Reviews by Hubie Goode: The Old Liberal Three Step

The Old Liberal Three Step
by J.J. Jackson

Anyone who has spent any time at all arguing with a more liberal minded person on issues relating to the powers of the federal government knows the old Liberal Three Step. The dance has been around for the better part of the last century and is the tried and true way for people who have no respect for individual liberty, limited government and our Constitution to justify any and every duty they want government to undertake. Once again we are watching this dance being performed over the issue of Obamacare.

The first step in the Liberal Three Step is to cite the "general Welfare" clause of Constitution whenever a liberal has a "great idea" he or she wishes to implement. They claim that the "general Welfare" clause is such a broad grant of power, because it says the word "general", that it gives the federal government near unlimited authority to do whatever Congress or Presidents can dream up. Of course this flies in the face of the truth not to mention the Tenth Amendment.

The first argument I heard for Obamacare (socialized medicine) was this "general Welfare" clause argument. And I heard it often. But it is easily shot full of holes.

First of all our founding fathers specifically stated, on numerous occasions, that the "general Welfare" clause was not a broad, carte blanche grant of power to Congress enabling them to pass any law they saw fit. Alexander Hamilton, who is often misquoted and often misrepresented as some sort of screaming big government liberal, said in Federalist 83, "The plan of the convention declares that the power of Congress, or, in other words, of the national legislature, shall extend to certain enumerated cases. This specification of particulars evidently excludes all pretension to a general legislative authority, because an affirmative grant of special powers would be absurd, as well as useless, if a general authority was intended."

Hamilton further discussed this later on during the debate over the concept of a national bank saying, "the foundation of the Constitution is laid on this ground: 'That all powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited to it by the States, are reserved for the States, or to the people.' Whence it is meant to be inferred, that Congress can in no case exercise any power not included in those not enumerated in the Constitution."

James Madison, who is considered the father of the Constitution and the preeminent authority on the document for his time, said in both Federalist 41 and 45 that Congressional powers under the "general Welfare" clause were limited. In the later document he explicitly called them, "few and defined."

Thomas Jefferson in his 1817 letter to Albert Gallatin said on the issue, "Congress had not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but were restrained to those specifically enumerated."

Further, it should be noted, that since this is what our founders understood the term to mean and since there has been no amendment to our Constitution which changes this meaning then we are stuck with that interpretation. Anyone see health care/insurance anywhere in the enumerated powers? Nope? Oh well! There goes the "general Welfare" clause argument down the drain.

Having failed at the "general Welfare" argument, liberals then jump to the second step of their dance. They haul out the Interstate Commerce clause. This clause states Congress has the power, "To regulate Commerce ... and among the several States." Liberals claim this gives them a broad regulatory authority to regulate anything that might be construed as interstate business activity. This clause, they claim, gives them the power to institute Obamacare on the grounds that health insurance companies are interstate entities engaging in commerce between several states.

But now let us return once again to the founding fathers and see what they meant without equivocation. In Federalist 22, Alexander Hamilton said plainly that taxes imposed by individual states, at their discretion without regulation, on goods traveling across their territories from other states would resemble the "constant trammels" of the German empire where such acts had rendered major avenues of commerce "almost useless."(see 4th paragraph) In Federalist 42 James Madison said of the commerce clause that its power was for, "the relief of the States which import and export through other States, from the improper contributions levied on them by the latter." (see 11th paragraph) In Federalist 44 Madison again states that the commerce clause regulates only, "the power of the States over imports and exports." (see 8th paragraph)

In 1878 Madison noted at the Federal Convention that the federal power to deal with interstate commerce was limited. He noted that the issue at hand was a state taxing the products of neighboring states that were either to be sold within their boundaries or that were simply passing through them to other states. Such acts would thus inhibit commerce and the free flow of goods. He said, "it would be unjust to the States whose produce was exported by their neighbours, to leave it subject to be taxed by the latter. This was a grievance which had already filled N. H. Cont. N. Jery. Del: and N. Carolina with loud complaints, as it related to imports, and they would be equally authorized by taxes ... on exports."

In the same notes and on Tuesday, the 21st of August, 1787 Mr. Elseworth said that the power of Congress to make regular trade between the states would, "protect them against each other." Further that, "Should this not be the case, the attempts of one to tax the produce of another passing through its hands, will force a direct exportation and defeat themselves"

Here again we see what the Founders meant by the Commerce Clause. They meant it to be a way to prevent states from infringing upon the commerce of their neighbors; neighbors who either wished to do business within their borders or with other states that would require the travel of goods of one state to pass through them before reaching their final destination in yet another state. This application of the Commerce Clause is not nearly broad enough to allow liberals to succeed in this argument that the Commerce Clause allows them to regulate businesses that happen to do business in multiple states.

So liberals sigh and move to the third step of their dance. This third step is to invoke the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution. The Supremacy Clause is Article VI, Clause 2 and states, "This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof ... shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding."

The liberal doing his or her little dance claims that because Obamacare is now the law that it is de facto protected by the Supremacy Clause and must be abided by. This is a silly argument to everyone but the liberal making it of course. Logically if Congress does not have the power to pass a law under the Constitution but passes a law anyway should it be considered protected by the Constitution? Liberals, of course, say enthusiastically yes. Of course liberals have always been for arbitrary and capricious government.

Based on this logic however certain conundrums arise. First of all think of a bank robber. Robbing banks is an illegal act. But if someone robs a bank and commits this illegal act does he get to keep the ill gotten gains of his actions? If you apply liberal thought processes protecting Obamacare under the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution then you are left with no other choice but to say that the bank robber's actions are now legitimate because they have happened.

It is pretty simple. An illegal act is undertaken. That illegal act is successful. So, therefore, that illegal act becomes legitimate by default. Yeah, I know, it sounds so stupid when broken down. But that is in a nut shell what liberals are saying in using the Supremacy Clause to argue in favor of Obamacare.

If tomorrow the Congress were to pass a law reinstituting race-based slavery in the United States, in clear violation of the 13th Amendment, would we as citizens just sit back and say, "Oh well ... its the law you know!"

Hell no! We would not do that.

Of course like any dance, the old Liberal Three Step repeats itself. After having gone through three steps and having their arguments thoroughly debunked and shattered the dancer returns to their home position and begin step one all over again. So liberals start back with the "general Welfare" clause argument again which will be debunked again, then move on to the Commerce Clause argument which will be debunked again, and then return to the Supremacy Clause argument only to also have that debunked again. Then they will wash, rinse and repeat as needed hoping beyond hope that at some point if they keep saying the same discredited arguments again and again eventually these arguments will magically become true.

It will not become true. But they hope to be able to change that reality by a sheer force of will and this is what continues to drive them.

About the Author

J.J. Jackson is the Pittsburgh Conservative Examiner for Examiner.com and owner of American Conservative Daily. He is also the lead designer for The Right Things - Conservative Political T-shirts and his weekly articles can be red at Liberty Reborn.

Reviews by Hubie Goode: No Going Home, An Interview With The Homeless Part 2

No Going Home
Part 2

An Interview With The Homeless

John worked as a taxi driver in New York City for over a decade before becoming disenchanted with the “living inside of a pinball machine” existence of the big city and he hopped a greyhound bus headed west. After ending up in Southern California he landed a job as a 7-11 night clerk. What he didn’t expect was the clientèle that frequented these kinds of haunts in the middle of the night. All too often the customers would grab beer and snacks and just walk out. There were also a few hold-ups at gun point over things such as a submarine sandwich or a bag of donuts.

“I could have been killed over nothing,” John tells me shaking his head in confusion. “So I got the hell out of there.

In 1996 he moved to Santa Monica but has only been able to find part time work. “It’s hard to find anything here,” he admits. “If I had known it was like this, I would have stayed where I was.”

