"NoLabels?" Thanks, but no thanks.

There's a new political campaign out there, calling itself "No Labels" (nolabels.org). David Brooks of the NY Times wrote about them on September 1, with the headline "If an Alternative Candidate Is Needed in 2024, These Folks Will Be Ready." The gist of it is that "If one of the parties nominates a candidate acceptable to the center of the electorate, then the presidential operation will shut down. But if both parties go to the extremes, then there will be a unity ticket appealing to both Democrats and Republicans to combat this period of polarized dysfunction." I expect that Brooks regarded Hillary Clinton as "acceptable to the center of the electorate," in contrast to Bernie Sanders who was not (despite the overwhelming support he enjoyed during his campaign). Be that as it may, NoLabels has been around for a decade, producing "bold ideas to rebuild our democracy." I have not done a deep dive into all their programs and proposals, but when I encountered the list of their “enduring beliefs that guide No Labels– beliefs that we hope will once again guide the political and policy choices of our leaders,“ I stopped to write them an email explaining why they would not be getting my support. Here it is:

While your mission looked interesting at first, your “Belief #4” was a dealbreaker. It reads, 

"We believe there is no such thing as something for nothing, and because of this we believe in the importance of a balanced budget. The growing tendency of both parties to support more tax cuts or government spending with no regard for their impact on future generations will lead to a lower quality of life for our children and grandchildren and make it harder for America to tackle future challenges to our national, economic and environmental security."

This belief is incompatible with my recently-gained understanding of macroeconomics (usually referred to as MMT, for "Modern Monetary Theory") and is wrong in so many ways that I cannot support your movement. The American people have been deliberately divided into warring tribes, based on propaganda promoted and controlled by the people currently in power—I believe the appropriate label is "kleptocrats." Some hold office, but most work behind the scenes.They have succeeded in controlling the mindsets of most of us in ways that ensure their continuing power. Let me elaborate.

They have formed a club to maintain their control. It does not need a name or a "Board of Directors," although there are many formal groups that collaborate to the same end. They have a set of beliefs, too, and they recognize each other by their actions more than any set of formal memberships they share. Asa George Carlin liked to say, "It's a big club, and you ain't in it."

Here's what I believe that list of beliefs would look like if it was ever written down:

1) Ordinary people outside our club must not be allowed to know what we do. They have no right to be told, and they are not competent to manage national or world affairs, but club members are.

2) Public-facing remarks and stated positions of club members are intended to present ourselves as being concerned with, and intended to promote, the public welfare—while, of course, they are not. Private-facing information which could reveal our true, self-interested motives must be kept within the club and never publicly acknowledged.

3) We must always promote divisions between groups and set these groups against each other, to distract them from what we are doing and deflect them from attacking us.

4) To neutralize any political opposition to the workings of our club, we must maintain the forms and appearance of a democratic society, providing the illusion of choice through a "two-party system." At the same time, we control "both sides" by selecting the nominees of "both parties" and funding them both. If these measures fail to exclude our opponents, we shall resort to other measures, including blackmail and, as a last resort, "wet ops."

Although there are more than four, these are the essential core of the list.

Returning to the fatal faults in "belief #4" of NoLabels: this belief could be the official manifesto of "deficit hawks," who treat federal (Congressional) spending (appropriations) as equivalent to household, state, or local spending, where all expenditures must come from a finite source (microeconomics) and be subtracted from savings, taxes, and fees, or be borrowed. In each case, a budget must be balanced; spending over income will drive such an entity towards bankruptcy. Currently (and overtly, since Nixon took us off the gold standard), Congress functions within a fiat system. While every federal program must be funded, the required funds are "spent into existence" through appropriations by creating the funds simply by entering numbers on a spreadsheet. The Constitution gives to Congress the exclusive power to issue our currency. Everyone else, by law, is a user of currency.

