In the extended, you will find the text of my speech in Martinsville, VA on Monday. Tom Perriello announced a 22 city Economic Revival tour to help restore jobs to the Southside.

Hope you like it.   Read More »

 Register to vote, and send Voltage to play at the Democratic National Convention.  We have songs that are perfect for the event already written, and I am already the number one democrat at the DNC.

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Blind Acceptance of Unjust Economic Society
http://structuraleconissues.blogspot.com/2008/07/blind-acceptance-of-unjust-economic.html

We've all been blessed with the ability to rationally discern reality from illusion propped up by an aesthetic orthodoxy of economic fundamentalism. What do we realize when we arrive at a gas station to fill our car up with gas, visit the grocery, receive a bill from a hospital that shows a $200,000 balance that our insurance didn't pay, open the mailbox and find a foreclosure notice on our home, get the news that our office or factory is closing and moving overseas, or we find ourselves unable to send our child to a university because the cost is now beyond our comprehension? Are we then struck with a profound belief that the 'free market' coupled with 'globalization' will continue to provide us with economic security or does reality grasp us by the neck demanding our recognition.

We all know far to well what is transpiring globally - a select group of oligarchs (the business elite) that comprise less than 5% of the population have setup a system (totalitarian economic society) that ensures them ultimate power over the 95% of us that fall under their crushing 'boot'. Within their society we're continually bombarded by the frantic ranting of fanatic experts espousing the omnipotence and infallibility of the 'free market economy'. They've even instructed the most intellectually pliable among us in the fine art of simultaneously reconciling a multitude of contradictions into unquestioned compliance and acceptance of their orthodoxy. Essentially, all it requires is a citizenry that is indoctrinated into thinking in terms of proffered processes and dissuaded from deep thought.

When you can rob someone of all pretenses of personal power over their lives and instill in them a sense of hopelessness in the face of forces seemingly beyond their control you've essentially anesthetized them from taking meaningful actions at understanding the reality of their situation much less directly acting to change their condition. Feelings of "that's just the way it is", "we've done it to ourselves", "there's nothing we can do about it", and "we'll just have to adjust", begin to permeate the collective consciousness.
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The 'Free Market' Guise Is "Big Brother"
http://structuraleconissues.blogspot.com/2008/07/free-market-guise-is-big-brother.html

Funnel everything back onto the adaptive, receptive masses of the global citizenry instilling in them a feeling of inferiority whereby all their actions have and will be perceived to result in a continuing deterioration of their economic situation. It is a perversion of thought pandered through the totalitarian economic society that every injustice or inequality committed by the business elite is ultimately our fault due to our inherent inferiority. We are to blame for not adequately educating ourselves, for over spending, and generally not adjusting to the new world economic order.

In order to effectively perpetuate this ball-faced lie the media is used by the business elite to manipulate not just public opinion but thought itself. There now exists correct and incorrect thought and incorrect thought is portrayed as deviant thought to be identified and ultimately vanquished within our current authoritarian society. Thought is always constrained to only those ideas and concepts acceptable to those who wield power within a strictly regimented hierarchical society. Therefore within the totalitarian economic society complete uniformity of opinions throughout the entire global citizenry is a goal strived for constantly by the elite.

The totalitarian economic society can only effectively extend it tentacles of corruption, subversion, hate, and inequality into every crevice of existing equality through their complete obliteration of the self. Individuality is the enemy of the oppressor for it represents individual thought that disrupts the currents of illusion perpetuated by effective societal propaganda. In fact, the two primary aims of the totalitarian economic society is the complete subjugation of all global citizens under the 'heal' of the business elite and the maintenance of a perpetual vigilance targeted at rooting out and extinguishing all independent thought from whatever level of society it originates.
...

Not Inflation but Monopolistic Pricing
http://structuraleconissues.blogspot.com/2008/07/not-inflation-but-monopolistic-pricing.html
Inflation is an increase in prices that is triggered primarily from rising wages among the general population which in turn results in a significant consumption 'pop'. With more and more money flowing into the economic system from the acceleration in consumption spending by a citizenry flush with wealth - prices will trend higher. Companies realize that there are far more consumers that are willing to spend money on their products than products available to purchase - they therefore ramp up production to meet the demand. In the process, these companies will increase their prices for their products realizing full well that consumers that may never have purchased their products before may now want them given their new found wealth.

