Pridger vs. the New World Order

Another Hollywood extravaganza seems to have the movie critics in a dither. This time it's Mel Gibson's "Passion," a whole movie that "vividly depicts" only the last 12 hours of Jesus' life. From what little I've heard, and made a point of reading, the producers seem to have gone the extra mile to graphically portray the goriest and most gruesome details of those last 12 hours (apparently the worst that screen writers could imagine, using the Hollywood's most highly sophisticated "gore-magic" special effects), and turned them into a heart throbbing "reality TV" experience for religious movie goers. Almost everybody who has seen the movie thus far report that they have been powerfully "moved" by the feature in some way, pro or con. As the name suggests, it is intended to raise passions in viewers.

The producers of Passion have apparently chosen a rather strange way of getting any sort of "Christian" message across to the movie-going public -- if that was their intention at all. The message that Jesus taught, and was ultimately sacrificed for, was not manifested in the last twelve hours of his life, and any pain and suffering that may have immediately preceded his death. But both Hollywood, and much of the movie-going public, love graphic and gory "realism" mixed with high drama. If that high drama and gore can be mixed with what can be construed as "important" subject matter, so much the better.

Given it's religious/historical theme, Passion apparently hopes to draw upon a potentially wider audience that the ordinary blood and gore "Terminator" type of movie. Pridger imagines the movie must have an R-rating in order to draw youthful viewers in spite of its religious subject matter, though it would seem highly unlikely the producers have been able to pack in very many torrid sex scenes or contemporary "adult language," though they are quite adept as such artistic gymnastics.

This is another of today's highly acclaimed cinematic masterpieces that Pridger will be glad to miss. If he ever sees it, it will be when it pops up in a year or two on one of his satellite channels. As in the case of the also highly acclaimed "Shindler's Lists," Pridger will probably turn it off before he's exposed to the full magnitude of heart rending drama and gore the the movie apparently has to offer. Ten minutes into that movie, Pridger (who happens to be of Anglo-German ancestry), was already beginning to feel that we have a moral duty to initiate a preemptive war of extermination on all Germans that survived World War Two. Well made movies can be very powerful passion arousers.

It isn't surprising that the Anti-defamation League (ADL), which whole-heartedly embraced and promoted Shindler's Lists, has taken a somewhat dim view of Passion of Christ movie. Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director said, "The film unambiguously portrays Jewish authorities and the Jewish mob as the ones responsible for the decision to crucify Jesus. We are deeply concerned that the film, if released in its present form, could fuel the hatred, bigotry and anti-Semitism that many responsible churches have worked hard to repudiate."

Pridger would have said almost the same thing about Shindler's Lists, which tended to fuel a feeling of hatred and loathing toward Germans by reinforcing the notion of collective German guilt for the death of six million Jews at the hands of the Nazis.

Oh, there were some "good" Germans in the Shindler's List movie, of course -- like, perhaps, Shindler himself. Likewise, there must be some good Jews in the Passion movie -- like, maybe, Jesus himself, and his followers who became the early Christians. But it is sometimes difficult for emotional movie viewers to sort such things out.

The ADL is right, the Passion movie will fuel hatred and anti-Semitic feelings in some people, just as Shindler's List fueled hatred and anti-German feelings in some people. Never mind that the Jews of today are not the small group who agitated for Christ's crucifixion two thousand years ago, and that the Germans who engineered the "final solution" sixty years ago have already passed to their final reward.

In both cases we should be endeavoring to "forgive and forget," which is one of the prime imperatives of the Christian message (while carefully preserving the historical record, and learning history's relevant lessons, of course). Unfortunately, there are those who prefer to "never forgive, and never forget, lest it happen again" -- meticulously preserving feelings of hatred, and always pointing the finger of blame and seeking to make it the collective and ongoing guilt of the living innocent.

If a situation could be imagined where politicians and national policy makers actually thought ahead and planned for the future, how do you suppose they could best go about the business of destroying American economic independence and the working middle class?

1. In the name of all that is right and just, they would declare the high goal of putting the entire world on the very same path to broad-based freedom and prosperity that had brought freedom and prosperity to America.

2. They would point out that only in a free and prosperous world, could we hope to enjoy a world free from war and want.

3. They would prey upon Americans’ sense of justice with the appeal that they had a duty to the rest of the world to see that all poor nations and peoples were given the opportunity to enjoy the same degree of “modernity” and levels of consumption that Americans enjoy.

4. They would declare international free trade good, carefully stressing the word “FREE” so that the people would know that it had to be good.

5. They would pronounce that trade protectionism is bad, because it restricts freedom of trade – always stressing that anything that restricts any kind of “freedom” naturally has to be bad.

6. They would carefully point out that, “history had proven” (thus it is a transcendental truth), “that if trade did not cross borders, armies will,” thus nationalism and protectionism are forms of warmongering, and free trade is a prime requisite of world peace.

7. They would point out that national trade protectionism unfairly protects inefficient industries at home and unfairly provides them with an artificially “protected” market, so they can overcharge American consumers and deprive them of the full potential array of marketplace choices.

8. They would make sure the public was aware that only by opening our markets to foreign competition, could the American consumer ever hope to get a square deal in the consumer marketplace.

9. They would state over and over again that unrestricted competition is the essence and life-blood of the capitalist system, and weeds out the weak and inefficient, in favor of the strong and vigorous, so that the consumer will be able to choose the best products at the most competitive prices.

10. They would constantly reassure American labor, telling it that free international competition is good for them too – that American labor, being the most productive in the world, was unassailable and had nothing to fear from foreign competition – that if some jobs were lost, an abundance of new, higher quality, emerging industries and jobs would always more than compensate for loss of inefficient industries and “unnecessary” or “undesirable” jobs.