John was now one of the huge hordes of single men who are homeless on the streets of Santa Monica. Statistics show the majority of homeless are single men with no families and no employment. The total of Los Angeles homeless is around 90,000 and a big section of that is ensconced in Santa Monica. A huge number if you consider that a football stadium can seat about 66,000 spectators.

He was at the time commuting from a mattress store where he was earning $9 dollars an hour, part time, from the area in which he now lives, but the bus trips every day take almost two hours each way. The cost took huge bites from his salary which was about the same as he makes from welfare now. Santa Monica was cracking down on the deluge of homeless men and women who peppered the streets and choked the third street promenade, turning away many customers who would otherwise spend money in the over priced, affluent area. Northridge is like small town America in comparison and sometime in 2007, after sleeping on the streets for a year, he was laid off from the mattress store. Another invisible victim of the mass recession.

“I was at first sleeping on the corner in a sleeping bag, and then I started to feed the stray cats. I built them some homes and then decided I needed one too. So I built this tent.”

There were no stray cats to feed in Santa Monica, he couldn’t find any. The cats here in Northridge disappear during the day and no one knows where they go. After some time of taking care of the kitties, he ran into an entire society of people who do the same. Feral cat activists will donate food to John so he can take care of the “lost boys” of the cat world.

One person who is a feral cat defender and supporter of John’s work, has told me by phone that John is really a very kind hearted man. “He takes a real offense at the state of forgotten cats and people who don’t have much.” It was when John was ticketed by the railroad company for pitching his tent on the property that his defender became enraged. “They don’t care about anything but money. If John were to die today, they would simply call the coroner and have his stuff trashed. It would be all over before you knew it.”

In 1880 the railroad was such a problem that newspaper reporters and settlers to the area were convinced that it represented corporate greed and political corruption that was taking over the country. That’s 1880! The attitudes of the railroads all across the country towards locals was so prevalent that it even inspired movies like Once Upon a Time In The West.

A few months ago the railroad sent a Union Pacific police officer to John’s tent. These men are fully commissioned and work with local, state and federal agencies, so I am told by those who know. They were alerted to John’s presence by the railroad tracks by local businesses and citizens.

“While we are certainly concerned for the homeless,” I am informed by email. “We certainly have to look out for the health and welfare of all citizens and businesses in the area. The presence of someone trespassing on the railroad’s land poses a dire threat and danger to everyone.”

According to John, “The police officer was not listening to anything I had to say. He seemed to hate poor people. I explained to him why I am here several times and he turned a deaf ear to me.”

John was then told that if he did not leave within three days that he would be ticketed. He was then given a summons to appear in court in a three counts criminal case: Lodging without permission, trespass on rail property and general trespass. The courts biggest concern is for the health and well being of the surrounding citizenry, and this is a misdemeanor crime, so says the courts.

The local councilman also states that there have been consistent complaints to his office about the man living in a tent behind the store just a block or so away from the councilman’s office. The office would not say just who had made those calls, since all information must be kept confidential.

A staff member of the office visited John also, and during the visit referred him to some services that could assist him. The councilman’s office repeatedly states that its concern is for both John and the public. Not a short time later the matter was then considered to be a county problem and no longer a case that could be handled by the councilman’s office.

A long time real estate assessor tells me that if indeed it is a county problem, then the Railroad cannot legally serve trespassing documents to John based on the very spot he has chosen to live. “Because of the flood channel below him,” the assessor states. “John is not on Railroad property.”

When John went to court that day, several people who had taken up his cause also showed up to provide the court with the homework on property ownership vs. county land that the assessor had discovered. The prosecutor was taken aback and befuddled to see the evidence. Evidence that should have been basic investigative work for any prosecution office. The prosecutor asked for a continuance.

John has been defending himself since his court lawyer told him to just plead guilty to trespassing and get on with his life. John still faces trial in the near future and the prosecutor’s office has yet to respond to the legal land ownership evidence. There has been nothing but back and forth between all offices concerned and the case is stalled until someone can discover if John has broken any laws at all.

How this all began is a real mystery though, since newspapers have also gotten into the fray. They have found that those so called businesses that complained about John are all smoke, as no one will repeat the often chanted mantra of the system that local businesses complained. In fact, many told the papers that they have no problem with John at all. Most local employees and citizens didn’t even know he was behind the store.

John says that ever since the local mall sold space to several high profile retailers that his tent has been visited often by police, security guards and three people who flashed fake police ID’s and then messed with his belongings. He filed a crime report with the police but was ignored.

Investigating the incident has been difficult to do since no one knows who has jurisdiction. So the impersonators get off scott free. The local police have repeatedly offered city services to John but he has refused to take them. Admittedly, the police say, the complaints they get are about the cats he feeds, not about John. “His personal behavior has been quiet and reserved,” the police say.

PATH, People Assisting the Homeless, has said, “The system is failing to respond to John’s needs in the proper fashion. Finding him a place to live is the answer, not wrangling over who’s property he is on.”

According to PATH, the longer a person stays on the street the more emboldened they become as to remaining there. Even if John loses in court, he will still be back on the street somewhere, and probably the whole process will start all over again with a new group of people.

During our last midnight run to feed cats, John and I stop at a McDonald’s and he offers to treat me. I decline and he declines to eat for himself. “I’m like this,” he tells me. “Because my father was abusive. He would come at me with a stick for the littlest things. He thought I was lazy.” He then takes a long moment to stare unfocused out of the window. “I can’t shake it. It’s just the way it is.”

“What about you, John?” I ask him. “What are YOU responsible for?”

He perks up and says, “The cats.”

Reviews by Hubie Goode: President Obama, American History and Keynesian Economics Part 3

President Obama, American History
and Keynesian Economics
Part 3

Controlled inflation is a tricky sort of business. Inflation is a four eyed monster with its own will and drive that all too often refuses to be controlled. The things that control inflation are myriad, productivity, interest rates, careful management, personal competence, lack of greed or too much greed, and few systems, including dictatorships, have ever been able to tame and train those factors.

The world economy has paramount position in any economic situation. Decisions in Europe, South America and even China, decisions that have nothing to do with America, will impact the whole of the Earth’s nations. When nations could claim isolationism, they could indeed state that they were masters of their domain, but no longer! Any industry from across the globe can now compete with any other industry and or nation. Globalism is now the new catch phrase and American planners have less and less control over the situation.

Keynesian economics can indeed be shown to be faulty both in the short and long term. The once stable economies of the Western nations existed in the past when the government served as an umpire of sorts. They were not a part of the team competition. Workers and entrepreneurs produced the results and the government called the balls and strikes. In Keynesian economics, the government plays God and therefore fixes the game before it has even started. In this event, the game cannot be won by even the most talented of players.

Some could argue that the government has the right to do this sort of thing, if indeed it could be proven that the government is run by the smartest, most moral, most competent of men and women. This would be the case if the government were really run by the tall, holy men of the mountain who live above it all; above the fog of the public and the private. Unfortunately, as anyone who reads the sensational media knows, we have a nation of faulty humans who have risen to power above the level of their competence. The Peter Principle has become an ironic joke. (We even produce TV shows that are based on the current shameful news of public figures who have been disgraced.) How else can we explain our staggering debt, huge deficits, lost wars and costly scandals? When a government expands its control of the populace without matching the ability of its leaders to manage that increased control, the ground beneath its feet begins to turn into clay.

