Where Have The Producers Gone?

In her 1957 colossus, "Atlas Shrugged", Balph Eubank, one of the Looters, believes that the time has come for an Equal Opportunity For Literature Bill to be enacted by the government. Eubank, an author who has written a number of books, none ever selling more then 3,000 copies, wants the act to allow for the publishing of but 10,000 copies of any book published. If this is done Eubank believes that people will stop buying trashy books and will broaden themselves by buying the work of other authors like himself. One of the characters in the room with Eubank, a girl in a white dress asks him what if more people want to buy a book and why shouldn't they be allowed to do so if it makes them happy? Eubank replies by stating that people are no longer entitled to be happy and that the new essence is to be unhappy and miserable.

Eubank and his fellow looters are determined to destroy the producers despite the fact that they are dependent on them. The reason for that dependency? They obtain value from the producers through the humiliation and ultimate destruction of those producers. The looters gain satisfaction from their acts of destruction and personal attacks holding themselves at a higher level because they serve humanity.

In the second half of the 19th century in America we had producers. We called them Captains of Industries or in some cases, Robber Barons. These were the men who took up the challenge to bring about a better and more prosperous world for all of us. Yes, there were hardships and greed, but these were the men who invested and ran the transportation industries, the large shipping lines of the Vanderbilts and the railroads of the Harrimans. They were the owners of steel mills, Carnegie and Schwab. Financial giants such as J.P. Morgan who lent money to the government to get us out of a financial panic. Then we have the likes of Henry Ford, who showed us the way to put together an affordable way of transportation for all men. Thomas Edison, the man who gave us light and song. Alexander Graham Bell, who opened the door of communications. The list of the great ones is almost endless. The question is where are they today.

Where is the Edison of today who will see to it that the lights will not go out on us? Where is the Harriman of today who will build us a transportation system across the nation or will we no longer cross the nation or fly out of it? Where is the Morgan who will finance the light transportation system that we need in the cities of America? Where is the newly designed automobile that is standard size, safe, and efficient? Where is the high speed rail line we need? Where is the new and efficient engine for the super sonic jets we want to move a people around the world?

At one time this nation built bridges. We constructed a trans-continental railroad. We built skyscrapers. We ran wire for the telegraph and later the telephone. We had intellectual greatness at our institutions of higher learning but all of that, for the most part, has disappeared. Indeed one can beg the question by stating that given all the regulations we have at all levels of government, could we even begin to think of a new trans-continental line? Our elected representatives and the environmentalists would stop it in its tracks.

FDR A Four Term Progressive--Part 7

In 1936 Roosevelt won in a landslide against Alf Landon, the Republican Governor from Kansas. The Democrats took every state except Maine and Vermont. FDR was entering his second term with his second New Deal.

The congressional elections of 1934 had given Roosevelt an overwhelming majority in both the Senate and House. In 1934 he initiated the Works Progress Administration or WPA. It was to be a national relief agency and was suppose to deal with lowering the unemployment problem. It employed close to two million people who were the heads of the family. It never fully solved the unemployment problem. The unemployment figure was at 12.5% in 1938 when the WPA was at its peak.

Two other major pieces of legislation were passed in the year prior to the 1936 election. They were the Social Security Act and the National Labor Relations Act, a law that allowed federal workers to organize unions, strike and engage in negotiations.

With his second victory Roosevelt came to Congress and asked for more. More for the WPA that saw its employment peak at 3.3 million in 1938. In addition to this a new Agricultural Adjustment Act came on board in 1938. This time Congress left out the processing taxes and did not impose any production quotas on farmers. They did, however, put marketing quotas into place for cotton, wheat, corn, rice and tobacco. When the Secretary of Agriculture found that production of one of these crops had gone too high, he had the power to impose a marketing quota as long as two-thirds of the producers of said crop agreed with him via a referendum. The Secretary was able to assign quotas for each farm and impose severe penalties for going over the quotas.

What was truly amazing was that the Court, many members having been frightened out of their wits by the Court Packing Plan, found this Agricultural Adjustment Act to be constitutional. This would go on and on and on through FDR's second term. In West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish, the Court allowed that a minimum wage was constitutional. In National Labor Relations Board v. Jones and Laughlin Steel the Court upheld the National Labor Relations Act that had put into place very extensive and detailed controls upon labor-management relations. This decision began the constant use of the commerce clause to beat industries over the head in order to favor the unions. These are just a few of what would be many cases that took this nation down the road of liberal nationalism or, if you will, the so called Progressivism we have today. Please keep in mind that if we do not stand up to this, we will be a collectivized country.

Don't believe me? Listen to candidate Obama who tells us that we must think of the rest of the world. We are consuming to much. We shouldn't be driving our big SUVs. We shouldn't burn all that petroleum. We should not eat all that food or consume all that energy.

Look at Speaker Pelosi. She tells the president to go to the Middle East and get them to drill more oil and make the price cheaper for us. Meanwhile no drilling in ANWR, off the American Coasts or in the Gulf of Mexico. Drill somewhere else. Keep Americans dependent on foreign oil. Put Americans in teeny unsafe cars. Where are the producers, the creators, the Captains of Industry, the Robber Barons? Where in the world is John Galt?

Hanging Chads

The nightmare of the 2000 presidential election with its hanging chads and butterfly ballots is never going to go away. Not that I didn't expect this to surface this year. What is interesting is that the folks in the Democrat Party are referring to it as it pertaines to the current mess with the delegates from Florida and Michigan. Already we are hearing the mournful "Count all the votes" only in this case the Democrats have brought disaster on themselves.

Let's take a little walk back in time to the year 2000, a presidential election year where that very smart guy and inventor of the Internet, Al Gore, was going to wipe up the floor with that dunce from Texas, George Bush. The whole thing came down to Florida's returns. Briefly here is what happened.

At 7:30 PM the networks declared Gore the winner based on exit poll information. Bush, however, began to pick up more votes so that by 10 PM the networks state that the race is undecided. At 2:30 AM Bush is declared the winner. By 4:30 AM Gore has narrowed the gap to approximately 2000 votes. While he had previously conceded to Bush earlier in the evening, Gore now with drew his concession and decided to wait for the recount.

On November 9, the day after the election, Gore initiated legal action by asking for a hand recount of four counties, heavily Democratic, putting the election in to the judicial system for a decision. On November 10, the automatic recount of the election was completed and Bush was declared the winner by a small margin. Note, this was not the hand recount of the four counties requested by Gore.

On November 11, the Bush team asked that a Federal Court in Miami stop the recount. On November 13, the judge in that Miami Federal Court denied the Bush team's request and the recount went on and on and on. Ultimately, the United States Supreme Court stepped in and rightly stopped the recount. With that decision, George W. Bush became president of the United States. Further recounts had Bush winning in all legally recounted scenarios. If Gore had gone for the suggested full state recount he would have had a narrow victory. The Democrats and their allies in the press have yet to determine what a vote really is in the matter of a recount.

What was more distressing was the ignorance of the American voter. Many across this nation acted as though they had never heard of the Electoral College much less how it actually worked. People across this nation stated that they had always believed that the guy with the popular vote won the office of the presidency this despite the fact that this very type of election had occurred three previous times in our nation's history, 1824, 1876, and 1888. Please tell your kids to pay attention in history class.

