I heard something new to me the other day. Not really a new
concept but an understanding that I am not unique. I am slow at
recognizing concepts and never understood why the US Border Patrol has
such dislike of Americans living outside the USA. Wow!
Here is the thing. I retired when I discovered that my
employer was seriously underpaying me and I had sufficient funds to do
leave. Yells and hollers when I announced my retirement but it
was their fault. Pay me a fair wage for my contributions and
experience and there is no problem. Hire college graduates at my
salary and there is a problem. I left. The company computes
pension based upon the terminal salary. Only they cheat here
also. The define terminal salary as the average for the last five
years. Even my pension would be minimized. I accepted the
pension buy out -- mostly to get rid of them even though I knew this
was also to their benefit. But enough of sour grapes. The
real problem is not my employment history. The real problem is
the short changing of all seniors on their Social Security. And
the Republicans want to do away with Social Security altogether.
Here is how it works. I have explained the concept elsewhere
but basically you pay in all of your life and when you come of age, you
get paid with dollars worth less than a dime of the dollars that you
paid in. A few years ago Social Security was updated to increase
payments by the rate of inflation. Very much too little and very
much too late. But it gets worse.
The Social Security inflation computation does not reflect the real
expenses of the people collecting the checks. Social Security
seriously undervalues this increase. So much so that for the last
several years their computation shows a reduced amount rather than an
increase. And we all know that the CPI has gone up.
Inflation is part of or lives. Our daily expenses have sky
rocketed and our Social Security is frozen. I understand that in
2012 there is a small increase but that will be offset by Medicare
increases so that we still end up with less money at a time when we
deserve and need more.
The solution is obvious to everyone but myself. I had to
be spoon fed that thousands of others are doing exactly what I am
doing. What am I doing? I am living outside the USA where
the expenses are minimal.
I eat better. Fruits and vegetables are cheaper here. I
hear about limes costing 50 cents in Tennessee and Ohio. They
cost a dime here. Gasoline is 10% to 20% cheaper here. Same
gas -- refined in Louisiana or Texas. For things that cost more
here there are regular trips back to the USA. The culture of the
people here is better. The greed is replaced by sharing.
Children laughing in the streets. Up the street is a house for
sale. Block fence. Car port for the pick up. A
separate car port for the RV. Covered. Two bedrooms.
Two baths. A mother-in-law house out back. Asking price:
$45,000. But they will accept $25,000 and a used pickup truck.
So. The American government is short changing its seniors and
the seniors, in order to just make ends meet, live outside the
borders. The American government wants people to "Buy American"
when the people cannot even afford to buy in America.
Thousands of people when they retire realize that they have been
consistently and thoroughly robbed all of their working years and see
that it is rapidly getting worse. The only alternative is to live
elsewhere where prices and expenses are low enough to get by.
This is a serious expense to the USA in matters more than just
dollars. I do not need to buy an American house. The prices
are still too high. I just came back from a walk on the beach and
am sitting in my motor home writing this and looking out the door at my
dog romping in the sun. It is the middle of November and the
temperature outside is 70 degrees. My electric bill this month is
$32. My water bill is $3.
And I shopped yesterday in the USA for what cost more locally and
the only difficulty was the US Border Patrol telling me that my home is
so dangerous that I should not go there. Next week when I go on
vacation, I shall lock my door. Until then the doors stay
unlocked -- even when I go to the beach.
The costs not in dollars? More and more Americans are
accepting residency visas in foreign countries but retaining the
American citizenship. Why deprive myself of the benefits that I
spent years earning just because I need to live elsewhere?
And as are thousands of others are learning, the USA is declining in
respect around the world. GWB guaranteed this. The
Republicans in Congress are making sure that the slope remains
downhill. And maybe there will be enough of us some day to make
the others inside the wall understand that the USA is not the answer
until it treats its people at least as well as do other countries.
I could write forever but I suspect that most people reading this
are inside the wall (the US Border) and have no idea what I am talking
about. The Americans living outside the wall (the USA Border)
read this and understand it is so obvious that it need not be written.
The fight is on for 2012. If Americans get any more stupid,
they will go the way of the Dodo bird. Anyone voting for a
Republican can only blame themselves. "Give Our Country
Back!" More racist code talk. "Job Creators" More
corporate jargon for the corporate fronts or the very rich
people. If the rich truly created jobs, there would be no
economic disaster. By not taxing these people the country has
gone from being a creditor to a debtor. Want to fix our
problems? Restore the tax rates. "Penalize the successful"
is Republican double speak for increased taxes on the poor for not
being successful.
But the real slammer is the ruination of our school system while the
remainder of the world is improving theirs. The Republicans want
only their rich friends to be able to attend school. Sort of the
implementation of the John Birch Society in spades. Only the
educated can vote. Only the rich can get educated. The US
passed an amendment to its constitution to eliminate poll taxes since
they discriminate against the poor. And these were mostly
black. The Republicans have found a workaround. Some
Republican dominated states have passed picture ID card requirements to
vote. The cost of the card is $5 -- paid to the government.
I hope someone files a class-action on this.
To the point. Look at the USA. The cost of a college
degree has doubled in just a few years. President Obama has
removed the profiteering banks from the student loan business.
Now you can borrow direcly from the government. No banker 35%
profit. Against the banks? You bet! It is the student
who must pay the 35%. Someone pays the bank's profit. The
Republican response? Removing the banks removes the competition
and deprives the student of shopping for comparative
rates. Maybe some students can find a bank with only
32% profit. The government can loan with no
profit. And without loss to the government.
More to the point. The loss is not just profits to greedy
bankers. It is the lowering of education in our country at a time
when we need to improve this education just to compete in the world
economy. While we are worrying about ketchup being listed as a
vegetable in the school lunch program, other countries are actually
improving their schools.
Our poor bankrupt neighbor country to the south, Mexico. We
hear about President Calderon's war on drugs and how many drug dealers
and corrupt officials have been killed. We hear about good people
being killed. We hear about this so much that the US telling
people about the "dangers" of visiting Mexico is destroying the Mexican
economy. I do not lock my doors while living in Mexico.
Some people do.
President Calderon has also taken on public education. In the
4 years since he came to office, the schools have air
conditioning. The schools have ramadas (covers) over the play
areas. They have new books. The students have free
uniforms. They have free back packs. Students are paid for
each year they attend: more years, higher stipends. Calderon has
stated that student graduating public schools be bi-lingual. Even
grade school kids are learning rudimentary English. Evolution is
taught from second grade. No Texas Red Star books where education
is more important than religious myths.
So. Americans can keep walking backwards proudly patting
themselves on the back and voting for more Republican lies. Or
they can join the real world and dig in their heels to attempt to catch
up.
