You may have been asking yourself, “Hey, where’s that guy who wrote those outstanding articles about letters written to the editor?” nutritious
Well, I don’t know where that guy is, but you may remember I wrote some columns which were inspired by letters to the editor as well. I stopped doing that, at least for a while. Maybe for good, who knows?
One of the reasons I’ve stopped writing those particular columns was that far too many of the letters to which I responded were written by people who were exercising their first amendment right to exhibit the courage to write about subjects without the safety net of factual information. I found myself lately defending President Barack Obama. The issues that the people were choosing to write about dealt mostly with the economy. The letter writers were accusing Obama and the Democratic Party of attempting to create a Socialist nightmare within the borders of The United States, as well as Hawaii and Alaska. I felt it necessary to remind people that even a Libertarian government which federalized a miniscule armed force would be practicing socialism. A lot of the benefits of living in the US are the results of socialist systems.
A lot of the real estate upon which tax hating, tea bagging racists held their “passionate”, “grass roots” protests were state or federal parks paid for with taxes. It would have been neat if Obama showed up at one of those so called rallies and said, “All of you tax haters, get off the grass.”
There was the letter writer who wrote that Obama was pushing that rotten Stimulus Package, meant to help the economy “unBush” by giving the states money to pump into their education programs, fix godawful roads and other infrastructure. He wrote that Obama’s methodology of getting this legislation passed was a “my way or the highway” approach.
I don’t think I reminded the writer of anything because I don’t believe the writer has ever heard of OpEdNews or even Common Dreams or maybe even MSNBC. Besides, who has time to read or watch that propaganda when you know exactly where to go to get a “fair and balanced” news report? However, I did respond by reminiscing about Bush’s Iraq War, preemptively started to rid Iraq of weapons of mass destruction punish Iraq for its part in 9/11 as proven by the infamous yet mythical meeting in Prague free the Iraqi people from the torture of Saddam Hussein and give them some variety by introducing them to our own brand of torture knit some democracy for the Iraqi people. I reminisced about The Front Man’s diplomatic “You’re either with us or against us” message to our “allies”.
Of course what makes the Stimulus Package so disgusting is the fact that it’s going to strap future generations with taxes needed to pay for it. The invasion of Iraq? That’s going to strap them as well, as the money for most of that worthwhile war was extracted from The Department of No Fucking Thing.
The final letter I’ll mention is one written by a woman who was certain Obama was not going to close Gitmo, that he made that promise just to get elected and that he was either a liar or too stupid to realize that closing Gitmo would not be a piece of cake. The letter was published on the day on which Obama signed the order that would have Gitmo closed within a year. I hope that this fortune teller, aka, Obama hater, doesn’t dabble in the horses or hounds. It appears that she may possess a propensity for guessing wrong.
As mentioned, I defended Obama in some of my responses. However, I was frustrated with the shallowness and even the poorly veiled racism that propelled these writers to write first and check facts – never! Maybe, just maybe, as I was “giving Obama his chance to prove to me that he was really sincere and was not just another one of them, I was arguing against poorly researched and emotional letters written by people that are just pissed that Senator White from Indiana or Congressman White from Georgia, all white and shiny and phony to the most casual of observers aren’t in the White House instead of a Mulatto who definitely fits the description of an African American and even likes basketball. When he speaks, he sometimes lets loose some of that “Black” accent, that homey speak which just proves his inferiority to those who protested with tea bags and Jim Crow sentiments.
I repeat that, however marveled I was that a Black man was elected President of the United States of America by a significant margin, I did listen to his foreign policy plans and I did note that he voted to give a pass to communications corporations that worked with The Regime in its attempt to secretly spy on anyone, American citizen or not, and made sport of some of the more “humorous” dialogues between two parties who they knew were not in any way, shape or form connected with terrorism of any kind.
You may believe that Middle Easterners hijacked planes on 9/11 as well as where that story goes. I submit if you believe that, you believe it because the tin foil hat conspiracy theorists are obviously wrong and you probably aren’t going to “waste your time” researching any of the facts that, basically, make a fool of you for believing the government sponsored fairy tale. I submit you haven’t read nearly enough if you disagree with any of the arguments which demand a real investigation into what happened on 9/11 to, first and foremost, decide “who done it”. If you’ve done any research, you wouldn’t be fair to deny that there was any reason to begin a real investigation starting from that point.
However, let’s say, just for giggles and whatever else, that the government sponsored attempt to outdo Grimm’s Fairy Tales is honest injun true. We all know what happened.
At first we were told that Al Qaeda, based in Afghanistan, was responsible for what happened on that day. If I remember correctly, at one of the more sober “vigils” in response to this attack, a New York firefighter or policeman, one or the other, walked out on stage, dropped drawer and honored us with a look at his crack while he yelled, “You can kiss my white Irish ass, Osama bin Laden.”
I can’t help but believe that this man and his white Irish ass were on the front line cheering when The Regime decided to send troops into Iraq, a move having nothing to do with bin Laden’s desire or ability to kiss any white Irish ass. There was yet another American surge of blind hate toward an ethnic group about which most Americans knew/know little if anything. This placed The Front Man high in his diamond studded saddle as he rode into the sunset to invade Iraq for what Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and other non-Iraqi related entities did on 9/11/01. Clear, lucid thought was not part of the process in this “hate anyone who might be mistaken for an Arab” fest.
If Osama bin Laden coordinated what happened on 9/11 from Afghanistan and we had reason to capture or kill him, most preferably capture him to get him to talk, we should have sent some of our sharp shooting, never missing, super duper Navy Seals, Marine Green Berets, Army Rangers, Delta Force or The Air Force Commandos to flush out Osama bin Laden quicker than one can say “Allah is great.” We could have even sent the CIA covert Special Commandos to track down the overpowering desert rat and cave dweller, capture him and bring him to face trial for the crime he supposedly “blessed”.
