Freedom to Fascism - Part VII

Hey America, so sorry about the lapse for a day, I had much to do.

Hmm....where were we?  Ohhhhyeah.....Check #12, I believe.

Check Mark #12 - Government Agencies or Officials Declaring Themselves Exempt From Portions of the Law or Constitution

Well, well and well again.  I think we've experienced this one a-plenty, hmmmm?

Some folks are automatically exempt from just about everything.  Long ago, we made it impossible (or nearly so) for us to take out complaints, suit, or judgement against those in power.  We can't do much about  the President or his Vice, I know this much.  Oh sure, eventually we could feasibly get an impeachment, if the wrong is great enough, and Congress is upset enough.  We certainly can't complain much about those in charge of making our law.  And we certainly can't do much about certain public officials:  Judges and Lawyers, a prime example, to be sure.  If a lawyer doesn't do the job we hired him to, or garners a judgement we didn't like at all, well, we're just screwed.  If a judge over-rides the verdict of the Jury, well...that's the way it goes.  Nothing we can do about it.  Oh, we can appeal, but for the judge who ruled against us, there's no way to get him back for his possible one-sidedness or prejudice.

Some of this is perfectly understandable of course...If we could sue judges and lawyers, most of us would be in court almost every month for some sort of lawsuit, and the court system, already way over-booked, would be 5-10 yrs. behind schedule as opposed to six months to a year on average, depending on where you live.  New York city criminal courts can sport wait times of 2 years or better.

Recently, Obamacare raised rumors that Congress was trying to pass (or did get passed) legislation that would exempt them from Obamacare.  This was never true, as a matter of fact, there are more problems for Federal employees then there are for the common man.  It's too bad it didn't happen, really.  I think it would have been cool as heck to catch them red-handed trying to change the rules in their favor on something as big as Obamacare.

The Legislature is, as well as most Government, immune to OSHA, which is pretty big in and of itself.  Evidently, there are other major laws that don't apply to Government either.  Record keeping for workplace injuries and illnesses.  Having to train employees about workplace right and legal remedies.  Having to post notices of worker rights in offices.  The Freedom of Information Act.  Protection against retaliation for whistle-blowers.  Investigatory subpeonas to obtain information for safety and health probes.

There should never be a reason that Government is immune to what we are held to by law.  Congress isn't special, anymore than we are.  These people represent us, so should, reasonably, be held accountable on these things like we are.

Let's do another one, shall we?  I mean I did miss a day, right?

Check Mark #13 - Creation of Watchlists, no-fly lists and other exclusionary documents.

You  know, I just have to think that the long term affects of 9/11 were much more disasterous than the event itself.  Homeland Security, Airport security, spying on citizens, and, more importantly, watch lists and no-fly lists have literally made things that were already bad even worse.  And thanks to the internet, which we all know is greatly monitored and has been for some time, every little word you and I publish is suspect.

The red flag list is pretty large, and is sectional, of course.  I'm sure just my articles on Drugs alone in this blog have already landed me a party box seat in our national security agencies.

Here, you can find the list of words you should avoid stringing together in sentences, if you're not big on Big Brother watching over you:

http://lifehacker.com/5913945/words-to-avoid-online-if-you-dont-want-to-join-the-governments-watch-list

Check Mark #14 - National ID's.

Now, this one's not exactly in play....as yet.  However, expect the move soon enough, as the technological age progresses by leaps and bounds.  By not EXACTLY in play, ID's might just as well be national.  They're more identical then they were once upon a time, to be sure.  I'm sure that they have national standards at the very least for the stated purpose of preventing fraudulent attempts to create them.  The mag strips found on all state ID's was a big move in the National ID up and coming...any state law enforcement agency across the country is able to scan and read these in order to get the skinny on you.

Of course, forcing Americans to carry their ID's is quite another thing altogether.  This really scares me though, because as more and more states adopt this law, and, because of it, less and less people carry them, the next logical move by lawmakers, instead of national ID's might just be that futuristic thing I see more and more in the movies everyday.  It wouldn't surprise me, if someday, the ID chip didn't make its way around the bend.  Then truly would you know what's happening America.  Oh, we'll fight it tooth and nail...for appearance sake.  But the day it even smells like something might happen in this country, I'm hightailin' it to a deserted island somewhere, and I'll take my chances with the box-jellyfish and the land-sharks.

