Duck its the Duckman

Duck on Duck Dynasty:  So now we have even more "ammunition" for a conservative rant.  Comments are piling up.  Fox News troops out even more young women with short skirts to blather about freedom of speech.  Millions "like" facebook rants that attack A&E for suspending a poor Christian man who simply spoke his moral mind.

First of all, even conservatives I think recognize that if any person embarrasses his place of employment with controversial comments, there can be consequences.  Many contracts include such language.  A company that deals in appeallng to a diverse population can ill afford one of  its employees making statements that alienate its base of customers (or viewers as this case demonstrates).

But, according to Sarah Palin and other conservative "lions" this is a case of free speech.  Nonsense, it is nothing of the sort.  The Duck Dynasty "star" gave an interview in a magazine, that he no doubt was compensated for, and made controversial remarks.  That is right, he no doubt was PAID for his interview.  That's the way it works for the famous, they get paid.  And, he no doubt violated his contract with A&E by making controversial comments that reflected negatively on the company.

But, oh, we all scream, his freedom of speech has been violated.  No it hasn't.

Look, we all have freedom of speech.  The ACLU defends KKK members, Nazis and little old ladies from Pasadina.  The idea is in a public forum, without constraints due to obligations to employers, schools, etc., people can say what they want, as long as it doesn't slander or threaten the public safety.   And  the Duck man did just that, predictably forgetting that he was breaking the rules of his employer.

And the predictable happened, he was reprimanded.

There is no loss of Civil Rights here.  Palin and Fox as usual are USING you, stirring up your anger, for political effect.

And of course, they attack the progressives for this whole thing.  Liberals are accused of tolerating things except for things they don't agree with.

Huh, isn't that what conservative pundits like Palin are doing right now?  They are tolerating the Duck Man, but blasting liberals, who had nothing to do with reprimanding the Duck spokesman.  How do conservatives know that liberals with A&E punished the Duck Man.  A&E has not said it, but it is a sure bet, since the Duck Man is losing income if he is suspended, because his  contract was abrogated by his interview to the magazine.

So, he has the right to stand on a street corner, and say all he wants. He also is responsible for his comments if those comments damage his employer.  His employer is punishing him not the government.  I want to punish him because his comments were whoop ass stupid.  And I can, as long as I stay within the law.

For years, during the Civil Rights struggle, we heard segregationists speak about how separate but equal was fair, how people of color were unequal, and laws were passed to buttress these racist positions.  And that is what got them, because when racism became institutional racism, it ran eventually into the Bill of Rights, and was declared unconstitutional.

Read up on Civil Rights, and the First Amendment.  Visit your local ACLU Chapter, and get materials on the legal constrants on freedom of speech (they do exist).

And, please take a few deep breaths, stop your anger, you are getting worked!!!!!!

Panic and Play into their Hands

The American people can are amazing sometimes.  They are so prone to panic.  They also are fickle.

The Affordable Care Act, is violently opposed by Republicans.  The House of Representatives has voted to repeal the Act, including provisions that are already saving lives (coverage of children until 26 and eliminating pre-existing conditions from coverage).

I wonder if they ultimately are successful and repeal the act, what they will do about the millions who will lose insurance and health care?  

The GOP has made it their "wedge issue" that succeeded in the 2010 rise of the Tea Party that won them the House.  Now, they are using the same method to try to win the Senate and stave off Democrats attempts to win control of the House in 2014.  

It is all political and has little to do with the ACA.

Americans are fickle.  A recent poll showed distrust of the ACA, and a tendency to blame the Act on risies in premiums (which is not proven by the way).

Now, we are coming out of a recession.  Wall Street is setting records.  Housing starts are booming.  And unemployment is dropping.  In short, we are in a full fledged economic recovery.  

Insurance rates for everything, not just health insurance, and going up like they always do when people buy more.   

And who does the GOP blame, the ACA.  The facts are this is nonsense, the ACA has little to do with it.  

The ACA does regulate health insurance for the first time in our history.  For decades, health insurance companies ran like a banana republic, anything goes.  Policies had exclusions in small print, there were millions of junk policies, that charged low premiums, with no hospitalization, or huge co-pays and deductables (basically a person was duped by low cost and no value).

Now, as the ACA stops these practices, what do you think insurance companies will do, cooperate?  

Of course not, they scream, they contribute to the GOP lie machine, and they conspire to raise rates, cancel policies for sometimes no reason, in an attempt to overturn the regulations they hate.

America do you believe that fair  insurance competition existed prior to the ACA?  Do you remember the 30% raises in rates, yearly, BEFORE the ACA?  Have any of you been screwed by an insurance company, buying a policy and getting nailed by the small print?  

Do not be fooled.  Give the ACA five years at least to work, it took seven for a very similar law in Massachusetts to take effect.

You are getting worked by masters of deception.  Quit playing into their greedy hands.

Finally remember this fact:  the ACA mandates that 80% of your premium dollar has to go to care, not to greedy insurance profits.  That is way more than before, but allows a reasonable profit, because insurance companies will gain millions more customers under the ACA.  But that is not enough for these guys, they want it all.  

Do not trust them.   

Mythmaking Danger

There is great danger in governing from mythology.  One of the major tenants of fascism is mythology used by the fascist party, through propaganda, to affect political systems.

Nazi Germany is the most obvious example, but others are relevant..  Mussolini's Italy is a perfect example.

Post WWI Italy was in ruins.  Italy had been on the Allies side in WWI, and suffered huge losses. Mussolini emerged as a savior, of what was a new Republic.  Italy had just attained nationhood before WWI.
Mussolini used mythology of a return to Rome, some anti-smites, his Catholic upbringing, and outright lies to take over the Italian government.  He did make the trains run on time, and was able to mitigate some of the effects of the depression that began for Europe in the 1920s.

The mythology of a return to Roman glory was his strongest motivator.  He used the roads leading to the Coliseum as his common parade route, dressing his followers as Roman Legionaries; etc.  A return to Roman Glory was the myth.  Dictatorship was the goal.  And it worked.  Hitler copied the fascist strategy.
We see this same strategy  in America unfortunately today.  The radical right, who now own the Republican Party, use the Tea Party as a mythology to motivate fascist organization.

A cursory read of history, invalidates the Tea Party myth.  The fact are that a group of colonists, upset in what they perceived was an unfair tax on tea, dressed up as Indians, boarded a couple tea carrying ships, and threw a few barrels into the ocean.  The were not backed by the local population, who mostly did not support the protests against tea prices.  The Boston Tea party was a small event.

The Boston Massacre was different.  British regulars opened fire on civilians, and sparked the revolution.  The Tea Party did not spark the revolution.  Taxes were not the major cause of the American Revolution; it was the drive for colonial independence, the left-overs of the French/Indian War and the unbelievable incompetence of King George.

But the Tea Parties, have adopted the myth of the Boston Tea Demonstration, since it dovetails with their small government, cut taxes (especially when those taxes help poor people of color).  The poor are the scapegoats, especially African American poor, of a mythology that calls for a roll back of Civil Rights of both women and minorities.
And empirical evidence is the first victim in this myth making.   For example, conservatives in California claim that the democratic majority has caused a flight of people from California to Texas (a low tax, conservative stronghold).  Empirical evidence does not support this view.  In fact, immigration only went significantly down during the governorship of Pete Wilson, a tax cutting Republican,  who helped pass an anti-immigration bill that the Republicans are still trying to live down.

High taxes have nothing to do with immigration or emigration; climate (the Dust Bowl, famines and drought) is the true stimulus of large scale movement of people.

But the myth continues unabated.

Charles K in his latest diatribe against the President claims that the current administration has spent the most in history,a lie, that the President has expanded government, another lie.

All of these lies, buttress what is a fascist myth machine.  And our very freedom is its victim.

Can't They Grow Up?

Ok, who out there believes in the filibuster?  Really, doesn't anyone remember Jimmie Stewart, courageously filibustering against the evil special interests, to the point where the enemy finally broke and tried to kill himself?

But that was a "good filibuster", the minority stalling the majority interest for good.

Most of the filibuster history has not been so placid.  For decades, literally decades, the south blocked any desegregation law in the United States Senate.

In those days, the Dixiecrats were part of the Democratic Party, and hamstrung the liberal wing from doing anything, I mean anything, to lessen what was essential apartheid in the United States.

It took the assassination of a President to finally get the Democratic Party to push through a Civil Rights Bill. 

The direct effect of this, was that the Dixiecrats in mass, moved from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party.

This was a seismic shift.  Lyndon Johnson, as he signed the 1964 Civil Rights Bill, said famously, "We will not win another Presidential election in a generation". 

He was almost right.  When he essentially resigned the Presidency, Richard Nixon, who used the "southern strategy" won in 1968 and would have been a two term President, ushering in years of Republican Presidents, if it hadn't been for Watergate.

