Ineptocracy (in-ep-toc’-ra-cy), n. A system of government where the least capable to lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed are rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a diminishing number of producers.
The worst crime against working people is a company which fails to operate at a profit.
I want to urge devotion to the fundamentals of human liberty – the principles of voluntarism. No lasting gain has ever come from compulsion. If we seek to force, we but tear apart that which, united, is invincible. . . . I want to say to you, men and women of the American labor movement, do not reject the cornerstone upon which labor’s structure has been builded – but base your all upon voluntary principles and illumine your every problem by consecrated devotion to that highest of all purposes – human well being in the fullest, widest, deepest sense.
There may be here and there a worker who for certain reasons unexplainable to us does not join a union of labor. This is his right no matter how morally wrong he may be. It is his legal right and no one can dare question his exercise of that legal right.
We want a minimum wage established, but we want it established by the solidarity of the working men themselves through the economic forces of their trade unions, rather than by any legal enactment. . . . We must not, we cannot, depend upon legislative enactments to set wage standards. When once we encourage such a system, it is equivalent to admitting our incompetency for self-government and our inability to seek better conditions.
The workers of America adhere to voluntary institutions in preference to compulsory systems which are held to be not only impractical but a menace to their rights, welfare and their liberty.
Labor Day is devoted to no man, living or dead, to no sect, race or nation.
I have no word of censure for a man because of his views on political, social or economic questions, but I contend that trade unions are the natural form of organization for wage earners under existing economic conditions, and I propose (so far as I may be able) to keep them undefiled and free from alliance with any political party . . . . Factions who wish to dally with hobbies and fine spun theories . . . have no place in the ranks of trade unionism.
And what have our unions done? What do they aim to do? To improve the standard of life, to uproot ignorance and foster education, to instill character, manhood and independent spirit among our people; to bring about a recognition of the interdependence of man upon his fellow man. We aim to establish a normal work-day, to take the children from the factory and workshop and give them the opportunity of the school and the play-ground. In a word, our unions strive to lighten toil, educate their members, make their homes more cheerful, and in every way contribute an earnest effort toward making life the better worth living.
That which we call freedom, that which we call liberty, are not tangible things. They are not handed to any people on a silver platter. They are principles, they are questions of the spirit, and the people must have a consciousness that they not only have the term liberty and freedom, but they must have the power and the right to exercise these great attributes of life.
To strengthen the state, as Frederick Howe says, is to devitalize the individual. . . . I believe in people. I believe in the working people. I believe in their growing intelligence. I believe in their growing and persistent demand for better conditions, for a more rightful situation in the industrial, political, and social affairs of this country and of the world. I have faith that the working people will better their condition far beyond what it is today. The position of the organized labor movement is not based upon misery and poverty, but upon the right of workers to a larger and constantly growing share of the production, and they will work out these problems for themselves.
I do not think American labor is engaged in a class struggle and I do not think American labor believes it is engaged in a class struggle, because in our country we have no such thing and I hope never will have.
We are proud of the country which we claim as our own; we are proud of its history, proud of its heroes and proud of its traditions, and we hope as we struggle for its glorious future. But we maintain that patriotism does not mean the hatred of our neighbor. Nor do we believe that it is a wise policy, as some would advocate, that a foreign war might be a good cure for our domestic evils.
In the exercise of great powers often requisite under military control, the right of free meeting, the right of free speech, and free press is endangered. And when the smoke of battle is gone these rights, taken from the masses of the people under often necessary conditions, are seldom freely given back to the people.
That war transformed me from an ultra-pacifist to one willing to fight and sacrifice with my fellow countrymen in defense of the principle of living our own lives and working out our own destiny; and if there be a mad-man nation still, large or small, which will attempt to repeat that monumental crime I hope that the generations, perhaps yet unborn, of our self-governing civilized nations, may throw themselves with equal vigor in the battle to maintain the fundamental principles of freedom, justice and humanity.
