2012 - The Political Storm that is Coming

Christmas is over; all of the bright lights and gifting is gone, and now it is time to get serious again. We haven't much time left, so - right into it.

Yes, I am a Ron Paul supporter, and I always have been.

This surprises no one who knows me well. They have gone with me to Ron Paul speaking engagements, many of which I organized, have sat at the same table with me and Ron Paul, and discussed politics and family and Americanism, long before Paul was a Presidential Candidate.  They have seen the pictures of  me at Ron Paul events, at straw polls, at Republican Party debates, from Columbia to Myrtle Beach, during the Presidential Candidacy of 2008. They know that hanging in my parlor is an 8X10 picture of me and Ron Paul shaking hands.

In 2007, I became very much aware of the lies that were being told to the American public, not only by Obama and the Democrats, but by the GOP and then-President Bush, as well as local candidates and governments. I realized exactly what would happen - that RINO McCain would be shoved down our throats as the GOP candidate of choice, that he had no chance against the Golden Boy Obama, and that there was collusion on the parts of both the Democratic and Republican Parties to quash the American People and their Constitution. I realized that I, as an outspoken and adamant individual, had two choices - to either stand foursquare on behalf of the American people and face vicious opposition, or to tell everyone to go eff themselves and go make plans for my family for the coming collapse.

It was easy to fight when I had a DH who stood foursquare behind me, backed me in everything I did; it was easy to fight for what was right and honest and true when I was healthy and strong and could take on all comers. When my DH became crippled, and his doctors gave us an expiration date for him of two years, and I was at the same time diagnosed with lupus, I took a hard look around me. I realized that the very people for whom I was fighting were following the passionate, emotional, and deadly freedom-killing rhetoric of my opponents. I decided to tell them, in a word, to "take this job and shove it". They were not worth it. Did it offend them? You Betcha. Did I give a shit? Not at all. I let them know - to their everlasting insulted shock - that they were not as important to me as my DH and my life.

So I did what I had always wanted and planned to do - I quit everything, bought a farm in the middle of nowhere, and started becoming self-sufficient - and silent.

DH's official expiration date has passed (thee years ago) now; and he is living a happy and productive life - as far as he can,  with the drugs and pain forcing him to take morning and afternoon naps, with it taking him five times as long as it used to, to accomplish even the simplest tasks. By eliminating not only much of the stress but the unwholesome food, contaminated Savannah River water, and humid miasma that passes for air in SC from my life, I am healthier, stronger, and can do far more than I used to, far more often.

So as I watch from a very remote location, I am merely struck by the continuing gross stupidity, gullibility, and simple-minded, mouthbreathing brainlessness of the Vox Populi. They are falling for the same old rhetoric and same old lies again. They haven't the wit or wherewithal to understand what is happening to them, what is being perpetrated upon them, what is being taken from them under the guise of promising them 'better' - at "someone else's" expense. They are still just as mawkishly stupid and emotionally driven as they have ever been.

I admire Ron Paul for still trying to educate them, but he casts pearls before swine. Most aren't bright enough to even read and understand their own Constitutional rights, or that they are being taken away from them. They are and will continue to be useless, emotional, mouthbreathing morons with the attention span of moths - battering themselves to death against any bright light the media shines for them.

They deserve exactly what they are going to get this year, and I have no sympathy for them. At all. 

Sadly, not even Ron Paul can save them from the Congresscritters they insist on re-electing to steal from them, the local-government morons who are lining their own pockets and making their own rules to suit themselves and their donors, that will leave their constituents poorer, less educated, and less free, month by month, year by year, one law and ordinance at a time.  Ron Paul cannot save people from themselves, and expecting that his election (or any Presidential candidates' election) will turn this country around is courting - even demanding - failure.

Oh, yes, at the close of 2011, I still See Stupid People -  but fortunately, it is through a telescope of time, distance, and space, like watching sunspots erupt on the surface of the gaseous star over our heads. They may eventually affect me, reach this far, but only minimally. They burst and burn with their own ignorance, their own emotional rhetoric, their own flaming desires - that all too quickly are swallowed by the great dark vacuum of Congress, Washington, and their own selfish and self-involved flares of sudden brief and brilliant ineptitude. Sound and fury, signifying nothing... at all.

