The Neocons Have Deranged The Economy

        If only the original good policies that had been in place before 1972 and that had made the country great, had been continued. But they were not continued. On the contrary, they have been dismantled, we all suffer because of it and worse is yet to come. A massive assault on the good policies of the past occurred in the years 1965 to 1972. This assault was principally lead by liberals working from within the Democratic Party but this assault could never have succeeded if sizeable numbers of Republicans had not lost their way and lent assistance. President Reagan would have taken us back to the good policies or most of the good policies in position before 1965. I say he was right and courageous to try. He did not succeed because he was outnumbered. What has the Republican Party of recent years done? Has it taken up the banner and mission of Reagan and attempted to restore the great policies of the past? It has enjoyed great power and influence in Washington since 1995. But this Republican Party—dominated as it has been by the Neocons—has moved further away, not closer toward, the original good policies predating 1972 that made American great.

        The Neocon Republicans who have held great power in Washington since 1995 have been ravishing the fundamentals of our economy like an insatiable bo weevil. A Neocon stands for big government, like a liberal Democrat, and tears down protective tariffs, which, by the way, the liberal Democrats have wanted to do ever since the middle of the 1800s and towards which end Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt and John Kennedy made singular contributions. From 1995 through 2006—the period that saw the so-called Republican Party control the House and Senate--Congress nearly doubled the federal debt and Congress bludgeoned American industry and farms through anti-tariff measures such as NAFTA. Going on a borrowing binge like the closet liberals they are, the Neocon Republicans added approximately $4 Trillion to the federal government debt or, put another way, every adult in the country would have to pay about $5000 more in taxes for 20 years to pay off principal and interest. Then you have the odious anti-tariff, free trade measures the Neocons promoted. While a minority in Congress in 1994, the Neocons helped pass NAFTA and GATT. Once in the majority in Congress, they granted the President such things as Fast Track trade authority and CAFTA and other bad trade bills. Thanks in large part to the liberal trade policy of the present-day Republican Party as a whole, we lost about one quarter of our high paying manufacturing jobs, our manufacturing trade deficit more than doubled and our agriculture trade surplus fell from about $50 Billion to nearly zero. These Neocons balloon the debt and crush industrial production and farming.

Jobs And The Eastern Shore

        There is a lot of grumbling—rightfully so—about the lack of enough good jobs on the Eastern Shore. Look no further than the damage the Neocon trade policy has done to heavy industry in Baltimore. When Baltimore was booming, the strong ripple effects were felt a long way away. Now we import through Baltimore Harbor, cheap labor goods made in Red China and Mexico. This is fine for Walmart but not fine for those of us seeking higher paying employment. Blame Neocon, anti-tariffs measures for disasters such as the closing down of the Black and Decker plant in Easton and the loss of 1100 top jobs.


Devaluation Of The Dollar

        The Neocon dominated Republican Party is not only holding back the economy but also bringing us something even far worse. They are bringing us a very severe economic setback, if not a depression worse than that of 1929. The more the debt balloons and the more our industry and farms decline, the weaker becomes the value of the US dollar. The dollar, which has been the supreme currency in the world since 1944, is now being dumped by foreigners. In fact, a serious devaluation of the dollar began on September 20. It has been estimated that the unloading of the US dollars by foreigners could cut the purchasing power of the dollar in half, which, in turn, would land us in a deep depression. What would be some of the local signs of depression? Gasoline at the pump would cost $6 a gallon, home and office utility bills would double. Foreclosures on homes would get out of control. The entire economy would come undone. (See Home Page, News, see “Devaluation Of The Dollar Has Begun” and “Severe Economic Crisis Began September 20,” and also see Issues, “Economy.”)

        What a disaster that is being brought down on our heads in no small part by the liberals who dominate the Republican Party! The American Dream is at the brink. The American Dream was alive and reasonably well on the eve of the fatal period 1965 to 1972. But the liberals led by Lyndon Johnson swung the wrecking ball into the American economy. Then the liberals infiltrated our own party and swung the wrecking ball all the harder. How could they allow the combined government and private sector debt to grow so big? It is 15% taller than the debt bubble that triggered the Great Depression! How could they undermine industry? We have lost nearly 40% of our industrial base since 1972! The foreigner is disgusted with us; he fears our debt and sloth; he unloads dollars he holds. Gold and the euro are sought out instead. Does the Republican leadership take stock of the peril? No Sir! They drive drunk toward the cliff. Do they look back at what made us great? Of course not. To look back might lead to solutions. These years when the Neocons have been in power are among those that the locusts have eaten.