11. We would be given to believe that we were progressing beyond being merely an industrial nation, and were to becoming a post industrial “service economy,” wherein dirty industrial jobs were being replaced by clean service jobs, jobs in high tech industries, jobs in financial industries, and a whole new array of “knowledge worker” jobs in computers and telecommunications.

12. They would convince us that trade, and not actual production, was the key to wealth creation and prosperity, and that if we were to get our fair share of the international trade bonanza, all we’d have to do is produce more to sell to the rest of the world and become an exporting economy in addition to being a service economy.

13. They would carefully point out that for American companies to be able to successfully compete with foreign producers, and sell their wares abroad, they would have to be freed from all regulatory restraints which gave foreign competitors an advantage in international markets.

14. They would refer to deregulation of industry and capital as “getting government off of the backs of the people” – implying that deregulation was really a new birth of freedom for everybody in a free nation and increasingly open and free world.

15. As domestic markets were opened to cheap foreign imports, and retail stores increasingly stocked with obvious bargains for the consumer, the consuming public would constantly be reminded that they had free international markets and free trade to thank for their new found purchasing power.

16. The resulting benefits of the “new international economic order” would constantly be played up, and any down-side impacts would be termed merely the temporary “growing pains” of progress at work.

17. They would declare that the increase in our balance of trade deficit was merely a temporary phenomenon, which would automatically be corrected as American industries gradually became more internationally competitive and successfully penetrated foreign markets with American products.

18. As more and more good industries and jobs were exported, or otherwise lost to the foreign competition, and people began to feel slightly betrayed, it would be repeatedly reiterated that the inconvenience was merely temporary, and that it was a small but necessary price to pay for helping the underprivileged and poor in other parts of the world rise to modernity and affluence – so they could eventually become able to purchase American products just as we are now fortunate enough to be able to purchase theirs.

19. As the results of globalism continued to take an increasingly unacceptable toll in terms of industry and job loss in America, they would constantly remind us that we have a duty to the rest of the world, and that it would be inhumane to neglect that duty – that turning back the clock and returning to the former policies (that once made this a great and always increasingly prosperous nation), would be nothing short of a selfish and criminal act.

20. The increasingly profitable multi-corporations under globalism, and the phenomenal increase of Wall Street stock values of the eighties and nineties would be used as evidence of the success of globalism and free trade. The public would be constantly reminded that, in spite of some job losses and a few isolated hardships, they too were beneficiaries and stakeholders in the wealth of Wall Street, however miniscule that stake might be to most individuals.

21. When “jobless economic recoveries” became common, we’d be told that it was the economic recovery that was important and not the job – never fear, the jobs would naturally follow.

22. When the Stock Market bubble sprang a serious leak, we’d be assured that it was nothing that more international trade and free markets could not speedily correct, propelling us to even greater wealth and prosperity in the future bull markets after the shakeout of a few corrupt corporations.

23. When people became alarmed at the unabated and increasing volume of job losses, we’d be told that we just had to be retrained for the better jobs that were certainly on the way – and unemployment compensation benefits were extended along with job training programs.

24. At every juncture, where the public discovers that such things as free trade, deregulation, NAFTA, WTO, et. al., actually work against the bests interests of the majority of the people, favoring the moneyed classes, they would be confronted with the hard truth that it's "too late, it's a done deal - and we have to live with the new realities. Anyway, it is undoubtedly all for the best anyway. Just be patient, this is going to take some time."

25. When the specter of wholesale outsourcing of a whole array of “knowledge worker” jobs caused some alarm – the very sort of jobs that were supposed to be the savior of American labor, and provide good jobs for downsized dirty industry labor and welfare dropouts – we’d be reassured that the government is considering some sort of a job stimulus package.

These are just a few of the things we’ve been told during the formative and maturing years of the new international economic order. They are the very things that one might have expected to hear from our trusty leaders in Washington, had they actually had the foresight to have carefully planned, with malicious intent, the destruction of what was once the world’s most productive, prosperous, and self-reliant agricultural and industrial nation in the history of nations – the one with the broadest-based prosperity and most affluent middle class that had ever been known.

America today, is essentially living on a combination of accumulated social credit, the remnants of our once robust industrial base, foreign trade, and government entitlements (on credit, at very high interests rates). Our nation and its future are mortgaged to the competition, including Red China. With cakes and circuses aplenty, few of us want to rock the boat, and our politicians and global village apologists gloat that we have no right to complain, for “We’ve never had it so good!” Yes, we the people remain over-fed, over-entertained, and have a lot of gadgets and toys – and that’s why we do not yet have general chaos in the streets, with full-fledged revolution waiting in the wings.

We are now an extraordinarily vulnerable nation, both economically and strategically, thanks to national policy decision makers over several decades. Though we are the world’s only remaining superpower, the economy backing our military establishment depends upon the foreign competition – including potential enemy states and at least one giant nation maneuvering to become the next great superpower.

Just think what would happen if something totally upset our economic apple cart. For instance, what if trade with Asia or any other major trade area was interrupted for any appreciable length of time? It would be economically and socially catastrophic, because we have become so dependent on foreign trade that our markets (both on Wall Street and Main Street), would be forced to shut down. What if Wal-Mart collapsed? (“Ouch! Where would we get our stuff?) That could happen, you know. All it would take would be for China to make its long-awaited move on Taiwan – or for our Commander-in-chief to out-do himself with his war-making prowess. A major blow-up in the Middle East (still not beyond the realm of possibility) might shut down the oil and make it difficult, or extraordinarily expensive, to get fruits and vegetables from Mexico and the Imperial Valley to New York City and elsewhere.

This isn’t merely unfounded alarmist thinking. It’s simply pointing out what could all too easily happen. Are we prepared? No, of course not, and we’d rather not think about it. We’ve got all we can handle, and more, just securing the nation against a small rag-tag bunch of terrorists.