Now the Democrats are stating that the folks in Florida and Michigan are not going to be properly represented at the Democratic Convention and if a compromise is not reached that will be true. But keep in mind Democrats, your party leaders made this decision and your party, at least 20 some years ago made the decision to put Super delegates into place to control who wins the nomination. This was done so that the party had the appearance of fairness while making sure that the right guys, McGovern, Carter, Dukakis,Mondale, and others, received the nomination. Your party took the smoke filled rooms public.

FDR A Four Term Progressive--Part 6

Roosevelt did not let the decision on the Agricultural Adjustment Act stop him from implementing additional legislation that moved the New Deal forward. He continued to meet with members of his administration, while for the most part ignoring Congress, to draw up programs supposedly designed to rid the nation of its economic problems. This is how the vast majority of programs were put together. It was, for all intents and purposes, a dictatorial process.

The primary solution to the Depression was known as "pump priming". Simply put it was more and more government spending. Indeed as a youngster in high school and then college, I vividly recall teachers and professors preaching that the Federal government was the only facility that had access to tremendous amounts of money that could now be used to pay for all these wonderful programs espoused by the Roosevelt Administration.

Recovery went on at an enormous price. The National Industrial Recovery Act spent $3.3 billion through the Public Works Administration or PWA later to be know as the WPA. These two organizations were supposed to end unemployment but that did not happen. Then there was the Tennessee Valley Authority. Working with Republican Senator George Norris, FDR put together the largest government owned industrial enterprise in our history. The first impulse is to say TVA was a good thing. Was it? Why wasn't this effort carried out by private industry? Why didn't we give incentives to public power companies to do this job? Most importantly how happy were those folks, already in poor economic condition, about TVA and the loss of their homes and livelihoods?

In the economic arena Roosevelt moved in 1933 to regulate the banks and in 1934 put into place the Securities and Exchange Commission to regulate Wall Street the epicenter of capitalism. However, a major and extremely controversial move was taken under Executive Order 6102 which took all the gold owned privately and turned it over to the US Treasury. Declared by many to be unconstitutional, FDR claimed that he had the power to do this under the 1917 War Powers Act. The ability of Americans to own gold was finally reinstated under President Ford in 1934.

While many would say that all these programs were wonderful, they did not end the Depression. There were consequences for all these programs in that Peter was robbed to pay Paul. In order to keep his campaign promise of cutting the federal budget, Roosevelt had to make cuts and he did so in a rather harsh but not unusual manner. He cut benefits to veterans by 40% and cut the military budget overall a tactic that would soon prove to be costly but one still practiced to this day. Over 500,000 veterans and their widows were removed from the pension rolls and had benefits cut. The salaries of Federal workers were cut as were the budgets of the military and navy. Spending was reduced on education and research and little was done to assist science until World War II began. However, he did sign an Executive Order in April of 1933 that ended Prohibition because much as politicians today view gambling, FDR was convinced he could acquire lots of money from taxing alcohol.

FDR and the Democrats had tremendous success in the 1934 Congressional election. Roosevelt gained larger majorities in the House and Senate. This in turn allowed him to move forward and continue the nationalization of our government with the consolidation of power in the hands of the central government. As for the people, they were going to pay more for less, move toward becoming wards of the state and pay no attention as everything from charity to education fell within the control of the Federal government.

The Plan Is Out

Praise be the truth is out! Yesterday, Maxine Waters, a representative from California and sympathizer of Fidel Castro, told the world that if the oil companies did not promise to lower gas prices for consumers if the companies were allowed to drill wherever they wanted she would press for government takeover of said companies. There is no longer any doubt where the Democratic Party stands. As of 7:46 AM this morning no Democrat from the committee, indeed no Democrat from anywhere in the party has stepped forward to denounce Maxine.

Ms. Waters simply revealed what is and has been going on within the Democrat Party for a long time. Those who have read their history and have paid attention to what is going on in this nation are not surprised by the blatant takeover statement that was made. Our supposed leaders have been taking us down the path to socialism/nationalism for the past century particularly during Democrat administrations.

There is no doubt that we have an energy problem. Congress wants to blame it on the oil companies allegeded price fixing. Time and time again they bring the CEOs of the oil companies before their silly committees to get face time and time and time again they have found nothing to indicate there is wrong doing. That is because they have failed to look in the proper place. The greatest wrong doing will not be found in the closets of the oil companies executives, it will be found in the closets of the likes of Maxine Waters and the dastardly deed can be summed up in one word, regulation.

The regulations placed on the oil companies are not the sole reason for the high price of oil but I would argue that they are a major contributor. Regulations that keep them from drilling for gas and oil off our coasts while China is drilling in the Gulf possibly horizontally and thus grabbing product that might rightfully be ours. Regulations that are so prohibitive that oil companies do not want to build refineries. Regulations that prohibit us from building nuclear plants that in and of itself could have a tremendous affect on so called carbon footprints given that such a thing really exists and is really harmful. Regulations that require some 26 blends of gas and retooling at least twice a year. Why do we have all these blends? Why wouldn't we have the best blend for the entire country? Aren't all of us entitled to the best air quality?

Then there is the question will conservation give us cheap prices? If we indeed move toward a 30mpg target for car mileage what will happen? I believe we will not only see smaller and less safe cars, we will also see higher gas prices because oil companies have an obligation to their stockholders. We use less gas or power the price will go up. If you check you will see that since we have been in conservation mode in this country energy prices have gone through the roof and they will continue to do so unless we get a real energy plan into place and recognize that what we must do is use things like solar and wind power as supplemental power.

Yesterday, May 27, 2008, it was announced that coal, we have an abundance of it, was going to be turned into jet fuel for the Air Force. Other nations, including Japan the only country to be struck with a nuclear weapon, use nuclear power plants. Why don't we? I remember a 7th grade assembly where a representative of General Electric used a sun lamp to show us the future, a solar car. Where is it? Why don't we have it? Could it be cost? Could it be cloudy days say here in Pennsylvania when your car might not run all that well?

The sad part of all of this is that this debate should have been going on in the 1970's during the Carter Administration and our first messy gas lines. Carter established the Energy Department and then went on with his business of not governing. Least you think I am too partisan let me state that every administration since Carter has steered away from making us less dependent on foreign oil. But the real person to blame can be found every day when we look in the mirror.

We have a candidate running for the office of President who just the other day condemned us for our consumption. According to Senator Obama, we should not be allowed to drive our SUVs thus telling us what cars we can buy. We eat to much thus it is our fault that others are starving. We, that leader of the free world, we the first people to step up to assist in every disaster in the world, we are looking at a socialist who would be president and who already has an admitted comrade in arms in the House of Representatives and Maxine isn't the only one there.

FDR A Four Term Progressive--Part 5

The Roosevelt Administration was absolutely furious with the Supreme Court decision on the Agricultural Adjustment Act. The primary reason for the anger was that the Social Security Act was coming on line and they feared that the Court would declare it unconstitutional. Roosevelt was so irate that he took to calling the justices the "nine old men" and that something needed to be done to stop them.

