Gunshot Lynching: Ferguson, Missouri America

American Street Art #1

Maybe it is because our America has been at war off and on since 1991, and human life is not as sacred as in the past. Maybe another reason is that some of our police falsely believe they are now fully trained in military tactics and weaponry to fend off some terrorist threat. While many broadcast networks join with other tabloids like Fox and CNN to stoke the fires of racial hatred, let's remember Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who refused to cooperate with an evil system by using non-violent resistance and civil disobedience. Dr. King throughout his life always embraced peace and unconditional love for even his worst enemies. People in Ferguson, Missouri and all over America please remember what he stood for and continue to resist and disobey with the memory of Dr. King in mind.  

Whether they understand it or not, most of the tea party republicans are basking in the glow of their unstated "I told you so!  Those people of color just don't understand our nation's laws and our policemen."  Other people like John Boehner and Mitch McConnell smile secretly to themselves as they watch conceit spread like a virus infecting the 20% who elected them to high office.  Tea party racists and poseurs celebrate their now secure future and sing out "Tomorrow belongs to me" from Cabaret for the thousand year tea party. Despite the grand jury report, Americans need to fully realize that Michael Brown's murder was a Gunshot Lynching. 

As a young freelancer many years ago I was hired to shoot and produce a news camera story for the old UPI (United Press International) covering a race riot near Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. Early in the evening at the emergency station set up by the Sheriff's department, I witnessed this. I wanted to roll, but as soon as I raised my camera I was ordered not to film by deputies in uniform. One deputy cautioned me that it was a confidential operation. The men were going out in disguise to scout the area. I noticed the white men's faces were smudged with black. One man had a pellet pistol tucked into his belt. They also had two pellet gun rifles on the back seat of their unmarked car. The Ft. Lauderdale Sheriff, in person escorted the men to their car and sent them out on their unknown mission with smiling encouragement. In my naivety I didn't realize what was happening at that moment. Then I moved on to film as much as possible for the story of law enforcement curbing angry people who were roaming the streets causing trouble.  

Eventually I discovered that the Sheriff sent out those undercover white cops in black face with pellet guns to shoot at and enrage the people on the streets. It was a stunt worthy of the worst political players in the civil rights times I had seen in New Orleans and all over the south when I was growing up. 

Later in the night the riot got worse and worse ending with massive police presence and suppression. In this case, there were no murders, but there was a lot of blood and a lot of local TV coverage. That same Sheriff ran as a republican for the U.S. House a couple of years afterward, and he won handily. 

I'll never forget my last shot for the story at the local police station where an old black guy who worked there in maintenance came to work as usual at six o'clock.  He trudged out and slowly raised the American flag just as the sun was rising. 

They liked that shot a lot at UPI in Europe, and they cynically questioned me from the London office about what it means to me. I told them I was just the cameraman and they would have to decide that themselves. The Editors also sent me highest compliments for the scenes of a burning middle school that I shot. They really liked the action of the firemen wrestling with giant hoses and axes and the bright red lights of the engines.

American Street Art #2

The next day, after I had returned my equipment, I drove back to the location. I found kids that swore they had been shot with pellet guns in the night of the riots. They showed me welts on their arms and legs and backs confirming what I had seen that terrible night. 

What happened that night in Florida re-taught me a harsh unforgettable lesson in American or any politics. It is inevitable. People with absolute power will abuse that power. 

When are we ever going to learn? 

Just like long ago Ft. Lauderdale, it appears the events in Ferguson, Missouri are being manipulated by both the media companies covering and unseen political and law enforcement people in power on the ground there. The stories will send jarring messages to a lot of regular people watching TV and reading the news threads on their computers. 

Many of those people will say, "Well, I knew it. Who wants to vote for either side in this! The black people are rioting, and almost as bad, the cops look like scary military. All of this unrest is disgusting. It makes me think, I'm glad I didn't vote at all in November.  Forget all those horrible, do nothing politicians!" To the folks at Heritage Foundation and Americans for Prosperity this is very, very good news. To all the tea party people this is the best of all possible outcomes. 

