BRAZIL – THAT MUCH SMARTER THAN AMERICA?
Since 1975 Brazil A+ and America F.
Why is Brazil so much smarter than America ?? The robustly intelligent who frequent KOS will be instantly curious and want to at least explore this premise.
Brazil is one of the largest Democracies in the world. It operates the same way as the United States, as a republic. Brazil’s 190 million residents now enjoy the very comfortable position of being OPEC-Free, or energy-independent. (Notice how US politicians mouth that phrase as a distant, unachievable dream … ?) Brazilians couldn’t care less what the Saudi Sheiks do with their oil production decisions: increase drilling or decrease? Brazilians don’t care. Imported oil previously accounted for more than 70% of the country's oil needs, but Brazil became energy independent in 2006.
It has been simultaneously humorous and shocking to see the difference in maturity in Brazilian officialdom since 1973 and their counterparts in the United States. The noun is used here to include the Government and the very progressive, mature and long-term- disposed companies in Brazil. Those forward-thinking people stared an enormous crisis in the face, realized what had to be done, weathered the storm and have been working to get free of any repeat of it ever since then. The crisis was of course the OPEC-generated oil crisis in 1973. You remember. You had to cue up in a line at gas stations, and after sometimes a 30-minute or longer wait, “inched” your way forward, only to see a hand-painted sign reading NO MORE GAS when you finally got there. Remember?
Everyone in Sao Paulo and Rio and all Brazilian cities had to do the same thing. So herein a stark distinction between the actions of two vastly different societies in the aftermath of those difficult days. I’ll leave it to the Psychological community to explain the goals of the two countries based on their actions in this crisis. One thing is certain: decision makers in the two countries showed vastly different concern for the populace, and vastly different priorities.
BRAZIL – one of the largest democracies in the world
USA - one of the largest democracies in the world
BRAZIL – In 1973, faced with worldwide oil deficits
USA - In 1973, faced with worldwide oil deficits
BRAZIL - Immediately began its ethanol program for automobiles
USA - Ignored all suggestions for ethanol…OPEC’s biggest customer
BRAZIL - First produced ethanol from sugarcane
USA - First produced ethanol from corn
BRAZIL - There is no shortage of sugar. Food-versus-fuel is not a discussion
USA - Big concerns, political protests that food for fuel threatens food supply
BRAZIL - The Brazilian government provided three important initial drivers for the ethanol industry to be born alive:
· guaranteed purchases by the state-owned oil company Petrobras,
· low-interest loans for agro-industrial ethanol firms
· fixed gasoline and ethanol prices where hydrous ethanol sold for 59% of the government-set gasoline price at the pump.
· these pump-primers made ethanol competitive yet unsubsidized
USA - Smears of “socialism” prevented any of this in the USA.
BRAZIL – Enjoying record sugar crops, and record production of Ethanol from sugar, which is 8 times more energy efficient to produce than ethanol derived from corn
USA - Continues to produce ethanol from corn, which produces much less ethanol per acre than sugar does, cuts into food supplies, & does not reduce greenhouse gases
BRAZIL - The ethanol program provided nearly 700,000 jobs in 2003
USA - No record of any job production from corn ethanol
BRAZIL - is the world's largest exporter of ethanol and is considered to have the world's first sustainable biofuels economy. Is the biofuel industry leader.
USA - - Still a halting, argument-ridden exercise in America
BRAZIL - Continuous research and testing being done to improve ethanol. Approximately $50 million has recently been allocated for research and projects focused on advancing ethanol from sugarcane in São Paulo.[18]
USA - Many American scientists engaged in the study of how to make rifle bullets “more lethal.” Goal is how to enter the human body, then explode horizontally. (From The Military Channel on Satellite.)
BRAZIL - Continues to offer ethanol study and technology to the world
USA - Continues to block Brazilian ethanol while boosting production of ethanol made from corn
BRAZIL - Offers ethanol to all countries, at rates less than gasoline or oil, and especially free of OPEC control.
USA - A 54 cent-per-gallon tax blocks most Brazilian ethanol from reaching U.S. consumers. (Have you scolded your Senator about this yet? Vote him/her out !)
Getting rid of such tariffs, Brazilian producers agree, would give the world what it needs - cheap, clean and environmentally friendly alternative fuel. Ending the tax would ignite Brazil's ethanol industry and turn the country into a major biofuel exporter, said Jose Goldemberg, one of the founders of Brazil's national ethanol program.
"It doesn't make much sense to produce ethanol from corn," Goldemberg said. "What the United States needs to do if it wants to solve its energy problems is very simple. It needs to import ethanol from Brazil."
BRAZIL - Now produces millions of cars, most enjoying 40+ miles per gallon
USA - “There is an untapped oil field in America, in Detroit,” says Amy Jaffe, Director of Energy Independence. “Just one mile per gallon improvement in its cars would yield 350,000 barrels a day for use.”
BRAZIL - 30-year old ethanol fuel program uses modern equipment and cheap sugar cane as feedstock. Brazilian research has utilized the waste products of the cane to process heat and power, which results in not only a very competitive price, but a high energy balance - which is math talk for saying that as a result, sugar-cane ethanol produces 8 units of energy for every 1 unit of fossil fuels invested in its production, while the ratio for the stubborn US corn ethanol is 1.3 to 1. (Brazil A+ - America F)
USA - During this same period, the USA produces the “bunker-buster bomb,” a new take on bombs – it penetrates the ground 30 feet before exploding, and development costs were said to come in “under budget:” - $30 million dollars.
USA - US critics have made the most noise about the possible effects of ethanol production on Brazil's fragile rainforests and other ecosystems, criticisms that Brazilian producers call absurd.
BRAZIL - "Sugar is not growing in the forest," said Marcos Jank, president of the country's biggest sugar industry group UNICA. "You don't destroy forest to grow sugar. You actually produce a carbon credit and not a carbon deficit."
Okay, okay. Enough already. I just thought it might be interesting to draw a distinction between the United States of George W Bush and a relatively undistinguished country in South America. Personally, a slavish devotion to OPEC and the very real burden of $4 a gallon gasoline, soon to be $5, soon to be $6, and the transparent reasons the corporate talking heads give for those outrages is wearing really thin. Supply and demand has absolutely nothing to do with these prices. But “identify the problem and solve it” most assuredly does. Brazil is a nation of identifiers and solvers, apparently, not “deciders.”
Does Dick Cheney really expect us to believe him, that the laws of supply and demand simply don’t apply to Brazil?
I really wanted to write a blog to inform, like the thing I did on The Patriot Act, but in doing so, a grim realization hit me. It would be simple for the oilmen in the White House to solve America’s gasoline problem. They could just have Fox news repeat a million times a day that Brazil is working on the final stages of a nuclear weapon. If they can produce fuel from sugar cane, the world is confident they can enrich uranium. Then he could invade Brazil, smash the buildings and the people, but leave the sugar cane fields intact, and voila’ – plenty of fuel. Look how well that has worked in Iraq.
Ramping up US ethanol production from sugar cane would take us a considerable amount of time, granted, to get it off the ground and operating. But there is a way we can have very inexpensive ethanol from Brazil in a heartbeat: install some real people in Washington, ignore the pressure from the oil companies lobby, and remove the 54c a gallon tax on ethanol from Brazil.
But, of course, that won’t happen, will it ?
You wanta read one of the nicest sentences I came across in researching Brazil? How good is this one:
Brazilian foreign policy has generally reflected multilateralism, peaceful dispute settlement, and nonintervention in the affairs of other countries.”
Faithfully, in the interests of the American People
See also daily kos.
swungnotes at blogspot.com
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Monday, May 19, 2008
THE PATRIOT ACT – AN UNBELIEVABLE POWER GRAB
HAVE YOU READ IT? ALL OF IT? You NEED to!
