The Trash Economy

In the trash economy, they even pay you for picking up trash.
You get fully state benefits, medical, and retirement. All
you have to do is vote!  The state will give you all you need
to live in one handy-dandy, little white-plastic shopping bag.

It’s all about the taxes. Without a balanced approach, states are left with serious problems economically to provide needed state services.  Seems the Republicans are buying power to budget cut their states at the benefit of big business by lower corporate taxation.  But there are serious consequences to this new right wing movement, and that is the cut of education and government services.

You see the logic used by these politicians was that if you cut the cost of government, people will be awarded with more jobs and less of a tax burden, but the tax burden was only lifted really for the businesses in those states. Were they afraid that businesses might move out of state to build plants and operations overseas, or even worst place their corporate headquarters under shell companies on remote islands and in places like Panama, so as not to pay any state or federal taxes at all. 

The problem here is that American governance has been sold by power hungry politicians to those with the money, big money, especially Wall Street banks and investment banks.

States where the governments have been taken over by republicans are in the worst shape – and remember we aren’t yet even discussing federal level politics, though that is also a huge problem. But the states are in sorry shape with the mantra of “Cut Government Spending” has actually taken place, where prisons have been emptied, education budgets halved and all sorts of services have been trimmed.  So who is going to pick up your trash, keep your water clean, your roads fixed, teach your kids, and incarcerate your drug addicts and sellers?

The combination of corporate America taking its work out of the control to improve the bottom line and the trashing of governance and public services has really screwed up states. Tax revenues are down. Stagnation has occurred.  The reduction in revenues has impact what states and local governments are willing to pay people as well.  In one state no one will work at the community centers because they can make more money working elsewhere.  And who really wants to be a prison guard after all for so little pay? 

Whacked by our politicians

How whacked is it? Think about it.  If the jobs are in the public sector and not the private sector, than the money generation for state taxes is taxing those who work for the state – smells like socialism.   We are a socialist country already, as the government already controls too much.  And the real problem is that that government officials are not beholden to the people, but to those who finance their campaigns, and who pay them to pass legislation, or to pull old legislation.  Do you remember the Glass-Steagall Act?

Glass-Steagall Act

Remember or learn that BACK IN 1999, Democrats led by President Bill Clinton and Republicans led by Sen. Phil Gramm joined forces to repeal Glass-Steagall at the behest of the big banks. Yes, the big banks wanted to make more money by handling investments.  When they earn more money, no new jobs are created, only more money enters the hands of their companies, their shareholders and consequently the rich get richer and nothing improves for the poor. The original reason for the Glass Steagall Act was to protect the country from the conflict of interest between investment and banking which caused the great depression in part.  The great serpent, that lying beast, the economic devil in disguise of glad tidings raised its head back at the Bush administration bailouts.

Corporate Bribery

 

Another reason things went south was by letting rich people and corporations hide their profits in shell companies.  That should be illegal.  Those con men selling that to the American people need to go to prison.  Also tariffs need to be place on foreign produced goods, so that manufacturing is driven back to American shores and so that real jobs are created for people to work at, and where they can get off government subsidies and aid. Just think about how many other panama type exposures could happen to reveal how much of America wealthiest hide their money!

 

The politicians have made their masters very happy, and they have gotten fat and rich, but they have devastated their local state economies, gutted state education and ruined state employees’ benefits and pay.  Educators need resources, people need education, and innovation comes from education, not in tax shelters, tax breaks and incentives to invest in the infrastructures of other countries.  Again the rich benefit, and they PAY THEIR FAVORITE POLITICIANS to keep it that way.  Just how the 2016 election is paid for by Wall Street.

Look at the following examples to see how screwed up state economies have gotten:

Misssissippi:

“County officials across Mississippi are warning of job losses and deep deficits as local jails are being deprived of the state inmates needed to keep them afloat. The culprit, say local officials, is state government and private prisons, which are looking to boost their own revenue as sentencing and drug-policy reforms are sending fewer bodies into the correctional system.”

Response; why should the local economy be tied to the working in prisons and drug law enforcement efforts. This is madness. Economies should not be derived from the business of government. Read the article about how screwed up Mississippi is here.

Kansas:

“The bulk of Brownback’s tax moves in 2012 and 2013 revolved around state income tax rates for individuals. Those cuts, which primarily benefited those already wealthy enough to shoulder a greater share of the cost of schools and roads in Kansas, are politically untouchable even in the current calamity. But Brownback’s other signature move has lost the support of several of his fellow Republicans and will likely be at the epicenter of any budget deal lawmakers ultimately achieve.”

Response: another case of cut taxes for the rich, and lose state services like education.  Who needs an educated population?  Voters need to be stupid to vote for republicans who slice the education budget in half.  Who needs trained engineers, nurses, scientists, doctors, civil servants and academics?

