Chapter 2

Predicting The Future

The future of the middle class is in serious jeopardy, and unless the American people fight back 99% of us are going to lose everything to a few super rich greedy bad guys.

Corporations in American are not the bad guys and they are not our enemies, but some of the owners are. If we do not fight to redistribute ownership away from the bad guys we will lose.

The Obama administration and the Democratic controlled Congress has proven they are not much different than the Bush Jr. administration and the Republican controlled Congress. Both parties share a corrupt right-wing extremist agenda designed to benefit the richest Americans, and they have a track record to prove it.

If the next few years are anything like the past few years the vast majority of the American people are going to find themselves in a much worse off economic position than they are in today, and without the ability to effect the political changes needed to restore their living standards.

A war is being waged against the middle class, and if the middle class unites we can easily win this war.

A New Trail of Tears

The "Trail of Tears" was what the American Indians called the journey from their homes in the southeast to the government reservations in Oklahoma. Along the way many of them died from starvation, exposure, and disease. It is hard to imagine how these Indians must have felt but their emotions must have included fear, sadness, anger, frustration, and helplessness.

The story of the American Indians is ancient history to most Americans and is therefore something they cannot relate to very well. Today, the native American people continue to suffer from the actions of the federal government's white leaders. The resources on their lands are exploited without proper compensation, their trust funds have been looted, and the problems with their reservation societies have been ignored.

This Indian history is important because it exposes man's inhumanity towards his fellow man and how greed has often motivated that inhumane treatment. It is also important because the past often repeats itself and the day may come when all of us comfortable white middle class citizens find ourselves on a "Trail of Tears" of our own.

The New White Settlers

Our current elected political leaders are very much like the land hungry white settlers who committed genocide against the native American Indians, and enslaved black Americans. They take from the poor and give to the rich. They prefer to kill those who they cannot tame. They lie a lot, and when confronted with the truth they lie again. They try to manipulate the people they want to exploit and if that doesn't work they use violence. They don't honor their previous commitments and they don't mean what they say. They destroy the means by which the middle class supports itself through free trade deals, outsourcing of jobs, regressive tax policies, hiring illegal immigrant labor, and only requiring companies pay their workers a poverty level minimum wage.

The American middle class has become the new native American Indians and our elected leaders, from both political parties, and their wealthy supports have become the new white settlers. The new Trail of Tears will be from our own eyes and it will lead us to a place we don't want to be if we do not stop them. That is why we must fight and we must start fighting now.

Lets look forward and see what is likely to happen if we do nothing to fight back. Each topic is numbered in the order of its priority of importance, and each section if followed by my prediction:

1. Exploding Budget Deficits, Debt, and Taxes 

The current top priority of our elected leaders should be to balance the federal budget and pay down the federal debt. They should start by increasing revenues and cutting spending, but they clearly don't have what it takes to do either. They don't have the moral strength, they don't have the votes, and many don't have any desire to do what is right for 99% of the American people.

The federal deficit is projected to hit $1.6 trillion for 2010. This tops the previous record of $1.4 trillion in 2009. This will make the total debt around $14 trillion by the start of 2011, and the cost of interest on the debt will grow to over $450 billion.

What does all this debt mean? In 2009 our government spend over $380 billion dollars just paying interest on its debt. That is over $1 billion dollars per day that does not build one school, road, bridge, power plant, etc. If interest rate increase that could begin to skyrocket.

Since 1980 the debt of the U.S. has gone from $950 billion to $12.5 trillion in 2010, a 1200% increase. Clinton balanced the budget during his eight years but he still managed to add $1 trillion to the federal debt during that time because they were still spending the Social Security surpluses. Obama is set to top that debt increase in one year.

Obama's health care legislation, that would require all Americans to buy health insurance, will increase the federal debt and will be meaningless if there are no jobs and federal and state governments are bankrupt.

President Obama obviously did not start the budget deficit problem, but he has done nothing to address it. In fact, he has made the problem much worse with increases in spending.

The Bush Jr. administration compounded our government's fiscal problems in 2001 by cutting taxes so much that the budget projections swung trillions of dollars in the opposite direction from the budget surpluses Clinton left him with. His huge increases in federal spending also added to the deficit problem. His administration and a Republican controlled congress created the largest budget deficits in our country's history, and they added over $5.5 trillion to the federal debt in 8 years.

Many people attribute the $1.4 trillion dollar budget deficit in 2009 to Obama, but the government fiscal started October 1, 2008 and Obama did not take office until January 20, 2009 therefore the 2009 budget deficit was inherited from the Bush administration. However, the projected $1.6 trillion deficit for 2010 is Obama's and the Democrats and they should be held accountable by voters in 2012 for this poor result.

President Bush Jr. blamed his deficit budgets on the cost of the war in Iraq, the need to stimulate the economy, and fraud, waste, and abuse, but those were poor excuses and shameless lies. President Obama blames Bush's budgets, the failing economy, and the banking crisis, and he is right but he has done little to correct the economy, and nothing to correct the budgets, or the lack of regulations that caused the banking crisis.

Just at the time in our history when our government should be generating surpluses to prepare for the looming future liabilities in Social Security and Medicare our elected leaders continue doing the exact opposite.

This fiscal mismanagement is not accidental or coincidental but it is deliberate, calculated, premeditated, and criminal. The Republicans and Democrats are colluding and conspiring with their mega wealth friends to bankrupt the federal government so they can buy its $100 trillion dollars in assets, our assets, for pennies on the dollar. Those assets belong to all the American people, unless our government goes into bankruptcy in which case they will belong to the highest bidder.