FIRST – in discussing this abomination - perpetrated on us by an ambitious megalomaniac and a large group of wannabes - I discovered right away that very few people have read it, or could cite even ONE facet of it ! So to make it more meaningful to you, here are just a few facts up front: Remember, all these laws are in effect AS YOU READ THIS. All that is required for these horrors to come to life is one man declaring a “State of Emergency.”
This document runs to a million words. The administration actually wants you to believe that all this thought and consideration was put together in ONE MONTH - in its final form, ready for signature and enactment. The WTC towers were hit on September 11, 2001, and the “ready-to-sign” USA Patriot Act was passed by the House on October 12, 2001 and by the Senate on October 23, 2001. I guess we should have known right then what was coming, if they actually put that lie out there as the truth. It will take you almost that long to read it! It’s a mathematical certainty this document could not have been, and wasn’t, conceived, altered, tweaked and written in one month of normal three-day-weeks by the Congress and Senate
An unexpected immediate effect this theft of our liberties had was that immediately, only a month or so after its October 12 passage, a large number of local cities, counties and whole STATES passed resolutions, ordinances, and ballot initiatives in defiance of the act. These resolutions roundly condemned some or all of the provisions of the USA Patriot Act of 2001. (You can identify all of them at bordc.org – click on State – click on your City or area, to find the Contact person in charge of OPPOSING these obscenities. As of last December, there were 416 of them. Note that bordc.org is an acronym for Bill of Rights Defense Committee.)
IF you are one of the few who has read this outrage, then you know what’s coming, but on the chance that you weren’t able to read the whole thing, at least take a look at these so-called “Executive Orders.” I think you will be surprised at the audacity, indeed the boldness of this transparent power grab. Remember, Dillinger had to break the law robbing his banks. This guy is more subtle. He just writes new ones, or totally guts old ones - and for 7 and a half years (!) Americans have either cheered him on, (Boehner, McConnell, Sensenbrenner, et al) or stuck their heads in the sand.
As of December 7 last year, 416 Cities and EIGHT States had enacted laws stating they will not abide by the (un-)Patriotic Act, and put the Government on notice that the Act is Unconstitutional in many (many) particulars. Large cities like Dallas. Chicago, Los Angeles, Denver, New York City etc. et al, have enacted opposition, along with HUNDREDS of small cities. This Grassroots Opposition to the bush monstrosity currently represents more than 85 million people. (!)
Jonathan Turley, Professor of Law at George Washington University and a noted Constitutional scholar, recently said that by his study of this Administration, this crowd has committed at least 143 felonies to date.
One Patriot Act wasn’t enough. The Congress knuckled under and passed his second version, dubbed Patriot Act 2, and these courageous stalwarts even agreed to his order that the sunset provisions slated for 2005 be repealed, which they were. (See Section 110)
*****To save you hours of reading time, I’ve put in bullet form the most heinous aspects of Patriot for you. I’ve added some normal questions of my own to ask, on some of them. You’ll have your own, I’m sure. Consider the following:
When the President – one man – declares we are in a “State of Emergency” – the following go into effect immediately. And remember – oh yeah – when this man declares a “State of Emergency” he can’t even be questioned about it for six months !!
As you read these, bear in mind that NO COUNTRY on Earth can mount an invasion of America. The very worst they can do is launch a missile or crash a plane or deliver some biological weapon. So ask yourself on each one of these unbelievable “Executive Orders”: Why did he enact such (potential) dictatorial control over America ? Do these dictatorial provisions fit the scenario of a one-episode, minor attack? THE EQUIVALENT OF SWATTING FLIES WITH A SLEDGE HAMMER.”
Remember, these are in effect NOW, as you read this !
EXECUTIVE ORDER 10990 allows the government to take over all modes of transportation and control of highways and seaports.
EXECUTIVE ORDER 10995 allows the government to seize and control the communication media.
EXECUTIVE ORDER 10997 allows the government to take over all electrical power, gas, petroleum, fuels and minerals. What? Why is this relevant?
EXECUTIVE ORDER 10998 allows the government to take over all food resources and farms. Why is this relevant?
EXECUTIVE ORDER 11000 allows the government to mobilize civilians into work brigades under government supervision. Like prison work gangs? Why?
EXECUTIVE ORDER 11002 designates the Postmaster General to operate a national registration of all persons ! “Let me see your papers.” (Gestapo)
EXECUTIVE ORDER 11003 allows the government to take over all airports and aircraft, including commercial aircraft. Effectively gutting any opposition travel
i
EXECUTIVE ORDER 11004 allows the Housing and Finance Authority to relocate communities, build new housing with public funds, designate areas to be abandoned, and establish new locations for populations. Auschwitz?
*************
EXECUTIVE ORDER 11005 allows the government to take over railroads.
EXECUTIVE ORDER 11051 empowers the Office of Emergency Planning and gives authorization to PHYSICALLY put all Executive Orders into effect immediately.
EXECUTIVE ORDER 11310 grants authority to the Department of Justice to enforce the plans set out in Executive Orders, to institute industrial support.
What is meant by “Industrial support? (It means what they say it means.)
EXECUTIVE ORDER 11049 assigns emergency preparedness function to federal departments and agencies, consolidating 21 operative Executive Orders issued over a fifteen-year period.
EXECUTIVE ORDER 11921 allows the Federal Emergency Preparedness Agency to establish control over wages, salaries, credit, and the flow of money, plus control of all energy sources (electric, gas, coal, wind) in any undefined national emergency. This enslaves us. Totally.
**************It also provides that when the President declares a state of emergency, Congress cannot review the action for 180 days.***********
They really thought this one out. They don’t even have to define it – plus he can’t even be questioned on it for six months. Will we all meekly accept this?
Model State Emergency Health Powers Act, which gives governors and public health officials the power to Force individuals suspected of harboring an "infectious disease" to undergo medical examinations.
This is a red herring. If you object, and you’re a leader, and they need to silence you, they “suspect” you of an infectious disease, whereupon you’re picked up, held with no habeas corpus, no knowledge of it to anyone. Silences you, doesn’t it?
Force pharmacists to report any unusual or increased prescription purchases that may be caused by epidemic diseases.
Gives government the power to Preempt existing state laws, rules and regulations, including those relating to privacy, medical licensure, and--this is key--property rights.
PREEMPT existing laws – how is that related to an emergency ???
Mobilize all or any part of the "organized militia” into service to the state to help enforce the state's orders."
A Bold Evisceration of the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which prohibits using the Army (“militia”) from doing Police work. Posse Comitatus is in the Constitution.
Ration firearms, explosives, food, fuel and alcoholic beverages, among other commodities. Ration? Not defined, but we know what it means !!!
The elected representatives of the American people are rapidly eliminating constitutional rights by enthusiastically signing on and then supporting Patriot I and 2. (Sensenbrenner, Boehner, etc.)
THE ABOVE WERE ALL IN PATRIOTIC ACT I
Consider the powers of Patriot Act II:
SECTION 501 (Expatriation of Terrorists) expands the definition of "enemy combatant" to all American citizens who "may" have violated any provision of Section 802 of the first Patriot Act.
Under Section 501 a US citizen engaging in lawful activities can be grabbed off the street and thrown into a van never to be seen again. The Justice Department states that they can do this because the person "had inferred from his conduct" that he/she was not a US Citizen. (??) Remember Section 802 of the First USA Patriot Act states that any violation of Federal or State law can result in the "enemy combatant" terrorist designation.
SECTION 201 of the second Patriot Act makes it a criminal act for any member of the government or any citizen to release any information concerning the incarceration or whereabouts of detainees. It also states that law enforcement does not have to tell the press or the Red Cross who they have arrested, and they never have to release the names.