Final Thoughts:

What has destroyed state economies is the same thing that has created the Wal Mart American society, the trash economy. What has depleted the Middle class, made the poor dependent on Uncle Sam, and ruined the livelihood of regular Americans, is that the government is now in charge of ensuring the rich get richer.  Without productive jobs to go to, everyone can only afford to buy cheap foreign made goods.  The quality of American life, the American dream in is glory, is fading.  This is the Trash Economy.  Relying on jobs in the public sector where half the country, especially the darker colored ones, is the only economical solution, is bizarre at best. What has to be fixed is how we earn our money.  The rich need to have rules that apply to them.  Throw out congress and elect people who will change the rules on how profits are made, close the tax shelters.  Bring the jobs home, and make it unprofitable for companies to take their work overseas.

Now hiring: Workers are seen sorting as the conveyor belt moves recyclables to be sorted at the Waste Management Elkridge Material Recycling Facility on June 18, 2015 in Elkridge, Md. D.C. and other local jurisdictions send their recyclable materials to the Waste Management facility in Elkridge for recycling. The cardboard and paper products are baled and shipped to China for new product production. The facility is a one thousand ton facility, where it takes in a thousand tons and sends out a thousand tons daily. (Photo by Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

 

Articles referred to in this blog piece

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/mississippi-jails-are-losing-inmates-and-local-officials-are-devastated-by-the-loss-of-revenue/ar-BBrLU3D?li=BBnb4R7&ocid=SL5BDHP

http://sandiegofreepress.org/2012/08/how-mitt-romney-set-up-offshore-shell-corporations-bank-accounts-and-paid-no-taxes/

http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/economic-intelligence/2012/08/27/repeal-of-glass-steagall-caused-the-financial-crisis

http://www.thenation.com/article/what-happens-when-republicans-try-destroy-public-education/

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/secret-and-lies-of-the-bailout-20130104

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/wall-street-is-putting-money-behind-these-presidential-candidates_us_55b143e7e4b08f57d5d414ad

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-03-25/what-s-destroying-middle-class-wages-china

http://usuncut.com/class-war/the-trickle-down-disaster-in-kansas-is-so-bad-that-even-republicans-are-trying-to-cover-it-up/

 

The Death of Western Civilization

People came to the United States for the opportunity. They came to take advantage of the resources, the open territory, the ease of conquest, the moral and spiritual freedom. The Europeans killed off the Indians by hook, crook and by carrying biological diseases unknown to North America. These people weren’t Americans they were Europeans.

They didn’t cut ties with Europe, they maintained relations. Up until the 20^th century the elite returned to Europe and considered European culture to be far superior. Americans were still just visiting.

The western traditions which use to be the staple of intellectual development in Europe and the United States has suffered a death blow lately, and the traditions which brought Europe from the dark ages into the age of enlightenment have been snuffed out.

Along with that tradition is the striping of all things religious, at least the Christian ideas from public life. Most notably the removal of the age long tradition of displaying religious items such as the ten commandments from courthouses. Other examples such as eliminating prayer from the opening of government run schools and at graduation ceremonies continues to erode the basic building blocks for a spiritual foundation of American society.

The Clash of Civilizations

Europe may have gone rotten sooner, and the dead tree churches of England are a glaring example of how the light of the spirit has gone out across the pond. Churches are in ruins, have been sold as nightclub locations, have been turned over to secular use, and have been leased by the Muslim hordes filling the porous pews with a radical faith centuries forgotten.

How long will the nation survive the dismantling of its foundations? How long will the people apathetically sit watching entertainment, the new God of the people? How long will truth lose its meaning and significance?

References:

James Kurth an educator from Harvard writes about Western Civilization. Here is a video with him speaking about western civilization.  He speaks of Samuel Huntington.

“As long as there are people who believe in these principles that practice and promote them, that people will be western civilization. And as long as there are a people who uphold western civilizations ideas, there will be a clash of civilizations.”

Moth to Flame: Thrill Seekers

On the dangerous side of a heartbeat dwells the super thrill seeking sensations!

Some allusions just work. People who are stupid and bored are drawn to dangerous situations. They hear a helicopter buzzing by and they run out to the street to see. The gunfire can get you inside the house, so why go out and be a moving target for a trigger happy cop.

Some of us get a thrill at standing close to the edge of a cliff. We want the excitement, the adrenaline rush. We stand on a live wire, we walk the tight rope. The certain chance of beating death crawls through our veins. The movies portray the rush of beating the scythe of death. The Bourne series, the Taken, Die Hard series, etc. Are you addicted to the cocaine of thrill seeking? If you are you might like to know why.

 

I find that when my heart palpitates, I’m nauseated. What some call life, I call sickness. Why place yourself in harm’s way. Aren’t you more productive alive. You can’t change the world in the grave.

If you live in southern California you have many attractions to draw you to. You have roller coasters, water slides, theme parks, etc. If you like physical thrills you have skiing, if we have snow, surfing, sky diving, ind surfing, etc. There is also a bunch of Hollywood adventures they don’t have anywhere else in the United States like obstacle courses designed by stunt men.

Unnecessary References

Moth to Flame Band:

Moth to Flame, a four piece electric jazz quartet, are performing throughout the New York City area. Moth to Flame has been thrilling audiences in the Northeast, from intimate music clubs to large jazz festivals, through an eclectic mix of classical, jazz, rhythm & blues/soul and rock. More on this band.

