No listening

Today, after golf, I was asked point blank, by one of my conservative friends what I thought of the President's State of the Union Speech. I replied I thought it was a good speech, well delivered, well written; etc. No politics at this point, just that it was a good speech.

My friend was incredulous. He could not believe I would say something like that. He said that the majority of people in the room, white, older conservative men, all agreed (with each other) that the speech was terrible.

"He" (the President) was confrontative, he won't compromise, he is terrible, he is causing class warfare....etc was the response describing the speech.

Maybe the speech was divisive and if it is, the country has no chance. We are so locked in political disagreement, in a battle to the death, that nothing can get done. If cons can't listen to a State of the Union speech with at least a tiny bit of an open mind, then we are done as a country!

The President spoke about economic fairness last night. He stressed many times in many ways that the American Dream of equal opportunity and fairness was being destroyed by a huge imbalance in who gets breaks and who doesn't. The facts that billionaires pay less tax percentage by far than their secretaries, and sometimes less tax period are hard to ignore.

And the reply to this unfairness is the "fact" that 40 million Americans do not pay any income tax at all. Of course this is counting children, students, and those who are so poor that they are beneath the entry level progressive tax level.

But to the cons that is unfair. The poor need to pay more taxes, that is unfair.

Unbelievable.

So billionaires not paying any taxes at all (in some cases) is fair, while taxing a working poor person and costing them their apartment, is fair as well. What is their definition of fair? What planet are these guys from?

I have seen the poor kids, coming to school, knowing absolutely that they have NO CHANCE to make it. I have talked to parents, or grandparents, who are beside themselves because their adult children are in jail, or on drugs, and their kids are in trouble and nobody knows what to do.

I have seen teachers fight everyday, paying for supplies out of their own pocket, while seeing most of their kids fail because they are poor with no parenting at home. And at the end of the school year they get a pink slip.

I have seen good young teachers get a pink slip (that I had to deliver) because of lunatic tax cuts that rip public education.

I have seen tasted and lived the unfairness; the fact that 25% of young African American males younger than 30 are in prison; most because they are so screwed up by poverty, drugs and violence that they BELONG in prison.

I have seen Native American children who have been physically and sexually abused since they were three, who are so depressed that many kill themselves before they are 21.

I see the United States incarcerate more of it citizens than ANY other nation on the planet; just as Russia and Germany used to. How in the hell can a country be considered fair when we have to jail so many of our citizens?

I do not live in the same universe as those of my friends who think this all is FAIR?!

This country is dying, it is bleeding out from the inequality of opportunity that we tolerate everyday; the unfairness is killing us!

And conservatives say that anything we do about it, is a giveaway, an entitlement, that robs people of their motivation and makes them weak.

I'll tell you what makes people weak; hunger, ignorance, stupidity, greed, and not giving a damn.

This is what I think is the reality. Conservatives in this country have run out of solutions. Cutting taxes has repeatedly failed to spur economic recovery. They know it doesn't work. So, they attack because they have no other arguments to make. They know deep down that the economy is unfair and wrong, and they don't give a damn. "I have mine and screw you" is their response.

Incredibly the basic unfairness and huge inequities do not bother guys who are NOT rich by a long shot. Most of my friends are middle class white guys, who worked hard all their lives, and are living on a modest retirement. We do not belong to a country club, we are just middle class guys who enjoy each other's company. But the unfairness, and unemployment are right here in Redding, we have one of the largest unemployment percentages of ANY state in California.

And I just cannot believe how they don't get it, or choose not to listen; when a discussion goes to the huge inequities in wealth that are NEW developments in our history. We have never seen such a gap between rich and poor. I repeat, this division is new...it is unique, it is different.

And they keep saying it is ok, that the rich " they earned it", that we cannot give to those who "don't deserve it" and that entitlements are bad.

ALL of these guys are on social security to a certain extent and definitely Medicare.

They repeat that I, as a "liberal" want to give "them" (whoever them are) something for nothing..."they" didn't work for it...the poor are lazy, the unemployed are lazy...etc...etc. All liberals want to do is give people what they have not earned.

That is it, a give away is all liberals stand for? What? I suppose Civil Rights was a giveaway. I suppose WWI and WWII was a liberal give away. I suppose the New Deal, Social Security, et al, were just boneheaded giveaways.

