Dr King Spanks Obama: Part 4

Some months ago, at the 23rd Annual Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Holiday Celebration in San Francisco, attendees were asked to answer the question, “What would Dr. King want to say to Barack Obama?” [1] This article series is an effort to provide Dr. King an opportunity to answer that question for himself from the pages of a book he wrote in 1967 entitled: “Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?”. But more than a mere contrast between two persons, this article series seeks to compare recent American history with contemporary struggles, and to explore visions of a more desirable future. This is the spirit of Dr. King’s book title and of Obama’s campaign slogan, “Change We Can Believe In”. At this point, we’ve reached chapter 5 of Dr. King’s book, which advances the following centerpiece of his philosophy:

“I am now convinced that the simplest approach will prove to be the most effective — the solution to poverty is to abolish it directly by a now widely discussed measure: the guaranteed income… This proposal is not a “civil rights” program, in the sense that that term is currently used. The program would benefit all the poor, including the two-thirds of them who are white. I hope that both Negro and white will act in coalition to effect this change, because their combined strength will be necessary to overcome the fierce opposition we must realistically anticipate.” — Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., 1967 [2]

Now termed the “Basic Income Guarantee” (BIG), this measure doesn’t receive quite the discussion or popular acclaim that it did 40-years ago. But it has been advanced by a historic list of prominent supporters, including Thomas Paine, Milton Friedman, John Kenneth Galbraith, and more recently, Richard C. Cook. [3] This essay will argue that higher levels of economic democracy are a prerequisite, not a byproduct, of such a measure. Meanwhile, with a vast body of contemporary support, Barack Obama has recently advanced a similar proposal:

“I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer universal health care plan. I see no reason why the United States of America, the wealthiest country in the history of the world, spending 14-percent — 14-percent of its gross national product — on health care, cannot provide basic health insurance to everybody. And that’s what Jim’s talking about when he says ‘everybody in, nobody out’, a single-payer health care plan, universal health care plan. That’s what I’d like to see. But as all of you know, we may not get there immediately, because first we’ve got to take back the White House, we’ve got to take back the Senate, and we’ve got to take back the House.” — Barack Obama, 2003 [4]

At first glance, Barack Obama and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. might seem to be on the same page, or at least somewhere in the same ballpark. But now that Democrats have finally taken back the White House and Congress, Rob Kall asks an essential question: “Who would have thought that Obama’s health care plan would enrich big Pharma and raise profits for health insurers while raising taxes on small businesses and threatening to jail people who were uninsured?” [5] As Progressives Democrats of America complain, “the one option that would produce enough savings to include every single American, contain rising costs, and ensure no one ever faces a medical bankruptcy again was never seriously considered despite the fact that 86 members of Congress have co-sponsored HR 676, The Medicare for All Act. Congress has failed to debate the one option that nearly 60% of doctors and nurses support, most Americans want, along with a growing number of unions, cities and towns” — single payer health care. [6]

In my home state of Washington, the Spokesman Review reports: “The 1 in 5 adults lacking insurance stand to sink the financial stability of the state’s health care providers… Many health care providers have softened the losses by charging more for those with insurance… We’re reaching a point where we can’t sustain this system”. [7] Even from a strictly “free market” perspective, this continuing trend is a market failure [8] that the Obama administration now seeks to mandate for every US citizen instead of a more sustainable single payer system that was originally proposed. According to Stephen Lendman: “If Obamacare is enacted, it will cost more, deliver less, leave millions uninsured, millions more underinsured and leave a broken system in place. It will enrich the insurance, drug and large hospital chain cartels at the expense of universal coverage. It will solidify a class-based system delivering the best care money can buy. Others will get sub-standard treatment, and for millions none at all.” [9] Kate Randall adds, “Obama’s health care counterrevolution is of a piece with his entire domestic agenda. It parallels the multi-trillion-dollar bailout of the banks, the imposition of mass layoffs and wage and benefits cuts in the auto industry, and a stepped-up attack on public education and on teachers.” [10]

Nonetheless, public support for Barack Obama and his alleged “centrist” approach appears to remain fairly high, as for some reason he was recently awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. According to the Nobel committee, Obama has created “a new climate in international politics.” But Paul Craig Roberts remands:”Tell that to the 2 million displaced Pakistanis and the unknown numbers of dead ones that Obama has racked up in his few months in office. Tell that to the Afghans where civilian deaths continue to mount as Obama’s “war of necessity” drones on indeterminably. No Bush policy has changed. Iraq is still occupied. The Guantanamo torture prison is still functioning. Rendition and assassinations are still occurring. Spying on Americans without warrants is still the order of the day. Civil liberties are continuing to be violated in the name of Oceania’s ‘war on terror’. Apparently, the Nobel committee is suffering from the delusion that, being a minority, Obama is going to put a stop to Western hegemony over darker-skinned peoples. The non-cynical can say that the Nobel committee is seizing on Obama’s rhetoric to lock him into the pursuit of peace instead of war. We can all hope that it works. But the more likely result is that the award has made ‘War is Peace’ the reality.” [11] So the Nobel committee has essentially discredited themselves and the Peace Prize itself by awarding it to a warmonger like Barack Obama. This should raise serious questions about how they were coerced into doing so, and by whom.

When Martin Luther King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, he responded, “I am mindful that debilitating and grinding poverty afflicts my people and chains them to the lowest rung of the economic ladder. Therefore, I must ask why this prize is awarded to a movement which is beleaguered and committed to unrelenting struggle; to a movement which has not won the very peace and brotherhood which is the essence of the Nobel Prize. After contemplation, I conclude that this award which I receive on behalf of that movement is a profound recognition that nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral question of our time – the need for man to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to violence and oppression. Civilization and violence are antithetical concepts.” [12]

Meanwhile, the violence driven by American imperialism continues to spread throughout the world while most black Americans are still chained to the “lowest rung of the economic ladder” as Dr. King lamented more than 40-years ago. While they are joined by a growing population of whites, Hispanics and other races, it is significant to note that an inordinate proportion of African Americans still find themselves living in poverty. In fact, Professor David Harvey suggests the recent mortgage foreclosure crisis is largely a racial phenomenon, “a financial Katrina”, with its devastation focused mainly in the inner-city of places like Cleveland, Detroit and Baltimore where the concentration of ethnic minorities is typically highest. [13] [14] The Chicago Tribune reports that “deep recession is hitting African-Americans more severely than the overall population”. As the nation’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate nudged toward 10 percent, the African-American jobless rate was 15.5 percent with Illinois blacks at 18.6 percent in the third quarter, according to estimates by the Economic Policy Institute.

The Tribune goes on to say: “The United States historically has seen higher unemployment rates for minorities, but the gap has widened in this recession, in part because of job losses in the manufacturing and auto sectors. And the jobless growth, coupled with the predatory lending that flourished in segregated neighborhoods during the real estate boom, have led to dramatic spikes in mortgage foreclosures, sending home values into a downward spiral. The bottom line: A silent depression for African-Americans”. [15] According to Larry Pinkney, “the underbelly of this nation is the black underclass. Instead of becoming smaller and moving out of poverty and disenfranchisement, the black underclass has grown much, much larger and become even more impoverished and disenfranchised”.

In chapter 5 of his book, Dr. King implores the American black population to educate themselves and to become more actively involved in politics. [2] While some have successfully heeded this call to action, Pinkney further observes, “The relatively small black elite has shamelessly, in complicity with the elite of its white counterpart, helped spawn an insidious new form of racism and economic apartheid. Moreover, members of the black underclass are themselves chastised and blamed by this insidious black elite and intelligentsia for being the economic and social victims of a callous, avaricious, capitalist system which now finds itself in deep trouble nationally and globally”. [16]

But is it any surprise that a black rise to power under capitalism would be proportionately similar to a white rise to power under the same system? Is it any surprise that the interests of “black power” would closely match and collaborate with the interests of “white power”? Under capitalism, is it any surprise that the interests of power are directly opposed to the interests of the remaining population regardless of skin color? Is it any surprise that a black President would advance an agenda very similar to most of his lily white predecessors?

