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Monday, 31 March, 2008

IT'S GREAT TO HAVE AN OPEN MIND, BUT...

It isn't surprising that our open society has produced a lot of open-minded people. Open-mindedness is generally a good thing – but it can be overdone. The Democratic Party, being the "progressive" party, obviously tends to have more open-minded people than the more conservative Republican Party.

The Democrats are so open-minded that they've put all their presidential hopes into the belief that the nation is ready for a woman, or a Black, president. No less than "another" Clinton, and an African-American with a most peculiar sounding name and a very unusual pedigree and background.

This reminds Pridger of a quote he recently received at the bottom of a recent email.

"Don't be so open-minded that your brains fall out."

Both Democratic presidential candidates have something of offer, of course. They are both brilliant. There's nothing particularly wrong with either of them, other than the fact that they are both liberal Democrats, and inconsistent with American political tradition with regard to race and gender. 

Slightly less noted for open-mindedness, the Republican party has also fielded a candidate that has something to offer. Yet, in view of his rather liberal credentials and his determination to "stay the course" in an increasingly unpopular war, he probably wouldn't have much of a chance at the presidency – unless, of course, his opponent happened to be a woman or an African-American.

All this also reminds Pridger that "People tend to go crazy in flocks and herds, but only sober up one at a time."

John Q. Pridger

PRIDGER'S EMAIL BAG FUNNIES

FAN EMAIL: "...really, I don't know what to make of you and your so-called blog. It's much more like an unending series of bigoted and extremist views. I picture you as a rather small man who is somewhat out of his depth." PRIDGER'S REPLY: Funny, I often picture myself in much the same way. In fact, here's a picture to prove it. As for being some kind of an extremist, you'll notice that I have a shotgun in my left hand and a Bible in my right, and I've wrapped myself in the American flag. How's that for extremism?

Sunday, 30 March, 2008

THE IRONY OF CIVIL RIGHTS

It would seem that justice done would be universally recognized as a good thing. Indeed it would, if it was really justice for all.

Many whites got behind the Civil Rights movement for just that reason. The overwhelming majority of the white population really wanted justice for all. After all, that would be only right. It's just that many of them didn't want to be forced to integrate with other races – or, more precisely, they didn't want other races to be allowed or encouraged to forcefully integrate with them.

When federal armed forces were used to forcibly integrate white schools in the south, something of fundamental importance died in this country. Perhaps it was democracy itself that died – because the majority was forced by the federal government to accept something that it didn't believe in, and was not ready to accept.

Forced integration was not a democratic process by any measure. Though it is quite politically incorrect to say it, it was an act of federal tyranny. The way it was done was more akin to the way we are presently bringing liberty and democracy to the Iraqi people. Acts of tyranny are seldom productive of good ends, even when rationalized and utilized to bring about what is considered a worthy and righteous goals.

When Federal Courts mandated forced busing to integrate schools in the north and throughout the nation, that was not a democratic process. When, by federal mandate, it became illegal to "discriminate" on the basis of race in private apartment rentals and housing sales, the will of the majority was again thwarted. The result was that the complexion of inner city neighborhoods quickly began to change. Whites began voting in the only way left to them – with their feet.

The unintended consequence of these good intentions, was to seal the fate of our great industrial cities. They have not recovered in forty-five years, because much capital fled the cities too, as the suburban mall came into being.

Regardless of the colors involved, when it became easier for a mediocre student to enter college or a university over a brighter student, justice was not done. The "generosity" of special consideration for the one was an injustice to another. And both races have suffered the consequences.

The unintended consequence of school integration, of course, was the precipitous decline of educational quality in our public schools that followed – and this adversely effected all students, both white and black. And are those schools that were forcibly integrated in the 1960s still integrated today? Perhaps, with a token number of white students.

Injustice is worse than justice of course. Justice, though a undoubtedly a positive thing, is actually neutral when applied equally and fairly. Nobody of right mind resents justice fairly applied. But they will resent an injustice, whether the party aggrieved party is white or black.

Past injustices cannot be properly addressed or atoned by counter-injustice to innocent parties. It can only lead to simmering resentments. And that resentment is not confined to white Americans. The injustice against white Americans has impacted black Americans too, and their traditional resentments have been compounded by the perception of continuing and newer "systemic" injustices – which they see as continued discrimination.

This is reflected in Reverend Jeremiah Wright's brand of sermonizing, and white America's reaction to the "news" that Blacks are not really all that happy with all white society has done both "to or for" them.

The races have not been integrated. The divide has actually been broadened and deepened, taken on new patterns, and has reached new levels of intractability.

"Why can't we just get along?" Rodney King asked. Perhaps we could, if we had a truly colorblind political landscape. Maybe both whites and Blacks should have paid closer attention to Martin Luther King, Jr., when he said he hoped for a nation and society where people are "judged by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin."

Justice is not served when "unlimited choice" is awarded to minorities while the "choices" of the majority are curtailed. Because that has happened, racial problems have not gone away. Society has merely rearranged itself into new patterns of division. Blacks are not any happier. In fact they are even more angry than before – and for good reason. Overall, their plight has become worse since the Civil Rights era. And whites are angry too – also with good reason – but their anger is muzzled and silent. Yet that suppressed anger is no less dangerous than the openly expressed anger of the black minority.

One reason things have become worse for Blacks, is because things have also become worse for still more fortunate whites. When the national leadership decided that it would be a good idea to de-industrialize the nation in order to encourage "free trade" and facilitate a new era of international corporate rule (and Wall Street "white elite" prosperity), we entered into a long era of "productive job" contraction that has devastated, and continues to erode, the prospects of all working classes.

Only in a society and economy that provides abundant work opportunities for an increasing population can economic justice for minorities and the majority alike be a possibility. Economic justice is the only cure for poverty – and black poverty is acknowledged as the major cause for today's racial unrest.

As Barack Obama says, it's time for a major change in the way things are done in Washington D. C. Among other things, it's time for our government to focus less on the aggrandizement of globe-straddling corporations and the Chinese production machine, and more on resurrecting a productive economy in the United States. We need to rebuild a national economy that would not only pay its own way in the world again, but provide the wherewithal for labor to prosper again. Labor is black and white, of all other races.

Big Lie Number One has been that all Americans had to do in the global economy was to learn how to use a computer, play at the Stock Market casino, get smart and become knowledge workers – and just generally become more "productive" by using these "tools." But that's not the way to be productive. That's only the way to be a high tech, hopefully well paid, consumer. So we've become a nation of consumers but no longer a nation of producers.

Big Lie Number Two has been that Americans had to become more productive so we could export more of our production at competitive global prices. But it isn't exactly coincidental, nor totally unknown, that export based economies have traditionally been colonies or former colonies, populated with abundant cheap labor. The antebellum South was a prime example of an export based economy. The export big commodity was cotton, and the labor that that export profitable was slave labor.

The same is true in any export based economy, whether the exports are bananas or high tech electronics. Cheap labor is what makes it profitable.  

We've got to get back to making all of the things that we use and consume. In an economy where labor is also the primary consumer of its own production, high wages are a necessity. Yes prices are higher too, but prosperity is also the result. This is how the United States became prosperous in the first place – our period of greatest prosperity being during the height of our post-war industrial era.

There were environmental problems, of course, but our job was to find a means by which to move toward sustainability so the rest of the world could learn by our example and avoid environmental mistakes. Our government opted to export our production to "others elsewhere" – thereby betraying American labor in particular, and the American public in general. And if China and Mexico are beneficiaries, there are a raft of other down-sides that our trusty leaders failed to take into consideration.

Today national security is supposed to be a big issue. But there is no such thing as national security in a nation that is dependent on others for everything it consumes and uses. There is no security in dependence.

Big Lie Number Three was that "international interdependence" was a worthy national goal – because, ultimately, it really meant "dependence" on others elsewhere, including potential enemies, for our national sustenance. It has led to national insecurity in the most fundamental sense of the term.

For example, we are now more dependent on China than the colonies were on the mother country just prior to the Revolution. This is not really a great national security development. China (a past, and potentially future, enemy), has become a productive dynamo as we have become a non-productive dependent consumer economy. We have not only become dependent on China for consumer goods, but national financial credit as well!

Of course, we were writing about Civil Rights and race relations. Put everybody back to work, in meaningful production (real wealth production for domestic consumption), and a large measure of the tensions between the races would simply disappear through lack of interest. Broad-based prosperity and economic liberation for all would go a long way toward eliminating social grievances of every type.

John Q. Pridger

Saturday, 29 March, 2008

DEMOCRATIC DIVISIONS AND REPUBLICAN "UNITY"

Do we want a Black president who has long associated himself with the radical Black evangelicals tied to "Black Liberation Theology," or a Woman president who manufactures war stories to enhance her national security and foreign policy credentials?

Those things certainly have a lot of people thinking, and rethinking, about their presidential choices. McCain, for all his deficiencies and warrior-like determination to not leave Iraq until the job is done, is undoubtedly looking better all the time to a lot of people.

There's nobody on the Republican nominee campaign trail to take the spotlight off of McCain or challenge any of his ideas. That's party unity.

No wait. What about Republican Ron Paul's candidacy? He's still running, if not exactly in the race. But you'd never know it. The media and the Republican party that carefully marginalized him from the beginning, is now simply ignoring him entirely – as if he didn't exist.

You'd think that they would give Paul some exposure, and allow some alternative views on the Republican side. But "they" certainly don't want any one on one debates between Dr. Paul and John McCain. McCain has a good chance at the presidency, especially if Ron Paul can be kept out of sight, and prevented from raising embarrassing questions and alternative views. That's the way our democracy works when it comes to selecting presidents.

In other words, it doesn't work – at least not as it is supposed to work. We simply do not have a real choice worth considering.

John Q. Pridger

BLACK LIBERATION THEOLOGY

Many voters, both Black and White, are probably trying to get a handle on Reverend Jeremiah Wright and what the media has been calling "Black Liberation Theology."

To put it in a nutshell "Black Liberation Theology" is a cousin of Marxist "Peoples'" or "National  Liberation Movements." The anti-American seeds sown by Soviet operatives and fellow travelers in the United States, (left wing intellectuals, academics, liberals, etc.), took root and survive in many many places – including Black churches.

Though the Black Liberation Movement is not necessarily Communist, it developed because the Civil Rights movement itself was heavily infiltrated and supported by Communists groups and fellow travelers throughout the twentieth century.

This should not surprise or alarm anybody. The anti-American creed of Marxism had a very strong appeal and following among the downtrodden, oppressed, and the victimized peoples the world over – and the Soviet Union took every advantage it could of the resentment of those who for any reason felt the oppression of colonialism, military, capitalist imperialism, and exploitive corporations.

In the dying decades of the British and other European Empires, most national liberation movements were infiltrated by communists and actively supported by the Soviet Union. And these same movements usually continued, and often increased, after national independence was established in former colonies – to throw off the ruling oligarchs who supported exploitive Western corporations.

In the United States, communists and their friends purported to champion the causes of disadvantaged minorities who suffered from various degrees of racial discrimination. It's no secret that the Soviet Union intended to spread communism throughout the world. In prosperous nations, such as the United States, it hoped to subvert and sabotage as many of our political, social, educational, and religious institutions as possible. It worked to throw a wrench into the capitalist system by subverting organized labor, and creating as much divisiveness as possible using innumerable fronts for their activities – to rend, if possible, the very fabric of the nation itself. – and they were very successful.

Civil Rights was a happy hunting ground for agents working to subvert our nation. And, honestly, where else could Civil Rights leaders really go for help in throwing off the perceived (and often real enough), "oppression of the majority" in a democratic nation? They really couldn't appeal to the majority, any more than than oppressed and exploited "natives" could appeal to the colonial rulers of their respective countries – or Latin American peasants could appeal to the board of directors of companies like the American United Fruit Company.

Martin Luther King, Jr., has often been accused of having communists ties (by none other than J. Edgar Hoover, for one). Well, of course, King and the various Civil Rights organizations had many communist friends! They had them because it was from those quarters that they not only found encouragement and monetary support, but much needed organizational, marketing, media, and propaganda expertise. Additionally, in them they also found friendly media connections – and the Marxists also had many friends in high places within the U.S. Government itself.

Their communist friends didn't really have their interests at heart, of course. They had a much different agenda. Their sole purpose was to destroy our society from within, by fostering and encouraging divisions. In the end, the divisiveness in the United States grew and has survived even longer than the Soviet Union did.

Although Civil Rights accomplished a considerable amount of good (as far as fulfilling the promise of our Declaration of Independence through "equality under the law"), the divisions have nonetheless remained and grown – and grown even more bitter in some quarters with the passage of time.

The continuing chasm is manifest in the perception of continued endemic white racism and institutionalized discrimination on the part of many Blacks, and an equally seething (but much more silent), resentment on the part of many Whites. Blacks feel quite free to vent their anger in public – they have a degree of freedom of speech whites no longer feel they have. Their resentment and growing array of accusations and grievances are routinely expressed from the pulpits of many Black churches.

John Q. Pridger

For some Black views on similar or related subjects, check out at Elizabeth Wright's http://www.issues-views.com/ 

9/11 CONSPIRACY THEORIES WON'T GO AWAY – for a reason.

They simply won't go away – those damned conspiracy mongers! They just don't give up! And that's a good thing. Otherwise, we'll never learn the whole truth.

Pridger doesn't know the truth of 9/11, of course. He's a little skeptical when it comes to the popular "It was an inside job!" theories, and even more skeptical of the "official" story. Almost everything about 9/11 still looks fishy – mighty fishy. And how could anyone doubt that something of that nature had been expected, and even hoped for, by some people in high places? Even Pridger wondered why something significant had not happened much sooner (of course, there had been an earlier, unsuccessful, attempt on the WTC).

For some odd reason, federal agencies long ago adopted a policy of quickly cleaning up major crime scenes where major events have occurred. Naturally, that makes it appear they have something to hide or cover up. It tends to make one wonder, and a little suspicious. It breeds conspiracy theory.

Even without forensic evidence available to the public, there are still all those videos out there on sites like U-Tube. Of course, by now there are probably a lot of doctored videos too.

The last time Pridger unquestionably believed a video was when he saw the movie Forrest Gump, showing Forrest's meetings with presidents, Kennedy and Johnson (remember, "I've got to pee!" and "I'd like to see your wound"?). And, of course, there were all those videos showing Shock and Awe, and the application of "overwhelming force," as tanks assaulted the Branch Dividian commune (a.k.a., "fortified compound" and bunker complex), which then burned like a matchbox.

There are so many questions that have not been satisfactorily addressed. For example, what about the embarrassing spontaneous collapse of World Trade Center Tower Building Seven? Did the plane that was supposed to bring it down simply fail to show up? Maybe that was the one that allegedly crashed in the Pennsylvania field – producing a rallying story of passenger heroism.

According to one video source, the BBC was able to report the collapse of that building 20 minutes before it collapsed. Wow! If it's true, that was a scoop!

Those airlines certainly had a lot of penetrating power. One would almost think they must have had hardened noses. And what about all those secondary explosions so many witnesses heard throughout the Twin Towers just prior to their collapse?

And what about the Pentagon? Why didn't the wings, or the heavy engines that were supposedly on them, make a showing on either side of the main entry wound? The wings might have totally disintegrated or vaporized, but what about those hefty engines? Only the cylindrical fuselage seems to have penetrated the building like a bullet without wings (and some say it left a single jet engine inside!). Where are the photos or surveillance videos that show a commercial aircraft approaching?

If things happened the way the government says, why don't they simply clarify everything by showing the photographic evidence, and any other evidence, they may have? That's a good question.

Why were some Israelis "furniture movers" apparently so jubilant over the attack – especially in view of the fact the Israeli Mossad is known for its "false flag" operations?

And why did a War on Terrorists, based in Afghanistan, turn into a second Iraqi War? 

Pridger has little doubt that the full truth will eventually come out, but it will be difficult to differentiate truth from all sorts of official and unofficial obfuscation – and, of course, the public's attention will be elsewhere, and not many will notice.

The government seems to be able to fool enough people, enough of the time, to get away with almost anything in the end. Pridger isn't saying they actually did this, and are still doing this, in the case of 9/11. He's just saying that it appears that way.

Would we really want to trust Hillary with a government that can do all of this?

John Q. Pridger

Friday, 28 March, 2008

WHAT AN UPSIDE DOWN WORLD!

The world has literally turned over during Pridger's adult lifetime, and he doesn't much like the results – the aroma of the bottom side, so to speak. Fortunately, not all that much has changed on Paradise Ridge – but crossing the property line and venturing into town is a disconcerting experience fret with dangers.

Things probably won't change much on Paradise Ridge in the near future either. However, Pridger will likely become officially designated as an outlaw. This will happen if the National Animal Identification System (NAIS), is ever fully implemented – as planned by the New World Order people.

Pridger is simply not going to register or micro-chip any horse, cow, pig, chicken, dog, or duck to satisfy Big Brother. He'd register his shotgun – or move offshore – before he'd do that! He simply isn't going to stand for the total Orwellization of agriculture – at least not on his farm! And if Big Brother doesn't like it – well, "he" or "she" can either pull a surprise attack (Waco and Ruby Ridge style), or serve papers and have Pridger ship off to Guantanamo or some other concentration facility.

Under what authority can the federal government require registration and/or micro-chipping of private livestock on private property? None, of course. So it has initiated this "international mandate" by throwing the ball into the court of State governments. And the State governments, eager to do their patriotic duty (and get federal funding), have begun doing the bidding of the federal government, which is pushing an international system of governance. It's about control, of course – and international marketing, on behalf of big corporate meat packers and international traders – under the false colors of public health and food safety.

In the mean time, it is said that the hamburger you eat at the local McDonalds may contain meat from hundreds of cows from dozens of different countries. That's globalism, they say, and that's simply the way things work now. If food safety was really the issue, such a hamburger patty would be unthinkable!

So the Pridger farm is probably going to become an outlaw hideout, or "compound," complete with incriminating contraband – unregistered horses, cattle, hogs, chickens, ducks and dog.

That's all it takes to turn things right upside down and onto their heads. Simply pass a law – or rewrite the rule books – and whammo! Unpteen thousand law abiding citizens either knuckle to Big Brother or become outlaws.

Ironically, they've changed the laws and rewritten the rule books on behalf of "gaming" interests, abortionists, pornographers, and the marketers of sleaze. They're all out in the open, legal, and perfectly respectable now. But it's against the law to put up a copy of the Ten Commandments, have a manger scene at Christmas time, or give thanks in publicly owned places.

HOME TOWN MADNESS

Though about twenty miles from the river, Pridger's home town is located in the Ohio River Valley's extended flood plain. The city was built on a hill known as Crusoe's Island, because it was known that the surrounding bottomlands are prone to frequent flooding.

The entire business district of this town of 9,000 souls was placed high and dry on the knoll of that hill. The surrounding landscape has experienced several devastating floods over the town's century and a half existence, but the business district was never touched by flood waters.

During the last few decades this home town has been busily reinventing itself. Though it never knew the destruction of white flight and urban blight, it has nonetheless gone the extra mile to participate in a particularly virulent, fashionable, brand of urban renewal. In fact, the commercial development and "urban sprawl" of this small city has been nothing short of breathtaking.

During this spectacular period of commercial growth, the population has gone from about 10,000 people to about 9,000. The mines and most productive industries and jobs have largely disappeared, but the growth nonetheless goes on unabated. There's a super abundance of the standard array of banks, chain drug stores, supermarkets, fast food restaurants, and everything else one associates with a modern American city or "strip." There's even a "Super" Wal-Mart under construction.

Meanwhile, the old business district has largely been abandoned. Though neat and clean, and not in shambles, it has the typical look of a modern ghost town – always forlorn and deserted. There's a modern Courthouse on the square and a very attractive jail just across Main Street, and two nice banks, occupying two sides of the square. The forth side of the square still has it's old buildings. All are empty except a single surviving business – a tavern. All the new commercial development has been on a new "commercial strip" down in the bottomland.

Last week they had a flood – a most unusual flood. It didn't come as the result of the Ohio River breaching its banks and the city's levees, as is usually the case, but from nothing more than rain – lots of rain – over a two day period. It flooded quite a bit of the bottom land around Crusoe Island.

For three days, the residents couldn't buy anything at any of the new shiny stores – the businesses on the new strip were either flooded or cut off by flood waters. The Courthouse and jail in the business district, but there are no stores left there to serve the town's people.

Those things happen sometimes when things have been turned upside down.

A NATION OF AMAZONS

"Insanity is the exception in individuals. In groups, parties, peoples, and times, it is the rule." (Fredrich Nietzche)

It used to be said that it was a man's world. Yes, we did have a patriarchal society, and that had been so since Adam was plopped down in the Garden of Eden and Eve cobbled together as his smaller and weaker companion.

The time honored patriarchal society ended during Pridger's adult lifetime – apparently in favor of a Big Brother (or maybe Big Sister), society, "Under G.O.D." (Government Omnipotent and Deified).

Only when modernity permitted mankind to relax somewhat with a degree of security, were radical feminists, able to complain loudly and effectively against the way God had ordained things. But, at least in the West (and most particularly in the United States), the lady's actually had it pretty good prior to their supposed liberation. Children had it pretty good too – having a mother at home to care for them and teach them, in the time honored way, to be good children and later good citizens (not to mention having a much better chance of being born at all!).

Now we have a major problem furnishing child care for the children of working and single mothers – and single mothers are becoming as common as married mothers. Divorce is just about as common as marriage, and considerably easier to come by. "Sacred" marriage vows (still usually given "before God"), are no longer sacred or binding.

In fact, nothing is very sacred any more, except, perhaps, some business contracts. We take it for granted these days that marriage vows have no lasting meaning, and that the "word" of an increasing number of people, is simply no good at all. Sacred marriage vows, like the Oath taken by politicians to support and defend the Constitution, seem to be dismissed in advance as if by a standing Kol Nidre vow.

It's much easier to get out of a supposedly life-long marriage contract than to weasel out of year-long cell phone contract, because laws hold business contracts to be sacred.

With women increasingly freed of their naturally ordained rolls of childbearing, nurturing, and teaching, they're free to do just about anything else they feel big enough to do – including becoming president of the United States.

The liberation of women has had a far-reaching impact on economic matters too. More jobs were required to accommodate large numbers of women in the work force – and this great influx of workers happened at a time when automation, and finally job export and outsourcing, was beginning to take a great toll in jobs. And, of course, women not only wanted equal pay for equal work (which is only fair), but they wanted men's jobs, in all the various fields that had been the most coveted family breadwinner jobs in the nation.

