Happy Drunken Irish Day!

As a third generation American of Irish decent, am I the only one offended at the concept of St Patrick's Day being promoted and roundly observed as a big drinking day? And is naming a drink an "Irish Car Bomb" even remotely funny?

After a long history of invasions, repressions, starvation and servitude, getting our asses kicked by the Romans, the Anglo-Saxons, the Vikings and the Normans/British, the only thing a modern person of Irish decent can look forward to is skipping a day of work to get plastered on St Paddy's Day and publicly making fools of themselves?

It even has it's own parade.

This is what our ancestors, who often came with only the clothes on their backs and leaving everything they had back in the old country, risked their necks to come to America for?

And once here they endured 10 hour days 6 days a week as fodder for the vast and giant, smokey brickwork mills of the industrial revolution, living crowded together in substandard housing and inhabiting the low end of the social scale until they established themselves in a new world. Nobody handed them anything, it was all earned by the sweat of their brow, the strength of their backs and the desire and resolve in their hearts.

Many died in the famine, many died in the Atlantic crossing and many died in the factories and crowded slums.

All so that in modern times we can perpetuate the image that we're a bunch of drunks.

Good thing their dead, 'cause this would kill 'em!

Just like the Italian's lack of humor when it comes to references to "The Mafia" or the Great American South to those "Duke's of Hazard" style hillbillies, I shudder each year at the prospect of this "Special" day and all the morons that come out for it.

But people can and should do what they want just as long as they only do it to themselves. It's just all done in such poor taste. And what a low class affair to pay $25- $35 to go into a pub you normally walk in free the rest of the year. But that's the way it is with the Irish I suppose, falling into their stereotypes for all to see. From Brendan Behan to Shane McGowan. It's a shame we haven't smartened up.

So drinking til one vomits it is for St. Patrick's Day. On this side of the pond anyway. Don't know how it's done in Ireland but I suppose somebody over there at least knows why they're doing it. For me I just find it insulting that this Irish Amature Night is not much better than Cinco de Mayo in the annals of marketing and manufactured ignorance.

And while we're at it, if the Fighting Irish symbol of Notre Dame University depicted a person of any other color or of any other race, there would be a such a hue and cry that everybody associated with it would have to resign in disgrace. But it's an Irishman, isn't it?

And nobody cares if they offend an Irishman.

I was watching a PBS special on the Civil Rights Movement the other night when the commentator said they "took Martin Luther King Jr. away in a Paddy Wagon.". I thought that statement summed it all up nicely.

So go ahead, drink up Boyos, and stumble down a flight of stairs for "Old Saint Paddy" for all I care. Sing your sad love songs and happy fighting songs while you're all in your cups.

I'll be home on my couch with a blanket pulled up over my head waiting for it all to be over, again.

Let’s Do Away with the TSA

They are supposed to protect us from terrorists but who will protect us from the TSA?

The Transportation Security Administration, the biggest bunch of government backed bullies ever to grace the American continent since the Pinkerton Detective Service clubbed down the Molly McGuires in the late 1870s.  Anyone who questions their authority is harassed, threatened and branded as kooks and malcontents. They are the emblem of wrong thinking and the embodiment of big, evil and wasteful Big Government.

These useless dolts, who that phony conservative George W. Bush not only invented but also unionized, creating a boat-load of federally funded union hacks, live to display their self-important swagger and harass hard working people who’s only crime is to want to get from point A to point B without being humiliated and treated like criminals.

The TSA has not stopped one potential bombing on a plane or one terrorist from boarding one. The “Shoe Bomber” Richard Reid was stopped by fellow passengers as was also Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the “Underwear Bomber”.  In fact all of the latest incidents that we have heard of have been stopped by passengers while already on the plane. There seems to be no statistics on what the TSA has actually accomplished in comparison to the private security they replaced other than pissing off a majority of the flying public and pissing through tons of taxpayer money.

We don’t need the TSA and we certainly can live without the attitude, the threats, the thievery, the bravado and the scandals of this embarrassing knot of toads passing for safety officers telling us all what to do for no discernible reason other than “They can”. After all, you don't want to be bumped from your flight. It'll cost you. So you lump it but that's not because you feel safe. The TSA isn't there to make you feel safe. When you're in line, you're the last on the list of priorities. It's their show now and you're along for the ride.You only have the privilege of paying for it. Consider it a pay off for the military men and women who fought GW Bush's useless wars. They get priority in hiring and there are even signs touting TSA employees who were in the military. As if that makes it all better.

The TSA is a tick on the ass of the American traveling public and it's time for this taxpayer funded Dog and Pony show to end. 

We've heard the unbelievable stories, the protests and the weak justifications. The verdict is in. The TSA should go. We've been felt up enough as a nation and we want a return to dignity and freedom. Neither will return as long as this government gang of bullies are allowed to run our airports.

They cost too much money, they are highly inefficient and above all, they’re ineffectual. For all the money, the delays, the scanners that don’t work and may or may not give off too much radiation, the widespread groping humiliations and the apologies, they haven’t made one bit of difference in the protection of flights and passengers. Like most government services, it’s all just a dog and pony show and the economy is all the weaker for it since that big bloated taxpayer funded budget has gone to naught. This money would be better spent elsewhere.