Happy New Year! Or, as the Irish bridegroom said, "Brrrrrace yeself, Bridget!" - the foreplay is over, and now the hard fucking begins. Bend over and take what you asked for, begged for, and demanded for so long. 

Thoughts on Co-Prepping and "Home-Grown Terrorism"

Some links about "Home Grown Terrorism"

http://www.fas.org/irp/eprint/rightwing.pdf

http://www.scribd.com/doc/13290698/The-Modern-Militia-MovementMissouri-MIAC-Strategic-Report-20Feb09-

http://oathkeepers.org/oath/wp-content/uploads/ColoradoFBISurplusStore.pdf

OMG! These are the types of people I live around.
This week was pretty hectic at work. I was pretty involved in a lot of various out-putting of 'fires' - everything from social-services-induced drama with some teenagers to co-teaching a class on American History (I was able to give the Southern perspective and some factual information about the War of Northern Aggression ).

Talking to one of the teachers about her horse ranch, we discussed the recent lifting of the ban on horse-slaughtering in the US. Yes, that's right - the ban that PETA and HSUS fought for six years ago has now been lifted, and horses will now be able to be processed for meat for human consumption. My friend actually owns two ranches, one here and one in Wyoming. We discussed what this would mean not only to the wild horses of the Plains, but to horse ranchers in general, as well as human consumption and availability of horse meat. (When the US was slaughtering horses, most of the meat went overseas.) Horse ranchers will once again be able to 'cull' their herds, and the price of good sound rideable stock will go back up. The cost of good animals will soon be higher - since the culls will soon be sent to slaughter. So if you are thinking about getting a horse or two or several, you may want to look into it rather quickly. If you don't know anything about horses, their care, upkeep, and requirements as well as their training, find someone local who does, to school you.

We had a 47,000 acre ranch sell here yesterday for $11.7 million. The bid opened at $10 million, and there were no takers. Since this ranch employs many of our local cowboys and particularly the managing family who are friends of mine, we were concerned. There was some spirited bidding between Cabela's, Bass Pro Shops, some overseas buyers and some Ted Turner factions, but the winner was an American family from ND. This family of 7 brothers owns much of the land in ND, some in SD, and now a part of NE. It will continue to be run as a cattle ranch/hay-and-corn harvesting ranch. We are all breathing a sigh of relief that the land won't be brutalized and overgrazed by some get-rich-quick schemer, or turned into a holiday property with delusions of "ranch life" for the rich and bored. Life will continue; lots of beef, lots of production, lots of good solid investment in the future of not only beef but the ranching way of life that is all too quickly disappearing.

 One of the local large ranchers has a wife with whom I work. We were talking about the sale and the ranching way of life. She noted that many folks who call themselves 'ranchers' now might have only 20 head, where they used to graze 500. Some kids are growing up to go to college and never come back. Her own husband joked that, "If we had known what it was like 20 years ago, we'd have sold grandpa's property and gone to town and gotten jobs!" Ranching is a risky proposition even in the best of times; and takes constant application. Her DH and two sons are jacks-of-all-trades; dig wells, repair their own tractors and machinery, even bore out engines when necessary. But as she said, the most important thing is that they hold onto the property - because even if cattle go down to $.15 a pound, they'll still have their gardens and their own meat. Most of the folks around here are canning and dehydrating fools, and are stocking our basements and pantries and freezers with alacrity. We are a dawn-to-dusk beehive of self-and-mutually-reliant 'terrorist activity'.

"Winter" is coming, the dark winter of struggle and survival, and we are watching it from our High Plains location; investing in everything to ensure that we will have food, not just for ourselves, but for each other and even to sell. The lye came in, so now I can make soap from the 50 lbs of pigfat I rendered down for lard. This spring I will go East to attend a UNL college course on - beekeeping. Wax and sugar from tiny little critters to advance my own self-sufficiency, as well as to share, trade, or even sell.

