Here's Tea In Your Eye

(originally published at OpEdNews)

Once again, I’ve indirectly been accused of hating America. My ilk was included in the accusation. I can’t control my ilk, but I sure as hell don’t hate America. Those making such accusations don’t know what the hell America is.

I’ve been asked what’s better than capitalism, if capitalism is so bad? I’ve been asked if I know from experience of any other nation in which there is so much freedom. “What works better than our form of government?” Finally, and I thought that this wasn’t used anymore, it’s been suggested if I find a better place in which to live with more democracy and more freedom, I should move there.

Much to the chagrin of those who want to shrink government small enough to just be able to “fit in your bedroom”, a wonderful line once used in the concluded TV series The West Wing, the government of The FUSA utilizes capitalism and socialism.

I worked for a Fortune 500 global mega-corporation for 25 years. I started as a lowly operating technician back in 1972 and became an Operations Supervisor in 1988. As an Operations Supervisor, I was on the team that did the hiring for the plant site at which I worked.

Before I go into the specifics of that hiring process, I remember that, when affirmative action was introduced in the 60s and busing was initiated to basically force Caucasians and African Americans to look at each other as human beings, news reports showed White people shouting “Go back to Africa!” to the Black students getting off the school busses. Obviously, these people never learned that most of the ancestors of those Black people didn’t choose to come to America. Ignorance isn’t only bliss, it’s hatred as well.    
                      
I can remember another unbelievable scene during which Caucasians were yelling, “Go back to Africa!” to Black people. In the fall of 1962, President Kennedy ordered 3,000 federal troops to escort James Meredith to school. Meredith had been trying to attend The University of Mississippi for some time. He was twice denied entrance, simply because he was African American. Once again, the government, who cannot, I admit, legislate morality, at least forced a majority of human beings to allow another human being to attend college.

In 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, Caucasian bus driver James Blake noticed the unthinkable. White men were standing while an arrogant young Black woman had the gall to remain seated. It took until 1955, almost one hundred years after the enslaving of African Americans became illegal, for an honest to goodness on the books law be to enacted behind which White people like Blake cowered. Who ultimately supported Rosa Parks? The court system of the United States of America, a branch of the US government. I suspect that today’s teabagger fearing SCOTUS would have ruled in favor of Mr. Crowe. Strangely enough, Clarence Thomas would very likely have given into Mr. Crowe. There are some things that I shall never understand.

Africans were inhumanely and savagely stuffed into vessels and forced to “emigrate” to this continent starting in 1619. 1619! Descendents of Africans lived on this land for 336 years before the government of the United States of America insisted that they be treated like the human beings that they are. Although the government was slow, in the end, after protests and demonstrations, aided by an almost truly free press, the unconscionable treatment of a large segment of American society was brought to the attention of the American public.

336 years later, a woman was finally able to remain in a seat on a bus.

It took 343 years for descendents of African “immigrants” to be able to attend the public school of their choosing.

It took 346 years for Blacks to gain the unfettered right to vote in the United States. The right was gained by the 1965 Civil Rights Act, an act of the government of The United States. Today, agents of the private sector, which include the knee jerking teabaggers, want that Act overturned.

Africans weren’t here as slaves in 1492. Women were here, though. It took women 428 years to gain the right to vote. Again, it was a law, an amendment to The Constitution of The United States of America passed by the US government that forced those who didn’t believe women had enough intelligence to vote to stand aside and let women vote.

What kind of Constitutional amendments do teabaggers what to see passed? They want the sixteenth amendment overturned. The sixteenth amendment helps keep our nation strong by levying an income tax. They’ve also got their eyes on the seventeenth amendment, which allows US senators to be elected directly by the people. Apparently this is too much freedom for some teabaggers who would overturn the seventeenth amendment so that state legislatures would appoint US senators.

It took a miniscule 284 years for white, land owning males to gain all of the above rights and the only criteria for that to happen was the birth of a nation.

The detour I just took is relevant to the first experience I had as a member of the hiring team at the plant site for which I worked. Shortly after I became an Operations Supervisor, the hiring team met. I showed up a little late for that meeting. I walked into the conference room. There was grumbling.

The Operations Supervisors of the other two production plants on site, as well as the equivalent manager in the maintenance department and the Human Resources manager, all white men, were bitching because the Plant Manager, another Caucasian male, said we were being “forced” to hire Blacks, but they didn’t refer to them as Blacks (I’m merely reporting what I witnessed). They referred to them as “niggers” so that they could ensure one another that they were all on the same level and that level was higher, for some reason, than the “niggers” that they were about to interview.

We were also being asked to consider Hispanics. They referred to the Hispanics as spics. One member of the hiring team referred to the Hispanics as “gibbering idiots”.

Finally, we were being “forced” to give women a chance to show that they could do jobs previously done by men only. They referred to women as “god damned split-tails”.

For those of us who either thought or still think that name calling is the enterprise of second grade children, this exhibition of the scholarly use of the English language did/would change your mind instantly. The voice inflection was reminiscent of the sounds that would have been made by those very same second graders if recess had been cancelled for the day.

For me, this was a surreal moment. I had no idea that, in 1988, this was still going on. Not only was it still happening, but it was happening in the open, in the official conference room where a hiring team for one of the largest manufacturing corporations was meeting. It may not have been captured in the minutes of the meeting, but it was every bit a part of that meeting.

Sometime after that meeting, I rewarded a Black pipefitter with small bonus for going “above and beyond” to get the plant in which I was a supervisor up and running under an emergency situation. An hour later, my telephone rang. It was the maintenance supervisor. He asked, “What are you, Mike, some kind of nigger-lover?”

This was in the “blue”, liberal state of Connecticut.

This happened 33 years after Black Americans were legally allowed to sit in any seat on any public transport system in any state, 26 years after Black Americans were legally allowed to attend any public school in any state and 23 years after the government of the US finally got serious about outlawing the games that were being played in parts of the nation to keep African Americans away from the polls. I look back today and see future teabagger recruits.

We’re having work done in our home. A contractor looked the job over last week so that he could give us an estimate. He said he’d get back to us. He said he’d bring his partner next time. He said, “Don’t worry, my partner’s White.”

This is in the “blue” liberal state of California. I’m not sure if the man was “assuring” us that his partner wasn’t African American or Hispanic, but does it matter?

Though it should be obvious that the above examples of prejudice are wrong, I fear that those examples aren’t as isolated and unusual as they should be in 2011. In fact, as much as so called conservatives hated Bill Clinton, there were no large, nationally televised teabagger protests during his administration.

One might conclude that the above examples present proof that the laws that were passed by the government didn’t work. One might say that all people should be given an equal chance to succeed, but not all people who are in the position to help people succeed should be required to do so. The government mustn’t discriminate in favor of or against people based upon the color of their skin, their gender, their ethnicity or other personal characteristics, according to some teabaggers, but the government shouldn’t interfere with a business owner if that business owner doesn’t like those who are adorned in black or brown skin.

This is the private sector that so many teabaggers, not the least of whom is the Paul family, claim would be all too happy to be self regulating. Employers in the private sector range form multinational, Fortune 500 mega-corporations to local small contractors.

The small contractor will obviously never hire non whites.

The corporation mentioned several times herein may never have hired African Americans, Hispanics or women if it wasn’t for previous laws passed by the federal government. If a teabagger asks why the government of The FUSA is so “large and bureaucratic”, that teabagger needs to be reminded that the federal government needs resources to do what the private sector won’t do unless it’s forced and what the states are too chicken shit to do.

Colin Powell or Condoleezza Rice would never have become Secretary of State if the government hadn’t previously passed certain laws.

The private sector is now running the country. I call it The Corporacracy, although the word Corporatocracy is used more frequently. I’ve been calling it The Corporacracy for quite some time.

