Depressed as a Nation? 80 Percent of Americans Believe That We Are in a Recession Right Now

Depressed as a Nation? 80 Percent of Americans Believe That We Are in a Recession Right Now

According to a brand new Gallup poll, 80 percent of Americans believe that we are in a recession right now. Of course the government insists that the recession ended quite some time ago, but apparently the message is not sinking in. Not only that, most Americans also do not believe that things are going to get better any time soon. According to the Gallup poll, 61 percent of Americans believe that the economy will be the same as it is right now or will be even worse one year from now. Two years ago, only 35 percent of Americans felt that way. Talk about pessimism! So are we depressed as a nation? Have too many people been reading the Economic Collapse Blog? How do we account for such strange numbers?

Certainly there are some areas of the country that are still doing quite well. If you live in an area that is closely tied to the federal government (Washington D.C.), the big Wall Street banks (New York) or corporate America (Silicon Valley, etc.), then you can go out on the weekends and find packed restaurants and mall parking lots that are overflowing.

But most of the rest of the country is really hurting.

Tonight, there are millions upon millions of Americans that won't sleep well at all because they are trying to figure out how to get back on their feet. It can be really tough to keep going when you have been searching for work for years and still nobody will hire you. If you have a family, it is easy to feel like a failure when you have to look your spouse and your children in the eyes day after day knowing that they are depending on you.

If you have never been through it, then you should not mock those that are depressed because they cannot find work. Losing a good job and not being able to find another one can be an absolutely soul-crushing experience.

So why do 80 percent of Americans believe that we are in a recession right now?

Well, it is because that is what it feels like for most people.

For example, a reader identified as Carol recently shared the following with us....

My unemployment ends the end of December, yes, I will be one of the 99?ers, one that did not sit at home and eat potato chips, drink soda and watch TV. I have no health insurance, I support myself and cannot afford it. I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis last fall. Not to mention, degenerative disc disease, and osteoporosis. But I have continued to pursue work and regain employment, despite my health. I have no other choice but to fight and PRAY!

It amazes me at the stupidity of the general population, who still have their heads in the sand. The majority have no idea what is actually going on in our country on the political or economic side.

What would you do if you found out you were sick, you had no job, no health insurance and you were rapidly running out of money?

Please pray for those that are out of work. You never know when it will be you that needs some assistance.

For those that still believe that the economy is doing "great", let's review some of the cold, hard facts....

• 46.2 million Americans were living in poverty in 2010.
• The number of Americans living in poverty increased by 2.6 million last year. That was the largest increase since the U.S. government began keeping statistics on this back in 1959.
• 14 million Americans are officially unemployed.
• 6 million Americans have been unemployed for at least half a year.
• 8.8 million Americans are working part-time because they cannot find full-time jobs.
• Only 63.5 percent of all men in the United States had a job during the month of July.
• Zero jobs were created in the United States during the month of August.
• Median household income has fallen for three years in a row.
• 49.9 million Americans do not have any health insurance at all.
• The percentage of Americans covered by employer-based health plans has fallen for 11 years in a row.
• More than 45 million Americans (a new all-time record) are on food stamps.

If you are still doing really well, be thankful for that. Don't use the fact that you are on top of the hill as an opportunity to look down on others.

Unfortunately, as I talked about in a recent article, the U.S. economy continues to get even worse.

It certainly does not help that we continue to see millions of jobs shipped overseas. Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans are proposing anything that will stop the bleeding.

A lot of very skilled Americans are being put out of work by all of this offshoring. For example, a reader identified as GlennA recently shared the following with us....

Yes, lurking in the shadows, that's been me. A professional man with a master's degree in a technical who has not worked at a full-time job with benefits since mid 2009. Spent my last 2 years with the company offshoring to India all my team's work. I hear through the grapevine that quality there has gone completely off a cliff, but profits are OK.

Have had only sporadic benefitless contract work ever since, and am now down to my last few bucks.

All of the horrible natural disasters that we have experienced this year are not helping things either. As I have written about previously, in many ways this has been the worst year for natural disasters in modern U.S. history.

In a recent article for Newsday, Jennifer Wheary described the impact these horrible natural disasters have had on many areas of the country that were already facing tough economic times....

But after decades of disappearing jobs, declining wages and increasing expenses, this is no longer the case. As a result, people across New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Vermont, Maryland, the Carolinas, Texas and elsewhere lack the savings needed to weather these unexpected economic shocks. Well before the spate of recent bad weather, or the recent recession, millions of middle- and working-class families were already under water.

Right now, even the vast majority of American families that still do have jobs are barely scraping by. At this point, "financial security" is just a far off dream for most Americans.

So what are our leaders doing about this?

Well, as I have written about previously, the Obama jobs plan is a complete joke. It is really quite sad if that was his best shot. His plan would spend a lot of money, but just like the last "stimulus plan", it would not create many jobs at all.

The Federal Reserve has decided that it better jump into action again. The Federal Reserve has just announced that it is going to sell $400 billion of its short-term U.S. Treasuries and will use that money to buy $400 billion of long-term U.S. Treasuries. The Fed is hoping that this will lower interest rates on mortgages and home loans and will help to spur the economy.

So will this fix our economic problems? No, it will have even less of an impact than QE2 did. But the Fed wants to at least appear as if it is trying to do something.

The Federal Reserve has also pledged an " unlimited" amount of dollars to help bail out big European banks in October, November and December.

It is quite frustrating that virtually nobody in the mainstream media seems upset that the Federal Reserve is going to be showering European banks with cheap loans. Apparently they must all think that this is a wonderful idea, or perhaps they are just too preoccupied with talking about "The X Factor".

In any event, it does look like the global financial system may need some propping up very soon. Yesterday, I shared 21 signs that the financial world is on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

Well, here are a couple more....

Right now, corporate insiders are selling 7 dollars of stock for every 1 dollar of stock that they are buying.

That is a very troubling sign.

Another troubling sign is that Moody's has just downgraded the credit ratings of Citigroup, Wells Fargo, and Bank of America.

The last time we saw so much financial chaos was back in 2008.

We all remember what happened back then.

At this point, things are still so bad that 80 percent of Americans believe that we are still in a recession.

So what are things going to look like if there is another major financial crash in the coming months?

Will we soon see millions more Americans going dumpster diving as they hunt for something to eat?

Will we see even more tent cities start popping up all over the nation?

Will we see even more elderly people freeze in their own homes because they can't afford to heat them?

Already, more than one out of every five children in the United States is living in poverty.

How much worse can things get?

Unfortunately, they can get a lot worse.

If you think that Americans are depressed now, just wait and see what happens after the next financial crisis.

This country is going to become unglued in a major way.

Buckle up and hold on tight because it is going to be a bumpy ride.

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/depressed-as-a-nation-80-percent-of-americans-believe-that-we-are-in-a-recession-right-now

Herman W. McCain, “Going Bold”!

Herman W. McCain, "Going Bold"!
Posted by Christopher Manion on November 5, 2011 08:53 AM

Wow. This will inspire the masses.

