President Obama has apparently reached his decision on Afghanistan, which he will explain to the public on Tuesday night. If early leaks intended to get us more used to–and presumably comfortable with–the content are correct, he is going to give General McChrystal most of what he wants, although with some time constraints (the “off ramps”) and implicit implications that the commitment is constrained, not open ended. Details to follow.

I personally believe he has reached the wrong decision, that Afghanistan is an impossible quest best left to those supposed hard, realistic Don Quixotes who cannot see a lost cause when they see one. TheWashington Post offered what is probably the consensual rationale for going ahead: doing less won’t work, and although we aren’t sure doing more will, it is the best we can do. Let’s double down on that inside straight and ignore what Einstein said about insanity. Anyone who believes this all will end well has a far more intimate relationship with the tooth fairy than I do. In my view, the only way to quite losing in Afghanistan is to leave. Period!

What about the ghost of LBJ? As older readers will recall, LBJ was faced with three contradictory imperatives in 1965. First, he wanted to push the package of reform measures collectively known as the Great Society and including landmark civil rights and entitlement programs. Second, he decided that he was not going to be the president who lost Vietnam and thus ordered a series of escalations that predictably did not work but mired the country in that conflict for eight more years before the public became so sick of it that we finally left. Third, he had to figure out how to pay for all this. His options were deferring the Great Society and financing Vietnam with actual money, raising taxes so he could pursue both simultaneously and fiscally responsibly, or by fiancing both with red ink (deficit spending). Then, as now, there was no political stomach for the fiscally responsible course of tax increases, and LBJ feared if he did so, his domestic priorities would be in jeopardy. In these circumstances, he chose to pursue both the Great Society and the war and pay for it without raising taxes. The result, of course, was substantial deficits that helped lead to an economic crisis in the years after the war was over.

President Obama faces a similar scenario today. The economic stimulus, reforms in education and health reform form his version of the Great Society, and the war in Afghanistan–whether it is otherwise reminiscent in other ways or not–is his version of Vietnam. With these competing priorities, he also faces the question of how to pay for all this, and his options are similar.

Recent estimates suggest a certain symmetry to his options: the price tags of health reform and the war in Afghanistan are estimated to be about the same–about $900 billion over the next decade. In terms of programs, he has three choices. He can pursue health reform and pay for it with Afghanistan savings; he can finance Afghanistan and defer health reform to pay for Afghanistan (which is what the Republicans basically want him to do); or he can pursue both programs. Guess which one he will choose?

To give away the answer, assume he chooses door number three (pursuing both). How does he pay for it? Choosing the option means that cutting other spending is probably not even close to meaningful, so he has two choices: raise taxes or bleed red ink. The GOP, certainly not known for its responsibility or helpfulness in these matters, opposes both: no new taxes and no more deficits. Their answer is to junk the current health reform package and let the “market” solve the problem. Chalk up one more for the health insurance lobby! In their most pious possible way, Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, et. al. will intone they want both to protect national security and to make the population well–just not the way Obama suggests. Beyond cutting taxes and genuflecting before the Market Gods, the Grumpy Old Party, of course, has no clue.

This leaves Obama in an impossible position that is somewhat of his own doing. He has painted himself into a corner by labeling Afghanistan a righteous war vital to the United States (a “war of necessity”) and thus can hardly sneak away from it. At the same time, he will not back away from health reform, which is to him what the Great Society was to LBJ. I do not know how he feels personally about the only truly responsible, “big boy” option (raising taxes, probably substantially), but he is not dumb enough to press for this in an election year. If he mumbles a lot on Tuesday night, this is why.

There is one more unsettling BHO-LBJ comparison. LBJ desperately wanted to be remembered for the Great Society, a legacy that includes many familiar programs like Medicare, but what he is mostly remembered for is Vietnam. Obama, I suspect, wants mostly to be remembered for health care and other domestic reforms. But will he be remembered principally for the failure in Afghanistan that is as certain as the commitment he makes on Tuesday? It is not a happy prospect.

The streets and sidewalks of Athens, GA  fall somewhat quiet this week, as the bulk of the college students head home for the Thanksgiving holiday.  We thought that this was the perfect opportunity to showcase a small number of artists from the town where your editor (very much) misspent her youth and cut her milk teeth on the late 80’s Athens music scene.  We never tire of hearing the proliferation of sounds that rise out of that Classic City.  This odd sense of ownership must be why we are now feeling like proud parents. Hmm… 

SOTS 11.23

Today’s Songs of the South playlist is a cruel little *(choose your gender specific noun) tease.  Try to forgive her.  She’s young and had poor parenting.  Enjoy the music and keep the porch light on.  We’ll be back around here soon!  Featuring:  Casper & the Cookies, Leading Edge, The Humms, Great Society, Chris McKay & the Critical Darlings, The Warm Fuzzies, The Orkids, The Burning Angels, The Winter Sounds and Suburban Soul.

Submissions: Artists from Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, N. Florida or the Carolinas who are interested in being showcased on SonicSouth in the coming months, need only e-mail us at sonicsouth@mindspring.com and we will provide further details.  

Likewise, if you are an avid follower of music in the southeast and know of a band who deserves some attention, e-mail us and we’ll help spread the word! 

Thanks to everyone who has offered their praise and support to SonicSouth: The Beat of the Southeast!

Please remember to follow us on Twitter!  Technorati Claim EHYF22852G63.

From THINK PROGRESS:

During a debate on the House floor today over designating 21 miles of the Molalla River as “wild and scenic,” Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC), who opposes the legislation, tried to claim a progressive environmental record for her party. “Actually, the GOP has been the leader in starting good environmental programs in this country,” said Foxx.

Foxx then extended her claims of the GOP’s progressive history to the issue of civil rights. “Just as we were the people who passed the civil rights bills back in the ’60s without very much help from our colleagues across the aisle,” said Fox. “They love to engage in revisionist history.”

Original DVD cover

When Foxx finally yielded her time on the floor, Rep. Dennis Cardoza (D-CA) passionately rebuked her:

CARDOZA: Today, what I’m hearing on the floor really takes the cake. The gentlelady from North Carolina, in her statement just now, indicated that the Republican GOP had passed the Civil Rights Act legislation with almost no help from the Democrats. I can’t believe my ears. It was the Kennedy and Johnson administration where we passed that Great Society legislation. It was over the objections of people like Jesse Helms from the gentlewoman’s state that we passed that civil rights legislation. John Lewis…

FOXX: Would, would the gentleman yield?

CARDOZA: No, I will not yield. John Lewis, a member of this House, was beaten on the Edmund Pettus bridge to get that civil rights legislation passed. Tell John Lewis that he wasn’t part of getting that legislation passed.

When she was given a chance to respond, Foxx could only say that Jesse Helms wasn’t elected to the Senate until 1972.

(Video at THINK PROGRESS link)

Virginia So-not-a Foxx is not only a liar, but she’s apparently deaf as well. Cardoza never said Jesse Helms voted against civil rights, just that he objected to it.

