Why Your Vote Will Not Matter This November
Presidential debates between Obama and Romney will begin next week, beckoning Americans to focus on the candidates and who they should support.
It is time to ask ourselves if either of the present presidential campaigns or any debate between the two candidates matters.
Eight years ago, on Sept. 28, 2004, an editorial published by The Lone Star Iconoclast, the hometown newspaper of George Bush in Crawford, Texas, outlined the issues that were being overlooked by the mainstream media. The newspaper endured threats and boycotts after endorsing John Kerry for President. Kerry had been struggling in the wake of an off-point swift-boat campaign launched by covert manipulations orchestrated by the Rove White House. We suggest you read the editorial again, in full.
The editorial, which began with “Few Americans would have voted for George W. Bush four years ago if he had promised that, as President, he would…” sent shock waves through the electorate and around the world. The Iconoclast site went down, overpowered by the force of 10,000,000 hits in one day as real, substantial issues came into sharp relief.
Instead of irrelevancies, the ensuing 2004 presidential debates refocused attention on the shocking developments in America and around the world, driven by war, irresponsible spending, the emptying of the Social Security Trust as benefits were slashed, the outsourcing of jobs, granting of cost plus contracts to friends of the administration, and the conversion of a budget surplus to the largest deficit in history.
The editorial concluded that Bush was a liar and cited “elements of a hidden agenda that surfaced only after he took office.”
The Kerry Campaign experienced a surge of support, which most Americans believed would carry him into the White House. The issues have not changed, despite attempts by both candidates to distract you. But we are farther down the path on a trajectory to absolute disaster.
Today the truth about Bush has become obvious, despite constant attempts to make him look good in comparison to Obama, who after a short, giddy period of fervent relief, stunned supporters by continuing the Bush presidency. Most Americans cannot discern a difference between the two administrations.
2004 provided a lesson we need to learn.
Beginning in the summer 2003 flyers were being circulated in the extended Cleveland, Ohio area reading, “Get Rid of Bush.” This was before the primary process had identified the opposing candidate.
Rebecca Anne, then living in the area, remembers the flyers, which urged people to register to vote for the explicit purpose of removing Bush from office. No one, Rebecca Anne said, cared very much who replaced Bush. Anyone would do. The people she knew included a broad range of political affiliations.
The editorial board of The Cleveland Plain Dealer, which has been criticized by liberal columnists for the generally conservative positions on its editorial page, despite the Democratic readership, withheld any endorsement. Then-publisher Alex Machaskee wanted to endorse Bush, over the objections and vote of the editorial board. He was instead persuaded by editorial page editor Brent Larkin to withhold any endorsement.
In the immediate aftermath of the election an article appeared in The Free Press by columnist Bob Fitrakis, entitled “How the Ohio election was rigged for Bush,” on Nov. 22, 2004.
The article cited four community public meetings about “election irregularities and voter suppression – two in the capitol, Columbus, and one each in Cincinnati and Cleveland – a clear pattern and practice of voter disenfranchisement is emerging.”
The 2004 election raised intensity on the troubling issue of electoral integrity. Millions of Americans had waited in long lines across the country to vote on Nov. 2 and went to sleep in the belief John Kerry had been elected President. They woke up the next morning to the news Kerry had conceded in the small hours of the night, refusing to contest the highly questionable outcome of counts in several states.
Today, a growing number of Americans from all parties accept that Kerry was actually elected. The election had been stolen by use of a back door in the voting machines, designed and sold to Americans by wealthy Bush friends. As this realization sunk in questions about the 2000 election also dawned.
Stolen elections require both the means of carrying it out with voting machines that can be remotely programmed and providing probable deniability. But the same people are used for this, over and over again.
The publication of another book, Who’s Counting? How Fraudsters and Bureaucrats Put Your Vote at Risk, by Rove confidant John Fund, formerly of The Wall Street Journal, with Heritage Foundation senior legal fellow Hans von Spakovsky, serves to illustrate how the Bush strategy for covering up their serial election thefts works. Building on their mainstream credentials operatives such as Fund provide cover which dampens protests by muddying the waters with false facts and rhetoric.
Fund’s first book, “Stealing Elections,” published in 2004, and his presence as a spokesman, has been invaluable as well.
Today, the whole electoral process appears to be a distraction for the public, providing shreds of false hope as the next round of take-downs are put in place, carried out with the callousness of the slaughter house.
Since the moment Bush was inaugurated in 2001 Americans have been subjected to a continuous onslaught of falsehoods, from the infamous weapons of mass destruction used to justify the war in Iraq, and moves by Congress which changed the economic rule book, immunizing the financial sector from wrong doing. Since then, Americans have suffered through a series of shocks which can each be traced back to the income stream of a small number of interests.
Wealth is being transferred from those who earned it to those who use government to fill their own pockets. Changes in statute, rubber stamped by Congress, and the erosion of the rights of Americans, through conversion of our courts, have transformed America.
What began as a trickle into the pockets of special interests has become a hemorrhage, with the 2008 real estate crisis only one of many.
As Americans vote this November, if they bother, the next round of planned takings will begin. The target will, again, be the homes of Americans. This will happen no matter who is elected to fill the office of President and a growing number of Americans realize this.
Today, there are more ‘Obama in 2008’ stickers weathering on cars than new 2012 stickers. Romney signs are still outnumbered by those for Ron Paul.