I don’t know for sure, but when I hear three Navy Seals knocked off three pirates with three bullets, I can’t help but think that these special operations units could have tracked down and captured bin Laden by now with one hand tied behind their backs.
But, no, he and his magic troop of mountain climbers seem to be too much for our super duper shooters and trackers and covert James Bonds.
Why go after the guy who did it, if that’s what you insist on believing without bothering to read that “other crap” which you know has no merit? No. Listen to the Front Man tell you it was bin Laden and then hang Saddam Hussein. And, most importantly of all, no matter what the facts may prove, stick your fingers in your ears and say, “Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, I can’t hear what you’re saying, nah, nah, nah, nah” like big boys and girls.
I really didn’t want to write quite so much of what’s already been written by people who’ve poured hour upon hour over all the evidence from all angles.
I did want to write that Obama has finally proved that he is the new Front Man.
“See these? These are memos that prove The Regime tortured in violation of domestic and international law. But we must move forward so that it never happens again. If we release these memos, it’ll teach some future Regime that it better never commit war crimes or maybe the next administration will publicize those war crimes. Of course, they’ll also want to look forward.”
“OK, your honor, sure my client murdered his wife. But will prosecuting him bring her back. Of course not. She’s gone, your honor and I promise that my client won’t do it again, especially now that everyone knows. Wallowing in the past won’t bring her back. Looking to a future where no other wife will ever be murdered again is what we have to do.”
“Oh, you’re so right. You’re so forgiving in a Christian sort of way and, as we are a Christian nation, your client is released pending the promise that he will not kill another wife and, as far as he’s concerned, no man will kill another wife for fear that the murder may be revealed in a court of law.”
We invaded Iraq. It was wrong. We never captured bin Laden because, let’s face it, our lame special ops forces on whom we waste so much taxpayer money are just not up to the task. Mark that down, another tea party aimed at wasting the taxpayer money on special ops groups who can’t capture one man because they just don’t have that kind of talent.
Obama’s as much as admitted it, right? He’s not sending any special ops forces to Afghanistan to capture bin Laden. Like The Regime, he’s sending thousands of troops to build a Kabul Disneyworld. And when the first of his troops dies, he’ll make a speech, like the Front Man before him, saying, “Oh yeah, well it hurts my feelings, too, ya know. I almost started crying last night. But we must continue the effort so that Al Qaeda and The Taliban have no place to go and practice. If we make Afghanistan a democracy in our own image, where will The Taliban go and practice? Afghanistan is its last refuge. Turn Afghanistan into a democracy with a Starbuck’s on every corner and that’s it for The Taliban. Where else in the world could they go to practice being bad guys? We will have stopped them. It’s a small world after all.”
Politicians have to spend upwards of $70 million dollars to buy the presidency. That’s the way Americans like it. They like two years of stupid, brainless political commercials which talk about everything but the issues. $70 million to run for president. Is the most qualified person to be a really effective president residing here in the US? My guess is absolutely. Will he or she come up with the $70 million dollars to make a run at it? Probably not. However, if he or she does come up with it, he or she will have ceased to be the most qualified candidate. It’s just the nature of the game.
I saw my two and a half year old granddaughter today. I hadn’t seen her in a over a year. My she’s gotten big. I couldn’t wipe the smile from my face or the joy from my heart. She may be taxed to kingdom come when she’s older in order to pay for what was done well before she even knew what a tax is.
Right now, today, I saw her and, believe me, she’s just beautiful. I love her. And that’s life! The rest of the stuff I wrote about above should be land-filled, along with the thespians who make their dirty money perpetuating the hate between right, left, red, blue, green. It’s their living. Keep this half of America hating the other half and the money will continue to flow into your pockets.
Rush Limbaugh, Keith Olbermann, Bill O’Reilly, Thom Hartmann, Sean Hannity, Rachel Maddow, all of you. Your paymaster is hate and as long as he’s alive, you’ll do well for yourselves.
Even Thom Hartmann who is maybe the most knowledgeable of all who own voodoo dolls does nothing with his impressive repetition of history short of validating that hateful division between one half of human kind and the other half. This keeps vegetables on the tables of people who make a living of exploiting the division.
Meanwhile, I’ve got a beautiful little girl to spend a week with. Keep up the good fight, no matter what side you’re on. It’s good for you and your bank accounts.
Oh, by the way, Sean, Thom, Keith, Ed, Glenn, Rachel, if you truly attempted a small degree of introspection, something that I’m sure scares the bejesus out of each and every one of you, you’d realize that, as much as Americans hate one another, your insistence upon broadcasting that hate does nothing but grow it. You won’t look within yourselves. After all, promotion into a higher tax bracket is your goal and that introspection would just ruin the whole thing.
“To friendship,
Michael
“When we got into office, the thing that surprised me the most was that things were as bad as we'd been saying they were.” - John F. Kennedy
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Peace Is Possible
Monday, April 20, 2009
And Then There Was This Two Year Old
Monday, March 16, 2009
Democrats Can't Even Win Successfully
A man writes to the Lincoln, Nebraska based newspaper The Journal Star that “comprehensive health care reform” is the next important legislation on which the Obama Administration should concentrate.
He says that “Government, businesses and families can’t keep up with the burdens this broken (healthcare) system places on them.”
He makes the insightful argument that “many of the thousands of layoffs in America can be directly traced to businesses’ inability to cover insurance costs” and that “our working families and their children deserve a system of health care that guarantees quality, affordable health care for everyone.”
