Senate To Sneak Through Internet Kill Switch Bill

Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
August 26, 2010

The Senate is attempting to sneak through the infamous Internet kill switch cybersecurity bill by attaching it to another piece of legislation that is almost guaranteed to pass – the defense authorization bill – in an underhanded ploy to avoid the difficult task of passing cybersecurity on its own.

“It’s hard to get a measure like cybersecurity legislation passed on its own,” Democratic Senator Thomas Carper, who is co-chair of a Senate subcommittee with cybersecurity oversight, told Government Information Security.

That’s why lawmakers pushing cybersecurity have resolved to introduce the legislation as a “rider” to a Senate defense bill that is likely to be easily passed before the midterm elections.

Senators are still working to merge two different versions of the cybersecurity bill, one sponsored by Senator Joe Lieberman and another sponsored by Democrat Jay Rockefeller, into a single omnibus package, in preparation for a final vote when the Senate returns to session in mid-September.

“We’re very close to where we need to be in developing a joint proposal,” said Carper.

Lawmakers are in a race to pass cybersecurity before the midterms because if they wait until Congress returns after the November 2nd vote, the chances of getting the bill through “would significantly dim should the Republicans pick up a significant number of seats”. That leaves a four week window from the middle of September to the start of election campaigning for Senators to sneak through the legislation.

Lieberman’s version of the cybersecurity bill includes language that would hand President Obama the power to shut down parts of the world wide web for at least four months with no congressional oversight in the event of a cyber attack on critical infrastructure systems in the U.S.

Senators argue that they will be able to attach the Internet kill switch bill to the Defense Authorization Act because cybersecurity is a component of national security. However, the primary justifications behind treating “cybersecurity” as a national security matter are completely overblown and erroneous.

Proponents of cybersecurity have constantly argued that government needs to have more power over the Internet because cyber-terrorists could hack in and dismantle the entire U.S. power grid, large industrial plants, and the national water supply. This is a complete misnomer because, as a recent Wired News article highlighted, power grid and drinking water systems, “Are rarely connected directly to the public internet. And that makes gaining access to grid-controlling networks a challenge for all but the most dedicated, motivated and skilled — nation-states, in other words.”

As we documented in our piece on the issue, the threat from cyber-terrorists to the U.S. power grid or water supply is minimal. The perpetrators of an attack on such infrastructure would have to have direct physical access to the systems that operate these plants to cause any damage. Any perceived threat from the public Internet to these systems is therefore completely contrived and strips bare the real agenda behind cybersecurity – to enable the government to regulate free speech on the Internet.

This was revealed when Senator Lieberman told CNN’s Candy Crowley that the real motivation behind cybersecurity was to mimic the Communist Chinese system of Internet policing.

“Right now China, the government, can disconnect parts of its Internet in case of war and we need to have that here too,” said Lieberman.

As we have documented, the Communist Chinese government does not disconnect parts of the Internet because of genuine security concerns, it habitually does so only to oppress and silence victims of government abuse and atrocities, and to strangle dissent against the state.

The decision to try and sneak through the Internet kill switch bill as part of another package of legislation is undoubtedly a reaction to increasing awareness about how the terms of the bill would completely undermine the foundations of the Internet as an outlet of truly unregulated free speech.

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Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also an occasional host for The Alex Jones Show. Watson has been interviewed by many publications and radio shows, including Vanity Fair and Coast to Coast AM, America’s most listened to late night talk show.

Post-Apocalyptic Predictive Programming For The Whole Family

Nicholas West
Activist Post
August 26, 2010

Predictive Programming

Hollywood is the magician’s wand (holly-holy) which has been used to cast a spell on the unsuspecting public. Things or ideas which would otherwise be seen as bizarre, vulgar, undesirable or impossible are inserted into films in the realm of fantasy. When the viewer watches these films, his/her mind is left open to suggestion and the conditioning process begins. These same movies which are designed to program the average person, can give the discerning viewer a better understanding of the workings and the plan of the world agenda. — Alan Watt

The Colony is an “experiment” where people are forced to live in a world minus even the most basic necessities, while being harassed by their fellow suffering man. In Season Two, colonists begin the ordeal with a 72-hour quarantine, followed by a government agency airlift to a “way station” that is the site of their rebuilding of society. They are given enough supplies for one week, and basically told to have a nice day.