From Steve Benen at AlterNet:

Matt Corley [of Think Progress] added, “To support the claim that Republicans were actually the architects of civil rights, conservatives often point out that a ‘higher percentage of Republicans than Democrats supported the civil-rights bill.’ But this ignores the ‘distinct split between Northern and Southern politicians’ on the issue.”

This comes up from time to time, and since some confused people like Virginia Foxx have trouble remembering the details, it’s worth the occasional refresher.

The Democratic Party, in the first half of the 20th century, was home to competing constituencies — southern whites with abhorrent views on race, and white progressives and African Americans in the north, who sought to advance the cause of civil rights. The party struggled, ultimately siding with an inclusive, liberal agenda.

As the party shifted, the Democratic mainstream embraced its new role. Republicans, meanwhile, also changed. In the wake of LBJ signing the Civil Rights Act, the Republican Party welcomed the racists who no longer felt comfortable in the Democratic Party. Indeed, in 1964, Republican presidential nominee Barry Goldwater boasted of his opposition to the Civil Rights Act, and made it part of his platform. It was right around this time when figures like Jesse Helms and Strom Thurmond made the transition — leaving the Democratic Party for the GOP.

In the ensuing years, Democrats embraced its role as the party of diversity, inclusion, and civil rights. Republicans became the party of the “Southern Strategy,” opposition to affirmative action, campaigns based on race-baiting, vote-caging, discriminatory voter-ID laws, and politicians like Helms, Thurmond, Pat Buchanan, and Virginia Foxx.

A story that is becoming increasingly passe just over our southern border:

“Women, Children Raped In County’s ‘Most Dangerous Area‘”

SAN DIEGO — Authorities said a desolate corner of San Diego County may be its most violent area. It is so dangerous 10News crews had to put on bulletproof vests before entering the area near Boulevard.

“The violence in this area is so bad that a 12-year-old was raped to death,” said Estela De Los Rios of the Center for Social Advocacy.

In the area, authorities said there are pieces of evidence left behind that serve as a grim reminder of the violence happening near the U.S.-Mexico border.

“They’re ruthless; they’ll come over here, they’ll pick one out that they want, they drag her off onto the rocks, they’ll rape her and they just leave them here,” said Carl Braun, founder of the Border Patrol Auxiliary, a group that assists U.S. Border Patrol agents.

The rapes are committed by the people the victims trust, authorities said. The women and their families give their life savings to human smugglers, only to be hurt by them.

“What they’ll do is they’ll get them in sight of the border or right across the border and then they’ll demand a form of payment that wasn’t agreed to on the front end. They will take them off and then rape them,” said Braun.

After raping the women, authorities said the smugglers hang their underwear on the trees as trophies to mark their brutal conquests.

Braun said he has witnessed a woman being raped but could not help because it happened on the south side of the border.

“In the morning, we found her undergarments hanging from that stick that’s sticking up by the fence there,” said Braun.

Braun said the violence has now crossed the border into San Diego County.

Here are my thoughts about this: build a wall.  Build it tall and strong.  And patrol our side of it.  Keep these people the hell out of our country.

And in so doing prevent helpless women and children from trusting these human-suit-wearing-cockroaches to illegally bring them here in the first place.

La Raza-types would argue that my opposing illegal immigration qualifies me as a racist, to which I shout, “What a racist thing of you to say!”  They don’t bother to make a distinction between legal and illegal immigration.  If I oppose illegal immigration I’m a racist.  But they’re the racists.  And why should anyone care what they say?

La Raza may not give a damn about these Mexican women and young girls being raped  by Coyotes within sight of the U.S. border, but I sure do.

Conservatives are all in favor of immigration – from ALL over the world, and not just from Mexico or Latin America – as long as it is a) legal and b) benefits the United States.  Now, very little of either occurs.

Allow me to elaborate on how we severed the improvement of the United States from our immigration policy to show how we got to this point.

This country used to have the best interest of the nation and its own people as a core value.  But in 1965, championed by Democrat President Lyndon Johnson and Senator Ted Kennedy, that changed with the passage of the Hart-Celler Act.  Democrats assured the country that our borders would never be flooded with waves of immigrants.

The Hart-Celler Act repealed our previous immigration laws – which Democrats attacked as favoring Europeans and immigrants with job skills – and replaced our previous sane policy with one of chain immigration.  Instead of bringing in people with the job skills this country needed, the agenda became bringing in relatives of immigrants [Source: Mark Levin, Liberty And Tyranny, pp 150-151, and his citation from the Center for Immigration Studies, Sept. 1995].

We have continued to see wave after wave of unskilled immigrants flow into our country, along with their unskilled relatives, ever since.  We have attracted them with all the welfare benefits that a Great Society could provide.  And we have encouraged illegal immigration by these means, and by refusing to deal with the crisis our own elected representatives have foisted upon us.

Republican Representative William Miller understood the ramifications quite well.  He said, “We estimate that if the President gets his way, and the current immigration laws are repealed, the number of immigrants next year will increase threefold and in subsequent years will increase even more.”

He was right.  The Democrats were terribly wrong – other than the fact that they have – at the expense of the nation and the American people – successfully created a new pro-Democrat special interest/constituency group.

We need to end the process by which unskilled Latin American immigrants flood into this country either illegally or legally, and return to the system – based on fair international quotas and job skills – in which the most qualified people from all over the world come here to start new lives as Americans.  We need to encourage immigrants who will leave their cultures behind and embrace American values, rather than our current system which encourages our immigrants to march against the clear national interests of the American people on a communist holiday (May Day) carrying a Mexican flag rather than the American flag – or even worse:

For what it’s worth, I’m not opposed to qualified, skilled immigrants legally coming here from Mexico or the Latin American hemisphere.  Quite the contrary.  I would gladly welcome such new Americans to this country.  But you can count on me being much less gracious and welcoming to people who come and demand welfare benefits while flying a foreign flag.

The United States government spends more on, and expects more from, public primary and secondary schools than any other industrialized country does.  While much of Western Europe provides citizens with a comprehensive set of social services, the American system places the onus of curing poverty, hunger, lack of medical care and the like on public schools.  This concrete example of “American exceptionalism” causes widespread and diverse results, from a general expansion of the federal government (Kantor & Lowe, 1995) to the punitive No Child Left Behind authorization of ESEA (Wells, 2009).

The tactics employed by President Johnson’s War on Poverty and the historic forces that led to such policies provide a detailed example of American exceptionalism in education.

A brief overview of three historical themes that influenced the position taken by the Johnson Administration will provide context for this analysis, as well as an examination of some of the more immediate circumstances facing policymakers in the 1960s and the ways that War on Poverty policies played out.