Unfortunately for this gentleman and many of us who share his position, considering the 55-43 majority the Republicans hold in the Senate, there’s not much of a chance that President Obama’s $3 trillion budget which contains what Politico calls Obama’s $634 million “head start” toward single payer health insurance will pass.
If you’re at all confused about the numbers mentioned above, the 55-43 numbers not the $634 million number, it’s understandable. However, there is a logical explanation.
To review, not only did Democrat Barack Obama win the presidency in 2008 by a 7.2% margin of victory, but the Democrats won 25 seats in the House, bringing their total to a whopping 257. Everyone, including yours truly, thought that the Democrats won at least 7 senate seats in the 2008 elections as well. This would have raised the total of Democrats or Democratic leaning senators from 51 to 58. We can only assume that the state of Minnesota and/or the national Democratic Party are ultimately going to allow Al Franken into the more aristocratic and dignified division of congress. One, including yours truly, should be awestruck with the insurmountable 59-41 majority.
But, no, it will no more be an insurmountable 59-41 majority when Franken is finally seated than it is presently a 58-41 majority. No. In the name of “checks and balances”, a name which frightened Democrats dared not utter while The Regime was in power, 14 Democratic Senators have decided to keep the Democratic Obama Administration in check.
Lead by Democratic Senator Bob Nelson of Nebraska, the very state in which the author of the above mentioned epistle resides, the group of 14 have, for all intents and purposes, decided to scrutinize President Barack Obama the way that many Democrats and Progressives hoped that they would have scrutinized The George W. Bush Show.
If you remember, adding insult to deadly, heartbreaking misery, especially for Iraqis and American military personnel, Democrats had voted at every turn with The Regime on legislation in favor of throwing more money at Iraq. They gave The Regime this money in addition to helping it pass its enormous defense budget. Democrats and Republicans who kept voting for The Regime’s occasional requests knew that the money did not come from the defense budget.
As South Carolina's Republican Governor, Mark Sanford, points out, “it's not a good idea to spend money that you don't have…”
Sanford wasn’t speaking about the millions of dollars that we didn’t have yet we spent to perpetuate the ill-advised occupation of Iraq. Sanford was speaking about the reason why he plans to turn away South Carolina’s portion of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act money. No matter how horrible the unemployment statistics for his state are, Sanford’s pride stands far above his constituents needs. I guess it’s not like the good ole days when spending money we didn’t have on Iraq was admirable and patriotic. In fact it was considered outright unpatriotic to vote against such spending.
In 2006, Democrats became the majority in the Senate, but only by a slim 51-49 margin. Yet, in November of 2008, they voted to exempt corporate communications giants from any responsibility or complicity in The Regime’s illegal intrusions into anyone’s and everyone’s private, public and, far more often than not, non terrorist-linked life.
They provided a loyal opposition, with the emphasis on the word “loyal”. “Obedient” opposition would have suited them better.
As already mentioned, the results of the 2008 elections would have given the Democrats no excuse to vote with Republicans. The Regime and its scary cast, starring the beadie-eyed Dick Cheney, were no longer in charge and the official numbers almost ensured that Democrats would finally be able to get populist, pro middle class legislation passed, with or without having to listen to minutes, hours or days of Republican filibustering. That is according to the official November, 2008 election results.
I don’t know where I heard the phrase, but I once heard someone express the opinion that Bill Clinton may have been the best Republican president ever.
Now it's possible that someday, someone may be able to say that the best Republican Senate ever was the Senate which was part of the 111th Congress. In fact, Indiana’s Democratic Senator Evan Bayh says, “If we’re going to get 60, we have to have the pragmatists, the moderates in the Senate, in the Democratic caucus working together and reaching out to those on the other side, of like minds…”
Bayh is correct in his premise that there are “moderate Republicans in the senate”. Three of them, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania voted for President Obama’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, which allowed the bill to pass. Considering the spending cuts and tax cuts demanded by the “moderate” Republicans, the bill, already called too small by economists, was even further watered down.
The letter writer shares a great many of the concerns of his fellow Americans, the Americans who told Washington, by way of Obama’s overwhelming victory and the seats picked up by Democrats in “The People’s House” that they agree strongly with President Obama’s plan to place the nation on the road to recovery.
It’s obvious that Republicans didn’t get the message and now it’s become obvious that 14 Democrats didn’t get it, either.
Could it be possible that, even though these Capitalist greed heads didn’t listen to their constituents, they actually have heard and heeded a message? Maybe these self-serving lawmakers have understood with even more clarity the message sent to them by The Corporacracy.
I look at the present state of government and my belief that The Corporacracy owns the whole kit and caboodle, including The Executive, is being reinforced. Obama is this close to persuading me that he is, indeed, a “Corporat” (cör-pör-ãt).
I’m worrying that the hopes harbored by our sensible letter writer are too high, as were mine. There aren’t a lot of “Republicans”, including the 14 who just joined their ranks in all but name, who will ever support a single payer health insurance system or any other populist “socialist” system, for that matter. In fact, I don’t think that there are any who will.
To friendship,
Michael
“The perfect bureaucrat everywhere is the man who manages to make no decisions and escape all responsibility.” - Brooks Atkinson
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Sunday, March 08, 2009
EFCA – End of the Factory Gods
A letter writer to The Bismarck Tribune obviously doesn’t think much of HR 800 or The Employee Free Choice Act. He believes that the bill is “oxymoronical” and should be called “The Employee Forced Choice Act”. I decided to give the writer a pass on his over-syllabication because I hadn’t done nearly enough research on this bill.
