Coming Next Year: Obama’s Inflation
http://www.newsmax.com/morris/Obama_stimulus_inflation/2009/03/05/188690.html
Thursday, March 5, 2009 9:03 AM
By: Dick Morris and Eileen McGann Article Font Size
During the past five months, the money supply in the United States has almost tripled, increasing by 271 percent, according to the Federal Reserve Board.
Have car sales tripled? Home purchases? Consumer spending? Corporate investment? Not only have they not tripled, but they have all declined more sharply than they have since at least the recession of 1981-82, and perhaps since the Great Depression.
So where is the money? If it isn't being spent, where is it?
It is being parked, squirreled away. Consumers are using it to pay down their credit-card balances, pay off their mortgages, reduce their student loans, make the payments on the car sitting in the driveway — not the one in the dealer's lot. Businesspeople are buying T-bills, investing the money and saving it. They aren't spending, either.
But one day, this recession, despite Obama's best efforts, will end and things will begin to look up again. Then we can expect all of this money to come out of its parking space and get back on the highway of commerce. All at once. The inevitable result will be double-digit hyperinflation.
Since the spending and borrowing splurge is not confined to Washington but is being mimicked all over the world, the inflation will not strike just one country but will be global in scope.
The first global inflation in our history (except, perhaps, right after World Wars I and II), it will confront our policymakers with yet another unprecedented challenge and send them back, once more, to their economics texts. There, they will find that the only remedy for global inflation is global recession, a la Paul Volker.
Having just emerged from a ruinous depression, nobody will be in the mood for more unemployment, but that is just what will have to happen to cool off the inflation and break the inflationary psychology that is likely to set in.
The point of this gloom and doom is that all this pain is entirely preventable. It will be caused by Obama's excessive spending and trillion-dollar-plus deficits. This spending, of questionable utility in overcoming this recession/depression, is so far out of line with what the economy can handle that it will do more harm than good when the inflation hits.
Proof that Obama spending will have little impact on the depression is the vast increase in money supply with no commensurate improvement in the economy. Providing money, via spending hikes or tax cuts, does not guarantee that the money will be spent. Tax cuts can be saved and spending increases, while surely spent once (on the initial project), can lose their multiplier effect rapidly as wage-earners on the government payroll bank their money just like those who get tax cuts will do.
Getting out of this economic mess depends on consumer and business confidence, a faith that Obama is eroding with his looming tax increases as rapidly as he tries to kindle it with his excessive spending.
None of this should come as any news to Obama. He probably knows all this. But he is determined to pass his agenda of bigger government, nationalized healthcare and vastly greater spending even at the price of inflation and subsequent recession. He puts ideology first and the economy a distant second.
The stock market has figured out his priorities and is responding accordingly. One can only hope that voters also eventually realize what is going on.
© 2009 Dick Morris & Eileen McGann
© 2009 Newsmax. All rights reserved
Obama: $1 trillion Tax Increase in the Midst of Recession
http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/paul_ryan_interview/2009/03/05/188837.html
GOP's Ryan: 'Gusher of Spending' Worsens Recession
Thursday, March 5, 2009 1:42 PM
By: Jim Meyers Article Font Size
Rep. Paul Ryan, the highest ranking Republican on the House Budget Committee, tells Newsmax it’s “just incredible” that President Barack Obama and the Democrats are seeking to raise taxes by more than $1 trillion in the midst of a recession.
The Wisconsin legislator also said the so-called stimulus bill is really an attempt to pander to special interest groups that support the Democrats.
Newsmax’s Ashley Martella asked Rep. Ryan for his thoughts on the huge budget proposed by the Obama administration.
“It’s the biggest government budget I have ever seen. I could just leave it at that, but let me give you a few points,” Ryan said.
[Editor's Note: Watch Paul Ryan discuss Obama’s dangerous economic strategy - Go Here Now]
“This budget in its first year proposes to take the size of our government to the largest it’s been since 1945. It doubles our national debt within eight years. In fact, for all the criticism of the Bush administration and their increase in the debt, this budget surpasses eight years of debt increases in the Bush administration within two years of the Obama administration.
“And during a recession they’re trying to impose a $1.4 trillion tax increase on the economy, on work, on income, on saving, on investing, on energy, on manufacturing. It strikes me as just incredible that in the middle of a recession, of all times, they would bring a budget that seeks to impose a gusher of new spending and all of these new taxes.
“And even with the high tax increase they’re talking about, they will never get to a balanced budget. They don’t even propose to try to get to a balanced budget. In fact, under this budget they’re proposing, our deficits are the highest that they’ve ever been.”
Martella asked Rep. Ryan if the stimulus package is going to work.
“I don’t think so, and that’s one of the reasons I voted against it,” Ryan responded.
“The whole notion that you can borrow and spend your way to prosperity has been refuted by economic evidence. It didn’t work when we tried the same policies in the ‘30s. It didn’t work when the Japanese tried the same policies in the ‘90s.
“It balloons our borrowing. It makes our borrowing costs go up. It puts bad pressure on the Federal Reserve.
“But even if you are committed to this economic doctrine of borrowing and spending to get the economy moving, most of the spending doesn’t occur for a couple of more years, and so it doesn’t even occur during the time when they say the spending should occur to get this economy going again.
“It’s more of a plan to put in place a very large government and it’s a down payment on this big budget they put in place…
“I think what they ended up doing was putting in the stimulus bill the things they’ve always wanted to do, to set aside the pent-up demand from their special interest spending lobby groups and then call it stimulus.”
Martella noted that Ryan is one of the leaders of an effort to institute a line item veto that would force legislators to vote on individual appropriations.
“The president ought to be able to take the pork out of these bills he signs and send it back to Congress and force Congress to take a clean up or down vote on these ridiculous spending items,” Ryan explained.
“Just last Wednesday the House passed a bloated spending bill with 9,000 earmarks in it — $250,000 to renovate the old DuPont family tugboat, a couple of hundred thousand dollars for advertising expenses for two convenience store owners in Louisville, Kentucky, money for swine odor research. On and on and on the list goes.
“What happens is the president has to sign this huge [budget] bill or veto the huge bill. Let’s give the president the ability to embarrass some of this pork out of the budget send it back and make us vote on it individually.”
If tax and spend plans don’t rejuvenate the economy, Martella asked, are Republicans prepared to make an issue of it in 2010?
“Absolutely,” Ryan declared. “We’re making an issue of it right now by saying we don’t think this is the right direction.”
[Editor's Note: Watch Paul Ryan discuss Obama’s dangerous economic strategy - Go Here Now]
© 2009 Newsmax. All rights reserved.
Obama Enemies List: Cramer "Used to make “Six Figure” Donations to Democrats"
http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/cramer_obama_panic/2009/03/05/188944.html
Jim Cramer: Obama Created an Atmosphere Of Panic
Thursday, March 5, 2009 4:52 PM
By: David A. Patten Article Font Size
CNBC “Mad Money” host Jim Cramer says if he’s on the administration’s enemies list he’s in good company because President Obama’s agenda “is crushing nest eggs around the country.”
Cramer, who says he used to make “six figure” donations to Democrats before his media contract prohibited it, described talk host Rush Limbaugh as “a genius of the medium.”
On Wednesday, Limbaugh said he and Cramer were on the White House enemies list, and predicted the administration “was going to shut Cramer up pretty soon, too, but he’ll go down with a fight.”
Limbaugh, Cramer says, was “dead right.”
“I was on my hackles when I heard White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs’ answer to a question about my pointed criticism of the president,” Cramer wrote in a column posted Thursday on Mainstreet.com.
Cramer has been a strong critic of Obama’s, suggesting his budgetary problems have been destroying wealth by hurting the stock market.
On Wednesday, Gibbs said: “I’m not entirely sure what he’s pointing to, to make some of the statements. And you can go back and look at any number of statements he’s made in the past about the economy and wonder where some of the backup for those are, too.”
Cramer’s response to the blatant slam on Thursday: “Obama has undeniably made things worse by creating an atmosphere of fear and panic rather than an atmosphere of calm and hope.”
Cramer said he personally agrees with Obama’s agenda, but says that in the current economic circumstances it is “radical,” and should be put on hold until the business climate improves.
“If that makes me an enemy of the White House,” Cramer wrote, “then call me a general of an army that Obama may not even know exists -- tens of millions of people who live in fear of having no money saved when they need it and who get poorer by the day.”
© 2009 Newsmax. All rights reserved.
Obama's Enemies List brings back Nixon-era Dirty Tricks
http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/obama_rush_debate/2009/03/05/188824.html
Rush Vs. Obama: Limbaugh Challenges President to Debate
Thursday, March 5, 2009 1:15 PM
By: David A. Patten Article Font Size
Seizing the offensive in his ongoing war of words with the Obama administration, radio giant Rush Limbaugh is challenging President Barack Obama to appear on his program “without a teleprompter” for a straightforward debate on issues important to the American people.
Limbaugh told his audience Wednesday that attacks against him are being orchestrated by Obama “flunkies” who are “feasting on their own arrogance.”
“But I have an idea,” Limbaugh said, “if these guys are so impressed with themselves, and if they are so sure of their correctness, why doesn't President Obama come on my show? We will do a one-on-one debate of ideas and policies. . . They're claiming they wanted me all along. They wanted me to be the focus of attention. So let's have the debate!
“I am offering President Obama to come on this program -- without staffers, without a teleprompter, without note cards -- to debate me on the issues. Let's talk about free markets versus government control. Let's talk about nationalizing health care and raising taxes on small business. Let's talk about the New Deal versus Reaganomics. Let's talk about closing Guantanamo Bay, and let's talk about sending $900 million to Hamas. Let's talk about illegal immigration and the lawlessness on the borders.”
Limbaugh suggested additional topics as well.
“Let's talk about massive deficits and the destroying of opportunities of future generations. Let's talk about ACORN, community agitators, and the unions that represent the government employees which pour millions of dollars into your campaign, President Obama. Let's talk about your elimination of school choice for minority students in the District of Columbia. Let's talk about your efforts to further reduce domestic drilling and refining of oil. Let's talk about your stock market,” he said.
