A cartoon I drew over two years ago.
November 4, 2008
Elaine Meinel Supkis
Since I am 100% against letting the Republicans run things any more, I am happy that Obama is probably going to win this election. It is time the US got beyond our own dark roots which is all about slavery and racism. A harmonious nation is one that has opportunities to all people of all races and all religions. I despise ethnic/religious dictatorships like the ones that litter the entire Middle East. The US nation is a nation, not a religious enclave. This is why I totally oppose Palin. She is a religious nut who wants the Apocalypse. And McCain is a lost soul. Wealth destroyed him.
And there is no one running at the top two parties who understands what is going on here. If Obama does understand, he is forced to play with his own cards so close to his chest, even he can't appear to see them. This is due to our media as well as our business class. The terror of our system is from these forces: they are united in trying to keep the US on track to go down into deindustrialized hell.
Great wealth is being concentrated at the top via the modern system which is all about luring the American people deeper and deeper into debt. Collectively as well as individually, we owe more and more and save less and less. We are encouraged to do this as our entire banking and trade systems are reset so they encourage debt and destroy savings. The virtues which we call 'old fashioned' are being reforged into a new, destructive moral code.
During the previous dozen elections, I have actually heard responsible adults say to me, 'Who cares about the next generation. I want tax cuts.' People who worry about their own grandchildren would vote for tax cuts which would burden their grandchildren's entire lives. When this is pointed out, a number of people would say, 'MY grandchildren won't have to worry!'
There was and still is this pet belief that the grandparents would leave a great boon to the heirs and thus, make up for dumping a mountain of public debts on them. Alas, this belief is collapsing as the grandparents who voted for tax cuts are now piling debts on top of their own homes as they struggle to keep up with inflation.So an entire generation will probably inherit not only vast tax obligations but also will inherit virtually nothing. As I look along the great curve of history, it is not hard to see over the horizon. All we have to do is mentally take wing and fly into the dim future. We can see clearly if we see the past. People who live in the 'here and now' cannot foresee the future since they are often ignorant of the past.
This collective ignorance of the past isn't the fault of the ordinary American voter. It is a fault of all the people at the very top. They are quite aware of the past. But instead of trying to understand it, they use it to justify the present.
When 'The Decline and Fall of Rome' was written by Gibbon, this was done as a warning to the newly-born British Empire. Gibbon got bogged down in all the details of the Byzantine Empire and lost sight of the general sense of decline that afflicts all empires. But he needed to write a plain history for others, first. The historians and radical thinkers of the 19th century explored the fascinating topic of the decline and fall of all empires. Even with this, many thinkers were filled with hubris: they thought their own empires were somehow different!
But none were. Even if an empire was built on the foundation of a democracy, they failed. We know this from history! The Athenian/Spartan imperial complex first killed off democracy and then fell to the sword of Macedonia. Then the new ruler, Alexander the Great, marched off to destroy other, older empires. Empires that were failing internally even though they were at their own military zenith!
For this is the most startling feature of most imperial collapses: they happen when an empire is spending its greatest sums on self-defense. The British empire bled to death when it was its strongest, not weakest. WWI killed the British Empire. It continued to expand but was fatally wounded and it didn't take much a push to collapse it entirely in WWII.
In WWI, the British and French fought the Germans to a stand-still pretty quickly. In WWII, Germany swept in nearly effortlessly. Japan, in the East, rolled right over both French and English colonies with barely a pause. The lessons our 'Greatest Generation' has not learned from all this is obvious: the WWII propaganda is all about how great the West was and how our greatness defeated the Nazis and Japanese.
Not, how very weak the previous imperial rule of Europe had become. And why it was weakened. Our Presidential candidates cannot run on a platform that discusses the loss of US military and diplomatic power. But it is a very necessary conversation for the US people! We can't evade this anymore.
England's industrial base was destroyed after WWI. Today, Britain has virtually no industries at all. They make believe that this is no tragedy. Why, Britain is just this small island complex! BUT SO IS JAPAN. Is Japan deindustrializing itself?
