We've been Conned

Ron Paul's speech of July 10, 2003 on the floor of the House of Representatives. He verifies what Americans can instinctively feel...we've been conned, lied to and taken advantage of by today's political parties. Conned? Neo-Conned!

Revolution - Beyond Ron Paul

When Ron Paul wins the election, he won't be able to accomplish anything without the cooperation of congress. We need to build him a good team so they can topple the establishment and set things right.

This video shows a number of congressional candidates from many different states who appear to be patriots and are joining the chorus, preaching our revolutionary message. We should keep our eye on them. If they are consistent and appear trustworthy, we need to make sure they get elected.

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This website, http://www.govtrack.us, is promoted at the end of the video. It appears to have a lot of objective information on our elected officials.

Democrats Secretly Pushing for War

An honest Democratic candidate, Mike Gravel, says it like it is, confronting Hillary and Obama about voting to give Bush what he needs to go to war against Iraq and Iran. Hillary is so caught off guard all she can do is laugh.

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Hillary and Obama don't want to end the war. They voted for it. They blame Bush because it's politically beneficial. But really, they're just as bad as Bush...maybe worse. The only difference is what they lie about.

Hillary lies about how "united" the Democrats are on the war, claiming they're all about bringing it to an end. Hillary lies about how "unified" the Republican candidates are on continuing the war, failing to acknowledge Ron Paul's plan to bring the troops home immediately.

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Democrats Tout "Change", No Substance

Hillary and Obama have been using the word "change" a lot. Why? They know that's what Americans want to hear. Americans are seeing big problems on the horizon and so they want to see change. But exactly what sort of change are Hillary and Obama promising? Not all change is good. I've been searching for anything of substance that would specify exactly what kind of change they're talking about. Finally, I stumbled on this video of Mike Gravel, one of the honest Democrats. He confirms what I suspected.

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Ron Paul Exposed (In His Own Words)

I've been looking for any information that would indicate a darker, sinister side to Ron Paul. After all, he's been in congress for ten terms. Surely he's been corrupted in one way or another.

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-- Conclusion --

I haven't found anything negative yet. But here's what I did find.
Ron Paul:

• Has been faithful to the same woman for over 50 years!
• Worked on a farm, was a paperboy and worked at the corner drug store.
• Played baseball for the Astros.
• Is a medical doctor.
• Was a flight surgeon in the Air Force.
• As a congressman, developed a reputation as the "one exception to the gang of 535" on Capitol Hill.
• Has never voted to raise taxes.
• Has never voted for an unbalanced budget.
• Has never voted for a federal restriction on gun ownership.
• Has never voted to increase congressional pay.
• Has never taken a government paid junket.
• Has never voted to increase the power of the executive branch.
• Voted against the "Patriot" Act.
• Voted against regulating the internet.
• Voted against the Iraq War.
• Does not participate in the lucrative congressional pension program.
• Returns a portion of his annual congressional office budget to the U.S. Treasury every year.

Censorship of Ron Paul

Ron Paul is being censored by mainstream media. These videos show clear examples to remove any doubt. If we don't get actively involved, manning the polling stations and helping count the votes, the election will be stolen. We can't afford to let them trivialize our votes.
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Energy and Money

How are energy and money related? It's an interesting topic with many social and moral implications as well as important governance issues with which we should all be familiar. When it comes to our energy consumption, we certainly seem to take it for granted and appear totally out of touch with the rest of the world. But on the other hand, we're in a system that prevents us from easily changing our energy consumption habits, even if we wanted to. I wonder if most Americans understand this relationship well enough to avoid being manipulated by government and bankers.
Part 1 - The Fundamentals -- expand/collapse --
Part 2 - The Industrial Revolution -- expand/collapse --

The Fundamentals

What is money? The short answer: Money is nothing more than a tool for storing and transferring ENERGY.

Early on, people learned to trade labor and products, using their personal energy to produce value in different forms according to their skill or resources. Bartering became inconvenient so various mediums of exchange were adopted. Many different things have been used as money, including pretty rocks, feathers, pelts, cattle and slaves. The only requirement is that it be reasonably easy to exchange for something else later on. Sometimes this meant it also needed to have practical value, but not always. The history of money is fascinating, but even more so when you consider it's relationship to energy.

In the beginning, everyone had to work (grow crops or hunt) if they wanted to eat. As always, work requires the expenditure of energy. Some people didn't want to work so hard and looked for ways to harness the energy of others.

• They used many kinds of animals for labor, travel, etc.


• They rented out their excess stuff. (tools, animals, land, etc.)


• Some men kidnapped or bought slaves and harnessed their energy.


• Some men learned to rob their neighbors, either by force or through lies and deceit.

As crime became more of a problem, people banded together for mutual protection. These groups grew into nations, some bent on conquest and others only interested in defending their homeland. When a conquesting nation went to war, they expended energy to capture energy. The winner's bounty was the loser's energy, whether that be food, money, animals, slaves or forcing the losers themselves to become their slaves (either literally or through taxation).