We weren’t prepared for 9-11 though our leaders knew very well that something like that was not only in the cards, but inevitable. 9-11 changed the nation, and world, as we had known them. As terrible as the tragedy was, it was relatively minor compared to any number of things which could still happen.

If Pridger wasn’t a conspiracy buff, he’d have no choice but to lay the entire blame for all of this squarely on the backs of our elected officials over the period of half a century and more. But we all know that our trusty elected leaders could not have intentionally done all of this. In aggregate, they lacked the motive, the avarice of purpose, and the foresight for such long-term planning and policy decisions. Yet, nonetheless, they have successfully pulled it off, and here we are in the wonderful new world they have been a proud party to creating.

The inevitable results of their policies and course of action have always been obvious to a perceptive few, and ample warnings were sounded throughout the process. But these many timely warning have always been carefully disregarded and meticulously discredited by the highly paid and motivated “experts” – skillfully assisted by the most highly skilled ad men and propaganda machinery that money can buy.

Because Congress and the presidential material that has occupied the White House during the subject period were patently incapable of the accomplishments that have been attributed to them, one must look elsewhere for answers to the grand riddle. If not Congress and the White House (and, of course, the Supreme Court does its share), then who or what bears the responsibility for the apparently meticulously planned and executed “progress” we have enjoyed for so many decades? That, of course, is the empirical question. How could it have happened in broad daylight with everybody’s eyes wide open? Was there a conspiracy, or has it simply been “progress” and “happy happenstance”? If there is a conspiracy, what is its real purpose?

While the greater public is always intrigued by conspiracies and conspiracy theory, it nonetheless tends to be both pragmatic and somewhat trusting of the broad political institutions to which it has become accustomed. The public usually takes comfort in the stability of the “establishment” in its totality. Thus, any serious notion of conspiracy tends to be met with broad skepticism. Such things are rebuffed, discounted, or ignored (as in “See no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil”). Such a large conspiracy, that could accomplish such massive national and international change without being exposed, seems beyond the realm of possibility, and taxes even the imagination of most people. The larger public believes (because they have so often been assured), that only in the minds of quirky and paranoid misfits could such things be imagined, rationalized, and believed.

But yes, my friends, there is a conspiracy. It has been exposed many times and, in fact, stands fully exposed but for the refusal of people to see it. Most exposures of the conspiracy, however, have been like the story of the blind men feeling different parts and appendages of the elephant and describing it to skeptical listeners. They all know it’s there, but each gets a different feel. Then there are the other blind men (the rest of us), listening in, scratching their heads in wonder at the different descriptions of what is supposedly one great beast. They finally determine that there is no such beast, since none of the descriptions can be added up into a credible whole.

In fact there are several overlapping conspiracies, which combine to move things along in a predetermined direction. There are active conspiracies, made up of actual thinkers, manipulators, and movers and shakers (often with altruistic visions of global peace, prosperity, and profits), who have a grand plan. There are the pro-active conspirators who are more than just willing tools to do the bidding of the more active conspirators. Then there are the passive, usually unwitting, accomplices whose motives are strictly personal self-interest rather than any eagerness to further any grand scheme.

There is, of course, the perennial conspiracy of the array of moneyed interests, and the conspiracy of other agents of avarice. And there is a conspiracy to undermine the nation itself and its political, religious, and cultural traditions and identity (though the principles would say they are the agents of progressive change). Some pundits and advocate groups have begun referring to the latter as the “Cultural Wars.” And there is the unwitting conspiracy of the ignorant, the gullible, and the helpless – all putty and pawns in the hands of the various groups shaping our destiny.

Taken in their aggregate (though they represent an array of apparently unrelated self-interest groups), “THEY” constitute a single grand conspiracy with a common purpose. That purpose is power – and the stability and control (over global resources and peoples) which only that power can exert – to insure they remain in power in perpetuity.

All of us fit into the picture somewhere. If we are not active or proactive participants in the conspiracy, we usually serve as willing or unwitting tools. Either we’re part of the beast, or we’re among the blind men – feeling the tail, the trunk, a leg, the belly – or among the multitudes declaring that no such beast could possibly exist.

It is worth noting, that though there have been ongoing threads of the “modern” new world order conspiracy for well over two centuries, it took the industrial revolution, modern global warfare, and the development of the modern sciences of psychiatry and psychology – and the advent of “think tanks” (which now do the actual thinking for most of our elected representatives and chief executives), to really give it wings. Ironically, the collapse of the USSR and the threat of international communism was also a significant turning point.

Chock up another of our national forays into nation building as somewhat shy of total success. American Marines have landed in Haiti again, in attestation of our nation-building prowess. It seems that the president we helped install has not quite succeeded in bringing peace and prosperity to the pitiful and forlorn shores of the hemisphere’s oldest independent black republic. It’s also the poorest, and apparently unhappiest, though ideally situated in what was once a lush tropical island paradise.

I’m hard pressed to recall any real successes we’ve enjoyed in the realm of nation building. I’ve probably forgotten some attempts, of course. We remake nations (often clandestinely), and move on to other important things – like Monday night football, the exciting surrender and manacling of Michael Jackson, or Janet Jackson’s latest publicity stunt on prime time sports. Once the media moves out after our triumphs, the places seem to cease to exist until our marines have to land again to protect multi-national assets and the diplomatic community.

Liberia is Africa’s oldest independent black republic, and about as poor and unhappy as its new world counterpart of Haiti. It has one thing going for it. Its “singled starred,” red, white, and blue “old glory” flies proudly from the masts and staffs of modern merchant ships throughout the world, putting our own national merchant marine to shame. Like Panama, it is the runaway flag registration home of choice for a great fleet of merchant vessels owned by multi-national corporations (many of them American). Since the climate in Monrovia, the capital, is rather sticky, the country’s national merchant marine registrar and licensing offices were outsourced to New York City many years before the latest rounds of bloodletting.

