The Answer? The Wednesday Afternoon Club:
Good Morning Middle America, it’s spring time in the
Our mountain stream in the back yard is now a river as the ample snow pack is giving way to warmer weather. We’re told that sandbags may be in order by mid May. I swear if it’s not one thing it’s another.
The stock markets are rocketing up as a last ditch effort to hold on to investor money and attract more commissions before it goes back down. There is no earthly reason for the markets to go up, other than the good news that banks lost fewer billions than expected. Geez.
The general economy remains the main focus of the nation primarily because if you don’t have a job for a long time you either starve to death or have to go down and talk to the government welfare people, which creates a tough choice.
Change will come when neighbors get together and agree to make those changes. Neighbors will get together when those on either side are open to a meeting on Wednesday afternoon, because none of the three have a job to mess up their social schedule.
In the
Speaking of monopoly, the game and our system are identical, the game just goes faster. Monopoly is pure unchecked gorilla capitalism that results in one person having all the money at the end of the game. The difference is that at the end of the game, you divide the money back up and play again. In real life, those who have all the money get to keep it.
This brings me to the announcement yesterday that between Citigroup and AT&T, they plan to cut 13,600 jobs. Those people will then be out of the Monopoly game and free to meet on Wednesday afternoon to discuss the economy which now looks much different to them, than it did last week.
Even the mega drug maker Eli Lilly, has announced a reduction in force (as in, you’re fired) of 500 employees. But Americans have become so calloused to bad news and so detached from reality, that it takes both us and our neighbors being out of work to sound the wake up alarm.
In this month of April, back in 2003, we heard that
Yet, five long years later and thousands dead, we scarcely blink when the news reports that 100 Iraqi’s were killed when a bomb went off in a market. Or that 5 of our Marines were killed with a roadside bomb. That’s because it wasn’t us or our loved ones that were killed. Anyway, we don’t have time to think about these things, American Idol is coming on.
As hard core as this may sound, this reporter can hardly wait until neighbors are free on Wednesday afternoon to plan a grass roots strategy for taking
Wake up
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Below is a notice given by Ron Paul 8 years ago, attempting to warn us of our fate if we allowed our politicians to keep their insane agenda in gear and throttled up. Today we are feeling some of the results. These results are only the beginning unless action by large masses of citizens (that is you and me) of the country decide to become informed and participate. If we choose to remain ignorant with hopes that our corrupt government will fix it again, we can only hope the large masses are preparing for the events coming our way in the near future, as a much required insurance policy for their futures. -bb
by Ron Paul, Dr. October 30, 2000
An extraordinary event occurred this week in Washington during the final days of the 106th Congress, an event that did not receive comment in either the media or the halls of Congress, save for my office. This event had been termed “unthinkable” only a few months earlier. It occurred despite clear constitutional prohibitions and at the expense of our precious national sovereignty. For the first time in the history of our country, Congress voted to change our domestic laws because an international body told us to do so. The World Trade Organization (WTO) has begun to dictate American laws.
More specifically, Congress voted to change our tax laws relating to Foreign Sales Corporations (FSCs), solely because the WTO appellate panel deemed that our FSC tax rules constituted a “subsidy” - the EU contingent in the WTO had brought a complaint to the panel. Our FSC rules simply allow U.S. corporations to exempt a small portion of income earned abroad from taxes. No “subsidy” is involved; no tax dollars are given to FSCs. Moreover, most EU countries do not tax their corporations on any income earned abroad. Still, the appellate panel agreed with the EU and gave the U.S an October 1st deadline to change our tax laws.
I have opposed our membership in the WTO throughout my tenure in Congress. I strongly support true free trade, which occurs in the absence of government tariffs. The WTO, however, represents the worst form of government-managed trade.
More importantly, however, our involvement in the WTO threatens national sovereignty. The Constitution clearly vests the power to regulate trade solely with Congress, and Congress cannot cede with mandates in areas such as environmental protections, worker rights, and trade policy. Congress either blindly or willfully chose to ignore this very serious constitutional conflict when it voted in favor of WTO membership. However, a Congressional Research Service report was quite clear about the consequences of our membership: “As a member of the WTO, the United States does commit to act in accordance with the rules of the multi-lateral body. It is legally obligated to insure that national laws do not conflict with WTO rules,” (emphasis added).
Earlier this year I sought to address this terrible threat to our sovereignty by introducing a resolution withdrawing us from the WTO. I explained my concerns in a brief to the House Ways and Means trade subcommittee, pointing out the unconstitutionality of our involvement. I warned that the WTO could begin dictating our environmental, labor, and tax laws. These arguments were met with hostility and condescension. Subcommittee members stated that we need the WTO to avoid “trade wars,” and that the U.S. Congress would never change our domestic laws to satisfy the WTO. “Unthinkable” was how one member put it. Judging by this week’s vote, the “unthinkable” has become reality.
We should never change our national laws at the behest of any international organization. Congress simply has ceded its legislative authority to the WTO, and it is shameful that this action likely will go unnoticed by the American people. If we want to help American businesses, we should simply stop taxing their foreign income. The FSC measure will not appease the Europeans; the EU already has indicated that the changes are unsatisfactory to them. We stand on the brink of a retaliatory trade war with the EU, even though we were told that the WTO was needed to avoid such conflicts. So the WTO has given us the worst of all worlds.
Rest assured that the WTO assault on American sovereignty will not end here. What will happen when the Europeans object to another area of our tax laws? Will we change the way we tax individuals also? Perhaps the Europeans will object to our relatively liberal immigration laws, because they resent losing their talented citizens to America. Whatever the issue, the threat remains the same. Americans who care about sovereignty have every reason to be outraged.
The foresight of Ron Paul has always been evident but perhaps best demonstrated by his constant resistance and the ill results to America, of world government.
The rich live in all countries in the world and have sat down at a world sized game of monopoly. Our leaders have signed us up for a winner take all marathon.
The Paranoia press
April 20, 2008
Dear Mike,
where there is risk of confusion, there should be a way to set people on the path to the correct thinking process… not to push them but to just keep nudging them lightly and with kindness, sooner ( we hope, than later ) maybe people will understand how bad things really are .AND maybe pull thier heads out of the sand, unglaze thier eyes and really SEE for the first time, I have a story about my daughter , after the first horrible trauma she had ever gone through ( and it was very bad ) she said she felt like a puppy who had just opened it”s eyes and saw for the first time……
Hmmm a black guy , a woman and an old guy…. Makes you wonder if it is not all a set up for someone to take the fall for all that has gone wrong, and will go wrong in the next four years….It should get horrible in that time and who will be blamed … With the short memory of the people of this country. MY bet is on whomever is the president at the moment..
Sincerely,
Noway , ( do not worry I am the paranoia press .
disambiguation is my game
Noway,
Welcome to the site and thanks for commenting.
I’ve learned to take cues from people’s body language when they don’t want to hear the truth, if that truth is bad news.
Often, planting the seed, such as simply saying that we are literally running out of oil, does the trick and later they will ask, what do you think about this or that? And I know at that point, they are thinking on their own.
Time is the problem; we don’t have much of it. But, there is not a whole lot that can be done until the point that 50% or more of the people, “open their eyes and see for the first time.”