Existence of Nukes & the War on Painkillers Support the Case Against...

Governments/Elites/Corporatists/the Ruling Oligarchy.  What is that case?  It's the proposition that governments no longer represent the will of the People... that is, on most significant issues.  In general, that's because governments are puppets of the Corporatocracy, and in fact, a part of the Corporatocracy.

I suspect that, except for a few "True Believers", no sane person on Main Street thinks any gov't should be allowed to possess nuclear weapons.  It's simply common sense.  And yet in this country, we have a situation in which I'm not allowed to buy over-the-counter (OTC) codeine for my chronic pain, but the Fed Gov't is permitted to not only possess WMD, but also to launch a one trillion dollar program to develop "tactical" nukes.  Then the weapons will be more usable... supposedly.  We'll make smaller areas uninhabitable for 10,000 years.  Such wisdom.

In my lifetime, codeine was available as an OTC drug.  [It's probably the most innocuous narcotic painkiller in existence.]  Then the Neoliberals began to take over our puppet gov't.  [It began with Reagan & Thatcher and the "Washington Consensus".]  Of course, I could get a prescription for codeine...except that wouldn't do me any good.  The only rural clinic I'm able to access around here doesn't carry any painkillers other than OTC drugs.  And why is that?  Because the DEA compliance requirements are too burdensome, that's why.

What's ironic is that the "Washington Consensus" (developed & promoted by Neoliberals) and its True Believers promulgated deregulation and privatization.  At the same time, they accelerated the so-called "War on Drugs".  What a contradiction.  What hypocrisy.

To those who argue that opiate painkillers are "dangerous", I would counter with the following:
1.  So is booze, America's drug-of-choice.  Adults are allowed (in a "free" country) to manage their own affairs and buy all kinds of "dangerous" substances without a Permit.  Every year, about a dozen people celebrate their 21st birthday by drinking too much...and then keeling over, dead.  Thousands of drunk drivers kill thousands of innocent people every year.  Hundreds of thousands of alcoholics die each year from alcohol-related disease.
2.  Until moving to this rural area, I was taking codeine for chronic pain for 12 years.  Guess what?  I functioned just fine, worked, lived Life, & didn't die.  Now, and for the past four years, I'm debilitated every day by pain...simply because Neoliberal Nanny won't allow OTC codeine.
3.  Pencils don't misspell words.  People do that.  If some adults can't manage narcotic painkillers properly, that's not my problem.  My problem is distracting, debilitating pain.
4.  To extrapolate this issue--- prohibition of substances doesn't work; it never has, and never will.  But, you see, the so-called War on Drugs is a huge government industry.  It's also a way to incarcerate people, and thus benefit another huge government industry.  Finally, it's easier to catch blue-collar, drug "criminals" than to catch those with white collars in the Financial Sector.  Besides, the white-collar criminals contribute greatly to political campaigns.

Again on the subject of nukes, the current situation in the world is Orwellian.  It demonstrates the inability of We the People to peacefully combat Oligarchs and their puppets.  [Violence against the Ruling Oligarchy is NOT a sane option.  It would usher in the Mother of All Police States, much worse than the one we have now.]  Thus, we are treated like "the bewildered herd" (a term coined by the "Progressive", Walter Lippmann).  We are propagandized into believing that we can't properly defend our country without these insane weapons.  That's BS.  There's nary a peep from us when Obama launches a trillion-dollar nuclear weapons upgrade program that will take ten years to complete.  A trillion dollars.  Meanwhile, bridges collapse, roads crumble, trains run off the tracks or into each other, water systems turn to poison, vehicles are unsafe, highways are inadequate, air pollution continues, nuclear waste storage is inadequate, veterans are mistreated while more of them die from suicide than from combat, the mentally ill are shot, the Fed Reserve tanks our economy while giving free loans to Elites, and on & on.  Oh, yessir, we really need to spend gobs of money on more and different nukes.  Don't you know, we don't have enough of them.  Yeah, right.

It isn't that we can't bring Neoliberal Oligarchs under control peacefully; rather, it's that we don't have the will to do it.  I guess that's due mostly to Propaganda, partly to distraction, partly to apathy, and perhaps partly to a feeling that it's hopeless to oppose the Powers-That-Be.  All of that must be overcome if we are to have a truly free, participatory democracy.  Until then, we're the bewildered herd, the spectators, the ignorant masses, etc. (all terms from Oligarchs of the past).  In the 1970's, the Trilateral Commission---a Globalist Think Tank---came out with its first Report.  It was book-length, and the title was The Crisis of Democracy.  It was written by Globalist "Liberals".  According to them, the "crisis" was that America had too much democracy.  They said that had to change.  It did.

