Butler on Business, January 9, 2013

My ten minute commentary on WAFS 1190 Atlanta on my recent articles, radiation, doctors under Obamacare, etc. I come on at the 29 minute mark.
http://www.cyberears.com/cybrss/17692.mp3

Radio Chat with Silvio Canto on Friday, Jan. 11, 2013

One hour radio chat with Silvio Canto of Dallas on BlogTalk Radio on the economy, this day in history, Obamacare, Agenda 21, and other items of interest.
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/cantotalk/2013/01/11/the-us-economy-in-review-with-dr-ileana-johnson-paugh

Patients and Physician Practice under Obamacare

As if health care was not undergoing enough fundamental transformation in this country, Democrats are now attacking the profits that hospitals and doctors make in the delivery of their services. Why should doctors and hospitals make obscene profits or any profits at all? An article in The New York Times, “Health Care and Profits, a Poor Mix,” by Eduardo Porter, claims that nonprofits (hospitals and clinics) deliver better care. (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/09/business/health-care-and-pursuit-of-profit-make-a-poor-mix.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0)

“There is really is no such thing as a nonprofit. A nonprofit is an organization that claims on its books at the end of every year that it didn’t make any money.” But the people that work at nonprofits score like bandits. The low-information voter thinks nonprofits are people sacrificing for the common good and they’re not burning any money and they’re not getting rich.” (Rush Limbaugh, January 9, 2012 broadcast)

“Our track record suggests that handing over responsibility for social goals to private enterprise is providing us with social goods of lower quality, distributed more inequitably and at a higher cost than if government delivered or paid for them directly.” (Eduardo Porter)

The crux of the New York Times article is that we should not rely on the private sector at all to satisfy “broad social needs” like health care delivery, we should allow the federal government to do it all because it can do it better. Obamacare, with its government run exchanges, will show us soon enough how well the feds are delivering health care. The health care insurance will be enforced and wayward citizens penalized by the vigilant 16,000 IRS agents. A 15-member death panel will be tasked with approving and denying care and procedures.

“By many objective measures, the mostly private American system delivers worse value for money than every other in the developed world. We spend nearly 18 percent of the nation’s economic output on health care and still manage to leave tens of millions of Americans without adequate access to care.” (Eduardo Porter)

Any thinking American knows that when compared to a small island like Cuba, third world nations, or communist China, U.S. does not deliver worse value, it is misinformation aimed at low information voters. What good is access to care and insurance if that care is sub-standard and lacking in training, equipment, meds, and procedures?

Socialized medicine is used as an example of success in Europe. Medical care works to an extent in Western Europe because, by comparison, those countries are small and they handle simple medical problems while rationing care for complex medical issues and testing. They are generally strapped for cash and doctors receive a government set salary. These western Europeans have relied on the United States to provide military protection while the freed funds were used for social programs, medical care, and lavish welfare.

Why are most foreign nationals, who can afford and have free health care in their countries, flee to the United States when serious health issues are at play? Could it be that we have the best trained doctors in the world, the best hospitals and medical equipment, the most break-through and life-saving procedures particularly in the treatment of cancer?

Should U.S. follow in the footsteps of France that recommends the legalization of “accelerated deaths” based on three sets of circumstances? (http://www.france24.com/en/20121218-report-recommends-france-legalize-accelerated-deaths)

Porter says that we can improve the delivery of health care and pensions “simply by removing the profit motive from the equation.” Everything the federal government is involved in, with the exception of the military, the delivery of services is slow, the paperwork is daunting, and costs are bloated.

Profit was a dirty word for communists, it was called surplus, which was supposed to be equally shared with the proletariat. The problem was that, in the “socialist workers’ paradise,” the proletariat never saw the “surplus,” neither did they get proper and qualified medical care, abundant services, and the medicines they needed. Shortages and rationing always came into play. Those who truly benefited were the ruling communist elites for whom nothing but the best was provided.

Rush Limbaugh argued that nonprofits have huge pools of unspent money that keep growing with profit from wise investments. Harvard has an endowment of $40 billion which makes about $10 billion in profit every year and they don’t pay a penny in taxes – it’s saved for a rainy day but they never spend it if that day comes. They keep asking for more donations. People who work for nonprofits are well remunerated, they are not suffering or sacrificing their standard of living for the “social justice” they advocate. (Rush Limbaugh show, January 9, 2012)

Colleges in general are awash in money and donations that they spend generously on sports and building stadiums and academic buildings. Professors are paid lavishly and nobody questions the profit motive in academia because it is the fiefdom of the left who indoctrinate our youth.

