Tribal African-Style Voting Comes to America

When people vote as tribes, corrupt thugs will rule.

The administration of President Barack Obama is an utterly failed one in every way that counts towards American interests - economically, militarily, financially, even socially.  So why do more than 40% of Americans still support him?

He didn't cause our economic and military woes.  More than two years into his administration, however, even Democrats admit that Mr. Obama owns the economy and our military strategies overseas.  In every measurable way, his policies have at best improved nothing, and often made things worse.

Every American knows that our economy is barely breathing, much less returning to health.  Mr. Obama's stimulus plan, according to his own economists, would prevent unemployment from breaking 9%; instead, with the stimulus, it's exceeded 10% at times with no sign of a serious drop.  What do his own economists now say?

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner says many Americans will face hard times for a long time to come.

That is no kind of success, though party hacks try to define it thus by saying "things could have been worse."  Things could always be worse, but we don't re-elect a President because the end of the world failed to happen on his watch.

We re-elect a President because things got better on his watch which they manifestly have not done - and yet nearly half of Americans are still willing to vote for this miserable failure.

Blind, Blinkered, or Both?

Is it possible that they're totally blind and ignorant?  Nope: only 16% of Americans think the country is on the right track, a shockingly high number in and of itself though near the minimum you ever see in a poll.  Yet nearly 40% of Americans are still willing to vote for the guy who's driving the train on the wrong track.  How can this be?

The answer is found in the details of exactly who is supporting this failed President.  Obviously Democrats support him more than Republicans; no surprise there.  Even they aren't too happy though, being about evenly split.

So where's the love for Mr. Obama?  Blacks, almost unanimously: according to Rasmussen, 93% of blacks still support him, only slightly down from 95% of blacks that voted for him.

Why does this matter?  Because of all Americans, blacks have suffered worst from the Great Recession.

In 2004, the median net worth of white households was $134,280, compared with $13,450 for black households, according to an analysis of Federal Reserve data by the Economic Policy Institute. By 2009, the median net worth for white households had fallen 24 percent to $97,860; the median black net worth had fallen 83 percent to $2,170, according to the EPI.

"The recession wasn't Mr. Obama's fault!" you say.  No it wasn't.  The failed recovery, however, is:

Since the end of the recession, the overall unemployment rate has fallen from 9.4 to 9.1 percent, while the black unemployment rate has risen from 14.7 to 16.2 percent, according to the Department of Labor.  [emphasis added]

If a white Republican were in charge, the Racist Reverends and the mainstream media would be screaming bloody murder.  Instead, they're singing in the choir, supporting Mr. Obama's every move no matter how devastating to the economy:

"You can't vote against health care and call yourself a black man," Jackson said...

Colorblind or Blinkered?

What on earth does being black have to do with government-controlled health care?  Everybody gets sick no matter their race; doctors bills are enormous whether you're black, white, or in between.  It doesn't make any difference what color your doctor is so long as he knows what he's doing.

What's going on is, alas, something that we've seen all over Africa since postcolonial independence: tribal peoples don't vote for a leader because of his competence, policies, experience, or even promises, but simply based on whether he is a member of their tribe.

Perhaps the most horrifying example comes from Liberia, a notoriously horrific hellhole on a continent filled with them, led for many years by a monster infamous for his barbarity on a continent where barbarism is a way of life.  Now-ex-President Charles Taylor's electoral successes make your hair stand on end:

Taylor was elected president in 1997 after leading a prolonged civil war characterized by the systematic use of rape, the recruitment of children to fight in his infamous "Small Boy Units" and the mutilation of the civilian population. His support then was based on fear that he would wreak even greater havoc on Liberia again if he lost. People chanted in the street, "He killed my ma, he killed my pa, I'm going to vote for him."  [emphasis added]

Why?  Because he may be an SOB, but he was their SOB.  As long as a majority or large minority of voters think this way, leaders will all be SOBs and governance will be, well, what you find in Africa.

We have seen the same effect in the United States with such legendary felons as DC Mayor Marion Barry, Adam Clayton Powell, and Rep. Charlie Rangel continually returned to office despite committing every crime short of murder.  More recently, the voters of DC rejected successful reformist mayor Adrian Fenty in favor of corrupt Vincent Gray - both equally black - precisely because of Fenty's successes in improving DC's famously awful schools: his appointee Michelle Rhee sacked hundreds of incompetent teachers, most of whom were black.

Gray, and DC's voters, would rather have incompetent black teachers stay in their jobs sucking tax dollars from their public teat and destroying all hope of a decent education for their own black children, than to have new, competent teachers of any other color.  Why?  The black teachers are part of their tribe and can do no wrong.

You can't run a democracy that way.  You can't even run a successful dictatorship that way, as once-wealthy Zimbabwe discovered.  Robert Mugabe has utterly destroyed his country's economy, but still maintains enough popular support to be able to cheat his way back into office.  You don't find this in Eastern Europe, in Asia, or even in South America for more than a few years at a time.

