Stuck on Stupid?

KATU News broke the story last week; evidently, Oregon DHS is at it again. Having failed in their half-witted attempt to deport Gabriel Allred, they’re now trying to deport 2-year-old Faith Cephus to Mexico, to live with people she doesn’t know and who are not related to her. Well, that’s only partly true. Faith would be living with a couple of half-siblings. It’s the people who would be adopting her that she’s not related to.

What’s up with that, anyway? Is this just more DHS business-as-usual, or is there something of a more nefarious nature going on? I don’t know if legal precedent for deporting U.S. citizens has already been established, or whether DHS’s recent efforts are meant to establish legal precedence, but in any case I think it’s bad policy.

DHS should concern itself more with preventing injustices than it does in perpetrating more of them. Are the DHS honchos stuck on stupid, or have they nothing better to do?

Starve the Bitch

This just in from MoveOn.org confirms what many of us suspected from the very beginning of Bush’s Folly—that those who perpetrated this insane invasion and potentially endless occupation of Iraq haven’t a clue as to what they’re talking about. Nor do they seem to know what they’re doing.

Warmongers lied their way (and the rest of us) into a U.S. war against Iraq; every few months they regurgitate the same disingenuous rhetoric to plead their case before Congress for funds to keep the insanity alive. They put us into a no-win situation and covered up that fact using selectively biased reporting and gross distortions of the truth to camouflage their malfeasance.

The time for Congress to put an end to the disastrous travesty that has become the Iraq occupation is long past due. Congress must reject Bush’s request for additional funds to keep the occupation going (starve the bitch), approve only the funding necessary to ensure the safe and orderly withdrawal of all U.S. Military personnel and equipment from Iraq. More than 60% of Americans and more than 70% of Iraqis want the U.S. occupation of Iraq to end, so end it should; neither nation can long tolerate a continuation of the status quo.

At the same time, Congress must also begin impeachment proceedings against Bush, Cheney, Condi Rice, et al; hold those responsible for the Iraq debacle accountable for their actions.

Finally, Congress must draw up plans for making reparations payments to Iraq for damages inflicted, and put those plans into action a.s.a.p.

There are more important problems than Iraq that demand our immediate attention, but until we get beyond Iraq, all else is on hold.

Allred Update

Okay, now it’s official. Gabriel Justice Brandt, formerly known as Gabriel Allred, whom I wrote about in December of last year, is now the legally adopted son of Steve and Angela Brandt. While that in itself is good news, even better news is that young Gabe won’t be setting any precedents as the first U.S. citizen to be deported to a foreign country by overreaching DHS staffers.

As a condition of the adoption, Gabriel must learn to speak Spanish in addition to his native English. It’s not a particularly onerous condition, and mastery of a second language can only work in Gabe’s favor. In fact, I think it would behoove every U.S. citizen to learn a second language of their choice. There are, after all, advantages in knowing what other people are talking about.

In the spirit of being true to the idea of practicing what one preaches, I’m now fully engaged in learning a second language. Due to time constraints and the difficulty of teaching an old dog new tricks, as a strictly practical matter I chose a foreign language that would be the least challenging to learn.

I’m happy to report that my Canadian as Second Language (CSL) studies are progressing nicely, and that I’ve already achieved higher levels of proficiency and fluency than I initially expected. Not bad, eh?

Wake Up, People!

“The Judds worship money. They make it a stand-in for all the other qualities of life. If you can be nice, or have money, take the money. If you can be brave, or have money, take the money. If you can have friends or have money, take the money. They’re like that. They don’t even hide it. Take the money.” —Excerpted from Dark of the Moon, by John Sandford

There’s something inherently wrong with a system that trades real wealth for the illusion of wealth. That so many people subscribe to the illusion only compounds the problem.

Monetary wealth, as most people know, never trickles downward. Instead, it works its way upward, pulling poverty along behind it. This kind of wealth redistribution is acceptable to the privileged and powerful. The kind of wealth redistribution that’s not acceptable to them is the kind they fear the most, the kind that takes money out of their pockets and into the hands of the lower classes.

The wealthy class does whatever it takes to protect its wealth and accumulate more; lie, cheat, steal—even kill when it’s expedient. The dominant mindset of the fabulously wealthy is that no amount of excess is excessive, no amount of greed inexcusable, and that too much is never enough.

