An Article by:
Ben Tanosborn

No gold watch for Alan Greenspan as he retired from serving the elite – we can hardly call it public service!  After almost two decades as Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, this Robin Hood for the rich and powerful was bestowed, as he was about to step down, the highest honor in the land – now shrinking in prestige at about the same pace as the United States dollar – the Medal of Freedom.
Now, two and a half years later, as this nation is mired in a recession which is likely to turn into a prolonged economic disaster, something which Mr. Greenspan almost single-handedly brought about, the laudatory decibels for this low talker, and mumbler, have gone down considerably.  Of course, he’ll never lose the admiration and gratitude of those he ended up serving so well: the powerful elite and the aspiring affluentocracy.  Americans in those two groups, flag pins on their lapels, still consider him an economic wizard.  But more than a wizard, he should be dubbed as the rich man’s Santa Claus.

Wizard… what a crock!  An accomplished musician turned into a mediocre economist at best, but with the boot-licking capacity of a male courtesan to American presidents, from Reagan to Bush Son.  A prestidigitator with a facility for gentle criticism; a coiner of cute names for dire situations; misleader via inappropriate numbers and gobbledygook, Greenspan was not the economic genius Wall Street and government leaders portrayed him to be… far from it.  He was definitely no economic rainmaker for America, only a charlatan with a dowser!  Let’s just say that as inhumane as Shrub’s foreign policy has been towards Palestine and the rest of the Middle East, the former saxophone player’s economic policy has proven to be just as genocidal; something the American citizen is finally beginning to experience.  And they have barely let the lions out of their cages at the Coliseum!

Already six to nine months into the recession, government leaders are still telling us that it is just a period of slow growth, a pit stop in this economic race that we’ll eventually win, so worry not, my friend.  That explains to us what “garbage numbers” government is using to rose-color the state of the economy in terms of growth, unemployment and inflation.  We are probably the most lied-to people by their government on the planet, at least among presumably developed and educated nations.

Gullible us!

No matter what Bernanke, Greenspan’s successor, or Treasury Secretary Paulson tell us, we have already entered an epic bear global market the likes of which take us back three generations.  But then WWII was able to bail us out since our economy was half of the world’s… and we were the international creators of wealth and credit, our economic and social well-being then based on savings, not just spending.   Now we produce weaponry, and little else, in a planet which certainly doesn’t need it… and in a global economy where we appear to be an increasingly less important player.  Months we are told before things will start to turn around.  Optimists, you say?  Try liars!

And, please, don’t just point the finger at the sub-prime mortgage loans, house flippers and proverbial greed in the real estate industry.  That was just the catalyst, for our entire economy was out of control or, rather, lacking in proper controls.  Home-ownership as part of the American dream has always been a questionable policy before, and one completely foolhardy as our nation adopted globalization.  Sure, realtors and politicians gained by proclaiming such idiocy – and still do – but the reality is quite different as it only redistributes wealth via tax sheltering; creates a less mobile society, worsening unemployment; and really slams the brakes on economic growth.  People have been brainwashed to think this simple shelter should be equated to both savings and investment in a truly disproportionate way; and that’s the kind of mentality that got us to where we are today.  Not just the abandoned, foreclosed homes, but there still remains a multi-trillion dollar overvaluation in “normal” housing, pseudo-wealth, which because of owners’ psychological inelasticity to the “loss of wealth” will be either eroded slowly by inflation, or lost overnight as people are forced to sell… whatever the reason.

Even Britain has phased out in a two-decade period of tax-sheltering in housing… and we seem to be among the last in the world to accept its regressive concept.  Let’s face it, these misnomers of “ownership society” and “popular capitalism” are but the elite’s way to confuse and enslave an already servile society… simply with clever PR.

There were a few of us during the past decade who questioned Greenspan’s sanity in going overboard granting easy credit to stimulate the economy solely through housing; a good chunk of the money used: unrealized interest from savings seniors had faithfully accumulated during a lifetime; seniors de facto forced to be donors to an industry which turned out to be not just obscenely greedy but predatory as well.
I hope this to be the last time I write about Mr. Greenspan… he has proved to be all the negative things I always wrote he was.  That doesn’t make me a visionary… but makes him either a fool, or a practitioner of deception; or maybe both.

