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The Basic Idea of our Economic System

2012-02-05T14:58:00.000-05:00

by David Michael Beachwood

http://earthnotes-eblog.blogspot.com

Under the principles of thesystem we use, almost nothing is built that the general public, at large,doesn’t end up paying for. This includes most public as well as private undertakings. In fact over time we the people often pay moreheavily than most of us realize. This isbecause we not only pay for the materials, but also for the taxes, fees, interest,and a host of other tact on charges. These are simply added to the price of the products we buy. This happens in a variety of ways. We get just a glimpse of how this happenswhen we look at our own home mortgage rates. If you have ever looked at one of those tables, you should have an ideaas to who the process favors. Banks arenot the only ones who prosper. To agreat degree the system also favorsthose large companies who make a product and those who trade in them. However, for the most part, the banks benefitenormously; mostly because they control a product called money.

If you are not making a product then naturally this processdoes not favor you. If you are part ofthe top ten percent, however than you can enjoy having that added benefit of being ableto pass your cost on to others. This isdone to others not only when they buy houses, but with roads, bridges, and almost anythingthat is made. You, as an individual orsmall business, however are not as able to always take advantage of this system. Recouping those additional costs to you by charging more for yourservice or trade, is likely not possible. This actually holds true even for small businesses, but the top tenpercent of businesses have a much easier time of raising prices, under the system. We, as individuals, can go and ask for a raise;each time prices go up, but our success is slim to none. Thepoint is; the system doesn’t work forworkers very well at all. Oh by the waymore than ninety percent of us are workers. Yes, even a good part of the top ten percent of our population isworkers. However they, the top tenpercent, are well paid workers so minor price changes don’t affect them as much,and it is generally easier for them to get pay increases when needed.

No surprise than that about ten percent of our populationwill tell you that they have been able to get a raise. Sometimes this number is higher if the desired growth occurs. Sometimes the number is lower if their greed gets excessive. In any event they will tell you that if you make yourselfmore useful you can also get a raise. Thisis true, but only up to a fixed point. Why, because in order for the top ten percent to remain at the top in The Price System they have to controlprices. Think about it; not everyone canbe in the top ten percent. Logically youunderstand this for if everyone was giving orders; who would be left to takeorders? All systems will set tiers of some sort, only this system allows the top tier to set themselves up to be favored excessively. Perhaps they feel that if more people were in the top tier that they might not feel as important. Why, because they wouldn't have as many people to be better than; money being their measure.

Money seems to have a way of separating us. Perhaps our desire to have excessive richesclouds our thinking so we tend to ignore the faulty logic of the process or system that we use. We do little to correct the systembecause we ourselves wish we were included in the top ten percent; againknowing that this isn’t likely going to happen. Why, because the system is designed for only ten percent or less to beexcessively wealthy. It’s full circle onillogical thinking. We buy into thegamble that we will somehow be the one out of ten who makes it; even though theodds are, that 9 times out of 10, we lose. This selfish desire makes ninety percent of us losers in the game thatthe top ten percent are running.

In the game King of the Hill, the idea is to throw yourcompetitors off the hill if they try to take your position on top. If you don’t do something to keep others offthe hill you cannot remain King. Ifeveryone could fit on top, the game wouldn’t make sense. ThePrice System is similar to this game called King of the Hill and we play itthinking there is no other game to play. We are to the point that we rarely even question the game. Consequently it has been entrenched in ourminds as the only game that is played; economically.

Now people generally are not always thrown physically offthe hill in this game. There issomething more subtle going on. You areasked to achieve results that are not attainable for ninety percent of us. Most of us believe, naively, that we can allachieve the desired goals so we blame ourselves when we don’t make it. Sometimes a few of us, when we are allowed tobe part of the ten percent, admit to ourselves that there were others just ascapable or even more capable that should have been promoted as well. We pretend that those others will eventuallyget up here with us in time, but deep down we know there isn’t room. Most people will have to be content to liveon the side of the hill. Part of the jobof the ten percent is to keep those on the side of the hill happy. Recently they haven’t been able to do theirjob very easily, because others in their group have gotten a little too greedy. This greed has, for all intents and purposes,pushed more and more people down toward the bottom of the hill.

It is hard to accept that under their system only about ten percent can really be high paid achievers. The reason for this limit is even moredeplorable then the concept itself. It’sbecause the remaining ninety percent or more have to contribute part of theirwages to those in the upper ten percent or otherwise Their Price System will not work. Instead of throwing people down the hillphysically the top percentage group shaves more and more money off of theremaining ninety-plus percent so that they can have more. Afterall if you don’t have more what is the use of being King of the hill? If you’re King that means you’re better than theothers, put another way, others are not as good as you. This is true, but only to a point, andcertainly not in the way that those at the top of the ten percent group wouldhave you believe.

There are natural differences between each of us. However these differences are not as immenseas some in the top ten percent have defined them. They have inflated their own importance to anextreme. This is done so that theirKingdoms can be enriched at the expense of others. In order to do this they created this system in which only about ten percentcan achieve the goals. Further evenwithin this ten percent only about one percent holds the majority of wealth andpower. This is extreme wealth andpower. This one percent has over thecenturies developed The Price Systemto be their tool to control the world; as such their design favors themheavily. If you wish to read more about The Price System you can click on thebook link on the right hand side of this blog page.

I reserve the right to revise and extend my remarks.

Can We Mend the World's Economy?

2012-01-16T15:19:00.000-05:00

http://earthnotes-eblog.blogspot.com

by: David Michael Beachwood

Before we can start to fix things, we first have to agreethat something is wrong with the system of economics and commerce we have. The first challenge thus is; to understandjust what that system is. The secondchallenge than becomes; how do we convince the ten percent, who are doing quitewell under this system, that their system is broke? After all these people are in charge of thesystem and it serves them well. A shortbook titled “The Price System” attempts to provide the basic framework for theireconomic system; it’s also ours by default. You can access the book through the link on the right hand side of thisblog. This should help with the first challenge. As for the second challenge, we will have towork on that; perhaps the occupy movement has already started its search foranswers. These movements however areoften subverted by those in charge; time will tell.

Now on top of these problems or challenges we have thefollowing. Nearly every one of us hastheir own ideas on how to fix things. Somepeople, however, really don’t seem to be paying attention to the world’sproblems yet. They are too caught up intheir own troubles. There are also thosewho don’t care about other people having those hard times. In fact they even plot to use the misfortunesof others to their own advantage. In sodoing, their plan to fix things really only includes the selfish people like themselves. Looking at the world from their narrow viewof self interest doesn’t lead to world improvement. It does however lead to class improvement;the “have’s” and the “have not’s.” This again is fine if you are in the classof the “ten percent or the have’s” and done care. In fact these actions really make the world’sconditions worse. Worse not only forninety percent of the population they control, but ultimately they themselves. It is even worse for the planet; whoseresources are pillaged with little regard. Most of us would like to see a more fairly balanced world with justiceand freedom for as many people as possible. Most would like to see a planet with room for the eco systems to workwithout the stress of excessive overuse. This is a planet where there is also room for wildlife, and wild places. The current price system is not designed forthat; because it is based on constant growth. It does poorly if growth doesn’t occur, so encroachment into the wild isa goal.

My belief is that the “haves and have not’s” cannot mend theworld by themselves; at least we cannot do a complete mending of it. I believe this because, as a whole, the humanrace has not reached the necessary maturity to address the issues which plagueit. We, as alluded to above, are too fractured;too side tracked, and too detached or distracted by the actions of the “tenpercent.” On top of all of this,humanity as a whole lacks the intelligence to fix itself, let alone the world,at this time. Here is an example of whatI mean. One person says we need capitalismand that is the only way things will work. Another person says no, we need to have socialism that is the onlyway. Still others say communism or dictatorshipsor even monarchies, and on and on. Theredoesn’t seem to be any consensus. Consequentlywe can’t work together; we don’t have one unifying plan. That is, other than the one presented to usby the “ten percent.” I like to callthat plan The Price System.

If we take, just two sides of any given argument we caneasily find people with completely opposite reactions to the same issue. The facts,that each person chooses, in their decision process, are bent by their ownparticular world view; or is it your view? Did someone teach you or did you come to the conclusions on yourown? The problem is we learn to pick theviews of the ten percent; even if they are wrong. We allow those personal biases, favors, orpreferences to influence our getting to a just decision or result. Here is an example of this idea taken to itsextreme. When a mother says; “I do notcare if my son viciously killed those innocent people on purpose; he is a goodboy and shouldn’t go to prison.” The extremes of our biases thus are verydifferent than the reality we live in. Thediversity of the opinions we hold are extremely controlled while at the sametime purposely fractured to minimize opposition. Knowing this, can we really expect to have abetter world? Still mending the world ispossible to some degree.

Much has been written on how to make the world a betterplace; we only lack the collective will to make it so. Things have to get bad enough to cause us toreally take a good look at the current system, The Price System; and see it forwhat it is. In the past this system wasfound flawed and, to some extent, was temporarily removed from power. Unfortunately, it has always worked its wayback to full strength. At full strengthit causes the imbalance in the world. Wehave fixed things in the past; at least for short intervals. Yes, there are ways to bring the world backinto more of a balance. Keeping thebalance, is that really the answer for life on earth?

To accomplish anything worthwhile as a group, the group hasto be pulling in the same direction. Inorder to do this we have to give up some of our own individual interest andwork for the group interest. We canstruggle on in our individual lives and not be tied to any social order, butthat is a tough life. Most people preferto live in some kind of social order. Thefear here, in a social order, is that we might be forced to give up to muchindividual freedom. Again there is anobvious need for balance.

One of the main problems, of all time, is that some peoplewant to live in the social order and expect to retain all of theirindividual interest and control. Theyforget that by the very act of being born placed them in the social order of afamily. This would be a family which hadto give up some of their individual interest in order to serve the interest oftheir baby. At birth we are not incontrol of our survival, but we were depended on a social order. This social order is what some people want todeny. They want to be completely exemptfrom their social duties and to do this they want to, and need to, control the socialfamily.

The ‘ten percent’ have been successful at convincing mankindthat everyone can be in the ten percent group. The idea being that if we are all excessively wealthy we can control ownlives. The reality is that it is onlypossible for ten percent or less to enjoy the excessively lavish lifestyles ofKings and Queens under their system. This is because the system preys upon the ninety percent to furnish themwith those excessive luxuries. Theirsystem does not allow for everyone to be wealthy, because it creates Kings andQueens. Think about it if everyone was aKing or Queen who would clean the toilet. Their system is a false dream for ninety percent of us.

For centuries people have pointed a way for a more balancedsystem to occur. Their writings havecalled for this balance in every aspect of our lives. Around the world ancient writers seemed tohave been filled with the same need to achieve this balance. Because of this various religions, at times,have presented a threat to the price system. The ten percent have done whatever wasnecessary to corrupt those efforts. Theycreated The Price System and they have maintained it to favor themselves, and those who support it, fromthe beginning of history. Can thingsever change?

I do believe that wehave the capacity to make things better. We certainly cannot make it perfect, but we can do better than we arenow. What is prefect? Where do you and I get our ideas ofperfection? Whose idea is better? Theseare all questions which point to the divisions we hold which prevent ourperfection from occurring. In order toaffect changes in the world at this time a movement of immense size andstrength of ideology is required. In myopinion the ideology has to be as if it were a strong religious discipline, ormoral discipline. The unity required tobring balance requires a great deal of like thinking people. In the United States over eighty percent ofthe people are said to already believe in God. Most are not religious, they do not attend church regularly, and this strangely may be a good thing, as itmight improve our chances of becoming of like mind. Is it possible to hone a large enough groupout of these people?

Stories of the biblepoint to a vision of the world which, in many respects, I see in front of metoday. I believe a huge number of peoplesee it as well. Can enough of us agreethat the Price System needs to have balance? Can we agree that biblical stories tell of the same indiscretions which areoccurring today, just as they did centuries ago. Can we agree that the divisions and derisionsof the word of the bible continue to this day? Today the moral divisions are perhaps worse because when people read thebible, they can read many different versions of it; which one is correct? The divisions even cause a more troubling question; is there any such thing as morals or even a God of love? The many different versions prevent like minded thinking, and often cause a lack of faith to grow.

They read different translations; translations which have evenspawned new denominations. Our chance atbeing one with each other, through religion, therefore is extremelyremote; might I say impossible. We are not only, not on the same page, butoften we are not in the same book. Thismakes it almost impossible, at least for me, to see a way for us to make theworld a better place. Except for onething; most of us might agree that God has the ability to make the worldperfect. With this one thing we have achance to make the world a better place.

At the core level of all these religious differences standsthe WORD. It is there in the bible, andeven in the ancient writings from all over the world. This longing to be of like mind and inbalance is shared deep down by eighty percent of us; perhaps even more. Is this enough to make the world a betterplace? It is, if every person digs downto the basic laws which govern most mainstream religions today. Basically there are five to ten rules whichare necessary for us to get along. Theproblems come in when each religion tries to create there own ordinances,statures, and laws. Most of these are manmade divisions andpractices which are not in God’s word, or in any proper moral codes.

I would like to end by calling everyone back to thebasics. Back to what you know deep down. For those of you who believe; believe God is a God of love. For those who do not believe, but use a moral code, believe the golden rule. If you don’t believe in God believe in yourmorals. Be patient with me and others, so that we may be patient with you. Understand that we are not perfect, and helpus to try and do better. Lets lift eachother up and by so doing we can make this world a better place. In the mean time we can grow into being oflike mind, if we do these things.

I reserve the right to revise and extend my remarks.

Cancer Cure Documentary

2012-01-12T19:39:00.000-05:00

Cancer Cure Documentary

http://earthnotes-eblog.blogspot.com
a movie review: by David Michael Beachwood

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qG_ZWs04es

The above link is for a movie titled “Cancer is bigbusiness.” While this movie doesn’tsound like it would be a tear jerker, it is. It reveals the dark side of the price system and how this system hasbeen used to manipulate events. Some oftheir tactics are uncloaked in this must see movie.

In blatant attempts to manipulate the system using theirpower, the FDA and associated agencies have plotted to redirect patents tothose who are in their click. This film unveilstheir schemes in a gut wrenching series of events, which are still unfolding tothis very day. The film is 1:48 minutes and a must see foranyone who has or knows anyone with cancer. To watch the film click on the title above and you will be taken to youtube.

I reserve the right to revise and extend my remarks.

The Magic of Pronouns

2012-01-07T15:12:00.000-05:00

http://earthnotes-eblog.blogspot.com

by David Michael Beachwood

I suppose I enjoyed this video, The Magic of Pronouns , for reasons which may not beclear to everyone who watched it. Thevideo, to me, in part, points out that our language systems are flawed. Eachside, of and in an argument, uses all of these pronouns; it is an embeddedproblem of language. This becomes a labelingproblem for us. Labeling is a problemthat many of us, if not all, at some point fall victim to.

The video also points out that humans are not as smart as wethink we are. Humans can easily be misled;even the ones who are pointing this out; and yes, I include myself. Thereis a need to be vigilant, as the human races need to realize that we are notperfect; we don’t have all the answers. Weneed to, however, be careful not to define the nature of mankind’s problem injust the narrow terms, of Individualism vs. Collectivism. In so doing this handcuffs any completeaddress to a solution.

Now that being said some individualist and some collectivistwould step up to say ‘oh yes we are the solution.’ The way I see this is that both sides herehave extremist among them and these extremist have their own motives to controlthings. This is exactly what one extremistis blaming the other for; that is control issues. Human greed seems to be involved here andbrings about this split. Each extremistwants total control and thus have no interest in compromise or sharing. In reality both sides have some goodqualities, which total control extremist would eliminate.

What humans need, at this point in our development, is abalance between the ideas of Individualism and Collectivism. There is also a need for balance between manyother areas of life or living as well. Will this solve these problems? No, but it should help to reduce the scope of these issues. Balance is possible if both sides are not completelyevil. We all need our Individualfreedoms. However, it is sometimes necessary,because of an excessive and threatening individual or collective entity, to jointogether with others to protect ourselves. In reality evil exists mostly in excess. When it occurs we sometimes must join forces todefeat it. Foreign demigods of the pastare our examples. Now our balancing actis not to become the bullies we set out to eliminate. We can do this if we avoid extremism.

I really do not like using labels, but here again the languagewe speak promotes us to do so. In realityit is often our sense of right and wrong which drives us to join forces. Yes wedon’t always pick the right side; this is because while humans may be at thetop of the evolutional order, we are far from evolved. We clearly don’t have all the answers and judgingfrom all the fragments or schools of thought out there we have a long way togo. In my mind this is all the morereason to adopt a balanced approach to our world view.

To watch the video click here, The Magic of Pronouns and youwill be taken to YouTube. I reserve theright to revise and extend my remarks.

More on "The Price System"

2011-12-18T17:04:00.000-05:00

The Price System is about to collapse again because of its own corruptions. On the next collapse of The Price System how should we treatthe ten percent who have used the system to advantage themselves excessively?

Basically, in my opinion, they should be treated just like us. Yes for a change they should betreated just like us. They would not belofted over us as someone special. They will no longer betreated like a King or Queen or like a Prince or Princes, Lords or Ladies, orany of the other excessive royalty they aspire too. No, at the next Price System collapse they should not be given excessiveadvantages over anyone. As such they will not be able to influence ourpolitical system so as to gather up excessive wealth for their selves. This excessive wealth they would use torestart their beloved Price System again, at our expense.

In short they should no longer wheel an excessive influenceover the common person. In order toaccomplish this they however have to be brought down from their executivepositions. Those positions were securedthrough their non-repented use of their Price System. Remember it is that system which takes awaylife, liberty, wealth and happiness from the bulk of the individuals on theplanet. That is the means in which the tenpercent can live so excessively well. Inessence their wealth was really the wealth that their system stole from theremainder of the population of the planet. We should not feel any guilt for returning what we can to our nation.

Yes this means that excessive wealth has to benationalized. Now guess who will screamSOCIALISM the loudest? They will want tokeep their corrupt system going so that they can do the same building up andtearing down all over again at our expense. Of course they use our greed to accomplish this, if we let them? Paying those who will listen well during thefight and then afterwards returning to the pilfering so as to make the massespoor once again; poor and controllable. Even the ten percent shrinks when the systemstarts to collapse. No one should feelsorry for them anyway, as very likely some of these people will still be at thetop of our new economic system anyway. They just will not be excessively wealthy beyond reason.

I cannot claim that I have all the solutions as to how ournew economic system would work. HoweverI have outlined some ideas in my book “The Price System.” It’s free for you to read online; check theright hand margin on this blog site for access. The new system’s design should help to determine how those ten percentat the top of the old system will be treated. These things still have to be worked out by those who want a better morestable system. With that being said I canoffer some ideas. Let us say that weestablish a minimum living wage standard, and at the same time we set a maximumwage standard. They had no problemsetting a minimum wage on us it is only fair to have one set on those at thetop; however the need to do this is not revenge. The need to do this is for fairness,and justice. Now, we should not have ahard time fixing the minimum living wage. On the other hand setting the maximum wage standard will not be aseasy. We will hear all the reasons why oneperson is worth less than the next. Infact there might be 7 billion reasons here, but we cannot let our humanemotions cloud reality.

The truth of the matter is that each person hasimportance. Under the Price System allLabor is subject to their scheme. It isvaluable when needed and not so valuable when it is not. This makes it easy to arrange a pattern toexploit that system and exploit people. The difference between the sanitation worker and the doctor is inreality not as wide as one would think. Wetend to measure things based on their Price System and we have to remember theyhave set up those values so that they can exploit them. What I am saying isthat The Price System creates a bigger difference than there really is. It causes the excessive expense for medicaltraining. It causes the excessive expense formalpractice insurance. It causes theexcessive expense for medical equipment, and it causes many more unseenexpenses which are explored in my book. In short the only real difference we have should be based on how hard wework. To a great extent a lazy doctor isjust as bad as a lazy sanitation worker, because both can directly affectanother person’s health. However one hasto admit that factors like, responsibilities, length of training, skill levelsor talent have to be considered no matter what occupation we are talkingabout.

We need to define how many levels of difference there shouldbe between people, based on the above factors of, responsibilities, training,and skill or talent. I personally do notbelieve that any person is a thousand or more times more valuable than thenext. I also agree that some people arelazy, and will leach off society if they are given an opportunity. In saying that I also believe that part ofthe reason they do that is that they have given up on themselves. Our new economic system needs to address thesepeople and provide a high standard of support in their lives, in order to bringthose people out of their lack luster personnel aspirations.

I will start with anidea on setting the minimum living wage. Since our new system will cause full employment we will have some helphere in paying these wages. Additionaleconomic support will come from the efficient use of socialized machines tomanufacture the basic needs we all have. We will also gain some additional help from the split form of government thatmy book suggested. This means that bothsocialism and capitalism will be employed in the new system. The help we gather from the socialism aspectof the new government will allow the following.

First we use credits not money to pay everyone the minimumliving wage. You might ask? How do thepeople earn credits? Using a version ofthe Technocracy Work Schedule we can provide the benefits for the minimum livingwage. This needs to be studied, howeverthe hope is that everyone would work four hours a day for four days a week and inreturn they would receive the basic living wage credits.
There would be no income tax on this labor as in essence it is their payment toward the system.

This work would provide minimum living wagesfrom the following basic living needs. Food, clothing, shelter, energy, fire police and military security,insurance for home, car, and health, education and governmental operations willall be included as minimum living necessities. Thus the socialism aspect of this system would support a substantialpart of the costs. The reminder of thecost would come from our use of capitalism and a system of taxation which isclear cut, simple and easy to understand.

We have to remember there are a lot of unknowns we willencounter so we need to start small, minimum levels, and if possible work ourway up. We would nationalize theindustries mentioned above in order to secure the basic platforms in which toinsert our work force. Since our systemalso uses capitalism we will still have industries existing in private hands,but not as corporations and much smaller. We would put caps on personal income and limit the size of theiroperations. For example income caps might be no more thanone million dollars a year.

To start with, our socialized system of minimum livingnecessities should not be lavish. Forexample, the health care aspect would be basic care not private rooms, TVservices, or telephone needs. This isoutlined in the book. Throughcalculating the expense of all the different aspects of our basic needs, on a minimumlevel, we will come up with our minimum living credits required to make thissystem work. In others words we find outwhat the minimum level for all the aspects such as for the military, the policethe fire, etc. Once we determine howeffective our controls over cost can become we will be better able to determinewhat adjustment have to be made. Remember that socialism will employ all the people and their work willpay for the credits. This really isn’t aform of taxing, because in return we are given our benefits.

If the level of socialism is too high then we would discouragethe capitalistic arm of our economy. Thisis where the balance comes in. Sincesocialism would provide the basic needs, capitalism's excessive control overpeople will be diluted. Corruptions inbusiness should not be as extensive. Still people have individual needs and desires and capitalism will beavailable to provide those items which would above the minimum level providedby the socialized minimum. This gives usthe opportunity to raise our standard of living up to the top level of pay thatwe generally agree to be responsible. Isuggest one million dollars a year for that top level. This allows the American Dream to live, Ibelieve in a responsible way.

When we nationalism those multimillion dollar homes of thewealthy what will become of them? Theywill be converted into a variety of uses. The extremely large mansions mightbecome Nursing homes, Bread and Breakfast’s establishments, Orphanages, homesfor abused or troubled women, children, and men. There will still be a great number of milliondollar homes not affected. Remember manyof those luxury homes will still be used by those who still have the skills tosecure a million dollar salary a year. There might be a grandfather causes which willallow people to keep up to $100,000 for each year of their age. This might allow those to remain in thosehomes for the balance of their lives or move to a more affordable mansion. Again these excessively lavish homes wheresecured through a corrupt system which gave these people unfair advantage overothers, so taking them back should not trouble us. Still we want to be fair and not vengeful. We should note that many of them will go frombeing used by just one family, living in opulence beyond reason, to being usedby many people to help support our new systems of health and welfare. Perhaps some will be converted to support ourmilitary veterans in need of health services. Some might become governmental offices.

Incomes at a cap of one million per year will leave a lot ofpeople the ability to stay in their present homes. It will also enable a lot of new people toachieve that new threshold as competition will open up for others. This will happen because large private corporationswill not exist to break up small businesses when it advantages them. Now the harder part of the plan has to beaddressed. The minimum and maximum wages now cause us to address, themiddle. How do we value those in themiddle? How much is a person worth? More importantly how much more valuable isone person than the next. Is it twice asmuch, ten times, a hundred, or a thousand times more important?

A question like this causes us to be subjective aboutit. We can see the value in ourselvesmuch more easily than we can see the value in others. Why, because we know ourselves, but we reallydon’t know others and how they feel inside. Some of us even at times value others more than ourselves, such as inthe case of famous actors, or sports figures. Very often we find out that those poor souls have affections that only theworst of us were thought to have. Thepoint is we don’t really know how important someone is or could be so we shouldnot pretend we can tell their value.

In my opinion we are better off not going to extremes inplacing a value on any person. Thegreater the extremes, the more potential there is for corruption anyway. Our Constitution places us as all createdequal, but we all know that capitalism does not work that way. We are created equally through the process ofconception, but once we are born equality doesn’t always hold true. The silver spoon under The Price Systempasses and we no longer our equal. Thecorruptions occur and those advantages take their toll on the population. Because of our human frailties and immaturity we still have emotions which justify differences in humanbeings. As long as we don’t make theselevels of differences extreme we can control the two sides of our dichotomy ofnature. Our socialistic and capitalisticnatures can be balanced, if we try.

We know that there are lazy individuals, both with the poorand with the rich. We also know thatthere are extremely ambitious individuals. Some are ambitious with intellect and others are ambitious in thephysical sense. Some are crafty to useothers and some are easily led to help without pay. Who is who, how can we tell beforehand,without waiting for time to tell? Perhaps the answer is, at least for now, we can’t. I propose trying a sliding scale with thebottom level being a minimum living wage level and top level being the onemillion dollar per year mark.

In this system the living wage supplies the common personthe minimum life support, so that they do not have to be taken advantage of byambitious people who want to use them to enrich themselves excessively. This system at the same time allows peopleto be used if they so desire at least to some degree. The capitalism we have today will stillfunction, but with limits which will prevent excessive abuses and help controlexcessively wealthy individuals from influencing our government.

I reserve the right to revise and extent my remarks.

Is Your World View Really Yours?

2011-11-24T11:35:00.000-05:00

http://earthnotes-eblog.blogspot.com
by: David Michael Beachwood

Recently I saw an interview with Daniel Kahneman author of Thinking Fast and Slow. 1 The discussion pointed out that our minds perhaps are not as strong as we think. Our perceptions can be altered in many subtle ways to bring about several different answers to the same question. In a sense we can be easily led by others so inclined to do so. The interview led me to feel that Professor Kahneman might very likely agree with what I am about to say concerning the state of our humanity.

Humanity, due to our lack of maturity, has its limits. No matter what we do, at this point in time, we cannot be perfect. This includes perfection in our systems of government. Humankind’s current lack of maturity causes us to corrupt most everything we do. You might think of our current shortcomings, as us not being far enough along on our evolutionary journey. If you are religious you might just say the currents limits are fixed so that we can learn from this test. That is to say we are not where we need to be, mentally, in order to act more responsibly as a civilization. Most of our world views are shallow and allow for greed to play a more important role than it should. “Why do the heathen rage and the people imagine a vain thing?” 2. I believe the answer to this comes to us from our world views.

The primary world views that have been established allow for greed to play an excessively important role. Promoters of these world views have aggravated this greed by establishing a money system, The Price System. Those that understand even some of the human weaknesses that exist in our human thinking processes can have a superior advantage over those that haven’t got a clue that these weaknesses exist. We all seem to lack discipline some more often than others.

For those who care to take advantage of these human frailties The Price Systems then works well; for them. Roughly ten percent of our population works hard at capitalizing on those shortcomings. The bulk of the remaining population, while they are not perfect, usually does not devote their time, excessively, to such mischief. Some may even be unaware that they are, in a real sense, controlled by rules imposed on them by the ten percent. In The Price System there has to be losers in order to have winners. For ease of explanation I suggest that the ratio is one out of ten people who can be winners. Others would put the number of winners lower than, perhaps even one percent. In this game ninety percent, or more, have to suffer the consequences. Most of us do not see the cunning maneuvers, employed on us by this ten percent segment of our society. This leaves us open to abuse. These maneuvers often provide that ten percent segment with certain loop holes. Loop holes which protect or advantages them. The Price System is used to put these advantages into place.

Excessive greed can prompt people to take advantage of people or things in an unfair manner. You may have heard that money is the root of all evil. The Price System is built around greed and uses money to enhance it strength. Our world views, unfortunately, are built on The Price System. This system has been in existence for much longer that our entire lifetimes. In fact, for the most part, it is what we have been sold for thousands of years now. We need to wake up and understand that perhaps it is time we look to replace The Price System with an alternative SYSTEM; or even a modified system.

I previously insinuated that no matter what systems we put in place, none of them will be prefect. I believe this to be a truth based on our current level of maturity. Our current position, as not so evolved humans, limits us. Meaning we still have some evolving to do in order to outgrow the greed that causes us to take advantage of others. Again for those of us who believe in God we are limited because of the testing period we are going through. While we cannot be perfect, at this time, we still could develop a system which is less greedy in scope. This system could easily be more efficient, effective and just, than The Price System. We would, however, be required to take up a new view of the world.

Hopefully this new view would not give money the excessive importance which it has today. This new view must realize just what the current text books and world leaders have given us. They have given us The Price Systems world view that we hold today. Though the use of our school systems, our news, and other media systems we have learned their system. It is time we develop our own system. We have to write our new view of the world and pray that the old price system doesn’t circumvent or corrupt it before it can get it off the ground.

Can we do away completely with money? I don’t think so, because the testing wouldn’t be effective. We can however find ways to limit its influences over us. Limits will help to impede those who know how to bend our minds to gain favor from us; and advantage us. They would not be so effective at herding us into The Price System. Limits will balance out the economic mischief that takes place today. Limits of course will not be received well by the top ten percent of our world. Today, at times, they know no limits.

For a better idea of The Price System read the book; its link is posted on the right hand side of this blog page.

I reserve the right to revise and extend my remarks.

1. http://www.wnyc.org/shows/lopate/2011/nov/21/daniel-kahneman-thinking-fast-and-slow/
2. Psalms 2:1

Occupy Wall Street

2011-11-03T09:43:00.000-04:00

http://earthnotes-eblog.blogspot.com
by: David Michael Beachwood

Why are they there in the cities protesting? Perhaps the reasons are too numerous to count? I personally have a hard time understanding people who think they shouldn’t be there. I suppose, perhaps, I do understand because these would be the people in the top ten percent of our economy; they have no reason to complain. Most, and sometimes all, of the rules are stacked in their favor.

As for the bottom ninety percent there are multiple reasons for us to protest. One reason some of us are there has to do directly with our survival. Still others are there because there is a growing sense of what is right and what is wrong. Perhaps the more prevalent reason is that we suspect there is something drastically wrong with our government. We have a government which wants to cut entitlements on us, but not on themselves. Their answer cut Social Security and Medicare, two programs they are not part of. Their pension and medical entitlements are separated from ours. Besides solving one problem to create another is not a desirable solution. In an effort to partially represent the seniors on one of the reasons to protest, I offer the following:

As inflation continues to build more and more senior citizens are being forced out of retirement. You might ask why this problem is occurring. Even prior to 2008 the Federal Reserve lowered interest rates and has kept them low. Of course for retired people trying to live on their nest egg, the low interest rates they receive on their savings is ruining their retirement. We must remember that many seniors retired not because they wanted to, but because they were forced out, or highly encouraged to leave. Companies wanted the older work force to leave so that they could reduce their costs or labor as they would back fill the job with lower paid employees. Many of those retiring persons, I believe, felt a little obligated to help not only their company, but those younger people who needed work. I would venture to say that many senior employees let these two factors weigh in on their decision to retire or not.

