The Grievances that Incited the American Revolution

"Your country is a den of dopes," snarked Ms Ann Thrope.
"Your fans who run my nation's propaganda mills were too easily seduced for you to gloat," observed Pascal.

We are often gifted by Hollywood with productions that have a patriotic theme.

I viewed two clips from one of them put up today at the Belmont Club. It was from the 2008 TV series John Adams starring Paul Giamatti.

It was filled with a good mix of characters, some renowned, some unknown. Much of the action was filled with bathos, where with help from a swelling score, we are driven to patriotic nostalgia. Aside from the saccharin melodrama, there was something far more disturbing.

The film staged the first public readings of the Declaration of Independence as might have happened all around the colonies. Good. The actors in different scenes got to read and react to, or simply react to the reading of, our Declaration. Fine. And it was all put together in a good collage that conveys the feelings of hearing it for the first time.

But something was missing -- literally.

The viewer is given little more than a sense of pride in the product, plus much tight jawed resolve and dread due to --- what? Irritation? Discomfort?

Somehow, no doubt for editorial reasons that are above Joe Biden's pay grade, the long litany of abuses by King George III, written out at length in the Declaration of Independence, were completely left out of this reading. Not a single outrage was mentioned, many of which could have afforded the actors to demonstrate the hard feelings of the times.

And what is worse, I am sure most students today, and likely few of their parents, ever set eyes on that list of British excesses visited upon the colonies. Who ever reads the Declaration in its entirety?

Well, apparently I did. Long ago. It made an impression on me. Enough of an impression that I noticed the meat of the matter was written out of this Hollywood production. It is a production that could easily become part of misleading indoctrination for the next generation of grade school students.

Enough of an impression that its absence drove me to complain and publish after five months silence.

For your benefit, especially when you know people who are totally in the dark who might be awakened thanks to you giving them the facts, here is the list of grievances that our forebears found so intolerable that they formally revolted against the country that inflicted the tyrannies. My personal "favorites" are reproduced in bold type.

• He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
• He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
• He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
• He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
• He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
• He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the state remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
• He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.
• He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.
• He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
• He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.
• He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislature.
• He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to civil power.
• He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states:

For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing taxes on us without our consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury:

For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses:

For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule in these colonies:

For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments:

For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

• He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.
• He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
• He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.
• He has constrained our fellow citizens taken captive on the high seas to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.
• He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
  

I considered inserting little editors notes along side some of the items in the list. For example [Ruby Ridge] could easily have fit along side one of the items. I decided against it because I simply want the grievances highlighted in one place because they so often are forgotten (as all statists would wish).

I invite others to add what they wish to this list at their own sites. But better, simply print out the list (maybe edited a little) and give it to one of your "liberal" family members. Ask them where the list originated. The ensuing discussion could be helpful.

The Ministry of Truth: Almost There

In the dystopic world of George Orwell's 1984, all news and historical records were governed by the Ministry of Truth.*

I have played with this cognomen over the years by identifying the mainstream media (MSM) with various appellations such as the Ministry of (mis)Information, and MinInfo whenever MSM's manner of coverage of a story revealed its bias favoring most any form of statism.

Over the last two years, unlike any time in my long life, the MSM has warranted the name Ministry of MisInformation more than ever. It got to be an open joke among my acquaintences of how open the bias could get.

"Have they gotten around to framing every picture of Bush wearing a dunce cap?"

"It can't be long before every frame of Obama has him walking on water."

As the bailouts came into play last year, I observed that once news sources like the AP and newspapers like the NY Times were bailed out, they would be well along to becoming official state organs along the lines of the USSR's Izvestia and Pravda, reporting and printing only what those holding their purse-strings wished to see made known.

Now, as if the MSM hasn't done enough to show they can be trusted to be good Ministry of Truth employees, I have to hand it to my old buddy Fran Porretto for succinctly showing how much more they are worthy:

America got to its current state because of permanent government deficit finance, government debasement of the dollar, government redistribution, and government meddling in the economy, most particularly the credit market. Not one of these things was contemplated by the Founders or authorized by the Constitution of the United States. Washington proceeded with them anyway. Not one economist of any standing would disagree that our troubles are rooted in the very policy arrogances I just enumerated. But politicians, to whom government is the one and only "solution" to any and every "problem," have proposed that we address our difficulties by intensifying the very practices that produced them.