Nigeria Today: Taking Corporate Limits…
Nigeria Today: Taking Corporate Limits To Its Logical Conclusion
http://jpstillwater.blogspot.com/2012/09/nigeria-today-taking-corporate-power-to.html
You think that America’s corporate-owned government has its drawbacks? Wait until you hear what the corporate-owned government in Nigeria is up to! You think that the results of having corporate Big Money buying off America’s politicians has been scary and sad? Then you obviously haven’t ever been to Nigeria — where they have definitely gone way far beyond merely “scary” or “sad.”
When it comes to having a corporate-owned government, apparently Nigeria has become the prototype, the ideal, the epitome of what corporate-owned government can really achieve if it puts its mind to it. Corporations in America like Citibank and Monsanto and Georgia-Pacific and Chevron can only hope to aspire to the high levels of corporatism that have been achieved in Nigeria.
Nigeria today has broken the mold and set the bar really high.
But how do I know all this? From an interview with an expert on Nigeria that took place yesterday in a local park in Berkeley over tuna-fish sandwiches.
“So. What’s up in Nigeria?” I asked him, immediately diving right in.
“Don’t even ask,” he replied. “For one thing, our government is composed of mainly puppet thugs put into office by corporate neo-colonialists — but these office-holders have no power at all. They are only there as a showcase, an illusion, a shadow puppet show created to make it look like someone with dark skin is in charge over there and to give corporations someone to officially sign the documents that have handed Nigeria over to them.”
That’s ironic. In America, corporations try to dig up shadow puppets with light skin.
“When we were children in Nigeria,” continued the expert, “all of us wanted to go off to college because those in our villages who had gone to college would come home and everyone would honor them. But not any more. Now the children in the villages and towns of Nigeria all want to grow up to be government thugs! To drive big shiny cars and take money from oil companies and beat people up.”
“Something like that has happened in America too,” I replied. “Little kids used to want to grow up to be doctors or firefighters or scientists. High school kids wanted to go to college and become architects or engineers or Bob the Builder. Now all they want to do is study business so they can rush off to Wall Street and make a killing. Who wants to be a doctor when they can orchestrate pension-plan takeovers and outsource American jobs. Or go into politics.” Yeah. And become corporate-owned government thugs like in Nigeria.
“And it used to be that everyone in Nigeria at least had a chance of going to high school,” said the expert. “But the levels of available education there are falling fast.” Keep them barefoot and dumb? Seems to be the trend here in America too.
“Whenever we thought of America when we were children, we all wanted to be like that — democracy and all. Owning something that said ‘Made in America’ on it was a very big deal. And now it’s all made in China. But what amazes me most about Americans today is that they all sit back and take this and say nothing. They just listen to Rush Limbaugh and Glen Beck and Fox News and accept their fate like lambs to the slaughter.”
I know what he means. And in my humble opinion, it all started back in 1963 when no one really questioned who shot JFK — and who benefited most. Who had the motive, means and opportunity? It surely wasn’t Cuba or even the USSR. “Who killed the Kennedys? After all it was you and me,” sang the Rolling Stones — and they nailed it. Then most Americans went on to never question the lack of preparedness before 9-11 http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2012/09/11/the-11th-anniversary-911-paul-craig-roberts/ or the obvious lies about weapons of mass destruction or the need for bank bailouts or…. Sheep.
“Don’t Tread on Me” is now history, sent off to America’s outdated memorabilia rubbish heap.
“When the BP oil spill happened over here in the Gulf,” my expert continued, “BP spent a lot of money on maintaining their public image in America and making excuses. Well, Nigeria has a big oil spill almost every day. Oil spills like that are common in Nigeria. But the major difference between there and here is that BP doesn’t even bother to make excuses in Nigeria. They don’t even consider Nigerians important enough to even make excuses. They treat us like some kind of annoying pests that they just have to put up with while extracting our oil. Not really human.” Definitely beyond sad.
Imagine all those photos of shorebirds on the Gulf Coast covered with oil — and then imagine Nigerians covered with oil like that too. The toxic “body burden” that many Nigerian villagers are bearing these days is tragic.
“Have you ever been to Nigeria?” he asked me. “Rich people there live in securely gated communities and behind high walls. There is no walking down the streets in Nigeria for rich people. Why would anyone ever want to live like that? To always be guarded and gated and stuck behind walls? That’s no way to live. Having economic equality leads to more freedom — even for the rich.”
But as the rich become more and more separated from the poor here in America too, that’s definitely the direction we also are going in. Freedom, like money, does not trickle down.
Next we discussed a whole bunch of other reasons why having a corporate-owned government has led to a failed nation in Nigeria — and will also lead to a failed nation here. But I forgot to take notes and can’t remember the rest of what all we discussed. But you get the gist. Government of the people, by the people and for the people is good. Corporate-owned government is proving to be very very bad.
To paraphrase a recent saying that’s now making the rounds on FaceBook, “If Romney’s proposed corporatist policies actually work, then George W. Bush would have given the keynote speech at the Republican convention — and Nigeria would be a proud role model for democracy and freedom, not just another miserable failed state.”
PS: Has anyone started to miss Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi yet? If he hadn’t been brutally murdered and his corpse dragged through the streets of Sirte, Ambassador Stevens would still be alive and well too.
And does anybody but me find it ironic that the rockets used to attack the American consulate in Benghazi probably came from the same stockpile of weapons supplied to NATO’s allies, the al-Qaeda-linked Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, and paid for by America’s corporate-owned government?
Shades of Ronald Reagan’s favorite “freedom fighters” in Afghanistan — Osama bin Ladin and friends.
Ashtabula – No. 1 in the U.S.
My friend Dave received his degree in petroleum geology and went to work for oil companies even before graduation. His career took him to positions on seven continents, the last in South East Asia in 1996, working for Enron. That year Dave quit. The straw that broke the camel’s back was the company’s donation of a school built on land polluted by previous drilling. Enron took a tax deduction. Dave knew children would be dying.