Not only my opinion.  Be Well

Wars Against Americans Conducted by the Elites/the Corporatists/the Ruling Oligarchy

Following is a list of only some of the wars being waged by the Ruling Oligarchy in the USA against We the People.

1.  The War on the First Amendment
2.  The War on Journalists
3.  The War on Whistleblowers
4.  The War on Peaceful Protests and Dissent of Any Type

5.  The War on Privacy
6.  The War on Cash
7.  The War on Drugs
8.  The War on Prescription Painkillers
9.  The War on the Fourth Amendment

10.  The War on Health Food Supplements
11.  The War on Alternative Medicine

12.  The War on Alternative Energy

13.  The War on Minorities
14.  The War on Youth and Education
15.  The War on the Mentally Ill
16.  The War on Nonconformists
17.  The War on Small Farmers
18.  The War on Small Business of Any Type
19.  The War on Industry

20.  The War on Democracy
21.  The War on Critical Thinking
22.  The War on Military Vets
23.  The War on Poor People
24.  The War on the Middle Class
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Following is a list of only some of the things that the Ruling Oligarchy promotes/promulgates/supports.

1.  Crony Capitalism (aka, Fascism)
2.  Edward Bernays Style Propaganda
3.  Phony Elections
4.  Elitism
5.  Monopolies
6.  Financialization
7.  Neoliberalism
8.  NeoFeudalism
9.  Class War
10.  Military Aggression and War Profiteering
11.  USA Hegemony and American Empire
12.  Intervention in Foreign Civil Wars for Economic Reasons
13.  Spying on Our Allies
14.  Economic and Financial Bubbles
15.  A Revolving Door Between Mega Banking and High-Level Gov't "Service"
16.  Bailing Out Mega Financial Institutions Guilty of Fraud
17.  Authoritarian Government
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Notwithstanding popular opinion to the contrary, History has shown that Oligarchs and their puppets (e.g., Obama, McConnell, Clinton, McCain, Schumer, Pelosi, Cornyn, Cruz, etc.) don't care one scintilla about the old labels--- Right, Left, Conservative, Liberal, and on & on.  At the highest levels, probably 99% of today's politicians are concerned only with this label--- Financier.  Those are the people who run the world, not the puppet politicians.  The International Financial Coterie (Professor Carroll Quigley's term) cares not at all about the old political paradigm.  They care primarily about power, money, and the private governance of the planet.  Ask David Rockefeller.  In 1991, he stated publicly,  "Surely it is better to have the world run by unelected elites than by the corrupt politicians of today.".

I suspect that Rockefeller was/is well-meaning, but like the famous Progressive journalist/author of the past, Walter Lippmann, he apparently believes that the commoners make up "the bewildered herd" and must be ruled by an "elite class of intellectuals".  Toward the end of his life, Lippmann wound up believing that commoners should not be allowed to fully participate in democracy because they simply were not competent enough in such matters.  That has become a dominant belief in Crony Capitalism.  That is what the Corporatists-Oligarchs-Elites think... and that thinking is implemented by today's puppet politicians.

At the national level, the best way to oppose such people and their thinking is to boycott whenever possible... individually, or in organized groups, or both.  We have been voluntarily complying with their nonsense for far too long.  Stuck in Propaganda, Consumerism, and outright fraud, we have enabled the Fascist State.  As I've pointed out several times before this, both Mussolini and FDR defined Fascism as:  the perfect marriage of the State to Big Business.  That's exactly what we have in this country...and much of the world.  That's especially true in the Financial Sector.

We can take a small step toward restoring sanity by boycotting the current farce of an election with which we are faced.  At the very least, don't vote for either of the major candidates... pick someone else.  Almost anyone would be better than Trump or Clinton; 58% of us don't want either one of them.  That's strong evidence of a phony election.  The election IS rigged...but not in the way that Trump thinks.

Not only my opinion.  Be Well

Here's the REAL Clinton...and Obama

The piece (at the link) below is from Bill Moyers and the publisher of Harper's, John R. MacArthur.  It's almost two years old, so it gives insight into the fact that the Dem Party higher-ups promoted the Corporatists and marginalized the Populists regarding this current election.

Once Madam Pres gets elected, she'll again change her mind about the TPP & be in favor of it...more jobs will evaporate, & more factories will move overseas (most likely to Malaysia and Vietnam).  Count on it.  Low-paying service jobs and part-time and/or temp. positions here will expand.

"Free Trade" Agreements are not primarily about Trade; instead, they're about investments and proprietary agreements.  They enable the hollowing out of the Middle Class in our country.  They overwhelmingly benefit the Oligarchy, not Main Street.  They evaporate American manufacturing and jobs.  Clinton, Obama, Schumer, McConnell, McCain, and many other Corporatist national politicians promote and support them.

