Rural Sectionalism and the Election of Donald Trump

A December 29  Wall Street Journal piece shows 20 charts that indicate how badly rural Americans have fared. The election of Donald Trump, mostly by rural voters, can be interpreted to be a reaction, and the campaign to eliminate the Electoral College a counterreaction.

Inflation-adjusted household income has declined since 2000, and it has declined the most in rural areas. Much of the decline occurred during the Obama years. That contrasts with the stock market, which has received massive public subsidization. 

Those who foot the bill for "too-big-to-fail" banks are the same people who are dying at increasing rates.

Where I live, Olive, NY, New York City has long played an imperialistic role similar to that of any Roman-style power. It has done so to procure virtually free water; it chose to go the imperial route rather than purchase water ethically back in the 19th century.

In his book Empire of Water, David Soll outlines the 100-year history of theft, exploitation, and regulatory caprice that deprived the ancestors of many people I see each day of their homes and businesses, forcing many who had owned family businesses into becoming day laborers.

Environmentalists, dominant in the Democratic Party, have learned from New York City and since the 1990s have systematically attacked rural areas. This occurred most aggressively during the Obama years.

Not satisfied with increasing death rates in rural areas, Robert Reich, the American media, and their fellow Democrats campaign for more political power to be concentrated in urban centers by abolishing the Electoral College.  The end of the Electoral College would mean even more extreme depredation of rural America than has already occurred. 

Say No to Engage Mid Hudson July 30 6:00 PM Newburgh

This "Engage Mid Hudson" Agenda 21 organizing stuff in our own neighborhoods is serious stuff -  Wake up - this is not good - mert
The program was announced (supported) by Gov Cuomo in 2011 (who would have guessed that)  They hope to impliment Agenda 21 in Dutchess, Orange, Putnam, Rockland, Sullvan, Ulster, and Westchester Counties.  This first meeting is July 30, from 6:00PM to 8:30PM at SUNY Orange Newburgh Campus, in the Great Room, Kaplan Hall.  This is an attempt at a huge power grab and if it moves forward, it will totally affect you daily life, adversely.

-----Original Message-----
From: Mitchell Langbert <mlangbert@hvc.rr.com>
To: NYLibertyAlliance-list <NYLibertyAlliance-list@meetup.com>
Sent: Fri, Jul 20, 2012 11:48 pm
Subject: [NYLibertyAlliance] Engage Mid Hudson (Agenda 21 pseudo) Public Meeting July 30

(1)    The first meeting of Engage Mid-Hudson will be on Monday, July 30. Engage Mid-Hudson covers the Southern and Northern Westchester Energy Action Consortia up through Ulster County (and everything in between).   If you haven’t been following Engage Mid-Hudson, it is the latest manifestation of the regional push to implement UN Agenda 21 through non-governmental organizations that violate republican and constitutional principles by providing a carte blanche to exercise eminent domain and other authoritarian planning tactics that obviate republican standards and freedom.  Please bring your friends who favor private property rights, oppose eminent domain, and oppose authoritarianism.   I have linked below to a video of Rosa Koire’s recent talk in Olive and, as well, my recent interview on A-21 with Tom Sipos on Hudson Valley Focus. 

The idea would be to attend the meeting and, where possible, raise key issues like these:  property rights,  your preference for freedom and market processes over authoritarian and government-based ones, the failure of state-based solutions to improve the economy, improve equity, or help the environment,   your opposition to eminent domain, and your opposition to granting legislative power to non-governmental organizations (NGOs).    The view that no NGO should be permitted legislative, zoning, or eminent domain authority needs to be loudly voiced.  

These are not distant concerns. The purpose of Engage Mid-Hudson is to establish a vehicle that will usurp republican local government authority and establish eminent domain and zoning authority for Engage Mid-Hudson or a successor NGO. This will be used to implement radical environmental policies that will increase in severity over time.  

http://www.rocklandrecycles.com/docs/Engage_Mid-Hudson_Public_Meeting_Evite.pdf

(2)    Several people on the New York Liberty list wanted to discuss our strategy for discussing A-21 with Congressman Gibson. At his kick-off event he was interested enough to ask for information, and we thought we’d meet with him.  Please contact me if you want to work on preparing a presentation and setting up a meeting with him.