At least we wisely refrained from taking up nation building in Liberia – in spite of its “Made in America” label. The last time the opportunity presented itself, the Marines went in to rescue foreign diplomats, and (presumably) got out again while the getting was good. Apparently, the administration decided that the idea of nation building in Liberia was totally hopeless – even though Liberia was our own step-child, and the results of our very first (semi-official), attempt at nation building on foreign shores. I haven’t heard much about what’s going on in Liberia lately. Last I read, it was still in total chaos and going steadily down hill. I guess it’s still there, but the media has more important subjects at hand right now. Like the Oscars and the Grammies, reality TV, and, of course, building a new and better Iraq. Oh, and the latest developments in the gay marriage debate…

President Bush is proposing an amendment to the United States Constitution, which will define “marriage” as a union between a man and a woman. I’ll have to admit, that such an amendment appears warranted and necessary. It appears that the Constitution is going to have to be enlarged into sort of a dictionary of the English language. It wasn’t all that long ago that literally everybody knew that marriage was the union between a man and a woman. Nobody was in the least confused on the matter. Such elementary things had been known and taken for granted since long before the dawn of civilization as we know it.

I suspect we’ll eventually have to amend the constitution to define what “human life” is, what “natural” means, what “organic” means, what “accidental” means, what “Weapons of Mass Destruction” means. It became apparent during the Clinton administration that we also need to define what “is” is.

Before we start passing amendments to define words, maybe we ought to pass an amendment that makes it perfectly clear that the Constitution was originally (and still is) written in English, and that the words used and defined are English words. This, of course, to avoid future confusion.

Amending the constitution is supposed to be very serious business. Making it into a dictionary of the English language would seem ridiculous to traditionalists and conservatives, but (really), what harm can be done? Few really take it very seriously any more. The government largely ignores it. Besides, it is coming to our attention (thanks to the ACLU), that it is actually a fraudulent document, predicated, as it is, on (and drawing its authority and legitimacy from), the Declaration of Independence, which invoked the authoritiy of the Creator, and His Divine Guidance, and the God-given rights of man as the the basis for creating a new nation -- all extraordinary violations of the separation of church and state.

If the Constitution's authority was based upon a "God-given right" to declare independence from the Mother Country, the Constitution itself is in gross violation of the establishment clause of its own very First Amendment. It can hardly be considered a valid and binding document. If it isn't valid in the first place, what harm can be done by amending it any which way?

Apparently, this is why many of our elected representatives can take a solemn oath to protect and defend the Constitution (and make all kinds of other promises), and then turn around and ignore those oaths and promises. They feel their promises are not binding because the Constitution itself is invalid -- and the Bible upon which they swear is but a necessary (though somewhat embarrassing), prop used to reassure the people, who still not only believe in the validity of the Constitution, but that this is a "Nation Under God."

With his stance against gay marriage, Bush is in danger of losing the support of the “Log Cabin Republicans” – so-called, apparently, because they are staunch conservatives of the rugged frontier, Lincolnesque, style. The only difference between Log Cabin Republicans and other Republicans is that they have adopted a rather macho sounding name – that, and the fact that some Loggies might tend to want to marry other Loggies (or maybe even Democrats), of the same sex. Otherwise, they are just as ruggedly conservative as any Republican group can be.

Homosexuals are generally pretty smart and pragmatic people. They point out that their fight for marriage rights is little different than other civil rights struggles – racial equality, sexual equality, etc. – and like breaking our former ban on interracial marriages. They consider themselves just another long oppressed minority seeking simple justice. I guess they have a point. Homosexuals have been denied legalized marriage rights in almost every culture in the world throughout recorded history. Beyond doubt, that is discrimination. But other minorities are awakening to the fact that new forms of discrimination are forming and likely to increase in the future if they aren’t nipped in the bud right now.

For example, Pridger is a member of an increasingly oppressed minority too. He happens to be a poor, working-class, heterosexual, male (white and protestant to boot!), and sees no reason why such heterosexual males shouldn’t be allowed to band together in legally recognized holy matrimony. Such unions could provide loving families and homes for (among other things), attractive orphaned female teenagers. Male chauvinist warthog that he is, Pridger would not deny exactly the same franchise to the fairer sex. The same marriage privileges should be available to heterosexual old maids (and even young ladies), who may wish to provide loving homes for handsome young male orphans. Pridger realizes that the proposal may sound a little radical and outrageous now, but why should we heterosexuals be counted out of the “same sex marriage franchise” that homosexuals seek? It must be realized that we are people too, and have an equal right to alternative life-styles. Who has a right to judge us inferior?

Perhaps we need a constitutional amendment to end all discrimination. The amendment would mandate that an universal "me too" clause automatically be appended to all potentially exclusive or discriminatroy federal and state laws. Maybe natural persons could even be made the statutory equals of the "artificial persons" known as corporations.

Let’s change the subject before it gets even more ridiculous than the foregoing…

Some people wonder why Pridger believes there has been, and is, an ongoing international conspiracy to subvert America and deliver up a New World Order in which our great nation has become little more than the largest, most profitable, market (or dumping ground), on the main street of a global village – powerless to control its own national economic destiny. It’s a long story – far too long to put down in a single blog post. It will take some time, and many posts, to explain. But we all know that a new order is here, and a lot of people are beginning to awaken to the fact that there is a serious down-side to that the promoters neglected to tell us.

When was any American (other than our staunch mis-representatives in Washington), offered the opportunity to vote on whether or not our nation would be integrated into a global village? When did we vote on our national transition from national independence and self-reliance to international interdependence and total dependence on international trade for all hope of prosperity and economic survival? How did we get trapped in circumstances beyond any possibility of any “popular” control of our national destiny? Who figured out this Utopian global village idea and foisted it upon us? Who or what could have manipulated things in such as way that we now awaken to totally new realities, and find ourselves the “subjects” of a new International Order? Us! “We the People,” of the U.S.A. – a nation so uniquely endowed with such an abundance of natural and human resources as to make us capable of true economic independence with prosperity for all – the wonder and former hope of the free world? How did we get here – while most of us continued believing we were, and continue to be, the greatest and most independent nation in the world? And why isn’t opting out of New World Order globalism even an option on the table? How has it come down to us as a “done deal”?