Incidentally, our first steer that we had processed came out to $250 for 4 100-lb boxes of steak, roasts, and burger... guess that definitely makes me a terrorist, since I've got more than 7 days of food, not counting the 400 lbs of pig (including the backfat) we got from the processor last month. There are several hundred "terrorists" around me, though; all planning and prepping, stocking up and harvesting, so we are in good company. Every news story, every new development, from a ranch sale to a slaughterhouse, we carefully fit into our futures. We don't talk about it much; there are no meetings of preppers, no political organizational meetings, no shouting disagreements at the local bar or restaurant. We are too busy to Occupy other peoples' property, too busy to go to meetings or protests, too industrious to sit and listen while folks tell us what is coming. We already know. We share work and skills and output, recipes and materials, and we work together to make our own lives full - often without a dollar being exchanged.

Actions Speak Louder

Tomorrow I take a day off from work, and load our first prepped steer into the trailer, and take him to the butcher. We will fill our freezer with meat we have raised ourselves, on our own pasture, with our own labor. Grass-fed and plump, Springer will provide beef for the whole winter.

Friday is our big Veteran's Day celebration here in town. For weeks we have been planning. I put up a prize of $10 for the best "Thank You" card made by our local students (one at each school) , and those cards now decorate the large bulletin boards at the entrance to our schools. The Vets will come in and eat a huge Thanksgiving-day type meal, put on by our students. Then we will have students whom our American Legion has sent to the State Capitol over the summer talk about what they learned in those government classes. The school band will play patriotic music, and the assembly will thank the Veterans for what they've done for us. Afterwards, I will take down the handmade cards off of the bulletin board and give them to the American Legion Ladies' Auxiliary for their holiday trip to the Veteran's Home, and those cards together with the hand-packed 'ditty bags' , baked goods, and gifts, will be disbursed to the veterans there. (Many students didn't do it for the prize - they turned in their cards after the prize deadline, after the winner had benn chosen, to show their thanks for their Veterans.)

People live their lives according to their moral code. Even serial killers and psychopaths have a moral code (even if it differs from the norm). Your behavior is dictated by your beliefs. If there are things that you will not do - like shoplift, or rape, or scam others - that is your moral code; you follow a belief system. If you are Bernie Madoff, or Manson, or Dahlmer - you are following your belief system. You cannot divorce yourself from it. Your actions state who and what you are, even if you manage to fool a lot of people into thinking that you are otherwise.

A person who stands foursquare in the public eye against government waste, and then is elected and brings home endless pork-barrel projects like Roads to Nowhere or taxpayer dollars to support businesses that fail once the government money runs out, then your actions belie your statements. You support government waste, and you prove it by your actions. If you stand in front of the microphones and talk about "the sanctity of marriage" - and 10 years ago you dumped your wife because she had gotten cancer, even though she waited for you while you were a prisoner of war in a concentration camp, and took care of your broken body afterwards - you are a hypocrite. If you "fight to stop illegal immigration", yet have a construction company that asks no questions and profits by not paying taxes or Workers' Comp payments on the illegal immigrants you hire, you are a hypocrite. Your actions cannot be divorced from your words, no matter how passionate and well-constructed your phrases are. Your actions exemplify your true beliefs, and your words are meaningless in context. You therefore cannot be expected to stand for the things that you say you believe, because the moral code in which you believe - and that dictates your actions - causes you to do the opposite.

Sadly, most people do not take these things into account. They do not look at someone's successes and failures, their previous actions and those actions' results. They simply believe what they hear in sound bytes, and make their decisions accordingly. People believe the most passionate and most attractive speaker who caters to their own self-interests, and look no further. This is why we have serial killers and child molesters who can operate for years undetected, or con artists who can schmooze millions out of eagerly unsuspecting investors, or elected officials who can get re-elected, over and over, by promising whatever the electorate says they want this year. None of them have to take responsibility for what they have done or are doing, because no one is paying attention to anything but their words.


