The American dystopia.

The American 

dystopia

The future of America in 2025 , welcome to Shanty Town.

In a few days it will be the year 2014 . As the new year swings in . Over a million people will loose their unemployment insurance , and after reading the newspaper , those people are likely to end up homeless unless congress votes to extend those benefits . One thing I learned is that regardless how good the DOW looks at 16,000 . It's sure enough masking the real situation in America . The word Dystopia  is the opposite of utopia where  imaginary place where people lead dehumanized and often fearful lives . I would say economic fears are on the horizon . The big clues have been since 2007 where the whole housing and banking system nearly crashed , even with all the government bail outs affording a home is becoming harder to own still . No house in America  
( such places as California ) won't sell under 100,000 . The market value has shot up the price of homes that once sold  ( and still worth ) at 78 ,000 built in the 1960's now are sold nearly 1 million dollars on 30 year fixed mortgages . Tougher still is you can't exactly own anything anymore , you have to borrow to pay a loan with good credit , and worse most Americans are renting what they should own . Cars for example they are priced exactly what a house cost in the 1970's , you have to get a loan to buy a car . Again you have to have credit . Most Americans these days are finding themselves with any line credit . If you rent a town-house or apartment the monthly rent is over 2,000 dollars anyway . The American economy is really sick , besides the 17 trillion debt . There is a persistent warning sign that most politicians are ignoring . They are ignoring the vary people that they capitalize on to sustain them in taxes. Five years into the Obama presidency, we are further from the Great Recession but also closer to a new normal—economic dystopia.Yes, the unemployment rate has edged down to 7.6 percent, but America is well on its way to becoming a nation of part-timers and full-time temps. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of  involuntary part-time workers rose by 322,000 to 8.2 million in June, while the ranks of temporary-help services employees have swelled to a record 2.68 million. Meanwhile, the employment-population ratio, the percentage of adult Americans who hold a job, has dropped nearly 2 percent to 58.7 percent since Barack Obama took office.Remarkably, both political parties are accommodating to this new reality of “Brazilification,” a term coined by Douglas Coupland in his 1991 novel Generation X and defined as the “widening gulf between the rich and the poor and the accompanying disappearance of the middle classes.” On a good day, Brazilification looks like the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute Gala, a party for the well-heeled, well-dressed, and well-coiffed under the dazzle of blinding lights. But, on a bad day, Brazilification is bankrupt Detroit, post-Katrina New Orleans, or the shuttered mining and mill towns 24/7, except bleaker. While this decade in the new millennium should be about the pitfalls of an impending economic collapse to avoid . I don't foresee any recovery from the government . The next decade of 2020's is sure to bring the economic worries of 2008 in the spotlight again  , the hardships of the next decade could perhaps bring collapse of the entire American system . If history continues to repeat itself, we can expect a violent upheaval in the United States in a few years. Peter Turchin, an ecologist, evolutionary biologist and mathematician at the University of Connecticut.  "My model suggests that the next [peak in violence] will be worse than the one in 1970 because demographic variables such as wages, standards of living and a number of measures of intra-elite confrontation are all much worse this time," But we might not be so lucky this time around. If Turchin's model is right, then the current polarization and inequality in American society will come to a head in 2020. "After the last eight years or so, notice how the discourse in our political class has become fragmented. It's really unprecedented for the last 100 years. So basically by all measures, there are social pressures for instability that are much worse than 50 years ago."

NOTES AND COMMENTS:

We have had the decade that " Greed is good"  the 1990's . That attitude crashed in the years following  September 11th 2001.  The "decade " of 2010 to 2019 might be called the Ten years of the over 100,000 $  a year, anyone who earns that much in that decade , either single , or joint earners could possibly afford the finer things in life in America . Those people may afford the monthly mortgage , a new car . In the 2020's the American system collapsed , the stock market crash , the oil prices going up . Those earning over 100,000 a year found themselves in the "poor house" , the inflation and cost of living a decent American life is now at the hands of Millionaire and Billionaire types who bought out all the properties , and banks . Leaving most Americans living in shanty towns ravaged by crime , disease and rat infested poverty.

NSA, please spy on me.