Unfortunately, the “plan” was so ingenious and well thought out that unwitting public support for the New World Order was assured and has become automatic – as if every one of us has marched dutifully to the polls and voted in favor of national economic and cultural suicide. To give you an idea what I mean, every American who passes through the Wal-Mart checkout counter these days effectively casts another vote for the exportation of American factories, industries, and jobs. But we all do it, because circumstances have been ingeniously rigged to prey upon the universal weaknesses of the consuming public. We vote with our pocket books, and international capital has seen to it that we have plenty of attractive “bargains” to choose from in every hometown marketplace. Wal-Mart cannot even be faulted. It’s in business to make a profit while underselling everybody else. That’s business, and the law of the markets. In the global economy, political and economic power has been relinquished to the manipulators of international markets for fun and profit. This circumstance has been proclaimed extraordinarily good by politicians and academic schools of economics alike – all corporately paid, of course, and totally devoted to the law of market without political boundaries.

The public is supposed to believe that we have arrived at the current state of affairs through the natural and unavoidable progression of “progress at work” and “happy happenstance” – inevitable, for better or worse. Pridger is no great fan of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, but he said a mouthful when opined that (to paraphrase), “Nothing in politics happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet that it was planned that way.” Stay tuned.

Now that we’re in the “Wonderful New World” (as Pridger’s old Pappy used to call it), both trade protectionism and any degree of isolationism are considered to be as anachronistic and barbaric as “honest money” or the gold standard. Not a single major candidate will get up before the public and seriously suggest that the nation ought to return to market protectionism to save American industries and jobs. Not one will suggest that the government ought to get back into the business of regulating large corporations in order to keep them loyal to the flag and beholden to American labor. The new era of the hegemony of predatory capital unleashed is too far advanced for that. What we are experiencing today is a globalized version of what gave capitalism its bad name back in the day of the robber barons, and what made Marxist doctrine so appealing to so many until the demise of the USSR.

Why won’t our candidates for Congress and the presidency repudiate the policies that have delivered us to our present economic impasse? The main reason is that elected officialdom has become beholden to international capital (embodied in Gnomes of Wall Street financial markets), and capital has become their true constituency and paymasters. While the public pays their salaries, the corporate powers of the global marketplace fund their campaigns and get them elected to office. They worship at the altar of Mammon, and Mammon is their master. Even those representatives that do not actually worship at the altar of Mammon, must act as if they do in order get elected to office.

Ralph Nader has recently announced his candidacy for president as an Independent. He won’t be elected, of course, but he’ll tell it like it is when it comes to the corporate influence in Washington. Hopefully, he will be allowed to get his message across before he’s once again relegated to the darkest recesses of backstage politics. It will be interesting to see how much exposure the media will allow Nader during his candidacy, especially now that even some establishment media personalities are beginning to question our trade policies (most notably, CNN’s Lou Dobbs’ ongoing “Exporting America” news series). Pridger gives Nader credit where credit is due, but has taken issue with some of his many “consumer advocate excesses” during his formative years.

Lou Dobbs, of CNN, is also finally raising some serious issues, and asking some troublesome questions about our “Open Borders” immigration policies on his nightly news program. One wonders if these major media forays into the subjects of “Exporting America” and “Open Borders” might be the pre-curser to a high level shift in media policy outlook. CNN may be exploring (perhaps in hopes of preempting other networks on the issues) what it perceives as a major shift in public awareness and concern of the seriousness of these problems and their causes.

Public opinion (at least once it has become broad and strong enough), still counts for something in this country. At some point even the major media has to confront public opinion aberrations they have been unable to stem. Ordinarily, the media is pretty much in control of public opinion, and able to steer it in the direction they wanted it to go. But if a large enough segment of the public takes its own head on important issues, the media will be forced to reassess its own positions or risk total loss of public confidence. Already a large minority of the news-viewing public, “trust the major media about as much as they trust their government.” ABC, for example, continues to shoot itself in the foot each year by airing their famed Peter Jennings narrated documentary about the Kennedy assassination, which reaffirms, and purportedly “proves,” the validity of the Warren Commission Report, and the “lone gunman” assassination scenario. They do this in loving memory of our 35th president on the anniversary of his assassination.

While the problem of illegal immigration gets considerable attention in today’s press, no candidate is about to suggest a solution that would offend any sizable minority group. In other words (sorry to break this news): “Cure is impossible. But we must treat the symptoms by doubling the dosage of the drugs that initially caused the disease.” This goes for globalism and free trade, as well as immigration.

After occupying the high ground for some time, we now find ourselves on a slippery slope. It’s much easier to continue doing down than to get back up on top of the situation – even if there is nothing but an unending plain of quicksand at the bottom.

There’s no easy fix for our predicament, so we must go with the flow. The flow, of course, is more globalism. It’s now on autopilot, and the autopilot has no regard for the human condition as we have known it.

As for trade “protectionism,” it must be remembered that any government, no matter how wisely conceived, instituted, and administered is (first and foremost), a protection racket. The only question is whether it protects the “right to life liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” of its citizens, as well as its own self-interests – or abandons the people in favor of protecting something else – like concentrating its protection upon corporations and moneyed interests at the expense of the masses. This has been true throughout human history — since the first embryo of government was established by the strongest and wiliest bully in the family clan.