And finally, it comes to pass that both parents now have to work to support a family where one did very well before, as Fredrich Nietzche predicted. But, never mind, the family itself is disappearing too.

Nietzche also predicted of liberal "democracy" that: women would become like men and men would become more like women. He also said that "When there is peace, the warlike man attacks himself."

That's pretty obvious in our society today, as extreme sports and "reality" TV attest. And, of course, it applies to women, too, now that they have all the prerogatives of men, and "In revenge and in love, women are more barbaric than men."

Only a relative few men are actually choosing to be like women (or even be women), but the amazing thing is that the male gender as a whole has simply abandoned any notion of defending its traditional roll in society. Yet the overwhelming majority of men still believe in that traditional role. What man – real man – (for example) is really, honestly, ready for a woman president? About just as many as are willing to become wife-like, "Mr. Moms," subservient to a dominate, bread-winning, women?

Almost all men would admit this if it were not for fear of being condemned as politically incorrect, and labeled as male chauvinists? Honesty itself is no longer politically correct.

There are some men, of course, who become Mr. Moms. Some have merely rationalized – if you can't beat them (and you can't really join them), you might just as well take advantage of the freedoms and advantages domestic housewives have always enjoyed. Homemaking and child-rearing, though demanding jobs, do have their rewards.

Pridger has heard that our military services could no longer function without its women – and in front-line combat positions too. And for this very reason (women where women shouldn't be, in roles they shouldn't be in), it's probably becoming more difficult to recruit viral young men. Undoubtedly, some young men can no longer have the same interest in the military that has been their traditional due. A military that cannot allow its men to show great pride in their maleness, even revel in it, has lost much of its allure to traditional military types.

At least the Boy Scouts continue to survive as a male institution – but not because they are not under concerted attack to change their bigoted ways. Ironically, rather than being condemned for not accepting girls, they are primarily under attack for not welcoming adult homosexuals into their ranks as Scout Leaders. As for the scouts themselves, a "don't ask don't tell" system probably works at least as well as it does in the military.

Why not have homosexual Scout supervisors? The Catholic Church has been allowing homosexual clergymen for decades (maybe centuries), and look how well it has turned out! The Church is being overwhelmed with child molestation suits, and some diocese are threatened with bankruptcy.

Come to think of it, Pridger can't figure out why we seem so confounded biased against "normal" pedophiles. Are they that much worse than homosexual ones? And what in the world is wrong with open homosexuals in the military anyway? Now that it is no longer a male institution, what difference would it make? If there can be open females in the military, surly it can just as easily stand open homosexuals and she-males. In fact homosexuals seldom produce as many embarrassing pregnancies as either "regular" men or women do when mixed up together.  

Just look at the number of young women leaving their husbands and young children to go off to war these days! Not as nurses, doctors, or technicians, but front line warriors, or at least in forward combat positions! Some, of course, will never come back, and many more will come home to their family and children maimed for life.

This seems incredible and, until relatively recent times, it would have been totally unthinkable. Women want to take their rightful place as mean, lean, fighting machines, because they feel they are perfectly able to be as cold and cruel, as male warriors can be – though they would perhaps prefer to phrase it differently.

They'd rather say they merely want to do their share in the good fight, defending freedom and liberty. This job, they say, is rightly a co-ed affair – like equal taxation for equal pay. Ironically, the battleground for that particular venue is now in Iraq.

Some of these lady's are sincere female patriots, of course – merely misdirected. Some, like some men, merely want to prove their metal and masculinity in the rigors of combat situations. Naturally, a few are disarmingly attractive – and it is the duty of all male companions-in-arms to endeavor to leave their libido behind while keeping their fighting spirit up – and not be inordinately concerned or distraught at the sight of a woman companion in bloody agony due to battlefield wounds.

The tragedy, as Pridger sees it, is that women actually no longer have the choices they once had, no matter how much "freedom of choice" they may think they now have. Or, alternatively, they increasingly feel duty-bound to make bad choices.

The role of mother, homemaker, teacher (by far their most critically important role of all), has been denigrated and rendered the mark of a cop-out, or a lazy-minded woman without vision, ambition, or spunk – a vocation that offers only drudgery with no challenge, monetary reward, or fulfillment. Worse yet, there's no "honor" in it – no mother or homemaker has ever earned a purple heart.

If women can't actually be men anatomically, at least they can fulfill the fantasy of being Amazons – whether in war, politics, or the corporate world of dog eat dog. Oh, feminists and liberated women do worry about the children, of course. Yes, indeed! And would have Big Brother look into the problem and find satisfactory solutions.

This is tragic, indeed, and evidence of a world turned upside down in our time. Of course, many of the ladies will think Pridger is a lowly male chauvinist warthog. It that's the case, so be it.

BY EXTENSION...

The legitimization of preventive, preemptive, war – the return of officially sanctioned torture of prisoners? Imprisonment for long periods without benefit of trial, specific charges, or legal representation, becoming acceptable to our rulers...? All of these things could be expected – they are "natural" enough – given that our traditional order has been progressively turned upside down onto its head, and our national moral compass totally dumbfounded.

Nothing less than the Highest Court in the land formally threw off all Christian compassion and reverence for life when it callously discounted the life of baby's in the womb. In so doing, the Supreme Court of the United States of America effectively redefined infants in the womb (human beings), as nothing more than so much bodily waste to be discarded at will or whim of the mother.

In making sure women had "their rightful array of choices" and "owned their own bodies" (which they already had, and already did [but were apparently hoodwinked into missing that salient fact]), the Highest Court betrayed and violated everything that it should have stood for, and what we should all still stand for. 

Was it 1973 when this revolution took place? Appallingly, this nation (us), has stood for an ongoing grisly holocaust – the killing of tens of millions of unborn human beings – for thirty-five years! A whole generation! And it has not yet been corrected – not even close. What kind of a nation have we become? How could a population and electorate, over 80% of which still claims to be Christian, stand for this for so long?

What are the "rights" of a few "enemy combatants," or suspected terrorists, compared to those millions of innocent "Americans" snuffed out every day? Hardly anything at all, would seem the ready answer. We look at bin Laden as a devilish enemy for orchestrating the 9/11 attack, killing 3,000 innocent people – but the legally sanctioned killing of that many innocent Americans is occurring each and every business day. In fact, it's considered business as usual!

By extension, what can we realistically presume our own rights to be after the concept of "God given rights," or even "human rights," have been totally abandoned or rendered meaningless?

SITUATIONAL ETHICS

Situational ethics have come to rule the day in America. It's high time we (individually, as well as a nation), rediscover the iron-clad boundaries between right and wrong, good and evil – the thing that religion once told us, and which we usually still at least pay lip service to.

A whole generation has grown up, and others are on the way, that have not had the benefit of a government, or an educational environment, that favors Christian morality (or any kind of morality). In fact the "Wall Between Church and State," (which has been laboriously cobbled together by the enemies within), has insured that our new generations of political leadership will largely be without a suggestion of religious scruples.

We already have them – though some swear up and down that they are "born again Christians." But they have abundantly demonstrated that their word is not exactly trustworthy, and their hearts are not pure. They not only operate under the auspices of "situational ethics" but sometimes actually believe they are doing God's will by waging deadly and destructive wars (elsewhere, of course), in the name of protecting "The American Way of Life." 

Is there any real correlation or relationship between what president Bush calls "The American Way of Life" and what we used to think of as "Truth, justice, and the American Way"?  

John Q. Pridger

AMTRAK AND AMERICAN PUBLIC – RAILROADED

Amtrak, our nationally subsidized mass transit and long distance rail carrier, holds the status of troublesome step-child of the railway system. It has to struggle to survive, and it has to use track owned by hostile private rail companies. This is a pretty peculiarly situation, since the U.S. Government literally gave tens of thousands of square miles of public land to private railroad companies during the nineteenth century in order to build and develop the nation's railroad infrastructure.

Many great and private fortunes trace their genealogy to those generous railroad land grants.

Unfortunately, in spite of the successful development of a wonderful rail infrastructure system that is still serving the country, the government was a little short-sighted in simply giving this infrastructure to private companies without the stipulation that rail beds would always be available for public transportation needs, and/or would revert to the people if ever abandoned for rail use, but who could have foreseen the automotive age of the twentieth century?

Today, Amtrak is our only surviving long distance rail company serving public transportation needs. It has to utilize privately own rail beds and track – paying for that use – and it has to operate on a "second fiddle" capacity, with the owner's traffic having priority over public transportation needs.

Amtrak would be a great boon to the nation, except for the fact that it is merely the skeleton remains of a national rail transportation system. It only serves a few areas well, and the rest of the country practically not at all. In Pridger's area, the "local" station is fifty miles away, and there aren't many places a guy can go to by train when one gets there. One track, from New Orleans to Chicago, is the sum total of our local public railroad transportation system. There are connections, of course, but not to many Main Street areas of the nation.

Tens of thousands of miles of track – comprising the bulk of what should have remained the public's railroad transportation infrastructure – have been abandoned in recent decades, because it didn't fit into the private long distance freight needs of the nation's large railroad freight companies. Today, most of our remaining functional railroad beds and tracks have been integrated into what is basically a coast to coast "land bridge" system serving the international shipping industry.

The wonderful passenger and freight rail infrastructure that once provided rail transportation service to almost every small town and community in the nation is long gone. In Pridger's neck of the woods, many of the rail beds have been converted into bike paths. Bike paths are nice, of course, but it would have been much better to have maintained the capacity to resurrect public rail service at some future time. Now, getting back to public rail in the rural areas of the nation will require a whole new railroad construction endeavor from the ground up.

This is simply the result of bad, or none-existent, long-term planning on the part of our government planners and visionaries. Since the 1950s, the only vision they have had was one of providing wonderful highways for an increasing number of trucks and private automobiles. And, of course (as intended), this has led to the exponential growth of truck freighting and private automobiles using those highways.

Our government, in what today seems a very short-sighted vision of what our nation should be, has built a transportation infrastructure devoted to private automobile ownership. That infrastructure now literally requires everybody not served by urban mass transit systems to own a car – and families to own multiple cars.

Most of our large cities and metropolitan areas are now strictly engineered for cars, but not for "people," and often not even for sensible public mass transit systems – and certainly not for pedestrians. In most of our cities today, the hapless pedestrian, or cyclist wannabe, lives in a nightmare world.

The bicycle is the most perfect local transportation contrivance imaginable. Walking and cycling are wonderful ways to get healthy exercise in a meaningful and useful way – commuting to a job or going to the supermarket. But today adult walking and cycling is usually confined to indoor tread mills and exer-cycles. The more adventurous can go to the park to walk or cycle on special bike paths in some places.

It wasn't just yesterday, however, that we found out we were becoming dangerously dependent on foreign oil to fuel the increasing number of cars on the nation's roads and highways. It wasn't just yesterday that we discovered that the volume of truck and automobile traffic in and around our cities was causing major environmental problems. It wasn't just yesterday that we realized that we still needed a viable rail transportation system in order to solves these problems.

But, nonetheless, we've continued to make this into a car driven society, and do it at an ever-accelerating speed. And we've continued to burn the bridges, and rip up the tracks that could have once again freed us from slavery to our automotive madness, and make it possible to get automotive traffic back down to reasonable levels.

Perhaps there is hope – but it is a long range hope. At least when the government embarked on creating the Interstate Highway system, it gained and retained public ownership of very broad roadbed right of ways. The project was undertaken in the name of "national security." At some time in the future, part of these broad ribbons of concrete could be converted to rail beds and both long and short public rail systems regenerated. National security could again be used to justify such a project – getting our national destiny out from under the heavy thumb of OPEC.

We not only need alternative renewable fuels, but we need to drastically reduce our overall consumer "energy needs" though the efficient uses of various technologies, using the resources available to us right here in our own bailiwick.

The tracks would not take up all that much room. Often they could be built in the meridian or shoulders of Interstates, so there would still be plenty of vehicular lanes. But since the number of cars and trucks would be expected to eventually significantly decrease when mass rail transit become available, there would also be plenty of room for bicycle lanes – and (what the heck), horse trails should be worked into the mix too.

Fund the job with real Greenbacks, of course – not bonds or taxes – and require that the entire project be completed using only American made materials – construction machinery, tracks, rolling stock, etc. It could put a lot of Americans back to work.

The question is, will anybody in a position of government policy planning ever think of such a thing?

If they do ever think of it, they'd probably want to "save money" by contracting the job out to some French or Chinese firm (which, of course, would have license to contract and import cheap foreign labor). A foreign firm would, of course, later get to operate the new rail system and collect all fares. Naturally, it would be cheaper to import all the machinery and equipment used, as well as all the tracks and rolling stock – China could produce all of this much cheaper than we could. And, of course, they would simply "have to" fund it with Federal Reserve money (what other way is there?), employing taxation, bond issues, and foreign loans, to get it.

John Q. Pridger

Thursday, 27 March, 2008

COMPARE ROOSEVELT'S WAR WITH GEORGE W's WARS.

Interesting comparison link: The "Daily Kos" – a Liberal web site:

"Thunderdome: Bush vs. Roosevelt"

"With Bush so anxious to compare the trials of our own time to the challenges of World War II, and others on the right ready to equate what we're now facing with the greatest dangers of the past, it only seems appropriate that we see how Bush stacks up against the man who led us through those days.

"That's right, folks, it's time for Presidential Thunderdome. George W. Bush vs. Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Two presidents enter, one president leaves!..."

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/9/20/73653/7046

Pridger doesn't have what could be called an orthodox view of World War Two, but it was a real war – an unlimited war. Not only that, Congress declared it – and the American people got behind it and stayed there until the job was done. We had a clear-cut goal (to win), and that's exactly what we did – with all due credit to our armed forces and American workers back home.

John Q. Pridger

SPEAKING OF WAR

World War Two brought the nation, and the world, out of the Great Depression. It did that because it put America and Americans back to work in the fullest sense of the word. In that, it had a very positive effect.

War cannot do that any more. Thankfully, unlimited war is not in the program – but in the past even limited wars could significantly perk up the economy. During the Vietnam war, significant numbers of Americans, besides the troops, were kept busy supplying the troops. American ships carried everything they need to them half way around the world.

Back then, American workers still produced just about everything the entire nation needed, including most of the stuff we expended in the war. Besides the navy ships, tanks, trucks, artillery, bombs, bullets, aircraft, and uniforms, those thousands of merchant ships that carried the goods (including our commercial trade), were all "Made in America" and manned by Americans.

The nation had a very favorable balance of trade and a favorable balance of payments. In fact, besides being the world's greatest consumer market, and the world's greatest importer and exporter, America was still the world's largest creditor nation.

The nation not only produced everything that it needed, it produced enough wealth to pay for it too – even during war time (though our trusty leadership tapped into the Social Security Trust Fund to avoid adding war taxes, which would have unduly inconvenience those who had to stay home and watch the war on TV).

Wars can no longer do for the economy what they once did. They no longer have a positive impact on the national economy. Americans no longer produce everything they use or consume. Others, elsewhere, do – in far away places, or south of the border.

About 98% of the thousands of ships that carry our burgeoning international trade were built elsewhere too, and that percentage of all the freight revenues generated accrue to the foreign competition as well. Even the relative few American flag merchant ships remaining, with American crews, with only a precious few exceptions, were foreign built and (in spite of the American flag), are foreign owned. So, most of their freight revenues also go to the foreign competition.

The wages of labor for the lion's share of our consumer goods go to foreign workers. And this increasingly applies to the wages of service and "knowledge" workers as well. The increased business profits that help keep Wall Street afloat, don't go to American labor or Main Street. They go to foreign subsidiaries and a few well healed American CEOs, management teams, and investors. That class of people is getting rich as most of the American people get poorer and into ever-greater debt – both person and public.   

We have to borrow from other nations to finance both our comforts and necessities at home and our wars abroad. We still watch them on TV, but if we feel secure because our men and women are fighting and dying for freedom and democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan, we are deluding ourselves.

How long can a nation that is incapable of supporting itself remain a free?

John Q. Pridger

HISTORY NEGLECTED LEADS TO ERRORS REPEATED

Funny how our politicians refuse to study history, or learn by experience. Pridger distinctly recalls the following major "wake up calls" that were subsequently ignored and/or forgotten.

1. Pearl Harbor – when we found out, that if a potential enemy is badgered long enough, and given an ultimatum to knuckle to our wishes "or else," they might sneak around and attack us.

2. The Holocaust – when we found that if a war is barbarous enough, long enough, and no quarter is given, some really nasty things can happen.

3. The Cuban missile crises, where we learned that if we go out of our way to build an giant enemy, it can become a real threat to us.

4. The Kennedy assassination – where we learned that even popular presidents sometimes run afoul of the real rulers and are subject to removal without notice, and with a great deal of prejudice.

5. Quagmire in Vietnam – which taught us not to go to war "over there" out of the "goodness of our heart," to prevent something that may never happen, or may not be nearly as bad as we supposedly feared.

6. The Oil crises – when an Arab oil embargo showed us we really needed a serious national energy program aimed at energy independence. It should also have hinted that we should perhaps strive to be economically independent in other necessities as well.

7. The monetary crises – where we found out that something was direly wrong with the Almighty Yankee Dollar and the way we manage our spending and monetary affairs.

8. The Iranian Hostage crises – where we learned that messing in the affairs of potentially hostile nations (such as installing a friendly Shah), can lead to negative outcomes in the fullness of time.

9. The "Savings & Loan" crises – when we found that home lenders really needed some sort of government oversight.

10. The illegal immigration crises (of 30 years ago) – which should have taught us that the nation's borders ought to be considered one of our main lines of defense.

11. The NAFTA Peso crises – that taught us that globalization is bound to have many unexpected and unintended consequences – even in the case of close and friendly neighbors.

12. 9/11/2001 – when we found that decades of biased Middle East foreign policy can have serious consequences – and that determined enemies, even if they are very weak, can inflict nasty, humiliating, wounds. And, as we fret over weapons of mass destruction, do we forget that the 9/11 highjackers only needed box cutters to commandeer airliners and bring down the towers.

These are only a small sampling of the many wake-up calls and negative experiences we have had since Pearl Harbor. But what good have those experiences done? Every new crises seems to be an updated variation of an older one.

As we continue to build freedom and democracy in Iraq for the Iraqi's, freedom and liberty is sacrificed at home, in the name of national security. And democracy at home has become a farcical media circus, as evidenced in our present presidential campaign. There are three viable candidates left standing, and not one is a majority candidate. Not one allows constitutional issues to come into their campaign rhetoric. In spite of the fact that economic issues have become the biggest public concern of all, not one dares mention monetary reform.

John Q. Pridger

Tuesday, 25 March, 2008

NOW IS THE TIME TO THINK OF MONETARY REFORM

Now that the Federal Reserve is showing that it is more than an co-equal branch of government, perhaps someone will notice that things just aren't right here. Only Congress can appropriate money. But the Fed is now doing that in bailing out private financial houses with perhaps multiple billions of newly created credit dollars." The Fed's "liquidity facilities" is the term used – the ability to bail out such things as big bankers and the Mexican economy (after NAFTA started working its magic). 

Robert Reich has called it "Socialized capitalism"  – as big capital gets bailed out by the federal government so profitability can be sustained, and the taxpayer takes the losses.

This is an appropriation, and misappropriation, of massive amounts of taxpayer money by an agency of government that isn't even an agency of government. The Fed is a privately owned "central banking" system! Even if was fully owned branch of government, it would have no right to appropriate the peoples' money – only Congress can constitutionally do that. But the Fed is doing thus that, as Congress looks on helplessly with crossed fingers. It has done it before, and it'll do it again. 

Of course, these are extraordinary times. The chickens of decades of fiscal irresponsibility, and just downright bad economic policy, are coming home to roost in large numbers. Soon they may be coming in overwhelming numbers. In short, we're on the very brink of what could be a rather catastrophic economic reckoning. The only thing that will stave it off, at least temporarily, will be the public's ability to swallow the reassurances of the Chairman of the Federal Reserve and our politicians – "The economy is essentially strong... We've never had it so good..." etc. Meanwhile, there's a lot of fear in high places.

As billions of new credit dollars are pumped into the economy at the tip-top of what is supposedly the "trickle-down" faucet, several things are happening.

1. Some of the richest people and financial institutions in the world, who have been playing fast and loose with the credit monster, are getting bailed out by working taxpayers and their children and grandchildren – the Federal Reserve making the deals and appropriating the funds.

2. Each and every credit dollar the Fed pumps into the economy equals not only a dollar created out of thin air and then spent, but two, three, or four, additional dollars of public debt that will have to be paid back by taxpayers at some future time.

3. This spells inflation – and a dollar that will continue to lose value against gold, silver, oil, and other major currencies, thereby cheating every American of the value of their earned dollars.

4. If the Fed bails out badly managed financial institutions, bad management is rewarded rather than punished. And if it bails out reckless borrowers, so they can pay debts they've contracted, the same thing is being done.

5. The Constitution vests lawmaking and spending of public funds solely in Congress – so the clear intents of the Constitution are being blatantly violated and ignored.

There's no real up-side of this cascading effect loose credit and the law-breaking required to save a smoke and mirrors financial Ponzi games. If the free market actually "ruled," as they always tell us it should and does, those big financial institutions that break all the rules of credit extension ought to be allowed to fail.

But our national leadership, over a period of many decades, has boxed us into serious predicament. We're between the rock and the hard place in which all alternatives are equally undesirable.

Our present monetary system is a total smoke and mirrors system operated as a profit-making business by private bankers. It's totally insane on the face of it – doubly so lacking fiscal responsibility on the part of Congress.

We have a purely fiat, smoke and mirrors, monetary system and monetary unit with no basis in any kind of value-based reality. It provides nothing but the ultimate slippery slope, because every dollar created is a dollar spent with an interest-bearing dollar of debt remaining.

Why not have a purely fiat, smoke and mirrors, dollar that doesn't result in a dollar in debt drawing interest from the sweat of labor's brow? We already have such a currency. It's been around since the Civil War, but hasn't been in use since the Kennedy administration.

THE LINCOLN GREENBACK

The Lincoln Greenback is an "United States Note" – a Treasury note – rather than a Federal Reserve Note, which looks very similar. The Greenback bailed the nation out of a huge debt quandary during the Civil War, and saved the nation billions of dollars that would have otherwise had to have been borrowed from private bankers and other financial interests at high interest.

A point of particular interest with regard to the particular $5.00 note shown above, is that some people refer to it as a "Kennedy Greenback" because of its issue date of 1963, and that both Kennedy and Lincoln were assassinated.

