OCCUPIED? YES, WE ARE OCCUPIED.

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We are occupied everywhere, not just on Wall Street or Los Angeles or Boston, or Chicago. We've been occupied in our schools and universities, our public squares, our local governments, our professional organizations, and our daily lives by what seem like aliens who have taken over the country. I don't recognize these people. They don't seem like my countrymen. Boy, that sounds like paranoia, eh?? But wait a minute. What do I mean?

Does anyone know what is the point of the "occupiers" on Wall Street? They don't like fat cats? They don't like billionaires? They don't like millionaires? The don't like businesses? They don't like .....tea partiers? They don't like capitalism? What exactly about capitalism have these young, vocal, occupiers ever experienced, I wonder. What possesses a young person to sit around outside in front of buildings with signs and MAC laptops complaining about capitalism? Very curious indeed. But we are "occupied" with lots of these people. And what do they want? Sounds like they want more federal government occupation of the United States and they sure as heck don't want individual rights or individual economic success.

I helped organize a town hall for candidates for our tea party recently. The town hall took place last evening. All 6 of our council seats are up for grabs. And the mayor's position is available, too. 16 candidates, 3 of whom are for mayor, the rest for council were in attendance. We asked the candidates questions regarding what their views are on our city debt, taking grants and subsidies with strings, having a financial gun held to our heads by planners to adopt Smart Growth, consolidation with other unelected governance orgs., etc. I discovered that the majority of them are not at all concerned about the federal government controlling our city budget with mandates. A few were aware of that, but several of them just said this is the way it is and we might as well get used to it. Occupied. By the federal government in small town U.S.A. We do have a few candidates who see the hand-writing on the wall and are willing to step up and fight back. Just a few. And will they get elected? In an off year election?? Who knows.

I think for me the point of our town hall was to find out who the "occupiers" are and vote against them. Not just the incumbents, but those "occupiers" running for the seats. You see, this fight against "occupiers" is not just against the Federal government and the White House occupier, though that is a big part of it. This fight against "occupiers" is now in our home towns. And home towns are financially struggling, so "occupiers" promising buckets of money are not so rejected as you might like to think. American home towns are for sale? To "occupiers?"

Some of you might remember Mayberry RFD. That T.V. series was fiction, but somewhat based on and in a little town in North Carolina called Mt. Airy. Mt. Airy sits at the top of our state in a rural area. And, guess what? Unelected planning boards and an unelected city manager are threatening the city with doing it (the greenway) or ...losing grants and subsidies from the state and the feds. In the town in which I live, all of this advice comes through the city planning department and the city manager, too. All singing from the same songbook, about benefits of quality of life, about job creation, et al. I am giving this example of Mt. Airy because I want you to multiply Mt. Airy in your mind to every single small town, medium sized city, and large megalopolis in the country. The song is always the same.

"Commissioner Teresa Lewis also backed the plan, while responding to a comment by Anderson that if Mount Airy officials don’t accept the state funding, “someone else will.” As someone whose politics fall right of center, Lewis said she has problems with how big government operates and forces localities to play along in order to gain funding for worthy projects." ("worthy?" Says who?)

“We’re hearing here today that to play the game — and it’s really unfortunate and I don’t like it — is something we have to do.” Read more: Mount Airy News - City officials debate greenway connector costs

Who is she "hearing" that from?
"City Manager Barbara Jones informed board members and audience members early on that the $2.2 million from the state won’t fund the entire cost of the connection. “We’re anticipating this project to be four-million plus,” Jones said of the total price tag for the work to link the Emily B. Taylor and Ararat River greenways."

Read more: Mount Airy News - City officials debate greenway connector costs

Can Mt. Airy afford this greenway?? No. But they are "occupied," like the rest of us. Little Mt. Airy has to cough up $430,000.00 for this. But their state taxes and my state taxes will be paying for it, too.
"Specifically, board members had to decide not only whether to accept $2.2 million approved by the N.C. Department of Transportation for the connector project, but allocating $430,000 in city funding that also will be required.

