GLOBAL FREE TRADE: REALLY?

 

The idea of global free trade or that the global market place is an open free market place is a damn lie. This damnation is spread by the World Trade Organization, progressives, many of whom are closet capitalists, globalists, international conglomerate capitalists, so called free-traders, conservatives, RINO’s, business pundits, and most intellectual elites. The lie comes from deep in the elitist Washington, DC, globalist swamp.

A red and white background with the word globalization written in it.
There are at least 6 reasons that the idea of global free trade is a damn lie!

Global free trade does not exist when 1) countries refuse to allow any category of products made in the United States (US) into their country, and we allow the same category into our country; 2) countries impose high tariffs on any category of products imported into their country, and we impose tariffs that are a fraction of those imposed by so-called œtrading partners; 3) other countries subsidize production of categories of products, and we do not subsidize production of the same category of products; 4) other countries do not impose costly environmental, health, and safety regulations on energy and production facilities that are required in the US; 5) other countries tolerate theft of intellectual property for new or improved products from US businesses without paying for use of the intellectual property or imposition of penalties when these products enter US markets; and 6) other countries manipulate international money markets for their benefit. If the so called global free trade experts were honest, they could add to my list of real global free trade impediments. Whether or not the announced Trump Administration tariffs will be good for our economy and labor force in general, the argument that tariffs violate free market principles is void because global free trade does not exit. The argument is based on a lie. No true global free trade market exists.

The result of globalism, as now practiced, is global wealth redistribution. The $800 billion US trade deficit is global wealth redistribution. Virtually all of the so-called œFree Trade agreements involving the US constitute wealth redistribution since they result in trade deficits with the other countries involved. The reality is that the redistribution has cost the US labor force jobs, lost wages, and lowered benefits which were transferred to labor forces in developing countries.

In my opinion, most progressive policy initiatives are based on Marxist philosophy, especially wealth redistribution. Similarly, capitalists seek to expand markets and increase their profitability which requires decreasing costs and opening of new markets in developing countries or increasing income, especially disposable income, in new and existing markets resulting in increased customer purchasing power. Although the ultimate goal, increasing consumer or personal incomes and buying power, is the same for both progressives and capitalists, the method of accomplishing the goal is drastically different. Interestingly, globalism often unites progressives and capitalists when nationalism, protectionism, and tariffs are the subject of debate and discussions.

Unfortunately, US laborers have borne the brunt of the adverse effects of globalism, lost jobs lost opportunities, stagnant wages, and regional economic decline. Through factory relocations to the developing world, capitalists achieve their goal of reducing capital improvement and labor costs, and increased factory productivity. Progressive globalists achieve their goal of global wealth redistribution when new factory wages increase the standard of living, opportunity, and economic development in the regions where new facilities are opened.

Global free trade is a globalist myth. Until a global free market actually exists, the experts should stop insisting that tariffs will impede free trade. Global free trade does not exist. The œexperts should simply tell us that tariffs will increase costs and prices and are the same as taxes. However, if the threat of tariffs, force our so-called trading partners to open markets, reduce their own tariffs, end their subsidies, clean up their own environment, end intellectual property theft, and stop currency manipulation, then tariffs could start progress toward an unfettered global free trade where all the people of the world could move toward greater prosperity.

Join the fray. All of the America’s Crossroad Posts are listed by categories in the  BLOG CONTENTS tab.  If you decide to read a few, please leave comments about your “Patriot Visions,” start or join the conversation, and share the Posts with friends and political frienimies.

 

TARIFFS, GLOBAL MARKETS, CAPITALISM, AND LABORERS

 

Proposed and existing tariffs will affect global markets. Announced tariffs on steel, aluminum, washing machine, and solar panel imports into United States (US) markets are currently a major economic issue in the news nationally and globally related to global markets. The Trump Administration commitment to renegotiate international trade agreements like the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and Paris Climate Accord, and trade sanctions related to efforts to end the Iranian and North Korean nuclear weapon and ballistic missile programs further complicate discussions about tariffs and global markets. Global markets also complicate projections of the impacts of tariffs on the global and US economy and the potential for retaliatory tariffs or other market reactions by other nations. Trade wars are the fear of tariff opponents.

A red and white background with the word globalization written in it.
Tariffs, global markets, and trade agreements affect and threaten manufacturing capacity in the US.

The Trump Administration claims that the US is in danger of losing adequate steel and aluminum capacity to manufacture military equipment during a time of war. The purpose of proposed tariffs is to correct these critical steel and aluminum production capacity issues as a matter of national security. Although US steel and aluminum imports from China are below 10%, the fact that China often floods the world market with these products drives the international price down. Flooding US markets with Chinese steel or aluminum in this situation, often through other countries, makes it even more difficult for US firms to compete in global markets. Since these prices are determined by global markets, China does not have to flood US markets with steel and aluminum to force prices too low for US companies to be competitive. The issue is whether or not tariffs could be maintained long enough to rebuild US steel and aluminum and whether or not global retaliation and potential trade wars would negate the effect of the tariffs.

Causes for the significant decline of US manufacturing in general as well as our steel and aluminum industries are complicated by global markets. Our previous federal tax codes, environmental, health, safety, labor, and zoning regulations add to the costs of products manufactured in the US. Environmental impact assessments, zoning issues, and permitting often take years to complete for large projects adding significant costs and delays for new facilities or expansions. These extra costs, which many of our competitors in do not incur, adversely influence US product competitiveness in global markets. In addition, any construction or natural resource extraction project in the US that is opposed by a significant part of the population can be delayed by demonstrations due to the right of the people peacefully to assemble. Legal actions in our state and federal courts often delay or halt these type projects  which can reduce capacity, increase costs, and decrease our competitiveness in global markets.

In the US, we value clean air and water and the health, safety, and well-being of our labor force. Consequently, the extra costs that we require our manufacturers to incur, and the resultant competitive disadvantage these costs bring, is also part of the calculation that corporations make to locate manufacturing facilities in the US or to locate or relocate facilities to less restrictive countries. For the labor force in Western Europe, North America, and especially the US, progressives and the labor movement have achieved comparatively high wages and benefits compared to other parts of the world. The success of progressives in the environmental and labor movements has resulted in contradictory outcomes related to national and global aspirations which directly influence global corporate capital expenditure decisions related to global markets.

The result is a globalism contradiction for the left, the labor movement, and US capitalists. One of primary goals of progressives on the left is wealth redistribution or income equality on both the national and global scale. In the US, the labor movement has gained wages, benefits, and safe healthy work environments that are the envy of much of the world. Unfortunately, progressive and labor successes in the US are significant reasons for the decline of US manufacturing and competiveness in global markets. The total costs of expenses related to labor, the additional costs related to the anti-capitalist progressive environmental agenda, and progressive taxation resulted in factory closures in the US as corporations relocated factories and jobs to developing countries. The factories built in developing countries are new state-of-the-art facilities built at lower costs and greater worker productivity capacity than the outdated US factories that were closed or remain in the US. The compensation for laborers in the developing countries raises the standard of living for them that multiply as it spreads in local communities. Labor costs in the developing world are usually far lower than similar costs in the US but often much higher than wages before new factories open. In the US, factory closures increase the size of the labor pool for a declining number of manufacturing jobs in old factories now competing with state-of-the-art developing country facilities. Under these circumstances, the US manufacturing labor force is faced with declining number of jobs in old productively disadvantaged factories which can result in lower or stagnant wages and benefits. This is the globalism contradiction for the left. Consequently, in global markets, wealth is being redistributed, but the redistribution is from the labor force in the western industrialized nations to the labor force in the developing nations of the world.

The globalism contradiction for US capitalists and capitalists in the rest of the industrialized west is closely related to the success of progressives and the labor movement and the resultant cost of manufacturing land, labor, and capital improvements. Since the purpose of international manufacturing conglomerates is to maximize corporate profit, cost reduction is an essential responsibility of corporate executives and board members. This necessity stands in direct contradiction to the goals of nationalism, patriotism, and any since of obligation to the labor force, communities, states, and the United States of America, all of which, supported US corporations as they gained economic dominance in global markets. In my opinion, corporations founded in the United States, should give significant consideration to the fact that they would not be in their current global economic situation without the United States of America. These corporations have a debt to pay to We the People who supported their rise to positions of global economic power. This obligation is at the heart of the globalism contradiction for US capitalists.

