Twitter: @rodgermitchell; Search #monetarysovereignty
Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Mitchell’s laws:
●The more federal budgets are cut and taxes increased, the weaker an economy becomes.
●Austerity is the government’s method for widening the gap between rich and poor, which ultimately leads to civil disorder.
●Until the 99% understand the need for federal deficits, the upper 1% will rule.
●To survive long term, a monetarily non-sovereign government must have a positive balance of payments.
●Those, who do not understand the differences between Monetary Sovereignty and monetary non-sovereignty, do not understand economics.
●The penalty for ignorance is slavery.
●Everything in economics devolves to motive, and the motive is the gap.
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Just when I thought the Supreme Court justices couldn’t possibly become more right-wing corporate, they outdo themselves.
You probably thought “a wall” separates our government from religion, so that all religions would be treated equally.
You were wrong.
You probably thought everyone, no matter what their religious beliefs, had to obey the law.
You were wrong.
You probably thought men and women are to be treated with equal deference, under the law.
You were wrong.
You probably thought you understood the meaning of “freedom.”
You were wrong.
It’s official. America is a right-wing, male, Christian country.
A ‘Narrow’ Decision From The Narrow-Minded
By the 5-4 margin, (Supreme Court) justices ruled Monday that “closely held” corporations (i.e., those more than half owned by five people or fewer) may refuse, out of “sincerely held” religious beliefs, to provide certain contraceptive options to female employees as part of their health-care package.
Not to worry, writes Alito, this ruling is “very specific.” Not to fret, concurs Kennedy, this is not a ruling of “breadth and sweep.”
Apparently, it’s a narrow ruling because they say it’s a narrow ruling. Apparently, we are simply to trust them on that. But even if you could take them at their word, this would be a frightening decision, the imposition of religion masquerading as freedom of religion.
The “five” in the 5-4 decision all are right-wing, male Christians. Of the four dissenters, three are not male, and three are not Christian, and none are right-wing.
Presumably, the “five” also consider themselves mind-readers, who can separate “sincerely held” religious beliefs from religious beliefs that are not “sincerely held.” (Wanna bet the latter turn out to be believers in religions other than Christianity?)
Under the court’s logic, it’s difficult to see why a corporation owned by a family of devout Jehovah’s Witnesses can’t deny (insurance for) blood transfusions to its workers. Or why one owned by conservative Muslims can’t deny employment to women. Or why one owned by evangelical Christians can’t deny service to gay men and lesbians.
[Or one owned by ultra-orthodox Jews can’t refuse to allow insurance that pays for male doctors attending women.]
This is not just hypothetical. In the last decade, we’ve seen Christian pharmacists claim faith as a reason for refusing to fill — and in some cases, confiscating — contraceptive prescriptions. We’ve seen Muslim cabbies use the same “logic” in declining to serve passengers carrying alcohol.
There is a difference between the pharmacists and the cabbies — two differences, actually. The pharmacists are Christians refusing to provide health. The cabbies are just Muslims, dealing with a cab ride.
Pharmacists in at least 24 states have refused to sell birth control or emergency contraception to women. Some hospital emergency rooms refuse to provide emergency contraception to rape victims.
Denying help to rape victims is O.K., because some Christians “sincerely” don’t believe in contraception. Denying a taxi ride to anyone is a crime, because we really don’t care what Muslims think.
The Republican governor of Kansas has signed a law allowing pharmacists to refuse to fill prescriptions for drugs they believe may induce abortions.
Yes, I know. You may say, “It’s Kansas, where schools teach creationism. So what can you expect?” But this law was passed in 2012, two years before essentially the same kind of law was passed by the U.S. Supreme Court.
When Kansas leads the nation, you know you have problems.
The Roberts and Scalia court is operating under an assumption that Christianity is the United States’ semi-official religion and that it should be legislated and protected in a way that other faiths are not.
This is, of course, a misreading of the Constitution–despite what the deranged members of the Fox News Christian Evangelical Dominionist American public would like to believe.
How would conservatives and their agents respond if a company with Islamic beliefs (however defined) decided to impose its religious values on white, Christian, American employees?
Sharia hysteria would spread in such a way as to make the present day-to-day Islamophobia of the Right-wing echo chamber appear benign and muted by comparison.
Let’s briefly summarize the Supreme Court’s decision.
1. Christians do not have to follow any law if they “sincerely hold” that law violates their personal interpretation of their bible, (recognizing that “sincerely hold” is not defined and impossible to determine.
2. This right is limited to Christians, and not granted to any other religion. (That is why it is a “narrow” decision.)
3. Men know better than women, what is best for women’s health; restrictions only will be placed on women. (For instance, no law will prevent men from getting vasectomies.)