Nonprofits are supposed to be morally superior because they do not exploit people like the immoral profiteering hospitals. Profit must be an evil entity that kills innocent and hapless victims. At the end of the year many for-profit hospitals show a tremendous loss. Both for-profit and non-profit hospitals are bound by the same laws to provide the same care to any person entering their ER and doctors have sworn the same Hippocratic Oath.

Why should pension funds not run on profit? How would pension funds be insulated from bad times when there are not enough people working to replenish the stock in order to pay the retirement of those who live longer and healthier lives? Why rely on the government for pensions, the very government that can take away benefits just as easily as it doles them out?

Suzanne M. Kirchhoff, analyst in healthcare financing, prepared a 27-page report released on January 2, 2013 for members and committees of Congress, “Physician Practices: Background, Organization, and Market Consolidation.”(http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R42880.pdf)

The report addresses the growing number of U.S. physicians who are “combining practices, affiliating with hospitals, insurance companies, and specialty management firms, or going to work directly for such organizations.” (p. 2)

The reasons given were multifold:

-         Desire to have a set schedule and salary

-         Private practices are too complex to manage

-         Physician compensation and reimbursement by insurance, including Medicaid and Medicare, declined

-         Larger practices control costs

-         Larger practices can negotiate higher reimbursement with insurers

A smaller group of doctors are creating “concierge” practices where they see a limited number of patients per year who pay an annual retainer and a set fee per visit.

Because of these trends and the increased number of patients who will be insured through exchanges, many studies warned of shortage of doctors, particularly primary care physicians.

The deceptively named 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act caused the creation of a system called Accountable Care Organizations (ACO). Under this system, the providers make contracts to oversee a patient’s total course of care in order to manage costs and “improve quality.”

Physicians, insurers, and hospitals have formed associations in order to qualify for these ACOs. These associations appear to be more beneficial to the providers rather than the patient. Obamacare forces doctors to consolidate in order to “reduce fragmentation and control government and private health spending.” Will this consolidation have a negative effect on patient access, prices, and competition? Mergers in the 1980s and 1990s had negative effects in terms of patients being restricted or blocked from access to specialists and procedures.

Hospitals and physicians are in a rush to hire more doctors to fill the increased demand from the millions of new insured under Obamacare. My personal doctor has hired a nurse practitioner and a physician aide. I am not particularly thrilled to see someone young who is just now learning how to deal with patients and diagnose them properly, cannot do surgery, or someone who does not have a medical degree at all.

The American Medical Association (AMA) calls the 972,376 doctors and residents who work primarily from solo or smaller practices as a “cottage industry.” Eighty-four percent of Americans’ visits to the doctor are to the primary care physician. Twenty percent of physicians work for hospitals. (Congressional Report Services, pp. 1-2)

Twenty percent of medical spending goes to physician payment accounts. Physicians make referrals, tests, hospital admissions, therapy, and other actions, accounting for 90 percent of total health care spending. (CRS, p. 3)

Of the 972,376 physicians and residents, 7% are osteopaths, one-third primary care physicians, and two-thirds specialists. One fourth of U.S. doctors are graduates from international medical schools. New England and Middle Atlantic regions have the highest number of doctors per capita. Rural areas have the lowest. The Association of American Medical Colleges predicted in 2008 that by 2025 there will be a shortage of 130,600 doctors. Nurse practitioners, certified mid-wives, and physician assistants will have to make up the shortage. The law varies from state to state as to what procedures and services these individuals can perform. (CRS, pp. 4-6)

There are 155,000 active nurse practitioners with graduate education beyond a bachelor’s degree who are registered nurses. “They can take case histories, perform basic exams, order lab work, prescribe some meds, and provide health education and counseling.” (CRS, p. 6)

There are 86,000 certified physician assistants with a bachelor’s degree, 27 months of specialized training and 2,000 hours of clinical rotations. “They can take patient medical histories, examine patients, treat minor injuries, order and interpret lab tests, and make rounds in medical facilities.” (CRS, p. 6)