If these guys were running a major corporation instead of the U.S. government they would already be in jail for embezzlement, fraud, conspiracy, racketeering, and numerous other felonies. 

Democrats Have Shown Some Signs of Fiscal Responsibility In The Past

The Democratic Party is also guilty of creating huge budget deficits and voting for the war in Iraq, and expanding the war in Afghanistan, but they have at least shown some signs of trying to be fiscally responsible.

For example, during the first year of the Clinton administration the Democrats controlled Congress and with that majority power they were able to raise taxes on the very rich and pass new spending controls. These tax increases in 1993, that none of the Republicans voted for, along with spending controls, like PAYGO, helped balance the federal budget and created a large budget surpluses in our countries history, surpluses that Bush Jr. inherited.

However, Clinton signed into law the Republican's pet project free trade deal, NAFTA, and since that time our trade deficit has been skyrocketing. Clinton also signed the Republican's banking deregulation bill, Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, that lead to the subprime mortgage crisis and a $700 billion dollar financial system bailout in 2008, the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act, and the TARP program.

The Democrats also deserve some credit for successfully fighting the Republicans to prevent the repeal of the estate tax. Repeal of the estate tax is the number one goal of the Republican Party and it would only benefit the richest of the rich. The Democrats protected this progressive tax that is critical to the survival of the middle class.

Starving the Beast 

President Bush Jr. and his Republican co-conspirators in Congress deliberately pushed our federal government to the brink of bankruptcy for the benefit of a few of their mega wealthy campaign contributors. The reason for these non-conservative results is a Republican idea called "starving the beast", and it is a plan to cause a budget crisis so that the social safety net programs are no longer affordable. The GOP's plan is to force our government to sell off its $100 trillion in real estate assets for pennies on the dollar to the highest bidder in order to pay current liabilities. Bush's "Federal Real Property Asset Management Initiative" unwittingly exposed that reality.

Another Regressive Tax Plan That Benefits the Rich

In 1969 155 high-income individuals were able to avoid paying any income taxes by utilizing a variety of tax loopholes so the Congress created the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT). One of the other main reasons the AMT was created was because President Nixon took a $576,000 deduction when he donated his presidential papers to the National Archives resulting in a personal tax liability of only $792 dollars.

The AMT forces the people at the top to pay at least some taxes. However, because the AMT has not been indexed to inflation more and more middle income families are being required to pay the higher AMT. Not surprisingly, Bush's solution was to repeal the entire AMT law for everyone at a cost of $1.2 trillion over 10 years. This would have further shifted the tax burden from the people at the top to the people in the middle. 

Get Ready for Hyperinflation

Once our government owned real estate assets are sold off a period of hyperinflation will make the U.S. dollar worthless. During this period of hyperinflation these few mega wealthy families will move their liquid assets (cash, stocks, bonds, etc.) to other countries that have more stable currencies (Yen, Euro, Pound, Rupees, Francs, Marks, Pesos, etc.), and after the dollar hits rock bottom they will shift back to dollars and the game of monopoly will be over, they will own just about everything in America.

When this happens the U.S. stock market will collapse and if you have any of your Social Security funds invested in the Republican's private accounts idea you can kiss those monies goodbye. Their privatization plan is just a scam to rob workers of their retirement savings, and the Democrats stopped it from becoming law.

Eventually, these few mega rich corrupt families will own virtually everything in America and the rest of the American people will become their improvised slaves, or we will be viewed as potentially dangerous anarchist, communist, or terrorist and we will be dealt with like landless peasant fucks.

Shrinking The Middle Class

Most Americans live in the middle class, but that is changing. The growth of the America's middle class is largely the result of one amendment to the constitution, the sixteenth amendment passed in 1913, and the progressive tax laws that followed its passage.

However, President Reagan and a Republican controlled Congress turned our progressive tax system into a regressive tax system in 1981. Their tax legislation reduced the number of tax brackets from 16 to 2 and cut the top tax rate from 70% to 28%. These same people also doubled the tax rate on Social Security withholdings. Suddenly, the tax burden was shifted from the very wealthy to self-employed small business people and middle income families. It was also at this time that the federal deficit began to explode into the stratosphere.

This shift in the tax burden is hampering small business growth, it is squeezing the middle class downwards, it is concentrating wealth into the hands of the top 1%, and it has sent the deficits and debt skyrocketing.

After President Clinton was elected he expanded the number of tax brackets, raised the top tax rate, and closed some tax loopholes. He did this without a single vote from any of the Republicans. The Republicans let out anguished cries claiming that Clinton's tax increases would crash the economy and doom the middle class, but we can now look back and see that they were completely wrong, and the Democrats did the right thing. The economy grew steadily throughout the 90's and the federal deficits turned into surpluses, and the standard of living increased for all income levels.

However, when George W. Bush "took" office in 2001 the first thing he did was reverse all Clinton's tax policies and passed several more tax cuts that went primarily to the very rich. These changes brought the deficits roaring back with a vengeance and have sent middle class incomes on downward trajectory and the top 1%'s incomes way up. Today, his tax cuts and spending increase continue to haunt the Obama administration and yet the Obama administration has done nothing to correct the inequities. 

Squeezing The Middle Class Down and Out

If this trend continues the middle class is facing certain extinction. Our society and economy is headed straight for one modeled after Mexico with a few at the top and everyone else at the bottom. We could soon find ourselves trying to sneak across the border into Canada to find a decent paying job with health care benefits. This may sound funny but don't waste too much time laughing because after a while Canada will probably seal its border up tight.

The middle class can overcome this downward trend, but not as long our two corrupt political parties dominate elections.

