Why Bother Telling

Why bother? Why bother, seems to be the attitude many have regarding the Elizabeth Warren "controversy" in Massachusetts regarding her Native American heritage.

Ms. Warren, rather reluctantly, claims Cherokee heritage based on "family history" and "things my grandmother told me".

Historical records, birth certificates, marriage licences apparently don't exist to prove this. It is based on oral family history.

Her opponent in the Senate election, Scott Brown, is using this contrived controversy against Ms. Warren; claiming she is making up her heritage, that she has allegedly benefited from it professionally.

He alleges Warren was promoted and hired because she claims 1/32 Cherokee lineage.

There have been countless stories, some written by Native Americans, criticizing Warren and other Native American "wannabees". The criticism revolve around people claiming Native American heritage, because it now is somehow popular or cool to be Indian.

Oh really? Every week, it seems like, I get pleas from a North Dakota Sioux charity, for food and clothing for one of the poorest areas on the planet. My last job, in 2005 when I retired, was next to a Native American racheria, where poverty was rampant, the children ran the streets in the middle of the night, the suicide rate was the highest in California.

Native Americans still are ranked at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder. It still is not cool to be Indian.

And why would it be so hard for Warren to "prove" she is part Native American? Why don't the documents exist?

In the 1890s the Dawes Act attempted a census of Cherokees in Oklahoma and surrounding states. My great-great grandmother, who was married to a Cherokee, had two daughters. Her husband had been hung by Confederate soldiers years before, making her a long term and bitter widow.

According to family history, she was halfway up the courthouse steps to register her daughters as half-breeds , in Oklahoma, when she said, "I would rather they be called niggers than Indians", turned around and walked away. Thus, she forfeited her daughters' "rights" to be Native Americans.

At what were those "rights" in 1890? Let's list a few: 1. The right to be massacred at Wounded Knee (that had recently happened). 2. The right to be banned from virtually every job in the United States. 3. The right in most states to be labeled "colored" and discriminated against legally. 4. The right be banned from public accommodations in all southern states (including Oklahoma). 5. The right to be banned from white hospitals, and be forced to have their babies at home (or in a field somewhere). 6. The right to be incarcerated in reservations, where people were treated like animals. 7. The right to have their children taken away, to learn the "white man's ways", and never see them again. 8. And, the right to have a common law marriage, because in 1890 virtually no states in the United States allowed inter-racial marriage: my great-great grandmother "married" her Cherokee in Texas, that outlawed inter-racial marriage. And he was hung for it!

So, right there, no documentation of their marriage; just a few faded photographs, showing two squaws holding my great-great grandmother's hand.

But my families' history, the oral memories, tell a story of reluctant admission of Cherokee blood.

It is historical record that millions of Native Americans avoided disclosing their heritage up until only recently. And they did it for damn good reasons: they could not get married, they could not use a public restroom, they could not get into schools, they could not get jobs, they could not even have their children in a hospital.

Until the Civil Rights Act of 1964, in many states, a fraction of colored blood, made you 100% colored. People hid their mixed heritage for good reason!

I could go on, but you get the picture.

What amazes me, is I have not read anywhere in the controversy on Ms. Warren, awareness of these "rights" that half breed Indians "enjoyed" in the 1890s.

There are millions of Americans today, who are 1/8 to 1/32 Native American, who don't have a clue about their family history. And this is by design. Up until only a few years ago, families hid history from their children.

My father told me the whole story only a few years ago. I knew I had some Native American in me, from talk I overheard at family gatherings. But I never saw anything, no pictures, no genealogy. It was only about 10 years ago, that my father, rather reluctantly, showed me the pictures and the genealogy.

This is the historical fact: Native Americans were brutalized for all of the 19th century, and most of the 20th. A Wintu could not have her child in a Redding hospital until after 1926. A Native American could not marry a white person until after 1964 in most deep south states. It wasn't until after the war that inter-racial marriages were legal in California.

So don't tell me, Mr. Brown, that Ms. Warren is a liar, or a manipulator, given the historical record.

