Fear Based Politics

Where are the leaders?...

Demagogues in the US are unwittingly leading us to revolution.

Americans are looking for leaders and finding only people with over-sized egos implementing political strategies to win popularity contests. We've been through five years now of the Great Recession that never really ended and appears to be resurfacing in a Double Dip. Many people are recognizing these terms are euphemisms and if we have not been in another Great Depression similar to the nineteen-thirties then we are headed for one. More than likely we have already begun a "Depression within a Depression" replicating 1936-1937. The terms really do not matter since the conditions are the same and storm clouds are gathering that portend something unheard of a decade ago and that is revolution. The term itself invokes fear but thinking about it, how much worse could that fear be than the fear based autocrats and technocrats that run our country now?

We are not only in an economic crackup of historic proportions but a social and political one as well that occurs in cycles every 60-80 years and every 300-500 years. In the long view of history we will be seen as one of the societies that went through both simultaneously. The times we live in are truly epic and not in the trite sense of the word nor of the garden variety cycles of history that repeat themselves in oft-quoted Santayana admonishment. A polymath who sees underlying problems with resolutions to be implemented in a well thought out way does well to understand that is not possible in epochs of radical change. We are on a road to some sort of revolution and sensibly organizing something such as a Second Constitutional Convention is likely only in aftermath. The deconstruction caused by a technological, economic, political and social disruption must come first.

When that occurs no prognosticator knows, only that surely it is coming and the general period of time but not the day and hour. In 2012 it seems the time is quickly drawing nearer. The average person regardless of their social intelligence senses these things and feels the winds blowing in sea change. What more pragmatically is there to know really? There are two ways to be led in times such as this: with inspiration and hope or with despair and fear.

Our current politicians are operating in the second mode, fear-mongering and blowing dog whistles to rile up all kinds of fears to stir people up and move them to their campaign and raise their donations. Perhaps the Democrats have leaders somewhere hidden in their lot but we don't know since they are not having a primary and not proffering any up since their nominee is a foregone conclusion. Their representative is not a leader and falls short in categories too numerous to mention that reveal themselves daily. Whether he is a likable or decent person to the beholder is irrelevant but the low caliber of the work he is performing is.

We find ourselves in an election season with a population that at a minimum is uneasy and unsure of what is happening in our country, generally burned out from this lengthy so-called Recovery that wasn't, genuinely concerned about the future short and long term. What do we get in return from the political class? A parade of clowns, trapeze artists, show ponies not fit for even a third rate circus all pandering to the lowest element and basest of emotions. Most people are tired of hearing about both the social progressive and social conservative agenda. They want to live their lives with some real hope and belief that things will one day get better. We may be in a bad spot that will take a long time to get out of but they want a leader who says "Yes we can rise above and work together" and not "my opponent is a jerk out to screw you." It's really that simple.

How this election season plays out in each act no one can predict but I'm willing to bet that the forces are already moving the average person to turn all the crazy negativity off. They will stop being complacent, halting the train of the loud mouth social progressives and social conservatives that are shouting down and drowning them out. It is reminiscent to me of Nixon's "Silent Majority" who did go out and vote for him because they wanted the merry-go-round to stop and they were tired and weary. Right, wrong, good, bad or indifferent he represented that to them. Will there be anyone to rise out of the Republican primary ashes to capture that sense? It's hard to see it but we will have to see.

My sense of it at this moment in time is the leaders are not there or are not willing to step forward and in some sense I can see why they wouldn't. There is no palatable way that much of the voting public can accept at this time the difficult and hard sacrifices that must be made to turn our economy around and our politics and society to some semblance of what America is supposed to be about. My prediction is that the current Administration will continue to make alienating bubble headed decisions that turn off even his own base and in return the Republicans nominate someone so far out in right field that the average American won't go for them. If they decide to vote who it will be for is going to be a difficult choice and my suspicion is whoever wins it will be by some default.