Dave left his highly compensated job and retirement, returning to the U.S. to work, unpaid, for Green Peace, who, at first, were very suspicious. Today Dave is an expert witness, recognized by the courts, for litigation on toxic waste. Dave is obsessively fact oriented, compiling data bases which include the entire US and much of the rest of the world.
It was Dave who told me Ashtabula ranked number one in 2010 (the most recent data available) in the U.S. for pollutants in two categories. The companies involved, Dave said, have paid EPA fines, always exceeding the EPA limits for emissions into the air breathed by residents. One specific instance, on the part of one offending company included a fine, exacted by the EPA for carbon monoxide in 38 malfunction incidents in a five year period and their total fine paid was $100,000. The money was paid to the Ohio EPA, none going to anyone locally. The fine was specifically for, “Exceeding emission limits as the result of the use of a safety valve to bypass the units air pollution control equipment.”
Continuous exposure to 15 – 50 parts per million of these chemicals may cause headaches, dizziness, nausea, central nervous system effects, vertigo, amnesia, weakness and muscle cramps. People impacted may also begin to exhibit symptoms of Parkinson’s Disease.
Two of the offending plants are only .18 miles apart, located on Middle Road in Ashtabula.
“How long are you staying in the area?” Dave asked. Living with Superfund sites, especially these, may be hazardous to your health, he told me.
For several years now Dave has been working on a website, Were You Poisoned? Helping folks over come the effects is one of his passions. On his site he points to ways people can remove toxic waste from their systems. He also strongly recommends suing offending companies where companies have admitted their transgressions by, for instance, paying EPA fines.
When You’re In The Devil’s House …
When You Are In The Devil’s House, You Will Know It
Chapter 1: Knowing yourself… and where you are
When you are in the Devil’s house, you will know it. There is no doubt.
There are no telltale signs posted, but there is no doubt where you are and you are woefully alone. Your preceding life is a faint glimmer and the house is dark… pitch black, so that you may not even see your own thoughts or recall who you are.
You are in the present only. A thought from your past is noticed as a rapid glance, as quick as an express freight train blurs by a local station. You see it, or you think you see it. You don’t dare turn your head for a look back because you are in the Devil’s house and he is playing with your head. He wants to see what you’ve got inside… what you are made of and what is left that he can toy with.
That you lost control is evident when you bump into a phantom table or trip over the edge of an imagined rug. Just keep searching because there has to be a way out before you lose any hope or recall. Where are your loved ones? Did you ever have any loved ones… a wife, a lover, children, a best friend? The Devil doesn’t care. You are his. You may lose everything. You must find your way or you will be his forever.
You can’t see him but you know the Devil is all around you. You can feel him. There is no hiding. You are in his house, perhaps to pay for some transgression in your past, or it may simply be that he’s been watching you and wants to see if you can handle yourself… alone in his blind house.
Your eyes adjust somewhat to the darkness, or what the Devil wants you to see. It may be nothing or it could be crammed with symbolic pieces to test what you are and where you will go next. How much can you handle? Time is lost. It is an hour, or a day. It slips by unnoticed, or it crawls along like a tiny snail in the sand until you scream with frustration.
You are in his house. How did you get here? How long are you staying? Are you sitting or standing? How do you get out of here? Questions floating by are lost in space. There are lots of questions, but no answers. You don’t care. You just want out, but you are not going anywhere because the Devil is in charge and it’s his house. He knows where everything is and what everything means. You have to make sense of it… enough to escape. He knows you are trying. He’s played at it before with an endless progression of wretched, frightened souls… and now you are one of them. How are you doing?
You don’t know yet and to make things worse… you have been drugged. The clouds in your mind haze over your thoughts and you are trying to see through them, but it’s tough because the Devil wants it to be. The doubts are forming, as you move on.
Chapter 2: Wading through the Devil’s swamp
Shaking your mind from the cob webs isn’t easy. Is this a dream or reality? You don’t know, but you have no time to think about it. You stagger past your options as you stumbled through your life. Try to make sense of what is. Grab onto something. There is no stability. No apparent safe place. It is lost, much as you are now. Exhausted and scared, you finally fall down where you are to sleep, a brief escape from consciousness, a respite from feeling and making decisions. It doesn’t last.
You awaken, stressed. Has it been an hour or a day? Time is lost, as lost as you are for the moment. After all, you are in the Devil’s house. Lost souls float by now and then. Some stop to speak, others glide along some obscure path that is hidden in the darkness, just like the one you are on, searching. You try not to stop or be deterred by all of it. Sometimes you succeed.
You must keep faith in God, Yourself and Love to make it through the darkness and the maze of clutter. The dark house seems endless. These are the tools you must use against the Devil and his house. Little else matters.
Frequently, you doubt yourself. Your mind may not be your own. It’s easy to get paranoid. Your thoughts may scatter and your actions reactionary. You keep juggling what you can. Whatever may happen, you are in it for the long haul. You are in and out of consciousness. The drugs carry you along, even when you are missing. Your reality is a dream and the illusions are your reality. The Devil’s house is a mixed bag of nuts that you must sort through, usually without thinking and more often with a price to pay. You must struggle through it.
Chapter 3: You are what you are… and you are lost.
Hard to tell… are you awake or asleep? In many ways it doesn’t matter. The struggle knows no time. You need to buy a map of the place, but you have no money on you and there is no map anyway. Bearings! You need to find them, but there are no signs or stars to follow. You are on your own. You strain in the darkness to see, to make some sense of it. The Devil has you in his clutches and you are alone, scared and lost. He is chuckling at your dilemma, but you can’t hear him.