Like that Sheriff many years ago in Florida, the future votes will go to the solid powerful players who look like they are taking care of violence and mayhem in our little town America, Ferguson, Missouri. 

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Here's one idea we can use to help stop gunshot lynching and help end corruption and brutality by police in our nation. Every on-duty cop in America should wear a GoPro camera or an iPhone next to their badge to give us an unbiased witness to any kind of violence or other abuse of power. And make that off-duty whenever a weapon is carried! 

American Street Art Final 

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One more thing: 
Any sheriff or any law enforcement officer has a tough job. My Uncle was a sheriff of a small southern town, and a dear cousin was an officer in another southern city. For all in their profession, I greatly respect and honor the calling to serve and protect. 

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The CMA Political Diatribe by Carrie Underwood and Brad Paisley Damages An Original American Art

Carrie Underwood
World Arena Colorado Springs, Colorado
December 2, 2006
Photo by the_diet_starts_mond ay 

Dear Country Music Association, 

My deep roots and love for country music began in my childhood.  I was born and raised in Nashville, in Belle Meade.  Many of my friends from childhood have served in government public service as both republicans and democrats.  In my work as a founder of production companies I have produced projects with many well known artists like Randy Travis, Alabama, Emmy Lou Harris, Bill Monroe, and Dolly Parton.  

The CMA actually gave my company an award for producing Randy Travis's first video, "Forever and Ever Amen."  

Politics is a dirty business.  All music is an art form that is in another realm.  The political stunt by Carrie Underwood and Brad Paisley on your ABC broadcast the other night was completely out of line.  Free speech like this has a place on Fox News or CNN maybe, but country music deserves better.  Now with the political diatribe by Carrie Underwood and her friend Paisley has the CMA become a political operation to get more votes for the republican party?  Is this organization raising money for the republican party also?  How did the organization allow such speeches on it's broadcast?  You have lost all credibility for a huge portion of your audience.  That audience includes all of your clients.  Treat them with more respect.  

Clearly your organization does not want appear as a shill for whatever political party is the current media rage.  Do something about this now and apologize to your audience for dragging the music down.  

Kind regards, 

Martin Pitts

PS:  This letter is in no way asking for equal time.  My letter is asking the crude producers of the CMA to get politics out of what was once an incredible art... country music.  Please try to understand this... music is an art just like poetry and painting.  Politics is an egotistical dirty business.  Keep art on a higher plane.

James Brady Was Murdered By Gunshot

The Biblical Constitution
Dateline:  August 8, 2014

James Brady and the Brady Bill
On August 8, 2014, thirty years after James Brady was shot with a dime store handgun, a Medical Examiner in Virginia ruled that the death of Ronald Reagan's former Press Secretary was an act of homicide. After the shooting, Brady spent the rest of his life with partial paralysis and slurred speech. Brady and his devoted wife Sarah lobbied nonstop for improved handgun controls and assault weapon restrictions for twelve years until the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, known as the Brady Bill was passed finally in 1993. In the decade long process of enactment the Brady Bill overcame wave after wave of legal maneuvers and media ridicule, all darkly bankrolled by the NRA and other gun people. 

Since it was passed, the Brady Bill has been further corrupted by those same NRA and gun people. In one crude sidestep of the law, gun people can attend a gun show for buying weapons and many of the Brady Bill rules do not quite apply to those ostensibly private sales. To help their guns and gun sales promotions, the NRA and gun people originated the slogan, "Guns don't kill people. People kill people." That catchphrase has now gone beyond overused, and sensible people know it is meaningless. Another trivial motto is the NRA and gun people's constant and rigid refrain of the U.S. Constitution's Second Amendment as if it were a biblical commandment. Here is an exact transcription from the original document of 1787. 

The Second Amendment  

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security 

of a free State, the right of the people 

to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." 

The Preamble to the U.S. Constitution
Exactly like the founding Fathers of our nation, let's apply good American common sense to reveal and flesh out the contorted legal twists that have been used to justify personal ownership of deadly weapons in our nation. The Preamble is the beginning and the biblical guide to everything that follows in the U.S. Constitution. 

