Our National FREACS Show

Have you wondered lately about the craziness in Washington DC and elsewhere in the U.S?  You know – things like, union busting, denying health care to dying people, trying to take away women’s rights, slashing education to the bone, letting bridges crumble, attempting to eliminate Social Security and Medicare, allowing more environmental damage and giving the military more money than it wants.  Have you wondered about those things?

It is all the result of a new patriotic movement called FREACS.  They are a tough bunch of tea drinking, bible quoting defenders of the rich and persecutors of the poor.  They embrace the “Whatever is wrong with our society is the fault of poor people and the unemployed” philosophy and follow closely the teachings of Arizona’s Queen of Cruelty Jan Brewer.  It was Brewer, remember, who told terminally ill transplant patients to go home and die.  It is Brewer who wants to kick a quarter of a million poor people out of Medicaid and proposes to charge those who smoke, are too heavy or have diabetes $50 each for having those afflictions (just where does she expect poor people who need medical assistance to get $50?).  She likely will use the money she collects to pay for tax breaks for rich people who own businesses in foreign countries that pay no U.S. taxes.

These “Anti-tax, anti-government, anti-sex, pro-rich people folks are a tad frightening.  So, you ask, what does FREAC S stand for?  FREACS (Far Right Extremist and Christian Society) is a group you already know because so many of them are your neighbors, work partners or, heaven forbid, spouses or significant others.  You can always identify a FREAC because they wear crosses around their necks, carry guns under their shirts, home school their kids and always make sure they emphasize President Obama’s middle name when they question his place of birth.   

People who are FREACS do not like my kind or me because they consider compassion for your fellow citizens to be socialistic and the obsession of “sissies.”   They believe government should be limited to things like settling property disputes and sending people to jail.  They also believe that anyone who has financial or health problems should “pull themselves up by the boot-straps.  Unfortunately, there are millions of Americans who have no bootstraps. They don’t even have boots. Now, there are people who possess all the bootstraps that others need but the FREACS believe that those bootstrap rich people should be given a “Strap” break so they’ll hire more people.  But…but…that’s exactly why they have all the boots and straps.  Knowing their prospective employees are barefoot and can’t work in their broken glass recycling plants, they feel free to go overseas to hire workers who have never owned shoes, have feet like hard leather and will work for the price of two straps a day and some cool imported water.  It’s good water, too, clearly labeled, Bottled in Chernobyl, Ukraine by Koch Enterprises.”   But, I digress.

My friends who are FREACS want fire and police protection.  They want criminals to be put in jail…forever.  They want a strong, I mean really strong defense department that can with the flick of a switch selectively wipe out any particular belief system, race or religion they don’t like — but they are outspoken in their support of our constitution…well, at least parts of it.  OK, one part — the one about guns that is known as the second amendment.  How can you protect the beloved right to carry a bazooka under your coat if you don’t have a bazooka?  Sheeez people you never know when some lunatic liberal from down the block is going to come in unarmed and demand you give him your guns.  Those commie rat bleeding hearts are dangerous.  I personally have intimidated and taken the weapons of several FREACS armed with AK 47s by calling them scaredy cats and threatening to tell their spouses about the hidden porn films in their garages.

Yesssssireeee the FREACS want all those things but without government involvement and without using tax money (no consideration is given to how you would pay for these things without tax dollars).  Well, that’s another story but those are the main “Wants” of the group.

Following is a list of a few of the things that they feel we don’t need.

Public assistance.  “Why should they pay for these lazy bums who sit around all day with nothing to do but read the paper and drink coffee” (didja ever stop to think that they were reading the “Help wanted” ads, or looking for new construction sites they could visit to apply for work?).  By the way, many of these “Bums” were laid off by the Boot Strap company that just opened a new facility in Bangladesh.  It is hiring three times as many people as were employed in the U.S. for less than half the price with no benefits, no health and safety laws, no unions to contend with and a ready supply of very young employees (they must prove they are over 16 of course).

Health care.  “Things are just fine as they are; let the private sector handle it.  We don’t need the Government getting involved where they don’t belong all they’d do is screw it up.”  Hmmm — claims denied regularly, procedures not approved, no coverage for medicine because a bean counter read bad things about it in Readers Digest, no coverage for pre-existing conditions (by the time you see a doctor isn’t the condition already pre-existing?) and no drugs for the mentally ill.  We absolutely should not change any of that, right?  Let me see if I understand.  It is the private sector that has been screwing you but you don’t want the government to make it stop because …because…why?