Til tomorrow America.  Sleep well...or give it your best shot, huh??

Drugs (or the ones that are still illegal, anyway) Update!

Here's a chart I found rather interesting.  Surely the lot of you have read my posts on the legalization of drugs in our country.  No credit is given, because the credit is right on the image.  If you ever had a doubt about legalizing ALL drugs, like Paraguay, here's the chart for you.  NOTE:  Remember, this study was done in the U.K.  And, alcohol tops this list of damaging drugs...but then you have to remember that, of course, alcohol WOULD do the most damage to others and the user, mostly because it is, indeed, legal.  Still...makes you wonder, doesn't it?

Freedom to Fascism - Part VI

Hey kids...(as he loops his fingers into the top of his jeans, pulls them up, and gives a good look around)...yeeeeeup....it's good to be back (not that I ever left or anything)!

Yes, it's time, once again for Part Six of Freedom to Fascism.  Let's do a few checky marks today, shall we?

Check Mark #9 - Courts that support Presidential use of unconstitutional powers

Well, we kinda covered this one already...See the check mark that talks about Secret Courts...Part III in our series.

Check Mark #10 - Massive spying on citizens, especially those involved in Political Dissent

OK, now it's starting to get a little repetitive...I'm thinking I should have read through this list and lumped a few check marks together better, huh?  It's OK though.  Since this one's being discussed quite a bit, I think I can add to what I've done on it a little more.

Remember my "Former" CIA official, mentioned back in "Employer Discrimination and Former CIA Operatives?"  Oh yeah...he's still "following" me...I'm sure his purpose is exactly what I think it is too.  Just another agent sent out to make sure I don't say anything too treasonous.  Just like the rest of them having the same issues:  Tea Party folks, AP Reporters, conservative groups, you name it.

I remember, not too long ago, reading an article comparing the things Nixon did back in his infamous Watergate days, with Obama's current actions.  The news is disturbing at best, America. I give credit to this article, if you'd like to see it for yourself.

http://paradshift.net/tag/irs/

In this comparison, you will quickly see that Obama's power over the people of America is currently 50x worse than Nixon could have ever dreamed, believe you me.  Mr. Obama, of course, also has the added benefit of having the world at his fingertips, and can simply categorize his opponents by search keywords. Believe also paradshift.net, and anyone else.  Do NOT disregard these things as the rantings of certain conspiracy theorists...these "conspiracy theories", of late, have had this awful habit of coming true, or at the very least, have had some truth backing them up.  I remember back when we chalked a lot of stuff up to CT's, that we later found out were not only true, but were glaringly so.  Granted, some were just plain silly, but methinks that to take anything heard about our current government and it's Executive Branch, should never be brushed off lightly.  No, better than you should file these away for future reference, folks.  I'm finding out, rather quickly, that some of the things I never believed an American President would ever try and pull on his/her people are all coming to bear.

Keep your eyes peeled America.  Don't you DARE roll over. You are citizens of the greatest free country in the world...KEEP IT THAT WAY, WILLYA?  Add your voice to Congressmen in favor of the transparency of Government actions.  Better yet?  Let's suggest that, Bob or Chuck (anyman/anywoman, U.S. citizen) over there, be allowed to accompany Grassley's oversight of the secret NISA court.  Let's put an intelligent UN-elected representative in there as well.  I mean, really...maybe Grassley just needs an excuse for being in the court that can be explained to Iowans, so he won't get in trouble for being spotted in that direction, how do we know?  I say, let the people oversee the overseers to make sure all is good and pure in Washington...

On we go then, with:

Check Mark #11 - A government that uses words like democracy, freedom and peace, while engaging in acts that are dramatically at odds with such words.

Kind of like using the word "Change" a lot, then changing nothing that we wanted to be changed, and changing things we wanted to stay the same, isn't it?