Our largest concern really isn't the crazy antics of the candidates themselves but the crazy billionaires crafting plans behind the scenes. They are the ones reigning over the concealed tyranny we are subjected to. To my way of thinking having two candidates that are not palatable to the majority of the country is probably a good thing in a seemingly bad way. It forces the average person to get active with their anger and strong arm the hands of the political and bureaucratic classes by submitting them to the will of the people rather than the other way around. The purpose is the neutering of the lobbying and billionaire money behind them and in the aftermath force that Second Constitutional Congress. Sounds like revolution? Yes it does, it's the real hard work, very doable and not as scary and violent as it sounds.

There Is No Going Back to 1776 or Prior to The Civil War or 1913

We may be able to return to the Calvin Coolidge era...

Revolutionary change happens in a big leap followed by incremental progress in degrees. 

Our government in the US has been acting extra constitutionally at least since the days of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Although we must restore it to the basic fundamental principles of the US Constitution designed by the Founding Fathers, I think it is unrealistic to expect it to go back the original form in one sweeping second revolution. What we can strive for first is a return to the last President who held fundamental beliefs of small and laissez-faire government, Calvin Coolidge.

There are several historical changes that have caused me to draw this conclusion. Primarily they are the Civil War, the 16th and 17th Amendments ratified in 1913 and the extraordinary powers unlawfully exercised by FDR that have been institutionalized by every President since. In my way of thinking the chances to roll back the changes those events brought completely in one fell swoop is highly unlikely.

Why do I believe this? The majority of the American people themselves are ignorant of our unique history, how our nation was founded, understand the principles that originally guided us and are incapable of drawing a sound conclusion. The generations after the Second World War and most particularly the generations since the sixties are the products of a society based on consumerism and an educational system where nothing of value regarding our history is taught and no one fails. They have the government they deserve because they allowed it to happen and are blissfully stupid about the consequences since they are beneficiaries of the idea of entitlement. Force feeding them an across-the-board change likely would not succeed since they will resist a revolutionary change and side with the current government, no matter how invasive it is, out of fear.

Another reason I think this is not possible is the changes that have occurred since the Industrial Revolution in communication, science and technology. We are currently in an era of huge disruptive change that also creates a different social, economic and political environment. When the Founding Fathers envisioned and created the US Constitution they were basing it on an agrarian society that is long gone. Additionally, as appalling I think both the 16th and 17th Amendments are repealing them is probably unlikely. The federal income tax is here to stay as is the direct election of Senators for the time being.

Most Americans only have vague notions and mostly incorrect ideas of what their rights are and believe our government is a democracy. Most of the rights they assume are actually only implied rights or rights enforced by court rulings and laws primarily regarding affirmative action quotas and employment law. They are clueless about the Bill of Rights and what it actually states. They are unaware that we are not a true democracy but a representative democracy that is a republic. To suggest or explain to them that the direct election of Senators is contrary to a republic and that it causes of a lot of our Congressional problems today would go nowhere.

We are headed for some sort of economic, political and social crash that is on a par with the Civil War and the changes that it brought. How it will play out is uncertain, in spite of the pronunciations of economic doomsayers, survivalists, preppers, radicals, socialist revolutionaries, et al. No one really knows and can predict the course of future history. More likely the crash will serve as a wake up call and result in a restructuring of our country rather than an all out collapse or another civil war.

There is a fast growing minority that is beginning to understand what the intention of the US Constitution, Bill of Rights and the Founding Fathers meant by a representative republican democratic form of government and that we have gone far astray from those principles. Those of us that understand this, it is our incumbent duty to educate and explain to those that do not understand and willing to listen and learn, what our government was intended to be to gain a majority to restore it. Regardless of what that entails or we will be awash in the flotsam and jetsam of government that will further encroach on our liberty and freedom of the individual.

Therefore I think the focus should be to return to the most recent modern era of the 1920s that small and laissez-faire government existed, accepting that certain elements of the Constitution will remain unchanged for the moment. This era did not cause the stock market crash of 1929 and subsequently the Great Depression, in actuality the period prior to Coolidge started government intervention and regulated monopolies did. Once we've re-established small government, then it will be time to repeal onerous constitutional amendments and extra constitutional laws and court decisions. Change and progress usually succeeds in incremental steps rather than a total revolutionary repeal that an under educated and unprepared people do not have the ability to cope with.