Tribal Thugogracy

If citizens don't demand even the most minimum levels of competence, they will be ruled by the most corrupt or, where necessary, violent thug.  That is precisely what we see in Africa, in Haiti, in Jamaica, in Detroit, in the city of DC.  The only reason Detroit and the city of DC continue to function at all is because of outside Federal law enforcement agencies and outside tax dollars; if they were their own sovereign countries, they'd be worse than Zimbabwe because of the cold.

We're not saying this has anything to do with race as a genetic construct, but it has everything to do with culture.  Arabs are an entirely different race from African, if you consider race to have any meaning at all, but history shows very similar aspects to their culture.

Egypt's Mubarak and Tunisia's Ben Ali were autocrats but had fair success in improving their nation's infrastructure and economies.  Nevertheless, they were thrown out, and both nations are turning to Islamist thugs who will destroy what liberties and wealth there was.  Not an improvement, but very much the Will of the People, just as corruptocrat Gray was fairly elected DC mayor over successful reformist Fenty.

We often attack the arrogance of our elites who think they know better than us ordinary folks down here on the ground, but they do have the germ of a point: there are situations where the people are so grossly ignorant, or so severely deluded, that their choices will inevitably be destructive.  Overwhelming majorities of Egyptians want immediate war with Israel; should the Egyptian government give them their wish on the basis of democratic accountability?  A great many Germans bought into Hitler's hatred of the Jews, but popular support hardly made the Holocaust right.

The only solution is to prevent that kind of situation from existing in the first place by not importing the grossly ignorant and by thoroughly educating those already here.  Our Founders believed deeply in the importance of education for all, and knew full well that our Constitution wouldn't work with an ignorant populace.

If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. The functionaries of every government have propensities to command at will the liberty and property of their constituents. There is no safe deposit for these but with the people themselves; nor can they be safe with them without information. Where the press is free, and every man able to read, all is safe.  - Thomas Jefferson

Our union-infested public schools and their race-baiting political masters have ensured that there is a large core of people who cannot and do not read, have no useful education, and thus vote tribally.  They do not form a majority - not yet - but Obama's support levels declare the measure of the problem.

If 40% of Americans can still support a man who has so manifestly ruined the economy even on his own measures, and 93% of blacks support someone who has made them even worse off than they were before above all other races, we are running out of margin for electing a competent government.

Perhaps that's why we have so many incompetent leaders, no solid hope for improvement, and why 39% of Americans believe our country is in permanent decline.

Petrarch is a contributing editor for Scragged.  Read other Scragged.com articles by Petrarch or other articles on Politics.
Reader Comments

I'm glad you mentioned Adrian Fenty. That situation showed it clearly. Blacks not only vote for blacks but only the blacks that are the most anti white. Fenty was black but not anti white enough.

July 22, 2011 9:05 AM

@plainjane

Well said. This extends beyond the concept of tribal loyalties, though. People are happy to vote away their freedoms so long as it means the next guy cannot exercise his, and risk losing their own money in order to screw someone else.

My pet annoyance, the idea of freeway speed limits, illustrates this nicely. They exist for no better purpose than an excuse to take your money, and in fact, police cars hiding in roadside bushes cause sudden panic and alarm and danger on the road; yet they persist because voters will shrug them off by saying, "I don't drive 80 ..why should anyone else?"

Mark Steyn: Decline is a choice, not an inevitability.

July 22, 2011 9:47 AM

It is an interesting article.
Now considering that we are smart enough to figure this out...is it not a small leap of imagination to think that "Leaders" are smart enough to figure these rather obvious truths out that your point to Petrarch?

Uneducated people will act stupid. Stupid people are easy to scam - therefore stupid people are easy to control.
{Yes yes, we both mean ignorance - not innate stupidity. I've been advised by some to write to a 5th grade mentality..Lol}

At any rate, the above idea "Just smart enough to read their orders" [attributed to Mussolini]is not an new idea.
Leaders have strived to fool and dumb-down their subjects since "politics" began.

Is there not then, the possiblity that all of these groups you have sited in your article have been manipulated into maintaining their ignorance?

So Let us take Mubarak as an example. Was Mubarak isolated on island Egypt in the middle of space? Was Mubarak "thrown out" by spontanious uprising of the Egyptian peoples? Are the Islamic fundamentalists now seemingly gaining in power part of this 'happenstance' of this rolling change happening in Egypt?
These questions lead me to ask is there a larger agenda somewhere that is having an effect on Egypt nationalism?

So I will let that percolate. Then I will be back to answer my own questions, and make a point.
ww

July 22, 2011 10:46 AM

Fenty's loss did indeed have a lot to do with Michelle Rhee, but not in the sense that this article portrays. I didn't see any stated outrage from any group over specifically Black teachers losing their jobs because of Rhee's policies. If anyone here can show otherwise, I'd like to see it. Until then I call BS on any suggestion that the populace rose up and voted Fenty out of office because Rhee was firing Black teachers.

Rhee's story (and that of her erstwhile co-worker and rival, Deborah Gist, now head of schools in Rhode Island) is a lot more complicated than "noble saviour of education is tragically taken down by racist voters". Yes, the teachers unions hated her and wanted her gone. And Rhee DID alienate not just the voters, but also many of the officials who had to work with her.