This all reminds me of Ross Perot & Al Gore discussing NAFTA---Perot was right on the mark ("All you'll hear is the loud sucking sound of jobs rushing to Mexico..."), and Gore was dead wrong ("NAFTA will create more jobs here").  As predicted by Perot, one million jobs were lost here because of NAFTA.  The TPP will be much worse.

Trump (for other reasons) AND Clinton = disaster for the Lower & Middle Classes in this country.  Boycott the election, or vote for a worthy alternative candidate.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0rA1oCp4_g&list=WL&index=38

Not only my opinion.  Be Well

The Third "Presidential" Debate, 2016

If this whole situation weren't so tragic, it would be absolutely comical.  The performances of both candidates can be summarized with the following words---

deceit
misdirection
avoidance
pettiness
rudeness
propaganda
elitism
farcical
ridiculous
tragic

These two puppets are supposed to be the best this country has to offer for the highest leadership position in the Land.  Good grief---no matter who wins, we are totally shafted.  With one, we'll get who-knows-what...and craziness.  With the other, we'll get much more Neoliberalism...which is a polite form of craziness, elitism, and economic disaster.  With both, we'll get acceleration of the rush to NeoFeudalism... and probably WAR.

Boycott the election, or vote for a worthy alternative candidate.  Boycotting is best because the election already is over---whichever candidate is installed into office in January, the International Financial Coterie has won.  SSDD.  All we can do is send a powerful, peaceful, legal message (by boycotting), and then work outside the corrupt system to eliminate elitism-Neoliberalism-Oligarchy and bring about genuine democracy.  STEP ONE is to stop drinking the Edward Bernays style Propaganda Kool Aid being promulgated by the State-Corporate-Financial Complex.

This election is the worst political farce I've seen in my entire life...and I was born in 1942.

Not only my opinion.  Be Well

This & That About the Public and Private Powers-That-Be

1.  Notice how the Corporate Media and the Democratic Party Machine have responded to the leaked transcripts/excerpts of Clinton's highly paid speeches to Mega Bankers and other Mega Corporations:  "Russian hackers did it; they're trying to influence the election here."...little to no discussion of what Hillary said in those speeches.  That's because some of the content of those talks largely contradicts the Propaganda that she's some sort of Populist.  If Hillary Clinton is any kind of Populist, then I'm a Chinese astronaut.  I can see why most likely she was never going to release those transcripts.  The texts/quotes are online; see for yourself.

2.  From the leaked Democratic Party Hierarchy emails, it's now obvious that the Sanders campaign was targeted for destruction by the Corporatist Democrats from the very beginning.  Of course, it was fairly obvious as it unfolded... well before the leaks.  Keep in mind that Party Hierarchies are supposed to be completely neutral regarding Primary candidates.

3.  Trump is complaining that the Corporate Media favor Clinton (which is true), but fails to mention that during the Republican Primaries he was given more exposure to the voters than all the other candidates combined.  That's because his idiocy was a money-maker for them.  The Corporate Head of CBS freely admitted as much.  Candidates such as Rand Paul, because he favored a non-militaristic foreign policy, were given such short shrift by the Media that at times I wondered if he had dropped out of the race... before he did drop out.

4.  The current Administration continues its unconstitutional War in Syria.  Yes, the Assad Regime is brutal and ISIS is brutal---bombing civilians (including children), hospitals, schools, etc.  Here's what the Administration here fails to mention:  the US Gov't-backed, Saudi-led Coalition is doing the same thing in Yemen.  Our Gov't helps by refueling bombers, providing intelligence, and providing weapons.  Obama recently approved a $38 billion military aid package for Saudi Arabia.  Not long ago, a funeral home was bombed in Yemen; dozens & dozens of civilians were killed.  Just before that, a hospital was bombed.  Since the beginning of that war, over 900 children have been killed.  All that because of the Sunni-Shia conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran... and our Govt's "help".  Shame on the highest levels of the US Gov't.

5.  Both public and private, the Powers-That-Be continue to use ISIS as an excuse for US Gov't Hegemony throughout the world.  At the same time, they criticize other major countries (China, Russia, Iran) for wanting to have a big influence in their respective regions.  The US Powers can't stand it when some other country wants to exercise its own hegemony.  Imagine that---some country wants to be influential in its own backyard.  Well, we can't allow that!  [Hypocrisy abounds.]

6.  The Corporate Media here are so desperate to support the lie that our economy is "recovering" that they recently reported on thousands of temporary, holiday season jobs opening up.  You know, the way those jobs open up every holiday season.  This year they're being touted as something really special.  According to the major stores with the openings, 90% of those jobs will be converted to full-time, permanent positions after the holidays.  I seriously doubt that.  It's much more likely that some permanent employees will be laid off after the holiday season.  Our economy is worsening, not getting better... unless you're in the upper 10% or so.