Neocon War Policy

        I turn now to the war in Iraq. It should unsettle us that the very Neocons who have done their part to wreck the economy are the very authors and executives of the war in Iraq. But perhaps they are right in this instance, even though they are very wrong regarding the economy. After all, there were those Muslim suicide squads who brought mass murder to our shores. After all, we were and are absolutely in the right to retaliate and hunt the terrorists down like the dogs they are. I myself am for hunting them down.

(See the Home Page: News: What to Do With Iraq and Arminio Alternative below.)

 
Saddam Hussein And Al Qaeda Were Not Linked

        But should we wage war in Iraq to defeat Al Qaeda? Al Qaeda was not born inside Iraq, it is part and parcel of Saudi Arabian society. No significant link between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda has ever been proven. No proof exists whatsoever that Saddam Hussein contributed to Al Qaeda’s attack of September 11. On the contrary, the National Intelligence Estimate, put forth by the entire US intelligence community long before the invasion of Iraq (October 1, 2002), emphatically testified that no significant link existed and that a future link between the Iraq of Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda would not happen under any circumstances unless the United States threatened Saddam Hussein with destruction. For all that, the Neocons in the executive branch declared dozens and dozens of times on the first anniversary of September 11 and thereafter, that Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda were allies before the attack of September 11, which, in turn, led the American public as a whole to believe that Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda were allies, even though they were not allies.

 

The War In Iraq Has Greatly Benefited Al Qaeda

        There is no question whatsoever that the United States ought to have attacked Al Qaeda in its lair in Afghanistan. What is more, our military intervention in this mountainous country must go down as one of the greatest feats in the annals of war. The American and allied invasion of Afghanistan smashed the principal base of Al Qaeda, where upwards of 60,000 terrorists had been trained, and forced Al Qaeda to run for its life. That gutter rat Bin Laden and his ilk fled to the badlands of Pakistan. But the United States did not finish the job. Instead, we broke off the main pursuit and invaded Iraq. History may judge this change in course by us as even a bigger mistaken than the failure of Hitler to finish off the British Expeditionary Force trapped on the Dunkirk beaches. Worse, we played right into the hands and the strategy of Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda thrives on failed or bankrupt states. Afghanistan was a failed state, ripe for their evil presence. We took Afghanistan away from them, only to hand them a collapsed Iraq in which to fester and thrive. On account of our descent on Afghanistan, Al Qaeda was without a base and sent reeling. Today, on account of our obsession with and disruption of Iraq, Al Qaeda is stronger than ever, having been granted the respite to establish a new principal base in Pakistan, to turn central Iraq into a powerful, well situated forward base, and to recruit far and wide among Muslims and other disaffected peoples in Europe, the Middle East and South Asia. Al Qaeda thanks Allah that Americans gave up their hot pursuit of Bin Laden, made themselves easy targets in Iraq and stirred up unprecedented bitterness among Islam by the occupation of a Muslim state.
 

Waging War Abroad And Open Borders At Home

        Is it not also curious we fight this war in Iraq while leaving our own borders wide open to an invasion of immigrants? The Neocons are all potent to impose “shock and awe” and whatever else on Muslims abroad. But they typically go through the motions of solving the immigration problem. It is not enough to stem the flood of illegals. What about stopping all those legal immigrants who are coming in at a far faster pace than we can assimilate them? And speaking of phony measures to stem the immigration problem, what is this about a North American Union—the merger of the United States, Mexico and Canada—which would mean the elimination of the United States and its borders, and a NAFTA Superhighway System, which would make it even easier for immigrants to arrive here?
 

Iraq and Our Exhausted Military

        Another troubling aspect about the war in Iraq is our lack of the forces to both wage war there and uphold the balance of power elsewhere around the world. On the eve of the invasion of Iraq, in 2003, the American Army, for instance, numbered 10 active army divisions. By the summer of this year, the Army, on account of all the wear and tear and losses in Iraq, had been reduced to the equivalent of 3 active divisions. My God, three divisions! We would need that many alone to hold the line in South Korea.

