DETROIT IS A MESS

Want to buy a house? Take your pick, $l.00 each or $12 per dozen.

America's former poster city is disintegrating. Former mansions are abandoned

and boarded up. Weeds are growing in formerly posh areas with road boulevards.

Detroit used to be one of America' wealthiest cities. Detroit had the highest median

income in America, and the highest rate of home ownership. A highly skilled work force provided manufactured goods sold all over the world.

A city of almost 2 million residents has now houses less than 1 million. Many have

moved to the suburbs, but a lot have just quit the area and moved to Texas, California or Arizona, where employment is still possible. Many of those that remain are living in unemployment, poverty and despair. Of a gruesome note,corpses are piling up in the morgues, because survivors lack the money to bury them and the city is broke also without the funds for burials.

60,000 plus homes have been abandoned; gutted and laid bare, some just burned out shells plus hundreds of vacant and abandoned warehouses and factories.

Unemployment is running about 28 %--that's assuming you don't count those who have no prospects or intentions of finding a job. Ignorance, shiftlessness and crime abounds. Only 25% of high school freshman will achieve a diploma .

What caused this collapse of this prosperous sophisticated city?

1.Offshoring of American industry--the plants and jobs are gone.

2.Unions fixated on wages and benefits--not on making quality products that

people can afford.

3.corrupt politicians promising something for nothing, attracted the perennial

welfare abusers.

4. Debt mongers who have sold Americans on the have it now, pay for it later plan.

Is Detroit a model of things to come for America?

Most of the large cities and states are broke and lack an adequate tax base to become solvent.

We are net importers of goods, not exporters. Ever hear of "Trade deficits".

Our Federal Government, States, corporations, and citizens are hopelessly in debt.

Our school system is turning out poorly educated and motivated students.

Our moral fabric suggests a country that has lost its' way .

With Love and Kindness,

THE HATMAN

TWO + TWO

James W. Douglass in his book "JFK and theUnspeakable: Why he died and Why It Matters"

suggests unspeakable forces within the U.S. national security organization conspired and did assassinate John F. Kennedy because he had become a major threat to the military-industrial complex. According to Mr. Douglass, President Kennedy had become a dove and refused to go to war to accomplish national objectives, further he was on the process of dismantling our defense establishment and intended to break up the CIA.

The book appears to have been well researched and of course a lot more information has come forth since the 40 year old event. Was Oswald a CIA stooge? Did George H.

W. Bush and his fellows in the CIA feel threatened? Did Lyndon Johnson know ahead of time about the plot? Was he part of the plot? Is there two parts to the CIA, the intelligence part and the covert action part? The book answers many of these questions.

Perhaps the most damning of the evidence is the 'who benefited' logic which points out that following the killing of JFK, who was going to pull the troops out of Vietnam, the war was escalated by LBJ and Nixon, and every president following has involved the U.S. in wars. The Defense and Intelligence establishments have continued to grow and have ever increased budgets.

Michael Moore is an ardent supporter of President Obama; however he remains dedicated to the anti-war movement. Following is an abstracted version of his 'Open Letter to President Obama" Appearing on his November 30, 2009 website:

"Dear President Obama,

Do you really want to be the new "war president"? If you go to West Point tomorrow night (Tuesday, 8pm) and announce that you are increasing, rather than withdrawing, the troops in Afghanistan, you are the new war president.. .It is not your job to do what the generals tell you to do. We are a civilian-run government. WE tell the Joint Chiefs what to do, not the other way around. That's the way General Washington insisted it must be. That's what President Truman told General MacArthur when MacArthur wanted to invade China.. .

With our economic collapse still in full swing and our precious young men and women being sacrificed on the altar of arrogance and greed, the breakdown of this great civilization we call America will head, full throttle, into oblivion if you become the "war president." You know that nothing good can come from sending more troops halfway around the world to a place neither you nor they understand, to achieve an objective that neither you nor they understand, in a country that does not want us there.. . All of us that voted and prayed for you and cried the night of your victory have endured an Orwellian hell of eight years of crimes committed in our name: torture, rendition, suspension of the bill of rights, invading nations who had not attacked us, blowing up neighborhoods that Saddam "might" be in (but never was), slaughtering wedding parties in Afghanistan. We watched as hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians were slaughtered and tens of thousands of our brave young men and women were killed, maimed, or endured mental anguish the full terror of which we scarcely know. Etc. etc. In other words, as your friend and supporter don't make this mistake of enlarging this war mess."