Read more: Mount Airy News - City officials debate greenway connector costs

So is America "occupied?" By whom? It isn't just a few thousand misled and indoctrinated college students camping out on Wall Street. It is the Federal government camping out in your city planning department with a bucketful of money borrowed from other countries. And it is the tragic capitulation of council members and commissioners who can't seem to see the forest for the trees and realize what a fraud they are committing against the citizens in their towns and America by going along with this madness.

"ALL POLITICS IS LOCAL" TAKES ON NEW MEANING

Tip O'Neil, a former Speaker of the House of Representatives from many years ago, coined the phrase, "All politics is local." When he said this he was referring to the idea that voters would vote for their local issues over the grand ideologies of one politician or another. He also meant that voters are closer to their local politicians and not so wrapped up in the Federal schemes being played out in Washington DC. That was then.....way back when the Federal government was less involved in the daily personal lives of citizens. Voters then had just a few Federal issues to concern them; defense of the nation, social security, medicare, immigration policies, interstate highways, and that was about it. My how things have changed. Those issues are still on the list, but now we have to include; personal energy use, personal water use, personal trash management, personal building decisions, personal education choices, personal property issues, personal healthcare decisions, just to name a few.

Somehow, over time, the Federal greed for power over individuals has become so prevalent that citizens can't sneeze without asking permission from the Federal government. The Federal government has been taken over by the most intolerable greed for power that Americans are looking at coming elections and wondering, "Does my vote even matter anymore?" What does this have to do with "politics being local?"

The Federal government is being enabled by local politicians, from cities, counties, and each state. Our local politicians are letting this pervasive intrusion into our daily lives occur. No, worse than that. Our local politicians are forcing us into Federal policies that local citizens don't want, don't need, and are extremely averse to adopt. Federal politicians have, over time, figured out how to bribe local politicians into acquiescence. (The bad joke there is that these bribes have been done with borrowed and printed money causing huge debts and inflation, but who is laughing?) You, citizen, might be saying to yourself that you feel disenfranchised, but you can't put your finger on it. You are wondering, since you voted locally for this guy or that lady, why your elected representative is NOT doing what you thought that representative would do, i.e. represent you. You might be asking yourself, why are these policies being put into place when you and your friends and neighbors don't want any of these policies.

When the bonds for parks and recreation was on our local ballot, the voters turned it down. What happened? The council ignored the voters and just went ahead, using our taxes, grants, and subsidies for those projects anyway.

When the Carolina Thread Trail came before the council with its greenway proposition, our council was sold a project that by definition takes private property out of the hands of owners using tax incentives and public money. Even without eminent domain, the Carolina Thread Trail premise is the act of turning private property over to the government. This property must be maintained by the remaining taxpayers. Then, after unanimously agreeing to adopt the Carolina Thread Trail, some on the council acted SHOCKED that the project could not be completed without using eminent domain to take property from private ownership. That might be good theater and fool some people, but it is duplicitous, false, misleading, disingenuous, and flat out wrong. You can't tell me that these same council members had no idea that there would be some unwilling property owners along some parts of the Carolina Thread Trail. After all, who sits down with a map of the county, proposes to take land away from other private property owners just for the sake of a recreational walking or biking trail and then thinks everyone will just jump up and hand over their land?

When the issue of trash management and recycling came before the council, our council adopted a "Pay As You Throw" plan that was designed by the EPA. While Gastonia citizens were already paying for trash management and recycling through property taxes, this council decided that they could use property tax revenues for other special favored projects and make the citizens pay extra fees for trash management, creating yet another revenue stream for the government coffers. Throwing a crumb to the citizens, the council lowered the tax rate by .01 cent per hundred dollars, saying this .01 cent would offset the $6.00 to $9.00 per month for the trash and recycling scheme, again designed by the EPA. The city council has left no opt out option for citizens, thereby forcing citizens to pay for a service they may or may not want. What was not reported to the public about this waste management system is that the recycling bins come with Radio Frequency ID chips so Republic Waste Management will track your recycling activity and report your activity to the local government for the purpose of education and fines.

