Betrayers of America

People think of Benedict Arnold being the worst traitor to America of all time.  But actually Benedict Arnold on three different occasions, so I learn today, was a hero in American Revolutionary War battles putting himself thrice in danger of life and limb.  However people agree he had "personality problems" and he came to distrust George Washington for passing him over to promotion to general or something, when at the time Washington had a lot of his own pressing problems and had no time for him.  But in January of 2009 a "Kabal" of Republican congressmen met to play how they might sabotage the carrier of President Elect Obama. These included all the normal suspects, the orange man with the upper lip that never moves, John Boehner, Paul Ryan, Jim De Mint,  that Cantor fellow and a number of others- seven or eight of them.  Nancy Pelosi's house passed the tax measure that would have stopped American corporations from relocating over seas.  Because now the cost of dissolving the factories over here and building new factories off shore is a tax write off and the rest of the tax payers subsedize it.  And this bill would not only prevent that but offer these same corporations, who had looted America once, a chance to get yet another tax break for moving their corporations BACK to US soil.  But the Republican senate blocked this bill from passage.  President Obama was stymied in this first congressional term, where democrats ruled both houses because the forty percent majority who represent perhaps ten percent of the US population blocked this and other vital measures from passing.

The North American Free Trade Agreement or NAFTA is another obvious betrayal.  Contrary to what Thom Hartman said on his show today- - "historically" and for perhaps a hundred years the Republican party to a man believed in industrial terrifs.  In fact many blamed these terrifs for contributing to causes of the Great Depression.  And it wasn't till the late forties that people stopped referring to it as "The Republican Depression" and gave it it's present designation.  But the democratic party has had ample betrayers in this regard and the chiefest of these is Al Gore who had ongoing debates on radio and on TV during 1992 with Perot arguing against NAFTA and Al Gore arguing passionately for it.  And then Bill Clinton who was neutral during the campaign, came out for the NAFTA treaty in 993 and signed the thing and the destiny of our economic woes was set.  And that's how these things happen.  And now the tea baggers are the biggest cheer leaders for NAFTA because they have the most to gain from it driving up corporate profits and driving down American wages to the level of third world nations.  It used to be people sold you "save up and you'll have a nest egg for your old age" but that doesn't happen today and I imagine if you're a young person you have trouble conceiving of such a thing, because there are so many hard luck cases in the News of people living day to day.

.  People wonder if there is any down side to our "no tollerence" drug laws.  They can detect Canibus in your system as much as a month after and they can detect it in your hair.  Is it any wonder people have little incentive to "go off the drug" for a while.  Because even if you so off for a week, they'll still get you in the no tollerence drug tests. So if Adam Smith must be satisfied then nature dictates that "market forces" will come into play.  People will look for a drug that cannot be tested.  And hopefully a drug whose molicules are constantly changing so that you CAN"T ever come up with a difinitive test for it.  Randy Rhodes played this song about becoming a zombie saying, “All we want to do is eat your flesh, but we don’t want to eat your eyes”.  There is this drug referred to as “bath salts’ and there is another drug called spice.  This is a chemically synthetic drug that cannot be traced so people in the police and in the military love it.  It makes you really whacked out.  But worse you don’t “come down” in a few hours but it stays in your system for days often giving you one continuing “bad trip” or whatever.  These kinds of drugs are all the rage among young people but us old folks have never heard of them before a few months ago.  Obviously if the Obama administration wants to get on the stick it will start regulating them and scrutinizing them heavily.  Apparently the one drug is actually sold as “bath salts’ but there is a warning on the package that says ‘Not for human consumption” and apparently this lets them off the hook with the Food and Drug Administration.  Obviously drugs of any nature are inherently bad most of the time.  Today’s generation may seem like a level headed stable bunch, but apparently are anything but that.