And an afterthought. I have met university professors in
Mexico who have more women than men i their classes. This is
great for a third world country. THe problem is that the US is
graduating more women than men. This same ratio is moving the USA
into being a third world country. And the corporations love
it: they pay women less than men. As I think about
it, this may be self-correcting. This means that with more
women than men being educated, ultimately more women will rule the
corporations. Will these richer, more educated women continue
under paying their sisters?
So far all of the Republican flat tax plans and the "999" plan just
make our tax system more regressive. That is, increase the taxes
on the poor and decrease taxes on the rich. The government and
budget office has verified this to be true. Anyone
telling you otherwise is lying. I believe that this is as
simple as I can make it.
I complain so much about the culture of lies from the Republicans
that I forget that there are a few good things happening in the
political world. I could have placed this article under the
Mexico page but I needed something to lighten this page. Calderon
came into office with a promise of a war on drugs and an improved
economy. He has done both. He immediately got the Mexican
legislature -- for the first time in history -- to approve a tax where
the benefits went to the states and not the México City
politicians. After several years Sonora (at least) has new police
cars, roads, and better schools. In the desert world seeing
brand new air conditioners installed on the school roofs makes you know
that the 1% IVA increase is paying off. When I see giant ramada
roofs between class buildings and over the play yards, I know more care
is given to our younger generation. Did you know that the science
of human evolution is taught in Mexican schools from the second
grade? In the USA many states still teach religion in the place
of science all the way to graduation.
But the big part, mostly hidden, is Calderon's war on drugs.
Most Americans have heard about it. They hear about it in the
most negative of manners. They hear that it is dangerous to visit
Mexico. It is dangerous if you are into illegal drugs. If
you are a tourist, there are few places as safe in the USA as in the
Mexican tourist areas. I never, repeat never, lock my house door
or front gate when I am home. I do lock them when I am gone for
more than one day. A day trip is not enough to warrant pulling
out my house key.
The American economy and the lies about danger have devastated the
Mexican economy but it is resilient. It has even survived GWB and
his anti-Mexico program. Build a fence? Right. Make
the world ugly. Ruin the local ecology. Tell the Mexican
President that drugs are his private problem.
The Lone Ranger has arrived in the name of President Obama.
Silent. Low profile. The difference between a president who
snubs his nose at the poor and the non-gringo to President Obama is
earth shattering (a term I have never used in print before).
Rather than count on an ugly fence, the American spy-in-the-sky
satellites watch the border and watch the drug dealers. You no
longer hear about the Mexican Federales and police actions. They
are lower key. But they are there. Obama has sent FBI
agents into Mexico. He has installed checkpoints going into
Mexico. Border banks are watched for large money
transactions. Mexicans now have cameras with software to monitor
license plates. When you enter Mexico from the USA your picture
is taken at least 4 times.
All of these things contribute to a pressure on the drug
lords. None of them stop the drugs. Only the USA can do
that: reduce the appetite, reduce the money, and reduce the
weapons. But the difference is obvious here in northern
Mexico. It is sort of a creeping thing. My neighbors who
are rumored to have been major drug suppliers are no longer obvious
about the number of boats going through their property. They have
built strong fences so that you can no longer see inside their
property. The pit bull is inside the fence instead of guarding
the boat yard gate.
The local economy was rumored to have been about 50% drug
money. The fish and shrimp are gone -- nothing to do with the
drug situation. But with less drug money and less sea creatures,
the local economy has come to a stand still. People guard their
privacy. Occasional soldiers come through town. I hear
about night raids on outlying neighborhoods. There are no
private planes in this area. The small black planes flying in
pairs make more runs than in previous years. You can only see so
much from a satellite. A few fast flights over the suspect area
gathers a lot of data. I see Federales on the highways.
More random drug stops. Some just miles from the regular
stops. The regular stops have more professional soldiers.
Better searches.
All of this since Calderon arrived and GWB left. Secretary of
State Clinton and her entourage have been in Mexico. Even if no
one else credits Obama, I can see the good that he has done for his
southern neighbor. Calderon's people have become more focused and
lower profile. Calderon has even installed checkpoints on his
southern border to stop the illegals from other countries. Many
of the illegals entering the USA are from these other countries.
Most Mexicans in northern Mexico have little interest in going into the
USA. The more I live in Mexico, the less I like being in the
USA. Women and children can live here in safety. You can
hear children during the night playing. Night? The only time it
is cool enough to play outside.
Thank you, Presidents Obama and Calderon. You have made a difference.
I have probably said it before so I can keep this short. You
are able to stop any discussion quickly. I learned from my
ex-wife that
accusing your opponent of what you yourself are doing will end any
argument. Regardless of whether your opponent is doing this, he
is now on the defensive. There is no positive response to
this accusation. Proving a negative is impossible and
accusing the accuser just wastes words.
The other show stopper is to compare a person to Hitler. We all know
that Hitler was the worst person in the world so that ay comparison is
inappropriate -- even if it is appropriate.
In the last 100 years, how many country Presidents raised armies to
invade other countries? Claimed religious and cultural
differences as justification? Lied to their people with
accusations of what they themselves intended? Ruined their
economy by giving assets to their friends? Created an entire web
of lies to divide their people into groups who so hate each other as
to freeze the government into inaction while they, themselves did what
they wished? No. My ex-wife did not try to ruin the entire
world. Just mine. And I would never compare her to
Hitler even though our relationship started and ended with lies.
Hitler is know for the concept of "the big lie". GWB just
improved upon it and the USA will suffer the consequences for the next
century. Hatred is insidious and leaving your followers with hatred leaves a legacy that even time cannot heal.
I listen to the Republicans. I listen to the budget
talks. I listen to the discussions of the debt limit
increase. I do not listen to the network news. Although our
buddy Romney talks about the left-wing media, this is just another
Republican lie. One of a basket full. The network news is
owned and controlled by rich, right-wing people. Ultra-right
wing. Any network radio or TV is now so far to the right
that it makes conservative people look like they are left. I do
my best to ignore network news. It is not just slanted to the
right -- it only covers issues that the right wing wants covered.
You must go elsewhere to discover he real issues.
But the real lies are really frightening. And the worst part
is that they would not be saying them if nobody believed them.
There would be different lies if the Republicans did not have a large
following of their current basket.
One of the biggest lies is do tax increase on the American
people. The tax increases being suggested are not increases but
returns to tax structures that historically have worked. The
current structure is so slanted to the "job creators" that the country
along with its occupation wars has come to its current state of
bankruptcy. The only way out of this mess is to restore our
working tax structure. Remember it is the "job creators" who have
gotten all of the breaks for ten years -- and where are the jobs that
the "job creators" created? Ten ears was not enough time?
They need more time to start creating jobs? Or are you smart
enough that calling tax dodgers "job creators" is just another
Republican smoke screen to protect their benefactors.
And make no mistake: the Republicans have no interest in the
American people. Their only interest is to remove all social
programs that made our country great and simultaneously turn us into a
corporate state. And they seem to be winning. Hitler
introduced the "big lie" to the world. The Republicans have
turned the "big lie" and Orwell's "Doublespeak" into an art form.