The American Dream One reason that the U.S. has traditionally placed a greater emphasis on education than other social services, and the Great Society continued this tradition, is a “boot-strap ideology” (Wells, 2009) or what Hoschield and Scovronick call the American dream.  While other industrialized nations have guaranteed a minimum income, socialized health care, or otherwise ensured that the needs of their citizens are met, the U.S. has instead funded educational programs in the hope that greater prosperity will come with greater training.  This self-help model, or “equality of opportunity,” is generally perceived as acceptable to Americans, while the programs that would provide “absolute equality” are much less popular (Wells, 2009).

The Labor Movement The nature of the labor movement in the U.S., especially when compared with the corresponding movement in Europe, also illuminates how America became the exception, setting the framework for the situation encountered by the Johnson Administration.  Kantor and Lowe (1995) write that during the late 1940s many people believed that the U.S. would move towards the “kind of social agenda” that now characterizes much of Europe, but by the early 1950s that possibility had been foreclosed.  Union members largely had been pacified by the attainment of substantial benefits in their work places, leaving them with scant motivation to fight for change in the U.S. system.  “Those who did not benefit from unionization and collective bargaining – primarily minorities and women – were left dependent on less generous public programs” (Kantor & Lowe, 1995).  Leaders of the civil rights movement seeking a more comprehensive safety net for Blacks were thwarted for similar reasons; many White workers were receiving benefits through their employers and therefore were loath to join in the demands.

Race Relations The unique and horrific history of race relations in the U.S. is arguably the strongest influence on the design of War on Poverty policy in the 1960s. Throughout the New Deal, the Civil Rights Movement, and the War on Poverty, race played a central role in who received what from the federal government.  Proving to be the exception to American exceptionalism, education was never a main tenet of New Deal policy.  President Roosevelt’s goal was to provide immediate economic relief to Americans, and neither he nor other policymakers conceived of poverty as a racial issue.[1]

Another way race impacted the War on Poverty was the focus civil rights leaders put on education throughout their campaign for equal treatment.  The NAACP did not originally intend to invest all its resources and energies in the plight of equal education for Blacks, nor did it consider its campaign to end school segregation “as a substitute for other social and economic policies” (Kantor & Lowe, 1995).  However, the victories won in court, such as. Sweatt v. Painter and McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents in 1950 and Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, caused the pursuit of other policies that would benefit Blacks to largely fall by the wayside.  While, “the NAACP’s legal campaign…helped propel education to the forefront of national concern and public policy,” this success came at the cost of other important issues.

By the time Johnson took office in the 1960s, attitudes about and realities of poverty in the U.S. had changed drastically since the New Deal era.  Though the initial concern of Great Society policymakers was not to help Black Americans, that focus quickly changed: “The Great Society became inextricably tied to black interests and concerns” (Kantor & Lowe, 1995).  Americans had begun to equate poverty with Black people living in urban ghettos and the War on Poverty was waged for their benefit.  The (White) majority of the Depression-era public accepted the widespread government aid distributed to people they perceived as White, previously middle and working class, and of a similar moral and cultural background to themselves.  In stark contrast to national perception of the New Deal, the public of the booming 1960s was largely opposed to the distribution of aid and services to Black inner city populations.

The War on Poverty Johnson became president in 1963 and soon directly encountered the historical propensity to self-help programs, satisfied union members reaping employee benefits, and a new “racialized” concept of poverty.  All of these forces shaped how his administration would wage the War on Poverty, however, the immediate political context was also important in guiding the development of the programs.  Though he did not calculate his stance on civil rights according to public opinion, it was even “a point of pride with him…that he was doing things that could hurt him politically,” intense political pressure lessened his liberalism as his presidency progressed (Lenmann, 1988).  Academia and politicians were moving towards the cultural deprivation theory, concluding that fixing perceived faults in the culture of Black communities would end poverty.  The central tenet of the War on Poverty was that education would provide a path to the middle class.  This was attempted through compensatory education programs, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, and job training programs.

While avoiding the provision of the kind of social services that would provide concrete relief to those in need, the federal government “appeared to legitimate black claims for equal education while avoiding the kind of policies that many African Americans wanted most” (Kantor & Lowe, 1995).  For example, no prominent Black politician had lobbied for compensatory education; those programs, such as Head Start, were implemented in part so that the Johnson Administration could appear to be waging its declared War, without upsetting White constituents by redistributing income or giving “handouts.”[2] In a similar vein, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 appeared to be a step finally taken to stop institutional segregation, though many prominent Blacks doubted that it would accomplish much in practice, as pre-ESEA educational funding from the federal government was small, even negligible in some cases.  It soon became clear that even flaunted refusals by local politicians to comply with Title VI would not be penalized, when Mayor Daley of Chicago failed to either comply or return the money.

[2] Lemann quotes advice given by a War on Poverty aide: “A politically acceptable program must avoid completely any use of the term “inequality” or of the term redistribution of income or wealth” (Lenmann, 1988).

Lyndon B. Johnson is quoting as saying the following to historian Doris Kearns Goodwin (in current issue of Newsweek Magazine): 

“I knew from the start if I left the woman I really loved – the Great Society – in order to fight this bitch of a war (Vietnam) on the other side of the world, then I would lose everything at home.  All my programs.  All my hopes…All my dreams.”

I think this is the saddest, most heartbreaking statement.  The regret in those words is palpable and powerful.  I actually cried when I read these words.

I’m trying to think of a way to visually represent the power and loss behind these words.

Congratulations, America.  This is what you’ve “won”:

NOVEMBER 1, 2009

The Worst Bill Ever
Epic new spending and taxes, pricier insurance, rationed care, dishonest accounting: The Pelosi health bill has it all.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi has reportedly told fellow Democrats that she’s prepared to lose seats in 2010 if that’s what it takes to pass ObamaCare, and little wonder. The health bill she unwrapped last Thursday, which President Obama hailed as a “critical milestone,” may well be the worst piece of post-New Deal legislation ever introduced.

In a rational political world, this 1,990-page runaway train would have been derailed months ago. With spending and debt already at record peacetime levels, the bill creates a new and probably unrepealable middle-class entitlement that is designed to expand over time. Taxes will need to rise precipitously, even as ObamaCare so dramatically expands government control of health care that eventually all medicine will be rationed via politics.

Yet at this point, Democrats have dumped any pretense of genuine bipartisan “reform” and moved into the realm of pure power politics as they race against the unpopularity of their own agenda. The goal is to ram through whatever income-redistribution scheme they can claim to be “universal coverage.” The result will be destructive on every level—for the health-care system, for the country’s fiscal condition, and ultimately for American freedom and prosperity.

•The spending surge. The Congressional Budget Office figures the House program will cost $1.055 trillion over a decade, which while far above the $829 billion net cost that Mrs. Pelosi fed to credulous reporters is still a low-ball estimate.  Most of the money goes into government-run “exchanges” where people earning between 150% and 400% of the poverty level—that is, up to about $96,000 for a family of four in 2016—could buy coverage at heavily subsidized rates, tied to income. The government would pay for 93% of insurance costs for a family making $42,000, 72% for another making $78,000, and so forth.