 Social Security, “Our tax money should not be used for entitlement programs like Social Security.”  They seem to forget that people are entitled to Social security because they paid into it all of their working lives.  It’s their money FREACS!

 Medicare.  “The purpose of government is to defend its people, not give them free health care.” We need to be prepared to kill millions of foreigners.  You never know when countries like Zimbabwe will attack you.  You have to be ready and not spend  money on useless programs like helping the disabled, the retired and particularly those old and dying senior citizens who take way too much expensive medicine.  They’re going to die anyway, why spend the money?

The environment.  “It’s all a big myth perpetuated by a bunch of tree huggers who don’t like lumber, mining and manufacturing companies.   Our air is clean (cough, cough).”  But what about the 40 percent of deaths worldwide that are caused by water, air and soil pollution (Cornell University research).  The World Health Organization says environmental conditions  combined with population growth contribute to the malnourishment and disease susceptibility of billions of people.  You must realize, though, that if the Koch brothers say it’s a myth it must be after all, they look pretty healthy.

Religion.  “Christianity is the only true religion and we are a Christian nation.”  (It makes no difference to FREACS that most of the founding fathers were Deists not Christians and made a point of keeping religion out of government).  Being a “Christian”  of course,  does not include anyone who is Catholic, Methodist, Episcopalian, some Lutherans, certainly Mormons and even those who go to the real Christian church but associate with any of the above. Baptist churches are usually Ok unless they allow a lot of singing, clapping, dancing, loud music and black preachers who carry on endlessly about civil rights abuses.  At FREACS churches they preach “Love they neighbor as you love yourself” every Sunday unless the neighbor is of a different religion, sexual preference, age, sex, color or non-pit-bull animal. 

Well, now you know about FREACS.  If you are one and are offended by this piece, I’m sure you’ll find plenty of comfort among your FREACS friends.  If you are not a FREACS member and want to join them, you’ll get no tips  here on how to do that.  But…you could probably get some information from the next guy you see who has a huge, loud pickup truck with a confederate flag on the back, mud all the way to the roof and a gun mounted in the back window. 

As for me, I will continue to associate with evil, socialistic, unarmed, non-violent, bleeding hearts as I’ve done in the past.  Funny I think there was a major religious figure who liked the same things but that must have been a fairy tale because it never really caught on.   

Please view our 7 minute video “A Promise Broken” on www.savethearizona98.com.  Also…there is more information on this blog site about other donation/transplantation issues.  We would love to have you join our Facebook group ORGAN Transplant Initiative. The more members we get the greater our impact on increasing life-saving organ donation

Please comment in the space provided or email your thoughts to me at bob@baronson.org.  And – please spread the word about the immediate need for more organ donors.  There is nothing you can do that is of greater importance.  If you convince one person to be a donor you may save or positively affect over 60 lives.  Some of those lives may be people you know and love.  

The Enemy Within

How Right Wing Extremism Threatens Our Nation

My thesis is simple.  The American Tea Party is a conjoined twin of the John Birch Society (JBS) and the Christian right-wing.  The two are intent on taking over the Republican party and the U.S. Government and are determined to wreck the foundation of our system — the U.S. constitution.

For years the JBS, once a loud, if not strident and radical voice against communism, lay dormant.  With the cold war over and communism on the decline their favorite bogeyman was gone. Then came Ron Paul, the Libertarian who ran for president in 2008, followed by a Democratic sweep and the election of Barack Obama to the presidency. Paul’s candidacy was popular among conservatives and it gave birth to the Tea Party. Paul was a JBS darling and the affection transferred to the Tea Party.

In case some of our readers are too young to know what the JBS is, let me offer a brief history lesson. The group was founded by Robert Welch in 1958, the height of the communist witch hunt in the United States. He called President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who was a genuine American hero, a “conscious, dedicated agent of the communist conspiracy.” He also said that the U.S. government was “under operational control of the Communist party.” Famed conservative William F. Buckley argued that such paranoid rantings had no place in the conservative movement or the Republican Party, but the Birchers wormed their way in anyway. If you really want to know more about them go to their website http://www.jbs.org

When Billionaire David Koch ran to the right of Ronald Reagan for the presidency (he got 1% of the vote) he called for the abolition not just of Social Security, federal regulatory agencies and welfare but also of the F.B.I., the C.I.A., and public schools. Koch and his brother Charles have given over $100 million to right-wing causes.  Their father, Fred, was one of the original members of the John Birch Society http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/opinion/29rich.html. and neither son rejects their father’s political bent. 

