DUMBNESIA

Dumbnesia (dumb + amnesia) is a common form of inability to comprehend our world combined with the inability to remember important facts and events that would help us understand.

Do you occasionally suffer from dumbnesia?

Most likely, when you do, you don't realize it.

Dumbnesia is a most insidious condition that is very difficult to heal because it combines colossal arrogance with extraordinary gullibility to the extent that the victim thinks they know everything when actually they don't know shit.

Dumbnesia is very difficult to cure, because the victim only trusts those who want him or her to remain in a vulnerable condition for exploitation. For example:

Disproportionate tax giveaways to the super-rich have been touted as good for the economy – because the rich are expected to spend their new-found excess wealth, and that wealth will someday “trickle down” onto the rest of us. Therefore:

If you haven't realized that the Bush tax breaks for the rich are effectively just another replay of “Trickle-Down Economic Theory” (which is effectively piss on the poor), you might be suffering from dumbnesia.

Luckily, once you do realize the obvious, you have been cured – for the moment. New strains of dumbnesia pop up every day. Here are some examples:

After 30 years of declining real incomes for the middle class, if you still believe that the “invisible hand” will somehow make things all better; you might be suffering from dumbnesia.

If you haven't figured out that the phrase “less regulations and less taxes” really means let the powers that be take whatever they want and keep all the profits for themselves, you might be suffering from dumbnesia.

If you believe that “free market economics” is so righteous that it is better for someone on the other side of the world to essentially be a slave than have someone here with a good job, you might be suffering from dumbnesia.

If you believe that privatizing social security won't lead to what happened to your 401K in 2008, you might be suffering from dumbnesia.

If you believe, after 30 years of U.S. jobs being transferred to other countries and small businesses being gobbled up by monopolies, that Obama should have fixed it all in 2 years, you might be suffering from dumbnesia. (By the way, technically, he has. The recession is over.)

If you don't remember that the same "news" people who were claiming that Barack Obama was a militant Christian are now claiming that he is a secret Muslim, you might be suffering from dumbnesia.

If, after Fox contributed one million dollars to the Republican Party (and has helped numerous Republican candidates collect campaign contributions on their “news” shows), you still believe that Fox News is “fair and balanced”; you might be suffering from dumbnesia.

If you still believe that BP stands for “Beyond Petroleum”, you might be suffering from dumbnesia.

If you aren't convinced that the millions of dollars that the fossil fuel industry spends on mass media advertising hasn't influenced news reporting of the BP oil spill (or reporting of efforts in Congress to do something about it), you might be suffering from dumbnesia.

If you still aren't convinced that emitting millions and millions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year is bad for the climate, you might be suffering from dumbnesia.

If you still haven't noticed that renewable energy generation has been effectively suppressed for the past 30 years (with multi-billion dollar taxpayer-funded subsidies to the fossil fuel industry), you might be suffering from dumbnesia.

If you believe that militarily occupying multiple Middle Eastern countries somehow reduces terrorism, you might be suffering from dumbnesia.

If you have been convinced that killing people in Far-off-istan is more important than saving lives of the ill here at home, you might be suffering from dumbnesia.

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Postcards From the Pledge

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Rally to Restore Sanity

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Of course, dumbnesia is not the only affliction out there. A far more dangerous condition, known as apathesia, is even more common.

Apathesia (apathy + amnesia) is a stupefyingly mindless condition commonly seen in zombies. The symptoms of apathesia are a combination of a sense of powerlessness and lazyness. (Which, when you think about it, makes perfect sense.)

Do you suffer from apathesia? Here are some symptoms:

If you believe that the best way to deal with those who suffer from dumbnesia is not to vote, you might be suffering from apathesia.

If you believe that all you have to do is vote for the right candidate, and this (superhero) candidate will fix it all for you, you might be suffering from apathesia.

If you just quietly accept that a corporation is a “person” and the millions they spend to influence elections are just this “person's” opinion, you might be suffering form apathesia.

If you make no effort to find alternatives to just spending your money on the very products or services sold to us by the very companies who are obviously ripping us off, corrupting our government, stealing our common resources, and poisoning us with pollution; you might be suffering from apathesia.

