POVERTY-POOR PEOPLE-WORKING POOR-WELFARE

15 October 2008

POVERTY: Tool of Oppression, Fruit of Dispassion

I am joining today with bloggers throughout the United States and around the world to address the issue of Poverty. This coordinated day of blog-posting is sponsored by Blogger's Unite.

Poverty-the idea of it, the concept and understanding of it, is generally thought to be rather straightforward and obvious. But I believe that poverty is multi-dimensional and much more complicated. I am quite certain that many people will devote more than enough space exploring economic inequities, the evils of capitalism, and a plethora of perfectly valid causes and reasons for poverty. Some people will attempt to demonstrate the correctness of their argument mathematically with numbers and statistics. These are all acceptable.

I will pursue a different tack. I have concluded that discussions and arguments such as those just noted are exactly what the purveyors of poverty wish us to focus on. They are a diversion and address only the symptoms and evidence that the condition of poverty exists. That is, they only prove the reality of poverty.

Observation and experience have led me to conclude something different. Poverty is not a product of nature. Poverty is an exclusive product created by some human beings to subjugate and oppress other human beings. Poverty is a human-made artificial construct, a tool or machine that enables a wealthy elite minority faction to exert control and maintain their position of power over average and common citizens.Poverty is manufactured from cupidity, rapine, and creed.

Cupidity is the unrestrained greed, especially for wealth or money. Rapine is unrestrained plundering of rights and property. Creed, that is to say religious orthodoxy, whether it is Christianity, Islam, Judaism or any religion is the fundamental means of subjugation. All religious orthodoxy is predicated on submission. Submission to a higher power. Religious orthodoxy provides the shackles and chains used by the elite ruling class that creates and institutes systems of government.

Religious dogma, doctrine and creed always serves in conjunction with the wealthiest and most powerful interests, regardless of the culture or society, to protect and perpetuate the Status Quo. Religious dogma, doctrine and creed are the lowest common denominator among people and are the most effective shortest route to controlling the greatest number. Both government and religion need and use poverty. In other words, poverty is a beneficial and necessary tool employed by government and religious authority. Poverty enhances the power of government.

Poverty breeds hopelessness, despair, and cruelty. Poverty is demoralizing, emotionally debilitating, and physically abusive. Poverty fosters fear, anger and division. Poverty denies liberty and demands subservience. Poverty is the betrayal of humanity. Poverty is the animalistic and savage expression of the powerful over the weak, the large over the small. Poverty is the opposite of equality.

There are many actions we can all take to combat poverty. There are various organizations we can support and contribute to that work tirelessly to alleviate poverty. There are lots of things we should do regarding the real and corrosive condition of poverty. In the end, however, I believe that absolutely equal status, privileges, and rights for EVERY citizen will prove to be the most natural and effective means to eliminate the circumstances that give rise to and perpetuate poverty.

Therefore, to bring an end to the substantive experience, the ongoing and excruciating human suffering of poverty we, the people, must rise up, exercise the full amount of our power, and demand that all government protect people before profit and property, before position and power. We must cause a shift of power that removes bad and corrupt government. And without compromise we, the governed, the source of all power, must exorcise and prohibit the entanglement of religion and government to institute new systems of government that treat all citizens, all people everywhere, with absolutely equal status, privileges, and rights. This is a government of Humanistic Equalism.

Next time I will examine Race and the issue of difference and how Humanistic Equalism: Philosophy for Ethical Government offers a viable and practicable solution. Until then, Give Peace a chance.

James B. Tinsley, B.A.

NATIONALIZE-COMMERCIAL PAPER-FROZEN CREDIT-NEGATIVE ADS

10 October 2008

"Only a crisis--real or perceived--produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That, I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes politically inevitable."
(Words of the late economist Milton Friedman taken from The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, by Naomi Klein.)

Milton Friedman also said that "economic policies have consequences." I submit that history will eventually prove Milton Friedman and his so-called "free-market" or "fundamentalist" capitalism was the worlds most prolific and deadly terrorist in the latter half of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century. Friedman and his economic terrorist group, trained at the University of Chicago, have three trademark demands that have caused more suffering, conflict and death than any known terrorist in modern history.

These demands are: privatization, government deregulation, and deep cuts to social spending. Sounds familiar doesn't it? It should, our current economic impotence and devastation is the result of almost forty years of applied Friedman economics. These ideas are also intimately and directly connected to our nation's foreign policy. Contrary to myth and popular belief the United States economic structure and policy have never been genuinely "free."