Non-federal spending of all kinds must come from taxes, borrowing, or fees, where a budget imposes a finite limit on spending. By contrast, federal appropriations are limited only by the total productive capacity of our nation. Since the term "spending" refers to microeconomics and finite amounts in a budget, it does not apply to Congress, the sole issuer of US currency. Therefore, there is no such thing as "federal spending," as it is created through appropriations, not subtracted from a preexisting quantity.

Yes, "both parties" support tax cuts and/or increased (federal) "spending," believing or pretending) that "unbalanced" federal budgets will cause future generations to have a lower quality of life ("and make it harder for America to tackle future challenges to our national, economic and environmental security"). "Both parties" are wrong.

Military (warfare) "spending" is the only kind on which (kleptocrat) Club members put no limits, for which they never demand a balanced budget. They understand our fiat system, in which the sole issuer of currency (Congress, via the Treasury and the Fed) can never run out of funds, or go bankrupt. As Dick Cheney famously said, "Reagan proved that deficits don't matter." Yet, when bills before Congress require appropriations for other reasons, to tackle non-military "challenges to our national, economic and environmental security," they pretend that the federal budget is like a household budget and raise the alarm that we "don't have the money to pay for it," raising the false fear of "deficit spending," just as you did in your fourth Belief. They falsely claim that "paying for" these programs will require higher taxes or more debt, which must be extracted from them through higher taxes or ruinous borrowing. 

The kleptocrats know, but want everyone else to be ignorant of, the fact that (under our fiat system) federal taxes DO NOT FUND FEDERAL "SPENDING" (appropriations). They're well aware that Congress creates the funds for federal programs by issuing (not "spending") money into existence. So, why do we need federal taxes at all?

Federal taxes serve to delete currency from the "money supply" (actually the credit supply) to control inflation. They are never put into a giant Scrooge-McDuck-like money pit or spent back into the economy. They are deleted from the credit side of the federal spreadsheet. If taxes were paid in cash, they would be shredded.

When any President takes "credit" for reducing our deficit, he is committing fraud. He (or the Fed Chairman) should accept the blame for shrinking the economy, and increasing unemployment, poverty, homelessness, and death rates. The only entities who profit from a federal surplus and its deadly effects are the corporations who gain from depressed wages and the depressed victims who are unable to find jobs with livable wages.

This is why I will not be joining your efforts, no matter what good you might do in pursuing your other beliefs. With profound sorrow, I'm providing my own label to your offer to join: "Rejected."

The Party's Over!

Our kleptocrat overlords, seeking to leverage the “culture wars” to divide us into warring camps, continue to distract us from the grim fact of their thieving control over us. For example, they encourage both overt and closet misogynists to battle the pro-privacy and pro-choice among us over whether or not we should embrace or oppose the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v Wade, with the help of four recently-appointed justices who falsely testified under oath that they considered Roe to be "settled law.” Some blame Democrats in Congress for this debacle, because they resisted codifying Roe into law to raise money, leveraging fear that Republicans overturning Roe would help fill their campaign coffers.

Democrats helped confirm four candidates who lied under oath. How are these candidates different from those who lie on a job application? They should be removed, if not prosecuted for this offense. Democrats should codify Roe into law NOW. In addition, they should increase the number of justices to at least 11. 

If partisan politics remains a barrier to implementing the will of the People, I advocate an end to parties. They were never part of the Constitution and were opposed by George Washington. Parties are not what they seem; rather than affinity groups uniting behind nominees through "primary" elections, they are lobbying corporations whose officials can nominate anyone they choose, ignoring the will of the voters. Want proof? The DNC got a lawsuit against them for stealing the nomination from Bernie thrown out of court by speaking this truth, and the judge agreed. 

Meanwhile, the RNC, acting as the agent of Trump, is coordinating a campaign to install pro-Trump state officials who are eager to ignore their voters and appoint "alternate" electors to the Electoral College, to install Trump (or a surrogate like DeSantis) should they lose again in 2024. The events of January 6 were not so much a “failed coup” than a rehearsal for 2024. (See Gregpalast.com for in-depth reports.)