After 30 years of concentration of wealth, the monopolization of everything, the exportation of America's manufacturing sector, the privatization of the commons, the disintegration of our government's capacity to function, and the inability of our civilization to deal with such perfect storm “end game” issues as global warming, over fishing in the oceans, overpopulation, resource depletion, and innovation suppression – if you still believe that somehow things will all just fix themselves without your help; you might be suffering from apathesia.

If you are convinced that the collapse of everything is inevitable – so you may as well just stay wasted, watch mindless TV shows, play video games, focus on your hobby, be a lazy ass, or take whatever you can with no regard for anything but immediate gratification; you might be suffering from apathesia.

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If however, you are beginning to realize that the secret to life is for us to give a damn, you are on the road to recovery.

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If you have any dumbnesia/apathesia jokes/comments of your own, please add them in the comment section and share them all with your friends.

I Tell You... We Don't Get No Respect

Greed has not always been king.

Many Native American cultures found greater status in what they gave away than in what they had.

As an example: my Newe ancestors always shared what they hunted. And consequently, the man who brought the most meat home for the group had the highest status. People paid attention to, respected, and even honored him because sometimes, when they needed it the most, he fed them.

...Imagine that. Living in a society that respected the philanthropist more than it did the capitalist. Hey wait a minute – that's true now too.

Yes... Most of us admire Bill Gates now far more than we did when he was a cut-throat capitalist.

Which means maybe we've overlooked a critical characteristic of our culture. It is an honorable act to help others and the community. So, it should be an honor to pay taxes. I know this may sound hokey, but think about it. Our tax money goes to keep our communities healthy, safe, and functional. We should be proud of that. We should be proud of our contribution.

So why does it seem like there is no pride in paying your taxes in America? I suspect because there is no recognition. Consequently, there is no honor. Taxes are just a bill we pay.

We should at least get a certificate of recognition.

And the biggest taxpayers should get public recognition.

We honor our Veterans for their contributions. It only makes sense that we should also thank those taxpayers who have done their duty for their community and country – even if it is just by paying for it.

This should be a no-brainer. I couldn't possibly be the first person to think of this:

We could publish a public list of the top 100 taxpayers in our community, and the top 1000 taxpayers in our country. And we could even have another set of lists of people who pay the most proportional to their income. Now that could be something worth bragging about. Or at least; that should be something worth thanking them for.

We should publicly bestow some honor to those paying the most taxes. By doing that, we would provide an incentive to give more. Right now, the only incentive is to reduce one's taxes. This is dysfunctional. We have essentially rigged the tax game such that the only way to win is not to pay taxes. Which has led us to where we are at – with the most powerful “Americans” manipulating our government into setting up the tax laws such that they pay the least taxes.

This idea of mine could be a simple change – that doesn't require any significant expenditure. People can recognize or ignore it. Taxpayers can play along or continue what they are doing. There would be no requirements or new laws. Participation could even be voluntary.

Imagine this: What if America were to learn from Native Americans, rather than consider EVERYTHING about our cultures quaint and simplistic. As far as I know, there were no taxes levied in pre-European America. And yet, people helped each other. They did so because it was the right thing to do, and because they got recognition.

Nowadays, our tax money goes to projects we don't believe in and our only thanks is another bill next year.

It doesn't have to be that way.

Billions in Corporate Welfare... to Poison Us

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has released the “Western Wind and Solar Integration Study” which concludes that up to 35% of America's power could be generated with renewables without extensive additional infrastructure.

NREL has also tripled our nation's potential wind resource estimates. With current wind technology, America can now potentially generate 37,000,000 GigaWatt-Hours of electricity per year. This is over 10 times what Americans currently consume.

A Duke University study has found that solar power is now cheaper than new nuclear power. And Vice President Joe Biden has predicted (after consulting with top scientists and industry executives) that within five years, solar power prices will be on par with grid (coal-fired) electricity.

And don't let anyone tell you that renewable electric power can't be stored either. Nuclear power plants have been storing energy in pumped water reservoirs since the early 1960's.

Solar and wind energy generation's time has come.