In 1937 Congress passed the Judiciary Reorganization Bill. This Bill soon came to be known as the Court Packing Bill. It contained a lot of provisions. The primary one gave the President the right to add extra judges to the Court for every judge over the age of 70.5 years of age. This would have given Roosevelt the power to appoint 6 new justices. It was all done as a counter to the Court declaring a pile of New Deal programs unconstitutional.

Normally a Justice is replaced upon his retirement or death. Roosevelt, however, was extremely impatient and decided to force the Court's hand after Butler. He turned to Article III of the Constitution and found that it was silent on how many justices could be on the Supreme Court the exception being that there could be but one Chief Justice because he was mentioned in the Constitution under Article 1 section 3. There was also precedent in that there had been changes numerous times to the number of justices on the Court

Roosevelt went on offense. He declared that the conservatives on the Court were putting words in the mouth of the Constitution, words that had never been there and it was never the intent of the Founders to have those words. He stated that the Court's decisions were "frustrating" and they were blocking his political and economic programs to bring about an end to the Depression.

Roosevelt had won re-election in 1936 despite the fact that his first New Deal not only failed to end the Depression but came under attack by the Court and those political opponents to its Left. The election victory gave him the courage he needed to take on the Court.

The administration stated that they only wanted the bill in order to assist older justices with their work load. When a justice reached the age of 70.5 years a new younger justice with ten years experience was to be appointed. FDR knew he could count on the Democratic controlled Congress to pass his nominees but first he was going to have to get it by both the Congress and the American public.

The debate in Congress did not go well for Roosevelt. Many Democrats thought this to be a good idea; many thought it wasn't and it certainly was not liked by the Republicans. Meanwhile, those in the press looked on with a jaundiced eye on Roosevelt and questioned his motive. Some pointed out what it was, a grab for power and an attempt to intimidate the Supreme Court of the United States.

Things were not going well for him in the countryside. Public opinion polls showed FDR that the citizens were opposed to this law. Despite those polls, Roosevelt felt that he had them by his side.

On March 9, 1937, he gave his first fireside chat of his second term. In it he noted his true intentions--he wanted a Supreme Court that understood the modern era. Was this Progressive showing his true hand? Was he telling the folks that the centralization of power into the hands of the Executive Branch was the wave of the future.? I believe he was.

As things turned out there was a change in the bill. Support for FDR in the Congress began to slip after the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings. On June 14 that committee presented a report that stated that FDR's plan was stepping all over the principles found in the Constitution. To make matters worse the man Roosevelt selected to get the votes for him in the senate, majority leader Joseph Robinson, had a heart attack and died on the day when the roll call was to be taken. Vice President Garner was charged with the task of telling FDR he did not have the votes in the Senate thus the bill and the plan were dead.

At first glance this appears to be a loss for Roosevelt. However, the Senate did provide him with a revised bill that allowed him to appoint two new judges. He signed it into law on August 26, 1937. He also was going to have to deal with a bunch of conservative Democrats who had looked at the Court as their wall, the place where the New Deal would be stopped. In the end, however, all turned out well for Roosevelt. In his second term, FDR nominated and Congress confirmed five new justices to the Court thus cementing the New Deal into place.

Had the American people gained with this action? The answer is a resounding no. FDR used his position and his popularity to threaten the members of the Court. The Court is suppose to be a neutral branch rendering decisions on the constitutionality of laws and no more. This would open the door to put pressure on the Court and for the Judicial activism that we are seeing today.

FDR A Four Term Progressive--Part 4

The Roosevelt administration moved quickly to establish control of the government. Within days they had 15 major pieces of legislation drawn up and presented to Congress. Ultimately a tremendous amount of power was gathered by the national government while stripping rights and responsibilities from the people. In the process of initiating and passing this legislation a welfare nation was created.

In order to get the legislation ready the Executive Branch all but ignored the Legislative Branch. The National Industrial Recovery Act passed in 1933 had as its mission ending cutthroat competition. In order to do this the government was going to force industries to come up with codes that would govern all the companies in a certain industry. The leaders of said industries wrote the codes, sound familiar, and the NIRA officials then approved them. In order to get this approval the industries had to raise wages. On top of that, the NIRA encouraged industries to accept unions and in return anti-trust laws were suspended. Ultimately the NIRA was declared unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Of all the legislation passed in the early days of the New Deal, the Agricultural Act was the most odious. This legislation was designed to assist American farmers. The intent of the Act was to balance the supply and demand for farm products, an age old problem for farmers. It was also suppose to address the matter of farm income and it was so written into the Act. This was going to be accomplished by paying farmers not to grow certain crops namely corn, wheat, cotton and peanuts, produce dairy products or raise some animals like sheep and pigs. In return, the government paid the farmers for not growing or raising these items. The money for the payment came from those who took the crops and manufactured products from them. Thus the guy who ground the grain paid a tax which in turn went to a farmer who was not producing. The goal was to put the farmer in a position where his wages were keeping up with his costs. There were only two problems with this. Some farmers, those who raised steers, were left out of the program. The other was the fact that despite the fact that land was taken out of production, as it is today, farmers raised more food due to fertilization and improved technology.

In 1937 the U.S. Supreme Court declared AAA to be unconstitutional in United States v Butler. The administration had attempted to get this by on the welfare clause in that the government was "to provide for the common defense and general welfare" of the nation. Justice Roberts consulted Madison and Hamilton on the matter. He found that Madison stated that said clause was simply an introduction to the enumerated powers while Hamilton viewed it as the government having the power to so provide. Roberts found two reasons to declare it unconstitutional. First, the processing tax levied on the manufacturers was not a proper tax under the taxing power in that one group was being taxed to support another group. Next he found that crops did not fall under the welfare clause in that "they were a system of agricultural regulations projected under the guise of appropriations for the general welfare" and these thing actually came under the Tenth Amendment. Roberts went on to note that the farmer was not given a choice in the matter and had to "accept the benefits and submit to regulation." In this decision Roberts recognized the right to appropriate under the general welfare clause but the government could not put conditions on those who accepted the funds. The government could give away their money but could not tell the recipient what to do with them.

Roosevelt was furious. Not only was AAA shot down, and rightly so, but it was going to cause great consternation within the Administration. Coming up on the SCOTUS's docket was the issue of Social Security, the greatest Ponzi scheme approved by man. This in turn lead to Roosevelt's infamous Court Packing Plan

The decision was 6-3 in Butler. There were decent arguments on both sides. The Act itself was re-written and became law. As such the farmers, who to this day accept subsidies in bloated farm bills, went on to become wards of the state with many bad ones hanging on when they should have moved on to other jobs.

Obama and Foreign Policy

This man wants to be our next president. He also wants to provide a new and unprecedented direction for our foreign policy, a policy that would allow him to engage in talks with our enemies with no pre-conditions. To be kind let me say that this is very naive on the part of the Senator.