School: Breeding Contempt of God

The government of the United States has at its core to enforce the constitution of the United States.  The problem is that the government reaches into the very homes of Americans because it (sort of ) enforces the practice of no religion in the schools.  The separation of church in state was about government, not education.  There is no more personal space in our lives than the education of our children.  The government has no right to educate our children, and they have no place in telling us what our children should believe.

The separation of church and state has been violated due to the governance of education in this country.  Teachers and children should not fear that they will be mistreated in any way when they practice religion.  Yet, teachers are in fear of losing their jobs for voicing religious opinions.  Kids are afraid to speak up about their beliefs for fear of lower grades.  This is especially relative when talking about the origins of the universe, a highly philosophical question, and one that most religions have dogma for.  Science cannot prove of disprove the existence of God nor can it define why life exists without becoming religious – for you have to have faith to stomach their answers to the “Why” question of life.

The public schools have become a breeding ground for contempt of religion, especially because of the humanist philosophical teaching in the sciences, where the origins of life are taught to have come from natural processes.  Even atheists contest the metaphysical theory of humanism that supports Darwinism.  To discuss a religious view-point on creation or anything that differs with the philosophy inherently embedded in Darwinism is to call scorn upon yourself from the scientific community.

Is time for our children to be equipped for the battle, clothed in anti-government slogans, and bearing the proclamations of the religious or atheist?  Wouldn’t it be better to have them openly discuss philosophy and religion openly?  Don’t most people want to know what the ages have produced as to why the universe exists or why humans have consciousness?  Isn’t it more disturbing that they are taught the answer to these questions in science, and told the science has no philosophical underpinnings?

Truth is that standing up for what you believe once was a cherished and honorable position.  What honor is there in cowardice?  People need to be encouraged to defy the government like Gandhi.  Kids must learn how to best survive an educational system that doesn’t teach truth.  Yet the tentacles of humanism reach all the way into the very heart of the academic world, with their pulpit being the lecterns of our great colleges and universities.

Student who defy the atheism of the “enlightened”  and the “educated” suffer when they stand up for their faiths and beliefs.  They are mocked in the classroom.  Their grades are deflated, and sometimes they are failed do to their beliefs, I hear this from students every year, so I tell them that letting the faculty know their beliefs is the most certain way to have lower grades.  Student especially should know not to write about religious and political beliefs.  You know you are in an oppressive religious organization when you can’t question the faith.

Some related articles

Removing Jesus from public life due to political reasons

Atheist argues against the philosophical foundation of evolution:

Wearing your beliefs on your shirt
“This is not about the T-shirt — it’s about our children and our grandchildren having the right of freedom of speech and religion,” he said. “That’s being taken away in our schools.”

If you want to buy your kids that shirt “Life is Wasted without Jesus.”

Removal of Jesus from public school

Communists removed prayer from public schools

Rights of school teachers:

Students suspended over religion:  didn’t want to wear tracker/mark of the beast

Stomping Jesus:

Teaching Religion in the Secular Classroom: Nothing to Fear

 

Inflation and why you should fear

The money supply in the past few years has tripled.  What is the result of that tripling?  First the government has basically said a dollar is now worth 33 cents, or one third of what it was worth a couple of years ago.  You should be scared.

What does that mean?  You use to page $1.50 for a gallon of gasoline, and now what are you paying?  Here in CA at a shell station close to where I ride the train, the cost was already $4.37.  What’s means the $1 in 2007 is now worth 34% cents today.  The price is showing you the true inflation rate.

I also see that reflected accurately in my pay buying less.  don’t you.  So what happen to truth in reporting.  The government doesn’t want you to think about it.  They are using it (inflation) to effectively decrease their debt, by making the money’s value decrease.  So if they own 17 trillion dollars, and they keep pumping money into the money supply, then they really only owe one third of the value of that debt.

Think about how that works for your debt.  Let’s say that you owe $10,000 and now you want to pay it off.  Well the drop in value of the dollar is great for you, because in real terms you are only having to pay 33 cents on the dollar, or $3333 for the $10,00o.  This works for all debts.

Weird how your debt is better than your earnings.  But that’s the scary part.  Debt is a promise, and you are not really paying what you promised.  It makes you a big liar, like the government.  No integrity, like the white house.

The rich corporations and banks don’t want to inflate things, but the government is over its head in debt.  Because what happens next is that everyone raises their price so they can have more value to cover the rising costs.  But, at the same time, the pay for jobs will go down, because the profit margins for the rich, the stockholders and the CEOs won’t go down.  They need  higher prices and lower pay to keep their greedy little accounts growing with worthless money.

In real terms, the government is owned by corporate america and the banks.  They are beholden to floating the economy.  Because of that, they lie constantly about what things are worth.    Lance Roberts has written a solid piece in how those figures have been compromised.

The fabric of American society is totally immersed in the deception.  This series of lies and alteration of consistency in reporting inflation; the fact that the media doesn’t report these adjustments shows that corporations have something at stake in not reporting it; the fact that what the American government did in bailing out the automakers, AIG, and the banks was totally illegal.  This huge system of capitalistic control of government where both parties are owned by wall street and the banks, really should spin your head.  This total disregard for the law shows you how bad the situation really is.