From the the time of our Constitutional Convention, since the United States Constitution was ratified and the first Congress called to order; throughout the course of our nation's history the economic policy and all that flows from it have been designed and implemented to benefit the wealthy elite minority faction. Everything about our country and government with regard to the accumulation of wealth and power has, and is, done to favor those that have the most. This fact is indisputable.

We, the people, have only one choice to make. We must stand up, stand together, and carry out a second Revolution in the name of citizens and absolute equality. It is the obligation and responsibility of our citizenship. It is not only our right but it is our duty to rise up and remove our bad government, to cause a shift of power. With our Constitution in tact, using the means it provides, citizens must institute a new government based on the system and process of Humanistic Equalism: Philosophy for Ethical Government.

The system and process arising from Humanistic Equalism: Philosophy for Ethical Government promotes and protects the value and dignity of citizens. Wealth, profit, position, and power are not the primary and overriding objective. Humanistic Equalism economic policy requires that all capitalist enterprise succeed or fail on its own merit and ability. Humanistic Equalism makes government a tool and a means for citizens benefit and, while vigorously encouraging entrepreneurship and the creation of wealth, Humanistic Equalism: Philosophy for Ethical Government does not act or function as the machinery of perverted American capitalism’s exploitation and greed.

The tax code will no longer be up for sale to the highest bidder. All business, public or private, charitable or philanthropic, religious or political; all business that owes taxes will pay taxes. Like all citizens, they will pay taxes for the privileges, and rights guaranteed by our Constitution; they will pay taxes for the opportunity and freedom to make as much money as can be made. Nothing in life is free including American citizenship and wealth.

With government based on Humanistic Equalism our civil and criminal code will no longer be for sale. Justice will no longer be a high priced commodity available only to the wealthy, powerful, and well connected. The executive branch of government will be taken off the auction block; while professional lobbyists, unscrupulous tax lawyers, and accountants, along with so-called health care insurance providers will all have to seek a new line of work. Because the system and process of Humanistic Equalism will eliminate any need for such vermin.

Because Humanistic Equalism forbids the interference of government into the affairs of free market enterprise, multi-national corporations and big business financiers that wish to protect operations located in other countries, or secure natural resources and open new markets will have to spend their own money, energy, and blood. America's military and foreign policy will no longer be for lease. The use of police, National Guard, or the United States military to oppress the needs and demands of labor or to overthrow uncooperative foreign governments to enhance corporate power and profit will no longer be an option.

Every citizen private and corporate will have absolutely equal status, privileges, and rights in regard and relation to our federal government. Yes, I know that most people read these things and immediately think, "This guy is either smoking something or living in fantasy land." The truth is, because that is exactly what most people will say is evidence and undeniable proof that we have been completely subjugated to defend and protect the status quo and elite minority faction; the wealthy pseudo-aristocracy that rules our country and controls every aspect of our lives. The ideas of Humanistic Equalism: Philosophy for Ethical Government are just as fantastic and impossible as the idea of independence was to the subjugated colonists that carried out our first Revolution. With one major exception, Christianity and religion are truly divorced from government and relegated to the free market of ideas and personal choice.

Humanistic Equalism is a system and process of humanity not money or "manifest destiny." As such, it postulates that if people are the primary focus and concern of bureaucracy, if our citizens, as well as governments of other nations, are treated with equality, respect, dignity, and honesty then there will be no reason for economic warfare or violence of any kind. The economic policies and machinery of Humanistic Equalism government will have a profound life-altering effect on all citizens. Especially average common working people and the traditionally poor.

The status quo approach to economics, while wildly effective and beneficial for an elite minority faction, is cruel, inhumane, and degrading to the overwhelming majority of common citizens. It generates huge profit and wealth for the few at the expense of the many. I believe it should be evident that America and its citizens will be tremendously and positively affected by government and economic policy emanating from the philosophy and principles of Humanistic Equalism: Philosophy for Ethical Government.

This concludes my initial in-depth examination regarding our traditional understanding and view of economics and how it will change with the implementation of a new government of Humanistic Equalism. Next, on 15 October 2008, I will join tens-of-thousands of bloggers from around the world to discuss the ever-widening and thoroughly demoralizing issue of poverty. I sincerely hope that you will think about the concepts and possibilities expressed here and contained within Humanistic Equalism: Philosophy for Ethical Government. Until next time, Give Peace a chance.
James B. Tinsley, B.A.

