Archive for the ‘Rants’ Category

Even though the U.S. financial system nearly experienced a total meltdown in late 2008, the truth is that most Americans simply have no idea what is happening to the U.S. economy.  Most people seem to think that the nasty little recession that we have just been through is almost over and that we will be experiencing another time of economic growth and prosperity very shortly.  But this time around that is not the case.  The reality is that we are being sucked into an economic black hole from which the U.S. economy will never fully recover.

The problem is debt.  Collectively, the U.S. government, the state governments, corporate America and American consumers have accumulated the biggest mountain of debt in the history of the world.  Our massive debt binge has financed our tremendous growth and prosperity over the last couple of decades, but now the day of reckoning is here.

And it is going to be painful.

The following are 20 reasons why the U.S. economy is dying and is simply not going to recover….

#1) Do you remember that massive wave of subprime mortgages that defaulted in 2007 and 2008 and caused the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression?  Well, the “second wave” of mortgage defaults in on the way and there is simply no way that we are going to be able to avoid it.  A huge mountain of mortgages is going to reset starting in 2010, and once those mortgage payments go up there are once again going to be millons of people who simply cannot pay their mortgages.  The chart below reveals just how bad the second wave of adjustable rate mortgages is likely to be over the next several years….

#2) The Federal Housing Administration has announced plans to increase the amount of up-front cash paid by new borrowers and to require higher down payments from those with the poorest credit.  The Federal Housing Administration currently backs about 30 percent of all new home loans and about 20 percent of all new home refinancing loans.  Tighter standards are going to mean that less people will qualify for loans.  Less qualifiers means that there will be less buyers for homes.  Less buyers means that home prices are going to drop even more.

#3) It is getting really hard to find a job in the United States.  A total of 6,130,000 U.S. workers had been unemployed for 27 weeks or more in December 2009.  That was the most ever since the U.S. government started keeping track of this statistic in 1948.  In fact, it is more than double the 2,612,000 U.S. workers who were unemployed for a similar length of time in December 2008.  The reality is that once Americans lose their jobs they are increasingly finding it difficult to find new ones.  Just check out the chart below….

#4) In December, there were also 929,000 “discouraged” workers who are not counted as part of the labor force because they have “given up” looking for work.  That is the most since the U.S. government first started keeping track of discouraged workers in 1949.  Many Americans have simply given up and are now chronically unemployed.

#5) Some areas of the U.S. are already virtually in a state of depression.  The mayor of Detroit estimates that the real unemployment rate in his city is now somewhere around 50 percent.

#6) For decades, our leaders in Washington pushed us towards ”a global economy” and told us it would be so good for us.  But there is a flip side.  Now workers in the U.S. must compete with workers all over the world, and our greedy corporations are free to pursue the cheapest labor available anywhere on the globe.  Millions of jobs have already been shipped out of the United States, and Princeton University economist Alan S. Blinder estimates that 22% to 29% of all current U.S. jobs will be offshorable within two decades.  The days when blue collar workers could live the American Dream are gone and they are not going to come back.

#7) During the 2001 recession, the U.S. economy lost 2% of its jobs and it took four years to get them back. This time around the U.S. economy has lost more than 5% of its jobs and there is no sign that the bleeding of jobs is going to stop any time soon.

#8) All of this unemployment is putting severe stress on state unemployment funds.  At this point, 25 state unemployment insurance funds have gone broke and the Department of Labor estimates that 15 more state unemployment funds will likely go broke within two years and will need massive loans from the federal government just to keep going.

#9) 37 million Americans now receive food stamps, and the program is expanding at a pace of about 20,000 people a day.  The United States of America is very quickly becoming a socialist welfare state.

#10) The number of Americans who are going broke is staggering.  1.41 million Americans filed for personal bankruptcy in 2009 – a 32 percent increase over 2008.

#11) For decades, the fact that the U.S. dollar was the reserve currency of the world gave the U.S. financial system an unusual degree of stability.  But all of that is changing.  Foreign countries are increasingly turning away from the dollar to other currencies.  For example, Russia’s central bank announced on Wednesday that it had started buying Canadian dollars in a bid to diversify its foreign exchange reserves.