So, why are they building 30 new coal-fired power plants in the U.S.? Because this is the coal industry's last chance to make a multi-billion dollar killing. We have been fooled into thinking that fossil fuels are cheaper. This is a lie. Not only is the price of coal bound to go up, but there are enormous hidden costs (including subsides and more subsidies). Think about it. Just because what you pay at the pump or on your monthly bill now seems cheaper, doesn't mean that is all you pay - or will ever pay.

The National Academy of Sciences has published a study, requested by Congress, that concludes that use of fossil fuels for power generation results in $120 billion dollars a year in hidden costs associated with pollution's effects on human health, crops, timber yields, and other areas.

Of that $120 billion dollar figure, coal fired electricity plants generate over half the damages – which, at the moment, they are not liable to pay. You are.

The National Academy of Sciences further estimates that future damages from climate change could potentially more than double that $120 billion dollar a year figure – just in the United States.

So, what are we going to do about that? Well, the American people voted for President Obama. This should have been a clear message to the administration that we no longer want to have to put up with the Bush Jr./Dick Cheney energy policies. ...Now, in case you didn't know; the Environmental Law Institute has estimated that between 2002 and 2008, roughly $72 billion dollars in fossil fuel subsidies were paid by the American taxpayer. Ouch!!! (That's over 5 times the subsidies for renewables (omitting the corn ethanol boondoggle which, of course, the corn industry pushed for)).

So, why are we American taxpayers subsidizing the fossil fuel industries?

The fossil fuel industries are full of highly profitable established companies. They don't deserve subsidies. Taxpayer funded subsidies should help America. And in the long run, these subsidies aren't helping America.

Over the past decade, the five largest oil companies (Exxon Mobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, BP, and Shell) made more than $750 billion dollars in profits. That's three quarters of a trillion dollars in profits!

And yet, on June 15, the U.S. Senate voted to continue big oil's $35 billion dollars in subsidies. Every Republican Senator and 21 Democrats voted down Senator Bernie Sanders (D-VT) amendment to the IRS code which would have used $25 billion of the saved money to pay down the deficit and $5 billion to encourage energy efficiency. Considering the fact that the Stimulus Bill subsidies for renewables are about to expire, this is all the more unconscionable.

Nonetheless, as huge as the subsidies are in the U.S., that's only a fraction of the world's fossil fuel subsidies. A comprehensive assessment, titled “The Politics of Fossil-Fuel Subsidies”, issued by the Global Subsidies Initiative (GSI) of the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) has shown that worldwide, our governments are handing out subsidies of over $500 billion dollars a year to the fossil fuel industry! (that's over 12 times the world's subsidies for renewables.)

With over half a Trillion dollars in subsidies a year, it is no surprise that the energy and transportation industries are literally dominated by fossil fuels. How can any industry compete with an established industry that gets half a trillion dollars in subsidies – and doesn't have to pay for most the their environmental damage and essentially none of their health damage?

It's obvious: Our governments are out of touch with reality, incapable of change (even if it is a matter of survival), and overwhelmingly controlled by corrupting influences. This is not just a U.S. problem – far too many countries all over the world are puppets to the fossil fuel industry.

These dysfunctional governments have forcefully taken our money, in the form of taxes, and given it away to the least deserving. The fossil fuel industries don't have any emerging fossil fuel energy technologies that will make our lives healthier, safer, more sustainable, or less expensive in the long run.

(Someone is bound to bring up carbon sequestration at this point. But that's not a functional emerging technology, that's an attempt to mitigate the effects of an old dangerous polluting technology. Besides, carbon sequestration is just a boondoggle to spend our tax money to make the fossil fuel industry look more environmentally conscientious – while they keep right on polluting without carbon sequestration.)

No, no, no... This is the worst decision in history! For our half a trillion dollars in subsidies, all the fossil fuel industries have to offer is more of the same - air pollution, oil spills, scarcity, cost increases, war, and climate change. And worse; with all those mind-bogglingly huge subsidies, they can make sure that the competing companies with emerging technologies that actually will make our lives healthier, safer, more sustainable, and less expensive in the long run never get a fair chance to compete.

That's about as far from a free market as we can get.

