Category Archives: Capitalism

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EIGHT DECADES OF INSIGHTS 122

The Myth

When I think about the number of our citizens who voted twice for the Progressive agenda of Barack Obama and who probably would give him a third or lifetime term, it is simply frightening. His supporters are not all from the have-nots of our economy, but he couldn’t win without their vote. Those who have bought into the welfare state from need, guilt, or a belief in the paradise that progressives promise they will build in America, will vote for the progressive slate every time they go to the voting poll. Why? What are the factors that allow the progressive myth to live on?

It is a popular version of the Robin Hood myth. From comic books, to classic literature, religious writings from before capitalism, to the barrage of film industry escapism, nearly all villains are wealthy and do terrible things to get richer. This story line is so deep that the celluloid actors and actresses who make millions from acting in these make-believe stories, with a few exceptions, provide funds and personal support to the progressive agenda. They believe in the myth that progressives can build a better society here on earth. Their zeal is matched by that of the people we entrust with the education of our youth. Great American universities have become the spawning grounds of millions of young people who have been fed the progressive myth, semester after semester.

Beyond conservative talk radio, a few television channels and an occasional best-selling book there is no counter-balancing message to the progressive religion. What is the essence, the core belief of this secular religion? There are a number of myths, but the pillar of the progressive church is the myth that human nature can be changed under a rigid leadership of a progressive elite. The elite can pass laws and regulations that will be enforced relentlessly until there is no longer a need for enforcement. People will now live in a society where the principle of distribution of wealth is not dependent on birth or ability or hard work.

There will be no exceptional citizens. Only the ruling elite is exempt from the rules and regulations. There will be no winners or losers. We will all be equal. Individual freedom is sacrificed for the good of all people. This is not theory. It is history for the few who bother to read about the paradise Lenin, Marx, and Stalin brought to Russia, or Mao tse Tung brought to China, or Castro to Cuba. There are many other examples. Several such communities were tried in America. All socialist, progressive, communist societies have failed or are failing. Whatever they call themselves, they all worship the same myth.

The essence of the myth is not complicated. Progressives believe that people cannot be trusted to make life decisions, develop and manage small businesses or large corporations without constant regulation and taxation to distribute wealth to all. To them, all entrepreneurs are evil, self-seeking people who want to exploit their fellow citizens by giving them jobs that further enrich the people who started the businesses. These business leaders then amass political influence and use their power to influence elections.

The major difference between conservatives and progressives is that conservatives believe that the larger government becomes the more dangerous it is to individual freedom. People who run corporations or manage large government agencies or departments are imbued with the same basic human instincts, love, greed, guilt, faults, and the rest of our human limitations. In the progressive myth, private businesses and market functions need extensive regulations. But government by a progressive elite, though also managed by people with the same human instincts, does not need any check or balance. The inherent good sense and wisdom of the progressive elite managers of government will give us paradise on earth.

An over-reaching corporation can be rather easily controlled and, at its worst, will not destroy individual freedom. In government by a perpetual progressive elite there is no individual freedom. Change often requires a revolt by the people. The progressive myth always has an ugly end game. The Obama regime is already acting like a managing one-party-elite. Have you noticed the IRS, Justice, HHS, the EPA, and other federal departments over stepping their traditional limits of authority and, most ominously, the unprecedented use of Executive authority ignoring the Constitutional role of the Congress? Do not believe the myth. It will enslave all of us. If you are a believer in big government, your conservative credentials are severely tarnished.

For more on the progressive agenda, check out my first non-fiction book: “Insights: Transforming America — is this what we fought for?” available at Amazon or Barnes and Noble.

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by Barry Kelly | June 29, 2014 · 10:44 am

by Barry Kelly | April 14, 2014 · 10:09 am

EIGHT DECADES OF INSIGHTS 110

IS THIS A GAME?