Prior to reaching an inflationary period the Federal Reserve will analyze trends in inflation indicators such as the M1 money supply and wage levels relative to worker productivity. If the money supply and wages start rising within an economy that has experienced negligible productivity increases this (along with other economic markers) typically indicates that an economy is moving towards an inflationary period. Wage increases within an economy that has experienced negligible productivity gains is indicative of a tight labor market and/or a well organized labor market that is in a position of strength relative to (capital) corporations. In the 1960's & 70's when the United States was at its economic nadir and labor unions represented a larger percentage of workers there were periods of inflation and one brief instance of stagflation.
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Wake up America - The Financial Pillage Continues
http://structuraleconissues.blogspot.com/2008/06/wake-up-america-financial-pillage.html

The U.S. dollar's fall against most of the major currencies is the result of a lack of confidence by speculators and governments in the future viability of our economy. We are a nation of debtors that produce very little of anything - not even our past ingenuity and technological base remains for it was erased by greed induced multinational companies scouring the planet in search of cheap labor. Why would anyone want to possess even one dollar bill since it represents a government in name only, a government that is completely beholden to special interest business elites that only use its shell to do their exclusive bidding. Therefore it is only logical that these same evil cloaked speculators realize that the United States is on the verge of a final pillaged by their fellow wicked business elite rulers. Why possess the paper money of a shell of a nation whose poor citizens are bleeding profusely on the pavement (from globalization) unable to muster any meaningful spending power without acquiring debt that they can no longer find or afford.

Only the special interests of a few well heeled business elites matter to our governmental representatives - you're of no concern to them, just a mere citizen. National interests are no longer relevant because nations are fast becoming just fascades that are used by the business elite to exact their complete control over every aspect of our lives - our wallets will be completely drained into the bottomless cauldrons of a seething greed that covers the entire financial landscape of this corrupt totalitarian economic society.
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The Human Toll of Our Economic Death
http://structuraleconissues.blogspot.com/2008/06/human-toll-of-our-economic-death.html

Sitting out in the car last fall waiting for Diana to step out of the last remaining department store in a dilapidated mall that had been dying slowly for a few short years, it occurred to me that the moment represented the collapse of our nation. This store was closing its doors forever, when the setting sun caressed it in shadows - there would be no returning. Looking over the quiet, dark, and desolate concrete that the encased towering glass opening one couldn't help but wonder what went wrong, for when it happened we were all in the midst of flying head first towards the payment with hair streaming back - there was no halting the terrible fall.

This had mall been just a reflection of the general capital destruction (both material and human) that had been occurring even prior to the 'Great Fall' which happened in just a few sharply defined months. Through a combination of factors both inherent to the distorted economic society and symptomatic of the resulting consumption crisis that grew unabated as real wages steadily dropped lights everywhere started their crescendo of darkening.
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Consumption Crisis Resulting From Distorted Economy
http://structuraleconissues.blogspot.com/2008/06/consumption-crisis-resulting-from.html

Everything that transpires on our planet cycles within one of many natural loops given that the entire biosphere is our self contained spaceship hurtling us on its elliptical track around the Sun. Space engulfs this living organically lush planet reaching around it with a cold vacuum of nothing other than plasma energies that race across the poles ebbing from our pulsing star. All the various natural systems stabilize across a range of dynamic spectrums merging, mingling, and converging across boundaries that are in a constant state of flux. Nothing is at any instant in a state of equilibrium but only continually approaching a natural steady state. The key word is approaching, since the planetary events are like a boiling pot of water vigorously active but never so stimulated to exceed the natural limits placed upon their expanding volume of molecular excitement.

Chaotic systems both natural and artificially induced (like our contorted, manipulated economic society) always involve the excitement of a multitude of variables that operate within a unique closed system. It is still a system even though most of the variables have been distorted in order to bring short-term gain to a few at the expense of those many who continually grope for income with outstretched hands. Any one of the perturbed variables may tilt the entire system towards temporary instability. Granted a multiplicative effect of income generation is possible by generously infusing the system with income but only through meaningful production either creative or actual transformation of material into useable capital is unperturbed economic steady state migration possible.
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Caress Us with Lies from a Corrupt System
http://structuraleconissues.blogspot.com/2008/06/caress-us-with-lies-from-corrupt-system.html

The cackles can be heard coming from behind every wall of this 'windowless dirty room' that where trapped within - with little or no hope of escape. Don't worry every now and then they'll throw us a dark moldy piece of stale bread from that opening in the wall to our far right. Word is that those on the other side who call themselves 'controllers' have nightly banquets within crystal palaces. The controllers belong to a select group of privileged citizens who are the lobbyists, business elite, corrupt elements of the intelligentsia, and least we forget the governmental representatives that have been 'body snatched' by the business elite through their lobbyists.