But we don't really need a carbon tax – at least not yet.

We definitely don't need cap and trade (it will just make the banks rich).

We absolutely need to stop giving subsidies to some of the richest companies in history – NOW!

However; this won't happen until we fix our governments.

If we do nothing, it could mean the end of both democracy and free markets.

This is even a matter of life and death.

No living entity can survive for long if it cannot adapt to a radically changing environment. No society will last if it cannot stop poisoning itself. No species has much hope if it destroys its own niche.

There is a cancer growing within our civilization.

This cancer is thriving on undeserved subsidies.

If we stop the corporate welfare to the very industries that suppress innovation of healthier technologies, we can begin to adapt to our changing environment.

I believe that humanity still has the ability to think our way out of this predicament. But we have to use that ability. As of now, we're just waiting for the fossil fuel industry to make it all better for us. In case you hadn't noticed by now, they won't.

We have to take the initiative.

Big Government or Big Business?

A friend of mine recently asked me a question that I had a difficult time answering until I thought about it some.

I now realize it was a trick question.

He asked me; “would I rather have to deal with big government or big corporations?”

That's like asking me if I would rather be shot with a .45 or stabbed with a bowie knife. Neither, thank you.

And then I got to thinking about what a trick question it really was. Because when you think about it, it isn't an either/or situation – because big business loves big government – as long as big business can control it.

1. Big business loves big government because they can get everyone else to pay their taxes. A number of corporations in this country pay hardly any or no taxes whatsoever. What's not to love.

2. Big business loves big government because they can get big subsidies. Between 2002 and 2008, the fossil fuel industry received over $70 billion in subsidies from the U.S. government (well, really the U.S. taxpayers). Now that's showing some love – for an industry that obviously doesn't deserve it because some of these corporations are making more money than any other in world history – destroying our environment – when there are better options.

3. Big business loves big government because they can get lots of regulations. Not for themselves, of course. For their competition. For example; returning veterans from the Gulf wars with post traumatic stress have many times claimed that marijuana works far better than Prozac, Zoloft, etc. But marijuana is illegal (essentially because it makes you happy). It's certain that the big drug corporations just love the fact that big government continues to keep a more effective (and in some ways less dangerous) competition illegal.

4. And of course, big business loves big government because this exempts them from the free market. If their business is too big to fail, they get a bailout. We need to face the obvious fact; you can't have socialism for the rich if you don't have big government.

Big business and big government go hand in hand. And if anyone on television tells you otherwise, they're lying. Why? Because they work for big business.

We've been living a lie. The whole “Government is the problem” speech was a lie. It was a lie to facilitate the takeover of big government by big business. There has been a coup d' etat. Our American peoples' democratic republic is practically gone. Yet, since the Republican (counter) revolutions, big government hasn't actually shrank. It has just morphed into a huge team of big business yes men. And face it, because of the expensive election process, we only get to vote for big business puppets.

...But big business pretends that isn't so.

Big government is the whipping boy for big business. Big business blames all our problems on big government. But wait a minute here; big business spends millions on controlling big government. (Of course, they make it back in billions.) Over the past few decades, we have all witnessed the lobbyists, the campaign contributions, and the revolving employment doors turn big government politicians and regulators into trained monkeys for big business.

It's time to ask yourself; since big business controls big government, why are they always preaching less government? Because “we the people” still have a tiny sliver of power left, and they want to take that too.

Big business, the corporate oligarchy, the “too big to fail” team wants to keep us in line. They want to keep us from taking back control over our own government. They've been keeping us like mushrooms (in the dark and feeding us BS). And they have framed this all as a liberal/conservative conflict. Because if they keep us fighting amongst ourselves we won't organize to challenge them.

Benito Mussolini, the fascist leader of Italy during WWII, once said: “Fascism is definitely and absolutely opposed to the doctrines of liberalism, both in the political and economic sphere.”

Now, I'm not claiming that everyone who is against liberalism is a fascist. And I'm not claiming that America is anywhere near Mussolini's version of fascism. However, we absolutely need to pay attention to the signs. Our beloved nation has become very militaristic, even outright aggressive. Our economy has become dominated by monopolies. Our government is practically controlled by the (economic) powers that be. And everyone but the super-rich are getting poorer.