If you think that won't happen here, it is already the case in Cleveland, Ohio where the city hired trash police to hand out $100.00 fines for non-compliance. This is taking place in cities all over the country. Each ID chip is assigned with your address. The bins are weighed by the high tech trucks picking them up. Your recycling amount is then recorded to Republic's data base and reported to your city. Charlotte's recycling program is already using the tracking chips with the same company, Republic. Our council voted to make us pay fees to have our activities tracked.

While I'm on the trash issue, I want to point out two things. Mandating citizens to purchase a trash service is the same as Obamacare. The commerce clause does not give the government the right to force people to buy something. Secondly, the RFID chips violate the search and seizure clause. You are being searched without a warrant if the government decides to raid your recycling and trash bins to monitor your compliance.

Another assault on voter consent is coming through the local government appointment of unelected boards of hand-picked boot-lickers and then handing off the policy decisions to these boards. These boards are not accountable to the voters, but are creating policies that the voters never have a chance to consider. Planning commissions and boards are bringing forth projects that reflect grants and subsidies coming from outside of our local jurisdiction, boards such as the regional government, the Unified Development Ordinance board, the Municipal Planning Commission, etc. From my research I am finding these boards are making policies based on whether or not local government and projects can apply for and receive State or Federal grants and subsidies. This is happening outside of voter consent. And again, happening for the purpose of obtaining money and bowing to Federal power.

The only option we have to rid ourselves of this is to elect people who care about what their constituents want in the manner of government and to NOT elect people who care more about getting money from the Federal government ....which is completely broke, in case no one noticed.

My point here is that we voted these people into office to represent us and protect our rights. Instead what our elected representatives are doing is anti-individual rights and using our tax money to implement projects that we, the people, don't want, don't need, and find to be oppressive. Our local elected officials are proving themselves to be just as greedy and power hungry as the Federal and State elected officials.

Tip O'Neil may not have realized how his phrase would eventually play out across the land. Today, local politics is being driven by Federal policies. This means that indeed, "all politics is local." We, locally, have an opportunity to turn off the Federal intrusion into our lives by electing representatives who reject the debt-laden oppressive control over our lives. When 2012 comes around, we have an opportunity, I hope, to elect Congressional representatives and a president who will stop this insane flow of borrowed money into the rest of the nation.

Tip was right. "All politics is local!"

GREENBACKS FOR GREENWAYS

There are only a few days left in 2010, which is making me reflect on all of the ridiculous and insane schemes the leftists have inflicted upon America this year. I cannot begin to recount them all, so this could become an exercise in head banging due to my frustrations with the irrational people who have the keys to our government. For the sake of my head and the wall next to me, I will just focus in on one of the subjects that exemplifies waste of taxpayer money and at the same time assaults private property rights by using tax money for frivolous, non-essential programs.

Somehow, sometime ago our brilliant "Green" generation of bureaucrats and environmentalists decided we should "transform" our Federal Highway Administration into sidewalk, bike trails and greenway programs instead of roads and highways. From Heritage.org "Created in 1956 to finance and build the interstate highway system, the federal highway program achieved that goal in the early 1980s and since then has had its goals repeatedly modified in successive reauthorizations that have diverted money from general-purpose roads to a variety of other objectives that benefit influential constituencies." Keep in mind that for many decades we have established hiking trails through national parks and created parks around hiking trails, such as the Blue Ridge Parkway and the Appalachian Trail. Not only that, but every city in America has parks, sidewalks, and neighborhoods in which to walk all you want. Those existing trails, which were carved out of formerly private property, are already paid for in continuum with our Federal and state taxes. Not enough for the "Green" folks who think cars are a scourge on the earth, politicians have been lobbied by environmentalists and recreation groups who want more and more trails taken out of private hands and off limits to motorized vehicles.