So listen to all those fancy speeches about "what we should be doing" or what we "should" believe. I live my life according to my beliefs - that grass-fed, home-grown beef is better than store-bought, that people can actually run their own lives according to their own beliefs, that support for Veterans isn't just a pretty picture or fanciful comment posted on a Facebook page to show your "friends" your "patriotism".

I live what I believe.

Who needs a Manifesto?

OK, here's mine - I don't give a shit, and none of you - or the mysterious 'them' - are worth a bullet.

I just thought I'd put that out there in blogworld, since 'people clinging to their guns and religion' are all apparently terrorists or potential terrorists, always on edge, just waiting for the opportunity to snap and go on a wild and purposeful (to them) killing spree.

Thanks, I have enough to deal with here. The garden went in late, due to some late killing frosts and freezes, and I just picked my first zucchini today. Yay - grilled zucchini! Yummers. It has been hot Hot HOT here, but we got a raging thunderstorm last night and more are predicted all this week. The cattle are loving it, the horse too, even the chickens are happy. It is cooler in the 60 mph breezes and icy rain. Something that a lot of people don't know is that lightning enhances plant growth - it stirs up nitrogen in the air and makes plants 'go fool' rapidly absorbing it. I was a little unsure about putting the whole garden under heavy-duty garden cloth; but it works out REALLY well, almost no weeds and the plants really seem to love it.  The calves are getting big and the chicks are growing; we'll fill the freezer this fall.

So Jasper County hired another deputy administrator, George Hood, for $80K a year, and the job was never posted or published? I don't care. So this group is fighting that group in Beaufort County over taxes and schools? Nothing's changed. So the local and national media are still desperately clinging to their firm belief that a redistributionist marxist government "TAX THE RICH and give it to the lazy!" is the best choice for not only Beaufort, Chatham, and Jasper counties, but the US? Nope, still don't care.

So an idiot editor from the Savannah Morning News drives out to Montana for a week, never leaves the Interstate, and disrespects every single state he crosses as 'bland and boring'? Yay, Frank! Thank you, thank you! You always were a superficial moron, the type that thinks that Olive Garden and Applebee's are fine dining, believes that renting a cheesy motel room that looks like every other cheesy motel room in every other city or state is the only way to travel, and that the people who live in bland and boring places must also be bland and boring. Keep driving, Frank. Like the "Ugly Americans" who take the "39 countries in 19 Days!" bus tours of Europe, and then come back and tell their friends, "Europe ain't so hot", you are totally blind to everything but yourself. Don't tell your superficial readers that it's glorious and beautiful and amazing out here, if you ever get off the Interstate and explore and actually learn about the areas,  because then they might all come out here, panting over the latest "in" spot or things to do. Stay away, and keep your hordes of drooling mindless lemmings there with you. I don't want you, or the people to whom you grandly pontificate, to ever discover the glorious diversity and wildly intense beauty of the Western Plains.  "No vacancy" signs are permanently up for simpering self-satisfied morons, TYVM.

My guns are loaded and often cleaned and fired - not because I'm looking to kill anyone, but because occasionally a mountain lion strolls through, or a pack of coyotes thinks my cows look like dinner, or because snakes, raccoons, skunks, and badgers think my yard or pasture might be a smorgasbord. Deer and antelope actually do play out here, and the turkeys are huge - I might have a hankering for turkey even before Thanksgiving. But shoot people? Nah - not worth the waste of copper and black powder. 

You all go do whatever it is that you do, fight and argue incessantly over whomever and whatever is your assigned topic this week, worry about your jobs, your car payments, your house payments, whose screwing you this week or next month. Yawn. "Talk amongst yourselves. Here's a Topic - the mainstream media is neither mainstream nor an honest use of media. Discuss!" As for me, it's time to chop down the tops of the twenty-or-so, four-foot-high potato plants, so that their roots are ready to be dug up and screened next week for storage. I have a life, thanks so much. That's my Manifesto - I have a life, I love it, I don't care what self-inflicted trauma you're courting, leave me alone. River tubing tomorrow! YAY!