As the  theory proves any government agency becomes useless. The idiots are too busy spying on the wrong people . The former head of the NSA’s global intelligence gathering operations – William Binney – says that the current spying program not only violates Americans’ privacy, but sucks up so much data that it INTERFERES with the government’s ability to catch bad guys.The NSA for example has "failed" the United States literately on many occasions  . With all the spying this agency has done in the last decade , it has not prevented any cyber attacks , nor did it prevent the Boston Bombers,it also failed to stop 9/11: It's been extensively documented that mass surveillance does NOT help prevent terror attacks. Top experts have said that treating everyone like a potential terrorist WEAKENS our ability to protect America. Big failure are  the mass shootings and so on.  Easily detectable  cyber crimes like the "stealing" of identities of millions of Target shoppers could have been prevented if the NSA has collected all the nations database  as it claimed .  BURIED IN the 300-plus-page assessment of President Obama’s NSA strategy is something that lands with a jolt and is reminiscent of the Bush era. No expense or effort was spared to allegedly protect the American people from terrorism, which included torture, but in the end the draconian measures used under George W. Bush actually didn't work so well, because the actions went against the grain of what America represented to the world. Politicians needed  to what is  seen as actively protecting public safety and the easiest way is to add surveillance, reduce privacy and expand the security state. What they are not willing to discuss is the impossibility of detecting and deterring all attacks. The suggestion is that more security measures translate to more public safety. We know it is a ruse its about spying for us take for example  NSA has even said—as recently as two weeks ago—that everyone else is spying on American citizens too and that they're trying to prevent a major cyberattack against the United States. Some government officials have gone on record saying they tried to stop the program, and others are introducing bills to put a stop to it. 

With all the spying madness we have to thank: 

Edward Joseph Snowden.  Some blogs ago I wrote that he blew the whistle in the wrong "direction" he spoke to the Chinese Communist government .  He leaked , and leaked . I find this action ranking with some treachery on his part , running to the UK Guardian for example. His bravery I admire , sure its going change something in America . It also helped cook President Obama image as far as his credibility with other national leaders . The German chancellor for example , it was also a catch-22 it set Obama into a denial mode and sort of reviled how politicians look when they get caught . For months, Obama administration officials attacked Snowden’s motives and said the work of the NSA was distorted by selective leaks and misinterpretations. On Dec. 16, in a lawsuit that could not have gone forward without the disclosures made possible by Snowden, U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon described the NSA’s capabilities as “almost Orwellian” and said its bulk collection of U.S. domestic telephone records was probably unconstitutional. The next day, in the Roosevelt Room, an unusual delegation of executives from old telephone companies and young Internet firms told President Obama that the NSA’s intrusion into their networks was a threat to the U.S. information economy. The following day, an advisory panel appointed by  ## Obama recommended substantial new restrictions on the NSA, including an end to the domestic call-records program. Snowden this week made slight epitaph to the spying madness . You can never believe everything these days , take heed the twisted outcome :

 as reported by NBC NEWS.

National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden said his "mission's already accomplished" and spoke of having “personal satisfaction” at the revelations about U.S. surveillance policies in an interview published Tuesday.The former intelligence contractor, who exposed extensive details of global electronic surveillance by the U.S. spy agency, said he was not being disloyal to the U.S. or to his former employer."I am not trying to bring down the NSA, I am working to improve the NSA," he told The Washington Post. "I am still working for the NSA right now. They are the only ones who don't realize it."

NOTES AND COMMENTS:

## Clicking back in the "year in review" .  President Obama  at a Fremont California Hotel told the audience  these words .  " No one is listening to your phone calls." According  to the Metro  a local paper , that this was a  first  in a series of Lies the President  said  to the public regarding unlawful wiretapping from the government . What is more interesting about the blunder is that Obama called his administration the most transparent ever . Only in name  if your caught in a lie.

The " New" American Standard Bible.

The Most influential book is often misquoted in
American politics.

2014 might be the year of the "bible". In 2013  a new bible version came out called  'The Voice'.  This new version published by Thomas Nelson  has stirred some controversy , some accuse this version of introducing ***New Age philosophy into scripture . Any case in my last post on ' Moral Outrage' , we had the problem of Duck Dynasty 's  patriarch Phil Robertson  quoting scripture that offends "gays" . There have been over the recent years attempts to water down the bible . Trying to "Clean" it up from sexism , violence , misogynistic elements.  3 years ago a bible was out that was "gender natural" , because feminists wanted to remove evasive language from the text . Watering down the scriptures in not a unique phenomenon . Recently the Mormon's  # ( Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) have re- issued their standard works updating their version of the King James , Book of Mormon,  Doctrine and Covenants and Perl of Great Prince. Mormon's saw that their scriptures need "correcting" because of issues with polygamy , and race. The Jehovah Witnesses too got into the act, their New World Translation  which was revised in 2013 looks now more like a paraphrase text book used to support their  extreme theology.    In this post I will try to explain somethings about the Bible , as you know most professing Christians & Jews swear on the divinity of the book . The bible has been in American politics for the last 200 years , and it has been so misquoted by politicians that Thomas Paine warned Americans about it 200 years ago. 

 The Fanciful Bible of Americanism . and the Real Bible.