This one too, is pretty obvious.  It's political double-talk...or as us lower class citizens like to refer to it: "Talkin' out of both sides of your mouth".  Or as an even LOWER class of people (or, as some of us tend refer to them sometimes anyway...I myself like to think of them as a Hell of a lot more enlightened) once said it, "White man speak with forked tongue".  Saying one thing, doing another, the left hand knowing not what the right hand doeth...you get the picture.

I can't tell you how much I hear the word free or freedom, usually followed immediately by seeing or hearing about people being imprisoned...for pretty much nothing.  The right to free speech giving shadow to someone being taken to jail for opening their mouths a little too widely...or better yet, "accidentally" dying off, or getting shot by some "fanatical lunatic".  Peace being discussed as we bomb the hell out of someone, and of course, my favorite, democracy being introduced (by us, mainly...of course) into nations that want no part of it. Another one of my favorites is using the words "In slow and steady recovery" to describe our economy, while, upon close inspection, nothing is getting better in any way.  I think you know what I mean.  Telling us we're fine when we couldn't be any closer to disaster without being on the other side of it.

We shall continue.  And, as long as I suffer no permanent (and, according to Obama's administration, perfectly legitimate and legal!) jailing by our current administration, I shall continue to open your eyes.

Freedom to Fascism - Intermission

     Just when these American Citizens (speaking in reference to the 110,000 Japanese-Americans who

     were put into internment camps back in 1942) needed their rights the most, their Government took

     'em away, and rights aren't rights if someone can take 'em away; they're privileges; that's all we've

     ever had in this country, 'The Bill of Temporary Privileges"...and every year, the list gets shorter

     and shorter and shorter...

- George Carlin          

I'm going to take a small break in this series...an intermission, if you will...in order to accomplish two very important things. First, I'd like to give massive respect to a man who, inadvertently through comedy, has influenced much of what I feel and think; about the U.S., about we as human beings, and about the world we live on and/or in, as well as Mother Nature and her creatures, with whom we share this planet.  How much longer we'll be allowed to share it with them, of course, is in serious doubt.

To be perfectly honest, if the man had presented himself as a wise man or a prophet rather than a comedian, I would have more than accepted him as such.  If, after his death, someone had held up his book, "Brain Droppings", called it "The Word" and started a new religion called Carlinism, I would have been the first to join, and would have probably gone as far to self-anoint myself as that religion's first High Priest.

It's impossible to listen to George Carlin (may he rest in pieces - I think, for the most part, he was an atheist...no real surprise there) in his later years, and not only laugh til your sides ache...but also, more than likely, suffer the common side effect of plopping down hard in your seat and saying to yourself, "Yeah...he's got some really thought-provoking takes on this stuff!!"  He honestly did personally subscribe to almost everything he made jokes about in his later years, and presented it then, to us, in a way to make us digest it hungrily, regardless of the fact that we've become brain-washed naive sheep and roll-over-ish patriots who are stubborn in our beliefs, firm where we stand (wherever that is, exactly) and have falsely pledged our allegiance to a country and its government that is slowly turning us into a fascist nation without our knowledge, or our consent.  No, if you listen to us, we're the greatest nation on earth, and "There's no trouble here!"  Take a look around and put toothpicks in your eyelids America.  We WERE great...once upon a time.  But we've moved a whole lot of pegs in the down direction ever since, believe it.

I believe you're not really a whole human being unless you watch (or listen to) any routine George did from 1992 on.  His thinking influences a lot of my opinion, even though the better part of it is my own.  His way of thinking was, in this writer's opinion, way ahead of its time.  If you follow this link, you'll come across a menagerie of his best stuff over his career.  Someone really had it together when they combined this collection of video.  It's very much worth the time to watch.  It included more serious interviews he did along the way, and just listening to him, you can see he had a wisdom I wish I could find in more people today. I already miss the guy something fierce; he left a pretty big gaping hole in my life when he died in 2008.  He very wisely adopted his role in this country as a spectator, though, if he had tried harder, he could have been so much more.  The United States lost its favorite "Should have been" statesman as well as his well-informed and very outspoken voice that year.

