American Empire by Tanya Cariina Hsu.

Last week we considered our not so honorable strategies in Colombia. This week, the NY Times shed a bit more light on the situation: Colombia Lists Civilian Killings in Guerrilla Toll.

Oh yes, in case you missed it ...

Vote! Please!

- Posted by JLM - 11/02/08 16:11

Yes, We Can!
Wednesday, November 5, 2008

The dawning of a new era has come. A herculean task awaits, but "yes, we can!" The victory speech is below.

Now, the nation can begin to heal. Now, we can move on. Now, the real work begins.

- Posted by JLM - 11/05/08 09:22

STOP WARS
Monday, November 11, 2008

Here we have star Natalie Portman letting us know her attitude toward war. Thankfully, the election campaign is behind us, and the next several weeks President Elect Obama will be assembling his team and preparing to sweep into action. In the meantime, let's take a look at some of the obvious and less obvious wars we can address in the coming weeks.

The first war that needs to stop is the war between people that identify themselves as either Democrat or Republican. As Obama has stated, we are not a red America or a blue America; we are the United States of America. We may come to realize that there is much more to unite us than to divide us. I sincerely hope we can come to that realization, because this nation really needs some unity in order to effectively address the many problems facing us.

On Veteran's Day, the best way we can honor our veterans is to never send them into harms way under false or frivolous pretenses, and to care for them should they be called upon. The most obvious wars that need to end are the physical wars in the Middle East which are based more on fantasy than fact. If we are to bring this nation back from the brink of insolvency, we need our resources applied here at home. Those that joy in claiming the Obama agenda is pure "tax and spend" and is far too costly are ignoring the elephant in the room. The wars in particular, and our overblown military budget in general are breaking our national back (not to mention our national bank). Our military should be strengthening our nation, but poor management of military finances has weakened us to a very dangerous point. If you spend all your money on guns and none on food, you'll starve to death. A song from Spanish singer / songwriter Alberto Cortez speaks of Juan Comodoro, a man who was looking for water but found oil ... but he died of thirst. Our military needs to be our strength not our demise.

There's the war on our environment that we wage again to our peril. Thankfully, the movement to renewable non-polluting energy sources has a host of advantages: 1) It can slow, and (maybe) reverse the devastating trend of global warming; 2) it can provide jobs and other financial advantages here in the USA; 3) it can make us healthier (clean air and water are beneficial to living creatures); 4) it can reduce our tendency to want to go to war for control of the oil fields. When you consider all the benefits, you may conclude that those who would abuse the environment for whatever (greedy) reason are not the sharpest tools in the drawer. The war on the environment needs to stop.

Wars on social problems and / or tactics such as the "War on Drugs" and the "War on Terror" need to stop. These type "wars" are wars that cannot and will not be won. We need to look for solutions to challenges rather than declaring war on anything we perceive as a problem. In the early '70's I was working for an NBC affiliate television station. Their evening news program was called the Nightly News, and as a Technical Director I was obliged to watch and listen each evening. We were trying to negotiate an end to the Vietnam war, and the news anchors always referred to our opposition (whether Viet Cong, North Vietnamese Army, or the North Vietnamese government) simply as "the enemy". It occurred to me that it would be much easier to make peace with these people if we referred to them by the name of their choosing. In 1967, heavy weight fighter Ernie Terrell learned that lesson well. He insisted on calling Mohammad Ali by his former name of Cassius Clay. Ali was merciless as he kept taunting Terrell asking, "What's my name". In the end, Terrell called him Mohammad Ali. Names matter, and the name "War" should be reserved for the real thing. Most problems are better dealt with diplomatically. Certainly, inanimate objects, tactics of desperation, and social problems are not solved by war. Again, it's a waste of money and it doesn't get the job done.

Armageddon - to my Christian friends, I urge you to spend more time with the "the sermon on the mount" and less time trying to figure out the Book of Revelations. In fact, you and the whole world would be much better off if you attempted to live by the words of Jesus, rather than trying to be a prophecy buff bent on forcing the return of Christ. Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God. Are you a child of God? Whether you are Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, or whatever, if you consider yourself a "child of God", you really should be a peacemaker. Focus on helping the poor rather than condemning them. Make brothers out of your enemies. If you aren't a religious person, it's still a good idea. Peacemaking can give you an inner peace. It's also good sound fiscal policy, because the cost of war is too high to bear. Think of it as "promoting the general welfare". Hey ... it's constitutional.

In the coming weeks (current events allowing), we'll take a look at some of these wars and their possible peaceful solutions. In the words of Jesse Colin Young, "Come on people, smile on your brother. Everybody get together, try to love one another right now."

- Posted by JLM - 11/10/08 11:25

The Great Divide
Saturday, November 15, 2008

In the last entry I stated that the first war that needs to stop is the one between Republicans and Democrats. Unfortunately, this may be the toughest of all. We have been ideologically conditioned, and that conditioning needs to be reversed before we can make any headway. But is it a war, or just a rivalry? Judging from what the New York Times reports as an inordinate amount of threats toward our President-elect, you have to conclude that this is much more than a rivalry. This competition between the parties can lead to treason and murder. This is not a healthy situation.

What's all this Republican/Democrat, left/right nonsense about anyway? The Constitution doesn't mention either one, and yet we have "the aisle" (which may as well be the Berlin Wall) in the House of Representatives and also in the Senate. The Republicans are on one side and the Democrats are on the other side of that "aisle". Even so-called Independents are under extreme pressure to take a side and don't cross the line. In many states (including my own) you can't vote in the primary elections unless you are either Ruplican or Democrat. We Independents get to exercise are right not to vote (yipee), since we are not allowed unless we are willing to declare ourselves a Republican or Democrat. Then there are the debates ... did you see a debate with Obama, McCain, Nader, McKinney, and Barr? I didn't think so; I didn't either, even though all of them were candidates. Who cooked up this two-sided concoction anyway? A little history is in order.

The Republican Party is called "the Grand Old Party", but it's actually younger than the Democratic Party. The Republican Party was started in about 1854 by abolitionists (my, how times have changed) and Lincoln was the first Republican President. The Democratic Party was formed shortly after the Revolutionary War, and Thomas Jefferson was instrumental in that founding. Prior to that, and under British rule, we had the Whigs and the Tories. It seems in most democracies (or more accurately, republics) we have so-called liberals (the left) and conservatives (the right). In the US, we have the two dominate parties, and of course the Democrats are the liberals and the Republicans the conservatives. If you believe that at it's face value, then pay attention ... you're being manipulated.

Much of our modern day concept of political left and right comes from a 19th century German philosopher named Hegel. The real origin though, seems to come from feudalistic times when we had lords and ladies and peasants (genderless sub-humans that worked the land so the lords and ladies could party all the time). Those loyal to the elite power structure (monarchy in most cases) tended to be on the right, and those concerned with the masses tended to be on the left. Interestingly enough, those that were defining the two sides soon determined that ultimate power lies in using the two sides against each other. Think of it as establishing an arms business between two opposing forces, and then provoking war. Forget ethics; it's very, very profitable!

To tell the whole story is far beyond the scoop of this entry, but it does make for some fascinating reading. In the meantime, we should realize that because we happen to want peace does not necessarily make us a leftist, nor does wanting security make us a right-winger. If we are to get along, we need to examine the issues seperately and consider solutions that work for us all.

Image a field with 100 people on it. These people may be sitting around talking, relaxing, flirting, relaxing, and generally doing what people do when not engaged in some task. Now someone comes along with 50 red shirts and 50 blue shirts. The 100 people are divided into two groups (or teams). Goals are established, and rewards are offered to the group that achieves the goals, while great shame falls upon the group that falls behind. Game on! Bets are placed. Now the people that made up the goals and passed out the shirts make money as the people in the red and blue shirts do their level best to make sure they are victorious and the others are vanquished. And so it is. It's all a game ... a nasty little game. The stakes are very, very high. What if we refuse to play?

What if we refuse to register as or think of ourselves as a Republican or a Democrat? What if we decide to vote strictly on the issues and the individuals. What if we demand that primary elections be open to all, and that all candidates that meet established requirements are on the primary ballot. The general election would then be a run-off between (let's say) the top four. I don't have a lot of answers here ... mostly questions. It seems to me that we as a nation and as a people would be much better served by not allowing ourselves to be divided (and conquered). Maybe we should expect our leaders to follow the "Golden Rule" (the real Golden Rule, not "the one with the most gold rules").

Imagine a UNITED States of America, where we do as the Constitution says, and "promote the general welfare". What a novel concept! Partisan politics is not some institution ordained by God. When you look at the divisions the system causes among our people, you may conclude that partisanship is downright evil. Just remember that a skinny little old man brought the mighty British Empire's system of apartheid to it's knees by preaching and practicing non-violence. Gandhi once said, "You assist an evil system most effectively by obeying its orders and decrees. An evil system never deserves such allegiance. Allegiance to it means partaking of the evil. A good person will resist an evil system with his or her whole soul."

The alternative? Consider the words of David Rockefeller speaking at the June 1991 Bilderberger meeting in Baden Baden, Germany (a meeting also attended by then Governor Bill Clinton and Vice President Dan Quayle). " We are grateful to the Washington Post, the New York Times, Time Magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost forty years." He went on to explain: "It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subjected to the lights of publicity during those years. But, the world is more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The super-national sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national auto-determination practiced in past centuries."  But that's a story for another day.

- Posted by JLM - 11/15/08 21:29

The Convenient Untruth
Sunday, November 23, 2008

Untruth sounds so much softer than bare-faced lie. Usually, we don't like to be lied to, but sometimes it's not so bad (as long as we recognize that it is in fact a lie). Wednesday, White House Press Secretary Dana Perino issued the unofficial declaration of "victory" in Iraq. Unofficial because the Decider sent his Press Secretary to issue it, which supposedly would take the edge off the audacity of the statement. It's not so bad because since our original invasion (you remember "shock and awe"), many of us have been saying King George the W should just declare victory and leave. Now that events on the ground have boxed him into a corner, he has decided to do just that. Here's Ms. Perino's statement:

Amazing! She painted this rosy picture the morning after Reuters daily violence report gave the following:

BAGHDAD - Police found 15 decomposed bodies in a mass grave in northern Baghdad's Ur district, police said. Some still had visible marks of gunshot wounds, they said.

BAGHDAD - Two roadside bombs exploding in quick succession wounded two police in Baghdad's southwestern Dora neighborhood, police said.

SINJAR - One person was killed and 13 others wounded in a bomb blast in Sinjar, 390 km (240 miles) northwest of Baghdad, police said.

BAIJI - A militant accidentally blew himself up planting a roadside bomb on Monday in central Baiji, 180 km (120 miles) north of Baghdad, police said. Two others were wounded.

BAGHDAD - A roadside bomb wounded two people in the district of Nahda, in central Baghdad, police said.

BAGHDAD - A roadside bomb planted near the house of general inspector of the Electricity Ministry wounded his son and wife in Qadissiya, southwestern Baghdad, police said.

SAMARRA - Five militants were killed and three others wounded in a four hour gunbattle between al Qaeda fighters and a U.S.-backed Sunni Arab security patrol near Samarra, 100 km (62 miles) north of Baghdad, said Samarra police Colonel Abdul-Khaleq Saleh al-Samarraie.'

Just another day in Paradise. Baghdad still gets only about four hours of electricity a day, very little potable water, people are afraid to go shopping. Over half are unemployed, over 4 million are refugees, in short ... it's a wasteland.

The agreement being discussed in the video is the so-called SOFA (Status of Forces Agreement) that Bush insisted be passed by July 1. On December 31, our UN mandate (allowing us to stay in the Country) expires. Without the SOFA, we would be obliged to pack up and leave. Bush wanted an agreement that would allow us to stay indefinitely, manage their commerce (oil), and be immune to Iraqi law. He isn't getting any of that; instead he's getting the dreaded "time-table for withdrawal". Actually, he doesn't even have that yet. The SOFA passed through the Iraqi Cabinet, and now has to pass their Parliament. The vote will be on Wednesday, and there are no guarantees. Tens of thousands of Iraqis are protesting the agreement in the streets of Baghdad as well as cities all around Iraq. A fight broke out in Parliament the day the proposal was introduced. That's OK, though; we'll call it "victory" and hope it passes.

An immediate pull-out would most certainly rekindle the not-so-dormant civil war, and leave the US with no credibility, certainly no "victory", and most-likely no oil ... oh yes, and none of those flowers with which the Iraqi's were going to greet us. On the other hand, our financial dilemma may become less dire minus the tremendous cost of continuing our efforts(?) in Iraq.

It's fitting that the conclusion of the reign of Bush be punctuated with an untruth; after all, the whole basis for the Iraq War was one untruth after another. First we had connections to 9/11 ... there were none; then we had weapons of mass destruction ... there were none; we would be greeted as liberators ... we weren't; we would be out in six months ... try six years and counting (but who's counting?); the oil would pay for the war ... yeah, right. There is a lie by lie accounting by way of a time-line on Mother Jones which makes for interesting reading. Hopefully, it will make it to the history books; history like this should never be covered up. Also, there's a very pertinent assessment by Truth Out's Marc Ash regarding mistakes and lies Iraq. Still, we can welcome this "victory" lie. It has been a long time coming, and that it comes in the waning days of the Bush regime comes as no surprise. One way or another, it's time to wind this thing down. We should do so in a way that would hopefully inflict the least additional harm on a nation we have already destroyed, so that their nation and ours can begin the healing process. I pray that healing is still possible.

- Posted by JLM - 11/23/08 21:29

Long Live the Queen
Sunday, November 30, 2008

Last Thursday, the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) passed the Iraqi Parliament by a narrow margin. What does that mean? As a short reminder, had it not been passed prior to January 1, the US would have been required to cease all military activity in Iraq and begin immediate withdrawal of forces (fat chance, huh?). Since it passed, the US is obliged to have all forces out of Iraq by the end of 2011 (a time-table for withdrawal). There are still two major complications, though. First, Congress has not even seen the agreement. If they don't have a chance to approve such an agreement, we will have taken a huge step toward a military dictatorship right here in the good old US of A. Secondly, the agreement now is to become a referendum to be voted upon by the Iraqi people in June or July. The chances of the Iraqi people voting to approve are currently slim and none. If they disapprove, the US would then have one year to remove all military forces from Iraq. There are a lot of complications and consequences to the SOFA, but since it hasn't been accurately translated into English yet) details are not abundantly clear. Some feel the lack of a translation is meant to keep the agreement from debate in Congress. Unless you like the idea that the President would have further increased power, you may want to urge your representatives in Congress and the Senate to insist upon involvement. The danger with congressional involvement is the January 1st deadline. If it isn't passed, things could get very interesting.

Speaking of "absolute power", Juan Cole posted an interview with Queen Rania of Jordan this week on his blog. The queen is a Palestinian, and it's worth while for all of us to be very aware of her and King Abdullah of Jordan. If there is to be peace in the Middle East, these folks will be key. Additionally, Queen Rania gives us a different perspective that we should see. What follows is Juan Cole's posting.

Queen Rania of Jordan has for some time had her own channel on youtube and has done a number of broadcasts attempting to clarify the reality of Islam, to present a modernist vision of the place of women in Islam, and to combat extremist interpretations of her religion.

The queen, who (like me) is a graduate of the American University in Cairo, worked at Citibank and Apple Computers in the region before marrying Abdullah bin Hussein of Jordan in 1993 (he is now King Abdullah II). She has been lauded for her work for women's rights in Jordan, and she is a new breed of queen, holding the rank of colonel in the Jordanian armed forces.

The queen was given award as a visionary at the youtube streaming video awards show recently, and accepted it with grace and humor, doing her take of David Letterman's top ten list.

Also check out her more serious interventions. Here is part I of Queen Rania's interview with Fareed Zakaria on women and Islam on CNN:

and here is Part II:

Many thanks to Juan Cole for not only this posting, but for his continually informative blog. Regardless of the fear and loathing that a large portion of our population hold toward the people of the Middle East, our destinies are interlocked. We will never enjoy peace and prosperity in the US until the Muslim world can at last see a measure of peace and prosperity for themselves. Since Islam means peace, and Christian's follow "the Prince of Peace", the task is not impossible. We all just need a little adjustment in our perspectives and our priorities.

- Posted by JLM - 11/30/08 10:12

Priorities and Dangers
Sunday, December 7, 2008

Our government ran out of money several years ago, but that doesn't seem to cause the least hesitation to spend more of what we don't have. There seems to be two choices: 1) print some more worthless paper, and 2) have China print some and loan it to us. Hmmm ... either way the money is based on not much more than good intentions. Still, most economists are calling for spending on a massive scale, and our President-elect seems more than happy to oblige. Christmas this year is being delayed until January 20. If you think Wal-Mart is dangerous the day following Thanksgiving, just wait! At least that's what we're being told. Over the past three months, we've seen the loss of well over 1,000,000 jobs. Those folks now will file for unemployment, which means government expense goes up while tax revenue goes down. Unfortunately, before these folks are re employed (which may take reeducation) they will suffer further losses to be sure. Interestingly, it took one year to announce that we have been in recession since December 7, 2007. Well, duh!!! Hopefully, a refocus of resources with the intention of promoting the general welfare will be effective enough to pull our nation out of the substantial hole in which we now find ourselves.

The 900 pound gorilla in the room is and will continue to be the inordinately robust portion of our national budget that is spent on military. As a reminder, we're spending eight to ten times more per year than any other country in the world. In fact, the 2009 budget is $514 billion (you can add another $250 billion for items not included on the budget, but will be paid out anyway - such as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan). China's military budget is the second largest in the world at about $50 - $90 billion. We in fact continue to spend more on military than the rest of the world combined. Much of this is on new high tech weaponry programs that are typically over-budget, and over-hyped (not to mention the unnecessary wars that are based on misinformation and innuendo). As we see a sliver of light at the end of the long dark tunnel of Iraq, we find those who sell us wars are busy trying to sell us a few more. Let's consider the one our incoming mighty leader is trying to pitch us ... Afghanistan.