THIS TOTALLY GUTS HABEAS CORPUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
SECTIONS 301 and 306 set up a national database of "suspected terrorists" and radically expand the database to include anyone associated with suspected terrorist groups. So if your friend opposes their excesses, you can be arrested.SECTION 312 gives immunity to law enforcement engaging in spying operations against the American people. Of course it does.
SECTION 101 will designate individual terrorists as foreign powers and strip them of all rights under the "enemy combatant" designation. Then you’re no longer a citizen.
SECTION 102 states clearly that any information gathering, regardless of whether or not those activities are illegal, can be considered to be clandestine intelligence activities for a foreign power. This makes newsgathering illegal.
SECTION 103 allows the Federal government to use wartime martial law powers domestically and internationally without Congress declaring that a state of war exists. Martial law anytime they need it.
SECTION 106 is bone chilling in its straightforwardness. It states that broad general warrants by the secret FISA court granted under the first Patriot Act are not good enough: and government agents must be given immunity for searches with no prior court approval. This section throws out the entire Fourth Amendment against unreasonable searches and seizures.
****************
SECTION 109 allows secret courts to issue contempt charges against any individual or corporation who refuses to incriminate himself or others. This section annihilates the last vestiges of the Fifth Amendment. This one is a nightmare, forcing us to “tell on” each other, in self defense.
SECTION 110 restates that key police state clauses in the first Patriot Act were not sunsetted and removes the five-year sunset clause from other subsections of the first Patriot Act. After all, the media has told us: "This is the New America. Get used to it. This is forever." You know who in the media says this, and their networks.
SECTION 111 expands the definition of the "enemy combatant" designation.
SECTION 122 restates the government's newly announced power of "surveillance without a court order."
SECTION 123 restates that the government no longer needs warrants and that the investigations can be a giant dragnet-style sweep described in press reports
Note: Over and over again, in subsection after subsection, the second Patriot Act states that its new Soviet-type powers will be used to fight international terrorism, domestic terrorism and other types of crimes. And remember - the government has already announced in Section 802 of first Patriot that ANY CRIME is considered domestic terrorism, wherein you lose your citizenship, remember?
SECTION 126 grants the government the right to “mine” the entire spectrum of public and private sector information from bank records to educational and medical records. This is the enacting law to allow ECHELON and the Total Information Awareness Network to break down any and all walls of privacy. The government states that they “must look at everything to determine" if individuals or groups might have a connection to terrorist groups. As you can see, you are now guilty until proven innocent.
SECTION 127 allows the government to takeover coroners' and medical examiners' operations whenever they see fit. What? Why?
SECTION 128 allows the Federal government to place gag orders on Federal and State Grand Juries and to take over the proceedings. It also disallows individuals or organizations to even try to quash a Federal subpoena. So now defending yourself will be a terrorist action.
SECTION 129 destroys any remaining whistle blower protection for Federal agents.
SECTION 202 allows corporations to keep secret their activities with toxic biological, chemical or radiological materials. Of course it does.
SECTION 205 allows top Federal officials to keep all financial dealings secret, and anyone investigating them can be considered a terrorist.
So much for the first amendment, too.
SECTION 303 sets up a national DNA database of suspected terrorists. The database will also be used to "stop other unlawful activities." It will share the information with state, local and foreign agencies for the same purposes.
SECTION 311 federalizes your local police department in the area of information sharing.
SECTION 313 provides liability protection for businesses, especially big businesses, that spy on their customers for Homeland Security, violating privacy agreements. It goes on to say that these are all preventive measures - has anyone seen Minority Report? This is the access hub for the Total Information Awareness Network. I haven’t seen it.
SECTION 321 authorizes foreign governments to spy on the American people and to share information with foreign governments. What? How can he justify this entry ?
SECTION 402 is titled "Providing Material Support to Terrorism” is a crime. The section reads that there is no requirement to show that the individual even had the intent to aid terrorists. What? Guilty until proven innocent?
SECTION 403 expands the definition of weapons of mass destruction to include any activity that affects interstate or foreign commerce.
SECTION 408 creates "lifetime parole" (basically, slavery) for a lot of crimes.
SECTION 410 creates no statute of limitations for anyone who engages in terrorist actions or supports terrorists. Remember: any crime is now considered terrorism under the first Patriot Act.
SECTION 411 expands crimes that are punishable by death. Again, they point to Section 802 of the first Patriot Act and state that any terrorist act or support of terrorist act can result in the death penalty.
SECTION 427 sets up asset forfeiture provisions for anyone engaging in terrorist activities. In other words, if he (one man) says you are engaged in terrorist activities, and you’re NOT, they can still take your home and business until you prove you’re NOT !
There are many other sections that I did not cover in the interest of time. Those in the 13000 range take control of all the financial mechanism in America. The American people should be shocked by this outrage, this obvious grab at dictatorial power, and, really, should be vigorously demonstrating in the streets until it’s burned !!
*******THE SECOND PATRIOT ACT DWARFS ALL POLICE STATE LEGISLATION IN MODERN WORLD HISTORY. ******************
It is patently obvious by now that these provisions were very carefully crafted in an orchestrated attack on the Constitution, along with a grab for limitless power. How could we think otherwise ?
We know that these things were all written well before the 911 tragedies. Well before. It’s also well known that it was passed immediately following 9-11 without Congress having access to all the contents of the Act. One of the main gossip items, when discussing this crowd, is that he (or Cheney) could actually start a war, most likely attacking Iran, just before the election, so that he could then declare a “State of Emergency” and do away with the election. He could do a repeat of his charade in Iraq: just send thousands of troops, then dare the Congress to cut off the money for them, after a 1000 or so have died.
Who among us thinks the Congress will do that?
My greatest fear is that the American people just might do what a lot of good citizens in Germany did in early 1930. That is to say, not recognize the depth of this character’s megalomania, and also not recognize how much support he has from so many people, and corporations. Just like the other guy did – a hideous caricature of a sick individual in charge of a lot of otherwise really good people - but people who did nothing to resist him until it was too late. (He showed his intentions in 1933, and they didn’t make the attempt to unseat him until July 1944!) That’s why I wanted to make as many of you aware of this power grab known as the Patriotic Act, as I possibly could. Reading it flabbergasted me, I have to tell you !
A great deal is terribly wrong right now, in Washington.
***** You can learn more at bordc.org. The acronym is for Bill of Rights Defense Committee. They are also ramping up a People's Campaign for the Constitution. I hope you'll visit that website and take the pledge to join with us in protection of the Constitution! We need millions more signatures.
To do so, go to http://www.constitutioncampaign.org
Faithfully, in the interest of the American people
See also swungnotes diaries on dailykos.org
swungnotes
FIRST – in discussing this abomination - perpetrated on us by an ambitious megalomaniac and a large group of wannabes - I discovered right away that very few people have read it, or could cite even ONE facet of it ! So to make it more meaningful to you, here are just a few facts up front: Remember, all these laws are in effect AS YOU READ THIS. All that is required for these horrors to come to life is one man declaring a “State of Emergency.”
This document runs to a million words. The administration actually wants you to believe that all this thought and consideration was put together in ONE MONTH - in its final form, ready for signature and enactment. The WTC towers were hit on September 11, 2001, and the “ready-to-sign” USA Patriot Act was passed by the House on October 12, 2001 and by the Senate on October 23, 2001. I guess we should have known right then what was coming, if they actually put that lie out there as the truth. It will take you almost that long to read it! It’s a mathematical certainty this document could not have been, and wasn’t, conceived, altered, tweaked and written in one month of normal three-day-weeks by the Congress and Senate
An unexpected immediate effect this theft of our liberties had was that immediately, only a month or so after its October 12 passage, a large number of local cities, counties and whole STATES passed resolutions, ordinances, and ballot initiatives in defiance of the act. These resolutions roundly condemned some or all of the provisions of the USA Patriot Act of 2001. (You can identify all of them at bordc.org – click on State – click on your City or area, to find the Contact person in charge of OPPOSING these obscenities. As of last December, there were 416 of them. Note that bordc.org is an acronym for Bill of Rights Defense Committee.)