Yes it is, and the Republicans have not learned the rules yet. Time is running out and our team is behind. We have no offense and the defense is out coached. Coach Obama knows what he is doing but only his inner team has the playbook. To win the title for the next several generations he has to change capitalism into socialism, reduce America’s military power, give up our technology position in space exploration, give over control of much of our communications to a world body, abandon NATO, under fund the defense contractors, control energy production, expand the number of people dependent on government assistance, turn the civil service into a force to control opposition, abandon free market concepts and abolish political opposition. How is he doing?

We are dependent on the Russians to deliver people and supplies to the International Space Station. We no longer have the booster technology or the space vehicle to conduct space missions. We were once by far the world leader in space exploration. Now we are voluntarily taking a backseat to Russia and China. Space dominance and military power are closely coupled. Our space capability depended on skilled teams of civilians and military personnel. That capability would take several years to reconstitute. Obama can take a victory lap.

He is reducing our military manpower to below World War II levels. He knows his word on the world power stage is weak and he is okay with that. NATO nations no longer trust the United States nor do the NATO leaning nations of Eastern Europe. Power comes from capability and will, not speeches. How about armored divisions to prevent Russia from over running Europe. How? The U.S. Army does not have a single battle tank in Europe. Remember Benghazi? Our once vaunted military could not rescue or even try to rescue the embattled Americans in the Benghazi Consulate. Another victory lap for the president.

Control of energy. Without the hindering regulations from the Obama administration, we would now be a dominant energy exporter. Putin would have to develop another source of funds for his reconstruction of the Soviet Empire. Obama’s work to wreck the energy industry in America can be seen in the incredible failure to approve the Canadian pipeline, the heavy funding of alternative energy technologies that are decades away, and regulations preventing additional offshore drilling or more exploration and drilling on federal lands. Fortunately, he could not prevent the energy boom in the Dakotas. But he will try. A half victory lap here.

The economy. The recovery is very poor in job or gross national product terms. Real unemployment is above 12 percent. Money printing by the Keynesian Federal Reserve has kept the stock market sound but has increased the gap of wealth between those who can invest and those who need income from labor. Printing 75 billion or so each month does not help our workers. His first triumph, Obamacare, is not a failure. It is right on or ahead of schedule. It was never intended to improve health care in America, only to bring in socialized medicine. Obamacare is creating so much disruption in the health services that in a year or so, the single-payer system will come to the rescue. This has always been the plan. Another victory lap is awarded.

The civil service. I always thought that the civil service was an unheralded check on either the executive or the legislature grabbing too much power. Wrong. President Obama has taken less than six years to turn the IRS, HHS, DOJ, EPA, DHS, DOE, and parts of the intelligence and military staffs into active supporters. Nothing Obama does can be investigated by the government or the media. Congress doesn’t even understand what’s happening. Yes, Speaker Boehner, it is a game and you are losing badly. Learn the rules and do what your job calls for. The president earns another victory lap here.

If you can clear your head and look at what is happening and has happened, it should be clear that President Obama’s train did not wreck. He just needs to pass on his mantle to another progressive Alinksy-ite to build on what he has done. Could that be Hillary?

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Tagged as Alinsky, Congress, Obamacare, Progressives

by Barry Kelly | February 10, 2014 · 11:29 am

EIGHT DECADES OF INSIGHTS 96 THE ADVISOR

THE TAKE DOWN OF AMERICA

The Advisor had been going over all his files and journals going back to the Nixon Era. He was trying to decide if he would be the first Advisor to break protocol and publish a book, anonymously, of course. After weeks of studying the Presidential Journals written by his predecessors and books published during the same time period, he concluded that some Advisors had used their knowledge of the President’s actions and policies to contribute to the open record.

He rationalized that if his sole responsibility was to advise the President for the good of the nation, it was within his authority to tell the nation what the President was planning. Nothing less than America’s future was at stake.

He sketched out a few pages, filled his pen and began to write.

