On the Color of the Clouds

Memento, sumus omnes in hoc pariter!

You had Better Wake the Hell Up

Had I interfered in the manner which I admit in behalf of the rich, the powerful, the intelligent, the so-called great, or in behalf of any of their friends, it would have been all right, and every man in this court would have deemed it an act worthy of reward rather than punishment. John Brown, 1856 John Brown was an outlaw. He was a murderer. He was trying to ignite a nationwide insurrection. He was all of this and so much more according to the dictates of his time. Above all, he was one hundred percent right in his above statement. In 1918, Dolchstosslegende was the buzz word in Germany. It was a word that German leaders, both Political and Military, hid behind to spare them the guilt of the aftermath of World War I. It was a word that flew on the wind of the German grapevines, newspapers, leaflets, posters and was allowed in an effort to shift blame. It was a word that conjured up the myth that the Imperial German Army had been undefeated in the fieldactually it had been; it had not reached any of its operational objectives which had been to blast through Belgium outflanking the French and British Armies with the goal of enveloping them between the German Frontier and the invading German forces in order to cut them off from any support and bring about a quick surrender. Instead, the German Army on the Western Front was greatly under power in manpower than what the plan had called for. Generaloberst Helmuth Johann Ludwig von Moltke (25 May 1848 18 June 1916) had proceeded with the plan without adjustments for the insufficient logistics, far more timidly than they called for, and had no back up plans which in turn led to the stagnated trench warfare symbolic of the Western Front and World War I. Moltke was replaced by Erich von Falkenhayn (11 September 1861 8 April 1922) who had quickly realized that the war could not be won when he saw what was happening. The Dolchstosslegende gave the General Staff and the Kaiser a shield of protection from the blame and made heroes of all of the members of the Imperial German Army except the Jews who had servedaround twelve thousand had died serving the Vaterland. It has been reported that a Jewish Lieutenant by the name of Hugo Gutmann (19 November 1880 - 1971?) who awarded Adolf Hitler the Iron Cross First ClassGutmann was picked up by the Gestapo to squash this bit of intelligence and eventually kicked out the country when he then made his escape to the United States. You see, Jews, communists, and any other who did not fit the idea of the perfect Aryan in Germany would receive the credit for defeating the Imperial German Army they were out numbered, easy targets for reprisal, and to spur unity among those who believed that they were nothing more than innocent victims of the Dolchstosslegende treachery. Today, we have a new scapegoat for our economic woes. In a conversation with a coworker, the subject came up and with her and my background; it became the main conversation of the time. She believed as many had been told that the problems were due to mortgages that had gone bad in record numbers. I told her that was just a

symptom of the real problem. What people need to realize is that there is a reason that the mortgages went bad and that is what I am interested in. Laughing, she said that was an easy one and answered that it was because people are over extending themselves and arent able to pay their bills as they should. She believed for the most part that most of these individuals were making a conscious effort to be undependable. I told her that there is definitely something wrong when you have the amount of families losing their homes that are. I told her that most loan companies will choose to either take a home or let a family keep it based on what the loan company decides which will be the most profitable for the company. She countered that they cant do that because of the loan contract. I told her that all it takes to be a breech of contract to enable them to do that is to be late on a payment. Why would someone be late on such an important payment? It is amazing that nothing was said about gas prices doubling in a period of less than a year. No one even said that it might be the added cost of electricity. In Pennsylvania it was warned that the cost of electricity would be going up 15 30%. I dont know who the mathematician was that calculated this; almost everyone I know said they experienced an increase of almost triple what they used to pay. In the summer months, we usually paid only $40-$60 for our bill; now we are using less electricity which is reflected on our bill and our summer bills are averaging around $180.00. Neat thing added to this mix is a push by companies to maximize profit margins. People I know have had their hours and benefits cut. In some cases, their wages had been cut. I know a person who has been working forty hour weeks and he is classified as part time and is not qualified for any benefitshe is not the only one at this firm, Precision Form, which has even approached employees asking them to take full responsibility for their social security. With social security, you pay half and your employer pays the other half; they wanted it so that the employees paid the entire amount. This was done with the claim to help the financial stability of the company. It is to make sure the owners can keep their lifestyle. Moral is at an all time low in this company. I was taught in school that if you want to run a healthy company, the wisest thing that you can do is put the emphasis on where you make your money. In a production company this would be in the areas of production and sales of the product. In a retail firm, you need to place the emphasis on your stores, employees, and customers. The reality lately is that the emphasis is on the profit margin which is for the benefit of the higher level managers and owners. Bailouts were dispersed to help out a lot of companies that were hurting with the idea of most politicians being that they were doing what they could to help protect jobs. In reality the money went to help the rich get richer. There was a time when CEOs bonuses were based on a companys profitability and were not given out because they showed up to work breathing. Another thing that should have been a sign to many is that not one bit of legislation was introduced at the time forcing banks and other loan institutions to restructure mortgages or to assist people in keeping their homes. I guess socialist measures are only for those who are rich. The sad truth is that very few politicians understand human nature or economics. Dr. Boozer is an economist from Wharton who I studied under. He told me that he had spent some time working as an economic advisor to a judge. Dr. Boozer was very impressed with the judges knowledge and understanding of the law and U.S. Constitution but found that whenever he tried to explain economic theory to the judge that it just flew over the judges head. I have understood his frustration when I have tried to explain simple theory to others. You can actually look in their eyes and see the plane land when they get it or just glaze over when they dont.