The talk show host added he would send his private jet to pick up Obama, and would pay for all expenses so taxpayers would bear none of the cost.
Referring to news reports that he is trying to marginalize the Republican Party and expose its dearth of leadership, Limbaugh compared the strategy to Nixon-era dirty tricks. And he listed others who he said are being targeted by the Obama administration.
“Your flunkies are targeting a private citizen with an enemies list that so far has three or four names on it: mine; Rick Santelli; Jim Cramer at CNBC; and let's not forget Joe the Plumber, who your allies in Ohio also tried to destroy,” Limbaugh said. “The difference is that Joe the Plumber does not have his own microphone every day. They're shutting Santelli up at CNBC. They're going to shut Cramer up pretty soon, too, but he'll go down with a fight. That isn't going to happen here, to me. I'm calling. I'm ready. I'll do everything I can to facilitate it. You're a very courageous man, Mr. President. I am, after all, just The Last Man Standing. If you take me out, if you can wipe me out in a debate and prove to the rest of America that what I say is senseless and wrong, do you realize you will own the United States of America? You will have no opposition. You have America's media in your back pocket.”
Republicans are coming to Limbaugh’s defense en masse. Karl Rove, commentator and former adviser to George W. Bush, charged Wednesday on Fox News that the Obama administration is practicing “misdirection” in its attacks against Limbaugh to divert attention from a $410 billion spending bill laden with special-interest earmarks.
Rove described the tactic as “old-style politics” that fall short of Obama’s campaign pledge to elevate the nation’s political dialog. And he questioned the administration’s priorities.
“The idea that the White House is devoting all this time and energy and effort when we’ve got all these myriad problems facing the country, that they’ve got senior aides in the White House gaming out how they can make Rush Limbaugh the headline in the evening news seems to me to be a little petty, small, and really inappropriate,” Rove said.
Also jumping to Limbaugh’s defense was the chairman of the Republican Senatorial Committee, Sen. John Cornyn of Texas. In an e-mail to Republicans, Cornyn termed Obama’s anti-Limbaugh campaign an “outrage,” adding it amounted to “a coordinated and cynical political attack game – the very diversion and manipulation then-candidate Obama attacked the McCain campaign for last year.”
In an op-ed in Thursday’s Washington Post, House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, charged Obama is trying to make Limbaugh the issue to distract voters from GOP proposals on fixing the economy.
“This diversionary tactic will not create a single job or help a single family struggling in today's economic crisis. And that is where our focus should be,” Boehner wrote.
There was no immediate response from the White House regarding Limbaugh’s offer to debate the president.
© 2009 Newsmax. All rights reserved.
Obama Policies Feed Market Panic
http://moneynews.newsmax.com/headlines/obama_selloff_dow_crash/2009/03/05/188936.html?s=al&promo_code=7B9D-1
Thursday, March 5, 2009 4:40 PM
By: Greg Brown Article Font Size
All week, negative headlines have competed with the slumping market ticker, including early news Thursday that General Motors might well go bankrupt despite billions in taxpayer loans. (Newsmax graphic)
Since Barack Obama was sworn in as president on Jan. 20, stocks have tumbled to record lows — with investors losing an estimated $2.5 trillion in market value.
The trend continued Thursday, with the Dow closing down 281 points, a 4.1 percent drop for the day. Since Inauguration Day, the Dow has fallen 20.4 percent.
All week, negative headlines have competed with the slumping market ticker, including early news Thursday that General Motors might well go bankrupt despite billions in taxpayer loans.
As selling sped up, Citigroup traded at one point under $1 a share, General Electric dipped under $7, and international financial names like Barclays saw declines of nearly 30 percent on the day.
"Everybody is so bearish right now that you would expect to be in the midst of a counter-trend rally," Steven Goldman, market strategist at Weeden & Co, told CNNMoney.
"But the implosion in the banking and insurance sectors is just overwhelming."
Obama has moved aggressively on economic and fiscal policies. But investors — if the market is any indication — are giving his initiatives a chilly response.
On Feb. 17, Obama signed a stimulus bill worth $787 billion — the largest spending bill in history. But the Congressional Budget Office indicates only 20 percent of the funds will be spent this year, and the nonpartisan group suggests that the package could do more economic harm than good.
Obama also gave the green light to an omnibus $431 billion House Democratic spending bill laden with close to 9,000 pork-barrel spending items.
Plus, Obama revealed that he plans increase marginal tax rates on those earning more than $250,000.
The new taxes will yield more than $1 trillion in government revenues, but some economists believe the news of increased taxation will suck the wind out of any economic recovery.
In the middle of the market meltdown Thursday, Obama spent the day talking about a massive increase in healthcare spending, including a proposal in his budget that sets aside $634 billion in a 10-year reserve fund to pay for expanded care.
The drumbeat of bad news was too much for stocks, including:
• U.S. bankruptcy filings surging 31 percent in 2008.
• More than 600,000 Americans filing claims for jobless benefits for a fifth straight week, the worst performance since 1982.
• U.S. factory orders falling for a sixth straight month in January, official data showed.
• One in every eight U.S. households with mortgages ended 2008 behind on payments or in foreclosure, reported the Mortgage Bankers Association.
"The auto industry is effectively being wiped out or nationalized, however you want to think about it," Rick Campagna, portfolio manager at Provident Investment Council in Pasadena, Calif., told Reuters.
"Now you're talking about a good portion, if not all, of the banking sector being wiped out. It's just getting relatively dire."
© 2009 Newsmax. All rights reserved.
Coming Economic Collapse?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Schiff
"In his January 14, 2009 radio show, [Peter]Schiff discussed moving out of cities in anticipation of rising crime rates, food shortages, fuel shortages, and rolling blackouts. He also mentioned the need for families to stock up on guns and ammunition as a part of what he expects. This quasi-survivalist stance demonstrates how serious he expects the unfolding economic downturn will be.[15]
[edit] Writings
Schiff is the author of two books:
Crash Proof: How to Profit from the Coming Economic Collapse, 2007, ISBN 978-0470043608
The Little Book of Bull Moves in Bear Market, 2008, ISBN 978-0470383780
[edit] Criticism
[edit] Predictions
This article may contain original research or unverified claims. Please improve the article by adding references. See the talk page for details. (February 2009)
Not all of Schiff's predictions made in Crash Proof or in publicly available transcripts and statements before July 2007 have held out to be true as of January 2009.
Schiff's prediction that the US Dollar would collapse along with the housing bubble has so far not come to pass, with the US Dollar Index rising from 80 points in July 2007 to 83 points in January 2009, a climb which actually accelerated as the US financial crisis became more acute in September 2008.
Similarly, Schiff's prediction that the US financial crisis would cause a greater fall in US equity prices than in non-US equity prices has so far been inaccurate as in 2007-2008 most international equity markets fell further than the US markets. Using the broadest available measures, the MSCI US Broad Market Index was down 34.83% in 2008, while the MSCI All Country Ex-US Index was down 42.86%. [16].
Gold and precious metals during this period have performed significantly better than equity prices, with gold losing only 3.77% and silver 5.38% of their USD values in 2008. Yet with gold under $1,000 per oz, and silver under $20 per oz, precious metal prices have not seen the dramatic run up Schiff has been predicting.
Schiff acknowledges the short-term failure of these particular predictions, but says that the US financial crisis is just beginning to unfold and it is merely a matter of time before the global economy rebalances and his further predictions take form.
On October 28 2008, Schiff stated in an interview on Bloomberg TV[citation needed] that the investment strategies outlined in both books currently "are not working" due to the collapse of foreign currencies, foreign stocks and the failure of gold prices to go up significantly as most of the world entered an economic recession and foreign investors flee to cash. However, he maintained that this was a very temporary phenomenon, "due to deleveraging", and that he expects gold to shoot up to $2,000 per ounce as the dollar soon "drops like a stone." Overall, Schiff remained optimistic on his theories and stated this was a good opportunity to buy foreign stocks trading at yearly lows.
In January 2009 financial blogger Mike Shedlock claimed that Peter Schiff's investment strategies have resulted in some of his Euro Pacific Capital account holders losing 60% to 70% of their value in 2008[17]. Peter Schiff responded to this claim by stating, "to examine the effectiveness of my investment strategy immediately following a major correction by looking only at those accounts who adopted the strategy at the previous peak is unfair and distortive" and claims that losses were most heavily felt by recent clients and not by his long time investors[18].
In an interview on Yahoo Tech Ticker on February 6th, Schiff conceded that the value of his investors' portfolios had dropped as much as 50%, while avoiding the interviewer's question about how much the value of his own accounts had fallen. These returns stood in sharp contrast to the 2008 returns of other investors who shared his views including George Soros (up 10% in 2008) and Nassim Nicholas Taleb (up between 55% and 110% in 2008)."
Born Peter David Schiff
Residence Darien, Connecticut
Occupation Stock broker, investment adviser, author, economist.
Employer Euro Pacific Capital
Website
www.europac.net
Peter Schiff (born 1964)[1] is an American economic commentator, author and licensed stock broker who currently serves as president of Euro Pacific Capital Inc., a fully accredited brokerage firm based in Darien, Connecticut.[2]
Schiff is best known for his bearish views on the United States economy and he claims to have predicted the economic crisis of 2008.[3] He has risen to media prominence following the publication of his book Crash Proof: How to Profit From the Coming Economic Collapse.
Aside from his writings, Schiff maintains a significant media presence, often appearing on US financial news programs on networks such as CNBC, CNN, CNN International, Fox News, Bloomberg TV and Fox Business where he is generally booked to provide a bearish counterpoint to more bullish commentators.
Schiff also hosts a live Internet/shortwave radio show called "Wall Street Unspun, which is available in podcast format."[4]
Schiff is a supporter of the Austrian School of Economics and the Ludwig von Mises Institute[5], and was an economic adviser for Ron Paul's campaign in the 2008 Republican Party primaries, through which Schiff also expressed support for sound money, limited government, and free market capitalism.