It is a sad fact that such a concise review of the why, and excuses for, the Obama stimulus and the TARP before it, can only be found on a relatively obscure website. Nowhere in the MSM are they discussed as a consistent group of related issues where logic would bring the listener or reader to Fran's conclusion. The fact these facts are never allowed to be built into an argument filled with legitimate observations and concerns anywhere in MSMdom tells us how in love with total state control visible MSM employees either are (true-believers) or think they must demonstrate they are (cynical self-servers).

With such able employees already well stationed in various MSM outlets, how soon before the Ministry of Truth emerges, fully grown and indomitable?

[*Editor's note: In later years Pascal Fervor began referring to American media as the Agency of Lies because he saw that we were not an Orwellian world quite yet, and felt it best that he speak the truth while he still could. He also used the acronym SKUNCs instead of RINOs for much the same reason.] 

Gore This Tune Out of Your Head

H/T to The American Culture

Not Rocket Science: Voter Fraud Institutionalized

Stimulus Package ► $5 Billion to community groups ►A.C.O.R.N. gets its share (thanks to A.C.O.R.N. friend Obama) ►A.C.O.R.N. diverts much of that money to defend itself from voter fraud charges ►A.C.O.R.N. outspends states' attorneys and gets charges dropped ►A.C.O.R.N. continues as before, undeterred, invigorated.

Even FactCheck.org, a website with indirect connections to A.C.O.R.N. through The Annenberg Foundation, cannot dispute the above formula. This may be seen from reading its answer to questions about A.C.O.R.N. receiving funds from the stimulus package.

The bill does include funds for which ACORN would be eligible to compete - against hundreds of other groups.

Right. Which would incline a fair and impartial judge to ask: "How many of those hundreds of other groups has a former member and grateful friend in the White House?"

Well, Judd Gregg May Be a Wee Bit Smarter Than Charlie Brown

This serves as an update to my last post in which I posted the following cartoon.



According to news released shortly ago, Senator Judd Gregg withdrew his nomination for Secretary of Commerce.

An administration official said Gregg dropped out without warning for a position that he had expressed interest in just a few weeks ago.

Heh, heh. Maybe Obama's decision to let White House Chief of staff Rahm Emanuel to run the 2010 census in violation of our constitution had something to do with Senator Gregg's decision. It has been viewed as an unprecedented WH power grab. The WH plan to run the census instead of the commerce department did not come to light until after Senator Gregg's nomination had been announced and he had accepted. Perhaps my cartoonist should redraw this piece by inserting a caricature of President Obama where Governor Lynch is depicted now.

To further quote the above article:

The unexpected withdrawal marked the latest setback for Obama in his attempt to build a Cabinet.

Well, we can only hope that President, uh, Bama's clear sightedness is considerably better than the luck he is having sucking good people into his cabinet,

One More Football Game Widely Anticipated

Mayor Bloomberg Should Have Taken Pascal's Advice

Had Mayor Bloomberg celebrated Al Gore Day today as I had proposed, he could have avoided this.



Alternate for when this embed gets pulled due to mikey bloomberg's thin skin is here.

Although Al Gore is known to walk all over RINOs, he's never been known to bite one.

Shadow? What Shadow?

As Bill Murray said: "This is the way it's gonna be for the rest of your life."

Something For "Al Gore Day" On February 2

Here's hoping that I get many more contributions of art soon. Contributors are welcome to submit here, but it would be more effective were the art posted at many more sites than this. Besides, I am enjoying the response so far to this riff on a celebrated American tradition. I'd love to share the catharsis it provides from the oppressive designs of dour Ecodoomers who worship Mr. Gore.

I hope and suspect that many others will eagerly host artful contribution for so important event as this. ;)

Let's Declare This February 2 "Al Gore Day"

Yes, it is time to initiate a viral meme on the Internet to honor our illustrious fearmonger protector of Mother Gaia. Let February 2, 2009 be declared Groundhog Al Gore day.

If, in the dead of this record setting cold winter, Al Gore comes out from whatever hole he's been hiding, it means he thinks the winter is going to be short. Let us hope he is finally right as too many people are hurting from this cold already.


***Update***

I thank Og the Neanderpundit for all the traffic he sent this way; but honestly that is not important. If I craved attention, I know how to get it well enough.

I am convinced that there is a limit to shamelessness. Hence, burdening the shameless with an avalanche of shame is the aim here. Hate him or love him, algore is the point man for the global warming hoax that will destroy whatever limits the statists still fear to violate.


Our public figures have become a largely shameless bunch.