The federal minimum wage was $5.15 per hour in the United States until Congress raised it to $5.85 in 2007, $6.55 in 2008 and to $7.25 in 2009, where in now stands.

The Chief Executive Officer of the corporation for which I worked was compensated with $21,337,757 last year. In comparison, the $7.25 an hour minimum wage equals a yearly salary of $15080 which is $6970 below the poverty line and 7/10,000 of the CEOs compensation. This should make the teabaggers happy. There are plenty of Americans there that aren’t being protected.

“Get up off your ass and get a job” won’t cut it today nor did it ever cut it. In the 235 years of this nation’s existence, it’s been only during a relatively short time that employment was such that all people had to do was to “get up off their asses and get a job”. I refer to White people here since, as recently as 1988, a multinational Fortune 500 mega-corporation complained about hiring Black folks, Hispanics or women.

I’ve lived under a better government than this. That government was right here in The Former United States of America. It wasn’t a democratically elected Socialist government that would make equality a meaningful word in this country. It was, however, a government that didn’t mind governing, at least a little bit.

Unfortunately, it liked to govern so much that it tried governing Vietnam.

Unlike the clueless teabaggers, I want a government that governs. If I have to be taxed to help the less fortunate, so be it. The private sector would let those who they don’t hire begin relying on “churches” to keep them alive. If you believe, you get a reprieve.

I want a government that recognizes greed when it sees it and controls it to the best of its ability. It can’t cure the illness, but it can control the consequences. I also want a government that isn’t, itself, afflicted with the disease.

I want a government that’s ready to defend this nation, but keeps the troops home when this nation is not under attack. If this nation is under attack, I want a government that fights those who are attacking us and no one else. Most governments don’t go around putting out fires that don’t exist.

Controlling greed and ending war and poverty are not mutually exclusive. For those who are teabaggers because they’re so enamored of The Constitution, I think that those things fall comfortably under Preamble, the reason why, The Constitution was written:

“We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, 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.”


To friendship,
Michael

“Before a war military science seems a real science, like astronomy; but after a war it seems more like astrology.” - Rebecca West

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If It Was Blue

Teabaggers; Children of the Sixties?

(originally published at OpEdNews)

Before I get into the real purpose of writing this article, I’d like to express my admiration for Bill Maher. Maher is constantly corrected by conservatives when he refers to members of the Frankensteinien movement called The Tea Party Movement as teabaggers. Teabagging, as some of you may know, refers to an activity, usually done as a prank among college age males. It’s rude, crude and mocks certain parts of the anatomy. Those in the Teaparty Movement long ago pointed to the fact that calling them teabaggers was politically incorrect and an insult.

In 2010, President Obama signed The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) into law. Besides very wrongly referring to this bill as promoting socialism, those who oppose it have called it “Obamacare” since its inception and refuse to refer to it by its official title. They use this so called colloquialism because the sound of it could cause the president’s name to sound seedy.

Maher says that he will continue to call members of the Tea Party Movement “teabaggers” until people stop referring to The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act as Obamacare. I think it’s a fairly even trade. In fact I’d like to add that, even though some may not agree with the ideology of one of the two parts of our corporate party, they should stop referring to it as “The Democrat Party”. It is and has always been “The Democratic Party”.

Although many teabaggers belong to the generation who showed the courage and will to protest against inequity in the 1960s and early ‘70s, they revile that courage and will by appearing as though they’re using the same methodology to support that which people protested against 35 or 45 years ago. And this pisses me off.

In the 1960s and early ‘70s, people gathered in large crowds in protest to what the US government was doing. Most of those people were called Hippies, a word that was very often preceded by the pejorative “dirty”.

What people have been protesting recently, subsidized by some of the wealthiest people in the world and promoted by the likes of Michelle Bachman and former Texas governor Rick Perry, is the fact that the president is taking our rights away. They never really elucidate any specific rights that have been taken away from the average American. They have warned that, if given the opportunity to cut their medical bills by up to 30%, the America we used to know and love would turn into the 1960s Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

In the 1960s and early ‘70s, people came out in droves as well. They protested the use of Jim Crowe laws which kept people of color from exercising their right as Americans to vote in American elections. African American people, who were the main target, were not welcomed to sit in restaurants of their choice to eat a meal. People used the argument that states could make laws denying rights to certain people. The people who marched in the ‘60s wanted to stop this injustice, already in progress, to use television jargon.

Recent protesters, although every bit as angry as those in the 60s, don’t really have a chant, at least not one that I’d heard. I guess I’ve heard, “Kill the bill.” This, of course, refers to the government’s intention to intercede on behalf of American citizens to give them a chance to save 30% or more on their medical bills. Although The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was passed and signed into law, any meaningful health care bill was, indeed, killed. 

Teabaggers are still free to hand health insurance companies millions of dollars of which 70% goes towards covering some, but not all, medical expenses. It seems to follow that members of the teabaggers will “pay any price, bear any burden”, to quote John F. Kennedy, for health care insurance as long as it isn’t provided by the American government. They obviously take Ronald Reagan’s famous 1986 quote, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are I’m from the government and I’m here to help” very seriously. Lest we forget, Reagan was the leader of one of the three branches of government when he made that statement.

There was a war in progress in the 60s. It was based upon the lie that small North Vietnamese boats presented an untenable danger to two American destroyers. Many people didn’t want to send our young soldiers to Southeast Asia to fight an enemy which was born and raised in the jungles of Vietnam. Most of these people were young people. Military conscription was still in place and many young men who had plans for their futures began to fear that those plans would never come to fruition. The lie about the Gulf of Tonkin attacks gave the military/industrial complex a reason to convince the American government that Communism, a misnomer for the so called governance of any nation state, past or present, was a threat to the American way of life. Americans were told that the Communist government of North Vietnam had to be stopped in its quest to make Vietnam whole, as that wholeness would be under the power of a Communist government. Just like The Regime which ruled The FUSA (The Formerly United States of America) from 2001 until 2009 frightened Americans into initially supporting the illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003, in 1968, President Johnson said, “If we allow Vietnam to fall, tomorrow we’ll be fighting in Hawaii, and next week in San Francisco.”

While they were marching, many of the protestors chanted their displeasure of what was going on at that very moment with slogans such as, “Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?” They were frightened because there was a war in progress and there also was a draft in place and they didn’t want to be drafted to go to Vietnam to fight in a war that was basically unwinnable. They didn’t want the government to hurt them.
As stated a few paragraphs up, however, they did want the government to step in and provide justice for those who were oppressed in the land in which they lived.

Granted, there are two wars in progress today – well, one’s called an occupation. Both are illegal if one is to take what The Constitution of the United States says about The FUSA seriously. Neither the war turned occupation in Iraq nor the war in Afghanistan were ever declared as such by Congress, which has the sole power to do so.

Many remind us that, just as Congress gave LBJ The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution in 1964, Congress gave Front Man George W. Bush The Authorization for use of Military Force Against Iraq in 2001. In neither document does Congress declare war against anyone; nation state or street gang. Basically, both documents say to the president, “Looks bad, man. Do what you have to do to make it go away.”

We still call the action in Vietnam The Vietnam War and we called the invasion of Iraq in 2003 The War In Iraq. Wars can only be declared by Congress and in neither case did that happen.

The illegal, undeclared wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are something very specific. They were happening when the Tea Party Movement was “launched” and are still in progress in spite of the lie recently told to us by President Barack Obama. They have ruined lives and families, not only of American soldiers, but of Iraqis and Afghanis.

Yet, with all of the anger boiling over at the teabagger protests, none of it seems to be aimed at the two wars in progress. “In progress” are very important words when it comes to protests.