The Bible may be the most revered book in America, but it’s also one of the most misquoted. Politicians, motivational speakers, coaches - all types of people  - quote passages that actually have no place in the Bible, religious scholars say. Politician's have made the bible in recently as part of "swearing in " , and part of loyalty , but how farcical  the American system uses the bible as a nation under God . Actually the American system is corrupt like China's .  (China quotes Mao , America quotes Bible ) verses to show bias attitudes towards various minorities . We all know that the bible was used to condone slavery , and witch hunting on American soil . Of course bigotry is not far the pulpit , it's how you use your scriptures to twist the minds of people as in case of argument you can't water down the bible's strict law against homosexuality, yes it's there in Deuteronomy  and Leviticus . The Law of Moses strictly writes in the death penalty even for cross dressing . Recently Pres. Obama got into the twisting scripture for political reasons , in Newtown, Connecticut, quoted several Bible verses, including Matthew 19:14: "Jesus said, 'Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.'" Bible quotes, in and of themselves, are fine.  But when Obama misquotes and/or misinterprets what he quotes, that is not fine.  For example, on March 30, 2012, in an address to supporters at the University of Vermont in Burlington, Vermont, Obama said, "I am my brother's keeper.  I am my sister's keeper."  He was speaking about values and thought this misquote would further his cause.  That Bible quote came from the fourth chapter of Genesis.  The actual verse is: "Then the Lord said to Cain, 'Where is your brother Abel?'  'I don't know,' he replied. 'Am I my brother's keeper?'"  Cain said this to God after murdering his brother Abel and was trying to hide the act from God. When taken in its entirety, not just as one verse Obama lifted out of context, the verses present an entirely different interpretation from what Obama intended.  The misquote was not about values at all.  Obama's misquote and misinterpretation was an attempt to twist the Bible to further his personal political agenda. In 2007 the extreme right wing girl Sarah Palin was on the O’Reilly Factor talking about the National Day of Prayer, but she went a bit further than her usual party line of calling America a Christian nation. “I think we should keep this clean, keep it simple, go back to what our founders and our founding documents meant,” she said. “They’re quite clear that we would create law based on the God of the Bible and the 10 commandments, it’s pretty simple.” She was quoting scripture in a way with fanciful illusion that is in the bible of Americanism , and over stepping the separation of church and state. Like many sacred texts, the Bible can be molded to fit the sorts of expedient, if not facile, interpretations needed in moments of national crisis when the urgent need for self-preservation overwhelms the value of critical self-reflection. This was the case during the Revolution when colonists readily employed martial aspects of biblical history and theology to their own advantage. Not surprisingly, events and figures related to divine judgment figured prominently in the patriotic use of the Bible.

The Bible is the work of Men. It's Jewish first and Greek second.

 I for honestly do not ascribe to any religion . I have many sacred books ( bibles , qurans , torahs )of various faiths in my book collection . The bible tells a story , its myth , and it is not always moral . So many people were killed over this book . The bible was the book that rewrote western society . I believe that there is good in many faiths , and that how you view your attitudes is slowly based on how you read your bible . I don't believe that the bible is the word of any supernatural being . As I explain it took me awhile to come to this conclusion that the  Bible itself is full of inconsistencies. How can it be an accurate historical record, when the various books contradict each other? , reading "god" into the bible , and ascribing a belief in one god in ancient times was akin to atheism in our day .  The Jewish story of the bible has been altogether written out of American religious practice . Remember the first bible was Jewish  as far as we know . It came to hands of the Greeks , and pretty much it was  the Hellenization  of the text that laid the foundation for Christianity to make it as their own "myth". Here is a moral lesson about the bible that I will conclude here. 

A Texas State University professor assigns the Bible as reading material in her mythology class – and in particular asks students to read the Genesis creation story among the many tales of folklore she doles out – but at least one student says she was offended by the coursework.The inclusion of the Bible reading assignment gave the student the impression that among modern monotheistic religions, Christianity is unfairly singled out.

“I felt like (the professor) was trying to make some sort of statement,” the student said in an interview with The College Fix. “It’s fine to criticize the Bible. I criticize the Bible. But don’t put (the Bible) in a mythology class.”

The student, an agnostic deist, asked to remain anonymous because of concerns she has over her admissions into a graduate school.

By including the Bible, the student said she concluded the professor was trying to instruct students that whatever they believed was also mythology. The student said she thinks this instruction extended to the students reviewing their own beliefs and trying to figure out how far they were from the dead religions included in the coursework.

She added that using the Bible in a mythology course is offensive because it essentially trivializes the Bible, equating it with other legends reviewed in class, such as a Native American tale about a woman who has sex with a coyote.

The student said she found it insulting that the professor would include the Bible, as relevant and consequential to people’s lives as it is, in the same coursework as the coyote story, adding she never understood the purpose of the bestiality tale, calling it “ridiculous” and noting other students were also “a little bit baffled” by it.

“I want to keep my mind open, which is what the classroom expects of me,” the student said. “But in return, I’d like her to keep her mind open.”

The mythology professor in question, Robin Cohen, defended her syllabus in an interview with The College Fix, saying she does not mean to offend students.

Nevertheless, Cohen said, she includes the creation story in Genesis – and specifically from the King James version – because it teaches students about “translation,” or how a story takes on new meaning over time. She said many students are also familiar with the Bible and the creation narrative.