At least at first, these benefits would be offered only to those whose employers don’t provide insurance or work for small businesses with 100 or fewer workers. The taxpayer costs would be far higher if not for this “firewall”—which is sure to cave in when people see the deal their neighbors are getting on “free” health care. Mrs. Pelosi knows this, like everyone else in Washington.

Even so, the House disguises hundreds of billions of dollars in additional costs with budget gimmicks. It “pays for” about six years of program with a decade of revenue, with the heaviest costs concentrated in the second five years. The House also pretends Medicare payments to doctors will be cut by 21.5% next year and deeper after that, “saving” about $250 billion. ObamaCare will be lucky to cost under $2 trillion over 10 years; it will grow more after that.

• Expanding Medicaid, gutting private Medicare. All this is particularly reckless given the unfunded liabilities of Medicare—now north of $37 trillion over 75 years. Mrs. Pelosi wants to steal $426 billion from future Medicare spending to “pay for” universal coverage. While Medicare’s price controls on doctors and hospitals are certain to be tightened, the only cut that is a sure thing in practice is gutting Medicare Advantage to the tune of $170 billion. Democrats loathe this program because it gives one of out five seniors private insurance options.

As for Medicaid, the House will expand eligibility to everyone below 150% of the poverty level, meaning that some 15 million new people will be added to the rolls as private insurance gets crowded out at a cost of $425 billion. A decade from now more than a quarter of the population will be on a program originally intended for poor women, children and the disabled.

Even though the House will assume 91% of the “matching rate” for this joint state-federal program—up from today’s 57%—governors would still be forced to take on $34 billion in new burdens when budgets from Albany to Sacramento are in fiscal collapse. Washington’s budget will collapse too, if anything like the House bill passes.

• European levels of taxation. All told, the House favors $572 billion in new taxes, mostly by imposing a 5.4-percentage-point “surcharge” on joint filers earning over $1 million, $500,000 for singles. This tax will raise the top marginal rate to 45% in 2011 from 39.6% when the Bush tax cuts expire—not counting state income taxes and the phase-out of certain deductions and exemptions. The burden will mostly fall on the small businesses that have organized as Subchapter S or limited liability corporations, since the truly wealthy won’t have any difficulty sheltering their incomes.

This surtax could hit ever more earners because, like the alternative minimum tax, it isn’t indexed for inflation. Yet it still won’t be nearly enough. Even if Congress had confiscated 100% of the taxable income of people earning over $500,000 in the boom year of 2006, it would have only raised $1.3 trillion. When Democrats end up soaking the middle class, perhaps via the European-style value-added tax that Mrs. Pelosi has endorsed, they’ll claim the deficits that they created made them do it.

Under another new tax, businesses would have to surrender 8% of their payroll to government if they don’t offer insurance or pay at least 72.5% of their workers’ premiums, which eat into wages. Such “play or pay” taxes always become “pay or pay” and will rise over time, with severe consequences for hiring, job creation and ultimately growth. While the U.S. already has one of the highest corporate income tax rates in the world, Democrats are on the way to creating a high structural unemployment rate, much as Europe has done by expanding its welfare states.

Meanwhile, a tax equal to 2.5% of adjusted gross income will also be imposed on some 18 million people who CBO expects still won’t buy insurance in 2019. Democrats could make this penalty even higher, but that is politically unacceptable, or they could make the subsidies even higher, but that would expose the (already ludicrous) illusion that ObamaCare will reduce the deficit.

• The insurance takeover. A new “health choices commissioner” will decide what counts as “essential benefits,” which all insurers will have to offer as first-dollar coverage. Private insurers will also be told how much they are allowed to charge even as they will have to offer coverage at virtually the same price to anyone who applies, regardless of health status or medical history.

The cost of insurance, naturally, will skyrocket. The insurer WellPoint estimates based on its own market data that some premiums in the individual market will triple under these new burdens. The same is likely to prove true for the employer-sponsored plans that provide private coverage to about 177 million people today. Over time, the new mandates will apply to all contracts, including for the large businesses currently given a safe harbor from bureaucratic tampering under a 1974 law called Erisa.

The political incentive will always be for government to expand benefits and reduce cost-sharing, trampling any chance of giving individuals financial incentives to economize on care. Essentially, all insurers will become government contractors, in the business of fulfilling political demands: There will be no such thing as “private” health insurance.
***

All of this is intentional, even if it isn’t explicitly acknowledged. The overriding liberal ambition is to finish the work began decades ago as the Great Society of converting health care into a government responsibility. Mr. Obama’s own Medicare actuaries estimate that the federal share of U.S. health dollars will quickly climb beyond 60% from 46% today. One reason Mrs. Pelosi has fought so ferociously against her own Blue Dog colleagues to include at least a scaled-back “public option” entitlement program is so that the architecture is in place for future Congresses to expand this share even further.

As Congress’s balance sheet drowns in trillions of dollars in new obligations, the political system will have no choice but to start making cost-minded decisions about which treatments patients are allowed to receive. Democrats can’t regulate their way out of the reality that we live in a world of finite resources and infinite wants. Once health care is nationalized, or mostly nationalized, medical rationing is inevitable—especially for the innovative high-cost technologies and drugs that are the future of medicine.

Mr. Obama rode into office on a wave of “change,” but we doubt most voters realized that the change Democrats had in mind was making health care even more expensive and rigid than the status quo. Critics will say we are exaggerating, but we believe it is no stretch to say that Mrs. Pelosi’s handiwork ranks with the Smoot-Hawley tariff and FDR’s National Industrial Recovery Act as among the worst bills Congress has ever seriously contemplated.

In 2008, America voted for national suicide, whether they understood it or not.  While it is increasingly obvious that Americans are rethinking their suicide pact with the Democrat Party, and beginning to change their minds, Democrats are nevertheless racing ahead to finish the job of destroying the country while they still can.

Think Cloward-Piven.  The Democrats believe that they are creating a “win we win, lose we win” stratagem.  If by some increasingly unlikely miracle our massive unprecedented debt-financed spending doesn’t cause the entire economic structure to implode, Democrats will be in a position to claim credit for their “success.”  If, far more likely, the economy self-destructs under the weight of the mind-boggling debts and economic hamstringing foisted upon us by the liberal agenda, Democrats are counting upon the fact that hungry, desperate, panicking people will turn to massive government structures to feed them and help them from the very problems that massive government structures caused in the first place.

It is a shame that the Civil War, indeed most of the clashes between antebellum North and South, has been all but completely reduced to a glorified race riot in contemporary understanding.  This, despite the well-documented historical fact that antebellum Northerners were probably more “racist” than their Southern contemporaries—slavery was outlawed in the North because it was not economically feasible, not because of any particularly wellspring of moral enlightenment.

