After the government imposed their fee cap, the marketplace responded predictably.  Banks, including Bank of America, raised fees on consumers in order to cover the cost imposed by the Durbin Amendment.  Caught with his tail between his legs, Durbin and his allies declared war on the banks.  In a letter to the newly codified Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), Durbin accused banks of trying to “sneak fees past” consumer and “urge[d]” the CFPB to “swiftly require financial institutions to post on their websites a standardized, concise and consumer-friendly disclosure form that lists the fees and key terms associated with checking accounts.”

Whether Durbin is successful in fighting back remains to be seen but what we do know is we now have a government agency at the disposal of elected officials that will police marketplace policies, fee structures and pricing decisions.  If it’s not bad enough that the Bureau will make regulatory decisions based on the political whims of politicians, their own justification for regulations are worse.  Much worse.

Testifying before Congress, Raj Date, the temporary head of the Bureau, laid the groundwork in an 802-page document not only for an avalanche of new regulations but their justification for them.  The CFPB’s reasoning for new regulations constitutes nothing less than government imposing its version of social justice on the free market.

Date said that the CFPB would target “abusive” companies but refused to define what exactly abusive means.   It is clear that abusive will be subjectively defined on a case-by-case basis – they will know it when they see it.  Is a fee increase “abusive?”  Based on the actions and rhetoric offer by Durbin, President Obama and the like, it is if that fee is unpopular. How else could they justify advocating government intervention to overturn bank fees?

Empowering an agency to implement the whims of any politician, much less leftists like Obama and Durbin is clearly dangerous. Throw in a little identity politics and you have a perfect storm of social justice toxicity.

As the Wall Street Journal pointed out that the bureau’s drive to regulate will “focus on consumers” and a “data-driven” and “consistent” approach. Some groups will get more attention than others, however—namely, ‘students, Older Americans, Service members, and the underserved.’ Underserved would seem to be a highly subjective standard.”

That is classic “social justice” lingo that treats Americans differently based upon their social status.  In their worldview, students, service members and the “underserved” require special government protection.  How is that equal protection under law?

Our economy is already suffering from the strain of costly and wasteful government regulations.  Should the Senate confirm Richard Cordray, it will unleash a regulatory reign of terror and uncertainty in the name of social justice.   It may make the leftists feel better but won’t create any jobs. But of course, jobs were never the point.

A recent column by The Atlantic’s Emily Berman, a Furman Fellow and Brennan Center Fellow at NYU School of Law, informs the citizenry:

It just got easier for the federal government to collect information about innocent Americans — and those Americans have had surprisingly little say in the matter.

On October 15, the FBI reportedly implemented new rules that relax restrictions on, and oversight of, the FBI’s intelligence collection activities. Although they are not available to the public, reports indicate the changes permit FBI agents to search an individual’s trash with the goal of finding material that might pressure him into becoming a government informant, grant agents the authority to search commercial or law enforcement databases without first opening an investigation, and reduce the type of investigations subjected to heightened oversight because of their relationship to protected First Amendment expression, association, or religious practice.

This is the third modification of the FBI’s intelligence collection authorities since September 11, 2001. First in 2002, again in 2008, and finally, just last week, amendments were adopted with scant public attention and with minimal — if any — congressional involvement. Groups and communities concerned about the new rules’ impact on civil liberties, particularly the risk of religious or ethnic profiling, also had no constructive input.

Granted, heated debate continues over the PATRIOT Act, signed into law after the jihadist attacks of September 11, 2001. Debate is good. It helps all involved – citizenry, government and advocacy groups — to present cogent arguments in pursuit of protections for the US Constitution and the whole of the Charters of Freedom. But the PATRIOT Act, whether you agree with it or not, was the result of a direct enemy attack on our country and was drafted in pursuit of protection for our citizenry. While it may need to be refined, it is a completely different matter from the federal government usurping enumerated limitations on federal authority and protected rights to extract information from an American citizen who is not officially under investigation or to coerce an American citizen in matters not related to national security, and even then without due process.