Herman will "pull the right levers to turn around the fundamentals of this economy," while "listening  to our military commanders on the ground in places like Iraq and Afghanistan." He will "maintain our superpower status," stand by Israel, and unite with Canada and Mexico in a "strategic region."

Gee, I'm breathless. Aren't you? How imaginative! How inspired!

Oh, and he expects congress, run by Washington's bipartisan insider elite that is looting America (as a friend puts it), to roll over and play dead, singing "9-9-9" to the tune of "Kumbaya" (try it at home!).

For a moment Herman reminded me of a cross between Gerald Ford and John McCain. But he's actually just warmed-over George W. Bush. No threat to the Hot Tub, no closed agencies, no budget cuts. And note this: only Herman has the stature to promise an executive order outlawing affirmative action and all other forms of discrimination on January 20, 2013

He won't.

Still not convinced? His foreign policy adviser, Henry Kissinger, thinks he's " brilliant."

Fwd: Latest Articles

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Jamie Kirchick
Date: Saturday, November 5, 2011
Subject: Latest Articles
To: majors.bruce@gmail.com



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Dear Friends,

Please find below a selection of my latest articles. I also have a few personal news items.

I have begun using an email service to send out my articles. If you do not want to be on this list, you can simply click the unsubscribe link at the bottom. Feel free to forward this email onto friends, and if they want to join the list, direct them to this link.

Also, I left Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty last month and have joined the Foundation for Defense of Democracies as a fellow. FDD was founded immediately after 9/11 and bills itself as a "nonpartisan policy institute dedicated exclusively to promoting pluralism, defending democratic values, and fighting the ideologies that threaten democracy." You can check out FDD's website here.  I have long admired the Foundation's work from afar and am proud to be joining its team. I will remain based Prague, continuing my work as a foreign correspondent by writing for a variety of publications.

Herewith my most recent articles:

1) Charlie Hebdo Attack: No More Excuses, Index on Censorship, November 4
2) A Superhero Manqué and his Battle Against Czech Indifference, World Affairs Journal, November 1
3) Pro-Obama Democrats who Strain to Compare Libya to Iraq are Intellectually Dishonest, New York Daily News, October 26
4) Shameful Journalism in Wake of Release, Prague Post, October 26,
5) The Man with the Golden Gun is Gone, World Affairs Journal, October 21

Charlie Hebdo attack: No more excuses

The smoke had barely cleared from the firebombed office of Charlie Hebdo magazine – attacked for publishing cartoons of Mohammed – when TIME magazine's Bruce Crumley chose to criticise the satirists before the terrorist. James Kirchick denounces a too-familiar tendancy


There exists an unspoken rule in the Republic of Letters — that land where novelists, poets, mere ink-stained wretches like myself, think tank scholars who churn out dry policy reports…really anyone who writes for a living, reside: No one should be physically harmed, let alone threatened, for something that they publish. Don't get me wrong. I love literary feuds, even the bristling, (if well placed and rare), ad hominem attack. But the minute someone raises a fist, he's lost the argument. Indeed, it's a sign of a shallow mind and an insecure personality (see Norman Mailer) when a writer, flummoxed by the prowess of his intellectual adversary, resorts to throwing a scotch glass across the room. I hope that if my worst enemy, someone who wrote things that I absolutely despise, were ever confronted with violence by a fanatic of any sort, (even someone ostensibly "on my side"), I would defend him to the hilt.

Writers in the West rarely have to confront violence, certainly not from the state. Writers with a social conscience understand that they have something important in common with writers, whom they may never know, in far away lands. We are united in a fundamental belief: that freedom of expression is irrevocable and fundamental to a free society. We see this grand tradition of literary solidarity in organizations like PEN International, advocates for writers in authoritarian regimes whose lives and livelihoods are threatened by the mere exercise of activities which we in the West take for granted. And you see it in this fine publication, Index on Censorship, which for four decades has been exhaustively documenting challenges to free expression around the world.

That's why the fatwa against Salman Rushdie was such a clarifying moment; here was a man who had published a book in the birthplace of free speech — the United Kingdom — whose murder had been suborned by a fanatical cleric halfway around the world. As Christopher Hitchens wrote about the death warrant put out for his friend, "I thought then, and I think now, that this was not just a warning of what was to come. It was the warning. The civil war in the Muslim world, between those who believed in jihad and Shari'a and those who did not, was coming to our streets and cities."

Over the past decade, that civil war has intensified on the streets of Western cities; Amsterdam, (where the artist Theo van Gogh was murdered in broad daylight for a film which criticized misogynistic Koran verses), Nyhamnsläge, (the Swedish village where the home of cartoonist Lars Vilks, who drew images of Mohammed, has been repeatedly attacked), Aarhus (the Danish town where fellow prophet-image-maker Kurt Westergaard had to hide in a "panic room" after an axe-wielding Muslim broke into his home). It has thus been heartening to see this fundamental understanding among writers — that, no matter our political disagreements, we are all colleagues in a vitally important element of the free society — flower in response to a truly vile little excrescence by Bruce Crumley, the Paris correspondent for TIME magazine.

On Tuesday morning, the offices of the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo were firebombed after it named the Prophet Muhammed its "editor-in-chief" for an upcoming issue. In an article entitled, "Firebombed French Paper Is No Free Speech Martyr," Crumley taunted the paper's editors. "Do you still think the price you paid for printing an offensive, shameful, and singularly humor-deficient parody on the logic of 'because we can' was so worthwhile?" he asked. Crumley, who would make an excellent propaganda commissar in Uzbekistan or Iran, chided French politicians for "denouncing the arson as an attack on freedom of speech, liberty of expression, and other rights central to French and other Western societies," which is exactly what it was.

The original title of Crumley's piece, still viewable in the website URL, was "Firebombed French Paper: A Victim of Islam, Or Its Own Obnoxious Islamaphobia?" If a reader, so offended by Crumley's excuse-making for theocratic nutcases, bombs TIME's Paris Bureau, would that make Crumley a "victim" of his own obnoxious cowardice? If there was ever cause to deport someone from the Republic of Letters it would be Crumley's article, for in it he committed treason against his trade by showing himself to be a man eager to rat out his fellow writers and sell them down the river in a heartbeat.

Though he fashions himself a bold truth-teller, Crumley's justification of violent extremism isn't new. It's just the latest iteration of a tired excuse for terrorism, expressed by everyone from Noam Chomsky to Ron Paul, which is that the victims of terrorism have it coming. What made Crumley's entry into the genre singularly poisonous, and what I believe elicited the widespread disgust from journalists of all political stripes, is that it was written by a working journalist, not an academic, politician, or anti-"Islamophobia" activist.

To take just two examples of people on polar opposite sides of the political spectrum: Michael Brendan Dougherty, a paleoconservative with whom I've sparred on more than one occasion, termed the piece "The Most offensive Thing You'll Read Today" (my one quibble with his judgment is that this is the most offensive thing you will read all week, if not all month). Meanwhile, Spencer Ackerman, a man of the left, tweeted, "No one has the right not to be offended. No one has the right to firebomb a newspaper that offends them."