Periodically, he sends some disciples to ask you questions that you don’t understand. You try your best to respond and to ask some questions of your own, but the answers are not what you are looking for and the clouds remain. You force yourself to plod on.
The sounds you hear are varied. The whirs and clicks of machinery distort your mind and progress. Sounds are of a toy train moving along some tracks and also there is some sort of clicking or ticking, much like a clock. Whatever they may be, they are hidden from your view and after stopping for a minute or a day, you move on. You realize the sounds are to get your attention and to divert your thoughts. So you try not listening too long, but just enough to keep you safe from any potential danger. After all, you are in the Devil’s house and you are very lost and confused. Still, you hang on to your faith in God, Yourself and Love because they are the only way you can hold onto your life and find a way out of this hell you are in. It continues…
Terrell: Do Not Elect Incumbents
To The Editor:
It’s about to happen again. Nation-wide, Congress has only a 10% approval rating yet we are about to RE-ELECT 90% OF THE INCUMBENTS! How can this be? The only explanation: 90% of us approve of our own representative but want everyone else to elect someone different.
If this continues there will NEVER be meaningful change in Washington. Things will always be the same; right up until our country collapses under the weight of debt and corruption.
Fellow Americans, we must do something different now. You can only vote for/against, and possibly replace, one of the 435 members of the House. Is your representative really worthy of being sent back to Washington? If he/she has been there for 8 or more years it’s very likely he/she is part of the problem. If one of your choices in November is an 8+ year incumbent, seriously consider voting for the challenger. But you say, “The other candidate is a member of the other party and he’s pro this or that.” A freshman representative of either party will do less harm than an entrenched incumbent. In two years it will be easier to elect someone different and the country gets a new congress now!
Submitted by: Glen Terrell, Arlington, Texas
Fiesta Fronteriza 2012 Set For Oct. 5
Celebrating Six Years of Work in El Paso, Paso del Norte Civil Rights Project invites the public to its Fiesta Fronteriza 2012, a “Night of Civil Rights Stars.”
Featured keynote speaker will be Dr.Irasema Coronado, University of Texas at El Paso professor, Department of Political Science.
Tickets to the Friday, Oct. 5, 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. event are available online at https://texascivilrightsproject.ejoinme.org/MyPages/PCRPRegistrationPage/tabid/196974/Default.aspx.
Festivities will be held at El Paso Community College Administrative Services Center, 9050 Viscount Building A, Auditorium, El Paso, with emcee Don Williams, president, El Paso Black Democrats.
Several individuals will be honored.
RSVP to Sandra at (915) 532-3799 Ext. 15.
Joffe: ‘Romney Follows His Own Rules’
Dear Editor,
It is despicable that Candidate Romney issued a preemptive criticism of President Obama even as American Ambassador Chris Stevens was being killed in Libya. Not only was Romney misinformed and misguided, but he failed to adhere to a basic rule of American politics: politics stops at the water’s edge. When our country is attacked, we stand behind our President, no matter what political party he belongs to. Romney’s statements demonstrate how corruptly he values partisan politics over uniting around our country. He showed greed for power instead of patriotism. Romney seems to think that he is exempt from our common rules of decency.
Another common convention that Romney thinks he is exempt from is that of candidates releasing past income tax filings during their campaign. If you want to see a person’s character, look at his finances. You’ll see what values he really believes in. We voters have come to expect such transparency from our candidates; it gives us one opportunity to objectively see the real person behind the paid advertisements. Again, Candidate Romney fails.
Yours truly,
Bruce Joffe, Piedmont, Calif.
Remember the Alamo and the Smith Legacy
Erastus “Deaf” Smith is remembered as the eyes and ears of the Texas Revolution. Smith, nearly deaf, also relieved the survivors of the Alamo and was the man who cried, “Remember the Alamo” at the The Battle of San Jacinto, which took place April 20, 1836, in the aftermath of the Alamo massacre. He was Gen. Sam Houston’s most trusted scout and spy.
The right words, heard at the right time, can change history.
History comes to us through time, carried in memory. Erastus Smith rests in an Episcopal cemetery in Richmond, Texas. His blood runs through the veins of W. Leon Smith.
It was the on-point words of Smith’s 2004 editorial, endorsing John Kerry over then-president George W. Bush, in Bush’s hometown paper in Crawford, Texas, which became the framework for the Presidential debates between Bush and Kerry in October.
The editorial, published September 29, 2004, focused on violated promises made by Bush during his campaign in 2000. The reader was reminded of the promises as we lived the reality.
Among these were: The war in Iraq, carried out through deception. The assault on the Social Security trust fund; cuts in Medicare by 17 percent and reduction pf veterans’ benefits and military pay; 50% rise in oil prices; offshoring of American jobs, encouraged by Bush policies; billions spent on government contracts without competitive bids; converting a budget surplus to the worst deficit in history.
The editorial also cited elements of a hidden agenda which only surfaced after Bush took office, including the “dangerous shift away from the basic freedoms established by our founding fathers, and his continuous mistakes regarding terrorism and Iraq.”
The editorial changed the political roadmap. Over the next days the servers which hosted the Lone Star’s website went down several times due to overloads caused by as many as 10,000,000 a day. Americans had been deceived by political rhetoric. Worse was coming.
The flagging Kerry Campaign received a surge of support. On election day, long lines of voters queued up, waiting for hours to cast their votes. Kerry was ahead until all polls has closed. Suddenly, the numbers mysteriously changed. Bush was re-elected.