#12) The recent economic downturn has left some localities totally bankrupt.  For instance, Jefferson County, Alabama is on the brink of what would be the largest government bankruptcy in the history of the United States – surpassing the 1994 filing by Southern California’s Orange County.

#13) The U.S. is facing a pension crisis of unprecedented magnitude.  Virtually all pension funds in the United States, both private and public, are massively underfunded.  With millions of Baby Boomers getting ready to retire, there is simply no way on earth that all of these obligations can be met.  Robert Novy-Marx of the University of Chicago and Joshua D. Rauh of Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management recently calculated the collective unfunded pension liability for all 50 U.S. states for Forbes magazine.  So what was the total?  3.2 trillion dollars.

#14) Social Security and Medicare expenses are wildly out of control.  Once again, with millions of Baby Boomers now at retirement age there is simply going to be no way to pay all of these retirees what they are owed.

#15) So will the U.S. government come to the rescue?  The U.S. has allowed the total federal debt to balloon by 50% since 2006 to $12.3 trillion.  The chart below is a bit outdated, but it does show the reckless expansion of U.S. government debt over the past several decades.  To get an idea of where we are now, just add at least 3 trillion dollars on to the top of the chart….

#16) So has the U.S. government learned anything from these mistakes?  No.  In fact, Senate Democrats on Wednesday proposed allowing the federal government to borrow an additional $2 trillion to pay its bills, a record increase that would allow the U.S. national debt to reach approximately $14.3 trillion.

#17) It is going to become even harder for the U.S. government to pay the bills now that tax receipts are falling through the floor.  U.S. corporate income tax receipts were down 55% in the year that ended on September 30th, 2009.

#18) So where will the U.S. government get the money?  From the Federal Reserve of course.  The Federal Reserve bought approximately 80 percent of all U.S. Treasury securities issued in 2009.  In other words, the U.S. government is now being financed by a massive Ponzi scheme.

#19) The reckless expansion of the money supply by the U.S. government and the Federal Reserve is going to end up destroying the U.S. dollar and the value of the remaining collective net worth of all Americans.  The more dollars there are, the less each individual dollar is worth.  In essence, inflation is like a hidden tax on each dollar that you own.  When they flood the economy with money, the value of the money you have in your bank accounts goes down.  The chart below shows the growth of the U.S. money supply.  Pay particular attention to the very end of the chart which shows what has been happening lately.  What do you think this is going to do to the value of the U.S. dollar?….

#20) When a nation practices evil, there is no way that it is going to be blessed in the long run.  The truth is that we have become a nation that is dripping with corruption and wickedness from the top to the bottom.  Unless this fundamentally changes, not even the most perfect economic policies in the world are going to do us any good.  In the end, you always reap what you sow.  The day of reckoning for the U.S. economy is here and it is not going to be pleasant.

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/

SO, what do you do now?

Hi there. It’s been a while since I posted but I’m back. Had to take care of some loose ends in case things take a real bad turn.

UPDATED 08.15.09

Air Force used Twitter to track NY flyover fallout

WASHINGTON (AP) – As the Pentagon warns of the security risks posed by social networking sites, newly released government documents show the military also uses these Internet tools to monitor and react to coverage of high-profile events.

The Air Force tracked the instant messaging service Twitter, video carrier YouTube and various blogs to assess the huge public backlash to the Air Force One flyover of the Statue of Liberty this spring, according to the documents.

And while the attempts at damage control failed – “No positive spin is possible,” one PowerPoint chart reads – the episode opens a window into the tactics for operating in a boundless digital news cycle.

This new terrain has slippery slopes, though, for the military. Facebook, MySpace and other social media sites are very popular among service members, including those in Iraq and Afghanistan who want to keep in touch with friends and family. The sites are also valued by military organizations for recruiting or communicating with other federal agencies.

But posting information on these interactive links makes it vulnerable to being lost or stolen by the enemy, according to Pentagon officials. On Thursday hackers shut down Twitter for several hours, while Facebook had intermittent access problems – an indication of the shortcomings of relying on these services.

The Marine Corps’ computer network blocks users from accessing social media sites, which service officials say expose “information to adversaries” and provide “an easy conduit for information leakage.”

The Marines recently made its ban official. And that prohibition might extend to other parts of the military pending a top-level review ordered in late July by Deputy Defense Secretary Bill Lynn.

