Governmentalism: 20-Painful Irony: Obama Declaration of War and Monday Night Entertainment

'Boardwalk Figurine of
George Washington
Crossing the Delaware'.

Atlantic City, New Jersey,
2003.






{Governmentalism is not an ideology. It is a method of taking control of money, people, resources, and existing forms of government.}

Were you watching NBC Monday evening, March 28, 2011? Obama made change, in a break with tradition, by delivering his speech on the Libyan military action, not in the usual personal 'My Fellow Americans' style from the Oval Office of the White House, but from a podium in the Military Defense University Auditorium. Obama's oratory, was a long, noble, but rather vague explanation of the 136 Tomahawk missile US-led military action against Libya's Colonel Moammar Khaddafy. Obama's most immediate goal appeared to be the transfer of leadership to European and Arab 'partners' in the action.

What followed on the NBC channel was stunningly cognitively dissonant, even macabre. The usual Oval Office announcements of US war activities are sobering, given by somber US Presidents who appear somewhat discomfited by such involvement. The speech ends, the screen fades to black. Then the television journalists begin the analysis of the speech, what was meant, what this action may mean for the US.

Obama's Libyan address was a real change. Suddenly, following the speech, cameras pan an auditorium filled with men in 'black tie' tuxedos and women in party dresses. Then the lights came up, there was a choir of dozens, well-known entertainers performing music and announcing the presence of 4 former presidents and their wives. Former Presidents George HW Bush with wife Barbara and son George W. Bush with wife Laura were present. Husband of current Obama Administration US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, William J. Clinton, President for two administrations between the 1st and 2nd Bush Administrations, recognized the other former presidents and spoke briefly of US 'public service'. The viewers saw the benefits. To their credit, former President Jimmy Carter and wife Lillian appeared somewhat less comfortable than the others.

Despite the noble words of Barack H. Obama, the spirit of the United States of America was somehow sullied by the light rock concert which followed Obama's Libyan
address. There seemed to be a profound display of insensitivity in going to a rock concert after announcing a foreign war, violent air strikes to stop violence. The event may have been very unsettling to very many US citizens.

US citizens usually celebrate the end of war. War saddens many Americans, even if some hope to retain their military paychecks by going to war.

Obama's Declaration/Concert certainly confirms the foreign view, that the US often is perceived as, insensitive, arrogant, and invasive.


Email mkrause381@gmail.com or mkrause54@yahoo.com to comment or request a copy of this or other blogs posted by mary for monthlynotesstaff on http://monthlynotes21.blogspot.com (http://monthlynotes.blogspot.com through '21'). See http://monthlynotes18.blogspot.com and '19' for bloglists of titles and URLs.

Graphic: An Original Photographic of 'Boardwalk Figurine of George Washington Crossing the Delaware', Atlantic City, New Jersey, 2003, copyright, mkrause381@gmail.com or mkrause54@yahoo.com.

Governmentalism: 19-Where are US Dollars Better Spent? Over There or in America?

'Storm
Over
Mount Rushmore',

South Dakota,
USA, 1995.






{Governmentalism is not an ideology. It is a method of taking control of money, people, resources, and existing forms of government.}

Recently, Michael Barone wrote that the weakest part of American politics involves the selection of candidates for President/Vice President. Barone laments the lack foreign policy and military expertise in candidates. This assumes that the primary goal of American government is international politics and requires a military presence.

Going to war elsewhere is a well-known distraction from problems at home. The Romanovs, the last Russian family dynasty, went to war in what would become the soviet republics. In 1917, Russia fell to the Communists and became the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). Hungry, unemployed Russians fell under the influence of European Socialists and Communists while the last of the Romanov Tsars was off at war.

War has often been hypothesized to stimulate the American economy. Production of military weaponry, supplies, work for employed and unemployed men, traditionally, and domestic work for women while the men were off at war, sent money around the economy. The downside of WWI was the creation of the 'income tax', presented as only a temporary tax to pay for the war.

The costs of current wars is exorbitant: $1 million dollars for each of 136 'Tomahawk' missiles fired on only one day of the current Libyan 'no fly' military action. US military money definitely is moving, 'kinetic'.

Because of the enormous $14.3 Trillion dollar federal deficit, 93% of Gross National Product (GNP), it is vital to evaluate new expenditures. Perhaps new rules of engagement, beyond the older, simpler, 'it's ok to bomb if bombed', need to be developed before we are stuck in another 10-20 year conflict in yet another '3rd world', Muslim-occupied zone.

Libya is a particular problem because it is impossible to tell the 'white hats' from the 'black hats', the 'blue' from the 'grey', 'shirts vs. skins'. Television and Cable coverage reveals no one is in uniform, except Col. Moammar Khaddafy in that old brown tunic and floppy hat.

In recent coverage of a woman protester's removal from a Tripoli, Libya hotel, Khaddafy's Libyan army guards are guys wearing civilian clothes, grabbing a woman by linking her arm, forcing her into a black car. She could easily have been being abducted by a rival gang, given the innuendo and allegations involved.

