Patriotism v Money

Reaganomics: Robbing Those with not voice nor vote

Those of us who educated ourselves on the economy, decades ago when things started to 'not look right', are not too surprised to see the collapse. It has been inevitable, since the "less regulation and oversight" in the guise of "Less Government", took deep root in the 80's.

It was around that time that I asked myself: "Where is all this money coming from and going to, now that Reagan is in town?"

I asked that, because I had lived in California when he became the darling of Fiscal Conservatives there. I remembered the damage done on a State level and wondered if he would play out the same scenario on a Federal level. He did.

I saw how he shifted the wealth by giving huge tax breaks to his wealthy pals in his exclusive clubs: The Bohemian Club, which was race exclusive and to which he belonged his entire life, and a lesser known group, "Los Ranchitos" which was primarily into grabbing resources, land and political power for its members, by any means possible.

The people that paid the price for Reaganomics in California were those who could not fight back. The poor, the mentally ill, the severely handicapped, the elderly and the blind.

He cut back and closed several State hospitals under the guise of "mainstreaming" patients. These were people, most of whom could not cope outside of the structure nor survive without the constant care and supervision of those facilities.

The State run institutions had been the only place where those with extreme handicaps and inabilities could be safely housed, clothed and medically supervised.

To the world he cloaked himself as a hero for 'freeing' them. The Ken Kesey novel, "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest", book and later, the film, portrayed institutions as ugly & abusive to patients. The Zeitgeist of that time, played into the theme of 'getting rid' of institutions. Reagan appeared heroic for knocking them down.

The process was swift and brutal. To those of us who had family with extreme mental/physical handicaps, it was terrifying. Everyone had to be essentially "readmitted" and the burden was on the families to justify why their relative needed that care.

Since many of these families were gone, or indigent, their inability to engage meant their family member was 'freed'. Put out on the streets, essentially, with no safety net. (Robin Williams, as Mork, in Mork & Mindy, had a scene where he 'liberated' a dozen eggs to 'fly and be free!' each one crashing and breaking on the floor.)

My own brother, profoundly autistic, violent, unable to speak, bathe himself, bathroom or even feed himself, was scheduled to be 'mainstreamed'. He also had no use of his fingers, which were locked together, like flippers. He walked with a lurch, and was diagnosed with a mild degree of Cerebral Palsy. He was visually impaired in one eye blind in the other.

(Clearly, euphemisms replaced real language early in that process. "Mainstreaming" was a euphemism for 'abandoning' and 'neglecting')

We had to argue with letters, and in front of State Appointed judges who thought that we were 'taking advantage of the system' and that we did not know how well he would fare, because we had not yet 'tried the new way'.

My brother had put his head through every glass pane he ever came near. The theory was that he hallucinated on glass. In the institution he would, abruptly, go over to the doors with the reinforced glass and put his head through it, and then go sit down and laugh, covered in blood. He had, at the time, more than 1500 stitches in his scalp and had been treated, repeatedly, for concussions.

But Reagan deemed him 'able' and told us that there would be outpatient 'clinics' to pick up the slack and give him his medication. Our concerns were brushed aside. The hearings were a sham. He would simply have to learn how to read, use the bus system (which was sparse) and show up for appointments.

He was scheduled to be 'freed' in less than a week, when, as they were writing up the paperwork on him, in the office, he went through the glass door. He was, thereafter, bedridden for years. The State had already cut back on employees and services, so there were not the two medical techs there to supervise that visit. There were, in fact, none.

We then had to battle with the State, frequently, after they decided to allow him to stay on a 'probationary basis', to stop them from performing medical experiments on him. It was put to us, in short, as 'giving him the opportunity to earn his keep by participating in these pharmaceutical and surgical trials'.

These were not 'experiments' to help his condition, mind you. These were experiments for things like liver treatments, sexual alterations, etc. One even stated that by allowing him to be experimented on, we "would be allowing his life to have some purpose and meaning."!!!

Apparently, our State hospitals, what was left of them, were now up for grabs by the labs. Filled with 'throw-a-way' people, without a voice, who could never sue over malpractice.

