THE LONE LIBERAL

Policy Not Talk

2012-03-07T08:01:00.002-08:00

The reason we have elections in this country, is because we believe that the People should decide their representatives, who then pass laws and make policy to guide our country. We don't do this for light and transient reasons; but judging from the past weeks we might question that in the way

the Republicans are running their presidential primary.

During this process, we have witnessed lots of rhetoric, ranging from contraceptives to President Kennedy's decades old speech on church and state.

We have listened to bashing, attackes, mocking, half-truths. About the only thing the candidates can agree on if the goal of "getting rid of Obama". Or "Obama has to go".

I do not recall this approach from opposing parties in efforts to remove a white President, sounds almost like "get the N...", but I digress into the "race card".

What we do not see are any policy ideas, or ideas for law changes to address the big three: that determined the last Presidential election: 1. Energy. 2. Education. 3. Economy-Health Care.

Obama won because he had a plan for all three. John McCain addressed these three as well, but his limited government, more de-centralized approach did not prevail. The American People were presented a choice and made it based on policy suggestions. We had a decent choice.

This time we don't!

And the President, despite furious Republican oppositon and endless blocks in the Congress, made progress in implementing policies and law in all three areas: 1. Energy, passing laws encouraging solar energy, reforming car manufacturing through the auto bailout with dramatically increased miles per gallon rules; etc. 2. Education: Race to the top and a change in No Child Left Behind. Increase in support for college students; etc. 3. Finance reforms and aid that brought us back from the brink of Depression, and passage of the Affordable Care Act; etc.

Now, all of these are controversial of course, all are debatable. And none are being talked about much in the Republican primary.

Americans deserve a choice. We need to look at the choices that we have, because they will determine our collective futures.

Right now, no real policy options from the Republicans: they are too busy on social conservative issues, whether contraception should be legal, abortion, moon exploration?

This one is easy, elect the guy who will deal with our problems and not pander to them.

Oh yeah, another goal was to get Bin Laden.....enough said!

Simple kindness

2012-03-05T20:22:00.004-08:00

Yesterday, my wife told me my two daughters and herself planned an outing, (without me) to celebrate their birthdays. We all share March birthdays, my two daughters from a previous marriage, and me.

She asked if I minded.

I almost cried.

I lost my first wife about 15 years ago. We knew she was going to die for a long time.

Many things haunted me, scared me; especially the future and how I would be an only parent.

As my daughters have grown into women, with families of their own, my wife has easily, and lovingly moved into the role of their step-mother.

Yesterday, she moved into motherhood of us all.

I am blessed and love her so much. She helps me, she scolds me, she is my helper, my soul mate and she filles the void of love that my daughters miss so much.

I love her. Thank god for her simple kindness.

The California Dream is Gone

2012-03-05T08:07:00.002-08:00

Did you know that California has the most repressive, rotten, unfair, anti-business climate on the planet?

Did you know corporate taxes are fifth in the country? Fifth, oh my Gawd, even though there are more people in California than any other state, we still are fifth.

Did you know the overall tax burden is 15th in the country? How on earth can we survive?

Why, we must cut taxes again, don't vote for Brown's Tax increase; it is tax and spend. We need to lay off those unionized state and local workers, slash their pensions and...and...

Sound good to all you cons out there.

Ok, try this on for size: Thanks to this lunacy that has been going on since Prop 13 California's public universities and colleges now cost middle class families more than Harvard, Stanford, Yale, Princeton; etc.

That's right, because of our infatuation with the tax nut right, a middle class high school grad now can go to Harvard for almost half of what it costs for U.C. Berkeley. San Jose State actually costs more than U.C. Berkeley, because Berkeley can provide some financial aid to middle class students. San Jose cannot.

California has Silicon Valley. This area is an economic dynamo for the entire state. We used to have a highly educated citizenry, the best public education in the country K-12. Then the gouls set in, the Jarvis/Gann's the "Tax No More" crowd.

And our state has been going down hill ever since.

IT IS A GLOBAL ECONOMY! California sits on the Pacific Rim, and competes directly with China, Japan and India. We stupidly have allowed Apple Computer and others to outsource manufacturing of computers to the Far East for blue collar work. Now, as we have destroyed our once great public universities, we outsource white collar work as well.

And now, our best and brightest are going back east to go to college because it is cheaper!

Some of you cons, will say, oh now kids can go to Stanford and Harvard? Have you checked the enrollments of these schools? There are elite universities with undergraduate enrollments of about 6,000. UC Berkeley has 25,000!

Our best students must get into a lottery for Cal, they must apply for financial aid, and then, they pay almost double for the education compared to Harvard!

So make sure you all vote against the small tax increase in the fall. Make sure you keep believing the Tea Party, whose economic foolishness have destroyed this state; and threaten to destroy the country.

They are wrong....they always have been wrong. And the tragedy is many middle class grandfathers have voted with them, and doomed their grandchildren to a life of poverty.

Un-believable!

Response to a Denier

2012-03-03T10:24:00.001-08:00

Your piece today was interesting, although wrongheaded. You quoted Barry Goldwater, whose optimism you subscribe to; but you flew right by an important part "if man does not destroy himself".

We are destroying ourselves! Global warming is not a liberal plot, it is real. On the front page of the paper was an article describing how the snow pack was less than minimal. This is going to be be standard; except we will see more warm wet storms, but now cold enough to bring snow.

We in the north state will be alright, it's the rest of the state that is in trouble, because snow melt is what provides their water. Of course this means more water going south, all the time. I would not buy houseboat stock if I were you.

What I wish you would have said, is the world has reached peak oil. Sweet crude oil has about a 40 year lifespan, add tar sand oil and it gets to about 80. After that, nothing. Your daughter will be about your age when we run out! My grand daughter will be about 40. What kind of world will they have?

Which means gas for your daughter will be $15.00/gallon! Our economy will be finished unless we change. And we cannot drill our way out of it. Tar sand oil, or converting oil from coal (we have lots of that) is hugely expensive, uses billions of gallons of water, and adds to the warming that just yesterday killed dozens with warm weather spawned tornadoes. That's right, global warming causes the outbreak of killer storms we are seeing all over the planet.

And your small car, that gets 35 miles per gallon, will bankrupt you.

As for your conservative optimism, we saw that in 1940. The "America First" movement refused to support American getting involved in Europe or Asia to stop the spread of fascism. They were made up mostly of conservatives; who like you, were "optimistic that man can figure out a way", unless he destroys himself first.

Roosevelt, the enemy of all things conservative, was practically screaming that we needed to get into the war or face Hitler alone. The draft passed the Congress by one vote. One vote in 1940!

And still the conservatives, optimistic that the oceans would protect us, optimistic that we could find a way to live with Hitler, optimistic that it was all overblown by those crazy Democrats to justify a larger government, held fast to America First.

And then we got Pear Harbor, where the optimists said it couldn't be a flight of the enemy on radar, but geese, or B-17s! More optimism! And we parked our planes wing tip to wing tip, confident that saboteurs were the biggest threat; and then the Japanese came and destroyed our denier's world in one day. While we slept, we almost were defeated. While we enjoyed our optimism, disaster got us!

We won WWI and II with courage, sacrifice, teamwork, high taxes, and patriotism. We also won WWII by out resourcing the enemy. We burned up much of our native oil supplies, and out oiled Japan and Germany, who did not have petroleum supplies. Hitler and Japan ran out of gas!

After the war we needed to go to the Middle East for oil, because we burned up much of our own winning the war and saving the planet. Right now, if the Middle East gets heartburn, we get an energy crisis. We are addicted to their oil. We don't have much left we can all our own.

The problem was, the world got a huge dose of CO2 in the atmosphere with all this gas, that has grown to threaten the planet; only this time it is not fascism we fight, it is nature herself.

And once again, the conservatives have their heads in the sand, denying reality, denying that we either rally together to save ourselves or die.

People in this town have been trained, by your newspaper and talk radio, that good old conservative optimism is all we need; that man can figure out a way, that liberty will prevail.

Liberty prevailed all right in WWII, with organization, cooperation, firepower, millions of airplanes and yes, BIG government, that mobilized us to win and survive.

We are right there, right now. Whining about $5.00 gas is nothing. We should be be coming together, putting solar panels on every roof, demanding that the City go solar and get off natural gas, demanding that railroads once again have passenger service, taxing cars off the road, getting trucks back to the rails; etc.

Every time I see an R.V. I wince, every time I get blown off the road by a eighteen wheeler, I see the coming disaster.

What we have to do will hurt, it will mean sacrifice, innovation, using our heads, cooperation (all the human liberty traits that you hold dear). But it will mean cooperating within our government to do it...we cannot do this as individuals.

Sounds far fetched right? We can individually figure this out right? We can conservatively get through this right? We don't need government to do this right? WRONG!

Roosevelt said, and I am paraphrasing, the basic problem with conservatives is their frame of reference is the past, they look back, we look forward. He also said, cooperation will beat competition (among ourselves) every time. And he was right! Ask any football coach!

So do your daughter a favor, look forward not back. Stop fighting and denying what is right in front of your face.

The tragedy is we have the tools to do this. We have done this before. But we stopped arguing and started working together to get it done.

The only difference, is this time it is for all the marbles! We truly are entering an end game scenario.

Lindbaugh is Right?

2012-03-01T14:42:00.003-08:00

He did it again. Of course he does it on purpose. And, he does it because he is a rabble rousing, demagogue.

Rush Limbaugh called a woman who testified concerning the Health Care/Contraception controversy a slut and a prostitute. He did this, by taking what she said out of context, accusing her of saying she needed to be paid for sex.

And the Republicans think it is "entertainment" and not deserving of any condemnation.

And America's discourse takes another nose dive toward armed confrontation.

That is right, armed confrontation. There are forces in this country, mostly on the right, who want to take up arms against those who disagree with them. Their emotions are encouraged by Fox News and Rush Limbaugh. This nation is not that far away from Civil War if this keeps up.

Name calling, stereotyping, demagogy, are all fascist behavior. Fascist behavior seeks to undermine democracy, and peace at every turn, to attain ultimately takeover of the state.

Oh, you just said, he is name calling himself. Rush is not a fascist. Maybe not, but his behavior is!

There are criteria of fascist political behavior and Rush Limbaugh shares many of them. He is doing this on purpose of course, to stir the political rhetoric into the abyss of fascist conflict. It is what it is. He is trying to foster open conflict in this country. His comments constitute a "clear and present" danger to the common good and peace.

And Republicans do not condemn his remarks. In fact, they make excuses for him, "He is an entertainer" or, "he is practicing free speech". They, just like many Germans in Nazi Germany in 1938, are scared to death of the preacher of hate.

The Supreme Court years ago, in a landmark decision, said there where limits on free speech if the consequence of it was like "yelling fire in a crowded theater". In other words, free speech does not mean you can speak in such a way to pose a clear and present danger to public safety.

I submit that Lindbaugh breaks this rule daily. He actively is encouraging violence, and in this most recent stunt, defamed and slanders a young woman; whose only sin was testifying in front of a Congressional Committee.

He deserves a devastating law suit, and judgement, that will put the jerk off the air.

Of course that won't happen, because after all; it's "entertainment"...

So, the radicals gain another point, and we take one more step to fascism in this country.

Bearish or Bullish

2012-02-29T10:07:00.004-08:00

In the Sacramento Bee today there is vexing article "Obama is Bearish Gingrich is Bullish" by Debra Saunders. It is not complimentary to President Obama.

The article implies that the differences between the conservatives, Gingrich, and the progressives, Obama, lie in outlook, just like on Wall Street.

She uses the analogy to suggest that Gingrich, in promising $2.50 gas by somehow upping gas exploration and development above current levels, is Bullish or optimistic in the future. The President's mixed approach, is 'bearish; in that it take a pessimistic view.

And she concludes, although not very strongly, that the Bullish approach is best, because it ultimately will bring more oil and gas to market

I fundamentally disagree. And, to disagree with this optimistic approach I know harms the progressive position.

Americans are by nature optimistic, especially when relating to the use of natural resources. This is understandable when you look at history.

Americans are all immigrants (except for Native Americans whose history plays directly into the topic of natural resources). When American colonists immigrated from Europe there was a sense that Europe was using its natural resources up. You must remember this was an agrarian age, the industrial revolution had not started. Whale oil fueled lights and was the oil of the 17th and early 18th century.

Petroleum was not discovered except as a nuisance to farmers, and coal was burned by scrapping it off the surface of the earth and using it in stoves (that just had been invented).

Feudalism was the economic paradigm; and aristocratic monarchy was the political one.

The colonists were fleeing this as "excess persons", that is to say, they went to the dangerous new world because there was not enough to go around in Europe.

What they found was unbelievable. The "New World" had vast natural resources, and free land. There were not nobles or lords in the way, only the Native Americans, and the colonists had firearms, and the "Indians" had bow and arrows; a tragic mismatch.

It is no wonder that a basic tenant of American faith and optimism is this "exceptionalism" that has great faith in limitless natural resources. In the twentieth century, the United States twice came to the world's aid, by using its vast natural resources to destroy tyranny with good, and service, guns and butter.

Today, the United States uses from 20 to 30% of world's energy resources every day. As the article says, if every country in the world used as much, we would need five earth's to provide the energy.

As more countries enter the "developed nation" status, more energy is demanded. And we only have one earth.

So, how do we approach this "new" paradigm? We apply, as the article suggests, the same formula that has worked each time before: we will out produce the world with our vast natural resources and win the day.

That is the bearish position that Gingrich uses, along with xenophobia, racism; etc., which by the way also were part of American "exceptionalism": producing the Civil War, Genocide of Native American to feed "Manifest Destiny"; etc.

In short, the bearish position is not without human and moral cost. But I digress.

So why would Obama embrace the "bearish" position, when the "bullish" optimism of the past has served America so well? Why wouldn't Obama approve the Keystone pipeline, it is in the American tradition.

Ok, read carefully here, because this will go against your "American exceptionalism".

We we running out of gas. We are reaching quickly the tipping point of the world's resources, all resources, to support the total world population.

In a sense we are where Europe was in 1492-1885, when natural resources could not provide a decent life for its population, prompting the mass migration to the "New World" (including Africa, Asia and the Americas through colonialism).

It is not by accident that Gingrich talks about colonizing the moon for resources, it is part of the bearish approach following the same pattern that worked for immigrant Americans in 1500.

The problem is, it takes a whole lot more energy to move one human being to the moon and back. Mass migration is impossible. Mars is three months away, traveling at thousands of miles per hour, for a crew of three. And, the atmospheres of the Moon and Mars cannot sustain human life.

The closest planet that might sustain human life has not been found yet, and promises to be millions of light years away.

In short, we are stuck here. There is not another migration that will save us. We have to make do, with the resources we have, and use innovation and human brain power to utilize energy much more efficiently or we will overtax the resources of the world and sink into social, economic and political chaos.

If you wonder what this looks like, take a peak at equatorial Africa. Global Warming has already changed the climate to a point that the natural resources cannot support the population, mostly agrarian in nature, resulting in genocide, warfare, and mass starvation.

While Americans whine about $5.00/gallon gasoline, the Sudan sees millions starving, raping, and dying.

Now that is a pretty bearish or pessimistic view isn't it? And, anyone running for public office would be pretty stupid to adhere to it unless they put responsibility to their people, the world and the future ahead of an optimism that only will make things worse.

President Obama is no fool. He knows he took a risk by refusing to approve the Keystone pipeline. He knows we cannot move immediately from using 30% of world's resources to say 10% immediately. He knows that.

Gingrich, on the other hand, knows America's hot button. He knows history. He knows that confidence in abundant natural resources and their maximized use, is what Won the West (stole the West), Won World Wars I, and II, and the Cold War. We "outproduced them", and out used resources we had in the Americas to prevail. Why wouldn't that work again?

Ok, lean in here again and listen: BECAUSE WE DON'T HAVE ALL THE VITAL RESOURCES ANYMORE!

Saudi Arabia and the Middle East have vastly more petroleum resources that does the United States. And, they mostly have nationalized their oil reserves, and their country's leaderships control supplies.

In the United States, land of free enterprise, oil companies are multi-nationals, with no allegiance to our country. They drill in our land and oceans, and sell the oil to the highest bidder. The Keystone Pipeline is being built to move tar sand oil to Texas, because Canadian Law does not allow exporting Canadian Oil, drilled within Canada to be exported, unless it is refined outside Canada.

And, Canadians will not allow a thousand mile plus pipeline to traverse their land because of environmental concerns.

The Keystone Pipeline is a scam, exposing the Midwest to pollution, with no benefit to Americans short term or long term energy needs.

President Obama knows that, and to his credit did not approve it.

Gingrich knows it too, but he also knows what Americans believe in, so he sells a bearish view of natural resources that he knows is now false; pandering to an American optimism that is no longer valid, accurate, or relevant.

It is not complicated. To maintain our present standard of living, America has to stop imagining and using what got us out of trouble before. There is no mass migration to a bountiful continent to bail us out. Opportunity no longer will come through Manifest Destiny.

The Bullish approach is to change, to modify, to more efficiently use energy. President Obama's approach, whether he wins re-election or not, is correct.

To prevail, he has to convince Americans to modify one their most profound principles: that we can outproduce anyone, out natural resource them, and prevail every time.

This time, we have to out think, and out efficiency the world to keep our high standard of living. If we use the old approach, WE WILL LOSE!

Bullish is a prescription for defeat.

Rich More Likely to Act Unethically

2012-02-28T08:41:00.005-08:00

This was the title of an article that ran today in the Sacramento Bee.

The article summarizes research done at U.C. Berkeley that used several approaches to determine if rich people act more unethically than the rest of us.

The results were what I expected. Rich people cheat!

Rich people are more motivated by greed, was one of the scientific postulates, that the research confirmed. Because they are more motivated by greed, they take more "short cuts" that are unethical and even illegal.

No wonder: Bernie Maloff...the Savings and Loan Scandal...Wall Street insider trading...the list goes on and on.

And who does the conservative movement in this country worship: those who "made it". The fabulous 1%.

Mitt Romney proclaims that is, "Time to stop apologizing about being successful".

The facts are that white collar crime is prosecuted far less than working class crime. Our prisons are filled with petty criminals, drug related crimes, and crimes for little real value; while those who destroyed Enron and millions of middle class mortgages never see a courtroom.

The reason for this inequity is money. Money buys good lawyers. And money buys politicians. And money buys cops.

Police are reluctant to pursue rich criminals, because they rarely get convicted. Sometimes the influence is more corrupt than that.

The U.C. study first checked driving habits at intersections; and found the richer the car, the more the driver cut people off, illegally took the right of way; etc.

The rich cheat more on taxes, give less to charity, lie more; etc.

And Fox News lionizes them. Their talking heads threatened to quit, when increases to the rich tax rates were threatened. And, their talking heads have been caught in too many out and out lies to list here. There have been books written about the lies of Fox news.

And still the middle class watches, almost hypnotized by the B.S.

In 1972 Richard Nixon, unconvinced that he had the election won, send "plumbers" into the Democrat National Headquarters to get information to smear his opponent. The "plumbers" were caught, and the nation watched in horror as what was a minor event, morphed into an impeachment. This all happened not because of the minor crime, "breaking and entering", but because of the monumental and unethical, cover up.

At the time, it was said that Watergate proved there is no connection between education and ethics; the "Presidents' Men were all highly educated and very rich". It should have been added, that the is no connection between money, power and honesty.

When I was attending Stanford, I "rubbed elbows" with the children of wealth. Mitt Romney was a freshman then, and I actually knew him. He was a decent guy, and we all liked him.

But he was fabulously rich. His father, who was governor of Michigan, and a very successful businessman, was a self-made man. Mitt was not.

I never saw Mitt being dishonest; although his leaving Stanford and going on a mission conveniently dodged the military draft. A poor kid, could not have afforded to do such a thing, and at the time, those who dropped out of college got drafted; and many went to Vietnam.

But my roommate was a different matter. He was forced to go to Stanford by his very wealthy father, hated it, and wanted to quit. But he had to get kicked out, if he quit he would be disinherited. So he simply did not attend classes. And he urged me to lie for him when his professors called to see where he was.

I did to a point, he had a lot of "flu", but then started telling them the truth; he was at the beach, he was with a girl; etc. It didn't seem to matter; he stayed enrolled!

The guy lasted until the summer before Stanford kicked him out. He made it through three quarters, and never attended a class.

The reason, we found out later, was that his father gave a boatload of money to the University. In those days that carried weight, lots of weight.

I was not happy at Stanford my first quarter. I was homesick. I was fighting for a position on a talented Freshman football team. I wanted out; foolishly I found out later, as I came to love the place.

But I KNEW what would happen if I quit; I would lose my deferment in a minute and be drafted. No question! I was a poor kid from Redding, California, no extra breaks for me. It was either go to class or go to Vietnam!

And so it goes, the rich have ways around things, like a draft, the poor don't have them. Rich people don't go to jail as often as poor people. Rich people play by their own rules. Rich people live by different ethical rules than the middle class.

Today, America is run by the rich. The Republican Party, of the "good Republican cloth coats" that Nixon used to dodge an earlier ethical lapse that almost cost him the Vice Presidency, is a memory.

Today's Republican Party is run by the rich, gives homage to corporate power and greed. Its foot soldiers are disaffected middle class members, who are still mad that the Democratic Party stood up for civil rights.

The party also is made up of delusional Christian Conservatives, convinced the end is near, and secretly hating people of color. The "Bible Belt" that used to be Southern Democratic territory, is now Republican. I still think Lincoln must be spinning in his grave!

Look at a map sometime of Red States and Blue States. The Republican Party is of the south, it is Dixie, with border states thrown in. But those who really run the party are not from the mostly poor rural Red State areas. The rulers are on Wall Street, investment "leaders" and C.E.O.s who use their incredible wealth to dictate to their Congressional puppets who they have bought and paid for.

And this has lapsed over into the Democratic Party as well. Well heeled lobbyists have bought politicians from both parties.

And THAT is why our system doesn't work: Unethical behavior, illegal behavior, immoral behavior is justified because after all, "we are in this to make a profit".

Making a profit is the be all and end all of business activity. The difference is, since the rich now control commerce in the country, business ethics have been virtually eliminated. Lying, cheating, and even stealing is an accepted business ethic.

The rich, shriveled old man, in "It's a Beautiful Life", Mr. Potter, has won.

And so, the U.C. study is right. Rich people lie more than we do. Rich people cheat more than we do. Rich people steal more than we do...

What amazes me is members of the middle class who protect them, who argue for them, who coddle them, and who idolize them....as they destroy our country.

When will we wake up!????

Detroit Bankrupcy

2012-02-25T08:38:00.006-08:00

Over the last three years I have received many emails from my conservative friends deriding Detroit and rust belt cities. Their favorite pictures are showing the acres of abandoned homes, in various states of disrepair.

The cons chortle about these dismal scenes, mostly I think because the blighted neighborhoods are now semi-occupied by people of color. The racism is palatable.

Their glee makes me sick!

Now, as Mitt (wit?) Romney campaigns (while riding in his Cadillacs) in Michigan, we are again reminded of another article of faith of the right wingers (right next to xenophobia and racism); the cleansing nature of bankruptcy.

Remember one of George W's "gifts" to the United States was a wholesale rewriting of bankruptcy laws, shifting the balance from the bankrupt to the creditor. And, foreclosing on a home is now possible as part of a bankruptcy; before a person could at least keep their home.

Most did not of course, liquefying the home was painful but necessary part of bankruptcy. But the cons had to be sure the home gets taken under the new law; I'm surprised they didn't push for debtor's prisons!

And the cons lied about the ultimate effects of these changes in law, promising economic benefits. There was no positive economic effect as promised. I would suggest the new bankruptcy laws will be found to have deepened the past recession and have, as usual, been another con reform that backfired; added to prison reform, welfare reform, tax reform, educational reform...you name it...

This punitive approach to misfortune is echoed in Romney's support to "Let Detroit go Bankrupt". At the time, 2008, Romney was still working for a company that specialized in bankrupting companies, selling off the assets, firing the workers, and making a huge profit in doing so; kind of parasitic?

Was Bane Capital standing to make a killing if G.M. went bankrupt? One wonders. I always smell a special interest when cons whine!

Middle class cons, have now accepted the "conventional wisdom" that bankruptcy is good, that it is cleansing, that it ultimately results in a better economy.

During the Great Depression homeless farmers, who had lost everything, hung a few bankruptcy judges. Now bankruptcy judges are seen as heroes?

The fact is bankruptcy is awful. It destroys people's lives. Sometimes it is the only thing that can be done. But, bankruptcy is not always the fault of the debtor.

The majority of bankruptcies in the country occur because of health care issues. A homeowner loses his/her job, loses health care insurance, then someone gets real sick. To pay the bills, with only unemployment (another hated benefit by cons), people take loans out on the house. Eventually this all falls apart, with bankruptcy the only recourse.

Of course the new health care law is evil...you don't want people to have any hedge against plain old bad luck....cleanse...cleanse....It is your fault if you are poor or unemployed..you are just lazy!

There is nothing clean about starving children...nothing! But they are lazy too, right...a six year old should be doing janitorial work (Newt says so).

The new bankruptcy laws are punitive, and weigh heavily in favor of banks, credit card companies, and other creditors. They combine to create a growing poor class in this country who are doomed to a lifetime of poverty.

This does not bother the cons. It is cleansing! It will ultimately work out. Detroit needs to be destroyed, the unions are evil, and ultimately working people are smucks, who deserve to be fooled, hoodwinked, and lied to.

Is it just me, but doesn't Romney remind you of the traveling salesman, who knocks on your door, and you immediately put your hand over your wallet while talking to him?

In fact, saving Detroit was a huge mistake, they say, as Romney speaks in a stadium to about 800 people; in a venue that holds 50,000. There is a message in this!

The message is maybe, just maybe the working class in this country is waking up. Maybe they will question Fox Propaganda, with their colorful sets, and short skirted hotties; and realize they are getting worked over.

The autoworkers were not the only ones who would have suffered. Millions of support personnel, ranging from parts stores to shade tree mechanics would have suffered. And, millions of consumers, who suddenly were left with a car with a warranty and no company to back it up. But what the hell...cleanse...cleanse.....

Detroit got in trouble because cons in their midst sold the idea that a big pickup would make a big profit, regardless of the fact that gas costs $100 to fill up the tank. As people cut back, as the rich got richer, they couldn't afford the gas. WE ARE RUNNING OUT OF GAS!

Don't be fooled by the fables that environmentalists are blocking access to the holy grail, that all we need to do is drill off the California coast, or in Alaska, or pipe tar sand oil in from Canada; that liberals are deliberately blocking access to the bounty that still lurks in the earth. Have you ever wondered why liberals would do that? Why would they block access to oil so they could piss off consumers who then would never vote for them. Did you ever think that maybe, just maybe, the world is running out of sweet crude oil? The latest projection, by the way, is the world has 40 years left at current consumption levels.

That means a baby born today will be middle aged when there is NO MORE CRUDE OIL.

Do you think, just for a minute, that is why gas prices are going up? As we argue about global warming, and refuse to conserve, the liquid gold is burning away in front of us.

Smaller cars, public transportation, solar and wind power, an actual energy policy with teeth is our only hope to continue prosperity in the country...and of course the cons scream...drill baby drill.

Obama's energy policies are bad, bad.....conservation when facing a diminishing resource is bad.

What?! President Obama has never changed his message, we must change our energy habits or die economically. It is that simple! And he is right! Drill baby drill is a recipe for disaster!

But remember, it is cleansing to make millions poor, and put our economic future in the hands of zealots who believe that running out of oil is good. It is like bankruptcy; running out of oil all at once will cleanse the world!

I suppose it is good for the soul too, which gets us the Rick Santorum (a later blog topic).

Beware the Simple Solution

2012-02-24T08:02:00.005-08:00

It's Obama's fault...cut taxes and stimulate the economy....drill baby drill.....immigrants are the cause of the recession....public pensions cause the budget deficit....regulations kill jobs....

I could go on and on. Each of these and other charges by the conservative right wing are repeated and enhanced through Fox media to do one thing; convince the average, non-reading voter, that simple solutions to problems are all we need to do.

Voters are propagandized to believe that global warming is nothing; caused by sun spots, not people. Literally billions are spent to do one thing: convince the public that the problems in energy, education and health care are not that complex, they just need a simple over riding solution: like cut taxes, buy insurance across state lines, and create charter schools.

And that is our major problem. The facts are that the problems this nation faces are not simple. We are a nation of over 300 million people, with hundreds of languages, and many cultures pushed together.

The social, political and economic sciences were established with the idea that complex problems require study, statistical analysis, and depth of research to lead to accurate and effective solutions.

One good example right now is the rise in gas prices. I have read several letters to the editor, by gleeful conservatives, blaming President Obama's delay of approval of the Keystone Pipeline for the high gas prices. Even if the President ultimately approves the pipeline, it will not be built for many years. How on earth can the act of not approving it NOW have anything to do with high tax prices?

Then there is the Iran issue and gas prices. Conservative candidates (I don't think there is a Republican Party anymore) all claim they will lower gas prices, while bombing Iran into oblivion.

Any research at all of gas prices increases now, includes how the Iranian crisis is driving gas speculations up. If the middle east is plunged into yet another war, Iran can block more than just their gas reserves. Saudi Arabia is not an enemy of Iran, and would, in the event of an attack on Iran, curtail its oil exports to the west. The results of that would be a two dollar rise in the price of gas.

The truth, and you have to READ to find this out, is that President Obama's policies on energy have resulted in a massive increase in drilling, fracking and domestic oil production. Many progressives are not comfortable with this, but the truth is present U.S. energy policy encourages gas efficiency, natural gas exploration, solar power increases. In short, a COMPLEX policy approach aimed at reducting our gasoline dependency.

The United States has 2% of the world's population and uses almost 30% of the world's energy. And, the vast majority of crude oil in the world is NOT in the United States. And, oil that is mined in the United States (coal also for that matter) is exported to other nations. Is is not our oil!

It always interests me that my con friends say it is "our coal and oil", when we never have nationalized these industries. Shell Oil, Standard Oil, all Oil Companies are multi-nationals who have loyalty to one thing: profit.

When Obama ran for president in 2008 he also used the increase in oil prices to political advantage. But he ran on a complex energy policy, that worked to decrease our overall reliance on fossil fuels, smarter development of energy reserves, and a long range plan to protect the United States best interests.

