THE SQUIRREL AND THE CAT

There was once a common gray squirrel who made the acquaintance of a beautiful Angora cat.  They lived in the same area, although the squirrel made his home in a very old elm tree and the cat lived in a ritzy garden apartment.

Come rain or shine the squirrel could be seen scurrying about the neighborhood, looking for acorns or anything else that looked nutritious.  The cat had no such concerns as his mistress put out his meals on a regular schedule and provided all that he wanted to eat.

The cat found the squirrel’s constant comings and goings to be not only dizzying but quite inexplicable.

“My friend,” he said.  “Why do you go about in such a constant frenzy?  Your continuous scurrying is causing me to have a headache.  Settle down for a bit and let’s have a nice chat.”

“I would love to,” said the squirrel.  “But if I did, I would not have enough rations to make it through the day.  So I need to keep foraging to stave off starvation.”

The cat thought this was very peculiar.  He had never known a moment when his food was not provided for him and so, naturally, assumed that was the way it was for all creatures.  In his heart of hearts he thought that the squirrel was making a joke at his expense.  But being a polite sort of creature, he did not mention his suspicions to the squirrel.

The cat sauntered outside one day after his mistress had just finished brushing him.  He always enjoyed a good brushing and looked absolutely glamorous.  So when he saw the squirrel hastening by, he couldn’t help comparing his appearance to that of his friend’s.

“My goodness,” the cat thought to himself.  “My poor friend is looking rather shabby.  His coat has got little parts of plants stuck to it.  He really should take better care of himself.”

Well the squirrel, pre-occupied with the necessities of gathering food, had little time to try to look chic.  In fact, the concept never even crossed his mind.  He was totally focused on his mission of surviving.

Things went along in this way for quite some time until something unexpected happened.  One morning when the cat went into the kitchen to get his breakfast there was nothing in his dish.

He went into his mistress’ room to find out why there was a delay but when he jumped up on her bed he found only her lifeless body.  He began meowing as loudly as he could, hoping this would revive her.  But nothing he did could bring her back to this world.

So the cat jumped through the open window of the garden apartment and happened to see his friend the squirrel engaged, as usual, in looking for his own breakfast.  The cat couldn’t help but notice that the squirrel, while still sporting the vestiges of plant parts all over his fur, was quite plump and seemed to be doing an excellent job of providing his own food.  By contrast, the cat’s stomach began to growl and he was feeling a little faint.

The squirrel greeted the cat as he raced by.  He had just spotted what appeared to be a very choice acorn.  And the cat began to wonder what he would do for food since his mistress was no longer there to set out his meals.

Suddenly, it occurred to the cat that his pampered life was over and he would need to fend for himself.  The thought of that sent a terrible shiver down his spine.  And he began to think how fortunate the squirrel was that he had enough to eat.

When the squirrel came back with his acorn and began to munch on it, the cat, in a moment of self pity said to him, “My friend.  All the time I’ve known you, I have always thought how fortunate I was that I didn’t have to do anything and yet my food magically appeared.  In honesty, I looked down on your abject need to have to provide for yourself.  But now things have changed, and I must admit that I envy you.  You are, indeed a lucky creature.”

To this, the squirrel made a reply which is the moral of our story:

“There’s something I’ve noticed in going through life.  It seems as though the harder I work, the luckier I get.”

ECONOMIC JIHAD

The FBI has nabbed a small coterie of perpetrators who have been making money the old fashioned way – they steal it.  Apparently, they stole quite a lot – about $200 Million by creating false identities, creating fake credit scores and have socked it to the credit card-issuing banks.  While this number pales in comparison to the amount that our Federal Reserve adds to our national credit card, nevertheless, it is not an insignificant sum by almost anyone’s standards.

Given the way that we bend over backward to accommodate our Muslim citizens – that is if Babar Qureshi and Muhammad Shafiq are both Muslims and citizens – I’m merely inferring their religion from their names – I must confess that I’m a little surprised that they were arrested in their resident New Jersey.  The unlikelihood of their engaging in such an activity flies directly in the face of their faith.

As you know, credit card issuers stipulate an interest rate on unpaid balances.  That rate of interest is carefully detailed in the little enclosures that come with your credit card and for which you need an electron microscope to be able to read all the terms and conditions.  What you may not know is that it is forbidden in Islam to engage in a transaction at a specific, fixed rate of interest.