This is a trend across the Middle East also. In Egypt, there were uniformed military driving tanks but Egyptian police took off their uniforms and mingled in the crowd of pro-democracy demonstrators. The same is true of videos throughout the region. Signs, placards, protesters with tattoos are on early videos. Then videotapes are full of people in civilian clothes rioting and running in the streets.

The lack of conventional warfare, lines of uniformed soldiers with muskets lining up to fight, make it hard to follow who is government supporter, who is rebel. Within the category of rebels: who is a true protester for democracy, who is a government police officer, who is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood or Al-Qaida using the uprising against secular government to the advantage of Islamic religious extremists?

What should the US do when asked for support by foreign groups or Obama while demanding a foreign leader 'step down'? Perhaps the US, at least Congress and the Pentagon, should simply answer: we cannot go to war unless the rivals can take the time to find uniforms so we know who are our allies and who are our foes.

Four of the greatest of the American Presidents are engraved in stone at Mount Rushmore. George Washington, the founder of the nation, 1st President of the US (1789-1797), sacrificed his personal wealth to secure the independence of the original 13 colonies from Great Britain. Thomas Jefferson, Washington's Secretary of State, 3rd President of the US (1801-1809), the major author of 'The Declaration of Independence', left office before the onset of the War of 1812 against Great Britain. 'Rough Rider' Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President of the US (1901-1909), the most warlike of the four, said at the onset of the Spanish-American War, 'I should welcome almost any war, for I think the country needs one'. Abraham Lincoln, 16th President President of the US (1861-1865), was Commander-in-Chief during the Civil War and fought to Preserve the Union, arguably after sparking secession of a number of Southern states.

But the wars in North Africa and the Middle East are foreign wars fought in remote Muslim-occupied regions. These wars involve nations with long histories of dictatorships, some secular, many religious. And the people are from very different cultures, with different beliefs, who speak different languages, even eat different foods.

Fighting foreign wars may distract the American population. But this does not solve the problems at home. Domestic issues in the US, public and private debt, unemployment/underemployment, new hunger in 'new poor' from educated, previously working and middle classes, and cultures in conflict within the US, with over 13 million new immigrants, legal and illegal, overwhelm local, state, and federal domestic social welfare budgets.

Honesty, integrity, clear thinking, clear goals, and a real commitment to solving domestic problems in the US are required for US politicians, for the US to maintain a presence and represent democracy around the world.


Email mkrause381@gmail.com or mkrause54@yahoo.com to comment or request a copy of this or other blogs posted by mary for monthlynotesstaff on http://monthlynotes.blogspot.com (http://monthlynotes.blogspot.com through'21') on www.google.com. See http://monthlynotes18.blogspot.com or '19' for bloglists of titles and URLs.

Graphic: An Original Photographic of 'Storm Over Mount Rushmore', South Dakota, USA, 1995, copyright mkrause381@gmail or mkrause54@yahoo.com.

Governmentalism: 18-The Paper Economy, Bill-Collecting, and Anger in America

'Jellyfish
in the Sand'

Galveston, Texas,
2001.







Governmentalism is not an ideology. It is a method of taking control of money, people, resources, and existing government.

Despite the birth of the nation in 1776 from the violence of the American Revolutionary War against Great Britain, and the preservation of the nation in 1865 from the violence of the Civil War, modern America is not given to violence.

Violence involving the US militarily since 1865 has occurred elsewhere, during World War I and II, the Korean Conflict, Vietnam, Desert Storm and the succession of Middle Eastern and now Libyan, North Africa military actions.

What has occurred however is the growth of debt, unpalatable to most Americans. Federal debt has skyrocketed because of these wars and conflicts, and the concurrent population boom since the 1960s when Democrat Party President Lyndon Baines Johnson opened the door to uncontrolled immigration. The cost of the military-industrial complex and the social welfare-industrial complex has increased the federal deficit to $14.3 Trillion dollars.

The tax aggressiveness of governmentalists to bring in tax revenue to fund their salaries, of the older 'black civil rights' movements, and newer immigrants, legal and illegal, to fund social welfare services has overwhelmed local, state, and federal government budgets.

There is a trickle-down effect as governmentalists and politicians set attitudes, policies, and activities in the nation. Expensive, perhaps naively conceived, industrial bailouts like the student finance industry have created a bill-collecting aggressiveness in both public and private sectors.

The relative de-industrialization of the economy has reduced available jobs. And made it more likely that displaced, underemployed, unemployed workers and new entrants to the labor force will delay for academic or trade school education or training programs.

Thus debt and bill-collecting extend to more members of society. While this is good for the student finance industry and schools, it is not so good for those who, after college or trade school, face the same problem: how to find a paying job?

As more people are bill-collected, anger is generated in society. These have done as they were told to do to succeed, yet success still is elusive. And there are more problems, financial obstacles to homes, apartment, automobiles, business loans, created by bill collectors.