Congress steadfastly refused to enact most of the President's energy agenda, and we are seeing its effects now; once again being worked by foreign developments through higher gas prices.

Elect the conservatives and you elect the oil companies plain and simple, and you insure our slavery to fossil fuels; which the world is running out of.

And the endgame of this inability to maturely and scientifically dealing with a problem: the destruction of the United States.

What hypocrisy

2012-02-23T12:18:00.009-08:00

Rick Santorum distresses me greatly with his moralistic hypocrisy.

He stands as a "true conservative", or "severe conservative" if you subscribe to Mitt Romney's doublespeak. This position calls for small government, no government...in fact...less than no government. Government is evil, it intrudes on lives, it destroys initiative; it is just evil!

Then listen to Rick the Elder go on and on about how contraception is evil, how abortions should be illegal, how pre-natal screenings should be banned. All of this intrusion into a woman's most personal area would be enacted, under King Rick, through GOVERNMENT!

HUH? Where does this come from? How does a unabashed severe conservative flip into government thought control? The government should ban contraception, ban abortion, ban pre-natal screening, ban womens' rights.

Santorum talks constantly about theocratic ideals, that is syllable away from theocracy.

And who is behind this theocracy plan; why the good ole Catholic Church!

Yes, the same Catholic Church whose hierarchy taught Joe Paterno everything he knew about covering up pedophilia. The same Catholic Church, who during WWII did NOTHING to stop the horrors of genocide. The same Catholic Church that forbids contraception in Third World countries, resulting in mass starvation; with child mortality at record levels.

As a Christian I know I should not criticize my fellow Christians. However, there is little doubt that the Catholic Church is foursquare behind Rick Santorum. The recent dust up over The Affordable Care Act including contraception as a covered benefit, and the Catholic Church's out of context reaction was timed perfectly for political effect.

The facts are that this is a non-issue, being manipulated by the Catholic Bishops to assist Rick Santorum's candidacy.

The loser in all this is Mitt Romney, who has seen his double digit lead in Michigan disappear as Rick Santorum, who is probably un-electable in the general election, surges.

Santorum is surging because he is promising to use the government, if he is elected President, to legislate morality, plain and simple. If he wins, every woman in America loses big time!

The hypocrisy of this is off the charts.

Gas Price Rising...How Convenient

2012-02-19T12:19:00.001-08:00

The strategy was telegraphed, like a punch, for months. Cons began with the Keystone Pipeline issue, knowing full well that there was no way President Obama could immediately approve the pipeline (mandated studies have not even been completed), cons pushed a decision before Christmas. They knew he would say no. They were betting our country on it.

And, of course, several con sources have been repeating the chant about how much higher gas prices are under Obama than under Bush. Ever wonder why they have been doing that?

This is not true, of course, but the chant has gone on, while we were able to purchase gas in the low $3.00 range, just as we did from 2000 to 2006 or so.

And why, some wondered, were the cons repeating high gas price warnings as the economy floundered?

The answer is apparent now.

The oil cartels have suddenly raised gas prices by at least .$50/gallon and more. And, projections are being released by "objective" petroleum predictions (there is no such animal) that gas prices will be close to $5.00/gallon by labor day.

How convenient for big oil. How convenient for the Republican Party, whose "drill baby drill" mantra is party gospel. How convenient to try to kill our economic recovery.

How inconvenient for President Obama who will pay for the accelerating recovery with higher gas prices and possible electoral defeat.

This is being done on purpose folks. It is a plan right out of Karl Rove's playbook. They have been working on this for the past three years.

Have you read the excuses for the gas price increase? They are almost comical, but not quite. They range from refineries being shut down for maintenance, to the Iranian "crisis" (what?).

They are lying!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The truth is big oil has a vested interest in electing a Republican President, who will do their bidding, in 2012. It fits their plans to literally take over the country in the next four years. The Koch Brothers, oilmen, want to return to the days when an oilman (George W.) was in the White House. They raped the country then, and want to rape it now.

So, if you believe in the "tooth fairy" then accept these lies.

You will be paying even higher gas prices, because ultimately Big Oil wants demand to be as high as possible, justifying six, seven and eight dollar a gallon gas (before taxes) after the election. That is right, AFTER the election, the prices will not come down. They will have us where they want us...and the game will be up!

This will produce a windfall of epic proportions, and they can finish the task of literally buying the entire country, and half the world for that matter. If the President is defeated, there will be nobody in their way.

The only way to stop this power grab is to conserve, and don't let your vote be bought! When the price of gas goes up, use less. Carpool, get on the bus, demand better public transportation; etc.

Big oil is betting you don't do this. They are betting you will do as you have in the past, panic, blame the President; and GIVE THEM WHAT THEY WANT!

Throwing President Obama out of office because of high gas prices will buy guess what....even higher gas prices, with no recourse.

Will Mitt Romney stand up to Big Oil? Will Santorum? Not a chance! Big oil owns the Republican Party!!!!!

It is demand plain and simple! You are once again being suckered! You are being worked! They are betting that you bite, that the economy, as it improves, lures you back into your wasteful energy ways, puts you back in your big truck and SUV, and through skyrocketing demand, leaves them in absolute charge of our lives.

It is a huge turning point in this country. If we choose wrong, like in Indiana Jones, not "wisely" then we die. Ultimately that is what is at stake, our freedom from a cartel run country, who controls everything; and ends up with the end of our way of life and the loss of our freedom.

It is called fascism. To resist is to be free, to be taken in by them is to lose our freedom.

Gas Prices rising....how convenient......

Confused?

2012-02-14T08:06:00.001-08:00

Rick Santorum now leads Mitt Romney for the Republican presidential nomination. Newt Gingrich wins primary based on colonizing moon ideas. Ron Paul denies racist newsletters he sponsored in 1990s (not 60s). Conservatives adopt the policies of the Catholic Church regarding contraception while repudiating Mormon candidate.

It goes on. Republicans, at least half moderate ones, stand aghast and appalled by the direction of the party as it lurches to the right.

Every student of Political Science since ever has studied the tendency of American politics to govern from the center. Very few candidates for President have ever been elected who appealed to the extremes: Walter Mondale and Barry Goldwater leap to mind.

This middle road, compromising aspect of successful candidates for President drives both extremes nuts. You only need to turn into MSNBC or Fox News to hear it, both extremes are always upset about some kind of "sell-out" or so, that does not conform with their ideal picture of what should be done.

President Obama, for example, is still getting grief for extending the Bush Tax Cuts, and not falling on his sword for a "single payer" Health Plan. Mitt Romney, who used to be the apparent Republican nominee, recently described himself in front of a radically right-wing audience, as "a severe conservative".

What? A severe conservative; what on earth is that? Images of Elmer Gantry or maybe Dirty Harry come to mind. What is a severe conservative?

Rick Santorum, who is about as severe a conservative as you can get, meanwhile is outpolling Romney in national polls. This is the same candidate who lost by 18 points in Ohio (?) because he was so severe his own party abandoned him in mass.

And this is where the Republicans are going while they plot (plod) to rid the country of the great Satan: Barack Obama.

Guess what, it likely won't work. Santorum has already lost all the women vote for his Neanderthal, Catholic Bishop views on abortion and anti-women views. Romney doesn't know who he is; but one thing for sure he is Mormon, and evangelical Christians simply will not tolerate that.

And then there is Newt, who has so much baggage from his past, that he needs two buses to travel; but doesn't get his seat on Air Force One.

Conservative forces in this country are spending billions to radicalize the conservatives; and it has worked. But, what they have missed is they now are out of step with mainstream America, and remarkably it looks like people are figuring it out.

Of course, a recession that has placed millions in poverty, with massive amounts of wealth concentrated in the top 1% , who are paying for the conservative propaganda blitz, does not help their cause.

Democrats cannot relax because of this. "Citizens United" has given an enormous advantage to the aristocracy to simply buy the election. This approach has limited successes, but still lurks as a way to grab victory from the jaws of defeat.

The nation's future depends on this; either we elect a true conservative, who is "severe" enough, to then alienate everyone and plunge the nation into a possible civil war; or we wake up and re-elect a moderate (compared to the wing-nuts on the other side) President who will continue a middle road approach, which is the usual American political tradition.

Confused? I'm not!

Small Business

2012-02-10T08:14:00.000-08:00

Today, in the Sacramento Bee's editorial section, there was an article written by a "small business owner" who just happens to be the majority whip in the House of Representatives...and a Republican of course.

He wrote a diatribe about how restrictive government regulations and the weight of government was the reason why the economy is not thriving. As part of this onerous mash of stifling bureaucracy are the supposedly sky high capital gains taxes, that are "choking economic growth".

I have some friends who were small business owners. The conservative ones mimic the same party line, it is all the government's fault that small businesses are not thriving.

So, when we cut regulations where do we start? Where do we go to cut costs, and regulations, so businesses can thrive?

If the experience of Wisconsin or Michigan are any guide, it is straight at labor. Cutting labor costs is the key to success; not innovation or new ideas, but labor costs.

There was a time in America when workers stayed with the same company for a lifetime. Employees were part of the family, and worked alongside the owner for over thirty years.

This system died a long time ago. Now, employers actually discourage longevity, because it...guess what...drives up labor costs.

And one of those most onerous costs is health care. To keep those costs down, small business owners long ago came up with the idea that older workers mean higher health care costs, so they are expendable.

America is the ONLY country in the world who runs its health care system through employers. The only one.

And health care insurance is an enormous pain for small business owners. Many have done away with any coverage at all, prompting the present fifty million or so who have no health care insurance at all.

So, to survive small business have cut benefits, laid off older more loyal workers so what is next to become "lean and mean".

Workplace safety, workman's compensation, unemployment insurance become candidates and are identified as "government burdens" that are "stifling" small businesses. Add to that, any thoughts of a pension plan, and you have the target for business conservatives...basically reduce the labor force to 1880-90 conditions. A conservative Presidential candidate even suggested children serve as janitors at their schools to eliminate expensive union backed custodians. That is child labor.

And it makes sense, when according to conservatives, to compete in the global economy means you treat workers like they do in China or Singapore, no protections, low wages, no benefits.

There are a lot of moral and economic problems with this approach. For one, we have had this debate already, and decided a long time ago that the key to a robust economy was to have a class of consumers who have money to spend on the products and services our economy produces. A thriving middle class as the bedrock of a growing economy is an accepted fact of economic vitality not only in the United States, but throughout the world.

China and India have rapidly growing middle classes, regardless of the relative poor working conditions that exist. There are some economists who say America's middle class is shrinking, as those in the "developing nations" increase, and there is not much we can do about it. There is only so much wealth to go around, it is finite in the world, so what we are witnessing is a shift of wealth from the middle class dominated developed nations to the growing developing ones.

The problem with that thesis is the phenomenon of fantastic growth in wealth in the top of the American economic hierarchy. There appears to be plenty of wealth to go around, it is just concentrating in the top.

One thing is for certain, a strong middle class means a better America for all. Huge gaps between the rich and the poor, with the majority of wealth in the hands of a few, does not bode well for a democracy.

I suggest the following: 1. It is not the government that is holding back economic growth, it is mostly America's health care insurance system, that siphons off vitalilty through a labyrinth of profit taking, a huge bureaucracy that could be eliminated by a non-profit, government run, single payer system. Stop employer provided health insurance completely, Medicare for all really is the answer no matter what the insurance industry lies about. . 2. Enforce the progressive tax code, and stop the Bush tax cuts for everyone. They did not work, and have actually retarded economic growth. 3. Eliminate all state employment laws and regulations and concentrate them in a universal federal code of labor law.

We are operating with a labor code that has layers of local, state and federal laws that often conflict and are more expensive to everybody. We have a mobile workforce, people move across state lines all the time, why have a workman's compensation program in every state, that sometimes is contradictory?

Put Congress to work on developing a national economic policy that would protect American workers and yes, condition our participation in the global economy. I often have thought that we keep arguing about free enterprise, government regulations; etc., while we SHOULD be arguing about a national economic policy that would present a united front to the world.

Why does each state have global economy approaches? Why does Texas compete against California for economic growth, when workers travel from one state to another?

We are spending our time competing against ourselves, when the enemy is out there. It reminds me of the wagon train joke, where the settlers turn inward and shoot at each other rather than at the enemy.

The problem is government over-regulation, but from multiple, overlapping areas, without a strong central core.

That is what will begin to make it better for small businesses to compete in the global economy.

And that, of course, is what conservatives will resist to the death. Because small, de-centralized government, is their mantra, their bedrock of belief, and America's passport to defeat!

Start of Third Quarter

2012-02-07T08:42:00.000-08:00

I was sitting, partly enjoying Madonna at 51 trying to act like she was 28, and everyone started settling in for the second half of the Super Bowl.

I had disregarded my own prohibition on spirits because of antibiotics for a sinus infection, and had a couple gin and tonics in me; probably didn't help with the inhibitions.

And then the screen when dark. At first I thought we had a glitch, but Clint Eastwood's gravely voice came over the surround sound.

And the room fell dead silent. I mean dead silent.

And we listened and we watched and I began weeping.

Weeping around my golfing buddies is always problematic. But I checked, and there were a few wet eyes in the house.

And then Eastwood said something like, Detroit knows what it is like to nearly lose everything...

And then the pictures of middle class families, leading to what I thought was going to be a plea to buy Chrysler.

And that never came.

The thing built and built to an emotional crescendo. It caught the Great Recession. It caught the fear and anger I have had over the past ten years, that we have stood by and watch rich ass holes bankrupt the middle class.

I flashed on phone calls I have made for customer care, and listened to a foreign voice. I flashed on looking on every electronic device I use, and seeing Made in China on it. I flashed on buying a golf hat, and reading "Made in Vietnam". I flashed on Barry Grigsby who died in Vietnam in 1967.

I flashed on the articles by Mitt Romney saying that Detroit and the auto industry should have been allowed to fail. In fact the right wing is adamant that the auto bail out was wrong, and we should have allowed Chrysler, and G.M. to be shut down, losing millions of jobs, to "cleanse the economy". How is losing millions of jobs, dooming millions to poverty a "cleansing condition"? I guess it is if you are worth 300 millions dollars as Romney is.

The rich asshole. That is really what they are. These jerks have, for over thirty years, worked hard to gut America's economy while getting unbelievably rich. They have bankrolled Fox News and other conservative loudspeakers, to convince who they are screwing that they are really not getting screwed.

Like I say to my conservative friends, these blowhards on the right HATE YOU! They are NOT your friends!

And they right now are desperately trying to buy the Presidential election with "Citizens United" billions, in an unfair political fight.

Eastwood at one point said one punch wouldn't knock America out. I would offer that there will be many blows at the American Dream, aimed at creating a permanent aristocracy. The super rich will not give up until the middle class is dead.

We will never get out of the tunnel to play the third quarter.

And our only hope is if the middle class, especially white middle aged baby boomers, wake up and realize that the danger is NOT in the Latinos, or the African-Americans, the danger is in the corporate boardrooms of this country.

I can not believe that corporate Chrysler did the "Halftime in America" to have the reaction it had. I think they were so boneheaded that they hired a known conservative voice (I still see Eastwood at the right hand of Reagan), and did a commercial about selling their cars and that was about it. But in an attempt to re-create the optimism of their conservative hero, they did...but the optimist this time is a Democrat! Romney is the nay sayer.

So, somewhere in there they screwed up. They touched the heartstrings of America, and showed us the way out of the dark that began their commercial.

The way out is through President Obama, not through the conservative philosophy that got us into this mess. President Obama was elected on, remember, the "Yes We Can" corny phrase. Palin has mocked this, Romney has mocked this, because it scares the hell out of them.

And it is working!

And what did Eastwood really say, "Yes we Can"...we can do it. Detroit did it; with a government bailout that the cons hate.

And of course that is the whole point.

If we decide to elect them back into power, we as the middle class, are finished.

I think the commercial was a wake up call, a call to optimism, and a call to finish the economic recovery that is plainly ongoing. YES WE CAN!

Control?

2012-02-04T09:05:00.000-08:00

Liberty. A short word, that has been a part of America from its inception. Liberty.... It immediately invokes all sorts of images, the statute, the coin, freedom, individualism; etc.

Today it seems liberty is the watchword of the conservative right; meaning liberty or freedom from over-reaching, tyrannical government. Liberty has taken on an economic, free enterprise meaning not a legal one.

Conservatives would have you believe that big government has crushed individual liberty, a wedge if you will between your natural rights to "life, LIBERTY and the pursuit of happiness" to pursue business interests unfettered by government regulation.

And, of course they conveniently forget the Preamble to the Constitution: "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." (note the words...form, establish, provide, promote, secure).

Government is a compact between us all, and under the control of "The People", does take an active and far-reaching role in making the conditions through law for liberty.

And that liberty, we now have established through a Civil War and the Civil Rights struggle, is not just for white people, but for ALL!

The Constitution was not written to create a government that intrudes on individual liberty, but works to provide the blessings of liberty. Without a government of the People, liberty doesn't have a chance. Monarchies cannot provide liberty, aristocracies cannot, plutocracies can't, fascism sure as heck can't...

Basic constitutional law provides that we are "a nation of laws and not of men."

Government in the United States has "checks and balances" throughout its constitutional and even tort law that makes it extremely difficult to infringe on individual liberty.

This is different in criminal law, where the rights of the public to "the general welfare" trumps rampant individual liberty....we lock criminals up. The concept of "clear and present danger" is integral to this decision that sometimes government must act to protect the people from themselves. The Bill of Rights was added to the Constitution, to put a limit on government's power to do this for good reason; witness the Salem Witch Trials.

The Komen flare-up recently, and the reaction to it are instructive. The conservatives hate Planned Parenthood, a non-governmental organization, that works with women on contraceptive, birth control, abortion counseling not financial support, and a whole host of issues dealing with reproductive issues.

Yes, Planned Parenthood has been painted for some reason with a "liberal" brush. But this is for a reason, that cuts to the heart of our liberty.

The Catholic Church, contrary to the vast majority of Protestants, has forever been against artificial contraception. They of course are also adamantly opposed to abortion in any form.

The Catholic Church is pre-eminent in developing nations, especially in Hispanic regions. For years, Mexico for example, has "enjoyed" a high birth rate because the Catholic Church prevents its members from using contraceptives.

And therein lies the point, that deeply affects the recent Komen Foundation flareup, where a anti-breast cancer organization was dragged into the abortion debate by some anti-abortion advocates.

When the Constitution was written the Catholic and Anglican Church were still embroiled in a war for souls. Open warfare had occurred, thousands had been jailed and executed, (Mary Tutor etc) all because church controlled governments were being used to enforce a secular belief.

That is one big reason why the Puritans fled England. Government was deeply involved in thought control, physical control, and there was no liberty. Theocracies were attempting actual thought control...the ultimate Big Brother.

Today, the Catholic Church, and fundamentalists have leaped into the fray, claiming that the Affordable Health Care Act encourages contraception and by implication; abortion.

This has the Catholic hierarchy up in arms, and according to conservatives anyway, another excuse for opposing the Affordable Care Act.

One is suspicious of this, since it seems conservatives are making up a lot to oppose the Affordable Care Act; read, insurance companies behind the mask of conservatives are against it. Behind every oppositional argument to the Affordable Care Act you can find the Insurance Industry...every one!

Anyway, the Komen Foundation gets dragged into this, and for a short time, stops its funds to Planned Parenthood, which could lead to thousands of poor women not getting breast cancer screening.

This evidently has been reversed after a huge public outcry. But, behind the immediate is the more dangerous situation that Catholic and Fundamentalist leaders are using their beliefs about contraception and morality, to intrude into the Affordable Care Act, and ultimately our liberty.

Choice; ie, liberty is the issue.

What right does the Catholic Church or Fundamentalists have telling a person what to do regarding contraception (or abortion for that matter)? And what right do they have to move that telling into pushing for legal prohibitions? Planned Parenthood does not tell people what to do, it provides education so people can make a choice. The churches are telling people they will rot in hell if they chose abortion or contraception; and therein lies the rub.

What more fundamental a liberty than over your own body? What more fundamental liberty that frankly whether you sleep with somebody or not (male of female for that matter).

And who really knows what God wants?

There are big reasons, huge "higher law" reasons, why liberty is in the Constitution. There are big reasons why the secular and the spiritual need to be separated as much as possible. The Komen controversy proves that yet again.

I am always bothered by Fox News and how they embellish every story that accuses the bad government of infringing in Christian belief, ranging from taking down the 10 Commandments from a County Courthouse, to school officials not allowing prayer at a Commencement. It sometimes dominates the Fox "fair and balanced" news cycle.

And fundamentalists wail...and the Catholics rally...and liberty is in danger.

And each time we take another step closer to King Henry the Eighth.

The threat, my conservative friends, to liberty in this country is NOT from government, it is from ourselves; from those among us who think they know what is best for us morally and spiritually.

Laws not men should govern...and Laws not men who think they know God's Will should govern.

Keep the church out of it!

Citizens Disunited

2012-02-02T09:40:00.000-08:00

In today's Bee there is an article that breaks my heart. Reports are coming in on the impact of the "Citizens United" Supreme Court case and they portend the final end of our democracy.

Super Pacs and their offshoots are raising billions of untraceable dollars to fuel our already bloated political process. Money rules everything.

And it is patently unfair. Multi-national corporations, bent on weakening the American economy are pouring millions into campaigns to elect people who, as Mitt Romney just said, "don't care about the poor".

And they don't.

What amazes me about many of my conservative friends is they never get the utter hatred and distain the super rich have for ordinary people in this country.

The rich pour millions into causes that have literally broken the middle class, and enriched the top 1% beyond belief, and conservative poor people root for them. That's right, actually root for them!

But the Supreme Court, who may vote later this year to invalidate much of the Affordable Health Care Act (another law that stands to massively help not hurt the poor and middle class), has insured the unfairness in this country only gets worse. Who really stands to lose if the Affordable Health Care survives: the rich "health care" insurance industry of course. Who is fighting the Act with everything it has...you guess!

Money is power. The founding fathers knew that, as they faced down the most powerful, and richest empire in the world at the time. They knew that Britian had already bought off most colonists, called Tories, with their riches.

In fact, the Tories continue after the revolution to ultimately morph into guess who? The Republicans! If you doubt this, read a little bit from James Madison.

Anyway, Jefferson knew it was a long shot for ordinary people to prevail, so they crafted the Constitution with a Bill of Rights to protect the little guy. The Tories have been working ever since to undermine that political idea.

And the Supreme Court is packed with at least five Tories. These aristocratic idealists, actually believe that the best government is one that rules aristocratically, that rich people all deserve all their wealth, and the poor "don't matter". (Again Romney).

The Supreme Court majority in "Citizens United" proved that Torie aristocracy rules in the United States. A person of modest means simply can no longer run for Federal office, nor for state office and soon even for local office. Super-Pacs will decide who runs, and with the exception of a dwindling power base of unions, own the political influence landscape.

Unions are being attacked at every turn by the Tories who realize that once their power is gone (which it almost is), then aristocracy cannot help but win.

And who roots the attacks on? The middle class of course, propagandized by Fox News into actually believing that unions are evil, that working class rights are wrong, that a decent wage is uncompetitive.

So we read about Apple, whose sub-contractors in China recently were exposed for running sweat shops, doing jobs American well paid workers used to do, for slave like wages and brutal working conditions. And why do they allow this? Because it leads to better profits. And who gets the profits? The rich of course!

Wal Mart has successfully resisted any efforts to unionize their workers, and employs millions of temps, part time victims of a minimum wage and no benefits. Wal Mart has led the way in breaking unions and in destroying the middle class, who SHOPS AT WAL MART!

That's right, the middle class and poor actually subsidizes the super store that helped to reduce them to poverty.

But I digress.

And unions, that once got Americans the highest standard of living in the world, are now depicted as evil. And union Super Pac money, while a shrinking factor, was depicted as on a par with corporate power in the "Citizens United" decision.

This is the same court, that said through Justice Kennedy, that the Internet would not have anything to do with expanding the power of Super-Pacs. His statements were incredibly naive.

What incredible B.S. There is no way union political influence in the United States can come close to matching up with corporate, aristocratic power. The Court was comparing apples to oranges.

President Obama has put together a tidy sum to run for President from the small contributions using the Internet. But there is a limit to how much that can earn.

All gas companies have to do is raise gas prices a few pennies (they are doing it now), and use that extra money to fuel anti-middle class aritocratic candidates.

And, as an added bonus, they then blame the President for not keeping fuel costs down; and the middle class buys it, both at the pump and at the ballot box.

So higher gas prices include the very money that will bring our democracy to an end.

Citizens Disunited....

No listening

2012-01-25T15:27:00.000-08:00

Today, after golf, I was asked point blank, by one of my conservative friends what I thought of the President's State of the Union Speech. I replied I thought it was a good speech, well delivered, well written; etc. No politics at this point, just that it was a good speech.

My friend was incredulous. He could not believe I would say something like that. He said that the majority of people in the room, white, older conservative men, all agreed (with each other) that the speech was terrible.

"He" (the President) was confrontative, he won't compromise, he is terrible, he is causing class warfare....etc was the response describing the speech.

Maybe the speech was divisive and if it is, the country has no chance. We are so locked in political disagreement, in a battle to the death, that nothing can get done. If cons can't listen to a State of the Union speech with at least a tiny bit of an open mind, then we are done as a country!

The President spoke about economic fairness last night. He stressed many times in many ways that the American Dream of equal opportunity and fairness was being destroyed by a huge imbalance in who gets breaks and who doesn't. The facts that billionaires pay less tax percentage by far than their secretaries, and sometimes less tax period are hard to ignore.

And the reply to this unfairness is the "fact" that 40 million Americans do not pay any income tax at all. Of course this is counting children, students, and those who are so poor that they are beneath the entry level progressive tax level.

But to the cons that is unfair. The poor need to pay more taxes, that is unfair.

Unbelievable.

So billionaires not paying any taxes at all (in some cases) is fair, while taxing a working poor person and costing them their apartment, is fair as well. What is their definition of fair? What planet are these guys from?

I have seen the poor kids, coming to school, knowing absolutely that they have NO CHANCE to make it. I have talked to parents, or grandparents, who are beside themselves because their adult children are in jail, or on drugs, and their kids are in trouble and nobody knows what to do.

I have seen teachers fight everyday, paying for supplies out of their own pocket, while seeing most of their kids fail because they are poor with no parenting at home. And at the end of the school year they get a pink slip.

I have seen good young teachers get a pink slip (that I had to deliver) because of lunatic tax cuts that rip public education.

I have seen tasted and lived the unfairness; the fact that 25% of young African American males younger than 30 are in prison; most because they are so screwed up by poverty, drugs and violence that they BELONG in prison.

I have seen Native American children who have been physically and sexually abused since they were three, who are so depressed that many kill themselves before they are 21.

I see the United States incarcerate more of it citizens than ANY other nation on the planet; just as Russia and Germany used to. How in the hell can a country be considered fair when we have to jail so many of our citizens?

I do not live in the same universe as those of my friends who think this all is FAIR?!

This country is dying, it is bleeding out from the inequality of opportunity that we tolerate everyday; the unfairness is killing us!

And conservatives say that anything we do about it, is a giveaway, an entitlement, that robs people of their motivation and makes them weak.

I'll tell you what makes people weak; hunger, ignorance, stupidity, greed, and not giving a damn.

This is what I think is the reality. Conservatives in this country have run out of solutions. Cutting taxes has repeatedly failed to spur economic recovery. They know it doesn't work. So, they attack because they have no other arguments to make. They know deep down that the economy is unfair and wrong, and they don't give a damn. "I have mine and screw you" is their response.

Incredibly the basic unfairness and huge inequities do not bother guys who are NOT rich by a long shot. Most of my friends are middle class white guys, who worked hard all their lives, and are living on a modest retirement. We do not belong to a country club, we are just middle class guys who enjoy each other's company. But the unfairness, and unemployment are right here in Redding, we have one of the largest unemployment percentages of ANY state in California.

And I just cannot believe how they don't get it, or choose not to listen; when a discussion goes to the huge inequities in wealth that are NEW developments in our history. We have never seen such a gap between rich and poor. I repeat, this division is new...it is unique, it is different.

And they keep saying it is ok, that the rich " they earned it", that we cannot give to those who "don't deserve it" and that entitlements are bad.

ALL of these guys are on social security to a certain extent and definitely Medicare.

They repeat that I, as a "liberal" want to give "them" (whoever them are) something for nothing..."they" didn't work for it...the poor are lazy, the unemployed are lazy...etc...etc. All liberals want to do is give people what they have not earned.

That is it, a give away is all liberals stand for? What? I suppose Civil Rights was a giveaway. I suppose WWI and WWII was a liberal give away. I suppose the New Deal, Social Security, et al, were just boneheaded giveaways.

And there is no listening, except to their narrow, and quite frankly selfish, approach to economics. Fox News and Rush echo in EVERY political discussion we have. The propaganda has been VERY effective. Liberals are stupid, elitists, who want to give America's riches away to the lazy and the criminal. Any compassion is wrong..."kill them all" seems to be the approach.

Jesus Christ! A lot of pun intended!

The President talked last night of the great infrastructure projects of the past, the Interstate Highway System, the Hydroelectric Dams, the Bridges; etc., etc., and how everyone contributed their fair share to get those built. And, he reminded us that these projects have benefited the nation many times over what they cost.

The conservative's obsession with cutting taxes would have not allowed these projects to have been built, with disastrous economic consequences.

But they just won't listen. Government is bad, it needs to be destroyed....

And the ending of the speech when the President talked about teamwork, sacrifice for a larger good, and having each other's back.....

They just didn't listen....

Roll Tide

2012-01-21T16:00:00.001-08:00

There is not much doubt that Alabama is the number one college football team. They destroyed a fine LSU team that was undefeated to do it. Oklahoma State, who beat Stanford in overtime, has only one loss, but did not play LSU.

Lately news stories have talked about how Alabama is claiming this national championship as their 14th. Of course, six of those were under Bear Bryant the mythical coach of what is called Alabama's golden era of football.

The problem is, before 1970 none of the national championships, no matter how decided, should count.

The count of Alabama's legitimate national championships drops to five. Most of Bear Bryant's national hegemony disappears when the lack of African American, or any players of color, is factored in. And, not only did Alabama not play athletes of color, they refused to participate against teams who had players of color. So did the S.E.C., which ironically today is considered the premier football conference in the land.