Of course, it is another tenet of Islam that is is perfectly acceptable to lie, steal from, cheat or otherwise engage in any activity against the infidel – including murder – if it supports the advancement of the cause of Islam.  So, since apparently these thieves had no intention of actually paying for anything that they purchased or the cash advances they received, I suppose the second tenet overrides that vexatious fixed interest rate thing.

I am sure there will be those of the OWS mindless-set who applaud anything that hurts the profits of big banking – while at the same time they are writing an elegy to the impoverished, oppressed and misunderstood of our Muslim neighbors.  Well, buckaroos and members of the Peanut Gallery, the people who ultimately feel the impact of this type of rip off are not the banks but their credit card customers.

It’s simple economics.  Those banks which suffered the injury will pass along the costs to their cad holders through higher interest charges and other penalties.  They will also write off the loss immediately, resulting in lower corporate taxes collected by the Treasury – at a time where we have President Obama and the Dems complaining that we need more revenues.

The events of 9/11/01 were devastating.  But with economic jihad we’re not talking about taking the lives of a few thousand people.  Economic jihadists are directly affecting the life-styles of millions of Americans  In a left-handed complimentary way, let me say that this is far more effective than crashing airplanes into buildings.  But, of course, it is far less sensational and for that reason will probably not get the attention it deserves as a part of the master plan of jihad.

That plan is simply this.  By whatever means necessary, to supplant Western civilization with its own world view; to bring the entire world under the yoke of the political philosophy of Islam; to establish Sharia law in all lands; to take no prisoners.

Those in Europe are learning, perhaps too late, that the Muslim infestation is reaching the same critical mass that in the United States we have reached with our permanent underclass.  It’s more than overdue that our politicians on this side of the pond stopped being accommodative and started being proactive while there is still time.  The sand in the hour glass is running very low.

.

AND THE AWARD GOES TO …

Hillary Rodham Clinton has had an interesting career – to put it mildly.

She is an attorney; an inexperienced but highly successful commodities trader; the former first lady of the State of Arkansas and of these United States; the first female partner in the Rose Law Firm – the firm of choice for the rich and powerful in her adopted state (the first one); a key player in the Whitewater Scandal that absorbed the nation’s attention for over two years; a partner in an unusually “open” marriage; a United States Senator elected from her adopted state (the second one); our 67th Secretary of State; and now … my nominee for “The Best Actress In A Leading Role” for her testimony regarding the “Benghazi Affair” delivered to the Senate.

With a dossier that is extensive as Secretary of State Clinton’s it is hard to know where to begin in reviewing her career.

It shows remarkable, innate talent on Ms.Clinton’s part to have given the emotional performance that she delivered in front of the Simpy Senate Foreign Relations Committee last week while essentially avoiding answering the questions that were put to her.  Rather than respond with facts, Ms. Clinton launched her own assault on those who were questioning her – overflowing with “emotion” as she talked about standing next to the caskets of those who had been murdered by Muslim “extremists” in Libya.

During her testimony she also pointed out to her Republican critics that it was not only Libya but that there were at least twenty countries around the globe where American diplomats and embassies were at great risk.  That was perhaps the most honest part of the testimony which she delivered.  Perhaps that was what prompted Senator Dick “Duh” Durbin of Illinois to comment,

“Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has done an extraordinary job for this country. It’ll be recognized by history. This was one of her finer moments.”

Sadly, Senator Durbin’s statement might have been one of the most insightful of his rather inglorious career.  The only small emendation I would like to make would be the small matter of a preposition in the first line of that comment.  My revision would change that line to read, “Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has done an extraordinary job on this country.”

Let’s return briefly to the Secretary’s remark about the danger our men and women in the foreign service face around the world.  As the present administration, which claimed that it would be the most transparent in history has proven continuously to be the polar opposite, it is unusual to have one of its members be so forthright by making this kind of statement – and it gives us an unexpected opportunity to gain an understanding of our government’s thinking and foreign policy.

What is it, if anything, that these twenty hot spots have in common?  Well, for those of you who lived through 9/11 (the first one), it should come as no surprise that virtually all of these foreign lands are run by governments where sharia Muslim law is the law of their land and jihad is their political message.

