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"Producer or Parasite?" examines the fallout from socialism, social engineering and the culture of entitlement in America.

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The un-American President

March 9, 2009

Barack Obama has dedicated himself to destroying this country. He’s attacking the very ideals and institutions that have made this country the greatest in the history of mankind. He’s taken upon himself the grim task of gutting the Constitution, the system of checks and balances, and a free-market economy that’s the envy of the world. Why would he do this? Because he’s not familiar with the America most Americans live in. His father was Kenyan - an alcoholic womanizer who visited this country once or twice. His American mother was an ultra-liberal that flitted about the globe, dragging her young son with her as she attempted to ‘find’ herself. He spent his formative years in Indonesia attending a Muslim school. Barack Obama had no grounding in what being an American truly is, what it means, and what’s important to Americans.

Barack Obama is an exemplary orator. Too bad that what he’s spewing is pure Marxist dogma. And yet, the stupid and the gullible sop it up, quivering in joy when they hear him speak, misunderstanding his true intentions and the ‘plans’ he has for America. Even black Americans who voted for Obama had better pay attention now. If they thought their lot in life was somehow diminished during the Bush administration, just wait until Obama is done with them. The Messiah will alter their America, too. And they won’t recognize it when he’s finished.

Well-educated, well-spoken and well-dressed, Obama the demagogue told everyone what they wanted to hear. But, he was very plain and straightforward about his vision for a Marxist utopia - except nobody really listened. Now, he’s making good on his promise to ‘re-make’ America, uproot its traditions and reason for being. No, he’s not going to create some sort of Euro-style socialist state. He’s going for the throat - a full-on Marxist takeover, complete with his promised ‘internal security force’ the size of our military. Why would the Anointed One, the Great Visionary, need an internal security force composed mostly of our poorly educated and gullible students, except to create another Hitler Youth or Red Guard to impose the will of Obama and the Democratic Party on us all? It’s a frightening prospect.

The media & entertainment clowns continue to cheer him on. The conservatives continue to question his motives and methods, but they’re largely outshouted. And so, Obama goes about his business - stampeding the stupid into giving him the imprimatur to take away all of our economic freedoms. And without economic freedom, the ability to keep what you earn guaranteed by our Constitution, the freedom to vote or voice your opinion is nearly useless. No one will hear you complaining when you’re standing in a breadline.

Obama is using the banking crisis to ram through a Marxist agenda - government control of energy, healthcare and capital formation. He’s lying about his true intent, cloaking this outrageous power grab as a means to moderate the economic downturn. Creating a ‘green’ economy with unproven technology and government subsidies is not a free-standing, self-sufficient economy. Bankrupting coal producers, coal-fired energy generation, oil companies and auto companies is not going to create a rebound. Confiscating healthcare and turning it into a political weapon will not cause prosperity to materialize. And certainly, adding a huge new tax burden on economic activity will not create jobs.

But then, Obama doesn’t really care if the economy recovers at all. The worse it gets, the more power he’ll accumulate and the further our great country will slide into the clutches of a failed ideology. To the Democrats that won’t matter in the least. They’ll always have the ‘rich’ and the Republicans to blame for anything and everything that goes wrong. And when it gets really tough, fellow Democrats can meet up with their President at the White House for a cocktail on Wednesday nights and dine on $100 per pound steak. Hey, it’s free, isn’t it? Go on, a second helping couldn’t hurt…

Parasite Food Chain - It ain’t pretty…

February 3, 2009

Otto von Bismarck, the Iron Duke that unified Germany in the mid-1800s once said that the average citizen who upholds the law and enjoys his sausage wouldn’t want to see how either is made. The same can be said of parasites who’ve harmed this country and its citizens. Using the institutions of democracy - the right to vote, the right of free speech and assembly, an open legislature, an impartial judiciary and the separation of powers, the parasites and their champions have short-circuited the safeguards put in place by the writers of the Constitution. And they were provided cover by a biased and agenda-driven media cabal.

Enemies of the American way of life have been at it for some time and have refined their craft to an art form. They comprise a large part of the Democratic Party and its patrons, themselves top-tier parasites. Everyone thinks parasites are those who simply don’t want to work or are looking for a free handout. Actually, top-tier parasites work very hard for their piece of the action. What makes them parasites is that their reward is so gigantically out of proportion for their efforts.