As for why she doesn’t include the Torah or Koran in her class, she added: “Obviously in a mythology course, you can’t cover everything.”

Cohen also defended the use of the coyote story in her class, saying most scholars of Native American society would strongly object to the notion that an oral tradition is inferior to a written tradition, such as the Bible.

“If you think about it, it takes a lot more cultural engagement to maintain an extensive system of stories that are handed down orally because it depends on it being alive and on people telling it,” Cohen said. “They’re not written down so if people stop telling the stories then they die.”

Cohen said she has never received a complaint from a student about using the Bible in her mythology class, and said the student with concerns should have approached her.

“She had something to say, she should have spoken up,” Cohen said. “Nobody needs to be afraid to speak up in my class.”

NOTES AND COMMENTS:

 *** The Message bible version by Eugene Peterson also cased a commotion among Christians , because Peterson freely re-wrote verses into a modern phraseology , his bible is vary enjoyable although . Another NEW bible that has been put out in 2013 is the  ++ THE CEPHER it claims to be  the most complete and accurate English translation and transliteration of sacred scripture in the world today.This bible version has included various Apocrypha , sacred names . It's a massive work that every bible scholar should have. # The Mormon's have updated their scriptures over the last 40 years since 1979 , what is fascinating are the changes  in the Doctrine and Covenants regarding blacks and admitting them into the priesthood , the watered down of , and changing  (updating ) meanings to the words in holy text is vary common with sects who are struggling to go mainstream in the American public . Christian Scientists have yet to do the same to the works of Mary Baker Eddy  ( Science and Health ) whom had also a profound affect in the Americanization of the Hebrew bible.

++Visit URL : http://cepher.net/

The Moral Outrage.

Free speech is not a given right in America if
you quote the Bible.

Reality TV shows are the plague that's infesting American TV these days , and they have become the norm.A & E ( Arts and Entertainment TV ) recently "suspended"  Duck Dynasty  star Phil Robertson for making re-marks about African Americans and Gays . I for one don't like Duck Dynasty , it's nothing but a redneck show that in reality is on the wrong network , it's more of a out doors-man show for hunters who weld hunting guns and shoot, the guys look look like hillbillies  . The Star of the Show Phil Robertson the center of controversy here ,  his remarks may be his own , as bigoted as they are , they are still protected speech . I don't agree to any extent to Idea that African Americans were happy before the Jim Crow era , were Robertson's more stupid remarks .  Yet , those bigoted words are "protected" speech under the Constitution . Robertson a devote Christian quoted the Bible with special verse from the Epistle of  1 st Corinthians  ***  that clearly "condemns"  homosexuality as a sin , there is no escaping that from the bible which in our modern era they are viewed as the "hard scriptures" most modern bibles since the publication of the King James Version ( 1611) have been  "watered down" to make it less offensive to gays . Warning  1 Corinthians 6:9-10 is not for the squeamish :

9 Or do you not know that the unrighteous[a] will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality,[b] 10 nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

If Phil Robertson words caused him to be shut out of a Reality show  , he can't be blamed altogether since his beliefs are connected to the bible .  @ The bible should be tossed out as well . Take this note here , The Federal Communications Commission did not send officials into the office of Nancy Dubuc, president of A&E Networks. The FBI did not threaten to put Robertson away, and the Internal Revenue Service didn't freeze his bank accounts.This is what the First Amendment protects us from -- laws being made that restrict freedom of religion, the press and/or speech. It does not protect us from how society responds to the expression of one's religion, the press or speech. Robertson's boss punished him for his remarks. The government didn't.

@  Don't quote me  wrong when I said " The bible should be tossed out....." . I am going to do  a future blog  article about the bible with some interesting political views about it . It's the most influential book on western society in particularly American politics , as well as the most misquoted book.

------------------------------------------

SECOND MORAL OUT RAGE.

What went wrong for Jahi?