Fighting Back

That is the direction we are going, but we have the power to change that direction. A few minor changes to the tax code and we could turn the dire budget projections around, just like President Clinton did with his 1993 tax legislation. A few minor changes to our election laws and we could replace these corrupt politicians with honest free-thinking Americans. The only thing standing in our way is a few hundred elected politicians and a few mega rich bad guys. 

2. Endless Wars

Presidents Obama and Bush Jr. have created huge new problems by taking our country into costly and bloody wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. We were told that these wars are about killing terrorist who threaten American interest, but it appears they are really about oil, propping up heroin producers in Afghanistan, killing Jew haters in Iraq, and pumping billions of dollars into the pockets of private contractors.

The terrorist who attacked us on 9/11/2001 had no connection to Iraq or Afghanistan.

Our elected leaders were warned in advance that terrorist might attack us using high-jacked planes as weapons, but they failed to do anything to stop them.

There is a group of political activist, 9/11 Truth, who believe our top government officials conspired with Osama bin Laden to pull off this attack as a false flag operation to justify the use of U.S. military forces to invade Iraq and take over their oil production. I agree with them but I would add a connection to Israel because of their lobbying for this war. Saddam and the people of Iraq hated Israel and were financially rewarding the families of suicide bombers who killed Israelis'.

The war in Afghanistan is being justified as a war against the Taliban and al Qaeda, but after eight years the Taliban has gotten better at insurgency, the number of U.S. causalities is increasing, and poppy production is expanding. Obama continues lying about their connection to 9/11 and their potential to attack us.

Following is a summary of the cost of these two wars in dollars and lives as of 3/15/2010:

The Expanding Military Industrial Complex

In 2009 the U.S. government spent over $1 trillion dollars on the military. We are spending more on our military than all the other countries of the world combined. The Pentagon says that they cannot account for all that money. If our leaders what to find some ways to save money and reduce the amount of fraud, waste and abuse they need look no further than our military and intelligence budgets.

Just before President Eisenhower left office he warned us about the military-industrial complex with the following message:

"....we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals so that security and liberty may prosper together." Dwight D. Eisenhower - January 17, 1961

Now, over forty five years later we can see that Eisenhower's prophetic warnings have come true in an ugly right-wing chicken-hawk war mongering reality. There has been a disastrous rise in misplaced power that both parties expose through their actions and legislation. Our liberties and democratic processes have been eroded with the Patriot Act and fraudulent elections.

The American public has such busy life styles, and are so reliant on the mainstream media for information, they are not alert or knowledgeable enough about what is going on in our federal government to be motivated to take action outside the voting booth. Therefore, we must help educate our fellow citizens about what has been happening so that they will fight back against a federal government that has become an evil killing machine.

The huge rise in military budgets and cuts in domestic programs expose an imbalance that is threatening our liberties, democracy, and life styles. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the terrorist attacks on 9/11, and torture crimes committed by private contractors in Iraq have exposed that our intelligence, military, and political leaders are either incompetent or corrupt, or both.

It is time we make some changes to our military budgets and personnel. If we fail to make these changes we may find ourselves in country that is no different than Nazi Germany under Hitler's command. 

Fascist Ideologies

Sadly, these two current wars are just the tip of the iceberg of the evil and hate our elected leaders have created, but they are indicative of the fact both political parties share a corrupt, immoral, and deadly political ideology. Their ideologies are far from conservative principles, and even further from liberal principles, but are almost identical to fascism.

3. No One In Government Represents You

What we have in America is a two political party system of government where both parties are representing different groups of individuals who are in the top 1% of wealth owners. No one in Washington D.C. represents the poor, the middle class, or even the upper middle class. We have what Ralph Nader said we have:  "A one corporate party government".

It is important that corporations are well represented by our elected leaders, but the two political parties have taken it to an extreme. It's as if one party represents the wealthy corporate owners and the other party represents the wealthy corporate executives, but no one is representing the workers. Therefore, both parties represent the wealthy and no one else.

The evidence of this collusion and conspiracy between the two parties is everywhere, following are some examples:

• They consistently vote to increase their own pay on a bipartisan basis, and they now earn over $160,000 per year, plus benefit, which places them in the top 5% of income earners despite the fact they only work around 150 days per year.
• Both parties voted to give Bush permission to invade Iraq.
• Both parties voted for free trade deals that have sent our trade deficit skyrocketing.
• Both parties have worked together to keep third party candidates, like Ross Perot and Ralph Nader, off the ballot and out of the debates.
• Both parties have keep genetically modified foods from being labeled.
• Both parties have support huge corporate bailouts rather than letting the free markets work.
• Both parties ignore the system of corrupt campaign financing.

We Need New Leaderships

We need new leadership in Washington D.C. and new rules on how we elect and compensate our leaders. We need to get rid of the new paperless voting computers and return to a voting system that can be audited and has a paper record that can be recounted. We need to get rid of the current fundraising system, which is basically a quid pro quo system of bribery, and start public financing of all political campaigns. And we need a few other changes that will be talked about later in this book. (See Chapter 4: "Taking Back Our Democracy".) 

An Extreme Ideology

It should be becoming much more obvious to everyone by now that the Republican Party represents people who have an extreme amount of wealth and they practices an extreme form of politics based on an extreme right-wing ideology, which according to Dr. Lawrence Britt's analysis closely resembles fascism.

The Democratic Party also represents wealthy special interest and it practices a corrupt form of politics which appears very conservative but is also fascist.

This leaves no one in Congress to represent the poor, the middle class, or even the upper middle class. Our elected representatives help the rich, period, end of story.