In a widely distributed memo, Lynn said the so-called “Web 2.0″ sites are important tools but more study is needed to understand their threats and benefits.

Air Force officials are already aware of the potential benefits.

According to the Air Force One documents released through the Freedom of Information Act, a unit called the Combat Information Cell at Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida monitored the public fallout from the April 27 flight and offered recommendations for dealing with the fast-breaking story.

Formed two years ago, the cell is made up of as many as nine people who analyze piles of data culled from the Internet and other sources to determine whether the Air Force’s message is being heard.

The presidential plane took off for New York from Andrews Air Force in Maryland accompanied by two F-16 jet fighters. The purpose of the flight, which wasn’t publicly announced, was to get new photos of the specially modified Boeing 747 with the statue in the background.

The mission quickly became a public relations disaster as panicked New Yorkers, fearing another 9/11-style attack, emptied office buildings. In the aftermath, Louis Caldera, director of the White House military office that authorized the flight, was fired.

The Combat Information Cell’s first assessment of the event said “Web site blog comments ‘furious’ at best.” Local reporting of the flyover was “very critical, highlighting scare factor,” it added.

A Twitter search revealed a rate of one “tweet” per minute about a pair of F-16s chasing a commercial airliner. A tweet is a text message of up to 140 characters delivered to the author’s subscribers, who are known as followers.

Media coverage over the next 24 hours “will focus on local hysteria and lack of public notification,” the cell predicted. “Blogs will continue to be overwhelmingly negative.”

“Damage control requires timely counter-information,” but the opportunity for that had passed, the assessment said. The cell recommended acknowledging the mistake and ensuring it didn’t happen again.

Another update on April 28 said the story was still “reverberating, surprisingly resilient.” The tweet rate had grown to three per minute and the words “New York” had been pushed into Twitter’s high-frequency topic category. Videos of the event posted on YouTube had been viewed more than 260,000 times, it said.

By April 30, the story had faded, the cell reported. The blogs were still very critical, but it was the White House, not the Air Force, that was taking the heat, the assessment for that day said.

The other dominant news story at the time was public concern over the spread of swine flu. According to the documents, the same Air Force cell suggested there may be an opportunity to turn the tide. “Government involvement in this incident could be used to frame expected handling of H1N1 outbreak,” one of the PowerPoint charts reads.

A Utah Air National Guard unit, the 101st Information Warfare Flight in Salt Lake City, was also monitoring the social sites. “To say that this event is being beaten like a dead horse is an understatement,” reads an April 28 e-mail from the unit to other Air Force offices. “Has really taken off in Web. 2.0.”

Both the 101st and the Combat Information Cell are attached to the 1st Air Force, which is based at Tyndall and is in charge of guarding U.S. airspace.

1st Air Force spokesman Al Eakle explained that the command had no role in planning or coordinating the Air Force One flight. But the units tracked social networks and blog traffic “to obtain what lessons we might learn so as not to repeat them in the future.” The assessments were sent to the command’s leadership so they’d know how the public was reacting, he added.

John Verdi of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington said gray zones can emerge while monitoring social networking sites because viewing and participating is based on trust.

“Lots of times individuals upload private or sensitive information that they expect to share with their friends or family and not the whole Internet world,” Verdi said. “It would certainly be a major problem if the government were accessing that information under false pretenses.”

Paul Bove, an Air Force digital media strategist, said service personnel are instructed not to do that. Nor are they to use aliases or represent a position that’s beyond the scope of what they do.

“We always tell people, ‘Stay in your lane and don’t talk about something that you’re not qualified to talk about,’” Bove said.

The issue of aliases is at the heart of a complaint stemming for the Army Corps of Engineers’ performance in New Orleans before and after Hurricane Katrina.

On Tuesday, Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., asked the Pentagon inspector general to examine allegations that Corps employees posed as ordinary citizens and posted comments on a New Orleans web site defending the organization from criticism following the disaster.

Jon Donley, former editor of NOLA.com, said in a June 9 affidavit that there were as many as 20 registered users who developed a pattern of not only defending the Corps, but at times being “overtly abusive” to any critics. He said he was able to trace their posts to a Corps Internet address.

Ken Holder, a spokesman for Corps’ New Orleans District, said it will cooperate with any investigation.