Alabama's national championships should not count because it was not until 1971 that an African American player competed for the Alabama Varsity. In fact, it was not until 1970 that Alabama even played an "integrated team"; unfortunately for Alabama this "experiment" was against USC and Alabama got destroyed.

Bear Bryant has been hailed as a genius for scheduling USC to finally break the "color line". I supposed that is partly true. But he was no genius during the sixties, when Alabama refused to play integrated teams or allow people of color near their football program. And it was during the 60s that Alabama was supreme.

This was a dark era for America and for sports. Professional baseball, basketball and football were integrated in the late 40s. Only college athletics remained segregated in the south during the 50s, 60s and part of the 70s. By the 70s, six years after the Civil Rights Act was passed, southern football holding out for its segregationist past glories was downright embarrassing.

Stanford was integrated when I played there from 1965 to 1969. The 1968 Varsity had ten African Americans on it, a Japanese, and a few Mexican-Americans (one a guy named Plunkett). But we were well integrated compared to the SEC.

When we played Tulane my Junior year, we had only a home game, no return game was offered because integrated teams could not play in New Orleans at the time.

I have a friend who played for Oregon and played Texas in the early sixties. Oregon's African American players had to stay in a different hotel, and eat in different facilities. Oregon won the game.

My point is the south, S.E.C., and Alabama in particular, fought integration to the end. White only teams, white only cheerleaders, and white only student bodies were the norm.

I can remember competiting for a position against African-Americans, the best players got on the field. I held my own, and played, but shared postions all of my career. I suppose at Alabama I might have started, but that would have meant the best players would not always have played. Of course at Alabama in the 60s many great players never got a chance to even be on the team.

That is the point why Alabama cannot claim national championships before 1971. They simply did not deserve them, when integrated northern teams were playing a more able cross section of athletes.

Football is a pure meritocracy. Athletic ability, courage, hard work, and teamwork are all vital ingredients to a team's success. The SEC, before 1970, was not a meritocracy; it was segregated, and as a consequence weak compared to other integrated conferences. We never got to find this out, however, because the SEC refused to play integrated teams. There was a reason for this; witness what happened to Alabama in 1970 at the hands of USC!

If Alabama had any class at all, THEY would admit that those pre-1970 champships were not valid, and stop bragging about having the most national football championships.

Alabama should only claim national championships when everyone could compete and when they also played against integrated teams. That is why they are called national championships.

They don't deserve the others.

The 15%

2012-01-18T08:30:00.000-08:00

We were in the lawyer's office discussing my wife's "considerable" inheritance. As it turns out it was more potential than real. Anyway, the lawyer was talking about investments and how to manipulate them to limit tax exposure. And my wife said, what about "capital gains"?

Capital gains? As a Stanford graduate with a Masters Degree capital gains were what people of my "class" talked about right? When I read the financial section, capital gains are discussed frequently. How to handle capital gains. What is the best investment strategy to maximize capital gains? The state of California taxes capital gains too highly. You get the drift.

That was the first time in my LIFE anyone had discussed assets in which I had a stake as capital gains. For a salaried school administrator, who did alright pay wise, capital gains just were "out of my pay grade".

And they are for the vast majority of Americans. Substantial capital gains might have come up in the housing bubble, as a house sometimes doubled in value. The Bush tax cuts for sure made the housing bubble worse, because they cut those for most, one time capital gain. And people got real stupid with the windfall!

People then took the money and usually poured it into another house (or two), banking on the bubble lasting forever. And, of course, most lost it all.

"It takes money to make money". This is a truism that I have heard all my life. It takes smart money to make healthy growth. Fast bucks usually blow up in your face!

When I was at Stanford, and knew Romney, his money came from his father's work, and the capital gains they no doubt got from Governnor Romney's stock and investments he earned from General Motors. Even in those days, C.E.O. were rewarded with stock and investments (usually in the company), that went up and up even though they were "retired".

Mitt Romney is the same. He does not work. In fact, he brags on being "unemployed" and yesterday finally admitted his tax rate is about 15% because all of his income comes from interest from capital gains.

I get a teacher's pension, a sliver of social security, my wife's pension, and her social security. Yesterday we got our social security benefit summary for 2011. Guess what, we made enough in pensions and such that our social security will be considered income, and taxed at about the 27 to 30% we pay....and we can now afford an accountant.

So we pay roughly twice what Mr. Romney pays to in taxes to the federal government. We pay about 25% to the state.

I am not complaining at all about those rates. They are progressive and fair compaired to others ; except for the people in Romney's class.

It is not fair that he only pays 15%. It just isn't! IT IS NOT FAIR!

When Romney was asked about other income, he stupidly blurted out he made a small amount (I am paraphrasing, what he said was more clueless) giving speeches. He then felt it necessary to emphasize how small it was.

Evidently he had to divulge this in his election papers, and the "small" amount is $350,000!

That is more income than about 95% of Americans make in a year. Heck, it is more than most Americans make in five years!

Romney is clueless. He is so wrong that it is funny. He promises to make Bush tax cuts permanent. These same capital gains cuts, caused the housing bubble. That's right, they caused the housing bubble, because they put billions more into the super rich, who then invested them back into the economy.

Hey, wait a minute, you are saying. That is Reaganomics right? This is the way it's supposed to work.

Right, but tax cuts to stimulate investment have no guarantee if they will be smart investments.

I still remember in 2005, driving north from Phoenix, through thousands of new housing developments. The super rich had done what even the middle class did, poured money into housing in the mistaken belief that such investments were gold.

Of course, any cursory analysis of people's ability to buy houses in 2005, would have shown housing prices had greatly passed the ability of the middle class to afford the inflationary prices. The housing bubble priced millious out of the market and killed it!

And capital gains tax cuts fed the housing inflation. And capital gains tax cuts fed the Great Recession.

The 1% does not have a guarantee corner on smartness. The 1% are highly educated, but the lure of a quick buck can mess anybody up. They took their capital gain tax cut, and invested it in something that killed the economy.

And they helped created a deficit that is one of Romney's targets if elected. Of course, the first step to correct the problem, is to make his rate 35% rather than 15%.

That will happen when pigs fly.

Let's Debate as Equals?

2012-01-17T08:39:00.001-08:00

Today a piece appeared in the Bee by the Washington Post "Climate Change Added to Politics of Culture War". It adds to my alarm that people are not taking man made climate change seriously.

The radical right has been working overtime, aided by big oil dollars, to blunt the urgency of climate change warnings. At first, a concerted effort was made to discredit the scientific research. For example, some emails were captured that allegedly showed the whole threat was a fraud.

Once these emails were actually read, no evidence of fraud concerning climate change was found. But, deniers continue to point to the "climate-gate" to discredit scientific climate change research.

Now, the deniers are working overtime to convince their "followers" that climate change is part of the "debate" between conservatives and liberals; and "both sides are too extreme are are wrong".

The article supports this point of view: that climate change is a "political debate", with exaggerations on both sides.

And we hear this echoed everyday in the denier world. Climate change concern is depicted as a veiled effort to grow the size of government, and that is all it is, there is no real threat..it is all made up!

The article depicted climate science, that provides a crushing amount of data to support the FACT of manmade global warming on equal balance with denier speculation that global warming is a natural thing.

The deniers, who are almost always backed by the worst polluters, said the same thing about DDT, acid rain, and the health disaster of tobacco. They ignore the actual facts, found a tangental sliver of argument, and made it the main argument.

For example, tobacco companies never talked about the proof that smoking causes cancer and heart disease, but cooked up the argument about second hand smoke, diverting the public's concern from death to the inconvenience of being exposed to second hand smoke. They fought the evidence that second hand smoke causes the same health problems of first hand smoke, and for years we argued over that, ignoring the millions dying around us. This bought time, continued profits, and killed millions.

They are doing it again. They want us to debate if global warming is man-made rather than pay attention to the effects of CO2 increases on the climate. They seek to politicize the issue, make it part of the clash of political philosophies, rather than admit to hard scientific research.

So Lindbaugh takes it up as yet another example of the progressive elite trying to "take away your rights, and freedoms." Or, incredibly agreeing there is global warming, but it is not man made, and no evidence exists that there is.

So we debate whether climate change, that is killing more every year, and reaching critical levels, is caused by man or not. This flies in face of overwhelming evidence that global warming is man made. But, this is never good enough for the cons. Meanwhile we are diverted from the actual damage caused by global warming everyday, while we debate nuances.

These are classis public relations ploys. They are purposeful diverting attention from the real threats and scientific predictions, just like the tobacco industry did.

If you look at the Health Insurace Industry's efforts to discredit any reform or regulation, you see the same thing. They NEVER defend their constant raises in premiums, which are at the core of the problem, they defend their opposition to "death panels"; that never have been an real issue or threat.

But, if you ask conservatives about their concerns with the Affordable Health Care Act, they immediately say "Death Panels".

In short, public relations experts are working overtime to confuse, to blunt, to discredit climate science that shows clearly a catastrophic threat exists caused by human beings.

And now, a columnist for the Washington Post has been also taken into by this con job.

A long time ago, people figured out how to fool the public. There are college majors that teach people how to do it; it is called public relations advertising. These people are very good at what they do. The techniques are too many to discuss here. Just think about advertising and all the tricks used, then assume climate change deniers are doing the same thing. Do you believe the ads you see on T.V.?

Of course not. Then apply the same common sense to the denier's arguments. Apply the same common sense to the scientific evidence, then decide what to believe.

Oh, I am sure you are saying that climate change advocates also can use P.R. to build their case. If that is true, then show me the money. Show me what vested interest has a stake in convincing the world of climate change and the need to do something about it. That would be a large vested commercial interest.

You can't find one on anywhere near the scale of big oil. If you are saying the progressives, then what commerical interest is behind them? What commerical interest is served by predicting global catastrophe?

There is none.

What threatens the denier interests are people who read, who go to the research, and refuse to be conned. That is why they attack the educated "elites" so much; because they see through their lies and con job. Since when, by the way, do we follow stupid people over the educated?

Unfortunately, educated skeptics are an increasing minority in this country.

They are lying to you! They are winning! And our grandchildren will suffer the consequences!

I Had a Dream

2012-01-16T08:48:00.000-08:00

Depressions and recessions can wreck dreams; especially dreams that were half realized.

In 1964, in the wake of a President's assassination, the nation finally addressed one of the most undemocratic aspects of its character. Civil Rights had been denied to people of color for centuries. Martin Luther King courageously held the nation's feet to the fire, and shamed it into finally trying to do the right thing, and put into law what already was in the Constitution.

Segregation and racism formed the bedrock of many state's legal and moral hierarchy. Economic and social injustice were the norm and not the rule.

This took such absurd forms, that the Southeast Conference did not allow African-American athletes to play. Today, the SEC is the premiere football conference in the land and African Americans play.

In short, this is a direct example that equal opportunity brings the best to the top. In the sixties, Alabama for example, purported to be the number one football team in the country, while teams like Michigan, U.S.C. and the like, competed with African American athletes. SEC Conference teams would not play integrated teams, buy they still held claim to number one status, playing white only teams.

In 1970 this changed. Alabama played U.S.C. and got annihilated! At that point, six years after the Civil Rights Act, Bear Bryant finally gave in, and Alabama began to recruit African Americans. Now this was several years AFTER African Americans were allowed to attend the University. Old bigotry died hard, but the SCORE counted.

Today, Dr. King's crusade is still not complete. The Great Recession has affected minorities more dramatically than the majority. However, poverty is colorblind, as Dr. King so notably remarked. There are far more poor whites than people of color. Misery knows no color line!

Poverty is growing like a cancer in the land. It destroys children most of all, relegating them to a lifetime of need, while dooming the rest of us to the constant debate about welfare and how much to do for the needy.

It is here where we need the words of Dr. King the most. He warned us about the corrosive effects of poverty,how it saps the nation's strength and weakens us. Today, parents have taken in their adult children in record numbers, from the poor to the middle class, in desperation.

And we debate! We debate the size of the deficit. We argue about how much welfare, if any is enough. Conservatives use the recession to somehow prove that welfare creates a class of lazy do-nothings, liberals use the recession to prove that capitalism doesn't work.

And meanwhile we do nothing for the economic injustice that is going on all around us. The homeless are ignored, or pushed from one place to the next. The shame of it.

For sure, this injustice is no longer supported by segregationist law; that is gone. For sure, governments cannot discriminate, nor can the private sector.

Unfortunately, poverty is not so amenable to law. Poverty comes from a variety of sources and is too highly complex to be "attacked". It is not a thing. It is not a country, or even a terrorist group.

Poverty is a condition, a consequence, a social and economic phenomenon that requires everyone's attention and dedication.

Poverty truly tries our resolve, our commitment, and yes our Christian values. I don't have an easy answer, and neither do my conservative "friends". It is not any easy thing to fix. Johnson's "War on Poverty" was doomed because it greatly underestimated its foe.

But that is not an excuse to do nothing. Dr. King called us to the great crusade, the great effort, to eradicate poverty from our country.

Let us begin, let us continue, let us never give up. I had a dream, and it can come true.

The Forty Three Percent

2012-01-12T09:24:00.000-08:00

Every study, poll, book, research; etc., shows that the American Dream of upward mobility is dead.

That's right dead.

The myth of upward mobility for everyone is simply not the case anymore. If you are poor or middle class, you are staying there. The percentage who escape their class and move up is decreasing every year, and is now practically zero.

That's right, old, white guys like me, who used to believe that people can move beyond their parent's station is life, are holding on to a reality that no longer exists.

White men over fifty make up the vast majority of Tea Party Patriots, and a large percentage of conservatives in this country. They blame immigrants for the loss of class mobility. I have heard many times, "If we only sent them all back to Mexico, it would fix things".

What? Mexican immigrants occupy the lowest class (caste) in the United States. They occupy the lowest, most menial of jobs. Are these guys kidding? Do they really believe that sending the Mexicans packing will open up social mobility for lower and middle class whites?

That kind of stupidity is almost beyond belief, but the belief and myth lives on.

So 43%, when asked how the rich became rich, still answer first: it is because of hard work.

Hard work? Let's look at Mitt Romney.

I actually knew Mitt Romney at Stanford my freshman year. He was, like most of us, homesick and in love with his girlfriend back home (who later became his wife). He was a "good guy", friendly and open. He was also rich way beyond me, a mechanic's son from Redding, California. I liked Mitt, in fact still do. But, he is rich man's kid.

In those days Stanford was more a rich man's school than today. The freshman class was about 75% male and 25% female. Minorities were rare. Prep school graduates were the norm, and academic achievement high. Today, Stanford has a diverse student body, and actually has as its mission, opportunity; as long as you have a 4.3 GPA or are a world class athlete!

It is one of the few places that a poor student can actually gain access to social and economic mobility, but it has a freshman class of about 2000 and 35,000 applicants every year. So, what are the odds of the American Dream? Do the math!

That was NOT the way it was in 1965. The only reason this poor kid was there was because of football. Stanford did not have a hint of social or economic mobility in those days; it was a rich kids' school (Ivy League of the West).

I also had a freshman roommate whose father was the CEO of United Press International and lived in Scarsdale, New York. He bragged that he was going to flunk out of Stanford, because he didn't like it, but his father was forcing him to go. He was rebelling against his rich father. He was a spoiled brat!

You can imagine how I felt, since going to Stanford was my gateway to a better life (which it turned out to be).

Mitt wanted out to, but would not flunk out. We talked about the draft then, that was a major conversation piece because of Vietnam. Mitt wanted to go home, but told us he would be drafted, because his father at the time was thinking of running for President, and getting Mitt out of the Army would cost his father politically.

In those days, anyone who dropped out of college, or flunked out, would immediately lose their deferment. Mitt did not want to go to Vietnam. Hell, none of us did!

At the time, his father actually was developing ideas that the Vietnam War was not a good idea. It many ways, these thoughts later cost him the Republican nomination for President.

But no matter what Mitt did, or my room mate did, they could not fail. They had a firewall beneath them, and would never drop into my middle class status. They knew it, I knew it.

And, I knew, to move up for me would require enormous work and luck; there was still the possibility, I rose to the highest position in my chose field, but I was (am) a rarity.

Today my story would be even more rare. In fact, my story statistically would barely exist.

And this is the big lie of America today. Social and economic mobility is dead. The rich always were protected, and could not fail. If they messed up, they always had their parents and grandparents to bail them out; George W. Bush comes immediately to mind.

But still, 43% believe in their souls that the rich worked hard to get where they were; this totally disregards that most did not.

That's right, statistically most of the 1% inherited their wealth, or their parents and grandparent's wealth opened doors for them that are closed to the rest of us. Ever wonder why C.E.O.'s do dumb things, ruin companies, get thousands unemployed? The reason is they inherited their leadership status. Aristocracies are like that, the elite get more corrupted as generations pass on, because they actually do NOT work for their success, it is given to them.

So, smart, innovative leadership declines in the rich; who actually dumb down their class.

THAT my friends was what established the American Dream in the first place. Jefferson and the founders of our Republic had witnessed first hand what aristocracy could and could not do. They began the American Experiment to counter the corruption of aristocracy. Apparently they have failed!

Mitt Romney and my room mate are perfect examples. Mitt dropped out of Stanford and did his mission in France. He kept his deferment. Then, after his father no longer was a viable candidate, he enrolled in Brigham Young University, was married, and guess what; kept his deferment!

And of course the rest is history. In spite of his dropping out of Stanford, which was covered by going on a mission, he succeeded through "hard work" by salvaging and destroying companies. But he already was a multi-millionaire when he did that. Daddy saw to that. He simply could not fail.

Recently he said he too knew what it was like to fear a pink slip. Please, he never had those fears in his life...never.

And lately he had the gall to say it was envy that drove people to criticize the rich. Envy my foot! It is the lack of economic justice that motivates the criticism

You see, I know these guys. I know what makes them tick. And it isn't pretty!

Aristocracies ultimately lead to social, economic and political disasters. Look at WWI, WWII, and the decline of the British Empire, France, Germany, Russia...I could go on but why bother.

I always was a pink slip away from financial disaster. When my wife got breast cancer, and the insurance initially said they would not pay for her therapy, I actually sat and added up all my assets to pay for the $100,000 procedure and came up way short. I essentially had no real assets, other than my monthly paycheck and a modest home. Romney would simply have written a check!

And I actually graduated from Stanford, have a Masters Degree, many Professional Credentials. No real upward mobility here!

My room mate actually succeeded; he flunked out of Stanford. He chose a more direct route, he got a wealthy doctor to vouch for a bogus physical ailment, and missed Vietnam. Today he is a "man of leisure", selling yachts in Boston. He never returned to college, and has spent his whole life as an aristocrat.

He thinks the whole thing is funny. He is one of the most valueless, clueless human beings I have ever known! And he is considered a "success from hard word" by my clueless Tea Party friends.

My room mate really screwed up. He missed the opportunity of a lifetime to go to a great University; he never challenged his mind. He successfully challenged his father and flunked out. He is stupid because it it!

And he had to work at it. Because his father was a big contributor to the University, it took him a whole year to flunk out. He registered for classes for a whole year, failed them all, and still could not flunk out. I used to take calls from his Professors, asking where he was. I would lie and say he was sick, while he screwed yet another girl in our dorm room!

But his economic and social status never suffered. If I dropped out of Stanford, I was headed to Vietnam, and upon return (if I survived), probably a state university, working my way through, and odds are dropping out to raise a family. No professional life for me. Basically I had ONE shot at it and I knew it, Romney and my room mate had many shots; they could afford choices.

THAT is reality. That is what is left of the American dream. The rich cannot screw up, even if they try, and access into their club is practically non-existent for the rest of us.

We have become an aristocracy! We actually always have been.

Purity of Race

2012-01-11T08:23:00.000-08:00

Today in the news, there was an article about victims of a forced sterilization program in North Carolina that ended in the 70s. Victims are seeking financial compensation from the state for what happened to them.

Racism, prejudice and the culture of racial purity spring from nefarious eugenics beliefs.

The 16th and 17th century were known for war, slavery and conquest. The mostly white "Western Civilization" having stolen the idea of gunpowder from the Chinese, used it to make firearms that led to the colonization of Asia, Africa and America.

After decimating native opposition, there was an wholesale migration, especially to Australia and the Americas of Europeans many who were "asked" to leave.

As the migration increased, competition arose between white immigrants and native peoples.

Ownership of property and rights was a bedrock of legal beliefs in European society. Feudalism had grown into the dominant social and ecnomic system based on owning property.

Property ownership, a concept unknown to native people in the Americas, was the sole source of status and wealth in European culure.

So, as Europeans moved into the Americas and Austraila they stole the native lands. This was an essential way of upward mobility for poor immigrants, who at least in Australia's case, were also thieves, and social outcasts. Austraila began as a penal colony.

The Puritans, for example, were driven from England for their unconvential religious beliefs.

The practice of indentured servitude was a way to America for many debtors, who used the system to come to America, worked off their debt, then set out to the west to start a farm on someone else's land.

These people were NOT members of the upper class, educated or cultured. . Often times they were debtors, who escaped debtor's prison to come to the New World. Cherokee history tells of the first white contact, and how dirty and dishelved the whites were.

The aristocracy and rising middle class, the bourgeois if you will, stayed in Europe. There was no reason for them to risk everything coming to the New World, because they were in control of the old one.

To justify the plundering of the New World, the newly presented Darwinian theory of survival of the fittest was bastardized into racial superiority "facts".

It was reasoned that Europeans were superior because they had the guns. Everything else, the subjugation, genocide and wholesale theft developed from this basic concept; cultural superiority rose from military superiority.

This firepower proves me better theory is still with the world today and one day may kill us all.

And of course, there was slavery. The New World was developed on the backs of African slaves, who offered cheap labor.

How then to justify slavery? Darwin took care of the Indians, they were racially inferior, not even human beings. So, the same justification was used on the Africans. The United States Consitution, aglow with freedom and equality, classified slaves as 2/3 people and Native Americans not at all.

Africans were sub-human. Their culture supported slavery after all, and they did not have guns. Of course, Europeans were only dealing with first impressions of African culture, and ignored other gains (like the Moslems who had nearly destroyed Europe 300 years earlier, the fact that mankind evolved in Africa). Native Americans were less than sub-human, were animals, who could be slaughtered; especially if you wanted the corner lot.

If we fast forward to North Carolina in the twentieth century, we see the products of this eugenic madness. It was so bad, that racist sterilization practices even survived World War II and its genocide. The revulsion of the civilized world could not overcome the madness and justification for gain of racism.

It still pervades our culture today. The rumors that President Obama was not born in the United States, that is a Kenyan, that he is a closet Moslem all are racist at the core. These lies are based on the same mindset that gave us the forced sterilization of thousands of victims by various states in America, of all places, the "land of the free and home of the brave". If you have ever been to an Indian Reservation you know what subjugation can do. The colonial culture stole Native Americans' lands and their wealth, leaving their descendents to rot in virtual concentration camps.

The historical fact is eugenics were used to justify slavery and the wholesale theft of millions of square miles of land. And, this was done by immigrants to America, many of whom who had been asked to leave Europe because they were debtors, criminals or even worse.

They then made up theories of superiority to establish their greed and their crimes.

The Purity of Race really masks crime and sins against man. That is a fact and one day God will render his verdict. I doubt if it will be a kind one!

Oh Iowa

2011-12-31T10:35:00.000-08:00

Cnn, along with all other news outlets, was filled with political analysts discussing the Iowa upcoming caucasus.

It is the Caucasus system that is remarkable for its undemocratic nature; basically small groups get together, discuss issues and then vote.

Iowa is dominated by conservatives; especially Christian conservatives. This means that Republican Presidential candidates must appeal to the most conservative, reactionary part of their party, in a sparsely populated state.

Some Republicans, I suppose, would say this is good. It "grounds" the candidates in the conservative base of the party.

As a Democrat I think it's nuts!

The country is not represented by Iowa in the least. Most Americans live in urban/suburban corridors, on the East and West Coasts. The average American is urban, multi-racial, and lives in large population centers. The average economic American lives increasingly in the Global Economy.

Neither of these apply to Iowa at all. So how on earth does what Iowa thinks make any difference to the "national interest"?

And then there is the electoral college.

This is an anachronism of not the twentieth century but the eighteenth century. I assume you know how it works.

Is is also deeply anti-democratic.

Because of their racist anti immigration, anti African-American policies, the Republican Party is increasingly the Party of the minority white elderly (and Iowa!) The electoral college system, protects minority interest, and has more than once, elected a President who has less votes that his opponent.

This just happened in 2000. George W. was elected but actually lost the "popular vote" by over a million votes. But, he won Florida and got a majority in the undemocratic electoral college.

The results were disastrous for America. When 9/11 happened, Bush was a minority elected President. To increase his base, he deliberately sought out a foreign conflict; it was all about getting more support. Lying to do this was acceptable, as a minority elected President, the ends justified the means.

America's is changing. People of color are fast becoming the majority in all population centers. Inter-marriage is acceptable, and the country is becoming a blend of cultures, nationalities, and races. America is becoming brown. (I always have wondered why whites decry people of color, but risk their health by lying in tanning booths!).

Although many white racists are aghast at this browning , it really is understandable, given the global nature of the world we live in. The global economy, the internet, and communications have tied the world together like never before.

A racist nation, that elects to isolate itself from the various nations of the world, stands NO chance of economic survival.

As Republicans appeal in Iowa to white only crowds, that are "social conservatives", they isolate themselves more from the world economy. As they lurch further to the right, hoping for another minority elected President (numbers-wise not racially), they offend nations of color with whom the United States must deal with economically (and socially, politically and otherwise).

The world is watching in more ways than one, as racially isolated elderly white men react to, rather than embrace the global economy.

Electing another minority President will be a disaster for the United States economically. "Whites only" won't work in the global economy. Iowa is so far removed from China, India, and Brazil that it is almost comical.

Moreover, the problems and issues in Iowa are light years different than the problems of Los Angeles and Chicago.

If we elected a minority elected President, based on Iowa's values, we will also elect someone who cannot relate to the critical problems of urban America; unemployment, housing, economic revitalization; etc.

Iowa, with an unemployment in single digits, is MORE different from urban America than ever before. Not only are their values different, their economic status is different.

A minority elected President will open the door for widespread urban unrest, upheaval and violence that could end our democratic system of government.

So, Oh Iowa, holds huge risks for our continued existence as a nation.

It isn't just a matter of race, or whites "taking their country back".

Oh sure, they can take it back, and doom us all to second class status in the global economy.

Iowa's values are not America's values. They used to be, in 1940 for example. But it "ain't 1940" anymore, and is sure as hell "isn't Kansas" either.

The midwest that used to be America's core stopped representing American forty years ago. It figures that conservatives would still hold that notion, they usually are fifty years behind the times.

Go to Salinas sometimes,or Chicago, or San Francisco: THAT is America and is becoming more America all the time.

And it isn't about race either, it is about the world, and how it has changed, and how our economy is not our economy anymore....it is the global economy, and whites make up a minority of that economy.

Oh Iowa...Oh no Iowa...

Just Don't Get It

2011-12-29T11:09:00.000-08:00

I have several friends who once were Democrats and now are conservative Republicans. Some even still maintain their Democrat registration, but vote hard line conservative.

All of them have been in one way or another adversely affected by the changes that have damaged the middle class over the past thirty years.

Their pensions have declined, their children's employment has suffered, their standard of living has declined. Many are still working, long after I, a public employee, retired. They resent that by the way.

They are having to work because they have little or no pensions, their health care is a mess, they aren't old enough for Medicare; etc.

The bottom line is that many of my peers are either working to provide for themselves with no end in sight, or working to support their uneployed children.

Shasta County has over 20% unemployed right now and things seem to be getting worse.

Regardless, they support the cons, they rant about welfare, they call the President a socialist, they vote hard Republican for the very people who are cutting their throats socially, economically and politically.

We have a thirty year Congressman, who has done nothing for the county, but has become a multi-millionaire during his tenure. How he did this over thirty years, on a Representative's income is beyond me. But, at last check, he has admitted to a net worth or seven million (it has been reported in other circles as thirty million).

You can almost see the standard of living decline. And my buddies rant about Obama, criticize the Democrats at every turn.

Interestingly, Shasta County is a small minority in a California that is becoming more democratic all the time. This has meant no political clout in Sacramento to deal with our economic nightmare.

Demographic studies show this will not change, as the state becomes more diverse racially, more progressive politically, while Shasta County goes more conservative.

All around us are artifacts of the New Deal. Shasta Dam, one of America's largest, is a cornerstone of a host of federal and state water reclamation projects. Government is everywhere, federal forests, federal water reclamation;etc.

And the cons in Shasta County loath the government. They hate government in every form. The Tea Party is a mainstay around here. The City Council is hard right, whereas in the past it was non-partisan.

I cannot understand this. How can people be so conservative when the economic system is almost abusing them in its unfairness.

The only thing that makes any sense is race. Shasta County has hardly any racial minorities at all. Hispanics are a small group here, it seems the Latino Wave stops in Red Bluff (thirty miles south).

Of course when I bring race up to my friends, they go ballistic, claiming they are not racists. It is all economics they say. Then, they attack the poor, as welfare cheats who are lazy, shiftless and are "refusing to take Burger King jobs to stay on unemployment".

One friend angrily told me he knows of several people, all on welfare, that moved into a large custom house, combine their welfare, and "live like kings". The Democrats are to blame for this he says, they coddle the lazy.

So, in my buddies' world, the recession is all self made, there are jobs, people are refusing to work because of government hand outs. I am reminded of the passengers on the Titantic who chanted it will be ok, as the ship sunk.

Of course, statistics, evidence, reality all are opposite of these myths. But, no matter how many times it is shown that 5 to 10 people are pursuing every job, that well paying jobs with benefits are virtually non-existent, that their lives are spiralling down and down with no end in sight, they STILL hold to their position that by gawd......it is not the fault of an unfair economic system, people just are too lazy.

I don't get it....I just don't.

Of course, when I say that my buddies say...see...another liberal who is clueless.

And they are still struggling, and their children are losing hope....

And Fox News continues its propaganda...

I think all of us are clueless.....

He Don't Know Nothing

2011-12-25T09:28:00.000-08:00

Recently I wrote a piece about redevelopment agencies, and how efforts to repair and build downtown areas had been hijacked in the past 50 years by urban sprawl proponents. I was talking about how local governments had failed, and most of us didn't pay attention, because frankly redevelopment is a pretty mundane and boring thing.