Consequently, the first thing I did was to actually read the bill, which has to do with the right of employees to form a union. If I waded correctly through the legalese, I’m surprised to find no mention of one of the most contentious debating points used especially by those who oppose it. The controversial point is that this “bill would take away the right to a secret ballot.”
However, the bill does not offer direction on what methodology employees should use to decide whether they do or do not want to organize. In fact, the bill is clear that, if The National Labor Relations Board “finds that a majority of the employees in a unit appropriate for bargaining has signed valid authorizations”, “the Board shall not direct an election”. The bill doesn’t give the NLRB the power to force any method of determination upon the employees. The workers would be free to choose whether to decide to unionize through sign-up cards or through a secret ballot election.
To make his point, the letter writer uses The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. As many of you know, this legislation has become known as The Stimulus Package or, to some, “The Stim”. He says that, “Legislators admit they haven't even read the whole bill…” and calls this a “disturbing method of government”.
On October 26, 2001, shortly after we were “attacked”, President George W. Bush signed The Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act, otherwise known as The Patriot Act.
The writer may have gotten his cue from House Republican leader John Boehner. Congressman Boehner stood before the House, Stimulus Package in his hands, and called it “1100 pages that not one member of this body has read.”
He then asked, “What happened to our promise that we were going to let the American people see what’s in this bill for forty-eight hours?”
Finally, acting as if he didn’t realize that he was holding an official legislative proposal upon which Congress was going to vote, he disrespectfully, a manner in which most Republicans have approached their jobs since the election of Barack Obama, dropped the bill on the floor.
Let’s go back to The Patriot Act.
The reason we go back to The Patriot Act is because, in his documentary film, “Fahrenheit 9/11”, Michael Moore exposes the fact that Congress, both houses, passed this “security bill” without the luxury of having read it. If we remember, and how can we forget, this “security bill” ultimately served to trespass upon a wide swath of personal liberties. If we think about Moore’s exposé, we come to the conclusion that both Boehner, an obedient and staunch supporter of The Patriot Act, and the letter writer possess a memory deficiency. The other possibility is that these two men are less than honest when arguing for or against legislation.
Returning to the Employee Free Choice Act, the myth that it takes away an employee’s right to a private ballot isn’t the only problem that our letter writer has. “If you prefer not to be a union employee under EFCA, too bad,” he writes.
After I didn’t find anything in the bill which dictates what method workers are to use to vote for or against unionization, I didn’t find anything in the bill which dictates that, if the majority of workers in a workplace vote to organize, all workers must join the union.
Having said that, the majority wins, winner-take-all society in which we live may influence the outcome of a vote and the consequence of voting to form a union may be that everyone working in that particular workplace will be expected to join. There have been so called “open shops” in the past, but no one knows what any particular workplace will do. The important thing is to remember that, even if the workplace is set up so that all who work in that workplace must join the union, there’s nothing in HR 800 which decrees such an outcome. If the union in a particular workplace demands 100% participation, The Employee Free Choice Act will not be the reason for it. This weakens the writer’s argument, to say the least.
We can look at laws that have been passed by Congress and ask ourselves if most of those laws have been passed for the benefit of society or to the detriment of society. Although there are laws with which many of us don’t agree, it’s my opinion that many members of Congress, sometimes misdirected or acting out of political panic, believe that the laws they pass are for the good of society.
Laws passed by Congress should protect the majority of Americans. At this point, my personal belief is that President Obama believes that his stimulus package will help those Americans that need the help. His naïve notion of getting his desired legislation passed with bipartisan support has impaired his efforts and diluted what he’s done so far. However, I think many of his goals are admirable.
If The Constitution and its amendments have taught us anything, they’ve taught us that laws are made for the benefit of the majority.
Of the 27 amendments which have passed, only two, as far as I can see, have penalized or victimized American citizens. One of those two amendments has been repealed.
The two amendments are the 16th amendment, which introduced the income tax and the 18th amendment which was prohibition.
Prohibition was repealed.
There may be disagreement on a few of the other amendments, but, from where I stand, they appear as though they were passed to preserve, protect and defend the people of The United States just as it’s the job of the government to preserve, protect and defend The Constitution, but it’s The Constitution’s job the preserve, protect and defend Americans.
Further proof that this opinion is still the opinion of a majority is a sampling of some of the amendments that were proposed, but didn’t pass. Among these are:
- The Christian Amendment proposed in 1863, because some believed that The Civil War was punishment from god.
- The 1912 Anti-Miscegenation Amendment which would have banned marriage between races. This probably is better described as a proposal that would have banned marriage between African Americans and everyone else.
- A proposal in 1968 to criminalize the desecration of the American flag. This one picks up steam on occasion, but people are still winning out over cloth, no matter what the cloth is supposed to represent.
- The “Human Rights” proposal in 1973 which was a direct response to Roe v. Wade.
- The banning of same sex marriage, proposed in 2004 by The Front Man who, I believe, still doesn’t care that much who marries whom.
Considering all of this, on whose part has the EFCA been proposed? Let’s look at some facts which may help answer that question.
The letter writer, who begins to come across as a small business owner more than someone who worries about employees losing rights, may have a point. He states that, if the EFCA is passed, small businesses, I mean really, really small businesses, may be the entities caught in the middle which get nothing from the bill. Small businesses may be hurt if their employees join a union.
He says that, “We do our best to compensate them (employees) with wages and benefits that many others don't offer in our industry.
“If employees were required to have dues deducted from their paychecks and small businesses were forced to pay more for compensation and benefits”, the costs would be passed on to the customers. One wonders, if this person was paying his employees “wages and benefits that many others don't offer in our industry”, why his employees would even consider unionizing.”