In this regard, antebellum America offers a positively unique insight into the effects of subjugation and totalitarian planning—i.e., progressivism—in economic life.  The so-called “racial inferiority” of the blacks was a thinly veiled justification to experiment with planned economies in which workers were given relative stability and security in exchange for choice over the distribution of their services and incentive to devote their mental energies to improving the output of their labor.   In other words, take away the physical brutality the slaves endured, and we are left with an early example of a Great Society.

In Democracy in America, the French political philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville observed the result of this early example of American progressivist economic planning in Kentucky, as juxtaposed with the vibrant free market across the river in Ohio.  It can be seen that the social planning imposed on the unwilling worker has little to do with that worker’s race—it has the same effect whether that worker is an antebellum black slave or a modern would-be state ward:

The traveler who, placed in the middle of the Ohio, allows himself to be carried along by the current to the mouth of the river in the Mississippi, therefore, navigates so to speak between freedom and servitude; and he has only to cast glances around himself to judge in an instant which is more favorable to humanity.

On the left bank of the river, the population is sparse; from time to time one perceives a troop of slaves running through half-wild fields with an insouciant air; the primitive forest constantly reappears; one would say that society is asleep; man seems idle, nature offers the image of activity and of life.

From the right bank, on the contrary, rises a confused noise that proclaims from afar the presence of industry; rich harvests cover the fields; elegant dwellings announce the taste and hte care of the laborer; on all sides comfort reveals itself; man appears rich and content: he works.

. . . .

It is true that in Kentucky, masters make slaves work without being obliged to pay them, but they receive little fruit from their efforts, while the money that they would give to free workers would be recovered with interest from the value of their labors.

The free worker is paid, but he acts more quickly than the slave, and rapidity of execution is one of the great elements of economy.  The white sells his assistance, but one buys it only when it is useful; the black has nothing to claim as the price of his services, but one is obliged to nourish him at all times; one must sustain him in his old age as in his mature age, in his sterile childhood as during the fruitful years of his youth, through sickness as in health.  Thus, only by paying does one obtain the work of these two men: the free worker receives a wage; the slave an education, food, care, clothing; the money that the master spends to keep the slave is drained little by little and in detail; one hardly perceives it: the wage that one gives to the worker is delivered in one stroke, and it seems to enrich only the one who receives it; but in reality the slave has cost more than the free man and his work has been less productive.

The influence of slavery extends further still; it penetrates to the very soul of the master and impresses a particular direction on his ideas and his tastes.

On the two banks of the Ohio, nature has given man an enterprising and energetic character; but on each side of the river he makes a different use of this common quality.

The white on the right bank, obliged to live by his own efforts, has placed in material well-being the principal goal of his existence; and as the country that he inhabits presents inexhaustible resources to his industry and offers ever renewed enticements to his activity, his ardor for acquiring has surpassed the ordinary bounds of human cupidity: tormented by the desire for wealth, one sees him enter boldly onto all the paths that fortune opens to him; be becomes indiscriminately a sailor, a pioneer, a manufacturer, a farmer, supporting the work or dangers attached to these different professions with equal constancy; there is something marvelous in the resources of his genius and a sort of heroism in his greed for gain.

The American on the left bank scorns not only work, but all the undertakings that work makes successful; living in idle ease, he has the tastes of idle men; money has lost a part of its worth in his eyes; he pursues fortune less than agitation and pleasure, and he applies in this direction the energy that his neighbor deploys elsewhere; he passionately loves hunting and war; he pleases himself with the most violent exercises of the body; the use of arms is familiar to him, and from his childhood he has learned to stake his life in single combat.  Slavery, therefore, not only prevents whites from making a fortune; it diverts them from wanting it.

Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Univ. Chicago Press, 2002  (Mansfield and Winthrop, eds.) at 331-33 (emphasis added).

Excellent video by Zo. A little long, but I think it is a young, hip perspective of the welfare state that the government encourages and depends on.

I’m so sick and tired of statists calling for “more government regulation” and control over things that the Free-Market should be in charge of. Healthcare, retirement and possibly Mass Media are now subject to federal authority.

The Thought Police at the Federal Communications Commission are busy creating plans to control the internet (the “fairness doctrine” of the internet). This new plan called “Net Neutrality” would essentially prohibit broadband providers from “discriminating against certain kinds of internet traffic.”* Their excuse: The internet is failing (“the sky is falling!”). Freedom of choice, self-interest and competition are completely foreign to these people. If the internet really is failing, why not allow private industry to improve and fix it? What they want is control over what you believe, see, hear and spend your money on.

Hiding behind the guise of “helping the poor” and “public good” they push forth programs that the Constitution doesn’t authorize and the country cannot accomodate (Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, TARP, Bailouts, The New Deal, Great Society, etc). In the Leftist mindset, we are all too stupid to make rational decisions. To them our every action requires government oversight and regulation. If there’s a problem, the answer is always “Tax and regulate it.”  No matter what history and economics teach us, we must always repeat past mistakes and continue to dig our own grave. In the words of Ronald Reagan:

Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.

*http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9BG8MT00&show_article=1

E.J. Dionne | Truthdig | Oct 4, 2009

At a White House dinner with a group of historians at the beginning of the summer, Robert Dallek, a shrewd student of both the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, offered a chilling comment to President Barack Obama.

“In my judgment,” he recalls saying, “war kills off great reform movements.”

The American record is pretty clear: World War I brought the Progressive Era to a close. When Franklin D. Roosevelt was waging World War II, he was candid in saying that “Dr. New Deal” had given way to “Dr. Win the War.” Korea ended Harry Truman’s Fair Deal, and Vietnam brought Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society to an abrupt halt.

Dallek is not a pacifist and he does not pretend that his observation settles the question against war in every case. Of the four he mentioned, I think the Second World War and Korea were certainly necessary fights.

But Dallek’s point helps explain why Obama is right to have grave qualms about an extended commitment of many more American troops to Afghanistan. Obama was elected not to escalate a war but to end one. The change and hope he promised did not involve a vast new campaign to transform Afghanistan.

Read more

(Revised to correct the authorship of “Somebody To Love”)

During my childhood and youth, one thing that was sure to bring a smile when I came home from a hard day at school was seeing the pressure cooker on the stove. While that might mean vegetable soup – which was a fine meal itself – more often than not the sight of the pressure cooker mean that we were having yellow pea soup for supper. (For folks like my parents and their forbears out on the farms, “supper” was the evening meal; “dinner” was what you had at noon and “lunch” was a snack at mid-afternoon.)

I loved pea soup, and in our house, it was always made with whole yellow peas, just as it had been by generations of my Swedish ancestors in Minnesota and in the Swedish province of Småland for years before that. It’s a simple dish – a large pot of yellow peas, an onion and some pork hocks – cooked for hours and then enjoyed for days, with the soup becoming thicker and thicker each day. The only other thing on our table on those evenings was saltine crackers, though I imagine my ancestors likely had brown bread of some sort.