The President told us when running for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States that his goal was to transform America. Many of us thought that the nation could use a little transformation. We didn’t realize he meant transformation to the edge of destruction and beyond. It’s not the end of America but the end of the America that anyone over thirty years of age knew and cherished. We also did not even suspect that the transformation would be accomplished by a policy of “the end justifies the means,” an approach laid out by Saul Alinsky, an American revolutionary and former community organizer in Chicago. Alinsky preached the “issue is never the issue,” meaning anything his Progressive followers, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton,did to overthrow the existing power structure and replace it with an income distribution social order where everyone got a fair shot was moral.

False statements, deliberate misleading of the American people, using all issues as tools to destroy the Republican Party and win elections are the right things to do. Old-fashioned morals like keeping your word, being honest and open, solving problems that advance American individual liberty, promote economic power and follow the rule of law and Constitutional restrictions were relegated to a growing pile of disregarded broken pieces of the separation of powers, states’ rights and Constitutional protections of individual freedom.

To transform anything you must first destroy or replace the existing order. The Obama-led Progressives (a more acceptable label than Socialists or Communists) have prepared America for an historical take down. The first step is to destroy the opposition. The opposition is the Republican, Libertarian, and Tea Parties. Only a few of the leaders of these groups/parties understand what Obama is doing. He doesn’t care at all about solving problems, foreign or domestic. He only wants to use the issue to destroy the opposition. Health care, immigration, tax policy, economic policy, unemployment, minimum wage, the use of the military services, counter-terrorism, foreign policy, energy development, environmental concerns provide a never-ending supply of issues to use against the befuddled leadership of the Republican Party.

President Obama is not a stupid or evil politician. He just doesn’t bring the beliefs or mindset that Americans automatically assume all their leaders bring to the Oval Office. He is certainly not a free-market capitalist. Nor is he a constitutionalist. He was not born of the civil rights movement. He is not an America First politician. He is more anti-colonialist, anti-war, anti-western with very strong elitist socialist leanings. He is so insecure in his American leadership costume that he can not stand up to foreign leaders.’

The Advisor put his pen down. Mused over what he had written and thought this sounds harsh but I believe it is true. I will develop these points as I continue with the book on the take down of America.

Meeting with President Reagan, Vice President Bush, Deputy National Security Adviser Frank Carlucci and General Colin Powell in the Oval Office.

This is a fictional account of an Advisor that doesn’t exist by the author of the Brandon novels. The author (pictured far right) has 27 years of Government service, including two years serving President Ronald Reagan (middle left) in the 1980s as an advisor. Meeting with President Reagan, Vice President Bush, Deputy National Security Adviser Frank Carlucci and General Colin Powell in the Oval Office.Meeting with President Reagan, Vice President Bush, Deputy National Security Adviser Frank Carlucci and General Colin Powell in the Oval Office.

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Tagged as zamantha

by Barry Kelly | July 15, 2013 · 6:00 pm

EIGHT DECADES OF INSIGHTS 64 – THE ADVISOR

The Advisor on Big Goverment

“Good evening, Mr. President. Are you ready to hear my advice on the size and scope of government? Really, the same principles apply in some fashion to any very large organization. It’s not primarily dependent on which political party is in power. President Bush created the Department of Homeland Security and the Director of National Intelligence, against the advice of my predecessor, two of the worst examples of growing the size of government to fix some problems.

“Conservatives grow the government’s bureaucratic forces to provide security. Liberals grow the bureaucracy to make things equal or to provide welfare services. Both are misguided. All bureaucracies are created to regulate and control the actions of people who actually produce goods and services. These people are the ones who built this nation and who have created the most productive and free society the world has ever seen. They are the substantive force in our civilization. They care little for regulation that makes production more costly or inefficient. They rely on the forces of a free market to guide the economy. The regulators are the process people who do not have creative skills or the individual skills to build or manage but are driven to control the process which means to control the means of productions and distribution. It would be foolish to believe regulation is not needed at times but only in the smallest amount.

“Left to themselves, the regulators will centralize and grow the size of government to the point no business can function efficiently. Today we are close to that point where the founders and leaders of industry have to pay more attention to the impact of government regulations and taxes than to the worldwide forces of the market place.