In chapter 2 entitled, “Black Power”, Dr. King argues, “The problem of transforming the ghetto is, therefore a problem of power — a confrontation between the forces of power demanding change and the forces of power dedicated to preserving the status quo.” With this, Dr. King obviously understands that opposing interests are involved. But until this antagonism is dissolved, any personal transition from one pole to the other merely erases one’s sympathetic relationship with the opposing pole. There is no incentive for any President of the United States to “transform the ghetto”, as his position of power is contingent upon the powerlessness of others. So the goal of “equality”, which Dr. King so fervently pursued, is not for any individual or group to rise to power over others, but to dismiss the existing power structure as much as possible in all human activity in order to maximize democracy and to minimize opposing interests. “Are we seeking power for power’s sake? Or are we seeking to make the world and our nation better places to live? If we seek the latter, violence can never provide the answer. The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it.” In chapter 2, Dr. King goes on to say:

“Power, properly understood, is the ability to achieve purpose. It is the strength required to bring about social, political or economic changes. In this sense power is not only desirable but necessary in order to implement the demands of love and justice… There is nothing essentially wrong with power. The problem is that in America power is unequally distributed. This has led Negro Americans in the past to seek their goals through love and moral suasion devoid of power and white Americans to seek their goals through power devoid of love and conscience. It is leading a few extremists today to advocate for Negroes the same destructive and conscienceless power that they have justly abhorred in white. It is precisely this collision of immoral power with powerless morality which constitutes the major crisis of our times.” [17]

Many argue that one year is not nearly long enough for any President to effect “change” in these regards. And granted, President Obama probably didn’t intend “Change We Can Believe In” to suggest he could solve all the world’s problems overnight. But it does seem entirely reasonable for us to expect him to at least initiate a “change” of direction in the most damaging trends. Instead, Barack Obama continues to deliberately fortify those trends in the same direction they have been headed for the past 40-years since Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated by his own government. [18] “For the first time in humanity, over 1 billion people are chronically hungry”, says a United Nations World Food Programme online video. The US Department of Agriculture reports recently that in 2008, one in six US households were “food insecure”, the highest number since the figures were first gathered in 1995. [19] Once again, these aren’t static snapshots, they are dynamic and growing economic trends.

How is it that citizens of the wealthiest nation in human history increasingly find themselves living in tents and under bridges and without adequate nourishment? At the same time, how is it that 75-percent of all American youth aged 17-24 are too fat and stupid to pass a military entrance exam? [20] [21] Is all this due to irresponsibility amongst the lower classes, or is it because of upper class greed? The best answer is probably that our class-based socioeconomic system is inherently is designed to channel economic wealth and political power away from producers and into the hands of non-producers. Whether we are aware of the fact or not, each of us consent to this antagonistic relationship and actively contribute to its predominance through daily participation.

One argument against this conclusion is that increasing numbers of workers, involuntarily displaced by technological advancement and other economic developments, qualify as “non-producers” who have no share in the wealth and power generated by production. But the result of their displacement is increased competition for jobs at the individual level, which tends to drive aggregate wages down. So the active role of rising unemployment and a growing “underclass” is to reduce and discipline the remaining workforce, to increase its productive output and to drive wages down, thereby delivering more wealth and power into the hands of a shrinking upper class. While some analysts might refer to this as “economic efficiency”, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. presents another view:

“Now we realize that dislocations in the market operation of our economy and the prevalence of discrimination thrust people into idleness and bind them in constant or frequent unemployment against their will… We have come to the point where we must make the non-producer a consumer or we will find ourselves drowning in a sea of consumer goods. We have so energetically mastered production that we now must give attention to distribution… The problem indicates that our emphasis must be two-fold. We must create full employment or we must create incomes. People must be made consumers by one method or the other… The contemporary tendency in our society is to base our distribution on scarcity, which has vanished, and to compress our abundance into the overfed mouths of the middle and upper classes until they gag with superfluity. If democracy is to have breadth of meaning, it is necessary to adjust this inequity. It is not only moral, but it is also intelligent. We are wasting and degrading human life by clinging to archaic thinking. The curse of poverty has no justification in our age. It is socially as cruel and blind as the practice of cannibalism at the dawn of civilization, when men ate each other because they had not yet learned to take food from the soil or to consume the abundant animal life around them. The time has come for us to civilize ourselves by the total, direct and immediate abolition of poverty.” [2]

While Dr. King’s vision is both admirable and perhaps attainable, he also anticipates “fierce opposition”. Moreover, he seems to realize his suggested measures are impossible without “deep structural change” implemented through “some form of constructive coercive power”. [22] For example, in chapter 5 of his book, King states: “It was not the marching alone that brought about integration of public facilities in 1963. The downtown business establishments suffered for weeks under our almost unbelievably effective boycott. The significant percentage of their sales that vanished, the 98 percent of their Negro customers who stayed home, educated them forcefully to the dignity of the Negro as a consumer.” [2]

It might be surmised from this that Dr. King merely advocates consumer activism whereby people “vote with their dollars.” But consumers can’t vote with dollars they don’t possess. Moreover, unemployment and poverty are structural features of the predominant economic system, not a mistake or an aberration that can be corrected through some kind of reform. So effective withdrawal of mass consent for the existing wage-based system involves more than a mere “boycott” or failure to participate. Structural transformation of the decision-making process involves the construction of an entirely new socioeconomic system where human beings are no longer enslaved by either masters or wages. Further study indicates that Dr. King not only understood the severe limitations of his prior campaigns but that he also had much higher goals in mind:

“We must frankly acknowledge that in past years our creativity and imagination were not employed in learning how to develop power. We found a method in nonviolent protest that worked, and we employed it enthusiastically. We did not have leisure to probe for a deeper understanding of its laws and lines of development. Although our actions were bold and crowned successes, they were substantially improvised and spontaneous. They attained the goals set for them but carried the blemishes of our inexperience… The future of the deep structural changes we seek will not be found in the decaying political machines. It lies in new alliances of Negroes, Puerto Ricans, labor, liberals, certain church and middle-class elements.” [2]

Here, Dr. King describes what David Harvey has more recently termed The Right To The City: “The question of what kind of city we want cannot be divorced from the question of what kind of people we want to be, what kinds of social relations we seek, what relations to nature we cherish, what style of daily life we desire, what kinds of technologies we deem appropriate, what aesthetic values we hold. The right to the city is, therefore, far more than a right of individual access to the resources that the city embodies: it is a right to change ourselves by changing the city more after our heart’s desire. It is, moreover, a collective rather than an individual right since changing the city inevitably depends upon the exercise of a collective power over the processes of urbanization. The freedom to make and remake ourselves and our cities is, I want to argue, one of the most precious yet most neglected of our human rights.” [23]

Both Dr. King and Professor Harvey go on to suggest that transforming our social relations to effect deep structural change involves far more than mere labor movements or consumer uprisings or civil rights activism or ecological arguments or mournful cries from the unemployed, homeless and starving. Instead, a unified cooperative alliance amongst all these common interests is essential to effect the needed transition from capitalism toward a more equitable and sustainable socioeconomic system. David Harvey insists that democratic control of productive surplus is imperative, and Dr. King is very explicit in defining his view of cooperative alliance:

“A true alliance is based upon some self-interest of each component group and a common interest into which they merge. For an alliance to have permanence and loyal commitment from its various elements, each of them must have a goal from which it benefits and none must have an outlook in basic conflict with the others.” [2]

So a truly cooperative “alliance” involves a set of “common interests” with no “basic conflict”. There is nothing complicated about this, as most human interests are generally held in common and are best managed democratically. The most obvious exceptions are any sort of personal drive for financial independence or political power, derived through private accumulation and exclusive individual control of capital surplus. These pursuits tend to promote hostile relations with others and establish opposing sets of interests. Everyone wants control of capital surplus — and everyone should have it — democratically. For the very essence of capital is social improvement, and there is no justification for that power to be concentrated in the hands of an exclusively entitled minority. Economic democracy and political service are collaborative, not individual, pursuits, and the wreckage of our dying system is potentially fuel for more universal and sustainable levels of human cooperation. Unemployed capital and unemployed labor living side-by-side is always an opportunity to transform the system. So there is no reason Dr. King’s dream of racial equality through the abolition of poverty can’t materialize. But there is also no reason to expect such blessings to be delivered from the President of the United States or his floundering Congress. As Dr. King further suggests:

