Sarah Palin or Jeb Bush could still win the Republican nomination in 2012 and become the next president of the United States.  Really.  In fact, Paul Ryan, Jim DeMint, Mitch Daniels and Chris Christie still have a chance too.  How could this be?  Well, it has now become clear that there is a very real chance that no Republican candidate will hold a majority of the delegates by the time the Republican convention rolls around.  If that happens, that would mean that we would have the first "brokered convention" in decades.  The truth is that the Republican establishment does not want this, but they are also scared to death of having someone like Newt Gingrich or Ron Paul as the nominee.  So exactly what is a brokered convention?

The following is how Wikipedia defines a brokered convention....

A brokered convention is a situation in United States politics in which there are not enough delegates 'won' during the presidential primary and caucus elections for a single candidate to have a pre-existing majority, during the first official vote for a political party's presidential-candidate at its nominating convention.

Once the first ballot, or vote, has occurred, and no candidate has a majority of the delegates' votes, the convention is then considered brokered; thereafter, the nomination is decided through a process of alternating political horse-trading, and additional re-votes. In this circumstance, all regular delegates (who, previously, were pledged to the candidate who had won their respective state's primary or caucus election) are "released," and are able to switch their allegiance to a different candidate before the next round of balloting. It is hoped that this 'freedom' will result in a re-vote resulting in a clear majority of delegates for one candidate.

Usually by this time in the election cycle, a clear frontrunner has emerged.  But in 2012 this has not happened.  Mitt Romney was presumed to be he frontrunner, but he just can't seem to rise any higher than the mid-20s in the polls.  A whole host of candidates have filled the role as the "anti-Romney candidate", but each has faded.  First it was Michele Bachmann, then it was Rick Perry, then it was Herman Cain and now it is Newt Gingrich.

For a while it looked like Newt Gingrich was going to become the clear frontrunner, but at this point he is clearly fading.

The conservative backlash against Newt Gingrich has been enormous.  Glenn Beck can't stand him.  Rush Limbaugh has come out against him.  And now conservative commentators all over the nation have jumped on the anti-Newt bandwagon.  The following comes from a recent article in the Washington Post....

As Andrew Sullivan pointed out today, you’re already seeing the anti-Gingrich mobilization among conservative thought leaders: Here’s George Will, Charles Krauthammer, David Brooks, Ross Douthat, Tom Coburn and Ann Coulter, just for starters. There’s this Politico story about all the Washington Republicans who hate Gingrich.

So what we have is a situation where there are 7 candidates and none of them can seem to break out in the polls.

There are three candidates that are pretty much guaranteed to go all the way - Gingrich, Romney and Ron Paul.

The rest seem fairly likely to stay in it until at least Super Tuesday.  Michele Bachmann is rising in most polls, Rick Perry seems to be bouncing back a bit, Rick Santorum is gaining a significant amount of traction in Iowa and Jon Huntsman is seeing his numbers move up in New Hampshire.

Sure, one or two might drop out in January, but the field would still be very muddied even if that happens.

In addition, a big factor in candidates wanting to stay in longer this year is the fact that proportional representation will now be used in all the early Republican primaries.

In the past, "winner take all" rules made it very easy for a frontrunner to lock up the nomination very, very early.  But now the rules have changed.  Delegates in the early states will be distributed among all the candidates.  This is going to extend the nomination fight and it is going to give weaker candidates an incentive to stay in and rack up delegates.  Those delegates may not win them the nomination, but it will give them leverage.  And in politics, leverage means a whole lot.

A recent article posted on Real Clear Politics described the rule changes that have been implemented by the Republican Party....

Basically, the Republican National Committee looked enviously at the lengthy Democratic primary from 2008 -- which strengthened the Democrats by forcing candidates to conduct registration drives and set up infrastructure in all 50 states -- and decided that a longer primary system would benefit the GOP as well.

So, it decided to require primaries and caucuses held prior to April 1 to allocate delegates through a proportional representation system. To greatly oversimplify, a candidate who receives at least 25 percent of the vote in any given state will receive that same percentage of the delegates (some states have a 20 percent viability threshold, and some states will have “mini-races” in each congressional district). A total of 1,277 delegates will be awarded prior to April 1, so it is nearly impossible for a candidate to rack up the 1,145 delegates needed to win the nomination outright by the end of March.

Proportional representation is the key to a brokered convention.  In the past, if someone won a state with 30 percent of the vote, they would get all the delegates.  Now a candidate with 30 percent of the vote will only get about 30 percent of the delegates in the early states.

Plus there is the Ron Paul factor.

Even if Ron Paul does not do well in the early states, he is going to stay in the race for the long haul.  His supporters are the most committed and he has shown that he can continue to raise money no matter where his poll numbers are at.

And at this point he has raised a ton of cash.  For the quarter ending September 30th, Ron Paul raised more than $12 million.

But the Republican establishment would do just about anything to keep him from winning.  The odds of him becoming the Republican nominee are not real great.

But it is very realistic to think that Ron Paul could be sitting there with 20 or 25 percent of the delegates by the time the convention rolls around.  If two other candidates such as Gingrich and Romney counterbalance one another the entire time, there is a real good chance that neither one of them will have accumulated 50 percent of the delegates by the convention.

Plus, remember, there will be other candidates sitting out there with their own chunks of delegates.

In addition, the growing dissatisfaction with the Republican field is making it much more likely that we could see a late entrant into the field.  Late entrants would not be on any of the early ballots, but they could get on lots of ballots in April, May, and June.

In such a scenario, the late entrant would have a very hard time locking up the nomination by convention time, but it would help to ensure that nobody else locked it up either.

In fact, there are rumors that some in the Republican establishment are already pushing for a late entrant or two to enter the race.  The following comes from a recent Wall Street Journal article....

Efforts are underway by some wealthy Republican donors and a group of conservative leaders to investigate whether a new Republican candidate could still get into the presidential race. The talk is still preliminary and somewhat wishful, but it reflects dissatisfaction with the two leading candidates, Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney.

Conservative leaders are looking into whether it is feasible for a dark horse to get on the ballot in select states. The deadline to qualifying for the ballot has passed in Florida, South Carolina, Missouri, and New Hampshire. But a candidate could still get on the ballot in states like Tennessee, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Michigan and Texas. At the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses, voters write in their choice, so there is no formal filing deadline.

The chatter about potential new entrants include former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, businessman Donald Trump, Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin and South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint.

The truth is that a late entrant that gets into the race on February 1st could still potentially compete for more than 50 percent of all the delegates.

A brokered convention would be really strange, but this is the way that it was always done in the old days.

As William Kristol recently pointed out, brokered conventions have nominated some pretty famous names in the past....

In 1860, the second convention of the Republican party met in Chicago and nominated, on the third ballot, after considerable deliberation, our greatest president, Abraham Lincoln. In 1932, the Democrats convened in Chicago and nominated on the fourth ballot—after a few days in which the balloting was suspended for deliberation—Franklin D. Roosevelt.

So yes, there is actually a very real possibility that Sarah Palin or Jeb Bush could win the Republican nomination in 2012.

It would be really weird, but stranger things have happened.

Hold on to your hats folks - this is going to be one wild election season.

It is absolutely mind blowing that any Republican would ever consider casting a single vote for Newt Gingrich.  The truth is that Newt Gingrich is not a real conservative.  He isn't even close.  After he left Congress, he spent years portraying himself as a "progressive" and he devoted a lot of time and resources to promoting liberal causes.  But now that he is running for office as a Republican again, all of a sudden he is trying to sound like a conservative.  And it is fooling a whole lot of people.  One recent poll had his support up to 38 percent.  But a Gingrich administration would be a total disaster for America.  A Gingrich administration would essentially be just about the same as a second Obama administration.  That is how liberal Newt Gingrich is.  Gingrich is a big time RINO ("Republican in name only") that is so liberal that he should actually be in the  other political party.  If you believe that Newt Gingrich is a real conservative and you plan to vote for him, then you are being incredibly foolish.

So what is so wrong with Newt Gingrich?

Well, for one he is for an individual health care mandate.

Republicans are supposed to be against Obamacare, and yet a huge percentage of them are supporting a candidate that was pushing an individual mandate way before Obamacare was ever even invented.

In June 2007, Gingrich made the following statement....

“Personal responsibility extends to the purchase of health insurance. Citizens should not be able to cheat their neighbors by not buying insurance, particularly when they can afford it, and expect others to pay for their care when they need it.”

That doesn't sound very conservative.

Gingrich says that he will repeal Obamacare, but back in 2008 Gingrich wrote a book entitled "Real Change" in which he endorsed an individual health care mandate.

The truth is that Newt Gingrich is not a real conservative.

He just plays one on TV.

Gingrich has reaffirmed his commitment to an individual mandate over and over.  The following is an excerpt from an exchange between host David Gregory and Gingrich during an interview earlier this year on NBC's Meet The Press....

MR. GREGORY: You agree with Mitt Romney on this point.

REP. GINGRICH: Well, I agree that all of us have a responsibility to pay--help pay for health care. And, and I think that there are ways to do it that make most libertarians relatively happy. I've said consistently we ought to have some requirement that you either have health insurance or you post a bond...

MR. GREGORY: Mm-hmm.

REP. GINGRICH: ...or in some way you indicate you're going to be held accountable.

MR. GREGORY: But that is the individual mandate, is it not?

REP. GINGRICH: It's a variation on it.

If you are against Obamacare, you must be against Newt Gingrich.

There is no middle ground.

But this is not the only issue where Gingrich has been showing his liberal tendencies.

For example, before he was running for president, he was running around the country with Al Sharpton promoting the socialist education policies of the Obama administration.

Also, back in 2008 Gingrich actually did a television commercial with Nancy Pelosi in which he declared that "our country must take action to address climate change".

The following is the sickening video that he did with Nancy Pelosi....

Not only that, Gingrich also has promoted the idea of a "cap and trade" carbon trading scheme.  Back in 2007, Gingrich said the following....

“I think if you have mandatory carbon caps combined with a trading system, much like we did with sulfur, and if you have a tax-incentive program for investing in the solutions, that there’s a package there that’s very, very good. And frankly, it’s something I would strongly support.”

In addition, as we have seen during the recent debates, Gingrich openly supports amnesty for millions of illegal aliens.

So how in the world is Gingrich still leading in the polls?

Are Republicans this stupid?

It is almost as if they don't even care about all of the corruption that has been revealed.

For example, according to Bloomberg, Gingrich earned somewhere between $1.6 million and $1.8 million lobbying for Freddie Mac between 1999 and 2008.  He was supposed to lobby Republicans in Congress and convince them that Freddie Mac was doing a good job....

Former Freddie Mac officials familiar with his work in 2006 say Gingrich was asked to build bridges to Capitol Hill Republicans and develop an argument on behalf of the company’s public-private structure that would resonate with conservatives seeking to dismantle it.

He was expected to provide written material that could be circulated among free-market conservatives in Congress and in outside organizations, said two former company executives familiar with Gingrich’s role at the firm. He didn’t produce a white paper or any other document the firm could use on its behalf, they said.

But now Gingrich says that he was not doing any lobbying.

The truth is that it is really hard to know that if we can believe anything that Gingrich is saying these days.  Just check out the amazing video posted below.  You have got to see this....

So why are so many Tea Party activists supporting Newt at this point?

Newt represents everything that they are supposed to be against.

For example, In 2008 Newt Gingrich declared that he would have voted for the TARP bailout if he was still a member of Congress.

Isn't the Tea Party supposed to be against bailouts?

The Tea Party is supposed to be against higher taxes too.

But Newt Gingrich voted for higher taxes on numerous occasions.

In fact, while Newt was the Speaker of the House the amount of taxes collected by the U.S. government soared from $1.001 trillion to $1.511 trillion.

Does that sounds conservative to you?

In addition to everything else above, Newt Gingrich has shown that he does not have the character to be president.

The Republican Party is supposed to be the party of "family values", but they are getting ready to send someone to the White House that has a track record that would make Bill Clinton blush.

The following is how a recent Business Insider article described the "skeletons in the closet" from his personal life....

Newt's personal baggage is either weird or scary. He married his high-school geometry teacher. He cheated on her and divorced her while she had cancer. So he married Marianne Ginther six months later. But that wasn't to last.

Gingrich conducted a tawdry affair behind her back with one of his staffers while making political hay out of Clinton's affair with a White House intern. He then divorced Marianne and married the staffer. 

How in the world can Republicans be supporting this guy?

The following video has more about Newt's marital issues....

If the Republicans nominate this guy, Christians should leave the party in droves.

For much more on the skeletons in Newt's closet, just check out this shocking website.

The sad truth is that Newt Gingrich is not a real conservative.  He is not even close.

His tough talk about Obama is just an illusion.  It is just a trick to get elected.

Yes, four more years of Barack Obama would be a complete and total nightmare for America.

But so would four years of Newt Gingrich.

And then after Gingrich failed as president we would almost certainly get Hillary.