Back in the seventies and eighties banks paid double digit interest rates but today those rates have declined to less than one percent on your typical savings account. In addition many investments, in the nineties, considered to be low risk and secure, were capable of producing double digit interest returns. Those same investments have now proved to be not so secure and those high rates of return are gone. Many people not only seniors lost substantial amounts of their nest eggs. As a result the retirees, in particular, were pushed toward more risky stock market investments. This was done in order to make up that lost income from those higher interest rates.

Naturally this was necessary to secure the monthly income necessary to pay their bills. As the stock markets have stagnated in relation to the value of money, making up for lost income has become mostly impossible; for the average retired investor. The nest eggs, senior retirement savings, are now being tapped deeper than expected in order to support these retired seniors. Thus they are depleting their only means of support; since they gave up their job. The funds which they thought would last them the rest of their lives are being eroded excessively. It is this erosion which is forcing the seniors back out into the work force.

Medical insurance and services are still soaring at, it seems, a pace that leads the pack of items that have inflated into the realms of the double digits. This tends to aggravate every other issue that seniors face in their later years of life. One other condition they often face is children returning home without work and with large college debts to boot. With jobs in short supply forcing senior back into the work force doesn’t make it easy for the youth to find work either.

UN-Trusting as I am of the banking industry, I have to conclude that they are planning to continue to raid the nest eggs of senior citizens in order to make up for the corruptions they, the bankers, themselves have caused on our society. They will not pay for their corruptions by returning their part of the stolen money. They are counting on the remainder of our population to pay their share for them. They have their eyes fixed on the retirement savings of our nation.

If you think about it most people had no idea that the investments they held had been corrupted. They didn’t realize that the interest rates they had received were in part unjustified; however the banking leaders did know. In a real sense they are more responsible and should be paying for most of the economic woes we have. Instead it is business as usual for many Wall Street type corporations; that is to say they pass the bill onto the consumer; in this case that means everyone’s retirement fund.

So when we are asked as to why those people are occupying Wall Street, we should include the plight of the seniors into the long list of things as to why they are there.

I reserve the right to revise and extend my remarks.

Corporations in The Price System

2011-10-06T13:25:00.002-04:00

http://earthnotes-eblog.blogspot.com
by: David Michael Beachwood

It is a common request by some people that we remove the regulations off of the businesses. I agree we should start by removing all the regulations which established private corporations. Making private corporations illegal would be a great idea. This would help to level the playing field for the small businesses. No longer would corporations be given a greater advantage over small businesses. No longer would consumers be forced to buy genetically modified food. These things and many other negative issues are generally accomplished by laws which favor private corporations. They, the corporations, would lose those special tax breaks, and those other lobbied for advantages that smaller businesses and even smaller corporations cannot take advantage of. They would lose their ability to lobby as effectively as they do today.

Do you think if this idea was proposed those people asking that the regulations be removed would change their tune? Of course they would, because their true motive is greed. They are speaking for their own self interest, not for the interest of making a better nation. Their tune would change in a hurry and they would support regulations which would allow private corporations to exist. You should know that private corporations have caused most if not all of the problems we have today. Take a moment to think about that.

In the event of companies too big to fail it would be better to only allow public corporations to exist; where every person in our country owns that company. These kinds of companies should be the only companies which are allowed to become too big to fail. If they did fail then we would at least be bailing out ourselves, instead of bailing out some private corporations whose executives pay themselves millions of dollars at our expense. Those companies using our resources, which have to function on a world wide scale, as a corporation, in order to compete in the world should be owned by the people; not by some private concern. Companies of that size affect the whole nation and in effect they are too big to fail. These are the companies we all have to have a say in, not just some private board of directors. Why, because we have a democracy not a monarchy.

We should not be ruled by Oil or Bank Barons, or by the self selected Kings and Queens of any industry. The resources in this nation belong to the people; we the people. We have fought for this idea starting with the Revolutionary War, and all the wars since. Did we fight for the Kings and Queens of corporations? There is some evidence that for some of those wars that we very well may have unknowingly done so. That is not what we should be doing and by making private corporations illegal we will take a giant step toward fixing our problems. A giant step in returning our sovereignty; the sovereignty we should have.

Lobbying Pays

2011-09-26T16:28:00.002-04:00

http://earthnotes-eblog.blogspot.com
by: David Michael Beachwood

Last February Bloomberg News had a short report on tax lobbying. They focused on the efforts that GE corporations was making. It seems that lobbying pays. In the story they found that GE Corporation had spent four million dollars in 2010 to lobby. What did they get in return? Well they were able to reduce their federal tax obligations from 35% down to 11.6%. This alone would pay several times over the cost of that $4,000,000.00 lobbying fee, however their rewards did not stop there.

They were able to change laws in their favor for the next several years. This will allow them to save an additional 9.6 billion dollars over that upcoming time frame. With successful lobbying like this it is only a matter of time and our government will not have funds to operate on; or is that day already here? We all know the answer to that question.

Guess what they will have to do now; cut entitlements. I would have no problem with this if those entitlements were for congressional programs and services and employees. Perhaps they could reduce their own healthcare, the pension benefits, and their compensation packages in order to help pay for the cuts they gave to GE and others. Perhaps they could reduce their own healthcare, pension, and compensation packages so that they look more like the average American citizen’s. Then they might begin to feel our pain.

However, you know that it will not be their pocket book that takes the hit; it will be the pocket books of those less likely to fight back. That is you and I, who don’t have lobbyist to fork over 4 million to get the rules bent in our favor. Is this how government was meant to work? If two percent of the population has 90% of the wealth, how on earth can the 98% who have 10% of the wealth make up the lobbying shortfalls. Answer; they can’t as this is an economic structure that just will not work. Do you think that those in our congress don’t understand this, well how could they not understand it? Unfortunately most of them are there for themselves and are not there for you; so they really don’t care.

Think about this: If the lobby system pays for the government, who does the government serve? Here is a clue: If both parties are bankrolled by lobbyist who really picks the candidates? There are wasteful programs and excesses in many departments in government which could be cut, but lobbyists do not want that. More than likely these will not be touched. Why? The short answer is that we, the common citizen, do not have any candidates that we pay for to represent us. You see the lobbyist pick the candidates for us to choose from, we do not choose them. You get what you pay for and to expect something for nothing is wrong headed thinking. Lobbyists pay for the elections and they rightfully expect to get what they pay for.

I reserve the right to revise and extend my remarks.

Taxes on the Wealthy

2011-09-04T16:19:00.002-04:00

http://earthnotes-eblog.blogspot.com
by: David Michael Beachwood

On February 10, 2011, Rep. Paul Tonko said that the median annual wage of the U. S. worker was just a little more than $26,000. This suggests that roughly one half of all U.S. workers made less than $26,000 per year. Of course millions of people are without work so they would not be counted. Worse you may recall that at the end of 2010, congress decided to raise taxes on workers making under $20,000 per year; or roughly 49% of the workers. Statistics don't always agree as you can see. However, Congress also decided to continue to provide tax relief to the wealthiest families; which only represent less than 7% of U.S. families. This small percentage of people however control the bulk of the wealth of the nation. Congress extended to them the tax breaks which were already in place. In fact they have been receiving this break for several years now. It is obvious that somehow the poor need to pay the taxes with the money they do not have. Does any of this make sense?

Now I am against most anyone paying income taxes, as few people should be paying them based on the original tax code that was established. I admit that the confusion surrounding this code makes everyone guess as to the legitimacy of the code and under duress most people are smart enough to comply. However, are codes such as these the kind that a free nation should have? You know codes that do not spell out clearly who should really be paying. Would it not be more democratic and honest if we got rid of these volumes of confusion and had a simple tax which applied equally to all corporations without exception? But again the common people are asked to make up the difference in taxes that the corporations should be paying. If the corporations paid their fair share I do not think those executives would be getting those high salaries. This would cure the excessive pay problem which exists in oh so many corporations. There are a number of tax plans out there that have already been proposed. If the rich get to pick the plan, can you guess what they will choose?

The Income taxes were only supposed to be exacted during time of war, or at least that is what has been said. If this was a rule than perhaps the corporations would choose not to go to war. Wars make them money so perhaps that would not help? In your lifetime how many wars and military actions can you count, more than is reasonable I would bet? If your child got into as many disputes at school as our country has gotten into with other world countries; well I think you got my point. Do our leaders have the ability to solve disputes in some other way or are they children on a very large playground. If they are children then that is perhaps why they always want their allowance increased; hence the income tax and all the other taxes.

If taxes were only on the wealthy I believe the wealthy would have a better chance at controlling the kids. The poor do not seem to have the authority to command the children’s respect. In any event if the poor do not have much money it is hard to exact money from them; at least enough to make ends meet for the budget. If the rich are truly responsible adults, than they should rein in those unruly children. They should bring them into line so that they don’t damage our household or bring it down. I hope they do not want our cities to become like the poor cities of India or Africa.

I reserve the right to revise and extend my remarks.

The Recession is Your Fault

2011-08-09T14:32:00.000-04:00

http://earthnotes-eblog.blogspot.com
by: David Michael Beachwood

That is what the news said this morning. They said that because the market took a drive that the common ordinary citizen is sitting back and holding on to their money. Not spending it because they feel more trouble is ahead. This then is making the recession deepen. Now if you believe that this is your fault, you are a lot easier to control than I thought. First of all, if most of the wealth is held by ten percent or less of our population, who really has the money to spend. Secondly if more people are coming into the job market than the number of jobs that are being created, there is a big problem. How can they spend money they don’t have?

The better reason for the economy going down is that the very wealthy are not spending the money. That money is off shored, or in some investment overseas; but we can’t blame them; can we? At least it seems the news cannot blame them for that; therefore it’s your fault. Make that our fault. Like a sponge we are being squeezed. As the quarters, dimes, nickels, and now pennies fall out of our pockets we now are being told it’s our fault.

We are at fault, but not like they are implying. We are to blame for allowing the current economic system to manipulate us, into and under its control. I believe there is a better economic system than the system that our governments use today. My question is why aren’t we, as a group, actively searching for it? Why do we elect tainted leaders, who are part of the existing system, and then expect them to help us find that new better system?

This blog has articles which try to suggest alternatives to our problems. Since main stream news is stuck in the existing system, why would we expect them to report on these alternatives? Usually if they do, it is to criticizes them and deter people from looking into them. If we did, look into them, we might find answers which might ultimately take us out of the economic issues we face today. Or we can just accept the opinion of the news and not bother. If you decide not to bother then please consider that you are likely accepting the blame for your “not spending” the money you don’t have; in which case the recession would be your fault. This crazy idea is what the main stream news is implying.

I reserve the right to revise and extend my remarks.

Music to my Ears - The 4th of July

2011-06-05T15:29:00.001-04:00

http://earthnotes-eblog.blogspot.com
by: David Michael Beachwood

Does music motivate people? I would say it most definitely does. I remember as a youth going to a brand new school. We had to pick our schools colors, our schools mascot or theme, and our school’s songs. We picked as our school emblem the Vikings, and or course we chose a fight song to sing at our school rallies. This was back in the 60’s and we where not at war, but then we were not at peace either. I am pretty sure with many of our friends and family off fighting in a military action, that this may have influenced our choices.

The Star Spangled Banner is a great motivator for patriotic military spirit. It was written to encourage and inspire our support for our military and establish a national pride. It is a great song. However, I believe its motivational properties have been used to take advantage of our love of country. I believe it has and is being use to encourage us to feed the war machine. Like the fight song at our school rallies it has an effect to make us support our team. Not that we shouldn’t support our side, but if someone is using that song to manipulate us into going to war when it is not truly necessary, well then that is wrong.

I believe that our country has a strong sense of national unity as we have been here for nearly 235 years now. In times were we are not in a declared war, I believe that our national song should be officially, America the Beautiful. Only during times of war should The Star Spangled Banner be used as our national song. I will bet that people in the industry of war will not like this idea. This is because the song America the Beautiful presents a theme of an America with brotherly love. It does not present a theme of military adventure. It is not a call for hero’s to step up and fight, or for the citizens to contribute more to the cause. The song America the Beautiful is a call for citizens to admire our nation’s beauty not only in nature but in brotherly love working together to keep our country pure and good.

Getting back to the idea that songs can influence our behaviors. Do you think that you are exempt from being controlled by others? If you think that you are, I think you should ask your self this. How can you on the one hand believe we need to protect ourselves from people who seek to hurt us and than not believe that some people would want to take advantage of our patriotic spirits? Perhaps somehow someone has had an influence over you?

There are those who make their living off WAR. They will do everything they can to keep us afraid so that they can stay in business. Granted the world is a terrible place we all know that. Still, if we have people in this war business, all over the world, telling us to be afraid then how can progress really be made? They want us at each other’s throats, because it is good for business. If we have to defend ourselves from anyone, for sure it is from people like these. They are causing us to drain our treasuries so that they can be wealthy. How patriotic is that? Are nation’s economic health is being attacked by war advocates with self serving goals and we gladly march along with them.

For sure a song alone is not enough to make us march to their tune, but it is a start. The war industry has many ways to add support for their cause. Each way is a little subtle push in the direction they want you and me to go. It is clear that they want war even if it isn’t called war. How long have Military Actions been going on? Will they ever stop? How wealthy has the military industrial complex gotten over the last sixty years? Eisenhower knew them well, is it time for the American public to also know them?

If you don’t mind being controlled than don’t check into these allegations. Just assume that the military industry complex is there to protect you and that they are not lying to you. Just continue to fork over the money to gold plate their mansions and drain our bank accounts and the U.S. Treasuries. It might be wiser for us to make friends by not getting in other nations affairs. It may be wiser to be that nation that the song America the Beautiful says we are. Are we; are we that good nation or that nation of war that the Star Spangled Banner glorifies?

Click on the title above to go to a web site which has the lyrics for "America the Beautiful." I think you will agree that this song would represent our country much better to the world than "The Star Spangled Banner does."

I reserve the right to revise and extend my remarks.

Homosexual Vows

2011-05-30T16:09:00.000-04:00

by David Michael Beachwood
I was watching a television show the other day and the host of the show had a ceremony for two lesbians who gave their vows of marriage. The host explained that it does not matter if you are two men, two women, or a man and a woman, when there is love that is all that matters. Love is the defining reason for marriage. It seems hard to argue with that. Love is very important that is for sure. If the host is right and love is all that matters than the issues of the world may get a whole lot more confusing.

If love is all that matters than we will have to accept the love of a grown man for young girls, or the love of a woman for her brother or vice versa. How about those who love animals? Just like anything else in this world love can be taken to excess. The host ignored the need we all have at times to exercise tough love. Sure we all like to be accepted and loved and one way to gain this acceptance and love is to give the people what they want. As a shows host what better way than to agree with those in your audience. None of us likes to be mean or deny someone something that they want. It is easier to give in than to apply tough love. At times we all struggle with loves which are inappropriate in society. It is often the tough love of society that prevents us from loving in excess. Sure we can break the rules or try to explain away the reasons why those stupid rules exist. It is easy for us to believe that those that came before us where somehow inferior to us, and that we know better. Those earlier generations, what did they know? Look they got the slavery issue all wrong so why not the homosexual issue as well?

Like it or not sometimes we have to admit that lines have to be drawn. In any society there has to be rules, or everyone will just do whatever they want. You do not have to have much of an imagination to figure out what the society would be like if everyone went about doing their own thing. We see glimpses of this when we see people highjack cars, rob banks, rape, and even cause the economy to break because of their mischief. Should we allow them to do these things because they love material things, money, sex, or power? No; society has rules and if we ignore those rules we always end up suffering as a whole body suffers from the flue; more recently an economic flue.

How do we handle a tough love issue on homosexual behavior? Do we move the social line that was drawn long ago? Is it wise to do that? Everyone knows that homosexuals exist; the conflict is really a matter of whether we should consider the behavior in the same way we consider the heterosexual behavior. If we look at the issue this way, it is really a matter of creating a new definition for the word homosexual. It is a matter of making it mean basically the same as heterosexual. Is that really logical? Does that really do away with the problem? Does it really change anything or just make it all the more confusing? More importantly does this really help homosexuals?

I believe we should love homosexuals, but not to excess, meaning we need to give them tough love. A love designed to help them with their condition. We need to face the fact that they are different, hence the need for a different definition of their condition. If we ignore their condition and say oh well that is just the way it is, than we have given up on trying to set things right. Now here again is where some people will object because they feel that since homosexuals are created in nature that homosexuals are just as natural or right as heterosexuals are. The reason why we may accept that argument is again the issue of love. We love to give people want they want even when we know deep down it may hurt them more in the long run. This is why we have to give them tough love to begin with. In the end we have to ask ourselves which behavior did nature create in order to procreate? Nature’s has already created the standard and we should work toward preserving that standard. This, in the end, will help homosexuals. This standard does not make homosexuals inferior to heterosexuals just like a person born with a predisposition to cancer is not inferior to anyone else.

The issue of homosexuality should not be used my others to promote personnel agendas, and today I believe many people in power use their positions to cause a break in our society. When it comes to this issue I believe it is being used by many to further their own ends in politics. We should not be fighting about it, between ourselves, but working together to see how we can help mend the wounds. Working together we stand a better chance at finding answers, while denying the obvious only tends to increase the pains and sufferings of our society.

I reserve the right to revise and extend my remarks.

American Idle

2011-05-15T17:12:00.000-04:00

http://earthnotes.eblog.blogspot.com
by: David Michael Beachwood

It seems these days that the lines of people seeking a job fill the American Idol audition halls to excess. While Americans sit idle at home, if they are lucky to have a home, our government looks for ways to improve the lives of those outside our country. Sure many of those people do need help, but I seem to recall an old adage which says, “Charity begins at home.” Our government often seems to be tending to the needs of other countries and ignoring what is going on here. I cannot count the number of times that I have seen our leaders passing legislation designed to improve the lives of those in other lands. Sometimes as I watch them I think; am I watching the World Congress or the United States Congress? I have to ask myself why I am paying taxes for my representatives to legislate for constituent who do not pay taxes. That would be those in other countries, who seem to reap the benefits of my representatives. My representatives have changed the scope of their jobs from state representatives to worldwide representatives without my consent.

They just don’t do this with charity, but with legislation which hurts our small businesses. They also do it when they establish trade deals which favor foreign countries over ours. They do it when they open up visas, and loosen immigration laws or simply ignore the issues on the boarder. They do it when they spend our taxes on wars all over the world. They do it when they borrow the money for those wars and then ask us to pay the interest. They have taken away much of our industry and have cause America to be more Idle than it should be.

I reserve the right to revise and extend my remarks.

On Having Faith

2011-04-25T16:00:00.001-04:00

http://earthnotes-eblog.blogspot.com
by: David Michael Beachwood

Finding God is your job, not mine; that is if you want that job. Some people don’t even care to look. It is obvious that God doesn’t exist for those who have not found him. Like a rare substance it doesn’t exist, except in belief, until it is discovered. Sure I can tell you that I have found him, but I cannot take you directly to him. For those of us who believe, it was our belief that helped us to look and what we found reinforced our faith; however that doesn’t give us any real credibility. Therefore finding him for you is not something anyone can do; you have to find him for yourself. It is not that I, or any other believer, do not want to try to show him to you, rather it is that each of us has to discover God on our own.

It seems as though we came into the world all alone and we leave the same way. Is there a point to this? I believe God gives us that point and this helps us to make sense of our world. Sometimes understanding the big picture can help ease our minds or hearts. This makes our life better. Now when your life is better so is mine, in that respect you could call me selfish for wanting a better world, that’s alright I don’t mind. In fact I hope that you become just as selfish as me; if you’re not already.

I reserve the right to revise and extend my remarks.

Giving Away the Store

2011-04-11T16:27:00.003-04:00

http://earthnotes-eblog.blogspot.com
by: David Michael Beachwood

Why does our government allow other countries, or private individuals, to come here and lease our land to extract our oil or other resources at bargain basement prices? British Petroleum BP and Shell Oil, Barrack Gold, Anheuser-Busch, and Nestles are just a few examples. Many other countries however, do not allow the United States or other countries, or privately owned industries, to lease their land to extract oil; or natural resources. In other words why do countries nationalize their oil fields or natural resources? I believe it is because private individuals, in the form of large corporations, would come in and take the wealth away from their home lands. It seems to me that this is happening to the United States right now.

Our free trade agreements are just as crazy, they also run our economy into the ground. In business sense it is a direct violation of the axiom “You don’t give away the store if you want to stay in business.” What brought me out to write on this issue is the recent article about the Canadian company which has leased over 7,800 acres of land in Utah to extract oil from the tar sands there. In my view it is not that they are Canadian,British or any other nationality it is the fact that they are private companies. Companies that are made up of a select few; private individuals. Namely those who either own the company or can afford to buy stock in the company. In this case they simply represent a group of private individuals in the form of a company. This article reminded me of another incident where a Canadian company leased our land to mine for gold. For a few thousand dollars they were able to extract millions of dollars in gold; perhaps billions. How smart are we? Why would we allow this to happen again? Natural resources should belong to the home land they are found in, not to private individuals. If we allow individuals to own natural resources than we allow,in essence,Kings to rule us as well. How well did that work out before?

My guess is that our country is in deep trouble. I believe our leaders already know that our economy is ready to collapse. To prevent it from happening on their watch perhaps they have gone alone with these crazy deals. Deals with private individuals from many countries. Deals which are basically giving away the store; our store. They are giving it away,because they have over spent our combined national paychecks, by trillions of dollars. The banks lured them into it but they didn’t have a hard time following the pipers. The corruptions in our country now appear to be worse then I had imagined. We might just be the most corrupt country in the world and in all history. If the writing on the wall is correct we will be paying for it soon. The pain and suffering that our leaders are bringing upon us, because of their corruptions, is not a pretty picture to think about. If things continue as they are today the only people left with vast amounts of money will be these corrupt bankers, politicians, and industrial complex leaders. This is because they have stockpiled it in enormous quantities. My guess is that they plan to use that money, in part, to tell you that they had nothing to do with, our looming economic collapse. More than likely you will believe it. When you do, look back on those free trade agreements and other deals where our resources were sold for pennies on the dollar, I hope that will jog your memory and give you cause to think about how these people have all the money they have.

I reserve the right to revise and extend my remarks.

Libya, What a Great Idea

2011-04-02T15:26:00.000-04:00

http://earthnotes-eblog.blogspot.com
by: David Michael Beachwood

Open Letter to the White House
4-2-2011

Libya, what a Great Idea

It’s about time our country started living like my neighbors and I. Hell whenever we want something we just put it on the credit card; I mean why deprive yourselves. Going to war with Libya is a noble thing to do and why fret about paying back the Chinese. I think they will loan us the money, they probably don’t care anyway how we spend it. Hell we could burn it up or even explode it, why should they care. We buy so much from them, last week I bought me one of those Chinese cars and yes I bought it on credit. If credit is good enough for me well then it is good enough for our country.

Some people ask me how I am going to pay off all those credit cards I have. Well I am not worried something will come along. If I can handle it, so can my country, just like me those financiers always find a way to keep the money flowing. I was thinking I would go and check out one of those radio advertisements I hear all the time. You know the ones that say if you have more than $10,000 in debt you can get 50% of if wiped away. See; look on the bright side there are always deals like this. I bet our president has already thought of this, he is pretty smart.

Anyway I don’t mine giving up a little more of my father’s disability social security check for good causes like these wars. Our military has to be supported even if we have to borrow from our enemies. Just because they have our money doesn’t make them stronger. To be honest I don’t care if they tax the pensions more to pay for these wars since I don’t have a pension. I haven’t been able to find a job where they pay a pension anyway. Places like those always look at my credit record and I think they are jealous, because they never call me back. I bet if I got me a smart lawyer I could probably sue them for discrimination or something.

Well there I go rambling on when all I wanted to do is support our President and the wars he has us all in. Isn’t it great, I wish we had a few more wars because then maybe we would have full employment? I wonder if those other countries would loan us some more money for that. Mr. President, if you use that idea please remember me; I could use a finder’s fee for that idea.

I better stop here; ground control over an out.

Inness Less
U.S.A.

Post Script
Mr. President I was surprised that you read my letter, thanks for your return letter and the kind remarks. I was sorry to learn that some of your staff had already come up with that idea so I shouldn’t look for any fee. That’s OK because at least I now know that you have the best and brightest working for you. Good luck with the wars.

The above post was of course not real, but more than likely based on real events, it’s my belated April fools attempt.
I reserve the right to revise and extend my remarks.

Mental Health and the Entertainment Industry

2011-03-27T16:17:00.005-04:00

http://earthnotes-eblog.blogspot.com
by: David Michael Beachwood

Is it possible that some people unwittingly obtain answers for their personal problems from the Entertainment Industry? The field of medicine has made great advancements in being able to help those of us with problems of the mind or body. These days however, because of the expense or for other reasons, many of us do not always go to doctors for help. Instead we tend to get our ideas from our friends, family, books, movies or television shows. These sources for answers are not necessarily the best paths to resolve our problems. What is more, these influences are not always pointed in a positive direction. Many of the people creating our entertainment have emotional problems themselves. If they attempt to present their negative emotional problems to their viewers in a fashion which glorifies their problems, than they are not helping society. They in a sense are practicing medicine without a license; as they lack the appropriate skill sets.

Of further concern, for us, is the fact that we, for the most part, feel like we are in complete control of our own lives and that we would not allow unwanted influences to enter into our mind. We do not stop to think that we can be easily influenced by even the simplest of television commercials, let alone the epic motion picture. If you think that television advertising is not effective, then think again. Why would anyone spend hundreds of thousands of dollars simply to run one 60 second commercial during a football game? The answer is, advertising works; which means commercials can and do influence people. If television advertising can affect us movies and television shows can too. This brings us to an issue of primary concern within this topic; that is, should we be getting our morals from the entertainment industry?

The movie industry is a mixed blessing. Many of us, my self included, have enjoyed watching the many works of art that have been created. However there is a segment of the entertainment industry which, in order to entertain, has all too often adopted the concept of; anything goes. These programs and movies give us characters which have no limits to their actions. We cannot afford the outcome of this type of behavior; should we, ourselves, decide to employ it. While some people can make millions deploying an anything goes approach to entertaining us, if we foolishly adopt the negative messages we can end up in deep trouble. The entertainment industry is making these movies for the masses not for us, individually. Each of us are unique in our circumstances, while some lives are similar, they are not exactly the same as anyone else’s. If one adopts a negative box office message or television commercial’s diagnosis, it can often do more harm than good; especially for those who readily accepts the film or advertisement’s opinion over their own individual circumstances and self controls.

A further pitfall is that the entertainment industry is often looking to push the limits of cultural values through the media that they produce. This, in part, is a consequence of having to submit new entertainment ideas to the general public. They try to give you something you haven’t seen before and in their zeal they all too often cross boundaries that are not proper, in reality, to cross. Further it is true that very often some people want those boundaries pushed out no matter who it hurts; as they want to build a world they like. They don’t stop to consider that the reasons boundaries were established is because of the problems which develop if they are crossed. This is where histories lessons are forgotten and when this happens it usually means we, as a society, will have to repeat the pain and suffering. They have pushed the boundaries, of cultural norms, so far that some of the earlier limits of respect are now absent from our society. This is unfortunate for us, as this generally means that we have lowered our standards and this makes us weaker not stronger. Viewing the past thirty years of entertainment you might agree that there seems to be few if any limits in show business these days; especially when it comes to comedy. I have seen so called normal people run naked threw the streets, eat human waste, mutilate themselves, and do other things beyond the limits that most of us set for ourselves. All of this was done to create comedy so that we can laugh.

The burden of this laughter is on us, as we should determine in our own minds why we laugh. Were we laughing because we like to see people suffer or because we understand the stupidity of it? We should question ourselves as to why we are laughing at these things. Is it simply because we never thought of these things ourselves, or is it because we want to violate the inhibition, because we have flaws? Perhaps flaws in the same vain as the way mob violence surfaces in crowds, only here we are allowed to laugh at others without recuse. In the theater we laugh at people who completely humiliate themselves. We don’t seem to even stop to restrain ourselves, but instead we easily go with the flow of the audience’s laughter; laughter perhaps at someone who is forced to eat excrement. Could acceptance here at this social level encourage bullying type behaviors in other circumstances? While laughter is a good thing our personnel reason for the laughter should not be a desire for cruelty. While I believe most people may laugh from a positive point of view there are those who laugh from this negative side and this is a danger. The limits of our cultural frame work are constantly being pushed and often in a negative way. In the past, for entertainment below the R rating, getting naked for comedy wasn’t a regular thing. Normally when it did happen it was brief and rarely exhibitionist in nature. Today getting completely naked is not enough. Actors are driven to go beyond the cultural norms to get their audience to laugh. If that means having to lick crap off the road or some other such absurdity; well so be it; anything goes.

One could make the argument that Entertainment needs to go to such extremes because well, that is what the public wants. I believe that sometimes just because someone asks you for something that would hurt them, doesn’t mean you should give it to them. You would not give a knife to a toddler or a gun to an angry man would you? However what if you could make money at giving knifes to toddlers and selling guns to angry men? Wouldn’t you agree that there are some people in our society that do these things? Unfortunately there are some elements like this in the entertainment industry. They are so uninhibited they would not have a problem with crossing any boundary; if they can make money. We the public can’t seem to stop these bad influences within entertainment from doing what they are doing. The argument being used against us is; they are giving the public what they want.

This is the question we need to ask ourselves is this the kind of entertainment that we really want? Do we want those low brawl techniques of getting us to laugh to fill the movie screens we watch? Or do we want them to use their brains on a higher level of entertainment? Entertainment at its best should enhance our concern for our fellow human beings instead of degrading them. We have limited control on the entertainment industry, but we have a lot of control on ourselves; but only if we choose to. In the end you will have to love yourself enough to reject ideas that lower your standards and the standards of those around you. It is unfortunate that it is easier to sink to the lowest common denominator then to rise to a higher level. Entertainment is, all too often, pushing us to the lower level. This is happening at a time when we really need their help, because right now they are shaping the future for millions of people who tend to accept a lot of the misguided advice given in many of the entertainment shows we watch.

What is the power of entertainment? Well the theater is becoming more and more the Church of Entertainment where many people go to hear their sermon; sometimes unknowingly. Entertainment in a sense has two churches a negative and a positive. The negative church promotes ideas which affect mankind in ways which damage it. The positive church teaches that you should love your neighbor as yourself. Why do we want to see him or her make a fool of themselves in the excessive and extreme ways the negative church teaches? Why would you want to add to the moral decay of your very own civilization? This happens went viewers unwittingly accept the negative ideas as normal activity. Entertainment does have a good side; we just need to see it more often. We need it to lead us out of the downward pressures on the family and community and toward the healthy inhibitions which support our friends and families. This then is the civilization we need to nurture. We need entertainment which promotes the morals we get from a loving natural behavior. Some might call this a supreme force of nature and some call this God.