The evidence of this lack of political representation for 99% of the American people can be seen in the recently passed bankruptcy reform legislation. Neither party put an exception in this legislation for medical emergencies, economic cycles, or even for natural disasters, like Katrina. As a result, middle class families can no longer wipe the slate clean and get a fresh start if they get into financial trouble, no matter what the reason.

Both parties have spoken and they say "no compassion, no mercy, and no help from Uncle Sam, you will pay your debts or you will go to jail", end of story. And this type of anti-middle class legislation can be see across the spectrum of legislation that has been passed during the past three decades.

The evidence of this lack of representation for middle class Americans can also be seen in our tax laws, or who in our society is burdened with the highest levels of taxes. President Reagan passed huge tax cuts for the very rich and this legislation shifted the tax burden from the very rich to the middle class. President George W. Bush took that tax shifting ideology several steps further by passing more tax cuts for the very rich including the repeal of the estate tax.

As a result of these Republican passed highly regressive tax cuts a self-employed person making around $90,000 a year is now the most highly taxed person in our society. Obama could have addressed these tax inequities when he took office with majority control of the House and Senate just like Clinton did, but he did not and now he has lost his super majority. Obama's window of opportunity has closed and we need to fire him for this failure.

The Organized Crime Party

The Republican Party is only part of a much larger vast right-wing criminal organization. The administrations of Reagan, Bush Sr., and Bush Jr. and their Republican controlled Congresses worked for and represented wealthy organized criminals while claiming they are working for and representing us. The proof of this statement is in the results, or lack of results, from these Republican administrations that were listed in the introduction of this book.  

The Republican Party's proclaimed conservative ideology and Christian beliefs are nothing more than clever cons and a immoral ruses, and we are the marks and our government's assets are the prize. 

The Richest of the Rich Hide Their Wealth

The few organized crime families the GOP represents should be listed at the top of the Forbes list of "The Richest" but are not even on the list. They don't want the public to know anything about them or their wealth, they don't want to pay any taxes, they don't want to be regulated, they don't want to be held accountable, and they don't want to share their power or wealth.

A famous economist once said: "People of privilege will always risk their complete destruction rather than surrender any material part of their advantage.", and that description fits the character of these people.

Clearly, the Republican Party has clearly compromised their integrity and conservative ideology by selling out to these wealthy families. Their corrupt and immoral actions and false words during the past three Republican administrations have brought that sad reality into focus for many more conservative voters. That is why people voted for Obama's message of change.

The Democratic Party under Obama and Clinton has proven that they are not much better than the Republicans. They act like they are partisans when we see them in the state of the union gatherings and in television interviews, but when it comes down to passing legislation you almost need to split hairs to see the difference. However, we do need to give some credit to the Democrats for not allowing the Republicans to pass their prized repeal of the estate tax, and for balancing the federal budget during the Clinton administration.

How did this narrow elitist special interest leadership problem occur? Why doesn't the media inform us about this serious problem with our democracy? Why are the American people so tolerate of these bad policies, corrupt politicians, and lack of political representation?

The answer to the first two questions is really very simple and obvious: campaign finance corruption. And in 2010 the Supreme Court made the problem a whole lot worse by lifting the ban on corporations and unions donating directly to political parties.

The answer to the third question is a bit more difficult to determine but I suspect it is because the mainstream media has failed to report the truth to the American people. When enough people learn what has been going on in Washington D.C. they will start to fight back, and that is what this book is all about. 

Campaign Finance Corruption

A corrupt political campaign finance system has turned our elected leaders and their appointees into puppets and whores for a small number of extremely wealthy families. Many of these families are made up of individuals who inherited their vast fortunes and who are dependent on their lawyers, bankers, and security personnel to build and protect their wealth. It is these inheritance rich family organizations that have taken advantage of a corrupt campaign finance system to control both political parties so that they can profit from the actions of the largest asset holder, cash flow generator, and law enforcement organization in the United States, our government.

All this corruption, conspiracy, and lack of accountability is a direct result of an out of control campaign finance system with big media companies and mega wealthy individuals being the primary beneficiaries. They, along with their puppets in our government, are the people we must hold accountable before they finish robbing our government, undermining our democracy, and rolling back our legal system.

If we fail to stop these organized political criminals, their wealthy friends, and the big media companies we will become their impoverished slaves and helpless victims. For a clearer picture of what that will be like just look at the poverty stricken society in Mexico today, or the racist abuse of the Palestinian people by the Jews in Israel, or the collective punishments and torture the U.S. has used against the people of Iraq, the genocide in Sudan, or the over throw of popular left-wing leaders in third world countries.

If this tiny percentage of corrupt individuals succeeds in robbing our government of its assets they will have won. If they do win the rest of us can try to run and hide, or we can get on our knees and beg the new royalty for mercy and some crumbs of food for our families.

 Elections and Accountability

The means by which we hold our elected leaders accountable is through elections. However, based on the elections in 2000 and 2004 it appears that we no longer have that ability.

The election in 2000 was decided by five justices on the Supreme Court who stopped the vote recount, and it was stolen by state officials in Florida who manipulated the vote count using a variety of tricks, including throwing out a large percentage of mail-in ballots and putting large numbers of minority voters are list of voters not eligible to vote.

The election in 2004 was also stolen but this time by paperless voting computers that were built by Republican friendly corporations, like Diebold. These computers left nothing to recount if the election was called into question like it was in 2000. This election was also stolen by state officials in Ohio where voter manipulation was once again a major factor in the outcome.

Both of these fraudulent elections, that gave control of our government back to the corrupt Bush family, had big differences between exit poll results and the official vote count results which indicates these elections were stolen.

