Our National Debt and Other Forms of Human Madness: How Did We Get Here?

“Reagan taught us that deficits don’t matter.” -  So said Vice President Dick Cheney in a Bush II Cabinet meeting.  This meant that continued deficit spending to justify attacking members of Bush’s declared enemies of the United States, namely Iraq, North Korea, and Iran, did not matter.  Ka-Ching!  Up went the National Debt another $4 Trillion!  Halliburton and many other military contractors got filthy rich.  So what was this new America who saw bogey men behind every bush?  Rather I wish that the American people could have seen the “bugger” man behind the Bush in the White House. 

Saddam Hussein had nuclear weapons and other forms of WMDs pointed at American cities?  Bush proclaimed this as fact in his televised state of the union address right before attacking Iraq, remember?  Despite the Brits saying the intelligence reports about Saddam Hussein attempting to buy Uranium from Niger were bogus?  Despite CIA intelligence advising strongly about Bush’s saying nothing of the sort (which Bush disregarded and did anyway).

Fooling your fellow countrymen into believing lies is how it always begins.  This trauma-bonded use of fear begets $500 hammers being sold to the U. S. Government and no one objecting.  Let me explain.  World leaders historically found an enemy.  It is evil posing as essence Hitler found the Jews who found around 7 Million Jews to torture and kill while building up his war machine and empire.  Germans might accept that Jews were as evil as Muslims have become to many Billy Bobs right here today in the land of the free. 

Stalin found his fellow countrymen to be the enemy (all 30 million of them who died in Stalin’s infamous Purge).  Yes, Stalin killed them all.  An enemy is an asset to taking power, wielding it, and maintaining it. An enemy generates the manufacture of guns, arms, militias, planes, tanks, ships, and now missiles and laser-directed smart bombs with which to destroy the enemy.  Enemies beget hatred.  All the citizens in Big Brother’s world were being told that Oceania was the enemy.  Until it became more lucrative to have Oceania become the best ally ever.  Then you get a new enemy. 

All the while when you have an enemy, the cash register is always ringing with BIG expenditures because the people are afraid for their very lives.  Is it any wonder that many of the U.S. military contracts to build arms or provide services have become traditionally NO-BID contracts to bill Uncle Sam for?  I mean, how many contractors could Reagan have hired to build the Star Wars missile defense initiative (which after crossing the palms of many before Star Wars was abandoned)?  After all, weren’t we Americans dedicated to defeating Russia who Reagan branded the Evil Empire?  It sounded a lot like Reagan was doing the work of God Almighty, and it was a great acting job.  It made military industrial complex corporations rich.  Reagan saw to it that Congress borrowed and spent over $3 Trillion which got pasted to our existing National Debt.  How can you argue with someone doing the work of God?  But we weren’t at war during his 8 years, you might say.  The amount spent got tacked onto the National Debt.  Plus all the interest it has caused to be spent since Reagan left office over 24 years ago!

The answer is you can’t allow too many bids because of the technology limitations of the horde of contractors who might want to bid on doing the work.  As a result usually only one contractor gets the job and no further bidding is allowed.  It makes for a closed fraternity of crony capitalists who pay for high status and receive big bucks from key government officials.  And the latter gets hefty campaign contributions to insure their ongoing ability to steal the big money from the United
States Treasury.  In short, the people. 

Quite a brotherhood of back-scratchers, eh?  Further, who in Uncle Sam’s government would dare question such an exalted defense contractor if the contractor charges $500 for a hammer?  I speak figuratively because all and every of the items this NO-BID contractor charges Uncle Sam are so inflated.  And no such exaggeration of prices charged is ever challenged.  Why not?  Well we got to trust the honesty of these military industrial complex corporations who are serving our common good by helping us defeat our nation’s enemies.  First, you got to have an enemy.  Terrorists provided the most hated and greatest enemy the United States ever had.  The graphic and memorable violence of 911 gave us the needed collective mindset to spend much more on protecting our own country and families from death and destruction from those who were different from us.

And it’s okay that we are paying $500 for a single hammer.  Senator William Proxmire who authored the famous “Golden Fleece” Award was as much an aberration as other noted whistle-blowers on government stealing and maleficence, e.g., Ron Paul.  Both men were effectively demonized and put out to the political pasture of being eccentric candidates who would never be elected to high office in Washington.  Trouble is, they knew all too well the rules of the game.  And because they were not willing to play, they were toast, need there be more said?

Is it only a coincidence that in lieu of the plunge and deterioration in housing prices in much of America, that Washington, D.C. real estate values hang tough and continue to rise?

Is it immoral for military contractors to be in cahoots with government to where the people who pay taxes are charged $500 for a toilet seat?  Have we lost our minds?  And when the government runs out of money to buy one should the congressmen who borrowed and spent $500 for a toilet seat by the millions  be directed to the nearest tree with a newspaper and nothing to sit on when the urge hits him?

The world and the United States have borrowed and spent themselves into deep debt that can never be repaid.  Or if Bernanke and the Fed continues to print more dollars out of thin air and bread zooms to $10 a loaf and gas to $14 a gallon the U.S. can surely pay a lot more off its staggering and swelling debt with cheaper dollars that have been falsely and deceptively inflated.   Poor old Greece doesn’t have the ability to print its own money so it will probably just sink into the sea much like Atlantis and dine with Neptune.  Cease to exist.  But the USA can use trickery for a while at least to keep printing new life into its citizens with newly-created Monopoly dollars, right?

