Adventures In Rewriting History

A publisher, New South Books, thinks they can write racism out of history by revising the words in Mark Twain’s book “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn."

This prejudice was evident through two wars, one during the war in the Philippines and the other during our lives, the Vietnam war. The prejudices exhibited toward the veterans when they came home from both wars was the same; society shunned them for the misfortune of being in a dirty war not of their making. Not only is Mark Twain receiving criticism today, he received plenty of criticism when he was out spoken against that war, when he said “my country right or wrong”.

Benjamin Franklin said one of the best friends you can have is someone who points out your faults to you. Mark Twain was an expert at pointing out faults in human nature and a country. This is precisely why it’s so ironic that Mark Twain is the one who is being rewritten.

The Thought Police are here. Big Brother is Big Business not Big Government. That’s why a publisher thinks that by revising the words, they can write prejudice out of people. But rather than admit American history had faults, Big Brother just changes the words and poof, all evidence is gone. The future will not have an accurate time line of events. You can’t know where you’re going if you don’t know where you’ve been.

Pretending prejudices didn’t exist is delusional. Changing words doesn’t change history, prejudice will always exist, especially when it’s the type which is taught to others who don’t know better.

Buyer Beware

All political issues have become emotional.

Why, we even have TV personalities and politicians crying on stage to show us how it’s done. By controlling us through emotions, we’ve become irrelevant.

Our government operates under the policy that free markets know best, but in reality, the idea that free markets can regulate themselves can only happen in a perfect world. But in this world, OUR world, all it’s brought is high unemployment to US citizens and bankruptcy to the nation.

Oh but there is a plan in place to increase jobs through exports. Yeah exporting our standard of living along with the affluence of the middle class has been our main export for decades.

Corporations do not view us as citizens with value but as brain washed consumers with our only value being how much of our money they can convince us to give to them.

After being bailed out by the American tax payer, General Motors is making profits in China; it no longer matters if we can afford to buy these products, global markets will sustain American corporations. They don’t care if profits come from here or abroad, we‘re irrelevant. And it isn’t just the citizens who have become irrelevant, political candidates have become irrelevant too, it’s just that they get paid more.

The recent Supreme Court decision allowing corporations free reign in campaign spending has made the vote for the politician irrelevant along with our rights to information, we’ll never know who is behind the financing of any political ads. So if a politician doesn’t vote the way a corporation wants, the corporation can legally seek revenge by pouring millions into negative attack ads, and attack ads win elections.. for the opponent.

Political candidates have become a product, just like any other product on TV. One newly elected Republican even had his face on a box of Kraft macaroni and cheese. Only with these Political products, there’s no money back guarantee and it’s buyer beware.

Wicked Leak, Wicked Truth or Wicked Set-up

Both Democrats and Republicans are perpetuating the myth that WikiLeaks is a threat to our security, and Attorney General Holder wants to try founder Julian Assange on espionage charges.

Not one government official paid the price when it was leaked that Valerie Plame was a CIA agent while she was actively engaged in searching for WMD. These actions ruined her career with the CIA. Just how many careers has WikiLeaks ruined? None!

The Valerie Plame incident was just a blip in regards to national security and yet WikiLeaks has been turned into a worldwide manhunt and scandal.

Former national security advisor under President Carter, Zbigniew Brzesinski, has a different take on WikiLeaks stating: “It's, rather, a question of whether WikiLeaks is being manipulated by interested parties that want to either complicate our relationship with other governments or want to undermine some governments, because some of these items that are being emphasized and have surfaced are very pointed.”

“And I wonder whether, in fact, there aren't some operations internationally, intelligence services, that are feeding stuff to WikiLeaks, because it is a unique opportunity to embarrass us, to embarrass our position, but also to undermine our relations with particular governments.”

Perhaps there is some merit to this, who would know better than Brzesinski who helped goad the Soviets into Afghanistan so the US could win the Cold War.