Corporate america has we the people by the balls.  They own the news media and the government in which most people trust.  As Ralph Nader stated, ”

It isn’t just the government under the CONTROL of corporations–the government IS the Corporation now! The corporation IS the government!”

The Media you watch is controlled by corporations!

6 media companies

Suggested readings:

Aftershock by Robert Reich

20 biggest Donors for 2012 election — Mother Jones

Deadly Monopolies — P2P Foundation’s Blog

Ralph Nadar on Corporations

 

 

 

Civilization Requires Borders

Have you ever thought about the significance of borders?  This is a real question of unexpected value for those of us living in the world today.  Borders, and the crossing and crisscrossing, whereupon cultures pour in to change the mix of society.  The illegal immigration of millions should have brought some reason to think about this issue.  Why do we have borders, and what are their value to society or more importantly to civilization.

History is doomed to repeat itself, or so they say, so what is inherent in the downfall of American society is the porous nature of the borders she holds.  When  Rome fell, there were years of using cheap outside labor (slaves acquired though various wars),, so are Mexicans the slave labor of today’s world of Americans?  I certainly looks that way sitting here in California.

Other global ramifications of borders is that borders control the flow of goods and services.  The controllers of the gates control the flow of money back and forth.

For the common American is the plight of the common Roman may be quite similar.  Bread and circuses, food stamps and television: both contain the roots of a moral decline in the citizenry.  The devaluation of the dollar – and the coinage.  Clinton pennies are so cheap today, that once the hit the streets, almost no one picks them up – what can you buy with on any way.

Borders  were first established to keep the bad out of the good; like a way of fencing of the barbarians from the edges of civilization.  But the bad roams the streets here in the U.S.A, so what good would propping up a dead republic from the immigrations of people just looking for a better life.

The world, many muse, is headed toward one world government, and with it the elimination of borders, but don’t let the logic fool you, their will be controls, and controls between people is always a border issue.  Controlling the immigration of people is always part of the master plan of the rich to control the poor.  If the rich had ultimate power, they would demolish whole cities, and rebuild, and then they would need to police out the scum – the poor.  Ever heard of imminent domain?

The morals of capitalism is that rich equals a moral citizen, and poor equals a wretch who must be pushed outside of the few of the rich.  I’m honestly surprised the rich aren’t getting the cops in LA to escort the homeless out of their view.

However, rich have no master of moral life.  According to Christ it is the poor man who has the best chance to enter heaven.  The rich have their own heaven, one of their own making.  Funny the dichotomy between wanting to live a good life in the United States,  the land of milk and honey, and living the better life in the next world, but even then isn’t there a gate at the border?

The Truth about Chickens

Cows protesting Beef eating

The Chick-Fil-a debate which recent hit the press clearly exposed a fundamental truth about the liberal establishment, showing a dangerous disregard for truth.

The fact is that the protest was not over chicken, it was not over gay rights, it was about freedom to bash Christians.  The fact that people in America will support the Christian belief that homosexuality is a sin.  This is a scripturally sound belief that has been held up for centuries. 

The media showed the protestors saying that those who give money to Christian organizations are bigots and bigots must be boycotted.  But who are the real bigots in this scenario?  Those who have the freedom to support a truth and who are working to be a bulwark against the rising tide of lies and hostility are not bigots, but they are within their rights in a free society.

The real fact is that the antichristian venom of the gay rights activists is turned against anything promoting that truth.  Did Chick-Fil-A do something immoral, dishonorable or were the promoters of gay marriage bashing an organization that supports Christian ideas.

Logically, gay marriage is not a God-given right, and only in the antichristian climate would this rhetoric be considered plausible.  2000 years since Christ walked the earth, and the world is still a place where he is crucified.  The scriptures tell Christians that they will also be treated by the world as criminals: abused, beaten, imprisoned, murdered.  It hasn’t been since the days of pagan Rome that there has been such a turn against those in the church of Jesus Christ.

In my humble opinion, this is a good sign.  Many churches are filled with non-believers, the judgmental type of religious persons known in Christ’s day as the Pharisees, and sinner who never experience the joy of having God’s Holy Spirit activated in their lives, because they are still gods themselves, beholden to no one.

Lesbian Chickens married in Massachusetts last friday.

Standing in line to buy a chicken sandwich is not much of a sign of faith, is it?  You can always tell the way Christians treat others whether they are true to the beliefs they uphold by what they do with their money.  Do they live in luxury while others are suffering?  Do they judge others, and walk around carrying secrets sins.  Only God can judge the homosexuals for their sins.  They are no worse sinners then the Christian who cheats on his taxes, drives drunk, cheats on his wife, reads pornography, abuses people, and shows up every Sunday in a three piece suit. It is a God-given-right to choose whether to sin or not.

But this article is about the truths or lies behind the protest, which  was clearly antichristian, and not about Christian bigotry. It was really about secular bigotry against those in society who support Christian churches and organizations.  It like them saying you have no right to oppose gay marriage, like that was a God-given right.  Is this a portent for the big doomsday?  I think not.