My point was, while we weren't looking, speculators and quick buck artists have moved in, modified redevelopment efforts to line their pockets, and left California with millions of square feet of retail space that will be empty for the next fifty years.

One of the criticisms of my piece was that I am an "educator", not a businessman so don't know anything about such matters.

"You never made a payroll, hired or fired", or did all those esoteric things business people do.

Oh really? I was a school administrator for most of my educational career. In the district I worked most of my career, we had a payroll of about 400! I hired, I fired, I dealt with the union. I administered workman's comp, I balanced budgets (or at least tried); etc., etc.

The idea that government is not a business is ridiculous. The myth that "if only we ran the government like a business, things would get better" is ridiculous.

Every governmental service, every one, uses the same business priciples as private enterprise.

Sometimes that can be a problem, especially with social services, because people are not widgets. Using production models to manage large scale social programs often backfires. In fact, running social programs solely like a business is a bad idea.

The record is repleat with examples of "business people" trying to run school districts and failing; not because business principles don't apply, but because they don't understand the culture.

That was the point of my previous article. Lewis Mumford (that nobody bothered apparently to Google), studied and wrote about how urbanization created a culture, that greatly affected government. That is proven by a study of redevelopment and urban sprawl, which affects our culture today in mostly negative ways.

For example, dispite the fact that there are many more of us in smaller areas, Americans today are more isolated from one another. How can that be?

We spend hours each week sitting alone in our vehicles, droning away at 10 miles per hour, going to and fro from work. We listen to talk radio, that rants about the damn government, the damn liberals, and pushes a conservative agenda constantly.

It is no wonder that people hate government, distrust public schools, want to give tax cuts endlessly; even though they don't work to much help the econony.

A propaganda machine works on us everyday; one , by the way, that does not care about truth.

So we watch, and we bemoan our helplessness, as our political system sinks into dysfunctional oblivion.

We can still change this. We can read. We can use empirical evidence to prove that tax cutting does NOT stimulate job creation; that governmental programs, can be well run, and can revitalize our economy without waste.

And, these can be implemented and not cost liberty, or the private sector, any distress.

In fact, liberty, social justice, and even economic justice can co-exist.

But our culture will have to change. We will have to get out of our gas guzzling cars, agree to pay higher taxes, and demand that our tax money be used efficiently and well.

And yes, we can run government like a business; a caring, compassionate and competitive business for the best intersts of us all.

It is right there, in the Preamble to the Constitions...."We the People.....

Rant a little...to rats

2011-12-21T08:32:00.000-08:00

Ok, I know most of my posts are calm, well stated, exercises in cool reason: (?) Anyway forgive me but here is a rant: Let's call it Rant Points...or Rat Points depending on your perspective.

1. To the House of Representative Tea Party: Rats to you for consistently stopping bipartisan compromise which has a direct effect on keeping my friends and family unemployed. Rats to you for actually voting against the extention of a tax cut for wage earners, which result in a tax increase for millions, an end to unemployment for many, and higher medical bills for the elderly. Raise taxes and cut spending during a recession will bring on a depression.....FDR 1936 (which it did by the way).

2. To the Heath "Care" Insurance Industry: Rats to you for refusing to disclose how you set rates while most of you make record profits from employer provided health insurance. This you did in the depths of the worst recession since the "Big One. Your premium rates outpace inflation by almost 100%....that's right 100%! So, while many cannot even get health insurance because they don't have a job, those that do are getting soaked; and the small businesses that strain to provide a decent benefit simply cannot do it.

3. To the Cons who have "kill Obamacare" in front of the loaded Supreme Court. Rats to you. Read #2.

4. To Newt: Rats to you because I detect your slimy hands behind #1.

5. To the the smug, medicare receiving, social security receiving old farts: Rats to you for being so damn selfish that you have thrown your children and grandchildren under the bus, voting Tea Party because you can't stand the idea of a Black Man being President while collecting entitlements that you think should be cut for the next guy.

6. To Big Oil: Rats to your lying, profits worshipping, polluting rotten souls. Thanks for ruining the planet...see Redding California weather forecast for Christmas, 60 degrees with howling and warm north winds...this is Christmas day for Christ's sake (pun intended).

7. To the global warming deniers: See # 7. Rats to phony patriots, big oil lovers, selfish, short sighted, expediency worshipping, science liars, who are quite literally sponsoring the end of times (and not in a religious way).

8. To the homo haters: Rats to those of you who divide churches with their hatred, while cheating on your wives of either gender. That's right, homo hating and hypocracy go together.

9. To Americans: Rats to all of us for tolerating and even voting for these fools.

Sprawl You All

2011-12-20T08:49:00.000-08:00

Governor Brown, as part of his first actions in office, and at great shock to his developer followers, stopped state sponsorship of redevelopment agencies. They are still screaming! The fact that Brown is in his 70s, and gives a rip about re-election is not lost on this writer for sure.

Brown acted primarily to help balance the seriously underfunded California state budget. But, Brown was up to more than just balancing the budget; he was attacking the source of the housing bubble, the source of our unbalanced economy, and yes, the source of our present economic misery.

When I was in graduate school, I studied Government. Oh, you are probably saying, THAT is the source of our misery; Government.

Not quite!

Now there is Government and there is political science. Political Science is the fun side of government, the clash of ideas, biographies of great leaders; etc.

Local governmental planning and development begins to fog over the lenses pretty quick. I remember being assigned readings from Lewis Mumford, who wrote in the thirties about the dynamics of urban growth. He basically studied the growth of cities, and how that reflected the culture. Go ahead, google it...not exactly the most exciting topic.

I can tell I am losing you already. I can see the eyelids dropping.....

But, local government and local development is really where good government needs to be. Our problem is not government, our problem is the lack of anti-speculative government.

The ways communities grow, renew, or die are essential parts of governmental planning. Good government results in good planning, which causes in healthy growth. Bad government comes when the speculators run the show!

Since some real conservatives might still be reading this (a longshot), look for example at the Central Valley Project in California. This massive governmental plan, was developed over years, by both political parties, to counter the damage placer gold mining had caused to California's aquafers. Rivers and streams had been mauled by the gold rush over fifty years, turning the fertile Sacramento Valley into a flood zone, and filling the rivers with sludge. The result was economic disaster for California.

Hum......economic disaster caused by short sighted economic greed....hum....

Anyway, the Central Valley Project, a well planned governmental effort, has resulted in a series of dams, that are still criticized by ecological purists, but have certainly worked to reclaim thousands of acres of farming land with huge economic benefits. We are talking the most important economic engine in California is due to the Central Valley Project.

In short, good government planning, which is boring planning by bureaucrats who nobody knows or cares about, works for the benefit of us all.

It seems the more boring and mundane the project is, the better it turns out. The less speculative in nature the better. Long term, reliant but reasonable return on investment is best.

Brown, who is just such a bureaucrat, no matter what you think of him politically, is a political and governmental wonk. That is, he has lived in governmental dynamics and politics, particularly at the state and local level, all of his life. He has a deep and thorough understanding of local planning and its implications for our culture.

He understands that boring, thorough planning, works in the long run; not expedient quick profiteering.

In attacking our redevelopment planning sector in California, he is calling our attention to a toxic and harmful trend in local urbal planning that threatens California's prosperity.

It is not high taxes or over regulation, in fact, it is speculation and expediency that have us in trouble.

The enemy is urban sprawl, and the destruction of downtown areas. This has NOT been a natural consequence of growth at all, but a calculated urban planning strategy, fueled by the petroleum industry, fostered by real estate interests, and pushed always by quick buck artists.

At its core is rampant short sighted speculation; from the same people that brought us the recent housing bubble and Wall Street speculation. These charlatans are killing us!

And, it has not been the province on either political party; both have participated and both are guilty. It really is not a political issue. It is a planning issue. It is a moral issue.

It really is not difficult to understand (look out here comes the dull, boring local government lecture).

In the 50s and 60s local government embarked on redevelopment plans. This is not surprising considering the Great Depression started in 1929, and then came World War II, not allowing any financial resources to be available for urban renewal. The government was too busy keeping people alive, or later killing them, to spend much fixing a downtown sewer.

In the fifties and sixties, local governments noticed the basic infrastructures were wearing out. Downtowns were becoming areas of blight, the wealthy were moving out of neighborhoods into the suburbs.

To counter this need, redevelopment efforts were started at the local and state level, with some influence even from the federal government. The idea was to counter urban blight and rejuvenate downtown. This goal was hijacked.

Expediency got in the way. Since people were fleeing the downtown area (mostly to get away from the people of color who lived there); redevelopment was "hijacked" by developers who shifted it from downtown revitalization to suburban sprawl.

And, the automobile culture was exploding at the time. The national highway system was growing, tying remote areas to urban centers. Shopping malls replaced downtown development as the sign of urban economic health.

And sprawl intensified. At first the sprawl was not significant, a few miles out of town. Then it grew into twenty, thirty miles. Why worry, everyone had a car, so a few more miles to work (which stayed in the downtown area with the advent of multi-story high rises) was easy.

Today this has resulted in the average urban communter having a 40 mile drive one way to work every day. This commute is usually at about 10 miles per hour, spewing tons of CO2 and pollution into the atmosphere. It is so bad that to drive in Sacramento in the morning or late afternoon is virtually impossible. It is so bad that the San Jose Mercury devotes several columns each day to the "choke points" (no pun intended) of the freeway madness that communters endure everyday. People spend hours each day in their cars, going 5 to 10 miles an hour, cussing the madness.

Meanwhile train tracks are empty. The bullet train project is attacked as madness, as wasteful, by a car culture that thinks nothing of spending billions a day going nowhere fast!

Californias pay so much for cars and insurance, that they even recalled a Governor, for having the temerity to renew a vehicle license fee level, which was called for by law by the way, and elected yet another actor who this time didn't have clue what he was doing.

The actor then reduced the vehicle fee, was a momentary hero, than flopped around bewildered when the budget didn't balance. That fee non-renewal by the way was tax deductable, so its impact to the average taxpayer was minimal. The impact to local governments and now schools was huge!

Meanwhile, multiple car ownership was encouraged, especially of gas hogs, that now sit in commuter's driveways since they can't afford the gas to run them! And people still sit in traffic all day, every day....on and on and on....

Having fun yet?

And who benefited from the sprawl? Land was certainly cheaper the further you went out of town. Speculators swooped in, buying up large tracts of what was farming land, at low prices, and got rich using local governmental redevelopment funds (at taxpayer expense), to build auto malls and shopping malls that now lie vacant.

Developers became quick buck artists, looking always for the fast and easy profit.

Let's add Prop 13 to the mix. This tax con, rewards speculators and large developers far in excess of homeowners, resulting in billions of dollars of profit for the apartment and mall developers, and pennies of tax savings for the ordinary homeowner. And, local schools and services have been cut ever since.

How, you might ask, can someone make money building malls that nobody occupies? Try capital gains tax games, where a loss actually cuts your tax liability. Trust me, they are making money; they are the 1%. We are the 99%, left holding the bag, as our tax dollars help redevelop areas that actually kill our economy and cost jobs.

It is kind of like Potterville in "It's A Wonderful Life", where the rich banker, speculator, if left alone, ruined the little town with his quick buck dishonestly. In fact, it is EXACTLY LIKE POTTERVILLE!

The result of what must be called basic dishonesty, was sprawl for sprawl's sake. Of course the driving force was that it was cheaper and quicker.

Downtown real estate costs more than Farmer Brown's almond orchard. To develop a flat area is cheaper than tearing down an old building and putting up a new one. Short cuts are good business. Hey, its profit, "Greed is Good"...

But, as most of us know, cheaper is not always better. You get what you pay for is not an irrelevant saying. There is no such thing as a free lunch. If it looks too good to be true, it isn't.

Speculation will hurt your on the long run....

I could go on and on....But you get the picture.

I live in a very poor county that has been hit hard by the recession. Right now there are plans to build a large shopping mall in the middle of prime farm land, at least ten miles outside of Redding. This is being pushed by a developer from Idaho (?), and local builders as the panacea to stimulate Shasta County's economy.

And you should hear the builders salivate. Of course, Redding right now has millions of square feet of retail space that lies vacant. The old malls are less than half occupied, so where will the renters come from?

Don't worry about that, say the developers. We will build it and they will come.

They never come!

The locals don't think so, and have floated a petition that is putting the development to a vote.

People are tired of the sprawl, and are even willing now to forego the temporary economic stimulus that the mall supposedly represents; the stimulus never comes. They also smell a rat.

Brown, who unlike most of us, actually revels in this stuff, has been around so much government that he knows urban sprawl, as it is presently practiced in California, is toxic to real economic growth. Read carefully........this nonsense is killing us!

How can this be, you ask? How can redevelopment be bad?

Here are a few toxic consequences:

1. Building office space far in excess of demand, in remote places makes NO SENSE!

2. Spending millions of dollars of tax money, developing remote shopping malls while the downtown area rots makes NO SENSE!

3. Catering to quick buck artists, whose only motivation in developing a farm into a parking lot to make a quick buck makes NO SENSE!

4. Forcing urban renewal forty miles out of town, or building an auto mall when car sales are way down makes NO SENSE!

5. Being at the mercy of developers, who attack anyone who questions their motives as being "anti-growth" makes NO SENSE!

6. Sacramento's Natomas area, built on a flood plain, pushing dwellings miles away from downtown, into a flood plain, makes NO SENSE!

7. Expanding freeways, adding lanes, encouraging multiple ownership of cars that are poisoining the atmosphere and accelerating global warming, makes NO SENSE.

I could go on and on.

We have been duped, fooled, lied to and manipulated. Lewis Mumford would have a field day with the pure speculative nonsense that particularly California has practiced for the past fifty years regarding urban planning.

The housing bubble, that should have been a clear lesson to us of the dangers of spleculation, poor planning, and the quick buck, is deeply engrained in the urban sprawl, and false, dishonest, and lousy urban planning "redevelopment" of the past fifty years.

It is all a toxic brew, that is poisoning us.

We have fifty years of bad governmental planning, and frankly crooked dishonest speculators to overcome.

We should be giving credit to Governor Brown for finally calling our attention to this fraud. We should be putting some of these crooks in jail!

Development for development's sake is a fraud. Short term profit and gain that contain disastrous consequences in the future, like developing the Natomas area north of Sacramento, is a fraud.

If there are good chances the wheel will fall off the wagon when you go to fast...it probably will.

Finally there is Jacksonville, California. A few years ago I visited Jacksonville to do a school accreditation. As I drove into town, I could not help but notice a huge development. It was an auto mall, one of the biggest I had ever seen.

At the high school I asked about it. Some of the teachers were skeptical, worried about building such a large auto mall almost 50 miles from the nearest population center. But, others, believing the developers, expressed hope that the new mall would be a source of employment for the local economy, that had been suffering from the shift from logging and agriculture to suburbia.

Three years later, I returned for another visit. I looked to my right, as I came into town, and saw the auto mall, closed! Acres of pavement, thousands of square feet of space, emply, closed.....nada!

I asked about it when at the high school again. I was told, this time with a tinge of anger, that the mall had opened all right, in 2007, hired lots of people, then crashed to a close with the recession.

As it turned out, the people in Sacramento, for whom the mall was intended, would not drive the fifty miles to Jacksonville to visit the shiny new mall to buy a car they didn't need and now could not afford.

The city if Jacksonville, I was told, was trying to lure tenants to occupy the thousands of square feet of retail space that was just sitting there. Of course, no tax proceeds were coming from the mall, it was vacant; and prospects for occupancy were nill. Jacksonville basically got screwed!

So Jacksonville was left holding the bag, while the developers profited from the redevelopment taxpayer dollars and enjoyed the tax break caused by the loss.

Urban sprawl wins again...sprawl you all....

What Are Your Belliefs?

2011-12-13T12:01:00.000-08:00

Ultimately it comes down to what you believe.

There is an incredible struggle going on in this country for your beliefs. Fox News, MSNBC, and countless Internet Bloggers are writing a blizzard (like this one) of appeals to your belief structure.

It is not hard to understand why it is so hard to know, "What to believe?"

Empirical evidence is a place to start. There is empirical historical, social and economic evidence to back up many of the political and economic appeals to belief.

Unfortunately the closer you get to present time, the more conflicting the empirical evidence is. This occurs naturally, because historical perspective adds veracity to belief structures.

For example, in the latter part of the twentieth century the struggle between capitalism and communism was the premiere belief struggle in the world.

Today, in 2011, we can look back at how communism in the USSR failed, and was trashed in the rest of Eastern Europe. It appears that communism lost to capitalism.

Except for China of course, where a blend of communism and capitalism is beginning to conquer the economic world. The empirical economic evidence seem to be proving that a blend of both economic belief structures is the most competitive.

There was virtually no one in the twentieth century, who predicted this. But the evidence seems to be bearing out that a blend of capitalism to encourage invention and innovation, and communism to bring government regulation and overall planning, works!

The same could be said in foreign policy. Take Iraq for example. The United States poured trillions of dollars into Iraq to "establish democracy", with few results. Moreover, America disregarded her economy, cutting taxes while spending enormous sums to "nation build" in Iraq.

Today, we are counting down the days until the United States pulls ALL of its troops out of Iraq.

And what did we gain, empirically?

Vietnam is probably far enough in the past to use empirical historical and ecnomic evidence to determine if the foreign policy that dominated the 1960s and 1070s was justified.

Clearly, 55, 000 American dead and millions of Vietnamese dead were not worth it.

Vietnam is a blended economy. It is copying its foremost rival, and traditional enemy China in world economic behavior. It has shown no aggression to its neighbors, discrediting totally the "dominoe theory" that led millions into battle against the "Communist Menace".

Empirically there was no menace. And, Vietnamese were right who said it was a war of national liberation, not communism versus capitalism.

It seems that the more ideology pushes an agenda, the greater the odds empirical evidence will prove that agenda was dead wrong.

Hitler for example pushed the agenda that the Jews were responsible for the Great Depression, and his brand of fascism would create a "thousand years" of German hegemony.

Clearly empirical hisorical evidence has disproved his agenda and theories at the cost of millions of lives and trillions of dollars, marks; etc.

So beware of ideologues! Take Newt Gingrich for example, who declares that Muslim Law is out to conquer the world. We need a crusade against Shariah Law his agenda says.

So, if he is elected, his belief structure, which has trouble with empirical evidence from the beginning, would plunge the United States into an idelological war with a legal system that hardly anyone can define, or find for that matter.

It is what you believe, but try to find some valid evidence empirically..

Otherwise you fall victim to demogogues!

My Way or Highway

2011-12-01T09:41:00.000-08:00

We all sit and watch with disgust as the Congress is hopelessly deadlocked.

The national deficit is at record levels. There is little doubt that over time, this deficit will retard the growth and recovery of our economy. The short term effects however are less than certain.

Meanwhile conservatives try everything they can think of to cut spending, especially in programs that they hate like Social Security and Medicare.

Medicaid has been cut severely in several states. Welfare has been cut. Schools, public services are being cut everywhere.

So, even though there is gridlock in Congress, conservatives have been successful on several levels in cutting and ripping the economic safety net throughout the country.

Many Americans think there is some kind of strange balance between the two philosophies, that there is some kind of tie in the struggle to change American society. This is simply not true.

Conservatives are winning all over the country. In California, the "free" public university system has long ago been destroyed. Tuition and fees have gone up dramatically, making the system both not free, nor inexpensive. Thousands of middle class college students are finding themselves priced out of a college education.

This led to the famous pepper spraying of students at U.C. Davis (not exactly a hotbed of radicalism), who were protesting the endless tuition hikes.

So, there is NO balance between conservative political philosophy and progressives. Conservatives are winning.

The reason for these victories is conservatives have a 24/7 propaganda machine in Fox News and talk A.M. radio. These propaganda outlets are literally selling the public on several myths, and are dramatically shaping public opinion. Meanwhile, progressives have MNBC and that is about it, to counter this avalanch of propaganda.

So, middle class, ordinary Americans, who used to side with the New Deal philosophy because of the huge gap between the rich and poor, now support positions that only encourage that gap to grow.

Today America has a dramatic imbalance between the very few fabulously rich, and the rest of us. The 99% movement really is not accurate in its depiction of economic reality; it should be more like a 99.998% movement. Wealth is accumulating more in a few thousand mega-rich citizens, many of whom are conservative fascists. The Koch brothers for example are not putting millions into conservative propaganda but billions!

And the damage to democracy is palatable.

We are sliding into a fascist state, run by plutocrats, with myths holding the entire structure in place.

If history is an indication, this will ultimately implode, resulting in widespread protest, repression, and the evolution of a fascist dictatorship.

It is coming folks, unless you decide to turn off Fox and Limbaugh!!

Why Lie? Fascism is the Goal!

2011-11-24T08:47:00.000-08:00

There were several articles in today's papers that pointed to the right's unbelievable propensity to lie about public issues.

One piece dealth with the latest "debate" and focused on foreign policy. Several flat out lies were exposed. Other mere exaggerations for effect were disclosed.

The funny thing is most of lies were so blatant that anyone with a cursory information source would see right through them.

And that is the rub. The truth is most conservatives have walled themselves off from objective media. Fox News, Lindbaugh and AM Radio dominate their reality.

Now I am not talking about conservatives reading "The Nation" or other progressive magazines. They don't even read "Newsweek" or "Time". They don't tune in "ITunes U" to listen to discussions. They avoid conflicting opinion like the plague.

I read, and read and read. I read conservative columns, like George Will, and tune in Fox News as long as I can stand it.

And what do I see...lies.

It really is a mirror universe of reality.

And this scares me. I have read extensively about political philosophy. Fascism is a political philosophy that so greatly damaged the world in the 20th Century that society itself crumbled in many areas; eg., the holocaust.

Propaganda is an essential ingredient of any fascist state. Moreover, mythology, exaggerating past glories and nostalgia for the past are center pieces of how a fascist state develops.

You see this everyday in the conservative lie factory. There appears to be a real belief that liberalism is so bad that lying and cheating are justified to attain political goals.

So Michelle Bachman lies about foreign policy. Mitt Romney runs an ad, quoting the President out of context, with devastating effect. The President's birthplace is still questioned.

It just goes on forever.

The danger? The danger is the development of fascist momentum to destroy our democratic institutions.

This danger is apparent and is increasing. It is manifesting itself in the radicalization of the Republican Party. There is simply no room in the Republican Party for moderation. Orville Norquest, who is quite simply a fascist, has pushed Republicans to sign a "no tax increase " pledge to the point that the very legitimacy of government has been irrevocably damaged.

This is readily apparent in California. Tax cutting is used to so hamstring government, that its very legitimacy is questioned. For example, local school boards are under attack all over the state, and are blamed by the public for the incessant cuts that are occurring.

And what comes of this? A mythology is created, that democratic decision making processes are too cumbersome, that government does not work. In America, when you mention the government, you are talking about the Constitution that begins "We the People". So, dysfunctional government really means dysfunctional democracy.

So how, you might ask, does this jive with "The Tea Party" movement, who uses the Constitution as their Bible?

If you listen to them, their "Constitution" is their interpretation of the Constititution. Liberal judges must be eliminated to make the "Constitution" pure. They yearn for a return to "a literal interpretation" of the Constitution; which of course is according to radical right wing dogma.

Repealing the 14th Amendment is an immediate target. This is ostensibly to counter federal power. But the heart of the 14th Amendment is "equal protection under the law', which protects individuals from states who discriminated after the Civil War. Without the 14th Amendment, Civil Rights essential end.

And that is exactly what the fascists want; to rid the country of civil rights.

And that means the end of our freedom. That means a single party state, and ultimately a dictator.

The stage is being set. I will bet you that in meetings with the rich and powerful, who are bankrolling the whole thing, they have openly hoped for the overthrow of the "liberal state" and the establishment of corporate backed dictatorship.

Sound far fetched? Just stay tuned.

This nation is not locked in a struggle between conservative and liberal, the conflict has gone way past that. This nation is locked in a struggle between liberal democracy and fascism.

The Coming of Fascism in America

2011-11-22T08:44:00.000-08:00

California used to be a nice place to live. During the Great Depression, millions of Americans fled the Dust Bowl to come here. Hollywood was established with the movie industry, that still anchors the perception that California is place of beaches, clean rivers and majestic beauty.

All of these myth are at least partly true. Silicon Valley is a reality, spawning the development of a technological revolution that has literally changed the world.

Economic growth at a frentic pace, including the Dot Com Bubble, has resulted from this scientific, engineering marvel.

Silicon Valley has been fueled by the Universities that ring it. Stanford has led the way, followed by U.C. Berkeley, Santa Clara, CSU San Francisco, etc., etc. Brainpower has proven a substitute for the manufacturing muscle that powered the United States in the 20th Century.

And then there is Howard Jarvis, and Orville Norquist. In the 1970s the relatively high tax rates on income caused by the need to pay for WWII, and the inflationary surge that drove up property taxes, were used slyly by Howard Jarvis to lead a tax revolt.

There are two key ingredients to this revolt: 1. Taxes were characterized as too high. 2. Government spending at all levels is wasteful. The key ingredient to selling this to the voter was simply, the Republican Party saw a huge opportunity to finally turn the progress of the New Deal and regain politial parity with the Democrats.

So the formula was developed to cut taxes and raise spending. Ronald Reagan, a former Democrat, saw the opportunity to use the tax revolt to launch his political career, and ran on increasing defense spending to counter what the right wing of the Republican party had depicted as Democrats softness on national defense. This of course is the classic cut taxes, raise spending formula: Sold to stimulate the economy, really bad relative to creating huge deficits, which as we are learning, actually depresses the economy. In short, it doesn't work to stimulate the economy ast all!

Of course this all was a lie. The State Department and the Defense Department knew for decades that the Soviet Union was not near the threat that the public was fed, but it got people elected. And the Reagan tax cuts were immediately overshawdowed by an exploding federal deficit and immediate return to recession. Even Reagan saw the damage to the economy of tax cut led deficits, and disingenously quietly raised taxes to partly make up the difference, while still professing to be a "tax cutter" He then recruited Orville Nolrquist to sell the falsehood that he was a born again tax cutter, while spending like crazy, and backfilling the deficit with "tax reform" (he raised taxes eight times!). In other words, he lied to us for political reasons.

Expediency counts in politics. Lying wins!

Orville Norquist was recruited by Reagan to spread the myth that government is too "fat" (except in defense) so taxes could be cut and cut. In fact, an economist named "Laffer" even crafted a deception that cutting taxes would actually raise government revenue because the economy would grow faster. This of course never occurred, but Republicans still are chanting this lie. Norquist, a rich fascist (in the classical definition), took Reagan's charge and developed an anti-tax national movement that now forces Republicans to sign a no tax increase pledge, that directly is responsible for the huge federal deficit we see today. Norquist also is leading the secret plan to turn the United States into a fascist state (see below).

The "Super Committee" that was supposed to address the federal deficit, has predictably failed to reach any agreement, once again proving the government is deadlocked and quite literally cannot fund itself. A dysfunctional government is all part of the fascist plan to discredit the democratically elected government, and lure citizens into a plan to "fix it" by first discrediting then jailing those who disagree with them.

And then we have Bush and Gingrich. Recently Newt Gingrich, defending himself for the lobbying he most certainly did, but says he didn't, declared that he warned Freddie and Fannie (partly government sponsored mortagage organizations) not to give subprime loans to home buyers because he saw the "housing bubble". He did no such thing.....he is lying.

Conservatives try to explain away the housing bubble, that literally destroyed the middle class, as caused by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, not by the wholesale reduction of government regulations of banking led by George W. Bush.

This is nonsense, just like the tax cutting myth is nonsense. I am surprised Democrats don't use the video of President Bush's infamous "Ownership Society" speech, when he tried to sell privatization of Social Security AND deregulation of the mortgatge loan industry.

He failed miserably in "reforming " (read destroying) Social Security. He succeeded in deregulating housing loans, that in turn ruined the economy.

A ruined economy is fertile ground for fascism!

American business used the boatload of money from the tax cuts and capital gains cuts for the rich, to bankroll housing starts all over the country. The "sunbelt" particularly benefitted from this huge influx of money, and millions of homes were built in Nevada, Arizona, Texas; etc.

Of course, nobody paid much attention to the increasing heat of the summers and the dwindling water supplies. And, nobody really noticed that the housing starts were way out of proportion to the state and local economies; that there were not enough potential jobs to support all the new arrivals.

So, America was again duped, more is better they were told again and again; except when it comes to taxes. Liars loans were the standard, and millions entered the housing market, other millions began to play the housing market like a slot machine, buying houses, taking out seconds on them, and then selling them for a profit as the values went up and up.

California, thanks to good ole Prop 13, had low property taxes guaranteed by law, and greately inflated home value rates, that greatly encouraged the bubble. And, since the property taxes were now insufficient to fuel the infrastructure to support the millions of new homes, developer fees had to be used, further straining local governments. This resulted in massive cuts to local government, reducing police forces and encouraging will ultimatley encourage massive civil disobedience.

Do you detect a plan here?

In effect, thanks to Orville Norquist, government truly is being slowly drowned, starved for revenue at every level. The weaker the government, the better the chances for fascist "solutions" to grow.

There are templates for this kind of fascist revolution: read the Weimar Republic in Germany, 1917 to 1932.

The housing bubble of course burst, millions lost everything, the real estate and builder industry was destroyed, and the economy in California, Nevada and Arizona was destroyed.

And the culprit, according to Gingrich and Norquist, is "exessive government spending" . And the remedy is? You guessed it, more tax cuts; leading to more ineffective government, and the increasing call for fascist "reform".

Just today, on the news, a Republican said that we must cut, cut, cut and increasing revenue for government is "off the table".

And the economy? Well it is dead. People don't remember Bush's "The Ownership Society" speech. People in California, according to recent polls, still cling to the myth that taxes are actually too high, and government is wasteful. This myth continues while roads and bridges fall apart, schools are closed, college tuitions are raised to private school levels, police and fire are cut; etc.

On the federal level, since the "Super Committee" failed to compromise, Defense Department cuts, where the real money is, are supposed to automatically take place in 2013. Almost immediately, Republicans vowed to introduce legislation to stop these cuts; sounds just like Reagan doesn't it. Cut taxes and spend!

Ok, listen closely. IT DOES NOT WORK. IT IS BULLSHIT. THEY ARE LYING TO YOU. AND THEY HAVE A PLAN. THIS IS NOT HAPPENING BY ACCIDENT!

