Obamaville April 17 - Promises, Politics and Prostitutes

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Did you see the Baseball Standings Today?

I checked the Major League baseball standings this morning and now I am more convinced than ever we are approaching the Mayan End Times.  The top three teams in the northeast are Washington Nationals - first place, Baltimore Orioles - first place and New York Mets - second to the Nationals but tied in losses.

The Nationals, Orioles and Mets?  Are you kidding me?  Where are the Red Socks, Yankees and Phillies, the perennial powerhouses of the northeast?  Well, the Red Socks are in fifth place behind Baltimore, the Yankees third behind Baltimore, and the Phillies fourth behind the Nationals and Mets.

There may be more parity in the MLB than we thought which is a good thing for all the teams and fans.  However, in our nation's capitol the people promised to support moving the Nationals to DC by supporting the team and yesterday, Sunday, a beautiful day in Washington with the Nationals in first place, and only 16,000 fans were at the game.

Out west the Los Angeles Dodgers must be feeling the "Magic" effect of Magic Johnson and his groups purchase of the Dodgers as they are also in first place in the west.  Maybe Don Mattingly, the Yankee great, can manage the Dodgers back to the glory days of the Brooklyn Dodgers.

  Obama in Columbia - Prostitution trumps Politics

President Obama was on his Don Quixote trip to South America to encourage Brazil to drill baby drill more oil for America to buy.  Are you serious?  We can't drill for energy independence in the gulf, off the coast or in Alaska, and we can't build the Keystone pipeline to secure crude oil from Canada, but we can tell Brazil to drill and we will buy it at their higher prices.

There are times when it sure seems Obama should have gone to Harvard Business School to learn economics rather than Harvard Law School to learn Constitutional law.  His energy math is all wrong and policy is not existent.  So it was a good thing the South American trip was buried in a White House Secret Service prostitution scandal involving the White House advance team in Columbia.

About 11 Secret Service and 5-10 military personnel were involved in some kind of party. Seems like they were trying to compete with the party masters at GSA who were pleading the 5th amendment .over their multi-million dollar taxpayer paid parties and incentive programs.

It all blew up when one of the agents refused to pay for all night services from a Columbian prostitute.  She rightfully complained to the hotel manager as there are places in Columbia where prostitution is legal, and legal or not do you think a foreign government will not go out of it's way to please the powerful White House staff when the president comes a calling.

The presidential travel budget has skyrocketed with the debt and deficit and the extensive travel appetite of the president and his family.  Big bucks are spent when they reach Hawaii or a foreign capitol.  Perhaps this prostitution explains why the travel costs have increased along with the frequency of trips.


Back in America nothing much happened except the following.

Goldman Sachs sells stake in Backpage trafficking website

New York Times columnist and anti-human trafficking crusader Nicholas Kristof discovered that Goldman Sachs used to own 16 percent of Village Voice Media, which operates prostitution site Backstage.com.

Backpage.com has dominated the market for sex ads since Craigslist stopped running them. The site earns Village Voice Media $25.4 million a year. In his article, Kristof calls Backpage the “biggest forum for sex trafficking of under-age girls in the United States” and says that while many ads run in Backpage.com are for adult escorts, Backpage also “plays a major role in the trafficking of women or minors who are coerced” into prostitution.

Goldman Sachs was “mortified” when Kristof began his reporting, Kristof says, and began to “frantically” unload its Backpage shares. The day before his article was published on the New York Times website, Goldman called to report that it had signed an agreement to sell its shares to Backpage management.

A Goldman Sachs director sat on the Village Voice board for four years, but Goldman claimed it had no influence on the direction of the company. Wall Street bankers are frequent users of prostitutes. Perhaps Goldman was playing both side of the trade?

Source: Huffington Post
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Channeling Socrates - My Mentor and Teacher

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When the metaphysical and natural worlds collide.

It's Friday the 13th, a bewitching day.  I'm now convinced no one knows the truth about anything anymore, particularly the so called news media.  As near as I can tell about 75% of all news content is manufactured, whether lame street, main street, cable or blogger news.

So today, I'm going out on a limb into the metaphysical world for news we can use from afar.  I decided to channel Socrates, my favorite Greek philosopher.  If you don't know channeling it is reaching out to someone dead for contact and for guidance on what the hell is going on in the world.