As an actor these days you are pretty much forced to do anything the script calls for, otherwise someone else gets the role. This is why most actors have had to relinquish their moral restraints or inhibitions. In so doing sometimes their stage behavior gets more easily linked into their own personal beliefs. Just as we can be affected by the movies our actors can be influenced negatively as well. This is the idea that, if you tell someone something often enough well they tend to believe it; even if it is false. Very often movies contain hidden messages which promote the personal beliefs of the writer or the director or some other agent. We are asked though the powers of the movie screen to adopt these beliefs.

Each of us holds inhibitions or limits as to what we will do. We set these limits for various reasons, honor, fear, respect, love, guilt, honesty, religion, and for many other reasons. Thank goodness that we do have these limits or we would be offending each other every day and the chaos this would generate would destroy our civilization. We need to be mindful of the power of movies and television and avoid just accepting their stories without question. If we need medical help should seek a doctor not an actor. We need a good moral compass with which we can match ourselves up against. The moral code that you are building for yourself, where is it coming from are you making it up as you go alone or is it coming from a television show or movie screen. Perhaps it would be better to secure your moral code from a book long known for its wisdom? No; not the TV guide.

I reserve the right to revise and extend my remarks.

Worse Than Terrorist

2011-03-19T15:35:00.006-04:00

http://earthnotes-eblog.blogspot.com
by: David Michael Beachwood

Could there be anything worse than terrorism or anything worse than a terrorist? One thing about terrorist is that when they attack you it is pretty obvious that they are trying to hurt or kill you. You pretty much know that they don’t like you and by knowing this you can take at least some precautions. But what if there is an enemy who is much more covert in nature, an enemy which you would hardly suspect. This enemy is patience and lulls you into a state of rest; but in time you wake up only to find they have taken away your livelihood and left you in hard times. This kind of deceit I believe is worst than terrorism. Deceivers such as these pretend to be your friend while all along they are robbing, cheating, and choking off your life blood. These actions are perhaps more insidious in nature than even the most horrific terrorist actions. Why, because the deceit takes place so slowly right in front of you so that you don’t even realize the consequences even after it happens. This is because you can’t understand who, how, and yes even what they did to you. It is almost like magic, they have made something disappear and there is no one to blame. You don’t even realize that they have been slowly trying to eliminate you as an economic force.

We could call these people super terrorist, but they seldom if ever come out and say they don’t like you, or even that they are trying to eliminate you. They just slowly work toward that end with the hopes that you will never notice who they are or that they are hurting you. They are masters of cooking the live frog so that it dies oblivious to what is happening to it. Could there be a group, that even when you are told what they are doing to you, that you still don’t want to believe it? We all know of people who pretend to be our friends while they contrive to do mean things to us. It seems even though we are smart enough to understand this we apparently are having a problem applying this wisdom to many of those people we call our leaders. Now I am not taking any side here as this slow cooking process has been going on for us for decades now and it really doesn’t matter which party is in office, as both have leaders which have sold out the common citizen. You may ask; what proof do you have?

Just as in any crime story one only has to follow the money. If you follow the money you will generally find the criminal. In this crime, which has been and is continuing to be perpetrated on the common citizen, one only has to view the latest distribution of wealth tables here in the United States to determine who the criminals are. What do these tables show? They show exactly what you see. The middle class population is disappearing and the poor are getting poorer. If this were simply an obvious condition of the poor economic times we find ourselves in shouldn’t the rich also be negatively affected as well? Now if we are good crime investigators we follow the money right? Well the distribution of wealth tables tell us the rich are getting far richer and the money which was once in the hands of the common citizens is now in the hands of the very rich.

Do you think that this happened by chance or do you think that, over the years, their lobbyist had something to do with it? If you click on the title of this article, located in blue above, you will be taken to a web site. This web site, MotherJones, contains the tables and charts for the current Distribution of Wealth here in the United States. I hope you will take the time to investigate it yourself. The MotherJones article is titled: It's the Inequality, Stupid.

I reserve the right to revise and extend my remarks.

Government Funding

2011-03-11T16:26:00.003-05:00

http://earthnotes-eblog.blogspot.com
by: David Michael Beachwood

Our governmental leaders have often said it would be a shame if governmental funding was cut to programs such as Agricultural Education, or Sex Education to foreign nations. They have a lot of these kinds of programs designed to aid foreign nations; almost too many to count. They often fight hard to keep the funding going to these programs. Even foreign aid to China and yes we borough money from the Chinese and then give them foreign aid; go figure? Isn’t it enough that we the tax payers pay interest on those loans already? The world bankers get 40 cents out of every dollar of our tax money. In an honest economic system it would be wrong to go to your customer and ask them to bail you out; especially when they own you so much already, but that is what the banks did. You would think they would be nice enough to wipe out our debt in return for our help. Our government, working with the world bankers, has forgiven the debt of many nations around the world. Guess what you and I paid those bills. You and I contributed. No they haven’t offered to wipe our debt away. They have put us in further debt and expect us to cut domestic spending to pay the new higher interests, but also pay for their inappropriate foreign spending. That is the way the money scheme is being played out on the world.

For now just think about those foreign programs we pay for. In order to fund these programs for other countries we citizens of the United States must be DEFUNDED; meaning that the funds must be taken from the United States Citizens and given to those foreign nations. They, our leaders, don’t seem to have too much of a problem in telling us that they want to cut our domestic entitlement programs. They still see themselves as caretakers of the world, while here at home millions of people are losing their health care, their jobs, and their homes. Still they want to continue these overseas programs which support foreign citizen who are not paying taxes. Our leaders use a logic which admonishes its own citizens by casting shame on entitlements while at the same time shelling out money to citizen of other countries who don’t pay any taxes at all.

Don’t get me wrong I give to charity, but the charities here at home are not getting enough to handle the load here at home. If you have seen the news you know that there are homeless tent cities in many parts of our country. With our economy threatening to weaken or at best strengthen ever so slowly we need to support our own economy first before our leaders can pretend to be “COMMANDERS OF THE UNIVERSE.” Think of those words as being in an echo chamber when our government says them. They don’t seem to realize yet that they were elected by the United States citizens to represent us, not the world and certainly not the universe. They can’t seem to accept the demotion from world leaders to national leaders, even though they never had that job to begin with. Woe to us on earth for the longer it takes for them to humble themselves the more the citizens of not only the United States, but the world suffer.

Yes there are times when our nation has to protect itself, but our leaders have allowed a proactive involvement in every part of the world beyond economic reasonableness. This idea that we can afford anything is bankrupting not only us, but the world. There is only a small percentage of people who are prospering from this situation and they are telling our leaders to proceed. It seems the world has to suffer more, at their hands, before change can occur.

I reserve the right to revise and extend my remarks.

The Great Lakes Plan

2011-03-03T14:54:00.007-05:00

http://earthnotes-eblog.blogspot.com
by: David Michael Beachwood

A Plan to help Restore Health and Wealth to the Region

I have a belief that, in a sense, there really is nothing new under the sun. I say this in part because when I think about what we often call new, it really is just a combination of things we already had only those things are put together using newer versions of those old things. For example the iphone, it really is just a state of the art version of a phone, computer, and a monitor screen. I like to think of it this way because then I tend not to make the mistake of glorifying those so called new inventions beyond reason.

Even the ideas I am about to present are really just older ideas possibly arranged differently or they may be using different ingredients. Some of them may actually have been tried and failed, but perhaps there time has come to be viable. A lot of times people tend to blow off ideas which sound old, because they say “Oh that has already been tried and we didn’t like it.” Sometimes refashioned ideas do work. Suppose you once tried Grass Meal Pie and hated it. Now anytime someone offers you pie you say, “No thank you I don’t like pie. If you’re thinking you are going to get Grass Meal Pie then you are right you don’t like it, but what if the pie now has new ingredients and instead of grass meal it has apples? Apple pie just might might be something you would like?

The following ideas I believe have the potential to greatly improve the lives of everyone living in the Great Lakes Water Shed. They also have the potential to improve the lives of all who visit there or receive the blessings of its resources. With this in mind I believe that the leaders of all the states and provinces surrounding The Great Lakes should meet to consider the following:

I am not a lawyer so what I am about to write will need to be reviewed by the proper professionals. These authorities, in this case, will need to be biased; biased toward The Great Lakes. They will need to be more than just lawyers as the love of our Great Lakes must also be in their hearts. I would suggest our states and provinces choose the people who might set up this new structure, wisely. They should have a true desire to help improve our blighted condition around these great lakes as part of the primary prerequisites for this job. In a real sense their task would be of epic importance which could give them a place of honor, in history. I do not believe I am overstating this as their task would not be easy; if done properly. Their job would be to implement a plan which would give complete control of all water shed issues into the hands of a centralized organization. For the ease of understanding the following proposals I will call this organization simply the, Environmental Organization or EO, if you will. One possibly key feature of this new organization might be its employment of a specialized leasing agreement with the governments involved; the necessity of which I will explain a little later.

One of the EO’s prime directives would be to help secure the health of the surrounding states and provinces through sound long term management strategies of the water shed. This new organization might be made up of all the individual environmental departments which already exist today, either in part of in their entirety. The needs of the states, provinces and national governments would be spelled out up front to the EO, with limits and goals. However beyond those basic limits and goals the EO would hold complete power and authority over The Great Lakes water shed region or more should they prove themselves. The EO’s authority would mean that even the United States and the Canadian National Governments would not have operational power above the EO’s control over the water sheds administration. This is, of course, as long as those reasonable minimum standards where adhered to.

I offer the following suggestions as to how the new EO can get the exclusive and essential control that states and provinces need them to have; to make this work. First as stated above it may be possible to refashion the existing environmental authorities into this new EO authority. All of these departments working under one roof changes the ingredients of our pie and this alone might just improve it.

The professional authorities that the states and provinces hire will have to see if the following ideas are possible options. If they are not, than they at least should provide a starting point for them to build on:

I. Question: Will or does the National Governments allow specialized exclusive rights to the states to make the alliance suggested above? That is agreements which cross state and federal boarders because of the land area within the Great Lakes Water Shed Region? I know the states and provinces already have agreements, but the kind of alliance that is suggested here may not be something National Governments would allow? I say this because of the control issues they would have to agree to. A centralized authority with complete control of water shed activities is a must. Their authority must be able to overrule state, province, and even national governments meddling in the water shed issues. This is absolutely necessary for the viability of The Great Lakes. To some extent the existing environmental authorities have already formed strategic alliances. Their realignment into a new not for profit environmental organization under leasing arrangements might be possible. The lease would be for the purpose of enriching the beauty, health and long time stability of this region. I will expand on this lease concept in the points below.

II. As explained states and provinces would give complete and final authority over water shed environmental issues to the new EO. They would however retain their oversight roles which would be designed to limit abuses by the Environmental Organization. Not that this would happen, but as a precautionary step just in case it does. This would be necessary to secure the desired outcomes that the leasing organization, the EO, and the states and provinces share. These outcomes will be further explained later in this correspondence. Politically the states or national governments would typically want strings to be attached which put them in charge of environmental issues; this would not be acceptable and can be avoided. The governmental authorities can reduce their fears of environmental harm by a leasing agreement asking the new organization to implement standards as they see fit but at least no lower than those established by National, state, or provincial codes. I believe that any singular state, provincial or national plan is highly unlikely to produce the positive effects that the interested bordering states and provinces would be looking for and need so severely. The EO has to be immune to any threatening actions that both state and National governments might make to influence how the organization operates. The EO needs to be able to control any outside or inside actions which would work to subvert the prime directives of the EO goals. Their goals are basically clean, healthy, and vibrant living lakes and land, on and over a progressively marked time table. The time table is to allow state, province, national governments, and the EO sufficient opportunity to achieve bench mark conditions established in their lease(s). Additional conditions and goals will need to be added. I believe the appropriate levels of control required by the EO can be achieved under a specialized lease agreement, which I will explain a little later.

III. Should some aspects of the above points not be possible perhaps the following could be considered. While the U.S. Constitution forbids various actions by the States it does permit the rights of the States to execute their own inspection Laws. This might provide the means to accomplish the objectives. These inspection laws might be advanced to support fees that would economically enable the enlargement of the inspection process. These fees would help to provide the means for the level of control that the EO requires. Having complete specialized control would allow the EO to hire the necessary work force. A proportional system of cost and gains sharing and even employment distributions might be based on a formula using the square footage of water shed area within the individual regions, the total population within the individual regions, plus a means to address any embedded problems as necessary. This formula might also align with how the fees for certain items would be calculated as well. States and provinces along with national governments would continue to fund the new authority at the existing levels initially until the new organization puts in place its own fee collection process. These fees would include any additional work force or equipment that they deem necessary to monitor, inspect, protect, and administer the whole system. Not only does our region need jobs, but these kinds of jobs will bring wealth back into the region. Total control also provides the means for them to secure the funds for the inspection processes. The organization operational cost would thus be secured through water shed user services, fees and fines which the EO would be responsible for collecting in coordination, at times, with the local city and state/province governmental authorities. The cost structure or design would be to make the services, fees, and fines pay the entire cost of their operation. Possibly eventually allowing the states, provinces, and national governments to stop having to pay for the EO’s work. Provisions for support to the EO however should be maintained in emergency situations. The state and provincial gains would be measured not only in reduced overhead cost, but in planned improvements to the tourist, fishing, shipping and commercial industries which operate within the region.

IV. There is a worry here that the organization may go overboard and overcharge, but safe guards can be built into the specialized lease. One could easily project that some large businesses who have not been paying their fair share will be made to share in the cost required to keep the lakes solvent, but in return they and many other businesses will enjoy the business benefits of a clean well managed water shed resource. A water resource that will be more protected from the damage of pollutants or other abuses mainly caused by corrupt business practices. I refer to the excessive over use of water in localized areas. These safeguards will provide a water source with the longevity that business investments want. Additionally their fair share will be just that, the proper fees that they should have been paying all along. The Cost of Water. These costs can be determined by calculating the construction of a typical desalination plant than adding the cost of administration and production of that water on a per gallon basis. These figures would be used, as a starting point, to define the water rates for business. It should be noted here that the EO would just be using a method that any business would adopt in order to make money and stay in business. I do not believe that these rates will end up being beyond reason. The team(s), our expert authorities, will be able to determine if they are; not only feasible but reasonable. Other fees and rates will also have to be addressed in order to secure our lakes and provide for the administration cost over the water shed. These fees can work in connection with each other to determine rates or separately; this would be determined by the EO.

V. While the U.S. Constitution forbids various actions it must also be noted that the federal government itself violates the Constitution routinely. Our team lawyers may have to employ these same tactics; a sort of fighting fire with fire approach in the design of the lease. I hope we don’t have to stoop to that level.

VI. Now for a better explanation of the leasing mechanism I have been referring to. I hope it is a means to defend our region’s water shed. Think of Hong Kong as a prototype for this leasing arrangement, only with a much shorter and narrow lease agreement. Can the Whole Great Lakes water shed Region be managed by a private nonprofit environmental organization operating under a lease? Not the basic area proper, as this would remain in local hands, but only the control of any water flow or ground activity therein which could affect the water shed. Each state and or province would contract out this control of their individual water shed area via a lease agreement. These leases would impart the power to maintain, monitor and control their individual parts of the water shed to eventually one single regional lease authority. The parent organization, the EO, would consolidate the whole region under uniform rules, regulations, and fees. These organizations would align together much the same way the Telephone companies aligned regionally. One function of the central authority would be to prevent water shed abusers from using the threat of moving to a different state or province within the region in order to secure more favorable treatment at the expense of the water shed. As the EO would set the same basic fees in each sub region. If this is possible it would provide the individual states and provinces with several other advantages.

As the lease agreements might be written to allow:
1. Each state and provinces to write their individual predetermined necessities required for the effective operation of the organization; the EO. This does not means that the member states and provinces will be allowed to advantage themselves economically at the expense of the region’s water supply. It does mean that they might be allowed to add additional support measures or concerns if the other regional members determine they want to allow this. Preexisting conditions within a state or province might require specialized agreements, state or province economic assistance, or long term commitments, in order to rectify water shed problems. Leasing agreements here may require creative measures using resources within the lakes themselves to resolve, but the organization will have to be given the authority to resolve these. The states or provinces will have to subject themselves to the EO if they want the water resource to be able to generate positive future incomes for their states or provinces over the long term; as politics has a record of causing cleanup problems.
2. Each party can write in self protection clauses to reestablish control should certain unforeseen corruptions or breaches occur, the team lawyers will have to figure out these issues in advance and how to restore integrity and to help prevent dissolution.
3. Each state or province will oversee the lease for themselves and audit the fees collected from the process. Basic fees will be uniform throughout the whole region. Each individual regions responsibilities in any shared cost or payouts will be based on the square feet of water shed area that the individual state or province contains. This should also be adjusted with the population of that area and or the degree of impact of water shed damage or benefit provided.

4. The states, provinces and national governments will surrender any previously negotiated land use contracts, affecting the water shed area, to the new EO and these contracts will have to be renegotiated so that they follow the new EO’s operational procedures. All Park lands will remain purposed as such however their water shed administration must reside with the EO as the single authority over the region. This is required to insure success of the new organization and uniformity of practices. The legal team will have their work cut out for them here, but with creativity of law and state and province support they should prevail. Since the national government will indirectly receive tax benefits from the improved economies I think they will also be supportive. Globalist organizations however will most likely fight to prevent this change in power structure. Regarding those contracts; a few corporations should not be allowed to prevent the effective cleanup of the Great Lakes and the will of the states and provinces seeking to restore and maintain the Great Lakes. Should these negotiations fail the legal constructive use of fines and or penalties for any violations found under the new rules would be imposed on all violators equally.

6. By placing the lake protection authorities into a private nonprofit organization the cost of the existing departments in time will be redirected onto the lease organization; the EO. This removes a cost burden off the states, provinces and national governments and frees up some funds to be used to correct other issues or for deficit reduction.

7. There is an additional political advantage in that the nonprofit organization provides a shield of protection for political figures. In that the EO will be the responsible authority for their actions not the states, provinces or national governments. Those who might complain about the cleanup efforts or about having to pay their fair share can address the EO. In regards to unhappy customers:
A. It is unlikely they will relocate within the water shed as the EO will not have different basic rates and fees within the water shed.
B. It is unlikely they will relocate outside the water shed as the fees should, in all probability, be lower than any other comparable and existing water resource, especially over time, due to the size of the system. This is provided they don’t get fined for adversely affecting the water shed. If they do we don’t want them anyway. And they should be put into prison.
C. It is unlikely they will relocate as their cost in doing so would be bad business economics.
D. Most importantly, it is unlikely that they will relocate as the fees charged will not be excessive to begin with. In addition the basis for the costing structure can be predetermined in advance of the leasing agreement; this will assure the individual regions that cost structures allow for a much lower fee than most anywhere around the world with a similar volume of water.
E. There is also a layer of protection that the state and province legislatures will enjoy from the lobbyist who typically seek to negatively use the lakes in an effort to positively affect their clients bottom lines. Since the legislatures will not have any control over the management of the leasing company they will not be petitioned any longer; hopefully. The organization itself will have strict enforceable rules against any form of employee manipulation and anti-lobbying laws that lobbyist will think twice about violating.
F. By eliminating most of the duties of water shed management from the legislatures they can focus on other important issues.
G. By bringing all the existing individual environmental groups under one regional EO, those departments will be easier to contact and easier for businesses to deal with. More than likely most rules and regulations would remain roughly the same.
H. Through the actual physical enhancement benefits of a cleaner land and lakes property values can add addition revenue to assist governments in their budget balancing tasks.

The Great Lakes Water Shed commission/company/organization, the EO, acting as a non political nonprofit organizational environment authority will have complete control over the water sheds water and land pollution issues. They will have primary control over environmental issues pertinent to land and water use. This includes monitoring of the waters ingress and egress within the water shed area. The duties of existing environmental organizations such as the Department of Natural Resource and all other departments which affect the water sheds water purity can be rolled under the supervision of the new EO. These departments would be listed and the states and provinces and national governments would not create any new departments to counter mend the EO’s exclusive control.

The team of authorities will have to spell out specific leasing conditions:
The team will want to craft these conditions so that the states and provinces cannot influence the lease, unless the lease holder violates the corruption conditions stated earlier or if a possible provision to vote them out occurs. Procedures to avoid dissolution can be drafted. In the event that repair procedures cannot rectify and restore the EO, then perhaps a backup plan using a two thirds majority of both the House of Representatives and the Senate or by the majority vote of the state or province citizenship would be necessary. Checks and balances should always be built in. The initial lease should be long enough to allow for success. Provided the terms of the lease are being upheld perhaps an automatic lease renewal process can be permitted. Each new individual state and province EO, would have to be given the approval of the balance of the regional lease holders and the main regional authority; the parent EO if you will. The lease would also be subject to provisions that they strictly enforce their limited role as caretakers of the water shed only; as thus they would have legal authority to carry out actions, arrest and warrants, that they deem fit to protect the lakes from pollution. They would work these arrest and warrants with both local and or state police departments as necessary. Any disputes in jurisdiction or of procedurally actions might be handled by arbitration using a citizen base system of the sort in which juries are chosen; as a first line of resolve. As a business entity they would also have to find a way to balance the needs of the general population in the region so that they cause as little disruption as possible to the citizens, while still maintaining their own funding. Excessive fees make for bad business just as much as ineffective fees and fines can cause a business or state to fail. To affect this balance the Board of Directors would meet with all the governors of each region annually, not in private, in order to provide updates to them as to how the water shed is being managed. In addition they may need to explain any adjustments to fees or fines which they may deem necessary to complete their mission within budget. The EO would need to make sure that the economic health of the region is maintained as there may be proposed large scale projects which require supplemental funding from the governments. For such projects government representatives will work with the EO to help set mission time tables so as to affect the affordability of these projects on the governments. Economic laws still need to be adhered to and delays of projects may be necessary until funding occurs. Should these delays project to cause more damage and or excessive future cost the lease organization may begin procedures to raise rates temporarily to address those issues.

The states and provinces would likely transfer some if not all of their existing inspection, monitor, and administration facilities over to the leasing companies. Positive and/or negative values of such things will need to be determined to affect a system of equal support as much as possible. In balances in employment percentages will be addressed by using a predetermined matrix developed by the EO in order to work toward balances. It may be that parts of or complete existing government agencies involved in the protection of the lakes would be absorbed into this leasing organization’s payroll, the EO; this would have to be studied. The idea being that eventually the new EO would begin picking up all the cost involved.

The EO would have complete control over fees and fines surrounding the use or misuse of the water within the Water Shed Area. If needs be the team might explore the idea of finding a legal way to grant an option to The Great Lakes Water Shed organization, the EO, so that they could be viewed as a separate entity, on the order of Hong Kong, in regards to potential law suits. I hope the organization can gain the necessary control without going this far. However this idea might deflect potential law suits designed to convolute the regional economic effectiveness, as certain globalist agendas will likely launch attacks. The separate entity idea for the EO might also aid in handling law suits in a more effective manor. This organization would not be covered by or take part of any trade agreements. The states, provinces and national governments would not be allowed to negotiate any trade agreements which affect the water shed without the EO’s approval and the approval of 2/3rd majority of the regional governments. It would collect fees for any vessel using the system, fees for inspections, fees for water use, fees for major land renovations which might affect the water shed, and fines for any violations of regulations that it establishes. This arrangement might be beneficial to the local governments as they would not be held responsible for any redress actions of worldwide corporations seeking unfair advantages. Local governments would be less likely to be put in compromising situations by lobbyist seeking political favors.

IN CONCLUSION
The new authority would work to secure the lakes from those who might cause pollution, or those who might affect damage to the water shed due to excessive water shed depletion programs. Their duties would also include habitat restoration and protection. The new authority would be set up under a lease which might resemble the lease which the British held on Hong Kong; only in a more limited version. The leasing entities would be part of this private nonprofit environmental business organization operating under these leases. Checks and balances would be provided to protect the state, provinces and the new authority. The EO would take control on all necessary governmental environmental departments or organizations in order to effect necessary control over the water shed region. To pay their way this EO will take control of any fees or fines for activities which affect the water shed directly. Surplus funds and cost liabilities, should they occur would be divided up amongst the states and provinces using a predetermined matrix formula. As a private not for profit business organization, with monopoly rights the lease would put regulations regarding company profits, company salaries, and benefits designed to put them in line with the private business market. If the EO is not permitted to enter into the sale of stocks or bonds then perhaps they would not be able to tie their salaries to the Wall Street extremes. The executive officers will thus hold the salaries based on smaller non stock market businesses. This should tend to hold down their salaries to a reasonable level. A matrix of businesses could be set up in advance. Each regional member might hold two seats on the mother companies Board of Directors. The separation of this agency from the states, provinces and national governments would provide many advantages to each member government. The arrangement will also provide tremendous operational control and effectiveness to the new EO. These two things alone should provide a path for success in their operation. The goals of the EO would be to bring back to full life all the natural wonders that the Great Lakes once held. These in part being the following industries; fishing, ship building, manufacturing, and shipping. In additional the protection of the beauty and usefulness of all the parks and swimming areas should be of prime importance to the tourist industry. The return of the pristine beauty of the water shed will cause land values to rise and with all these things working together the economic health of the region should grow. This economic growth should be at the pace one would expect of any area who is blessed to have such a great wonder of the world; THE GREAT LAKES.

An Open Letter to all the Governmental Leaders of the Great Lakes Region

2011-02-26T15:19:00.008-05:00

I hope you will allow me to offer the following suggestion. That the main question that you ask yourself, as a responsible leader in the Great Lakes Region, would be the following:

How is it that your state or province, which has a share in twenty percent of the world’s fresh water, is having hard economic times? The Great Lakes are one of the greatest resources anyone could have in the World.

The hardships which exist in the area indeed perplex me. I don’t have much opportunity here to explain the available ideas which could improve things, as generally these emails must be kept short, but I suggest that the water resource has been mismanaged, in a business sense, for decades. If any leader here wants to pull a rabbit out of a hat, meaning budget balancing relief, for their state or province, and the whole region, they should start here.

I am not implying the hard core sale of this resource. I am implying the need of an economically efficient, environmentally viable, an consumer friendly local management of this shared resource. I hope you will seek out these ideas.

Thank you

A similar letter, to the one above, was sent via email to a state governors office in February 2011 and so far no response.

So it looks like I may not be able to share these ideas directly with government. I can however share these ideas with you. I hope to present at least some of those ideas in this blog starting the first week of March 2011. After which they will be filed in the table of contents under, Great Lakes Economics. I hope that some of you may also be inspired to judge them, improve them, or if they are bad ideas look for better ones. The goal is to improve and restore the health of the Great Lakes Region.

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by: David Michael Beachwood

MIC Awareness

2011-02-23T14:22:00.002-05:00

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by: David Michael Beachwood

Ever since Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy informed the citizens of the world of the existence of the Military Industrial Complex virtually nothing has been done to control them. In fact they have grown excessively in strength and influence around the world. The educational system protects them; the press being part of this. The political leaders protect them; not only here, but around the world. The economic system protects them, through the central world banking platform. Even the systems of religion have been used to protect them.

Through their careful uses of key individuals in positions of power they have gained control over most of the important assets in the world. They have done this all while staying outside the notice of the causal observer; which include most of us. Working in conjunction with their top level officials, perfectly placed within each of the dynasties listed above (Education, Political, Economic, and Religion) they have worked their way into control of almost every facet of human life. This is all done under the cover of what is perceived to be legitimate business and social organizations operating to support each other; much the way clicks support their narrow interest. If you are not fearful of the potential misuse of their power you should consider that they may not be operating in your best interest. Evidence of their misuse of power has been clearly demonstrated to any observer who can reach up and take their blinders off. They are openly reported on in the newspapers, on television, and on the radio, except that their evil deeds our reported on as if they were honorable experiences. The images that are conjured up for your consumption are attempts to make you proud of the deeds. However, most of us, if we think about it, know that the victors or those in power control the stories told; or at least most of them. Currently the military industrial complex is writing most of those stories. This should give us concern as to what is really happening. What would those stories be like if some of the embellishments where removed or some of the edited out atrocities were left in?

I have no doubt that if this article was to be read on main stream news that it would be painted as a fanatical attempt to cause unnecessary concern; and that is if they were nice. More likely the article would be tainted in an anti American light and demeaning statements would follow in order to shame the nature of its complaints. I ask, were Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy anti Americans? They are the ones that asked us to look into these allegations over fifty years ago, and what have we done? I suggest that if the answer is nothing, it may be that some force has almost always seemed to stifle those attempts. Positions of power do not like to be questioned thoroughly unless they get to choose the questions up front. This article is not asking you to do anything other than just pay attention to how these dynasties operate and if you are objective I believe you will see for yourself who really is anti American.

Some of you do not have to be told any of this. You perhaps see it in the lopsided federal budget which weighs excessively heavy on the military industrial complexes side. You see it in the conditioned response as to why our country must shoulder the cost of bases in over 700 locations around the world; as if we don’t have allies. You see it in the disregard to the economic woes we face here at home, when domestic spending is sacrificed so that the MIC can promote its campaigns around the world. Campaigns, which contain vast amounts of secrecy and clandestine operations, however even these would be understandable if they were truly necessary and noble in nature. Unfortunately we all too often find that they were done to support a private industry that they deemed required it. Now that these United States of America are in need of support will we see our Pentagon push to recall their overextended worldwide military presents, in order to bring health back into our economy or will they be pushed by the MIC to further erode our nation’s economic viability?

I will leave it at that for now, however I reserve the right to revise and extend my remarks.

For Your Consumption

2011-02-12T13:44:00.006-05:00

http://earthnotes-eblog.blogspot.com
by: David Michael Beachwood

Once upon a time there was a large chicken farm. Every four to eight years the chickens elected a new leader, but it never seemed to make much difference in their living conditions. You see the farm had a long history of being exploited by the foxes, and most of the time the chickens never even knew it. Early on in their history the chickens were trying to flee persecution from the foxes so they left their native countries by the boat load and crossed the ocean. They didn’t realize that within their mix they carried their enemy with them. For an evil wizard had successfully genetically modified the brain of a chicken and had crossed it with a couple of the worst traits of the fox. This new chicken looked exactly like any other chicken, but had the cunning and ruthlessness of the fox. Shortly after the wizard did this he died and the chicken/fox escaped. Unfortunately for the chickens this hybrid chicken was able to pass his cunning on to most of his offspring. Thus when the chicken settlers crossed the ocean they already had a few of these hybrids within their mix.

Now early on in this new land the chickens again began to be plagued by foxes so the original founders of the colonies decided to get the help of the great eagles. The eagles, while they sometimes ate chickens liked eating foxes much more. It wasn’t perfect, but this strategy worked and the chicken colonies were able to grow and prosper. They even expanded to cover the new land which they divided into 50 large pens all of different dimensions, but that is another story. All while this was happening the foxes where looking to find a way to control the eagles. Guess what, they found a chemical that they could use to cause the eagles population to decline. The eagles became weaker and were no longer able to ward off the foxes. As the chickens began to become more defenseless the hybrid chickens became worried. They made a deal with the foxes. The hybrid chickens convinced all the other chickens that the foxes where good. This took a lot of advertising time and money, but the chickens bought it. They were convinced that the foxes were smarter and needed to run things. In return for their services the foxes did not eat the hybrid chickens. Now the foxes in order to show the chickens how smart they were, went about writing laws on top of laws on top of laws until no one could make any sense of them. However the foxes said they could, but the reality was nobody was smart enough so the foxes just did whatever they wanted and said that was the best way to handle it. Whenever there were any investigations as to who was killing the chickens the hybrid chickens would form a committee of foxes to investigate, but of course the foxes never found out who did the crime.