• Carol Browner will become our next climate Czar despite her violation of trust and court orders when she was Clinton's EPA chief.
• Eric Holder will be made Attorney General despite his part in falsifying the records in order to kidnap Elian Gonzales for Fidel Castro, and his large part in granting pardons by Bill to that Rich Bastard and Puerto Rican terrorists.
• And Hillary going to State even as her hubby continues to accept gifts from foreign nations is merely the pièce de résistance today; tomorrow will surely present us with worse.

I believe that should enough websites start clamoring for Al Gore to come out of his hole so that we might be reasured that this vile winter will end sooner, even the most cynical political SOBs will start to hesitate just a wee bit more.

This is something WE can do. I hope to have cartoons soon.

*** Update 2 *** See here for our first bit of artwork.

Bad VeePee But Great Cabinet Choice

Barack Obama demonstrated wonderful good sense for his own security by whom he chose and didn't choose for Vice President.

Similarly, let us presume that Obama has been informed about Hillary by Lyndon Johnson's rationale for keeping J. Edgar Hoover at the FBI: "Better to have him inside the tent pissing out, than outside pissing in."

Public Corporations Inquiry

Posted as submitted on 10-17-08 by Ombudsman

Establish a special prosecutor to investigate if there was collusion between and among different Boards of Directors to give each other bonuses. "You vote for mine and I will vote for yours."

This report shall be available within 15 months.

Public Corporations

Posted as submitted on 10-17-08 by Ombudsman

The days when the CEO built up the corporation so that he could hand over a larger and more prosperous one to his children are over.

The CEOs of today are trained to worry over this year's bottom line, not future ones, because the current one affects his bonus and ability to skim the corporate coffers. His contract won't cover following years.

Thanks to a variation of what Mario Puzo said in The Godfather; Wall Street has a new program:

• Steal $50 -- petty larceny.
• Steal $50, 000 -- grand larceny.
• Steal $500, 000,000 -- an astute financial manipulation.

Now that the background has been established we can proceed to changes. No commission is needed for this problem: unbridled greed and avarice.

The total compensation for the top person at any public corporation shall be limited to 30 times¹ the average compensation of salaried non-management personnel.

Under our system, the feds cannot dictate to the Board of Directors what to pay the top dog. However, the feds do have the authority to tax. Any compensation above the threshold shall be taxed at the rate of 95%. For computing total compensation, anything of value shall be included. This includes, but is not limited to event tickets, vacations, bonuses, golden parachutes, private use of corporate jets at charged cost of jet, not cost for public ticket for the same flight, etc.

It is the intent of this proposal to force the Board of Directors to say to themselves, "we will not pay these taxes to the feds. We will take these funds and:

• Modernize the plant.
• Establish sinking funds to pay for future modernizations.
• Reduce the price of the product.
• Increase the pay and/or benefits for the employees.
• Or -- horror of horrors -- increase the dividends to the stockholder.

The 95% tax rate is no doubt onerous. This is not unprecedented as they have been this high before. However, this time there is a difference. This time there is a way out. When the corporation pays these taxes -- shareholders take note -- it is because The Board of Directors chose to pay them.
______________________________________________________________
¹ 30 is subject to review and study; used here to demonstrate philosophy being suggested

Wall Street Inquiry III

Posted as submitted on 10-17-08 by Ombudsman

Appoint a special prosecutor to determine if criminal activity was taking place during the collapse of the financial markets. This inquiry shall include mortgage, stocks, bonds and any other financial instruments used.

This is a parallel activity and the report shall be returned within two years.

Wall Street Inquiry II

Posted as submitted on 10-17-08 by Ombudsman

The commission of Wall Street Inquiry I shall continue its work to return a report, in 15 months, of recommendations for new rules and regulations to prevent a recurrence.

It should be abundantly clear by now that Wall Street, CEOs and Congress, by themselves, will not do the "right thing." It is very difficult for Congress to do the "right thing" because they do not know what it is! This is obviously not 100% across the board. Not even Ivory soap is 100% pure.

Wall Street Inquiry I

Posted as submitted on 10-17-08 by Ombudsman

Appoint a commission of highly qualified individuals to highlight those practices that led to the current disaster. The group shall consist of lawyers, CPAs, economists, CEOs and money managers.

The requirements for selection shall include, but not be limited to:

• No previous or present conection to Wall Street or Washington politics.
• Never having been a lobbyist or affiliated with one.
• No conflict of interest, either real or apparent, through family or friends.

Task:
Report back in four months what in their opinion caused and/or facilitated the disaster. The causes specified may include anything that, in their opinion, facilitated the collapse. They may include, for example, philosophies, rates, regulations, memos of understanding or any other instrument, procedure or instruction that was used.