IF you are one of the few who has read this outrage, then you know what’s coming, but on the chance that you weren’t able to read the whole thing, at least take a look at these so-called “Executive Orders.” I think you will be surprised at the audacity, indeed the boldness of this transparent power grab. Remember, Dillinger had to break the law robbing his banks. This guy is more subtle. He just writes new ones, or totally guts old ones - and for 7 and a half years (!) Americans have either cheered him on, (Boehner, McConnell, Sensenbrenner, et al) or stuck their heads in the sand.
As of December 7 last year, 416 Cities and EIGHT States had enacted laws stating they will not abide by the (un-)Patriotic Act, and put the Government on notice that the Act is Unconstitutional in many (many) particulars. Large cities like Dallas. Chicago, Los Angeles, Denver, New York City etc. et al, have enacted opposition, along with HUNDREDS of small cities. This Grassroots Opposition to the bush monstrosity currently represents more than 85 million people. (!)
Jonathan Turley, Professor of Law at George Washington University and a noted Constitutional scholar, recently said that by his study of this Administration, this crowd has committed at least 143 felonies to date.
One Patriot Act wasn’t enough. The Congress knuckled under and passed his second version, dubbed Patriot Act 2, and these courageous stalwarts even agreed to his order that the sunset provisions slated for 2005 be repealed, which they were. (See Section 110)
*****To save you hours of reading time, I’ve put in bullet form the most heinous aspects of Patriot for you. I’ve added some normal questions of my own to ask, on some of them. You’ll have your own, I’m sure. Consider the following:
When the President – one man – declares we are in a “State of Emergency” – the following go into effect immediately. And remember – oh yeah – when this man declares a “State of Emergency” he can’t even be questioned about it for six months !!
As you read these, bear in mind that NO COUNTRY on Earth can mount an invasion of America. The very worst they can do is launch a missile or crash a plane or deliver some biological weapon. So ask yourself on each one of these unbelievable “Executive Orders”: Why did he enact such (potential) dictatorial control over America ? Do these dictatorial provisions fit the scenario of a one-episode, minor attack? THE EQUIVALENT OF SWATTING FLIES WITH A SLEDGE HAMMER.”
Remember, these are in effect NOW, as you read this !
EXECUTIVE ORDER 10990 allows the government to take over all modes of transportation and control of highways and seaports.
EXECUTIVE ORDER 10995 allows the government to seize and control the communication media.
EXECUTIVE ORDER 10997 allows the government to take over all electrical power, gas, petroleum, fuels and minerals. What? Why is this relevant?
EXECUTIVE ORDER 10998 allows the government to take over all food resources and farms. Why is this relevant?
EXECUTIVE ORDER 11000 allows the government to mobilize civilians into work brigades under government supervision. Like prison work gangs? Why?
EXECUTIVE ORDER 11002 designates the Postmaster General to operate a national registration of all persons ! “Let me see your papers.” (Gestapo)
EXECUTIVE ORDER 11003 allows the government to take over all airports and aircraft, including commercial aircraft. Effectively gutting any opposition travel
i
EXECUTIVE ORDER 11004 allows the Housing and Finance Authority to relocate communities, build new housing with public funds, designate areas to be abandoned, and establish new locations for populations. Auschwitz?
*************
EXECUTIVE ORDER 11005 allows the government to take over railroads.
EXECUTIVE ORDER 11051 empowers the Office of Emergency Planning and gives authorization to PHYSICALLY put all Executive Orders into effect immediately.
EXECUTIVE ORDER 11310 grants authority to the Department of Justice to enforce the plans set out in Executive Orders, to institute industrial support.
What is meant by “Industrial support? (It means what they say it means.)
EXECUTIVE ORDER 11049 assigns emergency preparedness function to federal departments and agencies, consolidating 21 operative Executive Orders issued over a fifteen-year period.
EXECUTIVE ORDER 11921 allows the Federal Emergency Preparedness Agency to establish control over wages, salaries, credit, and the flow of money, plus control of all energy sources (electric, gas, coal, wind) in any undefined national emergency. This enslaves us. Totally.
**************It also provides that when the President declares a state of emergency, Congress cannot review the action for 180 days.***********
They really thought this one out. They don’t even have to define it – plus he can’t even be questioned on it for six months. Will we all meekly accept this?
Model State Emergency Health Powers Act, which gives governors and public health officials the power to Force individuals suspected of harboring an "infectious disease" to undergo medical examinations.
This is a red herring. If you object, and you’re a leader, and they need to silence you, they “suspect” you of an infectious disease, whereupon you’re picked up, held with no habeas corpus, no knowledge of it to anyone. Silences you, doesn’t it?
Force pharmacists to report any unusual or increased prescription purchases that may be caused by epidemic diseases.
Gives government the power to Preempt existing state laws, rules and regulations, including those relating to privacy, medical licensure, and--this is key--property rights.
PREEMPT existing laws – how is that related to an emergency ???
Mobilize all or any part of the "organized militia” into service to the state to help enforce the state's orders."
A Bold Evisceration of the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which prohibits using the Army (“militia”) from doing Police work. Posse Comitatus is in the Constitution.
Ration firearms, explosives, food, fuel and alcoholic beverages, among other commodities. Ration? Not defined, but we know what it means !!!
The elected representatives of the American people are rapidly eliminating constitutional rights by enthusiastically signing on and then supporting Patriot I and 2. (Sensenbrenner, Boehner, etc.)
THE ABOVE WERE ALL IN PATRIOTIC ACT I
Consider the powers of Patriot Act II:
SECTION 501 (Expatriation of Terrorists) expands the definition of "enemy combatant" to all American citizens who "may" have violated any provision of Section 802 of the first Patriot Act.
Under Section 501 a US citizen engaging in lawful activities can be grabbed off the street and thrown into a van never to be seen again. The Justice Department states that they can do this because the person "had inferred from his conduct" that he/she was not a US Citizen. (??) Remember Section 802 of the First USA Patriot Act states that any violation of Federal or State law can result in the "enemy combatant" terrorist designation.
SECTION 201 of the second Patriot Act makes it a criminal act for any member of the government or any citizen to release any information concerning the incarceration or whereabouts of detainees. It also states that law enforcement does not have to tell the press or the Red Cross who they have arrested, and they never have to release the names.
THIS TOTALLY GUTS HABEAS CORPUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
SECTIONS 301 and 306 set up a national database of "suspected terrorists" and radically expand the database to include anyone associated with suspected terrorist groups. So if your friend opposes their excesses, you can be arrested.SECTION 312 gives immunity to law enforcement engaging in spying operations against the American people. Of course it does.
SECTION 101 will designate individual terrorists as foreign powers and strip them of all rights under the "enemy combatant" designation. Then you’re no longer a citizen.
SECTION 102 states clearly that any information gathering, regardless of whether or not those activities are illegal, can be considered to be clandestine intelligence activities for a foreign power. This makes newsgathering illegal.
SECTION 103 allows the Federal government to use wartime martial law powers domestically and internationally without Congress declaring that a state of war exists. Martial law anytime they need it.
SECTION 106 is bone chilling in its straightforwardness. It states that broad general warrants by the secret FISA court granted under the first Patriot Act are not good enough: and government agents must be given immunity for searches with no prior court approval. This section throws out the entire Fourth Amendment against unreasonable searches and seizures.
****************
SECTION 109 allows secret courts to issue contempt charges against any individual or corporation who refuses to incriminate himself or others. This section annihilates the last vestiges of the Fifth Amendment. This one is a nightmare, forcing us to “tell on” each other, in self defense.