And there is no listening, except to their narrow, and quite frankly selfish, approach to economics. Fox News and Rush echo in EVERY political discussion we have. The propaganda has been VERY effective. Liberals are stupid, elitists, who want to give America's riches away to the lazy and the criminal. Any compassion is wrong..."kill them all" seems to be the approach.

Jesus Christ! A lot of pun intended!

The President talked last night of the great infrastructure projects of the past, the Interstate Highway System, the Hydroelectric Dams, the Bridges; etc., etc., and how everyone contributed their fair share to get those built. And, he reminded us that these projects have benefited the nation many times over what they cost.

The conservative's obsession with cutting taxes would have not allowed these projects to have been built, with disastrous economic consequences.

But they just won't listen. Government is bad, it needs to be destroyed....

And the ending of the speech when the President talked about teamwork, sacrifice for a larger good, and having each other's back.....

They just didn't listen....

Roll Tide

There is not much doubt that Alabama is the number one college football team. They destroyed a fine LSU team that was undefeated to do it. Oklahoma State, who beat Stanford in overtime, has only one loss, but did not play LSU.

Lately news stories have talked about how Alabama is claiming this national championship as their 14th. Of course, six of those were under Bear Bryant the mythical coach of what is called Alabama's golden era of football.

The problem is, before 1970 none of the national championships, no matter how decided, should count.

The count of Alabama's legitimate national championships drops to five. Most of Bear Bryant's national hegemony disappears when the lack of African American, or any players of color, is factored in. And, not only did Alabama not play athletes of color, they refused to participate against teams who had players of color. So did the S.E.C., which ironically today is considered the premier football conference in the land.

Alabama's national championships should not count because it was not until 1971 that an African American player competed for the Alabama Varsity. In fact, it was not until 1970 that Alabama even played an "integrated team"; unfortunately for Alabama this "experiment" was against USC and Alabama got destroyed.

Bear Bryant has been hailed as a genius for scheduling USC to finally break the "color line". I supposed that is partly true. But he was no genius during the sixties, when Alabama refused to play integrated teams or allow people of color near their football program. And it was during the 60s that Alabama was supreme.

This was a dark era for America and for sports. Professional baseball, basketball and football were integrated in the late 40s. Only college athletics remained segregated in the south during the 50s, 60s and part of the 70s. By the 70s, six years after the Civil Rights Act was passed, southern football holding out for its segregationist past glories was downright embarrassing.

Stanford was integrated when I played there from 1965 to 1969. The 1968 Varsity had ten African Americans on it, a Japanese, and a few Mexican-Americans (one a guy named Plunkett). But we were well integrated compared to the SEC.

When we played Tulane my Junior year, we had only a home game, no return game was offered because integrated teams could not play in New Orleans at the time.

I have a friend who played for Oregon and played Texas in the early sixties. Oregon's African American players had to stay in a different hotel, and eat in different facilities. Oregon won the game.

My point is the south, S.E.C., and Alabama in particular, fought integration to the end. White only teams, white only cheerleaders, and white only student bodies were the norm.

I can remember competiting for a position against African-Americans, the best players got on the field. I held my own, and played, but shared postions all of my career. I suppose at Alabama I might have started, but that would have meant the best players would not always have played. Of course at Alabama in the 60s many great players never got a chance to even be on the team.

That is the point why Alabama cannot claim national championships before 1971. They simply did not deserve them, when integrated northern teams were playing a more able cross section of athletes.

Football is a pure meritocracy. Athletic ability, courage, hard work, and teamwork are all vital ingredients to a team's success. The SEC, before 1970, was not a meritocracy; it was segregated, and as a consequence weak compared to other integrated conferences. We never got to find this out, however, because the SEC refused to play integrated teams. There was a reason for this; witness what happened to Alabama in 1970 at the hands of USC!

If Alabama had any class at all, THEY would admit that those pre-1970 champships were not valid, and stop bragging about having the most national football championships.

Alabama should only claim national championships when everyone could compete and when they also played against integrated teams. That is why they are called national championships.

They don't deserve the others.

The 15%

We were in the lawyer's office discussing my wife's "considerable" inheritance. As it turns out it was more potential than real. Anyway, the lawyer was talking about investments and how to manipulate them to limit tax exposure. And my wife said, what about "capital gains"?