For months I have written countless articles on this blog, showing this truth over and over. And the fascist right in the country, with their billions of dollars, have continued lying to the American People about practically everything.

And you buy their story.

So, don't come crying when the gauntlet finally falls, and your democratic freedoms are taken away.

By the way, write this prediction down someplace:

The fascist takeover of the United States will be initiated to counter the endless demonstrations and violence by the dispossesed victims of a lopsided economy (in fact we are seeing the beginning of this with the 99 percent sit ins).

Fascists will finish the job Ricard Nixon almost accomplished, calling on "law abiding citizens" to quell the endless acts of civil disobedience. This will be coupled with the hard sell foreign terrorist threats, and will target a supposedly nuclear Iran. The Constitiution will effrectlively be suspended by a conservative Supreme Court, who will take away civil liberties. A fascist conservative President will complete the coup, being very careful to only jail "the protestors", but then will branch out as he declares martial law, to counter the millions who will be demonstrating.

The more protests go on, the more civil liberties are cut, the more repression will be justified. They are planning this right now!

So, don't complain as your standard of living continues to slide into Third World levels. Don't complain, when your son or daughter is jailed in "relocation camps" because they demonstrated against the increasing repression all around them. Don't complain when they finally come for you!

And when will this occur? It will begin in 2013 if a Republican is elected President and will take only eight years to accompliish. Oh, and I will probably be jailed as part of it, for this and other essays, along with thousands of my fellow progressives.

It is coming! You were warned!

The 99% Left Holding the Bag

2011-11-18T09:52:00.000-08:00

The latest and greatest in the disingenuous legacy of the cons: Pat Toomey, a Tea Party Republican, has come up with a "compromise" that supposedly gets around the "pledge" to not raise taxes.

What amounts to the greatest sham in tax history, is being hatched by Toomey, an arch conservative, government hating fascist. That's right, fascist. Read the book, The "Anatomy of Fascism" before you call me a "namecaller".

At first, some progressive reporters even fawned over Toomey, because it appeared he was trying to break the Norquist pledge to never, and I mean never, raise taxes. Cutting taxes insanely forever is alright, but never raise a tax, no tax, ever....ever...ever...

So here comes Toomey's plan. What it appears to do is close lots of loopholes, resulting in an increase in taxes for the poor and middle class, and cuts the tax rates for the richest of the rich by about 10%!

That is right, he cuts the rich tax rate below the Bush tax cut rate. I will say that again, he gives a tax cut to the super rich, raises taxes on the middle class and poor to make up the difference.

What gall! With the 99% movement almost reaching the revolutionary stage, this aristocratic fascist has the temerity to actually slyly develop a plan that takes deductions for mortgages away, messes with the standard deduction, and slashes taxes for the richest of the rich.

By the way, the mortgage interest deduction does need to be reduced or eliminated, but another source of revenue must take its place! Toomey, as usual, has a tax cut for the rich take its place. There is no way the revenue can be replaced.

If you read about his Tax "idea"?, you will think for a moment that he has developed a plan to close loopholes, eliminating the need to stop the Bush tax cuts, and actually reduces the deficit.

Not so. Even if you entertain this madness, and I can't believe I am even doing so while writing this blog, the horrible fact is that the middle class has been dramatically reduced in size and wealth. Toomey's plan for example imagines a large revenue increase from the mortgage deduction elimination. What he misses is the middle class has lost homes at a record rate and now are renting. Young people, who have never entered the housing market, may never own a home, since renting foreclosed houses is now endemic all over the United States.

So, no mortgage interest deduction windfall if the tax deduction is removed. And, the amount of money in mortgages is about 1/2 of what is was, since millions of homeowners new have homes that are worth way less than they once were. When a family buys a home, that once was worth $400,000, it is now worth $200,000; you do the math on the mortgage interest loss.

Of course, Toomey and his fascist collaberators (sounds pretty harsh huh?), are so out of touch with mainstream America they haven't even considered this. Conservatives frequent only the rich and super rich (who are of course actually the sponsors and owners of the teaparty), and don't have a clue about the rest of us.

I am reminded of George P. Bush's famous grocery store incident, when he got in line to buy something, to mingle with the "common folk", and didn't know how to get by the cash register. It had been so long since he had to do a "commoner" task like buying a stick of gum, that he did not know how! Things like this cost the aristocrat the election.

Same thing with Toomey and his con fascists. They are so out of touch they don't or won't relate to ordinary Americans; even upper middle class Americans.

Ok, here is a primer about why the marginal tax rates where "high" in the post war world and why a cut could be done around 1980 by President Reagan.

World War II was the most destructive and expensive war EVER. In 1945 the federal deficit was almost 100% of GDP. That's right, we owed to ourselves almost as much as we totally produced.

This is even more impressive, considering America's industrial capacity was at full throttle in 1945.

I know, I know, the war bonds; they paid for the war. No they did not, they couldn't. In 2011 dollars the deficit was almost twice what it is today or more.

So, at the end of the war we had to start paying ourselves back.

Why ourselves? Well, in 1945 the rest of the world was destroyed. The United States did not, in fact could not, borrow from anyone to pay for the war. Europe was destroyed, most of Asia likewise. We basically put the war on the future generation (the baby boomers) to pay for over decades.

So, to start doing that effectively, taxes were raised, especially on the super rich. Democrats had long before, during the Great Depression, realized that the American economy has a propensity to concentrate wealth, much more than other economies. The middle class was growing fast to be sure, but to insure a core of payment for the war, marginal tax rates on the rich went up to almost 90%.

Dwight Eisenhower, no raging liberal to be sure, continued these tax rates, in fact increased them.

Meanwhile the middle class was booming, having a boatload of children, and paying more and more in taxes.

Around 1960, America was in a small recession, and the bill was being paid faster than anyone could have imagined. The economy was growing at a rate no one could have predicted, because the imbalance in income was flattening out, and the masses had way more to spend.

It did not hurt that Europe, Russia, and Asia were still recovering from the war. The United States quite simply was not only militarily the strongest nation on the planet; economically, even with the recession of 1959, America was supreme.

And, the middle class, the upper middle class, and the rich were prospering.

And then Europe and Asia (and the USSR) began to catch up.

Kennedy knew all this, and made his famous tax cut of 1960, modest by Bush standards, BECAUSE THE BILL FOR WWII WAS BEING PAID AT A FASTER RATE THAN PREDICTED.

Okey, now for the clincher. Most American did not realize that is what was going on, because almost all Americans wanted desperately to forget WWII.

If a politician had argued that we were paying for WWII with the relative high tax rates, they would have lost. Nobody talked about it. Nobody wanted to. Veterans, especially combat veterans even hid their citations (my wife's father did) from their families. They just wanted to live a nice middle class life, with a nice home, a white picket fence and no more war.

Vietnam changed all that. But that is another story.

Reagan and the Prop 13 tax cutting crusade were born out of the realization that the present tax rates (state and federal) were beginning to develop surpluses. Johnson's "War on Poverty" came about because revenues were sufficient to actually address the damage 250 years of slavery had done to African-Americans. This greatly overdue effort lasted exactly four years, and began to end with the election of Nixon in 1968.

So, next came the Reagan revolution, blaming liberals and the New Deal for the relative high tax rates, especially on his rich Hollywood friends, and establishing the cut tax religion.

Big government was the enemy, tax and spend liberals were holding back economic growth.

Of course the truth was Europe and Asia were finally able to globally compete for a share of manufacturing, cheap Japanese and European goods began to out compete more expensive American made ones. The manufacturing hegemony of America began a slow, steady decline, as foreign made goods flooded the hungry American consumer market.

And American went nuts. Rather than develop sensible trade policies, and a national economic policy to compete in what was fast becoming a global economy, we descended into an endless economic debate over lower taxes, free enterprise, state competition; et al. Meanwhile we also totally ignored the energy crisis, assuming the con by petroleum aristocrats that oil was going to last forever with no climate change results. Again, this is another story.

The result was, as we are seeing today, the lack of a competitive advantage in the global economy.

So, WWII and paying for it was the culprit for high taxes, not the New Deal. We paid down the debt faster than predicted, and then cut taxes way more than we needed to, which has created (ironically) a competitive disadvantage in the global economy.

Now, in over-reacting to the recession, the foolish tax cut caused Great Recession, we stand to make things much worse.

It is the revenue. We need to pay for the Bush tax cuts and the Bush terrorist wars with more revenue. Luckily, even though the middle class has been decimated, the rich are awash in revenue, and higher marginal tax rates, plus reducing tax cuts to what is left of the middle class (they were not enough to make much difference anyway to individual families) will reduce the deficit and put us in a more competitive position in the global economy.

And what are Toomey and the cons doing? Why, they are cutting taxes even more, creating a even greater inequality between the rich and rest of us, and dooming our competitiveness in the world economy. Without a middle class to consume world economy goods and services, middle classes are growing rapidly in the "third world". In a sense, or tax cut mania is producing a third world country here, and the middle class consumer engine, that drove our prosperity, is moving overseas. The market is moving away from the United States. For example, when was the last time you though about the consumers in Brazil and how many American products they buy? You haven't of course, because we are all trained that we are the ONES, the only global market that counts. Talk to a current global economy CEO, and they will tell you the American market is no longer the only one, it is fast fading.

Leaving the 99 percent of us holding the bag.

It's the Head Stupid

2011-11-08T08:11:00.000-08:00

It happened yet again. Chris Owusu, of Stanford, was hit in the head by a defensive back in the Oregon State game Saturday. This time he didn't get up. He laid there, seemingly unconscious. The crowd, who cheered the "big time hit" and fumble that led to a possible game changing touchdown, booed as a yellow flag flutterred down; negating the fumble and touchdown

The Oregon State crowd was much more enraged by what they perceived as a bad call, of a head shot hit, than by the safety and mortality of Owusu.

As time passed, and Owusu did not get up, some stopped booing and started praying.

It has always disgusted me when a player is hurt severely in football, the fans and teams start praying, and then, when the player gets up, or is carted off, immediately go back to "kill him" chants.

Does God just look the other way to this Roman Gladiator type behavior?

And then the T.V. "experts" weighed in. Typically, they ranted about how the players could not "play the game", or "act aggressively" if head shots were called. One of the announcers, who interestingly played quarterback, went on and on about how head shots were part of the game.

Bullshit! I played four years in what was the Pac-8, and coached high school football. I was coached by some of the greatest coaches in history. Head shots are NOT a part of football, they are a product of helmets that weight way too much, and a gangster mentality that has no place in the game!

This is what a head shot really is: It is a chickenshit tackle. When a receiver is running at you, and ball is coming at you, and you are essentially stationary, it is a visual nightmare. Most DBs are smaller than the receivers they must cover. A post or stant, positions the receiver at the defender. The defender must break up the pass, or tackle the receiver. This all takes place in an instant. The EASY play is to aim your shoulder pad at the side of the receiver's head. DBs are coached to push the receiver's head, disrupt his eyes, so he can't catch the ball. If you hit the receiver's head, ESPECIALLY WHEN IS IS LOOKING BACK FOR THE BALL, more than likely he will drop the ball. The danger to the DB is minimal, unless you lead with your head, then you could break your neck and die. So, you shut your eyes (all tacklers do) and hit his head with your shoulder.

The DB will look like a hero, he will have made a "big time hit". The receiver will probably get a concussion, and you might "turn the game".

But secretly you just executed a chicken shit hit, a cowardly act where he really shyed (avoided contact).

What does that mean. Okey, I played at 183 pounds. The typical tight end in those days weighed 250. When the tight end came over the middle, I was giving up almost 50 pounds, to an object moving at me at 25 miles an hour. Think about it! A head shot is a coward hit.

Head shots have NO place in football, they never have, never will. Many times, if you try for a head shot, you "whiff" (miss), and the receiver trots into the endzone. If you do hit him, you can kill him. That is courage????

Fractured skulls killed so many football players at the turn of the 19th century that Teddy Roosevelt almost banned the game. Many colleges dropped football in the late 19th century, because young men were dying. The flying wedge was banned, and helmets required, and fractured skulls stopped. Concussions did not.

Getting your "bell rung" was so common when I played that we didn't even tell the trainer most of the time. My ears have rung constantly ever since, every day, along with an aching back, from my big time college football years. I can remember (?) sitting in front of my locker trying to remember my combination (many just left their locker unlocked) because of getting my bell rung almost every week.

And that was practice, game collisions are twice as strong.

The idea of football is to tackle the opponent. If his knee touches, he is down and the play stops. If you can break up the pass, by hitting the ball or intercepting it, that is your job as a defensive player.

Hitting with great force supposedly cowers the opponent, making them fearful, so your team can win and dominate.

Think about that for a minute. In NCAA D1, ALL the players are all state. All the players, even the bench sitters, are "football players", not pretenders like high school. There are very few physical cowards out there. Getting hit hard is part of being a football player. A huge hit is simply forgotten, the idea is to score more points. You can wear a team out with conditioning and physical play, the "big hit" just isn't consideded by the players. In fact, a chicken shit hit, only motivates a team to play harder.

It's the crowd that craves the big hit. It is the Roman Gladiator effect that does this.

Calling and fining head shots must continue, and must be inforced more strictly. There can be no exceptions. Those players who do it consistently need to be suspended or driven from the game.

Owusu was wearing a mouthpiece that registers the force of head shots. Data from that hit is transmitted to a receiver that records the violence of the hit. I will bet that the data from that hit will astound any scientist. The wonder is he ever got up. The intensity of head shots is MORE than we estimate, the damage to the brain is MORE than scientists care to admit.

Football is a great game. And it can remain a great game without the "crowd pleasing" head shot. There is simply no purpose in pulverizing athlete's brains, so they go prematurely senile, or have a whole host of other brain impairments.

So, the next time a head shot happens, and the crowd roars, tell them to shut up. If an idiotic announcer prattles on about how it is "part of the game", switch channels.

Mark my words, if we don't end head shots now, the game will end. The scientific data that is finally being considered, cannot be ignored.

We don't have to kill players to win!

Cut taxes raise spendng

2011-11-06T07:49:00.000-08:00

George W. Bush had won in Florida by a combination of no re-count, subtrafuge, and the a conservative majority on the Supreme Court. He was the first President in the modern era elected by the electoral college with a minority of the popular vote. The fact that such an undemocratic thing could occur in the world's most advanced democracy was no lost on Americans.

Nevertheless, Bush blundered on. Immediately, due to the taxing nature of basically stealing an election, he took weeks of vacation; blithly ignoring warnings that terrorists were planning an attack on the United States.

Of course 9-11 changed all that. In a right world, Bush's temeridy and reluctance to act in the critical moments of the attack would have been further proof that he was an accidental President, not fit to govern.

But, 9-11 gave him an opportunity.

The opportunity was not only to start a war with a country that had nothing to do with the attack; the opportunity was to adopt the most basic political strategy used by the inept, and the incompetent politician.

Bush decided to cut taxes and raise spending.

The economy flagged after 9-11. A small recession started, primarily because the American People were frightened, and Bush provided zero leadership during the crisis.

To counter that Bush built up the military, started wars in two places, and CUT taxes.

Ostensibly the cut in taxes was to "stimulate" the economy. Actually what it did was shift trillions of dollars to the rich 1%, who had bankrolled Bush's theft of the election. The spending accelerated, as Bush and the neo-cons attempted to run "nationbuilding" exercises in two countries, by privatizing the efforts.

To keep public opinion quiet, to avoid large causalty numbers, Bush's administration attempted to fight two wars with small combat arms units, and large support contigents. These support contingents included Halebuton Inc, and others, private companies who moved in, getting trillions of dollars for essentially doing nothing.

The corruption is just now being uncovered, with billions of dollars given away, books cooked; etc. Iraq and Afghanistan have basically been raped, trillions of dollars have been squandered on water systems that don't work, barracks that don't exist, and on an opium trade that is better than ever.

And the effect of basically eight years of cut taxes and raise spending, was a huge recession/depression that destroyed America's middle class.

This also added enrormous power to the wealthy conservative elites, who already were profiting hugely from the increase in oil prices that naturally occurs from the oil peak (we are slowly running out of gas so it costs way more).

The result was the election of a Democrat in 2008.

Unfortunately, the conservative elite will not tolerate that. A Democrat, and a smart one at that, understood the con that has taken place, and began working to reverse what is an avalanch of inequality in the country.

So, we go into 2012 with President Obama incredibly being blamed for the economic catatrophe that Bush so artfully fashioned. And, the conservative elite is throwing billions at the political process in an attempt to continually fool an American population that stupidly buys the idea of lowering taxes, but doesn't want to give up the government programs (and defense spending) that keeps some of them at least working. Essentially they want their cake and eat it too.

If Bush would have demanded sacrifice to pay for the wars, raised rather than lower taxes, the defict we all "worry about" would never had happened.

But the truth never works against a cut taxes/raise spending politician, with a population who still holds to buying snakeoil rather than truth.

So we continue our spin down into fascism.

Sportsmanship

2011-11-03T09:50:00.000-07:00

The recent Stanford/USC game was a classic. Both teams struggled for almost four hours and the game was finally decided (?) in the third overtime.

As a former Stanford player, I was impressed by the effort by both teams. It was, I thought, and example of the best in college football.

Then the demon in USC football stepped up. USC in on probation for the Bush transgressions of five years ago. The school had to forfeit all games, give up a BCS Championship, and Bush had to turn in his Heisman Trophy. There was talk of the dealth penalty by the NCAA, the violations were that egregious.

This year's team was adversely affected, no post-season play, no league championship, and several scholarships were taken away. Moreover, while on probation, any player can transfer to another school with no penalty.

This is pretty serious stuff by any measure.

So, what does the head coach do after the game, he whines about the officiating! Meanwhile, during the game, some of the USC players, not all, are flagged for unsportsmanlike conduct, taunting, and a head shot that incapacitated a Stanford standout player. In short, some (not all) of the USC players acted like street thugs.

And what did the head coach do, he whined about the officiating. He whined, in fact, so much, that he was fined by the PAC-12, $10,000, and a player was suspended for a half in the next game.

Any of the good feelings anyone had about USC's effort in the game were quickly lost in the post-game controversy. USC has an image problem to be sure, but their coach surely doesn't act like it.

The old arrogance of "we are SC" was in evidence; which means USC hasn't apparently learned a thing.

Football is a game. When I was at Stanford, in my three years on the Varsity, we lost my Sophomore year fairly close, were blown out my Junior year, and lost on a last minute field goal my senior year to USC. Those were the days of O.J. Simpson, who apparently, according to locker room rumors, was collecting money from alumni while he was playing. The USC teams then were dominant, competing for the mythical national championship every year.

When we played them we were competing against players who rarely attended class, were basically semi-professionals, with future doctors, teachers and lawyers. USC a couple years after I graduated were cited by the NCAA for sending players during the summer to make up units to Junior Colleges that were miles apart, for morning classes! This was technically impossible; they cheated and got caught.

We competed to be sure, gave them all we had, but usually lost.

But hardly any of them graduated. Most, especially minority players, wound up back in their poor neighborhoods, nowhere.

Stanford ex-players did something. After over forty years I can attest to that. Many of the USC players did nothing.

Oh sure, O.J. did something; he was all NFL and in the Hall of Fame. But then...?

My point is USC still has the same old problem. The arrogance is still there. The expediency is still there. And they are losing. The NCAA by the way is still there as well.

They just do not get it.

Bonus March Again

2011-10-30T16:19:00.000-07:00

The BonusMarchers and the 99%

DuringWorld War I, it became evident that the country could not pay its soldiersenough. The war was fed by the largestpeace time draft in the nation's history, larger than the Civil War. And, unlike the Civil War, patriotic youngmen could not buy their way out of service. During the Civil War the draft was very unpopular, resulting in somerioting. To quell this anger, a drafteecould pay someone else to take his place.

Of coursethis meant that the rich did not have to fight, and many did not, as thecasualty rates climbed into the hundreds of thousands.

World WarI was different. A patriotic fervor shotthrough the country, as the United States entered the war to prove it was now agreat power on the world stage.

As usual,this inferiority complex was based on nothing, since America had been a worldpower for nearly one hundred years; after the Civil War the United States waswithout a doubt the most powerful military force on the planet, it just didn'tknow it.

So, thedraft filled the ranks, and the war was fairly short by world warstandards. It was so short, the income tax had just been started in 1916,that the pay was ridiculously low.

So,Congress came up with the idea of a Bonus, that would be paid in 1940, to WWIveterans, who would be retiring about then. Moreover, widows and orphans of veterans would also get the bonus.

This wasthe first "entitlement" benefit ever attempted by the United Statesgovernment. By today's standards it wasridiculous low, but it was a promise nonetheless.

Everythingwas fine until 1929. The GreatDepression made it clear that the government would have great difficulty makinggood on the bonus, since tax revenues had already been cut by Republicansduring the 1920s, with the same assumption that the free enterprise systemwould fix everything. This approachworked as well then as it has now, resulting in economic ruin, injustice andinequality.

Ofcourse, in 1929, 30 and 31, it was obvious the private enterprise system wasfailing, and the small bonus the veterans had been promised, became a"pipe dream".

At firstthis was not a big thing, after all it was a small amount of money for eachveteran. But as the depression deepened,and it became obvious Wall Street Bankers and investors had schemed, cheated,and lied in rampant speculation that destroyed middle class lives. Veterans, who had no unemployment insurance,now looked upon the bonus promise as yet another lie that had cost them theireconomic futures.

In 1930there was no safety net. Private charitywas it, no welfare, no unemployment. People were starving.

So theveterans marched. They marched all overthe country, calling attention to the unfairness of the American capitalistsystem. To be sure, there weresocialists and communists involved, seeing an opportunity for their cause(remember the Bolshevik Revolution was barely a decade old). Regardless, there is no evidence that theradical left in fact led the Bonus March, even though conservatives have beenclaiming so eversince.

Liketoday's 99 percent demonstrations, the Bonus Marches started peacefully. After all these were veterans, of the GreatWar, and deserved respect.

Soonhowever, conservatives like Hoover lost patience with the marchers, and finallycalled in troops to contain the protests. Famously, in Washington D.C. a riot broke out, mostly led by thebungling of Douglas MacCarther (who eventhen was fancying himself a national leader). The Army charged the marchers, shots were fired, and there werecasualties. The marchers were drivenfrom their encampment, and Hoover was made out to be the villain; attacking brave veterans. In fact, history shows this debacle to bethe Army's fault.

Hoover'sapparent lack of compassion, added to Roosevelt's campaign, and led to Hoover'sdefeat in the 1932 Presidential race.

Today,the 99% are in a sense just like the Bonus Marches of the 1930s. They are marching because of economicinjustice and are angry with the financial elites in the country. And, conservatives are calling for violentput downs of their supposed unlawful assemblies.

It isinteresting, to watch conservatives when the obvious economic injustice of theUnited States is divulged. Af first theyare amused, then they discount the protests, then quickly they call for violentsuppression.

Ofcourse, in the 30s this suppression only added fuel to the fire, leading to theNew Deal under Roosevelt.

Should webe so lucky again this time!!!!

Lies, Lies, Lies

2011-10-26T17:50:00.000-07:00

More than a few years ago, Richard Nixon, smarting from his loss to John F. Kennedy, promised that he would never be out lied and out smarted again. His fantasy world dictated that like Eisenhower, he was somehow a highly moral man, whose integrity was everything; and Kennedy had stole the election. In spite of this, Nixon according to his manufactured legend, said nothing.

In fact, Eisenhower was a highly moral man, even though he presided over the largest combat arms experience in mankind’s history. Nixon was not.But, to compete and win in 1968, Nixon pioneered the political ideology that expediency rules everytime. An entire generation of conservatives followed suit, led by the likes of Carl Rove, and “dirty tricks” became the mainstay of the Republican Party.

A major rationale for this expediency behavior was it was the only way counter what was becoming an endless series of liberal and New Deal victories, culminating in the War on Poverty and Medicare. This occurred right after the Democratic Party had finally purged itself of southern Dixiecrates in the mid-sixties. Suddenly the traditional counter to Democrat political hegemony was gone, racist southern democrates were purged from the party, when Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act in 1964.

Incredibly, the “party of Lincoln” that had hisorically been for the North and for Civil Rights (at an arms length) adopted under Nixon’s leadership a “southern strategy” and gleefully welcomed scores of disillusioned southerners, who were left without a party after the Democrats came out for Civil Rights. Nixon cynically coupled this political act that would have sickeded the Radical Republicans of post Civil War politics, with a “silent majority” ploy, that capitalized on the anger Americans had with the anti-war and hippie movement.

Nixon wanted to win, even if it meant renouncing basic Republican Party positions that went straight to the heart of Lincoln. To be sure of victory, he threw in a good dose of reactionary philosophy drawing on the anger of white Americans with the hippies and the “uppity” blacks. The Watts Riots and later inner city explosions did not hurt his claim that only he could pacify not only Vietnam, but the United States as well.He campaigned in 1968 on an end the war platform using a barely pronouncable “Vietnamization” to explain his exit strategy from Vietnam. Of course, students of history remember that once Nixon was elected he intensified the war, by invading Laos and Cambodia and bombing non-stop until the Paris Peace Accords. But Nixon’s victory of 1968 followed by his landslide in 1972 established forever that “dirty tricks” worked, and Republican leadership followed whatever was popular and expedient and never again took the difficult path of “doing the right thing”, that was seemingly getting “do gooder” liberals in more and more trouble.“Bleeding heart” liberals was established as a dirisive term, and the label stuck, along with “effeet intellectual snobs”. Liberals who had definitely done the right thing in establishing basic human rights with the Civil Rights Act, were depected as soft on a whole host of issues, from war to criminal justice.

The basic facts that liberal leadership had won two World Wars was conveniently forgotten, and a NEW REALITY was created that only conservatives were tough enough to win the cold war; or any war for that matter. And this last falsehood brings us up to date. Conservatives are busy right now creating new realities all over the place, from tax cuts that don’t really reduce revenues, to wars that don’t really cost anything. George Bush ran the country into the ditch, economically and politically, but didn’t really, it is Obama’s fault. Remember, winning is everything, even if the truth is lost and even buried for effect. If you win the election it doesn’t matter how.The most recent egregious example is the “Jobs, jobs, jobs” mantra of Republicans during the 2010 elections; which has been followed by tax cuts, tax cuts, tax cuts, no jobs.

In fact, joblessness is a learned behavior from liberals, it is the unemployed’s fault for being without work, it is a result of liberals being too soft on workers. I know, I know, it doesn't read very well does it?

But , it seems that it is working. Obama’s approval ratings are falling, the country is mired in a recession that is never ending, and incredibly conservative policies that caused the mess are discounted by a bewildered public.A big problem exists with all this lying however.

Fascism has many faces, but a very important one is using propaganda to create a false reality that is used to manipulate the masses into doing things individuals would never do. World War II provides countless examples of propaganda organized around a fictitious world view, that motivated mass murder on a horrendous scale. And herein lies American most important danger. Nixon’s expediency finally tripped him up, with the Watergate debacle. If that had not happened, it is possible Nixon would have destroyed the Democratic Party, resulting in one pary rule, which could have veered the United States into fascism.Today, this threat is even more possible.

Corporations, who are making record profits by not hiring workers, are pouring billions into electing far right conservatives, whose agendas are quite frankly, fascist to the core. When nation states accept fictitious depictions of reality, and follow leaders who demand only that they believe the garbage they are being fed, democracy dies quickly, and fascism is right there.

If you listen to the lies of current conservatives Presidential candidates, and the fanciful reality they pretend to support, you can see the danger; and it is not around the corner, it is right here, right now.

Lies, Lies, Lies….

Find Photo I.D. in the Constitution...I dare you

2011-10-24T08:28:00.000-07:00

I had lunch before the Stanford game at the Buck/Cardinal Club luncheon this weekend. We shared a table with a nice couple from Orange County. After some friendly banter we wandered into political territory.After a few minutes it was obvious she was a member of the tea party. She began what became a diatribe with the comment that she pushed vigorously that the country needed to "adhere to the greatest document ever written; the Constitution". We agreed with her, that constitutional law is very important to our democracy. But then she branched into the 10th Amendment, and the tea party fundamentalist brand of constitutional law. "If it isn't written there, it shouldn't be", she argued. And then it struck me, and I replied, you are right, where is photo I.D. in the constitution?Suddenly she got real quiet. I pushed the point, noting that many Republican states have passed laws requiring photo I.D., along restrictive lines, to vote. In many cases student I.D.s don't work, only drivers licenses and/or gun permits. The restrictive attempt to exclude the poor and the young from a fundamental constitutional right is obvious. I commented that the effort to steal elections, by denying millions the right to vote is obvious, and certainly is unconstitutional to its core.And from her, silence. Nothing.. Not a damn word.If fact electronics, photography, climatology, physics, astronomy, practically all modern science and discovery are not mentioned in the Constitution, because it was written (save the Amendments) over two hundred years ago. People owned slaves in those days, women could not vote or even hold property for that matter. A photo I.D. would be a painting. The Congress of the United States passes laws constantly reapplying the Constitution to modern problems and needs. The Constitution is also changed constantly through the practice of Judicial Review. Thankfully, the lady from Orange County was not a Stanford graduate, but married to one, who interestingly was about thirty years her senior. A beginning political science student learns the flexibility of our system through dynamic Constitutional Law. The voter registration photo I.D. laws are blatantly unfair and I hope will be declared unconstitutional, not because photo I.D. isn't in the Constitution, but because they are unfair and undemocratic.Shame on the tea party for pushing laws that are so unconstitutional. This proves conclusively that their "Constitutional Purity" is B.S., it's all about political power.Grab power, twist the law to do so, wall off opposition, and next fascism.

