AMERIKA !!

AMERIKA !

The Rise And Fall Of The American Empire



Liberals are for peace and prosperity, Conservatives are for war and business; liberals are pacifists, conservatives are warmongers. Or so you could decide after watching the dismal landscape of the neo-Conservative Right in the age of the War on Terror. Yet there is a long, honorable and mostly hidden tradition of antiwar thought and action among the Conservative movement in America. It stretches from the Federalists of old who opposed the War of 1812 and the civic-minded conservative elite critics of the Spanish-American War. The history continues through the Isolationists who formed the backbone of the pre–World War II America First movement and the conservative Republicans who voted against U.S. involvement in the League of Nations, NATO and Vietnam. Although they are barely audible amid the hawkish clamoring of today’s shock-and-awe Right, libertarians and traditionalist conservatives are among the sharpest critics of the Iraq War and the imperial project of the current neo-con Republicans.
I would argue that while it is accepted that Liberalism has indeed lost it’s way, so has the conservative movement as well. Liberals can’t even call themselves liberals anymore. They use the term Progressives as if they can hide behind some identity wall. A rose by any other name would still smell, I think that’s the way it goes. Anyway Liberalism is all but dead in America, but it has been co-opted by the Imperial ruling class of our nation. As has the once great rising Conservative movement in America seems to have been taken prisoner by the neo-con forces of the day that have learned to tax and spend their way to votes.
In expressing true Conservatism it’s simply people who want no part of foreign wars and who want to be allowed to live their own lives without interference from the government. The antiwar Right has put forth a critique of foreign intervention that is idealistic, historically grounded, and deeply entrenched in the American experience. Just because the neo cons are a blip in our history and are ignorant of history doesn’t mean that true conservatives have to swallow this profoundly un-American Empire.

