Day: November 5, 2018

Beware The 5th Of November

Closing Thought–05Nov18

This is a re-post of an article I wrote seven years ago…….

Remember….Remember…..The 5th Of November

DISCLAIMER:  I am in NO way advocating any violence or violent act….all am doing is just…. saying……also this post was written before the tragic shooting of Rep. Gabby Giffords……

The year is 1605, a gang of conspirators are planning the ultimate political statement…..the “Big Bang” theory….if you will……

Remember, remember, the 5th of November
The Gunpowder Treason and plot;
I see of no reason why Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot.Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes,
‘Twas his intent.
To blow up the King and the Parliament.
Three score barrels of powder below.
Poor old England to overthrow.

And now the history lesson that you all so deserve……..the most notable of the conspirators mentioned is one Guy Fawkes…..

Guy Fawkes is the most famous among the conspirators who took part in 1605’s “Gunpowder Plot,” a failed attempt to blow up King James I of England and the Houses of Parliament. Fawkes and his partners were Roman Catholics who decided desperate measures were required to replace the king, a Protestant. The plot was hatched in the spring of 1604 by Robert Catesby, and eventually came down to a plan to blow up the parliament on 5 November 1605, the date of an official opening attended by members of both houses as well as the king. Fawkes and a dozen others took part in the plot, with Fawkes designated as the one in charge of the explosives. (During the 1590s he served in the Spanish army in the Netherlands, and it is thought he had experience with munitions.) Fawkes and his cohorts stashed 36 barrels — nearly two tons — of gunpowder in a rented cellar beneath the House of Lords. A search of the cellar the night of 4 November found the explosives and Fawkes, and he was arrested and tortured; within a few days the other conspirators were either killed or captured. On 31 January he was executed, after being tried and convicted of treason. Because the plot was foiled, 5 November was designated a holiday, but over time the holiday has also become a celebration of Fawkes’s revolutionary intent.Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/guy-fawkes#ixzz19dqCeDhy

I would bet that you, the reader, is asking just what I am going on about and why….am I right?

Over the centuries it has been shown that the people are unwilling to change the way things are being done in politics and for that reason I believe the Fawkes was not too wrong in his thinking….

Since the people are truly unwilling to do anything about the corrupt and ineffectual nature of their politicians maybe some form of direct action is needed….and I would say that Fawkes’s approach would be considered as just that….a direct action.

Years ago in my more radical days….I saw that the people were content with the lousy job that politicians are capable of and I said then that maybe we should call a joint session of Congress….gas all the reps and senators and then send a letter back to their state’s and districts say….they are all dead….start over!

Since politicians are NOT afraid of the will of the people…..Maybe then we would find some people willing to work for the country….knowing what would possibly happen if they didn’t…..we could move forward and cease the endless array of political games……

Just A Thought! Just thinking out loud!

If you would like to read the original then……https://lobotero.com/2011/11/05/remember-remember-the-5th-of-november/

Time for my day to end on this happier note…..tah tah….chuq

“Making America Great Again”–Part 9

A cute slogan…..but personally America has always been great…no need for a gutless slogan.

The series now moves to our first president….Washington and the days of a new republic…..the series written by Danny Sjursen moves from the war to the governing and the problems that arise……

Part 9 of “American History for Truthdiggers.”

* * *

“What a stupendous, what an incomprehensible machine is man! Who can endure toil, famine, stripes, imprisonment & death itself in vindication of his own liberty, and the next moment … inflict on his fellow men a bondage, one hour of which is fraught with more misery than ages of that which he rose in rebellion to oppose.” —Thomas Jefferson in a letter to John Adams (1816)

Close your eyes and imagine America as it was under the administration of President George Washington. No doubt, most readers would envision a heroic, tranquil time, when all was right and the great Founders ruled the United States as they had intended. It’s a comforting myth and, to be sure, a reflection of a closely held nationalist narrative: America may have faltered, may even have been off track at times, but once, under the steady hands of men like Washington, all was as it should be. How, then, are Americans to process the reality of the first president’s tenure—an age of turmoil, violence and division? Perhaps this: As Billy Joel sings, “The good old days weren’t all that good,” and as John Adams wrote, “Divided we ever have been, and ever must be.”

https://www.truthdig.com/articles/american-history-for-truthdiggers-washingtons-turbulent-administration-1789-1796/

The country now has a government and a leader……It begins!

Class Dismissed!

Another American Death

While most Americans were busy being political another American dies….and NOT ONE a/hole noticed…….(those “patriots” are the biggest joke in America these days even bigger than their Supreme Leader)

After 17 years of constant war and a constant flow of American troop deaths…..Last week the insider attack in Afghanistan has claimed another American…..