“When a people are mired in oppression, they realize deliverance when they have accumulated the power to enforce change. When they have amassed such strength, the writing of a program becomes almost an administrative detail. It is immaterial who presents the program; what is material is the presence of an ability to make things happen. The powerful never lose opportunities — they remain available to them. The powerless, on the other hand, never experience opportunity — it is always arriving at a later time. The deeper truth is that the call to prepare programs distracts us excessively from our basic and primary tasks… Our nettlesome task is to discover how to organize our strength into compelling power so that government cannot elude our demands. We must develop, from strength, a situation in which the government finds it wise and prudent to collaborate with us. It would be the height of naiveté to wait passively until the administration had somehow been infused with such blessings of goodwill that it implored us for our programs. The first course is grounded in mature realism; the other is childish fantasy.” [2]

The abolition of poverty will begin here and now — in the United States of America — with a deliberate and aggressive expansion of the cooperative business sector supported by a network of publicly owned banks. [24] For higher levels of economic democracy are a prerequisite, not a byproduct, of programs like Basic Income Guarantee and Single Payer Health Care. To demand progressive programs from a conservative government is “the height of naiveté”. To expect a conservative government to magically become progressive with the election of a black man to the Presidency is “childish fantasy”. The challenge and the responsibility for the pursuit of progressive measures belongs to individuals and firms at the community level who already understand the root of the problem and the potential solutions. Lots of people simply “don’t get it”, and that’s okay. The responsibility of those who do understand is not to persuade or convince those who stubbornly object, but to transform social relations at the community level by providing a superior living example of economic democracy [25] to others who are more receptive.

Michael Moore recently distributed a list of “15 Things Every American Can Do Right Now” in these regards. [26] But as stated above, the most urgent measures on that list involve democratizing the workplace and capital investment: 1) Fire your boss and reorganize the workplace cooperatively. 2) Close your bank account and deposit your money in a credit union or some other form of publicly owned bank. That is, any kind of system that does not feed back into the currently predominant debt-based monetary system. The combination of both measures is a large-scale dismissal of the current socioeconomic system. Instead of money being loaned into circulation at interest from a fractional reserve and exclusively controlled by a handful of private bankers, cooperative firms will pool some portion of their productive surplus into an investment fund which is democratically ploughed back into the economy in the form of grants, specifically for the purpose of expanding the cooperative business sector.

Thus, money is earned, not loaned, into circulation, and economic growth for the sake of political power is no longer an imperative. The newborn economy will deliberately operate parallel to — and in direct competition with — the existing system, and it will steadily grow from within it. The main criteria for success is a transfer of popular consent from the old system to the new. So transition will most likely be slow and painful, and the new system must constantly innovate to develop and maintain competitive advantage without compromising the basic principles of the democratic local cooperative. Laws and customs will eventually change. But until they do, the challenging cooperative economy must be led voluntarily by a growing body of individuals and organizations who already understand the urgent need for deep systemic transformation. Without this fundamental understanding in mind, any movement against capitalism will certainly fail.

In summary, British philosopher James Allen (1864 – 1912) wrote a short volume called “As A Man Thinketh” during the turbulent Industrial Revolution of late nineteenth-century England. In that small book he presents the following overview of human cooperation: “It has been usual for men to think and to say, ‘Many men are slaves because one is an oppressor; let us hate the oppressor.’ Now, however, there is among an increasing few a tendency to reverse this judgment to say, ‘One man is an oppressor because many are slaves; let us despise the slaves.’ The truth is that oppressor and slave are cooperators in ignorance, and, while seeming to afflict each other, are in reality afflicting themselves. A perfect Knowledge perceives the action of law in the weakness of the oppressed and the misapplied power of the oppressor; a perfect Love, seeing the suffering which both states entail, condemns neither, a perfect Compassion embraces both oppressor and oppressed.” [27]

Notes:

[1] Staff. (February 02, 2009). “What would Dr. King want to say to Barack Obama?”. The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute. http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/news/article/what_would_dr_king_want_to_say_to_barack_obama/

[2] King, Dr. Martin Luther (1968). “Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos Or Community?”. New York, NY: Beacon Press. Excerpts from chapter 5. ISBN 0807005711

[3] Wikipedia. (11-23-2009). “Economic democracy: National dividend”. Wikipedia.org. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_democracy#National_dividend

[4] Obama, Barack. (2003). “Obama on single payer health insurance”, speech to the AFL-CIO. YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpAyan1fXCE

[5] Kall, Rob. (11-10-2009). “Top-down blowback; The GOP Discovers that the Grassroots Bites Back”. OpEd News. http://www.opednews.com/articles/Top-down-blowback-The-GOP-by-Rob-Kall-091110-686.html

[6] Progressive Democrats of America. (07-23-2009). “The Mad as Hell Doctors Road Tour”. PDA Web site. http://www.pdamerica.org/articles/alliances/2009-07-23-09-33-18-alliances.php

[7] Stucke, John. (11-20-2009). “Ranks of uninsured swell in state”. Spokesman Review. Spokane, WA. pg 1. http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2009/nov/20/ranks-of-uninsured-swell-in-state/

[8] Kendall, David. (09-03-2009). “Health Care and the Free Market”. OpEd News. http://www.opednews.com/articles/Health-Care-and-the-Free-M-by-David-Kendall-090830-360.html

[9] Lendman, Stephen. (11-18-2009). “Universal Single Payer Health Care Coverage: An Economic Stimulus Plan”. Countercurrents. http://www.countercurrents.org/lendman181109.htm

[10] Randall, Kate. (07-28-2009). “Obama’s health care counterrevolution”. World Socialist Web Site http://wsws.org/articles/2009/jul2009/pers-j28.shtml

[11] Roberts, Paul Craig. (10-10-2009). “Warmonger Wins Peace Prize “. Countercurrents. http://www.countercurrents.org/roberts101009.htm

[12] King, Dr. Martin Luther. (12-10-1964). “Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech”. Nobelprize.org. http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1964/king-acceptance.html

[13] Harvey, David. (11-21-2009). “Race and the Mortgage Crisis”. WordPress. http://rortybomb.wordpress.com/2009/05/19/race-and-the-mortgage-crisis/

[14] Harvey, David. (10-29-2008). “A Financial Katrina – Remarks on the Crisis”. City University of New York Graduate Center: Reading Marx’s Capital with David Harvey. http://davidharvey.org/2008/12/a-financial-katrina-remarks-on-the-crisis/

[15] Bergen, Kathy. (11-06-2009). “African-Americans hit inordinately hard by recession”. Chicago Tribune. Chicago, IL. http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-fri-black-jobs-nov06,0,2759566.story

[16] Pinkney, Larry. (11-05-2009). “And What of the Black Underclass?”. The Black Commentator. http://www.blackcommentator.com/349/349_kir_black_underclass_printer_friendly.html

[17] King, Dr. Martin Luther (1968). “Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos Or Community?”. New York, NY: Beacon Press. Excerpts from chapter 2. ISBN 0807005711

[18] Douglass, James W. (March 15. 2000). “The King Assassination: After Three Decades, Another Verdict”. Christian Century. http://www.precaution.org/lib/09/prn_king_assassination_another_verdict.000315.htm

[19] Goodman, Amy. (11-19-2009). “Hungering for a True Thanksgiving”. Information Clearinghouse. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24016.htm

[20] Wallace, William S. (06-01-2009). “Most young people don’t meet standards for military service”. Spokesman Review. Spokane, WA. pg 1. http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2008/jun/01/most-young-people-dont-meet-standards-for/?print-friendly