For years after I left home, Mom and Dad made the occasional large kettle of pea soup, freezing much of it for later meals. During the time I lived away from St. Cloud, nearly every visit to Kilian Boulevard would end with Dad pulling containers of food out of the freezer for me to take home, and several of those containers would hold a good-sized serving of pea soup. I’d ration them carefully, trying to make them last until close to my next trip to St. Cloud. In their later years together, Dad did most of the cooking. He passed on six years ago, and since then, Mom’s moved into an assisted living center and doesn’t do much cooking at all. So there’s been no home-made pea soup for me or for Mom for at least six years.

On occasion, I’ve made soup with split peas, but it just wasn’t the same. I’ve intended for a while to try my hand at the real thing, so for some time, there’s been a pound of whole yellow peas in our pantry, waiting for me to get organized. I did so about ten days ago, first soaking the peas overnight and pouring off that water. Then I sliced a large onion and cut the slices into eighths. I took a pound of ham and cut it into cubes that were roughly a third of an inch square. (I prefer the flavor of pork hocks, but they’re quite fatty, so I deferred to a healthier choice.) I put the peas, the ham and the onion in a five-and-a-half quart crockpot, filled the pot with water and added two teaspoons of celery seed, and then set it to cook on “high” for about six hours.

It turned out pretty well. The Texas Gal and I had a meal from the pot, and there was still more than enough left to provide lunches for me for a few days. As good as those meals were, however, there were two things that I enjoyed above all: First, I’d forgotten how pleasing it is to walk into a kitchen filled with the aroma of cooking pea soup. And second, after years of getting my home-made pea soup from Mom, I set aside a container of soup for her and was finally able to return the favor.

And here are a few songs from one of the years when the aroma of pea soup in the kitchen would have brightened the end of a rough junior high day:

A Random Six-Pack from 1966
“Somebody To Love” by The Great! Society, recorded live in San Francisco.
“Ribbon of Darkness” by Pozo-Seco Singers from I Can Make It With You.
“Where Were You When I Needed You” by the Grass Roots, Dunhill 4029.
“Down In The Alley” by Elvis Presley from the soundtrack to Spinout.
“At The River’s Edge” by the New Colony Six, Centaur 1202.
“Have You Seen Your Mother Baby, Standing In The Shadow?” by the Rolling Stones, London 903
Bonus Track
“Who’s Driving My Plane” by the Rolling Stones, London 903

The Great! Society was the band Grace Slick was in before she joined the Jefferson Airplane, and it was during her time with the Great! Society that she penned acquired her two most famous songs, “Somebody To Love,” written by her brother-in-law, Darby Slick, and her own “White Rabbit.” According to the notes from the Love Is The Song We Sing collection, the Great! Society released a 45 version of “Somebody To Love” on the Northbeach label in 1966, but it got little attention. The version offered here is a live performance during the summer of 1966 at the Matrix club in San Francisco’s Marina district. After Slick moved to the Airplane and she and her two best songs became famous in 1967, Columbia Records released the Great! Society album, Only In Its Absence, and included the live performance of “Somebody To Love.”

The Pozo-Seco Singers were a trio that came out of Texas and had a couple of Top 40 hits in the mid-1960s. (“I Can Make It With You” went to No. 32 in 1966, and “Look What You’ve Done” went to No. 32 as well in 1967.) Better known, perhaps, for being a starting place for country singer and songwriter Don Williams (“I Believe In You” was a No. 1 hit on the country charts in 1980) than for anything else, the Pozo-Seco Singers – Lofton Kline and Susan Taylor being the other two members – nevertheless are worth a listen for finding a middle ground in the folk/folk-pop spectrum that was evolving in the mid-1960s. As All-Music Guide notes, the Pozo-Seco Singers were “[n]ot as hip as Ian & Sylvia or Peter, Paul & Mary,” but “not as blatantly commercial as, say, the Seekers.” That’s not a bad place to find yourself as a musical group, and I’ve often wondered why the Pozo-Seco Singers didn’t have more success as they did.

There’s nothing too mysterious about the Grass Roots: Fourteen Top 40 hits between 1966 and 1972, starting with today’s choice, “Where Were You When I Needed You,” which went to No. 28 during the summer of 1966. Nevertheless, the group was – and remains – kind of faceless; and the group’s history frustrates anyone trying to sort out the discography, as there were – according to AMG – “at least three different groups involved in the making of the songs” credited to the Grass Roots. AMG continues:

“The Grass Roots was originated by the writer/producer team of P.F. Sloan and Steve Barri as a pseudonym under which they would release a body of Byrds/Beau Brummels-style folk-rock. Sloan and Barri were contracted songwriters for Trousdale Music, the publishing arm of Dunhill Records, which wanted to cash in on the folk-rock boom of 1965. Dunhill asked Sloan and Barri to come up with this material, and a group alias under which they would release it. The resulting “Grass Roots” debut song, “Where Were You When I Needed You,” sung by Sloan, was sent to a Los Angeles radio station, which began playing it.” After that, Sloan and Barri went out to find a group that could be the Grass Roots and go on tour, and – with several groups playing the part of the band – the hits kept happening for about six years.

I always kind of liked the Grass Roots’ singles, and it didn’t matter to me, really, who was in the studio on the other end. The songs were good radio pop-rock, and some days, that’s more than good enough.

I may have posted Elvis Presley’s version of “Down In The Alley” before, but it’s good enough to get an encore. The song was originally an R&B tune written by Jesse Stone and the Clovers and released in 1956, and Presley – during a time when his recordings missed the mark as frequently as they hit it – found the groove in the song. I don’t have enough Elvis information in my library to find out, but I’d sure like to know who’s backing Elvis here.

One evening in Denmark, a bunch of us were trading music trivia back and forth. A fellow known as Banger asked me to name the two hits by the New Colony Six. I’d never heard of the group, so I just shrugged my shoulders. Turns out the group was from the Chicago area – and reached the Top 40 twice: “I Will Always Think About You” went to No. 22 in the spring of 1968, and “Things I’d Like To Say” reached No. 16 in the late winter and early spring of 1969. I’m not sure how much airplay either of the two records got in the Twin Cities; when I finally heard the records years later, they weren’t at all familiar. In any case, what I’m offering today is the third recording in my collection by the New Colony Six, “At The River’s Edge,” released on Centaur before the group was signed by Mercury. I like it better than I like the other two: It’s got much more of a garage band feel to it, while the two hits – though nice – are a little too buffed and polished.

“Have You Seen Your Mother Baby Standing In The Shadow?” might be the loudest record the Rolling Stones ever made. When I ripped the 45 this morning – an earlier rip I offered here was one of the first rips from vinyl I ever made and had, to my ears, some flaws – it red-lined for nearly the entire song. I backed that off a bit, but still, the single has a loud and thick sound. This was the first Rolling Stones record I ever owned, but it’s not like I was savvy enough in 1966 to go out and get it: I got the record from Leo Rau, the guy across the alley who owned a series of jukeboxes in St. Cloud. As an extra, because I don’t see it around very often, I’m offering the flip side, “Who’s Driving My Plane,” as a bonus track.

by Bill Jenkins
Originally posted at The Daily Reckoning, 3 September 2009

The Daily Reckoning PRESENTS: Don’t look now, but September is upon us. And so far, so good. Everything is progressing like clockwork. No humidity. No A/C. Absolutely beautiful. Or is it? Bill Jenkins explores…

AS JUST ABOUT EVERYONE KNOWS, the stock market crashed in a big way in 1929. Analyst Nick Guarino reminds me that it rallied 15 times before it hit bottom fours years later, having lost 90% of its value.