The Vietnam War and the Civil Rights movements were in progress when people protested in the ‘60s and ‘70s. Other than the two wars, the only thing that has been in progress since the Tea Party movements began have been the Tea Party protests.

It’s true that people have lost jobs and the deficit is sky high, but that was true in 2008. From the middle of 2001 until January of 2009, hundreds of thousands of jobs were being shed per month. That was in progress at that time, yet no Tea Party protests of note were taking place.

The US deficit began to rise in 2001. The Tea Party wanted to stop the “out of control spending” of President Obama and the Democratic Congress. They even promised to use impeachment, if necessary.

The teabaggers have claimed that Americans are losing their freedoms, but can point to no specific freedom which has been lost.

They complain about taxes, yet ride along government built and government maintained interstate highways to get to their protests. They possibly fly to those protests in jets protected, in part, by the federally operated Department of Homeland Security and, in part, by the Federal Aviation Administration.

Some have brought guns to their rallies to protest that their guns have been taken from them.

The protests of the 60s were brought on by the culmination of unjust treatment of people within the borders of what was then The United States or the growing deaths of young men who were being forcefully given the choice to go to the jungles of Southeast Asia or to jail. They were organic in nature. Speakers were not paid performers, but angry members of the protests. They were protesting the fact that the president and the Congress were not protecting them in the spirit of The Constitution. They were not legislating in accordance to the Constitution, especially the 14th Amendment. States were, indeed, making laws which abridged “the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States”. They were also depriving people “of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law”; and they were still attempting to deny people within their jurisdictions “the equal protection of the laws.”

If one reads the Constitution, one will note that most of the articles and amendments spell out ways in which citizens of America should be protected, either from the federal government or from the state government. The Constitution is not a document which lists ways in which state governments would be protected from the federal government and it certainly is not a list of ways to deny rights to citizens - human being citizens, that is.

It’s for this reason that the teabaggers, in their attempt to utilize a tool which was used earlier by those who marched in favor of equality and peace and in favor of government intervention to implement equality and peace, have defiled that tool.

While the protestors of the 60s were complaining that the government was not doing enough to “promote the general welfare”, one reason given for writing The Constitution, at their protests, teabaggers complain that the government should stop trying to “promote the general welfare”.

There were states that, in the 1960s, were using what were called Jim Crowe laws to justify squelching the rights of African Americans to go into places into which anyone who was not African American could go, like privately owned restaurants, and interfering with the rights of many, especially African Americans, to vote. Today, teabaggers are protesting in favor of the rights of private business owners to decide not to hire people whose skin or ethnicity is not what they’d like them to be and to increase the difficulty in voting that they feel should be faced by certain segments of American society, especially African Americans and people of Hispanic decent.

To paraphrase Rand Paul, Republican Senator from Kentucky, the government has no right to force restaurant owners to serve Black customers if the restaurant owners don’t want to serve Black customers. Paul claims that, when people learn that a certain restaurant is practicing this kind of racism, people will stop frequenting the restaurant and the restaurant will fail.

First of all, any restaurant that was still in business in the 1960s which was allowed, via Jim Crowe laws, to deny service to African Americans was still in business because their customers either didn’t mind that African Americans were not served or they outright liked the idea. These restaurants remained in business because it was obvious that their customer base was OK with their segregationist policies.

Secondly, in speaking of restaurants, while the suggestion made by Rand Paul is absurd, it, at least, has some potential to work. When speaking of voting, would Paul have suggested that people would no longer vote in Kentucky if Kentucky used unethical methods to keeps African Americans and Hispanics from voting? As unlikely as the restaurant scenario would be, the voting scenario would prove entirely absurd.

Yet, allowing states to make it difficult for Hispanics or Blacks to vote is a “state’s right” in which the federal government should not be concerned in the eyes of teabaggers.

Most articles and amendments to The Constitution of The United States were written for the benefit of its citizens and, more specifically, to ensure that none of its citizens were excluded from participating in American governance. Granted, the founders lived in a time when some human beings weren’t even considered as such. In the beginning, voting was the exclusive right of white males who owned property. The fact that James Adams, the second president of The United States, served only one term, was one piece of evidence that even white male land owners didn’t believe in an exclusionary version of representative democracy. Adams, if given the latitude, may have introduced a monarchy into the United States. At any rate, he would have done nothing to open up participation to all citizens of The United States.

We didn’t see many posters bearing quotes and/or images of John Adams during the protests of the ‘60s and early ‘70s. Those protests supported a more open, more transparent and less violent society.

Teabaggers’ protests, although they may at times look like the protests of 35-45 years ago, have almost nothing in common with those past protests. Teabaggerss’ protests are subsidized by the very kinds of people that the protests of the 60s and 70s targeted. Teabaggers want to allow states to close their societies if that’s what states want to do. Teabaggers want to protect the rights of the very wealthy, although many on the level of those who do the protesting don’t believe that truth. Teabaggers don’t want the wealthy so called “job creators” taxed or regulated because the “job creators” will not create jobs. Teabaggers have not looked at recent history and seen that the tax cuts that the “job creators” were given by The Regime, otherwise known as the Bush Administration, did many things, but they did not help create jobs. In fact, job loss was prolific during those eight years.

Nonetheless, teabaggers have hijacked the spirit of the protests which took place in the 60s and early 70s while rallying against the substance of the earlier protests. They’ve insulted what were real grass roots protests which favored the rights of all people of all colors and all ethnicities. The wealthy greedheads who started this present teabagger movement have appealed to the darker side of human nature and we should cut them absolutely no slack. Those who participate in the rallies and protests should also be cut no slack as they are, apparently, either racist enough to agree with their masters or too unaware of what’s going on to be taken seriously.
Power to the people!

To friendship,
Michael

“At the feast of ego everyone leaves hungry.” – Anonymous

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To A Dream

Will “Americans Elect” Their President in 2012?

(originally published at OpEdNews)

We’ve all heard the cliché, “If something seems too good to be true, it probably is.”

If we tell a conservative that we live in a democracy, most of the time the conservative will respond in the negative.  “No we don’t,” the conservative will say.  “We live in a Democratic Republic.”

We know that the difference between pure democracy, or, as it’s more commonly known, direct democracy, and a democratic republic is that the voters don’t vote for candidates and legislation in a democratic republic.  They merely vote for candidates to represent them in places where legislation in debated and laws are made.  However, other than in the case of the president of the Formerly United States of America and the vice president of The FUSA, the process in which we choose our representatives is a democratic process.  We go to the polls and vote and the candidate who obtains the greatest number of votes wins the right to represent the voters.

One of the reasons we don’t live in a direct democracy is because, from the very beginning of our nation, direct democracy has been under attack.  John Adams, the second president of the then United States of America, said, “Men in general in every society, who are wholly destitute of property, are also too little acquainted with public affairs to form a right judgment, and too dependent upon other men to have a will of their own.”  He said this even as his own wife, Abigail, tried to convince him that women should have the right to vote.  Adams thought that possibility both laughable and frightening.

Not long ago, I hitched on to the direct democracy movement promoted by a man named Stephen Neitzke.  Neitzke states that direct democracy includes initiative, referendum and recall.  Although, as we’ve recently witnessed in Wisconsin, many states have added direct democracy to their constitutions, it’s not difficult to see how initiative, referendum and recall might prove cumbersome on a national level.  Nonetheless, it would be the fairest method of self governance.

Add to that the monopolization of our media and the fact that many people get the information they would need to help them decide the issues from biased news sources and the above Adams quote seems to pick up some legitimacy.

I don’t want to presume to speak for Mr. Neitzke, but, as I’ve read much of his writing, it seems to me that he leans a bit to the left.  I’ve read nothing of his that would suggest that he is even mildly a socialist, but his leanings are toward giving more power to all people.  He has also written about taking power away from corporations.

