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Monday, 30 April, 2007

NEW PREAMBLE AND BILL OF "NON-RIGHTS"

Here's another of those emails that circulate around. The subject is interesting enough to include here, followed by a little commentary. Though Pridger has not verified it, the following is attributed to Libertarian writer and former U.S. Senate candidate Lewis Napper.

NEW PREAMBLE TO THE CONSTITUTION

"We the sensible people of the United States, in an attempt to help everyone get along, restore some semblance of justice, avoid more riots, keep our nation safe, promote positive behavior, and secure the blessings of debt-free liberty to ourselves and our great- great-great-grandchildren, hereby try one more time to ordain and establish some common sense guidelines for the terminally whiny, guilt ridden, delusional, and other liberal bed-wetters. We hold these truths to be self evident: that a whole lot of people are confused by the Bill of Rights and are so dim they require a Bill of NON-Rights."

ARTICLE I: You do not have the right to a new car, big screen TV, or any other form of wealth. More power to you if you can legally acquire them, but no one is guaranteeing anything.

ARTICLE II: You do not have the right to never be offended. This country is based on freedom, and that means freedom for everyone -- not just you! You may leave the room, turn the channel, express a different opinion, etc.; but the world is full of idiots, and probably always will be.

ARTICLE III: You do not have the right to be free from harm. If you stick a screwdriver in your eye, learn to be more careful; do not expect the tool manufacturer to make you and all your relatives independently wealthy.

ARTICLE IV: You do not have the right to free food and housing. Americans are the most charitable people to be found, and will gladly help anyone in need, but we are quickly growing weary of subsidizing generation after generation of professional couch potatoes who achieve nothing more than the creation of another generation of professional couch potatoes . (This one is my pet peeve...get an education and go to work....don't expect everyone else to take care of you!)

ARTICLE V: You do not have the right to free health care. That would be nice, but from the looks of public housing, we're just not interested in public health care.

ARTICLE VI: You do not have the right to physically harm other people. If you kidnap, rape, intentionally maim, or kill someone, don't be surprised if the rest of us want to see you fry in the electric chair.

ARTICLE VII: You do not have the right to the possessions of others. If you rob, cheat, or coerce away the goods or services of other citizens, don't be surprised if the rest of us get together and lock you away in a place where you still won't have the right to a big screen color TV or a life of leisure.

ARTICLE VIII: You do not have the right to a job. All of us sure want you to have a job, and will gladly help you along in hard times, but we expect you to take advantage of the opportunities of education and vocational training laid before you to make yourself useful.

ARTICLE IX: do not have the right to happiness. Being an American means that you have the right to PURSUE happiness, which by the way, is a lot easier if you are unencumbered by an over abundance of idiotic laws created by those of you who were confused by the Bill of Rights.

ARTICLE X: This is an English speaking country. We don't care where you are from, English is our language. Learn it or go back to wherever you came from!

ARTICLE XI: You do not have the right to change our country's history or heritage. This country was founded on the belief in one true God. And yet, you are given the freedom to believe in any religion, any faith, or no faith at all; with no fear of persecution. The phrase IN GOD WE TRUST is part of our heritage and history, and if you are uncomfortable with it, TOUGH!

If you agree, share this with a friend. No, you don't have to, and nothing tragic will befall you if you don't. I just think it's about time common sense is allowed to flourish. Sensible people of the United States speak out because if you do not, who will?

Pridger goes along with just about everything on the list, almost 100%. But Article II prompts a little comment.

ARTICLE II: You do not have the right to never be offended. This country is based on freedom, and that means freedom for everyone -- not just you! You may leave the room, turn the channel, express a different opinion, etc.; but the world is full of idiots, and probably always will be.

Of course "no individual" or "special groups" should have a "special right" never to be offended – but society itself (if only to protect and raise children that aren't infected with trench mouth from earliest youth), should have a right to expect high standards of common decency in public prints and entertainment media.

Perhaps Pridger is a nostalgic old foggy, but it seems that the greater public should not have to put up with being offended at every turn, in every establishment, when turning on practically every TV station, watching most movies, or when overhearing the kids' latest popular recorded "music hits." Society should have some enforceable standards of common decency, as it did pretty much throughout the history of Western civilization, until about the 1960s when things began to change.

Just about all of us (white, black, brown, or yellow), can pretty much agree on what offensive language is, and most of us know what comprises obscenity, vulgarity, and blasphemy. And most of us agree that people, as a general rule, should not use offensive language, and even more of us can probably agree that children should not be raised with the vocabulary of drunken sailors (not to disparage sailors, of course, Pridger is [or was] one himself).

As a Libertarian, however, the author of the articles of "Non-Rights" could be one of those ultra-libertarians who believe in letting it all hang out – no rules, regulations, and certainly no silly things such as "common decency" laws. Pridger doesn't know anything about Mr. Napper, but some (not all), Libertarians are like that – believing that everything should go, and nothing should be held back however foul or offensive.

But, as is readily apparent and repeatedly demonstrated in our liberalized society, the net result of the elimination of common decency and obscenity laws, has been that anybody can offend the majority sensitivities with impunity and the kids grow up with trench mount. And when Pridger speaks of the "majority" in this context, he means the majority of "decent people" of all races. But not only are "special minorities" specifically protected, but certain ones of them have somehow attained special license to be as absolutely offensive as they are inclined to be. And their offensiveness has become a highly profitable marketable item.

This abandonment of previous concepts of "common decency" (especially in the media), and license for a few to shock and outrage, is one of Pridger's pet peeves. He is sorely disturbed that almost all the major corporations behind the most offensive rap "artists," and movie productions, and even network television to a lesser degree, have put profit far ahead of consideration of what was once considered the minimal standards of common decency.

When about 80% of the movies produced, and a high percentage of "family viewing" material on TV, are of the variety that "traditionally" sensitive viewers (or parents with young children), would be obliged to "leave the room, turn the channel" etc., something is sorely amiss. And it has been sorely amiss for a long, long, time.

The most annoying thing, as Pridger sees it, is that what has become known as "adult content," or "adult language," is injected into movies totally unnecessarily – obviously, just to get it in for the ratings. The movies would be so much better, from the standpoint of most of us, without it. Such movies (including most of the best produced today), are spoiled because some of us (and Pridger hopes it's a whole lot of us), are offended by obscenities and semi-explicit sex scenes that are totally unnecessary.

The standard has become that "redeeming literary content" is sufficient to justify not censuring what our children are bound to see, hear, learn, and adopt as their own model for language and conduct. But good literary content doesn't, cannot, be deemed justification for what has been happening to our society. Why not simply regain the moral high ground that once ruled, and leave the smut, to the gutter oriented to peruse in private? In other words, clean up at least the "airways" through regulation, and let those so inclined find their own gutters to waller in.

Such fare has been so widespread and blatant, and has been going on for so long, that whole generations of Americans have grown to adulthood, and immigrants assimilated into the society, thinking that the "f" word, and pornography itself, have always been central to the American language and American culture.

There is little wonder that large segments of humanity are not at all tickled about the cultural aspects of our New World Order.

Moral debasement is attractive to an ever-present class of people in every society. And it is very easy to debase moral standards – much easier than upgrading. Always setting the moral bar to the lowest common denominator, leads to a downward spiral.

The kids of today use language that would have formerly have even made soldiers and sailors blush (because even most soldiers and sailors once at least respected "common decency" when in the company of women and children). This is the result of over a generation of "Adult content" in entertainment media, and setting the moral bar lower and lower.

Pridger remembers a time when even seamen's bars were likely to have signs that read "NO PROFANITY!" and the request was usually respected. Today, the signs themselves are more likely to be obscene – and profanity, vulgarity, and blasphemy in almost all bars – in "normal" conversation – is the norm. "Adult language" is considered not only "cool" but a requisite of adulthood. And, of course, all kids aspire to be cool adults, and learn the requisites at increasingly early.

Pridger is nostalgic for the good old days when "bad language" was not considered "adult" at all, but simply bad. It was the language of a few wayward juveniles and adult miscreants, but certainly not responsible adults – at least not while in mixed company or around children. And it certainly wasn't encouraged by either the print or entertainment industries as it is today.

There was once a "Broadcasters' Voluntary Code of Good Broadcasting Practices" and it included a list of at least seven unmentionable words. Now we have more than seven unmentionable words, and all of them are regularly showered on us by the entertainment industry that has chosen to define them as "adult language." On network TV, the words are merely bleeped out, but the full context is there (usually with "adults" acting up and out in very juvenile ways), and the kids all know exactly what is being said.

Yet, while we have become a very hedonist society populated by vulgarians, we have at the same time become so super-sensitive in so many other ways. It's okay to call somebody a "MF," SOB, bastard, or any number of other things, but not okay to call a Negro the "N" word (which, to many people at one time was merely another word for Negro, and many blacks continue to be very fond of using the word themselves.) It's okay for a black "artist" to call all women whores, and men "MFs" but not okay for anybody to call him "nappy headed." It's okay for a black man to refer to white men as Honkies on TV (laughter in the audience), but it isn't okay for a white man to return the compliment. If the "N" word is allowed in (say a black sit-com), the audience dutifully boos and moans.

"Common decency" should be a common thing. But, while most people do try to be kind and considerate, the concept has been abandoned as a "professional standard" by Hollywood and the music industry, and increasingly in professional sports. Three of the most socially influential establishments in society have totally abandoned any sense of responsibility to promote common decency by exercising even a modicum of common sense and self-censorship for the common good.

SPEAKING OF OUR WARPED CULTURE...

Imus said a lot more than just "nappy headed hos." He said, "That's some rough girls from Rutgers. Man, they got tattoos ... That's some nappy-headed hos there." Given Black hip-hop and rapper language, and what seems to be black vernacular in general, Imus was obviously trying to pay the girls a compliment in "Black English" – something like what a rapper might say of them. But, in spite of his good intentions, it went over like a lead balloon. That's the price a white man has to pay for thinking he's bullet proof.

