Kanook – Tlingit Nation

October 3rd, 2010

In “Network” Peter Finch yelled out, “I’m mad as hell, and I won’t take it any more!”, voicing
his frustration at the events surrounding his life. Today, if you happened to frequent a public
place you might see some ancient sage muttering under his or her breath the same, or in some
public forum a loud-mouth standing up and yelling, “we need a good revolution, even if it smacks
of violent anarchy” – which in my opinion is appearing on a day-to-day basis an option, albeit
doesn’t have to be violent, a passive financial boycott would work against the powers-to-be in our
high-wheeling money boys and their puppets our government officials.
Unfortunately our elected representatives to all of our offices, not just the deadbeat crowd in
Washington D.C. have flipped a deaf ear toward their constituents (you and I), letting our worries
and concerns roll off their backs like water of a duck. In November this indifference, hopefully
will turn the mid-term elections upside down. I’m not a rootin-tootin fan of the Tea Party crowd,
albeit they are setting their sights on uprooting the established two-party system. I’m a little
worried about their antagonistic view towards “any” type of authority, even their own when it
comes right down to it! This coupled with their lack of any coherent program or valid alternative
to the polices they condemn – scary – reminds one of the bully in the school yards who runs
about pushing others aside, and once all have left the playing field stands there with a dumb look
on their face looking for something to do. Whereas all he or she knows how to do is push people
around, but when it comes right down to it, they don’t have the foggiest idea what end of the fire
truck to use when driving to a 3-alarm blaze. But being the ding-a-lings they are, know how to
swing the brass clapper around in the cab mounted bell telling everyone their on their way, and
on arrival stand around with their thumbs in you know what watching the fire burn.
On the other side, we have the hangers on who still believe in the elected nin-com-poops who
are occupying space in public office, they believe that doing business as-usual will solve the
problems the rest of us are faced with today. The piss and moan when they favorite candidate
doesn’t make the primary, and cheer when they put forth their greedy feet as a write-in, but what
the heck they are supported by this guy or that guy so they must be good. The 30-second sound
bite demonstrates the good side of their efforts to shovel programs and funds towards a specific
community, they prance across the stage of public life doing the soft-shoe while singing their
own praises – they sprinkle a bit of water on the stage and brag about being able to walk on
water, albeit in some parts of our country it is possible in the winter when the water turns a little
harder.
It has become apparent that some sort of revolution is in the making, where debt and rampant
greed is sinking America, with both established parties to blame, while the push is to vote out the
incumbents, the members of our society willing to step to the plate and take over the helm, really
doesn’t impress a lot of folks either. For instance in Alaska, the Tea Party candidate of choice is
known as a Carpetbagger (look it up), a Kansas City guy who on entering the State immediately
went on the dole to grab a few perks from the State – hey, he is or was a lawyer – which is
suspect right up front. By the way, another honest GOP member who “forgot” to file his
financial contribution list – what a guy, he fits right in! He is another candidate who believes the
law applies to everyone but him – throw the bum in jail!
Las Vegas odds (they bet on anything) are running in favor of a 2nd American Revolution, albeit
fair warning folks it will cost us, as it will not be as the Tea Party predicts a “happy days are here
again” event. Vegas predicts a 20% or greater loss in investor contributions and that for the
following years retirement funds will fade away and our present government will be just a
shadow of its former self. You might get ready to see a bunch of shave-tails running about who
have to shave only once every month not having any idea on what is going on – forget any type
of Ben Franklin or Thomas Jefferson, this group will resemble “Benny and the Jets” as they
attempt to assemble the country into anything it resembled prior to the present mess. What is
bringing this all about? Well let’s take a look at a few of the events leading up to this upside
down cake.
The Democrats flubbed up when they didn’t force the Republicans by filibustering the Bush tax
cuts for America’s well-off citizens, and because of the reluctance to lead when they had a chance
the GOP is set to take over the House and will expand its war to destroy the sitting President by
making concrete a complete gridlock effectively shutting down government – which will
automatically make President Obama a lame-duck, or a sitting duck for that matter.
Following, the GOP will snap back the White House and the Senate, healthcare is scuttled and
free market de-regulation follows close behind and once again Wall Street “greed” walks the
population into a “catastrophic” 3rd meltdown of the 21st Century – and the American dollar takes
its final walk on the plank as the Chine yuan rules the world economy. As this is going on a
brutal full-scale class war rolls across the land-of-the-free, with the have-nots rising up against
the out-of-touch, out-of-control greedy conspiracy-of-the-rich gang controls the reins of the run-
away horse called America.
Amidst of this comes another reality, one being our failing infrastructure, a shortage of water,
food and energy – and the escalating high cost of each – this won’t just be America’s problem but
soon will be a world-wide problem, if you believe we have a problem with illegal immigration
today – wait! If you think our Armed Forces are taxed beyond our capabilities – wait! This at
the top corruption is not just in America, strangely the rest-of-the-world looks to the Middle Class
of America to save their bacon, and here we sit spouting our “poor me’s” while our leaders create
new bank accounts in foreign lands and stuff them with your money…what a joke!