This is why when I heard of a non-movement called Americans Elect, I became fairly optimistically curious.  AE describes itself as “…the first-ever open nominating process. We're using the Internet to give every single voter—Democrat, Republican or independent—the power to nominate a presidential ticket in 2012.”  Any American who is qualified to vote in The FUSA can sign up to be a delegate to an online “convention” that AE will hold in June.  AE will use the convention to nominate a presidential ticket.  It claims that it neither has nor supports any political agenda or candidate.  It claims that the ticket will reflect the wishes of the delegates.  It insists that it is not a third party, although, in order to get its candidates on the ballots of many states, it has to petition the states as if it was a political party.

At this point, my own ideology will become obvious.  I believe it can be said that people like Karl Rove, the Koch Brothers or anyone to the right of center would not create a method to open up direct access to our political process to more people.  I pretty much thought that, although AE claims to not promote an ideology of its own, the mere fact that it is creating an open process places it in the center, if not to the left of center.  The problem with Democrats, if not Progressives, as I’ve seen it throughout the years, is that they attempt to open up their tent to anyone and everyone.  This is why those who disdain government such as Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush, were able to do more governing than Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.  Reagan and the Bushes had a Congress with which to work; Clinton and Obama had/have Congresses to whom they can surrender.  That is not the entire reason why those “progressives”, Clinton and Obama, did not/are not passing progressive legislation, of course, but there’s enough to that explanation to write another entire article.

At any rate, the fact that Americans Elect seemed like an attempt to include/involve more people in our political process has, in my mind, “Progressive” written all over it.

I then did some research.

Americans Elect is led by an extremely wealthy ex-Marine named Elliot Ackerman.  He is the son of Peter Ackerman, probably a billionaire and a member of the right wing Cato Institute.  The Cato Institute promotes the privatization of Social Security and supports the so called pledge that Grover Norquist somehow forces most Republican members of Congress to sign.  The pledge promises that the signatory will never, in any way, shape or form, vote to raise taxes.  It’s a pledge that obviously can only be signed if the signatory has a clear view of the future.

In addition to being run by a billionaire, AE materials “state that the organization will promote the “sensible center”, centrist budgetary views, and a resurgence of centrist politics. The bylaws of Americans Elect state “The ticket shall be balanced around centrist principles…””  We all know that Senator Bernie Sanders has said he will not run in 2012 and Dennis Kucinich has not, thus far, threatened to challenge President Obama.  According to the “materials” mentioned above, however, Americans Elect would probably have no tolerance for placing either of those people on any presidential ticket.  The same could be said about Rick Perry or Michelle Bachman.  So much for not having any ideology, hey?

A second troubling aspect of Americans Elect is who they’ve chosen to collect signatures for petitions that would put them on the ballot in all fifty states.

AE has hired Arno Political Consultants of California to collect signatures.  However, Arno Political Consultants have a seedy history.

In 2005, Arno was hired by The Massachusetts Family Institute, an organization wishing to ban same sex marriage, to collect signatures for petitions supporting their movement.  What Arno did was to tell unsuspecting passersby that they were signing a petition to allow grocery stores to sell wine.  The potential signers agreed with that goal and signed the petition.  The Arno employee would then flip the page and ask the signer to sign a “back-up” copy for their records.  When the page was flipped, it was flipped to a totally unrelated petition, a petition which supported the banning of same sex marriage.  Thousands of petition signers believed the paid petitioners and actually unwittingly signed a petition banning same sex marriage.  The state legislature discovered Arno’s bait and switch method and reported it to The Massachusetts Family Institute.  The institute claimed they didn’t know that this unethical methodology was happening.

This wasn’t the first and/or only time that AE’s trusted signature gathering contractor had pulled this kind of bait and switch move in getting signatures on petitions.

There is also a serious problem with who is funding Americans Elect.

For the most part, AE is not showing the good faith transparency that a Progressive would want them to show.  Americans Elect has raised $20 million from just 50 people, a whopping average contribution of $400,000 per person.  Although I signed on as a “delegate” to AE, I can assure you that I am not one of those 50 people.

The only donations that are transparent so far are:

1. $1.55 million worth of contributions from Peter Ackerman

2. An undisclosed amount contributed by hedge fund operator Kirk Rostron.     

Hedge Funds, as we all know, are filled to the brim with derivatives.  Most of us know that derivatives are bets placed by Wall Street investors.  We also know that these patriotic investors bet that Americans would fail to maintain their subprime mortgages and would default.  Not surprisingly, most of them were right.  They did bet on other pro-American “games” like pension funds.   Again, they optimistically bet that pension funds would be wiped out and, again, for the most part, they were right.

Those bets were backed up by firms such as Goldman Sachs, whence many of the members of the last administration as well as the present administration came and, no doubt, to which they will return.  When GS couldn’t come up with the cash to pay all of the gamblers that they insured, we, the taxpayers, bailed them out.                                    

3. Jim Holbrook, who as CEO of the marketing firms Emak Worldwide, Neighbor and Upshot, has special interests in the advancement of the marketing industry. More than this, though, Jim Holbrook is Chairman of the Promotion Marketing Association, a trade organization for the $750 Billion industry. The website of the Promotion Marketing Association makes it clear that it has special interests and is dedicated to pursuing those special interests in the spheres of American law and government. It has an entire section devoted to “Legal and Governmental Affairs”, with a publication entitled “PMA Legal Watch,” a “PMA International Law Book,” and an annual Marketing Law Conference. The PMA Bylaws stipulate explicitly that it is an organization dedicated to pursuing the interests of the promotion marketing industry.

The identities of the other 47 contributors are still a mystery.

Another mystery is what Ainsley Perrien, “Press Secretary” for AE, told OEN in a phone interview.  “Americans Elect would like to see a ticket which contains two people who have differing ideologies.”  Can you see it now?  Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders will be on the East Coast while Vice Presidential candidate Rick Perry is on the West Coast disagreeing with everything Sanders is saying to the east of him.

Last but not least is a legitimate concern about the security of the site.  Could someone actually hack the site and “stuff the ballot box”, so to speak?  Even though Joshua Levine, former Chief Technology Officer for E-Trade, is the person who will be overseeing this part of the operation, it doesn’t seem to matter, does it?  I’m more concerned about the hacking that may very well come from within the organization than from without.

Does this fly in the face of my original premise that such right of center people and organizations wouldn’t even consider opening up our electoral process in what seems to be such a democratic fashion?  Yes, unless, of course, those who created Americans Elect are hoping that more Progressives than Conservatives would find their methodology appealing.  Of course, we Progressives are quite disappointed in President Obama’s becoming the third best Republican president in American history - after Lincoln and Clinton.  Many of us want to see Obama primaried, will cast our vote for the Green or Socialist Party or will just stay home on Election Day. 

Ah, but now we have another choice.  Americans Elect will help us not only to vote for an alternative to Obama, but will allow us to nominate those candidates.  That’s a hook into which Progressives can really sink the roofs of their mouths.

I don’t claim to be able to read minds, but I would almost bet that the real purpose of Americans Elect is to take votes away from President Obama.  It sounds so appealing that it just may work.

Of course, it’s good that the Ackermans and their ilk have money with which to cavalierly play because I’m not really certain that they need to go through all of this trouble to pull votes from Barack Obama.

Nonetheless, just so that you aren’t suckered by AE, I strongly suggest that you stay away from their dirty trick.  If you want Obama to lose, vote for someone else or don’t show up.  However, don’t allow the sleazebags at AE to control you.  That’s just my suggestion.  Take it or leave it.