[D]uring the years of [World War I] I was absorbed with the one object that it was labor's war as much as it was the war of any other group of our people; that labor had to make good in helping to win the war and to emerge from the war with freedom and democracy safeguarded and its honored name and high ideals maintained.
I want to tell you, Socialists, that I have studied your philosophy; read your works upon economics, and not the meanest of them; studied your standard works, both in English and German -- have not only read, but studied them. I have heard your orators and watched the work of your movement the world over. I have kept close watch upon your doctrines for thirty years; have been closely associated with many of you, and know how you think and what you propose. I know, too, what you have up your sleeve. And I want to say that I am entirely at variance with your philosophy. I declare to you, I am not only at variance with your doctrines, but with your philosophy. Economically you are unsound; socially, you are wrong; industrially, you are an impossibility.
You are mistaken in asserting that I am embittered against everybody or anything that savors of socialism. What I resent and what I have persistently opposed is any effort that will mislead the wage-earners and delude them with vain hope. There have been so many burdens and so much suffering and so much misery heaped upon those who are called the wage-earners, that I resent with every particle of force within me anything that would perpetuate their suffering or lead them into greater depths. Because I am firmly convinced that socialism is founded upon principles that will not lead out into broader liberty, independence and opportunity, I have done what I could to show men the fallacies of the doctrine of socialism.
There are people in the labor movement who seem to believe that success can only come by entrusting great, yes, absolute power in the hands of an individual or an executive officer. I warn you against a calamity none greater than which can occur to the labor
movement. Autocracy is as dangerous in our movement as in the state. Mistakes may be made by the masses but they learn to do better by reason of their mistakes. The individual, on the contrary, when having absolute power rarely makes mistakes, rather commits crime. The man who would arrogate to himself in the labor movement absolute and autocratic power would be a tyrant under
other circumstances and has no place in the labor movement.
One thing to be considered in discussing immigration is that the greater the number of immigrants the less American the United States becomes. . . . The American Federation of Labor believes that the foreigners now in this country should be assimilated before others are permitted to come except from such countries as Great Britain, France, Germany and Scandinavia.
America must be kept American. Those who would flood the country with hordes of immigrants from southeastern Europe care no more for America then do the Hottentots. Their desires are governed by greed.
The industrial field is littered with more corpses of organizations destroyed by the damning influences of partisan politics than from all other causes combined.
We deny the assertion made by some of our opponents when they say the American Federation of Labor is against political action. We are against the the American labor movement being made a political party machine.
I am very suspicious of the activities of governmental agencies.
We have been asked, or advised, to go for all the laws we can get. Save the workingmen of America from such a proposition! There are numbers of laws we can get, but prudence and defense of the rights and the liberties of the toilers are much more important than the effort to secure all the laws we can get.
Several times the proposition to form a labor party has been considered by the trade union movement, but after careful and thorough consideration it has been invariably decided that we can attain our purposes more quickly and more effectively by continuing our political policy of independent political action partisan to principles rather than to a party.
A law that is really a law, is a result of public thought and conviction and not a power to create thought or conviction. The enforcement of a law follows naturally because the people will it. To enact a law with the hope and for the purpose of educating the people is to proceed by indirection and to waste energy. It is better to begin work for securing ideals by directing activity first for fundamentals. Frequently, when the people concerned become mindful and eager for what will promote their own welfare, they find that they are much more able to secure what will benefit and adapt their methods to changing circumstances than is any law or the administration of that law.
There are a number of people who mistakenly charge me with being a Democrat. I never was a member of the Democratic Party. I was at one time, in my early years, a member of the Republican Party, and cast my first vote for a Republican President--U. S. Grant as soon as I attained my majority. I never did belong to the Democratic Party. In the pursuit of the Nonpartisan policy of labor in which I thoroughly believe, I supported Republican or Democrat or publicist as in the varying parties I believed that they would best serve the people without regard to party.