Most people today especially young people would be of the opinion that if you’re against war that you’re a Liberal. Not true, in fact historically Conservatives have been the ones derided as Isolationists.
The terms Right and Left are thought of as good and evil, and in fact many on each side do think, of their side as masterful and the other as evil. We need to correct the current situation so that there remains no more confusion. So my “Right” is capacious enough to include Jeffersonian libertarians and Jefferson-hating Federalists, Senators Cabot Lodge and Robert Taft, southern populists, Midwestern cornhuskers and Beacon Streeters. They also include the cranky Nebraska tax cutters and little old ladies in tennis shoes marching against the United Nations and free-market economists protesting the draft. They are soccer moms and generation X’ers who distrust institutions. My Conservatives are in the mainstream of our nation, suspicious of government power, bureaucracy and in favor of small government in general. They are so genuinely conservative that they cherish the idea of home and hearth and family.
Rooted in the Farewell Address of George Washington, telling such conservative-tinged antiwar movements as the Anti-Imperialist League, which said no to U.S. colonialism in the Philippines, finding regret and knowing expression in the extraordinary oratory in which President Dwight Eisenhower warned his citizens against the “military-industrial complex,” the conservative case against American Empire and militarism remains forceful and important. It is no museum piece, as if it was something of antiquity. It reverberates wise and deserves revival, but before it can be revived, it must be unburied and lifted up for all to see. Men who faced wars and chose to say no, that isn’t the American way for the most part were Conservatives who were against wars from the beginning of our nation through to today. A good example of a modern Conservative is Congressman Ron Paul of Texas. His message of smaller government, staying out of war and ending the Fed are cornerstones of modern American Conservatism.
On the other hand we continue to try to label each other as right and left, liberal and conservative to try to make ourselves correct and our dissenters wrong.
I am constantly amazed that the most interesting American political figures cannot be squeezed into the constricted and lifeless labels of liberal or conservative. It would be difficult to call George Washington or Abe Lincoln one or the other and certainly both sides want to claim them. Nor do I accept the simpleminded division of our vast and demographically changing country into red and blue, for to paint Colorado, Kansas, and Alabama requires every color in the spectrum. It is much easier I think to read most people as from Purple states. They are right leaning conservative by nature and have a great desire to be left alone by their government. Above all the average American fears most what has been created and now exists, they have feared empire. They have feared what we have wrought.
The pen-named Garet Garrett a novelist and individualist, and a once-reliable staff member for the Saturday Evening Post. In 1953, he set down a quintet of imperial requisites that describe empire. First, that the executive power of the government shall be dominant. That certainly seems to be the case today. Secondly that domestic policy becomes subordinate to foreign policy. Thirdly, ascendancy of the military mind to such a point at last that the civilian mind is intimidated. In the fourth place a system of satellite nations. Finally a complex of vaunting and fear, which certainly seems appropriate for today. Between “Constitutional, representative, limited government, on the one hand, and Empire on the other hand, there is mortal enmity,” wrote Garrett.
More than fifty thousand American boys had died—for what?—on the Korean peninsula. This was the first of a long line of military conflicts that US Presidents would engage in without congressional approval. Truman had refused to obtain from Congress a formal declaration of war. As we have seen our executive branch has made our constitution something that can be manipulated with tricks and legalese. This was what our founding fathers had warned against and over the past sixty plus years is what has come to pass.
Why did these men of the “Right” oppose expansion, war, and empire? In contemporary America, where have all the followers gone? They seem to have been kidnapped by the neo cons so in love with the bellicose thunder of war. I’m here to spread the word that we’re still here and ready to retake our Conservative movement.
As Bill Kauffman puts it in his profound Ain’t My America, “from the Republic’s beginning, Americans of conservative temperament have been skeptical of manifest destiny and crusades for democracy. They have agreed with Daniel Webster that "there must be some limit to the extent of our territory, if we are to make our institutions permanent. The Government is very likely to be endangered . . . by a further enlargement of its already vast territorial surface." Is it really worth trading in the Republic for southwestern scrubland? Webster’s point was remade, just as futilely, by the Anti-Imperialist League. It was repeated by those conservatives who supplied virtually the only opposition to the admission of Hawaii and Alaska to the Union. As the Texas Democrat Kenneth M. Regan told the House when he vainly argued against stitching a forty-ninth star on the flag, "I fear for the future of the country if we start taking in areas far from our own shores that we will have to protect with our money, our guns, and our men, instead of staying here and looking after the heritage we were left by George Washington, who told us to beware of any foreign entanglements."
In America throughout the twentieth century, and including four substantial wars abroad, conservatives had been consistently the voices of non-inflationary military budgets, and an emphasis on trade in the world instead of American nationalism. In the two World Wars, in Korea, and in Viet Nam, the leaders of American entry into war were such renowned liberals as Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman and John F. Kennedy. In all four episodes conservatives, both in the national government and in the rank and file, were largely opposed to all of those wars. Again I say these things not so much to inflict labels upon people as much as to educate the masses who thirst to know the true answers to these questions.
Today’s self described conservatives loathe and detest anyone who speaks for peace. FDR and Truman join Ronald Reagan in the trinity of favorite presidents of the contemporary neo cons; those Old Rightists who harbor doubts about U.S. entry into the world wars or our Korean or Vietnam conflicts that were scripted, launched, and propagandized for by liberal Democrats are dismissed as cranks.

Vice President Dick Cheney charged that the Democrats wanted to “retreat behind our oceans”—which an earlier generation of peace-minded Republicans had considered a virtuous policy consistent with George Washington’s warning to avoid foreign entanglements and alliances.
In pre-imperial America, conservatives objected to war and empire out of a fervent regard for personal liberty, a balanced budget, the free enterprise system, and federalism. These concerns came together under the umbrella of the misunderstood America First Committee, the largest popular antiwar organization in U.S. history. The AFC was formed in 1940 to keep the United States out of a second European war that many Americans feared would be a repeat of the first. A group that had over eight hundred thousand members who ranged from rich to poor, from Main Street Republican to rural populist, America First preached and acted upon George Washington’s Farewell Address counsel to pursue a foreign policy of neutrality. Of course after the attack on Pearl Harbor they were all but crucified. As the America Firsters discovered, protesting war is a lousy career move.
These brave men and women also insisted that dissent can be patriotic. For protesting the drive to war in 1941, Charles Lindbergh was called a Nazi by the establishment under Roosevelt. For challenging the constitutionality of Harry Truman’s Korean conflict, Senator Robert Taft would be labeled a commie sympathizer. That Pat Buchanan would be called an anti-Semite for noting the role that Israel’s supporters played in driving the United States into the two invasions of Iraq. Same as it ever was, if you disagree with the executive branch especially in the age of the Imperial Presidency you are often lonely. Isn’t that what being a real Conservative is after all, a harkening back to better times by a strong but smaller minority. Senator Taft was vigorous in his debate against the Korean War in January 1951 during the brief debate over Korea and NATO strategy between hawkish liberal Democrats and peace-minded conservative Republican. Taft said that "Criticisms are met by the calling of names rather than by intelligent debate." So true, more than ever before are those resonating voices from descent over the War of 1812 to descent over the Middle East Wars of today.