Can anyone fathom greater recent blunders than Paul Bremer’s disbanding of the Iraqi army as he was made “governor” of Iraq… or Alan Greenspan’s monetary policy during his last five years as head of the Fed?  Well, if you are an American and can come up with one, even if of lesser magnitude… there is a Medal of Freedom waiting to be bestowed on you.  At the Kennedy Center in Washington DC… by George W. Bush!

Tags: Ben Tanosborn, economics, economists, government, labor
Categories: Commentary, Economics, government, Labor, Ben Tanosborn
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An Article:
Ben Tanosborn

It happens time and again as America’s quadrennial campaigns to gain residency at the imperial White House gather momentum.  Although our forever-cloned candidates, one for each of the two indistinct political parties, are asked to address each and every issue of the day, soft-hearted – or perhaps civically-ignorant – Americans that we are, we usually give candidates a free pass, not forcing them to commit to any specific color in their answers, true chameleons they are.  And the press, with its own corporate mission, self-preservation, plays the usual economic game in its key role of as a pleasing whore.

Progressives as well as many other change-clamoring Americans, particularly legions of young college students – many, first-time presidential would-be voters – volunteered to give this new political face of great hope, a man articulating change with a great amount of credulity, the reins of that sempiternal “lesser evil” party of peace-makers and lowly economy’s downcasts.  Of course, having reached that all important milestone which assured him the backing of the Democratic Party, Barack Obama had few options but to accept being placed in the waiting “golden stable” where he gets new handlers claiming to have magical knowledge with which to plot how the presidential race must be ran, not to place… or to show, but to win.

So now that face of great hope has been lifted, not to remove any wrinkles, young man that he is, but “to add” the necessary patriotic wrinkles required to be acceptable to what the new handlers consider to be the candidate’s initiation of trust from Middle-America, not a geographical location but a state of mind: that non-existing, totally equivocated middle of the road of an economically and morally decrepit, fading nation where the imperialism-cancer is already hovering around stage IV having spread to many, if not most, aspects of American life.  This while flags wave high in glory, and flag pins adorn the lapels of politicians and their brethren, our corps of elite corporate crooks.  Could it be that it isn’t change that Americans want… only a return, by whatever means, to easy credit, low oil prices and continuance of that fantasy dream of wealth as a birthright, or one created by motivational charlatanry, rather than the product of one’s labor?

Obama’s hundred-and-eighty-degree turn from progressivism and change should come as no surprise to those of us oft-scalded by American fraudulent politics; although we cannot help but feel deep pain for our idealist young people getting their initiation of fire.  Obama is in the hands of the handlers (visible and invisible) who require his adherence to flip-flop ambidexterity about Iraq, NAFTA (North America Free Trade Association), separation of church and state; and, recently, his unnecessary and obscene vote in the Senate favoring more federal surveillance on the citizenry.  One wonders how Obama might have voted in 2002 on the Iraq resolution had he been then a member of the Senate… with advisers; and not just an Illinois citizen unattached to the powerful.

If we add to all the above his ceremoniously recorded adhesion not long ago to AIPAC (Israel’s lobby) and his of-late windmill attitude to just about anything and everything, one must ask, is there really much of a difference between Barack Obama and John McCain?  Well, age for one thing; and, most definitely, brains.  But as for everything else, including critical foreign policy change, the two senators might have been birthed by the same mother as non-identical twins.

Some people, who have followed Obama’s political evolution since Hillary Clinton’s abdication to what she claimed to be her Democratic Party throne, are quick to give him the benefit of the doubt, saying that once he gets to the White House he’ll be his own man and his deeply imbedded progressive ideas will take root.  Fools we are… has that ever happened before…well, in recent memory?  Not a chance!

Even President Carter, as honorable a president as this nation has ever had, found it necessary to bend later on in his administration to the influence that the Miami Mafia (exiled Cubans) had on Florida politics.  Castro’s Cuba, or rather the apolitical Cubans in the Island, had to suffer the consequences of America’s WIR (Weapons of Ill Resort): embargoes, economic sanctions and other destructive, anti-people dirty tricks which are constantly being performed secretly.