Is that what you want?

Please share this information about Newt Gingrich with as many people as you can.  There is still time to turn this election season around.

President Obama donned his golf clothes this week for an outing at Mamala Bay Golf Course at Hickam Air Force Base in Honolulu this week, but it wasn't loud golf pants that had eyebrows raised. Along with White House travel director Marvin Nicholson, the president's group included his childhood friend Robert “Bobby” Titcomb, who was arrested by police in Honolulu for soliciting prostitution back in the spring.

This is not the first time Obama has golfed with Titcomb since taking office. Titcomb, who went to school with Obama at Punahou School in Honolulu during the 1970s, was a guest at the White House in August 2010 when the president celebrated his birthday. The birthday festivities included a round of golf at Andrews Air Force Base for the president and a few intimate friends, followed by a barbeque at the White House. Titcomb, considered one of Obama's closest friends, was present for both activities.

However, this week's outing marked the first time Titcomb has appeared in public with the president since the alleged incident occurred in April. At the time, Titcomb was one of four people who were caught up in an undercover prostitution sting orchestrated by Honolulu police. Titcomb has not been convicted of any wrongdoing.

Titcomb, who is a commercial fisherman and an airline employee, has been a close friend of the president since their youth together, and has always maintained a close relationship with the Obama family. The family’s Christmas vacations in Hawaii traditionally include a full day of jet-skiing, volleyball and grilling out with Titcomb at his North Shore home. This past December, the president, along with the first lady and their daughters, stayed at Titcomb's home for almost an entire day, and Titcomb is often a welcome guest at the golf and basketball outings Obama schedules for his Hawaii trips.

Titcomb was a featured speaker at a ceremony at Punahou School that honored the president. “He’s honest, he’s truthful and he’s always encouraged the better things in you," Titcomb said at the event. "And you always go back to those people who water your plant. Who water your garden.”

While plenty of people around the world applauded the overthrowing of the dictator, Hosni Mubarak, many were cautiously optimistic. It's not that they questioned whether or not Mubarak was a horrible man who suppressed his people, but rather, their concern was that something worse was looming on the horizon?

One needs only to look around the globe, at who is being persecuted today, to see that “evil” is alive and well.

The goal of evil has always been to do away with the belief in God and one method for accomplishing such has been to do away with God's people. The purpose of the Holocaust was to rid the world of the people of God-- the Jews. Today we are seeing this same agenda rear its ugly head. However, it is just not the Jews who are God’s people, it is also the Christians.

The cries of the world after World War II were, “we will never forget” the cost of apathy for the mass slaughter of a certain group of people. Today, many have already forgotten what evil is capable of, if left unchecked. Many more have never been taught the lesson, to begin with. We are, once again, witnessing God’s people being slaughtered, and the world (including the west) is, once again, silent.

Just like how America was silent when millions of Jewish men, women and children were being herded into concentration camps to be murdered, it seems as though we are keeping our mouths shut, today, as were are seeing the up-tick in the slaughtering of Jews and Christians around the world.

During the past few weeks, Egypt has displayed an unprecedented level of persecution against the Christians. First, there was the burning down of a Christian (Coptic) Church, despite the fact that it had all the proper permits and obeyed the laws of not having any visible crosses or ringing bells.

After the Church was set ablaze, about 1,000 Christians in Egypt decided to have a peaceful march, and sit-in, in front of the state controlled television building. What happened next could be the beginning of the end, with respect to one's right to publicly display their Christian faith in Egypt.

The Egyptian army fired live ammunition into the crowds, and used its armored vehicles to jump onto sidewalks and mow down the Christian protesters. May of the victims’ bodies were mutilated and many of the dead bodies were riddled with bullets. So far twenty-six people were killed, and more are dying every day from their serious injuries. There are reports that anywhere between 250- 500 have been injured.

This is the same Egyptian army that, earlier in the year, allowed the Egyptian protesters to sit endless days in Tahrir Square without a single shot being fired or a single protester being killed (initially). The Egyptian army is now killing its own people; something they vowed they would never do. It is also being reported that, just before slaughtering the Christians, the Egyptian soldiers, much like Al-Qaeda terrorists, have begun yelling the rally cry, “Allah Akbar” which means “God is great”.

Analogous to the days of Nazi Germany, the Egyptian State TV is also proving to be anti-Christian, and has evolved into a full-fledged propaganda machine. As the events began to play out, the media actually urged Egyptians to help police in ridding the Christian protesters, portraying them as a violent mob, attacking the army and public property.

Soon afterwards, young men armed with sticks, rocks, swords and firebombs began to roam central Cairo, attacking Christians. Troops and riot police did nothing to stop the attacks.

In Egypt, Christians make up only 10% of the 85 million people. There has been as strong outcry from the Muslim Brotherhood, and other Islamic sects, for Egypt to become an Islamic state. Since the Egyptian Jews have mostly been done away with, the only people who stand in the way of bring this to fruition are the Christians.

In 1948, 75,000 Jews lived in Egypt. Today, there are about 100. There has been a mass exodus due to the persecution and anti-Semitism of Jews
This is not the first time Christians are being attacked, but by far, the most blazen. Since the removal of Mubarrak these attacks on Christians have esculated sharply.

In January, a suspected suicide bomber hit a church in Alexandria as Christians celebrated the new year, killing 23 people.

In March, thousands of Christians protested in front of the state television building after the torching of a church. Thirteen people were killed and 140 wounded in sectarian violence

In May, 12 people were killed and 52 wounded, in sectarian clashes, and in the burning of St. Mary's Church in the Cairo suburb of Imbaba.
This had occurred after rumors spread about how Christians were protecting a woman who had recently converted from Islam.

As a result of the increased persecution of Christians (since the overthrow of President Mubarak), Christians have been fleeing Egypt.  In a recent report, nearly 100,000 Christians have emigrated from Egypt since March 2011. This report also warned that this mass exodus has been prompted by the escalating intimidation and attacks on Christians by Islamists. There is fervor amongst this “new Egypt” to cleanse the country of Christians, just like they did the Jews.

Those that do not believe in the Judeo Christian God may not care about this rash of killings against Jews and Christians, however, not caring about a group of people who are being rounded up and killed for their beliefs, just because you're not a part of that group, has proven, historically, to be a very dangerous attitude, just as it did in the days of Nazi Germany.

Even if it is a group you fundamentally disagree with, or the massacre is happening thousands of miles of away, once evil has room to grow it will spread like wildfire and be hard to contain.

There was a prominent protestant pastor who first supported the Nazi regime, but then became an outspoken critic of Adolf Hitler. He later spent the last 7 years of his life in a concentration camp, during which, he wrote this poem about the dangerous cost of apathy.

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out --
Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out --
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out --
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me -- and there was no one left to speak for me.

There are two ways this apathy will play out; we will either let history repeat itself and stand idly by, because it does not affect us, or we will be the watchman on the wall sounding the warning bells that they are coming for God’s people.

*****

The preceding was a guest post for The Truth by Alisha Venetis.  Alisha Venetis is co-founder of www.thePrepRoom.net - an online store specializing in emergency preparedness supplies.  She writes for Smart Girl Nation, as well as other conservative blogs, where she reports on world politics, domestic and global economics and the potentially negative ramifications they may have on America.

Since December of 2007, the government and mainstream media have pointed to runaway spending and predatory lending practices as the cause of the economic meltdown. The fairytale we’ve been spoon-fed is that borrowing, lending and the derivatives debacle was brought on with the fiscal abandon of a frat boy with a free brewery pass at spring break. There is no doubt that all three lead to foreclosures and financial ruin for far too many US citizens. But that’s only part of the story. The real instigator that has so many of us dodging pink slips, fighting to put food on the table and scrambling to stave off foreclosure began with the restructuring of NAFTA and GATT agreements.

When President George W Bush handed the baton over to President Clinton to sign the beefed-up North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1992, it rang the death knell for America. At the time, concerned citizens were alarmed, for the agreement flew in the face of the constitution: article 1, section 8 that states tariffs are to be levied as a means to support the US government.

Many insiders warned NAFTA was less about improved investments and exchange of goods than it was a means for mega rich investors and multi-national corporations to grow richer and more powerful from the sweat of cheap labor. Others feared for US sovereignty and possible tariff deficits that would place greater burdens on US taxpayers. Simultaneously, warning cries were sounded over the safety of unregulated food imports from Mexican farmers whose growing practices include DDT and the use of human feces as fertilizer.

GATT was touted as the panacea that would promote US economic growth by breaking down barriers of trade and investment with other countries as well as dissolve “favored nation” status to steer trade that dissolve discriminatory practices against developing nations. The American public was promised job creation through the increased exports GATT would generate. However, not many in the public sector knew that GATT was negotiated by the United Nations, and through the consortium of nation member agreement, GATT was changed to the World Trade Organization in 1995.

Behind the Smoke and Mirrors

Before the restructuring of NAFTA, the US enjoyed a trade surplus with Mexico. A few short years later, the US economy was plunged into a $20 Billion trade deficit with Mexico and had suffered a 69% increase in trade deficits with Canada. Many growers, most notably California and North Dakota, lost their market share with grain, tomatoes and avocado distribution due to direct competition with Canada and Mexico. This was occurring simultaneously while the US bailed out the Mexico peso in 1994 during the Clinton Presidency.

NAFTA opened the floodgates for 4 billion of the world populace to join the world economy and stave off high unemployment for China, India, Vietman, Banglagesh. Today, we experience this shift, daily, with overseas call centers, outsourcing, and emerging financial mite as China gobbles up vast US holdings and real estate while our labor force suffers ever-growing unemployment.

GATT, however, was disaster on an even greater scale, for it threw aside the sovereignty of all nations in exchange for a global marketplace for cheap labor, capital, services and products. It served as master, turning into slaves those already living in squalor in third world countries through the use of sweatshops.

One example is Nike Corporation. When Nike moved offshore to Indonesia, they were able to reduce the cost of manufacturing a pair of tennis shoes to just $2.75, yet the price of their tennis shoes, after having moved offshore for cheap labor and lower taxes, remained at $70 to the public. Studies have shown that Nike’s Indonesian employees are not protected by their government, and due to the minimum wage of  $2.50 per day, many suffer malnutrition for lack of money to purchase nutritious food.

Nike is far from the only large manufacturer to jump ship for wage-friendly environs. Halliburton followed suit by moving its corporate headquarters to Dubai, Accentuate, a subsidiary of Arthur Anderson, are now headquartered in Bermuda and Foster Wheeler likewise moved its headquarters to Bermuda. Ingersoll-Rand, once headquartered in New Jersey, is now based in Bermuda, Tyco International has pulled stakes from the US to Bermuda, Cooper Industries jumped ship from Houston to Bermuda, Noble Drilling left Sugar Land, Texas for the Cayman Islands, Global Crossing moved to Bermuda, Seagate Technology now calls the Cayman Islands home, and Neighbors Industries proved to be less neighborly with a move from Texas to Bermuda. Hewlett Packard and Advanced Micro likewise abandoned the US for underdeveloped countries for cheaper wages and lower taxes.

Demographics show that a staggering number of factories and large businesses have vacated US borders, or have gone bankrupt in the attempt to compete when exporting goods made by higher US wage earners. In fact, the greed practiced by corporations is overshadowed by the necessity of an offshore move for manufacturers to remain competitive. As reported by The Economic Policy Institute, NAFTA was the direct result of lost or displaced jobs for 682,900 workers, which additionally added to the US trade deficit.

As reported by CNBC June 14, 2011,US home foreclosures now stands at 33%, higher than that experienced at the height of the Great Depression, which climbed to 31%. In 2011 alone, food prices saw an increase of 37% and are slated to climb much higher due to extreme drought and weather-related extremes that destroyed vast swatches of cropland.

There exists other negative ramifications of global dependence on manufacturing that are rarely discussed. Namely, when Japan experienced the devastating 8.9 earthquake in April 2011 which resulted in tsunami and the meltdown of Fukushima, G.M., Toyota and Subaru production plants were crippled due to Japan’s inability to continue supplying these plants with auto parts routinely imported to them.

No Lessons Learned; AKA Pushing an Agenda

NAFTA and GATT were not the only free trade agreements that played a part in US insolvency. The Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), was signed by President George W Bush after a tough congressional battle in 1995. This agreement was entered into with Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic for cheap labor, free tarriffs and increased commerce.

The Republic of Korea-United States Free Trade Agreement (KORUS FTA) is a free trade agreement between Korea and the US that was inacted in June of 2007 and renogotiated and signed by President Obamah in 2010.

Yet another free trade agreement called the Doha Development Agenda that stagnated under the tutalidge of President Bush was dusted off and promoted by The World Trade Organization at meetings held in its support in July of 2011. The Doha Development Agenda is esentially another free trade agreement between world leaders and developing countries, alowing poverty striken devoloping countries to get on the globalization bandwagon towards free trade and investment liberalisation.