I am a critic of our foreign policy because I believe that we are not very good at it. Part of the problem lies within the State Department itself. Civil Service people, that can't be fired unless hell freezes over and that's in their contract, have their own agenda. Richard Nixon, love him or hate him, knew the State Department and upon becoming president let it be known that he was going to be his own Secretary of Defense. This department is full of people who believe they know best and have been know to overrule the president's wishes.

The other problem is who we are. We have been the big kid on the block for a very long time. We were aware of that and as such we have backed off of issues involving foreign policy because we were concerned with not offending our friends or having others call us an imperialistic nation. The fix is not to go belly up and pander to others. Someone has to be strong in a crisis.

In a previous blog I noted the failed diplomatic efforts of Woodrow Wilson in his handling of the peace. Wilson is interesting in that he skillfully kept us out of the war albeit he did make some errors notably favoring England and not acting on the Lusitania incident. His actions after the war, particularly showing up at Versailles with the intent of running the show was a tragedy. The English and French officials took him to the woodshed and showed him the way of the world. Moral of that story, send the Secretary of State or someone else to prepare the way.

If Wilson were the only president who erred in foreign policy we could end right here but he wasn't. FDR's record is bad on the peace as is Truman's. JFK got beat up by Khrushcev in Berlin and over Cuba. LBJ did not do a good job in handling Viet Nam and Jimmy Carter messed up in Iran. I believe that judgement is still out on Reagan and the mess in Lebanon and George H.W. Bush's actions in the first Gulf War. However, from FDR to Bush, all of them had one thing in common, they did not jauntily walk into the lion's den and say let's talk because they all knew what had happened to Wilson. His actions caused him not only the loss of his dream, the League of Nations, but we ended up signing a separate peace with Germany.

Now comes the Senator from Illinois who wants to sit down with the likes of Chavez, Castro, and Ahmadinijad. He wants to do so without any pre-conditions on the meetings. This isn't even close to a win, win scenario. This is what we will get if we put a man with unrealistic expectations into the White House in 2009. Senator Obama will have his head handed to him just as Hitler did to Chamberlain.

FDR--A Four Term Progressive Part 3

In 1932, Franklin Roosevelt won the presidential election defeating Herbert Hoover handily with 57 percent of the vote and carrying all but 6 states. He was a charming man with a considerable base given his roots and popularity in New York state. He had the assistance of Al Smith and William Randolph Hearst as well as the support of Joseph Kennedy from Massachusetts and William McAdoo, Democratic leader in California. John Nance Garner came over to Roosevelt's side and brought Texas into FDR's column while picking up the Vice Presidential spot for himself.

In addition to his above mentioned supporters, Roosevelt was able to put together what came to be know as the New Deal coalition. The unions, the poor, Southern whites, ethnic minorities, and folks living in the cities of the nation were brought together by FDR .This coalition stayed together for over half a century.

It was during the campaign that FDR made his famous speech where he pledged a "new deal for the American people." Denouncing Hoover's failures and inability to stop the economic slide into the abyss of the depression, FDR campaigned on an immediate need to cut public expenditures, getting rid of useless offices and government commissions, and the consolidation of bureaus while supporting a strong currency that needed to be kept despite any hazards. Doesn't even sound like FDR does it? This was a very conservative platform given the fact that many believed that government needed to ride in and spend big bucks while redistributing the wealth.

This optimism on FDR's part disappeared almost overnight. On September 23, 1932, just a few weeks before the election, Roosevelt spoke from his Progressive heart. "Our industrial plant is built; the problem just now is whether under existing conditions it is not overbuilt. Our last frontier has since been reached."(Great Speeches by FDR) Golly shades of what was to come in the Carter and Clinton administrations. Now we know where they got it. Hoover, meanwhile, was furious with this admonishment. He called it a denial "'of the promise of American life'" (The Politics of Economic Growth in Postwar America).

Despite Hoover's response, there was no chance that the Republicans were going to win in 1932. When Hoover asked FDR after the election about forming a joint commission to end the downward spiral of the nation's economy, FDR turned him down. Probably a bad idea on FDR's part. With the election won, Roosevelt set about formatting and implementing his New Deal. He consolidated more power into the central government then had ever been amassed prior to his administration. It was not and is not a good thing.

FDR--A Four Term Progressive Part 2

In 1920, FDR had his first run at a national office. The Democrats selected him as the running mate for Ohio Governor, James Cox. It was not a good year for the Democrats. Wilson had botched his opportunity at Versailles. Congress had shot down our joining the League of Nations and Wilson himself had declared in 1919 that within a decade the world would find itself again at war.

The Republicans ran Republican Warren Harding also from the Buckeye State. His running mate was Calvin Coolidge. They handily defeated Cox and Roosevelt. Harding ended up having one of the most scandalous administrations in the history of the nation and died three years into his term. His womanizing and the famous Teapot Dome scandal brought a huge uproar in the nation. His Secretary of Interior, Albert Fall, leased the oil at Teapot Dome, oil that was part of the naval reserve, to oil operator Harry Sinclair. Coolidge,with no blemishes from the scandal, took over as president with Harding's death.

FDR let no grass grow under his feet. Having contracted what many thought was poliomyelitis, it now appears it was more likely Gullian-Barre syndrome, FDR underwent a wide variety of therapies for his illness. He was able, even during his presidency, to keep his illness secret from the public.

His handicap did not keep him from running for the Governor's office in New York in 1928. He had stayed close to the leaders of the Democratic party despite the fact that he had been an outspoken opponent of Tammany Hall, the Democratic machine in New York City.

One of his early steps was to assist Al Smith in his victory for the Governor's office in 1922. Then at the 1924 and 1928 Democratic National Conventions, Roosevelt gave speeches nominating Smith for the presidency. This endeared him to Smith who asked FDR to run for the Governor's position he was vacating.

FDR's run for the Governor came at the ideal time. The nation was prospering and Roosevelt moved to help it along with tax relief for the farmers of New York State and cheap electricity. Then in 1929, the stock market collapsed and the country fell into the Great Depression. Roosevelt moved immediately calling for government involvement. He put into place a model of what would later become the Civilian Conservation Corps. Over 100,000 men and boys were put to work in New York planting trees, putting erosion plans into place, and building park buildings in New York's state forests. Once again big government was on the move and Roosevelt, the new Progressive governor, was going to light up the sky with government programs and government spending that would take him from the seat of power in Albany to the seat of power in Washington, DC

The Five Progressives

I know, the title says the five Progressives but the picture has four. If you go back a couple of posts you will see the fifth one, Woodrow Wilson. I do not know why Wilson was omitted from this picture.

The reason these five Progressives are here is due to statements by Senator Obama concerning meeting and negotiating with our enemies when he becomes president. To date he has not qualified this so I am presuming that he is really going to do a face to face with the bad guys. That is not good and there are four presidents who failed in that arena who come under the Progressive label.

Woodrow Wilson, author of the Fourteen Points, went down in flames when he ventured to Versailles to deal with those who had been our allies in World War I. Can our allies also be our enemy? Yes they can and Wilson discovered that early in the game. Telling the people in America that there were not going to be secret meetings and closed doors, point one of fourteen, Wilson quickly discovered that Clemenceau and Lloyd George had they had their own plan. Their first point was to go behind close doors. The Treaty of Versailles, often looked upon as a major cause of the rise of Hitler and World War II, was signed by all but the United States. Moral of the story: Wilson should have stayed home and sent his diplomatic team instead.