And that brings me to Socs, my source for channeling Socrates.  Socs is a quite handsome groundhog who lives in my shed.  He reminds me of Socrates, the ancient Greek philosopher, so I called him Socs for short.  The way he stands on his hind feet so regally, as if all the wisdom in the world was his.  Maybe it is?

When I see the old boy I like to channel the real Socrates through him.  Haven't we all channeled someone in our life?  Why not Socrates?  And why pay someone else to channel him?  Besides, what else are you going to do with a groundhog that hangs around your backyard and lives in your garage?

Socrates is considered one of the greatest thinkers of all time. This was not because he was the most intelligent, it was because he knew he didn’t know everything. He enjoyed questioning people and getting them to think deeper and he would consider other’s opinions.

I told him I was thinking about the sorry state of affairs in the world and asked him why if almost half the world claim to be Christians and Muslim and the Bible and the Qur'an say we should love, respect and care for everyone, why is there so much hatred, contempt, prejudiced and envy in the world?

Old Socs looked at me for a long time, then said:

"Back in the Classical Greek period (Socrates lived from 469 BC to 399 BC) when I was responsible for civilized people there were no Christians or Muslims and Jesus and Mohammed weren't even born, that would come hundreds of years later.

But we were civilized.  Some say it was the golden age of mankind.  Maybe the fact Christianity and Islam didn't exist explains the problem of today."

[That might have been an attempt by the wily old philosopher at humor.  It is hard to tell when I'm channeling a stoic groundhog.]

Then again he might be right.  Even before Christianity and Islam people still had problems with morality and every now and then God or Allah or someone would bring down the Walls of Jericho or turn some lady into a pillar of salt.

For a time good people would prevail then things would slip back into what we find today.

So I asked Socs if we were heading into a good time or bad.

"Over the last 2,500 years there have been plenty of good times and bad.  Yet after 10,000 years of civilization we are no closer to truth, love or freedom for people.  If the core is corrupt then the cancer will continue to spread.

Fear, greed and similar human maladies are the result of a breakdown in morality and ethics.  I used to teach Plato and Aristotle and the others about these virtues and they wrote some pretty good accounts of my teaching, but nothing much has changed the last 2,600 years."

Why didn't you ever write books like your students?

"Look, when you have the brightest philosophical minds in history in your class it is all you can do to keep them learning.  I mean we had no cell phones or computers, not even typewriters.  When we did write it took giant parchments and lots of time which I didn't have.

Besides, that was long before copyrights and royalties.  Back then being prolific meant teaching others, not lining one's own pockets with gold.  We were taken care of as teachers but none of us became rich."

So what about books about Atlantis by Plato and the Odyssey and Iliad about Greek mythology?  Were they attempts at Greek fantasy?

"Who said they were fantasy?  If you accept the nature of man to embellish, to not understand some of what he saw, and his desire to be revered as a storyteller, then you might accommodate a bit of a stretch of the truth in these stories.

So my approach was always allow the writer a little latitude but search for the truth in all that is written.  The only reason you might mistake a truth for a fantasy is if you have such a narrow range of definition to eliminate the possibility of truth.

Truth is in all things."

What is the truth about our world today?

"Now that is a challenging question, proposition or theory.  Perhaps I should consult Zeus?  Short of that, I must say the obsession of mankind to know the absolute truth and to take ownership of that truth is among the most hypocritical tasks ever undertaken.

There is light, the truth, and dark, the fear.  Mankind is nothing if not both and finding the proper balance between them is the goal of every generation, as our ancient Chinese brothers would say.

In Chinese culture, Yin and Yang represent the two opposite principles in nature. Yin characterizes the feminine or negative nature of things and yang stands for the masculine or positive side. Yin and yang are in pairs, such as the moon and the sun, female and male, dark and bright, cold and hot, passive and active, etc. But yin and yang are not static or just two separated things. The nature of yinyang lies in interchange and interplay of the two components. The alternation of day and night is such an example.

The concept of yinyang has a long history. There are many written records about yinyang, which can be dated back to the Yin Dynasty (about 1400 - 1100 BC) and the Western Zhou Dynasty (1100 - 771 BC). Yinyang is the basis of Zhouyi (Book of Changes), the jing part of which was written during the Western Zhou. Yinyang became popular during the Spring and Autumn Period (770 - 476 BC) and the Warring States (475 - 221 BC).