Now, we see a solid south, blocking President Obama's nominees.  It got so bad, and so racist, that finally Harry Reid called a halt to it, and changed the filibuster rules for appointees only.

Now the Senate is witnessing another slowdown, as southerners basically throw a fit, and are holding up everything with childish tantrums.

It is time to kick these fools out.  It is the same racist crap that held this nation hostage for years in the mid twentieth century.

And it is wrong.  And I hope it kills the Republican Party, which is more divided everyday.

And the real culprits are the same racist segregationists, who now hide behind small government and cut deficits language, but are really the same old apartheid coven....

The Pope is Right...the Right is Wrong

What bothers me in this endless debate is if you criticize capitalism you are automatically branded as anti-free market, socialist or worse.  And the branders are usually those on the right who deal in he 'dog eat dog', 'just win baby' world of a capitalist myth.

Marx, Lenin and the boys criticized capitalism at its core.  But their communist manifesto failed hugely for two reasons:  the dictatorship of the proletariat never evolved into democracy; and stifling government overreach killed innovation and motivation to succeed.

The Pope who is most certainly not a socialist, in his recent statement, points to the excesses of capitalism.   He rightly criticizes the insanity of 'trickle down' economics.  He points to one of capitalism's weaknesses, allocation of wealth.

I always use the  Hollywood metaphor.  First, as we watch say the Academy Awards, we note the winners, the few actors who succeed and are the absolute rich winners.  Meanwhile there are thousands in Hollywood who are either support players, or starving artists.  The winners make huge salaries, and accumulate great wealth.

And who provides this wealth?  We do.  Every time we buy a ticket, motivated by endless advertising of the movies, we add to the few actor's wealth and yes support the rest of the industry.  But, the wealth we trade basically for entertainment is not distributed evenly or close to fairly.  It flows to a few at the top.

Ronald Reagan was an actor, and a product of this phenomenon.  He originally was a Democrat, but as his career matured and he got  richer, the marginal tax rates, taxing levels of high income at high percentages, drove him nuts.  Reagan never explained, nor considered I would guess, that these high tax rates were mostly used to pay off WWII, the most expensive war  in human history, and then sustain the Cold War.

Along the way his heart hardened, to those in the United States, who in the midst of the most dynamic economic growth in our history, stayed behind in poverty.

To the conservative mind set, that could not happen in a system that was producing unheard of wealth, and therefore it must be "their faults".  It was the welfare queens, the slackers, those lulled in laziness by give away government programs.

Meanwhile, the facts were that Popes were even then,  writing the same kinds of criticism of world and United States capitalism that  Pope Francis just did.

Look, there are losers who chose their lot.  But the vast majority of the poor in the United States for all our history are hard working poor.   My father, who is 90, just yesterday for the thousandth time, told me my grandfather who worked for the railroad, always looked forward to Christmas, because he moved up the 'extra board' and got work, because those who higher in seniority took the holidays off.  My dad told me he had a Christmas because of the extra board.  My grandfather was a hard working man, who was victimized by the depression, but never gave up, stayed with Southern Pacific, and fought his way through the Great Depression.  He was no slacker, he was just poor.  He also was 1/4 Cherokee.

 For a variety of reason, mostly race before 1964, whole segments of our society have been mired in irreversible poverty.  The United States had a system of segregation, Apartheid, that was not ended until 1964.  It created a huge caste system, that forced my grandfather to never admit he was Cherokee (he would have been fired).  It produced chronic unequal opportunity in the United States for over a hundred years.  And that poverty still drags us all down, as we endlessly debate and maybe even fight over the Affordable Care Act for example.

I got my hair cut yesterday.  The lady cutting my hair was new.  I asked if she was new, and she said not really, she had worked for the shop over a year ago.  Because of her age, a young mother I guessed, I asked if she had a child.  She slowly said not, she had a ulcerated colon, that had to be removed, and nearly lost her life.  She said she had three operations, and was in the hospital for weeks.

I asked if she had insurance, knowing that the shop probably could not provide it.  She said she did not, BUT BECAUSE SHE WAS UNDER 26 SHE WAS COVERED UNDER HE PARENT'S POLICY!

Right there, right there, it sits.  The unequal distribution  of income, of health insurance coverage, that the Pope warns about, was at least buffered for the 24 something who was cutting my hair.  Right there she was saved from a life of poverty, and her parents from bankruptcy, by the ACA.  It works!  Government intervention in the free market works to protect the major damage that capitalism will cause if not regulated.

But we endlessly debate the ACA.  We endlessly debate the obvious inequities that have produced a huge class of have- nots in this county, and throughout the world, that ultimately will deeply threaten peaceful societies everywhere. Conservatives, who cling to harmful and hateful assumptions of human behavior that are flat wrong, cause endless damage and drive us toward war.

We need to listen to the Pope, and the radical right needs to just shut up!

The Tough Get Going

This is a response to an editorial in the Record Searchlight of Redding:   

A word of congratulations about your recent article.  

I graduated from Shasta High in 1965, a product of Redding's public schools.  I also was, and am, a 1/16th Cherokee, that I didn't know when I was fortunate to be admitted to Stanford University on a football scholarship.  The next four years I toiled as a Stanford Indian.  And, yes, I agree that the mascot had to be changed.  Racial stereotypes, even heroic ones, have no place as a sports mascot....none.

But that is not my point.  After a 35 year long career in education, over half in administration, I look back fondly on my experience at Pine Street, Sequoia and Shasta High.  

There is a caveat to the self praise for Redding schools, when I was a freshman at Stanford there was a glaring gap in my educational background.  I was competing against the best in the country understand, both on the field and in the classroom, but there were gaps.  

But, there was something non-academic that carried me through.  That was the toughness of Redding, the working man ethic, the plain be tough or lose attitude that carried me through.  "When the going gets tough", had been hammered into us, and Blankenship was my classmate.  He had come from even more humble of a background than I.  

This sometimes manifested itself in Friday night fights, and not the T.V. kind, but people in Redding worked hard, played hard, fought hard and expected that everyone else would do the same.

And, this is political, there was a progressivism, a patriotism here, that was symbolized by the huge concrete wonder, Shasta Dam.  There was a hope for the future, a belief that education was the key for advancement.

And finally, there were roads to success all over the place.  I am afraid that today, these opportunities have declined for our youth due to the negativity of conservatism and the plain facts that the global economy has changed the game.

But I digress.  The list of my favorite teachers are the same, and Paul Hughes and his wife are personal friends.  Pam worked with me, not for me, when I was Principal at Pioneer and at Central Valley High School.

All of us who were educators, kept trying to measure up to  Richard Riis, Gordon Compton, Carl Brown, C.K. Stevens, George Economou, I could go on and on.

It wasn't so much the academic excellence that they bestowed, quite frankly I found at Stanford that other privileged students had more background than I.  It was in the toughness, the fact that almost all of them were veterans and many had seen combat; and you just made no excuses.  And it was my father and mother, who didn't have to say it, but you just never quit.   Quit was not in our vocabulary back then.

That is the academic high expectation that often is left out of eulogies and such.  We dwell on the academic and not the affect.

When Gordon Compton was dying in the hospital, I visited him.  He was barely conscious.  I went up to his bedside and whispered, "When I was most down at Stanford, barely hanging in, overwhelmed by the students who all were smarter than me, and by the football players who were all bigger and stronger, I was kept going by what you taught me; never quit, never give up, always keep working, and you may not win the game, but you will win in the end".

He got a funny look on his face, and said, "I didn't do that, you did it"  

And that says it all.  

Sent from my iPad

Oil Boom or Bust

So we are in the middle of yet another boom.  Fracking, as declared by oil companies, is saving the planet.

This comes at considerable cost, with a consumer base who seemingly is capable of spending unlimited amounts on a gallon of gas, fracking is spreading in the United States.  Fracking is saving us?

And the news is good.  Fracking has resulted in American import  energy switching back to domestic supplies; at least for a few years.

Americans meanwhile buy the bullshit from Exxon and others that what is mined in America stays in America.  The truth is the only reason it stays in America is if Americans  pays staggering prices for it, versus the rest of the world.

Why is that, you might ask?  Simple economics.  Americans do not tolerate high taxes on energy.  The gasoline tax has remained constant for many years.  In Europe, almost half of the price of a gallon of diesel or gas is tax.  These taxes have, for decades, gone into mass transportation.  Europe, and much of Asia, have, as a result, a massively superior mass transportation system compared to the United States.

For example,  California is struggling against nay-sayers, trying in  a sea of lawsuits,  to build the nations FIRST high speed train.  Recently, a judge temporarily halted the program, and the oil company backed  opponents to the train cheered.

Asia and Europe have had high speed rail for decades.

Now, the oil companies are trumpeting that fracking will save us all.  There are huge oil reserves, they tell us, trapped in rock formations that will mean an oil glut.

What they are not telling us, is that Peak Oil, the economic point of view based on the fact that oil and gas reserves are finite, has told us for year that this could happen.