Obviously, not! There are now no British auto makers. There are still very big German and Japanese auto makers. No British subject runs any automobile systems. German and Japanese auto manufacturing plants are being built and run all over the planet!
The US native auto industry is collapsing here at home. General Motors and Ford build more than half of their cars overseas. So they continue onwards. But they are deindustrializing the US relentlessly. It is only a matter of time before only foreign owners will be building any cars here. And they will do this only because it keeps political heat off of them. If they just export cars to the US, they get exposed to political calls for tariffs and barriers.
One major feature of all imperial collapses is the problem of taxes and the increasing burden of past spending. All empires basically go bankrupt. And a key component of this is military spending coupled with corruption at the core. To fund the military, it ceases to be a joint effort of the people and becomes a privatized military system which protects only the wealthy and leaves the population as foreign interlopers who must be prevented from interfering with the ruling class.
We see this, again, in Britain: I read in the news this week that the government wants to bring in Gurkas from former colonies in Asia to patrol Britain! These mercenaries are exactly like the ones Romans used to keep their own people at bay. Bringing in foreigners who are of a different ethnic/religious group who will swear fealty ONLY to the ruling elites who pay them: this is a certain sign that the British people are finished as a political power. They are now merely tax sheep to be sheered when necessary.
It is a slow process: first, you let the population spend on bread and circuses. Then, you enslave them with the burden of the debts caused by this largesse.
The United States already recruits our troops in foreign lands. Then, our imperial overlords send these troops to other countries to occupy them and exploit the natives there. This is tremendously expensive so the overlords merrily charge all of these expenses to the bills owed by the public at home. That is, our grandchildren. They will be enslaved by these military and trade bills we are charging to the future!
No one wants to stop this because it is right now, painless. We imagine that if there were another Pearl Harbor, we would just up the output of our factories and....Britain could barely crawl along during WWII and certainly has no industrial base to activate today if they needed it again. And the US is rapidly approaching this same, dire situation. Now, on to the news today:
Vote for ( )
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN Unfortunately, you’d barely know that from the presidential debates. Watching them in the context of the meltdown of the financial system was like watching a game show where the two contestants were kept off-stage in a soundproof booth and brought out to address the audience without knowing the context. Since the last debate, John McCain and Barack Obama have unveiled broad ideas about how to restore the nation’s financial health. But they continue to suggest that this will be largely pain-free. McCain says giving everyone a tax cut will save the day; Obama tells us only the rich will have to pay to help us out of this hole. Neither is true.
We are all going to have to pay, because this meltdown comes in the context of what has been “perhaps the greatest wealth transfer since the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in 1917,” says Michael Mandelbaum, author of “Democracy’s Good Name.” “It is not a wealth transfer from rich to poor that the Bush administration will be remembered for. It is a wealth transfer from the future to the present.”
This is one of my earliest Friedman cartoons. I was just learning to draw using the Wacom pad system. This system is very difficult to master at first so I drew stick figures. It was hellishly hard. Instead of direct transmission of mind to paper, I had to draw in my lap while looking at the computer screen. Very difficult to do at first!
Friedman is a top pundit. He is also directly responsible for the destruction of the entire US industrial base. He is the front man for destroying our nation. Just this week, an African man was sentenced to prison for committing international crimes when he supported illegal war efforts by his own rulers. We punished Saddam's press staff. We punished Hitler's press staff, too.
They are all held responsible for the actions of the people they service! So it is here: Friedman is serving the traitors who are rapidly destroying our nation. He should certainly be arrested for crimes against the entire American people! Not to mention, his many war crimes. For he is a war monger as well as a de-industrializer sympathizer and running dog for the international bankers seeking to drive us all into debt.