When the United States came into being, and its form of government established, the founders broke with all former molds. Our government imposed strict constitutional limitations upon its powers, and was formed in the name of “We the People,” rather than “We the Divinely Ordained Rulers and Oligarchs,” and was predicated upon the notion that all men enjoy unalienable God-given rights. In less than a century corporations became superior to natural persons in their array of “rights” and privilege. In less than another century, capital was unleashed to dominate, exploit, and administer the world and its formerly sovereign governments. And today we even see a strong movement cranking up to remove the notion of the Divine Rights of Man, and the name of God and Christianity from the national culture and identity.

Well, we’re the world’s only remaining superpower (and many have forgotten how power corrupts). There are many who believe we’re big enough to go it alone and run this world ourselves – without any pretense of seeking either God’s approval or protection. (Just another anachronistic remnant of our barbaric past.) The determined march away from our spirtual moorings notwithstanding, Pridger feels that a new state religion is stealthily being installed with the active support of the ACLU and their camp followers – G.O.D. (Government Omnipotent and Deified).

As our astute founders well knew, all governments, regardless of original intent and constitutional limitations, are prone to grow in scope and power – always moving toward tyranny. Thomas Jefferson went so far as to suggest that we ought to have a revolution about every twenty years to keep government subservient to the people. Jefferson also pointed out the dangers of empowered bankers (the pre-cursers of the Federal Reserve and Wall Street), and standing armies. (A large standing army won’t stand idle very long without the Commander-in-chief discovering some pretext for war and proclaiming it a national imperative.) But that’s a whole other subject.

When we hear the term "jobless economic recovery" it should tell us that something is seriously wrong with the national economy. A jobless economic recovery is a hollow economic recovery. It means that Wall Street Stocks have enjoyed a new bubble puff, and stockholders are at least holding, but that labor and Main Street America have again been bypassed.

Jobless economic recoveries are a relatively recent phenomenon. Before globalism, there had never been such a thing. Before our highly acclaimed swan dive into globalism, if there was an economic recovery, it was always because more jobs had been created and people were working. It was always good news.

Now things have got a lot better. Now we can have an economic recovery without even worrying whether anybody has a job or not. National prosperity is no longer contingent upon the vagaries of the domestic labor market.

Lamentably, American workers are loosing jobs because they still overestimate the value of their labor. Thus, they are not being competitive in the international marketplace. How can we ever hope to seriously crack overseas markets (such as the Chinese consumer market) with American exports, when our labor often still demands over $10.00 an hour -- over ten times more than Chinese labor? The Chinese will undersell us every time, and continue to take unfair advantage of our open markets. This cannot be allowed to continue if we are to remain a free and prosperous nation.

President Bush is doing his part to make American labor a little more competitive in the international free market economy. He's decided that if such things as overtime for workers could be cut out, maybe American industry would be just a little more competitive. Every little bit helps, of course.

If American labor could just get back to the ten hour work day and six day workweek, without the useless need for overtime pay (which is just a crippling extra cost for American businesses), American industry could produce a little more cheaply and export more to the rest of the world. This would help our trade balance and create the appearance of a more productive and competitive American worker. It would go a long way toward providing a more level playing field and make free trade a bit more like fair trade.

Really fair trade is impossible as long as American workers get higher wages than third world labor. Home based American industries are severely handicapped by the fact that American labor still thinks it ought to enjoy more pay, more free time, and more fringe benefits than its third world counterpart. This notion, of course, is not only selfish, but has caused our country to get into an unacceptable balance of trade deficit situation.

If American labor continues to insist upon such things as overtime pay for more than 40 hours' of work per week, paid vacations, health insurance benefits, and retirement plans, etc., it has nothing but itself to blame for continued downsizing, exportation, and outsourcing of jobs. President Bush is doing all he can to prevent more job loss, but American workers have to do their share too. Work more for less. You'll be glad you did! And the nation and world will be grateful.

Remember, America cannot enjoy continued freedom and properity, and the stock market might not recover, if workers don't start accepting less pay.

The recent hullabaloo over the importation of mad cow disease from Canada has a few people wondering why we import live cattle from Canada when we have more than enough live cattle of our own. All nature of things that we don’t really need are imported these days – AIDS, West Nile virus, Ebola, swine fever, SARS, Hoof in Mouth, to mention only a few – and there will be many other surprise packages disembarking from airplanes and ships in the future, I’m sure. Everybody realizes that. The Office of Homeland Security is particularly concerned about the possibility of “accidentally” importing of weapons of mass destruction set to go off on arrival in major population areas. But that’s globalism for you.

One would think such concerns would cause us to reassess our free trade policies and our commitment to the global village. After all, we really don’t need to import cows from Canada, beef from Argentina, vegetables from Mexico, or ten thousand other things that we formerly produced for ourselves but now purchase from elsewhere because “Made in America” implies that American labor is getting an unwarranted percentage of the action. For our national trade policy to favor American producers would be discriminatory and downright protectionist, and we can’t have that – it would go against the rules of the World Trade Organization, which we have so meticulously helped create and promote as the answer to all the world’s social, political, and economic problems.

Just think, if we protected our own industries, markets, and labor, we would never have known what a “jobless economic recovery” is. There are many downsides to protectionism, of course. The biggest ones are that it would encourage American production facilities to remain in America, providing American jobs to Americans at American wages, with American style industrial benefit packages, including health insurance. Wal-Mart and other retailers would be forced to buy American, at higher prices, which would provide American labor with an abundance of good jobs. Wal-Mart might even be forced to pay higher wages to its employees, as protectionism would tend to put the teeth back into American labor unions. We wouldn’t have nearly as many cheap imports to choose from, so everybody would feel cheated. Corporations wouldn’t be nearly as profitable, because they would be forced to pay American workers American wages, and the stock market wouldn’t be able to bubble as often and as frothily. Investors might have to contend with such things as stability and lower returns on investments – like maybe ten percent.