The sooner the airports rid themselves of these trolls, the better for all.

Let’s hope the airports, aided by the new opt out laws passed by Congress, will declare enough is enough. The TSAs time has come and gone. They were a bad idea and remain a bad idea.

Good riddance. 

Boston Rock of the 1980s: Boston Band Names

How important is having a good band name? It is most important! Most bands agonize over the name and they should too. For a band it’s about something bigger than the sum of its parts, it’s the name you hang out front, it’s what people will remember…or not. A good band name is a sign of imagination, an indication of your collective creativity and…it’s a king-size pain in the ass!

It’s so tough to get band members to agree on a stupid band name. “Jeez, just call it anything.” Oh, but it can’t be just ANYTHING! It’s got to mean SOMETHING, right?

Our first band, Cool McCool, was a trio and yet it took us three months to agree on a name. Tony thought “Second Sight” was a really cool name which James and I thought rightly, of course, was just plain stupid. At one point in our machinations I cracked and blurted out; “We don’t want anything sullen and gloomy like “Nuclear Winter” or anything like that do we?!”  At this James and Tony looked at each other and said “Now THAT would be a good name.”

I don’t know who it was but someone said that, with his dark hair and mustache, James looked just like that cartoon character Cool McCool that was on Saturday morning TV right after George of the Jungle. Whether it was fatigue, the fact we didn’t dismiss it out of hand or that we may actually have liked it, we agreed on it at any rate and were able to move on with our lives, our imaginations and collective creativity exhausted.

Anyway, I didn’t get to see all of these bands but here are some of the Boston Bands whose names I thought were really cool back in the day:

 

Arms Akimbo: Never saw them but they played the Rat a lot as well as other places in town. I remember reading that Amie Mann said she liked them back when she was fronting Til Tuesday. If you don’t know already it’s the term for falling backwards with your arms outstretched. Pretty clever in mho.

 

Band 19: Not to be confused with Forever 19 that had a rehearsal room next to ours at the Pixie Theater in Hyde Park. The story goes that this was the bandleader’s 19^th band that he had put together. That’s enough personnel changes to last a lifetime.

 

Berlin Airlift: Rick Berlin’s band, get it? I guess he could have just called the band “Berlin”. Previously Rick had put together a much talked about act named; Orchestra Luna.

 

Del Fuegos: “Of the Fire” in Spanish. Wonder how they came up with that one? These guys endured some hardships along the way when they were touring the country all crammed into a ford van, had all their shit stolen and a local radio station held a radio-thon to raise some money for them and put their album on the air and the band on the map. We shared the stage with them twice ourselves and I still cover “Don’t Run Wild” solo. Frank Zane has recorded a few children’s music projects that can be found in stores. Liked the name, liked the band.

 

Extreme: Not remarkable in itself except the back story was that this band was first called “The Dream” and then the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) was developing a series about a young band trying (stop me if you’ve heard this one before) to climb their way to the top and this TV band and the series was to be called The Dream. So the story goes that NBC paid The Dream handsomely for their name so they could produce their very very short lived series. The Dream became the “Ex-Dream” or “The Extreme”. Coincidence? Perhaps. A fairy tale? I don’t know.

 

Girl on Top: A trio fronted by a chic guitar player. Played a gig with them in the waning days of Green Street Station.  Good attention grabbing name I think. Got my attention at any rate.

Loners Shoot Presidents: This is a great name for a punk band which they were. Tim Catz, the drummer for this group went on to win the 1991 Rock & Roll Rumble with the band Seka, named for an “exotic dancer” in Boston’s red light district known as the Combat Zone. 

Pajama Slave Dancers: I really enjoyed these guys; they were hardcore and funny at the same time. Songs like “Defreeze Walt Disney”, “Farm Rap” and “Homo Truck Driving Man” are classics. I think they put out three albums in all of which I have two. I was told they were originally from Springfield, MA. The name is a wacky as the band's stage show. You see that name, you pretty much know what you're going to get. Cool.

Plate o’ Shrimp: A ska band most likely out of Brighton since it seems all the ska bands in town emanate from there. This came from a monologue by the character Miller in one of my favorite movies of all time, Repo Man. After Miller’s monologue an ad with the term can also be seen on a wall of a fast food place in the movie.

Rash of Stabbings: This name was fine for these guys for years and years and then all of a sudden somebody somewhere realized they found it offensive. Sort of like the character of Uncle Fester on the Adams Family. One day you hear it and say “Hey, do you know what that name really means?” They had to go as RoS afterwards since nobody would book them. I think it’s a cool name reflective of the kind of rock & roll they played. They didn’t invent the term.

Sleep Chamber: As far as I know, this band only ever played at Chet’s Last Call but they had very cool, very erotic hand drawn black & white posters with women in bondage themes. One band I really wish I could have seen live.