There are three key issues for Americans which overrule everything else, issues that have been addressed with ignorance and/or triviality by both Obama and McCain.  They are: the complete overhaul of an economy in shambles; the imperialistic treatment we give to our presence in both the Middle East and Southwest Asia (Afghanistan, Iraq and the military-infested waters of the Persian Gulf, for which a more apropos name would be the Pentagulf); and our irreverent, imperialistic position towards Russia.  The latter, an issue which is not being played much by the American media… but an issue that will comeback for sure to hunt us… and hurt us.  Unlike Germany and Japan, Russia is not a defeated country… and to treat her with triumphal disdain and bullyism could ultimately exact too-high a price for the United States.

Arsonist Bush may be lighting up most destructive fires around the world, but no one hears either McCain or Obama speaking of putting them out.

Tags: Ben Tanosborn, democracy, economics, media, politics
Categories: Commentary, Economics, Democracy, Politics, Media, Ben Tanosborn
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An Article by:
Lonnie D. Story

My eyes lift up from the road and see beyond the road ahead.
I brush my eyes with rough leathered gloves,
beneath the glasses that barely care my sight.
My mind is a million miles away,
as each hundred feet or so, at speeds at vary,
take me on this journey light,
and severely dangerous for my own lack of care.
My hands hold the placements of standard put,
Yet my heart is melted into a land beyond my foot.
I have lost all that is within me,
my days of past, my days that last,
the days that last are the days that passed.

I throttle through,
measured right hand at the bar I pull,
My hands numb with nerves diminished,
I shake each one to recover strength,
to ensure this ride finds a final finish.
How long I can take it, I don’t know,
I only cherish each moment as a mental gold.
I know my ride is sad and worn,
But my pride has no bearing,
my humility bears the burden,
knowing that my care lacks concern,
For all this ride, my life is determined.
Where I am and who I am,
where I’ve been and where I go,
on this ride of prayers,
My mind is miles away,
From this journey on a backwater bay.

The sweet smell of tides at low,
remind me of days when,
my heart was filled with love,
and empty of a love returned.
Yet, joyous pleasures, I had found,
in the shallows of that marshy ground,
A place where my heart, it’s dreams blew to sea.
My heart had found the place that I,
I had always been meant to be.

For words, they come and flow,
and time it certainly takes it’s toll.
I write at night my thoughts of mind,
of a time, so many, a time sublime.
A time today that I have had,
and remember times that make me sad.
For all the joys of a ride today,
I cannot forget the ecstasy of all the yesterdays.

Tags: fictional, poetry
Categories: Commentary, fictional
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Following the Larry Craig arrest for lurid conduct in a public restroom, I had posted a sympathetic letter, expressing pity for someone so tortured, self deluded, and sensually deprived.  I contended that this uncover operation executed by a police officer reflected more poorly upon those who conceive and implement such a law enforcement plan than those who fall victim to its ensnarement.

Certainly, the authoritarian mentality responsible for these contraventions into such consensual activities is more alarming – due to its reflection of authoritarian tendencies by those who wield power – than the prospect of people having sex in a restroom. Disregard for civil liberties can be a slippery slope.

The more commonplace these authoritarian incursions into our private affairs become, the more precedents are established for these government-sponsored regulatory interdictions.  The accumulation of previous instances will inevitably change the backdrop against which we interpret the boundaries between government and the private conduct of citizens.  Future affronts to our liberties will appear passé and a matter of course.  Consequently, they will fail to register in our civil libertarian sensibilities; therefore, the governmental intrusions will not incite our condemnation, and we will neglect to call for their repeal.

Additionally, on a more practical level, sting operations in which undercover officers are stationed in bathroom stalls, posing as willing bath house participants, seems excessive for even the pettiest of people to insist upon, and such expenditures of resources can certainly be better directed in support of law enforcement designed to curtail crimes that are perpetrated against victims, who are injured in the process.To allocate resources, while we are supposedly conducting a ‘war on terror,’ toward the enforcement of these ridiculous crimes against morality is a disciplinarian excess that we simply cannot afford.

From the summation above, I hope it is fairly evident that I made a point not to direct criticism or judgment upon Larry Craig.  I sought to demonstrate that the pressing concerns related to this matter centered around the disciplinarian mentalities possessed by those who feel justified in legislating both morality and aesthetics.