All Americans, if they give a damn about justice, should hang their heads with shame when faced with what Native Americans have been victimized by over the past 300 years; lands were stolen, genocide was practiced, it is not a pretty picture. Read about the "Trail of Tears" if you dare, to see genocide and theft.

Most of the Cherokees who walked and died on that "Trail" were white; Indians like me, part Cherokee. (The "Chief", John Ross, who led that tragic exodus, was 1/16 Cherokee (exactly like me)!

And that rotten treatment is still playing out in the Senate race in Massachusetts.

It is the Revenue

A few years ago, when I was a Superintendent, I attended a Association of California School Administrators' meeting. I had a discussion with the Executive Director of the Association about why Sacramento could not get its act together in funding public education.

He said, "It is not that complex, it is the revenue".

I asked, what he meant by that? He replied that since Prop 13, there has been many tax cuts , tax loopholes, tax incentives; that have all worked to reduce the actual revenue the state brings in.

At the time, the Vehicle Licensing Fee had just been permanently cut, removing an eight billion dollar source from the state budget. That shortfall compounds itself, the eight billion is now ten billion.

Today, in the Sacramento Bee, an op ed piece spoke of the need for "legislators to stop thinking of ways of spending money they don't have, and start thinking of ways to spend the money they really have".

Sounds great, doesn't it? When you have a deficit (as in Federal Deficit), or need to balance the state budget, simply "spend the money you really have".

So, conservatives immediately pounce again, claiming overspending as the culprit. And they never admit their insane tax cuts have resulted in a chronic lack of adequate revenue.

The real cause of both the Federal Deficit, and California's budget hole, is ignored, because of its simplicity: lack of revenue.

Proposition 13, one of the largest cons in human history, is a case study point. The Proposition, pushed by conservative interests who were REALLY looking to cut their tax bills due to ownership of retail and rental property, effectively removed property taxes as the main support of public education.

Prior to Prop 13, about 80% of support for K-12 education was from local property taxes, 20% from state funds. There were problems with this support and the impact of inflation in the 1970s.

But Prop 13 was not really passed to address any of these concerns. In fact, proponents of Prop 13 did not care if 80% of the revenue for public schools would be dramatically cut. They really did not care what home value inflation was doing.

They cared about the millions tax cuts meant for THEM. Howard Jarvis, an aged and bitter conservative, reaped a harvest of millions from Prop 13. Gann, his partner in what amounts to a public crime, also made off like a bandit.

The only good thing about it all, is both were so old at the time they did not live to benefit any more than they did.

But Prop 13 was not finished. It ushered in the era of tax cutters; gave birth to the Presidency of Ronald Reagan, and culminated in the George W. Bush tax cuts, that have wrecked our economy.

Prop 13 left a ticking time bomb, that is now destroying California. Its relatively simple tax formulas were spawned because of an inflation in housing prices in the 1970s, that threatened to massively increase homeowners' property tax bills. So, it capped the increase, not at the rate of inflation, but cutting deep into the revenue source. What it did not address at all, was maintaining revenue sources in a deflation period. This was pointed out at the time of Prop 13's passage, but was discounted because "home values will always go up".

Prop 13 would have killed support for public schools, but then Governor Brown passed legislation shifting support to state revenues. Unfortunately state revenues were also attacked and reduced by the tax cut fever.


Reliable property taxes, based on property value appreciation, always had adequately supported schools, local government and services. Prop 13 that assumed housing values would always go up as a source of consistent revenue, was greatly flawed.

The housing bubble of 2000-2008 proved this flaw with great prejudice. Property tax revenue plunged because housing values dropped by half. Prop 13 had no adjustment to property depreciation, another bad law attribute.

In fact, nothing provided a hedge to this cut in revenue. Prop 13 really ended property tax as a reliable revenue source.

The result, a huge cut in revenue for local governments. And a revenue depletion echo that reduced state revenues as well. Tax cuts do not work to stimulate the economy. They are snake oil! They reduce revenue and actually retard economic growth.