I love my liberty, and imprisonment would be, to say the least, very disagreeable to me; but there are some things that are even less desirable, among them one's loss of self-respect and the loss of inherent and lawful constitutional rights.
The meaning of America lies in the ideal she represents. That ideal is liberty and opportunity. But beautiful as any ideal may be, it becomes of practical value when it has effectiveness in the daily lives of men and women. Real liberty and opportunity mean a certain mental attitude toward life, certain standards of life and work, and possession of that which secures the enjoyment of opportunities. America the ideal -- the land of the free -- exists only when her people are American in all things.
By nature I am a non-conformist. I believe that restrictions dwarf personality and that largest usefulness comes through greatest personal freedom.
This was a tweet from Rep. Marcy Kaptur, preserved by the Sunlight Foundation:Marcy Kaptur (D) @RepMarcyKaptur
Barack Obama is the worst socialist ever. Dow Touches 15000 on Jobs Data http://t.co/sGa4Es4kAG via @WSJ
Deleted 1 day ago after 8 seconds, originally posted via Tweet Button
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 142.38 points, or 1%, to 14973.96, after touching an all-time intraday high of 15009.59. It closed at a record.
The Standard & Poor's 500-stock index, meanwhile, pushed through the 1600-point level, 13 years after it surpassed 1500. The index rose 16.83 points, or 1.1%, to 1614.42. The Nasdaq Composite Index climbed 38.01 points, or 1.1%, to 3378.63.
"A major source of objection to a free economy is precisely that it ... gives people what they want instead of what a particular group thinks they ought to want. Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself."
"The proper role of government is exactly what John Stuart Mill said in the middle of the 19th century in On Liberty. The proper role of government is to prevent other people from harming an individual. Government, he said, never has any right to interfere with an individual for that individual's own good. The case for prohibiting drugs is exactly as strong and as weak as the case for prohibiting people from overeating. We all know that overeating causes more deaths than drugs do. If it's in principle OK for the government to say you must not consume drugs because they'll do you harm, why isn't it all right to say you must not eat too much because you'll do harm? Why isn't it all right to say you must not try to go in for skydiving because you're likely to die? Why isn't it all right to say, "Oh, skiing, that's no good, that's a very dangerous sport, you'll hurt yourself"? Where do you draw the line?"
"One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results."
"Spending by government currently amounts to about 45 percent of national income. By that test, government owns 45 percent of the means of production that produce the national income. The U.S. is now 45 percent socialist." (We Have Socialism, Q.E.D. in The New York Times 31 December 1989)
"Birth control is not just basic health care for women, it is an economic concern," Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said in a statement. "This common sense decision means that millions of women, who would otherwise pay $15 to $50 a month, will have access to affordable birth control, helping them save hundreds of dollars each year."
Roosevelt's agenda was not without its international admirers. The chief Nazi newspaper, Volkischer Beobachter, repeatedly praised "Roosevelt's adoption of National Socialist strains of thought in his economic and social policies" and "the development toward an authoritarian state" based on the "demand that collective good be put before individual self-interest." Roosevelt himself called Benito Mussolini "admirable" and professed that he was "deeply impressed by what he (had) accomplished."
It is not known what effect removing the most populous community from the water district would have on the cost in the other six townships.
Mr. Haddad has an odd idea of regional cooperation. He says he is all for it — as long as his community doesn’t end up subsidizing work anywhere else. In February, he trashed the county commissioners’ regional refuse-collection plan, calling it a ruse by the City of Toledo to get other municipalities to subsidize its garbage collection.
One of the reasons governments exist is to collect resources from a broad base and redistribute them, not necessarily equally but rather where they are needed most.
"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
"With respect to the words general welfare, I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators."