The principles of yinyang are an important part of Huangdi Neijing (Yellow Emperor's Classic of Medicine), the earliest Chinese medical book, written about 2,000 years ago. They are still important in traditional Chinese medicine and fengshui today.

Here is a summary of the characteristics of yinyang. Yin and yang are opposite in nature, but they are part of nature, they rely on each other, and they can't exist without each other. The balance of yin and yang is important. If yin is stronger, yang will be weaker, and vice versa. Yin and yang can interchange under certain conditions so they are usually not yin and yang alone. In other words, yin can contain certain part of yang and yang can have some component of yin. It is believed that yinyang exists in everything."

Does that mean we might be out of balance?

"Unfortunately it is hard, very hard, to find any time when you were in balance.  Look around you.  Do you see balance?  Are people respected regardless of their personal views?  Of course not, they are condemned by those who assume the role of the Gods and judge people.

Do you serve the people because it is right or because the government has something you want?  Do you serve out of humility or greed, for grace or profit?

Throughout our history health care and medicine were always provided by holy people, Druids, Shamans, Indigenous Medicine people, Chinese doctors, Chinese herbologists, Chinese acupuncturists from the oldest of days to the present.

For thousands of years highly educated and sometimes mystical people provided these services at no cost to the people.  Once you introduced Western Medicine with medical fees and started regulating drugs you stopped healing people and now had an incentive to keep them sick.

Now even the ancient healing techniques and disciplines are discouraged from use because they are not covered by health insurance.  Ancient herbs cannot be patented therefore they are being forced off the market by pharmaceutical companies.

There is excessive and unnecessary testing of patients to generate fees and over prescription of drugs to generate kickbacks.  Is that yinyang?

Do you really think you are in balance?"

But if we seek the balance and the truth as you say, what does it get us?  Does it help people?  Does it make life easier?

"For Helen of Troy's sake don't ask me.  Look what it got me.  My government turned on me, arrested me and killed me.  What kind of treatment is that for what you call the greatest philosopher in history?

[Socrates was arrested, tried and found guilty of impiety (not worshipping the gods the state worships), corruption of the youth (infusing into the young persons the spirit of criticism of Athenian society), among other accusations.

His sentence was death by poisoning but they gave him a chance to avoid death by accepting exile from Greece.  The philosopher was taken to the near-by jail where his sentence would be carried out. Athenian law prescribed death by drinking a cup of poison hemlock. Socrates would be his own executioner.]

So what do you want to tell me?

"First don't kill teachers just because you don't agree with what they teach.  The rest was left long ago for you.

We wrote the book on a single deity, or God as you say.  The same with ethics, morality, mathematics and literature.  In fact we gave you what might have been the greatest period of cultural evolution in our history, the classical Greek period.

A treasure chest of priceless lessons and knowledge were left to you but you don't even have time to open the chest to see what is inside.

At the same time the Chinese were leaving other information in health, medicine, herbology and acupuncture to guide you through life with a healthy body, spirit and soul.

That was 2,500 years ago.  Look at what you did with the insights."

Anything else Socs?

I'll have to think about it and get back to you.  Oh, don't worry about the Mayan End Times thing.  We took a vote up here in the Magic Kingdom and decided ending it all was to easy on you.  First you have to clean up the mess you made."
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Legends in the Sky - Rasta Man Bob Marley

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My Day with Bob Marley

While it is a bit early to honor Bob Marley's death which happened May 11 it is never too early or too often to celebrate any day for Jamaican Bob Marley.

However, there is a new documentary about Marley produced by his son Ziggy Marley that is being released in a week or two in theaters and I want to urge all of you to see it.  According to Ziggy it gives a great account of the man, the mystery and the mission.

It is called simply "Marley".

Bob used reggae music not just for entertainment, but to teach, preach and reach people's minds, hearts and spirits the world over. He used his music and lyrics to promote love, understanding and tolerance while confronting racism, inequality and injustice with a defiant message. celebrate.

Of course anyone who cares knows all about Marley and his music so this is about the day I spent with Bob a few years before his death in 1981 at the age of 36.