Okay, okay we’re “ticked-off”, and justifiably so – and we know and understand that politics as
usual is not going to help us – and seriously don’t look to Sarah and her bunch to solve our
problems, they are just another color of the same-old, same-old. Politicians have replaced the
jokes about the legal field, only now it’s getting serious – politicians with their deceived voters
are giants of “self-delusion”, their heads stuffed full of grandeur, self-deception and visions of
more old-fashion abuse their heap on their followers – and these simple few suck it up like good
cookies and chilly liquid from Bessie the cow.
Our current economic quagmire is not a product of just one administration, albeit the
continuation of same-old is not helping, where it all gained momentum when the Clinton
administration wrapped their hands and soul around “free trade”, which when you think about it
is not a bad idea, but when American companies were offered tax breaks to shift part of their
operations overseas – definitely a step in the wrong direction, along with a serious misstep in
Bank Deregulation our nation opened it pockets to crooks upstairs. To top it all off, when Clinton
pushed to admit China into the World Trade Organization and handed them “free access to the
United States markets”, while assisting China by blocking our exports to said same, the mess
expanded beyond comprehension – what was this?
And then during the same timeframe the bleeding members of the Sierra Club and other
influential Democrats froze domestic oil and gas development, and then without taking a breath
blocked any increase in mileage requirements for our vehicles – Detroit cheered and our President
and his wife (now our Secretary of State) broke out the champagne counting the votes from the
autoworkers of America to get him re-elected.
The backside of all this was Beijing and the Middle Eastern countries with oil started buying up
our debt – as payback to the gang in D.C., trillions of U.S. dollars were backed by our bonds sold
to the Chinese and the boys east of the Mediterranean, American’s smiled and bought another
vacation home with loose credit on the coast and life was good! We were living on borrowed
time and didn’t have a clue.
And then we had the Bush/Cheney regime let Wall Street run roughshod across the landscape,
handing out outlandish pay bonuses, creating unheard of fraudulent schemes, and a further
breakdown in lending standards with Fannie Mae, Freddie, and Countrywide backing loans that a
Mafia loan shark in Brooklyn would never consider. Life was made better by the Bush gang,
especially for them and their buddies – wars were started and more money flowed over the sill of
the American taxpayer – Cheney’s old company made off with Billions, seriously I mean Billions
and Billions while Bush chopped wood on his ranch. Bush/Cheney and their gang turned a blind
eye to Wall Street, and their pick for a Treasury secretary’s set our economy back decades –
whereas John Snow was clueless and Paulson was a crook, conning a more than “away from their
desk” Congress into bailouts amounting to trillions – which fronted the action of banks who
borrowed at 3% from the Fed’s phony money (fast as they could print it) and loaned it out at 5%
and paid recent graduate MBA’s five-million dollar bonuses to create mortgage backed securities
and derivative packages they marketed all over the financial world – greed was the word of the
day in the Bush/Cheney treasury department.
Albeit Obama finally pushed for “higher” mileage requirements, he jumped all over the entire
petroleum industry for the BP snafu in the gulf, so we’re back in the same boat with additional
dependency on off-shore oil imports. His further actions of borrowing more phony money in an
attempt to “fix” the mess left behind by Clinton and Bush/Cheney, and increasing government
spending was not a good fix to try and repair the broken economy, with this we still find the GOP
screaming for tax cuts preaching “trickle-down” economics to the working class – the sad part of
all this is that these “boneheads” believe what they’re preaching. Bookkeeping 101 teaches you
that the “greedy” will spend $5 to keep $1 in their pockets, obviously the $5 is only for the
politicians who are getting filthy rich protecting their high-above the clouds financial supporters.
What gets me is our State Department and a few other agencies are flying around the world
trying to stuff our Democracy down everyone’s craw – when today within our own shores it has
turned on us becoming a classic double-bind, no-win scenario – due to our leaders bumbling
around stuffing their pockets with taxpayer money pushing your dreams on the back-burner and
flying away playing with their expensive toys at your expense.
In the meantime to answer the taxpayers cry for doing something about each of us paying 50%
more for doctors, hospital and drugs than most of the civilized world, Obama stuffs a healthcare
bill down our throats that in the end will NOT work – why, because the primary cause of those
high costs in the 1st place “the insurers” will make more money off the healthcare plan than they
did before it went into effect – you want to bring down the cost, go to the root of the problem, the
insurance companies, and the legal eagles who made millions off a doctor who forgot and left a
scalpel inside a guy when they removed a in-grown toenail. Get a grip, the insurance companies
will destroy America before they change, they of all people hate reform – I’d say bring back
public hanging and set a few examples.
As for Wall Street suffering through this recession, they’re back to their greedy tricks this time
“hustling” municipal governments into the all kinds of quick-fix budget schemes, like selling
parking meters and airport fees – selling shoddy corporate bonds that lack adequate collateral and
may never be repaid – while the boys on the street of dreams and rampant greed are once again
making millions of the commissions – they are breaking the bank for all of us while they sit
around the campfire on foreign beaches with their mega-yachts swinging in the tide off-hook.