American government has become so addicted to borrowing and spending tax dollars that without the loans afforded us by China and Japan and other world countries, we would certainly default on our loans and our obligations such as congressional pay, Social Security, Medicare, and other government outlays of cash payment obligations.  The Military Industrial Complex would have to find a new sucker sovereign country to get in bed with, say, maybe China.  Maybe they need to get themselves some new ships, planes, and laser-guided missiles in case push ever comes to shove in this economic perversion that has become typical of the world.

Bottom line, it is the borrowing and spending and living beyond our means that is the problem.  “Reagan taught us that deficits don’t matter.”  What a gem.  So if our country runs out of the money necessary to pay its citizens military retirement benefits or government pensions in general, who will get cut first?  Uncle Edgar on Social Security?  Will all the congressmen and government workers in D.C. pack it in and quit their lucrative jobs and sing ‘Turn out the Light, the Party’s Over?’  Maybe.  When Limbaugh becomes a Democrat and takes the cure for drugs.  Will the Military Industrial Complex indeed move to China and put out their shingles there?  Or maybe in Russia?  Is this an exercise in just how absurd one can conceive it to be or what?

But make no mistake about the cause of our dilemma with the dollar, our millions of underwater houses just walked away from, and the prospect of getting your government Social Security check cut in half, just for openers.  Paul Ryan ain’t going to be the one to get his lifetime retirement cut.  First you got to cut the firemen, the policemen, and the teachers.  You know, the common folk.  The cause of this great study in mass delusions we have come to call modern American economics began with borrowing money you did not have and then trying to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear by paying interest for the money borrowed until the day you die.  Reagan and Bush II racked up a total of $7 Trillion during their terms as presidents.  The present National Debt is $15 Trillion.  Do the math.  Will the big-spenders please stand up?  And tell us why they spent half of all the money owed in our massive National Debt?  Since George Washington first took office?

So what’s America’s problem?

It’s the borrowing, stupid. 

EUROPE 2012: EVER WIDER, EVER DEEPER DISUNION. The Contagion Spreads.

There is something very strange about the economic depression into which so many European countries are now sinking. Britain is now officially in a double-dip recession, something this column predicted more than a year ago, when the coalition government was confidently assuring us it wouldn’t happen. The pundits of the EU, the European Central Bank and the IMF are now, at last, talking about the likelihood that Greece will be forced out of the Eurozone, something they assured us a short while ago would never happen. Spanish banks, weighed down by billions of euros of toxic debt incurred by financing a massive construction boom that has now bust, await bailouts from a government that cannot afford to pay them without itself receiving further billions from a European Finance Stability Facility that itself has insufficient funds to pay. In Spain and Italy youth unemployment runs at 50+% and 40% respectively. Greece has no elected government until after another election in June which is likely to result in another majority for parties that reject the draconian austerity measures the EU and IMF say are “essential” and non-negotiable. Accepting further austerity will deal the death blow to an economy teetering on the brink of collapse, and plunge the Greek people into a state of immiseration unknown today outside third world countries.  In Italy, as unemployment surges, companies such as Fiat, lay off thousands of workers to relocate their plants in Poland where labour costs are cheaper. As in Greece, an unelected government of technocrats has no solution other than the familiar package of ever deeper cuts and privatizations that have already failed everywhere else. Managing director of the IMF, Christine Lagarde, authentic voice of this failed policy, tells the Greeks that she has no sympathy for them and that it is “payback time” for their failure to pay their taxes. This from an organization that has for decades demanded as the condition for “aid”, the privatization of state industries and slashing of welfare provision in the poor African countries whose deprived children’s lack of education appears to concern Lagarde so much. And, while much is made of Greek tax evasion, to which the overseers of EU fiscal policy turned a blind eye on Greece’s admission to the euro in 1992, we hear little from them about the multi-trillions world-wide lost to national treasuries through the illegal tax evasion and dubiously legal tax avoidance practiced by the super-rich who employ well-paid lawyers and accountants to advise them on how best to avoid the responsibilities that for the rest of us are unavoidable. There is now a palpable sense that the storm that has been gathering for several years is about to break upon us. Some wit described the likely future as something between a “catastrophe and armaggeddon.”

 What is it that seems so strange about what is happening? Looked at from the standpoint of those least affected by the depression, things can still have the appearance of normality.  In Britain, for instance, particularly if you live in London or the south-east, if you still have a job and can afford your rent or mortgage repayments, or if you are retired on a reasonable pension and have paid off your mortgage, “austerity” is what is happening to others, not to you. The worst of the cuts have yet to fall so it is possible to entertain the illusion that things are not so bad; the growing numbers of empty, boarded-up stores and business premises on the high streets may be worrying but as long as it’s not your business that has gone down, you may be inclined to think that things could be worse. Indeed they could, and they certainly will be.        

What is strange is the contrast between the very real economic crisis that is engulfing much of Europe and the cultivation in much of the British media of a mood of joyful celebration which, it is expected, will soon sweep the country.  First comes the queen’s diamond jubilee and then the Olympic games, hosted this summer in London. The bunting has already appeared as if by magic and the expectation is that everyone with an ounce of respect for her majesty’s “sixty glorious years” on the throne, will next week participate in street parties and raise their voices to implore God to save her. As during the great depression of the 1930’s, now once again in this great depression, the mystique of monarchy is brought into service as a distraction from the darkening thunder clouds threatening to engulf “small countries about which we know nothing”.  The right-wing brand of euro-scepticism, much in evidence in the Tory party, has grown out of the little-Englander nationalism that has never considered Britain (and England in particular) to belong to Europe. This creates the  impression that because the UK isn’t in the eurozone, what happens “over there” will not affect us. But if Greece is kicked out of the eurozone the consequences elsewhere, including Britain, will be incalculable. Even if the contagion can be contained, which is highly unlikely, the 50% of Britain’s exports that go to the EU, will be drastically affected. The British economy is already back in recession and the collapse of the EU export market will snuff out the tiny flicker of recovery some claimed to have detected. If, following Greece’s departure from the Euro, the contagion spreads to Spain, Italy and Portugal, then the eurozone, and needless to say, the euro, in their present form at least, are finished. There is no way that the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) will be able to bail out countries with economies the size of Italy’s and Spain’s.  There is no convincing evidence that the leaders of the European Central Bank, the EFSF or the IMF have any idea what to do in such a crisis. This would (will?) be a systemic failure on an unprecedented scale. And the crisis will be global, not simply European.

