Flada Blog

Not about everything, mind you.  But he was right about one very important fact.

In most political campaigns today, the candidates are always talking about all of the things that are wrong that need to be fixed.  President Reagan campaigned the other way.  He talked about the things that were right with America.  One of his most memorable speeches came at the 1976 GOP convention–the impromptu “Shining City on the Hill” speech.

Today, the candidates are all talking about the things that are wrong.  Even my own [former] candidate, Ron Paul, spoke a lot more about how we’re in trouble than how great things are.  Granted, if things don’t turn around we could soon be in a lot of trouble–but that should emphasize how important it is to focus on the positives and come up with ways to achieve even more positives.  In most of his speeches and writings, that’s what my [former] candidate did, even if the press marketed him as a grouchy old man.

But the two remaining candidates aren’t talking about ways to acheive positives.  And on the rare occasion that they do, their only answers are to spend more of your hard-earned money.  That’s where Dr. Paul became grouchy–every time he saw another candidate promise to throw away more of your money.

Of course the biggest (and easiest) way to save money is to bring our troops home and shut down our Empire’s foreign bases.  According to Chalmers Johnson at The History News Network, we have well over a half million Americans employed overseas by our military.

Our military deploys well over half a million soldiers, spies, technicians, teachers, dependents, and civilian contractors in other nations. To dominate the oceans and seas of the world, we are creating some thirteen naval task forces built around aircraft carriers whose names sum up our martial heritage — Kitty Hawk, Constellation, Enterprise, John F. Kennedy, Nimitz, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Carl Vinson, Theodore Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, John C. Stennis, Harry S. Truman, and Ronald Reagan. We operate numerous secret bases outside our territory to monitor what the people of the world, including our own citizens, are saying, faxing, or e-mailing to one another.

Even during the Cold War, we weren’t spread this far and wide despite the fact that we faced a real threat at that time.  The Soviet Union was a powerhouse that could readily match our military and technology.  Not like today where we are asked to live in fear of a medium-sized tribe of guys that live in caves who fight with weapons that we would hardly consider worthy of being peddled at the Army-Navy store.

To make matters worse, that minor threat wouldn’t be a threat at all if we hadn’t constantly been antagonizing them over the past 50+ years.  At least since the CIA orchestrated coup against Iran’s Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddeq in 1953 that included dressing as Mosaddeq supporters and firing machine gun bursts into crowds.  This is the kind of thing our government does, and then we’re asked to act shocked when “Islamic extremists terrorists” retaliate.

But it doesn’t have to be that way.  We can return to being the “shining city on the hill” if we stop believing all of the propaganda that our government puts out to convince us to let them become larger and more powerful.

Now, back to Reagan.  Things were rough in the 70’s and the early part of the 80’s.  In the 70’s there were long lines for gas.  Gas was relatively expensive (by the standards of the day) on those days that you could get it at all.  A lot of people panicked and worried that the country could never return to the glory days of the 50’s.  And they were right, it never did.  But it became better than it had been in the 50’s–different, and probably not as innocent, but in many ways better.  Part of that was due to having a leader who was an optimist.

That being said, although I still could never vote for Obama’s style of socialism; at least he is positive on occasion, and he has ideas even if his ideas are economically unrealistic.  On the other hand, McCain wants us to continue to live in fear, probably for the rest of our lives, of the boogeymen in the middle East.  He has no answers to the problems we face and most likely isn’t even aware of the questions.  This is definitely not an endorsement of Obama, but he probably is a slightly better choice than McCain–in much the same way that eating Tiger Tricholoma mushrooms is superior to dining on Pinkgills.

Fortunately, whichever clown wins; they will have only four years to screw things up worse.  During those four years, the Campaign for Liberty will do nothing but grow bigger and stronger.  The goal at this point is to get Ron Paul some help in the Congress and hopefully get a few like-minded folks elected to the Senate as well.  With this campaign and the masses that Dr. Paul has awakened from their apathy, within a few years we should have a few well-respected Senators and Congressmen that will make the current crop look even more ridiculous than they do now by contrast

That apex in the distance is looking bright again, indeed.

LMM aka losing my mind

For so long we have sent lawyer after lawyer to Washington (DC) to look out for our interests. The question is are we satisfied with what they have done? I know that I am not. In Congress Republicans and Democrats alike voted for the war, with the exception of Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul, and continue to vote yea for increased spending in Iraq–if they voted at all. Despite warnings about the coming economic crisis in this country from the former Comptroller General of the United States, who resigned his position in February of 2008, they chose to continue with the status quo and overspend, overspend, overspend.