Most of all, protectionism would tend to deprive Mexican, Chinese, and Bangladeshi workers of the ability to work in American owned factories and benefit from selling their production to American consumers. Third World countries that are developing industrial bases would have to learn how to produce manufactured goods for their own markets, upgrade the wages and living standards of their own people so they could enjoy the fruits of their own labor. They might even discover that they could become economically independent and prosperous in their own right, using their own resources to generate their own national prosperity. None of these things can be allowed to happen – it would un-American and anti-globalist.

Tragically, the events of 9-11 have shown one of the downsides globalism. We found (to our great surprise!) that open borders permit terrorist leaks. It has caused us to engage in another sort of protectionism – one that we have not yet fully abandoned. Military protectionism. One of the alleged goals of globalism is world peace, prosperity, and total global economic, social, and political integration – one happy global village, which would make the necessity for military protectionism part of the barbaric past. But, unfortunately, as we continue to make the world safe for multi-national corporations, military protectionism has been found to still be necessary, as our military establishment continues to project itself around the world to protect us from all nature of terrorist and rogue state threats.

This is a most peculiar and embarrassing circumstance as we strive for total international economic interdependence. Nationalism hasn’t evaporated. We had to invoke it (yes, even here in New World Order America!) in order to call up our nationalistic and patriotic sons and daughters for combat duty on foreign soil. Our military forces are all over the world defending our national interests (read, “multi-national corporate interests”), and providing “national security” for us increasingly vulnerable and beleaguered Americans back home. This vulnerability, however, is merely part of the globalism that has become our own national policy – it’s one of the minor downsides of the Wonderful New World our representatives in Washington have been building for us (without our informed consent, using cheap imports as an enticement).

Our free trade, and refusal to engage in national economic protectionism (which, by the way, is a lot cheaper than military protectionism), is becoming a heavier cross to bear than we bargained for. Though the prices at the Wal-Mart checkout counter may not reflect it, the costs associated with free trade have taken a quantum leap into the stratosphere. The price tag on our new Homeland Security maritime port security program reaches into the tens of billions of dollars. This defensive national expenditure is necessary so that we can continue to enjoy the abundant array of cheap imports that cross our docks in increasing volumes each and every day. These billions and billions of dollar are to be spent on Homeland Security “protection” for our ships and sea ports, and the price will be reflected mushrooming national debt figures and the necessity to figure out new ways to tax the public without also letting them know that this is part of the cost of all those cheap imports at Wal-Mart.

Homeland Security is a new form of national protectionism. Before 9-11 that sort of protectionism had never been dreamed of, except, perhaps, in an Orwell novel.

Our free trade policy, and determined ongoing march away from national economic independence has some extremely serious national security implications. The purpose of a nation and a national government is to provide for the security of citizens within their protected borders. Trade protectionism, like the ability to protect the nation through military means, is a national defense imperative. Economic independence (at least to the degree possible), is as essential as political independence. Indeed, without economic independence, political independence, and even military defense, eventually become impossible. But try telling that to global village enthusiasts, free traders, and other One Worlders.

When I hear Democratic presidential contenders blaming President Bush for job losses in America, I’m reminded that we’re in a much worse political and economic mess than most people are willing to admit. Major party presidential candidates, in their eagerness to discredit the incumbent administration (of the opposite party), always hasten to discredit themselves in the process. President Bush is guilty of helping to export jobs, of course, but he isn’t solely guilty. The blame for over twenty years (nay! Forty years and more!) of economic mis-rule simply cannot be blamed on one man or one political party. The mal-administration has been both cumulative and bi-partisan. Democrats and Republicans have combined to bring us to our current economic impasse. Each party had it’s own particular role to play, and each overplayed its hand in a quest to reinvent the nation and the world into what amounts to complimentary, yet mutually exclusive and impossible, visions of a global Utopia. In the process, republican government, and the concept of limited government “by the consent of the governed,” has been totally abandoned, if not forgotten.

Unfortunately, “consent of the governed” can be, and is, taken to mean whatever an increasingly self-indulgent, ignorant, and politically apathetical electorate will stand still for. As long as misrepresentation is believed to be representation, our misrepresentatives in Washington will continue to have a free hand in bringing us a global Utopia rather than a great and just national government in a free and prosperous nation.

The processes of globalization have been, and are, both a social and economic revolution — and both parties have played a significant role in bringing this improbable Utopia about. The Democrats concentrated more on the social side of the revolution while the Republicans worked on its business side. The social and economic sides of the equation cannot be separated or isolated into separate and distinct phenomena. Between the two, we find ourselves in a New World Order which nobody ever voted for except that bi-partisan and perverse gang of legislators on Capital Hill who still falsely identify themselves as representatives of We the People.

Over forty years ago the Democrats began stealthily shifting from being the party of the workingman and masses to the party of an array of “victimized minorities.” Since the beginning of Johnson’s War on Poverty, our nation has been totally reinvented with an impossible price tag and the whole passel of intractable social problems we wrestle with today.

Meanwhile, the Republicans shifted from being the party of big American business interests (the businesses which had theretofore provided the working class the wherewithal to become a large and growingly prosperous middle class), to being the party of international capital interests. Before this shift, the prosperity of Wall Street represented the prosperity of the working classes and nation at large. Since the shift, American business (capital) has been internationalized and freed of the necessity of employing American labor to produce for the American consumer market.

During the Clinton years, the Democrats were quick and proud to take credit for the great “Wall Street” wealth bubble and “apparent” prosperity that was really the result of three administrations of Republican economic globalism and free market – free trade – skullduggery.

What is national prosperity? Can it be measured by GDP and Wall Street stock prices? Should it be measured in terms of the riches of the richest among us, or should it be measured by the degree of broad-based prosperity enjoyed by the people of the nation in as a whole – their prospects and ability to find good jobs and lead free and meaningful lives?