The tariff and trade negotiation package announced by the Trump Administration is a complicated and aggressive plan to reinvigorate the US steel and aluminum industries and our manufacturing in general in global markets.  During a time of war, the United States must be able to support its military with the best equipment available and supply the needs of the population supporting any war effort. This requires a complete manufacturing base. This is one of the primary objectives of the Trump Administration’s goal to Make America Great Again.

Join the fray. All of the America’s Crossroad Posts are listed by categories in the  BLOG CONTENTS tab.  If you decide to read a few, please leave comments about your “Patriot Visions,” start or join the conversation, and share the Posts with friends and political frienimies.

THE DEMOCRAT PLAN TO TRANSFORM AMERICA

 


CONTENTS

ALINSKY  RULES TO TRANSFORM AMERICA
OBAMA’S PLAN TO TRANSFORM AMERICA

The current debate raging in Washington DC over immigration, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, and border security is a reaction to Democrat actions to transform America through immigration policy changes legislated in the 1965 Immigration Act. Before 1965, the Marxist informed Democrat plan to transform America started in earnest during the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt with the New Deal effort to alleviate the problems of The Great Depression and establishment of the Social Security Administration. Beginning in the early 1960’s, the Democrat Party supported progressive efforts to gain complete control of public education which would emphasize socialism and atheism over capitalism and Judeo-Christianity transforming public attitudes about capitalism, socialism, traditional Judeo-Christian values, and the traditional family. The plan to transform America continued with the 1965 Immigration Act which, contrary to Democrat assurances, altered the religious, racial, and ethnic composition of the United States by changing immigration policy. Under this immigration plan, people sharing our Judeo-Christian culture and heritage compose a significant minority of legal immigrants rather than ensuring that the composition of new immigrant populations was similar to the existing population composition. The new 1965 Immigration Act policy changed the religious and cultural make-up of our nation and transform America. The latest phase of transformation began five days before the 2008 election when candidate Obama said, We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.

ALINSKY  RULES TO TRANSFORM AMERICA

It is important to understand the approach to community organizing  outlined in Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals, a manual for political war according to Barack Obama’s Rules for Revolution: The Alinsky Model by David Horowitz.* Insight, into the true nature of the Alinsky trained community organizer, appears on the dedication page of Rules for Radicals where Alinsky wrote, Lest we forget, the first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom “ Lucifer. The name and nature of the kingdom, hell, Lucifer won was conveniently left out. However, Lucifer’s tactics in the temptation of Adam and Eve and other Biblical passages provide an outline for many of the strategies and tactics Alinsky and his disciples, including Barack Obama, teach during their community organizing workshops.

Alinsky trained community organizers understand that Marxist thought underpins their eventual goal; and the difference between communism and socialism is the means of achieving the utopian societal goal. As part of their deceptive tactics, radicals have used a variety of philosophical names throughout their history to camouflage their true identity and purposes. With their changing names, Alinsky radicals create the illusion that their opposition is composed of uninformed buffoons, Deplorables, with irrelevant ideas and opinions about who radicals are and the actual philosophical position of radicals on the issues of the day. For example, members of the US Communist Party were labor activists and members of the Democrat party in the early twentieth century, formed the Progressive Party to oppose President Truman in the 1948 election, rejoined the Democrat Party in the early 1970’s after the fall of the Soviet Union ending the Cold War, and are currently the majority group in  the Progressive Caucus of the Democrat Party although many deny or diminish the Marxist, communist, and socialist influence of their progressive political ideology.

A person casting their vote into the ballot box.
According to Alinsky, “A radical is not a reformer of the system; but its would-be destroyer.

Alinsky taught that a radical is not a reformer of the system; but its would-be destroyer. In the case of the United States of America, the system is our political, economic system of Constitutional capitalism based on private property and individual rights supported by our Judeo-Christian heritage and culture. All radical’s efforts are aimed at subverting their society, in a word, change. They plan to transform America. The purpose of change is to take power from the Haves and give it to the Have-nots in the name of the people. Alinsky radicals do not compare America’s Constitutional capitalistic society to other societies but to the utopian system of social justice and freedom they think they are building. Compared to their vision, even America is hell. Consequently, America will never be equal, or liberal, or democratic enough to satisfy radical fantasies so radicals are willing to destroy the values, structures, and institutions that sustain our society. Alinsky, post-Soviet communist, neo-Marxist radicals always know that they will succeed in creation of their utopian system where the radicals of the old Soviet Union, China, North Korea, Laos, Cuba, Venezuela, and etc. failed at the cost of untold millions of lives. The unfortunate historical reality of radical revolution is that power always goes to a new group of Haves, the radical revolutionary vanguard, the new political elites; and the Have-nots are still Have-nots. Have-nots never get their promised utopian heaven on earth under radicals and their plan to transform America.

It is also important to understand that for conservatives, war is a political metaphor; but for radical Alinsky community organizers, war is a political reality. Since the objective is to destroy the enemy, the tactics of Alinsky style political war are brutal and relentless. For Alinsky, the end always justifies the means which have no ethical, moral, or legal limits. Consequently, it is okay to lie, deceive, and even commit murder. The only consideration is whether or not the means effectively advance the cause. Throughout history, the evil wrought by revolutionary radicals of this ilk are always justified as the means of achieving the greater good for all mankind, the social salvation of all humanity. Individual salvation is always secondary to mass salvation since it is sometimes necessary to sacrifice individuals for the greater good. This idea is consistent with Marxist philosophy where individual good is always subservient to the collective good. In such a war, unlike Alinsky community organizers, conservatives are at a severe disadvantage because most conservatives are constrained by ethical, moral, and legal considerations.

Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals emphasize that power and building a vast power base, an Alinsky army or a civilian national security’ force, is the only rule. Accumulating power is the first priority in implementing radical change to transform America. These Alinsky statements and workshop titles; we are not virtuous by not wanting power, we are really cowards for not wanting power, because power is good and powerlessness is evil, self-interest is the only principle around which to organize people, understanding power, power analysis, the path to power, elements of a power organization, and relationships built on self-interest, demonstrate the importance of power accumulation to achieve change through community organizing. To Alinsky radicals, the accumulation of power is always the issue.

Deception is an Alinsky radical tactic in their sociological and political war designed to gain power over political enemies and subsequently eliminate them and destroy the system they control. Since power is always the issue, the actual issue or cause which concerns the people supporting a cause is not the issue that concerns community organizers because without power to transform America, change is unattainable. The community organizer deceptively  infiltrates the leadership of a cause, embraces the cause, and uses the people’s self-interest to create an army of people supporting the cause to gain power to accomplish the community organizer’s goal of destroying the overall system, to transform America.

As a consequence, Alinsky community organizer’s deceptive subversion of causes is another means to the end, accumulation of political power. Group, issue, or cause names, goals, and objectives are irrelevant because the only issue is gaining political power to destroy the enemy and the system. Community organizers, individually or in groups, often work simultaneously with disparate causes with a variety of names to accumulate power by uniting these groups to weaken and eventually destroy the system. Alinsky successfully created coalitions of communists, anarchist, socialists, new leftists, liberals, social justice activists, progressives, black radicals, and Democrats. Since each issue or cause has associated enemies that their cause needs to overcome and destroy, another powerful tool of deception used by Alinsky radicals to destroy enemies is to stigmatize opponents with terms like racist, sexist, misogynistic, homophobic, Islamophobic, xenophobic etc., whether the terms apply or not. Radical community organizers have successfully united disparate groups with a campaign to stigmatize President Trump and the Republican Party with an ist, ic, and phobic epitaph associated with their particular cause. The “self-interest” of each cause unites the group around the epitaph representing their cause giving the group its own power while the common enemies, the President and the GOP, multiplies the power of the combined groups into throngs of protesters, the Alinsky army or civilian national security’ force. The plan is a wave election that sweeps the Democrat Party into control of the state governments and  the US Congress in 2018 and the Presidency in 2020 resuming the delayed Democrat plan to fundamentally transform America.