Happy Fourth of July!

So the news is saying that only heavily-political-red-states are celebrating the Fourth of July.
No shit, Sherlock.
Out here we have a town picnic potluck, where everyone brings a bowl or a casserole dish. Then everyone goes over to the ball field where the Fire Department puts on a fireworks display - after the American Legion Honor Guard marches on to the field, everyone says the Pledge of Allegiance, they play the Star Spangled Banner, and then the show begins. Yes, Mike is in the Legion, and I am in the Auxiliary - between his USAF service, my father's and son's USAF service, Mike's father's service in the Marine CORPS (not "Corpse") - we qualify for membership. Mike doesn't get to march and carry a flag; between his disability and trying to walk with a cane AND a tall flagpole, it just wouldn't be safe - for the flag.

Most folks carry guns on their hips out here. I know I've said it before - but it just tickles me pink that they do - and no one has been shot around here in 40 years. Lots of coyotes have bit the big one, of course; as well as snakes, skunks, badgers, and pretty much everything else that tries to kill or destroy folks' property. No one stands out in the middle of the street and fires off shotguns like they did in California; to shoot a gun without a purpose is a waste of ammo, is de classe. No one reaches for their guns at all, unless they plan on killing something. No play, no threats, here; just pure responsibility.

The rain has been pretty steadily coming down this June; VERY unusual weather. Yet yesterday and today it is hot, Hot, HOT - 94 deg and 50% humidity. The hills - which by now are usually a dried brown - are green and covered in flowers, every type, from cactus and yucca to wild roses and marigolds. The grass is THICK in the West pasture; hip-high in some spots, the cows can't graze it down fast enough. Although the West trough area is mowed flat as a lawn, since they graze going to and fro...

Thursday night we had a HUGE storm, 80+ mph winds, heavy rain - we got 1.5 inches in 5 minutes. But, hey, it's the Sandhills - everything drained away within an hour. But it took a LOT of tree branches down, so Friday we spent cleaning and sawing. Saturday we hopped on the 4-wheeler and rode the fence line... 3 hours of checking posts and staples and barbed-wire, securing that which was loose, pulling tight and tapping in. All secure. We checked the washouts and the blowouts; the former we pulled barbed wire up out of and re-secured, the latter - well, they are filling in nicely and getting covered in grass.

Margaret is getting better with 'her' calf. Thursday it was so hot (before the storm) that I had her tie him to the fence and wipe him down with cool water and a curry brush. Ostensibly it was to cool him down - but really it was to get them both more familiar and comfortable with each other. She brought her little sister, Elizabeth, over, who is also afraid of but drawn to the animals. I taught her to scrub Gracie the horse down too. Gracie is the best creature for little ones to learn on - she will stand stock-still for hours to be petted and brushed, and never startles or takes offense at young ones.  Elizabeth's head doesn't even top Gracie's withers, and Gracie is (around here) considered a very short horse, only 13 hands. I believe in starting them young, though... Both girls were raised in the 'big city' of Valentine, (pop 2600) and have never been near farm animals before. It is a good experience for them. Yesterday Margaret went into the corral by herself, fed the cattle and horse, and didn't even have to corral her calf - just walked up to him and put the halter on. They are getting better and better. Now if we could just convince Billie Jean that no one is going to hurt her baby! Oh, well - it'll come.

On a sad note, my son is in jail in Savannah for non-payment of child support. Did I see this coming? Of course. Out of all my children and fosters, he was the only one who got a 4-year, fully-paid scholarship to pursue his dream in music - and three months later dropped out to get married to "the love of his life". He was also the only one who refused to work a job for even a year, jobs were "too demeaning" and employers "didn't respect him" - and who told us that it was our responsibility to work to support him and his love. Um, no. So 13 years later he has two kids that he never sees, can't/won't support, and a lot of friends who enable him in his superiority complex. They'll pay his bills, applaud his every move, and "understand" him and his endless self-inflicted trials and tribulations, because his mean ol' Mommy and Daddy wouldn't and still won't. "I told you so" is pretty much useless - he's 31 and old enough to be responsible for himself and his own decisions.