The main difference between how a U.S. Note works and how a Federal Reserve Note works is this:

1. A United States Note is given "Legal Tender" status by our lawmakers. It is printed and spent into circulation by the Treasury for the costs of paper and printing.
         When it is spent into circulation, it discharges the obligation it was spent to satisfy. Then it remains in circulation to be spent and received by others in payment of debts public and private. Not additional debt is created.
   

2. A Federal Reserve Note is given "Legal Tender" status by our lawmakers. It is printed by the Treasury for the cost of paper and printing. But but this is where the similarity ends.
        Federal Reserve Notes can only be circulated after the Treasury has issued an interest bearing (large denomination) Treasury Note, bond, or other Treasury "security" instrument as "security" for a loan to the government. The security is the "backing" for the Federal Reserve money that will subsequently be released into circulation.
        The Security is purchased from the government at discount by a financial institution, foreign government, or "investor," at a fraction of its face value. Thus the purchaser has loaned the government the money that it can now spend in the form of Federal Reserve money.
        That money is then both available for the government to spend, but also represents an ongoing liability of the government with a tail of high interest in its wake.
        So, when the government spends a Federal Reserve Note into circulation, it discharges the obligation it was spend to satisfy, just as would do with a U.S. Note. However, though it remains in circulation to be and received in payment for debts public and private, it also represents an ongoing debt of its face value, plus interest, plus the discount on the bond or other security that "backed" it.  

For our government to use Federal Reserve Note money, rather than its own United States Note money is totally absurd. But that's they way we do it.

The absurdity is that the government can only get the use of what is supposedly its own money by issuing security in the form of "Treasury Notes" to a private investor who then "loans" it money at high interest. In a sane world, the government would simply bypass the "private investors," and thus public indebtedness, and issue United States Notes, "Treasury Notes" for use of the people as money.

There was a time when money was a paper representation of gold or silver, and many were afraid money without gold or silver backing could not hold any value. It was called "inflation money." But that is no longer the case. Both United States Notes and Federal Reserve Notes are pure fiat money without any backing by gold or silver.

True enough, we now have inflation money. But rather than using our own "inflation money" that wouldn't cost the taxpayer much of anything to use, we have "bankers' inflation money" that costs the taxpayer plenty to use – and it unavoidably inflates at an ever accelerating pace (especially given the flaky economy that has been built upon it).

Inflation of National currency, could theoretically be scientifically controlled by Congress and the Treasury (if Congress could ever rediscover the concepts of limited government and fiscal responsibility). But inflation bankers' money is beyond the control of Congress or the Treasury. It is under control of bankers, of course, who do have a vested interest in making the system work, but it works to enrich the bankers who have the monetary monopoly at the expense of the people.

WHY DID THIS SYSTEM DEVELOP?

First, we must recall that the American government was supposed to be very limited in size. Second, we must remember that gold and silver were the only form of money recognized by this and other governments.

Government, of course, can't manufacture gold or silver, so it was not initially considered that the government could or should have the power and ability to "make" money. Gold and silver came into the economy only through private mining or trade. It was a given that "all wealth" came from the soil and commerce in the products the soil could be traded for gold and silver (money).

The only way the government could get it's hands on the gold or silver (money), required to carry out its functions, was to levy excise taxes (such on the sale of whisky), and to international trade – collecting tariffs and customs duties, which had to be paid in gold or silver.

It was considered that this would be sufficient to finance a strictly limited federal government establishment – and it did throughout most of our history, until the advent of the Federal Reserve System and Income Tax Amendment in 1913.

Most of the gold and silver coin that circulated in the young nation, was in the form of foreign coin, predominately Spanish silver. Most of the gold and silver remained safely deposited in banks, and "banking paper" became the primary circulating currency. The concept of "fractional reserve banking" allowed bankers to circulate a lot more paper than they had gold and silver to back up.

Despite many abuses of various kinds, the "bank paper" system worked pretty well. So, we had a de facto paper money system which was strictly a product of private enterprise and private banking.

Most of the big eastern banks, which became known as the "Eastern Banking Establishment" – were connected to English and other European banking houses. The Bank of England provided leadership in the developing "science" of credit creation and fractional reserve banking. And it must be remembered that much of the capital (money), that developed our nation – including western cattle industry, railroads, and many other industries, came via those European financial connections.

There was much "power" in this allied European-American banking combine. And, naturally, it's greatest power became it's money power – so that's what we call it, the "money power."

When the Civil War came about, the federal government was in need of much more money than it was able to tax in the traditional way. Not only did it need gold and silver with which to purchase war materiel and deal with foreign and domestic bankers, it needed millions and millions of dollars with which to pay the troops and domestic suppliers that comprised the generalized war machine.

The cost of borrowing such huge amounts of money from bankers, presented the Lincoln administration with a monumental dilemma. Bankers would advance the money, of course, but they would loan paper, charge high interest, and demand gold in repayment! It would have allowed total highway robbery – and this right at the very beginning of what would be a long war.

The idea of a national paper currency, and the economic mechanics behind it, had been long known and often debated. We had had many positive experiences with paper money during the colonial period. Colonial script had provided liquidity when colonies had been starved for gold and silver coin. Several colonies had managed to become prosperous in spite of the lack of "money," because the paper money actually served it's purpose as a viable medium of exchange.

The success of colonial script did not sit well with the mother country and the Bank of England, of course, and was suppressed and finally outlawed – this being one of the causes that eventually lead to the Declaration of Independence.

Script became an absolute necessity during the Revolutionary War. In spite of problems of inflation, Continental Currency served its purpose. But because of the inflationary nature of the Revolutionary script, government issued paper money came out with a bad name.

Naturally, most of the bad press directed at the idea of government issued script currency originated with the banking interests. And, of course, they carefully avoided mentioning that one of the major reasons for inflation of Continental script was the rampant counterfeiting of that script by the Crown and Bank of England. Counterfeiting Revolutionary script was a major tactic of war. The British Armies in North America used the script themselves – very lavishly.

So, it came to pass in America (as well as everywhere else), that money creation was a prerogative of bankers, not government.

But the requirements for huge amounts of money in the Civil War caused Lincoln to question what had already become monetary orthodoxy. The result was the good old Greenback dollar – the very first official, Made in America, circulating, government printed, paper currency – legal tender, for all debts, public and private.

Of course, the "money power" was livid, and National Banking Acts were soon passed – and though the bankers "permitted" survival of the Greenback as an emergency wartime expediency, they also consolidated the bankers' money creation prerogatives.

So, the bankers won out anyway. They won at the very time that the Greenback was doing extraordinary duty, paying for the Civil War. The banker's victory resulted an National Banking System wherein the various member banks could create and issue National Bank Notes. The bankers' victory was complete with the creation of the Federal Reserve System in 1913. Today, we call Federal Reserve Notes, "Greenbacks." But they aren't really Greenbacks at all. They are expensive imposters.

The following is quoted from a United States Treasury web-site on the history of U.S. money:

United States notes were known as greenbacks

"United States notes, which came to be called greenbacks, were the first real paper money issued by the U.S. government. They became known as greenbacks as they were the first bills to be engraved with green backs.

"Greenbacks were put in circulation in April 1862 at a time when the North was struggling with the problem of financing the Civil War which had begun a year earlier. These notes were made legal tender for all private and public debts except payment of customs duties and interest on U.S. bonds and notes. Thus they also became known as legal tenders.

"U.S. notes were originally backed by faith in the government rather than gold or silver. However, the Treasury was directed to begin redeeming U.S. notes in coin in 1879, which everyone understood as meaning they would be redeemed in gold. This continued until 1933 when the nation abandoned the gold standard. And so, once again, these notes were backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. government.

"The highest amount of U.S. notes ever outstanding was nearly $450 million in 1864. After the Civil War, many of these notes were retired until, in 1878, a law was passed freezing the amount outstanding at more than $322 million. This law still stands today although U.S. notes have not been issued since 1969.

"Today, U.S. notes are a liability of the U.S. Treasury, while Federal Reserve notes are a liability of the Federal Reserve System. Since the Federal Reserve System has the responsibility for maintaining growth and elasticity in the U.S. money supply, it uses Federal Reserve notes for the active currency part of the money supply. With this in mind, the Department of the Treasury has asked Congress to enact legislation that would allow them to cease issuing U.S. notes on the basis that they are an anachronism."

As documented above, the Greenback survived in a specially "limited" way until relatively recent times, and were even redeemable in gold from 1879 through 1933. The 1929 Stock Market crash prompted the emergency war powers initiatives that enabled Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal programs. Yet, strangely, he declined to utilize government Greenbacks in his spending programs, and was thus unable to effect an economic recovery.

Greenbacks apparently haven't been issued since the Kennedy administration, when, many seem to have been mysteriously circulated. Perhaps coincidentally, Lincoln and Kennedy were both assassinated. There's much evidence that the bankers hated Lincoln, and some evidence that Kennedy may have ticked them off too. (see: Lincoln, Money, Greenback, and JFK).

Roosevelt took some very bold action with regard to banking and money. After all, there was a very serious banking crises on hand. And he famously said, referring to bankers, "They are uncompromising in their hatred for me, and I welcome their hatred."

Significantly, however, he did not infringe on the banking monopoly on money creation. He never threatened to to do so – in fact his tough actions were aimed at saving the banks as well as boosting the economy. And every penny that he spent on his New Deal spending programs from 1933 through 1941, profited the nation's National and Federal Reserve Banks. So Roosevelt was not assassinated. 

John Q. Pridger

A NEW GOLD STANDARD?

Of course, the only way to force fiscal responsibility on Congress would be to make the currency actually "worth" something. Gold and silver have always been the monetary metals of choice. And our Constitution makes it clear that our founders knew this. The only problem is that the government must buy or borrow the gold necessary to back the currency from those who have it. This leads to somewhat of a "what comes first, the chicken or the egg?" problem, which Pridger has discussed before. And there doesn't seem to be enough gold to back the amount of currency required to power large economies such as we have today.

The probable answer would be the once much discussed "commodity dollar." Rather than basing the value of the dollar on a rare commodity of limited availability such as gold, base it on a "basket" of key renewable agricultural commodities – commodities that bear a direct relationship to the real necessities of life. These would have a direct relationship to the things which we would most like our currency to maintain a fixed value in relation to.

Wouldn't it be nice to thing if the value of our currency always maintained its purchasing power with regard to the necessities of life?

This would then seem to be the "logical standard" by which an otherwise fiat dollar, such as United States Notes, should be scientifically tied.

Look at a supermarket cart full of groceries. Pridger remembers when a generous week's supply of groceries for a family of five cost about $20.00. The same cart full would probably cost about $200.00 today. Had the dollar been tied to the market value of the raw agricultural commodities that when into those groceries, we'd still be able to buy the same amount of groceries for about $20.00.

In spite of all the rhetoric about maintaining free markets, and avoiding wage and price controls, etc., a national government does have a naturally ordained role to play in price stability, just as it has a role to play in providing a workable and fair currency. And the two ought to be tied together as one. If the currency is tied to basic essential agricultural raw materials (and perhaps other raw materials produced within the continental United States), prices will naturally tend to stabilize. If prices are stabilized, the market will also tend to stabilize wages and the prices of other market items.

And what of gold and silver? As stable as they are as basic elements and market commodities, a fixed relationship between them and a stable currency in terms of the necessities of life simply cannot be maintained. But they could still play an important monetary function. There is sufficient silver to allow use of silver coinage – and gold makes an ideal "savings" commodity.

John Q. Pridger

THE MORAL DILEMMAS OF CUTTING AND RUNNING

Not even the Democratic presidential candidates are advocating a "cut and run" end of our Iraq campaign. They admit that the war was a ghastly mistake, with much lost and no hope of actually winning anything. Not only is there the dilemma of how to make an orderly exit, but the larger moral dilemma. responsible.

As Colin Powell said before committing himself to lock-step with President Bush's war aims, "If we break it – we own it." And if we own it, and have broken it, we have the moral obligation to fix it before leaving.

We had the same dilemma in Vietnam. We finally essentially cut and ran from Vietnam, leaving the divided factions to hash things out at best they could. But Iraq is much more complicated, and the divisions much more complex.

Vietnam was a relatively simple contest between Communist nationalism, allied with our ideological enemy, Soviet Russia in the North, and non-communist nationalists in the south who were obliged to put their faith and national destiny in the hands of the United States.

In Iraq there are many more dynamics at work. While communism is not in the mix, the divisions between our culture and that of all Moslem states is much more historically and religiously based and more intractable than it was in Vietnam. The Vietnam War was essentially a political and economic war which its roots in colonialism.

The feelings at play in our Middle East intervention have much older and deeper roots. It begins with the fundamental Islam vs. Infidel religious philosophy of the region. Two centuries of Christian Crusades remain a fresh memory in the collective consciousness of the Arab World.

It's ironic, that despite similarities in race, common religious roots, and having sprung from kindred ancient civilizations, the cultural divide between the Christian West and the Moslem East seems much greater than between the Christian West and what Christians had always considered "pagan" Asia. Why this is so is perhaps more a matter of racial and cultural temperament than actual religious moorings.

Anybody who has studied the history of the Mediterranean peoples, and particularly the Moslem Arabs, realize there is a marked difference in the general temperament of the Arab peoples of North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, compared to most other European peoples. Colonial powers partly subjugated them, but never really conquered them. They were largely an array of fiery, courageous, and often elusive, nomadic tribal warriors. In the post colonial period, the riches promised by oil alone have made many Arab chieftains and rulers amenable to inroads by limited numbers of Infidels. So, in dealing with the Arabs, we are dealing with a different sort of temperament than we dealt with in the case of most Europeans and Asians.  

Once the French colonialists were out of the picture in Vietnam, we filled the power vacuum in order to give the Vietnamese a chance to discover political independence while maintaining trade and political ties to the capitalist West – to prevent them from being "subjugated" by "communist yoke."

Remember those mean, atheistic, communists who intended to conquer the world? We didn't want that to happen, and Vietnam was one of the places where we drew a line in the sand. Well, we all remember how that turned out.

As in Iraq, we were in Vietnam as the "good guys" – to save the Vietnamese from the communist scourge. Yet it is also of significant to remember that our philosophy in battle was that anything that would save the life of a single American G.I. was to be employed, no matter how many Vietnamese might be doomed thereby. In other words, though we were there to help the Vietnamese, one American life was worth any number of Vietnamese lives.

We still look at things that way as we fight in Iraq and elsewhere. Only now we can no long actually say it in such crude terms. It's become politically incorrect. We actually have to try hard to limit collateral damage – or at least make a convincing case in that direction.

Another thing that is different about Iraq. There, we invaded a relatively politically and culturally stable country that was not at war with anybody. We broke down the entire political and military establishment that had kept the nation together, and now are in a mess as the nation begins trying to sort itself out into several distinct mutually hostile religious factions and tribes – and which one will ultimately rule whatever sort of "nation" emerges from the rubble. The hope of a peaceful, unified, nation now seems totally impossible in anything like the near future.

Thus the moral dilemma with which we are confronted. How can we attain peace with honor, as we tried to do in Vietnam, and get the hell out without leaving the nation we broke – not in two, but into fragments – in total chaos?

The Vietnamese are a naturally orderly people, because their ancient civilization was long steeped in the soothing influences of Confucian and Buddhist philosophy. They really had no deep-seeded quarrels among themselves. The clash between Buddhists and Catholic minority was relatively mild, since both were, after all, religions of peace and tolerance. The only quarrels were imposed on them by external interests and forces.

The quarrels were between colonialism and self-determination, and between communism and capitalism. We helped break the already bi-lateral nation, and tried to mold at least the south half of the country according to our own vision of what Vietnam should be, but Vietnam had to fix itself after all. And it did.

Nonetheless, hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese refugees migrated to the United States because of the situation we finally had to leave them in.

The Iraqis are not likely to become unified again. They are not one people. They are a multitude of mutually hostile tribes, sects, and minority groups. They had been roughly cobbled together as a nation by the last ruling colonial power, and then held together only through the strong military administrations of ruthless dictators.

We successfully got rid of the ruthless dictator, but in doing so destroyed a relatively stable and unified nation. We can't fix it. Only the Iraqis can sort things out – but they can't do that while we are in the mix taking sides, but unable and unwilling to crush all opposition to our Iraqi blueprint.

John Q. Pridger

Easter Sunday, 23 March, 2008

WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF THE LIGHTS WENT OUT?

A winter ice storm caused the lights to go out in Pridger's neck of the Heartland a few weeks ago. Two days without electricity were pretty trying even on Paradise Ridge. Pridger's household probably suffered a lot less than many others. The main hardships the Pridger family faced were that the TV and computers couldn't be turned on. We couldn't check our email, and Pridger had to postpone posting on his blog. But the fireplace still burned and the gas stove continued to work. So did the kerosene lamps, and water could still be drawn from the well with a bucket. Some hardships!

Many people, however, lacked heat or the ability to cook. Some water systems failed to put pressure in the lines. Many couldn't travel, and those who could still probably found it difficult to adjust to not having a functioning home to go back to. Fortunately, it was only for two or three days.

What if the outage was even more widespread and lasted weeks or months rather than days? What if trucks and trains could not travel? What if the ships conveying out goods from China failed to come in, or could not be unloaded, for a matter of weeks or months?

What would happen if the nation's life support systems failed for any length of time? 

We would find out very quickly what hardships really are. And we'd discover that anything approaching true "national security" is a really bad joke. We have no national security, and we have no backup system. Nothing will work if the lights go out and the national and international transportation systems are interrupted. We not only have no backup system – our primary systems, including the agricultural industry, are dependent on OPEC oil imports, and machinery and consumer goods imports.

In short, we'd find out what international interdependence, and a total lack of local and even national self-reliance, is all about.

SPEAKING OF LIGHTS GOING OUT...

This is an amazing picture – both a beautiful and a scary picture – a night view of the earth's main landmasses and oceans from space. Just imagine the energy being consumed in order to light our planet up in this manner – and consider the correlation between the lighted areas and modern civilization itself.

Just a little over a hundred years ago the entire planet would have been almost entirely dark at night. This is an illustration of the industrial progress of the twentieth century – a period that has spanned only Pridger's life and that of his parents. 

And think of the extent and magnitude these lighted areas have in relation to our present perception and concerns with regard to global warming! And China, India, and several other major and minor countries fully expect to soon shine just as brightly from space as the eastern continental United States, Western Europe, and Japan.

Are we to suppose that gas and other energy prices are ever going to come down again? Are we going to work fast enough to replace fossil fuel energy with  non-polluting, renewable, fuels? Are we going to stop, or even appreciably forestall, global warming – if it is even attributable to human activities?

On global warming, Pridger isn't convinced that it is as much of a man-caused phenomena as we are increasingly being told. But irregardless of this – even if global warming is not strictly our fault – we (with our material "progress"), are destroying, or at least crippling, our earthly environment. There's little doubt of this. If man is also causing global warming, this is merely another unintended consequence of our material "progress." Whatever the case, we do need to clean up our act, and do it soon. But we won't, because of the corporate mega-systems that have come to dominate and govern the human condition. These systems are ravenous "growth machines" that will not be stopped or arrested except through catastrophic events.

In any case, we're not "hurting" the earth, of course. The earth will continue – and do very well even if we manage to render it inhospitable to human habitation. The worst we can do is hasten various environmental changes and extinctions – but there have been many extinctions before. The next Genesis may merely add one more day to the Creation and start anew. 

Ironically, the dark land-mass areas (where habitable and inhabited), are the areas where humanity is still best equipped to survive if something should happen to our ability to light ourselves. For, if the modern world's lights went out, its "civilized peoples" will be about as helpless as babes in the woods. 

Some remaining indigenous Africans, Amazonian Indians, aboriginal New Guineans, Borneo tribesmen, Mongolian herdsmen, and other "primitive," but self-reliant, peoples, scattered in isolated areas, will be the only ones capable of taking the outage in stride. While they survive as usual, never missing a meal or festival, the civilized peoples of the world will be in dire straits, event to the extent of reverting to cannibalism. Remnants may survive by learning anew how to produce during the daylight hours and sleeping during the hours of darkness.

Our goal, however, is to make sure that every living soul on the planet attains all the advantages we have – by making certain they too become totally dependent on the production of others elsewhere (as we do), and must purchase their every life sustaining morsel of food, and every consumer necessity, from appropriate corporate entities (as we do).

Just something to ponder.

John Q. Pridger

WRIGHT DOESN'T MAKE WHITE – OBAMA'S CROSS

Pridger believes, with the possible exception of Ron Paul, Barack Hussein Obama is the best man still standing for president. His honesty and candor seem to match his intelligence. His political face seems to be genuine rather that just rhetoric.

The main problem with his candidacy is that the American people still do no know who he is. Many whites have viewed him as the Black candidate that would allow them to elect the nation's first Black president, but still have one that was white. After being introduced to the inflammatory rhetoric Senator Obama's minister, many are not so sure.

On the other hand, many Blacks who had looked at Obama as an extraordinarily slick Uncle Tom – in fact, a White man in disguise – are discovering perhaps a kindred spirit.

Obama undoubtedly came out of his mixed upbringing and education with questions of his own. Who was he, and what were his goals? When he settled into his profession as a lawyer and perhaps began to have political ambitions, he had to make a decision – where would he most likely find the most support? As a mixed race person of white and black parents, the obvious answer was to be found in the color of his skin rather than the content of his character.

He could only be fully embraced by the African-American community and could never have been fully embraced by the white community. This is simply a lingering fact of life in America. We are still a divided nation where men are divided by the color of their skin, regardless of the content of their character. As an aspiring politician, the choice was obvious.

So, Barack Obama chose not only to identify with Chicago's black community, he chose to join a particularly militant black church. His association served him well in Chicago where black voters can easily tip the balance in favor of black candidates. The Reverend Jeremiah Wright's rhetoric stood Obama in good stead among most black voters. It propelled him into the Illinois legislature representing his predominately black constituents.

Then something totally unexpected happened. Not only did Barack Obama find himself winning an Illinois seat representing that state in Washington – he now finds himself on the very brink of becoming the Democratic presidential nominee.

Now some stray chickens come home to roost and threaten his chances at the nomination. And if he get the nomination, they will even further threaten his chances of winning the White House. Obama has handled the affair admirably well. But he has a problem. Americans are only now really trying to figure out who he really is, and what he represents.

Until the Wright Sermon revelations, white Americans were in a quandary as to whether or not they are ready for a Black president – one who seemed to share their own thoughts and beliefs. Now they are wondering about Obama's "whiteness," and whether they are ready for a truly Black president – one who may secretly agree with Reverend Wright's fiery sermons.