Each nation's leader would levy a tax on his people to support his army and his over-indulgent, consumptive habits. Sometimes the people would resist the collection of taxes. National leaders sometimes found it was easier to collect energy from nations they'd conquered than from their own people, and this is why they engaged in conquest. The hurdle for these aggressive leaders was in building their armies. The people were willing to fight defensive wars to protect their homeland. But no matter how much they were paid, it seemed like a raw deal to waste their energy and risk their lives in offensive, aggressive, foreign wars. After all, it was their leader who reaped most, if not all of the reward while making few, if any, personal sacrifices. For many nations, the limitation of building the military kept conquest in check. But some leaders pushed harder, "pressing" (or drafting) their people into the military. The really ambitions leaders would force their newly acquired slaves from previous military victories to join the military. This method proved very effective, but also had it's limitations. (Such was the case with the Roman Empire.) But probably the slickest method of raising large armies made use of propaganda, usually in the form of spreading fear and hatred...usually of vaguely defined enemies, whether real or imagined.

While aggressive nations captured large amounts of energy through military conquest and occupation, criminals began developing more civilized methods, capturing energy by manipulating money. At first, it was small time. Kings and crooks would shave coins, capturing small amounts of the valuable metal from each coin. Anti-counterfeiting technologies were developed, such as tamper evident coins with ribbed edges. Crooks learned to mint fake coins containing little or no gold, silver or copper. As paper money came into use, the practice of counterfeit began growing like wild fire.

In the end, bankers gained a monopoly, getting governments to make it legal for them, and only them, to counterfeit money. The people even came to accept the practice, not realizing their money was being devalued and therefore their energy was being stolen. These videos explain how this scheme matured in the modern world. It's simplicity boggles the mind. We live in an age when we've nearly forgotten what gives money it's value.

This is all very interesting, but it gets better. Let's refocus on energy and consider the implications of the industrial revolution.
Part 1 - The Fundamentals -- expand/collapse --
Part 2 - The Industrial Revolution -- expand/collapse --

The Industrial Revolution

Understanding the relationship between energy and money helps us better understand what's going on in the world. The industrial revolution seems to make everything more complicated. But once you see through the smoke and mirrors, it boils down to the same issues, with a few differences.

The industrial revolution had a somewhat long gestation, but it eventually snowballed into rapid development. We've developed technologies for harnessing various forms of concentrated, chemical energy. Gun powder and it's uses had been under development for hundreds of years. But the big players entering the picture were the hydrocarbons...coal, natural gas and especially petroleum. These technologies make it possible to release large amounts of energy in very controlled and focused ways. As a result, just about every aspect of our lives has been altered, from our weapons to our transportation. We also developed technologies for converting chemical energy into electrical energy. Our uses for electricity seem boundless.

The economies of the developed world are now very dependent on a steady supply of oil. Initially, the list of developed countries was small. Therefore, energy supply was greater than demand. But as technological know-how spreads, more and more countries compete for energy. What sort of competition are we talking about? There have been price wars, sanctions and military wars. The nation of Israel was created after many centuries of nonexistence, completely ignoring the basic human rights of indigenous people living in the area. America has toppled democratic governments of nations with large oil reserves, replacing them with military dictatorships they could control. America has gone from being a good world citizen to being the world bully...and it's all about who controls the energy. Unless we change, the wars are only beginning. The industrial revolutions of China and India are coming of age. Demand is climbing more rapidly than ever while the theory of Peak Oil indicates supply will begin decreasing.

We're now faced with a situation offering a couple options. Option one is to voluntarily curtail our energy consumption, dramatically altering the lifestyle we take for granted. Option two is to go broke and anger the entire world trying to maintain our lifestyle only to be forced by the laws of physics to accept Option one. Our situation may be historically unprecedented, but it is similar to other times in history when a dominant culture was forced to relinquish their energy supply...by freeing their slaves. In some cases, the dominant cultures fought to the bitter end trying to retain their energy supply.

Vice President Dick Cheney has said, "The American way of life is non-negotiable." John McCain has said he expects us to be in the Middle East for 100 years. The neo-conservatives lie by claiming their intent is to spread democracy or defeat terrorism. Don't be fooled. Their actions speak louder than words, including American meddling in Iran in 1953 as well as many, many other examples. If they really wanted to put an end to terrorism against Americans, they'd start by removing the cause for hatred of America. We've upset the balance of power in Iraq and Afghanistan, and in doing so, we've made a mess. The neo-conservatives say we should stay long enough to clean up our mess. But don't be fooled. Our presence in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran will only serve to make things worse, both for them and for us. It's about energy, and little else.

The industrial revolution seems to have been a mixed blessing. But is the problem with the technology or our stewardship of the technology? Not all inventors have been given equal treatment. Indeed, I think the industrial revolution has more gifts to give...gifts that will finally quench our thirst for petroleum.

But the supply and demand of petroleum aren't the only issues in our discussion of energy. So far, petroleum prices have been pretty stable. Really? Prices at the pump have gone up a lot over the past couple years! That's true, but the supply/demand of oil hasn't been the primary culprit. There has been a parallel war of conquest being waged against the American people in the realm of money. A major battle was lost in 1913 and we've been losing ground ever since. From 2005 to now, we've seen gas prices increasing dramatically, but the cause is the decreasing value of the dollar. If you compare the price of oil with stronger currencies, or better yet with gold, the price of oil has been stable. The thing that's unstable is the dollar, not the price of oil. These videos explain how this war has been progressing and offer a long-term solution.
Part 1 - The Fundamentals -- expand/collapse --
Part 2 - The Industrial Revolution -- expand/collapse --