Edgar Masters, the Spoon River Anthology poet and states’-rights Democrat who threw away his career by writing of Abraham Lincoln as a guileful empire builder. Masters recalled of the Spanish-American War: “There was great opposition to the war over the country, but at that time an American was permitted to speak out against a war if he chose to do so.” Masters had lived through the frenzied persecutions of antiwar dissidents under the liberal Democrat Woodrow Wilson. He had little patience with rosy colored patriotic images about wars for human rights and the betterment of mankind. He knew that war meant death and taxes, those very real inevitabilities that become the focus of government propaganda to support their endeavors. The antiwar Middle Americanism that he represented has never gone away. It surfaced even during Vietnam, that showpiece war of the best and brightest establishment liberal Democrats. President Johnson’s War, the military industrial complex’s war of imperial conquest.
Most conservative Republicans were gung-ho on Vietnam, discarding their erstwhile preference for limited constitutional government, the right-wing antiwar banner was carried by such libertarians as Murray Rothbard and some in Congress led by the fiscally conservative Iowa Republican congressman H. R. Gross, who said no to the war on the simple if not wholly adequate grounds that it cost too much.
The Iraq war of George Bush has rekindled the old antiwar spirit of the true Conservatives. Of course, both Republicans and Democrats have fretted mightily over recent opinions from the Council on Foreign Relations showing that the American people are reverting to isolationism, which the council defines as hostility toward foreigners. I think the very idea of isolationism is wholesome, peaceful, conservative and very American. The reluctance to intervene in the political and military struggles of other nations is at the heart of our early American tradition.
A Pew Research Center survey in the fall of 2005 found, 42 percent of Americans agreed that the U.S. “should mind its own business internationally and let other countries get along the best they can on their own.” As a Pew press release noted, over the last forty years "only in 1976 and 1995 did public opinion tilt this far toward isolationism."
Democrats were “twice as likely as Republicans to say the U.S. should mind its own business internationally,” a sign of just how successful the neoconservatives have been in reshaping the GOP mindset. A decade earlier, Pew found no substantial difference in isolationist attitudes among Republican and Democratic partisans. In the true heart of most Americans lies a strong desire to be left alone and to leave others alone to solve their own problems. This is not a democrat or republican thing, it is an American thing.
In spite of our current Wilsonian approach to trying to use the U.S. military to construct a democratic Middle East, this is not what our people want. Pew also found that encouraging democracy in other nations comes in last in the foreign-policy priorities of Americans. Only 24 percent of respondents affirmed that goal compared to 84 percent who favored protecting jobs of American workers and 51 percent who placed reducing illegal immigration atop their list. Protecting American jobs and immigration reform are classic themes of the conservative movement. Men like Patrick Buchanan and Ronald Paul are great examples of this isolationist sentiment. There is nothing cowardly about these Middle Americans who are against foreign wars. In fact they are acting in the best traditions of their ancestors. The history of conservatism or small-government, or even Republican hostility to militarism and empire is not a modern view shared by many. These traditions are unheralded but truly are at the heart of what our founding fathers believed.
In current teaching of history and politics we view making war as a conservative’s dream, when it’s actually a nightmare for the real conservative. For all they know, Robert Taft and Cabot Lodge might as well be Fidel Castro. Yet there is a grumbling by the Right, who understand the potential of an anti-interventionist electoral wave. Now people are once more asking the never-answered question of the isolationist, why in world are we over there? A question that has many answers and almost all the answers end up in tattered dreams and dead Americans.



Our revolution itself was a conservative movement. A group of men decided that keeping their liberty was more important than belonging to the empire of their day. The same way we need to restore our nation to it’s original ideas of small government and liberty for it’s citizens in a true republic. There is nothing conservative about the American Empire. It seeks to destroy, which is why good conservatives, those loyal to family and home and our best traditions.
In fact it should be said very clearly that we must work for the peaceful dismantling of the American empire. It’s my hope to educate and illuminate the public so that we can take back our country and restore it to the principals of liberty that it was founded on.