“The introduction was a bit long and you must want your cup filled and a cigarette. May I pour you some coffee? You’ll find your brand of cigarettes on the table. Any questions so far?”

” Yes, I’m ready, please pour. Although I’m beginning to doubt my sanity. I already think you must be a timeless relic from some faraway ancient civilization and wonder what beyond curiosity brings me back to your cave? Do you ever leave here?”

“Mr. President, the first eight decades of my life were spent above ground. It is much easier underground. We all eventually get here. But we can’t spend too much time talking about me. My past years are of no significance. Advising the President of the United States is a full-time job, especially when we don’t agree on a common set of facts.”

“Second question. Yes. I’ve been here several times now and I still don’t know what I should call you.”

“You may call me anything. I am and have been many things. I’m old enough to have learned names and titles are of little importance compared to the impact a man or woman makes in improving and protecting our world.”

“Maybe I should call you a professor. You know I was one once.”

“Mr. President, I was once a professor but do not prefer that title and you shouldn’t, either.”

“Why not?”

“Well, to start with your academic grades are not good and you were an instructor, not an assistant professor, an associate professor nor a professor. Your current title far surpasses your academic credentials. But let’s get started before you get up and leave. Remember, down here we must have honesty. All pretensions and embellishments must be left at the door. You can pick them up when you leave.

“My worry about big government is the embedded drive in humans to continue the process of centralization. Defined as combining segments of government, business, or religion into fewer and larger segments where fewer and fewer people make decisions. This process expands the scope of control beyond the ability of anyone to be an effective manager and steward of public funds. It is all part of the desire to make things better. Watch, when things go ‘wrong’ the cry is, ‘put someone in charge. Make someone responsible.’ 9/11 gave us that opportunity. Something was wrong. How else could such blow strike our homeland? A conservative government, under President Bush, moved to fix the problem by, of course, putting pieces of government together under a central control. To start with the pieces of government in their separateness, were not well managed. Many of them were already too large. Today Homeland Security is an example of centralizing management until you reach numbing inefficiency. Another example is the DNI organization. The Director of National Intelligence is about the worst fix anyone could have made to improve the collection, analysis, and dissemination of intelligence. I defy anyone to prove money is being saved or that the product produced has been improved. Top managers of such over-centralized organizations don’t have a clue to what is happening in the trenches. Their main concern is often getting enough reporting from the far reaches of their commands to make them look credible, especially when briefing the President or appearing before an aggressive group of journalists or legislators.

“Unfortunately, both our main political parties are vulnerable to the drive to fix things by centralization. National Health Care or Obamacare, Dodd-Frank, over reaches of OPA and the Department of Energy are other examples of good intentions leading to disastrous unforeseen consequences. While some centralization is necessary, decentralization is the sure path to renewed growth and vitality in both business and government. Good people in charge of manageable organizations can fix problems. Over centralization cannot. Creating a larger population of civil unionized workers is not a good thing even in the short run. To start with, U.S. Government employees should not be members of any union. Who or what does unionization protect them against? They are hired by the people, work for the people and are the people.

“You don’t need anymore union powers lobbying your presidency. Nearly every political pundit comes to realize that the growth in government beyond that which is absolutely necessary, threatens individual freedom and the overall freedom to create and produce new goods and products. Look at all the cases in history where freedom has been lost or eroded by governments grown beyond the need. The growth of government is always pushed by people who have good intentions and a poor understanding of history and management principles. Don’t let your presidency be the one that pushes growth of government beyond need and endangers freedom and economic growth.”

“I’m not sure I believe any of that but I will think on it.”

“Mr. President, thank you. You must make the final decisions. Not all advice is good. Maybe I am not 100% right all the time. But I have no personal or organizational agenda. What do want to cover at our next meeting?”

“You decide. I must go now. It’s a good thing you serve the best coffee and I have the freedom to smoke without anyone giving me disapproving looks. That alone makes me come back.”