Stop Calling Me Frank: Our friends from Hyde Park. Never got a straight answer as to how they came up with the name. The explanation changed with each telling. Dave Forbes on guitar and Lenny was the frontman. Three chord full speed ahead rock & roll band. Their big hit was “Cyclone Ranger” “My baby treat me like a cyclone ranger, she spin me round and round, she pick me up, she put me down, she spin me round and round”. That’s gold!

Valdez the Sinner: Saw these guys at “Chetstock” and never saw their name on a marque ever again. The one set I ever saw them play was a great one, however. How they came up with this name is a mystery. Nobody was named Valdez. Maybe it was someone they knew? 

Perhaps this will be food for thought for fledgling groups banging their heads against a wall trying to come up with a band name.

Good Luck!

 

 

 

Sean Hannity Clueless on Drug Legalization

He is a man left behind by the times, unable or unwilling to see the world for what it is.

Sean Hannity is a man so in denial that his ability to see any situation clearly is suspect. How can anybody believe a word this guy says when he can only recite the same wrong-headed party line over and over again in disguise of a plausible argument? And it’s not really the party line anymore since other conservatives have shown the brains to acknowledge that the War on Drugs has been a monumental failure.

That’s right, in the 35 years of the current police buildup and passage of strict and punitive anti-drug laws; drugs are more prevalent than ever in American society.

How can that be?

It’s because a market force is greater than governments. It is stronger than any military might. It will corrupt the incorruptible, sway the unswayable and bend a people to its eventual recognition of the reality of its power.

All except Sean Hannity that is, he’s just an idiot!

I had the unfortunate experience of channel surfing through his FOX radio program while he and some other idiot born with the same condition were tag-teaming a young lady with more brains in her pinky finger than Hannity and the other yo-yo boy who was on his side.

Here’s an excerpt of his skillful questioning:

“You want to legalize drugs?”

“Yes”

“Even Heroin?”

Now this is the question, with the exception of Rand Paul, that most Libertarians always seem to choke on when on the air with one of these professional "outraged" radio wags and this woman did just that. She started to stumble which gave Simple Sean an opening to jump in and start naming every drug he had learned about in 6^th grade when a local police officer would come to school to talk to the class about drugs and bring a plastic marijuana leaf to show the class.

“How about Crack Cocaine?”

“How about OxyCodon?”

And he went on in rapid-fire like some 5 year old asking “Why” to everything.

People made the mistake of calling in to agree with this woman. I could picture Hannity sitting there with his fingers in his ears.

Thirty-five years and Billions of dollars on punishments, jails, corrections officers, wages, benefits, pensions and courts all a waste of time and money.

The reason why the government is reluctant and especially the Republocrats to go along with legalization is that if legalization were to occur, what would they do with all the cops and jail workers? They’d have to lay them off or create another boogie-man for them to chase after. But the end of this charade is inevitable. They can’t continue to throw money at it because it’s not making any money back. The States are loosing their shirts and the shirts of their taxpayers who are very close to becoming the stone you can’t get blood out of, they’re tapped out and the government has bled them dry at this point.

The massive corrections system is yet another giant house of cards that cannot be sustained. Better to tear it down now than to have it collapse.

Yes Mr. Hannity, drugs are bad. People should not take them. They are not good for anybody in the long run. BUT that's not the point.

The Prohibition on drugs wasn't about drugs being bad. It was about good jobs at good wages paid by the Federal Government. It was about buying the vote, paid for with tax dollars. It was about controlling the ethnic people's who enjoyed them like the Mexican migrant workers  who used marijuana and the Chinese railroad workers who enjoyed Opium. They had to be more productive. 

And the reason now that so many states are debating and legalizing marijuana right now is because they can’t stop the drugs from coming into the country and they can’t stop them from being produced locally. Period! So much product is pouring into the country that they can't even fathom the amount that they are NOT stopping. On top of that, domestic output has increased. Where there is a want, people will work to fulfill those wants. That is the invisible hand of the marketplace that people on the political Left refer derisively as Capitalism and it will win in the end.  

Speaking of Capitalists, the Taliban is making millions off of the sale of Heroin and with that money they are buying GUNS! Guns and bomb making materials so they can kill people. This is a direct result of driving drug production underground and into the hands of criminals instead of being above board and transacted in the light of day. 

In the mean time, the United States has become a Police State where every bank transaction over $5,000.00 is reported to the government so they can try to track, supposedly, illegal drug money going over seas. For tracking cash transactions for regular honest tax paying citizens, this has worked but for tracking drug money in particular, this too is a failure. They could reduce the amount to $100.00 and still they will fail. There is just too much of it. 

The corrections system that was set up to put drug users and dealers in jail is bankrupting the states. Since the Drug War has made everybody a criminal, our inner cities have become the equivalent of the OK Corral with local gangsters shooting it out with larger national gangsters and foreign drug cartels and people dying and police dying and innocent people being caught in the cross-fire.

And what is Sean Hannity’s answer to all this?

“America’s borders aren't secure enough, we must secure the boarders.”

Yes, that was Hannity's answer!