My 2005 cartoon is pretty clear: Friedman is happily pushing US workers off the New World Order Flat Earth he and his buddies created for us. Here is one of my oldest articles:
June 14, 2005:
FRIEDMAN CELEBRATES JOB LOSSES My, having a secure job that won't be outsourced certainly is fun. One can happily poke a hot poker into the ribs of fellow Americans while utterly protected. The cold blooded antipatriotism of writers like Friedman astonishes me. Do the owners of the NYT view our country this way? One wonders and one suspects. Seems many in Congress think this way, too. Certainly, most of our business owners are like this. They hate America. JUNE 24, 2005
*snip*
I will spare you all the horror of reading anymore of this tripe. This wealthy, pampered pet of the ruling class, sub group, pro-fascist Israel, thinks a 35 hr week and welfare benefits are silly Frenchie things, non? I would love to park this guy in a mud hut somewhere like in the middle of Gaza and let him fend for himself but this will not happen. So this lapdog doth yap at us mere chattel for wanting simple protections so we won't all end up in mud huts, too.
This was my reaction to a classic Friedman editorial demanding Congress not even slightly restrict imports! He is one of the many-headed Beast of Babylon that has destroyed our nation. He is probably one of the top enablers for globalization. He is focused on one thing: destroying all our protections so we cannot stop a flood of imports. Japan and China control imports! Europe does, too, via domestic consumption taxes.
But the low-tax ideology of the US has doomed us to having absolutely no barriers to consumption. And we consume like crazy. There is an obvious connection between easy credit and the US public buying too much imported goods. The cheaper credit is, the higher our trade deficit. In turn, the Flat Earth empires exporting to us lend us more cheap money so we can continue this.
We saw this week, our own rulers cooperating with the entire planet to drive interest rates here down to sub-1% levels so we can continue to collapse into deeper debt! And Friedman applauds all of this!
Here, again, is Culture of Life News addressing these problems long ago:
2005: Friedman Wants US Economy Magically Fixed So many people trust this con artist. Why are we 'a country in debt and in decline' in the first place? Before 'free trade' took over, we had no trade deficit. As I showed clearly in this week's articles detailing past Federal Reserve speeches, the US decided to cope with suppressing inflation by the neat trick of devaluing the currency abroad while simultaneously opening up the US to 'foreign competition' that was designed to force prices downwards via dropping union wages. To clinch the deal, the US media had to herd the voters into backing anti-unionist Ronald Reagan who cheerfully destroyed the right to strike. Now, strike breakers can replace striking workers permanently so no one dares to really strike anymore. Unions have had severely declining membership since Ronald Reagan's rule and now are utterly vanishing as the Old Guard are bought out with bribes and replaced with non-unionized, weaker workers who have far less pricing power and much, much lower wages and virtually no benefits.
Namely, the workers ate inflation. Free trade benefited Asia and Europe. Both saw huge trade surpluses with the US. Both saw their important industries grow massively. Both saw their sovereign wealth increase. Meanwhile, the US had little inflation but rising debts, loss of good industrial jobs, and the de-industrialization of this nation. If WWII were looming, we would have to surrender to Japan since we can't manufacture much of anything to keep ourselves going. We can make weapons but what if we have virtually no steel mills? Most of our ball bearings, fasteners and other vital things are made in Japan, China and Germany! The materials that make the wings of our fancy jets so fancy are made in Japan, not the US.
Friedman encouraged and enabled all this. For years and years, this Zionist who dreams of making Israel super-strong made America super-weak. We have to talk about this business because when we see treason, we have to answer the question, 'Which nation does this guy really work for, anyway?' Suspicions have to be aired. Of course, if anyone does this, they get censored or shoved aside in the US. We are not supposed to ask this vital question. When writers consistently push for things that destroy America, we must explore the question, 'Why?'
Some time ago, I showed that Israel, Friedman's home away from home, has enjoyed an international trade surplus. This is due nearly entirely because the US has a huge trade deficit with Israel. On top of paying for Israel's military, all peace initiatives and other hand outs. Israel is by far and away, the #1 recipient of US public largess. Friedman never complains about all this. He is very jolly well overjoyed about this. This is for him, good news, not bad news.
Here is another old story I wrote:
MARCH 06, 2006
Flat World Free Trade Traitors Screaming At Americans While Selling Our Security To Enemies
Back to Friedman's NYT editorial today: A major money market fund — Reserve Primary — failed in September because the extra interest it offered customers derived, in part, from the $785 million in high-yielding Lehman Brothers commercial paper and notes it was holding. Depositors who told their congressmen to just let that greedy Lehman Brothers fail were shocked to discover this meant that their own money market would be frozen. No, we don’t need a president defending greed on Wall Street, but we do need one who can explain that we are all in the same boat, that a leak at one end can sink everyone and that while we must regulate, we don’t want to kill risk-taking and the rewards that go with that — which are essential to growing our economy.