The chicken populations were being decimated. One day after a particularly brutal attack a couple of crows where feasting on the carcasses of the dead chickens when a Wise Old Owl happen to be watching them from a tree. One crow said to the other “why do you suppose these chickens don’t do anything about those foxes?” The other crow just shook his head and said “I don’t know.” Then the Owl flew down and said “do you really want to know why?” The crows said “yes we do.” The Great Owl said “because they are”, but before he could finish his answer a fox jumped out from behind a bush and ate him; and that ends this story.

People who read this story might want to know what the Owl was about to say, as it could somehow help them to understand the chickens. I would give you an answer if I thought it would help, but each reader must come to terms with the answer that they think fits. Then and only then will it help.

I reserve the right to revise and extend my remarks.

Shortages

2011-02-05T15:11:00.004-05:00

http://earthnotes-eblog.blogspot.com
by: David Michael Beachwood

Please Dial Down. Is this a simple conservation request or something else? Here is a list of shortage conditions that I have noticed over the years.

• Please car pool - roads too congested.
• Please conserve water- your day to water is ………...
• Please conserve gasoline- we import most of this.
• Electricity demand is high please use less or brown outs could occur.
• Please recycle -dump yards are being filled to fast.
• No swimming today, or swim at your own risk.
• Please try your call again later as all lines are in use.
• Sorry but the parks is closed - capacity limit prevents further entrance at this time.
• Please dial down – conserve.
• Sorry but the item you selected is no longer in stock.
• Hospital ER crowded?
• Isn’t there a shortage of jobs?

I am sure you have a few of your own to add to this list. In our land of good and plenty we hear them all the time. It is true that the recent down turn in the economy has help reduce demand on some of these things, but it’s not because of lack of desire, but rather because of lack of funds. To be sure we shouldn't waste , but most of these shortages are not because of waste. Despite the long list of shortages we commonly see we are led to believe that here in America growth doesn’t affect any of these things. There may be some temporary shortages, but not to worry. In fact we need more of it; growth that is. Most of us don’t challenge this. We put our fates in the hands of the business leaders and assume they are right. Still; how can we be the land of good and plenty if all those conditions listed above exist and exist so often? Easy, because we are taught to just know we are the land of good and plenty, therefore we don’t have to worry about it. After all we are America and we are the greatest. While I am a big fan of positive thinking, I do not think we are wise to employ this line of reasoning here; especially when some of these problems threaten our existence. Many of those problems, in essence, directly affect the basic essentials for life; that is our need for food, water, clothing, and shelter. Perhaps we should review just what is it, that we think we know?

We rely on the roads to get back and forth to work and work provides the means to earn money and pay for the basic needs. We rely on oil, gas or electricity, to heat our homes so we don’t become ill or freeze. We rely on gasoline to propel our cars; again so we can go to work. When our roads and parks are crowded, when there are shortages of the essential things we need, like jobs; we need to ask why.

Why is there a shortage of jobs? I think we need to be realistic when we see problems of this nature. If we view these problems using the skills that a detective might employ to find solutions to a crime, we have a better chance of securing our future; a future of good and plenty. Sometimes the obvious answer is the answer, however just as in any crime story there are those who want you to look for answers in the wrong places. They want to throw you off their trail.

The obvious answer is that there are just too many people all trying to use the same resources. In essence we are one of the factors involved in the problem . How did we ever let our situation get to this point? The blame for this does not rest with you or me, but with those that shape the ideas and opinions we have. Would you believe that there are unscrupulous people who cause these problems for their own profit? I hope you don’t buy their line that suggests they had nothing to do with it.

Is it possible that they dupe their fellow citizens into thinking that they should not have concerns when they really should? Your concern might be bad for their businesses? Obviously there are times when scaring someone can have a business boosting effect, but that is another issue. There are a good number of these unscrupulous people and the ones that exist and seem to do the most damage are generally found in the fields of banking, education, politics, and religion. Not all of them, but some elements within these groups want to exploit other people in order to make money. They know that the lands resources are limited, but they go out of their way to convince others to ignore the obvious conditions. For example in one area of the country, where water shortages were known to have occurred, they pushed to build new housing developments. In many areas of the country they have increased their own pocket books excessively by getting behind housing developments which were unwarranted and irresponsible. Today we are witnessing what happened here; but only if we take the time to think about it. The buyers have found that these homes are worth less now than when they purchased them. Building houses when corporations were often downsizing should have been a tip off. If corporations knew that demand wasn’t there why wouldn’t you think the housing industries didn’t also know that? Still somehow people in this land of plenty when asked to not take a shower or water their lawn, do not seem to see what has happened to them. They just accept it as a fluke or some natural occurring happenstance. This leaves the corrupt growth syndicate to repeat their deeds all over again.

Growth, growth, growth we are repeatedly told that is what we need; or is that what they need? Don’t you think it would be better to be sensible about growth? As the human space requirements expand around the globe don’t you think it would be wise for some of us to put the brakes on at least a little? Trends indicate that workers are making smaller wages due to the growth bubble exploits of certain people in power. Why would you want to give them the right to continue these policies? Shouldn’t we at least stop to take the time to look at what these growth policies are doing to our world? I understand that those that are benefiting from the growth will like to turn a blind eye on this. They are thinking that somewhere along the line someone will pull a rabbit out of a hat somewhere and save the day. Hey I buy lottery tickets too, but I haven’t won in over forty years. Do we really want to place our children in a situation contingent upon winning the lotto? Wouldn’t it be better to seek a responsible solution? It may mean slowing our population growth a bit, I don’t know for sure, but I think we need to address the question directly. I understand that many people want to populate without restrictions. Some of these very same people will understand the need to thin the animal herds in our state and national parks. That is they understand that when there are excessively large herds many animals will starve and freeze in the winter months. Are human conditions less important, why would we want to put humans in jeopardy? Wouldn’t it be better to talk about it before we get to that point? How many homeless, unemployed people will it take before supposedly responsible people start asking questions? Will both North and South America have to look like India and China before we wake up? Where is the tipping point? Shouldn’t we at least ask these questions?

If you are waiting for the government, the church, or the educational systems to solve these problems, good luck on that, even the economic leaders want things to continue as they are. The only real answer to these problems is actually, YOU. Allow me to put it this way it is you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and …………..on and on for over seven billion times. Seven billion doesn’t sound like much, but if I had continued to type “and you” that many times this document would go on for over fourteen million five hundred thousand pages; that’s 14,500,000 pages using the font size you see here. I suppose that downloading this document then might cause some computers to spend a lot of extra time making it possible; just how many might even fail at the task I have no idea. I think you get my point, which is; there are an extremely large amount of “you” out there. Individually we each affect our world only on a very small level, but collectively we affect it severely. This may sound terrible, but it actually means that we can, if we want affect it positively. It means that since we cause the turmoil we can also reduce the turmoil. What’s more we can do this compassionately, with love, kindness, and without aggression. Of course those in charge of the economy would not allow you to do this peacefully as it would mean that their high standard of living would have to decline a bit. The same would hold true for many leaders in the fields of education, religion, and politics as these are the dynasties that control our opinions and therefore our lives. Elements within these segments will declare war on anyone trying to impede their power or wealth.

However let’s suppose they didn’t object how would we do this and cause as little grief as possible? First we should plan our own families instead of allowing the dynasties to do it for us. They want us to have as many children as we can, except extremely poor nations, and even take out loans if we can’t afford families. They want us in debt. They also want cheap labor and when we give them large families to exploit, they do. Secondly we need to buy what we need and avoid buying things we don’t. Here again the dynasties feed off large families. Large populations give them a great advantage so they encourage growth. We need to stop playing into their game. While there are other things which need to be said these two things, controlling our family sizes and controlling our buying, would basically provide us with the ability to fix the problems ourselves. We really don’t have to go to them to get the job done, as these two things would do most of the work. Would they allow it? Not without causing as much pain and suffering as they can. They need to do this in order to get you to change your mind about having those conservative ideas on children and spending. Be prepared, if you don’t have the children they will bring them in from elsewhere. If you don’t spend your money the government will spend it for you. Unfortunately either way they will create inflation and it will eat away at us to cause us pain. Of course they will blame you because you’re not spending. If you try to get out of debt they will find a way to put you back in it. They will lower interest rates on your savings and will increase taxes on things you never imagined they would. Is it possible to tax the air, the water, and the sun; how about carbon? Of course they will say it is your fault that they have too. They really do not want you to act responsibly and only have two or three children. Toward there ends they will not control the boarder as this adds millions to our population and millions to their gross incomes. Hey you’re the mean person for not allowing an unlimited amount of people to flood our labor markets and use our resources at our expense. It seems a majority of our government leaders want to play the good guys by implying they only want to help people, right. The only people they want to help, is themselves; not you the United States Citizen or the illegal. It seems all their actions are designed to cause more debt for you. Of course all those new comers will not truly be helped as they will help pay toward the larger debt as it increases. These new people will allow the corrupt system to continue on a little longer, but fraud is fraud and it will not go on forever.

One could go on about these dynasties, but I will stop here for now.

For additional information I hope you will click on the Title of this article, located in blue above, you will be taken to a 30 minute cartoon feature called "The Banks vs The American Dream". After the video use your browsers return arrow in the upper left hand corner to return to my blog.
Thank you

I reserve the right to revise and extend my remarks.

The First Commandment

2011-02-01T14:55:00.002-05:00

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by: David Michael Beachwood

“I am the Lord your God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” Exodus 20:2-3

To people who believe in God this commandment is the most important one; but why?

Without knowing anything about him the common reaction to hearing this first commandment might be; who is it that has the audacity to tell me what to do? The difficulty of this commandment, for many, is that it asks that you subject yourself to something other than yourself. To do this we have to humble ourselves. We cannot begin to understand God if we don’t humble ourselves first.

Being humble; one would think that this isn’t too hard to do, because most of us understand that not one us is perfect. Imperfections while common to all are sometimes very well hid. Imperfections also occur in different areas of our existences; we may not do drugs but we might be excessively greedy. Where we are weak in one area we might be strong in another. Sometimes the strengths or weaknesses we have are not easily observable to others. Life has a way of teaching us not to perceive ourselves as better than others without good reason and cause. For these reasons it is unwise to consider ourselves godlike. Yet you and I know that more and more people these days seem to have a hard time being humble. You see if we perceive ourselves as godlike, well there is no reason to have any spiritual commandments for yourself. No spiritual rules to follow, only man made rules. Life’s experiences have told us how well living without spiritual rules works; crimes and corruptions grow at an even faster pace. It is obvious at least to me that we are not all powerful and certainly not all loving gods, let alone people. In examining God or the issue of faith itself, it is prudent to address our humbleness or lack thereof as this will determine the path we take.

The first commandment is not just a directive, but it starts us on the road to find out who God is. The commandment further tasks us with the dilemma of, how can you keep his other commandments if you don’t know who he is? This steers us to look at the, who, where, when and the how of God. I hasten to add that none of us have or understands all the answers to these questions. Thankfully if we humble ourselves we do find enough answers to appreciate God. Those answers, as we begin to understand them, tend to unite those of us who are making the effort. This unity is not simply a result of people coming together with common interest, though this is important. It turns out that the answers can touch our spirits and help us lead better lives. Strangely those that truly pursue the answers will find that belief in God is not a religion, but a reality. Many of you who read this will not believe God can be a reality, it may well be that only humbleness can make this possible. Most of the journey to the discovery of God is personal; which I cannot control, nor would I want too. I would like to leave you with a few brief questions to contemplate.

Who is God? There are a number of religions who believe in only one God and because of this there is a potential to unite those religions in the future. If they come to know God as a God of love not hate than their unity will grow. Could it be that in a sense religion is not even important?

Where is God? Faith is required here for an actual physical presents is not something readily available. However, the evidence of God is readily available, but this requires knowledge of spiritual literature and sometimes our individual human experiences will lead toward belief. God is said to be in our hearts; at times most of us have experienced this, but perhaps not everyone.

When is God? God is infinite. He exists and has existed always. His life is everlasting. This answer again only touches the surface on the scale of things that we cannot really comprehend at this time.

How is God? Again this may not be something we are capable of understanding, at this point in time. The bible speaks of a time in which we will be taught. This instruction will bring us to a full understanding of the word of God and his reasons for the world ages. Perhaps even then we may not be able to understand the answer to this question as we are God’s children and our place, is in his creation; not the other way around. This brings us back to humility. The importance of this cannot be overlooked.

New Bridge to Canada

2011-01-21T11:09:00.003-05:00

http://earthnotes-eblog.blogspot.com
by: David Michael Beachwood

A new bridge to Canada is a nice idea that makes no sense at this time.

Here is why it doesn’t make sense to me. First we have an imbalance of trade. You might ask; how do you know that? Well I can only go by what I see. I see a nation of over 320 million people who cannot afford to flip the bill for a new bridge and at the same time a see a nation of a little over 32 million people who say they can. According to the news Canada has even offered to pay Michigan’s share of the cost for the bridge, something like another 550 million dollars. I have to ask myself, where did that extra money come from? My answer is, at least in part, from a poor trade policy. In fact the balance of our trade with so many countries is so far tilled in their favor that our current bridge resources are slowing the amount of money that certain U.S. and Canada companies could be making. It is actually more in their benefit that the bridge be built and they don’t deny it. Implying that their wealth will be shared with the citizens; well if the trade agreement was so good and has been sharing its wealth so far, why can’t the United States citizens afford the bridge?

A new bridge could speed up the flow of garbage coming across. This is another issue the poor trade agreement imposes. Poor because it benefits corporate interests not the general public. Lately it was reported that the trash agreement has been modified so that 40,000 truckloads of residential garbage will not be coming to Michigan. However, it still allows other forms of garbage from Canada to be brought over. I do not know why I would want to speed up the flow of this substance. Further, the increase in the flow of any commodity across the border will only serve to hasten the imbalance of trade still further. This will make matters even worse on both sides of the border for the general public, but not for the businesses involved in the trade. These businesses have only benefited a small percentage of the people in our general populations, so the wisdom of their strategy in trade is worth questioning.

Now don’t get me wrong I like Canada and I don’t see the Canadian people as being a problem here. I do believe that business interest in both the United States and Canada are persuading the leadership that this bridge needs to be done. We have seen the efforts put forth here on this side already by our business leadership. Of course those business leaders want this done as they are at the head of the line collecting upwards of 90% of the benefits. Will all the citizens end up paying for the bridge that will make a few businesses billions of dollars?

So for me the bridge is a nice idea for another time, a time when our trade agreements actually benefit the common citizens of both countries on a more equal footing.

Entitlements or War?

2011-01-09T19:09:00.005-05:00

http://earthnotes-eblog.blogspot.com
by: David Michael Beachwood

It seems that the arguments for reducing the federal deficit rest on this question; should we reduce entitlements or should we reduce entitlements? That’s right it’s the same argument and it seems it’s the Military complexes only idea. It seems that our leaders are not seriously concerned about the wasted money they give to the, MIC, Military Industrial Complex? The Pentagon has admitted that they are unable to account for over two trillion dollars of taxpayers’ money. They get so much money they cannot even keep track of it, yet every year their budget increases. War, it seems, is so important to them that they want to reduce the entitlement money so they can use it on war. On top of all this they create the very people who are forced to seek the entitlements they plan to cut. The MIC, through the act of sending our citizens in harms’ way creates many of those who file early for social security/disability benefits. This might happen through the loss of a loved one, a soldier, or from the myriad of combat caused physical or mental conditions which make people disabled. The government on the one hand has no problem telling them to seek the aid of social security or some other entitlement program then on the other hand wants to stop the programs.

Perhaps we should turn the tables on those that promote the military budget, the MIC, as they make anyone that does not seek to increase our military spending unpatriotic bastards. We should point out to them that it is they themselves that seeks to take benefits away from our military families. While our family members are sent around the world to fight in wars which our government does not have the courage to declare, the rest of the world uses its taxes to better their conditions at home. They build better schools, better hospitals, and better communities. We build bigger corporations which push their taxes off on the private citizens in order to pay for their worldwide business exploits. Those unscrupulous leaders of ours, take our money, but worst of all they take our family members and send them worldwide to further corrupt business interest. These leaders make deals with foreign countries which increase our trade deficits, bad for us, but increase the bottom lines of deceitful corporations who lobby them. Why do they do it, because they really only care about themselves.

I am for a strong United States of America and overspending on the Industrial Military Complex is weakening our nation not making it stronger. The MIC, Military Industrial Complex’s, need for money is taking us to ruin. It is time for our military to start working for us, not for the corporations. You may be asking just what do we spend on the MIC? Does anyone really know? Reports for military spending vary and it seems this is intentional. One recent report only addressed part of the budget. This report stated that the defense department’s budget exceeds $500 billion a year and this does not include the war spending. Then there is the black operations spending which by design is hard to calculate the when, where, how, and who of this money and the part they are suppose to be able to account for, well they can’t. If the pentagon cannot account for the money it gets; why give them more? After all this is all just discretionary spending which runs into, it is believed, well over a trillion dollars a year.

Why is this discretionary spending being promoted as being more important than entitlement spending? Shouldn’t they be on an equal footing? In my mind it is all discretionary money or all entitlement money. From the citizen’s point of view, why have a strong military if the people have to suffer as slaves? Isn’t the military supposed to keep us from suffering at the hands of our enemies? Isn’t the military's own existence threatened by a poor citizenry? Now I am not a fan of spending any money foolishly, and when a business cannot account for money, even on a lesser scale than the pentagon, what happens to them? Would you keep giving them money? As for the black project money can you really trust them to spend that money wisely when you see how foolishly they spend the money they tell us about?

On January 7, 2011 Sen. Kent Conrad; Budget Committee Chairman stated on MSNBC that “51% of all federal employees are at the department of defense”, the DOD. Think this is bad, well he also said, “This does not include the contractors” they hire. Now when the DOD was asked how many contractors they had working for them they could not tell the Senate Budget Committee how many there were. When asked for a range or estimate they said from one to nine million contractors.

Now the DOD said it will reduce their budget. However it is hard to determine the percentage of cost reductions the military is planning to make. When asked to reduce their budget Secretary Gates said that he could only practically cut his budget by $80 billion through 2016. I am not impressed for two reasons. One, we really don’t know how much money they are reducing from; most articles covering military expenses are not comprehensive. Two, from the figures we do have this looks like roughly only a 2.5 % cut. The common American Taxpayer has had to make cuts far more substantial than that, and sometimes on a monthly basis, the military industrial complex wants to only cut less than 2.5% each year of a five year period. Much deeper cuts are required during a time of need here at home.

Point one, the bulk of the military does not produce anything, they are support services, so money spent here is in a business sense, lost production. Point two, part of the military budget does produce goods however these goods are designed to be destroyed. These are things like bombs, bullets, tanks, trucks, and the like, the productivity of this kind of product does not add money to the American Taxpayers bottom line, rather it add losses. Point three; it seems that there is a possibility that some part of the budget is going to research, however this research often appears to be given to various corporations for them to exploit at the expense of the American Taxpayers. Point four; is that with the bulk of our soldiers deployed into foreign countries their pay checks go to improving the economies of those countries at a time when we really need these funds here at home. Last point; war causes injury both physical and mental, and the burden of the necessary treatments will be borne primarily by the American Taxpayer not the Military Industrial Complex.

We need to provide for both entitlements and for our military spending; neither should be excessive. It is clear the military spending is now far too excessive. The bottom line, “We the people” are being threatened and used by the military industrial complex, just as both Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy had warned us about. It is time we wake up to this reality and start protecting our country instead of corporate interests.

Jesse Ventura Conspiracy Theory-Great Lakes Water

2011-01-01T11:43:00.005-05:00

httP://earthnotes-eblog.blogspot.com
by: David Michael Beachwood

If you click on the title of this article, located above in blue, you will be taken to view a youtube video 9 minutes long. It is part five of a six part story that effects us all. Please take the time to view it. As with any story we hear in the newspaper, on the television news, or on the internet news one always has to research the statements made. This story will give you some information that I am sure you will want to consider.

Use the return arrow on your browser, located in the upper left hand corner to return to this blog when your finished viewing the video(s), or just bookmark my site for future reference.

I reserve the right to revise and extend my remarks.

Socialism and Capitalism Can Mix

2010-12-31T19:04:00.006-05:00

http://earthnotes-eblog.blogspot.com
by: David Michael Beachwood

Give the right marketing people a large enough advertising budget and some time and they will convince the unsuspecting public of anything. The same can be said of a team of lawyers. In some cases they may even convince those who know what is going on; that is, themselves. One step in this process is often defining or redefining the terms in their sales pitch or argument. The idea(s) that they are employed to sell or promote receive added credibility when these crafty people find a definition that suits their purpose. If they can’t find one then they create a new one. One only has to look at the various editions of dictionaries to see that the meaning for many words have changed dramatically over the years. It seems they can always find someone to reinterpret or twist the definitions. Just take the idea of Marriage for example and the debate that ensued in California.

Those crafty people after picking their definition of choice apply their forces to try and convince the unsuspecting that the concept evolved can only have this one meaning. They always choose the definition which benefits their cause more than it benefits the general population. Through advertising or argument you are sold a product or an idea. Is it possible that the word socialism has multiple meanings as well or is it really always a bad word?

For the most part the word socialism has become a bad word in our country no matter which context it is used in. The main stream media describes it as a nasty evil that America should have nothing to do with. Our main stream news often links it to villainous countries. This leads us to fear them and to fear socialism. One would think that with all the strong words against Socialism that it is a true enemy of the state. The main stream press regularly beats it with an ugly stick. They point to the countries which have taken socialism to its extreme and have failed, but do not balance their report by showing that some countries that have not taken socialism to extremes and are doing quite well. It is true, at least to me, that generally the failures of any economic social system are the results of excessive or extreme behaviors; as anything to the extreme can become evil. I wish I could exclude capitalism here, but in its extremes it also can be just as evil. When corrupt businesses go to extremes to persuade our government to pass laws or change rules so they can take excessive advantage of others, our capitalism dies a little each time. This has happened so much that we can now say we have corporate communism. We are encouraged to hate socialism yet at the same time some of our best friends are socialist. In fact we have to take a step back and ask ourselves how really terrible are countries like Canada or Great Britain? The answer is that they would only be terrible if they took socialism to extremes, but they would be terrible if they took capitalism to extremes as well.

Socialism is commonly defined as a economic system of government where the property of every citizen is taken away from them and made available for every person to use. Stated this way this system sounds and is awful. Since our founders pointed out that our rights cannot be taken away because their inherent in us then any social state that tries to takes them away by force is something we do not want. But what if people in a social group say they will give up their rights willingly by putting themselves in a position where they might die for their country. Since no force is being applied in taking their rights, is this form of social responsibility a form of socialism we should strive for? We need to return to the socialize system our founders had, which limited the economic power of socialism by keeping it as much as possible out of our economic system; that is when it is used in a forceful manor. When a society comes together with a desire for common economic benefits, these benefits should be designed to ultimately enhance the individuals freedom through the sharing of resources by freewill not force. The best form of socialism goes beyond the economic benefits to improve civilization itself. It would do this by nurturing the human spirit of cooperation in all aspects of life. While individualism is extremely important life on earth would never have progressed without social groups working together to protect it; it being individualism.

I would like to suggest that we need to have a more realistic approach into just what our understanding of socialism should be. It seems our news reporters have forgotten that within our original capitalistic system there existed a perfectly normal socialistic nature. How could any group of people, who actively choose to live together separate themselves from socialism in its basic form? A limited economic form. They could not, because at its root a social system is socialistic. That is to say people who choose to live together socially have already committed to a form of socialism; like it or not. If we were to believe the news, than we are all evil for trying to build our communities; as they are socialistic in nature. I believe that our founding fathers favored a socialistic approach when they wrote The Declaration of Independence, because in very large letters they wrote:

We the people in order to form a more perfect union…

These extra large letters for "We The People" emphasize, at least to me, that we did this as a group; as a social system. True individualism had its role and a very important one, but individually we would have failed against England. The main stream press often stresses the idea that socialism leads to communism and giving in to socialism, even a little, means that we will turn into communist. In other words if we bend a little we will end up going to the extreme. This could be true, but this is true with anything; if we allow it. Moderation and discipline are our keys to success in trying to avoid this. Perhaps we are encouraged, not to give an inch, so that our lives can be manipulated by others. Corporatist want to control every aspect of our lives so they seek to make everything appear to be a capitalistic venture. This is the extreme we must avoid, because this also leads to communism. Today many aspects of our schools, ports, highways, resources of all kinds, and even our military have fallen pray to Corporations. These corporations rule us with a system which has all the attributes of Communism. Our founding fathers create a system which used both socialism and capitalism in a blend. The social systems limited the power of the capitalist and there was a better balance than there is today. Our task is to return to that better balance and keep it.

In my view extreme communism in the form of a one party system or in the form of a two party corporate system are both evil. I contend we have the later. If we look at what appears to be happening in the world, we can conclude that many of our governments lean toward Corporate Communism; or perhaps better termed Corporatism. The main stream press does all it can, to deny this. The corporate dollars pay to spin a web of diversion. This press, when it is convenient, points an evil finger at select countries that follow extremist socialistic ideas they then pass those ideas off as if they are socialism's only true form. These corporations however continue to deny their own extremism. They avoid the Corporate Communism label by consistently relabeling themselves as Corporate Capitalist. They draw a line between Capitalist and Socialist and insinuate to us that we should not mix them. By eliminating the mixture capitalism can be taken to the extreme. We are told that we are un-American if we mix them. Well our society has always mixed them. What is more this mixture has actually made our lives better for it.

Whenever we as individuals choose to live amongst other humans our individual rights become compromised. This is a natural occurring fact of life. Our founding fathers understood the need for a balance between individual freedoms and social freedoms. They understood that people who establish a society together have the right to make the rules yet sometimes these rules override individual rights. For balance the system they established provided for a variety of social systems for individuals to choose from, because they gave each state freedom to establish their own systems instead of a single central system. If a person didn’t like the rules in one state or city then we simply moved to find a state or city that had rules that we viewed as best for their families. With the advent of an overgrown federal government personnel liberties have been reduced. Our central government has over extended its control on our individual desires for freedom and at the same time tells us that they have done this to save our freedoms.

Our founders had set up our nation giving individual states strong rights to make their own rules. Unfortunately the rights of the states have been eroded and now many rules that states should be making are made by the central government; again something which our founders never intended. The states on their own should have been left to adopt many of these rules; if their populations deemed fit. The strong central government has bit into the individual freedoms that our founders wanted to maintain. Our founders developed a blended system of capitalism and socialism because both offer great benefits. People who choose to live together pool their resources and decide to build roads, schools, hospitals, police and fire departments and more; which they all share the benefits of. Socialism here is not a nasty word except for some capitalists; who really are extremists at heart. They would prefer for you to think that the private sector can do everything for you. They want you to forget about your common interest and common goals which are better served by working together in a more socialistic manner. Sharing the cost of the basic items which a society has in common has long been known to be the best way to improve your community. However, there are those special interest groups who have subverted our government into turning some of these duties over to them. They then corrupt the system in their favor and to the detriment of the public.

I personally believe that the major part of our social system should be based on capitalism, but a controlled capitalism. I feel we should return to a capitalism of the order of which we tried to achieve when our nation was first founded. In this approach there were a few basic items that we shared the cost of together in a socialistic way. These were items common to us as a people and that would also ultimately benefit our country if we choose to pay for them together. We deemed these items as being in the countries best interest as they improve the total welfare of the nation; as opposed to improving the total welfare of only a small group of corporate individuals and their friends. We should not let private interest take these things away and misappropriate the common good that rightfully should be shared amongst the entire nation. The citizens should ban together on local, state and national levels and pay for these items, which we call ‘The Commons,’ when we do our main system of capitalism should flourish. Today I see the ‘Commons’ as including the following resources; The government, the money, the military, the roads and ports, the police and fire departments, power and water resources, schools and/or education, and lastly hospitals and/or the health care system.

I do not believe in large corporations owning or controlling large amounts of resources, as this leads to companies that are to big to fail; less competition and a greater potential for corruptions. When critical resources are in the hands of the few the majority suffers unfairly. Anyway in a capitalistic system the idea is to have competition not monopolies. We the people still have the option to employ a business to operate or run limited sections of our ‘Commons’. If we do, the segments they operate should never be too big and should have adequate oversight and regulation. We should reward only those employees or companies who exceed our standards, with contracts. Most of these ‘Commons’ would be administered at the local levels and not by the federal government. I did not include our food resources here as I believe that this resource can be controlled by breaking up the extremely large corporate farms and returning to a more numerous farm base. Competition, such as this, would generate more jobs. Perhaps some of the other commons could be treated this way and thereby create smaller private companies more in line with the competitive capitalism our founders wanted. Efficiencies of scale can still be maintained through government regulation.

You may have noticed that I included health care as a common. I believe that this common links directly to another common; that of a strong military. Our citizens need to be healthy if we need to call on them for service. Sickness or disease is something we can all fall victim to as we work and play. If we allow some part of our population to go around unknowingly spreading disease because they don’t have healthcare this is our fault not theirs. A seemingly healthy person with insurance can infect someone with out insurance just as easily as someone without insurance can infect someone with insurance. In this respect a good health care system would help insure our public safety. Health care goes to the core of any countries compassion for its citizens. It functions to help make a society more productive and can prevent catastrophic diseases from immobilizing our nation. It then is an insurance policy for our defense as a nation. Now saying this, the system does not have to include all the bells and whistles, so there would be room for private insurance add on systems. These private insurance companies might provide such services as private rooms, vanity specialist, or procedures outside the standard approved basic care system. However the basic care system should be designed to cover the majority of a citizen’s needs. Governmental employees, including the white house, congress and the senate, would be included in this system and no other public paid for system would be allowed. This would acquaint our entire body of representatives to the system we all have to face, at least on the basic care level.

I also included water and power resources as ‘Commons’ and again there is room for limited and controlled private contractors here as well. These resources are vital for life and to allow Large Corporations to own and control these resources is not in the best interest of the public. It has long been said that when government gets its hands on things those things tend to get destroyed. Well guess what, corporations have not fared any better. What’s more these companies became so large that the cost to clean up their unsupervised corrupt operations is threatening to bankrupt our nation if not the World.

This leads us to the most important resource ‘Money’ this is a ‘Common’ which currently we don’t own; that is we don’t really control it. It is almost completely in the hands of a Private Banking System. This system operates on a world wide scale. If we take into account their globalist nature we have to ask where their loyalties really reside. Globalists don’t have a country they only have a house in each one; to them no one country is important not even the United States. The resource of our money is far too important to delegate to globalist interest that have little to no oversight. The limited control our government has on these corporate banks is next to nothing in comparison to the extent of the banks control on Planet Earth. The majority of our founding fathers were directly against the banking system that is in place today.

Socialism or Capitalism can both be bad, if not done in moderation. They are both required for civilization to improve. The real quest we have is to achieve a balance between the two.

I reserve the right to revise and extend my remarks.

WikiLeaks; Journalism or Antagonism?

2010-12-17T15:00:00.002-05:00

http://earthnotes-eblog.blogspot.com
David Michael Beachwood

Is Julian Assange a journalist or an antagonist?

As responsible and mature adults we should take the time to examine what the real meaning of the WikiLeaks story is. We should not just assume that the main stream media is correct in their reporting on the issue. In my opinion they have, on the whole, slanted the story to portray Julian Assange in a bad light. It seems that elements within the United States Government and elsewhere are pushing to cripple this man for the embarrassments that he has caused them. If one looks objectively at the reporting it appears obvious that elements within our government have used their influences both with other countries and the press to bring down Mr. Assange. If you consider that some people within our government may not be working for us, but instead have their own self interest to protect, then your mind will be able to understand this story on a more objective level.