The Keynesian view that the government can solve all problems will soon be put through the grinder of proof. That grinder will be survival of the fittest. There is no nation anywhere who has proven that it can decrease its spending. The question now centers on where will new sources of revenue come from? France already has a 50% tax rate and we can all expect that eventually the money the government needs will come from you and me. Governments all over the world have taken upon themselves a cornucopia of obligations that they cannot and will not fulfill. In the economy of God, the government is never to be the father, mother, rich uncle or overall provider of each of its people, and when this happens its actions and reputation take on a more an more worldly view which can only be described as heavily influenced by Hell itself.

Now think about this: Where will the money come from? Back in Roosevelt’s day, it was easy to say “It doesn’t matter, we only owe it to ourselves.” But now “ourselves” has become more and more Japanese, Dutch, Chinese, and German. The money we must borrow today must come from far, far away. Either that, or we must expand. America must add more states to its union, either by friend or by foe. Scary, huh? We’re the Borg. Resistance is futile.

In order to make this borrowing possible, from far, far away it will be necessary for the nations of the world to set up an international economic construct. There must now be a WORLD BANK. There must be commissions and cartels that are a part of world wide finance. We cannot borrow from ourselves anymore, and President Obama is setting out to make this more of an obvious recourse. But the world has its end also, and yet the bills must still be paid. How long can international finance flow? How long will interest rates be manageable? How long will former enemies continue to be friends? Will there come a time when other nations decide that it is time to overturn the current financial structure of the Earth, and along with it, the political structure also. We owe our soul to the company store and others who may or may not be our buddies have the position of calling the shots.

Keynes has placed the nations of the world in a position where they must come under a new system of international control. A world government is the final inevitability to which the whole Earth is headed. Europe is already pulling itself tighter together to bring about this change, as is the Pacific Rim and its nations. Japan and China have given huge credit to the world and it is the United States that has borrowed from everyone and his uncle, more than any other nation.

By the time 2020 rolls around it will have been 100 years or so since Keynes and his economic time bomb came upon the scene. His statement of “In the long run, we’re all dead.” has come true only for himself and those alive at the time. You and I have no such luck. This is the long run and we are still here. His lunacy of the government being God remains with us today and is perhaps the seeds that have been laid for the coming of the Antichrist. But who could have avoided it even if they knew this was the case?

Is this all Keynes fault? No, that would be dishonest to believe so, for all he did was appeal to the broken nature of mankind that desires to eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die. Keynesian economics gave Roosevelt and those who followed him both here and abroad the permission to live lives of economic dissipation, and of course, the grand ego is the “spoiled baby” who grabbed the poison candy because it looked good.

If you are your own man or woman, you don’t roll over for easy government support. Being a responsible human being, one who makes their own way and assists others beside them, is one of the highest human functions. You were created to earn your bread by the sweat of your brow, not to allow the government free nilly to provide and direct your life. We must live and breath and have our source of being in something beyond the halls of Congress. You weren’t a mistake, an evolutionary by-product or a being created to live on the dole day by day waiting for a hand out. God is God and government is not. Keynes has created a condition by which the incompetent majorities have over thrown the competent minority and they use the government as a club to subdue them. Keynesian economics has us all riding a train into a dark tunnel with a solid wall at the end. Fortunately, we can still turn to God, and live in HIS government which trumps all of mankind’s flawed attempts.

Reviews by Hubie Goode: President Obama, American History and Keynesian Economics Part 2

President Obama, American History
and Keynesian Economics

part 2

Black Tuesday, October 29, 1929. That was the day when all hell came home to roost and the market crashed. Between late October and mid November of that year the stock market lost more than 40% of its value. It was a drop of $30 billion in paper value. One of the big villains in this disaster was that prices for stocks were placed far, far above their true value. There was no economic justification for the price hike, just human illogic.

Stocks could be attained for as little as 10% on the margin with the rest being financed by stockbrokers with big loans to give out. When the market began to fall, the investors were required to put up additional investment despite there heavy mortgaging of the initial investment. With the height of credit debt adding to the fiasco, many could not afford the additional expenditure. Brokers were also carried away in the tide of financial ruin, as was the rest of the world eventually.

The idea that something to do with economics was a sure bet, a never fail, a world without limits died a quick and permanent death. Black Tuesday also gave birth to the over study of economics. Everyone wanted to know why it had happened, how could it have been avoided. Curiously, there was also included in this study the possible connection between economics and politics.

The pursuit of these questions brought little release and answer and the west moved into the dark, grey world of the Great Depression. Employment statistics went down while soup kitchens did a booming business keeping the unemployed alive. Few today would hardly believe the deep despondency that covered America in those days. Life was over. Period. The bright dream of the new America and the ascendancy of man was now a cruel joke. As the world moved into the 1930’s any bright words of encouragement, any “power of positive thinking” type rhetoric, was now considered the equal of car salesmen chatter.

Eventually the dream of unlimited prosperity was now seen as a huge charade, a joke played on the public to line the pockets of those who knew better and had made off into the night. Yes, a lot like the name, Madoff; Bernard Madoff. Banks had been failing just before the crash at a rate of 2 or more a day. The nation was upset because they remembered the statements of the politicians, businessmen and economists who said the nation was moving along at a steady pace and there was nothing to worry about. Much faith in those who were experts in their fields was lost and most probably never has been regained. No one had any answers. And the 30’s rolled around with no improvement. From 1930 to 1932 the national income fell from $75 billion to $42 billion.

The nation then took vengeance on the political party in power, as is always the case, and nominated Herbert Hoover for President. The Democrats nominated Franklin D. Roosevelt, who promised a “New Deal”. The nation loved the concept, despite the overwhelming national attitudes, and declined Hoover’s “we’ll make it through” ideology for the preaching of HOPE and CHANGE. Roosevelt was elected in a landslide.

1933 brought little change however, and the nation was hugely dispirited by the high unemployment rate that continued to cripple the nation. The jobless millions were like an embolism in the nations circulation. Economists of the day however, refused to admit the problem of joblessness and wrung their hands over other causes and effects. The economic system of the day, and unemployment, was a paradox that could not be untangled by all the kings horses and all the kings men.

Then along came a man named John Maynard Keynes.

He had a new and plausible way of thinking about economics. He had already made a fortune in world finance and was one of Britain’s most respected intellectuals. His solution was Keynesian Economics. It changed the world, and still effects us today.

Keynes, born in 1883, studied at Eton and then Cambridge. He so impressed his professors that he was offered a position in the economist college at an early age. He declined, however, and sought other outlets. By 1907 he was working for the government in the India office, where he wrote a treaties called: India Currency and Finance, which today is considered a masterpiece. He became editor of the Cambridge Economic Journal which he held for 33 years.

As he continued to work with foreign currencies, for say Spain, Germany and France among others, he was able to develop some high position theories on how to handle currencies of nations. He quickly became an important figure in the treasury of Britain. Many believe he had more to do with the winning of World War I than any other person in civilian life. During the 1919 peace conferences, when it was being wagered about that Germany should be forced to pay reparations for the damage that had been brought upon the world, Keynes disagreed publicly and warned that Germany had no way of making those reparations. Any forced action, held Keynes, would only lead to a resentment that would fuel greater German autarchy and militarism.

Rejected for his beliefs, he resigned from the peace conference and went about to write a book: The Economic Consequences of Peace. The book was such a big influence that by 1924, the treaty that had been set up in 1919 was already being undone. All this made Keynes quite famous and he was considered an economic genius.

Keynes had speculated on the stock market and made himself a multi-millionaire. His ability to make money for himself, a rarity for an economist, made him the “go to” guy. Keynes ideas deeply influenced the Roosevelt administration and he gained a great deal of notoriety in America, as he had done in Europe.