The Fourth Amendment states quite clearing:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

It’s pretty straightforward; there is a procedure in place (due process) that the federal government must adhere to when engaging an American citizen in matters of law enforcement. To ignore – or usurp – this due process is to ignore the rule of law, which is the bedrock of our Constitutional Republic. To ignore due process, where an American citizen is concerned, is unconstitutional and criminal in nature.

If that weren’t enough, Eric Holder’s Justice Department is also acting to codify a longstanding policy that effectively validates lying to not only the American people but the judicial branch as well:

A longtime internal policy that allowed Justice Department officials to deny the existence of sensitive information could become the law of the land — in effect a license to lie — if a newly proposed rule becomes federal regulation in the coming weeks.

The proposed rule directs federal law enforcement agencies, after personnel have determined that documents are too delicate to be released, to respond to Freedom of Information Act requests ‘as if the excluded records did not exist.’

Justice Department officials say the practice has been in effect for decades, dating back to a 1987 memo from then-Attorney General Edwin Meese.

In that memo, and subsequent similar internal documents, Justice Department staffers were advised that they could reply to certain FOIA requests as if the documents had never been created. That policy never became part of the law — or even codified as a federal regulation — and it was recently challenged in court.

A final version of the proposal could be issued by the end of 2011. If approved, the new rule would officially become a federal regulation with the force of law.

All of this presents the question: Who does one call when the chief law enforcement officer when the federal department responsible for upholding justice ignores our rights and begins acting like Third World or Soviet-era intelligentsia?

From his refusal to protect the voting rights of every citizen, to the blatant, politically based, “social justice” racism executed by his department, along with his pursuit of the deliberate usurpation of the enumerated limitations placed on the federal government to protect the rights of the citizenry in both personal security and our right to know, Mr. Holder has not only been a disgrace to the American system of justice; he has effectively become an enemy to the US Constitution, the whole of the Charters of Freedom and the very ideas of blind justice and liberty.

If, for no other reason, Holder’s exit from the federal government will be one of the major benefits of the Obama Administration coming to an end. But for now, as I asked before, who do you call when 9-1-1 is the criminal?

There seems little doubt that the growing bitter rhetoric of American politics signifies a deep national divide. With the centrist middle ground shrunk and ignored, the language of conflict and war is heard more often now than in recent memory in political debate.

The deep relationship between music and politics that was seen during the 1960s was both reactive and causative; culture drives politics and vice versa. Because music plays a far more important role in the lives of young Americans than it has for any preceding generation the power of music to drive change and respond to it both positively and critically should not be neglected. The message is the medium.

Eaton says that he is aware of the “conditioning” of the left that has so deeply influenced the politics and culture of the country and opposes it with his music. The catastrophic consequences of this conditioning, much of it accomplished with popular music, now ought to be obvious to even the most obtuse observer.

It has long been understood that the radicals of the 60s are now the professors of today. It is no coincidence that there was silence during the campaign of 2008 to the fact that then Senate candidate Obama had begun his Illinois political campaign in the living room of Bernadine Dorhn and Bill Ayers, leaders of the hard left Weather Underground domestic terrorist group and later academics.

Conservatives complain with good cause about leftist indoctrination in American higher education.

A recent study by Stanley Rothman, S. Robert Lichter and Neil Nevitte found that 72 percent of professors teaching at American universities are liberal (by their own description) and 15 percent are conservative. At elite universities, the ratio was 87 percent to 13 percent.

The indoctrination of American students (paid for in large part by hard-pressed conservative parents) in the once esteemed halls of the American academy is the foundation of the conditioning which Eaton and his band mates oppose through their American roots rock music.

By way of illustration, the so-called “Critical Theory and Social Justice” department at Occidental College (one of president Obama’s alma maters) defines itself as

…fundamentally interdisciplinary, drawing on ideas from across traditional academic disciplines. “Critical” refers to various bodies of theory and method Marxism, psychoanalysis, the Frankfurt School, deconstruction, critical race studies, queer theory, feminist theory, postcolonial theory, and intersectionality that interrogate the essentialist assumptions that underlie social identities. “Social justice” refers to an extrajuridical concept of fairness that is focused on exposing and ending social inequalities.