Love him? Of course, he's my son. Enable him? Nope, I stopped doing that years ago, when he told me he was an adult, TYVM, and would make his own decisions; I knew nothing, he knew so much more than I. Most kids feel that way, of course, for awhile; that's their way of cutting their apron strings and becoming adults. The only thing that cuts me to the quick is that Mike sacrificed so much for him and his brother; he took them in, worked 2 + 3 jobs to support them, raised them, loved them, treated them as his own (and everyone thought that they WERE his own!) and even adopted them - because THEIR biological father, my ex, was too good, too smart to work or to pay child support.  So I feel badly for my son, but not badly enough to pretend that he isn't responsible for his own life path. To us, the fact that he fell for Obama's "Hope and Change!" pretty much said it all... he's always felt that he was owed a living, and that won't change now. And in today's society, he can find an endless supply of folks who will continue to enable him in that attitude, partly because they share it. It's as if they all reached a point in their maturity and growth where they could choose between taking responsibility for their actions, setting goals, achieving them, and working towards overcoming the daily and yearly challenges of life - or slamming into a brick wall, over and over, while screaming "Life isn't FAIR!"

No shit, Sherlock. Who told you that it was? Why are you griping about the cuts and bruises and broken bones you have gotten from that brick wall - and returning to slam into it, over and over?

So as hot and bright and busy and bustling as our days are out here now, as proud as we are of what our children and foster children have achieved and accomplished, as happy as we are that we are still able to help and teach children what's important and good and satisfying,  that little cloud always hovers over us - there's always one whom you cannot save, cannot talk to, cannot convince, cannot teach. No play, no threats, here or ever, anywhere; just pure responsibility. And so this Fourth of July, we are proud to live in a land that is free, where individual rights to choose are still wide open - but that goes hand in hand with taking responsibility for those choices, something the 'blue state' people will never get - and, don't want to.

Been Busy

Wow.

Lotta things going on. Used the incubator in the basement to warm up some of our chicken's eggs; half of them hatched and we now have some almost-ready-to-go-outside chicks. Would have put them out last week, but the severe June storms dropped the temps at night down into the 40's.

A cute little neighbor girl wants to show one of our calves for 4H. She has been coming over every day since he was born. Little LTF Ashley Wilkes has already been banded and his little nuts have atrophied and are about to fall off. He is an adorable little steer - black with auburn coloring, and so stocky! His Mama is Billie Jean, the "boss cow" tough and temperamental. Every day Margaret separates the calf from his family, and is trying to teach Ashley to walk with a halter and lead. They are funny.

Gracie the horse didn't come in to supper with everyone a few days ago. The calf was in the corral with Margaret, and Freckles the cattle dog had herded all of the other cows over the hill away from the corral. I walked up the hill to see if I could see Gracie. There she was, way, way down at the bottom of the third hill, at the tub salt lick. I whistled and clapped my hands. She looked up and started trotting toward me. Suppertime!

Unfortunately the cows heard me too. Here came Billie Jean, mad as - well, a mama cow, straight for me. Freckles was gone, nowhere in sight. Gracie was still a hill away, coming fast, but she wouldn't get to me in time. So, I did what my instincts told me to do. I dropped straight down in a squatting position, and made myself as small as possible. Billie Jean, her big eyes rolling, stopped. She didn't know what to make of me. Had she charged, my legs were gathered under me to roll out of that straight line charge. Even though she is dehorned, being slammed and then trompled by 950 pounds of 'mad cow' was not appealing.

Billie Jean is usually a tractable cow; she will stand for an hour and let me punch and massage her udders and milk her, loves to have her back and neck scratched, loves to take alfalfa cubes from my hand. But a mama cow seperated from her baby is nothing to fool with. Wile Billie Jean was deciding whether it was still worth it to charge me, Gracie came trotting up and put herself between me and Billie. She didn't move until Billie walked off, still bawling for her calf. Then Gracie and I walked down the hill together.