Hollywood has a history of involvement with the New World Order as a visual think tank of future scenarios. Viewed through this lens, the ”experiment” is not to test the orchestrated reality of the characters placed in a survival situation, but to test the viewing public about what reality they will accept after certain predetermined events take place.

Predictive programming exists in all mediums, but it is Hollywood where the greatest numbers of people gather for passive entertainment. Hollywood history shows a disturbing connection with the themes that are introduced in movies and TV, and the world that is accepted by the masses thereafter.

This is a list of the seminal thought experiments put to film which have been instrumental in offering an apparently dystopian world where one’s first, human, reaction is “no one would accept that.” After the concept has been introduced, politicians and media-spin work in concert to say, “It won’t be like science fiction; it will benefit mankind.” Look at the following movie themes, then look around at what has already been accepted as “normal.”

THX 1138 (mandatory mind altering drugs to control a slave population -1971)

Soylent Green (overpopulation and Elite control -1973)

Wicker Man (Elite control over the population -1974)

Logan’s Run (population control via computer – 1975)

Network (Corporate Media control – 1976)

Brainstorm (transmitting the mind across a computer network – 1983)

Robocop (militarization of police – 1987)

They Live (mind control and data collection – 1988)

Johnny Mnemonic (data as a commodity – 1995)

Gattaca (genetic code as a commodity – 1997)

Devil’s Advocate (legislative control over society – 1997)

Eyes Wide Shut (rituals of the Elite – 1999)

Swordfish (government sanctioned crime to combat terrorism – 2001)

24 (good guys use torture to get information from terrorists – 2001)

Minority Report (high-tech police state using biometrics and “pre-crime” – 2002)

The Experiment (dynamic of prison abuse – 2002)

Control Factor (mind control through scientific dictatorship – 2003)

Jericho (factions within U.S. government set of a nuke false flag – 2006)

I Am Legend (benevolence of scientific intentions, martial law, and vaccines as the cure – 2007)

These examples suggest that Hollywood is a marketing tool for the New World Order. In the same way that news media was co-opted with psy-ops programs like Operation Mockingbird, the magic wand of Hollywood has been used to desensitize people to an impending reality. The Colony is the next level of preparation for the Endgame. And what might bring about this apocalypse? Well-regarded physicist, Michio Kaku, went on MSNBC’s The Dylan Ratigan Show to announce that UFOs are worth serious inquiry. This was done to support a new book release of generals, pilots, and government officials documenting decades of UFO encounters. All of this while a new trailer for the movie Skyline depicts aliens arriving on blue beams. What was the name of the NASA project that studied stage managing a fake rapture or alien invasion? Project Blue Beam.

10 Practical Steps That You Can Take To Insulate Yourself (At Least Somewhat) From The Coming Economic Collapse

The Economic Collapse
August 26, 2010

Most Americans are still operating under the delusion that this “recession” will end and that the “good times” will return soon, but a growing minority of Americans are starting to realize that things are fundamentally changing and that they better start preparing for what is ahead. These “preppers” come from all over the political spectrum and from every age group. More than at any other time in modern history, the American people lack faith in the U.S. economic system. In dozens of previous columns, I have detailed the horrific economic problems that we are now facing in excruciating detail. Many readers have started to complain that all I do is “scare” people and that I don’t provide any practical solutions. Well, not everyone can move to Montana and start a llama farm, but hopefully this article will give people some practical steps that they can take to insulate themselves (at least to an extent) from the coming economic collapse.

