Posted on 09/16/2008 3:47:00 PM PDT by joanie-f
Sadly so.
I cannot tell you how many people I come across every day -- family, friends, neighbors, co-workers, acquaintances -- who, if I bring up the subject of the election, invariably respond in platitudes -- and, more often than not, platitudes that are merely echoes of television soundbites.
What on earth could be more important than undertstanding the beliefs of the two men who are seeking to run one's country, during an era in which there are more threats to our lives, sovereignty, and very existence than at any other time in our history?
I have said to a handful of people, in utter frustration, 'How can you love your children, and not be willing to expend the energy to understand where our potential leaders want to take us? You are condemning your children to live in a world about which you deliberately choose to exercise no informed input.'
I haven't yet lost any friends as a result, but I suspect that day may be just around the corner. :(
~ joanie
I thoroughly agree, but until the bread is gone and the circuses are inadequate to sate the masses, Caesar will rule.
What we're seeing with Palin's popularity is that millions and millions of people at the bottom are fed up with the institutionalized corruption, and are showing up enmass, many for the first time in thirty or forty years, to vote for a real pro-American candidate. Whether McCain stays for a complete term matters little. Palin is the energizing element in the campaign, and McCain seems to recognize this. I believe she will be more influential as VP than any other VP in our lifetimes. And I also strongly believe that she will subsequently be President. She is the right person, with the right message, with the right motivations, for this nation, at this particular time in history.
The people who lead in times of constructive change may come from anywhere in the spectrum, but they must lead from the top to bring about meaningful reforms (and they have to be a real person; not media-created vaporware). Anyone here who has tried to bring about improvements in a business, or an IT shop, or in business or IT processes, being led by mindless, inept bimbos should easily recognize the futility of trying to manage change from the bottom. It doesn't work.
So what does this have to do with unemployed or underemployed computer scientists? Everything. IT projects and IT jobs are overhead, expenditures that can easily be trimmed in tough economic times (you'll have to look back 80 years or more to find a "worse" time, long before .Net). In tough times, core business functions will get all the investment, even if they have to work with paper and pencil. In general, technology projects and innovations are reserved for periods of growth or projected growth.
Many people question what I mean by "institutionalized corruption", and whether it has ever been any different. Corruption has always been present in our politics since the nation's founding, but has cycled from bad to worse, to not so bad. The past two or three decades have brought us to this current period of "really, really pervasive corruption", in government, politics, markets, business, academia, and any other sizable group of people in society.
What is ironic about the question is that it would be asked in discussion groups where concerned citizens are dedicated to improving the political direction of the country, or on a job board where so many qualified job candidates find themselves locked out of regular employment, begging through layers and layers of corrupt recruiting firms and corrupt HR "professionals" for a few crumbs of work.
Brokered employment (where the fruits of one person's work is divided among multiple layers of non-producing thieves) is the worst form of anti-capitalist corruption (next to outright slavery); even worse than multi-generational dependency on socialist government programs.
In a real free market, providers of services would have the unemcumbered right and ability to negotiate directly with the consumers of those services, without the bureaucratic interference of any IRS rules; without the overthrow of immigration controls that served the country well for its first 200 years; without the restraint of legal free trade of services created by the multiple layers of corrupt recruiting and hiring practices.
If corruption were not so pervasive, the discussions on this board would be about making real contacts, getting the right people in the right positions, designing and developing software to make honest businesses more productive and profitable in a growing economy. Instead every single discussion on this board deals with the corruption of brokered labor, manipulated salaries and benefits, massive work-visa fraud, illegal non-compete clauses in make-believe unilateral contracts, crooks, crooks, and more crooks.
I hope you have no objection to my cutting and pasting your response over on my weblog where we have been discussing the sad state of the nation and our frustration with the direction our 'leaderhip' contintues to follow. It (your reponse) pertains.
Thanks for providing the excellent additional insights.
~ joanie
No objections. That was one of my late-night rants.
As an aside, as far as I know, Fannie and Freddie were actually taken over by Uncle Sam during the weekend of September 6 & 7. From where is this idea that they were taken over in July coming?
A corporation is considered a “person” by the legal system? Wow, who knew?
Here's a few more:
The Fannie Mae Foundation Grants Awarded search page.
The Foundation had a similar corruption model as Obama, namely, awarding millions in grants to "community organizations" (including Acorn, of course), who in return would be called upon to lobby congress and create a media blitz on Fannie Mae's behalf.
This is an excellent video of a C-Span interview with Peter Wallison of American Enterprise Institute, who's written at least three books on the subject. The interview covers the history and background of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, including the widespread Beltway corruption involved, the intimidation tactics used against its critics, the Foundation, congressional donations, lobbyists, and the surprising fact that Bush, unlike his predecessor, refused to appoint board members to either.
Q & A with Peter Wallison - Fannie Mae
(It's an hour long flash video, and well worth watching.)