The author of the Jack Brandon novels is a Korean War veteran and served in the Vietnam War as a CIA agent who has 27

Meeting with President Reagan, Vice President Bush, Deputy National Security Adviser Frank Carlucci and General Colin Powell in the Oval Office.

years of government service, including two years serving President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s as an advisor. Considering today’s volatile political situation, you are encouraged to pass on this blog or parts of it to your contacts and friends. Comments and dialogue are welcome and helpful. www.factsandfictions.com.

Eight Decades of Insights 32 (factsandfictions.com)
The High Cost Of Maintaining ‘Homeland Security’ (warnewsupdates.blogspot.com)

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Tagged as big government, Bush, Department of Homeland Security, director of national intelligence, George W. Bush, Oval Office, President, United States

by Barry Kelly | February 18, 2013 · 7:30 am

EIGHT DECADES OF INSIGHTS 35

OBAMA’S WAR

From what I have seen over the last four years, President Obama’s war is not Afghanistan, terrorism, or the radical Muslim world. It is the war for political dominance, couched in the language of class warfare.

Barack Obama speaks to College Democrats. (Wikipedia)

First, let’s look at some of the terminology that’s present in nearly all his speeches, teleprompted or off the cuff. Saul Alinsky tells his followers to avoid alarming the people by using terms that have substantial negative baggage. For example, “social justice” means a socialist or communist society. “Progressive” means socialist or communists. Liberals and Democrats are not Progressives. Liberals and Democrats are in the mainstream of American traditional politics. Everyone has a right to a “fair shot,” which in Progressive terminology means that the only nation in the world which offers individual improvement through hard work, education, good choices, and commercial courage must be transformed into a socialist or communist society. Oh, and “fair share” is another term the president often uses in his speeches. Fair share means tax the people who already fund the nation with higher taxes because everyone is entitled to share of the wealth even if they do not work. (Those who cannot work do have a claim we should honor.) “Transformation” means the destruction of the existing society and the creation of a socialist or communist society.

Where have these people been? I’ve lived in Moscow and been, for extended periods, in other communist and socialist countries. There is no comparison between the USA and those elitist crafted and managed governments. In Moscow, the mecca of egalitarian governments, blacks enrolled in Patrice Lumumba University in 1973 often came to the Marine House bar at the American Embassy to escape racism. The world these forerunners of Progressive transformations built in the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, and Eastern Europe were very ugly worlds where millions of people were murdered in the name of building a better, fairer society. If the terms fair shot, fair share, social justice, transformation, and expanding government resonante with you, think again. These Obama Progressives are practicing the same policies Castro, Lenin, Stalin, Marx, Mao se Tung, and the National Socialist Party in Germany used. Those were not nice societies. All were run by the Progressive elite. One person, one vote, one time. Isn’t it time we recognize the freedom we now have and those in progressive societies gave up in the name of social justice? It is the same ideology, the same issues, the same elite rule, and the same beguiling rhetoric. Forget the enticing words streaming from the teleprompters. Follow the actions and the money. You do not want the Progressive Dream fulfilled. It is a nightmare, not a dream.

A war of the have nots against the haves: This is Obama’s war. Remember, the issue is never the issue. All these terms disguise the manipulation of all issues such as tax policy, immigration, development of energy resources, global warming, the debt, job creation, gun control, “you didn’t build that,” contraceptives and religion, defense spending, the role of the Constitution, right to work, and changing the electoral college. While the Republican and even some of the Democratic leadership may believe these issues are the battleground, they are not. These issues are — according to Alinskites — only relevant if they are used to gain total political power by destroying the opposition, whether the opposition is a political party or an individual, a religion, or an idea such as a free market or capitalism.

If the Conservatives focus on fighting these issues, they will lose. So far the Republican leadership is losing the battle. They are not even on the right battlefield. Nor do they have the right ideas to fight the Alinsky doctrine. Trust me, if the followers of Alinsky win, you won’t like the world they’ll bring to you. As indicators, watch for Progressives telling us the Constitution is dead and needs to be rewritten for modern America, the growth and increasing centralization of the federal government, an increase in the power of the presidency and the changing of the two term limit for Presidents.