To jumpstart a movement I've dubbed "The Party's Over," I'm backing an independent candidate for president willing to support the People's wishes so real reforms can be enacted; no more rule by party bosses funded by corporate lobbyists to enrich the kleptocrats who now rule us by proxy. Visit his page here on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/JonStasevich2024) and tell him what real reforms should be first. Term limits? Age caps? An end to lobbying? Codifying Roe? Shouldn't it be up to We the People, not "We the Corporations" and "we the parties" to decide how we govern ourselves?

Revisiting 9/11, 21 years later

As of this writing, babies born on 9/11/01 are now old enough to drink alcohol anywhere in the country.

America is roughly divided in half on the question of whether or not we can trust the official “government story” of what happened on that day. Most believers of that official story agree that skeptics of the story are deluded “conspiracy theorists” in need of psychological help, or simply victims of such people.

Among the half in the “skeptics” camp are those who simply say “we will never know the truth” to highly-respected professionals in engineering, insiders with personal knowledge, and dedicated researchers who have authored dozens of volumes on why the “official story” simply cannot be true, according to the laws of physics and voluminous evidence on record. They follow the principle of solving a crime by following the money, examining all the evidence and discarding the impossible until only the possible is left from which to establish the truth.

My analysis of this evidence has led me to accept many inconvenient and uncomfortable truths. Following the money was the most fruitful avenue, and pointed to the most (nominally) rich and powerful people on the planet as the perpetrators, within and outside of (or “above”) what we think of as “our government.” It simply could not be anything other than an “inside job.”

The goals of the operation (codenamed “The Big Wedding”) were many and varied, but they were all motivated by power and money. Here’s my summary of the “cast of characters:”

1) At the top of the hierarchy are the personnel within the global credit control system. They care for nothing but doing their job, which is to maximize profits for the global corporate system. (For details, start with this link, The 147 Companies That Control Everything - Forbes and keep going. The 147 are controlled by four other corporations, at the very top of the pyramid. They are amoral, rather than immoral. They just do their job; the result is all the evil we see in the world. (There is another way to “run the world;” for that, see real progressives.org).

2) For the “command and control” think tank which specifically engineered “the attacks of 9/11,” see https://web.archive.org/web/20180907220950/http://newamericancentury.org/ (the organization, and its successor, have both been dissolved and removed from direct access) you will find this quote: “…only a "new Pearl Harbor" (would) enable the military and defense policy transformations the group desired to rapidly take place.” For an in-depth discussion of this aspect of “the attacks, see David Ray Griffin’s book The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions About the Bush ...(Administration and 9/11), one of many excellent books by Griffin on the subject.

3) For the role of Dick Cheney, see Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil.

4) For the roles of George Bush (Jr. and Sr.), and many others, see Webster Tarpley’s “9/11 Synthetic Terror: Made in USA“).

For the technical reasons why the “official story” cannot be true, from a brave and dedicated group of architects and engineers, see https://www.ae911truth.org.

Regarding “conspiracy theories:” this phrase first came to my attention in 1963, as the “government” sought to paint skeptics of the official legend of the assassination of JFK as disloyal and dangerous nuts. It was said that, if a “theory” departing from the “lone gunman” story was allowed to gain traction, and international suspicions that JFK’s murder could have been an “inside job,” that America would lose its standing as the legitimate “leader of the free world.” Such speculation was thus tantamount to treason. As an 18-year-old, I felt the scorn of my contemporaries at holding such thoughts as possibilities. If our “own government” had killed our President, it had to be kept secret, for “national security.” A corollary was that any skeptics could become the subjects of termination with extreme prejudice, as was JFK.

That’s the real meaning of the pejorative term “conspiracy theorist.” If you value your job, your family, your friends, and your life, don’t  think the unthinkable.