Letter to a Conservative Regulation/Tax Cutter

2011-09-29T11:02:00.000-07:00

I read your diatribe against state tax laws and regulations in today's Sacramento Bee. What is distressing is that you would print such ignorant and biased political ilk while sitting on the State Board of Equalization.According to your theory, state regulations and high taxes are what is chasing off business. You even side with Amazon, in refusing to collect state sales tax, which has given an unfair advantage to Amazon, resulting in at least the "Borders Bookstore" closure, along with hundreds of other retailers in California. How can you write such biased and one-sided propaganda and still serve on the Board of Equalization. Your JOB sir, is to advise tax code equally and fairly in the state. You also, of course, are sitting in a position that is a plumb patronage position, thanks to the Guvenator.What if you are wrong? What if de-regulating and cutting taxes so weakens the necessary infrastructure that educated entrepreneurs flee? What if history proves you wrong, which it has and is! I live in Redding, California, a hotbed of the Tea Party and wacko conservatives. The county and city leadership have been taken over by the far right, resulting in policies that build mall after mall, retail business multiplies, and we all are starving to death. Government, that once was one of our largest employers, has been cut to the bone, and the recession just drives us deeper and deeper. The hole just gets deeper while we enforce your doctrine. SIR, IT DOESN'T WORK!!!! "Doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting a different result is madness"...California has indulged in over a quarter century of tax cuts and government services reduction, cut our colleges while growing our prisons, passing your child protection laws, with no positive effect. When have you been called to account for this: Never, you were appointed to the Board of Equalization...good pay....short hours... California, as you know, is not one of the leading states in taxation level. In fact, we rank about 7 as I recall. This is startling, since we are the most populous state. Meanwhile, thanks to your passage of laws worrying more about child molesters than the state of our once great state college and university system, we spend more on incarceration than on matriculation, starving education to death and further weakening the economy. Our highways are falling apart. We rank way down on public transportation, our water reclamation projects are over a half century old, our plumbing systems, electricity grid, are all 1930s vintage. Worse, our citizenry are losing their educational edge everyday to their global competitors. And you answer, cut regulations, poison the environment, put more people in jail, cut regulations; let private enterprise do anything they want to do.....bring on B.P. let's flood Monterey Harbor with crude!!!Try this on for size! It's a global, flat world economy. To encourage state competition between all 50 states, to cut taxes, cut regulations, turn us into Mexico, provides no competition whatsoever for the nationally economy policy competitors (China, India, Brazil). Fifty disjointed, feuding and begging states pose no threat to China's monolith, who are using national teamwork to destroy us. Read this last sentence real slow to yourself.....to destroy us!This is where the fiscal conservatives are killing us, by refusing to even consider a national policy of economic growth, but rather screaming for all 50 states to compete with one another mindlessly. This "how to herd cats" approach might work in some conservative think tank, but in the world economy it makes it easy for China, for example, to continually clean our clock!The real jobs, the real strength, our manufacturing base, is not in Oregon (as you so so cleverly wrote), but in Vietnam, China, Brazil; etc. And, the corporations you so much want to court with "sell the farm" tax cuts and no regulations, are MULTI-NATIONAL countries. They don't give a damn about the citizens of California, just like they don't give a damn about the citizens of Brazil, who work in sweat shops for pennies an hour. So, your approach is to make us a third world nation, which for the middle class in this country means a precipitous drop in the standard of living? What does the middle class do when the tax cuts mean U.C. tuition is the same as Stanford's? They don't get to go to college is the answer. Every global study of economics I have EVER SEEN, states that education is the key to competing in the global economy. Cutting public education, while boosting charter schools (check out how many of those have been victimized by opportunistic crooks), means less educational infrastructure, which means we lose!It's a global economy. We need a NATIONAL policy on energy, education AND economic growth to compete. Oh yes, put in Health Care as well, which you desperately want to repeal. If we listen to your conservative nonsense we will win alright, we will win and become the banana republics that your right wing friends like to make fun of, and close our borders to.In 1939 Hitler invaded Poland and WWII began. Conservatives like yourself, were so forward looking, they voted against the draft, which passed by ONE vote in the Congress. People of good will, like yourself according to your webpage biography, were dead wrong; nearly costing us defeat in the war. What won the war was teamwork, and a unified national policy. What defeated the Axis Powers, was the United Nations, who fought as one for liberty and freedom. Today, we are faced with economic disaster by countries who are emerging into global status. Luckily it is not war, that we need to unite around; it is economic vitality and survival. By looking back, and not realizing it is a new world, we project a disjointed picture to the global economy, that right now is resulting in disaster. You are wrong, and your views do not become a man who sits on such a prestigious board. Sent from Our iPad

Study Hard, Work Hard, Prosper

2011-09-21T09:15:00.001-07:00

Study Hard, Work Hard, ProsperNothing gets a conservative "worked up" more than when work ethic is introduced in a conversation. Immediately the anger flashes, and you hear how government encourages laziness through entitlement programs. Recently, there has been a frontal attack on the extension of unemployment benefits, claiming this "kills initiative". The flint edged side of life is reflected in phrases like, "I worked my way up; or, look at the welfare moms and cheats; or, why should we reward the underachievers"? Recently, in a reaction to the President pushing for an increase in the super rich's taxes, Bill O'Riley of Fox sputtered, "I may not do this anymore if my taxes are raised". The theory is that higher taxes will kill initiative and the rich will take their money and flee the country. I only hope O'Riley keeps his promise!Another theory is that the rich are all over-achievers, who worked according to the "Horatio Alger" myth, and deserve all that they make.These are all myths, lies, and toxic overstatements. First, the lie that all the rich are somehow deserving as "over-achievers". Much of the wealth of America is inherited. "Old money" is just that, "old", having been passed down through generations. Children of old money often are lazy and shiftless, having never had to work for anything. George W. Bush even got Congress to agree to complete suspend the inheritance tax, culminating in the rich paying NO inheritance tax at all in 2010. I encountered this head on when I matriculated in Stanford. The dean of admissions thought it would be a good idea to diversely match Freshman room mates. So, I was matched with a "Preppie" from New York, whose father was the CEO of a large news organization and also was "old money". In short, my room mate was ridiculously wealthy.He also was a spoiled brat, who told me the FIRST DAY that he was going to flunk out because his father was forcing him to go to college. I immediately thought of my high school classmate, who had higher grades than me but couldn't play football as well as I could, and cried when he was not accepted to Stanford. My room mate then proceeded to do exactly what he promised, he never attended classes, had girls in the room all the time (I was forced to go to the library a lot), but still couldn't flunk out. In those days, Stanford has changed its policy since, rich families were given an admission advantage because they contributed much more to the endowment. Finally, my room mate flunked out. In those days, those that left college lost their deferment and many went to Vietnam. Not my room mate; his "daddie" took care of it and he began traveling the world. The last I heard of him he was selling yachts in Boston Harbor, having never attended college.Have you ever taken a minute to watch the unskilled laborer work? Sometime, when you are traveling in California agricultural areas, stop and watch the "illegals" work. Rich people could not work like that. I couldn't work like that. Poor people work harder than rich people....tell that to Fox News sometimes! Watch your motel maid work, or your landscaper. For that matter, take a minute and watch your waitress actually work. They put in long hours of back breaking work for minimum wages, that the cons constantly want to cut. In short, the work ethic myth, that the rich earned their riches through hard work and over-achievement, has millions of exceptions; and is one of the biggest lies in American folklore. People achieve through a multitude of paths, some earned, many not. A child born into an affluent family is given, through no effort of his own, all the advantages: good schools, good nutrition, educational toys, travel; et al. A poor child gets none of these, save nurturing if they are lucky. I was always interested when I was a Principal how children who acted out and got in trouble often showed the same behaviors no matter what social strata they came from. The poor child and the rich child acted exactly the same, in fact, they often acted out together, becoming partners in crime; especially if drugs were involved. What they had in common was a lack of parental interest and nurturing. The rich child was sometimes ignored by parents too busy with their careers, or spending their parents' money jet setting. The poor children had sometimes been abandoned by care givers, and were living with in-laws due to drug use, criminal behavior; etc. And the behaviors in both groups was the same; rebellion, drug use, anger, disrespect; etc.The big difference was the rich child could mess up all the time and still get bailed out. They would be sent to special schools, get counseling, even be sent to military school. The poor child simply went to jail and were relegated to the dust heap of society. This inequality if endemic in America today. The gap between rich and poor has never been greater.Every day, in the thousands, poor children are lost in a culture that punishes them for "not working hard" when in fact, they are simply being punished because they don't have what the rich kid has, a "get out of jail free card" for life.And, the privileged class are born into a increasingly aristocratic culture, go to the best schools, become C.E.O.s but have not developed any character skills, so they cheat, lie and even steal. The myth that achievers somehow develop character while fighting their way up the career ladder is not true, often there is no career ladder at all; success is guaranteed. If a rich person fails, they are re-cycled back into the system, and move from one company to another, messing up at every turn. They have no sense of failure, or success for that matter, having never needed to develop one. Ever wonder why there is so much cheating at the higher levels of American business, why we are constantly reading about corruption? It is because an increasing number of power brokers never worked to get where they are but inherited the privilege! This is the threat of entrenched aristocracy that I thought America understood when I was growing up. The United States was established in reaction to the aristocracies of 18th century Europe, as a revolution of human values; encouraging human achievement regardless of who you were. That dream is dying every day in today's America. And, the most troubling is how some working class people, are adopting a defensive position for the rich, in the mistaken assumption that they are defending achievement and the "work ethic". Polls always show that a surprisingly high percentage of Americans, even in the depths of the Great Recession, believe that if they work hard they can ultimately become a millionaire, or better. They believe the myth, propagated by the rich, that government aid to the poor, public education, welfare programs, kill initiative and are "unfair" and in a sense will hurt their chances to "make it". The truth is the odds of "making it" are crushingly small! Republicans chant that "only 50% of Americans pay income taxes", or "unemployment payments are creating a class of lazy American" etc., etc., etc. And of course, Fox News hammers away daily with anecdotal stories of how government is assisting people who don't deserve it and are "taking opportunity away from YOU". The public record shows a different story. The gap between rich and poor is wider than since the Great Depression. The top 10% of wage earners make the vast majority of income, the middle class is dwindling, poor people are poorer than in many third world countries.And the rich kid continues to get all the breaks, cynically using them for good and often for ill, and once in a C.E.O. position, screwing up, losing the company or closing it, outsourcing work, cheating on taxes, and paying millions to conservative groups who deny global warming and encourage pollution. Have you ever wondered why the ruling class in this country is constantly in the news for cheating, whether it is through the mortgage "lying loans" scandal, or Bernie Maloof ponzie schemes? It is because many of them never worked for ANYTHING they got, while the poor have to work their butts off just to say alive. The rich class in this country has a real integrity problem. Just like my room mate of long ago, when compared to my work ethic, that got me to Stanford and beyond, who scoffed at the opportunity of Stanford because he never really needed it anyway. Because of his privileged placement at Stanford, he took a spot away from another over-achiever, like my high school classmate. There is no career ladder anymore in America. There is no longer the opportunity that Fox News supposedly protects. What we have evolved into is an aristocracy, whose rich are now firmly entrenched within the Republican Party, who fight equal opportunity initiatives at every turn, while mouthing platitudes that they are " fighting for working people", when in fact they are protecting unearned privilege. It's a world of opposites, where reality is not what is propagandized: many of the rich are lazy without character, many of the poor work unbelievably hard and in fact have much more character than any of us realize. As long as the ruling class in America are rich spoiled brats, we will get no leadership and one disaster after another.George W. Bush was a rich spoiled brat, whose Presidency was marked by one mistake after another, culminating in an economic meltdown that came from basically from a financial sector that cheated. That's right, they CHEATED! This was not by accident, but was a product of a social system that puts people into positions of power who have no character, no integrity, because of the privilege that put them there. George W. Bush is a perfect example of this. In fact he even bragged of his low grades at Yale, and got into the MBA program (drunk by the way) only through the privilege of his father. In short, he never really worked for anything, and failed (unfortunately for all of us) at every business venture he attempted, when he was sober.Once he sobered up and decided to try to achieve, he turned to politics, where the skids were greased since his father just happened to be President of the United States. If he would have been a working class kid, with no connections, he would be in some jail in Texas, or worse. George W. got break after break after break, until finally he got into a position where character did not matter; politics, and Daddy's influence, could overcome his basic character flaws. This may seem like more "Bush bashing" but George W. reminds me so much of my long lost Freshman room mate at Stanford, who had no clue who he was, but fully understood that he didn't really have to do anything to attain all the riches there rest of us were fighting to achieve.So, when the Fox water carriers scream that progressives are "ruining the American work ethic" take some time to really think of the rich and the poor in this country. Finally, after the Watergate Scandal, a Republican Congressman said, "What we have learned here is there is no connection between intelligence and character". He could have added; there is no connection between wealth and character as well.

Why Attack The Have nots?

2011-09-18T20:21:00.000-07:00

The following is the text of an email to a conservative op Ed piece that lectured about the immorality of entitlements and the smugness of a person who still has a job and despises those who don't:Have you ever been to Del Paso Heights? Have you wandered into South Central L.A. lately?Your article was very well done and brilliant by the way. It summarized the conservative rich attitude very well, “I’ve got mine, work hard like I did and you can get yours”. The other two articles on the Sacramento Bee’s opinion page you shared, were excellent also. Mr. Brooks summarized the limitations of government, both in stimulating the economy AND in aiding the less fortunate. Paul Krugman, of course, criticized your position as leaning more into the uncaring and cynical.This conversation is exciting, and interesting especially for us political science types.What is it not however, is constructive to a safe, sane and peaceful society.When economies are countries are stressed, inevitably debates begin about the haves and have nots, about the distribution of resources, about work ethic; etc.And, if those debates get mean enough and angry enough, actual conflict including wars develop. America has not been immune from this. The Civil War was essentially over have-nots (slaves) and what to do with a system that immensely rewarded the haves. After a bloody conflict, that saw almost 1 in 10 Americans either wounded or dead, the argument was “temporarily” settled.And now we are having a similar argument. The haves are basically saying that they are “sick and tired” of having part of the “hard earned” wealth go to the have nots. And, of course, they are couching their arguments in “moral terms” as you did in your article: work is good for your, hard work is uplifting; ie., moral.And then Jesus walks into the room. I am sure you are a Christian. How do you reconcile your beliefs with Christian charity? How do you reconcile your “the poor are soft, lazy and basically deserve what they get” with Christ’s famous “the least of these”?Oh, I know, I know, you simply might interpret the Bible differently, Jesus really didn’t mean that; etc. But there are scores of references in the Bible supporting the moral view that Christians should love their neighbor, love god, show mercy, work for JUSTICE and walk humbly with God. As we continue this “great debate” remember that it may culminate in something that is awful for America, as we tear each other apart. For years, after WWII, the rich reluctantly paid their taxes, that yes, on one level were unfair. But, the spector of WWII and the Great Depression was still fresh in their mind. The wealthy had veered close to socialism with the New Deal, and had seen the world almost destroyed, so paying a 90% marginal tax rate, while still getting fabulously wealthy, seemed a good deal. Here is the danger: The rich in Germany threw their support behind Hitler, to counter socialism’s threat to their capitalism. They backed his non-egalitarian ways and hatreds, and stood in shock as the country was literally destroyed both morally and physically. They won the debate, built their munitions factories, made lots of money, and were bombed into oblivion. That is where our “conversation” can take us as well. Just as in 1850, the problem that has made us get into this debate will not go away. Brooks says this well in his article; government cannot cure recessions or depressions. What government can do is mitigate them so that the ugly genie stays in the bottle, and social, political and economic conflicts over haves and have-nots don’t spill over into war.Roosevelt knew that; that is why he worked so hard to reform within capitalism. He could have become a dictator you know. His greatness was not in what he did to grow government, it was he didn’t do. The country then, like now, was scared, and was ready to renounce democracy for a “quick fix”. What social welfare programs do is keep that genie in the bottle, and give the economy time to recover. What social welfare programs do is care for the least of these. You know of course that most beneficiaries, and a majority of the poor are children (who can’t work, oh I forgot, child labor laws are "excessive regulation"). That is what we are playing with right now. As your party swings harder to the right, you are entering the field of fascism plain and simple: not national socialism, but a new brand of American fascism. The implications for democracy are not good.Please rethink your hard edged philosophy. Think of the Book of Matthew, and realize that the peace of our country depends on it. Fascism, even a "constitutional" variety will always destroy democracy and human freedom. Stop the hatred of the poor.

This is Madness

2011-09-02T14:36:00.000-07:00

Madness

This is crazy. I was watching a debate between a rich American and a progressive about a tax increase for the rich, to address the deficit. Of course, most progressives feel the Bush tax cuts should have expired a year ago when scheduled, and to maintain them now is adding to the deficit and damaging the economy.

The rich American came up with several defenses, including a statistic that "over 50% of Americans do not pay any income tax at all"; these are the poor, the elderly and college students. So, I assume, we should raise taxes on the poor while letting the rich off? Raising taxes on the poor means hardly any increase in revenues at all, putting tax rates back to what they used to be, will raise billions to offset the deficit...you choose!

The progressive opponent kept saying that a "tax increase" was necessary to deal with the deficit. The rich guy kept saying this would harm the economy, no tax increases during a recession was his chant; they are "job killers".

This is madness: First of all we are not talking about a tax increase, but a return to the tax rates that existed before the Bush Tax cuts. These rates had existed during the 1990s, an economic boom era for most Americans. And, these rates had been permanently reduced from New Deal era rates by the Reagan Administration. The days of a 90% marginal tax rate is long gone.

So, a resumption of the old tax rates is it. No net tax increase. None...no tax increase (repeat after me). There is no suggestion for a tax increase. No tax increase...it is a resumtion of the old tax rate.

Cons have been brilliant in getting us to use THEIR lexicon, calling a resumption of a tax rate after a cut as a tax "increase". There will be no increase. None.

This approach has been hugely successful for an increasingly minority Republican Party in California. California began the "tax revolution" with Prop 13, and has followed it up with one tax cut after another.

Now, the state is in perpetual deficit, making huge cuts to state spending, cannibalizing its eduational system, and is mired in a deep recession, fed now by cuts in government workers. Sacramento for example, is running an unemployment rate of over 10%, with thousands of unemployed state and local government workers.

Essentially, the private enterprise recession in the United States, has grown into a public recession as well, because we will not simply renew tax rates that were cut years ago. State cuts by conservative governors, have only fueled the recession, cutting local and state jobs.

In 2010 Republicans made large gains in the Congress, particularly in state races. Many conservatives were swept into office by an electorate made up of conservatives who bothered to vote while Democrats stayed home. People sent a message that they wanted the recession to end, and a lack of jobs was the problem. Republicans smartly chanted "jobs, jobs, jobs" and were swept into power. (Interesting because the same party caused the economic meltdown of 2007-08). Americans, tragically have notorious short political memories.

Tragically, the wrong party for this task was selected. Republicans talked a good jobs, jobs, jobs platform, but have done absolutely nothing to grow jobs either nationally or locally. In fact, state governors have taken a meat cleaver to public spending, because of the deficits in state budgets caused by the recession and mindless tax cuts; only adding to the unemployment rate and making the recession worse.

As more jobs are lost, less demand for goods and services is generated, and lower and lower into the depression we go. It is 1932 all over again!

And still, conservatives use the "tax increase" as a "job killer" and still the American public buys the lie.

Regardless of the lie, the conservative approach is not working; in fact, it never has worked. Much of our economic condition is a product of the global economy, which has nothing do with tax rates; nothing.

The global economy has cost millions of American jobs, simply because poor countries have work forces that will work for a fraction of what American workers make. Moreover, the profits that come for this "rise in productivity" are going to multi-national companies who have absolutely no allegiance to the United States worker. So, our people are fired, while Brazilians are hired. Conservatives and progressives have both been "free traders" in this madness, literally outsourcing us into a depression.

Other countries have at least tried policies to discourage out sourcing, or punishing it with taxes and other disincentives. The United States has taken a total free trade approach, leading to mass lay-offs and economic misery. There is no national economic strategy in the United States to deal with the global economy. Every other "developed country" on earth has one, we instead, rely on the "free enterprise, free trade system." Once again this lack of regulation and self interest has harmed millions of Americans, who have been thrown under the bus of the global economy, enriching multinationals and making the rich spectacularly richer.

The middle classes of the "developing countries", Brazil, China, India; etc., are growing while America's dwindles. Much of this may be unavoidable, but it seems conservatives are making it worse by insisting that tax cuts that are rolled back are "increases" are job killers. This only starves government, laying to even more layoffs, which leads to more layoffs.

There is little connection of a tax cut to stimulate the economy, because we are talking about national fiscal policies and actions on a global economy; their is minimal effect. A tax cut in America might stimulate consumer demand slightly, but when the middle class in China moves up 1%, the global economy stimulus is huge.

This is the same thing as when we talk about increasing our local drilling for oil, to "remove our reliance on foreign oil". The vast majority of American think when oil is pumped from off shore "American" wells, it is "ours".

This is nonsense! Shell Oil, for example, is not run by Americans. It pumps oil from Alaska, then refines it and sells it to the highest bidder. We could increase our pumping of oil by a hundred fold, and still there is no guarantee that gas will be sold at cheaper prices to Americans.

It is a global market remember, with emerging middle classes in countries with huge populations who are hungry for the same natural resources we have always assumed were ours by "divine right".

So, we are shooting ourselves in the foot, by refusing to renew the Clinton era tax rates, and not realizing that it is a global economy that is the root cause of our economic woes.

Americans have long been ridiculed by Europeans for being too provincial and not having a global view. These weaknesses are now killing our economy, because we can't see the massive paradigm change that has occurred.

We continue to cut jobs, cut spending, and cut taxes, and can't realize that this is killing our economy. We have no national strategy for economic survival, no strategy for energy, no strategy for national educational achievement. We have 1/3 at least of our political focus controlled by conservatives who actually want to roll back national approaches to problems to a "states rights" approach. Huh? States by themselves can participate in the global economy against nationalistic strategies of China, India, Germany and Brazil? This is madness!

It's a global economy, stupid. The more provincial we get, the less effective we will be in adapting to the global economy; and the more we will sink into economic defeat.

This is madness!

What Compassion?

2011-08-30T12:48:00.000-07:00

What Compassion

Now we have Eric Cantor, who is obviously campaigning to remove Congressman Boerner as Speaker of the House, declaring that before federal money is spent to help the thousands affected by Hurricane Irene, we must find savings elsewhere.

He mindlessly uses the example that if a family has a crisis, they must take from other funds to deal with it. To accept this logic, you must compare a 320 million nation to a family of five.

That comparison does not work. It is simply madness.

So, the flooded millions in New Jersey and even Cantor's Virginia, must wait for federal aid, because we must look at which federal cookie jar to raid, like Medicare for example, or how about veterans' benefits? Oh I know, less bullets for the troops.

This reminds me of the good ole Hoover Days, when Hoover famously was asked about people selling apples on street corners in desperate attempts to make enough money to eat. He got all excited and proclaimed how this was capitalism at its finest, leaving out the starvation part.

Cantor's bright idea, is conservatism at its lowest; again blaming the victims for the disaster, and low balling assistance. This reminds us of Katrina, when Bush famously ignored thousands dying for days, because they were .....black!

Of course Bush was merely following Cantor's idealism, having blown trillions in Iraq and Afghanistan and mindlessly enacting a huge tax cut. Is this why aid was so late in getting to New Orleans, because the federal government had to shift money around?

Let's follow the logic. The federal government was broke in 1941, the depression was still on, the world was a war. So, before we aided Britain and Russia we should have shifted money from other areas, and failing that, not aided them at all. And, we would be speaking Japanese and German right now.

Look, if we need a debate about federal spending fine. There is nothing wrong with that. But you don't hold a debate about federal spending by using the threat of not funding disaster relief until you cut spending in other areas. Or, you don't use the leverage of natal disasters to enact spending cuts in unrelated federal projects.

This again, is bargaining through extortion. Cantor knows that nobody is going to freeze federal help for Hurricane victims, but he is USING this for political advantage.

We have never done that before in American Politics.

We used to have compassion for victims of natural disasters; now we use them for political gain. This is wrong, and despicable!

The Conservative Cause

2011-08-29T16:30:00.000-07:00

The Conservative Cause

I just saw a "dust up" between a conservative and progressive on a T.V. political show. During the discussion, the conservative made his point that his parents had "brought him up the right way", that he appreciated it, and government had nothing to do with it.

He then continued that parental upbringing, values as he said it, were what government should sponsor (but not legislate)...values are what we need to go "back to" in America was his slogan. Conservatives always want to go back. American history has a lot in it that it should NEVER go back to.

Of course, Christian Conservatives push their values agenda on us everyday. Rick Perry of Texas is running basically on a "return to conservative values" and shrinking government. Perry famously stated that Texas should consider "seceding from the union" if the federal government continued to grow. This would be a regression of historical proportions.

He then participated in a values revival meeting, just prior to his running for President.

Let's look at this "values" argument, especially from the southern Christian conservative's point of view.

A conservative believes in family values, based on Christian values, first and foremost. They see government as intrusive into these values, except when things like abortion are concerned, then government can intrude as strenuously as necessary to outlaw them; an interesting contradiction.

Conservatives like the man in the discussion, also rely on "family values" rather than government programs to educate, and socialize children. An upper middle class upbringing basically is the remedy for all economic ills.

There is a basic mis-perception in this approach. The white middle class values of family cannot apply to all the people.

The reason is history. The "family values" approach, decrying the lack of them in poorer, more people of color populations, conveniently misses the historical antecedents for these often anti-social behaviors.

It is true that in inner cities, crime, drug use, drop outs, you name it, are huge problems. It is true that in spite of huge improvements, the African-American population in the United States still has large unemployment rates, drug use rates, and yes, crime rates. It is also true that Native American populations have the same problems.

Conservatives use these rates to say, "See what not having family values can do", or "Those people deserve what they get, look at their behavior". Lately, a "blame the poor" movement has taken hold, with Tea Party members actually blaming the poor and unemployed for "lacking initiative to work which has been killed with large government programs."

They myth is firmly established in the conservative, that large government programs in education, or social welfare, kill individual initiative and produce lazy "welfare cheats" who feed at the "public trough".

Now for the history: 1. the United States had the worst slavery system in human history, that maimed an entire group of Americans, and social, economic and political effects of that tragedy are still affecting American today. 2. The United States effected a genocide on Native Americans, stealing their lands and obliterating their culture with lasting effects. 3. the United States has consistently discriminated against immigrant groups throughout its history, often with violence, making it very difficult to assimilate into the successful economy.

These are historical facts that are still adversely affecting people of color in the United States. To assume that "everything is now fixed" because of a few generations of time is ridiculous. The damage to families and culture are not easily fixed with "time".

For example, slaves were not allowed any education. They were especially forbidden to learn how to read. This legacy is still in evidence and is a large part of the educational underachievement of African Americans today.

Conservatives would say, no way..that was over a hundred years ago. They will shout, "we can't be held accountable for what our great grandparents did".

But educators know better. Stanford University, one of the leading Departments of Education in the United States, has released several studies that show that family background and income are the greatest predictors of educational achievement.

When African Americans fled the south in the early 20th century to find work in the north, this was a huge liberating force that ultimately led to the civil rights movement of the 1960s. With the economic disaster of 2008, the changes to the northern city economy which had been deteriorating for years was manifest. African Americans, who had prospered more than ever before on assembly lines, were thrown out of work, and are currently sliding back into the poverty of Jim Crowe.

Native Americans have NEVER moved upward economically. Most still live on reservations, or have been able to "pass for white". The "Indian Casino" has helped some, but for the most part, Native Americans live in extreme poverty.

When conservatives complain about "those people" they are talking about African Americans, Native Americans and Mexicans (who are mostly Native Americans).

This is because the conservatives of today in American are the "Dixie-crates" of the south.

Rick Perry uses the same phrases as the notorious segregationists George Wallace, who's "states rights" were code for "keep the black man down". The leaders of the conservative Republicans (basically all Republicans in Congress) are from the SOUTH. This is not by accident, Jim Crowe is not dead, it is still manifest in the Republican Party of 2011.

Wallace ran for President, on the states rights anti-federal government platform, and was getting traction when he was gunned down. His is the same platform of Rick Perry, southern "states rights" that is aimed at the racial minorities who have been discriminated against throughout American history.

When the tea party rails against the size of the federal government, and push for smaller government, they are really pushing for a return to the anti-civil rights society of the past. When they rail about "taking their country back" they are calling for getting rid of the "black guy" in the white house. When "voter registration I.D.s Laws are passed, these are a return to the poll tests, that essentially disenfranchised entire generation in the south.

Family values and the revulsion against the poor, comes right from racist, violent, genocide ridden American History, that enslaved millions and massacred millions. Millions were enslaved for HUNDREDS of years, millions were killed in a few years. These are historical facts, and the social and economic reasons for these injustices still exist in many American's hearts today.

States Rights has ALWAYS meant racism and intolerance in the United States. It is a code that still carries Jim Crowe, segregation, and social and economic injustice.

These are what conservatives really mean when they talk about their "core values". These "core values" are racism, hatred, and injustice. "Their America" is the America of Jim Crowe, of bigotry, and of hatred.

Innovate or Die

2011-08-25T15:55:00.001-07:00

Innovate or Die

While listening to an Itunes U podcast, from Stanford University, about entrepreneurs, creativity and market innovation it struck me what is really wrong with the current attack on government by the Tea Party and conservatives generally.

Conservatives love to criticize progressives for having too much government regulation that supposedly chokes innovation and risk taking. "Get government off our backs", and "taxes are job killers" ;etc., are the chants we hear.

And they are sometimes hard to counter. After all, it makes sense that creativity and risk taking would be encouraged more in a less regulated environment.

Not necessarily. Silicon Valley has grown in California, spawning Apple Computer, Google; et al., amidst what conservatives call the most "repressive" regulation environment in the United States. Conservatives love to talk up the tax rates and corporate tax environment that supposedly retards new economic development; but if that was true, then what about Apple Computer, Silicon Valley, HP; Intel; and on and on?

The facts are the opposite. Silicon Valley goes back well over thirty years, with the Palo Alto Research Center, Stanford, Cal; etc., turning out thousands of electrical and electronic engineers, who have revolutionized the way we think, research, play, and live.

The fact that much of the technological explosion in devices took place in the west side of San Francisco Bay is no accident. You never hear gripping about repressive regulations or government in Silicon Valley, where government research dollars spawned from the race to space, started the whole thing in 1960; President Kennedy's famous pledge to go to the moon by the end of the decade.

The climate for innovation is excellent too, there are several institutions of higher learning, anchored by Stanford, who have encouraged research, development and especially innovation. Government is everywhere, in every research lab and facility. A NASA Space Center lies right in the middle of Silicon Valley which anchors the entrepreneurial environment.

But several of these entrepreneurs have failed. The "Dot Com" implosion of the early 21st century is a good example of several ideas, like computer generated ordering of groceries, that flopped.