Contents [hide]
1 Personal life
2 Career
3 Economic views
4 Writings
5 Criticism
5.1 Predictions
6 Political activity
7 Footnotes
8 External links
[edit] Personal life
Peter Schiff was born in New Haven, Connecticut and was raised in Manhattan and Miami. He graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in 1987 with a degree in finance and accounting.[6] During a discussion in his radio show 'Wall Street Unspun' on January 14, 2009 Peter commented that he had a six year old son and was divorced from his wife.[7]
His father is the well-known tax protester Irwin Schiff.
[edit] Career
Schiff began his career in financial consulting with Shearson Lehman Brothers.[8] He launched Euro Pacific Capital in 1996 when he bought a broker-dealer in Florida without clients or revenues and then reincorporated the business in California. In 2005, Schiff relocated to Darien, Connecticut in order to find brokers "who think like him" according to an article in The Advocate of Stamford, Connecticut. The New York Metropolitan Area, he said, has the biggest concentration of brokers in the country, making it easier to recruit them.[4]
The company retains an office in Newport Beach, California as well as in Phoenix and Medford, Oregon. Schiff said in August 2006 that he planned to open offices eventually in Manhattan and somewhere in the Midwest.[4]
Euro Pacific Capital typically recommends an investment strategy which accords with Schiff's pessimistic view of the US economy, focusing heavily on non-US stocks and precious metals.
Euro Pacific Capital holds the exclusive rights to broker certain Perth Mint products in the United States.
[edit] Economic views
In an August 2006 interview Schiff generated much controversy when he repeated his long-held investment thesis: "The United States economy is like the Titanic and I am here with the lifeboat trying to get people to leave the ship ...I see a real financial crisis coming for the United States." On May 16, 2006 in debate on Fox News, Schiff accurately forecast that the U.S. housing market was a bubble that would soon burst.[9] On December 13, 2007 in a Bloomberg interview on the show Open Exchange, Schiff further added that he felt that the crisis would extend to the credit card lending industry.[10] Following this observation, it was soon reported on December 23, 2007 by the Associated Press that "The value of credit card accounts at least 30 days late jumped 26 percent to $17.3 billion in October from a year earlier at 17 large credit card trusts examined by the AP... At the same time, defaults -- when lenders essentially give up hope of ever being repaid and write off the debt -- rose 18 percent to almost $961 million in October, according to filings made by the trusts with the Securities and Exchange Commission."[11]
Schiff also discusses the role of the US consumer in the world, saying that the US consumer thinks he's doing the world a favor by consuming what the rest of the world produces. He is quick to point out that this relationship will come to an end, in his view, much sooner than people imagine, and with negative consequences for the US. Schiff has been quoted as saying: "Consumption is its own reward for Production"—meaning that without production, the US cannot indefinitely sustain its ongoing consumption. Schiff, and other adherents of Austrian economics, promote savings and production as "the engine of economic growth -- not consumption".[citation needed]
Schiff has said on numerous occasions that the current economic crisis is not the problem; it is the solution. According to him, the transition from borrowing and spending to saving and producing cannot be accomplished without a severe recession, given the current imbalances of the US economy. But according to him, that transition needs to happen. He also thinks the government is doing no one a favor by trying to "ease the pain" with stimulus packages, bailouts and such. Schiff believes these actions will only make the situation worse and possibly result in hyperinflation if the government continues to "replace legitimate savings with a printing press."[12]
Schiff is a firm believer in reducing government regulation of the economy. Schiff worries that Barack Obama will increase such regulation.[13]
Schiff points to the low savings rate of the United States as its worst malady, citing the transformation from being the world's largest creditor nation in the 1970s to the largest debtor nation by the year 2000. His extremely bearish views on the U.S. Dollar, the United States stock market, bond market and the United States economy have earned him the nickname "Dr. Doom." [14]
In his January 14, 2009 radio show, Schiff discussed moving out of cities in anticipation of rising crime rates, food shortages, fuel shortages, and rolling blackouts. He also mentioned the need for families to stock up on guns and ammunition as a part of what he expects. This quasi-survivalist stance demonstrates how serious he expects the unfolding economic downturn will be.[15]
[edit] Writings
Schiff is the author of two books:
Crash Proof: How to Profit from the Coming Economic Collapse, 2007, ISBN 978-0470043608
The Little Book of Bull Moves in Bear Market, 2008, ISBN 978-0470383780
[edit] Criticism
[edit] Predictions
This article may contain original research or unverified claims. Please improve the article by adding references. See the talk page for details. (February 2009)
Not all of Schiff's predictions made in Crash Proof or in publicly available transcripts and statements before July 2007 have held out to be true as of January 2009.
Schiff's prediction that the US Dollar would collapse along with the housing bubble has so far not come to pass, with the US Dollar Index rising from 80 points in July 2007 to 83 points in January 2009, a climb which actually accelerated as the US financial crisis became more acute in September 2008.
Similarly, Schiff's prediction that the US financial crisis would cause a greater fall in US equity prices than in non-US equity prices has so far been inaccurate as in 2007-2008 most international equity markets fell further than the US markets. Using the broadest available measures, the MSCI US Broad Market Index was down 34.83% in 2008, while the MSCI All Country Ex-US Index was down 42.86%. [16].
Gold and precious metals during this period have performed significantly better than equity prices, with gold losing only 3.77% and silver 5.38% of their USD values in 2008. Yet with gold under $1,000 per oz, and silver under $20 per oz, precious metal prices have not seen the dramatic run up Schiff has been predicting.
Schiff acknowledges the short-term failure of these particular predictions, but says that the US financial crisis is just beginning to unfold and it is merely a matter of time before the global economy rebalances and his further predictions take form.
On October 28 2008, Schiff stated in an interview on Bloomberg TV[citation needed] that the investment strategies outlined in both books currently "are not working" due to the collapse of foreign currencies, foreign stocks and the failure of gold prices to go up significantly as most of the world entered an economic recession and foreign investors flee to cash. However, he maintained that this was a very temporary phenomenon, "due to deleveraging", and that he expects gold to shoot up to $2,000 per ounce as the dollar soon "drops like a stone." Overall, Schiff remained optimistic on his theories and stated this was a good opportunity to buy foreign stocks trading at yearly lows.
In January 2009 financial blogger Mike Shedlock claimed that Peter Schiff's investment strategies have resulted in some of his Euro Pacific Capital account holders losing 60% to 70% of their value in 2008[17]. Peter Schiff responded to this claim by stating, "to examine the effectiveness of my investment strategy immediately following a major correction by looking only at those accounts who adopted the strategy at the previous peak is unfair and distortive" and claims that losses were most heavily felt by recent clients and not by his long time investors[18].
In an interview on Yahoo Tech Ticker on February 6th, Schiff conceded that the value of his investors' portfolios had dropped as much as 50%, while avoiding the interviewer's question about how much the value of his own accounts had fallen. These returns stood in sharp contrast to the 2008 returns of other investors who shared his views including George Soros (up 10% in 2008) and Nassim Nicholas Taleb (up between 55% and 110% in 2008).
On February 13th, 2009, nationally syndicated newspaper columnist Eric Tyson analyzed Schiff's recommendations from a U.S. News & World Report magazine interview from May, 2008 as well as other Schiff recommendations[19]. The piece, which also include an interview of Schiff, also assessed how Schiff came to hold his economic views.
[edit] Political activity
Schiff was an economic adviser to Ron Paul's 2008 presidential campaign. Schiff made the following statement concerning Paul's economic revitalization plan.
"We need a plan that stimulates savings and production not more of the reckless borrowing and consumption that got us into this mess in the first place. Ron Paul's plan is the only one that amounts to a step in the right direction. If you want meaningful change - for the better that is - Ron Paul is the only candidate capable of delivering it."[20]
Schiff also endorsed Murray Sabrin for the US Senate seat in New Jersey.[21]
In December 2008, some fans of Schiff put up a website to encourage Schiff to challenge incumbent Connecticut Senator Christopher Dodd.[22] On January 23, 2009, yet another group of Schiff fans registered a domain, starting a new site with a new logo, to inspire Schiff for a possible run against Dodd. [23]
http://www.unitypublishing.com/Government/SavingAmerica.htm
How to Save America
Richard Salbato
Today I read that 61% of Americans believe that America’s government will fail. That means that we will come to a point that the government will not be able to pay its bills and will not be able to borrow money. At that point all government employees, even the Military will not be paid. This almost happened in California this month and might still happen in the next two years. Twelve countries are on the brink of this right now, but no one ever thought this might happen to America.
However, I have done the math and if all the spending plans that have passed in the past 30 days and will pass in the next 30 days are not abolished in the next two years, we will not be able to pay the Federal Government bills.
The Stock Market has dropped by six trillion dollars in this last 30 days, because these people have lost faith in the future and these people look years out ahead to invest.
This is an abomination. Oh! I mean Obama-nation.
Almost everyday Obama talks to the nation, and he always says the right thing. No one can disagree with what he says, but his actions are always the opposite of what he says.
He said that we must create four million dollars and this is how he sold an almost trillion dollar “stimulus” package, but where are these jobs. Small business accounts for 70% of all jobs and 92% of all new jobs, but not one cent of this plan goes towards small business. In fact it will not create more than 400,000 temporary jobs that will pay an average $40.000 per year at a cost of $540,000 per job.
The health care proposal will cost three quarters of a trillion dollars and the budget for just the next 7 months will cost half trillion dollars. Next years budget is expected to be two and a half trillion dollars. Not to count the 3 trillion into banks, AIG and GM.
Add to that the trillion debt that President Bush left and we have a budget deficit that cannot be paid back, not now, not ever. (Fox News said this will go to $17 Trillion Dollar debt) Divide that into the two hundred million households and see what you get per family.
Obama-nation’s idea is to tax the top 2% a great deal, the top 4% more, and all people through higher gas prices, higher utility bills and higher food bills. However, these taxes will bring in less tax revenue, not more.
Add to the above debt, the fact that the baby boomers are about to retire in the next two years and instead of paying taxes will be taking money from the government in SSI. This is about 20% of the working public.
OK! You get my point, unless we impeach this President and kick out everyone in congress so that we can reverse these programs, this country will cease to exist in just a few years. You and I know that will not happen because of all the new Pauls.
