Holy Tomatoes! Detroit News' Nolan Finley Plays Catchup

In response to Nolan Finley and those on the right attempting to spin the story that it's supposedly President Obama and Dems not the GOP that has been using 'social issues' to gin up votes.

Sez Brother Finley in "Obama milks social issues" (Obama gave Romney an implied snuggy) on May 11, 2012:

"Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney again took the bait, allowing himself to be drawn into this discussion. So again the campaigns are debating divisive social issues instead of fiscal policy. That plays to Obama's strategy of painting Romney as an extremist and avoiding having to answer for the economy."

Catch up to reality, Nolan. This is exactly what Republican Svengalis have been so artfully doing for decades; beginning under the nefarious tutelage of Newt "the genius" Gingrich or so he was labeled by friendlies until Newt crossed that thin red line and was tossed.

Rich Men Ride while the Rest of Us Run: Corporatocracy
and Income Inequality is THE current 'social issue'.

No one, no party, no group, no clique, no organized political faction does a better job milking the essence of divisive issue politics than the Republican Party; so weakened that the GOP can be taken over by the wealthy elites like the the Koch Brothers, the Club for Growth, various Christian Dominionists, religious and racial bigots, and radical militia elements (gun nuts) until the once sensible and civic-minded Grand Old Party is no more. Poof! Think Ike.

Let Ted Nugent go on wallowing in hate and incitement to mayhem; as evil as he is, he 's only a "scare'jim'crow" archetype of a certain redneck gnarl of lawless tyranny that smirks across the nation. Nugent's part of a cohort of wild and reckless men, dark alley troublemakers, civic hoodlums. And don't they love the trouble they incite... the attention they get!

For decades Newt Gingrich's distraction & negativatization of language made useful for undermining civil discourse has prevailed in the dark hearts of the "Hard Right," as former President Gerald R. Ford labeled them during the Pat & Bay Buchanan dominated 1992 GOP National Convention. It was at Houston where Pat Buchanan declared religious and cultural war on the nation. As a direct result George H. W. Bush, the standing president, high right off the First Gulf War 100 hour victory, when down to stunning defeat to William Jefferson Clinton.

From "Ford tells Gingrich He'd Better Tone It Down" by AP reporter Lawrence L. Knutson:

Ford believed Gingrich should leave "partisan attacks" to others. "One thing that speakers have to understand is that the speaker is speaker for the House. You have to keep that high-level attitude and let the partisan attacks come from your majority leader.... The Speaker (Gingrich) is better advised to stand back." Ford went on to say that looking at the wider future, he believes that if the "extreme-right" partisans within the GOP control the party's policies and dictate who is the candidate... "the party will lose at the polls."

Note: This account also appeared in the Grand Rapids Press, June 2, 1998 and is still spot-on for the 2012 election cycle.

Social Issues Aside: Our National Troubles & the Great Bush Recession Have Created Vast New Opportunities for Unscrupulous Business Opportunists & Scammers

The aggressive CORPORATOCRACY (see the expanded definition from Wiki below) had better get out their act together and begin to restore the rule of law in financial and banking affairs. So far they haven't. The plague created by Citizens United will make this a very reprehensible election season; bar none.

Corporatists were quick to sense an opening, an "opportunity" and they seized it. They have profited immensely from the great disturbance in the economy brought on by the buffoonery of George W. Bush, the Lesser. (The man no Republican can bring themselves to mention in favorable light.) The Bush TARP and the bailouts have put stunning amounts of cash in the coffers of bankseters and Wall Street schemers and shysters'; amounts so large and so excessive as to be incomprehensible in light of in historic perspective. Are we angry? You bet we are!

War profiteering has egregiously enlarged the holdings/coffers of Dick Cheney and Neo-Con Cronies.

Things are still in need of repair and restitution.

Corporatocracy for Idiots

"A corporatocracy is a situation in which corporate bodies interact with sovereign power in an unhealthy alignment between business and political power. In a corporatocracy an elite upper-class, maintains ties between business and government, sometimes by lobbying efforts or funding political advertising campaigns, or providing bailouts when corporations are seen as too big to fail, for the purpose of controlling government and dictating policy to serve its financial interests.

"A corporatocracy is viewed as anti-democratic or opposed to democracy or used to describe situations in which democracy has been manipulated negatively, sometimes resulting in a passive citizenry and subservient media.

"A corporatocracy represents what some see as economic exploitation, and the concept has been used to explain bank bailouts, excessive pay for CEOs, as well as generalized complaints such as the plundering of national treasuries, people, and natural resources. The concept has also been used by critics of globalization, sometimes in conjunction with criticism of the World Bank or unfair lending practices, as well as criticism of free trade agreements which, according to these claims, move high-paying jobs overseas.

"The term corporatocracy is a negative term, likened pejoratively to cancer, fascism, and Orwellianism, perhaps because, according to this view, business-government ties are seen as secretive, lacking transparency and accountability. The elite engaging in corporatocracy is sometimes termed the 1 percent."

Source: Corporatocracy on Wiki (Be sure to click on all the footnotes to this piece. Go from ignorant to informed.)

So Nolan, fearless thought leader, it's time you play catch-up. Pocket your rotten tomatoes, stop our carping, and do something substantive, pro-active about saving Michigan and America. You can begin by restraining yourself from "milking social issues" and move toward a sound economy and a restructuring of taxes so as to save Michissippi's middle class. Put aside your poison pen, and take up your Habitat for Humanity hammer, rise early, move out to save the day for a family in need. It would be a start.

Dump the tomatoes. Catch-up Finley, catch-up!

On the Reader:
List of Responses to Nolan Finley on the Gazette (Topic DATE):

• High up in Jim Crow’s Nest: Constant Cawing Incites Civic Upheaval by the Detroit News - Michigan View (General Idiocy and use of Racial Undertones February 2012)
• Nolan Finley: Maniacal Warmonger? (General Idiocy and Violence September 2011)
• Dead End/Bad Trade Off: Profitazation or Abandonment of Detroit’s Public School Children (Education June 2011)
• No National Honor Given Finley: Taking Down Detroit’s Public Schools is a Civic Crime (Education May 2011)
• Snyder, the Socialist, Takes on Local Democracy Calling it a "Status Quo" That Needs to Be Radically Re-invented.(Ideology April 2004)
• Honest Abel “AWOL” in Michigan just as in Wisconsin (Ideology March 2011)
• A one nostril false grunt from Nolan: It’s not my pigs that stink (Ideology June 2011)
• The Detroit News is "Tapped Out" (Taxes and Ideology February 2011)
• Nolan Finley Rocks Local Detroit High School With His Decision to Teach English to Sophomores (Education December 2009)
• Raw Revenge Raises Its Ugly Head (Education December 2009)
• An Additional Dollar a Day... (State Budget and Ideology November 2009)
• The only place a teacher gets a fair shake in the Detroit News is on its obituary page (Education June 2009) 
• Finley's Right Wing anti-teacher Crusade: A man with a forked tongue and a flaying pen (Education October 2009)

Related Slates:
More on Corporatocracy and the Republican Party on the Gazette.


Original.

The Blind-eyed Marriage of the Conservative Churches to the Excessive & Corrupt Business Practices

How supremely odd it is that conservative Christians--who have hammered and continue to hector the country on certain moral issues (which they find absolute)--have been so silent, so tongue-tied, on the massive corruption and greed that inhabits the world of business all around them.

Turning the Tables on Wall Street: America’s Temple or Torment? 
“Jesus Purifies the Temple” (John 2: 2:13-25) in an engraving
by the German Nazarene artist Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld (1860)

The failure of social conservative moral leadership to call into account the business practices and aggressive failures of the marketplace - to be fair and honest - is a significant contributor to the escalation of the imbalance of wealth (the 1% & the 99% ers) and the pervasive societal moral decay that comes with trying to keep up with the corporate Jones'.