“The consulting firm Accenture predicted that just a third of U.S. doctors would be truly independent by 2013.”  Medical practices will be morphing into two types of business consolidation:

-         Horizontal mergers (specialty practices merge for reasons of economies of scale, i.e. lower overhead costs)

-         Vertical mergers (hospitals buying physician practices or hiring physicians; physicians partnering with insurers, and joint ventures forming Accountable Care Organizations or ACOs) (CRS, pp. 8-9)

“Concierge” medicine, seeing a limited number of patients for a set fee, already has regional groups like MDVIP from Boca Raton, Florida, and Concierge Choice Physicians in New York. At least 756-retainer based physicians charge average fees from $600 to $5,400 – they see their patients for longer office visits, more in-depth physicals, and preventive and continuous care. (CRS, p. 15)

There are legal issues with medical mergers:

-         Compliance with state and federal laws in regards to fair competition and transparency

-         Over-utilization of services in the health care sector

-         Antitrust (Sherman Act in re to monopolization, and Clayton Act in re to anti-merger)

-         anti-kickback laws in Medicare and Medicaid

-         State laws barring the corporate practice of medicine

-         Stark law of 1989 that imposes limitations on physician self-referrals (CRS, p. 16)

Congress might be interested in the following issues:

-         medical spending (rising health care costs due to tight associations such as ACOs; physician productivity based on volume)

-         access (disparities; ACOs may not treat sicker, more expensive patients, resulting in being more selective in their choice of patients; would patients have freedom to see the doctor of their choice or a specialist; would rural areas be able to attract physicians if there is too much consolidation; physician supply – would “concierge” medicine take too many doctors out of general access)

-         coordinated care/quality (physicians who handle their patients outside of hospitals by using ambulatory settings such as imaging, surgery, chemotherapy vs. physicians who use hospitals exclusively for their patients as is the case in Europe; in both cases, primary care physicians are left out, including cases when many patients seek first help in Emergency Rooms) (CRS, pp. 17-21)

Physician income and practice costs can be affected by specialty, source of payment (private vs. public), and productivity (volume or range of services offered). Currently, “general practitioners and pediatricians make less than specialists such as cardiologists and oncologists.” According to the Medical Group Management Association, doctor compensation ranges from $189,402 for family practice to $514,659 for orthopedic surgery. (CRS, p. 22)  

Congress created the Medicare Sustainable Growth Rate formula in 1997 to address annual updates to the physician fee schedule. This may not be an issue as overtures have been made towards the equal remuneration of all doctors, regardless of specialty. (CRS, p. 24)

The electronic health record (EHR) must replace the paper-based medical system. I have already encountered the orange portable iPad style computer that patients must fill out in order to expedite the electronic compliance. EHR incentives offer $20,600 per physician although the cost of implementing the electronic health record can be as much as $54,000 per doctor. Medicare pays up to $44,000 over five years plus an additional 10 percent if the physician practices medicine in a “designated medically underserved area.” “The payments phase out over time and are replaced by financial penalties” if the doctor is not compliant. By 2015 a reduction in Medicare Part B reimbursement will occur if the doctor is not a “meaningful user” of electronic health records. (CRS, p. 24)

Under totalitarian regimes, doctors are still forced to practice medicine where they are told because the state picks up the tab of their education. The state also tells them how much compensation they are going to expect, the number of hours they have to practice medicine six days a week, and the number of patients they must see every day. The ratio of doctor to patient is usually very high due to chronic shortages of doctors. Nobody wants to study medicine for 12 years and receive the same remuneration as a person with a high school degree.

Rodney Atkinson said, “Corporatism is the socialist form of capitalism and it rules in most western ‘capitalist’ countries. The ultimate expression of corporatism is the European Union.” Ruled by the leftist interests of corporatists (large unions, big business, unelected non-governmental organizations with supranational powers, lobbying groups, professional interest organizations, main stream media) and run by the government, the United States’ tenth ranking in the index of economic freedom does not even begin to explain how little freedom we have left in America. And now our medical care will be fundamentally changed as well.

Progressives as "moral superiors" who like to play God

 The most famous eugenicists were the Spartans. Their newborns were allowed to live only if perfectly healthy. The state did not want to be burdened by imperfect babies.