But this is obvious to anyone who listens. Sadly, I guess our
failing school systems are doing their jobs: nobody tries to listen any
more. Thinking is pasè'.
One thing though. Eliminating the "yacht" tax is stupid.
It is where the Democrats are attempting to be a stupid as the
Republicans. First off, it is not sufficient money to make a dent
in the debt. We are talking about the eliminating of the home
mortgage deduction on interest paid to banks for boats claimed as
second homes. How many people do you know who
have a mortgage on a boat that they claim as a second home? I
don't know of any.
I did, until this year, have a mortgage loan on my motor home.
It qualifies for the tax break in the same manner as the yacht. 5
years ago, the Yacht Tax might have included motor homes.
With the death of the motor home industry, not so many people have
these mortgages. But I do live in my motor home. It is my
home. Deducting the mortgage load interest for my motor home
seems fair to me. As fair as any mortgage tax break.
So, maybe these yacht owners fit into the same category: the
yacht is their primary home. The problem is that if you admit
that it is your primary rather than secondary home, you lose your tax
break. The law is specific: if your home is attached by
concrete to your lot, you can deduct it. If your home is mobile,
you can only deduct it if you have another home. So far the IRS
has not clamped down on the people who can afford only one home and it
is mobile. The law should be made more fair and not less
fair. If any homes are deductible, then all homes should be
deductible: rooted or mobile.
I remember a state legislator in WIsconsin suggesting handle bars
and controls for passengers as a safety measure. He was laughed
out of the room. He had never driven or ridden a
motorcycle. I suggest that the people who are eliminating the
second home mortgage have never entered the world of the middle class
who may not be able to afford two homes with concrete and in fact may
only have enough money for a single home that does not have
concrete. And remember that this is a tax deduction. It is
lost as soon as your total deductions fall below a certain
amount. It is a percentage of what you owe. If you owe only
a little tax, it is a large percentage. If you are one of the
rich, it is a small percentage. Why pick on a tax that sounds
good to richer people but cuts the legs from under the poorer people?
The current ax is very unfair. If you live on your boat as
your primary home, you cannot deduct it as a second home. This is
when you need the deduction up front -- and you do not get it. If
you already have a home and are claiming any second home, why select
only boat owners as opposed to all second homes?
The home owner tax is unfair and eliminating the deduction for a small group does not make it more fair.
My cousin just turned 65 today. I got here 2 years ago.
I think she is pretty smart. As for any other person over 65, she
will lose her Medicare if she votes for any Republican ever. THe
Republicans are determined to eliminate social Security and
Medicare. Just for those under 55? If you are over 55 you
should know that you will get nothing back for all of your
investment. They are talking about "means testing" Social
Security. This means that you pay 17% of your salary for 45
years and if you are lucky enough to be a millionaire, you will not
need to get you hard-earned money back as a pension. If you HAVE
more than $50,000, you still won't get your money back but it will hurt.
And they want both Social Security and Medicare turned into a
voucher system. a voucher system? You get a token amount
for which yo may use for a down payment on more for-profit insurance
for a pension of for medical insurance. Do not get me
wrong. I use the terms "token" and "down-payment" accurately.
So, either be so rich that money does not matter (I do not know how
rich that might be) or vote Democratic to keep the benefits that you
have paid for all of your life paid to you as originally
contracted. Vote Republican and die. That is their
intent. They just say it a little nicer than did Hitler.
At this point the Republicans have a double agenda. The first
and foremost is to do any and say any lies to regain the
Presidency. The second is to destroy the rights of people in
favor of the corporations. If you do not know this then you had
better start listening and reading something other than Fox.
And when it comes to news. You are hearing more Republican
lies. Romney is constantly referring to the "left-wing
media". Sorry guys but ALL of the media is right wing. Some
just so far right that calling it media is a disgrace to the
word. Fox noise should not be permitted to use the
word "news" in its name. That is a lie off the top. "Fair
and Balanced" is a lie so egregious that it makes me want to throw
things. But with the current laws, the "media" can say whatever
it wants as long as it is not slander or libel to a private
citizen. And I am not sure that Fox would stop there.
I saw man today. He had a black t-shirt with red and white
lettering. From a distance he looked like an advertisement for
Coke Zero. As I got closer several things became apparent.
It was a Tea Party shirt. The first real Tea Party anything I
have ever seen. I hear about them on the radio but this was a
real live person. He fir the mold that I had envisioned. We
were in Arizona -- home of anti-everything laws and attitudes.
This is the state where you envision the Statue of LIberty wrapped in
an American flag with a bible in one hand and an automatic rifle in the
other. This guy stood about 6 foot 4 and had a little paunch on
him. Just a little. He wore Jamaica shorts with the usual
sort of colored cross-hatch. Not really a plaid but you know the
motif. White legs! In Arizona? Pale face with a brush
haircut. But the real giveaway was the stupid smile on his face
as he caught people reading his shirt.
I have repeated it many times: to vote Republican you are either very rich or very stupid. Maybe both.
It does not take any level of intelligence to understand that the
Republican Party has been taken over by the corporations. Like
many things there are two opposing sides to the financial
picture. Two classes. In the social case, there are the
wealth and health of the majority and the other the side the wealth and
health of the minority. In the USA this is the middle class
working people against the corporate giants. The working people
are losing rapidly. Maybe the Republicans won that war a half
century ago when they started bankrupting the public schools. Maybe
the dumbing down of AMerica has been so successful that the average
person cannot see through the smoke and mirrors to know who is pulling
their strings. And pulling strings is what it is. The news
media is owned by the Corporations. They filter what you hear to
assure sure that you get only their version. They killed the
"Fairness" doctrine so there is no law or pressure to give you the fair
and balanced picture. Worse off they corporations even lie and
tell you that they are the "Fair and Balanced" picture. There is
no requirement to tell you the truth.
This man wearing the Tea Party shirt seemed to be glad of the
attention he was getting. The problem is that at least I was
attempting to count down to his limited IQ. Maybe 30. More
or Less. We are dealing with imbecile or lower here.
Standing by the Yuma Sam's Club exit where everyone leaving could see
his shirt, his blotchy, young face, and his stupid smirk. Proud
to show off his stupidity.
To see what they are doing does not take any brains. I really
wonder if any of the Congressmen know that they are lying or that all
really believe the sewage that they are spouting. I hope that
none really believe their own lies. That would make them as stupid
as my Tea Party shirt man.
America has grown rich and strong on the backs of the working middle
class. These working people paid for the school from elementary
to university with hard-earned money and a dream for a better life for
their kids. Proud to have made America the world leader in so
many directions.
But then comes the big lie. A few Presidents lie their way
into office. They discard all of the corporate controls that kept
the playing field balanced between the working people and the giant
corporations. The giant corporations take control with their paid
representatives: duly elected Republican Presidents, Congressmen, and
Senators. Republican, Corporate judges are installed. The
working men is fighting for his very survival.