Health care has become another nightmare. The largest problem with health care is that someone has figured out how to legally (and ethically? at least in their minds) make millions off of others suffering. People are dying not because there is no way to cure them or that the health care facilities arent available but because the people dont have enough money. All it takes is one emergency room visit and you could be struggling for months, even years. What most dont understand is that there definitely is a case of capital flight. As credit reports are used by banks to rape people, more and more chain stores are opening, credit cards are charging ever higher rates of interest and tons of new fees, plus the addition of gas and utility prices, inflation is remaining strong with ever increasing prices, and reduced compensation packages for your labor, not to mention most banks are offering interest rates for saving and Certificate of Deposit accounts that are a joke and do not even come close to the rate of inflation, people have less and less money left over to invest, pay their bills, or just have fun. Approximately 70% of income is earned by about 6% of the population. Another thing, most financial experts have pegged personal savings at 10% of your gross. This means that you should be saving 10% of your income. In other words, 90% of your income is tagged to be spent on expenses and desires. With this all in mind, the 6% ultra rich should be spending 90% of their income, but that is not the way that it works. The economy would love it if they did that but they dont. If they buy a house, they dont buy a housetheir money buys the house for them. What they do is simply this. They take the money that they need to generate the investment income to pay for the house and invest it and then let the proceeds pay for the house. For their annual expenses, they invest what is needed to generate the money to cover those expenses. Chances are they probably spend far less than 30% of their actual annually earned income. They command large sums of money but actually do very little to drive the economy. The economy is driven by those who are trying to save 10% of their income. It is driven by the hundreds of millions of individuals who live paycheck to paycheck and shop constantly. Henry Ford understood this when he chose to pay his employees an unheard of amount of twenty-five dollars a week. He knew that only by injecting money into this class would he have a chance of developing a market for his product. Yet these are the people that expenses are being increased on while their incomes are being cut and access to credit is limited and costly. This is what I mean by capital flight. The money supply is there but so much of it is being drained into the 6%. I could go into so much detail with all of this with plenty of references but it would be a book of several hundred pages, references and citation galore, charts, diagrams, and incredibly hard to read as most economic tomes are. I am trying to keep this easy to read and understand. Nothing I am saying is new in world history. It had happened numerous times since the earliest times of Mesopotamia through Roman historythere were several revolts, through the Middle Ages, up to modern times with the French Revolution, Russian Revolution, Spanish Civil War, Vietnam, Sri Lankano one gave a shit about this one because they have nothing to begin with that the plutocrats would care about, and now Libyaeveryone is concern about this one, they are an oil rich country. In all of these cases, you have the majority of the population busting their asses to support the excesses of a few. Just think, if the Saudis do anything to piss off the plutocrats; they would be branded despots and brought to justice for their human rights violations. I noticed that most sites covering the Bilderbergs have been changed to say that the Bilderbergs are all about including the U.S. in the global business community and protecting the Western interests. After the fall of Napoleon, a conference of the European Powers was held in Vienna. It was a collusion of all of the surviving powers of how to carve up the world for