The modern eugenicists advocate infanticide as being no different than abortion. According to an article in The Telegraph, a team of medical ethicists linked to Oxford University maintained that “parents should be allowed to have their newborn babies killed because they are ‘morally irrelevant.’ (Stephen Adams, February 29, 2012)

The Journal of Medical Ethics published an article, “After-birth abortion: Why should the baby live?” Francesca Minerva and Alberto Giubilini argued that babies are not “actual persons,” do not have a “moral right to life,” and parents should be allowed to kill their babies if they are disabled.  (http://jme.bmj.com/content/early/2012/03/01/medethics-2011-100411.full.pdf+html)

Prof. Julian Savulescu, director of the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics labeled those readers who made death threats to the article’s authors as “fanatics opposed to the very values of a liberal society.” Most modern humans must then be fanatics because they reject such a liberal society based on brutal values. We no longer live in Sparta. A sign of civilization is treating life with respect and awe, beginning at conception until death.

It is frightening to logically comprehend how liberals argue for population control through eugenics and advocate abortion when they themselves have already been born and their mothers did not consider them an inconvenience, an imperfect form of life, or a burden on society.

With a self-appointed “moral superiority” mandate, these warped individuals argue that “the moral status of an infant is equivalent to that of a fetus in the sense that both lack those properties that justify the attribution of a right to life of an individual.” “Both a fetus and a newborn certainly are human beings and potential persons, but neither is a ‘person’ in the sense of ‘subject of a moral right to life.’ (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/9113394/Killing-babies-no-different-from-abortion-experts-say.html)

The authors believe that “after-birth abortions” should be available to parents if the newborn is disabled and the parents had no prenatal testing and did not know their fetus was not perfect, but also in cases when the newborn is not disabled. Allowing disabled children to live “might be an unbearable burden on the family and society as a whole, when the state economically provides for their care.”

Therein lies the truth – under the socialized medical care system in the U.K., the state considers a burden to care for people’s imperfections, life is not sacred, and rationing of care must occur in order to save money. It is an admission of the failed medical care system that is incapable to deliver proper care to its citizens and must thus vilify those who are not perfect in order to justify getting rid of financial burdens and inconveniences in a supposedly “ethical” way. It is similar to our Obamacare labeling persons over the age of 70 as “units” and their medical care rationed based on their utility and contribution to society.

One of the authors, Alberto Giubilini, lectured students on the topic, “What is the problem with euthanasia?” Morally, ethically, and religiously, there is plenty wrong with euthanasia and “after-birth abortion.”

Dr. Trevor Stammers, medical ethics director at St. Mary’s University College summed it best when referring to the term, “after-birth abortion.” “This is just verbal manipulation that is not philosophy. I might refer to abortion henceforth as antenatal infanticide.”

Verbal manipulation and influence of the low information masses is what liberals do best. Progressive liberals, a growing minority, like to control not just our moral, economic, political, and ethical lives; they want to be able to play God in both birth and death because they see themselves as the ultimate authority, an omnipotent force that can control nature and Earth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The War against U.N. Agenda 21 Got Hotter

The war against U.N. Agenda 21 just got hotter in Virginia. Thinking Americans understand now what U.N. Agenda 21 is and are not backing down from fighting the anti-American, anti-prosperity, wealth redistribution scheme of the United Nations against our way of life.

U.N. has deemed commercial agriculture unsustainable and has used taxpayer dollars and local supervisors to re-zone, re-shape, and prohibit land use for local agriculture or building that is not approved by their bio-diversity plan of limiting human habitation – all in the name of saving the planet.

Our planet does not need saving, Mother Earth is doing fine. The problem lies with progressive humans in positions of power who want to control everything we do while they line their pockets with our hard-earned taxpayer dollars.

Unfair regulatory actions against Martha Boneta, a farmer in Fauquier County, Virginia, “violate fundamental rights and unfairly restrict her property rights.” Delegate L. Scott Lingamfelter (R-Woodbridge/31^st district) plans to strengthen Virginia’s Right to Farm Act and to “protect farmers against future encroachments by local government.”

Delegate Lingamfelter, who represents four of the Fauquier County’s 20 voting precincts, is planning a press conference to discuss his proposed legislation on January 8, 2013 in Richmond, Virginia. Two prominent property rights advocates will be in attendance, Joel Salatin and Mark Fitzgibbons.