A little African American girl goes to the hospital to have a routine remove of her tonsils, without warning she goes into cardio- arrest and now is in coma . Her life is up in the air . The parents have every right to know what happened  to their daughter , its disgusting to me how the hospital handled the situation by declaring  ### Jahi brain dead , it obvious if there is a cover up of some kind the fact that hospital wants to take Jahi off life support is a bit troublesome to me . I don't want to associate sad tragedy  as part of Obama care . In an interview at Children's Hospital Oakland on Thursday night, Winkfield described the nightmarish turn of events after her daughter underwent tonsil removal surgery to help with her sleep apnea. She said that even before the surgery, her daughter had expressed fears that she wouldn't wake up after the operation. To everyone's relief, she appeared alert, was talking and even ate a Popsicle afterward.But about a half-hour later, shortly after the girl was taken to the intensive care unit, she began bleeding from her mouth and nose despite efforts by hospital staff and her family.While the bleeding continued, Jahi wrote her mother notes. In one, the girl asked to have her nose wiped because she felt it running. Her mother said she didn't want to scare her daughter by saying it was blood.Family members said there were containers of Jahi's blood in the room, and hospital staff members were providing transfusions to counteract the blood loss. "I don't know what a tonsillectomy is supposed to look like after you have it, but that blood was un-normal for anything," Winkfield said. The family attorney, Chris Dolan, sent a letter earlier Thursday to Children’s Hospital asking for several things, among them, giving the 13-year-old a nutrition tube, keeping her on the ventilator through Christmas and giving the family 48-hour notice should doctors decide to take her off of life-support.  I think that an independent physician to examine the child. Also the question looms, what were the "complications" ? Was it bleeding that could have been stopped? Did something go wrong in the operating room that wasn't known until the recovery phase? This is their 13 year old girl. They have every right to fight to keep her on the ventilator through Christmas, at the very least it's what the hospital should do in the name of compassion for them. They need permission to bring in an independent doctor not affiliated with that hospital to examine her, and they need all her medical records, which (and correct me if I am wrong) the hospital will not release to her parents. Something DOES stink in this particular case.

NOTES AND COMMENTS:

*** There is another passage in the Bible that is more explicit , even quoting it in public , or the local "church" you attend could get some  litigation .  Romans 1:24–32 :

 24 Wherefore God also ^agave them up to ^buncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: 25 Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen. 26 For this cause God ^agave them up unto ^bvile ^caffections: for even their ^dwomen did change the natural use into that which is against nature  27 And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their ^alust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.

###  I found something interesting  about the Name Jahi , although its a common name with African Americans Jahi is used chiefly in the Swahili language and it is derived from African-Swahili origins. The name is of the meaning dignity. 

The Politics of China Moon.

China lands on the Moon , it's a Message to
America.

Well it finally happened . This shows again how far China is .  There was vary little shock among American politicians in this age .  President Barack Obama is no longer shooting for the moon, with a budget plan that aborts a symbolic but expensive lunar program and spends $6 billion over five years to turn over space transportation to commercial companies.  I Am not happy about this, but remember we have 2 rovers on Mars doing science and not just taking pictures. Not to mention probes all over the solar system doing science.Over the weekend, China landed a rover on the Moon.  The mission is called Chang’e 3, and the rover is called Yutu, which means “Jade Rabbit”. It launched on Dec. 1, and orbited the Moon for about a week. On Dec. 14, the lander touched down near the edge of Mare Imbrium, and a few hours later deployed the rover. It’s been almost four decades since a state has made a soft landing on the moon (in a soft landing, the lander or rover alights intact on the ground). The last state to visit the lunar surface was the Soviet Union, in 1976. The US, the second country to make a soft moon landing, has not done so since 1972.As the Soviet Union was leaving the moon for the last time, China’s space program was just a fledgling one, limited to satellite and missile development. Its space exploration program was nonexistent It was not until 2004, following China’s successful launch of a manned Earth orbiter, that the state announced its long-term series of lunar missions, all to be titled “Chang’e.” Chang'e, in Chinese myth, was an archer’s wife who swallowed a magic elixir that lifted her to the moon. She took with her a pet rabbit, "Yu Tu,” or Jade Rabbit. There, the pair has stayed, a lunar goddess and her rabbit..   China becomes the third country to land a spacecraft on the moon in preparation for a manned visit. Meanwhile, U.S. astronauts have to ride Russian spacecraft to fix toilets on the International Space Station.Tourists visiting the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where one of America's retired space shuttles now resides, were no doubt able to see news reports of the landing of China's first lunar vehicle, a solar-powered rover, on the surface of the moon. The truth is simple, the Chinese have been duplicating Russian ( American )  efforts in their Space Program. The Tiangong Tug and Shenzhou are duplicates of Salyut-3 and Soyuz. Change-3 and Yutu are duplicates of Luna-17 and Lunokhod-1. Both programs are dated from 1970. Yes there may be modern electronics and cameras aboard, but duplicates they are. Giving them more credit than that is a falsehood. If you count back to the year the Chinese began these efforts, they have barely kept up with the original Russian timeline 1957 - 1970.It may be tempting for Americans to think, “Been there, done that.” However, China is now envisioning the very same sort of ambitious megaprojects that the U.S. once dreamt of more than 50 years ago, when President John F. Kennedy urged America to “commit itself to achieving the goal … of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth.” For instance, China hopes to mine the moon for natural resources and to use it as a staging ground for further space exploration, although some believe the former goal is unrealistic because the cost is likely to exceed the value of the materials.  If you wondering why the American response was silent REMEMBER this , IT was President Obama that underfunded the American space program ( NASA) the original goal was "return" to the moon by 2020, if course the nation is  far behind in multi- stage capabilities . Russia and China now have the same technology we had to land a man on the moon back in the sixties , but more advanced since the Shuttle program went into retirement . It is ironic that the last manned mission to the moon, NASA's Apollo 17, left the lunar surface on the same day in 1972 as China's lunar lander arrived in 2013 — on Dec. 14. The last man to have walked on the moon, Eugene Cernan, told Fox News' Neil Cavuto something in 2011 that still holds true today: "We don't have the capability today to put a human being in space of any kind, shape or form, which is absolutely, totally unacceptable when we got the greatest flying machine in the world sitting down at Kennedy in a garage there with nothing to do." Whether we return to the moon or not is problematical. But right now it seems that if we do, the Chinese might just be waiting there for us.