Rhee, Gist, and now over one third of superintendents in the country who administer impoverished districts were trained at the (Eli) Broad Superintendent's Academy. If you want to know more about what is happening in education today, you have to know who Eli Broad and the rest of the "venture philanthropists" involved in education are and what their goals for education in the US really are. Hint: They stand to make a killing if we scrap public education and move to a voucher system.

In short, Rhee was more about stirring up mud and "exposing" (or outright "spinning") the problems with public schools than she was ever about really fixing any of them.

July 22, 2011 10:50 AM

@Willy,

Can I save some time and write your response to yourself for you?

"More than two years into his administration, however, even Democrats admit that Mr. Obama owns the economy and our military strategies overseas."

Come, now. Everyone knows that the Rothschilds own the economy and our military strategies overseas.

:^)

July 22, 2011 10:55 AM

I see nothing whatsoever wrong with for-profit education and people getting rich by teaching.

As with healthcare, people have it stuck in their heads that education is a sacred industry best left to governments and regulatory boards.

Phooey to that!

The profit motive is the only thing that has consistently 'lifted all boats' in modern times.

Healthcare and education would both be far better off if we put it in the hands of profit-seeking pragmatists and took it OUT of the hands of highminded do-gooders.

July 22, 2011 10:58 AM

@ ww

You've just described the reasons that public education exists in the United States, and why Michelle Rhee had to be destroyed by any means necessary. If it came down to creating a scandal where none existed, so be it. If it was necessary to appeal to tribal instincts, as this essay suggests, then that would be acceptable as well.

July 22, 2011 11:04 AM

Werebat, the idea that Rhee's firing of black teachers had a great deal to do with Fenty's loss is hardly original with me. The Washington Post repeated this theory, citing a scholarly biography (that they disagreed with profoundly, but not on that particular point.)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/richard-whitmires-account-of-michelle-rhees-schools-tenure/2011/03/15/AFmwhd2C_story.html

At least some of the WaPo city-desk journalists do believe that to be the case:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/15/AR2010091500834.html

Obviously it's impossible to prove.

July 22, 2011 11:07 AM

"Can I save some time and write your response to yourself for you?"~Werebat

Well, you have gotten off to a jejune start. Let's see more of this 'analysis' - Im curious to see how you interpret "me"...

Meanwhile, I will give you some clues of where I was going and how a certain group of western 'think-tanks' have been involved.
After all, Mubarak has been a client - Egypt has been a client state and benefited from US largess for some 30 years before these recent "Color Revolutions" began to spread throughout the Middle East.
Hardly an island in space Egypt is a vestal organ of the body of 'cold war' client states that have been in a state of "evolution" since the "fall of the 'Soviet Empire'" in 92.

There is not need to go to the core here as to who holds the reigns ultimately to make the points I was going to. But for your sake Werebat, you are correct - even if I wasn't going to go through that again here.

We do however have this situation of "Islamic Fundamentalism" that we are constantly referring to. It is viewed as an entirely Mid Eastern, or internal 'Muslim' phenomena.

I will assert that this is not the case, that this phenomena has indeed been manipulated by outside hands, just as most groups world wide are.

Before addressing the Muslim Brotherhood, and their connection with the British Raj system of the colonial days, I would point out that there is a more modern analog to this is the Afghani Taliban. In Pushtan, "taliban" simply means 'student'. Student of what? Students of a radical form of Islam learned from certain texts books, and sent to very particular 'schools' in that nation during the mid and late 70s.

Now, Werebat - I will let you take a shot at figuring out where these books were published and where the funding of these schools originated.
Go for it.
ww

July 22, 2011 11:30 AM

I just typed a couple pages of text and the website ate them. :^(

In essence, what I said was this:

I don't actually have a problem with for-profit education. Neither do I think it would really fix many of the problems currently trumpeted about by the education reform movement. I attended both public and private schools -- and the private schools, while superior overall, were superior mostly due to factors that would be impossible to replicate in a system that included all students. This doesn't mean I think they would be WORSE.

What I do have a problem with is the deception being used to convince the public to scrap public education and replace it with a for-profit, voucher-based system. Most of this isn't outright lies, it is truth or half-truth presented out of context with the omission of important pieces of data. I can provide many examples. There is a lot of "spin" and it comes from the people who would profit the most from a for-profit system.

The love of money is the real muscle behind the current reform agenda, and the key players don't really care about the students at all. In their pursuit of money, they are willing to throw anyone and everyone who DOES care about the students under a bus if that seems to be the best course of action to turn a profit.

As a teacher, I am tired of the slanderous half-truths and the weak unions who are unable to do anything to counter them. Of the brave new world of for-profit schools, I say, "bring it on!" Not because I think it will be any better, objectively, but because once the moneyed interests have the prize they're after they will suddenly stop funnelling their money and influence into "proving" what a terrible job I'm doing and begin funnelling it into "proving" what a FANTASTIC job I'm doing. And they have a lot more money than the unions could ever hope to have.

Given time, they are going to win anyway, and working in the midst of the current struggle (where grandstanding manipulators like Rhee and Gist are made out to be public heroines for nothing more than deceptive muckraking and political assault) is worse than working in the private sector would be. Let's just get it over with.