“Martha Boneta’s rights have been wrongly challenged. I am bringing legislation in the 2013 session of the General Assembly to improve the Right to Farm Act here in Virginia, so small farmers like Martha will enjoy fully their property rights. It’s not about demonizing anyone in this controversy. It’s about standing by property rights and our Founder’s vision.”

Local Governments for Sustainability, formerly known as ICLEI, the International Council on Local Environmental Initiatives has been quite successful since 1992, when U.N. Agenda 21 was adopted, in infiltrating and recruiting local governments to do their bidding. When Americans exposed their nefarious plans, they have changed their name. Their main goal is to control zoning and land use.

Martha Boneta’s plight and subsequent lawsuit stemmed from a planned birthday party for eight ten-year olds on her farm. County officials notified her that she should have obtained a prior permit for hosting this party and thus would be fined $5,000 for failing to abide by the local ordinance. She was charged with two additional violations of up to $5,000 each, one for advertising a pumpkin carving and another for operating a small shop on her property from which Martha sold her fresh produce and homemade crafts. The county made these allegations without ever setting foot on her farm. The Fauquier county board of zoning appeals upheld the zoning administrator’s decision that Boneta held “temporary and/or special events without the required county approvals.”

I have written about Martha’s plight in my book, “U.N. Agenda 21: Environmental Piracy.” Martha purchased a ruined and abandoned farm under an agricultural conservation easement. Nothing in the bill of sale was mentioned that she could not farm. A lot of hard work, sweat, and tears went into breathing life into this property. She never dreamed that stumbling blocks will be placed in front of her along the way by the very Americans who are supposed to protect our freedoms.

She got a business license. She built an apiary, harvested hay, grew herbs, and rescued 165 animals, sold chicken, duck, turkey, emu eggs, candles made from beeswax, birdhouses, and fiber from llamas and alpacas.

First, she was told she could not cut grass on her property. Then she had to fence in 20 acres for two years because it was considered “hallowed ground,” although nobody died there during the Civil War, it was just an encampment area. By this rule, the whole state of Virginia should be cordoned off to any kind of use due to its many battlefields and movements of troops across the state. After two years, a “clerical error” was declared and Martha could use her land, no reimbursement for loss of property or revenue.

A trench was dug to prevent parking on her property because it might obscure the view shed. Then came the infamous pumpkin carving party that actually never took place, it was cancelled. Yet the harassment from the county and the moneyed environmentalists never stopped.  These people prefer and define farming as penny-loafer farming, running a few horses on lush endless green grass fields, nothing to grow that people would need.

The battle did not stop with Martha. Thirteen vintners filed lawsuits against the same county for not being allowed to serve wine on their premises after 6 p.m., another Fauquier County restriction passed to please one vintner who chose to close early. Why leave things alone? Force everyone to do the same, control what everyone else does.

Americans are waking up when they run into legal battles at the state and local levels involving zoning issues driven by one ultimate goal, global governance. U.N. Agenda 21 “soft law” document is not legally binding per se but morally obligatory. Unfortunately, so many of its 40 chapters of rules have already been written into law within other laws passed by Congress and they provide specific rules and regulations about local organizations and their practices, limiting everyone’s behavior and freedom, individuals and organizations alike. Add zoning ordinances passed by local and state governments and you have a recipe for disaster, total control of what you do with your own property.

 

 

The Inconvenient "Gypsies"

Who are the Roma? They have nothing to do with Rome and are not Roman. Roma, as the politically correct crowd calls them, are what history and tradition have called for generations, “gypsies.” The term “gypsy” is also incorrect since they were erroneously assumed to be nomadic tribes from Egypt. They are nomadic tribes from Northern India.

One theory connected them to a military caste in Northern India that moved west into the Byzantine Empire. Johann Christian Rüdiger connected in 1782 the Romani language to Hindustani, subsequent research supporting the hypothesis that Romani shared a common origin with the Indo-Aryan languages of Northern India. The Roma speak a New Indo-Aryan language (NIA).

Another theory suggested that Roma are related to the Dom people of Central Asia and the Banjara of India. A 1992 study showed serological similarities between Romani and the Jatt clan of Northern India and Pakistan, connecting the two genetically. The Roma did not originate from Eastern Europe as previously thought. Romani language bears no similarity to Latin languages.