Think of the lawyers who ‘represented’ taxpayers in every state against Big Tobacco. Who made billions? Certainly not the states who brought suit against the tobacco companies, nor those sickened by or dying of smoking-related illnesses. Individual lawyers charged the states they were representing as much as $39,000 an hour for their services, based on the percentages they exacted from the awards paid by Big Tobacco.

Then there are the union bosses who live off the dues collected from industrial workers for whom they provide so little in the way of promises made. By the way, if you’re an influential liberal, you can serve on the boards or regional councils of a few non-profit liberal political action committees and collect a stipend from each. It’s possible to earn $200,000 a year for part-time work. Not bad by anyones’ standards.

Lobbyists. Consultants. Academics. The list goes on and on. Well-educated. Smart. Well-connected. It’s like a club. Except, you the taxpayer don’t belong. Only your paycheck does. You have little say about how the money is spent or who gets that money. Unlike a private charity, you can’t dictate where the government spends your money, even though our Constitution absolutely grants you the right and privilege to do so. Your concerns and misgivings about where this country is headed will be dismissed as stupid, regressive and possibly racist. You can’t possibly know as much as the liberal elite. Don’t question their motives or their results. They know what’s best for you.

The Parasite Pyramid

January 28, 2009

This is the weekly home page article. For daily blogs, please click on Recent Postings at screen right

Think of parasites as an organizational pyramid or multilevel marketing enterprise. Maybe a better descriptor is Ponzi scheme. At the top of the pyramid are the liberal elite, the union bosses, trial lawyers, environmental gurus and political hacks that exhort Americans to sacrifice more, tighten their belts and stop complaining about higher taxes, loss of personal freedoms and economic opportunity.

At the bottom are the stupid schmucks that support and believe in the parasite elite, expecting to get something out of this whole pyramid scheme. They usually get the short end of the stick - a few handouts and some useless programs. The middle class gets stuck paying for handouts to the parasites, including the very top of the pyramid.

Let’s use trial lawyers as an example. When one of these parasites is advertising for slip and fall injuries or asbestos-related disease on television, they’re aiming at the bottom of the pyramid. They promise to get their clients big money awards with no fees and no risk. Obviously, they neglect to tell these poor folks, who indeed may have a legitimate claim, that they’ll receive just a small fraction of any award. The trial lawyers aren’t advertising to the upper middle class (aka the taxpayers). No self-respecting small business owner, corporate exec, doctor or professional would even consider representation by an ambulance-chaser. The trial lawyers aim their advertising at the poor, unemployed, hopeless and desperate. They are typically in financial trouble, uneducated and unfamiliar with how these legal parasites work their game. So, they end up signing away their rights in a class action suit or bundled case, and receive far less than they deserve. The trail lawyers, on the other hand, make millions, usually by overwhelming the court or the accused with hundreds of simultaneous claims. Just to the clear the docket, many judges will urge the accused to settle, even if they’re completely blameless.

Obviously, trial lawyers resist any legal reforms that would stop this gravy train. They invest heavily in the Democratic Party, donating millions. In fact, in most states, trial lawyers are the largest political donors. They have enormous influence.

Politicians work the system in a similar manner. They promise the poor, uneducated, hopeless or shiftless just about anything to get elected, knowing full well they can’t possibly deliver on those promises. Once in office, they create programs and laws that take money from working Americans and redistribute it to those who can’t or won’t provide for themselves. But, the government is incredibly inefficient in the redistribution of wealth. For every dollar collected in taxes, only 20 cents actually makes it to the person who needs it. The other 80 cents is used up by the government to ‘administer’ the redistribution. Wouldn’t we be better off with private charities doing this work? After all, even the least efficient private charity still delivers 70 cents of every donated dollar to the proper recipient.

Socialist politicians masquerading as Democrats don’t really want private charities to exist because they are competition. Instead, they want government to assume the roles of benefactor, parent, guidance counselor, personal financier, doctor and therapist in the name of ‘fairness’ and ‘compassion’. What’s really going on is that socialist politicians have been able to manipulate the poor and working class to their own advantage, creating a powerful voting bloc. That voting bloc is kept motivated by promises of even more government handouts at the expense of the ‘rich’, who truly don’t deserve their wealth no matter how hard they worked for it. By inciting class warfare, they keep themselves in office.