[21] Davenport, Christian, and Emma Brown. (11-06-2009). “Most young unfit for military”. Washington Post-ABC News poll reported in the Spokesman Review. Spokane, WA. pg 1. http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2009/nov/06/most-young-unfit-for-military/

[22] King, Dr. Martin Luther (1968). “Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos Or Community?”. New York, NY: Beacon Press. Excerpts from chapter 4. ISBN 0807005711

[23] Harvey, David. (2008). “The Right To The City”. Text: http://davidharvey.org/media/righttothecity.pdf. Video Lecture: http://www.a0n.com/medellin/righttothecity.htm

[24] Dorrien, Gary. (05-15-2009). “A Case For Economic Democracy”. OpEd News. http://www.opednews.com/populum/print_friendly.php?p=A-Case-for-Economic-Democr-by-Gary-Dorrien-090513-750.html

[25] Wikipedia. (11-23-2009). “Economic democracy”. Wikipedia.org. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_democracy

[26] Moore, Michael. (10-22-2009). “Michael Moore’s Action Plan: 15 Things Every American Can Do Right Now. MichaelMoore.com. http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/mikes-letter/michael-moores-action-plan-15-things-every-american-can-do-right-now

[27] Allen, James. (B 1864 – D 1912) (published 1992). “As A Man Thinketh”. Barnes & Noble. pg 37

Muslims In 21st Century America: Violent Clashing Culture

Part1: Basic incompatibility of Western thought and Muslim theocracy…

“Not all Muslims are terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslims,” said radio talk show host Peter Boyles last week on www.khow.com in Denver, Colorado.

Boyles’ remarks followed a horrific mass killing by Muslim U.S. Army Major Nadal Malik Hasan at Fort Hood, Texas. Hasan blasted away at 42 military personnel and civilians as they stood defenseless in line awaiting deployment processing for the Middle East. He screamed, “Allah Akbar, Allah Akbar!” while unloading his firearms into the bodies of U.S. troops.

A female off-duty police officer waded into the chaos with her gun blazing until she brought him down with four shots. He lays in a Fort Hood hospital bed in critical condition.

His condition stands as a warning and a metaphor for the United States of America as it places itself in critical danger by importing millions from incompatible cultures and languages into America at breakneck speed. It reminds me of students in a chemistry class pouring unknown chemicals into a beaker and hoping it doesn’t boil over or blow up.

This incident isn’t the first time. U.S. Army Muslim Sergeant Hasan Akbar threw a grenade into a tent at the beginning of the Iraq War, which killed three U.S. Army officers.

The philosopher Emanuel Kant said, “Religion and language are the two great dividers of humanity.”

First of all, Islam’s basic tenant means, “Submission.” Imams say that Islam remains a religion of peace, but they fail to tell listeners that peace will arrive only when Islam becomes the sole religion in the world. Its prime directive in the Koran reads, “…convert or kill all non-believers, starting with the Jews.”

If you look at Islam in the modern world, its terror tactics began in Munich, Germany 1972 with the mass killings of Jewish athletes at the Olympics. From that point, every major mass murder, or killing attempt across the planet stems from Muslim terrorists at regional levels all the way to the 19 Muslims that brought down the World Trade Towers. Muslim terrorists brought down Pan American airlines at Lockerbie, blew up barracks filled with soldiers in Africa, bombed night clubs in Balli, killed Theo Van Gogh, train bombings in Madrid, Spain; subway bombings in London, 9/11, Fort Dix six, and dozens of other killings or attempted bombings. Muslims place ‘fatwa’s’, (a death threat for life) against writers, speakers and political leaders such as Hirsi Ali in Holland for standing up against Islam. Muslims do not tolerate free speech, free choice of religion and they do not tolerate women as equals.

Two weeks ago, in Detroit, Michigan, 11 Muslims fought FBI agents with calls to create a separate Muslim state in Michigan under Sharia Law. Muslims rioted in Sweden this summer against Jewish tennis players playing in that country. Muslims rioted in November 2007 in France.

Amil Imani , “Islam is Fire” , September 12, 2009, said, “The Islamic fire, fueled by immense oil income, is raging in certain regions of the world, smoldering in others, and is ready to ignite in yet other parts of the world. It is imperative for the free people of the world to abandon all illusions about Islam and put out its fire, once and for all. Multiculturalism, live and-let live, is a delusion of kind-hearted naïve people. Islam, as fractured as it is, is a non-compromising mono-culture; a cruel culture of a primitive people handed down by Muhammad some 1400 years ago.”

Most Americans sit and watch with total oblivion of the march of Islam into America. In 1990, only 100,000 Muslims inhabited the United States. Today, over eight million spread across the country with over 1,000 mosques and growing. We import over 1,500 Muslim refugees every thirty days into America. They stand in diametrical opposition to a republican form of government and equal rights for women.

At the same time, honor killings, female genital mutilation, violence toward women and hostility toward Americans accelerates.

“Immigrants devoted to their own cultures and religions are not influenced by the secular politically correct façade that dominates academia, news-media, entertainment, education, religious and political thinking today,” said James Walsh, former Associate General Counsel of the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service. “They claim the right not to assimilate, and the day is coming when the question will be how can the United States regulate the defiantly unassimilated cultures, religions and mores of foreign lands? Such immigrants say their traditions trump the U.S. legal system. Balkanization of the United States has begun.”

For example, Muslims practice female genital mutilation (FGM). It’s 6th century Dark Ages barbarism alive in the 21st century. It occurs today in Detroit, Michigan, Freemont, California and Denver, Colorado, and wherever Islam grows in America. Seven years ago, hundreds of cases of little girls suffering from infected genitalia, after being slashed with razors and glass, landed in Colorado hospitals from the FGM ritual. Islamic practitioners, without sterile room technique or anesthesia, cut out the labia majora and minora as well as the clitoris of girls, usually less than nine years of age.

Led by Colorado House Representative Dorothy Rupert, lawmakers passed a new law to halt it. The practice didn’t stop; it torpedoed underground. What happens when Muslim culture becomes the majority and votes it into legal practice?

Have you seen a country devolve? In the Middle East today, Muslims stone women to death for adultery. They won’t allow women to drive. Women cannot go out in public without a male relative at their side. They demand separate swimming pool times for men and women. They make women hide their faces with a burka into ‘non-beingness’. They practice Sharia Law which proves harsh and diametrically opposed to parliamentary law.

Don’t think it can happen in America? Fox News, July 25, 2008 reported a Muslim honor killing in Garrett, Texas when a 12 year old girl called 911, screaming, “My dad shot me; I am dying.” She died before an ambulance arrived. Reason: father didn’t like her wearing western jeans and blouses.

In Clayton County, Georgia, July 10, 2008, a Pakistani immigrant father, Chaudry Rashid strangled his daughter for not accepting his choice of a husband. She wanted a divorce. She was 14 when she died.

In New York, February 16, 2009, FOX News, Joshua Rhett Miller reported, “The estranged wife of a Muslim television executive feared for her life after filing for divorce last month from her abusive husband,” her attorney said — and was found beheaded Thursday in his upstate New York television studio. Aasiya Z. Hassan, 37, was found dead on Thursday at the offices of Bridges TV in Orchard Park, N.Y., near Buffalo. Her husband, Muzzammil Hassan, 44, has reportedly been charged with second-degree murder. “She was very much aware of the potential ramification of her filing for divorce might have,” said attorney Elizabeth DiPirro, whose law firm represented Aasiya Hassan in the divorce proceeding. “But she wanted to proceed despite the potential for it to erupt.”

Under Sharia Law in the Middle East, such an ‘honor killing’ remains accepted in Islamic society. Ann Curry on NBC hosted a news piece, “Honor Killings in America.” She reported on the astounding rise of honor killings in America by Muslim immigrants.

Last week, in Glendale, Arizona, an immigrant father, Faleh Hassan Almaleki, ran down with his Jeep truck and killed his daughter Noor for being too “Westernized.” Her crime? She liked to wear jeans. A sane person might ask, “Why did he immigrate to America and why did he bring his daughter?”