Also the more aggressive turn to bill-collecting, in home-based or other financial services businesses. While outlawed under the real laws of the US in the United States Code as 'Racketeer Influenced Crime Organizations', extortion, extortionate extension of credit by those who do not lend or sell goods or services abounds.

People become meaner, 'taking from other people' by extortion and threats. The naive may at least initially send payments to those whom they do not owe. Bill collectors stalk, menace, harass, and often vandalize or commit other crimes against those who will not 'send payments' to their computerized home-based or other bill-collecting business.

Real and substantial harm is done to those who are bill collected, negatively credit reported in the denial of apartments, cars, business and other loans, or whose family relationships or friendships are harmed or destroyed by bill collectors.

Bill collectors take names from lists, demand money, and seek to destroy reputations and lives of those who will not send money to them, often randomly, often targeted at a person who they do not like or a person who belongs to a group they do not like.

Sometimes, no notice is sent to the person, but the bill collector seeks money by submitting computer 'cookies' or informant reports to businesses for payment.

Sometimes, someone who thinks a person drove too fast or to slow or parked in a space they wanted to park in tries to trace a vehicle or person through traffic police, DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles), background check or other companies. Auto insurance companies may try to track cars. Car thieves often operate through these and other lists.

As more people, even officials like police and politicians, work on a commission basis, due to downsizing of budgets, or become more aggressive or greedier, the threats to people and property become more worrisome.

There are anecdotal reports that one of the largest names in the student loan industry works off lists of applicants to schools or students. The company sends out a brochure, lists the name as an account, assigns an amount, and off go the rounds of bill collection, then delinquency notices, negative credit reports, and sale of these lists to other companies.

The enormous number of accidental and deliberate errors in the 'credit reporting agency' (CRA) industry have created a 'white collar' racketeering industry, with extortionate extension of 'credit', stalking, menacing, harassment, threats of court actions, and even violence.

The large number of foreign immigrants, who do not speak or read American English well enough to understand these documents, which are often bought and sold as sources of large, immediate income only adds to the problem. Such 'bad paper' also is floated in the welfare, developmental/mentally retarded/emotionally disturbed, drug and alcohol rehabilitation, prison release, and other populations. Among these are many with 'anger control', aggression, and histories of violent behavior, whether crimes against property (like slashed tires, otherwise vandalized cars) and people (notice and phone call harassment, intimidation, threats of harm, home invasion).

'Dumpster divers' routinely 'dive' to find receipts. The divers then set up bill collection companies or gangs against people who have paid their bills and tossed their receipts into the trash. Some take company receipts home from work or take or use computerized information from employers or clients.

More 'official' trends, like automated lawsuit filing, only increase the mountains of 'bad paper'. This increases the likelihood that someone will be stalked, menaced, and harassed by an upset, desperate, or simply greedy person.

As the courthouse crowd looks for more bankruptcy proceedings for day to day case load 'business' or opportunities for profit by financially restructuring 'confiscated' businesses for members of the general population or of ethnic, racial, special needs, or special interest groups, the US becomes a meaner, less lawful, more dangerous, and angrier society.

Email mkrause381@gmail.com or mkrause54@yahoo.com to comment or request copies of this or other blogs posted by mary for monthlynotesstaff on http://monthlynots21.blogpot.com (http://monthlynotes.blogspot.com through '21') on www.google.com.

Graphic: An Original Photographic of 'Jellyfish in the Sand', Galveston, Texas, 2001.

Governmentalism: 17-In the US and Abroad

'Sea Grasses
Fighting Beach Erosion'
Near Galveston, Texas,
2001.











Governmentalism is not an ideology. It is a method of taking control of money, people, resources, and existing forms of government.

The US has been in Afghanistan for decades now. Recent news articles suggest US efforts may have been more costly and less influential than the US had hoped.

In 'The Washington Post', Sunday, March 6, 2011, Rajiv Chandrasekaran's 'As US war priorities shift, focus on Afghan women's rights dims' describes 'fluid, rapidly changing' conditions for US Agency for International Development contract plans for a $140 million Land Reform Program. The original program specified ways in which women were to be included in the new Afghan nation. The Land Reform Program called for a 50% increase in the number of deeds granted to women, allowing women to inherit and keep the land in their families or to obtain land. Another clause required the inclusion of women's rights high school and college materials.

There was no specified government in Afghan for about 9 years after the Soviets left Afghanistan and the US military presence predominated. There has been a succession of changing tribal alliances. While Afghanistan appears more stable under President Hamid Karzai as the US presence diminishes, alliances continue to shift.

Election voting fraud has been a problem. So has government finance. In September, 2010 'The New York Times' and other US newspapers carried numerous stories about the consolidation of banks and money by Karzai and his political allies and complaints of exclusion and fraud by other factions.