But before I get into what people need to do, let’s take a minute to understand just how bad things are getting out there. The economic numbers in the headlines go up and down and it can all be very confusing to most Americans.

However, there are two long-term trends that are very clear and that anyone can understand….

#1) The United States is getting poorer and is bleeding jobs every single month.

#2) The United States is getting into more debt every single month.

When you mention the trade deficit, most Americans roll their eyes and stop listening. But that is a huge mistake, because the trade deficit is absolutely central to our problems.

Every single month, Americans buy far, far more from the rest of the world than they buy from us. Every single month tens of billions of dollars more goes out of the country than comes into it.

That means that every single month the United States is getting poorer.

The excess goods and services that we buy from the rest of the world get “consumed” and the rest of the world ends up with more money than when they started.

Each year, hundreds of billions of dollars leave the United States and don’t return. The transfer of wealth that this represents is astounding.

But not only are we bleeding wealth, we are also bleeding jobs every single month.

The millions of jobs that the U.S. economy is losing to China, India and dozens of third world nations are not going to come back. Middle class Americans have been placed in direct competition for jobs with workers on the other side of the world who are more than happy to work for little more than slave labor wages. Until this changes the U.S. economy is going to continue to hemorrhage jobs.

The U.S. government has helped to mask much of this economic bleeding by unprecedented amounts of government spending and debt, but now the U.S. national debt exceeds 13 trillion dollars and is getting worse every single month. Not only that, but state and local governments all over America are getting into ridiculous amounts of debt.

So, what we have got is a country that gets poorer every single month and loses jobs to other countries every single month and that has accumulated the biggest mountain of debt in the history of the world which also gets worse every single month.

Needless to say, this cannot last indefinitely. Eventually the whole thing is just going to collapse like a house of cards.

So what can we each individually do to somewhat insulate ourselves from the economic problems that are coming?….

1 - Get Out Of Debt: The old saying, “the borrower is the servant of the lender”, is so incredibly true. The key to insulating yourself from an economic meltdown is to become as independent as possible, and as long as you are in debt, you simply are not independent. You don’t want a horde of creditors chasing after you when things really start to get bad out there.

2 - Find New Sources Of Income: In 2010, there simply is not such a thing as job security. If you are dependent on a job (“just over broke”) for 100% of your income, you are in a very bad position. There are thousands of different ways to make extra money. What you don’t want to do is to have all of your eggs in one basket. One day when the economy melts down and you are out of a job are you going to be destitute or are you going to be okay?

3 – Reduce Your Expenses: Many Americans have left the rat race and have found ways to live on half or even on a quarter of what they were making previously. It is possible – if you are willing to reduce your expenses. In the future times are going to be tougher, so learn to start living with less today.

4 – Learn To Grow Your Own Food: Today the vast majority of Americans are completely dependent on being able to run down to the supermarket or to the local Wal-Mart to buy food. But what happens when the U.S. dollar declines dramatically in value and it costs ten bucks to buy a loaf of bread? If you learn to grow your own food (even if is just a small garden) you will be insulating yourself against rising food prices.

5 – Make Sure You Have A Reliable Water Supply: Water shortages are popping up all over the globe. Water is quickly becoming one of the “hottest” commodities out there. Even in the United States, water shortages have been making headline news recently. As we move into the future, it will be imperative for you and your family to have a reliable source of water. Some Americans have learned to collect rainwater and many others are using advanced technology such as atmospheric water generators to provide water for their families. But whatever you do, make sure that you are not caught without a decent source of water in the years ahead.

6 – Buy Land: This is a tough one, because prices are still quite high. However, as we have written previously, home prices are going to be declining over the coming months, and eventually there are going to be some really great deals out there. The truth is that you don’t want to wait too long either, because once Helicopter Ben Bernanke’s inflationary policies totally tank the value of the U.S. dollar, the price of everything (including land) is going to go sky high. If you are able to buy land when prices are low, that is going to insulate you a great deal from the rising housing costs that will occur when the U.S dollar does totally go into the tank.