This is the same Supreme Court that ruled unlimited spending, which imposes on a captive nation, the political beliefs and actions of the wealthy and powerful, apparently is “freedom of speech.”
See the pattern? Whenever right-wing, male Christians wish to enhance their power over a captive multitude, they merely call it “freedom” (while marching and carrying the requisite American flag).
So if you’re not allowed to buy contraceptives, or to be insured for a legal abortion, or to study evolution, it’s because your rights are inferior to a right-wing, male Christian’s freedom.
The Supreme Court says so.
Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty
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Ten Steps to Prosperity:
1. Eliminate FICA (Click here)
2. Federally funded Medicare — parts A, B & D plus long term nursing care — for everyone (Click here)
3. Provide an Economic Bonus to every man, woman and child in America, and/or every state a per capita Economic Bonus. (Click here) Or institute a reverse income tax.
4. Free education (including post-grad) for everyone. Click here
5. Salary for attending school (Click here)
6. Eliminate corporate taxes (Click here)
7. Increase the standard income tax deduction annually
8. Increase federal spending on the myriad initiatives that benefit America’s 99% (Click here)
9. Federal ownership of all banks (Click here)
10. Tax the very rich (.1%) more, with higher, progressive tax rates on all forms of income. (Click here)
—–
10 Steps to Economic Misery: (Click here:)
1. Maintain or increase the FICA tax..
2. Spread the myth Social Security, Medicare and the U.S. government are insolvent.
3. Cut federal employment in the military, post office, other federal agencies.
4. Broaden the income tax base so more lower income people will pay.
5. Cut financial assistance to the states.
6. Spread the myth federal taxes pay for federal spending.
7. Allow banks to trade for their own accounts; save them when their investments go sour.
8. Never prosecute any banker for criminal activity.
9. Nominate arch conservatives to the Supreme Court.
10. Reduce the federal deficit and debt
No nation can tax itself into prosperity, nor grow without money growth. Monetary Sovereignty: Cutting federal deficits to grow the economy is like applying leeches to cure anemia.
Two key equations in economics:
1. Federal Deficits – Net Imports = Net Private Savings
2. Gross Domestic Product = Federal Spending + Private Investment and Consumption – Net Imports
THE RECESSION CLOCK
Vertical gray bars mark recessions.
As the federal deficit growth lines drop, we approach recession, which will be cured only when the lines rise. Federal deficit growth is absolutely, positively necessary for economic growth. Period.
#MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY
#Monetary Sovereignty - Mitchell 
It’s about even more than that. It’s about religion. Every one of the 5 justices voting against birth control is Catholic. (One of the 4 voting for birth control also is Catholic).
We edge ever closer to the kind of theocracy that drove the early immigrants to come to America.
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Organized religions always form alliances with the 1% against the 99%.
This is true with all religions and all nations.
Rich people and top clergymen reinforce each other. They form a symbiosis. The church justifies material inequality and oppression. In return, rich people justify the church’s mumbo-jumbo.
All nations have their respective forms of “prosperity theology,” which claims that you can get ahead by obeying rich people and church authorities, and by becoming as slimy as they are. Right-wing propaganda itself is religious (i.e. faith-based).
When a rich person, right-wing figure, or religious authority gets caught committing crimes, they all gush tears and beg for forgiveness in exactly the same way. When televangelist Jimmy Swaggart was embroiled in countless sexual scandals, he gushed waterfalls in front of the camera, saying “I have sinned!” Arizona School Superintendent John Huppenthal did the exact same thing when he was caught. Huppenthal (a staunch Catholic) sent emails from his government office in which he condemned the recipients of food stamps as “lazy pigs.” Huppenthal is also a notorious racist. He regularly attacks Spanish language media, saying they should be outlawed in the USA. He champions private school vouchers while serving as chief of Arizona’s public schools. Huppenthal repeatedly denied sending offensive emails, and when he was exposed, he did a Jimmy Swaggart in front of the cameras, shedding tears and declaring “I have sinned!” Naturally Huppenthal refuses to resign. And naturally Jimmy Swaggart carried on with his “ministry.” They are always repentant until the heat dies down, whereon they resume their evil.
In the USA it is an earthly crime and an eternal sin to be poor, even though the USA is a nation of poor people. Rich people and evangelical “Christians” urge poor Americans (i.e. most Americans) to hate themselves. Every other nation has folk traditions of men who were poor but wise and virtuous, and therefore more respectable than the rich and powerful. No such tales are told by the American poor. Instead, the American poor mock themselves and glorify their “betters.” They put signs on their walls saying, “If you’re so smart, why ain’t you rich?”