Bye Bye Miss American Pie

When I was a teen our music was important, it gave meaning to the world and provided a forum of expression. Today's air waves are but a poor resemblance to the musical revolution of the past that gave meaning for an entire generation.New or original rock'n'roll isn’t made anymore. Yes people are playing rock from every era, and musicians are producing what they think rock'n'roll should be. But, the heart of rock music, the explosive sensation of sound, youth and fury has become a part of history.

Rock music borrowed from the blues/gospel music of the south; they used the twangy flavor of the grand ole opry, adding the rhythmic smoothness of big band swing. From this unholy union burst the new wave of music that not only affected the tunes on the radio, but influenced the beat on the street.
The tunes of McCartney and Lennon ushered us into the psychedelic sounds of that era incorporating eastern mysticism with the drug culture of the 60's & 70's.

In unison with the folk poetry of Dylan and his ilk, there was little doubt that young people would be heard. Again music was taking youth to places it had never been before.
Music espoused revolution and spread a new message of coming change. Music now demanded change and acceptance of all philosophies as the voice of a whole generation drove that need right through your stereo speakers. Rock'n'roll had graduated into an art form that spoke for moral concepts and urged mankind to follow a new path. Contemporary music assured us that a new golden age was in the making, one that could eliminate wars, denounce racism and put an end to much of the world's poverty and suffering. All this and it had a great beat that you could dance to.

The spark of change was kept alive by the sound of The Clash, The Sex Pistols, The Police and dozens of faceless punks with instruments accosting us about a system gone wrong. But rock as social catalyst was rapidly running out of steam.

The advent of Grunge rock in the 80's was a logical follower to punk. The players tried to keep the music alive and socially relevant through their aggressive minimalism and crude relationship to their audience. Unfortunately the tunes, the playing and the lyrics were void, degrading, and often rehashed from various other eras. The social relevance of grunge was raw, loud, but short-lived and out of touch.
The most vital movement of the last 25 years has been rap. Rap music is the music that speaks for outcasts as well as heroes. Gangsta rap is so socially in tune the rappers are involved in as much gunplay as drum play. It's a further sad commentary that many hip-hop artists have traded on their freshness and parlayed it into symbols for clothing, jewelry, and cosmetics. This does not sing of revolution or brotherhood, but is rather a lullaby to corporate America. Instead of being part of a revolution Rap has been packaged and mass marketed and coopetd from the people.
Now we are at a changed paradigm in music. Often artists just remake songs that young listeners have never heard before showing them off as brand new material, manipulated and marketed by whatever large company has paid for the promotion.




We have worn out the musical cookbook. Our society is too drained to develop a music that represents youth. In the 1970's Don McClean was right about "the day the music died". "American Pie" was a couple of decades premature though. Music kept evolving until somewhere in the 80's when "video killed the radio star". Around that time, music stopped regenerating and became its own parody. Young musicians line up for a spot on "American Idol", where performers compete for money and media contracts.
The tastiest tunes of rock have been collected by big business to sell automobiles and espouse the merits of lite beer. These corporate advertisers also present the finest of the new sounds. Is anyone feeling inspired? Today's rock'n roll has lost its vision and it’s message. Sure there are some great sounds on the airwaves, but they won’t become the classics of tomorrow. Nothing so far in the new millennium has anything fresh. All the rock music has become fodder for the merchandising machine. Good-looking, hard-selling, ear-splitting numbers on a ledger. So bye bye Miss American Pie, I can barely see the chevy in the levee.

The Proof Is In The Pudding

The Proof Is In The Pudding

The Mercatus Center at George Mason University just released a study that was produced by Jason Sorens an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Buffalo and William Ruger, Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at the Texas State University.
Founded 25 years ago, Mercatus describes itself as working "to advance knowledge about how markets work to improve our lives by training graduate students, conducting research, and applying sound economics to offer solutions to society’s most pressing problems" with a mission to "generate knowledge and understanding of how institutions affect the freedom to prosper and find creative solutions to overcome barriers that prevent individuals from living free, prosperous, and peaceful lives."

The study focused on three broad categories such as fiscal policy, regulatory restriction and paternalism. With regard to fiscal policies they researched things like taxation, debt to income ratio, government spending as a percentage of income and employment. With regard to regulatory policy they looked at state mandates, eminent domain and business required licenses and permits among others. Finally the category of paternalism where they examined social freedom such as gun control, same sex marriage and sin taxes imposed by government.