I don’t know what circles Hannity travels in but it has to be a small one. Where does this guy get his news? Does he even go out of the house? If he actually went and pumped his own gas, and I will bet money he DOESN’T, he might actually see the kid on the bike putting his hands into the driver’s side door of somebody who pulled into the Quick Mart and make a drug transaction like I did in my mostly lily-white neighborhood here in Massachusetts.

Mr. Hannity, I've got news, the boarders were NEVER secure. Never secure. They are NOT secure NOW and they WEREN'T secure in the fucking 1950s, 60s or 70s either! They were never secure and they WILL NOT GET secure enough to keep out drugs. Drugs come in on trucks, they come in on boats, they come in on planes and in the case of marijuana, grown RIGHT HERE in the good ‘ol USA.

I had to finally turn my radio to the Oldies station or I was gonna drive off the road.

Nobody is that STUPID! This is what you get when people are right wing for a living. They have to say stupid stuff because they are supposed to be a certain way or they can't sell advertising. If he wasn't on the radio talking like a man in a cave, what else can this guy do? 

The money currently going into Drug Prohibition would be better spent on rehab facilities than on jails. The jails have not stemmed the tide. All the laws passed in the last 35 years has not stemmed the tide. All the police put on the street have not stemmed the tide.

The only thing that is going to keep your kid from using drugs is education, not the threat of jail.
Of course it all begins at home but since drugs are everywhere in America, on every street corner, in every school and every college campus, your best protection is communication and staying connected to the reality of the situation and being plugged into the world we all live in and share for this short time we have here on Earth. Don't isolate yourself. 

Don’t be a Hannity!

United States Occupies Hawaii

On the heels of the Obama administrations rebuke of Israel’s purported occupation of “Palestinian” land one has to suspend belief that what the United States has done in its past is any more morally righteous than what any other country has done in its history.

Israel has more claim to the land that they sit on than we do in regards to the land the United States occupies.

Hawaii springs to mind. We've been sitting on those people for longer than Israel has been a State.

We still occupy military bases in Okinawa Japan since 1945 and they don’t like it at all. In fact, the people of Okinawa want the U.S. Military to vacate the premises immediately. It is only the money we’re throwing at Tokyo that is keeping the bases there. If that's not an occupying force, someone please explain. It's not like it's keeping Japan from attacking anybody. It's an offensive strike force that the U.S. is not going to give up regardless of what Japan wants us to do. 

We still hold Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. Don't think the Cubans are renting that to us so we must be occupying that territory. And weren't we closing that down already?

In fact, the United States has military bases all over the world. Hundreds of them. A case could be made for our occupying forces in all these foreign countries although the government always states that we hold no land but if the U.S. has had a base in anyplace for more than 65 years, I’d say otherwise. We’re holding onto that real estate real hard.

Texas used to belong to Mexico until we “Liberated” it for the United States. I'd say we've been occupying that territory since, what, 1845? 

We also occupy most of the land the American Indians used to roam free upon and hunt and plant and live their lives as their creator had told them to. But we won it all in the Indian Wars and we let what’s left of the vanquished Indian nations have the mostly unproductive land we weren't going to use much anyway.

And while we are criticizing Israel for their historical occupation…

Not a word about China’s occupation of Tibet

I guess ya'll must have forgot. The U.N. certainly has.

So to say that only Israel must give up land that they at least have lived on for ages and ages so they can hand it over to a people, lets face it, this band of Arabs, who have vowed to drive Israel into the sea and have never acknowledged Jerusalem as a state while every other nation has AND has been constantly shooting rockets into their towns, sneaking armed men into their territory and killing its citizens, well it’s rather the heighth of hypocrisy.  

But what what else would a reasonable person expect? That’s just President Obama’s standard operating procedure.

It would be pretty funny if a member of Benjamin Netanyahu's administration came out and called for the United States to give back an inch of any of the land it took over the years. 

That would be hysterical. 

Obama Shills For Green Energy Companies

If he hadn't given so much taxpayer money to these alternative energy companies, maybe President Obama wouldn't have to attack Global Warming, I mean Climate Disruption, sorry, Climate Change deniers so vociferously and without tact or even a hint of diplomacy.  

No, Mr. Obama has to go on the offensive since so many of the Solar and Wind energy companies that his friends and election contributors have started haven’t done particularly well. In fact they've performed very poorly indeed!

There are currently 33 companies that have received taxpayer money from the Federal Department of Energy to develop clean energy that have filed for bankruptcy protection after having received Billions of dollars collectively. What happened to all that money? Well I guess they must have spent it all. I guess Green Energy isn't a product that will sell itself.

What they need is a better salesman!

For all his bluster, accusations, executive actions, taxpayer "loans" and behind the scenes sleight of hand, the President just isn't getting the job done for renewable energy. Even heavy government subsidies can't manage to keep these hand picked, state sanctioned companies above water. After all, the government can spend itself into prosperity and fund good jobs at good wages, right?

Mr. Obama’s latest offensive offensive will only serve to leave the public cold. Or luke warm. Or perhaps a better word is “chilled”.