Then after Obama's eloquent speech at West Point explaining why he is sending 30,000 more troops [in addition to the 20,000 more he has previously committed] to fight in Afghanistan, Michael Moore's websiite showed the parallel between Obama's justification speech and George W. Bush's war justification speeches:

Obama: 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan

Obama: "We Did Not Ask for This Fight"
Bush: "We Did Not Seek This Conflict"

Obama: "New Attacks are Being Plotted as I Speak"
Bush: "At This Moment ... Terrorists are Planning New Attacks"

Obama: "Our Cause is Just, Our Resolve Unwavering"
Bush: "Our Cause is Just, Our Coalition [is] Determined"

Obama: "This Is No Idle Danger, No Hypothetical Threat"
Bush: "The Enemies of Freedom Are Not Idle"

Obama: "We Have No Interest in Occupying Your Country"
Bush: "I Wouldn't Be Happy if I Were Occupied Either"

Sounds like the same speech writer.

Now the question is: Was a point made with the assignation of JFK that the power of the Generals and Intelligence Masters is such that each of the men succeeding President Kennedy in the Oval office would be in mortal danger if they crossed those propagating wars, increased weapons appropriations and 'patriot act' surveillance measures.

Does Two and Two add up?

With Love and Kindness,

THE HATMAN

THE LIBERTY MANIFESTO

The following speech by P.J. O'Rourke of the Cato Institute was made May 6, 1993,

taken from www.TheBurningPlatform 11/30/09. Barack and Michelle Obama has been substituted for Bill and Hillary Clinton, and the Obama administration has been substituted for the Clinton administration:

"The Cato Institute has an unusual political cause -- which is no political cause whatsoever. We are here tonight to dedicate ourselves to that cause, to dedicate ourselves, in other words, to . . . nothing.

We have no ideology, no agenda, no catechism, no dialectic, no plan for humanity. We have no "vision thing," as our ex-president would say, or, as our current president would say, we have [to bow and apologize].

All we have is the belief that people should do what people want to do, unless it causes harm to other people. And that had better be clear and provable harm. No nonsense about second-hand smoke or hurtful, insensitive language, please.

I don't know what's good for you. You don't know what's good for me. We don't know what's good for mankind. And it sometimes seems as though we're the only people who don't. It may well be that, gathered right here in this room tonight,are all the people in the world who don't want to tell all the people in the world what to do.

This is because we believe in freedom. Freedom -- what this country was established upon, what the Constitution was written to defend, what the Civil War was fought to perfect.

Freedom is not empowerment. Empowerment is what the Serbs have in Bosnia. Anybody can grab a gun and be empowered. It's not entitlement. An entitlement is what people on welfare get, and how free are they? It's not an endlessly expanding list of rights -- the "right" to education, the "right" to health care, the "right" to food and housing. That's not freedom, that's dependency. Those aren't rights, those are the rations of slavery -- hay and a barn for human cattle.

There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences.

So we are here tonight in a kind of anti-matter protest -- an unpolitical undemonstration by deeply uncommitted inactivists. We are part of a huge invisible picket line that circles the White House twenty-four hours a day. We are participants in an enormous non-march on Washington -- millions and millions of Americans not descending upon the nation's capital in order to demand nothing from the United States government. To demand nothing, that is, except the one thing which no government in history has been able to do -- leave us alone.

There are just two rules of governance in a free society:

• Mind your own business.
• Keep your hands to yourself.

[Barack], keep your hands to yourself. [Michelle], mind your own business.

We have a group of incredibly silly people in the White House right now, people who think government works. Or that government would work, if you got some real bright young kids from Yale [or Wall Street] to run it.

We're being governed by dorm room bull session. The [Obama] administration is over there right now pulling an all-nighter in the West Wing. They think that, if they can just stay up late enough, they can create a healthy economy and bring peace to [Iraq and Afghanistan].

The [Obama} administration is going to decrease government spending by increasing the amount of money we give to the government to spend.

Health care is too expensive, so the [Obama] administration is putting a high-powered corporate lawyer in charge of making it cheaper. (This is what I always do when I want to spend less money -- hire a lawyer from Yale.) If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it's free.

The [Obama] administration is putting together a program so that college graduates can work to pay off their school tuition. As if this were some genius idea. It's called getting a job. Most folks do that when they get out of college, unless, of course, they happen to become a [senator from Illinois].. . .

You know, if government were a product, selling it would be illegal.

Government is a health hazard. Governments have killed many more people than cigarettes or unbuckled seat belts ever have.