It's impossible to really know. Senator Obama may merely be an unfortunate victim of circumstance. On the other hand he may agree with some of the things that Rev. Wright expounded. In fact, it would be difficult for Pridger to believe that he does not. Some truths simply cannot be acknowledged in today's political climate.

John Q. Pridger

Saturday 22, March, 2008

THE PASSING OF THE LAST AMERICAN GENERATION

In a few years the last generation to have known the pre-globalization, pre-multicultural, unabashedly "Christian," and the still essentially independent, United States of America will have passed away. Already the new generation of politicians and national leaders are the products of our post-independent, post-homogeneous, even post-industrial, era.

If Barack Obama becomes the next president, the background of the president of the United States will be, for better or worse, one that is totally alien to the culture that formed, nurtured, and built our national greatness. The same, though perhaps slightly less so, can be said of Hillary Clinton. John McCain is undoubtedly more experienced than either Democratic candidate – but his political wagon is securely tied to the very same forces now remaking the nation into something it was never intended to be. All three presidential candidates can be expected to continue integrating this nation into a global system that is totally antithetical to national independence, security, and even individual liberty.

Pridger's generation was born during the trying times of World War Two, and had reached adulthood by the time of the assassination of President Kennedy, Civil Rights, the Counter-cultural movement, multiculturalism, the advent of the Welfare State, and, of course, globalization.

Pridger's generation had been raised by parents and grandparents who still had the very strong cultural and religious underpinning of those who had founded and built the nation. They had experienced the transition from a horse drawn economy to an automotive economy – from kerosene lamps to rural electrification – and from a predominately agrarian nation to a predominately industrial and urban one. They had known the hardships of poverty, the Great Depression, war-time shortages, rationing, and sacrifice, as well as the post-war era that delivered a degree of broad-based prosperity never before known in the history of any people in the history of mankind.

Those generations witnessed the first manned flight and the progression of advancement that put men on the moon – they new the very first wonders of radio news and entertainment and finally saw the advent of color TV and the computer age – and they had maintained their core values through it all.

Even Pridger's own sheltered and progressive experience includes things that now seem like ancient history – things such as the drinking bucket and dipper in the kitchen; the wood and kerosene kitchen ranges; the wooden ice box; the wooden crank telephone; and the horse-drawn milk wagon in town. He knew the one room school house, and (though not particularly religious), thought it perfectly normal and appropriate to thank God for his food in public school. He served a hitch in the Navy when it was still referred to as "this man's Navy."

In those days, Pridger could never have imagined co-ed military academies that could no longer "discriminate against" women. He couldn't imagine women aboard a warship. He couldn't have imagined gun-toting women – mothers – leaving their husbands and small children to go off to war in places like Iraq. The thought of female pilots bombing and strafing innocent women and children was unthinkable.

Pridger's experience was slightly unique in that he watched many of the changes that soon overtook his homeland from afar. The nation was just beginning to "change" in the early 1960s as his work and desire to see the world took him to the Far East for what became an extended period of time.

When he returned home for visits in 1967 and 1970, he returned to a markedly changed nation, but he really didn't realize the magnitude of the changes that were taking place. But by then he was beginning to pay a little closer attention. When he returned home to stay in 1977, it was culturally like coming home to a foreign nation – as if the nation had been long occupied by alien enemies who had overturned everything Americans had once clung to and held dear.

The nation that had considered Washington, Madison, Jefferson, and the Adamses and national heroes seemed gone – as dead as those "Dead White Men" – as dead and discredited as Christopher Columbus. The statement had been made, "God Is dead!" And spokesmen for the progressive leadership had answered had agreed, and the ACLU was conducting a national cleanup campaign to make it stick.

Pridger remembers when the Yankee dollar was still considered as good as gold, and when our "silver" coins were still made of silver. He remembers when what was good for American business was not only good for Wall Street, but good for American workers as well. He remembers the day president Kennedy was assassinated, and he remembers the changes that have transformed the nation, seemingly from that pivotal event onward.

He has watched as a great nation, which aspired to remain great, began to crumble from within, and transform itself to something that is hardly recognizable as the nation that had elected its first Catholic president. He has watched the nation go from a nation that was internationally (at least in the West), considered an aspiration to mankind, to an international pariah state, seemingly no longer possessed of any significant redeeming social values.

Of course, there were some things Americans had clung to for far too long. Things like institutionalized racial discrimination. But it was obvious that something had gone terribly wrong with the processes of implementing what was supposed to be "equality" and "justice." Our government began providing justice to previously oppressed peoples by establishing degrees of injustice toward the presumed oppressors – the majority. Democracy, of course, ceased to function as the oppression of the majority was traded for a form of oppression by the champions of minorities and "victim classes."

Culturally and educationally, we seemed to have abandoned all real efforts directed toward upgrading and improving our society in favor of downgrading and debasing it – while loudly proclaiming progress, enlightenment, and national fulfillment.

Blacks got "equality under the law" and then some. They got the integration they wanted – while whites got forced integration they didn't want. Blacks got Affirmative Action. They got welfare and food stamps. And after all these coveted things had been gained, they still figured they were coming up short. So they got madder than they had been before Civil Rights was ever seriously considered. Radicals, it seemed, were in charge of everything behind the changes taking place in the nation. Apparently many Blacks thought they had gained license to riot in the streets, and at least destroy their own neighborhoods – in hopes "Whitey" would provide something better.

In our cities it was no longer safe for bus drivers to carry change. "Exact fare" was required. Pridger personally found it out on a visit to Detroit, on a "Black Day in July" in 1967. On that particular "Black Day," plus four more days, forty-three people died in the rioting. Some 2,509 stores were looted or burned; 388 families were rendered homeless; and 412 buildings were burned or damaged enough to be demolished.

In short, inner cities became dangerous ghostly places surrounded with dangerous inner city neighborhoods. Betrayed by "democratic processes," Whites had been voting with their feet and relinquished the inner cities to the Blacks who preferred white neighborhoods to Black neighborhoods. It was total, heartbreaking, irony.

When Pridger returned home in 1970, many of our great industrial cities were still in the throes of self-destruction. By 1977, those great cities were no longer great. They were in shambles. Urban Renewal was the government's answer to destroyed inner cities – and Urban Renewal was another wave of destruction in those suffering cities. After Urban Renewal, cities were changed beyond recognition – modern, sterile, lifeless, business enclaves surrounded by dangerous inner city neighborhoods.

Detroit remains a pristine example of our sickened industrial cities. Nice modern city skyline; blocks upon blocks of once upscale neighborhoods that look like bombed out Baghdad cityscapes; surrounded by mile upon mile of dangerous inner city neighborhoods – and the distinction of being the murder capital of the nation.

During the same period we grossly downgraded public school educational standards to accommodate minorities; outlawed simple prayers in public schools; and we'd legalized abortion. By court order (rather than constitutional process), we had begun busing kids around in order to attain some sort of integration balance, rather than trying to make all schools better, no matter where they might be, and no matter what their natural racial composition. It was probably during Pridger's 1970 visit to Pontiac, Michigan that the city's schools were heatedly and seriously debating whether or not to make "Black English" a required high school course.

Pontiac, Michigan (where Pridger had relatives), had faired little better than Detroit during the Civil Rights era. It had been a great little city – then, as if by magic, it was the hollow shell of a city. The County Court House and all other local government offices relocated a few miles outside of town – as had most of the White population and most of the businesses. The newspaper, "The Pontiac Free Press," left too, and became the "Oakland (County) Free Press."

Among other things, what had been our institutionalized standards of morality and common decency, had been totally de-institutionalized, "liberalized," and effectively abandoned. What had been called obscene, vulgar, indecent, and blasphemous had been redefined as "adult" English – protected as freedom of expression. (If you don't like it, they told us, change the channel and watch a boring movie, install soundproofing to your children's rooms, or simply cork your ears!) Pornography had been legalized and had come to the big screen, and being a porn star had become a respectable profession and business.

Pridger had spent a two decades as a sailor, but he was shocked to find a whole generation of youngsters had co-opted what had once been considered the more profane prerogatives of soldiers, sailors, and social miscreants. Since the entertainment media had abandoned it's former "voluntary code of good broadcasting" and movie-making practices, the kids had learned "adult English" – and there seems to be no such thing as "polite society" any more, where foul language was inappropriate.

It's strange to think how the nation has changed in half of a single lifetime. Just take "freedom of speech," for example. Pridger, from his most tender years, always thought there had been freedom of speech in this country. He knew, of course, that there was language that wasn't considered decent – but it never bothered him that he seldom ever heard it. Decent people simply avoided using it.

In fact, Pridger never heard the wonderful "F-word" articulated by an adult until he had himself become an adult, and had been in the Navy for a while. And, in those days, even soldiers and sailors still respected what was then known as "common decency." Foul language was generally avoided when in mixed company, or around children.

Pridger had been raised in a pretty sheltered environment. Though his family was neither affluent nor religious, common decency reigned supreme in the household. TV programming was 100% decent. And so were movies – even the best of them. When Clark Gable said, "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn," in Gone With the Wind, many movie-goers were scandalized. It was revolutionary.

Today we have the twin specters of the "hip-hop" and "gay" revolutions – both staring our culture malevolently in the face. Pridger can still hardly believe society has sunk so low that homosexuality has become respectable, and homosexuals a powerful political force in the nation.

The very idea of "same sex marriage" is totally preposterous (except to homosexuals and some "liberals," of course), but it's here. And the fact that young white kids today play "cultural catch-up" with petty Black thugs and rappers as their roll models, in their efforts to be "rebellious", "cool" and "outstanding," is equally appalling.  

Pridger doesn't believe in "gay rights." In fact, he doesn't believe in "women's rights," or "Black rights," or any kind of "special" rights at all for any "identity group." The only kind of rights Pridger recognizes are "God-given, or 'natural' human rights" – with no "special categories," and no special privilege or status for anybody. He believes all people are human – including the good, bad, and the ugly, of all colors and genders.

He doesn't believe in "animal rights" either, though he believes humans should leave room for, and protect, animal populations – and be kind to pets and other domesticated animals. He doesn't believe in torture, or cruel and inhuman treatment or punishment, for any animal – and this includes humans (including terrorist, or any other kind, of suspect or prisoner).

While we have developed a society of specially regarded identity groups, with "hate crime" laws to punish suspected prejudicial thought, we have returned to an acceptance of preventive, preemptive, war that kills and maims hundreds of thousands of innocent people – and we have readopted the long discredited practice of torture for perceived and suspected enemies. Are we, as a society and a nation, really going in the right direction? Pridger doesn't think so.

If we throw wrenches into machinery, it doesn't take long for the machinery to break down. If we engage in social, political, cultural, and economic suicide it won't be very long before our nation will experience a serious, recognizable, failure of vital signs.  

The generation that can remember what America used to be before the transitions of the last half century, will soon pass away. Our generation will be replaced with generations who think the America of today is the example of our greatness – based on today's standards. Today's younger generations believe that our generation lived in an uncivil, barbarous, era of violence, injustice, lynching and unmitigated hypocrisy. The new generation believes that foul language and porn are normal manifestations of American freedom, ingenuity, and culture.

What will America be in another fifty years?

John Q. Pridger

INSTITUTIONALIZED FISCAL INSANITY

Funny that when the Democrats agonize over war spending, they do not say, "We are spending too much money." They just say we are spending too much on war. They want to spend the money nonetheless – on other things – things that the Constitution doesn't authorize – and which will bankrupt the nation almost as quickly and completely as spending on war does.

The Democrats are poor socialists. They would take care of us from cradle to grave – on borrowed money. Nobody has suggested socializing (nationalizing), the nation's money – so we could at least spend our own money on social programs – rather than always using "other peoples' money."

They promote the proposition that it's possible to tax the people enough to take care of the people – or at least tax the rich and hard working enough to take care of the people who can't or won't take care of themselves.

This might be possible if we started from a sound economic base, and didn't have to borrow all the money that comes into the system. But under our present monetary system, literally everything, in the final analysis, is "damned if you do and damned if you don't."

Whether we have a functioning free enterprise system, a totally socialized system, or some sort of a mix, the money used to finance it is always purchased on credit. And this insures that whatever system we may have, it is ultimately certain to crash. It's institutionalized fiscal insanity.

John Q. Pridger

Wednesday, 19 March, 2008

EMBARRASSING TRUTHS

The various presidential candidates have a very difficult, narrow, path to follow. There are certain issues that they have to address in the campaign – most having nothing to do with anything the Constitution puts in the way of federal or presidential responsibilities. They have to avoid other issues like the plague – and if they do come up, truth and candor have to be avoided.

Articulating a simple truths can get a campaign worker fired, as in the case of the Geraldine Ferrara (who, it should be remembered, was our very first female vice-presidential candidate in with Walter Mondale in 1984). She commented that, if Barack Obama were white, he would never have found himself in his present position. That's a simple statement of fact. Ms. Ferrara was simply pointing out the obvious. Everybody knows it. It wasn't a "racist" comment – but it got her fired from the campaign.

While the hope is that the best "Person" will win, the campaign bubbles and boils on petty issues – and petty issues cannot help but come to the fore when two such people are the leading candidates in a heated presidential race.

In fact, "race" has become perhaps the major issue in the Democratic campaign, despite both candidates' efforts to avoid the obvious. Gender, too, of course. It's Woman vs. Man, White vs. Black, White Woman vs. Black Man – all capitalized. The Democratic party has staked its chances on two very unlikely candidates. 

Pridger would like to say that of the two Democratic candidates, Barack Obama appears to be the most candidly honest of the two. His obvious honesty and condor in his reaction to the flap over Reverend Wright's inflammatory sermons, constitutes a refreshing anomaly in campaign posturing.

Rev. Wright, like so many others, white and Black, has made some very politically incorrect statements in his fiery sermons. Never mind that many of his statements may be true, unpleasant though they may have been – the only politically correct course of action would be to totally disavow the man along with his rhetoric.

Senator Obama, however, in a truly eloquent and candid response, showed his metal – the mark of an honest and sincere man. He refused to disown his friend and pastor, and refused to disassociate himself from his church. He was fortunate enough to have a white grandmother to whom he could also relate, pointing out that even she has racial biases (or fears) – though that does not lessen his respect and affection for her.

In doing this, Obama may have damaged his chances to become the Democratic nominee, but many people have correctly received Obama's speech as the mark of a man of true loyalties and integrity – rare in presidential politics. He always handles himself well. But the fact is many seeds of doubt have been planted in the mind of the public, and these doubts will be exploited to the fullest if Obama finds himself in a race with Senator McCain.

Hillary would have looked a lot better had she stood by Geraldine Ferrara, rather than immediately succumbing to knee-jerk "politically correct" expediencies. 

Pridger doesn't have any strong feelings against Hillary. But she does appear to be much more ambitious than honest and loyal. She isn't presidential material in Pridger's view – and Pridger would think it totally unthinkable to have yet "another" Clinton administration. Bill would be among Hillary's baggage when she entered the White House. She is at least that loyal.

Obama is now suspect because of his association with Rev. Wright. Oddly enough, Hillary doesn't seem to be suspect for her many past associations of a much more serious nature. All of that seems to have been forgotten for the time being. But they will undoubtedly be fully exploited if she finds herself in a race with Senator McCain.

Obama isn't Pridger's idea of a great presidential choice either, though the man may be not only the best candidate left standing – but the best "Person" in the contest. His main handicap is not his race, but his party. Not that Pridger is a Republican. The Republican Party has morphed away from its roots just as the Democratic Party did. And both are "New World Order" parties.

To paraphrase President Kennedy, "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country." Since his assassination, the Democratic platform has totally turned that totally around and institutionalized "Just think of all the things a Democratic administration will be do for you." 

The Democratic party simply hasn't stood for anything compatible with either the Constitution or any of the fundamental values this nation once stood for, for almost fifty years. It's the feel good party, the victims' party, and the party party. The Republican Party, for all it's many criminal actions, at least still maintains some basic "American principles" hidden beneath its war platform.

Ron Paul would be Pridger's choice, if he makes it to the finish line. But he hasn't got a snowball's chance in Hell of being elected. He's white, honest, incorruptible, and cannot keep himself from articulating uncomfortable, politically incorrect, truths. Most cumbersome of all, he still believes in the Constitution, and that it should be more than just an historic symbol, framed under glass, but otherwise totally ignored.

None of the present three present frontrunners even hint at putting the Constitution back on the national table. Their focus is either on war, political correctness, or "What your government can do for you. Not what you can do for your country." And not one of them is addressing what the government could and should do to get the nation back onto a firm economic foundation.

Pridger predicts John McCain will be the next president. As unpopular as the Iraqi war has become, the war party usually wins during times of war – because that's where the big money is. This applies whether the "war party" is Democrat or Republican. But strange things to do happen. Pridger predicted that neither Bill Clinton nor George W. Bush could possibly win second terms.

If either Barack or Hillary become the next president, nothing important will change. The wars will go on, though Iraq might be scaled back a little more quickly than under a McCain administration. 

John Q. Pridger

Tuesday, 18 March, 2008

$1,000.00 GOLD!

Ah! The Stock Market has taken heart. It's "UP" this morning. It's done it's duty – for now. Thousand dollar an ounce gold tells us something, however. It tells us that despite a DOW hovering around 12,000, the dollar is worth only about 3.5% of what it was worth in terms of gold when the gold window was slammed shut in 1973. It was $35.00 an ounce at that time, and had been at that level since about 1933.

If Pridger remembers correctly, President Nixon and crew, made the gesture of setting an "official rate" of about $42.00 an ounce for gold. But there was no longer any meaning in an official rate. The dollar was loose to "float" in relation to gold and other currencies. Times, and the good old American dollar, simply aren't what they used to be. The dollar "as good as gold" was gone, and so was the honest economy.

MONKEY BUSINESS

Our government jumped the track a long, long, time ago. In fact, as the tracks have multiplied, it's jumped many tracks. It lays new tracks almost every day but, inevitably, they all point in the wrong directions. But one of the many major cornerstones of relatively recent history – where we witnessed the results of jumping the most important track – occurred in the era of the Kennedy administration. 

The wake up call, of course, occurred on the 22nd of November, 1963 in Dallas, Texas, when John F. Kennedy was assassinated. The Warren Commission did it's best to put the people at ease, however. It determined that the assassination was the doing of deranged a lone gunman.

At the time of the assassination, most of the public still had a great deal of trust in their government and its various agencies, as well as a great respect for the major news media. They had little reason to doubt the findings of the Warren Commission or the press. But things did look a little fishy to some.

New Orleans District Attorney, Jim Garrison, soon saw the spore of the elephant and finally made a heroic attempt to get the public refocused on something closer to the truth in the matter of the assassination. But he was foiled by the same powerful  machinery that still puts the blame on Lee Harvey Oswald.

Oliver Stone's "JFK" movie got people thinking again, but only a little for a while. ABC produced and aired some corrective documentaries to get the people back on the wrong track again. Then, two or three years ago, the History Channel did a pretty courageous thing in airing  the documentary mini-series entitled, The Men Who Killed Kennedy. Pridger just happened to see it, and was quite surprised that some of the truth (at least as Pridger had come to believe it), appeared to be working its way out of the bag.

The History Channel seems to have quit airing this mini-series. And though it is available in various formats from such sources as Amazon.com, it seems that the last four parts of the series are not included. Perhaps they are the most revealing and controversial. But the first six parts are revealing enough.

Over the years, many books, good and bad, have been published about the assassination. Pridger has read several of them. Many were enlightening – some very much so – but perhaps most were intentionally, or even unintentionally, obfuscationary. The "lone gunman" establishment is still very active in the book publishing business, and it definitely doesn't want the full truth to come out.

Another interesting book is out. It's title, Dr. Mary's Monkey, by Edward T. Haslam, doesn't sound much like a political blockbuster, but it may be. Pridger hasn't got his hands on a copy yet, but has read parts of the book that are available on line.

"In the late 1960s, I heard about Mary Sherman’s connection to an underground medical laboratory run by a suspect in the murder of President Kennedy. I was told they were using monkey viruses to create cancer. The possibility of this being used as a biological weapon was clear. The dark specter of unleashing a designer virus on the world haunted me. I even offered a sarcastic comment at the time: “The good news is if there’s a bizarre global epidemic involving cancer and a monkey virus thirty years from now, at least we’ll know where it came from." (From the Prologue of Dr. Mary's Monkey)

Pridger will not go into the connections between Dr. Mary Sherman, a respected cancer researcher, and the Kennedy assassination here. In fact there was really no connection between the good doctor and the assassination itself. Among other things, however, it is significant that she was murdered in 1964.

The book may not put a finger on exactly who killed John F. Kennedy, but it provides some unexpected "also" reasons why the investigation into the assassination had to be misdirected and suppressed at all costs. It can hardly be considered coincidental that, in the course of a very secretive government research project she was involved in, Dr. Mary Sherman crossed paths with none other than David Ferrie and the man later to be accused as the lone assassin – Lee Harvey Oswald, himself.

Just as interesting and shocking as the assassination connections revealed in the book, are the possible connections between cancer research being done in the early sixties in New Orleans (as alluded to in the prologue excerpted above), and today's increasing cancer and AIDS epidemics.

Enter the Green Monkey – later to serve as a patsy in the AIDS epidemic.

John Q. Pridger

Monday, 17 March, 2008

CHICKENS COMING HOME TO ROOST

Mark this date in your diary. It could be the harbinger of things to come. Only last year the investment bank, Bear & Stearns, stocks were valued at $159.00 a share. At the end of last week  – after a bad year with the ongoing sub-prime mortgage situation – our supposedly "sound" economy told us the same stock was worth $30.00 per share. Last week a somewhat red faced Bear admitted it was in a bit of a liquidity pinch. The Federal Reserve rushed in to shore the dykes with an infusion of cheap and quick credit dollars – and more.

How can a major company of substance literally go into "free-fall"? The answer is that the substance simply wasn't there in the first place. It was smoke and mirrors. And our entire economy is infected with the virus.

Over the weekend, however, another extraordinary action and transaction took place on days when most of the participants might have been golfing. We woke up on Monday morning to discover that the once invulnerable (but obviously risk prone) Bear Stearns is on track to becoming a subsidiary of J.C. Morgan Chase – with a buyout price of only $2.00 per share, in a deal brokered by the Federal Reserve itself!

In other words, to avoid a major bank collapse, an even bigger bank is getting a huge windfall and additional federal subsidies to make sure it can honor the creditors of the smaller big bank. Something is obviously wrong when money is literally pored into the pockets of the already super-rich, in order to keep them that way, and keep the economy from adjusting to what must be some sort of reality trying to reassert itself.

