POLITICS A LA CARTE

I went to a Republican candidate's forum for North Carolina State offices last night. (Suddenly I want to sing "I went to the Animal Fair.") First of all, we are in worse trouble than I thought. Why? Because there were more candidates than audience. Speaking with several of them before the event, they each expressed this is the case everywhere they go. Citizens are disengaged, have given up, cynical, and generally don't believe anything they hear. So they stay home. They don't even bother to meet the candidates or listen to what they say. Our political class has become so distrusted at this point, that I'm wondering how this country can even hold an election. Maybe citizens are waiting for November. I don't know. But this is primary season and this is when the citizens will have the most say over who is on the ballot in November. Where are the citizens?

My observation is that North Carolina is mirroring the national presidential race on the Republican side of things. The candidates we are seeing, except in a few cases, are hybrids of this and that. I'd hardly say they qualify for the definition of "staunch Republican." They say they are conservative Republicans, but like the presidential primary race, what we are getting is a mish mash of hybrid types. Some don't seem conservative at all. Some are Libertarians. Some have their pet projects, some have an unrecognizable agenda somewhere between big government and smaller government, most talk "more jobs,"better economy," and "lower taxes." Generic sound bites for an audience who has heard it all before and sick of seeing the same ole same ole. One old guard Republican, a man who has been around the game for years and years, leaned into my ear on his way out to say, "This is a room full of B.S."

What's is sad about this is I believe there are citizens out here in the hinterland who are craving substance. Without clear definitions of policies and serious substance, is it any wonder that citizens are tuning out? Maybe citizens really don't care anymore. Maybe they truly have given up. Sort of like shopping for wallpaper...there are so many undesirable choices that wading through them all is just too overwhelming for anyone to suffer through. Maybe the citizens are waiting for the cream to rise to the top so then they can make some decision. But at the least, at this point, it doesn't look like the citizens are very much engaged.

I'm sitting here looking at the slate of Republican candidates for state and county offices. There are: 6 candidates for Governor, 5 candidates for Lt. Governor, 5 for Auditor, 5 for Superintendent of Public Instruction, 4 for Sec. of State, 3 for Commissioner of Insurance, 4 for State House Dist. 109, 3 for U.S. House 10th Dist., 6 County Commissioner candidates, ...it goes on. We have no less than 10 judges seats up for grabs. Plus the Register of Deeds seat. There are a very few positions running unopposed. All of these candidates didn't show up, but quite a lot of them did, which made for a very long night.

That, friends, is just the Republican primary in the State of North Carolina. Now I am somewhat involved and engaged in all of this and I look at that list and my mind is spinning. So imagine someone who is just going about their daily life and not watching this closely. What can that person do to vote intelligently on all of those elected positions?

I have an idea. It may be ridiculous, so you can tell me if it is. What if the Republican Party actually had standards of policies that must be agreed upon by candidates? Would that cut the wheat from the chaff? In other words, put together a list of policies that must be followed if you wish to run for office as a Republican. Is that so hard? What we have now, for some unknown reason to me, is a list of Republicans with policies all over the map, an a la carte menu of so many variations that no one seems to adhere to anything. Is it any wonder that citizens are confused? Add to that the Republicans already in office who vote this way and that way, who hold no clear definitive principles, and what do you have?

Our Tea Party Candidates Forum is tomorrow night. We'll see if more people turn out for that. AND, if we can nail the candidates down. At the moment, it all seems like a very difficult slog.

NO COINCIDENCES THIS YEAR AND NEXT

I confess I have been naive in my political views in earlier years in my lifetime. I look back now and have a completely different perspective on world events, a perspective that is closer to reality, but still probably lacking in enough sophistication to grasp the entirety of it all. I have never been what you would call a "jingoist," promoting "my country right or wrong" kind of person. But I did have, in my earlier days, a serious connection to faith in some of our leadership to do some things right, mostly for the defense of our nation. That sounds ridiculous if you consider I came out of the Vietnam era still holding that belief. I do still see reasoning behind our actions there because I understood the domino theory and I saw the sense in that. Communism, sadly, is still alive and well and I believe it needs to be thwarted, destroyed, and wiped from the face of the earth. Looks like that is not going to happen in my lifetime, especially since communism is infiltrating the United States at breakneck speed these days, with a toxic mix of fascism thrown in for good measure. But at the time, in my earlier naivité, it seemed a reasonable premise that we would fight for freedoms and individual rights against totalitarianism. The turn now to "collective" rights is such an aberration that I wonder how any Americans could be literally sucked into such a distorted view of how government should be operating. This is no coincidence.