It was the middle of winter and I worked in Washington, D.C. at the time.  I was trying to fly to Omaha, there was a blizzard in Chicago which was my connection, and I was trying to find any other route around the storm.

Since the blizzard was heading east from Chicago I booked a flight through Minneapolis - St. Paul and boarded the plane.  It would be very cold in Minnesota but I could catch a connecting flight into Omaha that night.

On board I sat down and right next to me sat a guy with dreadlocks and an island shirt, in the middle of winter.  It was Bob Marley.  Seems the plane originated in Florida, flew to Washington and on to Minneapolis.

For the next several hours Marley and I talked and laughed about everything under the sun.  Seems he was on his way to the University of Minnesota to be a visiting lecturer for a professor who taught music.  The professor had been one of Marley's earliest fans, way before the hits came, and used Marley as a subject in teaching.

When Marley heard about it he became friends with this northern professor and was on his way to meet with the professor's music class.  I asked him if he was ready for the cold and he said he had no idea it was so cold there and didn't even have a winter coat.

I gave him my pullover sweatshirt which he appreciated when he stepped out into the frigid Minnesota night.  But for several hours cold was the least of our discussion.

We were about same age and Marley was surprised a kid from Iowa like me knew of and liked his music.  In my life I have never met a more humble and soft spoken person.  Since I was a former newspaper reporter I talked to him as if I were doing a story.

He told me how he had mixed parents, one White and one Black. About the difficulties of growing up in Trench Town, a poor neighborhood of Kingston.  It was so named because it was built over a sewage trench.

A low-income community of squatter-settlements and government yards, Marley quickly learned to defend himself against the bullies and bad men of Trench Town.  He laughed how his formitable street fighting skills he learned to survive earned him the respectful nickname "Tuff Gong".

His grandmother was a tremendous influence on his music career as she was a Christian and gospel singer. His grandfather was a musician.

We talked about his first American tour as the opening act for Bruce Springsteen and his second tour with Sly and the Family Stone who were at the peak of their career. Marley and the Wailers were dropped from the tour after just four performances because they were over shadowing the stars. He laughed about it.

But it was his passion for peace, love and justice that was amazing. Marley was sent to serve humanity, to awaken mankind to the wrongs in the world, and to use his power and influence as a rock star, which he found quite uncomfortable, to help.

After several hours the magical journey finally came to an end. I gave him the sweatshirt to keep him from freezing to death, he invited me to see him in concert the next summer, we hugged and parted company.

North Korea Defies Obama - Shoots a Blank with Rocket

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Invasion of Yellow Sea a Success

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, the 29 year old seeking his first success to demonstrate he is following in his father's footsteps, discovered the dangers of military and intelligence advice.

His rocket launch, to be witnessed by media from throughout the world, lasted all of 61 seconds before blowing apart and falling into the ocean.

While they actually admitted failure for the first time in the history of North Korea, there were mumblings of sabotage by sinister Western forces.

The people of North Korea were told the invasion of the Yellow Sea was a success.

What next?

see more epicfails

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Obama's Axelrod Slams Rosen for Slamming Romney

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Just Shut Up - the CPT Achievement Award for Sticking both feet in one's big fat mouth.

Today is the aftermath of the firestorm kicked up when Hilary Rosen, close friend of David Axelrod and his wife Susan and Democrat spokesperson on cable news like CNN and others, wins the coveted "Just Shut Up award for making a quite derogatory comment about how Ann Romney, wife of Mitt Romney, has never held a job in her life and therefore has no business telling her husband women are worried about the economy.

Oops - Hilary and David Axelrod

What nonsense.  Once the firestorm started about how typical of liberal Democrats to consider a woman choosing to raise her children, Ann Romney has five boys, is out of touch on women's issues and the economy.

Of course that attitude on behalf of the liberal Rosen totally ignores the sacrifices of Ann Romney, and ignore her partnership with her husband in running for president.  It also ignores the fact she went through bouts with breast cancer and MS diseases.  In short, Rosen seemed to be testing a new element of the Obama war on women strategy, attack the wife since she was getting such good publicity.

Hilary with Susan Axelrod

Not surprising as the Obama campaign has used these rather dirty attack strategies throughout this and the last campaign.  It seems to be part of the Chicago School of Politics.

