Fooled by Money I

Over a year ago I predicted that no matter who got elected in 2012 this congress would feel obligated to get to work…finally. Why? Because the folks who hold the nearly 8 trillion dollars of nonworking capital out there would demand they get to work and put the screws to them.

You see, that 8 trillion dollars is doing large and small companies and investment capitalists no good sitting idle, none, zilch.  They are making nothing in the banks, and investments are not doing so well on the market because of all the turmoil worldwide in the financial sector and much of it caused by the indecision of the U.S. Congress. Only the riskiest and smartest investments are panning out at this time and I guarantee you they are not mine. 

The move to buying gold was great for a while, but now it has stabilized so the value is no longer growing…without growth, well they cannot make money. They want to pull that money out of the gold market and put it to work in areas where they can get in cheap and sell high.

On top of the fact that the Republican party took some kind of beating nationwide the business sector will be standing on their chest until they drop the ideological posturing and get to work for this country. That is not to say that the democrats are innocent in this gridlock by any means, but they are not flying their party flags quite so high. Both are in a power struggle but certainly the Republicans have far more to lose after controlling the politics in this country for over 30 years.

I was really glad to see recently that some of the congressmen who have long wanted to get out from under the spell of Grover Norquist are doing so and the movement is picking up steam. He has held them by the short hairs for years and for no other reason than making money on trading votes for corporate sponsorship come election time. The game goes something like this: Norquist gets the freshmen politician to sign his “pledge” to not vote to raise taxes, ever. In turn he will guarantee them campaign finance monies provided by large donors. Where Grover crosses the line from an ideological do-gooder to larcenous behavior, is they pay him to broker votes from the congressmen. The circle is complete; he makes money from large corporate investors by holding politicians to a pledge of not doing anything to infringe on corporate games and they pay back the politicians by gifting campaign contributions to his pledge signers. It is only a small part of the money machine, but quite effective in grid locking congress.

All of this is simple congressional math that is a day to day calculation on “the hill”. This kind of behavior goes on across the board and mostly we pay for all of it. So, they vote no on any tax deal that comes up…BUT those same congressmen will vote yes on military contracts worth billions upon billions equating to millions in taxpayer dollars. And to whom do they award those contracts? Why to the very companies that funded their campaigns…

I could go on and on about the impropriety on “the hill”, but what I want to take a minute to discuss is why the hell we are putting up with this? Are we really that stupid? Is this country so uneducated that we fall for this kind of thing? I think it has gotten to the point that we should require every person to take a civics course so that they understand how our government works, and a business course to understand how it does not.

We are so brainwashed into believing that what comes to us via email is unequivocally true. If it is a YouTube video by anyone, it is gospel. Folks are listening to horse pucky instead of thinking for themselves or investigating the source. What are we doing people? These organizations that are preaching false information are doing so to make money. They are not doing it “for their country”; they are doing these things to make money.

Power on Capitol Hill is money and almighty important in varying degrees to anyone in politics. At the very least it is egotistical to win and when someone wins, another loses. In the case of our government we the people lose if we buy into the games they play. Please consider breaking the email chain and dump that next pack of lies you receive and look up the real information that is so accessible on the web.

I get an online newletter that might interest some of you. It tells the daily happenings on Captiol Hill and is quite informative when it comes to what is actually going on up there. David Hawkings... » Sign up to receive the CQ Roll Call Daily Briefing (free)

Education

“Widespread ignorance bordering on idiocy is our new national goal. It’s no use pretending otherwise and telling us, as Thomas Friedman did in the Times a few days ago, that educated people are the nation’s most valuable resources. Sure, they are, but do we still want them? It doesn’t look to me as if we do. The ideal citizen of a politically corrupt state, such as the one we now have, is a gullible dolt unable to tell truth from bullshit.” Charles Simic

I find it hard to believe that more than a handful of people actually set out to deceive us as he suggests, but it sure seems that as soon as a few of them saw what Karl Rove and others were accomplishing by inflating the bubble of untruths everyone climbed aboard to ride it. Some did not outright tell little white lies but they sure as hell bit their tongue and zipped their lips because it was making them money and gaining them support to at least look like they agreed with the lies. The lies were making money.