The reason cities and counties are broke, is Prop 13, and tax cuts, not public workers' pensions. Cities and counties have lost billions due to just plain bad law; Prop 13 never provided a solution to what would happen to revenues in a deflation.

California led the United States into the hell hole of tax cuts. California led into a dead end of tax cut after tax cut, with the lie that they would lead to economic disaster.

Tax cuts, lead inevitably to spending cuts. In a recession, the government is the source of last resort, to help the unemployed, the sick, and the handicapped. And, government employment is an anchor to support the economy as it recovers. Without this life preserver, we sink into deeper into depression.

During the Great Depression the conventional wisdom by President Hoover, was to raise taxes , and CUT SPENDING. A balanced budget was seen as "the cure" for economic downturns. The "business cycle" had returned several devastating recessions since the Civil War, as income was distributed more to the top and less to the rest of the economy.

The government had no role to play in this, no government intervention was the conventional wisdom. And a balanced budget, tight money supply, was seen as all a minimal government presence should do.

When Hoover tried to balance the budget, to cure the recession of 1930, he triggered the Great Depression. And, when confronted with this catastrophe, he refused to involve the government. In short, no regulation, let the economy cure itself; balance the budget with spending cuts, people were hurting by then too much to raise taxes, which served to weaken the economy more by paralyzingly the government.

The result? A predictable catastrophe.

California cannot get out of the Great Recession for exactly the same reason. Government is said to regulate too much. So taxes and regulations are cut, deepening the recession. Government is cut, reducing its influence, just like 1930. The economy cannot fix itself.

We have cut taxes too much, we have to raise them, because the state is starved for revenue. But instead we cut state spending, draining precious capital out of the state economy; driving us deeper into a depression.

It's a cycle, cut taxes, reduce revenue, cut spending to balance the budget, that cuts demand, cut taxes some more.....and we spiral downward. the more we cut, the lower we sink.

States do not have the luxury of deficit spending.

And Californians still believe cutting taxes still can solve economic issues. They believe that the poison is the medicine.

So, we run out of revenue, cut state and local government and teacher jobs in an attempt to balance the budget, and drive deeper into despair.

Is there a way out of this? Probably not. We are stuck with forty years of an economic mistake and a con, and the average Californian does not understand any of it, so refuses to increase taxes to increase revenue, and we are sink lower.

It's is the REVENUE!

The wrecking crew

Read the book "The Wrecking Crew". I have, on several occasions warned of the dangers of American Fascism. This book convinces me that a fascist takeover is very near. The radical right is gaining strength thanks to "Citizens United".

Thousands of middle class fools are water carrying for the rich, without a clue. Fox News has completely hoodwinked them.

So, the rich continue to gain power, while the rest of us sink into poverty. Propaganda has done its job well.

The people who stand to lose the most, are supporting those who will victimize them the most.

The comparison to the Weimar Republic is startling!

Thousands of our grandparents died to defeat fascism, and it is winning through the foolish grandchildren.

Did they die in vain? Why are we so stupid?

Beware the Plastic Bags

To School Boards Everywhere: Beware the Plastic Bags

I worked for a school district for thirty years. I left that school district as Director of Alternative Education. In the hierarchy of school districts, this position is usually one for a person who is on his/her way out, banished because of politics, whatever. Those all applied in my case.

Currently I serve on a Charter School Board. This is from one school board member to other school board members:

The Superintendent, and later the Board, bought into the idea that student achievement was for the rich, the well placed, and not for at risk students.

This is because we judge school performance by high stakes achievement tests, based on group norms. The better students you test, the better you look.

So, the Superintendent, shortly after taking over, announced how much alternative education cost.

He figured several millions dollars a year were spent on educating "losers"; so why "reward the losers" with money spent on their educations?

And, without any input from me, he sold the Principals, the Board and the community on the notion that alternative education for at risk students was a bad investment. He sold the idea that there were more economical ways to educate difficult to educate students.