One could be put into extremes of extrajuridical rigid paralysis in trying to determine the applicability, or legitimacy of Occidental’s Course #342 “The Phallus.” While the importance of the phallus cannot be overstated (to do so would offend our feminist friends) one has to wonder how the “study” of such appendage benefits the student in comprehending issues of “social justice.” Does this class have a practicum?

Those on the left for the last five decades convinced themselves that they have a lock on issues of fairness, justice, and the eradication, as much as is possible in the real world, of “inequalities.” They are mistaken.

These are exciting and dangerous times. Music and art are undeniably influential. Conservatives have been slow in advancing the American aesthetic and making it work for the renewal of the country.

Appreciation for our history, our constitution, and our heroes is difficult to inculcate when our young people have been so sorely shortchanged through the course of their incomplete, biased, and anti-climactic overly expensive “educations.”

The creation of a meaningful music for the rejection of failed utopian liberalism ought to be a key mission of American conservative musicians. This new important soundtrack for the conservative revolution doesn’t have stylistic limitations. The Army You Have’s song “Liberty Loves Company” written by guitarist Michael Broderick includes this illustrative lyric

People waking up, they’re beginning to see, brothers and sisters won’t you join with me

We all have our preferences – in addition to positive conservative messages and critical lambasts of the left there is one thing I hope will be included – it’s got to have groove.

The Antelope Valley is a vast patch of desert on the outskirts of Los Angeles County, and a segment of the few rugged individualists who live out there increasingly are finding themselves the targets of armed raids from local code enforcement agents, who’ve assembled into task forces called Nuisance Abatement Teams (NATs).

The plight of the Valley’s desert dwellers made regional headlines when county officials ordered the destruction of Phonehenge: a towering, colorful castle constructed out of telephone poles by retired phone technician Kim Fahey. Fahey was imprisoned and charged with several misdemeanors.

But Fahey is just one of many who’ve been targeted by the NATs, which were assembled at the request of County Supervisor Mike Antonovich in 2006. LA Weekly reporter Mars Melnicoff wrote an in-depth article in which she exposed the county’s tactic of badgering residents with minor, but costly, code violations until they face little choice but to vacate the land altogether.

“They’re picking on the the people who are the most defenseless and have the least resources,” says Melnicoff.

Reason.tv collaborated with Melnicoff to talk with some of the NAT’s targets, such as retired veteran Joey Gallo, who might face homelessness if he’s forced to leave his house, and local pastor Oscar Castaneda, who says he’s already given up the fight and is in the process of moving off the land he and his wife have lived on for 22 years. And, while Antonovich declined an interview, we did catch up with him at a public meeting in order to ask the big question at the center of all this: Why the sudden enforcement of these codes against people living in the middle of the desert, who seemingly are affecting no one?

Writer-Producers: Zach Weissmueller and Tim Cavanaugh. Associate Producer: Mars Melnicoff. Camera: Alex Manning and Weissmueller; edited by Weissmueller.

Approximately 9:48.

Music by Audionautix.com.

Visit Reason.tv for downloadable versions of this and all our videos, and subscribe to Reason.tv’s YouTube Channel to receive automatic notification when new content is posted.

In all of these instances – from London to Milwaukee, Santiago to Philadelphia, one common factor exists: Young people, who have been endowed with a falsely elevated sense of self-esteem, are narcissistically demanding more from a grossly over-extended government entitlement system instituted by Progressives to create a dependent populace. Why would anyone want to create such an unstable and dangerous societal atmosphere? Power.

In its detailed examination of Progressivism, DiscoverTheNetworks.org, states:

“In the progressive worldview, the proper role of government was not to confine itself to regulating a limited range of human activities as the Founders had stipulated, but rather to inject itself into whatever realms the times seemed to demand. The progressives reasoned that although America’s Founders had felt it necessary to limit the power of government because of their experience with King George III, government, as a result of historical evolution, was no longer the menace it once had been; rather, they believed government had become capable of solving an ever-greater array of societal problems — problems the Founders could never have envisioned. Consequently, the progressives called for a more activist government whose regulation of people’s lives was properly determined not by the outdated words of an anachronistic Constitution, but by whatever the American people seemed to need at any given time…

“As its name indicates, progressivism suggests movement toward a goal – in this case, bigger government and increased state control. But it is a gradual, incremental movement rather than a sudden transformation. Progressives endorse evolution (rather than revolution), a process by which society drifts gradually but inexorably toward statism.