It’s all about the ice caps melting. Or was it about the Walruses not having ice to rest upon. Or was it their food supply dying in the warming ocean? Or was that the Polar Bears? It’s just so hard to keep track. 

And despite the subsidies, the tariffs and the media amplified denunciations, solar panels are just plain cheaper coming from China. And no matter how much the U.S. government pushes them.Wind Mills and Electric Cars are just too expensive for a large majority of the American people.

But the name of the game right now is Sell, Sell, Sell, Sell and the world’s most powerful head of state is pulling out all the stops to make you buy what he’s selling. This is the big pre-election sales promotion meant to define the issue of weather you care about Global...whatever or if you want the seas to rise, the mountains to fall and children to drown horribly while they are hungry and suffering from lack of public education. 

President Obama can make NASA fudge the climate data. He can offer support to the universities that have professors publish “new” findings on the effects of Climate Change, he can also influence his news media to publish dire visions of the future.

But he can’t make you buy it. And it’s killing him.

People don’t believe in man-made Climate Change. Oh, there are plenty of people on the payroll who PRETEND to believe in it but they’re only in it for the money. Look at Al Gore. He’s made Millions upon Millions from his Global Warming media events. What a racket! This certainly puts all those old gangsters and mob bosses to shame. If Gore actually believed all that crap he spouts, don’t you think he’d live a little bit leaner instead of using so much power from the grid if the reports from the Nashville Electric Service can be believed about how much his electric bill is each month not to mention flying all over the place in a big ol jet plane. And I’ll bet he probably has those old pre-gore toilets installed in his mansion. You know, the ones that hold more than 1.9 gallons and can flush anything on the first try.

I think Obama sees his retirement profession clearly. If that pasty-faced dullard Al Gore can make a mint off of the fear and self-loathing of American followers, well clearly, as a hi-lee educated former head of the Free World, like him can too.

And he can’t get on with his next job soon enough for me.

Jeb Bush Exudes Status Quo

What makes anyone think anything is going to change in the United States if Jeb Bush is elected president?

And what will Mr. Bush's campaign be based upon? Jeb Bush the Reformer? Jeb Bush the Political Outsider? Maybe perhaps Jeb Bush for Change?

In a nation that is deeply divided between the takers and the taken, the private taxpayer and those at the public troth, how is this man in particular going to make anything different?

The answer is: He won’t.

They people who pay will continue to pay if not pay more and the people who take will relax, as comfortable as they can, in their knowledge that the support spigot will remain on.

The government propaganda machine is touting Jeb as The Moderate in the field. Propaganda outlets like Google News, Face the Nation, Reuters, PBS et al are saying that once Jeb Bush's record as governor come out and once The (little) People truly get to know him and become aware of all the good he has done for the state of Florida, they will take him as a serious and viable candidate.

A bell should go off in your head.

The last thing the country needs is a political dynasty. We're struggling with one right now and all American Democracy and freedom of the individual needs less of is more power-cult entities in the office of the President. Once the President transcends parties, and if the present Demi-God in the White House doesn't give you pause for thought in this regard, the system will be over and the will of the people to defend it will weaken to a much greater extent than it is now. 

The government will fight to perpetuate itself and Congress will pretend to fight the president on his proposals, most recently the Immigration Initiative and the Iran Nuclear Deal and when they “lose” they will hold their heads up high and say “We tried!”

Did they now?

How is King Jeb the Third going to do anything about this?

He isn't but he’ll look good not doing it.

His sycophantic supporters and the government press will regal all us impoverished peasants at how Presidential he looks when we know they wish they could say Imperial. But that will come in time. 

Jeb Bush will continue to draw his support, and he is the candidate with the biggest bank account, from big business which seeks political advantage over small businesses, craves low wage labor and covets the ability to shift the costs of this labor onto the communities they overrun rather than pay for it themselves. He will continue to choose the side of the public unions over the will of the people who pay their way. There is no reason, in a time where we should be looking for strength of conviction, that we will get any from this man.

The last thing this country needs right now is THE SAME.

So perhaps once again we who actually matter in this equation, since it's the money from the fruits of our labor in the greater proportion, that is funding this whole charade, will be left without much of a choice again this election.

Why vote for a Leftist in Republican cloth when you can have the real Leftist in a Democrat silk robe? It's either that or stay home.

That’s what happened last time with Mitt Romney. Had he been more conservative, had he been just a little less wishy-washy where he should have held a hard line, he may have actually won the election and would have been at this moment addressing the financial issues, the real issues that face the stability of the United States. But he wasn't and an estimated three million conservatives stayed home. 

George Bush Senior reneged on his promise of No New Taxes. His son George Walker Bush spent money like a Sailor on Shore Leave and started the program of National Surveillance of U.S. Citizens and so what are we to expect from a Jeb Bush presidency given the chance?

I shudder to think

You’re a Racist, Blah, Blah, Blah…

You’re a Racist!

