May 7, 2012: All the “birthers”, those people who don’t believe President Barrack was not born in the United States, are going to love this.

Not only was Barrack Obama not born in the United States, Joel Gilbert insists that Barrack Obama’s father was not Barrack Obama Sr., but rather Frank Marshall Davis, a Communist Party USA propagandist.

Frank Marshall Davis supposedly was a Communist Party USA (CPUSA) head member in Chicago and Hawaii, as well as a writer and poet. He was under FBI investigation or surveillance for 19 years, according to Gilbert. Davis was on the FBI’s ‘Security Index A’, which meant (Gilbert points out) he would be arrested in the event of national emergency.

Joel Gilbert is an Islamic history scholar, writer and director. After 2 years of research, interviews, newly unearthed footage and photos, and the writings of Frank Davis and President Obama, Gilbert published his finding in his book “Dreams of My Real Father”. According to Gilbert, the book “weaves together the proven facts with reasoned logic and speculation in an attempt to fill-in the obvious gaps in Obama’s history.” In addition to his book, Gilbert also produced a movie, with the same title. The movie chronicles Barack Obama’s life journey in socialism, from birth through his election to the Presidency (per the book and Gilbert’s research). It is Gilbert’s stance that Barrack Obama’s political agenda is framed by his real father Frank Marshall Davis.

Joel Gilbert, who is not a “birther”, concludes, “The ‘Birthers’ have been on a fool’s errand. To understand Obama’s plans for America, the question is not ‘Where’s the Birth Certificate?’ the question is ‘Who is the real father?’”

Click Here to watch movie trailer

I am neither a “birther” nor do I subscribe to Joel Gilbert’s research. I am just sharing.

Brought to you by: Another break from the poetry
Sources: YouTube, jgil14, obamasrealfather.com

In Winston’s world, every scrap of power is reserved for the Party.  They choose for Winston and all others what they should do, how they should do it, and when.  It’s not entirely obvious that this is the case, because it looks like the people choose to follow the Party on their own.  There are no laws in Oceania.  It seems like people can do as they please.  The problem is that although the decisions often come from their own minds, their own minds are no longer actually their own.  Their minds have been corrupted by the Party.  They do what the Party wants them to do because they have been made to believe that is best.  Devices such as doublethink and crimestop lead them to believe fully in the lies of the Party.  Even when people like Winston believe they are rebelling, they are actually under close supervision, and their actions are easily stopped.

In fact, this attempted rebellion of Winston’s is what makes up the whole book, and it tells us a whole lot about power; at least what Orwell believes about it.  Winston begins with thoughtcrime.  In his mind, he realizes that things aren’t right, and he wants to change that.  When begins trying to undermine the Party, he does so simply by doing things he knows they wouldn’t approve of.  He buys a diary and an old fashioned pen to write in it with.  As his ‘rebellion’ grows, his biggest crime would likely be his renting an unmonitored room for the purpose of having a love affair.  Winston isn’t even sure if the Party will ever know what he is doing, but he believes that simple disobedience is the only way to make a statement.  Although there are no actual laws, there are ways of knowing what the Party won’t like.  It seems that the number one indicator that something is probably wrong is if it has any connections with the past.  The junk shop was very old fashioned, and that’s where both Winston’s first, and his largest acts of rebellion took place, as well as many others, including his purchase of the paperweight.

Winston isn’t stupid.  His actions are not exactly a bad way to rebel, but he simply does not have enough knowledge to know how unlikely his plan was to work.  He didn’t know that Mr. Charrington was a member of the thought police.  He didn’t know there was a hidden telescreen in his secret room.  He didn’t know that O’Brien and the rumored Brotherhood were both fake.  Most importantly, he didn’t know that the Ministry of Love would torture him to any necessary extent in order to alter his sense of logic.  Winston’s rebellion didn’t work.  Despite its extreme subtlety (so subtle, in fact, that he admits it might never make any real difference), it was still discovered and suppressed.  It failed because the Party had already acquired enough power such that it could stop any attempt to remove that power.