Much like the trial lawyers who promise big cash awards and instead grab most of it for themselves, politicians promise the poor and working class handouts and special privileges, knowing they can’t deliver. Instead, that money is absorbed by the politicians’ real constituency - huge government bureaucracies, the labor unions representing them and politically connected government contractors who are themselves unionized or generously underwrite liberal causes. There is one other, very important beneficiary of the redistribution game - activist organizations that directly engage with the poor, the disenfranchised and working poor or pretend to represent them in some way. Many, like the ACLU and A.C.O.R.N., receive direct government funding so that they can continue to foment class hatred and despair among millions of Americans, instilling in them a sense of entitlement instead of a sense of empowerment.

But it’s not just the poor and working class Americans who look to government handouts. Wall Street has snagged billions in taxpayer money to prop up billionaires and a culture of entitlement. Unlike the millions of poor and working poor that have only one vote to cast, the relatively small number of Wall Street honchos and financiers write big campaign donation checks. They buy their political clout, just like trial lawyers. Ask Democrats Barney Frank and Chris Dodd. When the Wall Street people overstep their bounds, when they truly screw up, these cobras lean on the American taxpayer. And the American taxpayer is completely unaware that the government, steered by politicians, dispenses money based on political considerations above all else. So, if billions are handed out to the poor, millions of poor each get a couple bucks. If billions are handed out on Wall Street, millions of bucks go to just a few people. The top of the parasite pyramid generally gets the same amount of money as the bottom of the pyramid - it’s just spread out among fewer people. And they have no problem taking it. After all, it’s free!

How Obama got elected dot com

January 26, 2009

Visit www.howobamagotelected.com for an eyeful of unnerving and infuriating video clips that unmistakably demonstrate the extraordinary influence the electronic media have over elections, the voting process, voter awareness and the functioning of our democracy. The people interviewed in this clips were not morons. But it was astounding to witness how precisely the media cabal can attenuate negative information about Obama or Biden while amplifying erroneous or negative information about Palin and McCain. Please note that Palin takes precedent over McCain. Without her, McCain wouldn’t have captured 45% of the popular vote and Obama would have been voted into office by an apparent landslide. It’s not that Obama was a sterling candidate, even though the media lavished attention on his candidacy and hushed up the questionable aspects of his history and character. It’s simply that John McCain was such a horribly bad candidate. Palin rescued the hapless boob from a horrifying defeat that would have sent the absolutely wrong signal to America and the world. That’s why the media cabal was so intent on destroying Palin, because she kept Obama from claiming an overwhelming mandate that would have empowered him to plunge this country into socialism. As it stands now, some Republicans might even summon up enough courage to object to he more extreme measures proposed.

The parasites and their champions are fully aware that a voter-proof Democratic Party will protect their gravy train. Over the past 125 years, the Democratic Party has come to exemplify the most unsavory aspects of the democratic system, where power and votes are brokered and sold. The Democratic Party has perfected the power-dependency duality of patronage politics. And so, the Democrats felt perfectly justified to thwart the will of the people, put up a dangerously incompetent and ideologically suspect demagogue for President, and gamble with the future of this country for their own short-term gain. This is not an isolated incident. This is the overarching goal for the Democratic Party - they want to make themselves voter-proof. By doing so, they enrich and empower their exclusive constituents: labor and teacher unions, government at all levels, trial lawyers, environmental extremists, government contractors and yes, unbelievably - Wall Street. Surprised? You shouldn’t be. Many of the Wall Street honchos are Democrats because their personal philosophy goes hand in glove with the mindset of other top-tier parasites like union bosses and trial lawyers. After all, as an investor or retiree, you’re just a mark, a source of commissions and fees. This accumulation of money by unions, trial lawyers and wealthy liberals allows the Democrat Party to buy its way into office and then ‘redistribute’ taxpayers’ hard-earned money to friends and political allies. Don’t think that the media cabal won’t ask for real money for being instrumental in getting Obama elected. That’s the way the game is played. Too bad most Americans will never know.

