The American Ruling Class

[rickoff]

Quotable quote of the day......

"Any man who thinks he can be happy and prosperous by letting the Government take care of him had better take a closer look at the American Indian." - Henry Ford

[rickoff]

Here's an interesting fact you aren't likely to see on TV news:

In the past 6 months, there were 221 people killed in Iraq. In comparison, there were 292 killed (murdered) in Chicago, a city with some of the strictest gun control laws in the nation.

[dutchdivco]

Rick

Both good posts. The problem is, there is a certain % of the population that adheres to the idea of the 'Nanny-state', and looks to the gov't to 'take care of them', and to solve all their problems.
Buy/build a home in a flood or fire zone, and if any catastophe happens, expect the Gov't to build you a new home, etc.
These same mind-set people adhere to the idea of 'gun-control' (by the Gov't.)
You can rail all you want about TPTB, the 'Ruling class elite' etc.,...and rightly so. But it is these OTHER people, who buy into the 'socialist' agenda, that allow TPTB to do their worst.
And unfortunately, all your posts are going for naught, as none of those people who most need to, are ver going to read them.

"Those who would trade liberty for security will end up with neither"; THOSE are the people I'm talking about. Not saying you shouldn't keep posting, just saying I don't really see what we can DO about it, except hunker down and wait for the 'end times', which surely are a-coming! Jim

[aljhoa]

Here's an interesting fact you aren't likely to see on TV news:

Foreign Policy
Bill Hicks - Jack Palance e il pastore - YouTube

Al

[dutchdivco]

Where's a good PLAGUE, when we need one?

From an ad, in craigslist;
"Positive Pregnancy Test - $25 (I-17 and Northern)
I am offering one positive pregnancy test for $25, or two (one re-sealed in the box, in case you have to "take another one") for $40.

I don't care what you use them for, no questions asked, be it boyfriend, husband, mother in law, whatev. But I am happy to sell them to you!

Please email me back if interested. Thanks."

Just when I think humans couldn't possibly stoop any lower, I see something like this!

I guess this is part of why I'm not all that concerned with 'alerting' the sheeple to the machinations of TPTB; I'm not at all sure we humans are A) CAPABLE of reversing the trend, or B) that 'we', collectvely, are WORTH 'saving'.

Glass full, glass empty, I don't even see the glass anymore! Jim

[rickoff]

Not to defend Boener, or argue the sameness of the 2 parties,....but; it won't do anything for the HOUSE to vote to defund o'bummercare, unless the Senate concurs; thats (at least my understanding) how the 'system' works. So, it would be a 'meaningless' or symbolic vote.

No, Jim, it would not be meaningless, and here's why. If the House votes to defund ObummerCare, but to approve the remaining items of an appropriations bill, Barry and the Senate would be forced to either go along with the House or be without a funding agreement. If there is no agreement to continue funding the government, government would shut down until an agreement is reached. As long as the House stood firm on not funding ObummerCare, Barry and the Senate would have little recourse other than to comply with funding priorities set by the House. They would attempt to shift blame onto the House for a government shutdown, but we know that roughly 70% of the public wants ObummerCare done away with, so the heat would be on Barry and the Senate to comply. Therefore, the House really does have the power in this instance to control the purse strings. By agreeing to unconditionally and repeatedly fund government through debt ceiling increases, as has been the status quo, the House fails to exercise the power granted to them by the People.

[rickoff]

The problem is, there is a certain % of the population that adheres to the idea of the 'Nanny-state', and looks to the gov't to 'take care of them', and to solve all their problems.

Yes, that's for sure. Remember when the so-called 'War on Poverty' began? It was the mid-1960's. At that time, statistics show that only 5 to 6% of children born in the United States were born out of wedlock. Today that figure is a staggering 41%! There are many contributing factors for this change, of course, but the major one is nanny-state welfare programs. Before the 'War on Poverty,' it was up to the parents of children born out of wedlock to care for them, and if they couldn't afford to then it fell upon the grandparents and extended family members to help out in carrying the burden of expenses. No one wanted to shoulder such a burden, of course, so parents were much more careful and watchful in raising their children, and teenagers and young adults were more concerned about preventing pregnancies. With the Nanny-state paying the tab and making having children out of wedlock a lucrative occupation, there is no longer a deterrent.

Has the 'War on Poverty' made life any better for people than before it existed? Some would say so, but how can that be? To be eligible for welfare programs, one must claim to be at or below a certain income guideline which designates them being in poverty. To qualify for those welfare programs, most recipients would prefer to remain at that level, or to fall even lower so as to qualify for more benefits, rather than to rise above the poverty level and lose those lucrative freebie benefits. And while more and more people make a career out of living off welfare, those who work for a living are stuck with paying the bill for those folks. It is way past time that the nanny-state welfare system be dismantled and replaced by a system which only rewards those who work to provide for themselves and their families. Leave welfare up to families and community programs, and take government out of the equation. You can bet that would happen very quickly if those seated in government had nothing to gain by promoting welfare programs.