We have just about come down to where we are all speaking the same language. That was the point of lowering the standards. In the early years of Civil Rights, quick fixes were mandated. It was much easier to get white boys to adopt gutter language than to bring the gutter linguists (and they weren't all black), up to polished language standards. But though we may now speak the same language, white men like Imus can't get away with throwing black compliments to black ladies. Only blacks can do that.

A certain class of white men used to use the same sort of compliments to their fellows, and still do. "Why, you old bastard!" might be interpreted as, "My good old friend!" in the right company. The "right company" meant everything, and still does.

Leveling the language and culture downward has worked pretty well at some levels – especially the juvenile level. As Time magazine recently pointed out:

"Now, however, we live in a mash-up world, where people – especially young people – feel free to borrow one another's cultural signifiers. In a now classic episode of Chappelle's Show, comic Dave Chappelle plays a blind, black white supremacist who inadvertently calls a carload of rap-listening white boys 'niggers'. The kids' reaction: 'Did he just call us niggers? Awesome!'" (TIME, April 23, 2007)

White kids have been making the grade! The same article quoted above ("Who Can Say What?" by James Poniewozik), says of Imus' thought processes:

"... (A) 66-year-old white male country-music fan rummaging in his subconscious for something to suggest that some young black looked scary, and coming up with a reference to African-American hair and a random piece of rap slang."

That's probably about it. Imus meant no harm. If the some of the girls were tattooed and looked like black gansta' rappers to Imus, he was merely trying to ingratiate himself to them and the black community.

John Q. Pridger

COMMENTS ON THE IMUS FLAP BY DEBRA DICKERSON

Debra Dickerson is a black columnist and writes for Salon.com and is the author of The End of Blackness. She expressed her "Viewpoint" in the April 23, 2007 issue of TIME magazine which featured the Imus crises as it's cover story, "Who Can Say What?" Debra entitled her Viewpoint "Makes Me Wanna Holler."

"...I'm not angry," Ms. Dickerson says, "I'm deeply, deeply hurt."

"Imus targeted the greatest vulnerability of black women – our non-European looks – with the express purpose of reminding us that we are not, and can never be, beautiful. Feminine. We had to be put back in our place, demoted to sex objects, but we couldn't even do that properly with all those braids and broad noses. So we had to be made into men. Criminals and freaks of nature. Makes me wanna holler.

"Imus' words keep repeating in my head, like a violent, midday mugging. One minute, you're putting gas in your tank. The next: BANG! A gun in your face. Your response to being blindsided is not anger but a debilitating sense of violation and helplessness. If Imus is fired tomorrow, I won't feel any better. I'll still be wondering who else sees a 'jibaboo' in me.

"... well, let's just say it'll be a while before I'll be criticizing my own again. Why bother? I'll get over it, but till then... why bother?

"The only upside is all this has been the chivalry with which black men have rushed to defend us. Thank you brothers. You've made me feel like a lady again."

Wow! Pridger feels Debra's pain. But Imus was not capable of demoting anybody. Anybody who feels demoted has a separate problem of his or her own.

Ms. Dickerson took Imus' remark about "nappy headed hos," real personally – far too personally. She was hurt so deeply, Pridger suspects (though she isn't angry), she wants to inflict as much pain as possible on that terrible white man that did it (and the rest of us too, of course). Imus has made her realize that she is not only non-European, but that black women cannot be beautiful, or feminine – can't even be proper sex objects because of "all those braids and broad noses" – and worries how many others may see a "jigaboo" in her.

"Braids and broad noses"? What's wrong with braids or broad noses? The braids, when tastefully done, can be very attractive, and if broad noses are a problem for her, she shouldn't suggest that it should worry those who actually have them. She's being pretty callous for such a sensitive lady.

Because of all of these racial attributes that seem to bother Debra, she felt black women had been demoted and "made into men" – and "Criminals and freaks of nature"! How cunningly cruel that Imus was! 

The message Debra got from Imus' dumb remark was that black women are not just nappy headed hos, but broad-nosed, non-European, criminals and freaks of nature – man-like jigaboos that can't even properly serve as sex objects – all with braids. That Imus certainly is sneaky to be able to infer so much with three little words. But it took Debra to point all of this out to us, otherwise we'd have thought "nappy headed hos" was bad enough.

Pardon the inference, but it seems Ms. Dickerson has revealed some sort of latent racial self-loathing, which does not speak well of her racial self-image. She definitely has a problem. Talk about a super-sensitivity racial complex carried to the nth degree!

The title of her book, The End of Blackness suggests that Debra would much prefer to be something else – probably a straight-haired, blond, blue-eyed European. And she apparently thinks that all other blacks should feel the same way – wanting an end to their blackness.

In spite of her lack of anger, one gets the feeling she'd like to see Imus shot or lynched rather than just fired and condemned to perpetual penitence, condemnation, and self-recrimination. Better yet, maybe he ought to be required to wear black face and nappy hair and braids under his cowboy hat from now on.

Didn't Debra get the message that black is beautiful and white is cold as ice? Whether or not she got the message, the very idea that any black person should, in any way, consider that there's something wrong with being non-European, is ludicrous. But apparently Debra actually feels this way – or wants us to think she does – and has been made to feel totally debased because of a simple, stupid, remark made by a white, so-called "shock-jock." And the remark was aimed at somebody else entirely!

Apparently she wants those girl basketball players to realize just how insulted, humiliated, and ashamed, they really ought to be.

The only serious insult, as Pridger sees it, would be in the word "ho" rather than "nappy headed." There's nothing wrong with being nappy headed – and saying "kinky haired" probably wouldn't have been taken much better. But to be called a "ho" is somewhat insulting to most women – even most prostitutes. But Debra apparently didn't take too much offense at that word – she was offended because she was reminded that she is black and that blacks tend to have features that are different from Europeans.

As Pat Buchanan asked in a recent column, entitled "Imus Lynch Party" (April 9, 2007): 

"If the word 'hos' is a filthy insult to decent black women, and it is, why are hip-hop artists and rap singers who use it incessantly not pariahs in the black community? Why would black politicians hobnob with them? Why are there no boycotts of the advertisers of the radio stations that play their degrading music?

"Answer: The issue here is not the word Imus used. The issue is who Imus is – a white man, who used a term about black women only black folks are permitted to use with impunity and immunity."

As for the Reverend Al Sharpton (presumably one of Debra's knights in shining armor), Buchanan rightly asks, who is he to "sit in moral judgment" on Imus or anyone else? "It says something about America that someone with Al's track record can claim the role of national censor."

"Imus threw himself on the mercy of the court of elite public opinion," Mr. Buchanan wrote, "and that court, pandering to the mob, lynched him. Yet, for all his sins, he was a better man than the lot of them rejoicing at the foot of the cottonwood tree."

Pridger had never heard of Imus until the big hubbub, but Pat Buchanan has Pridger's respect. It turns out that Imus has been quite a benefactor to a lot of people – kids with cancer, the cause to find a cure for autism, help to the families of Iraqi war dead, etc. But now he'll probably have to divert some of his funds to the NAACP in order to cleanse himself and be whole again – if he can ever be whole again.

Pridger disagrees with Debra's view of her race. There are all kinds of extraordinarily feminine, and downright beautiful, "nappy headed" women – even real black ones – and if they appear to be sex objects, it's much more likely to be because they are feminine and attractive rather than black. And, it would seem to Pridger, they ought rightly to be more insulted by one of their own intimating otherwise, rather than by some white guy who pulled off a suicidal coup billed as entertainment.

Pridger would like to remind Debra that "ugly", offensive, criminals, and whores, come in all colors and hair types. Being black and kinky haired is a racial attribute which doesn't necessarily enter into any such category, any more than straight haired European blonds with blue eyes.

In Pridger's opinion, Imus's remark would be taken in the same spirit in which it was made – offensive trivia, below serious consideration. After all, he's just a scruffy looking white guy trying to be "cool" – doing what he's paid for – who has embarrassed himself by shooting himself in the foot and pocketbook. Making rude and thoughtless remarks in disparagement of innocent young ladies is hardly a mark of a gentleman.

Perhaps Debra won't criticize her own again for a while, but surly she's already said enough. She inadvertently sells herself and her race short – apparently due to an inferiority complex. Shame on her!

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution editorial page editor, Cynthia Tucker, expresses her "Viewpoint" in the same issue of Time. Among other things, she says:

"I've grown accustomed to an undercurrent in public policy debates that blames black women for an array of social and cultural failures. Without making distinctions, that racist sentiment casts us all as lazy and drug-addled welfare queens, thoughtless breeders of criminals, and unwed heathens who are sacking the sacred institution of marriage. The obverse, of course, is the black woman who presumes to move into the American mainstream. That woman is not successful. She is uppity...

"I'm not much troubled by... radio-active racists. My parents taught me to ignore them. But I'm surprised that Imus continues to enjoy the support of so many political and entertainment celebrities."

Cynthia and Debra, by the obverse definition above, are members of that uppity class of black women. Pridger isn't surprised that Imus continues to enjoy support.

Cynthia shouldn't be surprised that Imus has supporter either. The so-called "hip hop" culture, and a whole array of rappers, enjoy the same sort of high level support that Cynthia says Imus has. There's a very "uppity" class of very successful black "artists" and entertainers out there who provide all sorts of  ammunition to aspiring white sleaze-jocks. All they have to say is, "if they can do it, we can too. Isn't this supposed to be a free country for us too?"

Others have been pointing this out too, and now even a few black leaders are just beginning to take issue with the sort of "entertainment" that has propelled so many vulgar and offensive black artists to stellar success, wealth, and notoriety. Such a pity that it has taken a whole generation for any high profile blacks to become critical of the long-matured black license for offensiveness. Always before, it was merely a matter of their "freedom of artistic expression." Now that white men are beginning to cross the line into the same sort of thing with publicly aired comments about blacks, all of a sudden there is some concern. 

Though most whites who were initially exposed to rap were shocked, they were a docile and compliant race by then, and disinclined to protest – muzzled for fear of being considered racist. And, of course, there was that inevitable minority of whites who thought the vilest rap music was the greatest thing since the First Amendment had been penned – and young people of all races were particularly vulnerable to the spell cast by the raw sexual lyrics and thumping cadence. 

