While tea parties took place across the country, our local and national electronic media were airing really important, newsworthy items, such as: mouse droppings in hotel rooms, what a bed bug looks like, turkey killed by automobile, and outtakes from Dancing with the Stars.It’s not censorship per se. It’s over-amplification of the extraneous. Fill a fool’s head with useless information and the really important stuff is lost in the shuffle. On MSNBC, the anchors and commentators derided the protests, referringto them as ‘tea-bagging’ or as ‘GOP Tea Baggage’, in an attempt to insult the valid 1st Amendment rights of American citizens. Had it been militant gays or enraged blacks, MSNBC would have provided sober, sincere thematics and respectful language to describe their alleged grievances. Instead, they’re laughing in the faces of Americans who carry the freight for everyone in this land of ingrates. 

Hopefully, American exercise their right not to watch MSNBC, NBC, CNBC, CNN, ABC and CBS, so that they, along with the New York Times, the LA Times and the Chicago Tribune, will falter and ultimately fail. And once they do, the true agenda of the Democratic Party and its socialist backers will become more apparent.

It’s heartening to see the thousands of people who came out to protest the runaway spending of the Obama administration and the clowns in Congress. It’s disheartening to see the mainstream media avoidingcoverage of these events, or even acknowledging that they happened. Even local TV stations, who will send out camera trucks to cover a backyard barbecue fire, have ignored this groundswell of opposition to a socialist regime. In Michigan, where local media totally ignored the invasion of a church service by militant gays earlier this year, the silence on the part of local media is disquieting. It means that beyond a shadow of a doubt, the electronic, print and online media have taken on the role of official government propagandists and information managers. Across the country, the media coverage is about the same. The only network carrying any meaningful coverage is Fox News Channel. Unfortunately, even on its best days, Fox can’t outpull reruns of American Idol. So, despite its fair and balanced coverage, the message is being broadcast to those who are already convinced that Obama and the Democrats mean to impose a huge tax burden on working Americans as they strip away our personal rights and economic freedoms. The people who need to see this so that they fully understand what’s really happening are instead busy watching CNN, MSNBC, NBC, ABC and CBS, where they get their daily dose of propaganda from the news mafia.

The DHS brief regarding ‘right-wing extremists’ and President Obama’s not-so clever references to government surveillance was widely publicized just days before the planned tax protests. This wasn’t intended to be subtle. It was intended to intimidate would-be protesters and make them think twice. Couple that with the lack of coverage for the tax protests and the manipulation becomes rather obvious.

But, the tea parties will serve a purpose. The unexpectedly high turnout across the country was a welcome sight to those brave souls who showed up, wondering if they would be the only ones holding a placard. Much to their relief, hundreds, if not thousands, showed up at every single tea party. To the participants, it has become very clear that they’re part of something big and something that’s going to get bigger. Now, they’ll go back home and tell their friends and neighbors. They’ll get on the web and blog. They’ll put a bumper sticker on their car. Maybe, they’ll work up enough nerve to call or write their Congressman or senator. But most importantly, they’ll realize that they can do something, even if it’s just getting together at a protest rally and venting their frustrations.

The producers, the ones who work and pay taxes, have to regain control of the government. Just because Obama and his gang of socialists in Congress have enacted legislative and passed an irresponsible budget doesn’t mean that these bills can be gutted with amendments or even repealed. But, it takes constant, unrelenting pressure on both houses of Congress to do so. Obama doesn’t care. He’s a committed Marxist who thinks what he’s doing will ensure him a place in history. It’s an all or nothing game with him, and the ends justify the means. But still, a Congress that’s faltering under massive pressure will back away from Obama’s Stalinist agenda. Politicians have a habit of getting weak in the knees when confronted with an angry constituency.

The tea parties are a great start. Next? Recall sitting members of Congress, beginning with the worst of the worst: Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Russ Fiengold, Patrick Leahy, John Conyers, Maxine Waters, Sander Levin, Carl Levin, John Kerry, the list goes on and on. Actually, it would probably be better to just name the three or four senators and congressmen worth keeping. And, just in case Al Franken gets too comfortable in his new office, the citizens of Minnesota should begin filing those recall petitions tomorrow morning.