themselves peacefully. After several European explosions known as the unification of Italy and Germany, The Franco-Prussian War, The Crimean War, and Hungarian Insurrection, there was another one held in Berlin. The main topic of this meeting was the carving up of Africa by Europe; it was led by monsters like Leopold II of Belgian and Cecil Rhodes. After War World II, the Bilderbergs started to meet annually and include leading U.S. Businessmen. Let me give you some advice. If Businessmen are meeting European Aristocracy behind closed doors and armed guards, and sworn to secrecy it is not about helping you; history has shown it is collusion in the most sinister form; on a global level. Think that I am kidding? Think about it. When 9/11 occurred, one of the major suggestions by the Bush Administration was to be afraid and shop. We need to end the plutocracy. Here are some ways. Shop at local storesthis will keep your hard earned money in your local community and out of the pockets of the six percent. Help your neighborsmost charities are huge profit generating corporations. They want us to think and lookout for just ourselvesunited we stand, divided we are intimidatedas in places like North Korea, Nazis Germany, or many large corporations. Ask yourself which is more important to you the glitzy shining things that temporarily fill holes in your being and more than likely end up in the trash within a year or gathering dust in storage or are people more important? (Heres a hint: ask Lindsay Lohan.) Nothing has horrible has ever come out of individuals working together for the common good even if they didnt agree with each other at first but had the courage to grow and learn from one another. Start community vegetable gardens Revive crafts, seek out new music, read as much as you can, travel, experience different cultures, expose yourself to art throughout the ages. How are we ever to learn how to think outside of the box when we just listen to the same old music and songs regurgitated by dime a dozen voices like Katie Perry, Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift who pretty much have their career only because they paint themselves up to some teenage sexual fantasy, wear outfits that center on their boobs or crazy antics like Lady Gaga tries to beshe could take some lessons from Gary Busey; at least he is semi convincing. There are a lot of great ideas out there. There are a lot of great artistreal ones, not corporate productions. My wife and I have been playing a game of finding the most original musicians and we have found a lot of amazing bands. The ideas of our founding fathers that culminated in the birth of America were ideas from all over the known world at the time. There are instances of Locke, Voltaire, Hobbes, Rousseau, Plato, Pliny, even Beethoven, Goya, or Mozart and so many others and entire cultures that were seeds that grew into our Constitution. They definitely did not come from one person or from the same old thingsfor instances of those type of ideas study Germany during the 1920s & 1930s or the history of any of the other despot led countries out there today and of yesterday. Instead of helping support some rich sports figure, support your children and community by starting local sports clubs and participating in family events. Start your own community savings clubsmost banks are ripping you off; their interest APY are less, far less than the average of inflation.