7 – Get Off The Grid: An increasing number of Americans are going “off the grid”. Essentially what that means is that they are attempting to operate independently of the utility companies. In particular, going “off the grid” will enable you to insulate yourself from the rapidly rising energy prices that we are going to see in the future. If you are able to produce energy for your own home, you won’t be freaking out like your neighbors are when electricity prices triple someday.

8 – Store Non-Perishable Supplies: Non-perishable supplies are one investment that is sure to go up in value. Not that you would resell them. You store up non-perishable supplies because you are going to need them someday. So why not stock up on the things that you are going to need now before they double or triple in price in the future? Your money is not ever going to stretch any farther than it does right now.

9 – Develop Stronger Relationships: Americans have become very insular creatures. We act like we don’t need anyone or anything. But the truth is that as the economy melts down we are going to need each other. It is those that are developing strong relationships with family and friends right now that will be able to depend on them when times get hard.

10 – Get Educated And Stay Flexible: When times are stable, it is not that important to be informed because things pretty much stay the same. However, when things are rapidly changing it is imperative to get educated and to stay informed so that you will know what to do. The times ahead are going to require us all to be very flexible, and it is those who are willing to adapt that will do the best when things get tough.

John McCain’s Attack On Liberty

Chuck Baldwin
August 26, 2010

Anyone paying attention knows that John McCain has been a Big-Government Globalist Neocon (BGGN) for virtually his entire senatorial career. As with many BGGNs hiding out in the Republican Party, McCain likes to talk about smaller government, but his track record is littered with the promotion of one big government program after another. But, what else would one expect from a member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR)?

McCain has introduced two bills in the US Senate that are about as Machiavellian as they could be.

Lately, however, McCain has outdone himself. He has introduced two bills in the US Senate that are about as Machiavellian as they could be. I am referring to S.3081, a bill that would authorize the federal government to detain American citizens indefinitely without trial, and S.3002, a bill that would authorize the federal government to regulate vitamins, minerals, and virtually all health and natural food products.

According to Examiner.com, “John McCain introduced a bill into the U.S. Senate which, if passed, would actually allow U.S. citizens to be arrested and detained indefinitely, all without Miranda rights or ever being charged with a crime.”

The Examiner report continued by saying “This bill, introduced by McCain, who despite overwhelming evidence, claims to be a ‘conservative,’ would not only take away our right to a trial, but would also allow the federal government to arrest and imprison anyone the current administration deems hostile.

“Of course, that would be the same administration whose Homeland Security Secretary has classified veterans, retired law enforcement, Ron Paul [and Chuck Baldwin] supporters, and conservatives as ‘terrorists.’”

The Examiner report concluded by saying “If it was not clear before, it should be now that John McCain has as little respect for the Constitution as he does for our borders.”

Amen!

If McCain gets his way, your constitutional right to a speedy trial by jury is gone, as well as your constitutional right to Habeas Corpus. But, of course, they would attempt to justify this by claiming it is being done in the name of national security and the war on terrorism.

See the Examiner report at:

http://tinyurl.com/examiner-mccain-s3081

Regarding McCain’s desire for the federal government to take over the vitamin industry, attorney Jonathan Emord wrote, “If you had any doubt about whether John McCain is a limited government conservative, you may put that doubt to rest–he is not. On February 3, 2010, John McCain introduced to the United States Senate the Dietary Supplement Safety Act of 2010. Reflecting upon this poorly written bill, I am struck by the fact that John McCain apparently sees little difference between fissile material and dietary supplements. He is intent on regulating supplements as if they were radioactive enriched uranium rather than bioactive vitamins, minerals, amino acids, and botanicals that more often than not help people.

“The Dietary Supplement Safety Act of 2010 enjoys support from the most liberal members of Congress. It is an invitation for the FDA to assume broad new powers and replicate here the system now operating in Europe over dietary supplements where dietary ingredients are presumed adulterated and unlawful to sell unless pre-approved by the government. In short, good bye free enterprise, good bye limited government, and hello more heavy handed, arbitrary and punitive FDA bias against the beleaguered dietary supplement industry.”