It’s not perfect, but it’s the best there is

December 29, 2008

The Democratic Party and its left-wing supporters aren’t happy with America, the Constitution, the tax code and the role of government. If only they could remake America in the image of other failed socialist endeavors, like England, Canada, France, Sweden or even the old Soviet Union. Then, they would love that America more than the one our founding fathers envisioned. If only they could scrap the Constitution and rewrite it for a more ‘contemporary’ society to eliminate any reference to God, duty, personal responsibility and public virtue. Then, they could begin to ‘believe’ in the Constitution.

And, if only they could change the tax code so that it was more like Sweden, where the upper income ranges were taxed as high as 85%, then maybe there would be more to like about America. Never mind that it kills personal incentive and/or moves wealth out of the country. It would be more ‘fair’ to those who don’t achieve, don’t outperform and lead lives with low expectations. And finally, if only government could intrude and control every aspect of every one’s lives except the ruling elite then finally there would be an America even a Democrat could love with all his/her/its heart.

America isn’t perfect. The Constitution isn’t perfect. But both are a whole world better than anything dreamed up by anyone else on this planet at any point in time. When the poop hits the fan, who does the world turn to for help, France? Russia? No, when there’s a tsunami, a famine, an earthquake, ethnic cleansing, economic distress or despotic excess, everyone in the world expects America to jump into the fray and lead the way. Then, they can sit back and armchair-quarterback our actions, especially that cesspool of corruption - the United Nations.

When nations are finally able to throw off the yoke of communism, socialism or totalitarianism, what is their first impulse? They look at America’s system of government, our free market economy and a largely classless society as a worthy ideal, and attempt to organize a constitutional republic. Which begs the question, if the American ideals are so desirable, and most free people hope to emulate it, why are the Democrats so fiercely invested in changing them? Why do Democrats and their leftist masters hate what America and Americans have accomplished over the last 200 years?

The answer is simple. They weren’t responsible for this country’s greatest achievements. Everyday working Americans, entrepreneurs and yes, capitalists, were the ones who built this country into a world power. And now, the socialists want to remake it into some kind of hopeless and dreary utopia. Perhaps they can find someplace else to work their experiments. Canada is nice this time of year. Much like Siberia.

A Taxpayer’s Christmas

December 22, 2008

Executives on Wall Street will be sharing $1.6 billion in year-end bonuses after a disastrous year that saw trillions of dollars in personal wealth erased. They’re called retention bonuses - money to keep high powered talent from bolting and joining a competitor. But, given that most every firm on Wall Street has partaken of the government’s generosity, where would they run to? Wall Street asks that the taxpayers put this all in perspective. After all, the bonus pool is down considerably from the $45-60 billion handed out last year, when the geniuses on Wall Street thought the world was their oyster. Yes, they must be suffering terribly. No chartered yachts in the Mediterranean at $100,000 a week, no helicopter skiing in Gstadt, and that 5th or 6th home is just not going to happen this year.

Meanwhile, the national debt foisted on the taxpayer has increased by another 3 or 4 trillion when all is said and done. Let’s be clear who the taxpayer is: It’s not any household earning less than $60,000 annually. It’s not any household earning more than $1.5 million annually. It’s the 15% of the population in between those figures which shoulders 75% of all taxes paid. That small group of taxpayers also includes their dependents - the spouses and children who must cut back, economize and delay. Oh, but they have so much! They should pay their ‘fair share’, after all. In this season of giving, exactly what is ‘fair’? Is it ‘fair’ to take away five times as much from someone who’s bothered to complete their education and worked for years to achieve a good-paying job?

The progressive tax scheme is patently unfair. It penalizes personal ambition and achievement. It destroys personal incentive and self-reliance. It rewards parasitic behavior at the top and the bottom of the socioeconomic scale. Wall Street is a perfect example. The pay scales for middle management and executives is so incredibly lucrative that they gladly give away half to the government. At their pay scales it’s like winning the lottery. But, that’s cold comfort for someone who’s putting in 80 hours a week to take down $200,000 in gross compensation. Losing half of that to the tax man is a bitter pill to swallow. But it’s an everday reality for millions of well-educated, dedicated and professional Americans. And yet, they can’t complain, because they’re ‘rich’, they’re ‘privileged’. Well, they’re being looted and there’s nothing they can do about it. 