The blind-eyed marriage of the church to the excessive and corrupt business practices of some corporations and the outright fraud found in so many of the slick practices of the marketplace and especially Wall Street have sold the birthright of many Evangelical Christians into a world of excessive debt, unbearable family financial pressures, and everyday stress producing anxiety created by (and compounded by) job insecurity. It is a world where loyalty and length of service are considered expendable by businesses in the search of greater profits and better bottomlines. Add in a high level of unemployment among these self-same Evangelicals and the staggering debt of their children, young Evangelicals, who have taken on student loans in quest of a step-up career.

All forms of benefits and delayed compensation are now being sucked back into their sources by a new kind of greed-Corporate Givers cum Corporate Takers.

When the church loses its prophetic role in calling the CEO/men of power to task, to account for their disrespect for the underprivileged and the planned, immoral conduct of business, the rampant dishonest practices, it loses the power to speak the truth. 

“Lazarus and Rich Man” (Luke 16:19-31) from a 10th Century fresco in
the Monastery of Saint Ivan of Rila in Bulgaria (Reconstructed 1937-1946)

The Biblical story of the rich man and the beggar - the pauper who once was confined to scrounging the crumbs that fell from the rich man's table was eventually released from this mortal realm into paradise. His story illustrates this point.

The beggar, now in Paradise, could name his price for a drop of water to assuage the hellish torment of the eternally damned CEO named in the story. That wealthy man - upon dying - found himself suffering eternal torment in hell for his evil marketplace behavior. Now a torment-bound, abject beggar himself, he pleads for meager humanitarian aid from a higher place. He now pleads "give me just a drop of water!"

Wealth and the where-with-all to have one's way in the greater community do not substitute for character and compassion. Social conservatives would do well to remember this.

Conservative Evangelical Christians Must Divorce Themselves From Corporate Greed & Evil 

Conservative Christians must return to voting in their own best economic interests, and not get caught up in clever manipulation. Evangelicals must act in light of their own history of championing social reform: speak out, and vote in light of the full weight of moral conviction and principles encompassing more than a narrow list of hot button social issues managed by the conniving Svengali mavens on the extremes who inflict on Evangelicals untold pain and suffering via the mega-wealthy, TeaPartisan and Corporatist politics destroying family values and the family itself.

On the Reader:
More on Christian Values and Greed on the Gazette.

Original.

Michigan View's Gary Wolfram Resurrects 18th Cent. Racial Bigotry in His Vision of Economic “Freedom” (ala Adam Smith)

Response to Gary Wolfram in "The wealth of our nation" in the DetNews/Mackinac Center driven Michigan View on Feb 2, 2012.

"(I)t may be true, perhaps, that the accommodation of an (sic) European prince does not always so much exceed that of an industrious and frugal peasant, as the accommodation of the latter exceeds that of many an African king."

-- Adam Smith Quote from Chapter I from the "Of the Division of Labor", Vol I of "INQUIRY into the NATURAL CAUSES of the WEALTH OF NATIONS" (1776)

According to Gary Wolfram:

"Smith recognized that people coming together to trade among themselves would result in an increase in living standards for all..."

(break)

"Smith's other published book, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, is less well known - but it was well read in his time and went through six editions. A powerful work, it lays out his observations of human behavior and an understanding of how and why certain customs lead to greater social harmony. For example, a society in which we can interact with one another peaceably to our own benefit requires a sense of propriety. Smith teaches that traditions are important - and (form) a foundation of conservative thought from Edmund Burke to Russell Kirk.

But 'Wealth of Nations' is his most famous work."

Wolfram:

"'Wealth of Nations' is one of those great books that everyone has heard of but few have read. It was a delight to spend time at Hillsdale with people who had not only read Smith - but had studied him. American(s) would benefit if every Legislator read Smith." (emphasis added)

Wolfram:

"The book was an analysis of why parts of the world were mired in abject poverty while Britain enjoyed 'opulence.' Yet it may be true, perhaps, that the accommodation of an European prince does not always so much exceed that of an industrious and frugal peasant, as the accommodation of the latter exceeds that of many an African king,' notes Smith."

Prof. Gary uses this quote to make his point and doing so telegraphs a backhanded racist statement: Wolfram projects Adam Smith's reference to British "opulence"(which we all are viewing as Downington Abby in the fading, last days of global British Empire) and the ordinary worker in British society in Adam Smith's times.

Make mention then, as Prof. Gary does, concerning the accumulation of many an "African king." So doing Wolfram sites Smith as he brags a "frugal peasant" in Imperial Britain-with its military homogeny over vast sections of the globe-at that time) has a sizable "accommodation." In Smith's estimation, that pot of material things owned by the 18th century working Brit exceeds the wealth of "many an African King", who using the current words of Prof. Gary, lived in parts of the world "mired in poverty."

Wolfram's assertion: That "African King" (who is in Smith's representation the "absolute master of the lives and liberties of ten thousand naked savages") was not as well-off as a British common laborer in Smith's time. 

This sociologically unbalanced comparison was set in a past century when such racially slanted speech was commonly accepted. However braggadocio or prejudiced, the writers in contemporary times of Adam Smith thought nothing of using an "African King" as model-a bold comparison/contrast to the degree of accumulation held by a man of "labour" in Britain-compare and contrasted with an "African King" at the time of Smith's 18th century....
-----


In the PICTURE above, just behind Gary Wolfram (holding book) is Lawrence W. (Larry) Reed, President of the Foundation for Economic Freedom, former Pres (and still Pres. Emeritus) of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy and Harry C. Veryser, Jr. professor at Walsh College (past at Hillsdale & Northwood), former Judicial Commissioner (Engler), Board Member at the Acton Institute and the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.  From an event on October 13, 2009 at the Hauenstein Center for Presidential Studies in a a panel of economics to debate the issue of government intervention during economic recessions.

-----

The point Prof. Gary attempts to make in his blog, "The Wealth of Our Nation" is a grand argument for his quaint economic theories. The airy prof utilizes Smith's dated, bigoted example to prove his point- mindless of the racist implications implicit in this select quote. The lines he chose to use. This bigotry only aggravates the imbalance and ignorance of Prof. Gary's proofs offered the reader in his essay's conclusion below.

Wolfram's bromide based on bias and bigotry:

"(T)he gap between the richest and poorest in the United States and other market capitalist states is NOT AS LARGE CLASS WARRIORS WOULD HAVE US BELIEVE." (emphasis added)

Wolfram:

"I tell my students that the difference between their life style and that of Bill Gates is not that great. Like Gates, they live in a house with indoor plumbing and air conditioning (80 percent of all poor households in the US have air conditioning) though his may be bigger. Like Gates, they have a car (three-quarters of all Americas' poor have their own car) though his may be nicer. Like Gates, they can fly to California though he may have a private jet. Like Gates, they probably eat what he eats, and so on. Basically, they live a similar life.

"NOW COMPARE THEIR LIFE TO SOMEONE LIVING IN A REFUGEE CAMP IN SOMALIA."

"That is a stark contrast. In this time of Occupy Wall Street rage Smith's observation is worth repeating. Adam Smith told us that we need in order to achieve the wealth for all, including the "INDUSTRIOUS PEASANT."

"Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice: All the rest being brought about by THE NATURAL COURSE OF THINGS."

"Our federal government has grown far beyond this to the point where it regulates our daily life from how much water our toilet may flush to what kind of car we may drive. The massive health care and financial regulation bills of the Obama administration do not fit Adam Smith's prescription for an opulent society. Perhaps in 2012 we will return to the philosophy that brought us the wealth of our nation." (emphasis added)

Wolfram's Thrust: Why are American Blacks mired in poverty? Just read Wealth of Nations. In fact, he says "American(s) would benefit id every Legislator read Smith".


How instructive to compare Detroit's African-American community's economic status with the status of "Someone living in a refugee camp in Somalia." NO VALID COMPARISON!


Comparison relative to the ACTUAL IMPACT OF POVERTY and UNEMPLOYMENT in urban Detroit must be CONTRASTED with status of 1% LUXURIATING in the wealthy Oakland Co.suburbs; that's the REAL CONTRAST. 

Dissect that Prof Gary!


READER: The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith (1776)
More responses and posts on Gary Wolfram on the Gazette.

Original.

Nerdonomics on Stifle: Rick Snyder's Michigan Dashboard Disaster

No new jobs, no new jobs action, more taxes for many, fewer discretionary dollars to spend in the Michissippian Economy.