This is what Orwell really has to say in 1984.  He knows that power is dangerous.  He knows that those who are given power can easily become corrupted by it.  If left unchecked, this corruption will lead them to take more power, and this extra power will lead to more corruption.  It is an endless cycle, which can easily get out of hand.  All it takes for this cycle to continue endlessly is for those involved to admit that what they want is power, simply for the sake of power.  At a certain point, there is no turning back.  Through a possibly nonexistent, yet immortal leader, the collection of power is able to grow eternally, because it had reached a point where nothing can compete with it.  Even when people like Winston rebel, the Party has enough power to literally change his very mind.  Not only will he obey the Party, but he will want to obey the Party, because he loves Big Brother.

Socialists believe that Government should be so huge, huge enough for all to be a part of.  Those who believe in this method will become dependant on Government for everything.  Those dependant, must follow the rules of Government to the penny, or be punished.  Socialists only goals are to overthrow capitalism, and control its people.  A true socialist believes that all people should live as an equal.  No one has any more than anyone else.  This way of life, as a tried and true method in other Nations has failed.  The normal person under socialist rule, are usually kept poor, and equal to everyone else, which is poor.  The only people who thrive in a socialist setting, are the Government. 

Socialists have always tried to overthrow Capitalism in America.  they become professors who teach young minds that their way is the better way.  If those minds being molded by those one sided thinkers do not open their minds to all avenues of thought, then they already started the process of a socialist takeover of their minds.  Now they have more voices for their cause.

Capitalism is easy.  Those who wish to can thrive in their way of life.  Those who wish to become dependant on Government can do that too.  It is called a free society.  In a social venue, we all would eat the same, be allowed to read certain materials, and never, be able to speak ill of a government that takes over every aspect of our lives. If a one sided ideal gets their idea of Utopia across to the masses, and the other side is not heard, America will cease to exist.  Do your homework and never let any person tell you how it should be.  You decide for yourself.  Do you want to be controlled, or be a free thinker?  Think for yourself and live long and prosper.  Let others think for you, and be a prisoner for life.

The German Papiermark was printed in excess by the Weimar Republic, during the end of 1923 the Government were printing 100 Trillion mark notes, the Papiermark lost so much value that it was practically worthless, it was so worthless in fact that the basics, for instance a loaf of bread would cost many trillion marks, there would be no return for the Papiermark, so in 1924 it was replaced by the Rentenmark, 1 trillion Papiermarks for 1 Renten. This step did help stabilise the economy to some degree but even though the Rentenmark was helping things in Germany it did not solve all of her problems, she still had the fact that many extreme parties had a lot of votes in the Reichstag, people were not happy with the way the Weimar Government was running the country, just under half of all German voters were also not happy with Hindenburg, 36% wanted Hitler as prime minister and 11% went to a Communist leader. The fact that the country did not agree with the Chancellors ultimately led to more and more people believing he only way out of the rut Germany was in would be to vote for an extreme party.

Chancellors and Hindenburg between 1929 and 1933 were as equally responsible for the downfall of democracy in German society as the Wall Street Crash and unemployment was. Out of the 4 chancellors, Herman Muller, Heinrich Bruning, Franz von Papen and Kurt von Schleicher the two that were in my views most responsible were Bruning and von Papen. Whilst Herman Muller was chancellor many devastating world events occurred, however he could not have changed the fate of German under his chancellorship, the Wall Street Crash was inevitable, he introduced the Young Plan, which allowed German people to pay reparations slower so she had time to recover. Many people in Germany were happy with this plan, however the Nazi party were not, they believed that reparations should not have been paid from the very beginning and paying them was an injustice to the German people. The campaign the Nazi’s held against it, organised by a Nationalist (Alfred Hugenburg) gave national exposure to the Nazi party and other right-wing political parties. The extra exposure may have led to the Nazi party gaining a place in the State Government. The Nazi party was now supported by some industrialists who injected money to fuel the machine. Bruning, to my mind was the beginning of the end of Democracy. Chancellors had to be voted in, just as Prime Ministers are, Bruning was appointed by Hindenburg and not voted due to no party having a majority, Hindenburg himself was a conservative, we can tell this by Muller who resigned due to no change in state welfare, which is a right-wing idea. The Reichstag was in chaos, no one had majority so Article 48 was used to pass laws, by 1932 the Reichstag met for 13 days and had only passed 5 laws, Hindenburg alone had passed 60 laws. People living in Germany would have seen the state that their country was in and how Hindenburg was, by this time already acting like a dictator himself.