To George...a moment of respectful silence, America, if you will

Check it!!:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_zwB6GLpo4

Second, I'd like to include a contribution, submitted by one of my readers.   This reader of mine fears fascist practices in this country just like I do, and, even though there are some things in the article we don't agree on, he makes some valid points, and, since I am the open-minded guy I claim to be, I don't like to voice my own opinion in order to talk over yours.  Here then, is his contribution:

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The State

 “Present Society With One Improved Unit, Yourself.” - Albert Jay Nock

Today we have two political institutions, the Government and the State. The Government is our ally, the State is our enemy. Government maximizes your ability to pursue personal goals when the law is designed to secure the individuals domain and protect your inalienable rights to life liberty and property and the pursuit of happiness. Government is an instrument of justice and a necessary component to a free society, true liberty only exists when there is true justice consisting of law and order.

The State is when the law is perverted so as to legally disadvantage some for the benefit of others and therefore it is the common enemy of all decent human beings. Government aims at true justice while the State aims at what is today fashionably called social justice. Social justice is not real justice it's perverting the law so as to legally disadvantage some for the benefit of others, this happens also quite clearly with crony capitalism. For example when taxpayers who work at Ford Motor Company have to subsidize their competitor General Motors through a government bailout. When you subsidize failure you should always expect there to be more.

If we eliminate the State altogether and leave only the Government, which minds it's own business only to protect man against his neighbors and nothing beyond it, providing only Freedom and Justice. Government's whole duty is to abstain from any positive regulation on the individual's conduct and second to make justice easily available for all. In society the State creates crisis where it doesn't exist, then creates a plan to address the issue which always means more power for the state, and less power for society. The state has economic advantage to dispense and pressure groups and special interests organized to take advantage of it’s give aways which then becomes part political and part private when using public power for private advantage. In Society the only losers are the normal folks among us who are the peaceful and productive members of society.

The Superficial distinctions of fascism, Communism, Hitlerism the serious student sees in them only the one root idea of a complete conversion of social power into State Power and at the Root of all them we find the same deadly formula: The State Incarnates the divine idea upon Earth. By getting into the charity business, the State creates an enormous mass of subsidized voting power and enormous resource for strengthening the state at the expense of society. If you rob Peter to pay Paul, you can always count on Paul's vote. Every intervention from the state enables another intervention by the state and so on. There may be times where the state recedes a little under different leadership but the tide is always rising, this is also commonly known as the ratchet effect, the state is screwing with us and at each turn of the ratchet only tightens the strangle hold.
When it comes to the implementation of Social Security back in 1913 I can't help but notice the rank and file Americans are reconciled to the idea of absolute State; living for the state is a condition of servitude to the state; slavery is still slavery even if it is voluntary. We furnish the means by which we suffer, the surrendering of our liberties to the state has been going on for quite a long time, and usually people have to be conquered before they are made slaves. The origin of the state is one group of people conquering another with the aim to economically exploit the conquered. Every revolution or regime change has merely been exchanging one set of rulers for another but the nature of the state doesn't change each class using the force of the state to advantage themselves by legally disadvantaging the other.

If History tells us so clearly it is why this keeps occurring and why nobody is stopping it. There are two ways to satisfy human needs and desire the first is to employ economic means which involves the society to work, I'm sure you would agree that going to work isn’t fun, the desire to have the least amount of work possible is why almost automatically everyone gravitates towards political system to satisfy their economic wants and needs. The State is the sinful desire to live off of others. Part of the problem is the prestige of the state, because it permits each person to persuade himself that the state is in part his creation an extension of himself, he thinks it expresses him, when it is glorified he is glorified.

Lincoln's phrase “of the people, for the people, and by the people” was probably the best piece of propaganda for the forge of the state. People look on the state like they do their children giving it a special code of ethics and always with the expectation that it will learn from it's mistakes sadly on nearly every page of history this wish is proven to be an illusion and fatal. A lot of us want something for nothing or at least something for less and so we create the state in our own image and only a moral transformation will change that image and nothing short of this will topple the state.