An indication of how serious the situation is may be seen in the havoc being played in parliamentary politics and elections in Europe. This has been most dramatic in Greece where the traditional parties of the “centre” were swept aside in the May elections. The tremendous performance of the Coalition of the Radical Left (Syriza) which gained 16.76% of the vote made it impossible for the two main pro-austerity parties, the rightist New Democracy and Pasok to form a coalition government. The EU elites are now concentrating all their efforts to prevent Syriza from emerging from the new elections scheduled for 17 June as the largest party. If that happens the pro-austerity parties will be defeated and the Greek political scene will be thrown into turmoil. The crisis in Greece exposes more clearly than ever the fraudulence of the EU elites’ democratic credentials. They are not prepared to accept the outcome of parliamentary democratic procedures unless they endorse the strictures imposed from above by unelected officials. This has been seen in the initial outcomes of referenda on the Lisbon Treaty. If a country votes the “wrong” way, then they must be made to vote again and again until they vote the “right” way. For the Greek people it is now a question of the devil or the deep blue sea. Essentially the EU elites and the IMF are threatening them with the immediate withdrawal of life support unless they opt for a somewhat slower death by starvation. It is to be hoped that they will not succumb to the threats. If Syriza emerges as the largest party and is able to form a government, it is by no means certain that Greece would be forced out of the euro. Syriza’s leader Alexis Tsipros is likely to hold his nerve and may well consolidate and extend the support for his alliance. A game of bluff is being played in, and with, Athens. Merkel may be “standing firm” in Germany’s determination to withhold all further EU “aid” and cut Greece adrift from the euro if the Greek people vote the wrong way in the forthcoming election, but the rapid contagion that would spread to other eurozone countries would not leave Germany unaffected. The prospect of German export markets in southern Europe drying up should be concentrating minds in Berlin as well as in London.

In Britain the beleaguered coalition politicians are hoping that the jubilant chorus of fawning drivel churned out by most of the media for the diamond jubilee, followed by the razzamatazz of the Olympic Games, will take people’s minds of “politics” – by which they mean, primarily that attention will be distracted from the revelations emerging from the Leveson inquiry. By the time this column appears events on that front may well have developed dramatically. For the time being a few comments will have to suffice.

The terms of reference of the inquiry were dealt with in Letter from the UK on 13 May. Cameron must now regret his rashness in setting it up. Governments all seek to guard closely their most important secrets. In this case, the coalition does not want the wider public to know just how closely they have been linked to those who wield power in the corporate capitalist world; how eagerly they have sought to do their bidding and serve their interests. To lay bare this identity of purpose and policy runs the dangerous risk of revealing the sources of real power in Britain and globally. Such revelations can only contribute to the already widespread distrust of all professional politicians and to cynicism about parliamentary politics in general. It might lead too many to conclude that parliamentary democracy itself is little more than a charade and that real power lies, not in parliament, but elsewhere, beyond the reach of democratic procedures. And that would never do, as it might lead people to turn a way from Westminster politics and politicians and seek more radical alternatives.

For the government the problem with the Leveson inquiry is that they cannot control it. And the problem for Cameron and his ministers is that it is exposing the rot at the centre of the system. Its deliberations are televised for all to see. And with every passing week the inquiry reveals members of the power elite stripped bare; exposed are the close relations between government ministers, their aides and those at the top of Murdoch’s News Corp, all operating with contempt for the guidelines and regulations within which they are supposed to operate. The inquiry is exposing as rarely before just how rotten the system is. During the past four years, since the onset of the Great Financial Crisis, we have had an object lesson in where economic power really lies in one of the most socially unequal countries in the world. Now, in part due to what is happening at the Leveson inquiry, the veil has been lifted on the inner working of the Con-Lib-Dem government. It is to be hoped that the lessons learned will be turned to good effect and lead to the building of a mass resistance movement in the months and years ahead. It is sorely needed.  

Be Honest, Republicans: Admit the Goal Is Nothing Short of a Theocracy

The Republican Party initials GOP that once stood for Grand Old Party now mean God’s Own Party. The Republican Party primaries featured Christian fundamentalists (Santorum, Bachmann, Perry and Cain) and another willing to act like one to get elected (Gingrich). The winning nominee (Romney) might be as much a zealot as the others, depending upon what position he takes at any given time. His remarks to date show little tolerance for secularism.

It’s sad that the agenda of the party of Abraham Lincoln, Robert Green Ingersoll and so many notable Americans has become such a Right-Wing force for dogmatism. Republicans want us to view this country as a Christian nation; there is little tolerance for church/state separation in the Republican version of a nation under God.

I believe that Romney and the Republican Congress would be only too happy to make a few key changes in the Constitution and have the United States of America dedicated as a theocracy in the service of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Chist. Holy shit.

Lillian Hellman famously remarked that people change and forget to tell each other. Well, it seems political parties change, too, as today’s Party of God amply demonstrates. I wonder if the majority of those who call themselves Republicans or worse, actually vote Republican, really want an American theocracy? Do they appreciate the nature of the beast and recognize that this is where the GOP wants to take us? Do most want such qualities of government policy as the following:

            ▪          A constitutional office of chief priest or minister?