They love it! Their greed will sooner than later create a revolution that will give birth to a non-
capitalist banking system – but why should they care, they have theirs.
As for the Grand Old Party (“GOP”) who preach from their dollar built bully-pulpits for cutting
taxes and more “mindless” financial de-regulation finally realize that their concept of giving your
hard earned money to the gang in the financial world, it will be just beyond too late. The world
as you know it will spin out-of-control, trade will leave our majestic shores and our oil
dependency will only increase – and no-matter what healthcare is supposed to accomplish will
not fix the problems we have within our borders – and the Tea Party, those mindless born again
Republicans with their chants of less taxes and spend less, will screw the country up worst then it
was in 1929 (look it up). It is now apparent they have NO plan, only a repeat of Obama’s
mindless phrase that everyone took to heart – “change” – a few asked the half-breed about his
“change” and received smooth assurances of a dramatic change, while the details were about as
clear as a foggy day in London. You know falling off a cliff in the middle of the night in most
peoples minds is “change”. And we voted him in, I was one of those mindless twits.
When you look about, albeit with a jaundiced eye you’ll see there is no one in the wings like
Harry Truman or Abe Lincoln, in other words we have nobody that will get a hold of the reins
and drag us kicking and screaming into the right direction – face it for the lack of a better word,
there is no “messiah” that can or will fix the Wall Street greed, so put up with it – the gang in
NYC is and will be controlling our democracy until a honest to goodness revolution marches
down 5th Ave with paper confetti drifting down from above and the bandanna less bandits on
Wall Street are swinging from the antique light posts instead of sending in the National Guard to
protect some CEO of Wall Street. The taxpayers across the nation must call for less set asides,
reduce the agencies, commit some real time and energy to reducing our independence of off-
shore oil, put a real price on imported goods and put our nation back to work. How? Triple the
tax on those corporations who send their work to India, China and wherever – yea! you can have
somebody else make your TVs, transmissions, windshield wipers but you’re going to pay for that
cheap labor – and pay us triple taxes, slap some real down to earth audits on them and have them
suck-it-up instead of the guy working two jobs to put a loaf of bread on the dinner table. Keep in
mind, at the end of the day no-matter what the rest-of-the-world thinks of us, our nation has the
most powerful middle class anywhere, a middle class that buys things, a middle class that has a
voice albeit our pocketbooks – shut that voice and these whiny cheap-labor countries across the
world will fade away.
It has become obvious over the past few decades that our free enterprise system has got out of
control, the ones who have the skills and position, and have capitalized on them have put most
American’s beyond the reach of survival – in other words as a society the need for new
approaches for regulation is necessary. We need to examine the way we have been driven to out-
of-sight medical costs, what bankers pay themselves - siphoning from the backs of their
customers, the main goal being to establish an acceptable value of what American’s will pay and
tolerate, and since we will maintain our sense of freedom with our private vehicles better methods
of reining in big oil and our car manufacturers. I don’t think the solution will require a dictator
type rule, but as a citizen of the country, I like many of you understands that democracy depends
on everyone being informed of the issues important to the survival of our community, and we will
have to make choices based on our overall knowledge – whereas less than 75 years ago a few
percentage points added on to a sellable item or service was sufficient for a sustainable profit,
today we have taken the phrase “whatever the traffic will bear” beyond acceptable limits,
consequently our economy has taken a nosedive driven by the greed of a few.
The situation today has created an atmosphere that promotes our private enterprise system as
the common man’s enemy, in addition to fostering the belief that our government is evil – two
conditions that do nothing to serve the existing crowd of have-nots – our value system has taken a
walk back into the dark ages and unless we all pitch in, it will be decades until it crawls back into
a age of prosperity – following a collapse that will bury the present generation.
I have no concrete answers or quick solutions, unlike the GOP Tea Party who profess more of
the same with a slight twist in the end promoting “gridlock” in our government – it maybe true
that “anarchy” will be our only solution, whereas the solutions thrown on the table by the Sarah
Palin crowd will never be accepted by some semi-conservative Republicans and certainly not by
the Democrats – our only choice appears the complete overthrow of the fat-cats on Wall Street
and bankers who now are living off of the government bailouts and retirement plans of the labor
unions that will not last forever – if not another decade. There is a certain amount of selective
“anarchy” already being played out today, whereas the Wall Street barons, the leadership on the
Potomac, CEOs and the Forbes 400 continue to loot our Treasury, lifting the funds from the
Taxpayers as they con the population who are doing their damndest to survive while supporting a
broken greedy free enterprise system.
These snake-oil salesmen do not have the health and welfare of America in their sights, only
worried about stuffing their pockets and vacationing in places that you and I will never see, while
jetting across the globe in multi-million dollar planes. They have theirs, and will do everything in
their power to make sure you don’t have a chance getting a slice – mark my words. This
upcoming mid-term election will do a little to stem the tide of greed, but in the end it will not
accomplish what the taxpayer wants or desires, albeit a beginning! The need is for a break from
the day-to-day worry of survival, it has slowly gone past the time when a vote here or there will
bring us back on the path of prosperity…an upheaval appears to be in the cards, even a slow
rolling passive anarchy will be better than nothing.