American Exceptionalism

Basis for reemergence from economic disruption...

How our current government and political system became a bastard.

Despite the disparaging attitude self-named Progressives (Social and Liberal Democrats) hold toward the concept of American exceptionalism, it is the primary factor that will cause the United States to resurge after an extended period of economic downturn and political disruption. A case can be made that the underlying real reason for the current problems we are now experiencing is the Federal government acting outside of the US Constitution. The background for this conjecture is based in history from the beginning of the Progressive movement in the early 20th century, which is rooted in communism and socialism, to today when progressive concepts have seeped into American government. The movement crept into our system after the WWI, reinforced by FDR's New Deal programs, illegally created through Executive Orders rather than constitutional means, further buttressed by LBJ's Great Society programs. Corporations and so-called Conservatives (Corporate Republicans) are not without blood on their hands in this inadvisable folly, since they willingly went along with distortion of the true intent for the United States in the US Constitution, that made this country exceptional.

The year 1913 is significant due to the 16th Amendment creating the authority to collect income taxes and the 17th Amendment allowing the direct election of Senators. Both of these amendments go directly against concepts of the Founding Fathers intentions and the ideals that influenced them. They were ratified when the Progressive movement was at its height being passed off as Populism. The distorted form of the Federal government of today has also been reinforced by the US Court system acting in ways that it was never intended to and misuse of Executive Orders by Presidents of the US. Although a case could be made that this illicit form of governing began with the Civil War, our situation today springs more from the early 20th Century. To state it succinctly, the Progressive movement with the aid of Populists was the root and cause of the federal government acting extraconstitutionally through their infiltration of bureaucratic agencies. We are still operating under those rules with complicit acceptance by both major political parties.

Our government is unconstitutional therefore unlawful.

Then by default this makes our current Federal Government and Congress an illegitimate government operating outside the boundaries laid down by the Founding Fathers in the US Constitution. They established those foundations for a reason, to avoid the type of surreptitious government illegally governing the country today.

Ignorance of history and the founding of our nation is the enemy.

One of the biggest shifts after WWI that the progressive movement and populists advanced was the notion of shifting economics and therefore law, away from the power of the Industrialists, who were also operating extraconstitutionally and not in true laissez-faire capitalism as the Founding Fathers intended. They had conspired with politicians to pass laws in their favor, distorting true free market enterprise, creating a response by the progressive and labor movement to shift legislation and by default bureaucratic agencies to the consumer and worker. At first glance this may not seem like a bad thing. The difficulty lies in that both sides deformed the values that made the United States of America an exceptional nation through legislative arm twisting. Although the progressives are the most covert of the two, the industrialists who are now contemporary corporations, are just as guilty. They are co-conspirators playing a sham game of good versus evil which is apocryphal and beguiling.

The shift in emphasis to the consumer and worker away from a true free market of entrepreneurs and producers with buyers was the beginning of regulated market modern day consumerism. Consumerism is the root cause of our current economic and political situation. It is an economic way of life that must be perpetuated in order to be maintained and ultimately must end up in self-immolation by its very nature. Everything else from fiat money inflation, political bastardization, debt overhang, unemployment, is the aftermath of construction of an economy built on over-consumption of consumer goods. There is nowhere to go any more with this mode of economic madness and no matter how much has been puffed into this style of living globule it is doomed. There have been outliers shouting this in the wilderness for decades but they have been largely ignored in the pale since the crash was not imminent. Now it is here. Any thinking person recognizes that somehow, sooner rather than later, in our lifetime, in the near future, the consumer economy will in the end be dead on arrival. It is this force that will ultimately cause the social, economic and political downfall and disruption of our current system.

America is exceptional due to its original ideals and the people.  