We've been dropped here because when we were working outside within their society we had the indiscretion to engage in wasteful spending. Not just your average supplementing of our paltry subsistence wages through excessive borrowing (credit card, and 2nd mortgage debt) at their financial 'company stores' but the heinous act of causing a correction within their economic society. We neglected to cut back our daily meals from 3 to 1 in order to save some of our meager income at their banks.
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Oil Block Induced Profit Inflation - Crumbling Economy
http://structuraleconissues.blogspot.com/2008/06/oil-block-induced-profit-inflation.html

Immediately nationalize all the oil companies whose corporate offices reside within the borders of the United States. Seize all assets belonging to the oil companies and their associated oil block (OPEC, oil speculators, and oil companies) thieves' intent upon exacting a short term extraction of available income from every sector of our dying economy. The consuming nation-states should use any and all means at their disposal to ensure that an adequate oil supply is maintained. We cannot afford to idly watch while the entire contrived totalitarian economic society swirls into an income drain gasping with flailing arms for consumption that is mostly chocked off through artificially imposed oil company profit inflation, and speculator income extraction enhanced through OPEC production limits.

Stop the profit inflation spurred on by the oil 'block' intent upon financially razing each and every global citizen leaving behind a barren economic landscape incapable of sustaining consumption spending. With the consumption 'machine' already sputtering from lack of any real wage growth among the working class (even during a period of unprecedented productivity gains) the assault by the oil 'block' on the wallets of this most important group of citizens further erodes their already strained ability to spend. With each and every day the erosion of potential spending from this majority of the citizenry is spilling every additional dollar of potential spending into an encroaching sea of oil profits.
...

Many more articles that break through the wall of illusion...
http://structuraleconissues.blogspot.com/

I'm not advocating anarchy, nor am a talking about a political uprising across the country. What I am asking is this:

"How much are Americans willing to take before they rebel either in an armed coup or a non-violent coup against the status quo?"

Four points:
1) Our government is corrupt and supressing the middle and lower class working people.
2) Business is corrupt and suppressing the middle and lower class working people.
3) Our rights are being trampled on almost daily.
4) Media supports the above by ignoring it.

These are the very reasons that colonists revolted against the British empire.

Thoughts please.

Read extended for this article by the AP....makes me sick.   Read More »

This letter appears in todays issue of the Martinsville Bulletin.
Read the extended post for my reply.
Thanks all!
Peace

Save the United States from becoming a Third World country.
Both of the (presumptive) presidential candidates are against drilling for oil in the Anwar province in Alaska or drilling for natural gas off our shores. I think if we held back contributions to their campaigns until they changed their minds on this issue, they may get the message.
If the policies of the United States are not changed, we may quickly become a Third World country. If the citizens of the United States do not persuade our political leaders to change their minds, we may go broke and be deeply indebted to China.
We have billions of cubic feet of untapped natural gas, which could be used to power autos, trucks and other machinery. And we have huge deposits of oil in Alaska. But our own political leaders are refusing to let us develop these resources.
The leaders of the U.S. House and Senate will not let this issue come to the floor for a vote. Everyone should be putting pressure on their congressmen and senators to let this issue come to a vote. It seems unnatural for us to be building refineries in Iraq but not in the U.S. We have not built any new refineries in the last 30 years. We are not preparing well for the future.
I want to take this opportunity to thank 5th District U.S. Rep. Virgil H. Goode Jr. for the steadfast support he has given to try to make this drilling possible. We need more people like him representing us. Please write letters, make phone calls, or whatever you can do to get the attention of those who are now in office to realize there are alternatives to mortgaging our future to the oil producing nations.
Ronald A. Ressel Jr.   Read More »

I have been reading posts by certain...ah hem...shall we say...Demicans? Posting here as Democrats. I'm not talking about those folks we know are Dems that question, I'm talking about those that post crap straight off the RNC website, which I monitor.

I will not name names or screen id's, you already know who you are.

If you don't realize just how transparent you are, then the title of this posts fits you. Lets see how you like your own medicine...OK?

About the Senate vote on cloture on the Renewable Energy and Jobs Creation Act (HR 6049). Hope you enjoy! JC   Read More »

I have a question for those that claim to be long term Democrats, but say they can not support the nominee. Are you telling the rest of us, you have ALWAYS been satisfied in the past with the nominee? No if's, no ands, and no buts?