After that? Let’s work on governors, secretaries of state and state legislatures. It’s never too late to throw the bums out.

The look on Nazi Pelosi’s face during the press conference she held after the House voted on Obama’s back-breaking new budget should have frightened more of us. It should have jolted the country awake, sent us into the streets to shout and scream that this can’t happen here. She was in ecstasy - a kind of raving mad ecstasy. She lit up like Adolf Hitler’s face when he was delivering one of those lengthy harangues where thousands stood in formation, flags flying and swastikas ablaze. Nazi Pelosi was beaming. Her greatest triumph was at hand - the utter devastation of the American way of life. It was a way of life that had personally rewarded her immensely. She and her husband, Paul Pelosi, have amassed more than $30 million in stocks and real estate - the fruits of capitalism. But, that kind of wealth is not for the rest of us. We are merely the proletariat: Unexceptional people facing a humdrum existence of paying taxes and paying bills. We’re scrabbling for a meager existence while our Speaker of the House pistol whips Air Force generals for being late with her Gulfstream jet.

Nazi Pelosi has been a political hack all her life. She realized early on that political power can make you as much money as true business prowess. And, you don’t risk any personal capital, either. Sort of like Hillary Clinton’s miraculous ‘options’ trade that netted her a hundred grand on a 1K bet. Or, maybe buying real estate that will be rezoned by your political cronies, netting you a fortune in short order. Liberal politicians who claim they’re happy to pay high taxes do so because they haven’t put any real effort or taken any risk in making that money. It’s like winning a lottery - no real skill involved.

But Nazi Pelosi is making a calculated bet that she can grow government to Soviet-era proportions and still retain enough positive economic activity to fund that government. That way, she can direct billions of dollars to pet projects and political cronies, enriching only those who buy into her warped vision. Unfortunately, she’s wrong, just like Ted Kennedy, Barney Frank, Chuck Schumer, Chris Dodd, Arlen Specter, Patrick Leahy and the whole lot of them are wrong. They’ve pushed government spending over the line where it now destroys the entire economic system that keeps it all going.

More importantly, Nazi Pelosi is also trying to make the Democratic Party voter-proof so that no conservative backlash can remove Democrats from office at the voting booth in 2010 or 2012, and no Marxist legislation can be repealed. She and her Democratic co-conspirators are determined to slam shut the door of opportunity and economic freedom, forever barring the poor, the working class and the middle class from ever having a shot at real prosperity. There will be no more rags to riches stories in America unless you have political cover from the power elite.

The Speaker doesn’t understand that she is playing with fire. Socialism and Marxism are flawed systems because they don’t have the checks and balances that our founding fathers spent nearly a decade perfecting and then memorializing in the Constitution. A huge centralized government will begin to overstep its bounds almost immediately. Wait a minute - that’s already happening. Barack Obama fired Rick Wagoner, the chairman of General Motors. And, Secretary Geithner is firing bank CEOs, even though banks want to give the TARP money back.  And now, a government that can’t even pave roads properly or safely dispose of our garbage wants to nationalize the healthcare industry. We will be standing in line for an aspirin. This is what Nazi Pelosi dreams of when she goes to sleep.

It’s only a matter of time before the government starts dictating how much money each of us deserves to make, how hard we should be working and what we get to keep for our efforts. Rest assured that the politically connected and the parasites will be well fed, well housed and driving around in government-supplied vehicles. Nazi Pelosi will make sure of that.

Nazi Pelosi would like to force you out of your comfortable suburban home and put you into multifamily housing. She wants to take away your SUV or pickup truck so that you can stand in the rain and wait for a bus. It’s more efficient, it’s more environmentally responsible, she’ll say. Ah, but who’s living in your old house? That would be government workers, contractors, political party apparatchiks, government ‘dependents’ and other beneficiaries of the Democratic vision. But certainly not you, because you don’t deserve it. But, you will still be paying for it.