An election will take place in November. The evidence indicates this election will change nothing about our present trajectory, being already decided.
As we remember the past, distant and recent, we see patterns which instruct, allowing us to change those patterns and so the future.
Fiscal Cliff Could Cost Texas 160,000 Jobs
AUSTIN, Texas – A looming budget battle in Washington could cost 160,000 jobs in Texas. Lawmakers last year gave themselves until the end of this year to reduce the federal deficit by more than a trillion dollars over the next decade. If Congress can’t agree on a plan, automatic cuts will kick in. Known as “sequestration,” the cuts were designed to be unpopular and painful to all sides, as an incentive to compromise.
But tax-policy analyst Ali Mickelson fears partisan politics this election season could prevent a more productive solution.
“That’s sort of the reason that this sequestration is looming. It’s because of that partisan divide. Nobody’s been able to agree, and that may continue to be the case.”
Republicans accuse Democrats of being willing to gut the defense department, while Democrats say the GOP is trying to protect tax breaks for the wealthy. If lawmakers can’t avoid the “fiscal cliff,” Texas is likely to lose more jobs than any other state except California and Virginia. That’s according to a recent George Mason University report, which also calculated that the reduced federal funding would remove about $16 billion from the state’s economy.
More than half of the Texas job losses would come from defense cuts. Much of the rest, Mickelson says, would affect education. But as tough as that sounds, she thinks sequestration might actually be preferable to some alternatives.
“If we have, in response to avoiding sequestration, sort of a rushed one-sided budget that goes through, that could potentially cost more jobs, more services, that could be bigger cuts.”
The automatic cuts were a provision of the Budget Control Act of 2011. They would go into effect in January, and could send the country back into recession during the first half of next year, according to the George Mason University study, with 2.14 million job losses nationwide.
See report at www.aia-aerospace.org.
America — The Next Lost Atlantis
Geographically, Economically, Politically & Morally
http://jpstillwater.blogspot.com/2012/09/america-next-lost-atlantis.html
Geographically: Now that the world’s ocean levels have started rising much faster than predicted, America’s coastal cities may become submerged far sooner than we thought. And, sooner rather than later, Manhattan stands a very good chance of becoming the next lost Atlantis.
Here’s a cute little video from NASA that describes what’s been happening to our planet’s climate over the last 131 years. Check it out: http://www.climatecentral.org/blogs/131-years-of-global-warming-in-26-seconds/ In this video animation, blue represents minus-two degrees Celsius and red represents plus-two degrees Celsius. That’s only a four-degree variation — but what a variation it is! At the blue point, ice all over the planet used to be still intact. At the red point, however, it has melted. At this rate, San Francisco will soon join Manhattan in its race to become the first lost Atlantis.
But enough said about that. I just hope that you don’t own a condo down in SoHo or beach-front property in Honolulu. You do? You’re screwed.
And then there’s Burning Man. This year Black Rock City was completely engulfed in air-born dust particles and white-out sand storms almost 24/7. If this drought doesn’t let up, perhaps they ought to change its name to Dust Bowl City.
And also, for the first time in memory, we have gotten a hecka lot of Canada geese hanging around Berkeley this summer instead of just passing by in the spring and the fall. Guess they don’t have to fly so far south to get warm any more. No winter vacation in Cancun for them! And we humans don’t need to fly south to Puerto Vallarta during the winter months any more either. Last year was the warmest winter in NorCal that I can remember (but I still love Puerto Vallarta).
Morally: The Republican party (and the huge corporations that now own it) are completely using and abusing their only staunch allies — the older white American males and blind-faith Christians who support them — in order to enact laws and make policies that not only undermine these staunch allies’ beliefs but also their very existence.
Jobs, Social Security, homes, families, medical care, infrastructure, water supplies, energy sources, the very teachings of Christ Himself, you name it — all have been put in grave danger by the very corporate interests that naive older white Americans and gullible Christians have blindly trusted and supported all these years. It’s just sad to watch these trusting staunch allies of the GOP constantly getting knifed in the back.
Then there are the famous Fetus Wars. Jesus is being called upon to testify against Planned Parenthood — and yet Jesus isn’t even allowed on the premises when multiple brutal vicious and bloody wars have been declared against millions of innocent children all around the world. You wanna call yourself a Christian? Then you gotta act Christ-like! Duh.
And Repubs are now actually saying that Ted Kennedy originated the War on Women. Chappaquiddick was a tragic accident. That’s not the same thing. But a true war on women appears to be the GOP’s latest favorite game plan — as Repubs happily head down the same path that other “Christians” took back in the European Middle Ages when an estimated nine million women who dared to speak up for themselves, tried to get an education or attempted to practice medicine were burned alive at the stake.
Economically: Since outsourcing and deregulation has hit America like a category-5 hurricane, our economy has become a disaster area — literally. So many jobs have fled overseas and so much wealth has fled to the Caymans that many parts of the USA look almost like New Orleans after Katrina.
All the things that we used to make here? We don’t even know how to make them any more. And all that knowledge of how to make them has been lost too.
Sometimes I wish that the UN or NATO or whoever — perhaps the war-criminal-trial folks over at the Hague — would sanction America like they are now sanctioning Iran. Then we would be FORCED to become economically independent again.
Republicans have deliberately created a vast pool of unemployed Americans so that they won’t have to pay us high wages. Hence the GOP’s refusal to endorse a job program. Why would they want to do that!