Getting back to Africa, I recall an old African proverb; "When elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers." The elephants here are the unions, the government, and the venture philanthropists like Eli Broad. The tufts of trampled grass are the teachers and their students.

Enough fighting, already. Give the rich guys their moneymaker so they'll pipe down and we can get go back to our jobs -- teaching.

Meanwhile, I can perhaps be forgiven if I despise the deception being used to convince the public that I'm doing a terrible job.

July 22, 2011 11:50 AM

Bro John,

My opinion is that "public education" per se, is not the core problem.
When education was "public" on a local community level, even with state funding, there was still good education.

The problem with modern education is the centralized manipulation from the federal level. And this was indeed a purposeful "dumbing down", and the history of it is in the public record.

We need to balance these ideas of "privatization" as always a good thing, and seek balance with public utility as beneficial in many instances.

This hysterical fear that any public enterprise will result in smothering 'socialism' is just as wrong minded as all private enterprise is 'fascism'. It is this either or, black and white, on side v the other, that is creating the polarization that despotic leadership uses as a medium of growth and nourishment.

July 22, 2011 11:54 AM

Werebat, you said:

"The love of money is the real muscle behind the current reform agenda, and the key players don't really care about the students at all. In their pursuit of money, they are willing to throw anyone and everyone who DOES care about the students under a bus if that seems to be the best course of action to turn a profit"

Even if that is so, the difference is COMPETITION. In a private/voucher system, parents can determine if their kids' teachers care about them and, if they don't, move their kids to a different school that does care.

I do not question for a moment that there are bad apples in the for-profit education industry. There are bad apples in every industry. But competition takes care of that problem better than anything else we know of.

With a predominantly public education system, competition doesn't exist. Kids and parents suffer.

July 22, 2011 12:01 PM

"Enough fighting, already. Give the rich guys their moneymaker so they'll pipe down and we can get go back to our jobs -- teaching."~Werebat

The problem Werebat is that it is not "rich guys" that want to make profits from schools. The problem is that is is those 'in Power', the "profit" not with cash, but with influence and control.
These forces don't want you to teach, and they don't want the students to learn. Again, a dumbed down society is easy to rule. That is the bottom line to the game of power.

I thought you were going to do your "mini-me" impression and teach us how the Illuminati is ruling the planet...???
ww

July 22, 2011 12:06 PM

.."the difference is COMPETITION."~Ifon

You seem overtly influence by social Darwinism.

This "Privatization - Profit - Competition" school you preach from is exactly Fabian Socialism, as much as you do not recognise it. It is Royal Society Malthusian theory.

Yes, yes, a shocking allegation, but nevertheless true.
Whether you realize or not you are firmly in the Right-Hegelian camp.

What you advocate for education is no different than "cap and trade" as the answer to polution - "the market is always right". This is nonsense, but still very popular because of the PR promoting it.
ww

July 22, 2011 12:22 PM

"What you advocate for education is no different than "cap and trade" as the answer to polution"

So called "cap and trade" isn't even close to a free trade solution. It's a fake marketplace, created by a government regulatory board, that forces businesses to pay a bunch of extra taxes for "harming the planet".

Surely, YOU haven't been dopes by government marketing. :-)

A real laissez faire approach to pollution, for example, would be to remove regulatory boards from the equation entirely and allow consumers to reward/punish those companies that were more/less socially conscious on their own.

July 22, 2011 12:30 PM

"A real laissez faire approach to pollution, for example, would be to remove regulatory boards from the equation entirely and allow consumers to reward/punish those companies that were more/less socially conscious on their own."~Ifon

This is not so. Until there was "regulation" there was nothing but Robber barrons in industry. The people as a whole are not wise enough to the hazards of various chemicals, and would remain unaware of internal malfeasance without some sort of regulation.
ww

July 22, 2011 12:38 PM

"The people as a whole are not wise enough to the hazards of various chemicals, and would remain unaware of internal malfeasance without some sort of regulation"

Even with the internet?

You can find vast amounts of information now in seconds, and you can alert thousands of other people in seconds. There are dozens of "Rip-off report" type websites out there.

The "Long Tail" model of modern economics has changed the game. The big guys are beginning to fall one by one.

July 22, 2011 12:46 PM

Are you seriously suggesting that wide spread pollution has done no harm to the planet Ifon?

BP in the Gulf? Bopol India? Exxon Valdez? Fukushima? Just to name major events, and no including daily polution turning fresh waters to cess pools - Drycleaning chemical leaching into the soil and ending up in auqafers...and on and on.
Do you avoid having your suit drycleaned for 'market based' regulatory reasons?
ww

July 22, 2011 12:47 PM

"Are you seriously suggesting that wide spread pollution has done no harm to the planet Ifon?"

Yes, actually. To the contrary, the planet is much healthier now because of modernization and free enterprise.

American lumberjacks plant more trees than they cut down because the market creates an incentive. (If my business cuts down everything this year without planting and taking care of the land behind me, next year I make no money). There is more forest land in the US today than when the pilgrims landed.

So called "global warming" has increased vegetation throughout the Amazonian regions.