            ▪          Exemptions from military service for self-described devout Christians? This provision would enable the faithful to exercise a peculiar option regarding military service, even if we someday go back to conscription: take up bibles (i.e., study religion in-depth) or take up arms (i.e., enter military service).

            ▪          Welfare payments to support the most devout Christians who pursue biblical and other religious studies?

            ▪          Public school mandatory prayers and religious studies at the expense of course reductions for secular subjects, such as math, English and science.

The above examples are not hypothetical or speculative. These are conditions in a somewhat democratic, theocratic state – Israel.

In addition to the obvious burdens such subsidies impose on the non-zealot population, favoritism laws for the orthodox create divisions in society. An article in the New York Times describes the consequences. In Israel, the privileged ultra-Orthodox Haredim have grown so influential, costly and arrogant that they are commonly perceived as the enemy in the Jewish state, hated by most of the people. (See The Fight Over Who Fights in Israel by Jodi Rudoren, published on May 19, 2012.) The author cites influential observers who consider the situation bad for Israel, bad for the Jewish people, bad for the government and simply bizarre and abnormal. A cautionary tale? I think so.

While not a theocracy yet, we in the U.S.A. have our conflicts over special favors for religion and especially over the intrusion of religion in ways that are seen by secularists as unconstitutional. A few examples:

            ▪          In God we trust on the coins of the realm.

            ▪          Under God in the Pledge of Allegiance.

            ▪          Subsidies for chaplains in the military, ministerial parsonages and tax-exempt churches.

God’s Own Party presidential candidate Mitt Romney recently accused the president of having a secular agenda. Really? Were it so! The president who ends every speech with God bless you and God bless the United States of America and who has continued funding for the faith-based agenda of the previous Administration and who participates in and defends a day of prayer? Wow. Mr. President surely is keeping that secular agenda under wraps. I wonder how Mitt made this amazing discovery.

If we are so unfortunate to descend into a theocracy in the future, there will be hell to pay concerning certain values that the founders envisioned as uniquely American at the time, including religious tolerance and freedom for all faiths – and for those who prefer no faiths, no religions, no gods, no masters.

One of the most divisive moves toward theocracy remains the clearly unconstitutional National Day of Prayer, a grotesque aberration of church/state separation. By Congressional decree, this infamous event, like the religious Pledge, was instituted by Christian-nation bullies. God and government, however, are a dangerous mix. Secularists across the country want to put a stop to all this before we find ourselves as divided as Israel. Our Christian version of the Israeli Haredim want a theocracy. Let’s all do our part, in whatever modest ways might be available. Besides personal action, we can participate in and financially back organized resistance. In this way, we can do our part in the effort to prevent Christian evangelicals from hijacking our secular Constitution more than they already have.

My own favorite sources of organized resistance include these four organizations:

            ▪          The Council for Secular Humanism

            ▪          The Secular Coalition for America

            ▪          The Freedom from Religion Foundation

            ▪          Americans United for Separation of Church and State

As Thomas Paine advised: Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must undergo the fatigue . . . of supporting it. In a recent (2/24/2012) blog, Nathan Cox explained why Secular Values Are American Values. Quite clearly, religious values are not. If you doubt it, have a look at the first four commandments or just about any section in the Christian bibles. What you will find there are not American values, at least not any of the American values we associate with liberty and freedom – as embodied in the Bill of Rights. Theocracies are not founded on values that guarantee life, liberty or the pursuit of happiness; rather they specialize in dogmatic, totalitarian commandments and biblical fables.

Theocracy anyone? I hope not even Republicans really want to go there but if they do, they should at least be honest and forthright about it. 

THE IDOLATRY OF “EXCEPTIONALISM”

By Loren Adams, 3 June 2012

“Pride comes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.” – Proverbs 16:17

Pride bubbles up in the Rogers family (Hank, Mary Lou, Billy and Lou Ann) as they march into Muskogee’s Victory Family Worship Center. Heads held high with Bibles smugly tucked under their arms, they enter the lobby to greet smiley faces of like-minded parishioners who see themselves as “true patriots,” unlike the damned liberals supporting Obama that want to bring the country to its knees – replacing Judeo-Christian values and codes of justice with Sharia law.

In fact, VFWC members are proud to have influenced the Oklahoma Legislature to put a constitutional initiative on the ballot banning Sharia law. The successful drive, supported by 70% of Oklahomans, is meant as a pre-emptive strike against the impostor Muslim President from forcing his undisclosed religion on them.

How’d they arrive at such a crazy concoction? Was Obama or some other left-leaning federal judge actually trying to impose Sharia? Again, chain emails planted by extreme rightwing operatives did the trick. Plus FOX and right radio fueled the fallacy. It’s all part of the plot to keep the principal base (religious right) in line for bigger battles ahead. Keep them stirred with absurdities so when crucial conflicts arrive, they’ll provide a knockout blow to the other party. It’s all a game to those behind-the-curtains, and evangelicals are but silly putty in the master wizard’s hands.

They’re simply a part of Karl Rove’s scheme to establish a permanent Republican majority insurmountable at any point in the future. In addition to relying on the religious right as base, Rove practices his impish talents to engineer voter suppression in 33 states. Nearly 10 million voters in 2010-12 are unknowingly thrown off the rolls. After all, it’s not the objective of conservatives to increase the vote but to subdue it in order to win.

Unfortunately, the religious right cannot see because it has no desire to do so. Like shopping for merchandise, followers buy what they want and reject what they don’t. They claim their decisions come from the Word and voices from “God.” But are they?