The tax curve is reshaped putting the entire load on the broken
backs of the working man. No more taxes for the rich. Just
taxes on the middle. The middle has become poor. The first
generation where the kids have less than their parents. My
children will never have the life or opportunities that I have had.
The Republican lies tell us that if we try real hard maybe we can
become one of them. hey refer to themselves as the "Job
Creators". If you buy this then you are a lost cause and had
better throw in your towel. The people do not create jobs.
They take their wealth and pass it on to their family and
friends. The economic term for the actions of these Job Creators
is called "Trickle Down" economics. If the rich can keep their
wealth as the theory goes, they will create jobs so that everyone can
share the wealth. We have seen how Trickle down not only does not
work but it has the exact opposite effect. The working middle
class become the working poor. As opposed to the just plain
poor. The rich tighten their reins. Even less taxes.
Even less controls. Corporate presidents make (not "earn")
millions every year. There is no middle class. A
college degree and ten years of work can get you $60,000 per
year. This is a lot? No. It barely pays for your
house 50 miles from the office. If does not pay for a family and
a good set of schools. And it makes you bitter as you understand
that you have become poor and there is nothing you can do about it.
Oh. There is something you can do. You can throw the
dogs out. You can vote progressive. Or at least
Democratic. anything except vote for the people who have been
lying to you all of your life.
Balance a budget by eliminating social programs and schools. A
budget has two sides. Income and expenses. You balance a
budget by just that: balancing. Personally you know how to do
this. When your income is limited and you cannot increase it, you
cut your expenses. Lose your house. Lose your dreams.
Lose. Lose Lose. You can improve the situation if you can
increase your income. I have done that. Two jobs. I
never saw my family. I dozed off at work. I got
sick. I tossed in the towel. I quit both of them and spent
six months realigning my values. One thing became clear bake in
1979: never vote for a Republican. If the rest of the country had
learned this simple rule, we would not have the bankrupt country that
we now have. Financially bankrupt. Morally bankrupt.
Just plain bankrupt.
The government could balance its budget easily. simple.
Reinstate taxes removed by the rich. Until the voters understand
that they are being lied o and get enough backbone to vote the dogs
out, the situation just gets worse.
How do you win a war? Convince the people that black is
white. The concept of the Tea Party is good: give control of the
country back to the people who made it great. The rich must be
rolling on the floor laughing at how they have gotten the people who
could make a difference to support making the rich more rich.
This is all general and badmouthing. But here is a good
example And I have worked in the corporate offices and know personally
some of the people involved. The Republicans say let the
insurance companies control our health care. They are the experts
at controlling health care. They take 35 cents of every premium
dollar and give it to their executives. The doctors and care
givers get 65 cents of that dollar and are controlled as to what level
of care you can have. A single payer system such as Medicare
takes less than 5 cents on the dollar for administrative expenses and
there is no rich executive. This means that the doctor gets 95
cents from Medicare whereas he got only 65 cents from the insurance
company. This is almost 50% more income for the doctor, his
equipment, and his employees. His employees. This is
specific. This is real. You are giving, giving as a gift,
30 cents on every insurance dollar so that the company receiving your
gift can control who gives you care, what level of care you receive,
and what amenities you can have. Maybe a cane instead of surgery
to fix your limp.
If you can twist this into something else, please try. If you
can do it without any of their lies, you are a magician. This is
the straight skinny. No twists. No turns.
And what are the Republicans telling you? To clear the road
for their total control. No more social net. No more
Medicare. No more Social Security. Keep the names but
pervert them to the degree that would have made Hitler blush.
I give up. Either support your own interests or vote for the
liars who could care less. How many injured people getting the
limited disability that Social Security or Medicare provide expected to
ever need it? We still have it. If you are injured or lose
your health, you can still get minimal care. You paid for it with
your taxes. But if you continue to vote Republican, in a few
years there will be nothing for you. and if you think that the
"Trickle down" job opportunity is waiting around the corner, you are a
real sucker. You have heard of the carrot and the stick?
Continue reaching for the carrot or the stick will whip your
butt. The rich control both the carrot and the stick. Your
only way to win is to not play their game. Show some initiative
and vote them out.
The governor, Scott Walker, does not care. He is destroying a
government and an economy and then leaving to work for those who profit
from his actions. He does not expect to be re-elected. He does
not care if he is recalled. He has a year and a half to destroy
what he can. Then he is recalled. Some of the Republicans
will be recalled before this. If the voters have any brains, they
will vote for a new State Supreme Court Justice. One who will put
the people and the constitution first.
The people of our country, and especially those of Wisconsin, are
behaving like the horse that runs back into the burning barn. Our
barn is burning. The cure is to put out the fire and is not to
jump into the barn. The cure is to remove from office the people
who caused the problems. These are the one crying the loudest
that the fire was caused by the firemen.
I grew up in Wisconsin. I still consider it home. I
attended the U of W, Milwaukee and Madison. I worked for both of
them. In Milwaukee for the Physical Plant. In Madison for
the administration. as a student, i attended state legislature
meetings and was on at least one governor's committee. I was
there at the Mifflin Street Party. Wisconsin's history is a proud
one caring for personal and social values. Good government.
Good schools. It hurts me inside to know that those who inherited
such values have turned their backs on their heritage.
Wow. I have determined that there are two types of
people in the USA. Those that can think and those that vote
Republican. This is an easy conclusion. The Republicans
took your country away from you and gave it to the corporations.
The Republican Party has become a corporate front. This is a fact
and as such is not disputable. You want your country back? Stop
putting Republicans in office. Recovery will be a slow process
but it can come. But it cannot come if you continue to vote for
the corporatists. What is good for General Motors (i.e. the
banks, insurance companies, etc.) is NOT good for you.
Period. 60 years ago, maybe. Today they are the
enemy. They are the ones to whom you gave your country.
I learned much from my ex-wife. The strategies of enemies work equally well for
both sides . Learn from your enemy. One of the easy lessons
I learned from my ex-wife was to accuse your enemy of what you are
doing -- whatever it is. This immediately pus your enemy on the
defensive -- whether or not he is doing it. If he is doing it,
the truth will out. If he is not, he will have difficulty proving
it: proving a negative is very difficult.
So I hear the Republicans saying that they ware going to help you
take your country back. They are encouraging the term. It
is getting them elected. They are accusing the enemy (i.e. the
people) of stealing the country when that is exactly what they have
done. Who took our country from being profitable to irreparable
debt? GWB with his bank giveaway and unpaid insurance
programs. The Republicans, knowing that you have a short memory,
are blaming Obama.. Are you really that stupid? They are
counting on it. Illegal wars driving up our debt. Take
breaks for the millionaires. Court Justices giving personal
rights to corporations. Think of an action by the previous
Republican Presidents and you can see outright how they stole your
country from you. Reagon and his union-busting. Bush senior
and his neutering the EPA and giving our parks away. GWB. I
do not even know were to start with him. Everything he did was to
take from the people and give it to the corporations.
