Deficits Matter Sometimes

When this president was on the campaign trail, he said he’d get rid of President Bush’s tax cuts for the rich. Then after Obama won the election that promise turned into well, he’d wait and let them expire.

Now expiration time has arrived, and the Republicans are calling to make them permanent, but when a jobs bill comes up for a vote, the Republicans block it because they’re worried about the deficit. Deficits in federal and state governments have been gaining momentum because the federal government has steadily decreased taxes on the monied minority, ever since Reagan was President.

According to Robert Reich former Secretary of Labor, “the rich have been getting a larger and larger portion of total income. From 9 percent in 1980, the top 1 percent’s take increased to 23.5 percent by 2007.”

A hedge fund manager making a billion a year pays less in taxes than his secretary does, whose income is taxed at a higher rate than the billionaire’s 17 percent .

Another component in the Bush tax cuts is the estate tax, created to keep dynasties from forming by passing a family’s wealth from one generation to the next. If the Bush tax cuts are made permanent, the estate tax (inheritance tax) will be repealed.

People were up in arms when Senator John Kerry and Congressman Charlie Rangel failed to pay taxes on property they own. If the tax cuts are made permanent, this means family members of John Kerry or Charlie Rangel stand to inherit millions of dollars in property with none of them paying any taxes on it, ever. Meanwhile, ordinary Americans have paid tax on any property they’ve inherited.

The monied minority assaults us with Orwellian double speak, turning the estate tax into the “death tax”, and it’s working as many Americans agree with this double speak. Even if they don’t understand the truth about it they are against the estate tax. The super-rich own the propaganda machines, the politicians and the media.

Former Vice president Dick Cheney said President Reagan proved deficits don’t matter, when it suited the republican cause. Now, because Democrats added to the deficit, they suddenly matter. Why weren’t they important during the Bush years, when he was tilting the odds in the favor of his friends, the monied minority, with tax cuts?

Islam's Inflammatory Issue

The inflammatory issue of the day is the building of the mosque at “Ground Zero”.

When the banks stole our money it was free market capitalism. Private property owners rent space for a mosque, it’s not free market capitalism anymore, now it’s a matter of public concern, and it‘s up to the public to decide.

Try convincing the public to recoup our money from the banks, try bringing that up to a public vote, ha, that’ll never happen. Unfortunately, because ‘secrecy’ is our government’s ally when it comes down to political crooks; thieves and it‘s agenda, there’s not too much behind the scene news coverage on the banks or the war in Afghanistan, but there’s plenty of coverage over a mosque.

It just seems funny that this mosque is in the forefront, especially when public support for the war in Afghanistan is waning.

Rather than concentrate on ending this obscenely immoral war, the public attention is diverted to a debate on religion, specifically Islam, when the real issue of concern should be the fact that Afghanistan’s government is rotten to the core; starting at the bottom and going all the way to the top, and we‘re giving them billions.

Where’s the incensed public debate on the continued squandering of American tax dollars and patriotic lives for a corrupt government? There isn’t any, and yet everyone in the country has an opinion on the mosque.

Bring back the draft and everyone will have an opinion on the “war” in Afghanistan and voila, it’ll be a public concern, and it‘ll quickly be over, then the mosque will be a distant memory.

Transporting Murder

Thomas Jefferson said “Educate and inform the whole mass of the people…They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.”

WikiLeaks shows us how little information we’re receiving about Afghanistan. The administration doesn’t want us to know what is going on, which is reminiscent of the deceit; payoffs, contractor scamming and theft during Vietnam.

The Pentagon Papers proved that what the government knew about Vietnam, and what they were telling the American public was a whole different story. Now this administration and even journalists are calling for WikiLeaks to shut up.

Where are the journalists covering the transportation schemes; which are costing the tax payers billions to pay off Taliban war lords to transport supplies to the US troops?

Bordering Afghanistan, the government in Kyrgyzstan was overthrown and a new government was threatening to shut down a key supply base or change the terms of the lease. The US has negotiated a one year lease, so now the new ruling is that crooks can extort even more money from us. Meanwhile, the crook who was overthrown, fled the country with billions we paid him to lease the base.

Because of WikiLeaks info, when asked if the Pakistani intelligence agency, the ISI, is helping the Taliban, the head of the ISI replied “that’s absurd”, then followed with the statement “the world hates America for what they’ve done“. We’re paying the Pakistanis to help us in this “war on terror” and they hate us.

A marine reservist who served in Afghanistan said the batteries in the IED’s (implemented explosive devices) go dead and have to be replaced. Logic dictates it is the Afghani ‘civilians’ who are resetting the IED’s, which means we are fighting the Afghani population just like the US fought the Vietnamese people, many who were friendly to US soldiers by day for pay, but at night would don the black pajamas and were VC. The Afghanis hate us ‘occupiers’ like the Vietnamese hated us being there. They just want our money.

Just like Vietnam and once again, we have to ask ourselves, why are brave Americans dying for people who hate us, and why is the government lying about it?