This statement only succeeds in turning my ears off and tells me the free exchange of information and ideas is finished. It has reached the proportion of an endless mantra by the Political Left in an effort to stifle free speech and derail valid arguments over the United States’ entitlement programs, bizarre immigration actions and the counter-intuitive actions, at best, of President Barack Obama, a man doted on by his white mother and abandoned by his black father.

“You don’t know what it’s like for us.” they say “You have had the privilege of being white.”, they say. Like I’m carrying the Blood Libel for the actions of my European ancestors even though I'm of Irish decent and we didn't come over until the 1880s! I never owned a slave, killed an indian or oppressed a minority and yet I have to continue to hear it and pay a price for it. It's a tiresome argument.

But that’s not the point. It’s just so the Liberals can continue to buy the vote of the “Downtrodden” in America with taxpayer money. Yes, the only privilege that I seem to have here is the privilege of paying for everybody on the Government Tit.

It’s like blaming the weatherman for rain. I can’t help if you weren't born a millionaire or that your station in life isn't higher. It’s most likely YOUR FAULT by either not studying enough, working hard enough or just not caring where you landed in life. It’s not like there aren't any rich Black or Hispanic folks because there are plenty. Racism didn't seem to stop their success.

From what I know, white people didn't start the slave trade in the first place and that the current hotbeds for human trafficking, since slavery has never gone away, remain North Africa, Asia and South America.

As we all know that grand old white guy Abraham Lincoln banned the slave trade in North America 147 years ago although to hear tell, every low contract bid to an American professional black athlete is regarded as a return to the plantation.

We only have the rights in this country that we’re willing to stand up for. If you let something go because you’re afraid of repercussions, then it’s on you these days. I’m sure Martin Luther King was afraid to walk down the streets of Alabama even with a crowd but he did it just the same.

But all this doesn't stop the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) or Hollywood from continuing to produce shows and “documentaries” based in the Antebellum South or the 1950s and 1960s showing “Whitey keeping our people down.”

I'm not of the mind to understand the blind obedience to the most racially divisive president since Woodrow Wilson or the most fiscally irresponsible president since G.W.Bush. I didn't dislike G.W Bush because he was white; I disliked him because he was spending the U.S. Taxpayer’s money like a sailor on shore leave. That was before Barack Obama made him look almost miserly.

What about the National Debt Mr. President? Why are you bypassing Congress and the U.S. Constitution to let people from Mexico overrun our nation? Why are you running around the country proposing more government benefits when the country is in massive debt? And why are you increasing taxes and costly regulations on business when in order to get small business and this nation running again, you should be easing both?

I know I’m a racist for asking such a question but until I get an answer, there’s no use talking about anything else.

UN ambassador Susan Rice, who is richer than Croesus by the way with a net worth of $44 million and who owns stock in countries who deal with Iran, has been criticized for toeing the paper-thin party line with a laughably unbelievable story of an anti-Islam video as an excuse for the attack and execution of our U.S. ambassador to Libya on the anniversary of 9/11 and then blaming it on “bad intelligence”. Only the most unthinking idealog would think they didn't have a legitimate point. But yet these people are branded as racist also.

If a person looks like a thug, with tattoos and thug dress, the so called “Hip Hop” culture with their pants a draggin’ and their hat on backwards, white or black, they’re thugs. I don’t care if its bible verses tattooed on their noggins, I’m not getting close enough to read them and I'm going to perceive them as a threat and treat them accordingly. This is because looks matter first in any culture.

Even the county’s most famous race-baiter and most infamous fornicator, Jesse Jackson, has been quoted as saying that he was relieved to see that it was two white men behind him on the sidewalk when he was worried about who was coming up behind him one dark night in New York City. Is this racism or just statistics?

I don’t even care anymore. Call it whatever you want but it’s all just free speech to me. Say what you want while you still have the right to. There is no such thing as “Hate Speech” in my copy of the U.S. Constitution.

So when will we stop paying for Andrew Jackson, George Wallace, Woodrow Wilson and Bull Connor? The Burden of Guilt should now be cast off our generation of children who don’t even know what the hell the professional race baiters of this country are even talking about. But they’re paying for it just the same.

Minorities long ago have won their rights in this society. That they are told otherwise by the shiftless cultural power mongers among them is no business of the nations. We now seem to just be engaged in a fight for MORE rights than others and to stifle opposition to their never ending demands for recompense.

To get more and more, they plead racism.

Oh, there's racism alright.

Internet a Threat to Government Propaganda Machine

This is the reason the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has been directed to restrict and regulate the Internet. The government must regain control of “The Message”.

Older folks will remember the before times. We got our information from the big three television outlets, The National Broadcasting Company (NBC), the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) and the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) and that was it. We had “trusted” people like Walter Cronkite giving us the news and setting the example of what a television newsman looked and sounded like. Solid, upstanding and sincere. Would Walter Cronkite lie to you? Hell no!

And growing up with Dan Rather and the 60 Minutes crew who went about busting scam artists and shady businesses with their on-the-spot camera crews and tough questions. They were the Good Guys.