It's just that I am learning more and more, as I research world events, about movers and shakers behind the scenes who are directing actions that have no connection to our Constitution or to our electorate. Too many things are being fomented in foreign countries to even pretend there is some kind of worldwide coincidence. The middle east is not erupting out of happenstance. The protests in Moscow are not spontaneous demonstrations any more than Occupy is a spontaneous movement in the U.S. It's all too convenient and too coordinated to blow off as a contagious explosion of false freedom fighters all showing up at once to display dissatisfaction with their governments. Simultaneously, the UN is just too happy to be throwing around treaties and global rules in the midst of all of this, the WTO is in the process of admitting Russia into its fold, and the IMF is taking in American tax payer money to prop up the Euro.

What do the protests have in common? What they are all asking for is more government oppression, albeit cloaked in humanist / communitarian drapery. How did that happen? None of it is about freedom. It is all about wanting a nanny state to crack down on freedoms. What nanny states? Well, in the middle east it would be the Muslim Brotherhood implementing Sharia Law. In Russia, I hear, it is about people wanting to go diving deeply back into communism, because the powers there have been abusive and fascist leaning. Here, it seems the Occupiers want government to crack down on corrupt corporations, which is really kind of hilarious because it is government who encouraged all of the corruption and collusion with corporations. If the Occupiers think government is going to save them from corruption and collusion, boy, are they looking at the fox to guard the hen house. Total nonsense.

Simplistically stated, it seems we have two factions vying for global powers, although one of them is completely bogus. The bogus one is "humanists." These are the folks who say they want global communal rules, communitarianism, if you will. These are also the same folks who think the environment is the common denominator that will link us all together in some sort of delirious global hug. This is a crock, frankly. They are fools and/or calculating devils. They are fooling a lot of people, unfortunately. But they are going to lose this global battle in the end because it isn't about Kum-ba-yah. There isn't going to be any nice global warming collective hug. That was never going to happen anyway. What is going on is much more serious than that.

The second faction is the financiers who, by the way, are in bed with global corporations. The only thing this faction has in common with the humanist faction is they are both about wanting to control resources. The humanists say they want equal justice and "fairness," thereby redistribution of resources and wealth. The financiers and corporations are hardly in the business of "fairness." They want resources, "fairness" be damned. The UN, the WTO, the IMF, the menage á trois of financiers, corporations and false humanists, all pretending to be in the business of humanistic endeavors, but at the same time funding the overthrow of governments world wide. This one, the financiers, is not bogus and is seriously dangerous. (As Soros goes laughing all the way to the bank(sters).)

Is George Soros really John Law incarnate? History repeats itself. The consternation comes when people don't learn from it or even study it. A man named John Law created a financial bubble in 1720 that took down the French economy....and he did it with the help of the French government. Maybe I should have referenced Ben Bernanke instead of John Law, for monetizing the debt. But the financiers seem to have taken the opposite lesson from the failures of John Law and just multiplied the cursed errors to fit the global finance system so the whole planet can come crashing down. Why? What would be the motives? Assuming the global financiers are not stupid, this is NO COINCIDENCE. The EU will not survive as it is designed. I cannot believe that anyone in global power ever thought it would. Which leaves the only other plausible explanation, that it was designed to fail. Now putting Americans on the hook for bailing out the IMF, is.....NO COINCIDENCE.

On the global corporation front, if you brand your corporation with the "philanthropic" label, good for the planet and good for the poor, you can hitch your wagon to government organizations across the world and call yourself saintly. This supposedly makes your products more desirable and appealing to the better nature of humanity, those who want to go to bed at night thinking they did something good today. As the leader of that corporation, you know damn well you are just doing it to manipulate people to promote sales and to get preferential treatment from governments. How that leader sleeps at night is another story. (no idea) But nonetheless, you pull in gobs of money and play the global socialism / fascism game. (Think Coke in bed with the World Wildlife Fund, and you've got the picture.) Draining the American economy through Chinese imports and ridiculous philanthropic ruses is .....NO COINCIDENCE. Global corporations are in bed with both, the humanists and the financiers, not to mention the collaboration with government to satisfy all contingencies. Fascism á la Mussolini seems like the analogy here, only on a global scale. (The likes of Jeffrey Immelt of GE should show us how government collusion works, enriching some who know how to kiss up really well. )

So my naiveté is seriously dented. Let's see. Humanists. Global corporations. Money changers. World powers dominating sovereign nations. As I look forward to next year, I am seriously fearing the global manipulation of our election process. We are already covered up with so much propaganda and lies, infiltrated with so many communists (even in our congress), and at the mercy of bad actors screwing around with the voting apparatus in our states, that I am really concerned. Just realize there are no coincidences as we trudge forward toward the goal of restoring our great nation. Powerful forces are gathered to thwart us. We will have to be nimble, quick, and strong. My friends in the Tea Party movement are going to have to gather together to mount a huge showing during the coming elections. Tepid and timid are not going to get it.

Let there be no coincidences for our side next year...let us take the country back with no ifs, ands, or buts. Reagan was right. This is the last place on Earth. God save America.