Capital gains? As a Stanford graduate with a Masters Degree capital gains were what people of my "class" talked about right? When I read the financial section, capital gains are discussed frequently. How to handle capital gains. What is the best investment strategy to maximize capital gains? The state of California taxes capital gains too highly. You get the drift.

That was the first time in my LIFE anyone had discussed assets in which I had a stake as capital gains. For a salaried school administrator, who did alright pay wise, capital gains just were "out of my pay grade".

And they are for the vast majority of Americans. Substantial capital gains might have come up in the housing bubble, as a house sometimes doubled in value. The Bush tax cuts for sure made the housing bubble worse, because they cut those for most, one time capital gain. And people got real stupid with the windfall!

People then took the money and usually poured it into another house (or two), banking on the bubble lasting forever. And, of course, most lost it all.

"It takes money to make money". This is a truism that I have heard all my life. It takes smart money to make healthy growth. Fast bucks usually blow up in your face!

When I was at Stanford, and knew Romney, his money came from his father's work, and the capital gains they no doubt got from Governnor Romney's stock and investments he earned from General Motors. Even in those days, C.E.O. were rewarded with stock and investments (usually in the company), that went up and up even though they were "retired".

Mitt Romney is the same. He does not work. In fact, he brags on being "unemployed" and yesterday finally admitted his tax rate is about 15% because all of his income comes from interest from capital gains.

I get a teacher's pension, a sliver of social security, my wife's pension, and her social security. Yesterday we got our social security benefit summary for 2011. Guess what, we made enough in pensions and such that our social security will be considered income, and taxed at about the 27 to 30% we pay....and we can now afford an accountant.

So we pay roughly twice what Mr. Romney pays to in taxes to the federal government. We pay about 25% to the state.

I am not complaining at all about those rates. They are progressive and fair compaired to others ; except for the people in Romney's class.

It is not fair that he only pays 15%. It just isn't! IT IS NOT FAIR!

When Romney was asked about other income, he stupidly blurted out he made a small amount (I am paraphrasing, what he said was more clueless) giving speeches. He then felt it necessary to emphasize how small it was.

Evidently he had to divulge this in his election papers, and the "small" amount is $350,000!

That is more income than about 95% of Americans make in a year. Heck, it is more than most Americans make in five years!

Romney is clueless. He is so wrong that it is funny. He promises to make Bush tax cuts permanent. These same capital gains cuts, caused the housing bubble. That's right, they caused the housing bubble, because they put billions more into the super rich, who then invested them back into the economy.

Hey, wait a minute, you are saying. That is Reaganomics right? This is the way it's supposed to work.

Right, but tax cuts to stimulate investment have no guarantee if they will be smart investments.

I still remember in 2005, driving north from Phoenix, through thousands of new housing developments. The super rich had done what even the middle class did, poured money into housing in the mistaken belief that such investments were gold.

Of course, any cursory analysis of people's ability to buy houses in 2005, would have shown housing prices had greatly passed the ability of the middle class to afford the inflationary prices. The housing bubble priced millious out of the market and killed it!

And capital gains tax cuts fed the housing inflation. And capital gains tax cuts fed the Great Recession.

The 1% does not have a guarantee corner on smartness. The 1% are highly educated, but the lure of a quick buck can mess anybody up. They took their capital gain tax cut, and invested it in something that killed the economy.

And they helped created a deficit that is one of Romney's targets if elected. Of course, the first step to correct the problem, is to make his rate 35% rather than 15%.

That will happen when pigs fly.

Let's Debate as Equals?

Today a piece appeared in the Bee by the Washington Post "Climate Change Added to Politics of Culture War". It adds to my alarm that people are not taking man made climate change seriously.

The radical right has been working overtime, aided by big oil dollars, to blunt the urgency of climate change warnings. At first, a concerted effort was made to discredit the scientific research. For example, some emails were captured that allegedly showed the whole threat was a fraud.

Once these emails were actually read, no evidence of fraud concerning climate change was found. But, deniers continue to point to the "climate-gate" to discredit scientific climate change research.

Now, the deniers are working overtime to convince their "followers" that climate change is part of the "debate" between conservatives and liberals; and "both sides are too extreme are are wrong".