Somewhere in the mix is a great imponderable which may literally break the back of any deal. This in the form of a "multi-trillion dollars web of derivatives contracts." Pridger doesn't really have a clear understanding of the derivatives phenomena, but has always had the distinct feeling they are the HIV/AIDS of our financial system.

What does all this mean? In short, it means, "Watch out!" President Bush's assurances that our our economy is fundamentally sound rings about as hollow as similar assurances articulated just prior to the Crash of 1929.

Things are different now, of course. Very different! So different that Pridger isn't even going to go into the matter here. The Federal Reserve is doing what it can – becoming an evermore active (and unconstitutional) participant in the economy, via the use of cheaper, and easier, credit for the big boys.

And this is the result of an economy being based on financial capitalism rather than the brand of industrial capitalism that built up our great industrial economy. Industrial capitalism, for all of its flaws and abuses, was an engine of real tangible wealth creation, whereas financial capitalism is wealth creation in the abstract. Very abstract.

The great banking and investment houses are the font of financial "trickle down" that has been driving the economy and allocating, and misallocating, financial resources through processes of extending, and/or over-extending, financial credit. Now this great font head of wealth, and wealth manipulation, is having to be bailed out by the nation's central banking system – which translates into using the still good credit of the American people (without their informed consent), and piling upon them even more debt – debt that must be paid by taxpayers and their children and grandchildren.

Barack Obama says we have some "long term structural problems." Pridger says that we have both long and short term problems. And the long-term problems stretch way back in time, as well as into the unforeseeable future. We will not get it right until we rediscover what real wealth creation is, and the nature and function of real, honest, money.

We must institute an honest monetary system, and reinvest in the people of these United States rather than allowing financial capital to allocate resources that are not rightly theirs to allocate.

"Trickle down" doesn't work folks. We need to put Americans back to work creating real wealth from the bottom up – so the products and wealth that results from their labor will facilitate the multiplier effect that builds a real economy, founded on bed rock. We have the people and the natural resources. There is no reason why we should not have an economy built on substance rather than financial flim-flam.

In light of the gathering financial and economic crises we are facing, we need to rediscover that "all wealth comes from the soil" – not Wall Street or high finance. Only by relearning and applying this truth is broad-based prosperity – real prosperity – and a sustainable economy, possible. An overheated false economy, built on shifting sand, can never be sustainable. It must eventually collapse of its own weight.

The present system doesn't work and is certain to collapse. If we don't fix the fundamentals that have caused the problem, patches and extraordinary bail outs will merely insure that total collapse is merely pushed into the future.

Unfortunately, the usual "fix" is major, unlimited, warfare – warfare of a magnitude that the victors can totally rewrite the rule book, as we did at the end of World War Two. Lamentably, we got the rules all wrong at that critical juncture and opportunity of our history. The war angle won't work this time. Our leaders contemplate and plan for "more" and "expanded" war, but in this nuclear age "unlimited war" has become unthinkable. But limited war can only make all problems worse – as they are doing right now.  

John Q. Pridger

Friday, 14 March, 2008

THE TANKING DOLLAR – ROCKS AND HARD PLACES

When an outfit like Bear Stearns requires a federal bail out, President Bush's reassurances that our "economic fundamentals are sound" ring a little hollow. Pridger has felt that our booming economy has been booming simply because it's hollow like a big bass drum. The Stock Market has been going up and down with each resounding thud, with billions of dollars evaporating one day and then reappearing the next.

It certainly looks like some sort of economic reality is about to set in – and it could do so in a big way. We haven't seen a banking emergency of the magnitude of Bear Stearns since the Great Depression. Bear Stearns is one of those "untouchable" institutions. Far too big to be allowed to fail no matter the magnitude of fantasy it has been engaged in.

Is this the beginning of a cascade of similar problems as the smoke begins to fall away from the card-like stand of mirrors that our national economy has become. That array of smoke and mirrors has been baffling the fools and fooling the experts for a matter of decades. If the smoke isn't restored in a hurry, we've go some serious problems. We've got problems enough anyway.

Only a few days ago the Fed began propping ups some of the housing mortgaging infrastructure using bad mortgage debt (of all things! It hard to believe Pridger heard that right), as collateral for massive loans (cash), to buoy up ailing banks and mortgage companies. If it came too late for Bear Stearns, it probably came too late for a lot of other lesser financial institutions too. We just haven't seen all the fallout yet.

All of this means that a lot of new money has to be pumped into the economy to stem the flood of toppling cards. This means inflation, and that means that purchasing power will continue to leak from the dollar like water from a colander. 

Wait until we find out what effect derivatives will ultimately have on the financial markets as things begin to come unglued. Pridger tagged derivatives as the HIV/AIDS of the financial markets several years ago. We may soon find out if he was correct in his assessment.

The Federal Reserve is up against the rock and the hard place. It cannot lower interest rates much more. The only other thing it can do is pump more and more cheap money into the top of the economy to stem the increasing flood of liquidity shortfalls – pouring money into the erstwhile richest businesses in the nation (and, of course, into the pockets of some of the richest men in the nation). The only way it can create this money and put it out there is to discount the price of the money. Naturally, the public will swallow the results of inflation and a cheaper dollar in the short term, while our children, grandchildren, and the unborn generations of the future will be expected to take care of the long term repayments.

This could be the beginning of the big comeuppance that will expose the nature of the underbelly of our Never-Never Land economy, and the real "national security" situation of the nation.

One of the biggest problems with the way our debt money economic system, and how it has been structured, is that it has naturally lead to gross misallocation of credit on a massive scale – totally warping the economy. This was one of the natural results of trickle-down economic theory – the theory whereby the economy is funded by pouring money upon the nation's financial fat-cats and letting them plan run the show, determining what was important and what was not.

What was important, of course, was corporate profits and controlling of the economic destiny of the nation. What was not important was keeping American workers the producers of all the foods and manufactured goods that Americans needed to enjoy the good life. 

They figured they knew how to keep Americans enjoying the good life by relieving them of the toil and strain of production. Americans could buy that stuff cheaper than Americans could produce it, they said. Cheap imports, from Mexico, China, and other low-wage countries, would satisfy everybody concerned – some more than others, of course.

But the result has been an economy that lost it's way, because it was relieved of the task, and finally the capability, of supporting itself. 

The other day Pridger heard an upbeat economic commentator comfort us by saying the plummeting dollar will not adversely impact American consumers in the short term. Because, he said, most of the things Americans buy are either made in America, or in countries whose currencies are tied to the dollar.

Pridger would point out that it's mostly the latter, and not very much of the former at all. As he looks about his office and house, it's difficult to find anything that was "Made in America." Almost everything was proudly "Made in China."

Fortunately, Chinese currency is one of those tied to the U.S. Dollar. As the value of the dollar goes down, the Chinese Yuan goes right down with it – clinging to it like glue. So, as the dollar sinks in value, the prices of Chinese imports on "Big Wally's" shelves don't change much.

This fortunate circumstance would change radically, however, if China would do the bidding of our own government and float its currency or revalue it upward. Our Washington brain trust think this would somehow permit American producers and exporters to turn the economy around and start facilitating a marked reduction in our negative balance of trade and our general international balance of payments.

Economically, we're in that unenviable position known as being "between a rock and a hard spot," and "damned if you do and damned if you don't." We depend on China to produce our goods, and we need that Chinese production because it is cheap enough for economically downsized American consumers to buy. But we depend on foreign producers because the D.C. Brain Trust, under the banners of "free trade" policy and globalism, successfully persuaded American producers to either move their production to Mexico, China, or elsewhere, or go out of business.

Our brain trust would like to blame this job exodus on the inevitable processes of "progress" and free market economics. But there's much more to it than that.  

As the Stock Market bloats, burps, flatulates, and hiccups, and bounces at every little piece of bad or indifferent news, and as oil prices rise, the real purchasing power of American consumers is destined to decline at an ever accelerating rate. The dollar can find no equilibrium – it no longer has one. Full speed ahead! Pile on more steam! There an abyss up there!

John Q. Pridger

Wednesday, 12 March, 2008

DO EMPERORS HAVE NO CLOTHES?

Governor Eliot Spritzer has done the right thing in resigning, and proven that he is head and shoulders above Bill Clinton in that respect. At least he has some principle.

Apparently the exclusive, high priced, Emperors Club was quite an operation – international in scope, complete with the modern-day requisites of multiple shell companies for cover – a real model of corporate professionalism and slick marketing know how.

It'll be interesting to find out how many other high profile clients will be outted. There's probably several prominent people – people who recently believed they were untouchable – who are now feeling a little uneasy. Perhaps the Emperors have no clothes after all.

If someone as much of an insider in the Ivory Towers of political power as the Governor of New York can be destroyed over something as minor as (very discretely), patronizing a prostitute – in what is already literally a XXX culture – just think of the implications!

The law, as they say, is no respecter of persons. And it's getting to where just about everything is against some law or another. And don't forget that ignorance of the law is no protection.

Ignorance of the law is certainly no excuse in the Governor's case. Apparently he had been very publicly and professionally involved in not only enforcing the laws that finally came home to bite him, but proposing and getting tougher ones passed! Double standards do tend to come back and haunt a fellow sometimes. Governor Spritzer was a hypocritical Crusader of the first order – and he obviously made some bitter enemies in the very "business world" against which he allegedly waged vicious warfare. Dare we say that justice is sometimes done?

The amazing thing is that Spritzer was so sloppy as to put himself into such a vulnerable position – literally entrusting his fate to the very "industry" he had crusaded so convincingly against.

Equally amazing, however, is than anybody would have really believed they were safe dealing with a prostitution ring that used the Internet. Surly everybody knows by now that there is no such thing as "privacy" in the Internet, or with anything that has to do with telephones. There is no real anonymity in the online and telecommunications world (except, perhaps, for a few real professionals).

"Private" emails and telephone conversations routinely find their way onto national TV network news when cases like this are broken.

Even Pridger knows that every email he has ever sent or received is still out there for the eyes of prying investigators – and probably every keystroke he has ever entered into a search engine. It's all there in secure data bases, just waiting for the cyber police in the event they ever take an interest in him. Encryption is no real protection either. And people who use such things as encryption and proxy servers to access the Internet are probably much more vulnerable than they imagine too. They merely give a false sense of security. There appears to be no such thing as Internet or telecommunications privacy or security.

Why else would the government be so eager to get every man, woman, and child in the country (and world), on line and hooked (i.e., "connected")? Does anyone really believe the government has no ulterior motives? Intelligence agencies were on the ground floor of creating the Internet, and among its primary sponsors and supporters. It's only logical that they would be. By getting everybody hooked, government agencies have an inside track to listen in on everybody's most private thoughts and affairs – while, of course, leading them to believe there is security and anonymity on line.

We are already living in Orwell's "1984" Plus! - on steroids! Oh it's great to be able to do all these wonderful things with this amazing technology – literally having the world at our beck and call right here on our desk or laptop – but never forget that there is a down side. Governor Spritze has found this out the hard way. Shame on him! He should have known better.

Fortunately, most of us are pretty safe, as long as we aren't operating or regularly visiting on-line prostitution rings, child porn, terrorist, militia, or anti-Semitic web sites.  They won't go after everybody, naturally – in fact they'd most likely lay off in most cases to keep from blowing their cover, blowing a source, and losing their leverage. 

Some types of sites you should never visit at all, of course – some of them might even be operated by government agencies, taking names, and getting ready to pounce on any individual they figure they can get the goods on, whether it be a terrorist wannabe, child-molester, or some harmless and hapless fruit-cake who simply likes the pictures or is doing "diligent research" on a forbidden subject.

Government has a great stake in keeping all of these "interesting" sites up and going (whether they run it or it is the real thing) – and encouraging everybody to feel "safe" on line – so they can keep tabs on individuals and organizations of particular interest to them for one reason or another.

What caused the Justice Department (or whatever department it was), to risk blowing its cover in the case of The Emperor's Club is rather perplexing. When something like this happens, it sends shockwaves around the cyber world, and many people will become a little more cautious – which isn't really in the government's interests. Undoubtedly Governor Spritz has some powerful enemies, and they may have caused the government to move on this particular operation in the way it did.

Of course, there are many other spy groups continuously crawling the web besides federal and state law enforcement and national security agencies. They are both foreign and domestic. It could be that one such group forced the disclosure of the prostitution ring and law enforcement was left with little choice in the matter. Perhaps it was some group such as (to name an out-of-the-hat hypothetical), the UK's Feminist Coalition Against Prostitution (FCAP).

FEMINISTS AGAINST PROSTITUTION

That brings up another subject. Why would feminists be against any freedoms of their own special gender? Against exploitation and abuse by bad guys, yes – of course – but not prostitution itself! After all, the most fundamental presumption of individual freedom is the proposition that a person owns his or her own body. Prostitution would seem to be one of the most fundamental and inalienable rights of women under "natural law" – especially in a hedonistic, already X-rated, society. 

Some radical feminists even consider the female role in the heterosexual marriage arrangement prostitution. Yet the "moral" dimension of prostituting one's self can hardly be a serious concern to most feminists. Unless Pridger is misinformed, most of them deplore "traditional" morality – at least when it comes to sexual and reproductive matters. And besides, everybody who hires themselves out for any reason is prostituting themselves – and politicians particularly so in most instances.

Of course, many feminists believe that prostitution should be legalized. Here's a link to a well written, interesting, and informative, article on the subject:

An Overview of "Solutions" to Prostitution
By Wendy McElroy

 http://www.zetetics.com/mac/articles/prostsol.html

John Q. Pridger

Tuesday, 11 March, 2008

DOUBLE STANDARDS – TROUBLING STANDARDS

Pridger understands that "modern" India has outlawed traditional rickshaws, because they "symbolize oppression." What they are really doing is conforming to the new global standard that seeks to deny the right of an individual, without the benefit of corporate capital, to make his own living through his own labor. The rationale is that a man who pulls another man in a simple wheeled contrivance, who perhaps owns his own capital, is degrading himself as a mere beast of burden. But a man hired by a company to pick up garbage in the street by hand is an employee with an honorable profession.

Speaking of "honorable professions," it seems the Governor of New York, has been snared by our national double standard, as the result of him patronizing the oldest profession. Being Governor, or a politician in general, is an honorable profession. But the oldest, simplest, and most natural profession of all, is not considered an honorable profession. Yet, prostitution is arguably the very epitome of free enterprise at the individual level – and every woman owns the only capital required to go into this business, as either hobby or full time profession.

Prostitution is naturally ever-present, and flourishes in all but the most harshly oppressive societies. Often outlawed or officially marginalized, it's practitioners will not disappear as long as there are warm blooded poor and disadvantaged women, or hot blooded libertine entrepreneurs, and sexually deprived or frustrated men in our midst.

Prostitution is illegal in most of these United States only because our laws still reflect the Puritan prudery of our not too distant past. There was a genuine desire on the part of most voters and lawmakers to make ours a genuinely moral society – one where children could be raised up without being confronted at every turn with vice and immorality – where there would be fewer opportunities and temptations for men and women, young and old. Those morality laws now only survive with regard to what are deemed "professional" prostitutes. And, just to avoid the political incorrectness of gender discrimination, their customers are covered too.

On the other hand, it seems okay for the entire female population to have morals commensurate with common prostitutes. It seems this is actively encouraged by our institutions, both public and private – and certainly by the entertainment media.

Lack of moral constraints with regard to sexual activity is now merely considered freedom, liberty, and (most of all), equality. But for a woman to capitalize on her unique womanly attributes and charge for sexual favors is somehow still considered an abomination and a prosecutable crime. The hapless "John" is considered a partner in crime.

This seems a most peculiar circumstance since "Sex Sells" everything so well. That sales pitch literally permeates our commercial environment. Being a male or female sex symbol has become a very honorable thing; being an exotic nude dancer has become honorable; performing live sex acts on stage is often accepted, if not considered honorable; being a porn star, of course, has become honorable; "phone sex" for profit is honorable; all nature of "virtual sex" is honorable; having and performing abortions is honorable; being paid by movie companies to perform sex acts with multiple partners on camera is honorable; pornography for broad-based public entertainment and private consumption is honorable; the most perverted sexual activities imaginable have become, acceptable, if not honorable. And, of course, corporate scale gambling enterprises are becoming merely another means for state governments to raise revenues.

It's acceptable, if not quite actively encouraged, for men and women to engage in as much promiscuous sex as is humanly possible. It's a free-market driven phenomenon! The market is providing all nature of sex-aids, mechanical and pharmaceutical (not to mention stimuli), to make the seemingly impossible possible. Women want to be "sex pots," and men want to be "studs." Sex toys are in vogue and perfectly respectable.

All nature of sexcapades are okay. For women, they are simply evidence of "liberation" and "self-fulfillment" – and for men they are "conquests" or simply "playing the field." For both, they are often just "affairs" or "partying." All of this is okay. But don't do it with the good old, otherwise universally encouraged, capitalistic profit motive – that's a no, no!

Favors are okay, but not an honest monetary transaction. It's okay (though perhaps still considered unethical), for a smart woman to deceive a rich man to gain access to millions of dollars, but it isn't okay to honestly go for a hundred dollar bill (or even a dime), to put food on the table! Woe unto the poor girl who presumes to profit in a simple, discrete, private client-worker service transaction! That would be immoral and illegal.

Ironically (and seemingly inexplicably), even high-priced, almost corporate scale, prostitution rings are illegal – and politicians who patronize them sometimes get caught. Oddly, people seem shocked at such times. Discretion is no protection. It seems there are armies of full time sex police spying everywhere. They are out there to snag the discrete "John," or enterprising lady of the evening. It matters not that lives, marriages, and professions may be ruined, that's part of the fun of springing the trap – especially on politicians (with political enemies).

Naturally (though rather oddly in this age), the acutely embarrassed Governor of New York is being pressured to resign – and he's undoubtedly in the dog house with his wife, if she isn't contemplating a divorce.

Resignation would seem the only decent and honorable course of action – at least that's the way it would have been in times long gone. Though no real crime was committed, getting caught in an illegal activity is a pretty serious matter for a politician or public official – especially in the case of a renowned vice fighter.

Fortunately, the Governor has Bill Clinton's example to buoy up his chances for political survival, and he may even be able to attain super-star status. Bill didn't resign when he got caught in an equally compromising controversy. He not only refused to resign – he didn't even consider it. It would have been beneath his dignity. It would have been admission that he'd done something wrong. He was the president of the United States of America after all! In the end, of course, he came out smelling like a rose. Al Gore said Clinton would go down in history as one of the nation's greatest presidents. Clinton was rewarded with another term in office. And, of course, there are significant numbers of voters hungering to see him back in the White House.

The Governor isn't home free, however. Apparently no money changed hands in Bill Clinton's case. It was merely a case of the President seducing a willing and eager young White House intern, the betrayal of trust, and the wholesale abandonment of decorum. (Besides, allegations were that Clinton had done much worse.) Besides, there was no apparent cash transaction involved. Besides, depending "on what the meaning of 'is' is," Mr. Clinton "...did not have sex with that woman!"

In any case, women loved him for it. Hillary didn't disown him for it. Blacks even further embraced him – proudly proclaiming him the nation's first Black president. Even the feminists were relatively quiet on the matter. After all, it was nothing more or less than honorable XXX rated Americana. Freedom! Free at last! 

NATIONAL DEFENSE

The U.S. Air Force wants to give a lucrative major air tanker contract to European Airbus rather than America's Boeing. Oh the wonders of globalism! One wonders how "national loyalty" and "national security" are defined at the Air Force Academy. When our Armed Forces cease being loyal to people they allegedly exist to defend, one cannot help but question the wisdom of supporting them. 

Of course, when one considers that our armed forces now defend the "Free World" and, most particularly, international capital interests (rather than just the nation of our founders upon which real estate the American people just still happen to reside), it all becomes clear. It makes sense to to have European workers, rather than American workers, build our Air Force hardware. One wonders why we don't go whole hog, save ourselves a lot of money, and outsource the entire national defense establishment to India or China?

John Q. Pridger

Saturday, 8 March, 2008

ANGRY WHITE MEN – A DANGEROUS BREED

Gary Hubbell, a columnist for the Aspen Times Weekly, has apparently touched some raw nerves with his "Angry White Men" article, published a month ago. Apparently it's making the rounds and showing up in the email inboxes of all the Angry White Men in the country. It came Pridger's way just a couple of days ago.

Pridger took some interest because he'd made some similar observations with regard to the current presidential campaign, as well as on some of the broader and narrower issues. 

Mr. Hubbell's column more or less idealized Angry White Men, bestowing on them the combined attributes (in Pridger's words) of, "Father Knows Best," corporate executive and fireman, and a little Mat Dillon, etc., with somewhat of a hint that Rambo and the Terminator may be lurking somewhere in the genes. The AWM is Good, but the hint is that he can become very Bad if adequately provoked over a long enough period of time.

But let us not forget that the column is essentially about AWM comprising a heavy "voting block" which may swing the election one way or another in the November elections. And, obviously, the White Male, whether angry or not, is the only large minority voting block that no major presidential candidate dare pander to – for fear of being judged "politically incorrect."

In the absence of an AWM candidate, or a conservative Republican candidate, or even a promising Democratic candidate, the lone white male candidate will undoubtedly have the benefit of the AWM vote.

In some ways, of course, Pridger identifies with the "Angry White Man" Hubbell describes. But Pridger is over sixty, over weight, low on ammunition, and not nearly as angry as he is disappointed in his race and the apparently unstoppable downward trajectory of the nation – economically and culturally. It's been going on for almost fifty years, and nobody has complained loud enough to be heard in Washington.

Hubbell's article has made a lot of people feel a little uneasy, some of them mad. Here is a lengthy abridgement of the article, edited for brevity and shock value – with some emphasis added:

"... Each candidate is carefully pandering to a smorgasbord of special-interest groups, ranging from gay, lesbian and transgender people to children of illegal immigrants to working mothers to evangelical Christians.

"There is one group no one has recognized, and it is the group that will decide the election: the Angry White Man...

"... The victimhood syndrome buzzwords... don’t resonate with him. “Press ‘one’ for English” is a curse-word to him...

"He believes the Constitution is to be interpreted literally...

"The Angry White Man owns firearms... He is willing to lay down his life to defend the freedom and safety of others, and the thought of killing someone who needs killing really doesn’t bother him.

"The Angry White Man is not a metrosexual, a homosexual or a victim. Nobody like him drowned in Hurricane Katrina — he got his people together and got the hell out, then went back in to rescue those too helpless and stupid to help themselves, often as a police officer, a National Guard soldier or a volunteer firefighter.

...His background might be Italian, English, Polish, German, Slavic, Irish, or Russian, and he might have Cherokee, Mexican, or Puerto Rican mixed in, but he considers himself a white American.