This was his miracle plan for alternative education.

His plan was rather simple; don't educate them. It cost too much. And, if they no longer are in school, they cannot be tested so the test scores look great.

First, he cut one of the continuation schools in the district. Then, after I was gone, he cut the other more than in half.

This saved millions in teacher costs, facilities; etc. Then he greatly expanded the Independent Study Program, moved it into a dependent Charter School, which effectively hid the district's drop out rate.

In California a student on a District Independent Study Program is always counted against the home school, a Charter is considered a separate entity, hence shuffling students into a Charter School does not count them against the district schools.

It's called the Charter School Shuffle.

Independent Study for at-risk students? Remember now, these are students who hate school anyway. Typically in high school, they are chronic truants, far behind in credits.

Independent Study is what they always ask for, because they can still be enrolled, hence no truancy, but they get to run the streets during the day.

So, the Independent Study Charter School inherited over half of the students who used to attend day continuation school. This cost way less, since there was no building to support, far fewer teachers, no cafeteria; etc.

The Superintendent was a hero. He has "saved the District millions".

And what about the kids?

Well, they went into Independent Study at 16, languished for awhile, then disappeared.

In short, they were disposable, like plastic bags.

The problem is, they, like plastic bags, did not simply "go away".

Shasta County is a poor, conservative county, with an increasing crime and drug problem.

I will let you guess who is contributing to those statistics.

There was also an effort at "early intervention" for freshman (ours was a high school district). Students who had not graduated from grammar school, were forced into a program that segregated them from the regular population for most of the day (don't want to contaminate the rich kids with the poor kids).

This program had been tried for years, in larger districts, with no success.

But, what the heck, it kept the "little bastards" away from the "good kids". In fact, if done correctly, the at risk student never gets into the regular high school population at all, is segregated from their freshman year until they turn 16, and are then "placed" in Independent Study. The problem of the at risk student is thereby "solved".

Why is American Education failing? Because of stories like the above, where we segregate children, either racially, ethnically, religiously, or scholastically, get the "bad kids" away from the "good kids", then congratulate ourselves for test scores that only show the "good kids" scores.

And, we keep listening to con artists who tell us we are paying too much on education, that vouchers, or charter schools will somehow educate cheaper and better. We buy the notion that we can cheapen our investment in the future and not have it bite us.

Baloney, the problem is we will not confront the socio-economic problems our society grinds out. Our educational system costs way more because of the sins of our past, with African-Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans, you name it. We will not face ourselves.

Meanwhile, the "bad kids" steal our cars, rob our businesses, and pull the American Dream into the septic tank.

The Superintendent saved the District millions, some of which went to teacher salary increases by the way.

I will tell you a startling fact. It doesn't take much to teach a "good kid". Their upbringing, their stability, their advantages, make them easy to teach.

Of course, the young, the inexperienced, and yes, the poor teachers, are relegated to the as-risk classes. That is why most teachers fail; we put the least likely to succeed teachers in with the least likely to succeed students.

And what percentage of a young hopeful freshman class does this represent? Well, according to most statistics 30 to 40 percent!

People, listen please! At-risk children cost money, lots of it. We are paying for the unequal, unjust social system we have in the United States everyday by the children we fail to educate.

We segregate them, we brand them, and we discard all but the "good kids" to a life of poverty, of want and of pain. And many of them, turn around, and in desperation, rob us, steal from us, or deteriorate into druggies, costing us many times over in prison costs, medical costs; etc.

They are our plastic bags, clogging our society and suffocating it.

Man Without a Country

Man Without a Country

When I was a kid, in U.S. History, we watched a film based on a short story of the same title by Edward Hale. A young soldier, who was tried for treason, renounced the United States and is banished forever to a ship, never to be allowed into any country.

The film resolves this dilemma, with the young soldier growing old, loving his former country, the United States, and condemning his own lack of loyalty. The message is love your country, be loyal, have integrity, do the right thing; etc.