The Koch brothers are not publicity seekers so many people haven’t heard much about them other than some of their generous gifts to charitable organizations.  Here’s a quick refresher on who they are and how they use their money or, as Paul Harvey used to say, “Here’s the rest of the story.”

NewYorker magazine published a scathing report in October of this year (2010) that outlined the wealth of the Koch brothers, their radical right-wing beliefs and their immense wealth.   http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer The Koch brothers own Koch Industries which has annual revenues of about a hundred billion dollars. The Kochs operate oil refineries in Alaska, Texas, and Minnesota, and control some four thousand miles of pipeline.  They also own, Brawny paper towels, Dixie cups, Georgia-Pacific lumber, Stainmaster carpet, and Lycra, among other products. Forbes ranks it as the second-largest private company in the country, after Cargill, and its consistent profitability has made David and Charles Koch—who, years ago, bought out two other brothers—among the richest men in America. Their combined fortune of thirty-five billion dollars is exceeded only by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett.

NewYorker goes on to quote a study released this spring by the University of Massachusetts at Amherst’s Political Economy Research Institute that named Koch Industries one of the top ten air polluters in the United States

The magazine also discusses a David Koch funded organization called Americans for Prosperity Foundation.  The group honored several Tea Party “citizen leaders” at their recent summit meeting where the Texas branch of Americans for Prosperity gave its Blogger of the Year Award to a young woman named Sibyl West. On June 14th, West described President Obama as the “cokehead in chief” and speculated that he was exhibiting symptoms of “demonic possession.

Then there’s Dick  Armey former GOP congressman and now a Tea Party leader and fundraiser.  His characterization of Social Security pretty much describes the tea party agenda and it’s JBS philosophy.  Armey called Social Security, “A corrupt government practice that steals people’s money “under false pretenses.” He went on to call Social Security a “Ponzi scheme.”  So much for SS, Medicare and the Obama Health plan if Tea Partiers take control.  If senior citizens, in particular, are concerned about so-called “death panels” this one’s for real. 

As to the Tea Partiers, they find nothing wrong with the Koch brothers, Dick Armey or the John Birch Society association.  In Grand Rapids Michigan they hold their meetings in the JBS American Opinion bookstore.  Of all the places they could choose for meetings, why a John Birch Society bookstore?

In the late 1950s until the end of the cold war, the John Birch Society exhibited their paranoia by identifying every opponent as a “conscious agent of the communist conspiracy.”  Now, they are doing it again but the difference is that many main-stream republicans are using the same language along with the old Birch tactic of guilt by association.  They often use socialist and communist as interchangeable terms but their intent is clear, by labeling opponents as un-American they believe they can win the support of the majority of American voters.  Watch the news and you’ll see how well and often they smear opponents with lies about their patriotism, religion and/or place of birth.  These are evil people, many of which accept and support the goal of making the U.S.an extreme right-wing Christian theocracy. 

To quote Robert Welch, the founder of the John Birch Society, “This is a world-wide battle, between light and darkness; between freedom and slavery; between the spirit of Christianity and the spirit of anti-Christ for the souls and bodies of men.”  You are hearing similar language today from some conservatives and no wonder, R.J. Rushdoony, the founder of the American Dominionist movement was one of the original members of JBS.  And…in case you didn’t know, the John Birch Society was one of CPAC’s (Conservative Political Action Committee) major sponsors at their recent yearly gathering.  

Just to illustrate how off the wall the Birchers are, I refer to Alan Stang’s book, The True Story of Civil Rights.  It was published by the Birch society and portrays the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. as an agent of a massive communist conspiracy to agitate among otherwise “happy” Negroes to foment revolution and/or at promote demands for more collectivist Federal government Intrusion. Some readers will immediately suggest that this is all nonsense and a false alarm.  It isn’t.  If the ultra right-wing Christian movement takes control of the Republican party and subsequently the U.S. Congress and Presidency, and they are mighty close, every American’s life, liberty, property and future is at risk and the United States would become a mirror image of Iran only we would be Christian not Muslim led.    

Our country has survived monumental threats and catastrophes before and we’ve always come out stronger — but the great threats of the past were from external forces.  This time the threat is from within and if the elements I described are successful they will scrap the very principles upon which we were founded.  That, my friends, is not survivable.