Parts of our government have screwed up again and as usual rather than punishing those that are responsible they look for a scapegoat and/or a way to hide their misdoings. You may be asking, how can you say this about some of our leaders? I say this because I have asked myself the following question. Is there really a problem with the security system of our country or a problem with some leaders getting caught in embarrassing deceptions? To begin with our government has several levels of security which, if memory serves me, starts at the Classified Level, goes to Secret, then Top Secret, and from here there are many more levels above this. In fact, so many more levels that you might find it hard to believe that our government is that cautious. Now consider those various levels of security. One would think that the first few levels would hold information that is less critical in nature, and so this information could be shared with lower level agents of the government. After all would you give just anyone access to your most trusted secrets? No you would only start giving vital secrets out to upper level management or personnel. This means that the information in the Classified and Secret levels are not really all that compromising. While the information may not be crucial it could however be embarrassing. The person responsible for the leak was a Private First Class, meaning he was in an entry level position with the military. Would you trust a newly hired and unproven person access to your real secrets? Of course not so you would want to make sure the information they had access to fell within the guidelines of your security levels. At the Private First Class level you’re not going to see the real secrets. So the truth is the secrets were not that important however they were embarrassing; embarrassing enough to cause elements within our government to try and find a way to shut down the WikiLeak site. What better way is there than to make false claims about national security. Again, ask yourself, would you allow a Private First Class access to those kinds of secrets; of course not and neither would our government. If they did, than I think they may want to dismiss the security officer as part of the clean up, don’t you think? I didn’t hear them saying they were going to change the security levels so that can’t be the problem. The problem again is the embarrassment that the classified and secret information caused. It exposed that some of our leaders acted inappropriately; that is the problem. It exposed the mischief that goes on in some back room deals.

The sexual charges against Mr. Assange may be true, but because of the purposeful degradation of Mr. Assange in our not so free press, I can’t give much weight to those allegations at this time. Further, now that we know of those inappropriate actions made by some government operatives, finding a person to trump up charges against Mr. Assange would not be outside their moral code either.

Mr. Assange is a journalist and therefore his reporting should be viewed as an investigative reporters report. Since our main stream media lacks the will and moral fortitude to do this kind of reporting we have to look to people like Mr. Assange to keep our government in line. We need people like him to keep our government from overstepping their authority. Basically the news that our main media sources have been giving us is washed and scrubbed by the rules of unscrupulous overlords; as evidenced by their treatment of this very case. WikiLeaks has exposed a corrupted portion of our government and those who are affected by these leaks are fighting to hide their evil spirited deeds. If we are looking at tainted low level secrets just imagine what those upper level secrets might look like. If this is just the tip of an iceberg then we need help, real help, the help of organizations such as WikiLeaks to keep those renegade government agents from going to far and destroying our country.

If you click on the above title of this article you will be taken to a video interview with a former CIA agent who has some interesting comments to make about this subject. I hope you will take the time to watch this short 3 min. video.

I reserve the right to revise and extend my remarks.

The link for the video is:
http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2010/12/13/nr.assange.journalist.cnn?iref=allsearch

So you think your important? The Known Universe

2010-12-12T08:54:00.005-05:00

http://earthnotes-eblog.blogspot.com

If you are one of those people who think that you are someone really significance or powerful I think that you should watch this video. I hope it will convince you that we are all in this together, and that we are all significant; only in a different way.

Click on the blue title above to view the video; The known universe; a six and a half minute trip you should take.
David Michael Beachwood

Evolution and the Bible

2010-12-06T11:31:00.010-05:00

http://earthnotes-eblog.blogspot.com
by: David Michael Beachwood

It seems to me that a process of evolution is not out of the question when it comes to God’s powers. I do not pretend to be a bible scholar or have knowledge of ancient word expressions so I will have to leave that to others. I do have however a curious nature and have questions. Perhaps others who read this will have answers. With that I will start.

It seems we have an idea of what a day is, with the lord; but what if our idea is not as exact as we think it is? I speak of the statement “A day with the lord is as a thousand years.” Are we really sure it is exactly a thousand years? This “is as” reference, could it be referencing an arbitrary expression of time; not an exact amount? Is it just a figure of speech? If this was simply an expression, it might just be conveying a metaphor for an extremely long period of time.

The size and scale of our numbering system today is much more extensive than in biblical times. Perhaps today if we were trying to convey this same expression, a day with the lord, we might say; a day with the lord is a gazillion years. This expression would than mean the time frame is really huge; meaning we are not sure exactly. We have to remember that God is infinite so time frames would be huge; a thousand years would be a very short time in his infinite scale; perhaps too short to make any real sense. In fact with the limited knowledge we have I think science would say that the comparison of time in a scale of infinity is not something we could easily answer. For now let us presume that a positive answer to this question either exists or lies in the future; as this will allow this discussion to proceed.

If the bible intended the statement to be an arbitrary expression, than a thousand years may not be the right choice. If we conclude that the statement is a figure of speech than a more accurate analogy of the time frame could be, say ten or hundred thousand years for a day with the lord; or perhaps even more. Under these frames of time then the idea of evolution becomes much more possible. Was Peter’s expression an absolute number or just an expression of a huge amount of time?

Further if we apply a new frame of time to God’s creation process in Genesis, than the days of creation could very well fit within the time frame that science seems to find. That is if we understand that there was an earth age prior to the time we live in today. With this line of thinking the process we know as evolution would not conflict with the bible; at least as far as time is concerned. Did God create the world in a blink of an eye? On an infinite scale of time, why not? Our science tells us that billions of years, of earth history, have gone by to get to the point we are at today. Under a new interpretation of what a day is with the lord compared to our day, God could have created man within the time frames of sciences evolution theory.

The creation story does not really give us time frames. The bible explains that God dealt with us differently than the other life forms. Science has not been able to see God’s touch. Perhaps it is our interpretation of God’s word that is causing the problem. A new understanding of time frames would help.

We do know, however that God did not use new materials to make us; as our DNA indicates he used the same materials to make other creations as well. We are carbon based life forms. If we were to use new time frames from the above suggested analogy, let's say seventy thousand years for mans appearance in this earth age then our biblical existence fits much better with science.

Still science does not agree that humans were touched by God differently from other human like creatures that came before. Could the theory of evolution and our interpretation of God’s word both work to confirm the same story? To be honest I am not sure what the story is as both our understanding of the bible and our understanding of science have to improve. Perhaps science and the word can move closer together? If these ideas hold any merit, than perhaps evolution could be a better fit with God’s word. If the word is pregnant and can grow perhaps there is reason to grow here.

One common opinion for those against the idea of evolution is: “For evolution to be true it would have to be continually happening today.” By which they mean the same creatures from day one would have to be present today. These people don’t seem to understand that this condition is impossible for the following reason. Life on earth started out in a poisonous ball of gases. Most creatures that exist today could not live under those conditions. The same would be true for those early creatures if they tried to live in our air today. Some of these early creatures at the beginning of evolution theory are believed to have evolved into the forerunners to modern man. These creatures no longer exist because of the difference in climate and atmosphere, and who knows what else. In the sense of producing the exact same creatures regardless of the atmospheric conditions, well evolution is not continual; because life on earth depends on the air we breathe and the temperatures imposed on the living creatures. Therefore some people have twisted the evolutionary concept of the constantly evolving nature of life. How could those original creatures from the beginning of time spawn in our oceans today? They can’t, but that does not make evolution a false theory.

Fortunately the dinosaurs no longer exist in their enormous size, but they do still exist in an evolved form just as we do. God made us from the clay of the earth only evolution explains this if we accept God’s time frames; time frames which are infinite.

I know this doesn’t explain everything, but this is enough to consider for now.

I reserve the right to revise and extend my remarks.

The New American Century

2010-11-27T15:41:00.005-05:00

by: David Michael Beachwood
http://earthnotes-eblog.blogspot.com

You can click on the title above to link to the New American Century organization. It is an example of an organization which pro-ports to help us but in my opinion misrepresents the facts. If you have read my book “THEY LIVE WE SLEEP” you will understand what I am about to say. Those THEY LIVE characters are at work today on projects such as the one above; projects which promote more military expense and more interference in world events. While the issues within our own society go unaddressed these THEY LIVE disciples skip on to promote their negative influences on the rest of the world. The goals of this organization presuppose that these other nations want us budding in on their business. Are those nations really in favor of us being there? It sure doesn’t look like it, but we are not supposed to notice that. In addition, as if that was not enough, these THEY LIVE creatures assume that we, the American Tax Payers, want to shell out the enormous amounts of money it takes to send troops all over the world. They assume that we want to give up our Social Security, our Educational Systems, our Medicare System, and other social programs design to help those in need; to pay for our military to police the world. Oh yes, a world that has not asked us to police them, doesn’t want us to police them, and resents us trying to police them. Resents us to the point that they have sent adversaries here to try and kill us; because in their eyes we support everything that our government is doing. That tax money which is coming out of everyone’s pay checks to pay for the military machine and extra security required because of their actions, takes the food and livelihood away from many a family who are barely making ends meet.
Our government has been subverted by organizations such as the link above. Shamefully this organization is just one of hundreds and thousands of evil influences which redirect our government to their own ends; and away from the original charter of the United States of America. Please think on this the next time you vote.
I reserve the right to revise and extent my remarks.

Only the Rich Can Save Us.....

2010-11-20T09:01:00.005-05:00

While it may be that only the rich can save us, they could certainly use our help. We can help by understanding the following:

Not all wealthy people are evil. Sometimes we blame the super rich for everything. In a form of discrimination they are all tied together as one; and this is wrong. However if you click on the title of this posting you will be taken to a web page where at least some patriotic wealthy people just want the same thing as you and I. A honest, just, and a strong United States of America.

I reserve the right to revise and extend my remarks.

Communism vs Socialism

2010-11-06T15:58:00.006-04:00

http://earthnotes-eblog.blogspot.com
by: David Michael Beachwood

I hope this article helps to demonstrate that our capitalist country is now moving more toward communism than socialism. And I hope you will come to see that socialism, while it can be bad, was not necessarily a bad word for our founding fathers. However it is a bad word for communist. Christians understand that we should be afraid of extremes or excess as these conditions lead to problems. Our founders also understood this. I believe they understood that each form of government had their negative sides when taken to their extremes; and that includes Capitalism. The three branches of government help to balance the powers, but there was a more subtle measure which proved to be very effective as well. They supported, perhaps without even thinking about it, a hybrid system of Socialism and Capitalism which ended up providing even more stability for our nation. Did they see the benefits of certain socialistic practices that they were already employing; I think so. These where practices where the community would pitch in and help each other. This is why they encouraged a national military. Like it or not this is a socialistic idea. In addition the limited powers of the federal government allowed the individual states the freedoms to provide other socialistic elements, as they felt were proper. These were things like, education, police and fire departments, road systems, harbors or ports, water and later electric facilities, and more. Areas were the general public would benefit from this kind of group cooperation. The following lists points out some interesting things that should be considered before condemning socialism.

Communism vs Socialism

Communism
Communism is related to both the economic and political system.
Distribution of goods and services takes place according to the individuals needs.
Capitalism cannot exist in a communist economy.
Communist economy does not require many people to control the economy.
In the communist economy, the power is concentrated in the hands of the people centrally.

Socialism
Socialism only refers to the economic system.
Distribution of goods and services takes place according to the individuals efforts.
Capitalism can exist in a socialist economy
Many people can control the economy in the socialist society.
In the socialist economy, the power is mainly in the hands of the workers.

Our country still has socialistic elements but they have been weakened to the point that there is no longer a balance against capitalism gone wild. Our socialistic elements have been weakened by an excessively strong capitalism which has been draining the wealth of our nation off into a global abyss. These weakened elements are, the police and fire departments, school systems, water and electric services, road systems and public transportation, and ports. They have all been eroded by excessively strong capitalistic pressures. Believe it or not Wall Street has actually considered selling our national landmarks, and monuments. The only strong socialistic element left, it seems, is the National Military and it is in the hands of a central more concentrated government. Our leaders, democratic or republican, have sought to stray away from our federal governments’ initial role of being a limited central government; see bullet point #5 under Communism, where the people are, in reality, just a few at the top. They have sought to acquire more and more power and have concentrated this power into a two party system, where for the most part both champion the large business interest of the world. Power is refined into fewer and fewer hands. I hope that you will explore these facts and realize that our founders had a hybrid system of Capitalism and Socialism; and it was good. It was their means of trying to prevent an even worst threat, that of Communism. Jesus favored the socially based attitudes of helping one another he tolerated capitalism as well. I think our founders picked up on this and I hope you will too.

I reserve the right to revise and extent my remarks.

Voting for the Best of Two Evils

2010-10-25T16:41:00.006-04:00

http://earthnotes-eblog.blogspot.com
by: David Michael Beachwood

All of us have had to deal with this question it seems almost every election season. Do we vote for the candidate who takes away our freedoms or the candidate who supports moral corruptions? Both are evil deeds. I have found that there is an easy solution to this problem, which if we are honest we will accept rather readily. This solution is to base your decision on your code of ethics first. If your ethics tell you that you should not lie or steel than you shouldn’t do either; right. Would you really say; well this time I plan to consider lying because lying is a tad better then steeling or vice versa? Would you violate your own code of ethics? Of course you wouldn’t and you wouldn’t expect to teach this to your children either. In fact you would most likely teach them that two wrongs do not make a right. While voting is a right, it can quickly be turned into a wrong if you ignore your ethics.

Especially with the two major parties we should remember that we really did not pick these candidates to begin with. They were picked out long before we got involved in the process. Contrary to what these parties would have you believe there was no real grass roots effort made by them to pick a common ordinary person for this job. Within the two major parties there really isn’t anyone picked who doesn’t have the backing of business interest these days. The common ordinary citizen doesn’t really have a candidate in the two party process at all. Lobbyist pay for the extremely high cost of running for office and the common citizen simply does not have the money to run. However if he or she chooses to accept lobbyist money and do their bidding, well then that money flows in.

I was disappointed recently when a political writer, native to Michigan, wrote that we should vote even if it means voting for the better of two evils. Voting is important but the moral choices we make trump any political decisions we make. If we are only given two choices, to begin with, it is likely that the common citizen, will always be asked to violate their principles. The “two party system” is also a fraud in the respect that it is set up to perpetuate itself; the “two party system.” It is a system where both parties have been geared toward servicing the corporations and large business concerns within our society; to the determent of the common citizen. This is the reason we feel that our choice is a choice of two evils. We really do not have a person to vote for. No one should feel guilty for not voting against themselves. Two ways to help fix the voting system would be to stop the business of lobbying and to create a system where we the people finance the elections. This might also correct some of the games the two parties play once they get in office. Partisan voting all too often disrupts the effectiveness of our government. That is a further evil that I will leave for another time. For now just remember to vote based on your ethics even if this means you're voting for a third party. Its better to be morally correct than politically correct.

I reserve the right to revise and extend my remarks.

The Two Party Connection

2010-10-13T18:43:00.003-04:00

http://earthnotes-eblog.blogspot.com
by: David Michael Beachwood

Generally speaking the Democratic and Republican parties have been infiltrated by corrupt special interest individuals acting on behalf of various corporations. These special interest entities have driven each party beyond the reach of the common citizen and very likely beyond salvation. The corruption runs too deep; extending into the bowels of the support staff of each party. In addition the corruption continues into the think tanks and the various other support organizations which individuals within the various corporations have financed throughout the years. Anyone thinking that either of these two parties can be salvaged is holding on to pipe dreams; Dreams that that are unlikely to materialize. The core beliefs of these parties have been most likely damaged beyond repair. A two party system has melded into a one party system now working, at its core, for the large business interest; no longer for the common citizen.

True on the surface the Democrats and Republicans seem different. Each champions certain moral issues which they claim the other side does not. By carefully crafting these moral issues they create a divide. The crafting technique is simply to present a partial view of the issue not the total issue. This coupled with a predetermined set of stimuli which are offered primarily by the talking heads we are influenced by, sets us up to accept their narrow view without looking into the total issue itself. This limited view is promoted and given acceptance by the news, advertising, and other big media shows; causing us to think these are legitimate views. The altered views of these moral issues, and there are a number of them, are divided between the two parties; so they can use them against us. Suffice to say there is a lot here which needs further explanation. However, there is only time for a short example which I hope will spark your further research into this idea.

Our human minds have a propensity to hone in on certain key themes and turn off other key things depending on conditioning. Because of this conditioning members of each party have tended to view the other party as evil. The perverted role of the media is all too often to keep these opposing ideas alive as a source of irritation for those that buy into the two party system. How does this work?

I hope the following example begins to explain what I just tried to say:

For example the Democratic Party pushes an idea, an issue, that homosexual behavior is by no means a potentially dysfunctional condition. The democrats present it is a normal, natural, and even possibly a preferred condition; but in no way a potential problem. They do everything they can to avoid fully explaining their position because this issue generates a superficial distinction between the parties; which they can use. On the other side of this very same coin the Republican Party pushes an idea that homosexual behavior is a completely self styled condition having little to do with nature and everything to do with personal moral disintegration. Again the republicans never fully explain themselves either, leaving it to the masses to decide themselves. The media is tasked by the republicans and the democrats to present stories which show die hard party members acting out these misconceptions on both sides. This creates a rift in our society. The stories from the media never resolve the issue and they do this simply by reporting half truths. By splitting the population and maintaining the two party disguise they make it possible to control the political scene in favor of these two parties only.

Of course they, the power brokers, have many other issues which they use to weaken the power of the people. The nature of politics demands that the citizens keep their eye off the ball. A nation confused and disoriented is much easier to subvert and control. Citizens who agree on important issues are dangerous for those wanting their own selfish special interest request pushed into a bill for the rest of the people to pay for. I lay this question at your feet, or at least at the foot of this article. Is there some truth to what I just wrote?

I reserve the right to revise and extend my remarks.

Our Constitution

2010-09-30T16:27:00.006-04:00

http://earthnotes-eblog.blogspot.com
by: David Michael Beachwood

Most of us seek like minded people to friend around with. We generally do not choose to add excessive conflict to our lives by hanging around people who disagree with most everything we say. I think about now a lot of married people might be saying, “You haven’t met my spouse have you”. True you may grow apart as you get older, if you are not careful, however it is very likely you did agree, on most things, when you first got married. Throughout our lives each of us learns; however all too often we don’t seem to learn the same things as the others around us. Our lives lessons are all unique to each of us.

Our family cultures produced the political, religious, and social practices we originally learn. In the paths we each take in our lives we often experience ideas and attitudes from many other sources outside our cultural families. It is no mystery that cultural differences often end up causing the most conflict in our lives. Whose culture is right, or whose is the best? These are questions that are often considered to be subjective to each of us, but there really is an answer.

Any culture which allows for freedom of speech will have disruptions from cultural influences. This is just part of the price for having such freedom, but a price worth paying. New cultural ideas if they are not valid will eventually die out as they will not stand the test of time. What is the test of time? It is a way of sorting out what works and what does not work, what is true and what is false. History often has a way of repeating itself as new generations have to explore for themselves cultural ideas they have not experienced before. We may read about historical problems caused by various cultures in a book, but for some reason for many of us, we have to experience it ourselves and for some reason we cannot just accept the words of those who try to warn of potential dangers. This is kind of like the child who is told not to touch the hot stove, as it will burn you, but then does it anyway.

We know which cultures have causes problems in the past, yet we still invite them in. It may be a lapse of memory, a feeling that they may have changed, or for whatever reason we lower our guard. We forget that we are better off being around people of like minds as conflicts will be much less. In the United States we used to do this by accepting people into our midst who were willing to assimilate into the ideas spelled out in our Constitution.

Our Constitution was considered a great document. This document was respected by most everyone coming here as it was their guarantee of freedoms. Freedoms which were most often lacking back in their home countries; at least for them. They were generally anxious to become citizens of the United States for this reason alone. Because of this our American culture was at one time a melting pot of societies. Not a pot which diluted the good and bad to become mediocre, but a pot which purified the copper and dumped out the slag. What I mean by this is that the early settlers were primarily from Europe. These were peoples who basically had the same core principles established in their cultural systems so adapting to America was not difficult. They shed their bad cultural practices and retained their good principles which were generally already in place here. When their own unique cultural practices were practiced they were done so as to still honored their American Hosts. This means most immigrants held the principles of the United States first and foremost to their old cultural ways. They were, or strove to be, United States Citizens first and their ethnic cultures always took a second place position. They converted to the customs and practices within our social and political systems because of the guarantee of freedoms promised in the Constitution. Many of the people coming were eager to give up their primary loyalties to their home countries as they never really had much freedom there anyway.

Today our Constitution has been devalued along with our currency. Some Corporations have taken control over the basic systems within our country. They have perverted the banking system, the religious systems, the educational and communication systems, the political systems, the Military systems and our many other social systems. New immigrants do not hold the Constitution as being a meaningful document any longer as several of the freedoms within it have become interpreted out of existence by a perverted legal system. The American way has lost its way and because of this many of our incoming immigrants have trouble melting into our midst. New immigrants are more inclined to hold on to their old cultural values and herein lay the cultural conflicts we are facing today. Even Germany is having its problems as noted in the following article: "Merkel says German multi-cultural society has failed" http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20101017/wl_afp/germanymuslimreligionimmigration

We are becoming a nation of growing cultural conflicts and tending toward a Baltic type situation where groups do not want to mold into one common American social system. Rather they would prefer to remain isolated in their own areas. Areas which spill over from population growth and expand into adjacent cultures which are not like minded. Unfortunately this growing turmoil has been encouraged by some elements of our governmental leaders and for reasons which our press should be asking them about. My suspicions are that it is easier to control smaller fractional groups rather than people all of a like mind. Why would any government need to control its people? The answer is they shouldn’t have to as like minded people get along without being controlled. When a unfriendly forces take over they feel the need to control so they can stay in power. In fact the July 4, 1776 Declaration expressed the right of the citizens to consider removing the government if it fails to govern properly, however this drastic action should not be taken lightly. Do some of our leaders think that their actions would warrant citizen action? Is this why the Constitution has been under attack by some of our leaders? Recently it has either been ignored when passing certain bills or has been reinterpreted by some possibly compromised Supreme Court judges over the past several decades.

If the money and the economic system proves to be as fraudulent as some say they are, than elements in our government will need to protect themselves. Keeping the population fractionated may be their plan? Unfortunately our Constitution, our melting pot, our country is being ruined with the policies they have enacted. If I am wrong here I will be the first to admit it. However, I do not see the majority of our government taking the high road when it comes to our Constitution or our freedoms. They have in my opinion used the terrorist scare to take our freedoms away and at the same time protect themselves beyond a reasonable level. A level which should be questioned in the press; but it is not. The economic justification of this level of expense cannot stand up to the facts of reality. It prompts questions of fraud, mismanagement, lies, and corruptions beyond the scope of what we have seen so far; and we have really seen some bad things already. Who in our press is asking these questions? Why haven’t they been asking these questions? How perversely deep is this corruption? Has everyone with any authority been compromised? The lack of serious questions being asked by the press core scares me more than the terrorist do.

Our Constitution if allowed to function as it was designed would solve all of the above problems. It was and really it still is the greatest political document on earth. We just need to elect leaders who will do what they say, that is to protect and support the Constitution of the United States of America.

I reserve the right to revise and extent my remarks.

Habakkuk

2010-09-22T15:35:00.005-04:00

http://earthnotes-eblog.blogspot.com

The following was written in about 530 B.C.:

Why dost thou shew me iniquity (O LORD), and cause me to behold grievance? For spoiling and violence are before me: and there are (those) that raise up strife and contention (without penalty).
Therefore the law is slacked, and judgment doth never go forth: for the wicked doth compass about the righteous; therefore wrong judgment proceedeth (against those that are just).

Habakkuk 1:3-4

The reason I write this blog is because I see these injustices still occurring today over twenty five hundred years later. I have tried to take the side of the righteous victims in this fight. Of course there are examples of people just like Habakkuk who existed long before him. They stood for the righteous. You may ask what ‘good’ did it do? Here we are some 2500 years later, from Habakkuk’s time, and nothing has changed. What good did people like you or me do? Mankind still has those who act in the same evil ways. All too often justice just exists for those who can afford it. Laws and taxes are more and more redesigned to afflict strife and contention on those with less influence. These people doing these things still have little remorse of their actions and seldom change their ways. You might think that the lack of success of people such as Habakkuk and other before and after him would cause me to be disheartened. Instead Habakkuk’s words have given me more hope that God’s message is true. Why, because the test of time has proven his word to be true. How; because the message explains that we are and have been mixed in with those who do evil without shame and this situation is not going to change. Not in a thousand years or even in this world age; no matter how long it last. Your knowledge that this evil still exist today gives credence to the message.

The success of this blog is not about fixing this world, it is obvious none of us can. The goal is to present honorable objectives for people to strive for. So that people will try to make things better, so that things will not get worse. Like a hole in the roof, if you just ignore it your whole house will become ruined. Is it possible for our souls to have holes? I think it is. When we take excessive advantages of others it is like there is a hole in our soul. If you feel it, some call it guilt, you are fortunate. Fortunate because you can change, and I hope this blog helps in some way to present some support or reason for this change. I too need support from time to time and I hope I can count on you. No I am not asking for any money just asking for you to try to do the right thing in whatever you do. If you do and others do this as well, then eventually we will all support each other.

We have had thousands of years to rid ourselves of evil, but we have not. It is pretty obvious that things are still the same just like in Habakkuk’s time. Could man thousands of years ago know that we would not have changed? God’s message to us, the bible, somehow knew.

A Quote to think about

2010-09-12T12:01:00.002-04:00

http://earthnotes-eblog.blogspot.com

The World is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it.

Albert Einstein

Restoring Honor

2010-08-28T14:28:00.005-04:00

http://earthnotes-eblog.blogspot.com
by: David Michael Beachwood

War is, far too often these days, Political. While restoring honor would include a pride in our Military we must also confront the fact that today our Military Industrial Complex is not always honorable. I do however; think that most soldiers believe they fight for the noble cause of defending our nation; I was one of them. Most do not understand the political overtures which manipulate their lives and ours; this is because of their youth. Most innocently accept what they are told in the media. It is unfortunate that their Military Leaders, at the very top, fight for the Military Industrial Complex not necessarily our nation. These executive leaders fight for Money and Power and only if we are lucky our Nation. Our beloved soldiers have become pawns; and so have many civilians. We should honor our soldiers but we should also seek to enlighten them as to who really stands to gain from any war. In so doing we need to address this question. Are the current wars really being fought for our freedom or are they being fought for profit? Our soldiers need to choose their battles and be vigilant to assure they honor God above any military commander. We in turn also need to be vigilant to honor God and not support those lobbyists who would send our sons and daughter off to war so that their benefactors can have money and power.

Honor is more than just pride in our countries military. Honor can and should exist in any walk in life. Honor comes from how you chose to live your life. If we back evil people who spend billions of dollars in order to make trillions of dollars then shame on us. There are a multitude of questions that a truly honorable American should ask before putting at risk the lives of any of their fellow citizens. Our founders would ask nothing more than this; ask those questions. Your guard against rushing off to accept what the local network television would tell you is your personnel study of all sides of the issue. One should never just accept the party line; never. These days our parties have been corrupted. Your guard against corruption is your own personal vigilance toward researching the issues.

Can you ever be certain that what you conclude is absolutely correct? No. However, you will certainly be in a better position than if you just accept what some main line TV station, and yes this includes Fox, may be telling you? You will be in a better position so as to not be ashamed of any support that you might have otherwise contributed to your enemies, and the enemies of our God. After all honor comes from serving God first and in so doing you will honor those you love. Love God, love your family, and love your government only if it loves God and your family. If your government does love God and family, their deeds will show it and then you should love your country. Until then you really do need to fight to restore honor so that we can be proud once again of our nation. I think that most of us feel that our government currently does not truly support God or God’s family. If so we should be cautious of patriotic rallies which prompt people to continue to follow their ungodly leaders. This is a pitfall which has been made possible though the exceptionally talented use of the media; a media which has to be questioned.

The democrats have been tainted with their acceptance of ungodly human behaviors. The republicans have been tainted with their acceptance of corporate greed; ungodly behaviors of another sort. While both parties are not completely evil they both contain evil. These evils are at a level that we should no longer accept. We should not be led to believe that we should vote for one or the other because one is worse than the other. If we do than we have no Honor. Honor here, means standing for God not for the better of two evils. Voting for any evil is a dishonor to God. This idea requires courage but honor comes with courage.

Mr. Beck has it right; turning our nation around has everything to do with God. Yet even he, like all of us, is missing pieces of the puzzle. He, like us, suffers from ideas etched into his mind from years of media exposure. He is in part waking up to the acceptance that our government is not what it should be. Yet he, like us, has not accepted all the aspects that need to be accepted for a clear purge of these currently corrupted political ideals. He and many others beginning to awake have not flung away all of the soiled attitudes that need discarding. By hanging on to any corrupted ideals, from either party, we run the risk of securing just another godless system. I truly think that Mr. Beck is sincere in his belief in God, but in any event we the people still need to remain vigilant in God.

The Restoring Honor rally, despite its military patriotic overtones, concluded with strong support for God. Patriotism is not limited to those in the military. It includes all those who have honor by doing the right thing when God’s duty calls. God’s duty may call us to go out to end evil through war or it may ask us to help those who also believe as we do; in God. If they are God’s children as we know they are, then we need to be sure that all of our wars are wars that he would approve of. In restoring honor this is the first place we should start. May God help us.

Thank you Mr. Beck; for the kick start.

I reserve the right to revise and extend my remarks.

US sells nuclear technology- What?

2010-08-24T16:02:00.007-04:00

http://earthnotes-eblog.blogspot.com
David Michael Beachwood

The following are short excerpts from a news story by: Foster Klug. For the full article go to the Associated Press. The story is very well written and worth reading. I present here a few quotes from it in order to set up the theme for this article; which will follow after these excerpts:

US-Vietnam nuke deal will likely allow enrichment
________________________________________
Sat Aug 7, 5:29 pm ET
________________________________________
WASHINGTON – The Obama administration has told U.S. lawmakers that a nuclear cooperation deal with Vietnam is unlikely to include a coveted promise by the Hanoi government not to enrich uranium, congressional aides say.
________________________________________
The United States and Vietnam signed an agreement in March meant to pave the way for U.S. companies to help build nuclear power plants. The countries are now negotiating a broader deal that would allow U.S. companies to enter Vietnam's nuclear power sector.
________________________________________
Vietnamese officials say they also have signed nuclear energy cooperation agreements with Russia, China, France, South Korea, India and Argentina.

I couldn't let the above news story go by without a comment, so here it goes.

Wisdom again evades our government leaders. While our government says one thing it does another. They say they do not want nuclear proliferation yet they seek deals with other countries to sell our nuclear technologies to them. While those corporations which are selling these nuclear reactors get wealthy, we the people get to pay for the extra security threat these product have the ability to produce. Nuclear reactors have the ability to make the major ingredient for nuclear weapons. These weapons could be used against us. So why do governments want to jeopardize our security? The voice of the few, those who stand to make themselves very wealthy over powers the voices of the common citizen; who now again has to pay additional taxes to pay for the added security measures our government will tell us we need.