You see, oil companies have known  for decades about this.  In the 1970s, during the oil embargo, attempts were made to extract oil from shale in the Dakotas.  This expensive and dangerous procedure was abandoned when the oil embargo ended, because Americans refused to pay more than a dollar for a gallon of gas.

In Europe, even in the 70s, consumers were paying over a dollar, with at least half of it going through taxes into mass transportation and infrastructure.

Peak Oil experts have long known that for an old well, for example, 50% of the oil is still there, trapped in the surrounding shale and rock.  It was just too expensive to mine it; until now.

The difference is we are willing to pay way more for it; and tragically with still a relatively low tax load per gallon.

This has resulted in a temporary oil and gas glut, but at core prices that American consumers (still enslaved to a commuter lifestyle) that do not allow higher  taxes.

So, the United States may not have to import as much gasoline as in the last decade, and can purchase more expensive (than sweet crude) oil, even from the shale oil of Canada, with very little room for the taxation that could change us from a commuter transportation system to an energy efficient mass transportation one.

This failure to switch, which also affects failing to change to green energy, means America will be the first to have its economy destroyed when the inevitable, and irreversible decline in oil and gas occurs in 2050 and beyond.  There will be no fracking boom then to save us, and we will literally have to walk away from our cars, with no trains or buses as a fall back.

We are doing this to ourselves.  We should demand more taxes on gasoline and natural gas.  We should demand more mass transportation, and make the investment in our grandchildrens' futures to see that it happens.

We won't.  We will do what America has always done, exploit natural resources completely, then go try to conquer somebody else to get it.

Only this time, there will be no fracking to save us...We are running out of gas!  And this time, it is forever.

Partisanship on the Right Gone Nuts

Many in the international community greeted the tentative agreement with Iran with a mixture of positive and negative comments.  Certainly, Iran's past includes making statements that are either not true, or designed for propaganda effect that is so transparent anyone can see through them.  Iran does not deceive very well.  

But, the six month agreement is so transparently a first step and not a solution, than anyone can see its limitations.  There is no deception.  

Two areas of the international community apparently are so jaded and politicized they purposefully cannot see it.  One is Israel.  The other is the Republican Party.

Israel reacted with skepticism off the scale.  They even oppose the six month limited agreement completely.  

And the Republlican Party.  Well, they reacted with several comments that claim the agreement is a cover to divert the American Public's attention from the "train wreck" of the ACA.

What!?  Really!?

I can understand Israel's opposition.  After all, the United States almost plunged the world into nuclear war, with its opposition to nuclear missiles in Cuba in 1963.  Of course, the fact there were hundreds others targeted on the U.S. from Russia did not seem to be as deep an afront.  

Israel, who probably has a nuclear weapon already, can not abide an Arab State being so armed next to them.  The double standard of that non-withstanding, Israel's position at least understandable.  

Ok, we can get that.  But Israel also has not yet launced a pre-emptive strike, like American witless Neocons  want to do RIGHT NOW.  

The same idiots that got us trapped into Iraq, now want war as the only answer to this international dilemma.  No sanctions either, just attack.  

Luckily this time, they are not running a similarly witless administration.

George Bush was so devious, and inexperienced in international affairs, he relied on te Neocons to advise him about Iraq; plunged the United States into a mindless and fruitless war.

This is where Israel and the Republicans are right now.  In refusing to negotiate, in relying on military action first last and always, they virtually insure war, and destabilization of the Middle East for years to come.

And it all has NOTHING to do with the ACA.

The good news about Republicans is they are so partisan and reactive, that we can predict their behavior.   And, with an ACA that is having implementation troubles, the cons keep messing up.

And the neocons, many who should be in jail for war crimes, keep their stupidity flowing.

Thank God these guys are so politially witless, it doesn't take much effort to keep them on the defensive....

And Now the Pope!

The Pope has been popping off lately.  There is little doubt that cons will have to challenge him in a primary.  The Pope is speaking foolishness and is dangerous.

The Pope is daring to say that there is a culture of waste in the world lead by unfettered and greedy capitalism.  He criticizes the greed, the inhumanity of those who make money with no regard to the environmental and human cost.

In America we meanwhile have cut food stamps, while many areas of our country are still caught in deep unemployment and poverty.  The ACA is being implemented in rich states, who are cooperating, but not well in poor states, whose Republican governors and legislature refused Medicaid assistance and now are hamstringing  implementation.

The Farm Bill is being held hostage by fanatical free market types, resulting in $8.00 gallons of milk!

This is result in two Americas:  one with health care for all, the other with rationed care for the few; one for the rich, one for the poor.

And meanwhile, the Republicans, the Party of business, are on a crusade to repeal the health  law completely.  Greedy insurance companies quietly stand behind these efforts, wanting to return to when they could do anything they wanted, stealing money and providing no protection.

Capitalism kills.  It kills people when it is unregulated, untaxed and runs the show.  This has been the case for hundreds of years  Capitalism gave us slavery and Civil War.

Now, I am not advocating socialism.  But I am advocating control of capitalism, and most of all, ethics and morality in the "captains of industry".  Government regulation is not enough, it is what lies in the hearts of men and women, CEOs of Wal Mart; et al, that will make the difference.

Capitalists need to be reminded, as the Pope just did, that they have eternal souls too.

I have never understood why how Christian Conservatives could fight for the rights of the unborn, yet vote to cut food stamps for children.  How a church going conservative could read Matthew 25, and turn right around and attack Health Care for the poor.

Capitalism creates unfair competition; it always has.  It needs regulation to function.  It needs laws to protect those who lose.

And the Pope sees that everyday.  He came from a developing country.  He knows where the world is headed, with capitalism caused global warming threatening millions every day.  The gap between rich and war will eventually cause war and conflict.  It always has!

And now the Pope speaks out and on this eve of Thanksgiving reminds us all of what being a Christian should mean.

Attacking the ACA for Fun and Profit

The noise just keeps going on and on.  Republicans, after their own disastrous shut down the government fiasco, are attacking the ACA with renewed fervor.

Sometimes, as the saying goes, be careful what you wish for.

Let's play this out.  It will take months if not years for the Republicans to repeal the ACA.  It certainly will not be repealed during the Obama Administration.  so this is three years at least.

In that three years, all the good that the ACA was written to do will be well on its way. 

Remember, if you can through all the bullshit, why the ACA was written and passed for good reason: we desperately need health care reform in this country. 

One, the United States has the most expensive and one of the least efficient and cost effective system in the industrialized world.  In short, we pay for health care, with the least result.

Recently, it was divulged that many U.S. citizens are going to Mexico for medical treatment, because it is not only cheaper, but BETTER!

Secondly, we had the least regulated health care system, especially insurance wise, in the industrialized world.  This means junk insurance policies, with lots of small print, not covering pre-existing conditions, excluding many conditions, lifetime maximums, etc.  Everyone in the country has a horror story of people who thought they were covered, but weren't. 

This has led to bankruptcy and worse for many people.

The ACA was written to stop these abuses.  THE REASON WHY POLICIES HAVE BEEN CANCELLED, IS BECAUSE THERE IS NOW A STANDARD OF COVERAGE TO PROTECT CONSUMERS.

Yes, some of these junk policies are cheaper, you usually get cheap when you pay cheap.  The ACA basically mandates common sense and competitive policies on insurance companies.

The ACA also tries to use the free enterprise system and competition to drive costs down.  Heretofore, this has not been the case, as the insurance industry has been regulated by state's with wide variability between regulations.  A policy bought in California for example, for the same family, could vary markedly. 

The facts are the Exchanges were set up to use the power of the market place to drive down costs and bring quality affordable health care to millions more.  The 30 to 50 million Americans with no or little effective insurance are being finally addressed.

So let's play this out.  Let's say in three years millions now have effective and cheaper health insurance and along come the Republicans to repeal the act.

Who will be held responsible? 

This is why the Republicans are so afraid that the law will be allowed to operate.  That is why they tried to shut the government down, and may do so again.

The ultimate irony is the Affordable Care Act is exactly the same law that currently exists in Massachusetts, passed by the Republican candidate for President in 2012, which should have been a showcase of private enterprise solving a public problem. 

Instead, Republicans decided to take the position that will deny millions adequate health care.

They still have time, to quietly take ownership of what really is their philosophical position, that private markets (the exchanges; et al), can solve the health care crisis in the United States.

The smart position is to make the Democrats own the messed up roll out, and then move to support the ACA as their idea, based on the Massachusetts' example. 

But they steadfastly refuse to do this!

Be careful what you wish for! 

Sick and Tired

OK, just for those of you who might be flagging a bit in support of the President. 

Do you remember 2009?  The President began the effort to reform Health Care Insurance.  The Democrats had a solid majority in the House and Senate.  The Single Payer was in the working bill, that was moving briskly through the House and Senate. 