It is not the end but the catalyst for a revival of the America Way. America is a unique nation, founded without a long history of an inherited class structure, flavored with a variety of immigrants and based on principles of liberty, individualism, equality, freedom, laissez-faire, justice and organized in a thoughtful deliberate fashion by a document that is the US Constitution. It is with these assets this country will revive and restore itself. This American exceptionalism, closely aligned with Manifest Destiny, has been trampled on, scoffed at, denigrated, disparaged and degraded. Still, it
lives in the minds and hearts of many, regardless of over a century and generations of reeducation to try to stamp it out of existence. For every person that never came unstuck from the American Spirit that it is inherent in the American character, now is the time to rise above and bring out the very best qualities that live within us. It is these qualities that make us exceptional, which will allow the country to be rebuilt anew based on the enduring principles upon which it was founded. This is the basis for the reemergence from economic, political and social disruption that is plaguing our country and in a cataclysmic way will be cast out, while we simultaneously refashion what we already have that is worthwhile keeping and start creating new accomplishments again.

Your Privacy Is Long Gone

We can minimize our exposure but not prevent it...

When I was one of the first male Bell System switchboard operators in the early seventies I worked on a cordboard before Automatic Number Identification (ANI). This meant when we plugged into a circuit and answered "operator" and when someone asked for a long distance call, we filled out the information on IBM scan cards by filling in the bubbles. We only knew what Central Office they were calling from and not their individual number and had to ask "What is your number please?" Sometimes this was answered with "I have a nonpublished (unlisted) number" or "That's an invasion of my privacy" especially if it was a collect call or being billed to a credit card or another number. In classic Bell Operator fashion I would reply "Your privacy is long gone. What is the number your calling from in order for me to complete this call?" End of discussion, I had a job to do.

Although people were rightfully suspicious of AT&T since it was then the largest corporation in the world, they still had delusions about their privacy. The reality was the company had ways of tracking them and the number they were calling from if you gave an incorrect number to us. There was an entire Fraud division of the company that had a wide variety of ways to figure it out through both sleuthing and technological means that rivaled the FBI.

The difference between now and then is the mechanisms for tracking us have grown more sophisticated. In those days Direct Mail advertisers (junk mail) had more information on people than they realized. That was the analog world and all that has really happened is we have moved from the analog world to the digital world with much more sophisticated and invasive tools monitoring us. If you have ever filled out a credit card application, applied for an auto loan or mortgage, replaced your tires, used a grocery store discount card, joined a social website, googled the web, used a smartphone, the list goes on...you get the idea, you've been tracked as a consumer. On the government front if you have flown on a plane, gotten a driver's, marriage, business or professional license, attended a public school, checked out a book or used a computer at a public library, filled out a form to request information or get a permit from a government agency...you've been recorded somewhere down the line electronically. Multiply that a thousand fold if you've ever filed a tax return or applied for a passport, immigration status or citizenship.

My purpose is not to anger, frustrate or frighten the reader but to motivate them. It is to point out that in many ways that we don't even think about, our privacy is compromised more than the average person can fathom. There are methods to minimize it by choice while also recognizing how much we expose ourselves is limited and we cannot completely prevent it. My personal decision is to be on Google sites, Blogger, YouTube and Buzz and use their tools such as AdSense, Analytics as well as Search. I use Twitter minimally, mainly to tweet my blog posts, with full knowledge that using these sites will compromise my privacy. I completely deleted my Facebook account since I think they are probably the most invasive and are intent on intruding on our personal information as much as the Department of Homeland Security does. [See my blog post "HOW TO DELETE YOUR FACEBOOK ACCOUNT, NOT JUST DEACTIVATE IT" for complete instructions.] I've deleted and closed all of my accounts on other sites knowing full well they still retain my information somewhere in the linings of their cloud. I'm beginning to think LinkedIn is heading in the same direction and I'm reconsidering my presence on that website.

My intent is to make people more aware of what they are doing when they sign up for multiple sites, post all kinds of information on them and know this information is being shared outside of these sites. Additionally hiding behind usernames may also help you feel more secure as far as public knowledge may go. Even so, these websites and companies know far more about you due to the email address, fake or otherwise, you used to create these accounts and your IP address is known every time you visit one. Also people with some internet research savvy can find out who is behind those usernames much more easily than people think.