We're hearing that we must finish the job against al Qaeda, so we need to send about 30,000 more troops in to do just that. This is in addition to the 32,000 we currently have in Afghanistan, plus the 30,000 NATO troops. We'll find those additional 30,000 troops in Iraq, and send them directly to Afghanistan. It doesn't really matter that many of our troops are on their third tour of duty in Iraq; what's two or three more tours in Afghanistan for the best troops in the world? We'll have China finance the fiasco, since they've been doing such a fine job financing the Bush boondoggle in Iraq. We owe it to those that died on 9/11 to get bin Laden. By most accounts, we have already directly or indirectly caused the deaths of around 1,000,000 people to avenge those deaths, but bin Laden is still out there ... maybe (if he's still alive). It's certainly doubtful that he's in Afghanistan; in fact, we haven't seen much of any al Qaeda in Afghanistan since 2002 when we let them slip out the back door. So why do we need nearly 100,000 combined troops to fight an enemy that isn't even there? The Taliban. Did the Taliban in Afghanistan plan and perpetrate 9/11? No, that was al Qaeda, and the planning was done in Germany, with pilot training done in Florida. But the Taliban are "the bad guys", or at least that's how our military refers to them (at least that's the printable version). So why are we fighting the Taliban? Didn't we help them overthrow the Soviet allied government in Afghanistan, and didn't we help finance them as they wore down the Soviet Army over a ten year period? We did? Then why are we fighting them now? An excellent article was published this week, entitled Who are the Taliban? by Anand Gopal. Since we're spending a fortune fighting these people, I strongly recommend you understand who they are. Hey, it's your money!

Afghan President Hamid Karzai is trying to convince all parties that a better policy is to negotiate a peace. His logic is that the US has been fighting the Taliban for seven years, and they (the Taliban) seem to be getting stronger. Peace seems like an idea worth pursuing, since our efforts tend to kill more people in wedding parties than they kill Taliban. We send in pilot-less drones with "Hell-fire" missiles. Once in the air, the drones are controlled by computers in Tampa. It sounds like something out of an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie, doesn't it? Former British Foreign Service officer Rory Stewart a makes a great case in a New York Times article , for why we should walk away. We should learn from the British, the Soviets, and so many others that have failed miserably in Afghanistan that we should negotiate a peace. Al Qaeda that we need to worry about is not in Afghanistan, it's in Europe, Southeast Asia, and possibly even America. We need to search out al Qaeda with accurate information, and we need to terminate the policies that make recruiting for al Qaeda so very easy. Yes, President-elect Obama ... it's time for a change!

Just as a reminder, more people die every single day from hunger (about 25,000 a day or 8,800,000 per year) than died all last year from acts of terrorism (22,000). Smoking and alcohol related deaths are also much higher than terrorism. Smoking kills an estimated 440,000 per year in the US alone; and US alcohol related deaths are around 100,000 per year. If you are determined to be afraid, then be afraid of hunger, or cigarettes, or booze. Starving people are desperate people, and desperate people do desperate things. 9 million starving people can be very dangerous ... seriously. It may help to take the pop-quiz again. It's a good thing to keep things in perspective. It's a good thing to have our priorities straight. Just look where misguided priorities and distorted perceptions have taken us so far in this new millennium.

- Posted by JLM - 12/07/08 18:12

Iran Around and Around
Sunday, December 14, 2008

It seems the relentless pounding of the drums of war always drowns out the delicate melodies of the pipes of peace. We have been hearing the dangers of a nuclear armed Iran for the past four years, all the while Iran insists they are pursuing enrichment for power generation. As always, we really need to keep a skeptic's sanity about us regarding what the media giants would have us believe. What we haven't heard is that documents linking Iran to nuclear weapons push may have been fabricated. That's reminiscent of other 'weapons of mass destruction' stories we've heard in the past, isn't it? Are we surprised? Certainly, Iran could have in mind becoming a nuclear state. They are after all surrounded by so many other nuclear states and are probably feeling a bit paranoid. Let's see, next door there's Pakistan, and Turkey (NATO), and very close by are Israel, India, and Russia. Not to mention that the US keeps nukes in close proximity in the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean. Oh yes, and the US is about to sign a nuclear pact with the United Arab Emrates. It's almost like becoming a nuclear power is a matter of keeping up with the Jones. Still, Iran insists it's nuclear ambitions are sticktly for power generation. Iran has a lot of oil; why would they need nuclear power?

This photo of Tehran would indicate that they use a lot of power. The metropolitan area is home to about 14 million people, and there are many cities in Iran. I have read reports that their oil supplies are in rapid decline, and with trade restrictions placed on them, they need to sell as much of the 'devil's blood' as possible to keep there economy going. I know that from watching television we mostly see the Ayatollah's and their devotees, and tend to think these people are living in the 14th century. When you think of it though, many religious leaders walk around clothed in the garb and knowledge of centuries past. Meanwhile, the rest of us (including the Iranian us) has to cope with the world as it is today. While the US crows about bringing democracy to this part of the world, we should remember that Iran was a democracy until 1953. It seems they nationalized their oil industry, and we all know the oil barons don't appreciate that sort of independence. The US overthrew that democracy in 1953 and installed a military dictator (a PC name for Fascist) named Pahlavi, also known as the Shah. As often happens, one tyrant is overthrown by another, and in 1979 an "Islamic Revolution" overthrew the Shah and replaced him with Ayatollah Khomeini. So here we are, talking about 'bringing democracy' to Iran, or as the Decider loves to say "bringing freedom to millions of people".

Iran was one of the first civilizations. They seem to be the first to develop a written language, paper, and the wheel. They had a democracy and were happy with it. If we work with them, they will probably establish it again. Will we get control of their oil and natural gas? Probably not.

Then there is Israel. They hate Iran, because Iran supports the Israeli enemy known as Hezbollah in Lebanon. Additionally, Israel is quite nervous about Iranian nuclear ambitions. The regime in Israel is ready, more than willing, and able to attack Iran right now. There has been a lot of rhetoric regarding the president of Iran saying he would "wipe Israel off the map". The truth is, that isn't what he said. The more accurate translation from the Farsi is that the regime in Israel will be removed from the pages of time. I know, that's not much better, but consider this: the president in Iran has only secondary power. The country is run by the Ayatollahs. President Ahmadinejad's term of office will expire soon, and the chances that he will attack Israel are quite remote.

Until Israel ends the occupation of the Palestinian territories and allows a Palestinian state to be established, the Middle East will remain a tender box that does nothing but suck resources away from the people and into the hands of the military industrial complex. The simple fact is that peace is much less expensive than war. It is more fun, and generally healthier for all living things. Hopefully, as the Bush regime is "removed from the pages of time", our new regime will see the light. We need our resources here at home.

Please watch this very informative short video below, and don't forget to keep a close watch on what our government is doing with our money and in our name.

- Posted by JLM - 12/14/08 13:27

Ponzi and Other Dirty Schemes
Sunday, December 21, 2008

All the media fingers are pointing at Bernie Madoff and his "Ponzi" scheme, and saying this may be the biggest such scheme ever. Investors were bilked for approximately $50 billion! Did it affect you? I have news for CNN and the other media giants. There is a much more insidious scheme being perpetrated that affects everyone of us here in the US and many abroad. This scheme continues to dilute our (yours included) money and our purchasing power. Bloomberg News broke the story, saying "The Federal Reserve refused a request by Bloomberg News to disclose the recipients of more than $2 trillion of emergency loans from U.S. taxpayers and the assets the central bank is accepting as collateral." Bloomberg filed a suit, citing the Freedom of Information act, but the act only pertains to government agencies. The Federal Reserve Bank is not a government agency. It is a privately held corporation, whose chairman is appointed by the President (with the approval of the owners). Just where did it get the $2 trillion to loan? I'm glad you asked.

The Federal Reserve Bank prints our money. It used to be the Treasury (which is a government agency) that handled the money printing, but that ended a very long time ago. Think about this; say we have $10 trillion total US dollars in circulation, and the Fed decides to print another $10 trillion. The dollars are just paper. They used to be based on gold, but that ended a very long time ago as well. They will gain some value, but we'll get to that in a moment. The printing of the additional $10 trillion now gives us a total of $20 trillion in circulation, but since no value was added our dollars actually just lost half their value. It takes a while to realize this loss of value, because prices won't double overnight. Things don't move quite that quickly, but they do move. Just because the Fed doubled the money supply doesn't mean your boss gave you a 100% raise. No, it's more like you just got a 50% cut in pay. Ouch!

So where does the money pick up the value? The Treasury does still do a little printing of their own. They print not dollars but Treasury bonds (which are long-term IOUs), Treasury notes (medium-term IOUs), and Treasury bills (aka T-bills, which are short-term IOUs). These are all backed by the "full faith and credit" of we the people of the United States which is of value. The scheme comes into play when the Fed loans useless paper which is in-turn used to purchase Treasury obligations. If that sounds like money-laundering, you're beginning to get the idea. It's true they use more shells than a normal two armed human being can manipulate, but we'll try to keep this understandable. Ben Bernanke printed more money than you an I can fathom, and loaned(?) it too his buddies (or maybe his true masters). This $2 trillion had nothing to do with the additional $700 billion that his good friend the Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson went to Congress to request. No, Bernanke didn't request the $2 trillion, and he's not going to give details on who got the money, or under what arrangements. Maybe a little glass of wine will help settle your stomach as you realize how much all of this money printing is diluting the value of your bank account (if you still have one).

Congressman Ron Paul in his unsuccessful bid for the Republican nomination for President advocated this dissolution of the Federal Reserve Bank. When you consider that our money supply is totally out of the control of We the People, his idea shows some merit. It may be that we should have a central bank, but that bank should be a true government agency. It's nerve wracking to think of congressional control over anything at all, yet the Constitution does not begin (or end) with "We the Banking Elite". In America, We the People should control We the People's money. True, Congress is flawed and needs attention, but that is attention that we must give. Thomas Jefferson spent a good portion of his life trying to convince the people that our form of government cannot exist if the people are content to close their eyes and follow haplessly along.

The gall of Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson to demand no strings and no accountability on a $600 billion bail-out is breath-taking. That Congress would allow it, is beyond stupid ...it's treasonous. Then we get back to Ben the banker Bernanke ...if you or I print even one worthless dollar we would be put in jail. How much jail time should $2 trillion be worth? Mr. Obama, I hope you have a very large broom! First see the dirt, then point to the dirt, then sweep the dirt (but not under the carpet!). It's really a dirty game, isn't it?

- Posted by JLM - 12/21/08 22:47

Covering the Trail (and the Strip)
Saturday, December 27, 2008

A young man died last week, and now the question remains, 'will the truth be told?' Mike Connell, webmaster and IT director for leading Republicans was killed in a plane crash on December 19th. Connell had worked very closely with Karl Rove (aka 'Bush's Brain), and was very heavily involved in electronic voting in Ohio in the 2000 and 2004, as well as the 2000 Florida elections. He had been deposed and was set to testify regarding vote rigging and computer irregularities in those elections and others. Democracy Now reports that the Velvet Revolution, a non-profit investigating Connell's activities, revealed this weekend that Connell had recently said he was afraid George Bush and Dick Cheney would "throw [him] under the bus." Cliff Arnebeck had also previously alerted Attorney General Michael Mukasey to alleged threats from Karl Rove to Connell if he refused to "take the fall." Requests for government witness protection went unheeded.

It's too late to turn back the clock to the 2000 election, or even the 2004 election. Lacking a time machine, we are stuck with a history of eight years that many in all political parties would like to be able to have a chance for a 'do-over'. Woulda-shoulda-coulda. We can't go back, and frankly it's unlikely that Bush/Cheney/Rove/Rumsfeld and their cronies will ever see justice. You'll recall that President Ford pardoned Richard Nixon of all crimes before he was even indicted in order to "heal the nation", but the nation didn't really heal. Only a full accounting can bring about healing. We have our choice between democracy and tyranny. Whenever an election is rigged or the law is ignored and trampled by those we've entrusted with the keys to our nation, we have that tyranny. Election integrity is where democracy begins; democracy cannot (and does not) exist without election integrity. Yet, when you look closely at the founding of the country, you'll find that free and fair elections were not necessarily given the attention they require or as Gore Vidal points out, "The two things the founding fathers hated were majoritarian rule and monarchy. So they devised a republic in which only a very few white men of property could vote. Then, to make sure that we never had any democracy at work at the highest levels of governance, they created something called the Electoral College, which can break any change that might upset them."

Martin Luther King used to refer to the "fierce urgency of now", and we certainly are experiencing that fierce urgency today. We also may be in the midst of an unprecedented opportunity. Certainly, Barak Obama was elected with change as his theme. At a time when financial collapse heads a long, long list of urgencies, this may be a perfect opportunity to scream at the top of our lungs for the dissolution of the electoral college system. Consider how much more difficult it would be to rig an election if the perpetrators had much more than a few key precincts to corrupt in order to hijack an entire election. It may be that too many priorities are already on the plate, and we'll be stuck with this overly vulnerable system for as long as there is a USA. It is certain, that we'll be stuck with this hole in the system if we don't start requesting a fix. Maybe it's to much to ask that every vote counts, that every vote is counted, and that computer games are not involved in the choices we make at the polls.

While we're on the subject of change (I know... we'll never get off that subject), as I write, the Israeli's are busy bombing the Gaza Strip. FYI, that in itself is a violation of the Geneva Convention. When you are the occupying force, you are not supposed to be dropping bombs on the populace. Neither are you supposed to cut off food, water, electricity, etc. This is not the way to peace in the Middle East. Of course, the US can't really object to such action on the part of the Israeli's, since such tactics have been used in Iraq. We've lost our moral authority. The inhabitants of the Gaza Strip have their choice of being starved, enslaved, and otherwise humiliated, or fight and become martyrs (corpses in other words). The last thing the majority of Israeli's want is to become that which they loath the most, yet their government is intent on making that happen (shades of Bush/Cheney). If you are clueless regarding the current situation in Israel (and yes, it affects us directly), you may want to read an article by Chris Hedges in TruthDig. As always, just click the link. Additionally, Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) recently sent a letter urging Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to ensure that Israel ends the blockade of Gaza. The letter is definitely worth reading.

Supporting Israel should be about helping them to establish peace among their neighboring nations including resolution of the Palestinian dilemma. We have been giving the subject lip-service for over 50 years. With the exception of the progress made by President Carter, we have little to show for our efforts. Israel remains a very dangerous place to be. Hopefully, our new president will show some leadership toward resolution, but maybe that's way too much to hope for. Consider this, though; at a time when we have precious few dollars to send out as aid (worthless dollars at that), why would we prioritize the aid to go to a recipient committing "crimes against humanity"?

- Posted by JLM - 12/21/08 22:47

Designed to Fail
Sunday, January 4, 2009

Think about being on a fixed income that is insufficient to cover your basic needs. You have no way to earn more money, but you have one (and only one) bank available that is willing to loan you funds to cover your monthly expenses. You begin getting monthly bills from this bank that are for interest only. The principle remains, and continues to accrue interest which compounds on a daily basis. In other words, the interest grows like a weed, and you don't have any weed killer. You can't make even the interest payment, so you go back to the bank. Your friendly banker loans you more money at a reasonable interest rate so that you can make a payment back to the same bank for the interest on the original loan. Does this plan seem like sound financial planning? Meet the Federal Reserve Bank and the US Treasury. This is a very stream-lined model, since other banks and Treasury Bills, etc. are involved, but yes, it's that bad! The following three movie clips are from the movie Zeitgeist. They are a somewhat disturbing introduction to the system under which we live. Please take the 20 minutes or so to watch them; you should know this. This affects you. Again, there is simplification and a little exaggeration for dramatic effect. Needless to say, the film is quite controversial. It's easy to stir up controversy when you own the media as well as the government. Still, when you look closely at the system, it was never designed for sustainability. Here are the clips:

We'll get back to the monetary situation in the weeks to come, since our world currently revolves around the dollar. In the meantime, I hope you'll pay close attention to the dramatic moves being made right now by the government, by the Treasury, and especially by the Fed. Our house of cards may be on its way down.

On a different subject, I know the events in Gaza (as well as my comments on the subject) have been disturbing and dividing. When searching for an answer, sometimes it's good to consult a rabbi. Consider this article by Rabbi Michael Lerner. Israel in Gaza: Right but Not Smart.

- Posted by JLM - 1/04/09 15:09

It's the Same Old Song
Sunday, January 11, 2009

Two weeks ago, Israel began taking its revenge specifically on Hamas and incidentally on the population of 1.8 million in what is known as the Gaza Strip. We're told that this all has to do with homemade rockets that Hamas frequently lobs into nearby Israeli towns such as Beersheba, but is that the real reason? Prior to the latest invasion to rid the world of Hamas (which by the way Israel helped to create), Israel had blockaded Gaza. The resulting shortage of food, fuel, medical supplies, electricity, and all those nice little essentials of life were being met with the defiance of the nerve racking explosions of a small rockets. Over a five year period, three Israelis died from the attacks. This of course means that driving a car in Beersheba, or smoking cigarettes put the population in much more danger than attacks by Hamas. Certainly, the explosions are nerve wracking and intolerable, but does it warrant the all out attack by jet fighters, attack helicopters, and drones equipped with 1000 pound bombs, and all the other war toys that our tax dollars have provided the Israelis? Is there another less obvious reason that Israel has decided to obliterate Hamas and a significant portion of the civilian population of Gaza? What in the world could provoke such attack on some of the poorest and most pitiful people on earth? Oh, wait... I remember that tune!

According to author Michel Chossudovsky, "The military invasion of the Gaza Strip by Israeli Forces bears a direct relation to the control and ownership of strategic offshore gas reserves."  Yes, it seems that a huge deposit of Natural Gas was found off the Gaza Coastline in 2000. British Gas (BG Group) made the discovery after signing an agreement with the PLO in 1999. The agreement arranged for any gas recovered from the area to be piped into Egypt, and a share of the profits would go to the Palestinian people. Israel would get zero, zip, goose-egg, nada. So, do you think all the mayhem going on in Gaza is due to homemade rockets, or $4 billion plus worth of natural gas? Have you noticed that not a word about a huge natural gas reserve off the Gaza coast has been mentioned by the propaganda machine we know as "the news" ? Resource wars in the Middle East, Central Africa, and South America are becoming commonplace, but it doesn't mean that they're socially acceptable. Fighting terrorists is noble and necessary, and terrorists are everywhere! You may even be a terrorist, if the FBI has you listed. Still, the prospect of mayhem for profit just doesn't seem politically correct (common, but not PC).

Back in June, I posted the following news story from the local news program of a Fox affiliate in Orlando, FL. As you take another look, think long and hard of the possibilities; then ask yourself why the story never made it to the national media.