"Tyrants have always some slight shade of virtue; they support the laws before destroying them." Voltaire

It is obvious that the Democratic Party is rapidly unifying. All the signs are there. Hillary Clinton deserves much of the credit! It has now become clear that the most offensive alleged Clinton backers posting on the Internet were never really Clinton supporters. As many people know, Rush Limbaugh launched a major disruption campaign designed to divide Democrats called "Operation Chaos". He urged his listeners to pretend to be Clinton supporters and create chaos in the Democratic Party. I recognize some of the Free Republic.com wingnuts who are Limbaugh fans posting here pretending to be Clinton supporters. They really are just Internet political terrorists. They are really frightened by the excellent prospects for huge Democratic gains at all levels this November. There is no dirty political tactic that these enemies of honest political discourse would not use! Real Clinton supporters would never support an openly anti-Choice candidate like McCain. The Supreme Court Justices that McCain would appoint are exactly the kind of Justices that Bush appointed. McCain would continue to cut funding to equal opportunity programs for women and minorities. McCain would continue the Iraq War. McCain would oppose almost every single idea supported by Hillary Clinton during her campaign. Obama would support almost every single major idea Clinton supported. Democrats want more jobs. Democrats want universal health care. We want open government. We want less influence for lobbyists and huge international corporations. We do not want oil companies, HMO's and drus companies running our government. Democrats want to de-politicize the Department of Justice and the federal courts corrupted by the Republicans. Democrats want to address the high cost of a college education. We want to really promote alternative energy. We want to attack price-gouging by large corporations. We want to rebuild our economic infrastructure before it is completely collapses. McCain will only continue the failed policies of the Bush Republicans. He is no longer a reformer (if he ever really was one). McCain voted with the Bush White House over 95% of the time since he started his White House bid! Democrats are not idiots. We do not want a third term for Bush by electing a "McBush". We want to control both the House and the Senate. We want our government back and are uniting to get it back!

Subject: Now that the primaries are over, remember what is truly at stake!!! Hi to all! This is kind of long, but I felt like I just had to write it. I was agonized today to see a column in "The Tennesseean" in which the writer pitched the case for many Hillary Clinton supporters to wind up voting for John McCain, and claimed that this is what is happening across our country. According to this columnist, women who supported Clinton are saying they will now vote for McCain, and the writer brandished a supposed national poll showing McCain currently with an 8-point lead among white women. Admittedly, the columnist was from the right, which throws her perspective off right away. After all, she has an agenda to help urge that switch along. But I was agonized, quite literally, to think that any woman who has called herself a Democrat or even an independent could for one second even contemplate voting for John McCain in the fall, simply because her candidate did not win the Denocrtic nomination. (That goes for men, too!) Now that the bruising divisiveness of our primary process is behind us, it is time for all of us to remember what is truly at stake here. This is no peacetime, everything's going great election cycle. Our country is in serious trouble, and perhaps standing at the precipous from which one more false step will lead to its permanent decline. The matter at stake that has lasting ramifications for many decades to come is that of the Supreme Court. Seven of nine justices currently serving were appointed by Republican presidents. As many as four seats on the Court may come up in the next four years, and almost certainly two at minimum will open up for appointments. John McCain is now firmly on record as saying he will nominate for those appointments the exact same kind of justices and federal judges we have seen from George W. Bush, and that means only one thing for those women who vote for him -- fewer rights. Fewer rights in employment and equal pay. Fewer in terms of sexual harassment. Fewer reproductive rights. The list is lengthy. As is the list of issues on which McCain's so-called "straight talk express" has been very clear in putting him on the record in the past three months: continued war in Iraq; no diplomacy when it comes to our enemies (so we make decisons in a vacuum); continued "tax cut" deficit spending that hurts our economy while benefiting the rich. It goes on and on from the man whose Senate record shows he voted the Bush line 95% of the time! It's Bush Lite -- sound centrist, but less substance! And read what the "Guardian" newspaper of London wrote today about how Republicans want to try to exploit any rifts in our party: "With the Democratic nomination settled, the Republican party are seeking to exploit divisions within the Democratic party and peel away Democrats and independents uneasy with Barack Obama. As soon as it became clear Obama had clinched the nomination on Tuesday night, the Republican national committee's research arm began releasing memos highlighting criticism of the Illinois senator from fellow Democrats. The Republicans memos featured primary-campaign comments that are critical of Obama from Democrats, including former president Jimmy Carter, senators Joe Biden and Chris Dodd, former Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack, and of course Hillary Clinton. "Democrats vs Obama," the rubric is named. The Republican party hopes to capitalise on the lingering dissension among Clinton supporters, and to split them off from the party while they are still angry. The quarry: 17.5m Americans who voted for Clinton in the primaries. The party also hopes to show independent voters that not even the Democrats are united behind Obama. "The longer the Democrats have [to take] to heal these divisions, the longer it gives McCain to organise in the key states and raise money," said David Johnson, an Atlanta-based Republican strategist. "It keeps them from attacking him and trying to tie McCain to Bush. If his own party has so many questions about him, how can the American people support him?" Republicans say that using Democrats' own words against Obama effectively augments attacks from McCain surrogates like former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, who this morning said, "for all of Barack Obama's charm, that he doesn't have the experience to lead our economy at a time like this." It's time for us all to take a giant deep breath and begin to heal from the primaries -- and then to consider the benefits our party has derived from those primaries and the risks of not following through with that process all the way to the White House. We have benefited from the 56-primary Obama-Clinton struggle because the nominee of our party will now stand as a much stronger candidate as a result of that process. The fact that the primary process actually did what it was constructed to do this time, and was not short-circuited, means that presumptive nominee Barack Obama emerges better tested and better ready for the fall. There was no free pass this time for either Obama or Clinton, and whoever emerged was sure to be strenghtened by the process and far less likely to get KO'ed by a surprise attack later. There is a far lesser chance of a John Kerry "Swift-Boat" type attack being sprung on candidates so well vetted by the primary process. Both Clinton and Obama became tougher fighters during the primaries, and that will serve both well in their political futures. We are stronger as a party now, having drawn in millions of young and new voters, as well as attracting some Republicans and independents who for the first time have declared themselves Democrats in the primaries. We are poised by any reasonable measure for victory on a national scale that may be of historic proportions -- not only in the presidential race, but in the House and Senate as well -- IF we can heal and join together to do this. It quite literally is ours to lose, and the decisions each one of us makes between now and November will decide our own fate as a party and as a nation. Do we want to help our nation emerge from this cave we are living in? Or do we want to yet again fall back into the darkness? It's up to each of us. I hope you'll reflect on this, and pray about it, and then join me in reaching toward the future! Thanks for all you do! Jim Steele Vice Chair Lincoln County Democratic Party (Tennessee)