GWB was accused of being a racial bigot. Maybe. Maybe
not. But he was a cultural bigot. Look at what he did to
New Orleans after the hurricane. GWB has no use for the
poor. This is the basis for you losing your country. He
gave trillions to other countries to pay for his wars and gave billions
to the money industries. Your hard earned tax dollars.
Gone. And worse, moved the burden to the people who cannot afford
to pay it. With unions being demolished and wages going down and
the tax burden placed on the working people, GWB has made the USA a
third-world country. Most Americans just have not figured it out
yet.
Who made out from GWB's war? Start with Halliburton (Cheney,
et al) and work your way through the oil companies. Who owns the
oil companies? Follow the money.
You really want your country back? Then stop giving it
away. Make the rich pay their share of taxes. Put the
monkey where it belongs. Vote your own self-interest. Stop
voting for the rich and the corporations. It is not the
Republican Party that is stupid. Just those who believe their
lies. And I assure you that anything you hear from any Republican
is in someone else's interest and not your own.
This is one of those beat-around-the-bush-until-you-get-to-the-root
articles. Let's start with one of the popular bromides (look it
up): "Those who do not know history are bound to repeat it".
This is just not true. It is, in fact, silly. One of our very
earliest presidents when presented with a law to permit religious
charities to distribute federal money to the poor, vetoed the
bill. This set the precedent of separation of church and
state. We hear this term frequently as if it were found word for
word in our Constitution. Try to find these words. Fat
chance. But our glorious GWB, not knowing history. Shoot,
the guy was just plain ignorant. GWB very
early in his desecration of our country values, broke this
precedent and permitted federal money to go to religious charities and
organizations. GWB claimed to be a Christian and never in his 8
years went to Sunday church. If GWB knew the history of our
country, he would have known why we do not give money to
churches.
There are no such things as good history and bad
history. History is just the knowledge of our past. We
learn from it or not. We repeat those actions which we
like and we avoid those things which we dislike. Or we can
just use common sense. Common sense is very hard to find once you
have had a lying despot like GWB as president.
We can blame Reagon for his voodoo economics starting our
country on the slippery slope to the mess that Obama inherited.
Reagon gave us the push in the path to destruction. Clinton did
not apply the brakes. GWB exploded bombs catapulting us into
disaster. The current President sets the budget for the
year after he leaves office. Obama not only inherited economic
disaster -- he was given a loaded bomb instead of the tools to
correct the economy. But this article is not about
economics. It is about basic principles.
Back to basics. What is a religion? A religion is an
organized set of beliefs in a deity or deities or magic. Many
religions have evolved over the centuries. They are all the
same. Some guy comes up with an idea. He writes it
down. Today he types it on a keyboard. Yesterday, he
wrote it in a book. Before that he just told his friends.
This is the problem. For example, some poor guy gets caught in a
really bad rain storm. His home is a raft as he lives next to the
river. The river overflows. Floods. He gets trapped
in the current and carried out to sea. Animals escaping from the
flood climb aboard the raft. Ultimately the raft floats back to
shore. The animals leave. Except of course those that he
had domesticated and was able to save. You know how this fable
evolved into God saving his animals and destroying his people. We
also have a metaphor of man and woman gaining knowledge before God
sends them
packing.
We have Moses. We have Jesus. We have Mohammed. We
have Buddha. We have Joseph Smith. We have Zeus and his
entourage. Each religion has or had a book or books. For
each religion there is
a group of followers who believe the fairy tales in the book are
factual
history. Foo.
Most modern day local religions are extensions of the Jewish tradition.
The Hebrew bible was multiple books edited into a single volume by a
man with a mission. His edited book supported a class of people who
would be supported by the general pollution and deemed to represent the
local deity. The twelfth tribe: the tribe of priests. For
Christians, the book deified a hero and created a new tribe of
priests. Joseph Smith, the same. Mohammed, the same.
And so on. The primary purpose of a religion is to support a
non-working class of people who will lead their flock using values
defined by their book. Obviously the book needs a hero to display
these values. Ergo, Moses, Jesus, etc.
Religions may or may not be exclusive of other religions. Christianity is exclusive. Buddhism is not. Buddhists accept the concept of a Buddhist Christian. Christians do not accept this: the hero gets in the way. Each hero is better than the previous hero. Exclusivity is the problem. (Buddhism grew up within the confines of Hinduism).
And so we have modern religions. But GWB added a brand new religion to our country: the religion of politics.
How does a new religion start? It is usually the branch of a
previous religion. This is true of the Christian sects. All
of them. Somebody takes the book and expands upon it. Maybe
they write a new book. Maybe they just emphasize something in the
old book. For example, Catholicism: "Upon this rock, I will build
my church". The Christians believe that the rock referred to is
the faith of Peter. The Catholics interpret this to mean peter
himself. We have a leader: Peter and his successors.
GWB is our current day Moses. The problem is that he lead us
back into Egypt instead of out of it. He promulgated lies about
the man who insulted his father. He removed all of the historical
constraints that guided our country and replaced them with a lunatic
asylum -- run by the inmates. How did he do this? The same
as his religious
predecessors. He built his entire government upon a few lies,
mixed them with half-truths and told people that they must accept his
word as the new truth.
GWB was a poor man's Jesus. His corporate backers made sure
the microphone was on and telling the country, even the world, about his
new world order. Like Jesus, et al, the organization of these
lies settled as concrete for the new religion. Not an exclusive
religion. He catered to the Christians and used their beliefs to
hide his corporate interests and war mongering. He appealed to
the bad side of many people. Buy guns. Hate the
enemy. Conform or else.
The ball for the new religion got bigger during the 8 years and now
is so large that it no longer needs its founder. The hatred
grows. The priests ar the right-wing talk show hosts, the
imitation news channel, and the giant banks and insurance
companies. The destruction of our value system is ongoing.
We
are living in an Orwellian world of doublespeak, mind control, and the
military control of the population. The Christians could blame
the Jews or the Romans for the death of their leader. The
Republican religion blames the Democratic Party for the destruction
that they themselves promulgated.
Our public education is gutted. Our economy is gutted. Our
morals values have been dragged in the dirt. Our country in no
longer number one in the world in any metric. We are no longer a
moral leader. In fact more and more of the world despises us.
We treat good
health and education as privileges of the rich as opposed to a human
right. The tax structure that promoted hard work and ethics
has been replaced by a structure that promotes the rich and penalizes
working people who made us strong. The rich have gotten
richer. The rest have
gotten poorer. The new laws give money to the corporate
interests to promote even further the collapse of a democratic
government. The United States has become a third world country and the
Republican religion has people still believing that the problems are
the fault of the Democrats and that if you have faith in the
Republicans,
they will save us from the ultimate doom of democracy.