This is a simple case of let the user beware and have full knowledge. My personal belief is that our privacy
is long gone but is mitigated by several factors. In the immediate there is so much voluminous information being stored I'm not sure companies, websites and the government even knows how to wade through it all. Still, if they are able to figure out how to filter through so much it is my belief is there will sooner or later be a data implosion from overload. With recent attempts, hackers may end up undermining the systems sooner rather than later, a disaster to some, a blessing to others. As far as the government and their data gathering, fingerprinting, biometric and other tracking methods is concerned, it is certainly a violation of our rights but since I believe there will be a total system collapse before Big Brother really gains a hold on us. We need to bear that in mind and actively engage in the fight against our liberties.

The best solution for now is to minimize our exposure by limiting our interaction both offline and online as far as the information we do give out, while being fully aware we cannot avoid it. It also behooves us to have as minimal involvement with the government as we possibly can to avoid the Big Brother of them all (run by Big Sister, former Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano, one of the most dangerous women in the US), the Department of Homeland Security. We can maintain some modicum of privacy but realistically unless we bug out and disappear completely, an option I think is nearly impossible and extremely unlikely to be successful in contemporary America, the best we can do is be cautious and recognize our privacy is long gone. That is until there is technological implosion and/or the system as we know it completely collapses and our country begins anew, as it was meant to be as envisioned by the Founding Fathers, with the true intent of the US Constitution.
 

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

The first change takes place in your mind...

Gil Scott-Heron died yesterday and his spoken word poetry pioneered political rap and influenced hip-hop music although he was somewhat critical of hip hop artists. He was quoted in the nineties:

"They need to study music. I played in several bands before I began my career as a poet. There's a big difference between putting words over some music and blending those same words into music. There's not a lot of humor. They use a lot of slang and colloquialisms and you don't really see inside the person. Instead, you just get a lot of posturing." [italics mine]

One of my favorite GSH lines is the famous one from "Let Me See Your I.D."

"The first time I heard there was trouble in the Middle East, I thought they were talking about Pittsburgh."

It appeals to me since it reminds me of how self-centered many Americans are regarding the rest of the world in the sense the world begins, ends and revolves around the United States.

In his earlier years he was aware of and foreshadowed the inevitable crash of our consumer culture. One of the most important concepts is his statement in an interview in the nineties with Scott Blumberg "The first change that takes place is in your mind, you have to change your mind before you change the way you live and the way you move."

Like all great artists, his work stands the test of time and is both prescient and relevant today. In that same interview he referred to how Black Americans have been "the only real die-hard Americans here because we're the only ones who carried the process through the process, that everyone else has skipped stages, we're the only ones who marched, carried the Bible, carried the flag, were the ones who tried to go through the courts and being born American didn't seem to matter because we were born American but we had to fight for what we were looking for..."

In his latest work in 2010 "I'm New Here" he refers to coming full circle and is classic in it's beautiful lyricism and simplicity of a solo guitarist as accompanist.

http://youtu.be/eV_astp3BjM

Ron Paul on "The View"

Liberty Defined...

Whoppi Goldberg and Joy Behar couldn't get him to bite their bait.

http://youtu.be/z3MiKO6K1Zw

Economic, Social and Geopolitical

A brief history of the Federal government and unionism run amuck...

Or how we got into this mess now and why the country is divisive.

America is a big country with wide opinions as large as the population. We are at a moment in our history where our judgment and reasoning is diverse and our opinions are also divisive. In my lifetime the last time we were at this point was in the late sixties and early seventies in the "love it or leave it" period. In it's simplest form today it takes on the debate of libertarian conservative versus progressive liberal ideals.

Progressive Liberalism (as opposed to Classical Liberalism) as a movement started to take hold over a hundred years ago before the First World War. Theodore Roosevelt was the first President to push Progressivism. The consumerism of today is a result of the shift, at that time, in emphasis of managing the national economy from free market business to the regulation of business in favor of the consumer. The idea was that the consumer was more important than the producer. Consumers were the driver of the economy rather than the producers of goods and their rights to products were more important than those who invented, created, manufactured and marketed them.