It is a patriotic overdrawn argument for love of country, honor and integrity. But it gripped me then, and it does now.

And then there is Eduardo Saverin. Eduardo you see, is the Harvard classmate of Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook. Eduardo sued Zuckerberg, arguing that he had contributed to the founding of Facebook. He was the slimy treasurer of Facebook in the movie, who betrays his friend for money. And he wins millions.

Now, he has gone ever one better. After winning millions from Zuckerberg, Saverin recently RENOUNCED HIS U.S. CITIZENSHIP, (caps intended) to live overseas, because of the "high" taxes of his home country.

Now this guy, slime, is a multi-millionaire. He was born into privilege, and fell into millions before he was to graduate from Harvard of all places. In short, he had it made before he fell into the lawsuit "victory" over Zuckerberg.

Saverin is typical of those 50 or under in the United States today. Many have turned ugly conservative, angry about everything, and the least patriotic generation (s) ever.

These is an age group that has never been exposed to the draft, or any public service whatsoever. They were born into the conservative lies of cutting taxes to help the economy. They watch Fox News incessantly. They have the lowest loyalty to their employers, to their community than ever before.

Some of this of understandable. Business has outsourced their jobs, unions have declined in power leaving them vulnerable to layoff and pension scams. They have the lowest protection of any other segment of the population from disease, having lost health insurance at record levels.

So we understand partially their lack of enthusiasm for patriotism. We understand at least partially, their greed, their nihilism and narcissism.

But then there is Saverin, who renounced his citizenship, turns his back on his country for a buck. And he already is more wealthy than most of us.

I see the marine who gave everything at Guatacanal, the Air Force Pilot who gave it all over Germany, and those 3,000 who were victims of 9/11. And then there is Saverin.

There is a disease afflicting America right now. It manifests itself in eternal opposition to taxes, to public anything, in fanatic desire to cut "entitlements" (which were paid for by recipients paying taxes during their working years), by a "pay as you go" mentality, that reduces generational responsibility to zero.

And we have a millionaire who leaves his country, that afforded him the privilege and opportunity that made him rich. And we worship his greed, we worship his "entrepreneurship", we make movies about him.

We have become the "Man Without A Country".

Integrity

Today we learned that Mitt Romney was a vigilante at his Prep School. Like a lot of high school kids in the sixties he bullied and shamed a homosexual. He led a group of young rich preppies in holding a "queer" down and hacking off the guy's blond locks.

In the 60s sexual discrimination, racial discrimination were both accepted practices. And many of my friends belittled, teased and reveled in "nigger" jokes. It was what they did.

Only I didn't do it. For some reason I was taught that it was wrong to pick on people.

I do not know exactly where I got it. But, when we invited a black girl to my fifth birthday party, and some of my friend's parents balked at coming, my mother told them all to go to hell, and we had the party without them. I think I got it there.

Maybe it was that she knew I was part Cherokee. I certainly didn't know it. I did realize that I was darker than the other kids, especially in the summer.

I was also faster. A lot faster. I could outrun everybody. It was the first thing I realized I could do better than others; and I did not join in the mocking, the put downs, the hedonism. Somehow I did not need to put down others. Maybe it was because I could impress with my speed, I don't know. I think it was what my mother taught me.

And we had our vigilantes. We had some first class bullies in high school who actually intimidated some teachers, beat the hell out of lots of kids, and screwed girls (and bragged about it). In those days girls who "put out" we're whores, and regular guys avoided them. It did not matter if they told the truth, they were bullies, liars, and everyone was afraid of them. They ran the high school.

And the first year at Stanford I ran into Mitt Romney. We both were homesick freshmen and he was a rich preppy from Michigan.

So here I am, a part Cherokee from Redding California who was living a dream, talking to Mitt, who hated Stanford, and was as homesick as I was. I did not know he was a bully. I knew he was way different from me, richer, a preppy whose father was a presidential candidate.

He never talked about bullying the queer in prep school. I was shocked when I read the story today. But then he lied, and said he did not remember, and that reminded me of the creeps in high school who lied, bullied and yes raped.