This self-blame is a treasure for the rich and powerful, and for televangelists. When organized religion gets caught up in politics (as religion always does) the result is mass fear, shame, hatred, poverty, and inequality. Average Americans do not love one another because they do not love themselves. Much of the blame for this falls on organized religion. (In Muslim lands, Shiites and Sunnis slaughter each other while crying, “God is great!” The disease is everywhere.)
The poor (including migrants) are lepers, cursed by god. They are to be shunned and exiled. Their poverty and their evil are contagious. They are zombies and vampires, always scheming to infect me. Their only purpose is to reduce me to being one of them. Their only mission is to drag me down into the hellhole they slither out of. I dare not help them, lest I catch their disease and multiply their number. They are like hoards of rats, forever scratching at the walls from outside, and trying to gnaw their way up from the sewer.
This is how I see all who are below me on the financial ladder. It is also how I am seen by all who are above me. For them, I am rat, a zombie, and a vampire; a contagious leper. The more they despise me, the more I adore them, and dream of being like them. Such is my wretchedness as an average American.
Being powerless to stop the growth of inequality, I direct my rage at those who cannot defend themselves. This makes me defend things like austerity, which make my own situation worse. My increase in poverty increases my hate, which increases my poverty, which increases my hate.
My hate is a security blanket that makes me feel safer and “smarter.” It makes everything simple. It explains how the world really works. It clarifies who are the “good guys” and “bad guys.” It is self-sustaining and self-justifying. It is my sword and my shield. It is brilliant, and divinely inspired. It is my essence.
In order to sustain my hate (my security blanket) I view economics as a zero-sum game. I believe that if I help anyone, I will squander what little I still have. I believe that someone else’s success always robs me of opportunities. Therefore it is not enough that I succeed. Others must fail. I smugly dismiss the facts of Monetary Sovereignty, because the facts would undermine my hate-filled, zero-sum worldview. The facts would subvert my sense of identity. There HAS to be a limit to how much dollars the US government can create. Otherwise what’s it all for?
This is the cycle of hate. Until mankind can learn to break it, mankind will remain crippled, and is perhaps doomed.
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Yes, that is the problem with theocracies. The government never can be wrong, because it speaks the word of God.
To disagree with the government is to disagree with God. To impoverish yourself on behalf of the government is to please God and enter heaven.
Anyone who obeys the dominant religion is “good,” and have all the rights. All those who do not obey the dominant religion are “bad,” and have no rights.
The irony of the American situation is that very few Christians actually subscribe to what Christ believed.
For instance, “Since you have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, you have done it unto me.”
In deporting those immigrant children, they deport Christ. The “religious” right-wing is the most un-Christian group I know.
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>>”In deporting those immigrant children, they deport Christ.”
Excellent observation. Profound and concise statements like that used to be called “zingers.”
>>”The ‘religious’ right-wing is the most un-Christian group I know.”
I know a man who used to be an evangelical Christian, but had left the clergy and became a clinical psychologist. I asked him why he changed. He said evangelical “Christians” are the most hostile group of all. He said they are worse than cops, soldiers, and so on. He showed me charts, graphs, and statistical analyses to prove it. Some of the items came from the US government. They were based on clinical studies, not pop psychology.
Of course, he was from the USA. My own view is that the same hostility saturates most or all organized religions. The Internet has many videos of Muslims using four-inch blades to saw off the heads of their live victims, all in the name of “Allah the merciful.”
The German philosopher Nietzsche looked at the hostility of churches in his day, and wrote, “The last Christian died on the cross.”
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Here’s a magazine for REAL Americans.
U-S-A!
U-S-A!
(Long link because it’s from Google images)
https://www.google.com/search?safe=off&hl=en&site=imghp&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=1280&bih=627&q=swat+magazine&oq=swat+magazine&gs_l=img.3..0j0i24l9.1597.4163.0.4530.13.13.0.0.0.0.113.1332.4j9.13.0.chm_loc%2Chmss2%3Dfalse%2Chms2min%3D10%2Chms2max%3D10%2Chmtb%3D120%2Chmta%3D1440%2Chmrde%3D0-0%2Chmde%3D1-0%2Chmmpp1%3D1-0%2Chmmpp2%3D1-0%2Chmffs%3D10000…0…1.1.48.img..0.13.1316._-WEXrKNDNQ
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The monster has begun to grow. America now is a plutocratic theocracy:
Translation: All contraceptive services — not just the four mentioned in the Hobby Lobby case — now may be rejected by “sincere” religious objections.
Expect every nut with a political cause to come out of the woodwork, and claim a “sincere religious objection.”
My opinion: The Citizens United and Hobby Lobby cases will define the Roberts court and its extreme right-wing justices, as among the worst of the past century. The former establishes a plutocracy; the latter establishes a theocracy.
Despite your other leanings, the future makeup of the Court may be the one reason to vote Democratic in the coming elections.