"If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare, and are the sole and supreme judges of the general welfare, they may take the care of religion into their own hands; they may appoint teachers in every State, county and parish and pay them out of their public treasury; they may take into their own hands the education of children, establishing in like manner schools throughout the Union; they may assume the provision of the poor; they may undertake the regulation of all roads other than post-roads; in short, every thing, from the highest object of state legislation down to the most minute object of police, would be thrown under the power of Congress... Were the power of Congress to be established in the latitude contended for, it would subvert the very foundations, and transmute the very nature of the limited Government established by the people of America."
"I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on the objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents."
Whereas, Rapid jobs growth is central to resolving the economic crisis for working people. There can be no real economic recovery without full employment. Renewed profits on Wall Street and a rising stock market do not make a recovery;
Whereas, The jobs crisis is especially damaging to youth, women, African American, Latino, and other racially and nationally oppressed communities, who in addition to higher rates of unemployment also suffer higher rates of home foreclosures, bankruptcies, lack of medical care, homelessness and hunger; and
Whereas, Private industry is not capable of, nor has any interest in, putting people back to work at a sufficient pace to resolve the economic crisis. Economic recovery requires robust government action; therefore be it
Resolved, That we support and will join others in fighting for;
* Emergency jobs legislation that includes massive direct government investment in public works. This would include rebuilding our crumbling public infrastructures in housing, transportation, medical care, education, communications and recreation;
* Direct emergency aid to state and local governments to maintain and expand public services in all areas of people's needs;
* Unemployment compensation reform that provides unemployment for the duration of unemployment and for first time job seekers;
* Jobs legislation that will protect and promote trade union rights, protections and standards in all public works including card check union recognition on all public projects;
* Federal industrial policy that promotes and massively invests in new green energy and green production infrastructures needed to meet the needs of our people in sustainable ways;
* Public spending and investment that prioritizes help for the communities hardest hit by the economic crisis;
* Government intervention that is paid for by shifting money from wasteful and destructive military spending in Iraq and Afghanistan to rebuilding the domestic economy, and by tax policy that closes corporate loopholes, significantly raise tax rates on corporate profits and the very rich, and taxes on stock transactions and risky speculation on Wall Street.
Resolution adopted by the 29th National Convention of the Communist Party USA, New York, NY May 21-23, 2010.
The goal is not the presidency - that's merely a tool with which to achieve the agenda: the European-style socialism of America and the total consolidation of power within the hands of radical leftists. Sacrificing his re-election would be a small price to pay for accomplishing this nefarious feat.
Obama ‘Quite Comfortable’ As One-Term President, White House Spokesman Says
In a series of comments in recent weeks, Mr. Obama has begun to sketch a vision of where he would like to drive the economy once this crisis is past. His goals include diminishing the consumerism that has long been the main source of growth in the United States, and encouraging more savings and investment. He would redistribute wealth toward the middle class and make the rest of the world less dependent on the American market for its prosperity. And he would seek a consensus recognizing that an activist government is an acceptable and necessary partner for a stable, market-based economy.
"His goals include diminishing the consumerism that has long been the main source of growth in the United States, and encouraging more savings and investment."
"He would redistribute wealth toward the middle class..."
"...make the rest of the world less dependent on the American market for its prosperity."
"...would seek a consensus recognizing that an activist government is an acceptable and necessary partner for a stable, market-based economy."
"Adults under 30 are essentially evenly divided: 37% prefer capitalism, 33% socialism, and 30% are undecided. Thirty-somethings are a bit more supportive of the free-enterprise approach with 49% for capitalism and 26% for socialism. Adults over 40 strongly favor capitalism, and just 13% of those older Americans believe socialism is better."
NANNY STATE: GOVERNMENT WEBSITE TO WARN OF SADNESS/CRYING OVER ECONOMY
Mon Mar 30 2009 18:43:56 ET
The U.S. government is set to offer an online emotional rescue kit!
"Getting Through Tough Economic Times" will launch Tuesday with a media push across all platforms.
The site is meant to help people identify health concerns related to financial worries.