The Roma or “gypsies,” have always balked at national integration because they prefer their nomadic and free lifestyle centered around a campfire. They love dance and music. They do not like to be tied down or follow the laws of civil society. In spite of efforts to educate them, the school dropout rate is the highest. They prefer to marry off their children very young. If they are given apartments, they strip them bare, sell the parts, and move into the courtyard in tents.

The Western Europeans treat their Roma better than Eastern Europeans. They receive RVs and other generous social benefits. They do not fear the law, on the contrary, the law fears them. We have been terrorized for twelve hours on the midnight train from Nice to Paris by a group of “gypsies” who frightened hundreds of passengers. Even the train police hid from them.

It goes without saying that civil society must treat minorities equally and fairly. Nobody has the right to ignore, mistreat, or abuse vulnerable groups. But they also have the right to live as they choose, according to their traditions.

I have seen the “gypsy” life and culture up close, integration in society is not part of their culture. Their work ethic is quite different than the average person’s work ethic. Every train station, bus station, or tourist attraction in Europe is besieged by “gypsy” pickpockets as young as five or perfectly healthy adults begging on street corners while cradling a baby or pretending to be handicapped.

Since Eastern European countries have become part of the EU, their “gypsy” problem became the problem of the EU. Countries like Italy have been sending Roma back to their original countries because the increased begging, the crime, and the theft were affecting tourism. But they keep coming back.

Some Roma groups have settled into communities of their own choosing where they have built gaudy palaces, mixing different styles of architecture with marble to mimic the palatial homes they’ve seen in their European travels. These palatial homes are often not attached to electricity or water.

The idea of permanence conflicts with their culture. I have asked many of them why they do not settle in one place, why wonder constantly. It is in their blood. A few do settle down in villages and work the land. Others settle on the outskirts of a town and send their kids to railroad crossings to wipe down windshields of stopped motorists in exchange for a few pennies instead of sending them to school.

To solve the problem of the migrating and inconvenient Roma, the European Commission approved the EU Framework for National Roma Integration Strategies up to 2020. (http://ec.europa.eu/justice/policies/discrimination/docs/com_2011_173_en.pdf)

EU governments are thereby asked to create plans to socially include and improve the well-being of their Romani citizens in hopes that the Roma will stay within the boundaries of their countries and not migrate to the western part of the EU.  

One of the Open Society Foundations programs is called, "Making the Most of the EU Funds for Roma." The Chairman of the Board, Kalman Mizsei, wrote an article on December 20, 2012, titled, “Robbing the Roma.” (http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/the-growing-isolation-of-europe-s-roma-by-kalman-mizsei)

Kalman Mizsei stated that the Roma are suffering more because of the euro crisis and the intolerance, especially in countries with a larger population of Roma: Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, and Greece.

Bulgaria, Hungary, and Romania are chastised for being “the most laggard spenders of EU funds, particularly from the European Social Fund.”

The most egregious, the Romanian government, has only spent 10 percent of the $5.9 billion received from the European Social Fund on improving the Roma poor living conditions, low life expectancy, and low rates of school attendance. 

Nomadic people have always had low life expectancy and low rates of school attendance, they are on the road all the time, don’t go to doctors, it is their lifestyle choice. When they marry their daughters at the age of 12, with matrimonial contracts sometimes signed at birth, going to school is not a priority, they are groomed for marriage.

Can you change centuries of tradition by offering or withdrawing money as incentive? Since the EU suspended the money coming from European Social Fund, the Romanian government stopped reimbursing the non-governmental organizations (NGOs) who were running programs to help the Roma.

The EU bureaucrats blame the situation on the general population’s unjust view of the Roma that “they prefer stealing and damaging other’s property to working; that they receive disproportionate and undeserved social benefits; and that they produce children in order to qualify for more public assistance.” Having lived around Roma, I am not so sure that some of the views are so unjust.

I recently strolled down the street in my hometown where many Roma families live, incorporated since the communist regime. They never moved except for the occasional trip that the head of the family took to the Western EU to make money, returning home with suitcases full of goods, cash, and brand new automobiles. How they managed to buy a brand new car in such a short period of time is a mystery to me.

Aside from a few newer and cleaner houses, these Roma lived in dilapidated, smoked, dirty homes, with yards filled to the brim with trash. A brand-new automobile with Great Britain, Spain, France, Germany, or Italy license plate was parked in the street.