felt that for those who had not seen it, it may be of interest. I recieved this from Hillary's campaign this morning. Dear James, I wanted you to be one of the first to know: on Saturday, I will hold an event in Washington D.C. to thank everyone who has supported my campaign. Over the course of the last 16 months, I have been privileged and touched to witness the incredible dedication and sacrifice of so many people working for our campaign. Every minute you put into helping us win, every dollar you gave to keep up the fight meant more to me than I can ever possibly tell you. On Saturday, I will extend my congratulations to Senator Obama and my support for his candidacy. This has been a long and hard-fought campaign, but as I have always said, my differences with Senator Obama are small compared to the differences we have with Senator McCain and the Republicans. I have said throughout the campaign that I would strongly support Senator Obama if he were the Democratic Party's nominee, and I intend to deliver on that promise. When I decided to run for president, I knew exactly why I was getting into this race: to work hard every day for the millions of Americans who need a voice in the White House. I made you -- and everyone who supported me -- a promise: to stand up for our shared values and to never back down. I'm going to keep that promise today, tomorrow, and for the rest of my life. I will be speaking on Saturday about how together we can rally the party behind Senator Obama. The stakes are too high and the task before us too important to do otherwise. I know as I continue my lifelong work for a stronger America and a better world, I will turn to you for the support, the strength, and the commitment that you have shown me in the past 16 months. And I will always keep faith with the issues and causes that are important to you. In the past few days, you have shown that support once again with hundreds of thousands of messages to the campaign, and again, I am touched by your thoughtfulness and kindness. I can never possibly express my gratitude, so let me say simply, thank you. Sincerely, Hillary Rodham Clinton If you feel you have received this message in error, we apologize. You can unsubscribe at any time. Privacy Policy Paid for by Hillary Clinton for President Contributions to Hillary Clinton for President are not deductible for federal income tax purposes. Corporate contributions are prohibited by law. All content © 2008 Hillary Clinton for President 4420 North Fairfax Drive, Arlington, VA 22203

Thanks for the memories and the music.............

The following is a list of John McCain's Top 10 Misstatements and Outright Deceptions:
1. McCain doesn't even know who is in charge in Iran.
2. Iraq/Iran, Sunni/Shia: McCain doesn't know the difference.
3. McCain still thinks Czechoslovakia (which split into two countries in 1993) exists.
4. McCain wrongly claimed that Baghdad was mostly normal.
5. McCain called Baghdad market safe.
6. McCain can't even remember how little he knows about the economy.
7. McCain falsely claimed he never requested pork.
8. McCain falsely claimed that tax cuts increased government revenues.
9. McCain's claim to be untainted by special interest money is false.
10. McCain wrongly claimed he never supported amnesty.

A salute and best wishes to all veterans and serving military!


Go Navy.....beat Army!