This man is not only nuts, he is heartless. I don't recall the public demanding that Lehman Brothers fail! The US public would prefer that NO businesses fail! Indeed, the #1 job of the Federal Reserve is to protect us from all of this. And the means for this is to not allow bubbles to form OR TO LET TOO MUCH CREDIT BE CREATED!!!!
The Fed failed, of course. Since the guys running it listen to creatures like the heartless Friedman guy, we get bad advice as well as the devotion of the Fed's officers are not aimed at protecting us but enabling people like Lehman Brothers to do stupid things.
What stupid thing did Lehman Brothers do, anyway? HAHAHAHA. They helped create and feed the Derivatives Beast! Paulson wanted to save them the same way he saved Bears Stearns: by taking in the losses and handing over the goodies to JP Morgan or Goldman Sachs.
But when he tried this for Lehman Brothers, he discovered that NO ONE WANTED TO DO THIS. It was because of the huge overhang of Derivatives Beast messes! Anyone who sucked down this baby would go instantly bankrupt no matter how big. And this definitely includes our Federal Reserve!
So they decided to see what would happen if they let it all just die. It instantly set AIG off the cliff! They were forced to save AIG because this would bankrupt the entire planetary system! Right now, we are seeing the DTCC attempt to make the Derivatives Beast a less frightful creature only even they dare not publish, in public, the actual deals and numbers. Indeed, Mark It was launched for this purpose: to give us a mark-to-market view of the actual real value of all the SIVs and CDOs and other goofy instruments sold by Lehman Brothers and others.
I watched in amazement last year as the Mark It graphs plunged to basically $0. They were obviously worthless. The Treasury and Fed Reserve are still struggling to save AIG. The bill is now nearly $200 billion and rising. And the AIG executives are using a huge hunk of this to party and pay themselves bonuses! All the gnomes being saved are doing this. They are treating this as a looting expedition, not a way to save America.
Friedman's sneering at the poor savers who are losing over 90% of their savings is pure Friedman fun: he is a terrorist.
About risk taking: the Lehman investors were forced into increasingly risky ventures due to the central bankers dropping interest rates far below the rate of real inflation. This isn't investor greed. This is investors being denied a safe return that is realistic. If they want more, they deserve to lose money if their bets don't pan out.
On the other hand, Friedman and his buddies all lied about risk! They told investors that the Derivatives Beast would eliminate all risk. So anyone who wrote positive stories about how credit default swaps ended risk should be arrested for fraud or enabling a con job.
JUNE 17, 2005
SNOW BLINDNESS Is our economy expanding? Friedman, this last week, said he wanted Toyota to take over our entire auto industry. Because it is collapsing. I suppose next week, he will call for China to take over everything else...oops, they are. If we are "expanding," I see no sign of this. For the last thirty years, hiring in the manufacturing sector has collapsed. At first, they pretended this was due to automation. But we don't see lots of robot run factories being built, are we?
Another very early Friedman cartoon. Note the corporate jet flying away! Friedman isn't the only traitor who is la-de-dah about Japan destroying our auto industries. In England, Honda is forcing the government to subsidize their plant there since there is NO English auto industries anymore. The ones that were English are now parts of German or Japanese auto corporations! How far they have fallen!
More Friedman Fun: So who are the brilliant minds that will be called to talk about all this? Friedman? Kristof? A Bush person? I can't wait to see which liars or fools are called forth here.
Back to Friedman's whining about world trade: Third, we need a president who can rally the world to our side. We cannot get out of this crisis unless China starts consuming more and unless Europe keeps lowering interest rates. Everyone is interconnected, and everyone is still looking to America to lead.