This has been a test of the emergency martial law declaration system. Had this been an actual martial law declaration you would have been told to stay at home until…………..

Remember that flyover of NY by Air Force One for a photo op? The one that scared the crap out of people there due to memories of 9/11?

Well there’s a festival in Idaho once a year and they’ve had a Military flyover for 42 years in a row but not this year.

An Idaho community had secured an Air Force flyover for its local festival every year for more than 40 years, organizers say, but this year, the Air Force turned the request down over the festival’s religious focus.

The God and Country Family Festival in Nampa, Idaho, applied to the Pentagon for the flyover but was denied in an e-mail, board member Patti Syme told KTBV. Syme said the e-mail from a defense official informed her the Pentagon prohibited support of special interest groups.

“I called him immediately and just said, you know hey we’ve been doing this for 42 years, we’ve had flyovers, what is the problem?” Syme told KTBV. “And he said, well we have looked up your Web site and everything on your Web site seemed to focus on Christianity, ministry booths. And he said, in fact, ma’am it sounds like it focuses on Christianity. And he said, in fact, it would be great to go to, in fact, if I personally, could come I would, but we can’t endorse such an endeavor, so they couldn’t do the flyover.”

A defense department official told FOX News the Air Force denied the request because it violates a Pentagon policy against supporting any event “that provides a selective benefit to any individual, group, or organization, including any religious or sectarian organization, ideological movement, political campaign or organization, or commercial enterprise, to include a shopping mall or motion picture promotion.”

The Air Force was in charge of the decision-making process, meaning neither the secretary of defense nor President Obama weighed in directly, the official said.

And although the Air Force wouldn’t dispute the festival board’s claim of longtime military participation, the military doesn’t keep records on this type of event, the official told FOX News.

Capt. Tom Wenz from Air Force public affairs told FOX News that past participation was due to the fact that the event was described only as a “patriotic tribute,” and the Air Force wasn’t aware until now of the apparent focus on Christianity, despite the festival’s name.

The military doesn’t keep records? I just can’t imagine the military sending out aircraft without keeping records. Does the Pentagon have new policies under the current administration?

Source

The Festival
I finally found where it was in the news. Fox of course. Actually had it emailed to me.

While the Liberal Media was busy with the freakshow here’s what happened in the real world. The following is a video from a Police Officer’s dash cam. It is the funeral procession for Staff Sgt. John Beale.

Here’s his details. http://freedomremembered.com/index.php/staff-sgt-john-c-beale/

I caught wind of this on a forum I’m a member of. I couldn’t believe what I was reading. More accurately I couldn’t believe I was reading it for the first time. H.R. 2647 National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010 is.

“A bill to authorize appropriations for fiscal year 2010 for military activities of the Department of Defense, for military construction, and for defense activities of the Department of Energy, to prescribe military personnel strengths for such fiscal year, and for other purposes.”

Here’s one of the “other purposes”. Pay close attention to the phrase “as determined by the Attorney General”. You know, the one that thinks we’re a Nation of Cowards.

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SEC. 524. PROHIBITION ON RECRUITMENT, ENLISTMENT, OR RETENTION OF PERSONS ASSOCIATED OR AFFILIATED WITH GROUPS ASSOCIATED WITH HATE-RELATED VIOLENCE AGAINST GROUPS OR PERSONS OR THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT.

Section 504 of title 10, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end the following new subsection:

‘(c) Persons Associated or Affiliated With Hate Groups-

‘(1) PROHIBITION- A person associated or affiliated with a group associated with hate-related violence against groups or persons or the United States Government, as determined by the Attorney General, may not be recruited, enlisted, or retained in the armed forces.

‘(2) DEFINITION OF HATE GROUP- In this subsection, the terms ‘group associated with hate-related violence’ or ‘hate group’ mean the following:

‘(A) Groups or organizations that espouse or engage in acts of violence against other groups or minorities based on ideals of hate, ethnic supremacies, white supremacies, racism, anti-Semitism, xenophobia, or other bigotry ideologies.

‘(B) Groups or organizations engaged in criminal gang activity including drug and weapons trafficking and smuggling.

‘(C) Groups or organizations that espouse an intention or expectation of armed revolutionary activity against the United States Government, or the violent overthrow of the United States Government.