And I outran and kept my integrity over them, including the ordinary bully Romney.

It was his latest lie that reminded me.

End the Head Shot or End Football

Another wake up call for football:

Over a thousand former NFL players have joined in lawsuits against the NFL, 1600 to be more accurate!

Several NFL veterans have committed suicide, most notably Junior Seau, perennial all-pro linebacker and a lock for the Hall of Fame.

There is a growing body of research that shows repetitive blows to the head, even those that do not cause a classical concussion, can cause permanent brain damage. The brain simply is not made to be hit, jolted, and slammed around for years.

And, there is mounting research that point to damage incurred by football players not just at the professional level. Former college players, and even some high schoolers are also manifesting concussive associated injuries.

That bothers me. I put in eight years of tackle football, four in high school, and four at Stanford. I sustained one concussion in high school, broke four helmets at Stanford while severely injuring my back.

I have constant ringing my ears ever since the countless incidents of "getting my bell rung" in college. I am sure I had dozens of the concussive incidents that lead to the tragic brain trauma that has claimed so many. Nobody has tracked major college football players....yet!

It was a different game then. We wore Riddell suspension helmets then, I actually wore the same model for eight years. We had face masks, but not the grills they wear today.

We were taught however to put our foreheads on the numbers to tackle a ball carrier, and to go through a receiver's head to the ball. The collisions for a defensive back, on receivers running across the middle, were every bit as violent as those of today. But, the helmets were lighter, and the face masks smaller.

So we did not put our foreheads on the numbers as we were coached, because you could bust your nose. Very few individuals will drive their face into someone running at them at twenty miles an hour, unless you are wearing a modern football helmet. The Riddell I wore did not protect enough to use like a weapon.

I think, and this will sound counter intuitive, that the helmet is the largest contributing factor with the concussive damage we are seeing today. The helmets are too good, especially in protecting from skull and facial fractures. Blockers and tacklers have a false sense of security, because the helmets and face masks of today are so impressive, except in preventing concussions; it is not the fall that gets you, it's the sudden stop.

Moreover coaching to lead with your head, both blocking and tackling is crazy. First, it is a bad way to tackle a ball carrier. When you center up on a Pac 12 back, he can easily avoid you in two ways. If you take a side, and tackle with your shoulder pads and arms you can get even a top runner down. He may drag you a ways, but you can hang on and hope for help.

It is called tackle football for a reason. The idea is to get the ball carrier down, tackle him, not punish him.

Junior Seau said to punish is to win, and he was one of the greatest to ever play the game. But years of hitting with his head reduced his brain to what probably killed him: a mass of damaged synopses that led to depression, loss of impulse control and suicide. His punishing caught up with him.

Football is in real trouble. The rules must be changed, the helmets made smaller and lighter, and take the head as much out of blocking and tackling as possible.

Parents of high school players, college athletes, and finally pros should insist that the era of the head shot end, else the game itself will end.

Austerity Wins?

Over and over again. We hear the old saying, true insanity is doing the SAME thing over and over and expecting a different result.

Europe's debt crises, and the recent reaction of voters who are appalled that after austerity measures, they are BACK in a recession has resulted in a massive repudiation of the conservative approach.

The "German Plan" for deficit reduction, a little scary when you think about it, has plunged Europe back into the Great Recession. Now this is no big deal to Germany, whose economy has survived better than any other the past few years.

Germany suggested, in fact demanded in exchange for its loans, severe austerity. So, Greece, Italy, France and England cut government spending, immediately producing higher unemployment, and the recession recovery was stopped dead in its tracks.

And, if we look closely enough, behnd the austerity was a thinly veiled plan to make the rich richer, and the poor poorer.

This is the same effect the conservative agenda has brought to the United States. The past ten years we have witnessed the decimation of the middle class, with billions of dollars flowing to the richest Americans. Social welfare programs are cut, on the local, state and federal level, while tax rates for the rich were cut. This results is deficits at all levels, which call for more cuts and shifts of wealth from everyone to a few.