Rap music caused a crises in Pridger's household almost twenty years ago, when his teenaged daughter started listening to it and bringing it home. Pridger was shocked and outraged at the lyrics, and banned all music of the rap gender from the house. Pridger was equally outraged that his daughter's vocabulary and outlook had probably already become tainted, along with perhaps millions of others.

Pridger's "irrational" reaction to that vile music branded him as being guilty of "prejudice" in his daughter's eyes. But Pridger isn't nearly as prejudiced (certainly not against good people), as "discriminating" in his tastes. As for music, he preferred Nat King Cole, Ray Charles, the Platters, etc., and most of the old brands of black music – the Negro spiritual and rhythm and blues – all wonderful sounds, and most with uplifting lyrical poetical content.

Most rock-n-roll (black and white), was relatively harmless (at leased in its released format) – though a harbinger of things to come. Those things essentially came when blacks gained full freedom of expression and record and movie companies saw dollar signs in the raw. Now that a white public figure has presumed to be a little too loose with his tongue, there's a crises.

Of course there are brands of white music that appalled Pridger too (and still do), such as "Heavy Metal" or some such thing. This abomination came along before rap, and the noise alone was enough to repel Pridger and prevent him from ever hearing any lyrics. Back then, it never even occurred to Pridger that the lyrics of broadcast music might be vile – the fact that much of the yelling sounded downright hateful was enough to prompt him to avoid it like the plague.

And rap came on as a plague, too. When somebody suggested to Pridger that there were decent rap artists, with clean uplifting lyrics, he wasn't any more likely to listen to it. Once one has tasted poison, and got deathly ill from it, he doesn't want anything that tastes like that ever again.    

Pridger apologizes for spending so much time commenting on the Imus tempest in a teapot. But when a ridiculous national crises like this arises, it's difficult to resist putting in at least a couple of cents. However, the underlying cultural and political implications that have generated the controversy are extraordinarily important – and this quite aside from strictly racial sensitivities.

As for racial issues, it's natural for all races to consider themselves superior to others (even those that don't come up consistent winners), but the race to which one has been born is strictly the luck of the draw. Pridger is fully cognoscente of the very real problems of racial discrimination. But he believes in such simple, but sometimes elusive, remedies as society-wide high standards of common decency, good will toward all men and women, and universal adherence to the Golden Rule. If everybody would go along, we'd all get along.  

Pridger, of course, is proud he was born of north European stock (his isn't bashful about that pride), but had he been born black, or of any other race or culture, he believes he would be just as proud as he now is in his current incarnation. He wouldn't spend any time fretting about the color of his skin, or spend money redoing his nose or straightening his hair, or lamenting that he was not European. He'd wear his racial attributes as a badge of honor, knowing they are what God has given him, and do his best to do honor to his race. 

John Q. Pridger

Friday, 27 April, 2007

SPEAKING OF WALLS AND FREE TRADE...

The May, 2007 issue of National Geographic magazine features and article by Charles Bowden (with photographs by Diane Cook and Len Jenshel), entitled "Our Wall." It's about our southern border and the Wall that is gradually lengthening in numerous places along its over 1,900 miles of length. Here's an interesting quote that agrees with much that Pridger has had to say about with regard to NAFTA:

"The flow of illegal immigrants exploded after the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement in the early 1990s, a pact that was supposed to end illegal immigration but wound up dislocating millions of Mexican peasant farmers and many small industrial workers."

Seeing all the damage that NAFTA has done to workers in both the United States and Mexico, our leaders have since gone forth and passed CAFTA, the Central American Free Trade Agreement. And now they are working feverishly on the North American Free Trade Agreement (which is billed as a security agreement in addition to a trade agreement), and still very much have their sights on a hemispheric Free Trade Zone of the Americas – so we can all be one happy family form Canada to Patagonia.

Total lack of common sense is no barrier to what our trusty leaders will do to us. Ben Franklin once observed, "Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn by no other" – but what do you call those national leaders who refuse to learn anything even by experience? Pridger, of course, calls them "mis-representatives" – and that only to be kind and considerate. Our exalted statesmen jest cain't he'p it.

Congress has given the president "Trade Promotion Authority" (TPA), so that he can negotiate free trade agreements even more easily than he can plunge us into aggressive, nonsensical wars. After the agreements have been made by the president and his corporate cohorts, our representatives can vote on them with an up or down vote. So far, Congress hasn't had enough collective common sense or guts to vote one down.

Naturally, the administration does all of its negotiating in secret, using "private talks" with  the leaders of the other trading countries, and an array of non-governmental organizations and corporate representatives to come up with the plans and work out all the finer the details. This not only totally keeps the public from finding out the details of what is being done (totally negating the concept of "consent of the governed"), but it also keeps our legislators in the dark, where they seem to be most comfortable.

This gives our mis-representatives an arguable cover of plausible deniability. In the end, all they have to do is weigh the pros and cons of the agreements. Naturally, since the agreements are heavily weighted with so many attractively presented "pros," the pros always win out and the agreements are passed – perhaps with a little argument from a precious few representatives who see a few more cons than pros.

TPA, of course, is a makeover of what was formerly called "Fast Track" under which the WTO, NAFTA, and probably a lot of other minor trade agreements were ramroded through. TPA supposedly limits the president's ability to push free trade agreements real fast. Now the president has to give Congress 90 days notice on trade pacts. If they don't come up with something in that amount of allotted time, apparently, it has to go back to the drawing board. And TPA itself apparently has a time limit – the current TPA period is set to expire at the end of June.

If the president doesn't get all his trade agreements done by then, it's too late (if Congress doesn't extend or renew TPA). Congress can sabotage any deals by failing to vote on them before expiration of TPA. But, again, Congress hasn't had enough collective common sense or guts to do this yet.

While most of us have been sleeping somewhat soundly, in spite of the continuing disasters in Iraq and Afghanistan, our illegal immigration problem, and NAFTA, etc., few of us have become aware of the major Free Trade deal about to go down with South Korea – not to mention smaller ones with Columbia, Peru, and Panama.

Pridger, in an odd moment of wakefulness, was alerted recently by an article in the April 23, 2007 issue of FarmWeek. An article entitled "Trade under the gun," by Dean Kleckner, makes the case for speedy approval of the pact. (Agribusiness is always strongly behind free trade agreements.)

"It was signed... just 22 minutes to midnight...

"Negotiators for the United States and South Korea reached a free-trade agreement just that much before an inflexible deadline that would have rendered further talks pointless.

"They were under the gun because... With TPA currently set to expire at the end of June... any new trade deals essentially needed to be concluded on April 2.

"...The accord with South Korea now joins agreements with Columbia, Peru, and Panama that await congressional action...

"The deal with South Korea is big. In fact, it's the biggest trade pact the United States has negotiated since the North American Free Trade Agreement...

"...The 'Wall Street Journal' says total trade between the United States and South Korea could approach $100 billion in just a few years, up from $75 billion last year. Much of the benefit will flow to American producers, as... South Korea promised to open its market to all kinds of products.

"They should cheer the deal in Detroit. South Korea has pledged to drop its tariffs on imported cars... only 3.5 percent of the cars sold in South Korea last year were built abroad...

"American farmers will come out ahead as well. ...half of all current agricultural exports to South Korea will become duty free immediately. Other tariffs will be phased out over the next five years.

"...(T)his trade deal is definitely good. By letting Americans sell more of what we make and grow to South Koreans, it will enrich us all.

"One of the sure signs that this is a good deal comes from South Korea itself, where the local protectionists are already screaming hysterically. They know that this accord will force inefficient sectors of their economy to compete with Americans.

"They may not want this result, but we should welcome it..."

It's the same old Pied Piper refrain – "it will enrich us all." Author Kleckner wreaks with enthusiasm for free trade on behalf of American farmers (i.e., international agribusiness and multinational corporations). They're still very happy with NAFTA – "a pact that was supposed to end illegal immigration but wound up dislocating millions of Mexican peasant farmers and many small industrial workers."

As Kleckner says, the protectionists know that this accord will force inefficient sectors of the South Korean economy to compete with Americans. What does this mean for Koreans? It means that mom and pop merchants will soon have to compete with the likes of Wal-Mart, and small family farmers will be destroyed by the international agricultural commodities combines. It means that many small productive businesses will be doomed, in favor of the international big boys who can move in with their huge corporate industrial efficiencies of scale.

The idea that Detroit should cheer is ludicrous too! Free trade already has Detroit on the ropes. If Koreans begin purchasing more foreign built cars, you can bet the overwhelming majority of them will be from Japan and China. Any imported American cars purchased by South Koreans are likely to continue to be novelties and status symbols of the rich, and very few at that.

It will be a long time before Detroit will be able to produce cars that will undersell Korean, Japanese, and Chinese cars and become popular in the South Korean market. The only way GM and Ford might crack the South Korean market would be if they move their production to that country. When they do that, they might even begin to make some market gains in the United States again – having finally cut American workers out of the loop. 

South Korea already has a highly efficient industrialized economy, able to produce just about everything South Koreans need or want, and South Korean industrial workers still work for considerably less than Americans. The "Made in Korea" label is only slightly less common on American consumer shelves than "Made in China", "Made in Taiwan", "Made in Mexico" or made in dozens of other places. American products are simply not going to flood the Korean Market, tariffs or no tariffs – with the exception of certain major agricultural commodities.

In spite of our ability to destroy many South Korean farmers and some small businesses, our trade deficit with South Korea is destined to increase, just as our trade deficit with Mexico increased after the passage of NAFTA.

But the New World Order agenda is to totally disrupt and supplant local and national economies and lay them open to the continuing onslaught of multinational corporations – all at the expense of local self-reliance, economic independence, and individual self-determination.

Utopia is supposed to be when everybody in the world is obliged to purchase his every consumer item, and his every morsel of food, through approved corporate trade channels, and almost everybody is on the corporate payrolls – at the lowest possible wage levels.