The Preamble

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form 

a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic 

Tranquility, provide for the common defence, 

promote the general Welfare, and secure 

the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and 

our Posterity, do ordain and establish 

this Constitution for the United States of America."

The Preamble is the basic structure of our U.S. Constitution including our first commandments, our ironclad rules for all the rules that follow. The Preamble trumps any of the later "Amendments."  That means the Second Amendment is secondary to the Pre-Amble. So the Preamble demands that "Justice" and "Tranquillity" and "common defence" and "Welfare" and "the Blessings" for our children not be further destroyed by the NRA and gun people across our nation with their grossly flawed interpretation of our U.S. Constitution.

Now let's dig even deeper into a few concepts of Constitutional Law that are used by our U.S. Supreme Court in their decisions. Sometime after the days of Chief Justice Earl Warren and the tremendously important decisions of the civil rights era, the Court majority changed from progressive to regressive. The Court majority came to rely on a new theory of microscopic and extreme interpretation of the U.S. Constitution named by Justice Antonin Scalia as "originalist." 

Chief Justice Warren E. Burger
Served on SCOTUS 1969 - 1986

Chief Justice Burger was first a trial lawyer in St. Paul, Minnesota and then Assistant Attorney General under President Eisenhower. He was a professor of law and a deep thinking jurist who certainly knew what he was talking about. Chief Justice Burger was an early iconic "originalist" who used that theory of constitutional law to exactly determine the meaning of any provision. Conservative republican President Richard M. Nixon nominated him to the Court. 

Chief Justice Burger was a most severe conservative. He voted for the death penalty. He voted for life imprisonment for the convicted perpetrator in a $100 check fraud. He saw nothing wrong with the Watergate burglaries of the Nixon scandal. However, in a 1991 PBS interview, Chief Justice Burger twice called using the Second Amendment to justify anything-goes gun policy a fraud. The right to bear arms cannot be separated from militia service. The right to own guns is not individual. The U.S. Constitution exactly allows only a group, a militia, to own a gun. That important "originalist" interpretation was later ignored by the Court in the infamous mistaken decision for District of Columbia v. Heller in which the individual right to keep and bear arms, or in our era own a gun, was allowed counter to the wishes of the people of the District of Columbia. 

Compromise And Parsing Death

"The Whole Is Greater Than the Sum of the Parts," said the Berlin School of Gestalt psychology. Gestalt has an organic, living power in our modern world. To combine all the parts of our America into a more organic and humane and productive society, the time has come to severely restrict all personal gun ownership. We need to severely regulate how guns are sold. We need to severely restrict all gun ownership. We need to completely outlaw the ownership of any military or assault weapons. We need the U.S. Army to confiscate and destroy all unregistered guns and deadly weapons.  

We must disarm America now before it gets any worse. Our children, our teenagers, the best of the best die because we do nothing to regulate guns. Many gun people say we need to find a compromise. There is no compromise. There is no middle ground between life and death. We must save lives now by confiscating all deadly weapons. 

The Brady Shooting

At this moment alongside President Reagan six agents and police officers were armed with various handguns and one agent with an Uzi submachine gun. Shootings are over in seconds. No officer or agent was able to stop the shooting. There was not enough time.

Over the past two hundred years and more, the U.S. Supreme Court has relied on many, many different interpretations and moral codes to sanction it's rulings. But each Justice certainly agrees that all of the law in our United States of America is based on the Judeo-Christian bible. The biblical and the legal of the U.S. Constitution must be reconciled with respect to the Second Amendment. The Preamble takes first position. 

We Americans must do our duty set in our Preamble to the U.S. Constitution. We must "...establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence..."  and protect all the citizens and all their children from deadly weapons all over our America. We need rigorous laws to control each and every deadly weapon in our America and we need to do it now.

To research and write this essay, let's say any regular person would spend about one hour. That hour is sixty minutes.  During this sixty minute period more than three people will die from gunshot in our America according to F.B.I.'s data. Every hour on the hour, every day after day, during every hour of our entire lives in our America three of our people die. That is three friends, girls, boys, fathers, mothers, police officers, first responders, regular people. That's three regular people that you may know and you may love. All of these people are dead. Dead because we do not have effective realistic legal controls on deadly weapons in our America.    