Who are these businesses lobbying for this proliferation? One such company might be Duke Energy. If Duke does not get the business then there are other nuclear companies lining up to lobby for the business. Sadly there are also hundreds of our governmental leaders lining up to receive these lobbyist contributions. This is where our security gets a back seat to the political aims of these hundreds of governmental leaders who will do anything to remain in power.

So our government deflects criticism by complaining that countries such as Vietnam do not want to give up their rights to handle the nuclear waste material themselves. This way our government makes them the bad guys. True other nations are selling portions of the products or technologies used for the nuclear process to countries such as Vietnam. This does not wash away the awful behavior of our government. It just makes those countries also part of the problem. That is they are doing the same thing our leaders are doing, selling the security of their counties for the almighty dollar. Since two wrongs do not make a right. Selling nuclear power is not what any nation should be doing. Our human evolution is not where it needs to be, we still have people who have not matured enough to handle these materials properly. We still have people who would want to use these materials negatively. Thus there is a need for non proliferation. This takes us back to the news article above and the fact that our government says one thing and does another.

I reserve the right to revise and extend my remarks.

The Human Airplane

2010-08-15T18:33:00.006-04:00

http://earthnotes-eblog.blogspot.com
by: David Michael Beachwood

It is possible that some four engine airplanes can run on three engines or perhaps even two if they had to. In the animal world a team of four horses can operate much the same way. Now suppose you had an airplane with seven billion engines. I know that’s lot of imagining but bear with me. I think you know where I am going with this. There are about seven billion people on earth today. It’s pretty obvious that not all of our people “engines” pull their own weight. We make exceptions, rightfully so, for our children, the handicap and the ill, and we can do this with not too much difficulty. We can work a little harder and make up for the needs that this part of our society presents to us. The problem we face however is in trying to keep our human plane flying with those who have a job, but do not want to work. These people want others to work harder for them. They want everyone else to keep the plane; they forget they are on, from crashing. Most of us would agree that there is basically a one word describtion for these kind of people; Evil. To tone down my agrument here I will simply call them LAZY, because many people have a problem excepting that some people are simply evil. The term evil, in the minds of some people, implys religion and this turns off many readers. Therefore the term lazy I think will allow more people to see the arguement I am about to make.

The lazy people can be rich or poor or anywhere in between. Now I should explain how a rich person can be lazy and not carry their own load. Just because someone has money doesn’t automatically make them a hard worker. Not all people who are wealthy achieve their wealth by just means. Some wealthy people come up with schemes to make others do their work for them and then go on to pay themselves more because they were cunning enough to do this. The poor, who are lazy, work their own schemes as well; to take advantage of those who are working hard. They disapear, procastinate, brake parts deliberately, or just simply make excuses. This forces those still working to work harder, in order to make up the differance. Unfortunately, the more people doing this, the more drag we have on our plane. Whether we like it or not each engine has a capacity. So here we are trying to keep this plane in the air. Lately a growing number of lazy rich people have been skimming even deeper to extract even more rewards for themselfs. These rewards were wage benefits that where meant to go to the people who were really working hard toward keeping the plane in the air. As more of these hard working individuals lose their employment their engines sputter and die off; causing our air speed to drop. These lazy, if you will, wealthy people have actually produced greater and greater drag because they keep ordering the kill switch on the engines on our plane to be pushed. Our plane shows signs of fatigue; wouldn’t you agree? The weights of all the engines that have been feathered are still a part of the plane.

We hear more and more lately “the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer.” In our analogy here this means that there are fewer engines being employed to keep the plane in the air. It seems that perhaps only the rich can save the plane at this point, but it would mean waking up to realize that they are indeed passengers on it. They have been flying first class and their sense of turbulence has been jaded. It may also be that they have no intension of checking on the planes condition, because they have woven themselves golden parachutes to use in an emergency; as if this will help them. Still in our social system, our plane, there needs to be engines of various kinds, and a crash of our social system could diminish our civilization to the point where even those with money would suffer severely. Who will grow the food, be doctors, nurses, police, build cars, trains, planes, office buildings, houses, hospitials, and perform the millions of other social duties that are required to support a safe place to live; not just in our neighborhood but in the world? Leaving millions on millions of people to fend for themselves will create a hell on earth; a Hell which even the wealthiest could not hide from. This is our Airplane which the lazy “Rich and Poor” are in the process of expediting its demise.

If the wealthy decide to extend our flight by waking up and giving control back to the main body of citizens, or engines, the wealthy can extend their lives. Not at the super excessive plateau level, but on a very comfortable level, that would still allow them to enjoy all the benefits that an invigorated social system would supply. To do this the lazy people in our society will have to give up their free rides. They will have to pitch in and work. The lazy poor will need to work those tough jobs and not rely on others to work for them. The lazy rich will have to stop taking excessive advantage of their workers and pay them appropriately and make sure they are not overextended in their duties. This will encourage workers to take those tough jobs. These actions would buy time on the plane so that we could address the other conditions that affect our planes flight worthiness.

The primary concern which should be addressed with the extra time given to us is our economic system itself. We need to develop a new economic system not based on Growth. Growth has caused our population problems which have in turn caused our diminishing resource problem. Further the extensive use of our resources have caused just about every other problem we face today. We need to develop a system based on maintaining an equalized harmony between our population and the earth’s resources. The future of the world, our Airplane, depends on it.

Allow me to add that there are hundreds of ideas already available to begin this process. Our future is only bleak if the lazy “Rich and Poor” continue to demand a free ride.

I reserve the right to revise and extend my remarks.

The National Interest?

2010-08-06T13:49:00.003-04:00

http://earthnotes-eblog.blogspot.com
by: David Michael Beachwood

We pretty much accept the following statement without question when we hear it in the news; “It’s in our national interest.” This often is used to explain why our soldiers are in some far off area of the world risking their lives. It is also the reason, for those of us left behind, that we are asked to finance these operations. This occurs even when there isn’t enough tax payer money to spend on the necessities here at home. “It’s in our national interest”, often this implies that American companies doing business in other parts of the world need our protection. We rarely question this statement, but perhaps we should.

Let us take the American oil industry for example, many of us believe that we are protecting it in those various parts of the world. Are we protecting our American oil industry or are we protecting the oil industries of the Dutch and the English? The recent oil spill in the Gulf begs us to question what we are told at different times. Who really owns the oil in the gulf? If it is ours, then why does British Petroleum have the rights to pump our oil? Further we have to ask, who owns the oil on the North Slope in Alaska? It is my understanding that BP has the rights to it. It seems that we are often protecting the rights of companies in England and Holland much more so then ours. If our government really was concerned about our national security and national interest why would they ever give control of our national resources to corporations in foreign countries? Why aren’t we pumping the oil ourselves? It doesn’t make sense. True these countries are our friends today, but still our government should never give up control of national resources even to friends. Remember our government has sworn to protect and to serve us yet their actions have put us at risk. They seem to be helping wealthy elites around the world with the use of our military, and at the tax payer’s expense.

What are their motives for giving national resources to other people in other countries. The main reasons are money and power. The oil industry is not the only resource our government has given away for money; there are at least three other resources which come quickly to mind. These resources have been given to elites from various countries around the world. Given that is if they know who to lobby. These resources include our mining interest, our roads, and perhaps worst of all, our economic wealth; that is the open access to our huge market place. Most of you may have heard about our national leaders granting Barrick gold of Canada the right to lease the mineral rights of our lands. If my memory serves me right Barrick purchased rights to several thousands of acres for around $20,000 and then proceeded to pull $9,000,000,000 worth of gold out before operations where wound down.

Then there are the highways that some states have been selling to foreign concerns. These companies charge tolls and the profits from these tolls often, if not always,leave our country. The loss of any economic wealth leaving our countries shores weakens our nation. Perhaps the worst case of our national economic wealth being weakened has been the Free Trade deals that have been made. These deals serve to make certain elitist around the world very wealthy, but when we look at the total picture of these deals our nation, as a whole, has been losing its wealth at an alarming rate. This is especially true if we exclude the extreme wealth of our economic elites who have profited from this corrupt plan. They have sold off our resources in return for inflationary money. This trade system causes the rich to get richer, but the balance of the people here get poorer. The poor are growing poorer at a greater number than the number of rich that are getting richer. The end result is that the total wealth of our nation is going down, because we no longer own it all. Times are getting tougher and tougher for the masses, but for the few well their lives are insanely rich. What proof do we have well millions of Americans have lost their jobs. Millions more have had declining pay checks, and we are still being asked to work for even less. It is true that a part of this decline can be contributed to the corruption found in Wall Street and the banking communities, but unfortunately these corruptions are just the tip of the problem. We still, as a nation, have not faced the corruptions mentioned above which have the potential to finish us off.

Are we fighting wars to benefit our country or just to benefit the wealthy elites who stand to gain from these wars? If our countries leaders really cared about national security and national interest why do they give our resources away for pennies on the dollar to wealthy elitist here and in other countries? If a few get rich at our nations expense, who cares?

I hope you do.

I reserve the right to revise and extend my remarks.

Two Views?

2010-07-29T17:21:00.007-04:00

http://earthnotes-eblog.blogspot.com
by David Michael Beachwood

One doesn’t have to live very long to learn that there are many different points of view; more then just two. With all these differing viewpoints it actually is amazing that we can all live together in peace. Oh, that’s right I forgot about Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel and well all the others. I know I have my views, my friends and neighbors have theirs and you have yours. So who is right and who is wrong, or does it really have two be that extreme? Of course we all think we individually hold the most correct view; its our nature. We have opinions on everything from major to minor issues. We have opinions about the clothes we wear the food we eat and even the music we listen to. The diversity in our culture helps to widen these opinions, but for the most part, on the minor things in life, these diversities are actually a benefit. They make things more interesting. However, contrary to what main stream thinking is pushing these days diversity can have a down side to it, as witnessed by the wars we are fighting. Negative diversity in any culture occurs if the cultural value cannot be assimilated into the general population. When it can’t, then you might have conflict. However even if the culture value is assimilated that does not mean it is right or wrong. Tensions can grow even after assimilation. Currently it seems our culture is being pulled apart and divided into two. Politically we are being asked to become either Democrats or Republicans. This division is heating up and could lead to conflict, but right now it is merely at the stage of harsh name calling. Both parties have lost their appeal because of the condition they have left our country in. In fact candidates in this year’s primary, for the most part, are not listing their party affiliation on their fliers. New movements away from the main parties have started up and are trying to improve things. These movements have started a re-branding fad amongst the major parties. Democrats are starting to call themselves Progressives and Republicans are going back to calling themselves conservatives. Both, it seems, have jumped into the tea party movement to claim a piece of it. Progressives, voice some of the views on the tree party’s agenda and Republicans have jumped in to steal away a good part of the movement’s breakaway hopes. One possible result, of the infiltration, could be that the tea party could become a deluded version of its original self. The original motive of the tree party was to get away from both the Democrat and Republican parties. They view these two parties as really being the same party; in which case then, there is only one view or one party. The major parties have become damaged through their prostituted platforms which service corporations and large business concerns at the expense of the multitude. If each person holds their own view how can there just be only two parties; Democrat and Republican? Could it be that we are victims of advertising? Have we been sold these two narrow views by our consumption of radio, and television programs? Do you really only have two choices; of course not, but that doesn’t stop them from only reporting on two. If that is all they talk about it is no wonder that is all we talk about. Don’t allow yourself to be limited my advertising; question why they only want to report on these two views. Are you being manipulated?

I reserve the right to revise and extend my remarks.

Comprehensive Immigration Reform

2010-07-16T15:38:00.007-04:00

http://earthnotes-eblog.blogspot.com
by David Michael Beachwood

On July 8, 2010 and I watched a discussion on C-Span hosted by the Brookings Institute regarding US Immigration Policy. It struck me as strange that this supposedly non biased discussion had one obvious problem. The main speaker‘s heritage, was Hispanic; and he is suppose to be representing our government, The United States of America. Our representative's name is Juan Osuma. Juan works for the US Justice Departments Immigration Litigation offices. He is the Deputy Assistants Attorney General. If Juan is a Hispanic person by heritage than it seems a conflict of interest exists here, if not there is at least the appearance of one. Having a Hispanic person argue in favor of an US policy, which would benefit primarily Hispanics, makes me a bit concerned. Do Hispanic's make up the majority of the illegal population here? I would say yes wouldn't you? Because the Brookings Institute seemed to not have a problem with this conflict of interest, I have to question the real value of the entire discussion; it taints their organizations legitimacy. The conflict however also extends into the fabric of our congress, as these days we have a great number of Representatives who are of Hispanic descent. These representatives also don't seem to care about their obvious conflict of interest with illegal immigration issues. Can anyone truly believe they are not biased? As for their character, well they don't even think of eliminating themselves from voting on these issues and this is troubling.

The discussion, at the Brookings Institute, turned out to be very frustrating. For starters the US Justice Department is holding on to all of its old goals for Comprehensive Immigration Reform; C.I.R. These are the same goals that most of America has told them time and time again they do not want. If this was not enough to frustrate the common citizen they then discussed the issue of Arizona’s new immigration law. They announced their intent to sue the State of Arizona over it's new law. One audience member asked Mr. Osuma why the Dept. of Justice was going after the State of Arizona and not going after the various Cities around the country who openly consider themselves sanctuary cities, in direct violation of federal immigration laws. His answer was on the order of, and I paraphrase; they are only cities which cannot afford to enforce federal laws, while the states are another issue. Their answer was very confusing and weak, and didn’t hold up as true as states have budget issues almost as bad as some of the cities. In reality the answer wasn’t really an answer at all; it was just an attempt to fill the space of time, after the question, with meaningless words so people would think he had an answer. The selective nature of this law suit causes me to question the motives of our federal leaders. Are they looking to seek some political advantage at the expense of the common American citizens, and also at the expense of the country, the USA, itself?

One other guest,on the program, reported on an immigration survey that her group had preformed. She said that while most people surveyed were in favor of Arizona, on the above issue, when asked about C.I.R. 75% were also in favor of it. I can personally understand the support Arizona is getting from the public as they are only trying to follow the laws already in place and improve their communities. However I do not believe that 75% of citizens support C.I.R. Perhaps the way the question might have been worded caused this result. Truthfully I am not sure that most people really hold the same idea of what comprehensive reform is, and if so perhaps this is why the degree of support was high. For example if you asked me if comprehensive reform was needed I would say yes, but my vision of this kind of reform would mean that the United States government needs to reform its structure so that they can enforce the already existing laws and stop the illegal border crossings. However the federal government’s idea of comprehensive is to allow the major part of the existing illegal aliens to be made legal. It also calls for every one of the citizens of the United States to be monitored with and by identification cards. Both of these issues I believe most people would be in disagreement with.

The excessive expense of issuing cards to 300 plus million people so that 11 million can be identified is a lopsided investment that most logical people would not consider. We already have identification methods in place they just need to be enforced. The cards, in this plan, are only a starting place for additional wasted money. This is because cards alone do not have the ability to deport border violators. Additional security around the country would still be needed to prevent future violation, but they don’t talk about that. Perhaps they don't intent to secure the border afterward? Most likely the main benefit of the cards would be, is to make some business, who has lobbied for the contract to produce the cards, very rich. The government has already expressed the idea that they can’t deport all of the illegal people, so amnesty and cards are their solutions. Their solutions leave big holes in the entire plan, and set us up to do all the same things again in a few years.

A better less costly, in the long run, plan would be to just enforce the existing laws. Prosecute the employers of any illegal found living here. Part two of this plan calls for stopping any governmental assistance to illegal people. No rewarding of illegal parents with birth certificates for their new borne. No education services, no health care except emergency; and afterward this would result in their deportation and/or other actions. Prosecute those governmental leaders or employees found to be willfully negligent in turning over information on the illegal employer activities. Penalties would include loss of job, possible jail time, and/or more. A tip line could be established to facilitate outside investigators in cleaning up local corruptions. Whistle blower protections would be strengthened to encourage participation. There really is no need to track down, prosecute and deport each and every one of the illegal persons as when these people cannot gain employment and cannot get any government assistance they will automatically make their way home or end up being captured by routine policing efforts or turning themselves in. If they come forward and identify themselves at the border when they are leaving our country they would eventually be placed on the bottom of the legal immigration list for the country of their origin. This list would consider the promptness of their leaving, the length of time they were here, and other factors which would be uses to determine their position on the legal immigration list. If they chose option two or three and risk being captures they would jeopardize being placed at the bottom of the legal immigrant list and/or be placed on a declined list. In which case they would not even be given access to our immigration process. These conditions are not harsh. If they are good people as is said then they should have families back in their own countries that should support them; just as we support our own families here in these troubled times. Many legal citizens have had to support their family member here, where there seems to be very few jobs these days. If we support our families why should we expect any less of them back in their own country?

One reason why our governmental leaders might want to make eleven to forty million plus people legal is to garner votes. This is not hard to believe for anyone who follows American politics. We already know of the redistricting rules applied even down to the precincts level, which are employed to secure votes. We already know of the negative political advertisements produced by democrats and republicans; to gain votes. We already have our concerns on how the votes are counted. To think there are no plans to use these illegal people to garner political power is naive. This is especially clear when we consider the growing disillusionment with the democratic and republican parties. More and more people are becoming independents. To counter these lost votes both the democrats and republicans are viewing these illegal people as votes in future elections. It doesn’t matter to them that the nation as a whole will suffer under the weight of adding more people to our already overloaded social systems. Amnesty also has the potential to draw out in the open an additional ten to forty million illegal people. If we want to really kill the job market adding ten to forty million more people into the job lines will do it. We already have an exploding labor pool, as our children graduate from high schools and colleges each year. These kinds of actions will drive down wages and create conditions to cause our continued unemployment rates to increase. You and I are asking our children to give up their job opportunities to foreign laborers just so that democrats or republicans can get elected. C.I.R. is not reform just politics being repeated.

I reserve the right to revise and extend my remarks.

The Children of Washington

2010-07-02T11:33:00.004-04:00

http://earthnotes-eblog.blogspot.com
by: David Michael Beachwood

Like children who scurry around picking up everything they possibly can accumulate, our political leaders in Washington vie for total control. Like children whose eyes are too big for their stomachs Washington political leaders gorge themselves with new duties at every opportunity. It is becoming all too evident that they have for a long time now been over indulging themselves. They clearly cannot control all the duties that they have finagled themselves into. They truly are overwhelmed and will not admit it. Their efficiency is so poor that it now takes months if not years to address sometimes even the simplest issues. Their methods and practices are truly a good example in how not to lead. The estimated monetary waste caused by their abuse of our government model runs into billions of dollars monthly. Discretionary spending waste fraud and duplication is estimated at 350 billion a year, alone. If we consider the negative effects of many of there poor judgments regarding wars, bailouts, and subsidies than we are looking at trillions of dollars in waste and fraud over the span of a single term of office. They have turned the federal government into the very monster that the founding fathers were trying to avoid. It is an octopus with eight hundred tentacles, the weight of which is keeping it from swimming. It has been said that children will rule us someday. It seems to me that, that day is here.

Had they kept the federal government simple and limited themselves to the areas our founders had established, we the parents of these children would not be in the fix we are in. Banks and corporations would most likely not have become too big to fail. The military complex wouldn’t be misplacing two trillion dollars as if it where junk change. A smaller federal government would give them a flexibility to react to the duties they truly do have to have on a much more effective level. We need to return to the system we know we should have. It is a system which allows states and local governments more control over their own issues to a much greater extent. It is a system that allows states and local governments to keep more of their own tax dollars. The bigger is better mind set is only true to a point. Unfortunately our federal government exceeded that point long ago.

Vampires

2010-06-27T19:41:00.004-04:00

by: David Michael Beachwood at http://earthnotes-eblog.blogspot.com

Have you noticed over the last several years the growing number of vampire stories coming out of Hollywood? If you have, then you might have asked yourself, why? Why so many stories about vampires? Of course I wouldn’t be writing this article if I didn’t have my opinion. You see Hollywood, if you haven’t already noticed, gets most of the stories we see from real life situations. All the good and bad things in life are the subject matter for the movies. Still there are those who say that there is no such thing as good and evil. It seems obvious to me that if there wasn’t such a thing, than Hollywood would be out of business. Most stories are based on real life events or ideas. While some Television shows are said to be “reality shows” in reality most show are; real. Real in the sense that at least parts of the stories really did happen. My father used to say a little bit of truth together with a lot of bull goes a long way; still vampires?

Many television shows tell you in advance that they are based on true life stories. I suggest that the remainder are based on symbolism or satire and as such are real as well. That is; behind these stories there really are vampires and these days they seem to be all around us. They recently have sucked the life blood out of millions of us. These vampires are represented in life by the corrupt bankers, Wall Street traders, lawyers, corporations, and governmental leaders who have brought this nation and the world to the state that it is in. Evil in this form makes for good Hollywood stories. Change the names and faces and there you have it, good theater. If you can’t directly tell the stories about these villains, either for fear of exposing them or for fear of them suing you, then you tell their stories symbolically.

Are some of these stories being sponsored by the evil perpetrators themselves? I wouldn’t put it past some of them to want to gloat about the evil deals they have taken part in. If they do this incognito they can gloat over it and at the same time make even more money by telling us what they have done. Usually however they promote a version that makes them look good. Several vampire stories, these days, conjure positive images of vampires; I wonder why? Bad can be good is a powerful subliminal message. This helps us to accept them and what they are doing. Vampires, such as these, have produced a giant sucking sound of not only jobs, but of money leaving our pockets and our country. It’s blood money in the real sense. Yes Virginia there really is vampires.

Entitlements

2010-06-11T19:59:00.005-04:00

http://earthnotes-eblog.blogspot.com
by: David Michael Beachwood

The pain of unfunded liabilities is only now starting to become clear to people. Our government leaders have had to face this issue much more frequently these days. Unfunded liabilities come about when we pass laws to pay for something and then do not provide the source of revenue to pay for the liability. While programs such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and the like get the lion’s share of the bad press for this condition there are a whole host of other government programs that should be noted. In a poor economy most, if not all, of the governmental jobs, rely on taxes to support them, thus they become unfunded liabilities. Recently many local communities have had to renegotiate their labor contracts. In reviewing these actions one could easily make the argument that even police and fire programs are unfunded liabilities in a downward spiraling economy. This is an economy where public support is lost due to tax payers losing their homes. It seems to me that all of these liability problems could be eliminated.

How? By establishing that all future contracts and or programs should be tied to the level of revenues received in any given year. Each department or program would be given a percentage of those taxes up to a predetermined monetary control level. This level is necessary so that departments or programs do not get over compensated when conditions improve. Since retired federal, state, and local employees also draw funds from the revenue base their compensation should also be tied to the annual funds received as well. Should a surplus condition occur in any particular year these funds would be put into a surplus rainy day fund for general use by the citizens, i.e. city, state or federal, and the following years taxes would be lowered to accommodate the businesses and citizens; who are helping to pay for all of this.

Government subsidized programs such as Medicare, Social Security Insurance, and the like are nearly always treated in the main media discussions as programs which are top heavy and should be cut. These are programs which were supposed to be designed to provide a more economically efficient and accessible means to services which nearly everyone might require at one time of another. Framing the discussions in terms of expense tends to make people understand that the government will not be able to support all such programs at the rates that they sometimes raise those program levels to. Here again tying these services to the annual revenues received, along with all other programs and jobs, would eliminate the unfunded liability aspect we current face.

In the end all programs are reviewed by our governments and they pick and choose which programs they wish to expand or contract to balance the budget; that is if they ever can agree. We would still face the problems caused by lobbyists for big business who want to control where our taxes and revenues go. Clearly big business feels that they should be getting those funds. Unfortunately there is currently many more lobbyists working for business interest than for the common citizens interest. Because of this it should be no surprise then that the companies that pay for the lobbyist also pay for the media programs to promote their plans. These plans, under the current system, tend to reduce or cut programs which provide benefits to the masses and increase programs which support large business. Military spending thus is often left off the list of programs to be cut because this spending favors these corporations. To be sure governmental programs, such as Medicare, have waste and fraud that should be cut. However corporate programs also, as we have so painfully learned from the bailouts, have waste and fraud at a much more extreme level. While corporate lobbyists, for a long time now, have pushed the idea that public programs, such as Medicare, threaten to destroy our nation their very bosses have nearly pushed this nation into economic ruin. These corporate raiders of the common citizen's American Dream, in my opinion are far from finished. There are still more hard times ahead and more corporate waste and fraud for us to disclose. They certainly want the money from those public programs which are focused on helping the common citizens in our country. While I understand their greed I don’t understand how draining the money out of the hands of the common citizen makes the American economy any better.

Corporations have a history of sending our economic dollars to other countries, while common citizens I believe have a record of spending it at their local stores. Unfortunately they have to buy products from other countries, but that is again another side to this same economic disaster that corporate America has placed our nation in. If we let them they will talk us into reducing all of our public assistance programs to zero. At the same time guess what: They would support giving more money to foreign aid, to better their business advantages. This is a plan that will only benefit the top ten percent of our population at best, and ultimately destroy a great nation; and perhaps the world.

Entitlements really are what the lobbyist secures for the large businesses and corporations of the world. These entitlements can be stopped by eliminating the use of lobbyist and eliminating lifelong political incumbents. Unfunded entitlements as we discussed can be eliminated by tying all government jobs and programs to the revenues we receive. This should entice our leaders to make sure we have tariffs, business taxes and fees ample enough to pay their wages and benefits.

By the way unfunded entitlements, in the United States, are now estimated at 100 trillion dollars and this does not include the new health care plan.

I reserve the right to revise and extend my remarks.

The Blue Economy of The Great Lakes Region – update June 1st 2010.

2010-06-01T16:47:00.006-04:00

http://earthnotes-eblog.blogspot.com
by: David Michael Beachwood

For those of you who may have read the article I wrote last Dec. 3rd 2009 titled The Blue Economy of The Great Lakes Region and thought that I was making a mountain out of a mole hill; I have some additional information for you to consider. Have you seen the latest Brita Water Filter commercial yet? In it they explain that the United States alone used 39 billion plastic bottles last year. To express how enormous this number is they go on to explain that if the plastic bottles were tied together they would stretch around the world. Not once around or twice around but 190 times around the world. That’s a lot of plastic bottles. It also represents a lot of water. To be sure it may not have all come from The Great Lakes; however my article considers the idea that a large part of it did. What is more, in the Brita commercial they were only talking about the plastic bottles we used here in the United States. Just how many plastic bottles are exported, is something still in need of investigation. It should also be noted that much of the water from our lakes is used by many food and beverage companies that ship in glass and metal containers as well. This Brita commercial suggests that the problem is a much larger problem than any of us may have imagined. It is fair to say that the issue of water being removed from the Great Lakes is not the minor issue some would like to make it out to be. Of course if people consider it a minor issue, water will continue to be given to corporations at bargain prices. After viewing the Brita commercial I hope our leaders at least consider that perhaps our water resource is being undervalued? The undervalued water is at least causing two problems one; plastic pollution, and two; it reduces revenue to provinces and states which border the resource. Revenue needed to protect the resource itself.

December 2010 Update: Click on the title about and you will all be able to view "Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura - specifically the Dec. 3, 2010 episode titled "Worldwide water conspiracy"

I reserve the right to revise and extend my remarks.

Government Caused Crime and Corruption

2010-05-18T18:13:00.003-04:00

by: David Michael Beachwood

What!
The government causes crime and corruption? They would never do that intentionally; would they? Well I for one would like to think that they don’t do this on purpose; however their track record seems to indicate they have. They have a history of creating crime. The story of alcohol prohibition is only one example. Their plan to end the scourge of alcohol ended up creating a crime scene which dwarfed the original problem they had to begin with. Now to be fair we must admit that it is, in the end, the people who chose to break the law that are to blame. Still we must also admit that some laws beg to be broken by those few among us who have careless adventurous natures. Unfortunately these few often drag those who are uninformed of the consequences along with them. I am not saying this is right, but only that it is human nature for about 20 percent of our population to push the limits without regard to consequences. I will be the first to agree that this is wrong, however people have free will and they will ‘Sin’ like it or not. Overly strict laws, in some cases, only make things worse; especially if the laws are viewed as self servicing corporate laws or criminally instigated laws. Our leaders should consider that sometimes in making laws we can better serve the main body of citizens by not taking a zero tolerance law making approach.

Our government however did not learned from their mistake with the war on alcohol but instead went ahead and started the war on drugs. We try to believe that their intentions are honorable, but their actions have again actually aggravated the whole situation. Unfortunately this time the problems are even worse than during the time of alcohol prohibition. Evidence has been growing that links elements within our government as being participants in the crimes. The new mobs use our government regulations and lobbyist to push their agendas. Several of the stories told about the illegal drug trade implicate some of our national leaders. Even the main stream media has carried stories which link the CIA, our military, and several high level federal leaders; both past and present. Some stories have even linked a past Governor as taking part in the payoffs.

But enough of this, my main attempt here is to point out the latest scheme conceived by some criminal elements which have the ears of our government leaders. By the way, the idea of prohibitions on certain commodities can cause a change in the business supply and demand equation. This fact when linked to strict laws can cause the turmoil of drive by shootings, gang violence, and border wars. In this latest criminal/governmental propagation of wrong thinking we are again being told it is a compassionate effort to save, this time the environment. What is this latest governmental scheme? It is the idea of carbon tax credits. A recent Frontline story demonstrated that again, our government’s good intentions are going to be awfully painful to us common citizens. They are again setting in motion a new wave of criminal actions. In a way it is a jobs bill not for us, but for those people who we would call criminals. The carbon tax laws are creating jobs for criminals.

The Frontline story pointed out that, companies like GM are paying the governments of South American countries $1 per tree, not to cut them down. In so doing they say that they are saving the rain forest and the planet because the tree’s potential negative carbon tonnage does not get added to the environment but the positive effect of the tree is added. Of course companies such as GM get to deduct from their carbon output the amount that the law dictates. What a deal. They spend a minuscule amount and then pretend they are saving the planet. In the mean time another new criminal job unfolds, that of tree poaching. Yes thieves sneak into the rain forest and steel trees. Guess what, they can get $1000 for that same tree that GM pays $1 for. It seems to me that GM and other companies that pay the token price of $1 for something that is worth $1000 are the real criminals. Why, because they are helping to create a black market in trees, and at the same time covering up their true pollution footprint. They are helping to make criminals out of people; not only the poor but the richer governmental leaders.

Is not this what alcohol, and drug laws have done?

I reserve the right to revise and extend my remarks.

The Longer Trend

2010-04-18T10:38:00.005-04:00

I was impressed with the above article and was compelled to share it with you.

I might add that, it is my belief, we still have some time to decide for ourselves which side we choose to be on. I believe this is the ultimate question that each of us has the opportunity to face; before our death. How each of us answers that question and how early on we answer it will shape our fate. For I also see that their is a Devil and his details have laid mountains of confusions. These confusions have hidden the good intentions that God initially laid out for us to follow. If we had followed them we would have never reached this point so many times in our earthly history; the point of empire collapse.

Click on the Title above and read the article.

I thank the author for sharing.