Race horse 'I'll Have Another" winner of the Kentucky Derby and Preakness- - has now been sidelined with a carrier ending ltendin eg injury.  So "I'll Have Another" will not be having another.  Just one day away- - the horse was not only pulled out out of the Belmont states due to a swollen, infected tendin.  This was a big let down and fans will not have their favorite to rout for, so attendance for the Belmont will be down because of it, I'm sure.  It's a sad day.  It seems just a little strange that we have not had a tripple crown winner since 1978.  I doubt there has been another period in racing history where there has been such a dry spell with no Tripple Crown winner.  It's been 34 years.

Monsanto is a betrayer of America for their buying out of all these small seed companies.  You know when Capitalism there are a lot of permiutations and varieties of businesses.  But when too many big fish eat too many little fish- and they intern are eaten by bigger fish- - the situation becomes very unhealthy.  So it is with our grain and produce seeds.  There used to be hundreds if not thousands of varieties of seeds from apples to rice, to lettuce.  They estamate that 97% of the varieties of produce produced at the beginning of the twentieth century are extinct now.  Think about that.  It started when they discovered nitrogen could be used in making bombs and explosives before world war I, and that they could use it for furtelizer, too.  Then DDT came along in the forties and the green revolution came in the fifties when vast tracts of land were devoted to just one variety of crop produce.  One might call it "evolution of the fittest" or perhaps "just helping nature along a little".  But it became apparent that they had to use pesticide more frequently now and there were famines of foods wiped out by some fungus or whatever that many varieties of produce would have prevented the rapid spread of, but with just one variety this was much more difficult.  The US Patent office from the git go has always been opposed to patenting "Life".  But they relented a little with genetic engineering saying "You can patent the Idea but not the plant".  Then in 1978 they had a court case that said you could patent a sludge eating microbe.  And then Monsanto came out with Round-Up the universal pestacide that killed everything that wasn't certain kinds of specified grass.  It was wonderful because you could spray it on everything.  You could do routine spraying of plants and not wait till they "need it" kind of like circumcision or something.  And yes Kellog is culpible.  Over seventy percent of Kellog and other processed grain products are genetically engineered.  One farmer in Canada was prosecuted in Monsanto because some of "their seed" was discovered in his yard and they think he violated their patent.  The thing is you spray a product like Round-up on everything and it's supposed to all Die unless the grain is genetically engineered to resist the spray by Monsanto. And then it only gets worse because you have  non reusable seeds good for only the one year and you have to come crawling to Monsanto for more.  That's a sure fire guarentee of mass starvation.  Then you have other crops with the pestafide built into the very genetics of the crop itself.  And then you have the problem with the bees and importing them but then Europe doesn't want the bees back because they are now tainted with genetically engineered product.  Bees abandon the hive due massive malntrition, and the pollen is tainted and jeopardizes other non engineered stuff.  Contrary to what the media tells you, they never solved this problem but it only got so bad it was too grim to talk about.  They import bees and they die too and now it's anybody's guess the whole future of the bee industry.

Finally we have my own parents as betrayers for their part, particularly my Mom on getting me on social security.  I wanted to talk to my local church pastor about it to get his take and whether it was ethical as a Christian to be on SSI and what the Bible say about it.  Unfortunately me and this pastor were on pretty poor terms as of then, and they only got worse so that meeting never happened. In mid summer 1998 I told my parents when I was visiting them I'd have fared much better if I had just gotten help from them in any tough times.  My money situation was pretty good in 1998.  Back in the nineties a was frequently audited.  This auditing occurs much more rarely now because they know that I'm broke and I'm not going any where.  But there was a time earlier on when I was working - - perhaps not full time - - and pulling down a pay check - - and hiding the money from the snoopy eyes of the auditors became a problem.  Now today everybody is like me with their savings wiped out.  In my case it was because of a decision crammed my throat (among so many) I didn't have a real choice about, or didn't think that I did.  Judy claims to be a tea bagger but they would never in a million years adopt the "party line' my family has adopted about my being on S S I.  It is indeed a betrayal, and a blatent hypocracy, among so many blatent hypocracies of my family.