New York is by far the least Free State in the Union. The states motto is Excelsior which translates to “ever upward” as in costs to live here. It has also experienced the most interstate emigration of any state over the last decade. New York has by far the highest taxes in the country. Property, selective sales, individual income, and corporate-income taxes are particularly high. Spending on public welfare, hospitals, electric power, transit, employee retirement, and “other and unallocable” expenses are well above national norms. On personal freedoms, gun laws are extremely restrictive, but marijuana laws are better than average, while tobacco laws are extremely strict, and cigarette taxes are the highest in the country. Motorists are highly regulated, and home school regulations are excessive, but nondrug victimless-crimes arrests are low. New York has the strictest health-insurance community-rating regulations in the country, which have wiped out the individual market. Mandated coverages are worse than average but were actually cut back substantially in 2007–2008. Eminent domain abuse is rampant and unchecked.

New Hampshire is the freest state in the country. Their state motto is “ Live free or die” and seems to be fairly appropriate. New Hampshire does much better on economic than personal freedom and on fiscal than regulatory policy. Under unified Democratic control in 2007–2008, the state saw a respectable increase in freedom. A smoking ban was enacted, but so were same-sex civil unions.


Taxes, spending, and fiscal decentralization remain more than a standard deviation better than average, and government debt actually went down slightly. Gun laws are among the most liberal in the country, but carrying a firearm in a car requires a concealed carry permit. Effective retail-tax rates on wine and spirits are zero. Marijuana laws are middling; low level possession could be decriminalized like it is in Maine, while low-level cultivation could be made a misdemeanor like it is in both Maine and Vermont. New Hampshire is the only state in the country with no seatbelt law for adults. It lacks a motorcycle helmet law but does have a bicycle-helmet law and authorizes sobriety checkpoints. Eminent-domain reforms have gone far. The state’s liability system is one of the best, but campaign-finance regulations are quite strict. The drug law-enforcement rate is low and dropping, while arrests for other victimless crimes are high and dropping.

Statistics show that Free states of New Hampshire, Colorado, Texas, Georgia, Florida and North Carolina are all gaining population in the range op 5 -7 % or more. While the Nanny states of New York, New Jersey, California, Massachusetts and Illinois are all declining between 5 – 9% per year since 2007.

Around the country people are voting with their feet as they flee the least free states in America and move to free states that allow them to pursue happiness. The is tacit approval that liberty, the freedom to live and be left alone and the ability to pursue a happy life is an inalienable right that comes from our creator but can be taken by our government. Invariably people given a choice are choosing freedom over the Nanny state.

Common Sense: Our National Debt IS About To Swallow Us!

Common Sense: Our National Debt IS About To Swallow Us!: "Our huge national debt is about to swallow us whole. We used to talk in terms of millions of dollars for a very long time. Then it seemed ..."

Our National Debt IS About To Swallow Us!

Our huge national debt is about to swallow us whole. We used to talk in terms of millions of dollars for a very long time. Then it seemed in the 1990’s we started talking in billions of dollars and now in the past few years we’re talking in Trillions of dollars. President Obama didn’t invent deficit spending even though he may have exacerbated it, he certainly didn’t do it by himself. He had help from democrats and republicans both who can share in the blame for our crisis. The first dramatic growth spurt of the debt occurred during the Civil War. The debt was just $65 million in 1860 and reached $2.7 billion following the war. The debt slowly fluctuated for the rest of the century, finally growing steadily in the 1910s and 1920s to roughly $22 billion as the country paid for involvement in World War I. The buildup and involvement in World War II plus social programs during the Roosevelt and Truman presidencies in the 1930s and 40s caused a sixteen fold increase in the gross debt from $16 billion in 1930 to $260 billion in 1950.
After this period, the growth of the gross debt closely matched the rate of inflation where it tripled in size from $260 billion in 1950 to around $909 billion in 1980. With the programs of the Great Society and our welfare state, Vietnam, the Middle East, the Arms race and Iraq and Afghanistan the debt as soared out of control.
In nominal dollars the public debt rose and then fell between 1992 and 2000 from $3 Trillion in 1992 to $3.4 Trillion in 2000. During the administration of President George W. Bush, the debt increased from $5 trillion in 2001 to over 10 trillion by 2008, rising from 57% of GDP to 74% of GDP. The Congressional Budget Office estimated in March 2009 that under the Obama administration public debt would rise from 70% of GDP in 2008 to 100% in 2012.
No wonder that our debt is out of control when our politicians use the budget for the express purpose of bribing the American public. Of course Congress and the president do this so that they can get elected and re elected to office.
Our percent of debt as it relates to GDP was around 50% when Ronald Reagan was in office, but it hasn’t been lower than 60% since 2003 under George W. Bush. Since the War on Terror, Economic upheaval and out of control spending by Congress through bailouts and the rest we’re headed into 100% of GDP. Each American citizen man woman and child owes close to $50,000 each toward our national debt.
We can’t say on one hand we want to spend more on social programs and cut the budget on the other hand. Just like at our own homes we need to reduce all spending when we have an economic crisis and there must be no sacred cows. Forget politics as usual and cut the budget otherwise our whole economic system may very well collapse as we know it. As we get more productive in the economy debt as a share of GDP will reduce. We have a duty to our children and grandchildren to leave them a better world, as our parents and grand parents did for us. Stop the blame game, roll up your shirt sleeves and get to work!