In fact, Nazi Pelosi supports ‘unpegging’ the United States from its Constitution and recognizing ‘international’ law. There is no such thing. ‘International’ law is a political mishmash administered by the UN and amended whenever the political winds change. And that’s why Nazi Pelosi wants it to be the law of the land - there will be no more Bill of Rights, no contract law, no ethical grounding. Every legal matter will be a political calculation, a matter of situational ethics. We won’t be able to vote, assemble, have our voices heard. That’s what Nazi Pelosi dreams of. There will be no way back to the America of our mothers and fathers. The only functioning constitutional republic in human history will have disappeared. In its place will be a collapsing society that poses a threat to its own citizens while it menaces the world. Thank you for your vision, Nazi Pelosi.

During his candidacy and his first few days in office, Barack Obama has made both public and private comments regarding the use and cost of various forms of energy. He famously whispered that as president he would attempt to bankrupt the coal companies and the utilities dependent on coal for power generation. Quite recently, he said that $5 per gallon gasoline would be good for the country. Because he’s never held a real job,  commuted an hour to work, wrestled with the problems of a small business or assumed personal reponsibility for a profit/loss statement, Mr. Obama knows nothing about the realities of life here in these United States of America. He wasn’t concerned about helping Mother Earth when these comments were made. He was talking about controlling the lives of Americans through the availability, cost and appropriate use of energy. With the dollar nearly valueless, energy is now the new currency. By constricting supply, redirecting its flow or outlawing certain uses, Obama and his puppeteers can now control the entire US economy.

The carbon credit cap-and-trade scheme provides no direct benefit to the environment, the economy or the citizenry. It does, however, give the government dictatorial powers to control industrial output, personal mobility, even the flow of information. All of it requires energy. Starve a certain economic activity of energy, and it disappears. Provide cheap, abundant energy to another sector, and it will flourish. That’s called a planned economy. See Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Castro, Chavez. Even if the carbon credit tax scheme (yes, of course it raises taxes) doesn’t come to be, Mr. Obama and the Democrats in Congress have a dozen other means to achieve nearly identical results. Energy, like money, can be used to reward political allies and punish opponents. Energy, like money, evokes strong emotions of envy, entitlement and greed.

If you’ve ever watched one of those post-apocalyptic movies that hit theaters every now and then, you can’t help but notice that almost every film, energy is highly prized. Everyone fights over the available energy source, be it ancient fuel depot or swine flatulence, to stay alive or to impose their will over others. The leftist wing of the Democratic Party senses this. The private foundations and academic loonies have been touting this as the ultimate means of control for decades. But, how to get Americans to relinquish their standard of living and personal mobility - both possible only with cheap and abundant energy?

Enter the bogeyman - Al Gore, with an alarming vision of an environmental Armaggedon, replete with celebrity endorsements, Bruce Springsteen playing background music and thousands of militant morons flooding into the streets.  And so, Big Al and the environuts have trotted out their shameless scam of global warming to scare gullible Americans into scaling back their energy use and accepting the exhorbitant tax schemes that are being layered into energy costs. The environmental bogeyman frightens Americans into giving up their personal mobility, scaling back their standard of living and limiting their economic freedoms.

The media play along. In recent days, Exxon was again lambasted for its ‘obscene’ 2008 profits of $45 billion - a one time event. No one in the mainstream media bothered to report that over half of this profit was confiscated by the US government in the form of corporate income tax. Nor did they mention that Exxon actually collected nearly $300 billion in federal gasoline taxes for the government and turned it over within a few hours of collecting it. It costs Exxon lots of money to collect those taxes, do the reporting and transfer funds collected from thousands of gasoline stations and credit card issuers. Exxon was not reimbursed. The government expended no effort in collecting those taxes, other than to call the bank to see if they were deposited. And then, moments later, our government spent it. Out the door. Up in smoke. Never to be seen again. At some point, if voters allow it to happen, the government will take control of the oil and coal industries to ‘protect’ us from price gouging, when in fact it’s the hidden taxes in energy prices that are making them unaffordable to working Americans.  Once the means of production are controlled (Hugo Chavez playbook, p. 1), the government can impose its will as it sees fit. Whomsoever controls the levers of power, now controls each and every one of us.