See Emord’s column at:

http://www.newswithviews.com/Emord/jonathan118.htm

Please remember, this is the same John McCain who, during the 2008 Presidential campaign, said he would “order the secretary of the treasury to immediately buy up the bad home loan mortgages in America.” Of course, McCain didn’t explain where this authority would come from, because such a proposal has no legal or constitutional authority. And, by the way, this one little sentence, if implemented, would cost taxpayers some $300 billion.

McCain also said he wanted to tap Mr. Climate Change Wacko himself, Al Gore, “to work in his administration on developing a new and much tougher U.N.-sponsored global warming treaty.”

(Source: Cliff Kincaid. See his column at:

http://www.newswithviews.com/Kincaid/cliff260.htm )

This is the same John McCain who addressed the Hoover Institution on May 1, 2007, and said if he were elected President, he would create a new international organization known as the “League of Democracies” (LD).

In advancing the LD, McCain said, “We should go further and start bringing democratic peoples and nations from around the world into one common organization, a worldwide League of Democracies.” He then added, “The new League of Democracies would form the core of an international order . . .”

See McCain’s speech to the Hoover Institution at:

http://www.cfr.org/publication/13252/

If McCain and his CFR buddies get their way, this new LD would be a United Nations on steroids! As I said all over America on the campaign trail in 2008, “John McCain is a globalist.” Of course, so is Barack Obama. In fact, every President since (and including) George H.W. Bush has been a full-fledged, rotten-to-the-core globalist.

And, yes, this is the same John McCain who was one of the primary movers and shakers (along with Obama, Lindsey Graham, and G.W. Bush) who attempted (and would again) to provide amnesty to illegal aliens and open America’s borders to illegal immigration.

And now McCain wants the federal government to take over the vitamin industry, and he wants to give the federal government the power to jail American citizens indefinitely without trial.

The citizens of Arizona can do the American people–and liberty itself–a great favor this year by giving Senator John McCain his walking papers. Big-Government dinosaurs like McCain are an albatross around the neck of freedom and constitutional government. If we don’t send them packing now, the shackles they put around our throats will become insufferable.

Feds Dismissing Illegal Alien Cases

Bob Ellis
Dakota Voice
August 26, 2010

It seems the Democrats/socialists in Washington D.C. are in a full court press to ignore the law they are sworn to uphold and allow illegal aliens free access to and rein of our country.

We knew the Obama Administration was suing the state of Arizona for trying to help enforce the immigration and border control law that the federal government has been doing its best to ignore.

Then we caught wind of a draft memo which showed the feds working on a backdoor amnesty program for illegal aliens, and then yet another memo surfaced after that.

Now the Houston Chronicle reports the cases of many illegal aliens are being dismissed by the federal government:

The Department of Homeland Security is systematically reviewing thousands of pending immigration cases and moving to dismiss those filed against suspected illegal immigrants who have no serious criminal records, according to several sources familiar with the efforts.

Culling the immigration court system dockets of noncriminals started in earnest in Houston about a month ago and has stunned local immigration attorneys, who have reported coming to court anticipating clients’ deportations only to learn that the government was dismissing their cases.

Raed Gonzalez is an immigration attorney and the liaison between the Executive Office for Immigration Review. He is quoted in the article:

Gonzalez said he went into immigration court downtown on Monday and was given a court date in October 2011 for one client. But, he said, the government’s attorney requested the dismissal of that case and those of two more of his clients, and the cases were dispatched by the judge.

The court “was terminating all of the cases that came up,” Gonzalez said. “It was absolutely fantastic.”

“We’re all calling each other saying, ‘Can you believe this?’?” said John Nechman, another Houston immigration attorney, who had two cases dismissed.