What began as 'nation-building' has become rebuilding. Much like the old Afghanistan, the women's rights initiatives are loosing momentum. The article describes the Afghan attitude toward women as only belonging 'in the house or in the ground'. Observers in Afghanistan mention that the Karzai government has agreed to return to fundamentalist conservative Taliban anti-woman views on women to bring the Taliban into his coalition. For example, government policy now includes denying women safe-housing in private shelters, and returning women from the 14 national shelters to conditions from which they have attempted to flee.

US AID now is working on a $600 million for the municipal government building project in Afghanistan instead of many of the women's rights issues. $600 million is a large amount of money to send to a country which does not recognize the civil rights of half of its citizens.

Recall that the Taliban is the conservative fundamentalist Islamist religious network which has opposed the secular 'western-influenced' governments supported by the US, UK, and Europeans to stabilize the North Africa-Middle Eastern regions. Al-Qaida, the radical action arm of the Taliban, was formed by Saudi Arabian Osama bin-Laden and others, to fight off the Soviets after asking for Soviet help in Afghanistan against rival tribes and religious sects.

Then bin-Laden used the The 'Cold War' rivalry between the USSR and the US to draw US military and money into Afghanistan. Similar conflicts have spread across the whole region since then, worsening in Tunisia in North Africa and Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain, and other nations in the Middle East. Of course most recently US involvement has increased dramatically in Libya. In what has been described as a muti-lateral action, a French plane purportedly bombed Libya, then the US released 136 $1 million missles. The term 'no-fly zone' has been confusing. Prevously news reports described such zones as areas off-limits to military plane surveillance. Now the term appears to mean a blockade of weapons to Libya or flights out of Libya to targets.

Bin-Laden is achieving the long-term Al-Qaida goal of working for collapse of the US economy by involving the US in multiple, serial military actions in different parts of the Muslim-occupied regions. Conflicts in North African and Middle Eastern regions are draining the US of military equipment, soldiers, and money. These comflicts have created unrest in the US, by pulling the US into Islamic religious government vs. secular government power struggles throughout these regions.

Remember that Osama bin-Laden is the 53rd son of a wealthy Saudi Arabian construction industry family who reportedly lives on a $7 million dollar annual family allowance. Bin-Laden is not a poor boy out on the hillside calling out for freedom and democracy.

Perhaps bin-Laden envisioned the endpoint of the regional Al-Qaida wars as construction project income for his family's businesses in the post-war Arab zones which fundamentalist Sunni Saudi Arabian Muslims would then control.

Somehow, the Muslim fundamentalists in North Africa and the Middle-East have led the US and allies on a whirlwind of military activity and expense. Recently Obama has shown that the US is helping to pull-down the very secular governments which the US supported or permitted in the region to lessen the Arab-Israeli conflict and stabilize the region.

There has been a failure to maintain regional stability, whether by diplomatic error or lack of historical knowledge or understanding. For centuries there have been wars between radical Islamic religious sects who fight to control people, money, and resources. Sharia law and government are religion-based. There is no historical separation of church and state.

Obama's dictates to Hosni Mubarak of Egypt to step down may reflect some shared opinion about the slow progress toward democracy in Egypt, historically the land of Pharoahs, dictators. The native pro-democracy protestors may themselves have de-stabilized the area. It is possible the protestors are joining with the Muslim Brotherhood fundamentalists and other goups to return Egypt to Islam. The protestors could be part of the Muslim Brotherhood, which could appear to be an oppressed group in Egypt, outlawed by Hosni Mubarak as a revolutionary Islamic anti-secular government network. And it is reminiscent of George Bush's demands that Saddam Hussein step down in Iraq over his refusal to allow inspection of nuclear power facilities.

The US does not have unlimited funds or soldiers to clean up the mess after dictating domestic terms of government to foreign governments. The issue arises again with Obama's demand that Colonel Moammar Khaddafy of Libya step down. Khaddafy does have a very bad record on human rights, recently threatening to kill his own countrymen and killing them in an early civil war. But we are somehow more involved because of George W. Bush's opening of the diplomatic door to Khaddafy to do business in the oil/gasoline and other industries wth Libya.

The task for the US here is to answer at least four questions:
1. What it is about the US Presidency that brings on these bouts of telling foreign leaders what to do?

2. How does this lead so quickly to expensive military conflict and could this be averted?

3. Why do so many in the US think we can do business with leaders and nations with whom we so fundamentally disagree, especially in military sales of planes, ships, guns, other weapons, nuclear power, and other governmental products and services?

4. Why doesn't the US rely more on the United Nations, NATO, and other groups of nations at these times?

Conflict in the North African and Middle Eastern regions has persisted since the 6th Century. The US cannot change what the Arab Sects have not been able to resolve over all these centuries.

In the case of Afghanistan, it is not clear where the US AID contract money is coming from. If from the US, government or private sector--many might no longer want to be involved if the funds are used to re-install a repressive, fundamentalist Taliban which denies civil rights to women, members of other tribes or religious affiliations.

If the funds are from Karzai government created banks, why involve the US any further in a conflict-ridden area which can support itself, especially one that is somehow destabilizing our society by exposure to repressive, restriction of the wealth of society to a select group?