So, when the brownouts start happening on a regular basis, when local radio stations featuring conservative talk show hosts are put on a limited broadcasting schedule to conserve power, and when your monthly electric bill is roughly equal to your mortgage payment, remember who started it all - Obama and his cronies in Congress. Their dreary utopia of equally shared misery is the best that socialists can offer.

And the people were singing. They clapped and hollered, danced in the streets and stood in line at the porta-potties filling the Mall. They were happy and hopeful, trusting and naive. And, they had no idea why they were there except what the media told them. This was a historic occasion, indeed. But then, what precisely is historic about Obama’s ascendancy? Was this blend of Kenya and Kansas, this product of affirmative action and racial politics, the best black president we could have elected? Were other black candidates with more experience, credentials and qualifications pushed aside simply because they were more conservative, or too overtly radical?  Was it because Obama happened to be a person of color and therefore, regardless of his actual qualifications, experience and political ideology, was propelled into office? Did Obama get elected because of his skin color or in spite of it? What role did the news and entertainment cabal play in amplifying and distorting race issues in America, in effect paving the road for the Obama candidacy? 

55% of voting Americans have no idea who they elected as president. That critical 5% margin will no doubt be characterized as the tipping point in our nation’s history, when we descended into the grim and ghastly grasp of socialism. The Orwellian aspects of an Obama presidency are just too obvious to ignore. Our new president likes to strike poses reminiscent of FDR and JFK, and the media obliges with lavish coverage. But it’s the carefully crafted language that Obama uses to describe his dreary utopia that should make the average Joe a little nervous. When President Obama announces that ’a private Wall Street can no longer threaten Main Street’, just what the heck does he mean? There are at least two potential meanings - either Wall Street will be nationalized, or Wall Street will be so heavily regulated that it won’t be able sell a single security without direct government control. Neither is very good for America. This phrase is but one in hundreds of similarly cryptic pronouncements that Obama made prior to and after the election. He means to change things. Let’s all hope that he doesn’t make things worse, like FDR did.

Unfortunately, Obama appears to be headed down the same road to ruin that FDR, LBJ and Jimmy Carter previously trod. It’s a foregone conclusion that a huge increase in government and government spending will breeze through Congress. This ’stimulus’ package contains every single earmark and pet project ever dreamed up by any left wing loon in the Democratic Party. Every single stupid idea and wasteful government project ever devised is now enshrined in this pork barrel bonanza masquerading as help for a stricken economy. Much like FDR deepened and prolonged the Depression with ridiculous and harmful government intervention, Obama, along with his co-conspirators Pelosi and Reid, intend to repeat history. We will be thrust into a deep abyss, cheered on by the mindless mobs who think that a few government handouts will solve all their problems.

The mainstream media will go along with the hype and cover up the true nature of the proceedings. Our Constitution will be quickly disassociated from government and legislation. The normal checks and balances that prevent our government from running away with both the treasury and the law will be eradicated. Under the pretense of an economic recession, we will be stripped of our basic rights and the opportunity to prosper through our own efforts. The parasites will be in firm control of the government and the engines of wealth creation. The rest of us will work for the government, either directly or indirectly. The wealthy will escape this dreary existence, just as they have in Europe and elsewhere. The barriers to new wealth creation will be fortified, and the barriers between classes made impenetrable. It won’t matter how hard you work, or how well-intentioned your efforts may be.

If you’re born working-class, you’ll die working-class. That is unless you sell your soul to the Party - the only way out. That’s how it worked in the Soviet Union and Communist China. Welcome, comrade, to the era of hope and change.