Attorney Elizabeth Mendoza Macias, who has practiced in Houston for 17 years, said she had cases for several clients dismissed during the past month and eventually called DHS to find out what was going on. She said she was told by a DHS trial attorney that 2,500 cases were under review in Houston.

“I had five (dismissed) in one week, and two more that I just received,” Mendoza said. “And I am expecting many more, many more, in the next month.”

What effect will this non-enforcement have on the dedicated people in our government who are trying to do their jobs?

Tre Rebsock, the ICE union representative in Houston, said even if the efforts involve only a fraction of the pending immigration cases, “that’s going to make our officers feel even more powerless to enforce the laws.”

If only our government were half as determined and dedicated to enforce the law as they were to ignore it, we wouldn’t have much of a problem in this area.

I don’t like to throw around the term “impeachment” lightly because it is a very serious undertaking. However, I’m beginning to think more and more that impeachment may be necessary and appropriate for our elected leaders who refuse–REFUSE–to enforce our nation’s laws, protect our borders and keep the American people safe.

Article II Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution discusses impeachment for ” treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.”

The dictionary defines “treason” first as “the betrayal of a trust.” These officials hold a trust from the American people to keep their oath to uphold the Constitution and the laws of our nation, and they have betrayed it.

According to Wikipedia, “high crimes and misdemeanors,” among other things, “…gives aid or comfort to its enemies, or which injures the country to the profit of an individual or group. In democracies and similar societies it also includes crimes which attempt to alter the outcome of elections.” Someone who illegally invades our country could easily be defined as an enemy, and these officials are giving aid and comfort to them by allowing them unhindered entry and harbor. Many strongly believe the liberals who support this dereliction of duty also stand to profit from their inaction by encouraging a voter constituency that may end up voting for them–voting legally or illegally (what do illegal votes really matter to these liberals when they are already ignoring illegal entry to our country?). They are doing this to alter the outcome of elections.

So you see, impeachment of President Obama and his accomplices in congress for their dereliction of duty (something punishable as a crime in the military) is not such a stretch, is it?

And it’s something we may very well need to pursue next year, regardless of the outcome of the November elections.

Obama Hauls Arizona Before the UN Human Rights Council

Ben Johnson, Floyd Reports
America’s Independent Party
August 25, 2010

Apparently Barack Obama is not content to make a federal case out of his immigration feud with Arizona; he just made it an international one.

The president’s first-ever report on U.S. human rights to the UN Human Rights Council contains a rich vein of offensive material. So far, one aspect has not been reported: our petty president used the situation to bash Arizona’s immigration law — and possibly transfer jurisdiction over the law from Arizona to the UN. Throughout the report, which sounds like an Obama campaign speech, the president discusses “the original flaw” of the U.S. Constitution, America’s tolerance for slavery, and his version of our long and despicable history of discriminating against and oppressing minorities, women, homosexuals, and the handicapped. After each complaint, he addresses how he is delivering us from ourselves, patting himself on the back for such initiatives as ending “torture,” promoting Affirmative Action, and passing health care legislation.

In his section on “Values and Immigration,” he praised the Department of Homeland Security’s efforts to provide better medical care for detainees and increase “Alternatives To Detention” (e.g., letting them go). Then he turned to the one state that has had the temerity to stand in his way of fundamentally transforming the American electorate:

A recent Arizona law, S.B. 1070, has generated significant attention and debate at home and around the world. The issue is being addressed in a court action that argues that the federal government has the authority to set and enforce immigration law. That action is ongoing; parts of the law are currently enjoined.

On Obama’s command, Attorney General Eric Holder has sued the State of Arizona for passing a law that he criticized without reading, and which merely upholds federal law. (He gave sanctuary cities a pass.) He now threatens an additional lawsuit against Sheriff Joe Arpaio for “racial profiling” when arresting illegal immigrants near the Mexican border.

Obama’s turns his skirmish with Jan Brewer from a states rights dispute into an international human rights cause. It also places Arizona’s law in the hands of the United Nations.