In truth, their “Bible-based” beliefs are not Bible based. Where in the Bible does it state the planet is merely 6,000 years old? Most evangelicals have not read the Bible, much less studied it along with the required history and various translations dating back to the Septuagint and Torah. It’s too tedious and time-consuming to do the homework, isn’t it? They’d rather get their religious and political “nutrition” from evangelistic cheerleaders that serve delicious fast-food which coincidentally goes along with their eating habits at McDonald’s. Little do they realize they’re being served poison. “So what?” snidely asks the faithful. “If it feels and tastes good, do it.” Fast-food religion kills like dogs attracted to anti-freeze.

“When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross,” – Sinclair Lewis, 1935.

Driving the Muskogee Turnpike, one cannot miss the three giant crosses and the over-sized American flag floating above Victory Family Worship Center (VFWC). The new glass-enclosed sanctuary alone seats 10,000 – a large edifice considering Muskogee’s population is only 39,000.

On one wall inside the VFWC’s high-rafted glass lobby hangs an enormous painting rendition of Jesus Christ carrying the U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence. Behind Jesus are the nation’s founders and politically selected leaders from 200 years, depicted as mere side-line spectators to the creation of divinely inspired sacred documents.

The picture speaks more volume than a thousand words – how America and its founding documents were not crafted by mere mortals, but by divinity. Thus boosts American “exceptionalism,” another trigger term evoking nation worship.

The painting further depicts liberals (to Christ’s left) as attempting to crush democracy and Christianity.

Nationalism is a form of idolatry for which America has succumbed through its massive and growing evangelical and Mormon movements. The cross, Bible, flag and national documents are forms – as is Mount Rushmore where millions pay homage rather than honor four of our great leaders. We are humans like all the other billions on God’s blue planet. Yet the right would have us see Americans (principally WHITE ones) as special and “exceptional” – not dissimilar to Hitler’s anthems of praise to an Aryan Nation long dissolved.

Oklahoma should have learned from Timothy McVeigh – extreme right religion and politics lead to disaster. McVeigh had attended a rightwing “Christian” cult compound in eastern Oklahoma before his climatic day of April 19, 1995 when bombing the OKC Murray Building – sending 168 souls to eternity. Tim was obsessed by guns, the Bible, government-hate, Turner Diaries, and Waco – how federal agents had ransacked a religious compound two years prior. He was possessed by righteous indignation when taking it out on Oklahoma innocence that fateful day. Yet, he expressed no remorse before execution and to the very last breath felt his actions patriotic.

The Tea Party movement 15 years later mirrors McVeigh’s delusions. Oklahoma is dominated politically by the same spirit that destroyed so much of it in 1995. How could this be? Religion.

The giant crosses, enormous flag, and mammoth painting of Jesus holding the Constitution somehow boosts the spirits of the Rogerses, a family barely making it on slim incomes (although all are working including the kids). Their home is on the verge of being foreclosed.

Voting against their own personal interests is common with the religious right like the Rogers family. Because dogma trumps individual need; plus the false prophets indoctrinating the sheep have an agenda of power and wealth. Who can forget Jim & Tammy Faye’s $50,000 doghouse, Richard Roberts redecorating his house 11 times, or Swaggart’s whores? America’s short-term memory span allows these and other tell-tale incidents to be long-forgot. Corrupt manifestations are simply dismissed as liberal, secular influences.

Who knows what VFWC’s wealthy ministers are doing in secret? Who cares? They drive limos, fly private jets, and make $300,000 plus perks. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. But aren’t the chosen immune from such?

Churches in America weren’t always so flashy back in the day when substance meant more than surface and humility was a Christ-like virtue, not a weakness. And the topic of politics was verboten from the pulpit [not by government edict, but by ecclesiastic ethic]. Now rightwing politics dominate; no one misses the message. The Gospel has been bastardized for the sake of rightwing politics and power. Prosperity theology replaces Christ’s directives.

In addition, these external symbols pollute church culture. Waving the flag, sporting crosses, and Bible-bashing somehow make one more “Christian” and “patriotic.” On the other hand, those refusing to adorn themselves (and their properties) with these symbols are suspected of disloyalty or worse, treasonous.

When Hitler’s hordes stole Germany, they stormed town-halls across the Fatherland carrying their sacred symbols of nationalism reinforced by a distorted form of Christianity that lent moral credence to mob rule. In fact, Nazism could not have risen had it not been for German evangelicals and fundamentalists embedded within the various religious sects and denominations. German Christians were seduced by the allure of national pride, and in doing so, the flag, eagle, and swastika became select idols of that time – images so sacred anyone caught desecrating them were put to death.

The pageantry, lively music, and massive torch-bearing ceremonies were spectacular – even by today’s standards. Joseph Goebbels and Albert Speer were the Fuhrer’s designers, serving as Minister of Propaganda and Adolf’s Chief Architect, respectively. Commissioned by Hitler in 1934, TRIUMPH OF THE WILL, the propaganda film of all time, displayed seductive pageantry and overt symbolatry (idol worship of symbols). German evangelicals who succumbed to this idolatry comprised the base of the right-wing movement, same as American evangelicals are the base of the right-wing today in the U.S.

Yes, there are parallels between Nazi Germany and 21st Century right-wing America determined more than ever to recapture the government after managing to destroy Obama and congressional Democrats. Let no one deviously persuade otherwise: Fascism was never a left-wing movement, only a right, and America’s right-wing is again on the march – using white evangelicals (seduced by symbols and “Christian” idolatry) to do its bidding – advocating and condoning violence, preaching the gospel of the “free market” (corporatism/fascism), and promoting militaristic monarchial/theocratic rule. The symbols mean more than mandates Christ issued to the Church: caring for the needy, feeding the hungry, and healing the sick. Where’s love when hateful self-righteousness dominates?