See my post 26.
BTTT
BUMP!!!!!!
American justice and freedom will be the big loser.
http://acorn.org/index.php?id=2765
They actualy claim:
ACORN members have Negotiated landmark agreements with banks in St. Louis, New York City, D.C. and others, making more than a billion dollars available for loans in low-income neighborhoods.
Blocked the gutting of the Federal Community Reinvestment Act.
Forced Fannie Mae to establish a precedent-setting program to buy community reinvestment mortgages.
Thanks Jeff and Joanie for a nice summary. Byron York’s piece in the National Review was excellent (it’s one of Joanie’s links).
Interesting to look at the California news today. The Governator is going to veto the budget, which as he says doesn’t take into account that the state is not taking in enough money to pay for all the programs it’s running.
That’s our best case scenario, with McCain in office. Some focus can be brought on the spending side by veto. In California, it’s not going to matter though: the Dems have enough votes to override. We may be in that situation in the Congress too, a little early to say.
We know that with Pelosi, Reid and Obama in there we have three of the most socialist politicians running things since FDR. Look for FDR 2 under their leadership.
Denizens of the left think that’s a great idea! They can’t wait for another FDR. The continue with the incorrect notion that he was our greatest modern President (despite having trampled on the Constitution in ways that Bush has never even dreamed of).
No one is pointing out that Fannie and Freddie are just failed socialist enterprises. One created by FDR and one by LBJ, their failure should have been understood as the final warning for the structural unsoundness of much of liberal socialism in America. Medicare and Medicaid, another pair of FDR/LBJ twins are equally unsound, and their failure will make the Fannie and Freddie look like a drop in the ocean in comparison.
We need a top-to-bottom cleansing of our politics. We need to get rid of the top heavy insiders who control everything - the people who have given millions to Obama and other legislators, both Democrat and Republican.
Whether or not McCain can be that person is unknown. That Obama can not an will not is obvious. Therefore so is our choice, despite the many misgivings that I and others on FR feel over McCain’s checkered history in the Senate.
Thanks again for the essay and note.
First off a very minor correction. You wrote “Apparently you don’t realize that the 11 member banks are the majority vote on the Federal Reserve.”.
Actually the Board of Governors consists of 7 appointed Governors for the systema and 5 Governors drawn from the Member banks. They rotate in.
Your larger point is correct. Here is my question: what law gives the Federal Reserve Bank the power to sieze and buy Insurance Companies? Unlike most normal people I’ve read the entire Federal Reserve act and it is all about BANKS not random companies in other industries. What’s next? Fed buys GM?
bttt
Well stated, with only the unanswered questions remaining.
What can I as an individual do?
How dearly will we sell our lives?
Pray for ourselves our country, and the enlightenment of those who are so overcome with Bush hatred that they can’t see the forest for the trees.
There is so much coming so fast, that it is difficult for the average citizen caught up in the daily grind of supporting a family, to assimilate and digest the issues, like the housing crisis, brought to you by the very names mentioned in this thread.
The energy crisis which subtracts from everyone’s profit margin and threatens the stability of the dollar and our future progress as a nation, at least in the short term.
The Banking crisis, brought to you by the same players previously discussed.
The Border crisis, already eclipsed by the previously mentioned crises, increased unemployment, the dollar crunch and efforts to eject some of the millions, here illegally.
The climate crisis, lurking just under the energy crisis, and for the time being, overcome by events, unless we get another killer hurricane in the near future.
I’m quite sure besides Iraq, Afghanistan, Russia, Georgia, China, Africa, Cuba, etc, there are many more crises waiting in the wings to provide the necessary smoke screen for all political candidates not just on the left side of things.
...and then we might just add the age old crisis of good vs evil to really get things stirred up. Could probably put the abortion debate in that category.
Just what is left for us to do? Other than repent in sack cloth and ashes and beg the good lord above to not open the scuttles on the ship of state just yet. Gives us a chance, or is his idea to put the nation to the test yet again, to see how we survive another attempt at socializing or socialism?
What to do? What to do?
Can’t give up that’s for sure.
betrayal of the public trust, probably needs to be followed by this statement, “by unelected bureaucrats”. If I’m not mistaken the same thing happened to the American Indian Trust funds, pension funds, various retirement accounts. Not to mention, earmarks, subsidies, social security, and more.
The greed, theft, graft and corruption in this nation have risen to monumental levels unchecked by much of anything. If we don’t get a handle on congress, the courts, and the Executive branch of Government and hack them down to twenty percent or less of today’s levels we will only reap the whirlwind to greater and greater degrees.
JMHO.
Very interesting material. Unfortunately, the corruption of which this discussion speaks is so deeply entrenched that the ‘remedy for our vices,’ to paraphrase Livy will be so catastrophic as to make our last Civil War look pale by comparison.
If we were to act to save our Republic, it will take several generations to recover from the consequences. If we recover at all.
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