Conservatives look at these disparate groups and ask what do they actually want? What is their unified goal or objective? The Alinsky community organizers answer under their breath, We want the political power of all these groups to be unified to destroy you and the system. The issue or cause is not the issue; accumulating political power is the only real by issue to the Alinsky community organizer. The “organizers” are working with all the current self-interest groups, the “Women’s” and “Me Too” marchers, the “Stop Gun Violence” marchers,  the “Teachers” marchers, the “Black Lives Matter” marchers, and the “silence conservative speakers” marchers, and the etc. marchers. Many of these marches are infiltrated Antifa and Anonymous rioters. These different large “cause” demonstrations fulfill two radical purposes, they gather the Alinsky “armies” of the various “causes” and build energy; and they unite the different groups into a combined political power base which the “organizers” combine to defeat their political opponents.

Finally, perhaps the most powerful Alinsky rule for radicals is to infiltrate the institutions* that support the system, eliminate internal opposition leadership and replace it with supportive leaders, and transform the institution to promote transformation or destruction of our overall system of Constitutional capitalism, private property, individual freedom, and our Judeo-Christian heritage as a critical influence on our society. Marxist philosophers have embraced this plan almost from the beginning. Infiltration of institutions has been quite successful in the United States. Communist participation in the early labor movement, FDR’s legislative attempt to change the US Supreme Court and Federal Judiciary in order to fill the courts with progressive judges, progressive domination of public education from preschool to Ph.D. curricula and educators, dilution of Biblical moral principles in many  Christian denominations, the entire United States government bureaucracy, and the Democrat Party. The progressive versus conservative contest for control of the US Supreme Court, the entire lower Federal Court system, and state court systems is evidence of the critical battle over the balance of our courts. Progressive Justices at every level of our court system often use progressive ideas rather than the text of laws, judicial precedent, or constitutions to render decisions that alter or stop the actions of Republican Administrations, capitalistic initiatives, and Judeo-Christian influences on society and transform America. In many cases, progressive bureaucrats in the upper and middle levels of several Executive Branch Departments such as State, Environmental Protection Agency, Agriculture, Interior, Internal Revenue Service, Justice, and the National Security Agency have acted to delay or in some situations possibly subvert the policies and activities of conservative groups and conservative Republican Presidential Administrations and Governors. This progressive infiltration of our institutions has drastically altered the nature and character of our nation. This is part of the Democrat plan to transform America.

OBAMA’S PLAN TO TRANSFORM AMERICA

Although President Obama never fully disclosed the details of his plan to transform America, some insight can be gleaned from his formative youthful years and his own words most of which are also available in written, audio, and video form. Former President Obama has a radical, Marxist background. Both his father and mother had radical backgrounds and educations. His mentor in Hawaii, Frank Marshall Davis, was a 60’s communist radical from Chicago where Saul Alinsky worked as a founding community organizer. When he went to college, he followed his Marxist roots regarding his college associates and course work. In Barack Obama’s DREAMS FROM MY FATHER: A STORY OF RACE AND INHERITANCE, he talks of his time at Occidental College in California. Here’s a quote:

To avoid being mistaken for a sellout, I chose my friends carefully. The more politically active black students, the foreign students, the Chicanos, the Marxist Professors and the structural feminists and punk-rock performance poets. At night we discussed neocolonialism, Franz Fanon, Eurocentrism, and patriarchy. We were resisting bourgeois society’s stifling constraints. We weren’t indifferent or careless or insecure. We were alienated.”

This statement provides vital insight into the mind and ideology that informed the Presidency of Barack Obama.

Frantz Fanon was a psychiatrist, philosopher, and radical revolutionary in the fields of post-colonial studies, critical theory (a synonym for Marxist theory used by the Frankfurt School to mask their roots and enable the primarily Jewish faculty to migrate from Frankfurt Germany to Columbia University immediately prior to the rise of Adolf Hitler), and Marxism. As an intellectual, Fanon was a political, Pan-Africanist, and Marxist humanist concerned with the psychopathology of colonization, and the human, social, and cultural consequences of decolonization. Neocolonialism, a tenant of the anti-capitalist rhetoric of Marxism, is the use of economic, political, cultural, or other pressures to control or influence other countries, especially former dependencies. Eurocentrism, focusing on European culture or history to the exclusion of a wider view of the world; implicitly regarding European culture as preeminent, is the philosophical term for white privilege which is inherently evil to the Marxist world view. This view ignores the reality of the fact that European culture, our Judeo-Christian heritage and capitalism has the demonstrated potential to increase the wellbeing of the world beyond the demonstrated capacity of Marxist philosophy and socialism. Patriarchy is a system of society in which the father or eldest male is head of the family and descent is traced through the male line or a society or community organized on patriarchal lines. To Marxists and progressives, patriarchy also represents the traditional Judeo-Christian family consisting of one husband, one wife, and their biological or genetic and adopted children. Of course, the greatest anathema of the traditional family to progressive, Marxist thinkers is the idea that the patriarchal family is headed by a male. To President Obama, diminishing the significance of these “problems” is central to his plan to transform America.

Finally, it is critical to understand the significance of a concept statement that Barack Obama considered critical to enshrine in his autobiography, We were resisting bourgeois society’s stifling constraints. The bourgeois society is a phrase straight out of The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx.  Such societies are full of stifling constraints. According to Barack Obama, a bourgeois society is a Judeo-Christian, capitalistic, Eurocentric, neocolonial, patriarchal society. A bourgeois society is the society that made the United States of America the greatest, most prosperous and benevolent nation in the history of the world. It was the bourgeois society of the United States of America that saved the world from the scourge of German Imperialism, Japanese Imperialism, fascism, and the totalitarian communism of the Soviet Union. It is the bourgeois society of the United States of America that compelled then President Barack Obama to tour the world stating his regret by apologizing for everything that the United States of America stands for regarding world peace and the potential we represent for a better world. It is due to the”bourgeois society”of the United States that Barack Obama feels that it is necessary to transform America.

A man writing on the wall of a classroom
We were resisting bourgeois society’s [America’s] stifling constraints, Barack Obama
After graduating from Columbia University, Barack Obama moved to Chicago and began the final, most informative, stage of his Marxist preparation for his political career; training and working at the Saul Alinsky associated Gamaliel Foundation to organize the South Side of Chicago. At Gamaliel, where he finally became Director of the Developing Communities Project, Obama was trained by three Alinsky associates from Alinsky’s Industrial Areas Foundation in the community organizing methods outlined in Rules for Radicals, a manual for political war. A picture on Obama’s presidential campaign website provided an interesting insight into his vision for his Presidency. The picture showed him teaching an Alinsky based, ACORN, community organizing workshop in front of a blackboard showing the topics he was teaching in that session, Power Analysis and Relationships Built on Self-Interest. After his work as an Alinsky community organizer, ACORN trainer, and attorney, early in his political career, Michelle Obama said, Barack is not a politician first and foremost. He’s a community activist exploring the viability of politics to make change’ (the transformation of America). Obama responded, I take that observation as a compliment. His goal is to transform America.

With this summary, the Democrat transformation of America that preceded him and the ideology that informed the Presidency of Barack Obama, some insights into his statements and policy decisions are possible. The 1965 change in immigration policy which altered the religious, racial, and ethnic composition of the United States and the progressive domination of our system of public education enabled Obama’s 2006 speech statement,

Whatever we once were, we are no longer a Christian nation “ at least not just. We are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, and a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers.

Although he purportedly intended to say,

Given the increasing diversity of America’s population, the dangers of sectarianism have never been greater. Whatever we once were, we are no longer just a Christian nation….