If the U.S. is to succeed to a fresh Renaissance, evangelicals (that comprise one-third the population) must return to the Christ of the Gospels.

NOTE: The Oklahoma church described in the article does not exist but is a parody of the hundreds, if not thousands, of rightwing megachurches that have sprung up over the nation. 

Latin America Delivers A Swift Kick

On one level, April’s hemispheric summit meeting was an old fashioned butt kicking for Washington’s policies in the region. The White House found itself virtually alone—Dudley Do Right Canada its sole ally—on everything from Cuba to the war on drugs. But the differences go deeper than the exclusion of Havana and the growing body count in Washington’s failed anti-narcotics strategy. They reflect profound disagreements on how to build economies, confront inequity, and reflect a new balance of power in world affairs.

The backdrop for the summit is anger in Latin America over the failure of the U.S. and Europe to stimulate their economies, all the while pursuing policies that have flooded the region with money—a “ monetary tsunami” in the words of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff—driving up the value of southern hemisphere currencies and strangling local industries.

After meeting last month with President Obama, Rousseff said she told him of Brazil’s “concern with the expansionary monetary policies of the rich countries…leading to the depreciation of developed countries currencies and compromising growth among emerging economies.”

While Latin American economies are in better shape than those in Europe and the U.S., the recession dogging the latter areas—plus the cooling of the Chinese economy—has slowed growth throughout much of Latin America. Brazil’s most recent figures indicate a stalled economy, which could have an impact on efforts by the Rousseff government to raise living standards and narrow what was once the world’s biggest gap between rich and poor.

According to the Getulio Vargas Foundation Brazil has lifted 33 million out of extreme poverty since 2003 and, out of a population of 190 million, has created a relatively well-paid workforce of some 105.5 million. In contrast to the U.S. and Europe, where the wealth gap is accelerating, income for the poorest 50 percent of Brazilians has risen 68 percent, while for the top 10 percent, it has grown only 10 percent.

This growth has come about because most countries in Latin America reject the economic model pushed by Washington and the European Union: free trade, financial deregulation, and deep austerity.

Argentina is the poster child for the region’s rejection of the so-called “Washington consensus.” Throughout much of the ‘90s, a deeply indebted Argentina followed the strictures of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), slashing government spending and instituting a suffocating austerity. The result was a “debt trap”: cutbacks increased unemployment, which dampened tax revenues, which required yet more cutbacks, and more unemployment. In the end, debts went up. From 1998 to 2002, Argentina’s economy shrank 20 percent. By the time Buenos Aires finally said “enough” and defaulted on its $100 billion sovereign debt, half of its 35 million people were below the poverty line.

Argentina reversed course and primed the economy with government spending on housing, highways and education. It also subsidized 1.9 million low-income families, which cut poverty in half. Since 2002, the economy has grown at an average rate of 6 percent a year, and joblessness has fallen from 20 percent to 8 percent.

Brazil has followed a similar strategy that is now threatened by the fiscal and monetary policies of the U.S. and Europe. Those policies have caused the value of Brazil’s currency, the real, to grow, which prices Brazilian manufactured goods out of the international market.

“There is concern in South America about deindustrialization,” says Alicia Barcena of the UN Economic Commission for Latin America. “Therefore some countries are taking measures to support their productive sectors.” While the Obama Administration calls this support “protectionism,” Brazilian Finance Minister Guido Mantega says, “The measures we are using are to defend ourselves.”

There are other issues Latin Americans are unhappy about that never made it into U.S. media accounts on the summit, in particular the make-up of the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council that Brazil—along with India and South Africa—would like to join.

As former Brazilian President Luiz Lula da Silva told the African Union summit last July, “It isn’t possible that the African continent, with 53 countries, has no permanent representation in the Security Council. It isn’t possible that Latin America with its 400 million inhabitants does not have permanent representation. Five countries decide what to do, and how to do it.”

The five permanent members of the Security Council are the U.S., Britain, France, Russia, and China.

While the U.S. has endorsed India’s bid—in large part because it is wooing New Delhi to join its anti-China coalition—Washington has been consciously silent on Brazil’s bid.  Indeed,  United Nations U.S. representative Susan Rice has been sharply critical of Brazil, India and South Africa for not supporting intervention in Syria. “We have learned a lot [about these three countries] and frankly, not all of it encouraging.” The message is clear: back us and we will think about it.

The summit was particularly critical of the Obama administration around the exclusion of Cuba, causing the President to turn positively peevish. “Sometimes I feel…we’re caught in a time warp, going back to the 1950s and gunboat diplomacy and Yankees and the Cold War.”

But from Latin America’s point of view, by maintaining a half-century-old blockade, it is the U.S. who seems locked into the world of the Cold War. And there are, indeed, some worries about “gun boats,” specifically those that make up the newly re-constituted U.S. Fourth Fleet, mothballed in 1950 and revived by the Bush Administration. The U.S. has also recently established military bases in Colombia and Central America.

The Brazilians are particularly nervous about the security of their newly found offshore oil deposits, and the head of the Brazilian Navy, Admiral Luiz Umberto de Mendonca, is pressing Brasilia for surface ships and submarines.

Testifying before the Brazilian House of Representatives,  Simon Rosental of the prestigious Escuela Superior de Guerra (ESG) institute warned that “The world has known oil reserves that will only last 25 years and in the United States, only for the next ten years.”