In 1927 a group of elite academics, unionists, peace activists and radical leftists took a cruise to the then unrecognized Soviet Union to meet Stalin and tour Russia. Their mission was to be self-appointed unofficial envoys of the United States to document the marvels of the collectivist economy of the Soviets. They were given lavish guided tours to selected places that were successful planned economic enterprises and shielded from anything else. They documented their experiences and wrote papers, books and newspaper and magazine articles extolling the virtues of the collectivist society they witnessed. The importance of the trip and passengers is that many of these people become prominent in Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal administrations.

When the legacy became entrenched.

FDR tired of these people and their experiments by 1937 when the second wave of Depression hit from 1937 to 1939. He had been re-elected in 1936 in a landslide but it was becoming clear that the collectivists and their programs had not solved the problems of the economy. In fact, they made it worse, but the damage was done. The established major institutions we are stuck with today including Social Security and liberalized unionism. After the Second World War, the answer to converting from a wartime economy to a peaceful one was in promoting mass produced cookie cutter housing and consumer goods. The remnants of both Roosevelts, regulated monopolies, Social Security, federal government economic planning and unionism were accepted and tolerated as necessary evils.

Those were the seeds planted that the federal government and programs, as we know it today, mushroomed out of control. President Johnson exacerbated the situation by his Great Society programs. Later the Justice Department in law suits started in his administration resulted in Affirmative Action quotas forced onto private employers by consent decree. Public employee unionism also dramatically increased in this era.

To fully understand the consumerism mindset and sense of entitlement many Americans hold today it is important to see how long it took us to get here and how. In order to unravel it, which we must if we are to recover from our current economic crisis, cannot take a hundred years but must be unwound relatively quickly. If we are to recover from it, otherwise we really will spiral downward, a proposition I don't think most Americans are willing to accept.

Why we're divided today.

Due to the current administration, the ineffective political class of both parties in Washington, the divisiveness we are seeing today is a result of a growing movement that is getting stronger. The loose coalition of the Tea Party is the tip of the iceberg. The sentiment they represent is growing stronger among average Americans who don't necessarily align themselves with any political party of movement. The reason the unionists and supporters resistance, especially in the public sector, is so virulently strong (witness Wisconsin as an example) is they recognize the threat to their status quo. Whether they publicly acknowledge this or not, the Progressive Liberals of today realize they are losing the hearts and minds of the American people. In one election three years ago they won their last major victory and gradually they are losing more and more battles.

Some states, Arizona and Montana among them, are taking steps to buck the Federal government and loosen the grip. The process is called "nullification" and refers to state legislatures and elected officials passing bills and declaring that certain federal government edicts are "null and void" because these mandates violate the limits of authority as stated in the US Constitution. Some of their actions seem extreme to a number of people but they don't realize that some of these actions are literal and others are symbolic. Regardless, the trend is there and it is growing.

In Montana a state legislator, Krayton Kerns, is proposing a bill that would nullify the federal Endangered Species Act "null and void" in his state. According to an article in the Great Falls Tribune he argues that the federal government is in serious debt and the opponents to his bill, countering that this legislation would cost the state federal dollars, are arguing over money that isn't there.

"We may as well be arguing over pixie dust. It has as much intrinsic value, the federal government is going down, and you know when a republic dies, it's kind of an ugly thing. There will be no money in the future. Whether we argue about it or not is a nonissue."

On the federal level, Congressman Ron Paul is making the same argument he has for years. Since the US ended the convertibility of the dollar to gold we are using fiat money. Fiat money only has value because the government has laws that say it does. In other words, we keep printing more and more money that has no real intrinsic value to dig ourselves out of debt. Instead we are digging ourselves into a deeper hole.

What is going to happen.

Fear is a powerful thing and many people operate out of fear. The divisiveness of opinion today is driven by the fear of those who depend on the federal government to continue printing money, versus those who recognize that money has no real value and is leading to the inevitable collapse of the monetary system. Sides are forming up and soon there will be no middle of the road dilly dallying around it. The debate revolves around a number of issues but a few serve as focal points.