Hey NRA.
Here's the body count for kids gunshot murdered in October 2014.
Twenty-Five children dead.
White kids, brown kids, black kids, all dead.
Stand their faces in your mind in your next miserable life. 

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(Please note this post updates for the fourth time, the commentary originally published in January 2011. The story of guns and gun people has become a continuing American cliche of horror and unremitting disgrace. The NRA has found a way to stop any legislation in the U.S. Congress, and the NRA is targeting Colorado legislators who voted for gun regulation. The NRA is clearly a propaganda cabal that aids and abets murder.) 

A Report from Tel Aviv

Tel Aviv in a Time of Peace

-----Original Message-----

From: Anonymous in Israel

Sent: Mon, Jul 21, 2014 4:21 pm

Subject:  Re: ARE YOU SAFE ……..?


Martinshushu, 
Tell me about it. I know the news is horrible. 
With all the news happening around the world, I am more frightened of the world atmosphere than I am during the sirens in Tel Aviv. One of my super religious friends posted something today that truly expresses how I feel. She used to be orthodox, but the community has now cut her off due to her political views, and believing that a Palestinian state should exist: 

"Dear _______ , 
I posted the link from Germany and have spoken multiple times about France, but I didn't talk about the threatening letters targeting Jews in Chicago, the newspapers in Turkey demanding Turkish Jews "apologize for Gaza" or the harassment of Jews on California campuses. If I tried to list every instance of antisemitic aggression ONLY linked to this war, I'd be here all day, and I still wouldn't be done. 

There is a huge antisemitism problem in the antizionist movement. Antizionism isn't necessarily antisemitic, but that doesn't mean antizionists are free from examining themselves from antisemitic words or actions. The global rise in antisemitic violence that comes as a direct result of these Palestine marches speaks VOLUMES. I completely support pro-Palestine marches, and I've spoken out against this war constantly, but I cannot turn a blind eye to this violent antisemitism. 

If the oppression of a marginalized ethnoreligious minority is not somehow motivation enough on its own, realize that the more antisemitism is allowed to grow and fester in this movement, the more zionists you get as a direct result, and the more Israel as it currently is gets blanket uncritical support from Jews who have to flee there to survive. 
TO SURVIVE." 

I could not have said it better myself. Its a terrible situation and the more press Hamas gets, the more alone Jews will be all over the world. 

Palestinians have a right to a state, they have a right to exist just as much as we do. They have a right to raise their children in a beautiful land, to laugh and sing, not run from rockets. 

SO DO WE. Our children have a right to laugh and sing in the same land as theirs - that is the ultimate goal is it not? Peace. 

But with all thats going on, it seems very far away. These "demonstrations" that are happening all over the world in London, Germany, California and France are violent, antisemitic, and horrifying to humanity. They taught us in school "Never be Silent and Never forget" in regards to the Holocaust, and now I know why. This is what scares me, this is what gives me nightmares, not the sirens but the blind hatred of thousands. 

Hamas is screaming "genocide" to anyone who will listen, and if they keep it up, they'll get exactly what they want, the genocide of Jews across the globe. It wont be by rockets that Israel is destroyed, but by their blatant manipulation of the masses into blind hatred for an old scapegoat. 

Im sorry this was a very dark email. I pray for peace, I pray that the unbelievable ignorance will cease, and I pray for those whose minds are already closed to the possibility of coexistence. 

We will stay safe, we will keep smiling - what else can you do when the world hates you? 

Missing you dearly and wishing you luck!  

Anonymous in Israel  

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On Thu, Jul 24, 2014 at 1:24 AM 

‪Martinshushu‬ wrote: 

This is an amazing letter! 

May I publish it on the blog? 

If you wish I could post it as "Anonymous in Israel." 

Just tell me. 

Stay sharp and be safe dear ones. 

Much Love, 

Martinshushu 

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From: Anonymous in Israel

Sent: Thu, Jul 24, 2014 10:02 AM 

Subject:  Re: ARE YOU SAFE ……..?

