Category Archives: Politics

Politics

The Republican’s vision on display….

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Well…if your heart and the rest of America’s didn’t break a little when you heard of firefighters letting a couples house burn down because they didn’t pay a “firefighting fee”, then there is something seriously wrong with us and our society. But this is just the latest evidence of how the repubs vision for America will work for the little guy; how their “starve the beast”, tax cuts at all cost strategy impacts the real lives of citizens, from the homeowner in rural areas who has to pay extra for fire protection if they can get it at all, to the people of Detroit and other cities who see large areas abandoned by the police department because there is no way to raise the funds to hire officers to patrol. But, the rich still have the money to hire private police and, in some gated communities, their own fire departments who will, no doubt, sit and watch while houses outside their walls burn down because they have been successful in making sure there are no taxes available for these services for the rest of us.

What happened to the America where we felt and acted like we were all in this together? I think it’s a direct result of the repubs strategy to demonize our government and members of our society that are not like them. It’s easy to let someone’s house burn down or let them be robbed or murdered if they “haven’t taken care of themselves” or they don’t vote republican. As I said to T yesterday, “I’m glad I won’t be around much longer to see this wonderful country continue to decline” and I do believe the catch phrase that was first proposed in the comic strip Pogo from my youth: “I’ve see the enemy and he is us”…..geez….

Politics

Let’s blow up some myths…

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Well…an interesting article in the times this morning by Paul Krugman, the Nobel prize winning economist, addressing the myth of structural unemployment in regards to the current recession. Before you righties start bitching that Krugman is liberal leaning so his ideas are not credible…let’s see your Nobel prize winner who disagrees with J. M. Keynes (hey, this could be the Keynes one that I promised you) and who has a credible history of being right…..ok, still waiting…..still waiting…yep, thought so…you don’t have one.

In an economy with structural employment driven by a lack of skills, you would have at least a few industries who would be running ads looking for workers; looking to expand but not being able to because of the shortage of skilled workers. But, that is not the case in this economy, there is no demand for labor since the demand for goods and services is not rising. No matter what their skill level. Can the right truly believe that an industrial worker trained in Kaizen, The Toyota Production System, or JIT, no longer has a use and that is why they are out of work. If that is the case, then the billions and billions of dollars spent on training and equipment for these programs by management was one of the greatest scams ever perpetrated on American industry. When did managing an American company change completely so that someone with a Masters degree in Management and 30 years in industry no longer is qualified to manage? The skill deficit of the American worker is a myth that needs to be exploded and not used by the right as an excuse to do nothing to get people back to work…but, that’s what they want…they don’t care about workers; only their rich buddies that can reward them with enough money to get re-elected so they can maintain their income redistribution scheme that will take 3.7 trillion dollars over 10 years from you and me and give it to the rich. That’s the first one…going to look at some news and come back for the others…

Okay…had lunch and wanted to get back to one other thing…the complete disdain that the right has for conventional economic thought that traces itself back to Reagan and his embrace of Arthur Laffer and his “Laffer curve theory” that cutting taxes will increase government revenue by stimulating growth in the economy. This kind of baloney has been discredited long ago by the CBO and other economic organizations and analysts that have shown that all the cuts did was to explode the deficit. Something that is conveniently forgotten, or deliberately forgotten so the right can pursue the radical agenda of giving away America to the rich. But the point I wanted to make was that while the repubs are railing against government intervention in the economy and discounting Keynesian theory, they propose an even larger government intervention by the continuation of the Bush tax cuts that would dwarf the 800 billion stimulus program of the Obama administration. Again, intellectual dishonesty disguised as cutting edge political thought…geez…

Politics

They always legislate for their base…

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Well..just a short thought and warning to the independents that are thought to be leaning toward the Republicans this fall…they always try to legislate to their base. An example is their concerted effort to keep gay people in this country second class citizens by the various laws that restrict their freedom to marry whomever they want. With their slavish devotion the the far right of their party, there is no way that they will soften this stance in their legislative agenda; no matter what they say to the media. Independents, it has been shown by every poll that you do not want less regulation of business but that is just what you’ll get if you vote for the repubs this fall…don’t be misled by the propaganda that these folks spew everyday….they are not the reasonable adults they would have you think…and I will challenge you to give the Dems more of a chance to get this country moving again; after all, you gave the Bushies 8 years to run the economy into the ditch using the same policies that they now propose to salvage it…you are smarter than this….I hope.

Politics

Another republican attack on workers…

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Well…the latest attack in the war on labor by the repubs is another made up problem; that government workers make more than those in comparable jobs in the private sector. Why do you think that is? It’s not because government workers have seen their wages leap over the past few years, but because of the concerted repub and business attack on the middle class has suppressed and even lowered the wages of the average worker. It is again a case of extortion that has been perpetrated on the worker…take these concessions or we will move your jobs offshore; all the while corporate profits are at their highest in history. And now, the repubs are using the fruits of their propaganda campaign to demonize government and attack the one place they and their business cronies haven’t been able to control.

When are we going to realize that a fully functioning middle class with rising wages that match their rising productivity is why businesses have these huge profits….and in a consumer driven economy, hurting the consumer/worker at every turn is no way to ensure the growth needed for the country to be successful. But, these guys don’t care…their ideology will not allow them to do anything but favor business to keep the money rolling in…and getting re-elected. Geez….