These are the same folks who paid off their college loans, got a good job and worked hard at it. They saved up their money to put a deposit on a home and this is where they were going to raise their kids. They have good credit scores, some investments and a nice, big mortgage. They’ve seen their house values deteriorate while their property taxes increase. They’ve had the credit card companies punish them with 33% interest rates for being one day late with a payment. And, they’ve had their income taxes raised at the local, state and federal level. Some have even endured the pleasure of the ATM tax scam. At some point, these people are going to stop trying so hard to get ahead. They’re going to put their feet up and lower their expectations, just like the bottom of the socioeconomic scale. Where will government turn to collect their taxes, Santa?

The eve of destruction

November 3, 2008

As Americans go to the polls on Tuesday, they’re not thinking about the historic consequences of their actions. Uninformed, bamboozled and misled, many Americans will vote in a regime that will destroy a political and economic system that has been a wonder to this world for more than two centuries. Years from now, honest historians will analyze the 2008 election, trying to understand how a free people could have so willingly taken on the yoke of servitude. Dishonest historians will celebrate the 2008 election as the triumph of the People’s Republic of America, when a Great Leader was at last permitted to shape his utopia, taking from the rich and giving to the, well, not necessarily the poor. First, to his friends and flunkies, and then maybe what’s left over, to the less fortunate.

Honest historians and political commentators may look back on the 2008 presidential and congressional races as a dark day for America, when socialism triumphed and the mistakes of 1930s and 1960s were to be repeated and amplified. In the 1930s, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a liberal elitist, aided and abetted by a Democrat-controlled Congress, created programs and policy that still carry their toxic fallout into the 21st century. FDR instituted the concept of Big Government, the all-knowing, all-seeing Big Brother, and the rule of ‘experts’ who decided the fate of the country, as well as individual citizens. The country reeled from the effects of this socialist agenda. It took years to recover.

Lyndon Baines Johnson followed in FDR’s footsteps. Along with a Democrat-controlled Congress, Johnson, a liberal elitist, created more programs and policies that have devastated American society, the economy and our political system. LBJ and the Democrats created a culture of entitlement, a society of permissiveness and sloth, a nation of whiners and  hustlers constantly clamoring for more handouts.  The Great Society, War on Poverty and other social engineering programs have indelibly altered the American psyche and our country’s guiding principles. The Democrats knowingly and willingly sacrificed economic freedom and opportunity for America’s working class and poor in order to gain power. And, the story is about to repeat itself.

Where will Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid take this country? Will we be able to weather yet another round of failed policy and programs that pushed us over the brink into the hellpit of socialism? Who knows. Not even the Anointed One can predict the outcome.

From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.

October 27, 2008

Obama has made no secret of his wealth distribution jihad. And, the paralells to Karl Marx just keep piling up. He has promised to right all wrongs, take from the rich and give to the poor. This, of course, has the effect of a feeding frenzy. The parasites, sensing a payday, are already rejoicing. But that celebration may be premature and probably short-lived. That’s because the masses voting for Obama’s redistribution plan aren’t the ones to benefit from it. The payoff will be enormous for trial lawyers, lobbyists, Hollywood types, and other moneyed members of the liberal elite. The average working stiff will instead get stuck with the bill, or at the very least, won’t get much in return for his/her vote.

Obama and Biden will institute a statist form of socialism that effectively closes off opportunity and upward mobility for those who haven’t already clawed their way to an elite status. They’ll do this with crippling taxes, mountains of red tape and invasive social engineering. Outside of American Idol, the doors to personal achievement and true wealth-building will be closed. In other words, America will now resemble the rest of the world. For all their class warfare demagoguery, it’s the Democrats who want to formalize and freeze class distinctions. It keeps them in power for as long as they can fool the working and middle classes into believing they are the party of the common man. That was a lie way back in FDR’s day, as much as it is today. And once Democrats control the White House, Congress and the Supreme Court, they will pass laws and regulations to make sure they’ll never be voted out. Our most fundamental right will have been taken away.