So having been forthcoming in her analysis of what is going on globally, how did Secretary Clinton’s Department of State explain the Benghazi massacre?  Did they place the blame on extremists whose goal is to bring down America?  No.  It squarely faulted an “insulting film made by an American Coptic Christian” and publicly maintained that position for at least a week after the facts were known.

Have you heard anyone, whether in the State Department, the Congress or the White House with the guts to speak out against those in the Muslim world of jihad and say, “America will not tolerate your abrogation either of our laws or of international law and you will be rooted out and destroyed if you attack any of our embassies or our personnel?”

Secretary Clinton (along with many of her European colleagues) has maintained a position (our official position) of being an apologist when the “rights of Muslims” are purportedly infringed.  Protecting our citizens’ ability to practice their religious convictions freely is an essential part of the American Constitution – and one not accorded to non-believers in the countries to which the Secretary made reference.

The performance to which the Senators and the nation were treated by the Secretary was nothing short of astounding.  Perhaps the senior Senator from Illinois’ comment,  “It’ll be recognized by history. This was one of her finer moments”  will ring true.

But coming off a baseline of a career filled with deception, half truths, intrigue and unmitigated dishonesty, doesn’t America deserve better?

A BIT OF GRANDMA’S WISDOM

My little maternal grandmother was a formally uneducated woman yet she possessed more wisdom than all the Solons we have sitting on Capitol Hill.  She had that rarest of commodities, one which is called common sense and while it had not been learned from school books it had come to her through life experience.  I recognized her genius at a very early age.

I will never forget sitting in our little living room one afternoon on returning home from grammar school.  I had helped a classmate on the telephone the previous night with a math problem and was a little miffed that when I saw him the following day he never even said, “Thank you”.

Grandma explained the whole thing in a nutshell when she said to me, “There are two kinds of people in this world.  There are givers and there are takers.”

As I advanced from grade to grade in school and the world of history opened up to me I realized how correct Grandma’s statement was.  The whole world, at least politically, was full of givers and takers.

At one time most people were ruled over by Kings and Grand Dukes, Czars and Emperors with an occasional Queen thrown into the mix.  They were the takers, empowered to be such by the Western doctrine of “The Divine Right of Kings.”

They lived, by the standards that then existed, in luxury, opulence and with the realistic expectation that all their needs, wants and desires would be supplied.  They were, by virtue of their births the entitled ones.

But in order for them to continue this lifestyle there had to be those who would provide all that they needed.  In those times, the givers were the peasants and those lesser members of the nobility who had sworn allegiance  to the Sovereign.

Mostly it was the peasants who did the back breaking work, cleaning the castles, cooking and serving the food and doing all the other mundane chores which needed to be done to maintain royalty in its rightful place of honor.  There was no token of gratitude from their liege lord for their efforts – as that was their place and why should one reward someone for doing a thing that was his bounden duty and rightful service?

Over the centuries. with the advent of more wide spread education. it occurred to more and more of us that being ruled by a person whose place was accorded to him by an accident of birth was not the most desirable way to run a country.  Thus, other political systems began to be implemented in which the governors were elected by those who were governed.

This was a movement known as democracy which was not a perfect solution but, to the many, appeared to be a big improvement over the way affairs had previously been conducted.  Beginning in the 18th century, this surging wave swept into history under the name of “The Age of Enlightenment” and it swept aside the English Colonies in the new world, transforming them into the United States of America and in later years led to the downfall of the monarchies in France and Italy and Spain and Russia  to name only a few.  While not everyone gravitated to democracy, there was a world-wide rejection of the old monarchical system and today there are few vestiges of it that are left.

As I mentioned, this new system was not perfect.  Nothing that humanity attempts, no matter how genuinely and sincerely motivated is.  As none of us is omniscient, even the best intended of our efforts often have unintended consequences which we did not or choose not to contemplate.

The “American experiment” is now well over two hundred years old.  It has provided a beacon to much of the rest of the world for most of that time.  But it is now staggering, perhaps because it is relying on its former successes, perhaps because those who crafted the dream have died off and been replaced with those who are the beneficiaries of their forebears efforts but have never done anything themselves to make the dream a reality.

While Grandma identified this struggle in her simple way as being a battle between two groups – the “givers” and the “takers”, I have a slightly different explanation as I have the benefit of having seen additional history since she taught me that lesson as a child.

Yes, there are two groups in America today.  They are those who work for a living; and those who take from the working.