So what was Keynes magic bullet? You must first understand the economic thinking of the day. Variations in the economy between inflation and depression were considered inevitable. It was believed that factored into an economy were the automatic tools for bringing that economy out from a depression and also to ease it down from an inflation. It was believed that during a depression savings rates would rise, and interest rates would fall, thus industrial expansion would begin. Industry would expand and employ more workers, the economy would rise, as would investments. Interest rates would then rise, reducing savings, and causing a downturn in the economy. The cycle would continue to go round and round with the safety switch at the top and bottom of the business cycle.

Keynes argued however, that there was no guarantee that savings would increase during a down time and therefore bring down interest rates. For him, the trigger to make an economy rise again did not lie in savings and investment. His great trigger was Enterprise, which made an economy strong again. Business investment and enterprise, he said, was not and could not be a dependable thing. Expansion would top out at a certain point where it was no longer necessary to build larger and bigger industry due to the ceiling of demand upon a product. Business could not invest perpetually, and therefore an upward spiral was no guarantee.

In his book, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money; he states:

First, an economy in depression could remain there. There is nothing inherent in the mechanism of economics to pull it out. A nation can reach equilibrium with unemployment, even massive unemployment. Prosperity depends on investment. If business spending for capital equipment falls, a spiral of contradiction follows. Business investment must rise for expansion to follow. Investment is an unpredictable drive for an economy. Uncertainty lies at the core of capitalism, the threat is reaching the end. Reaching the point where business growing larger would only incur more needless cost, and this spells economic shrinkage.

(No need to mention the current state of affairs relating to the argument of illegal immigrants taking American jobs and using American resources to see how these statements of Keynes could be prophetic in their assertation.)

According to Keynes, the economy lives in the shadow of collapse. There had to be, for him, another catalyst for making the engines roll once again. As demonstrated in some of the ideas of Roosevelt’s New Deal, Keynes believed that the motor for getting things running again was Government investment. This was his golden panacea. His magic bullet, as it were.

Keynes felt that it was a government’s role to create FULL employment even if it had to create a mountain of unmanageable debt to make it happen. Borrow, borrow, borrow. The world was on the verge of a major financial problem due to America, and Keynes believed that the government had to make up the slack for lack of business investment.

It’s probable that Keynes was merely suggesting a temporary fix for an economy by instructing the investment in employment by the government. His vision was not necessarily meant to be a permanent state of existence. He could not have foreseen a permanent existence of government borrowing and deficit spending which was being suggested for all nations.

The world could have seen the workings of the New Deal as a temporary and expensive fix for poverty and unemployment, as they would have then noticed, if it had not been for the up can coming disaster that we all know now as World War II. Government spending rose like a red tide to $103 billion annually. The day for paying the bills was put on the back burner until after the war.

Keynes philosophy can be summed up as much: The Government has all the answers. Government guarantees stabilize banks. Protection satisfies labor unions. Regulation stabilizes transportation, travel, the media, housing, mortgages, pension funds, and retirement plans. Government is the final resource, it can create something out of nothing. Sound a bit “Orwellian” to you? The government is God.

Keynesian economics writes a check for the next generation that it cannot cash. The ideas are effective in the short term, but mortgage the future. “In the long term.”, said Keynes, “We are all dead.”

Where does all the money come from? Where can government borrowing continue to go to for larger and larger jobs of being the ultimate provider for the American public? Roosevelt’s administration felt there was NO problem due to the fact that the money was only owed to OURSELVES. This was true at first, of course, bonds were issued to finance the borrowing of the federal investment. In the 1940’s they were called war bonds. More and more bonds have been issued since then and now the red tide of staggering debt is undeniable.

There was a time once, when having a national debt was an embarrassment, but not anymore. And in the subsequent years since the Nixon administration “balancing the budget” has become little more than wishful thinking. The Gramm-Rudman act passed by Congress, which was to reduce the national debt each year until the government had a hold on things and the government could then become smaller, never came to pass. In fact, the government has funded its own deficit by dipping into social security to the point where there won’t be any social security for millions of Americans in just a few generations, if not before, considering the geometric rise in such things.

There is no safety net in Keynesian economics for digesting and handling a debt of trillions of dollars. It would take 100,000 years to count the trillions of dollars of debt at one dollar per second that the United States finds itself in today. Who will answer for the empty treasury that is looming in the future of America? With no retirement, no military pension, no civil service pension and a growing baby boomer nation of older people, what will America look like in just a few decades time? Not to mention where the money for government run health care is going to come from.

If our hopes for the future rely on increase in population, where will this population of earners come from? If we continue to abort our future for the comforts of today, both monetarily and yes, in the womb, who will pay for the sins of the fathers? Will there be a zero population growth, and thus no more ability to invest and borrow and take care of the aging public that can no longer afford to take care of itself?

All good questions Keynes never envisioned.

more on this next time

Reviews by Hubie Goode: President Obama, American History and Keynesian Economics

President Obama, American History
and Keynesian Economics

In 1910, the world’s first airplane had been flown over land at Kitty Hawk. The first automobile was chugging its way across the dirt roads of small town America. The railroads had been expanded from coast to coast doing for America in that day what the internet has now done for the world, namely, linked a large group of people together who otherwise may have never gotten to meet. The world was a new and promising place with the industrial revolution transforming the very landscape of reality from that which had been known for the last thousand years or so.

Religious liberalism was also gaining strength in Europe and was now influencing America with its own form of optimism. It held a promise to bring the new age of the world into a more opportune future from the narrow, legalistic views that the world had known up until that time. In the background, Darwin’s writings were being accepted as fact, and along with that, the promise of man’s evolution manifesting itself at least on the sociopolitical level. American education, infected with the ideas of John Dewey, was reaching out to all points around the globe with terms such as instrumental-ism and radical empiricism. “Happy Days Are Here Again”, was the tune of the day, so to speak, and the era is now known to scholars of history as the “Cocksure era”.

Even economics in those days were something we can only imagine today. One could purchase a dozen eggs for twelve cents. Sirloin steaks were twenty-four cents a pound. A turkey dinner cost twenty four cents. Taxes were minimal, trade moved along briskly. Along with the automobile, we had the appearance of the telephone, the typewriter, the sewing machine and the self-binding harvester for farming.

Thirty five years now separated the American public from the Civil War, and those still living saw their country become a major industrial nation almost over night. The public believed that it was America that had been marked by God himself to lead the regeneration of the world. It was America’s divine mission and our right to profit with all the glory and happiness America could receive as trustees of the world’s progress, as guardians of world peace.

By the time America had moved into the 1920’s, the world was still an affluent place, but there were questions that began arising. Those “happy days” were beset with growing discontent. The working world was deluged with almost 3,000 strikes and lockouts in major business. The demands of militant labor were mixed with other strident voices for issues such as woman suffrage, birth control, the civil rights movement’s inception, progressive education and also the embarrassing joke of prohibition. And get this, it’s the 1920’s and there are a million or more socialists who are lobbying for the overthrow of capitalism, which they believed had become so corrupt that it was an inflamed boil on the buttocks of the world.

In 1914, we saw the beginning of World War I. Ten million or so would die in that war with over 20 million wounded on the battlefield. There was the related starvation and sickness epidemics that began immediately after the war had finalized. Although there was much national pride, soaring battle hymns and gloriously crafted uniforms that accompanied the call to defend the world from the unrighteous, it was in reality a time of bloody death and carnage the world had never thought possible. National attitudes would be forever changed. The view of the future had gone sideways on the public paradigm.

Social Darwinist took a big hit in their philosophy of progress being inevitable as the war had shown them perhaps that they were grossly mistaken. However, ever the optimists, there was always a way to spin victory from the jaws of defeat and they simply held fast to their beliefs despite the apparent setback.

