Three years done, one more to go: Third Session, 49th Congress adjourns for summer

The Third Session of Patria's 49th Congress adjourned for the [northern hemisphere] summer recess today, delivering the annual Message to Congress (Patria's version of the State of the Union address) shortly after ratifying Patria's fiscal 2014 budget. By unwritten tradition, the budget is the last legislative act of Congress each year before the end of the session. As in 2013, the budget contains plenty of the A-word (austerity, if you hadn't already guessed) along with the now-usual crappy economic news. With only one year and a couple days until the inauguration of the 50th Congress and election day - April 19, 2014 - coming sooner than you think, Campaign 2014 is for all practical purposes officially under way.

The following is the text of Patria's annual message for 2013.

XLIX Con. Pat.

Annual Message to Congress (at closing of Session)

June 27, 2013

Om brghu-ksetra-samun-milat-para-daivata-tesase namah. Adorations to the Mother who is the divine glory of the awakening land of Patria. With the Divine Mother’s blessings, the 49^th Congressus Patriaë has completed three quarters of its term of office.

 At the three-quarter pole, can one find anyone in Patria who feels that he or she has recovered from the Great Recession or GED (Global Economic Downturn)? Much like the previous two sessions, this third session ends with more dismal economic news, the very real possibility of Patria’s economy sliding back into full-blown recession, nothwithstanding the glass-half-full spin-meisters who trumpet that the Great Recession ended in 2009 and foolishly proclaim the economy to be robust and growing. Just as in the United States and much of Europe, over the course of this session of Congress Patria made some tough economic choices and must continue to put its fiscal house in order going forward to the 2014 election cycle. In Patria’s fiscal 2014 budget, which was ratified by Congress earlier today, once again the key word is austerity: public sector jobs will be chopped, government services will be reduced, and there is virtually nothing the scruffy band of “Occupy Patria” protesters or the liberal lapdog media can do to stop the cuts. Therefore, be warned: if you have not already felt them, the cutbacks are coming. The austerity cobra is ready to strike. Its fangs are bared. But know this: if you are fortunate enough to still have a job, over the course of the next session and the 2014 election campaign you will – thanks to the Diet Coke Party and the Swadeshis factions – at least enjoy the benefits of reduced taxes and smaller, less intrusive government in your take-home pay.

 While political Marxism is almost a spent force, surviving only in a few macro-national hell-holes such as Cuba and North Korea, the evil scourge of Cultural Marxism continues to threaten Patria more than two decades since the Berlin Wall fell and the once-mighty Soviet Union ceased to exist. In this session we have continued to carry on the struggle to promote both economic and social conservative values, to nip in the bud any effort to revive the soul-destroying failed doctrines of Soviet-era communism, to fight the leftist arbiters of political correctness at every turn, to ensure that this Congress remains a forum for open debate of issues that mainstream liberals and conservatives alike are unable or unwilling to address, and to make Patria a safe place for politically incorrect dissident-rightist libertarian-conservative non-violent thought.

 In this session, Patria has been forced to deal with the politically incorrect fact that radical Islamism – not the Islam religion per se – is incompatible with Patria’s peaceful, orderly way of life, based on the precepts of Sanatan Dharma, free from sectarian struggles, imported civil wars and random acts of terrorism. Of course, the vast majority of Muslims are not terrorists. But as we cannot fail to note, from the World Trade Center to the Boston Marathon the vast majority of terrorists are Muslim. Peaceful, otherwise law-abiding mainstream Muslim organizations and mosques tolerate the radicals and terrorists in their midst or have failed to boot them out. As in America, Patria must address the issue of patriotic immigration reform, root out illegal immigrants and deport them immediately, and admit only legal immigrants who are open, ready and willing to embrace Patria’s non-violent values, Vedic culture and Hindu heritage. Going forward into the Fourth Session, there must be no amnesty or path to citizenship for illegal immigrants. Citizenship in Patria, whether by birth or naturalization, is a privilege and not a right.

 Another macro-national issue, gay marriage, has remained a hot-button issue over the course of this session. Same-sex marriages have been legal in Canada for some time and may be coming soon to several American states, as just the other day the US Supreme Court struck down the so-called Defense of Marriage Act. But here in Patria, while there is zero tolerance for discrimination against gays and lesbians in employment, public acommodations and the like, and the cowards who perpetrate homophobic acts of violence against gays and lesbians will be vigorously prosecuted and severely punished, marriage must remain a sacred bond and lifetime commitment between a man and a woman, and only between a man and a woman. If someday the Supreme Court of Patria should rule otherwise, you can be assured that no pandit, priest, pastor or rabbi in Patria will ever be required to perform a gay marriage.