Both of these elections were stolen on behalf of the Republican Party and for the benefit of their wealthy campaign contributors. Nothing has changed to give us confidence that future elections won't also be stolen by the same people for the same reasons. Therefore, since we cannot hold our leaders accountable with our votes we must do so through other means, or we must accept the fact that we no longer live in a democracy and deal with the consequences of that reality.

The Democrats have created legislation requiring a paper trail for every voting computer, but the Republicans wouldn't let it out of committee. However, now that the Democrats are in control they have done nothing to fix the problem.

Barack Obama was elected with a large majority of the popular vote, however, people like me who voted for Obama feel like we were suckered by his promise of change, his great speeches, and his sharp mind. And the fact Obama was elected does not mean the vote count was correct, or honest, it just means the election was not stolen in an overt obvious way like it was in 2000.

Largely as a result of these two stolen elections the Republican Party has had illegitimate control of all three branches of our government from 2000 to 2008. All the things we witnessed during that time period, including corruption, cronyism, deficits, war profiteering, corporate scandals, gas price gouging, extreme partisan legislation, torture in Iraq, and the list could go on and on, proves that the Republicans do not deserve their positions of absolute power, and in fact they deserve to be put on trial for war crimes in Iraq and acts of treason against the U.S. government.

The bottom line is that our elected leaders have crossed the accountability line too many times and now it's time for the American people to do their duties by holding them accountable. Since we can no longer hold them accountable in the voting booth we must do so through other means. I have some ideas on how we can do it and I will share them with you throughout this book, but the choice on how and when you do your constitutional duty is entirely up to you, but the time to decide is now. 

Faith-Based Representation

President Bush Jr. and President Obama are a big advocates for giving our tax dollars to non-profit faith-based organizations to care for the poor with social services, and it was the first executive order from the Bush Jr. administration (1/29/2001). Obama has also endorsed this idea along with many Democrats, including Hillary Clinton.

The main problem with this idea is it violates constitutional law concerning the separation of church and state. Personally, I don't want my government in the business of deciding which religious organizations get my tax dollars, and I don't want tax free religious organizations lobbying our elected leaders for more handouts.

The other big problem with the faith-based initiatives program is that it would require people seeking social services to subject themselves to a religious indoctrination before being able to receive help. Our government should not be requiring a homeless atheist to attend Christian Bible studies in order to get some food, but this is what this program does.

Bush Jr. was able to go around the Congress and implement this un-constitutional program through a series of executive orders. His latest order, on 3/7/2006, places this program under the direction of the Department of Homeland Security.

Therefore, if a community gets hit with a terrorist attack or natural disaster instead of people looking to their federal government for help they can go to a local religious organization and pray, or beg, for help.

This entire concept is somewhat ironic since it has come out of the most immoral, corrupt, and inept administrations in the history of the world, George W. Bush's. I wonder if Hitler had a similar program. Maybe the Jews thought they were about to receive social services before they were gassed to death.

Maybe Thomas Paine was right when he said:

"All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions set up to terrify and enslave mankind and monopolize power and profit.".

It is obvious that both political parties use religion, and the word "faith", to sucker gullible Christians into voting for them. They do the same thing with the abortion issue. It is just a con and we are the "marks". They are trying to distract us with a big shinny object in one hand while their other hand is busy picking our pockets. They are the people who wear their faith on their sleeves that Jesus warned us would come to mislead and destroy us. 

Mitt Romney Wants to Represent You

The GOP has a small-government philosophy and they have a potential tool to deliver it in Mitt Romney (R - MA). Mitt Romney is a ultra right-wing Mormon who promotes the GOP's small-government philosophy, and who has his eye on the presidency.

Mitt was an unapologetic Bush Jr. supporter singing his praises at every opportunity.

The reason he is so dangerous to America is because he is smart, good looking, wealthy, and well known. He could, and will, use these qualities to try and win the presidency. If he does become president you can bet your bottom dollar he will take this country in the same direction Bush has taken us, and with equally disastrous results. The middle class will pay while the rich get richer.

Mitt's small government philosophy is a slap in the face to Uncle Sam and 200 years of legal precedents. It would take us back to pre-Civil War days with business owners able to exploit their workers ruthlessly and criminally. Mitt's idea would drastically transform our federal government from one that balances capitalism with social programs for workers to one that is only concerned about the capitalist.

We must never let Mitt Romney, or anyone like him, lead this country because if we do a lucky few will prosper and everyone else will pay. His strong Mormon faith will end up being the middle classes bloody cross to bare.

Fighting Back

Currently, 99% of the American people have no political representation in the federal government, however, we have the power to change. A few minor changes to the tax code and we could turn the dire budget projections around, just like President Clinton did with his 1993 tax legislation. A few minor changes to our election laws and we could replace these corrupt politicians with honest free-thinking Americans. The only thing standing in our way is a few hundred elected politicians and a few mega rich bad guys.

4. Health Care Scams

Currently, over 45 million Americans don't have any health insurance, and that number is rising daily.

President Bush Jr. blamed junk lawsuits on the rising cost of health care but lawsuits only account for 1% of total health care cost.

Companies are closing their businesses and moving overseas to avoid paying for the rising cost of their employee's health care, but our government leaders don't have the balls to stand up to the insurance, hospital, and drug companies to stop this price gouging.

Many elderly Americans are being forced to decide between buying food or prescription drugs. President Bush's prescription drug plan through Medicare was unnecessarily complex, had a small benefit for average Medicare patients, and was projected to cost over $300 billion more than Congress was told when they agreed to it. However, this plan was a financial bonanza for the insurance and drug companies. This plan has greatly accelerated the Medicare programs insolvency. This plan also made it illegal for the government to negotiate for lower drug prices through bulk drug purchases. This plan was typical of the Bush administration's sell-out scams to corporate America.