By his statement, Whatever we once were, regardless of the place in either statement of the word just, President Obama acknowledged that in the United States, we once were just a Christian nation since he stated that Whatever we once were, we are no longer just a Christian nation. Changes in immigration policy, Supreme Court Decisions, and public education have served to transform America. Many conservatives contend that President Obama always planned to link the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), immigration, and wealth redistribution, an important tenant of Marxism and socialist philosophy, on an American and global scale. President Obama said,

If someone is here illegally, they won’t be covered under this plan (Obamacare). That is a commitment I’m making. Even though I don’t believe we can ignore the fact that our immigration system is broken. If anything, this debate (whether illegal immigrants would be covered under Obamacare) underscores the necessity of passing comprehensive immigration reform (giving Illegal immigrants citizenship) and resolving the issue of 12 million undocumented people living and working in this country once and for all (giving former illegal immigrants who could become citizens with comprehensive immigration reform voting rights and coverage under Obamacare, as Obama envisioned).

In my opinion, President Obama viewed Obamacare as a means of wealth redistribution which he would expand to global proportions as revealed by the linkage between illegal immigrants and Obamacare that he made in the above statement. The subsidies provided to low income Obamacare participants constitutes a substantial level of wealth redistribution, another way to transform Amercia.

One of the early advisers of the Obama Administration was Van Jones, a pre-Black Lives Matter, Marxist activist advocating against the adverse consequence of Eurocentrism and patriarchy on the black and all minority communities in the United States. Jones is also a wealth redistribution advocate. In an interview where wealth redistribution was discussed, Jones noted President Obama’s plan to bring about redistributive change, by stating, That sounds radical “ redistribution of wealth. But listen to our own president talking about the Constitution. Jones referenced the following statement by President Obama equating opinions of Supreme Court Justices with the Constitution which does not address wealth redistribution:

The Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth. The tragedies of the civil rights movement was “ because the civil rights movement became so court focused, I think there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalition of powers through which you bring about redistributive change.

Clearly, President Obama understood that his plan to transform America through wealth redistribution could be challenged all the way to the Supreme Court. Unfortunately, conservatives were disappointed when the Supreme Court upheld many of the redistributive aspects of Obamacare even when the text of the Act did not support Obama Administration applications of the law.

The Paris Climate Accord and Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) were part of President Obama’s plan to transform America into a leader in global wealth redistribution. However, President Trump withdrew from both the Paris Climate Accord and the Trans Pacific Partnership because they are both methods of global wealth redistribution. A June 2017, National Public Radio article summarizing the provisions of the Paris Climate Accord stated, “To help developing countries switch from fossil fuels to greener sources of energy and adapt to the effects of climate change, the developed world will provide $100 billion a year” which the Accord identified as a floor,’ not a ceiling. The article did not state how much of the $100 billion a year the United States would pay, but our share was probably planned to be similar to our share of the annual United Nations budget considering the Obama Administration’s skill at international negotiations. The article also states that

limiting the rise in temperature to 2 degrees (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit above pre-industrial revolution global temperatures by the end of the twenty first century) has been discussed as a global goal for several years now. That amount of warming will still have a substantial impact, scientists say, but will be less devastating than allowing temperatures to rise unchecked.

Under the Accord, that statement indicates that industrialized nations would pay at least $100 billion each year to under developed nations to achieve an indeterminate reduction in climate devastation; and the 2050 global temperature goal is a target the world hasn’t yet figured out how to meet. In addition, the article indicates that the Accord is totally voluntary, lacks verbal precision, and is filled with ambiguous phrases related to national commitments to the Accord such as,

Nations aren’t expected; voluntary pledge; not an immediate pledge; each target should reflect progress; this target date isn’t actually precise: the deal describes it as mid-century;’ greenhouse gases emitted would be balanced by removing an equivalent amount from the atmosphere carbon dioxide (balance) would be accomplished by growing forests, which absorb carbon dioxide (but the Accord fails to guarantee sufficient land to add the needed forests); many sections of the deal, of course, don’t nail down any numbers at all; nations around the world should strengthen their cooperation;’ all parties ‘should’ cooperate to enhance the capacity of developing country parties;  and at least 55 nations ” between them accounting for at least 55 percent of the world’s total greenhouse gas emissions ” are needed to formally approve the pact.

The globe’s worst polluters including China and India do not have to begin reducing their greenhouse gas emissions for a decade or more under the Accord.

Similarly, according to a May 2017, New York Times (NYT) article on-line, the Paris Climate Accord was intended to be non-binding with no penalties for falling short of declared targets. This article stated the United States would contribute $3 billion in aid to poorer countries by 2020. A related November 2014 NYT article indicated that in addition to the $3 billion from the United States at least 10 other industrialized countries pledged a total of $3 billion prior to final drafting of the Accord. The pledged $6 billion was considered a means to mobilize industrialized nations to begin their annual $100 billion contribution to help poor nations deal with climate change. None of these articles discussed the way the United States would finance our share of this massive global wealth redistribution scheme. Consequently, President Trump withdrew the United States from the Accord.

In a related discussion of climate change regulation of greenhouse gasses in January 2008, Barack Obama told the San Francisco Chronicle:

Under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket. Businesses would have to retrofit their operations. That will cost money. They will pass that cost on to consumers.

The American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, President Obama’s cap and trade plan, was rejected by the US Senate defeating President Obama’s plan. The plan failed due to the impact of the anticipated increases in the cost of electricity, other carbon based energy sources, jobs, and the economy as a whole. In August 2015, over the objection of Congress, President Obama signed an Executive Order establishing the 1,560 page, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulation titled the Clean Power Plan which essentially established a carbon cap and trade plan similar to the one defeated by Congress in 2009. Obama’s 2008 prediction that electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket under his cap and trade plan was quite accurate. According to one source, the 2012, market-clearing price of natural gas was $16 per megawatt; and by 2015, the price ranged from $167 in the Mid-Atlantic region to $357 in parts of Ohio, an 8.5 to 22.3 fold cost increase in only three years. The impact of these cost increases was most severe in industrialized states, states heavily dependent of coal fired electric plants, coal mining regions, states with high relative concentrations of middle and lower class manufacturing workers, and lower population states, Trump country. During his first year in office, President Trump, with input from the head of the EPA, used his Executive Order authority to eliminate the adverse economic consequences of former President Obama’s Executive Ordered cap and trade Clean Power Plan without sacrificing air or water quality.

During a July 2008 Presidential election campaign speech in Colorado Springs, CO, Candidate Obama gave a speech which contained the following embedded statement,

We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we set. We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.

This statement was totally out of context and unrelated to the rest of the quotation from this segment of the speech; and its removal would have avoided both consternation and confusion regarding its meaning and intent. The security force statement was preceded by promises to expand AmeriCorps to provide a service vehicle to meet national goals connected to a common purpose, a call for people of all ages to serve, a call for veterans to find jobs and support for other vets and our military families, and a commitment to grow our Foreign Service and double the size of the Peace Corps. Similarly, the security force statement was followed by a promise to utilize technology to connect people to service, (and) expand USA Freedom Corps to create opportunities to volunteer. This portion of the speech ended with the statement, This will empower more Americans to craft their own service agenda and make their own change’ from the bottom up. Again, the security force statement is totally irrelevant to the rest of the quotation since none of the organizations are designed to achieve national security objectives and their stated functions do not require a civilian national security force that is powerful strong ( and) well-funded. Of course, these organizations would have to be well-funded to accomplish their stated goals.

In my opinion, a FACTCHECK.org article by Brooks Jackson discussing this Obama civilian national security’ force quote is deceptive and resembles a discussion of the meaning of is rather than a reasoned contextual discussion the words Candidate Obama used in his civilian national security’ force statement and the surrounding text contained in the link presented above. The FACTCHECK article begins with the question, Is Obama planning a Gestapo-like civilian national security force? The article answers the question by stating, This false claim is a badly distorted version of Obama’s call for doubling the Peace Corps, creating volunteer networks and increasing the size of the Foreign Service. The question and answer was prompted by a November 2008 Associated Press story by Ben Evans with the headline “Georgia Congressman Warns of Obama Dictatorship” that contained this embellished statement by Evans, Broun fears that President-elect Obama will establish a Gestapo-like security force to impose a Marxist or fascist dictatorship.’ The headline and statement is based on an interview of Georgia Representative Broun in which Broun stated, It may sound a bit crazy or off base, but the thing is, he’s (Obama’s) the one who proposed this national security force. That’s the thing Hitler did in Nazi Germany and it’s exactly what the Soviet Union did.