‘(D) Groups or organizations that espouse an intention or expectation of armed activity in a ‘race war’.

‘(E) Groups or organizations that encourage members to join the armed forces in order to obtain military training to be used for acts of violence against minorities, other groups, or the United States Government.

‘(F) Groups or organizations that espouse violence based on race, creed, religion, ethnicity, or sexual orientation.

‘(G) Other groups or organizations that are determined by the Attorney General to be of a violent, extremist nature.

‘(3) EVIDENCE OF ASSOCIATION OR AFFILIATION WITH HATE GROUP- The following shall constitute evidence that a person is associated or affiliated with a group associated with hate-related violence:

‘(A) Individuals possessing tattoos or other body markings indicating association or affiliation with a hate group.

‘(B) Individuals known to have attended meetings, rallies, conferences, or other activities sponsored by a hate group.

‘(C) Individuals known to be involved in online activities with a hate group, including being engaged in online discussion groups or blog or other postings that support, encourage, or affirm the group’s extremist or violent views and goals.

‘(D) Individuals who are known to have in their possession photographs, written testimonials (including diaries or journals), propaganda, or other materials indicating involvement or affiliation with a hate group. Such materials can include photographs, written materials relating to or referring to extreme hatred that are clearly not of an academic nature, possession of objects that venerate or glorify hate-inspired violence, and related materials, as determined by the Attorney General.

‘(E) Individuals espousing the intent to acquire military training for the purpose of using such training towards committing acts of violence of a purpose not affiliated with the armed forces.

‘(4) REQUIREMENTS FOR RECRUITERS AND ENLISTMENT PROCESSING STATIONS- A military recruiters may not enlist, or assist in enlisting, a person who is associated or affiliated with a group associated with hate-related violence, as evidenced pursuant to paragraph (3). A person at any military enlistment processing station who, during the screening process, is found to be affiliated or associated with a hate group (including through admitting to any such affiliation or association on any form or document) is automatically prohibited from enlisting.

‘(5) SEPARATION-

‘(A) SEPARATION REQUIRED- A person discovered or determined to be associated or affiliated with a group associated with hate-related violence, as evidenced pursuant to paragraph (3), shall be immediately discharged from the armed forces, in the manner prescribed in regulations regarding discharge from service.

‘(B) EXCEPTION- Subparagraph (A) shall not apply to a member of the armed forces who has renounced the member’s previous affiliation or association with a group associated with hate-related violence, as determined by the commanding officer of the member.

‘(6) REPORTING REQUIREMENT- Not later than April 1, 2010, and annually thereafter, the Secretary concerned shall submit to the Committees on Armed Service of the Senate and House of Representatives a report–

‘(A) on the presence in the armed forces of members who are associated or affiliated with a group associated with hate-related violence and describing the actions of the Secretary to discharge such members; and

‘(B) describing the actions of the Secretary to prevent persons who are associated or affiliated with a hate group from enlisting.’.

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So it will be up to one man to decide who’s on ze hate list. Welcome to 1930’s Germany. Oh maybe they’ll appoint a hate czar.

Here’s a link to the H.R. 2647 0n govtrack.us that will take you directly to this section 524 of the bill. http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h111-2647&version=eh&nid=t0%3Aeh%3A1655 You have to click to get it to load and then wait a minute for it. It’s a big one.

Here’s a link to the US Code 10,504 that will be affected if the HR2647 goes through Congress and is signed by the President. http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode10/usc_sec_10_00000504—-000-.html A link to this is also on the govtrack.us site at the 524 section of the HR2647.

Let’s see who voted against HR 2647 in the house. This is weird 389 Ayes and 22 Noes, 20 of which were Democrats including Barney Frank, Henry Waxman, and Jessie Jackson. Well that just makes it all ok doesn’t it. http://www.govtrack.us/congress/vote.xpd?vote=h2009-460

And here’s the Gentleman from my home State who proposed the amendment. June 26, 2009: Hastings’ Amendments to the National Defense Authorization Act Passes House Oddly enough that amendment doesn’t show at Thomas.gov unless you actually download the PDF of it. How’s that for transparency.

