USA - Third World or Bust

From my archived blog (December 2015) at donaldjeffries.wordpress.com

Note: This is another in a continuing series of previously published articles. Please subscribe to my primary Substack “I Protest” here: donaldjeffries.substack.com

Our leaders are closing out 2015 on a typically disastrous note. Flying well under the radar, the Congress has just passed an Omnibus Bill that increases the number of both H-1B and H-2B visa workers by an incomprehensible 400 percent.

While attention has been focused primarily on the massive illegal immigration from Mexico and other nations south of the border, the foreign visa workers are perhaps even more dangerous to the standard of living that previous generations of Americans were accustomed to. Donald Trump made some strong comments on this issue in one interview, but he has been all too silent since then. Certainly none of the other candidates are going to mention it.

The Omnibus Bill, like Obamacare and the deadly Trans Pacific Partnership Bill passed earlier this year, was thousands of pages long. It’s a certainty that few if any legislators bothered to read it before casting their vote. To add insult to injury, another version of SOPA-CISPA, the “anti-piracy” legislation they’ve been trying to pass for years, was quietly included in the bill. And yet, without any doubt, 90 plus percent of these absolute stooges will be re-elected in 2016.

Those of us expecting the collapse of our society recognize that virtually everything our leaders do is tantamount to another blow at the pinata. It’s only a question of when the pinata bursts. Our casino economy, fueled by a counterfeit fractional banking system of overwhelming debt, our decaying culture, our sinfully expensive healthcare system, our crumbling housing market, and a real unemployment rate of at least 25-30 percent ensure that the pinata is about to split open.

No American leader at any level is doing anything to prevent this collapse. In fact, every move being made is igniting the flame, expediting the collapse. We need to face the fact that those who misrule us wish for the United States to become a bonafide Third World nation. We’re getting there fast, but they won’t be satisfied until all the wealth in concentrated in their hands, and the rest of us are living in mud huts and eating out of dumpsters.

Despite the fact our own country is being figuratively demolished, all our leaders can talk about is “terrorism” and “Isis.” Their answer to potholes and sagging bridges is to bomb another Muslim country. Their answer to 94-100 million American adults being unemployed is to dramatically increase the number of immigrants to compete with them. Their answer to exposures of corruption is to punish the whistleblowers and continue the wrongdoing.

Bernie Sanders, champion of the underdog, has proposed a payroll tax increase. This is a tax imposed only on the first $119,000 of income, making it a tax only on the poor and lower-middle class. Hillary and all the Republicans talk about “jobs” and “education” and “making America great.” Real candidates would be talking about rooting out corruption, auditing the Fed and overturning our banking system, bringing the troops home, scrapping the Patriot Act and all other infringements upon Civil Liberties and an absolute moratorium on all immigration, legal and illegal.

Donald Trump at least has talked about a few of the things which have to be done. But he still seems to be a warmonger and talks about Isis way too much. When was the last time a presidential candidate focused exclusively on our own problems, and declared that we cannot and should not be the world’s policeman? We have more than enough problems in our own home without scouring the neighborhood and trying to tell others how to run their homes (not to mention killing a whole bunch of them in the process).

One majority honest Congress, or even one true statesman in the White House, could possibly turn the tide. The problem is that any solution would entail not the bogus “shared sacrifice” we hear trumpeted by our leaders, “left” and “right,” so often. It would require true sacrifice on the part of the wealthiest Americans, the ones who’ve written the rules and made the laws. And at this point, they simply don’t seem willing to sacrifice anything unless they’re forced to. None of our leaders are about to force them, since they are part of the same group, and would then have to sacrifice, too.

As Alex Jones says, “there is a war on for your mind.” If you’re awake, try to awaken others. Explain how the “official” unemployment figures only count those who are currently filing for unemployment benefits, and are thus completely phony. Explain how under our Federal Reserve banking system, our government pays face value to these shadowy bankers, who only cover the cost of printing the money, and then charge the government interest on top of that. Surely, most people can understand the lunacy of borrowing your own money back from bankers who created it out of nothing.

If it can be believed (and most people won’t believe it), the U.S. government is now paying companies a $12,000 bonus for every foreign STEM student they hire. This unconscionable program is being run by the Department of Homeland Security, which is an unconstitutional entity in and of itself. One of the numerous little known features of Obamacare offers businesses a $3000 bonus for hiring illegal immigrants over American citizens. There is no other name for this except madness, and everyone you tell will understand that.

While Bernie Sanders wants to increase payroll taxes, under the mind-boggling Optional Practical Training program, employers hiring foreign workers don’t have to pay any of their payroll taxes. This not only discriminates against American citizens, it also cheats older Americans, because those foreign employees are not contributing to the Social Security, Medicare and Unemployment funds.

While the visa workers often serve to lower wages and benefits across the board for blue-collar workers, some of them are making out very, very well. Statistics show that the H-1B workers at Facebook averaged a healthy $135,000 salary in 2015. In 2014, some 7000 H-1B applicants were offered salaries upwards of $200,000.

The entire visa worker program is based on the slanderous, demonstrably unproven contention that Americans cannot provide these kinds of skilled workers. The program richly rewards some foreign workers, but by and large it has served to feed the corporate hunger for cheaper labor and outsourcing. There is no secrecy here; employers have willingly admitted to the Government Accountability Office that they are using visas to hire less expensive workers.

The next time you hear any of the Democratic or Republican candidates for president speak, let me know if even one of these subjects is discussed. Instead, you’ll hear more militaristic, interventionist, globalist, politically correct nonsense. And obviously the mainstream media isn’t going to bring these issues up. As Thomas Pynchon once wrote, “If they can get you to ask the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about the answers.”

Since my book Hidden History was published, the trends I commented on have become even more glaringly apparent. America is indeed starting to look like a Third World nation. Not only is our infrastructure an embarrassment, the common areas once maintained at a high standard advertise the “new norm,” with overgrown grass and weeds marring the landscape. Snow plows simply don’t do the job they used to, and power outages are common now. These are all garden-variety indications of a Third World status.

America may be the wealthiest nation, and the most powerful militarily, but we have little else to brag about. Our wealth is distributed in a shameful manner, with a disparity that is simply not seen in other First World nations. Our healthcare system is bloated, complex and beyond the financial means of all but the wealthiest Americans. It also lags behind other much smaller countries in all the most important categories. Our power grids are outdated and much less effective than they were forty years ago. By any measure, we have far less personal freedom than we did even twenty five years ago.

As I noted before, as ridiculous at it may seem, Donald Trump may be America’s last hope. If he can actually do something about immigration, and overturn those disastrous trade deals, perhaps we can increase wages and benefits again, and bring industry back to this country. None of the other candidates are even paying lip service to this.

Happy New Year. Enlighten all those you can. Fight unreasonableness and irrationality wherever you can. As Robert F. Kennedy liked to say, each of us can bring forth “a tiny ripple of hope” which could theoretically turn into a tidal wave of reform.