The militaristic Hitler and Soviet Union concerns raised by Representative Broun about this security force statement comes from the fact that the term security is used in the context of military activities in the first sentence; and security is a significant part of the phrase civilian national security’  force in the second sentence of the statement. The militant connotation of the two sentences considered together in the context of a proposed civilian national security force is unavoidable but ignored by Jackson’s answer to the question. In addition, Jackson’s answer fails to consider the implications and internal context of the security force statement as anything other than an amplifier of a contextually unrelated discussion of the Peace Corps, networking, and the Foreign Service. As a highly respected orator, it seems improbable that Obama’s security force statement was an inept attempt to emphasize the importance of his commitment to the Peace Corps, networking, AmeriCorps, USA Freedom Corps, and the Foreign Service. Jackson also failed to consider the possibility that as an Alinsky trained community organizer, Obama might have deceptively hidden his stated intention for a civilian national ‘security’ force in plain sight and hearing and actually meant what he said and said what he meant, an Alinsky style army of empowered activists.  Finally, the security force statement stuck out like a sore thumb, screaming to be noticed. Unfortunately, nobody, including Jackson noticed; but Representative Broun noticed.

Given questions surrounding candidate Obama’s security force statement and his work as an Alinsky style community organizer, additional questions seem relevant. During his Administration, several groups that are not adverse to mass political demonstrations that include violent masked black clad protesters often causing extensive damage to private and public property were tolerated by local governments, law enforcement, and the Obama Administration’s Justice Department. Violent protesters have also infiltrated some mass protests that were planned to be non-violent. Groups that plan and conduct violent protests and invade other public political demonstrations to riot and create havoc include, Anonymous, ANTIFA, members of Occupy Wall Street, and Black Panther voter suppression activists, among others. Some suggest that the Obama Administration was more tolerant of these groups than other administrations by its relative inaction to suppress their activities. The plan of many of these groups is to transform America.

Another question about the Obama Administration is the possibility that the Administration installed and promoted an excessive number of progressives to critical positions who could impede succeeding conservative administrations and attempt to preserve the Obama legacy. The latest questions revolve around the actions of high level executives in the IRS, Department of Justice, FBI, and the US Intelligence community. Such a plan would be consistent with strategies outlined in Rules for Radicals and candidate Obama’s 2008 promise that We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.

*Barack Obama’s Rules for Revolution: The Alinsky Model. David Horowitz. 2009. David Horowitz Freedom Center. Sherman Oaks, CA 91499-6562.

Join the fray. All of the America’s Crossroad Posts are listed by categories in the  BLOG CONTENTS tab.  If you decide to read a few, please leave comments about your “Patriot Visions,” start or join the conversation, and share the Posts with friends and political frienimies.

 

LIES, ACADEMIC, POLITICAL, AND JOURNALISTIC LIES, DAMN LIES ALL

 

 

CONTENTS

ACADEMIC LIES
CLIMATIC LIES
POLITICAL LIES
HEALTHCARE LIES
JOURNALISTIC LIES

With their national poll approval ratings at or below 20%, it is not surprising that 80% of the population hears lies and damn lies when politicians and journalists open their mouths to speak or write. A discussion of the concepts of truth and lies may be an appropriate place to start this discussion. In The Ten Commandments we read this, You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor (EX 20:16, NIV), or do not lie. The Merriam Webster On-Line Dictionary definition of lie is to make an untrue statement with the intent to deceive. Conversely the same dictionary defines truth as, the body of real things, events, and facts, actuality, the state of being the case, fact. For We the People, the Deplorable Class, these concepts appear to be quite clear.

A magnifying glass over the word rust
Lies of commission and omission advance the progressive cultural narrative to influence our social, political, and economic system.

ACADEMIC LIES

The 1983 Harvard University Press publication, A Dictionary of Marxist Thought essay on truth sheds a very different light on truth. Truth is described as the practical expression of a subject totality achieved in the realized identity of subject and object in history and this-worldly manifestations of class-related needs and interests. In the essay defining historiography, the study of history as a discipline, the definition of truth is refined, in the context of history, as an ideal chosen from an infinite number of similar, potential ideals determined by history and finally realized under communism once a consensus regarding the new truth of history is achieved. Joseph Stalin said, America is like a healthy body and its resistance is threefold: its patriotism, its morality and its spiritual life. If we can undermine these three areas, America will collapse from within. As a result, obscure and often discredited depictions of history are presented as historical facts to incrementally alter the existing historical paradigm and promote the progressive, Marxist agenda, academic lies. For example, the left ruthlessly uses this process to discredit the notion that our nation and Constitution are based on a Judeo-Christian society, principles, and laws.

With these thoughts regarding truth and history in mind and the current atmosphere on our college campuses and all levels of academia, it may be well for readers to consider the roll of the left’s educational dictatorship in today’s society to accomplish Stalin’s Marxist, progressive plan for America. Consequently, it is relatively simple to view the Constitution as a living, evolving document rather than a constant, unchanging basis for the rule of Law. The change, in jurisprudence from the preeminence of original intent to case law where precedent and the opinion of judges prevails and the Constitution became a living document, began in the middle of the nineteenth century at the Harvard Law School, the start of the left’s educational dictatorship. For the left, social truth is relative and changes with time and the current societal situation; and a lie is a contradiction of the current Marxist, progressive, social paradigm.

CLIMATIC LIES

The environmental movement in general, and the notion that climate change or global warming is primarily associated with industrialization, pollution, and carbon-based energy, is a movement in which academic, political, and journalistic lies and collusion regarding a narrative is obvious. It is interesting that the climate change narrative has turned 180° in the last half-century. In the 1970s the climate change narrative was the coming Ice Age. Today’s narrative is that man caused global warming will destroy the earth and all its inhabitants within 100 to 200 years at the most. There is no interest in the academic, political, or journalistic communities to explore or explain the cause of this narrative change in such a short period of time. That is a question we the deplorables need not ask; and a discussion of the narrative change doesn’t fit the current narrative. The reality is that both narratives placed the cause as industrialization, pollution, and our dependence on carbon-based energy.

This question regarding geological evidence of climate change is rarely considered. How is it possible, in the absence of human activity and industrialization, that the earth has gone through multiple ice ages and subsequent periods of global warming ending each ice age? Some geologist have attributed the cooling cycles to impacts of huge meteorites or asteroids which filled atmosphere with impact debris causing the cooling and the subsequent Ice Ages. Natural atmospheric cleansing resulted in rising temperatures over time ending each Ice Age. This seems to be a logical theory, but here is an interesting question. If such impacts are the cause of the global cooling and ice ages with subsequent atmospheric cleansing resulting in slow steady global warming and the end of the ice ages, does that mean that the earth is too close to the sun? Are such asteroid impacts the only phenomenon that has prevented temperature increases too great to sustain life on earth?  Without these hypothesized asteroid impacts, would earth be too hot for life and more like mars? These unasked questions are interesting to a young geezer. To me the real scientific question that should be asked is, if carbon dioxide pollution from carbon based energy sources is the cause of climate change, why did earth experience extreme cyclic ice ages and subsequent global warming before the industrial age? Of course, such questions do not fit the current narrative explaining climate change; nor do they warrant real scientific inquiry according to the narrative.

The majority of academics, journalists, and politicians claim that man caused climate change, currently considered global warming, is settled science. This claim is not without controversy. John Coleman, a founder of the Weather Channel has said that man-made climate change is a hoax and climate change is not happening. He declared there is no consensus in science. Science isn’t a vote, science is about facts. Coleman is skeptical about claims that 97 percent of climate scientists are in agreement on the issue noting,

They don’t have any choice. If you’re going to get the money, you’ve got to support their position. Therefore 97 percent of the scientific reports published support global warming. Why? Because those are the ones the government pays for and that’s where the money is.