To friendship,

Michael

“Any American who is prepared to run for president should automatically, by definition, be disqualified from ever doing so.” - Gore Vidal

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What The President Say

LA Socialist Local Holds Organizing Meeting (Discussion with Mimi Soltysik, Local Chair)

(originally published at OpEdNews)

The Los Angeles County Local of The Socialist Party of The United States of America held an organizing meeting in LA on December 11, 2010.

I attended the meeting to capture for OEN what American Socialists are doing to free us from the one party, two name corporate dictatorship under which the American government operates. In the name of full disclosure, I am also a member of The SPUSA, but not of the LA County local.

In attendance at the meeting were Lynn Lomibao and Rich Fuller, leaders of The Feminist & Family Services Committee, Mohammed Arif, leader of The Muslim Affairs Committee, Justin Simons, leader of the Youth Action Committee and Lauren Avery, Gay and Lesbian Affairs Committee leader.

Also at the meeting was Stewart Alexander, The SPUSA’s 2008 vice presidential candidate. Stewart’s presence seemed to have an invigorating affect on the others in attendance.

The meeting was Chaired by Mimi Soltysik, Chair of the LA County Local of the Socialist Party.

I caught up with Mimi a few days after the meeting to ask him about the goals set at the meeting and his impression of how much longer Americans can exist under a corporate dictatorship.

MB: Mimi, thanks for taking the time to talk to me. I hope that this doesn’t take more than an hour of your time. I know you’ve got some recruiting to do.

MS: Rock it, my friend.

MB: How many people actually belong to Socialist Party of the United States of America and how many belong to your local?

MS: Your first question would probably be best directed to Greg Pason at national. He probably has the most accurate numbers.

I know that in the 2008 general election, there were 6,528 votes cast for Brian Moore and Stewart Alexander.

As far as the L.A. Local is concerned, the best figure I can give you is the number of those registered in the state, which I believe is right around 100.

Numbers haven't been a huge part of the focus in the first six or seven weeks that I've been in this position. Organizing a foundation that can be built upon has been the primary focus to this point and we’re starting to see some results in that area

MB: If not in numbers, how are you measuring your results? In what ways have these results manifested themselves?

MS: A few things we've been able to do in the first weeks.

We have a Facebook page up and running which has acted as an information hub.

We’ve been posting releases on places like Indy Media to let the general public know that the Socialist Party in Los Angeles is up and running, that there’s an active presence in Los Angeles with an infrastructure positioned to move forward with the Socialist agenda.

We have people in place who are motivated to carry out the Socialist agenda in the context of their particular fields of interest.

We organized and carried out our first meeting in Los Angeles, which you were a part of, to set up issue-specific committees intended to carry forth a plan of action in the community. People have volunteered to run with those committees and these volunteers are already meeting and setting up dates for future plans of action to have a positive impact in the Los Angeles County.

We are seeing this with the Feminism / Family Services Committee, the Youth Action Committee, and the Gay and Lesbian Committee.

We have a goal, which is to reach 10,000 Los Angeles residents who have registered with the Socialist Party in a one year time period.

Having said all of this, we are still in need of help, which we are actively seeking. Los Angeles County is the largest in the country and as I mentioned in the meeting, we need a sizable cadre of members to run with the Socialist agenda, to reach every pocket of the County, to provide examples of how the Socialist Party is determined to satisfy the needs of the working class, the impoverished, the hungry, the disenfranchised. As Chair of the Los Angeles Local, I can only hope to facilitate this process.

MB: Well, I think I may have asked the wrong question or I’m not understanding the meaning of that last answer. There are 10,000 registered Socialists in LA?

MS: Oh no. I think there are roughly 100 registered in the state of California. The goal is 10,000 by the end of 2011.

A goal of 10,000 registered in the city of Los Angeles.

MB: That makes more sense. I was going to ask why those 10,000 didn't vote for the Socialists.

MS: I think that there were less than 7,000 who voted Socialist nationwide in the '08 general election.

MB: 6,528 votes is a far cry from the 900,000 votes that Gene Debs was able to receive at the beginning of last century. What do you think happened to those Socialists and, judging from the activity in the LA area, is there anything that can be done to recapture what Debs was able to bring to Socialism?

MS: Let me start by saying that my answers are purely my own and that I give great deference to Greg Pason and Stewart Alexander, as well as Lynn Lomibao and others active in the Party.

I believe that the political and social climate is considerably different now than when Eugene Debs garnered 900,000 votes across the country. Third parties haven’t had a lot of success in the U.S. as of late.

MB: That's putting it mildly.

MS: It appears that corporate politics has really got a stranglehold on the electorate.

Ballot access is incredibly difficult, the debates are a joke and the Democrats and Republicans have been highly effective, along with mainstream media, at erasing third party politics from the collective consciousness of the general public.

But, that can sound like an excuse.

We have to become more active on a personal and then a collective level.

MB: What's the connection between the locals and the national party?

MS: They make themselves available when I have questions and request literature. More than anything else, they seem to be comfortable with the autonomy of the Los Angeles Local. Which we all greatly appreciate. Not that we aren't open to working with them on a more frequent basis, but they're 3,000 miles away, so it might be difficult to run every decision by them in real time.

Stewart Alexander, the California Chair, is always there to offer support and advice.

MB: So the SPUSA supports the locals instead of the other way around?

MS: With 100 registered Socialists in California, I don't know how much more we can offer at this point aside from moral support and our commitment to build the Party to be the success we all know it can be.

Los Angeles is the largest county in the country and if we walk the walk, we should be able to accomplish this.

MB: How many locals are there in the US and do any approach the size of LA?

MS: That would definitely be a question for Greg Pason. Geographically, we might cover more area than other locals, but I suspect that, at this point, there are other locals in the country that have a greater membership than L.A. We really are starting fresh.

MB: CA is known for its "progressive" leanings, yet with Prop 8 and the recent ban on pot, it may not be as progressive as many think. Do you think that LA may be an easier target than an east coast target? Do you think we can ever get the Midwest to actually lead the charge again? Sorry, I think I asked three questions.

And by target, I mean is LA more open to Socialistic ideals.

MS: I think that for far too many, Los Angeles is a struggle. A struggle to pay rent, a struggle to find a job, a struggle to feed a family. As a result, Socialism is an approach that would offer the types of solutions many need. I think Los Angeles offers a tremendous opportunity to have a positive effect as far as quality of life is concerned. I would agree, however, that the perception of Los Angeles being highly progressive politically is somewhat off base.

MB: So, are you finding more acceptance? Is 10,000 a reasonable goal? Or is 10,000 an ambitious goal?

MS: I think 10,000 is both ambitious and achievable. We've got roughly 10,000,000 residents in Los Angeles County. I think that, once the full court press is in effect, 10,000 will appear all the more likely.

I don’t know, historically, how much effort has been put into recruitment in Los Angeles County. I know that effort will be placed on recruitment in L.A. County.

MB: Fear of Socialism probably started when Wilson wouldn't support the Bolsheviks. Communism, which Americans were told was going on in Russia, began to be equated with Socialism. Then came Stalin and he was a scary dude. McCarthy took off on that. Khrushchev and Kennedy heightened the fear and, judging from the ridiculous ad campaign against universal health care, that fear of Socialism has been branded into the American brain. Do you think an unwarranted fear of "communism" is the biggest hurdle you have to overcome?

Or just the word Socialism?

MS: Maybe the perceived correlation between Socialism and Stalinism. However, the further removed the general public is from the Cold War, it would make sense that Socialism would be discussed in a context that has less and less to do with Stalinism. To be honest with you, what I find most shocking is those on the far left who continue to reiterate this problem. It seems to drive home the notion that such a problem exists. It may exist to Glen Beck and those who find him credible, but I think we’re finding ourselves moving into a new era. It’s becoming much more difficult for the mainstream media to sell the idea that Chávez and Morales are bogeymen, in my opinion.