Speaking of corporate payrolls – one of the reasons this program is continuing and "succeeding" (in spite of all the damage done to local farmers and businesses everywhere  that free trade has imposed), is that almost all of "those who really count" are already on corporate payrolls, or heavily invested in the worlds various stock markets. This includes most national heads of state and leaders in "compliant" states – perhaps including a high percentage of our mis-representatives in Washington.

In other words, this is a program of the elites, for the elites. The rest of us merely go along because we really have little choice but to accept the prices of cheap imports at Wal-Mart. The elite corporate planners know consumers cannot resist an exceptionally good deal.

The "good deal," of course, is what is commonly called "the hook".

The public is never consulted, it's enough for them to simply be made aware that "Free Trade is GOOD," and that "we'll all be richer in the end."

Any national leaders that don't go along with the program are declared enemies or at least irrational and short sighted. Their nations are usually called "rogue states," and are thus slatted for either economic sanctions or worse.

If the American people actually realized the real cost of all of our cheap imports – what free trade is actually doing to us – there would be a revolution tomorrow. But since they don't, they're happy just to know that free trade and globalism will eventually "enrich us all."

In the end, nobody likes to admit that they have been had. So, we'll go along until the inevitable crises of the future arrive. Then, of course, international corporations, combined with governments with emergency powers, will find all the necessary solutions. And the solutions will be duly imposed.

John Q. Pridger

RATIONALIZATION

Scientific rationalization can be used to rationalize, justify, and make either desirable or seemingly necessary, just about anything required for any preconceived, desired, or planned outcome.

When confronted with meticulous rationalization for something that seems to lead us in the wrong direction, one usually only need return to the basic premises used as the foundation for that rationalization. There is where the flaw in reasoning is most likely to be found, and often it can be seen as an initial departure from good old common horse sense. Usually the application of common sense can point it out.

Any grandiose plan, no matter how carefully thought out and rationalized by brigades of scientific minds, will lead in the wrong direction if the basic premise is fundamentally flawed.

When the experts are schooled in certain things (economics, for example), sometimes they miss the initial flaws (or deceits), that precede the rationalization that has convinced them of the correctness of the study at hand. But, not being cognoscente of the initial departure from reason, they often contribute (sometimes unwittingly), to an ongoing snow job. But then, they are the experts, and the rest of us are expected to take their word as gospel.

John Q. Pridger

Tuesday, 24 April, 2007

ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION NOT A PROBLEM?

From the old mail bag again. Pridger hasn't verified the following statistics, but they allegedly come from the L.A. Times, circa 1998. Whether they are accurate or not, they do indicate a problem. If they are accurate, we've got a very serious problem, and it's worse today than in the late 1990s.

1. 40% of all workers in L.A. County ( L.A. County has 10.2 million people) are working for cash and not paying taxes. This was because they are predominantly illegal immigrants, working without a green card.
   

2. 95% of warrants for murder in Los Angeles are for illegal aliens.
   

3. 75% of people on the most wanted list in Los Angeles are illegal aliens.
   

4. Over 2/3 of all births in Los Angeles County are to illegal alien Mexicans on Medi-Cal, whose births were paid for by taxpayers.
   

5. Nearly 25% of all inmates in California detention centers are Mexican nationals here illegally.
   

6. Over 300,000 illegal aliens in Los Angeles County are living in garages.
   

7. The FBI reports half of all gang members in Los Angeles are most likely illegal aliens from south of the border.
   

8. Nearly 60% of all occupants of HUD properties are illegal.
   

9. 21 radio stations in L.A. are Spanish speaking.
   

10. In L.A. County 5.1 million people speak English. 3.9 million speak Spanish.
    
    (There are 10.2 million people in L.A. County ). 
    
    (All the above from the Los Angeles Times) 
    
    Less than 2% of illegal aliens are picking our crops, but 29% are on welfare.
    
    Over 70% of the United States ' annual population growth (and over 90% of California , Florida , and New York ) results from immigration.
    
    The cost of immigration to the American taxpayer in 1997 was, (after subtracting taxes immigrants pay), a NET $70 BILLION/year, [Professor Donald Huddle, Rice University ]. The lifetime fiscal impact (taxes paid minus services used) for the average adult Mexican immigrant is a NEGATIVE number.
    
    29% of inmates in federal prisons are illegal aliens.
    
    If they can come to this country to raise Hell and demonstrate by the thousands, WHY can't they take charge over the corruption in their own country?
    
    We are a bunch of fools for letting this continue.
    
    THE U.S. VS MEXICO

On February 15, 1998, the U.S and Mexican soccer teams met at the Los Angeles Coliseum. The crowd was overwhelmingly pro-Mexican even though most lived in this country.

They booed during the National Anthem and U.S. flags were held upside down. As the match progressed, supporters of the U.S. team were insulted, pelted with projectiles, punched and spat upon. Beer and trash were thrown at the U.S. players before and after the match. The coach of the U.S. team, Steve Sampson said, "This was the most painful experience I have ever had in this profession."

Did you know that immigrants from Mexico and other non-European countries can come to this country and get preferences in jobs, education, and government contracts. It's called affirmative action or racial privilege. The Emperor of Japan or the President of Mexico could migrate here and immediately be eligible for special rights unavailable for Americans of European descent.

Corporate America has signed on to the idea that minorities and third world immigrants should get special, privileged status. Some examples are Exxon, Texaco, Merrill Lynch, Boeing, Paine Weber, Starbucks and many more.

DID YOU KNOW? ... that Mexico regularly intercedes on the side of the defense in criminal cases involving Mexican nationals?

Did you know .. that Mexico has NEVER extradited a Mexican national accused of murder in the U.S. in spite of agreements to do so?

According to the L.A. Times, Orange County , California is home to 275 gangs with 17,000 members, 98% of which are Mexican and Asian.

How's your county doing?

According to a New York Times article dated May 19, 1994, 20 years after the great influx of legal immigrants from Southeast Asia , 30% are still on welfare compared to 8% of households nationwide. A Wall Street Journal editorial dated December 5, 1994 quotes law enforcement officials as stating that Asian mobsters are the "greatest criminal challenge the country faces." Not bad for a group that is still under 5% of the population.

Is education important to you? Here are the words of a teacher who spent over 20 years in the Los Angeles School system. "Imagine teachers in classes containing 30-40 students of widely varying attention spans and motivation, many of whom aren't fluent in English. Educators seek learning materials likely to reach the majority of students and that means fewer words and math problems and more pictures and multicultural references."

WHEN I WAS YOUNG

I remember hearing about the immigrants that came through Ellis Island.

They wanted to learn English.

They wanted to breathe free.

They wanted to become Americans. 

Now, far too many immigrants come here with demands. They demand to be taught in their own language. They demand special privileges ... affirmative action.

They demand ethnic studies that glorify their culture. 

NOW ..

WHY CAN'T WE SEND THEM HOME?

One reason we can't send them home is that once an entire body has been infected with a debilitating disease, it is incapable of overcoming the infection and ridding itself of the agent. Once the body is overwhelmed, it cannot cure itself.

Our nation once had a natural immunity and effective remedies for the disease. That immunity, along with all effective curative agents, have since been thoroughly discredited and effectively banned by the head of the ailing body itself.

Those natural immunities and cures are now referred to as racism, xenophobia, protectionism, and isolationism. These were once administered through immigration and trade laws, but are now officially considered the worst diseases of all. (Of course, some discriminatory laws were very unjust, and have rightly been purged – but the baby has been thrown out with the bathwater.)

The results might have been expected and, indeed, were. But anybody that pointed it out, or recommended a continued commitment to our European Cultural roots, and the American society, culture, and national racial mix that developed from them are condemned as bigots, if not devotees of Nazism.

We cannot blame "immigrants" for our national woes, of course. After all, we have always been a nation of immigrants. And even most illegal aliens are essentially good people. But we were once very discriminating about which immigrants we welcomed and which ones we excluded or only allowed in in very limited numbers. And we were also very discriminating about who had the voting franchise. But this discrimination has been outlawed – rightly so in the estimation of most of today's Americans, certainly all of those who were formerly discriminated against.

(There is nothing wrong with Mexicans, of course. They are essentially just like the rest of us, and just as capable of being good and productive citizens. By definition, however, there is something wrong with anybody who breaks just laws anywhere.)

In other words, we have become very "good" – a lot better than we were before, at least from as strictly humanitarian perspective. But in becoming so good, we have laid our nation open to the disease that is bound to destroy it in the fullness of time. As Pridger's old Pappy was once fond of saying, "There is such a thing as becoming so good, that you're good for nothing."

Any nation that has lost control over its culture, economic destiny, and borders, is doomed to be transformed into something it was never intended to be – and something its citizens never thought it would be.

On the matter of discrimination, Pridger doesn't like to be discriminated against either. But if Pridger goes to a foreign country, he certainly wouldn't expect all the benefits that nation provides to its own citizens – and most certainly not if he has broken that nation's fundamental laws. Remember, there is (or should be), a distinction between "rights" and material "benefits."

Pridger doesn't fault the Japanese for considering him perhaps a welcome visitor but excluded as an immigrant or beneficiary of public subsidies. The Japanese consider that only Japanese can be Japanese, and that is not only their right, but their key to national and cultural survival.

Mexico is little different, though perhaps much less racially exclusive than Japan. Mexico is still pretty much reserved for Mexicans, as is only right and proper. Gringos are welcomed as visitors only as long as they bring their own money and scrupulously observe all Mexican laws. They are not welcomed as immigrants at all, except under very strict conditions of law – not the least of which is that he must bring significant wealth or economic benefit with him rather than expect to "earn it in Mexico." This is only fair.

When immigrants come to the United States, they are only doing what is expected, and what seems a positive move to them. This is true whether they come here to actually assimilate and become Americans or with a secret design to transform the nation. We, in all of our goodness, by welcoming all comers, and turning a blind eye to illegal immigration from Mexico, have hamstrung ourselves. We have no defense against immigrant invasion short of our immigration laws. And if we don't enforce those law, we don't even have that.