[rickoff]

Update on the impeachment movement

The 'Overpasses for Impeachment' movement, as one might have guessed, is running into interference from local and state authorities which aim at preventing the groups from displaying their banner messages. Here's a video showing police arriving at a Saint Charles, Missouri event in force (seven patrol cars parked on the overpass) and demanding that participants leave the overpass. When asked to cite what law the participants were breaking by remaining there, the officers cited none, but still demanded that the participants leave, saying that it simply had to do with public safety and that the participants were "causing a traffic hazard." Safety of who? The participants were acting in a safe manner, and a fence protected bystanders and their items from falling off the overpass onto traffic below. Two participants were cuffed and arrested for failing to comply with the order to leave, and neither was read their Miranda rights. As one of the participants pointed out, the police themselves were causing far more of a nuisance by parking their patrol cars on the overpass and thereby disrupting the otherwise normal traffic flow.

Here's another overpass event, this time in Denver, where the participants were more successful. As can be heard, a lot of drivers were eager to follow the directive to "Honk to Impeach."

[rickoff]

Quotable quote of the day....

"No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth!" - Ronald Reagan

I believe that the above quote has previously been posted here, but it certainly qualifies for a re-posting. This concept is not difficult to understand, and once we do understand it we also realize that Congress will never do anything to reverse course of the path that we are on unless the People forcefully demand it in large numbers. And with 47% of the population (and growing) on welfare programs and enjoying that advantage, and perhaps another 20% agreeing that government welfare programs are both necessary and beneficial, it will remain almost impossible for the hard working 33% or so remainder to convince Congress to cut welfare programs and reduce the size of government.

[rickoff]

Quotable quote of the day....

"Like other aspects of Obama’s foreign policy, his Syria policy is confusing. There are no specific goals underlying the president’s use of force — no consistency. Nor does there seem to be any effort to educate the American people, or Congress, as to why this action may be taken.
It was Obama who called for al-Assad’s ouster before it was clear he could be ousted. It was Obama who drew a “red line” he didn’t think al-Assad would cross. The president’s line in the sand may have been a strategic blunder. But it is not enough reason to go to war. America’s wars must be debated by Congress, declared constitutionally and fought only for the interests and security of the United States. They should never be fought to save face." - Senator Rand Paul

[Dave45]

Who Is Really Behind The Syrian War? [Video]

[rickoff]

Well, it looks as though Barry has decided that a go-ahead nod from Congress to attack Syria would make that action more palatable to a war weary American public, and take the pressure off himself if things go badly as a result of such action. Meanwhile, John "swift boat" Kerry is making frequent appearances on TV newscasts attempting to convince Americans that the Assad regime has definitely used Sarin gas against Syrian civilians. Kerry today said that biological samples obtained through appropriate channels, have confirmed the presence of sarin. What that statement actually means is anyone's guess. It could be a lie, or it could be the truth, but even if true it does not offer conclusive proof that it was the Assad regime who utilized the sarin gas. It could just as well have been the rebel forces. Then again, the biological samples could have been dosed with sarin to produce false evidence. The international investigation team now working in Syria has not yet released a report of determination that sarin was used, and their mandate did not include determination of who used it if it was used at all. Therefore, Barry and Kerry are putting the cart before the horse in accusing the Assad regime of chemical weapons use.

A weary and wary American public vividly remembers how we were misled by our "government" about "weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq. That was another case where a weapons inspection team was not given adequate time to determine if there actually were such weapons, and of course it later came to light that there were none.

Is Barry now "wagging the dog" with all this talk of possible military action in an effort to focus attention away from other issues? That's quite possibly the case. He's up to his eyebrows in several scandals that the American public won't soon forget, and then of course there is the national grassroots drive for impeachment and the continuing birth certificate saga. With the media focused on a likely Syrian conflict, and that being an overwhelming portion of news content, the scandals, the impeachment movement, and the presidential ineligibility issue gain little, if any, media recognition.

[Dave45]

Whats it gonna take to stop this genocide.