We may never see the day where the majority of Fox viewers embrace Socialism and that’s okay.

We need to see the day where equality is a reality for the people of this country.

MB: More difficult to sell the idea?

MS: I think that, if we stop painting the possible embrace of Socialism as impossible, we’ve already crossed a major hurdle.

If you present the Party platform to people, they can, and often do, decide for themselves that this is an option that meets their basic needs.

I do believe that people are fed up with corporate politics. They’re fed up, they’re tired and they’re angry. We need to unify and fight. The time for concession is over. Fat cats have had fun at the expense of the working class for way too long and I think people will gradually become more amenable to what Socialism has to offer.

MB: A little while back, you mentioned that people on the left are actually heightening the fear of Socialism. I’ve read both the SPUSA and Green Party platforms. They’re almost interchangeable. And there’s strength in numbers. Have there been any overtures either way? It seems as if the Green Party name tends to make it appear to be a one issue party. Are they not really Socialists as well?

MS: People may think the Green Party is primarily focused on environmental issues, but like you said, their platform is pretty comprehensive. I think there are some Socialist ideals included in the Green Party platform. I don't know that they capture the demand for equality in quite the same way the Socialist Party does.

In my opinion, the time for concession has reached its conclusion.

MB: Really. It sounds as if it’s been tried, then.

MS: I can’t speak on behalf of the efforts of others. Personally, I admire many who’ve run on Green Party tickets, but I don’t know how much effort has been placed on uniting the two parties.

MB: Maybe the word scares them a bit, as well. In CA, the Peace And Freedom Party had a platform much like yours. Was the Peace and Freedom party representing the Socialist Party? Was there a connection?

MS: I know that Stewart Alexander had a past connection with the Peace and Freedom Party.

As far as this new incarnation of the Los Angeles Local is concerned, there has been no connection.

Our primary focus is organizing and achieving the level of unity required to take this fight to the streets.

MB: OK so there’s that unity again. And the Greens and PAFP are so close to Socialists. I won't belabor that point anymore, though.

MS: There’s no problem with coalition building, in my opinion. We’re open to that.

I was happy to know that many friends voted for Carlos Alvarez.

MB: Let’s look at the other end of the spectrum. Having made use of the phrase "nanny state", Libertarians say that Socialism flies in the face of America’s “can do” attitude. How do you answer the “nanny stat” argument?

MS: I think that the corporate elite have a much better idea of what a nanny state looks like than the working class.

MB: Touché. Does part of your messaging speak to the basic misconception of Socialism=USSR?

MS: To be honest with you, what I find most shocking is those on the far left who continue to reiterate this problem. It seems to drive home the notion that such a problem exists.

I’m not saying that this perception doesn’t exist. It does.

What I am saying is that we intend to focus on what Socialism is and what it offers the working class. If we can collectively concentrate on that, I think we’ll start to see real progress.

I think we know why many connect socialism to Stalinism and it’s time to let that connection die. It’s an absurd connection.

MB: If you were to compare your ultimate goal, would it line up more with what Marx, Engels and Trotsky wrote about or more with what Scandinavia, especially the Swedes, have done?

MS: I think that Marx, Engels and Trotsky can’t be ignored. But, many in the United States have a very limited knowledge of who these people are and what they stand for. We have a responsibility to present those historical examples in a way that’s palatable and practical for the daily life of the working class. With an educated and empowered working class, I think we’ll see something a bit different from the sorts of Socialism practiced in the rest of the world. We can maintain an identity, while still adhering to Socialist principles.

I think the goal is to experience what a Socialist United States might look and feel like.

The people of the U.S. can be tremendously caring, charitable and sensitive.

The government and the media have enacted a masterful campaign of misinformation.

No more. Now, we can and should look to other Socialist countries in Europe with an open mind. Evidence shows that they enjoy a quality of life that we don’t experience here.

MB: The Greens have been going at it for quite a few years now and are very proud when they make any inroads. However, do we still have time in this country to build up slowly? We’re not in the same position we were in after the ’29 Depression. Manufacturing was still here back then. We’ve obviously lost it to cheaper labor. So, does the SPUSA have any plans to fast track its movement? I know this sounds like a question for Greg, right?

I fear that this country can’t really wait another 30 years for a paradigm shift.

MS: I hear what you’re saying and I agree. We intend to maintain a radical and revolutionary position and be as timely as possible. The mechanisms in place to deter this sort of movement are institutionalized and that’s an enormous factor. Many of us in the Los Angeles local spend a lot of time looking at our watches, wondering how we could’ve made better use of our time to push forth the agenda. I promise you that we take this seriously. It’s incredibly difficult to look in the mirror that you bought when you know that your neighbor is sleeping in his or her car.

Screw that. That’s unacceptable.

And, it’s disgusting.

Many who are much brighter than I have attempted to change this system, and I try to maintain a sense of reality. But I’m sincere when I say that the expectations couldn’t be higher.

MB: Agreed. Are there any “big spenders” in the LA area that you can access? For example, Bill Maher seems to be moving more and more to the left. Would it be possible to access him? And I know there have to be others.

MS: I think Bill Maher is funny, but I’m not sure he’d be willing to align himself with the Socialist Party. He has a boss. Do you remember seeing Michael Moore and Bill Maher on their knees begging Ralph Nader to drop out of the 2004 election?

Pretty gross, man.

MB: I don’t think that’s going to happen much more often. Yes I remember. Don’t you think that people have been duped enough by this “drop out or you'll screw it up for the Democrats” ploy? The Democrats have proven they drink from the same trough as the other guys.

MS: I’m not sure. I thought that might be the case in ‘08 until I looked at the numbers for Nader and McKinney. I know I’m not the first to say this, far from it, but Obama really laid an amazing marketing campaign on the people.

MB: I’ve fallen for it twice in a row and I thought I was smarter than that. But who didn’t want to be in on electing the first Black president, right? It’s proven to be a bust, hasn’t it?

MS: Man, I thought, and think, that Cynthia McKinney is a rad lady.

The real McCoy.

MB: I hope that we are all getting smarter than that.

MS: I hope so too. I’m optimistic. I know I’ve told you this before, but I was humbled by the effort you took to make it to our meeting. That has to be a good sign, doesn’t it? That a man in Antioch is willing to purchase a plane ticket to attend a Socialist Party meeting in Los Angeles?

A handful more Michael Bonannos and we're in business!!!

MB: Thanks. I have a lot of questions, but, as you say, many of them might better be asked of Greg. Thanks for giving me your time and you know I wish you all the luck in the world surpassing your goal.

MS: Thank you very much!! I look forward to the article.

MB: Have a good night, man.

MS: You too, my friend.

I, too, was humbled by Zolystik's compliment and, as mentioned, I did make the one day flight from the Bay Area to LA to report what happened at the Socialist meeting to OEN readers.

However, as a fairly new member of the party, I wanted to see what kind of “tyrannical” organization I’d joined. I suspected I didn’t join a tyrannical organization at all and, boy, howdy, was I right!

The number attending the meeting was small as one would imagine with a total of only 100 in the local party. However, they made up for their size with their enthusiasm. One would have thought that there was another million out there that maybe just couldn’t make the meeting.

There was none of the dry, whiny, cynical speech that we hear on C-Span everyday from Congress. There was fresh, passionate and very confident talk from these few Socialists.

I’ve heard that Democrats get into office and they try to make things right. It was FDR that started the social contract with Americans and, if one would listen to Democratic Party apologists, any Republicans who’ve been elected have worked hard to overturn those social contracts. The Democrats put money into public education and Republicans are elected and take it out and that’s why our education system is so broken.