The SA were a strong tool to gaining support for the Nazi party, they fought the Red Menace, which gained mixed reviews with people, Communist supporters were, obviously, not happy with this, but democratic voters and right wing voters were, the Nazi party always had more support than the Communist party, people were fearful of what they did not fully understand or what they had been told, the Bolshevik revolution in 1917 was still fresh in many peoples mind, and the Germans never were much more than at a political stalemate with each other. Most German people did not want to be associated with the Russians. However Mussolini’s Italy was prospering, her people were fed, riots were practically and they were amongst the fastest recovering nations after October 1929. People admired this; they saw unemployment figures well below that of their motherland. What the Nazi party stood for gave people what they wanted, however the Nazi party although were the biggest party in the Reichstag they never managed to gain a majority, in 1933 they had just over 1/3 of the seats in Parliament. Hindenburg had doubts about the genuineness of Adolf Hitler himself, and it was not until late in 1933 that he agreed to allow Hitler to become Chancellor.

Joseph Goebbels, leader of propaganda used many new techniques the world had never seen before to spread the word about the Nazi party, with Hitler becoming leader of the Nazi party in 1921 meeting Goebbels only 2 years later, he arranged massive rallies to show the power of the Nazi party to every state. Hitler travelled by plane and could deliver a speech in Nuremburg and then fly on to Munich or deeper into Bavaria on the same day, this gave many people exposure to the Nazi party and their beliefs. Goebbels himself was known for his anti-Semitic views and became very close to Hitler from the years 1923 to 33. Without Goebbels spreading the word I don’t think enough people would have known about the Nazi party, the Munich Beer hall Putch is a classic example of this, with as many as 3 people being sentenced to death, and Hitler only getting a 5 year sentence in Landsburg prison, in this time he wrote his book Mein Kampf, which was further propaganda. The Nazis really relied on Proppaganda and violence against communists to achieve the stature that 3 million people in Germany voted for them. Hitler was either incredibly lucky or just in the right place at the right time. With the world economy declining rapidly people turned to him to sort the mess of their country out, coupled with von Papen’s secret deals with Hitler and Hindenburg.

In conclusion I believe the massive spike in support for the Nazi party would have been short lived if Hitler had not become Chancellor and rapidly improved things in Germany, even if he did it in an illegitimate way. The Wall Street Crash, although inevitable was the perfect opportunity for the Nazi party to gain as much support as they could, people always turn to extreme parties when things are not going right and tend not to choose these parties when everything is okay. The German bitterness towards the Treaty of Versailles also played a part in the rapid expansion in support for the Nazi party, with the promises the Nazi party put forth they believed that they could sort out the mess the ‘November Criminals’ had got their country in, to some extents they were correct. Hindenburg and von Papen were also to blame for the support rise in German politics, Hindenburg himself almost lost his place as President. They allowed exposure to the Nazi party and did nothing to stop it, and even lifted curfews on the SA  allowing more people to join and more people to take notice. But ultimately I believe that unemployment due to the Wall Street crash was to blame, if things had remained and Germany was still becoming more economically stable then people would have had no reason whatsoever to vote for the far-right party. People were tired of having no money, and state welfare could not provide for them, what the Nazi’s were offering to many people seemed too good to be true, ‘A chicken in every pot and a Car on every drive’ as Goebbels once stated. The agenda of the Nazi party was vastly appealing and appealed almost everyone. The rich could keep their riches; the poor would no longer be poor.