The national report is but the first step of the international government’s review process. On November 5, the United States will be examined by a troika of UN bureaucrats from France, Japan, and Cameroon (an oppressive nation which is a member of the Organization of Islamic Conference). This trio will consider three items: Obama’s self-flagellating report, reports written about America by UN tribunals or international governing bodies, and testimony from NGOs with a pronounced anti-American bias. It will also consider “voluntary pledges and commitments made by the State,” such as suspending an Arizona state law.

Then the French, Japanese, and Cameroon diplomats will draw up a plan of action for the United States to implement.

Nations are re-examined every four years. The Human Rights Council looks for voluntary compliance. However, its website asserts, “The Human Rights Council will decide on the measures it would need to take in case of persistent non-cooperation by a State with the” World Body.

When the Left cannot win at the ballot box (virtually every time), it overrules the people in the courts. Now that Obama is not sure he can prevail in the courts, he has overruled the American people by hauling Arizona and the two-thirds of Americans who support its law before the United Nations.

Adventures in the “feel good” society

Jerry Mazza
Infowars.com
August 25, 2010

I like to watch the Yankees on TV. I used to like visiting the stadium until they built the uber billion dollar baby and the ticket prices, food and drink soared.

What I also don’t like, at home or at the stadium, is the extra hour of commercials, advertisements for the “feel good” society’s goods and services, urging perennially happy, smiling consumers to buy more cars, rebuild their houses at Home Depot, Live Better at Wal-Mart, drink more beer (hotties will love you) and in general keep chasing the hedonistic, pleasure-seeking dream of endless plenty. It’s over, kids. Get back to earth. Mom’s looking for you.

We had a total loss of 221,000 jobs last month, according to the New York Times. And “Friday’s (8/6/2010) jobs report renewed pressure on lawmakers to consider the next steps they might take to bolster the economy. Along with the consideration of aid to states (a $26 billion education package), a fierce discussion is still to come whether to let the tax cuts enacted under President George W. Bush expire at the end of the year.” Did anyone need to debate that except the multi-millionaires and billionaires and their lackey politicians? No.

Re the extra hour of commercials, my son and I discovered that when we went to see the ace minor league Brooklyn Cyclones housed in the Municipal Credit Union (MCU) field, the game came in at two hours and six minutes, with a searing shut-out by the Cyclones (Short-Season A classification New York – Penn League) against Buffalo, in a nine-inning game, with lots of great glove-flashing on both sides. Of course, we had some cheer-leaders and a chunky pitch man for the local car dealership. Even with that, it was beautiful.

Cyclones MCU Park comfortably seats five thousand fans, has wide aisles, easily accessed from Surf Avenue next to the boardwalk, the classic Cyclone roller coaster towards left field, the freshly-restored red parachute tower towards right field (sans parachutes), the Wonder Wheel in the distance (center field), with a view of the ocean. We sat 17 rows back from home plate in field box seats that cost about twelve bucks each, parking five, and a great sausage sandwich about six, drinks about four, which for the two of us wouldn’t get one mezzanine seat at Yankee Stadium, or one upper deck front row box seat.

The park also drew lots of nice families, moms, kids, grandpas, grandmas, and a general feeling of well-being that my old borough of Brooklyn is famous for. In fact, a line of kids ran on the field with the Cyclones, providing them with the biggest thrill of their young lives, waving as they faded off to the sidelines.

But, the plastic-flashing “feel good” crowd at Yankee Stadium is still whooping it up in the boxes and suites, which these days are often empty. Yet, out at the Cyclones Field, the working and middle classes are still enjoying life, without the Steinbrenner sting. And we are not missing that extra hour of wall to wall TV commercials that add to the length of the game, which the commissioner of baseball and other aficionados are always bemoaning is too long. So we can still take pleasure in living, and in a truly diverse crowd, as the dusk falls, the multi-colored lights fade up and the moon smiles down at us. Long may we live and propagate.