Here’s some more info on the upstanding Congressman Hastings

I tried to make a link to thomas.gov of the bill and/or pdf file of it but all their pages are loaded dynamically with cgi scripts so it’s not possible but you can go there and search for the bill number H.R. 2647 and the one appended with EH is the version that passed. Once you have navigated to that you’ll see a link on the left for GPO’s PDF Display. That’s the (Government Print Office) print version. www.thomas.gov

UPDATE: 7/8/09 If you find the [HR 2647 EH] on thomas you can click on section 523 to make 524 show. Must be a bug or glitch. Yeah, I can see Gibbs saying that now. I kind of like the pdf myself for impressing people when I show it to them. It’s got that nice official logo at the top of an eagle representing freedom. “Hey check out this Appropriations Act”  Also, section 524 is on page 152 of the pdf.

I also see that:

7/6/2009:

Received in the Senate. Read twice. Placed on Senate Legislative Calendar under General Orders. Calendar No. 96.

Strange Days

Have you ever wondered what happened to the 56 men who signed the
Declaration of Independence?

Five signers were captured by the British as traitors, and tortured
before they died.

Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned.

Two lost their sons serving in the Revolutionary Army; another had two
sons captured.

Nine of the 56 fought and died from wounds or hardships of
the Revolutionary War. They signed and they pledged their lives, their
fortunes, and their sacred honor. What kind of men were they?

Twenty-four were lawyers and jurists. Eleven were merchants, nine were farmers
and large plantation owners; men of means, well educated.

But they signed the Declaration of Independence knowing full well that the
penalty would be death if they were captured. Carter Braxton of Virginia, a
wealthy planter and trader, saw his ships swept from the seas by the British
Navy. He sold his home and properties to pay his debts, and died in rags.

Thomas McKeam was so hounded by the British that he was forced to move his
family almost constantly. He served in the Congress without pay, and his
family was kept in hiding. His possessions were taken from him, and poverty
was his reward.

Vandals or soldiers looted the properties of Dillery, Hall, Clymer, Walton,
Gwinnett, Heyward, Ruttledge, and Middleton. At the battle of Yorktown, Thomas
Nelson Jr, noted that the British General Cornwallis had taken over the Nelson
home for his headquarters. He quietly urged General George Washington to open
fire. The home was destroyed, and Nelson died bankrupt.

Francis Lewis had his home and properties destroyed. The enemy jailed his wife,
and she died within a few months.

John Hart was driven from his wife’s bedside as she was dying. Their 13
children fled for their lives. His fields and his gristmill were laid to
waste. For more than a year he lived in forests and caves, returning home to
find his wife dead and his children vanished. A few weeks later he died from
exhaustion and a broken heart.

Norris and Livingston suffered similar fates. Such were the stories and
sacrifices of the American Revolution. These were not wild-eyed, rabble-
rousing ruffians. They were soft-spoken men of means and education.

They had security, but they valued liberty more. Standing tall, straight, and
unwavering, they pledged: “For the support of this declaration, with firm
reliance on the protection of the divine providence, we mutually pledge to each
other, our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.”

They gave you and me a free and independent America. The history books never
told you a lot about what happened in the Revolutionary War. We didn’t fight
just the British. We were British subjects at that time and we fought our own
government! Some of us take these liberties so much for granted, but we
shouldn’t. So, take a few minutes while enjoying your 4th of July holiday and
silently thank these patriots. It’s not much to ask for the price they paid.

Rules for Radicals

In 1971, Saul Alinsky wrote an entertaining classic on grassroots organizing titled Rules for Radicals. Those who prefer cooperative tactics describe the book as out-of-date. Nevertheless, it provides some of the best advice on confrontational tactics. Alinsky begins this way:

What follows is for those who want to change the world from what it is to what they believe it should be. The Prince was written by Machiavelli for the Haves on how to hold power. Rules for Radicals is written for the Have-Nots on how to take it away.

His “rules” derive from many successful campaigns where he helped poor people fighting power and privilege

For Alinsky, organizing is the process of highlighting what is wrong and convincing people they can actually do something about it. The two are linked. If people feel they don’t have the power to change a bad situation, they stop thinking about it.

According to Alinsky, the organizer — especially a paid organizer from outside — must first overcome suspicion and establish credibility. Next the organizer must begin the task of agitating: rubbing resentments, fanning hostilities, and searching out controversy. This is necessary to get people to participate. An organizer has to attack apathy and disturb the prevailing patterns of complacent community life where people have simply come to accept a bad situation. Alinsky would say, “The first step in community organization is community disorganization.”