They make promises that they cannot keep when it comes to the social programs and entitlement benefits in the United States. There are no funds for this. Our dollar is seriously devalued which is going to lead to ever increasing prices on everything. On one hand they say tax cuts while on the other promising one payer health care. Where are they planning to get the funding? As the dollar’s value continues to lessen–for many reasons such as the growing public debt, the growing removal of commodities pricing from the USD to the EU and the continued printing of dollars that aren’t backed by a gold standard–fewer countries are going to want to loan us money. We are already indebted to Japan and China to the tune of about $1 trillion.

Think about it. Let’s say you started a big business. You took many, many loans from the bank and consistently only pay on part of the interest and at the same time you borrow smaller amounts from friends claiming that when they retired you would take care of all of their expenses and medical care. You do this over a long period of time and your debt to the bank increases until you owe considerably more than your net worth. You still owe this debt to your friends whose contributions didn’t even come close to how much you are going to have to pay out to them and they are beginning to retire. The bank won’t loan you any more money, you owe huge sums to your friends and you aren’t even managing to pay the bills to keep your business running or even your home.

If you did this you would be in jail, but this is exactly what our government has been doing over time. And even in the much touted “balanced budget” Clinton years the federal debt (public debt) increased by more than $1.3 trillion according to TreasuryDirect.gov.

At some point this has to come to an end. Do you think sending the same kind of people over and over to DC is the answer? Did you know that at no point in the history of the United States has there been no public debt? That’s correct, not one single year. Isn’t it time to try something different? By all means, if you think things are great and that government is doing a very fine job go ahead and send one more typical politician to Washington. But if you think that it’s time for a change, if you think that it’s time that we begin to send Congress a message that we want change, then vote for someone who actually would be a change. Don’t send any more lawyers. If we get the choice, let’s send doctors and economists, physicists and chemists, philosophers and engineers. And if we can let’s send some basic, hard-working, real people who can really represent us–like plumbers, electricians and construction workers. Let’s even send hairdressers and dancers. Pretty much anyone else we send has got to do better than the lawyers have and a good mix of varying types of people would have to represent the interests of the people much better. Now we just have to find ones who are crazy enough to run.

Memorial Day was first celebrated to honor the war dead from the American Civil War. After World War I, it was expanded to include those who had fallen in any war. Today it has sort of devolved to a day of picnicking and auto racing.

Living in a military community, the meaning of the holiday is much more observable. It’s supposed to be a day where we contemplate those who die in war. Well, there is quite a lot to contemplate.

My job is teaching. I teach electronics to young Sailors and Marines. One of the things I wonder sometimes when I’m in front of one of my classes discussing transistors, is how many of the people sitting in those seats won’t be around in a few months–another casualty of our continued occupation of Iraq.

On the other hand, when I’m at home, I can’t help but imagine that my wife, a Navy Corpsman, could be sent to a combat zone pretty much at any time. Any of my students or my wife could become the next of the roughly 4,000 young men and women who will never return.

When I think of what it would be like to raise my two young sons without their mother, I think about all of the war dead who had young children who will never know their mother or father. Dad will never get to teach them how to bait a hook, how to start a campfire, how to throw a football. Mom will never get to lecture them about how important it is to enunciate their words (sorry, Mom, I couldn’t resist).

I have all these great memories of the things my mother and father did for me and taught me. So many kids won’t have that.

And why won’t they have that? The neo-Cons want us to believe that it is to protect our security. Yet, the vast majority (including the CIA) recognizes that our involvement in the affairs of other nations puts us at higher risk. So what’s the real reason? Cheap oil? Have you compared the price of a barrel of oil today to the price at the start of this war? If that’s the purpose then it isn’t working.

Recently, I read an article about the billions of unaccounted dollars that the Defense Department has misplaced. That is BILLIONS of dollars. And there is the real reason. It’s usually the reason for wars–money, property, and power.

So to all you war orphans, you’ll never get to have those great memories of your Mom because a few people wanted to have a lot of money and power, but they didn’t want to earn it.

Our military housing authority is having a contest where people can submit essays about what Memorial Day means. I should submit this–somehow I don’t think it would win.

I so love the Onion. When I need a good laugh nothing, with the exception of a bucket of popcorn, big glass of psyllium husk thickened water (don’t ask) and the company of a really good and equally sarcastic friend with whom to watch Mystery Science Theatre 3000, can compare to the Onion.

So thanks to StumbleUpon Stumbler FerretMom, my really good and equally sarcastic friend, for stumbling me this webpage:

www.theonion.com/content/news/obama_clinton_mccain_join_forces

I can’t tell you how much I needed the laugh.

One of my favorite lines was: “At the top of the platform is a military strategy calling for the phased withdrawal of .000006 brigades from Iraq and Afghanistan every seven months over the next 350 years.”

Sadly I had forgotten that during an election year one must not only submerse oneself in the issues but also partake of the vast buffet of political humor. As usual, the Onion does not disappoint.

Thanks, FerretMom, for the reminder. In times of trouble one must always temper the stress with laughter.

wishing you all much laughter,

Serena