It's amazing, given all the struggles and sacrifices that have been made for freedom of speech over many years, that statements so simple bear repeating. But as long as we have moral cowards like Bruce Crumley around, repeat them we must.

A Superhero Manqué and His Battle Against Czech Indifference 

 

For most foreigners who visit the capital of the Czech Republic, the most memorable experience tends to be a stop at Prague Castle, a walk along the Charles Bridge at night, or perhaps a dinner cruise on the scenic Vltava River.

For me, it's stepping in dog shit.

I have never visited a city with more dog shit on the streets. Czechs love dogs; almost everyone seems to own one, and they take them everywhere, including restaurants and the subway. But they have absolutely no compunction about not cleaning up after them. Leaving my apartment just the other day, I walked past an elderly woman standing idly by as her dachshund defecated outside a store window. As he finished, I slowed down to see if his owner would do the right and proper thing. Predictably, she left the steaming pile of crap on the street, tugged on her canine companion's leash, and walked off. There was not a trace of shame or embarrassment in her face.

Having lived in the Golden City for about a year and a half, I've stepped in dog feces more times than I can remember; the same goes for all of my friends here. Dog crap on the streets is simply a fact of life for anyone who lives in Prague, as ubiquitous as goulash and pilsner. Leaving a pet's feces on a public street is part of a broader Czech disrespect for the surrounding environment, as witnessed in the unsig

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Re: True free market Capitalism evil

Da O'Jays'  jammed!

 

 

On Fri, Nov 4, 2011 at 1:16 PM, plainolamerican <plainolamerican@gmail.com> wrote:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bf9d3Sayso8&feature=related

On Nov 3, 7:52 pm, Keith In Tampa <keithinta...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I would much rather by unhappy with money, than unhappy without money......
>
> On Thu, Nov 3, 2011 at 1:40 PM, plainolamerican
> <plainolameri...@gmail.com>wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > Money is more important than ANYTHING
> > --
> > you gotta have it and the more the better
>
> > congrats on facing a small piece of reality
>
> > On Nov 2, 10:30 pm, studio <tl...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > > Money is more important than ANYTHING.
> > > it comes before God, before people, before animals, before
> > > environment, before health, before life, before housing, before food,
> > > before taxes, before paychecks, before resources, before property,
> > > before .... ANYTHING.
>
> > > And if your one of the .5% Republitard overlords, put a YOUR after the
> > > before.
>
> > --
> > Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
> > For options & help seehttp://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum
>
> > * Visit our other community athttp://www.PoliticalForum.com/
> > * It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
> > * Read the latest breaking news, and more.

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Re: OWS Defecates on American Flag

I don't remember if it were you Travis, or someone else, but just recently, someone posted a list of the groups who were supporting Occupy Wall Street et. al.;  which included the Communist Party of the US, the Socialist Party of the US,  China,  Russia,  and a host of other fine, upstanding, patrioitc groups of individuals.

 

I'd love to see that list again,  I must have deleted it without saving it to my "Fave"  posts.

 

Thanks,

 

KeithInTampa

On Fri, Nov 4, 2011 at 10:18 AM, Travis <baconlard@gmail.com> wrote:

I would loved to have been there with a 2 X 4 cause I would have whacked his ass so hard that shit would have flown out of his mouth.

New post on Fellowship of the Minds OWS Defecates on American Flag by Dr. Eowyn This is the picture from Occupy Wall Street which the media will never show you. WARNING: Graphic Pic Don't say I didn't warn you! Yes, you saw right. It's a pic of an Occupier urinating and defecating on the American flag. Notice the pooper's fellow Occupiers smiling, laughing, and cheering their approval. Just remember that the following individuals have come forth stating their approval of Occupy Wall Street. Their names are followed by their estimated net worth: Barack Obama: Annual POTUS salary (not total income): $400,000; Net worth in 2010: $10.5 million Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Ca): $21.74 million Rev. Jesse Jackson: $10 million Former Vice President of the USA Al Gore: $100 million Yoko Ono: $500 million Russell Simmons: $325 million Rosie O'Donnell: $100 million Roseanne Barr: $80 million Deepak Chopra: $80 million Kanye West: $70 million Alec Baldwin: $65 million Russell Brand (networth: 15 million; combined networth with wife, singer Katy Perry: $63 million) Susan Sarandon: $50 million Tim Robbins: $50 million Michael Moore: $50 million Danny Glover: $15 million Talib Kweli: $14 million Mark Ruffalo: $10 million [Networths for celebrities without an individual source link are from http://www.businessinsider.com/occupy-wall-street-celebrities-2011-10] H/t beloved fellow Tina. ~Eowyn Dr. Eowyn | November 4, 2011 at 6:38 am | Tags: desecration of American flag, OWS celebrity supporters, OWS political elite supporters, pigs | Categories: crime, Culture War, Economy, Liberals, Media, Occupy Wall Street, United States | URL: http://wp.me/pKuKY-ao3 Comment    See all comments Unsubscribe or change your email settings at Manage Subscriptions. Trouble clicking? Copy and paste this URL into your browser: http://fellowshipofminds.wordpress.com/2011/11/04/ows-defecates-on-american-flag/

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Re: On Rebooting America

Interesting perspective.  Thanks for sharing Michael.

 

 

On Thu, Nov 3, 2011 at 3:58 PM, MJ <michaelj@america.net> wrote:

On Rebooting America
by Gary North

Niall Ferguson is my favorite Establishment analyst, because he is an historian who understands a lot about free markets. He writes for the literati. He starred in a PBS series that was worth viewing, and another is scheduled in 2012. He teaches at Harvard University and the Harvard Business School.

He thinks America is running an empire, and he thinks it will not survive much longer. As with all empires, it is going to run out of wealth to support it. So, when he wrote a piece for the Daily Beast, Newsweek, I read it.

He used the metaphor of computing to describe what has been good with the West and what is no longer good. He says the West has had six "killer apps." These are: competition, the scientific revolution, the rule of law and representative government, modern medicine, the consumer society, the work ethic. All of this is true, but are these features fundamental? Are they, in the words of Karl Marx, more substructure or superstructure? I think the latter.

He avoids the crucial questions: (1) Why the West? (2) Why beginning in 1800? Why not earlier?

He uses the metaphor of the computer. But this analogy is strained. Why? Because we can date the invention of the computer: the war years, 1943-45. We know who did it: Mauchly, Eckert, and Von Neumann. We know their motivation. We know the applications.

We do not know exactly how or why Ferguson's six killer apps came into existence. We do not know how they came together around 1800 to create a new civilization. Why not earlier? We do not know what social, ethical, and religious forces undergirded the six. They are not autonomous. They were not designed by men. Computers were.

He says that the USA and the West are no longer the centers of these six features.

Ask yourself: who's got the work ethic now? The average South Korean works about 39 percent more hours per week than the average American. The school year in South Korea is 220 days long, compared with 180 days here. And you don't have to spend too long at any major U.S. university to know which students really drive themselves: the Asians and Asian-Americans.