Benito Mussolini is also claimed to have said; “Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power.”

Perhaps we should take a hint from Benito Mussolini. He believed that big government and big business went hand in hand.

Whatever you call it, what we have here in America is not a choice between big government and big business. I see it as a choice between a democratic republic with sensibly regulated open markets vs. big government with big business oligarchy control of “open markets” (which are, in actuality, anything but open).

Eaarth Monopoly

(No, I did not misspell Earth. That is Bill McKibben's spelling for the harsh post-natural world we have created, and must now live in.)

The situation most of us don't realize about the economy is that some people do quite well when the chips are down for the rest of us. In other words, some people may actually want there to be hard times.

I'm not just making this up. We've seen this happen in numerous other countries that have been forced to take austerity measures while some people in these counties (and some international corporations) squeeze out unscrupulous windfall profits. When this happens, the situation is as blatant as it is unfair. And all to often, they get away with it (at least for a while). We need to face the horrible truth; some people sit around scheming to get rich at the deep expense of everyone else. Naomi Klein calls this “disaster capitalism.”

...And we've been watching it happen in Europe for the past few months. First, Greece's economy imploded. And then all of Europe has been forced to enact draconian austerity measures to get out of what is essentially contrived debt.

Two years ago, when the mega-banks' gambling habits resulted in the world-wide financial crisis, America and European countries bailed them out. It cost far more than our governments could afford, but our leaders felt that it had to be done – to save the economy. It may have worked a little, temporarily. But what Greece found out, the hard way, was that the banks were playing them all along.

John Lichfield wrote in The Independent: “Broadly speaking the same people are now complaining (or trying to profit from the fact) that the money spent to rescue them last time has left national governments dangerously indebted.”

In other words; It weakened our national governments to bail out the banks, and now the banks and financiers are taking advantage of our weakened governments! Moreover, when our governments bailed out the banks, there were no imposed requirements on the banks. But, now that Greece needed a loan, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has a number of requirements – including higher taxes and deep austerity cuts – to pay off the banks!

This reminds of that old carnival saying; “there's a winner every time,” them. They profited from the bubble, they profited from the bailout, and now they're profiting from taking advantage of those who are now in debt from bailing them out!

It makes you wonder... It really makes you wonder if the paranoid conspiracy nuts just might be right – that this is all part of some evil scheme to monopolize the Earth.

It leads you to wonder... what if some of the people who run these mega-banks actually created the 2008 world financial crisis on purpose? Think about it.

Besides making an enormous pile of money during the bubble, the mega-banks knew they would be bailed out. They knew they would be bailed out on more-or-less their own terms. And they probably knew that if they panicked our governments into acting immediately, they would likely get massive piles of bailout money without any conditions whatsoever.

The mega-banks must have also known that the countries that would bail them out would then be economically weak, and thus vulnerable to an even bigger killing.

We really need to think about why all the nations of European Union are simultaneously gutting their social safety nets. These are acts of desperation. And most Americans don't have a clue as to why the EU is so desperate.

Ira Sohn wrote in Barron's; “The danger is that banks could do what they did with Greece: load up on sovereign debt with no capital requirement, then turn around and sell credit default swaps, wrecking the credit status of the country.” Greece was attacked. Greece was brought to its economic knees by a financial attack. This attack was in some ways every bit as damaging as if the banks had dropped bombs on Greek businesses. And every other country in the EU knows they could be attacked too.

Which leads us to what is effectively end-game disaster capitalism – the world wide systematic financial gutting of every vulnerable country that has done business with these banks.

...What if this were all planned? What if this was all planned in order to take everything from everyone on the planet?

For the past 30 years, we have been watching the banks and the financiers in America getting stronger and richer, while the rest of the economy has been getting weaker and poorer. For the past 30 years, we have been watching one economic bubble grow and bust after another.

These economic bubbles are terrible for most of us. Moreover, during America's glory years, between 1945 and 1980, there were no bubbles like this. Which logically implies that these bubbles would be stopped immediately today – if somebody powerful wasn't making a killing on them. And, of course, somebody has.