This is not idle speculation. The Mackinaw Center discovered such a plot in Michigan, where Democratic legislators, lobbyists and various ‘grass roots’ groups were attempting to create legislation and policy that would have guaranteed Democrats total control of state government with no accountability and no public recourse. They could not be voted out of office. By the way, this went unreported in the state’s largest newspapers and TV stations. A few radio talk show hosts were the only ones to mention this overt abridgement of voting rights and representative government. Michigan Republicans were able to muster a creaky, tepid response that put the measure on hold. To Democrats, this was only a temporary setback. They lie in wait. One wonders how many other states have similar measures in play.

Can you live in servitude?

October 22, 2008

Americans, on average, make for really lousy serfs and servants. A couple hundred years enjoying unequalled freedoms, a largely classless society and social mobility make Americans a very independent sort of people. They chafe and complain under too much authority and too many rules. Better get used to it. A life of servitude awaits at the end of the Obama song and dance routine. Even the parasites who voted in the Anointed One and the creatures inhabiting Congress will find that life won’t be so rosy once the Gang of Three takes over. Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid will begin where Lenin began. Hopefully, they won’t end up where Stalin did.

They’ll shake down the rich. When the rich are no more, they’ll shake down the merely affluent. When the affluent are gone, they’ll start on the ‘middle class’. One detail Obama omitted in his oratory: There aren’t enough wealthy people to give the masses what they’ve been promised. The top 2% of wage earners can’t begin to pay for the other 98%, even if the government took away everything they have. It does not compute. But, most Americans have been so poorly served by the public education system they can’t figure it out. Hhmm.

The Democrats will be swept into office by pandering to the parasites, promising them the riches earned by the producers. And, those parasites aren’t necessarily the stereotypes that first come to mind. In fact, the most pernicious, coldly effective parasites are members of the liberal elite. They are affluent, educated, politically connected insiders. They firmly believe in class distinctions provided, of course, that the prevailing social structure puts them at the very top. Everyone else is here to carry their bags and wash their cars. In cascading order will come the others — bureaucrats, moneylenders, unions, and at the very tail end, the people who truly need to be helped.

It is stunning that so few Americans are uninvolved in something so important. A recent study suggests that fewer than 15% of Americans know who Nancy Pelosi is, even as she endeavors to take food off their tables, money out of their wallets and boost energy costs into the stratosphere. But what Americans don’t know and don’t care about will condemn them to a life of servitude. The promised change is coming.

A bitter harvest

October 21, 2008

America’s parasites are welcoming the presumed ascendancy of Barack Obama to the highest office in the land. He’s made promises up and down the socio-economic ladder to just about anyone he thinks will be able to cast a vote, legally or illegally. There will be more pork, says Obama. There will be more handouts, says Obama. There will be more welfare of every form, says Obama. And he’s not hiding the fact that there will be more taxes to pay for it all. But, that tax will be paid only by the richest in the land, who couldn’t possibly have made that money by their own effort, comittment and risk. It was wealth accumulated by some nefarious, unknown means that in all fairness must be distributed to all. So says Obama. And when elected, he and his Democratic henchmen will put this country through a wrenching, hellish transformation.

Obama, the one we’ve all been waiting for, knows nothing of wealth creation and what makes this country so very different from the rest of the world. And if he does, he doesn’t care. Like Lenin and the Bolsheviks, Obama, Pelosi and Reid will experiment with the economy, the political process, the role of government and the structure of society. We will be the guinea pigs, as will our children and their children. They will solidify their power so that the Democratic party can never be voted out of office and government can grow exponentially. This, they have solemnly promised America. They don’t have to hide their agenda anymore. The parasites, who outnumber the producers, focused on the promises of easy money and government handouts, cheerfully giving up their economic freedoms.

The transition into socialism will be subtle. The transformation into a socialist state, with its ruling elite, party apparatchicks and clueless masses will not. When millions of middle class Americans are jobless, homeless and hopeless as Obama twists the knobs and fiddles with our fates, it will be too late to point out that the Democrats made their intentions very clear. And even the parasites will suffer. Because they’re no longer needed to vote, apply political pressure or write big campaign checks. They’ll be cast aside and told to fend for themselves — a bitter harvest to be sure.

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