We, as a nation, are already in an extremis situation. The disease (which is a disease of the leadership first and foremost), is too far advanced to really cure. Yet we can't just roll over and let "peacefully" invading hoards take over. Expelling the illegal aliens (including the good, the bad, and the ugly) remains the only "legal" remedy available to us. Doing so would be the very least we could do, and perhaps the most we can do. But even this will probably prove politically impossible, for the infection is already metastasizing, and there is a great lack of nationalistic will and backbone among our leadership.

A leadership that has not only allowed our current situation to develop over a period of half a century, but also actively encouraged it, is unlikely to make the necessary corrections to effectively change the suicidal course of our history.

The problems we face are a lot more than just immigration, of course. That's merely a major symptom. The disease is not only of the flesh, but of the national spirit and mind. The national leadership (which actually appears to be under the thumb of alien influences), has proven that it is incapable of nationalistic thought – "nationalism" itself having become a naughty, politically incorrect, word.

Large and growing minority voting blocks, often with their exclusive agendas, have already effectively paralyzed our body politic. As the complexion of the voting public changes, this will only get worse – and hope for preserving or resurrecting the nation of our founders, and even of our fathers, will increasingly become less of an option.  There are no remedies in sight, though there will be plenty of hand-wringing and suffering – and probably future conflict.

NATIONALISM: BAD, BAD, BAD? OR GOOD?

Unfortunately, we're presently preoccupied with a global war on terror, and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And there are plenty of other wars in the offing. We're told by the leadership that we should get on board our war efforts in the name of "national security" (or at least in support of our troops), and support all the war efforts whatever the objective, rationale, costs, or ulterior motives.

Pridger is a nationalist. That is, he's proud to be an American (proud of what America was supposed to be), and hopeful that we can rescue and preserve our nation. The way Pridger sees it, this should be one of the main goals of all of our "national security" efforts.

But, though "national security" is now bantered about as the great imperative of our times, "nationalism" is a bad word. Nazi Germany, and Imperial Japan are always cited  as examples of a nationalistic nations. But this is all smoke. Nationalism has nothing to do with being aggressive or bent on conquest of other nations. Nationalism is nothing but patriotism and love of country – and the desire to preserve ones own nation for posterity. This does not mean at the expense of other nations, but in defense of our own culture and real estate. Self-preservation is as much an attribute of nations as it is of all other organisms. Once it is abandoned, the end is near.

It is impossible to have national security without a spirit of nationalism. Nor can we have national security by thinking it requires that we fight "to preserve the American way of life" everywhere except the homeland. In fact our present wars, combined with our suicidal march into a fundamentally flawed New World Order, are producing the very antithesis of national security.

Unfortunately, when a nation is not predominately comprised of people of similar cultural, ethnic, and religious backgrounds, national cohesion becomes increasingly difficult. At some point, it becomes impossible. And the way Pridger sees it, this is part of the program. The New World Order is about the destruction of local control and local systems, and about the repudiation of national cultures and sovereignty. This can best be accomplished when populations have become diluted, amalgamated, and culturally confused.

Significantly, this is happening with breakneck speed in almost all of the advanced Western European nations, and most concertedly, and irrevocably, in the United States. Most other nations of the Third World are advancing industrially, but are much more carefully preserving their nationalities. The United States is the only nation that is seemingly eagerly committing nation suicide – and (most ironically), doing it while trying to rule the world.

John Q. Pridger

Monday, 23 April, 2007

NOW THIS TAKES THE CAKE! WALLS ARE GOING UP IN BAGHDAD!

Not long ago Pridger received a mail solicitation to contribute $150.00 for "his foot of wall" along the U.S. Mexican border. Though Pridger, sympathizes with the cause, he doesn't think a wall along our southern border is a solution to our illegal immigration problem. However, such a wall would make a whole lot more "national security" sense than walls around Baghdad sectarian neighborhoods.

Amazingly, that's where our government has chosen to start building walls! In Baghdad! What are our leaders thinking? Pridger wonders what each foot of those walls are costing our children and grandchildren? (In fact, some of the bill is bound to come due even in our own lifetime!) Talk about adding absurdity to national strategic incompetence! 

Remember when our national foreign policy was based on "containment" of the entire Union of Soviet Socialist Republics? Nobody even thought of building a wall around it. And when the USSR build the Berlin Wall, we showed them what airplanes could do. Now our policy has come down to the level of containment of Baghdad neighborhoods – with walls. We're apparently taking lessons from our former Soviet enemies and our Israeli friends who are doing the same thing to Palestinian areas of the West Bank! (And they are insulted when former President Carter refers to theirs as a system of Apartheid!)

This Berlin Wall mentality is so incredibly ridiculous that Pridger isn't even going to comment further on those Baghdad walls our troops are working so hard on. Our national leadership is hopeless and hopelessness leads to desperation – security in Baghdad neighborhoods at any price!

It's also pretty ironic that we, the very nation that has been promoting free trade, open borders, and the Global Village, are being "forced" to build reinforced concrete walls around neighborhoods, if not nations. If nothing else, this is evidence that our borderless world is a Utopian delusion.  

THE IMMIGRANT INVASION

Though the costs would be prohibitive, and the effectiveness highly questionable, it would make a lot more sense to build a two thousand mile wall along our southern border than around Sunni and Shiite neighborhoods on the other side of the world! 

There is no doubt that we have an ongoing unchecked invasion across that border. It's not just a labor invasion of people seeking better economic opportunities, it's also an articulated political invasion with with the "re-conquest" of the American southwest as its objective. This has become quite clear in the last year or two as Mexican's on our side of the border, emboldened through the strength of their growing numbers, demonstrate in our city streets proclaiming their reconquista aims.

Looking to their high percentage of Native American blood, Mexicans are now saying that we can't keep them out, because this is their land in the first place. Yet they fly the Mexican flag and say ownership of this land is, and ought to be, vested in Mexico. This, in itself is rather strange, since Mexico is hardly a Native American political entity, ruled (or misruled), as it is, buy an elite that is still largely of Spanish extraction.

These Mestizos, looking to their diluted native American bloodlines, purport to claim the American southwest as their own – on behalf of Mexico! Yet Mexico is the nation that has failed them and caused them to wish to flee north into the land of the Gringo where they might find economic opportunity to better their lot!

You would think our Mexican Mestizo friends would recall that the Spanish conquest of Mexico, and most of South and Central America, was about the bloodiest era of colonial conquest anywhere. There was no dickering around cheating the natives out of their land over long periods of time, and no extended periods of negotiations and false treaties involved with taking territory. The Spanish went for the jugular with a vengeance, and appropriated the land with swift and unadulterated cruelty by force of arms. Almost the entire native population of Mexico was quickly subjugated into a peonage to serve Hidalgo landlords – and this included the very sparsely settled regions of what is now our American southwest.

The fact that we have this immigrant invasion is confirmation that the Mexican government has somehow come up short. And to add insult to injury, the Mexican government, which continues in this failure, is encouraging its poor and hungry masses to leave and re-conquer the territories it once claimed in the north. And it claims it is our obligation, and our responsibility (as a matter of simple justice), to accept them.

The only real way to address the invasion would be to strictly enforce our immigration laws, and begin to remove the incentives Mexican have to cross from their own country into ours. There are two major economic incentives propelling this migration: (1) the continued existence of object poverty and lack of economic opportunities in Mexico, and thus the incentive of the poor to seek relief north of the border, and (2), the great and growing abundance of low paying jobs in the United States that most Americans supposedly don't want or don't need.

One of the great ironies of the state of the Mexican socio-economic system vis-a-vis the United States is that the Mexicans went the extra mile to reclaim Mexico for the Mexicans over a century ago. They expelled American capital interests that had been developing and exploiting their country. Now they are playing catch up again, hoping American capital can save their broken system. But the mechanism of exploitation this time is as destructive to the United States as it is to Mexico.

There was nothing about the Maquiadora Program or NAFTA that helped alleviate any of Mexico's problems. In fact, both have merely further exasperated them. All the industrial development that has taken place in Mexico as the result of these programs has been aimed at enriching American corporations (and Mexican subsidiaries), at the expense of both Mexican and American workers.

The idea was not to develop Mexican markets for the Mexicans, as it should have been, by "giving them factories" that would pay Mexicans high wages (in their own country), and supply the Mexican markets with affordable consumer goods. The idea was to put American factories on Mexican soil so they could pay low Mexican wages to supply the American consumer market. Most of our imports from Mexico are merely consumer goods that were once produced north of the border, and should still be produced there.

On both sides of the border workers came up losers. In Mexico, because the workers (who at least got the jobs), still couldn't buy the goods they produced – and in the United States, because every new Mexican job meant at least one less American job. The process is still ongoing, of course.

The only way to stop the mass migration of Mexicans out of Mexico and into the United States would be for the Mexican government to figure out ways to make Mexico more attractive to Mexicans. The United States could perhaps have helped, but it decided to exacerbate all problems instead. This, because the real rationale behind our policy, as initiated and ongoing, is not to help Mexico or Mexicans (or Americans), but to further the aims of corporate globalism – which, of course, is simply increased profits.

Naturally, when Mexico's northern border region became industrialized, tens of thousands of Mexicans came to the border area for the jobs. There weren't enough jobs for everybody, of course, so thousands are merely taking the next step north. The next step north has since developed into the main program – a massive migration. And since nothing has improved in Mexico for the vast majority of Mexicans, the incentive to move north has increased.

Part of the purpose of NAFTA was to open the Mexican market to American exports. This, naturally, means American agricultural products – the ones that we are still able to produce in excess and sell at global fire-sale prices. This, in turn, helps destroy local agriculture in Mexico, putting "inefficient" Mexican farmers out of business. This results in more and more economically disenfranchised Mexicans who look to American agricultural industries (the still labor intensive ones), for opportunities. Mexican farmers have been marching north in increasing numbers for decades. They have become America's itinerate farm laboring class.