In their haste to make more and more money, large corporations are polluting our water and air and elevating our risk of cancer of course. But they are also killing off billions of bees. Good luck with getting our crops in when there is no pollination. And bye-bye flowers too. We don’t even have to wait until water drowns out the new American Atlantis to miss our fruit trees and flowers. Monsanto has already taken care of that.
Politically: Anyone can buy a seat in Congress these days — or even buy the White House itself or the Supreme Court (especially the Supreme Court). Who would have ever thought that it would be that way here in the former Land of the Free. Not since Boss Tweed and Tammany Hall have our public offices been so “For Sale”. Shame on us for letting this happen.
And remember back in 1999 when we all thought that YK2 was going to be an international disaster? Well all the computers didn’t crash, but YK2 turned out to be an incredible disaster anyway — when George W. Bush stole the 2000 election and almost NOBODY in America objected or even noticed. Then Bush allowed 9-11 to happen, followed by the disastrous Afghanistan invasion, the incredibly expensive Iraq invasion and the 2008 economic crash.
Yes, YK2 really was a disaster.
More political immorality: Who has been a very important ally of corporate-owned Washington in places like Afghanistan, Syria and Libya? Wait for it. “Al Qaeda!” Arming and encouraging the people behind 9-11? Isn’t that about as politically immoral as you can get? But Americans seem to accept this hypocrisy without batting an eye. Go figure.
And what can our bought-and-paid-for politicians possibly be thinking when they systematically alienate huge countries like Russia and China while kissing the booties of their corporate neo-con counterparts in teeny-tiny Israel. Israel? The size of New Jersey? Israel’s neo-con corporatists are gonna save us from the wrath of Russia, China, Africa, the Middle East, Latin America and all the other places and countries that our corporate-owned government has thoroughly screwed over the years? Huh?
And then there’s that cruel joke that used to be America’s legendary and heroic Supreme Court. No justice at all to be had there these days — if you are merely working class. Those guys in black robes take their reverse-Robin-Hood roles very seriously.
“Take from the worker bees and give to the drones” should be carved in marble over our corporate-owned government buildings in Washington — just before America, the next lost Atlantis, slowly sinks into the sea.
But you had better get to carving it soon — because there is something in the air in America these days, a sense that nasty undercurrents are moving stealthily toward us from somewhere very deep, somewhere that the average voter isn’t in touch with — except in our guts.
And our guts seem to be telling us that America is now sinking fast. And that “We the People” have absolutely no life jackets — but that the billionaires who now own our government are already provisioning their yachts http://www.smirkingchimp.com/node/45275.
To paraphrase Plato, “…once upon a time your State stayed the course of a mighty host, which, starting from a distant point in the Atlantic ocean, was insolently advancing to attack the whole of Europe, and Asia to boot” — and then their city of Atlantis got all drowned out.
And to paraphrase Ray Bradbury, “Something wicked is definitely coming our way.”
Anti-Vaccine Campaign Growing
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Independent studies are finding that vaccines are causing more problems than they are remedying, frequently causing diseases in otherwise healthy individuals, ruining their lives.
Pro-pharmaceutical elected officials have been fast to pass bills that will enhance drug company profits, leaving citizens to pay the cost, not only of the drugs bought, but with lives lost or maimed forever.
According to Eileen Dannemann, director, National Coalition of Organized Women, “Are you sometimes feeling dis-empowered by the relentless force of the establishment to pass unconstitutional bills eroding our rights for exemptions; passing bills that make it legal for schools to give vaccines to underage children without parent’s consent or knowledge (California); passing legislation that forces parents to go to the doctor to get a ‘religious exemption’?
“A few years ago, a guy from California contacted us. He had made up these decals on his own steam and put them on his new Toyota truck.”
The decals tell those who see the car: “The Greatest Lie Ever Told — That Vaccines Are Safe and Effective.”
Dannemann asked, “You or a relative or friend have a vaccine-injured Autistic, ADHD, Bipolar, Asthmatic, juvenile diabetes child? You are spending a fortune on treatments; you are mad as hell, and you are besides yourself trying to get people, government, your school, your pediatrician to listen up!”
She explained that the Vaccine Liberation Army (www.vaccineliberationarmy.com) “can have any iteration of these high end, outdoor quality decals made for you at a really cheap price. We recommend the above text which our experience shows that it is highly effective in putting an impulse of doubt about the effectiveness of vaccines into people’s minds…even the medically sold-out elderly.
“We can arrange it for you and in a few weeks. You are all set to blow the establishment out of the water as cars and trucks on the road increases.
“Just think of the impact that one car can make in your town, alone. Just think if we had hundreds of parents within our movement starting to make this kind of HARDCORE commitment across the nation. You know, the reality is we are in a battle…and we can only win, as Dr. Palevsky and Dr. Mercola say, that parents need to rise to inform the community and educate their own pediatricians. We have to rise from the bottom up.
“The mental coherence and health of the entire emerging generation is at stake, here. Twenty-five percent (and growing) of children are now on psyche drugs due to the establishment’s purposeful misdiagnosis of “mental illness” rather than vaccine injury.”
Let’s Rebuild America Now
The voters want jobs. They do not want Washington to descend further into a Dark Age of vindictive partisan gridlock.
I suggest both political parties work together to create a Rebuild America Bond to raise private capital to build roads, bridges, schools, military hospitals, vets centers and other shared priorities.
Before elaborating on the Rebuild America Bond, let’s step back for a moment. Harry Truman said that the only new thing in the world is the history you don’t know.
As work begins to address the deficit crisis, Republicans can learn from Ronald Reagan, and Democrats can learn from Tip O’Neill, about how great rivals can work together on major national challenges.