One thing that has always been known by Socialists is rob Peter to pay Paul, and when there are more Pauls than Peters, you have guaranteed that you will always be re-elected.
Not counting the really disabled, who are these Pauls? I don’t know for sure, but I can guess. The military says that only 20% of Americans can qualify for the military because 80% have a criminal record, have not graduated from High School, or cannot pass a basic knowledge test.
These people have not even tried to take care of their future but only want without working for it. These are the Pauls that those who worked hard in school and hard at jobs will have to pay for under Obama-nation. These are the young people who would rather have a few beers everyday than pay for Health Insurance. They are happy that the government will now become their mommy.
If all the above is true,
What Can You Do?
Assuming that this could happen, you should prepare the same way that people in California prepare for earthquakes; people in the Mid-West prepare for hurricanes; people in the South-Coast prepare for floods, and people in the North prepare for major snow falls. These people assume that they might loose electric power, gas, and even their food supply. Most store up at least one month in emergency supplies.
However, in a complete collapse of the government, is a month supply enough? I would guess, two years at least. Not only that but you should get all your family and extended family to work together and have a plan. Maybe get even your entire neighborhood to work together or at least your friends. I would prefer that Parishes had a plan, but I don’t expect that because they simply will not believe this possibility and half these priests and Catholics voted for this Obama-nation.
Don’t forget all the non-food items that you will not be able to do without. If you can, convert most of your yard to vegetable gardens, hot houses and fruit trees. Don’t forget a method to protect yourself from gangs of people who have not prepared for this possibility.
Will America Survive?
Yes! But we may have to use the Second Amendment to save it. That is what the Second Amendment is all about. We do have some free press, and maybe there will be enough outcries from the public in time to cause Public Officials to step down and admit they failed. If not, we will have to throw them out and clean up this mess. The military will always stand with the people and not the government because they are commanded to read the constitution at least once a year.
In the end the only way to get out of this mess is to reduce the size of State and Federal Governments by at least 60% to 75%. This can be done by the Feds giving up programs to the States, and States giving up programs to the Cities, and Cities giving up programs to the Charities.
Will Our Lady of America Help America
If it was not for all the people who harmed the devotion to Our Lady of America over the past 10 years, we would not have voted for the most satanic government in history. You can read about these demons, what they have done to harm the devotion and what they continue to do on the web site: - http://ourladyofamerica.blogspot.com/ .
Although I am not directly involved with anyone at the true center of this devotion, I know that in the end only a few things have to be accomplished for Our Lady to do what She promised: - to convert America and then use it to lead the rest of the world into a period of peace.
One of these things that still needs to be done I tried to do myself, without even letting Sister Joseph Therese know I was working on it. Just like everyone else over the past 40 years, I failed.
Now, it is not too late, but it is too late to save America from at least part of the Chastisement coming to the world.
I now believe that Our Lady will not come to our aid until we have gone at least two years through this Chastisement.
In the end something She said to Sister Neuzil will come to pass, the people will rise up and demand of the bishops to do what She asked of us.
The most important thing to do is to: 1 Make a statue of Our Lady of America as seen and instructed by Sister Neuzil. 2. Then have a life size version of this made in Marble and made by an American artist. 3. Then have this statue placed in the National Shrine of Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC by the bishops.
At that point, Our Lady will come to our aid and save America, so that it can lead the world to a period of peace.
Thanks to all the demonic attacks up to now, this will not happen until we are on the brink of national failure. At that point people will wake up and go into action demanding this statue be made and demanding that the bishops of America march it into the National Shrine.
During the period of peace to follow the Chastisement, America will shine forth as the leader of the world in freedom and in the purity of its people. It will take this Chastisement to change us into people who have humble and pure hearts, but it will happen through suffering and the prayers of Our Lady.
If you can help Sister Joseph Therese in the production of this statue, which will take a long time, send a small donation to her at:
Our Lady of America Center
P.O.Box 445
Fostorina, Ohio 44830
For the statue of Our Lady of America
If you cannot send any money, do all the devotions to Our Lady that you can do for the next few years we have left. One of my best friends is doing retreats all over his state on the True Devotion by Louis DeMontfort and I cannot think of anything better than that. See my web site: www.unitypublishing.com and go to the section
http://www.unitypublishing.com/Secret-of-Mary.htm
to learn how to do this devotion.
Work and pray. Work as if the survival of your family depends on you, and pray is if the survival of you and your family depends on God. Charity, logic, the Church and modern economics say to: Take care of yourself and the group, not yourself only, not the group only but both.
I will work and pray for myself, my family, by friends and my beloved Nation.
Rick Salbato
The Sex Abuse Lobby, the Bishops and VOTF
By Fred Martinez
The Washington Times reported that the U.S. Catholic Bishops' sex abuse advisers are "people who have covered up ... sex between men and children." Moreover, these advisers have had close association with "experts" who "defended sex between men and children."
"The bishops recently chose Dr. Paul McHugh, former chairman of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at John Hopkins University School of Medicine, as chief behavioral scientist for their new clergy sex crimes review board," the Reisman-Jarrard report in the Times said.
"Yet Dr. McHugh once said Johns Hopkins' Sexual Disorders Clinic, which treats molesters, was justified in concealing multiple incidents of child rape and fondling to police, despite a state law requiring staffers to report them."
McHugh's subordinate, Johns Hopkins clinic head Fred Berlin, according to the report, "admitted he had covered for the sex criminals, angering legislators, child-advocacy groups and state officials. But his actions were not surprising, because 'at least eight men have been convicted of sexually abusing Maryland children while under [Berlin's] treatment there.'"
Dr. Judith Reisman and Dennis Jarrard, who wrote the report, are experts in the field of sex abuse and obscenity. Jarrard served as an adviser to the Los Angeles County Commission on Obscenity and Pornography, while Reisman is an internationally known expert on Alfred Kinsey and sex abuse.
Reisman is president of The Institute for Media Education and has been a consultant to three U.S. Department of Justice administrations and the U.S. Department of Education, as well as the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Money Is Berlin's Mentor
The Reisman-Jarrard report said Berlin has been the U.S. Catholic bishops' "chief adviser on child sexual abuse." Yet, according to Reisman, "Dr. Berlin described [pedophilia supporter] Dr. [John] Money as 'one of his most important mentors.'"
The Washington Times report said, "Dr. Money once gave an interview to PAIDIKA the Journal of Paedophilia, an 'academic' publication that advocates adult sex with children alongside ads for the North American Man-Boy Love Association (NAMBLA) and other pro-pedophilia groups. He told PAIDIKA that a 'relationship' that is 'totally mutual' between a boy of 10 or 11 and an adult male 'would not [be] pathological in any way.'"
On May 30, The Wanderer, a national Catholic weekly, said that the Money-Berlin advice to the bishops began when "the founder of St. Luke's Institute, Rev. Michael R. Peterson, M.D. [who later died of AIDS], urges the Church to rely on Berlin and Money in a 1985 paper."
Money Is a Disciple of Kinsey
Reisman, quoted in The Wanderer article, said that "Dr. Berlin and John Money, Ph.D., co-founded a celebrated sexual training and treatment center, The Johns Hopkins Sexual Disorders Clinic. Dr. Money, as it turns out, was a dedicated Kinsey disciple, the mentor for June Reinisch [the third Kinsey Institute director] and on the advisory board of the Kinsey Institute."
The Wanderer piece, titled "The Real Experts Advise Bishops: Sue your Experts," claims much of the Church's "recent difficulties" have come about because "many of the Church's key sexuality advisors are associated with" the agenda created by Dr. Alfred Kinsey and the Kinsey Institute at Indiana University.
Reisman in the article urges the U.S. Bishops to sue their Kinsey experts for malpractice:
"To me, this is a case of massive medical malpractice by those in the human sexuality field, as well as consumer fraud, as well as a broad spectrum of other things for the lawyers to sort out. ...[T] hese so-called 'human sexuality educators' have been teaching behaviors that cause dysfunction, that are anti-authority and anti-Church."
The May 20 article, by Paul Likoudis, said that "Kinsey and his colleagues were the driving force behind the legalization of fornication, adultery, bestiality, pedophilia and other immoral, harmful behaviors."
Fraudulent Scientific Data Eliminates Penalties for Sexual Offenses
Kinsey, because of the worldwide influence of his fraudulent scientific data, has been called the father of the homosexual movement by homosexuals, and the father of the sexual revolution as well as the pornography industry and, some say, the sex abuse lobby.
James H. Jones, an Indiana University scholar and Kinsey Institute insider, in an expos‚ biography titled "Alfred C. Kinsey: A Public/Private Life," shows the motivation behind the Kinseyan "pan-sexualism" agenda.
In the document "How Junk Sex Science Created a Paradigm Shift in Society, Legislation and the Judiciary," Reisman said:
"Jones' data confirms other reports that Kinsey was a sexist, racist and atheist who excluded women, Jews, blacks, and moral traditionalists from his staff and hired only homosexuals and bisexuals [with one short-term exception]. Kinsey only hired sexual deviants on whom he could rely to keep his secrets including his [scientific] fraud, his 'uncommon desires,' and the child molesters he used to conduct child sex experiments. Jones also reported that Kinsey: coerced his wife into participating in acts of adultery and sodomy with his staff and co-authors [which were filmed], seduced male students at Indiana University [and bullied their wives into participating], filmed sex with his male co-workers [who were rewarded by promotion to co-authorship], and filmed himself participating in sado-masochistic sex rituals."
In this report Reisman also said, "Based on his [fraudulent scientific] data, Kinsey claimed that children enjoyed sex and the real harm of adult-child sex stemmed from 'hysterical' parents, teachers and professionals who reacted with anger and horror to children's disclosures. Based on his findings, many legislatures lightened or eliminated penalties for sexual offenses ... toward children as 'victims' in cases of incest and child molestation."
In 1991, the widely respected British medical journal The Lancet verified Reisman's research when it demanded that the Kinsey Institute be investigated, writing:
"The Kinsey reports [one in 1948 on males and the companion five years later] claimed that sexual activity began much earlier in life ... and displayed less horror of age differences and same-sex relationships than anyone at the time imagined. It was as if, to follow Mr. Porter again, 'Anything goes'. In 'Kinsey, Sex and Fraud,' Dr. Judith A. Reisman and her colleagues demolish the foundations of the two [Kinsey] reports."