And the truth is, when adjusted for inflation, the market didn’t break even again until 1960. (If you’re a “buy-and-hold” investor, you MUST account for inflation. It is the single biggest “invisible” tax in our wonderful Fed managed economy.)

But before people could get too happy with making money again, along came President Johnson and the “Great Society.” I don’t know who it was so great for – the market began crashing again in ‘66. Once again, adjusted for inflation, it didn’t get back to breakeven for another 30 years.

So, 30 years from the Great Depression to the Great Society. Then 30 years from the Great Society to the Great Depression II. Each of the peaks resulted in 10-15 years of declines. Of course, they didn’t fall straight down. That’s the “trick” of the whole deal.

Each rally draws in a few more people, a little more money, until there are no suckers left. Then when the bottom hits, it has takes 15-20 years to “recover.”

It will take a very long time to recover from what we’ve been hit with: Exxon/Mobil lost two-thirds of its profits… that’s 66%! The “World’s Company,” GE, saw a 47% collapse in profits. Toyota, the recession- impervious carmaker, posted its largest yearly loss EVER and is looking at losses this year, too. Insurers have been hit. Computer giants have taken a whacking. Even Disney is down over 25% in the third quarter.

These are not “bumps in the road.” They are “driving off a cliff.” By some estimates, inflation-adjusted earnings are down 90% in the last 20 months.

We are now in just the second year of this disaster. We are witnessing an almost perfect copy of the first Great Depression. And there are more nasty little secrets in the economy, waiting like ticking time bombs to explode. We will see more businesses in trouble, more banks failing, more foreclosures and more commercial real estate losses.

At the end of June alone, there were over 5,300 commercial properties in the United States in default. That’s more than double the number from the end of 2008 – and there are still six months to count. Still think American companies are recovering? What will a 300% rise in commercial defaults do for jobs? Profits? Banks?

So don’t let the recovery pundits fool you, even though they’re out in force.

No doubt you’ve heard the optimists: “The Recession is over.” “The Recovery has begun.” “Better get in on the ground floor now if you hope to recover all that retirement money you lost last year.”

Just look at the evidence, they say: Markets up 50%. In the greatest bull run since the Great Depression, stock indices are forging higher. The numbers are swelling. Ride the wave!

Housing numbers are turning north – Over the past six months, there have been some the fall in some housing numbers are slowing, and some have turned up. Building permits. Existing home sales. New home sales. New housing starts. Pending home sales. Hmmm… nice!

Manufacturing looks like it’s exploding. Earlier this week, the Institute for Supply Management manufacturing index posted a stronger- than-expected rise at 52.9. Well above expectations, and well into the 50+ territory that signals expansion. Looking better and stronger than it has in 2 years. It would be a mistake to bet against it!

But you probably know what I’m going to say right now: Don’t believe a word of it! No market goes up forever. Isn’t that one of the first lessons we learn when chasing a bull market? This one is no different. Could it go higher? Sure. But just how far can you stretch a rubber band? Eventually, it is going to snap back.

And, as it happens, we’re heading right into “snapback” season. Historically, the month of September is the worst month for stocks. Hands down. Indices fall more in this month on average than in any other month of the year.

In fact, the S&P has declined in 11 of the past 20 Septembers. You may be inclined to say, “That’s not so impressive.” But an average decline of 10 points is something worth noting. Additionally, 40% of those falls consisted of declines that were 75-125 points. That’s huge. No other month has such an anomaly. And it seems to me that this September may be ripe for the picking.

In fact, the first day of September was a real whopper. And Monday (although technically an August day) was not so august for US equities. Thus, as the calendar turns over, we have two days in the down column.

But as bad as September is, October has the reputation for being a real bloodbath. It certainly possesses a number of the largest down and crash days. But in order for a crash of monumental proportions to take place, there has to be some lofty level from which to fall.

I get physically sick when people tell me how they are moving (what’s left of their money) back into equities. I try to reason with them; I try to warn them. It breaks my heart to see pensioners barely getting by. You remember all the drama from recent years, how we were told that the elderly were forced to choose between food and medicine? Do you remember the seniors who were reportedly sharing their cat’s food so they could buy their prescriptions?

And that was during the go-go boom years. I cringe when I think of what lies ahead for them.

Will it start this fall? Has the band stretched far enough? Has Wall Street suckered in all the money that will venture out into the street? That’s all they’re after. Draw everyone out of the woods. Get all those who believe that it’s time to buy and hold into the game again. A 50% rally? Child’s play! This time the Dow is headed for 18,000!

Better tread carefully. This is without question the area of thinnest ice. One misstep by the government, a foolish line slip or a negative surprise, and the entire “recovery” falls like a house of cards.

The Neighborhood today honors a President that has provided more legislation, more controversy, and more belly laughs than many other chief executives in our history.

Happy Birthday to Lyndon Johnson (1908-1973), 36th President of the United States.  LBJ was a lot of things–a high school teacher, a Congressman and Senator who powered his way into prominence, Vice-President and then President.  He was not an easy man to figure out, either.  He was a vestige of the “Solid South”, the Democratic bloc of White Southerners that were for the New Deal but against desegregation.  Yet ever the wheeler-dealer, Johnson worked (brutally, at times) to get legislation passed in many areas, including civil rights, health care, welfare, and space exploration. 

Under his guidance, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 became a reality–even though he had to make it look like Martin Luther King forced him to do it, in order to save face.  The Great Society, a massive expansion of the federal government, included a slew of programs both white and black Americans use today: Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, etc. 

LBJ wanted the Great Society to be his legacy.  Yet a thin little country in Southeast Asia will forever define his presidency.  Starting in 1964 with the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, the Johnson Administration deployed more and more troops to the Vietnam conflict.  By 1968, Johnson’s popularity was so low that he retired from politics rather than suffer the humiliation of an almost certain defeat in the next election.

The LBJ I love, however, is the casual Texan who cusses and laughs and cracks off-color humor.  I’m ending today’s post with a link to one of Johnson’s most famous phone calls.  On August 9, 1964, LBJ calls up the Haggar clothing company in Houston to order some pants.  I’m still amazed that the salespeople on the other end could keep a straight face.  It’s linked below:

http://www.whitehousetapes.net/clip/lyndon-johnson-joe-haggar-lbj-orders-some-new-haggar-pants

I’d love to know if anyone else has ever described a tight inseam as “riding a wire fence.”