Not only my opinion.  Be Well

The Second Presidential Debate, 2016

Mostly SSDD.

Interrupting each other again, but this time a bit less of that...especially by Clinton.  Both candidates regularly exceeded their response time limits, and did so while talking over the moderators' pleas to stop.  The same amount of personal sniping at each other was present...of little to no interest to us, and completely unprofessional.  A tiny bit more discussion of the issues, but that primarily was due to audience questions.

Here's what was glaringly obvious in this debate:  national politicians are masters at either avoiding the question, or answering in such generalities as to make the answer essentially meaningless.  Both Clinton and Trump did that over and over and over.

So, we had a debate set up by a private corporation (the Commission on Presidential Debates), moderated by reps from mega corporations, with two candidates who are Corporatists.  Oh, for the days of the League of Women Voters running the show.  What we have now is a farce.

Clinton's biggest misstep probably was her handling of the question concerning her leaked, taped statement of awhile back that went something like this (paraphrased):  At times, a politician has to have a public stance and a private stance.  [In other words, politicians have to be two-faced.]  This, of course, is pretty much true; that's one reason politicians are despicable.  Hillary's answer to that question was revealing (paraphrased):  Um...[hem-haw], I believe I was talking about Abraham Lincoln [hem-haw]...um...etc.  She then very quickly changed the subject.  I gauge the probability of that answer being an outright lie at about 90-95%.

Trump's biggest misstep probably was that, except for slashing taxes & eliminating regulations, he rarely ever says HOW he's going to accomplish this, that, or the other.  Slashing taxes and eliminating regs has been tried...more than once.  It didn't work; it only made the rich into the Super-Rich.  The trouble with Trickle-Down economics is that it assumes Big Biz will invest in USA manufacturing, new ventures, new products, etc.---all requiring new employees---instead of investing in foreign currencies, foreign bonds, foreign factories, bizarre financial derivatives, etc., or simply socking the extra money away somewhere offshore...all of which require no employees.

Right after WW II through the 1950's and into the very early 1960's was the greatest period of prosperity ever known in this country.  It was known as the Golden Age of [American] Capitalism.  During that time of tremendous economic expansion, corporations were taxed at a 90% rate.  They now pay (if at all) a 35% rate; Trump wants to lower it to 15%.

As to war, both candidates favor different versions of it.

There was no discussion, or sometimes no significant discussion, about:  the gutting of the Middle Class, the coup of Financialization, the Recession in which we find ourselves, the various economic/financial Bubbles ongoing, Climate Change, the ongoing one trillion dollar Fed Gov't nuclear weapons program, our current Police/Surveillance State, the broken Fed Criminal Justice System, the failed War on Drugs, Crony Capitalism, USA Hegemony, and a few other significant issues.

For the most part, the candidates squabbled about the past, sniped at each other, and had very little to say (except for broad generalities) about the future.  According to the corporate moderators and the Corporatist Trump & Clinton, the most pressing issues facing the country apparently are:  Trump's comments about women, Trump's taxes, Clinton's emails, Bill Clinton's marital affairs, and other such trivia.  Talk about distraction from what's really important...good grief!

Neither one of these candidates should be President of the USA.  Both are shills for Corporatism and the Globalist Oligarchy.

The Kabuki Theater continues...on & on.  Wall Street and the CRONY Capitalists are the Directors.  Carroll Quigley's International Financial Coterie is the Academy.  The Oligarchs already have won the election.  Our best hope for avoiding the fairly imminent NeoFeudalism that's coming and the continued hollowing out of the Middle Class is peaceful, direct action outside the Rotten System...such as boycotting the election, or (if you must) voting for a worthy alternative candidate.  On a massive scale, either of those actions would send a powerful message.  Unfortunately, because of unending Edward Bernays style Propaganda, I don't see either of those things happening this year; but, one always can dream.

Not only my opinion.  Be Well

Once Again: Trump is Trumped by Trump

Here's my latest email to family and friends---
.......................................

RE:  tonight's news---

The man's mouth again reassures me that my prediction is correct:  barring extreme unforeseen circumstances, the Don will be slaughtered in the upcoming election.  Too bad that Clinton is a rich, two-faced Corporatist...much like Trump.  That's about his only hope, however slim, of winning.  Wall Street prefers Clinton; and it looks like they're going to get her.  Whichever one wins, we lose.
..............................

The Kabuki Theater continues.

Boycott the election, or vote for a worthy "Third Party" candidate.

.....................................

Not only my opinion.  Be Well