Then Teddy Kennedy died.  The archaic and manipulated filibuster rule,  already was allowing the Republicans to block much of what the President was trying to do from 2008 to 2009.  But when Kennedy died, this played right into their hands, giving them with Scott Brown's unfortunate election to the Senate, 41 votes, that could stop Democrats from getting the 60 needed to end the filibusters in the Senate.

Remember?  Remember how we all could not believe that a Party with only 41 votes out of 100 could virtually stop much needed reform.

And they did.  A version of the bill had been passed earlier in both the House and the Senate, without the Single Payer option in it.  So, in desperation to save the Bill, Democrats reconciled the two bills, legally avoiding the certain Senate filibuster that would have killed it, and succeeded in getting the Affordable Care Act into law.

This was without the single payer option, which would have set up the federal government as a virtual insurance company, who could have offered health insurance plans similar to Medicare, that definitely would have kept private insurance companies honest, spurred competition, and more that likely, made the law an easy  success.

But, it had been almost a hundred years trying, for a "universal health care law" to be passed into law in the United States; so Democrats gambled that the ACA without the single payer would work.  After all, it worked in Massachusetts. 

Our country was and is being bankrupted by greedy insurance companies, a health care industry out of control, resulting in sky high costs, 50 million uninsured, and a mess of health care; ranking as the most expensive in the world, and the least effective among all the industrialized nations.

And, the law that finally was signed, was almost exactly like the plan in Massachusetts, that ironically the 2012 Presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, had compromised into existence in a liberal state.  In fact, Teddy Kennedy had worked with Romney in accomplishing the feat of the first comprehensive health care reform in history in the United States.

Then, the Republican Party went nuts.  Greedy insurance companies, who for once had actually failed to lobby universal health care coverage away, fought back, with a publicity campaign oriented around the "Tea Party", a quasi-grass roots organization, that fought to repeal the ACA.

This has been going on now for two years, BEFORE the law goes into effect in January 2014. 

And it has been a excruciating battle, with the Republican Party losing the 2012 presidential election in a kamikaze effort to repeal the law, costing Mitt Romney any chance to win the Presidency.

Recently we have witnessed a governmental shutdown, in a desperate attempt to stop the law.  And now, as the law in implemented, EVERY bump in the road is seized up as proof that it is a "disaster" and "train wreck"; etc.

Meanwhile, in Massachusetts, who has virtually the same law, 97 percent of the state's population now are  covered by affordable health care insurance, using the private enterprise system as the delivery modality, with no public option.

In short, it works. 

Now, will it work in the long run, under constant attack from greedy insurance companies who fight governmental regulation at every turn?  This remains to be seen.

What is certain, is  a political party has staked its future on repealing the federal law, at all costs. 

The Republican Party will not quit until it is either destroyed, or destroys the  ACA; and may destroy the nation in the process.   

This is Civil War type obsession, and I am sick and tired of it.  So sick and tired that I find myself saying, thinking selfishly since I am now covered by Medicare, the hell with it. 

But then I think of my daughter's family, who will be covered under the ACA and right now do not have health insurance.  This is a young family of four, who are rolling the dice every day that nobody gets sick. This is a family, whose grandmother died early of breast cancer.

This ends my sick and tired feeling.  This makes me willing to fight, even physically if need be, to get a universal health care system either kept, and certainly improved in this country.

I have and will in the future lose friends over this; I don't care.  The greedy, selfishness of my fellow Americans that the endless ACA debate uncovers, makes me sick. 

Our country is ill.  It is afflicted with a me first attitude, crystallized in the Republican Party disaster of non-leadership, that supports the fat cat insurance industry, who does not care if people live or die.

So I will continue fighting the bastards who are working so hard to destroy our country. 

Redskins then, Redskins now, Redskins Forever?

Redskins then, Redskins now, Redskins forever...the Sports Pages of major Washington D.C. papers, proclaim once again that Native American mascots are not an affront to Native Americans, and are harmless.   In fact, the Seminoles of Florida State, and other mascots names are in fact testimonials to the traditions and history of indigenous Americans, and should remain according to conservative viewpoints.  

We always stood in the tunnel before the games.  The Band had a cannon that boomed when we stormed on the field.  Leading us was "Prince Lightfoot" a Native American Chief from what was left of the California tribe that once inhabited San Francisco.  

The Prince wore a full headdress, and was dressed in Sioux war dress, with face paint to match.  Never mind that California Native Americans never dressed like that, he was Stanford's mascot.  We stormed out of the tunnel, following Prince Lightfoot, through the smoke of a 19th century cannon.  In fact, the cannon was a replica of cavalry cannons, used to rid the Great Plains of Redskins.   Prince Lightfoot always stormed through its smoke, emerging triumphant on the other side.

History proved otherwise.  

Pretty thrilling stuff for a young sophomore from Redding, California.  We even had, my sophomore year, a real  Indian as quarterback, Dave Lewis.  I remember he posed for publicity pictures with a war bonnet on.  Dave was good natured about it all, after all he was playing for the Indians!   

We were colorful for sure.  Our "Song Dollies" wore Indian Dress, with feathers of course, and much of the Band's music had a tom tom sound to it.  We even had a cheer, that I can still hear, starting with "Give them the Axe...right in the neck" and so on, coupled with the tom tom drumming.

I must say, it was thrilling.  It certainly got the blood flowing, as we stormed on the field, to do battle with the Ducks, the Trojans, the Beavers; etc.  You got axes for your helmet for good plays to go along with stars and such.  

We were the Indians.

In the mid-70s, Stanford stopped being the Indians.  The political correctness of "Wounded Knee" and various Native American protests, forced Stanford to reconsider their mascot, and typical of a liberal college (according to conservatives) Stanford reverted to its original mascot, the color Cardinal, with a Tree of all things as its mascot.  My conservative friends still introduce this topic with, "That was the worst thing Stanford ever did, stop being the Indians".  I usually remain silent.  

The team still storms out on the field, but are led by large Stanford flags, no cannon, no Prince Lightfoot.  The Prince himself, actually considered suing Stanford when he lost his position, but nothing came of it.  He wanted the Indian to remain as the mascot.  Many Native Americans did not.  Stanford, to its credit, listened to them.  

The screams cut through the cold darkness of that Texas night.  The screams were of a woman and her young child.

My great grandmother had been snatched from her bed.  She was seven years old.  She was thrown into a wagon with her mother, and rode about three miles to the hanging tree.

The screams started when she and her mother recognized who was sitting on the horse, with a hanging noose draped around his neck.  

It was her father, the Redskin Cherokee, William Pitman.  He looked at the two of them, with pleading yet stoic eyes.  He knew he was going to die, but he didn't want them to see.

He spoke to the vigilantes around him, all with hoods over their head.  He cried, "Please not my children, not my wife, send them away".  One of the vigilantes reached over and smacked him along the side of his face, and shouted, "Shut up Redskin, you are a horse thief, you will die".

The same man then turned to the woman and small child, and smirked, "And they will watch you hang.  Your white whore, and your half breed bitch need to see what we do to Redskins that steal horses".

My great grandmother screamed at him,"He is no horse thief, he is a blacksmith, he had a shod horse because he is a blacksmith for God's sake".

"Shut up whore", one of the vigilantes shouted, and walked up to the woman and slapped her flush in the face.  She fell to the ground, being a very small woman, with blood sprouting from the nose.  The little girl screamed in fear, and held tight to her mother.

They were alone with the vigilantes and her father.  There was nothing or no one to help them.  They were at the white Texans' mercy.  

And the vigilantes made sure they knew this.  They repeated many times, to no one in particular, that the law demanded they hang this Redskin, for the law in Texas held that a Redskin with a shod horse, was guilty of a capital offense, and could be hanged without trial.

They had blood in their eyes, and vengeance in their hearts.  Some of them had lost friends and family to the Comanches, who were terrorizing that part of Texas in 1859.  Some of them wore the confederate flag even then, with the Civil War scarcely a year away.  Racism dripped from their lips.  

The law was what they said it was, and "the only good Indian (Redskin), was a dead Indian.

The leader spoke next.  He read from a handwritten letter, that William  Pitman was guilty as a horse thief, was a Cherokee Indian caught with a shod horse, and deserved to be hanged by his neck until he died.  "The Redskin and his whore should both go also", one of the men shouted.  

The leader hesitated, looked at the woman, and said,  "No let her and her vermin live, so they can warn other half-breeds that we will not tolerate this.    A woman marries a nigger or a Redskin, they deserve this."  

And with that, he slapped the rump of the horse, and William Pitman swung suddenly in the darkness.  

The light of the torches illuminated his struggle.  It was quickly obvious that his neck had not broken.  He was struggling for air, and the weight of his body slowly suffocated him.  He gurgled and even mumbled, "Help me", as  he dangled back and forth.