Remember when they accused former President Clinton of "raising the race issue" during the South Carolina primary in the last campaign.  It helped to stop Hillary Clinton's momentum in her battle for the presidency.

One would think Axelrod and Ploffe, the two politically paranoid Davids controlling everything Obama thinks, eats, does and says, would never let a close friend of Axelrod like Rosen shoot her mouth off about Ann Romney if that was not what they wanted.

I think it might have backfired as the first reaction of Obama's puppet masters the morning after Rosen dropped the incendiary bomb on CNN was to throw her under the bus denying all knowledge of her actions and trashing her comments.  What a friend.

Personally I think they panicked when they realized their spokesperson telling Ann Romney she never worked a day in her life thus casting Romney as a useless wife was really in no position to lecture any woman on the responsibilities of how to raise children.

Rosen is in a gay relationship and she and her partner do have children.  Since Rosen is the career breadwinner, however, she clearly doesn't have experience in what it takes to raise children, she leaves that to her partner.

Even that does not justify condemning someone for having never worked a day in her life.  Or condemning her because she and her husband oppose gay marriage.  On the other hand, it does reflect Rosen's feminist view of women who raise children.

Most of all, she is now a toxic political risk for the Obama campaign and thus she was thrown under the bus.  That means the rest of the liberal media is to ignore her as she no longer speaks for Axelrod or his wife.

I agree with Axelrod, Hilary Rosen should Just Shut Up.
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CPT Talent Search - Back to France & Caroline Costa

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It seems throughout my career I have been fortunate to bring talented people to the attention of others.  Words and music are powerful influences on people and we should never stop encouraging new people to share their talent.

So my newest discovery is Caroline Costa from France.  As many people know, I have had this fascination with the French culture, mostly the secret societies (Templars) rather than the aristocracy.

Of course that all changed when I was still a kid and my interests matured from French history to the French revolution to Bridgette Bardot, I mean French actresses.

Anyway, my new French favorite singer is Caroline who was discovered on a French talent show in 2008 at the age of 12 and soon will reach the ripe old magic age of 16.

The first video was her discovery on the French show at age 12 and the second is her recent release of a new recording.  Check them out.

Here is what her own web site says about her.

Caroline was born on May 9, 1996 in Moissac, France.

She grew up in the town of Casterlsarrasin, surrounded by her mom Laurence, her dad Joachim and her big sister Lucie.

At her early years, she was touched by a great passion for music and begun to sing. She entered a school of music to take singing lessons, and appeared on stage for the fist time at age 6 in a gala organized by an association for organ donation, where she performed the song “Aimer”.

Caroline also participated in the pre-selection of the Junior Eurovision Song Contest.

She was soon invited to join the Big Bang Jazz Orchestra with which she performed on several occasions.She also participated in several singing contests and, most of the time, she won.

Several artists invited Caroline to open their shows: Patxi, Patrick Fiori, Michal, Hoda, Anne-Laure Sibon, etc.

Caroline was chosen to join the group “Pop System” on a casting organised by the TV show IAPIAP on the French channel Canal J. Her promoter was none other than French singer M. Pokora. The group performed on different stages as well as different TV shows on the channel.



A private voice teacher has been giving lessons to Caroline for the last year and a half.

After several singing lessons and successful performances, Caroline participated in Incroyable Talent, a talent contest broadcasted on French TV channel M6 on Thursdays. Caroline finished 2nd out of over 3.000 contestants.

For Caroline, to sing means many things: to find happiness and to blossom through her passion. Her musical references are Christina Aguilera, Alicia Keys and Celine Dion.

Her dream is not to become a “Star”, but to be a shining star on everybody’s eyes. She is happy to be living in this “fairy world”, as she says, the world of music.

Thanks to her melodious voice, she has acquired some recognition in the artistic world. She has been seen in Internet by the thousands of visitors of her MySpace, and on national TV shows in France.

Her family has encouraged and supported her since she decided to become a singer.
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President Obama Attacks Wall Street & Wealth in Class Warfare Campaign

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"And now it's our turn", Obama preaches to the masses.

President Obama continued his reelection campaign with a swing into Florida where he spoke to students at Florida Atlantic University Tuesday between three major fundraisers that added $1.9 million to his campaign bankroll.