Martinshushu, 
Good to hear from you. Yes, I would prefer to remain anonymous. 

The general consensus here is that people are more frightened about what is happening in the world, and how that affects people's feelings towards our country. 

Hamas wants Israel to stand alone, to be seen as murdering Jews who care little to nothing about humans. We don't want to fight, we want our soldiers back for Shabbat dinner. 

Hamas has an incredible ability to manipulate the social media news  and Israel is struggling to keep up. Pictures are taken from Syria, and posted under #freegaza of burned children wandering the streets alone, manipulated to take pictures coved in fake blood, crying over "dead" family members who are alive and well according to twitter. It's a horrifying game and we are losing. Palestinians have the right to their own state free of terror and that is the bottom line. Hamas is the enemy, not the Palestinian people. Innocent lives are being taken on both sides, and that is unacceptable. 
I hope all is well with you. 

Anonymous in Israel

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Goober Capitalism™

Cooper Square New York City November 2001

"I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the State, with particular reference to the founding of them on geographical discriminations. Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party generally. 

. . . 

It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which finds a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another." 

George Washington 1796 

FAKE PATRIOTS THE BEGINNING

Listen up for a few minutes and ignore the fearful rants and raves of tea party agonists and all other republicans warning of war and invasion by immigrants all over our media in America. Quickly let's review some reality of the past thirteen years or so. First, in September 2001, a gang of psychotic Arabs caused the 911 attacks killing thousands in New York City and Washington, DC and a field in rural Pennsylvania. The gang was financed by racial and cultural bigots hiding out in Afganistan and Saudi Arabia and the Yemen. We were assured by most of our media and all of our leaders in Washington that we must all greatly fear the Al-Qaeda cult and Osama Bin Laden. We all knew where the leaders were hiding. The Al-Qaeda cult and Bin Laden were sheltered and aided by Taliban oligarchs in ultra-conservative Islamist Afganistan.

Therefore we must go to war, and America invaded that ill-fated nation to stop the bigots and save us from a repeat of the 911 attacks. Then almost as a sidebar we were all told that we must invade the nation of Iraq too because more bigots there have very dangerous weapons that can kill thousands of Americans in a single attack. What is the secret story of the Iraq war, of spooks and cold war fanatics in power in Washington? Who wanted Saddam dead? And why? Lately more and more is being revealed about the Iraq War. We are in the midst of a sea change in national politics as tea party agonists and republicans fade into the darkness of oblivion due all traitors. Of course many cable TV media celebrities continue to rave the opposite as in "Tea party republican Eric Cantor lost his seat in a primary because he wasn't ultra-conservative enough." Recently former Veep Dick Cheney himself rages, "Another attack is about to happen! We, must arm up and be ready to re-invade Iraq!" Hucksters and fake patriots like Cheney make a mockery of our democracy by their TV show manipulations of the media. 

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FAKE PATRIOTS THE TEA PARTY REPUBLICAN PLAYBOOK

Last month the fake patriots and Pay-Per-Vote™ Senators Jeff Sessions and John McCain and thirty-nine other tea party agonists and republican fake patriots voted against helping veterans.

This vote was part of a broader plan or playbook for the game. The tea party and republican playbook calls for grossly under-funding some government operation, and then when the operation fails in some way you can blame the administration. Pretty sick stuff but they've been doing it since the financial crisis through Benghazi and now the VA problem. Fake patriot tea party agonists and republicans like Boehner, Cantor, and Ryan in the US House and McConnell and McCain and Cruz in the Senate play this reality show for a national audience on cable TV news stations. 

Most republicans and all tea party republicans in America tout that lower taxes are essential to the American Dream. Mitt Romney and Charles Koch and David Koch and other billionaires hide money in bank accounts in the Cayman Islands and Switzerland to avoid paying taxes. Many, many US corporations do the same. So those acclaimed leaders of business in America don't want to pay the tab for our children dying in Afganistan and Iraq to protect their homeland? 

When I visited the Trade Center site in November 2001, the fences were covered with notes and photos from thousands of people who'd come there from all over America.  Most of the postings were from church groups bussed in to pray for the dead and console the survivors of the attacks. It occurred to me that this must be the start of a religious war: Christianity versus Islam. After fourteen years, we can all see the war is not religious, but it is about the money and a new religion founded on Goober Capitalism™. 