The WTO is and always has been a bureaucracy that will remain borderless while they report to over 120 nations and answer to multi-national, powerful corporations.

Building Insolvency, One displaced Worker at a Time

As a result of NAFTA and GATT Michigan alone lost 315,200 manufacturing jobs by 2008, totaling a 35.5% reduction of manufacturing jobs, which lead the national decline as reported by the American Manufacturing Trade Action Coalition. The resulting job loss for Michigan was 489,900 due to the trickle-down effect.

Other huge hits resulting from the NAFTA agreement to the US economy are in computer and electronic parts, which accounts for 22% of job losses. Motor vehicle and parts workers have suffered a 15% job loss.

In the last decade, the United States lost some five million manufacturing jobs, a contraction of approximately one-third. In total, 42,000 US manufacturers have permanently closed their doors since 2001.

The public was not privy to the fact that unemployment rates had already begun to rise as 2.4 million jobs were lost between March 2001-October 2003 with the majority of displaced workers being in the manufacturing sector.

Today, the official unemployment rate stands at 9.10 percent. However, these rates are misleading. Those who have exhausted their unemployment entitlement are no longer counted as part of the US displaced work force. Neither do these reported numbers take into consideration that to stay employed, many workers have been forced to take steep pay cuts or accept the reduction of health benefits or both. Additionally, benefits such as retirement and profit sharing plans have been drastically reduced or curtailed. Many displaced workers seeking employment have had to settle for drastically reduced salaries and in some cases, have had to accept shorter hours just to re-join the ranks of the employed. Sadly, there facts are underreported to the general public. This underreporting makes it nearly impossible for the public to get a clear picture of the seriousness of the US economic condition, which is directly tied to employment.

The Solution

Recently M.I.T. did an investigation on the state of US manufacturing. Their consensus was the US must create17 to 20 million jobs over the next decade to see a full recovery of the current recession.

It’s difficult to fathom how as a nation we can expect to become fiscally sound when our leaders have proven time and time again their agenda does not always protect the interests of the nation’s infrastructure or its workforce. Evidenced with the continuing trend towards free trade agreements such as NAFTA and GATT. This practice has brought the US work force and our economic solvency to its knees as manufacturers flee the nation and employment continues to plummet to disheartening levels. With the outrageous tariff deficits and alarming reduction of the workforce, the decision to continue on this path of destruction with CAFTA, KURUS, and most likely the Doha Development Agenda, it holds terrifying indicators for the failure.

But should The US abolish free trade agreements and swap globalism for the return of manufacturing on US soil, we have a chance to reclaim the solvency we have enjoyed since the industrial revolution and we can then offer a future to the generations to come.

*****

The preceding was a guest post for The Truth by author Barbara Fix.

Visit Survival Diva Blog http://www.survivaldiva.com/ for more information on rural living, gardening, home canning, food storage, and tips on combating skyrocketing food prices.

Survival Diva, Barbara’s preparedness book is available at http://www.survivaldiva.com/ Download for just $7.75

***The following is a guest article for The Truth by Left Coast Rebel.  I think that you will agree that Left Coast Rebel has definitely knocked the ball out of the park with this one.***

The Washington Post has it that "GOP Leaders Rebuked on Spending;" Politico has it that "Vote shows Boehner's Lack of Control."

Per usual, the lamestream press is missing the point.

I'll put it simply here: John Boehner and Eric Cantor think that they can "get along" with the Democrats, quietly pushing through destructive legislation that aids and abets the statist agenda.

They don't even put up a fight.

They just roll over and expect conservatives in the House and the Tea Party grassroots to go along.

No. And they must go.

CNS News has the real reasons behind House conservatives voting down the Boehner/Cantor continuing resolution (a fancy way of saying short-term) budget:

(CNSNews.com) - The Republican leadership tried to pass a continuing resolution through the House of Representatives on Wednesday afternoon that would have permitted funding for Obamacare implementation, Planned Parenthood, the United Nations Population Fund, and the Palestinian Authority to continue in the new federal fiscal year that begins on Oct. 1.

The bill was defeated 195 to 230 when 48 House conservatives joined with 182 House Democrats in voting against it.

Sweet. Attaboy for standing by your principles, House conservatives.

Republican leadership is known for saying one thing and doing the precise opposite. Limited government! Taxes! Ooohh, those wascally Democrats!

Then, they don't even put up a fight. How's this for throwing social conservatives under the bus:

An analysis of the CR published by the conservative House Republican Study Committee, said that it “continues funding for the United Nations Populations Fund (UNFPA), the UN agency known for its involvement in China’s brutal one-child policy. It also continues $300 million in annual funding to the Title X family planning program, which is a prime funding source for the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.”

And fiscal conservatives, too:

The failed CR, promoted by House Speaker John Boehner (R.-Ohio) and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R.-Va.), was a temporary measure designed to fund the entire government through Nov. 18.

During that time, it would have funded the government at an annualized rate just $7 billion less than the level of federal spending for fiscal 2011--but $24 billion more than the Republican-controlled House approved in the budget resolution they passed earlier this year.

How about throwing all limited-government conservatives, independents, libertarians et al. under the bus?

Obamacare -- the same Obamacare that Boehner/Cantor rode into House majority status with, promising to repeal/replace/de-fund gets funded in Boehner/Cantor budget:

“Some conservatives may be concerned that the legislation does not block funding for Obamacare during the period covered by the legislation,” said the study-committee analysis.

Imagine that there isn't anyone railing against this abomination over at Memeorandum. "Conservative" bloggers and talking heads are too busy waving their 'R' red-white-and-blue flags to consider that they are being used and bamboozled by the very leadership that they put into power positions November of last year in the first place.

Boehner and Cantor have no interest in promoting or furthering the righting of our financial ship. Can we afford that right now?

Another question: What happens when we have a President Rick Perry or Mitt Romney and these two guys are still the leaders in the House?

Think about it.

When I was younger, friends and acquaintances told me that I should consider becoming a teacher, because they saw that I related well with children.  And, beginning in the 1980s, I began hearing that schools were “begging” and “crying” for teachers.  However, as I was growing up, I hated school.  For that and other reasons, I didn't begin to consider teaching as a profession until 1990.

I left high school in 1973.  Between 1973 and 1990, I went from job to job, with most of those jobs having to do with automobile repair.  I also stumbled into a B.S. in agriculture (soil science emphasis), with a minor in biology, and an A.A.S. in automobile technology.

In the 1980s, the State of Texas asked businessman H. Ross Perot to help to reform the education system in Texas.  One of the proposed reforms was intended to help people in other professions to “streamline” the process of becoming certified as teachers (partly by considering job experience as credit for some teaching courses, as applicable).  Apparently, many people who wished to change professions to teaching hesitated, because of all of the hours of classes required to become certified.  This proposed “streamlining” process initiated by Ross Perot could have—should have—helped me become a public school teacher, but, as you will read, it didn't.

In 1990, I sent a letter to the University of North Texas (UNT) in Denton.  I asked them to gather all of my college credits, and all of my work experience, and I asked them to tell me how far I was from becoming certified as a teacher.  In a few weeks, I received documents signed by a Betty Mason at UNT.  I was told that I qualified to be on what they called a deficiency plan.  This, apparently, was part of what Ross Perot suggested to make it easier to make a change of métier to teaching.  With that deficiency plan, I could be hired immediately by any public school district in Texas as a teacher of automobile technology.  However, after being hired, I was to take 18 hours of classes.  After taking those classes, I would be fully certified as an auto mechanics teacher.  From the time of my being hired as a teacher, I had two years to complete the 18 hours of courses (six classes).  If I needed an extension, I could request it.

I made zillions of copies of my deficiency plan, and sent copies of it all over the Texas, along with letters informing districts of my desire to become an auto mechanics teacher.  I received no replies.  I was surprised and disappointed.  I could see little evidence of anyone in Texas “crying for teachers.”  I wondered whether I should remain in the auto repair field, but “hard knocks” in auto repair drove me to look more into teaching as a profession.

In the spring of 1994, I decided to request permission to visit a school as an observer.  I spoke to an official with Katy Independent School District in Katy, Texas (a few miles west of Houston), and she told me that I could observe during two separate mornings.  I was to observe in a first-grade classroom.

I do not remember much about the first morning.  I refrain from telling the teacher's name, which I remember.  I'll call her Mrs. Blank.  I recall that the kids—even boys—often told Mrs. Blank that they loved her.  I was amazed.  When I was that age, I always thought that teachers were creepy and grouchy.

I remember, at the end of the first morning of observation, that some of the kids asked me to eat lunch with them in the cafeteria.  Mrs. Blank told me that I shouldn't trouble myself, and that the children were selfish, and did not consider my schedule.

On the second morning of observation, Mrs. Blank began the class by lamenting to the kids that she had, once again, failed to win the lottery, which she hoped to win, so that she could quit her job.

That second morning was “Library Day.”  Part of class time was to be spent in the library.

I had a “gut feeling” that one of those children would ask me to help him/her find a library book.  Would I, as an observer, not be allowed to interact with a student?  I asked Mrs. Blank about my concern, and Mrs. Blank blankly replied, “Don't say anything to students, unless they ask for help.  If one asks for help, then you can try to help.”

While we were in the library, a little girl approached me and told me, “I can't find a book.  Somebody told me that the book I want is in this library.  Can you help me?”  She knew the title.  I walked her over to the card catalog.  I told her that the card catalog had three parts—a “title” section, a “subject” section, and an “author” section.  I told her to look for the title section of the card catalog, because she knew the title of the book which she sought.  I explained that the titles were in alphabetical order, and I ensured that she understood the term, alphabetical order.  (Her title started neither with “A” or “The,” so we were able to focus on the beginning letter of the first word of the title of her book.)  I never touched the card catalog.  I gave her oral directions, and she looked through the cards.  She soon found the card with the title.  I told her to write down the big number (Dewey Decimal System number), because that would help us to find the book.  I showed her the numbers on each library shelf, and I told her that her book would be on the shelf with one number “smaller” than hers (on her scratch paper), and another number “larger” than hers.  I saw the book on the shelf before she saw it.  I waited for her to see the book on the shelf.  When she saw it, she exclaimed, “I found a book!  I found a book!”  Immediately, I was surrounded with kids who wanted to find books.  Of course, when that started, Library Day was brought to a close.  It wasn't until I began writing this article that I began wondering why, just when kids discovered that some knuckle-dragging stranger could find books in the library, our time in the library had to come to an end.  Was Mrs. Blank's schedule that tight?  If that day was “Library Day,” then why, when children found out that they could get help finding a book, was the curtain suddenly drawn on Library Day?  Why didn’t they accomplish the goal of Library Day, by seeing that each student seeking a book from the library got one?  It’s your tax dollars at work.

I've never answered several questions generated by having seen those kids find out that one of the students found a book in the library, and then surround me, with hope that I'd help them find books.  However, I only include this one question.  Why did the children not, initially, ask Mrs. Blank or the librarian for help with finding books?

Again, the kids asked me to eat lunch with them.  Again, Mrs. Blank told me that the kids were inconsiderate, and cared nothing about my desires, or my schedule.  I wanted to reply with, “You're not thinking much about their desires.”  I wanted to tell the kids, “I'd gladly eat with you, but Mrs. Blank thinks you're inconsiderate.”  But I simply left.

Also in the spring of 1994, I visited Livingston High School (LHS), with the Livingston (Texas) Independent School District (LISD).  Livingston is about 55 miles north-northeast of Houston, at the juncture of U.S. 59, U.S. 190, and State Highway 146, and at the edge of what is called the “Big Thicket,” which is a unique ecological treasure—sadly, a treasure disappearing behind the blade of the bulldozer, and under pavement and concrete.

At LHS, I started out visiting the auto technology department.  I also visited the biology teacher and the French teacher.  (I took four years of French in high school, and I still remember a chunk of what I learned.)  The auto mechanics teacher invited me to lecture in his class.  He said that he was going to be in the class, but that he had things to do.  He would be in the class while I lectured, and, if students tried to get out of line, he would straighten them out.  The facilitator in the French class and the biology teacher agreed to let me observe in their classes on the same day that I was to lecture in the auto tech class.  The French facilitator added that I could assist in her class.

I decided to give a lecture about Ohm's Law to the auto mechanics class.  I made that decision in order to impress on students the importance of learning as much as possible while in school.  I told them that my knowledge of Ohm's Law pulled my fat out of the fire many times, when I repaired vehicles.  I also told them that, in at least one instance, out of 13 other mechanics (and three service writers, a shop foreman, a QC man, and the service manager) in a dealership, I was the only one who was able to recalibrate a speedometer, because I was the only one who knew the required math.  (It was among the first electronic speedometers offered in cars.)  I hoped that at least one of the students would listen, because I knew that most people who take auto mechanics classes are seeking umbrage from academics.  I hoped that at least one student would wake up, and realize the importance of bringing knowledge of the 3 Rs into a modern auto repair shop.  Reading is useful for reading repair manuals.  Writing is useful for describing, in plain detail, what repairs were made.  Arithmetic is mainly for electrical problems.

