Witness California

Witness California.

If any of you out there want to continue the loon tune conservative approach, look at California.

Thirty years ago we got conned into Proposition 13. Housing values had shot up, and people were worried about property taxes wrecking them.

Unfortunately, the legislature misjudged the anger and did not vote for relief, so a lunatic fringe element (in those days) succeeded in passing Prop 13.

Prop 13 benefited a special interest (large apartment owners) and purportedly gave tax relief to homeowners. A part of it was a 2/3 requirement, that many thought unconstitutional at the time, to raise taxes. There was not such requirement to cut taxes however.

California led the "tax revolt" that propelled Ronald Reagan into the White House.

This was all based on a reaction to "big government spending" , welfare, and generally a revulsion to the aging New Deal.

Underlying it all was a healthy dose of racism, white males were still angry for the 1964 Voting Rights Act and even more angry about the Civil Rights Act. The Republican Party inherited the solid conservative Democratic South, and with Nixon's Southern Strategy, the Republicans have controlled the White House more than not over the past thirty years.

Unfortunately, the economic myths that this conservative movement was based on were not based on any facts. The idea that redistributing wealth from the small elite who always seem to do better to the rest of us, to build a strong middle class of consumers was attacked as somehow socialist.

In fact, of course, the large middle class that developed out of World War II and because of the New Deal, was at the core of the longest period of prosperity in American's history.

Back to California...Proposition 13 ushered in countless propositions and laws cutting state and local revenue for practically everything. Meanwhile, a host of propositions were based for a series of bonds, that build schools, libraries, roads, dams and the like. Of course, bonds are a convenient way of pushing paying for things onto the next generation of taxpayers.

Then, in 1999, Governor Davis, thinking that the dot com surge was solid, made the bad mistake of cutting taxes while obligating the state to new spending, especially in augmentations to public employee pensions. One area of stress in pensions was finally giving a break to public safety employees, who many times were so injured and damaged by a lifetime in dangerous work, that they failed to live to see their pensions, or if they did, had such high medical bills they could not survive economically.

So, cut taxes and raise spending was tried. And, remember, to raise taxes took a 2/3 vote (virtually unattainable) while cutting taxes took a simple majority.

And, both parties used the ruse it was okay to cut revenue while spending at least at a level rate from year to year, because "the growth in the economy" would make up for it (the infamous Laffer Curve).

Of course this might work (except it didn't) if the economy grows at a double digit rate. Of course, it didn't.

In 2007-2008 it all came crashing down. California had already been running a chronic budget deficit for the 1990s, but then a new body-building movie star Governor effectively recalled Governor Davis, with a promise to again CUT taxes by attacking the Vehicle License Fee.

This fee did two things: one, it dissuaded multiple car ownership as oil prices went up and supply is now obviously going down, which was an attempt to develop some kind of conservation in a state which had pioneered the automobile culture and two, it made up about 8 to 10 billion dollars of state and local government revenue.

But Arnold cut it, as promised, and right away the nagging state deficit became a annual crisis. That was until 2007-2008 when it became a calamity.

Now, the entire welfare program (welfare to work) program is offered up by Arnold and the cons to be cut. That is right, the entire thing! This benefits mostly children.

And, incredibly, the entire state metal health program is seriously being offered for elimination, which means thousands of mental health patients untreated and running loose on California streets! Meanwhile, the state university and college system has been decimated and public education has taken a twenty percent cut the last two years with more to come.

In short, California is a disaster.

And, guess what, the cons want more! What began as a "tax revolt" has not started to look like fascist anarchy.

It gets "better". The latest is a gem of a proposition offered by PG&E, a private power company, that if passed will require a 2/3 vote (sound familiar) of unincorporated areas and the parent city, if a city wants to annex PG&E areas into what is almost always cheaper city power areas.

PG&E is of course, oil and natural gas based, while cities and municipal energy companies are beginning to go green. PG&E is spending millions to basically kill green energy!

And, another proposition seeks to kill the state's global warming law by requiring it be suspended until unemployment falls below 5.5 percent (that has not happened in over twenty years. The sponsor of this? Oil companies of course.

This is the same oil industry that has kept California from passing an oil severance tax that virtually all the major oil producing states have already, even in such "liberal bastions" as Texas for example!

This, remember, is happening in a state that is flat broke, and is literally talking about closing prisons and selling them to get revenue. Anyone seen San Quentin?

So, if any of you out there care, witness California for how it shouldn't be done.

California has sacrificed its economy on the throne of tax cutters and far right conservatives who are basically in the hip pocket of big oil and incredibly rich people.

Where else would the two Republicans who are running for governor are both multi-billionaires, who are spending millions of dollars to become governor of a state that still will have a Democratic majority in the legislature?

And the reward will be to be governor of a state that most political scientists say is ungovernable!

Witness California!

A Paradigm Shift

We watched “The Titanic” tonight. There have been several depictions over the years.

Overall, the tragedy of the Titanic, at the beginning of the twentieth century, has been pointed to as a tragedy of arrogance and hubris regarding the new technologies of the day. At the time, there was the expected investigations and shock at the negligence of the ocean liner company that disregarded the danger of running a shipload of passengers at high speed through an iceberg field.

Of course, nobody at the time could have detected the paradigm shift the sinking of the Titanic symbolized. Certainly editorials of the day decried the poor preparation and the negligence. But the real paradigm shift, of corporations showing little regard for human life in pursuit of profit was not detected until the Great Depression. The folly of technological infallibility was detected, the greed and avarice of the ocean liner corporation was not. The current movie catches it, and shows the demands of the shipping public relations to go fast to set a crossing record, assuming tragically that the Titanic’s hull was impenetrable.