If these governments can create their own banks and money, why should the US and Europe feel a need to be involved financially or otherwise. It would not be possible to recoup or 'recover' the amount of American money and lives lost in a region now returning to its fundamentalist strife without exposing the US to fundamentalist, including anti-woman, sentiments and other forms of repression.

If there is a concern about loss of military jobs and budgets, there are alternatives. US military could be employed along US borders to solve immigration problems, provide assistance in emergency/rescue missions, and other activities with clearer goals and endpoints.


Email mkrause381@gmail.com or mkrause54@yahoo.com to comment or request copies of this or other blogs posted by mary for monthlynotesstaff on http://monthlynotes21.blogspot.com (http://monthlynotes.blogspot.com to '21') on www.google.com. See http://monthlynotes18.blogspot.com or '19' for bloglists of titles and URLs.

Graphic: 'Sea Grasses Fighting Beach Erosion, Near Galveston, Texas, 2001', copyright, mkrause381@gmail.com or mkrause54@yahoo.com.

Governmentalism: 16-The Rise of Public and Private Bill Collecting

'Jellyfish,
Left by the Tide,
on the Shore',

Galveston, Texas,
2001.







Governmentalism is not an ideology. It is a method of taking control of money, people, resources, and existing forms of government.

It is old news that the federal cumulative debt which climbed to $25 Billion from 1935-1981 now is $14.3 Trillion in 2011, only 30 years later.

Debt then largely was due to World Wars I and II, The Korean Conflict and other military actions, and the Vietnam War. The exponential rise in federal debt is attributed to military-industrial expense and the enormous growth of the social welfare-industrial complex.

What has changed to produce such exorbitant amounts of debt? Part of this may be attributed to the loss of voter and voter representative control of governmental policy and spending.

In the military sector, 'declared wars', after attack on the US, have become a thing of the past. Military expense can be incurred by the President of the US, acting as 'Commander in Chief', rather than by the consent of Congress. 'Who is to blame' strategies may deflect the anger of voters at election time, from Congressional Representatives and Senators to the current President and Administration. However, the debt incurred remains, and is increased by interest on the debt, year after year after year.

The same is true of the growth of the debt incurred by the social welfare-industrial complex. Court-ordered busing for desegregation happened through federal judges, political appointees, not elected officials. The impetus arose in metropolitan areas, where it was decided that 'inner city' colored students from low property value/low property tax neighborhoods were not achieving in school as were their suburban contemporaries. School districts were re-arranged to get tax money from higher value suburban neighborhoods and regions to support large metropolitan public school budgets. News reports revealed large amounts of lost money due to fraud in these 'inner city' area school districts. In some areas, state government took control of school districts to fund schools and provide standard education to all students in that state.

Education and funding continues to be problems. 'Inner city' students and parents have demanded vouchers to attend private schools. This is expensive and further complicates the problem of how to keep public school systems up to standards.

Part of the problem almost never addressed is the relative cultural value of education. The North Atlantic/European US population base values education and insists children go to school, do their homework, and try to do their best. This value is not uniformly held in ethnic populations. Many colored populations often believe 'getting along' or racial or ethnic 'community-building' is more important than literacy and basic school skills, in reading, writing, and arithmetic. Many Mexicans and other Central/South Americans in the US believe it is more important to get a vegetable cart, become a street vendor, or in some way go into business and start earning money early in life rather than go to school. Sometimes this may be necessary to have a place to live or food to eat. Sometimes it reflects a different view of society and how to survive or achieve.

Education too has become a focus for government contracting. Public schools as proposed by John Dewey were to provide teachers, basic supplies, books, paper, pencils, blackboards and chalk, and warm, dry rooms for students to learn how to read, write, and do arithmetic.

As budgets have dramatically increased, so have complaints about the educational efficacy and public safety of the public schools.

Taking issues too far for part of the population has produced unfairness for taxpaying voters who are told they are responsible for the new debt on a 'per capita' basis.

Yemen today is an example of what happens when government expands to take control of business and the entire economy. Riots and violence in the streets has spread there as in other North Africa-Middle Eastern regions. The Yemeni government seeks to quell the riots with socialist government style social welfare promises of more jobs, increases in job income, benefits, and assistance programs.

But when the government itself is in debt, what funds are available?

The UK has taken the remarkable stance of accepting that the British economy is not growing currently. The UK announced 4th quarter 2010 GDP (Gross Domestic Product) has declined into the negative range. Social welfare programs are being reduced. British sales taxes have been increased.

The US still equates large money amounts with growth of the economy. Unfortunately, what is actually growing is debt. Cumulative debt, known as the federal deficit, involves interest on annual debt and is now 93% of GDP. Cumulative debt in the UK is about 50% of GDP.

Similar strategies to balance the annual budget, tax and other revenues with expenses are used in both countries. Clinton used this strategy during his administrations. Obama discussed this 'new balance' concept. But the cumulative debt continues to increase with interest, despite no new principal amounts added.