However – and tragically – the Senator failed to learn from his experiences as the victim of authoritarian pettiness. I am not referring to any lesson to be learned regarding the precariousness of having sex in public restrooms.  Rather, I am referencing the need for social tolerance and understanding, which one would have hoped Larry Craig to have realized through his embarrassing experiences.  Nonetheless, Craig has decided to sponsor the latest ‘defense of marriage,’ bill that has been presented by the demagogic Religious Right panderers in the Senate. It appears that Craig continues to delude himself into believing that he is ‘heterosexual,’ and that other people are even willing to entertain the prospect that he has not engaged in ‘extra-heterosexual,’ relationships with anonymous partners.

For my part, I have realized that hypocrites of the most profound order probably do not  deserve sympathy and tolerance.

Russell Cole

Tags: liberty, Russell Coles Blog, self governance, Social Change, social policies, social responsibility
Categories: Commentary, liberty, Russell Cole's Blog, self-governance, Social Change, social responsibility
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On This Fourth of July 2008

An Article by:
Ben Tanosborn

When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with its own government, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the denunciation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  That to secure these rights, a new government must be instituted, deriving its just powers from the consent of the governed.  That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.  Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience has shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.  But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. –Such has been the patient sufferance of the people of the United States of America; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their existing system of government.  The history of the Executive in this government, exemplified and accentuated by the current administration; together with a long history of a lobbies-corrupted Legislature and a politically-appointed Judicial, are histories of repeated injuries and usurpations, not acting as to balance power but jointly providing a unified corruptive government, all having in direct object the establishment of a world empire and a domestic ruling class able to exercise absolute tyranny over the people. The present and recent past administrations of the United States of America are hereby deemed non-responsive to the interests and well-being of the people of this nation while also acting as an imminent and constant danger to the cause of peace in the world.  To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

…That existing government has made itself a self-perpetuating tyranny where the channels to change and impeachment are de facto blocked by the duopolistic party system.

… That existing government operates under the auspices of special interest groups whose money influence the election of officials in such government, the enactment of legislation, and the way domestic and foreign policy are created and conducted.

… That existing government has not only permitted but promoted the ever-widening gap between haves (20%) and have-nots (80%), with serious wealth and income inequality.

… That existing government shows no concern for the well-being of the people as evidenced by the availability of healthcare, education and social welfare relative to other nations with similar or fewer resources.

… That existing government is responsible for instilling fear in the population, making terror the underlying reason for curtailing freedoms, spying or even lying to the people.

… That existing government maintains a military with a destructive capacity far in excess of that needed for self-defense; and to the detriment of public needs.  And that such massive destructive capacity only serves to paint the United States as a coercive, imperialistic and terrorist nation.

… That existing government by engaging in criminal wars, embargoes, blockades and other black-listing of foreign nations has made the United States not just an international bully but a piranha, world’s leading perpetrator of genocide and dislocation of people.

… That existing government has in fact misgoverned domestically in every facet of governing; while abusing its power to promote mayhem internationally which has gravely damaged the reputation of the people of this nation before the eyes of the world.

We, therefore, the people of the United States of America, in self-representation and joined   in mind and effort, appeal to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name of one another with common joint interests, and self-exercising our authority as free people, solemnly publish and declare, that these United States of America are, and of right ought to be free from the tyranny of the existing government; that they are absolved from all allegiance to this existing Federal government, and that all political connection between them, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that the Fifty States making up this union immediately join forces to create and summon a Constitutional Congress for the sole purpose of enacting a new constitution and the formation of a new Federal government; representatives to that Congress to be judiciously chosen by the States in proportional numbers to population. The new constitution, and the government which will derive from it, to be exemplary models in morality and brotherhood; such government to have full power to work for peace and against war, to regulate all wealth-producing activities to guarantee a free but fair market, and to do all other acts and things which independent nations may of right do for the well-being of its citizens. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we, the people of these United States of America, pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.

Author’s note:  Rather than a plagiarization of the original Declaration of Independence this re-declaration is intended as juxtaposition to that great document of long ago… and the sad political reality we have today in a broken government which does not represent the citizenry; a reality that would bring dismay to its signers in their futuristic vision of the United States.  It took a revolution to free the Colonies from the English Crown… and it appears that it will take another revolution for this nation to retrieve both, its moral compass and true freedom for its people.

Tags: Ben Tanosborn, citizens, democracy, direct democracy
Categories: Commentary, Democracy, Direct Democracy, Ben Tanosborn
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