The Bishops, the "Sex Experts' and the Media's Cover-up
Many believe that the Kinseyan experts and the homosexual network within the Church protected the gay sex abuser at the Dallas meeting. As the National Review's Rod Dreher pointed out on June 13, "the need to avoid the 'elephant in the sacristy [the fact that the vast majority of priest sexual abusers are homosexuals],' in Mary Eberstadt's memorable phrase, is perhaps the only point on which the bishops and the media agree."
To this end, the bishops running the Dallas meeting, according to the June 13 National Review article, had staged "briefings for the media on various aspects of the abuse scandal" by Kinseyan psychiatric panelists such as Fred Berlin, Fr. Stephen Rossetti, Fr. Candice Connors and others with a pro-homosexual agenda.
National Review's Dreher said, "The Rev. Stephen Rossetti, current president of St. Luke's, is believed by some psychiatrists associated with the Catholic Medical Association to have been a big part of the problem, owing to the advice he's been giving bishops. Rossetti has most recently been downplaying the role homosexuality plays in the scandal."
The bishops, the sex experts and the mass media's suppression of the widely known fact that the vast majority of sexual abusers in the Church scandal are homosexuals was even contradicted earlier in the year by a liberal national magazine.
U.S. News & World Report columnist John Leo reported that studies have shown that 5 percent or less of priests fit the pedophile description. He said, "Most sexual victims of priests are teenage boys [abused in homosexual acts], according to one estimate. A study of Chicago's 2,200 priests identified 40 sexual abusers, only one of whom was a pedophile."
Also, according to the News Agency's "The World Seen From Rome," Hastings Wyman, syndicated homosexual columnist, wrote: "[T]he pattern of sexual abuse among Catholic clergy does suggest a gay problem 90 percent of the cases of sex with adolescents that have come to light in the Church involved teenage boys, not girls. Do the math." (Between the Lines, May 22, 2002)
During the Dallas bishops meetings on June 15, the homosexual spin group Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) through its network in the Church reported news that the mass media censored. Homosexual activist Cathy Renna, writing for GLAAD's Web site, said that liberal bishops within the church protected the gay sex abuser at the Dallas meeting.
"We also learned more late last night about the anti-gay proposal offered by Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz of Lincoln, Neb. Bruskewitz's 'Amendment 27' would have stated that because the 'current homosexual culture' was the root cause of the sex-abuse crisis, the bishops would be required to force strict conformity with all church doctrines on sexuality. His proposal was soundly rejected on a voice vote, with a source inside the meeting telling me that it received only perhaps a half-dozen votes of support."
During a victory get-together, Renna said she met with "a number of familiar media faces" and Anne Barrett Doyle of the Coalition of Concerned Catholics who is a member of the steering committee for the lay reform movement Voice of the Faithful.
According to Renna, "Anne was one of the first people I spoke with back in March when we were cultivating resources and contacts to offer media outlets. ... Seeing Anne at the cathedral brought to mind how far we've come in the past months."
During those months, the mass media outlets, under the sway of gay activists like Renna and her friend Doyle of Voice of the Faithful, had censored George Will, Pope John Paul II's spokesman Dr. Joaquin Navarro-Valls, and the almost-all-conservative representatives in Dallas who attempted to report the link between homosexuality and sexual abuse by priests, which U.S. News & World Report detailed before the media cover-up.
VOTF and the Doyle-Peterson-Mouton Report
Activist Anne Barrett Doyle and her organization Voice of the Faithful (VOTF) have also taken part in the cover-up of the link between homosexuality and sexual abuse by priests. In fact, VOTF has been promoting the 1985 report by Fr. Michael R. Peterson, which brought the Kinsey experts and pan-sexualism's non-"judgmentalism" into the Church.
As stated earlier, The Wanderer said that the Kinseyan advice to the bishops began when Peterson, who founded the St. Luke Institute (which the Dallas panelists Connors and Rossetti later ran), urged "the Church to rely on Berlin and Money in a 1985 paper" and on his "pan-sexualism" St. Luke Institute.
Even the pro-gay National Catholic Reporter on May 17 admitted that "[t]he [church's highest court, the Vatican] Signatura's brief, later published in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, stated: "St. Luke Institute, a clinic founded by a priest [Fr Michael Peterson] who is openly homosexual and based on a mixed doctrine of Freudian pan-sexualism and behaviorism, is surely not a suitable institution apt to judge rightly about the beliefs and the lifestyle of a Catholic priest."
The liberal bishops continued to rely on Peterson for advice despite the Vatican's warning, as shown in the pro-gay National Catholic Reporter's May 17 article:
"By the time of Peterson's death [of AIDS], Cardinal James Hickey of Washington had come to rely on Peterson, along with a number of bishops, for advice in handling sex-offending members of the clergy. During the Mass, Hickey praised Peterson's work at St. Luke Institute, calling him a 'brilliant and hard-working priest.'"
According to the May 30 The Wanderer article "The Homosexual Network and the 1985 Clergy Sex Abuse Report," Peterson was a "disciple" of John Money and a homosexual who once owned and operated his own "sex-change clinic" in San Francisco.
The 1985 Peterson report, which VOTF has been promoting, said:
"We have been hampered in our profession by extreme moral judgmentalism, if I may use the phrase, and it is only in very few medical schools in this country that the issue is treated or even addressed properly. The Johns Hopkins Hospital Sexual Disorders Clinic run by Dr. John Money [who became a pedophilia supporter] and Dr. Fred Berlin [who later covered up for the sex criminals] is probably the 'authority' scientific community. I know personally both of these highly respected scientists and I am very appreciative of their efforts to bring this psychiatric disorder out of the shadows and into the 'scientific daylight' so that we can begin to see the disorder as a psychiatric disease and not a moral weakness [alterboys.tripod.com/moutonreport/pag e_1x.html]."
The VOTF Web site said that the winner of its first VOTF Priest of Integrity Award, the Rev. Thomas Doyle, "[joined] with Rev. Michael Peterson, a priest/psychiatrist who founded a treatment center for clergy, and Ray Mouton, a Louisiana lawyer, [to write] a comprehensive report in 1985, and sent it to every bishop, identifying sexual abuse as a compulsive, lifelong psychosexual disorder, not a moral weakness."
In a report found on the Survivors' Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) Web site called "A Short History of the Manual," Doyle said that Money's disciple Peterson "was a friend and collaborator." The "Short History" report said the manual was an "instrument about how to deal with cases of priest-pedophilia."
However, the manual failed to bring out the homosexual sex abuse of teenage boys as the overwhelming component of the problem, which then as now is 90 percent or more of the sex abuse scandal. Also in the case of the pedophilia abuse, the vast majority are boys.
Even the Doyle-Peterson-Mouton manual said, "In my experience, most of the pedophiliac clerics I have seen and my colleagues have dealt with are homosexual pedophiles and not heterosexual pedophiles; this is surprising since the greater percentage in the general population is the opposite."
But instead of bringing out the homosexual abuse problem as the main portion of the scandal, the manual calls it a "Compulsive Heterosexual/Homosexual Acting Out," "Pedophilia or Sexual Molestation of Minors" and "Exhibitionism" problem.
The Doyle-Peterson-Mouton manual said and Bill Clinton would appreciate this that "exposing the genitals" to unfamiliar persons "represents one of the 'victimless crimes.'" But the main problem is that the manual uses the standard gay activist spin that VOTF's Anne Barrett Doyle, GLAAD and the media used to censored conservatives in Dallas who attempted to report the link between homosexuality and sexual abuse by priests.
The tactic, as Peterson used for the most part in the Executive Summary of the manual, is to say that the scandal is about pedophilia and then claim that pedophilia is not associated with homosexuality, but is a heterosexual problem or at most a heterosexual/homosexual problem.
The gay activist expert and psychiatrist Jeffrey Satinover, who wrote the book "Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth," which the Congressional Record of May 1996 called the "best book on homosexuality written in our times," states this is a standard spin. He writes:
"Activists are aware of the adverse effect on the gay-rights movement that could result if people perceived any degree of routine association between homosexuality and pedophilia. ... They have denied this association by focusing on the (true) fact that in absolute numbers heterosexuals commit more child molestation than homosexuals.
"But careful studies show that pedophilia is far more common among homosexuals than heterosexuals."
From the information that Kinsey expert Reisman has documented, Peterson was only following the Kinseyan advice of his mentors Money and Berlin, until his death of AIDS in 1987. Also, Peterson, who was homosexual as with the gay Kinsey in his data probably felt a need to cover up the gay connection to the scandal in order to protect his gay subculture.
Doyle and VOTF Have No Excuse
But Doyle and VOTF, which is the mass media's favorite "Catholic" lay organization to cure the Catholic Church of its sex-abuse scandal, have no excuse.
Every knowledgeable person without an agenda knows the fact that at least 90 percent of the problem is homosexuals "acting out" on teenage boys. VOTF and Doyle have failed to bring out this fact in their many media opportunities.
In fact, in the 1996 Doyle-Demarest memo, Doyle uses the gay activist spin:
"In the past it was common to refer to priests who had sexually abused male children as homosexuals when in fact "pedophiles" would have been the correct term. ... I am convinced that the use of the term "homosexual" when referring to actions with young boys actually meant pedophilia or at least pedophilic acts [www.thelinkup.com/execsum.html]."
Some orthodox Catholics wonder why VOTF, if it really wants to end the sex abuse scandal, gave the Priest of Integrity Award to Doyle instead of the Latino Fr. Enrique Rueda, who in 1982 wrote "The Homosexual Network."
In the book Rueda documented how disgraced homosexual Archbishop Rembert Weakland and other church leaders brought gay activists into the heart of the church. Connie Marshner of the Free Congress Foundation in a March report "We Were Warned" said:
"The name of the fair city of Boston appears frequently in Fr. Rueda's pages, giving it the dubious distinction of being the birthplace of NAMBLA, the North American Man/Boy Love Association [an interesting coincidence in light of subsequent developments]. Also interesting to note is that one [now infamous mass pedophile] Fr. Paul Shanley attended the NAMBLA convention in Boston, supposedly on behalf of the then-Catholic Archbishop, Medeiros."