This is the game they are playing. The austerity plans have little to do with healing a sick economy, but everything to do with making the greedy more greedy.

In Europe, people have had enough. I think they may be getting it. But the sad thing it is probably too late. Austerity has done it magic, and gutted the middle class, leaving an economy ripe for another right wing reaction. And this time, more radical like the Tea Party in the United States. This is the same environment that existed in Europe in the 1930s.

And here comes Hitler!

Deny at Your Peril

Deny, Deny, Deny

The conservative wing of the Republican Party, actually THE Republican party are masters in the art of denial. They deny reality, they deny scientific proof, they deny facts, and they deny history.

It is a simple approach, and effective with a populace that is scared half out of their wits.

Modern America is afraid. We are afraid of terrorists, illegal immigrants, socialism, godless government; etc. And, the deniers are artful in their perpetual uncovering of liberal hoaxes, that they defeat liberals by convincing the populace that facts are really hoaxes.

Let's look at a list of the denials.

1. Cutting government spending dramatically will help, not harm the economy. Lately, the European Union has realized that a year or so of austerity, deep cuts in government, has plunged it back into a recession. But, the cons deny this, blaming the government itself, the "nanny state" for the recession.

2. Tax cuts boost the economy. We have the Bush Tax cuts for nearly a decade now, with job losses at record levels. But the cons blame the liberals for the job losses. They deny that tax cuts can do anything but help the economy, in spite of years of facts to the contrary.

3. Global warming is upon us, and causing great damage. Cons deny this constantly. It is almost entertaining to watch con weather men, who report dramatic catastrophic weather changes, and laugh them off as, "mother nature strikes again".

4. Peak oil is a liberal plot to hurt the economy. A story surfaced yesterday in Sacramento, reporting that Governor Brown has loosened oil drilling regulations so much, that people are getting killed in the oil fields. Oil companies are injecting hot steam into exhausted wells, to drain every spare drop of oil out. This, the deniers say, is technology, not evidence of an industry desperate because crude oil is running out fast.

5. Muli-nationals hurt the economy. Cons deny this emphatically. The U.S. has, according to them, the largest corporate tax rate in the world, that needs to be cut. This claim flies in the face of facts that show the actual taxes corporations pay, after all the loopholes, is one of the lowest in the world.

6. Joblessness is caused by tax cuts. There is proof that corporations took much of their tax cuts and invested in automation, eliminating thousands of jobs. Tax cuts do not automatically create jobs, in fact, they eliminate jobs. Cons deny this to the death. Any tax increase is depicted as a "job killer".

So the deniers go on and on. Every fact is denied. Every report is depicted as a hoax. Watch Fox News sometime, and count the number of denials and hoaxes uncovered. It is astounding.

No democracy has survived that depended on make-believe and denials. No democracy has survived that allowed deniers to take it over. We are such a democracy now, and thanks to our denier friends, our days are numbered.

It's All A Hoax!!!!

Today I engaged in yet another discussion with one of my abundant conservative buddies. As it turns out he spent a career in the air conditioning business. He doesn't like the ozone "hoax".

The subject was politics surrounding President Obama's recent claim that his decision was responsible for killing Bin Laden, and Mr. Romney, the President's likely opponent in the fall, made comments in the past that might have precluded Mr. Romney from making the same decision to get Bin Laden.

My conservative friend immediately went into the predictable, did I have proof that the President's decision really was responsible for getting Bin Laden? Was it a hoax? Weren't there other, more reliable facts (like water boarding) that were responsible?

I am always taken aback when the right hits me with their endless deniabilities and claims of endless liberal hoaxes.

In a real sense, they deny reality and history itself, because "how can you prove that?" If you can't, if the threat is in the future, then it must be a hoax.

Huh....Bin Laden is dead! The President took an enormous tactical risk, by sending American armed forces into Pakistan, contrary to our treaties with that country, to capture or kill Bin Laden.