Franklin Roosevelt was president during World War II. It is oft said of FDR that he set up our Navy at Pearl Harbor knowing that Japan was going to attack. He did this because he wanted to get us into the war in Europe. I have never seen proof of that and do not believe it. FDR did as good a job as can be expected running that chaos known as war. However, when it came to the peace, Roosevelt has to be looked upon as a failure. His meeting with Stalin at Yalta was a disaster. Roosevelt wanted Stalin to assist in the invasion of Japan so he sold out Poland and Eastern Europe. This gave rise to Churchill's famous Iron Curtain speech here in America.

Harry Truman was FDR's vice president and took over the presidency when Roosevelt died. Truman attended the Potsdam conference where he told Stalin, he already knew it, that the United States would soon have an atomic bomb. It was at Potsdam that Europe was divided and the stage was set for the Cold War. Truman said he didn't think that Uncle Joe, Stalin, was really that bad of a guy.

Truman would change is mind on that when the North Koreans invaded South Korea. This police action, as it was called, would prove to be a disaster. Unwilling to let MacArthur fight, Truman and the Joint Chiefs meddled in this war to the point where over fifty-four thousand troops were killed and over one hundred and three thousands were wounded. No treaty ending this war has been signed.

John F. Kennedy, a young senator from Massachusetts with little foreign policy experience, had Nikita Khrushchev as his opponent. Kennedy offered hope and change. He was attractive to the young. At the age of sixteen, I was a big supporter of JFK. Kennedy was a good looking, young guy who reached out to a lot of people in this great land. But he did not know what he was doing when it came to Khrushchev. Khrushchev took Kennedy to task on Berlin and as Kennedy would state, "He just beat the hell out of me." Kennedy knew he had been tested and that Khrushchev thought him weak.

The real test between these two men came over Cuba and the missiles put there by the Soviets. Looked at as a victory for Kennedy, it is not for Kennedy, who had been warned about the missiles in Cuba as early as August 1962, paid little attention to those warnings. By October 1962, the crisis was serious and the world watched at John Kennedy took the world to the brink of nuclear war. Normally this is taught as a great victory for JFK but it wasn't. Kennedy's lack of interest and lack of experience in foreign affairs almost caused a catastrophe.

The Cuban Missile Crisis was not JFK's only mess. Looking for revenge for the beating he took from Khrushchev, Kennedy would send Special Forces Green Beret troops into a little place called Viet Nam.

What's the moral behind all of this? As president select strong, educated and experienced people to be in the diplomatic service. Let them do the leg work and handle the details. Once the agreement has been reached, read it, edit it, come up with the final version and show up to sign it. Do not meet with foreign leaders save for a friendly get together and chit chat.

FDR--A Four Term Progressive Part 1

Handsome fellow isn't he? This is the young Franklin Delano Roosevelt as Assistant Secretary of the Navy during the two terms of President Woodrow Wilson, our first aggressive Progressive.

His long and distinguished political career started in 1910 when he was elected to the New York Senate. Wilson appointed him Assistant Secretary of the Navy in 1913. In 1920 he ran with James Cox on the Democrat ticket as the Vice Presidential candidate. In 1921 he was diagnosed with polio, a disease that would see him tied to a wheelchair for the rest of his life. Despite his illness he ran for Governor of NY in 1928 and entered the governor's mansion on January 1, 1929 with a full blown depression starting that year. FDR's next stop was the White House with his victory over Herbert Hoover in November of 1932. He went on to win the presidency three additional times to become the only four term president in the history of the country.

FDR is a man whose name causes emotions to be put into churn mode. As a young lad growing up in rural Pennsylvania farm country I was surrounded by Roosevelt Democrats. Indeed, like my entire family, I to looked upon myself as a Roosevelt Democrat and did so into the late 1960s when, in 1968, I voted for Richard Nixon and did so again in 1972. Obviously my views of FDR changed. I came to believe, and still do, that FDR is the man who placed us on the road to fascism the road we are currently traveling. This series will look at his life, his record and legislation during the depression and war time periods.

FDR came into the world on January 10, 1882. He was an only child born to James Roosevelt and Sara Delano, both from wealthy families with long pedigrees. His father was of Dutch heritage with lines that ran to Elizabeth Monroe, the President Monroe's wife, Benedict Arnold, and Joseph Smith, Jr the founder of the Church of Jesus Chris of Latter Day Saints. On his mother's side he was related to Laura Ingalls Wilder, and to four travelers on the Mayflower, Richard Warren, Isaac Allerton, Degory Priest, and Francis Cooke. One thing to keep in mind; he was, during her lifetime, completely devoted to his very possessive mother.

A graduate of Groton School, an Episcopalian prep and boarding school, FDR studied under the tutelage of Endicott Peabody, the headmaster at Groton. It was Peabody who taught young Roosevelt that public service should be his great calling, a fine idea as long as one leads with one's brain instead of one's heart. In assisting the unfortunates teach them to fish instead of giving them fish because the former will insure the continued dignity of man.

After his graduation from Groton, FDR entered Harvard. Harvard was the school attended by cousin Teddy and he became president while FDR was at Harvard. Teddy's use of the bully pulpit would serve as the model for FDR. Keep in mind that cousin Teddy was the Republican who took that party into the Progressive era and began the centralization of the federal government.

The next few years were busy for Roosevelt. He met his future wife in 1902, Anna Eleanore Roosevelt, the niece of Theodore Roosevelt. Franklin married his fifth cousin in March of 1905. Franklin married Eleanore despite the protestations and resistance of his mother who opposed the marriage. Even after moving to their home in Springwood, part of his family's holding, Sara made a point of frequent visits to the young couple much to the chagrin of Eleanore.

In 1905, FDR also entered Columbia Law school but dropped out in 1907 wen he took and passed the New York Bar. Roosevelt never did graduate from Columbia. He practiced law as a member of a Wall Street firm, Carter Ledyrd and Milburn concentrating on corporate law from 1908-1910.

It was in 1910 that Roosevelt entered the political arena. Young, handsome, and articulate, he ran for a seat in the state assembly representing the wealthy area around Hyde Park, home to many wealthy people. Roosevelt won that election and was now launched into his political career, a career he would continue for a life time.

Environmentalism The New Theocracy

In her novel, "The Fountainhead" Ayn Rand introduces us to her atheist/socialist character, Mr. Ellsworth Toohey.Toohey, a writer of sorts, is also a user of other men and their wealth.

Our environmentalists are cut from the same cloth. Environmentalism has become a religion. Indeed, they have their own high priest, Al Gore, with others who head up organizations such as Greenpeace, The Sierra Club, the World Wildlife Federation and PETA

Within the environmental community are well meaning individuals who are truly interested in helping our planet. They do not want to see the land littered, the water poisoned, or the air fouled. These folks are more likely conservationists. They believe in the Biblical directive to be good stewards of the earth while they are upon it. These are not the people with the loud voices and alliances with the Progressive politicians. They are not associated with the group of environmentalist that follow a radical political agenda.