BIDEN-PALIN DEBATE-ECONOMIC RESCUE-PAUL NEWMAN-UNEMPLOYMENT

3 October 2008

Although the United States is celebrated as and thought to be the bastion of so-called "free market" capitalism, it should be glaringly obvious to anyone that does not live in a cave that it is not. Our current fear-driven financial and economic crises is just the most recent example of how our federal government is, and has been created and run to benefit the wealthy elite minority faction.

From its inception, the federal government of the United States of America has protected property and rights of the rich first, and common citizens sometime later, if at all. In his penultimate work, The Wealth of Nations, the godfather of American economic practices, Adam Smith, writes candidly on the class character of governments:

"Laws and government may be considered in this and indeed in every case as a combination of the rich to oppress the poor, and preserve to themselves the inequality of the goods which would otherwise be soon destroyed by the attacks of the poor, who if not hindered by the government would soon reduce the others to an equality with themselves by open violence."


At about the same time (the late 18th century), French philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau wrote about how government and laws came to exist. In his book, Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, Rousseau surmised that:

"Society and laws which gave new fetters to the weak and new forces to the rich, irretrievably destroyed natural liberty, established forever the law of property and of inequality, changed adroit usurpation into irrevocable right, and for the profit of a few ambitious men henceforth subjected the entire human race to labor, servitude, and misery."


In these two quotations it is easy to recognize the philosophy and foundation of our present economic status quo. These two statements epitomize exactly what our government through its policies, and many of our citizens by unconditionally supporting the status quo, are eager to spend trillions of dollars and countless numbers of lives to defend. I am fond of saying, "Stupidity strikes someone in America every two minutes!"

In order to redefine and reform America’s economic paradigm and our perverted application of capitalism it is necessary to close, ignore, and abandon the failed status quo exemplar. Our only best hope is in the system and process of Humanistic Equalism: Philosophy for Ethical Government of common sense, by common people, for common good instituted through a second American’s Revolution and a successful shift of power. How can this be accomplished?


First and most importantly by using our Constitution not violence to throw out bad government. Citizens must revolt and exercise their full power to establish and control a new one. Living people are inherently more valuable than property, profit, power, and position. Humanistic Equalism is the only means by which this kind of administrative system and process is currently possible.

Unlike anything in the past, or that is known today, Humanistic Equalism: Philosophy for Ethical
Government arises from an assumption that human beings are the source from which all life derives its value. In other words, without human beings nothing on this planet or in the entire universe would have any value whatsoever. It is only through human cognizance and intellectual development that nature acquires its meaning, purpose, and value. All that the human species is, and all that it is not, is the effect and consequence of human reasoning, human labor and human intellectual progress – or lack of it. No God no religion no creed or dogma has ever advanced civilization or the human condition.

If one starts with the presumption that human life, that is, citizens, are paramount and proceeds from there to organize government with all its attending institutions, powers, and authority it will lead to an entirely different set of economic objectives. As it stands now, government economic policy is crafted and carried out to protect the status quo minority faction and complete control by the ruling elite minority faction. The economic game has been, and is rigged from the get-go against average citizens. Profit and property rights take precedent over human and civil rights.


Capitalists and corporatists are completely dependent upon our United States government to remain viable and profitable. If business and corporate interests could not buy our tax code, use federal power and authority to enforce rules and regulations to their advantage a great portion would fail. This is the inequality of the status quo. It is free market feudalism, economic terrorism and indentured servitude sanctioned and perpetrated by our pseudo-aristocratic semi-elected representatives. There is, at this time, only one way to fix this oppressive regime and practice.

Next time I will conclude this initial look at economics and how our economic paradigm will change with implementation of Humanistic Equalism: Philosophy for Ethical Government. As congress prepares to subject average citizens, the poor, and those citizens living in poverty to even greater hardship I sincerely hope that readers will give some serious thought to the facts and issues, as well as the possibilities I have raised. On 15 October 2008 Bloggers Unite is sponsoring another "blog-in" for bloggers around the world to address the issue of POVERTY. An event that I will be participating in. Until we meet again Give Peace a chance.
James B. Tinsley, B.A.