Opinions, please - is this guy right? America: The Grim Truth

[glenn kangiser]

   

America: The Grim Truth

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25166.htm

A bit long but it seems like most of what he says is true.  I don't see a solution as he does except to sit back, prepare, try to take care of our own and try to keep from becoming a victim of the state.

I guess the value of the article is to read it, reflect on what it says and see if that is really our true situation.

I know we have heard it all before. [ouch]

[Windpower]

I have to agree

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8IXMbinz74&feature=player_embedded

clearly the remedies are being put in place to keep 'us' in line

[Pox Eclipse]

A lot of it is raving lunacy.  To wit:

Right now, the government is building fences and walls along its northern and southern borders. Right now, the government is working on a national ID system (soon to be fitted with biometric features). Right now, the government is building a surveillance state so extensive that they will be able to follow your every move, online, in the street and across borders. If you think this is just to protect you from “terrorists,” then you’re sadly mistaken. Once the shit really hits the fan, do you really think you’ll just be able to jump into the old station wagon, drive across the Canadian border and spend the rest of your days fishing and drinking Molson? No, the government is going to lock the place down. They don’t want their tax base escaping. They don’t want their “recruits” escaping. They don’t want YOU escaping.

As has been pointed out here many times, half the population pays no income tax at all.  Are the fences to keep the rich people in?  The same rich people who are creating the 'police state' in the first place?  Not to mention the fact that building impermiable fences along the entire northern and southern borders is a laughable fantasy.

I could go on and pick apart all the other nutball doomsaying, but you get the idea.  This kind of apocalyptic chicken little-ism has been going on for decades; why should I start believing it now?  It is starting to border on a religious crusade, where none of the claims are supported by facts, and the point is to keep the citizenry in a perpetual state of anxiety.  Why?  If I had to guess, I would say that someone, somewhere is making a lot of money off of it.  That is usually the case; it's the American way.  Little American flags for everyone!

[Ajax]

I only read the first half, but he seems to be advocating for more socialism.

[bayview]

   An un-happy camper!

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[bayview]

   Makes me wonder why millions risk their lives to get here . . .

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[Windpower]

   Makes me wonder why millions risk their lives to get here . . .

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Because Mexico and central america are the hell holes of the western hemisphere
(helped into that state by American Empire -- read John Perkins' Confessions of an Economic Hitman)

The point the op article was making is that the direction America is going is not even close to being reversed by some of the excellent remedies and changes you mentioned, bayview


To anyone with their reading glasses on the process of gutting the American middle class is speeding up not slowing down.

and it is going that way for a reason -- because the top  .5% run the government to their own advantage

the top 50% of income pays 52% of the taxes

that includes over 13,000 people that earn over $10,000,000 per year and pay an average of 21% in income tax

why is that --- because they OWN Congress


George Carlin says it better than I can (language warning -- it is George Carlin afterall)



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acLW1vFO-2Q

[peternap]

   I am glad he was able to escape!   I hope he is a contributing citizen to where he now resides.

   I do agree with portions of his rant . . .   

   Not, socialized medicine.   Try to see a doctor in Canada or England.   Good luck.   Get in line.   I sure you have heard the "horror" stories of patients waiting weeks before they see a doctor.    Some will actually go to extremes by causing injuries, so they can see a doctor sooner.   Do you have a serious or terminal illness?   You may be financially ruined?   Sorry!   Why does he expect you and me to pay for it?   If I pay for others in poor health, I will soon be financially ruined. . .    Maybe I can get a second job to pay for it! 

   Yes, we should eat better!   Grow your own food!   Eat more fruits and vegetables . . .    Foods aren't processed or genetically engineered in other countries?   BTW - Asians are having more health problems now that the have adopted an American diet.

   We are a country of taking pills!   The solution?   Don't smoke, don't drink excessively, eat properly and get plenty of exercise.     

   Spend to much money on defense?   He is probably right.   We need to stop being "big brother " to the world.

   We don't have as much leisure time as other "developed" countries?   We probably work most of the year to pay for Americans or "undocumented workers" who don't want to work or are underemployed.   Eliminate all social services.   