SECTION 110 restates that key police state clauses in the first Patriot Act were not sunsetted and removes the five-year sunset clause from other subsections of the first Patriot Act. After all, the media has told us: "This is the New America. Get used to it. This is forever." You know who in the media says this, and their networks.
SECTION 111 expands the definition of the "enemy combatant" designation.
SECTION 122 restates the government's newly announced power of "surveillance without a court order."
SECTION 123 restates that the government no longer needs warrants and that the investigations can be a giant dragnet-style sweep described in press reports
Note: Over and over again, in subsection after subsection, the second Patriot Act states that its new Soviet-type powers will be used to fight international terrorism, domestic terrorism and other types of crimes. And remember - the government has already announced in Section 802 of first Patriot that ANY CRIME is considered domestic terrorism, wherein you lose your citizenship, remember?
SECTION 126 grants the government the right to “mine” the entire spectrum of public and private sector information from bank records to educational and medical records. This is the enacting law to allow ECHELON and the Total Information Awareness Network to break down any and all walls of privacy. The government states that they “must look at everything to determine" if individuals or groups might have a connection to terrorist groups. As you can see, you are now guilty until proven innocent.
SECTION 127 allows the government to takeover coroners' and medical examiners' operations whenever they see fit. What? Why?
SECTION 128 allows the Federal government to place gag orders on Federal and State Grand Juries and to take over the proceedings. It also disallows individuals or organizations to even try to quash a Federal subpoena. So now defending yourself will be a terrorist action.
SECTION 129 destroys any remaining whistle blower protection for Federal agents.
SECTION 202 allows corporations to keep secret their activities with toxic biological, chemical or radiological materials. Of course it does.
SECTION 205 allows top Federal officials to keep all financial dealings secret, and anyone investigating them can be considered a terrorist.
So much for the first amendment, too.
SECTION 303 sets up a national DNA database of suspected terrorists. The database will also be used to "stop other unlawful activities." It will share the information with state, local and foreign agencies for the same purposes.
SECTION 311 federalizes your local police department in the area of information sharing.
SECTION 313 provides liability protection for businesses, especially big businesses, that spy on their customers for Homeland Security, violating privacy agreements. It goes on to say that these are all preventive measures - has anyone seen Minority Report? This is the access hub for the Total Information Awareness Network. I haven’t seen it.
SECTION 321 authorizes foreign governments to spy on the American people and to share information with foreign governments. What? How can he justify this entry ?
SECTION 402 is titled "Providing Material Support to Terrorism” is a crime. The section reads that there is no requirement to show that the individual even had the intent to aid terrorists. What? Guilty until proven innocent?
SECTION 403 expands the definition of weapons of mass destruction to include any activity that affects interstate or foreign commerce.
SECTION 408 creates "lifetime parole" (basically, slavery) for a lot of crimes.
SECTION 410 creates no statute of limitations for anyone who engages in terrorist actions or supports terrorists. Remember: any crime is now considered terrorism under the first Patriot Act.
SECTION 411 expands crimes that are punishable by death. Again, they point to Section 802 of the first Patriot Act and state that any terrorist act or support of terrorist act can result in the death penalty.
SECTION 427 sets up asset forfeiture provisions for anyone engaging in terrorist activities. In other words, if he (one man) says you are engaged in terrorist activities, and you’re NOT, they can still take your home and business until you prove you’re NOT !
There are many other sections that I did not cover in the interest of time. Those in the 13000 range take control of all the financial mechanism in America. The American people should be shocked by this outrage, this obvious grab at dictatorial power, and, really, should be vigorously demonstrating in the streets until it’s burned !!
*******THE SECOND PATRIOT ACT DWARFS ALL POLICE STATE LEGISLATION IN MODERN WORLD HISTORY. ******************
It is patently obvious by now that these provisions were very carefully crafted in an orchestrated attack on the Constitution, along with a grab for limitless power. How could we think otherwise ?
We know that these things were all written well before the 911 tragedies. Well before. It’s also well known that it was passed immediately following 9-11 without Congress having access to all the contents of the Act. One of the main gossip items, when discussing this crowd, is that he (or Cheney) could actually start a war, most likely attacking Iran, just before the election, so that he could then declare a “State of Emergency” and do away with the election. He could do a repeat of his charade in Iraq: just send thousands of troops, then dare the Congress to cut off the money for them, after a 1000 or so have died.
Who among us thinks the Congress will do that?
My greatest fear is that the American people just might do what a lot of good citizens in Germany did in early 1930. That is to say, not recognize the depth of this character’s megalomania, and also not recognize how much support he has from so many people, and corporations. Just like the other guy did – a hideous caricature of a sick individual in charge of a lot of otherwise really good people - but people who did nothing to resist him until it was too late. (He showed his intentions in 1933, and they didn’t make the attempt to unseat him until July 1944!) That’s why I wanted to make as many of you aware of this power grab known as the Patriotic Act, as I possibly could. Reading it flabbergasted me, I have to tell you !
A great deal is terribly wrong right now, in Washington.
***** You can learn more at bordc.org. The acronym is for Bill of Rights Defense Committee. They are also ramping up a People's Campaign for the Constitution. I hope you'll visit that website and take the pledge to join with us in protection of the Constitution! We need millions more signatures.
To do so, go to http://www.constitutioncampaign.org
Faithfully, in the interest of the American people
See also swungnotes diaries on dailykos.org
swungnotes
Monday, May 12, 2008
AMERICA CAN'T HAVE IT BOTH WAYS
Affordable Necessities or Speculation & “Big Bucks” ?
It’s absolutely more apparent every day in America that a lot of voraciously greedy Americans really are trying to have it both ways: They continue to try to promote the myth that they can allow speculation in the necessities for human life, in order to generate profit, but still keep the cost of these life-giving necessities at an affordable price. No rational person would have a problem with the high cost of any item, be it goods or services, provided the item in question resides in the “want” category and not the “need” category. The distinction is even more stark when the “need” category has to do with human life. Right? Other industrialized countries on earth have no problem with this logic.
But in America, it appears to be the conventional wisdom that you have the right to speculate on the stock performance of a life-giving service, and as long as you and other speculators make “big bucks” on the trading, it doesn’t matter who the resultant pricing hurts. What about the rights of those who are hurt by this activity? Does not their right equal yours? What really is at work here is greed, and a total departure from the origins of America’s morals and ethics. So far, there has been no outrage voiced or presented against the obscenity of electricity deregulation.
Let’s consider electricity. Could you live without it for one day? How about a
week? A month? Of course not. Or water? There have been some efforts
of recent years to privatize normal water delivery for consumers like you and me
but they have met with almost instant reality. Using the Margaret Thatcher
paradigm in Wales, the Bechtel Corporation of San Francisco privatized the
water delivery in Cochabamba, Bolivia a few years ago. That predictably very
quickly met with outrage and mayhem.
Then, more recently in Atlanta (incredible that relatively sophisticated Americans
would fall for it) the effort was made again. The same kind of Thatcher M.O. occurred – the water “company” offered millions to the City Council of Atlanta to obtain the contract, and once the deal was signed, the water company delivered brown water at times and no water at times, repaired no old pipes, and drastically cut the personnel needed. In that case, the two sides settled without a big court fight, but just barely. (See my Blog on this one: WARNING: PRIVATIZATION OF YOUR WATER SUPPLY, March 19, 2008 at inegales.blogspot.com)
So these two necessities of life had been saddled with the burden of added profit, and with water it turned out very badly. But the privatization outrage with electricity continues to this day. This head-in-the-sand method of dealing with corporations continues. We shouldn’t be saddled with sky high pricing for electricity in 2008, because 75 years ago - in 1933 - Franklin Roosevelt handled the identical problem (sky high pricing – gouging, for a necessity of life) and he handled it to the envy of the whole world. He passed a law that would regulate electricity pricing. He also very astutely made it a crime to speculate in electricity on the stock market, and made it a crime for electricity providers to give money to Congresspersons and Senators. AND - as all of you know, for some 70 years the American utility system was the envy of the world.