Money - Our Financial System

2010-04-12T16:35:00.004-04:00

by: David Michael Beachwood

An open letter to local, state, and federal political representatives, April 2010

The recent attempt to audit the Federal Reserve has reaffirmed some troubling conditions which exist in that system. To start with it is a system based on convert manipulations of financial markets. This has recently been openly admitted to by the Federal Reserve and the banking community. They have basically said that they need secrecy to perform some covert actions. They tell us, to our face, that this is the reason for asking that we do not audit them. They ask that we trust in them to do the right thing so that they can preserve their system; a system that they have created for their benefit. I should not have to tell you the concerns voiced by past presidents of The United States about the establishment of a central banking system. What is more there is a long history of banking deceptions which we should not ignore. These deceptions do not support our giving our trust to these people. You, our politicians, should be very aware of the political pressure directed at you to support the Federal Reserve and central banking system. This should cause you to ask yourselves where the money to pressure you comes from. You may be fearful of losing your parties support, if you do not support their dictates. However it seems these parties have been tainted by the lobbyist from the banking community and trusting them, at this point, is simply not responsible. The recent financial meltdown is directly related to these lobbying skills. Lobbying which reduced oversight on markets and changed or created laws to allow easier manipulations of systems.

Their system is a system based on debt, and this debt, at this point, demands larger and larger fraudulent acts to keep it going. Without going to far back in time there has been savings and loan scandals, stock market Ponzi schemes, and mortgage fraud scandals so numerous that it is hard to count them all. Yet they still have the gull to ask that we trust them; as if they are in an all together different business then MONEY and had no part in it. Now looming on our horizon is possibly the largest fraud in the history of world; it seems we hear this more frequently these days. I speak of a report that just now is coming to the public’s attention. This is the latest report that our silver trading markets have been and are being manipulated on a grand scale.

To allow any financial system to continue unmonitored is a mistake, as systems like these will drive our debt even beyond its already unbelievable level. Perhaps this is why most of those corporate executives are taking multimillion dollar compensations; do they know that this pillaging is going to cause serious inflation? They might know that it is also highly unlikely that you, our representatives, will do anything to hamper the current financial system; due to their lobbyist skills. Do these corporate leaders feel that a severe economic collapse is a very real possibility in the near future?

Now you, our political leaders, can start doing the right thing by standing to support people with different ideas; other than the corporate and banking world ideas. These other voices can begin to make things better, or perhaps it is better to say at this point; less damaging to civilization. There are several people out there with the answers; we just need the political will to follow them. I have read their books and listened to their remedies for years now. There is a world of third party candidates who have voiced several great ideas which due to negative lobbyist actions have never had a chance.

One book I recommend to start with is “The Revolution” by Ron Paul. It contains a number of good ideas which would, if implemented, begin to turn our economy around. While I may not strongly embrace every single one of his ideas, I trust that he is on the right path and is not being lead by any lobbyist. Therefore this is my personal plea; that you, my representatives, seek to follow the ideas laid out by him and others like him. Of course I will be watching to see how you handle yourself, in the political realm, so that I will know what path you choose. It is time for you to give your party affiliations a back seat and start to work for the majority of our citizens, and not so overwhelmingly for the corporations and bankers.

Thank you

Humanities State of the Union

2010-03-24T17:37:00.002-04:00

by: David Michael Beachwood
I certainly do not speak for all of humanity, but I can offer one mans point of view from within its realm. This view, I feel, is very likely to be valid, unfortunately, for the foreseeable future and perhaps beyond. The issues we humans primarily struggle with, are derived from our normal physical, mental, and emotional abilities, as we interface with our world. These emotional factors often cloud our judgments and lead us to decisions which have no validity. Examples of these emotions are love, hate, and fear. While some of us understand our emotions better then others this group, seldom if ever, contains enough members to become a majority in civilization. Partly because there are always new people being born who are at the beginning stages in their quest to understand themselves. With so many of us at different points in our emotional development it makes it difficult for society, as a whole, to make sound decisions. This is because there doesn’t seem to ever be an emotionally mature majority voting on our social issues. The problem here is that some people within our civilization understand this and are using it against the rest of us. However this is not the only problem which hampers our democratic process.

We humans are often less knowledgeable then we think we are in any given subject that we may be discussing. Here again our emotions handicap us as they tend to cause us to have pride or shame if we know or don’t know any particular subject. We sometimes hide our lack of knowledge and carry on as if we are sure about what we are talking about. Here our pride or shame often causes us to error in our judgments. However, we frankly should not feel that we should know the answers to everything. In reality we are often asking ourselves to extend our minds farther than they have the capacity too understand; at least thus far in our development. There is a mental limit all humans face, but many of us have a hard time admitting it’s true. Still some people within our civilization understand this and again use it against the rest of us.

If we didn’t have the emotion of vanity we would acknowledge our short comings and be far better off, instead we pretend we understand completely our worldly issues and there is where we often fail ourselves. Could it be that many issues are often made to be far too complicated, perhaps intentionally, for us to make decisions on? This complexity coupled with our emotional issues creates additional roadblocks for our minds to wrestle with. It seems our minds cannot handle this much complexity. Unfortunately our pride prevents us from acknowledging this. This pride, in and of itself, points to the very shortcoming we have. The shortcoming is that our minds haven’t advanced enough to handle all the data we load it up with; and again we tend to deny the problem. To understand the jest of these previous statements one has only to one consider the limited language skills we process. Most of us only use a few hundred words to converse, yet our American dictionaries exceed one million words.

It would literally take more than the lifetime; we individually possess, to fully understand even just a single sector of our humanity; for example health, politics, or science. It can be said that using any of earths written languages to explore any of these subjects, to their depth, would at best require the bulk of our lives. Such studies are not normally embarked upon by the average person seeking knowledge. This suggests that for many of us our minds lack the patients or will required to do this. Yet we still think of ourselves as being capable of addressing our human sociological and political issues. Language, itself, is a huge barrier for us in achieving our goal of full understanding. All forms of communication are currently insufficient for the task, because they lack the ability to download the material into our brain in a short and concise time span. We as a whole refuse to accept this limitation and carry on as if everyone can have full understanding of our various issues. As a way around our need for a short and concise method of expression we employ the processes of comparisons, antidotes, facsimiles, and the like to increase our understanding. In doing so we avoid having to give the whole scientific explanation for how things work. This process allows in a critical assumption that those listening understand the full meaning of what ever the topic is to begin with. It is obvious that this is often not the case. While this is unfortunate in respect to complete knowledge, it still remains one tool that we do process at this time; be it insufficient as it is. One other tool is to acknowledge that we often don’t have time to express all the issues on any given subject and therefore must leave them for another time or for others more knowledgeable in the subject to decide. Again some people in our civilization have taken note of this and are using this against the rest of us.

With the above time factor in mind I have limited our discussion here to only a few points regarding the huge subject of our humanity. Even at this, one may ask; is the subject still to complex to take on? Like it or not, mankind already feels it is ready to at least begin the process of resolving our social problems. The different forms of government around the world are expressions of these attempts. Still there is a better way forward if we climb off of our pedestals and be honest with ourselves. This way forward demands that we accept our limits instead of falsely denying them. There are those who deny they lack anything and submit they have all they need to make intelligent statements as to how we should handle our daily activities as a group. I submit that these individuals often lack the wisdom they need to achieve higher standards of living for themselves let alone society. Some of us do better than others, in accepting our limits; still we are far from the ideals our minds have inklings of.

One main human problem is patience. Those that have none have already left this reading. So as not to tax the remainder I will try to be brief. I feel that we all suffer from a great delusion. Our minds, while not primitive, are still not fully mature. This condition leaves us with a huge duality in our thinking process, but we cannot seem to acknowledge it. That is; we have a double nature, character, and or purpose and this causes us to misjudge almost everything we do. We like to think that we are noble creatures, wise, and superior, and that the actions that we take together are pure and only affect the guilty and no one else. We profess to care about every single human being yet most of our corrective actions cause collateral or unintended damage to others who are not to blame. This fact points to the shortcomings we know we have, but will not admit. This is because others in our civilization have done all they can to prevent us from acknowledging them as they use the technique to better there own positions in life.

We often make laws, which restrict the freedoms of our citizens, in order to secure the punishment of the few who break our rules. It seems most of the time we forget to ask ourselves the following question. How can we truly care about every single human being when we disregard their freedoms? This is our dual nature acting against us. I believe that most of the reason for this terrible flaw in our nature is due to our faulty educational processes. We have often been taught in our schools, very early on, that we should punish the masses for the actions of the few. This occurs when an entire class is punished for something one student does. Even though we understand that this punishment is unjust there is a part of us which accepts it as understandable. Perhaps, because we have been exposed to so much of this during our life times or perhaps, because our mental capabilities are still not advanced enough or evolved enough to correct this misconception. This duplicity shows up in many ways in our lives, and is supported by those who use it for their own betterment and against the rest of us.

For example when we talk about war, we often hear “if only just one human life can be saved” by our action we should go to war. If we review the real history of our wars over the last fifty years this has not been true. We do this because are told that we are better than anyone else, but in reality everyone wants to believe they are better than the rest. So we tell ourselves a lie, or someone else teaches us this lie, and this causes the majority of the miseries we see and feel in this world. We somehow are easily led into things via our corrupted view of the concept of self sacrifice. We are lead to perceive this concept as being noble and something we should do without thinking about it. This is a half truth as self sacrifice should be considered in dept before we take any action. The loss of a father in war is a sacrifice not simply made by a father, but in reality by his whole family and his nation. This sacrifice should not be taken lightly. Our desire to, at the very least, paint a good face on our bad actions, overreaches our common sense to cause this turmoil. Whether or not our actions steal freedoms from most of us, to give to a few, doesn’t seem to matter; but it should. Somehow in our minds all that is important is that we keep up the false front that we are doing this because we are noble creatures, wise and tolerant and better then anyone else. This is the delusion we suffer from and there is no way out of this at least for the foreseeable future. Some people in our civilization have noted this and use it to their own advantage and against the rest of us.

Further, in our defense of war and our actions, we proclaim that we are doing this to establish freedom for all. I guess we didn’t notice that freedom and even life itself had to be taken from many to pursue this duality. We can trace a possibly cause of this condition back to the WWII. In fact just before the war a study of human behavior was made and used by the business community for advertising. Our human nature it turns out has many features that can be used against us if someone really wants to pursue it. Hitler used these methods to advance his war machine and convert the minds of his citizens to his task. Businesses, this includes politics, today use these techniques extensively to control us. Yet even though many of us understand this, because of our duplicity, we allow it to continue. It seems that because of our vanity we refuse to believe that we can be controlled by the media we watch, listen to, or read. This is the state of our humanity ---We Sleep They Live.

I reserve the right to revise and extend my remarks.

Hillsdale College Constitution Town Hall Video

2010-03-24T10:49:00.003-04:00

The Constitution Town Hall from Hillsdale College

http://www.constitutiontownhall.com

The Mount Vernon Statement

2010-03-06T15:45:00.004-05:00

Our Constitution is it worth saving? Check on the Title above if you wish to sign a petition.

Joseph Stack

2010-02-24T15:55:00.008-05:00

by: David Michael Beachwood

Joseph Andrews Stack was apparently the pilot of the small plane that crashed into a seven-story building in Austin, killing at least two people. Before hitting the Echelon Building in Austin Texas he set his house on fire but left a suicide note as to why he slammed into the IRS.

The main stream news here in the Detroit area was, as usual, lacking substance in their report. The day it happened they reported that a plane had flew into a building in Austin, Texas. They had sketchy information at that point, but strangely they did say that he may have had issues with the IRS. They gave me the impression that they were guessing at this because they mentioned that this particular building had an IRS office in it. Their report gave me the idea that this incidence was probably not terror related, but likely an act of a mentally disturbed person. This seemed odd because they certainly could not have had all the facts. The fact that they mentioned that an IRS office was in the building must have given them grounds to suspect someone might have gotten mad again. To jump to this conclusion without evidence should indicate to us that we have a problem within the tax system; wouldn’t you think. I mean that in our minds we can rather easily see someone having an issue with the IRS. It seemed the reporter just took this for granted. Since the act we have learned a little more. The press has, so far, made little effort to question why he may have been driven mentality into do this act. They only reported that he had been dealing with the IRS. Generally people commit suicide for reasons they feel are important; at least important to them. I believe it is wrong to ignore the reasons why people feel deeply about issues which affect their lives. To do so not only lacks compassion, but does not lead to any understanding of why these acts are committed. It does however lead to more of the same behavior on the part of those driven to this insanity. I am offended by this, glossed over, kind of reporting that our main stream press does, as frankly how do we learn from our mistakes if we don’t look into the reasons that things happen. Truthfully I suspect that few people enjoy doing their income tax, let alone paying them. So my question remains as to what made this man commit suicide? I don’t want to be told “well it was because he had to pay taxes” at least half of us pay taxes and we aren’t killing ourselves. The reporting so far only forces me to speculate on my own that he must have really been subjected to unbearable conditions in order to respond in this way. Yet the local news here almost made it sound like he shouldn’t have had anything to be distraught about as every one pays taxes; right. Perhaps these reporters here, who have a cushy job reading the news and making excessively good money at it, don’t see a problem with taxes, but the main body of US citizens are not so happy.

If it would do any good I would task these so called reporters to do a story on the number of people who commit suicide because of the treatment they received from the IRS. I have heard that these particular statistics are not so easily made available to the press. Based on the number of tax related stories I have heard over the years I would guess that tax related deaths may be higher then we would expect. In fact they may be high enough to be an embarrassment to the IRS; thus part of the reluctance to release the figures. If there are a large number of deaths which result from the tactics employed by the IRS shouldn’t someone look into these problems? I would hope so if only to simply develop a system which would try to reduce the death rate. Our main stream news reporters seem to gravitate to an answer which doesn’t involve looking too far; blame it on a weak mind. This is easier then having to look into the methods used by the IRS. While they, the press, perhaps should be concerned about what their meddling might bring upon them, if they don’t or won’t, report on these issues, who will?

It is obvious that some people feel that no one out there will help them. If so they feel that they face an impossible situation. They feel that it is futile to try to get the main stream news organizations to investigate these stories, so they give up and commit suicide. Suicide, as you may know, is most often a plea for help. You may be old enough to remember the numerous Indian religious leaders, during the time of Gandhi, who set themselves on fire in order to bring attention to their plight. It is hard for me to look at Joe Stack as the sole villain here especially with the limited information I have on his situation. I have heard that his daughter has said that in a way he was a hero. If so, he would have to be one, only in the most tragic sense as he harmed many people who were not willing participants in his actions. If his anger toward the IRS caused him to flip out and not take into account those other people who where hurt or killed, then he surly was not thinking properly. If he was not thinking properly than what caused his insanity. Could the IRS have some responsibility in this? Perhaps in his mind he gave his life in a desperate attempt to right a wrong? I should add that he must have wanted to create a significant event so that we would notice what had happened to him. I hope you will share this with others so that his plea for help doesn't go unnoticed. It would be nice if someone in the main stream press would honestly get to the bottom of his situation so that he and the other people who died here will not have died in vain, but I have my doubts. What I am saying is that an investigation may help prevent future incidents of this kind. The question is; is it futile to ask for such an investigation if no one has the courage to look deeper into the causes here?

I reserve the right to revise and extend my remarks.

Update: I have located a copy of his suicide letter which helps us a little to understand why he did what he did:

Joseph Stack’s suicide letter: From: http://news.spreadit.org/joe-stack-joseph-andrews-stack-letter/
If you’re reading this, you’re no doubt asking yourself, “Why did this have to happen?” The simple truth is that it is complicated and has been coming for a long time. The writing process, started many months ago, was intended to be therapy in the face of the looming realization that there isn’t enough therapy in the world that can fix what is really broken. Needless to say, this rant could fill volumes with example after example if I would let it. I find the process of writing it frustrating, tedious, and probably pointless… especially given my gross inability to gracefully articulate my thoughts in light of the storm raging in my head. Exactly what is therapeutic about that I’m not sure, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

We are all taught as children that without laws there would be no society, only anarchy. Sadly, starting at early ages we in this country have been brainwashed to believe that, in return for our dedication and service, our government stands for justice for all. We are further brainwashed to believe that there is freedom in this place, and that we should be ready to lay our lives down for the noble principals represented by its founding fathers. Remember? One of these was “no taxation without representation”. I have spent the total years of my adulthood unlearning that crap from only a few years of my childhood. These days anyone who really stands up for that principal is promptly labeled a “crackpot”, traitor and worse.

While very few working people would say they haven’t had their fair share of taxes (as can I), in my lifetime I can say with a great degree of certainty that there has never been a politician cast a vote on any matter with the likes of me or my interests in mind. Nor, for that matter, are they the least bit interested in me or anything I have to say.

Why is it that a handful of thugs and plunderers can commit unthinkable atrocities (and in the case of the GM executives, for scores of years) and when it’s time for their gravy train to crash under the weight of their gluttony and overwhelming stupidity, the force of the full federal government has no difficulty coming to their aid within days if not hours? Yet at the same time, the joke we call the American medical system, including the drug and insurance companies, are murdering tens of thousands of people a year and stealing from the corpses and victims they cripple, and this country’s leaders don’t see this as important as bailing out a few of their vile, rich cronies. Yet, the political “representatives” (thieves, liars, and self-serving scumbags is far more accurate) have endless time to sit around for year after year and debate the state of the “terrible health care problem”. It’s clear they see no crisis as long as the dead people don’t get in the way of their corporate profits rolling in.
And justice? You’ve got to be kidding!
How can any rational individual explain that white elephant conundrum in the middle of our tax system and, indeed, our entire legal system? Here we have a system that is, by far, too complicated for the brightest of the master scholars to understand. Yet, it mercilessly “holds accountable” its victims, claiming that they’re responsible for fully complying with laws not even the experts understand. The law “requires” a signature on the bottom of a tax filing; yet no one can say truthfully that they understand what they are signing; if that’s not “duress” than what is. If this is not the measure of a totalitarian regime, nothing is.

How did I get here?
My introduction to the real American nightmare starts back in the early ‘80s. Unfortunately after more than 16 years of school, somewhere along the line I picked up the absurd, pompous notion that I could read and understand plain English. Some friends introduced me to a group of people who were having ‘tax code’ readings and discussions. In particular, zeroed in on a section relating to the wonderful “exemptions” that make institutions like the vulgar, corrupt Catholic Church so incredibly wealthy. We carefully studied the law (with the help of some of the “best”, high-paid, experienced tax lawyers in the business), and then began to do exactly what the “big boys” were doing (except that we weren’t steeling from our congregation or lying to the government about our massive profits in the name of God). We took a great deal of care to make it all visible, following all of the rules, exactly the way the law said it was to be done.

The intent of this exercise and our efforts was to bring about a much-needed re-evaluation of the laws that allow the monsters of organized religion to make such a mockery of people who earn an honest living. However, this is where I learned that there are two “interpretations” for every law; one for the very rich, and one for the rest of us… Oh, and the monsters are the very ones making and enforcing the laws; the inquisition is still alive and well today in this country.

That little lesson in patriotism cost me $40,000+, 10 years of my life, and set my retirement plans back to 0. It made me realize for the first time that I live in a country with an ideology that is based on a total and complete lie. It also made me realize, not only how naive I had been, but also the incredible stupidity of the American public; that they buy, hook, line, and sinker, the crap about their “freedom”… and that they continue to do so with eyes closed in the face of overwhelming evidence and all that keeps happening in front of them.

Before even having to make a shaky recovery from the sting of the first lesson on what justice really means in this country (around 1984 after making my way through engineering school and still another five years of “paying my dues”), I felt I finally had to take a chance of launching my dream of becoming an independent engineer.

On the subjects of engineers and dreams of independence, I should digress somewhat to say that I’m sure that I inherited the fascination for creative problem solving from my father. I realized this at a very young age.

The significance of independence, however, came much later during my early years of college; at the age of 18 or 19 when I was living on my own as student in an apartment in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. My neighbor was an elderly retired woman (80+ seemed ancient to me at that age) who was the widowed wife of a retired steel worker. Her husband had worked all his life in the steel mills of central Pennsylvania with promises from big business and the union that, for his 30 years of service, he would have a pension and medical care to look forward to in his retirement. Instead he was one of the thousands who got nothing because the incompetent mill management and corrupt union (not to mention the government) raided their pension funds and stole their retirement. All she had was social security to live on.

In retrospect, the situation was laughable because here I was living on peanut butter and bread (or Ritz crackers when I could afford to splurge) for months at a time. When I got to know this poor figure and heard her story I felt worse for her plight than for my own (I, after all, I thought I had everything to in front of me). I was genuinely appalled at one point, as we exchanged stories and commiserated with each other over our situations, when she in her grandmotherly fashion tried to convince me that I would be “healthier” eating cat food (like her) rather than trying to get all my substance from peanut butter and bread. I couldn’t quite go there, but the impression was made. I decided that I didn’t trust big business to take care of me, and that I would take responsibility for my own future and myself.
Return to the early ‘80s, and here I was off to a terrifying start as a ‘wet-behind-the-ears’ contract software engineer… and two years later, thanks to the fine backroom, midnight effort by the sleazy executives of Arthur Andersen (the very same folks who later brought us Enron and other such calamities) and an equally sleazy New York Senator (Patrick Moynihan), we saw the passage of 1986 tax reform act with its section 1706.

For you who are unfamiliar, here is the core text of the IRS Section 1706, defining the treatment of workers (such as contract engineers) for tax purposes. Visit this link for a conference committee report (http://www.synergistech.com/1706.shtml#ConferenceCommitteeReport) regarding the intended interpretation of Section 1706 and the relevant parts of Section 530, as amended. For information on how these laws affect technical services workers and their clients, read our discussion here (http://www.synergistech.com/ic-taxlaw.shtml).

SEC. 1706. TREATMENT OF CERTAIN TECHNICAL PERSONNEL.
(a) IN GENERAL – Section 530 of the Revenue Act of 1978 is amended by adding at the end thereof the following new subsection:
(d) EXCEPTION. – This section shall not apply in the case of an individual who pursuant to an arrangement between the taxpayer and another person, provides services for such other person as an engineer, designer, drafter, computer programmer, systems analyst, or other similarly skilled worker engaged in a similar line of work.
(b) EFFECTIVE DATE. – The amendment made by this section shall apply to remuneration paid and services rendered after December 31, 1986.
Note:
• “another person” is the client in the traditional job-shop relationship.
• “taxpayer” is the recruiter, broker, agency, or job shop.
• “individual”, “employee”, or “worker” is you.

Admittedly, you need to read the treatment to understand what it is saying but it’s not very complicated. The bottom line is that they may as well have put my name right in the text of section (d). Moreover, they could only have been more blunt if they would have came out and directly declared me a criminal and non-citizen slave. Twenty years later, I still can’t believe my eyes.

During 1987, I spent close to $5000 of my ‘pocket change’, and at least 1000 hours of my time writing, printing, and mailing to any senator, congressman, governor, or slug that might listen; none did, and they universally treated me as if I was wasting their time. I spent countless hours on the L.A. freeways driving to meetings and any and all of the disorganized professional groups who were attempting to mount a campaign against this atrocity. This, only to discover that our efforts were being easily derailed by a few moles from the brokers who were just beginning to enjoy the windfall from the new declaration of their “freedom”. Oh, and don’t forget, for all of the time I was spending on this, I was loosing income that I couldn’t bill clients.

After months of struggling it had clearly gotten to be a futile exercise. The best we could get for all of our trouble is a pronouncement from an IRS mouthpiece that they weren’t going to enforce that provision (read harass engineers and scientists). This immediately proved to be a lie, and the mere existence of the regulation began to have its impact on my bottom line; this, of course, was the intended effect.

Again, rewind my retirement plans back to 0 and shift them into idle. If I had any sense, I clearly should have left abandoned engineering and never looked back.
Instead I got busy working 100-hour workweeks. Then came the L.A. depression of the early 1990s. Our leaders decided that they didn’t need the all of those extra Air Force bases they had in Southern California, so they were closed; just like that. The result was economic devastation in the region that rivaled the widely publicized Texas S&L fiasco. However, because the government caused it, no one gave a shit about all of the young families who lost their homes or street after street of boarded up houses abandoned to the wealthy loan companies who received government funds to “shore up” their windfall. Again, I lost my retirement.

Years later, after weathering a divorce and the constant struggle trying to build some momentum with my business, I find myself once again beginning to finally pick up some speed. Then came the .COM bust and the 911 nightmare. Our leaders decided that all aircraft were grounded for what seemed like an eternity; and long after that, ‘special’ facilities like San Francisco were on security alert for months. This made access to my customers prohibitively expensive. Ironically, after what they had done the Government came to the aid of the airlines with billions of our tax dollars … as usual they left me to rot and die while they bailed out their rich, incompetent cronies WITH MY MONEY! After these events, there went my business but not quite yet all of my retirement and savings.

By this time, I’m thinking that it might be good for a change. Bye to California, I’ll try Austin for a while. So I moved, only to find out that this is a place with a highly inflated sense of self-importance and where damn little real engineering work is done. I’ve never experienced such a hard time finding work. The rates are 1/3 of what I was earning before the crash, because pay rates here are fixed by the three or four large companies in the area who are in collusion to drive down prices and wages… and this happens because the justice department is all on the take and doesn’t give a fuck about serving anyone or anything but themselves and their rich buddies.

To survive, I was forced to cannibalize my savings and retirement, the last of which was a small IRA. This came in a year with mammoth expenses and not a single dollar of income. I filed no return that year thinking that because I didn’t have any income there was no need. The sleazy government decided that they disagreed. But they didn’t notify me in time for me to launch a legal objection so when I attempted to get a protest filed with the court I was told I was no longer entitled to due process because the time to file ran out. Bend over for another $10,000 helping of justice.

So now we come to the present. After my experience with the CPA world, following the business crash I swore that I’d never enter another accountant’s office again. But here I am with a new marriage and a boatload of undocumented income, not to mention an expensive new business asset, a piano, which I had no idea how to handle. After considerable thought I decided that it would be irresponsible NOT to get professional help; a very big mistake.

When we received the forms back I was very optimistic that they were in order. I had taken all of the years information to Bill Ross, and he came back with results very similar to what I was expecting. Except that he had neglected to include the contents of Sheryl’s unreported income; $12,700 worth of it. To make matters worse, Ross knew all along this was missing and I didn’t have a clue until he pointed it out in the middle of the audit. By that time it had become brutally evident that he was representing himself and not me.

This left me stuck in the middle of this disaster trying to defend transactions that have no relationship to anything tax-related (at least the tax-related transactions were poorly documented). Things I never knew anything about and things my wife had no clue would ever matter to anyone. The end result is… well, just look around.

I remember reading about the stock market crash before the “great” depression and how there were wealthy bankers and businessmen jumping out of windows when they realized they screwed up and lost everything. Isn’t it ironic how far we’ve come in 60 years in this country that they now know how to fix that little economic problem; they just steal from the middle class (who doesn’t have any say in it, elections are a joke) to cover their asses and it’s “business-as-usual”. Now when the wealthy fuck up, the poor get to die for the mistakes… isn’t that a clever, tidy solution.

As government agencies go, the FAA is often justifiably referred to as a tombstone agency, though they are hardly alone. The recent presidential puppet GW Bush and his cronies in their eight years certainly reinforced for all of us that this criticism rings equally true for all of the government. Nothing changes unless there is a body count (unless it is in the interest of the wealthy sows at the government trough). In a government full of hypocrites from top to bottom, life is as cheap as their lies and their self-serving laws.

I know I’m hardly the first one to decide I have had all I can stand. It has always been a myth that people have stopped dying for their freedom in this country, and it isn’t limited to the blacks, and poor immigrants. I know there have been countless before me and there are sure to be as many after. But I also know that by not adding my body to the count, I insure nothing will change. I choose to not keep looking over my shoulder at “big brother” while he strips my carcass, I choose not to ignore what is going on all around me, I choose not to pretend that business as usual won’t continue; I have just had enough.

I can only hope that the numbers quickly get too big to be white washed and ignored that the American zombies wake up and revolt; it will take nothing less. I would only hope that by striking a nerve that stimulates the inevitable double standard, knee-jerk government reaction that results in more stupid draconian restrictions people wake up and begin to see the pompous political thugs and their mindless minions for what they are. Sadly, though I spent my entire life trying to believe it wasn’t so, but violence not only is the answer, it is the only answer. The cruel joke is that the really big chunks of shit at the top have known this all along and have been laughing, at and using this awareness against, fools like me all along.

I saw it written once that the definition of insanity is repeating the same process over and over and expecting the outcome to suddenly be different. I am finally ready to stop this insanity. Well, Mr. Big Brother IRS man, let’s try something different; take my pound of flesh and sleep well.

The communist creed: From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.
The capitalist creed: From each according to his gullibility, to each according to his greed.

Joe Stack (1956-2010)
02/18/2010

Those Responsible

2010-02-21T17:13:00.001-05:00

by: David Michael Beachwood

Those responsible for our current economic catastrophe should be ashamed. Yet shame is a mild word that most people would not consider in regard to the deeds these so called “Responsible” people have done. Who are the, “They” that I refer to here? To a large part they are the bulk of the following groups: Our Congress, our Senate, our Executive, and our judicial branches of government; both National and State. They, over the years have taken away or have stolen, to some degree, the bright future that many of us had hoped for; the American dream. In part this has occurred when the liberties, both personal and economic, which we had enjoyed, were taken from us. To make matters worst their actions will take away these liberties from our children as well. Currently “They” are in the process of doing this through such acts as the National ID cards, through the sale of our public road systems to private corporations, and through the support of, and building of, private armies which not only can be used against other countries, but against our citizens as well. The invasion on our liberties under the disguise of “Home Land Security” has had chilling effects on our country. It seems each time the level of fear is raised here, the potential lost of personal liberties grows. Our freedom is threatened not just by terrorist, but from those who want to control all aspects of our lives. These later groups of “They” are defined in the book “They Live We Sleep”; see side margin for a link to the book. There are those who do not want us to regain our freedoms.

Perhaps all of these threats to our freedom stem from those who know no shame. It seems that drafting legislation, supporting bills, and passing laws to take freedoms away is very easy for people without shame. All the while they tell us that our forefathers fought to give you the freedom you enjoy today. True we still have some freedom, but how much more freedom do you want to do without? If we can do without certain freedoms then why did we fight all those wars? If we are going to have a system of internal passports by having a National ID, a system of potential check gates on our traffic by having toll roads, and unwarranted traffic road blocks to stop and search, than is not our government really becoming more like the Nazis Germany or Communist Russia? Were not we told that these evil organizations gave no freedom to their populations and we shouldn’t be like them?

“THEY” are responsible.

Few Rule

2010-02-05T14:38:00.002-05:00

by: David Michael Beachwood at http://earthnotes-eblog.blogspot.com

Some people may think that it is impossible for only a few people to rule us. Unfortunately the world is filled with examples that show us how easy it can be to control things. With regards to the animal kingdom, we are aware that a man can control an elephant, a lion or tiger, or other such animals. Of course these creatures are often much larger and stronger than us. We can also think about how many shepherds are required to control a flock of sheep or how many cowboys are required to coral a herd of cattle or horses. If a few men can control these animals what makes you think that a few men could not control mankind?

In the realm of human endeavors; how many security police does it take to manage a crowd at a concert, baseball or football game? How many service men take orders from one General? Even at the city level how many police officers does your town have compared to its citizens? The answer to these questions is that it takes far less people to control things than one would think. So could there be a system in place which has scaled itself up to the size of our world, where only a few people control things? If you still think that this is impossible,for someone to try, I submit you’re not being rational.