Just another day in the life. I stay busy; now that my job is over for the summer, I am working with the plants, the animals; the town dumped abt 10 cords of wood in the yard from their tree trimming in the park this year and I am working to get that all put away and neatly arranged. It's mostly 'green' wood so it is going on the bottom of the pile, while the wood we got from last year's harvest will be split and stacked on top. Tammy and her fiancee are coming the last week in July and we are looking forward to that. The weather has been weird - very wet and rainy, and colder than normal (today it will get UP to 75 degrees). Egg sales have dropped off like they always do in the summer; folks are more able to go to town and shop, and many locals leave for the summer and go elsewhere; to families, on trips, etc. It is normally very quiet in the summer here... which gives me time to do things I need to do. And then of course there are the forums I write for, as well as my FB friends to keep updated. There are two quilts and a pair of curtains in the sewing room I'm working on; I just finished a 'way kewl apron last week. I also did the final firing on a really nice ceramic pitcher and bowl I've been working on.

I have a lot more energy now; I started using Melaleuka products (made in Idaho) - vitamins that REALLY work, and natural products that don't impact the environment, that are even cheaper than store-bought because they are concentrated. We've cut out most of the artificial food now; grass fed beef and corn-fed pigs come from local ranchers and farmers, my neighbors and I swap and share canned and fresh vegies, and even our grain is grown in South Dakota, a stone's throw away. We are stocked up and content. This fall our first home-grown steer will be ready for butchering; he is strong and muscular and should make good eating.

Life goes on.

Move Along - Nothing to See in the Middle East

The London Telegraph printed a 'secret' (is anything secret anymore?) document, showing that the US had brought an Egyptian dissident to America, and trained him in how to organize an overthrow of the Egyptian government. Read it here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/egypt/8289698/Egypt-protests-secret-US-document-discloses-support-for-protesters.html

You'd think America would stay out of these endless uprisings, be upfront and deal fairly with whomever is in power - fair trade and no trade deficits. But there is money to be made, oil and minerals abound, and Egypt is at the Suez Canal - they can stop oil shipments any time they want. Never mind that there are not only vast resources under our own country - which, by the way, BP is assiduously extracting in the Northwest - or that the main reason fuel prices are so high is because, in the 70's, Congress with her lobbyists restricted the number of fuel refineries in the US. If you can't refine it locally, the price for shipping and refining goes up. Never mind that much of our Alaskan oil resources are being sold to China and the Far East. No, we must deal with OPEC - whomever might be in charge this week.

This stinks - as it always has - of profiteering. Recently, Newsweek printed an article that said that NATO is requesting that Russia return to Afghanistan, to train troops and assist the Americans. The vast amounts of cash that Russia dumped into Afghanistan while they were there contributed to the fall of the Soviet Union - and the US was there, in opposition to Russia, training those mountain people to fight against the Communist regime that Russia backed and espoused. So naturally, Russia is demanding concessions from NATO. And so the game continues...

It was we who put Saddam Hussein into power, gave him the funding and weapons to form his own little dictatorship, and then were forced to go back and take him out again when he got out of line and dared to try to bite the hands that fed him. And apparently, our wonderful government is doing it again - training fundamental Muslims on how to overthrow their current dictatorial government to replace it with one of their own. Keeping the Middle East in an uproar, funding first this and then that future dictator, is what our own government is doing - for our own good. It's all about democracy and freedom, though, isn't it - replacing one regime for another and using American dollars and American blood to grease the wheels of 'progress'. That makes it all ok.

People will tell you that you just don't understand, that no one can understand the intricate ins and outs of dealing with other countries, other governments, especially those led by religious fanatics, unless they are involved in it daily. Besides, it's boring. Who cares about the Ayatollah any more? Wasn't he Iranian, anyway? What's the big deal? It has nothing to do with us, in our little lives, our little communities, trying to get that dog park built or that ruling overturned. We have to help first this poor afflicted soul, then that one, with money, and armaments, and training, so that they can fight the previous poor afflicted soul who took those same monies and armaments and training and used them to become the current dictator. Isn't it fun?