Our present economy demonstrates that it really doesn’t matter to many customers what costs are or are not passed on to them. The so called customers are/were also employees and many of the so called customers can’t afford what the letter writer is selling anyway. One reason for this is unions have been blown away by employers, whether large corporations, medium size businesses or even small businesses. Employees have been saying for a long time that “unions have outlived their usefulness” and do nothing but obstruct and impede otherwise successful businesses.
Admittedly, there came a time when unions were at least as demanding and corrupt as management. That was the fault of the rank and file, not the fault of the entity called a union. In my humble opinion, unions could never outlive their usefulness.
The day that all unions are tossed aside by their members will be the day when workers will begin to remember the usefulness of a union. Without the protection of unions, labor will cease to be a resource over which management competes. The idea that unions have outlived their usefulness is a major cause of the “race to the bottom”. The fewer unions that exist, the more confidence employers gain to take liberties with labor. The capitalist operational engine called supply and demand takes hold and, as the supply of workers increases, the demand for them falls off and so does their worth. Employees have no support, no protection. Workers find themselves in the unenviable position in which they find themselves today.
One would think that people would rather pay a little more than to have no money at all with which to buy lower priced items. In fact, the more people we have paying union dues, the more people we’d have with a wage that allows them to spend money.
One of the letter writer’s final concerns is that, if a workplace is unionized and bargaining sessions between labor and management stall, a federal bureaucrat will “fly in and dictate local decisions.”
As it is now, the company decides whether or not talk about organizing is to be allowed on its property or during the hours for which the employees are being paid. This means that, instead of a government “bureaucrat” serving as a mediator, a corporate “bureaucrat”, not the most impartial of people, controls labor relations.
I wrote above about open shops. These are workplaces in which some workers belong to a union and others do not. The truth is, especially in the case of large corporations, most employees work in open shops, whether there’s a union involved or not.
We’ve all heard of CEOs who fail. The company and the CEO come to an agreement and the CEO steps down. Notice I didn’t write that the company fires the CEO. The reason I didn’t write that is the same reason why CEOs who have failed walk away with severance packages that are worth more than most workers will receive in a life time. The reason is that CEOs do exactly what they work so hard to prevent workers from doing, they sign employment contracts!
Wages for working men and women have stagnated while pay and bonuses for CEOs have sky-rocketed.
In a study conducted in 2001, it was discovered that 20% of Americans own 84% of America’s wealth. This means that the 80% of the population owns the remaining 16% of the wealth.
In almost every form of governance, including any government headed up by Libertarians, there would inevitably be some socialism. If the government controls even a minimal army, that army is socialized. Nonetheless, Americans fear the word “socialism” as much as a cow fears the word “rib-eye”. Even those who consider themselves “left of center” debate those who call Obama a socialist by insisting he’s not a socialist. Another, truer, more courageous response would be, “There are socialist planks in his platform.” They run from the word instead of admitting that The US has for its entire existence been a socialist society to some degree.
However, Americans will never allow the US to be called a socialist democracy, even though socialist democracies seem to work as well as, if not better than most other forms of governing. Consequently, The Employee Free Choice Act may be the last chance unions will get to fortify the American worker and ensure that worker is compensated with a living wage.
To friendship,
Michael
“Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones.” - Bertrand Russell
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Monday, March 02, 2009
Jamie
I hope that you allow me this small space for a personal utterance.
I’m very passionate about what goes on in the world. Innocent men, women and children die daily so that a particular person or group can steal resources from other countries and/or gain more power over the earth and its inhabitants. These horrors simultaneously frustrate, anger and sadden me.
However, I am, as I bet most of you would be, just as deeply saddened by the lost of a close friend. Jamie, who's been with us for 10 1/2 years died two nights ago and I haven’t been up to finishing a column that I was writing about the Employee Free Choice Act.
Jamie was 11 and Bella’s six months younger.
Maybe it’s just me. Maybe some people are saying that a dog, used by some cultures as food, shouldn’t mean as much to a person as the horrific acts to which I refer above.
However, I received from Jamie and I receive from Bella what I think everyone needs now and again, unconditional love. In fact, if the relationship among all of the people of the earth was merely based upon conditional compassion, the possibility of the kinds of activities such as those mentioned would be unthinkable.
I intend to resume my Monday “Debatable Opinions” column on March 8.
To friendship,
Michael
Monday, February 23, 2009
Thread Does Not a Nation Make
On February 14, two of Philadelphia’s finest were sent to the scene of an altercation between a Philadelphia cab driver and a would be thief. The thief warned the cabbie that, if he called the police, he would shoot the cabbie and the police. The cabbie, most likely fearing for his life, called anyway.
Two policeman showed up at the scene. The thief wannabe was wearing a jacket and his hand was in one of the pockets. As the police approached the man, he quickly raised that veiled hand. The hand wasn’t the only thing that the thief raised. In his hand was a .357 Magnum.
A little after nine o’clock PM, Police Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey walked out of the Albert Einstein Medical Center to an anxiously waiting media.
He somberly looked up and said, “It's my sad duty to inform you of the death of John Pawlowski. What makes his death even more tragic is that his wife Kim is expecting their first child. What makes this whole thing unacceptable is that officer Pawlowski was improperly displaying the flag of The United States of America on his sleeve.”
Of course Commissioner Ramsey never mentioned anything about the flag on Pawlowski’s sleeve. In truth, he never mentioned anything about Officer Pawlowski’s wife expecting their first child, but that one is a fact.
This is not glib handling of the senseless killing of one those brave people who work day and night to protect cabbies as well as you and me.