(3)    Links:

http://www.rocklandrecycles.com/docs/Engage_Mid-Hudson_Public_Meeting_Evite.pdf

http://www.mitchell-langbert.blogspot.com/2012/07/rosa-koire-speaks-to-town-of-olive-on.html

http://www.mitchell-langbert.blogspot.com/2012/07/my-2nd-hudson-valley-focus-interview-re.html

Key to Sustainability: Kick the UN out of the US and Get the US out of the UN

Glenda R. McGee sent me a Daily Caller blog about the UN's crackpot Agenda 21, which has caught on in a wide range of US governmental bodies ranging from county environmental departments to the Obama administration. Daily Caller's Jim Simpson points out that the terminology that the radical left and the UN have adopted, such as "sustainability", are code for radical social reorganization along Spartan lines (the Spartans had the kind of collectivist, highly controlled society that today's left advocates, with the Obama-Emanuel youth training movement very much in the Spartan communistic tradition).  Daily Caller does a good job of dissecting the code, much of which amounts to fear and loathing of freedom, human happiness and economic progress.  Given the environmental movement's staunch opposition to progress and technology, claiming that it is "progressive" is perhaps a worse abuse of language than calling authoritarian left-wingers "liberals."

The notion of "sustainability" is vacuous.  A way of life is sustainable if the participants conceive of a way of sustaining it.  Technology has proven remarkably inventive not in sustaining but in expanding standards of living. Such expansion has been stalled by the kinds of policies the environmentalists advocate.The chief enemies to sustainability are regulation, government, the Federal Reserve Bank, the United Nations, and authoritarian environmentalism.

As Simpson's article makes clear, UN Agenda 21's land control theme is a form of totalitarian communism that is more radical than Stalin's and Mao's. Environmentalism is a violent totalitarian movement very much in these extremist traditions.  Which is not to say that the environment is not an important concern.  The rule of law and private property are much better at maintaining the environment optimally than regulation and social reorganization.

It is frightening that the United Nations, which was founded on the premise that it would contribute to world peace, has become an organization that advocates human resettlement and mass murder.  It is time for the United States to rethink its involvement in the United Nations.  There is a place for a multilateral peace organization, but not for initiatives like UN Agenda 21 and the reactionary environmental movement.  The UN should be kicked out of the US, and the US needs to resign from the UN.

Democrats: the Party of Selfishness, Greed

The "Progressive" Republicans and Democrats, the parties of Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Barack Obama, have created a system where each aims to steal from each. This system has crystallized most completely in New York State, where the Service Employees' International Union has formed a one million strong unit whose aim is to expand the public sector to create ever greater numbers of unproductive government jobs. New York's economy is no longer founded on productive economic work but rather on the Wall Street bubble economy, which depends on government extraction of wealth from the rest of the world via the Federal Reserve Bank and the Bush-Obama bailout.

The way the Progressive Republicans and Democrats accomplish the wealth extraction is that the Fed deposits monetary reserves in the money center banking system, which is empowered to lend a larger amount (up to six or seven times as much) to the public. The first borrowers are Wall Street banks and hedge funds. The increased monetary reserves push down interest rates and push up the stock market, as has recently occurred. Wall Street benefits. The money circulates, and the poor pay higher prices. Propagandists for Wall Street such as William Greider in his book Secrets of the Temple deny this mechanical process, claiming that inflation affects all neutrally. That is also the claim of university economists. A moment's reflection makes clear that this is impossible. Most of the money is lent to hedge funds, for corporate takeovers, the carry trade and real estate speculation. By the time the money circulates through the economy, its purchasing power has diminished. Only fools would claim otherwise.

Perhaps no phenomena better testifies to the authoritarian greed of the Democratic Party and the "Progressive" Republicans than the bailout, which some have predicted will eventually amount to as much as $24 trillion. All of the advocates of remedying "income inequality" among the Democrats and the "Progressive Republicans" supported this massive transfer to the wealthy in unison.

The Democrats are a party of school teachers who do not educate but demand higher salaries; unions whose workers expect make work jobs; government employees who produce nothing but demand large raises; trial attorneys whose work cripples the economy but lobby for laws that protect their privileges; and on and on.

Karl Popper makes the point in his book Open Society and Its Enemies that, 2,500 years ago, Plato intentionally confused the debate concerning individualism versus collectivism. Plato was a communist who believed in tight state control of every aspect of human existence. To defend this claim, he equated selfishness and individualism. He claimed that collectivism, violent control of humanity, was justice.

The Democrats are very much in the Platonic tradition. Their advocacy of extremist versions of environmental regulation that would impose high costs on homeowners via the cap and trade provision is only the beginning. In upstate New York, Congressman Maurice Hinchey has proposed a plan to turn the Hudson Valley into a federal park. The extent of regulation in a federal park under the regulatory authority of the cap and trade administrator is potentially crushing. The very people who will potentially be forced to leave their homes because of cap and trade continue to applaud Mr. Obama.