Politics

Yep, It’s DADT…

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Well…listening to the repubs talk and block the repeal of DADT (don’t ask, don’t tell) all I can do is look back to the late 40′s when this same party (and to be honest, some of the Dems) said exactly the same things about the integration of the armed forces….and it is so funny to the absurd when you just substitute gays for African Americans in the comments from that time. Do the repubs even know that history exists? You wouldn’t think so with how they are treating this issue…an issue of civil rights where they always come out on the wrong side. Their primary argument goes to the idea of unit cohesiveness, readiness, and willingness to fight, and they just KNOW that allowing gays to serve openly will ruin the army….tell that to the Israelis, the Brits, Germans, and many other armies in the world. Tell that idea to the folks who have come up against the Israelis in any war they’ve fought. By keeping this policy, we align and compare ourselves to some of the most repressive countries in the world…where gays are still routinely murdered for being who they are…countries like Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, and countless others where the idea of civil rights has never taken hold.

It’s all just political BS where the repubs can energize their base by supporting this misguided policy; just a part of their larger plan to keep gays and lesbians in their place just like they tried for African Americans in the 40′s, 50′s, and 60′s, and deal another defeat to Obama. Are any of you tiring of these made up issues as I am? Let’s remember that the constitution (you repubs remember that document…the one you wave around all the time?) guarantees equal protection under the law…to everybody…geez….

Politics

Here’s what you have to look forward to with the Republicans…

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Well…this is just a short one that I had to comment on, from the news this morning coming out of the republican party in Montana…their party platform, in direct conflict with their lies that they are for personal freedom and against government interference, proposes that homosexuality and homosexual acts be made illegal again, not only in Montana but across the US. This is all a part of their hidden agenda to impose Christian Sharia law here in the US…well…maybe that is a little bit of hyperbole but if you think they are for individual freedom…you have to realize it is only individual freedom that they agree with, and they will sit as the arbiters of what that freedom will look like. I, for one, don’t believe that the majority of the country wants to return to the bad old days when a large part of our population have their lives criminalized and controlled as second-class citizens….and if you listen to these republicans, they want to extend this restriction of rights to all those who don’t agree with them. Geez….

Politics

It’s now the party of the Know-nothings..

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Well…after the victories of the tea party candidates on Tuesday, it’s official, the Republican party is now the party of the know nothings with no place left for the moderates that are necessary for the country’s political life to function. I have never seen a slate of less qualified people than then ones the tea party is proffering as the “saviors” of the country. I blame John McCain for unleashing this plague on America with his elevation of the chief idiot Sarah Palin; who would have been laughed off the stage when I started to follow politics or would have been the mainstay of the John Birch society…the far-right loonies whose policies look like they have been resurrected in the guise of the new populism on the right.

Don’t believe the pundits that have proposed the false equivalency that the left has made the same type of lurch toward extremism…do you see anyone on the left carrying signs that advocate the overthrow of the government? It’s that increasingly crazy right turn that makes the moderate policies of the Obama Administration look like they fall way to the left of the spectrum…but these policies have many aspects of repub ideas from just a few years ago and are centrist in nature.

We used to want our politicians to be smarter than us but with the rise of the tea party, ideology has trumped intelligence as the litmus test for inclusion…geez…

Politics

Let’s end the Republican lies on the tax cuts…

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Well…it’s pretty early and I could say that this burning issue has kept me awake all night…and part of it is true, I was awake part of the night….and it is early…oh, said that already. I did want to get into deflating the bullshit that the repubs have been pedaling about the continuation of the Bush tax cuts and how they are asserting that we need to renew those for the rich to get the economy going again. First, do they still think that anyone believes “trickle down” economics work? They have tried this little gem in every administration they’ve controlled since Reagan and the only results have been larger deficits and rewards for the least productive part of our economy. Let’s get to the lies next, that not extending the tax cuts for those making over 250K will hurt small business. Well…eliminating those tax cuts will affect only about 3 percent of what they call small business, but their definition of small business, includes some Fortune 100 companies….Fortune 100 means they are in the top 100 largest companies in America and includes some of the huge Wall Street firms and many of the super rich like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh. It’s just another instance of the repubs protecting their own and lying to cover it up. Another little fact that they don’t want you to understand is that the 700 billion cost of continuing the cuts for the rich will need to be borrowed…yep, and pushed on to yours and my kids and increasing the deficit that they now seem so concerned about…

Then, we have the spectacle of Mitch McConnell yesterday saying that he will filibuster the tax cuts that Obama proposes for the other 98 percent of Americans, lying on the floor of the Senate that most of the American people support extending the cuts for the rich when it is just not true…polls show that from 52 to 65 percent of the public want them to expire…so, if you’re looking for true class warfare..look no further than the repubs…

Yeah, I’m still going to get to the Keynes stuff later…maybe not today but it is still something that I feel the need to comment on…

Politics

Listening to Fareed Zakaria…

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Well…an interesting article today by Fareed, who feels that we are giving way too much credibility to the 400 or so hard core terrorists that are left in bin Laden’s organization and spending way to much of our psychic energy on them; not to mention how many dollars it takes to maintain the armies that are chasing him. I agree with his assessment and have said that in a few earlier posts, but I take it a little further and ask this question: “who benefits from continuing the fear and overstating their capability?” It hasn’t been hard to see that the right has been the ones to manipulate this issue for political gain and continue to use it as a political ploy; they would be loath to say that the threat is greatly reduced since some of the credit would have to be shared with Obama, and their buddies in the military/industrial complex would see their profits plunge. Something their strategy of obstruction and demonization will not allow them to do.

So, what do we do about it? I’ve always been one to think that skepticism is a powerful weapon and to ask a politician to prove their baseless assertions is a good start; but, then to continue to ask the questions and teach people that is their right and duty to question these folks and hold them accountable…the founding fathers believed it, and I do to…