My new book is now available here. A powerful biography of William Henry Harrison, our ninth president who has largely been overshadowed by history. He led an extraordinary life and was a fascinating and compelling historical figure. Check it out!!

A Toxic Mix

Article first published as A Toxic Mix on Technorati.

Our nation is suffering from more than just a budget deficit. We are dealing with a triangular threat of shortages that need to be controlled or we may indeed perish as a society. As we are beginning to see that as history repeats itself, the cost keeps getting higher as the lessons go on. As we come dangerously close to our doom from a toxic mix of shortfalls, now is the time we need our legislators to act.

As our budget deficit reaches past 14 and heads to 15 trillion dollars many Americans wonder what in the hell has happened? How did we get here and what can we expect in the future? From the start of our nation in we had little debt until the Civil War. Then our debt rose to 25% of GDP and within a few years after the war it returned to near zero. The next blip was during World War I when our debt reached 35% of GDP and then settled at 7%. Then the Great Depression and World War II it reached and all-time high of 120% and afterwards fell back to a more reasonable 25% after the war. The 1970’s saw our debt begin to spiral with the costs of LBJ’s Great Society and Vietnam when our debt reached 45% of GDP.

The fallout of stagflation of the late 70’s and early 80’s left our debt at 64% of GDP, before settling down to around 50% in the post Reagan nineties and Clinton’s budget surpluses. Under President Bush our post 9/11 deficits reached a record 65% of GDP in 2008. Since then under Obama our debt has skyrocketed to 76% and is projected to be 100% by 2012.

Baby Boomers are no longer a projection we are real. In the next 10 years the very presence of the boomers spells doom for the economy because of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Thomas Jefferson thought it was immoral to pass on debts from one generation to another. In the last 50 years it has become a religion of our political leaders to pass it on and pass it on generational. Our government seems addicted to a schizophrenic tax and spend policy that must be dealt with now, it can’t wait.




Our savings deficit is at a critical level as we have seen our nation’s savings rate decline precipitously over the years. In the 60’s and 70’s the savings rate was around 12 – 13 %, in the 80’s and 90’s it was cut in half as we became deficit spenders as a people. It grew worse as we turned to a new century it was 3% and now stands at a negative 3%. In short we are a nation of net deficit spenders just like our government. As the Fed creates more money it will be in grave danger of creating a crash of our currency. As the Fed tries to control inflation and stimulate growth it has been using an insane out of control money supply theory that will doom us as a nation.

Our trade shortfall is also so far out of control we are in danger of becoming a third world country before long. The #1 nation in the world is China in trade surplus followed by Germany, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Japan. Meanwhile we are #224 out of 224, in deficit spending. Someday we may well wake up and wonder where all the dollars have gone and they will be in China. This can also give political power to China as they own more and more of our national debt.

Most great empires of the past fell from within as we seem to be. A collapse of morality, political strength, fiscal responsibility and stretched military assets all are coming together in a perfect storm that could well spell the end of the American experiment. Excesses of the ruling class, PAC’s that have all the power and people with none. Fraud, waste and abuse at all levels of society and $53 Trillion dollars of unfunded Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid funding and a tax rate that would have to double to curb it all. By 2044 our nation’s debt could well be 244% of GDP and that my friend’s is a third world country.

We need to demand that government cut spending immediately and everyone must share in the pain. It’s time to wake up and pay the bill.