Government contains impure ingredients -- as anybody who's looked at Congress can tell you.

On the basis of [Obama's] campaign promises, I think we can say government practices deceptive advertising.

And the merest glance at the federal budget is enough to convict the government of perjury, extortion, and fraud.

There, ladies and gentlemen, you have the Cato Institute's program in a nutshell: government should be against the law.

Term limits aren't enough. We need jail. "

Mr. O'Rourke said it all, but it was not heard by enough Americans, or perhaps it was drowned out by the government's mouthpieces.

Nonetheless, here we are 16 1/2 years later with the same freedom killing ideologues in power, trying to have the government solve the problems that government created.

Government is not our friend.

With Love and Kindness,

THE HATMAN

TRAVELING THE INTERSTATE

The following article:"Memories of the Interstate" is reprinted fromwww.TheBurningPlatform.com by ReverseEngineer

JimQ's thread on Nucler Energy brought up another marvel of the modern world, the US Interstate System. Held forth as a great example of how building a magnificanet infrastructure like this could develop commerce and your nation. And so it did, for so long as the oil was cheap and the bulldozers and back hoes could cut the roads through some remarkably tough territory. As I spent my years driving the Big Rig over those miles of interstate, I often was astounded by the sheer magnitude of some of the road building.

There are spots on the I-15 going into Utah that are cut through canyons of unbelievable beauty, same is true going into Chattanooga TN on the I-24 or on the I-90 crossing the Rockies in ID heading for Spokane. The I-68 cutting accross the Appalachians in West Virginia is amazing, and scary if you are driving a Big Rig. The grades are incredible, and 600 HP worth of Caterpillar engine strains to pull you up, and you cross your fingers your brakes will hold up on the way down. The power consumption is enormous for every truck running those roads, but beyond that, the roads themselves consume power just to keep them open.

I got caught once on the I-80 when it got shut down outside of Cheyenne, WY by a snowstorm. I was two days in my freightliner, fortunately I made it to a Truckstop and didn't totally get caught out in the middle of nowhere, but still no fuel got in or out of that truckstop at all for those couple of days, and no food either. To clear the roads, it took 48 hours of the biggest heavy equipment you can roll down a road to clear out the snow. And it happens ALL the time, every winter really.

Every summer the spring thaw comes, and the roadways heave and crack. New asphalt is always needed, and heat to melt it. Periodically, the entire road bed has to be torn up and regraded. Again tons of new asphalt and concrete. All this in some of the most inhospitable terrain possible, and frankly where few people even live. There are no off ramps or on ramps for miles, you just have a ribbon of road going from one population center to another.

All this structure built mainly because as a young Lieutenant in the early 1900s, Dwight Eisenhower drove a military column across the US on the then "Lincoln Highway", mainly a connected series of local roads, mostly unpaved. It took months to cross the US. In the dawning years of the mechanized army, the realization was that you couldn't move your military machine without the roadways upon which to drive your logistics vehicles. Sure Tanks can go (slowly) over unpaved territory, but the trucks pulling the fuel for the tanks cannot.

As we invested and borrowed from the future to build the interstate, around it we built the culture of the Automobile, and Trucks replaced the Railroad as the means to move the freight around. Cities like Indianapolis and Dallas-Ft Worth were designed with enormous Ring Roads, and all movement within those types of cities must be by automobile. They didn't evolve before the auto as NY or Chicago did. They are all spread out over many miles, and every day for people to work they have to jump in their cars and drive miles along that interstate, wearing and tearing down the road surface every day and every week and every month and every year. The money is never there in the budget to pay for the constant maintenance, and Big Goobermint haters refuse more taxes to pay for the cost. So it decays further each year.

This is true of all the infrastructure built since the age of oil, the electrical grid is no different. Society mmortgaged the future to build such infrastructure, but it has never been able to Pay as You Go on the maintenance of it. So each year, Bonds are issued to pay for road repair, sewer repair, electrical conduit repair etc. These are ongoing costs, but they aren't ever paid for with ongoing revenue, rather bonds are issued with Interest charges loaded on them, a few Banksters get rich and everybody else gets poorer each year we try to keep the system runnning. Its not economic, it never has been except for the brief period when Oil bubbled out of the ground practically for free and in apparently limitless quantities. that day is over, and so also is over the time of the Interstate, and the electrical power grid as well. Building a Nuclear Power infrastructure is beyond ludicrous as an idea, we can't afford it, and we can't afford to maintain the transmission grid we already have either.