And the scientists at the time, they were saying the world was…cooling. Yes, cooling. Millions of years in the future the Earth could be a ball of ice! And we worried about it.

We were told DDT was a bird killer and a threat to humanity and must be banned. We were told Vietnam was a justifiable enterprise and that the Great Society would end poverty in our nation. We were told the Russians, Cubans and Chinese were bad and that Democracy was good for all and we must export it to the world, that the hijackings by “Middle Easterners” in the 1970s were isolated incidents and nothing to worry about since they were just demonstrations by a frustrated populous of a culture and motivation we couldn't hope to understand and that the moon landing was an important step for the nation. We were told so many things. And they were all facts. Facts told by scientists, facts told by politicians and facts told by doctors. All people smarter than we were and who knew better. The government was our friend. 

Enter the Internet

Then in 1989, something happened that would change all that. The Internet went online and over time more and more information became available to the regular working stiff. There became available new messages and charges to challenge the Government narrative. Other scientists, those previously frozen out of the scientific community because of their opinions and findings, now found a voice and a following for their research. Information, facts and yes, truths, filtered onto the Web challenging "The Message".

This is why today we now believe a guy like Edward Snowden more than a hi-lee educated NASA scientist about the collusion and outright rigging of the world climate charts. One has laid their very life on the line to bring the world this news and the other is a government propagandist, twisting the facts to fit the narrative and prostituting themselves for mere money. Who are you going to believe?

Everything is now suspect, debatable and every "fact" or source is now up for scrutiny. People even doubt the moon landing. I mean, ok, I wasn’t there, but it was on TV and… oh, Jeez, who knows? And if you look at the video right you’ll see the puffs of smoke coming out as Tower One collapses, see? Well, George Bush was behind that. And did you see the video how the origin story of Jesus Christ is the same a s Vishnu’s? In fact it’s the same as a couple of past “Gods”. Christianity is based on a lie!

And how about Grumpy Cat? There’s no political or scientific significance to that but damn that cat is weird looking, I can't help but laugh!

Stigmas have been almost totally erased. Marijuana is being legalized; people are using the power of the Marketplace to buy things they would have been too self-conscious about or viewed as insane in the past: Adult babys, Anime’ geeks, Weed enthusiasts, Tatoo’d ladies, Body modifiers and every counter culture that you can think of not only now have a website to visit but shoot videos of themselves and post them on line. 

It’s all rather mainstream these days thanks to the Internet. Some might call this Freedom and it’s brought to you not by Government but by the invisible hand of the Free Market.

Then again, some people think this is a bad thing and most of those people work for the government or rather, the government MEDIA. No one can be truly shut out of a debate any longer and other opinions can find an outlet and people can accept them or reject them. But the important thing is that the have access to them.

This is bad news for “The Message”.

Today "The Message" is that the world is warming.  Scientists are predicting dire consequences if the nation or rather The Government, doesn't take corrective action. The War on Drugs is working.That GMO food is ok to eat. That allowing the nation to be flooded by millions of uneducated and unassimilated foreigners is a net gain for the country’s economy. That vaccinations won't hurt your kids. That energy from oil is bad and that air and solar is the power of the future. That Islam is a religion of peace. We are told that Americans have too much and that we must support those less fortunate by giving part of our earnings over to the government for them to administer to their needs.

But now this bullshit has opposition. The government propagandists put out a poll about how everybody agrees with “The Message” and the American people respond on line instantly to refute the words put in their mouths: “ObamaCare is shit! The endless wars we wage in the name of making peace are futile! The transfer of wealth from working people to the government is killing the American economy and the government is spending the United States into a future of poverty. Allowing illegal aliens into the country and putting them on public benefits is robbing our children’s future and literally putting American's health at risk.”

The truth is all out there now and now it must be crushed.

Enter the Iron Hand

So the Obama Regime, with its un-elected officials enforcing laws that they themselves have decreed, are poised to move against the businesses that run the major servers and networks that make the Internet run in the U.S. The FCC, a group appointed by the President, sees that it is time to step in to begin the process. They won’t take over all at once, no, they will apply pressure here and pass regulations there, all without Congressional vote or approval. They will just do it.

The government sees now that it must regain control of “The Message” so that their bullshit scientists will, hopefully one day, regain their believably. They hope to restore their Television propagandists feigned sincerity and teary-eyed portrayal of what they believe the truth will look like when spoken by a hair piece in a tailored suit while you struggle to put food on the table and keep a roof over your children’s heads.

They hope to restore the populist celebration that was the governments publicly funded mouthpiece, The Public Broadcasting Network (PBS) to its Socialist glory.

They want this back desperately.

But they will fail. 

Allan Greenspan Won't Go Away!

Allan Greenspan has become the “Go to” sage of the economy. Bloomberg media has interviewed him recently and in this insightful report confirms that Mr. Greenspan believes: The economy remains sluggish.

He also said until companies start spending money and the housing market comes back the economy will remain sluggish.

We had to go to Allan Greenspan for this?

The BBC also has run an interview with Mr. Greenspan concerning the national debt and how both U.S. political parties are ignoring the problem and how the nation is "heading for a fall" to sum up the situation. He sites a lack of "Political Will".