What if as a young man, Obama went to a school in Indonesia using the false identity, Barry Soetoro,then used exchange student status to come to America to be groomed for a specified task? What if all the Obama past associates, that Obama himself says make a man, hand picked Obama for an ideal? What if Oama was hand picked by those same past associates, to become a senator some twenty years after the grooming process to get his feet wet for the actuall task at hand?  What if a plant, as our President, a man that is so calculated, and so focused, every appointment was carefully hand picked to do their plan justice?  What if Communists changed strategies, after the McCarthy hearings?  What if Obama actually is not as dumb as people think and the change he wants for America if for it to fail, and become a part of the one world, one nation plans?  What if Obama’s plans work, and we all just shake our heads and wonder why?  

The fact is, Obama is starting to prove himself in front of our eyes.  What he says, is different than what he does.  What Obama does is slight of hand to foll many Americans into looking the other way as he does his trickery to transform America.  Obama will use fakery to retrain focus on other idea’s as his true agenda is set in place.  Americans, wonder why he does what he does and think, “If he foolish, or stupid?”  Obama is not stupid, he is focused, and calculating.  Everything Obama does, everyone he appoints to his cabinet, is a directive. He is a smart man but not as smart as some of the people all of the time.  What if Obama succeeds, and their is no turning back?  When questioned, he will throw in the race card, when questioned, he will play the war on women card, when questioned, he will get a master Photo retoucher, to recreate a birth certificate.  When called out, he will attack the Church.  When called out, he will refocus the question with another question, until you forget what the question was in the first place.  What if all the followers of this man, never drank cool aide at all, and are all on the same communist pages? What if, Team Obama caused havoc, by letting criminals go, and jails the honest folks who just started to question his ways? WHAT IF OBAMA WANTS TO CREATE A NANNY STATE, OR A MORE DEPENDANT AMERICA TO MAKE HIS TRANSITIONS EASIER? What if Obama get another four years?  THINK!

 The Soviet Union suffered brutally at the hands of the invading German armies during World War II. Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania aided Germany in its attack against the Soviet Union. Determined to see to it that the Soviet Union would never again be attacked by a powerful Germany, Soviet dictator Josef Stalin decided that his country needed buffer states that would protect the Soviet Union in the invent that Germany rose from the ashes and tried to attack again. As the Soviet army continued its march across Eastern Europe, pushing the Germans back, it took control of Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. Although Stalin promised his co-victors – the United States and the United Kingdom – that there would be free and fair elections so that those countries could determine their own paths the elections were mostly rigged so that the communists would come to power. The Soviets also supervised elections in its sphere of influence in Germany, which became East Germany. By the end of the 1940’s, Stalin had his buffer zone.

 Each of the Soviet satellites had a Soviet-inspired communist form of government. The government controlled the economy and nearly every aspect of its citizens’ lives, including the media. Opposing political parties were banned. No one was allowed to speak out against the government. Citizens were not allowed to travel abroad without permission from the government. The governments frequently used propaganda, portraying the western democracies as corrupt and decadent, to keep its citizens in line. Many of them even incorporated the Soviet trademark hammer and sickle into their national flags as sign of their allegiance to the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

 Although all of the countries were considered sovereign countries, they were frequently subjected to Soviet interference and the Soviet Union exercised a high degree of authority over political decisions in these countries. On two occasions, in fact, the Soviet Union demonstrated just how far it was willing to go to keep its satellites from leaving orbit. In 1956, Hungary tried to introduce political reform and allow opposing parties to freely operate. Moscow sent troops and tanks into Budapest to retake control of the country and expelled the reformist-minded politicians from the government. In 1968, in what became known as the Prague Spring, Czechoslovakia’s communist premier, Alexander Dubcek, attempted reforms, wanting to create “socialism with a human face”. It drew a similar response from Moscow, which feared that it would lose a communist ally.