The State had given its permission to experiment on anyone who did not have family to speak up for them. Anyone deemed a 'ward of the State' which was supoosed to 'protect' them. Dr. Mengele would have loved it.

The so-called 'safety net' of 'outpatient clinics' that were supposed to take up the slack, btw, were drastically cut back the first year, and eliminated by the third year. Now, they are only funded by private donations. Essentially, they no longer exist.

Our jails and prisons are overcrowded, in large part, due to the fact that the severely schizophrenic, mentally handicapped and those with severe emotional/physical disabilities are 'warehoused' there.

Some have whole sections that hold these patients as prisoners. They are given different color uniforms to designate them different from the main criminal population. In other, more crowded prisons, they are must mixed in. "Mainstreamed." So much for 'freeing' the mentally ill, eh?

The blind, the deaf, and the physically handicapped, lost services and assistance. Those who panhandled on the street, were constantly harassed. The elderly lost services, transportation and walk-in clinics that used to assist them in remaining independent.

As we were all running around, trying to get help and services for our family members, we were being portrayed as irresponsible family members seeking to take advantage of the State.

Also, while the Shock Troops were making us all scramble, and the public was reeling from the new wave of mentally ill on the streets, committing and being victims of crimes, wealth was quietly being transferred via the 'deregulation' process, which had begun in earnest, removing, incrementally over time, any ability of our government to stop illegal/unsound practices in the market place.

We were just too busy, swamped, and numbed by the changes in our society to notice that it was going on. We were being told, almost daily, what a great guy Reagan was and how he was 'balancing' the budget.

No one cared to look at whose backs were being broken so he could stand on them and proclaim victory. Saving money was a good thing, right? Apparently, it was the only good thing. Reagan played the Hero in every role, including governor and President.

Ignoring The Warnings

But real life does not neatly mesh with scripted movies and speeches. Things were set in motion that would not survive after the last curtain call. By the time the applause died down, we were already on our way to economic collapse as a result of the economic imbalance created by mindless deregulation and Tax Cuts to the wealthiest.

As a result of those times, the biggest S&L Failures. Those in charge of major institutions often either had no clue as to how to balance their own checkbook, much less run a bank, or they pretended to be ignorant of the rules.

The biggest bank failure of that entire fiasco, was Silverado Savings & Loan. A company run by then president George Bush, Sr's son, Neil Bush. Neil promptly transferred all his assets into his wife's name so that no one could reclaim them through legal means.

It was a signal ignored by our Congress. Especially ignored by a Senator, John McCain, who was so tightly wound in with one of the other major crooks of the time, Charles Keating, that he almost was expelled from the Senate, as one of the Keating Five. But, with so many politicians now in bed with the lobbyists, and the profiteers themselves, he was only slightly embarrassed and suffered not much more than his lame excuses being believed.

Their remedy to the problem was not to reinstate the rules, regulations that had been removed, but to cut the budgets and the power of the oversight agencies, and MORE TAX CUTS for the wealthy. The process of deregulating under the guise of 'getting big government out of our lives' continued.

Transfer of Wealth

Draining the funds from dependent, the weak and the disabled was one of the means that were used to 'increase' the money flow to other aspects of the 'fiscal' machinery.

By no longer having to support those who could not support themselves, and by increasing the impossible burdens on the poor and the disabled, many of whom did not have the means to either fight for themselves or to create public outcry, taxes could be cut for the very wealthy.

By loosening the regulations and restrictions on the marketplace, that had been there to keep the market fair, level and balanced allowed greater streams of personal wealth to be created.

However, it all relied solely on the honor system that no one would do anything illegal or destructive ever. And, of course, we had to trust the wealthy because they were, by default, smarter than the rest of us and would never, ever, do anything to destabilize the markets or undercut the economy. Never. Ever.

When Reaganomics went National, his handsome, movie star face beaming across the nation as its leader, we saw again, how the very people who could not cope on their own, nor fight for themselves, were targeted on a national level.

The prison industry has grown exponentially since that philosophy took hold. The disabled are left to fend for themselves. Minimum wage was stagnated at an unlivable wage creating for the first time: The working poor.