My opinions about why so many auto mechanics are scornful of schools, and time spent in schools, must be reserved for another article.  I will note that, when I was in auto repair, I saw that a high percentage of auto mechanics were dropouts, and I frequently considered dropping out, once I entered high school.

After my lecture, the auto tech teacher told me that I should apply for his job.  He said that, though he was certified, his certification was in the area of wood shop.  He said that the district hired him because they could not find a certified auto tech teacher.  (I had probably sent a copy of my deficiency plan to LISD.)  According to him, the only thing that the students had learned in the class was how to replace spark plugs.  And that was in May, so they'd had 8+ months to have experience with brakes, &c.  He said that he was about to get his certification in special education, and that I needn't worry about taking his job.  I told him of the above-mentioned deficiency plan.  He said that I should have no problem with getting hired.

I found that the biology teacher was “together.”  I sat in on an advanced biology class, and those kids knew what they were doing, because the teacher knew what she was doing.  I was glad to have seen eager students learning in that class.

The French class was another story.

The lady front of the French class was certified—as a kindergarten teacher.  She was in a facilitator role in the French class.  The “real” teacher in the French class was on a television set—part of what was called the TI-IN program.  In the TI-IN program, schools which do not have a teacher of a specific subject have such teachers “piped in” via television.   Unfortunately, because there were 20 districts who had signed up to have this teacher teaching French, and because only one district on a given day had two-way connection with the TI-IN French teacher, students could ask the teacher questions but one day out of 20 days.  On the other 19 days, it was too bad for students which had questions.  (I doubt that I could have learned French via the TI-IN program.  I can't imagine not being able to ask questions in a class.)  It so happened that, on the day when I sat in, it was Livingston's turn to have two-way communication with the televised TI-IN teacher.

I sat in on a second-year-level French class.  I recognized many of the students in the French class from the advanced biology class, so I knew that they cared, and wanted to learn.  They would not have been in advanced biology class, had they not cared.  They would have been content with taking “baby food” classes.  But I soon saw that these students were not on a second-year level.  At least, they were not where I was, when I took French II.  When I took French II, we were writing paragraphs.  We had learned other verb tenses, in addition to the present tense.  However, in this second-year French class, the TI-IN teacher asked the class how to say the color pink.  No one knew.  (We had learned colors in the first quarter of French I.)  I whispered “rose,” to a couple of students nearby.  I whispered because I didn't want that the TI-IN teacher hear me giving away the answer.  But the students didn't know me, and weren't sure that I could speak French, so they were afraid to give my response.  Finally, the TI-IN teacher said that “rose” is the French word for our word, pink.  The students all turned to me and gasped, “Wow, he DOES know French!”  I was amused.  My knowing how to say “pink” in French is little indication that I know French.  I was also saddened, because, to them—otherwise honor-roll students—even knowledge of basic French was “Greek” to them.  That should not have been, especially in a second-year French class.

The TI-IN teacher stopped broadcasting at about ten minutes before the actual end of class.  Students then had time to talk to me.  One young lady's story cut me deeply.  She said that her grandmother lived in Louisiana, and spoke only French.  She had never spoken directly to her grandmother, other than greetings and “good-bye.”  She said that she took French specifically in order to learn to speak to her grandmother.  However, she said that, because of her bad experience in French classes at Livingston High School, she would never take a foreign language again.  Other students—again, all honor-roll students—expressed similar sentiments.

The facilitator told me that I should apply for a job with the district.  She said that I could teach, or, at least be a facilitator, in French classes, and also teach auto tech.  She was no pretender.  She wasn't trying to keep her job by keeping me from getting it.  She knew that she was in the class only to turn on the TV, turn it back off, and to keep students from killing each other, or from burning down the school.  She told me that, if I got her job, she could go back to her kindergarten kids.

On my way down the hall and back to one last visit with the auto mechanics teacher, I was stopped by the school principal—a Dr. Hill.  I do not remember his first name.  I do remember that, in college, he played football for the University of Houston Cougars.  I had heard that, during a game, he fractured a vertebra in his back.  He kept playing after the fracture, and wasn't aware that he'd received such a severe injury until after the end of the game.

“So, you lectured in the auto tech class,” said Dr. Hill.

“I tried, but I was nervous,” I replied.

“And you helped in the French class.”

“I tried.”

“And you helped in the biology class.”

“I just listened in there.  Those kids are sharp.”

“Biology, French, and auto tech...that's an unusual combination.”

“Yeah, I guess it's kinda weird.”

Then Dr. Hill asked me, “Do you want a job?”

“Yes!”

He told me what to do, and where to deliver the application.

The auto tech teacher urged me to apply for a job with LISD.  The facilitator in the French class also encouraged me to apply for a job with the district.  And here was the school principal coaxing me to apply for a job with the district.  I didn't see how I could miss.  But I could, and did.

I dropped off the application at the district office.  I was about to learn why, when I sent copies of my deficiency plan to school districts, I received no replies.  After a quick look at my application, the person behind the desk at the district office told me, “We can't hire you, because you're not certified.”

I pointed out the deficiency plan.  He ignored what I said, and what I showed him.  He thus ignored what was mandated by the Texas Legislature, stirred by Ross Perot.  He didn't like what the Texas Legislature had done.  If he had to go through teaching courses, so should I.  Whether I was already able to teach was irrelevant.  (And, as you will read, whether a “certified” “teacher” is ever able to teach is also irrelevant.  Certification is everything.  It’s as Andre Agassi used to say at the end of an advertisement for cameras:  “Image...is everything.”)  The school district official listened, instead, to the teacher's union.  It didn't matter that I had just walked out of an auto repair shop and had outdone two of his “certified” teachers in their own classrooms.  Life experiences were no shortcut to the lofty teacher certification program, in the mind of this mindless school district automaton.  The image of an army of certified teachers looked better, on paper, than one filthy, uncertified, unclean commoner taking on two classes.  One bad apple…

“You have to be certified.”

I told him about the French class, with a certified kindergarten teacher, and second-year students at a first-quarter, first-year level, and about the auto tech class which had spent an entire year learning to R & R spark plugs.  (I suppose that, after nine months, the students must have been pretty good at dealing with spark plugs.)

“We can't hire you without a certification, unless it's an emergency,” was the emotionless, apathetic, robot-like reply.

How much more of an emergency did this guy want?  Auto tech students had spent an entire year in a class in which the only thing that they learned was how to replace spark plugs.  And second-year, honor-roll students had, because of the French class, become disaffected about taking foreign languages.  When I saw those students in the advanced biology class, they paid attention.  In the French class, they spent much time cutting up.

Cutting up is one way that students mask disillusionment.

In the early '90s, during their six-o'clock news, ABC's Houston affiliate, KTRK-TV, broadcast a short series assembled by investigative reporter Wayne Dolcefino.  There had been reports that people were gaining alternative teaching certification in the Houston Independent School District (HISD) by buying answers to the certification test administered by the district.  KTRK sent someone “undercover,” and posing as a district employee seeking teacher certification.  (At that time, the largest employer in Houston was the school district.  With there being so many employees, for someone to pose as an employee was fairly easy.)  This undercover person had several meetings with an HISD official who worked in the alternative certification department.  Along close by the undercover person was someone with a hidden camera and microphone.  During those meetings (in a school district cafeteria), the undercover person repeatedly stated that he was afraid that he couldn't pass the test.  Finally, the alternative certification official said, “Look, there's a way out of this.  For $250, I can provide the test answers to you.”  A meeting was arranged for the next day.  On the next day, the person with the hidden camera recorded the HISD alternative certification official handing an envelope (containing test answers) to the undercover person posing as an HISD employee, after the undercover person handed an envelope containing $250 to the alternative certification official.  After that, a newsman walked up to the HISD official, and asked her how the alternative certification program was going.  She replied, “I'm pleased with the results.”

The newsman asked, “What was in the envelope you just received?  We have that transfer videotaped”

She hurried away, and said, “I have nothing more to say to you.  You can talk to my attorney.”

In another part of that series broadcast by KTRK, a visitor with a hidden camera filmed a “teacher” “teaching” English to a classroom full of children of illegal immigrants.  The visitor videotaped the “teacher” writing the following, complete with misspellings, on the blackboard, for student consumption:  “We bring good chear to the pepole.”  When the news department called the district, and asked them why “certified” teachers could not correctly spell “cheer” or “people,” the reply was, “They're trying very hard.  They're doing their best.”

Also included in KTRK's short documentary was information that many “teachers” from Mexico, and  hired to teach English to students, had provided the district with forged documentation.  Further, examination of much of that documentation revealed that, even if those documents had been legitimate, they did not meet Mexico's own requirements for hiring teachers in Mexico.

After having been caught with their drawers down (thanks to KTRK-TV and Wayne Dolcefino), HISD abandoned use of their own test for certification, and they adopted use of Texas' TASP test, in order to test candidates for alternative certification.

The TASP test was (in 1993-'95, and may still be) given to Texas college students between their sophomore and junior years.  Sophomores who did not pass the TASP test were not permitted to advance further, until they received remedial classes, and retook, and passed, the TASP.

When I asked HISD about their alternative certification program, they told me, “You can't even THINK about becoming certified with us, unless you pass the  TASP test.  So I took it.

The TASP test is in three parts—the “three Rs—readin', writin', and 'rithmetic.  The maximum amount of points to be given on each section was 300 points.  I made a score of 282 on the reading portion, 294 on the math portion, and 300 points on the writing portion.  It was academic pablum.  My guess is that I could have passed the TASP when I was in high school.

I have more about the TASP test, soon.

At that time, I blamed what I saw in Katy on an individual or two.  I blamed what I saw in Livingston on an individual school district, particularly some academically blind goof behind a desk at the district office.  And I blamed Houston's mess on Houston.  At that time, I didn't see a universal decline/failure of U.S. schools.

I still had a lot more “school of hard knocks” ahead of me.

In February of 1995, I signed up as a substitute with the Channelview Independent School District, which is about 15 miles east of Houston.

One day, while subbing in a fourth-grade class in Channelview, I was told that I was supposed to oversee activities during recess.  During recess, a little girl approached me and declared, “I bet I can run faster than you.”  I told her that I'd run backwards.  We raced, but I don't remember who won.  I am simply glad that I didn't fall and break my neck.  I felt that we all had won, because we were getting acquainted.  However, a “teacher” pulled me aside, and told me that I was not to be acting that way with children, because they would lose respect for me.  (No Patch-Adams-types are allowed in public schools!!)

On another day, I was assigned to work at Channelview High School's alternative school.  Three teachers were assigned to the school.  One was absent, so I was #3.  Immediately after the start of class, I noticed a young man in front of a monitor.  He was taking a test on ratios and proportions.  I watched him answer the first question incorrectly.  As soon as the second question appeared on the screen, he punched in an answer—another incorrect answer.  He also quickly answered the third question incorrectly.  Obviously, he knew nothing about the questions, and I figured that he would fail the test, unless he got help.  I walked over and made sure that he had scratch paper.  I gave him two equations.  I don't remember exactly what I gave him, but it amounted to what is below.

The young man said that he'd never seen anything like that in any class.  He may have, and had simply forgotten it.  Its potential relevance may never have been stressed; perhaps never understood by any former “teacher” of his.  It was taught because it was part of the curriculum; not because of any understood relevance.  Anyway, I never said another word to him.  I stepped back and watched.  He read the next question.  He got his scratch paper, wrote something, and got the correct answer.  He answered the remainder of the questions correctly, and passed the math test.

One of the normally-assigned teachers walked over to me, and said, “So...you know math.”  I hoped that my knowing a little bit of math would not be a hindrance to me as a substitute.  She then told me that she had taken the above-mentioned TASP test three times, but that she couldn't pass the math portion.

Houston's school district told me that I couldn't think about becoming certified, unless I passed the TASP.  Fifteen miles down the road, Channelview's school district retained at least one “certified” “teacher” who could not pass the TASP, at least, not the math portion...so much for uniformity among “accredited” schools.

At that time, according to the State of Texas, that teacher in the alternative school had no business starting her junior year of college, until she passed the TASP test.  Yet there she was—certified and glorified and pasteurized—unable to help a student with 5th-grade math.  I say “5th-grade math,” because, later that semester, in that same district, I conducted a lesson on ratios and proportions to a 5th-grade class.

I had out-performed another “certified” “teacher.”  I'm honestly not bragging.  I'm lamenting.

Later that day, I subbed in a math class.  At first, the students were very quiet.  I was amazed.  I figured that they were busy because they knew what they were doing, and were dedicated.  They were so well-behaved.  Eventually, one student came to my desk and asked a question to me.  Soon after that, another student asked me the same question.  Alarm bells went off in my head.  I stood up in front of the quiet classroom, and I said, “Two of you have asked the same question to me.  I suspect that others have the same question.  I'm no math teacher, but I'll do my best to explain this.”  I began writing explanations on the board.  After that, I was “flooded” with kids coming to my desk and asking questions.