 In the late 1980’s, when Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev began relaxing restrictions on Soviet citizens, the Soviet satellites saw the perfect opportunity to break free of Soviet influence and retake control of their own affairs. One by one, in seemingly rapid succession, each country began holding free elections, ejecting communists from power. By the 1991, each of the Soviet satellites had dislodged communist rule, effectively ending the existence of the Soviet Bloc.

It is important for all of us to realize that there are universal truths that transcend the relevance of time. Our forefathers, the authors of the Declaration of Independence, the US Constitution, and the Bill of Rights designed these guidelines as a result of first hand experience with tyranny. That tyranny resulted from King George’s government of Great Britain. The citizens of the 13 colonies felt the full pressure of big invasive government, taxation with representation, and over regulation. These people were well acquainted with oppression. They knew the face of the enemy.

That enemy looked like them, claimed to hold the same beliefs, and expressed that they had the best interests of the citizens in mind, but that was far from being true. The Royal Crown had absolutely no intention of allowing personal freedoms, reasonable taxation, or restraining government influence in society and private business. There were loyalists, those who sided with the British, and there were true Americans who wanted independence, freedom from big government, and the right to seek personal happiness.

As much as King George resented granting freedom to the 13 Colonies, he was advised by his legal staff that the colonists were well within their legal rights and well represented by their lawyers. In fact, King George’s government, on the verge of  declaring war upon the 13 Colonies in order to maintain control over them, gave the colonists more respect than the Obama Administration gave our Constitution as well as the people of the US over the last 20 months.

 Obama’s assault on American heritage and everything it implies has been relentless, deceptive, and intent upon dissolving all free enterprise, free will among the people, and their collective sense of independence. This Obama has done by building a gigantic government bureaucracy with a runaway budget deficit, that solves every crisis by promoting dependency upon federal leverage and the unnecessary expenditures that come with it.

Does the past reflect itself upon today’s events? Surely you can see the parallel. Everything that our forefathers foresaw when they ingeniously contrived the great documents of independence and freedom is now being proclaimed as obsolete and subject to reinterpretation by such progressives as Cass Sunstein, one of Obama’s appointed Czars. This Harvard professor thinks that the US Constitution is a product of another time and a different political atmosphere, but that is typical of those who want to control the masses. Managing people and their lives like a herd of cattle is exactly what liberals, socialists, and progressives have been advocating ever since the birth of our nation. They have presented themselves in several incarnations over the decades such as the Federal Reserve, Communists, Fascists, Labor Unions, Progressive Educators, and all the other charlatans who seek to undermine our republic.

What do we now share in common with our ancestors who had the audacity to resist the most powerful army on the face of the earth commanded by the most power hungry monarch in the western world? My fellow countrymen, our entire way of life is at stake. Those who cannot stand the concept of individual liberties, who hate the idea of a society unhindered by big government, who feel that all aspects of people’s lives must be regulated, are mindlessly at work. Fueled by the flawed vision of Marxism, and the intellectualized rationalization of modern progressives who consider themselves above such outdated beliefs as God and moral absolutes, the disinformation continues.

Like termites they continually advance their dialectic of social enslavement beneath an omnipotent state that crushes individual creativity and ambition.  As everyone submits to never ending authority, as a result of the unrelenting indoctrination in public school systems, by our mass media who repeats everything dictated to it by the federal government, we find that our freedom of choice is evaporating. Americans who have become complacent and have neglected their responsibility to monitor government and vote, have slept at the wheel for too long and allowed liars to corrupt our great system.  We have trusted the opportunists and power mongers to oversee our beloved country as we went about our self centered preoccupations.

There is an old saying, “ in order to become your master you were first approached by a servant.” Do entitlement programs such as Welfare, Medicaid, Stimulus Bills, and Immigration Amnesty not promote dependence and unaccountable behavior? For everything the government says that it grants or gives to one faction, they tax and remove from another segment of society. Those who work hard and exercise ambition will inevitably be victimized by the false equality forced upon the masses by a liberal government.