Marxists jumped for joy over the war. Socialists saw the conflict as proof indeed that the capitalist system was breaking down and proving their assertions of social organization correct. They had long held that capitalism, like a comic book super villain, carried within itself the seeds of its own destruction. Socialism grew in the United States and also in Europe. Colorful rallies were held where victory songs were sung for Socialism as a whole. There was a HOPE for a new world order lead by the ideas of socialism.

Also at this time, favoring the socialists, Russia had fallen to Communism and the first Communist dictatorship. When Lenin returned to Russia, he lifted his voice in fiery speeches that played up to the disillusionment of the public with the Czar and promised them great CHANGE for the future. In their broken state, the people found only the will to agree with Lenin, and they could not resist the idea of following a man with a plan. In 1918, one of the greatest revolutions on the planet began. Lenin took hold of Russia! Communism had only about 40,000 followers at this time and yet with such a small number, they took over the entire country. One hundred and fifty million people slipped into a sort of “Communist dark ages”, many would never be heard from again. Lenin moved Communism from the realm of ideas to actual control of the levers of power. Little did anyone know at this time what a harbinger of disaster for the world this period of Russian history would be for most of the rest of the century.

Religious liberals, at the time, promised that mankind had now made its greatest mistake. The views of Wellhausen, concerning the evolution of religion, were now pressed even more vociferously . They now promised that with the past behind us, mankind could move ever onward and upward, and the roaring twenties expanded on this idea with aplomb.

Economics became the linchpin clarion call to all of humanity. The promise was now: prosperity to everyone, a turkey in every pot. After the war, there had been a brief depression, but then the economy expanded geometrically in “God-like” fashion. There were new products on the market and everyone wanted to be part of the “in crowd” of progress. New products meant new employment, and in turn with the new employment, the money to purchase the products. Mass production, a new idea at the time (if you can imagine such a thing in our time), began to crank out radios, refrigerators, cars, bathroom fixtures and items that only a hundred years earlier would have been considered “magic”. The public bought them up like free pancakes at the church picnic.

Corporate profits were immense, and if you remember the movie “Its a Wonderful Life”, common folk could become monetary big shots overnight if investing in the right stocks. U.S. Steel was doing so well at this time, that it reduced its workday to eight hours from twelve, .... yes twelve. It hired 17,000 additional workers in 1923, raised its wages and still showed an increase in profits.

Income was up everywhere and even the once striking industrial worker saw a higher standard of living. Prices were stable, insurance and savings were up, and chain stores were spreading like wild fire, the results can still be seen in any mall in America today; and even around the world. Prosperity seemed to have no ceiling.

Economic activity grew so quickly that it seemed any ordinary Joe could get into the stock market and make a killing by tomorrow. In 1928, the prices of stocks had soared to unheard of levels, tens of thousands of people bought into the market for their piece of the pie. With the cost of an apple at the grocery store around 5 cents, and the stock market giving common workers such as valets and nurses $30,000 to $250,000 in profit overnight, the country was swooning with the possibilities.

One and a half million Americans began dreaming about riches that their forefathers could have imagined only in their daydreams during childhood. The rise of stock prices brought with it delusions of “living like a King” to the everyday worker, with promises of luxuries and lifestyles, much of which we today find common place and almost a right instead of a privilege to have.

The evil of credit buying also reared its ugly head for the first time, known at this time as “buying on time”. Between 1920 and 1929 credit purchasing and payments rose to 6 billion dollars annually. Ninety percent of all luxury items were now purchased on time. It’s interesting that since prices were so low and the average worker was making more than enough now to keep himself well off that credit would even be an issue, but it was, and this just goes to illustrate the tendency to be seduced by the idea of “have it today and pay for it tomorrow”. People of the day, however, ignored warnings of mortgaging the future for goods today that would only lose value with time. Paradoxically, the concept of the day for credit buying was that the more debt you had the more you proved your fine line of credit.

We also owe our current inundation with electronic media today to this period of history. Just as we love the internet with an almost “drug addict” kind of fixation, the radio was making big waves in society at this time. The radio could bring into your home a voice from around the world and nothing was a bigger social hit than news and entertainment that could be received right in the living room. Radio began in 1920 with the reporting of the Presidential election out of Pittsburgh. It was such a big hit that by the time 1929 arrived there were 618 radio stations across America. Radio sales were around $600 million and home entertainment, once a fantasy to grandparents everywhere, had taken a hold it would never let go of (as you an I are now well aware of). So much for the barn dance and the traveling circus.

And of course, as is always the case, with broadcasting came advertising. Radio advertising fueled immense expansion for business that could take advantage of it. Can you imagine our society without some kind of broadcast advertising? This time was the “golden dawn” of advertising and the beginnings of employments like commercial graphic design, photography, and film or video creation, which are now unfortunately being bludgeoned by the very media that helped to create them. However, at this time, the roaring twenties were truly ROARING.

So what happened? How did things change so drastically as history now reports? Black Tuesday, October 29, 1929 happened, that’s what.

More on this next time

Reviews by Hubie Goode: Social Insanity

Social Insanity

Last fall, after 20 years of strident inaction, Congress finally passed a bill to increase the fuel efficiency of cars, SUVs and pickup trucks. There was a lot self-congratulation on Capitol Hill. The law seemed to mandate roughly a one-third increase in new-vehicle MPG by 2020 - enough to eliminate the oil the United States imports from the Persian Gulf. Sounds great! But I am hugely suspicious … [there is] a waiver provision that says that if the new standards prove too onerous, automakers can ask they be waived. That is a formula for what Washington specializes in: the appearance of dramatic action while nothing actually happens.” So what’s going on in Washington right now? Pleading poormouth, the big three automakers are already asking for a waiver from the 2015 interim standard, which requires roughly a 15 percent improvement in fuel efficiency. That standard does not take effect for seven years, and already Detroit automakers are saying they can’t meet it.

Or perhaps, they don’t want to try. Lee Hyun-Soon, president of Hyundai, told the Wall Street Journal last week his company will meet the entire 2020 standard by 2015, and will do so entirely with conventional vehicles -- no complex plug-in hybrids, just sensible engineering using existing technology. Whenever Washington seems to get serious about oil waste, Toyota, Honda, Hyundai and Subaru put their engineers to work -- then build, at American factories staffed by American workers, vehicles that comply with MPG rules. Whenever Washington seems to get serious about oil waste, Chrysler, Ford and General Motors put their lobbyists at work to dilute or evade the standards. There are only 535 people in the United States so gullible they would believe Korean engineers can meet a technical standard, yet American engineers cannot. Unfortunately, those 535 people are the members of the United States Congress.

Has anyone from the mainstream media followed up on how last year’s seemingly strict MPG bill is being watered down? As Eric Patashnik of the University of Virginia details in his powerful and timely new book “Reforms at Risk,” reporters are often present when “dramatic” legislation passes, then treat the enactment as the end of the story -- paying no attention as lobbyists later water down a bill. As Thomas Friedman points out in his important new book “Hot, Flat and Crowded,” the refusal of Congress and the White House to take any real action against oil waste has had the effect of transferring hundreds of billions of dollars to Moscow, and to the oil sheiks who support anti-Western and anti-Israel terrorism. If MPG standards were higher, oil demand would fall. Instead, high demand holds up barrel prices, enriching Persian Gulf dictatorships and Vladimir Putin. Why, Friedman asks, is Russia suddenly confrontational? Because in the past two years, Russian elites have gotten super-rich, owing to rising oil prices brought on at least in part by U.S. stupidity regarding petroleum waste. If Congress grants Detroit the MPG waivers it seeks, the stupidity will march on.