Through a process combining hope and resentment, the organizer tries to create a “mass army” that brings in as many recruits as possible from local organizations, churches, services groups, labor unions, corner gangs, and individuals.

Alinsky provides a collection of rules to guide the process. But he emphasizes these rules must be translated into real-life tactics that are fluid and responsive to the situation at hand.

Rule 1: Power is not only what you have, but what an opponent thinks you have. If your organization is small, hide your numbers in the dark and raise a din that will make everyone think you have many more people than you do.

Rule 2: Never go outside the experience of your people.
The result is confusion, fear, and retreat.

Rule 3: Whenever possible, go outside the experience of an opponent. Here you want to cause confusion, fear, and retreat.

Rule 4: Make opponents live up to their own book of rules. “You can kill them with this, for they can no more obey their own rules than the Christian church can live up to Christianity.”

Rule 5: Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. It’s hard to counterattack ridicule, and it infuriates the opposition, which then reacts to your advantage.

Rule 6: A good tactic is one your people enjoy. “If your people aren’t having a ball doing it, there is something very wrong with the tactic.”

Rule 7: A tactic that drags on for too long becomes a drag. Commitment may become ritualistic as people turn to other issues.

Rule 8: Keep the pressure on. Use different tactics and actions and use all events of the period for your purpose. “The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition. It is this that will cause the opposition to react to your advantage.”

Rule 9: The threat is more terrifying than the thing itself. When Alinsky leaked word that large numbers of poor people were going to tie up the washrooms of O’Hare Airport, Chicago city authorities quickly agreed to act on a longstanding commitment to a ghetto organization. They imagined the mayhem as thousands of passengers poured off airplanes to discover every washroom occupied. Then they imagined the international embarrassment and the damage to the city’s reputation.

Rule 10: The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative. Avoid being trapped by an opponent or an interviewer who says, “Okay, what would you do?”

Rule 11: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, polarize it. Don’t try to attack abstract corporations or bureaucracies. Identify a responsible individual. Ignore attempts to shift or spread the blame.

According to Alinsky, the main job of the organizer is to bait an opponent into reacting. “The enemy properly goaded and guided in his reaction will be your major strength.”

These are the tactics of Obama’s mentor, but remember, these are for community organizers not someone in power. People in power have a lot more tools at their disposal. Like controlling what people see and hear.

Most people in this country have no clue what’s going on. A friend of mine who does not get FoxNews on cable said to me the other day that all he sees on the news is some local stuff and the other half of it is basically a commercial for American Idol. He did hear about the Holocaust shooting but not the recruiter shooting.

I typed the above phrase into a search engine and this popped up.

American by Choice
We must all learn what it means to be an American.
by Peter W. Schramm
06/28/2007 12:00:00 AM

THIS WEEK, I am being honored by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services as an “Outstanding American by Choice.” This strikes me as an interesting name for an award. It is meant, of course, to recognize selected citizens who were not born in America. But the idea of being an American by choice points to an important, and perhaps unintended truth: being American is not simply reducible to the happy accident of birth. Americans, both natural and naturalized, must be trained–they must be made–and much of my time these days is devoted to making Americans out of people who just happened to have been born here.

Over fifty years ago, when I was just shy of my tenth birthday, my family fled Hungary during the failed revolution against the Russian Communists. Our family’s story was like so many of the refugees from communism, complete with relatives arrested, property seized, and a nighttime dash to freedom. The decision to escape was an easy one to make (although not so easy to execute), but the question I had–the one I distinctly recall asking my father–was “where are we going.” We could have stayed in Europe–and indeed, the Germans would have welcomed us as Volk deutsche because of our German surname–but this was not my father’s plan. “We are going to America,” he said. “Why America?” I prodded. “Because, son. We were born Americans, but in the wrong place.”

Born Americans, but in the wrong place? I’ve spent the better part of the last fifty years working to more fully understand these words. Mind you, everyone understood America to be a free and good place where one might prosper unmolested. But in saying that we were “born Americans, but in the wrong place,” Dad, in his way, was saying that he understood America to be both a place and an idea at the same time. Fundamentally, it is a place that would embrace us if we could prove that we shared in the idea. We meant to prove it.