   Debt slavery?   Don't buy it unless you can afford it.   Do you really need a 2500 sq. ft. home?   My parents would not purchase anything unless they could afford it . . .    Go into debt for a new TV or car?   Max out credit cards for clothing or "crap" just to keep up with the Jones?   No way!

   Our jobs are being outsourced?   Charge an tax on all imports.   Level the playing field.   Soon, factories will reopen and Americans will consume from each other.   Keeping $$$ in the US.

   Another solution?   Eliminate the IRS.   Charge a consumption tax.   Eliminating the "underground" economy.   The unemployed IRS employees can round up and send back all of the "undocumented workers".   We now have full employment.   We pay less taxes.   Less taxes that are funding welfare and "socialized" health care.   Health care prices will be more affordable.   Many hospitals are closing because they are unable to afford "free" services to illegal's.   

   Most of the southern states jails are filled will illegal's.   Send them home . . .   Allow their countries to deal with them.

   Undocumented workers are doing jobs that Americans don't want!   Hey, I have picked fruit, cleaned tables, bagged groceries, stocked shelves, worked as a laborer, washed dishes and mowed lawns!   Didn't seem to hurt me any!   Sending undocumented workers (illegal aliens) home would also allow high school students to have after school jobs . . .    Summer jobs.   They will learn responsibility and have $$$  to be additional consumers.

   "Free" college?   I think not!   Another socialized program.   I'll get a third job to help pay for it!

   Social security, Medicare, Medicaid . . .   I'll get a fourth job to help pay for it.

   We need to get back to being more "personally" responsible.    More self-sufficient. . .    We are no longer independent of each other.   We are now responsible for everyone else's problems.   Are you sick, unemployed, feeble, fragile, elderly?   Charge me a tax so I can help pay for it!   Remember when families lived together!   Elderly parents lived with their children.    The wife stayed home to care for the children . . .    You saved money for major purchases and older age.   Families helped each other in times of crisis.

   I could go on and on . . .    But my responses are getting just as lengthy.

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Pretty much what Bayview said.

As usual, I agree with some of what he said and dismiss the rest as fluff.
I am concerned about the surveillance which is getting worse daily.

And as usual...I wonder why POX is here. Seems he'd be more at home on a civic association forum figuring the most peaceful color for mailboxes in the neighborhood.

[Don_P]

And as usual...I wonder why POX is here. Seems he'd be more at home on a civic association forum figuring the most peaceful color for mailboxes in the neighborhood.

There's plenty of room for balance.

[peternap]

And as usual...I wonder why POX is here. Seems he'd be more at home on a civic association forum figuring the most peaceful color for mailboxes in the neighborhood.

There's plenty of room for balance.

Balance is being able to sift the truth from the hype Don.
Simply saying the Good Old USA is right with the world and everyone that disagrees is a nut, goes beyond having a rose colored tint to your glasses....

It's a "Hello Kitty Welding Helmet".

[glenn kangiser]

I have to agree

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8IXMbinz74&feature=player_embedded

clearly the remedies are being put in place to keep 'us' in line

Lots of deep thoughts by all.  Thanks for the video link, Windpower.  I was not aware Jesse had actually nailed a camp down to where it was in operation and undeniable.  Lots of the other stuff I have been aware of and it helps me to maintain my nutcase status if I mention it.  [ouch]

Right, Don, and occasionally Pox says something I agree with...

The fences are not wanted by our corporations -- at least those that are still trying to run a business in the US....so many comments and observations to choose from...

Socialized medicine in Canada - 5 years wait for a Canadian lady to get a hip replacement....needs the other and has waited  2 years already and still no approval... at least she can hop on one leg.... our socialized medicine at the federal level -VA seems to be well staffed at management level but short handed on worker bees...  Seems the entire US on socialized medicine would be even more of a fiasco.  

Large corporations are lobbying to stop us from growing our own food (S510) or even being able to buy from friends who grow food on small farms.  I have a policeman friend who is totally ticked at the regulations and trouble he has had from government with his small family farm sideline.  Corporations own politicians and want to stop independent self sufficient living.

