A Window into a Nightmare:

Where a twenty-five dollar contribution to an intellectually bankrupt magazine staffed by incurable halfwits, is all that it takes to defend Christendom and the West.

Where electoral politics are nothing more then a farce designed to give the impression that we still have a republic. Where petty non-issues function as tools to motivate hordes of impassioned activists into electoral warfare.

Where keeping your society safe requires massive injections of fear and paranoia cloaked in a nightmarish garment of deception. Where your liberties are routinely thrashed in support of “keeping you safe” from nightmares concocted by fear mongers masquerading as the guardians of your freedoms.

Where your politicians and media go scouring the globe in search of freshly manufactured monsters to destroy.

Where authentic issues are ignored and never actually dealt with.

Where events on the other side of the world are turned into propaganda that is imbibed daily. Where ubiquitous fear and delusion powers the mania for perpetual war.

Where your neighbors line up at soup kitchens in order to eat, while your government loots the treasury to prop up behemoth financial institutions who are accountable to no one.

Where the government steadfastly denies their wicked agenda until it’s conspicuous. Then they switch gears and tell you its all been done for your own well being.

Where words no longer have meaning, where mass culture is constantly upgrading to newer forms of deviancy. Where what was widely considered bizarre and boorish is now praised as innovation.

Where the heroes of times past are hurled into the dustbin of history in favor of contemporary fabrications that accord obeisance to the propaganda interests of the usurpers.

Where pretentious men in custom tailored suits can lend credibility to noxious nonsense without rebuke, regardless of how much carnage, destruction, and death their brainless dribble has caused. Where these men are lauded as luminaries, experts, and scholars.

Where truth is regarded as toxic. Where a cavalcade of artifice is required to maintain the counterfeit reality presented to us.

Where a fantasy economic system is peddled without interruption to have the serfs believing their declining standard of living and the continuously rising income inequality is a wonderful thing. Where losing your livelihood becomes an “incredible opportunity” and the population waits patiently for bread crumbs to trickle down.

Where one is conditioned to place a premium on the health of the global economy and neglect the well-being of their own.

Where complete and utter deracination is normalized and then promulgated as the path to a brave new world.

Indeed, a window into a nightmare.

Re: Cinematic Thoughts

After reading Gordon's excellent piece, I stumbled across this news.

On a unanimous vote, the California Energy Commission on Wednesday required all new televisions up to 58 inches to be more energy efficient beginning in 2011. The requirement will be tougher in 2013, and only a quarter of all TVs on the market currently meet that standard.

Throughout the years, I've come to the realization that the most energy efficient and worthwhile way to use a television is to simply turn it off.

Then there's this little factoid:

More time spend watching TV means less time for other opportunities. According to Nielsen Media Research, the average American watches about 4 hours of TV each day (or 28 hours/week, or 2 months of nonstop TV-watching per year). In a 65-year life, that person will have spent 9 years glued to the TV.

Cinematic Thoughts

A few evenings ago, I happened to be sitting beside the fireplace enjoying a glass of fine bourbon and a wonderful movie with the missus. That film was Ronald F. Maxwell's 1993 Civil War film, Gettysburg. Perhaps it is because to some extent I consider myself to be a neo-copperhead, that I found the following scene containing a speech given by Confederate General Lewis Armistead (played by actor Richard Jordan) in the moments prior to Pickett's Charge, to be most inspiring.



While I consider this to be an emotionally uplifting scene, at the same time I felt quite disheartened. The sense of pride in local culture displayed here has all but vanished in a contemporary America where most of the general public goes no further than cheering for their local university or professional sports teams. Is the ever continuing erosion of the Tenth Amendment and state sovereignty the culprit? Or is the open borders policy enacted by the United States government to blame? I am sure they both play a part, as does the epidemic of mass media addiction this country is currently suffering from. Would things be any different today if our government operated solely within constitutional limits? I would like to hope so, but honestly, I have no way of knowing. What I do know is this: we can all learn something from General Armistead and his band of rebel soldiers, that wherever you may be from, please turn off the television set once and a while, get to know your neighbors, cherish the time spent with friends and family, take pride in your local culture and heritage, and let all of the world know that you are here this day.