At the end of the class period, as they were leaving, several students stopped at my desk, and said, “We've learned more math in one day with you subbing than we learned during this entire year with our teacher.  He's a football coach, and he cares mainly about sports.  And what he knows, he can't make plain to us.”

I went to the next classroom and told a teacher what I'd just heard from students.  She replied, “They're just rebellious, and they want to see him fired.  Ignore them.”

On another day, I was assigned to a fifth-grade class in a Channelview school.  Much of the morning was spent in the gym, where cheerleader tryouts were held.  A “teacher” announced that the students were about to learn about an important responsibility of U.S. citizenship.  They were about to assess the abilities of those wanting to be cheerleaders, and were then to vote for the most qualified people.

In a longer edition of this, I wrote much about kids voting for cheerleaders, and the similarities with “adults” voting for public officials.  But this is already too long.

When we finally got back to the class, the lesson plan dictated that we have a session on ratios and proportions.  (Earlier, I mentioned that the “certified” “teacher” in the alternative school was not able to teach 5^th-grade math to the student at the computer monitor.)  The students began yelling, “We've been on this for a week.  We don't get it.  Let's do something else.”  One young lady was particularly vociferous:  “I don't get it!”  I called her to the front of the room.

“Am I in trouble?” she asked.

“No, you're going to understand ratios and proportions before the end of the day,” was my response.  “You'll begin by doing work on the board.”

She spent a minute or two at the board, but left, protesting “I still don't get it.”  But, after a few minutes at her desk, she suddenly exclaimed, “I GET IT!”  I went to check her work.  Indeed, she had begun to understand.

This young lady was much taller than the other students in the class.  I found out that she was 12 years old, so I knew 1) that she had failed at least one grade, and 2) that she had to have received a lot of teasing.

She asked me for permission to stay behind in the classroom, and eat lunch with me.  However, no one, including me, would have liked the way that would have looked.  I asked her why she wanted to eat in the classroom.  She told me that she wanted to avoid being teased, because the kids teased her every day, during lunch.  I told her that I'd sit with them during lunch, and eat with all of them in the cafeteria.  No one teased her.

I told her, “You picked up ratios and proportions quickly.  I think you have a lot of potential.  Could your mother possibly help you?”  I had a feeling that I shouldn't have brought up either of her parents.

“Mom works at the Hollywood (a very seedy bar in nearby Cloverleaf) until two in the morning.  I hardly ever see her.  And I don't know who my dad is.”

This is such a sad story that no comment is needed.  Not only was her family ignoring this young lady, but the school had marginalized her, as evidenced by how the school allowed other students to treat her.  She was bright, and had heart.  Now, for all I know, she may be dead...no child's behind left.

In 1996, I attended a seminar hosted by HISD for people interested in joining an alternative certification program.  The lecturer started out by saying, “We want to protect children from teachers who are not certified.”  By that time, I had grown very cynical.  I wanted to stand up and shout, “We ought to make sure that these kids learn something, by protecting them from CERTIFIED teachers!”  By then, I knew that “schools” would continue to ignore Ross Perot's reforms passed by the Texas Legislature.  It was business as usual.

In January of 1997, having given up on Texas schools, I moved to Limon, Colorado, and I signed up to sub for 12 districts.

Eastern Colorado is sparsely populated.  Lincoln County (in which Limon is situated) is said to have a larger population of beef cattle than of people.  That is why I felt a need to sign up with so many districts.  I wanted work five days per week, and one small district would not provide me with subbing chores all week long, every week.  I had to sign up with as many districts as possible.  One district (Bennett) was 60 miles west-northwest of Limon.  At the other end, Cheyenne Wells was 85 miles south-southeast.

At first, I was impressed with Colorado's standards for substitute teachers.  In Texas, in order to be a substitute teacher, about all that I had to do was demonstrate that I had a pulse.  In Colorado, there were several “grades” of substitute teachers.  With each higher grade, more schooling was required.

When I went to sign up to substitute in Burlington, Colorado, I was happy to discover that Burlington's high school had a French program.  I spoke to the French teacher there, and told her that I spoke some French, and that I'd spent a few weeks in France by myself, and, while there, I was forced to speak almost exclusively in French.  I told her that, when I slept while in France, dreamt in French, because I was “saturated” in French.  I told her that, if I subbed for her class, she could count on being able to have a sub who could introduce new material, and not simply have to pass out worksheets, or have review work.  She replied that the union specified that “certified” “teachers” who had signed up as subs would be called before I would be called.  (Many retired “teachers” are on substitute lists.)  I asked, “They'll call them before they call me, even if certified teachers can't speak a word of French?”  She said that certification took precedence over my knowledge of French.

One day, in a fourth-grade class in Kiowa, Colorado, I was told that a “language specialist” would come to my class, and would do some lecturing.  While the language specialist was lecturing, I had permission to go to the teachers' lounge, if I wished to do so.  But, out of curiosity about what topic a “language specialist” would bring, I stayed in the class.

The language specialist began by telling the class that she was going to write “the 23 helping verbs” on the blackboard, and that the students were to copy those verbs, and commit them to memory.  Then she apologetically said that she would have to go out to her car to get the list, because she had forgotten to get the list out of her car.

I was amused.  If committing those verbs to memory was so important, why did this language specialist, who gave this lesson time and time again, to many classes, not have these verbs committed to her own memory?  What kind of example did that set?  How much importance did she place on memorizing those verbs?

I happened to remember the “23 helping verbs” from Mrs. Barnes' seventh and eighth grade classes at Baytown Junior High School, in Baytown, Texas.  (Mrs. Barnes once took me off to the side, and told me that I was the reason that people in the class behaved so badly.  She said that, if I were not in the class, it would be a good class.)  Thinking only about showing the class that the memorization of those verbs is important, I blurted out, “I think I remember those verbs.  Why don't I write those verbs on the board, while you're going out to your car to get your list?  When you get back, you can grade me.”

I made my list on the blackboard.

 
When the language specialist returned with her list, she looked at what I'd written on the board, and then glanced at her own list.  Then, to the class, she said, “Well, not only did he list all of the helping verbs correctly, but he also listed them in groupings which make them easier to memorize, than the list which I've been having students memorize.”

Although I'm not supposed to be in the business of attempting to “out-do” others, I have to call a spade a spade.  I out-did the certified language specialist in the fourth-grade class in Kiowa, and she admitted it.  I out-did her, in that I set a good example, by having the “23 helping verbs” memorized.  I out-did the certified teacher in the alternative school in Channelview, and she admitted it.  I out-did the auto tech teacher in Livingston, and he admitted it.  I out-did the French facilitator in Livingston, and she admitted it (though that wasn't a fair contest.  She had no training in the French language).  And I did so with most of my employment experience having been in greasy auto repair shops, while those teachers had been trained to teach.

While I subbed, I met a parade of people who said that they'd been hired as teachers under emergency certification.  No one ever made such an offer to me.

I temporarily gave up on pursuing teaching as a career in 1998, and went back to wrenching.  In 2000, I moved back to Texas—my home state.

While in Texas, a young lady who had just graduated from Midway High School (touted to be in the best school district in McLennan County, of which Waco is the county seat) told me that she hoped to attend Texas A & M University, and that one of her former teachers had written a letter of recommendation for her.  She showed me the letter.  I immediately saw several spelling errors.  I told her to ask the teacher to re-write the letter for her, because people at A & M may not like seeing a letter of recommendation with misspellings.

In 2004, I began another push toward a profession in teaching.  I began exchanging E-mails with people at Friends University, in Wichita, Kansas.  They seemed to be open to my notions about how to run schools.  Because I sensed promise at Friends University, and because I was going nowhere in Texas, I decided that, if my job in Texas played out, I'd pick up and move to Wichita.  My job played out.  I loaded everything that I could fit into an old 1985 Plymouth GranFury, which had once been a Colorado state patrol car.  I arrived in Wichita on May 4, 2005.  I signed up to work for a temp—Labor Ready.  I hoped to move into another job, as soon as possible, but I wished to begin making some money immediately, and to show potential employers that I'm willing to work.

After a month, I still hadn't found a place to live, so I continued to carry all of my belongings in that car.

On around the first of June, I finally made time to visit Friends University, and talked, in person, to the woman (a PhD) who was the head of the School of Education at the university.  As we talked, I implored her to tell me, after she had time to form an opinion, whether I was barking up the wrong tree, and whether I should forget about being a teacher.  I urged her to give me a straight answer, and not simply to seek another student to enroll in the university.  Eventually, I told her the story of the 12-year-old girl who had protested that she didn't understand ratios and proportions, but who, upon being shown, quickly learned them, and whose mother was not available to help her with math homework, because she worked in a bar until 2 A.M.  I don't believe that I finished that story to her before I broke down and cried.  I tried to control myself, but I couldn't help wondering where that young lady was, ten years later.  When I finally looked back up, I figured that the head of the School of Education would begin escorting me out.  However, when I looked at her, her face was beaming with a big smile, and she was holding a folder.  She wrote my name on it.  She asked me, “When do you think you can start attending here at Friends?”  I took that to mean that she thought that I might have what it takes to be a true teacher, and not a mere imitation, so many of whom I'd already seen.  And she prepared that folder for me, because, apparently she hope (expected?) that I'd soon start at Friends University.

Two days later, Labor Ready sent me to Halstead, Kansas.  A small hospital in Halstead had declared bankruptcy, and I was sent there to help gather old files for shredding/destruction.  Immediately after work, a city cop pulled me over.  I hadn’t registered my vehicle in Kansas, because I was still struggling with money.  I did get a Kansas license.  I hoped that the cop would see the Kansas license, and understand that I was trying, and struggling.  He mused that I might be a drug addict, because a wing of the hospital at which I'd worked had been converted to a drug rehab center.  He mused that the items in my car (my belongings) were stolen, and to be “fenced,” to purchase more drugs.  I showed him the papers which Labor Ready had issued to me.  Completely against the U.S. Constitution's (Bill of Rights) Article V, the cop had my car impounded.  Here are the relevant portions of Article V:  “No person shall be...deprived of...property, without due process of law.”  “Due process,” in my estimation, includes a trial by jury.  Of course, in our “land of the flea, and home of the slave,” this type of theft occurs with relative frequency, with impounds, and with Child “Protective” “Service” stealing children without due process of law, because We the wee people allow it.  All of my belongings were in that car.  I didn't have enough money to get the car out of impound, and I had no way to carry back the belongings in the car.  Immediately, the wise, “protect and serve” policeman in Halstead simultaneously created an unemployed person, because I no longer had a way to work, and a homeless person, because I could no longer afford cheap motel rooms.  So I ended up in a homeless shelter in Wichita.

Policemen, stirred by their handlers, are becoming more and more adept at finding dreamers, and slaying hope within them.  I feel more safe, because I know that cops will get all the bad guys, if they get good guys, too.  It’s like using a cast net.  You get some fish, and you get some creepy-crawlies, too.  The cops bring good chear to all the pepole, as HISD “teachers” brought to poor, unwitting students trying to learn English.

Someone in Michigan paid my bus fare from Wichita to Michigan.  I arrived in Michigan with a backpack containing a Bible, a Tracfone (pre-pay cell phone) and two or three changes of clothing.  I have been in Michigan for six years.  I now work in a foundry.  I've tried, until lately, to be a good American who doesn't dream, but simply works hard and stays quiet, and wants to stop those terrorists, and wants ObamaCare for all, as things become unhinged.

As far as I know, everything in my old GranFury is still in Kansas.  I certainly got none of it back.

About three years ago, a co-worker told me about his concerns that his daughter was not learning about English grammar in her 11^th -grade English class.  I suddenly remembered that, in the 10^th grade, I learned about gerunds.  I asked him to go home and ask her whether she knows what a gerund is.  She replied that she had never heard of a gerund.  I began asking local high-school students whether they knew what a gerund is.  No one had heard of a gerund.  Apparently, that school no longer teaches about gerunds.  My guess is that public schools have gotten away from teaching about gerunds.

My co-worker's concerns were well grounded.  His daughter was learning nothing about grammar in her public “school.”

Partly because of that co-worker's kids, I have begun to be interested in seeking out a place where my abilities may be used for a good purpose.

If you, the reader, are aware of any school which is not worried about a teacher having state certification, and is seeking someone hungry to teach, and capable of teaching, please show them this article.  I will honestly consider teaching in exchange for three squares, and a dry 2 x 6 place to sleep.  I'm not looking to get rich.  I'm looking to use my God-given talent to help others.

Mirabeau B. Lamar, second president of the Republic of Texas, said, in his inaugural speech, “(A) cultivated mind is the guardian genius of democracy.”

If Mr. Big Bucks and his cronies in Control Freak Land don't want interference from those pesky voters, and a pesky republic, wouldn't they be interested in seeing that schools begin “dumbing down” future generations?  Wouldn't they be interested in seeing that “legislators” find ways to side-step the Constitution?  Wouldn’t they perceive that getting rid of Mirabeau Lamar’s “guardian genius of democracy” would put them very close to stamping out our republic?  With a nation loaded with people with uncultivated minds, how can they miss?