Current Weather Channel management does not agree with Coleman. My question is, Who currently pays Weather Channel bills?

A picture of the sun setting over a field.
Not all scientists and environmental economists agree that costs of climate change mitigation will significantly alter climate change.

Another group of skeptics regarding man caused global warming is Patrick Michaels editor of CLIMATE COUP: GLOBAL WARMING’S INVASION OF OUR GOVERNMENT AND OUR LIVES along with seven other contributing climate scientists and economists. In the introduction to this publication, Michael’s demonstrates how academicians and climate scientists select data to support the current global warming paradigm. While discussing California’s K-12 climate change curriculum guide, he writes,

…The 50 “ year trend in California temperatures is 0.43 degrees Fahrenheit per decade, or 4.3 degrees per century¦.

But starting in 1960 is highly misleading¦. Records began in 1895. Using the whole record, the trend is only 0.08 degrees. California’s alarmist guide over estimates the over “ all trend by over 500%. Further, it is rather apparent, even in the 50 year sample, that the warming takes place largely between 1960 and 1980, with no net change in the succeeding 30 years.

This selective use of data to support the climate change narrative or paradigm is an academic lie of commission, just another damn global warming lie.

Similarly, Chapter 3 of this publication, Bias in the Peer Review Process: A Cautionary and Personal Account, reiterates Coleman’s claim regarding climate change publications. The author, Ross McKitrick, opens the chapter with the following statement:

Unfortunately, Climategate e-mails revealed that indeed there has been systematic pressure on journal editors to reject manuscripts not toeing the line about disastrous climate change. Even more unfortunate, my experience and that of others are that the post-Climategate environment has made this situation worse, not better¦.

The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), by claiming to be the consensus of scientists,’ is actually defining a paradigm in the sense of the late historian of science Thomas Kuhn. To Kuhn, paradigms are overarching logical structures, and the work of normal science,’ is the care and feeding of paradigms with data and research findings that confirmed that indeed the paradigm is a correct representation of scientific reality.

This is the story of those difficulties with the IPCC and with the keepers of the paradigm¦.

Unfortunately, policymakers and the political class cannot see what is happening because the absence of these publications gives the appearance of unanimity in science that is not there.

Throughout this 28 page chapter, McKitrick discusses the issues raised in his introduction. In conclusion he states,

The paper I have discussed makes the case that the IPCC used false evidence to conceal an important problem with the surface temperature data on which most of its conclusions rest¦.

In the aftermath of Climategate, a lot of scientists working on global warming-related topics are upset that their field has apparently lost credibility with the public¦. I would like to suggest that the climate science community consider instead whether the public might actually have a point¦.

The policy community has aggressively intervened in climate science because of all the breaches of normal scientific procedures¦.. It appears to be a profession-wide decision that, due to the conjectured threat of global warming, the ethic of scientific objectivity has had an asterisk added to it: there is now the additional condition that objectivity cannot compromise the imperative of supporting one particular point of view.

This strategy is backfiring badly: rather than creating the appearance of genuine scientific progress, the situation appears more like a chokehold of indoctrination and intent intellectual corruption. I do not know what the solution is, since I have yet to see a case in which an institution or segment of society, having once been contaminated or knocked off balance by the global warning issue, is subsequently able to right itself. But perhaps, as time progresses, climate science will find a way to do so. Now that would be progress.

Although the authors concede that some warming is occurring, CLIMATE COUP goes on to challenge most of the dire claims related to the global warming paradigm, the extent of man’s contribution to climate change, and the relationship between the costs and benefits of most of the proposed solutions to the problem.

Evaluation of the Paris Climate Accord shows that it appears to be more of a wealth redistribution plan exempting major polluters like China and India and extracting huge costs on the developed world especially the United States of America. This is especially true for carbon credit payment plans where individuals, businesses, and nations pay penalties or taxes for excessive carbon energy usage which is transferred to developing nations. When the world’s most significant carbon polluters are excluded, the actual or scientifically perceived, reduction in temperature creases is relatively insignificant in comparison to the exorbitant costs. Touted benefits appear to be nothing more than political, journalistic, and academic lies, damn lies all. Consequently, the fact that President Trump withdrew from the accord will benefit the United States far more than the accord would benefit the earth with its insignificant impact on changes in the rate of purported global warming.

POLITICAL LIES

In today’s highly partisan environment, with slim legislative majorities and complex legislation often pairing liberal with conservative elements forcing lesser of evils considerations, principled votes can be difficult or impossible. The inevitable result of this type of legislation is political lies since it often hides issues that cannot pass on their merits within other critical legislation such as funding for Planned Parenthood within a an unrelated appropriation bill. The only way to end this political legislative gerrymandering is to require that all legislation relates to a single issue that stands or fails on the merits of the issue. The current legislative process is deceitful and makes political lies inevitable.

A related legislative issue is the Senate rule requiring 60 votes to pass non-budgetary legislation and the resultant filibuster. When the majority party does not have 60 Senatorial votes, the filibuster often forces Senators into defacto lies because they cannot fulfill campaign promises. The situation causes We the People to distrust politicians and the political process rendering election of Senators a somewhat thankless process. Alexander Hamilton observed that the filibuster is not democratic. He discussed what could be described as the tyranny of the minority where the minority overrules the majority. This is inconsistent with the republican form of government and democratic principles where the majority rules. Hamilton also discussed the remote possibility that unscrupulous campaign financiers would only need to come up with money to influence 40 equally unscrupulous Senators rather than 49 such Senators to alter the result of a vote on an issue. Withholding funds would be a more likely and less obvious strategy.  This 60 vote super-majority rule often turns hope in the power of our Republic into a damn political lie. This is unfortunate since the origin of the filibuster rule was a simple misunderstanding not part of the Founder’s plan for the Senate.

We the People often feel that politicians simply say what they think their constituents want to hear during campaigns. Once they get into office, politicians seem to vote as the money tells them to vote, We the People be damned. Unfortunately, when politicians do stand on principles and vote based on campaign promises, they are often ridiculed, derided, and ostracized for the purpose coercing a change in their vote which would turn campaign promises into lies. Some unattributed examples will suffice; we really care about the people of the United States (but if bipartisan legislation will reduce  our political power we will not participate in any such legislation), the IRS will never be used as a weapon against political opponents, if you like your doctor you can keep your doctor, if you like your healthcare insurance plan you can keep your plan, Under the ACA you will save an  average of $2,500 a year, a cut in a government program occurs when the program increase occurs at a lower percentage than the rate of increase in the previous year or a lower than expected increase in a government program is a cut to the program (current Medicaid discussions for example),  if you elect a Republican Legislature and President we will repeal and replace Obamacare, If you elect GOP Representatives, Senators, and President we will end illegal immigration and pass immigration reform, If you elect us we will reform Medicare and Social Security and insure that these programs will be available for all future generations, or elect us and we will lower your income taxes and reform the tax code. Of this list of major “lies,” Republicans did reform the tax codes and lower taxes. We the People could add pages to this short list of damn political lies. Liars must be replaced at every level of our political system.

HEALTHCARE LIES

The current Obamacare, healthcare insurance, repeal and replace debate is a discussion where journalistic and political liars collude. Collusion occurred during the debates for and passage of Obamacare. The first question regarding the current debate is the actual portion of the economy involved in the healthcare industry and the individual healthcare insurance market, Obamacare. The claim is that healthcare occupies one sixth of the US economy. Politicians claim and journalist report that the debate is critical because of this large proportion of our economy. Some questions are appropriate. Is healthcare insurance included in the healthcare share of the economy? If not, is the total healthcare contribution to our economy closer to 20% or more? Additionally, the combination of those currently involved in Obamacare and the uninsured is approximately 20% of the total healthcare insurance market. This is also known as the individual healthcare insurance market. Between 50 and 55% of healthcare insurance is provided by employers. Approximately 25% of the healthcare market is provided by VA healthcare, Medicare, and Medicaid. If the above proportions are generally accurate, then the debate regarding repealing and replacing or keeping Obamacare actually involves only 20% of the healthcare portion of the economy, or 3.3-4% not 16.6-20%, of the overall economy. Does this conflation of information, a gross overstatement or exaggeration, of the contribution of the individual healthcare insurance market to the overall economy constitute political and journalistic lies?