Just as in the early days of the fledgling republic called The United States of America, we now find ourselves at a historic crossroads that cannot be ignored. Whether our aspirations of preserving the ideals of our forefathers so that our republic survives modern indifference or crumbles under selfish and demanding abuses of a liberal illusion is up to us. We were warned long ago by Thomas Jefferson. “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance,” our third President of the nation cautioned. How sad it is that so many have rendered themselves deaf to those words of wisdom. The fate of America is now in our hands.

In fact, the free market system is based on the idea that self-interest is a virtuous and powerful motivation to get the most out of people; that a fair and prosperous society is the natural result of getting what you work for.  However, what happens when the culture of selfishness that served the market based system so well, creates a completely dysfunctional society where people won’t sacrifice for the future because the voters want it all now?  Democracy is cashed in when the nation’s future is sold off to the bankers.

Both Democrats and Republicans must pay homage to the free market.  The recent US Supreme Court decision, Citizens United, allowing unlimited money to determine elections, merely lifts the mask off what our system always was.  The US Supreme Court has ended the charade.  What really makes many politicians upset about the decision is that they no longer have as much control over the money as they used to.  Recall that it was President Obama who announced on June 19, 2008 that he would forgo public funds; the first presidential candidate to do so.  This allowed Obama unlimited fund-raising.  Mc Cain, who took the  government check of eighty-four million dollars, was outspent three to one by Obama, mostly on negative ads.  To pretend as if nothing was wrong prior to Citizens United is absurd.

Today, when people espouse the virtues of the free market, they are really advocating a system where commercial interests trump social interests.  If a free market doesn’t choose favorites, why do we have so many lobbyists on Capitol Hill?  For years, corporations have bought every advantage politicians could possibly sell them, especially tax breaks.  How does a new company emerge in an economy where the government has already legislated a tax break for their competitors?  If one company gets a free piece of land, they have a big cost advantage over a competitor who must pay rent.  America is not a free market, just a market where everything is for sale and money is King.

When profit is elevated to the status of virtue, what are the consequences?  Companies buy up drugs to create a shortage, just so they can raise the price, not caring if people die as a result.  Bankers create financial instruments that implode the economy, just so they can buy one more yacht.  When it comes to politics, entertainment, our schools, even our laws, profit is the priority.  Despite what advocates of privatization might argue, selling out for financial reward is always accompanied by a decrease in quality, a degradation.

The problem is people think they can dip a toe in, get their little tingle, and leave it at that.  If you bite, you’re hooked.  You can’t complain you just wanted the bait.  Oh, you didn’t want to get pulled into the boat, chopped up and devoured?  So sorry.  The big boys are smart, and look at how things will play out over ten or twenty years.  The concession they got long ago, which became the accepted practice, was just the step needed to realize what was always the ultimate goal.  In the meantime, politicians come and go, none the wiser.

In 1973, Wisconsin native Paul Weyrich cofounded ALEC, which is the American Legislative Exchange Counsel.  ALEC’s purpose is to promote legislation “to reduce regulation, lower taxes, limit union power, and privatize everything from prisons to schools.”  Representatives from some of America’s largest corporations sit on AEC’s board.  Weyrich “also cofounded the Heritage Foundation, the Moral Majority, and the Free Congress Foundation.”

Yes, the people behind the Culture War wanted a moral cover for what has always been a purely profit driven agenda.  People don’t see how this plays out over time.  For example, the same people promoting tough on crime legislation hoped to ultimately privatize prisons.  People working in Corrections bit the hook of Truth In Sentencing, assuming it would serve their interests; more prisons, jobs and therefore power for their union.  They couldn’t grasp that the real agenda was to bankrupt the system, creating a political environment where privatization magically appears as the only option to save the state’s budget.

Schools have been treated the same way.  The agenda has never been to fix our public schools.  When people in cities like Milwaukee, elected school board members who advocated school choice, they created a board with a conflict of interest.  Board members elected to promote privatization, had an interest in seeing public schools fail to use as examples justifying the need for school choice.