It may be a bit of a stretch to imagine the U.S. actually threatening Brazil’s offshore oil deposits, but Latin Americans can hardly be blamed if they are a tad paranoid about the Colossus of the North. For the past 100 years the U.S. has overthrown governments from Guatemala to Chile, and supported military juntas throughout the region. Brazil only recently emerged from its own U.S.-backed dictatorship.

“South America,” says Moniz Banderia of the ESG, “is really trying to define its own identity, to differentiate itself from the United States, in opposition to its domination, which is evident in the creation of UANSUR [Union of South American Nations] and the South American Defense Council.”

UNASUR was established in 2008 and includes all 12 South American nations, plus observers from Panama and Mexico.

The Defense Council’s Action Plan 2012 aims to integrate the militaries of the region, establish a “peace zone” on the continent, and create a space agency, an essential step for launching satellites.

Certainly issues like Cuba, the war on drugs, and the tensions over Britain’s claim on the Malvinas/Falkland Islands are areas of friction between the U.S., Europe and South America. But it is in the realm of economics, poverty alleviation, and independent foreign policy that the differences are sharp.

South Americans tried the austerity model and found it wanting. They have also seen the U.S. and NATO spark wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya, and they are deeply suspicious of policy of “humanitarian intervention” in places like Syria because they don’t trust the motives behind it. Members of the BRIC countries, made up of Brazil, South Africa, India, Russia, and China, share those suspicions.

“There’s almost a third-world sense, a post-colonial sense,” says Mark Quarterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, “that they were meddled in, in ways that didn’t rebound to their benefit, and now the same countries are claiming humanitarian reasons for meddling.”

Thus in Libya, the UN enforced an arms boycott and an oil embargo on the Qaddafi regime, while the French supplied arms to the rebels and Qatar handled rebel oil sales. Brazil and other BRIC nations see a similar pattern in Syria. In the meantime, the U.S. and Europe are conspicuously silent on oil-rich Bahrain’s suppression of its Shiite majority and the lack of democracy in the monarchy-dominated Persian Gulf states.

So far the Obama Administration has responded to South America’s growing independence by increasing the U.S. military footprint in the region and acting churlish. While the leaders of India and South Korea got formal state affairs, the U.S. President gave Rousseff a two-hour meeting. “Obama could have taken her to dinner,” one Brazilian official complained to The Guardian (UK) “or to the Kennedy Center.”

But Latin Americans no longer pay as much mind to the atmosphere in Washington as they used to. They are too busy confronting poverty and underdevelopment, forging a multi-polar world in which the U.S. is looking increasingly out of touch. 

Why People Vote the Way They Do: Trying to Make Some Sense of it All-Part II

Over the years I have enjoyed watching voters who thought that candidates like Reagan would best serve the people of America.  He appealed to the masses, the common working people, and he did a fine job of convincing Billy Bob from Cut-And-Shoot, Texas to vote for him.  So what did Billy Bob get out of it?  Well, in the last episode (Part I) we saw that Billy Bob was a welder’s helper who had a pretty good union job until Reagan proved unions were dispensable by firing all the Air Traffic Controllers.  The shock waves trickled on down and finally Billy Bob found himself in a quandary when he got replaced by a cheaper-wage illegal, fresh up from the border.  Unions became unnecessary all of a sudden.  So when Billy Bob went looking for another job he found that now he had to compete with the cheaper labor available from the other side of the Rio Grande.  So as we saw in Part I Billy Bob had to let his air boat go back to the bank, no more alligator night hunts to supplement no income.  And that refinery job he was hopin’ to get thanks to his sister’s brother Buford just up and vanished along with that $18 an hour and lots of overtime.  Lordy, did anybody see that Mack Truck coming?

Bottom line Billy Bob should have known that voting for Reagan was akin to shooting himself in the big toe.  Those who benefitted most from Reagan were the Military Industrial Complex who Reagan helped by borrowing and spending $3 Trillion more and increasing our National Debt by that same figure.  And those Reagan benefitted returned the favor in kind with Billions of dollars funneled into his private campaign fund or the coffers of the RNC. 

Sam Walton and the Bush family would have benefitted by voting for Reagan, and they did just that.  So did Halliburton and Dick Cheney (who said ‘Reagan proved that deficits don’t matter.’?).  In truth deficits did not matter to Cheney or Halliburton.  Why not?  Well the Big H received the money Reagan’s dutiful lapdog Congress borrowed and spent to build up the military. Halliburton was the manufacturer and provider of goods and services to Uncle Sam. And even though it was borrowed money, Halliburton and all their no-bid Military Industrial Complex cronies took it in their hot fists and ran.  Left us common taxpayers and Billy Bob flat-footed.  Like, in holding the bag.  So Billy Bob, at least in his own best financial interests, shouldn’t have voted for Reagan.  He should have voted for Mondale and suffered in silence.  Shucks, he could have kept his rifles,  bullets, and pickup with a nice gun rack in the back glass.  Why make such a big fuss when you get to keep all your firearms anyhow and you don’t have to shoot yourself in the foot?

People vote for the strangest reasons many of which do not serve their economic stations in life.  Billy Bob, see, was one of them fellers who voted for George W. Bush ‘cause he was the kind of president Billy Bob would want to have a beer with.  You know, the smiling, back-slappin’ good ol’ boy that caught a world and Texas state record White Perch on his Crawford ranch? 

Truth is Bush did not know his fish.  He lied.  But would that keep Billy Bob from pulling the lever for Bush come Election Day?  Shoot no, ‘cause it don’t matter if Bush knows his fish and stretches the truth to a nervous world that maybe chuckles at his buffoonery and Black Belt degree of terminal Dumbass.  But it was no joke when Bush attacked Iraq.  That was real alright.  And years later after the country was bombed, broken, and dismantled, we must ask, “Was stretching the truth to justify attacking and occupying Iraq just as excusable as Bush’s stretching the truth about his world-record White Perch?”  One was harmful to humanity, and the other was not.  But a lie is still a lie, and is an essential part of proven liar's moral anatomy.  And big or small, the lie must get out.  It is a part of a liar's soul and what he sees the world to be:  like, maybe a bunch of chumps for the clipping?   It tells you who he is from the git-go. 