Less than 6 months after the BP oil spill, researchers were perplexed that they "couldn't find any of the oil anywhere". Where did it all go? Turns out that mother nature used the spillage for good in some places and disposed of the rest through natural processes. Scragged wrote a ton on the subject at the time.

"Do you avoid having your suit drycleaned for 'market based' regulatory reasons?"

I might if I were politically persuaded enough, and that's the whole point. You and I should not be dictating to someone else what is right and wrong for them to spend their money on just because of our personal political persuasions.

July 22, 2011 12:53 PM

"You can find vast amounts of information now in seconds, and you can alert thousands of other people in seconds. There are dozens of "Rip-off report" type websites out there."~Ifon

So, you have given up eating GM corn and other products?
You own your own Geiger counter and check the local vegies for radioactive fallout from Japan?
You no longer use the drycleaners? {again}

I think you will find that most people, at least Americans prefer convenience regardless of personal health, and the environment be damned as far as that reaching their conscious attitudes.
ww

July 22, 2011 12:54 PM

@lfon,

I am aware of the "competition" argument. It has some merits. It is not enough, I think, to fix the "failures" of the public school system being trumpeted about in the (corporate influenced) media, although many of those "failures" would be "resolved" once the desired voucher-based system were in place and the investors began using their money and influence to spin away their previous spin. For-profit schooling would also create some of its own (actual) problems. But I do not think it would be the disaster the unions make it out to be, either. It would be... different.

What upsets me is the half-truth and misinformation being spun by the vested interests in order to sway the public. I understand, it's nothing personal, just business, but it affects me and the public impression of me as an individual, and it could potentially cost me my job.

In the end, the modern educator is best off siding with Eli Broad and his cronies, because at least then he or she is siding with a winning team. I may care about my students, but in the end I have children of my own, and they must come first. Cassandra truths do not put bread on the table, no matter how true they may be.


@Willy,

"I thought you were going to do your 'mini-me' impression and teach us how the Illuminati is ruling the planet...???"

If you insist. Just remember, you asked...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBPYbg_Zd1U

:^)

July 22, 2011 12:54 PM

"So called "global warming" has increased vegetation throughout the Amazonian regions."~Ifon

It is still not keeping up with deforestation along the Amazon, and now that Agent Orange is being introduced to that area any re-greening of the Amazon is out the window.

The Exxon Valdez information is driven by the oil industry and is not to be trusted. The Gulf of Mexico is still ruined, perhaps forever, even though it is dropped off of the news.

Same with Fukushima - totally off of the news cycle now - still spewing.

No more...this is becoming an unproductive spat again.
ww

July 22, 2011 1:01 PM

"So, you have given up eating GM corn and other products?"

No, because GM food isn't as bad for you as people like Michael Pollan would have you think.

Most anti-GM campaigns are nothing but hot air. When you push the campaigners on what EXACTLY is bad about the GMs, their facts are fluff.

When you point out that GM food has fed the third world in ways never previously thought imaginable, you're met with huffing and puffing.

Modifying nature is not, in and of itself, a necessarily bad thing. Show me chemically and biologically WHY GM is hurting me, and I'll listen. I've read some compelling writers on the subject, both for and against. The debate is far from over.

"I think you will find that most people, at least Americans prefer convenience regardless of personal health, and the environment be damned as far as that reaching their conscious attitudes"

Only when personal health doesn't suffer that much. When a relative of mine ate junk for years and years, he didn't care until he started seeing real problems. Then he changed. Convenience and entertainment were no longer worth it.

If you allow people to realize the consequence of their actions, they'll fix the important things. If they don't, perhaps those things aren't as important as you (or any elitists on a regulatory board) thinks it is.

July 22, 2011 1:04 PM

That's pretty funny Werebat. Thanks, cute.
I'll share this with friends.
ww

July 22, 2011 1:06 PM

Look up the articles at Food Freedom Coto Report.
I'm taking no more time here with you Ifon.

July 22, 2011 1:09 PM

Regarding public schools they have failed. Evidence: police officers in the halls, metal detectors at the doors, unruly, uncontrollable students, teachers cheating on student's tests, etc. Do you see that in the private schools? Vouchers are the answer along with discipline being enforced in the classroom. The public schools have hit the tipping point and cannot be brought back.

July 22, 2011 6:31 PM

"The public schools have hit the tipping point and cannot be brought back."Bassboat

Well...yea, that was the whole point of putting public education under national control, to ruin it so that it can become a commodity. Everything is considered a commodity to the plutocracy running this system. You as a "tax-payer", and "production unit" are commodified in the very same way.

Afer all in the modern police state the public schools aren't the only places in Amerika were there are police officers out in force, metal detectors at doors, unruly, uncontrollable gangs and criminals, most subjects sheating in any way they can to get by in a more and more brutal lifestyle.

So the corps of the republic is being brought to a tipping point as well, tiped off the edge of a ship at sea [most likely and aircraft carrier] and the pretence of a free and open society will at last be ended.
ww

July 22, 2011 7:04 PM

Willy, I'm intentionally ignoring bassboat's yawnworthy regurgitation (does he really not know WHY we don't see these things in the private schools, and why their absence there is irrelevant to any discussion about the performance of a public system that must do its best to educate EVERY student?), but I have to ask you something.