I highly recommend you read the article by Matt Taibbi, The Great American Bubble Machine, in Rolling Stone; about how Goldman Sachs has been behind every major economic bubble for the past 20 years. This includes the dot com bubble, the housing finance bubble, the gas price bubble, the food price bubble, and the planned carbon cap-and-trade scheme.

Oh, and guess what; Goldman Sachs is deeply involved with the IMF... You know, the organization that is forcing the “austerity” measures on Greece that is driving Greece into an economic “death spiral.”

This is all starting to look a little too contrived – a little to planned - a little too controlled by all the wrong people. Especially when we saw them all get together at the G20 summit to agree to drastically cut social spending worldwide to pay for the bailouts - and not charge the banks a thing.

David Dayen wrote in the article, G20 Cancels Fiscal Expansionism: Hooverism on a Global Scale, on the website FireDogLake; “This is precisely the kind of thinking that turned a jarring stock market crash into a worldwide depression in the 1930s.” This kind of thinking isn't new. This is simply what oppression of the poor and the middle class looks like – again.

Here's a relevant question for you. Is our wealth surreptitiously being drained away from us? You know the answer to that. Our money is. Our real wealth is. The commonwealth is. The environment is.

It's time to recognize the obvious. The whole corporatist economic mentality is based upon the exploitation of our planet and its people. And frighteningly, things have gotten a lot more exploitative recently.

I am convinced that most people have not fully thought about what the term “maximizing one's profits” can really mean if taken to the extreme. To truly maximize your profits, one would have to consider minimizing everyone and everything else's wealth. The eventual goal, in this ever escalating game of Eaarth Monopoly, is to take everything now – to ultimately leave the land barren, to make the productive people your slaves, and to kill (or let die) all the others.

A friend of mine has used the term “Craps vs. Crops” to explain the hostilities between the City of Las Vegas and Rural Nevada and Utah. The rural people want to maximize real, tangible, consumable wealth – crops. While Las Vegas wants to maximize an indicator of wealth – money. The same is true for these mega-banks. They have been gambling with our money, at the expense of the true wealth generating sector of America's economy. And to get even richer, it appears they are attempting to turn America and Europe into third world nations.

Here's a video of how a Marxist views what is going on. (And no, I'm not a Marxist. But it's interesting to see how accurately they view our predicament. Which means; if we don't deal with these issues, some people will turn to Marxism – as they have in the past.)

Of course, I'm not fully convinced anyone sits around in banks planning the takeover of the world. I suspect that most of these people are just opportunists. And most of these people haven't fully realized the consequences of all our actions taken together.

But if this were all planned, the banks have made one huge mistake. Not every country on the planet has been willing to play their silly game. Not every country on the planet is vulnerable to their monopoly tactics. There is this matter of China – which has been getting stronger every year we have been getting weaker. Could the banks crush China's economy too? Maybe. But so far it looks like the mega-banks have been so busy gutting every other country that they have been playing right into China's hand.

Here's an interesting question (that has now become relevant): Could it be that “free market” economics ultimately leads to communism? This speculation would have sounded preposterous a generation ago. But China seems to be doing quite well at “free market” capitalism. In fact, they've been proudly predicting their ascent to world economic domination because of state sponsored capitalism.

But I guess it doesn't really matter. What difference does it make whether we're driven to abject poverty by capitalists, communists, or some form of hybrid capitalist/communists? And ultimately, what difference does it make whether the scheming demons had it all planned out or just followed the path of least resistance to maximize their profits.

When it all comes down to whether you're going to get your next meal or not; it doesn't really matter what name you give it, tyranny is still tyranny – whether it be at the point of a sword, the point of a gun, or the point of a pen.

Desalination Is Cheaper!!!

Thank you George Knapp, the I-Team, and KLAS TV-8 News NOW.

Your reporting has shown that desalination is cheaper than the Las Vegas watergrab pipeline.

But there are a couple of other reasons desalination is cheaper also.

1. With desalination, Southern Nevada's water needs can be dealt with incrementally, as needed. The watergrab pipelines, wells, and pumps all have to be built at once – to minimize the disastrous environmental effects expected. This will cost billions. As shown by the Yuma Desalination Facility, smaller bites are far cheaper up front.