Economic inequality : Evangelii Primer.

 The Pope in a church document attacks
Capitalism , and Greed.

Pope Francis I may have spoken it well. Pope Francis now faces an onslaught of attacks calling him a "Marxist" just for pointing to the world the vary answers to social justice which now is a rotten little word.The document of the Evangelii Gaudium (The Joy of the Gospel )  He said in the first peace message of his pontificate that huge salaries and bonuses are symptoms of an economy based on greed and inequality and called again for nations to narrow the wealth gap. In his message for the Roman Catholic Church's World Day of Peace, marked around the world on January 1, he also called for sharing of wealth and for nations to shrink the gap between rich and poor, more of whom are getting only "crumbs." Using unusually blunt language, he sharply criticized the market economy. "Just as the commandment 'Thou shalt not kill' sets a clear limit in order to safeguard the value of human life, today we also have to say 'thou shalt not' to an economy of exclusion and inequality," wrote the pontiff in the 224-page document known as the apostolic exhortation. "Such an economy kills," wrote Pope Francis, denouncing the current economic system as "unjust at its roots" and one "which defend(s) the absolute autonomy of the marketplace and financial speculation." Such a system, he warned, is creating a "new tyranny," which "unilaterally and relentlessly imposes its own laws and rules." The Pope is better in addressing the issue of poverty , on the other hand Pres. Obama is having  a hard sell with the Democratic party as it seems Economic populism is the hardy perennial recommendation of liberal pollsters and labor-union political directors. It keeps coming back, even though election results have never quite borne it out. Deeply invested in the individualistic“American dream,” and deeply divided by race, ethnicity and religion, Americans have proven less susceptible to class-based economic appeals than voters in other nations. Raising the minimum wage, for example, is a populistic theme that 76 percent of Americans support, including a solid majority of Republicans, a November Gallup poll found. There are are a lot of "cons" about raising the minimum wage , I first have to say when I was in High School I was flipping burgers making a late night Friday Shift and working Saturdays closing . I was making 3.35 $ an  hour to compare with a 8 to 10 dollars an hour these days ,  it was a  "entry-level" job. There have been protests nation wide at McDonald's on Washington Street East in favor of raising the minimum wage for fast food workers. Punishing "fast food" companies to push the wages up can only go so far . I honor the idea of making the minimum wage 10 $ an hour  , but dragging that wage any higher is economic disaster.  Fast Food wasn't suppose to be a career choice, it is suppose to be a place to gain work experience, and if you applied yourself you could move up to manager then maybe its a career right there , but the Fast food industry is hell . It's vary exploitative labor , you work at will and the shift managers can cut your hours . ( Non -Union )  at any time . I believe that there should be some kind of 'watch dog' in regards to fast food industry , but if  you take that into account most low wage jobs fall under what Marxist call " Exploitation of the masses " . Karl Marx was for wage equality , he fought against *** "child labor" which during the 1880's was a society evil  during the eve of the Industrial revolution . Poverty was a reactionary evil that consumed nations , and to this day has not been totally eradicated. Francis, who was named Time magazine's Person of the Year on Wednesday, has urged his own Church to be more fair, frugal and less pompous and to be closer to the poor and suffering. His message will be sent to national leaders, international organizations such as the United Nations, and NGOs. Titled "Fraternity, the Foundation and Pathway to Peace," the message also attacked injustice, human trafficking, organized crime and the weapons trade as obstacles to peace.

NOTES AND COMMENTS:

*** Child Labor still exists in India , and many parts of the world . As you know many goods are manufactured overseas bidding the cheapest way for American goods . It appalling to me to buy something that was manufactured using child labor . I argue why ship jobs overseas why can't we pay Americans a decent wage ? In stead the "greedy and selfish Capitalists"  ( 1 %) prefer paying children 90 cents a day to sow clothing so it can be shipped overseas to America.. The  Evangelii Gaudium (The Joy of the Gospel) however fails to lift the inequality of women in the church . Pope Francis stuck to traditional church doctrine in key teachings such as rejection of abortion and not allowing women to be ordained priests. But he pointedly mentioned that women must have more influence in the church. The Argentine-born pope, who is particularly devoted to the Madonna, ended the document with a long prayer to Mary.

The Budget's Raw deal.

It's a "raw" deal that Obama might not sign.