But that is the nature of entrepreneurship; the freedom to fail, without punitive consequences. Several of the silicon valley innovations were attained through years of trial and error, until the right combination of factors, including market conditions, existed to lead to success. Millions of government dollars didn't hurt either.

Government needs the latitude to fail as well. Education for example, is going through a highly criticized period right now. There are forces clamoring for change, and literally dozens of new and revolutionary ideas to reform and improve education.

Unfortunately, there are also political conditions, punitive in nature, that are choking successful innovation.

This is especially true with conservatives' efforts to constantly hamstring and limit government.

In educational innovation, this means a project life of often months; if the idea doesn't produce immediate results, or if there are cost overruns, it is immediately attacked, maligned, and destroyed.

The result is a frenzied assortment of half measures, fits and starts, that accomplish little.

Government is the problem, conservatives say. Meanwhile, the large problems of energy, environment, education and yes, health care, go unsolved, and innovational solutions are choked off before they have a chance to succeed.

Government is discredited, while the problems it can best address, just grow in complexity and urgency.

For example, there is no doubt that the world is running out of oil. The number of years this will take is open to debate, but sweet crude oil, that led to the cheap transportation of the past century, is running out.

And conservatives, led by the petroleum industry for some strange reason, are resisting and discrediting most innovation energy conservation efforts. I have never understood why the petroleum institute is so reluctant to look into conservation efforts, because when they run out of product, they are out of business. Have you ever wondered why they seem so hell bent to sell all their oil as fast as they can?

As a result we are faced with a dwindling supply of petroleum, and no plan whatsoever to adapt to it. None.

The consequences of this will be disastrous to our economy. But innovation is punished, "Just Drill Baby" is the simple solution to a problem that will take all the brain power America possesses to solve.

And, there must be profit motive in the innovations it will take to deal with declining oil. So far, we are frozen, innovations are attacked as wasteful. Solar and wind power are looked upon as liberal fads.

Americans still purchase huge cars and trucks, even while the gas prices bankrupt them.

If this approach would have been present in Silicon Valley, I would be typing this blog on a typewriter; manual no doubt.

The money and energy to innovate, explore and try things would have been cut off, with no development.

There would be no Apple, no IBM, no nothing.

This is the great threat of the regressive policies of America's Right Wing today. There exists a prejudice toward government that has frozen innovation and invention; while the problems that only government has the scope to address mount up.

We are faced with problems that the private sector cannot solve, without government team work. But conservatives, who must be pure in their ideology, take oaths to "drown government in the bathtub".

This is nonsense and dangerous. If we don't deal with the threats to our way of life that running out of gas poses, we are done as a economic power in the world.

Government must innovate, and try things. As Roosevelt famously said, he was the doctor and the American economy was the patient. He tried one remedy after another, and yes some were zany and didn't work. But many did, and form the financial and governmental bedrock upon which our modern economy is based.

We need that again to survive, another burst of innovation and ideas to deal with the serious problems of the global economy. Unfortunately, the "voices of no" have us paralyzed.

The consequences of this lack of innovation and risk taking will be severe and possibly nation ending.

The Wallace Trap

2011-08-16T12:45:00.000-07:00

A Catastrophic Trap

So now we get to witness Rick Perry, the Texas "miracle" (2) in action. A few years ago another Texas governor exploded all over us, when George W. stepped into action. We are still getting over that one!

Then, as now, Republicans were "energized" by the new and exciting person on the national stage. The George W. phenomenon was more moderate and had more national appeal. After all, George W. might wear a cowboy hat, and wear cowboy boots, but he was a Yale Graduate with a MBA from Harvard. And, there was that story about his old man.

But Perry is, well, he is down home Texas. He has been able to be re-elected many times as Texas' governor, and he has created more jobs that Roosevelt. At least that is what the hype is saying.

He is "bigger than life". He brags, he tells stories, he is cute, he is "original" and above all he is very conservative. He has called for the end of everything from the Federal Reserve, calling Chairman Ben Bernacke a "traitor" to ending social security.

He is for ending the federal government in Texas particularly, not just hinting at, but actually calling for Texas to secede from the Union. He said it, now he is denying he said it, but he said it. That is treason by the way.

All this is "red meat" to right wing conservatives. Perry also appeals to the anger in many people, who watch as their jobs, and security are eroded.

The United States has 1 in 10 unemployed right now, many long term. President Obama is depicted as ineffectual, even though his leadership did actually end the recession that threatened to plunge everyone into a Great Depression.

We now have a 10% Depression, with the rest of us holding our breaths.

It would seem to be rich soil for a Texas wing-nut, who appeals to the anger, the frustration and has charisma.

There is a trap here; and it is probably unfair, but bringing up the past performances of the only two previous Texas Presidents is important.

Bush and Johnson, by most historical standards, have shall we say "inconsistent" performance evaluations by historians. Johnson did sign the Civil Rights Act and Medicare, and did lead us into the Great Society; but also fatally led us into the Vietnam War. G.W. did lead us into a housing boom, and the rich certainly got a lot richer, but he also led us into Iraq and Afghanistan. And there is that 2007-08 economic dip!

Is it Texas that is the trap?

I would argue yes. I know many Texans. There is a bravado, a swagger to many of them. I don't know if its size of the state, or what, (maybe the football teams), but Texas seems to breed a confidence that is infectious. There is nothing wrong with the confidence, there is a lot wrong with the arrogance.

And therein lies the catastrophic trap. It is the arrogance that "the way we do it in Texas" is somehow superior, somehow better, than the other 49 states. There is some of that in Californians. Ronald Reagan has a swagger to him, that somehow the "can do" spirit of California was superior, magical; etc. It wasn't!

If we are so angry and upset by the economy that we buy the crap that Perry is dishing out, then we are headed for a catastrophe. The facts are Perry did NOT create more jobs than anyone else, the oil industry did that. And, the facts are that many of the jobs that were created were minimum wage. Texas has a high rate of poverty, its educational system in a wreck, and there is that pesky drought that is killing agriculture. (Of course Global Warming according to Perry is a myth, Prayer is the answer).

If we want to emulate someone, we should go to Silicon Valley in California and look at Google or Apple Computer. These companies have created real wealth and jobs, not phony minimum wagers at Taco Bell like in Texas. This economic "miracle" is based on education, government and private sector cooperation, and a dedication to a "green" environment.

But the bragging and bravado go on. Perry recently said that the Chairman of Federal Reserve, that Perry wants to abolish (a one way ticket back to 1930), "would not be treated very well in Texas". Oh really, what would the Texans do, lynch him.

And that leads us into what Perry would really like to do to President Obama, which leads us to the racism that fairly drips out of Perry's mouth every time he opens it.

Texas was in the Confederacy after all, and Perry called for secession. Texas fought for slavery, Obama is an African-American; does anyone want to connect the dots.

Perry is George Wallace on steroids. If you listen to Perry you hear echoes of Wallace when he famously ran for President in 1968. Perry is a former Democrat turned Republican as was Wallace, Perry is a Governor as was Wallace; Perry is a charlatan as was Wallace.

To make such a charlatan into our President would be a catastrophic trap, and would be one more nail in our national coffin!

The Constitution

2011-08-14T19:16:00.000-07:00

Reason, moderation, compromise, rational debate...these are all the bedrocks of our Constitution. How the Tea Parties (there are several), can twist their so-called allegiance to the basic "Constitution" into their no compromise, win even if it destroys us positions is beyond me.

One, they never have really studied the Constitution or the history behind it. Basic U.S. History in grammar school, teaches the genius behind the Constitution is compromise, always forcing opposing views to merge into policy.

The Great Compromise that the Constitution did not adequately solve was over slavery; it took a Civil War to settle that.

Is that what the Tea Parties want now, a Civil War? Really?

Look at England right now. Is that where we want to go?

If you, as a small business owner, really want disaster, look at England now, or Syria, or Afghanistan, or....all of Africa.

Look at what "my way or the highway" gets you.

If you think business is bad now, watch when the riots begin.

How to avoid this disaster?

Read and study Constitutional Law and learn that compromise is the way of things. Adopt a "Grand Bargain" that the Speaker and the President talked about; addressing revenues and modifications to social programs. Quit thinking politics is winner takes all, it just won't work that way.

The President learned that the hard way prior to 2010 when Senate Republicans blocked hundreds of bills with the filibuster. Don't you think Democrats will do the same thing if Republicans regain the majority and the White House?

EVERY sane analysis I have read suggests that compromise is the only real remedy.

This means I, as a progressive will not be happy, and you (the legions of Tea Party Conservatives) will not be happy either.

But our nation will survive and will ultimately prosper.

The alternative, if you REALLY want it, you can view every night by watching Syria, Egypt, Somalia; et al. their war torn cultures are the true tyranny.

The Truth

2011-08-10T09:41:00.000-07:00

The Truth

Truth...truth..truth

This single word is debated, embraced, touted, advertised, and broken more than almost any other save; love.

We are entering yet again another "national debate" about deficits, public debt, that could determine the fate of our nation. The partisan lines are drawn in the sand. Americans in polls are disgusted with the partisanship, but themselves evidence it everyday with membership in the "Tea Party".

The democrats, or progressives, are similarly blamed for partisanship, for their stubborn allegiance to costly entitlement programs and a President who has "spent too much".

And what is the truth, what is really fueling the debt?

I recently saw a simple pie chart that shows the federal debt BEFORE the Great Recession, and it shows the core of the federal deficit. It is simple and it is the truth, from the impartial Congressional Budget Office.

The truth? Follow this link to read the truth.

http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=692

As you can see and read: The Bush Tax Cuts and Defense in 2007 (before the recession added more debt because unemployed people don't pay taxes), spending on two wars and homeland security as part of the War on Terrorism contributes 83%!

Entitlements and discretionary programs contributes 17%.

The core of the debt, the vast core, is from the tax cuts and the wars. We basically fought two wars while giving ourselves a huge tax cut. And now, we are being told that Social Security and Medicare are to blame and need to be cut?!

So, to "balance the budget" or "attack the debt" the "responsible thing" is to cut "where there real spending is.." entitlements and discretionary spending."

So cut the 17% and leave the 83% alone and that will deal with the deficit?

These are the opposite of the truth, these are LIES. The truth is the Bush Tax Cuts, Homeland Security, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are what fuels well over 80% of the current debt of the United States.

When the Republicans refuse to discuss tax revenues to address the debt, and vote blindly for more defense spending, they are choosing to NOT really address the debt at all. Instead, for purely ideological reasons, they attack 17% of the problem as if it is the 83%.

In short they are lying. If the American People buy this almost impossible to believe "con", we will cut our senior's health care, and reduce social security for millions, and STILL HAVE AN UNMANAGEABLE DEBT!

That is the truth!

NUTS

2011-08-05T15:50:00.000-07:00

The Wild Blue

I am reading a book called "The Wild Blue" by Stephen Ambrose. The book is about the pilots of the American Air Force during World War II. The history centers around George McGovern, who pilots a B-24 during the war, his crew and the culture of war.

I am struck constantly by the self-sacrifice and patriotism of the "Greatest Generation" that is brought out by the book.

World War II was a world calamity. It was the most destructive war in human history by many times over. Moreover, there were forces of evil (Germany's genocide, Japan's atrocities) that made resistance to tyranny necessary even for pacifists.

George McGovern was just that kind of pacifist. He was a very religious young man when the war broke out he almost filed as a conscientious objector, his father was a minister, and held strong anti-war sentiments (later demonstrated when he fought against the Vietnam War as a U.S. Senator and presidential candidate).

But he enlisted for very hazardous duty and did it. He also did not make a big thing about it. He quietly did his duty for his country.

Millions of Americans did the same thing. They also paid huge taxes, bought war bonds, and many made the ultimate sacrifice to preserve our way of life.

The contrast with present American behavior is startling.

Recently we saw the Republicans in the Congress basically extort the government to get their way.

There was a real threat of not cooperating and plunging the country into debt default, with catastrophic consequences.

This was all done, in an act of ultimate political theater, to discredit the President of the United States; with no regard whatsoever for economic consequences.

The main "rallying cry" of the Tea Party is to cut taxes, and glorify the individual. If the rich are only getting richer it is "their right". What's mine is mine and what is your is yours; if you have less it is YOUR FAULT.

There is no place for "we" in the conservative "T-E-A-M". We are told to read Aynd Rand to understand what should be the "true American value". What we read is greed is good, screw your brother, government is bad, sacrifice for common good is for losers; etc.

The conservative movement attacks anything that hints of common good, or what is good for the many is good for me; etc. They call these ideas "socialist", evil, and even "fascist".

In short, if the United States would have had the values of the current conservative movement during World War II we would have lost big time! The Nazis, real fascists by the way, did NOT cooperate, did not work together, manipulate their power for private wealth, and ultimately lost. American and Allied TEAMWORK won the war, fascist greed and evil lost.

Look at the United States today. There is no draft, yet we are embroiled in two and one half wars. These wars are being fought by a volunteer military, whose members have made multiple tours of duty. Many have been wounded or killed, fighting for our security and freedom; while we voted ourselves tax cuts, lived the high life, created the "housing bubble" and drove the economy into the ditch!

And how do we show our support for our servicemen and women? By cutting taxes, cutting veteran benefits, and putting the nation into debt while we are fighting a war with little shared sacrifice, letting our "professional soldiers" do the work.

Today I saw a news report about motorcycle riders who are traveling the country with American flags on their bikes to "honor our veterans". Wow, what sacrifice!

I suppose this is a "noble" venture, but on closer look, what we see are wealthy citizens (Harley Davidson's cost a lot of money) who are basically vacationing across the country to "honor veterans". Nice excuse for a vacation!

I will bet that the majority of those riders who are "sacrificing" agree that taxes need to be cut even more and the government needs to be shrunk to nothing. They would never acknowledge that of course, citing their "honoring of the veterans" as enough. Enough indeed!

Taking a vacation across the United States, driving incredibly expensive motorcycles, staying in expensive hotels is sacrifice? Excuse me but this is bull shit!

Remember, the United States fought two wars in the last ten years, and still are engaged in combat, and our citizens were asked to sacrifice NOTHING: No taxes, no draft, no inconvenience....nothing.

Compare that with World War II and the brave pilots and airmen, soldiers, sailors; etc., who were maimed, killed and certainly inconvenienced for years by the war.

What real sacrifice for our "war effort" have YOU made lately? You haven't paid for the wars, your taxes were cut, you haven't served (no draft), you probably don't even watch the news reports anymore; too depressing.

America is waging a "sanitary war" that its citizens are not really experiencing.

I served during, but not in, the Vietnam conflict. I can guarantee you my generation experienced that war. We saw our friends, brothers, fathers and sons come home in body bags. We read lists of dead and wounded. We sweated the draft, made hard decisions to serve, resist, or run; most served.

We were certainly "inconvenienced" by the damn war!

And we complained, and we hated it. But we lived it, we sacrificed; some died, some had their lives changed forever; we lived the war.

The World War II citizens did not have an unpopular war to fight. But they did have vastly larger casualty lists. The did have a war to win.

And they did it without complaint. They did their duty, paid their taxes, bought their war bonds, missed their wives and husbands and it all for their country.

Today, the Tea Party professes a patriotism that frankly I don't recognize; self-serving, selfish, and above all disdainful of the weak, the poor, the dispossessed.

The United States fought World War II FOR the dispossessed. We could have stopped at Germany's borders, and signed an armistice, allowing Hitler to continue exterminating the Jews, but we did not. We demanded unconditional surrender. We could have simply quarantined Japan, and not demanded accounting for the atrocities that Japan had visited on China, the Philippines and Southeast Asia, we did not, we forced unconditional surrender, freed the captives and slaves. And then, we organized the United Nations, demanded an end to colonialism, and led the free world for justice and freedom. We even delineated this in the "Four Freedoms" a dream for a peaceful and just world.

This is all "big government" to the tea party and must be all eliminated. They hate the U.N., hate government aid, hate public education, hate anything that helps those who cannot help themselves.

And this week, we are getting a little preview of what their economic extortion wrought: world markets have crashed, wiping out billions of investments. This is exactly what was warned, that world markets would lose faith in the United States as an economic leader if we could not begin to address our economic problems realistically.

The "deal" that averted default did not do this; obviously from the crash of the stock market in the past days the world was not fooled.

The markets are reacting to the greed and lack of sacrifice the tea party and the Republicans have demonstrated during the "debt crisis" in steadfastly refusing to consider that revenues must be increased to pay for the two wars we are still pouring money into.

Patriotism is sadly lacking in America today. Those who profess to be "Tea Party Patriots" are blocking any attempt to pay for United States wars with more revenue, instead trying to balance the budget on the backs of the poor and dispossessed.

The world is not fooled, and the airmen of the Wild Blue would not have been fooled either.

The hypocrisy fairly drips off them, as they wave their flags, and shout "Support Our Troops" while buying another condo in Aspen, and revving up their hundred thousand dollars bikes!

In the words of the commander of Bastogne during the battle of the Bulge; NUTS.

Why Didn't You Yell At Me

2011-07-31T22:05:00.000-07:00

Today we were late for church. I lost track of time, reading the morning news which dealt endlessly with the riot in Washington D.C. My wife also lost track of time while applying her makeup. When she realized we were running late, she said to me, “We are late, why didn’t you yell at me?”

Why didn’t I yell indeed? In the first place, when I do yell at her (rarely) I get, “Don’t yell at me”, and it isn’t a mild request! To be serious, yelling is most clearly not a valid communication tool in most cases.

Oh sure, if someone absent mindedly walks into the path of oncoming traffic, a yell would be appropriate. But, too often yelling is used to make an emphatic point, or gain attention, or bully. Yelling politically is almost always inappropriate and does not lead to good decision making.

That has been the mode of communication for the past few weeks in Washington by conservatives. Tea Party Patriots (oxymoron), have been screaming about the debt “crisis”, warning of fiscal disaster, federal socialism, communism, you name it.

For sure the biggest yell of the “Patriots” is to weaken and shrink the federal government, because it spends too much and regulates too much and just does everything too much.

So they yell, they rant, they scream, and they sure don’t compromise.

The louder they yell, the further they get from reality, and from the ONLY remedy that has ever helped the United States get out of an economic downturn.

When people are thrown out of work, lose their homes, and go bankrupt they stop spending money. That lack of spending, “consumer demand depression ” decreases or “depresses” economic activity. A chain reaction takes place; more people lose their jobs, and if it goes on long enough and deep enough, a depression ensues.

Government spending contrary to the tea party yelling is NOT a huge part of America’s economy. At present all government spending makes up not more than 20% of GDP, which is NOT all economic activity.

Regardless, government stimulus can work to turn the tide of recessions, by encouraging marginal job creation and growth, thus partially encouraging consumer demand.

Government stimulus, as we have just recently witnessed with President Obama’s stimulus package, must be strategically planned and applied to have much effect, because the government can only affect the economy just so much. Contrary to the conservative rant the stimulus did work to lessen the impact of the recession, and in the opinion of most economists the recession is in fact over. Unfortunatley jobs creation and hiring is ALWAYS the last development of recessions ending. This lag is what is feeding tea party yelling; ironically because not one Tea Party Policy (if they have any) has a valid job creation component in it. The Republican promise of “jobs, jobs, jobs” that helped them win the House of Representatives in 2010, has not been kept in the least. All Republicans have been concerned about is the debt and balancing the budget, which in effect costs people their jobs.

In short, in 2010 Republicans simply lied about job creation.

I hear the yelling beginning right now.

The government must do something (anything), as in the Great Depression, to lessen human suffering, and in a sense tide people over through hard times. The private enterprise system in American is so much larger than the federal and state governments, this is about all the government can hope for even with the most effective public programs; getting more citizens through the hard times in one piece. In the 30s that is what the New Deal did, kept people from starving to death, tided the country over until the war changed everything. The New Deal did lessen suffering markedly, saved the capitalist system, and set the stage for an unprecedented economic growth after World War II.

The Tea Party’s demands for huge government spending cuts will for sure stall the economic recovery, and also mean more suffering for millions of Americans. Recent studies show that these will be minorities and the young, particularly children.

In a sense, the yelling is for more suffering, unfairly applied to those who can protect themselves the least.

The rich will not feel anything, because all of the conservatives’ proposals refuse to increase taxes or take away tax loopholes. Recent studies also show the top 1% of the America’s elite are making huge profits and increasing their wealth at record levels, while the rest of the nation gets poorer.

The Bush tax cuts and wars, which caused well over 70% of the present deficit, continue to basically starve the federal government, since trillions are still being paid to support the “war on terror” overseas (also don’t forget “Homeland Security” spending that amounts to billions of dollars with no revenue to offset the spending).

Bush was re-elected with a conservative strategy that is used by weak candidates; cut taxes and increase spending and nobody can beat you. Of course, this resulted in a fiscal nightmare for the country that is playing out today.

A “cuts only approach” is virtually being screamed at the American Public everyday, and even Democrats are talking about only cuts to deal with the deficit

This is crazy, since tax cuts and unpaid for wars are the vast majority of the cause of the debt we currently have. In fact, studies show that if the Bush tax cuts had been stopped last year when they should have, the deficit would be falling today.

Reducing the deficit will help the economy, no doubt about it. But revenue must be increased and cuts must be made for any valid debt reduction to take place. The cuts only that is being screamed at us will only depress the economy more, resulting in more recession, more debt, and ultimately the scorn of higher interest rates.

Regardless, the Tea Party Patriots continue to yell, scream, threaten and basically extort the United States with the threat of default to get their way. And their yelling “way” will lead the country further into economic collapse.

Don’t yell at me!

Do the Right Thing

2011-07-17T18:41:00.001-07:00

Do the Right Thing

It is utterly amazing to watch the "debate" that is going on about raising the debt ceiling in what passes for the U.S. Congress.

Congress has raised the debt ceiling many times in the past. It is a sad, but true fact, that through most administrations and Congresses, there has not been the political or moral will to actually match expenditures with revenues.

Republicans, and their wing nut Tea Partiers, would have us believe this is ALL a spending problem. They ignore that the deficit is a product of over 50 years of government borrowing, though wars, other recessions, and yes, even "supply side" economics.

The truth is hard to determine, since both parties have done their share of borrowing. Democrats have started social programs but have not raised taxes nearly enough to pay for them. Republicans have cut taxes but have not cut programs near enough to pay for them.

In short, both sides are guilty of deception. However, their is a balance point of the deception. I would suggest about 2/3 deception Cons, about 1/3 deception progressives.

The engine that runs this deception is simple: Congress will not level with the American People about how much all this costs.

Americans are NOT taxed enough to pay for all the programs, wars, foreign aid, you name it, that we are constantly trying to accomplish. Republicans cut the taxes, Democrats fight for essential programs, but hold to the same fiction; ie., that cutting revenue is somehow neutral when you are trying to balance a budget.

It is the revenue almost all the time! You can go back to the Korean War, then Vietnam, then Iran/Contra, then Afghanistan, then Iraq, then Homeland Security; etc. These wars all cost money the government would not tax to fund. So, it borrowed. And it borrowed, again and again.

Progressives get angry, as President Obama did when he was a junior Senator, about spending on defense (war) by "charging it". Conservatives get incensed about almost everything; but particularly about a "crushing tax burden" while sponsoring the defense spending (and most other spending) that so upset the progressives.

And now, we are getting a "mia culpa", with both sides harping on spending cuts in the middle of a jobless recession. Of course, cutting spending and cutting taxes in such an environment is utterly ridiculous; we tried it in 1936-37 with disastrous results. In fact, many historians believe that by cutting spending then, and plunging the nation BACK into a depression, the nation turned inward, enabling Hitler to re-arm, and indirectly at least, enabling the aggression that led the world into war.

In short, there was NOTHING good about cutting spending and cutting taxes then, there is nothing good about it now.

Again, there is ABSOLUTELY NO EMPIRICAL HISTORICAL EVIDENCE THAT TAX CUTS STIMULATE ECONOMIC GROWTH IN ANYTHING BUT THE VERY SHORT TERM. In fact, the opposite may be the case.

By taxing with marginal tax rates (the rich don't get all their wealth confiscated by a long shot), the federal government can partially re-distribute the total wealth of the economy to the middle class, and re-employ millions. That is what was done in the thirties. And by the way, no rich people had their homes taken. In fact, many got richer because the economy picked up. The rich NEVER lose in America!

Yes, the revenue would be spent on government make work, called public works by some. But it does work to revitalize the economy in extreme times of recession (like we have now). It would only be a short term fix, not a long term one, to save what little respect the middle class has.

Cutting spending and continuing unfair and currency centralizing tax cuts, will NOT fix anything. In fact, it is making it worse.

So then, why the dance in Washington? Why won't they realize that they are playing with fire?

Because the myths have outgrown reality. Republicans especially are trapped by their rhetoric, few of them really believe the tax cutting mantra. But they don't have any other answers, so that is all then chant: cut taxes, cut spending! Democrats, who have been burned several times by being painted as the "tax and spend" party, ALSO cut taxes but won't touch entitlements. And this is for good reason. The "new reality" is that once taxes are cut they never can be put back to their former levels. Cons scream this is a "tax increase" by the tax and spend liberals.

So, a tax cut (like the Bush tax cuts) that were supposedly to stimulate in the short term economic growth, are slavishly continued even though they never worked. Do the wrong thing, then repeat it over and over, and expect a different result; Einstein called that "madness".

Look at recent history. President Obama foolishly went along with an extension of the Bush tax cuts, even taking a payroll tax holiday (directly reducing Social Security funds), with the goal of "stimulating the economy". Last month unemployment went UP, and it looks like we are close to a "double dip" recession. This very well could end President Obama's presidency. He got suckered into following the con, that tax cuts are sacred.

Here is how we get out of this mess. Read history! Raise marginal tax rates over a three year period to where they were in 1998. Shut down our efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. End the middle class tax cuts over a three year period. Phase it out. Reform Medicare, along the new Health Care lines but with more savings, aimed at a health care industry that is quite frankly ripping all of us off. Do not lay off anyone in federal employment for at least a year, in other words stop the job cuts. Establish a commission that has authority to investigate all major federal expenditures for waste and fraud. If it is found, charge the guilty and save the money.

The additional revenue that is derived spend 70% of it on job creation, yes make work, on the nation's infrastructure and energy conservation. Suspend all union contracts that have to do with public spending of any kind, and freeze wages and benefits for everyone for at least two years; that means C.E.Os!

You see, the options are endless. The goal is to increase revenue from the unfair distribution of wealth in the country, reform entitlements so they save money (which will take money away from the Health Insurance Industry and Medical Industry that have shown double digit inflation rates for years).

But all the changes need to be phased in and monitored. If they have unintended consequences then change them.

Oh, and finally, ban all lobbyists of any kind from Washington and the surrounding countryside by at least 50 miles. If a public official is caught talking to any lobbyist, they should be impeached.

Will we do this? Maybe, as we sink further into a depression the People will get fed up with it...and start to do the right thing. Blindly following the Tea Party is the WRONG THING!

The Insanity

2011-07-12T09:51:00.000-07:00

The insanity...the insanity...

On the Today show (today), we were treated to a hilarious weather routine reporting the endless drought that is affecting at least half of the nation. The weatherman joked, showed the obligatory video of children playing in the sprinklers, and talked about "another hot one".

One was reminded of hot summers with the ice cream man right around the corner.

Except, this time the jockular weatherman did not mention that the nice ice cream man that is coming right around the corner is hell, the devil himself!

That's right, the joking must stop because hell itself is right around the corner.

Ask central Africa, with thousands now dying in an endless drought and famine. These weather phenomena are not funny anymore. Global warming kills!

The great plains are being battered by relentless heat and drought. This is killing crops at a record pace. Already food prices are forecast to go up, battering an already fragile U.S. economy.

Can it get worse? Of course it will. All you have to do is read about the dust bowl and you realize it can get much worse. Nobody was telling stupid jokes about the hot weather then, as millions of people exited the arid plains and moved to California.

And what does the New York Times do? Why, it sticks its head in the sand, and calls the drought a product of "El Nina..or El Nino?".

What!? They even say that climatologists have made that call. That is patent nonsense!

The truth is climatologists have determined drought like the United States is now enduring as part of the warming of the planet; i.e., global warming. These things have been predicted for years. Now that they are happening, the press seeks to lessen their impact, making jokes out of farmers losing their crops, and dust storms obliterating Phoenix.

Meanwhile, the House of Representatives blindly is rescinding the "light bulb bill" that was saving consumers thousands of dollars and reducing the carbon footprint. The prior sponsor of the bill, under attack by the oil and coal industry, is actually trying to repeal the bill he sponsored and passed, because Rush Limbaugh called it a "nanny state" bill. I suppose "the free market" is to be again given the responsibility to produce low polluting light bulb technology; since in the past it produced the same light bulb basically that Edison invented. That's right, left to free market innovation, we have been basically using a 150 year old technology.

The new light bulbs burn cheaper, last much longer , and use far less electricity. Of course, this means less profits for the producers of electricity, so they oppose the bill.

The insanity of all this is beyond belief. Efficiency and good business practice are to be rejected so big coal and oil can make even more profit!

Look, Climate Change is real. Liberals are NOT advocating that climate change is real to grow government. Why on earth would progressives be rooting for something that could kill us all?

It is (as they say) what it is. I wish it was not. But it is.

People are dying all over the planet, and climate warming is scheduled to get only worse. This is just the preamble to a story of human stupidity and ultimate misery that will be the biggest one since...since..Noah!

The New York Times, the Times for God's sake, are denying climate change! I would expect "Good Morning America" to do that, they are owned by the wacko, right wing Disney Corporation.

I have wondered why big corporations, blindly oppose those who are warning that the human race is looking at possible extinction unless we act now to reduce the conditions that are wrecking the planet. Why would they do that?

How much oil and gas can you sell to dead people? How many consumer toys can people buy when they are broke, and spending all their money for food; while frantically traveling around looking for water? How much profit can you make if modern society ends? Why would Arizona, Texas and Oklahoma be "hotbeds" of climate change deniers, when their states stand to lose millions of dollars and citizens as they slowly decline into arid, hot, uninhabitable wastelands? What is the matter with these people?

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

Meanwhile, Los Angeles is in gridlock because they had to repair a large section of freeway and it makes national news. People have no other way to get to work, so the entire L.A. basin shuts down because one section of freeway is closed.