We live in a broken world, a world that humans broke by using a symbiotic combination of unbridled capitalism and rampant greed. With global rainforests in decline, ocean ecosystems in disarray and on the brink of imminent collapse, and agricultural land threatened by encroaching population growth and the attendant pollution and resource exploitation that inevitably leads to desertification— all for the sake of personal and corporate profits—we’re quickly reaching a point beyond which the damage is irrevocable and our chances of recovery nil.

As currently practiced, capitalism is nothing more than a high-stakes Monopoly game in which the more one acquires the more one is able to acquire. Money begets money begets power begets more of each, ad infinitum.

It’s precisely this kind of wealth accumulation that disenfranchises a huge majority of the population, that allows public infrastructure to crumble, the quality of education to decline, the number of living wage jobs to plummet; it fuels inflation, stifles economic competition, drives housing costs into unaffordable territory for many, and puts health care out of reach for many more.

One of the major flaws of capitalism is that it overvalues money and undervalues or refuses to recognize other forms of wealth; healthy ecosystems, unpolluted air and water, pristine environments, biological diversity, food and water security, and sustainability are prime examples of various forms of wealth that are given short shrift in capitalism’s marketplace.

But capitalism has other flaws, too, some of them fatal. Although you’ll never get hardcore capitalists to admit it, capitalism’s primary fatal flaw is that it eventually consumes all of its capital, including material resources capital, environmental capital, and human capital. For the capitalist economic model to succeed, it must rely on an endless supply of resources and increasing numbers of consumers, neither of which are possible on a finite world.

Capitalism works just fine as long as there are plentiful resources and a small population with room to expand, but when resource scarcity becomes widespread and population numbers reach the limits of sustainability, it quickly falls apart. When an economic system excludes or disenfranchises large numbers of citizens while simultaneously heaping unearned or undeserved rewards on a much smaller privileged class of citizens, it sets itself up for an avalanche of unintended consequences, including poverty, homelessness, increasing crime rates, infrastructure breakdown, and periods of recession, inflation, and stagflation that eventually end in economic depression.

Tension between a relatively small class of over-privileged rich people and a huge class of marginalized poor people is building. At some point a clash between these two diverse groups is bound to result.

In one scenario of such a conflict, the rich eliminate the threat posed to their wealth simply by disposing of the poor and large segments of the middle class—in other words, the mass extermination of as many as 5.5 billion people worldwide. In another scenario, the poor eat the rich.

There are other ways this can play out, but for peaceful resolutions to the problems presented by wealth disparity to come about, people on both sides of the issue must first come to their senses. Maintaining the status quo is no longer an option.

Candidate McCain

Let’s not talk about his supposed qualifications. Let’s talk, instead, about his lack of qualifications and what a disaster a McCain Presidency would be for the country.

As part of his strategy for addressing economic meltdown, John McBush McCain would make DUHbya’s (yes, it’s spelled with a capital DUH) tax cuts for the wealthy permanent. Huh? Wouldn’t that mean that the middle class would shoulder a disproportionate share of the massive debt burden run up by Bush’s misadventures in Iraq?

By his own admission McCain doesn’t know much about the economy. Shouldn’t the President know enough about the economy—about budgets and deficits and taxation and sound fiscal policy, among other things—that he or she can recognize good economic advice from bad and make policy decisions accordingly?

If recent speeches and interviews are any indication, he doesn’t know much about the Middle East, either, and this calls into question his competency and qualifications to hold the nation’s highest office. When a President can’t distinguish the differences between the major players on the home team, how can he possibly create winning strategies for ending the conflict?

Also disturbing is McCain’s expressed willingness to keep troops in Iraq for another 100 years, if that’s what it takes to win. But what, exactly, is it that America hopes to win? Victory over global terrorism? Peace in the Middle East? Control of Iraq’s oil? Good luck with those!

While it might have been impressive and funny to school children, McCain’s silly chant, “Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran” should have raised red flags and sent chills of fear racing down the spines of all Americans in possession of critical thinking skills. Do we really want to face the consequences of yet another reckless military adventure? As a nation, have we finally arrived at the point where we value war more than we value peace? Or have we always been there?

Given McCain’s relative weak stance on important issues such as the environment, global climate change, renewable energy resources, health care, education, and myriad others, I find no compelling reason why he deserves to be elected President, and no logical argument why he should be. But I do, in fact, fear for the nation if he is.

U.S. Economy Lagging, Dragging, Sagging, Flagging

Last week’s Carlyle Capital collapse and Friday’s Bear Stearns meltdown offered further proof that the U.S. economy is in deep doo-doo and that the doo-doo is getting deeper.