Across the state a stark realization is dawning in these early days of 2012.

The Raw Truth:

"Many companies will see significantly lower tax bills or pay no business taxes at all in 2012, thanks to a switch from the Michigan Business Tax to a new 6 percent corporate income tax that kicks in Sunday and falls mostly on large corporations with shareholders. Businesses can expect to pay $1.1 billion less in taxes this year and $1.7 billion less in 2013, according to estimates. Two-thirds of companies will pay no state income tax at all."

Source: Kathy Barks Hoffman, Associated Press in "New state tax rules good for business: Some residents, though, will end up paying more this year".

So a raft of second tier businesses in Michigan will escape paying any business taxes (THAT'S ZERO BUSINESS TAX) in a continuing crucial season of low revenues and serious budget shortfalls for all Michigan units of government.

On the other hand the LARGE CORPORATIONS WILL PAY MORE. In other words the manufacturing sector, so vitally important to Michigan's future and long-term well-being will be paying more. What sense does that make? Ask the Nerd. Snyder's Relentless Corporatist Action has fissures and fault lines. This state is in for a crude and rude economic ride, inflicted by Snyder's muddle-minded self-delusion.


The Nerd's A Victim of His Own Unreality
Snyder's policies are NOT positive; they are stubbornly False-Positive Snyder style. Can we afford a neophyte governor who is in deep denial and suffers from self-delusion? Snyder's abysmal approval rating tell it all!

We think Not.

Michigan according to A.P.'s Hoffman:

"Residents born between Jan. 1, 1946, and Dec. 31, 1952, will have all retirement income liable to tax whether it's from a public or private pension, 401(k) or IRA. Exemptions can be claimed for up to $20,000 for a single filer and up to $40,000 for joint filers. Above those levels, retirement income will be taxed at the state income tax rate of 4.35 percent. When these residents turn 67, the $20,000/$40,000 exemption applies to all income, not just retirement income. The exemption is eliminated if a taxpayer claims a deduction for a military or railroad pension. This will affect about 230,000 returns."

"[Michigan] Residents born after 1952 will see all retirement income taxed as regular income until they turn 67, at which point they'll qualify for a senior income exemption of $20,000 for single filers and $40,000 for joint filers on all income. A taxpayer can forego the $20,000/$40,000 exemption and instead deduct 100 percent of Social Security income. A taxpayer claiming the $20,000/$40,000 exemption can't claim the deduction for Social Security or the standard personal exemption. This will affect about 150,000 returns."

En total this means 380,000 returns will be under the gun of Snyder's re-invention: The Nerd has hatched a scheme: UPWARD INCOME RE-DISTRIBUTION.

CATCH THIS: IT'S A Snyder Invention: RADICAL UPWARD RE-DISTRIBUTION OF INCOME-BILLIONS GIFTED TO SNYDER'S BUSINESS CRONIES.

What could be more insulting, unfair, or cripplingly regressive in Michigan's hour of need?

Those who follow these prognostications criticizing Nerdonomics will credit this blogger with accuracy on the issue of Snyder's corporate and Chamber of Commerce pandering. The results in a profound hit on Michigan's retail commerce and customer demand; at least $1.1 BILLION LOST, BILLIONS OF LOST PURCHSES IN 2012 AND $1.7 BILLION LESS CUSTOMER SPENDING ONGOING INTO 2013.

The more frequent confused and sad look on the Nerd's public face elicits neither sympathy or support. More loss of family spending power, more costs for such things as college tuition and services are bone grinding. And at the same time; the chocolate on the DeCon: Amid this historic one state depression Snyder and the heartless and stoneheaded rampage by the TeaPublican Know Nothings, comes down to this sad blow. Michigan deductions for community foundations, food banks and university services...Summarily eliminated. Insult added to injury!

Snyder's Re-Invention: Relentless Aggressive Political Stupidity: It's Michissippi Rising RAPS !


Original.

Michissippi (Michigan) 2011 in Review: Political & Commercial Oppression Inverts Local Control

Michissippian TeaPublican Super Majorities have struck a death blow to the heart of Local Control/the sovereignty of Local Option-freedom whereby local political jurisdictions, typically counties or municipalities, can decide by popular vote...and govern concerning issues within their borders. C. G Bateman, in Nicaea and Sovereignty:

"For centuries past, the idea that a state could be sovereign was always connected to its ability to guarantee the best interests of its own citizens." .

Thus, if a state could not act in the best interests of its own citizens, it could not be thought of as a "sovereign" state." Michigan is no longer a sovereign state (by this standard: "the best interests of its own citizens"). State government that acts in the best interests of its citizens honors and respects local control at the community level.

Michissippi has backslid downward into a state run by, for, and in control of the demands of big business (Business Leaders for Michigan & The Michigan Chamber of Commerce), rich One Percenter elites, and heartless inexperienced and under-qualified political hacks.

Heed the warning of Ayn Rand in this regard:

"We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force."
-- Ayn Rand

TeaPublicans have established Lansing Central Planning and Dictatorial Control in this terrible year of reckless and extravagant partisan/corporate legislative advantage. The rights of Michissippi's minority have been trampled into oblivion- popular sovereignty has been legislated away.

In our republic government is under the control of the people, or some significant portion of them, the citizens retain sovereignty over the government not vice versa.

Michissippi has in one tragic year reached what Ayn Rand would call a state of "inversion." All is not well as we enter the new year and more radical right mischief and corporate merrymaking at working people's expense.

Original.

Silent Night: From the Forbes 400 Counting House to Yours: Michigan’s One Percenters

Michigan's One Percent: The Mega-Wealthy or Ultra High Net-Worth Michiganders

The Michigan 1% Given Listed by Forbes: Rank, Name, Age, Michigan Residence, Company/Industry

1. #60,   Richard (Rich) DeVos Sr., $5 B, Age 85, Holland, Amway
2. #60,   Frederik Meijer (deceased at 91), $5 B, Grand Rapids, Supermarkets
3. #159, Alfred Taubman, $2.5 B, Age 87, Bloomfield Hills, Real Estate
4. #171, Ronda Stryker, $2.3 B, Age 57, Portage, Medical Technology
5. #212, Michael & Marian Ilitch, $2 B, Bingham Farms, Pizza
6. # 293, Daniel Gilbert, $1.5 B, Age 49, Franklin, Quicken Loans
7. # 293, Manuel Moroun, $1.5 B, Age 84, Grosse Pt Shores, Transportation
8. # 375, William Ford, $1.1 B, Grosse Pt Shores, Ford Motor Co.
9. # 375, Jon Stryker, $1.1 B, Age 53, Kalamazoo, Medical Technology

Sort them out. Ideological and Political Billionaire Bullies or Grand Noblesse Oblige Benefactors/Genuine Contributors to the Greater Good??


Original.

Prof. Gary Wolfram of the Michigan View Let’s His Little Light Shine On Greed

Response to Gary Wolfram in "The Gift of Liberty"  re-posted in the Michigan View on Christmas Day, first appeared on December 23, 2011.

Thank You, Thank You, Professor Gary - Just Don't tell Scrooge or Father Bob Sirico about the truism you just penned - this statement which you planted in your Greed-minded Christmas essay. And you think you have a right to expand insight on the Christian Christmas Message!

Wolfram writes:

"Christmas is a time to be grateful and to make every effort to help the family of mankind. This means private charity, giving of our own time, treasure, and talent to others. It does not mean asking our government to engage in what Frederic Bastiat called 'legalized plunder'...."

That is so revealing and true. "LEGALIZED PLUNDER" via bill writing and legislation in Lansing. Taking from some people to give to others - perfectly describes this TERRIBLE YEAR plundered by the Teapartisan "LEGISLATION OF THIEVES".

Whew, Prof. You surly hit the THE NAIL ON THE HEAD: 'LEGALIZED PLUNDER" that's a most accurate and also tradgic, so fitting, a descriptor; identifying the DESTRUCTIVE WORK of the  Class of 2011 Lansing Teapublicans - SO WILLFULLY BLIND, SO SELF-DELUDED, SO AGGRESSIVELY DESTRUCTIVE!