On the one side, are those who want to see the federal government get its grip off state and local governments and on the other side are those that want more federal control. There are many who want to be free of government interference in our personal lives and some who want the security of entitlement. It is not easily divided up by political parties but each side has organized representation. They are symbolized by the Tea Party movement and organized labor because they are the most visible. They are by no means the only brokers in this divisive war of opinions but it is becoming clearer, as our economic and social fabric dissolves, that we cannot go on this way.

My thought is that we will survive the increasing fights over how much federal government interference people will allow. At the core will be those who are against the status quo of a so-called planned economy and those who are proponents of it. To me the resolution, which will be a revolution in itself, will come when the bottom line is finally tallied. The government really has no money and we may as well be arguing over pixie dust. The system will break and fall and we the people, will have to pick up the pieces and put it back together.

When it's all over and the dust settles, we will be stronger people less dependent on a consumer economy, achievement oriented where accomplishing something matters, knowing things that are important, such as reading, writing, history, geography and math, working hard results in real reward. Above all we will be proud of our country all over again and what it stands for and what we have done for it and ourselves.

Economic, Social and Geopolitical

Statistics aside...

Stagflation awaits aside a revolution extinguishing the political class.

We're awash in economic statistics that seem to conflict and depend on where they're derived from and who is reporting them. What the general public should know is that government statistics are constantly adjusted and the criteria for what is being measured changes not just year to year but often quarterly. For instance the unemployment rate may include one group one year and the following year that group is changed or adjusted.

Another statistical tool to be cautious of is opinion polls. They differ in who is asking the question and how the question is asked. Therefore the statistics Gallup reports on a topic may vary from what Rasmussen reports when they publish a standard question such as "Who would you vote for in the next general election?"

The cohorts in both government and opinion poll statistics is the media, particularly the mainstream media. If you were to believe the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, USA Today, Associated Press and any of the television "news" outlets you could believe the economy is improving, it is getting worse or easily be confused. The average person, who doesn't have the time nor inclination to investigate the nitty gritty details, confused by this reportage is understandably baffled.

It also helps to understand that the situation and beliefs of the reader sway which part of news coverage they're going to believe. We live in confusing times where clarity is obscured by the opaque, deliberately clouded by the political class and their media for it's own interests, especially in terms of the economy and how it is doing. This sounds conspiratorial but I am not alone in believing this.

The saying about the Great Depression of the 1930s, "always recovering but never recovered" also applies during this economic recession I think. In the 1970s we had "stagflation," the condition where high inflation accompanies low production and high unemployment along with short supply of a necessary commodity, followed by a contraction. In the seventies, it was oil, a condition that is being replayed. In the case of our current economic condition, the oil shock just now beginning, is occurring during an economic crisis triggered by real estate, high debt and other factors. We are tumbling into an inflationary spiral coupled with the twin evils of our current economic crisis, unemployment with low production and a high debt ratio. It appears we're heading into an era much like the seventies but worse, since when oil prices gush higher then deflation results in one of two ways. One is a financial collapse, the first part we've already experienced in 2008 with a second dip on the way. The other is a prolonged economic funk that is arduous and harrowing, which we are enduring now. Generally these two conditions cause a compression lowering prices causing deflation. In other words we can experience inflation and deflation simultaneously creating epic stagflation.

We are at an interesting crossroads. Elements of the fundamentals of our economy have been slowly improving. In other areas they are stagnant or going backwards. In a sense, oxymoronic as this seems, all the political class chattering and media reporting is correct in one sense or another. Herein lies the rub. We are at a crossroads that no matter which route we take, we are traveling with baggage that requires a no-room-for-error balancing act. One slip and everything else is affected. My belief is that we are beginning to lose our balance and the primary tipping point is oil.

Since we are Americans a significant majority of us still hold the ingenuity, grit, entrepreneurial spirit and work ethic that has brought us through hard times in the past, I believe this will bring out the best in the country through the long haul. We are always recovering and will continue until we have fully recovered. It won't occur without hard work, sacrifice, effort and long term commitment. It will also take time and patience but we will eventually rise above and succeed. The political class and their minions are unwittingly making themselves moot, proving that in it's inimitable revolutionary way, the United States is still the America of dreams.