Like Toohey, the radical environmentalists slip away from their faith and their morals. In the process they become anti-capitalists and are looking to replace capitalism with a centralized government where the leaders of that government direct the lives of the others in society. We could call them the drones. With the assistance of their allies, the environmentalists will end up bring down the greatest nation in the world and all the other nations who depend on it for assistance and inspiration.

In addition to being anti-capitalists, the environmentalists welcome death. Prince Charles of England, an environmentalist and believer in reincarnation, opined that when he came back he would like to come back as a deadly virus. His reason: to save the earth from man. The Prince is not the only environmentalist to say that the earth would be better off without man on the planet.

These people are a danger in many ways. They are willing to destroy our economy leaving us unable to earn a living. They are more interested in saving a flea or toad or other non-human life. Not that these creatures are any less worthy then man, but they are not before man. When you run into the burning house do you save the pet newt or the pregnant mother?

Within the environmental movement there are several dangerous organizations. There is the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement that believes all breeding among humans should stop. Then there is Earth First where anything must be done to save the Earth. We have the Earth Liberation Movement and its sister group, Animal Liberation Front both considered terrorists groups. ALF has a subgroup called Revolutionary Cells Animal Liberation Brigade the terrorist branch of ALF. These are the folks who want to destroy your way of life. They believe America is a bad place and the earth would be better off if all mankind were dead and the earth was returned to its original state, what they believe to be a blessed paradise. Should they succeed they will put their own theocracy in place.

Oil And The Environmentalists

Contrary to propaganda from the environmentalist community, we are not running out of oil. We are suffering from the lack of drilling and exploring because we are under a moratorium until 2012 that prohibits drilling in places like ANWR, the Gulf of Mexico and off the coast of America. While we are sitting on our hands and seeing oil prices rocket through the atmosphere, China and now Nigeria, are acquiring leases to drill for that oil in the Gulf of Mexico.

It as been estimated that between ANWR, the Gulf of Mexico and off shore sites, we have approximately 112 billion barrels of oil. This could sustain 60 million automobiles for 60 years. The untold story is the fact that in North Dakota, Utah, Wyoming, and Colorado we have somewhere between 800 billion to 2 trillion barrels of oil in the oil shale fields. In addition to all of this we have coal and the ability to turn that into gas. So why are we not using our wonderful minds and technological abilities to do something with all these possibilities? Why do we fail to realize that our path to energy independence involves short, medium and long term solutions that will be costly to both the producers and the consumers?

The reason for this lack of planning and development is the alliance between the environmentalist and their Progressive partners in government. Take a look at an observation made by Glenn Johnson of the AP Online, "McCain has long expressed a belief in global warming, arguing that even if he is wrong, acting as if the planet's temperature were increasing would only benefit the environment if scientists subsequently proved he was mistaken." How many gazillion dollars will he have spent on this asinine project? A host of scientists are already proving that not only is it possible that global warming/climate change is a hoax, but we might very well be at the beginning of a cooling period because in January of 2008, the sun went quiet and there was no sunspot activity. This is a regular occurrence on the part of the sun.

The environmentalists, supported by their terrorist friends ALF and ELF, are directly responsible for the energy problems we have. They have no proof to sustain their claims whether it be global warming, climate change or the disappearance of spotted owls. Most importantly these folks are not really concerned with the environment they are anti-capitalist and are supporters of big government. Thus they are willing to work with those politicians, including the three presidential candidates, to create a fascists nation here in America and expand said programs to globalism with the UN in charge. At least temporarily.

Now you might ask why do the Progressives ally with these folks. Your first guess might be that the Progressives are concerned with protecting the rights of the minority and based on current political polls these folks are truly a minority voice. But that is not the case. By sidling up to the environmentalists, the Progressives look to be thoughtful and concerned but more importantly it allows them to play identity politics and once again split the American people so that we fight one another and the Progressives sit back and laugh while taking the power to govern unto themselves. Oil just becomes another item of another war that America must wage and therefore we must huddle around our government and give it more power to fight yet another disaster.

I Thought Corn Was For Eating?

Next to turning oil into polyester so we could make clothing from it, turning food into fuel is about the dumbest thing I have personally experienced. What is really amazing is that the boys and girls in Washington, DC finally have the handle on it and are talking about rethinking the whole ethanol thing. It seems that making corn into fuel as well as the high petroleum prices may have caused a food shortage and price spikes around the world causing a lot of little munchkins and their moms and dads to literally eat dirt pies held together with butter and flavored with salt. I can hardly wait to sit down to a meal of dirt pies. Think it's not possible here? Remember you didn't think it was possible to have oil at $120 a barrel and gasoline at $3.65 a gallon headed only one direction, UP.
Can we find the source of this problem? Is it the blood for oil crowd currently in the White House? I think not. Keep in mind that we have the ability to stand off shore and take all of the oil in the Middle East any time we want to do that.
I would put the blame on the little, mean Greens. Those charming folks like to call themselves environmentalists and believe that we should all commit suicide because that would save the earth. Don't misunderstand, I believe in the charge that we are to be good stewards of the planet. No need to toss garbage all over the place. No need to pollute the land or water. But when you want to put me back into a tepee and you want to hinder technological development, then we have a problem.
Prior to leaving as Secretary of HUD, Jack Kemp noted that all the government regulations on housing had caused a 77% rise in the price of housing. This is what centralized government, also know as BIG BROTHER, does for you. And this is what is wrong with government today. We the people have allowed the government that we are suppose to control to come into our lives under the pretext of doing something good for us only to have it all go bad. Listen to the candidates. Hillary Clinton told the folks in Indiana today to put her into office so that she can wake up and think about us. Lord please help us. Problem is all of the candidates are just like her including John McCain.
As a nation and under our government we are suppose to protect minority opinions. We do that because on any given day we can find ourselves speaking forth on a minority opinion. What we don't do is protect the minority at the expense of the majority and if we do not move quickly, well those little cardigan sweaters will simply not be enough to protect us in the winter but none of us will have a weight problem because we will all be walking. Are you up for the trek to stop these fools and liars in their tracks? You are the government now let's take our country out of the hands of the professional politicians and put it into the hands of the people who have been decreed to be the ones in charge.

Reverend Wright Is Wrong

Give him credit, Jeremiah Wright is a fantastic showman. His speeches have been spellbinding and undoubtedly sent shivers up and down the spines of those watching and those in attendance. I found his message to be wrong and I wonder why there hasn't been a greater denunciation of the Reverend's
comments.