The defense budget is in the hands of those in power and they are working to expand the portion and training of the portion of the defense that may be used in or on America if small America wakes up and decides that big politics are a threat to them and don't have their interests at heart.  I am surprised to see that Jesse Ventura has the guts to and is allowed to bring that out.  

Leisure time.... We have to work as we have eaten the feed that has been thrown about liberally inside the pen.  The biggest social services we have paid out recently is the bail out of the bankers and insurance companies..... Paying farmers, corporate and not corporate, to not grow things to keep food prices high... government buying billions of dollars of dairy products to keep milk prices high at the co-op I worked on... Then comes the small potatoes of smaller social services..

Jobs outsourced...the corporate system and the world economy as well as US laws that allow outsourcing and benefit upper management force corporations to outsource and get away from American workers who have overestimated their self worth and forced untenable wages through unions.   The law of supply and demand demands that they take our jobs to the cheapest producer which is overseas, with the low relative cost of transportation and the maximum profit for the corporation.

As we become more and more poor and our ability to purchase their (our) foreign produced products diminishes, then possibly jobs will begin to come back for the generation used to poverty and willing to work for less.  Not a fast fix I think.

If we send the illegals home, we still need to get the masses on social services retrained to take their jobs or in agreement that they would even consider such a job.  They have been trained that they are a ________ (fill in specialty) by the school system, or that there is welfare and they just don't have to work.  Add to that the number of substance abusers in the non-work force that I would not consider working with, and you still have a pretty insurmountable problem.

Free colleges teaching trash courses like many of the paid colleges - you would get the same specialists in unneeded specialties that we cannot afford in our newly acquired third world status.

Self sufficiency, personal responsibility, new skills, self education in avenues that will benefit us, our neighbors and networking friends, is now available for free on the internet.  Don't know how long it will last but we can currently study on our own, download old books out of copyright for free, study that if we are or become self motivated.

[StinkerBell]

It's a "Hello Kitty Welding Helmet".

Oooooooh I want one!

[Sassy]

It's a "Hello Kitty Welding Helmet".

Oooooooh I want one!

How did I know?  I just told Glenn that I bet Stinkerbell will be wanting one of those helmets...   

[StinkerBell]

Did I mention that the lovely gloves Hog got me are RED. It would be a compliment for that Hello Kitty Helmet.

[ScottA]

You want raving lunacy just turn on any network news channel. 

I don't think it's any worse than it has been at some point in the past but it certainly has been better at times. You have people with blinders on running the world and all they can see is their own goals and gains. They can't or won't see the damage they are doing and never will. It is a self feeding machine and will continue to consume anything and everything until it eats itself then the cycle will repeat.

[glenn kangiser]

Hmmm..... like the blind leading the blind... yes , I think that fits...

[muldoon]

I dont think his idea of move to Europe, move to Asia is necessarily great advice.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/02/world/europe/02youth.html?_r=1

January 1, 2011

LECCE, Italy — Francesca Esposito, 29 and exquisitely educated, helped win millions of euros in false disability and other lawsuits for her employer, a major Italian state agency. But one day last fall she quit, fed up with how surreal and ultimately sad it is to be young in Italy today.

It galled her that even with her competence and fluency in five languages, it was nearly impossible to land a paying job. Working as an unpaid trainee lawyer was bad enough, she thought, but doing it at Italy's social security administration seemed too much. She not only worked for free on behalf of the nation's elderly, who have generally crowded out the young for jobs, but her efforts there did not even apply to her own pension.

"It was absurd," said Ms. Esposito, a strong-willed woman with a healthy sense of outrage.

The outrage of the young has erupted, sometimes violently, on the streets of Greece and Italy in recent weeks, as students and more radical anarchists protest not only specific austerity measures in flattened economies but a rising reality in Southern Europe: People like Ms. Esposito feel increasingly shut out of their own futures. Experts warn of volatility in state finances and the broader society as the most highly educated generation in the history of the Mediterranean hits one of its worst job markets.

Politicians are slowly beginning to take notice. Italy's president, Giorgio Napolitano, devoted his year-end message on Friday to "the pervasive malaise among young people," weeks after protests against budget cuts to the university system brought the issue to the fore.