Me, Jane Fonda, our cancers, gaslighting, and you

Jane Fonda recently announced that she’s been diagnosed with Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma, the same kind of cancer I had.

I was given the same diagnosis, and got (probably) the same treatment. It worked, and all testing since indicates it's not coming back. That's good news for the two of us. Now, here's the bad news for most of the rest of us: as Jane says,

"I feel very lucky. "I’m also lucky because I have health insurance and access to the best doctors and treatments. I realize, and it’s painful, that I am privileged in this. Almost every family in America has had to deal with cancer at one time or another and far too many don’t have access to the quality health care I am receiving and this is not right." 

My "luck" comes from being a USNR veteran, and therefore covered by the VA healthcare system (even for non-service-connected health problems). I’m also covered by Medicare, where my bills were originally sent for payment (because I was not aware that this would happen by default). After the 6 months of treatment, I got the bill for my 20% Medicare copayments, over $10,000 (which I did not have).

I was able to persuade the VA to take over the payment responsibility from Medicare, and this story had a relatively happy ending. But wait, there’s more bad news…

Jane and I are concerned not only about treating cancers, but keeping people from getting them in the first place. How did she and I (and countless others) get non-Hodgkins Lymphoma? One demonstrated (and legally-settled) cause is exposure to man-made carcinogens like Glyphosate, the active ingredient in Bayer-Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide. If you bought some and used it, you were exposed (and can join a mass-tort suit for compensation, if the lawyers get rich by winning). There’s a catch (other than dying before the check clears): Roundup has been so successfully marketed, directly to big-and-small agriculture and to consumers at home centers (like Lowe’s and Home Depot) that it’s now so ubiquitous in our environment (soil, water and air) that every American has some degree of exposure. It’s banned in most of Europe and elsewhere, but in the US it’s deemed to be at safe levels by our “watchdog” agencies (read “corporate lapdog” agencies).

To discover how much of these toxins you carry, visit detoxproject.org and immh.org to discover how. I’ve been tested twice; the first test showed that I was in the top third of test subjects. The second test, after changing to an all-organic diet and drinking water only from a clearlyfiltered.com filter jug, was in the bottom third of results. My recommendations to all who read this: get tested, stay away from non-organic food and unfiltered water, stay alive, spread the word, and don't let the self-serving propaganda of corporate kleptocrats (and their well-paid lackeys in Congress) kill you.

This cancer can be sneaky. In many cases (as in mine), the only symptoms are cold-like, fatigue, a desire to sleep mid-day, and muscle weakness. Swollen lymph glands and night sweats may or may not be present. On diagnosis, it’s usually at stage 4 (spread throughout the body, as it affects the lymphatic system). Chemotherapy is the preferred treatment, and usually provides a complete cure.

The bigger picture: if you get it, unless you are rich (or are a Veteran), it will take money you don’t have to get well. The current lack of health care (remember, health insurance is not health care) may be the death of you. Politicians (both on the “right” and “left”) will claim that we can only afford National Health Care (successful in most civilized countries) by increasing taxes; the left proposes to pay for it by much larger taxes on the rich, and the right says (in effect) “let ‘em die.” Those who love any federal program (as long as it’s for “defense”) are fine with what they term “deficit spending;” as Dick Cheney once said, "Reagan proved that deficits don't matter." By contrast, they attack any federal program to “promote the general welfare” (a phrase which should sound familiar if you’ve read the preamble to our Constitution) as an “unaffordable waste of taxpayer dollars.” 

Those who’ve learned MMT can see the gaslighting double-standard which has enabled this scam to survive in Congress for decades. They know that federal taxes do not fund federal programs, and what those taxes are really for (inflation control). They know that the only non-inflationary limit on Congressional appropriations is the total productive capacity of our nation.

Our nation, and the world, faces many existential crises, from climate change to all the ills that artificial scarcity produces. Only widespread knowledge of MMT can save us from these crises, and the best central resource for this knowledge that I know of is realprogressives.org. Be there or be nowhere.