I wonder, though, whether the man who wrote a letter to North Carolina’s Citizen-Times would, indeed, fault the commissioner for failing to mention whether or not the slain officer was displaying the flag properly. After all, he’d been noticing the “improper display of the flag of the United States on the sleeve of various uniforms.”
There’s nothing wrong with knowing the proper placement of the flag. It’s just another piece of knowledge. What’s wrong is that the letter writer states that, “Some of the offenders have included law enforcement…”
Offenders, he says! So “offender” may have been Officer Pawlowski’s status when he lost his life trying to save that of a cab driver. We really don’t know, do we? How the flag was situated on his uniform hasn’t, yet, become an issue. Unless the letter writer from North Carolina gets involved in the investigation, it probably will never become an issue.
I’d like to think that the flag is important because of what it’s supposed to represent. It’s supposed to represent The United States of America and the wonderful participative government for which the founding fathers laid the groundwork. At any rate, they laid that groundwork by penning eloquent words eloquently upon the parchment of the time.
As we know today, much of what they wrote was incongruent with what they practiced. Yet the words are there and, as time has passed, they’ve come to be meaningful. They are the words of which we should be reminded when we see an American flag. That is the purpose of the flag. The flag has a purpose; it is not, in and of itself, a purpose.
Yet, throughout American history, it has somehow become not a representation, but a raison d’être.
We’ve been told that everything’s changed since September 11, 2001. One of the “everythings” is the American love affair with sewn fabric of red, white and blue. Don’t misunderstand. “Old Glory” has always been important to many Americans, more important to some than to others. We’ve even given it a name.
There’s always been a debate between those who see the flag as a representation and those who see it as an end to a means. There have been votes in Congress to amend The Constitution so that it becomes a crime to desecrate the American flag. There could one day be a law which punishes people for “desecrating” cloth while those who desecrate the ideals for which that cloth stands go free.
There exists an opinion that, since the flag represents, for example, the premise that “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…”, whenever the government of this country has, with malice aforethought, obstructed those ideals, they have rendered the flag what it really, thread sewn into red, white and blue. It ceases to represent good and becomes a piece of cloth worthy of nothing more than the same destruction of that which it represents.
I’m quite certain that the letter writer, who becomes obviously upset when the flag is not displayed “as if it is advancing, that is, the union should be to the front as it would be if the flag were freely flying”, would call for the death penalty if he ever read the above paragraph. I’m not certain that I’m embellishing in this case. The flag, for some, has taken on the importance of religious dogma.
Justice may be found when the letter writer returns to his home after a hard day of covert flag inspections just to notice a figure through the window of his house. He takes out his cell phone and calls the police who send two “offenders” to his home. As the three are standing outside the home, quietly discussing their next move, our flagomaniac notices that the flags on, not one, but both of the officers’ sleeves are a bit off, not quite right.
The letter writer then says in disgust, “Please call for two more officers who know how to wear a flag correctly.” Then, maybe in that particular case, he would make an exception.
By the way, “Emblem makers offer sleeve flags in “right” and “left” configurations. The same should hold true for decals or other representation of the flag on the sides or windows of automobiles.”
It’s good to know, I guess.
To friendship
Michael
“I wouldn't trust Nixon from here to that phone.” - Barry Morris Goldwater
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Saturday, February 14, 2009
Eugene Debs was a Socialist
(originally published at OpEdNews)
Some time back, I wrote an article entitled Socialism and Democracy – The People’s Combination. In the article, I tried to make the point that words aren’t inherently “bad”.
As reinforcement for that premise, I invite you to read the late George Carlin’s comedic dissertation in which he substitutes the word “fuck” for the word “kill”. It becomes clear via the great Carlin’s logic that words are emotionless, lifeless character formations which have no particular agenda.
Absent the comic genius of Carlin, I used his logic in my article to talk about the word “social”. The conclusion I came to was that the word “social” in almost all of its variations carries a positive ambiance; in almost all of its variations. However, combine the word social with the suffix “ism” and, voila, Mr. Hyde! A word otherwise used to describe a desired relationship among people becomes instantly dangerous.
I don’t bring this up as a veiled attempt to get readers to go back and read my article. That having been said, I don’t write for practice, so I’d never discourage anyone from reading or rereading any of my articles.
I bring up this article to explain why the following question doesn’t shock me:
“Does anyone reading this realize how close we came to having a completely socialistic government?”
This question was submitted in a letter to the editor of Montana’s Billings Gazette. The writer reminds us that 60 Democratic seats in the senate would have given them “unbridled control of this country.”
The letter writer is determined that this “socialistic” Congress, along with its “Messiah”, would be certain to go from hunter’s home to hunter’s home confiscating rifles and ammo.
Obama’s stance on gun control, and guns need to be controlled to some extent, can be found at the On The Issues web site.
He wants most semiautomatic guns banned and he wants to keep guns out of the inner city where they serve one purpose and one purpose only. Aside from those caveats, it’s clear that it’s not his intention to take sports men’s guns away. The letter writer’s insistence that The President does, indeed, want to take them away shows the lack of research effort that was made before the letter was submitted.
According to the writer, it gets worse. “goodbye Bush tax cuts- which people living on the backs of working taxpayers hate - and goodbye freedom.”
The tax cuts that The Regime passed were passed for the benefit of those who collect their money by waiting, not by working. The tax cuts that The Regime passed lessened the tax burdens for nonworking taxpayers and corporations, not for “working taxpayers”. If people are living on the backs of these wealthy taxpayers, that can be easily resolved. The filthy rich taxpayers and corporate upper management can get them off of their backs and hire them.