“To facilitate this evolution, progressives have sought, ever since their entry into the pages of American history, to infiltrate society’s power structure and its key institutions – the schools, the media, the churches, the entertainment industry, the labor unions, and the three branches of government…”

We can see the intervening hand of Progressivism at the root cause of the civil unrest in Britain, Chile and the United States.

To focus on just one avenue that the Progressive movement has been successful in traveling, they have, for over a generation now, maintained a stranglehold on the American education system. Regardless of the fact that every school district is set up to be locally controlled, for reasons meant to benefit the immediate community, labor unions and special interest groups – enabled by over-reaching state and federal governments – have wrestled control of not only the classroom from locally elected school board authority, but curriculum as well. Today, instead of teaching critical thinking skills so that our children learn how to think; so that they learn how to educate themselves for their lives, Progressives have instituted an education system that teaches our children what to think. Putting it bluntly, they have instituted a system of education that indoctrinates our children into a Progressive line of thinking.

Again from DiscoverTheNetworks.org:

“In 1913, the Progressive historian Charles Beard published “An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States,” which offered a Marxist view of history…It portrayed America’s Founding Fathers as basically selfish men who had established a form of government that they thought would benefit them, and only them, financially. From Beard’s premise, it was a short logical leap to discredit the Constitution itself as ‘essentially an economic document’ unworthy of the lasting reverence of legislators, judges, or ordinary citizens…”

To spotlight this tactic as it is used today, I need only allude to the many instances and stories emanating from the many classrooms that report the use of curriculum portraying our Founders and Framers as bigoted and racist slave owners, rather than the guardians of liberty who struggled during the debates of both the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution over the issue of slavery.

An accurate reading of history includes the fact that Thomas Jefferson had included the abolishment of slavery in the Declaration of Independence only to have it removed after a vicious debate on the subject. It was only removed to facilitate the enlistment of the whole of the colonies in the revolution. Yet, today, Progressive curriculum teaches our children that Jefferson was not only a slave owner, but that he had fathered a child by one of his slaves, Sally Hemings. Today’s history lesson of Mr. Jefferson omits the fact that there were seven Jefferson men with the same DNA at Monticello during the time that Ms. Hemings would have been with child. The lesson also omits, almost in total, any examination of the philosophy held by Mr. Jefferson with regard to humanity, revolution, government or society. Today, Jefferson, instead of being a brilliant visionary and a part of the creation of unique system of government new to all the world, he is a slave owning White man who impregnated a slave.

This singular example of Progressive manipulation established, understood and accepted, one of the most damaging and manipulative tactics used by the Progressive Movement in our education system is the artificially elevated self-esteem of our children. Today, Progressives instill in our children an unearned sense of self-worth; a falsely elevated self-esteem. Teachers and group administrators have been deceived into believing that by manufacturing a faux pride usually reserved for the realization of an achieved success, they can advance the educational capabilities of the child. These useful, albeit in many cases well-meaning, “idiots,” as it were, have taken to eliminating the need to keep score at recreational sporting events, to awarding first prizes to everyone, to making sure “everyone is a winner,” etc.

In reality, depriving a child of “learning how to lose” deprives them – robs them – of the critical lesson of how to learn from their failures – a lesson more valuable than learning how to achieve. And when a child has no skill set that can address failure; no skill set to derive a lesson from the failure so as to turn that failure into a victory, into a learning experience, into a success, what the “system” has created is an angry, frustrated individual possessing an entitlement mindset but who is less the critical thinking tools to affect achievement on an individual level. The Progressive education “system” has been producing individuals who believe they are entitled to everything and responsible for nothing.

When we understand the tactics used by the Progressives to affect a generation of those who they can enslave to entitlement, we can more clearly see just how much damage they have already done.