 As Congress adjourns for the summer recess, Patria renews the call for non-violent satyagraha. Just as Mahatma Gandhi did in India back in the last century, we call for Patria to rise up and boycott imported garments – in this case to boycott made-in-Bangladesh t-shirts, drawstring pants and the like and the big-box retailers such as Walmart, Joe Fresh and H&M who sell such clothing at a low price in dollars or rupees but at a cost of thousands of human lives, mostly women, lost in the collapse of a gigantic sweatshop factory while working long hours for penny-ante wages in order to satisfy the First World’s demand for bargain-rate fashions. The garment industry’s race to the bottom is a race that Patria should not enter. It is a race whose finish line is in Dhaka, Bangladesh, which perhaps not coincidentally sounds somewhat like “Dachau”. We know of the “hundred mile diet” in which as much as possible of the food we eat is grown with a 100 mile or 62.5 kilometer radius of our homes. In the fight against Bangladeshi imports and in protest against the inhuman working conditions of Bangladeshi sweatshops, to say nothing of the loss of garment industry jobs by the thousands in Patria, Canada, the United States and other first-world democracies, citizens of Patria should adopt the “hundred mile wardrobe” and wear only made-in-Patria clothes, preferably traditional apparel such as kurtas, dhotis and saris, that have been manufactured within a 100 mile radius of home – if not produced at home with fabric spun on a spinning wheel, Gandhi style.

 Although campaigning for the election of 2014 has already begun for all practical purposes, particularly for National Unionists and Swadeshis, the summer between the Third and Fourth Sessions is the more-or-less official beginning of the election campaign for the new Congress. As we all know, on April 19, 2014 we will elect the 50^th Congress, the Congress that will take Patria toward its bicentennial in 2018. The 50^th Congress campaign, which we can follow on Twitter @Patria1818 by using the hashtag #PatriaVotes2014, will not only be considered a referendum on Patria’s economy – or Patria’s handling of the fallout from the GED – but a debate on whether the “Positive Possibilities” platform of the 2010 campaign can remain a viable path for Patria. Going into Campaign 2014, all parties, liberal or conservative, spiritual or secular – from the major players to the single-issue fringe parties and even the single-seat party of ones – must be all-in for the fight against globalism, outsourcing, offshoring and other nefarious job-killing local economy-destroying schemes being plotted in the boardrooms of New York and the lobbies of Washington DC. Patria’s economy must be reclaimed and restructured for the benefit of Patria and Patrienish citizens first, last and above all. After all, this is our Patria, isn’t it? Let us make a pledge to meet in September and bring to this House and to the 50^th Congress campaign trail bold new initiatives to fight the globalists and plutocrats, put Patria first, take back Patria’s economy and bring the jobs home.

Under the power vested in me by the Constitution of Patria, I declare closed the Third Session of the 49^th Congress, and call this Congress to re-assemble here on Monday, the 16^th of September 2013, to open the Fourth Session of the 49^th Congress.

2013, XLIX Con. Pat.  The above text is an official transcription, as published in The Congressional Record, June 27, 2013, 3·XLIX

More austerity in works as Congress returns to work

Patria's Congress has returned from summer recess, kicking off the Third Session of the 49th Congress (3·XLIX 2012-13). The opening of the new session of Congress usually takes place on the third Monday of September, but was delayed a couple days because of Rosh Hashanah and Ganesh Chaturthi. On the order paper, picking up right where Congress left off in June, are more austerity measures, more cuts to government programs and services, a possible devaluation of the Patrienish Rupee, and likely the return of the Occupy Patria movement. With the US election coming up in November, Patria is also awaiting a possible transition to the Romney administration, although hopeful of four more years of Obama.

The session begins with the NHL locked out and the possibility of all or part of the upcoming hockey season being wiped out as in 2004-05. But there's always the Patrienish Hockey League. Castoropolis Centurions v. Caesarea Violets is the Leafs-Habs rivalry of the PHL.