Former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich recently appeared on a Discovery Channel program that attempted to explain economics and capitalism. Reich, a seemingly well-educated man, kept referring to capitalism as simply dressed-up greed. In his fevered mind, there appeared to be no place for capitalism in the world, because it was based on greed. He referred to the writings of Adam Smith as proof that greed was the underlying motivation for capitalism - not personal achievement or bettering one’s life, not even providing the best for one’s family. It was just simple greed. Reich is not an idiot, but he is a demagogue. He’s entitled to his opinions, but when they are amplified and broadcast across the country, his extremist views influence others. The program provided no opposing views or commentary. This insult to our open, free-market economic system went unanswered, as do many other such insults.

Contrast Reich’s opinions with the observations of Alexis de Tocqueville, a French writer and political scientist who toured America in the early 1800s. He was struck by the incredible energy and vitality of everyday Americans - simple men and women who worked doggedly at improving their lot in life. He observed that this was possible only in America, because only in America did hard work pay off for the common man. Therefore, it wasn’t ‘greed’ that motivated Americans over the last 200 years, it was the possibility, the certainty, that if they worked really hard, no one could take their newly found prosperity away from them. It energized them, it gave them hope for a better tomorrow. And yes, a very few people became very rich doing so. But, the more important point is that hundreds upon thousands became very prosperous - much more so than if they’d remained in Europe. It was the growth and political stability of a solid middle class that distinguished America from any other nation at any other time.

This has always been the central argument against capitalism — the poor are exploited by the greedy rich. In Europe, the poor had been exploited by the rich and powerful for centuries, well before capitalism existed. And, there were proportionately more poor people in Europe during the 1800s than in America. They were held back by social barriers, denied education and opportunity, prohibited from relocating to areas with better economic conditions. This was the reality of life in England and Europe. Slavery was abolished in the United States by presidential decree in 1861. But only after pressure was applied by other European governments did Russia finally abolish serfdom for Ukrainian peasants in 1862, freeing hundreds of thousands from centuries of bondage. The lack of opportunity and incentive was a fact of life for millions of Europeans.

In America, those who escaped the rigid social and economic structure of Europe were becoming landowners, opened small businesses and sent their children to universities. This was impossible anywhere else in the world and in many places is still impossible today. What America’s largely classless society was able to accomplish was the marvel of the modern world - a relatively well functioning capitalist system with minimal interference by aristocrats, autocrats and bureaucrats. Was it perfect? No. Did excesses and failures occur? Yes. But, it’s still the best system ever devised by man. The irony is that the liberal elite who preach against a free-market economy and capitalism have benefited most from its bounty.

Take Robert Reich as an example -  he attended Dartmouth College and won a Rhodes scholarship to study in England. The Rhodes scholarship was endowed by Cecil Rhodes, a capitalist and diamond merchant. Reich then taught at Harvard University, the wealthiest educational institution in the world. Harvard endowments exceed $45 billion, most of them gifts from capitalist alumni. At Brandeis University he was the Maurice B. Hexter Professor of Social and Economy Policy at the Heller School of Social Policy and Management. He’s currently a professor at UC Berkley’s Goldman School of Public Policy. Maurice Hexter, Florence Heller, Richard and Rhoda Goldman are philanthropists who endowed the institutions that paid Reich’s salary. Where did their money come from? Capitalism. This ingrate, along with his former girlfriend Hillary Clinton and thousands of other liberals, have no problem taking money from capitalists only to turn around and bite the hand that feeds them.

But then, this is what liberals do. They resent the fact that someone else has worked harder, worked smarter or had the good fortune to accumulate wealth. Envy is a powerful emotion. It’s corrosive, destructive and insidious. Envy, dressed up as public policy, is what threatens free market capitalism. Demagogues like Reich and Obama have used envy to whip up class warfare, turning it to their own advantage. Socialism is their choice of socio-political structure, not because it’s inherently better than capitalism, but because it can be easily controlled by a small elite. That’s right: Socialist activists like Reich and Obama firmly believe in their own superior intellect and abilities, and they’re more than happy to impose their ideology on the rest of America. The average American can’t seem to grasp this. Why would someone dedicate their lives to telling other people what to do? There doesn’t seem to be any profit in it. And that’s the key - Americans are so conditioned to a direct linkage between effort and material reward that the desire to accumulate personal power is totally foreign.