Iraq And The Assault On Civil Liberties

        It is also deeply, deeply disturbing that the Neocons have such little regard for civil liberties. They rammed through the Patriot Act, in 2003, giving the US House exactly 15 minutes to study the 315 page document! FOX TV Analyst, Judge Andrew Napolitano, said it took him twenty hours to peruse the document. The most pernicious aspects of the Patriot Act bestow upon federal agents the right to issue search warrants without a judge's approval and make it a felony for a recipient of such a warrant to tell anyone else of the receipt of the warrant. Here are breaches respectively of the fourth and first amendments of the bill of rights. How ironic that the American Colonies rebelled against the King Of England for imposing similar so-called writs of assistance! 


No Americans Need Be In Combat In Iraq

        There is still more about Iraq that ought to trouble us. It is quite practical to maintain the balance of power in and around Iraq without having a single American soldier or marine in combat inside Iraq. Now how is this? We resort to a rational division of labor or, to be exact, a division of forces. American air and sea power would do its part. Local Sunni Muslim allies, such as those found in central Iraq, and hopefully coming from out of Egypt and Saudi Arabia, would do their parts. It turns out that Iran and their co-religionists, the Shi-ites of southern Iraq, are the major problem for us. But these rivals or enemies of ours depend utterly on the sale of oil and the transport of oil is their Achilles Heel. American air power could, if necessary, cut the Iranian or other belligerents’ oil pipelines; our great fleet could, if the need arose, stop their oil tankers. We have but to task our local Muslim friends to provide the ground power or most of it and to manage the details in the unsettled parts of Iraq. No matter what we might be doing in Iran or Iraq or both regarding the flow of oil, American armed forces would resolutely, of course, defend the great oil fields in Arabia; Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the other small emirates would be shielded by American might at all costs.   
 

The Main Motive For Waging War In Iraq

        If we should not be waging war inside Iraq, why are we there? We are there—I do not like to say this—I do not like to criticize our leaders--the Neocons have us there to wage war rather than fix our economy. Here is another pernicious characteristic of the Neocons. They are endless-war, Wilsonian liberal interventionists. The United States is in Iraq, I believe, to intimidate the Muslim oil producers as a whole to continue to sell oil in US dollars, which, in turn, maintains the dollar as the supreme currency in the world a little longer. The Neocons know that if the Muslim oil producers no longer sell oil in dollars, then one of the great incentives for foreigners to accumulate and use dollars will be gone. In that case, foreigners would dump their dollars en masse, plunging us into depression.

        Since 1975, the Muslim oil producers sold oil in dollars exclusively. By the year 2000, the value of the dollar had fallen down so much, due to our exploding debt and crashing industrial production, that the Muslim OPEC countries were talking about quitting the dollar and going over to the new euro. In late 2000, Iraq switched its oil sales from dollars to euros, Iran switched in part and even North Korea moved out of the dollar. Next thing we know, the Neocon Republicans in control in Washington named Iraq, Iran and North Korea the axis of evil. In 2003 we toppled Saddam Hussein and immediately restored the sale of Iraqi oil in dollars, as before. The Neocons made an object lesson of Iraq and on account of the invasion and occupation of Iraq an unmistakable message has gone out to the Muslim oil producers as a whole to sell oil in dollars or else. What is more, the Neocons have been threatening to bomb Iran.
 

Neocon War Policy Has Massive Foul Consequences

        I do not like to speak harshly about our leaders in Washington. If, on the other hand, I am going to represent the First District of Maryland, then I have no choice but to speak harshly when it is called for. The Neocons will have nothing to do with a benevolent foreign policy, especially in the Persian Gulf. A policy of benevolence would, among other things, find us restoring the value of the dollar--fixing the economy, that is, bringing the debt down and boosting industry—which, in turn, would make it much easier for us to form great combinations against evil. If we are benevolent ourselves, how much easier it is to marshal world opinion and allies and our own people; how much easier it would be to isolate Al Qaeda or any other aggressor. Instead we have taken up a policy of coercion which, in turn, is angering more and more Muslims and costing us friends abroad. Coercion eventually fails. History is littered with proof. It is we who are becoming isolated!

        There is already an anti-dollar bloc in the making, led by Russia, Red China, Iran and Venezuela. Our own policy is driving erstwhile allies or potential allies or both into their ranks. My God, even the Saudis began to talk just last week about actually decoupling their currency from the dollar. The Neocons revel in talk about a comprehensive religious conflagration between Christendom and Islam that is just not there. Islam is not united; the Muslims have been at each others’ throats for several centuries. But the ineptness or should I say unjustness of the Neocons is driving the quarreling Muslims together. What a horrible period of consequences could await us: region-wide war, even world war, and depression at home.