Members of congress, instead of fighting for the people, fought to keep the minimum wage low, or to cut it even further! All the while, giving themselves multiple raises and more benefits. Government was now surgically separating itself from the people it was supposed to represent, and becoming the guard dogs of the wealthy.

Creating Class Warfare

The cutbacks of the funding, training and enforcement of immigration officers and staff were key in creating a labor pool even more desperate and willing to work under extreme circumstances. The cutbacks were hailed as 'cost cutting measures' and applauded by 'fiscal conservatives' as the trimming of fat from the budget.

Removing from operation those that enforce the laws and protect the borders, and creating a decades deep backlog of immigration processing, was essentially creating a no-win situation for those who had tried to do things according to the rules. It was also giving a wink and a nod as the extremely poverty stricken streamed through our borders and found under-the-table wages and very often underhanded treatment, from employers.

These employers were, by and large, not the household looking for a nanny, or a single restaurant looking for a busboy, but mega farms, mega corporations, factories that hired illegals, en mass because they KNEW they could underpay them, mistreat them and the workers could not expose them without losing everything.

Often, payday was met with 'surprise immigration raids'. Workers, not paid, loaded onto buses and taken back across the border. The next shift, a new batch of illegal workers, and the cycle began again.

These were not complex jobs and they did not take more than a few minutes to train the new employees. They were hard, dirty labor, and safety standards were not in place to protect their health or safety. They worked in  substandard conditions, and paid most often, less than minimum wage.

Company profits swelled. Corporations on up the line also benefited from the ginormous loopholes lobbied into the immigration laws, which allowed corporations such as Microsoft to both hire high-skilled, highly educated people from third world countries as trainees, paying them a fraction of the worth of their work, replacing the higher paid local, US Citizens, and increasing their profits.

During this time of greed and grab; accumulated wealth, regardless of who was mistreated to get it, was all that was important. Success measured only by what you had, not by what laws of man or God you violated to get it.

It also set the stage for the "Citizens v the Aliens" as the middle class and the poor battle each other. Racism is fed into the mix to keep it lively. This serves the upper echelons as it keeps them removed from the fray and out of the light of examination of their construction.

Keeping the people fighting among themselves is key to keeping power at the top. When the people become educated, enlightened, they unite, and those who have held the power, lose the power. Nations move forward or implode, depending on whether they unite or fracture under the circumstances.

Keeping people divided from one another on issues of race, religion, ethnicity, gender, income, ability, disability, sexuality and any other extreme notion is key to allowing the power elite to continue without direct challenge.

Rules for Economy? Bad. Rules to Oppress Women? Good.

The same people that wanted "Big Government Out of Our Lives", also set in motion laws and rules that came between a doctor and a patient if that patient was a woman and was seeking either contraception or abortion. Big government in marketplace, bad. Big government in the doctor's office, necessary.

By keeping the population divided on issues that are personal only to a woman and relevant only to her doctor, the bigger issues of the health and security of our nation and our economy, have glided silently under the radar.

Divide & Conquer

Get people mad, about anything, and they don't think. They don't process and they are incapable of stopping anyone from crippling the nation. Keep them fighting amongst themselves and they will be too busy, too distracted and too warn out, too divided to even perceive what greater damage is being done to our entire nation.

Divide and conquer. It has never failed. We have divided and conquered ourselves, since the beginning.

Meanwhile, Back At the Ranch

During this time, and during every administration until now, bigger and bigger tax cuts for the wealthiest among these robber barons, were installed. Warren Buffet commented that his secretary, who made less than $100K a year, paid more in taxes than he does. Think about that. The wealthiest pay less in taxes than the middle class and the working poor.

Present Day: with the economy crashing just prior to the election, and still on a downward spiral, the extremely wealthy, like those who pay the Fat Man $25Million to spout off lies, ignorance in the most inflammatory rhetoric, are squealing like pigs because they don't want to pay more taxes!

Seriously. This country, which for decades, centuries in some cases, has allowed them to not only succeed, but to grab from the poor and take away from the disabled; are squealing that asking them to pay their fare share of taxes to the nation that has given them everything, is somehow, "Punishing them for their success."