Prof. Gary must have hurriedly put on his hair shirt, inside out and backwards.

What a revelation: "LEGALIZED PLUNDER." What an apt term for the rapid disintegration of civic core values and precedents gutting established state laws and citizen privileges during this "blitz" of TeaPublican aggression. It is our common purpose and unity as citizens that has bound our great state into a unified society for all its history! It was that spirit, that willingness to be craftsmen and labors, working mothers, and sacrificial businesses that salvaged America from the Nazis.

Wofram:

"It's a time to recognize our good fortune in living in a system based on market capitalism and limited government. As Ludwig von Mises pointed out nine decades ago: this is the only system that can produce WEALTH FOR ALL."

How clever an academic device! Just put Ludwig in the manger at Bethlehem,encourage the idea that von Mises is to become the object of our Christmas adoration!

Freedom to Deny Freedom
When Rad Right advocates, Prof. Gary among them, cry for more "freedom." Think of what such "freedom" may actually involve: They want freedom to use government for their own ends unhindered and they want government out of their ideological projects.

Keep firmly in mind the fact that:

"[T]he individual freedoms destroyed by the increase in national authority have been in the main freedom to deny black Americans their elementary rights as citizens, the freedom to work little children in the mills...the starvation wages...the freedom to pollute the environment--all freedoms that, one supposes, a civilized society can really do without."
--Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., in "The Cycles of American History"

Wolfram's "The Gift of Liberty" is right up there with Marvin Olasky's tortuous babble:

"Olasky's most famous book is The Tragedy of American Compassion, which in 1992 Newt Gingrich distributed to incoming Republican representatives of the104th Congress. The book, an overview of poverty-fighting in America from colonial times to the 1990s, argues that private individuals and organizations, particularly Christian churches, have a responsibility to care for the poor, and contends that challenging personal and spiritual help, common until the 1930s, was more effective than the government welfare programs of recent decades. Olasky argues that GOVERNMENT PROGRAMS ARE INEFFECTIVE because they are disconnected from the poor, while private charity has the power to change lives because it allows for a personal connection between giver and recipient."

"The book eventually helped to define "compassionate conservatism" in relation to welfare and social policy. In 1995, Olasky became an occasional advisor toTexas gubernatorial candidate George W. Bush. Bush made faith-based programs a major component of his 2000 presidential campaign, and Olasky's academic work helped form the basis for Bush's "compassionate conservatism."

Source: Marvin Olasky entry in Wikipedia

Being so Greedy to the core - how long before Prof. Gary swears off the church; accosting it for coercing its members-with the threat of eternal punishment-should they fail-to contribute their tithes and personal assets so the Chruch can provide for all the immense needs roiling up in Michigan due to the evacuation of disposable income via billions in CORPORATE AND BUSINESS WELFARE, economic activity/turnaround money needed to operate thriving businesses and good government here in Michigan.

Wolfram Echoes Ayn Rand's rants: The Virtue of Selfishness. Altruism /Generosity is a Randian "sin." Only pure self-interest is redemptive/commercially worthy of the "marketplace." Or as Milton Friedman so often proclaimed: "GREED IS GOOD."

Prof. Gary's "Freedoms": Wolfram's Freedoms to pursue things that are not in the best interest of mankind, they fester toward the death of community. Prof. Gary's ruminations are loosely akin to the elements in King Herod's slaughter of the innocents, the darkside of the Christmas story.

Prof. Gary: Turning out collegiate minds in whom the milk of human kindness is "freeze dried" holds no benefit for those who are in need or out of work. Such graduates have been trained to be unfit for community service. Wolfram's army of Hayekian Stormtroopers hold no promise for a better tomorrow. Just follow the carnage inflicted on mankind by just one of his most infamous protege the Bloody-handed mercenary, Erik Prince.

Original Response to Original essay by Gary Wolfram.

Confessions of A Well-Known One Percenter Scion of a Robber Baron

"For more than a century ideological extremist at either end of the political spectrum have seized upon well-publicized incidents...to attack the Rockefeller family for the inordinate influence they claim we wield over American political and economic institutions. Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as 'internationalists' and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure-one world, if you will.

If that's the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it."

-- David Rockefeller, 'Memoirs' 2002, p. 405

Original.

Charles Koch & High Rollers Who Bought Michissippi’s TeaPublican Legislature’s 2011 Anti-Public School Rampage

Top Individual Donors to Michigan's Republican Party Related PACs

• Snyder, Richard & Sue (Self-supporting for Campaign)    $5,943,702
• DeVos, Richard, Sr. & Helen (FL) (Rich)    $1,199,904
• Lynas, Robert & Joyce     $1,007,000
• Perry, Bob (TX)    $1,000,000
• KOCH, DAVID (NY)    $988,604
• Singer, Paul (NY)     $783,400
• Cohen, Steven (CT)     $482,604
• Jandernoa, Michael & Susan     $416,655
• Weiser, Ron & Eileen     $418,247
• Johnson, Ruth (Self-supporting SOS Campaign)     $354,834
• Mills, Ted     $339,500
• Meijer, Frederick & Lena    $339,000
• DeVos, Richard, Jr. & Elisabeth (Dick & Betsy)     $334,754
• Moroun, M.J. & Nora     $333,225
• Nicholson, James & Ann     $302,704

Source: Michigan Campaign Finance Network - Citizen's Guide (2010)


Original.

Michael Moore Stands with Teddy Roosevelt In Pursuit of A More Moral American Elite & Opposed to Rampant Greed

The Mackinac Center for Public Policy long ago went way out on a limb to justify and scrub the history of America's Robber Barons, attempting to make them our nation's entrepreneurial "saints."

A Wall Street Journal columnist Cites a Mackinac Center scholar's Book, Daniel Henninger, in his piece "Bring Back the Robber Barons" (1991)  highlighted in The Wall Street Journal a book entitled "The Myth of the Robber Barons: A New Look at the Rise of Big Business in America," by Dr. Burton Folsom Jr.

Folsom, a senior fellow in economic education for the Mackinac Center, attempts, as the Mackinac Center states, to dispel the "Myth of the Robber Barons explodes the misperception [SIC] that the great competitors of the 19th century made their gains unjustly..."

Father Bob Sirico (house priest for Erik Prince, and his mother, Father Bob's generous benefactor - Elsa Prince, Betsy (Prince) DeVos' mother, is a clever tartuffian, who now travels the country and the world with his message of divine blessing as expressed in the moral uprightness of massive wealth clothed in arcane Latin terms; often in league with Hillsdale's Dr. Gary Wolfram and the sub-basement writing staff at Mackinac's propaganda mill-all long encouraged and paid by millions from the mega-wealthy with an aggressive legislative list e.g. Right-to-Work (for Less) and all other manner of tax abatements and advantages for themselves.

There's an historical parallel, deja vu , in this moment of crisis, which has inspired the local, state, national, and international Occupy Movement:

"WE STAND AT ARMAGEDDON & BATTLE FOR THE LORD': Engage the fight against 'the tyranny of mere wealth, the tyranny of plutocracy."

-- Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt

That quote and more history of America's founding principals come from "The American Creed: A Biography of the Declaration of Independence" written by Forrest Church:

"In the early twenty century, radicals on the Christian Left were as critical of society as were Christians on the Right. The liberal social gospel arose in response to another aspect of modernism, the impact of industrialization on American society. Vast new capital emerged, undisciplined by government regulation. Max Weber wrote, "In the United States, the pursuit of wealth stripped of its religious and ethical meaning, tends to become associated with purely mundane passions, which often actually give it a character of sport." In these games one side almost always won. With the overwhelming preponderance of new capital filling the endless pockets of a few robber barons, lacking any government gesture in the direction of equity, the proliferation of goods no longer appeared to serve the common good. BY 1900 THE RICHEST ONE PERCENT OF AMERICANS POSSESSED MORE PROPERTY THAN ALL OTHER CITIZENS COMBINED. OUTRAGE AT THIS INEQUITY PROVOKED A POWERFUL, AND IN MANY WAYS REDEMPTIVE, SOCIAL AND RELIGIOUS RESPONSE.