A short history of the Federal Reserve and the Progressive Era.

Editors Note: This was adapted from Prescott Davies' longer piece on the Progressive Movement. It remains an ongoing rough draft.

Many have been taught that the Progressive Era in American history was the time that the laborers fought, and won, against the evils of the Robber Barons. James Livingston argues in his monograph entitled “Origins of the Federal Reserve System: Money, Class, and Corporate Capitalism, 1890-1913,” that the labor movement lost the war against the capitalists, because many of the so called triumphs of labor during the progressive era only made big business stronger.

Livingston is able to successfully accomplish this task because he focuses on the struggles of the elite, when many modern historians focus on the struggles of the poor. The end result is a history of 1890-1913 that utilizes objective economic figures to explain the sociological norms, values, and mores of the elite during their struggle to transform the competitive entrepreneur capitalistic economic system to the current corporate capitalistic system that exists today.

Livingston’s thesis is that the rich were forced to modify the competitive economic system that the capitalist elite were forced to endure during the 1870-1880 period.

In order to verify this thesis, Livingston first examines the 1870’s from the perspective of the capitalists, with the help of many primary, and secondary documents including Senate testimonies, economic journals, and banker's magazines. The sources help to illuminate the progression towards the Federal Reserve. He states that the capitalist was not receiving the required profits that were needed to invest in new endeavors. This was due because of the extremely competitive atmosphere that resulted in falling prices and overproduction of commodities. To solve this problem, the elite businessmen of that time started to group together to form pools and trusts that would not only decrease competition, but would also enable them to share the secrets of the trade. The labor movement was appalled at these combinations, so they tried to eliminate them politically; and they were successful in bringing about the 1890 Sherman Antitrust Act. However, the legislation backfired on the laborers, because it largely eliminated competition; so many large individual companies that were involved in trusts became even larger corporations. With the rise of the corporations, the elite knew that they needed to change the current banking system, because there was not enough liquidity in the pre-Federal Reserve system to allow large corporations to fund projects during panics.

This proved to be a rather difficult task for the elite businessmen to accomplish because the politicians were largely against a private bank controlling the money supply of the United States. The bankers were forced to manipulate the politicians into believing that a new banking system was needed to ensure a healthy capitalistic society. After this vital task was complete, the Federal Reserve Act was enacted.

The amalgam of feminism, neoconservatism, and plebeian exegetics that calls itself the conservative movement.

First, the Ranee of the Republican Party, the "rogue" Sarah Palin and her imbecilic apologists are screaming "sexism" about a Newsweek cover of Mrs. Palin in her running outfit. Sarah Palin's response is just as dimwitted as she is, "The choice of photo for the cover of this week's Newsweek is unfortunate. When it comes to Sarah Palin, this 'news' magazine has relished focusing on the irrelevant rather than the relevant," Palin wrote. "The out-of-context Newsweek approach is sexist, and oh-so-expected by now."

Yes, those liberals at Newsweek and in the mainstream media are just a bunch of raging misogynists.

I remember when conservatives didn't scream sexist, racist, or fascist at the slightest provocation and instead left such sophomoric mudslinging to their the liberal opponents.

Next, we have Republican Congressman John Shadegg giving Rudy Guiliani a run for his money at baseless fear mongering and irrational paranoia.

"I saw the Mayor of New York said today, 'We're tough. We can do it,'" Shadegg said. "Well, Mayor, how are you going to feel when it's your daughter that's kidnapped at school by a terrorist? How are you going to feel when it's some clerk - some innocent clerk of the court - whose daughter or son is kidnapped? Or the jailer's little brother or little sister? This is political correctness run amok."

A DCCC spokesman then responds:

"In case there's any doubt of the Republican Party being taken over by the likes of Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, Michele Bachmann and other Right Wing extremists, last night Republican Rep. John Shadegg actually suggested that Mayor Bloomberg's daughter will be kidnapped by a terrorist," DCCC spokesman Ryan Rudominer said in a statement.