They don’t understand it because they’ve never lived under despotic rulers or communist totalitarianism. Josef Stalin murdered millions and destroyed entire civilizations. He controlled the Soviet Unions economy with an iron fist. As the supreme ruler, he could have any material thing he wanted. And yet, he lived like a pauper. This is unfathomable to the average American. Unfortunately, Americans will need to get used to it. Obama’s monstrous plan to grow government means that all Americans will be working for the government, whether they understand it or not and whether they like it or not.

Reich, Obama and other well-educated liberal elites have no problem taking money from capitalists to feather their own nests. They have no problem taking money from taxpayers, either. Using our tax dollars, they will build a utopia in their own image and likeness. And, they’ll do it in the name of ‘fairness’. At some point, Americans will wake up and find themselves yoked to a huge and unyielding machine that sucks the life out of them. But it will be too late. Betrayed by liberal ideals, Americans will have allowed the most despotic form of government to take hold. They will have thrown away their freedoms and their future.

Obama’s surrogates and spokespersons are out on the news talk circuit, re-setting expectations for the Anointed One’s first year in office. The massive socialist spending spree promised during the campaign is now being repackaged as an economic stimulus and ‘infrastructure investment’ to quell fears on Wall Street and the world banking system. As before, they blame the ‘failed Bush policies’ for the current economic problems, but there’s a new twist - they’re now openly condemning our entire economic system. That’s right, Obama’s people are attacking free-market capitalism and the concept of private business. They’ve called free-market capitalism a ‘failure’ and they mean to change it. The $800 billion Obama intends to blow in 2009 is a down payment on a brand spanking new socialist economic system, complete with quasi-governmental corporations (remember Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac?), oversight boards loaded with government union representatives, and thousands of politically connected ‘consultants’ and ‘experts’.

Where are the media folks on this one? In fact, where are the Republicans? There is no doubt that Obama will be setting the agenda - he wants his marxist vision implemented quickly, before the masses understand what’s happened to them. This isn’t a matter of hyperbole or reactionary zeal. This man and his backers fully intend to take America down an irreversible path to socialism with a uniquely American twist. Wealthy liberals like the Kennedy’s, Kerry’s and much of the East Coast’s social elite will be protected from confiscatory income and capital gains taxes with rifle-shot exemptions and loosened regulation of private foundations, which are overwhelmingly pro-liberal. Read Phil Kent’s Foundations of Betrayal to get an eye-popping overview of how private foundations influence political discourse and shape national policy.

Working under the premise that repeating a lie often will find it accepted as truth, Obama’s people will relentlessly pound the ‘free-market failure’, drumming this nonsense into the heads of unwary and unsophisticated Americans simply looking for a handout in troubled times. Our fellow citizens will give away their economic freedoms and hope for the future in exchange for a government handout that will be gone in a week. Obama’s counting on it.

Republicans will sit back, shake their heads and pronounce that nobody’s stupid enough to give away economic opportunity in exchange for some cash, and this couldn’t possibly happen. They’re wrong. American voters have proven gullible to a breathtaking degree and demagogues like Obama have taken full advantage of it.  Never underestimate the shortsightedness of parasites or their champions.

As liberals in Congress and the media push America into the clutches of a socialist oligarchy, they fail to mention that as part of this utopian fiction we’ll be giving up most of our personal freedoms. In exchange for government handouts and subsidies, Americans will sacrifice prosperity. In exchange for free medical coverage, Americans will sacrifice their personal health. And, in exchange for ‘fairness’, Americans will give up their right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It’s a bad deal all the way around. The few who understand just how bad a deal this is are outnumbered 100 to 1 by the idiots who think they’re getting something for nothing.