Let's start with the matter of "different not deficient" and the right brain, left brain thing. I taught history for 32 years and had the opportunity to learn about the differences between right and left brained individuals at a conference for honor students at King of Prussia. I have lived with a right brain lady, pray for me, for 41 plus years and that trait carried over to our son and at least three of our four grandchildren. We are white. Two of the right brain grandchildren are teenage girls, one is a soon to be ten year old boy. All of them have an artistic bent some more so then others. My son and his son are ambidextrous. My son uses his right hand, not forced upon him, and my grandson uses his left hand to write but does a lot of other things with his right hand. Both, like my wife, are extremely interesting people because their minds function differently then my left brain mind. I would also wager that all of my right brain family members could clap to the African beat

Jeremiah Wright's attempt to some how make right brain dominate a black thing is absurd. His description of active boys was correct but white boys are also very active. This is why there are those in education stating we need to provide a school for boys where they can engage in physical activity. This is why we are creating separate schools for boys and girls. It is believed that children will learn better if they are separated by sex. Why? Because boys and girls are different

For Reverend Wright to call on God to damn the United States proves to me that this man has no understanding or chooses to ignore the history of this nation. On top of that he has shown that he is a bigot intent on initiating a racial conflict if white citizens do not adhere to their white guilt. Let's look at a little history.

Africans were brought to our shores in 1619 by the Dutch and long before the creation of the United States of America. Initially they were held like their white counterparts as indentured servants. It was the British, Dutch, eventually Americans and others who engaged in the slave trade and brought them to colonial shores. As the demand for cheap labor increased, Africans became slaves to work the land for a variety of crops both north and south

Slavery had become sticky issue by the time of the writing of the American Constitution. Contrary to what a lot of people think they know, there were discussions about what to do with the slaves. Many believed that slavery was going to eventually die out but many also wanted to keep their slaves. A compromise was reached and it wasn't a nice one. Slaves were to be recognized as three fifths of a person for census purposes because that controlled the number of representatives in the House of Representatives. However, the slave trade was also to come to an end twenty years after the ratification of the Constitution. Just the trade not the slavery itself. It wasn't perfect, but it was a step forward by Americans to end slavery. Many of those Founding Fathers believed that if slavery did not come to an end that we would end up in a battle and of course that would come true with the onset of the Civil War. Would the good reverend be damning us over that?

Reverend Wright who now lives in a very large home, 10,000 square feet, with a $10 million line of credit attached to it in a gated white community ought to be ashamed of himself. But he won't be because he is a racist and like his brothers in arms, Jessie Jackson and Al Sharpton, he will continue to preach a message of hate hoping that white Americans will continue to feel guilty for something that went on some three hundred years ago. Reverend Wright you might have your own chickens come home to roost. And please consult Bill Cosby at your earliest convenience.

The Progressives--A Long Range Plan--Summation Of The Early Era

Have you heard Americans asking how did we get into this situation and when did it begin? Gas and home heating oil prices out of control with no end in sight. Food prices, that's food prices, going through the roof here in America. Minority groups running the country and yes, I am talking about environmental groups and government control freaks.

I believe a lot of what is going on today is happening because we took a wrong turn with the ascendancy of Theodore Roosevelt to the office of the presidency and moved into high gear under Woodrow Wilson. Principally what these two men did was initiate a centralized government program that has taken the power of government out of the hands of the American people and put it into the hands of the politicians who have now made politics a profession controlled by lawyers. We have returned to the era of the monarch.

One can readily make the case that a lot of things done by the early Progressives were certainly for good causes. Lives of the poor and down- trodden were supposedly improved. But we must ask at what cost? From the moment Teddy Roosevelt began ignoring the Constitution and broke up companies to purportedly save the little guy and his family, we were on that proverbial slippery slope. We are now at the point where our elected representatives are telling us what our rights are. Didn't we fight a war in 1776 to change that?

The second impact was the cost of the nationalization of our government. While Washington, DC remained a relatively quiet community during the early Progressive period everything changed with the Depression and World War II. Buildings were built. People were hired. We were on a crisis/war time footing and the enemy had to be defeated. We had to come together to defeat these two evils and in the process government size and cost grew and we haven't seen any sign of a return to the ideas and principles of our Founding Fathers primarily that we the people are in charge. It seems that we are willing to surrender to a collective form of government. "In God We Trust" will be replaced with "Can't We All Get Along" as stated by the drunken but noble Rodney King.

After Woodrow Wilson we enjoyed a decade of prosperity under Republicans. Unfortunately that bubble of the Roaring Twenties fell on hard times. It has been reported that Calvin Coolidge did not run for office in 1928 because he did not want to be there when things fell apart. Supposedly he was asked why didn't he say something and he responded, correctly, that no one would have listened to a president calling wolf. Herbert Hoover was elected and became the fall guy for the Great Depression that in turn would re-open the door for liberal Democrats with the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt.

The Progressives--A Long Range Plan--Part 4

Wilson's first term concentrated on issues dealing with domestic policy. The Revenue Act passed in 1913 lowered tariffs and gave us the 16th Amendment imposing the Federal Income Tax. The 17th Amendment, being considered by some for repeal, gave us the direct election of senators now no longer responsible to the citizens of their home state. The Federal Reserve Act of 1913 provided a central banking system so that we had flexible currency and the rediscounting of commercial paper. We gained the Federal Farm Loan Act that provided federal assistance to farmers and established the National Park system with the National Park Service Act of 1916. And let's not forget the Clayton Antitrust Act and its impositions on big business.

Wilson's second term was taken up by World War I or "the war to end all wars." To Wilson's credit he did not rush the country into the war in Europe until certain issues forced his hand. He did offer to mediate the war and he did not move to build up the army probably something he regretted. His comment to the peace faction in the US was that an army build up would be to provocative. Indeed, Wilson got himself in trouble in Philadelphia while making a speech where he declared that "sometimes a nation can be too proud to fight."

Wilson was not inactive when it came to criticizing the warring nations. He warned Germany about her submarine warfare because the Germans made it perfectly clear they would attack those who supplied England.That came true when the Lusitania was sunk by German subs killing American passengers. One would think that the sinking of the Lusitania would be enough to cause America to go to war but that was not the case because the Germans promised to restrict submarine attacks to combatants. That did not work because Germany was losing the war.

The issues that took America into World War I were the Zimmerman note and Germany's decision to renew unrestricted submarine warfare on noncombatants. Germany made overtures to Mexico. They suggested that Mexico invade the United States and when Germany won the war Mexico would be given the land they had lost to the US. This infuriated Wilson and he asked and received a declaration of war against Germany and her allies. Wilson told the public that this was a war to make "the world safe for democracy." It was America's entrance into the war that caused the defeat of Germany and her allies Austria-Hungary and Turkey.

What we need to pay attention to is what happened at home after Wilson took us to war. The Congress passed and Wilson signed the Espionage Act in 1917. This made it illegal to pass information on to the enemy or convey false information to any branch of the United States military.

In 1918, the Sedition Act was passed. It prohibited citizens from speaking, printing, or writing anything bad about the United States government or military. Government officials such as the postmaster general had the power to stop the delivery of mail if he deemed it to come under the Sedition or Espionage Act. All foreign publications had to be translated and approved by censors. If American publications did not obey their newsprint could be shut off effectively ending their ability to publish.

Citizens were not to speak out against the government in their own homes. Jonah Goldberg points out in his work, "Liberal Fascism" that a man in Wisconsin was put in jail for two and a half years for criticizing a fund raising drive by the Red Cross. Another incident concerned a movie showing British troops committing atrocities during the American Revolution got the producer a ten year jail term. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes stated that these actions, that saw tens of thousands of Americans being arrested, were constitutional. Does any of this sound familiar?