References

http://www.ajc.com/news/news/local/chick-fil-a-president-says-company-opposes-gay-m-1/nQXM8/

http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2012/07/27/chick-fil-as-controversial-gay-marriage-beef

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/26/us/gay-rights-uproar-over-chick-fil-a-widens.html

http://gaymarriage.procon.org/ (has both pro and con for/against  gay marriage

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/07/25/Rahm-Emanuel-latest-to-fight-Chick-Fil-A

 And who is the AntiChrist:?

Against Gay Marriage, Contraception, Runs Organization that covers up abuse against boys, never eaten a Chick-Fil-A sandwich, and speaks many languages.

Clockwork Orange Costumes to the Hand of God

Have you ever been asked a question that is just outside of your realm of knowledge, this situation where you’re being interviewed, and you just realize that they have no idea about whether or not you’re qualified for the position you’re interviewing for?

It happened to me recently, when I was interviewing for a job that relates to evaluating people for workplace accommodations.

However, when I don’t have information about a topic, it seems to stir something within me, something akin to curiosity, about how to topics so seemingly not related can affect each other.

Safer and since you took two movies.  In my blog, I have mentioned Clockwork Orange several times.  Now let’s say we were talking about an unrelated drama like M*A*S*H.  How do you draw lines between clockwork Orange and M*A*S*H.  Well if someone out there probably has already done something like that, do you see how that might grab your attention.

Take M*A*S*H: it’s about doctors serving in the Korean War and how they had to cope with their communal living in the trenches of death and destruction.  Death and destruction, wow.  Do you see what I mean?  Do you see there is a connection.  Clockwork Orange is a movie about sadistic violence and sadistic rehabilitation, not really death and destruction, unless you’re talking about the gang violence in the movie.  But still, it’s about inhumanity to people in either direction.  War certainly is the defining act of human behavior that dehumanizes people.  Killing people, when they are attacking you, seems humane only if you are protecting people you know intimately.

However killing people who are complete strangers to you, because you want something they have, like oil, is certainly the most inhumane treatment between people.  You just can’t go around telling all your friends and your neighbors, your coworkers and your bosses, because you have a  joint interest in promoting them, and caring for their needs, both has reciprocity involved.

I just thought of another interesting connection between the two.  As many of you have clicked on this website to find a clockwork orange picture, you may be designing your own costume for Halloween.

What about those who are making a M*A*S*H outfit.  I doubt that anyone really is making their costume based on that show.  It would be difficult to find those old army green outfits where the Army now uses those camouflage uniforms.  However, it’s still possible.

I think this would make actually a fun form of intellectual entertainment.  You can create a game with cards that provide seemingly unrelated topics, and then you would have to find similarities or possibly differences about the two topics.  Let’s think of some: windmills, Astroturf.  Jack-o’-lanterns and french fries.  Surf boards and artesian wells.  You come up with tens of thousands of unrelated terms.

Did you ever play the game where someone starts off the story and has so many seconds, and then the person next to them has to add something to it, until you’ve gone around the whole room and created some crazy story?

Some people say that our brains connect topics like this through a neural network, and that we really don’t understand the complexity of relationship and verbal categorization that is going on in our minds.  I think it’s really fun to see how we are not cognizant of these connections, until we try juxtaposing verbal information side-by-side.

Another thought comes to mind about all this, and that is how we are related to each other.  My family goes back in this country to just after the Mayflower landed.  Now I am about the 14th generation who has lived in the United States.  So that means about 14 other families have married into my direct family line.  And my grandmother’s family among these was known to be in the United States before the Revolutionary war.  So lets say another 10 generations or more.  You start multiplying out the possibility or probability of we are related to, and it is quite amazing.  A remember seeing that President Obama and George Bush were actually related being nine cousins removed. (I don’t know if that really is true, but the possibility is realistic)

As we map out the human genome, you can see that all over the world there are a few mutations to the genetic structure.  That throughout history there were several splits of groups such as in Africa, the Middle East, and in Asia, where a trait was changed and the human family evolved in some way.  So the differences between races such as lip thickness, nose width, color of skin, eye color, ability to digest milk, susceptibility to sickle cell anemia, and other such traits.  Now some people may not believe in evolution, and frankly there’s really no evidence that clearly demonstrates evolution between species, but within a species these principles obviously are of interest to study, because the data is there.  DNA really is just data, and mutations don’t appear to be just adaptations that happen randomly, but seem to come about when there is a need for that adaptation.  That’s where evolution is very weak, for information is supposedly improved upon randomly.

On the other hand, when you look at the idea of creationism, you find the concept of time is really at issue.  Not really if there is a God, or designer, or more commonly known as the creator, but the concept that everything was done in seven days.  But what’s seven days to a creator of the universe, surely not seven of our Earth days.  So I see why sometimes people who are scientifically minded will not look at the issue of improving design information and DNA, and creating better or improved or even more difficult to comprehend comprehensive or complex information.