Republicans purposely run up the deficit so that, when Democrats take over, they can point to that deficit and say, “We can't sustain these social “entitlements” that the Democrats want because we have to get the deficit down.”

Do you hear what the Democratic Party apologists are doing? They’re blaming the voters for the Democrats’ lack of accomplishing anything while they hold office.

Until Barack Obama became president, I thought that the best Republican president we ever had was Bill Clinton. Obama plays even more nicely with those who can’t make it any clearer that they want to promote anything but the progressive fixes that America sorely needs.

I ask the Democratic Party apologists, “After the two farces which were the 110th and 111th Congresses of The United States, do you still think that it’s as simple as “fixing the Democratic Party?” Really?

It's a crap shoot, dudes. Keep voting for Democrats until we get a majority of progressives. Under the American system of politics, that could never happen. Each and every Democrat and Republican in Congress is a wholly owned subsidiary of someone other than the people of the United States. Neither branch of that party, The Corporatocracy, wants to change the system as it pays off for each and every one of them in the end, one way or another.

The rumor is that Comcast is ultimately going to buy MSNBC. As tepid as MSNBC is, it’s the closest thing that people who want to live in a society, not a serfdom, have.

So here’s the deal. Mr. Olbermann, Mr. Soros, Mr. Hartmann, Ms Maddow, Ms Goodman, Mr. Chomsky, Mr. Moyer, Mr. Schultz, Ms. Huffington, Mr. Buffet, Mr. O'Donnell, Mr. Maher, Mr. Redford, Ms. Rhodes, Mr. Nader, Mr. Moore, Senator Sanders, Representative Kucinich, Mr. Donohue and all others who have so much more than we, the working class, can’t you challenge Comcast and buy MSNBC and run it as a worker owned cooperative? You, of course, would be the workers.

To paraphrase a line from The American President, when one looks at members of Congress, the Executive and the Judiciary, we see many people who claim to love America but who obviously hate Americans.

To the good people I mention above, I implore you, stop speaking for us and start working with us.

We need a new social order. We need a real "Great Society". We need Democratic Socialism. It is the only true "we" society.


To friendship,
Michael

“Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.” - Oscar Wilde

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What The President Say

The Masterpiece of Masterpiece Theater

(originally published at OpEdNews)

Democrats and Republicans are wealthy people who put on an act called politics. If one’s gotten far enough in politics to be well known on a national level, one’s probably got some fessin’ up to do. One surely is financially endowed.

Barack Obama has been exposed as a corporatist; a member in good standing of The Corporatocracy.

Yet, there is still prejudice in the vomitus excrement oozing from the mouths of so many people. People are hanging on The President’s every breath with impeach forks in their hands. The ones that are referred to as Republicans only need the noose to complete the picture. Democrats were and still are spineless. The fact that they voted with a Republican president almost in lock step with congressional Republicans isn’t surprising.

Thus far, it is nearly impossible to find a Republican who will lend a helping hand to Obama. He’s beginning to look like a kid at the grown-up’s table.

It’s all theater and the lower and middle classes have never been the targets of any political philanthropy. Nonetheless, no sane human being can like how the present theater is playing out. It looks like junior high school or high school. The cool kids aren’t even paying attention to the new kid. They’re doing all they can to make him look ridiculous.

What’s the new kid doing? He’s saying, “Can’t we all play nicely with one another?”

If there was any legitimacy at all to what we perceive as governance, the facts that Obama is six foot fifteen and stronger than superman, his party, supposed allies, controlled the Senate and the House and even the governorships and he’s the president should have manifested themselves with facts that look like successful progressive legislation. During the campaign and at the very beginning of his presidency, we heard Obama say that change has to be quick. He said then and actually still insists that we don’t have time to screw around with politics

Who could have been making meaningful progress happen since January of 2008? Barack Obama! If things have to happen quickly, he should have morphed into President “No More Mister Nice Guy” a long time ago. There’s been nothing holding him from stomping on every Republican in Congress.

When it came to getting what he wanted, George W. Bush just did it. With the obvious unwillingness of Republicans to agree to pass anything upon which he based his campaign, Obama could have just done it; that’s not a reference to Nike, either.

Barack Obama proved that he doesn’t want to abuse his presidential standing a long time ago. There can be no person who doesn’t know that, no matter what pundits are paid to say.

He’s even admitted to having made mistakes, a human flaw to which one would never see Cheney or Bush admit.

However, if he ever wants to be better than politics, he has to stop participating in political theater.

Many on the right complain about having to be politically correct. Barack Obama has spoken like most other presidents about bipartisanship. He’s used many of the same words and phrases. He’s certainly an expert in political correctness.

“Our objective in the world is peace. Our country has joined with others in the task of achieving peace. We know now that this is not an easy task, or a short one. But we are determined to see it through. Both of our great political parties are committed to working together--and I am sure they will continue to work together--to achieve this end. We are prepared to devote our energy and our resources to this task, because we know that our own security and the future of mankind are at stake.” - Harry S. Truman, 1950

“Our foreign policy must be clear, consistent, and confident. This means that it must be the product of genuine, continuous cooperation between the executive and the legislative branches of this Government. It must be developed and directed in the spirit of true bipartisanship.” - Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1953

“I am proud--and I think most Americans are proud--of a mutual defense and assistance program, evolved with bipartisan support in three administrations, which has, with all its recognized problems, contributed to the fact that not one of the nearly fifty U.N. members to gain independence since the Second World War has succumbed to Communist control.” - John F. Kennedy, 1963

“If we fail, if we fritter and fumble away our opportunity in needless, senseless quarrels between Democrats and Republicans, or between the House and the Senate, or between the South and North, or between the Congress and the administration, then history will rightfully judge us harshly. But if we succeed, if we can achieve these goals by forging in this country a greater sense of union, then, and only then, can we take full satisfaction in the State of the Union.” - Lyndon B. Johnson, 1964

“I would be the last to suggest that the road to peace is not difficult and dangerous, but I believe our new policies have contributed to the prospect that America may have the best chance since World War II to enjoy a generation of uninterrupted peace. And that chance will be enormously increased if we continue to have a relationship between Congress and the Executive in which, despite differences in detail, where the security of America and the peace of mankind are concerned, we act not as Republicans, not as Democrats, but as Americans.” - Richard M. Nixon, 1970

“Some people question their Government's ability to make hard decisions and stick with them; they expect Washington politics as usual.” - Gerald R. Ford, 1975

“Last year, I proposed to the Congress a major legislative initiative that would direct $2 billion into education and job training programs designed to alleviate youth unemployment through improved linkages between the schools and the work place. This legislation generated bipartisan support; but unfortunately, action on it was not completed in the final, rushed days of the 96th Congress.” - James E. Carter, 1981

“We look forward to the enactment of a responsible clean air act to increase jobs while continuing to improve the quality of our air. We're encouraged by the bipartisan initiative of the House and are hopeful of further progress as the Senate continues its deliberations.” - Ronald Reagan, 1982

“We rescued the system in 1983, and it's sound again -- bipartisan arrangement. Our budget fully funds today's benefits, and it assures that future benefits will be funded as well. The last thing we need to do is mess around with Social Security.” - George H. W. Bush, 1982

“Whatever our differences, we should balance the budget now. And then, for the long-term health of our society, we must agree to a bipartisan process to preserve Social Security and reform Medicare for the long run, so that these fundamental programs will be as strong for our children as they are for our parents.” - William Jefferson Clinton, 1997

“Bipartisanship is more than minding our manners; it is doing our duty.” - George W. Bush, 2001 (all emphases mine)

All of these words have been spoken by Barack Obama in some form or other. His quotes can be gathered and printed here, but they would not surprise anyone.