2. If SNWA were to undertake desalination projects, the smaller up front costs would lead to lower finance costs, and much lower risk if Southern Nevada doesn't grow as anticipated.

3. By insisting on the watergrab pipeline, SNWA is inferring that the residents of Las Vegas pay for water for new residents – and the financing of the massive project. By choosing desalination, the cost of new water could be shifted to developers, and therefore the new residents who will actually be using the water.

In a nutshell; greedy developers want Las Vegas residents to pay for water for developments outside of Las Vegas. I call this Water(grab)gate.

Of course, Southern Nevada politicians are participants in Water(grab)gate also.

SNWA jumped the gun when they spent 70 million dollars on rural ranches for water almost 300 miles away. And now that desalination has dropped in price so much and Las Vegas isn't growing virally, politicians such as Rory Reid (who once headed SNWA) have to pretend desalination isn't a good option.

If SNWA were to admit that the 70 million dollars spent in Rural Nevada was no more than a long term investment (or maybe even a mistake), it would be political suicide for Pat Mulroy, Rory Reid, and likely everyone on the SNWA Board.

But the real cause of all this mess is Nevada State water law. Our State's water law promotes immediate exploitation. There is no option for Las Vegas to save the water for future use. If SNWA were to drop the water apps, someone else would immediately apply to take the water away.

Nevada water law states that those who use the water first get senior water rights. What this means in the real world is those who waste the water get the water for free. Nevada water law just slices up the pie, with no real thought of the future.

If Rory Reid were to say that he wishes to reform Nevada water law to save some water for future use; Las Vegas could get long term water rights to unused water in Rural Nevada, people could still live in and move to Rural Nevada, and at least until Las Vegas is truly desperate (which they are no where near now), a chunk of the Great Basin almost the size of Vermont can remain more or less natural.

The Invisible Fist

Americans disagree vehemently on how to fix our economic system. The reason why is simple. There's a lot of really bad advice out there. Consequently, my advice is what Barry C. Lynn suggests; to believe what you see with your own eyes.

So, what have we seen? For the past 30 years; the mega-rich have become the super-rich, the poor have become the primary growth segment of our society, and the middle-class has been shriveling away. For the past 30 years we have witnessed the monopolization of just about every business sector. And for the past 30 years, we have lost millions of jobs to foreign countries. Our nation has gone from the most economically powerful in the world to a borderline third-world nation.

In other words; we've been doing something wrong for the past 30 years.

But you won't hear that from the people who are now super-rich. In fact, they're still preaching that the “free” market economy is the way to go. …Yeah, right... You can see where it's going – straight to a privatized authoritarian oligarchy (some inevitably crashing combination of Brave New World, 1984, and the movie Brazil).

But it didn't have to be this way.

From the years just after WWII until the 1970's, our nation's economy grew steadily and all our citizens benefited. For a few decades, almost every American child had a chance to go to a good public school – and at least some of the poor actually had the opportunity to break free from the inter-generational grip of poverty.

For a while back then, the Great Depression was still fresh in our leaders' memories. For a while; we wouldn't let the money changers, the financiers, the speculators, the corporate raiders, and the super-greedy take control.

But that was before Milton Freedman preached that if our markets weren't a free-for-all, they weren't really free. He even claimed that if you weren't a “free” market capitalist, you were a socialist. Talk about revisionist history. Apparently we were all socialists before 1980. I did not know that.

But Americans weren't really paying attention. And what we had accepted as normal; sensibly regulated open markets, got rebranded. They were now “free” markets – and “government was the problem.” The goal was no longer to fix our imperfect regulations. No. The goal became to throw the baby out with the bathwater. And instead of “there ought to be a law,” we started believing that there ought not be any laws.

The pundits spread the “free market” word with religious zeal... But it didn't free us. And it didn't save us. Instead, we developed a nationwide mono-culture of atrophied minds that believed that the “free” market was the only answer. This left us particularly vulnerable – which is likely just what the “free” market zealots intended all along. We were vulnerable to the corporate raiders, the mergers and (lay-off funded) acquisitions, and the exportation of American jobs and industry.