"He’s a man’s man..." (can do, and does, damned near everything worth doing, along with a few things that aren't.)

"Women either love him or hate him, but they know he’s a man, not a dishrag... He stands up straight, opens doors for women and says “Yes, sir” and “No, ma’am.”

"He might be a Republican and he might be a Democrat; he might be a Libertarian or a Green. He knows that his wife is more emotional than rational, and he guides the family in a rational manner.

"He’s not a racist, but he is annoyed and disappointed when people of certain backgrounds exhibit behavior that typifies the worst stereotypes of their race. He’s willing to give everybody a fair chance if they work hard, play by the rules and learn English.

"...the Angry White Man is pissed off. When his job site becomes flooded with illegal workers who don’t pay taxes and his wages drop like a stone, he gets righteously angry. When his job gets shipped overseas, and he has to speak to some incomprehensible idiot in India for tech support, he simmers. When Al Sharpton comes on TV, leading some rally for reparations for slavery or some such nonsense, he bites his tongue and he remembers...

"He also votes, and the Angry White Man loathes Hillary Clinton. Her voice reminds him of a shovel scraping a rock. He recoils at the mere sight of her on television. Her very image disgusts him, and he cannot fathom why anyone would want her as their leader. It’s not that she is a woman. It’s that she is who she is. It’s the liberal victim groups she panders to, the “poor me” attitude that she represents...

"There are many millions of Angry White Men. Four million Angry White Men are members of the National Rifle Association, and all of them will vote against Hillary Clinton, just as the great majority of them voted for George Bush...

(Read the whole article here: http://www.aspentimes.com/article/2008198091324 )

Hubbell has made some very salient observations, and Pridger agrees with them in general, though he would never think in terms of "loathing" and "disgust" with regard to Hillary or her image. "Disgust" at what her husband's administration brings to mind, yes! And that another Clinton administration would be unthinkable.

"Exhibiting behavior that typifies the worst stereotypes of their race" applies to minorities of every race – including Angry White Men – as well as those Mr. Hubbell is obviously more specifically referring to. What bothers Pridger even more than seeing behavior that typifies the worst stereotypes of their race, is seeing the sons and daughters of White Men, whether angry or not, exhibiting behavior that typifies the worst stereotypes of "other" races.

Pridger wouldn't in any way disparage the illegal alien seeking to better his lot. He's no criminal or terrorist. When he crosses the border illegally, he is merely playing a game that has been accepted by a succession of our Congresses and presidential administrations. In effect, he is responding to a "call" that has been broadcast, loud and clear, for several decades. "Come hither, we need you."

Those 12 million illegal aliens didn't all just get here yesterday – but, it seems, only yesterday our government became aware of a problem, and has become a little concerned. In fact, some Angry White Men have been making themselves heard – finally!

Our own government has let the situation fester since the initial "mistake" of the first amnesty over twenty years ago – allowing a few million illegal aliens to set up permanent housekeeping and give birth to their children on American soil. In the mean time, the entire economy has adjusted to their unhampered influx and presence.

By default, our government essentially "legalized" illegal immigration by ignoring it over a long period of time. It effectively encouraged it, in spite of its own laws. Hiring illegal aliens as domestic help became trendy in many affluent households – many of which could have very easily have hired Americans or legal immigrants, but preferred the docility of illegals. Ditto for many other types of employers in a whole array of industries. 

Furthermore, economic policy made low wages in certain industries, including the large vegetable farming operations in the border states, the rule by which it could rationally be claimed, "Our economy needs Mexican laborers badly – to take the increasing number of jobs that Americans don't want."

Americans don't want those jobs because economic policy has warped the various supply and demand balances that govern the markets. So, with high costs and low prices as an excuse, industries cannot pay what Americans would accept. Thus they require and demand low cost immigrant labor.

Few Americans ever stop to ponder the fact that a cheap food policy, and cheap consumer goods policy (to buy off consumers), demands cheap labor, whether from across the border or over in China and India.

We all recognize the familiar chorus, "This is a nation of immigrants! We need more of them – lot's more – Mexican, Asian, Arab, Indian, African, and others – to keep our economy cooking! Not welcoming them in would not only be evidence of xenophobia and racism, but downright immoral and economically suicidal!"

As Pridger has pointed out before, the advent of the Welfare State, pretty much put the poor laboring "American" underclass on permanent paid vacation. This, in turn, necessitated the importation of a whole new laboring underclass – mostly from Mexico. This was the very predictable unintended consequence of national policies born of good intentions. It has taken over forty years to notice the problem – and our leaders still don't really get it.

Maybe they'll build a fence along the Mexican border – while they continue to strive to build a "free world" – One World (a New World Order) without social, cultural, or economic, boundaries!

Does anybody see the irony here? The shear absurdity of it? Let the world in – but fence out the closest friendly neighbors! NAFTA, and later a North American Union, combining Mexico, the United States, and Canada (an Economic Union, and an integrated defense alliance, no less!)  – but while our leaders are building this "Union" we're taking a break to build brick, mortar, and razor wire fences!

What happens when the fences are built to keep the "poor, the ragged, the hungry" Mexicans out? Will we have to tear the fences down in order to facilitate "A more perfect, complete and harmonious," Union?

Either we have an independent, sovereign, nation under the rule of law, or we don't. We can't have it both ways. 

The fact is, you cannot get rid of the poor working class in any nation by paying it not to work at menial, low skill, jobs. When this is done (as it has been done), a means will be found to import a new poor working class. It happens wherever it is tried. Great nations have collapsed when their founding stock and its culture has finally been overwhelmed – whether by military invasion, immigrant invasion, or even import invasion.

Significantly, at the time the American Welfare state was fired up, the immigration laws were liberalized too – undoubtedly with this secretly in mind. But legal immigration was unable to provide the cheap labor our system increasingly required. Thus, illegal immigration from Mexico was unofficially encouraged rather than controlled or stopped.

The poor guy with an East Indian accent who answers the technical service call is not an "idiot." In fact, he's probably as intelligent, and more highly educated, than the American who should rightly be answering the call. That job was outsourced (in all likelihood), by Smart White Men eager to right the wrongs of anything akin to national loyalty, so long as it can be done at considerable profit. And, of course, they were given license to do that by other Smart White Men – government men, university men, and think-tank men – planning for a better world at the expense of American workers, consumers, and taxpayers.

There's little wonder that there are a lot of Angry White Men. But Pridger isn't angry with any foreign worker that has either come here to take American jobs, or whose American job has been conveniently outsourced to him. If Pridger is angry, that anger is directed exclusively at the planners and national policymakers who have made it all happen. There are no choices in the present presidential election that hold any promise to address this – least of all our lone White Man candidate!

Pridger isn't even angry at those whose behavior typifies the worst stereotypes of their race. They merely reflect the trends of the nation itself. They are merely responding to the stimulus provided by compassionate Smart White Men, to whom Western Civilization and Christian culture are abominations. The kids have been educated to behave in this manner by the combined influences of our news and entertainment media, and our public educational system. "They simply cain't he'p it."

As a minor, yet significant, example of the continued power of cultural decline – at the very moment Pridger is writing this post – "A Prairie Home Companion," is playing on Public Radio. This was once a refreshingly, and pristinely, wholesome and entertaining program. The program is still entertaining (Pridger doesn't yet turn it off when it comes on), but it's not nearly as wholesome as it was in its earlier years.

A few years ago the "off-color joke" and sexual innuendo began creeping into the program format. It's as if Garrison Keillor "somehow discovered" that dirty jokes are funny and thought they would uplift program ratings. In the current episode, fully five minutes were devoted to a whole crescendo of "Fart" humor. Imagine that! On Public Radio! That shows the trend in our culture! Eventually, we'll probably be favored with "really raw" jokes – maybe even porn skits – on that once decent venue.

Keillor did not do "A Prairie Home Companion," Public Broadcasting, or his own image, any favors in ramroding this transition. This sort of thing angers Pridger, since PBS is a source of so much socially redeeming fair, and about the only station in his neck of the woods that provides classical as well as Blue Grass music.

Pridger took a look at a blog where Hubbell's column had been posted, and was somewhat surprised at the high percentage of somewhat heated negative comments about the article – including some by self-described AWM who thought Mr. Hubbell was being downright hateful. In fact a lot of the responses were themselves much more hateful.

One Black commenter took the opportunity to brag that Angry White Men are scared – because they are losing the edge they once had. Of course, he said Smart White Men are on "his" side, and together they were going to vanquish the Angry White Men and chase them into the hills with the rest of the Militia men and racists.

Of course, there's a lot of truth in what the man said. White men and women are scared – and not just the admittedly angry ones. Few of them admit it, of course – just as they would never admit that they (most white people – including the bleeding heart liberal ones), still secretly feel they belong to a superior race. They don't admit these things because the entire race (with some vocal exceptions), has been cowed. They both hide and mitigate their innermost feelings in a display of accepted "correctness" – political correctness – conveniently provided them by the "lily-white" shepherds and saboteurs of their own culture and value system.

The white man has been cowed – but not by blacks or any other racial minority or foreign potentate. They have been cowed by their own government and the liberal establishment that sent troops into Southern cities to overturn both States' Rights and majority rule. They did this in good faith, with abundant good intentions, in the guise of forcing justice for theretofore disadvantaged minorities.

Some justice was done, of course – but greater injustices were thereby institutionalized and are still very much with us today. Because it could be rationalized that "it was all for the best" (what is right is right), the White Man, angry and otherwise, accepted his chastisement, and thereby effectively lost his nation.

Being cowed and standing back is one thing. Living in fear is quite another. Fear is the father and handmaid of hatred. And hatred never produces positive results. Sooner or later, of course, this is certain to produce some serious problems.

It's somewhat ironically that the white race was cowed while it was still the overwhelming majority. This could only have happened because, the majority of the race wanted to do what was right. Naturally, it seemed that right must be on the side of the gun barrels of the federalized national guard troops. And right must have been on the side of Federal Judges who began legislating from the bench. And, naturally, the mass media said it was all right – that we had become a much better nation because of it. "Justice is always right" no matter how it might appear to the unwashed masses who once thought they lived in a democracy – or even a Representative Republic.

If "Justice" had the administration, Congress, and the Supreme Court, on its side, it must have been justice. It must have been right. Right?

Literally all of our minority friends feel that it all worked in their favor – and it did throughout the euphoric period of the early Civil Rights era. But it didn't in the long term. Our present society is not quite Utopia for the formerly disadvantaged minority peoples – most especially African-Americans. A small fortunate cadre has done very well, of course, but the vast majority are worse off in every way – and this circumstance has embraced poor whites as well as poor Blacks.

Focusing on the state of poor Blacks in our society today, one need only look at the crime statistics, and the percentages they account for in our prison population to know things are not quite idyllic. Look at the broken families, broken communities, and the drug culture! None of this can be construed as the result of progress. Nor is it the result of "Justice." It isn't, that is, unless one considers that God is punishing us (all of us), for abandoning the national mandate. 

Justice? Is there justice in total loss of moral compass? The loss is not the fault of those the justice was supposed to benefit. It's the fault of the figuratively "lily-white" architects of the social and economic Utopia – the un-American dream successfully marketed as "freedom and liberty for all." 

Look at the present death toll in Black youth around the nation – mostly the result of Black on Black crime. Compare the present death toll in the Black community with the numbers of Blacks once lynched by white mobs. The comparison ought to shame somebody. Whites are ashamed of their forefathers' lynch law – but who is out killing young Black men today?

Some of our Black friends rejoice at the thought that whites will be in the minority in a few short decades. Perhaps they should take a closer look at what that could imply.

All of the historically institutionalized injustices that African-Americans continue to complain of are pretty much history by now. The Black Community will probably never have it any better than it does right now. Improvements must begin from within that community – and they are running about 45 years late on getting started. Those who didn't benefit directly from Affirmative Action, and make a go of it, have been going backwards. It took somebody of Bill Cosby's stature forty years to speak up about it – but he finally did lay it on the line without mincing words.

Yet many African-Americans seem to think it will get better as the white man is removed from the equation, to be replaced, they seem to thing, by fellow Blacks.

Well, Pridger isn't looking forward to any such time. That time won't come. When the Whites become a minority – as appears to be our destiny (and especially if whites disappeared entirely [which isn't likely]) – the African-American community will find itself in increased, perhaps even deadly, competition with even larger Hispanic and Asian minorities. Neither the Hispanic nor Asian communities can be expected to feel particularly guilty, or overly concerned, with the problems of the Black minority. 

No doubt there are troubles ahead for our nation. Race will have little enough to do with the worst of them, but it will always tend to be a nagging and divisive factor.

Most Black Americans who have a modicum of understanding of American and world history, realize that there are good reasons why few African-Americans have ever chosen to return to Africa. Even in the days when this nation was "separate and and very unequal" they didn't want to go. Precious few African-Americans immigrate to Haiti or even the Dominican Republic. The actual number is probably about zero. No champion of African-American victim status is lobbying Congress for reparations and repatriation to Africa. Monetary reparations is all they are interested in!

Why is all of this so? The answer is obvious to almost everybody, though it's pretty politically incorrect to go into the details.

Blacks no longer fear the white man. But even when they did have to fear the white man, they got a better shake than they would have received under the rule of any other race – including his own. The white man practically invented the kind of "justice" (ouch!) under which we all hope to live. He righted the wrongs that had visited themselves on human society for thousands of years – institutionalized injustices that had dated from the very dawn of humankind – that flourished in all great civilizations, empires, and cultures – that of Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, Rome, and the recently ended era of European colonialism.

The history of culturally advanced Asian nations and empires, though older than those of the West (and though their literature, art, religion, and philosophical progress may have been in advance of the West for a long time), lagged behind the West when it came to matters of human rights and "justice for all."

It was during the time of the so-called Enlightenment that political liberalism first began to emerge, and "human rights" became a recognized social issue. And though it took quite a long time before the concept of "equal rights" for everybody took significant hold, it led directly to the abolition of slavery. In a short time, the promise of "liberty and justice for all" was finally written into the laws of all advanced nations.

As politically incorrect as it may be to mention it, the very concept of "human rights," and finally the attempt at fulfillment, has arguably very much been attributable to what are now disparaged as Dead White Men (DWM). For all of their historic transgressions, they were the ones (almost the only ones), who finally tried to set things right.

So what will likely be the result of a fearful majority as it transitions into a minority – in the nation their forefathers conquered? Will they give it up without some sort of a fight? Pridger wonders.

If the history of nations is any indication, one group or another will force its rule on the rest. We need look no further than to most of the nations of Africa, where the struggle for political power is an endlessly recurring phenomena, resulting in periodic genocidal blood-baths. We need only look at Iraq, now that the stability of Saddam Hussein's "minority" government has been removed from the equation.

When push comes to shove in the future United States – when the nation has finally declined into social and political chaos – which minority is likely to rise up and rule?

Don’t discount the Angry White Man.

John Q. Pridger

Wednesday, 5 March, 2008

PRESIDENTIAL CHOICES

It isn't Pridger's purpose to disparage any of our presidential candidates. But...

Something is wrong. It's the system that's broken – or has been perverted – not the candidates. The candidates left standing are merely the ones who have been selected by the system (the establishment), and who must hire a campaign team that knows how to play the system. And, of course, they must have access to plenty of money in order to play the game. Regardless of how many insightful men or women who start out campaigning for president, at the end of the campaign trail the system habitually delivers up "none of the above" choices?

We're lucky to get some interesting presidential debate in the early months of the campaign, which is the only period when real innovative ideas and controversial issues are likely to be aired. 

In the end, one of two candidates will be elected president. It's a forgone conclusion that the next president will be the either the Democrat nominee or the Republican nominee. As of now that means either the wife of our most notoriously scandalous former president, or a green upstart senator who inexplicably rose like a comet out of relative obscurity. Both are New World Order-liberals – one black and one woman, but otherwise virtually alike. What kind of a choice is that?

Then there is the Repulicrat from the "other party" – the one that has proudly assumed the mantel of war party. He is Republican and conservative in name only, and a New World Order warrior. Some choice! Three liberals running for president in a nation in which the majority arguably still tends to lean toward the conservative side, favoring "One nation under God" to a New World Order presided over by the agents or avarice and worshipers of Mammon. What an outrageous choice voters are going to have in November!

(1) A woman whose primary experience was eight years as "co-president" under the wing of her husband – a period of acute embarrassment for both her and the nation. She once said she wasn't a "Stand by Your Man" person, but she stood by Bill through both thick and thin, staving off "bimbo eruptions," and the "It depends on what the meaning of is is" crises – all the while fighting off a "vast right wing conspiracy" (presumed to be the source of most of their problems).
     To Hillary's presumed embarrassment, her candidacy is vigorously supported by her husband, who is apparently eager to return to the White House. In light of this, one can hardly be faulted in wondering which one will be the "real" president in a renewed Clinton administration. Just think of the sort of married couple spats that will likely darken the corridors of the White House in such an administration!
     We know Hillary is a "Universal Health Care" person (a plus to many), and a "Global Village" person (The Global Village being the liberal enclave of the New World Order) – and we remember that one of her favorite books was nothing less than George Orwell's 1984.
     Nor can we forget that her husband was a draft dodger, a Rhodes Scholar, and a protégé of none other than Professor Carrol Quigley (who favored, but nonetheless exposed (in his Tragedy & Hope), the roots and history of the great unacknowledged One World "conspiracy" – or [depending on one's viewpoint], the "wonderful plan" to fulfill the long-held, highest aspirations of mankind).
     We cannot help but recall all of the "appearances of improprieties" during the "White Water" years of the Clinton gubernatorial era in Arkansas, in which Hillary was often heavily implicated.
     Have we forgotten curious circumstances of Vince Foster's alleged suicide – not to mention that peculiar thing called the "Clinton body count"? We cannot help but recall some media allegations with regard to things coming up missing from the White House pantry after they were finished packing up to leave after her husband's term.
     As much as we might admire Hillary's spunk, how could we really be seriously considering yet another Clinton administration? Yet she is one of two top contenders. What are Democrats thinking? What has happened to the Democratic Party?

(2) An obviously brilliant and likeable black American with a very interesting pedigree, past, and name. For all his apparently sterling qualities, we can hardly be faulted for wondering, "Just how has this man come to be a top presidential contender?" Where did he come from, and how did he get there so swiftly, and apparently so easily?
     On his paternal side, he is literally only one generation removed from Africa – his father allegedly a herdsman turned world traveler – who later returned to Africa and where he was promoted to high government office in the mother country. The other half of Obama's pedigree was a liberated, mid-western, white female – who was liberal enough to become the first of her clan (presumably) to marry outside her own race and culture.
     Where are the Colin Powells and Allen Keyes when we really need them?  Where is all the other African-American presidential material? Where are all the African-Americans with long American pedigrees and American sounding names? Surly there's some out there. For that matter, what's holding Jesse Jackson and Ralph Abernathy back? Jesse has run for president before, and he served as "moral council" to the First Family during the darkest days of the Clinton presidency. We could certainly understand him being swiftly elevated to take the world's most powerful political office, but a Barack Hussein Obama?
     Don't get me wrong. Obama seems to be quality material – and, unlike Jesse Jackson, he knows how to strike a positive cord with broad spectrum of the American people, both white and black. But nonetheless, something seems mighty fishy when such a peculiar personage magically appears front and center on the political stage and is all of a sudden almost at the White House door.
     While Obama is carefully articulating what he feels is an American agenda for "positive change," could he have a hidden component in his political character? Why has did he apparently go the extra mile to aligned himself with a "Church" that is (Pridger understands), anything but a moderate, mainline, Christian church? And what would possess his wife to declare (now that she sees her husband is on track to becoming the first black president), that, for the first time in her life, she is proud to be an American? Is that a valid litmus test for having pride in being an American? And could her husband quietly feel the same way about this country?

(3) A Repulicrat with neo-conservative backing and a hankering to "stay the course" and bring peace, democracy, and the American way of life, to Iraq – even if it takes a hundred years! He's patriotic, he's a war hero, and he's the great white hope – and only hope – of the voters who judge candidates by standard "traditional" American political credentials, including gender and color of the skin.
     McCain is 100% "traditional American" political material (and this isn't particularly intended as a compliment). But he's a peculiar front-runner for the Republican party when the political opposition is as apparently galvanizing as Hillary and Obama. Yet, because of the very fact that the Democrats are fielding such "revolutionary" individuals, McCain has a very good chance of becoming the next president – simply because he stands as the only representative of white, Anglo, masculine Americana in the contest.
     McCain doesn't have to stand for anything else to win, unless this has already become a nation where minorities can coalesce and easily displace the majority at the very apex of political power. Perhaps this will be found to be the case, and, if it is, what does it say of democracy?
     Furthermore, McCain can count on the neo-con vote, and that isn't all. He can expect to get the Zionist vote, Christian or otherwise. He can expect to get the vote of most conservative Republicans voters, however disillusioned they may be with the choice. He can also count on the vote of both Democrats and Republicans who aren't ready for a woman or a black president, as the case may be. He'll definitely get the "Oh no! Not Hillary!" and the "Oh no! Not the Clintons again," vote if Hillary is his opponent.

Nothing is a foregone conclusion, of course. White male voters may not bother to come out to vote – and McCain can't win without the white male vote, unless they've finally got the computerized voting machines properly rigged.

Inevitably, the winner will be the man or woman the establishment wants, and the establishment media will have a great say in the matter – having, as they do, the ability to make or break a candidate at will, according to the dictates of the behind the scenes machinery of the establishment. 

What kind of presidential politics is this anyway? If someone put a gun to Pridger's head to force him to vote for one of the three front runners, Pridger would risk his life in an attempt to disarm the SOB and clobber him with it – just to keep his conscience clear.  

Those of us who believe in the Constitution, and the America envisioned by the founders, simply don't have a front runner we can vote for in good conscience. We almost never do. And even when we do, and the right man gets elected, we seldom get what we thought we were voting for – for underlying policy simply isn't set by our elected officials. In fact, "Americans" simply do not have any representation, except, perhaps, in superficial domestic policy issues, almost all of which fall outside the realm of the constitutional mandate.

Democracy simply doesn't work at the federal level – especially in the case of the election of a president. It was never supposed to work that way – and it still doesn't. Presidential material is recruited, and candidates selected, by special interests. Generally speaking, that means powerful, moneyed, interests – and their organized proxies. And what a presidential candidate may personally stand for, or claim to stand for, usually has very little influence on the major policy goals pursued by his administration. The window dressing may change, but major predetermined policy goals will remain the same.