If these types of trends in health care legislation continue more Americans will find themselves without health insurance, and many will end up in bankruptcy court due to some family medical emergency.

There is something very immoral about the richest country in the world not caring for its citizen's health care needs, and the missing morals of both political parties mirror that sad reality. 

Social Security

The Social Security program has helped hundreds of millions of American citizens avoid poverty and homelessness, but the Social Security trust fund has been robbed. Republican and Democratic administrations have taken very dime out of the trust fund and given that money to the top 1% through tax cuts. They have stolen $2 trillion dollars from the trust fund since the fund started generating surpluses in 1985. That money is the retirement savings of the baby boomers and generations X'ers. Not only have they robbed the surpluses but the Republicans want to scam the system of even more money through a privatization scheme.

The GOP's privatization plan would cost hundreds of billions of dollars to set up and manage and it would drain the system of several more hundred billion because of the revenues going into private accounts instead of into the trust account. Their plan would add additional risk to these retirement funds and would cause a huge increase in administrative cost. This plan would decrease the solvency of the Social Security system.

Nothing about the GOP's plan makes any sense and most Americans are starting to recognize this reality. Maybe that's why we don't hear the Republicans talking about it anymore. This con doesn't have enough "marks" taking the bait.

The GOP's plan is really just a trick to enrich wall street bankers, brokers, and investment firms at the expense of worker's retirement savings.

A New Legal System

Most of us heard President Bush Jr. talking about "junk lawsuits" and how they are hurting our economy. He wanted to pass tort reforms so that when someone is injured by a negligent corporation they will be limited on the amount of compensation they can get through a lawsuit. The Republicans continue to echo these ideas in an effort to get President Obama to include tort reforms in his healthcare reform legislation.

First, the problem of junk lawsuits filed by injured individuals is a myth. According to Public Citizen, corporations are 160 times more likely to file a lawsuit than an individual, and are 68% more likely to file a frivolous lawsuit, or defense, than an individual.

The truth is corporations and their owners don't want to be held accountable for anything. Thus, by passing tort reform laws that limit compensation and requiring the loser to pay court cost they will be able to get away with murder.

Second, lawsuits don't harm the economy. In fact, lawsuits stimulate the economy by creating new opportunities and by forcing corrective actions by the offending corporations.

Take the example of the woman who sued McDonalds for million of dollars because she was injured when she spilled scalding hot coffee on her crouch. She won the lawsuit and McDonalds has turned down the temperature of their coffee makers, but they still did not pay her a dime for her injuries. They were able to appeal the verdict and delay legal actions for years even though they lost a jury trial. Eventually, they did settle with her but not for the jury awarded amount of $2.7 million, and not for the amount of the award reduced by a judge of $480 thousand, but for much less. However, during all this time a lot of money has been spent on lawyers, court cost, and other related expenses and all these things help boost our economy even if they do delay justice. Also, McDonalds corrected their poorly designed super hot coffee policy.

If anything lawsuit reforms need to go in the other direction and give the injured party and juries more power and rights, and not less.

If the Republicans succeed in getting these tort reforms past into law and you get injured you might as well just plan on getting injured a second time in court when you get screwed out of a fair compensation for your injuries.

Profiting From Dead "Peasant" Employees

A bunch of big blue chip corporations in America are taking out life insurance policies on their mid-level and low-level employees, but not for the benefit of the employee's families. They are doing this to make money for the corporations.

A corporation making money from the death of their employees is a clear conflict of interest, and since they call it "Dead Peasants Insurance" you can be sure it is not in their employee's best interest.

It would be like you taking out a fire insurance policy on your neighbors house so that you could make money off your neighbor's misfortune.

Following are some of the big corporations involved in this horrific business practice: Wal-Mart, Bank of America, Citibank, Winn Dixie, SBC, AT&T, McDonald Douglas, Hershey's, Nestle, and others. This one corporate policy is reason enough to boycott these businesses and their products.

Bird Flu and Swine Flu

President Bush Jr. has us all scared of getting the bird flu, and President Obama is scaring us with swine flu. They are using these fears to scare everyone into believing they might die as the result of a flu pandemic, similar to the "Spanish Flu" pandemic in 1918 that killed over 50 million people. There are two big differences between then and now. First, medical technology is much better now. Anti-viral and viral drug treatments are hundreds of times better now then they were then. Second, communication technologies are much better now. As soon as the first group of people become ill with a type of flu the entire world will know it within hours and people can begin to take precautions including receiving flu shots.

What this is really about is scaring people into doing whatever their political leaders tell them, and having an excuse to pump billions of our tax dollars into the pockets of the big drug companies. Both Bush Jr. and Obama have been successful on both counts. We are scared of them and the highly profitable drug companies are laughing all the way to the bank. 

5. Global Climate Destabilization

This is one thing we cannot blame Presidents Bush Jr. or Obama for, but there is no question that neither person has helped the situation. Global warming is real, it is happening right now, and there is very little we can do to stop it in the short-term. It probably won't happen as quickly as the movie "The Day After Tomorrow" shows, however, it is going to happen sometime in the near future.

The weather patterns are already starting to change and the ocean temperatures have already been changing. When the Atlantic ocean conveyor belt stops Europe and possibly most of the northern hemisphere will find itself in another ice age. What happens after that is highly unpredictable but will probably involve radical climate swings between extremes.

The rich and powerful already have plans, bunkers and arks, for their own survival and comfort, but the rest of us are like sheep grazing on grass before the slaughter. They will probably just let us fend for ourselves during the deadly chaos and mass migration into the south without any food, water, or shelter. The way the government treated the people of New Orleans after Katrina is probably a good model for how they will treat us when the ice storm hits. But, that's what we get for failing to hold our leaders accountable. 