Fair enough. But why is there this difference? What ideas or traditions led to this? Why was Korea in 1945 not much more productive than sub-Sahara Africa? Also, what led to the decline of the work ethic in the USA? Or was there a major decline? I did not spend more than 180 days in high school in the late 1950s.

Don't tell me television did it. Television was as addictive in 1960 as it is today.

What about taxes? The top income tax brackets are lower today than in 1960, thanks to Kennedy (70%) and Reagan (28%). They went back up a little under Clinton, but nothing like Eisenhower's era (91%).

Social Security taxes are up. Inflation prior to 2007 was up. Look also at the increase in regulations. These have hampered the American economy. But Americans still work hard. If they were taxed less, they would work harder, but to think that a taxation policy change would radically re-shape people's use of leisure time is naive. Good habits are easier to break than re-learn.

A programmer can re-program a computer. No one can reprogram a society. Those who try are first called revolutionaries, then tyrants, and finally failures.


THE HEALTHY-CUSTOMER SOCIETY

Ferguson speaks of the consumer society as a killer app, and so it is. It is a good thing for people to have more options. That is what liberty is all about. It is also what economic growth is all about. The two are linked at the hip.

How do people get more choices? By being better served by producers and by serving other customers. Producers save and organize and bear enormous uncertainties in search of profit. They cannot earn a profit in a free society in any way other than by serving consumers, meaning customers. The customer is king.

It is not that we live in a consumer society. It is that we live in a customer society. We have the legal freedom to consume. We also have a legal right to save. We can make investments today that we hope will bring us even more wealth in the future.

The consumer who is future-oriented chooses to consume less than he produces. This is the key to economic growth. People defer consumption for the sake of future consumption.

But some people save in order to produce. They live to produce. Their self-esteem is based on their production. They want to leave a legacy. They do not work mainly to eat. They eat mainly to work.

The customer society places economic authority in the hands of those who produce and those who are the heirs or beneficiaries of producers. Production creates its own consumption at some market-clearing price.


MODERN MEDICINE

Modern medicine is great, but the big gains in life expectancy came before 1912. People were richer. They bought screens for their windows and screen doors. Water treatment in cities got better after 1860. In rural areas, it was usually good. Most people lived on farms.


LESS RULE OF LAW

This is disheartening news.

The rule of law? For a real eye-opener, take a look at the latest World Economic Forum (WEF) Executive Opinion Survey. On no fewer than 15 of 16 different issues relating to property rights and governance, the United States fares worse than Hong Kong. Indeed, the U.S. makes the global top 20 in only one area: investor protection. On every other count, its reputation is shockingly bad. The U.S. ranks 86th in the world for the costs imposed on business by organized crime, 50th for public trust in the ethics of politicians, 42nd for various forms of bribery, and 40th for standards of auditing and financial reporting.

Here, we are retrogressing. As Western civil governments get more intrusive, the rule of law declines. Who can keep up with 70,000 pages of the Federal Register each year? Only armies of costly lawyers.

The increase in regulation is relentless. The law books are vastly thicker today than in 1960. So are rules and regulation books, where bureaucrats interpret and apply the laws of Congress.

I am in favor of going back to 1960 in most areas of administrative law, the laws enforced by bureaucracies. The areas where there has been improvement, such as civil rights, are dwarfed by the dark shadow of the Patriot Act.


SOCIAL DISORDER

He does not exactly predict that the West will turn into Greece. Possibly we can avoid the following, but maybe not. He puts question marks at the end of each sentence.

An upsurge in civil unrest and crime, as happened in the 1970s? A loss of faith on the part of investors and a sudden Greek-style leap in government borrowing costs? How about a spike of violence in the Middle East, from Iraq to Afghanistan, as insurgents capitalize on our troop withdrawals? Or a paralyzing cyberattack from the rising Asian superpower we complacently underrate?

Our problem is that we could turn into Greece. There is no immunity. The same bad policies could easily produce similar results.

Is there anything we can do to prevent such disasters? Social scientist Charles Murray calls for a "civic great awakening" – a return to the original values of the American republic. He's got a point. Far more than in Europe, most Americans remain instinctively loyal to the killer applications of Western ascendancy, from competition all the way through to the work ethic. They know the country has the right software. They just can't understand why it's running so damn slowly.

There is a problem with this analysis. What evidence is there that any civic awakening in America ever occurred apart from a religious awakening? Civic awakenings are not autonomous. I know about the First Great Awakening (1720-60). I know of the Second Great Awakening (1801-1840). I even know of the Third Great Awakening (1858).

There is another major problem: all three led to major political changes: centralized politics in the wake of major wars.

The social disruptions of 1965-70 led to greater centralization, and not just in the United States.

What we need to do is to delete the viruses that have crept into our system: the anticompetitive quasi monopolies that blight everything from banking to public education; the politically correct pseudosciences and soft subjects that deflect good students away from hard science; the lobbyists who subvert the rule of law for the sake of the special interests they represent – to say nothing of our crazily dysfunctional system of health care, our overleveraged personal finances, and our newfound unemployment ethic.

Correct. But who are "we," and how will "we" accomplish this?

I know how: cut their budgets. Let the free market sort out winners and losers. After all, this is the consumer/customer society. But the teachers in the tax-funded schools will resist any such move.

Do most Americans have a "newfound unemployment ethic"? I doubt it. Getting a job and keeping it has been basic to the American way of life throughout history.

What we have are government regulations everywhere. We have a kind of blind, deranged central economic planning by administrative law. We have what Ludwig von Mises sixty-five years ago called "planned chaos."


THE "C" WORD

Ferguson escalates the rhetoric.

I refuse to accept that Western civilization is like some hopeless old version of Microsoft DOS, doomed to freeze, then crash. I still cling to the hope that the United States is the Mac to Europe's PC, and that if one part of the West can successfully update and reboot itself, it's America.

But the lesson of history is clear. Voters and politicians alike dare not postpone the big reboot. Decline is not so gradual that our biggest problems can simply be left to the next administration, or the one after that.

If what we are risking is not decline but downright collapse, then the time frame maybe even tighter than one election cycle.

He speaks of collapse rather than decline. I prefer to speak of decline. The division of labor still operates. The profit and loss system still operates. Where these two social institutions operate, people are given fair warning of trouble lying ahead.

The squeezing of the free market by administrative law, monetary inflation, and taxes is increasing in some areas of life. It is not increasing in others. Where we need factories to produce, the various American governments are indeed a threat to our productivity and therefore our consumption. But where digits are concerned, the free market is in the saddle.

I believe that freedom of communication is far more important than low taxes. The former can produce the latter if the defenders of liberty make their case strong.

The ability of people to circumvent the Establishment media today is unprecedented in man's history. The World Wide Web is bringing down governments. It is increasing the cost of exposing bad science and bad government.It aids price competition.

In short, the Web offers more choices: of ideas, goods, and services. This is central to the changes that are going on today in the realm of ideas. We should not discount these too heavily.

I do not think this is the USSR in 1991. The United States is not a tyranny on that scale. It is far richer. Its people are connected digitally. The government can run, it can't hide.