"When Theodore Roosevelt proclaimed, 'WE STAND AT ARMAGEDDON AND BATTLE FOR THE LORD,' it was not inspire his troops to storm San Juan Hill but to launch his reform platform as a Bull Moose candidate for president in 1912. Roosevelt was morally more eloquent in exercising his missionary zeal at home than abroad . Wary of the dangers posed by monopoly capitalism, he pledged the nation's sacred honor to dash 'the tyranny of mere wealth, the tyranny of plutocracy.' With his square deal anticipating his cousin Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal. Theodore raised the platform of American social justice.

"Though a Republican, and by no means an enemy of American Business, Roosevelt developed a repugnance for amassing of great wealth. He was aware of overdevelopment, championing the conservation of natural resources...As personally upright as any American President, he described his political platform as fundamentally an ethical movement.

"At a time when American corporations were poised to take over the country-directing national policy with many fewer restrictions than they operate under today-Roosevelt systematically attacked 'the swollen fortunes' and 'entrenched privilege' of the 'malefactors of great wealth.'

"The Robber Barons threatened to hijack the nation's soul. Curbing monopolies alone was not enough, however. Spiraling inequities of wealth imperiled social peace as well as social justice...By 1912 he was advocating campaign reform and was among the first to propose both an income tax and an inheritance tax. For Roosevelt, a more equitable tax code had as much to with morals as with economics. Vast fortunes not only threatened the integrity of the social compact but also weakened the more fiber of families enthralled by their possession. AT A TIME WHEN THE AMERICAN CREED WAS IN DANGER OF BEING REPLACED BY THE GOD OF MAMMON, ROOSEVLET WAS THE FIRST PRESIDENT TO MARSHAL THE FULL FORCE OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT TO EMPOWER HIS MORAL VISION...."

(break)

" 'God gave me my money,' John D. Rockefeller once said. By him and others of his tiny class, massive charitable tithes were offered as a demonstration of this fact. But religious critics didn't view Rockefeller and his cohorts quite as generously. When the untrammeled power of wealth began to supplant (and subvert) government power and undermine social stability (as it does so well today), social prophets opened their Bibles and read a different message."
[emphasis added]

Source: This analysis is drawn from the book "The American Creed; A Biography of the Declaration of Independence" by Forrest Church. See also Church's address "The American Creed".

Michael Moore is but one voice, there are a host of writers and religious leaders who are again calling America back to the "HIGHER GROUND" so well embodied in our DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE and THE AMERICAN CREED that flows from it.


Original.

Ayn Rand Speaking With Precision for the 99 %

The Evil of Supplicating to Men Who Produce Nothing, in Order to Produce:

"When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion - when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing - when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors - when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you - when you see corruption being rewarded and honestly becoming a self-sacrifice - YOU MAY KNOW THAT YOUR SOCIETY IS DOOMED."
(emphasis added)

-- Ayn Rand (1905-1982) Author

Source: Atlas Shrugged, Francisco's "Money Speech"


Original.

Rothschilds as One Percenters

"The Rothschilds, and that class of money-lenders of whom they are the representatives and agents -- men who never think of lending a shilling to their next-door neighbors, for purposes of honest industry, unless upon the most ample security, and at the highest rate of interest -- stand ready, at all times, to lend money in unlimited amounts to those robbers and murderers, who call themselves governments, to be expended in shooting down those who do not submit quietly to being robbed and enslaved."

-- Lysander Spooner (1808-1887) Political theorist, activist, abolitionist

Source: "No Treason #6" (1870)

Original.

Worldwide Super-Rich Stash: Now $25 Trillion

Wealth X has out a New Report: There are 185,795 Individuals Worldwide Worth at Least $30 Million

Sam Pizzigati from the Institute for Policy Studies in "The Global Super-Rich Stash: Now $25 Trillion" writes:

"For the first time, thanks to Wealth-X, we can compare the barely ultra with the comfortably ultra and those super ultras who can make the comfortables seem pinched.

"Our report maps exactly where the biggest money is located," Wealth-X CEO Mykolas Rambus boasted at a Geneva news conference last week, "and just how much there is."

"The Wealth-X research answers "how many" as well. The firm counts 185,795 individuals worldwide with at least $30 million net worth. These ultra high net-worth individuals - UHNWs (Ultra High Net-Worth) - hold $25 Trillion in combined wealth."

Tax the One Percenters? Yes or No ?

"If America's ultra [wealthy] averaged returns on those (vast assets they already hold) investments not that far above 5 percent over the next ten years, they could pay the wealth tax and still end the decade with higher personal net worths than when the decade began."

So Why Not ask the ultra rich to pay their fair share?


Original.

Attention Pseudo-Christian Capitalists

Forget God' s Rules for Wealth, Forfeit Your Wealth

Having received the 10 Commandments on Mount Sinai; Moses said to the gathered people:

"Obey all the laws that I am teaching you, and you will live and occupy the land which the Lord, the God of your ancestors, is giving you. Do not add anything to what I command you, and do not take anything away. Obey the commands of the Lord your God that I have given you. You yourselves saw what the Lord did at Mount Peor. He destroyed everyone who worshiped Baal, there, but those of you who were faithful to the Lord your God are still alive today.

"I have taught you all the laws, as the Lord my God told me to do."

His Semitic predecessor was depicted as a man or a bull - the Wall Street Bull?) (Baal serves Mammon & Greedy Hording)

Remember Who Has Given You Ability to Produce Wealth

"You may say to yourself, 'MY POWER AND THE STRENGTH OF MY HANDS HAVE PRODUCED THIS WEALTH FOR ME.' But REMEMBER THE LORD YOUR GOD, FOR IT IS HE WHO GIVES YOU THE ABILITY TO PRODUCE WEALTH, and so confirms his covenant..."
-- Spake Moses - Deuteronomy 8:17-18

So spoke Christ Jesus:

"Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other; or else he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You can not serve both God and Mammon."
-- Matthew 6:19-21 and 24

God or Mammon America...What will your choice be ?

U.S. Federal Government Created the American Middle Class – In spite of What You May Have Been Told by Free Market Advocates

The American Federal Government Invented the Middle Class: TeaPublicans now in power in DC are determined to shoot it down.

For the American Dream - directly related to the rise of the Middle Class - to work, people have to believe that it is "possible" for them to reach a higher standard of living. If they don't believe the possibility or opportunity is there to rise in society, then the Dream is dead.

Occupy Wall Street is making all of us face serious questions about the future of the Middle Class and survival of "full faith and confidence" so necessary to the value of our monetary script and a thriving marketplace.

A full chance for individuals to work toward a higher level of wealth and successful achievement has been a perennial draw for immigrants striving to come to America.

"America has been peopled by Europeans primarily because they expected in that country to make more money more easily," Herbert Croly wrote.

American Economic Paradise

"It's no accident that the United States has always been an economic paradise for the middle class -- that class was invented and reinvented by the government. Now the government needs to reinvent it again -- before it's too late."

This a part of a commentary by Michael Lind, Whitehead Senior Fellow, in the Atlantic Monthly in "Are We Still a Middle-Class Nation?"

The Economy of America Has Taken Distinct Changes in its Unfolding Stages: Agricultural, Industrial, and Service

Back to Michael Lind:

"To most of us, the transition from farmer to industrial worker to service worker -- sometimes within three generations of one family -- appears in retrospect to have been inevitable, like some geological process. Indeed, MANY CONSERVATIVES AND LIBERTARIANS SEEM TO BELIEVE THAT A MASS MIDDLE CLASS IS AN INEVITABLE BY-PRODUCT OF CAPITALISM. The truth is that each of AMERICA'S SUCCESSIVE MIDDLE CLASSES HAS BEEN ARTIFICIALLY CREATED BY GOVERNMENT-SPONSORED SOCIAL ENGINEERING -- a fact that is profoundly important for us to admit as we think about the future of middle-class America."

 The favorite mantra of so many advocates of individual freedom, the myth of the stand alone individual, and the anti-government and anti-tax rebels is based on a false premise: The Middle Class is the distinctive work of individuals who work hard, take risks, and are rugged entrepreneurs; best divorced from government intervention or help.