You know I write this blog because I want to think out loud, and to express those thoughts be as they may.  The problem you have with people is that they’re so close minded and have forgotten how to think: they have opinions, but they will not consider.  They have some theory, some religion some answer that they agree to, have faith in and support, and they’ve lost the ability to really think, to question to comprehend and to re-think topics.  The dogmatic are almost insane.  Creationism and Darwinism are not religions, but you would think they were.  But just like the original topic: Clockwork Orange and comparing that with M*A*S*H.  There is certainly just as much that is relevant and true between the biological principles that Darwin wrote about some years ago in creation.  I mean how better to evaluate the amazing work of God than biology.  The fact that DNA can create a blueprint for something as simple as a amoeba, which has an amazing engineering and complexity but is yet so small and so simple biological proves the idea of design.  Let alone the amazing world of animals and plants that are complex.

I find it fascinating that some of the religious people I know are the most mean-spirited, judgemental and angry people in the world.  I’m not at all amazed at their shortsighted, belligerent and inhumane treatment of others.  Then I look at similarly the stupidity which anti-faith people have growing up in a world that is so incredible and meaningfully designed, and say it happened by chance, but they may donate thousands to relieve human suffering.

Every day when I go to work, and I see tens of thousands of people a year.  And I see that they’re all different and amazing, and walking and talking, dancing and singing, and growing and learning.

I see the hand of God.  And the people who get together and put their minds and their spirits into projects to improve humanity, they too are reflections of this God.  They can spout all day long there isn’t any God, that everything is for man and my man, and even that God was created in man’s image, and I will still look at them, looking at the design of the human eye or the myriad ways in which they can position their hands, wrists and arms, and their ability to memorize and retain information, and to create, and it’s almost like a joke.

America: Striving for a Just World

America land of liberty, equality and democracy is headed in the wrong direction these days.  Two tenets of virtue have fallen to pertinacious winds of change.  First you had the (intellectual and physical) competition of Americans driving for Americans to build a great society, one for the greater good.  Innovation and practical improvements in the last two centuries prove how amazing competition in working toward technological solutions have been.  Then you had the second quest for truth and a pure form of government, which drove American lawmakers along with scientists to continue the improvements by creating a society of law and order, and one which used science to eliminate disease and improve sanitation and the health of Americans, substantially increasing the lifespan of Americans.  Now  these lines of power are like exposed wires, and the frayed spots are beginning to spark like hell.  You’ve gotten justice turning to political decision-making and competition and innovation corrupted by cheating and greed.

Justice is done

These topics more than the terriblenews of the Irene hurricane stirred my mind this week, setting off some realizations of where the big ship of American life is headed – can you say iceberg, or are your dining on the American Titanic. First of all have you read about the Supreme Court (of Injustice?), and Clarence (Can’t Touch This) Thomas’s decision?  How a court can throw out evidence and make such a impactful and fateful choice to disregard the Brady standards, must be covered in political (or irrational) premises.  The Supreme Court overthrew multiple appellate decisions regarding the Connick vs. Thompson, which basically took a settlement of one million dollars for each year a man was unjustly imprisoned for a crime he didn’t do.  The injustice involved is staggering, and the Supreme Court’s ruling is one that brings many legitimate questions about the health of American justice, as does the OJ Simpson trial and the Casey Anthony case.  Do these cases spin your head? The evidence cited by the majority decision does not mention 10 possible Brady violations, but Ginsberg in writing the dissenting opinion clearly states her conclusions that the DA office had violated the civil rights of the prisoner, who was convicted of a murder he did not do, and for which he spent 14 years of his life in prison, awaiting execution.  What really got the bullet is American’s concept of justice and protection against prosecutors withholding evidence.  As a critic added (after this decision) “the court has created a perfect Catch-22, since the courts already give prosecutors absolute immunity for their actions as prosecutors (though they may still be liable for their conduct as administrators or investigators). By immunizing their bosses as well, the court has guaranteed that nobody can be held responsible for even the most shocking civil rights violations.”  About the Brady violations, a writer from the Moderate Voice states: Authorities also failed to produce a police report in which one of their witnesses gave statements to the police that contradicted their testimony at trial. They also coached witnesses, improper conduct by legal ethics standards, to work around evidence supporting Thompson’s innocence. In all, at least ten exculpatory exhibits were withheld from the defense.  [the whole opinion from the court]

And … the drama – did you know that this all came out because one of the culprit (prosecutor) who was dying of cancer confessed of this withholding of information during his last few breaths of life.  The guilt, and the drama!!!  Where is the value of convicting people for crimes they didn’t do?  What kind of pressure is happening to make people do this to others?  I’ve never worked in the halls of justice, but I have walked them seeking justice myself.  Some people say that ethnic and racial profiling is involved, and the white prosecutors don’t care what negro serves time for another’s crime; is that possible? Yet, could it be that another (second) strand of wiring, exposed and nearly shorting out the greatness of our nation.  Yes, competition.  Competition: to close cases, even if you have to lie and cheat.