Meanwhile, back at the federal budget: In 1976, the entire U.S. national debt was about $800 billion, converted to today’s dollars. Last summer, Congress without debate and with barely any notice added $800 billion to the national debt ceiling -- raising that ceiling by an amount equal to the entire debt a generation ago. With no debate! The U.S. national debt was $5 trillion in 1997, and has doubled to almost $10 trillion since. Why aren’t the young outraged? The old are acting irresponsibly -- spending like crazy but unwilling to tax themselves, then handing the bill to the young. If the young were spending borrowed money like crazy, the old would be lecturing them. How come in Washington, the old can get away with behavior that would be called reckless for the young?

At any rate, the moment another $800 billion worth of borrowing was authorized, supposedly for “emergency” purposes, lobbyists got to work trying to seize every penny now. The big three automakers are now asking Congress for $50 billion of that $800 billion, supposedly to retool to build the fuel-efficient vehicles they had no way -- just no way on Earth -- of knowing they would ever be required to build. As Paul Ingrassia pointed out in last week’s Wall Street Journal, when Congress bailed out Chrysler in 1980, the deal was structured so that if the company recovered, taxpayers got most of their money back. But what’s being asked for now is pure subsidy -- money taxpayers will never see again, and that will be used in part to fund the bonuses of overpaid auto executives who got their companies into trouble in the first place. (The Journal opposes the bailout, though the $50 billion would go to Corporate America.) Ingrassia further notes that when Chrysler’s Lee Iacocca tried to weasel out of the deal and keep the money that was promised back to taxpayers, Ronald Reagan stood firm and would not budge. Contrast Reagan’s sense of civic responsibility to the current Congress, both of which just cannot wait to give away other people’s money.

Now connect the dots! The automakers are asking for $50 billion in handouts to meet new fuel economy requirements -- at the very time they are also asking for waivers from those requirements. If the past is any guide, they will get both the subsidies and the waivers. The net will be zero progress, more billions of dollars for oil shipped to anti-American forces in the Persian Gulf, and more debt handed to everyone under the age of 30.

I want taxpayers to stop being taxed to subsidize wealthy people’s hobbies. But as long as you give the powers that be the ability to answer one constituency, they will answer any and all constituencies, starting first with those that finance their campaigns.

Throw the bums out. Start from scratch. Better yet, throw them out and then just do nothing. We’d all be better off. The consumer would shop for the most efficient car if he or she cares about fuel mileage. When you subsidize, the price goes up. Just like the price of a college education, the price of food (ag subsidies abound), and anything else the government “gives” us.

I also put the blame where it really lies... middle class greed. The cool thing to do these days is blame the government for not monitoring the lending industry when they were handing out outrageous loans to people who couldn’t afford them... yet no one blames the poor soul making $60,000 who signed off on the balloon mortgage for the $650,000 house because he felt like he “deserved it”?

I say that the government doesn’t need to create more regulatory departments and more divisions within it’s already insanely bloated structure which are responsible for protecting silly people from making silly decisions. What’s next, the government is going to stand in the produce section of every supermarket in America and tell consumers if the meat they’re buying is spoiled by the rotten smell? Let’s get real.

The problem isn’t just the rich exploiting the middle class, it’s the middle class having no restraint or personal accountability. People say that we’re teetering on the brink of a depression, but companies like Best Buy, which don’t sell one essential item that a person needs to live, are turning record profits.

Put the blame where it really lies... unabashed American greed. From the single mom using her child support money for new shoes instead of her kids education and essential items to the CEO of the gigantic corporation, greed is what is spinning the wheels that this country runs on, and that is the REAL problem.

Reviews by Hubie Goode: Secret Societies, Freemasons, Occult Knowledge, Who Rules the World? Part 3

Secret Societies

Part 3

From ancient Sufi to the Druids and then to modern day “wise men” all searched for the same thing, this “inner light” of man that could connect them to the divine. They all had sacred rocks and stones and also had a “secret knowledge” of the divine inner light that was symbolized by a serpent, something that looks an awful lot like the symbol for medicine used by hospitals.

The Sufis, are indeed a secret society of Persian mystics whose original religion may well have been that of those called the “Sabeans”, those referred to in this article as the “star worshippers”. They also hold, that it’s possible for them to hold onto their own faith while expressing outwardly allegiance to the religion of their homestead. They even practice spending a fixed amount of days in the wild, all on their own, in order to connect with the surrounding nature.

The Essenes, the Israeli counterparts to the Sufi who also worshiped the heavenly host, were protected by the Cassi-deans, an elite fighting force known as the “knights of the temple”. The Cistercians, created the Knights Templar, who themselves have been accused of heresies by the very church they were a part of.

All these groups, and more, meet within a structure that can only be described as a hidden society within a society, the society of the world. Wherever we find this peaceful society, protected by the “warrior elite” we also find them dressing in white, sporting beards and having secret knowledge of the planets and stars. This hidden framework has been around for centuries and remains unavoidably connected to the past and they influence society on a level we can only imagine.

What is their true purpose? Are they simply the society of the mystical, or do they have other things in mind? As I have said, any organization made up of people will look a lot like the people themselves and it would be naive to believe that every single organization is completely and correctly altruistic in all its operations, due mostly to the fact that people themselves are rarely this way.

History records that “Sabeism”, worship of the heavenly host, spread across the middle east, taking with it the idea of an “inner light” within man himself. This concept can be found in the non-Biblical books known as “The Lost Gospels”. These books come from the Essene, early Gnostics, who worshiped the sun, the light, the serpent. Both the groups of the Persians and also the Israeli societies soon became “brothers” of the order protected by the Knights Templar.

The next event was the emergence of the alchemists, who aided in the formation of secret occult orders. The Freemasons, the Illuminati, and others emerged from the shadows with an amazing likeness to the practices of the Sabiests. Though they have different names, they all amazingly have the same tools for operation and the same base belief system.

This all began in ancient Egypt, with a confederation of priests who specialized in the study of governing mankind. The Egyptian sages had an immense knowledge of all things relating to the physical sciences, and a huge library of sacred books. Their influence spread across the known world and held sway for thousands of years. The consequential empires of Greece and Rome owed their base position to the arcane knowledge of ancient Egypt.

All the mystical secrets can be traced back to the ancient Egyptian empire, as displayed by the practices of initiation that were used then and are still in form today. Being exposed to long stretches of fasting, imprisonment in darkness and the taking of hallucinogenic drugs were all part of a “do or die” test, that if survived, was the price of admission into the secret society. (Consider the building of the Great Pyramid of Egypt and the inside King’s Chamber, although believed for a long time to be a tomb, it has NO artwork on the walls like other tombs of the day. What was the pyramid really for?)

From Egypt, these secrets were passed into Judaism, with the Essene and Gnostics, and from there to the Sufi and Ismaelite orders, and then into the Cistercian Templars. The Knights of St. John, also attached, continued to pass along the mystical concepts. The symbols and concepts passed down then appeared in the orders of the Alchemists and Cabalists (The Cabal) and from this mix came the secret societies of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, and now which today are mostly known as Freemasons. This makes the Freemasons a literal sacred ancient Egyptian order.

The Rosicrucians, The Illuminati and others all are connected satellites to the core of the Freemasons. They are indeed a modern day society that can be traced back to millennia, despite their own vagueness toward their origins. Due to the undeniable connection of the search for power beyond mere man’s strength that is at the core of all this, what can we guess is the true motivation behind the organization of the Freemason lodge?

With the Freemasons we have an organization that is concerned with altruism and also alchemy, they have been helpful to society in many ways but have also had their fair share of being connected to revolution and scandal. But if indeed they are connected to history in this way, then somewhere somehow, deep within the construct of their organization we MUST find the truth about the “connection” to man’s inner light that is so aggressively pursued.

In the early years of the 16th century a book known as “The Long Livers” was written. It was a long essay on universal elixirs which was dedicated to the lodge. In this book, it was stipulated that connection to the illumination within man was not only attainable, but necessary for eternal life. But this could only be found at the highest level with the use of a language know as “the Rose and the Cross” (Rosicrucians).