The feds will warn of depression, suicidal thinking and other serious mental illnesses. It will raise warning flags for: Persistent sadness/crying; Excessive anxiety; Lack of sleep/constant fatigue; Excessive irritability/anger.
The guide will be available starting at midnight at http://www.samhsa.gov/economy.
Encourage community-based organizations and groups to provide increased levels of mental health treatment and support to those who are severely affected by the economy.
"I believe that President Obama is doing what he said he wanted to do. He doesn't care whether he has a second term. He just wants to get all this stuff passed because he knows once it passes, it's extremely difficult to undo it and so they are using all the capital they have right now.
His approval ratings are going down like a rock and he's going to do as much of this as he possibly can and then say "I've done my part. I've gotten it in law."
And what they've done so far is going to hugely damage this country."
""We think $165 million could be used in a more appropriate way to keep people in their homes, create more jobs and health care," said Emeline Bravo-Blackport, a gardener.
She marveled at AIG executive James Haas' colonial house, which has stunning views of a golf course and the Long Island Sound. The Fairfield house is "another part of the world" from her life in nearby Bridgeport, which flirted with bankruptcy in the 1990s and still struggles with foreclosures and unemployment."
"Lord, I wonder what it's like to live in a house that size," she said."
"Another protester, Claire Jeffery, of Bloomfield, said she's on the verge of foreclosure. She works as a housekeeper; her husband, a truck driver, can't find work.
"I love my home," she said. "I really want people to help us.""
"Mary Huguley, of Hartford, said AIG executives should share their wealth with people like her sister, who is facing foreclosure.
"You ought to share it, and God will bless you for doing it," she said."
"Simply put, we enter his administration as free-enterprise, market-dominated, laissez-faire America. We will shortly become like Germany, France, the United Kingdom, or Sweden — a socialist democracy in which the government dominates the economy, determines private-sector priorities and offers a vastly expanded range of services to many more people at much higher taxes.
...
But it is not his spending that will transform our political system, it is his tax and welfare policies. In the name of short-term stimulus, he will give every American family (who makes less than $200,000) a welfare check of $1,000 euphemistically called a refundable tax credit. And he will so sharply cut taxes on the middle class and the poor that the number of Americans who pay no federal income tax will rise from the current one-third of all households to more than half. In the process, he will create a permanent electoral majority that does not pay taxes, but counts on ever-expanding welfare checks from the government. The dependency on the dole, formerly limited in pre-Clinton days to 14 million women and children on Aid to Families with Dependent Children, will now grow to a clear majority of the American population.
Will he raise taxes? Why should he? With a congressional mandate to run the deficit up as high as need be, there is no reason to raise taxes now and risk aggravating the depression. Instead, Obama will follow the opposite of the Reagan strategy. Reagan cut taxes and increased the deficit so that liberals could not increase spending. Obama will raise spending and increase the deficit so that conservatives cannot cut taxes. And, when the economy is restored, he will raise taxes with impunity, since the only people who will have to pay them would be rich Republicans.
...
But none of these changes will cure the depression. It will end when the private sector works through the high debt levels that triggered the collapse in the first place. And, then, the large stimulus package deficits will likely lead to rapid inflation, probably necessitating a second recession to cure it.
So Obama's name will be mud by 2012 and probably by 2010 as well. And the Republican Party will make big gains and regain much of its lost power.
But it will be too late to reverse the socialism of much of the economy, the demographic change in the electorate, the rationing of healthcare by the government, the surge of unionization and the crippling of talk radio."
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Konop to Outline Program for Free College Education for all Lucas County Residents...Without Raising Taxes
Common sense proposals would fund $70 million dollars worth of college scholarships for students and displaced workers
Seeking to seriously change the direction of our local economy and the future of our community--without raising any taxes--Commissioner Ben Konop will today outline an aggressive $70 million program to help guarantee all Lucas County high school graduates and displaced workers the chance to get a college education for free.