Historically speaking, my history teachers and professors taught that this was all okay. One came away with the impression that all these policies and all the new government agencies created to implement these policies were necessary to help the downtrodden and create a safe home front. We had emergencies that we had to deal with and only the government could do that. Now an expanse of time has passed and we are able to do a critical analysis of the Progressives. Good causes or not the Progressives showed a willingness to interfere in areas not supported by the Constitution. They did this and do this because they believe that we are unable to fulfill the legacy left to us by Thomas Jefferson and the Founding Fathers. Thus government must take over and direct us and spend our money for us. Government knows best.

With the passage of time we can see clearly the path of the new Progressives who by changing their name from liberals, what they became at the end of the Wilsonian era, are going back to their roots. They speak of unity and centralization. They believe that government knows best. They constantly speak of change something that has devastated our education system. They bring wars that seem to need fighting yet they are wars to enhance their grip on our country. In the words of the immortal Pogo, "We have met the enemy and he is us." And that "us" can show up as a Progressive liberal or a compassionate conservative Republican.

The Progressives--A Long Range Plan--Part 3

By the time he walked into the White House on March 4, 1913, Woodrow Wilson had acquired a heavy resume. Son of a founder of the Southern Presbyterian Church who had also served as a Chaplin in the Confederate Army, Wilson was an 1879, graduate of Princeton. He attended the University of Virginia for one year when he returned home probably because of his health. He entered the law firm of an old U of V classmate and passed the Georgia Bar. He was not all that happy as an attorney so he applied to and was accepted at Johns Hopkins where he earned a PhD in history and government in 1886. To date he is the only president who obtained a doctoral degree. He would go on to serve as president of his Alma Mater at Princeton and as governor of New Jersey from January 17,1911-March 1, 1913.

Wilson was a member of the Democrat Party. He was a major figure during the Progressive movement of the early twentieth century. As such he was a man interested in change including the changing of the Constitution a document he considered cumbersome. At on point, Wilson stated that we should work to bring "the Executive and Legislature closer together". What Wilson was really looking at was taking our government over to a parliamentary system similar to that of Great Britain's. He was not a fan of our system of checks and balances because it was impossible to lay blame for any problem that might arise.

Wilson's time in office is very interesting in that his first term was consume with the implementation of his domestic agenda. Wilson ran on a platform calling for a "New Freedom". He promised that he would make changes to the antitrust laws, reform currency and banking regulations and revise the tariff. Indeed he accomplished many of his goals.

In 1913, Congress passed and Wilson signed the Underwood Tariff that lowered rates and revenue from tariffs. We made up the shortfall of funds by passing Amendment 16 that gave Congress the right to levy and collect the now infamous income tax.

Wilson initiated a series of acts to help farmers by providing farm extension agent who assisted farmers by teaching them new farming methods. WOW teaching farmers how to farm. Maybe those that did not know how to do that should have been in another vocation.

Laws to curb child labor, assist seamen, help the railroad and the unions were also part of the New Freedom Wilson espoused. A big change came with the Federal Trade Commission whose purpose was to stop trade practices that were deemed unfair.

One major piece of legislation was the Clayton Antitrust Act. This act differed from Sherman in that the Sherman Antitrust Act, passed in 1890, was designed to break up the Trusts, large companies becoming monopolies. Clayton made inroads because it was aimed at stopping what was deemed to be anti-competitive practices in a competitive market. Thus price fixing, forcing retailers to not sell another companies goods, and certain mergers or purchases of other companies could fall under the provisions of the Clayton Antitrust Act. The major move by the government was that the officers of such a company could be held accountable yet interestingly enough was that Clayton exempted labor unions and agricultural organizations.

The argument can and has been made that government had to become involved because the times were such that people were suffering and something had to be done. But is this the way a people who live in a republican form of government are suppose to act? With the Clayton Antitrust Act, Wilson introduced identity politics to the political arena and it was an item that would not only continue to grow but would create an anger within the country that may not be fixable.

Sam's Club and Rice

I want all of you to realize that this entry is a direct result of a news story declaring that Sam's Club, and certainly it is only a matter of time before other grocers join in, has rationed rice that comes in 20lb. bags. Someone, I presume at Sam's or maybe the evil Wal-Mart, has come to the conclusion that folks buying rice in large quantities are hoarding and trying to escape the escalating price of food. God forbid you should decide to take care of you and yours. There was a time when this would have been considered frugal behavior. Indeed, it is my understanding that those who belong to the Mormon religion ask their members to keep a couple years of food on hand in case of hard times.

Rationing is something we usually associate with shortages. If we do have a rice/food shortage we must ask why. Let me give you two words, government subsidies. We have been subsidizing American farmers for one reason or another ever since the depression. We are at it again in that we are subsidizing them to grow corn so that we can turn it into ethanol and burn it. I thought it was dumb to use petroleum to make polyester and plastic and wear it. This ethanol thing is one of the stupidest things we have ever done. Why are we doing this? We are engaged in the War on Global Warming or Climate Change, the latest war in the strategy of the Progressives.

Government officials would tell you that we subsidize agriculture because we want to save the small farmer. I would suggest that the small farmer disappeared with the Romans. What we are really doing is subsidizing Big Farming and bad agricultural practices.

In reality we probably have too many farmers in the country who continue to do the same things they have been doing since World War I. They grow crops. If the farmers in an area have a good crop that year in that region they all have a good year. Price for the crop in a surplus year will go down because there is too much product. In a bad year all the farmers will be low on product but price will be up. Unfortunately the farmers will not have a lot to sell. Costs, meanwhile, continue to go up for equipment and those fluids needed to run that equipment. Right now there are farmers growing corn for ethanol and they are not making money because the price of gasoline and diesel is through the roof. Meanwhile commodity prices are going crazy and the speculators have pushed those prices through the roof. Do the farmers consider growing something other then corn or whatever the major crop is for their region. Seldom do they do this. I live in Pennsylvania. My wife and I have put in a garden this year. Summer and winter squash, tomatoes, peas, carrots, radishes, zucchini, lettuce, cauliflower, broccoli, are but a few things in our garden. Farmers' fields will be full of corn, soybeans, and hay. Talk about your diversity and forward thinking.

Are we really looking at a food shortage? Are food prices going to make gas prices look like a good deal? Are we going to continue to allow the hoax of Climate Change? Isn't Al Gore's green hedge fund enough proof of what this is all about? Are you going to let them buffalo you on the ethanol matter, a fuel that requires 100 gallons of petroleum to make 90 gallons of ethanol a fuel that will give us lower mileage per gallon and is dirtier then what we have?

We subsidize farmers and the price of food goes up. We subsidize oil companies and they don't drill for oil or build refineries. We subsidize schools and test scores go down. We subsidize colleges and the cost goes up as the money goes to the likes of Ward Churchill. Without subsidies Ward Churchill would not be a professor and Colorado University would not be there. Can you find the common key here? Keep in mind that it is today's Progressives, Clinton, Obama, Pelosi, Reed, and indeed compassionate Bush, are up to their eyeballs in this. Take a close look at the picture on this entry, it is cat food. Is it the meal of the future for you and me