This technology isn't particularly new; it's just being well hidden from the public. The problem with the technology is that nothing is actually being consumed, therefore the profits associated with the technology would be inadequate to replace the profits available from oil and gas. When you break down water into it's elements, you get hydrogen and oxygen and nothing else. When you burn hydrogen, it recombines with oxygen to form water and nothing else. Thus, you have a cycle rather than a depletion. If you aren't using something up, how can you charge an arm and a leg. Fueling your world from water is like washing you clothes in a stream (except you aren't polluting the water when you use it for fuel). You have an unprofitable technology that threatens the power structure of the world. There is and will be hell to pay before we are free to fill up our cars and power our homes and our world with a bucket or a garden hose. In the meantime, just because you didn't see it on CNN doesn't mean it doesn't exist. After all, aren't Blagojevich and Sarah Palin so much more newsworthy?

- Posted by JLM - 1/11/09 15:09

Eagles and Turkeys
Sunday, January 18, 2009

It's difficult, they say to soar like an eagle when you're surrounded by turkeys. The answer then, must be to accentuate the positive and avoid the negative. Oh ... that's easy. The tragedy lies in the tendency to close our eyes to the negative, or to ignore it as though it doesn't happen. If we refuse to look, we are indeed blind. It's hard to be "wise as serpents" with our heads stuck in the ground like ostriches. I would be willing to wager that our incoming president is thrilled that people such as Dr. King refused to ignore the negative in our society. He refused to ignore injustice, and was killed by that very injustice; and the whole world owes MLK an unfathomable debt of gratitude.

I know that it's difficult to turn on the news, or pick up a newspaper because of the tremendous amount of negativity therein. Yet, we must not only be aware of current events; we must dig beneath the headlines and the talking heads. Week after week, I find myself writing about the causes of these strange negative effects we see nearly every day. Believe me, I would much rather write about true love (whatever that is) or the incredible rush of a perfect ride on a perfect wave. Still, I must admit that there is a certain magic to pulling back the curtain to see who is pulling the levers on our world. You just can't cure a disease without first becoming very knowledgeable of the disease. Certainly, our world and our people are suffering. Is it curable? Oh yes! It's late, though; we're in a critical stage on many fronts from financial to ecological, from social to moral, from A to Z it seems. We have a lot of work on our hands.

I know it would be great to turn all these ills over to the Doctor-In-Chief, our hero Super-O. He needs our help, though. As bright and brave as Barack Obama is, he is up against forces of incredible power. If you think he's going to cure all these ills because he wants to, then I recommend you remove your head from the sand. Let's just look at one simple aspect ... money.

For the past year, I have been advising to listen to the advise of the man Bob Woodward of the Washington Post referred to as "Deep Throat" (whom we now know was Mark Felt, FBI Deputy). That advise was "follow the money". As we've followed the money, whether it's oil money, coal, uranium, pharmaceutical, military industrial, insurance, or whatever, it always brings us back to a fairly small group of people. As George W. Bush once put it, "some call you the elite; I call you my base." They (the elite) must have been amused, knowing that George had a "base" only because they allowed and financed his position. Now there's a new sheriff in town, but regardless of how pure his intentions, or how much he collected from small donors, make no mistake ... Obama was also allowed and financed. If I'm wrong about that, then the man is in unimaginable danger.

Our new President's first order of business is to try to dig us out of a financial mess. The question is, not can he do it. Of course he can. The question is, will he be allowed. Consider the state of our economy, and perhaps an analogy is in order. Let's imagine you have a lot of debt; mortgage, car (maybe two or three), and credit cards ... a lot of credit cards. You were counting on a raise, but you had to settle for a pay-cut; that was the only way to avoid the lay-off. You've had a spate of unexpected set-backs, such as medical bills and car repairs (not to mention replacing your leaking roof and the air-conditioner that crapped out). You started paying minimums on your credit cards, which means nearly your entire payment was going to interest only. You are only five years into your home, and the market value has dropped from $300K when you bought it to $225K today (no equity there). You are still three years away from having your car paid off. Your children (oh, didn't I mention them?) are trying to decide what they want to be when they grow up. Now you find yourself in a situation where you can no longer pay the minimums on your credit card debt, and you will have to be late on either your mortgage or your car payment. Things aren't looking to bright at work, either. Can we spell bankruptcy?

Our nation has been in a similar position for some time now. We hear about the budget deficit, and we're not too clear about that. We know that it varies, and that Bush inherited a "surplus", but now we have a deficit. How bad can it be? The budget deficit can brought back under control by reducing spending or increasing income ... not a big problem. Our national debt, on the other hand is $10.7 Trillion (with a very big T). That's a very big problem. Interest on that debt is approximately $428 Billion per year. To whom do we owe that interest? Mostly banks, here and abroad. How do we get the money to pay the iterest (let alone the principle)? We have to borrow it. Won't that cause more debt and more interest? Yes. How do we get out of this? Checkmate.

This situation was nearly 100 years in the making. It began (as we have seen) with the establishment of the Federal Reserve Bank in 1913. Our government turned over the finances and the fate of our nation to a small cabal of elite bankers. They set up a system that would spiral the nation into debt. Not only our nation, but most nations are suffering the same demise brought on by the same cabal. The descendents of these folks are the same people that our government is allegedly bailing out today. They have used the bailout money to engorge themselves. Where did we get the money for this so-called bailout? Well, we borrowed it ... from them ... at interest. If the country is essentially bankrupt (can't even pay the interest on the debt), how can we borrow more money?

Either the elite bankers are really stupid and killed the goose-that-laid-the-golden-egg, or they're really sinister and killed the goose-that-laid-the-golden-egg. Either way, our financial situation greatly resembles a dead duck (and you can't blame this on George the Whipping Boy). At this point, we can only hope that these elite bankers will decide that it is not in there interest to bring down our house of cards. What should be done is the Federal Reserve System should be nationalized (made a true US Government entity) and the debt of We the People should be immediately forgiven. That's right, all $10.7 Trillion should be declared the fraud that it is and be wiped out! That sounds good, but of course you have the complications of debt owed to foreign governments, not to mention a lot of "we the people" bond holders. None-the-less, moves need to be made to undo the wrong that has been perpetrated by the out-of-control banking system this last one hundred years. We have to take into account that these folks that control our nations banking system are extremely powerful. They control nearly all the worlds money. Anyone who tries such a provocative move against them ... well it goes without saying. We need to proceed with caution, and we must proceed in unity. A strong leader is essential, but without consensus of the people the leader is powerless.

I know that you would rather not have to think about these things, but ignoring the facts and the nature of the system is what brought us to this point to begin with. Remember the words of Adolf Hitler. "How fortunate for governments that the people they administer don't think." We should always endeavor to keep a positive attitude, but we must remain (or become) vigilant ... and positively hope for the best.

- Posted by JLM - 1/18/09 15:09

Stabilize This!
Sunday, January 24, 2009

Wow, it has been a very busy week. We had an inauguration on Tuesday, so we now have a new and exciting President. George Bush flew off in his helicopter as the crowd sang, na na na na; na na na na; hey hey hey; good-bye. I always thought those lyrics were lacking in inspiration (not to mention downright corny), but according to the book of Ecclesiastes, "there is a time to every purpose under heaven". As they say, "the king is dead; long live the king". That always sounded strange to me, too. So President Obama spreads his wings, and says the first thing to be done is to stabilize the economy. Oh ... (not O as in Obama. Oh as in oh yeah? Pardon me if I'm a bit skeptical). Fortunately, stabilize is one of those weasel words (like victory) that needs definition yet seldom gets defined.

We're now hearing about 4 million new jobs, which yesterday I learned is to be spread over two years. In other words, 2 million per year. That will almost cover the on-going job losses, and if we have no more people entering the work force (legally or otherwise), unemployment should come down a bit. Note here, that you are only unemployed if you have applied for or are currently receiving unemployment benefits. If your benefits have run out, you're underemployed, or exhausted from several years of fruitless job searches, you are not unemployed. You just don't have a job! The unemployment figures aren't nearly as disturbing when the government uses that method of calculation. These new jobs we are to expect will be the result of infrastructure rejuvenation. We're going to build roads and windmills and schools. Life will be good! The project will cost $1 trillion they say. If they say $1 trillion, figure on somewhere between $2 - 10 trillion. Remember, the Iraq war was only going to cost $60 billion. Oh, I know ... not fair. That was the other guy. Na na na na. Still, we can't even pay the interest on our current debt of $10.7 trillion, so where are we going to get a couple of extra trillion dollars? Oh! We'll borrow it from the same folks we can't repay in the first place. They'll print us up some funny money, and zoom! We're off to the races! Sounds good to me ... I suppose.

Let's look at stability and see if we can get into a little trouble. What if we take a look to see where our money is going (or disappearing)? The chart at the left is one that you will seldom see. It is a simple comparison of Median Household Income of those right smack dab in the middle of the income scale in the US (the 50 percentile group). If you are red/green colorblind (or those with black and white monitors), the income line is the bottom line that goes from $33K per year in 1967 to $43K per year in 2007. The upper line that goes from $33K to $207K is the consumer price index (the cost of living). If you're looking at the same chart that I am, this is not what we would like to see. If you have a calculator, you'll find that median income went up by only 30% over that 40 years, while the cost of everything went up 620%. If you were paying $0.33 for a gallon of milk, you might expect it to be in the $2.07 range now. How much do you pay for bottled water? $33,000 for a three bedroom house then = $207,000 now. Oh, I know ... you're raises totaled more than 30%, but that's because you were promoted along the way. You have a pretty good education, or you would be watching the Simpson's instead of reading this (maybe). What if you're really at the top of your game? You've been at the 95% mark for the last 40 years. Only 5% of the total population is doing better than you. You started out in '67 (it's not on the chart, so pay attention) at $88K per year, and now you're making $154K according to Dept of Commerce statistics. That means your income increased154%! Oops! Sorry! You didn't keep up with the cost of living either.

So who is getting the money? Well the CEO's of the Fortune 500 are doing real well. In 1980 they were making an average of 40 times more than their workers, or $800K per year. In 2007 that increased to 334 times more than their workers, or $7.3M per year (not including bonuses, golden parachutes, and under-the-table games that put a few of them in jail). Their increase was 875% and that was from 1980! They said, "the fundamentals of the economy are sound". Their puppet politicians, and the mega-media that they owned kept repeating that "the fundamentals of the economy are sound". Meanwhile, the only "trickle-down economics" the bottom 99% were experiencing was the trickle that usually ends up in the commode. The wealth of our nation (and that of most other nations) has gushed upward. It's like upward gravity; the bigger the object, the more it attracts.

This isn't the first time the world has seen economic curves like this. It was seen just before the Revolution, and the Civil War, and WWI, and the Great Depression (which led to WWII). Wars are very profitable for those who know how to play the game, and control enough capital to do so. When you own the casino, well ... life is really good! In the meantime, we the people begin to loose sight of the American dream. For all too many of us, the dream becomes a nightmare. Still, war and other catastrophic events tend to unite the people behind the manipulators. There's nothing like a disaster (especially a man-made disaster) to bring us all together. Unfortunately, that's when we take our eyes off the ball.

So, Mr. President ... will you stabilize the economy? Will you bring the median family income up and the CPI down? Will the press and the pundits accuse you of being a socialist if you try? Maybe. No, probably. A good place to start, though would be to point out exactly what has been going on for far too long. Now tell us about your plan to fix the economy.

- Posted by JLM - 1/25/09 17:48

Breadcrumbs and Fairy Tales
Sunday, February 1, 2009

After reading last week's entry, you now hopefully have had a chance to contemplate the situation in which our monetary system has left us. Forty years of an average of 13% per year increase in the cost of living (according to government figures), while our average income has tried to keep up with a paltry o.75% per year increase is just plain cruel. Is it any wonder that our retirees keep slipping farther into poverty with every passing year? I hope you will think long and hard about a system that allows over 95% of the population to be worse off every year than they were the year before. Yes, after 40 years of the same results, we can indeed call it a systemic problem. Yet, we're led to believe that it's the greatness of the system that let's us rise from the ashes into the fairy tale land of riches. Oh, it's possible ... anything is possible. Ask any child in America if reindeer can fly. As adults, we need to not only consider possibilities; we need to also discover the wonderful world of probabilities. We're led to believe that failure to outwit the system is simply that ... failure. There is something wrong with us if we are born middle class and somehow never become that multi-millionaire we dream about, or so they say. It can't be the system. The system is perfect! Bow down and worship the system created by our wealthy English forefathers! The problem must be us! So they say.

Have you ever noticed that finance is not really taught in schools? At least it's not taught until you enter college and happen to take a course in business. Even then, the system is not really exposed for our analysis. Here's a little test: ask everyone you know if the Federal Reserve Bank is a Federal Agency or a private corporation. You'll find that very few know it's a private corporation, and that our system is based on debt. I shared that little tidbit with a middle school teacher just yesterday. She had no idea the Fed is private, nor how our nation attains money by accruing more and more debt. Instead of teaching the system as it is, we learn that we can take the breadcrumbs from the table of the elite and build a bread factory. Could it be that our system of education is more focused on feeding workers to the system than it is in providing a real fact based education? I sure wish I were wrong, and that I would win the lotto this week. Ticket? No, I seldom indulge in lotto tickets. The odds are horrible! I remember when one gentleman won the lottery on a ticket he found in the street. Long odds, but anything's possible, right? Right.

Remember last summer, right after we were told the fundamentals of the economy are strong, we were told the bankers needed $700 billion (give or take a trillion) or they would all go belly up and the sky would fall? Scary stuff! Let's give these multi-billionaires more billions, or we'll be in deep trouble! Well, the problem is much worse. You see, there's something called a "Credit Default Swap". This is the way that the banking elite covers their bets (yes, it's gambling). Think of them as insurance policies; they are much like car insurance in a demolition derby. You may remember that the insurance giant, AIG went bankrupt because they were heavily involved in covering these bad bets. The thing about gambling debts are they are based on beating the odds, and the odds are never good. If the odds were good, the reward would be small - high risk = high reward (but high chance of failure). Well, to make a long story short, according to a report by the Comptroller of Currency, there are $175.8 Trillion worth of these funny bet covering devices loose in the banking world. It's time this card game stopped! We (as mere mortals) would have had our kneecaps broken years ago. Understand that $700 billion is not even $1 Trillion. The banks cannot be bailed out if the debts involved are in the $175 Trillion range! If they are going to fail, they will indeed fail! Yet, it's all games and monopoly money to them. To us, it's our mortgage, our rent, our food, our gas, our heat, and our water. You know, those little essentials of life!

Back to inflation and the consumer price index, a simple understanding may be in order. The more money that's in the system, the less it's worth. Think of a pie. The pie is divided into four pieces; you get a piece and you are satisfied. Now, some fool with a knife comes along and divides each of those four pieces into four more pieces. Now you have a sliver and you are not satisfied! The way to stop inflation, is to stop putting more money into the system. More money devalues the total, and which meean it adds less than nothing to the value. It's just paper that the Federal Reserve Bank prints. The problem is, our paychecks are based on that paper; nothing but promises extended by a few old gray-haired greedy fat cats. Unfortunately, the promises aren't worth the paper they're printed on. Solutions? Hey, questions are always easier than answers. The fact remains that we must ask the questions. Are you upset with me for telling you that reindeers don't really fly? Well, shoot the messenger ... it's a common practice, you know.

Band-aids and Aspirin
Sunday, February 8, 2009

Our new driver behind the wheel of the USA seems to be running into trees and knocking over mailboxes and garbage cans. You would think a cabinet level vetting process would uncover a few tax cheats a little earlier in the process. Yes, cheats! You can't tell me that $120,000 in owed taxes somehow slips one's mind, Mr. Daschle. Nor can you tell me that the one true savior of the economy, the guy we absolutely have to have running the nation's finances can have such an oversight, Mr. Geithner. This is our new Secretary of the Treasury. He's a tax cheat! Unfortunately, this all seems to be part of the system; a system that audits small business people working from their homes, while ignoring those with a hoard of nimble tax lawyers ready to fight for every nickel and $100,000 bill.

Then we have the "stimulus" plan. "It's not a stimulus plan. It's a spending plan!" declares John McCain (who can't remember how many houses he has). Tax cuts! More spending! Tax cuts! More spending! It all reminds me of "Less filling!" "Tastes great!" So it goes . two sides of the same wooden nickel. I've heard several pundits, senators, and representatives say you have to focus on housing, because housing is what got us into this mess! Bzzzzzzzzzzz! Sorry! The housing problem is an affect, not a cause. Certainly it needs attention; it is indeed a mess, but it isn't the mess that got us into this mess. No, the cause would be a system based on debt, guided by greed and corruption, and abetted by deregulation (no rules).

A stimulus package only addresses the affects caused by the system; it's very similar to using a cough drop to cure a virus. Certainly, if you have a virus, you want to treat your cough, your runny nose, your headache, your congestion, and over-all blah feeling, but wouldn't it be great if we could find a cure for the virus? A cough drop just won't do that. Of course, our economic condition doesn't have a mere virus. What the stimulus plan really brings to mind is a band-aide on a cancer. Your imagination can deal with that one.

We're still hearing about the creation of four million new jobs over the next two years, and that's good. Right now we're loosing over 500,000 jobs per month! Do you have your calculator handy? Are we coming up a day late and many dollars short? Unfortunately, our new president is likely to loose his aura of Super-O and instead become the Fall Guy. Who could have known? Oh yeah ... those guys! The mid-night deregulators! The Ponzi scheme kings!

We're hearing Obama warn the Senate and the nation that his stimulus package must pass or the country will slip into a depression (the dreaded "D" word). His approach is vaguely reminiscent of warnings of WMD, and smoking guns. The difficulty here is that it's all semantics; there is no real set definition for a depression other than a really bad recession. Hello! Many economists and a certain British Prime Minister have already described the condition as a global depression. Ah, but that's global! We're the US! We're also the self proclaimed leader of the world, and we seem to have led the rest of the world right into . well, you know.

Speaking of smoking guns, Obama's righteous fight in Afghanistan seems more and more like an exercise in futility. Juan Cole once again shows his remarkable insite while explaning why the "surge" may have to be postponed. Certainly a pause to rethink the situation may be in order. We all hate to dump more good money (that we don't have) after bad money (that we didn't have).

