Project vote smart 2008 Philp Berg

http://www.votesmart.org/npat.php?can_id=59813#11301

plus today I went to Channel 2 in Jack London Square and recorded my 5 minute spot, which blind confusion about the ending signal when I was pressured to say "my name is Philip Berg adn I approved this message" ,

I asked the voters to watch what Nancy Pelosi does as opposed to what she says before they decide that she is in favor in peace or for the people economically. I pointed that she and Democratic leaders bear jprimary responsibility for the housing bust by trashing the legacy of FDR who understood that the great depression was created by the banks because the banks are a governmnent created monopoloy. FDR created Glass Steagle to control the bank monopoly, and the repeal of glass steagal destroyed that control, leading to massive loaning to margined buyers, just like the 1920s margin buying of stocks. Nothing better than hoisting her on her own pittard. also reminded listeners of her leadership in the Democrats supporting the Iraq War resolution even if she did vote against it., she led for it, and that was a violation of her oath to protect the constitution against all enemies Domestic (sic).

Hey Phil,

  As I told you yesterday, I think FDR was largely *responsible* for the Depression, so I personally wouldn't have criticized Pelosi for "trashing his legacy." I think his "legacy" *needs* to be trashed! If I could pick one of those two for the public to sour on, I would definitely pick FDR over Pelosi. But I'm glad you went and recorded the TV spot!

  Glad also to see you completed the Project VoteSmart profile. In general I think you did a commendable job on the policy positions. Here is some specific feedback:

• I agree with you on the importance of supporting missile defense, and probably would have responded as you did, making this an exception to cutting military spending. I would want it to be voluntarily funded, but of course they do not include that as an option in the survey. 8( If it's possible to revise your answers, you might include a note about that, if you also feel that those things government legitimately should be doing, should be voluntarily funded.

• I notice that you checked both "Support programs to provide prison inmates with vocational and job-related skills and job-placement assistance when released" and "Eliminate all federal programs designed to reduce unemployment" which seems a bit contradictory!

• I'm glad you included this important statement: "Opposition to federal support of any activity should not be confused with opposition to that activity being accomplished. In most cases, essential activities of society are best performed through local actions of responsible and caring adults."

• On the immigration section, I notice you did not check off "Support amnesty for illegal immigrants already working in the United States." Was this an oversight? You do support freedom of movement between countries, don't you?

• I also notice you opposed the U.S. supporting an independent Kosovo. Perhaps you interpreted the question as asking whether the U.S. government should spend money on this. I interpret "support" in that context as "favor," and would have responded "yes" in line with principles of secession. It seems fairly obvious that the majority of people living in Kosovo want independence.

• It's a matter of disagreement among Libertarians, so I may not convince you on this, but I think you're too quick to write off free trade agreements. True they are not intrinsically necessary to free trade, any more than school vouchers (which you supported) are intrinsically necessary to education reform -- but I think that they often represent a positive step in getting from here to there, and that more free trade happens in practice *with* these agreements than would happen *without* them. (I notice that you left the second "A" off "NAFTA", if they'll let you fix typos.)

• I thought this was a terrific response: "Which is more important - people having social security or the future of the Social Security System? The government has destroyed the average person's ability to be reasonable economically secure by creating a financial system that continuously undermines savings through chronic inflation and undermine bank returns by manipulating interest rates lower. The real path to real social security is through reforming the financial system so that prices and the value of money remain stable over the long term."

Love & Liberty,
        ((( starchild )))

Nobody despises FDR and what he did more than I, but he is universally revered, and on this one issue,glass steagall, he got it right,in spades, and Pelosi and Clinton got charmed and bought off by sandy Weill so he pursue his maniacle metasis of Citicorp, a major progenator of the boom, and the Rasputin of worldcom and Enron. Just good politics to use her trashing of FDR's most important positive legacy against her. The rest are areas where I was torn, and fully aware of trade offs, but didn't want to leave too many questions unanswered or waffling. In the case of prisoner training, private training was not excluded, and in fact there is a very good example right here in SF in the form of Delancy Street movers and restaurant.

Phil:

As a Libertarian how can you possibly be in favor of Glass-Steagall?
For starters, it established the Federal Deposit Insurance
Corporation. But more importantly, unless they are committing fraud
(an entirely separate issue), why should banks be allowed to do
whatever they want on the free market (assuming competition is not
restricted through use of government charters, etc.)?

-Derek

Derek, didn't we have this conversation years ago. Banks are supported by two pillars of fraud and a gun of coercion. Fraud is the continuous expansion of the money supply by the Fed. Fraud two is the fractional reserve system, where depositors are given a promise to be payed deposits upon demand and those demands cannot be met as promised, if more than a small percentage of the the depositors make the demand, the gun is used to force the citizenry to accept the paper that the bnks trade in as legal tender, not the coercion of taxes that support the faith behind the entire fraud. So there is absolutely no free market in money in this country and hasn't been any for mostof our history. At least Glass Steagall kept the genie a little constrained by regulating the commercial banks and limiting the access of investment banks to the commercial banks bottomless credit line at the Fed. If we get through the immediate crisis, God forbid, then the moral hazard will metasticize by a another order of magnitude, and it is doubtfull that another round can be tolerated without making Boliviia look prosperous compared to the United States.

I don't think FDR is as universally revered as he used to be. One bright side to the failures of government education is that students aren't learning as much statist history as they used to, because they aren't learning as much history, period. That gives us an opening to educate people about what really happened, for example giving the second Roosevelt the blame he deserves for the economic suffering of the 1930s. Perhaps the best thing to let people know about Franklin Roosevelt is that he signed the executive order interning Japanese American citizens in concentration camps. The indefensibility of that highly politically incorrect act is something that young people today will tend to understand.

Love & Liberty,
        ((( starchild )))

On the history from this gives me an opportunity to share a little tidbit. This summer I met a tourist from Hamburg F F\Germany and I asked him soething that had bothered me years . IN 92 I toured Hamberg briefly and was impressed by the prevalent modern architecture. One question troubled me.I couldn't grasp why the waterfront was surrounded by square block after block of gigantic red brick victorian warehouses that towered maybe 5 or more stories and seemed to be in pristine condition. Why wern't they destroyed??? Easy the german told me, Big American corproations had interests in the waterfront prpoperties, ,the industrial areas were spared while the civilian areas were bombed into the stone age. the greatest generation at work. the same guys who never laid a bomb anywhere Auschewitz. I'm gonna fry for this someday.