The decay is everywhere to see, from the industrial heartland in Detroit outward the decay is obvious everywhere. We reinvented a country of Malls strung out along the Interstate, and McMansions strung out in suburbs, and now we are running short of the energy necessary to maintain such a structure. Nuclear power can't ever replace it, and locally produced power won't either, not enough to maintain miles of roadway cutting through the Rocky Mountains, keeping roads open through the winter snows. Those roads will grow over, as the roads of the Roman Empire grew over. It would be beyond foolish to try to build another such infrastructure we can neither afford to build nor maintain after we build it. What we built on the back of a vast reservoir of Oil which changed life for human beings for a little more than a couple of centuries is all going the way of the Dinosaur now, and we will go that way also if we don't Reverse Engineer our way back to a simpler and more sustainable way of life. That is the only Green Solution. Moreover, its the ONLY solution at all short of extinction of the Human Race.

With Love and Kindness,

THE HATMAN

WHERE HAVE ALL THE WISE MEN GONE?

Ref: "Who Are the Wise Men"by Joel Hiliker www.TheTrumpet.com 11/29/09

Peggy Noonon is not one of the Hatman's favorites, nonetheless she made a valid point in a recent column:

"Mr. [Leslie] Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations and fully plugged into the Democratic foreign-policy establishment, wrote this week that the president’s Asia trip suggested “a disturbing amateurishness in managing America’s power.” The president’s Afghanistan review has been “inexcusably clumsy,” Mideast negotiations have been “fumbling.” So unsuccessful was the trip that Mr. Gelb suggested Mr. Obama take responsibility for it “as President Kennedy did after the Bay of Pigs.”

He added that rather than bowing to emperors—Mr. Obama “seems to do this stuff spontaneously and inexplicably”—he should begin to bow to “the voices of experience” in Washington."

For at least three decades, America has been languishing with leaders without wisdom and frankly, not much common sense either. In every discipline, politics government, business, education, healthcare and religion we seem to lack leaders

with wisdom and insight.

America, the greatest nation the world has ever known is sinking into oblivion.

Those at the top, the elite, are either unaware or are disregarding their responsibilities to lead-- still clinging to bankrupt theories and pretenses of virtue.

We have been seduced by the pandering of Hollywood. Mesmerized by the

show-business 6 o'clock news or the 'in depth' Sunday morning TV interviews. We are so accustomed to being lied to and had events misrepresented and distorted

by spin mongers, that we have turned inward and are trying to ignore that which is happening to us.

The "Fourth Turning" [Authors Strauss and Howe] of socio-economic winter is fast

approaching; perhaps it is just part of the natural cycle. Perhaps it is because of the failure of the children born during the time of awakening who don't trust institutions to look out for their welfare and are 'go it alone' types. Perhaps it is the bright but selfish generation X who grew up in the turbulent 60's and 70's --the 'me' generation. These two types are our leaders and bear the responsibility for our national demise.

Their failure to use wisdom will lead to their replacement as the common man rises up, in his despair, to survive.

With Love and Kindness,

THE HATMAN

GOODBYE DUBAI

Dubai World, the government investment company for the Dubai state has told creditors they would 'delay' debt payments. The market sees this as default and

is reacting in an economic explosion around the world. The debt is supposedly 60 to 80 billion dollars, but they are suspected of owing much more.

Talk about a tinsel town, this creation at the edge of the desert is a monument to excess. Exclusive stores with unbelievably expensive merchandise, towering office and apartment buildings (and the world's tallest building )looks like a mirage in magnificence. Unfortunately it is a tower of debt and a monument to foundation-less society, much like the fiat debt money used to construct it.

Dubai is one of five states in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) which is wedged between Oman, Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf. Dubai is a free port and is the residence of the headquarters for many multinationals, but does not have any petroleum resources.

The UAE does and as a consequence is a rich country, having the highest income per

capita in the Middle East. It has been assumed by the lenders that any Dubai's debt

would be backed by the UAE. The Thanksgiving Day announcement, however, was a world wake-up call. The announcement came at the beginning of a 4 day religious holiday, so the resolution has been postponed until sometime next week.

Stock markets and forex trading have reacted sharply. More than one world banks has exposure, notably HSBC, Barclay's and Royal Bank of Scotland are thought to be

affected. Each of the former have been recent recipients of bailout monies. U. S. banks also have some risk, but so far not specified.

The threads binding the world economies together are threatened to come apart, not

so much as to the 60-80 billion dollars-- a meager sum in today's multi trillion dollar

central bank finance scheme -- but as to the daisy chain derivatives which insure

this debt through CDS (Collateralized Debt Securities) . Participants fear a domino effect in this cross-collateralized maize, which is an unregulated and largely undisciplined free-for-all.