As British new media columnist John Phelan points out in addressing the riots engulfing the streets of Britain:

“There was always the danger that people on the left would seek to use this unrest as a vehicle for their own pet causes. Ken Livingstone proved again just what an irrelevant lump of 80’s nostalgia he is by blaming, not the current government, but that of Margaret Thatcher. Others have consulted their A-level sociology textbooks and pinned the blame on the rioting youths’ ‘disenfranchisement’ or ‘deprivation.’

“None of this third rate Marxist rubbish holds up if you leave the lecture hall and come face to face with the rioters. It is almost impossible to think of a way these people are disenfranchised. Each and every one of them has the franchise. When they reach 18 they will have the right to vote. They may choose not to use it, but that’s up to them.

“Neither did the rioters I saw look particularly deprived. The closest things they have to uniforms are Franklin & Marshall jumpers, which retail for about £60 each. Most of them were filming their rampages on iPhones which can retail at over £400.

“The poverty these kids have is moral, not financial. Many of them come from broken families which derive most of their support from the state. Neither they, nor their parents, have ever had to face consequences or take responsibility in their lives. If a girl gets pregnant the state pays. If they’d rather pose about like a gangster than get a job, the state pays. And if they commit a crime state punishment is often a joke. So, they behave as they please.”

In one instance a British rioter, admittedly drinking wine at “half nine in the morning” was quoted as saying, “…that’s what it’s all about, showing the police we can do what we want.” Another youthful looter bragged, “We’re getting our taxes back.”

From Birmingham, UK, to Milwaukee, Wisconsin to Santiago, Chile, the scene plays out the same. Progressives have succeeded in creating a “Dependent Class” out of a generation of intellectually manufactured narcissists, all in the name of “social justice”; all under the wicked institution of social engineering; all at the hand of Socialism. Today, that “Dependent Class” is angry because the utopian promises made by glad-handing Progressive politicians and elitists to create an all providing nanny state has failed at the weight of the cost of those promises…and the world pays the price.

The unrest in the West is not racially motivated. It is not a battle between the “haves” and the “have nots.” It is the result of a reckless experiment in social engineering executed by the power-hungry that used our children as guinea pigs. What we are witnessing is the natural result of a failed Progressive ideology and the intellectual destruction of a generation. What we are witnessing is the result of a true crime against humanity.

Sadly, no court in the world will hold the Progressive monsters accountable for their crimes…because, my friends, Progressives own the courts.

God help us all.

Leroy has one quarter, one dime, one nickel, and one penny. Two of the coins are in his left pocket and the other two coins are in his right pocket. The coins have been randomly placed in the two pockets.

What is the probability that Leroy will be able to purchase a 30-cent candy bar with the two coins in his left pocket? Using the coins, explain your reasoning.

We didn’t know it at the time, but while we busily charted all of Leroy’s different coin combinations, we were actually being taught to tacitly approve of America’s exploitative capitalistic system.

Think that’s taking things a bit too far?

Read the words of a “fair trade” blogger and judge for yourself:

“Did you know that child slavery is a common practice on cocoa farms in Ivory Coast, the world’s biggest supplier of cocoa beans? Don’t feel too bad if you didn’t know – I didn’t either until a few days ago. But now I know and so do you. I’m a huge chocoholic but now there is no enjoying a non-fair trade bar of chocolate, knowing a child may have been forced to pick the beans. There’s no going back. … Picking cocoa beans is hard and dangerous work. It takes 400 beans to produce a pound of chocolate so these kids work long and hard to get enough cocoa for even a few bars. No wonder most chocolate bars are so cheap and fair trade chocolate is so expensive.”

The average American “oppressor” would say that the correct answer to sample problem is, “Leroy has a one-in-three chance of having the right combination of coins in his pocket to buy the candy bar.”

But according to the social justice crowd, the correct answer should be, “Leroy is contributing to the oppression of the cocoa bean pickers of the world by purchasing a non-fair trade candy bar.”(Students who suggest charging Leroy with a hate crime would be given extra credit.)

Proponents of incorporating social justice issues into math lessons argue that to ignore the child labor that was used to help produce the candy bar is to blind students to the plight of the cocoa bean pickers. Math, therefore, is perpetuating the problem.

But don’t take my word for it. Listen to the words of Paulo Freire, one of the pioneers of bringing social justice lessons into the classroom. Freire has said that “Washing one’s hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral.”