The article supports this point of view: that climate change is a "political debate", with exaggerations on both sides.

And we hear this echoed everyday in the denier world. Climate change concern is depicted as a veiled effort to grow the size of government, and that is all it is, there is no real threat..it is all made up!

The article depicted climate science, that provides a crushing amount of data to support the FACT of manmade global warming on equal balance with denier speculation that global warming is a natural thing.

The deniers, who are almost always backed by the worst polluters, said the same thing about DDT, acid rain, and the health disaster of tobacco. They ignore the actual facts, found a tangental sliver of argument, and made it the main argument.

For example, tobacco companies never talked about the proof that smoking causes cancer and heart disease, but cooked up the argument about second hand smoke, diverting the public's concern from death to the inconvenience of being exposed to second hand smoke. They fought the evidence that second hand smoke causes the same health problems of first hand smoke, and for years we argued over that, ignoring the millions dying around us. This bought time, continued profits, and killed millions.

They are doing it again. They want us to debate if global warming is man-made rather than pay attention to the effects of CO2 increases on the climate. They seek to politicize the issue, make it part of the clash of political philosophies, rather than admit to hard scientific research.

So Lindbaugh takes it up as yet another example of the progressive elite trying to "take away your rights, and freedoms." Or, incredibly agreeing there is global warming, but it is not man made, and no evidence exists that there is.

So we debate whether climate change, that is killing more every year, and reaching critical levels, is caused by man or not. This flies in face of overwhelming evidence that global warming is man made. But, this is never good enough for the cons. Meanwhile we are diverted from the actual damage caused by global warming everyday, while we debate nuances.

These are classis public relations ploys. They are purposeful diverting attention from the real threats and scientific predictions, just like the tobacco industry did.

If you look at the Health Insurace Industry's efforts to discredit any reform or regulation, you see the same thing. They NEVER defend their constant raises in premiums, which are at the core of the problem, they defend their opposition to "death panels"; that never have been an real issue or threat.

But, if you ask conservatives about their concerns with the Affordable Health Care Act, they immediately say "Death Panels".

In short, public relations experts are working overtime to confuse, to blunt, to discredit climate science that shows clearly a catastrophic threat exists caused by human beings.

And now, a columnist for the Washington Post has been also taken into by this con job.

A long time ago, people figured out how to fool the public. There are college majors that teach people how to do it; it is called public relations advertising. These people are very good at what they do. The techniques are too many to discuss here. Just think about advertising and all the tricks used, then assume climate change deniers are doing the same thing. Do you believe the ads you see on T.V.?

Of course not. Then apply the same common sense to the denier's arguments. Apply the same common sense to the scientific evidence, then decide what to believe.

Oh, I am sure you are saying that climate change advocates also can use P.R. to build their case. If that is true, then show me the money. Show me what vested interest has a stake in convincing the world of climate change and the need to do something about it. That would be a large vested commercial interest.

You can't find one on anywhere near the scale of big oil. If you are saying the progressives, then what commerical interest is behind them? What commerical interest is served by predicting global catastrophe?

There is none.

What threatens the denier interests are people who read, who go to the research, and refuse to be conned. That is why they attack the educated "elites" so much; because they see through their lies and con job. Since when, by the way, do we follow stupid people over the educated?

Unfortunately, educated skeptics are an increasing minority in this country.

They are lying to you! They are winning! And our grandchildren will suffer the consequences!

I Had a Dream

Depressions and recessions can wreck dreams; especially dreams that were half realized.

In 1964, in the wake of a President's assassination, the nation finally addressed one of the most undemocratic aspects of its character. Civil Rights had been denied to people of color for centuries. Martin Luther King courageously held the nation's feet to the fire, and shamed it into finally trying to do the right thing, and put into law what already was in the Constitution.

Segregation and racism formed the bedrock of many state's legal and moral hierarchy. Economic and social injustice were the norm and not the rule.

This took such absurd forms, that the Southeast Conference did not allow African-American athletes to play. Today, the SEC is the premiere football conference in the land and African Americans play.

In short, this is a direct example that equal opportunity brings the best to the top. In the sixties, Alabama for example, purported to be the number one football team in the country, while teams like Michigan, U.S.C. and the like, competed with African American athletes. SEC Conference teams would not play integrated teams, buy they still held claim to number one status, playing white only teams.