The bigger problem with government debt in Western countries is the basic assumption that tax payer revenues will cover government spending. When this does not happen a sort of tax aggressiveness occurs. Tax-collectors and people or groups who want funding attack taxpayers for money. Tax returns too frequently are re-written to put larger tax due amounts on government revenue accounts. This also is done to benefit tax-collectors; many now 'outsourced' in privatized tax-collection businesses of their own, seek wages, salaries, incentives and bonuses for themselves from tax revenue.

This is not an issue in 3rd world countries where socialists and military dictators make up their own budgets as they takeover governments. As the US immigrant population grows, this major difference in how governments are financed creates many disputes. Many European Americans, who have been in the US for 3 or 4 generations, have been more respectful of their countrymen, and do not demand more tax dollars from them. Unless they rely on government contractor income, they are wiser to not increase their own tax burden at tax time by demanding more government money or services for themselves or their causes.

Email mkrause381@gmail.com or mkrause54@yahoo.com to comment or request a copy of this or other blogs posted by mary for monthlynotesstaff on http://monthlynotes21.blogspot.com (http://monthlynotes.blogspot.com through '21') on www.google.com. See http://monthlynotes18.blogspot.com or '19' for bloglists of titles and URLs.

Graphic: 'Jellyfish, Left by the Tide, on the Shore, Galveston, Texas, 2001, copyright mkrause381@gmail.com or mkrause54@yahoo.com.

Reference: 'Tackling debt in the UK: Liberals and conservatives work together by David Kerr, The Free Lance-Star, Fredericksburg, VA, Sunday, March 15, 2011.

Governmentalism: 15-Where Is the Money?

Very Large Grackle
Flying to Tree
on the Gulf Coast,
Southern Texas, 2001.








Governmentalism is not an ideology. It is a method of taking control of money, people, resources, and existing forms of government.

The rise of the 'social welfare-industrial complex' has involved the recruitment of social welfare recipients to tax- and bill-collect the taxpayer sector of the population to obtain more free governmental-administered welfare products and services. During the Clinton Administrations (1992-2000) this occurred officially through 'welfare to work' program jobs, computer-IRS database grants and small business loans. Clinton Administration staff encouraged an aggressive 'redistribution of wealth' mentality among 'people of color', other ethnics, developmental/mentally retarded/emotionally disturbed and other groups who feel themselves to be 'needier' or poorer than others, disenfranchised, or who simply want more free products and services.

'Dispatch Politics' reported a record 16% increase in federal spending during the recession. Federal domestic spending rose to $3.2 Trillion in 2009, the Obama Administration's first year.

Other data reveal social welfare spending increased to $744 Billion. The Department of Health & Human Services (HHS, 'welfare') receives over half of this amount, $444.9 Billion. Two major welfare programs, 'Temporary Assistance for Needy Families' ('TANF') and the Food Stamp Program, are funded.

By one estimate, 77.9% of domestic funding flows to HHS, the Department of Education, and the Department of Transportation.

The 'bail out' of the federal budget for social welfare has stimulated bill collecting by recipients in one department to cover spending in another. An example is the growth of privatized bill collecting companies, some initially funded by grants, then 'spun-off' as hybird profit/non-profit companies affiliated with the 'student loan industry' by Department of Education and Health & Human Services programs.

Students or applicants never involved with one or either department are researched, names and amounts are added to these new bill collecting files. New 'Amounts Due' are adjusted upward with extremely high finance charges. The individual's social security number is termed an 'account number'. And the menacing, stalking, and harassment, using governmental computers, databases, postage, and other resources begins.

The governmentalist 'student loan industry' is frighteningly Orwellian and revisionist. 'Big brother/big sister' is watching, even if the student is not really there to watch.

Political and bureaucratic friends have used these 'loss/default' insurance files to obtain 'default' money for themselves for 'house flipping' and other 'scratch' money for their own start-ups and other businesses. When they do not repay their business loans based on hoped for bill collections, they sell student names to their lenders and re-financiers. Then another cycle of unfair bill collecting begins.

Thus privacy rights are eroded everyday, as the real US laws against 'Racketeer Influenced Crime Organizations', extortion, extortionate extension of credit, under the color of government authority, are violated.

Meanwhile, real socio-econmic problems in the US increase. Despite the phenomenal growth in the social welfare budget, there are numerous stories of people suffering, without the basics of adequate food and a room, a place from which to look for a job, without assistance beyond encouragement provided by a truly concerned social worker.

Two recent stories in a small city newspaper highlighted homelessness. 'Offering hope to throwaway kids' is the first of a 2-part series on the rising number of homeless students. 19 year old Wilson Umanzor, walked miles to work and high school until he quit high school. He got a another job to continue to pay his room, then had difficulties at school and otherwise. He was paying 3/4 of his fast food job wages ($300 of $400 monthly) for a room rented from people he knew. After othr difficulties, he was being asked to leave his room. His story may be complicated by immigration issues involving his family, parents now divorced and living in 2 states, Virginia and Texas, who did not provide even a free room for him.