6. Education

President Bush Jr. wanted to replace federal funding for pubic schools with vouchers so that parents could send their kids to the school of their choice. He claimed that this competition would have increased the quality of public schools. This sounded reasonable but it was a trick and it was being sold with clever demagoguery just like all the other GOP's rotten right-wing proposals.

This Republican voucher trick had three parts. First, corporations want to take over the public schools so they can make money. There is nothing wrong with capitalist wanting to make a buck, however, our non-profit public school system is very efficient and has worked well up to now, so why change it? Second, unless these school vouchers are for at least $15,000 per child per year they will not be enough for parents to send their children to high quality private schools without big out of pocket cost.

Also, where are these high quality schools located? And how many students can they hold? Do busy working parents really have time to drive across town twice a day to drop off and pick up their kids? When these high quality private schools are full to capacity where do the extra kids go to school? What if the private school declines your application?

This voucher program idea is really just a subsidy for rich people to send their kids to the private school. Many rich families probably already send their kids to private schools and have no need for financial help from the government.

Private school vouchers would be a way for big commercial real estate moguls to get their hands all that valuable public school land that is currently being wasted on non-profit public schools. That land could be used to build more for-profit prisons to house all the deadbeat dads, credit card abusers, and people without health insurance who cannot pay their bills because they are sick.

Rising Cost of a College Education

The cost of a college education has risen to between $300 and $1000 per credit hour. This is allowing fewer people to go to college and it is forcing the people who do go to college to take on a massive amount of personal debt.

Student loans are guaranteed by the federal government and yet the banks are being allowed to change very high interest rates on these risk free loans.

How competitive is American going to be with the rest of the world if we don't have the best educated people in the world?

7. Workers Vs. Ownership

According to the International Labour Organization, American workers already work more hours per week than workers in any other industrialized country. For the past forty years wages have not keep up with inflation resulting in stagnate wages while the wealth of the top 1% has been growing exponentially.

Pension plans been raided, and are being ended or suspended, even by large successful corporations like IBM and General Motors.

Most U.S. based manufacturing operations have already been moved to Mexico, Korea, China, or Taiwan, and now high tech jobs are going to India, Asia, China, and Europe.

Unions have failed to bring in new members and as a result workers have less power against corporate power, and virtually no political representation.

Workers have been sold out by our elected officials and corporations. Corporations are reaping record windfall profits which they often hide in offshore accounts to avoid paying taxes. They also use their profits to pay their top executives huge salaries, bonuses, and golden parachutes. Finally, they give generously to the two political parties in exchange for protection and legislation.

Back in the 1950's the share of tax revenues from corporations and individuals was about equal, but today corporations pay an average of 9% of all income tax revenues with individuals making up almost all the rest.

If these trends are allowed to continue the day will come when most high paying jobs will be outsourced to other countries and a good job will be working for Wal-Mart or McDonalds, which are already the two largest employers in America. Before long families may need three full-time incomes to pay their bills, or maybe join the military. Talk about busy life styles.

A New Labor Technology

Japan has been busy developing robots that look, move, and respond like humans. It won't take long for this technology to develop to the point that these robotic androids will be able to replace many blue collar workers, and eventually many white collar workers. These smart robots will be able to work 24/7 without pay, food, or health insurance. They won't steal from their employers, make mistakes, call in sick, or develop a bad attitude.

I love the idea of having a personal android to help me do things, but there is a high price for this technology. What are business owners and government leaders going to do with over six billion people who are unemployed? People who are adding to pollution, global warming, and using up earth's limited resources? I think the answer is obvious and 99% of us could become victims of this technology. We must fight back now to make sure we are in control of our government when these new android workers come onto the market, and not the other way around. 

8. The Great Depression II

Now this is something to fear. If America goes into another depression anything like the great depression of 1929 the middle class is going to get hit very hard.

During the 1929 depression most Americans lived on farms in rural communities, thus they were able to cope by helping one another with things they grew on their farms or hunted in the surrounding woods. But today most of us live in big cities or sprawling suburbs and we all buy our food from the grocery stores and restaurants. We don't get our water from wells but we buy it from municipalities. We don't live in big family groups but in individual family groups in houses with mortgages, utility bills, and taxes.

Try to image what America would be like with 100 million unemployed former middle class people living in the streets. Now for the bad news. The Republicans are trying their hardest to make it happen, and so far Obama has only put up a weak defense.

You probably want to know why? how? and when? and I can tell you those things, but what I can't tell you is how to cope with the pain, sadness, and despair when it happens. Perhaps the solution to these emotions is to get angry because anger is a much more productive emotion than despair.

The Republicans are going to do it because of greed and power. It is a way to transfer wealth and power from the big group in the middle to the small group at the top.

Both parties are going to do it by bankrupting the federal government and crashing the dollar with hyperinflation. The $10 trillion dollar turnaround in the federal budget projections since President Clinton was in office is no mistake or accident. The looting of the Social Security trust funds is not just an ironic twist of faith before the baby boomers retire. The sudden turnaround in the projected solvency of the Medicare system did not just happen but was carefully calculated, and the wheels have already been set in motion.

This manufactured depression will probably happen within the next few years. With the current skyrocketing federal debt all that it will take now is a jump in interest rates, a drop in the economy, a loss in confidence from foreign investors, and a decline in the value of the dollar and the next depression will be upon us like flies on trash. Three of these four things have already started to happen.