In 1970 this changed. Alabama played U.S.C. and got annihilated! At that point, six years after the Civil Rights Act, Bear Bryant finally gave in, and Alabama began to recruit African Americans. Now this was several years AFTER African Americans were allowed to attend the University. Old bigotry died hard, but the SCORE counted.

Today, Dr. King's crusade is still not complete. The Great Recession has affected minorities more dramatically than the majority. However, poverty is colorblind, as Dr. King so notably remarked. There are far more poor whites than people of color. Misery knows no color line!

Poverty is growing like a cancer in the land. It destroys children most of all, relegating them to a lifetime of need, while dooming the rest of us to the constant debate about welfare and how much to do for the needy.

It is here where we need the words of Dr. King the most. He warned us about the corrosive effects of poverty,how it saps the nation's strength and weakens us. Today, parents have taken in their adult children in record numbers, from the poor to the middle class, in desperation.

And we debate! We debate the size of the deficit. We argue about how much welfare, if any is enough. Conservatives use the recession to somehow prove that welfare creates a class of lazy do-nothings, liberals use the recession to prove that capitalism doesn't work.

And meanwhile we do nothing for the economic injustice that is going on all around us. The homeless are ignored, or pushed from one place to the next. The shame of it.

For sure, this injustice is no longer supported by segregationist law; that is gone. For sure, governments cannot discriminate, nor can the private sector.

Unfortunately, poverty is not so amenable to law. Poverty comes from a variety of sources and is too highly complex to be "attacked". It is not a thing. It is not a country, or even a terrorist group.

Poverty is a condition, a consequence, a social and economic phenomenon that requires everyone's attention and dedication.

Poverty truly tries our resolve, our commitment, and yes our Christian values. I don't have an easy answer, and neither do my conservative "friends". It is not any easy thing to fix. Johnson's "War on Poverty" was doomed because it greatly underestimated its foe.

But that is not an excuse to do nothing. Dr. King called us to the great crusade, the great effort, to eradicate poverty from our country.

Let us begin, let us continue, let us never give up. I had a dream, and it can come true.

The Forty Three Percent

Every study, poll, book, research; etc., shows that the American Dream of upward mobility is dead.

That's right dead.

The myth of upward mobility for everyone is simply not the case anymore. If you are poor or middle class, you are staying there. The percentage who escape their class and move up is decreasing every year, and is now practically zero.

That's right, old, white guys like me, who used to believe that people can move beyond their parent's station is life, are holding on to a reality that no longer exists.

White men over fifty make up the vast majority of Tea Party Patriots, and a large percentage of conservatives in this country. They blame immigrants for the loss of class mobility. I have heard many times, "If we only sent them all back to Mexico, it would fix things".

What? Mexican immigrants occupy the lowest class (caste) in the United States. They occupy the lowest, most menial of jobs. Are these guys kidding? Do they really believe that sending the Mexicans packing will open up social mobility for lower and middle class whites?

That kind of stupidity is almost beyond belief, but the belief and myth lives on.

So 43%, when asked how the rich became rich, still answer first: it is because of hard work.

Hard work? Let's look at Mitt Romney.

I actually knew Mitt Romney at Stanford my freshman year. He was, like most of us, homesick and in love with his girlfriend back home (who later became his wife). He was a "good guy", friendly and open. He was also rich way beyond me, a mechanic's son from Redding, California. I liked Mitt, in fact still do. But, he is rich man's kid.

In those days Stanford was more a rich man's school than today. The freshman class was about 75% male and 25% female. Minorities were rare. Prep school graduates were the norm, and academic achievement high. Today, Stanford has a diverse student body, and actually has as its mission, opportunity; as long as you have a 4.3 GPA or are a world class athlete!

It is one of the few places that a poor student can actually gain access to social and economic mobility, but it has a freshman class of about 2000 and 35,000 applicants every year. So, what are the odds of the American Dream? Do the math!

That was NOT the way it was in 1965. The only reason this poor kid was there was because of football. Stanford did not have a hint of social or economic mobility in those days; it was a rich kids' school (Ivy League of the West).