Billed as an "economic" speech it sounded a lot more political and a lot more radical than just another chat by the president with some college kids. I wonder if the White House even knows that Obama is the president of all the people, not just those loyal to his massive redirection of government and wealth campaign?

If he presided a little more over the country and a little less over the Democratic National Committee and his principal mouthpiece Debbie Wasserman Schultz he would probably be a shoe in for reelection. But a Chicago boy cannot stand being above the fight.

Because political speeches this year have been particularly boring and deceptive by all sides I thought I would see what inspires our President to be the champion for the downtrodden while shaking down Wall Street for financial donations.

In this article I offer his words to the students at FAU while showing possible sources of inspiration for his policies and war on Wall Street from three unlikely but viable sources, Vladimir Lenin, Karl Marx and Adolph Hitler. Quotes from the Communist Socialists, Lenin and Marx are in red and from the National Socialist Hitler are in blue.

Of course the White House will continue to deny any connection between the President's speech writers, his education, college career and whatever he was doing in Indonesia and other countries during and after college with the worldwide socialist movement but it is hard not to see a connection between these leaders of "change" and their socialist view of the world.

Here are excerpts of what Obama had to say to the students at FAU:

Obama speaking in Germany

The President of the United States, Barack Obama.

So at a time like this, we've got to ask ourselves a central, fundamental question as a nation: What do we have to do to make sure that America is a place where, if you work hard, if you're responsible, that that hard work and that responsibility pays off?

(Applause.) And the reason it's important to ask this question right now is because there are alternative theories.

There's a debate going on in this country right now: Could we succeed as a nation where a shrinking number of people are doing really, really well, but a growing number are struggling to get by? AUDIENCE: No!

But every little difference may become a big one if it is insisted on.

Vladimir Lenin.

THE PRESIDENT: Or are we better off when everybody gets a fair shot -- (applause) -- and everybody does a fair share, and everybody plays by the same set of rules? (Applause.)

Under socialism all will govern in turn and will soon become accustomed to no one governing.

Vladimir Lenin

That’s what the debate in America is about right now. This is not just another run-of-the-mill gabfest in Washington. This is the defining issue of our time. This is a make-or-break moment for the middle class and everybody who's aspiring to get into the middle class. And we’ve got two very different visions of our future. And the choice between them could not be clearer.

A basic condition for the necessary expansion of political agitation is the organisation of comprehensive political exposure.
Vladimir Lenin

I believe the free market is the greatest force for economic progress in human history. (Applause.) But here’s the thing. I also agree with our first Republican President -- a guy from my home state, a guy with a beard, named Abraham Lincoln. (Applause.) And what Lincoln said was that through our government, we should do together what we cannot do as well for ourselves. (Applause.) That's the definition of a smart government.

Lenin speaking in Soviet Union

Free education for all children in public schools.
Karl Marx


That's why we have public schools to educate our children. (Applause.) If we didn't have public schools, there would still be some families who would do very well. They could afford private schools or some would home-school. But there would be a lot of kids who would fall through the cracks. So we do that together.

So these investments -- in things like education and research and health care -- they haven’t been made as some grand scheme to redistribute wealth from one group to another. This is not some socialist dream.

Hitler speaking in Germany

Centralisation of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.
Karl Marx

When we guarantee basic security for the elderly or the sick or those who are actively looking for work, that doesn’t make us weak. What makes us weak is when fewer Americans can afford to buy the products that businesses are selling, when fewer people are willing to take risks and start their new business, because if it doesn’t work out they worry about feeding their families. What drags our entire economy down is when the benefits of economic growth and productivity go only to the few, which is what’s been happening for over a decade now, and gap between those at the very, very top and everybody else keeps growing wider and wider and wider and wider.

Capital, created by the labour of the worker, crushes the worker, ruining small proprietors and creating an army of unemployed.

By destroying small-scale production, capital leads to an increase in productivity of labour and to the creation of a monopoly position for the associations of big capitalists.

Vladimir Lenin

In this country, prosperity has never trickled down from the wealthy few. Prosperity has always come from the bottom up, from a strong and growing middle class. (Applause.)

This is not about a few people doing well. We want people to do well. That’s great. But it’s about giving everybody the chance to do well. (Applause.) That’s the essence of America. That’s what the American Dream is about.