The question is, "where do we go from here?" My father used to advise me, "Prepare for the worst, and hope for the best". What else can we mere mortals do? After all, it is the high-rolling, globalist, captains-of-the-universe that got us into this predicament. We're somewhat at their mercy, unfortunately. You know the golden rule . he with the gold rules. One piece of advise that I would offer our friends who were so sure our new President must be the anti-christ (or at least a communist) is to pray for him like you really mean it. He certainly needs all the help he can get as this incredibly large mess has landed on his head. God bless the USA.

- Posted by JLM - 02/08/09 12:59

Weasels and Varmints
Sunday, February 15, 2009

Well, President Obama's stimulus package passed the full Congress, with the help of a whopping three Republican's. Was this because of a lack of compromise? Hardly. It would appear the "O" in GOP stands for obstructionist. Do they want a depression? No, not really ... well, maybe. "P" always stands for that most intoxicating of all drugs - POWER. Former Secretary of Labor, Robert Reich offers his insight on the lack of GOP support and what to expect from the package in his article Why Republicans Won't Support the Stimulus.

I was looking for a famous quote from Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) about the "idiots in Congress", so I entered that phrase in Google. I got 3,380,000 references. I didn't need Mark Twain anymore. You have probably noticed that a large portion of politicians are lawyers. That portion varies of course, but currently is about half. This would make for a lively study, and I'm sure many conclusions could be drawn. You could say, that lawyers are highly educated, and shouldn't be thought of as idiots. You would be right. Lawyers are masters of language, and the use of language. They are trained to use thousands of words which say nothing, and hide one or two words within that say everything. Whether you call them "gotchas" or "weasel words", we all know we have to pay attention in order to avoid bamboozlement (not a real word, but I like it).

The fact that only about half or Congress is made up of lawyers might be encouraging, were it not for lobbyists. Nearly all lobbyists are lawyers that work for corporations. Our laws are for the most part written by lobbyists, the true masters of manipulation and deceit. I won't go into how the lobbyists have taken control of this function of Congress; it is common enough knowledge that it has been done, and done to the detriment of the nation.

Wait! Shouldn't laws be written by lawyers, because they understand laws? Of course ... but that's the wrong question. The question is, who do the lobbyists represent? The people? You? Not quite. The answer is corporations, of course. But, corporations are owned by the people, aren't they? That's true, but ownership is not what counts. Control is what counts.

Permit me to issue and control the money of the nation and I care not who makes its laws. - Mayer Amschel Rothschild

This from a man whose family now controls most currencies in the world, including our own. The family also has control over a large portion of global industry, either directly or through finance. He didn't care who makes the laws, since controlling the money means controlling the lawmakers. Yet, the way the economy is going, one could get the idea that there is no control. Really?

Think about all the money that is being lost. Companies (including banks) are going bankrupt like not since the days of Herbert Hoover. Your 401(k) is slipping away, and if you still have your job you have friends that have lost theirs. The market is in the tank, and the wealth of America is vanishing into thin air. I have learned in my life that things don't come out of nowhere, and they don't vanish into thin air. All that disappearing wealth still exists; it has simply found it's way into bigger pockets.

If the American people ever allow the banks to control issuance of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers occupied. - Thomas Jefferson

Oops! Thanks for the reminder, Mr. Jefferson. So here we are with a government of the beast, by the beast, and for the beast. Where do we go from here? Expose the beast. This beast is not infallible. The beast is simply a handful of extremely wealthy, manipulative, and powerful families. This beast needs to have its head mounted on a wall right next to the Vietnam Memorial. It's time we take back not only America, but our world. Once and for all we should become a nation of the people, by the people, and for the people.

One man who has been watching and exposing for most of his life is Steve Weissmann. I have referred to his articles at various times over the past year, and he sent me an article this week that deals with the Russian Roulette our new leaders are playing. It's entitled Biden: America's Eurasian Empire Takes Shape.

To keep this all in perspective, you must realize that everything we've been taught about financial health can be summed up in one word - growth. Growth is not always healthy though, especially when resources are limited. Growth then leads to resource wars. Sustainability and balance are much more desirable and essential than growth. So why are we continually being pushed for growth? I've often heard that war is profitable. That's true only for those who are controlling the wars. It seems diabolical to control a limited resource environment by population reduction through war, but that is the beast before us. What will you do? I wonder if this varmint can stand the light of day.

- Posted by JLM - 02/15/09 07:34

Recovery or Calamity
Sunday, February 22, 2009

The instrument of hope for the American economy is now signed, sealed, and waiting for delivery.

Now that we have a new stimulus plan in place, everyone is scurrying around trying to determine how it will affect them. The big question: will it work, or will it fail miserably. Polls indicate that 65% hope that it will work, and 35% hope the new President and his stimulus plan will fall flat.

Those that are hoping for failure may very well get their wish . and what is the penalty for treason these days? Can we start with the fingernails? If this plan fails, the devastation will be far, far worse than 911 or Katrina. We shouldn't have to wait long to find out. We should know by August.

By August, the housing situation should be showing modest improvement. Work on the nation's infrastructure should be underway, and unemployment should be easing. Consumer confidence should be showing signs of turning around.

All that good news will happen if our currency doesn't collapse this summer. Let's hope our president is able to make the miracle catch and turn this game around. It is a game, you know. As with any game, there are winners and there are losers. As with any casino game, the house always wins. Who is the house? Those that write the rules of the game are the house. I never cared much for games.

Dr. M. L. King spoke of the "fierce urgency of now", and certainly we can see that urgency now. The Obama administration has chosen to take a step back in time, to employ techniques that seemed to help during the depression of the 30's (the so-called "Great Depression"). Unfortunately, what lifted the country from that depression was entry into World War II. Today, we're already up to our ears in wars. We can't afford anymore wars, though we'll probably get them anyway. The "fierce urgency of now" just may be to re-write the rules of the game.

I have some Cherokee in my heritage; not enough to give me that beautiful golden skin, but enough to stir my curiosity and my imagination. The Cherokee way is one of understanding, of nature, and of balance. They understand that ownership is temporary, and that we are part of the earth. They emphasize living in harmony and balance with all things.

Ah, but you say, "if the Cherokee way is so good, why did they loose?" Yes, aren't we proud of the Chinese invention of gun powder and the European plagues of small pox, measles, and syphilis? Let's move on.

We live in a finite environment, and to sustain human life we need to respect and cherish that which has been provided. Our current system is one of consumption. Balance implies that we give back as we take; we don't over consume, and we don't outgrow what our environment can support. You may be happy in your four bedroom home with your two darling children, but when your two sisters need to move in (with their husbands and seven screaming children, Boston terrier, and cat from hell) life is not so rosy anymore. Welcome to earth. You can't turn them away. They were laid-off when the factory where they worked moved production to Cambodia. Now your environment is stressed and probably not sustainable.

I recall back in my high school days, when there was talk that automation and the new technologies were going to bring Americans so much leisure time. HA! At the time, I wondered 'leisure for whom'. Forty years later, we find that automation and the new technologies bring unemployment and low wages. I suppose we may find a way to enjoy joblessness, if we refer to it as leisure time. The main affect automation has had is to move the wealth of the nation (and the world) into fewer pockets.

There is a better way, but it will take a new way of doing things. Maybe that new way is actually and old way; one of living in harmony and balance. If the President's stimulus plan works, we will have time to make needed changes from the growth/consumption ideology in an orderly progression (if we're wise enough to end the old game). If the stimulus plan fails . Katie, bar the door!

- Posted by JLM - 02/22/09 13:36

He Said It Again!
Sunday, March 1, 2009

Clean coal!?! Why don't you feed it to your unicorn, Mr. President! Clean coal exists only in the minds of the Rockefeller's and those they have duped. The Rockefeller family has dominated and controlled American coal from the beginning, and clean coal is a propaganda stunt invented to postpone the rethinking of the coal industry for the health of us all. I've said it before, but some things bear repeating: there are no clean coal plants in existence; not here, not in Japan, or Germany, or the UK, or Russia, or China, not even in El Salvador! Zero, zilch, nada! Kind estimates indicate clean coal plants could be a reality in ten years. That's just the conversion to electricity part of the equation; it has nothing to do with the removal of the Appalachian mountain tops, the coal dust, and sludge that we've come to know too well. Yet, Mr. Obama continues to refer to "clean coal" in his recent brilliant speech to Congress like it's a current viable alternative. Another thing that bears repeating is "follow the money".

Mythological clean coal aside, the speech was brilliant. Barack Obama is truly one of the great and gifted orators of our time. There is no doubt, the man can talk. If you missed it, you might want to take a look at President Obama's first address to Congress. Just please put his endorsement of Rockefeller's coal kingdom in its rightful place of misinformation or fantasy. The answers to the energy and environmental problems are out there, but they are being subjugated or ignored. Until the Rockefeller's corner the market on salt water to hydrogen conversion, or sunlight to electric conversion, we will continue to be inundated with diversionary propaganda regarding non-existant clean coal. At least the President mentioned wind and solar in the same statement, which is much more than we ever heard from the last administration or the drill-Baby-drill opposition.

While we're on the subject of coal and other health hazards, Democracy Now! this week featured Chris Field, a leading member of the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. He spoke about his warning that the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is rising more rapidly than expected in recent years, and the consequences that are beginning to arise. You should be aware of what Congress knows, but to-date has chosen to ignore or suppress. Please take a look or listen to the interview availble here.

Back to the Obama address; the President repeated a phrase offered by our former self-proclaimed Decider, when he stated, "...the United States does not do torture!" What a sad state of affairs when the President has to declare that the country will not violate it's own constitution! Hopefully, it's a promise that this President will enforce. Reigning in the CIA and their medieval inquisition techniques may prove to be as difficult as herding cats. You would hope that the CIA would realize that under torture, even Arnold Scwartzenegger would admit to being the Queen of England or Mozambique. Of course the challenge is that some folks in authority are sadistic animals not much different than the sadistic animals they pursue. If we as a nation are to claim the moral high ground, then those that represent the United States must without exception take the moral high ground. Those that torture, order torture, or condone torture violate that higher moral ground and the law of the United States. They must suffer the consequences under and according to the law.

While you're taking a look at Democracy Now!, you should take the time to watch the interview with the lawyer of The Ethiopian-born Binyam Mohamed; he just returned to Britain on Monday after becoming the first prisoner to be released from Guantanamo since President Obama took office.

Speaking of medieval inquisition techniques, I see that the Pope publicly chastised Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi for her support of the Supreme Court decision known as Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion in the United States. This is the same Pope, that (as a Cardinal) prohibited then presidential candidate Senator John Kerry from taking communion during the 2004 election campaign due to Kerry's support for that same law. This (by the way) is the same Pope that was formerly a member of the Hitler Youth in Germany during WWII, but we won't hold that against him. He was just a kid then, and now he's the Pope. It's obvious he's against abortion.

I don't think anyone really likes abortion (well, maybe certain CIA agents), but current alternatives are not adequate. We'll get to that in a moment, but first; if the Pope (or any other leader of a sect or religion) insists on meddling in the politics of our nation, fine! They should be allowed to do so, because this is a free country. Their tax-exempt status, however should be revoked. That status is based on the separation of Church and State. If we began taxing these organizations that become so politically involved and determined to sway elections by meddling in politics, our deficits would soon disappear. Campaign away Mr. Pope; we'll expect your check for taxes on the Catholic Church by April 15th. Make that check payble to the United States Treasury.

As I have stated before (and I pay my taxes, so I'll state away), I am against abortion as a solution to a very real problem. We must have an equally effective alternative in place to eliminate the problem of the unwelcome birth of a child. This Pope refuses to offer alternatives except "rhythm" (and believe me, this man can't dance. Does he even listen to dance music?) Medieval and barbaric is the society that refuses a woman her right to decide when and if she will bear children. We must have facilities in place to assure that choice, before we can make serious progress removing the alternative we now possess.

According to BabyCenter.com the cost to raise a child through high school ranges from just under $200k to near $400k in 2006 dollars. College is not included. In case you haven't noticed, if you don't make sure your child receives a college education, your child will be living with you until you die. They won't be there because you need them; it will be the other way around. Additionally, you know that you have to figure in that ugly factor of inflation. You may as well use a nice round number and figure that the cost of raising a child today is $1 million. That's right ... an inflation adjusted million dollar baby! We might want to insure the Church's tax exemption, if they agree to pay every Catholic mother $1,000,000 for each child she produces. Yeah, I knew you'd like that.

In a resource limited, over-populated world we need to do something to bring the problem of exploding population levels under control. Some people at the top seem to think that war is a great answer. They get richer, and the population is decreased. Sorry ... unacceptable! Somehow we (the whole world's population) need to gravitate to a one child per family solution. If you want more, there is always adoption. How many million dollar babies can you afford? How many million dollar anythings can you afford? Maybe it's time we began rewarding small families, and provide the morally correct alternatives to make small families possible. Every woman should have the right and the power to determine when and if she wants to be a mother. She should also be fully aware of the financial consequences of raising a family. By the way, we males need to wise up as well.

Oh yes ... and the mother of the octuplets? The idiot doctors should put up $8 million towards raising and educationg those eight babies. Maybe they would stop to think next time.

- Posted by JLM - 3/01/09 00:12

What Those in the Know Knew...
Sunday, March 8, 2009

"If the American people ever allow the banks to control issuance of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers occupied." - Thomas Jefferson

"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies." - Thomas Jefferson

"The One World Government leaders and their ever close bankers have now acquired full control of the money and credit machinery of the U.S. via the creation of the privately owned Federal Reserve Bank." - Curtis Dall (Franklin D. Roosevelt's son-in-law), My Exploited Father-in-Law

"Some of the biggest men in the United States, in the Field of commerce and manufacture, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it." - President Woodrow Wilson, 1913

"This Federal Reserve Act establishes the most gigantic trust on earth. When the President (Wilson) signs this bill the invisible government of the Monetary Power will be legalized." - Hon. Charles A. Lindbergh, Sr., Dec. 23, 1913

"We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated governments in the civilized world. We are no longer a government by free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominate men. I have unwittingly betrayed my country." - President Woodrow Wilson, 1916

"In March, 1915, the J.P. Morgan interests, the steel, shipbuilding, and powder interest, and their subsidiary organizations, got together 12 men high up in the newspaper world and employed them to select the most influential newspapers in the United States and sufficient number of them to control generally the policy of the daily press... They found it was only necessary to purchase the control of 25 of the greatest papers... An agreement was reached; the policy of the papers was bought, to be paid for by the month; an editor was furnished for each paper to properly supervise and edit information regarding the questions of preparedness, militarism, financial policies, and other things of national and international nature considered vital to the interests of the purchasers." - U.S. Congressman Oscar Callaway, 1917

"The real menace of our republic is this invisible government which like a giant octopus sprawls its slimy length over city, state and nation. Like the octopus of real life, it operates under cover of a self created screen... At the head of this octopus are the Rockefeller Standard Oil interests and a small group of powerful banking houses generally referred to as international bankers. The little coterie of powerful international bankers virtually run the United States government for their own selfish purposes. They practically control both political parties." - New York City Mayor John F. Hylan, 1922

"For a long time I felt that FDR had developed many thoughts and ideas that were his own to benefit this country, the United States. But, he didn't. Most of his thoughts, his political ammunition, as it were, were carefully manufactured for him in advanced by the Council on Foreign Relations One World Money group. Brilliantly, with great gusto, like a fine piece of artillery, he exploded that prepared "ammunition" in the middle of an unsuspecting target, the American people, and thus paid off and returned his internationalist political support...

The UN is but a long range, international banking apparatus nearly set up for financial and economic profit by a small group of powerful One World Revolutionaries, hungry for profit and power... The depression was the calculated 'shearing' of the public by the World Money powers, triggered by the planned sudden shortage of supply of call money in the New York money market... The One World Government leaders and their ever close bankers have now acquired full control of the money and credit machinery of the U.S. via the creation of the privately owned Federal Reserve Bank." - Curtis Dall, Son-in-Law of Franklin D. Roosevelt

"The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the larger centers has owned the Government ever since the days of Andrew Jackson." - letter to Colonel House by Franklin D. Roosevelt, November 21st, l933

"Fifty men have run America, and that's a high figure." - Joseph Kennedy, July 26th, l936 New York Times .

"We shall have world government whether or not you like it by conquest or consent." - James Warburg member Council on Foreign Relations speaking before Senate Foreign Relations Committee on February 17th, l950

"The real rulers in Washington are invisible, and exercise power from behind the scenes." - Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter, 1952

"Today the path of total dictatorship in the United States can be laid by strictly legal means, unseen and unheard by the Congress, the President, or the people. Outwardly we have a Constitutional government. We have operating within our government and political system, another body representing another form of government a bureaucratic elite." - Senator William Jenner, 1954

"The case for government by elites is irrefutable." - Senator William Fulbright, Former chairman of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 1963

"The Trilateral Commission is intended to be the vehicle for multinational consolidation of the commercial and banking interests by seizing control of the political government of the United States. The Trilateral Commission represents a skillful, coordinated effort to seize control and consolidate the four centers of power political, monetary, intellectual and ecclesiastical. What the Trilateral Commission intends is to create a worldwide economic power superior to the political governments of the nation states involved. As managers and creators of the system they will rule the future." - Senator Barry Goldwater l964 from his book: With No Apologies

"The powers of financial capitalism had another far reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements, arrived at in frequent private meetings and conferences. The apex of the system was the Bank for International Settlements in Basle, Switzerland; a private bank owned and controlled by the worlds' central banks, which were themselves, private corporations. The growth of financial capitalism made possible a centralization of world economic control and use of this power for the direct benefit of financiers and the indirect injury of all other economic groups." - Tragedy and Hope: A History of The World in Our Time 1966, Professor Carroll Quigley, Georgetown University.

"The Council on Foreign Relations is the establishment. Not only does it have influence and power in key decision making positions at the highest levels of government to apply pressure from above, but it also announces and uses individuals and groups to bring pressure from below, to justify the high level decisions for converting the U.S. from a sovereign Constitutional Republic into a servile member state of a one world dictatorship." - Congressman John Rarick 1971

"The drive of the Rockefellers and their allies is to create a one-world government combining super capitalism and Communism under the same tent; all under their control... Do I mean conspiracy? Yes I do. I am convinced there is such a plot, international in scope, generations old in planning, and incredibly evil in intent." - Congressman Larry P. McDonald, 1976

"I never thought the Federal Reserve System would prove such a failure. The country is in a state of irretrievable bankruptcy." - Senator Carter Glass 1983

"We are grateful to The Washington Post, The New York Times, Time Magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost forty years. It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subject to the bright lights of publicity during those years. But, the work is now much more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national auto-determination practiced in past centuries." - David Rockefeller, founder of the Trilateral Commission, address to The Trilateral Commission, June, 1991.