Do you see that teacher certification does nothing toward giving the teacher a fund of knowledge?  According to my definition, a teacher is one who 1) has a fund of knowledge, and 2) is able to transfer that knowledge to others.  Part of a teacher’s fund of knowledge is knowing where to go to discover knowledge not already between the ears.

When I, a moron auto repairman, enter a class, and out-do “teachers” at their own game, something bad is wrong.

If you, the reader, are wondering about public schools, and whether they are, indeed, “dumbed-down,” perhaps this will help you to make up your mind.  Public schools in the U.S. waste billions of tax dollars.  We, the people, can put a stop to public schools, and bring true education of children back home.  It will be a long, hard process, because many adults are now “dumbed-down.”  But the alternative is much more frightening than what I've already witnessed in public schools.  While you're online, type into your search engine something along the line of “school test questions 1890.”  You will soon find that people in the 8^th grade in 1890 were asked difficult questions on tests.  Many current college students would struggle (or fail) to answer those questions correctly.  Now look at where we are in schools.  Look at the trend.  Again, the result of doing nothing is much more frightening than if we choose to do the hard work of repairing things.

“My people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge” (Hosea 4:6).

***The preceding article was written for The Truth by author Jimmie Parr.  I hope that you enjoyed reading Jimmie's story as much as I did.***

***The following letter is reproduced on The Truth by the original author, Jimmie Parr.  I think that you will find it very enlightening.***

Dear friends,

The reason for my concern about the topic of this letter is that I used to function as a substitute teacher, and once thought about becoming certified as a teacher.

A few weeks ago, a co-worker told me that he was concerned about whether his child was learning any English grammar in his/her 11th-grade English class. As I thought about what grammar lessons I had in high school, I remembered Mrs. Jenkins’ 10th-grade English class, at Robert E Lee High School, in Baytown, Texas (home of the famous Robert E. Lee Fighting Ganders). I remembered Mrs. Jenkins’ lessons about gerunds, participles, and infinitives. I wondered whether this co-worker’s child knows what a gerund is. And I wondered about whether other students know what gerunds, participles, and infinitives are. I have asked several local students (current and former students of Laker High School, and some 11th graders, including the young lady who works in the public library in Pigeon) about gerunds. I have yet to find anyone who knows what a gerund, participle, or infinitive is.

I understand that one of these students at Laker High School asked the above-mentioned 11th-grade English teacher what a gerund is. His response was that he’d heard enough stupid questions from that student, and informed that student that any more “stupid” questions would land that student in the office.

This teacher left himself open to the notion that he doesn’t know what a gerund is. Had he answered the “stupid” question, he wouldn’t leave anyone wondering about whether he—on a taxpayer-funded payroll as an English teacher—knows what a gerund is. Now, several people are left wondering about his fund of knowledge; about the abilities of other teachers at Laker High School, and about public school teachers, in general.

When I was young, I used to hear that the only “stupid” question was the question which wasn’t asked. Times change. Have schools changed? Are some questions asked in class now considered “stupid questions?”

That a “teacher” would deem “stupid” a question about English grammar, in an 11th-grade English class, is intolerable. It is beyond disturbing. It is beyond disconcerting. IT IS INTOLERABLE. You shouldn’t tolerate it. Parents shouldn’t tolerate it. That teacher shouldn’t tolerate that, in himself.

For starters, anyone who heard that teacher tell that student that the question about gerunds is a stupid question needs to hear an apology from that teacher.

I am concerned for the final grade of the student who asked the “stupid” question. That student’s grade could be lowered, significantly, as “payback” for this kind of news about the school getting out. But I am more concerned about the condition of your school, or, at least, of any classes which the above-mentioned teacher teaches. So, at risk of getting that student who asks “stupid” questions in trouble, I am letting you know about my displeasure.

I believe that you people should move to ensure that no student who asks a question pertinent to English grammar in an 11th-grade English class need worry about a grade being lowered. I can tell you that that assurance is not there.

One thing that I find ironic is that I had just heard about another Laker student who was learning about how “free” we are, in this country. Yet, in that same school district, students fear for their grades, because they dare to ask an English teacher what a gerund is.

I will not discuss, in detail, my suspicions that public schools are being “dumbed down,” deliberately. But I believe that the fact that a blue-collar slob informed an 11th-grade student about gerunds before anyone in your school informed that student about them speaks volumes.

I graduated from high school in 1973. I doubt that many people in my graduating class remember what gerunds are, but I do know that we had lessons about them. The fact that I can’t find a local student who knows what a gerund is makes me suspect that Laker High School is not teaching what a gerund is. That makes me think, “dumbed down,” about public schools. And I graduated from a school in Texas, which never has had the best schools.

In closing, I strongly suggest that anyone who cares about students check out John Taylor Gatto's website, and Charlotte Iserbyt's website. I happen to know that this English teacher has been teaching, in his English class, that anyone who eats hot dogs is eating cats and dogs. Because he wishes to be controversial, I’d like for that English teacher to bring up the above-mentioned websites in his classes, and attempt to disprove their notions, point-by-point.

Don’t be a passive, “just following orders,” part of a tragedy. Fight it.

Sincerely,

Jimmie Parr

***The following is a guest post for The Truth by Alisha Venetis, co-founder of The Prep Room - an online store specializing in emergency preparedness supplies.***

America the Beautiful

Probably like most of you, our family spent this past July 4th celebrating the official birthday of the United States of America’s Independence. We were fortunate enough to go on a friend’s boat on Lake Michigan in Chicago to watch an amazing fireworks display. Unlike previous years, Chicago did not host this celebration. Similar too many other cities across the nation, Chicago cancelled their fireworks due to being financially broke.

As we watched the celebration and listened to patriotic music playing in the background, I found myself covered in goose bumps. I looked at my children, as they oohed and aahed, wondering if they understood the unique greatness of this country and how God has blessed it so. And, more importantly, if we fail to educate them on how we gained the freedom we celebrate every year, will it one day be no more?

The greatest concept in the history of civilization is that man should be morally free (not free without morals) and that no man, or anything else for that matter, should take that away from him. The further we get from this ideology the further we get from truth and freedom.

A recent Marist survey revealed that only fifty-eight percent of those polled knew that the United States declared its independence in 1776, and three out of four knew from which country we gained our independence. Not surprisingly, the younger the respondent, the less likely he or she was to know the answer.

A similar question is being raised by many, including a recent Time Magazine cover story, which asked whether or not our Constitution still matters? When Americans were asked how much they knew about the U.S. Constitution, sixty-seven percent responded that they only knew “some”.

Is it just a sign of the times and we are no longer interested in how we became a great nation? Or has there been an intentional “dumbing down” effort, carried out by the leaders of our educational system? Is it possible that, when we took God out of our schools, we also began taking away any remnant of God's handiwork? After all, if you can't teach about God, how can you teach about a God-inspired document, such as the US Constitution?

Rewriting History

In 2006, State Senator Obama visited Europe and the Middle East, where he made a series of speeches. Before his final speech, Obama stood next to Turkey's President and stated that in the US, "We do not consider ourselves a Christian nation or a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation. We consider ourselves a nation of citizens who are bound by ideals and a set of values." Perhaps this is what recently led Michelle Obama to say that President Obama ”knows we are going to have to change our traditions and our history”. I wonder if some of that history-changing has to do with denying that our nation was founded on Judeo-Christian principles created by God-fearing men?

As cities decide to do away with Fourth of July celebrations we give rise, once again, to not celebrating what God has done for our country. The signing of the Declaration of Independence is arguably one of the greatest days in our nation’s history. These are not just my words, but the words of John Adams, a Founding Father. In anticipation of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Adams wrote to his wife Abigail:

“The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more”.

Inherited By Our Creator

The United States Declaration of Independence was adopted by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, and gave rise to the United States Constitution. The Declaration announced that the thirteen original Colonies (then at war with Great Britain) were now independent states, and thus no longer a part of the British Empire.

The Declaration had 56 signers, which included a “Committee of Five”, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Robert R. Livingston and Roger Sherman. The signers of the Declaration of Independence were an intelligent, religious and ethically-minded group. Half of the men held seminary or Bible school degrees and four of the signers were current or former full-time preachers

One of the best-known sentences in American History is the preamble. This section states the ideas and ideals of the Declaration; that everyone has certain rights given to them by God. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

The next section of the Declaration is often called the “right of revolution". It states that the government can only get their power from the people. If the government violates the rights of the people; then the people have not only the right, but the duty to "alter or abolish" that government and provide a new one for future security.

The next two sections are a list of charges against King George III. The Declaration states that he violated the people’s rights and was therefore unfit to be their Ruler. The King no longer made laws for the public good and got rid of those that did. He created a

multitude of new offices, officers and laws to harass the people and he imposed taxes without consent. The signers described their unsuccessful attempts to appeal to the Parliament of Great Britain.

The document’s last sentence ends just as powerfully as it begins, demonstrating the signers reliance on God, the Supreme Judge of the world, to know their moral conscience in creating this document. “And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.”

God Shed His Grace on Thee

The Founding Fathers were not all Christians or conservative in their theology, however they were all God-fearing. To take God out of the equation would in essence change our history.

As Patrick Henry once stated, “It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians”. John Adams reiterated this sentiment when he wrote to the Officers of the First Brigade, “Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other.”

Lastly, for many that believe that the separation of Church and State was to keep God out of the schools, let us read the prophetic words from the “Father of our Public Schools”, Benjamin Rush. “Let the children be carefully instructed in the principles and obligations of the Christian religion. This is the most essential part of education. The great enemy of the salvation of man, in my opinion, never invented a more effectual means of removing Christianity from the world than by persuading mankind it was improper to read the Bible in our Schools.”

The signers knew how powerful the Declaration of Independence was; so much so it may cost them their lives. After Congress signed the Declaration, John Hancock supposedly said they must now "all hang together" and Benjamin Franklin replied, "Yes, we must indeed all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately."

If our nation turns away from our founding documents, we turn away from what God ordained. Only God can give people the freedom to have life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, not the government (no matter how big it is). Our Founding Fathers were willing to hang for this truth. At the very least, we should be willing to hang onto this truth as well.

****Today we have a guest post by Barbara Fix.  She is an outstanding writer and I think that you are really going to enjoy what she has to share with us below.  We encourage everyone to visit Barbara at the Survival Diva Blog http://www.survivaldiva.com/.****

Many western analysts have described the post-Soviet tussle for Caspain and Central Asian energy reserves as the new "Great Game, except this time around, Russia is facing the U.S. rather than the British empire.

To a dispassionate outside observer however, what is most striking about the prolonged wrangle between Moscow and Washington for hydrocarbons, military bases and influence is the emergence of an understated sly newcomer who has managed to bag many of the region's assets - China.

There are many reasons for this, despite the fact that both Russia and the U.S. both seemed to hold winning hands.

For Moscow, quite aside from its colonialist legacy was the fact that it controlled the Truboprovodnaiia sistema Sredniaia Aziia-Tsentr (the Central Asia-Center, or SATS, pipeline system.) Russia's natural gas monopoly Gazprom controls the SATS complex of pipelines, which run from Turkmenistan via Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan to Russia. The SATS eastern branch consists of SATS-1, 2, 4 and 5 pipelines, which were built between 1960 and 1988. Construction began after the discovery of Turkmenistan's Dzharkak field, with the first SATS section coming online in 1960, while SATS-4 was commissioned in 1973. Simply put, after the 1991 collapse of the USSR, Central Asia's only opportunity for energy exports was controlled by Russia, which was determined to obey its new-found capitalist mantra of "buy cheap and sell dear."

And where did Gazprom sell its Central Asian natural gas?

Europe, or course.

In 2008 Gazprom's sales to the European Union were nearly 170 billion cubic meters (bcm) out of a production of 550 bcm. Gazprom's share in the global and Russian natural gas production is 17.3 percent and 85 percent, respectively. Turkmen exports represent a quarter of Gazprom's EU exports, but the company also buys 15 bcm of Kazakh gas and 7 bcm of Uzbek gas.

The boulder in Gazprom's shoe is that the Russian domestic market, which is heavily subsidized, now accounts for about 70 percent of the company's production, with domestic consumption rising by more than 3 bcm a year. Accordingly, to free up as much indigenous production as possible for export, one-third of Russian internal gas usage has to be supplied from non-Gazprom sources.

And the Americans?

Well, after 1991 they showed up, checkbooks and democracy and human rights lectures in hand, determined as much as Moscow to buy local assets at fire-sale prices. Unlike oil, natural gas can only be pipelined or, in an expensive procedure, liquefied for transport.

Which left the Central Asians irritated at both parties.

Enter Beijing - cash to hand and no annoying lectures about political systems or human rights.