George DUHbya (yes, it’s spelled with a capital DUH) Bush demonstrated once again just how far out of touch with reality he is when he said of the economy, "It's important not to overcorrect, because when you overcorrect, you end up in a ditch." Had the First Fool been paying attention, he’d know that the economy has been in a ditch for quite some time, and that it’s sliding inexorably along that increasingly rocky channel toward a cliff.

The bottom half of the middle class can tell you how tough the economy has become. Rising prices and the difficulties of making mortgage or rent payments, putting food on the table, and obtaining health care are the standards by which they judge.

Even more aware of the economy’s inadequacies are the members of the leisure class at the low end of the economic food chain. They judge the economy by the same standards used by the middle class, but in addition, they have a legitimate argument in that, in many ways, the economy has bypassed them completely. For some of them—perhaps for many of them—the underground economy becomes a viable option.

Few people outside of the privileged class argue that the economy is doing just fine. While members of the economically disadvantaged classes mostly agree that the economy is seriously out of whack, they have no idea when—or even if—things will get better.

If Bush has his way—and for some twisted reason he almost always does—the economy will never improve. His tortured logic tells him (yet another example of why information obtained through torture is unreliable) that as long as the wealthiest few percent are getting wealthier, the rest of us don’t matter. Thus far, his approach to remedying our broken economy ensures that it stays broken. Preemptive wars and open-ended occupations are not the solutions. Tax rebates funded by future tax returns are not the solution. A taxpayer-funded bailout of investment bankers and other sub-prime mortgage lenders is not the solution. Bush’s strategy of punishing the victims and rewarding the victimizers is not the solution.

So, what is the solution? To get at that answer, we need to develop a clearer picture of the problem. As I understand it, the problem is twofold. On one hand you have manufacturers, middle men, and merchants, all of whom complain that sales have stalled because consumers aren’t buying due to lack of discretionary income or, in many cases, lack of any income. On the other hand you have middle class and lower class consumers, most of whom cite unemployment, under-employment, stagnant wages, and rising prices as their main reasons for not spending.

What if there was a solution that would simultaneously satisfy the needs of both groups? Well, there is such a solution, and the idea for it was first posited in a short sci-fi story some 30 or 40 years ago. I’ve forgotten the story’s title and who its author was, but the story’s basic premise was that endless cycles of production and consumption are the essentials of a stable economy. To achieve that economic stability, the author had his protagonist fully engaged in consumption and locked into a quota system. The only things the protagonist could look forward to were a series of “promotions” signified by corresponding reductions of his consumption quota.

By now the possible solution to our economic woes that I’ve been hinting at should be obvious to you. If businesses want more paying customers, they should hire more people and pay them a living wage. As an alternative, they could simply pay people to do nothing but consume, thereby avoiding the expense of paying benefits and the necessity of providing them with a workplace.

If they aren’t willing to do one or the other, they should just shut up and suffer in silence.

Truth's Truth

As writing of my previous post The Qualm before the Storm neared completion, I stumbled upon this fabulous bit of insight on the BikePortland Blog (see comment Post #5, by Truth). It’s so good I couldn’t resist sharing it with you.

At the author’s invitation, I took the liberty of reposting his or her comments, albeit in heavily edited form. Because the original appeared as one impossibly long paragraph, I broke the text up into paragraphs where it seemed logical to do so. Although I rewrote a couple of sentences for clarity's sake, I retained the original wording to the greatest extent possible, and otherwise limited editing to spelling, punctuation, and formatting.

The following was written by a person identified only as Truth:

Don’t believe one optimistic word from any public figure about the economy or humanity in general. They are all part of the problem. It’s like a game of Monopoly. In America, the richest 1% now holds 1/2 of all United States wealth. Unlike lesser estimates, this includes all stocks, bonds, cash, and material assets held by America’s richest 1%. Even that filthy pig Oprah acknowledged that it was at about 50% in 2006. Naturally, she put her own “humanitarian” spin on it, calling attention to her own “good will.” What a disgusting hypocrite slob.

The richest 1% has literally made world prosperity absolutely impossible. Don’t fall for any of their “humanitarian” crap. It’s a sham. These people are causing the same problems they pretend to care about.

Ask any professor of economics. Money does not grow on trees. The government can’t just print up more on a whim (actually, it can; it’s called inflation —Ed.). At any given time, there is a relative limit to the wealth within any economy of any size, so when too much wealth accumulates at the top, the middle class slips further into debt and the lower class further into poverty.