Lind lines it out historically:

"From 1800 to 1848 the U.S. government acquired more than two million square miles of territory, much of it arable, by purchase or negotiation (the Louisiana Territory from France in 1803; Florida from Spain in 1819; Oregon from Britain in 1846), by annexation (Texas, 1845), or by conquest (the Mexican Cession in 1848). Populists sought to ensure that this land went to small farmers rather than large landowners or speculators. THE DANGER OF EUROPEAN-STYLE FEUDALISM IN THE UNITED STATES WAS NEUTRALIZED BY THE LAND ORDINANCE OF 1785, WHICH GUARANTEED THAT THE FEDERAL DOMAIN WOULD BE BROKEN UP INTO "FEE SIMPLE" PROPERTIES, with no complex web of multiple ownership. And the Homestead Act of 1862 provided 160 acres of free public land to settlers who would live on it and improve it for at least five years. Meanwhile, the federal government subsidized continent-crossing railroads, and the Army Corps of Engineers built much of the country's rural infrastructure. This was social engineering on a colossal scale."

"The story was similar for the second American middle class, made up of prosperous urban industrial workers. FROM ABRAHAM LINCOLN TO HERBERT HOOVER, AMERICAN POLITICS WAS DOMINATED BY A BARGAIN BETWEEN CAPITALISTS AND WORKERS; HIGH TARIFFS ON IMPORTS SERVED THE INTERESTS OF BOTH, BY PROTECTING GOODS FROM FOREIGN COMPETITION."

"In addition, the dominant industrial labor force successfully lobbied the government to protect it from competition with other groups. In the late nineteenth century Congress cut off "Oriental" immigration, and after World War I -- with the support of organized labor -- it cut large-scale European immigration. Before World War I informal discrimination prevented southern black Americans from moving to the Northeast and the Midwest to compete for industrial jobs. Finally, child-labor laws removed children from the work force, and "family wage" or "breadwinner" systems -- which paid married fathers more than unmarried, childless men -- encouraged married women to become homemakers. TODAY NOSTALGIC CONSERVATIVES ATTRIBUTE THE PROSPERITY OF THE 1920S TO FREE ENTERPRISE. IN REALITY THE MARKET WAS RIGGED."

To take a deeper look at the basis of the American middle class the writer Lind adds this explanation of the service sector's Middle Class's underlying mechanisms:

"Whereas the second American middle class was founded on high wages for workers in the industrial sector, the third American middle class was founded on the supplementation of wage income by government benefits that collectively constituted a "social wage."

"The social wage included not only private-sector benefits encouraged by the tax code, such as employer-provided health insurance, but also subsidies such as the home-mortgage-interest deduction and government entitlements such as Social Security and Medicare (which freed many middle-class families from the bankrupting burden of caring for elderly parents), the GI Bill for higher education, and student loans.

"As the Yale political scientist Jacob Hacker has pointed out, when the hidden welfare state is counted along with the visible welfare state, the United States has a system of social provision as generous as those in Western Europe -- though in this country much of that system extends only to the middle class and the professional elite.

"The social-wage system had many flaws -- for example, it failed to provide health insurance for tens of millions of Americans. Nevertheless, the third American middle class, the product of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, Harry Truman's Fair Deal, and Lyndon Johnson's Great Society, was larger and more inclusive than the earlier two. From the 1930s to the 1970s income inequality in America shrank dramatically, producing what the economic historians Claudia Goldin and Robert Margo have called the Great Compression."
(emphasis added)

Since the 1980's the Service Era Middle Class has been undergoing drastic cuts and a ballooning gap between the now famous 1%'ers and the 99%'ers (who control a vastly unequal portion of the nation's wealth) highlights the 1%'ers who have seen their financial status go from static to negative, from employment to unemployment, from solid home equity to undermined "under water" equity-based on a tsunami of foreclosures.

The vast part of this condition rests squarely on the failed policies of Republicans under George W. Bush and a runaway economic epic including fraud, deception, and theft by Wall Streeters who saw themselves as the "SMARTEST PEOPLE IN THE ROOM." The 2008 market value plunge tallies at a staggering multi-trillion dollar loss, nearly equal to the accumulative income of the nation for one entire year!

The fact that many corporations, national and multinational, have billions in assets which are set outside the economy and banks have used only a small fraction of their government provided billions legislated to help homeowners sits idle, and big banks are severely restricting consumer credit, tells us that Occupy Wall Street is directly on target with its protesting.

We want our money back. We want felony convictions. We want a clear path to recovery.

Americans want the "do nothing," "NO" to everything, TeaPublicans out of the way of the American Dream's recovery and reinvention. Let the government continue to sponsor and provide for our Middle Class-the key to the American experience.

Original.

“Queen” Elizabeth: Betsy DeVos, nouveau-riche, anti-social queen of mean

Perhaps Betsy DeVos and the Detroit / Mackinac News would favor Labor Day renamed, to be called: ROBBER BARONS DAY.

Michigan workers are overpaid says mega-wealthy scion ""Queen Betsy" (Elizabeth Prince DeVos). Queenie is the very personification of the havoc and damage which can be done with huge grudge money that is targeted and directed in a heavily ideological manner. A benefactor such as Andrew Carnegie (stately Carnegie neighorhood Libraries across the country; "2,509 Carnegie libraries were built between 1883 and 1929",  Betsy is not!

Bold Contrast from "The Nouveau Riche and the Noblesse Oblige":

"Bono & Angelina Jolie have refocused the light on the dark areas of the world and are leading us in the charge back to the side of compassion and righteousness."

Betsy DeVos, by contrast, has been moving in a steady anti-righteous, anti-social direction. She has taken the charge from the late Milton Friedman, with whom she is enthralled, into the direction of radical individualism: Free to Choose, was the Friedman bible. "Queen" Elizabeth is hiking the same god-less path as Ayn Rand, who authored that tiny tome, The Virtue of Selfishness.

Queenie Elizabeth would be shocked to learn that her activities to enlarge her wealth by profiting from privatizing public schools and riding her wave of personal power and influence are anti-Jesus:

Jesus spoke this parable:

"The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. He thought to himself, 'What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops."

This I will do: I will pull down my barns and build larger...There will I bestow all my fruits and my goods in enlarged storehouses. Thus the rich man will hoard his goods. Here is the beginning of his folly; to "hoard" his surplus instead of "using it" for the good of men. " 

"But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?' That night his soul was collected by God."
--Luke 12:16-20

THE ROUTE OF THE TRULY COMPASSIONATE AND THOUGHTFUL RICH HAS ALWAYS BEEN 'NOBLESSE OBLIGE"

The Oxford English Dictionary suggests "noble ancestry constrains to honorable behavior; privilege entails to responsibility". Being a noble meant that one had responsibilities to lead, manage and so on. One was not to simply spend one's time in "idle pursuits."

One of the new noble, Betsy's "idle pursuits" are evil and destructive of community and democracy.

Betsy alone is a singular and special threat to the future of our great nation. Like all idle rich, Betsy has far greater responsibilities and societal obligations than she is willing to own.

Emanuele Corso, writes in his piece "Public education and the tentacles of profit":

"Privatizing public education is one potential source of new wealth being explored by the other-reality people. Achieving control of the public education system that has existed, for better or for worse, in the United States for more than a century requires operatives appointed to governmental offices of education willing to carry out the (PRIVATIZING) agenda... Why not start the takeover process with politicians who could use a little financial help with their campaigns provided by "foundations" dedicated to the (mislabeled concept of the) preservation of democracy?"

This take-down of public education is the clearly defined self-appointed task "Queen" Elizabeth has taken on; aided and abetted by unbelievable betrayal and loads of inherited money. To gain power, influence, and control Betsy needs mega-money at her personal disposal to direct and implement the privatization and parochiaid voucher schemes she promotes. Her campaign's successes have the huge potential for a source of "major" new money and profit for her and her ilk to carry on more anti-public/common good warfare.