Neocons In The First Congressional District      

        Are there Neocons in the First Congressional District of Maryland? I am sorry to say that there are. The incumbent Mr Wayne Gilchrest has done some good things but has also voted for the most part in lockstep with the Neocons. Thus we find him casting votes to double nearly the debt, to tear down tariffs, put up NAFTA and bad Farm Bills, to approve the Patriot Act, and to invade and occupy Iraq. In March he voted for withdrawal from Iraq in late 2008 or 2009, but he has not promoted the restoration of a benevolent foreign policy. What about State Senator Harris? Although he has done some good in Annapolis, he is rooted in the Neocon camp, too. He is an outspoken advocate of the war in Iraq. He utters not a word about the calamity befalling the economy and civil liberties. Search in vain for his criticisms of Neocon trade policy and for anything but the vaguest references to Neocon borrowing. Why criticize the Neocons when you hope to join their ranks? Harris would have us believe that the difference between himself and Gilchrest is very large. But Gilchrest generally voted with the Neocons from 1990 up to early 2007; his deviations from the Neocons this year are minor in the context of the whole sweep of his voting career. Furthermore, there are pro-life Neocons, such as Harris, and pro-choice Neocons, such as Gilchrest. On the big matters of the economy and foreign policy, Harris and Gilchrest are not far apart at all. It should also be pointed out that Gilchrest and Harris have done nothing to oppose the North American Union and NAFTA Superhighway System, even though more than forty members of Congress have sponsored legislation—HCR 40—to put a stop to both.


Action To Take

        What can we do? The very first thing to do is to implement emergency measures to backstop the value of the dollar. Ultimately, over perhaps ten years, we ought to restore as much as practicable those good economic policies that were in place until the years 1965 to 1972. If we will do these things we can avert an economic setback and even prosper as never before. I have written an entire book about the positive steps to take. Unlike Reagan, I cannot say I know Jefferson. But I know of his policies and those of our original Republican Party. If you will send me to Washington, I will fight for the American Way. This includes pursuing the third alternative (See the Home Page: News: What to Do With Iraq and Arminio Alternative below.) to the war in Iraq, in other words, neither waging war and coercing Iraq and other Muslim oil powers indefinitely, nor withdrawing without restoring a benevolent foreign policy, but instead maintaining order in the neighborhood righteously and efficiently, as I mentioned a moment ago. The question will arise: What can you really accomplish in Washington? You are only one man. Yes, but I have a good plan. I will take committees of concerned Marylanders with me. We will turn our proximity to Washington to heavy advantage. Let us take back our party in this part of the state. Let us together storm Washington and remind those there of what made the country great and though the initial odds may seem long rekindle that patriotic fire in the minds of Americans from one end of this country to the other.               

Appendix

        The Decline And Fall Of The American Way argues that ten fundamental policies made America great, that nine of the ten policies have been abandoned and that one of the ten policies—patent policy—is under heavy attack. This new book also warns of an impending economic debacle, if emergency measures are not taken in short order and if sound measures are not sustained in the long run. Above all, Joe believes the government must announce and implement emergency economic measures to underpin the dollar. Such measures should entail the first steps in a ten year transition to sound monetary, trade and fiscal policies, as mentioned below. It is also crucial to forge a very different Iraq policy.


IMPLEMENT THE ARMINIO ALTERNATIVE TO THE WAR IN IRAQ

BOOST THE ECONOMY and DEFLATE THE DEBT BUBBLE

        How?  It is vital to make known and clear to the world that the United States will no longer abuse the dollar and will restore its value. A bold declaration, including a published schedule of responsible reform, and the taking of the first steps of reform, should immediately stop the devaluation of the dollar. In terms of the necessary reform, let us restore an approximation of the ten good policies in place before 1965. (An abbreviation of the proposed policies are set down below. Joe’s aforementioned new book lays out the proposals in detail.) If we implement these good changes, especially regarding monetary, fiscal and trade policies, then the following reduction of the debt bubble can be anticipated.

 

   2. Trade Policy

   3. Fiscal Policy

   4. Foreign Policy

   5.   Law Policy

   6. Education Policy

   7. Immigration Policy

    8. Land Use Policy

   9. Energy Policy 

   10. Patent Policy

 

SOME ISSUES on which Joe has positions:--