I went back to Ohio....but my city was gone.....

Listening to Chrissie Hynde's legendary description, put to music, of the all too common tragedy of our dying cities had me thinking again.

The long suffering working folk of the Rust Belt have long been the hardest hit victims of fascist State policies which have sucked the lifeblood of their communities - the industries that once produced assets of value and provided well paying jobs which sustained families and communities. Those states chose the Fascist/Socialist way one too many times - and their people are now paying the price.

But of course, we working folk everywhere in this once proud nation have suffered.

The State has taxed its industries and people to near ruin, through the depredations of incomes and earnings to fill its bottomless pit.

The State has provided legal protection and cover to extortion rings - excuse me, unions - which serve to bid up the price of labor beyond all reasonability and made moving that auto plant to Mexico far more enticing.

The State has subsidized the rape and evisceration of this nation's cities, once the thriving and vital heart of our nation, through the publicly supported construction of 'free' infrastructure and subsidization of mortgages which perverts all out of economic reality the true economic cost of suburban living, and left our cities open to the rise and reign of the superthug.

The State has co-opted what could have been the flower of our manhood into its foreign campaigns of imperial conquest, since there are few better job opportunities remaining for men (and women) of working age in Akron or Flint.

The State has sponsored the rise of the welfare moocher class through its War on Poverty, permanently infantilizing a large part of our population and turning our inner cities into barren, violent, jobless wastelands.

The State has devalued our money, the store of our wealth, through the grim mendacity of fiat currency, the government printing press, and nonstop inflation which has destroyed 95% of the value of the dollar since 1913 - coincidentally (or not), the year the Federal Reserve was founded. But of course, the well-connected Wall Street playerz and boyz have become rich off this scheme, so it has served its purpose.

The State directly robs us of our hard earned income by authority of the 16th Amendment.

The State has weakened property rights by socializing the treatment of social issues, so that pollution and crime have run rampant, and the fishermen of South Louisiana can no longer practice their livelihood as they must contend with the 'dead zones' in the Gulf of Mexico.

The State has only provided benefit to those who work for it (including myself - see, I'm part of it too), or are connected to those in power.

Why do we continue to hurtle down this course, when we can clearly see the brick wall into which we are about to smash headlong?

This year, reject mediocrity in public life and do as much as you can to support the true servants of the people.