It's too good to be true .  Budget negotiators announced Tuesday a bipartisan deal to set spending levels for the federal government for two years and partially replace unpopular spending cuts with other savings.House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and Senate Budget Chairwoman Patty Murray, D-Wash., led the negotiations that had intensified in recent days as a Dec. 13 deadline approaches.In a joint appearance Tuesday evening in the U.S. Capitol, Ryan and Murray said the agreement would stop the government "lurching from crisis to crisis" and eliminate the threat of another government shutdown. The current stopgap funding measure is scheduled to run out again Jan. 15. “the emerging agreement amounts to little more than a cease-fire. Republicans and Democrats are abandoning their debt-reduction goals, laying down arms and, for the moment, trying to avoid another economy-damaging standoff.” In other words, congressional leaders are going small. Given what’s transpired in Congress during the last couple of years in the budget debate, it’s not difficult to see why a broader arrangement simply wasn’t in the cards .The real news here is that a bi-partisan working group in Congress actually came up with something. Most of the other attempts at bi-partisanship ended with Republicans walking away from negotiations.  The something they came up with is rather small and not totally satisfying for either side. Not to worry - Koch Brothers and Karl Rove will make sure none of it passes. They can't seem to accept "yes"..  The agreement eliminates about $65 billion in across-the-board domestic and defense cuts while adding an additional $25 billion in deficit reduction by extending a 2 percent cut to Medicare through 2022 and 2023, two years beyond the cuts set by the Budget Control Act of 2011. House Democrats unsuccessfully sought to use the negotiations as a vehicle to secure an extension of unemployment benefits set to expire at the end of the month. Benefits affecting 1.3 million long-term unemployed workers are set to expire if Congress doesn't act, and the budget deal could be the only vehicle headed to President Obama's desk before the U.S. House adjourns until the new year on Friday. The Senate is scheduled to be in session next week. One of the deficit-reduction proposals is to cap civilian and military pay increases, according to CBO. Those caps could save as much as $78 billion through 2023. Federal pay raises are set at 0.5 percentage points below the annual rate of increase in the Employment Cost Index. The CBO report recommends reducing that amount by an additional 0.5 percentage points from 2015-2013 to cut federal outlays by $53 billion. The proposal would decrease the cost of operating the government without diminishing services, CBO notes . Pay isn't the only thing being examined by CBO. The analysis also looks at the impact of cutting the size of the federal workforce. The report recommends using attrition to cut the overall size of the federal workforce to save about $43 billion through 2023. It recommends reducing the government workforce by 10 percent by limiting federal agencies to one hire for every three workers that leave. The president would be able to exempt certain agencies and about two-thirds of the workforce - mostly the Department of Defense - would be off limits so the total reduction would be around 70,000 employees.This country has not passed a budget since 1997, which means we've been on continuing resolution since than. Why is this a big deal now? Why can't we simply find new sources of revenues?  It's simply on the backs of people. The measure, known as Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC), is designed to step in with federal insurance after a person’s state benefits run out, usually after 26 weeks. It was enacted in 2008 by President Bush during the early stages of the economic recession; at the time unemployment hovered at 5.6 percent and jobless Americans could expect an average of five months searching for new employment. It has survived a number of renewals since. Without traction on Capitol Hill it is likely 1.3 million will lose the insurance immediately after the program expires on Dec. 28, with an additional 3.6 million by the end of 2014, according to a report released today by the Labor Department and the White House Council of Economic Advisers.

Nelson Mandela is no FRIEND of Yours.

Mandela was no  Martin Luther King Jr. His
legacy leaves South Africa in tatters . 

Nelson Mandela has so many things in common with Yassir Arafat ,Prepare for a nauseating outpouring of media praise . How  it was really ridiculous that public buildings in the United States were told to fly the flag at half staff for this man who is being falsely  credited for ending apartheid  in South Africa . Apartheid never ended in South Africa when Mandela became it's first black President it became worse as I will explain. Everyone has turned to star-struck mush on the death of former South African President Nelson Mandela, but it should be remembered that he chose to side with murderers, despots, and communists when he emerged from prison in the 1980s. He also headed up a political party guilty of murder and terrorism. How can it be that President Obama claims that he was "inspired " by  Nelson Mandela is beyond the cranial logic of explaining .I guess we live in ignorant rimes , I for one thought that Obama got his rhetoric from Malcolm X rather than Mandela , but oh well....When Mandela gave up his position as president of the African National Congress to Thabo Mbeki — the first step to retiring from politics two years hence in 1999 — remember  *** he almost immediately gave a fiery, five hour speech on December 16, 1997, in Mafikeng that was perceived by many as being uncharacteristically radical, overtly hostile in tone and menacing in imagery. Many Jews in particular, fearful because of understandable historical reasons, found his rhetoric completely inexplicable, even frightening. American journalist Richard Stengel writes that when they heard excerpts from the speech, many white South Africans felt betrayed. In the speech Mandela attacked whites for clinging to apartheid privileges, criticized the “white dominated” media, and described a white “counter revolutionary network” whose goal was to undermine South African democracy. “Could this be our beloved ‘Madiba,’ our smiling symbol of racial harmony in the rainbow nation?” Stengel imagined many white South Africans thinking. How could such a loving, forgiving man say such things? Mandela was the head of the African National Congress Party (ANC) a party guilty of decades of murder, terrorism, and violence. In fact, South African President P.W. Botha gave Mandela the opportunity to walk out of jail for free if he just renounced the ANC’s terrorism. He always refused to renounce terrorism. But beyond the crimes he was accused of before he became “the” Mandela that everyone so gauzily remembers, he had a long list of crimes accredited to him. At the bottom of the page you can see a list of the charges leveled against him. The truth is, Nelson Mandela was the head of UmKhonto we Sizwe, (MK), the terrorist wing of the ANC and South African Communist Party. He had pleaded guilty to 156 acts of public violence including mobilizing terrorist bombing campaigns, which planted bombs in public places, including the Johannesburg railway station. Many innocent people, including women and children, were killed by Nelson Mandela’s MK terrorists–murderers he never, ever renounced. So the United States , and most of the world leaders are going to honor this "saintly" man who has been embraced by the west as a symbol of a freedom fighter . If this is so America must also honor and embrace Yassir Arafat of the PLO as well.