Welcome to the nation's Greenways projects; that take your money away from real roads, are being used to discourage car traffic, and at the same time take property out of the hands of private ownership. The funding for these greenways has been attached to every conceivable bill, under every conceivable title, using every conceivable excuse imaginable. City and county leaders, thinking this is the latest, most popular fad amongst the public, have applied for grants and government funding by the boatload to create greenways. First, the local leaders want Federal and state money to come back to their communities. And secondly, the Feds and the state are saying they have no money, UNLESS you want a greenway. If you want a greenway, voilá, you get money!! (don't even look at that National Debt clock on my sidebar that is ever closer to the 14 Trillion greenbacks in debt.)

How much money are we talking about? Billions of greenbacks for greenways!

In case you don't get the scheme at hand, here below is from Ray LaHood, the current Secretary of Transportation:
"March 15: "This is the end of favoring motorized transportation at the expense of non-motorized," said US Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood to a League of American Bicyclists conference. "We are integrating the needs of bicyclists in federally-funded road projects." Sec. LaHood also announced key recommendations for state DOTs and communities:

* Treat walking and bicycling as equals with other transportation modes.
* Ensure convenient access for people of all ages and abilities.
* Go beyond minimum design standards.
* Collect data on walking and biking trips.
* Set a mode share target for walking and bicycling.
* Protect sidewalks and shared-use paths the same way roadways are protected (for example, snow removal)
* Improve nonmotorized facilities during maintenance projects.

In January, Secretary LaHood said, "People want the opportunity to leave their cars behind."

Really? Who are these people he speaks of? As I write this it is 22 degrees outside and the thought of leaving my car behind while I cycle or walk to the grocery is not too tempting. For three months in the summer, the daytime hours are pretty hot here, so the same goes for that time of year. Time is a factor. How much time do you have to walk or ride a bicycle to the store? Strength is an issue. How many bags of groceries can you trudge back to your house? Age is a factor. How many 60 year olds do you know who carry their groceries or various purchases on a bicycle or back-pack for miles from store to home? How many 50 year olds, for that matter. How many 30 year old mothers can carry their children and groceries back and forth on a bicycle, from school to store to home?

So mostly these greenways are for recreation? We don't have enough recreation in America? That's all well and good for the cyclists, who want bike lanes on every by-way in the country. I wonder if that is worth the billions of dollars being spent. And I wonder that while the Chinese are busy buying cars, if we are going backwards by encouraging our citizens to do all their activities by bicycle? Let's borrow money from the Chinese so they can buy cars and we can buy bicycles! What a great idea! (Let the head banging commence.) I still contend that if you want to walk somewhere, you can do it without billions of tax dollars taking private property away and using up road money. There is an 8 to 15 foot buffer belonging to the government around every road on which you can walk, sidewalk or not.

Locally we have a snafu with FHWA money over a greenway project that, according to our local newspaper, was not documented properly. In other words, our local bureaucrats didn't fill out the FHWA (Federal Highway Administration) paperwork properly and now may have to return $172,00.00 to the Feds. Does anyone else see the irony in that? One government agency is telling another government agency that the reams of paperwork to justify the existence of the greenway grant was not fulfilled properly? My, oh my. If that isn't poetic justice, I don't know what is.

So while you are watching Congress and the President haggle over the tax bill, which is now laden with nearly another trillion greenbacks in debt on your back and mine, by all means, go lobby your local government leaders to apply for another greenway grant. We really need those greenways....or not.

By the way, just in case you think all of these greenways are essential to save the earth from global warming, you need to read This Article at American Thinker

Excerpt here:

"... According to scientists' models of Earth's orbit and orientation toward the Sun indicate that our world should be just beginning to enter a new period of cooling -- perhaps the next ice age...

The premises of all of our government tax programs regarding energy, transportation, housing, and food, based on "Global Warming" need to be sent into the scrap bin and FAST! ....along with the idiots who are trying to scam the public with this idiocy. I'm for driving more gas guzzling cars all over the damn place if it keeps us from freezing to death. What do you say out there?


Sources:
American Trails .org
Jonathan DuHamel on the Global Warming Fraud