What happened to your income over the past decade, and why… (12:13):

References: http://fdrurl.com/tn50

Stefan Molyneux runs Freedomain Radio, the largest and most popular philosophy show on the web. His books, podcasts, and videos are available free on the web. Mr. Molyneux accepts donations with the utmost gratitude.

Obama responded to a question by saying that those who would call him a socialist would also have said the same thing of FDR and Johnson.

Mr. President I would give you an A+ on the statement but a C- on your attempt to utilize Alinsky rule number 5.  Number 5 is where they use ridicule to make fun of our beliefs.

I give you a C- because I don’t feel ridiculed, but rather, validated.

“The Great Society” of Johnson was an experiment in socialism.   Like all other experiments in socialism, it failed.  We are living with the consequences today.  The Great Society  was a frontal attack on the black family and the black male in particular.  The ill effects of the the Great Society are still felt today.

As for FDR, he did an excellent job of extending the depression with socialist policies.  While WWII gave America the chance to save the world from dictatorships around the world, it also pulled the Economy out of the hole.  FDR should get credit for his leadership in the war, but in the economy he was a dismal failure.

Today, I heard a very interesting episode of the “Gary DeMar Show” podcast in which “conservative hypocrisy” was discussed. The Christian Libertarian leanings of the show are well known to the audience, but this episode was “confirmation” to me for some issues I’ve been trying to figure out. I’ve come to the same conclusion that the guest host came to: Conservatives by and large are hypocritical for attacking “creeping socialism” while ignoring such programs as Medicare and Medicaid (In short, “socialism” is any system which takes from one group of people and gives it to another).

Personally, I am what many would call a “Libertarian Republican”. I strongly believe in the power of a free market and as little government regulation and interference in the economy as possible (laissez-faire). I’ve encountered the argument for the privatization of Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, and public schools before and I wasn’t too sure as to how I felt about it until today.

I will talk about Medicaid and Medicare, the twin demons of the Left. These two programs were passed into law in the ’60’s as a part of President Johnson’s “Great Society” program. The results have been far from great. While people have been helped, the US has incured trillions in debt and raised an entire generation of Americans on entitlement and dependence. The quality of treatment seniors and the “poor” recieve from these systems is low and the efficiency with which they are delivered is reminiscent of waiting in line at Target  during Christmas time. Almost a third of all Americans are covered in some way by Medicare/Medicaid and the problem is…. they’re staying on it. What was designed to be a safety net has turned into a nursery crib. The government takes the fruits of two-thirds of Americans’ labor and gives it to the “needy” in the name of charity (charity, by the way, is a choice – we give out of the goodness of our hearts out of our own volition). Before one says, “But wait, Micah, who would care for our poor?” I’m glad you asked because I’m happy to report that America is the most charitable country on the planet. For example, after the devastating Indian Ocean Tsunami of 2004, the US government gave $950 million in aid while the American public gave almost $2 trillion, excluding corporate donations.

Since many conservatives benefit from these systems, it’s easy to see why there hasn’t been more of an outcry. But when it comes to blatant forms of socialism, such as universal healthcare and outrageous taxation, Tea Parties are held and Sean Hannity talks about how much Marx and Obama have in common. Do we defend Medicaid, Medicare and even social security and public eduction simply because they’ve been in America for generations? Why does the larger Conservative Movement not tackle the issues that are bankrupting us NOW? The Progressive Movement – aka “Marxism” – began in America around the turn of the 20th Century with subtle “reforms”. Now, over one hundred years later, America is pretty much a nanny state.

The only way to truly kill socialism in America is to eliminate ALL of it. While this approach seems straightforward and even brainless, it’s amazing to me how much so-called conservatives defend the current programs while rebuking proposed ones that expand on the originals. One of the greatest political philosophers of all time, Frederic Bastiat, had this to say about government,

 

Sometimes the law defends plunder and participates in it. Thus the beneficiaries are spared the shame and danger that their acts would otherwise involve… But how is this legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them and gives it to the other persons to whom it doesn’t belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime. Then abolish that law without delay … No legal plunder; this is the principle of justice, peace, order, stability, harmony and logic.

 

Until we recognize the fact that we are being plundered, and have been for years, no real change can begin to take shape. Conservatives need to lead the charge.

Just a thought…

Frederic Bastiat

Summary: Disaster Among the Heavens, by Don E. Peavy, Sr., reveals how close America came to a violent revolution and destruction as a group of Chicago black revolutionists took over parts of NORAD and threatened to fire its missiles unless President Lyndon Johnson passed the Great Society Programs.

Cagayan de Oro, Philippines. June 26, 2009 — When she was running for president, then Senator Hillary Clinton ignited a firestorm of protest and controversy when she said, “Dr King’s dream began to be realized when President Lyndon Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It took a president to get it done.” The comment reignited the debate which has raged for decades over the motivation for President Johnson’s sudden shift to become a major catalyst of civil rights legislation, most prominently the “Great Society Programs.” If what Peavy discloses is true, then Presidential candidate Clinton will be vindicated. However, for the moment, the controversy continues, which is why the novel had to be published in the United Kingdom.

Why did he do it? Why did President Lyndon Baines Johnson, a Son of the South, the epitome of the Southern Democrat, force the U.S. Congress to pass the Great Society programs? These questions have haunted historians and political pundits for decades. Now, in a moving, enlightening and revealing historical narrative, Don E. Peavy, Sr. reveals in Disaster Among the Heavens, a compelling reason for the unprecedented and bewildering actions of former President Johnson.

Based on research of many governmental documents following the great declassification, which followed the collapse of the Soviet Union, Peavy pieces together a shocking tale of how close America came to disaster as the result of a group of black revolutionists from Chicago who were able to take over NORAD and hold America hostage until the Great Society programs were enacted. It seems ironic that another African American from Chicago has been elected president of the USA to lead a different kind of revolution.

Disaster Among the Heavens is a commentary on disaster movies and a parody of novels and our culture.  It is fast-paced action with twists at every turn. Satire, humor, wit, and a keen sense of history and culture are employed to create a myth that transforms senseless violence into the etiology of President Johnson’s Great Society Programs.

About the Author: Don E. Peavy, Sr., teaches religious studies at Victor Valley College as well as philosophy, ethics, and religion at the University of Phoenix, Southern California Division. He is a member of the National Writers Union. Peavy now resides in Cagayan de Oro, Philippines where he is pursuing his lifelong dream of becoming a fiction writer. “Disaster” is Peavy’s first fiction novel. He has had published two nonfiction works: a Christian ethics book entitled, “What Must I Do?: Bridging the Gap Between Being and Doing,” ( Kendall/Hunt Publishing, 2006) and a book of philosophy, “Play It Where It Lies: How to Win at the Game of Life,” (Hamilton Books, 2007).

For more information, contact: The Write Stuff, P.O. Box 0360, Cagayan de Oro City, 9000 Philippines. Or telephone 213/784-0830 (USA). Email may be sent to donepe@msn.com.

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