“Good-bye freedom” is an interesting phrase. We see this man’s warning progressing from a hunter’s weapons search and destroy mission, to a repeal of tax cuts for people who don’t need them and whose taxes would pump needed revenue into the economy, to some kind of government driven incarceration. The writer predicts all of this because of a change from capitalism to socialism that’s never been proposed by anyone in the Obama Administration. Ah, but let’s not lose site of the “ism” that magically creates high stepping Soviet troops marching through Moscow – or, possibly, Billings - on Mayday.
Fortunately, in the opinion of the writer, “Chambliss, the Republican incumbent senator” won Georgia’s revote. There’s no doubt that the writer attributes this good fortune to the fact that Chambliss’s “Democrat” opponent brought in old drunken, skirt-chasing Ted Kennedy and self-confessed war criminal John Kerry” from the “socialist state of Massachusetts” to stump for him.
Saxby (for the writer's sake) Chambliss, on the other hand, brought in “Wonder Woman Sarah Palin” to campaign for him. Noting that Palin drew thousands and thousands of people to Chambliss events, the writer confidently states that “The liberal Democrats are scared of her.” He reminds us that, had Palin’s husband not been arrested for DUI 20 years ago, she would now be the vice-president of The United States, which, I guess, means that she would have carried McCain with her. At any rate, the writer may have reminded some of you about the twenty year old DUI incident that decided the 2008 election, but I don’t remember that being the case at all.
As far as the writer is concerned, the Palin DUI was but a minor peccadillo compared to Obama’s past during which he’s admitted to smoking pot and snorting coke. The implication is that this should have been taken into account by those who voted in the 2008 presidential election. Again, I could not have taken into account that which I didn’t know in the first place.
Neither Obama nor anyone in his administration has spoken about making the American government “completely socialistic”. I’ve heard no talk by The Obama Administration about taking over the production of refrigerators, shoes or basketballs. That would be complete socialism, wouldn’t it?
The closest The United States has ever come to having a Socialist president was in the 1908 presidential election when Eugene Debs collected 450,000 votes and again in 1912 when he received 900,000 votes.[1]
I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that Obama is not a Socialist, complete or any other brand.
In the article I mention above, I go into much more detail, as do comments posted to that article, about how Americans are still indentifying “Socialism” with “communism” and “communism” with tyranny. This points to the sad fact that there are still Americans who’ve never heard of successful Democratic Socialism. There are still Americans who don’t realize that democracy is a form of governance and Socialism is an economic system which protects a nation’s citizens from unnecessary poverty.
This brings me to my final thought. So what if Obama was or is a Socialist? The Socialist Party and the premise of Socialism do not conflict with The Constitution of The United States. We all know that, after The Bible, The US Constitution is the most “interpreted” non-fiction work ever written.
No, I guess that wasn’t my final thought. My final thought is whence do people like this letter writer come? They seem to be let out of “the hen house” just long enough to repeat the fox’s words.
To friendship,
Michael
“There is no nonsense so errant that it cannot be made the creed of the vast majority by adequate governmental action.” - Bertrand Russell
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[1] . Zinn, Howard. The People’s History of the United States, HaperCollins Publishers, p. 341
Sunday, February 08, 2009
Is Fox Still Guarding the Thought House
How can people still watch the Fox News Channel with the idea that they are receiving “fair and balanced” news? Nonetheless, a letter sent to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, as well as many other letters, are nothing more and nothing less than Fox News Channel lying – I mean - talking points.
A truly distinctive feature about the above mentioned letter is how few words are used to spread ridiculous misinformation. There is a ton of misinformation packed into this 91 word letter.
The premise of the letter, which, in itself is “understandable” from a Conservative’s point of view, is that HR1: The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 includes too much spending. This is the ideological difference between Conservatives and Progressives and it’s a logical position for a Conservative to take.
The writer, however, goes well beyond expressing an ideological difference in how government should help those in need.
The writer accuses the “political left” of possessing a “mean spirited “our way or no way” attitude”.
Whatever one believes happened on September 11, 2001 is irrelevant in comparison to a remark made by The Front Man shortly afterwards.
On July 17, 2002, Bush said, “Almost every day is a new phase, in some ways, because we're reminding different countries which may be susceptible to Al Qaeda, that you're either with us or against us. And so we're constantly working on bolstering confidence amongst some nations which may sometimes forget that either you're with us or you're with the terrorists.”
Does the writer consider the above statement a warm invitation to nations of the world to help us track down and capture whoever it was that carried out the acts of 9/11? The statement seems more like “you will fight with us or you will fight us”. Rather than a warm invitation to help us, it’s a threat, and a “mean spirited” one at that.
The writer does admit that the stimulus package vote in The House was a bipartisan vote. He reminds us that, not only did all Republicans vote against the stimulus bill, but 11 Democrats voted against it as well. His reasoning, it appears, is that the partisan aspect of the vote was that only Democrats voted for the bill.
At first blush, one might agree with the writer. One can believe a conspiracy that Democrats met before the vote ever came up and decided that they wouldn’t even read the bill. They decided that they would vote for it in lock step just because it’s a bill originating from the office of a Democratic (that’s Democratic, not Democrat) President.
But wait! How could that be? As the writer tells us, 11 Democrats voted against the bill. On the other hand, not one Republican voted for it.
Rather than looking at the “No” vote as the place where real bipartisanship resides, let’s look at the result as showing that Democrats actually read bills and make their own decisions. They don’t march in lockstep as a party.
On the other hand, not one Republican saw enough benefit in the bill to give it a chance and make some move toward getting the nation out of its present economic tomb before that tomb is hermetically sealed. Are the Republicans still wearing those brown shirts and marching in lockstep?