"In the next century, nations as we know it will be obsolete; all states will recognize a single, global authority. National sovereignty wasn't such a great idea after all." - Strobe Talbott, Clinton's Deputy Secretary of State, Time Magazine, July 20th, l992.

"Today Americans would be outraged if U.N. troops entered Los Angeles to restore order; tomorrow they will be grateful! This is especially true if they were told there was an outside threat from beyond, whether real or promulgated, that threatened our very existence. It is then that all peoples of the world will pledge with world leaders to deliver them from this evil. The one thing every man fears is the unknown. When presented with this scenarios, individual rights will be willingly relinquished for the guarantee of their well being granted to them by their world government." --Henry Kissinger in an address to the Bilderberg organization meeting at Evian, France, May 21, 1992. Transcribed from a tape recording made by one of the Swiss delegates.

"We are grateful to the Washington Post, the New York Times, Time Magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost forty years." He went on to explain: "It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subjected to the lights of publicity during those years. But, the world is more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The supernational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national autodetermination practiced in past centuries." --David Rockefeller speaking at the June 1991 Bilderberger meeting in Baden Baden, Germany (a meeting also attended by then Governor Bill Clinton and Dan Quayle).

"When a government is dependent upon bankers for money, they and not the leaders of the government control the situation, since the hand that gives is above the hand that takes. Money has no motherland; financiers are without patriotism and without decency; their sole object is gain." Napoleon Bonaparte

"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, will make violent revolution inevitable." John F Kennedy

- Posted by JLM - 3/08/09 15:10

Raccoon and Beaver
Sunday, March 15, 2009

Many years ago, before time came to the Blue Ridge Mountains there lived a raccoon (aptly named ... Raccoon). Raccoon loved life to the fullest. You might say he was the original party animal. If it was fun, Raccoon wanted to be in the middle of it. If it wasn't fun, Raccoon wanted to make it fun. One day Raccoon was checking out the butterflies in the meadow near his favorite creek, when he saw Beaver. Raccoon would always try to get Beaver engaged in some game or other frivolous activity, but Beaver was always too busy working on a damn, or his incredible stick cabin out in the middle of the creek. This day was no different. Raccoon would call, "Beaver! Take a break! Come and help me chase these butterflies."

"Humph!", was all Beaver responded.

"Beaver! Come on! Let's go pick some berries and have a feast!", Raccoon called.

Beaver tried his best to ignore Raccoon, and continued working on his house. Every twig must be in the right place, and any out-of-place rocks or leaves must be removed. The entrance had to be made small enough and just under the surface so that Coyote wouldn't make an unwanted visit. Still Raccoon persisted with his annoying cajoling.

"Leave me alone! I'm busy! You should be gathering food, or whatever it is you should be doing to prepare for the winter! You're useless, Raccoon!"

Well, this was getting a bit personal, so Raccoon thought it might be fun to climb up to his favorite spot in a nearby tree. Watching Beaver work would surely put him right to sleep in the cool shade of the tree. Sure enough, Raccoon was soon in dreamland having the time of his life.

It could have been the vibration of the tree, or the deep roar he heard in the distance that woke Raccoon from his nap. He looked up, to see a fairly common site in the Blue Ridge in springtime; it was a flash flood racing down the hill, and all in front of it were scurrying out of the way. All that is, except Beaver. Beaver was underwater and didn't notice the change. From his vantage point in the tree, Raccoon saw the flood hit Beaver's house with a rush, knocking the small trees and limbs that made up the house every which way. As beaver tried to escape the sudden collapse of his new home, a branch fell across his foot and prevented his escape.

Beaver was able to get his head just high enough to take one last breath. Raccoon say Beavers nose briefly break the surface, and he knew his hard-working neighbor was in trouble. Down from the tree he scampered, and in to the water he dove. Now a raccoon is no otter in the water, but they have no problem swimming when needed. Raccoon reached Beaver and was able to dive down and free the trapped foot.

Beaver was exhausted, and needed some assistance to the shore. Raccoon helped him to a hollow in a nearby tree where he just happened to have stashed some cranberries the day before. The two of them ate the berries and relaxed for the rest of the afternoon.

From that day on, Beaver would always take an hour or two to play with Raccoon when he happened to come by. They were fast friends for life.

The story of Raccoon and Beaver has been told for countless hundreds of years. As it has taught children of life and balance over the years, so it can cause us to reflect today. Life always brings the unexpected. Whether a man-made disaster such as the financial flash-flood we're facing today or a catastrophe such as hurricane Katrina, their will be some of us watching, some busy working, and others caught dozing. Regardless, we are all hit and all are affected. What's important is that we watch out for one another and give a helping hand. You never know when your hand will be the one outstretched in need of help, or when you'll have the opportunity to stretch out your hand to give help.

- Posted by JLM - 3/15/09 13:48

Don't Step In It or On It
Sunday, March 22, 2009

Back before I became a Grandfather, we used to raise German Shepherds. As wonderful as the dogs were, German Shepherds are also full of surprises. Surprises are not always welcome, and occasionally a careless step could land you in an unpleasant surprise. Making the rounds in the backyard with a shovel in hand was an unpleasant but necessary chore to keep up with what we called "steaming stacks".

Watching your step in your own backyard is a joy compared to some of the objects which people in other parts of the world have to avoid. Land mines are of course in high use in various countries around the world. The true tragedy is that innocents are invariably stepping on what never should be there in the first place. These surprises will cost you your leg or your life.

Then we have the surprises left in the backyard at the White House. Some of these surprises can be scraped off the presidential shoe, but others have devastating qualities that are unimaginable and (it seems) unspeakable. A much different approach must be taken with these steaming stacks and land mines. A presidential team cannot simply venture out with shovels in hand to take care of the situation. Priorities must be established. In his book First Things First, by author Stephen Covey, a method of setting priorities by urgency and importance is introduced. If something is important and urgent, it is relegated top priority. Important but not urgent gets second priority; urgent but not important is third, and least attention should fall to items that are neither important nor urgent (even though they may be fun).

One would hope that top priority would go to items which pose the largest threat to life in general. A few addressable priorities come immediately come to mind: The first is nuclear war; and secondly, catastrophic climate change; thirdly, depletion of limited essential resources due to overpopulation. Mainstream media may ignore these items (unless screeching about nonexistent nukes in Iraq and Iran), however there is plenty of information available from less profitable news outlets. The avoidance of catastrophic destruction brought on by human activity must certainly deserve top priority.

The banking crisis (scandal) is receiving a lot of attention and high priority, as well it should. Our wayward banking elite certainly have set the stage to bring the house down. We hear that the answer is to get the "credit market" going again. Isn't that ironic! Remember that "credit market" means debt, which is system based on formula for perpetual servitude. When the debt is called in, the system collapses due to insufficient funds. Maybe it's time to leave feudalism behind, and maybe that should be a priority. For those who enjoy a good Keith Olbermann rant now and then, you may want to watch his get tough on bankers tirade.

Closely related to the banking crisis is the spending of funds which don't exist. We are warned that our deficit spending is out of control, and who can argue with that observation? Prior to indiscriminately slashing our budget, it makes a lot of sense to see just where the money is going. For example, if we were to bring our military spending down to the combined military spending of Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, and Venezuela our deficits would be under control almost immediately. Remember that big military equals big government. Reducing the size of government is always a good thing, right? Right.

Speaking of the military, the Obama administration seems hell bent to do their best imitation of Bush lite (no, not the beer). We're hearing estimations of 30,000 - 50,000 troops in Iraq until the 12th of never. Dick Cheney must be very proud. Then we have Afghanistan ... war without end. Who's paying for these wars, anyway? Oh yeah ... tax and spend.

So Mr. President, be careful what you step in and what you step on. By the way, you might want to scrape some of your financial team off your shoe before you go into the White House. There seems to be a lingering odor of the mess that got us into this mess.

- Posted by JLM - 3/22/09 08:13

Home Remedies
Monday, March 30, 2009

Sometimes the cure will kill you. Chemotherapy can be that way, in fact if you read about the possible side effects and complications from many of our modern medicines, you would certainly hesitate before partaking. The most apparent illness in the news these days is the economy, and the question is will the country will live through the cure. It is a fine edge that the administration is treading; not enough stimulus and we drop into a dangerous and long lasting depression, while too much stimulus and the nation is choked with debt. Is there a Goldilocks approach? Some middle ground that's just enough? I discovered a long time ago that my crystal ball is mal-functioning, and I prefer to not focus too much on the potential for failure. Two more cents in a huge pot of pennies never hurt though, so here are a few ideas, home remedies if you will, that may seem somewhat sane in the midst of all the insanity.

A dilemma that we face is that in our for profit world, is that needed change is often delayed for short-time gain. Consequently, essential items such as a constantly renewable, non-polluting, dirt-cheap system of energy and energy distribution is impossible without government leadership (or meddling, if you prefer). Fortunately, we seem to be on the way to wind and solar. These are great solutions. "Clean coal" on the other hand is a pipe dream. I'm still not hearing anyone (except for a few engineers, and scientists) talking about hydrogen capture from sea water. Maybe water is too obvious on the water planet. It's enough to make my salt water boil. Anyway, we're still faced with the question of whether the conversion will arrive in time both economically and ecologically.

If we want cars that run on hydrogen, or at least electric cars, it will take huge government contracts to bring up production enough to make the venture profitable to the auto manufacturers. Short of a total revamping of the fleet, we will see the new generation of automobiles break into the market at a snails pace. I've posted videos of cars using water for fuel, and one of the inventors is said to have gone before Congress, and even has a contract with the Army to convert Hummers. We don't hear much about him though. The concept makes too much sense ... unless you're in the oil business.

Likewise, in the field of medicine, we want the best drugs, the best diagnostics, the best of everything. Instead, we have the best of insurance and drug company profits, and 35th best health care system in the world. Can you imagine a health system that doesn't require insurance companies or their profits? You can? Well, you must be a socialist! It's frustrating that such a stupid off-the-wall argument should stand between us and a top-notch affordable health system that delivers, and yet that's the main argument ... socialism. That's insurance speak for "you're taking away all the profits!"

We have this huge deficit problem, but for some reason (that has nothing to do with our Constitution) we have only two main sources of money for our Treasury. We can either tax the people (raise your hand if you like to pay taxes), or we can borrow (raise your hand if you like to pay interest). Would we be socialist if we came up with another source of income? Let's see what we can stir up. Why do we accept the idea that government involvement in business is evil? We have gone through years of privatization, and where has it gotten us? As the old song says, "another day older and deeper in debt". We're privatizing our prisons, we privatized the post office, we're privatizing our guard duty (Blackwater), and worst of all we privatized our central bank.

While we're busy bringing back the idea of regulating the casino called Wall Street, we the people should reclaim the function of printing money and setting interest rates. We never should have turned that critical function over to private interests for their own profits! If we printed the money, the banks would have to borrow from the Treasury, and their interest payments would be most welcome. That might be a substantial help in reducing the deficit. Unfortunately, not many in the nation's capital are thinking that way. They would rather have the Federal Reserve Bank keep us all barefoot and pregnant.

Speaking of pregnant, a few weeks ago we looked at the high cost of raising a child. What we didn't look at was the high government cost of raising a child. Let's start from birth; if a young mother doesn't have insurance or funds, the people get the bill. When the child gets a little older and starts pre-school, if the mother can't afford it (yes, I'm ignoring the father who hasn't figured out which end is up yet) the people get the bill. When the child starts in school, the people get the bill. Unless you need a big family to work your cotton fields, a small family makes a lot of sense on the family budget as well as the nations budget.

Back to banking, if a bank or any corporation is "too big to allow to fail", then it's to big for the nations health. Laws against monopolies should be fine tuned to handle the corporate giants that dominate the government. Since when does the Constitution read We the People beholding to AIG, or Citibank, or General Motors. An old Paul Anka song was titled "Breaking up is hard to do", but it seems a few break-ups would add to the general tranquility.

President Eisenhower famously warned us about the increasing power and influence of the "military industrial complex". For the life of me, I can not see the morality in making war and weapons of war for the profit of a few. If corporations that build military weaponry were under government control, and the profits went to the Treasury of "we the people", I doubt if we would see as much war. Additionally, if the huge budgets for lobbyists and insiders from these corporate giants we no longer required to wine, dine, and coerce the generals at the Pentagon, the likelihood of a $700 hammer or a $1200 toilet seat would disappear. Think of the money we could save! If war was no longer profitable, would that be socialism? What would Haliburton do?

Then we have what is supposed to be separation of church and state. Yet, we have religious leaders (including the Pope) who are constantly meddling in politics and telling their followers how they should vote. It's a free country, and I believe they should be able to talk politics and direct their followers any way they want ... after they pay their taxes. Right now, a bishop has been in the news for stirring up a hornets nest because the President has been asked to Notre Dame to give the commencement address. What's the problem? The President supports the law of the land, which currently happens to include abortion. Meddle away, Bishop ... just as soon as the Catholic Church begins paying taxes. That should help quite a bit with the deficit.

Then you have the government meddling in religion. We hear the phrase "protecting the sanctity of marriage", but bringing contracts, taxes, and government regulation destroyed the sanctity long ago. What if marriage was only provided by the religious organizations. Domestic contracts could be a matter for government. If a church, synagogue, or whatever didn't want to perform a marriage, OK. That should have nothing to do with beneficiaries, and all the legal rights being denied individuals that don't meet with the churches approval. Could it be that marriage was perverted by the state to extort money from people in love? Maybe not ... it makes one wonder, though ... Still, a little separation of church and state may go a long way.

Well, there are a few home remedies. Do you have any? I bet you do. Hey, it's a free country so they say. Let's get radical; we couldn't do much worse ... then again, maybe we could.

- Posted by JLM - 3/30/09 03:16

Good Timing, Bad Timing
Sunday, April 5, 2009

The stock market seems to have bottomed out for now, and is moving to regain lost ground (so it would appear). If you let your investments ride, your 401(k) is looking a little better day by day. The sun is coming out, and you can breathe again. Those of us that were paying attention moved our money into cash or money markets back when the Dow Industrial Average was about 13,000. In the meantime, we kept investing monthly in equities (stocks and stock based mutual funds) while prices were low. The trick has always been to buy low and sell high. In that way, you can take advantage of the inevitable market swings. Of course, daily fluctuations will drive you crazy. With the market falling precipitously, you feel that it will keep going down and never turn around. You'll likely sell at the wrong time, and buy at the wrong time. Your stock broker loves this because he gets commission on both purchases and sales. House rules: win on winnings, and win on losses; the house always wins. This may be why simple finance and investing are not part of basic educational curriculum. The house won't make as much money if all the players know the rules and nuances of the game.

There is an old adage among informed investors that says, "It's not timing the market, but time in the market that counts". On the surface, long-term investment makes sense for us. We tend to look at the Dow Industrial Averages, and nothing else. When we listen to the business portion of the news, we get the idea that the DJIA is the market, and that the market is a living and intelligent entity in it's own right. "The market reacted poorly to the news that Alan Greenspan had a bad hair day." This is in reality rubbish, a diversion at best.

As you may recall, the Dow was above 12,000 before the "technology bubble" burst, and technology stocks tumbled in the year 2000. This drop was very predictable, and those that saw it coming made money (we may discuss that another day). It took nearly eight years to regain what the Dow had lost. Actually, even though it rose to over 13,000 the Dow never actually regained those losses. Over that eight years, the buying power of the dollar dropped to half (inflation). It stands to reason then that a 12,000 Dow today is only worth half what it was in 2000. Today, we have the Dow at 8,000 which equates to 4,000 in eight year old dollars. Still, the Dow represents only 30 major companies. Chances are your mutual funds include many more companies than those of the DJIA.

A more telling index to watch may be the NASDAQ composite index, which includes over 3,000 companies. In the year 2000 the NASDAQ broke 5000. Today, the index stands at 1600. Remember, in inflation adjusted dollars that equates to about 800 compared to its 5000 level of eight years ago. One could conclude from looking at the last eight years (and keeping inflation in mind) that long-term investing doesn't seem like a good idea. Well, eight years really isn't long term.

If you look at the DOW since the market crash of 1929 or the NASDAQ since its inception in 1971, you'll find that average return is near 12%. Since inflation has averaged 13%, you may still be unhappy with the results. Consider the alternative of pass-book savings, and there is no comparison (and let's not even discuss real estate). There are savvy investors that make money in the market, so what do they do? Rule number one is know the rules. If you aren't willing to be an student of the game, then find a nice safe mutual fund and let it ride. True players always know the rules.

Good timing comes back into play for the astute. Good timing means understanding "indicators", especially leading indicators. Back to the market plunge in 2000, all indicators were screaming, "GET OUT NOW!" Most people stayed in and lots of tears were shed. This last market plunge was also quite predictable, and the indicators were once again sending the message. Yet today, we have a lot of people who didn't listen crying over their 401(k) performance.

There are indicators for the economy as a whole, and the recent rebound of the market is a good indicator that this depression may be coming to an end. Unemployment is always a lagging indicator, so even though a lot of us are facing the pain of job loss and high unemployment the economy is showing signs of rebound. Employment should follow in about a year, if the rebound holds. Hopefully it will.

Apparently, the Obama administration will return some regulation to Wall Street. Good! There is more regulation over Las Vegas casinos than there is on Wall Street. Along with regulation, we should be addressing the systemic problems of a flawed system as well. Most investors are not even able to match the 12% average annual growth of the Dow Industrial Average. In other words, if they simply found a mutual fund that had the same companies in the same proportions as the Dow, they would be better off than all their attempts at "beating the street" has left them. Yet, they still wouldn't keep up with inflation, and herein lies the problem. The system is the problem. The system was designed for a handful of winners and an ocean of losers.

Our market system is based on growth. In a world with limited resources, a world where those vital resources are being stretched to the limit, we need to reconsider that system. We need to learn to thrive without using up our life support system. We would take a huge step toward ending inflation by taking control of the monetary system. As the Federal Reserve Bank continues to print useless monopoly money and put it into circulation, any perceived value of the currency is reduced. Replacing a monetary system based on debt, with one whose purpose is to promote the general welfare (so to constitutionally speak) will begin to bring sanity back to the system.