The jingoism and paranoia of the Republican Party is truly the only thing they are "extremist" about. Well, maybe not, they seem quite extremist about erecting a police state and passing tax cuts for the rich while waging their Jihad for perpetual peace and attempting to turn the entire world into a giant consumerist utopia. There's really not much else they're off-the-walls bonkers about.

Finally, we have the insipid Carrie Prejean:

The former Miss California told Christianity Today that the Bible makes no judgment about boob jobs.

"I don't think there's anything wrong with getting breast implants as a Christian," she told the magazine. "I think it's a personal decision. I don't see anywhere in the Bible where it says you shouldn't get breast implants."

According to RadarOnline.com, Prejean has no less than eight sex tapes and 30 nude photos to her name, each showing the model performing solo sex acts.

The conservative movement now has among their most prominent social conservatives a breast-implanted, amateur pornographer who stars in her own movies and yet has continued to enjoy the support of the "conservative movement."

I wonder, besides threatening people with terrorist kidnappings, calling the mainstream media sexist, and of course producing sex-tapes, what has the conservative movement accomplished anyway?

Idiocracy

Ninety percent of CUNY freshman cannot solve a simple algebra problem.

"These results are shocking," said City College Prof. Stanley Ocken, who co-wrote the report on CUNY kids' skills. "They show that a disturbing proportion of New York City high school graduates lack basic skills."

John Jay College sophomore Ahmed Elshafaie, 19, who graduated from Long Island City High School, said he avoids math classes.

"I don't want to ruin my GPA," he said. "High school standards were really low."

Notice how the article refers to college students as "CUNY kids." And congress is now working on a proposal to keep adults on their parents health care until they are 27 years old!
Hopefully by this point they will have conquered the intricacies 8th grade algebra.

Bleeding Heart Liberal Bias 101

Roger Alford's failed hit piece on Rand Paul confirms nearly every stereotype about the liberal media. In the end, Dr. Paul ends up looking pretty good. The Republican establishment ends up looking like the asinine, corrupt, jingoistic and petty party of synthetic opposition that it really is.

Republican leaders, including McConnell, have been largely mum about the race. McConnell did host a GOP fundraiser in Washington for Grayson in September. More than 20 Republican senators attended, but the campaign hasn't released the fundraising total.

This should tell you everything you need to know about the Repugnant Party. Twenty senators and the living abomination to conservatism Mitch McConnell (the Senate leader of the dimwitted Repugnant party) are openly rejecting and holding fundraisers for the moderate candidate.

Since Bunning bowed out, Paul's detractors have tried to paint him as an oddball and an extremist, but growing crowds are flocking to town hall meetings across Kentucky to hear his spiel about reining in government spending, stopping taxpayer bailouts of private companies and balancing the federal budget.

Dr. Paul doesn't favor the perpetual war for perpetual peace and a massive police state; thus according to his detractors he's an "oddball and an extremist." Notice Mr. Alford's choice of words here.

Paul says he opposes abortion without exception, not even in cases of rape, incest or the health of the expectant mother. He also opposes marriages between gay and lesbian couples. At the same time, he voices staunch opposition to government intruding in the private lives of citizens.

Mr. Alford, if someone is seeking an abortion they are not an "expectant mother." And after losing thirty-one straight referendums regarding homosexual marriage Mr. Alford has taken to the task of propagandizing the rest of us by terming homosexual marriage as "marriages between gay and lesbian couples." Then he throws out all the standards of objective journalism and throws in the completely unnecessary "At the same time, he voices staunch opposition to government intruding in the private lives of citizens."

Apparently, one cannot be opposed to an unconstitutional police state and also oppose such iniquity as abortion and homosexual marriage in the eyes of the unbiased Roger Alford. It's a miracle that our founders could craft a constitution recognizing the value of privacy without simultaneously recognizing homosexual marriage and the right to abortion.