I know you probably don't even know who Eli Broad is, but on the off chance -- do you consider him to be some sort of FREEDOM FIGHTER? It seems like he might fit this role well in your worldview, since he's ultimately interested in dismantling the public system.

Or do you think he and others like him feel that the public system isn't doing ENOUGH to keep the public down, and want more direct control?

Personally I think he's just trying to make a buck; that's enough motive, really, for him to be doing what he does. But I wonder what you think.

July 22, 2011 7:18 PM

WW & Werbat: My apologies for voicing my opinion.

July 22, 2011 8:44 PM

Bassboat, I am sorry to hurt your feelings. A critical approach of what you say on a public forum should be expected.
Perhaps you might learn from criticism. I certainly have.
I have learned to be very sure of what I am saying and have the rational argument to back it up and follow through.

If you are confident in your view, perhaps you can articulate in what sense the two of us have misaprehended your meaning, or in what way our criticisms do not apply.

No one has told you do be quite. You have the floor for a comeback.
Show some spirit my man - or ask for clarification of what either one of us has said. We all have new things to learn.
ww

July 22, 2011 9:33 PM

Werebat,
Eli Broad...Okay, I will see what sense I can get of this person, by some remarks from them...
I might take some time to respond.
ww

July 22, 2011 9:38 PM

Eli Broad – 'philanthropist' This is so often a euphemism for an Ashkenazim Zionist Agentur.
Most likely a Communitarian booster, the Harvard connections indicate this.
The Communitarian agenda is 'community organizing', which is again a euphemism, for a sophisticated 'change scam', and inside the lexicon of Communitarianism is the term “Change Agent”. But of course at Broad's level, he is a manager and director of legions of such that work 'on the ground'.
Obama comes from this school as well. As you know his background is in 'community organizing'

A background on Communitarianism is best searched for under: Atzioni, one of the premier theorists of this camp.

My analysis, Communitarianism is “Communism” with 7 added letters to fool the naïve.

I mentioned Communitarianism a couple threads back [?] because it is this philosphy that is being applied to law and jurisprudence at this time in Amerika, not Shariah Law, as the PR would have it.
ww

July 22, 2011 10:02 PM

As human beings we are hard-wired to trust members of our own in-group. Blacks trust Obama beacuse they consider him one of their group and assume he will act in their interests. In the same way Conservative Whites trusted Bush.

July 23, 2011 1:37 AM

Yes Blueskies,

This is why racial Identity Cults are delusional, driven by base instinct rather than reason - emotion based pathology, a form of xenophobia.
Mass psychology; the idiot mind of the "lynch-mob" and the social maintenance of that mass mind.

Great epistemic error like Sirens call from these treacherous stony shores.
ww

July 23, 2011 2:06 AM

@ Blueskies

Is that really true? How do you divide up the white vote when both candidates are white? There isn't any racial or 'tribal' loyalty to consider. There is, however, a common thread when you consider some facets of the essay and some of the early comments: that people will vote against their own best interests if it means they can screw someone who's better off. Common example: Those who vote for a particular candidate because he'll raise taxes on 'the rich' -- despite the fact that this is nothing more than juvenile 'get-evenism', that it does him no good at all, and probably will do him harm when it comes to finding a new job.

July 23, 2011 8:06 AM

"Those who vote for a particular candidate because he'll raise taxes on 'the rich' -- despite the fact that this is nothing more than juvenile 'get-evenism', that it does him no good at all, and probably will do him harm when it comes to finding a new job."~Bro John

Naivete comes and many styles and flavors.
But naivete is not innocence - whether it is dressed in seeming 'sophistication' as this comment, or whether it is in the small kernal of truth that this comment contains.

"The rich" is well placed in bracketing as it is a gerneralization as meaningless as the word "terroroist".

And perhaps it is naive "get-evenism," or perhaps it is a desperation in recognition that SOMEONE is profiting from this situation. So wondering WHO and HOW is hardly fairly characterized as "get-evenism."

Those who can brazenly dismiss the class warfare being waged by the elites, are perhaps even more naive than the simple people who at least intuit something in the correct direction, whether they can articulate that or not.

And this answer did not address Blueskies' observations, but rather made an opening for some rant-al property.

ww

July 23, 2011 1:03 PM

"Is that really true? How do you divide up the white vote when both candidates are white? There isn't any racial or 'tribal' loyalty to consider."~Bro John

You divide the whites by philosophical tribal affiliations obviously. Tribes are not merely defined by race and ethnicity. After all every single tribe on the African continent is [precolonial] black. This did not work out in such a way that they all considered themselves to by one huge tribe.

The tribal warfare of the Native American peoples is another familiar situation - or should be familiar to anyone vaguely familiar with history in this nation.

So Blueskies' assertion deserves more than a handwave and detour. Do you see that now Bro?
ww

July 23, 2011 1:14 PM

The reason that more than 40% of Americans support the baboon is because they are receiving money, food stamps, housing, groceries actually delivered to their homes, etc. from the government.
Would you support the end of your free ride?