With the jobless crisis imposing severe pain and political independents demanding constructive bipartisan action, Republicans can learn from former Rep. Jack Kemp, and Democrats can learn from former Sen. Lloyd Bentsen.
The Republicans miss Kemp, who was a fountain of ideas to create private-sector incentives to address priority national problems. Kemp was both an inspiration to Ronald Reagan and a colleague to liberal Democrats whom he respected and worked with whenever possible.
The Democrats miss Bentsen, who was a progressive capitalist and successful CEO and venture financier in the years between his service in the House and Senate. As senator and Treasury secretary, Bentsen became good friends and respectful partners with leading Republican senators such as Bob Dole and John Danforth.
I have been urging the creation of a patriotic national unity bond since the origin of the Iraq war, which created major war costs alongside major tax cuts, leading to ballooning deficits and severe problems for military personnel, equipment and healthcare.
A Rebuild America Bond would combine attributes of liberal and conservative thinking, in the tradition of Jack Kemp and Lloyd Bentsen.
The Rebuild America Bond would be a conservative, interest-bearing investment like the savings bond and the war bonds of the 1940s. It would be a purely voluntary, opt-in venture that would appeal to many patriotic Americans and financial institutions. It would win substantial support from political independents and voters in the Midwest and hard-hit constituents and communities across the nation.
The Rebuild America Bond would appeal to individuals who today receive close to zero interest on deposited funds. It would appeal to Wall Street firms, mutual fund managers, money center banks and insurers whose portfolios include prudent interest-bearing investments.
The Rebuild America Bond would attract private capital for national priorities. It would attract some of the vast amount of institutional capital now being hoarded, in very low-interest accounts, in a very low-growth economy.
As proposed here, both parties would carefully negotiate the specific uses of Rebuild America Bond capital. There is no such thing as a Democratic or Republican collapsing bridge, decaying school, missing vets center or urgently needed military hospital.
Brent BudowskyWhile our political debates will continue, let’s mobilize the good will and patriotism of an American people who are in this together and won’t accept an America in decline.
There are Democrats and Republicans with private-sector experience who can become the new Kemps and Bentsens, working together on a wide range of issues to support venture capitalists, entrepreneurs and innovators.
Let’s rebuild America now.
Brent Budowsky was an aide to former Sen. Lloyd Bentsen and Bill Alexander, then chief deputy majority whip of the House. He holds an LL.M. degree in international financial law from the London School of Economics. He can be read on The Hill’s Pundits Blog and reached at brentbbi@webtv.net This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .
TxDOT Is Squawking Again
In response to Ben Wear’s Austin Statesman article “TxDOT says outsourcing highway maintenance could save millions, but previous pilot project fell flat.”
We have learned during the past 10 years that what TxDOT has to say often means very little regarding the truth on various issues.
Mr. Wear makes some good points in the article, e.g., that TxDOT already has used private contractors to perform various highway and road building and maintenance. Unfortunately, more often than not, the work performed is not professional or quality oriented.
A small example of this is five years ago when TxDOT decided to repave FM 1826 in parts of Hays and Travis counties. The seal was a cheaper and lower quality product instead of using a hot seal. Very quickly after the job was completed the road became marred, noisy and bumpy. When large and heavy trucks turned on the road, they created swirls and marks in the seal. However, TxDOT already had signed off on the job instead of supervising the work more closely and inspecting the quality performed. It was disastrous for residents, who fought TxDOT for 1 long year to resurface the roadway correctly. Finally residents won the battle but lost the war as taxpayers had to pay twice to have the roadwork done correctly. TxDOT is arrogant and mismanaged by various Perry appointed puppets at the helm.
There are quite a few other stories that show us that TxDOT often performs inferior work via its private contractors while it spends too high a cost for private work.
Maybe the workload and administration of the too independent TxDOT agency should be cut down and turned over to a private and/or independent commission to oversee and manage road work expenditures and performance evaluations.
In addition, TxDOT and Gov. Rick Perry are far too happy to develop toll roads to increase the profits of their wealthy special interests and themselves instead of doing what they are supposed to do: work in the best interests of the Texas community.
Peter Stern, Driftwood, Texas
Texas Redistricting Maps Rejected
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The U.s. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled recently that redistricting maps drawn up by the Republican dominated Texas Legislature discriminate against black and Hisptanic voters. The court went to to advise that the Texas legislature had a discriminatory intent in its drawing of the maps.
Interim maps will, therefore,likely be used in the upcoming Presidential election.
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott says heh will appeal the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Texas Voter Photo ID Law Quashed
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A U.S. District Court in Washington has blocked a law requiring voters to show photo identification before casting ballots in Texas. The argument suggested that the proposed law could curtail the ability of minorities to vote, with emphasis on African Americans and Hispanics, who often live in poverty, according to Cicuit Judge David Tatel.
He explained that the underlying docutments needed to obtain an ID could be costly and discourage poor voters, the administration resembling an illegal poll tax.
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott responded that he would appeal the decision directly to the U.S. Supreme Court since the states of Georgia and Indiana have similar integrity safeguards and thsee have been upheld by the Supreme Court.
The requirement that Texas voters would have to present one of six forms of photo ID before casting their ballots was adopted in 2011 by the Republican-dominated Texas legislature.
Although Texas Governor Rick Perry called the federal court ruling “another victory for fraud,” Elise Boddie, director of litigation for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund pointed out that “The whole point of our democracy is to make sure that voters have the opportunity to vote, and that’s what today’s ruling does.”
Medical School via Bonds, More Taxes?
Proposition 1 in Travis County:
Build a Medical School via Bonds and Even More Property Taxes?