The Rosicrucians tell of their founder, a 14th century man known as Christian Rosencruz, who went to Damascus, the home of the Gnostics, and Arabia where the Persian Magi lived. There he learned many things about achieving this connection which are held in strict secret even to this day.

To the common man, the one raised on an education of scientific physical reality, the idea of reaching physical enlightenment through drugs and suffering can seem completely insane. Within the Freemasonry there are the rationalists, who understand this, and the illuminist, who have this mystical connection that drives them at the core, seemingly contradictory but bound together by the ritual of the lodge. Freemasonry today is so huge and so powerful, that it could spread propaganda around the world in the blink of an eye. To deny the political influence on the outside of the organization is to completely miss the deep, hidden mystical impetus that drives them.

More on the story of these sacred groups next time.

Reviews by Hubie Goode: No Going Home, An Interview With The Homeless Part 2

No Going Home
Part 2

An Interview With The Homeless

John worked as a taxi driver in New York City for over a decade before becoming disenchanted with the “living inside of a pinball machine” existence of the big city and he hopped a greyhound bus headed west. After ending up in Southern California he landed a job as a 7-11 night clerk. What he didn’t expect was the clientèle that frequented these kinds of haunts in the middle of the night. All too often the customers would grab beer and snacks and just walk out. There were also a few hold-ups at gun point over things such as a submarine sandwich or a bag of donuts.

“I could have been killed over nothing,” John tells me shaking his head in confusion. “So I got the hell out of there.

In 1996 he moved to Santa Monica but has only been able to find part time work. “It’s hard to find anything here,” he admits. “If I had known it was like this, I would have stayed where I was.”

John was now one of the huge hordes of single men who are homeless on the streets of Santa Monica. Statistics show the majority of homeless are single men with no families and no employment. The total of Los Angeles homeless is around 90,000 and a big section of that is ensconced in Santa Monica. A huge number if you consider that a football stadium can seat about 66,000 spectators.

He was at the time commuting from a mattress store where he was earning $9 dollars an hour, part time, from the area in which he now lives, but the bus trips every day take almost two hours each way. The cost took huge bites from his salary which was about the same as he makes from welfare now. Santa Monica was cracking down on the deluge of homeless men and women who peppered the streets and choked the third street promenade, turning away many customers who would otherwise spend money in the over priced, affluent area. Northridge is like small town America in comparison and sometime in 2007, after sleeping on the streets for a year, he was laid off from the mattress store. Another invisible victim of the mass recession.

“I was at first sleeping on the corner in a sleeping bag, and then I started to feed the stray cats. I built them some homes and then decided I needed one too. So I built this tent.”

There were no stray cats to feed in Santa Monica, he couldn’t find any. The cats here in Northridge disappear during the day and no one knows where they go. After some time of taking care of the kitties, he ran into an entire society of people who do the same. Feral cat activists will donate food to John so he can take care of the “lost boys” of the cat world.

One person who is a feral cat defender and supporter of John’s work, has told me by phone that John is really a very kind hearted man. “He takes a real offense at the state of forgotten cats and people who don’t have much.” It was when John was ticketed by the railroad company for pitching his tent on the property that his defender became enraged. “They don’t care about anything but money. If John were to die today, they would simply call the coroner and have his stuff trashed. It would be all over before you knew it.”

In 1880 the railroad was such a problem that newspaper reporters and settlers to the area were convinced that it represented corporate greed and political corruption that was taking over the country. That’s 1880! The attitudes of the railroads all across the country towards locals was so prevalent that it even inspired movies like Once Upon a Time In The West.

A few months ago the railroad sent a Union Pacific police officer to John’s tent. These men are fully commissioned and work with local, state and federal agencies, so I am told by those who know. They were alerted to John’s presence by the railroad tracks by local businesses and citizens.

“While we are certainly concerned for the homeless,” I am informed by email. “We certainly have to look out for the health and welfare of all citizens and businesses in the area. The presence of someone trespassing on the railroad’s land poses a dire threat and danger to everyone.”

According to John, “The police officer was not listening to anything I had to say. He seemed to hate poor people. I explained to him why I am here several times and he turned a deaf ear to me.”

John was then told that if he did not leave within three days that he would be ticketed. He was then given a summons to appear in court in a three counts criminal case: Lodging without permission, trespass on rail property and general trespass. The courts biggest concern is for the health and well being of the surrounding citizenry, and this is a misdemeanor crime, so says the courts.

The local councilman also states that there have been consistent complaints to his office about the man living in a tent behind the store just a block or so away from the councilman’s office. The office would not say just who had made those calls, since all information must be kept confidential.

A staff member of the office visited John also, and during the visit referred him to some services that could assist him. The councilman’s office repeatedly states that its concern is for both John and the public. Not a short time later the matter was then considered to be a county problem and no longer a case that could be handled by the councilman’s office.

A long time real estate assessor tells me that if indeed it is a county problem, then the Railroad cannot legally serve trespassing documents to John based on the very spot he has chosen to live. “Because of the flood channel below him,” the assessor states. “John is not on Railroad property.”

When John went to court that day, several people who had taken up his cause also showed up to provide the court with the homework on property ownership vs. county land that the assessor had discovered. The prosecutor was taken aback and befuddled to see the evidence. Evidence that should have been basic investigative work for any prosecution office. The prosecutor asked for a continuance.

John has been defending himself since his court lawyer told him to just plead guilty to trespassing and get on with his life. John still faces trial in the near future and the prosecutor’s office has yet to respond to the legal land ownership evidence. There has been nothing but back and forth between all offices concerned and the case is stalled until someone can discover if John has broken any laws at all.

How this all began is a real mystery though, since newspapers have also gotten into the fray. They have found that those so called businesses that complained about John are all smoke, as no one will repeat the often chanted mantra of the system that local businesses complained. In fact, many told the papers that they have no problem with John at all. Most local employees and citizens didn’t even know he was behind the store.

John says that ever since the local mall sold space to several high profile retailers that his tent has been visited often by police, security guards and three people who flashed fake police ID’s and then messed with his belongings. He filed a crime report with the police but was ignored.

Investigating the incident has been difficult to do since no one knows who has jurisdiction. So the impersonators get off scott free. The local police have repeatedly offered city services to John but he has refused to take them. Admittedly, the police say, the complaints they get are about the cats he feeds, not about John. “His personal behavior has been quiet and reserved,” the police say.

PATH, People Assisting the Homeless, has said, “The system is failing to respond to John’s needs in the proper fashion. Finding him a place to live is the answer, not wrangling over who’s property he is on.”

According to PATH, the longer a person stays on the street the more emboldened they become as to remaining there. Even if John loses in court, he will still be back on the street somewhere, and probably the whole process will start all over again with a new group of people.

During our last midnight run to feed cats, John and I stop at a McDonald’s and he offers to treat me. I decline and he declines to eat for himself. “I’m like this,” he tells me. “Because my father was abusive. He would come at me with a stick for the littlest things. He thought I was lazy.” He then takes a long moment to stare unfocused out of the window. “I can’t shake it. It’s just the way it is.”

“What about you, John?” I ask him. “What are YOU responsible for?”

He perks up and says, “The cats.”

Reviews by Hubie Goode: No Going Home, An Interview With The Homeless

No Going Home

An Interview With The Homeless

Seven days ago a man known only as “John” walked out of a court hearing for trespassing on railroad property so he could return to his “area” and feed his stray cats that roam the neighborhood in a tree lined area of Northridge in the San Fernando Valley.

“Cats have no reason to be hungry,” explains John, who although a foreigner, speaks English like a college professor. “Cats love their life, like people should. They never worry about not being better than they are. They’re cats. Its enough.”