This realization takes place almost 100 years after the event.

We are faced with a very similar event today with the Gulf of Mexico spill. The difference is this time the timing is reversed. It took almost twenty years and a World War to get to the Great Depression, when people began to realize that corporate greed, not just technological over-confidence had led to thousands drowning in the Atlantic. The Great Depression was caused in part by corporate greed and irresponsibility; especially in the banking industry. The paradigm had shifted in 1932, and people easily understood that corporations could not be trusted with public safety.

This led to the New Deal, that put regulation (and tax rates) into practice that led to winning World War II, a huge increase in productivity and American wealth, and the growth of a democratic middle class.

Unfortunately, Ronald Reagan came along, reversed much of this, and set in motion the slow deterioration into mindless conservatism, that once again has given us economic disaster. This same lunacy has also led the ecological disaster formulating in the Gulf of Mexico.

Today we are in the middle of the same kind of realization that a paradigm shift is possible. After eight years of a very pro-petroleum industry administration, we are faced with a catastrophe that was caused by the same hubris and corporate irresponsibility that Mr. Reagan introduced.

This time we have an economic catastrophe in 2008 that is so close historically that the lesson of corporations not being trustworthy is glaringly obvious. In fact, the paradigm shift should be like the shock of the cold Atlantic as it sucked the life of those 1500 unlucky souls who drowned that fateful night. All Americans should awake with a shock to the new paradigm of corporate greed and corporate control of our political process.

I am sure the petroleum industry will throw millions at the “problem” in an attempt to fool people into believing that, as the wing-nut governor of Texas said, it was all an act of God.

The facts run counter to these right wing lies:

1. Drill Baby Drill is inherently much more dangerous than we have been conned to believe.
2. There is no technology that can safely drill for oil in 5000 feet of ocean.
3. Self-regulation, which was pushed by the Republicans for eight years, does not work in banking, oil drilling, or anything for that matter.
4. Corporations lie. Conservatives, their watercarriers, lie.
5. Politicians bought by corporations lie.
6. The public welfare and safety is not being served today.
7. Oil companies are betting the American People will drive to hell in their automobiles.
8. They may be right.

Today the American People are being tested like never before. Corporations have never been so bold and so nakedly opposed to the general welfare. They have developed, with right wing help, an almost fascist corporate model, that puts business ahead of human health and happiness. BP, Goldman Bankers, Coal Mining Corporations; etc., don’t even bother showing responsibility anymore because they really believe they own us.

And they might be right.

If they are, then the American Dream is dead and so are we….

It is only a matter of time that a calamity will occur that will end democracy in this country and life as we know it on the planet.

It is up to us.

Drill Baby Drill/Burn Baby Burn

The noise from the radical right anti-environmentalists is deafening. Sara Palin, who recently was depicted as "How can any person be so stupid?"; has not uttered a word concerning the Gulf of Mexico disaster.

I just hope the American people can take half a minute and decipher the ridiculous situation we have got ourselves into.

To wit: We are striving for oil independence by drilling from oil platforms a mile from the ocean's bottom using tubes with "fail safe" systems that have been untried and in many cases have been neglected to maximize profits.

These profits remember are in an industry that recorded record profits in a recession. But, the de-regulation mania of the Bush years, has left Halitburton in charge! That's right, our former Vice President's company was who was working on the oil platform that blew up.

This all comes from the same idiots who gave us Iraq and the depression/recession of 2008.

And still they grind on.

And still the American People lap it up.

Oh, meanwhile Nashville, Tennessee is mostly underwater from a "freak" rainstorm that doubled the record for all-time rainfall in a period. Dozens of homes were flooded, in areas that were so secure (it never rained that hard, ever) that no flood insurance was bought.

Extraordinary rainfall amounts are one strong indication of a warming climate!

Of course, this is another area where the "cons" have used a dis-information campaign, aided by the petro-chemical industry, claiming that global warming is a "liberal" plot to destroy the economy. Just try going to Red Lobster in the next few months. The oil based shrimp is delightful!

For God's sake America, connect the dots. Drill Baby Burn, is now Burn Baby Burn, as eleven people were killed, along with quite possibly the entire ecosystem of the Gulf of Mexico.

Of course, this will directly ruin the same folks who endured the legendary stupidity and criminal neglect of the Bush Administration surrounding Hurricane Katrina. The same people!

This includes Mississippi, whose racist governor now, incredibly, is begging for government aid with the spill. This flies in the face of his refusing "big government help" and criticizing the President at every turn. This same governor defended the governor of Virginia who had the gall to renew celebrating the treasonous Civil War South and conveniently left out slavery as a cause of the Civil War. The governor of Mississippi then chimed in with a inane comment that the slavery "issue" was not important.

Not important? Oh my God! It is amazing how the "cons" constantly try to rewrite history. Not important!?

Now, of course, they would love to rewrite history as it happens by making the Gulf of Mexico go away. Boss Limbaugh tried, actually claiming sabotage! This guy must be back on the pain pills!

These guys will stop at nothing to fool us! Stop being fooled!

So, if you like Katrina you will love BP and the spill from hell. If you love "climate change exaggeration" then you will love Nashville underwater.

And if you like Palin's pathetic "Drill Baby Drill" then Burn Baby Burn is right around the corner!