I photographed a lavish wedding on the same street a few days earlier – I counted 30 foreign made cars in the procession, decorated with flowers, accompanying the wedding entourage to the reception hall. Until then, everybody trudged through the pot-holed street, singing and dancing next to a fenced-in property with a burned home which had been turned into a make-shift trash dump. No amount of tickets from the city hall made the owners clean it up or dispose of the ruins. Twice a week, with total disregard for noise pollution and their neighbors, traditional Roma music blared from loudspeakers for hours across several streets.

“Physical exclusion” of the Roma is a dangerous trend, said Mizsei. “Under communism, significant efforts were made to assimilate Roma; they were given jobs, albeit at the bottom of the economic pyramid, and were assured housing.” It is true, Roma had meager jobs and meager apartments just like everybody else, but they destroyed their housing, having no appreciation for a permanent lifestyle and all responsibilities of a non-nomadic society.

Even former French President Nicholas Sarkozy is raked over the coals for having ordered in 2010 the expulsion of illegal Roma and the demolition of their temporary eyesore camps.

Where the Roma robbed? I have seen documents claiming that some Roma leaders were robbed of their gold coins and jewels during the communist regime under the guise of safe-keeping. Because of their migratory lifestyle, Roma tend to carry all of their wealth in gold and silver jewelry attached to their bodies or sewn into their clothes. I am not sure if they were reimbursed when the communist regime fell.

How do you integrate a group of people into a society at large when that group does not want to be integrated, the members of the group prefer to live by their rules in self-appointed ghettoes? Can you blame their neighbors for not relishing the idea of living next to such a temporary encampment?

It appears that the last bastion of hope for the Roma is the EU bureaucracy – they have the power and the money to force the other EU members into compliance – change centuries of nomadic traditions of the Roma and integrate them into society with the help of Romani NGO leaders who are tasked to change social policies. Problem solved, one step closer to global governance, fitting everyone into a predetermined template.

 

 

Do Not Underestimate the Value of Culture as a Power of Change

Hope and Change, Hope and Change, Hope and Change… Millions of Americans were chanting totally mesmerized. Change at the speed of light is here and accelerating. Hope is fading away. How did we get here so fast? It did not happen overnight. We just failed to pay attention.

We underestimated the value of culture as a power of change, irreversible change. We were too busy building nations and democracy in countries living by seventh century rules written in one book to notice that our culture was being changed from within and without, partly by theocratic and totalitarian cultures, partly by globalists, and their human tools and institutions, and partly by illegally-domiciled cultures.

You cannot change “hearts and minds” in a culture that values death more than life; you cannot absorb a banana republic culture with “family values” of God and the pursuit of happiness in which happiness is not self-generated but expected from a benevolent government.

Changing “hearts and minds” of nations requires time and arduous indoctrination. It is a process similar to underground water burrowing through stone, shaping magnificent rocks, tunnels, caves, stalactites and stalagmites.

“Cultura animi” as Cicero described it in “Tusculan Disputations” is the cultivation of the soul and mind. (“Animus” is Latin for soul or mind.) The American soul and mind have been cultivated in the direction of socialism for a long time. We are noticing the change now because it has finally come to fruition after more than a century of constant scholastic, moral, social, and political programming.

Culture encompasses the material culture of a nation and the non-material culture such as language, customs, traditions, and its unique identity. A culture exhibits a group-specific acquired behavior which can be changed over time with the right tools. A culture is multifaceted; it includes knowledge, beliefs, art, morals, law, customs, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by humans as members of society.

W. C. McGrew defined culture as a six-step process:

1. A new pattern of behavior is invented, or an existing one is modified.
2. The innovator transmits this pattern to another person.
3. The form of the pattern is consistent.
4. The one who acquires the pattern retains the ability to perform it long after having acquired it.
5. The pattern spreads across a population: families, clans, troops, or bands.
6. The pattern endures across generations.

Language, a very important element of culture, is the direct expression of a people’s national character. Johann Gottfried Herder said, "Denn jedes Volk ist Volk; es hat seine National Bildung wie seine Sprache" (Because every people is a People, it has its own national culture expressed through its language). We do not have our own official language – the government and necessity have forced the use of two languages.