Bitter economic pills as Congress adjourns at midterm

The Second Session of Patria's 49th Congress adjourned today for its summer recess (winter recess for our friends in Australia, New Zealand, Argentina, etc.) with the traditional "State of the Union" annual message to Congress warning of some bitter economic medicine - aka European-style austerity - with no real promise of recovery. Note also an endorsement in the 2012 US presidential race.

The following is the text of the Annual Message to Congress:

Om premamritanandamayyai nityam namo namah. Adorations to the Mother who is full of divine love and immortal bliss.  With the Divine Mother’s blessings, the 49^th Congressus Patriaë has reached the midpoint of its term of office. 

 At the mid-term mark, we can say that Patria’s economy has improved marginally from this time a year ago when citizens of Patria were exhorted to take up smoking as a means of creating jobs and creating tax revenue. Certainly there has been some improvement since the annual message to Congress that was delivered on this day in 2009 or since the start of the GED [Global Economic Downturn] in late 2008. Nonetheless the economy has not improved enough so that the danger of sliding back into recession has abated. There is still a very real possibility of a double-dip recession in the upcoming quarter of this year, as has already happened in the United Kingdom, or even a full-blown Euro zone-style depression such as in Spain or Greece.

While voters in France and Greece have rejected austerity, in Patria the need to rein in government spending, cut the bloated bureaucracy, stop the gravy train dead in its tracks and reduce the burden of taxation is no greater than in the Euro zone, Rob Ford’s Toronto, or the Tea Party’s vision of America. Both the Positive Possibilities and Diet Coke Party coalitions know, as do most of the small independent parties, that in the remaining two years of this Congress’ term of office some bitter economic pills, such as cutting thousands of public-sector jobs and slashing the budgets of virtually every federal, precinct and local government department or ministry, must be swallowed in order to stave off a new great depression, the likes of which will make the 1930s seem like boom times. Austerity – or tapas, to use the Sanskrit term – is the price that must be paid in order to avoid a massive debt crisis that we, our children and our children’s children will be paying down for decades to come. Austerity is the short term pain for long-term gain so that Patria’s economy can truly grow, made-in-Patria will replace made-in-China, and an entire generation of college graduates will have a better future than unpaid internships, short-term contract jobettes, and minimum wage jobs as McDonalds burger flippers and Starbucks baristas, still living with mom and dad in their 30s, still paying off student loans in their 40s, and still unmarried and childless in their 50s, unable to bear the cost of settling down to raise a family thanks to decades of debt.

As the economy in Patria and in the macro-world failed to thrive in 2011 and 2012, this session of Congress witnessed the growth of the Occupy movement. Beginning on Wall Street, proliferating among the major cities of North America and Europe, it was not long before this rag-tag, unwashed, scruffy band of anarchists, leftists, stoners, unemployed and unemployable set up camp in Vivekananda Park, in full view of the Castoropolis Stock Exchange. Our message to the occupiers, should they return this summer, perhaps like in Quebec, using university students as pawns in their game: some of the “one percenters” you so despise got to be part of the one percent by marketing personal care products such as soap, shampoo and deodorant. Introduce yourself to these products, get a job, work hard, and become productive members of society. Even if your job pays only a minuscule fraction of what the average “one percenter” takes home, you will at least derive satisfaction from the simple acts of paying a mortgage, balancing a checkbook, filing an income tax return and other adult responsibilities.

 Only a few days ago, massive budget cuts and apathy to public broadcasting on the part of Canada’s ruling Conservative government forced the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation to end Radio Canada International’s shortwave broadcasts after almost 70 years on the air. Nothwithstanding the extent of austerity measures, this Congress is committed to providing adequate funding so that Ramrajyavani may continue to broadcast to the world via shortwave radio, which is not an electronic relic or a refuge for nerds and luddites, but a cost-effective, easily accessible, virtually censorship-resistant method of broadcasting that has done yeoman service for nine decades, can reach parts of the world where internet access is restricted, unavailable or unaffordable, and will still be functioning even in times of natural disasters, extended power outages and internet censorship.