Of course, a few people got really rich gutting everything. And a whole lot of small investors made money in the stock market for a while – even though they didn't fully understand the profits were actually coming from the gutting of American companies, and that they would eventually lose all of the money back (when the contrived bubbles burst).

Allow me to explain: “Free” markets have led to the control over American companies by investors and financiers, who favor windfall profits over the health of the companies they control. “Free” markets have led to predatory markets. And “free” markets have led to the monopolization of almost every market in the U.S. Think about it; when I mention food, clothing, and shelter; what comes to mind are McDonald's, Wal Mart, and Home Depot. We should have figured out long before now that this is NOT the kind of capitalism we really want. (Monopolies lead to poor quality goods/services, less selection, less innovation, and of course, higher prices – as you may have noticed over the past few years.)

All I ask is that you believe what you have seen with your own eyes.

If you look around, you'll likely see examples everywhere. I have a personal example: Yesterday, I had a brand new inner tube in my new (Asian made) mountain bike just break – on my very first ride. I have never had a bike inner tube just break on me before. And this was an ultra-thick tube (three times the thickness of an ordinary tube). I looked at the inner tube to see who made it, and there was no brand. But it probably didn't matter anyway because they're probably all made by the same Chinese company. And since I have to buy another tube, they'll likely make twice as much money for doing a crappy job – or maybe more if they've raised their prices. The “free” market left me out in the wilderness on a broken-down over-priced mountain bike. And I can't even call anyone to complain to.

We have been “free” market lemmings. And as consumers, we now have no choice but to pay.

But the worst result of “free” markets has been the wholesale gutting of our manufacturing segment of the American economy. Millions of jobs have been lost. We hardly make anything anymore in this country. And why? Because some other country is willing to allow their employees to be treated like slaves? This has been devastating to our economy. It's like someone just ripped out our lungs, and then tells us that this is good for us, it's natural, and it's just the price of being free. What a LIE! ...Excuse me, but I want to be free, not work for free.

This shows us exactly where “free” market economics is ultimately headed – towards a world of filthy rich and dirt poor – and your odds of being one of the filthy rich are essentially zero.

The “free” market fanatics told us that anything else was socialism. Yet, if the filthy rich get into financial trouble, the rest of us have to bail them out. Hey, wait a minute. This was supposed to be a free market. But now that the monopolies are so big, we can't afford to let them fail. Let's face it; the economic system that America has now is far more socialist than before 1980 – for the super-rich, that is.

There are powerful people in this country (who claim to be patriotic Americans), who've done far more damage to our country than any terrorist ever dreamed of. These super-greedy “Americans” only care about themselves. They want the freedom to maximize their profits without any concern for the consequences. They want the freedom to not pay any taxes, while they also manipulate lawmakers to steal our tax money. And worst of all; 150 years after Americans fought a bloody Civil War to end slavery in our country, there are still “Americans” who want the freedom to enslave.

We have allowed these “free” market fanatics to operate freely for the past 30 years. And this is what we get. They blame it all on the liberals, you know. But there hasn't been an bona fide liberal President since Lyndon Johnson. Moreover, when you think about it, back when the super-greedy screwed up the last time and left us with the Great Depression, it was wasn't conservatives who fixed things.

So, where do we go from here. Our business economy has been gutted. Our government has been financially drained. The only money left for them to take is what's left of our tax money. They want to take our social programs.

Just ask Nevada's Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, Sharon Angle. She wants to privatize Social Security. You would think that issue would be dead after the financial meltdown. You'd think no citizen in their right mind would allow Wall Street to gamble with our retirements again. Doesn't anyone remember what happened to our 401Ks?

But there isn't much else left to pillage. The only big money left to take in America is from the social programs for the poor and the middle class. They want it all. They don't intend to leave us with anything. And without our economy or our government safety nets, America will then be a third world nation... While some people will get filthy rich making it happen.

We can stop this pillage now - maybe even start to fix things. But let's not wait for another Great Depression.

To see a Book TV video of Barry C. Lynn's synopsis of his extraordinary book click here.