This difference between Republicans and Democrats isn’t new, of course. That’s if we are to believe that there are Republicans and Democrats and that this isn’t all theater substituting for politics.
Let’s hold our collective nose and go into the way back machine. Let’s revisit the years before Obama. Let’s look at voting records.
In August, 2007, Democrats joined with Republicans in Congress to give The Regime the gift of warrantless wiretaps.
Basically, during The Regime’s reign, congressional Democrats escorted their Republican colleagues down the “unitary executive” aisle which was bespangled with “the suspension of civil liberties, arbitrary detention, official torture and more.”
Some have said that The Democrats are/were just spineless and others note that Democrats have a larger, more inclusive tent and they don’t necessarily look organized in a parade. Another way of looking at it is that they individually think for themselves and either vote their conscience or vote the way they know their constituents want them to vote. In fact, if we were to blame this large and versatile tent for many of their past election losses, we would probably be at least partly correct.
This does not sound like a group who possesses a “mean spirited “our way or no way” attitude”.
The writer isn’t satisfied with merely accusing The Democrats of having that “mean spirited” attitude. He expresses what seems to be almost ecstatic appreciation to Republicans for “finally standing up to this nonsense.”
Since Republicans controlled Congress for five out of the past nine years, it seems that there hasn't been much to which they've had to stand up. The writer could be referring to the actual physically positional status Republicans use when casting their votes, although I think that members of Congress must stand when they cast their votes.
However, let’s go out on a limb here and assume that the writer is implying that Republicans had been sheepish in standing up for that on which they have voted and have “finally” stood up to the Democrats’ “nonsense.”
The writer gives no hint whether or not he’d been on an interplanetary vacation for the past eight years, but what other reason could there be for not realizing that The Republican “President” got almost everything he wanted from a Republican House and a Republican Senate since January of 2001 and especially since September 11, 2001? If the Republicans are standing and speaking out against, HR1: The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, the word “finally” is an inappropriate adverb.
Many of the criticisms are born of either veiled or not so veiled racism. Maybe the obvious attempts by Republican members of Congress to make Barack Obama look as if he’s not paying attention is thinly veiled racism while the vomitus excrement oozing from the mouths of Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly and Rush Limbaugh is a very clear attempt to appeal to the basest character flaws of certain groups and stir up racist feelings, dangerous racist feelings. If you think about what white supremacists believe, President Obama has got to be their worst nightmare.
Democrats and Republicans are wealthy people who play this game or put on this act called politics. If you’ve gotten far enough in politics to be well known on a national level, you’ve probably got some confessin’ to do.
I admit that I’ve said and written that I’m going to stand back and see if Obama can prove me wrong. If I’m going to do that, it’s nowhere near time to make up my mind one way or the other. I’m “giving him a chance” – as if he will ever know who I am – but I believe he’ll eventually be exposed as a corporat; a member in good standing of The Corporacracy.
Not so patient have been people like the brown shirted pundits and the republicrats who’ve been hanging on Obama’s every breath with impeach forks in their hands despite the fact that the president can hardly have done anything wrong at this early stage. The ones they call Republicans only need the noose to complete the picture.
Not one Republican member of The House could lend a helping hand to President Barack Obama! It seems obvious that they want him to look like a kid in a grown up’s game.
This may be all theater and most of us are probably not the targets of any political philanthropy. Nonetheless, this theater is playing out very ominously, indeed. 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’s any legitimacy to it at all, he’s six foot fifteen and stronger than superman. It’s his Senate and his House and even his governorships. And he’s the president. He keeps saying economic relief has to be quick. We don’t have time to screw around with politics
There’s only one person who can speed up the process and that person is Barack Obama! If things have to happen quickly, then he has to morph into the famous “NO MORE MISTER NICE GUY”. There’s nothing holding him from stomping on every Republican racist in Congress and just doing what he knows needs to be done. You know, like Bush just did it? Just do it and I ain’t talking about Nikes, either.
If part of his goal was to, unlike The Regime, steer away from abusing his presidential authority, he can check that one off his list. He’s asked for and accepted more bipartisan input in three weeks than The Regime asked for in eight years. He’s even admitted to “screwing up”, a concept kept at least at arm’s length during The Regime’s reign and that’s another hole that can be punched. If the president wants to be better than politics, he has to walk away from the politicians.
Right now he’s as popular as any new president in history. The longer he waits for bipartisanship to kick in, the more his popularity will drop. It’ll be just like the 2006 midterms when Democrats were elected to effect change, but decided to support the status quo.
If he’s nothing else, Barack Obama is an eloquent and convincing speaker. Isn’t it very easy to envision Barack Obama standing before the American people, saying that he’s done all he knows how to do to combine the change he promised with bipartisanship? He can say, however, that not everyone is/was on the same bipartisan page as he is and that the economic crisis transcends waiting for that to happen.
If he doesn’t get the votes to avoid a filibuster, he should merely let The Republicans fillibust away (fillibust?). Let them all speak for hour upon hour, day after day, stalling this recovery package and trying to explain why jobs keep dropping like flies. Let ‘em do it. Even though Fox News will no doubt portray the fillibustering legislators as American heroes, Americans who are losing jobs, pensions and other benefits will view them as the tight assed, non-populist fools that they are and will begin to demand that they shut up and vote.
Most Republican governors want HR1 to pass and that should overshadow the colorful clown suits that congressional Republicans will be wearing during their useless filibuster.
To friendship,
Michael
“Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.” - Isaac Asimov, Salvor Hardin in “Foundation”
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