CONCLUSION

I have no doubt that the transition costs from the Keynesian welfare-warfare state will be high. But I don't think a collapse is likely. There is a free market. There is a private communications system.

I look at the U.S. Postal Service and see the future of the Federal government. "I have seen the future, and it is mostly junk mail."

There will be attempts by the present Establishments to resist these changes. But the reality of the digits. They are getting more influential, and the Establishments control the older institutions that are threatened by cheap communications.

Decline for a time, yes. Comparative decline, Asia vs. the West. Yes. Transition costs, yes. Trapped voting groups that relied too heavily on government promises, surely. But a collapse is unlikely. The movement is toward freer markets. The freer the market, the less likely a collapse. Profit and loss signals enable us to adjust.

For those who don't adjust in time, or don't adjust enough, there is bad news ahead. The blind men who are passing laws are a threat. So are the petty tyrants who enforce these laws.

www.garynorth.com

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Re: Careful with that Weird, Koran-doting Uncle

Thanks for sharing this Travis.....Friggin' unbelievable and I had no idea that we had implemented such ridiculous nonsense. 

On Fri, Nov 4, 2011 at 11:20 AM, Travis <baconlard@gmail.com> wrote:

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/1111/west110411.php3?printer_friendly

 

Nov 4, 2011 / 7 Mar-Cheshvan 5772

Careful with that weird, Quran-doting uncle

By Diana West

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Uncle Sam is getting a little weird -- make that a lot weird. Having dumped hundreds of billions of dollars into a sinkhole called Afghanistan populated by misogynistic, pederastic, tribalistic and religiously supremacist primitives to no avail, he has hit on a new plan for winning those ever-elusive Afghan "hearts and minds."

Uncle Sam has decided that the answer lies in the latrine with the U.S. Marine Corps. No kidding. When nature calls, Uncle Sam has decided he wants every U.S. Marine equipped with a map and compass, or some other way of knowing direction. This is to ensure that no U.S. Marine in Afghanistan urinates in the direction of Mecca ever again.

Now, there's a winning strategy.

It's still OK, of course, to spread baksheesh (payola) indiscriminately, chase jihadis into twisting mountain gorges, clear any road laced with improvised explosives -- blow up, even, and bleed all over the place. Just make sure your sense of direction is sharp when it really counts.

Take spitting. According to an article in the North County Times, the word is: Ix-nay on itting-spay toward ecca-May, guys. If there's a pinch between teeth and gum while you're hiding out in a cold valley, figure out where Mecca is (2,000 miles away) before letting anything out of your mouth. Oh, and when it's time to catch some shut-eye "when sharing a base with Afghan army troops" -- if you can sleep, given the frightening odds an Afghan National Army soldier might turn his gun on you -- don't, whatever you do, let your combat boots point toward you-know-where.

That would be "culturally insensitive" and, therefore, it seems, worse than anything Afghani (or Pakistani) jihadist butchers might do (beheadings, rape) because they, as Muslims, are automatically "culturally sensitive." Apparently to compensate, senior Pentagon brass created something called the USMC Center for Advanced Operational Culture Learning to teach Marines to exist in the Islamically approved fashion.

When Marines learn not to excrete in the direction of Mecca -- home of the black cube known as the Kaaba -- and not to sleep with their boots toward Mecca, what are they really learning? They are learning to become intensely sensitized to the whereabouts of Mecca; how to be guided by that magnetic north for Muslims as a matter of the most personal habits and hygiene, all in accordance with Shariah (Islamic law). They are learning to act like Muslims. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em?

Such "culture learning" blends seamlessly with an International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) guidance to all troops in Afghanistan to revere the Quran and its teachings. That's the unmistakable message of COIN Advisory #20100924-001, which I found on the ISAF website.

"Never talk badly about the Quran or its contents," says the guidance, a no-nonsense formulation of Islamic prohibitions against any criticism of Islam. Touching it is out, too. "It is considered culturally insensitive for any non-Muslim to touch a copy of the Quran," ISAF explains. Why that is indeed the Islamic case, ISAF doesn't explain. Presumably, it might upset troops to learn that this injunction exists because Muslims consider non-Muslim "najis," or unclean, and thus unfit to touch their religious book. Before searching people, ISAF advises, "ask them if they have a Quran or religious item present. If so, ask them to remove it or put it in a suitable place before conducting the search."

Think the Navy SEALS who zapped Osama bin Laden asked him to put his Quran in a "suitable place" first? We can only hope.

Of course, there's more: "Additionally," ISAF continues, "verbal disrespect for Islam and/or the Quran is considered as inappropriate as physical desecration of the Quran. Insulting the Quran is an act of blasphemy."

The way Islam treats women stinks = verbal disrespect for Islam. The verses of the Quran that call for jihad against infidels are heinous = insulting the Quran. But ISAF, veritable mouthpiece of the coming caliphate, deems such talk "inappropriate" and outright "blasphemy." This might win the generals an extra cushion at the foot of the caliph's throne. But, as the Marines are learning in their Culture Learning classes, they'll have to drink all their chai and finish their goat, first.

 

 

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Re: Jesus as a Republican

Good Morning PlainOl!

 

How prey tell,  does a belief in, or "Faith"  in Jesus Christ control people? 

 

What you clearly don't understand or know is Christianity.   Christianity is a loving, forgiving faith PlainOl;  there is no fear, there is no "control".  Unless you "choose"  to subject yourself to it,  that "Fire and Brimstone"  crap died out four or five decades ago.

 

It's quite simple really.   You accept the Holy Trinity, which is a little hard to comprehend, (but not really).  The Father,  The Son, The Holy Ghost,  separately and indiviually.  Period. 

 

There are no judgments,  (despite what many dogmatic indivduals who use their faith to beat folks up with might espouse);  there are no prerequisites;  there are not tests, nor are there any "Penalties";  at least here on Earth. 

 

"Judge Not, Lest Ye Be Judged"; as well as Love Thy Neighbor" come to mind this morning, but in general,  it is obvious that you are clearly misinformed about Christianity.

 

On Fri, Nov 4, 2011 at 12:58 PM, plainolamerican <plainolamerican@gmail.com> wrote:

So next time you ponder the question; "what would Jesus do?"

----
remember that he's a myth used to control people

do not let the use of fear and threats of hell control you

On Nov 3, 6:58 am, studio <tl...@hotmail.com> wrote:

> Republitards interpretation of the Bible:
>
> Remember in the Bible where Jesus blames everything on the poor?
>
> Where Jesus tells them they shouldn't protest against Roman rule?
>
> The part where Jesus tells the poor how lazy they are?
>
> Or Jesus tells the people paying taxes is wrong?
>
> And where Jesus tells the people how good unfettered capitalism is?
> (Well, they didn't call it capitalism back then, it was just called
> greed).
>
> And the part where Jesus tells the rich to take the credit and the
> money?
>
> And how Jesus tells the rich that they'll be able to keep their wealth
> and status the same in Heaven?
>
> And the part where Jesus tells the people not to follow in his
> footsteps, but to do what He say's, not what He does?
>
> Or how Jesus tells the people that putting forth false witnesses will
> gain you popularity?
>
> Or how Jesus was a patriotic supporter of a strong military?
>
> Or how Jesus specific states how He's firmly set against gays and
> lesbians?
>
> And how Jesus goes into great detail how women and doctors who perform
> abortions should be punished?
>
> So next time you ponder the question; "what would Jesus do?"
> It's all right there in the Republican Bible of Money folks...