Corporations have realized that they can take their talents in advertising and selling products and apply them to the political realm to further enrich themselves.  Weakening organized labor makes it easier to dominate the airwaves.  Without the unions, where’s the money going to come from to counter their propaganda?  Since most of the media’s political pundits are corporate lap dogs, or are not intellectually capable of recognizing and therefore questioning their agenda, we end up with a society enslaved by the pursuit of corporate profit.

If making money is more important than justice or education, why should we expect bankers to act with any integrity?  The greed for profit eats away our nation’s soul.  People turn their back on their family, religion and country the moment they hear the jingle of the almighty coin.  Chasing the money high is no different than any other addiction.  Nobody can explain to the addict why they’re making a bad decision.  Something greater is calling them.  To subvert oneself to any material, whether it be drugs, alcohol or money, is degrading for any human being.  The same is true of nations!

Most of our political discussion now revolves around GDP and unemployment, without any understanding that those are the ends, not the means.  When people have the right priorities, success is inevitable.  What is the true measure of whether our institutions are striving for the common good?  Americans know that both political parties have sold them out.  Great things only come out of self-sacrifice.  Does anyone today believe in anything greater than profit?

When a society becomes dysfunctional, as a result of a warped value system, there are consequences.  A police state becomes necessary to restore some semblance of order.  Market totalitarianism is no different than Fascism or Communism in that force is required to enforce inequality.  This is why despite all the glitz and glamour, despite being the richest, most technologically advanced country ever, we have so much crime in America.  Why bother trying to address the causes of crime, when so much money is being made off of it?  Most crimes occur because of greed and/or selfishness.  How we approach dealing with our crime problem is also dominated by self-interests.  The attitudes are so entrenched that it’s hard to imagine America being any other way.

How are Americans socialized?  If wealth implies value, how does one relate to their spouse, children, community or even their self?  Money, or the lack thereof, becomes a magnetic force pulling people into making thousands of decisions over the course of their lives.  The problem is that only a small percentage of people can be rich.  Therefore, a society designed around living for profit will result in a lot of unsatisfied people.  No wonder there is so much substance abuse!

It’s sad when people don’t realize that they’re selling out their environment, culture, religion, livelihood and even children, for the sake of short term self-interest.  What’s amazing is the willingness to maintain the course even when it becomes clear that disaster is imminent.e of greed, 

To see more on America’s legal, political, and economic systems, please go to www.politicsandjustice.com.

Official language: Russian

Land area: 6,601,669 sq mi/17,098,242 sq km

Population:  140,363,000

Dominant religion:  Christianity

Capital: Moscow

Current leader: President Vladimir Putin

Russia covers more landmass than any other country in the world, with territory occupying significant portions of both Asia and Europe. To the north it borders Finland, Norway and the Arctic Ocean; to the east lies the Pacific Ocean. To the south, it is bordered by North Korea, China, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, the Caspian Sea, Azerbaijan and Georgia and to the west it borders Ukraine, Belarus, Latvia and Estonia. Kaliningrad, which is an oblast (province) of Russia, is separated from the rest of the country by about 250 miles (400 kilometers) of Belarusian and Lithuanian territory.

 Ethnic Russians make up about 80 percent of Russia’s population. The other 15 percent are ethnic groups from the other former Soviet republics. There is also a large number of Roma and Tatars in the country and Siberia, in the east, is home to a small number of Chinese and Mongolians. About 70 percent of Russia’s population lives west of the Ural Mountains, a long mountain range that is considered to be the official boundary between Asia and Europe. While Russians have a long cultural – and, albeit, often volatile – history with Europe, Russians tend to consider themselves neither Europeans nor Asians. They simply prefer to think of themselves as Russians.

 Since the fall of communism Russia has grown to be one of the world’s leading industrial and economic superpowers. The country has an abundance of natural resources such as petroleum, natural gas, coal and iron ore. The lives of most ordinary Russians have improved greatly in the 20 years since the disintegration of the Soviet Union. However, a stubborn gap between the rich and poor persists.