I also had a freshman roommate whose father was the CEO of United Press International and lived in Scarsdale, New York. He bragged that he was going to flunk out of Stanford, because he didn't like it, but his father was forcing him to go. He was rebelling against his rich father. He was a spoiled brat!

You can imagine how I felt, since going to Stanford was my gateway to a better life (which it turned out to be).

Mitt wanted out to, but would not flunk out. We talked about the draft then, that was a major conversation piece because of Vietnam. Mitt wanted to go home, but told us he would be drafted, because his father at the time was thinking of running for President, and getting Mitt out of the Army would cost his father politically.

In those days, anyone who dropped out of college, or flunked out, would immediately lose their deferment. Mitt did not want to go to Vietnam. Hell, none of us did!

At the time, his father actually was developing ideas that the Vietnam War was not a good idea. It many ways, these thoughts later cost him the Republican nomination for President.

But no matter what Mitt did, or my room mate did, they could not fail. They had a firewall beneath them, and would never drop into my middle class status. They knew it, I knew it.

And, I knew, to move up for me would require enormous work and luck; there was still the possibility, I rose to the highest position in my chose field, but I was (am) a rarity.

Today my story would be even more rare. In fact, my story statistically would barely exist.

And this is the big lie of America today. Social and economic mobility is dead. The rich always were protected, and could not fail. If they messed up, they always had their parents and grandparents to bail them out; George W. Bush comes immediately to mind.

But still, 43% believe in their souls that the rich worked hard to get where they were; this totally disregards that most did not.

That's right, statistically most of the 1% inherited their wealth, or their parents and grandparent's wealth opened doors for them that are closed to the rest of us. Ever wonder why C.E.O.'s do dumb things, ruin companies, get thousands unemployed? The reason is they inherited their leadership status. Aristocracies are like that, the elite get more corrupted as generations pass on, because they actually do NOT work for their success, it is given to them.

So, smart, innovative leadership declines in the rich; who actually dumb down their class.

THAT my friends was what established the American Dream in the first place. Jefferson and the founders of our Republic had witnessed first hand what aristocracy could and could not do. They began the American Experiment to counter the corruption of aristocracy. Apparently they have failed!

Mitt Romney and my room mate are perfect examples. Mitt dropped out of Stanford and did his mission in France. He kept his deferment. Then, after his father no longer was a viable candidate, he enrolled in Brigham Young University, was married, and guess what; kept his deferment!

And of course the rest is history. In spite of his dropping out of Stanford, which was covered by going on a mission, he succeeded through "hard work" by salvaging and destroying companies. But he already was a multi-millionaire when he did that. Daddy saw to that. He simply could not fail.

Recently he said he too knew what it was like to fear a pink slip. Please, he never had those fears in his life...never.

And lately he had the gall to say it was envy that drove people to criticize the rich. Envy my foot! It is the lack of economic justice that motivates the criticism

You see, I know these guys. I know what makes them tick. And it isn't pretty!

Aristocracies ultimately lead to social, economic and political disasters. Look at WWI, WWII, and the decline of the British Empire, France, Germany, Russia...I could go on but why bother.

I always was a pink slip away from financial disaster. When my wife got breast cancer, and the insurance initially said they would not pay for her therapy, I actually sat and added up all my assets to pay for the $100,000 procedure and came up way short. I essentially had no real assets, other than my monthly paycheck and a modest home. Romney would simply have written a check!

And I actually graduated from Stanford, have a Masters Degree, many Professional Credentials. No real upward mobility here!

My room mate actually succeeded; he flunked out of Stanford. He chose a more direct route, he got a wealthy doctor to vouch for a bogus physical ailment, and missed Vietnam. Today he is a "man of leisure", selling yachts in Boston. He never returned to college, and has spent his whole life as an aristocrat.

He thinks the whole thing is funny. He is one of the most valueless, clueless human beings I have ever known! And he is considered a "success from hard word" by my clueless Tea Party friends.

My room mate really screwed up. He missed the opportunity of a lifetime to go to a great University; he never challenged his mind. He successfully challenged his father and flunked out. He is stupid because it it!

And he had to work at it. Because his father was a big contributor to the University, it took him a whole year to flunk out. He registered for classes for a whole year, failed them all, and still could not flunk out. I used to take calls from his Professors, asking where he was. I would lie and say he was sick, while he screwed yet another girl in our dorm room!