Worldwide, Muslim husbands and brothers kill 5,000 women every year, year in and year out—for disobeying them. (Source: Miami Herald, Leonard Pitts, November 8, 2009, “American dream doesn’t include this nightmare) And, they get away with it because Sharia Law condones honor killings. You see, Mohammed the prophet proved an illiterate tribal war leader who cut his enemies’ heads and fingers off if they disobeyed him. His barbarism remains with Islam today.

As their numbers grow in host countries, they displace laws, culture, language and finally, take over. America will prove the last stand of humanity and Christianity against Islam’s onslaught. So, far, the USA is losing its language, customs and culture—to Islam. Of course, you see the same nightmare occurring in Sweden, United Kingdom, France, Austria, Norway, Holland, Belgium, Spain and Germany.

Part 2: Three parts of ‘soft’ Jihad, political correctness and Robert Spencer

About The Social Contract: Our Society and the Future

This past week, in Detroit, Michigan, a group of Muslim immigrants engaged the FBI in a gun battle.

Journalists Paul Egan and Oralandar Brand-Williams of The Detroit News wrote, “The leader of a Detroit mosque who allegedly espoused violence and separatism was shot and killed Wednesday by the FBI in a gun battle at a Dearborn warehouse. Luqman Ameen Abdullah, imam of the Masjid Al-Haqq mosque in Detroit, was being arrested on a raft of federal charges including conspiracy, receipt of stolen goods, and firearms offenses. Charges were also filed against 11 of Abdullah’s followers. Eight were in custody Wednesday night awaiting detention hearings today; three remained at large. A federal complaint filed Wednesday identified Abdullah, 53, also known as Christopher Thomas, as “a highly placed leader of a nationwide radical fundamentalist Sunni group.” His black Muslim group calls itself “Ummah,” or the brotherhood, and wants to establish a separate state within the United States governed by Sharia law, Interim U.S. Attorney Terrence Berg and Andrew Arena, FBI special agent in charge in Detroit, said in a joint statement.”

While most Americans ignore that minor incident in Detroit, it proves indicative of a larger dilemma facing the United States’ immigration policy. Former President Bush in 2008, began importing 1,000 Iraqi immigrant refugees into the USA monthly. He jumped that to 19,000 a year for 2009. President Obama, earlier this year, signed a bill to add thousands more from Palestine.

How long can a country maintain its own language, culture and identity in the wake of endless immigration from cultures that do not assimilate into the host country? What happens when immigrant numbers grow greater than the native people?

For a simple example, look to North America in 1492 where 522 Indian tribes lived upon the land for centuries without change to their languages, religions and cultures. They enjoyed their ‘space’ all around America. The Blackfeet ‘ruled’ Montana. The Apache occupied Arizona, etc. The Seminoles lived in Florida. The Chippewa owned Michigan, etc.

By 1850, white settlers slaughtered millions of them and sent them to reservations. In the Smithsonian Indian exhibit in Washington DC, gives the reason for the destruction of the indigenous people of North America: “After first contact, the main destruction of the red man stemmed from guns, disease, the Bible and alcohol.”

Samuel P. Huntington said, “The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do.”

Today, American Indians suffer on reservations with 80 plus percent alcoholism, lost languages, loss of religion, cultures and ways of life. We subdued them, so much so, they could not respond to our onslaught.

But enter the 21^st century and enter Islam. Muslims now fan out around the world with one “prime directive” to “…convert or kill non-believers.” Muslims, whether peaceful or radical, they all follow the same edict in their Koran. Given enough numbers, they overwhelm their host country.

Example: Holland fights for its life today. It suspended any further immigration by Muslims last year. They pay immigrants to go back home. France mandated that all immigrants must speak French and no more wearing of the burka. Great Britain cowers under growing Sharia Law and more emboldened numbers of Muslims. They will not recover from their immigration dilemma nor will their culture as it becomes overwhelmed by immigrants: projections show them adding 11 million more within two decades. British society and British culture will not survive.

If you would like to learn more, visit www.thesocialcontract.com

“The English philosopher John Locke, whose thinking helped inspire the American Revolution, said that society should be governed by an understood set of values he termed the social contract. Under the social contract, governments have obligations to their citizens, and citizens have responsibilities to society,” the website reads, “Most public issues are basically moral and ethical ones. What is the right thing to do? How do we decide what we think is right? When rights collide, which ones take precedence? The concept of the social contract helps us sort out the difficult issues confronting American society today and helps us find balance.”

Each quarter THE SOCIAL CONTRACT journal examines trends, events, and ideas that have an impact on America’s delicate social fabric. This journal addresses the following key topics: Human Population issues; including absolute size, rate of growth, and distribution. Do cherished American ideals prosper or suffer through further population growth?

• Immigration issues. In order to best facilitate meeting the highest goals of the American people, (1) how many immigrants should we admit? (2) who should he admitted? And (3) how can we humanely enforce the rules?
• Language, assimilation, culture, and national unity considerations. What shared values are necessary to the maintenance of our social contract?
• The balance of individual rights with civic responsibilities. Since the previous issues are so often framed in terms of rights, what are the balancing obligations?
• Other nations’ efforts at creating and guarding their own social contracts. What practical insights can be gained. from observing the failures and successes in nation-building by other societies?

THE SOCIAL CONTRACT explores these complex and interrelated issues with articles, essays, and book reviews that vary greatly in outlook and philosophy. They encourage a wide spectrum of opinion as they publish contributions from many vantage points.

If you want to learn more, spend $25.00 a year for the “Social Contract Quarterly”. It educates beyond anything you will hear in the main stream media. MSM only reports accelerating consequences, but it’s better to solve the problems rather than to continue racing into them.

Just as the ‘tiny’ incident in Michigan will be dismissed, like a cancer, it will grow and it DOES grow without attention, until, it will become a tumor that destroys the ‘social contract’ that successfully served this civilization for 233 years. But, like what happened to the Aborigines of North America, we will become victims of our own immigration policies.

How do we stop what is happening to us? Empower your collective strengths by joining www.NumbersUSA.com ; www.capsweb.org ; www.alipac.us ; www.firecoalition.com ; www.fairus.org ; www.thesocialcontract.com

U.S. Filling Up With Dumb People: Chaos of Illiteracy

Part 2: Ethnic division, welfare, balkanization, clashing cultures.

Over 18 million human beings starve to death in third world countries around the world annually. According to the World Health Organization,10 million of them are children that die of starvation or related conditions yearly. When you watch religious channels featuring appeals to “Save the Children” in Africa, South America and Asia, what constitutes the driving condition of their plight?

Illiteracy! Culture! Profligate fecundity!

At the same time, how can the Western world in Europe and North America enjoy endless ‘all you can eat’ buffets seven days a week that created over 180 million obese people in the United States alone?

Education! Culture! Personal choice!

What happens when a highly educated society, culture and people such as the United States degrades or devolves its educational systems toward illiteracy and loss of personal accountability?

Look around you!

You watched that process clutch at the throat of American educational system for the last 40 years— and today; it’s got us by the carotid artery.

What do 35 million Americans subsisting on food stamps indicate? Answer: poor or no educational achievement.

APATHY AND TOLERANCE: THE MOST DEADLY VIRTUES OF AMERICAN SOCIETY

Personal responsibility: do you think 400,000 pregnant women that arrive annually in America, unlawfully, will birth tomorrow’s responsible citizens? Do you think millions of unwed American mothers that bring 1,2,3,4 and five children into this world using welfare “Aid to Dependent Children” will rear responsible, intelligent and contributing future citizens?

Personal accountability: do you think the 1.2 million high school dropouts annually in the USA will become thriving, contributing and responsible future citizens? You see, that number of academic failures has been mounting for over 10 years, thus, more than 11 million illiterate kids wandering the streets of America.