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Re: Gingrich Latest Phony to Rise in Polls

It must be like the fear of God,  when you see a true conservative that the American people will embrace come along.   If I were a crackpot Paul supporter,  I would be writing garbage like this too.

'

 

On Fri, Nov 4, 2011 at 11:49 AM, MJ <michaelj@america.net> wrote:

November4th
Gingrich Latest Phony to Rise in Polls
Tom Woods

A recent South Carolina poll has three status-quo candidates ­ Herman Cain, Mitt Romney, and Newt Gingrich ­ with a commanding lead. South Carolina Republicans evidently believe the country is basically on the right track if they're content with candidates who pledge to change things about one to two percent.  (Cain supporters will dispute this, but the evidence is right here.)

Regarding Gingrich, I reproduce a passage from Rollback:

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has a reputation for being a right-wing ideologue. But it is surely a strange right-wing ideologue who credits Franklin Roosevelt with lifting the country out of the Great Depression, joins with John Kerry on "climate change," and supports (among many other things) the Medicare prescription drug benefit, federal programs to pay for more teachers, Internet access for every American, and rewards to students who take challenging math and science sources ­ not to mention his sympathy for federal energy policy and Hillary Clinton's proposed national health-care database, among other things….

[In 1994,] the GOP leadership made the [election] into a referendum on [Gingrich's] "Contract with America," a series of proposals the party pledged to champion if elected. Democrats and Republicans alike pretended it was a radical assault on government spending and activity -- Democrats in order to frighten their base, and Republicans in order to energize theirs. The Contract was, in fact, a hodgepodge of trivial changes that both kept the basic structure of the American Leviathan intact and neutralized the more ambitious plans and proposals of freshman congressmen who may actually have wanted to change something. The center-left Brookings Institution had it right: "Viewed historically, the Contract represents the final consolidation of the bedrock domestic policies and programs of the New Deal, the Great Society, the post-Second World War defense establishment, and, most importantly, the deeply rooted national political culture that has grown up around them."

And, of course, don't forget this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=qi6n_-wB154

http://www.tomwoods.com/blog/gingrich-latest-phony-to-rise-in-polls/

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Re: Ron Paul’s De-Stimulus Plan

PlainOl wrote:

 

"Paul is the only presidential candidate proposing policies that address the country's fundamental economic problems"

 

======

 

Not exactly true.  Paul's "de-stimulus"  is pretty much a carbon copy of Newt Gingrich's "American Solutions";  formulated years before Paul's 2011 campaign announcement.

 

In general, I agree with both Mr. Gingrich, and if Paul wasn't so far out and naive on foreign policy,  and would remove his cuts in defense,  I could go along with Dr. Paul's plan. 

 

 

2011/11/4 plainolamerican <plainolamerican@gmail.com>

Paul is the only presidential candidate proposing policies that
address the country's fundamental economic problems

---
a vote for Ron Paul is a vote for America and our citizens

On Nov 4, 11:14 am, MJ <micha...@america.net> wrote:
> "Now, readers can be forgiven for not being familiar with the depression of 1946, because there actually wasn't one. But many Keynesian economists were predicting in 1945 the onset of economic depression as a consequence of peacetime demobilization. However, the exact opposite occurred, because the end of the war brought an enormous peace dividend in the form of a two-thirds reduction in government spending as well as the removal of most of the wartime economic regulations."Ron Paul's De-Stimulus Planby Tim Kelly, November 4, 2011

> Congressman Ron Paul has put forth an economic plan that calls for serious cuts in the size, budget, and power of the federal government. He has also proposed policies that would end the Fed-driven inflation responsible for the global economic meltdown. This is truly a de-stimulus plan.
> Paul's plan would immediately cut $1 trillion from the federal budget by closing down five cabinet departments, slashing regulations, and withdrawing troops from overseas. During a Paul presidency, the U.S. government would cease being the world's policeman, and the empire would be liquidated in the interests of the both the economy and the Constitution.
> Such a radical and necessary shift in foreign policy would be difficult for those Americans dependent on the war economy and accustomed to seeing their government as a colossus bestriding the world. But now is the time for Americans to face reality and admit that our country's exalted global position has been a corrupting experience, and it is simply no longer affordable.
> Such a sharp reduction in the federal budget, coupled with much tighter monetary policy would stop the flow of so-called stimulus spending from the economy. This would be the beginning of a painful readjustment period, as people necessarily reduced their consumption, and the economy liquidated years of inflation and debt-financed malinvestment. Unemployment would likely go up in the short term as zombie firms deprived of their periodic fix of easy money went bankrupt, and government payrolls were thinned.
> But it would also be the beginning of genuine economic recovery, because the private sector, relieved of the burdens of a metastasized state, would begin to accumulate real capital and invest in viable enterprises. Real jobs, not government jobs, would be created, and Americans would soon find themselves earning more, because their currency, no longer devalued by the Fed's printing presses, would actually gain purchasing power.
> No doubt Keynesians would still be out there preaching the necessity of countercyclical fiscal and monetary policies and warning of the dire consequences of deflation. There would also be no shortage of hack politicians and rent-seeking special-interest groups willing to spread the Keynesian message of more government spending. And it would be naïve to expect the financial elite to sit quietly as their privileges were taken away. A few select firms on Wall Street reap enormous profits from the bond market, and under the current system they are free to engage in essentially risk-free speculation due to their "too-big-to-fail" status.

> Paul has defended his de-stimulus program to inquisitors by correctly pointing out that similar "austerity measures" have been very successful in the past in spurring economic recovery and therefore should be used as roadmaps for recovery today. During a recent appearance on NBC'sMeet the Press, Paul tutored host David Gregory on "the depression of 1946."