Paying taxes is how we support our nation. Serving in the armed forces is how we show our love, loyalty and patriotism to our nation. We show our patriotism and our pride by supporting our nation, and we show our humanity by supporting those who cannot take care of themselves.

Merely grabbing all we can and hoarding the wealth we have stolen, is not considered "Love of Nation" and those who spout it cannot be considered "Patriotic" It is contrary to both principles.

The very wealthy have looked at 'those others', as inferior, not entitled and worse, as 'disposable', to our nation's well-being. If you cannot take their money, experiment on them, what good are they?

The health of our nation depends on us acting like a nation. When those who have and who control the greatest amount of our wealth are unwilling to share the load, we must reveal them for what they are: unpatriotic, gluttonous, ungrateful economic mutants. They give Capitalism a bad name.

They have what they have because it was taken away from others and handed to them. Not because it was earned, but because it was stolen. Stolen in a euphemistically called "Transfer of Wealth."

The wealthy who earned their success are, oddly enough, willing and able to do their share. They are supporting the realignment and returning to balance of the President's plan.

They know that if they don't defend this nation that gave them so much, there will be nothing for anyone to defend around the corner, as we will have weakened ourselves from the inside, with rot at the top, trickling down through the core, insanity.

They have earned what is theirs and they can earn more. They see no future in killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. They are being attacked from both their peers and from above.

The super wealthy, who remain staunch in their lust for power and their greed to dispossess the middle class, rail against the changes to come. They have their hands firmly around the neck of the goose, and they are throttling it with all their might.

Now, at a time of our greatest need, they are asked to give a little back, and they send in The Fat Man.

Growing Up In a Hurry

We have a president who thinks we can be treated as adults. He opened up the budget to show us what is costing what and showing us what has been concealed from us in the previous administration.

Adding in the real numbers, such as the cost of the war, which was NEVER budgeted for in the previous 8 years, substantially increases the size of the numbers. So does including the cost of the hurricane recovery, and several other items that were never budgeted for in the open. Rather, they were always "Emergency Funding Requests" and thus, not on the books. That gave a false sense of what the economic state of our nation really was. Big numbers coming out now are the ones that were concealed before.

Those numbers were always that big. They were just behind the curtain and we were not allowed to know or to see, until now. We were kept in the dark, the truth hidden. Big numbers scare small minds. What does lying do? Creates a false sense of security and of wealth or debt.

Now, in the stark light of day, we are stunned. The Fat Man seeks to create fear and confusion in this time, and move the stunned into mindless chanting minions he calls 'his'.

Blatantly, he calls for the President to fail. As if the President failing would not take the country into failure. And they cheer? What are they thinking?

What remains hidden and not yet discussed, is the wake of destruction of personal lives and families destroyed by Trickle Down Reaganomics; the mentally-ill being warehoused in jails and prisons at costs to the States, hidden from view. Their needs not being met, merely being warehoused, like cattle. The true cost of the war, the lives broken, has yet to be revealed.

More Of Past Practices Coming To Light

The costs of housing, schools, health that are hidden costs of waving immigrants in with one hand while pushing them out with the other.

Immigrants; those unknown numbers estimated to be anywhere for 12-30 million, who want to be citizens, contributing in the open, and they could if the Immigration Department was not slashed to bare bones and less; keeping them in the legal limbo, for decades.

Chaos and underfunding in the Dept. of Immigration serves to disempower them and create a workforce of desperation with no voice.

Whom do you think prospers from this? Try looking behind the curtain and see, clearly, who has, over all this time, become wealthy at their expense and at the expense of every legal citizen in our nation. Those same wealthy corporate entities love to pit "Us v Them". They laugh all the way to the bank.

Had the Federal Government NOT slashed the budgets of both Immigration and enforcement, we would not have the 20-years deep backlog of immigration paperwork waiting to be processed, and a steady stream of those who know it won't be processed, stealing home in desperation.

A visibly working system of Immigration works for everyone. Those who become citizens have to be paid decent wages, and are not allowed to be mistreated.