The bullshit put out there in the last three years is enough to choke a horse yet many Americans have swallowed it all and in doing so have furthered the cause of the perpetrators making it even easier to pull off lies yet to come in the next election cycle. Once a lie takes off it is easy to add to; Obama is a Muslim and a terrorist! No wait, he IS a Christian, he just went to the wrong church where the Pastor is un-American! I can see the wind whipping to and fro in my mind’s eye as the story evolves into his being a Socialist then no, he is a Nazi, never mind there is zero similarity between the two, these people will never notice the switch. Back to the birth certificate, that unauthentic document the State of Hawaii faked 50 years ago in preparation for Obama being President so he wouldn’t get caught at being a Muslim from Kansas. No…he is not from Kansas, he is a terrorist by God set to take over our lives! Of course all the while the CIA, FBI and Secret Service have been clueless as to his entire history because the Patriot Act did not allow for enough surveillance capability back when this charade was all planned so long ago in Kenya in the country of Africa near Hawaii.

It could be amusing to think of a Muslim, Nazi, Socialist and Terrorist from Africa without a birth record living within the same body and mind as a Harvard graduate if it weren’t so pathetic to imagine people believing this shit.  Are we really that stupid to think that any one in public office can slip by the scrutiny of not only the federal agencies but the media? Are we stupid enough to think that someone can be all those things and not be at war within? I hope he doesn’t inhale!

We are paying more every year for anything to do with health care yet we believe these days that reforming health care is bad for us? We elected Obama because of his promise to try and fix health care before it breaks completely so why is it we are falling for misinformation that it is “bad” for this country; are we not the ones who should be deciding that? Are we not the ones who are shouldering the burden of keeping it afloat? If you answered yes then tell me why the hell are we listening to people who get their health care for free tell us that we do not need it ourselves? Why aren’t we demanding folks work together to get it right if it is indeed wrong instead of dumping the whole thing? Are we really that stupid to throw away something that can help us?

Some in power are going to extremes to tell us that colleges and universities are anti-American think tanks and that being “uneducated” is somehow cool. One of the candidates for President of this country actually said that allowing everyone the opportunity for education is snobbish, good thing he was not standing in front of his law credentials huh?  You can bet he does not believe any of that for one minute, but he now has a following that does because he planted that seed so he can’t help but milk it. I guess being uneducated is cool if you want to clip lawns and hair for those same guys for a penny on the dollar of what they make and rent a trailer house for the rest of your life. Personally, my parents taught all of us to have pride and to always strive for excellence, not complacency. Education does not necessarily have to come from organized schooling, but along with the junk we get through email there is also a wealth of info on the Internet if we only have the gumption to go get it. Generally though folks don’t…it is more fun to jump on someone when they are down. We are all bully sheep at heart.

 My parents came from poverty that so far we have avoided thanks in part to them and others like them. They realized from a very early age that education is the only thing that would ever sustain them for the long haul so they gave to their kids any opportunity they could to get ahead and to get educated. They gave us the means so we would not be fooled as they had been by smooth talking politicians and bankers. Are we willing to squander that under the direction of a few who stand to gain from our ignorance? What are we thinking?

The XL pipeline that some are toting as the save all for Americans is being built for two reasons; getting oil to ships to export it, and getting it to a free port where they do not have to pay export taxes; neither one of those reasons are a secret folks. It is not being built to keep us from importing oil or to keep prices at our pumps low. It is being built to make oil companies more money on the world commodity market that is abuzz with futures trading. Will it have some benefit for us? More than likely some, until it starts leaking and that will not be long in coming. In fact, with the amount of sand in it I give it maybe ten years from now before we are paying to clean up the mess. We are so well trained.

Many of you reading this will never retire. You will never realize the dreams you had yesterday. You may never have an aspirin when you have fever because a whole generation, maybe two got fooled into believing everything they were told. A whole generation fooled into believing that legislators doing nothing are good for this country and that education is for sissies and “real Americans” carry guns not books. ”Real Americans” also bleed but they won’t tell you that; it is bad for ammo sales.