> Now, readers can be forgiven for not being familiar with the depression of 1946, because there actually wasn't one. But many Keynesian economists were predicting in 1945 the onset of economic depression as a consequence of peacetime demobilization. However, the exact opposite occurred, because the end of the war brought an enormous peace dividend in the form of a two-thirds reduction in government spending as well as the removal of most of the wartime economic regulations.
> Jason E. Taylor and Richard K. Vedder explain in greater detail in their article"Stimulus by Spending Cuts: Lessons from 1946":Historically minded readers may be saying, &147;There was a Depression in 1946? I never heard about that." You never heard of it because it never happened. However, the &147;Depression of 1946" may be one of the most widely predicted events that never happened in American history. As the war was winding down, leading Keynesian economists of the day argued, as Alvin Hansen did, that &147;the government cannot just disband the Army, close down munitions factories, stop building ships, and remove all economic controls." After all, the belief was that the only thing that finally ended the Great Depression of the 1930s was the dramatic increase in government involvement in the economy. In fact, Hansen's advice went unheeded. Government canceled war contracts, and its spending fell from $84 billion in 1945 to under $30 billion in 1946. By 1947, the government was paying back its massive wartime debts by running a budget surplus of close to 6 percent of GDP. The military released around 10 million Americans back into civilian life. Most economic controls were lifted, and all were gone less than a year after V-J Day. In short, the economy underwent what the historian Jack Stokes Ballard refers to as the &147;shock of peace." From the economy's perspective, it was the &147;shock of de-stimulus."Another historical precedent Paul can point to is the depression of 1920. Very few people have heard of this "economic crisis." This is most likely due to its short duration and the fact that Warren G. Harding, a president not held in high esteem by mainstream historians, was able to reverse it with laissez-faire policies that are anathema to Keynesian orthodoxy.

> Historian Thomas E. Woods Jr. provides this synopsis of Harding's successful de-stimulus program:The economic situation in 1920 was grim. By that year unemployment had jumped from 4 percent to nearly 12 percent, and GNP declined 17 percent. No wonder, then, that Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover falsely characterized as a supporter of laissez-faire economics urged President Harding to consider an array of interventions to turn the economy around. Hoover was ignored.Instead of "fiscal stimulus," Harding cut the government's budget nearly in half between 1920 and 1922. The rest of Harding's approach was equally laissez-faire. Tax rates were slashed for all income groups. The national debt was reduced by one-third. The Federal Reserve's activity, moreover, was hardly noticeable. As one economic historian puts it, "Despite the severity of the contraction, the Fed did not move to use its powers to turn the money supply around and fight the contraction." By the late summer of 1921, signs of recovery were already visible. The following year, unemployment was back down to 6.7 percent and it was only 2.4 percent by 1923.Paul's de-stimulus plan has been given the cold shoulder in Washington, DC, but that's to be expected. After all, politicians are in the business of dividing plunder, and proposing to take an axe to the federal budget is no way to win friends and influence people inside the Beltway. But most Americans are now skeptical of stimulus programs, because the plans have clearly failed to reverse the country's economic downturn. Indeed, more people are coming to realize that the orgy in government spending since 2008 has only accelerated the decline. Moreover, there is serious concern regarding the federal government's unprecedented budget deficits and their potential for sparking hyperinflation.
> Perhaps enough voters will come to realize that Paul is the only presidential candidate proposing policies that address the country's fundamental economic problems, and perhaps they will reward him appropriately for his insight and statesmanship.http://www.fff.org/comment/com1111c.asp

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**JP** عید قربان،مہنگائی اور عوام ...............محمد وجیہہ السماء

محترم ایڈیٹر /یڈیٹوریل انچارج صاحب
اسلام علیکم سر!میںیہ کالم عید کے دن کے حوالے سے آ پ کوبھیج رہاہوں
امیدہے آپ کوپسندآئے گاجہاں رہیں خوش رہیں اور دعاؤوں میںیادرکھیں۔آپ کو
عید کی پیشگی مبارکباد ،خداحافظ
والسلام
محمد وجیہہ السماء
* Muhammad Wajih Us Sama,Columnist*
*http://wajisama.wordpress.com/*

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**JP** سپیشل عید ایڈیشن کالم!سر یہ عید کے دن کالم لگائیں

