Left And Right Politics

Hurricane Irene came and went without as much damage as the main stream media and the government hyped it up to be. The storm which has been on the radar for well over a week while it made it’s way across the Atlantic ocean hit into the eastern seaboard of the United States over the weekend.

During the entire week we heard the news reports stated that this is going to hit Florida, then it said it was going to hit the Carolinas. It was estimated that it would be a CAT3 when it made land fall. Irene was over thousand miles from hit land, moving at 15 miles per hour, but the media along with the Obama Administration were issuing statement to batten down the hatches and prepare for the worse storm to hit the area in over fifty years. The estimates being reported in regards to the damages Irene will cause was over $8 billion and as high as $20 billion.

As of Sunday morning we can see that the damages from the storm was minimal, mostly due to flooding. Yes New York City did get hit with a lot of rain, but being a kid from Brooklyn, it wasn’t the first time nor the last.

It’s gotten to the point where people who listen to the newscast, watch the weather reports and pay attention to possible disasters are starting to think that the “power-that-be” have no idea what they are doing when it comes to notifying the public of important information. The truth of the matter is that they do know what they’re doing and it all surrounds ratings.

Even as the storm was downgraded to a CAT1 Friday night, the news channels didn’t push the point too much. Instead they sent reporters out to areas that the town or city are just a few feet above sea level and made it seem that this is what the entire city was dealing with.

Yes there were many areas in the tri-state area that flooded, but if you look at the landscape of the region, you’ll see that most of the area is only feet above the sea level. Have any decent storm move in on the city and the same thing will happen.

So why didn’t the government do the right thing and properly warn citizens about the truth instead of causing the entire east coast to shut down operations? Because after the mishap of this past winter when New York, New Jersey and Washington were buried under feet of snow, Mayor Bloomberg, Governor Christie and President Obama din’t want to show how incompetent they are when it comes to handling issues that need immediate action. So over the past week, the beaches were closed, subway systems shut down and government agencies had a few extra days off.

How are the American people going to take these warnings serious if every single issue is going to be handled like it’s the next Armageddon. News broadcast, newspapers, and the government (all levels) must be honest and precise with the information they release to the public if they expect the public to take them serious. If not, one day there will be a major warning and many people will just shake it off and go about their business. Then what are we to do when there are hundreds of people injured, trapped or even dead because the media and the government cried wolf once too many times.

Over the past hundred years, the federal government has been more involved with the free market and it’s hard to even know where the line is drawn between the two. The general philosophy behind the free market is the old rule of supply and demand. As long as there is a demand for a product or service, someone will find a way to supply either of the two.

The issue that has been going on is that the federal government has been getting involved to “help” a particular industry and/or company for so long that we no longer know what is an artificial or organic supply and demand product or service.

During W.W.II, the wool industry was busy supplying the material to make our military’s uniforms. To make sure the industry would always be there to keep our troops clothe, the federal government gave subsidies to them to the tune of millions of dollars. Years later as synthetic materials were being used for the military, Washington continued to pay the wool farmers.

The agricultural subsidies assist farmers and agribusinesses to supplement their revenue, manage the supply of the different commodities and to influence the cost and supply of such commodities (ie corn, wheat, rice, milk, sugar). So the government is dictating the price as well as the supply of these commodities. In this situation, the laws were passed during the Great Depression and have remain in place to this day. We have farmers being paid not to grow corn on their land. Many farmers receive some sort of government (tax payer) financial assitance.

A Canadian report claimed that for every dollar U.S. farmers earn, 62 cents comes from some form of government, with total aid in 2009 from all levels of government adding up to $180.8 billion.

These are just two incidents where government has manipulated the free market for decades. The free market hasn’t been free for just as long. As long as the federal government is involved, no industry or company will go bankrupt. The whole idea of competition is that the strongest one wins. Well in this case, whoever pays more money to the politician campaign funds, wins.

Let’s take a look at the recent bailout of General Motors. They received billions of dollars from Washington to keep them from filing bankruptcy. If GM was left to file bankruptcy, the union contracts would have been history at that point. The company would have restructured to survive or close their doors forever. Is that a bad thing. On the surface, yes. When you go ahead and let the free market work it out, it would become a good thing.

How? Simple, it’s obvious that GM wasn’t making the product(s) that the customers wanted. If they continued doing the same thing, they would have had to close their business forever. An entrepreneur, with the financial backing, would step in and buy the assets of GM to build his own vehicle. They would hire the former GM workers and a new car manufacturer would be born to make it or break it. He either builds want the customers want or he goes out of business too.