To augment Betsy's anti-public school goals DeVos is allied with the Waltons, the Bros. Koch, the Chambers of Commerce, and Michigan's Mackinac Center. Here's a partial rundown from the afore mentioned article: Public education and the tentacles of profit:

"The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) sponsored model bills aiming to privatize public education, eliminate teacher's unions, and make American universities adhere to the right wing and libertarian viewpoint. From the Nation series on ALEC and the Koch connections:

"The Kochs have given ALEC contributions exceeding $1 million-not including a half-million loaned to ALEC when the group had financial problems. The Kochs' mistrust of public education can be traced to their father, Fred, who ranted and raved that the National Education Association was a communist group and public-school books were filled with 'communist propaganda...."

Interestingly ALEC was behind the scenes in Wisconsin in the education fight. Read this article by Dr. William Cronin.

The contravening truth: Privilege bestowed on Wealth, in a democratic nation, must be balanced by duty towards those who lack such privilege:

"In ethical discussion, (noblesse oblige) is sometimes used to summarize a moral economy wherein privilege must be balanced by duty towards those who lack such privilege or who cannot perform such duty. Finally, it has been used recently primarily to refer to PUBLIC RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE RICH, FAMOUS AND POWERFUL, NOTABLY TO PROVIDE GOOD EXAMPLES OF BEHAVIOUR OR TO EXCEED MINIMAL STANDARDS OF DECENCY."
(emphasis added) -- Wikipedia

Writer John Ralston Saul (particularly known for his commentaries on the nature of individualism, citizenship and the public good) lays the axe to Betsy's platinum sugar plum tree:

"Indeed you can usually tell when the concepts of democracy and citizenship are weakening. There is an increase in the role of charity and in the worship of volunteerism. These represent the élite citizen's imitation of noblesse oblige; that is, of pretending to be aristocrats or oligarchs, as opposed to being citizens."

Betsy DeVos views her efforts to champion social, religious, and educational apartheid via her work on her front group The National Federation for Children as a noble and a chartable endeavor. Not so!

"The term Noblesse Oblige also serves as a warning to those taking part that they are not to use their power and influence for selfish personal desires ...lest they be 'removed from the game,'" summarizes Wiki, in a summary which fits completely the parable included above, as told by Jesus.

"Queen" Elizabeth's "charity" always comes with a barbed hook, and a large dead weight. The long trail of incivility, chicanery, misinformation, political dirty tricks, and reprisals in her anti-community efforts belie her "charity" and expand her image as a serious one track ideologue with an anti-public angst and ambition.

The "new man" in "Queen" Elizabeth DeVos' life is N.J. Gov. Chris Christie!


Original.

Greenhills: WHO SAYS YOU CAN'T HAVE YOUR ELITIST EDUCATION DREAM CAKE AND EAT IT TOO? (Part 3 of 3)

How satisfying and helpful it would be to Snyder's school of choice, Greenhills, Ann Arbor, to receive a sizable state voucher for each select student's expenses as Betsy DeVos' (AFC) American Federation for Children is pressing forward nationwide with the help of A.L.E.C (The Koch Bros. /American Legislative Exchange Council) championed by Tom McMillin"R, Rochester, and other A.L.E.C. members in the Michigan TeaPublican Super Majority.

Rick Snyder has two realities:
1.) His commitment to elitist education for his own child at Greenhills, and 2.) Snyder's serious and devastating legislative cuts for the children of all parents, those outside Snyder's tight circle of care.

Flint's WCRZ.com media commentator, George McIntyre, adds color to this summary of Greenhills School:

"Governor Snyder's daughter attends a private school, Greenhills School, in Ann Arbor. The annual tuition? $20,000. However, that's apparently not enough. The school has posted a video on YouTube appealing for funds.

"Ironic, don't you think, when you consider the fact that Governor Snyder just signed legislation which will cut per-pupil funding for Michigan public school students by $370, bringing the yearly allowance down to $6,846. That's quite the comparison."

McIntyre wraps up with this thought:

"It's amazing to me that $20,000 per pupil isn't enough to make ends meet for the Governor's daughter's school, yet public schools are afforded just over one third of that amount. IT'S NO WONDER ITHACA PUBLIC SCHOOLS SUPERINTENDENT NATHAN BOOTZ WROTE A SARCASTIC LETTER, ASKING SNYDER TO TURN HIS SCHOOL INTO A PRISON." (emphasis added)

THE RICH ELITES HAVE, BY FAR, THE GREATER SHARE OF RESOURCES TO EDUCATE THEIR OFF-SPRING, THE POOR AND THE WORKING ARE FORCED TO SHARE THE DIMINISHING REMNANTS ON THEIR CHILDREN AND HAVE A DESPERATE FIGHT WITH TEA-PUBLICANS TO MAINTAIN PROGRAMS AND QUALITY.

How sad that we have allowed the TeaPublicans to plunge Michigan to this historically embarrassing low, dangerous point!

It's a sure sign that the usurping, profitization, in Snyder-led cultural and educational apartheid is designed to overpower local communities and neighborhood schools. Greed and privatization/profit-taking are indeed alive and metastasizing in Michigan. How shameful!

Original and Part 1 and Part 2.

Greenhills: Snyder, Greenhills, Betsy DeVos & THE GOAL: Universal Vouchers (Part 2 of 3)

If Nerd Snyder and his Tea-partisan crowd in legislative the super majority comply with the American Legislative Exchange Councils' Model Legislation, the anti-public schools Mackinac Center, and the heavy, heavy pressure from Betsy Prince DeVos' AFC, there will be a push to put vouchers in place for private and religious education in Michigan in the very near future as well as a plethora of other damaging legislation/profitization. See the VIDEO with an UW expert here.

Rick Snyder's private academy, Greenhills, would be the perfect private voucher venue. How much easier it would be to fund a student at Greenhills with a hefty taxpayer coupon/voucher to underwrite their high costs.

Elsewhere the voucher push is well under way as part of the GOP State-by-State Legislative (American Legislative Exchange Council - ALEC) coup; this legislative blitzkrieg is characterized in the manner that is being carried out in Utah and many other states-under Republican control. Previously, Betsy's high-buck voucher efforts with a Utah statewide voucher ballot proposal were soundly defeated 2-to-1, and now, using the TeaPublican majority in the Utah legislature, the DeVos backed vouchers are being pushed again in Utah this time in the legislature and in other state legislatures are involved in a massive and coordinated effort cross the nation with Betsy's backing.

Read how Betsy is involved in such brash and damaging acts against public schools as the Sen. Alberta Darling (Wisconsin Recall Election target) backed $800 million dollar cut in state support is hurting kids!

Betsy's front group "The American Federation for Children (AFC) has reportedly spent more than $500,000 in television ads to support Darling and other Republicans facing recall elections because of their support for Walker's anti-labor legislation."

Continues...

Original and Part 1 and Part 3.

Greenhills: Let's Pay A Visit to Rick Snyder's Personal School of Choice (Part 1 of 3)

Here's what Snyder's school has to say about its operations and outcomes.

Greenhills description:

"Diversity at Greenhills: 31 percent of Greenhills students self-identify as persons of color: 9 percent multiracial, 6 percent African American, 12 percent Asian AmericaN, 1 percent Hispanic American, 2 percent Middle Eastern, 1 percent of the student body are international students."

From Greenhills materials:

"(Greenhills) has earned for itself A REPUTATION AS A HUMANE AND CARING SCHOOL (emphasis added) that offers an excellent education to a wide range of students."

GREENHILLS IS A UNIQUE SCHOOL IN A MYRIAD OF FABULOUS WAYS, TAKE A LOOK AT THE ACCOUTERMENTS IN ITS OWN EXHAUSTIVE REPORT.