If you can see a difference between the lies of Hitler and the lies
of GWB, there is no hope for you. If you can see a difference
between "1984", "Brave New World", and the direction of the Republican
Party, there is no hope for you.
Like all religions: it just takes faith. Faith in a system of corporate rather than personal values. "What's good for General Motors is good for the country" has been replaced by "What's good for the banks and insurance companies is good for the country." If you have one ounce of thinking left in your brain (I doubt it), you understand that these are the enemy. But to quote an opossum some fifty years ago: "We have met the enemy, and the enemy is us."
If you are rich and want to be richer, join the Republican
religion. Promulgate hatred and lies to those who are not the
elite. If you are not rich, you have a choice. Have faith
in the lies saying that you too can become rich just by working
harder. Or figure out that you will never join the elite as long
as they are they elite. Think for yourself. Being a
Christian takes faith in the unknown. Being a free person
requires no faith. Being free requires you to think and
understand. Listen to the tripe (read: lies) of Beck and
Limbaugh. Do they say anything nice about anyone? Not a
chance. They spend their entire monologue getting you to believe
that thinking for yourself and analyzing their lies will drag our
country further into the mud. And they do this by telling
you to think while they are telling you what to think.
"1984" and "Brave New World" were written as warnings about the path
society was taking. The books ended in death and mental
incarceration. We have not heeded the warnings: our liberties are
dying rapidly. I shall never vote for another Republican.
If you are smart, you will heed the warning.
When do you know a Republican is lying? When his lips are moving.
An old bromide but it is becoming the norm. The Republicans run
our country (and the world) into financial ruin. The Democrats
dig us out and now the republicans are claiming that the problem is not
being resolved fast enough and is therefore now the fault of the
Democrats. It took 8 years of destruction and chaos preceded by
20 years of preparation to destroy our economy. You cannot fix
this in 2 years or 4 or even 8. But with responsible control, it
will eventually be corrected.
Glen Beck says that the Democrats are trying to destroy
Israel. He says even if you do not want to destroy Israel, the
intention to destroy is contagious like AIDS and HIV. He is wrong
but I like his analogy. The Republicans are attempting to destroy
our country. Maybe that is not your intent but if you sleep with
Republicans, you will catch their disease. THe difference between
you and the Republicans seeking this destruction is that you are not
smart enough to see through their mask. Mask? The
Republican Party and its symbiots (Fox Noise, Beck, Limbaugh, etc.) are
front for a corporate takeover of our country. If you think that
GWB's bailout of the corporations and the "bankruptcies" that Obama
needed to cover were a normal situation, you already have the
disease. If you think that reducing taxes for corporations and
rich people is a solution, you already have the disease.
If you want to solve the economic situation, the solution is simple
and takes about the 6 years we have left before we have become a
total corporate state.
He is a corporatist. He lied during his congressional
interviews when he said he would honor precedent. The first thing
he did was to overturn precedent when he sided with the corporation in
the Citizens United case. Now corporations can buy congressional
and other positions.
Currently I pay 20% of my income ($36,000 plus Social Security) for
income tax. The highest rate is 30% and that is only on excessive
earnings. I do not have the escape clauses of the rich
people. My income is from my IRA. I cannot hide any of my
income. I am not rich. The 20% hurts. The rich people
do not pay the percentage that I do and they can afford it. I
cannot. The Republicans want to balance the budget after they
have reduced the income. What is left to
balance? The war machine is not cut. Steal more
money from Social Security? Reduce medical care (Medicare) from
those who need it most and have paid for it for all of their
lives? Reduce wages of government employees?
The Republicans want to balance the budget on the backs of the
workers while exempting the corporations and those who can afford tax
expense.
Why do people believe the Republicans? Because they control
the news media. I can listen to Sinus Left. I can listen to
Sirius P.O.T.U.S. That's it. For the two left and neutral
stations there are over a dozen right wing stations. ANd you had
better believe that stations previously neutral are now right
wing: NBC, ABC, CNN, etc. Some are more right wing than
others. This permits the more radical to call the less radical
"leftist". And people believe this. Fox News is not a news
organization. It is the primary right wing voice. And it is
everywhere as the cables put only Fox on their basic rate. All
others must pay and are available only by customer option. Why is
Fox on all of the store and bank TV's? Because it is free.
And the dominos are falling. The Huffington post has just been
purchased by the right wing AOL. There are no more left-wing
newspapers.
If you want "Fair and Balanced", you must search for it as the
stations saying this are so far right that even the moderately right
sound left. You are being lied to every time you turn on any
media that does not say it is left or progressive.
A one tenth of one percent tax on any stock transaction would stop
the computer game playing causing serious market fluctuations and
inflated stock values. Why? Because right now the major
players can move their money instantly many times a day at no
expense. You cannot do this. Only the big boys can.
And they do. And you end up paying for it.
Learn the issues. The real issues and visit your local
Democratic Party headquarters. Why Democratic? Unless you
are a corporation or very, very, rich, or very, very stupid, you will
understand that the Republican Party has nothing for you.
I could write a book on this one. Maybe an example will
suffice. The new Republican Governor of Wisconsin has proposed a
bill and will force it through the Republican Legislature doing two
things. The first is that it takes the current state budget
surplus and gives it to the political donors which elected them.
Now that there is a budget debt, the governor wants to eliminate the
state employee unions.
Not the police and fire ions. They vote Republican. They
will fall only after the other unions have fallen. Why eliminate
the unions? This is easy. Two reasons. The unions and many
of their members support he Democratic Party. The largest of the
Democratic Party Supporters. No money. No Party.. It has
come to this. The Republican corporate sponsors have forced our
elections into a pure money game.
If the union is destroyed, who represents the employee? State
employees are already paid less than their equivalent private
counterparts. These teachers have already given up pensions,
insurance, pay, class size, facilities. No union and only the
people who can afford private schools will have an education for their
children.
Make no mistake. Our country is great because it produced the
Industrial Revolution. The Industrial Revolution created the
corporations. The employees of those corporations made products
sold around the world. Who made sure that the employees had a
decent return on their work? The unions. WIthout the
unions, we would be where we are today. All of the money from the
corporations goes to the top management, Billions. While
the worker is unemployed because the corporation has built its
factories overseas where there are no unions.
There are bad jokes about unions. The UAW seriously damaged
the start of my career at Chrysler. Maybe it should have.
Maybe not. I was not the normal worker.
But today if you have a problem with your employer, the union is not
strong enough to help. In the case of the teachers and state
employees, there is some strength. Not enough but some.
Destruction of the state employee unions is the destruction of our
public school system. The public school system built our country
as the brother of the union worker.
This is not rocket science. Destroy the unions. Destroy
the schools. Feed the war machine. GWB changed our foreign
policy to provide optional and initiated wars. Illegal under our
United Nations Treaty but the corporatists know no bounds.