"In the early days of 'gay liberation,' 1972, a National Coalition of Gay Organizations adopted a "Gay Rights Platform." This list of demands included one to repeal all laws governing the age of sexual consent a matter of some obvious concern to pederasts."
For his efforts to end the scandal Reuda, according to the March 30 The Wanderer article, was "exiled by his bishop Matthew Clark of Rochester, NY, refused incardination by every other American bishop, and is today, an official 'nonperson' in the American church."
If VOTF and the liberal bishops really want to end the church scandal, then they have to stop covering up the gay part of 90 percent of the scandal. If VOTF and Doyle really want to end the pedophilia part of the scandal, then they have to expose the fraudulent scientific data eliminating penalties for sexual abusers and the Kinseyan "experts" who are advising the bishops.
If not, then VOTF needs to take the advice that Doyle recently gave in Canada:
"Any institution that enables the cover-up, protects the abusers or the authorities that hide them, doesn't deserve to exist."
posted by Fred Martinez @ 9:33 AM
2 Comments:
tpdoyle said...
I recall reading this article in 2002 and am amazed that it has re-surfaced. As one directly involved with the issues referred to and mentioned in the article I can only say that it is a jumbled up amalgamation of paranoid fantasy, delusional fiction and plain old untruths. The author would have done well to consult with experts rather than fellow loonies such as Judith Reisman and the writers for the Wanderer.
9:49 AM
Fred Martinez said...
Dear tpdoyle,
Name calling is not a way to truth.
If you think the article has "paranoid fantasy, delusional fiction and plain old untruths,"
then state them.
Otherwise I will assume you follow the Nietzschean or Nazi school of thought on truth.
Mary Kearns, in an address to the Catholic Head Teachers Association of Scotland, spoke of the Nietzschean ideas now being taught in Catholic schools in the name of "scientific" psychology. Kearns said:
The methods are based on "the group therapy technique" first developed in America in the 1970's by two psychologists, Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow. They described how emotional conditioning should be carried out by a group "facilitator". The facilitator does not impart knowledge like the old fashioned teacher. Instead he/she initiates discussions encouraging children to reveal their personal views and feelings. The facilitator's approach is "value free". There is no right or wrong answer to any religious or moral question. Each person discloses what is right or wrong for them. All choices are equally valid even if they are opposites. Everything depends on feelings or emotions. Reason and conscience are discouraged. If anyone attempts objective evaluation, they are to be treated as an "outsider" and there will be a strong emotional reaction against such "judgemental intolerance".
If it is true that Catholic education now uses these techniques in "teaching religious and moral education," then the Catholic education system has entered into the Nietzschean insanity. If these are the techniques being used in education and in the seminaries, then sexual misconduct charges against priests are a symptom of "scientific" paganism replacing Christianity.
Santa Rosa priest Don Kimball, who is charged with sexual misconduct, is an example of someone whose "approach" was "value free" — that is, there was "no right or wrong answer to any religious or moral question."
In 1996, Karyn Wolfe and Mark Spaulding of Pacific Church News said, "THE WEDGE! You can't do youth ministry (any ministry for that matter) without it. ... Basing his theory on psychologist Abraham Maslow's 'Hierarchy of Needs', the Rev. Don Kimball developed this model for the growth and maturity process of a group."
Another example of the value-free approach is Thomas Zanzig, a major leader in the Catholic Church for youth ministry, plus an editor and writer of Catholic textbooks.
According to Marks S. Winward, Zanzig, in a book on youth ministry, "bases his 'Wedge Model' on a similar model developed by Fr. Don Kimble." Homeschool leader Marianna Bartold said, "Sharing the Christian Message by Thomas Zanzig has students come up with as many slang or street words as possible for the male and female reproductive organs in three or four minutes."
Now, many might say these are only isolated cases of misuses of Maslow and Adler until one reads the original text. According to William Coulson, a former collaborator of Carl Rogers,
Maslow was always a revolutionary. ... In 1965, working a radical idea about children and adult sex into his book about management, "In Eupsychian Management: A Journal," [Maslow said]: "I remember talking with Alfred Adler about this in a kind of joking way, but then we both got quite serious about it, and Adler thought that this sexual therapy at various ages was certainly a very fine thing. As we both played with the thought, we envisioned a kind of social worker ... as a psychotherapist in giving therapy literally on the couch."
As one can see, the basic therapeutic assumption leads to certain results in the real world. These thinkers don't believe in the basic Christian assumption that there is a need for forgiveness from God. Instead, they believe there is no sin, only selves needing to reach the fullness of themselves.
It is understandable that atheists such as Nietzsche, Maslow and Adler could hold these basic assumptions, but that Christians and priests hold these assumptions is a disgrace. The denial of original sin and personal sin is, in large part, behind the headlines of the Boston catastrophe and other dioceses.
The failure of these Catholic bishops is a failure to teach the faith and moral teachings of Jesus Christ. Getting rid of a few priests will not solve the problem if these basic assumptions stay, because more — only cleverer — sex abusers will rise up to take their place.
I feel sorry for these bishops and other Church leaders if they don't take a look at themselves and repent of these basic assumptions in their dioceses. They must eventually come face to face with the Living God. He is the Father of these little ones who have been scandalized and abused.
I will pray for you.
9:52 AM
Obama's Disconnect with the Grim Realities of Everyday American Life
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/28/business/economy/28recession.html?_r=1&hp
Sharper Downturn Clouds Obama Spending Plans
By PETER S. GOODMAN
Published: February 27, 2009
The economy is spiraling down at an accelerating pace, threatening to undermine the Obama administration’s spending plans, which anticipate vigorous rates of growth in years to come.
A sense of disconnect between the projections by the White House and the grim realities of everyday American life was enhanced on Friday, as the Commerce Department gave a harsher assessment for the last three months of 2008. In place of an initial estimate that the economy contracted at an annualized rate of 3.8 percent — already abysmal — the government said that the pace of decline was actually 6.2 percent, making it the worst quarter since 1982.
The fortunes of the American economy have grown so alarming and the pace of the decline so swift that economists are now straining to describe where events are headed, dusting off a word that has not been invoked since the 1940s: depression.
Obama's Disconnect with the Grim Realities of Everyday American Life
Economists are not making comparisons with the Great Depression of the 1930s, when the unemployment rate reached 25 percent. Current conditions are not even as poor as during the twin recessions of the 1980s, when unemployment exceeded 10 percent, though many experts assert this downturn is on track to be significantly worse.
Rather, economists are using the word depression — a subjective term with no academic definition — to describe a condition of broad and extreme economic distress that remains stubbornly in place for much longer than a typical downturn.
This is more than a matter of semantics. As the government determines its spending plans, readying another infusion of cash for troubled banks while contemplating an additional bailout for the auto industry, the magnitude of those needs will hinge on the extent of the damage.
Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Economy.com, now places the odds of “a mild depression” at 25 percent, up from 15 percent three months ago. In that view, the unemployment rate would reach 10.5 percent by the end of 2011 — up from 7.6 percent at the end of January — average home prices would fall 20 percent on top of the 27 percent they have plunged already, and losses in the financial system would more than triple, to $3.7 trillion.
Allen Sinai, chief global economist at the research firm Decision Economics, sees a 20 percent chance of “a depressionlike possibility,” up from 15 percent a week ago.
“In the housing market, the financial system and the stock market, we’re already there,” Mr. Sinai said. “It is a depression.”
Yet, in drawing up the budget, the White House assumed the economy would expand by a robust 3.2 percent in 2010, with growth accelerating to 4 percent over the next three years.
“It’s a hope, a wing and a prayer,” Mr. Sinai said. “It’s a return to a sanguine view of the economy that is simply not justified.”
If, as is widely anticipated, the economy grows more slowly than the White House assumes, revenue will be lower, forcing the government to cut spending, raise taxes or run larger deficits.
Economists also criticized as unrealistically hopeful the assumptions by the Federal Reserve as it began so-called stress tests to gauge the health of the nation’s largest banks. In testimony, Ben S. Bernanke, the Fed chairman, said that the nation’s unemployment rate would most likely reach 8.8 percent next year.
“That forecast just doesn’t seem realistic,” said Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, “and I don’t think it helps the Fed’s credibility to make these sorts of forecasts right now.”
As federal regulators estimate potential losses at banks, the harshest assumptions they are testing entails the unemployment rate topping out at 10.3 percent — the highest level since 1983, but hardly the worst case.
By Mr. Baker’s reckoning, the unemployment rate may exceed 12 percent — the highest level since tracking began in 1948.
“We continue to see across-the-board numbers coming in worse than we expected,” Mr. Baker said.
By Mr. Zandi’s estimation, in the most likely case, the unemployment rate will reach 9.3 percent next year. The distress in the financial system, the job market and real estate have become inextricably intertwined.
As troubled banks remain hesitant to lend, even healthy companies are laying off workers. As more Americans lose jobs, they are cutting spending, depriving businesses of revenue, and falling behind on house, car and credit card payments, multiplying losses in the financial system. As more homes land in foreclosure and would-be buyers fail to secure mortgages, housing prices fall further, adding to the losses of the banks — a downward spiral.
Many economists expect that the labor data to be released next Friday will show that as many as 700,000 jobs disappeared in February, lifting the unemployment rate near 8 percent and pushing total job losses to more than four million since the recession began in December 2007.
Given the brutal forces at play, some experts question the administration’s decision to publicize the bank stress tests, as opposed to conducting them quietly.
“It invited the interpretation that this was the beginning of triage for the banks, that we were going to start lining them up and shooting them,” said Alan S. Blinder, a former vice chairman of the Federal Reserve and a professor at Princeton. “There are some things in the bank supervisor role that you just keep secret.”
Others argue that the tests could sow needed assurance. “The stress test could create transparency,” said Alan D. Levenson, chief economist at T. Rowe Price in Baltimore.