Maj. Brent Taylor, the 39-year-old mayor of North Ogden, Utah, was killed on Saturday in an insider attack in Afghanistan. Taylor was a member of the Utah Army National Guard, and was training Afghan commandos.

There are conflicting reports on the incident, in which one of the trainees opened fire, killing Taylor and wounding another soldier. Initial reports said the gunman was killed as well, though subsequent reports have not confirmed that this was the case.

Taylor was a mayor since 2013, and has done multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. This most recent tour was scheduled to end in January. His death is the latest in a growing string of insider attacks in Afghanistan.

(antiwar.com)

When will the American public decide there have been enough American deaths and demand an end to all these wars that are going NO place?

Not to worry vote for one d/bag or another….matters not they will keep this dumbass war going.

I am so proud of you people! (that is sarcasm in case you missed it)

The Economy–05Nov18

Tomorrow we go to the polls and vote either for dumb or dumber…..and it is important and you would think that since it is important that the Repubs would be looking for the best foot to put forward….and that would be the ECONOMY.

But so far all they have is bullshit anti-immigration slogans….why not emphasize the fact that wages are rising at a good rate……

The last unemployment report before the midterms is a strong one. Employers added 250,000 jobs in October, above the forecast of 188,000, reports the Wall Street Journal. The unemployment rate itself remained at a five-decade low of 3.7%, per the AP. The influx of new job-seekers in October increased the proportion of Americans with jobs to its highest level since January 2009. What’s more, wages rose 3.1% when compared to last October, the best such gain since 2009. It’s the first time since the recession ended that wages rose more than 3% over a year. Average hourly earnings in the private sector increased 5 cents to $27.30.

But so far the president spends all his time recalling 2016, bad mouthing opponents, ripping immigrants, and insulting the press…..not much on the things that are going right……

AS much as Trump would like his lies to find a foothold…..but all is NOT as good as the President would have us believe……

But all the news is not good with the Economy……

There’s mounting anecdotal evidence that President Donald Trump’s trade war is causing trouble for the US economy and businesses. But Friday’s report on third-quarter gross domestic product may be the best hard evidence yet that the tariffs are causing major disruptions in the economy.

GDP rose at an annualized rate of 3.5% in the third quarter. But the contribution of net exports of goods and services — the measure of how much trade added or subtracted to GDP growth — was a dismal -1.78 percentage points.

https://www.businessinsider.com/gdp-trump-tariff-trade-war-us-china-2018-10

Trump’s super tax cuts has put the US economy into a deep deep deficit……

It became very clear this month that neither the Trump White House nor its allies on Capitol Hill want you to know that the federal budget is already in very bad shape … and getting worse.

It happened when the Treasury, the official keeper of Washington’s financial results, issued its monthly statement for the first 10 months of fiscal 2018 about federal revenue, spending and, therefore, the budget deficit.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2018/08/20/donald-trump-trillion-dollar-plus-deficits-fiscal-ruin-column/986236002/

2008 the housing market led the rush to ruin…and it is once again showing signs of weakness…..

Despite a robust U.S. economy, at least as measured by gross domestic product, real home price growth is locked in a cyclical downturn. If that’s not bad enough, it will likely get worse based on the same approach and factors that correctly flagged the housing bust — in real time — in early 2006.

Home prices are highly cyclical and, as everyone discovered from the last recession, their movements can have material consequences for the broader economy. Yet, according to the minutes of the Federal Reserve’s Aug. 1 monetary policy meeting, policy makers are only starting to recognize the “possibility” of a significant weakening in the housing sector as a “downside risk.” Our research suggests that real home price growth has already entered a cyclical downturn that is likely to intensify. Data this week is forecast to show a drop in housing starts and existing home sales.

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-10-15/housing-prices-may-have-entered-a-cyclical-downturn

Key economic indicators are flashing red:

  • Worker productivity is sluggish. The third quarter marked the “32nd straight quarter of yearly growth below 2%, a long and consistent stretch of anemic growth that hasn’t happened before in the post-World War II era,” the WSJ reports.
  • Manufacturing activity has stalled for the first time in two years, possibly the result of President Trump’s multi-front trade war.
  • Business investment is laggardly. Rather than using their $1.2 trillion tax cut on capital spending, companies are on track for the biggest-ever year of stock buybacks, possibly reaching $1 trillion.

Instead of focusing on a group of slow walking people maybe he should grasp and old saying……

“Mr. President….It is The Economy Stupid!”

Vote Tomorrow!

In The Age Of The “Idiotarian”

The 2018 Mid-Terms are just days away and the nation is focused on the election…..the media is drumming their particular political lean on its viewers and the country keeps sliding into the abyss of tribalism.