- Contributed by BostonKid9096 from Google +

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Thank you for your contribution!!

If you would like to contribute an article or do an interview on this series, please feel free to email me.  My email address is cbstraighteight@gmail.com.  I would fully accept any and all contributions!!  You may either submit your contribution anonymously, or if you ask me to give you credit, that's fine too.  Make sure to sign your contribution, and then write your name again, legibly, so that I can give you the proper credit for it (as well as protect myself in case you accuse me of trying to steal your material).

If you have any comments, either on my stuff, or on a contributors work, please remember that your comments are most welcome, but that they are subject to moderation.  If you feel the need to swear in your comments, I may decide to blank it out and leave the comment if the swearing isn't god-awful and the comment phenomenal.  However, excessive swearing at or the abusive behavior of, either of America in General, my contributors or myself will absolutely NOT be tolerated, period.  The comment will be deleted for good to start, and if the abuse continues, you will be barred from comments.  We're all adults here, and you can catch more bees with honey.  :D  We continue our series tomorrow!!

Freedom to Facism - Part V

http://www.businessinsider.com/jenn-ackerman-pictures-of-the-mentally-ill-in-prison-2013-10?op=1

Top o' tha day tooya lads 'n lassies.  Here we are again, in Part V of our new series.  Now, just to keep you going and interested (I'd like to think I can do that anyway, without any outside help!), I'd like to say that I have plans for the inclusion of other people's writings, facts, and opinions on this subject as well.  I mean my stuff does tend to get kind of one-sided at times, and that does put a reader or two (or 100...who knows for sure?) off, on occasion.  I am an open-minded, fair and kind of intelligent guy who doesn't mind butting heads with someone.  Like I've said many a day, I enjoy a heated debate, whether in words OR in person. And if it makes for interesting or intellectual reading, then bring it on!!...I say.  I really do miss "Point/Counterpoint" and shows like that...

Yeah, sorry....shiny objects again, you know....

So I believe we were on check mark #8 (the links to the document we're referring to are in Parts I and IV, thus far...try and keep up, willya?)?  Annnnnnd, the lucky check mark of the day IS:

Check Mark #8:  Use of Torture on Prisoners.

OK, this one's gonna be a little tricky.  I might have to dance on a few eggshells, as well as tread lightly in your freshly planted gardens.

Y'all remember Abu Ghraib, right?  Yes, we Americans were exposed as torturing, humiliating, raping and yes, even killing the Arab people over in Iraq...and these weren't even terrorists.  They were merely citizens.  This was one of Saddam's notorious torture chambers, and we used them like they were our own, after his down-fall, and we were over here, stateside, talking like we were their liberators and saviors.  They were freed, and would never have to suffer at the hands of someone like Saddam again.  Uh huh.  So instead, we chose to fill Saddam's empty space with our own personal version of good ol' American torture.

Yeah, but I'm not really talking about this kind of prison torture.  No, I'm afraid I'm referring to torture right here in our beloved 50 states, just on the other side of that thar brick wall over yonder.

BBC Channel 4 did a 50 minute expose on Texas and Florida prisons just a year after Abu Ghraib, where prisoners were tortured using dogs, chemical sprays and cattle prods.  The expose was called "Torture Inc., Americas Brutal Prisons."  and can be seen here:

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8451.htm

No longer institutes meant for rehabilitation, now inmates are pretty much abandoned or forgotten, and treated no better than animals, regardless of their crimes.  And this was in the days our Government still regulated them exclusively.  I can imagine that prisons these days are even worse, as businesses, independent of Government regulation.

The Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) put out a bid in 2012 to buy up all state run prisons in the country.  Do NOT let this happen America, (thank GOD no one accepted their offer!!)...this company, as well as others like it, want a guarantee of anywhere from 80 to 100 percent occupancy.  In these contracts, the state is made to pay if crime is low and beds are empty.  That means sheriffs and local police will be forced to arrest people just to keep these prisons full and making money.  If they aren't, payers of state taxes will be hit with the bill instead.  Crime rates have dropped dramatically around these prisons, and yet the rates for people jailed around them tend to go up.  I'd have to say that if all prisons are privatized, all prisoner rights will go out the window right along with the conversion.  I would even have to say that current torture of prisoners by the state will be a distant nightmare compared to what they'll be getting away with in private prisons.  It's bad enough that we torture, starve and kill off our animals, but to do the same to prisoners is murder.

And guess who holds the pistol?  You got it.  By turning our backs on our prisoners, we become no better than inmates ourselves.  We Sheeple continue to let it all happen.  We look the other way and write it up to "They shoulda thought about it before they committed the crime, right?  Who cares?"

Hey!!  Back over here America...lemme rub your face directly into this:  The CCA makes 1.4 Billion dollars off of sick inmates.  They cut expenses at the safety of their staff.  They hand them radios with dead batteries and empty gas cans and tell 'em to do their best...fake it if things get dicey.  They even cut staff so badly once, there was one guard to watch over 300 inmates..by himself!! They sell themselves, conning the locals into thinking it'll be a blessing in jobs, if naught else...then don't even lift a finger to back them up when they're assaulted by inmates.  The inmates, often, only attack guards in response to horrid treatment and shortage of food and other basic needs.  A 24 yr. old guard was attacked and killed once, and his supervisor knew full well he was on the prisoner hit list that day.

Remember our shock of Abu Ghraib...now imagine it happening here...in every single way, similarly.  No shock there, huh?  What's up with that?  As the Government turns more and more things it used to regulate over to privateer for-profit owned business, it's essentially saying "Here...go ahead.  I couldn't do a damn thing with 'em.  Good luck with that."  Besides, we're on 'em like stink when they torture prisoners, and they know it.  Why do you think they want nothing more to do with them?  "Here, give it over to this company, pretty soon they'll be BEGGING us to take them back again."

Personally, I don't think Government should have EVER had anything to do with prisons.  Under their rule,

it's estimated that 1/2 of all sexual abuse done to prisoners is done by state hired guards.  20,000 people at any given time are said to be locked up in solitary confinement for 23 hours out of the day in prisons all over America.  But to just toss them and the prisoners they hold over to the nearest greedy investor without any rules or regulation couldn't be outdone on a scale of irresponsibility or dismissal.  The CCA and privateers threaten to bring back racist practices like inmate leasing, a practice not heard of since the 1800's, just to maximize profits.  There was a reason for it's expulsion in the early 20th century folks, prisons aren't a business, and private ones should NOT exist.  Prisons were originally put in place to reform today's criminals, not to make someone a dollar.  And really, if there was no better way to ensure that prisoner mistreatment and torture take place, it's privatization, for sure.  :D

Freedom to Fascism - Part IV

http://consciouslifenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/FTM_PYRAMID.png

Well kids...here we are, and the check marks continue...

For those of you who haven't seen what this series refers to, we're going on this link:

http://prorev.com/fascisthints.htm

We're on Check Mark #7, as I remember...

Check Mark #7:  A Government Subservient to the interests of the country's largest corporations

Well, no matter what the situation, or the industry, I think we all know, that as capitalists, our leaders tend to lean towards making our large and successful corporations happy.  We're afraid to operate any other way.  We give them all the tax breaks, we let them take jobs overseas to save money, we let them get by with poisoning or killing off the population, and at no small cost either.  Our economy suffers, our ecology suffers, nature suffers...and when all of these suffer, naturally, we as citizens suffer.

How many times have you heard of natural resources, like water and air, being poisoned by toxic dumping or air pollution?  Oceans and the life they carry killed off by oil spills?  Entire areas affected by nuclear waste?  Dump sites in general, affecting the wildlife in the area...or worse yet, US!!  Well, we, as individuals, have probably not, each one of us, heard of them all.  Oh sure, we hear about the major ones...but I don't think we have nearly a clue about even half.  Some are covered up by our Government, mainly to save face.  Some are, I'm sure, are not even reported.  A lot are bought off, no doubt.  Let's see if we can find some figures and examples.

