The 99% Left Holding the Bag

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

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

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

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

The Bonus Marchers and the 99%

During World War I, it became evident that the country could not pay its soldiers enough.  The war was fed by the largest peace time draft in the nation's history, larger than the Civil War.   And, unlike the Civil War, patriotic young men could not buy their way out of service.  During the Civil War the draft was very unpopular, resulting in some rioting.  To quell this anger, a draftee could pay someone else to take his place. 

Of course this meant that the rich did not have to fight, and many did not, as the casualty rates climbed into the hundreds of thousands. 

World War I was different.  A patriotic fervor shot through the country, as the United States entered the war to prove it was now a great power on the world stage. 

As usual, this inferiority complex was based on nothing, since America had been a world power for nearly one hundred years; after the Civil War the United States was without a doubt the most powerful military force on the planet, it just didn't know it.

So, the draft filled the ranks, and the war was fairly short by world war standards.  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 WWI veterans, who would be retiring about then.  Moreover, widows and orphans of veterans would also get the bonus.

This was the first "entitlement" benefit ever attempted by the United States government.  By today's standards it was ridiculous low, but it was a promise nonetheless.

Everything was fine until 1929.  The Great Depression made it clear that the government would have great difficulty making good on the bonus, since tax revenues had already been cut by Republicans during the 1920s, with the same assumption that the free enterprise system would fix everything.  This approach worked as well then as it has now, resulting in economic ruin, injustice and inequality. 

Of course, in 1929, 30 and 31, it was obvious the private enterprise system was failing, and the small bonus the veterans had been promised, became a "pipe dream".

At first this was not a big thing, after all it was a small amount of money for each veteran.  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 their economic futures. 

In 1930 there was no safety net.  Private charity was it, no welfare, no unemployment.  People were starving.

So the veterans marched.  They marched all over the country, calling attention to the unfairness of the American capitalist system.  To be sure, there were socialists and communists involved, seeing an opportunity for their cause (remember the Bolshevik Revolution was barely a decade old).  Regardless, there is no evidence that the radical left in fact led the Bonus March, even though conservatives have been claiming so eversince. 

Like today's 99 percent demonstrations, the Bonus Marches started peacefully.  After all these were veterans, of the Great War, and deserved respect.

Soon however, conservatives like Hoover lost patience with the marchers, and finally called in troops to contain the protests.  Famously, in Washington D.C. a riot broke out, mostly led by the bungling of  Douglas MacCarther (who even then was fancying himself a national leader).  The Army charged the marchers, shots were fired, and there were casualties.  The marchers were driven from their encampment, and Hoover was made out to be the villain;  attacking brave veterans.    In fact, history shows this debacle to be the Army's fault. 

Hoover's apparent lack of compassion, added to Roosevelt's campaign, and led to Hoover's defeat 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 economic injustice and are angry with the financial elites in the country.  And, conservatives are calling for violent put downs of their supposed unlawful assemblies. 

It is interesting,  to watch conservatives  when the obvious economic injustice of the United States is divulged.  Af first they are amused, then they discount the protests, then quickly they call for violent suppression. 

Of course, in the 30s this suppression only added fuel to the fire, leading to the New Deal under Roosevelt.

Should we be so lucky again this time!!!!

Lies, Lies, Lies

 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

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.