Immigrants, who have entered other cultures through time, have formed their own sub-cultures within the primary culture:

-         Core culture (Leitkultur or “lead culture” as the Germans termed it) - minorities had an identity of their own, but they supported the core concepts of the culture on which society was based

-         Melting pot – immigrant cultures mixed willingly without state intervention; such was the case of the United States until liberals intervened and changed it into “tossed salad bowl”

-         Monoculturalism – was adopted initially by some European states as a government policy to assimilate immigrants; it was deemed racist and nationalistic by ruling elites

-         Multiculturalism – immigrants preserved their cultures while interacting “peacefully” within one nation; France, Germany, and U.K. admitted recently that multiculturalism failed miserably in their countries; other European nations are struggling to survive as they are losing their identity, culture, and their countries to the “peaceful” immigrants

United Kingdom’s sociologists developed cultural studies influenced by Marxism. These studies, models, and lessons were incorporated and adopted by universities around the world and preached in thousands of classes every year. The core message was the same – socialism and Marxism are the wave of the future if society is to attain utopia and happiness. The entrepreneurial work ethic of capitalism was disdained and maligned.

We are in a globally-accelerated culture change period driven by these educational models, international trade, the socialist mass media, and the population explosion. Many inside and outside forces encourage and promote change through thinly veiled environmentalist and globalist propaganda indoctrination, economic, and political measures. Other forces resist change coming from cultural ideas and practices favoring socialism and Marxism, but they are outnumbered. New technologies and social conflicts also produce change by promoting new and peculiar cultural models that alter social dynamics in the utopian vein.

The feminist movement deeply affected gender relations and economic structures in the American culture, often in negative ways. Environmental conditions and groups caused cultural change through global warming brainwashing. War and competition over resources such as oil greatly impacted social dynamics and culture.

Cultural ideas were transmitted through diffusion (fast food across the globe, innovations, direct borrowing) and acculturation (acquiring traits). Individual like me who learned the language, history, customs, and traditions became assimilated into the new culture. Likewise, over many generations of students, trained College of Education teachers indoctrinated their pupils into the socialist mindset without much interference from the clueless parents who were often themselves products of the public school cultural modification curricula.

People who were born, raised, and grew old under oppressive communism, did not culturally understand any other way of living. They felt alienated when capitalism replaced communism. They did not know how to make a living, how to survive on their own and provide for themselves, they were still waiting for the communist regime to hand them their meager rations – it was not much, but it did not require having to think, having to provide for themselves a daily subsistence, or having to work. These elders wanted communist enslavement back because it was a certainty they recognized.

People who fled communism were not shocked that the Russians celebrated by the thousands Stalin’s birthday recently, in worship to his dubious and murderous achievements, having starved and killed 20 million innocents during his reign of terror in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). We know that a dependent and hopeless culture breeds helplessness.

The French are so unwilling to give up their culture of “welfareship” as Sylvain Charat calls it, that they have fallen hard into the “poverty trap.” France is going to allow doctors to “accelerate the coming of death” of French patients in the socialized medical care system, in order to fund their cradle to grave lavish welfare. What caused such a harsh change in the values of their culture?

Why are Americans allowing the dreaded 15-member “death panel” of Obamacare instead of trimming the government’s lavish spending and offering healthcare insurance to the uninsured in some other form? If some Americans want universal healthcare and gun control, why don’t they move to Cuba?

Why would a culture run household budgets in such a way that citizens are willing to sacrifice the wellbeing of their children in the future and the grandparents through euthanasia driven by medical care rationing in order that the parents live better in the present?

It should come as no surprise that the majority of Americans prefer a lazy lifestyle, dependent on government welfare for their every need as the only viable solution to daily living; they want a secular society devoid of faith, a society that does not think twice about killing the unborn as a form of contraception but builds crossing bridges for turtles, a society that does not seek justice for the murder of innocents but demonstrates to release infamous terrorists and criminals.

Americans who no longer share the values of the culture that was established long time ago, adhere to the culture of socialism/Marxism. The low-information Americans, who chanted for the promised hope and change, aspire for a culture of government dependency and entitlements in perpetuity.

Entrepreneurship is slowly replaced in the American psyche by “assistance-ship” through a barrage of constant cultural indoctrination by the academia, the media, and the government.