I am confident that, were she alive today, Grandma would agree with my common sense analysis of the way things are – because common sense, combined with a heavy dose of morality, were her dearest and most priceless guiding principles.

ROBBING THE CRADLE; HASTENING THE GRAVE

For people of my generation, if someone spoke of a person’s “robbing the cradle” that phrase meant that a man or woman married someone who was significantly their junior in age.  That was before Roe v. Wade.

Words, phrases and attitudes have changed in the forty years since the Supreme Court declared abortion to be legal.  The thrust of this post is not going to be an examination of the morality, immorality or amorality of that decision and the consequences we have seen as a result of it.  There is more than sufficient material on that topic which has already been published.

Rather, I thought I would examine one possible outcome for our society as our attitudes toward human life and death have evolved as a result of the decision.  But before we peer into a possible future, it might be useful if we used the guidance of history to review how we have gotten to our present state of mind.

With Roe v. Wade we redefined human life.  We declared pregnancy to be a “sickness” and insurance companies were mandated to cover pregnant women for the condition as they would “any other illness”.  Thus, a woman was empowered to “take control of her body” in the matter of her pregnancy in much the same way that she was able to purchase aspirin for a headache.

Gone were the days when an unwed, pregnant mother-to-be was whisked off to a geographically distant relative on some pretext of helping an “aging family member” until the time of her giving birth to her offspring.  Now science and society had created an alternative to deal with the problem or, should I say, the “illness”.

We had, by legally defining a fetus as a “non-person,” been able to hold our heads high and repeat those famous words that “All Men are created equal.”  Since a fetus was not a man (or woman) it was not entitled to those rights or privileges any more than your ordinary house cockroach.

In the ensuing years, having started down the path that says that the ultimate concern should be for the potential mother’s health, (that is both a physical and mental matter), we have gradually been able to extend our original definition of non-humanness through the advances which science has made.

Now a fetus who may have Downs Syndrome or Cystic Fibrosis or may simply be the wrong gender can be identified.  In the interest of the mother’s mental health, this unwanted child may be terminated because it doesn’t fit into either its parent’s view of what is best for her or what society deems best for itself.

It should be clear from our history that mankind is a “discriminating” lot.  If it were otherwise, we would not have felt the necessity to  create an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, to cite one obvious example, nor would the KKK ever have had any membership.

So given our history of discriminating against others, now that we have the ability to discriminate against “non-others” as many think of human embryos, let’s picture how this attitude might play out were a despotic government to come to power.

In this future, women who rejoiced in having the “right to choose” might no longer have that right if the State didn’t consider them to be suitable breeding material.  Those who were required to donate sperm would be carefully screened for the physical and mental characteristics that the State deemed desirable.  Those of both sexes who did not meet the State’s defined criteria would be sterilized to limit population.

The State and the State alone would determine what and who was of value.  All those who did not contribute to its own well-being would be eradicated.  This, of course, would be most noticeable among the population of the elderly as they were systematically decimated either through neglect or by means of euthanasia.  End Of Life Panels would have the final word on who would receive and who would be denied medical treatment – all in an effort to make ours a beneficent and utopian society.

This is, of course, an imaginary future and could never actually happen – at least not in America.  We are a noble people dedicated to a great purpose.

I wonder if that was what the guards said to themselves as they pulled the lever, releasing the gas in the showers of the death camps as they purged their society of several hundred more whom the State had declared undesirables.

BANG BANG

It’s a dangerous world.  It always has been.  Thank you, Lord that I was lucky enough to be born into a family who recognized that and did everything they could to protect me from it by teaching me how to fend for myself against many of the evils that might cross my path.

There is nothing like the safety net that comes from living in a cloistered, loving family environment.  Long before we toddle off to school, where our teachers hopefully continue that nourishment, we are taught by our parents the basics of being civilized children who will hopefully grow up to become civilized adults.

The behaviors that we learn to emulate are formed early.  If we are exposed to love and compassion, it is naturally easier for us to become loving and compassionate people.

If we are exposed to anger and selfishness, it is no surprise if we grow up to become violent and self-centered adults.

When I was growing up, divorce was a relatively unusual event (other than for Elizabeth Taylor and other Hollywood celebrities).  Even rarer (or at least we never talked about it) was a child’s being born out of wedlock.  Yes, it happened, but it was unusual rather than being what  today is quite customary.