In fact we have chosen to live under just that sort of controlled condition. We have done this because, we believe, this condition allows us to vote for the people who, we think, are our representatives. Now I am not saying that a condition like we think we have is necessarily a bad idea. What I am saying is that it can easily be perverted and the evidence that this has already occurred, is abundant. Our first evidence of this is that the people we, supposedly, vote for are not reality representing the multitude anymore. It has become clear that they, our so called representatives, serve “The Few” even when the majority of the people are against various governmental activities. This is not the kind of government we agreed to submit to. While this is a key indicator of a major problem with our government there are numerous symptoms within our government’s core which add to the evidence that a few people rule us to serve their own ends. There is strong evidence today, within the system, to indicate that our whole government has a systemic corruption to a depth which is unprecedented. The evidence I speak of is in the many criminal convictions of corrupt city, state, and federal representatives. The evidence is in the numerous frauds that have rocked our economy to the brink of collapse.

The few people currently in charge are no longer sympathetic to human kind in general, but have lifted themselves above the multitudes with attitudes of grandeur. They actually feel that they are better then others because of their leadership roles. They are not able to handle the power that such a large responsibility provides. It is easier for them to look upon the victims of their crimes as lesser beings. In so doing any possible guilt they may have is negated. Since these leaders took control via deceptive measures their mental integrity has to be in serious doubt. Their feelings of grandeur are a symptom of a disease that they need to have treated. Unfortunately the majority of the few who rule us have not sought help to even try to achieve their mental health. It is kind of like the movie ‘Deliverance’ except in a high class neighborhood. I say this because some of these leaders have children which have been taught to follow the same mind set; outsiders are worthless. In some cases this has been going on for centuries and few of them make any effort to seek help in correcting their mental health. Since any meaningful treatment would mean ending their victimizing strategies, adopting a new mental attitude it is not a welcomed option; therefore successful treatment becomes difficult. We on the other hand need to explore our mental health as well as we need to ask ourselves; how long do supposedly sane people allow these kind of things to happen without correcting the situation? Until we do ‘Few’ will rule and many will suffer.

I reserve the right to revise and extend my remarks.

A Way Out - Technocracy

2010-01-18T18:52:00.011-05:00

Here is an interesting possible solution to our current economic decay. This two part video series which was made back in the 1980's is a real surprise. I would bet that you like me, had never hear of it. There are seven youtube parts to it, and as old as it is, it is worth viewing. I will post the first part below and when you get to YouTube you can finish the series there. I think you will like many of the ideas expressed. Of course the people who run our current pricing system will not like this, but they only make up 2% of our population. Since they have caused the other 98% to experience useless pain and suffering for such a long time, who cares if they don't like it. I hope you enjoy this possible solution to our current economic predicament as much as I did. Our children would love us if we could get something like this going for them; that is if it worked. I do not know the full plan, so it may have some problems. Still I think it is worth exploring the possibility. Click on the title above to start the video:

As of Feb.17, 2010 I have had a little more time to review some of the information out there on Technocracy. At this point I can see that Technocracy may not be the ultimate answer to the world problems. This is not to say that a large amount of their plan is not worth seeking, but that the human aspect side of such a system may need substantial development. While the current pricing system method employed by the world is a very corrupted system it still has a couple of virtues which any new system would have to retain. First it has a means of incentives, and secondly it has a means of punishment. While it is easy to think these two things are just opposite ends of the same thing, I feel it is important to separate them so that we do not lose the sense of their importance to the human psyche. As I mentioned I have spent only a limited amount of time studying this topic to date. However so far I have found it to come up short in the humanistic needs our current social system would demand. In my study thus far I have found it to boarder on a cold scientific approach which merely brushes only slightly on or ignores our spiritual needs. Science of course does not need the spiritual, however mankind does. I hasten to add that not all men feel they need to have spiritual feelings. At this time I do not see the idea as described, in the study material, as being able to work. Perhaps it could be implemented under dire straits, however this would not mean humans would really support it, or even that they should, if it retains a cold scientific approach to human problems. It is still worth exploring as perhaps this problem could be worked out.
I reserve the right to revise and extend my remarks.

#11 – NO TAX! How To Get Away Without Paying Taxes – An Interview with Tom Cryer « Holistic Survival Show

2010-01-12T15:58:00.001-05:00

#11 – NO TAX! How To Get Away Without Paying Taxes – An Interview with Tom Cryer « Holistic Survival Show

By clicking on the above title and you will go to a podcast address. This address contains an interview with Tom Cryer. He explains that THERE IS NO LAW TO TAX INCOMES. The Audio program runs about 54 mins. You can also download a Podcast if you wish. Warning you might be upset by what you are about to hear, but that is a good thing.

National Whistleblowers Center - Home

2010-01-10T08:58:00.005-05:00

National Whistleblowers Center - Home

Please click on the Title of this Post. It will take you to the site of the National Whistleblowers Center. They have posted a video about a Whistleblower, Bradley Birkenfeld. This man worked for UBS and exposed a massive corruption scheme which has been going on for around twenty years. Over fourteen thousand United States taxpayers in the millionaire to billionaire tax ranges have been evading taxes by hiding their assets in Swiss Bank accounts. UBS was aiding them. Beyond the details of this story, which are troubling in themselves, is the extend in which our government is openly trying to protect the people who committed these tax frauds. To make matters even worse they are punctuating these actions by punishing Mr. Birkenfeld for blowing the whistle. This story will not be wide spread in the main stream media so I hope you will help spread the word. It is getting closer to tax filing time. I hope this story will help inform you as to why you as honest people believing that you should be paying taxes, have to pay to much in taxes; your making up for what these over fourteen thousand wealthy taxpayers didn't want to pay.

I should point out that, as I understand it, in our Constitution the common American citizen was not supposed to be included in the taxable entities which were required to pay income taxes. Entities such as corporations were to pay these "Income Taxes" not common citizens. However I contend that the wealthy American citizens, that I speak of above, were more likely to fall into those taxable entities that should be paying the taxes. Instead they felt that they should pass that obligation on to you and I. This is an additional injustice which underlies this whole story, and makes everything much more sinister.

I retain the right to revise and extend my remarks.

Another Threat to the Great Lakes Region

2010-01-08T15:25:00.003-05:00

by: David Michael Beachwood January 8, 2010

December 18, 2009 the Bloomberg Network reported that the Great Lakes Region currently has a 7.1 billion dollar sport fishing / tourism income. This income is being threatened by the possible infestation of the Asian Carp. These Carp are a threat because they grow to become four feet long and about one hundred pounds. This is the size of a twelve year old boy. The report stated that these carp threaten to eat the food supply that the existing lake fish depend on. The carp, by depleting the source of food for the game fish, puts the sports fishing and tourism industries survival in question. Bloomberg reported that the city of Chicago would be instrumental in stopped the Carp from entering the Great Lakes. Several tributaries around Chicago have been electrified in order to stop the spread of the Asian Carp. However, there are serious concerns that the some of the fish have already made it past these barriers and are closer to entering the lake system. The state of Michigan is asking the state of Illinois to close down some water ways which Chicago uses for commerce; however these water ways save or earn the city of Chicago and the state some three to four billion dollars each year. Because of this both the City of Chicago and the State of Illinois are not going to be very receptive to taking any immediate action.

The Great Lakes are just starting to recover, it seems, from serious pollution issues and already the sport fishing and tourism industry is pulling in some 7.1 billion dollars; and this in a down-turned economy. It stands to reason that this number, given continual improvement of lake conditions and economy, could double or triple in the years ahead. It seems that the region as a whole, not just Michigan, needs to step up to this issue and push for a solution; and the quicker they start the more affordable it will be. While carp are eatable they don’t rank high amongst the kind of sports fish that fisherman come to the Great Lakes for. I suppose the damage done, if this happens, could be expressed in terms of say the damage a small nuclear leak could do; if it got into our waters. This prompts me to consider that catastrophes of this size actually cause harm to the entire world and never just too any one region. I hope our leaders would agree that the urgency of this issue is extremely important. In my opinion they should be addressing this issue in a marathon session. This is to say; not leaving this issue until it has been resolved as quickly as possible.

I reserve the right to revise and extend my remarks.

The Terrorist Allusion

2009-12-30T19:38:00.003-05:00

http://earthnotes-eblog.blogspot.com
Originally posted in Sept. 2008

Think about it; terrorist don’t make any sense. Supposedly they want to change the world. It seems they are very committed to their cause yet their actions are confusing. We see them as very resourceful, brave, and clever yet at the same time we see them as very crazy. Something is wrong with this perceived judgment that we have of them; why does it conflict? If they are brave, why do they tend to go after the easiest targets killing citizens that, to begin with, more than likely don’t even know what is going on in the world. If they are clever then we have to ask, how wise is it to kill one’s own self, wasting their life on low level targets or perhaps innocent victims. Yes they, the terrorist, say no one is innocent, but they are mistaken. This is because there are people who are truly physically handicapped that get killed in terrorist actions. The blind, the deaf, or simply the disabled die along with those that terrorist claim are not innocent. Then there are the young children who haven’t lived long enough to even understand who they are, let alone the world they live in. Now let’s look at those common citizens that the so called terrorist say knowingly participate in the atrocities. These atrocities are ordered by the elite who control the governmental leaders of those citizens. How resourceful is trying to kill the multitude of bottom end so called perpetrators, the common citizens, when the terrorist plight stems from a few higher end instigators of these governmental leaders? Murdering the multitude is a futile strategy. Really how resourceful, brave, and clever are these things? The real terrorist of the world, the upper level perpetrators of evil, don’t really care if the lower end ignorant servants die. The fact is to them it’s a win, win situation. Those so called terrorist, in our news, are really helping those high level perpetrators; as it is understood that these elitist use these conflicts to further their ends. Even a nuclear attack, while perhaps not exactly what they want, would still play into the elitist game and marshal resentment against the very causes that the so called terrorist may champion.

The above argument presumes that these elitist truly exist in the world, and that they are actually the “THEY” in the essay THEY LIVE WE SLEEP by David Michael Beachwood. You can read this essay on line at: http://theylivewesleep-eblog.blogspot.com . Perhaps you will agree that “they” really do exist and that there are solutions to the nasty problems “they” have created.

I reserve the right to revise and extend my remarks.

The Blue Economy of The Great Lakes Region

2009-12-03T18:14:00.003-05:00

by: David Michael Beachwood

Here is a fact from the recent Public Broadcasting Service’s Series “Freshwater Seas: The Great Lakes Part 1”:
Lake Superior alone is so large that the States of Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and New Jersey would all fit inside it.

From this fact one can understand that the potential of the Great Lakes as a resource of wealth is phenomenal. Have our leaders given this wealth away to industry? If in doing so, could have they caused the economies of the region to suffer to the extent they have? This article will explore these questions.

While water covers three fourths of the world’s surface, only three percent (3%) is fresh drinkable water. Of this supply two percent (2%) is locked up in ice or is buried in underground crevasses, rivers and streams. Only one percent (1%) is easily accessible for man to drink. The Great Lakes contain one fifth of this accessible water. This means the region contains twenty percent (20%) of the world’s supply of accessible fresh water. How, is it that The Great Lakes region’s economy is suffering when we have such an advantage?

I cannot tell you how many times I have heard our leaders tell us that they are going to protect our waters. That they would not allow other interested parties from outside the region to come in and take the waters from our Great Lakes. Despite these assurances I believe the people living in the states and provinces surrounding the Great Lakes are truly concerned that our Politian’s are indeed - saying one thing and doing another. It does appear, if we can believe the recent reports, that the waters are getting cleaner and I commend our leaders for any part they may have had in this. However I may have to give more of my thanks to the Zebra Mussels for their part. In saying this I don’t want to give you the idea that some agencies have not been doing a good job, because there have been positive observable results during the last several years. I am just saying that our Politian’s, to a great extent have dropped the ball, so to speak, on protecting The Great Lakes, and thus protecting the citizens of the region. I have two main complaints about their stewardship of the lakes that I would like to address here in this article.

First as a citizen of the State of Michigan I am concerned over our leader’s continued enthusiasm to have some of our waterways included in the American Heritage Rivers Initiative or, if possible, other such federal programs. While the initiative does say that it will not interfere with matters of State jurisdiction, it has been my observation that our federal government likes to gain more and more control over things, and their offer of help usually comes with strings attached. It is clear to me, and I hope to others, that the powers of the state governments have certainly diminished since they entered the union. Giving an inroad to possible control over our waters to an outside entity, even one such as our federal government, doesn’t make good sense. I say this because I believe that we have our federal government to blame for many of the economic woes that we have experienced recently. Several leaders here in Michigan had championed this federal program as good news for Michigan. It was good, they said, because they did not have funds to clean up these, so called, Heritage Rivers. I ask you, is there a real advantage to paying the federal government to clean up the water as opposed to paying the state, either way they still use our money. Consider this; we now are paying our federal government taxes for an indefinite period of time. Taxes which I believe will go into a pool of funds to be used to clean up rivers and streams all over the country, not just in your home state. This could take a very long time and the economics of this deal don’t appear to me to be fair to the citizens, but tend to support industry. What is more they choose when and how to use these funds, they might even collect them and use them for another purpose? We should be asking ourselves, how did these waterways get into these conditions in the first place? Perhaps our leaders had compromised themselves by taking certain campaign contributions. I mean contributions from Industries which where responsible for the polluting of the waters from the start. If they did, then these Campaign Contributions had to be repaid with political indecisions. I’m implying that our leaders, through reduced regulations, reduced oversight, and flat out indecisiveness had basically allowed those polluted conditions to worsen. Our Politian’s should have forced industry and citizens to clean up their operations. They fell far short of doing this over the years despite the growing public concern and outcry. No matter how small this outcry may have been they should have noted its validity and acted sooner. In their deals with industry our government told us they were saving our economy? They told us they were saving jobs? If they were, why then is the regions economic down turn so negatively pronounced, compared to the other states? If they did make these kinds of deals with industry how concerned about the lakes could they have been? My gut feeling is that they were watching out for themselves and their positions in government more so then in watching out over the Great Lakes. I will stop here on this point although much more could be said about their conduct.

My second complaint is related to the first in that it deals with one particular lack of oversight. This was the lack of oversight over their promise to protect the waters of the Great Lakes. This promise was that our Great Lakes would not be allowed to be siphoned off and sent to other states. Yet, perhaps the greatest resource that the bordering states and provinces have has been sold off to outside interest at, most likely, reduced rates. This sell off is not a new condition, but has been going on right in front of all of us for years. Big industry has been depleting our lake waters and we basically have been unaware of the immenseness of the problem. I will limit this article to one industry in particular so as to shorten its length. I speak of the bottling industry; beer, wine, pop, water, etc. While we have grown accustomed to seeing these products all around us, in a sense we have not seen the forest for the trees. The scope and scale of the bottling companies who use our water resource is something most people haven’t considered. It didn’t occur to me until after reading an article about Pepsi Cola losing a law suit for $1.26 Billion. Pepsi is the makers of Aquafina bottled water. The article by Lynne Marek was in The National Law Journal dated Wednesday October 28, 2009. The story was about Pepsi and two of its distributors failing to show up in court to defend themselves from two Wisconsin men who laid claim to the idea, for the processing of bottled lake water. They alleged that the soft drink maker and two of its distributors had misappropriated trade secrets from confidential discussions. I refer you to the article for the full story. Now the story itself was very interesting, but more importantly it made me think about the size and scope of the bottled water industry. I still wonder just how much volume of the lake water has been drained out by the various companies over the years. The scale of the law suit, $1.26 Billion made me think that it certainly has to have been a lot. I also began to wonder if those leaders, whose job it is to watch this industry, forgot about protecting our waters? I do not know the process in which the lake water is taken, but I figure that they are either taking the cleaner waters farther out in the lakes or the waters from cleaner tributaries near shore. In any event this thus would leave the more polluted water behind to become more concentrated; and thus less diluted. Could this have slowed our progress and increased the cost of our Great Lakes clean up efforts? Could this have help increase the cost of our drinking water supplies? Could this have added to those no swimming days at the beaches? I also thought about the compensation to the bordering states and provinces; was it ample and fair to the citizens who own the resource? Since Michigan has not fared well in this economic decline I can presume we have not been compensated properly. Finally I thought about the promise, to not allow our resources to be drained off and sent to other states. Who would have thought it would not only be sent to other states, but that it would be sent around the world? I am sure that we will be told that their promise didn’t include the bottling industry; as if this was a small thing.

Yes, there are a lot of problems, just within the bottling industry alone, as many environmentalists will tell you. Their warnings should prompt us to ask the following questions. Will we continue to allow our greatest resource to be siphoned off without regard to the damage it may be doing to the lakes? Will we allow the negative side effects of the bottling process to further erode our environment? This would be the energy wasted to make and manufacture the plastic itself and the pollution of discarded plastic bottles leaching into our earths land and waters. If for some unknown reason, we answer these questions as yes. Shouldn’t we at least make sure that our compensation, from those who produce these products, more than equals the money we have to expend to clean our environment as a result of there production? Again there is a lot more which could be said here, but I will stop.

Now the real point of bringing up all of these tragic events of the past, hopefully they are in the past, is so that our current leaders do not repeat them. That is, by pointing out what has happened, or may have happened, the citizens and their leadership will become sensitive to potential mistakes that they could be making. Lobbyist will continue to try and lead us and our politician down those same misguided trails if we allow them to. Our leaders need to review just what is happening now. They need to amend, reform, and or cancel any current practices which threaten The Great Lakes region. They need to do this regardless of how much money lobbyist throw at them to do otherwise. Only than will the health of the Great Lakes return at a faster pace. With the health of our greatest regional asset restored we can restore the wealth of the region as well.

I reserve the right to revise and extend my remarks.

Truth and Justice

2009-11-10T09:48:00.004-05:00

By: David Michael Beachwood

While most of us, here in the United States, fight for truth, justice and the American Way, none of us are Superhuman. Still considering we, the majority of Americans, and the world for that matter, are all basically fighting for these things, why then do these "causes" suffer to the extend they do. Who is behind the scenes crushing our dreams? It seems that some people hold only the Jews accountable for all the problems we have in the world, while others hold the Blacks responsible, still others hold that the Whites are to blame, and on and on. Then there are the religions blaming each other. I could go on with the countless finger pointing schemes that exist here, but what good would it do? I think we will be far better off, if we all would just admit that each and every race, nation, and religion has good and bad people in them; and we know that it only takes a few bad people to cause us a lot of pain.

We should learn not to blame each other, but rather the evil few that exist within each of the major societal groups. We cannot condemn entire races, nations, or religions for the actions of a few within their ranks. Those few seem to pull the majority into the turmoil without their even knowing it. Yes only a few evil people are required to create the world of hurt we experience. The clandestine group called The Bilderberg is one example of this idea. The Bilderberg membership is said to contain a number of wealthy people from many countries. These people seek to control the world through the manipulation of our governments so that they can garner the lion's share of the wealth. However we have to remember that while evil people exist in each and every race, nation, or religion so do good people. For example; if we take the earlier opinion that Jews are the cause of our problems and thus lump them all together we are only lying to ourselves. We need only to remember that Jesus was a Jew and he clearly is not evil. Further it should be noted that the very story of Superman was created by a couple of Jewish boys. They clearly saw a need in society for truth and justice and their story expresses the shared desire of millions of people around the world. My point is that we should not necessary blame any major group for our problems, but we should pay more attention to those few individuals, within each group, that ban together to do us injustice by lying to us.

But what is truth? Unfortunately we do not have the time here for an in depth study into the nature of truth. So I will cut to the chase and give you the concept of truth, which I think will be easiest for us to work with. The following concept may at first sound ambiguous, but after you have given it some thought I think you will agree that it helps explain our problems:

All truths are not the same; that is a truth for one person is not necessarily a truth for another.

That's it; that is the basic idea we have to deal with. This concept than tends to separate us by causing divisions. For example the owner of a large business can truthfully say "NAFTA is good" while the worker that just lost his job to someone in Mexico can truthfully say "NAFTA is bad." Who is lying and who is telling the truth? This seems to give us a dilemma as now we have to chose whose truth we are going to believe. In reality there is no dilemma as it should be the truth that benefits our country the most. Amazingly our Constitution leads us to our solution here. It asked that our society find common truths which benefit the majority of people first before benefiting the individual. The opening statement in The Constitution I think supports this. "We the People………," note it did not say "I the Individual…….."

Yes free trade can be good for the large business owner, but primarily for his or her employees, of which there are, or were, many more, well they don't benefit. However, these employees would benefit more from fair trade, which I will not go into here; only to say that fair trade is the employee's truth. Our nation is currently experiencing part of "free trades" downside. This downside is that it has helped to reduce the overall number of newly created jobs and therefore has aided in the decline in our national wealth. Even though we the people can clearly see and feel this, the individuals who are benefiting the most from free trade spend fortunes on the media trying to persuade us otherwise; for fear of losing their advantage. We will be asked to believe there are other reasons for someone not having a job, and because there are other reasons many of us will tend to give these vultures the benefit of the doubt. In essence they will have sold us their truth again even though it is our truth which is more valid. It is valid because our common truth would work to help restore our national economic health. How do these common truths help our economy? Well they put our nation as a whole first instead of the few individuals; this provides us a greater chance of success in fixing our national economic problems. You see those individuals seem more bent on draining our wealth and putting it in their pockets, than trying to cure our national problems. In my view, eventually, when the level of pain reaches into the majority of the people, and they agree that the truth which has been benefiting the fewer number of people is indeed not valid, only than will change come. With this change the common truths, or truths that are valid for society as a whole, will become the desired truths. Unfortunately until the majority of people wake up to this condition the majority of the people will have to suffer.

Here is something to consider; the greater the number of people who benefit from a truth, the greater the justice. With more justice we have a greater chance of finding the American way, or dream. This is the way our founders wanted it to be. Today, however the few have turned the founder's social views into a nasty socialist plot. Those few who have been benefiting have done this so that you do not want to be given the fair treatment you deserve. Yes those few that have benefited from the current system of individual truth and justice have twisted the meaning of the American Way. We are vulnerable to their arguments because of the terrible stories we have been taught about socialism. Yet these stories are the stories of excessive behaviors. Our founders did not want any behaviors to become excessive, even capitalism. Now I am not advocating socialism or communism, as a matter of fact I believe we currently have what is called "Corporate Socialism", and this is evil and vile. I believe in capitalism, but not to the extreme position where our current leaders seem to have taken it. I believe there is room for some socialism to moderate an economy where more people have more money in their pockets to spend. When this occurs there is more chance that a capitalistic economic system will thieve. Socialism is only evil when taken to extreme and of course the same goes for capitalism; as we are witnessing. Again I believe our founders felt the nation should be run based on the idea that the majority of people should benefit from our governmental decisions almost all, if not all, of the time. I temper this only by saying that individual rights need to be constantly monitored for potential abuses from the majority; this is part of the protection we need from those who prefer excessive behaviors. However if our society has amply moral guidance and proper social support for the individuals within it, than we have less to fear from this slightly more socialistic form of government, than from the system where there are only a few people with power and control. Here is one example: Our current from of government has been lobbied to allow several of our prisons to become privately owned. Only a few benefit from this. These few are leasing their facilities back to the government. The problem is we the people are the government, when it comes to paying the bills, but not when it comes to making these decisions. These lobbyists have gone back to the government and have asked for strict laws and increased prison time for various social crimes. By doing so they insure that they fill their prisons and maximize their profits at our expense. These actions by both the lobbyist and our governmental leaders are in essence actions by the few; to me, this is criminal in nature. Why, because their actions clearly benefit a few at the expense of the many.

There will come a day when the general population will wake up to see that most of what our political leaders do is make deals like the one above. When our greater population understands that they are being played they will not be happy. I would like to think that our leaders would be frightened by this thought, but right now they are not, because all they have to do is play dumb and say;

Wow who would have thought that would have happened?

As long as the greater population continues to reward their representatives by re-electing them these guys will continue with their lobbyist deals and nothing will change. Others before me have raised this warning you may recall this old saying and I mean old; "Wake up AMERICA." Well America has not awakened. It seems that there is a new group of ignorant citizens back filling the old ignorant group as they die off, so thus our government never really changes. Will this ever end? Most of our government officials are hoping it won't. It is up to us to spread the word if we ever want to have truth and justice for ourselves and our children.

Hate Crimes

2009-10-30T16:05:00.002-04:00

by: David Michael Beachwood

Yes some crimes are called "Love Crimes" or crimes of passion, but even these are really hate crimes when you think about them, that is, if they hurt someone. What I am getting at is that basically all crimes are hate crimes when you get right down to it. To take some crimes and single them out and label them "Hate Crimes" is a way to champion your cause over another. Now this doesn't sound too bad if your cause is just, but what if it is not. Remember the witch hunters of Salem, Adolph Hitler, Saddam Hussein, and others who set up there own ideas of what crime was. What if a future leader of ours wants to adopt his, or her, own crime ideas; well these laws make it easier to do so.

I propose that this seemingly good legislation can be used against good people. We may well live to see the day that these "Hate Crime Laws" go to their extremes? Some would argue that the idea itself is already an extreme, and I have to agree. As with any frivolous law, once we open the door and pass it, the likely hood of someone coming along to widen its intent will surely come. We can only imagine how this nightmare might unfold.

In the future we could see its use being expanded to more than just the support of Jews, blacks and homosexuals. The law might be widened to include lawyers, bankers, and any other category that someone in authority might want to specially protect, perhaps even politicians. It might also be widened to include those who didn't perform a criminal act directly, but held the idea in their minds. That is, will it ever be argued that by agreeing with someone, that you didn't even know would make you an accomplice in a hate crime? You may hate that someone performs abortions, or that someone doesn't allow abortions. You may hate that someone took sexual advantage of a child and because your hate aligned with the person who killed the sexual abuser, you now are just as guilty. We are not there yet but I think it is possible in the future; based on the kind of leaders we currently have. To be fair let me add, there are still some good ones, but they are far out numbered.

For centuries we had already understood that most crimes are hate crimes; this is not a new concept. I believe that our laws already have extra penalty provisions which can be apply; if need be. For example if a judge or jury witnesses a hateful person on trial their verdict is already taking this aspect into consideration, as there are usually ranges or degrees involved in rendering a verdict. We already have laws which add extra penalties such as with repeat offenders or those that take into account the severity of the crime. The only use for a law like the hate crime law is to provide an extra measure of control over people. For now this may seem fair, however in the future these hate law principles might just make ordinary people their target. If so our freedom of speech would be stifled. If hate laws expand, and they most likely will, this could become a way to legally terrorize our population. We should consider that this hate law system might easily be used to set up standards for how we should think. If you hate something that those in authority are doing, they might expand the law to take in your hate; in which case you will have to stop thinking that way.

Consider this; basically these hate laws started out by taking the hatred for one group of people and making this behavior especially evil. While most of us agree that hating Jews, blacks, whites, homosexuals, or any group of individuals is not appropriate behavior we still would like to retain our rights to hate the things that individuals may do. Like it or not hate is not an unnatural human experience it is part of our emotional system. We already have traditional ways of dealing with crimes that result from excessive hate. We should not let our current subjective legal system invade this area of our personal natures and profess to legislate out the behavior as if they could. We should not forget that we already have processes in place to punish those crimes. Psychologist should be pointing this out. The laws appear, to some degree, to be an attempt to establish a platform for mind control by the state. Yes hate can be evil, but it also can be good such as when we hate war, hate drugs, hate crime; no pun intended or hate those governmental leaders who if given a chance would take away all of our human rights. Should our governmental leaders really be deciding which things we hate and just how severe the hate has to be? Is not this a medical question? The hate crime laws have set in motion a process which could, if misused, take away our rights of free thinking and make us villains for expressing ourselves. Free thinking comes before free speech and free speech is supposed to be protected under our Constitution. Free thinking has to allow for humans to contemplate evil in order to understand it. Mankind should not support the actions of those who would be; the mind police, as in the end we will all suffer far worse for this action. Again psychologist should be pointing this out. Hate when it reaches the point these laws address, could indicate that our society is not doing its job to educate our children with the proper values. Could the hate crime laws be punishing the mentally ill, in some cases, because of their lack of medical care? We have to admit our mental health facilities have been closing their doors and these people roam our streets to influence others in our society.

Because of all of these things and more I believe now is the time to consider the potential negative side to these laws and do away with them before it's too late.

I reserve the right to revise and extend my remarks.

Inflation

2009-10-30T15:35:00.000-04:00

To help us better understand what inflation is I need to take us back to the past. Let me give you some prices that you would expect to pay back then at the stores in and around 1925. Food: 1lb bacon $0.47, 1lb bread $0.09, 1lb butter $0.55, 1 doz. Eggs $0.68, ½ gal. milk, whole milk with cream on top, $0.28. Automobiles: Ford Runabout $350, Willy’s 6 cylinder $985. Furniture: Metal bed with mattress and springs $27. Clothes: Woman’s house-dress $0.95, Men’s shirt oxford $1.59, Girl’s dress $0.59 - $1.00. In the Detroit, Michigan area we once had a store called Hudson’s. Back in the 1920’s many people would take the trolley or bus downtown to shop at Hudson’s, some would take a cab. You see back then most people didn’t have a car. Now Hudson’s was able, even at these prices, to provide a number of services which made it easier for their customers to shop there. One thing they did was provide free boxes and free gift wrapping for your items. Each counter with a cash register also had a cashier and another person to gift wrap; and they had a number of counters with registers. They employed a lot of people; almost an army. Hudson’s even had elevator operators and door men something unheard of today for the most part. They also provided free delivery to your house, understanding that it was hard to carry packages on the bus.

Other business also provided free services such as the Cleaners who would pick up and deliver for free. There were shoe shine stands and other minor services offered for nominal fees. The Detroit Edison Company would give you replacement light bulbs and often fix your small appliances for free. The gasoline stations would not only pump your gas for you, but they would check your oil, water, and your tire pressure for free. Oh and they would also wash your windows for you; front and back, often the sides and even the rearview mirrors. This was all included in the price of the gas.

Of course there were some things that people back then didn’t have that we have today and some of these things could easily effect the price of goods and cause inflation. However, this is an exercise in how inflation has grown without our realizing it so this information is still valid. A couple of things that most workers, in the past, did not have were pensions and health care services. As early as the 1930’s, and likely even before then, the hospitals would refuse service for non-emergency services if you didn’t have insurance. Most of the Doctors however would provide service; often for free. In the Detroit area Walter Reuther was responsible for helping workers to get pensions and health care benefits. One could make a case for these benefits being the reason for the loss of all of the above free services and this may by partly true. My point here is that we have lost most if not all of the above free services. Therefore inflation doesn’t have to be directly seen in the cost of any one particular item, but can be found in the loss of services as well. In other words since services also carry a cost, the loss of these services can indicate inflation. This inflation thus occurs in a way that we normally don’t think of. Even today we see more services eroding at our grocery stores with the scan your self check out stations, but we tend not to see this as inflation.

I believe that the primary reason for our on going inflation started back in the 1930’s not completely from the workers gaining benefits, but more so from the weakening of the American Dollar though the establishment of the Federal Reserve Banking System. Since the inception of the Federal Reserve the American Dollar has gone from being worth one dollar redeemable in gold to today being worth four cent not redeemable in anything but paper at the bank. In fact not backed by anything but faith in the banking system, and since they may never be audited our faith should be questioned. Inflation has its way of steeling away your savings and it threatens to do so, it seems, on an ever increasing scale based on FED actions.

If what I suggest is really happening then what needs to be done? We simply need to stop sending the same old representative to congress and the senate as they will never right the wrong that was done by establishing the Federal Reserve System. We need new faces and then they need to be changed often so that they don’t fall victim to the lobbyist pressures to continue the same old system. The political parties Caucasus need to stop impeding the progress of new members and allow them free will. Well I will leave it at that. Only to say that I reserve the right to revise and extend my remarks, as if I am wrong I hope to have the opportunity to come back and correct my errors.