Now, you're probably wonder if there is anything we can do to stop this from happening? The answer to that question depends on how many guns you own and how willing you are to use them. We cannot vote these evil clowns out of office, so our only option is to tar and feather them and ride them out of town on a wooden rail. Otherwise, get ready for hard-times living on the mean streets of America.

9. Media Propaganda

It is hard to imagine that the corporate owned media could get any worse than it is right now, but it will. Most of the shows and commercials on TV and radio are deliberately designed to wash the public's minds with images and sounds that are manipulative to the point of being Orwellian. Many of these programs and commercials are very entertaining, but that is just part of the bait and switch con they use to sucker us into watching.

Many of the movies are equally manipulative and should be shunned completely or carefully edited. The propaganda is usually well concealed and cleverly done but if your look for it you can easily spot it.

Public television channels, like PBS, use to be safe havens from corporate America, but they sold out and today commercial advertising is allowed. The only channels on my cable that are commercial free are the CSPAN channels and Turner Classic Movies channel, both of which I recommend over the mainstream media.

The Republicans like to criticize the media as being liberal, but the opposite is actually true. Media companies are huge for-profit corporations that are out to make as much money as possible and keep as much of that money as possible. As a result, for-profit media companies are inherently conservative organizations run by people who want to be deregulated, untaxed, and unburdened by a large active watchful parent like federal government.

It is true that many actors are outspoken liberal personalities, but they are just actors and are speaking for themselves and not for the corporations that make the movies and TV shows they are in.

Also, there is a major problem with media companies and campaign finance corruption. During every election cycle the handful of giant media companies jack up their advertising rates just in time to milk our politicians for every dollar they can gouge.

It is this high cost of media campaigning that has turned our political leaders into high priced whores for the people with the most money. This is not just the media company's faults but it is also our elected leader's faults because they refuse to change the campaign finance laws.

It is the American people who are paying for this corrupt system of quid-pro-quo money for legislation, and the big media companies are playing us like we are all just a bunch of punk-ass-bitches, and they will continue unless we fight back.

My advise is to boycott the mainstream media by canceling your cable television subscription and limit your, and your childrens, viewing habits.

The Art Of Distraction

News events are not necessarily news events any more. There has been a steady stream of manufactured news events that are being used to distract, mislead, and manipulate the American public.

Many of these phony news events are about political and social issues, like flag burning or abortion rights, and security issues, like the color coded security alerts and Iran's nuclear potential, as well as a variety of other issues. The point of these news events is to manipulate the minds of the American public, and not to inform the public about the truth. It is akin to a slight of hand magic trick where the audience is forced to focus on one hand while the other hand is busy pulling off the trick. They are just half-truth illusionary news reports being perpetrated by some well paid right-wing manipulators of the public's minds.

Maybe the Lincoln Group, the company the Pentagon hired to write and plant false news stories in the Iraqi media about how well the war is going, is also writing stories for all us suckers in America. 

Take the example of the Port of Dubai Worlds deal. In this deal the United Arab Emirates was buying a company that would have given them control over many major shipping ports in the United States. This was never a real business deal but was a manufactured news event designed to force the public to view things differently. One of the ways it was used was to make the Republicans in Congress look like they were independent free-thinkers who would be willing to part ways with President Bush on important national security issues. The truth is they did this because Bush's poll numbers are at an all time low and the 2006 midterm elections are coming up and the Republicans up for reelection needed an issue to separate them from an increasingly unpopular president. Mission accomplished?

Another example is the news reports that the IRS might start selling citizen's private tax records to companies. Once again, this is not a real possibility for obvious legal reasons but is only designed to manipulate the publics minds with fear and make them think about the need for greater personal privacy. The people who really fear this type of exposure are the top 1%, and that is why it was made into a news event.

And the list of examples could go on and on, but the bottom line is that the American public cannot trust the corporate owned media, or either of the political parties. They are just manipulating us by distracting us while they rob our government, loot the Social Security trust fund, undermine the rule of law with deregulations and tort reforms, use our young soldiers as expendable pawns in a war about oil and Israel's security, and steal our democracy with fraudulent elections and quid-pro-quo campaign fundraising.

We are being conned by both political parties, and the big media corporations are fully complicit in this fraud. After we take back our government we will put an end to this Machiavellian mind fuck. 

The Media / Campaign Finance Conspiracy

In the 1950's the cost of political campaigns began skyrocketing due largely to the cost of media advertising. That trend has continued at an exponential rate and today people running for Congress must raise tens of millions of dollars just to be able to compete in political campaigns, and people running for president must raise hundreds of millions of dollars each election cycle.

In 2000, when Bush and Gore were running for office, it is estimated that both parties raised and spent over $500 million dollars with most of that money going to a handful of giant media companies, and that number almost doubled in 2004, according to Opensecrets.org. It has been reported that Obama spent over $1 billion dollars getting elected.

Who do you think gives all this money to our two parties, and what do you think they expect in return?

As a result of this money corrupted political system we now have a government of, by, and for the very wealthy which by definition is not a democracy, but is a plutocracy; or more accurately named, a mafiaocracy. We also have a corporate owned mainstream media that is feeding on this political corruption and is playing on the American people's gullibility's, time limitations, and fears. 

The mainstream media companies and both of the corrupt political parties make sure the top 1% of Americans are very well represented within our federal government and on our televisions, but the other 99% of us are voting against our own self-interest when we support either party or any of the big media companies.

Chapter 2 Summary

Even if we succeed in replacing our current corrupt government leaders with real people we are still facing a number of very difficult challenges in the near future. However, if we fail to oust these political whores and corrupt elites make sure to save the last bullet for yourself.

Taking actions to get rid of the current corrupt federal leadership must become our number one goal, and I will tell you how we can do it in the next two chapters.