The woman screamed again as did her daughter.  They attempted to turn away, as William messed his pants, and continued to twitch and swing to and fro.  The men grabbed their heads and forced them to face the horror, even forcing their eyes open.  The little girl was now crying uncontrollably, shouting "Daddy, Daddy", as her daddy slowly died.

After about five minutes, that seemed like an hour, William Pitman's face turned blue, his eyes began to fix, the twitching slowed, as the rope swung methodically back and forth, slowing as his struggle ended.  

Finally, after about twenty minutes, they cut him down.  

Then, they took his body to the bonfire that had illuminated the horror, and threw him into it.  The fire crackled and sizzled, and William  Pitman (my great great grandfather) cooked in the Texas darkness.

The mother and her daughter could stand it now longer, and passed out.  They were left where they fell, and, after quite an argument that they should also be hanged, were left alone, next to the fire, to shift for themselves.  It was a long way back to town, the wolves or Comanches probably would get them, the vigilantes hoped.

But they did not die that night.  In fact my great great grandmother lived into the twentieth century, and her daughter lived to give birth to my grandfather, Charlie Beale.    

Charlie Beale was a drunk.  He had a weakness for alcohol.  His father was an Indian Agent, worked at Fort Sill, where my grandfather actually saw Geronimo, who was imprisoned there after he ran the United States Cavalry ragged for months in the southwest.

I do remember my grandfather telling me about Geronimo's eyes.  "They went right through you", he said.  "When he moved around outside his cell, they had twenty men around him, so much did they respect and fear his fighting spirit".  

"But he was a dirty Indian to everyone else, a  worthless Redskin", that deserved nothing."  

This was coming from my grandfather, who as it works out, was 1/4 Cherokee.

I knew I had "Indian blood" when I was at Stanford.  I never really gave it much thought.    

At the time, there were cowboys and there were Indians.  The cowboys were the good guys, the Indians were bad.  In our  hometown, Redding, my dad used to tell me how he would go out into the back alley behind the shop where he worked, and see the sheriff's deputies beat the drunken Indians by handcuffing their hands behind their backs, then knock them over forewards, smashing their faces into the pavement.  

"Not so funny now, you fucking Redskin", the deputies would yell, and the blood flew, and pieces of broken bone would fly from their noses into the mud and grease on the alley floor.  Many of the Indians bore old scars from previous beatings, because like my grandfather, they were drunks, this wasn't the first time in the alley for them.  

But Charlie Beale was much more than a drunk.  He stopped drinking when I was about two, because my mother told him he couldn't be around me anymore if he was drunk.  He almost dropped me once when he was drunk, and that did it for my mother.  And he stopped  drinking, cold.

He died young, from a cancer that was directly tied to his job; railroad conductor.  Many Southern Pacific railroad workers died of cancer, because they breathed decades of fumes from the engines, with no pollution standards. 

Charlie Beale was one of the funniest men, I have ever known.  He died when I was twelve, but I still remember that he could entertain for hours, with joke after joke.  He reduced our dinners at grandpa's to laughter every time, with his abundant sense of humor.  I loved my grandpa Beale, I did not know of his drinking problem until much later.  He always loved me back.

But something else has always bothered me.  

There is a darkness to our family.  My grandmother, not of Native American background, was a neurotic person, depressed and moody.  Apparently her mother committed suicide.  I loved my grandmother too, but she was a very negative person, even to a child's perspective.

My father, about ten years ago, told me the whole story.  He told me about William Pitman, he told me about the hanging.  

He told me about my great grandmother, going up the steps of the courthouse in Oklahoma City, intent on registering her children under the Dawes Act, as half breed Cherokees, and stopping, turning around and saying, "I would rather you be called niggers that Redskins".  She walked down the steps.  

With that decision, my great grandmother ended any legal rights my family would ever have to "Indian Rights".  

But that's alright as far as I am concerned. Since I never knew I might qualify, I never thought about it, even though I was a Stanford Indian, lettered in football as an Indian and represented the University as a "Redskin" for four years.

But the darkness bothers me.  Again, I am not sure how much comes from my grandmother, who was not Native American, or from my grandfather, who most assuredly was.

My father tells me his grandmother (the little girl who watched William Pitman hang), never got over it.  She would not talk about it much, but toward the end of her life, she did open up about that horrible night in Texas.  She was deeply hateful and resentful all of her life.  She had an  aura about her, according to my father.  "You just didn't mess with her", he tells me.  She would go after you, all 100 pounds of her, if you crossed her.  

My aunt  was depressed most of her life.  Her three daughters all married men of color; I never could understand that then, I do now.  

When my great grandmother  died, my father remembers they took all of her pictures, notes, and personal belongings out to the front yard in Chico, California, and burned them.  

As a historian, that kills me!   All of the history, save a few pictures that survived,  was burned.  

Apparently, that is a Cherokee tradition, burning the dead's records, so the spirit can go free.  

Regardless, much of the written record of that horrible night is gone, save the oral history that I include here.

Redskins then, Redskins now, Redskins forever.  That haunts me now.

Now that I know.  Now that part of me is a partner in tragedy with African Americans who were savaged by slavery and lynchings, the Redskin "controversy" is in a totally different light.    

Lynching does lasting damage to families and to traditions.  It truly sears generational souls.  It won't leave your subconscious, always lurking in the background as a personal injustice.  Families who have lost loved ones to racial injustice, are like holocaust survivors; they never never forget!  

It happened to my great great grandfather; its personal.  

It leaves me, in the latter part of my life, wondering if I have done enough to stop injustice; if  we as a nation are trying enough, if  we leave the Washington Redskins to keep their mascot,  with a name that was used as a racial and murderous epitaph in the not so distant past.

And sometimes in the dead of night, in its creepy stillness, I hear a little girl screaming in the Texas wilderness, as her Daddy swings at the end of a rope...

   

No President? Yeah right!

In the San Jose Mercury News this morning, believe it or not in  a left leaning newspaper, there was an article by an Obama hater, that the United States is without a President.

In the same edition, there was a headline that once again, the Senate has used arcane fillibuster rules to deny two Predential appointments, one to a judgeship, the other to an agency in need of leadership.

The Senate has set a record for fillibusters and for denying Presidnential appointments.  Th Bureau of Tobacco and Firearms went for years without a leader, Republicans in the Senate refused to approve anyone to the leadership, using fillibuster after fillibuster to deny the President's candidates.

And, a couple weeks ago, we saw the Republicans in the House of Representatives  lead the nation into a disasterous governmental shutdown, in a failed attempt to scuttle the Affordable Care Act.

And now, another hater writes an ariticle that we are without a President.

Even the most vocal opponents to the Democratic President has to see a pattern here.  Conservatives, especailly racist ones, decided a long time ago to block everything they could by President Obama.

  This first became apparent early, when the Affordable Care Act barely missed getting the key component of single payor alternative,  when Massachusetts stupidly elected a Republican to take Ted Kennedy's Senate seat, taking away the 60 seat super majority the Democrats had, and leading to endless fillibusters.  

In fact, the ACA was approved narrowly, with legislative manuvers that were necessary because the Senate fillibuster had the bill locked down.  Even though Democrats had sizable majorities in both houses, the fillibuster almost stopped the ACA.  

This, course, cause faux outrage with Republicans, who to a man/woman refused to vote for the ACA, and declared war on the bill from that day on.

Today, Ted Cruz is obviously using the ACA as a vehicle to run, as the first openly fascist candidate for President in history.

The Republican Party has split, in  supposedly a death spiral, but still  is united in its hatred of President Obama.  The Speaker of the House, keeps tap dancing around, acting like he can be "reasonable" but then calling the ACA every name in the book, and going for the President's throat.

The facts are not in dispute.  We have a President, contrary to the haters.  We just don't have the President they wanted.  Mitt Romney, tragically who led the ACA inception in Massachusetts (its the same f....bill!), was forced to run against himself, could not take credit for the health care reform he led, and lost big to the President, who basically copied Romneycare.  

And conservatives hate the President for it.  But they hate him for another reason, that they barely veil...he is half black!

When articles are written claiming the United States does not have a President, while Republicans block everything, setting up the President for such outlandish claims, with no cooperation offerred ever,  it is for one reason;   a moderate President, who championed a conservative idea for health care reform, is hated and resisted for the simple reason that he is black!

But do not be too happy conservatives.  You may ruin Obama's Presidency, but we will never forget.  And if you ever do elect a President, I am hereby declaring war on you and yours.  No cooperation, no bipartisanship, WAR!   We will never forget the chickenshit approach you and yours have adopted.

And if you somehow elect Cruz, it will be more than political war, it will have to be the real thing, because fascism will come to our great country.  

And fascism never wins.  

It's the Same F.....ing Law

It was an obscure Congressional Hearing, and the witness had been on the stand for a long time.  He was being grilled by hostile Republicans, who predictably were attacking the proposed Affordable Care Act at every turn.  The witness was an insurance expert, who had been instrumental in getting the Health Care Act passed in Massachusetts, nicknamed RomneyCare by friends and foes alike.