July 23, 2011 1:36 PM

"The reason that more than 40% of Americans support the baboon is because they are receiving money, food stamps, housing, groceries actually delivered to their homes, etc. from the government."~Walker

Where else are they to turn Robert? These people did not diesign and impliment this trivial low scale "socialism," if that is what you are claiming here.
The people of this 'nation' have been manipulated and squeezed to the point of no other options being left, but rupture and death.

No one will support the end of their "free ride" until an alternative bus comes along.
And who has benefited more, the ones in 'socialist squallar' or the monopoly capitalist elites pouring vast sums into a military complex for empire?

It is IMPOSSIBLE to move straight to the point you wish to go now. that would mean shock and awe austerity for the vast mass of Amerikans.
The only just answer is to retrace our steps carefully - first of all by crushing the FEDERAL RESERVE.

Of course this is all dreamland jabber at this point - they have the US in a vice grip, and mind-grip, and by the cajones.

And replacing "the baboon" by some Tea Party psyco like Bachmann, or any number of flipped out Zionist "Christians" from the right will simply mean full draconian deathsquad madness.

A rock and a hard place...yes indeed.
ww

July 23, 2011 4:47 PM

Willy,

A crime syndicate knows that it must operate within certain boundaries or it risks losing its profitable grip on a society. It may or may not take those risks, but it surely recognizes them and treats harshly any members (and especially non-members) who push past those boundaries it sets for itself.

Why? Because it knows that if it gets too greedy, if it gets too obvious, and particularly if it puts too much strain on the populace, there will be a backlash. At worst, this will mean the end of the line for the syndicate -- but most probably it will just mean inconvenience and a net loss of profit.

You seem to be peddling the idea that these masters of finance are leading America into a Hellish subsistence existence. Let's assume you're right about the Rothschilds, et al. What proof do you have that this is really their end goal?

Why not the more sensible goal of simply keeping themselves on top and operating within certain limits, that include not inconveniencing the populace so much that they will rise up and do something about it?

One of the reasons Americans tolerate such a high tax rate (a rate that, if I'm not mistaken, exceeds the one that had the Founding Fathers reaching for their guns) is that even with their high tax rate, the average American has it pretty good at the end of the day. Much too good to even consider risking losing what he has in order to get back some of what the State (or the Rothschilds, or anyone else) has stolen from him.

July 23, 2011 5:19 PM

You're right, none of the free loaders will accept the end of their free ride. On the other hand, the people whose livelohoods are being stolen are getting upset about that.

If there is a really smart cabal running things, they didn't clue in Mr. Obama that Rodin Hood has sense enough not to steal TOO much. If he had, everyone would have gone into the forest and hunted him down.

Obama's bunch have driven expectations of a free ride to a level nobody can pay for. So it will end. They over did it. I think the bankers etc. would have been smarter than that.

If it's the Rothchilds running it, they have been in power for many generations which included WWs and the depression. They'd handle Obama's mess better.

July 23, 2011 5:42 PM

Addressing both Werebat and FredF,

First the implication that the House of Rothschild is a quaint historical tale overtaken by time:

Another consequence of this was the transfer of land from the ownership of the state to a 'World Conservation Bank' (WCB), now operating under a different name, which was proposed by a Rothschild at the Fourth World Wilderness Conference in Colorado in 1987. This was another aspect of the plan called Agenda 21 that aims to remove humans from most parts of the world, cull billions from the population, and house the rest in high-rise cities awash with surveillance and control. The World Conservation Bank was nothing to do with helping desperate countries and everything to do with a land-grab for Agenda 21.
George W Hunt, an accountant and investment consultant, was an official host of the World Wilderness Conference and he had been researching some of the 'conspiracy theory' information that was beginning to circulate. Hunt told Moneychanger magazine that the World Conservation Bank was designed as a world central bank to steal more land while claiming it was being done to reduce debt and 'help the environment'. Two very familiar names also came up. George Hunt said:
'... the banker Edmond de Rothschild was at the meeting for six days. Edmond de Rothschild was personally conducting the monetary matters and creation of this World Conservation Bank, in the company of Michael Sweatman of the Royal Bank of Canada. Those two were like Siamese twins, and that's why I say that it appears they were running at least the money side of this conference and I would say the conference was primarily to get money. Also, David Rockefeller (of Chase Manhattan Bank) was there and gave a speech on Sunday …
ww

July 23, 2011 6:19 PM

The Goal is a One World Order ruled as a neo-feudal system.
FEUDAL. Contrast this with the industrialized nation just dismantled.
They are not going back. Don't you get it?

>>

“The powers of financial capitalism had another far-reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent private meetings and conferences. The apex of the system was to be the Bank for International Settlements in Basle, Switzerland, a private bank owned and controlled by the world’s central banks which were themselves private corporations.”~Carroll Quigley
Carroll Quigley, Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time (New York: Macmillan Company, 1966), pages 324-325

Only diaper dumpers can miss what is really going on here....
The High Cabal is going for broke...for breaking you...all of us.
ww

July 23, 2011 6:27 PM

"Why not the more sensible goal of simply keeping themselves on top and operating within certain limits, that include not inconveniencing the populace so much that they will rise up and do something about it?"~Werebat

Because they do not have a "sensible goal," they have a diabolical goal.