Enough. Just writing this makes me angry. I heard one of
the right wing agitators against unions explain the ultimate
lies. He says that our teachers are overpaid because they are
turning our mindless idiots. I guess he thinks his experience is
the norm. There is an old bromide about mules that I never
remember the proper words. You want to starve the mule because he
is too weak to pull the load? Our teachers are already
financially starved and you want to increase their load?
Some of the teachers hit the streets in protest. Where were
the students? where were the parents? Home watching Fox
Noise?
I have Sirius radio in my Ranger. It is expensive but I need not mess with station changing while I travel around northern Mexico and southern USA. The problem with Sirius is that it is filled with stations of purely sectional interest. Music by decade, news by political interest, weather and traffic by major city. Etc. Sort of an aside (this entire paragraph is an aside), there are weather and traffic stations for San Francisco but not San Jose, 50 miles south. San Jose is twice the population and size of San Francisco and surrounded by densely populated similar cities. San Francisco is at the tip of a peninsula with weather actually different from the surrounding areas. Most of the San Francisco traffic is entering in the morning and leaving in the afternoon on bridges and a couple of Interstates. 5 minutes and go to another station. Weather: wear a jacket.
But on this day I was listening to the POTUS channel.
Politics. The Republican chairman forum was he program of the
day. POTUS repeats every couple of hours. 5 people were 'debating'
for the position. They could have been the same person just
looking at them from different angles.
A primary election is held so that multiple candidates for each
political party can be weeded down to a single candidate for the
general election. A closed primary requires that a person vote
only for the party for which he is registered. The closed primary
is an abomination. I agree that the parties need this weeding --
but not at taxpayer expense. If you are registered as party
independent, you may not vote in a closed primary. My money is
being
used to pay for an election in which I may not participate. If
you
are going to take my money for an election, the election should be open
to me. And, no, forcing me register for one party is not an
acceptable solution.
This is a religious problem, not a political issue. I resent
it being made a political issue. Our interpretation of the
American Constitution requires the separation of church and
state. But not in this case. Efforts to correct this error are being
hindered by the churches. And the Republican Party. Are
these people worried that the married tax rate will level the tax
playing field? Married people get the most preferential tax
rate. Look at the book -- the marriage penalty is a
fiction. Other than on religious and historic bigotry grounds,
restricting marriage to one of each sex has no basis. The
benefits of marriage are overwhelming to everyone. Custody of
children. Inherited property
rights. Reduced tax rates. Et al. WIth
religious-ground marriage only, people live lies. They are
deprived from visitation rights in hospitals and jails. They can
lose their homes. The pairing of people to retain their family
and economic lives should not be restricted on religious grounds.
Every man, woman, and child is against abortion. Regardless of
your belief in God or gods. Regardless of when a soul, if you
believe in souls, enters the body of the fetus. Regardless of any
other moral beliefs, a pregnant woman knows that she is hosting what
will become a new human being. Desecrating that amazing ability
and killing that life form is not what any woman wants. An
abortion will cause permanent psychological damage and maybe physical
damage to her.
So we are all anti-abortion. But we have a scale. Some
people are absolute. Others are somewhere along the scale.
Absolute anything (even this statement) is a problem.
I can remember having esoteric arguments with my Catholic parish
priest. The example was I come to a river and there is a person
in the water drowning and I can save the person but I would likely die
in the attempt. The person will die if I do not assist them right
now. Do I save the person or not? My argument was that I
save the person. The priest claimed that my actions would be
determined by whose life I felt was more valuable to God. A very
old person, definitely not. A Baby, definitely yes. Sex?
Age? Disability? All items to be evaluated while this
person is dying. No. I just jump in and save them.
Period. But the historic position of the Catholic Church was to
always saved the baby even when death of the mother was certain.
How many mothers died in childbirth? We hear the stories.
Today how may mothers die in childbirth? I am sure there are
some. I have not heard of any.
So the doctor must make the dying person choice. Today I
believe the doctor prefers the mother. She might have another
baby. She might already have children. The baby is an
unwritten story. It seems to my memory that the question was
posed to me at the time my wife was to have our daughter. Save
the mother.
So some woman is pregnant. She has a choice: have the baby or
kill the fetus. The longer the wait for the decision the more
danger to everyone. What if the woman is the victim of
incest? Rape? What if the baby is known to have
life-depriving defects? Can you care for a deformed human
being? It will be for your lifetime. The expenses? Changing
the diaper on a thirty year old son that does not have the ability to
love you back?
The churches say always have the baby. We have wards in
hospitals with babies that will not even survive let alone grow to be
anywhere near normal. A bay with a walnut-sized knob on the back
of its neck. Its brain. This baby cannot live -- even with
the best care in the world in the best hospital in the world. It
will die from any inappropriate contact or diseases.
And we have the Republicans with their psychotic ex-governor playing
poster child to such babies claiming all abortions are bad. The
rest of us are somewhere on the scale, hoping to never be required to
make the choice.
Take this one step further. Take the Catholic Church position:
killing sperm or ova is murder. I am not sure that this is a big
jump. The original purpose of a condom is to kill sperm.
Today it separates pernicious body fluids. Most feminine birth
control exists to either kill sperm or to neutralize the ovum. In
which case the ovum will die. Masturbation is a sin. Why
make the decision point of killing a baby the point of
conception? If you are on the absolute end of abortion, then
anything preventing conception falls into the same category: crazy.
I can understand that some people are such control-freaks that they
want to keep all people from having abortions. Some are so
radical that they kill doctors. Who is playing God in this
case? It seems that the anti-abortion crowd applauds such murder
when no one is looking. I was brought up to believe that taking a
life is up to God. Murder is taking a life. Murder by the
state is taking a life. The death penalty is certainly worse than
an abortion but the antiabortion people do not seem to se the parallel.
Other subjects were discussed and I disagreed with them on these
also. But there was an overwhelming aura covering the forum --
they called it a debate. A debate argues opposing views.
These people all agreed on everything except who was the best choice
for the position. From their own narration, this choice is a made with or
without this forum. The purpose of this program was to advertise the Republican agenda and not to pick a leader.
The problem is that the entire forum was spent on political
posturing making it sound like the Republican Party has some values to
individuals. The Republican Party is the corporate party in the
United States. The Democratic Party is the people party.
Opinion? No. Fact. Follow the money.
As a kid I always heard: "What is good for GM is good for the
country". This is a Republican mantra. If corporations
succeed then the country will be healthy. Nothing could be
further from the truth. We would not need unions if the
corporations had any interest at all in the welfare of their
employees. And we need unions. The Republican want to bust
unions. Right now there are Republicans in Congress wanting to
permit states to declare bankruptcy. Why? Union
busting. Contracts with state employees would be canceled.
Pensions would be lost.