As the gruesome data accumulates, this much is already clear: Transparency is not for the squeamish.
Mr. Levenson noted that the weakening economy was destroying demand for goods and services even faster than the $787 billion stimulus program could replace it.
Obama's Tactics
http://eagleforum.org/psr/2009/feb09/psrfeb09.html
How a Community Organizer Became President
Community Organizing Continues
VOL. 42, NO. 7 P.O. BOX 618, ALTON, ILLINOIS 62002 FEBRUARY 2009
How a Community Organizer Became President
On August 31, 2008, right after the Democratic National Convention in Colorado, the Boston Globe published a letter from L. David Alinsky boasting about how Barack Obama had made enormously effective use of his training in the methods of David’s late father, the famous Chicago radical, Saul D. Alinsky.
David Alinsky gloated: "I am proud to see that my father's model for organizing is being applied successfully beyond local community organizing to affect the Democratic campaign in 2008. It is a fine tribute to Saul Alinsky as we approach his 100th birthday."
Confirming that Obama was trained in Chicago by the Alinsky apparatus, David Alinsky wrote: "It is an amazingly powerful format, and the method of my late father always works to get the message out and get the supporters on board. When executed meticulously and thoughtfully, it is a powerful strategy for initiating change and making it really happen. Obama learned his lesson well."
Describing how the Democratic National Convention was a "perfectly organized event, Saul Alinsky style," David Alinsky wrote: "All the elements were present: the individual stories told by real people of their situations and hardships, the packed-to-the rafters crowd, the crowd's chanting of key phrases and names, the action on the spot of texting and phoning to show instant support and commitment to jump into the political battle, the rallying selections of music, the setting of the agenda by the power people."
Indeed, the son has reason to boast that his father's organizing techniques were so effectively used by a longshot candidate to climb the path to America's highest office. The most significant part of Barack Obama's education was not at Columbia University or Harvard Law School, but the years he spent being trained in the Saul Alinsky system for community organizing and then practicing what he learned.
Obama was trained by the Alinsky organization called Industrial Areas Foundation (founded by Alinsky in 1940), after which Obama taught workshops on the Alinsky method. Obama learned how to put together a new style presidential campaign that decisively defeated the Clinton machine plus the Republican Party in a dramatic one-two punch never before seen in politics.
Alinsky's organization was based in Chicago, nestled under the protective wing of the Democratic political machine, but his reach extended all over the country from New York to California. Hillary Clinton wrote her Wellesley thesis on Alinsky, who then offered her a job (which she turned down to enroll in Yale Law School).
Americans who care about our nation and its future should study Saul Alinsky and what is known today as "the Alinsky ideology and Alinsky concepts of mass organization for power." These were the lessons he taught his eager students. He died in 1972, but he left behind a cadre of community organizers who had been trained how to carry out the political strategies described in Alinsky's frank and elegantly written book called Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals (originally published by Random House in 1971).
The tone of this book and its obvious determination to change America are made clear by this dedication printed at the very beginning:
"Lest we forget at least an over-the-shoulder acknowledgment to the very first radical: from all our legends, mythology, and history (and who is to know where mythology leaves off and history begins — or which is which), the first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom — Lucifer."
Saul Alinsky's worldview was that the United States is an oppressive and racist society where most people (the Have-Nots) are the victims of economic injustice with a future of despair. He wanted a radical change of America's social and economic structure, and he planned to achieve that through creating public discontent and moral confusion. His goal was not to arrive at compromise or peaceful solution; his goal was to crush the Haves and transform society.
Alinsky developed concepts to achieve power through mass organization. Organizing was his word for revolution. His 1946 book, Reville for Radicals, had already made clear that he wanted to move the United States from capitalism to socialism, where the means of production would be owned by all the people (i.e., the government). A believer in economic determinism, he viewed unemployment, disease, crime and bigotry as byproducts of capitalism. So he called for massive change.
To achieve this, he sought local community organizers who projected confidence, vision and change. Barack Obama fit the profile. Alinsky didn't want just talkers; he wanted radicals who were prepared to take bold action to organize the discontented, precipitate crises, grab power, and thereby transform society. He taught these radicals how to infiltrate existing institutions such as churches, unions and political parties, gain influence in them, and then introduce change.
Chapter 1 of Rules for Radicals called The Purpose makes Alinsky's goal very clear. His worldview is that mankind is divided into three parts: "the Haves, the Have-Nots, and the Have-a-Little, Want Mores." His purpose is to teach the Have-Nots how to take power and money away from the Haves. "We are concerned," he said, "with how to create mass organizations to seize power. . . . We are talking about a mass power organization which will change the world. . . . This means revolution."
"Change" is Alinsky's favorite word, used on page after page. "I will argue," he writes, "that man's hopes lie in the acceptance of the great law of change." Alinsky uses what he calls "general concepts of change" to move us toward "a science of revolution." What he calls "change" means massive change in our socio-economic structure. What he calls "organizing" means pursuing confrontational political tactics. Alinsky teaches the Have-Nots to "hate the establishment of the Haves" because they have "power, money, food, security, and luxury. They suffocate in their surpluses while the Have-Nots starve." He claims that "justice, morality, law, and order, are mere words used by the Haves to justify and secure their status quo." He proclaims that his aim is to teach the Have-Nots "how to organize for power: how to get it and to use it."
Alinsky's second chapter, called Of Means and Ends, craftily poses many difficult moral dilemmas, and his "tenth rule of the ethics of means and ends" is: "you do what you can with what you have and clothe it with moral arguments."
He doesn't ignore traditional moral standards or dismiss them as unnecessary. He is much more devious; he teaches his followers that "Moral rationalization is indispensable at all times of action whether to justify the selection or the use of ends or means." He reminds his trainees that "All effective actions require the passport of morality."
Alinsky certainly doesn't mean that all actions must be moral. He means that you decide what you want or need to do and then cloak your actions with the language of morality. Phrase your goals in "general terms like 'Liberty, Equality, Fraternity,' 'Of the Common Welfare,' 'Pursuit of Happiness,' or 'Bread and Peace.'" He reminds us that the Communists used words like "democracy" and "equality," but they had no relation whatsoever to what Americans understand by those terms.
At the same time, Alinsky admonishes his organizers that they are conducting war, so there are no rules of fair play and there can be no compromise.
Recognizing the importance of words, Alinsky demands that his organizers use the word "power," which he calls a word of force, vigor and simplicity. Power is what he wants — and he doesn't want to be bothered with those who shrink from using this powerful word. He advises his followers not "to pander to those who have no stomach for straight language."
In the chapter called The Education of an Organizer, Alinsky explains that he conducted "a special training school for organizers with a full-time, fifteen-month program." It wasn't an easy regimen, Alinsky warned; it "requires frequent long conferences on organizational problems, analysis of power patterns, communication, conflict tactics, the education and development of community leaders, and the methods of introduction of new issues."
The qualities Alinsky looked for in a good organizer were ego ("reaching for the highest level for which man can reach — to create, to be a 'great creator,' to play God"), curiosity (raising "questions that agitate, that break through the accepted pattern"), irreverence ("nothing is sacred"; the organizer "detests dogma, defies any finite definition of morality"), imagination ("the fuel for the force that keeps an organizer organizing"), a sense of humor ("the most potent weapons known to mankind are satire and ridicule"), and an organized personality with confidence in presenting the right reason for his actions only "as a moral rationalization after the right end has been achieved."
In the chapter on Communication, Alinsky teaches his organizers how to direct the thinking of his people while letting them think they are making their own decisions. The organizer should develop skills in the manipulative technique of asking "loaded questions designed to elicit particular responses and to steer the organization's decision-making process in the direction which the organizer prefers."
The chapter called In the Beginning describes how to train the community organizer in how to make himself acceptable to the Have-Nots in the local community. "From the moment the organizer enters a community he lives, dreams, eats, breathes, sleeps only one thing and that is to build the mass power base of what he calls the army. Until he has developed that mass power base, he confronts no major issues."
The organizer's "biggest job is to give the people the feeling that they can do something." The organizer's job is "to build confidence and hope in the idea of organization and thus in the people themselves: to win limited victories, each of which will build confidence." The organizer will learn that "Change comes from power, and power comes from organization."
"The organizer's first job is to create the issues or problems," and "organizations must be based on many issues." The organizer "must first rub raw the resentments of the people of the community; fan the latent hostilities of many of the people to the point of overt expression. He must search out controversy and issues, rather than avoid them, for unless there is controversy people are not concerned enough to act. . . . An organizer must stir up dissatisfaction and discontent." He can provoke class resentment by painting Wall Street as villains.
The organizer "begins his 'trouble making' by stirring up these angers, frustrations, and resentments, and highlighting specific issues or grievances that heighten controversy." The organizer must remember that "Organizations need action as an individual needs oxygen. The cessation of action brings death to the organization."
At the same time, "The job of the organizer is to maneuver and bait the establishment so that it will publicly attack him as a 'dangerous enemy.'" Alinsky reminds his organizers that "To attempt to operate on a good-will rather than on a power basis would be to attempt something that the world has not yet experienced."
Alinsky's book is full of examples of issues and organizational victories from the decade of the 1960s (such as the Vietnam War, civil rights litigation, urban renewal, and campus riots) which are not meaningful to younger Americans today. However they emphasize his strategy that organizers must use current issues and "must be aware of the tremendous importance of understanding the part played by rationalization on a mass basis."
In the chapter called Tactics, Alinsky reminds his trainees that power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have: "The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself." He lists some of his recommended tactics:
"Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it."
"Keep the pressure on, with different tactics and actions." "The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition." "Multiple issues mean constant action and life" for the cause. (Obama never harps on one issue as Hillary did with health care. His platform is packed with grievances from "economic justice" to "reproductive justice" to "environmental justice.")
"Ridicule is man's most potent weapon." Alinsky's advice was to "laugh at the enemy" to provoke "irrational anger." (Obama used the ridicule tactic on John McCain at a rally in Las Vegas. Attacking McCain's chairmanship of the Senate Commerce Committee, Obama sarcastically said, "Well, all I can say to Senator McCain is 'Nice job. Nice job.'")