 Kiev, which is now capital of Ukraine, is believed to be the home of the modern Russian state. It was first settled in the late 800’s and gradually grew until its eastern boundaries touched the Pacific. It grew to its current size under the rule of Catherine the Great. During World War I, the Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, used the government’s preoccupation with Germany to start a rebellion. They seized power and killed Nicolas II, the czar, and his entire family and imposed communist rule in Russia, Belarus, Transcaucasia and Ukraine. In 1922, they created a new nation, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, known informally as the Soviet Union. Russia’s formal name under the new government was the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. The Soviet Union was later joined by Estonia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

 During World War II, the Soviet Union, then led by Josef Stalin, suffered greatly after being attacked by Germany. It is estimated that nearly 30 million Soviet citizens perished during the war. But after the war Soviet influence had spread, with Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary and Poland made into communist Soviet satellite states and Albania and Yugoslavia, both with communist governments of their own, closely aligned with the Soviet Union.

 During the rest of the post-war years, Russia was the dominant republic of one of the world’s most powerful nations, one that was the archenemy of the United States during the Cold War. But this wasn’t meant to last. By the late 1980’s more Eastern Europeans had lost their patience with Soviet influence and communist rule. Even many Soviet citizens became more and more restive and began openly calling for reforms. Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev instituted many reforms but they weren’t enough. Many of the Soviet republics began rewriting their laws and declaring that their own laws take precedence over the Soviet Union’s. In 1991, Russia held its first-ever multi-candidate, democratic election, installing Boris Yeltsin as president. (For more in-depth information on the fall of communism and the Soviet Empire, read How Did The Soviet Empire Really Crumbled 1 and 2)

 Despite the breakup, Russia continues to wield great influence. It inherited the former Soviet Union’s permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council and many of the former Soviet republics regard close relations with Russia as vital to their own survival.

Official language: Romanian

Land area: 92,043 sq mi/238,391 sq km

Population:  21,086,000

Dominant religion: Christianity

Capital: Bucharest

Current leader: President Traian Basescu

Romania is a country in Eastern Europe. It shares borders with Ukraine to the north, Moldova to the northeast, the Black Sea to the east, Bulgaria to the south and Serbia and Hungary to the west.

 Ethnic Romanians comprise just over 90 percent of Romania’s population. Other ethnic groups living in the country include Bulgarians, Hungarians, Roma, Turks and Ukrainians.

 Romania’s economy is one of Europe’s poorest. This is due mostly in part to decades of government mismanagement when the country was under communist rule. Since the fall of communism, however, the economy has begun to grow. Industry and manufacturing have surpassed agriculture as the country’s main source of economic activity.

 During much of its early history Romania was divided into different principalities that gradually became united. In the late 1400’s the Ottoman Empire seized what is now Romania and kept control the early 1800’s, when Russia gained possession. Russia withdrew in 1834, effectively giving Romania independence. At the end of World War I, Romania gained Transylvania from Hungary. During World War II, Romania, along with Bulgaria, Finland and Hungary joined Germany in its invasion of the Soviet Union. After the Soviets repelled the invasion they occupied Romania and set up a communist government, making Romania a Soviet satellite state.

 Romania suffered harshly under communist rule, especially from Nicolae Ceausescu who plundered much of the country’s wealth so that he and his family could live in the kind of luxury usually denied in the communist world.

 While communism was overthrown relatively easy in most other Eastern European in the late 1980’s, communism’s fall in Romania was somewhat volatile. When demonstrators took to the streets calling for Ceausescu and the communist leadership to step down Ceausescu ordered his security forces to fire on the demonstrators, killing hundreds. Eventually, many members of the security and military defected from the government and joined the rebellion. When it soon became clear that his days in power were coming to an end Ceausescu and his wife, Elena, attempted to flee the country but were captured, put on trial for embezzlement and later executed.