GREENHILLS FACTS:

1. MHSAA - Greenhills School is a member of the Michigan High School Athletic Association (MHSAA) and offers the following sports: BOYS-cross country, golf, soccer, basketball, baseball, tennis, lacrosse, and track and field. GIRLS-basketball, cross country, field hockey, tennis, volleyball, soccer, softball, golf, and track and field. COED-swimming and equestrian." Greenhills is considered the "Number 1-ranked athletic program in Class C two out of the past three years, as ranked by The Ann Arbor News."
2. Tuition - The Greenhills YouTube video promotion pegs the costs at "$20,000 '.
3. Financial Aid - "Nearly $954,000 in need-based financial aid was awarded to 19 percent of the student body. The average award was $9,628."
4. Contributions to the Greenhills - "Since 1993, more than $18,500,000 has been contributed to Greenhills' Annual Fund, Auction, Endowment and Capital Campaigns to support the school." 
5. Fine & Performing Arts - "The Fine & Performing Arts Department offers concerts, theatrical productions and art gallery showings throughout the year. Fine and Performing Arts events include: A fall play, spring musical, annual senior Shakespeare performance, Middle School spring play, VooDoo Theatre Company (student-run troupe) Middle and upper school band concerts, Middle and upper school orchestra concerts, Jazz band and combo performances, Middle and upper school choir concerts, Middle and upper school forensics tournaments, Fine Arts Showcase and more."
6. Activities and student organizations - These include, but are not limited to the following; Evergreen (literary magazine), The Alcove (student newspaper), Forward (yearbook), Amnesty International, Peer Counselors, Student Council, African American Focus, Multicultural Focus, Science Olympiad, Gryphon Club, Chess and Go Club, DDR Club, Debate Club, Ski Club, Student Mentors, Honor Committee, The Discourse, Gay-Straight Alliance, Service Learning Board, and Improv Club"
7. Academic & Athletic Facilities - Smartboard technology in every classroom, Schmidt-Cassegrain 14" telescope, Ten dedicated physics computers, Wireless computer cart, Two computer labs, State-of-the-art microscopes, including a Phase-Contrast/Dark Phase research microscope."
8. Greenhills' "Campbell Center for the Performing Arts" - State-of-the-art theatre, scene shop, dressing room, green room, mirrored dance studio, two instrumental rehearsal rooms, choral rehearsal room, The Harry Anderson Library, Borders Athletic Center: Two full gyms, four locker rooms, weight room with mirrors, indoor batting cage, climbing wall, Eight Court Tennis Complex, Softball Field, Soccer and Field Hockey/Lacrosse Fields, All-Weather Track, Amphitheater, Weather Station,( and a) Wind Turbine."
9. Details on Instruction and Class Size: "AVERAGE CLASS SIZE-15 STUDENTS, STUDENT: TEACHER RATIO-7:1," (emphasis added)
10. There's a rigorous Matriculation/Admissions Policy at Greehhills - "Admission to Greenhills is competitive. Applicants in the 9th through the 12th grades are required to take the Secondary School Admission Test" and applicants are also "REQUIRED TO SPEND A DAY AT THE SCHOOL TO ENSURE THAT GREENHILLS WILL BE A PROPER FIT."(emphasis added) Applicants also have to have three recommendations, send their transcript, and complete short answer questions and essays."
11. Notable alumni by accomplishments - "A.F.W.K. - rock musician, E. K. - Special Assistant to President Barack Obama, P. T. - Photographer, Los Angeles, CA, E. Q. - Producer, New York, NY, B. L.- screenwriter, J. C. - frequent New York Times contributor, author, N.P. - opera singer, played lead role of Macbeth with BBC Scottish Symphony, E. M.-playwright and screenwriter" 12.)"Graduates Attending College:100%"

Contributions to Greenhills School (a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization) are tax deductable.

A FINAL NOTE
When the additional solicited contributions are added into the cost, when the spending from the endowment and other private sources are factored in, the cost of education for one student at Greenhills may reach into the mid-$20,000 range. This year's tuition is up $1,500 from 2 years ago.

Continues...

Original and Part 2 and Part 3.

Who needs the Koch Brothers? We’ve Got Rick Snyder, ALEC and his “Buffo” Team of Privatizers!

Michissippi is rife with the American Legislative Exchange Council (A.L.E.C.) inspired profit-takers who are stripping communities and workers in our state for profit and power. Snyder's reinvention is a simple copy-cat operation of a very disturbing national right-wing coup.

Get the lowdown on "ALEC Exposed" at @ http://alecexposed.org/wiki/ALEC_Exposed ("...a Trove of Over 800 'Model' Bills-Secretly Voted on by Corporations to Rewrite Your Rights").

Revelations about the American Legislative Exchange Council Are Sweeping the Blogosphere & Media
Stories are breaking daily across the nation detailing and revealing the deep inroads that profit-taking corporations have accomplished right- in-the-open. The huge number of "model" bills that a combine of aggressive corporations has pushed into law throughout the nation the AMERICAN LEGISLATIVE EXCHANGE COUNCIL. It's leadership laughs off the ungoing and expanding exposé, saying its functions are simply business-as-usual. The standard defense raised by A.L.E.C. is: We are just an ordinary think tank group, we don't lobby for corporations.

Surpirse, Surprise...A.L.E.C. doesn't need to "lobby," ITS LEGISLATIVE MEMBERS, 2,000 COUNTRY-WIDE, ARE THE UNDERLYING CORPORATIONS'OWN SPECIALIZED "LOBBY" THEMSELVES. The A.L.E.C. wolf lives comfortably, quitely RIGHT INSIDE in the legislative henhouse!

Corporate-Controlled Democracy is No Democracy At All
And so it is. The subversive Radical-Right front group, A.L.E.C., has been chipping away at the civil structure of America for over 40 years. Determined to bring down government and communities as we have known them; only to replace democracy with "CORPORATE CONTROLLED DEMOCRACY"- KNOW AS Corporatocracy,(Explained in " social theories that focus on conflicts and opposing interests within society, denotes a system of government that serves the interest of, and may be run by, corporations and involves ties between government and business. Where corporations, conglomerates, and/or government entities with private components, control the direction and governance of a country (or state), including carrying out economic planning notwithstanding the 'free market' label. " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporatocracy )

Learn This Term
You are going to be in a fight-to-the-finish with corporatists, for every aspect of community and local control. CORPORATOCRACY designated every public function as a convertible source of Private Gain and Enhanced Wealth and Power.

Looting the Commons
This "looting"-via- legislation that has transpired in Michissippi under the Nerd Snyder and his hoard of privatizers. Ours is just one state's example of a wave of DISASTER CAPITALISM sweeping the country. The Bush Recession/Depression has brought the nation low-politically vulnerable. For the THE DISASTER CAPITALISTS in Lansing this is as Milton Freidman so bluntly put it: A great "opportunity."

Corporatocracy Thrives On Volatility, & This Is A Time of Great Volatility.

Michissippi's TeaPublican Super Majority Is Riddled with A.L.E.C. Gophers & Fellow Travelers
Many of Michissippi's legislators are A.L.E.C. Members or affliated, many ex-legislators are A.L.E.C. alumni, many others are simply willing "tools" of A.L.E.C.- as is Rick Snyder himself. They have been "channeling" specific A.L.E.C. MODEL BILLS WORD-FOR-WORD OR WITH SLIGHT MODIFICATIONS into Michissippi codified law. It's the Koch Bros.' et. al. means of getting things done via legislators who are simple conduits for PROFIT-MAKING CORPORATE LEGISLATION-the process of profitization.


Lazy Legislators Love A.L.E.C.'s Plug & Play Bill Mill
It's been "plug and play" "model" bill time in Lansing. Outside forces have all the say. Communities and the general public are blocked and locked out of the entire process other than to protest or to mount recalls against the crippling and dangerous outcomes these proposed A.L.E.C. bills pose to our future and economic survivability.
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Under Rick Snyder corporate usurpations have been greatly expanded; especially with the Snyder/Dillon enhanced EFM, (Emergency Finance Manager Act) which gives "firms"- corporations and corporatists-dictatorial powers; abilities which confront public officials-who are summarily stripped of elected powers and constitutional control, and other actions trampling upon people's basic rights. All-the-while, Michissippi corporatist legal firms and others are set up to mop up profits and create monopolies.

It's Time to Stand Up to Michissippi's Corporatocracy & Its Usurpation & Power Grab, via A.L.E.C.

"(The 1st Amendment) does not intend to guarantee men freedom to say what some private interest pays them to say for its own advantage. It intends only to make men free to say what, as citizens, they think."
-- Alexander Meiklejohn, Philosopher & Educator (1872-1964)

Original Post.