It has been a long time coming…..the way that Repubs have divided this country along tribal lines…..and yes I blame the GOP and their hit man Newt…..he started this country’s citizens along this avenue of self-destruction.

The truth is division has always been with us…..

Hate, blame, greed, bigotry and fear have always been part of our politics.  If you doubt that, consider these statements from our second Presidential campaign in 1800, which pitted Adams against Jefferson for the second time.

Jefferson’s camp accused President Adams of having a “hideous hermaphroditical character, which has neither the force and firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman.”

In return, Adams’ men called Vice President Jefferson “a mean-spirited, low-lived fellow, the son of a half-breed Indian squaw, sired by a Virginia mulatto father.”

As the slurs piled on, Adams was labeled a fool, a hypocrite, a criminal, and a tyrant, while Jefferson was branded a weakling, an atheist, a libertine, and a coward. Even Martha Washington succumbed to the propaganda, telling a clergyman that Jefferson was “one of the most detestable of mankind.”

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2018/11/02/haters-and-partisans-have-always-been-us-different

First it was appearance of the “Ignorati”…..a person or group that is willfully ignorant, or woefully uninformed and forces their ignorant view on others regardless of fact.

This was fed by sites, thanx to social media, like Infowars and then fed by FOX News as a willing culprit to the misinformation (call it what it is Fake News)…..

As the “Ignorati” gained in prominence a new political ideology came into being…..the “Idiotarian”……political views are replaced by ignorant  name calling in absence of any real evidence based argument.

The GOP because of its silence on the antics of Our Dear Leader is becoming the party of the “Idiotarian”….now let a true conserv. ex-Congressman, Joe Scarborough explain the death of the GOP to the “Idiotarians”……

MSNBC host Joe Scarborough is blasting the Republican Party over its support of President Trump, calling the GOP “a dying party I can no longer defend.”

Scarborough, a former GOP lawmaker from Florida who announced last week that he is leaving the party, said in a Washington Post op-ed published late Sunday that Republicans who are working with Trump are “making the majority of Americans regret” voting for the party.

“The political movement that once stood athwart history resisting bloated government and military adventurism has been reduced to an amalgam of talk-radio resentments,” Scarborough wrote. “President Trump’s Republicans have devolved into a party without a cause, dominated by a leader hopelessly ill-informed about the basics of conservatism, U.S. history and the Constitution.”

http://thehill.com/media/342296-scarborough-i-left-the-gop-because-trump-is-destroying-the-republican-party

As an old radical I can say that I would be happy to see the destruction of the GOP….but the truth is that would leave the Dems and they are not much better than the GOP…….for there is NO republic without political discourse and as it is now that is sadly missing….and destruction could be eminent if we do not pay attention.

By the way, this election will change little….the dramatics and theatrics will increase but the actual governing process will be lacking.

So I Have written!

Turn The Page!

Those “Useful Idiots”

The mid terms have arrived so for the next few days I will be posting on nothing but US politics and the future….that is if we have one…….

No secret that I was a radical in the 70’s and on……I refuse to see Soviet agents behind every shadow….although they were probably there…..I protested the war in Vietnam as an unlawful war…..I protested our decisions to intervene in countries like Chile and Nicaragua after the people voted and it was not appreciated by American corporations so this country felt obligated to involve ourselves……I protested the invasions of Grenada and Panama as unnecessary military action……I give you a little of my background because back in those days the Right (conservatives) called us “Useful Idiots” for giving “aid and comfort” to the enemy.

In  case you are too young to remember those days or the term for that matter……actually the term was coined by Lenin to mean…..as a description of those mindless people in the Western democracies who would always find ways to excuse whatever the Soviet Union did….no matter the action the USSR would make…..

To help my readers see just how pathetic people attack anything they do not understand…..this post is from a far Right site with a “patriotic” sounding , American Thinker…..well sourced but I do not agree with the suppositions…

Many years ago, a phrase was coined by the leaders of the Soviet Union to describe those in the West who naively promoted the cause of Russian Communism when in reality they were held in contempt and were being cynically used by the Soviet hierarchy.  The term “useful idiot” more than ever applies to a vast swath of citizens in the United States who have been cynically used by the hardcore left for a cause

Well the Right picked up on this as a way to insult and minimize any positive effects that true liberalism would have on the society.

Fast forward to today’s Washington…..our society has a wealth of “useful idiots” that are enabling this Dear Leader and his assault on the republic.  The biggest and best “Useful Idiots” are in Congress and they travel under the guise of the Freedom Caucus (ever notice the more extreme the conservs get the more “patriotic” the vehicles are labelled?)

The real chuckle is that the people that called me and others “useful idiots” are the people that are enabling and excusing anything and everything this president does or says.

Turn The Page!