Terminology for the funds used to expand the individual healthcare Insurance market to able bodied low income workers through Medicaid using Obamacare is another area where politicians and journalists collude to at least misinform the people of the United States. In my opinion, Obamacare payments to supplement premiums, deductibles, and co-pays for this group constitute Marxist or socialist wealth redistribution from those tax payers with the ability to pay more to those having a greater need for healthcare insurance. In the words of Marx, From each according to his ability to each according to his need, wealth is redistributed by this plan. Depending on their political philosophy, politicians and journalists, use a variety of terms to describe this wealth redistribution. The terms include subsidies, entitlements, corporate welfare, and cost or premium reductions. The term wealth redistribution is not used nor is the fact that wealthier tax payers are financing the Medicaid expansion program ever discussed openly. These damn lies are lies of omission.

Politicians claim and journalists report that the individual market will be a competitive free market controlled by patients providing close patient doctor relationships and treatment choices. How can a market that involves at most 20% of healthcare be a competitive free market when 65-75% of the healthcare market is controlled by Medicare and employer provided healthcare insurance with contracts covering prices and availability? With these thoughts in mind, no one should be surprised that the promises of Obamacare turned into political and journalistic lies. Will the promises of any replacement for Obamacare, or improvements, in the individual healthcare insurance market also turn into political lies? Under the current paradigm, a real patient controlled, free market individual healthcare insurance market providing meaningful doctor-patient relationships, lower costs, and real choice is highly unlikely. Perhaps, it is time to consider an alternative.

JOURNALISTIC LIES

Journalistic lies are as complex as political lies. They are lies of commission and lies of omission. For this discussion, journalistic lies of commission are simply falsehoods intentionally reported as facts or unsubstantiated information and speculation based on anonymous, unverified sources. Lies of omission are simply the failure to report on legitimate factual stories that do not support the current news or social narrative. Both types of lies are developed to support the news narrative that the elites of journalism and the culture determine necessary to mold the opinion of the populace. Both types of lies undermine public trust in journalism.

It is a well-established fact that the vast majority of American journalists refer to themselves as liberal or progressive. These two labels along with communist, socialist, and Democrat are synonyms for Marxist. The difference between these terms is merely the speed and manner in which Marxist philosophy is implemented as the basis for governance.  Many conservatives think that the primary purpose of news narratives is to provide information that supports, promotes, and insures that the central concept or ideal of progressive narratives are internalized by the majority of the population over time, social propaganda and indoctrination. Narratives being promoted by the progressive elites of our education system, pop culture, journalism, and progressive politicians, Democrats, are the previously described mission statement of Stalin for America, America will collapse from within¦ if we can undermine¦ its patriotism, its morality and its spiritual life. When Stalin referred to morality and spiritual life, he was referring to our Judeo-Christian heritage. Adding individualism and capitalism to the list of characteristics essential for American exceptionalism provides a fairly complete list of personal qualities and institutions that Marxism must undermine to ensure the internal collapse of America and usher in governance based on Marxist philosophy, socialism. It is these five areas of American culture, patriotism, morality, spirituality or Christianity, capitalism, and economic entrepreneurial individualism, that the progressive journalism narrative seeks to undermine.

Advancing the progressive social agenda starts in academia primarily in the social sciences. Regardless of the specifics, the narrative and agenda is almost always aimed at undermining our Judeo-Christian heritage, American morality and spiritual life. As soon as academia establishes a strong narrative, journalists join the fray. If politicians are unable to enact laws supporting the agenda, progressives take issues to the federal courts. Consequently, academia, journalist, and politicians collude to accomplish the progressive social agenda. This assault on American morality and spiritual life began with school prayer. The next phase was abortion rights which were followed by gay-rights and the battle for same-sex marriage. Next, progressives began their battle for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights. The final battle in this area could be totally open bisexual polygamy. Each progressive agenda cause would be worthy of extensive discussion. Suffice it to say that this has been a concerted effort to undermine the America of our Founders and the Judeo-Christian principles that made America the greatest nation in history.

Academicians, scientists, politicians, and journalist are all embroiled in a contest for the future of the United States of America based on the difference between lies, damn lies, and truth. Often the difference between lies and truth is in the eyes of the beholder and related to the narrative and motivation of the protagonists. In my opinion, the progressive narrative is that American patriotism, morality, and spiritual life must be undermined to insure that their vision for America will be realized. On the other hand, We the People in the Deplorable Class are diametrically opposed to the progressive narrative and agenda. We believe in the Founder’s vision for the United States of America. We believe in American exceptionalism, the critical impact of our Judeo-Christian heritage, the values espoused in Scripture, and the system of Constitutional capitalism that has evolved in America from colonial times to the present.

We the People in the Deplorable Class know that these values will help Make America Great Again.

Join the fray. All of the America’s Crossroad Posts are listed by categories in the  BLOG CONTENTS tab.  If you decide to read a few, please leave comments about your “Patriot Visions,” start or join the conversation, and share the Posts with friends and political frienimies.

 

 

CAPITALISM’S GLOBALISM CONTRADICTION

 

A person holding a globe with cars in it
Capitalism’s globalism contradiction centers on cost savings in emerging markets.

Capitalism’s globalism contradiction centers on Executive’s and Board of Director’s obligation to maximize profits and their obligation to their employees, their communities, and the nations of their origin. Failure to consider the implications of this contradiction provides the left with a powerful criticism against capitalism. In the United States, this contradiction is exacerbated by our high labor costs and benefits, safety regulations, environmental regulations including environmental impact assessments that increase both the costs and time required to open a facility or project, financial system regulations, land use and zoning regulations, and past high corporate taxes. The relationship between profit and societal obligation is only one component of capitalism’s globalism contradiction.

Another aspect of capitalism’s globalism contradiction is the incredible economic success of western civilization, especially in the United States, since the start of the industrial revolution. Until the 1960’s or 1970’s, globalization was not a significant issue in relation to competition and market share for corporations in the western world. Consequently, costs associated with land, labor, and capital were comparatively inconsequential strategic considerations compared to today’s markets. Costs of doing business were evaluated only in relation to competition in the United States and other western industrial powers. For example, the big three US auto makers competed among themselves for US market share and labor. Labor union contracts for wages, benefits, and working conditions that often precluded effective discipline and quality control were virtually identical throughout the US auto industry. The result was high industry wide wages, benefits, and job security. As countries like China, South Korea, India, other Eastern Pacific rim countries, and parts of the old Soviet Union emerged as competing centers of industry, the cost of land, labor, and capital became a competitive liability for western industry.

Finally, North American and European capitalists are harnessed to strongly unionized labor forces unwilling to negotiate lower, more globally competitive wage, benefit, and work condition packages which could have slowed reductions in US manufacturing and plant closures. This issue is complicated by the success of western capitalism causing high costs of living and the expectation of high disposable income to finance the good life. These two factors make efforts to make our labor costs more competitive in the global market difficult. Western capitalism’s success also amplifies capitalism’s globalism contradiction when faced with emerging markets for our products and competition with our products throughout the world.

Capitalism’s globalism contradiction is profit versus support of the labor force that makes their products or provides their services and loyalty to the communities and countries of their origin. Interestingly, it is also the left’s globalism contradiction, maintaining wealth for our workers while redistributing wealth to developing country industries and workers.

Join the fray. All of the America’s Crossroad Posts are listed by categories in the  BLOG CONTENTS tab.  If you decide to read a few, please leave comments about your “Patriot Visions,” start or join the conversation, and share the Posts with friends and political frienimies.