The idea of a wall along the border is an abominable one any way you look at it. If there was such a wall, and if it were impregnable, the sky and sea remain open – and so will all the NAFTA bridges and the planned super-highways and rail corridors! It is planned that sealed freight containers will be crossing the border on trucks and rail cars by the millions in the decades ahead – in addition to the hundreds of thousands of trucks that already do. Mexico's sea ports are destined to increasingly serve the United States, as an additional trade corridor from Asia and elsewhere.

Since one of the major goals of globalism is "open borders," the idea of a wall along our southern border is going to meet with all sorts of obstacles. For one thing, one of the great selling points of NAFTA is the idea that we can help Mexico if thousands of American tourists and entrepreneurs can flood into Mexico to boost their economy with tourist dollars. The effect of this has been to cause many American tourist Mecca's to mushroom and flourish all over Mexico.

These tourist Meccas are designed and priced for Americans, not Mexicans (cheap for wealthy Americans, but out of bounds for most Mexicans). Mexicans work in them as servants, or gather in to catch a little "trickle down." And land prices in such areas are pushed far above normal Mexican market levels, making it impossible for Mexicans to afford land anywhere near where wealthy Americans congregate to have their jet-set gatherings.

John Q. Pridger

PET DEATHS POINT TO OUR GROWING NATIONAL INSECURITY

National Security is supposedly a major concern in Washington D. C.. They and our valiant servicemen and women are working hard on it over in Iraq and Afghanistan. But when it comes to real national security, we're becoming more vulnerable all the time.

We all know how economically vulnerable we are in the realm of energy. The nation couldn't function without our required daily dose of foreign oil. While most Americans are becoming acutely aware of our national energy vulnerability because of continually rising gas prices, very few stop to think how vulnerable we have become in a whole massive line of vital consumer products.

Everybody knows that our economy would take a quick nose-dive if our lifelines to OPEC and the Middle East were severed. But it would take just as pronounced a dive if our lifeline to China and the Far East were somehow severed.

Many of the nation's pet owners have recently found out something else. The health of their pets depend on the Chinese. Now isn't that a crock? Free trade is killing our pets! At what point will it begin to kill us too?

Dependence on trade is not a good thing for a nation perfectly capable of being largely economically independent. Trade is something a nation does to supplement its economy, not something to sustain it. Trade should be used to market excess production, not provide necessities or facilitate excess consumption.

It's ridiculous that American pets are dying because we apparently have decided that the Chinese are able to produce pet food cheaper than Americans can. If Americans realized what a high and growing percentage of our "people food" is also being imported, they would likely begin to feel a little uneasy.

John Q. Pridger

THE MAIL BAG

Pridger just received the following virus warning...

Statements from Nancy Pelosi.

This woman is frightening!

Take a good hard look at what she wants. Take special note of the last
paragraph.

Insanity Personified : Nancy Pelosi

Nancy Pelosi condemned the new record highs of the stock market as "just another example of Bush policies helping the rich get richer". "First Bush cut taxes for the rich and the economy has rebounded with new record low unemployment rates, which only means wealthy employers are getting even wealthier at the expense of the underpaid working class".

She went on to say "Despite the billions of dollars being spent in Iraq our economy is still strong and government tax revenues are at all time highs. What this really means is that business is exploiting the war effort and working Americans, just to put money in their own pockets".

When questioned about recent stock market highs she responded "Only the rich benefit from these record highs Working Americans, welfare recipients, the unemployed and minorities are not sharing in these obscene record highs". "There is no question these windfall profits and income created by the Bush administration need to be taxed at 100% rate and those dollars redistributed to the poor and working class". "Profits from the stock market do not reward the hard work of our working class who, by their hard work, are responsible for generating these corporate profits that create stock market profits for the rich. We in congress will need to address this issue to either tax these profits or to control the stock market to prevent this unearned income to flow to the rich."

When asked about the fact that over 80% of all Americans have investments in mutual funds, retirement funds, 401K's, and the stock market she replied "That may be true, but probably only 5% account for 90% of all these investment dollars. That's just more "trickle down" economics claiming that if a corporation is successful that everyone from the CEO to the floor sweeper benefit from higher wages and job security which is ridiculous". "How much of this 'trickle down' ever get to the unemployed and minorities in our county? None, and that's the tragedy of these stock market highs."

"We democrats are going to address this issue after the election when we
take control of the congress. We will return to the 60% to 80% tax rates on the rich and we will be able to take at least 30% of all current lower Federal Income Tax taxpayers off the roles and increase government income substantially. We need to work toward the goal of equalizing income in our country and at the same time limiting the amount the rich can invest."

When asked how these new tax dollars would be spent, she replied "We need to raise the standard of living of our poor, unemployed and minorities. For example, we have an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in our country who need our help along with millions of unemployed minorities. Stock market windfall profits taxes could go a long ways to guarantee these people the standard of living they would like to have as "Americans"."

Send it on to you r friends. I just did!!

Now Nancy makes several good points, and Pridger will point out where he agrees with her. But Ms. Peloshi also reveals why Democrats still cannot be trusted to govern. They're still more Dangerous than Republicans, in spite of the fact that Republicans have totally fouled our national nest, there is every indication that Democrats would foul it even worse.

First, let's take a look at that last paragraph where Nancy really falls on her sword. If we have any obligation to "raise the standard of living of our poor, unemployed and minorities," her idea of doing it with tax money is ludicrous, but typically liberal Democrat. Those poor and unemployed don't need handouts from taxpayers – they need good jobs – and government is the only thing that can foster the conditions necessary to bring good jobs back to our shores. She neglects to mention this.

As for "minorities" being included, this is more typical bleeding heart liberal minority coddling. If our minorities aren't to be considered on equal terms with non-minorities (as American citizens rather than a "special" underdog class), then we're still stuck in the divisive victim manufacturing business. Poor, unemployed minorities don't need anything that other poor, unemployed, people need. Again, that is decent job opportunities.

That Peloshi would apparently specifically include the "estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in our country who need our help along with millions of unemployed minorities" it totally unconscionable, if not downright traitorous.

Illegals immigrants are violators of our laws, and the only obligation American taxpayer have (not to them, but to themselves), is to get them deported back to Mexico (or wherever they came from), as soon as possible. That will be difficult and expensive enough! But it must be done, or there will be no hope for ever securing the border and preventing the reconquista. Talking as if Americans have any other obligation with regard to them is about as counterproductive as anyone can get.

The plea that "illegals are people too," and shouldn't be discriminated against, is like saying all other lawbreakers "are people too," and shouldn't be held accountable for their transgressions. Admittedly, the overwhelming percentage of our illegal immigrants are essentially good people who just want a better shake in life. But they have the idea that our immigration laws are meaningless, and their first act is to break the law. If Pridger breaks a law (even if he thinks the law is meaningless), and gets caught, he's very likely to have to pay the piper anyway – even though he, too, is a person. The same goes for illegal aliens who flout our laws.

Breaking out immigration laws do not constitute victimless crimes. The American people are the victims. And the bleeding heart liberals who pontificate otherwise, or simply say "we can afford it in the name of humanitarianism" are a large part of the problem. Perhaps they are the largest part of the problem – even more guilty than the hapless immigrant, risking life and limb, sneaking across the border into the "Promised Land."

The embarrassing truth is, most of those illegal aliens are already employed, and they are taking the jobs that poor Americans should be taking. And those poor Americans would be taking those jobs if the wage and price structure wasn't already geared to tap into the illegal alien labor pool – or if taxpayers were not already subsidizing them making it unnecessary to take just any old job.

Peloshi says "Stock market windfall profits taxes could go a long way to guarantee these people the standard of living they would like to have as 'Americans'." She is apparently already including those 12 illegal aliens as "Americans"!!!

It's true that a lot of employers are getting wealthier at the expense of the underpaid working class. And that underpaid working class will continue to grow, and be even more underpaid as the nation fills with new immigrants willing, or compelled, to take lower wages.

When Nancy says that "Despite the billions of dollars being spent in Iraq our economy is still strong and government tax revenues are at all time highs. What this means is that business is exploiting the war effort and working Americans, just to put money in their own pockets," Pridger has to scratch his head a little. Granted, it may be that our economy is still strong because of the Iraq war. Without it, the stock market "corrections" of 2000 would probably have continued. War is, and always has been, great for the economy, and has always been a profiteering business which leaves the taxpaying public with all the unpaid bills in the end. But many American workers are also profiting from the war. Naturally, no matter who profits, the bills will eventually have to be paid through taxation.

What could Ms. Peloshi possibly mean by "There is no question these windfall profits and income... need to be taxed at (a) 100% rate and those dollars redistributed to the poor and working class"? Is she saying that all the profits of war profiteers and workers should be confiscated and given to the poor and working classes? Wow! If this could be done, we'd never be able to have another war – ever! But didn't Peloshi and almost all the other Democrats vote for the war?

Perhaps the next time Congress gives the president the green light to start a war, and funds the envisioned war effort, the war can be cancelled (maybe by telling the president, they'd changed their mind), and the appropriations simply distributed to the poor and the working class.

As for a market windfall profit tax, such a tax would merely rearrange a surreal stock market playing field. But "merely" could have profound implications. The question is, how do you define a stock market windfall profit? And who or what, would be actually taxed? Is a windfall profit caused by an irrational market bubble, or is it caused by a successful business making extraordinarily good profits? Do you tax real beneficial business enterprise in the same manner as smoke and mirror profit windfalls?

Pridger agrees that the market has departed from reality. Much of the alleged value is smoke and mirrors, and if you impose a windfall profit tax, a lot of bubbles might be pierced and quickly deflate. The problem is such that a significant "correction" could very easily trigger a major collapse, which would hurt the entire economy – which has become a house of cards built on shifting sands.

Not even Nancy would want a major economic meltdown. So, before we start thinking of new ways for the government to get money from the system based on the false notion that the poor would profit thereby, it might be better to look at such things as systemic reforms aimed at bringing the markets into some facsimile of reality conductive to both stability and sustainability. We need a major revamp of our corporate system – at the core of which is our system of finance itself, and how money is literally made.