Don' you see that they are doing everything they can to provoke a revolt?
Why do you think this maximum security Homeland Security State has been constructed over our heads? Oh no, not just a thread, to be used.

"America" the myth you grew up believing, does not, and has not existed for more than 200 years. The final sweeping it into the dust bin is upon us.
All that is to remain of it is the Garrison and Storm Troopers.
It is to be broken up into "Regions" [see; Tax Exempt Foundations - Reeese Committee 1955 - as well as Investigator Dodds further digging after the committee was sabotaged]
These regions are to make up a new North American Union, eventuating into an American Union, as a portion of the World Union ie, the New World Order.
ww

July 23, 2011 6:39 PM

Being wound up in the dialectical web - all of your struggling will only bring the spider.

ww

July 23, 2011 6:56 PM

The only way to “fix” something that isn't broken is to break it.

Why did they break Amerika?

Come and talk of all the things we've said today. And play within the shards of the world that's gone to stay. Tell me if there is another way. Some way to go that won't leave most behind to die, and others with that wrenching wailing cry.
Is it not best to stand and ask the real answers why?

Perhaps the road back is too far. Too long gone. Perhaps new ideas are now in order.
ww

July 23, 2011 7:10 PM

Pay-as-you-go payroll tax deductions sustain Social Security and Medicare, and will keep doing it if properly administered, needing only occasional modest adjustments.

Most workers, in part, fund public pensions, and Medicaid provides mandated safety net care for poor beneficiaries, jointly funded by the states and Washington, managed at the state level.

Moreover, Social Security and Medicare are insurance programs - contractual federal obligations to eligible recipients who qualify. In fact, they're no different from other legal arrangements between willing parties.

However, unilaterally abrogating them will strip all Americans of fundamental safety net protections without which millions will become impoverished and desperate.

America's aristocracy chose Obama to do it, and who better than the first Black president, masquerading as a populist, still fooling half the country to think he represents them.

In fact, his disdain for ordinary people is palpable in plain sight and scandalous, once his disingenuous rhetoric is exposed as duplicitous. His policies in the past two and half years show it.

Economist Michael Hudson agrees, saying "Only a Democrat posing as a left-winger could really pull off what (he's) proposing," pretending it's to sustain programs otherwise heading for insolvency.

All of those Obamabots still believe he is for the poor people and demanding social benefit through big government. That is bad enough to be so deluded. But for "Conservatives" to buy the same woojy, thinking Obama is some sort of "socialist" is even crazier.
It is not the stage show and sig-song rhetoric going on in DC. It is what has actually happened. The nation has veritably been gutted.
It is not an ACCIDENT, and it is not going to be reversed.
ww

July 23, 2011 8:26 PM

A lot has been written since my last comment. WW has pretty much hit the nail on the head. We must get rid of the Federal Reserve Bank. It is neither Federal, nor a reserve.
The problem, as I see it, is getting enough Americans to realize that the Fed is not a Federal Department. Even after all of the educating that has been going on from the Revolution, too many are still confused. Perhaps if a lesson were to be given during half time of a football game....
It is hard to separate the two, because the Federal Reserve System stock holders also own most of the members of the Congress of the United States of America.
But comes first the enlightenment, then the fireworks will begin. There isn't much time before the fireworks begin anyway.
Robert Walker

July 23, 2011 10:01 PM

Thanks Robert.

There us however the matter of time. The clock is ticking...

The agenda is on [FFWD>>]

We are, all of us; discussing this as if it were merely an academic exercise. We all assume tomorrow will be pretty much like today. We are habituated. It crumbles seemingly slowly...all avalanches begin with a few pebbles and grow until a certain momentum is reached.

Well, this sudden lurch to full blown avalanch can happen at any moment now. Something rotten in DC brews, and it is yet to hit the news.
ww

July 24, 2011 12:11 AM

The Weishaupt Momentum was set back by a simple lightning strike that downed a currier carrying Illuminati manuscripts. These fell into the hands of the Paris police. The original conspirators were exposed and had to scatter and regroup under another brand.

The question that arises, was this lightning bolt out of the blue? Or was Providence involved?
I do not believe in coincidence theory – and I believe that synchronicity has a connection with the infinite.

Perhaps prayer is in order.
ww

July 24, 2011 12:23 AM

Yes...I meant courier - not currier...Lol

July 24, 2011 1:08 AM

There is a higher power. The thought that God is just, scares the hell out of me. I spent a year in the fetid swamps of Vietnam. I done the bidding of a corrupt government and military. Now, I'm doing the time.
It is time to end the "preemptive wars". All wars are preemptive. Someone started every war, every argument, every bar room brawl.
Bombs and the airplanes that deliver them have no peaceful use. If we are to continue building bombs, we must use some of them up.
The Republic that was handed to us so many years ago, is history. We can not resurrect it. Can we build something better?
If the individuals behind the military industrial complex were smart, we would be exploring space as the human race. They would probably make more money, and it would be more fun. Every soldier in every army is a paid killer, or a potential paid killer. And the taxpayers are the bosses.
Did you file your 1040 form on 15 April?
Gotta say it, gotta say it.
Peace and Love,
Robert Walker

July 24, 2011 1:32 AM
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