On 14 December 2009 China and Turkmenistan formally opened the first section of a 1,139 mile-long, 40 bcm per year natural gas pipeline, financed by China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), China's largest oil and gas producer and supplier. The Turkmenistan-China pipeline has since been expanded to carry Uzbek and Kazakh natural gas.

More pipelines flowing eastwards from Central Asia are under construction.

The moral of this story seems clear - those who simply show up with cash and sign mutually beneficial contracts are likely to prevail over Kremlin denizens expecting gratitude for a century of servitude, much less Yankee Wall St wizards seeking to screw the locals whilst prattling on about free markets and democracy. The final race for Central Asian energy is far from over, but at the moment, Beijing's mandarins are winning.

Source: http://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/China-Winning-the-Race-for-Central-Asias-Energy-Riches.html

By. Dr. John C.K. Daly for OilPrice.com. For more information on oil prices and other commodity related topics please visit www.oilprice.com

We’re entering into a phase of American society that is undoubtedly going to be rather tumultuous and interesting. There are big changes in the works that take years to materialize, but the impact of them will be nothing short of massive. I’m going to attempt to outline some of these major developments.

The area I’m discussing here is mostly financial but the ramifications spread outside the realm of finances. We’re going to start with demographics. In America and other developed countries, we have a bit of a conundrum as aged workers enter the latter years of their life where they have had embedded expectations for some time that they will enjoy a nice retirement full of golf and cruises. The problem, of course, is that almost all that are planning to retire are broke or near broke.

Further weakening the situation is the fact that many of these potential retirees were planning on using their homes as a means to retire. As a housing bubble materialized in the mid 2000’s, these same people doubled down on this idea, took on more debt, and tried to hit a home run in the wealth department by leveraging up on the skyrocketing home values. We all know how that ended, and many of these folks that participated are now worse off years later as a result of a housing bust.

While using your primary residence as a retirement funding vehicle is probably silly in the first place, it’s been completely shattered as a sound strategy due to the housing bust.

The result is millions of people who are struggling to keep their jobs amidst a tough economic climate and who have too much mortgage debt and not enough retirement savings. Where does this go? The answer is a lower standard of living. The baby boomers will be cutting back in every area you can think of: housing, day-to-day spending, vacations, etc.

Of course this same demographic has been responsible for the majority of the excess consumer spending that has fueled the American economy in recent decades, so as the massive group of people shifts from excess consumption to excess saving and cutting back, you can imagine the impact it will have on an economy that is approximately 70% consumption.

Switching gears momentarily, let’s also look at unemployment in this country which is a structural issue, not a cyclical one. The recent recession gave the corporations in this country a way out with regards to excess labor. It provided an opportunity to cut back on costs big time. The result was a spike in unemployment.

Even as revenues have come back for corporations, these same companies are still not hiring back. The companies have instead increased productivity via technology and other means and are able to operate their businesses with fewer bodies. Corporate profits are way up as a result.

Unfortunately, most Americans just assume they will have a job because companies need warm bodies to do various tasks. Rather than work hard to improve skill sets and/or start businesses, most Americans sit on their couches waiting for a job to come to them. This naturally leads to politicians who promise these same folks that they will provide jobs for them. The problem is that a politician can’t provide sustainable employment.

Moreover, jobs are the wrong focus anyway. The country could employ 10 million people to dig holes and fill them back in and we’d drop our unemployment, but it would be zero economic benefit (and in fact a negative economic benefit). Rather than promise jobs, politicians need to work towards an economic environment that leads to innovation and wealth creation. This is what leads to better jobs for masses.

As jobs continue to be unavailable for millions of Americans, there is a real problem coming our way. College graduates are idle because there are no jobs, and baby boomers are being forced to retire early with no retirement funds. The standard of living decline for the masses will likely lead to a reinforced cycle of further declines in the standard of living based on a deflationary economic cycle feedback loop.

So, what does this mean for you? The folks aware of this environment will be better off. There will always be opportunity for those of us willing to work hard and to think outside the box. Waiting around for the next Presidential candidate to “fix the economy” is a dead end, and those who don’t take action into their own hands will be worse off with each passing year.

I hope realizing the realities that I’ve discussed in this article will help you take your own action and you will work hard to make things happen for yourself rather than look to a politician for your assistance.

Kevin is a freelance writer who frequently writes on the topics of Financial Freedom and Dividend Stocks.

While the Obama administration celebrates the death of Osama Bin Laden and our military forces are poking around in caves all over Afghanistan looking for members of al-Qaeda, a far more dangerous threat is growing right in our own backyard.  Hezbollah has established bases all over Mexico, Central America and South America.  Hezbollah is now heavily involved in the drug trade and in trafficking illegal aliens.  But do we hear about any of this in the news?  No, instead our government and our media are obsessed with al-Qaeda.  This is a fundamental mistake.  Hezbollah is far more organized and far more dangerous.

One local television news program recently interviewed a former U.S. intelligence agent who has spent many years tracking Hezbollah activities in Mexico.  The following are some quotes from that interview about Hezbollah....

*"They are recognized by many experts as the 'A' team of Muslim terrorist organizations."

*"We are looking at 15 or 20 years that Hezbollah has been setting up shop in Mexico."

*"they are the equals of Russians, Chinese or Cubans"

*"They're focusing on developing … infiltrating communities within North America."

Right now they are making a ton of money from selling drugs and trafficking illegal aliens, and they send that money back to Lebanon to fund the fight against Israel.  But someday the organization that Hezbollah has built up in Mexico will be used to fight against the United States.

The following is a video news report that contains the quotes you just read above....

So why doesn't the U.S. government do something about all this?

That is a very good question.

In our recent article entitled "The Truth About Securing The Border" we noted that the U.S. seems more than happy to help other nations secure their borders and yet refuses to secure our own....

Is there a reason why the U.S. government refuses to secure our border with Mexico?

After all, we seem more than happy to help other nations secure their borders.

In fact, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has just agreed to help Saudi Arabia secure its dangerous border areas near Yemen.

Not only that, we have secured the border between South Korea and North Korea so well that not a single North Korean has crossed over the border illegally in over 50 years.

And yet we continue to leave our border with Mexico completely wide open.

Not only is doing so insanely bad public policy, it also greatly endangers our national security.

Border officials tell us that a growing number of radical Muslims are sneaking over the Mexican border into the United States.

And we are doing almost nothing to stop them.

Our government likes to pretend that they are serious about national security, but the truth is that they are asleep at the switch.

Illegal immigration is rampant and our border is wide open.

In fact, our border with Mexico is now being called "the most dangerous place on earth".

Someday our lack of border security and our tolerance of Hezbollah in Mexico is really going to bit us on our backsides.

So what do all of you think about this?  Feel free to leave a comment with your thoughts below....

Mania and the Economic Meltdown of Society

by Barnabe Geisweiller

But this bubble—our mania—is truly one for the ages.

A Beautiful World Without Empathy: Exhibit A Texting

Texting

So I’m sitting in an average size living room watching a couple of people texting each other rather than carry on a conversation. Isn’t that weird?

Apparently it’s becoming common practice. Texting is everywhere.

Why is it that a growing number of people prefer to text rather than converse, or to make phone calls, or to even leave voice messages?

And why is it that ever since texting has become the preferred one-way method of distance communications (anything beyond 2 feet), no one but old fashioned fools bother to directly answer their phones anymore?

Well I had a hunch but I decided to do a little internet research concerning texting vs. talk. The many comments I read confirmed my suspicions.

"It's more straight and to the point.”

“I can ignore or respond at my own leisure.”

“It is so much more easily accomplished through a few words of text without all the niceties and formalities of a phone call!”

“Texting is direct, to the point without the small talk involved in phone conversation.”

“I hate talking on the phone.”

“I know some people who keep me on the phone way longer that I'd like.”

“If I don't have time to have a full attentive conversation, I have to text.”

“It’s so easy to flirt and exchange small bits of banter. It's playful and possible that someone might find it easier to text risqué thoughts than saying it face to face or on the phone.”

“It's just convenient and quick.”

“I can keep in touch with people who I don't see often but don't want to call.”

“The only con for me with the texting is sarcasm gets taken for seriousness and it offends people. Soooo I gotta watch what I text”

“When I text, I just want to bark or whisper my message. I want to make you laugh or smile, but I don’t want to get into anything complex or time consuming. I don’t want to listen to you at least not right now. I want to share something quick, easy, and right at my finger tips.”

“It’s all about me. That’s what it’s really all about. Me, me, me and what I want when I want it and I really am not interested in what you want when you want it. God forbid that I would have to perform niceties and endure formalities for your sake!

If I called you I’d have to listen to you because you would introduce into the conversation something you wanted to talk about. I just don’t have time for that. Life is too short and I’ve got a really cute Avatar sweetie in Second Life that will do exactly what I want when I want it. And I don’t need to sweet talk or small talk my honey Avatar. So just text me back when you have a chance and it better be important because I’ve got a life! Really I do.”

Please visit Faultline USA for more great articles like this.

Free Money

by Tucker Scofield

An acquaintance of mine had an opportunity this week to make as much as $25,000.00…she turned it down.

She is a property owner on the Gulf and she received a phone call from a friend regarding BP. They are settling damage claims with anyone who may have been affected by last summer’s oil spill and the caller, who knew others affected by the spill, was passing along the fact that the money was available and ripe for the picking.

There it was…free money. Was BP really going to audit every claim before paying it out of their $20 billion slush fund? Not in a million years. All she would’ve had to do was exaggerate the facts, maybe tell a little white lie or two and POOF, the Oil Fairy would grant a wish that could make the struggles of the past two years disappear. One small bit of paperwork and it would be dead presidents raining down from Heaven! Get that money, dollar-dollar bill, y’all!  But she wouldn’t do it. For her, this was a matter of principle.

I asked why she turned it down. “It’s not right,” she said. She didn’t feel as though she’d been negatively affected by the spill at all, despite having received numerous phone calls from concerned renters regarding conditions on the beach. Her rental income was pretty much unchanged from the previous year and she felt as though filing a claim would have been fraudulent.

Not too many people could have turned down such a temptation. Right or wrong, money talks and everything else walks, at least for most. Obviously, our politicians are very aware of this and use their powers to pass various entitlement programs – “free money” – in return for votes. For the moment, put aside your opinions regarding the necessity of such programs and focus instead on this: A large percentage of our population now depends, to some degree, upon entitlement programs and the money to fund those programs is rapidly disappearing. The recipients of entitlement programs don’t want the free money to stop so they continue to vote for the whores – sorry, I meant to say politicians – who gave it to them in the first place. That is, of course, unless someone else promises them more free money.

Margaret Thatcher was right – eventually, you run out of other people’s money, and that is precisely the position in which we now find ourselves. So how do we escape this death spiral of ever-increasing entitlement programs?

Fiscal responsibility. Somebody – or more accurately, a group of somebodies – has to grab a clue, wake the hell up, and smell what the dog just plopped down...we are in trouble and our current path is unsustainable! Any other assessment is just pure and total nonsense. The electorate recognized this and made a statement, loud and clear, on November 2^nd; fiscal responsibility is the mandate given the 112^th Congress and I’m relieved to see them following through, at least for the moment.

In your personal household you have two options when faced with “deficit spending” (spending more than you make, as with running up your credit cards) and/or budget crunches (not having enough money to pay the bills): You either make radical adjustments to your lifestyle by curtailing most of your activities and watching every single penny, or you file bankruptcy. You cannot bring your budget under control by spending your way out of it, and borrowing only delays and exacerbates inevitable financial collapse.

Since filing bankruptcy is not a national option, our only recourse is to buckle down and make the hard choices necessary to save our country. That means cutting spending with a chain saw and ridding ourselves of many of these entitlements.  It won’t be fun and it’ll make a lot of people mad but that’s just the way it needs to be.

Oh sure, there will be those who blame conservatives for being a bunch of racist bigots who believe that entitlement recipients are lazy and they just need to get a job. Whatever. I hate entitlement programs, I really do. And frankly, I can’t stand the bleeding hearts that continually whine in their support. But it may shock you as to why I hate them.

Entitlement programs, in my opinion, reduce human beings to little more than government pets. Like a dog eagerly snatching up whatever crumbs may fall from the table, recipients of entitlements surrender control over their own destiny and become subservient to the system established to “help” them. The acceptance of entitlements robs the individual of a chance at exceptionalism and turns them into slaves of the system. Think I’m being unreasonable?

Riddle me this, Batman: Cite me just one success story out of the millions of success stories this country has incubated since our inception in which a person has succeeded without countless trials and tribulations. I’ll wait. Thought of any? You won’t, either. It is the trials that tempered the individual’s desire to succeed; without the trials, there IS NO SUCCESS STORY.

Entitlements blunt the pain of trials; recipients accept mediocrity and are never forced to find the best in themselves. Right now, the ghettos, the housing projects, and the trailer parks are filled with potential Oprah Winfrey’s and Warren Buffetts who will instead remain John and Jane Does because they are receiving just enough to prevent them from channeling their exceptional potential. And that’s a damned shame.