Giuliano Amato, an economist and former Italian prime minister, was even more blunt. "By now, only a few people refuse to understand that youth protests aren't a protest against the university reform, but against a general situation in which the older generations have eaten the future of the younger ones," he recently told Corriere della Sera, Italy's largest newspaper.....

There is no where to hide.  You cannot escape what is and always has been.   There is nothing new under the sun, and what must end will certainly one day in fact end.  Unsustainable is not a make believe word, it means it cannot continue forever and that is exactly what will happen.  Going to another country because their government cuts up the pie different or hands out more cheese is a logical fallacy.  The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other peoples money.  The reasons banks love socialism is that they enslave governments in debt that cannot be repaid.  That is the mechanism to extract wealth from a nation and it has played out over and over going back centuries.  I have traced the same playbook back to the Babylonians.  Moving out of the US does not remove the vampire squid tentacles from yourself.   Nothing does. 

[Sassy]

Everything can be traced back to the condition of man...  society today has decided that truth is relative - whatever someone believes is true is true to them.  The inner convictions of a moral code have been turned into a "whatever feels good, do it" mentality & I have to confess that particular phrase became popular when I was in my teens.

When a person becomes lawless within, he will be ruled from without by those who also are without convictions.  Whether it is by politicians, bankers, the police, military force, you just have to "follow the money."

I guess that's why Jesus said "the LOVE of money is the root of all evil."

And as Muldoon said - it can only be sustained for a period of time to crash & burn & start all over again... 

[muldoon]

I could post this tripe all day every day.  Doesn't matter tho, no one cares.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-01-03/obama-said-to-consider-william-daley-for-top-white-house-post.html

President Barack Obama is considering naming William Daley, a JPMorgan Chase & Co. executive and former U.S. Commerce secretary, to a high-level White House post, possibly as his chief of staff, people familiar with the matter said.

The machine grinds along. 

Daley, the younger brother of Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley

The Chicago machine grinds along too. 

[glenn kangiser]

Same old game...different day.

Even if anyone cared, the shadow government above Barry Soetoro installs and keeps him and others like him they want in office there.  As with Shrub before, discussion or questioning will not be allowed.  The people are pacified by voting.  They are just made think they are allowed to choose by the elite psyops operation called voting.

The candidates are already bought and paid for.  The Russians knew several months ahead of time Palin was McSames running mate.  Things don't happen by chance or choice in politics.

[Sassy]

The Creature From Jekyll Island by G. Edward Griffith is a book that really opened my eyes several years ago to what is happening to the economy.  There are seven 10 min parts on youtube well worth watching.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3TAh1gy6rc&feature=player_embedded

[Pox Eclipse]

It never ceases to amaze me how the federal government can be castigated for being incompetent and unable to do anything right, but at the same time capable of carrying out the most arcane and complex conspiracies without raising suspicion outside a small circle of vigilant observers.  How does that work?

[Sassy]

Pox, did you even listen to it 

[glenn kangiser]

It never ceases to amaze me how the federal government can be castigated for being incompetent and unable to do anything right, but at the same time capable of carrying out the most arcane and complex conspiracies without raising suspicion outside a small circle of vigilant observers.  How does that work?

Those who think they are incompetent are the ones who are afraid to look at what they are really doing that makes them seem incompetent.  They are the ones who think the feds have the best interests of the people at heart and just can't get it right.  

The fact is that the reason that they can't get it right for the people is that they are busy serving their own interests and the interests of their owners, big corporate business.  

They have for the most part sold themselves out as whores to business interests no matter what their constituents want.  They give answers to pacify the people while doing as their masters orders.

J. Edgar Hoover quote:  

The individual is handicapped by coming face to face with a Conspiracy so monstrous he cannot believe it exists. The American mind simply has not come to a realization of the evil which has been introduced into our midst.

There is really no free lunch Pox.  They will make you pay one way or another.

[bayview]

   None of this really matters!

   The solar flares of 2012 will coincide with the Mayan calendar apocalypse on December 21, 2012 . . .

   I am in the process of selling all my earthly goods.   We are going to have an "end-of-the-world" party!    You are all invited

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