In my humble opinion the government needs to protect the people, especially from the government and this decision surely throws things back a hundred years. The line of reason twists significantly when unfair completion enters this systems of law and order. Though competition is something that can bring about a great improvement for humanity, when it  helps people to strive to be their best.  Yet when there is any unfair advantage, the system that pits equals, then supports unequal circumstances.  Those with the advantage gain in whatever way they can, sometimes by cheating.  The simplest advantage can be wrought by bumping a fellow runner, running a familiar course, or more notoriously by taking steroids.  The American field of athletics is filled with NCAA violations in recruiting, the Olympians being paid professional athletes, and big television money (like the Texas piece).  The baseball scandals only proved what we Americans know: the unfair advantage is promoted by baseball, with the hopes no one will see.  Steroids buffed home run kings like Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, and Sammy Sosa.  These are baseball players that made the professional home run look like an ordinary blast from their bats. Here you have two elements intertwined, interlaced and unfortunately they are big part of the theatre of sports.  Sports without enhancement drugs just doesn’t exist.  Even high school kids are doing them.  It probably runs through the whole of all professional athletes.  If you want the faster step, the crushing grip, the larger physical size, you get pumped.  The big time players make big time bucks, too, and isn’t it all about the money?

Amateur sports has also taken the hit, and has been sucked into the vacuum of cheating and foul play.  The truth of this comes out, and spoils the whole ideal of  non-professinoal competition.  First on my list was what transpired in my life time regarding the Olympics.  I use to watch these events, and it was rather fun to watch the eastern-block countries field out these machine like athletes.  It gave the challenge for Americans to fight the steroid abusing, communist athletes.  The gold cup win by the American hockey team in 1984, really made the whole thing exciting and remarkable.   Then the wall fell, and the cold war was won, by capitalism. But the story darkens as professional atheletes were allowed into the competitions, ruining the whole system of non-professional athletics.  I stopped watching these charades when Americans won the gold in basketball (you may remember the dream team); I gag thinking about how what was once unpredictable became ruined by high powered paid athletes. Another sport that has over the past 30 years succumbed to the rampages of the corruptive power of big money, is college football.  Nothing is more unfair than television revenues altering the natural competition of recruiting players to major colleges.  The Big 12 represents this quiet clearly, as you see how ESPN has recently purchased the rights to Longhorn football games.  Accordingly the 15 (extra) million dollars annually will feed their powerhouse team football coffers due to this (what should be illegal deal).  The whole thing stinks, and give Texas better media coverage, more money with which to hire coaches, build better recruitment classes, and who knows what illegalities they are hiding in the dark recesses of their program.

These flashes of wrong are like lightning from an approaching storm.  You hear about it after you see the bright flash across the horizon.  The politicizing of our Supreme Court, and the corruption of law and justice is the precursor to whole scale disintegration of the state.  This will lead to judges taking bribes.  The constitution will be left unprotected as special interests groups lay the money down to alter the rights and privileges we all have.  When your prosecutor’s office can throw away evidence that proves people are innocent, they will also be able to manufacture evidence that didn’t exist.  Once a political power grabs control and abuses the power of the state to eliminate their dissenters, and the voices opposing them, then you will have total tyranny.   The problem is deeper than how the Supreme Court is selected.  What has happened is that big money buys and sells federal political careers.  The people have long lost control of the laws (legislative branch), as candidates are almost all millionaires themselves.  Corporate America owns these elections.  Congressional committees will almost never impeach Supreme Court members, the President and their fellow members.  What’s good for business is to eliminate competition and so eliminating their enemies will be something they will be out to accomplish.  The Brady decision must go for them to have the power to set people up in the justice system.  (Some folks think there is a global conspiracy involved, with the richest elite controlling all the strings.)