 

GLOBALISM IS WEALTH REDISTRIBUTION

 

To understand progressive domestic policy it is necessary to understand that globalism is wealth redistribution. The critical concept of globalism is the statement by Marx, From each according to his ability to each according to his need wealth redistribution will occur on a global scale. To prepare people in successful, industrialized, capitalistic countries like the United States for a totally globalized economy, several precursors are necessary. Changing the minds of the citizenry to accept global wealth redistribution is probably the most difficult, but essential, step. To accomplish this goal, an educational dictatorship has been established by progressives. The second step is the left’s domestic policy. The third step is the lefts foreign and immigration policy. These three prerequisites are discussed in detail at the links provided. A great deal of progress must be made in these three areas before the final stages of global wealth redistribution can be accomplished. The left plans and thinks in evolutionary time frames. They have worked toward their goal of complete globalism, wealth redistribution, since at least the early 1800’s.

A group of people standing in front of a map.
For progressive domestic policy and globalism to succeed, it is necessary to understand that both require wealth redistribution.

Some of the tactics of the left in this process are virtually invisible especially in the developed countries. From the perspective of individuals and families, the greatest difference between the people of advanced countries and Third World countries is disposable income. In my opinion, disposable income is income available beyond basic survival needs. Basic survival is simply food to maintain population vigor and vitality or a strong, healthy, and reproductive society. Safe water to drink and the ability to survive extreme heat or cold which requires adequate shelter are also basic survival necessities. The ability to stave off severe epidemics and diseases is also a basic necessity for life. Virtually everything beyond these survival necessities constitutes disposable income. Meeting these needs constitutes the fixed costs of life at the survival level. The more income a population has to secure amenities above these survival needs, the greater their disposable income.

The left has numerous resources and tools available for their closure of the disposable income gap between advanced capitalistic countries and Third World countries. Incremental increases affecting regulatory policies that increase production costs and higher taxes on fixed cost products and services like food, shelter, water, and healthcare are stealthy methods of reducing disposable income in advanced countries. In addition, taxes and regulations that increase costs of unnecessary necessities, such as advanced transportation systems, entertainment, recreation, and technology related to the basics of the good life decrease disposable income available for these necessities in industrialized Western cultures.

Similarly, excessively high business income and property taxes as well as business and financial institution regulations reduce available capital for business expansion. One of the most detrimental regulations has been Obamacare which mandates employee health insurance coverage for all businesses with 50 or more employees. This regulation stifles business growth and profitability. Small businesses either restrict growth to less than 50 employees or increase their prices to cover increased costs. Banking and financial regulations such as increased cash reserve requirements for banks reduce the supply of capital for business improvements or expansion. Financial regulations also cause a reduction in the number of local banks further reducing the supply of capital available to many small businesses. These actions result in lower product and service supplies resulting in increased costs. Until the current administration  reduced regulations and taxes, these costs caused corporations to move their headquarters or factories overseas to reduce overhead costs. Loss of productive capacity also increased costs. When taxes and regulations increase, the resulting cost increases are added to fixed costs related to the real or perceived necessities for life, thus reducing disposable income in developed countries.

Possibly the most powerful tool in the progressive stealth toolbox is global environmentalism. In the United States, the environmental movement has been supported by both Democrat and Republican administrations. Republican support shows that they support reasonable efforts to maintain safe water, clean air, and stable ecosystems. Republicans, however, do not support regulations that have adverse effects on the quality of life of our citizens by increasing fixed costs of living. One of the strongest proponents of environmentalism has been the United States federal court system. Our federal courts usually side with environmentalists. Often, these court decisions have the effect of decreasing supplies of lumber products, agricultural production, other renewable natural resources, and nonrenewable natural resources, both petroleum and mineral extraction. Environmentalists also work actively to reduce planned, and in the not too distant future, eliminate existing hydroelectric and irrigation dam projects. Many existing Hydro projects are facing their fifty-year environmental impact reviews in the near future. In all these critical areas of our fixed consumer economy, the result is a decrease in disposable income as fixed costs of the basic necessities of life increase. Environmental regulations associated with global warming have the same impact. They increase the fixed costs of both real and perceived necessities for life. Costs of heating, cooling, energy production, manufacturing, and transportation and sales of consumer goods, constitute increases in fixed costs in industrialized societies.

From the left’s perspective, the stealthy beauty of the entire environmental toolbox is the fact that saving minnows, spotted owls, or rare lizards, sounds so progressively wonderful and feels so good to a large portion of the populace, the urban dwellers. The impact on their disposable income and quality of life is irrelevant to them. After all, they already have enough, until they start losing too much of what they currently have.

In the United States, middle class voters in the northeastern industrialized states who experienced stagnant wages and rising fixed costs for a decade voted for change. They voted against the status quo and declining disposable income because they started experiencing the reality of global wealth redistribution on their quality of life.

Join the fray. All of the America’s Crossroad Posts are listed by categories in the  BLOG CONTENTS tab.  If you decide to read a few, please leave comments about your “Patriot Visions,” start or join the conversation, and share the Posts with friends and political frienimies.

 

 

MARXIST LEFTIST IDEOLOGY

 

Liberals and progressives vehemently object to the contention that Marxist leftist ideology  accurately reflects the origins of their approach to society and governance. In my opinion however, the programs and policies of the left are based on Marxist philosophy. The fact that Marxism rarely surfaces during discussions of ideas underlying the cultural, social, political, and economic issues of our time is powerful evidence of the stealth nature of Marxism. Pseudonyms, such as socialism, liberalism, the progressive movement, the left, and the far left, substitute for the term Marxism in most discussions. Each term has its roots in Marxist philosophy.

A picture of karl marx with his name on it.
Although they disagree, Marxist leftist ideology is an accurate description of progressive thought.

Marxist leftist ideology is philosophically based on the concept that all societies will evolve into societies in which all people share equally in all the benefits of society regardless of their personal willingness or ability to contribute to the good of society. The theorized evolution will occur locally first, regionally, nationally, and finally expand into a global reality. Under Marxist social theory, all property and wealth will eventually be held in common, and as Marx stated it, from each according to his capacity, to each according to his need, wealth will be distributed equally among all people.

For the most part, socialist philosophers, both before and after Marx, postulated that their vision of social change would occur at an inevitable but evolutionary pace. Socialists, including Marx and Engels, felt that the worsening plight of laborers resulting from the expanding industrial revolution would soon be a catalyst for the change they predicted. These changes would eventually have global scale and impact.

The editors of A DICTIONARY OF MARXIST THOUGHT, 1983, demonstrated the staged demise of Marxism and its hidden influence that continues to this day, as follows:

Leszek Kolakowski’s Main Currents of Marxism, which distinguishes between the value of Marxism as ‘an interpretation of past history’ and its ‘fantasy’ character as a political ideology, and argues that while the intellectual legacy of Marx has been largely assimilated into modern social sciencesso that as an independent explanatory system or method Marxism is ‘dead’ “ as an efficacious political doctrine it is simply ‘a caricature and a bogus form of religion.’

The editors go on to contradict the verdict that Marxism is ‘dead’ as follows:

But it is precisely the distinctive explanatory power of Marxist thought in many areas, and its capacity to generate not a religion, but a body of rational norms for a socialist society, which seems to many thinkers to make Marxism an enduring challenge to other modes of thought.

Consequently, it is safe to conclude from these two statements that

Marxism is not dead; but, Marxism is a body of rational norms that have been largely assimilated into modern social sciences.

Consequently, liberals and progressives are able to disassociate themselves and their ideas from the relationship between Marxism and totalitarian communism. Hence, they substitute phrases such as the rich should pay their fair share in taxes and inheritance taxes for wealth redistribution. Regardless of protests to the contrary, the statement Marxist leftist ideology, is in my opinion a statement of philosophical fact.

Join the fray. All of the America’s Crossroad Posts are listed by categories in the  BLOG CONTENTS tab.  If you decide to read a few, please leave comments about your “Patriot Visions,” start or join the conversation, and share the Posts with friends and political frienimies.