The witness carefully answered the hostile questions, that often implied the ACA was a "socialist plot".

At the time, the "single payor" optionn was still in the ACA, which meant insurance companies would have to compete with the United States government in providing their "products" to the public.  This would be a disaster for them, since they would have to cut profits dramatically and would have to actually have to compete.

In Massachusetts there was no single payor.  The state did not offer insurance, but there were insurance exchanges, and most other major features of the ACA.  

Finally, after discussing the single payor option, the witness blurted out, "It's the same f......Bill".  

Right there the deal was sealed.  Without the single payor option, the ACA was and is virtually identical to the Massachusetts Bill.  And its partial author at least was Governor Romney, whose idea was the insurance exchanges.

Romney was planning then, it was 2010 , to craft his run for President around  RomneyCare, that after a rough beginning, was beginning to get traction.  

But, as we all know, after the brutal primaries, where conservatives dominated, Romney had to actually run against his greatest single governmental accomplishment.  And he lost his bid for the Presidency, declaring that he would repeal "Obamacare" that was essentially the "same f....ing bill" he had successfully passed in Massachusetts.

Today, as the Republicans predictably continue their insane assault on the ACA, even going so far as shutting down the government to repeal the law, we see the same problems implementing the law as occurrred in Massachusetts.  The young and healthy wait until the individual mandate, penalty, is imminent, before they rush to enroll.  But once this happens, the law works, health care is spread to millions more people.  

In the end, 97% of Massachusetts citizens are enrolled in health care, healthy statistics are increasing, employment is higher than in the U.S., the economy is doing better; in all, the "same f....ing bill" is working.

And it will in the United  States also, particularly in states that decided to adopt the law and embrace it.   Their exchanges are working, and the sign up is taking place.

It will take at least five years before we will be able to assess the ACA as in Massachusetts.  But, we do have a laboratory if you will in Massachusetts and the "same f....ing bill, works".  

With the single payor option, it will really work to bring health care costs down!   That is the next big reform we need to put back into the ACA.   

The Uncaring American

If you have the time, and the inclination, browse statistics about where the United States ranks in social welfare, or the safety net for the poor compared to other nations in the world.

If you factor in health care, the United States ranks near the bottom.  We savage our poor.

If you factor out health care, the United States does a little better, but the percentage of the poor, the gap between the rich and the poor is the highest in the industrialized world.  We are becoming a banana republic.  

America is no longer the "beacon of light" to the world.  The American Dream has become a middle class nightmare, social and economic mobility have slowed to a crawl in the United States.

What happened?  What happened to the beacon on the hill?

America has always had a strange inferiority complex relative to the world.  We witnessed it in the 1970s, when the world began to catch up economically to American hegemony after the utter destruction of every national economy on earth save the United States.  

When Japan began to challenge American car manufacturing, even slightly, Americans panicked.  The push was on to out compete and beat the Japanese.  

American conservatives seized on this "threat" (Japan's GDP was a fraction of the United States'), and pushed for less government regulation and tax cuts.

Ronald Reagan gleefully moved into this paranoia, pushed even more tax cuts as an economic stimulus.  

Ironically, these tax cuts drastically cut government revenue and government, creating deficits that carry through to today.  In the long term, this lack of revenue actually damaged the economy it did not improve it.  

Meanwhile, in the 80s and 90s, the world really did catch up with the United States.  Europe and a revitalized Russia, with new manufacturing infrastructure began to out compete America's aging infrastructure.  

Detroit for example, stayed with large cars and trucks, while the rest of the world produced more economical models, and America became for the first time in fifty years, a second tier world car producer.

And then there was manufacturing.  American manufacurers assumed their hegemony would last forever after WWII.  They neglected to understand that the only reason they were number one, was the simple fact that the manufacturing sectors of Europe and Asia were destroyed by WWII.  So, Americans stayed with inefficient plants, high wages via unionization, and got rich and complacent.

Meanwhile the rest of the world automated their plants, and paid less wages.  They undercut American manufacturing at every turn.

And American manufacturers blamed:  the workers!    It was the union's fault for their inefficiency.  Workers had to be cut, wages reduced, while the plants still remained pre 1950 in technology.

And America lost.  Jobs were outsourced to Asian and European plants, that produced products at lower prices.

Meanwhile in America, Republicans finally had a cause to emasculate the hated New Deal.  Manufacturing jobs were hemoraging, the middle class was shrinking, and who to blame, unions and big government.

And the American people, panicking as usual, bought the lies!  

Of course, neither one of these were the real reason for America's "relative decline".  And it was still relative.  The American economy, in spite of losses, still remains today as the world largest, most innovative and strongest.  

But conservatives have made a living hacking away at American's self confidence.  They have reduced the social welfare safety net to one of the worst in the world.  America alone in the industrialized world does not have a universal health care system.

The ACA, is being fought at every turn, by conservatives that for some reason want to reduce the one thing what can improve America's economic competitive position.  

Basically,  economic opportunity, that drove American exceptionalism if you will, is dying.  

And the irony is this is all self inflicted.  There is no reason to do this, other than feed the dilusions of the right wing.  The country can afford a universal health care plan.  The country can afford to educate our citizens at global competitive levels.  The country can afford to build a public transportation system, an energy modernized grid; all things necessary to really compete in the  global economy.

But America has one big disadvantage; its right wing of negativism and obstructionism which leads always to an unequal distribution of wealth, and an inevitable losing posture in the global economy.  

The greatest threat to American economic and political leadership in the world, is the right wing movement.  Its recent success in destroying the social welfare safety net, its intrangenance in fighing the Affordable Care  Act will result in American slowly and painfully becoming a second rate world economic power.  

The beacon on the hill is flickering.  

A Comment on Forging A New Paradigm

At least the level of discourse of these comments is way above the "idiot" "moron" type I usually see.  There is little doubt our political system is being damaged by radical ideology.  And any political scientist worth his/her salt can identify the radical elements of the discourse.  It is coming from the right.  The genius of our political system is in its tendency to stay away from the radical noise and rule from the middle.  I suggest that is exactly what the ACA controversy is about. The law is a middle of the road attempt at a universal health care plan.  Its antecedents are easily studied because the former candidate for President, who called himself an extreme conservative, implemented a nearly identical law in Massachusetts.  That fact is NEVER acknowledged by the reactionaries (thanks for the definition Hal).  

So, ideological opposition is ridiculous when exercised from the right:  the ACA was their idea.  Progressives still have trouble with the ACA BECAUSE IT RELIES COMPLETELY ON PRIVATE ENTERPRISE!

So why the opposition?  I suggest a whole lot of political theater, with a healthy pinch of racism.  The Republican Party remember, inherited the Dixiecrats, who would not be expected to accept the first African American President, especially one who outflanked them with the first legislated universal health care plan FROM THE RIGHT.  

That fact is driving conservatives crazy.  It fuels their anger, and has made them reckless, witness the last few weeks.

The President is way smarter politically than anyone gives him credit for.  He was able to get universal health care passed when every previous President had failed,  and, he adopted the plan from conservatives, emasculating his future Presidential rival, and appears to have split the Reagan Republican coalition as well!

Great Presidents  forge new political paradigms. Lincoln did it, Teddy Roosevelt did it, FDR really did it, and (it pains me to say it) so did Reagan.  It appears Obama is going to do it also. 

Conservatives are taking the bait, and are paying for it.  They are getting played, by a savy politician and by demographics, and apparently have decided to fight back by committing political suicide.  

And the new ruling coalition that Obama is crafting will rule from guess where....the middle.

Poor and getting poor

Well we survived I guess.  A temporary extension of the Debt Limit and the government is open today.

And we are poorer today.  What came out of this was an "agreement" (extortion works) that continues the austerity madness conservatives have given us.

Food stamps have been cut.  Unemployment is cut.  Government spending is cut, with no new revenues to "attack" the deficit.  We cure a sick economy by making it sicker!

These attackers completely forget that most of the deficit exists because the GOP decided to fight two wars, with massive tax cuts.  It is the revenue that we lack, to pay the bills that these same stalwarts of fiscal responsibility rang up.

And we are getting poor and getting poorer.

The ACA survived lets see:  the fiftieth challenge to its existence.  Meanwhile over one half of all states have refused total federal funding of Medicaid which leaves millions poorer and still without health insurance.  We are getting poorer.

The cuts to government spending are at huge levels in this latest "agreement" to extend the government's life for a few weeks.  Democrats have at the point of a gun, been forced to accept the economics of austerity while unemployment is over 8 percent in most of the country.

A comparison is 1936, when FDR foolishly bought back into the austerity idea of "curing" the economy, cut spending and the nation dipped back into depression.  He famously said it was the "worst mistake I ever made".

The fact is we get poorer EVERY TIME we listen to the conservatives.  Their leadership results in widespread poverty and harm.