When thousands stand in line for a flu shot, are denied a heart bypass because they’re too old, or are turned away for medical treatment because their racial quota has already been filled, it will be too late. America is turning itself into a socialist monster of unparalleled dimensions. Unlike Russia and China, which were largely underdeveloped and ethnically homogeneous when communism was imposed, the US is a huge and diverse society with a titanic, sprawling economy. What inequities exist will now by vastly magnified as the ‘experts’ from Washington try to micromanage our lives and livelihoods. For every stupid and short-sighted fix there will be dozens of unintended consequences, each radiating outward and interacting with other stupid and short-sighted fixes. These socialist dilettantes actually believe that they know what they’re doing. And we are their guinea pigs.

That’s where the true genius in the Constitution lies — it created a simple but rigid framework upon which to build a dynamic society and a robust economy that allowed the people, not the politicians, to direct their common fate. No micromanaging required. Society and markets regulate themselves. It may not be terrifically efficient and it occasionally gets messy, but it beats socialism hands down for one simple reason: the innate human drive for personal betterment trumps mediocrity imposed from above.

As we gather to celebrate this national holiday, parents in New England squabble about the personal degradation and humiliation to which their children are subjected at this time of year. Apparently, these helpless waifs are forced to dress up as Native Americans and re-enact the Thanksgiving feast with other children dressed as Pilgrims. As shoppers fill the aisles of grocery stores, a debate rages over the Thanskgiving day release of an 8 year-old accused of shooting is father and another man. And, as linens are unfolded and silver is polished, animal rights activists are suing Butterball for the inhumane treatment of turkeys.

We have much to be thankful for. As of this week, the Bill of Rights still stands. The Constitution hasn’t been entirely tossed out yet. Al Franken won’t be the incoming senator from Minnesota.  And, unless some Republican senator loses his or her mind, the Democrats won’t be able to ram a socialist manifesto through Congress. It’s not much, but it’s something. Okay, the Obama thing didn’t work out, but we can all pray that he’s totally incompetent and won’t be able to execute his marxist agenda.

As you sit down with your significant others in your soon-to-be-foreclosed home, try to enjoy the Thanksgiving feast that pushed your last working credit card over the limit. Ignore the sounds of a repo man hoisting your SUV onto his flatbed as the pink slip that arrived yesterday rustles gently in your shirt pocket. This is America, after all…

We’ll be taking Thursday off.

The Producer or Parasite? blog, website and all of its features are aimed at the general public - those who have only a mild interest in politics, society and where this country is headed. The goal is to get these Americans a bit more involved in the political process or to at least be aware of what’s going on. Although political wonks, junkies and insiders are more than welcome, there are plenty of other sources more focused on specific issues and more scholarly in their approach. Producer or Parasite? is not and will never be a think tank or conservative news outlet. That’s not the mission. Rather, this blog and website is here to ask questions that John Q. Public might have and then answer it in a way John Q. Public can grasp. It becomes a question of balance: where to set the bar so that every reader gets something out of the posts and weekly columns. What’s becoming obvious is the huge gap between the politically aware and the average American.

A recent study concluded that most Americans know little about the Constitution, that there are actually three branches of government, or that Presidents can’t declare wars or make treaties. And, too many Americans think the electoral college exists to prepare a citizen for public office. Further, most Americans cannot name the Speaker of the House, the Senate Majority Leader or the House Majority Leader, much less understand what they’re really up to. We’ve voted in a new President based on sound bites and saturation advertising. Europeans are laughing at us. Terrorists are sharpening their knives.

How did Americans become so utterly ignorant of their situation? Theories abound, but it’s probably just a result of the extraordinarily poor education received in public schools compounded by a media culture that doesn’t value academics or critical thinking in any form. Actually, it’s rather ironic: the failure of public education actually protects and enriches those most responsible for that failure. Ain’t America great?