Do you think ethnic groups that abhor education or quit from their own lack of parental guidance, drive and academic ability – will remain docile in the burgeoning slums? Here or worldwide? I address that dilemma in Chapter 20: Burgeoning Cities of Poverty in America on the Brink: The Next Added 100 Million Americans. {Copies available:1 888 289 7715}

ABSOLUTE VOID OF DECENT STRATEGIC PLANNING

“Most cities in developing countries already have pressing concerns, including crime, lack of clean water and sanitation, and sprawling slums,” said Thoraya Obaid, Executive Director of the UN Population Fund. “But these problems pale in comparison with those that could be raised by future growth. If we do not plan ahead, it will be a catastrophe.”

Please note that China, India, Mexico, Bangladesh, Rio, Indonesia, etc. constitute present day catastrophes already manifesting.

Where does this lead to?

What do we see happening in the USA?

Why won’t anyone address it?

Illiteracy can and will kill our civilization! No if’s, and’s or but’s! And the “when” is easily predicted.

Social Interaction EXPLOSIONS Are Inevitable.

The fact grows that the United States injects volatile mixtures of incompatible cultures, antagonistic races (e.g. – Jewish and Muslims), illiteracy and multiple languages into its core culture— hoping that it won’t explode. Yet, you can see the explosions, strife and conflict already manifesting in Great Britain, France, Holland, Norway, Germany, Austria, Spain and elsewhere.

Cultural Assimilation is NOT Happening.

In “The Silent Catastrophe” by Jared Taylor, October 12, 2009, he said, “Part of the problem for immigrants is adjusting to the U.S.; Hispanics born here are more likely to finish high school than those who immigrate as children. However, the graduation rate slightly decreases for the second U.S.-born generation (85.1 percent vs. 85.9 percent), so that in 2007, even after three generations in the United States, Hispanics had a dropout rate that was still 2.3 times the white rate – and 33 percent higher than the black rate.

“Big-city public school districts, which are heavily black and Hispanic, have appalling track-records.

In Detroit, only 26.8 percent of students graduated on time in 2006. (76 percent in 2008 reported by Brian Williams, NBC) The other worst performers were Philadelphia: 39.1 percent, Dallas: 40.7 percent, Los Angeles: 47.7 percent, and Washington, DC: 48.8 percent. Jefferson High School, which is 90 percent Hispanic and 10 percent black, had the worst dropout rate in Los Angeles: 58 percent.

“That is not the figure for students who fail to graduate on time; it is those students do not graduate at all.”

Today, newspapers and magazines publish to a sixth grade reading level for audiences across this country! The U.S. Army manuals scale their educational efforts to a 4th grade level.

Taylor continued, “The American workforce has historically been the best educated in the world: 85 percent of adult Americans are high school graduates, up from just 25 percent in 1940. Twenty-eight percent have a college degree, a fivefold increase since 1940. Better education helped raise real average per-capita income in the United States 40 percent between 1980 and 2000 – but that money had less purchasing power.

California Illiteracy; Legal AND Illegal Immigrants

“According to a 2007 report from the Migration Policy Institute, an estimated 400,000 legal immigrants and 350,000 illegal immigrants were illiterate in their native languages, much less English. This contributed to the first decline in literacy in California’s history. In 2003, its adult illiteracy rate of 23 percent— up 50 percent in the most recent 10 years— put it last among all states.”

Please note that California suffers an estimated five (ten ?) million illegal immigrants and five million recently arrived legal immigrants. It suffers a gigantic, untaxed underground economy resulting in $24 ($47 ?) billion in debt. Across the USA, immigrants cost taxpayers, according to economist Edwin Rubensetin, www.thesocialcontract.com — $346 billion annually across 15 federal agencies.

“The California Dropout Research Project at U.C. Santa Barbara estimated in 2009 that because high school dropouts commit more crime than students who stay in school, dropouts cost California $1.1 billion annually in law enforcement costs and victim damages while they are still minors,” said Taylor. “This estimate did not include lost productivity costs as adults or continuing public outlays for adult criminals and indigents.”

“For the U.S. economy, the implication of these trends is really stark,” said Patrick Callan, president of the center.

Andrew Sum of Northeastern University in Boston works with ETS on research projects said, “There is no time that I can tell you in the last hundred years,” he says, when literacy and numeracy have declined, “but if you don’t change outcomes for a wide variety of groups, this is the future we face.”

“If blacks, Hispanics, and immigrants are excluded from the American results, our performance rises from 12th, to 2nd in reading and 5th in math,” said Taylor. “This means immigrants, blacks, and Hispanics are dragging our rating down to 12th from 2nd and 5th. Likewise, the oldest Americans (56 and older) came in second in reading whereas younger Americans, those 26-35 and 16-25 years old, ranked 11th and 14th, respectively.

The oldest age groups— the ones with the most whites— are doing the best, while the youngest groups with the fewest whites do the worst. The ETS also found that native-born blacks and Hispanics performed at only the 28th percentile, compared to other rich countries, and immigrants at only the 17th percentile.”

In 2009, we suffer $35 million in shoplifting DAILY within the United States by those that lack education, personal responsibility and accountability.

As the inequities accelerate, we face entrenched and growing slums that will drive food stamp usage beyond our ability to feed our citizens. As they grow more volatile, expect balkanization, ethnic separation and confrontation. As inequities grow between the haves and have not’s, expect extreme disrespect for law and order.

Finally, why continue importing 2.5 million immigrants into this country annually when we cannot support or employ our own citizens?

Additionally, when you see 600,000 Muslim immigrants added to the Detroit, Michigan region— sporting a 76 percent dropout rate from area high schools— you can count on illiterate, upset, angry and culturally incompatible Muslim-Americans taking their frustrations out on the rest of us.

Expect growing domestic violence, honor killings, FGM, rapes and much worse as now experienced in Sweden, France and Great Britain, and, of course here in the U.S. Check out the numbers, take action at www.NumbersUSA.com and join as if your kids’ lives and this civilization depended on it. In Truth, it does.

U.S. Filling Up With Dumb People: Immigration’s Ultimate Dilemma

“Transforming the American dream into the American tragedy.”

Part 1: Illiteracy leads to shoplifting, babies, crime, gangs…

As an educator in Colorado through the 70s, 80s and 90s, I watched academic standards and expectations drop like a brick in a bucket of water, like a jet fighter plane auguring into the ground, like water cascading over Niagara Falls.

As if guided by an invisible hand nationwide, administrators forced teachers to dumb down the academic requirements. Teachers passed kids to the next grade level… whether those children performed… or not.

Good students dragged down by their illiterate peers

As they failed to cement their educational foundations with the basics— the gaps in their math, science, reading and English skills— created terrible frustrations in their personal lives. When their irritation levels became too great, they ‘gave up’ their pursuit of minimal levels of educational achievement.

Often, while being ‘pushed’ up through grade levels, they acted out their annoyances with disrespect for teachers as they became malcontents, troublemakers or shut down altogether to cope with their growing lack of self-esteem… and failures.

Cannot think critically, read at a fifth grade level or balance a check book.

This year, Paul Robeson High School in Chicago, Illinois featured 115 pregnant girls. That equals not only 115 dumb girls, but 115 dumb boys, which will beget 115 more troubled babies facing horrific futures on all counts. Thus, millions drop out or ‘graduate’ functionally illiterate, i.e., cannot think critically, read at a fifth grade level or balance a check book.

To completely upend and degrade the educational systems of America, the late U.S. Senator Teddy Kennedy, in 1965, passed a bill to inject 1.2 to 1.5 million immigrants into the equation annually. While some are doctors and nurses, to be sure, others come from third-world nations with precious few academic skills. They arrive with dozens of languages, cultural bias against education and hostility toward learning.

Forty years later, we have 100 million people added to the United States from disparate cultures around the world, as K-12 educational systems around America grind on in total chaos.

With a 600,000 Middle Eastern immigrant load in central and suburban Detroit, Michigan, as reported by NBC’s Brian Williams, “…76 percent of high school students in Detroit schools flunked out this June… other cities like Chicago, Los Angeles and Houston feature similar dropout rates from 50 to 60 percent… each year 1.2 million teens hit the streets illiterate.”