Become more informed about the world around you. History has shown over and over that societies that had a true contact with the rest of the world rose in technology, science, philosophy, and in many other fields from the many different new ideas or different ways of looking at things they had gleaned from the other cultures they came into contact. Learn about economics. America wants to be the economic leader of the world and probably 90% of the population is economically illiteratethe proof is just look at our economy; hell, most people still think banks are a great place to keep their money and almost all have little to no idea of what money truly is. Yet, with a population that has little to no understanding of the economy, there is the idea that we are able to pick the right public servantsmost of these have little to no understanding of economics. Participate in your governmentthere is nothing wrong with making a politician work for all those perks and compensation packages. This is a government of the people not an aristocracy. It is a republic which means it is a representative democracy not an aristocracy. They are our employees first. They are not the leaders of this country; the people are. Why exactly does Michelle Obama need seven assistants? When did anyone vote for her? When did being the presidents spouse become a public office? The term first lady comes from a compliment paid to Dolly Madison at her funeralat least she saved as much as what could be saved when the British burned the capitalwhen did Michelle, Barbara, Laura, Hillary, or any of the others become a queen? For that matter, why do several state governors have a special office for their spouse? Seems like one hell of a perk during a time when most are lucky if they have a paycheck. If the republicans and democrats are going to constantly roll over for their plutocrat masters, you need to seek politicians who have not been bought and sold and who actually care about this country. The republicans understand that they will get back into office as soon as everyone gets tired of the democrats. Just as the democrats understand they will get back in office when we get tired of the republicansits a running joke. Another thing, I am so tired of being called unpatriotic by individuals who can not even answer the most simplest of questions concerning our government. It is a government of the people, by the people and for the people. It is time that we learn as much as we can about it. It is ours, lets get it back. National Security should apply only to military operations, codes, and equipment well that really doesnt apply because we sell our equipment to everyone. It is our government, they are answerable to us and for a democratic government there is a hell of a lot that is kept from the public that is expected to vote for the right candidate when so much of the big picture is hidden from the publicjust how much of it is that incriminating? Work with and be involved with your children, community, and family. Dont sell out and be a toolMost evictions, terminations, and cutting of incomes are carried out by a tool so that the owner doesnt have to face the guilt of their actions. Neat thing about capitalismif you make the wrong decisions, you can keep your income while having your employees or tenants pay for it.

This isnt a way but it is something to think about. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is just a barometer and in the opinion of numerous statisticians and economist it is a weak one in giving a true picture of the economy and here is why. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is a sampling of stocks from the New York Stock Exchange stocks. Any statistician will tell you that if you have a big enough sampling of a population you can get a feel for what the big picture is without sampling the entire population. There are over 5,000 individual stocks on the exchange. The DJIA is a sampling of 30 companies which is less than 1%. Another thing is that stock prices very rarely represent the true value of the company they are for. Most are in the ballpark but in the stands; very few are with in the inner field. A major problem is that the price is a reflection of investors emotions in relationship to their money. People who dont understand the market which is an amazingly high percentage of investorsallow the ups and downs of the DJIA run their investment decisions. The Dow is dropping, but I can say with a hell of a lot of confidence that the few who truly do understand the market mouths are watering with eager financial anticipation as they are able to acquire huge amounts of stocks at bargain basement prices while everyone else is panicking and driving the price down for the top 6%.

In closing here are some other quotes: "Dynastic wealth, the enemy of a meritocracy, is on the rise. Equality of opportunity has been on the decline. A progressive and meaningful estate tax is needed to curb the movement of a democracy toward plutocracy." Warren Buffet, 2007 I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country. Thomas Jefferson Of all forms of tyranny the least attractive and the most vulgar is the tyranny of mere wealth, the tyranny of plutocracy. J.P. Morgan Were not a democracy. Its a terrible misunderstanding and a slander to the idea of democracy to call us that. In reality, were a plutocracy: a government by the wealthy. Ramsey Clark One last one from John Brown; in fact, it is reported to have been the last thing he said.

I Love this Country. Another Abolitionist who actually worked in the system said Agitate, Agitate, Agitate! He said this when a youngster asked the abolitionist what he could do to make his community, country, and world a better place for all. Im sure you know who the abolitionist was but for those who dont, he was Frederick Douglass. He was only echoing the sentiments of the founding fathers of this nationthey understood a plutocracy and they understood that the only way to avoid it was to be free and to create a government where the true leaders were the people. Here is one last thing to think about. This planet could be a wonderful place for all. Except that: Life, except for his own, is worth nothing to a plutocrat. Saol, ach amhin leis fin , fi rud ar bith, le plutocrat. Life, auer seinem eigenen, ist nichts wert, zu einem Plutokraten. , , , . La vie, sauf le sien, ne vaut rien, pour un ploutocrate. Vida, excepto la suya, no vale nada, a un plutcrata. , , , . ycia, z wyjtkiem wasnej, jest nic nie warta, do plutokrata. ., , , Vita, tranne il suo, non vale niente, a un plutocrate. . Vita praeter propriam dignitatem, nihil ad plutocrat. Maisha, ila yake mwenyewe, ni thamani ya kitu, kwa plutocrat. Lewe, behalwe sy eie, is niks werd is nie, na 'n plutocraat.