POST SOUTH AFRICA BLOOD SHED and VIOLENCE.

Many South African cities are fulled of armed
men shooting at each other and no local
police . Some police men are self
appointed ( Photo)

South Africa today is a society on the verge of collapse where any kind of racial harmony is but an illusion . First of all it is a Post Mandela South Africa is a place where white's are living in fear , most of the Afrikaners are being driven from their homelands , and hunted down by blacks . You might call this a reversal of justice on account of the long wait against apartheid , but it was never as you would think that Mandela's dream was unlike Martin Luther King Jr. No . Many whites had fled South Africa , it's estimated that 700,000 whites left as the South African nation descends into chaos . JOHANNESBURG - Approximately 250 protestors clad in red and brandishing balloons of the same colour hit the streets of Pretoria on Thursday demonstrating against white genocide.Red October aims to draw attention to oppression of and violence against White South Africans. It was a protest that was mirrored in cities across South Africa - and in some around the globe.“This is an international call to action. It’s time we make a stand and tell our government that enough is enough,” Sunette Bridges, Red October organiser and Afrikaans singer told the mostly white Afrikaner crowd.“17 of our people are murdered every month by a black person. Now I can only imagine the international outcry if 17 black people a month were murdered by a white person.” Of course the violence and privations South Africa’s blacks faced under apartheid were just as unforgivable  Certainly, there would have been more bloodletting after the white government fell in the Nineties were it not for Mandela’s message of reconciliation.But now, as he nears death, fears are growing that a wave of violence will be unleashed against the white population.The statistics — and the savagery of the killings — appear to support claims by these residents that white people, and farmers in particular, are being targeted by black criminals.Little wonder that what unfolded on the all homestead has sent tremors of fear through the three-million-strong white community.Last month alone there were 25 murders of white landowners, and more than 100 attacks, while Afrikaner protest groups claim that more than 4,000 have been killed since Mandela came to power — twice as many as the number of policemen who have died.It is not just the death toll, but the extreme violence that is often brought to bear, that causes the greatest fear in the white community.Documented cases of farm killings make for gruesome reading, with children murdered along with their parents, one family suffocated with plastic bags and countless brutal rapes of elderly women and young children.These horrors have prompted Genocide Watch — a respected American organisation which monitors violence around the world — to claim that the murders of ‘Afrikaner farmers and other whites is organised by racist communists determined to drive whites out of South Africa, nationalise farms and mines, and bring on all the horrors of a communist state’. The mainstream media report regularly on atrocities in Somalia, Sudan, Libya, Syria. We rarely hear about South Africa. But what is happening there is deeply troubling—for a number of reasons. It also holds some powerful lessons for those of us who live elsewhere. It's also the "legacy" of Nelson Mandela , but it was never as he intended at the end.


NOTES AND COMMENTS: 
*** Contrast to Martin Luther King Jr's " I have a Dream" was for thought inspired that it made in the 'American Bible' comparable to Abraham Lincoln  Gettysburg Address  > Mandela was a Marxist by nature  his speeches reflect Marxist ideals . In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan placed Mandela’s African National Congress on America’s official list of “terrorist” groups. In 1985, then-Congressman Dick Cheney voted against a resolution urging that he be released from jail. In 2004, after Mandela criticized the Iraq War, an article in National Review said his “vicious anti-Americanism and support for Saddam Hussein should come as no surprise, given his longstanding dedication to communism and praise for terrorists.” As late as 2008, the ANC remained on America’s terrorism watch list, thus requiring the 89-year-old Mandela to receive a special waiver from the secretary of State to visit the U.S.