Mr. Romney, when confronted with the President's criticism of a statement he made a few years ago that he would not send forces into Pakistan, said, "Any President would have made the same call, even Jimmy Carter".

That cheap shot, implying that Jimmy Carter did not have the courage or wisdom to take such a chance was again, contrary to historical fact. Carter in fact, did order a rescue mission of the diplomatic hostages, which failed because of a dust storm. He lost the Presidency partly because of the gamble he took that failed. Ronald Reagan got elected attacking Carter's "mistake". This was no hoax.

Romney had the gall to criticize a past President, contrary to historical facts. Once again, denying history, or science to produce a "counter reality". Is this a hoax?

We then swung into Ozone Depletion, and the scientific evidence that the Montreal Protocol had produced a end to the depletion, and in fact the Ozone is healing.

I was asked where was the proof of this? He more than implied that the whole thing was a hoax. Huh?

I said, scientific studies showed it. But then it came, the hoax was that the damage from the ozone depletion was never proven, therefore there was no proof of the need for the Montreal Protocol in the first place.

In other words, we need to always wait until there is proof of the catastrophe before acting to avoid said catastrophe! Otherwise we are being victimized by a cruel hoax.

I stand aghast at this logic.

I then asked him, if we should wait until the predicted damage happened and millions dying of skin cancer, no ozone to protect the earth before we did anything. He said yes! We shouldn't act without proof! Beware the hoax!

Here is a handy list of hoaxes the conservative deniers don't want to act on, but would rather wait until the predicted catastrophes occur , so we have "proof".

1. Ozone depletion: stop efforts to curtail atmospheric emissions until the damage occurs. Otherwise it is a hoax.

2. Global Warming: stop all efforts to curtail greenhouse gases until there is proof. In short, when the ocean covers Sacramento, then act. Again, it is a hoax.

3. Peak Oil: Stop all conservation efforts until the planet really runs out of gas, then we have proof (back to horses) we are running out, and we can do something. Another hoax.

4. Immunizations: There is no proof whooping cough has been stopped by kids getting their shots, stop the shots, and wait to see if whooping cough, polio, measles, etc., make a comeback. Yet another liberal hoax.

5. Global Economy: There is no proof mindless budget cuts damage the economy, follow Europe's lead with an austerity plan, cutting spending and taxes until the crushing unemployment figures develop, then consider cutting even further (see recent article that has Europe in a new recession due to austerity approach). More hoaxes by the lefties.

6. Prison System: Wait until proof develops that incarcerating millions is a deterrent to crime. If crime figures go up, and up, until you can't leave your house, then do something. Law and order should prevail over weak liberal hoax.

7. Energy conservation: There is no proof it is needed, so do nothing until we have solid proof we can't travel anywhere, anymore! Bicycle lover's hoax.

8. Tobacco use is not bad for your health. There is no real proof that your health is compromised. All those death figures, cancer figures, and heart attacks are part of a hoax.

You get my drift. This approach is simply nuts. Science gives us the ability to predict effects of multiple causal factors. In short, the effects we see to an environment can be traced to causes, scientifically.

Hoaxes are dis proven by the scientific method. A hoax cannot stand the scrutiny of the scientific method. The scientific method is by definition, a process to find the truth, the real, the actual. Hoaxes are the blood enemy of the scientific method.

So why would scientists create hoaxes? A hoax is counter intuitive to scientists.

Moreover, our computerized science of today, can crunch numbers like never before, so we can predict consequences. Hoaxes do not survive data crunching.

Therefore the Ozone Layer is getting better because the world (most of it), stopped certain atmospheric emissions. That is scientific fact. The ozone layer issue was not a scare tactic by the environmentalists. Science proves, by the positive results that are found, that the ozone layer issue was definitely NOT a hoax.

But the conservative does not listen. Everything contrary to his political interest is a hoax; the damage must be done, lives lost, and the world damaged irrevocably before "proof" exists. Even then, as the last human dies, his last works will be:

"It was a liberal hoax"....