Political power, properly so called, is merely the organised power of one class for oppressing another.
Karl Marx

These folks, they keep telling us that if we just weaken regulations that keep our air or our water clean or protect our consumers, if we would just convert these investments that we’re making through our government in education and research and health care -- if we just turned those into tax cuts, especially for the wealthy, then somehow the economy is going to grow stronger. That’s the theory.

Revolutionary Social-Democracy has always included the struggle for reforms as part of its activities. But it utilises“economic” agitation for the purpose of presenting to the government, not only demands for all sorts of measures, but also (and primarily) the demand that it cease to be an autocratic government.
Vladimir Lenin

And here’s the news: We tried this for eight years before I took office. We tried it. (Applause.) It’s not like we didn’t try it. (Laughter.) At the beginning of the last decade, the wealthiest Americans got two huge tax cuts -- 2001, 2003. Meanwhile, insurance companies, financial institutions -- they were all allowed to write their own rules, or find their way around rules. We were told the same thing we’re being told now -- this is going to lead to faster job growth. This is going to lead to greater prosperity for everybody.

Guess what -- it didn’t. (Laughter.) Yes, the rich got much richer. Corporations made big profits. But we also had the slowest job growth in half a century. The typical American family actually saw their incomes fall by about 6 percent even though the economy was growing, because more and more of that growth was just going to a few, and the average middle-class American wasn't seeing it in their paychecks. Health care premiums skyrocketed. Financial institutions started making bets with other people's money that were reckless. And then our entire financial system almost collapsed. You remember that?

We are socialists, we are enemies of today’s capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance, and we are determined to destroy this system under all conditions.
Adolph Hitler

Now, some of you may be science majors in here. (Applause.) I like that. We need more scientists, need more engineers. Now, I was not a science major myself, but I enjoyed science when I was young. And if I recall correctly, if an experiment fails badly -- (laughter) -- you learn from that, right? Sometimes you can learn from failure. That’s part of the data that teaches you stuff, that expands our knowledge. But you don’t then just keep on doing the same thing over and over again. AUDIENCE: No!

THE PRESIDENT: You go back to the drawing board. You try something different. But that’s not what's been happening with these folks in Washington. AUDIENCE: No!

Since there can be no talk of an independent ideology formulated by the working masses themselves in the process of their movement, the only choice is – either bourgeois or socialist ideology. There is no middle course (for mankind has not created a“third” ideology).
Vladimir Lenin

THE PRESIDENT: A lot of the folks who were peddling these same trickle-down theories -- including members of Congress and some people who are running for a certain office right now, who shall not be named -- (laughter and applause) -- they're doubling down on these old broken-down theories. Instead of moderating their views even slightly, instead of saying, you know what, what we did really didn’t work and we almost had a second Great Depression, and maybe we should try something different, they have doubled down.

They proposed a budget that showers the wealthiest Americans with even more tax cuts, and then pays for these tax cuts by gutting investments in education and medical research and clean energy, in health care.

But in your existing society, private property is already done away with for nine-tenths of the population; its existence for the few is solely due to its non-existence in the hands of those nine-tenths.
Karl Marx

Now, this is not an exaggeration. This is math. And when I said this about a week ago, the Republicans objected. They said, we didn't specify all these cuts. Well, right, you didn't because you knew that people wouldn’t accept them. So you just gave a big number and so what we’ve done is we’ve just done the math. This is what it would it mean.

The Communists have not invented the intervention of society in education; they do but seek to alter the character of that intervention, and to rescue education from the influence of the ruling class.
Karl Marx

They say, well, we didn't specifically propose to cut student loans. Okay, if you don't cut student loans, then that means you’ve got to cut basic research even more. The money has got to come from somewhere. You can't give over $4 trillion worth of additional tax cuts, including to folks like me who don't need them and weren’t asking for them, and it just comes from some magic tree somewhere. (Laughter.)

So if you hear them saying, well, the President is making this stuff up -- no, we’re doing the math. If they want to dispute anything that I’ve said right now, they should show us specifically where they would make those cuts. (Applause.) They should show us. They should show us. Because, by the way, they're not proposing to cut defense, they're actually proposing to increase defense spending, so it’s not coming out of there. So show me.