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[1] Once a state (any state) becomes a plutocracy, it also becomes a theocracy, no matter how secular the state may have seemed before. Plutocracy and theocracy justify each other. They reinforce and depend on each other. Inequality is “God’s will.” The rich rule by “divine right.” Genocidal wars of imperial conquest are “holy wars” against “infidels.” Anyone who questions official doctrine is a “blasphemer,” and must be stoned.
It’s all about maintaining hate and inequality.
During socialist revolutions, the main churches in power usually attack the revolutions, so that the clergy can remain in power alongside the plutocracy. The church and its loyalists commit so many atrocities that the revolutionaries are eventually forced to outlaw churches. In response, foreigners abroad call the revolutionaries “evil atheists” (e.g. “godless commies”).
An example was the Mexican Revolution. It started in 1910 against plutocrats, but since the Catholic Church sought to crush the revolution, and to maintain inequality, the church also had to be overthrown. (The church also controlled all education in Mexico – i.e. all schools — and had a well-honed program of brainwashing. This too had to be overthrown.) Church loyalists defended the plutocracy, and committed so many atrocities that the revolutionaries targeted them directly, leading to the Cristero War of 1926‒1929. Priests were hunted down and publicly hanged from telephone poles, their bodies left to rot. By 1935, half of Mexico had no priests at all. The Catholic Church’s program of hate and oppression had finally been broken.
In 1947 there was an offbeat movie titled “The Fugitive,” based on a Graham Greene novel. Actor Henry Fonda played a priest on the run from hoards of people who want to kill him for reasons that are never made clear. The movie does not name the country, but the priest wants to find a boat and sail to freedom in America. Novelist Graham Greene and movie director John Ford were both Catholics, so they both depict the priest and the Catholic Church as utterly innocent, and the people who oppose church power as utterly depraved. It was a nauseating movie. I’m talking extreme bias and hypocrisy.
Anyway the Catholic Church and the plutocrats lost the Cristero War, but today they once again co-rule Mexico. The church has canonized many church figures from the Cristero War, and condemned the revolutionaries as evil opponents of “property rights” (i.e. rich people’s rights to steal your property).
[2] Regarding the US Supreme Court’s attacks on women’s rights to control their own bodies, today’s “Christians” only care about getting a child born.
The instant after child is born, he or she is abandoned by the same “Christians.”
What a sick bunch of sociopaths. Muslims are just as bad in their own way.
Religion is mental illness.
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True that religion can’t be justified factually, and also true much evil is done in the name of religion. But religion persists.
So it must have some evolutionary advantage. I expect the advantage is group cohesion.
The human species evolved to be strongest in large groups, and religion seems to have more power in that direction than even does national politics.
We can deride religion for its murderous corruption and falsifying, but I suspect that in the long run, it has had survival benefits for the human species.
It is a vicious guard dog that protects us from greater evils, but always is ready to turn on us, so we have to keep it, but on a firm leash.
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I think your hypothesis is valid, but I think that other hypotheses may also be valid. For example, I think it’s possible that religious dogmas are a negative by-product of humans having developed comparatively large brains in a comparatively short time, such that the human brain is not entirely stable. The so-called “r-complex” (the primitive part of the brain) exists in an uneasy truce with the cerebrum. As a result, humans are often irrational, self-contradictory, and given to delusions, and living in dream worlds. Religious dogma is like believing in the tooth fairy or Santa Clause. It is a game of “My imaginary friend can beat up your imaginary friend.” When one person suffers from a delusion it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion, it is called religion.
Still, you were not addressing the veracity of religious beliefs, only their social and evolutionary utility. I get you’re your point, but I say there are other ways to foster and maintain group cohesion. For example, there is ideology. It too is fraught with delusions, but for sheer lunacy it cannot compare with claims about unseen sky gods and imaginary spirits.
On second that, yes it can compare with religion. If I say, “I love my country,” then this is a religious-style delusion. “My country” is not a person. It is a vague idea, and therefore can mean whatever I want it to mean. So it looks like we’re stuck with religion in one form or another.
I suppose I am saying that, when we speak of group cohesion, I would like to see mankind move beyond sub-groups, so that we regard all humans as a group. As things stand now, religion is too often used as an excuse for war and inequality.
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From a cartoon I saw recently:
BIG BOSS: The Supreme Court says I can impose my religious views on you.
Little employee: What about my religious views?
BIG BOSS; Pray they’re the same as mine.
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George Takei’s blistering response to #HobbyLobby: Could a Muslim Corp impose Sharia Law?
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Hobby Lobby – “Every Sperm is Sacred”
PROOF THAT WHITE, RIGHT-WING EXTREMIST MEN DON’T HAVE SEX
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