The unions are a powerful force with plenty of money to persuade politicians to help the their industry/company. The government makes it impossible for new car companies to start in the industry since there are so many regulations that only the “big” dogs can work within them.

The federal government has made it so hard for the free market to run like it should that it’s questionable to say that we can ever separate the two. The first step is having Congress cut programs that support industries that wouldn’t survive without it.

Almost three years after Barack Obama took office, unemployment is higher than it was then. Obama stated in Febuary 2009 that Congress needed to pass the stimulus to prevent the unemployment rate going above 8%. Well thirty months later, the rate is at 9.1% after coming down off the high of 10.2%. To make matters worse, the democratic black caucus has blatantly blamed the TEA Party for the cause of the situation.

Jesse Jackson, Maxine Waters and other members of the causus were in Miami Florida this week to rally the troops to put the blame of the economy and other issues on the TEA Party. Earlier this month Maxine Waters said publicly that the TEA Party should go straight to hell. Her comments on Tuesday included her saying, “We have to stand up and fight. It’s fight time…We’re not afraid of the tea party…In this struggle, we have to define who we are, what the president is doing and not let our voices be overshadowed by the tea party.”

Even the State Representative Frederica Wilson (Miami Gardens) has stated that the grassroot movement is “The tea party holds Congress hostage…They have one goal in mind, and that’s to make President Obama a one-term president.”

Ms. Wilson is correct on half of that statement. The part where the TEA Party is trying (along with many Americans) to make sure Obama doesn’t get re-elected.

Jesse Jackson took the stage of the 10 member panel to stoke the fire of the audience. He asked the members to stand if they had a family member in jail, credit card debt as well as a home in foreclosure, a majority of the audience stood up. When asked who voted for Obama, nearly the entire room stood at that point. Mr. Jackson continued to fire up the crowd by his comments of Dr. Martin Luther King. The tea party opposing Obama, Jackson said, should be called the “Fort Sumter Tea Party that sought to maintain states’ rights and slavery.” he continued, “The tea party is a new name on an old game,” he said. “Dr. King fought a ‘tea party’ in Alabama…He had no weapons, but he confronted the tea party.”

This is where I take offense. Dr King was for human rights no matter what the color of the person’s skin is. He fought against racism and inequality towards all people. Dr King didn’t fight against government destruction of the economy or even the government itself. So why would Jackson even use Dr. King is his speech? To insight emotions. The democrats (republicans too) have always used emotions to get the people engaged in taking action. Emotions are what also create the TEA Party too. People being tired of the government not caring about the American person. That is what the TEA party is about, not racism and slavery. The Democrats have been using those two words to describe the group since it first started. They also claim that the group is filled with “terrorists” and “right-wing extremists.

We will never move forward in becoming a single unit of people when influential people like Jackson, Waters and others keep separating us by race, color or sexual orientation. We have to come together as Americans, nothing more and nothing less, if we want to move forward.

Since Congress is on their undeserved 5 week vacation, there really hasn’t been big issues to talk or blog about. So I figured I’ll go ahead and talk about something that I was thinking about this weekend.

The double standard that goes on within Washington is ridiculous. No matter which political party is in control, the same games are played against the other. Here’s a quote from the then Congresswoman Hillary Clinton (D-NY)

“I am sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and you disagree with this administration somehow you’re not patriotic. We should stand up and say: We are Americans and we have a right to debate and disagree with any administration.”
— Hillary Clinton, April 28, 2003

That’s right, these words were spoken by our current Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton. She made these comments when the republicans had control of the House and the Senate. Hillary is absolutely correct. We, as Americans have the right, given to us by the Constitution, to have the choice to agree or disagree with our elected officials.

Now years later when the shoe is on the other foot, it’s wrong for Americans to disagree with the Obama Administration. It seems that when any group or another political party go against the current power, they’re considered wrong and will be referred to as “extremist’, “fanatic” or a “racist” Of course let’s not forget the favorite one of the Obama Administration and Democrats alike,… Wait for it…

“terrorists”.

Well let them call me whatever they want and I don’t care about it one bit. As long as this country has been in existence, it’s citizens have had the right to speak up against what our politicians are doing (or not doing) for this country. Since the 2008 election, the TEA Party and other constitutional minded groups have been speaking up and making a difference with the mindset of others who are typically unconcerned with the political BS that goes on. These groups have woken the sleeping giant, which is the patriotic American people. We will save this country from the Socialistic policies of the current administration and bring it back to the smaller, limited government that it was meant to be. It’s just going to take awhile for it to happen since the policies of both parties have been changing this Republic for over 50 years.