Of course, if you wanted to think bad thoughts, there was always Ben Bernanke printing money and trying to buy more “feel good” prosperity. Our “bought and paid” for” stock market and economic recovery came at the expense of massive government borrowing and spending. As, Mike Larson of Martin Weiss’s Money Markets writes, Fed Insanity Crushes Stocks!

It seems that neither the Fed nor the Federal Government can stop throwing money away in pointless wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, mercenary armies, financing tax cuts to the rich and blaming it on Social Security, from which they would love to steal even more money, cash, the real kind, not the funny money they’re using, that will come back to bite us in the rear one ugly day like the one on which the market tanked 777 points.

But nobody can say no to the boys in the pleasure dome (not the one in Coleridge’s poem, Xanadu), but in Washington, D.C. where the boys are partying hard in the stately pleasure dome of the Capital. In fact, you can read how hard some of the boys like Ramh and Obama are partying in Man’s Country, a 30-year old gay men’s bath house in uptown Chicago, article courtesy of the distinguished investigative reporter and ex-Navy Intelligence officer, Wayne Madsen. Or you can find it at lawyer/investigative journalist Tom Flocco’s Rummormillnews.com.

It is Mr. Madsen’s point of view that the corruption, moral bankruptcy, and depravity depicted in this tale puts our nation at risk of blackmailing by the wrong powers. And so the participants’ adventures in the “feel good” life of Chicago’s “boys’ town” are in fact seriously endangering us all. For those interested, the news is here. It concerns the flightiness of some of our major politicians and high members of White House staff, some of whom have escaped the D.C. Pleasure Dome of recent. But the tentacles of this male bath house extend far and wide as you will see, at least for as long as this link lasts.

Apart from that, we return to our “field of dreams,” which was built so we could come and enjoy ourselves in a modest manner. We are still here, playing the role of “the salt of the earth,” capable of living within our means, not pursuing murder as a career, or plunging our nation and the world into the hell of bankruptcy and depression. In other words, we are not the elites, the illuminati, the Bilderbergs, the New World Order. We are just folks, the glue of American life that holds this circus together with our taxes, labor and love day after day, year after year, as the charlatans come and go, “talking in the room of Michelangelo,” as Eliot would say.

And may I remind you, both New Yorkers and visitors, that only two short blocks from Cyclones Field you can find Nathan’s Hotdog Stand, with probably the best dogs and all the trimmings in the world. And before the boardwalk is totally privatized by real estate developers who feel the neighborhood has “soul,” a quality in short quantity in the “feel good society” of celluloid images, hyped marketing strategies, and daily corruption, y’all come out and see us.

P.S., sports fans, there is also the Staten Island Yankees team, a beautiful free ferry ride away in Richmond County Bank Ball Park. From there, you can not only see the game of tomorrow’s stars but the Bay of New York, liners going by, and Lady Liberty hold her torch up high in spite of it all, the creeps, the low-lifes, the ten percenters (as Hem called them), the skimmers, the closeted bad boys, the busted politicians, the Chicago gang, Obama booster Tony Rezko (now in solitary), et al. And the thing is, I believe we the people, the glue of this whole show who turn up at work every day, pay our taxes, do our jobs, raise our families, feel good within our skin, on our own dimes not OPM (Other People’s Money), are going to win the game in the long run.

In fact, despite the billionaires’ attempts to scuttle Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and all genuine entitlements, we shall overcome as King said, and live to see the rabble of the rich in the chains they have earned, that is from the boardrooms of Goldman Sachs on down to the cells of rendition prisons. Just hang in everybody and do the right thing, as Spike Lee would say. Do the right thing and that will make you feel really good, like maybe you never felt before.

Jerry Mazza is a freelance writer, life-long resident of New York City. His book “State Of Shock – Poems from 9/11 on” is available at www.jerrymazza.com, Amazon.com and Barnesandnoble.com. He has also written hundreds of articles on American and world politics as an Associate Editor of Online Journal.