Of course, this was before DNA tests which would reveal the paternity of the child had been discovered.  But in those days, even the most promiscuous generally knew who the father was, rather than having to guess among a field of twenty or thirty possible studs.

Today, rather than looking to address the question of civilized behavior as something which should be taught by parents, we have abrogated the role of the family and handed over that role to government.  (That is the progressive way).  What a tragedy.

We have replaced family values with government values – and it is hard to imagine how any institution can effectively micro-manage the lives of hundreds of millions who are, in essence, no more than statistics on a pie chart.  Even worse, it is hard to understand how an intelligent, informed citizenry would ever allow them to seize this responsibility.

It’s staggering to consider that currently nearly seventy percent of all black children born in America are born out of wedlock; for Hispanics it is fifty percent and for white children the rate is thirty percent.  A high percentage of these children will be raised in a single parent home – and a high percentage of those households will be dependent on social welfare programs for their subsistence.

If you look at the statistics on those who are most likely to be murdered by a gun, you will find that the those who are killed in hugely disproportionate numbers to their percentage of the population are black people – usually murdered by another black person.

Is there a connection between being born into a single parent home, violence and murder?  It’s always easy to manipulate any single statistic to substantiate a person’s point of view.  But when the same theme continues to recur, the prudent and honest person should at least consider what this might tell us.

We can have a long, emotional and heated debate about guns, gun control and violence.  It will offer both sides of the argument the opportunity to enjoy a cathartic moment.  But at the end of the day, it is not guns that kill people but people who are raised in impoverished family environments who are primarily responsible for the vast majority of the shooting.

We have gotten here thanks to government-instituted policies which are the root cause of this and many other of our problems.  And that’s why, despite all the bluster and bravado emanating from our pols in Washington, they will focus on a single, deflective issue rather than address the real cause of the problems which they, abetted by a self-serving electorate, have created.

Amazing Snow Scenes

Reblogged from Oyia Brown:

Beautiful scenery and inspirational messages. This is a wonderful piece so kick back for a few moments, relax and enjoy!

WHO’S GOT THE POWER? (PART TWO)

When the last installment of Marcel Proust’s “magnum opus” was published in 1927, it was the culmination of a writing effort that spanned a fifteen year period.  The work was translated into English as, “A Remembrance of Things Past”.

Those who long for the halcyon days of a kinder, gentler, smaller, more rational government already realize that problems which have been created over long periods of time cannot be remedied with short-term and short-sighted solutions.  Attempting to repair society by applying Band-Aids to deep, festering sores may staunch the flow of blood for the moment but this approach will not remove the cancer from the body politic.

It is essential that those who recognize the deadliness of the path on which America has set its footing (and by implication much of the Western civilized world as we know it) are not merely passing through time and history.  We are the ones who have the opportunity to take action and write history through the steps we take today to make ours a better country and a better world.

History provides us with a great deal of nurturing guidance.  And one of its most important lessons is that it takes time to unfold.  From Plymouth Rock to The Declaration of Independence, 156 years of history had to pass.  If we embark on a path of real change today, many of us who start this process will not live to see its fulfillment.  But we will leave, as did the Founding Fathers, a legacy which those who come after us will enjoy.

Those of us who are educated, rational and pragmatic have spent far too much of our time and resources in an effort to convince those of a different opinion that we offered a better way than the one to which they subscribed.  Underlying our arguments was the assumption that these people were also educated, rational and pragmatic.  Nothing could be further from the truth.

When Governor Romney made his famous “47%” remark he was immediately attacked and lambasted for telling it like it was.  His statement was, of course, correct – but the emphasis should have been that meant that there were 53% of the populace who still had the dignity, desire and self-esteem to work toward changing things for all of America’s population for the better.  We’re still here today, despite our war injuries.

So how do we regroup, rearm and begin?  The first thing must be to define our goals and to keep them in mind as our frame of reference.  If we don’t know our destination, it’s difficult to determine a travel plan.  And too many of us are buying into our opponents’ strategy of distraction, holding up minor issues as talking points so that we ignore the real, fundamental and root causes of society’s malaise.

We also have many talking points.  But if we waste our efforts critiquing the opposition on Benghazi, the economy, the general level of unemployment, or a myriad of other subjects we only serve to weaken ourselves and thus give aid and succor to our opponents.