Much of our national prosperity today is not only a deception, but literally an ongoing crime. Subtract the value of all public and private debt, and the burgeoning trade deficit before running the numbers. Then calculate who holds the remaining real wealth that exists in the nation. The numbers would undoubtedly be both revealing and disheartening, and the fiction of growing national prosperity under both Republican and Democratic administrations revealed.

Both parties became wed to business deregulation, international free trade, NAFTA, GATT, WTO, and generalized globalization of the American and world economy. The only differences have been cosmetic. The Democrats were “Global Village” people, and the Republicans were “New International Economic Order” people, and that remains state of affairs today. Meanwhile, “We the People” – that is, the great unwashed working masses – have languished without any real representation at all in Washington. Republicrat or Demoblican, it really makes little difference. Our representatives (with a few exceptions, of course), are a disgrace to republican government and the nation.

The Republicans play the role of bad cop and Democrats play the role of good cop, and they continue to collude to bring us a New World Order.

President Bush is no friend to the workingman by any stretch of the imagination. He's a friend of the Wall Street crowd, and if Wall Street stocks are up or holding, that’s about all he cares about as far as any "economic recovery" is concerned. But the Democrats aren’t friends of the workingman either – at least not American workers (though they may come a little closer than neo-conservative Republicans). The Democrats get their money from Wall Street too, and don’t want that gravy train upset any more than the Republicans do. If the money is pouring into Wall Street coffers from the China trade, the China trade is good. And if the Democrats ever express any true concern for labor, its those poor sweatshop laborers elsewhere that are being exploited by American multi-national corporations.

To paraphrase Jim Hightower, “If God had intended us to vote, he would provide candidates worth voting for.” Once again we have a presidential election in the offing without a major party candidate worthy of consideration. The only candidates insightful enough, or brave enough, to articulate any meaningful solutions or proposals are weeded out early in the primaries, or are third party candidates without a snowball’s chance in hell of ever being elected. Meanwhile, the major media makes or breaks candidates at will – at the behest of the national and international capital interests that pay their bills.

The fundamental root problems confronting us are never addressed. Neither party looks beyond the previous “other” administration to cast blame, and that blame, while often valid, is only skin deep and totally overlooks the bodily cancer that has engulfed the national body politic under the bi-partisan oversight – or lack of foresight. (Or, rather, an abundance self-interested foresight.) Certain “truths” and “realities” of globalism have become the transcendental, irrefutable, and not only beyond remedy but beyond serious consideration. In other words, if we are on the road to ruin, we can’t turn back and get on the right track. We’ve got to stoke the fires and ply more steam.

Ah! First Day on the Blog. I wonder how many other bloggers suffer from writer's blog? Or is it blogger's block?

Gay marriage continues to be a hot issue, as gay San Franciscans continue to received marriage licenses in spite of a state ban. It's amazing how determined gay people are on such issues. They are determined to make this into a gay country. Gay as it is, it's no laughing matter. As so-called alternate lifestyles go mainstream (in spite of resistance by the vast majority), it becomes obvious that democracy no longer works like it once did. If the majority ever gets its way anymore, it's called oppression and bigotry. Common decency is no longer commonly accepted, for the standards are always pulled down by powerful minorities that cry discrimination and tyranny of the majority.

Homosexuals intend to be in our faces, hell or high water, and make us act as though we like it -- as if the gay life style, and gay "marriage" are perfectly normal. Pridger has nothing against homosexuals. They, of course, are people too. But twisting the entire culture to please them is going not just a little too far.

Marriage and the traditional concept of family, as a sacred institutions, are already in serious enough trouble without further profaning them on the hedonistic alter of the all too common homosexual aberation. The very fact that this has become an issue at all is evidence of an ongoing assault against western Christian values and the traditional value system of the nation.

That homosexuals seek to have their playhouses recognized as "just as sacred" and "normal" as traditional marriage and family, is perfectly understandable. They, like the rest of us, are self-centered and self-seeking. They simply want what they want, and care not about any "tradition" or majority opinions. What is frightening, is that we have reached a point in our social history where the very culture is in danger of being overturned at the behest of a small aberant minority that practices what most people consider to be morally abhorrent public and private behavior.

And what of so-called "civil unions" to satisfy homosexual couples' desire to reap the "benefits" of traditional marriage and family? That's a whole other can of worms -- but in any case not good enough for the homosexual political powerbase. They are determined to redefine and totally profane the very term "marriage" and wish to accept nothing less.

As a new institution, civil union would itself be unacceptably discriminatory, if homosexuals alone would be the sole beneficiaries. Why should homosexuals deserve an exclusive civil union status while heterosexuals did not? Why wouldn't two brothers, two sisters, or two heterosexual friends or "room mates" be elegible for the same sort of civil union benefits? Indeed, there's a whole array of alternate lifestyle and "family" structures which would be just as deserving and should be just as "equal" as homosexuals. Granting civil union status to homosexuals, but no others, would be exactly like the homosexual view that granting marriage status to heteosexuals, but not them, is discriminatory.

Talk about barrels of fish hooks and cans of worms!

What this all amounts to, in the final analysis, is part of an ongoing assault all western cultural and Christian values within an increasingly materialistic and hedonistic society. At some point, a line must be re-established, or there will either be a tremendous social backlash verging on revolution, or a total breakdown of our nation as a coherent socio-political unit.

True social and political chaos is something we Americans have not had to experience since the Civil War, but is nonetheless always waiting in the wings. This is something that none of us wish to experience. But when minorities are perceived to be usupting the prerogatives of the constitutional majority under the guise of politically mandated "justice" for the few at the expense of the many for too long, with no relief in sight -- and when tyranny of minorities becomes a cross too heavy for the increasingly disenfranchised majority to bear -- a critical threshold will eventually be reached.

Welcome. This is Pridger's new Blog (Pridger vs. the New World Order), now in the testing phase. Please stay tuned.