Reality Check:
There is one word for the proposition being pushed by Governor Rick Perry, the Health Care industry and special interests including the majority of Texas Legislators… “BOONDOGGLE!”
Proposition 1 is touted as being the only way a Medical School can be built and operated in Travis County, namely, to tax property owners until they bleed financially, but they still would not be able to get affordable health care for treatment of their financial wounds.
We are told that part of the medical school agenda is to treat indigent people, which therefore makes it a very “Christian” undertaking. So, how could ANYONE be against such a “worthwhile” endeavor?
Easy. It’s just another carefully thought out scam perpetrated by Gov. Rick Perry and his wealthy and creative thinking special interest pundits. These people are slick when it comes to making profits on the backs of hardworking and hardly working Texans. The University of Texas (UT) would stand to house and manage the school. Thanks, Gov. Perry.
Unfortunately, history shows us that 80 percent of Propositions get approved by voters. Yet, it would be idiotic and self-destructive for voters to commit financial suicide by passing this slick, unfair, arrogant and obnoxious proposition. If a Medical School is desired, then let UT, the Health Care and Private industries finance the majority of the task, since they are the ones who will most profit from it.
VOTE AGAINST PROPOSITION 1! It does nothing for the remnants of the Middle Class.
Peter Stern, Driftwood, Texas
Higher Taxes For Medical School Services?
In response to the 9/12 article in the Austin Statesman, “400 doctors say they support a tax increase for medical school services in Austin”
Great! I say then let the doctors pay a tax increase.
While no doubt a medical school in Austin would be a wonderful idea, Texans have been taxed enough.
The number of Texans at or near the poverty level has increased dramatically. The cost of living increases weekly. There is no end in sight for Texans facing rough economic times. More people than ever before can’t find jobs and are applying for government assistance.
How can counties like Travis continue to raise taxes on what is left of the middle class?
Maybe the county should use some of the “surplus” from State sales taxes to help pay for the medical school services.
Taxpayers need a break from being overtaxed. After all, wasn’t “No taxation without [true] representation” a major reason why our forefathers chose to annex from England and King George and why we fought the Revolutionary War?
Maybe it’s time for us to practice more of Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience against a misguided and overbearing government…
Peter Stern, Driftwood, Texas
Archives – List of Articles, Essays, Features
List of Articles, Essays, Features
Combating The Student Loan Burden
As the Senate Higher Education Committee meets this week, our state legislators have the opportunity to combat the student loan crisis by declaring a statewide goal to reduce student loan dependence. Increasing investments in grant aid and work-study to alleviate the student loan burden will further promote college attendance and completion. Other strategies to improve student success include encouraging student loan counseling, financial education, and early financial preparation, including encouraging participation in matched college savings accounts through programs offered by the Texas Match the Promise Foundation.
Texas college students, like the rest of the country, are racking up college debt. Nationally, combined student loan debt has surpassed the $1 trillion mark, outpacing credit card debt. With decreases in state financial grant aid, students are relying more on loans and off-campus work to cover their college expenses, forcing them to take fewer classes so they can work more hours, slowing time to graduation, and leaving many students with insufficient income to cover these obligations. While student loans can provide a pathway to graduation, too much loan dependence can lead to unmanageable debt.
More and more students and their families are shouldering the cost of college on their own, and this cost shift is coming at a time when Texas is attempting to strengthen the educational pipeline of opportunity to create the workforce and economy of the future. A more college-educated workforce increases economic vitality through higher personal incomes, a broader tax base, less reliance on public assistance, lower unemployment rates, lower crime rates, and better overall community well-being and opportunity. A college degree or credential can chart a career pathway that provides job security, a competitive edge in the job market, a middle-class income, and the opportunity to build assets that promote financial security.
For Texas, this challenge is especially important given the sharp rise in our child population over the last decade. And now nearly two-thirds of kids in Texas public schools are low-income or economically disadvantaged. Because these future college students will have fewer resources to pay for college, financial need will continue to grow.
Policymakers in Texas like to tout low tuition at Texas community colleges as the best financial aid program in Texas, yet community college students living near or below the poverty level still face a shortage of between $3,000 and $5,400 annually to pay for the total cost of attendance. These figures are even higher for students at four-year institutions. And our student loan default rates are soaring. Of those students at Texas’ public two-year institutions who entered loan repayment in 2008, 19.6 percent defaulted within three years. Borrowers at four-year public institutions fare better, but the rate is still too high at 9.2 percent.
Our state policymakers must live up to the promise of improving Texas’ college access and completion rates through adequate financial aid investments for low-income students. In the state’s higher education plan, Closing the Gaps by 2015, financial aid is included as a major strategy to close college enrollment gaps by providing “grants and scholarships to cover tuition, fees, and books for every student with financial need…” Yet progress is lagging, especially in participation among African American males and Hispanics. And state grants fail to serve all low-income students with financial need—half of eligible students do not receive a TEXAS Grant, our state’s largest grant aid source, because of recent budget cuts to an already underfunded system.
Texas has much to lose if we continue to deny the many aspiring and current college students the educational lifeline that grant aid provides. Shifting a larger share of the financial burden of paying for college to low-income students and families in the form of loan dependence will leave many college students struggling to make ends meet and saddled with debt. Texas can lead the country in tackling the student loan crisis with enhanced investment in grant aid, early financial preparation, and encouraging college savings.
Leslie Helmcamp is an economic opportunity policy analyst at the Center for Public Policy Priorities. Her work is part of OpportunityTexas, a project to move more Texas families toward greater economic opportunity through academic and financial education and savings.