Wednesday, October 19, 2005
Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership: "Non-profit organizations, individuals and government agencies joining forces to bring a migratory flock of whooping cranes back to eastern North America"
Saturday, October 15, 2005
Tuesday, October 11, 2005
Friday, October 07, 2005
Thursday, October 06, 2005
Article by Charley Reese of King Features Syndicate:
One of the difficulties in understanding our world is the belief in separation that we pick up in school. We are taught that government and business are separate, that church and state are separate, and that education is an objective process that has nothing to do with politics or religion.
The world isn’t structured that way. There is no separation between government and business, though there should be. Because of the high cost of elections in America, government and big business, and the people who run those businesses, share the same bed. Business supplies the money, and the politicians supply the favors.
About the only real separation is that of the ordinary American, who has practically zilch influence on his government and, if he is a worker, on his employer. In fact, it’s fair to say that most American working men and women are wage slaves. They have no power to bargain for better working conditions. They are at the mercy of their employer and of other employers in town — the landlord, the bank, the medical industry, the lawyer industry. Many of them work hard all of their lives, and even so, their families have to borrow money to bury them.
There are very few positions of power in this country. One professor who studies that sort of thing estimates that there are no more than 5,000 to 7,000 such positions in both the civilian and military sectors. He defines a position of power as one in which the person can make decisions others have to obey. At your average newspaper, for example, there is one such position: the publisher. The editor must please him, and the reporters must please the editor. If the paper is part of a big corporate chain, then of course the publisher himself is an employee and must please the people above him. Ultimately, however, there is one guy at the top who doesn’t answer to anyone.
In most big American corporations, stockholders are powerless, and even boards of directors tend to be patsies for the CEO.
So, what you find is a relative handful of people who migrate between business, government, foundations and academia. These are the people who used to be called the Establishment, and their position is based on wealth or, in some cases, abject loyalty and service to the wealthy. Henry Kissinger is a good example. His patron was Nelson Rockefeller. These are the people who attend the secretive Bilderberger meetings and the economic conference at Davos, Switzerland.
There is no conspiracy. There is just a commonality of interests and backgrounds. They tend to go to the same prep schools and universities, join the same clubs, winter and summer in the same places, and, by and large, their children intermarry. They have their differences. Some are Democrats, and some are Republicans. The wealthy these days own both parties. The people who don’t have a party are the working men and women of America.
Most legislation and most policies benefit the wealthy. Usury is virtually legalized in this country. Banks are authorized to create money. Some government programs insure not the home buyer but the mortgage lender; not the student but the bank that lends him his student loan. We don’t have debtor’s prisons anymore, but we have debtor’s hell, and the new laws on bankruptcy are designed to make sure ordinary people can’t get out of it.
We misname education. We call it free public education, but it is not free and it is not public. It is government education, and we taxpayers pay for it, but we don’t control it. Neither do the classroom teachers. The system indoctrinates children with the idea of secular-state worship. It’s impossible to teach children in a moral and philosophical vacuum. Your choice as a parent is either a private religious school or a government school that will teach the religion of the secular state.
Every now and then, some demagogue will talk about empowering the people, but before you can do that you must disempower the Establishment. One thing I’ve learned through the years: Things are the way they are because the people with the power to change them want them that way.
The only hope working Americans have is to regain control of their government, and to do that they must find a way to take money out of the election equation. Public financing with strict spending limits might be one solution.
———n———
Write to Charley Reese at P.O. Box 2446, Orlando, FL 32802.
One of the difficulties in understanding our world is the belief in separation that we pick up in school. We are taught that government and business are separate, that church and state are separate, and that education is an objective process that has nothing to do with politics or religion.
The world isn’t structured that way. There is no separation between government and business, though there should be. Because of the high cost of elections in America, government and big business, and the people who run those businesses, share the same bed. Business supplies the money, and the politicians supply the favors.
About the only real separation is that of the ordinary American, who has practically zilch influence on his government and, if he is a worker, on his employer. In fact, it’s fair to say that most American working men and women are wage slaves. They have no power to bargain for better working conditions. They are at the mercy of their employer and of other employers in town — the landlord, the bank, the medical industry, the lawyer industry. Many of them work hard all of their lives, and even so, their families have to borrow money to bury them.
There are very few positions of power in this country. One professor who studies that sort of thing estimates that there are no more than 5,000 to 7,000 such positions in both the civilian and military sectors. He defines a position of power as one in which the person can make decisions others have to obey. At your average newspaper, for example, there is one such position: the publisher. The editor must please him, and the reporters must please the editor. If the paper is part of a big corporate chain, then of course the publisher himself is an employee and must please the people above him. Ultimately, however, there is one guy at the top who doesn’t answer to anyone.
In most big American corporations, stockholders are powerless, and even boards of directors tend to be patsies for the CEO.
So, what you find is a relative handful of people who migrate between business, government, foundations and academia. These are the people who used to be called the Establishment, and their position is based on wealth or, in some cases, abject loyalty and service to the wealthy. Henry Kissinger is a good example. His patron was Nelson Rockefeller. These are the people who attend the secretive Bilderberger meetings and the economic conference at Davos, Switzerland.
There is no conspiracy. There is just a commonality of interests and backgrounds. They tend to go to the same prep schools and universities, join the same clubs, winter and summer in the same places, and, by and large, their children intermarry. They have their differences. Some are Democrats, and some are Republicans. The wealthy these days own both parties. The people who don’t have a party are the working men and women of America.
Most legislation and most policies benefit the wealthy. Usury is virtually legalized in this country. Banks are authorized to create money. Some government programs insure not the home buyer but the mortgage lender; not the student but the bank that lends him his student loan. We don’t have debtor’s prisons anymore, but we have debtor’s hell, and the new laws on bankruptcy are designed to make sure ordinary people can’t get out of it.
We misname education. We call it free public education, but it is not free and it is not public. It is government education, and we taxpayers pay for it, but we don’t control it. Neither do the classroom teachers. The system indoctrinates children with the idea of secular-state worship. It’s impossible to teach children in a moral and philosophical vacuum. Your choice as a parent is either a private religious school or a government school that will teach the religion of the secular state.
Every now and then, some demagogue will talk about empowering the people, but before you can do that you must disempower the Establishment. One thing I’ve learned through the years: Things are the way they are because the people with the power to change them want them that way.
The only hope working Americans have is to regain control of their government, and to do that they must find a way to take money out of the election equation. Public financing with strict spending limits might be one solution.
———n———
Write to Charley Reese at P.O. Box 2446, Orlando, FL 32802.
Tuesday, October 04, 2005
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