Billions of corporate dollars support the Republicans in each
election. In turn the Republicans do anything that they can to
support their sponsors. This includes supporting their biggest
sponsors: insurance companies and banks. These two industries have
been given billions of free dollars by their Republican elected
officials and want more. They also have the most unbalanced
payrolls in favor of their highest officials compared to their working
employees.
If you want to see the friends of a candidate, look to his
finances. Big money. Big money interests. The
Republican PArty is not ashamed of its beliefs that to make a strong
America the beasts must be fed before the peons.
Talk about lies. This is the biggest Republican lie of
all. To balance any budget, income matched expenses and usually a
little extra on the income side to prepare for future expenses.
Government income comes from taxes. Government expenses for the
USA center around the military, endowments, administration, social
contracts, and windfalls.
Republicans claim to want a balanced budget but they are restricting
the balancing act to cutting money to individuals as opposed to the
entire budget. They insist on reduced tax rates to their sponsors
forcing a disproportionate tax on the non-rich. Why do I pay 20%
on my pension when most rich people pay nothing at all and at most 39%
on what they cannot hide. I cannot hide my pension.
Republicans want to cut military spending by cutting soldiers
pay. The easiest way to cut military spending is to stop having
elective wars. Even the Democrats have a problem with this.
Endowments. Maybe I use the wrong word. I mean Social
Security and health care. Social Security is a tough animal.
Already the Social Security Administration is cheating its pensioners by
refusing to the annual cost of living increase. Republicans want
to eliminate Social Security. They use code words like
privatization but their bottom line is to get it out of the federal
coffers and make the individual control his own retirement.
Republicans believe that each person should totally control their whole
life without government control. The premise sounds good but in
fact defeats the primary purpose of having a government at all: provide
for the general welfare.
Social Security is a problem. To remain solvent, the benefit
retirement age must be raised. But raising it causes
problems. It must be raised slowly and incrementally so that
people already close to retirement and are counting on their promised
benefits are penalized very little. The downside of this is that people
will need to work more years before retirement. If a person works
an extra ten years then that job is not available to a person entering
the workforce for ten years. With unemployment and
underemployment rates running at over 20% (the real rates, not the book
rates), raising the retirement age only expands the unemployment
rate. Less employed, less taxable income and more government
expense.
But the Republican so not care: they want it gone.
Medicare: this is a real thorn in the side of Republicans.
They need it gone. They probably do not want to cut the taxes
from Medicare but the want the bills to go away. Pay the doctors,
caregivers less. Cover less benefits. Etc.
National Health Care: Anathema to Republicans. The elimination of their primary financial support.
Real national healthcare means that the insurance companies will stop
getting their 35% of every premium dollar. This is free money
since the insurance company provides no benefits but only takes your
money and restricts your medical choices.
Public Education: Good public schools mean fewer Republicans.
Texas is a good example. The Texas education board censors all of
the student textbooks to provide slanted histories, religion-oriented
pseudo-science, and anything else that they feel must be colored to fit the
opinions of about 10 people. Frightening. Use the east
coast, rivh-people paradigm: if you have the money, send your kid to a
private school leaving the public school as a dumping ground for the
poor.
I like the Mormon concept: pay for one set of schools and make them
good schools. The local schools system should be a model for
education of young people. The citizens should be proud to
support it. They should not be looking for exit strategies.
The Republican Budget Balancing will exclude the loss of income due
to their preferential tax structure and rely solely on cutting the
social budget. This should frighten every American but then
Americans are more afraid that some poor Mexican may cross their border
than they are for their children's education.
Democrats believe that good health is a right. Republicans believe
it is a privilege. They believe that for-profit insurance
companies are a right. Really.
Mr. Boner, Boehner, or whatever has stated his primary objective
over the next two years: make sure that Obama is not reelected to a
second term. This is fine as an objective. But leading our
country out of depression, improving the tax base, correcting social
ills, creating more jobs, and improving our devastated moral
image in the rest of the world are all very much more important than a
political agenda. Of course a Republican wants a Republican
president. Look at the horrors that we have endured in the last
50 years: Nixon, Ronald Reagon, and Two Bushes.
Boner has already set our paid representatives to investigate each
and every action of Obama for the last two years to see how much dirt
he can dig up. If a Democrat had the same intentions, he would
not even need a shovel. An internet-connected computer
would find Bush and Cheney to be world criminals and mass
murderers. The Democrats had better things to do: fix the country
and its image.
The Republicans do not have such noble intentions. They live
in the dirt. And like Hitler's legacy, if you tell lies often
enough they become the truth.
Arizona is a hateful place. They hate Mexicans. They hate
Democrats. The anger is visible and frightening. This last
year they passed anti-Mexican laws. Teachers cannot even teach Mexican
culture or history in classes. Mexicans can be asked for papers
by anyone.
Add to this the constant bigotry on the Republican radio and TV
shows and you have people being killed. None of these shows
actually tell people to go out and kill other people. But this is
an absolute. When you fill the air with constant diatribes and
innuendoes about how awful some group is, sooner or later someone will
take action. These talk show hosts, claiming to be news casters,
can play Pontius Pilate and wash their dirty hands but the blood does
not come off even if they are not prosecuted. Murderess have
stated that their actions were the direct result of their
listening to this hatred. But does this even hit home to the
psuedo-newscasters (anyone from Fox)? No. They just wash there
hands and say the murders are crazy people and not their problem.
Regrettably, many people are too much like dogs. If this were
not so, Pavlov would have chosen a different animal to mimic human
behavior. My dog is a loving, caring animal waiting for me to go
to bed so that he can protect me. I have some neighbors who
control their dogs with sticks. The Republican talkers fit into
the stick category.
We all know this, that is, all of us except those who listen to
Fox. The problem is the anger and hatred grow and sometimes grows
to murder. I have friends, maybe now just acquaintances, who
believe that Mexicans are hurting arizona and will not shop in stores
that aim at Mexican customers.
Today another couple of people were killed in Tucson, Arizona.
One killed and the other short in the head waiting to be dead or
partially recover, maybe. Maybe by now, dead. A member of
the House of Representative and her aid. SHot because they are
Democratic party people. Shot by another angry Republican.
I know, all of the Arizona Republicans will turn their backs on this
deranged person. But many will smile when you cannot see their
faces. Good Christians all.
I live close to both Arizona and California. It is easier to
get to Yuma than El Centro but I prefer going to El Centro.
Why? I am literally afraid to open my mouth with any opinion,
political or otherwise, in Arizona for fear that someone will hurt
me. The anger and bigotry are worn on their sleeves. At
least I do not look like a Mexican.
And every time an Republican hits the airwaves these bigots connect
instantly. Some of them also hear the lies from Fox and act upon
them. It all go back to what I taught my children: "Never over
estimate the intelligence of the average bear. Never
underestimate his ability to hurt you." I think the Alaskan
Grizzly or Kodiak would better represent the Republican Party than the
elephant.