[aljhoa]

AntiRacist Hitler - YouTube


Al

[rickoff]

Hard to believe, but it will soon be a year to the day that the Benghazi incident took place, and all the legitimate questions that citizens have about that day still remain either unasked or unanswered. That's outrageous, of course, but it's par for the course for a "government" which has constantly been in the business of conducting secret operations and cover-up schemes for decades. We'll probably never know the full truth behind Benghazi or any of the other scandals that remain fresh in our minds. A prime example is the 30 year old case of KAL flight 007. Those of us old enough to remember that incident know that it was reported as a Soviet shoot down of a civilian 747 aircraft which had evidently strayed into Soviet airspace during a flight from Anchorage, Alaska to South Korea. Ronald Reagan, who was President at that time, called the incident a "crime against humanity," and said, “This is not the first time the Soviet Union has shot at and hit a civilian airliner when it overflew their territory. In another tragic incident in 1978, the Soviets also shot down an unarmed civilian airliner after having positively identified it as such. In that instance, the Soviet interceptor pilot clearly identified the civilian markings on the side of the aircraft, repeatedly questioned the order to fire on a civilian airliner, and was ordered to shoot it down anyway. The aircraft was hit with a missile and made a crash landing. Several innocent people lost their lives in this attack, killed by shrapnel from the blast of a Soviet missile.”

It is interesting to note that families of the 61 Americans who were on board the aircraft were initially told that the aircraft had landed safely and that the passengers would soon be released. A day later the official story told to those families had changed to the aircraft having been shot down and crashing, killing all 269 passengers and crew members. Though we'll probably never know the truth of what happened, several things have in fact come to light but have never been adequately reported on by the mainstream media or the US "government." Among these is the fact that Japnese fishermen reported seeing an airliner circling Moneran Island in a spiraling descent, which suggested the aircraft was preparing for a sea landing. It is also a fact that the Soviet newspaper Izvestia in 1991 interviewed Russian divers who had located the wreck in the weeks following the incident. One of the divers reported “the plane was filled with all kinds of stuff, but there were no bodies. Why? I didn’t see any human remains. There was no luggage, not even a handbag.” That certainly raises some questions! If there were no bodies, and no luggage or other articles found on the plane, then was this in fact an empty flight? The only logical purpose of an empty flight would of course been to stage a false incident, which is a likely scenario when considering the incidents surrounding 9/11. Then again, the Soviets say that they retrieved the "black boxes" from the aircraft, and released a portion of the cockpit recording showing that the pilots of flight 007 remained in control of the aircraft for at least several minutes after being fired upon. Could the plane actually have made a safe sea landing, and the crew and passengers had time to exit the plane with all their luggage and personal belongings? That too is a possibility, and would fit in with the story initially told to families of American "survivors," but if true then what became of the "survivors?" Russian immigrants to Israel, who had been in the Russian military, told Avraham Shifrin, who directed the Israeli Research Center for Prisons, Psych-prisons, and Forced Labor Concentration Camps of the USSR, that they knew passenger Larry McDonald had survived the crash and was taken to Sakhalin Island, and then to Moscow. Shifrin was an expert on these matters because he was formerly the Soviet Defense Ministry's chief legal adviser. In a report Shifrin wrote, he said that flight 007 actually flew for 12 minutes after being fired upon, made a controlled descent to Sakhalin Island, and landed safely. He also claimed that Larry McDonald was alive and in a Soviet prison. This is interesting, because Larry McDonald, a Georgia Democrat who was chairman of the John Birch Society, and an avid anti-communist, was also a member of the US House of Representatives, and was said to have been part of a delegation on their way to a 30th anniversary celebration of the signing of the United States-South Korea Mutual Defense Treaty. Was McDonald actually on that plane, or did he go on a later KAL flight which carried Senator Jessie Helms and other delegation members, and which took off from Anchorage 15 minutes after flight 007 officially departed? Why wouldn't the entire delegation have flown together? And if Larry actually was on flight 007, was he the only passenger?

Was KAL flight 007 actually just a US operated spy plane, as the Soviet government suggested at the time of the incident? The "007" flight number was certainly suggestive of a James Bond spy theme. And the story that the plane had somehow "strayed" into Russian airspace is not all that believable, considering that the plane was equipped with very sophisticated navigational equipment. Then too, the Soviets had actually tracked the flight for 2 and 1/2 hours before issuing the order to fire upon it. The usual order of events is to send up interceptors to intercept and order the aircraft to change course, and only upon failing to comply would an order be given to fire a warning shot. A warning shot is intended to get the pilot's attention and demonstrate that the interceptors demand compliance. Perhaps this was the actual case, and the 747 was not even hit. Then again, what if the 747 was empty, was on a spy mission (or just an incident provoking mission) and may have been remotely flown, or programmed to fly its unwavering course? All these questions and more remain unanswered to this day, some 30 years later. I believe we can expect the same of many other inadequately investigated and unprosecuted incidents and scandals.