That sentiment is echoed throughout “The Guide for Integrating Issues of Social and Economic Justice into Mathematics Curriculum,” by Jonathan Osler.

In his guide, Osler writes:

“ … [T]he systemic and structural oppression of low income and people of color in the United States is worsening. The number of people in prison continues to grow, as do unemployment rates. Billions of dollars that were once available for social programs and education have been diverted to pay for war. …

“These problems and many others are being addressed by community organizations and activists, and often find their way into assignments in Social Studies and English classes. However, in math classes around the country, perhaps the best places to study many of these issues, we continue to use curricula and models that lack any real-world, let alone socially relevant, contexts. A great opportunity to educate our young people about understanding and addressing these myriad issues continues to be squandered.” (emphasis added)

The purpose of Osler’s guide is to provide ways in which teachers can bring social justice topics into their lesson plans.

For example, Osler suggests that a lesson about mathematical averages can used to critique the US’s war in Iraq. Students can “take casualty data for the past 12 months and calculate a monthly average from the perspective (of) a military recruiter and from an anti-war activist.”

Instead of discussing random coins in pockets, probability lessons can be used to raise awareness of racial profiling by exploring “the probability that a traffic stop should be (and is) a person of color.”

Geometry lessons can be used to “look at how many liquor stores/fast food chains are within a 1-mile radius or within 5 blocks of your schools. This can be compared with schools in other neighborhoods.” Better still is a geometry lesson that tackles “environmental racism” by having students “determine the density of toxic waste facilities, factories, dumps, etc. in the neighborhood.”

Lessons about war budgets, incarceration rates, AIDS cases and homelessness are also identified.

The social justice crowd knows that many Americans still cling to the antiquated notion that math teachers should stick to teaching students about math and not politics. Osler answers that criticism by arguing:

“Our classrooms are politicized spaces before we walk in the door because political parties in our country are dictating what should and should not be happening in our classrooms. What we’re supposed to teach, and how we’re supposed to teach it, has been predetermined by someone with a political agenda. My goal is to provide my students with varied sources of information and support them in coming to their own conclusions.”

Osler isn’t finished. He concedes that math can be used to help people, but argues:

“ … [M]ore often it has been used to hurt them. Math was behind the development of nuclear weapons. It is used to maintain an economic divide between a handful of wealthy, White people and the billions of poor people of color around the world. It is used as a rationale for depriving people of access to cheap, life-saving drugs. So my question is: what good has the progress of mathematics as an intellectual discipline done for people? Maybe if our mathematics had a background in social justice, we wouldn’t have so many people suffering around the world.”

There was a time when math class existed to train the next generation of engineers and researchers. Now, math class is being used to inspire the next generation of social activists and community organizers.

That is why it is not surprising that in 2009, only 40 percent of fourth graders had math skills that rated as proficient or advanced, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Even worse, only 32 percent of eighth grade math students tests at those levels.

Americans are continually reminded that “the Earth is flat,” meaning our economy is so entwined with the global economy, that U.S. workers are competing for jobs against workers in China, India and the rest of the world.

Despite these new realities, our public schools are promoting this silly “social justice” curriculum which substitutes the essentials for fuzzy concepts of fairness and equality.  This is academic malpractice, and it is the economic equivalent of unilateral disarmament.

The laughter you hear is coming from China.

The target of Uncut’s “Pay Up” ire is U2’s lead singer Bono, a man who entreats international governments to support global aid organizations, but who allegedly refuses to contribute his share of the taxes needed to fund the good works he supports.

With the help of rock stars and Hollywood collectivists, Marxist-minded politicians have hammered home the message that only by “sharing” can a person truly be caring.  Without realizing the ramifications of the share-the-wealth philosophy, those who’ve worked hard to portray capitalism as evil and promoted the merits of reordering the economic structure have invited the turmoil currently raining down upon their own heads.

Presently, the message to pay up is being directed towards anti-capitalists whose extravagant hypocrisy is being called into question by the very people they’ve indoctrinated.