It's like a game of chess where you are always the white, and your opponent in black keeps changing. Of course, when you have an endless supply of American blood and American money, you actually own the chessboard and can dictate who the players are. Never mind that your poor little pawns keep getting blown up, lives and bodies shattered, and that the cost of living for the common man keeps climbing with no end in sight. Who cares? They're just pawns in an end game of money, drugs, and resources, the benefits of which the pawns will never see. Tell them it's for freedom, it's for God and country and the American way of life, it's to spread democracy across the world! They'll buy it. Teach them that the oppression in the world is all their fault, from Africa to America to the Middle East, and that they have to do something about it. They'll buy it. We've dumbed down the education in this country so far that no one even questions their inherited guilt any more. Send 'em to Wal-Mart, and tell them to fahgeddaboudit. It has nothing to do with them. Nothing to see here. Let's go save Egypt!!

Why Liberals are Blaming Palin and Beck For Giffords' Shooting

Because they have to.
You see, liberals believe that we are all intrinsically evil. They believe that no one (aside from them) has the ability to make a choice. We are all too stupid, too uneducated, too emotional to decide to either pick up a gun and enforce our demands and desires - or choose to not pick up a gun, not harm others, not force our will through violence or violent suasion. While they may not believe in a god, they DO believe that Man qua Man is a goofball, an idiot, an irresponsible doofus who has to be protected from himself, or he will invariably do something stupid.

Liberals also believe that it is they who are given the gift of sight; that they can see exactly how everyone should behave, and that they are amazingly suited to direct that behavior. It is this extreme arrogance that causes them to enforce laws that restrict all of those "other people" - the lesser beings who are mere crawling, gibbering masses of fundage for their cartoonesque plans to "rule the world!" We can't be allowed to have guns because we'll probably kill someone. We can't be allowed to state our opinions, because someone might be influenced by them. We can't be allowed to live our lives the way we choose, because they didn't choose that lifestyle for us.

It is for these reasons that they have assiduously worked to lower the educational processes in this country to emotional feel-goodism, the removal of intellectual competition and free thought, and an 'everyone gets a prize' mentality. It is for these reasons that they have reduced the intellectual debate of issues to name-calling. It is for these reasons that they insist on excusing everyone who commits a criminal act by giving them excuses like, "It wasn't his fault, it was society's/his mother's/his race's/ his economic status's fault". Today, of course, it is "Beck, Palin, Limbaugh, and the Tea Party's fault". What they do not tell you - what they cannot explain, even amongst themselves - is that, when it is "someone else's fault" then it is EVERYone's fault, and we are all guilty and all shameful, horrible people. No one can be - or should be - held responsible for his or her own actions any more.

Bluntly, this attitude will destroy this country more surely than illegals swarming over the borders, nuclear explosions, or mass insurrectionism. Because it takes away the very foundation of this country; the foundation espoused and enumerated in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. And that foundation is the basic individual freedom and the concordant (but often ignored) personal responsibility required of every individual to keep and enhance that freedom. When you are a nation of slaves to mutual and mass guilt, you are no longer a free people.

Now the liberals are screaming, "Off with their heads! Take away their guns, take away their freedom of speech, they aren't smart enough, good enough, to handle it!!!" Well, if you are stupid enough to take Palin's or Beck's or Limbaugh's quotes and posts and exhortations literally, then you are exactly, made to order, what the liberals say that you are. If you are stupid enough to read Mein Kampf or the Communist Manifesto (as the shooter's own Youtube videos attest) and take them to heart, you are exactly what the liberals say that you are. However, if you are smart enough to think and reason for yourself, and weigh truths against lies, facts against falsehoods, and opinions against dissenting opinions, you will realize that they are all trying to manipulate you - and you will not participate in that manipulation. You will not allow mass guilt to take the place of personal responsibility. You will not allow the concept of blame to take the place of responsibility. You will not permit the fanatics of any stripe to use you as a ping-pong ball on their slate of conquest.