If China 'consumes more' this means someone has to consume less. Or pay more in competition with the Chinese. For example, oil. If the Chinese buy more cars, they will use more oil and this means we either use less or pay more, ourselves. And if we imagine the Chinese, who let foreign automakers build factories there, won't take over these systems one by one, we are foolish.
For this is their 50 year plan! They told me this years ago! They plan to have all the best factories transfered to China and then relentlessly drive out all the foreign devils who run the main offices. This is a sly take-over that the entire government is focused on! Trust me on this one.
Which is the exact opposite of America's ruling elites. They want to enable foreign domination, not the opposite.
Culture of Life News, May, 2005: WHERE ARE THE EXECUTIVES? asks Friedman Friedman: 'After six weeks of being a foreign correspondent traveling around America, the biggest question I have come home with is not "What's the matter with Kansas?" but rather, "What's the matter with big business?"'
Earth to Friedman: nothing is the matter with big business. They are doing hunky dory.
No more taxes, no more regulation, no one stopping them from becoming agents for China. As this blog has written about in the past, the magazine, Fortune 500 had jet loads of these MIA execs flying into China to wine and dine and cut deals. They are very much in evidence...overseas. They are busy selling off factories here and shipping them off to communist China. Duh.
*snip*
Friedman at the NYT yet again:'"America faces a huge set of challenges if it is going to retain its competitive edge. As a nation, we have a mounting education deficit, energy deficit, budget deficit, health care deficit and ambition deficit. The administration is in denial on this, and Congress is off on Mars. And yet, when I look around for the group that has both the power and interest in seeing America remain globally focused and competitive - America's business leaders - they seem to be missing in action. I am not worried about the rise of the cultural conservatives. I am worried about the disappearance of an internationalist, pro-American business elite."'
Why can't Friedman find these people? I track them daily, easily. He can too, if he can't, he can read this free blog! Friedman wants to know why General Motors isn't for universal health insurance.
Taxes. This means they pay Federal taxes and they and their buddies want to kill Federal taxes. They want to kill the unions. Using the health insurance issue as a club to smash in the heads of the unions is well worth it. They have zero interest in a good health policy for all Americans. They hate this concept. They think all other industrial nations are nuts to have this, they want communism like the Chinese have. Ahem.
Poor flat earther Friedman wonders why these corporate monsters don't want a sane energy policy. Well, they won't make money on this, to build a new infrastructure will require investing in America and take away money building factories in China. So it is dead in the water. When the Chinese sell us energy systems, and they will, they are very interested in this stuff, we will buy from them. Why invest at home?
Nothing has really changed since I wrote these old articles. Except our entire banking system has collapsed. And since 2004, our trade deficit was nearly a trillion dollars in the red every year. And these facts still don't faze our pundit class clowns. They continue onwards, deliberately refusing to see reality. Their reality is pure fun.
I make very little money commenting here. Thanks to wonderful readers who take the time and have the generosity to donate funds to my small news service, I get to enjoy posting, using good equipment. But Friedman makes millions of dollars thanks to his New York Times platform. He was put mercifully behind a 'pay to view' wall which is why I ceased mentioning him after 2005. But that wall is down and now I can throw rotten tomatoes at this idiot again. Thank you, New York Times.
Elaine, your thoughts on Great Britain are somewhat fanciful. HMG is not bringing in Gurkhas to patrol the country. Quite the reverse: they have been actively trying to keep them out, mainly the retirees, so they won't qualify for free healthcare. In any event the Gurkhas have been reduced to a single regiment of a few hundred men. (The officers are all British, btw.) They'd struggle to patrol a single small city.
In fact HMG (Her Majesty's Government) has largely abdicated any sort of control over the territory the United Kindgom. Street crime is running rampant while 60 percent of police officers have migrated to 9-5 desk jobs leaving "response" officers woefully under staffed.
Nice blog, btw. I drop in occasionally.
Posted by: Nationalist | November 05, 2008 at 08:29 AM
US had got lots of goods, oil, furnitures in house and depository. What's US paid for these? Just the debt and paper. Lehman died, the foreign debt was gone. What's the foreign investor got? Air pollution and the empty mine.
Posted by: TeL | November 06, 2008 at 10:37 PM