That leads up to the distressing fact that 1 in 7 Americans remains functionally illiterate:

Illiteracy Statistics

• 42 million American adults can’t read at all; 50 million are unable to read at a higher level that is expected of a fourth grader.
• The number of adults that are classified as functionally illiterate increases by about 2.25 million each year.
• 20 percent of high school seniors can be classified as being functionally illiterate at the time they graduate.

Source: National Right to Read Foundation

Where Illiteracy Leads

• 70 percent of prisoners in state and federal systems can be classified as illiterate.
• 85 percent of all juvenile offenders rate as functionally or marginally illiterate.
• 43 percent of those whose literacy skills are lowest live in poverty.

Source: National Institute for Literacy

Yet, with those disturbing figures, our U.S. Congress, by their action and by their inaction, imports an added 2.5 million legal and illegal immigrants into this country every year. That equals over 200,000 every 30 days. AND THE FOLKS FROM THIRD-WORLD NATIONS HAVE HIGH BIRTH RATES. Their kids overwhelm our schools… subverting education for our own children. The immigrants themselves face daunting challenges as to culture, language and jobs.

In Denver, we suffer 85 languages and a 67 percent Denver Public Schools flunkout rate, as reported by the now defunct Rocky Mountain News in a story “What Happened?” Ironically, the ‘Rocky’ bankrupted in 2008 because not enough people could read! The same holds true for dozens of cities across our country.

Becoming a nation of dummies in the 21st Century

What happens when somebody cannot read, write or perform simple math?

If they cannot obtain a labor job, they pursue crime, drugs, alcohol, welfare, homelessness and worse. Such uneducated women usually become pregnant and their children become abused, live in poverty and become wards of the state. Over 13.4 million American children live below the poverty line according to Katie Couric in a recent telecast. An astounding 35 million Americans subsist on food stamps.

Massachusetts; A Glaring Example.

What happens when young adult women fail their educational pursuits? Let’s use one state to show you the underbelly of what’s happening to the United States:

Nearly nine of every 10 teen-agers who gave birth in Massachusetts were unmarried, the highest percentage of out-of-wedlock teen-age births of any state in the nation. According to the most recent data available from the National Center for Health Statistics, 86 percent of the 7,018 mothers under age 20 who gave birth in this state two years ago were not married.

The percentage was higher in Boston, hitting 92 percent. In Springfield, 90 percent of teen-age mothers were unmarried. “It is staggeringly high,” said state Health and Human Services Secretary Charles D. Baker Jr. Additionally, it is estimated that 80 percent of unwed teen mothers end up welfare.

The declining quality of the American work force.

In a penetrating article, Jared Taylor, “The Silent Catastrophe” October 12 2009, “One great, avoidable evil we face is the declining quality of the American work force. The Census Bureau tells us that if immigration continues at its current rate of some two million people a year, whites will become a minority of the under-18 child population in just 14 years— in 2023— and will become a minority of the working population just 16 years later.

The greatest increase will be in Hispanics, who are now dropping out of high school at higher rates than blacks, doing little better than blacks when they manage to stay in school, and are the group least likely to go to college. Demographers are beginning to warn that as well-educated, white baby boomers retire and are replaced by poorly educated blacks and Hispanics, the productivity gains of the last several hundred years will be reversed, and the United States could go into a tailspin.”

“We have the possibility of transforming the American dream into the American tragedy,” says Irwin Kirsch, senior research director at the Educational Testing Service. He warns that our increasingly non-white and immigrant workforce threatens not only our standard of living, but the very survival of republican government (the U.S. is a Republic) based on an informed middle class.

“Here are some of the facts,” said Taylor. “In 2007, 93.5 percent of white and 93.1 percent of Asian 18- to 24-year-olds had graduated from high school. The figures for blacks and Hispanics were 88.8 percent and 72.7 percent, meaning that Hispanics were more than four times more likely than whites… and 2.4 times more likely than blacks… to have failed to graduate from high school.”

Painfully, as witnessed in Detroit, so many poor people shoplifted from grocery stores and retail merchants that the businesses bankrupted or vacated the inner city. Thus, the poor cannot find a place to buy their groceries… even with food stamps. On a national scale, shoplifters hoist $35 million a day in goods from retail stores. We all pay for that massive theft. Think of the implications of adding 70 million more immigrants (half of whom are illiterate) to our cities across America.

John Wayne said, “Life is tough, but it’s even tougher if you’re stupid!”

Next — Part 2: Consequences from rapidly growing illiterate numbers.

How long before we become a nation of 50 Californias?

While you discovered the dreary reality of Detroit, Michigan—that’s only one American city! Commensurately—Miami, Chicago, Houston, New York, Los Angeles and others follow toward a range of similar futures.

Ask yourself, with 15 million Americans unemployed and 35 million subsisting on food stamps, does it make sense to import 160,000 legal immigrants into this country every 30 days and a total of 1.5 million plus annually? Especially when those immigrants cost American taxpayers (you) a total of $346 billion in resettling services across 15 federal agencies annually?

At this point in time, with 10 million legal and unlawful immigrants, California suffers a $24 billion debt. It cannot pay its bills. It sinks deeper into collapse as it adds 1,700 people per day, every day of the year.

Next question: what if all of our states turned into Californias? Given enough time, they will! Remember that U.S. population projections show immigration adding 100 million people to the USA in 26 years. (Source: Fogel/Martin March 2006, “US Population Projections”, www.fairus.org)

In a brilliant expose’ famed economist Edwin Rubenstein wrote, “As California Goes – Facts behind California’s Fiscal Meltdown.” (Volume 19, Number 4, summer 2009, www.thesocialcontract.com)

In it, Rubenstein illustrates California’s plight as the canary in the coal mine.

Why California?

“The state’s top income tax rate—10.3 percent—is the highest in the nation, and this surely explains why the richest 1 percent of residents end up contributing half of all the personal income taxes the state collects,” Rubenstein said. “Even the state sales tax rate—a poor man’s levy—is well above the national average.

“The usual suspects—high spending and low taxes—are not to blame. In their place stands something far more fundamental: demographic change. An ever-growing share of California residents are immigrants. The vast majority of immigrants are from Latin America (56 percent) and Asia (35 percent). They are generally young, poorly educated, and mired in low-income jobs that do not provide health insurance. Their English is often rudimentary. They depend on state social services at far higher rates than natives or earlier immigrant cohorts.”

A whopping third of California’s immigrants entered unlawfully! At least half of them work off the books thereby not paying any taxes into the system, but their children tap into education, food and health care at an astounding cost to the state. In the last eight years, 86 hospitals and ER wards bankrupted out of business.

“Latino families are larger than those of other immigrant groups. Their children swell elementary schools but are less likely than other groups to graduate high school or finish college,” Rubenstein said. “Second-generation Latinos are also less likely to grow up with two parents, and more likely to go to jail or become teenage mothers.

“Many observers—including prominent Latin Americans—have concluded that the same traditional values that lie behind Latin America’s difficulties in achieving prosperity and political stability are being substantially perpetuated among Hispanic immigrants and their descendants in California. This implies that the problem is primarily cultural, not economic, and that fiscal measures alone will not suffice to solve it.”

California’s Immigration Tsunami

“Between 1970 and 2006 the number of California residents born abroad increased by more than five-fold, from 1.8 million to 9.9 million,” said Rubenstein. “Currently the state has a much higher share of immigrants in its population than the U.S. as a whole.”

For more than a century California has set the immigration trend for the nation:

“Using official state figures, demographer Leon Bouvier concluded that immigration accounts directly and indirectly for 98 percent of California’s population growth between 1990 and 2002. Direct immigration contributed 57 percent of the rise, while the rest came from births to foreign-born women,” said Rubenstein. “Behind the headline statistics are two telling factoids. First, net migration from other states has virtually ceased. Traffic congestion, schools, the water crisis, the state’s fiscal meltdown, are all a big turn-off to citizens of other, less troubled parts of the country.