The editor of Wired.com said WikiLeaks set up the US when it chose Amazon.com. Now that Amazon is shutting them down, and even though many citizens may disagree with WikiLeaks, they do agree with freedom of speech, and subsequently will get behind and support WikiLeaks.

This is the second time WikiLeaks has released confidential documents about US foreign policy and we’re supposed to believe it was due to one low level intelligence soldier, Bradley Manning.

There’s more to it than the black and white story we’re being told, but we’ll never know, all information will remain hidden, never to be released by WikiLeaks or even reported by our own journalists who sadly, have dropped the ball and drank the Kool-Aid. They’ve left us with no one of integrity to peer under the rocks to expose the corruption and shadows that have developed and enveloped this nation.

Who’s setting up whom, that’s the real question.

Tightening the Noose

Right out of the gate the politicians tell us whose side they’re on: the rich minority, not the majority. The Republicans will block all legislative activity, including extending unemployment benefits until tax cuts for the wealthy are passed, and rather than fight back, the Democrats will lie down and take it.

Between the 27 billion JP and Chase handed out in bonuses and the 4 billion corporations spent on this past election, (with 2 billion of that going to TV stations owned by a handful of Fortune 500 companies), that’s 31 billion of our tax dollars into the pockets of the few. This is an example of how the wealth is being concentrated at the top.

The government with the support of Democrats and Republicans, have been cutting taxes on the rich ever since Reagan implemented his “trickle down” theory. Cut taxes at the top, and the increased income for the wealthy will trickle down to the little guy. And they’re using the same false trick with tax cuts for the rich. Cut taxes at the top and this increased earnings for the wealthy will trickle down and create jobs. It hasn’t worked yet and it never will.

The Republicans actually threaten the voters: if we don’t pass the tax cuts for the rich, taxes will go up on all Americans. Taxes on us will continue to rise, no matter if we pass the tax cuts or not. In addressing the deficit, a new national sales tax of 6.5 percent has been suggested and of course they’ll have to cut back on benefits. Gee, that sounds familiar.

Ireland was forced to do the same thing-investors in Ireland were threatening to pull their money out due to the banking crisis, so the government of Ireland had to promise to raise taxes on the people, and cut back on their benefits to get a bailout by the European Union. Austerity measures are being implemented in Greece, Spain and Portugal. France raised their retirement age and England saw violent protests over cutbacks in student aid.

Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve the bank, who prints our money, was bailing out banks both here and abroad to the tune of three trillions dollars of our tax money. Yet we don’t have the money to extend unemployment benefits here while people are loosing their homes, because of the backroom scams the banks enacted to cause the problem in the first place.

So yeah, let’s cut taxes and our throats by giving more money to the minority; the bankers, CEO’s and billionaire hedge fund managers, along with their lobbyists and political puppets. They’ll use this increased wealth to tighten the noose around our necks and the economy through propaganda, lies and threats.

Flat Wages or Increased Spending

On Wednesday November 24 the government released the finding which said Americans earned more and spent more in the month of October.

Of course Americans spent more, the price of everything constantly goes up.The price of gas has risen and according to the oil companies it is due to increased demand. A local news station reported the price of a Thanksgiving dinner is up from last year and a local grocery store owned by a company in the Netherlands reported increased profits due to more people shopping. Ha, profits are up because the price of food goes up weekly. Is that due to increased demand as well?

Electricity and heating is on the rise not to mention the impending health insurance hikes in January. Added all together, we continually make less as prices rise.

So who’s making more? From an article by Robert Reich -”The top one percent of Americans, by income, is now taking home almost a quarter of all income and accounting for forty percent of all wealth”. And in early 2010 JP Morgan paid out $27 billion in bonuses to executives, traders and “valued” employees.