The intent of this report is to identify only, not to suggest changes.

Fighting Slogan

We didn't leave the Republican Party, the Republican Party left us.

This variation on the cool old quip by Ronald Reagan was suggested to me by Belmont Clubber Karen. It captures the situation that traditional conservatives find themselves in as McCain and cohorts have moved left.

If conservatives want to take back control of the GOP they need to rally locally, and this slogan could provide them with a very good focus.

I've more about how and why this intraparty revolt is absolutely necessary, but I will elaborate only when somebody asks.

Early Call Redux; "Oooh! Gimme More!"

The Mainstream Media (MSM, or very much MisInfo in this instance) is in love with an idea. Their one time cavort with the idea left them so pumped up and impressed by themselves that they are giddy for more. A kind of adolescent self-love gone public.

What idea is this? Calling the election early for their favored candidate so that it suppresses the vote for the other.

In 2000, based upon exit polling, MisInfo called Florida for Al Gore an hour before polls closed in the later time zone of the Western part of Florida. That stoked an "oh, what's the use of voting then) in the anti-Gore voters in the overwhelmingly conservative Florida panhandle.

MisInfo was and remains delighted and rewarded by that early call. Their meddling damaged the electoral process directly. The hated George W Bush has had a cloud over him for the last eight years. They see the cloud was placed there indirectly by the electoral difficulty they engineered, and they have concluded that they have the power to control the weather. What demigods do you know who can do that?

So now they're bursting with eagerness to do more; wild-eyed with the prospect of seducing us of the Anti-Left into giving them what they want. They want so very much to revisit that moment of their greatest thrill.

And they want it not just with one region, they want it nationally. The "Oooh, Oooh, Ooooooh!" popping from their eyes will become impossible for most of the talking heads to suppress. It's gonna be so disgusting. Wait! It already is disgusting. They either falsify polls or selectively report portions of legitimate polls in wild-eyed hope of suppressing voters who oppose Obama. Oh how they expect to succeed this time. Not like the last time on behalf of Gore when the wretched souls fell short of full climax.

I know that many Right get angry with MSM being in the Left's hip pocket. Frankly, these little jerks are not worth getting mad over. It's much better and satisfying to rally voters to thwart the creeps' raving grasp for this momentary thrill. Success (or near success as in 2000) would only encourage them to try again in another four years.

No, no. Far better come November 4th to disappoint them. Deny them badly. Throw cold water on them and let them sulk off to their circles to supplicate to each other. As MisInfo gets more animated in the next few weeks -- laughing at you, depressing you, lying to you, desperate to convince you "oh what's the use!" -- go out and vote and convince everyone dear and near to you to do so too.

And laugh. Laugh all the way to the polls. Laugh as you come out. Let them see you laughing.

I personally want to see MisInfo die by the excesses of its own hand. I know a majority of writers and commentators at places I visit around the web want MSM to go away too. So, if you count yourself in that crowd, and you personally would like to contribute a nail to the coffin of Mainstream Media, GO OUT AND VOTE.

Rebel

Have children. It will piss off those who aim to manage the human herd and its size.

Have as many kids as you and your spouse are blessed with conceiving. That will really piss off your shepherds.

Time was that refusing to settle down and raise a family was the rebellious thing to do. Hah! Boy how times change!

Let's be frank. Engaging in this bit of rebellion will not be easy due to very many consequences. Among the trying elements will be expenses, time, limited mobility, added responsibility, schooling, increased vulnerability to public scrutiny, and of course, risk of incurring wrath for your resisting propaganda to relinquish your physical contribution to posterity.

Unless you are already wealthy, you won't live very high on the hog. So you should try to space out the new arrivals in ways you find governable. Nobody needs engage in coitus to the level our hedonistic society claims is wise and healthy. Moderation in all things was once the kind of wisdom one would hear regularly. (If you would be so kind -- send me a note, or answer in the comments below -- how long ago did you last hear that proverb?)

The task of raising kids provides a unique non-material happiness that you pay for by forgoing material excess. The masters of public opinion are counting on their almost total monopoly of popular media to have convinced you to forgo that experience so that you can and will pay for everything they are selling. The best way to tell them to fuck off is to raise your own family. And unlike the zombies in and made by the media, the bigger your family, the greater the chances that it is not they but you are the future.

To be continued....

Turnabout

Starring: Barack Obama
Produced by: Mainstream Media
Initial director: Democratic Party
Working Title: The Bothersome Middle Class
Final director: American Voters