The other system that is flawed is one that encourages us to continuously increase the number of consumers drinking water out of the same leaky bucket. We must gain control of population growth worldwide. Will we do it? Doubtful. What if we don't? In the words of Bob Dylan, "A hard rain's a gonna fall." Make sure you have your umbrella.

- Posted by JLM - 4/05/09 13:38

That Was No Opps!
Sunday, April 12, 2009

History can be a great tool for understanding current events and even for predicting the future. History . not the history you're taught in school, but the real history is what we need. These days, we narrowly look at events with respect to our own lifetimes, or our own recent memories. Yet if we consider the beautiful cathedrals of Europe, we find that most were built over a period of several generations. Those that started the work rarely saw it to its completion, yet the work was obviously completed. The famous Gothic Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris took 182 years to complete.

Perspective was different in those days. Projects were begun for future generations to inherit. So it is that the fortunes of the world's moneyed elite were built . generation to generation. Just as the master builders of the Middle Ages built to a well designed plan, so were the banking fortunes of Rothschild, Rockefeller, Warburg, and Morgan built to a well designed plan.

We look at the banking crisis today, and we think someone really screwed up! Oh, Really? Then why is the wealth of our nation being transferred so quickly to those very same someones? Additionally, why were folks who were so involved in setting the stage for the disaster now perceived to be the only ones that can take us out of the mess (Larry Summers and Tim Geithner). We're being taken all right, but not out of the mess. Instead, as the fat cats get fatter, we are being led into a whole new world. They call it a "New World Order". Who are they? They are the power elite that intend to bring us the "New World Order". They are world leaders such as the Bush's, Clinton's, and let's not forget the Rockefeller's. In a statement to the United Nations Business Council in September 1994, David Rockefeller said, "We are on the verge of a global transformation. All we need is the right major crisis and the nations will accept the New World Order."

We all know about the recent G-20 meeting in London, because the corporate media were busy recording the Obama's every move and every word. What is the G-20? It is 19 of the world's largest economies, plus the European Economic Union (EEC). This meeting focused on the current economic situation, and urged unity in meeting the challenge to put the crisis behind us (so we are told). Actually, the crisis is being used as a detonator to put a very old plan into its next phase.

We have looked in the past several months at the Federal Reserve Bank, and the system of debt and the empowerment of the banks that the Federal Reserve has established. The end game is to set up a similar central bank system that would serve (control) the world. The end game is now being discussed quite openly; in fact, former New York Federal Reserve Chairman and current US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner just three weeks ago (March 25, 2009) while being interviewed at the Council on Foreign Relations, was asked his opinion of a proposed global monetary system. His answer . "...we're actually quite open to that suggestion."

The installation of a global central bank and monetary system won't happen overnight, though. This goal of global domination by the banking elite will come in steps. The next step was announced to the world (but not reported on by most of corporate media) at the G-20 meeting. That step is the move toward regional currencies, and the planned obsolescence of national currencies. Much as the French Franc and the German Mark have given way to the Euro, plans are in place for similar moves in South America, NAFTA (the US, Canada, and Mexico), the Gulf States (Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and all the other oily countries), Africa, Asia, and Southeast Asia.

The US is said to be moving toward the NAFTA version. This currency may be called the amero as some are saying, or it may still be called the dollar. In either case, it would be the prime currency of the United States, Canada, Mexico, and possibly Central America. One would think that we Americans wouldn't stand for this, but what if the dollar was in such trouble as deemed to be worthless? As we watch the Fed print money as fast as it's printing presses will allow (thus devaluing the dollar), it isn't hard to fathom. Hmmm ... worthless dollar that won't buy a stick of gum, or this funny money that actually works (sort of). If you bought "the smoking gun may be a mushroom cloud" line from W and Condi, then you'll be in line to trade in your dollars for this new looking dollar that works even in Mexico and Canada. Wow! Won't that be great!

The final stage would be to have one "central bank" (think Federal Reserve Bank) for the entire world, which of course would be in charge of printing one currency for the entire world. This banking entity is already in place. You've heard of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The global currency already exists, though not yet distributed as such. They're currently called SDRs, which stands for Special Drawing Rights. The one currency idea in and of itself is may not be so bad. Control over all the worlds commerce by the same folks that brought us the Fed (Rothschild, Rockefeller, Morgan, and Warburg) however, is a terrible idea that would be a good subject for a horror movie. Of course, many will point to the Book of Revelations and claim it's in there! Maybe the question would be, did the Book of Revelation foretells world domination by the banking elite, or did Mayer Amschel Rothschild get his idea for world domination through banking control from the Book of Revelation. Either way, the House of Rothschild seems to be making terrific progress in that regard, especially due to periodic financial disasters such as the Depression of 1906, the Great Depression, and of course the disaster we're riding right now. Were they natural disasters? What do you think?

Speaking of horror movies, I remember the first time I saw former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson on television. I thought, this man sure would make a good Frankenstein's monster in the movies. When he was replaced by current Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, I thought we went from Frankenstein to Dracula! All we needed was the Mummy . oh, yes, that would be former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan! What about Greenspan's replacement, Ben Bernanke. Don't tell me . the Wolfman!

OK, I know. I got a little carried away. Still, if you wonder why President Obama chose people that were so involved in the deregulation that cause this financial disaster to head his economic team. If you wonder why he doesn't dump them, even though the villagers are starting to carry pitch forks, and the loonies are loading silver bullets, then do what you know you should. Follow the money. Stay tuned, and happy Easter.

- Posted by JLM - 4/12/09 16:12

Winds of Change (maybe)
Sunday, April 19, 2009

Change is the only constant. So it is with our relations south of our borders. The world seems hopeful that our relations improve with countries such as Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua, and well it should. For too many years we have conducted a very expensive policy, which has had little positive effect. To the contrary, many of our policies have been devastating to poor and indigenous populations. Now, is it time for a change? Well, the lip service is a bit different, and I must admit that an Obama smile is more encouraging than a Bush smirk or a Cheney scowl.

Still, smiles can be deceiving. It will be a day worthy of celebration when we stop spraying carcinogens on people's food, water, livestock, and children (plan Colombia). When we stop training paramilitary death squads in Ft. Benning Georgia's School of the America's (now known as the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation), and stop funding these goon squads will be a day to rejoice. It will be a great day when we prohibit American oil and coal companies from plundering other people's lands and environment in the name of the United States. A well placed bribe here and a few hundred dead camposinos there is not healthy in international relations. Maybe, just maybe it is the beginning of a new day.

It is a good day to end CIA assassinations, coups, and torture. It's a good day for American money to stay at home instead of funding one political party or another . one war or another. It's a good time for hands extended in friendship and negotiation, rather than insults and threats hurled in hate and distrust. It's time we American's learned to export something other than weapons and war. There is so much to love about Latin America, the culture, the music, the beauty of the land, the cuisine, and especially the people. It's a good day for peace!

Meanwhile, back in the USA we had "tea parties" this week. Well, it was obvious that the other side of the political wooden nickel would object to being on the bottom. That happens, because a bipartisan system demands winners and losers. So the losers took to the streets objecting to a tax increase they didn't get (tea stands for "taxed enough, already"). Well . that tax increase may come someday! That's true, because currently we have the lowest rates we've had in a very long time, and baby boomers are beginning to collect social security. Additionally, we have to clean up the financial mess that the tea bag leaders (GOP) left for us.

Of course, we don't need to tax people at all. As mentioned a few weeks ago, our government could employ a little capitalism, and go into for profit business. I know . that might be sacrilegious or something. Can you imagine if the government (of the people) owned a bank, or an energy company, or even a defense company? How about a health insurance company? All those businesses have been proven to have the ability to generate incredibly large profits. As a government owned business, the profits could be tightly and fairly regulated; and the profits could replace taxes. Would that be communist, or socialist? Maybe it would be capitalism of the people, by the people, and for the people. I wonder if anyone brought any actual tea to the tea parties .

Income tax! Who needs it anyway! It may be ironic that these protestors had little to say when our government started pouring money down the rat hole that is Iraq. They say nothing when our military consumes more of our money than the rest of the world's militaries put together. Just who is the enemy that would cause us to spend so much of our nations treasure? Are we spending to defend our country, or to make a few very wealthy fat cats even fatter?

Come to think of it, Obama's defense budget is bigger than Bush's; maybe I should get a tea bag. Oh wait . Bush never included the monies for Iraq and Afghanistan in his defense budget numbers. Maybe that's the difference. Fuzzy accounting.

Speaking of Afghanistan, it's pop-quiz time. What is the difference between our Mujahedeen allies of the 80's and the Taliban / al Qaeda enemy of today? Answer: It is that the US is now caught in the Afghan trap, and the Russians laughing on the outside. Do they grow tea in Afghanistan, or just opium?

- Posted by JLM - 4/19/09 16:12

Living in a Fantasy
Sunday, April 26, 2009

Science sounds like a reasonably solid base upon which to base conclusions, but we as a people and as a government just can't seem to leave fantasy behind. Every time one of those "clean coal" commercials comes on television showing our President with his sleeves rolled up declaring, "we put a man on the moon! You can't tell me we can't learn how to burn coal and make it work", I want to throw my television out the window. Science tells us that coal is up to 90% carbon (by the way, petroleum is 83 - 87% carbon), with a little sulfur, hydrogen and oxygen thrown in for flavoring. Science tells us that burning is oxidation. In other words, burning something causes it to combine with oxygen. When you combine carbon (coal) with oxygen (burning), you either get carbon monoxide (one carbon atom and one oxygen atom) or carbon dioxide (one carbon atom and two oxygen atoms). Carbon monoxide is both poisonous and a greenhouse gas, and carbon dioxide is among the most notorious of the greenhouse gasses. In short, Mr. President, coal is not a clean energy alternative. I recommend for the sake of credibility you stop the coal industry from using that footage of you spouting out the results of your pipe dream. Forget the fantasy, and go with the science.

Of course, the Republican fantasy (as proclaimed by Congressman John Boehner, etal) is that since humans (they don't mention other animals) exhale carbon dioxide, it must be fine to dump unfathomable amounts of it into the atmosphere through coal burning. What does that scripture say about all things in moderation? When over half the energy the people of the world consume comes from coal and nearly all the rest from petroleum, this is not moderation. This is slow suicide by faith; faith that because it is profitable, it must be good!

Hydrogen is the natural alternative "fuel". When oxidized (burned) you get water. It goes without saying that water is not only non-polluting, but it is essential to life on earth. The arguments against hydrogen usually revolve around it being hard to store. Not only that, you can dig coal right out of the ground. Since the earth is the water planet, and water is the best storage vehicle for hydrogen ... well, you know. How deep is the ocean? How wide is the sea?

It's amazing though how many millions of dollars in advertising the coal and oil industries do. The advertising is all quite general, and is meant only to convince us how clean and sparkly these industries are. To call these ads advertising is the fantasy; to call them propaganda is more accurate.

On a different note, we have the latest fantasy flavor of the day; since Ollie North experienced water boarding (by people that actually liked him, and were concerned for his well-being) it must not be torture (according to Sean Hannity of Fox News (Fantasies). It would seem that the heat is being turned up on the former Decider and his sidekicks, and one in particular is really beginning to squirm on network television. Fortunately for Dick Cheney, the networks aren't talking about the unexplained deaths-while-under-interrogation that have been noted at Bagram Airforce Base in Afghanistan, or Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Even the Bush administration admits that if a technique causes death, it can be classified as torture. Hmm, wouldn't that be murder, or is death by torture accidental?

Steve Weissmann has an interesting article in Truthout on the subject. The story coming out now is that the Pentagon and the FBI were not totally convinced about so-called "enhanced interrogation" and always considered it torture and in violation of international law as well as US law. It seems that in his not so cool, calm, and collected state on the afternoon of September 11, 2001, the Decider-in-Chief decided 1) that we were at war, 2) that we would remain at war until Saddam Hussein and who ever else may have been involved were eliminated from existence, and that 3) no international law would stand in the way of US justice (vengeance). So it began.

The main target (even before 9-11) was to be Iraq. Saddam Hussein was an "evil-doer", and needed to be eliminated (not to mention the fact that Iraq was "swimming on a sea of oil"). When it became evident that al Qaeda were the likely perpetrators of the 9-11 attack, a tie between al Qaeda and Hussein had to be established. Solution: do whatever was necessary to get a confession from someone in al Qaeda to tie this group of religious fanatics to a very secular Saddam Hussein that just so happened to consider al Qaeda an enemy.

The CIA and the Pentagon has a training program (SERE) that was designed to enable troops to Survive, Evade, Resist, and Escape. This program was to give troops a taste of what they may encounter from folks that really couldn't care less about the Geneva Convention. Somehow, the interrogation techniques (the illegal ones) that SERE trained our troops to resist soon became the techniques of "enhanced interrogation". In short, the US began torturing people they way the Chinese Communists did under Mao Tse Tung, because (as the Decider had demanded) no international law would stand in the way. If these techniques didn't work, you could always send the "client" to Egypt (or some other dark hole) where even the Spanish Inquisition could learn a thing or two about torture. It was in Egypt that the administration extracted their link between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda. A man named Abu Zubaydah was water boarded 83 times (plus who knows what else) before affirming the connection. The link didn't stand up to the light of day and reality, but Cheney had his talking points.

As White House discussions on the topic advanced, the key players in the administration (Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Powell, etc.) knew they would need legal cover. They had a series of legal opinions drawn up that said essentially that if the subject survives, it isn't torture. Of course, the torture had already begun prior to the legal opinions being written.

Now, we have Dick Cheney, his daughter, and all the good Cheney devotees claiming that the techniques of "enhanced interrogation" worked, and we were able to extract valuable information; therefore, it was a good thing. Now, you could rob a bank and thus put a lot of money in your pocket, but wouldn't you still go to jail? The end never justifies the means when the means are immoral. Now we're faced with the fantasy that since this happened last year, it's best that we all just forget about it all. Yes, even the President is saying we should forget the past and focus on the future.

We all want to move forward, and wish that things that happened would never have been. The problem is that for a society based on the "rule of law", you can't follow the rules only when convenient. 2,974 people were murdered on September 11, 2001, and justice needs to be served. Since that date, hundreds of thousands of innocents have been killed in the name of justice and of the 2,974, and yet justice has not been served . indeed, it has been mocked. The 2,974 would not be pleased.

- Posted by JLM - 4/26/09 15:33

Is That What You Thought!
Sunday, May 3, 2009

Mortgage bankers won big in the Senate on Thursday. Senator Richard Durbin stated the obvious, moaning that the banks "are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill, and they frankly own the place." Helping Families Save Their Homes Act, was the defeated legislation that had already passed the House as H.R. 1106. The vote was on Senator Durbin's amendment that would allow judges to modify residential mortgages in bankruptcy. Even though the Durbin amendment was supported by President Obama, it failed 45 to 51 with 11 "centrist" Democrats voting against.

 The argument for the Durbin amendment is that we should treat residential mortgages the same way we currently treat business mortgages, vacation home mortgages, and secured loans on boats and cars. The court tries to work out a payment plan designed to prevent the loss of the secured asset. In fact, residential mortgages were treated this way in bankruptcy court until 1978.  Without this bankruptcy provision, President Obama's plan to address the housing foreclosure crisis will essentially be limited to federal subsidies - which can't do a lot of good.

You might think that items such as this which would have kept countless thousands of families in their homes would have been a fairly easy ride. After all, the Democrats control the House of Representatives, the Senate, and the Presidency. The only thing left under Republican control is the Supreme Court, which had nothing to do with this rejection. If you look at the vote, you'll find that Republicans were absolutely lock-step together. The victory on the issue went to the the banks (which the overwhelming majority of Americans distrust) and the Republican Party. Note that only about 22% of the nations voters consider themselves Republican. The Democrats are down to 33%, but still that is 50% higher than Republicans (for a complete look, see People's Press). The most encouraging result of this latest poll is that so-called Independents are enjoying rapid growth as well as the majority. If they only new what to do with this new majority...

We read about the "end of partisanship" and irreconcilable differences between the parties, so how would the Republicans gain such a victory in the Senate? In short ... things aren't always as they seem. Referring back to Senator Durbin's statement that the banks own Capital Hill, that means both Democrats and Republicans. This is just a snap-shot though; the banks apparently control all of government. Yet, it isn't the banks, but the controlling interest in the banks that hold the actual power. Those that have controlling interest in the banks also have controlling interest in energy (the dirty kind), weapons, media and entertainment, food, pharmaceuticals, insurance; if we believe we consumers need it, these folks control it.

You would think that by electing a President and a Congress that wants us out of Iraq, that we could get out of Iraq. Now, we are hearing 50,000 or so troops will stay in Iraq for "an extended period" (read until the oil is gone). Additionally, we're sending 30,000 more troops (for now) to guard the opium fields of Afghanistan and see if we can't get ourselves sucked into a major war in Pakistan with Pakistan's nuclear weapons at stake! So much for significant change on that front.

You would also think that with the majority the Democrats enjoy in Washington, they could give us a health care system that would be the finest in the world. Instead, we're hearing about affordable insurance! If you can't afford to pay your mortgage, just what is "affordable insurance"? Why would we allow insurance companies (the other branch of the banking family) to have anything to do with our medical care anyway? They aren't doctors; they're thieves! Ah, but they are the thieves that have stolen our government. Government "of the people, by the people, and for the people" does not exist. Did it ever exist? Can it ever exist?

So you voted for change, and we're seeing some dribbles of change. Scientists can now experiment with stem cells, and we get to dream about 'clean coal' and unicorns. There will now be less air pollution, because Pontiacs (and other models) will not be coming off the assembly lines. You probably didn't vote for more of the same, yet bankers will continue to get richer and more powerful, and our Middle Eastern follies will continue unabated.

Is it all beyond our control? Is there nothing to be done? The banks and the government which they own would like for you to feel utterly powerless. In 1597 Sir Francis Bacon wrote, "Knowledge is power". It's difficult to gain power or knowledge while you're asleep, but as a nation we seem to be asleep. I've tried listening to tapes while I'm asleep; I sleep right through it, and wake up ignorant. It seems we should wake up, find knowledge, become powerful, and put the fear of God in these weasels that enjoy resting a foot on the neck of We the People.