This corruption, that has crept into the justice and legal system, will permeates the politics of the land; it’s like a caustic chemical that has seeped into the seams of a rock, softening its firmness..  When bribes tilt the hand of justice, then no one is safe, and no legal decision without question.  The constitution and its sway over the lives of Americans is a document that provide certain liberties and rights to people; in part this document was designed to protect people from the government. However, big business and Wall Street have slipped in prostituting the congress and the White house, paying them for favors and protection.  This corruption is clearly represented in the movies.  When the White house bailed out the economy using tax-payer funding (actually really just more debt), the corruption reached a new high.  Government had no place in bailing out failing companies.  There is no place in federal government for this type of activity.  No provision or law that supported their actions.  But Wall Street owns the politicians, and helps fund their political campaigns.  The congressmen and senators have sold out to their moneyed constituents, meaning corporate America, and stopped representing the people. See this is what happens when competition is no longer fair.  When the laws that are created by congress (legislative branch) are created to protect the highest paying bidder, and the enforcement of laws (executive branch) overlooks infractions such as immigration (cheap non-union labor), and the Supreme court passes judgment in favor of an obviously corrupt district attorney’s office (judicial branch); then how long before the edifice crumbles to dust. The once great profession of journalism, that was like a fourth pillar of democratic society, denigrated into playing politics rather than spotlighting truth, the last protection for the people is tumbling.  It is said that 6 major corporations now own as much as 50% of the news outlets.  They too are in on the competition, and give money to the politician’s campaigns.  They focus on the dramatic to make money, and do little to report the truth of how corrupt the political process in America is. The last straw in the American system of democracy is its long time value of education and Christianity.  The founding fathers had seen the great flaws of governments that favored religious institutions, persecuting those that did not hold the politically correct version of faith.  They specifically are noted with saying how the great republic’s need a moral and spiritual people to make it work.  But instead of protecting people from religious persecution, the government turned against religions, and threw out of the public education any mention of God and the spiritual foundations of the country.  The new faith of the possessors of the republics office of government is secular humanism.  This means that there is no spiritual basis for law nor human action which holds the fabric of the state in place.   The idea that the founding fathers had of separating state from religion was no to eliminate religion from the people in government, but to eliminate religion governing the state’s affairs.  But in order to compete unfairly, to have no ethics, and to establish corruption, men must eliminate spiritual and moral precepts to be able to live chasing their own selfish wants.  That eliminates any hypocrisy in their lives, and also eliminates and spiritual consequences for the selling out.  When men believe they hold their own destiny in their hands and that there is no higher power, to be beholden to, then they can rationalize anything, even vile and wicked things, justifying the ends by whatever means is expeditious. If prosecutors can knowingly send men to their executions, knowing of their innocence, if senators can make a deal to pass legislation that benefits corporate America over their constituents (we even hear political candidates calling corporations people), if the President can involve us in a war without approval of congress, if supreme court justices can undermine the civil rights of the people, then Americans must think about why their representation has allowed these changes to occur if the results are negative for the people. Maybe it is like the story of the frog place in the tepid water which is then warmed slowly until it boils the animal.  American society cheers its cheaters, and admires their getting away with it (in the case of OJ and Casey Anthony, murder).  Don’t you remember the cheering when Simpson was acquitted? Idolizing the corporate greed mongers, cheering the football team that has 100 times the resources for their football team, letting kids in high school to take steroids to beef up, aren’t these things to be stopped?  Yet Americans love the competition.  But once the corruption enters into the arena, I for one think we have gone too far. The great experiment in democracy has lost an educated interested and moral people to ensure the principles of the constitution are not dismantled plank by plank, as in the recent supreme court ruling.  The fact that Wall Street and Corporate America give huge amounts of money to both of the parties that run Washington, shows how their influence has effected an indifference to the people’s voices.  Corporate America also owns the media.  Why should they be afraid to use the government as a bailout system for their risky business.  They own the whole system.  No one get elected without their approval. If, God forbid, we have continued economic disintergration, the mammoth corporation will endure, only the common man will suffer.  Capitalism strives to win, and crushing your opponent, eliminating you competition only makes your business more successful – the bottom line rules, and even if we work for a major powerhouse corporation like Microsoft, your job is not secure, just ask the 5000 employees who lost their jobs back in 2009. Frankly the internet is a place where we can all find something other than the news media’s story.  We can discuss and debate within our freedoms, just as the founding fathers wanted.  We can bash the cheaters, the steroid users, and those suspected of graft and corruption.  But that can all end quickly, and a man of power can pick up where Hitler left off in creating a society of one government by one party.  That’s not the home of the free, the brave and the a place I want to live.

Doctors Speak Out About Medical Billing Fraud

Medical Billing Problems! Us?

As you know, the price of insurance and medicine has risen noticeably for many years. My own insurance is with Blue Cross, and it is supposed to increase in cost by 39%. The cost keeps going up, and my pay doesn’t. The rich fat cat medical organizations can charge whatever they want, and we can do “nothing” about it.
Maybe you don’t know it, but as recently as 1981, only 8% of families filing for bankruptcy did so in the aftermath of a serious medical problem. But by 2007, 62.1% of all bankruptcies in 2007 were medical related. This reflects a grievous, unchecked increase for families. Insurance costs have gone up. Will it ever end? Probably not.
Medicine is not like any type of business that competes for your dollar. As a matter of interest, have you ever wondered how the costs on your medical bill are calculated? Well most of it has to do directly with what the insurance policy you carry says it will pay. Then if your policy doesn’t cover past a certain point, you get the cost directly. Or your deductible on your insurance may b extremely high from the get go. But nothing regulates these costs, and they are just increased at the whim of the hospital or doctors office. Yet health care in the US is not improving under this type of unregulated system.
Furthermore, in states with large immigrant populations (many who are here illegally), the state’s costs for medical care is helping to destroy the state’s budget. And if the state doesn’t pay it directly, you might not like it but you bill goes up to cover the cost. The real cost of illegal immigration is that states do not check citizenship in providing education to their children, or for state funded social services, and for county run medical facilities.
I read recently that inflation of costs associated with medical visits continues to be done, reflecting how unethical billing practices have become rampant in the industry. People you know that when you see a bill for $50 for an aspirin, or $800 for entering the hospital emergency room, you have been had.
When doctors speak out against theses practices, or if they question the legitimacy of how billing is handled, they are often fired – meaning their contract is ended. In many places medical fraud is as popular as other felonious activities like robbery and murder.
I feel the system should not be left in the hands of the fat cats. What about you?
Related Articles:
Doctors speak out about their struggles with a “broken” medical system article

Medical Bankruptcy in the United States, 2007: Results of a National Study

Critical Condition of American Health Care book

Medical Fraud and How it is done: webpage