But his economic and social status never suffered. If I dropped out of Stanford, I was headed to Vietnam, and upon return (if I survived), probably a state university, working my way through, and odds are dropping out to raise a family. No professional life for me. Basically I had ONE shot at it and I knew it, Romney and my room mate had many shots; they could afford choices.

THAT is reality. That is what is left of the American dream. The rich cannot screw up, even if they try, and access into their club is practically non-existent for the rest of us.

We have become an aristocracy! We actually always have been.

Purity of Race

Today in the news, there was an article about victims of a forced sterilization program in North Carolina that ended in the 70s. Victims are seeking financial compensation from the state for what happened to them.

Racism, prejudice and the culture of racial purity spring from nefarious eugenics beliefs.

The 16th and 17th century were known for war, slavery and conquest. The mostly white "Western Civilization" having stolen the idea of gunpowder from the Chinese, used it to make firearms that led to the colonization of Asia, Africa and America.

After decimating native opposition, there was an wholesale migration, especially to Australia and the Americas of Europeans many who were "asked" to leave.

As the migration increased, competition arose between white immigrants and native peoples.

Ownership of property and rights was a bedrock of legal beliefs in European society. Feudalism had grown into the dominant social and ecnomic system based on owning property.

Property ownership, a concept unknown to native people in the Americas, was the sole source of status and wealth in European culure.

So, as Europeans moved into the Americas and Austraila they stole the native lands. This was an essential way of upward mobility for poor immigrants, who at least in Australia's case, were also thieves, and social outcasts. Austraila began as a penal colony.

The Puritans, for example, were driven from England for their unconvential religious beliefs.

The practice of indentured servitude was a way to America for many debtors, who used the system to come to America, worked off their debt, then set out to the west to start a farm on someone else's land.

These people were NOT members of the upper class, educated or cultured. . Often times they were debtors, who escaped debtor's prison to come to the New World. Cherokee history tells of the first white contact, and how dirty and dishelved the whites were.

The aristocracy and rising middle class, the bourgeois if you will, stayed in Europe. There was no reason for them to risk everything coming to the New World, because they were in control of the old one.

To justify the plundering of the New World, the newly presented Darwinian theory of survival of the fittest was bastardized into racial superiority "facts".

It was reasoned that Europeans were superior because they had the guns. Everything else, the subjugation, genocide and wholesale theft developed from this basic concept; cultural superiority rose from military superiority.

This firepower proves me better theory is still with the world today and one day may kill us all.

And of course, there was slavery. The New World was developed on the backs of African slaves, who offered cheap labor.

How then to justify slavery? Darwin took care of the Indians, they were racially inferior, not even human beings. So, the same justification was used on the Africans. The United States Consitution, aglow with freedom and equality, classified slaves as 2/3 people and Native Americans not at all.

Africans were sub-human. Their culture supported slavery after all, and they did not have guns. Of course, Europeans were only dealing with first impressions of African culture, and ignored other gains (like the Moslems who had nearly destroyed Europe 300 years earlier, the fact that mankind evolved in Africa). Native Americans were less than sub-human, were animals, who could be slaughtered; especially if you wanted the corner lot.

If we fast forward to North Carolina in the twentieth century, we see the products of this eugenic madness. It was so bad, that racist sterilization practices even survived World War II and its genocide. The revulsion of the civilized world could not overcome the madness and justification for gain of racism.

It still pervades our culture today. The rumors that President Obama was not born in the United States, that is a Kenyan, that he is a closet Moslem all are racist at the core. These lies are based on the same mindset that gave us the forced sterilization of thousands of victims by various states in America, of all places, the "land of the free and home of the brave". If you have ever been to an Indian Reservation you know what subjugation can do. The colonial culture stole Native Americans' lands and their wealth, leaving their descendents to rot in virtual concentration camps.

The historical fact is eugenics were used to justify slavery and the wholesale theft of millions of square miles of land. And, this was done by immigrants to America, many of whom who had been asked to leave Europe because they were debtors, criminals or even worse.

They then made up theories of superiority to establish their greed and their crimes.

The Purity of Race really masks crime and sins against man. That is a fact and one day God will render his verdict. I doubt if it will be a kind one!