Pridger totally lost faith in the American presidential selection process a long time ago. Still, he thought he could predict a few relatively simple things. For example, Pridger knew that Bill Clinton could not win a second term as president. He had already shamefully disgraced himself and his high office, and embarrassed the nation. He had only recently narrowly escaped impeachment. There simply was no way the American people would reelect him to a second term. It was inconceivable. But they did!

Likewise, Pridger knew that President Bush II could not win a second term. It was unthinkable that a man who had so blatantly deceived the American people in order to start an illegal, extraordinarily expensive, and unnecessary war – and had been exposed long before the end of his first term – could be reelected to the presidency. Perhaps it would be possible if the war had been going well, but the war was already obviously going very badly. But, even though there were no weapons of mass destruction, and it was inconceivable, the American people reelected him.

Ralph Nader has aptly said of presidential elections, that we usually have a choice between "tweedlydee and tweedlydum." He's right. And it seems that the very worst presidents are always assured reelection. Dr. Laurence J. Peter explained why in his 1969 best seller, The Peter Principle: Why Things Always Go Wrong. While Dr. Peter didn't expressly address presidential politics, his principle applies amazingly well: "In a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence." Only the super-incompetent, or the super-competent, get kicked out of office. Obviously, however, there are exceptions – especially in the case of the office of the presidency of the United States, in which case the super-incompetent is almost certain to be reelected.

Naturally, the obviously super-competent need not apply for promotion or election to public office. They simply haven't got a chance in this day and age.

American presidential politics is amazing. As H. L. Mencken once said, "No one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public." Taste is not the only problem we seem to have. The capacity to consistently be fooled is another weakness of the American public. The great "snow job" has a champion in the American body politic. Lincoln has been proven wrong – not only can you fool almost all of the people all of the time, but you can lay the truth right on the line in bold letters and safely wager, at high stakes, that it will be ignored.

John Q. Pridger

SUPER TUESDAY, 4 March, 2008

AND THE WINNER IS...?

Still Hillary and Obama!

John Q. Pridger

THE NEW DEAL – 75 YEARS LATER

It was 75 years ago this year that the New Deal was born during Franklin D. Roosevelt's first administration. The nation had suffered the Crash of 1929, and the Great Depression was on, crying bitterly for solutions.

With the great crash of '29, the American economy suffered a great and shocking loss in its "book value." The big speculative stock bubble had burst, leaving millionaire investors without so much as fig leaves to hide their financial nakedness. Hundreds of millions of leveraged dollars and "presumed market value" had simply been disappeared as if by slight of hand. That value had simply gone, because much of that value simply was't real to begin with. And in the fallout, many businesses with real value bit the dust too, due to un-payable debts, the unavailability of need credit, or the lack of paying customers.

There was a run on the banks, and they had to close their doors for lack of ready cash. Banks and other businesses went bankrupt. The entire economy suffered an acute lack of liquidity. The rich (especially the marginally rich and "newly" rich), and poor suffered dire straits. Farmers lost their farms, small businesses folded, and those who managed to hang on could not find a profitable market for their produce or merchandise. Soup kitchens and squatter camps "Hooverville" flourished. Formerly prosperous stock brokers and investors sold pencils in the streets to make enough to survive on. Some even committed suicide after having lost their fortunes.

The Federal Reserve System had been created in 1913, supposedly to prevent the sort of boom and bust economic cycles, along with periodic depressions, that had theretofore plagued the nation – centralizing control of the nation's already largely privatized monetary system.

Unfortunately, somebody – or, apparently, a lot of people – had miscalculated, and miscalculated catastrophically. Or, if they didn't miscalculate, they must have certainly have had criminal minds. The system had failed, and there was no viable recovery mechanism at hand. At least that was the feeling in the White House and Congress – and among the money men. At that time the Federal Reserve could not simply flood the economy with Federal Reserve money as it does now.

Although our government had a standby monetary system readily at hand – and had had it since the Civil War (that being it's own Greenback issue capability), it was hamstrung by a iron-bound, traditional, "sound money doctrine." And that same doctrine made it equally impossible for the Federal Reserve to do anything but watch as the economy fell into a tail-spin and then failed to recover. 

This sound money doctrine was the very "Cross of Gold" that William Jennings Bryant had railed against in his famous speech on July 9th, 1896. The "money power," which at that time was still essentially the Bank of England, and European Rothschild banks (with their junior partners on American eastern seaboard), ruled the monetary world with a gold standard to which the moneyed interests in the New World had eagerly embraced and sworn allegiance to.

The money kings of the Europe, and those of America's Eastern Banking Establishment, had decreed that gold was the only foundation upon which money could stand. At the time of Bryant's "Cross of Gold" speech, the debate was between Democrats (Bryant and American silver) vs. Republicans (McKinley and English gold) – the controversy being whether the United States should monetize and coin silver at the ratio of 16 to 1 against gold – without getting "permission" from the European banking powers. Silver was the Democratic hope, and gold was the Republican vice.

The money and banking controversy had been going on for a long time – since the very beginnings of the Republic. It flared during the Jefferson administration, and again through that of Jackson, and then the Lincoln administration – and it had not yet been satisfactorily settled by the end of the century. So, in the last decade of the nineteenth century, it was a very hot topic – the question being should the American economy be restricted by gold, or should it be released from strictly gold, so the more plentiful supply of American silver could help grease the wheels of domestic commerce? Gold represented solidity and stability to the entrenched hard money men, and silver represented "inflation." The money men had a firm grip on most of the gold, but America possessed an abundance of idle silver. 

"...Mr. Carlisle said in 1878 that this was a struggle between the idle holders of idle capital and the struggling masses who produce the wealth and pay the taxes of the country; and my friends, it is simply a question that we shall decide upon which side shall the Democratic Party fight. Upon the side of the idle holders of idle capital, or upon the side of the struggling masses? That is the question that the party must answer first; and then it must be answered by each individual hereafter. The sympathies of the Democratic Party, as described by the platform, are on the side of the struggling masses, who have ever been the foundation of the Democratic Party..." (Cross of Gold William Jennings Bryant)

Bryant, who was nominated the Democratic presidential candidate on the power of his "Cross of Gold" speech, lost the election to William McKinley. The English Empire, and "the idle holders of idle capital," won out against America's "struggling masses."

The Eastern Banking interests, along with the representatives of the English money power, managed to devise, promote, and pass the Federal Reserve Act in 1913 – and the Income Tax Amendment – in time for the United States to pledge its gold, and finally the blood of its sons, to save the Empire and Bank of England from the Germans in the First World War.

Insightful individuals could see that war coming by the time that Bryant gave his famous 1896 speech, newspaper publisher, William Cowper Brann, being one of them. We had, in effect, been financially rejoined at the hip with Mother England – and this final official consolidation of the Yankee money power into the powerful Federal Reserve System couldn't have come at a more opportune time.

The gold standard survived the war (though interrupted for a while because of it), and was still in place when the Stock Market crashed in 1929. And the gold standard is what weighed heavily in the great liquidity and insolvency crises that followed. Most circulating gold coin simply disappeared from circulation and sight and no paper could come forth to stand in its stead.

Republican Herbert Hoover was president at the time of the crash. Since he was unable to bring immediate relief to the nation, the Democratic party won the next elections. President Roosevelt had a daunting challenge on his hands, but his hands were tied by that damnedable Cross of Gold.

Our monetary system at that time, while under the supervision of the Federal Reserve, did not include a fiat currency that could simply inflated at the whim of the president, Congress, the Federal Reserve, or anybody else. Even out Civil War Greenbacks, which were still issued and circulating as part of the paper money supply, were subject to redemption in gold. Everybody's hands were tied.

Roosevelt, however, was a bold and resourceful man. He declared a state of national emergency – invoking presidential "war powers" using Abraham Lincoln's Civil War actions as a precedent. Roosevelt knew he had to do something, even if it turned out to be wrong. Among other things, he had to find extraordinary ways and means to inject new money into the economy, while avoiding Lincoln's "mistakes" when faced with a similar need for ready cash. This (avoiding the deadly mistake), is the only thing that can explain his course of action with regard to "relief spending."

Rather than temporarily going off the gold standard by executive order, and freeing himself to issue large quantities of fiat United States Notes (Greenbacks) into the starving economy, which he could have done almost free of charge to the American people, he did the seemingly even more extraordinary thing – calling in all the gold coin and bullion in the nation!

Once American's had been relieved of all of their personal gold holdings, he devalued the dollar by over a third in order to provide some "cheaper" liquidity, with which to fund his New Deal experiments – aimed at getting people back to work and the economy working!

The irony here is that to avoid using an "inflationary" fiat currency, in the form of irredeemable Greenbacks (the nation's own national currency which should have been freely available to him for the printing), he devalued the entire money supply of the nation in one fell swoop, and made it permanently illegal for Americans to own gold! But dollars resumed redeem-ability by and for foreign governments at the new rate of $35.00 per ounce.

This, of course, had far-ranging implications for the gold-based economies of Europe, and the fallout was considerable. It changed the whole exchange balance of the Western World and exacerbated the depression elsewhere.

Then, after this incredibly bold maneuver, he nonetheless had to borrow every cent he intended to spend from bankers! Naturally, every penny spent added to the public debt, plus the additional interest due. This being so, he could never see fit to spend the amount needed to get the leather of the pump saturated enough to "prime" the economic pump. He put a lot of Americans to work in his WPA and related programs, but the workers barely made enough to feed their families, and the economy could never gain enough momentum to break out of the depression.

A lot of spending was required for Roosevelt's grandiose, and sometimes productive and worthwhile, recovery programs. But because of what Carroll Quigley called his "orthodox" understanding of money, he was afraid to fully break with tradition, in spite of his incredibly bold move with regard to calling in gold and revaluing the dollar.

That orthodoxy consisted mainly of (1) an unshakable commitment to an "inflexible" gold standard, thus (2) a fear of deficit spending [i.e. a continued need for at least a modicum of fiscal restraint], and most perplexingly, (3) the "belief" that only bankers could create money, and the government had to borrow it from them!

"...he (Roosevelt) had grasped the idea that lack of purchasing power was the cause of the lack of demand which made unsold goods and unemployment, but he had no idea of the causes of the depression and had quite orthodox ideas on the nature of money. As a result, his administration treated the symptoms rather than the causes of the depression and, while spending unorthodoxly to treat these symptoms, did so with money borrowed from the banks in the accepted fashion. The New Deal allowed the bankers to create the money, borrowed it from the banks, and spent it. This meant that the New Deal ran up the national debt to the credit of the banks, and spent money in such a limited fashion that no drastic reemployment of idle resources was possible.
     "One of the most significant facts about the New Deal was its orthodoxy on money. For the whole twelve years he was in the White House, Roosevelt had statutory power to issue fiat money in the form of greenbacks. This authority was never used. As a result of such orthodoxy, the depression's symptoms of idle resources were overcome only the emergency of the war in 1942 made it possible to justify a limitless increase in the national debt by limitless borrowing from private persons and the banks. But the whole episode showed a failure to grasp the nature of money and the function of the monetary system...
     "...Instead of taking off, the economy collapsed in the steepest recession in history. The New Deal had to resume its treatment of symptoms but now without hope that the spending program could ever be ended, a hopeless prospect since the administration lacked the knowledge of how to reform the system or even how to escape from borrowing bank credit with its mounting public debt, and the administration lacked the courage to adopt the really large-scale spending necessary to give full employment of resources. The administration was saved... by the war...  (Tragedy and Hope, by Carrol Quigley, pg. 534-535, emphasis added)

Perhaps Roosevelt understood more about the "nature" of money (or the "Money Power") than Professor Quigley gave him credit for. In spite of all the bold things Roosevelt did, whether for better or worse, he was not assassinated.

The banking and money powers could certainly excuse unorthodox spending, because every penny spent meant profits to them. But they would never excuse the use of unorthodox money, such as the Greenback, which could be created by the Treasury and did not have to be borrowed from them.

English economist John Maynard Keynes' "unorthodox" theories of intentional deficit spending to pump up the economy were not yet current, but would eventually be adopted in the United States after the war – but, ironically, this unorthodoxy would be applied on top of underlying monetary orthodoxy, producing the peculiar, self-destructive, inflationary debt system we have today which has thus far produced a $9 trillion dollar national debt.

Today (having finally abandoned the gold standard in 1973), we have the worst of both worlds – unbounded deficit spending, using a purely fiat currency which is essentially created out of thin air by bankers and must be borrowed from them in order to be of any use.

First use of money thus created, gets the best value per dollar. But institutionalized inflation insures that by the time it reaches those nearer the base of the trickle-down chain, it is worth less and less. This, of course, is a very sneaky and underhanded form of taxation. This is a great invisible "inflation tax," which has become institutionalized in our economic system. If the "problem" of inflation ever comes up for discussion among court economists and public officials, it's traditionally attributed to organized labor, and the wage-price spiral, rather than the guilty parties and the very nature of the monetary system itself.

The New Deal constituted a major turning point in American history, grossly expanding the functions of the federal government. In spite of the credit given to it by many, and particularly the Democratic establishment, it was fundamentally a failure. It failed miserably in its primary aims, though many people did benefit from public works jobs and worthy projects accomplished. It did not pull us out of the Great Depression – the spending binge occasioned by arming for and prosecuting the war did. And after the war, a continued state of war spending has been critical to our entire post-war era of prosperity.

The Social Security System is about the only thing that came out of the New Deal that can be considered lastingly successful. But because it is hostage to the monetary system we presently have (very much exacerbated by Congress's increasingly intransigent unwillingness [and now de facto inability], to balance the budget), it increasingly threatens to crash in the not too distant future – a future mandated by a combination of Congressional irresponsibility and the laws of diminishing returns.

Why not save Social Security, and provide for worth public works and infrastructure improvements, though sane monetary reform?

Here's the essential lesson of money that our politicians fear to bring up.

(1) When the government spends umteen billions of fiat Federal Reserve currency, it satisfies the obligations they were spent to pay, BUT they produce a remaining obligation of as many billions of public debt obligations, plus interest and discounts! This is "orthodox" monetary robbery. This is the way we do it now.

(2) When the government spends umteen billions of fiat Greenback currency, it satisfies the obligations they were spent to pay. Period! The only cost to the taxpayer is the cost of paper, ink, printing, and distribution. This is considered very "unorthodox." This is the way we could and should do it.

"Interest and discounts" may need a little explanation. With interest rates at one or two percent, as they are now, who would loan Uncle Sam any money? Nobody – nobody is that patriotic – and certainly not foreign central banks. To alleviate that problem, and make our Treasury securities attractive, they are sold at "discount." For example, a $10,000.00 face value bond may be sold for $5,000.00 – a 50% discount. The government agrees to redeem it at face value at a specified time in the future. So the actual interest paid on the bond is interest plus the amount the bond was discounted. There are short term and long term bonds, and the longer the term, the greater the discount.

Of course, both fiat Federal Reserve currency and fiat Greenbacks are inflationary. Fiat currency is a standard definition of "inflation money." But which would be most inflationary? Would it be fiat money that by its very nature doubles and redoubles debt – and thus is actually inflation personified and on steroids? Or would it be a fiat money that satisfies debts without creating an additional debt?

A fiat Greenback does not have to be inflationary at all. The only thing that would make it inflationary would be a lack of fiscal restrain and responsibility on the part of Congress. The monetary needs of the nation, either with a stable or growing economy, can be easily scientifically calculated, especially in the computer age.

One of the great problems with our capitalist system has been the ability of the money and credit creators to massively misallocate credit, always favoring large corporations tuned into establishment policy goals, and growth for interest's sake, over individual free enterprise and perhaps a modicum of economic stability. 

Because fiat money has no intrinsic value other than its status as "Legal Tender," in the interests of some facsimile of stability of values, and instillation of fiscal responsibility on our politicians, gold and silver should also be part of the money equation.

Ideally, gold and silver would back the paper currency, in which case the currency would no longer be fiat money. As Pridger has pointed out, however, it is probably no longer possible to unequivocally harness the value of circulating paper to gold and silver, but there must be some means of instilling a scientifically regulated relationship between paper currency and necessary basic consumer goods and services, even if it has to be somewhat flexible in terms of gold and silver. Certainly here in the twenty-first century we have somebody smart enough to figure out a workable system whereby we are both freed from the "Cross of Gold," and the seemingly required alternative – perpetually digesting inflationary loss of purchasing power of paper currency.

Would being freed from both the Cross of Gold, and institutionalized inflation, a case of "having our cake and eating it too?" – in other words, impossible? Pridger doesn't think so. We're already having our cake and eating it too, big-time, without even making the cake ourselves, or paying up front for the ingredients. We're drowning in an institutionalized wonderland of inflation, waste, and debt financing. Our reality is seen on TV Reality Shows, extreme make-over activities, and in theme parks.

There's one thing that Pridger is certain of. We've got it all wrong at this particular point in time – and the chickens are coming home to roost.

John Q. Pridger

Wednesday 27 February, 2008

PRESIDENTIAL CHOICES

The field is narrowing down way down. It looks like it's going to end up another one of those election years where our choice of major party candidates leaves us between a rock or a hard spot, choosing either the lesser of two evils, or the greater of two evils, according to our particular tastes.

All of the Democratic candidates of interest have already been eliminated, leaving only "Oh, No! Not Clinton!" the champion of feminists and Clintonites, and "Exotic Savior Barack H. Obama!" the sensible, smooth talking, other "change candidate."

It's not that there is anything particularly wrong with Hillary (other than her politics), but her previous association with the Clinton White House, and continuing association with Bill Clinton himself, ought to be enough to keep her and her husband from ever being allowed near the White House again. She's got a lot of spunk and a lot of crust even contemplating it.

And there's nothing particularly wrong with Obama, either – other than the fact that his politics are almost identical to Hillary's. His only political advantage over Hillary is that he at least recognized the Iraq War as a "dumb" idea a long time before Hillary did. But he allows that maybe other "preventive" wars might be okay.

Both of these Democrat candidates would bring "change" and "give" us national health care, among other things. Both propose mandating health "insurance" in one way or another. It seems Hillary would require everybody have health insurance, and Obama would merely mandate that all children must be covered.

In spite of being Democrats, neither seems to be talking about a truly socialized system of "free health care" anymore. They're going to force people to buy their own insurance from commercial insurers. This sort of a mandate would be just as statist as pure socialism, except it would perhaps more akin to National Socialism than good old Marxism. As we know, National Socialism was cold and cruel, whereas Marxism was warm and fuzzy.

Of course, there would be government subsidies for people who couldn't afford to purchase coverage. But to mandate private insurance coverage would be worse than a government run, fully socialized, health care system for the poor – or, say, for the working classes. This, of course, would further empower the insurance industry – and the big insurance companies, along with the health care providers, pharmaceutical companies, and trial lawyers, are a very big part of the problem we've been facing. They are part of the corporate machinery that has helped propel health care costs out of sight. They have literally been enjoying a mutually profitable, though somewhat cannibalistic, feeding frenzy at the cost of "health care consumers" for several decades.

These two candidates are a pretty good measure of the Democratic Party at this particular juncture in its history – ever-ready to push the envelope of "progressive change," for better or worse. And, of course, things always get worse. They got worse under Democrats for years before the Republicans finally got their chance to start shooting themselves in the feet (along with shooting Iraqis and Afghans) – righteously and diligently out-warring and outspending the Democrats.

In addition to this, both Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama are on the very cutting edge of the most fundamental "progressive social change" – the questions being: Are the American people ready for a female president – particularly one whose husband has already brought great shame to the office of the presidency and the White House, and great embarrassment to the nation? (Yes, yes, YES! Goes the chorus.) And, are the American people ready for a Black president – and especially one who was unknown just a short time ago, whose very name symbolizes a radical departure from the American norm of yesteryear. (Yes, yes, YES! Goes another chorus.)

Pridger isn't really ready for either. Not that neither are quality material, but because neither really represent a majority of the American people, and neither seems to have a focus on the nation's real core problems. Admittedly, as a conservative, Pridger is somewhat of a traditionalist, and would prefer a tradition male, white, candidate. A minority presidential candidate, in spite of brains or ability, unavoidable brings focus to differences rather than unity, and their strongest supporters will be supporting them because of these differences.

Hillary's most vigorous supporters will be voting for her because she is a woman and likely to support "womens' issues," and Obama's most vigorous supporters will be supporting him because he is black and is likely to support "ethnic minority issues." At least this is the natural perception.

How ironic that, out of a nation of almost 300 million people, we end up with these two particular people as the great black and white hope of the Democratic Party, and maybe the nation!

And now we find John McCain has emerged as the "anointed one" on the Republican side – apparently the only white "Anglo" male (an unrecognized minority), choice with any hope of reaching home stretch, though Mike Huckabee is staying the course so far.

John McCain, Mike Huckabee, and Ron Paul are still standing as Republic candidates, though it seems that John McCain is "the anointed one" and Ron Paul the outsiders' outsider, without any support at all from the Republican establishment. Paul is more in sync with the Republican Party of fifty years ago than the CFRian Repulicrats of today.

Huckabee has a very interesting platform and agenda. Pridger sees many positives in his concisely articulated views. His candor with regard to his religious faith and how it would influence his decisions as president, is particularly refreshing. His refusal to discard or marginalize his faith in consideration of political expediency, is somewhat unusual in this day and age. The trend has been to, in effect, require presidential and Supreme Court nominees to say, "I'm a Christian, of course, but I would never allow my Christian faith and moral values to influence my decisions as president or Supreme Court Justice!"

This being so, our self-appointed "Constitutional Watch Dogs," such as the ACLU, would have our politicians swear their oaths to "protect and defend the Constitution" with crossed fingers while laying their right hand on a copy of Foreign Affairs or the Wall Street Journal rather than a Bible. And, in all truthfulness, that would perhaps be very appropriate, since solemn oaths and campaign promises in American politics seem to have taken on all the characteristics for which the Kol Nidre* prayer was developed.

All of this said, however, Pridger sees many red flags in Huckabee's domestic economic and foreign policy agendas, such as taxation, free trade, globalization, and his specifically expressed devotion to the nation of Israel.

John McCain is the "Stay the Course" devoted warrior candidate – and for all his war drumming allure, his candidacy is otherwise little more exciting than that of droll Senator Bob Dole, when the choice was between him and flashy, standup humorist, saxophone playing, Bill Clinton, the anointed Democrat.

Like all of the other candidates, McCain has a few interesting and perhaps good ideas (though Pridger can't think of any right now), but like the other front runners, he is essentially just another New World Order internationalist, and this is totally anathema to what the the United States, and the American presidency, are supposed to be about.