- Posted by JLM - 5/03/09 13:42

Two Sides of the River
Sunday, May 10, 2009

In the heart of Africa there is a river known as the Congo. On the north side of the Congo there lives a creature whose DNA nearly matches our own. We call that creature Chimpanzee. On the south side of the Congo there is a creature whose DNA also nearly matches our own. This creature looks very much like a chimpanzee, but we call this creature Bonobo. Speculation is that the two creatures have common ancestry, but were split apart when the river was formed possibly a million years ago.

Over the years, physical differences became apparent. Bonobos are a little smaller but have longer legs, which they use to walk upright much more often than chimpanzees. The bonobos face is generally darker than chimps, and the hair on their heads is longer and parts down the middle. Social differences are much more pronounced.

The bonobos social structure is matriarchal (by the way, happy Mothers Day!), while the chimpanzees are male dominated. As the title of John Gray's best selling book states, "Men are From Mars, Women are From Venus. Chimpanzee society is filled with violence (definitely from Mars). Visitors from other tribes are generally beaten, often killed, and occasionally eaten. The strongest chimpanzee individual rules the tribe. Cleverness and wisdom are of little account; violence rules the day.

Bonobos are much more inclined to peaceful coexistence. Visiting bonobos generally encounter an invitation for sex rather than a violent attack. Bonobos seem to use sex to not only greet visitors, but for settling arguments and it would seem for general entertainment (no television or video games). The bonobos are obviously of the "make love not war" persuasion. They are also considered egalitarian, in that each individual is respected more than in chimpanzee society. It would seem that were we not considering south or north of the river, we might be considering left or right of the political spectrum.

It is thought provoking when you consider that our society seems to want to protect our children from sex, while supplying them with all the most violent video games available. In fact, the Pentagon is spending a fortune of our taxes to develop video games such as "America's Army", which are among the most violent and graphic games available. They believe it helps recruitment. Also, you'll notice that religion is often the basis of war. This flies in the face of reason, yet just a little research will lead you to conclude that those who express strong religious bias are more apt to support war, so-called "enhanced interrogation" (torture), capital punishment, and the fight against any type of gun control what-so-ever.

What does this all mean? You be the judge. As for me, I prefer the south side of the river. Peace with a little promiscuity seems preferable to the head-banging mayhem that goes on north of the Congo River.

- Posted by JLM - 5/10/09 11:12

Truth, Justice, and the American Way
Saturday, May 23, 2009

My Constitutionalist blood begins to boil when day after day we see the former Vice President's delightful snarl on television as he tries to tell us that shredding the Constitution is necessary to keep America safe. Rather, I get the feeling that Mr. Cheney feels that convincing the public (or at least the media) is critical to his own freedom. Maybe if President Obama handed him a get-out-of-jail-free card (like the one Gerald Ford gave to Dick Nixon) Cheney would retire and go hunting with his buddies. As a child, I grew up watching Superman on television. The announcer would always use the phrase "truth, justice, and the American way". I suppose I grew to believe that truth and justice are the "American way". Ah, the naïveté of youth!

Cheney claims that waterboarding was only used on three highly dangerous men, and that thousands (possibly hundreds of thousands) of lives were saved. Additionally, that waterboarding is legal and not torture. First off, if you believe they restricted waterboarding to three men (applying it to one of the men 183 times), you probably also believe in WMD, collusion between Sadam and al Qaeda, and the Easter Bunny. It's fascinating though, how the press has focused on waterboarding at the exclusion of other types of torture employed. Evidently, inserting broomsticks in a prisoner's anus is just a homespun cure for hemorroids. They speak of stress positions like it's some kind of yoga exercise, but if you check out the pictures, it's more like crucifixion. Then we have reports of people being beaten so severely that death followed (maybe it was the head-butts against the wall), but hey... people die playing football, too! Yes, Virginia. There was (is) a lot more than waterboarding going on. Even the name "waterboarding" sounds like something you might enjoy doing on the weekend at the lake. "Simulated drowning" ... still pretty much sanitized. "Enhanced interrogation" sounds like tough questions like asking Sarah Palin what newspapers she reads.

A little history may be in order. The CIA was formed after WWII in order to ensure President Truman had a "civilian" intelligence (spy) agency reporting directly to him after the war time agency known as the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was shut down. In 1953, Truman appointed corporate lawyer Allen Dulles to take over as the civilian head of the recently formed spy agency. Dulles served in that capacity for eight years and was eventually fired by JFK after the Bay of Pigs fiasco. Incidentally, Dulles eventually headed the Warren Commission investigation into the assassination of JFK (the same JFK that fired him). Hmmm... To make a long story short, it was under Dulles that the CIA went from a basic intelligence agency, to one that seemed to constantly involve itself in such things as assassinations, coups, "enhanced interrogations", truth drug experimentations (especially LSD), and other boys-will-be-boys activities that would land most boys in prison. During the Vietnam war (which the CIA had more than one hand in starting) they came up with an enhanced interrogation and assassination program called the "Phoenix Program" which is a horror story in itself. We like to think that only the "bad guy" countries are employing such horrific tactics. I won't go into the thousands upon thousands that died from the "enhanced interrogations" of the Phoenix Program. The question that the media would seem to ask is, did the program work? The media certainly falls in the ends-justify-the-means family of salamanders. Well, did we win in Vietnam? Did truth, justice, and the American way prevail? No. Did America become less safe because we eventually packed up and left? No. Did we needlessly kill 54,000 Americans and several million Vietnamese? Yes.

The history of the CIA would be among the most fascinating stains on American history we could find, if we could only find it. The network that Allen Dulles set up became so secretive, and so large that not even the CIA knows the whole story. Unfortunately, we have always had those that believe they must cheat to be successful. We must violate the law in order to keep America safe is Cheney's argument. This is supplemented by Nixon's statement that, "when the President does it, it is not illegal". Then under Reagan's "morning in America", we had the CIA buying expensive weapons (supposedly surplus, and paid for by our taxes) for pennies on the dollar, only to sell them at tremendous profit to our adversary (Iran) in order to fund an illegal secret war in not one Central American Country, but three (Nicaragua, Guatemala, and El Salvador) in which countless poor campesinos died. So much for the morning light ... the dark side took over.

Hopefully, light will be shed as curiosity is peeked and you begin to do a little research of your own. For now, it seems there are only two ways to get the once silent Dick Cheney to stop emulating Chatty Cathy; the get-out-of-jail-free card, or the go-directly-to-jail, do-not-pass-go card. Which would be better for the country? We we're lied into the Iraq war while al-Qaeda and bin Laden were being allowed to escape from Tora Bora in Afghanistan. Hundreds of thousands have died because of the lie. A get-out-of-jail-free card did not "heal the nation" as promised after Vietnam; I have no reason to believe it would heal the nation now. There is an old saying that you know; "if you can't do the time, don't do the crime".

"So long as governments set the example of killing their enemies, private individuals will occasionally kill theirs."
- Elbert Hubbard, American author (1856-1915).

- Posted by JLM - 5/23/09 11:55

Winter Soldier on the Hill
Monday, May 25, 2009

Democracy Now provides us with a special for Memorial Day. Winter Soldier on the Hill: War Vets Testify Before Congress.

- Posted by JLM - 5/25/09 23:55

High Horse on the Low Road to the Dark Side
Sunday, May 31, 2009

It's no wonder Jay Leno retired from the Tonight Show. With George Bush spending more time walking Barney and less time behind a microphone these days, there just isn't as much good material out there. "W" famously pointed out regarding John McCain that "He can't take the high horse and then claim the low road." Actually, Bush's statement is a fairly accurate description of American politics and foreign policy.

Bill Moyers of PBS says everyone in America should watch the new documentary, Torturing Democracy. Follow the link, and in the upper left, click on Watch the Program. The documentary is in three parts, and is a full-length feature. After watching it, I agree with Bill Moyers; everyone in America should see it. Unfortunately, the whole world watches America and all that is done in our name.

To say that we've left the "low road" with our new president riding his "high horse" would be a stretch. Neither the quagmire in Afghanistan / Pakistan, nor the push for over 50 permanent US Military bases in Iraq are to be found on the high road. We know that; we're concerned about that, and yet it continues and it will continue.

What of the financial quagmire that faces us all? We seem to be on the low road there as well. Financial foxes Timothy Geithner and Larry Summers are now in firmly in charge of raiding America's economic hen house. These men along with then Senator Phil Graham and the Republican held Senate, helped engineer the collapse by fostering deregulation of banking in 1998; and they are evidently making sure that they and their banking masters are profiting enormously from our demise. Why would Obama choose these particular men to lead us into a bottomless pit of debt? ...these men that had championed the deregulation that put us on the edge of that pit? Will their so-called expertise bring prosperity to America? ...or only to the banking elite?

"Let's make sure that there is certainty during uncertain times in our economy."
-- George W. Bush

        Once again, we have to connect the dots. As Obama espouses the fantasy of so-called clean coal, we can see that most American coal is firmly under the control of the Rockefeller dynasty. We understand that this same Rockefeller dynasty heads the Chase Bank behemoth (not to mention Exxon Mobil, etc.)

The drive of the Rockefellers and their allies is to create a one-world government combining super capitalism and Communism under the same tent; all under their control... Do I mean conspiracy? Yes I do. I am convinced there is such a plot, international in scope, generations old in planning, and incredibly evil in intent.
- Congressman Larry P. McDonald, 1976

We are grateful to The Washington Post, The New York Times, Time Magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost forty years. It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subject to the bright lights of publicity during those years. But, the work is now much more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national auto-determination practiced in past centuries.
- David Rockefeller, founder of the Trilateral Commission, address to The Trilateral Commission, June, 1991

Could there be a connection between Geithner, Summers, and the Rockefellers? Do wild bears poop in the forest? You may or may not have heard of the so-called Bilderberg Group. They are a tough group to follow, because of the secrecy involved. In a nutshell, the invitation only group is primary made up of many of the worlds so-called elite. They meet annually, and the agenda is alleged to be all about world domination and control. Surprised? I didn't think so.

This years Bilderberg gathering was two weeks ago in Athens. If you'll take the time to read this article from The Centre for Research on Globalization and especially note the attendees to the Bilderberg conference, you may ask yourself why this conference was not reported on CNN, NBC, ABC, FOX, CBS, etc. Pay special attention to who heads the group, and how many people from the Obama administration were in attendance. Also note what their gameplan is concerning the US dollar. Are you beginning to understand the difference between a presidential puppet and the puppeteer? The question is, can this be stopped? The answer is yes, but not without knowledge of what's going on and who's behind the curtain. Are you curious? Do you have a voice?

- Posted by JLM - 5/31/09 11:06

Debt? What Debt?!
Sunday, June 7, 2009

Our national debt is now allegedly approaching $11.5 trillion dollars. That large a number is really well beyond our comprehension, but we're told that it equals about $37,215.82 for every citizen of the United States. Scary! Additionally, if Obama keeps spending on everything from J.P. Morgan Chase, to Afghanistan, to General Motors, to Chrysler ... well, higher taxes here we come! How will we otherwise avoid national bankruptcy? Scarier! Smile! There's light at the end of the tunnel! We just have to shine that light on the cockroaches and vermin here in the tunnel.

If you have been following this blog, you know that the Federal Reserve Bank is often in the cross-hairs. First, it isn't federal, and second, there is no reserve. The Fed is notified of the amount (say $10 billion give or take 37¢). With a few keystrokes, $10 billion is deposited on a ledger. It isn't backed by gold, silver, or aunt Millie's apple pie. There is no 'reserve'. It's all imaginary, but everyone thinks it's as real as the emperor's clothes. Here's the gotcha: the Fed charges We the People interest on this imaginary money. Since the government has no real income with which to pay this interest on the "national debt", it taxes you and me. When the interest on the debt exceeds the amount of taxes collected (as it has for sometime), the benevolent old Fed just takes everything it can get. To bankrupt the country, would be to kill the goose that's laying all these golden eggs.

So how does it feel to pay taxes to extremely rich bankers in exchange for a few keystrokes on a computer? Isn't it interesting that the Federal Reserve Bank came into being the same year (1913) that income tax appeared. Both acts were written by the bankers. They knew they would need income tax for us to pay the interest; that's what the whole scam has always been about. It's interesting to note that there is question as to whether the 16th amendment that established the tax was ever properly ratified by the states (this would make the tax illegal). The Supreme Court decided that it had been properly ratified, but then the Supreme Court also decided to stop the vote counting in Florida and thereby declare George Bush the 43rd President of the United States. You get the court and the government you pay for, and currently the bankers pay for everything (but with your money).

So, the light at the end of the tunnel? The debt doesn't actually exist, since it's based on nothing. Our children will be saddled with nothing more than the same imaginary debt that saddled us. You can multiply 11.4 trillion by zero and the results are a resounding zero. Zero is what the entire debt is worth.

I strongly recommend that you read Web of Debt, by Ellen Hodgson Brown, J.D. In fact, this book should be required reading for college freshmen; and everyone in business. This is not about Republicans and Democrats; the bankers fund both parties to keep all eyes focused elsewhere. This is about freedom and prosperity. We could all agree on both fiscal responsibility and social responsibility. We would all be so much better off if We the People's Congress would reclaim the Constitutional right to coin money and regulate the value thereof (article I, section VIII). Congress gave that right away, and they need to take it back.

Once again, power grows from knowledge. If We the People refuse to open our eyes and discover the truth, we can expect that light to stay right where it is ... at the end of the tunnel.

- Posted by JLM - 6/07/09 16:52

The Greatest Scam
Sunday, June 14, 2009

You'll notice below the menu on the left there is a form to enter your zipcode in order to find your elected representatives. I hope you use that, because democracy doesn't work when we leave these folks to their own devices. Without your voice, they will only respond to the moneyed interests that got them elected. Of course, hearing from you is only a start, but if enough of us hound them it's a good start. I received an email update from Congressman Alan Grayson. I'm on his mailing list in recognition for hounding him (among others... I even hound the ones that aren't from my district). In his e-update, he expressed dismay that the Federal Reserve Bank refuses to tell Congress why they printed an extra trillion dollars and to whom they gave it. Note that this has now become part of our debt. I recommended he read Web of Debt. Congressman Grayson is new enough that he still has good intentions, and that's refreshing.

So this is how it works: the "Fed" is owned by the member banks in proportion to their size. This means that the Fed is dominated by three banks, Citibank, Chase, and Bank of America. You'll notice that all three of those, plus some of their "investment bank" subsidiaries received Federal bailout funds. What this means is the Fed created money out of nothing (just a few keystrokes on the computer) which they handed to themselves while handing We the People the bill. That's not all ... they are charging us interest on that bill! I know ... it sounds too preposterous to believe. Yet, that's how it works. They didn't steal our cash; they stole our credit card, and they're using it to fund their gambling habits. The casino game they play is called derivatives. I won't go into the rules (or lack thereof) of the derivatives game; it's a complex game, and it's rigged.

Now, when we think of corporations, we think of a lot of people owning them. That's right, but ownership of a few stocks is unimportant; control of the corporation is important. In fact, control is all that is important. Most large "public" corporations can be controlled with 20% ownership. Control indicates who gets paid and who doesn't. Essentially, a few people use the money of a lot of people in order to make themselves extremely wealthy. The common share holders sometimes win, and sometimes lose; this is of little importance to those in control.

You'll notice the Fed is controlled by (again) Citi, Chase, and B of A. These banks in turn are controlled by a small group of people that are either working for or related to principally the families of Morgan, Rockefeller, Rothschild, and Warburg. This small group not only "controls" the big three banks, but in turn they control the Fed. What that brings us to is that this small group of individuals has control over the financial destiny of the US and most of the world. Maybe that wouldn't a bad thing, except that they have lined their own pockets with what we now call "the national debt", and charge us interest payable by what we call "income taxes". These people don't need a bailout; they need a lockup!

We would be hearing about this monumental scam on the news, and reading it in the newspapers in a perfect world. Shortly after World War I, realizing they needed an uninformed (or misinformed) public, the houses of Morgan and Rockefeller began buying up controlling interest in the nations major sources of news. At the time, a couple of dozen publishing and broadcast companies were all that was needed to divert the public from reality. With consolidation, today there are only about ten corporations that virtually control the news, and therefore public opinion.

Some people think the Federal Reserve Banks are U.S. government institutions. They are not ... they are private credit monopolies which prey upon the people of the U.S. for the benefit of themselves and their foreign and domestic swindlers, and rich and predatory money lenders. The sack of the United States by the Fed is the greatest crime in history. Every effort has been made by the Fed to conceal its powers, but the truth is the Fed has usurped the government. It controls everything here and it controls all our foreign relations. It makes and breaks governments at will.
-- Congressman Louis McFadden, Chairman, House Banking and Currency Committee, June 10, 1932

The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the large centers has owned the Government ever since the days of Andrew Jackson.
-- President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, November 23, 1933, in a letter to Colonel Edward Mandell House

I may be a little crazy, but I'm in good company! What can we do? It's much to complex! Shouldn't we just ignore it and hope it will go away? Or, live with it? Well, we've been living with it, but if you have been paying attention things aren't going so well. What we have is not only "the greatest crime in history", but also the greatest mystery. We'll never be free of these criminals unless we join in solving the crime and the mystery. It is time we see some Justice for All!

- Posted by JLM - 6/14/09 13:41

Yes, We Can't
Sunday, June 21, 2009

Campaign slogans are nothing more than talk. There are countless cliché's about talk, but regardless of your favorite cliché, action is what matters. I like President Obama; I even like saying "President Obama". My generation would sum him up in two words; he's hip. He's also (like many before him) proving to be a bit of a hot air balloon. It will take a lot more than slick campaign slogans and eloquent speeches to turn the ship-of-state back from the brink. It will take a lot of courage, and a lot of luck.

At least three yes we cans turned into yes we can'ts this week: 1) health care for all Americans, 2) an end to the endless war, and 3) a permanent solution to the nations financial perils.

Yes we can't have universal health care. They tell us single payer (universal) health care that covers all Americans is off the table. The slogan we hear so often from the so-called loyal opposition is,"you don't want the government between you and your doctor." Obviously, they would rather have an insurance company between you and your doctor. What they're really saying is they like the money the insurance and pharmaceutical industries provide politicians too much to ever disappoint the banking elite that own them. Isn't a government of the people, by the people, and for the people a more reasonable entity to cover your medical bills than a for-profit insurance company which cares so much about you and your health that they hire an army of lawyers to make sure that they can deny a great deal of your claims (usually right when you need them the most)? If we only had a government of the people, by the people, and for the people... things would be different. Most of the uninsured are uninsured because they are not in a "group". Isn't being American being in a "group"? The bigger the group, the lower the cost to insure; America is a fairly large group!