Obama’s hopes for bipartisanship and his promise to get rid of “Washington politics as usual”, as stated by President Ford in 1975, seem to be too familiar, almost script-like. However, he’s human and the vitriol and blatant apparent lack of cooperation should have bothered him into action by now. It would have bothered any human being in his position by now. If this was not theater, he’d have signed universal health care into law with the stroke of a pen and a, “Hey, I asked you guys for help and we only have so much time. I gotta do what I gotta do.”

Isn’t it strange that one-half of our political duopoly all act like cowards and the other half all act as if they own the place? Again, very script-like, no?

If this sounds like just another conspiracy theory, it’s not. There’s no way that any lower or middle class American could ever be privy to the ideas expressed by the president and/or to the president in the Oval Office or in any office in any building.

Ideas may be expressed at some point during the presidential campaign. Certain “operatives” may remind a candidate of the enormous cost of running for most political offices starting at the state level. If the candidate appears to have the popular support needed to win the election, he may be congratulated for his “lead” in the polls by corporate lobbyists or even high ranking officers of corporations. They may promise to help him complete the campaign and put him over the top.

This may be followed by some very specific caveats, however. They may go as far as to tell the candidate that they’re excited about his certain victory. Then they can begin to tell him about issues that relate to their specific businesses and how he can show his gratitude by “partnering” with them to solve these issues. Indeed, they may give him ideas or even specific “roadmaps” for solving their respective problems.

Another possible scenario has corporate money going to the candidate most likely to win without consulting that candidate at all. However, once elected, those who have passionate corporate interests may begin to request meetings with the president-elect and his staff. They may remind the incoming administration that it was their money that helped it gain the margin of victory and give suggestions for ways in which that administration can show its gratitude. The president-elect and, ultimately, the president, may be told that there’s more “support” to be gained for any reelection bid.

He may also be told that any unwillingness to repay their kindness could put them in a very bad mood. He may be told that they’ve seen horrible accidents in their lives. They may tell an unwilling president about the kinds of awful things they’ve seen happen to school children who just so happened to be as young as his own children.

They may ask him, “Isn’t it just awful when things like that happen to little kids, especially little girls?”

It comes across as “small talk”, but “small talk” with a message.

However, this is not a conspiracy theory. Hard facts proving that this happens have not come forth. It’s difficult to find proof anywhere that any of this happens. It’s more a conspiracy “guess” based upon how the play unfolds after each presidential election. It’s not all that different, is it?

Those who supported the president during his campaign become frustrated. Whether it takes four years or whether it takes eight years, the president is eventually busted. He’s busted for breaking his campaign promises or misleading his supporters. Sometimes the supporters feel abandoned. Sometimes, as maybe happened in the case of George W. Bush, they just plain feel like fools. Since Truman, for sure, presidents have never created the utopian “morning in America” that their supporters were certain that they would create; the “change you can believe in”.

Even The New Frontier was as old as secret attacks on the island of Cuba and far too many members of The Great Society left their lives in Southeast Asia.

It seems that there is more hatred toward Barack Obama than there’s been toward any previous president because part of his heritage is African and that part cannot be hidden. However, despite all of the hate, he proceeds as though those who hate him deserve their day in court, so to speak and he’s tried to give them that day. They don’t want a day in court; they want to preside over the court. They don’t even show up when subpoenaed, metaphorically speaking. Their responses to his invitations have become more predictable than the seasons.

Yet he takes it, as if he has no choice; as if it’s all been planned out; the necessary deals have been made and the play has begun.

I’ve watched Rachel Maddow of MSNBC talk about this phenomenon night after night, making the same case. The Democrats have the House, Senate and Administration. They should be able to pass wonderful progressive legislation. Why don’t they? Don’t they see what we see?

Now she’s dwelling on the power that the Democrats have in the lame duck session of Congress and she asks, “Will they finally get the courage to act upon progressive legislation or are the Democrats, all of them, cowards?” The answer, of course, isn’t “yes” or “no”. The answer is there are no Democrats. There are no Republicans. There are no debates. There is no process. There is no meaningful legislation.

Wealthy members of Congress, Democrat, Republican and even Independents, are playing roles laid out for them by those who buy them.

Don’t they see what we see?

They create what we see. They create the allusion of government. Government in The FUSA is, indeed, created. It may be the most realistic piece of fiction ever written.

To friendship,
Michael

“About the time we think we can make ends meet, somebody moves the ends.” - Herbert Hoover

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Stop Running Away From Who We Are

On July 15, 1960, John F. Kennedy said the following words in his acceptance speech: “If by a “Liberal” they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people — their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties — someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a “Liberal”, then I'm proud to say I'm a “Liberal.””

I watched a program last night entitled The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell. He was a producer, director, writer and performer in the wonderful TV series The West Wing.

He had recently been called too conservative by someone on the left and a socialist by someone on the right.

In his own defense, he played a clip from The West Wing which he wrote. In it, the Democratic Party presidential candidate responded in a debate to his Republican opponent’s accusation of being afraid to be called “liberal”. The Democrat’s response sounded an awful lot like what Kennedy said in 1960.

When’s the last time we heard any Democrat say words that were even close to what Kennedy said?

Kucinich ran for president in 2004 on a personal platform so diametrically opposed to most of the other Democratic candidates, especially John Kerry, that, until he lost the nomination, one could only assume he’d choose to run an independent campaign if he did lose.

When he lost the nomination, he stepped up and supported Kerry! Kerry was talking about a “surge” in Iraq before Bush did it. He’s enamored of so called “Free Trade” and, if he had been elected, I wouldn’t have been surprised to hear him quote Clinton and say, “The era of big government is over.”

Just as Ron Paul will not pull the trigger and move, permanently, from the Republican Party to the Libertarian Party, Kucinich knows that, if he takes his millions and moves to the Green Party or even the Socialist Party of the United States, he’d lose for sure.

Or would he?

I think he’d be a hero.

What made the Tea Party candidates so popular was that they said exactly what that group of people wanted to hear. They weren’t afraid to express their views, no matter how far they might be from “mainstream” America.

I submit that the Democratic Party will withhold any support from anyone who speaks the way Kennedy did. If I’m right, it will prove that the Democratic Party is too stupid to know that is what many, maybe most, Americans want to hear.

At the end of his show last night, Lawrence O’Donnell admitted that he is a socialist, at least in the sense that he utilizes the Post Office, supports Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. He displayed a Time Magazine cover which read We’re All Socialists Now.

We need candidates who don’t run away from they are. We need candidates who say that they are proud of the help the government has given the people since the days of FDR and that help is absolutely constitutional. More government help, like universal health care, is also within the bounds of the kinds of programs that The Constitution allows Congress to pass and the president to implement. It would be ethically, morally and politically courageous to run on the transparent truth of one’s convictions.

I’m of the opinion that, if we got money out of the system, a Socialist, the kind of Socialist one finds in Scandinavia, could win the White House and Democratic Socialists could win Congress. However, they would have to campaign on what their true intentions were and not mince words. They’d need to debunk every stupidity that was shot at them from the right or the fake left. And they could do it, too.

The media would have to turn truly fair and give such candidates the air time it gives to Ds and Rs. Most importantly, the media would have to include these candidates in televised debates.

These “big spenders” would come closer to balancing the budget than Democrats or Republicans. Clinton supposedly handed Bush a surplus, but too many Americans had to pay for it the hard way.

Democratic Socialists would balance the budget without cutting “entitlements” to working class Americans. They’d do it by cutting “entitlements” to wealthy Americans, corporate America and military America.


To friendship,
Michael

“A belligerent state permits itself every such misdeed, every such act of violence, as would disgrace the individual.” – Sigmund Freud



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