Because America is more than just a place, being an American citizen is different than being the citizen of any other country on earth. We Americans do not look to the ties of common blood and history for connection as people the way the citizens of other countries do. Rather, our common bond is a shared principle. This is what Lincoln meant when he referred to the “electric cord” in the Declaration of Independence that links all of us together, as though we were “blood of the blood, and flesh of the flesh, of the men who wrote that Declaration.”

Because ours is a bond of principle and not of blood, true American citizens are made and not born. This is why, odd as it may seem, we must all learn–those who are born here, and those who come here by choice–what it means to be an American. Regrettably, we are doing a poor job of passing this knowledge on to future generations. Looking to just one practical indicator, the most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress shows that 73 percent of twelfth-graders scored below the proficient level in civics, as did 78 percent of eighth-graders, and 76 percent of fourth-graders. To put this into perspective, 72 percent of eighth graders could not explain the historical purpose of the Declaration of Independence. This ignorance is tragic not merely because it indicates a deficiency in our educational system, but because with it comes a loss of our national identity. And so, I find it somewhat ironic and yet very fitting that fifty years after coming to this great country, I spend my days at an institution where my job is to teach college students and high school teachers what it means to be an American.

In recent weeks, there has been much talk about immigration, but very little informed discussion about what it means to be an American–about what is necessary to make Americans. Yes, there needs to be a sensible policy for accepting new citizens, and for ensuring that those who come here do so legally. But what happens once they are here? I hear frequent conversations about failures in integration and assimilation, even among recent legal immigrants. This is not new. What is new is that America’s own natural citizens increasingly have forgotten what it means to be American. Some do not know the basics principles of this country, and still others have embraced the ideology of multiculturalism and self-loathing to such a degree that they can no longer recognize, let alone proclaim, that ours is a great nation built on lasting principles. If we no longer understand or believe in that which makes us Americans, then there is nothing substantive to assimilate into. We become many and diverse people who share a common place, rather than E Pluribus Unum.

We cannot forget who we are. We are Americans. This is a great nation. We Americans insist on holding to the connection between freedom and justice, courage and moderation. We think that equality and liberty have ethical and political implications, and, as we have shown time-and-again throughout our history, we are willing to fight and to die to make men free. We need to impart these principles to the current and succeeding generations.

We Americans correctly demand respect for our rights but, in getting that respect, we must continue to demonstrate that we continue to deserve it. We have to exercise our intelligence and develop our civic understanding so that we may preserve our liberty and pass it on, undiminished to the next generation. If government “of the people, by the people and for the people” is to endure, its endurance can only come from the devotion of Americans–born here and away–who have been so made.

Peter W. Schramm is an American who happened to have been born in the wrong place. He is also the executive director of the John M. Ashbrook Center for Public Affairs, and the chair of the Masters in American History and Government program at Ashland University.

Here’s what the typical Politician thinks about “Fiscal Responsibility”. Basically, California Budget Conference Committee Chairman Noreen Evans (D, Santa Rosa) is saying, we give away your money to our friends and ourselves when times are good, therefore we should be able to increase your taxes when things go bad because we’re the Superior ones, the Politicians and your Stupid. Live within your means applies only to you because we have the control and you don’t.

There have been many complaints and much protest from people simply wanting our representatives to simply Read The Bill before they sign it. The stimulus Bill was rushed through without it being read and that was one of the big reasons for the Tea Party. Then on a Friday before a Holiday recess the House voted on the Cap & Trade Bill. It was about 1000 pages and had a last minute amendment added of 300 pages. Well look how seriously our Government takes us.

A Complete Mockery.

I’m a member of a forum that has a guy in my State of FL here who knows a thing or two about “the market”. He posts charts and articles and is just all wound up about things. His name is John Galt. Today he was very excited and posted a video from cnbc. Now like I said I don’t know much (about the world of big money and wall street) but I do know this.
“This market continues to be propped up by government intervention and manipulation…..”
This cannot be a good thing, especially with this gangstadministration. What’s that saying that Reagan had? Scariest words you’ll ever hear. We’re from the Government and we’re here to help. Here’s the video and at about 2:00 is when you really need to listen. There’s a commercial first of course.