"Universal health care means higher taxes", they tell us. Yes, but would you rather pay $50 a month in taxes or $200 a month in premiums (knowing that a good part of your premium goes to the guys trying to deny your claim)? It's clear that government shouldn't make decisions about your health, but neither should for-profit insurance corporations.

There is an entity called an ASO (Administrative Service Organization), that just covers the paperwork. Administration for an American health plan could be provided by a few such organizations, similar to the way it's done in medicare. Aren't you glad that the fire department and police department aren't for-profit ventures? It's time we heard a yes we can for a permanent fix for health care. While ours is the most expensive health care in the world, the World Health Organization ranks us at a whopping 35th in the world in quality and service (France is #1).

Yes we can't end the endless war. The House of Representatives approved a $105.9 billion funding bill for continuing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan this week. The bill included several billion to go to the IMF (International Money Fund), which caused many Democratic representatives to object to the bill. The White House made it clear that they would not support those that opposed the bill. Government by threat... Certainly, cutting off funds completely would put our troops at risk as they pull out, but they aren't really pulling out. They're just being redeployed from Iraq to Afghanistan, where Obama has no exit strategy at all. The only way to get an exit strategy out of this administration is to force one by reducing the amount of money we borrow to continue fighting people that had nothing to do with 9/11. Additionally, the money to the IMF is nothing more than a reward to European bankers (Rothschild and friends) for their scams and misdeeds. Very disappointing...

Yes we can't put the nation on a firm financial footing. We've looked at the system of debt that is the Federal Reserve System. This system creates money from nothing and charges us interest on that money. In order to pay the interest, we have to borrow more money. In the end, the bankers will have all the marbles; that is the game, and we are near that conclusion. The system violates the Constitution, and is nothing less than the biggest scam in US history. To fix the problem, the so-called Fed must indeed become Federal; the power to create the money for our nation must be wrenched from private hands and returned to We the People! Instead, what we got this week was weak. The Geithner/Obama administration gave us a few regulations to cure some glaring problems, but put the Federal Reserve Bank (the main problem) in charge of most of the so-called regulations! We just put our last 2¢ in the hands of the thief. I hope you feel violated, because you were violated!

So what's a hip president to do? How about instead of surrounding himself with people that either created or enabled the problem, surround himself with people that look at the core of the problem and actually have solutions. Congressmen Ron Paul and Alan Grayson (Republican and Democrat) are co-sponsoring H.R. 1207, the Federal Reserve Transparency Act of 2009 in order to shine some light on the crime of the century, but you probably didn't know that. You certainly didn't see it on CNN. You might find it on YouTube. These are the caliber of men that the Prez needs surrounding him. Certainly, it's dangerous standing up against the most powerful cartel of all (the banking cartel), but hey... Obama wanted the job. Now it's time for Yes, we are!

- Posted by JLM - 6/21/09 11:09

Independence Day
Saturday, July 4, 2009

Independence Day. We celebrate it every year with fireworks, friends, food, and libations. We tell each other that we live in the best country in the world, and maybe we're right. Most of us have little to experience with which to base that assumption, but that's what we have been taught. It must be right. What makes this country great is our freedom ... the freedom we won against the Brits in their white tights and their bright red tailed coats. They were sure easy to spot marching through the forests in that red, with their drummers pounding out the cadence. It's a wonder they didn't starve, because with that much commotion all the game must have vacated the vicinity for miles. What a sight that must have been!

The root cause of that war had little to do with tea in Boston Bay, but had everything to do with a certain printer named Ben Franklin, and a certain publication called a continental (dollar). In order for the colonists to carry out commerce, they needed some medium of exchange. They could borrow (at interest) from the British central bankers, but instead they choose to print their own currency and thereby avoid the interest and avoid debt. The colonies were fantastically prosperous under the system of continentals. The currency wasn't based on gold. It was based on goods and services of the colonial workers.

Ben Franklin was visiting the aristocracy in England, and was asked why the colonies were doing so well. He let it slip that they were printing their own money. Oops! The war was fought over our right to print our own money with no debt attached. Debt equals at best a loss of freedom, and at worst slavery. Think about that the next time you use your credit card. They aren't really credit cards, they are debt cards and they represent obligation and bondage.

Back to the story, after the shooting stop and the peace was signed, the battle with the bankers continued. Thomas Jefferson famously declared, "I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies." As usual, he was right. Jefferson went on to say, "If the American people ever allow the banks to control issuance of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers occupied."

The battle with the bankers went on for over 100 years. The bankers lost two battles, one with Andrew Jackson, and one with Abraham Lincoln. They won the war in 1913 due to the help of the gullible Woodrow Wilson, who in 1916 confessed, "We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated governments in the civilized world. We are no longer a government by free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominate men. I have unwittingly betrayed my country." He was speaking of course of the system of bondage set up by the Federal Reserve Act. On that day, America became a nation of servitude and indebtedness. On that day, we lost our control of our destiny. On that day, we became indentured servants to the banking empires of Rockefeller, Rothschild, Morgan, and Warburg. On that day, we became slaves to the system of debt.

People like to plaster the phrase "Freedom isn't Free" across their bumpers, and maybe they're right. Freedom isn't freedom as long as the people live in a system of debt. When we send our sons and daughters off to defend "our freedom", we should consider that they may actually be defending those that keep us enslaved in debt. As Woodrow Wilson pointed out, our government has become a government not of the people but of the central bankers. Consider that the bankers control virtually all the major corporations. They control the oil, coal, and uranium. They control the so-called military industrial complex. They control the health care industry. They control intertainment and media. They control the housing industry. They control the currency and credit. They control the government ... all three branches. They control our presidents (past and current). They control you and me. They control with debt, but we call it money.

Is the battle for our freedom won? No. Is the battle for our freedom over? I certainly hope not! The solution is simple, but it is not easy. Perhaps next time we'll look at the solution. In the meantime, please have a safe and enjoyable Fourth of July.

- Posted by JLM - 7/4/2009  11:23

Simple but Not Easy
Sunday, July 12, 2009

There is a saying attributed to Jesus that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of God. You can find this saying in the books of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Obviously, it was considered important for it to appear in all three books. For a few hundred years, theologians (some, not all) have been saying that the "eye of a needle" referred to a gate in the wall in Jerusalem that wasn't made for camels; but if you unloaded the camel and made it walk on it's knees, it could get through. The problem with that theory is that there is no historical evidence of a gate called the "eye of a needle" in the Jerusalem wall. It's nice to think that the wealthy could unburden themselves of their encumbrances and come through on their knees, but that is probably just wishful thinking on the part of the wealthy. Either way, Jesus was indicating that rich folks were faced with an impossible task (have you ever seen a camel walk on its knees?). Some things are just easier said than done.

Likewise, unraveling the damage done by the so-called banking elite (also known as the greedy blood-suckers) is easier said than done. The solutions to a debt based, non-sustainable, parasitic financial system that bleeds the populace dry are several and fairly simple. Interestingly, even the damage that has been inflicted upon us by the greed displayed by this handful of individuals can be reversed within a relatively short time. The problem lies with the power these folks have accrued. We could fix the pot hole in the road if we could just remove the Tyrannosaurus Rex that's standing on top of it. Let's begin with the pot hole that needs fixing.

As we've examined before, the trouble is that every dollar created in the Federal Reserve system has an element of interest. You can't pay the interest without creating more dollars to do so, yet every dollar you create heaps on even more interest. The cycle goes on, until the interest owed is so huge that it is beyond the nations ability to pay ... like right now. The nation could declare bankruptcy, since it can't even pay interest on its debt. That would be the wrong move though, and only restart the debt machine. The best option is to eliminate the debt machine, but how? We simply take back the power of the purse. Though we have many problems in our great nation, the system of debt created by the Federal Reserve Act is at the very heart.

When the Federal Reserve Act was slipped through our Congress in 1913, our leaders made it very clear that our government was for sale. Our financial future was dependent on the watchful eye of our representative government, but they decided to represent the rich and powerful instead of we the people. The fate of our nation was then turned over to the hands of a few unscrupulous families. The simple fix is to reverse the Federal Reserve Act and take back control over the nations finances.

The afore mentioned large toothy dinosaur represents the fact that the insidious system put into place in 1913 has so concentrated power that a few banking families literally control our government including the military and even (or especially) the CIA. Yes, that is a very toothy beast! Proof? Haven't you been following the money? It always leads to the top of the food chain. Proof is only available to those that will open their eyes and ears, and believe what they're seeing. Proof is available. What is needed is the courage to expose the truth.

Another one of the sayings attributed to Jesus, is the truth shall set you free. Certainly, when we discover how our government of the people has been stolen and of the power obtained by the thieves, we either tend to feel very helpless, very angry, or both. Remember though, that the power of the military (and the CIA for that matter) is made up of our sons and daughters. The power elite may have the steering wheel, but they lack the hearts and minds. Additionally, though very powerful, these folks do make mistakes. Unfortunately, those mistakes usually come back to haunt us.

To proclaim the truth is all the more challenging, since the banksters also control the media. Still, a constant dripping of water will eventually work its way through steel. We need to be constantly dripping the truth. It's encouraging to see a handful of our elected officials stand up to the powers that be, and speak the truth to power. Certainly, they put their careers and their lives in jeopardy when they do so. They need our support, and our encouragement. We need to pay more attention to whom we are electing, and give these courageous few some company on Capital Hill. We need to raise our voices along with these brave officials to point out injustice and to end this game of debt that is destroying our country and consuming our world.

For those that might feel the notion that a few elite families are bent on world domination and destruction of our way of life and government is nothing more than a myth, consider what David Rockefeller had to say in his Memoirs. "Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as 'internationalists' and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure - one world, if you will. If that's the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it."

In that statement, David Rockefeller (arguably the most powerful individual in the United States) proclaimed that he and his family are part of a conspiracy working against the best interests of our country. Still, the corporate media (his corporate media) does everything possible to convince the nation that people who point out the secret cabal are "conspiracy theorists". I have been called that myself. This is no theory; this is fact! Just listen to the man himself!

The solutions to the problems our nation faces are indeed simple. They are certainly not easy, but there is no going forward if we don't take a step. It's time to return to the rule of law, and to our Constitution. Actually, we should have done that a long long time ago, but hey... there's no time like the present.

- Posted by JLM - 7/12/2009  23:54

How Do You Eat an Elephant?
Sunday, July 19, 2009

We've all heard the old saying about eating an elephant ... one bite at a time. Not that we would want to eat an elephant, but certainly our Ice Age ancestors had to depend upon an even larger pachyderm for survival. We're surrounded by mammoth sized problems in our world; some we feel we can affect, and some we don't feel we can affect. There are challenges that we may overcome, if we choose to face them. As you can see from the quote in the sidebar, I like to consider Gandhi. Here was a well educated, yet simple and humble man. While preaching and practicing non-violence, he overcame the very powerful British Empire, and gained sovereignty for his native India. You know the story. Gandhi had a choice to practice law and live well, or to do what he felt from deep within himself was right. He had no way of knowing whether or not he would succeed, only that he was compelled to stand up for the downtrodden.

Could it be that each of us has a Gandhi inside, poised to change the world? Maybe not. So much was involved that made Gandhi unique, but more than anything he conquered the fears that welled up inside of him in order to do and say what he knew was right. He ignored his fears and spoke truth to both the weak and the powerful. The profound affect that this had was to give power to the weak, and to weaken the powerful.

Much of the perceived strength of Gandhi was not so much strength as it was perseverance. Gandhi was persistent in his message. The more he spoke, the more negative response he evoked from the British. This in turned, cause more resistance from the people of India. Many of the truly successful people in the world exhibit this trait of persistence. You keep doing what you're doing, and maybe someday you'll be really good at what you're doing. Gandhi's message, it could be argued, was ripe for the time and circumstance. This may be, but his message also had an affect of bringing ripeness to the time.

As we speak out against injustice, we all have a price. What is that price that will quiet our voice? Is it money? Can we be bought? Is it comfort? Can we not withstand the pressures of family? Gandhi had a price. He was very much aware of his price, because he set it very early on. There was no compromise in his price; he was more willing to die than to compromise. His price? The freedom of self-determination for the people of India. Freedom from British rule. That sounds familiar doesn't it? As we like to say, "been there, done that".

Goals are often simple stated, and certainly freedom from British rule is only four words. Similarly, elephant is only eight letters ... not so big. Nonetheless, if you abandon the task it will never reach completion. Let's not think of it as a task, though; it's really a journey. You put your feet on the path and take that first step; then the next. Lift your eyes from the path enough to enjoy the journey. Anticipate the friends you will meet and the fulfillment you will experience as you learn and grow along the path of freedom, because along this path lies freedom of the spirit. That freedom is the greatest freedom of all.

There are so many issues facing our nation these days; the war, healthcare, the environment, etc. The most important is that which is not being discussed very much at all; the question of who is really in charge(?). It should of course be the government of the people, but as we have seen the government was sold many years ago. The people are distracted by a thousand side issues (war, healthcare, the environment, etc.), which will remain side issues unless and until we gain freedom from the Banking empire. This then should be our quest, our journey, our elephant to eat; to return the United States to we the people.

- Posted by JLM - 7/19/2009  11:59

Piñata Protocol
Sunday, July 26, 2009

There is a tradition that comes to us from Mexico which we find prevalent at children's birthday parties - that of the piñata. A piñata is a brightly-colored papier-mâché, cardboard, or clay container made in the shape of an animal or whatever, and filled with any combination of candy, small fruit, food items, and toys. It is usually hung on a rope from a tree branch. The goodies are released when a blind-folded child smacks it with a stick.

Referring to Iraq before the before the invasion, Former Secretary of State Colin Powell famously said, "...you break it; you own it." It seems to me that he got the old saying wrong, but that's in my world. In my world if you break it, you pay for it. Then you might own it. Rules that apply to you and I don't always apply to the high and mighty. They are the ones that make up the rules as they go along. Their rules are more like that of the piñata; I break it, my friends and I get all the goodies, and you clean up the mess.

We've been watching our so-called "banking elite" (or the banksters as many refer to them) break the system. We've seen them grab all the goodies and leave us with an empty piñata, but to what end? There is little doubt that groups that are dominated by the banksters such as the Bilderberg Group, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Trilateral Commission are pushing us toward one world government with them pulling the strings. As we can see from the mess of our economy, either these folks are very destructive or not as smart as they imagine (maybe both). Well, they have certainly been a destructive force on the economy, and they have profited enormously from their actions. Likewise the wars in the cradle of civilization have brought outrageous profits to companies such as the Cargyle Group and Halliburton (to name just a few). At what cost?

We have seen our Constitution trampled, and the liberties it guarantees us vanish one by one. The corporate media propaganda machine has convinced a very large part of our population that security is more important than liberty. Make no mistake; that beloved security arises from fear and leads to dependency and bondage. We have seen corporate take-over of government functions such as was brought about by the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, when control over our nation's finances was turned over to private interests. Now we see these same private interests have come to dominate our government to a point that it would be unrecognizable to our founding fathers.

One area the banksters (who also control oil, coal, etc.) seem to be struggling with is the supply of oil. The supply is finite, and we are using it much faster than it can be replaced. Many of our leading experts and scientists are saying that we need an alternate source of energy almost immediately. The problem is that these folks refuse to relinquish control of the sources of energy that propel civilization. They are quick to dismiss hydrogen as a fuel source due to the difficulties of infrastructure. They are adept at ignoring the fact that producing hydrogen on demand from water eliminates most infrastructure challenges.

There is a company in Canada called Xogen, that is using similar technology to that developed by Stanley Meyers (of the water fueled dune-buggy fame) and others, but with a different twist. They are using the technology to clean up waste water, and incidentally they point out a wonderful side benefit (energy). By low profiling the side benefit they have managed to survive the flying piñata stick wielded by the oil barons. Take a look at the video:

- Posted by JLM - 7/26/2009  12:37

Small World, Isn't It?
Sunday, August 2, 2009

Whenever I hear the phrase it's a small world, I'm reminded of the time many years ago, that I was walking down the sidewalk in Yokosuka Japan when I noticed another American walking in my direction on the opposite side of the street. As he got nearer, I recognized him. He was my brother. Neither of us knew that the other was in Japan until that moment. At the time, I believe there were about five billion people in the world; you figure the odds. Not all small world experiences are as pleasurable, though.

I recently established a page for myself on Facebook, and discovered that my world is getting smaller. I'm being found by people; some friends, some are former friends, as well as acquaintances, complete strangers, the whole gamut. I received a request from a former acquaintance to be his "friend" on Facebook. Why not? The more the merrier, as they say... I clicked on the sure, why not button and went to his page to see if there was anyone I know. There wasn't anyone I knew, but... there was someone I know of, and that person caused me to feel like I was staring into the face of evil itself. Here on my old acquaintance's page was the face of possibly the most powerful man on earth! No, it was not Barak Obama, not even close. If you thought that, you haven't been paying attention. I'm not inspired to present this infamous man's name at this juncture, except to say that he and his family have been mentioned in these pages on various occasions. Think about the top of the banking food chain, and you may come up with the name, though that isn't important. What may be important is that we keep in mind that while connectivity and a small world can be gratifying, that access can also open up vulnerabilities. I subsequently made some adjustments on my Facebook page. Surprised? I didn't think so. We all must chose our friends wisely.

Do you recall when Europe was made up of about 20 sovereign nations? They all had their own governments, currency, languages, and customs. Now we have the European Union, with an overseeing government, a single currency, and a blending of languages and customs. The individual referred to in the previous paragraph is largely responsible for that union. Certainly, such an economic and political union has it's advantages, but it also has it's perils. As always, the union has meant a concentration of wealth and therefore power. It's the same old song, the same old masters of the universe.

Meanwhile, back in the USA, we find that we will be spending more than twice the normal fee when we renew our driver's license. Why? Did the price of plastic go up that much? Are the departments of motor vehicles personnel getting a 120% raise? Hardly. Under the guise of "Homeland Security" we are being presented with the "Real ID". Coincidently, this is also happening in Canada and Mexico in order to speed up movement between the borders. Any real security increase will not be at the borders between these NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) countries. Increased security will occur surrounding the NAFTA countries. This is all just another move toward a