It is early yet in this potential unwinding. The central banks and their minions are already hard at it to stave off any public awareness of the problem. The dollar stopped declining and the U.S. stock market went up, having previously acted inversely. Plunge

Projection Team?

Some call what's ahead a "double dip recession", but it is merely the next event in the world's Greater Depression which began in 2007/2008.

The bankers may succeed in papering over this default, but will be unable to stop the

actual deteriorating economic conditions of which Dubai's default is symptomatic.

With Love and Kindness,

THE HATMAN

IT DIDN'T HAPPEN THAT WAY

Sometimes folk stories and myths serve a purpose and should be left alone;maybe this one helps us with our heritage and pride of country-- our virtues of self sacrifice and hard work. And yet maybe it is better to know the truth, for Truth after all will set you free.

From Mise Daily by Richard Maybury 11/20/09

The story we have heard since childhood is:

the pilgrims boarding the Mayflower, coming to America and establishing the Plymouth colony in the winter of 1620-21. This first winter is hard, and half the colonists die. But the survivors are hard working and tenacious, and they learn new farming techniques from the Indians. The harvest of 1621 is bountiful. The Pilgrims hold a celebration, and give thanks to God. They are grateful for the wonderful new abundant land He has given them.

"The problem with this official story is that the harvest of 1621 was not bountiful, nor were the colonists hardworking or tenacious. 1621 was a famine year and many of the colonists were lazy thieves."

"n his 'History of Plymouth Plantation,' the governor of the colony, William Bradford, reported that the colonists went hungry for years, because they refused to work in the fields. They preferred instead to steal food. He says the colony was riddled with "corruption," and with "confusion and discontent." The crops were small because "much was stolen both by night and day, before it became scarce eatable."

In the harvest feasts of 1621 and 1622, "all had their hungry bellies filled," but only briefly. The prevailing condition during those years was not the abundance the official story claims, it was famine and death. The first "Thanksgiving" was not so much a celebration as it was the last meal of condemned men.

But in subsequent years something changes. The harvest of 1623 was different. Suddenly, "instead of famine now God gave them plenty," Bradford wrote, "and the face of things was changed, to the rejoicing of the hearts of many, for which they blessed God." Thereafter, he wrote, "any general want or famine hath not been amongst them since to this day." In fact, in 1624, so much food was produced that the colonists were able to begin exporting corn.

Prior to 1623, the colonists had established a social/economic order requiring" "all profits & benefits that are got by trade, working, fishing, or any other means" were to be placed in the common stock of the colony, and that, "all such persons as are of this colony, are to have their meat, drink, apparel, and all provisions out of the common stock." A person was to put into the common stock all he could, and take out only what he needed. This "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need" was an early form of socialism, and it is why the Pilgrims were starving. Bradford writes that "young men that are most able and fit for labor and service" complained about being forced to "spend their time and strength to work for other men's wives and children." Also, "the strong, or man of parts, had no more in division of victuals and clothes, than he that was weak." So the young and strong refused to work and the total amount of food produced was never adequate."

Sounds a lot like the social programs of Obama, Pelosi, Reid and Frank.

In 1923 Bradford abolished the socialist set-up and "gave each household a parcel of land and told them they could keep what they produced, or trade it away as they saw fit. In other words, he replaced socialism with a free market, and that was the end of famines.

Many early groups of colonists set up socialist states, all with the same terrible results. At Jamestown, established in 1607, out of every shipload of settlers that arrived, less than half would survive their first twelve months in America. Most of the work was being done by only one-fifth of the men, the other four-fifths choosing to be parasites. In the winter of 1609-10, called "The Starving Time," the population fell from five-hundred to sixty.

Then the Jamestown colony was converted to a free market, and the results were every bit as dramatic as those at Plymouth. In 1614, Colony Secretary Ralph Hamor wrote that after the switch there was "plenty of food, which every man by his own industry may easily and doth procure." He said that when the socialist system had prevailed, "we reaped not so much corn from the labors of thirty men as three men have done for themselves now."

Somehow this early desire for share the wealth in America has been deleted from the story of our national heritage, and needs to be told. In every instance in history where socialism has been tried it has failed, and brought only misery and blight. Those who propose it , claim you will get something for nothing, but in fact you will get only nothing and they will get what you did have plus power over you.

With Love and Kindness,

THE HATMAN