Wealth is so poorly distributed in our nation today, it rivals the "banana republics" of Latin America.  The middle class dwindles more everyday.  Young people graduate with huge loan debts from college, and can't get a job.

And then, we finally get a universal health law, and it is attacked with no end by ideologues, who would rather destroy the country than allow people to have health insurance.

And we are getting poor and getting poorer, while the rich get richer.

And we getting tired of this yet?   Please vote.  Please vote these fools out!

Sedition and Treason

Sedition used to be a crime.  During WWI there was an outburst of patriotism and paranoia. The patriotism was because the unrestricted submarine warfare had enraged the reluctant nation into entering a European war it would rather stay out of.  The paranoia arose toward German immigrants, most of them first generation, who still had direct and recent ties to the mother land.

Many would argue this paranoia was in fact common sense, for two reasons:  One, German immigrants were very recently arrived in the United States, many still had allegiance to the Kaiser.   Two,  the Civil War was a few decades in the past and northern states remembered the struggles during the war against spies and espionage.  John Wilkes Booth was after all  a southern sympathizer, some say a spy, who assassinated Lincoln, dramatically affecting the post war nation.  There was recent concrete historical evidence of he damage sedition and treason could render.

So, the Alien and Sedition Acts were passed, and free speech, anti-governmental talk was repressed, sometimes brutally.

We do not look back well at this time.  In fact, because of it the United States tolerates anti-governmental speech and action more than most other political states, it is seen as a dark time for civil liberties.

This is particularly evident today.  Radicals in the Republican Party are currently holding the country hostage to advance an agenda that by any measure is made to damage government itself.

The threat of default was used along with actually shutting down the government to advance a radical agenda, that called for upending established law, hamstringing the government's actions; during a TIME of WAR!

American combat troops are currently engaged in Afghanistan.  Casualties are happening, combat deaths are happening, while radical political elements are defunding the government and sabotaging the government.

That is sedition.  And they are getting away with it.

Ironically, this is being done by a political element that purports to be patriotic.  In fact, Senator Cruz has called the act of sedition a "Profile in Courage".  An act of courage?  To stop your government, and defund it during an act of war.

That is treason and sedition.  It should be dealt with as we did during WWI:  throw them in jail and hang the traitors.  

Beware the Users of Fear

If you have been able to stomach the past few weeks, many have not, and have not simply tuned out, you have maybe noticed how the Tea Party Patriots have used fear at every turn to both shut down the government and now are on the verge of bankrupting the nation.

A major fear use is the absolute demonizing of the ACA.  Cruz and partners claim that the ACA will destroy American democracy, socialize the nation, and ruin our children.

Fear, absolute fear, as a motivator is used at every turn.

Fear is very powerful and very easy to use as a motivator.  It is easier than using logic or rational argument.

The next time, which should be almost immediately, just slow down  and and listen to the obvious talking points the Tea Party crowd uses.   You don't have to look that hard; fear is the first and last talking point.

Now, they also accuse the Democrats of using fear, when the Democrats  produce statistic after statistic showing the damage  the shutdown, and the default is causing.  They also claim fear mongering by the President for factually based damage their campaign is causing.

The  Tea Partiers (some party?), then pivot and blame the President for using scare tactics.

Next time you tune them in, if you can stand it, just wait for it, more fear.  The favorite is our childrens' children will lose their liberty; or will be doomed to everlasting poverty, or will be overrun by foreign enemies, if Obama care survives.

Their tactic of closing down the government and default is actually the thing to fear, because real damage is being done.

Fascists use fear to build power.  Even a cursory study of fascism shows the use of scapegoating and fear by fascist minorities to scare and harass the majority.  If the fear is effective the right can manipulate its minority status into a majority; and that is exactly the strategy we are seeing played out right now.

Senator Cruz, who bares a remarkable similarity to Joseph McCarthy, uses the exact same strategy "tail gunner" Joe used to scare people and gain power.

And it worked, at least for awhile.  The politics of Washington are so politically charged, and so self-serving, that fear of political consequences goes a long way.  This has not changed in the 70 some years since McCarthyism.  And we can see it being played out right now, as Republicans recoil in fear of political retribution.  So far, there is not evidence of ANY bravery in Republicans during all this.....none.

The politics of fear work.  It worked for McCarthy for about three years.  At that time it ruined several lives.  This time it may ruin millions of lives, if another Great Recession develops.

A long time ago, Roosevelt started his first Inaugural Address with "The only thing to fear is fear itself".  He knew the dangers the country faced, real dangers verging on starvation for many.  But he also knew, the greatest danger was of fear itself, having just witnessed Germany falling under the spell of Adolph Hitler.

You see the danger is not in Obama care, or in the socialist Democrats.  The real danger is in the fear that is being used right now by Ted Cruz and other Tea Party types, to scare us into the same trap Hitler used in Germany in 1932.

Because their tactics are the same, and their political philosophy is the same:   fascism!

Why the word fascism?

Why does Beale use the term fascism? Today I was asked pointedly by a good conservative friend why I use the "f" word so much? Since he was not talking about my golfing lexicon (I think), here's why: Look, I am not comparing the hard conservative right (and that includes the Tea Party) with Nazis (only they do that with President Obama).

I am concerned as a Political Scientist with the criteria for fascism (let's call it non Nazi fascism) that seems   to being met by the right wing in this country more and more. I have read literally dozens of books on the subject, the most recent "The Anatomy of Fascism". The similarities are striking. I have listed these criteria many times in my posts.

An over-reaching one is the need with fascists to destroy democracy, especially liberal democracy.

Now, liberal democracy does NOT mean liberals and democracy. Liberal democracy, to a political scientist means traditional liberal democratic ideals and government, as evidenced most in the United States Constitutional Government. Basically the liberal democrat believes in limited government, always mindful of the danger of liberty by over-reaching government, but holds a view that there is such a thing as a social compact. The social compact is an agreement or consensus in the country, as to the political freedoms and democratic ideals that are most important.

Liberal democracy holds that governments CAN be instituted among men that not only preserves political and economic freedom, but can maximize them within the rule of law. The rule of law is what holds the whole thing together, and it legitimizes the government or state if you will.

Fascism attacks this at every turn, usually with a thing called plutocracy or oligarchy as its base. In short, corporations and large businesses decide to destroy social democracies, and put dictatorships, or other forms of rule, monarchies, that will benefit narrow self interest. Fascism uses propaganda to fool the masses into believing that democracy is wrong, inefficient, and even takes away their freedom.

If you look at Egypt right now you will see how this works. Egypt tried to establish a liberal democracy, with a deep history of military fascistic rule. This was the goal of their "Arab Spring". However, radical Islamic fascists took over with a President who was too weak, and beholding to radical Islamic benefactors, and the fledgling democracy was one again taken over by a military fascist junta.

Now you will note that this regime has been welcomed by most Egyptians, because the liberal democracy that tried to grow, was too disruptive and dangerous for the establishment and for business interests particularly. Better to have peace for business that a liberal democracy.

Liberal democracy is messy. It is often inefficient. And it requires constant vigilance to maintain. There are always forces (some from the communist left, who have almost disappeared with the fall of the Soviet Union) and most from the right, who push hard for "reforms" that are intended to discredit and destroy liberal democracies.

And that is unfortunately where we find ourselves today. Ironically, the Tea Party movement, made of many well meaning although duped Americans, under the guise of super patriotism and Constitutionalism, are working hard to disrupt and discredit the democratic institutions of our country.

Right now, in this latest Constitutional crisis brought upon us by the Tea Party, there is a fanatical effort to discredit the Congress and the President, by literally shutting down the government, and defaulting on the national debt.

The chaos that will ensue, is exactly what fascist movements want. They want people to say: our government doesn't work anymore. The next step is to set up a "twin government", that uses the "party" as its governmental base. Radical right legislatures right now are doing that, the governor of Michigan appointed a position to supposedly deal with city bankruptcies, but in fact has worked overtime to eliminate democratic local decision making. In short, the "manager" has become the city council and mayor, with no democratic decision making in evidence. It is more efficient, and pays the bills better, but democracy is dead.

Liberal democracy is fascism's natural enemy. And there are small but very powerful forces in the country right now, who are funding the right wing (Tea Party and other extremists), who make no secret of their desire to destroy the social welfare; ie., social democratic state. And most liberal democratic institutions that we have grown to consider part of our nation's heritage, social security, Medicare, employment regulations; etc., are directly on target.

So we find ourselves fighting battles that were decided years, even centuries ago.