Turn off the free money. Obviously it can’t be done overnight but create a deadline and then stick to it. Let people feel the pain, let them discover their own potential, let them recover their dignity. It’ll be good for the country but it’ll be better for the individual.

And that “acquaintance” who chose not to file the claim with BP? That was my wife. I’m proud of her.

Tucker Scofield’s writing is shaped by his extensive business travels in the manufacturing sector. He is also a musician, a daddy, and a husband. His articles appear weekly at www.TheDCPost.com.
--
Tucker Scofield



How the US Government Manipulates Inflation Data

Reuters’ Emily Flitter asks in a recent column What is Plan B if China dumps its U.S. debt?

It is worth asking about U.S. officials’ Plan B just in case one day relations take a surprise turn for the worse and Beijing dumps its holdings of U.S. treasuries.

China is officially the United States’ biggest foreign creditor, with roughly $900 billion in Treasury holdings — or over $1 trillion with Hong Kong’s holdings included.

That means it could do severe damage to U.S. debt markets if it suddenly started selling large amounts.

This is not a “just in case” scenario. China has already been taking steps to curb their US Treasury purchases, lowering their U.S. debt holdings from $929 billion to $896 billion between November of 2009 and 2010 (Hong Kong’s year over year holdings are down as well). Chinese President Hu Jintao made it clear where the Chinese stand with regards to the US dollar of the future calling the current dollar-led global monetary system a “product of the past.” While this may not necessarily mean the Chinese will one day, all of a sudden, halt all purchases of US debt, it is certainly reason for concern to those hoping to maintain a strong and stable U.S. currency. Our major foreign creditor is reducing their exposure - that means something, or at least it should. The US dollar, as it has for the last 100 years, will continue to weaken over time compared to other major currencies, and our dollars will buy fewer and fewer goods as a result. The nation’s fiscal problems will see to it that the depreciation of the dollar accelerates over time.

The slow collapse of the dollar, in our view, would be the best-case scenario, but there is still the very real possibility that China completely pulls the plug and kills the patient. Ms. Flitter writes:

To be sure, the idea that China would suddenly sell its U.S. debt holdings is almost unimaginable to some.

After all, any weakening in the U.S. debt markets and the resulting global markets turmoil, including likely weakness in the dollar, would bounce back on China and could hurt its economy badly, especially as the United States is such a huge Chinese export market.

It is only unimaginable to some because they don’t believe it can happen here. But it can happen here - it must. The lead stories during this economic recession/depression have been about real estate, jobs, and GDP. The real story is none of those. Although it has yet to become the mainstream talking point , the real crisis facing America is a sovereign debt crisis. We have too much debt, and that’s going to get cleared out of the system one way or the other.

Any number of reasons, some of which Ms. Flitter mentions in her article, could be used as justification by China to stop the purchase of U.S. debt. Trade and resource disputes, Taiwan, or the final push to bring America to it’s knees. Sure, the Chinese economy and its people will hurt for a few years, but it would be a small price to pay by a communist Chinese government to see the world’s major super power be marginalized or perhaps even completely obliterated.

Make no mistake. The Chinese are at war. These events are not simple one or two dimensional short-term manipulations. The playing field is a grand chessboard and the Chinese have been positioning their pieces for decades. An attack on the King is imminent.

Ms. Flitter suggests several plans (packaging them into what she refers to as ‘Plan B’) to deal with the attack once it begins and be assured it will. You can be certain of it.

In an earlier report we detailed that the Pentagon and Military are Actively War Gaming ‘Large Scale Economic Breakdown’ and ‘Civil Unrest’ scenarios, going so far as to send military specialists to the floors of our stock exchanges to learn more about how a financial attack on our system would occur and to develop response plans if and when it does.

Plan B

Banks could be called on to increase their holdings of treasuries, and as a last resort, the Federal Reserve could also be called on to fill the gap, though this could risk turning any dollar weakness into a slump.

Plan B is already in effect, as evidenced by the monetization of US debt by the Federal Reserve. It started in 2008 and continues to this day, with the most recent round being some $600 billion dollars (officially). In case you haven’t heard, the privately held (by major banking institutions) Federal Reserve is the largest buyer of US debt, having surpassed China as of November 2010.

Given that we have been engaging in Quantitative Easing for quite some time, and the US dollar continues to lose strength and status, we suggest that Plan B has already failed.

Plan C

In 2009, economist Brad Setser suggested the United States could establish emergency currency swap lines with political allies if a country like China ever abandoned the U.S. debt market.

But the list of countries prepared to step in as buyers when U.S. Treasury officials try to hawk U.S. debt or seek foreign currency loans has probably changed somewhat since Europe became mired in a debt crisis.

To some extent, this plan is also already in effect. Japan and the UK have recently become aggressive buyers of US debt. The hope is, that along with Fed monetization, the dollar will be stabilized. However, as the US government continues to issue more debt, raises the debt ceiling and commits the American people to trillions more in liabilities, this strategy is doomed to fail, as well. How much debt can the UK, another nation in a sovereign debt crisis, continue to purchase? And if China pulls out, will Japan continue to throw good money after bad?

Plan D

“The U.S. government should have and maybe still could call on the people of the U.S. to invest in U.S. debt,” said David Walker, a former U.S. comptroller general who heads an advocacy group calling on the government to curb the U.S. budget deficit and borrowings.

…a confrontation (e.g. Taiwan, trade war, or resource dispute) would also make it easier for Washington to appeal to the American public to buy its debt for patriotic reasons.

If we do get to a point where the US dollar comes under attack from a Chinese sell-off, it may be hard to convince an already broke and hungry population to invest their last remaining financial life lines into a collapsing currency. This doesn’t mean that our government won’t try. They’ll appeal to our sense of patriotism and tell us that this is the only way to save our currency.

Remember, however, that if it gets to this point it means that all previous plans have failed - the Fed monetization will have done nothing and foreign buyers have dried up. Anyone getting in at this point will be setting themselves up for a total loss.

Not to worry, however, as there’s always…

Plan E

In the past, anytime a government has failed to save itself from excessive and out of control spending, it has turned on its own people. When Plan D proves to be a failure and those with money in their retirement and bank accounts refuse to buy in to the propaganda, the government will take drastic steps. Similar to Argentina and the push by some European countries as of late, the US government will set its cross hairs on your retirement and private pension accounts. We’ve written about it before, and for the time being it’s but a discussion in a Congressional committee.

But when the Federal government and US Treasury are backed into a corner, they will undoubtedly attempt a mandated appropriation of all retirement funds for the greater good. The people will be outraged, sending letters, emails and phone calls to their Congressional representatives, but as we saw with the bailout bill and nationalized health care, the people will be ignored. It will be your patriotic duty, just as it is, according to Vice President Joe Biden, your patriotic duty to pay more taxes.

Doomed

In the end, no amount of monetization or deal making with other countries, or forced appropriations of personal assets will be enough to save the dollar. Why?

Because no one in any position of influence has suggested and/or implemented a workable Plan A.

We are attempting to treat the symptoms of the disease, rather than the disease itself.

Spending is the elephant in the room that is single-handedly responsible for the sovereign debt crisis in which we find ourselves. If we continue to spend with reckless abandon as we have done for decades, then it is simply not possible to ever payoff the money we already owe. Estimates suggest we as a nation owe in excess of $200 trillion in current and future liabilities.

At what point will China and the rest of the world finally say enough is enough?

It won’t be long now.

This is a guest post from Hunter Richards of Software Advice, which provides reviews of project accounting systems and other software.

...and wealth has shifted toward the highest earners.

The less-educated workers who manage to keep their jobs are falling further
and further behind in the national income distribution as the relative value of their services declines.

Alas, high-tech industries are growing...

So how can you avoid being replaced by a machine? You’ll need to be one of the people who work in an advanced field that still requires highly-skilled human capital. Take the IT field, for example. The Tech Pulse Index tracks the growth of national economic activity in technology by combining data on employment, investment, production, shipments, and consumption. The Tech Pulse Index has risen sharply (with the exception of the dot-com bust around the year 2000), reflecting continued demand for high-tech workers. The same is true in other engineering disciplines, healthcare and finance.

...but an advanced education is required.

The following list was compiled by "Major Carpenter", a great friend of the site. I think that you will really enjoy what he has put together. The truth is that the United States is in a serious state of decline, and in a desperate attempt to keep things together, the United States is rapidly being transformed into a totalitarian Big Brother police state. I don't want to make this introduction too long, so without any further yapping by me, here is the article that Major Carpenter sent over to us the other day.....

*********************

I've compiled this list of horrors (in no particular order) from two prior lists, one done by U.S. author Naomi Wolf and another by UK writer Dr. Lawrence Britt, as published in the Guardian newspaper.

Sadly, I count all seventeen as aspects of the Untied Status of Amerika today. AKA the "BRA" (Banana Republik of Amerika).

Again, what do WE the PEOPLE do about it?

How many of these do you see as part of a once great country?

1. Powerful And Continuing Nationalism - Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.

2. Disdain For The Recognition Of Human Rights - Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of "need." The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.

3. Identification Of Enemies/Scapegoats As A Unifying Cause - The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial, ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, (Christians, Constitutionalists, conservatives, 2nd Amendment supporters, 1st Amendment supporters, 4th Amendment supporters, Ron Paul supporters) etc.

4. Supremacy Of The Military - Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.

5. Controlled Mass Media - Sometimes the media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.

6. Obsession With National Security - Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.

7. Corporate and Government Power Are Intertwined And Their Combined Power Is Protected - The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite. (This is the actual definition of fascism according to Gerald Celente's historical description of Mussolini's opinion on the matter).

8. Obsession With Crime And Punishment - Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations.

9. Rampant Cronyism And Corruption - Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders. (Gee how about several TRILLION DOLLARS printed out of nothing and handed over to U.S. and foreign banks and companies - does that maybe count? How about hundreds of thousands of people's homes? How many politicians leave Washington D.C. millionaires or billionaires after arriving there with next to nothing?)

10. Fraudulent Elections - Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.

11. Dissent Equals Treason - Cast dissent as "treason" and criticism as "espionage". Every closing society does this, just as it elaborates laws that increasingly criminalize certain kinds of speech (see also #17) and expand the definition of "spy" and "traitor".

12. Create A Gulag - Once you have got everyone scared, the next step is to create a prison system outside the rule of law - where torture takes place. Gulags in history tend to become ever larger and more secretive, ever more deadly and formalized. Most Americans don't understand yet that the destruction of the rule of law at Guantánamo set a dangerous precedent for them, too.

13. Deny Prisoners Due Process - Prisoners held indefinitely, often in isolation, and tortured, without being charged with offenses, and subjected to show trials.

14. Militarize The Police - When leaders who seek what I call a "fascist shift" want to close down an open society, they send paramilitary groups of scary young men out to terrorize citizens: (the powers that be) need citizens to fear thug violence and need thugs who are free from prosecution.

15 . Set Up An Internal Surveillance System And Harass Citizens - In Mussolini's Italy, in Nazi Germany, in communist East Germany, in communist China - in every closed society - secret police spy on ordinary people and encourage neighbours to spy on neighbors. The Stasi needed to keep only a minority of East Germans under surveillance to convince a majority that they themselves were being watched. In 2005 and 2006, when James Risen and Eric Lichtblau wrote in the New York Times about a secret state program to wiretap citizens' phones, read their emails and follow international financial transactions, it became clear to ordinary Americans that they, too, could be under state scrutiny. In closed societies, this surveillance is cast as being about "national security"; the true function is to keep citizens docile and inhibit their activism and dissent.

16. Harass Citizens' Groups - Next step is to infiltrate and harass citizens' groups. The American Civil Liberties Union reports that thousands of ordinary American anti-war, environmental and other groups have been infiltrated by agents. The secret Counterintelligence Field Activity (Cifa) agency of the Department of Defense has been gathering information about domestic organizations engaged in peaceful political activities: Cifa is supposed to track "potential terrorist threats" as it watches ordinary U.S. citizen activists. A little-noticed new law has redefined activism such as animal rights protests as "terrorism". So the definition of "terrorist" slowly expands to include the opposition.

17. Rampant Sexual Harassment - The state is represented as the ultimate guardian of the family institution. (Sexual harassment by the state against the people takes place in order to demotivate opposition and destroy morale; the recent TSA activities are nothing more than a power play to ensure that the people know they are nothing more than slabs of meat to the powers that be – who are of course, exempted from being sexually harassed. Furthermore, the state decides what is sexually "appropriate" and enforces it's opinion over the objections of the moralities of the nation and a majority of people who believe in them (i.e. homosexuality, abortion, pre-marital sex, etc.) are promoted as "normal" and any - pardon me - 'deviation' from that opinion is made out to be "hateful" and nearly criminal, with consequences including the denial of rights, property and even children being removed from parents if the parents do not hold the "politically correct" ideologies.