Mr. Greenspan certainly ought to know about a lack of political will; he played a major role in the destruction of the U.S. economy these seven going on eight long years ago with the crash of the American housing market. Had he done his job and stood his ground on interest rates, we would not have crashed and burned the economy in the first place but instead Allan Greenspan, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, the protector of the American Banking industry played politics and continued to lower the borrowing rates until they hit the floor and basically just giving away money for loans. To this day we don't know how much money Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac has cost the American taxpayer.

And when we hit the wall at 100 mph what did Mr. Greenspan say? "Oh, sorry, my mistake." and took his retirement millions and flew off on a private jet.

But he didn't fly away far enough.

Allen Greenspan failed us. He favored his big business buddies and kept the credit flowing right to the end even though he was warned in 2004 by a Republican committee. Now at 88, what has this guy have to say that anyone will listen to? He has a lot of gall to stand out in the media and preach economic reason. Why would he even show his face after the chaos he has wrought? 

But very much like disgraced plagiarizing historian and National Public Radio & Public Broadcasting Service darling Doris Kearns Goodwin who is still writing and promoting books on history regardless of the fact that nothing in them can now be believed, Mr. Greenspan is still out there attempting to cover his tracks and the national media is still pretending that anybody really gives a shit about what this fraudster has to say about anything.

Why does anybody ask this man's opinion anymore? Is there really no such thing as bad publicity? Will people tune in just to hate the guy? Perhaps but I’d be mindful to be aware of what outfits are advertising on the article and remind myself not to buy anything from them. This is the only power we beleaguered taxpayers have left.

The generalities in which the government media speaks to the public just glosses over the real issues. Sure the housing market is slow because people need good credit again, duh!

There is also a lack of inventory…but WHY?

Because people are WORRIED!

Why are they worried, isn't the economy coming back?

If people believed that, they wouldn't be worried.

But the consumer confidence index has risen!

Says who, the national media?

When people are worried they don’t move. They don’t buy up to a new house, they make do with the one they have. If the housing market is any indication, people aren't moving. Quite the opposite, they're staying put.

If people aren't worried about the future they take risks with their resources. I don’t see much risk taking. There are plenty of empty storefronts that tell me people aren't risking their jobs or finances to start a new enterprise and if you have a job right now, you holding onto it with BOTH hands. I know I am.

If I were to lose my job, I don't have a lot of confidence that I will find another one anytime soon. Nobody's leaving where I work and we don't pay that great for the most part. Nobody I know is seriously looking for another job either.

So, how are YOU feeling?

Exactly.

I do see the costs of doing business continuing to rise. The cost of medical insurance rose. The taxes taken out of our checks this year was far more than last year. Property taxes have risen. My auto insurance has gone up. I received a notice that for the first quarter at least, my gas utilities will cost more.

People have become more expensive to hire in the private sector and the public sector has not decreased at nearly the rate of the private sector. This is bad news.

The public sector does not produce wealth; it spends it and regardless of what Nancy Pelosi says, public sector jobs do not constitute a gain to the economy. They have a negative impact because the money that goes to the public sector first has to be earned privately and then transferred, by other people in the public's employ who also expect a paycheck, to the public "trust". That's called "overhead" and there's a pant-load of that in government. That's Japan's problem and that's our problem. Did I mention the pension benefits?

It stands to reason that for the private citizen to move the economy by their conscious choices in what they purchase, they first must get their money back into their pocket. The government can't make their purchasing choices for them and be successful. Here they have failed by trying to pick our doctors and our schools to name but two things they have dictated to the people. The Public Sector must be cut for the economy to move forward. Right now they take too much but it's just easier politically to keep raising taxes and fees until we're all out in the street.

Right now the only municipalities doing anything about their public sector overhead are the ones which have already declared bankruptcy.

So what is a "job" really? Is it a result of government putting up someone else's money to fund a program? No. It is people risking their own resources to start an enterprise and working to grow it. And from this work, this risk, the government takes a piece of their production and puts it towards their programs.

So, no, that job "created" by the public sector does not add to the economy. The money would have gone farther and done more good had it remained in the pockets of the people who first earned it. Then THEY could support the businesses of THEIR choosing.

This of course would have cut out the "middleman" of government and we can't have that, can we?

So a viable reason for the "Sluggish" economy could be: Fear of the future.

"Oh, but Wal Man, you have such a Pie in the Sky approach to this issue, there is no Utopia you naive Son of a Bitch!"

No there isn't but since things have gone SO WELL the way it’s been going, we might as well stick with what the government is doing, yes?

You don't see what COULD HAVE been done or created had the money remained with the taxpayer. All you get to see is what government did with it and for the most part, they have squandered it inefficiently amongst their pet vote-buying projects like the drug war, foreign interventions and welfare give-a-way programs that help nobody in the long run.

It’s certainly time for a different approach.

I wish Greenspan could have said this but would anybody have believed him?

How can we miss you Mr. Greenspan if you won't go away?