It’s the same story everywhere: the little people have shame heaped upon their heads for not doing enough, giving enough, caring enough and above all not sharing enough.  In the name of fairness and good will, those with plenty have insisted that those with less take a smaller and smaller piece of the pie while the ones doing the asking sacrifice little or nothing.

Apparently, this is the case for a global activist and passionate defender of the downtrodden who lives in a country presently on the brink of bankruptcy – Paul David Hewson, lead singer and famous face of U2, better known as Bono.

While he’s bringing “Hope to Haiti,” someone should inform Bono that mother country Ireland “has already accepted an international bailout, is suffering through deep spending cuts, tax hikes and rising unemployment as it tries to pull the debt-burdened economy back from brink of bankruptcy.”

The question is: Why would one of country’s wealthiest citizens deprive his homeland of the millions in Euros that would assist Ireland’s struggling economy? How does one accept kudos for fighting poverty while avoiding paying taxes?  The answer is easy – for liberals it’s all about symbolism.

Collective do-gooders push government-enforced altruism on others while exempting themselves.  Many are legalists who, like tainted preachers, use the world as their pulpit and righteous causes as vestments.  Many are hypocrites who hammer the global congregation into submission by legislating a type of philanthropic morality they seldom live themselves.

It’s alleged that offstage, U2 band members spend time scurrying around trying to find ways to keep every penny of $720 million they’ve earned for themselves. Supposedly, to accomplish that goal, in 2006 U2 moved “much of its business affairs from Ireland to the Netherlands. That move came after the Irish government reduced tax breaks for income earned from ‘works of artistic merit.’”

Bono campaigning against poverty while seeking to find creative ways to pay less in taxes is not going over well with people who’ve been victimized by overbearing tax systems instituted to assist in creating the world vision Bono believes in.

The duplicity is stunning, because Bono co-founded a UK group called “One International.”   One does not solicit contributions from the public, but pressures people to call political leaders into account for their commitment to implementing anti-poverty policies.  The website includes touching stories called Living Proof, tales that celebrate “incredible progress being achieved by some of the world’s poorest people,” thanks to “governments’ backing.”

Could it be that Bono is unaware that fighting the fight against “extreme poverty,” which is a laudable goal by anyone’s standard, requires the contribution of tax money if government is the answer to the problem?

Yet, in all fairness, people like Bono are really victims themselves, placard carriers who thrive on having an image perceived to be a force for good. These famous people play music at ‘We are One’ Inaugural Concerts for presidents who believe in “spreading the wealth,” but when presented with the opportunity to contribute to the “oneness” they profess, they look for ways to protect private assets.

Truth is, Bono is more to be pitied than censured.  Without fully realizing it, the U2 front man is a soft-core sympathizer of Marxist philosophy.  At the top, people like Bono are viewed as “useful idiots,” public figures whose fame can be used to send musical messages that more sacrifice is required to usher in true social justice, so as to inflict guilt on the proletariat.

Art Uncut spokesman Steve Taylor, proud anti-capitalist proselyte and U2 protester, said “The money that’s nestling in U2’s bank account really should be helping to offset some of the pain that the Irish are experiencing at the moment,” a sentiment Mr. Hewson would probably applaud if Taylor were talking about a bank account that wasn’t his.

Despite hard times, the group U2 has no problem collecting £195 plus booking fees from 170,000 concertgoers to perform at the sold-out Glastonbury 2011 “extravaganza.” The concert includes sets by “Morrissey, Mumford & Sons, Coldplay, [and] Beyonce” as well as others who likely believe social justice can be achieved by using other people’s money.

Luckily, at the concert “Rubber boots [are] the fashion item of choice after heavy rain turned the 364-hectare site into a mud bath.” The boots will definitely come in handy when the reapportion-the-wealth-for-thee-but- not-for-me muck and mire starts to pile up, as it surely will.

Nevertheless, we see that double standards continue to prevail in the world of do-gooders, as exemplified by Bono, a man whose “Mysterious Ways” include promulgating equality and social justice while living like a dedicated capitalist.  Bono asks governments to contribute to addressing world poverty, but looks to avoid taxes and turns out to be just another in a long line of well-meaning albeit hypocritical activists “Trying to Throw [their] Arms around the World,” but doing it with other people’s money.