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FAKE PATRIOTS AND FOUNDING GOOBER CAPITALISM™ 

Most republicans and all tea party republicans in America deeply believe in the notion of "free market" capitalism as codified in the republican playbook. This brand of capitalism is based on a dogma that free markets and more profits always benefit all Americans. Money is the highest good. This is the lie I call Goober Capitalism™or a corrupted capitalism based on TV news hype and taken as truth by many people all over our America. 

So the term Goober Capitalism™ is a newly discovered subset or subculture of the traditional American capitalism of free markets, but grossly ignorant of the societal consequences of it's actions. Thomas Malthus was talking about such Goober Capitalists™ when he formed his theory of land and farming and how inevitably there would be more people than the land could support leading to social disruption. 

Our modern American Goober Capitalists™ have a single purpose for the corporations and companies they control, more profits. They ignore any consequences of their actions to the employees, the products, or the nation of America in general. Goober Capitalists™ are dedicated to the dogmatic peanut (bean) counting of profit margins for their corporation or company. Some of the financial wizards of Wall Street we discovered in the crisis of 2008 are iconic Goober Capitalists™. Mitt Romney is a shining example and so are Charles and David Koch. These Goober Capitalists™ are American oligarchs with rigid political agendas that are not good for our American Democracy.  

Corporations and companies are a figment of the imagination of people who worship at the alter of Goober Capitalism™. Both corporations and companies exist because some billionaire in the past direly wanted anonymity. Do corporations and companies and their attendant billionaires have no ethics and no conscience? I don't think so. Corporate and company executives are just like the regular people with the same prejudices and dreams per capita. Some number of them are fake and fearful and cruelly deny their due. Some are giving and want the best for our America. Either way all of them should pay their taxes for the wars we fought to protect their homes in Aspen and Beverly Hills and Palm Beach. 

The doctrine of Government-For-Profit is a viral element of Goober Capitalism™ that we must wipe out. In this world we can no longer tolerate libertarian fools with anything-goes teenager tactics in our Congress and Judiciary. The consequences are dire for the people of our America and the entire planet. 

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FAKE PATRIOTS THE IDEOLOGY 

Robert Kennedy, Jr. said that business controlled by government is called communism, and government controlled by business is called fascism. Let's look at the exacting libertarian, Government-For-Profit booster, Rand Paul who is the kind of guy who truly believes that Government should be run like a business. By that perverse reasoning we should only give defense or any public contracts to low bidders. Then the HumVees that breakdown in battle will cost only a few lives. Or the cheap guns that don't fire. Or any other service provided by government like fire trucks or police protection­. Justifiabl­e by the numbers, but premeditat­ed homicide anyway. So good old boy Ayn Randist Rand Paul sputters on and on like an old Yugo import. Recall the low budget cars manufactur­ed in what is now Serbia. The Yugo's were certainly the result of low bidder perversion­s. You get what you pay for, right Rand Paul?

Rand Paul and his father Ron Paul both declared Ayn Rand to be our new American Ideology? Instead of Ayn Rand, we should go back and re-read Alexis de Tocqueville. He precisely predicted the competition between the USA and Russia and he predicted the rise of an egotistical American oligarchy very similar to what has come to us in the form of rancid Pay-Per-Vote™ tea party republican people in our congress and Judiciary. 

While we are at the library do some more research on economics.  Read some real economics like John Maynard Keynes and Joe Schumpeter and other real academics who did not cow-tail to any of the Goober Capitalism™ of their times. 

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GOOBER CAPITALISM™AND THE TRADEMARK "™" 

Government is not a For-Profit Business. But I trademarked the term Goober Capitalism™to protect future posts from being misquoted on some cable TV station.  

One more thing for all the fake patriots, our money-grubbing Pay-Per-Vote™ politicians there's an old Wall Street saying: "Take your cut and don't get greedy, because we send pigs to the slaughter." 

It's all over boys and girls.  Take your loot and go home. 

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