This said, Pridger agrees that there has been a systematic, and unconscionable, transfer of wealth from labor (the working man), to Wall Street since about 1980. Every industry, factory, or job exported or outsourced has taken wages out of the pockets of working men and women and put them into the pockets of corporate CEOs and stock owners – with a small portion going to overseas workers. This has been going on unabated for at least a quarter of a century. Democratic Congresses have served as willing abettors of the process at every step of the way. Clinton rammed NAFTA through with great determination.

NAFTA, of course, has been a major factor in taking jobs from Americans and giving them to others elsewhere so that corporations could reap huge profits and help inflate the stock market. You can't blame George Bush II for this, though he is an eager agent and advocate for the process.

When it comes to transferring wealth from American workers to corporations, Democrats have been in the vanguard right along with the Republicans. While the Republicans may have been looking after the welfare of corporate entities, the Democrats are in the New World Order train too – supposedly out of their concern for poor Mexicans, Indians, and Chinese workers. Democrats are eager to give the wealth to the poor, the unemployed, the downtrodden rather than to rich Americans. And they apparently extend the handle, "rich Americans," to include those that have (or had), good paying industrial jobs.

Democrats were big anti-business throughout the era when big business was the goose that laid the golden egg for the once prosperous American middle class. But they didn't mind sending that big business offshore to help poor people elsewhere – or to help rid the nation of "dirty" industries. So they have lent their support to the New World Order policies that would supposedly level the economic playing field around the globe and facilitate ungodly corporate profits and a runaway stock market.

And while this process really gathered it's head of steam during the Reagan administration, the policies that have led to the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer have very much been a bi-partisan affair, with the Democrats acting as the left hand of government and the Republicans the right hand of government.

Peloshi's threat to return to 60% to 80% income tax rates on the rich, is not as bad an idea as it would seem. There would seem to be something obscene, in multi-million dollar yearly salaries for CEOs, entertainers, sports stars, and movie personalities, when the best industrial jobs command less than $50,000.00 a year – and real hard, backbreaking or dirty jobs, command much less. And when it is possible for individuals to accumulate personal fortunes measured in the billions of dollars, something is definitely wrong.

Of course, people like Rush Limbaugh would say it's merely a measure of their worth (to society), and they shouldn't be penalized for excellence and success. But Pridger says there ought to be limits on how much good an individual should be allowed to accomplish, however talented he may be. Very few, it should be noted, are as generous as their fortunes would suggest.

If the poor man's fair tithe or tax is 10% on a modest income, then a rich man's tithe or tax should be proportionately larger, for the rich man can neither eat nor drink significantly more than a poor man.

A man with a $10,000,000.00 income taxed at 80% would have $2,000,000.00 left with which to buy groceries, invest, or start a new business. That ought to be enough, for on $2,000,000.00 a year he wouldn't really have to do anything at all.

Even a man with a million dollars in the bank at 5% will have a comfortable $50,000.00 yearly income without the necessity of lifting a hand. But a man with a million dollars in the bank is hardly called a rich man in this day and age.

Friday, 20 April, 2007

IMUS FIASCO UPSTAGED BY TRAGIC VIRGINIA TECH SHOOTING

Move over Imus, Cho has has center stage now. Before the nation had sufficient time to fully absorb and recover from the big Imus scandal, a young Korean kid came along to put the issue into perspective. The continuing Imus drama has been relegated to the back pages where it rightfully belongs – along with Dear Abbey, Ann Landers, Tips for Tots, and "Just Ask Pridger".

What an unspeakably appalling and heart rending tragedy! Cho has outdone all previous mass murderers – at least of the "troubled lone gunman" variety without an army behind them – and this time an Asian kid has wrested the title away from the Anglos. His carnage literally takes the cake – for the time being.

These events that are played and replayed and analyzed to death by the national media for days on end are not good things. It seems to work as a challenge to others who hunger for some sort of morbid media stardom. One Anglo has apparently already made the brag that he'll do even better than Cho when he goes on his rampage.

Just since the Virginia Tech tragedy, several schools around the nation have already gone into lockdown for fear that another event is imminent. As one media executive is alleged to have quipped a couple of decades ago, "What we dwell on expands."

With a few kids like Cho, his predecessors, and a few aspiring adults of the breed, who needs terrorists? Our cup of mayhem and potential mayhem seems to runneth over.

Naturally, there will be a hue and cry from the gun control people. If Cho (a known mental case), had not been able to go out and legally purchase a pair of semi-automatic pistols and several clips of ammo, his killing spree would not have been accomplished quite so easily. While there may be a great deal of sound reasoning behind this, there's no reason to believe it would cure the problem.

For example, had Cho not been able to purchase his firearms easily, he might have been smart enough to make a pretty effective IED (improvised explosive devices), and perhaps have done an even a more explosive number. Unfortunately, bombs are pretty easy to make at home (much easier than making a revolver or semi-automatic handgun), and bombings are probably the next step in mass murderer one-upmanship.

Probably the only reason IEDs have not already been employed by American nut-cases is because media role models, such as the Terminator and Rambo, have not yet suggested it as a "cool" and masculine way of getting the job done – and the Arab terrorist Terminator model is still not very popular in our culture. Moslem extremist suicide bombers – even those that use box cutters and jet airliners – are still routinely portrayed in the media as cowardly nincompoops. Cho's photos and video tapes show that he saw himself in an all-American Terminator or Rambo role.

One wonders why, since gun purchases now require instant police background checks, troubled people like Cho don't get on the police registers? It seems he should have been on at least the local police register as a person not to be trusted with a gun. Maybe this problem will be fixed.

Another thing. Though Pridger is a staunch defender of Second Amendment rights in the broadest context, it makes abundant good sense to keep guns out of the hands of unsupervised children and out of schools. It would seem that college and university campuses should be considered schools too when it comes to guns in the hands of students. It would seem reasonable that even adult students living in campus dorms should be legally prevented from purchasing and owning guns, since the only place they would presumably have to keep them would be on campus.

It's also difficult to imagine why a student that caused some teachers to feel uncomfortable and threatened can successfully make it through three years of college. Had Cho been expelled when he was first observed to be unstable and potentially dangerous (even just to himself), he might have been forced into a lesser crime much earlier and thus many lives might have been spared.

But the common assessment is that these bizarre occurrences simply cannot be foreseen and guarded against. And this is very true in general terms, unless we start running schools, colleges, and workplaces like concentration camps or maximum security prisons. The only thing that would perhaps have mitigated the disaster once in progress (or maybe even have prevented it in the first place), would have been if Cho knew that a few teachers, and maybe some other students (responsible ones), were carrying guns. Had there been some other armed persons on hand, they probably could have stopped Cho before his toll reached the double digits.

It seems that we have been advancing into a less civilized society. In light of this, and our growing history of school and campus shootings, perhaps it is time for willing teachers in schools and colleges, and perhaps some of the more mature and responsible willing students in colleges and universities, to be trained and licensed to carry guns. Perhaps ROTC and on campus law enforcement programs could play a role in this, and provide a small cadre of armed student police to discourage future Terminator wanabes.

We used to involuntarily institutionalize obviously unstable people unable to properly function in society – especially those who seemed likely to pose a threat to themselves and others. But we've advanced to the point where we merely medicate them and turn them loose so they can vote in elections, and we make special laws to insure they are not institutionally discriminated against in any way. Then we wait for those who are so disposed to commit crimes before being able to legally institutionalize them. This system doesn't seem to be working. Unfortunately, the tendency under our ultra liberal system is to extend all coercive laws aimed at remedies to the greater public, rather than "discriminating" against those most likely to commit crimes.

THE AMERICAN GUN CULTURE

In the wake of every senseless mass murder by gun wielding psychopaths, the American gun culture comes under media scrutiny, and the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms is again questioned and threatened.

We're asked to look at ourselves as those in other nations supposedly look at us – as a people with a juvenile fixation on guns and gun ownership – and false notions of "rights." The pragmatists and rationalists ask, "When are you gun-crazed Americans going to grow up?" or "When are we going to join other civilized nations and do away with our silly and dangerous gun culture?"

The short answer is that we'll "grow up" just as soon as we have been defeated and totally enslaved – and not a moment before. But we wouldn't consider it "growing up" but rather going down to defeat. The transition would be one from what we perceive as American sovereign citizenship into a status of subjection. The right to keep and bear arms is one of the tattered threads by which we hang onto our most cherished national birthrights.

Many are fond of saying they'll give up their guns when they are pried from their cold dead hands. Those are brave words, but it is a continuing reminder to the powers that be that some Americans retain the spirit of resistance to tyranny. This said, however, it remains to be seen how long it takes for a majority slave mentality to force the issue through, by slow, incremental, democratic processes under the influence of expert propagandists under the direction of a "mature and rational" ruling class that will feel threatened as long as some fire power lingers in the hands of the masses.

Fortunately, despite that arrogant ruling class behind them, our politicians still have to at least pay lip service to the Constitution and its Bill of Rights in order to get elected or retained in office. The Second Amendment and its large and powerful following remain a major factor in insuring that this circumstance continues. 

The American gun culture is here to stay, at least until the whole nation goes on emergency lockdown and every law abiding citizen forcibly disarmed. This won't happen any time soon, though, since most of us still want to have at least a fighting chance against both the criminal elements in society as well as against future government tyranny and oppression.

Some of us, of course, secretly know we are probably kidding ourselves. We, too, are a pretty pragmatic race. Ultimately democracy itself, on a national scale, is probably aesthetical to freedom. We seem destined to have government tyranny and oppression in this country in spite of everything anachronistic patriots say or do. But we still want to put it off as long as possible – and to imagine ourselves free and sovereign until we're forced to surrender after a good fight.

We are not going to be totally enslaved as easily as would be the case if at least a sizable segment of the population failed to retain the spirit of resistance to tyranny. Some actually intend to die fighting when the final shoe falls. But as long as fifty million Americans remain armed and potentially dangerous – and know their rights – it's going to be a pretty long time before that final shoe falls. There can even be some hope that the final shoe will not fall at all.