The other story involves local 'police getting tougher on aggressive panhandlers'. The article implied the problem was the 'panhandler' going to the same location everyday. The local solution involved changing the nuisance to a crime punishable by up to 12 months in jail and a $2,500 fine. Only a small number of people appear to be involved, '12 of the 23 offenders were charged 2 or more times with aggressive solicitation'.

It is wrong for people who have rooms, food, and social services to go out to 'panhandle' or to demand money by verbal or physical aggression. But if they are truly in need of the basics, and going out to politely ask for help, it shows a horrible unfairness in society.

If the later is true, it seems to be a small enough number of people to be housed in a truly low-cost 'rooming house'. It is as if these panhandlers have been asked to make the choice of going into the hills to die rather than ask for help or become a criminal and go into debt to the local police or courts.

This is not an isolated problem in a small city in Virginia. It is important not to allow the US to slip into becoming a much meaner society in which many people, whether private citizens or governmental grant or loan recipients, do nothing positive to provide assistance unless it personally makes money for them.

It often appears that some people are being 'pushed down' to be 'data' for others, in the social services, and 'legal' services including police and courts, to get grants or loans, only for salaries for themselves. These lucky people then meet to discuss social welfare needs rather than provide direct services, like cheap rooms, food, or transportation to essential functions.

It is time to check these social welfare budgets to find out where the money is, what is done with the money. When so many people complain of needs for basics like food, shelter, transportation, the money should be used for direct services, not endless meeting schedules, data entry and elaborate equipment, statistical studies, and related but irrelevant information gathering and packaging. The grants and loans do appear to create jobs for people who fit this skill set. And the limited number of job openings make finding jobs more difficult

US families also should be reminded that 'charity begins at home'. Family members should be asked to provide for other family members, at least with a free or cheap room from which the distressed person can go out to apply for jobs, make new friends, and piece back together an independent living situation.

Many people have lost jobs, professional or occupational status and projected income, through no fault of their own, in this recessionary economy. It is not humanitarian at home to 'blame the victim' who did nothing wrong, but had the misfortune of returning to school or working for the wrong company at the wrong time in a fluid, rapidly changing workplace of short-term, temporary, part-time jobs.

Email mkrause@gmail.com or mkrause54@yahoo.com to comment or request a copy of this or other blogs posted by mary for monthlynotesstaff on http://monthlynotes21.blogspot.com (http://monthlynotes.blogspot.com through '21') on www.google.com. See http://monthlynotes18.blogspot.com and '19' for bloglists of titles and URLs.

Graphic: An Original Photographic of a 'Very Large Grackle, Flying to Tree, on the Gulf Coast, Southern Texas, 2001, copyright, mkrause381@gmail.com or mkrause54@yahoo.com.

Reference: 'The Free Lance-Star', Fredericksburg, VA, Sunday, March 13, 2011 p.1 and Sunday, March 20, 2011, p.1.

Governmentalism:14- And The Rise in Bill Collecting

'Jellyfish, Sea Grasses,
Driftwood, Artifacts
Swept Ashore'

Galveston, Texas
2001.









Governmentalism is not an ideology. It is a method of taking control of money, people, resources, and existing forms of government.

Governmentalists have 'grown' tax-collecting and extended it into the bill-collecting industry. As government defense contractors were bankrupted, their 'state of the art' computer systems were 'confiscated' or 'taken' by government in bankruptcy settlements and re-programmed to tax collect on Americans. TRW, a defense and aeronautics contractor in the race to space, became a building block for Experian, the largest of the Credit Reporting Agencies (CRAs).

The governmental connection somehow gave legitimacy to the credit reporting/bill collecting agencies CRA industry. Like Retail Credit of Atlanta, Georgia, established in 1899, such 'tattletales' and 'snoops' were not uniformly respected in society. Such companies do not buy or sell an independent product. They produce or reproduce someone else's receipts or often questionable records or reports of transactions of buyers and sellers.

Operating in the South, CRAs were not accepted throughout the US, often considered to be parasitic in the business sector. In the North, retailers often sent customers positive 'letters of credit' when a transaction was complete. For example, after the last payment on a installment furniture purchase, the furniture store would send a good 'letter of credit', thanking the customer for their purchase or prompt payment. Such letters could be taken to other retailers to obtain store credit or for other credit purposes.

It is hard to understand how the CRAs were not put out of business. As the CRAs grew, they often were taken to court for libel and defamation of character. CRAs made many settlements in the 1970s for inaccurate and damaging information. As courthouse 'damage control', CRA business practices and structures became more anonymous with unsigned negative credit report letters, automated computerized systems to disseminate their negative reports, using other companies' customers names and information as products to sell to other retailers, banks, and lenders. Now there are multiple 'pseudo-scientific' scales of credit worthiness, or unworthiness, to drive up the cost of credit through higher interest and financial fees.