Is it just me, or does the Bush family’s purchase of 200,000 acres of mineral-rich, with unlimited fresh water resources and farmland in Paraguay seem a bit out of the ordinary?  Or that a 400-man US Marine air base was created next door by Poppy many years ago?  Or that Paraguay is a country with no-extradition laws on the books?

But thousands of deaths later and years of occupation what did we accomplish, and did it matter to the American voter come election time?  Did the voters hold Bush accountable for his head fakes and lies that cost the taxpayers Trillions of dollars more, borrowed from the Chinese and spent to defend us from terrorists in Iraq that Bush said, had weapons of mass destruction pointed at U.S. cities?  Not really.  Nobody, including Bush, was ever held accountable for causing such a destruction of cities, countries, of our own men and women, and of our very own currency from the borrowing and spending for war.  And are we better off for it?  Is Iraq?  I say we are far worse off and so is Iraq now that al Qaeda has been given a free reign to set up shop there.

So why do people vote for such villains and all their war-borrowing-and-spending skullduggery that causes Americans to lose their homes, their jobs, and have to walk the financial plank?  Ask any political consultant. 

It’s the money. 

It’s always the money.  What money, one might ask?  The millions of dollars collected by candidates for their reelection campaigns.  The millions of dollars in Political Action Committees for political party campaigns.  Remember the Swift Boaters who blew John Kerry out of the water in the presidential race of 2004?  Money is king when it comes to effectively swaying voter opinion, and that spells polls.  The Houston billionaire, John Moore, paid millions to discredit John Kerry’s honorable service as a Swift Boat commander in the Viet Nam War.  The term “Swiftboating” was born.  It is the deliberate attempt to prove chicanery and the lies of a person running for office, to discredit him so that he will lose.  This hit money that John Moore gave toward the destruction of John Kerry as a viable candidate for president proved effective.  Kerry lost. 

Forget the truth.  The man who volunteered for combat and received more than one Purple Heart and a Bronze Star for bravery under fire was mocked into a corner of dishonor, and he lost the election.  He lost to George W. Bush who went AWOL during the Viet Nam War and had marked “Do Not Volunteer” for duty overseas.  Bush got a cushy Texas Air Guard (wave the magic wand) commission thanks to Poppy and his connections.  There, Bush would never see combat.  Money does it every time.  It makes a believer out of Billy Bob and other voters who do not have the time to research the truth.  Money can make a hero a coward and a coward a hero.  The more money, the better chance a candidate has of being elected or reelected to office.  Truth doesn’t matter, and it never did.  Given enough money you can produce and run ads that make everything seem real when it is not.  And those ads, mostly 30 second spots on TV, control elections and who will rule our land.

The money also bought very effective ads in the way of Band Aids with Purple Hearts painted on them so that the candidates to the Republican National Convention could wear them in plain view to discredit John Kerry’s duly awarded Purple Heart medals.  That bit of tasteless display said it all:  Kerry received medals that were not due him because they were little scratches, to be covered up by mere Band Aides.  It was a new low in American politics.  But it was effective.  To top it all off Arnold Swartzenegger gave the Keynote address and told the world that a vote for John Kerry was a vote for a “girlie man.”  That even set a newer low, but it was all effective.  Bush won.  So America had to suffer a president with only a 92 IQ for a second term.

If we care to address the truth and elect good officials who will work in the interest of ALL the people we must first look at ourselves.  A long look in the mirror and some self-evaluation has to reveal that we don’t really know shit from Shinola about the person we are voting for other than what television campaign ads tells us to believe.  No offense intended.  I include myself in that analogy, so please, let us do some homework.  Realize that you and I as a competent voters have never looked at a person’s voting record in order to make an intelligent decision to see if this guy or gal running for office is for us.  Please ask yourself when was the last time you really took time out from a busy job and what little time you had to spend with your family to attend political rallies, discussions, or anything that would further your understanding of the candidates?  Try to resist the camera effect.  The camera hated Nixon, loved Kennedy, fell in love with Reagan, hated the cadaverous Kerry, and loved Bush.  So what does the camera have to do with voting for the right candidate?  Everything.  Hence, the perverted lack-of-reasoning for voting for the back-slapping good old boy George W. Bush, the dude you would like to have a beer with.

Can’t we voters see that television ads can make any and all claims, good and bad, about any candidate running for office?  Do we ever feel a bit lazy that we have not given it our best shot when we, due to other pressing considerations of life, just watch the talking heads on camera and subjectively decide on a candidate?  Or a breathtaking political ad?  If we do, aren’t we a bit chagrined to know that we have given our souls to the money behind the ads and not the candidate?  Can we admit that we may be making ourselves victims of mass hypnotization?  That we are just as confused and ambivalent to knowing the truth as was Pontius Pilate who asked Jesus, “What is truth?”

Look, if our National Debt soars greater than $15 Trillion this year and $17 Trillion the year after, who is to blame when we vote our subjective mind, our unconscious mind based on television ads paid for by massive amounts of money?  If we would admit it to ourselves, wouldn’t Ron Paul have a real shot at the presidency if he had the camera presence and the young looks of Romney?  And if that is a true statement then we need to reevaluate our reasons for voting as adults instead of bloody, unconscious adolescents.  And prosper as an intelligent, fiscally responsible nation once again.