If that final shoe does fall, one of the reasons will be that the cohesive nation that we once had will have already have become history. By then there will be plenty of new battles being fought in many places – and they will be here rather than the traditional "over there" – for there will always be some who will never give up. In time, it may become illegal for individuals to own arms, but there will be an array of armed factions that will make a once peaceable nation into a battleground once again. Unfortunately, the battle lines will probably be drawn between ethnic and religious groups rather than between right and wrong, liberty and tyranny.

In the mean time, an armed citizenry is a deterrent to premature overt enslavement and the turbulence that is almost inevitably coming in spite of all.

ANOTHER INCONVENIENT TRUTH

Freedom was never won but by force of arms, and the willingness on the part of a few people to die for a principle. And only arms can preserve those principles in the face of armed enemies.

Not even the mightiest, best equipped, armed force of any state can long prevail against a determined people – whether armed with guns or stones. But a determined people armed with guns, has much better odds than one armed only with stones.

Unfortunately, our chains and shackles are being fashioned covertly, and sold to the public as safety devices for its own safety and protection. And, since we live in a democracy, and the majority always hungers for safety and security at any price, we will likely lose our freedom, along with our safety and security. Only then will the masses awaken to reality.

The light shining behind the dark cloud, however, is that it only takes a few good men to stand up for freedom and liberty at just the right time – in order to motivate a critical mass of people (always a small minority), to begin making the necessary corrections.

If this happens while we are still a relatively cohesive and peaceful nation, perhaps those corrections can be accomplished without bloodshed. But if we are forced to wait until the nation has become too divided and fractured to function as "one people" the corrections will be much more problematical, if not totally impossible. And time is running out.

The real enemies of American freedom and liberty are not in far off places like Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, or even North Korea. They are much closer to home. Perhaps we should look toward those who advocate more "international interdependence."

John Q. Pridger

 Wednesday, 18 April, 2007

THE ESTABLISHMENT RETHINKING GLOBALIZATION?

Every once in a while Pridger reads something totally sane about geopolitics that actually gives him a little hope. But even reading a hopeful morsel usually makes Pridger want to start pulling his hair, because that hope (as in this case), is so terribly late in coming and, at best, still merely a vague hope. In today's instance Pridger received the latest issue of The Nation (April 30, 2007 edition), featuring a cover story by William Greider entitled, "The Establishment Rethinks Globalization".

The article says many of the things that Pridger has been saying (along with a lot of others), for a long time. William Greider is a pretty savvy sort of writer and comes down on the right side of most issues most of the time, as he does in this very important case. But his title is a little bit over optimistic. There is no indication that Pridger can see that the "Establishment" is really actually rethinking globalization. At best, a couple of "establishment types" have had some things in focus for quite some time – and are now perhaps gaining an audience among some other establishment types. There's really nothing to get excited about or celebrate yet.

One of the insiders is Ralph Gomory, who was a senior vice president at IBM for many years. Greider points out that Gomory, "...helped manage IBM's expanding global presence as jobs and high-tech production were being dispersed around the world. The experience still haunts him. He decided, in retirement, that he would dig deeper into the contradictions. Now president of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, he knew something was missing in the 'pure trade theory' taught by economists. If free trade is a win-win proposition, Gomory asked himself, then why did Americans keep losing?"

Gomory's explanations "sound like pure heresy to devout free traders." In collaboration with William Baumol (a respected economist and former president of the American Economic Association), Gomory published a little book on the subject called Global Trade and Conflicting National Interests, some seven years ago. Apparently nobody was interested, and the book got little exposure, until recently.

To the Establishment (and presumably our trusty representatives in Washington), Gomory's ideas are "a pretty new message," and "Now Gomory is attempting to reeducate the politicians in Congress." He has been joined by a group of similarly concerned corporate executives called the Horizon Project. "Its leader, Leo Hindery, former CEO of the largest US cable company and a player in Democratic politics, shares Gomory's foreboding about the destructive impact of globalization on American prosperity. Huge losses are ahead – 10 million jobs or more – and Hindery fears time is running out on reform." (Emphasis added)

All Pridger can say is that it is about time somebody got the ear of somebody in Washington policy making roles. Pridger has been saying that the United States has been on a suicidal economic and strategic trajectory for well twenty years! Gomory saw the steamroller doing it's stuff that long too. But policy has continued to be one of willful national suicide. So much in Greider's article reflects what Pridger has been saying over the years that he cannot resist extensively quoting from it here:

"At IBM back in the 1980s, Gomory watched in awe as Japan and other Asian nations captured high-tech industrial sectors in which US companies held commanding advantage... Gomory marveled at Singapore, a tiny city-state, as it lured American manufacturers with low-wage labor, capital subsidies and tax breaks. The US companies turned Singapore into a global center for semiconductor production.
     "'It was an unforgettable transformation,' Gomory remembers. 'And it was pretty frightening.'
     "The Gomory-Baumol book describes this as 'a divergence of interests'...'This overseas investment decision may... proveto be very good for that multinational firm... But there remains the question: Is the decision good for its own country?...'
     "American multinationals, as principal actors in this transfer of wealth-generating productive capacity, are distinctively free to make the decisions for themselves without interference from government. They want profit and future consumer markets... Without recognizing it, the two are pulling in opposite directions – the 'divergence of interests' most US politicians ignore, evidently believing church doctrine over visible reality.
     "...What made America much wealthier than the Asian nations in the first place? ...It wasn't that they went to better schools, then or now, and I don't know how much schooling it takes to run a backhoe.
     "The situation today is that the companies have discovered that using modern technology they can do all that (production) overseas and pay less for labor and then import the product and services back into the United States. So what we're doing now is competing shovel to shovel. The people in many countries are being equipped with as good a shovel or backhoe as our people have. ...(and) we are helping them make the transition. We're making it person-to-person competition, which it never was before and which we cannot win. Because their people will be paid a third, a quarter of what our people are paid. And it's unreasonable to think you can educate our people so well that they can produce four times as much in the United States.
      "...Free-trade believers insist US workers can defend themselves by getting better education, but Gomory suggests these believers simply don't understand the economics. 'Better education can only help,' he explains. 'The question is where do you put your technology and knowledge and investment? These other countries understand that. They have understood the following divergence: What countries want and what companies want are different.'
     (Just outcome through global income leveling?) "'Americans become less rich, others in the world become less poor. That might be 'a reasonable personal choice... But that isn't what the people in this country are being told... what we usually hear is: 'It's going to be good for everyone. In the long run we're going to get richer with globalization.'
     "Gomory and Baumol are elaborating a fundamental point sure to make many economists (and political leaders) sputter and choke. Contrary to dogma, the losses from trade are not confined to the 'localized pain' felt by displaced workers... In time the accumulating loss of a country's productive base can injure the broader national interest – that is, everyone's economic well-being.
     "...Many of our 'dismal science' colleagues speak unguardedly as though they believe free trade cannot fail, no matter what...
     "Some nations... do indeed become 'losers,' ...(and) the United States is now one of them... The United States got cheap goods, China and India got the jobs... putting the United States in the bind where their gain becomes our loss...
     "The US predicament is vividly reflected in the nation's swollen trade deficits... The country consumes more than it produces. It borrows heavily from trading partners, led by China, to pay for its 'excess' consumption. ...(Americans will be) compelled to reduce their consumption and pay off the overdue bills. Postponement will deepen the ultimate injury...
     "...(T)he problem is grounded in US politics. The solution can be found only in Washington. China and other developing nations are pursuing national self-interest and doing what the system allows. ... so are US multinationals... It's a system that says companies have to have a sole focus on maximizing profit.
     "...(G)overnment must impose national policy direction on the behavior of US multinationals...
     "If the government adds rules of behavior and enforces them through the tax code, companies will be compelled to seek profit in a different way – by adhering to the national interest... Other nations do this in various ways. Only the United States imagines the national interest doesn't require it.
     "...The political system has never really had an honest, open debate on globalization in the past thirty years. The dogmatic church of free trade – 'free trade good, no trade bad' – wouldn't allow it.
     "Gormory's vision of reformation... wants to re-create an understanding of the corporation's obligation to society, the social perspective that flourished for a time in the last century but is now nearly extinct. The old idea was that the corporation is a trust, not only for shareholders but for the benefit of the country, the employees and the people who use the product... 'That's the way we thought – good for the country, good for the people, good for the shareholders... We should measure corporations by their impact on all their constituencies..."

Amen! But we are already over thirty years into this losing game! Tens of millions have been negatively impacted, and even if we change course right now, the negative impacts will linger for at least a generation or two. Why has it taken so long for somebody in the establishment to start waking somebody up? Why haven't millions awakened to the obvious realities of globalism? Why hasn't our trusty national leaders awakened to realities in three decades of nation debauchery they have been actively pursuing – as national policy – supposedly on behalf of the American people?

Pridger, an ignorant hillbilly, saw all of this as plain as day from the very beginning. Many others did too. What have our so-called representatives been thinking all this while? As Henry George pointed out a long time ago, "We cannot safely leave politics to politicians, or political economy to college professors." We need a lot of "non-expert" thinkers in the hallowed halls of government.

We need thinkers well grounded in both American political ideals and common sense  – who think for themselves rather than allowing their thinking to be done by corporate funded "think tanks" and corporate funded university political science and economics departments. We've had a great abundance of connivers and corporate yes-men in public office who found it very easy to accept the "dogma of free trade" even though such things had been very carefully sorted out and refuted in the nineteenth century.

Neither Greider, nor Gomory and Baumol, expanded the discussion into the realm of national security. In this new age of national security paranoia this ought to be of utmost concern. No nation that depends on "others elsewhere" to do its chores of production, and depends on international trade for material and economic survival, can be in the least strategically secure. Having become economically vulnerable and dependent, we have also become very strategically vulnerable. It shouldn't take a rocket scientist, four star general (or even a politician), to figure that out.

But concerns over economic and strategic vulnerabilities of the United States, and the welfare of the American people, totally misses the real point of globalism and the New World Order. It remains an unarticulated truth that globalism is ultimately about world governance rather