It is not the immigrants that are fighting immigration overhaul, rather it is those who prosper from the dysfunction of it and who have a voice in government through their lobbyists. They are the ones who create the immigration horrors that we have today. Loopholes are not 'accidental'. They are written in.

The only ones that prosper and thrive from our economic imbalance and xenophobic fears are the very, extremely wealthy, who do not want to be accountable for their actions, nor even named or known. Keeping racism alive protects the wealthiest, and the most powerful.

Those who engage in the combat do not serve themselves. Rather, they perpetuate the circumstances of their frustrations and anger.

False Patriots

If the Fat Man was in any way a Patriot, as he claims, he would champion the very wealthy coming out of their protected caves, and paying their share, for once.

When our country is attacked, it is mostly the poor who send in their sons and daughters, mothers and fathers, to do battle, and keep us safe. They come home broken in mind, body and spirit, and they are thrown away, tortured in substandard facilities and inadequate treatment. Those who survive to live on the streets are denied any respect from the leaders of the country they gave all to protect. Praised in parades, ignored in needs.

Our economy is tumbling. Isn't this where the rich are supposed to step in and do their part? The reluctant wealthy, are still being dragged, kicking and screaming, to pay a fraction of their hoarded wealth to help. The very few who have stepped up, are shunned by their former peers.

Have we become a nation that worships the corrupt wealth over all else? Is it really 'punishing success' to ask that they give back a small fraction of what others have been paying for all this time?

Why has the the Republican Party devolved into the frantic, screaming, lying, gesticulating circus of mental mutants, led by a drug addict who has not gotten his facts straight for 20 years?

What party will now rise up in its place to become the healthy opposition that is supposed to keep our nation in balance?

Revelations

We are at a time of "revealation". The true cost of the war, revealed. The true colors of the greedy powerful elite, revealed. The true result of insanity and Reaganomics, revealed in crippling detail.

The cost of denial brought us to this decline. The ongoing denial and obstructionism will seal our fate. We, as a Nation, must stand up for ourselves now.

We must hold fast and not let go as the changes in how we do business and how we treat our people, emerges. We must protect this time of transition to our better nation self and not allow the yelping of the wealthy elite to intimidate us and stomp us into silence once again.

The Republicans who seek to take advantage of these times to cripple us even more, so that they can once again take power, and continue taking us down the darker road, begun so long ago, led by their hero: Ronald Reagan.

They don't care about the nation, nor the economy. They want only power.

The same power they abused leading to the same scary place we are now trying to dig our way out of. The contribution Republicans made to the stimulus pack was "MORE TAX BREAKS FOR THE WEALTHY." Why? Because those that owns them tells them to. We can all see how well that worked in the 30 year experiment that brought us to where we are today.

It should be obvious, but to those in denial, it is not. We may not be able to save the Republican Party, but we definitely have to work together, to save ourselves.

When the Twin Towers pancaked to the ground; men and women signed up in droves to protect and defend our country.

When the economy collapses, the wealthy, led by the Fat Man, greedily grab at every fragment, and take what was intended to be shared in the first, second & third bailouts, all for themselves, while growling at anyone who would dare to suggest they show some restraint in personal greed and actually use the money as it was intended.

They snarl and bare their teeth when anyone dares to suggest they not hoard for themselves at this one critical time.

Whom do you think the Fat Man is speaking for? The Patriots who sacrifice in a time of need? Or the Wealthy who seize all within their grasp, while families are thrown into the streets?

Our President thinks we can do it. The Fat Man wants him, therefor us, to fail. So, pick a side, or let it be decided for you. Are we together? Or are we going to remain selfishly divided and easily conquered?

We don't have a "Big Government" problem. Rather, we have a small powerful elite group that controls our government, regardless of whom we elect.

That is the problem. It is our job to become aware of whom these laws and policies affect and how, in order to protect ourselves, our Rights and our future. We can do this by making sure our representatives are working for us, and not creating disunity that only serves the powerfully wealthy.

We need to work together, now, more than ever before. It's not over. We don't have time nor resources to continue fighting against our own best interests.