Upon investigation, kids, I don't see a list that tells all.  I can tell you though that, with the help of a list at:

http://list25.com/25-biggest-man-made-environmental-disasters-in-history/

containing the top 25 worst man-made disasters, our biggest industries and major corporations who cause the better part of these disasters, whom we hail and support, tell a pretty grim tale.  These are, evidently, the 25 we couldn't possibly keep secret.  Too big to hide.  It's very sad, really, how we treat our home, at the expense of the world's (and our country's, of course) citizens.  I won't go into them...not only couldn't I, without lengthening this post about 12 more web pages...but someone else (see the aforementioned website) has more than amply done so for me.  The point is, it's because we back up our big money corps, and give them the chance to do so much damage to us and the earth without accountability...because we're worried about losing the jobs they represent, or the taxes they pay as countable income...whatever the reason, it's the WRONG reason.  Usually, we come along the things they do wrong well after the damage is more than done.  I mean really, just something as simple to consider as "everything affects something else affects something else..."...I mean this is more than enough to realize we have big problems here, with our government coddling these corporations.

Millions upon millions of people have died from tobacco use, utilizing one of our better known examples...and when did our government finally step in?  After the numbers were huge, and all the money possible made, and America tired of losing relatives, friends, spouses and children to cancer-related deaths from tobacco and nicotine, it's primary killing ingredient.  It came to the  point where the nation just finally put their feet down on the whole shebang...THEN the government, in an effort to not piss us off, finally turned a sympathetic ear to our way-too-late plight.  Remember, and never forget America, that no matter how much our government caters to our current way of thinking, and even though it appears to back our recent campaign to help us "kick the habit", that tobacco is STILL a government regulated commodity.  I don't care how many campaigns against tobacco are begun, the corporations that produce cigarettes are still very much alive and still raking in tons of cash at the expense of the lives of Americans and any country they export to, as well.

As to the subject of sending jobs, or allowing corporations to outsource employment overseas to countries where the mainly unemployed are a problem, in a major effort to save money or show bigger numbers in their profit column...well you know my stance on this one already.  In this writer's opinion?  If you want to save money by sending American jobs overseas, why don't you just pack up your headquarters and go with them?  I figure, if you care that little about contributing to the job market of the country that made you great in the first place, all because you want be able to buy yourself a new Porsche next year with all the money you saved, then we don't want you here anyway.

It's a lot like giving our money to countries in need.  This to me is definitely, in a general sense, very philanthropic in nature, as a whole.  I don't see a lot of this, however, when done by government, as something that's done solely out of the kindness of our hearts.  Almost always, it seems that a lot of our generosity is done with something more sinister at its roots, or to pacify the people when the outcry gets too loud.  In the case of a natural disaster in another part of the world, for example, it's often hard for me to believe that the first thought running through our President's head is "Oh my God!!  We gotta hurry up and help those folks!!"  Anytime I see the President address the nation after any one of these disasters, the only thing I see crossing his mind and his face is "BROWNIE POINTS!!  ELECTION VOTES!!"

Mostly though, the thing I have to say on this is what I've ALWAYS had to say on it.  If we're in no shape to help, then we shouldn't be helping!!  And we are most DEFINITELY not in a position to help!!  Our debt is in the Trillions.  We ourselves have our own smaller scale disasters.  Our people are sick and not being healed (without major cost), homeless and not being housed, and hungry, and not being fed!  How can we give our money (which, as the experts say hasn't been our money since the early 1900's) to others in need, when we're in need ourselves!!  OK, there was a time when we were prosperous...but we're in a major recession!!  There are obviously nations in the world in better shape (like the ones that are forever lending US money) that should be stepping up instead!  But because it's been expected of us since we began doing it decades ago, now it's our job to do it?  NO!!  Maybe when unemployment is back down to 3%.  Maybe when the better portion of us are NOT on welfare.  Maybe when foreclosures aren't as frequent as the current divorce rate...then MAYBE.

Check Mark #8 follows close behind.  Stay tuned.