The operating mechanism in the 1935 law, called The Public Utility Holding Company Act - was that this very humane legislation made it conventional wisdom in this hyper-active capitalist society, that you can’t make a profit off of life’s necessities. You can charge for all your raw materials, your personnel, your upkeep, your cost of production, your repairs, etc. but you can’t charge for PROFIT. There are plenty of other business opportunities to buy shares and make profit. Franklin Roosevelt recognized this very minimal logic in 1933, but today’s power brokers just can’t handle it.
Thus for 70 years we didn’t have any 30 million dollar CEOs at our Utilities.
Then, as is well known, in July of 2005, the great price leveler, and price gouging preventer was overturned, and of course we now have electricity bills so high for families that a lot of them have to choose between paying the electric bill and food. (There are so many documented cases of it that no attribution is necessary.) Deregulation of electricity has produced a lot of income dollars for those who buy stock in electricity providers, to be sure. It has made some of them “big bucks.” But on whose shoulders are the speculators riding? What we now have - we should be adult enough to recognize - is an electricity system that is little more than a playground for power-industry predators, aided and abetted by money-crazy Congress persons. Let’s face it: to be perfectly honest, adult and free of the millennium tool known as SPIN, you will admit that if you as a Congressman accept large amounts of money donations from an industry, you are sure as hell going to vote FOR the industry regardless of any other factor. Aren’t you? Don’t let any apologist for this activity tell you any different. They will try it by euphemism and spin – just ask for Proof. We all agree that spin is the new euphemism for lie.
Okay – that’s electricity and water.
Now ask yourself if you can live without gasoline. All the food you eat is delivered to your neighborhood with gasoline. Fully 99% of us get to work with gasoline. Everything you wear, or cook with, or mow with, or repairs to your house, etc. ad infinitum got to you with gasoline. This one has never been regulated. I frankly think that if the US Congress were to try to regulate the price of gasoline, their bosses (the corporations) would tell them to sit down and shut up. And they’d tell them in no uncertain terms !!
So regulation there is apparently not even going to be discussed. Just thinking about it, however, you can add up the record-breaking profit of the oil companies, and the record bonuses of the CEO and his underlings, and you can arrive at what the price of a gallon of gasoline would be without the burden of these individuals – probably on the order of 20 cents or so per gallon. There is at least one lone Washington insider who seems to have summoned the courage to speak out: On May 1, Senator Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico, chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, cited the role of “speculators” on commodities. Then Senate Democrats proposed legislation that would impose higher margin requirements on oil speculators in an effort to dampen the speculation spiral. But watch closely and you will read why these efforts will be soundly defeated, say in a year or less. Mark my word!
Finally, what about insurance? We all know you can NOT drive to work without insurance. If you try, very quickly you will be stripped of your license to drive, or you will not be given a car license plate, without proof of coverage. You are required by law to carry at least liability insurance on your car, so if you DO get into some terrible crash that injures some one, or worse, your insurance coverage can pay for the other party’s damages.
But wait – the law stipulates you must have insurance – but it doesn’t stipulate that it must be affordable. So how does that work? The insurance industry is loaded with profit, like all corporations. We hear about the retiring CEO who is given a golden bonus of $300 million. Really, guys, can we continue to bask in the pipe dream that we can have it both ways?
This will probably cause the repetition crowd to invoke their rote euphemisms. They will brand the idea of eliminating profit from insurance as something awful, and they will use the drumbeat words they’ve had pounded into their skulls. Most especially the republicans. You know what they will say. You know the words they will use.
I offer the strongest answer to them in advance. In the 1930s a group of psychologists finally realized the power of the spoken word, especially the perceived effect on us if delivered with disgust, or official-ese, or threat, and made the most revealing psychological experiment ever made, in my humble opinion. This experiment showed graphically how vulnerable we are to the spoken word, unless we learn how to recognize it, and how to be strong enough to expose it and resist it.
The psychologists took some 3 to 5 year olds, and allowed them to play at recess. When recess was over, they cornered one boy and one girl and accused them of hesitating in the schoolyard, out of sight of the others. The accusations were delivered with an air of disgust, practically a sneer, and it really made an impression on the little ones. At first each one said simply “no” to the accusations, but the accusers continued to ask, making the entire exercise very, very important in appearance to the youngsters. The accusation of doing this apparently heinous act “…out of sight of the others” lent a certain credibility to its wrongful, probably ugly, or nasty connotation. The kids finally broke down and cried from guilt.
Finally, when the elapsed time of the interrogation really began to take its toll on the little ones – it was suggested that if they would “confess” they would be forgiven this time, and both did. Think about it: the sophistication index of these babies was not formed yet, so they couldn’t ask “…What is hesitating?” – in other words they couldn’t demand their normal habeas corpus rights – to know what they were charged with. Are you going to continue to be as innocent as a 3 year-old, in dealing with this government and big business ??? Or are you going to ask (demand) for some proof of their promises and spoken words, and excuses and spins … ?
Here are just a few modern forms of “Have you been hesitating in the back yard?” These are the tools of the repetitive crowd. If they say these things enough times, with the proper officialdom, whether it’s a sneer, or with fear in the voice, history has proven people will accept them, and acquiesce:
“The smoking gun might come in the form of a mushroom cloud.”
“The cost of electricity has gone up due to the increase in the cost of natural gas.”
”Market forces control the cost of liability insurance.”
“The private sector can do it much more efficiently than government can.”
“Buying oil futures is everyone’s right”
“Speculating in commodities is just business”
“Fight ‘em over there so we don’t have to fight ‘em here.”
“He was killed in action defending America, 7 thousand miles from here”
“We have to be the first military in outer space”
“He wasn’t counted as killed in Iraq cause he was killed in a truck accident”
“We show this ugly, porn-ridden filth on TV because the public demands it”
“Health care for all Americans is socialism, and socialism is bad”
“Control of pricing is socialism, and socialism is bad”
“Republicans are better at keeping you safe than Democrats”
“Democrats are soft on Defense” (What about FDR & Kennedy?)
“The huge price of Oil is due to supply and demand” (Analysts report huge inventories)
“Campaign finance donating is just free speech”
“Yes, I accepted $10,000 from Big Oil, but I always vote my conscience”
It’s simple to nullify all these, and the millions of others, by just demanding proof. Think of each one of these, and demand proof, and try to visualize how the perps would prove the statements. You know they couldn’t get it done.
Oh – yeah – and my favorite of all ?
“It’s all perfectly legal.”
This publication is not just a complaint vehicle. Or some smart-ass rambling. It really IS time for us to start thinking of taking back our country from the ever-increasing death grip of big business, legislators owned by big business, drumbeat euphemisms designed to convince the unwary, and the unconscionable expansion of the U.S. military, military thinking, and war as a debate tactic. The fact that 95% of the country’s wealth is owned by 1 or 2% of the people is obscene. Add to that the fact that 94% of all American media (TV, newspapers, radio, movies) is owned by SIX companies, and you can see how truly efficient they have become at mass manipulation by euphemisms & lies.
Ask for proof. Here’s a small example. I gave my son my car, to help him get started. It was a Chevrolet Lumina. On the state transfer document at ”Sale Price” I typed $1. I didn’t intend to allow the State to charge me TAX on a car transfer within my own family. When the clerk saw the $1 sale price, she said the state would therefore assign sme a “Presumptive Value” of the car, and tax me on that figure. I asked her who would be doing the “presuming” as to value. She said the State would. I corrected her, saying the State is a non-human, abstract entity that only exists in the mind, and therefore couldn’t presume anything. She went to Plan B and answered “… someone in the Tax department.“ I asked if he was the world’s recognized foremost authority on used car values and she said no. I told her I happened to know he had worked in Real Estate for several years before his job with the State, and added that his “presumption” would amount to NO MORE THAN an opinion, and therefore my own opinion would have to be equally considered, in order to be in compliance with the 14th Amendment. I added that my opinion would obviously be viewed by any third party as much more cogent than his, since I know the car, and he hasn’t even seen it.