"A mass impression can be lasting and intimidating." (Obama moved his acceptance speech at the Democratic Convention to a football stadium and bused in 55,000 supporters.)
"Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules." "You can club them to death with their 'book' of rules and regulations." That means, taunt them every time they appear to violate their own principles, which Alinsky believes everybody does frequently.
A leader may struggle toward a decision and weigh the merits and demerits of a situation, but he must convince the people that "their cause is 100 percent on the side of the angels, and that the opposition are 100 percent on the side of the devil," even though that is a lie because there is "really only a 10 percent difference." Alinsky justifies this lie to achieve the transfer of power.
Alinsky describes some of his successful mass demonstrations:
Buying 100 tickets to a Rochester symphony concert for 100 blacks, feeding them lots of baked beans beforehand so that they had to get up and go to the restroom during the first musical selection. This created "a combination not only of noise but also of odor, what you might call natural stink bombs." He reminded his readers that there is nothing illegal about needing to rush to the restroom.
Tying up all the restrooms at O'Hare Airport by having his demonstrators lock themselves in the toilet booths equipped with a book to read, and then staying there all day.
Dropping wads of chewing gum all over the walks on a college campus.
Paralyzing a bank by having 100 people show up at once with $5 or $10 to open a savings account (which they would then come back to close the following day). There is nothing illegal about this, but it created chaos for the bank. Alinsky called this "a middle-class guerrilla attack."
Engaging in proxy fights with corporations.
Alinsky reveals his total contempt for the Haves and their devotion to self interest. He says, "I feel confident that I could persuade a millionaire on a Friday to subsidize a revolution for Saturday out of which he would make a huge profit on Sunday even though he was certain to be executed on Monday."
When Alinsky approached the end of his Rules for Radicals and projected future strategies in the chapter entitled The Way Ahead, he laid out his plan to go after "America's white middle class. That is where the power is." They are the "Have-a-Little, Want Mores."
Alinsky boasts that, "With rare exceptions, our activists and radicals are products of and rebels against our middle-class society. . .. . Our rebels have contemptuously rejected the values and way of life of the middle class."
Here is where Alinsky's hypocrisy and duplicity become obvious. He had trained his community organizers to adopt a "middle-class identity" and familiarity with their "values and problems" in order to organize his "own people." Now, realizing "the priceless value of his middle-class experience," they will "begin to dissect and examine that way of life as he never has before." "Everything now has a different meaning and purpose."
Alinsky instructs his trainees to "return to the suburban scene of your middle class with its variety of organizations from PTAs to League of Women Voters, consumer groups, churches, and clubs. The job is to search out the leaders in these various activities, identify their major issues, find areas of common agreement, and excite their imagination with tactics that can introduce drama and adventure into the tedium of middle class life."
And a word of Alinsky caution: "Start them easy, don't scare them off." When Alinsky's community organizer moves from organizing the "poor" to organizing the "middle class," he "discards the rhetoric that always says 'pig.' . . . He will view with strategic sensitivity the nature of middle-class behavior with its hangups over rudeness or aggressive, insulting, profane actions. All this and more must be grasped and used to radicalize parts of the middle class." (Obama never talks like an angry radical. He usually wears a coat and tie, and he speaks in calm, measured tones.)
Community Organizing Continues
Will the Alinsky strategies that nominated and elected Barack Obama President of the United States be put on the back burner for four years, lying dormant until they are needed to reelect him in 2012? Not likely. Those strategies are available right now to push through the radical legislation and gigantic spending programs that he promised his followers.
The pro-Obama New York Times laid out the plan on its January 26 front page under the headline "Retooling a Grass-Roots Network To Serve a YouTube Presidency." Obama's staff has already started "transforming the YouTubing-Facebooking-Texting-Twittering grass-roots organization that put Mr. Obama in the White House into an instrument of government. That is something that Mr. Obama, who began his career as a community organizer, told aides was a top priority, even before he was elected."
President Obama's staff has created a group, headquartered in the offices of the Democratic National Committee, called "Organizing for America." Its mission is to "redirect the campaign machinery into the service of broad changes in health care, environmental and fiscal policy. They envision an army of supporters talking, sending e-mail messages and texting to friends and neighbors as they try to mold public opinion." Three days after Obama was sworn in as President, an announcement video was sent to 13 million people.
The Obama team understands very well that traditional methods of communicating with voters are being replaced by new channels built around social networking. In the 2008 campaign, liberals dominated conservatives by more than 10-to-1 on the Internet, and the Obama campaign exploited that advantage fully and profitably. This massive Internet advantage enabled Obama and leftists to raise ten times more money than conservatives over the Internet, and to create a climate of extreme bias in the media against conservative candidates. Sarah Palin was savaged on liberal blogs with little resistance from conservatives.
This 21st Century use of Internet technology and new-media communication was reflected in Obama's truly incredible record of money-raising. He raised nearly $750 million for his presidential campaign. By contrast, in 2004, George W. Bush and Senator John Kerry together collected less than $650 million. For the general election, Obama had more than three times what John McCain had at his disposal, and Obama still had $30 million in the bank after the election.
Obama's technology/Internet superiority continues. DailyKos.com, a liberal blog site, ranks 3,631 in daily traffic out of many millions of internet websites. This is far higher, often by a factor of 100, than conservative sites. Many other liberal websites also outrank conservative sites, such as Moveon.org, a website started a decade ago in defense of Clinton during his scandals.
Previous Presidents recorded and released a radio speech every Saturday morning, but Obama instead records a video speech, then posts it on the White House website and YouTube where it can be picked up and forwarded to millions of followers who weren't listening to radio on Saturday mornings. His first speech was a sales talk for his $825 billion economic so-called stimulus package. By Sunday afternoon, more then 600,000 people had viewed it on YouTube.
It is virtually impossible for a candidate to win when he is outspent 10-to-1 by the other side. It is essential that conservatives assert themselves on the Internet in order to regain competitiveness in both ideas and in money.
Example of Obama Tactics
http://www.truthout.org/030109Y
Obama's War with the Right (& Media)
Saturday 28 February 2009
»
by: Robert Parry, Consortium News
President Barack Obama. (Photo: AP)
In a startling ambitious budget message, President Barack Obama has thrown down the gauntlet to the American Right not only by tying the current economic crisis to the recklessness of the past eight years under George W. Bush but by tracing it back further to the anti-regulatory, anti-labor and anti-government policies of Ronald Reagan.
"For the better part of three decades, a disproportionate share of the nation's wealth has been accumulated by the very wealthy," the 142-page budget message states. "Technological advances and growing global competition, while transforming whole industries - and birthing new ones - has accentuated the trend toward rising inequality."
Though Obama lays the bulk of what he calls "a legacy of mismanagement and misplaced priorities" at the feet of the Bush administration, there is no mistaking his larger message - that the problems which were "exacerbated" by Bush's tax cuts and other pro-rich policies have been building since Reagan's 1981 inaugural declaration that "government is the problem."
Obama even made a glancing reference to that formulation in his preamble to the budget message. "We need to put tired ideologies aside, and ask not whether our government is too big or too small, or whether it is the problem or the solution, but whether it is working for the American people," Obama said.
To the American Right, those are fighting words, and leading right-wingers have already trotted out their curious charge of "class warfare," an ironic message given the fact that the growing disparity in American wealth reveals that "class warfare" has long been at the heart of Reagan-Bush policies - and the rich are winning.
Yet, while it may be audacious for the young President to take on the well-entrenched forces of reaction in Washington, there is another reason for Obama and his supporters to worry. The national news media remains largely enthralled by the pro-Republican rules of the past three decades.
In both right-wing and mainstream news organizations, stories continue to be structured as faulting Obama and largely absolving Bush (not to mention the iconic Reagan).
Look for example at the lead stories in the New York Times and the Washington Post on Saturday. Both describe the stomach-turning 6.2 percent drop in the gross domestic product during the last quarter of 2008. Though that was the last economic quarter of the Bush administration, the stories instead were framed around Obama's failures.
The New York Times cites "a sense of disconnect between the projections of the [Obama] White House and the grim realities of everyday American life." The Washington Post says "the worse-than-expected data fueled doubts about whether the Obama administration had adequately sized up the challenges it faces."
What is remarkable about the two stories - and similar ones at other leading newspapers - is that the name "Bush" is nowhere to be found. Instead of a negative slant against Obama, the stories might reasonably have read that George W. Bush left behind an even worse economic mess than previously understood.
The newspapers could have explained how Bush's policy prescriptions - such as large tax cuts for the wealthy, a neglect of regulation and the declining living standards of the middle class - had pushed the United States to the brink of economic catastrophe. There might have been at least one reference to how Bush contributed to "the grim realities of everyday American life."
Or some of the commentators who have been criticizing Obama's dire warnings about the state of the U.S. economy - accusing him of "talking down" the economy - might have extended an apology, admitting that the President was more correct than they were. They might even have noted that Bush actually had "taken down" the economy.
But that would require a break from the media paradigm of the past few decades - and there is no sign that the powerful right-wing news media has any intention of changing its ideological ways, nor that the mainstream news media will stop its endless attempts to prove it's not "liberal."
The only times Bush gets mentioned these days, it seems to be in the most favorable light.
For instance, while forgetting to mention that the fourth quarter of 2008 fell during Bush's presidency, the U.S. news media gave Bush lots of credit for Obama's announcement that he will withdraw all U.S. combat forces by Aug. 31, 2010. CNN and other news outlets cited Bush's Iraq War "surge" as the reason Obama could pull out troops.
In other words, Bush gets credit for Obama ending an unnecessary war that Bush launched almost six years ago, while Obama is faulted for the 6.2 percent drop in the GDP under Bush.
As Obama sets off on a hazardous political journey - seeking national health insurance, a "greener" economy, educational and infrastructure investments, and higher taxes on the rich - he can expect continued hostility from most of the American news media, both on the right and in the mainstream.
That may be a structural problem that could prove fatal for the President's goals.
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Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush, was written with two of his sons, Sam and Nat, and can be ordered at neckdeepbook.com. His two previous books, Secrecy & Privilege: The Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq and Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth' are also available there. Or go to Amazon.com.