People always have been the foolish victims of deception and self-deception in politics, and they always will be until they have learnt to seek out the interests of some class or other behind all moral, religious, political and social phrases, declarations and promises.
Vladimir Lenin

Look, America has always been a place where anybody who's willing to work and play by the rules can make it. A place where prosperity doesn’t trickle down from the top, it grows from the bottom; it grows outward from the heart of a vibrant middle class. (Applause.)

And I believe that we cannot stop investing in the things that help create that middle class; that create real, long-lasting, broad-based growth in this country. And we certainly shouldn’t be doing it just so the richest Americans can get another tax cut. (Applause.) We should be strengthening those investments. We should be making college more affordable. (Applause.) We should be expanding our investment in clean energy. (Applause.)

Why nationalize industry when you can nationalize the people?
Adolph Hitler

Now, here’s the other thing that the Republicans will tell you. They’ll say, well, we’ve got to make all these drastic cuts because our deficit is too high. Our deficit is too high. And their argument might actually have a shred of credibility to it if you didn’t find out that they wanted to spend $4.6 trillion on lower tax rates. I don’t know how many of you are math majors, business majors -- you can’t pay down a deficit by taking in $4.6 trillion of less money, especially when you’re denying that you’re going to be making all these cuts. It doesn’t add up. It doesn’t make sense.

So let me ask you what's the better way to make our economy stronger? Do we give another $50,000 [sic] in tax breaks to every millionaire and billionaire in the country?

AUDIENCE: No!

Our epoch, the epoch of the bourgeoisie, possesses, however, this distinct feature: it has simplified class antagonisms. Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other.
Karl Marx

THE PRESIDENT: Or should we make investments in education and research and health care and our veterans? (Applause.)

And I just want to emphasize again -- look, I want folks to get rich in this country. I think it's wonderful when people are successful. That’s part of the American Dream. It is great that you make a product, you create a service, you do it better than anybody else -- that’s what our system is all about. But understand, the share of our national income going to the top 1 percent has climbed to levels we haven't seen since the 1920s.

The folks who are benefitting from this are paying taxes at one of the lowest rates in 50 years.

Society’s needs come before the individual’s needs.
Adolph Hitler

And now it’s our turn to be responsible. Now it’s our turn to preserve the American Dream for future generations. Now it’s our turn to rebuild, to make the investments that will assure our future, to make sure that we’ve got the most competitive workforce on Earth, to make sure that we’ve got clean energy that can help clean the planet and help fuel our economy. (Applause.)

In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.
Karl Marx

It’s our turn. It’s our turn to rebuild our roads and our bridges and our airports and our ports. It’s our turn to make sure that everybody here, every child born in whatever neighborhood in this country it is, that if they're willing to dream big dreams and put some blood, sweat and tears behind it, they can make it. (Applause.)

Providence has ordained that I should be the greatest liberator of humanity. I am freeing man from the restraints of an intelligence that has taken charge, from the dirty and degrading self-mortification of a false vision called conscience and morality, and from the demands of a freedom and independence which only a very few can bear.
Adolph Hitler

I know we can do that. I know we can do it because of you. You’re here because you believe in your future. (Applause.) You’re working hard. Some of you are balancing a job or a family on the side.

Communism deprives no man of the power to appropriate the products of society; all that it does is to deprive him of the power to subjugate the labour of others by means of such appropriations.
Karl Marx

AUDIENCE: Four more years! Four more years!

THE PRESIDENT: You have faith in America. You know it’s not going to be easy, but you don't give up. That's the spirit we need right now, because here in America we don’t give up. (Applause.) Here in America, we look out for one another. Here in America, we help each other get ahead. Here in America, we have a sense of common purpose. Here in America, we can meet any challenge. Here in America, we can seize any moment. We can make this century another great American century. (Applause.)

Do you now appreciate the depth of our National Socialist Movement? Can there be anything greater and more all comprehending? Those who see in National Socialism nothing more than a political movement know scarcely anything of it. It is more even than religion; it is the will to create mankind anew.
Adolph Hitler

Thank you. God bless you. God bless the United States of America. (Applause.)

END 3:39 P.M. EDT

PS Is it any coincidence that Vladimir Lenin's birthday and Earth Day are both on April 22?
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