She finally relented, and we went forward with the $1 sale price.
I added this minor episode to show how deep-seated the verbal hood winking of the American population has actually become.
This nation (probably like others, actually) has discovered that it’s perfectly OK to take advantage of your fellow man verbally, if you can. Honesty and fair play have nothing to do with it, if you can convince your fellow American that 36% interest on a loan is OK, then it’s good to go. And if you can make some “big bucks” buying stock in a provider of electricity, and un-regulated pricing, coupled with trading in shares doubles or triples the price to the consumer, that’s perfectly OK too. Just as long as you make some “big bucks.” That’s your right, it says here.
Finally, there is this undisguised penchant for War in America. Some in Europe and elsewhere worldwide have called America a modern day bully. It must be hell to be a bully. The bully always has to be ready – always on guard – to show how tough he is, always ready to do battle, regardless of what other plans he may have had for that time. Bullies that I have known always picked on a smaller target, so as to make the outcome a foregone conclusion. But, as history has a habit of doing, things don’t always work out like they are supposed to – Korea, Vietnam, Iraq - ???
Among the drumbeats we hear from the repetitive crowd is that term “enemy.” You could check it out - it will appear many times in the media every single day.
“We have to be prepared for the enemy”
“For God’s sake don’t talk to the enemy”
“We have to take the fight to the enemy”
“The enemy hates us cause we’re free.” (This one will make you throw up !!)
Why in the world do we not have a Cabinet level entity devoted to peace, negotiation, discussion, comparing each others’ goals and differences, trade, exchange of Orchestras, etc.? If we devoted the exact same amounts of time and dollars to peace and harmony that we devote to war and “enemy” talk, would that change anything? I think the answer is academic. Why doesn’t Germany, England, France, Norway, Sweden, Belgium, Spain, Brazil, Mexico, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Egypt, etc. etc. spend the same huge amounts of money and time concentrating on the “enemy” as the United States does? Why do we have so many enemies? (Because, they will tell you – ha ha – they hate us ha ha - because – ha ha – we are FREE.) Anyone who swallows this cocaine-induced, megalomaniacal, perverted trial balloon statement really needs to pay attention more, at the very least.
At the risk of repeating myself – we need to start ASKING FOR PROOF.
I remain concerned that some day, somewhere, when America least expects it, some country just may …….
Faithfully, in the interest of the American people
Swungnotes – inegales.blogspot.com
It’s absolutely more apparent every day in America that a lot of voraciously greedy Americans really are trying to have it both ways: They continue to try to promote the myth that they can allow speculation in the necessities for human life, in order to generate profit, but still keep the cost of these life-giving necessities at an affordable price. No rational person would have a problem with the high cost of any item, be it goods or services, provided the item in question resides in the “want” category and not the “need” category. The distinction is even more stark when the “need” category has to do with human life. Right? Other industrialized countries on earth have no problem with this logic.
But in America, it appears to be the conventional wisdom that you have the right to speculate on the stock performance of a life-giving service, and as long as you and other speculators make “big bucks” on the trading, it doesn’t matter who the resultant pricing hurts. What about the rights of those who are hurt by this activity? Does not their right equal yours? What really is at work here is greed, and a total departure from the origins of America’s morals and ethics. So far, there has been no outrage voiced or presented against the obscenity of electricity deregulation.
Let’s consider electricity. Could you live without it for one day? How about a
week? A month? Of course not. Or water? There have been some efforts
of recent years to privatize normal water delivery for consumers like you and me
but they have met with almost instant reality. Using the Margaret Thatcher
paradigm in Wales, the Bechtel Corporation of San Francisco privatized the
water delivery in Cochabamba, Bolivia a few years ago. That predictably very
quickly met with outrage and mayhem.
Then, more recently in Atlanta (incredible that relatively sophisticated Americans
would fall for it) the effort was made again. The same kind of Thatcher M.O. occurred – the water “company” offered millions to the City Council of Atlanta to obtain the contract, and once the deal was signed, the water company delivered brown water at times and no water at times, repaired no old pipes, and drastically cut the personnel needed. In that case, the two sides settled without a big court fight, but just barely. (See my Blog on this one: WARNING: PRIVATIZATION OF YOUR WATER SUPPLY, March 19, 2008 at inegales.blogspot.com)
So these two necessities of life had been saddled with the burden of added profit, and with water it turned out very badly. But the privatization outrage with electricity continues to this day. This head-in-the-sand method of dealing with corporations continues. We shouldn’t be saddled with sky high pricing for electricity in 2008, because 75 years ago - in 1933 - Franklin Roosevelt handled the identical problem (sky high pricing – gouging, for a necessity of life) and he handled it to the envy of the whole world. He passed a law that would regulate electricity pricing. He also very astutely made it a crime to speculate in electricity on the stock market, and made it a crime for electricity providers to give money to Congresspersons and Senators. AND - as all of you know, for some 70 years the American utility system was the envy of the world.
The operating mechanism in the 1935 law, called The Public Utility Holding Company Act - was that this very humane legislation made it conventional wisdom in this hyper-active capitalist society, that you can’t make a profit off of life’s necessities. You can charge for all your raw materials, your personnel, your upkeep, your cost of production, your repairs, etc. but you can’t charge for PROFIT. There are plenty of other business opportunities to buy shares and make profit. Franklin Roosevelt recognized this very minimal logic in 1933, but today’s power brokers just can’t handle it.
Thus for 70 years we didn’t have any 30 million dollar CEOs at our Utilities.
Then, as is well known, in July of 2005, the great price leveler, and price gouging preventer was overturned, and of course we now have electricity bills so high for families that a lot of them have to choose between paying the electric bill and food. (There are so many documented cases of it that no attribution is necessary.) Deregulation of electricity has produced a lot of income dollars for those who buy stock in electricity providers, to be sure. It has made some of them “big bucks.” But on whose shoulders are the speculators riding? What we now have - we should be adult enough to recognize - is an electricity system that is little more than a playground for power-industry predators, aided and abetted by money-crazy Congress persons. Let’s face it: to be perfectly honest, adult and free of the millennium tool known as SPIN, you will admit that if you as a Congressman accept large amounts of money donations from an industry, you are sure as hell going to vote FOR the industry regardless of any other factor. Aren’t you? Don’t let any apologist for this activity tell you any different. They will try it by euphemism and spin – just ask for Proof. We all agree that spin is the new euphemism for lie.
Okay – that’s electricity and water.
Now ask yourself if you can live without gasoline. All the food you eat is delivered to your neighborhood with gasoline. Fully 99% of us get to work with gasoline. Everything you wear, or cook with, or mow with, or repairs to your house, etc. ad infinitum got to you with gasoline. This one has never been regulated. I frankly think that if the US Congress were to try to regulate the price of gasoline, their bosses (the corporations) would tell them to sit down and shut up. And they’d tell them in no uncertain terms !!
So regulation there is apparently not even going to be discussed. Just thinking about it, however, you can add up the record-breaking profit of the oil companies, and the record bonuses of the CEO and his underlings, and you can arrive at what the price of a gallon of gasoline would be without the burden of these individuals – probably on the order of 20 cents or so per gallon. There is at least one lone Washington insider who seems to have summoned the courage to speak out: On May 1, Senator Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico, chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, cited the role of “speculators” on commodities. Then Senate Democrats proposed legislation that would impose higher margin requirements on oil speculators in an effort to dampen the speculation spiral. But watch closely and you will read why these efforts will be soundly defeated, say in a year or less. Mark my word!