Only a few hours ago, during the usual scorching heat of the valley, John had sat in his tent near a lonely stretch of railroad, quiet and weed riddled, listening to the news on the radio. The radio blasts its report across the seemingly forgotten stretch of rail tracks which seem almost forlorn by any train that may have once come this way. The radio reports on the death of a famous star, John looks off into the distance at the rails that go on and on and seem to only come together somewhere at the bottom of the crest of mountains that surround the entire valley.

“Jeeze, that’s so sad,” he finally chokes out in a light whisper. “We were born on the same day. He dies, and I’m still here.”

As the sun sets and the heat of the day begins to abate, there is a brief respite as gentle breezes begin to announce the oncoming cool of the desert night. He quickly forgets the harassment of the legal system and the death of a famous person as kitty cats begin to seemingly show up from some hidden dimension that they alone are aware of.

John has an old blue mountain bike that he attaches three or four old plastic grocery bags to in which he loads lots of cat food. He generally walks the bike, every night, for about six or seven hours, up and down the back streets of Northridge giving to the only creatures he knows that ask for nothing, demand nothing, harass him about nothing, they just simply “are”.

I offer to give him a ride around the streets instead, my only real contribution I can handle myself at the moment, and John agrees. “Thanks, it makes it easier, “ he tells me with sorrowful eyes that have spots and specks in their white areas that move me to distraction. Though I never mention it.

He sits next to me in my car, ripe as a trash can full of fruit left out in the midday sun and it’s all I can do not loose my lunch. It’s not a revelation I am proud to admit. He wears a long coat, which once had stuffing inside of it that made longitudinal puffs from head to toe, but now only bares tears and curious burn marks where long lost stuffing once found its own type of liberty long, long ago. He has on a green suit coat and grey slacks that do little to hide the complete lack of any leg volume beneath their obviously smeared fabric patterns. Beneath the coat is a v-neck t-shirt that has not been washed in so long I hate to even make a guess as to its current age. He is bald except for a ring of wild white hair around his crest, but the hood of his puffy coat is functional enough to help with the cold of the evening.

It’s rather late in the night when we return to the car after a cat feeding episode and I absent mindedly turn on the car radio. In the disk player is an old Stephen Curtis Chapman album I still like, and the song His Eyes has just begun. John stares straight ahead, he seems fixated on the lyrics.

His eyes are always upon you,
His eyes never close in sleep,
And no matter where you go you will always be,
In his eyes.

The song ends and John seems shocked and saddened. “I haven’t heard that song in a long, long time.” He wistfully morns. “I hear lots of hateful stuff on the radio these days, lots of deep dark voices that really can’t sing. The beats drive me crazy. Just crazy. Why don’t they play more songs like that one anymore?”

He seems concerned with lots of trivia about the world and his own life, much to his own distress. Whether he realizes this or not, is hard to say. Right now he seems very far away from concern over the legal fight with the railroad that wants to kick him out of his makeshift home near the tracks.

The Valley has an unusual way of marking the haves and have nots in that there is a literal “temporal” shift in neighborhoods the further east you go toward the Santa Susanna mountains. Glossy malls and chain stores give way to sudden influxes of small business stores like laundromats and carnecerias. John lives behind a store just over the tracks in a neighborhood that seems to be still reinventing itself, even after all this time since the destructive earthquake of 1994.

On another day, one where the temperature is some 90 degrees plus with no humidity, John tells me he has already fed the seagulls and pigeons, something he does twice a day. His radio is once again blaring the news across the stultified railroad tracks, solitary and cut off from the daily movement of the teaming populace only about 50 yards away at most, yet his home is largely invisible to the daily grind. He turns the radio off and offers me some boxed cookies from the 99 cents store and some fruit juice, the bottle is marked with something like tar and seems to have been kept in a trash bag. I ignore my natural revulsion and appease him, though inwardly I wish I had not.

“I receive a monthly welfare check,” he tells me between cookies. “I get 200 dollars a month, and food stamps.” He continues matter of factly, with little sign of remorse or self effacement. I can’t help but cringe inwardly as I remember my own figures for living requirements here in Los Angeles, those requirements that run along the costs of $3000 a month just to live here comfortably.

“I’m gonna get a job someday,” He tells me. “A man’s gotta work.”

He stares at the cookies in his hand as if they might suddenly jump from his grasp if he doesn’t keep and eye on them. He gets up and grabs an old plastic bathroom stool so we can get out of the sun and sit inside of his tent which he bought at a local store for around $100 dollars. A thick tarp has been thrown over the tent, which is necessary for reflecting the valley’s harsh midday sun. Unfortunately, John has chosen a spot to live on that is cement in every direction. Cement that turns into a baking sheet in the day and an ice trey at night. Nearby there is a railroad spur used at one time to supply goods to local businesses. There are no trees to provide him shade. There is only the long, torturous railroad track that stretches out to forever, visually bobbing and weaving in the afternoon heat, and seems to call to anyone who might pass by to join it in its dissolution.

Inside John’s tent he has a large stained up mattress and a small cage for his cat named Desiderata. He tells me the definition of the word means, “those things desired or wanted.” I don’t mention that I am quite familiar with the term.

Little multi-colored car fresheners shaped like Christmas trees hang openly all over the interior of the tent. On one wall there is a sheet of paper on which is written a poem that has faded with the sun’s rays. I ask him what the poem was since it is now impossible to read.

“It’s something I once liked a lot,” he tells me. That’s all he volunteers.

There are also small Christian crosses and American flags decorating the tent walls with a dizzying randomness. “I’m religious,” he tells me as he gestures to the crosses. “I would rather die hungry than steal.”

The interior of the tent is stacked with his belongings. He literally lives among his possessions. He shaves every day and has a makeshift shower with a gas can that hangs from a support bar that has little holes poked in it to create a shower effect. Not surprisingly, the gas can is bone dry and pushed back toward the rear wall. There is a narrow flood control channel with tumbling water a few yards beneath the small concrete bridge way where he lives, and I can only guess where the facilities are.

He tells me he doesn’t use drugs, he only smokes. He buys the cheapest smokes on sale, and he has made his own filter out of plastic straws and old cigarette filters. He can’t stop smoking even though his father, whom he seems to imply was abusive, always hassled him about it.

John is the fourth child of 11 who once lived somewhere between Jordan and Damascus, he’s not quite sure anymore just where it was or what the town was called. All he can tell me is that his family fled the area during the Six-Day War.

“You know those old Vietnam films you see with all the helicopters? That’s what it was like, complete pandemonium (his word). Tanks and helicopters were shooting at everyone. Everyone was running.”

He learned to speak English in school but didn’t have much stomach for studying. “Besides, my father wanted me to work.” He says with a long breath.

He left school surprisingly, at the seventh grade, and got a job as a cement mixer. He made about $6 dollars a week. “We needed to help my dad,” he explains. “ It was important to support the family. We got sixty cents a week for ourselves, but that used to last a week.”

The 70’s were a turbulent time, but John was a kid with kid concerns. He could then buy a Pepsi with three cents and a pack of cigarettes with the same. When caught smoking he would be beaten and kicked out of the house. He would go to special places in the town where he could meet other kids who had also been banished from the house. Many of the kids in his forgotten land were victims of abuse in the home.

Sometimes these kids would organize and sneak back into their own homes to rifle through the food stores or take some of dad’s money. They would all then go hide someplace and smoke all night.

John says his mother was a good hearted woman who used to feed stray cats. His brother met an American girl and moved to New Jersey, then his brother sent for him to come and live here in America with him.

“That was 1976,” he says, nodding with solicitous affection. “The whole world was different then. That’s when America was truly America.”

more on this next time