L.A., a national leader in transportation, essentially eliminated its trains and buses long ago, going "all in" for automobiles, sprawl and freeways. This, of course, has pumped trillions of pounds of CO2 and other pollutants into the air over the past eighty years, which right now is making a desert out of Texas.

When I was at Stanford, on the freshman football team, we traveled to L.A. to play U.S.C. While warming up for the game, I suddenly became short of breath with a dull pain in my chest. I reported this to the trainer, having never experienced this before in Northern California. He laughed and said, "Welcome to L.A., you are just sucking in smog".

My chest hurt, I actually could see the air, a dull gray, filled with smoke and dust. I had never seen this before.

And remember, this was 1965, BEFORE anti-pollution laws reduced what was a lung disease filled hell hole called L.A. into a hell hole choked with cars; cleaner air, stupid energy policy.

Insane! Absolutely insane!

Poor poor Amazon...

2011-07-07T09:21:00.000-07:00

Facts are Distrubing

Sometimes, when we are not really on alert, we hear lies so much we begin to believe in an almost alternative reality. Conservatives have, through the constant bombardment of Fox News and talk radio, saturated political discourse with a stream of lies and mis-representations for years. Carl Rove and others have made public relations' manipulation into an art form.

It is totally acceptable for the conservative mindset to lie, or to exaggerate for effect. "The ends justify the means", or "just win baby" are the guiding principles to attain the conservative agenda.

The excuse for this is that the "liberal media" is so distorting reality that lying is a "reasonable response" to compete politically.

The problem is that the conservative cause has so much money and power behind it from corporations that are seeking to steer Congress their way, that there is a definite imbalance of power and influence in the right's direction. Money buys influence and power...ordinary people do not have the money; Roger Murdock does!

MSNBC is a good example. Its ratings are dwarfed by Fox News, who has attained the status of a major network. Fox, in a recent dust up with Jon Stewart, attacked on the basis of "fair and balanced" that means lying and distorting to "offset the liberal bias of the media". Of course, there is no "liberal bias" of the media, because Roger Murdock owns most of the media. Corporations that own the "major networks" (ABC) are owned by conservative bastions of power, the Disney family for example. There is not "media bias"; in fact just the opposite.

Nowhere is this more obvious than in the field of tax rates and the truth. I read a recent article that included 10 charts showing the comparative tax rates, corporate taxes and general tax burden of the top "wealthy countries" in the world.

A mainstay of conservative philosophy is that the liberals over the years since the New Deal have added thousands of useless programs that have required a tax burden that is discouraging the growth of business and jobs. Conservatives have pounded away at that both locally and nationally.

In California for example, dozens of initiatives have passed (starting with Prop 13) that have cut taxes, fees and every source of state revenue. Any new revenue "tax", even simply re-instating a rate to prior levels, is attacked as a "job killer", because it is a given that the liberal majority in the state is "unfriendly to business".

This position ignores that California is fifteenth in the nation in tax burden, and lower by other measures. Since California is the most populous state you would think it would at least be in the top five. Californians are NOT overtaxed!

The newest dustup is Amazon. Amazon has become an internet giant in retail sales, driving many local business under. California recently passed a law requiring Amazon to collect state sales tax. Remember, Amazon does millions of dollars of business in Californa. The Kindle, its revolutionary e-reader was invented in California and has its headquarters in California. And, Amazon won't be paying the sales tax, the consumer pays the tax, it will be required to collect the tax; just like all other retailers in California.

This is too much for Amazon. There is somehow a requirement to keep their unfair advantage over California businesses because they claim they don't have a physical presence in California. The Supreme Court decided years ago that states could tax business that had a "bricks and mortar" presence in the state. Affiliates to Amazon were used by the state as proof that physical presences (along with the Kindle headquarters).

So what does Amazon do? It attacks its affiliates and pulls its support from all of them, basically pulling out of Californa. This by a company that has made millions off the silicon valley innovations and inventions that form the core of its very business.

And what do conservatives do? They applaud of course. Nevermind the thousands of California businesses that have been driven out by Amazon's predatory and monopolistic practices, aided by not having to collect sales tax. Nevermind the truth. Big business ALWAYS wins!

Oh, those charts on United States tax burden I forgot to finish; predictably every one of them showed the United States in the last five or six in tax burden, corporate tax burden, inheritance tax (the U.S. was last since last year the number was zero). By every measure and standard the United States is NOT over taxed; not even close.

So, as the conservatives rail against government spending and the deficit, remember that deficit is a direct product of one of the lowest tax revenue producing system in the world.

This by a nation that has the largest defense budget in the world and is currently involved in three military operations overseas that cost billions each year.

The deficit is NOT a spending problem, as Fox and its watercarriers love to say, it is a revenue problem.

California's deficit is NOT a spending problem. State spending has dropped the past five years and is at twenty year lows today.

But the lies continue. And today, the President announced he is willing to talk about Medicare and Social Security cuts. If those occur, remember good old Amazon, refusing to collect taxes that by any standard of fairness it should collect.

We continue to reward corporate bad behavior and unethical nonsense so they won't "get mad at us". And corporate America continues to sit on record profits, pay their CEOs small fortunes, and cut jobs, send work overseas, and dodge paying taxes at every turn.

And we let them do it!

2011-07-04T09:16:00.000-07:00

Governor Perry of Texas announces that he believes that the federal government exists to serve the states. The states are supreme according to the good governor.

Meanwhile Perry constantly brags on Texas’ economic superiority to the rest of the Unites States; especially comparing Texas to California. Too much government regulation in California he cries; damn liberals raising taxes and stifling business he lectures; and so forth.

Meanwhile he completely ignores the deplorable living conditions for the majority of the citizens of Texas; an infant mortality rate that is one of the worst in the nation, poverty rate off the charts, pollution that is stifling, and one of the lowest wage scales in the United States.

But the biggest caveat to Perry’s nonsense lays in the wildfires and the drought that continue to plague (good word plague) the Lone Star State.

Texas is the home of good ole U.S.A. (now Saudi Arabian) oil. The oil industry owns the state; especially Governor Perry. They say jump, he jumps. Ironically, Texas itself ran out of oil a long time ago; just the companies (multi-nationals all) occupy Texas. Offshore drilling still exists, but the production of oil in Texas drops everyday.

America is NOT self-sufficient in oil, and never will be again. The world market dwarfs the available supply, and regardless of all the “natural gas will save us” propaganda from big oil, there is no way the United States can run its economy on domestic oil reserves. The time we could, if “foreign” oil supplies were suddenly cut off, is measured in days not in years.

So, a world war, like WWII for example, in today’s oil market, would have put the U.S.A. in the same boat as Japan and Germany, access to oil far outside their borders and inaccessible. Japan and Germany lost WWII for many reasons; especially the incredible courage and bravery of the U.S. soldier, but one main reason was THEY RAN OUT OF GAS!

Texas ran out of gas a long time ago.

However, that is not the Achilles heel that is sinking Texas in spite of Perry’s P.R. campaign (and perish the though, possible Presidential bid).

Texas helped poison the atmosphere years ago, by tying America forever to conspicuous consumption of oil and gas. For years lead poisoning and smog killed America’s children. Now, the CO2 emissions are killing the planet.

In a tragic twist, Texas and other states of the midwest and south, are predicted to become arid wastelands in the not so distant future.

Presently, Texas is enduring a record predicted drought that has Perry declaring days of Prayer, hoping for divine intervention; so far, no luck. Now, some are praying for a Hurricane (of all things) to bring rain. So, follow a disaster with a catastrophe to bring water.

What Perry missed, along with the incredible arrogance of fellow Texans, is that nature bites back. Pouring CO2 and other contaminants into the atmosphere will, and is, changing the climate in catastrophic ways.

So, Texas burns as Perry brags. Texas has ridiculously low tax rates, with high poverty rates and human misery as the result. But Texas oil, over the last century, changed the climate that will ultimately destroy the Lone Star state.

Watch for Perry, as this thing gets worse, to beg the federal government for help; in fact he already has by asking for a “state of emergency”. There was a minor dust up over this, with a Texas Republican claiming the federal government dragged its feet to send aid because Perry famously threatened to secede Texas out of the union. There was no basis to this charge, in fact federal aid is going to Texas to assist with the huge financial damage caused by climate change…I would be shot in Texas for using that phrase since all Texans are armed it seems (at school, in bars, in cars; you name it).

Gee, I thought the conservative’s hero stood for states’ rights with no central government (until there is a problem).

Let’s see how Texas weathers the weather that it helped ruin. Let's see if the "economic miracle" (didn't George W. use the same myth to get elected?) of Texas survives going years without adequate H20!

Machines Making Machines

2011-06-10T15:51:00.000-07:00

I have an "old Ipad" that I just noticed yesterday. I bought this "old Ipad" in 2006.

This "old Ipad" was remarkable for its time. You could play music on it of course, and listen to audible books. But, you could also side load movies to it (no wireless then) and watch them on your ipod!

Moreover, you could buy a connection cord, and stream the movie to a T.V. set!

This was cutting edge technology in 2006; five years ago. Today, that ipod is now an iphone and even an ipad, which I am using to write this article. These new digital inventions are light years ahead of that "old" 2006 ipod. These new gadgets now only play movies, but in high definition and with endless capability.

Manufacturing in the United States and in the global economy has seen the same proportional changes.

Today, I read in the N.Y. Times an article that reported on how American corporations are receiving record profits and are NOT hiring people, but rather investing in capital goods (machinery, technology; etc).

The nation is still mired in a possible double dip recession, in spite of the extension of the Bush tax cuts in January and even a payroll tax "holiday". As a result corporations are making record profits, and returning record dividends.

And, they are buying record amounts of new technology and hiring nobody!

And where are the jobs? The jobs are in the robotics, the "new Ipods" that in a sense are doing the work of workers that are "too expensive" to hire.

So two dramatic pieces of economic evidence are present here:

1. Tax cuts and even tax credits (the liberal way of tax cuts), no longer create investment that leads to job creation, in fact they do just the opposite, leading to investment that displaces workers. In a real sense they are now leading to job losses, companies are using the extra income to invest in technology that displaces human labor with machine labor. As one executive remarked, "We cannot compete with foreign cheap labor so we are buying machines to do the work". Machines are cheaper than people.

2. We are witnessing an unbelievable fast adoption of digital automation over analog automaton. Robotics are accelerating in manufacturing at a blistering pace. And, the digital machines that are displacing workers are manufactured in foreign countries adding insult to injury.

Machines are making machines, often never touched by human hands.

That Ipod I bought, for example in 2006, was made in the United States, today it is made in China. Technology now carries the label, "Invented in the USA, Manufactured in China, Vietnam, Japan; you name it. And, less human participation is involved in its production at every level save that of invention.

Many items are produced from inception to shipment, and are never touched by a human being!

So both the conservative remedy to job creation has been permanently discredited, and the liberal remedy to job creation has gone down also. Tax cuts and tax credits actually both ADD to the loss of jobs, not the other way around. Government instilled investment is having he opposite effect that was intended. The stimulus is being invested in machines that make machines.

In a real sense, spurring investment through getting more money to corporations, which was the theme of both Democratic and Republican administrations, is not working, and never will again.

And it is not necessarily working because corporations are greedy and seek to maximize profits. It's not working, because automation, especially digital automation is driving corporations to invest in new equipment and not new people.

And, this is occurring in the global economy as well. To compete globally, ALL manufacturing will automate, and robot "mate" as fast as they can.

Manufacturing by human hands is a dying labor form!

So, what do we do? How do we deal with the massive displacements of millions of workers? Neither political party has a plan for this that I know of!

In futuristic works of fiction, this was supposed to lead to lives of plenty and leisure. People were to be liberated from mind numbing assembly line work and be free to do what they wanted to do.

The reality is much more grim. Most countries, Germany being a big exception, that believe in the free enterprise economy, have simply allowed the unemployed to fester with no real safety net. In the United States we blame the unemployed for their fate.

In the United States, we have the conservatives that actually accuse the unemployed of remaining without work because they want to! Conservatives are actually claiming that people are purposefully staying on unemployment because it is there! Of course, the unemployed are NEVER going back to work in many cases, because the manufacturing jobs, and jobs that were spin offs of manufacturing, are simply gone; Chinese peasants are not doing the work, MACHINES are doing the work.

First, we need to stop the tax cuts, for everyone, right now! The tax cuts are actually accelerating joblessness. Moreover we need to look at Germany and the laws they passed to prepare the millions who are being displaced by the digital, global economy.

We also need to stop the corporate tax breaks and incentives, because they are actually damaging the economy by creating millions of unemployed.

The alternative is a permanent underclass of America and the likelihood of a Republican President in 2012, who will continue the tax cut madness that actually is CAUSING THE UNEMPLOYMENT PROBLEM!

Think about it. How much faster and better is the Ipad compared to the Ipod of 2006? If that kind of speed, power and capability is possible in an Ipod, can you imagine the "progress" that is occurring in robotics, that directly takes workers off the assembly line and is revolutionizing the global economy.

The Industrial Revolution moved millions from the farms to the assembly lines and revolutionized society.

The same kind of revolution is happening now; the problem is there is no place for the displaced to go!

We must adapt to it, change our economic approaches, and begin to protect our fellow citizens who are having their basic economic existence threatened. Otherwise, sooner or later, there will be a revolution of another kind as we are witnessing in the middle east today.

Unemployed middle class Americans, who once had the "good life" will not sit quietly by while their very existence is threatened. They will rise up, in various ways, attack their antagonists that will threaten the status quo and democracy itself.

Roosevelt understood this in 1933 and instead of becoming a dictator (that many urged him to do), decided to change the economic approach of the country through government regulation and leadership. In a real sense, that is our only alternative now.

To leave it to the corporations is crazy, because the corporations are acting in business responsible ways, that throw more people out of work every day.

We need government to lead here, business cannot, because business is simply doing what it needs to do, which is diametrically opposed to the national interest and is feeding the unemployment monster that endangers us all.

Redding Goes Right and Is Broke!

2011-06-06T08:26:00.000-07:00

You are right, Redding has a bad attitude. I am a native, born and raised here, so have lots of history (family is "Pioneer" Family: Shasta Historical Society).

This is why we are down:

1. The county swung right about 1970. We elected a conservative Congressman after years of Democrats. Mr. Herger has done nothing to help the economy of the region for thirty years. He has pandered to big drug companies, and has blithely become a multi-millionaire while his district became one of the poorest in the state. The amount of federal money he has courted is a pathetic fraction of what we used to get in the 50s and 60s. Have you seen any "Herger Dams" lately? So, strike one: lousy Congressional representation.

Strike two: A suffocating economic policy based on discredited conservative principles. The city of Redding has spread out all over the county; of late the city has made the horrible mistake of allowing Costco to re-locate (in trade for a police station of all things) which will decimate what is left of downtown. Big box mega stores will sit on Hwy 44 and Interstate 5, drawing people out of the city.

Urban sprawl while gas prices skyrocket! What are these people thinking?

The same lunacy almost built a auto mall in Churn Creek bottom, which would have been an economic disaster.

Where does this wing nut behavior come from? From the host of southern California transplants who have moved here who worship automobiles and urban sprawl.

Redding lost its charm thanks to them. Redding is poor because of them.

Strike three: An unbelievable string of horrible decisions surrounding economic development. We have courted retail and service (restaurants on every block), while ignoring educational institutions and government projects that could have brought technology industry to the region.

Shasta County is hostile to progressive ideas, so progressive industries stay away. If you are a M.I.T graduate, and want to do a start-up Internet business, you don't come to Redding, where right wing fanatics run the town.

Finally, imagine if Mr. Herger would have pushed for a highway improvement on 299 west to Eureka; and while he was at it pushed a railroad extension as well? We would have become the gateway to the west for all of Northern California and Southern Oregon.

Oh, I forgot these would have been big governmental projects, and the vast majority of Redding citizens believe Big Government is the devil.

So, we will sit up here, with 40% of our peers easing their pain with dope, alcoholism at record levels, groveling in the conservative heaven we have allowed to exist.

It's the politics stupid. Shasta Dam, and the Central Valley project revitalized northern California. When those ended, and we turned to the right, we bankrupted our economy and sold our future to Wally Herger and his special interests.

Right now, the wing nuts are pushing hard for a "Charter City", throwing away the consistent and successful city organization that has provided a well run city for sixty years, so two of them can have a shot at a well paying job (mayor). Pathetic!

If you want to check this, read our history; oh, that's right, now we deal with Palin History, so rewrite history and it will be all better.

Simply rewrite history about this and prosperity will somehow return.

Wing nuts unite, you have solved our problems and ruined our town!

On Our Terms

2011-06-01T12:55:00.000-07:00

Today, I was watching one of seemingly endless reports on the “stalemate” concerning extending the debt limit in Washington. The speaker of the house and other Republicans had just met with the President to discuss “negotiations” concerning the deficit and talks relating to increasing the debt limit of the federal government.

I was struck by a remark the speaker made. He said, after some posturing, “as long as the President accepts our terms, we can reach a settlement”.

I immediately stopped and uttered an expletive. When I was working, I spent at least ten years as either the lead negotiator or a member of the negotions team. I never have heard a negotiator say, “as long as they accept our terms”.

That is simply not done. Negotiators may say, we are working hard for our positions, or we believe in certain principles, but to say the other side has to accept “our terms” is unique.

And what are those terms? Senator McConnnel, has said Medicare Reform (ending it) is on the table! This is in the face of over 70% on every poll imaginable, who do not want Medicare substantially messed with.

But the cons do not care. The compromise must be “on our terms” or no deal.

They are playing with creating a potential financial meltdown that will have global ramifications, but any agreement must be “on their terms”

But nevermind, as the cons say. Sara Palin recently said, with a straight face, that the deficit is President Obama’s fault, and exceeds all the deficits in the history of Presidents. Oh, come on!

In 1945 the federal deficit was almost 100% of GDP. That was a deficit, that took almost 30 years to pay off.

And, the Republicans yelled about that too, ignoring that the deficit was developed to save the nation.

Bush did not have that excuse. He spent like there was no tomorrow, because it was the only way he could get re-elected. He personified the saying, “Anyone can get elected who cuts taxes and raises spending”.

So now we watch this merry dance, of the cons refusing to give up anything, hoping the President, whose re-election is coming up, blinks.

He better not. He blinked and extended the rich tax cuts, which has seriously damaged the country.

You see, in spite of the con lies, the rich (and corporations also) do not do what they promise to do. (GASP!!!)

They do not invest the extra income they keep because of tax cuts in the United States. Instead they invest in foreign companies, oil companies for example, because that is where the return is.

And, regardless of the con lies, ALL oil companies are global now. Not one owes any allegiance to the United States.

In fact, right now, Obama’s nominee for Commerce Secretary, is being opposed by Republicans because Obama will not support scuttling a bill that offers some protection from outsourcing to the few remaining American jobs left in the United States.

That’s right, Republicans were able to take control of the House, with a promise of jobs, jobs, jobs….and turn right around and hold a nomination hostage so they can outsource even more jobs out of the country.

Remember, these are their terms.

So far, the American people have been duped by this whole thing. Fox News preaches this garbage 24/7 aided by the conservative propaganda chorus that has people believing the world is flat. People would rather believe the lies, than face the truth:

We are going to have to raise some taxes to pay down the deficit. We essentially charged two wars, and we have to begin to pay the bill.
We need to develop an national energy policy to deal with the global warming that is killing hundreds of thousands in the world (and in Missouri).
We need to develop a national economic recovery policy that relies on government infrastructure partnerships between private and public investment; ideally focusing on clean energy initiatives.
We need to invest in our educational system so we can re-train a generation who have been displaced by outsourcing.

And we cannot even begin doing these things on “their terms”; because the bankrupt conservative economic policy got us in the mess in the first place.

Deniers!

2011-05-25T11:15:00.001-07:00

Deniers

The conservative deny machine is running at break neck speed.

Two areas of denial are particularly galling, dangerous and pathetically sad:

1. In the past weeks we have witnessed tornadoes in the midwest and south of Biblical proportions. The storms are massive in size and scope, killing scores and destroying billions of dollars in homes, businesses, farms; etc.

Climate Scientists, because of the "deniers" have been slow to blame climate change for this catastrophe because of the political power of climate change deniers.

If one actually reads the science, the overwhelming majority of articles predict the exact extreme weather we are experiencing.

Tornadoes are not totally understood by science. However, the ability to predict them and warn the public has increased greatly in the past twenty years due to computer models, radar improvement and satellite imagery.

This statement sounds exactly like why climate change scientists have improved their projections over the years. Computer models and the speed of computations (crunching numbers) has enabled scientists to be more accurate in predicting the tragic impact of the damage man has done to his environment.

The facts are overwhelming that climate change is driving these "killer tornadoes" Last week temperatures in Texas were well over 100 degrees (in May!) and wind shear and cold air coming down across the great plains were huge. When these two temperature masses clash, the effects are tornadoes and bizarre, extreme weather (hail the size of baseballs; etc).

This hits the heartland of America, where most climate deniers live. Oklahoma is a hot-bed of those who think global warming is a "liberal plot", and today they tremble in fear of a climate change catastrophe. Ironic and tragic!

The deep south is treading water as the Mississippi River floods at a one in 500 years flood, while conservative deniers call it "just crazy weather". Huh? C02 attracts H2O molecules (every high school biology student knows this) resulting in a "greenhouse effect" that retains water in the atmosphere. Add heat to this and you get more rain. More rain means more water, leading to floods. Oh, I forget, this is all just a liberal plot!

And still they deny that which is killing them!

2. On the tax front, Orville Norquist (what a name for a political operative) is visiting the California Legislature trying to get all Republicans to sign his NO TAX INCREASE EVER PLEDGE.

This comes a day after the Supreme Court in a split vote declared California's prison system "cruel and unusual punishment" in that it is hopelessly overcrowded with Turkish Prison like conditions. In fact, the conditions are worse than Turkish prisons!

These conditions resulted from when Californians passing a host of punitive, stupid conservative laws in a paranoid "law and order-crack down on crime" reactionary spending spree that expanded the California prison population way past the revenue income to pay for it.

California, shudder, spent more money than it had! And conservatives led the way!

Anyone can get elected if they promise to cut taxes AND raise spending: George W. Bush, Ronald Reagan; et al. The problem is the bill for this foolish denying does not go away!

Because Orville is running around scaring Republicans to death with his no tax increase hammer, California has a prison system that jails far too many and pays for less, resulting in overcrowding and an unconstitutional system. The resulting budget deficits are chronic and forever.

And what do the deniers say? Cut schools, cut mental health, cut, cut, cut to pay for more prisons.

The deniers take absolute no responsibility for passing laws that were completely underfunded. They never do!

California led the nation into the cut taxes fervor, led by Ronald Reagan. An ideology has grown up that is so out of touch with reality, that it continues to create social and economic disasters, just like global warming, everywhere.

The nation is running a ruinous deficit caused by a President who started two wars, and a war on terror, while massively cutting taxes. And now, the deniers blame the current President who inherited it all. And what do they now want to cut?

Medicare and Social Security are the targets, blaming seniors for the deficit that their "entitlement" programs had nothing to do creating!

What did President George W. Bush want to "reform" and raid for funds to pay for his deficit; Social Security! Does anyone remember the famous "use my political capital" that attacked social security, trying to privatize it and pour money into a Wall Street that led us into financial disaster in 2007! Have you ever wondered where we would be today if your social security funds had been invested in Wall Street!

The "Little Hoover Commission" churns out conservative denier propaganda attacking everything public and unions in particular, saying they are the cause of the deficit, while denying the impact of mindless tax cuts.

It's the revenue stupid! Tax cuts, reduce money to government. If you spend at record levels, while cutting taxes, you get a.........DEFICIT!

And the deniers do the same thing they are doing with global warming, they look right into the camera and DENY that tax cuts are causing the deficit....it is all progressive program spending that causes the problem, they say. This is not only a denial, it is a LIE!

Today, I mean right now, people are DYING in the midwest, being chewed up by killer, monster storms fed by the engine of global warming. Today, I mean right now, children are starving in America fed by the engine of tax cutter conservatives, who don't give a damn who gets hurt with their maniacal ideology.

This denier mentality is nothing new for the conservative movement in the United States.

In 1940, conservative leaders were denying the threat of Hitler AFTER Germany attacked Poland and even Russia. Cons attacked and almost blocked the Draft, which passed the House of Representatives by ONE vote! This was in 1940!

Herbert Hoover, remember Hoovervilles, denied to the day of his death that Roosevelt had anything to do with ending the Great Depression, and helped establish the Little Hoover Commission, that has been denying reality ever since.

What is the matter with these people? I would never wish tragedy on anyone, but it is ironic that the areas of the country that house the core of the conservative deniers, is now getting destroyed by the very thing they deny. People are dying, being flooded into oblivion, and still they deny!

The problem is nature does not lie. When conservatives put their heads in the sand and denied the threat of Adolph Hitler, history could not be denied. Nature does not deny. Nature is nature, it is simply there, and if you pay any attention at all, it is showing you every day what is real, and becoming more threatening to man's very existence every day.

History does not deny it is there for all to see if only you read and think!

Oh, one last comment: Today I read in the N.Y. Times that deniers in Arizona (go figure) now are claiming the tragic shooting of the Democratic Congresswoman was all a government plot to build support for the President. The shooting victims apparently were all actors, the whole thing was staged. I suppose the killing of the nine year old little girl, the funeral; etc., is all deniable. These people are sick! And still they deny...

Character?

2011-05-18T09:01:00.001-07:00

Character

Recently a "hit piece" of television "journalism" purported to expose the sins and personal lives of the Kennedy's.

The show was so controversial, it was produced by a right wing fanatic, that most mainstream cable shows would not touch it.

Rumors about the Kennedy's have gone on forever. The conservatives have loved to pound away at the alleged infidelities of the Kennedy's, especially President Kennedy.

Conservatives have harped on the need for "family values" in a holier than thou attempt to gain the high ground for elections.

Truth, of course, is not a value, because those who are being accused are all dead and cannot defend themselves.

Then there is Arnold. Gray Davis, was recalled as California's governor because of the "sin" of not balancing the budget and for the energy crisis of 2001. Both of these "crises" were not his fault, but the recall proceeded nonetheless.

In probably the worst case of political injustice and cynicism in the nation's history, Gray Davis was recalled successfully and Arnold was elected.

So, we got the man who promised to "blow up the boxes", to reform government, to add character to governing.

Meanwhile he was groping and screwing everything that walked. He impregnated one of his household staff, grabbed everything within reach, and even admitted to being in an orgy or two. He also admitted using steroids when he was winning bodybuilding contests.

And Gray Davis? Well, his biggest sin was than he was "bland". He was boring. He just was a governor.

If anyone believes Arnold's "story" that he had nothing to do with the recall, they also believe that Arnold is a moral man. He was in on the con; discrediting a sitting governor, to feed his endless ego.

Eight years later California is broke, its government is a mess. Arnold, true to form, played with the government, some would say fondled it, and ruined it.

And his reward? Well, he recently announced even more movies he will make, as the "governator".

And his conservative cronies, who engineered the whole thing? Why they are busy on hatchet jobs on dead liberal politicians whose indiscretions are at the very least fifty years old!

Character indeed!

Shoot Your Foot Off/Fox Commands It

2011-05-08T13:55:00.000-07:00

Shooting One's Foot Off

Today, on the way to Mother's Day Brunch, I casually picked up a Tea Party Newsletter in our local restaurant. As I read it briefly, my wife warned me to, "Put it down, it will only make you mad."

I read a couple articles briefly. One was lamenting the "true cause" of the economic recession we are in.

The other lamented the huge tax burden Americans are laboring under.

Both topics are standard stuff for the tea party crowd.

But, I know both authors. They are regular working class people; not store owners, nor are they "professionals".

Redding, my home town, is a small city, very conservative since about 1970, and home to quite a large tea party contingent. Currently a big news item concerns a tea party member who was handing out leaflets at the city library. Some citizens protested, wanting to be left alone when they visited the public library. The ACLU and the Tea Party are both arguing that it is free speech, and cannot be restricted. I suppose they will win out, First Amendment and all.

I digress; the topics of the two articles in the newsletter was what most caught my eye; and ire!

The reason for the Great Recession is (are you ready?) THE UNIONS!

In spite of the fact that union membership is at its lowest point in fifty years, unions caused the Great Recession.

Of course this is utter nonsense. But, it echoes the propaganda of Fox News right down the line.

The other article lambasted the size of government, calling for immediate and deep spending cuts to "balance the budget".

Nowhere was there any mention of the true cause of the "deficit". Of course, it all is Obama and the Democrat's fault.

Wrong again. Over 70% of the federal deficit was developed during the Bush Presidency because of the tax cuts, and fighting two wars at the same time (plus spending like there was no tomorrow, giving tax benefits to every corporation on earth, deregulation of the financial sector; etc.).

Without wasting time refuting the same old garbage that Fox regurgitates every day, something else is really bothersome.

The people who wrote these articles are regular people like me, except not college graduates. They are parroting what they hear on Fox News almost like robots.

This robotic allegiance to untruth and lies is alarming. I see it everyday, when I approach conservatives they are united in their allegiance to Fox News talking points.

The power of propaganda is amazing.

These people are arguing exactly against their own self interest. Redding used to be a union town. Wages were good. In the last twenty years unions have been broken, poverty has exploded, unemployment is over twenty percent, and the tea party blames the unions?

There are no unions to blame!

And, what is worse, is a total misunderstanding of the tax burden in California and the nation. All statistics point to the current tax burden in the United States as being the LOWEST IN SIXTY YEARS!

You would never know that if you listen to Fox News, or the the tea party. California's overall tax burden is something like fifteenth in the U.S., remarkable since California is the most populous state. A conservative legislative minority, thanks to the 2/3 requirement to raise taxes, is right now stopping all constructive efforts to deal with the state's deficit, leaving only huge spending cuts as a remedy.

All of this will dramatically and negatively affect Redding, California, since state government and education are a mainstay of the economy. Hundreds of teachers have received pink slips. If that payroll is reduced, the effect on the local economy will be devastating.

In a very real sense, the tea party is shooting its members' feet off to spite their faces.

They are so brainwashed that they are literally working against themselves. And, they are working very hard, water carriers for the rich (who they detest by the way). But, they trust Fox News implicitly.

Which, of course, is exactly what Fox News works for. Fool all the people all the time, get them to vote against themselves, and the rich will get richer.

Pathetic!