"In the 21st Century, the best way to truly get our economy moving again, and get our people back to work, is to invest in college education for all Lucas County residents," Konop said. "Through a more efficient government, we can generate a $70 million scholarship fund for Lucas County residents that would enable us to compete and win in the global economy."
Under Konop's proposal, county departments would go to a four day work week, the county would adopt energy efficiency measures and open source software, and adopt a privatized EMS ambulance service. Together, these savings would allow $4 million dollars a year to be dedicated to a bond issuance which would then fund the scholarship program. This would, based on conservative estimates, generate $70 million dollars. The recipients, college graduates and displaced workers, would only receive the scholarship funds if they agree to return to Lucas County for a period following graduation.
"We are at the critical juncture in our community's history," Konop said. "If we are really serious about putting people to work and improving the local economy long term, we have to invest, right now, in Lucas County's best asset--its people."
WHAT: Konop Outlines Program For Free College Education for County Residents
WHEN: Monday, December 15, 2008 / 12:00 p.m.
WHERE: Toledo Bar Association Luncheon / Georgio's Restaurant, 426 N. Superior / Downtown Toledo
"In a letter to Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr., House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) asked Paulson to "review the feasibility . . . of providing temporary assistance to the automobile industry during the current financial crisis."
The letter notes that Congress granted Paulson broad discretion to use the bailout money to "restore financial market stability. A healthy automobile manufacturing sector is essential to the restoration of financial market security," the letter continues, as well as to "the overall health of our economy, and the livelihood of the automobile sector's workforce."
If the request is granted, it would expand the federal government's role in private enterprise far beyond the financial sector."
"Going into the third quarter, GM had 21 billion dollars on its books. By the end of September, that had plunged to 16.2 billion dollars, coming perilously close to the 11 billion to 14 billion dollars it says it needs on hand to keep the company operating.
Ford burned through 7.7 billion dollars in the quarter, though its reserves are nearly twice as richer thanks to a massive line of credit it acquired last year.
Though it doesn't report its full financial data, the privately-held Chrysler LLC is also thought to be fast running out of cash: one reason, analysts believe, why its parent, Cerberus Capital Management, was so eager to sell Chrysler to GM.
That deal, however, was scuttled by GM, and observers believe Cerberus may now rush to find another buyer as the economy continues to worsen."
"But the seeds of the current crisis date back to the last big oil shock, of 1979, which helped the Japanese gain a foothold for small, fuel-efficient products.
As gas lines faded from memory, the Asian automakers continued to gain ground by focusing on quality, something GM, Ford and Chrysler have only recently come to grips with -- and with varying degrees of success.
Further compounding the situation, Detroit has been consciously slow to embrace changes in the American automotive marketplace, especially the shift from big trucks to small, fuel-efficient passenger cars.
And even where it has, lamented Consumer Reports' auto analyst David Champion, it has needed "more models that were exciting for people to buy.""
"devoted to or caring only for oneself; concerned primarily with one's own interests, benefits, welfare, etc., regardless of others"
"When morning show host Fred Lefebvre used his board operator, Don Zellars, as an example of someone who wants to know why he has to pay for other people's homes and food while struggling to pay for his own, Redfern's comment was that Don must feel really good inside knowing he's helping so many people.
Redfern explained that America needs to tax people to provide charitable services through the government because, without forcing people through taxation, most Americans wouldn't help take care of the 'least among us.' When Fred pointed out that Don would be happy to help 'the least among us' if government weren't taking so much of his money first, Redfern said:
"I suspect Don would, but unfortunately, most Americans would not - and if we remove that kind of support, stratagem, then you remove the entire reason for having any kind of projects, programs, initiatives..."
Ben Franklin said, “When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.”
Thomas Jefferson wrote, “To take from one, because it is thought his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers, have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, the guarantee to everyone the free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it.”
And James Madison said, “Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government.”