“Second, the average California mother is expected to give birth to 2.1 children over her lifetime. This is the so-called “replacement” fertility rate which, if sustained over time, will result in a stable population. The devil is in the details: established residents and immigrants from non-Hispanic groups —Asians, Blacks, Whites, American Indians, and Pacific Islanders—are all reproducing at below replacement rates. Hispanic mothers, by contrast, are on course to have 3.25 children over their reproductive lifetimes.”

The Immigration Deficit

Once upon a time political correctness did not prevent Californians from discussing the fiscal burden imposed by illegal aliens. In the early 1990s California faced a sinking economy not unlike today’s. Social welfare caseloads exploded, state revenue declined by more than 25 percent, and the state’s budget deficit was an unprecedented one-third of total general fund spending.

“Caseloads continued rising even after the recession ended, a trend many officials blamed on illegal immigrants,” said Rubenstein. “In 1993 California Gov. Pete Wilson sued the federal government for the costs of state services to illegals—widely estimated at $2 billion ($2.9 billion in 2009 dollars)—arguing that Washington mandated the provision of such services while failing to prevent the illegal influx. Five other magnet states—Arizona, Florida, New York, New Jersey, and Texas—joined the suit.

“The issue propelled the drafting of Proposition 187, a state initiative denying certain services to illegal aliens. A firestorm ensued. Besides racism and anti-Latino bias, immigrant groups charged the Wilson administration with grossly exaggerating the net cost of illegal aliens on the state’s budget.”

The 1994 study found that the 1.7 million illegal aliens then residing in California and their U.S.-born children:

• Received $4.3 billion in state services
• Paid $739 million in state taxes
• Received about $3.6 billion more than they paid in taxes.

“K-12 education is the largest state expenditure, accounting for 40 percent of the budget,” Rubenstein said. “Enrollments have increased dramatically since 1994, swelled primarily by Hispanic immigrants and their U.S.-born children. Consider this: between 1994 and 2005 California K-12 enrollment grew by 1,054,806; Hispanic student enrollment rose by 1,009,489, accounting for 96 percent of the total increase. White enrollment declined by 246,220 students over the same period.” (See article.)

California Is Our Canary

California still has the nation’s largest immigrant population. But its lead is shrinking: In 1994 32 percent of the nation’s foreign-born lived in California; today about 26 percent do. Only 17 percent of immigrants arriving in the U.S. between 2005 to 2006 settled in California.

“Unfortunately, the same social pathologies that attend the foreign-born in California travel to other U.S. destinations,” said Rubenstein. “In every instance immigrants are, on average, poorer than natives, more dependent on public largesse, more likely to require remedial education, less likely to finish high school, and more likely to evade taxation and to be incarcerated. Throughout the nation native-born citizens are digging ever deeper into their pockets to subsidize public services for immigrants.”

Interesting to see what happens with the projected 70 million new immigrants to be added within 26 years at current immigration rates!

The Tragedy of Detroit

How Immigration and Multiculturalism Destroyed It…

For 15 years, from the mid 1970s to 1990, I worked in Detroit, Michigan. I watched it descend into the abyss of crime, debauchery, gun play, drugs, school truancy, car-jacking, gangs and human depravity. I watched entire city blocks burned out. I watched graffiti explode on buildings, cars, trucks, buses and school yards. Trash everywhere! Detroiters walked through it, tossed more into it and ignored it.

Tens of thousands and then, hundreds of thousands today exist on federal welfare, free housing and food stamps! With Aid to Dependent Children, minority women birthed eight to 10 and in once case, one woman birthed 24 kids as reported by the Detroit Free Press—all on American taxpayer dollars. A new child meant a new car payment, new TV and whatever mom wanted. I saw Lyndon Baines Johnson’s “Great Society” flourish in Detroit. If you give money for doing nothing, you will get more hands out taking money for doing nothing.

Mayor Coleman Young, perhaps the most corrupt mayor in America, outside of Richard Daley in Chicago, rode Detroit down to its knees. He set the benchmark for cronyism, incompetence and arrogance. As a black man, he said, “I am the MFIC.” The IC meant ‘in charge’. You can figure out the rest. Detroit became a majority black city with 67 percent African-Americans.

As a United Van Lines truck driver for my summer job from teaching math and science, I loaded hundreds of American families into my van for a new life in another city or state. Detroit plummeted from 1.8 million citizens to 912,000 today. At the same time, legal and illegal immigrants converged on the city, so much so, that Muslims number over 300,000. Mexicans number 400,000 throughout Michigan, but most work in Detroit.

As the Muslims moved in, the whites moved out. As the crimes became more violent, the whites fled. Finally, unlawful Mexicans moved in at a torrid pace. You could cut the racial tension in the air with a knife! Detroit may be one our best examples of multiculturalism: pure dislike and total separation from America.

Today, you hear Muslim calls to worship over the city like a new American Baghdad with hundreds of Islamic mosques in Michigan, paid for by Saudi Arabia oil money. High school flunk out rates reached 76 percent last June according to NBC’s Brian Williams. Classrooms resemble more foreign countries than America. English? Few speak it! The city features a 50 percent illiteracy rate and growing. Unemployment hit 28.9 percent in 2009 as the auto industry vacated the city.

In this week’s Time Magazine October 4, 2009, “The Tragedy of Detroit: How a great city fell and how it can rise again,” I choked on the writer’s description of what happened.

“If Detroit had been savaged by a hurricane and submerged by a ravenous flood, we’d know a lot more about it,” said Daniel Okrent. “If drought and carelessness had spread brush fires across the city, we’d see it on the evening news every night. Earthquake, tornadoes, you name it — if natural disaster had devastated the city that was once the living proof of American prosperity, the rest of the country might take notice.

But Detroit, once our fourth largest city, now 11th and slipping rapidly, has had no such luck. Its disaster has long been a slow unwinding that seemed to remove it from the rest of the country. Even the death rattle that in the past year emanated from its signature industry brought more attention to the auto executives than to the people of the city, who had for so long been victimized by their dreadful decision-making.”

As Coleman Young’s corruption brought the city to its knees, no amount of federal dollars could save the incredible payoffs, kick backs and illegality permeating his administration. I witnessed the city’s death from the seat of my 18-wheeler tractor trailer because I moved people out of every sector of decaying Detroit.

“By any quantifiable standard, the city is on life support. Detroit’s treasury is $300 million short of the funds needed to provide the barest municipal services,” Okrent said. “The school system, which six years ago was compelled by the teachers’ union to reject a philanthropist’s offer of $200 million to build 15 small, independent charter high schools, is in receivership. The murder rate is soaring, and 7 out of 10 remain unsolved. Three years after Katrina devastated New Orleans, unemployment in that city hit a peak of 11%. In Detroit, the unemployment rate is 28.9%. That’s worth spelling out: twenty-eight point nine percent.”

At the end of Okrent’s report, and he will write a dozen more about Detroit, he said, “That’s because the story of Detroit is not simply one of a great city’s collapse. It’s also about the erosion of the industries that helped build the country we know today. The ultimate fate of Detroit will reveal much about the character of America in the 21st century. If what was once the most prosperous manufacturing city in the nation has been brought to its knees, what does that say about our recent past? And if it can’t find a way to get up, what does that say about our future?”

As you read in my book review of Chris Steiner’s book, $20 Per Gallon, the auto industry won’t come back. Immigration will keep pouring more and more uneducated third world immigrants from the Middle East into Detroit—thus creating a beachhead for Islamic hegemony in America. If 50 percent illiteracy continues, we will see more homegrown terrorists spawned out of the Muslim ghettos of Detroit. Illiteracy plus Islam equals walking human bombs. You have already seen it in the Madrid, Spain, London, England and Paris, France with train bombings, subway bombings and riots. As their numbers grow, so will their power to enact their barbaric Sharia Law that negates republican forms of government, first amendment rights and subjugates women to the lowest rungs on the human ladder. We will see more honor killings by upset husbands, fathers and brothers that demand subjugation by their daughters, sisters and wives. Muslims prefer beheadings of women to scare the hell out of any other members of their sect from straying.

Multiculturalism: what a perfect method to kill our language, culture, country and way of life.