While those criticisms might be valid and well-documented, they mean nothing to an uneducated or under-educated mob whose only concern is surviving today and hopefully tomorrow.  And they mean nothing to those who, through intention, have helped to formulate this permanent under-class so that they may continue their own agenda which is to rule and dominate.

Perhaps the simplest way to define the goals of our war is to say that most of us who are reading this believe that a return to limited, Constitutional government wherein the individual has personal freedom based on a moral code would be a desirable goal.  Implicit in that is our ability to elect people to office who share that view.  And this leads us to a practical way to approach our ongoing battles.

It’s many years since presidential candidates rolled into town on a train, gave a speech and took off for their next destination.  Campaigns were financed with a few dollars here and a few dollars there.  Today, getting elected is a function of how much money can be raised for advertising and whose content slams the opponent the harder.  “Media is the message,” to misquote Marshall McLuhan.

It should be obvious that if those who contribute vast sums of money to get our opponents elected were to have their incomes reduced, they would have less ability to fund them in the next election cycle.  This is nothing more than the boycott strategy which worked so successfully in the 1960’s and 1970’s for the migrant farmworkers under the leadership of César Chavez.

There is a reason that I do not insure through GEICO or Progressive Insurance, or buy See’s Candy or eat at Dairy Queen.  By choosing to spend my money with them, I am supporting those who have helped foster our present policies and contributing to those who want to advance them further.  Why would any person who shares my view, rationally and willingly support those who would make us target practice?

Obviously, this is hardly an inclusive list of companies or services which I avoid.  But it should give you the basic idea.  The fact is that there are alternatives, often better alternatives to these companies’ products and I would rather spend my money with those who share my philosophy.

One person boycotting a company’s products is a personal statement.  But hundreds of thousands doing so will have an impact.  And if that number escalates to the millions, even the most hardcore liberal businessman will take notice and re-consider his thinking.

One of the most consistently generous groups in their views and their financial support for the liberal agenda comes to us from Hollywood.  Arguably, their products are also contributors to the violence which has become so commonplace on the American landscape.

Setting aside the fact that from an artistic standpoint, Hollywood offers little in the way of output that appeals to me, this is an issue which every conscientious conservative thinker should examine for himself.  Do I want to support an institution that actively seeks both to erode my personal freedoms and expose myself and my children to prurient violence and standards of morality which do not meet my personal expectations and example?

Again, one person boycotting the movies is a personal statement.  But millions, committed to a boycott would not only have a financial impact but just might cause those screenwriters to create material that is actually worth viewing.

History is not merely something that has happened before.  Its pages are being inscribed even as I type this post.  But the question is will it be written by those people of conscience who believe in the freedom of the individual or by those who believe in the power of the state?

The answer to that will be determined by what each of us does because, at least for the moment, the power is still in the hands of the people.

WHO’S GOT THE POWER? (PART ONE)

Those of us who had the benefit of learning grammar as part of our elementary school curriculum may remember that words which modify nouns are known as adjectives.  An example would be “Fearless Leader” – as it was used by Jay Ward in “Rocky and Bullwinkle” – perhaps the most creative cartoon series of all time.

Recently, I’ve noticed a trend in journalism.  I’m not sure if this is an intentional attempt to introduce yet another classification into our grammar, but it seems that certain nouns almost always are preceded by the same adjective – as though the two are inseparable.  I refer to this new entry into the English language as an adje-noun.  The most apparent example to me is the “POWERFUL NRA”.

Being powerful means that someone or something has a great deal of inherent strength and exerts that power to achieve its ends.  In the world of politics, at least in the United States, that usually takes the form of lobbying our elected representatives to influence them to vote for those laws which will benefit a company or an association.  A great deal of money is spent by respective organizations to accomplish that mission.

As I have heard so much since the Newtown tragedy about the Powerful NRA’s gun lobby, I thought I would take a look at how powerful that organization actually is, how much they spend on their lobbying efforts and to compare that to other industries and groups which also engage in lobbying activities.

What follows is a list of lobbyists by industry for the calendar year 2012, compiled by OpenSecrets.org:

The original link to this chart may be found at https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?showYear=2012&indexType=i

If you go to the source and want to review this information, clicking on each industry brings up the companies and organizations which are included in the compilation.  Incidentally, this data is available going back to 1998 and although there is some slight variation on who spends the most money on a year to year basis, the same industries consistently appear at the top of the list.