عید قربان ، مہنگا ئی اور عوام
شمشیر حق۔۔۔محمد وجیہہ السماء
نوٹ(محترم ایڈیٹر/ایڈیٹوریل انچارج صاحب!یہ کالم عید کے سپیشل ایڈیشن کے لئے لکھا گیا ہے اسی میں جگہ دی جائے شکریہ)
آج عید قربان کا بہت مسترتوں اوخوشیوں والا دن ہے یہ دن ہمیں ایک عظیم باپ اور سعادت مند بیٹے کی عظیم داستان کے مطلق بتاتا ہے جب حضرت ابراہیم ؑ نے خواب میں دیکھا کہ وہ اپنے بیٹے حضرت اسماعیلؑ کو قربان کر رہے ہیں انھوں نے اس خواب کا ذکرا پنے بیٹے سے کیا تو انھوں نے بھی سعادت مند بیٹے ہو نے کا بھرپوراظہارکر تے ہوئے حضرت ابراہیم ؑ سے کہا کہ اگر یہ اللہ تعا لیٰ کا حکم ہے تو میں اس کے لئے ہمہ وقت تیارہوں اور اسی طرح حضرت ابراہیمؑ اپنے بیٹے کو ایک ویران جگہ پر لے گئے اور ان کوسیدھا لٹا کر ان کی گردن پر چھری چلا دی اورقدرت نے بھی ان کی قربانی اور بندگی وسعادت مندی کو اتنا پسند فرمایا کہ حضرت اسماعیلؑ کی جگہ ایک بھیڑ کے بچے کو اس چھڑی کے نیچے بھیج دیااور اس طرح اس بھیڑ کے بچے کی قربانی ہو گئی اور یہ سنت ابراہیمی ہزاروں سال سے اسی طرح سے ادا کی جا رہی ہے مگر موجودہ دور کے درندہ نماانسانوں نے مہنگا ئی کا جو سمندر پید اکیا ہوا ہے اورضروریات زندگی کو ضرورت سے زیادہ مہنگا کیا ہوا ہے اس سے ایسے لگتا ہے کہ یہ مہنگائی کاطوفان چند سالوں میں امیروں کے گھروں کوبھی بہلاکرلے جا ئے گا کیو نکہ آ ج کے درندہ نما ''انسانیت کے دوست'' اورحکمران بھی اپنی عوام کوزندہ درگور کرنے میں مصروف عمل نظر آ تے ہیں ان لوگوں نے پیدا واری یونٹوں میں کم سے کم خرچ کر کے عوام کی جیبوں سے کروڑوں نکالنے کا جو ہنر حاصل کیا ہوا ہے اس سے ایسے لگتا ہے کہ یہ انسان تو ہیں مگر ان کے ضمیر ان کے جسموں میں موجودنہیں ہیں جو اپنے ہی ملک کے عوام کو مہنگائی ،بے روز گاری، اورکرپشن کے بدنام دھبے سے پریشان کئیے جا رہے ہیں تو دوسری طرف اپنی ہی پیدا کردہ چیزوں سے عوام کو زندہ درگور کرتے جا رہے ہیں بقول ان کے ''یہ انسانیت کے عظیم ترین دوست ہیں'' اور اپنے عوام کے لئے ہی یہ تما م چیزیں پیدا کرتے ہیں مگرحقیقت بالکل اس کے برعکس ہے
یہ لوگ چیزیں تو پیدا کر تے ہیں مگر اپنی عوام کو پریشانی میں مبتلا کرنے کے لئے ان کا استعمال بھرپور طریقے سے کرتے ہیں آ ج ملک کی کسی بھی مارکیٹ اورکسی بھی چیز کی جانب نظر ڈورائیں ہر طرف مہنگائی کا سیلاب اس جمہوری دور حکومت میں عوام کو ڈس رہا ہے آ ج سے 3/4سال قبل جوچیز10روپے کی ملتی تھی آج وہ 30/40میں بھی بمشکل ملتی ہے اس کے لئے آ ٹے اور چینی کی مثالیں ہی کافی ہیں کیو نکہ چینی 28روپے فی کلو اورآٹا 12 روپے فیکلو عام مارکیٹ میں با آسانی اور وافر مل جا تاتھا مگر آ ج یہی چیزیں 80/روپے اور32/روپے فی کلو کے حساب سے بمشکل مل رہی ہیں اگراسی طرح پٹرول، ڈیزل اورمٹی کے تیل کی بات کی جائے تو وہ بھی اپنی حدوں کو چھو رہے ہیں اور ملک اسی مہنگا ئی کے زیر اثر ہیجس کی وجہ سے اس بار بھی سنت ابراہیمی اداکرنے والوں میں بے تحاشا کمی واقع ہو ئی ہے جو لوگ شاید پچھلے سال سنت ابراہیمی ادا کر چکے ہیں وہ بمشکل اس سال اس سعادت کے فریضہ کوسر انجام دے سکیں گے اس مہنگا ئی کے دورمیں وہ صرف قیمتیں پوچھ کر واپس جا تے نظر آئے ہیں گاہک تاجروں پر زیادہ قیمتیں وصول کر نے کادعوی کرتے ہیں تو تا جر عوام کو ''صرف باتوں سے دل بہلانے والے '' کہہ کر ٹالنے میں مصروف عمل ہیں اورمنڈی والوں کوبھی اس مہنگا ئی کاذمہ دار قرار دیتے ہیں بقول ان کے سیلاب میں ہزاروں جانوروں کاضیاع ہوا ہے اس لئے ان کی قیمتوں میں یہ اضا فہ دیکھنے میں نظر آ رہا ہے اوراوپر سے منڈی والے بھی زیادہ فیس وصول کرتے ہیں اس کے ساتھ ساتھ وہ یہ تجویز بھی دیتے ہیں کہ اگرجانوروں کی سپلائی ڈ بل کر دی جائے اورمنڈی کی فیس بھی کم کر دی جائے تو امید کی جاسکتی ہے کہ زیادہ لو گ سنت ابراہیمی کو ادا کر نے کے قابل ہو جائیں گے اور اس طرح تصویر کا دوسرا رخ دیکھیں تو مہنگائی کارونارونے والی عوام سے آج بازاروں میں بے پناہ رش نظر آ رہاہے اور وہاں تل دھرنے کوجگہ نہیں مل رہی اسکے ساتھ ساتھ یہ بات بھی سامنے آتی ہے کہ آج سنت ابراہیمی کا مقصد صرف ذاتی اناکی تسکین اور ذاتی تشہیر کا ذریعہ بنا دیا گیا ہے آ ج قربانی کو سنت ابراہیمی سمجھ کر ادا نہیں کیا جاتا بلکہ صرف خود ی کی تشہیر کے لئے استعمال کیا جا تا ہے اور گوشت کی ''تقسیم'' بھی ''تعلق'' اور''خاندانی رسم و رواج'' کے مطابق سر انجام دی جاتی ہے اہم ،خصوصی تعلق داروں اور''اونچے'' گھرانوں کواچھے اور بہترین گوشت سے نوازہ جاتا ہے اور ان کی گھر میںآمد کے بعد خوب خاطر مدارت بھی کی جا تی ہے جب کہ اس قربانی کے حقیقی حق داروں کویا تو ٹرخادیاجا تا ہے یاپھر اس گو شت سے نوازہ جا تاہے جوخود کھا نے سے ''صاحبِ قربانی'' عا جز ہو تا ہے مطلب اس گوشت کی تقسیم کرتے وقت بھی اس گوشت کو آپس میں مکس(ملایا ) نہیں جاتا بلکہ ہر بہترین حصے کو یا تو اپنے فریج میں''فریز'' کر لیا جاتا ہے یا پھر اہم لوگوں کو ''تحفے'' میں اوراپنی بڑائی جتلانے کے لئیستعمال کیا جاتا ہے یہ ہماری قوم کی اجتماعی بے حسی اور سنت ابراہیمی کے متضاد کام کر نے کی زندہ جاوید مثال ہے جب کہ لوگوں کوایساہرگز نہیں کرناچاہیئے کیونکہ ایک ایک قربانی کا حساب روز آ خرت اللہ تعالیٰ کودینا ہے اور اپنے دین پر عمل پیرا ہوتے ہوئے قربانی کے فرائض کو اداکرنا چاہیئے کیو نکہ خدائے بزرگ وذوالجلال کا واضع ارشادہے کہ ''مجھ تک تمھاری قربانی کا گوشت، خون اور کھالیں نہیں بلکہ تمھاری نیتیں پہنچتی ہیں'' آج اسی ارشاد پر عمل پیرا ہوکر اپنے لئے روز آخرت کے لئے سرخروہو نے کے لئے کام کر نا چاہیئے اوردین میں جسطرح قربانی کے فرائض اورسنتوں پرعمل کرنا بتایا گیا ہے اسی پر عمل پیرا ہو کر غریبوں، مسکینوں، محتاجوں، حقیقی ضرورتمندوں، رشتہ داروں، اورخوداپنے گھر والوں کے لئے گوشت تقسیم کرنے کا جو طریقہ بتا یا گیا ہے اس پرعمل پیرا ہو نا چاہیئے
اور اگربحیثیت قوم اورایک فرد ہم اس پر قائم نہیں تو ہمیں اجتماعی طور پر آ ج یہ سوچنے کی ضرورت ہے کہ آج ہم جسطرح اور جس سوچ سے قربانی کی سنت ادا کر رہے ہیں کیا یہی وہ درس تھاجوہمیں حضرت ابراہیمؑ اور حضرت اسماعیل ؑ نے قربانی کے حوالے سے دیاتھا یا آ ج ہماری قربانی سے روح ابراہیمی نظر آ تی ہے جواس وقت حضرت ابراہیمؑ اور حضرت اسماعیل ؑ نے ادا کی تھی ہمیں بھی اپنی قربانی کو اسی کے مطابق ڈھالناہوگا اور اگر ایسا نہیں تو ہمیں اپنے اعمال اور اپنے کردار پر نظر ڈالتے ہو ئے سب سے پہلے اپنے گریبان میں جھانکنا ہوگا تا کہ خود دین پرعمل پیرا ہو کر اپنی قربانی کو قربانیکی روح کے مطابق اداکر سکیں اور آخرت میں یہ ہمارے لئے بخشش کاذریعہ بن سکے ****

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*Assalam o Alaikum.
Attention
Editor sab/Incharge Megazine
Please Publish this Artical on the Day of Eid-ul-Azha
Do remember me in your prayers.*
* *BEST REGARDS **
* Muhammad Wajih Us Sama,Columnist*
*http://wajisama.wordpress.com/*

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