As CRAs extended into the insurance business with background checks and 'character references', CRAs have driven up the cost of insurance. The concept of higher premiums for 'higher risk' customers became a part of CRA businesses, now known as subsidiaries or affiliates of a diversified business or credit rating companies.

An independent observer looking at such businesses might see 'the big picture'. Insurance-affiliate CRAs often are insurance agents, defaming and libelling customers, to raise the price a customer must pay for government-mandated purchases of insurance.

Auto insurance became an issue for many people in the 1970s and 1980s as state governments began to demand proof of insurance to drive cars. It is true that a drunk driver who has caused accidents and injuries should be held accountable, and 'someone should have to pay' for these expenses other than innocent injured. But this mandate has given insurance agents a form of 'guaranteed income' through government intervention, enforceable for free through government representatives, like traffic police.

It also raises the question of whether politicians and bureaucrats themselves, family, friends, or supporters are insurance agents at some time in their careers or in some other way benefit from insurance mandates. In the late 1990s a major auto insurance company in Ohio subsidized police car computers. This helped the insurance company track insureds for payments or to forcibly sell more auto insurance. Cars not listed on this insurance company's payment files could be stopped and inquiries made, without any driving infraction. This increased the arbitrary nature of police power and possible business and profit to this insurance company. The insurance company stock rose from $10 to $100 per share around this time period.

As governmentalist intervention grows, the cost of products and services rises. As government and business form more interlocking money connections, the risk and the reality of loosing money, property, and true civil liberties also grows.

The 'real economy' has shrunk as government has grown through intervention. The loss of factory jobs in 'big steel', 'big auto', railroad, other major industries which have been by tax-collection or special interest group lawsuit settlement been forced out of business. This has produced profits for governmentalists, seeking to increase their own budgets and salaries.

The problem now is that these profits have now been spent by bankruptcy court personnel, clerks, administrators, attorneys, judges, governmentalist bureaucrats, and others. Many of these now are in financial distress themselves, having 'flipped' too many houses, who ask the government for mortgage assistance and low or no taxation.

Many of the big employers 'have been taken down'. Much business in America now is done in small private franchises of what formerly were large corporations. To stay employed, individuals have started their own small businesses. There is enormous growth of 'cottage industries', home-based businesses, which existed in the much smaller economies in Europe and elsewhere before the industrial revolution 200-300 years ago.

It is ironic that the left, liberal to socialist to communist, philosophies used by the 'black civil rights', 'special needs', alcohol/drug abuse, welfare rights, social welfare, and related special interest groups have used an outmoded philosophy to bankrupt much of the known world. Karl Marx, the political philosopher often referred to, himself believed that the goal of socialism was not a 'central party' soviet form of communism, but a participatory democracy. Socialism was a way of organizing the less politically interested or influential to participate in politics and in business.

Americans of many diverse backgrounds working in large businesses enjoyed higher wages, salaries, and better benefits than many are able to provide for themselves in a home-based business, post-liberal lawsuit agenda.

Home-based financial services companies which bill collect abound. Individuals, more aggressive for money, do not hesitate to try to ruin other individuals who will not agree to send money to them at their bill-collecting companies, by multiple negative credit report computer links. Such individuals can be viciously unfair to others.

One of the meanest examples is negative credit reporting based on current or past employment. Having obtained a 'wage page' from a court bankruptcy file or finance company 'restructuring', such companies pester former employees of now bankrupt companies for bill-collecting money and send these on as 'negative credit reports'.

There is nothing due to a company after the employee performs the work for which he or she was paid. If the company is not satisfied with the work, the employee is asked to leave the company, fired, taken off the schedule, or otherwise no longer paid. Special issues like sales 'charge-backs' for commission-based salespeople are by general agreement in the US to be specified at the time of employment or by employment contract.

It is as unfair to 'trick' a supposed employee into working for free as it is for an employee to not do their work during paid work hours.

As more angry ethnic groups, 3rd World, and foreign people who do not speak English well or understand usual business practices in the US enter business in the US, there are many problems with these basic concepts. The 'business loan' is taken out by the hiring employer not the employee. If an 'Independent Contractor' must take out a loan to become as an 'Independent Distributor, Salesperson' or in some other function, that must be done by that individual, not by a hiring employer signing a prospective employees name or forwarding a job application. These issues must be specified.

What is lost in society in general is the sense of fairness and trust that many or most will be fair. What also is lost is trust in government as a mechanism for righting wrongs. This instability is reflected in a 'boom and bust' economy, not based on supply and demand.


Email mkrause381@gmail.com or mkrause54@yahoo.com to comment or request copies of this or other blogs posted by mary for monthlynotesstaff on http://monthlynotes21.blogspot.com (http://monthlynotes.blogspot.com through '21'). See http://monthlynotes18.blogspot.com or '19' for bloglists of titles and URLs.

Graphic: 'Jellyfish, Sea Grasses, Driftwood, Artifacts Swept Ashore,' Galveston, Texas, 2001, copyright mkrause381@gmail or mkrause54@yahoo.com.