Two years ago, the Inaugural Address proclaimed that “Patria must be made a safe place for social conservatives”. But Patria’s social conservative values do not particularly include those shibboleths so dear to Republicans in the US and right-wingers generally such as outlawing abortion – that tired old horse left the barn in 1973 – or banning gay marriages, or limiting grade school sex education classes to abstinence only. Patria’s social conservative values, however, do include modest dress for women. In Patria we believe women should dress with the dignity worthy of visiting a temple or tirtha [place of pilgrimage, e.g. Kayavarohan]. Though not by passing of legislation mandating formal dress codes such as in Iran, Patria will nonetheless continue to insist that women and girls avoid dressing like sluts and tempting men into violence and unwanted sexual advances, or at least luring men to believe that they are fair game. Patria will continue to advocate social conservative values in order to make this realm a safe place and a comfort zone for those men who chose to practice lifelong celibacy through monastic vows or those who have had celibacy thrust upon them by lacking in National Union-style traditional male macho or by being on the autistic spectrum and never being able to experience an intimate relationship. Patria commits itself to creating a safe community for such introverted, sensitive, socially lacking men in the remaining two years of this Congress.

During the second session, as Tim Tebow’s legend grew on and off the field, the former Denver Broncos and now New York Jets quarterback became a role model for Patria’s youth. Being so intensely grounded in his faith, proudly proclaiming his virginity, never uttering a four-letter word stronger than “gosh”, and maintaining a scrubbed, milk-fed, clean-cut appearance when out of his football uniform, Tim Tebow is a shining example of the social conservatism that Patria is seeking to instill. We can only hope that Tebow’s fundamentalist Christianity will not stand in the way of his being open to the unconditional love of the Amrita Party’s house leader and someday receiving Amma’s darshan.

Patria generally does not endorse candidates or parties in foreign or macro-national elections. But as America votes in November and US citizens in Patria take the necessary steps to register and obtain absentee ballots, Patria will, albeit rather unenthusiastically and with some reservations, endorse Barack Obama for a second term as President of the United States. Yes, the world’s most powerful economy has mostly failed to turn around. And for all the promises of “change” that have actually been delivered in the past four years, the Obama administration might as well be George W. Bush’s third term. The continued imprisonment of alleged terrorists without trial or charges and targeted assassinations of US citizens by drone missiles would even outdo Bush. Just as in 1980, a weak, dithering incumbent Democrat has bumbled away four years doing too little to repair a failing economy and deal with an ongoing crisis in the Persian Gulf. But to the Republicans in America and their supporters in Patria: this is not 1980, Barack Obama is not Jimmy Carter, and Ronald Reagan is not walking through that door. Neither is Rick Santorum or Ron Paul. To many US Republicans, and true paleo-conservatives in Patria, Mitt Romney is a mediocre, uninspiring RINO – Republican in name only – who has little to run on except extreme wealth and a father who managed to persuade people to drive Ramblers and Gremlins. Romney is a dishwater-dull, bland near-centrist claiming to be a bona fide conservative, following in the tradition of Bob Dole in 1996 or John McCain in 2008. One can only wonder “is this the best the GOP can do”? At least Dole and McCain were decorated war veterans. It is a rather dismal choice that Americans face, particularly for economic and social conservatives, but also for liberals and progressives who are still awaiting the promises of hope and change.

 Om Sri Gurubhyo Namah. Hari Om.

Vishwa me shanti rahe. Let peace prevail on earth. 

Under the power vested in me by the Constitution of Patria, I declare closed the Second Session of the 49^th Congress, and call this Congress to re-assemble here on Wednesday, the 19^th of September 2012, to open the Third Session of the 49^th Congress.

Patria's 2012-13 budget: austerity is the word

At some point during the week of June 25-29, the Speaker of the House will bang the gavel, blow the vuvuzela, and declare the Second Session of the 49th Congress adjourned until September. In the meantime, Congress is sitting in a marathon session, debating and voting on Patria's 2012-13 budget. (The annual budget is usually the last major item on the congressional order paper, as Patria's fiscal year begins and ends on June 30.) As in much of the Euro zone, the key word is of course AUSTERITY. Budgets will be cut, programs will be chopped, services will be privatized, and tens of thousands of public-sector jobs will be sacrificed in an effort to stave off Recession Part Deux as the 49th Congress reaches the midpoint of its term of office. The mid-term message above is brought to you by the Patria-first economic hard-liners of the SRM and other parties that are part of the Diet Coke Party coalition. You heard it during the 2010 election campaign, and will likely hear it again in 2014. BRING THE JOBS HOME! BOYCOTT MADE-IN-CHINA!