People at the top are making more but for the rest of us, corporations have been slashing benefits and wages since the 1980’s. Robert Reich states: “With hefty campaign contributions, and platoons of lobbyists and public relations flacks, the rich helped push through legal changes that enabled them to accumulate even more income and wealth-including tacit permission to bust unions, slash corporate payrolls, and reduce benefits…”

In his book ‘Aftershock” Robert Reich sums it up: “The fundamental problem is that Americans no longer have the purchasing power to buy what the US economy is capable of producing. The reason is that a larger and larger portion of total income has been going to the top.”

Spending has increased at the top while requests from food pantries has increased at the bottom; with one out of four children living in a household which runs out of food.

Poverty has increased and wages remain flat, so who are they kidding saying Americans earned more and spent more?

Certainty for the Few

Representative John Boehner wants to make the Bush tax cuts permanent to reduce uncertainty in America saying, “ you can't invest when you don't know what the rules are, when you don't know what the tax rates are going to be next year. And that's why making these permanent would be the most important thing we could do to create jobs in the country.”

While it is admirable that Representative Boehner wants to reduce uncertainty, how many millions of Americans are facing uncertainty when it comes to keeping their homes, their pensions, or are facing the uncertainty of staying alive in Iraq or Afghanistan?

Is Representative Boehner concerned about relieving their uncertainty? Let’s face it, how many Americans make over $200,000 per year? It certainly isn’t the majority, it’s the minority.

A retired member of Congress leaves his job in government and then goes to work as a lobbyist for a bank or corporation with the starting salary of $500,000, and that’s on the low end. How is cutting this person’s taxes going to create jobs?

Since the taxes were enacted in 2001 and over eight million jobs have been lost, how is keeping the tax cuts permanent going to create more jobs? If those tax cuts worked, we’d have those jobs now.

The founders understood a good credit system is necessary to promote prosperity. Our credit system is broken, tilting towards growth for banks only, who have trillions parked at the federal reserve earning interest while refusing to lend. Tax cuts aren’t going to make them lend this money to create jobs.

Reducing uncertainty is a luxury many of us won’t be afforded, but one thing is for certain, those who are able to donate large sums of money end up with the rules in their favor; like tax cuts for lobbyists, politicians and the banking billionaires who pay them.　

Reaping Obamacare Rewards

Republican leader John Boehner said they have to repeal the health care bill or else it’ll bankrupt the country. Meanwhile, on November 3^rd, the Federal Reserve announced they’re going to print 600 billion dollars to buy US Treasury Bonds. They’re doing this to entice banks to lend money by making interest on US Treasuries come down, so investors won’t buy them so much. They call this “quantitative easing”.

The fed stated they are doing this to spur the economy and create jobs. In reality, it helps the banks (the same ones who brought us this depression), more than it helps the economy.

Understand, we owe interest on every dollar the federal reserve, a bank, prints. Therefore, we now owe the interest on 600 billion more dollars. How much debt will these interest payments leave to future generations?

The fed announced this back door bailout the day after the elections; which Republicans won by saying “no more bailouts”. Yeah, right.

The AP reports “stocks indexes reached new highs a day after the Federal Reserve announced a $600 billion plan to boost the economy“, “investors like gridlock”, and a “stalemate between the White House and the new Congress will mean less regulation of business.”

With no one watching, self inflicted gridlock means banks will continue to reap unfettered profits at our expense by printing money, and insurance companies will continue to monopolize health care while raising premiums.

By focusing on repealing Obamacare along with Mitch McConnell’s pledge to insure Obama is a one term president, they’re only focusing on the easy targets, they’re not focusing on tough targets like banks who are ”too big to fail“, or insurance monopolies.

Besides, it’s not like the president’s health bill or the financial bills did anything to address real issues, they only took out some of the most reprehensible business practices, like denying sick kids insurance or reaching a benefit maximum. New credit card laws prevent only a few banking abuses while leaving mechanisms in place to guarantee another recession/depression.

Catchy campaign slogans ring hollow when compared to the reality that in one year banks contributed 88 million to Democrats and 67 million to Republicans. Obamacare isn’t the only monster in the closet.