Who anoints these candidates? It seems the Council on Foreign Relations serves that function, laying out our final choices for us. All the leading candidates are internationalists. The Democrats represent the left hand of government, and the Republicans represent the right hand of government, in the ongoing good cop, bad cop, charade of our times.

Fortunately, Green Party Ralph Nader has decided to run again, and will hopefully keep the Democratic candidates' feet to the fire for the balance of the campaign, keeping a few very discomfiting issues on the table. Mr. Nader can "out issue" all three of the other dominate candidates on a whole raft of critically important issues. Unfortunately, while Nader has a pretty good handle on many of the things that need fixing, he doesn't put much more stock in the Constitution or our national sovereignty than the others.

It should be noted that all of the establishment candidates spend most of their time discussing matters that are not even Constitutionally within realm of federal responsibilities. They have to spend time promising such things as universal health care, better educational opportunities, job training, and "leaving no child behind," etc. They have to make special allowances for an vast array of other special interests and lobbying groups. They spend a very inordinate amount of time pandering to various "specialized" voting blocks – black voters, women voters, Mexican-American voters, Cuban-American voters, the "religious right," and family values people, rather than just addressing "My fellow Americans" as presidential candidates once did.

The history of federal involvement in public education alone should tell us something very important about what the federal government should not be doing. The decline of educational standards in this country can be measured from the very point in our history when the federal Department of Education was created. Scholastic achievement in our public schools has declined just as steadily as federal spending and interference has increased.

Before the federal government assumed a significant role in educating our youth, we were able, and rightfully proud, to boast of being one of the most literate nations in the world. Today we acknowledge a growing educational crisis, and lag far behind many other nations in literacy and educational excellence.

Educational standards were not uniformly good throughout the nation before the advent of federal funding and oversight, of course. But the federal solution has been an almost uniform disaster. Our educational score in our public schools is now almost uniformly poor nationwide. But none of the frontrunners propose anything but more federal input into education.

Our nation suffers from our poor quality education standards in a lot more ways than most people realize. Not only are we going to have an increasingly hard time competing with other nations in a whole array of fields, but most of our politicians are the products of kind of education the government has been providing for the last fifty years – and it often shows.

Most of our politicians are plenty smart, of course, and most are highly educated in their chosen fields – but many are lacking in some of the most necessary fundamentals required for wise governance. Thus, most of their critical thinking has to be done by "think tanks" and professional policy wonks. And those tanks and wonks generally have agendas that are at odds with the Constitution and the foundations and purposes of our American Republic.

For example, they listen to professional economists – and look what a mess they've got us into! We're facing economic problems today that sprouted roots long before the crisis of the 1860s. And those roots were further developed in 1913, 1933, and from the 1950's onward, with big tubers added during the 1970s and 1980s – all under the nose and faithful trusteeship and supervision of our various Congresses. Somehow, they have failed to see the obvious all along the line, and insisted in doing the wrong things. 

Our politicians not only ignored the Constitution, they totally ignored common sense in matters of political economy, and now wonder what has gone wrong. They look to the Chairman of the Federal Reserve to keep the economic train from totally jumping the tracks and crashing into the tunnel abutment, or the great abyss.

The Federal Reserve had already became the World Reserve after World War Two. With that, the dog that was once capable of wagging its tail, will henceforth be wagged by the tail. But our Washington brain trust hasn't discovered that yet.

In the great euphoria produced by "winning the Cold War," it was time for the Big Game to be initiated (or resumed, depending on which players are consulted). We (our handlers promised), were big enough, powerful enough, and rich enough, to pull it off! The Peace Dividend turned out to be global free trade and a whole New World Order (At Last!) – adding a few little hot wars now and then, in order to keep things perking. 

The game has taken a ghastly toll – in terms of balance of payments and trade deficits, and de-industrialization. In spite of his exalted position, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve really can't do very much about these things – at least, not without throwing a wrench into the best laid plans of mice and men, and calling for his own head on a platter.

As flawed, and even criminal, as the Federal Reserve System is, the system did work fairly well – though certainly not to the benefit of "We the People." But Congress, with their new found spending power (after the gold standard was abandoned in the early 1970s), now insisted on throwing wrenches into the works themselves (unwittingly, of course). Congress and various presidential administrations have been the ones who threw fiscal responsibility out the window, effectively betraying their own monster – and thus they have hastened the approach of the day of economic reckoning. 

But now back to the present subject... The candidates find all of this specialized pandering necessary because our federal government has assumed such an unlimited scope of activities and "responsibilities" that legitimate core Constitutional issues must take a back seat or be ignored entirely. Those issues don't sell well in the present presidential political arena.   

Of all the candidates who have been in the game, however, only Ron Paul represents what might be called the truly American constitutional point of view, addressing the real burning core issues of our time – issues that the CFR crowd, and major party big-wigs would rather never be mentioned. These are things such as true fiscal responsibility, returning our nation to its own Constitution foundation, and (Oh! megod!) reforming our monetary system! He articulates the "American Creed" from which our national politics have already been politically divorced for generations.

How dare he? Doesn't "Dr. No" realize this is the year 2008 – almost a century since we got totally off track, and a full generation into the "Wonderful New World" – the love-child of the reigning Washington establishment and its corporate managers – a whole new internationally focused ESTABLISHMENT? Obviously, he knows that, and Pridger can say that the man definitely has plenty of guts and gall!

Our national political machinery, and the brain trust and think tankers behind it all, have been divorced from Constitutional concerns for so long – generations having grown to voting age without ever knowing what "one are" – that the entire political establishment, backed up by the mass media, smirks at the Ron Paul candidacy.

The idea that elected public officials should actually respect the Constitution and the original intents of the founders has become unspoken heresy. Honor their solemn oaths of office to protect and defend the Constitution? That's considered about as silly and anachronistic as actually believing in God and the moral validity of the Christian scriptures! Those are things they only pay lip service to (albeit less and less frequently in most quarters). Bald-faced honesty is considered a radically dangerous commodity in national politics today.

So, as a candidate for president, they actively ridicule and marginalize Ron Paul. "They" being the establishment – including the mainstream media, most of his fellows in Congress, and even his own political party machinery. In short, the sma't crowd – those who have been convinced that scientific rationalization and corporate profitability has sanctified and legitimized their grip of national and international affairs.

They laugh out loud at his "kooky" ideas, and make him out to be a simpleton. To do otherwise would give truth undue credibility and maybe even respectability. And some go the extra mile to demonize him. Many of his backers come from the lunatic fringes, so he must obviously be one of them, they say. Or, alternately, his revolution would be commandeered and dominated by them. These are scare tactics calculated to work on a largely fearful, spoiled, and uninformed public.

Interestingly, all seems to be quiet on the lunatic fringes that support Clinton and Obama. This is because those lunatic fringe people are perfectly happy with the sort of change that "the left" has always stood for – and most of them happen to be considered perfectly respectable because they represent political correctness, and the Utopian internationalism of the left hand of government. And, in spite of themselves, most of them are not incompatible with the internationalist goals of the right hand of government. They all have one thing in common. They do not possess one shred of true "American patriotism" in their entire mass.

Nobody can question John McCain's patriotism, of course. But one can question his intellectual credentials, and obvious attachment to the present governing establishment. After all, a presidential candidate cannot rise up from the ashes as McCain did without some impressive backing. And what less would be expected on behalf of an individual expected to ascend to the throne of global imperial power?

All three of the present frontrunners are acceptable to the establishment. Clinton and Obama are undoubtedly considered acceptably malleable on military and foreign policy aims. But no doubt McCain is favored above both Democratic contenders, because he, and the Republican Party establishment itself, is already fully, and securely, on board with regard to the Big Game.

Ron Paul is the only candidate with the guts to articulate what should be universally recognized as the real issues that need to be addressed – and need to be addressed urgently. In a nutshell, the fact that we're on the wrong track economically and militarily – and we've been on the wrong track for a long time.

A Ron Paul presidency would definitely rock the boat and make a lot of people feel threatened and insecure. But if we don't get someone to start overhauling the ship of state soon, Mother Liberty is going to founder and everybody will find out what insecurity really is.  

If we don't start a peaceable revolution now, under someone as mild, rational, and knowledgeable as Ron Paul, the revolution (or collapse and chaos), that will inevitably come anyway, will likely be far more disagreeable than processes governed by the rule of law.

The idea of taking the Constitution seriously and literally, scares a whole lot of people. In fact, it's latter day political heresy to actually propose following the still officially acknowledged "Highest Law of the Land!" This is the sad truth, and sad commentary on what our once great Constitutional Republic has come to. Advocating a return to a Constitutional Republic, limited in its powers by the Constitution, lends itself to the use of a whole array of scare tactics, on a whole array of issues, that can be employed against Ron Paul.

We don't have to worry. Ron Paul doesn't have a chance at the presidency, and he knows it. And many of his supporters aren't all that eager to see him become president either, because they fear a President Ron Paul would probably be assassinated. It would almost be a certainty unless he developed a change of heart and cooperated with the "Establishment" once installed. But at least his ideas are beginning to be heard, and hopefully they will take root, and a true "Ron Paul Revolution" begun.

It's high time for the ideas of someone like Ron Paul to be heard. Already we are hovering at the brink of an overhanging economic precipice, and a truly frightening era of national and global economic realignment. The question is, will we throw more kindling fuel on the fires, as has become the norm, or will be take stock and start getting back to some facsimile of economic and political sanity – and do it in such a way as to avoid the full destructive force of the inevitable fallout?

*Kol Nidre (meaning "All Vows"), is a Jewish prayer of atonement. It is a prayer that absolved them from fault in taking false (or frivolous) vows, oaths, and contracts, during the following year (though originally during the previous year) from Yon Kippur to Yon Kippur, clearing the conscience from the burden of false or frivolous transgressions.

"All vows:

    "Prohibitions, oaths, consecrations, vows that we may vow, swear, consecrate, or prohibit upon ourselves - from this Yom Kippur until the next Yom Kippur, may it come upon us for good - regarding them all, we regret them henceforth.
    "They will all be permitted, abandoned, cancelled, null and void, without power and without standing.
     "Our vows shall not be valid vows; our prohibitions shall not be valid prohibitions; and our oaths shall not be valid oaths."

Excuse Pridger's irreverence, but this atonement prayer was made to order for the modern politician, especially in the arena of presidential politics.

See the full explanation and history of the Kol Nidre at: (http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com).

RON PAUL REVOLUTION?

Revolution with "Love" highlighted is perhaps a novel concept. The Ron Paul Revolution is not only a Revolution to turn the national political tide away from self-defeating, even suicidal, economic and monetary policy, but away from our increasing interventionist military adventurism which has finally branded us as the world's preeminent rogue nation. If we would build a better nation, and thereby help

bring about a better world, let us do it in a way consistent with Christian principles – not with threats vigorously backed up by bullets, bombs, and missiles. And let us get our own house back into order before presuming to be a bastion of enlightenment eager to remake the world in our own image. Our national motto is still "In God We Trust," but in spite of that, we have repudiated everything this nation once stood for. Among other things, we have joined with the "Never Forgive, Never Forget!" crowd as we have gone down the road to national hedonism, pure materialism, super-consumerism, massive indebtedness, and global policing. We now fight wars on foreign soil, subsidized by former and possibly future enemies, with a battle cry that says, "Give us Safety and Security at ANY PRICE!" rather than Patrick Henry's "Give me liberty, or give me death!" Pridger is fond of his own security too, of course. But he has never felt less secure in his personal liberty and economic prospects than he does at this time. It isn't the threat of Al Qaeda and foreign terrorists that evokes this gnawing feeling of uneasiness – it's the knowledge that our once great and independent nation has lost its way, and slithered into a particularly unseemly dependence on foreign powers and corporate managers. It's the knowledge that Pridger's hard earned savings and modest retirement income will purchase less and less of the necessities of life with every passing year. It's the knowledge that Pridger, with this nagging worry, is much better off thank many of his fellows who are also having their savings stolen and their dollars debased at an increasingly alarming rate. And it's the strong suspicion that (in the words of Ronald Reagan), "We ain't seen nothin' yet!" It's bound to get a lot worse before it gets better. Terrorists did not do this – corruption, dishonesty, and mis-representation in Washington has done it. It's time to start fixing things or we'll find ourselves having to dig foxhole and bunkers right here on American soil.

RON PAUL'S MONETARY POSITION

http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul53.html

More on the Ron Paul Revolution by Lew Rockwell, founder and president of the Ludwig von Mises Institute (http://www.mises.org/).

http://www.lewrockwell.com/rockwell/rp-meaning.html 

Pridger agrees with Ron Paul on most issues, but is a little hazy on just how the actual mechanics of re-monetizing gold would work (if that's exactly what he has in mind). Pridger is all for gold or silver money, and some sort of "gold standard" by which to instill discipline into our circulating paper currency. As Dr. Paul correctly points out, only with a gold standard can our representatives be forced to watch their spending and borrowing habits. A working gold standard is a wonderful fiscal disciplinarian. But...

Unfortunately, the way Pridger sees it, gold is not quite a cure all. In fact, it conjures up many problems that have not yet been answered. Such as, where would we possibly get enough gold to convincingly back the amount of money needed to drive an economy the size of that of the United States? Do we go to the mines and buy it with Federal Reserve Notes just before abolishing the Fed and switching to a gold backed dollar?

We can't switch to a gold backed dollar unless, or until, we have the gold to back it with. And, sadly enough, in our presence circumstance, we can't buy gold without borrowing the needed money from the Federal Reserve, or from China or Saudi Arabia, to do it. This would seem to be an impossible thing to do, and this is the problem with a pure gold standard. We've been going down the wrong track so long that it's almost impossible to imagine getting back to a sound fiscal basis from where we presently find ourselves.

Going to a gold standard cold turkey, without sufficient gold on hand, would be shear folly. And all of this, of course, assuming there is enough gold available in the world to fill the great void, even if we could somehow afford to get our hands on it by hook or crook.

Pridger would like to see how Ron Paul plans to make it work. Perhaps he has some innovative and workable ideas. Pridger is all for the abolition of the Federal Reserve System as it stands – that it is necessary to abolish it or at least federalize it – but how is it going to be done without plunging the global economy (and therefore also the American economy), into a nuclear winter in the process? Pridger has yet to find definitive answers on either Ron Paul's or the Ludwig von Mises Institute website (but that isn't to say they aren't there).

Of course, we might do it by simply declaring that the dollar is worth perhaps one thousandths of an ounce of gold (that's almost where it is now – one ounce of gold bullion is worth about $950 as I write). But gold would soon become so scarce that a revaluation to two thousandths of an ounce to the dollar would soon be required. At least that's the scenario Pridger sees for a real gold-backed currency, unless we are satisfied to take a giant step back into the stone age for a while by allowing economic collapse.

With our national debt standing at some $9 trillion, and growing fast, it would clearly be folly to contemplate honoring those debts with gold backed dollars. There simply isn't enough ready gold in the world, much less Fort Knox, to do it. And repudiation of the national debt would hardly seem a Christian tactic.

Since the whole world is now on a Federal Reserve monetary standard, with the Federal Reserve dollar "standing in for gold" as it's predominate reserve currency, we'd have to figure out some way to divorce "American" gold denominated money, and our domestic economy, from the Seven Seas currently awash in Federal Reserve debt instruments.

It would seem problematical enough to find enough gold to serve the monetary exchange needs of our own nation. The only way that it could possibly be done would be to remain on a fractional reserve banking system, with a gold reserve status (as prior to 1973), in which the actual gold backing of the currency would hardly be closer to reality than a fiat national monetary unit, supposedly backed by the gold at Fort Knox. Naturally, actual gold coins would tend to be hoarded, because nobody could have a whole lot of faith in any promised perpetual convertibility.

If a new paper "gold certificate" were issued, based on only enough gold reserves to redeem a thousandths of the number of certificates in circulation, it may be very difficult to maintain enough public confidence to make the system fly – and this assuming we can disregard the rest of the world, holding some few trillion in "old money" indebtedness notes.

The main big problem with gold is that, while it is a very stable commodity in and of itself, its availability and relative value in terms of all of the things that people actually need – such as food, shelter, and consumer goods – is subject to erratic and radical change. Gold cannot be always be mined and smelted as readily or in such profusion as say, food commodities, toasters, and automobiles can be harvested or produced.

Because of its scarcity, it would seem impossible assure that gold would ever bear a fixed value relationship with the commodities and other necessities of life that we would wish to see fixed in terms of the purchasing power of our currency.

A secondary big problem with gold is that production and ownership are both subject to the same monopolistic elite corporate cabals as now control our present Federal Reserve monetary system, and this leads to the third big problem of the gold standard.

If American money is to be bottomed on gold, and the government is to hold and dispense that gold when gold certificates are tendered for redemption, how does the government go about acquiring enough gold to do this? As in the past, the only way for the government to get it's hands on gold is either buy it from those who have it.

Now how can any government simply go out into the private economy and buy enough gold with which to back its circulating currency? What would it purchase the gold with? Gold? That would be as preposterous as the idea of buying it with Federal Reserve Notes! That's the big quandary.

Are we expected to believe that the government just simply "has enough gold already" to fund a gold backed national currency? Unfortunately, the "national savings account," in gold bullion, held at Fort Knox, isn't enough. And that's assuming that We the People still actually own clear title to that gold (which Pridger isn't convinced of).

The fact is, if the currency is backed by gold, and the Treasury does not have enough gold to handle the situation, it would have to do exactly as it has always done – borrow from those who have the gold – using United States Treasury Notes as security – indebting the people and mortgaging the nation in the process (as it does now, even without gold).

Now it isn't coincidental that this is still how the government gets money and borrows money today – as if that fiat paper were gold! It sells it's Treasury Notes and Bonds both in order to facilitate literally everything that it does, whether conjuring up new money or borrowing money from foreign nations – indebting the American people at every stage of the various processes. Today, they do this with pure fiat paper – what used to be done under the gold standard with paper, gold, and silver.

Treasury Bonds and Notes (government "securities," in general), are IOU's bottomed on nothing more or less than the "full faith and credit of the nation." They are the appreciating and interest paying assurances our government uses to trade to "financiers" and foreign governments for both money creation and credit. And they all result in increasing the national debt by their face amounts, plus interest. And this interest surcharge, goes on in perpetuity – and the debt, in reality, can never be fully repaid. It can only be increased through more of the same.

Based on government issued securities, our government has the privilege, of "borrowing" its own money supply from the Federal Reserve, or from others who hold dollars, including foreign governments. This is the preposterous system that must overturned.

Gold does add one giant and important ingredient. Because of its scarcity and dearness, it instilled a degree of discipline into both money creation and borrowing which is totally lacking under a purely fiat money system such as we have today. Thus, in the absence gold backing, our government has felt it had unlimited license to creat money, credit, and debt.

Of course, this is the rational and fundamental argument for returning to a gold based currency. But we still have to address the other, very real, problems which a gold based monetary system presents. Perhaps a fiat money is a necessity in a modern economy, while gold and silver coin remain available as the primary savings, and wealth storage mediums, to insure that savings hold their value, or appreciate if the fiat money is mismanaged and tends toward inflation.

One of the magic aspects of a sovereign government is that it has the power to create it's own money, independent of all other governments, and independent of gold or any other factor. And our government does this all the time when it prints up certificates known as Treasury Bonds, Notes, and other securities. It exercises this right of sovereignty when it issues these securities in return for "loans," and when it puts it's seal of approval on paper money, with the statement: "This note is legal tender for all debts public and private."

But rather than issuing small denomination notes, interest free, to be used for public works and as a circulating currency in the hands of it's citizens, as it could and should do, it presently issues only large denominated certificates as security for loans from others!!! In this manner, every dollar that finds its way into circulation or mere existence, passing through domestic banking and trade channels and into the hands of producers and consumers, not only represents payment for debts as legal tender, but ongoing debt, plus interest to "outside" parties.

THE PROMISE OF THE GREENBACK

The United States had no national "Legal Tender" paper until the fiscal emergency occasioned by the Civil War. The Lincoln Greenback provided the amazingly simple answer to this dilemma. Treasury Notes were printed and spent directly into the economy through military payrolls and payment of war suppliers and contractors, totally bypassing the money lenders and financiers, thereby foregoing the debt obligation presently taken as the monetary Holy Grail.

While the Greenback was very well received by most Americans, it was not well received by the bankers and financiers desiring to make a killing off of the war. They were denied the interest which they considered their rightful due – and their profits, when dealing with the government, they demanded in gold. Naturally, they did everything they could to sabotage the Greenback, and in the end they succeeded totally.

In spite of the great national Bonanza of the Greenback, the government was still obliged to deal with bankers and foreign nations, and only gold and silver would do to cover their profits and interest. But for the ordinary patriotic American, including many Civil War industrialists, the Greenback was a wonderful lubricant for the economy.

As Lincoln is alleged to have written to his friend Col. Edmund Dick Taylor, "...we finally accomplished it, and gave to the people of this Republic the greatest blessing they ever had... their own ". (See: Lincoln, Money, Edmund D. Taylor, and the Greenback + JFK).

Over $450 million in greenbacks had been issued by 1864, at little more than the cost of paper, ink, and printing costs. What this accomplished is fairly simple to explain. The cost to the taxpayer was almost zero. It saved the nation from having to borrow $450 million at usurious interest rates that would resulted in a debt of at least twice that figure.

Greenbacks were used to pay the armed forces fighting the war, along with most of their suppliers and military contractors. In other words, the government was able to spend $450 million to prosecute the war at almost no cost to the taxpayer. And the money went on to facilitate exchange and throughout the economy at no additional cost.

In contrast to this, our $9 trillion dollar federal debt today represents money the government has borrowed and spent, and still owes, plus usurious interest on that principle – in perpetuity! Like the Greenback, our present Federal Reserve money is pure fiat money, but that's where the resemblance ends.

The Greenback was "American" fiat money that served the nation well as a circulating currency (though Greenbacks were later redeemable in gold 1879 through 1933). Federal Reserve money is "American" in stamp and name only. It all represents American indebtedness to private creditors, both foreign and domestic.

If we must have a fiat currency, the Greenback is the only way to go. Our present Federal Reserve System, and its debt money doesn't make any economic sense at all. It's burying us in un-payable debts. It is literally a massive unsustainable Ponzi scheme that warps everything it touches.

Learn a lot more about the Greenback, and the history of money and monetary policy by reading some of the historical works available at: http://www.yamaguchy.netfirms.com.

Naturally, there is one huge problem with the idea of returning to a fiat Greenback, and that is the one that Ron Paul and Ludwig von Mises people always point out. Who in our present day elected or un-elected government can be trusted to run monetary policy responsibly?

John Q. Pridger