A similar rule applies worldwide. The world’s richest 1% now own over 40% of all world wealth. This is even after you account for all of this “good will,” “humanitarian” BS from celebrities and executives. It’s a sham. As they get richer and richer, less wealth is left circulating beneath them. This is the single greatest underlying cause for the current U.S. recession.

The middle class can no longer afford to sustain their share of the economy. Their wealth has been gradually transferred to the richest 1%. One way or another, we suffer because of their incredible greed. We are talking about trillions of dollars transferred from us to them over a period of about 27 years. That’s Reaganomics for you. The wealth does not ‘trickle down’ as we were told it would. It just accumulates at the top, shrinking the middle class and expanding the lower class, causing a domino effect of socio-economic problems.

But the rich will never stop. They will never settle for a reasonable share of anything. They will do whatever it takes to get even richer, leaving even less of the pie for the other 99% of us to share. At the same time, they throw back a few tax-deductible crumbs and call themselves “humanitarians,” cashing in on the PR and getting even richer the following year.

It can’t work this way. Their bogus efforts to make the world a better place cannot possibly succeed. Any “humanitarian” progress made in one area will be lost in another every single time. It absolutely cannot work this way. This is going to end just like a game of Monopoly.

The current U.S. recession will drag on for years and lead into the worst U.S. depression of all time. The richest 1% will live like royalty while the rest of us fight over jobs, food, and gasoline. Crime, poverty, and suicide will skyrocket. So don’t fall for all of this PR crap from Hollywood, Pro Sports, and Wall Street pigs. It’s a sham. Remember: They are filthy rich even after their tax-deductible contributions. Greedy pigs.

Now, we are headed for the worst economic and cultural crisis of all time. Send a “thank you” note to your favorite millionaire. It’s their fault. I’m not discounting other factors like China, sub-prime, or gas prices. But all of those factors combined still pale in comparison to that huge transfer of wealth to the rich. Anyway, those other factors are all related and further aggravated because of greed. If it weren’t for the obscene distribution of wealth within our country, there never would have been such a market for sub-prime to begin with, which by the way, was another trick whipped up by greedy bankers and executives. It makes them richer.

The credit industry has been endorsed by people like Oprah, Ellen, Dr. Phil, and many other celebrities. It makes them richer. Now, there are commercial ties between nearly every industry and every public figure. It makes them richer. So don’t fall for their “good will” BS. It’s a lie. If you fall for it, then you’re a fool. If you see any real difference between the moral character of a celebrity, politician, attorney, or executive, then you’re a fool.

Wake up, people. It’s all about the money. The 1% club will always say or do whatever it takes to get as rich as possible, without the slightest regard for anything or anyone but themselves.

Vioxx? Their idea. Sub-prime? Their idea. NAFTA? Their idea. Outsourcing? Their idea. The commercial lobbyist? Their idea. The multi-million dollar lawsuit? Their idea. $200 cell phone bills? Their idea. $200 basketball shoes? Their idea. $30 late fees? Their idea. $30 NSF fees? Their idea. $20 DVDs? Their idea. Subliminal advertising? Their idea. The MASSIVE campaign to turn every American into a brainwashed credit card-pharmaceutical-lovesick celebrity junkie? Their idea. Their ideas, all of which have been created and endorsed by celebrities, athletes, and executives, concentrate the world’s wealth and resources and wreak havoc on society. It makes them richer. So don’t fall for their “good will,” “humanitarian” BS. It’s a sham, nothing but tax-deductible PR crap.

Bottom line: The richest 1% will soon tank the largest economy in the world. It will be like nothing we’ve ever seen before, and that’s just the beginning. Greed will eventually tank every major economy in the world, causing millions to suffer and die. Oprah, Angelina, Brad, Bono, and Bill are not part of the solution. They are part of the problem.

Extreme wealth has made world prosperity absolutely impossible. Without world prosperity, there will never be world peace or anything even close. Greed kills. It will be our downfall.

Of course, the rich will throw a fit and call me a madman. Of course, their ignorant fans will do the same. You have to expect that. But I speak the truth. If you don’t believe me, then copy this entry and run it by any professor of economics or socio-economics. Then tell a friend. Call the local radio station. Re-post this entry or put it in your own words. Be one of the first to predict the worst economic and cultural crisis of all time and explain its cause.

We are in big trouble.