Finally, what about insurance? We all know you can NOT drive to work without insurance. If you try, very quickly you will be stripped of your license to drive, or you will not be given a car license plate, without proof of coverage. You are required by law to carry at least liability insurance on your car, so if you DO get into some terrible crash that injures some one, or worse, your insurance coverage can pay for the other party’s damages.
But wait – the law stipulates you must have insurance – but it doesn’t stipulate that it must be affordable. So how does that work? The insurance industry is loaded with profit, like all corporations. We hear about the retiring CEO who is given a golden bonus of $300 million. Really, guys, can we continue to bask in the pipe dream that we can have it both ways?
This will probably cause the repetition crowd to invoke their rote euphemisms. They will brand the idea of eliminating profit from insurance as something awful, and they will use the drumbeat words they’ve had pounded into their skulls. Most especially the republicans. You know what they will say. You know the words they will use.
I offer the strongest answer to them in advance. In the 1930s a group of psychologists finally realized the power of the spoken word, especially the perceived effect on us if delivered with disgust, or official-ese, or threat, and made the most revealing psychological experiment ever made, in my humble opinion. This experiment showed graphically how vulnerable we are to the spoken word, unless we learn how to recognize it, and how to be strong enough to expose it and resist it.
The psychologists took some 3 to 5 year olds, and allowed them to play at recess. When recess was over, they cornered one boy and one girl and accused them of hesitating in the schoolyard, out of sight of the others. The accusations were delivered with an air of disgust, practically a sneer, and it really made an impression on the little ones. At first each one said simply “no” to the accusations, but the accusers continued to ask, making the entire exercise very, very important in appearance to the youngsters. The accusation of doing this apparently heinous act “…out of sight of the others” lent a certain credibility to its wrongful, probably ugly, or nasty connotation. The kids finally broke down and cried from guilt.
Finally, when the elapsed time of the interrogation really began to take its toll on the little ones – it was suggested that if they would “confess” they would be forgiven this time, and both did. Think about it: the sophistication index of these babies was not formed yet, so they couldn’t ask “…What is hesitating?” – in other words they couldn’t demand their normal habeas corpus rights – to know what they were charged with. Are you going to continue to be as innocent as a 3 year-old, in dealing with this government and big business ??? Or are you going to ask (demand) for some proof of their promises and spoken words, and excuses and spins … ?
Here are just a few modern forms of “Have you been hesitating in the back yard?” These are the tools of the repetitive crowd. If they say these things enough times, with the proper officialdom, whether it’s a sneer, or with fear in the voice, history has proven people will accept them, and acquiesce:
“The smoking gun might come in the form of a mushroom cloud.”
“The cost of electricity has gone up due to the increase in the cost of natural gas.”
”Market forces control the cost of liability insurance.”
“The private sector can do it much more efficiently than government can.”
“Buying oil futures is everyone’s right”
“Speculating in commodities is just business”
“Fight ‘em over there so we don’t have to fight ‘em here.”
“He was killed in action defending America, 7 thousand miles from here”
“We have to be the first military in outer space”
“He wasn’t counted as killed in Iraq cause he was killed in a truck accident”
“We show this ugly, porn-ridden filth on TV because the public demands it”
“Health care for all Americans is socialism, and socialism is bad”
“Control of pricing is socialism, and socialism is bad”
“Republicans are better at keeping you safe than Democrats”
“Democrats are soft on Defense” (What about FDR & Kennedy?)
“The huge price of Oil is due to supply and demand” (Analysts report huge inventories)
“Campaign finance donating is just free speech”
“Yes, I accepted $10,000 from Big Oil, but I always vote my conscience”
It’s simple to nullify all these, and the millions of others, by just demanding proof. Think of each one of these, and demand proof, and try to visualize how the perps would prove the statements. You know they couldn’t get it done.
Oh – yeah – and my favorite of all ?
“It’s all perfectly legal.”
This publication is not just a complaint vehicle. Or some smart-ass rambling. It really IS time for us to start thinking of taking back our country from the ever-increasing death grip of big business, legislators owned by big business, drumbeat euphemisms designed to convince the unwary, and the unconscionable expansion of the U.S. military, military thinking, and war as a debate tactic. The fact that 95% of the country’s wealth is owned by 1 or 2% of the people is obscene. Add to that the fact that 94% of all American media (TV, newspapers, radio, movies) is owned by SIX companies, and you can see how truly efficient they have become at mass manipulation by euphemisms & lies.
Ask for proof. Here’s a small example. I gave my son my car, to help him get started. It was a Chevrolet Lumina. On the state transfer document at ”Sale Price” I typed $1. I didn’t intend to allow the State to charge me TAX on a car transfer within my own family. When the clerk saw the $1 sale price, she said the state would therefore assign sme a “Presumptive Value” of the car, and tax me on that figure. I asked her who would be doing the “presuming” as to value. She said the State would. I corrected her, saying the State is a non-human, abstract entity that only exists in the mind, and therefore couldn’t presume anything. She went to Plan B and answered “… someone in the Tax department.“ I asked if he was the world’s recognized foremost authority on used car values and she said no. I told her I happened to know he had worked in Real Estate for several years before his job with the State, and added that his “presumption” would amount to NO MORE THAN an opinion, and therefore my own opinion would have to be equally considered, in order to be in compliance with the 14th Amendment. I added that my opinion would obviously be viewed by any third party as much more cogent than his, since I know the car, and he hasn’t even seen it.
She finally relented, and we went forward with the $1 sale price.
I added this minor episode to show how deep-seated the verbal hood winking of the American population has actually become.
This nation (probably like others, actually) has discovered that it’s perfectly OK to take advantage of your fellow man verbally, if you can. Honesty and fair play have nothing to do with it, if you can convince your fellow American that 36% interest on a loan is OK, then it’s good to go. And if you can make some “big bucks” buying stock in a provider of electricity, and un-regulated pricing, coupled with trading in shares doubles or triples the price to the consumer, that’s perfectly OK too. Just as long as you make some “big bucks.” That’s your right, it says here.
Finally, there is this undisguised penchant for War in America. Some in Europe and elsewhere worldwide have called America a modern day bully. It must be hell to be a bully. The bully always has to be ready – always on guard – to show how tough he is, always ready to do battle, regardless of what other plans he may have had for that time. Bullies that I have known always picked on a smaller target, so as to make the outcome a foregone conclusion. But, as history has a habit of doing, things don’t always work out like they are supposed to – Korea, Vietnam, Iraq - ???
Among the drumbeats we hear from the repetitive crowd is that term “enemy.” You could check it out - it will appear many times in the media every single day.
“We have to be prepared for the enemy”
“For God’s sake don’t talk to the enemy”
“We have to take the fight to the enemy”
“The enemy hates us cause we’re free.” (This one will make you throw up !!)
Why in the world do we not have a Cabinet level entity devoted to peace, negotiation, discussion, comparing each others’ goals and differences, trade, exchange of Orchestras, etc.? If we devoted the exact same amounts of time and dollars to peace and harmony that we devote to war and “enemy” talk, would that change anything? I think the answer is academic. Why doesn’t Germany, England, France, Norway, Sweden, Belgium, Spain, Brazil, Mexico, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Egypt, etc. etc. spend the same huge amounts of money and time concentrating on the “enemy” as the United States does? Why do we have so many enemies? (Because, they will tell you – ha ha – they hate us ha ha - because – ha ha – we are FREE.) Anyone who swallows this cocaine-induced, megalomaniacal, perverted trial balloon statement really needs to pay attention more, at the very least.
At the risk of repeating myself – we need to start ASKING FOR PROOF.
I remain concerned that some day, somewhere, when America least expects it, some country just may …….
Faithfully, in the interest of the American people
Swungnotes – inegales.blogspot.com
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