If you spend a few minutes with this chart, perhaps you will see the same thing that I noticed.  There are four industries, Pharmaceuticals/Health Products; Hospitals/Nursing Homes; Health Professionals; and Health Services/HMO’s which aggregately spent $359 Million in 2012 to advance their agendas.

In addition, if you look at the detail under Insurance, the top two lobbyists in that category were Blue Cross/Blue Shield and America’s Health Insurance Plans which paid an additional $17 Million to lobbyists.  That comes to a total of $376 Million spent in one year by businesses and professionals in the Health Care Industry.

I returned to the OpenSecrets.org website to try to put the powerful NRA’s lobbying efforts in perspective.  Here is the link to that information:

http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.php?id=D000000082

By comparison, the powerful NRA spent only $2.2 Million last year in their lobbying efforts.  That’s five percent of what the defense and aerospace industry spent and five percent of what the auto industry spent; that’s four percent of what unions representing government workers spent; that’s three percent of what unions and others involved in education spent; that’s two and one half percent the amount that the entertainment industry spent; and that’s just over one half percent the amount that people involved in healthcare paid their lobbyists.

I have yet to hear the argument that gun owners are the cause of our anemic economy, our spiraling deficits, our unacceptable rates of unemployment or the out of control costs associated with healthcare, although it is not hard for me to believe that those in Washington who are, apparently oblivious to the facts, might try to advance that case.

Despite the recent comment by President Obama that “we do not have a spending problem,” most people with the smallest grip on reality realize that statement is exactly the reason that we have many of our problems – and at the heart of it is our healthcare system.

Is it mere co-incidence that the industry which is most greatly benefited by our excesses is the largest single contributor to lobbying efforts to maintain their place at the top of the food chain?

Is one of the causes for the murders we commit the fact that more and more Americans are feeling helpless and bereft of hope and turn to irrational, violent acts out of despair?  Or is it the intransigent Powerful NRA which is at fault?

So in America, who’s got the power?  I think the numbers speak for themselves.

THOUGHTS ON INAUGUARATION DAY

Perhaps the Devil made me do it but I couldn’t help myself.  As I thought about the  goings-on in Washington I went to my film library to find something appropriate for the occasion – and I did.  It was a classic film and one which I suspect I shall be watching more frequently over the next four years.  Released in 1956 it stars Danny Kaye, Glynnis Johns, Angela Lansbury and Basil Rathbone.  The movie is “The Court Jester.”

Kaye, always the master of physical comedy, passed away in 1987.  He plays the court jester who saves the English kingdom from the impostor who sits on the throne and secures the rightful heir his title.  Obviously, Kaye’s death means that he is too late to help us in our present situation.

Surprisingly, this film has not been banned.  A significant part of the cast is an ensemble of midgets who assist the jester in accomplishing his mission.  The last I heard is that people who have their condition are either on an “endangered species” list or are receiving SSI disability payments and thus are unavailable for work.

As I viewed this film which I had not watched for several years, my convoluted thinking led me to yet another artistic work.  In this case, the piece was produced by a former Harvard University math professor, Tom Lehrer.  Mr. Lehrer’s musical cynicism was in great vogue in the late ‘50’s and ‘60’s.  He recorded upwards of forty songs dealing with social issues, mores and values and political matters which were at that time in the limelight of a then much more involved and thinking public.

One of those, presented below for your enjoyment, is a song simply entitled by the name of its subject matter, the then newly elected Senator from California, George Murphy.  The year was 1964 and Murphy had defeated Pierre Sallinger who had been President Kennedy’s press secretary.

Mr. Murphy’s career in Hollywood centered about his primary skills – as a song and dance man.  And now we have a newly inaugurated president in the White House who believes he has those same sort of abilities.  The nice thing about art is that, at least for the moment, everyone is entitled to her or his opinion.  But I couldn’t help think of the then newly elected Senator from California and the newly elected community organizer from Illinois when he took his seat in the august chamber of the Upper House of Congress.

Keeping that in mind, allow me to share with you what I think might be the most appropriate song which could have been played at the Inauguration festivities.

Let me close by reminding you that tomorrow, January 21, 2013 we celebrate the life of a man who was a true American, a visionary, a patriot and a man of conscience, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  Keeping his life and legacy in my thoughts may help me make it through the next four years.