We find the Affordable Care Act, a conservative national health care plan, under mortal attack by the fascists elements in Congress, bankrolled by Billionaires who really could care less about millions of Americans without health care. The idea is to discredit any growth of liberal democracy. Why so fanatical you might wonder? Is the ACA really a threat to liberty? How is a system made up from private health insurance providers, regulated by the government under law, a threat to liberty. The ACA is squarely in the liberal democratic tradition of ideas, and ironically it did not come from the left; it was hatched, and instituted in Massachusetts by conservatives and the last Republican to run for President! Is that some kind of accident? No, it is the liberal democratic tradition of governmental problem solving at its best, blending economic liberty with a social/economic need, under law for the welfare of the people. That is why Medicare is most definitely NOT a socialistic program, private health providers are at its core, only the government acts as the insurance company. The ACA doesn't allow, much to progressive liberal's dismay, the government to be the insurance companies. The ACA is a private enterprise model!

Finally, it is ironic that conservatism used be rooted, in this country, squarely in the liberal democratic tradition. The genius of the American Political system was  that virtually everyone, be they Republican or Democrat, could agree on the basic liberal democratic principles embodied in say the Bill of Rights, or the Preamble to the Constitution. If there were disagreements, they could be hashed out in the Constitutional process, using a bicameral legislature, an executive and judicial review.

Tragically for our freedom, now even those basic agreements under law have been frayed, by the radical right, who question everything, and compare everything to their pure ideological goals. They don't believe in the liberal democratic tradition anymore!

So, they attack. They obstruct. They discredit. They spend billions on propaganda to convince people that liberal democracy, the foundation of the American Constitution is bad.

Shutting the government down, and worse, defaulting on the national debt, is meant to destroy government, and particularly the public TRUST in their government and even our free enterprise system. It is no coincidence that small businesses have been hammered as this struggle goes on, small businesses are at the core of the liberal democratic tradition (read Jefferson and De Tocqueville).

So, that is what I am fearful of. And that comes not from a "Democrat" but from a someone who knows what the liberal democratic tradition is. Another way of looking at this, everyone of America's Presidents, every one of them, were liberal democrats...

If the Tea Party gets their wish, we will get a President who does not share in that tradition, and that will be the beginning of the end for the world's oldest liberal democracy!

And fascism will win.

Constitutional Government At Risk

Today I read an article by Kathleen Parker of the Washington Post. 

She postulated that the government shutdown is just "leverage" and part of the political process; almost legitimizing the blackmail that is going on.  She explains that an easy "fix" of the latest deadlock is to eliminate the "medical hardware" tax, that conservative medical hardware companies want, and then pass another funding mechanism by agreement, and the thing is solved. 

Just "leverage" huh.  Not quite.

Try, just try to go back to your high school Civics class.  Remember the drill:  how a bill becomes a law. 

Remember the separation of powers that runs through the Constitutional Process, which makes it VERY difficult to get a bill into a law.  There are procedural roadblocks along the way.  The whole process demands consensus, compromise, and yes, politics, democratic process is the lawmaking process.

Remember how difficult it was to get the Affordable Care Bill into law?  Remember it really took almost 100 years before a national health care plan was passed.  Remember that the basics of the law are conservative in nature; basically putting the onus on the private insurance system to deliver affordable care.

And then, once the Law was passed and signed by the President, it was rushed to the Supreme Court by its opponents, hoping to have it overturned.  A major part of it was declared unconstitutional, but enough survived to put it into action.

All this, to get a bill into a law. 

This is the genius of our system.  It protects minority views constantly by limiting the power of majorities.  That is a democratic process that has sustained itself through a Civil War, a Great Depression, and through two World Wars.  Never in all that chaos, did the democratic process stop, never was in compromised.

Now it is being compromised.  It is being compromised by a conservative scheme to, even though conservatives only control one third of the government, to stop all governmental services except those they like, finding a last minute way to veto the Affordable Care Act.

And, predictably, what they did yesterday shows their agenda to end our Constitutional system of checks and balances.  The House passed a host of Bills, funding areas of government that they like.  The President even signed one of them: funding pay for the military. 

So, the "new normal" is to deny funding for government, except for what you want.  This can go on forever, if the Senate and President cave in. 

And, the debt ceiling "crisis" looms on the horizon.

Our checks and balances system is there for a reason.   It makes moving a Bill into Law extraordinarily difficult.  Moreover, it makes amending Laws extraordinarily difficult for a reason.

It is called the democratic process.  That process has been set up to purposefully protect the minority view from the tyranny of the majority, and conversely, protecting the majority view from a tyranny of the minority.  Any political scientist can tell you this tyranny cuts both ways.

What we are seeing now is not "leverage" it is the tyranny of a minority being played out. 

A constitutional crisis is what is really going on, with high stakes.

Because you see one tyranny of the minority is a thing called fascism; one party rule, that eventually destroys democracy completely.

And that is where we are today!

Another Day in Potterville

Head start sequester cuts.  79 children lose. The sequester has finally met its purpose, denying education to 79 pre-school poor kids.  This will mean 79 kids not ready for kintergarden, not ready to read, and headed for possible failure.  

Brown signs minimum wage bill, Chamber of Commerce goes nuts:  For the first time in seven years, the minimum wage in California will go up.  This will be phased in, over a three year period.  The good ole Chamber of Commerce (sic) once again claims the move will bankrupt small businesses, while statistics show fast food CEOs and corporations making record profits.  

Poll, California citizens, especially in Potterville, paranoid about court ordered release of inmates.  After forty (count em 40) years of passing more and more restrictive and reactionary laws against crime, that have failed, now the citizens are frightened to death because non-violent inmates must be released due to unconstitutional overcrowding.   Meanwhile, conservatives, without even a whisper about their failed policies, push for "tougher penalties"...

A stamp will cost 3 cents more, and that means we must privatize the U.S. Mail, losing millions of jobs.  But hey...small or no government is best.

Home sales up:  After a trainwreck, homes are finally sellling...to the rich..the middle class rents now and forever.

The above were headlines in the Record Searchlight, Thursday, September 26, 2013.  Another day in Potterville, where the poor get poorer, the rich get richer, and the middle class gets dumber!  

As Long As Its the Other Guy

As long as its not me, ok.

This is the modern narcisstic viewpoint of Americans.  The Greatest Generation, who learned the hard way that teamwork and selflessness, is the way to prevail in global conflicts, is gone.  

They have passed on mostly, the remnants are too old and mostly stored away in the "rest homes" baby boomers built for them, so boomers didn't have to be bothered by their elders.  Grandma and grandpa die along in "facilities", as their kids go to Hawaii.  

Today, we are seeing growth, at least in their noise, of nihilists, who deny any responsbility socially for anything.  Everything revolves around them.  Food stamps are big government intruding into the natural selection process, poor people deserve their status, and should starve.  Government welfare programs, of every kind, are reducing the competitive nature of people, creating a "takers" culture that are really parasites.

Now, this "privileged hard working class" only makes up a dwindling fraction of the population.  The "takers" class is growing rapidly.

This is all part of nature's plan, the boomer rich say.  If we continue helping others through governmental programs, even ANY programs, we will criipple our economy.

So, we see boomers pushing for more punitive approaches to social/economic issues.  In the past forty years, America has become a prison nation, with millions incarerated endlessly for drug infractions.  We treat addiction in the United States with jail, while the rest of the world treats it with medicine.  The results?  The highest inceration population in the world, and no end to crime; especially drug related crime.  

And the homeless...now there we have success of the "as long as its not me" generation.  Homeless populations have exploded.  Every village, small city and metropolis in the country is struggling with legions of homeless.  

And when the boomers encounter a homeless person..."as long as it not me, ok".

American lost its soul with the advent of conservative philosophy that regards all government as evil, all taxes as taking from the rich to give to the poor.  

And the middle class has shrunk, as its leaders actually sponsor the madness that is destroying it.  

"What's the Matter with Kansas" is a classic, showing millions of people who are voting exactly against their (and their childrens') best interest.  It shows that "as long as its not me its ok" is pervasive in the United States today.

And where does this lead us.  The uncaring, hard is best approach to social/economic problems leads us straight to fascism!   And we all know where that got Germany.

But, what the heck, if its not me, its ok!  

Hit the Streets

Ok, the deed is being done.  For the first time in American History a political party is willing to shut down the government to halt a legally tested, and passed law.  The first time!

Republicans were not happy with Medicare, Social Security, even the income tax, but never did a political party seek to extort the country to get its way, with the stakes being the economic well being of the country.

Never.

Now, the House has acted and this "drama" is being played out.

This will take awhile.  But what those of us who are getting more sick of this need to do is this.

Organize as it gets bad, if it gets bad and protest:  Social Security checks not sent.  Military not paid.

Hit the streets.  Put thousands into the streets and demand that the Congress grow up or else we will stay in the streets, just like they have done in Egypt, and simply stop putting up with this idiocy.

I am ready.  As we get more damaged by this behavior, the more we need to take this into our own hands.

I am calling on the 99% ers, the old Civil Rights protesters, the anti-war 65 somethings who will see their social security checks not arrive, to go into the streets, and scream.

I AM MAD AS HELL AND I WON'T TAKE THIS ANYMORE.

It is time we stop tolerating this crap!