tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2157684011825929452024-02-19T10:31:57.173-05:00American PolitikRobert Poole Jr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04306170039293680126noreply@blogger.comBlogger134125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-215768401182592945.post-29993892335863123662012-11-12T09:31:00.001-06:002012-11-12T09:32:39.274-06:00A Huge Forced Dose of Reality for Conservatives<i>Editor's Note: A quick post about the election. I haven't posted here much with Facebook to rant on and the immediacy that seems to provide but I got on board with Train Obama last year after he came around on Gay Marriage and basically after realizing a Romney Presidency would be a Third Term of Bush. So with that declaration out of the way, here's my commentary on the election aftermath and what it means about the beliefs the Conservative Movement carries.</i>
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They live and die on this phony set of beliefs but then they had to eat shit about a number of things the past few weeks...
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Climate Change? Well Sandy sort of proved their anti-science attitude to be bullshit and over 70% of Americans now are on board with Climate Change as truth. Even mainstream media is finally reporting it as fact. Remember two weeks before Sandy, Fox was reporting that Climate Change was false and that Global Warming had ENDED. Oops!
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Tax Cuts for Rich are Good Economic Policy? The Congressional Research Service did a non-partisan report that crushed that notion and Republicans had to scramble to try to kill the report before the election. They ended up with major egg on their face over that.
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Polls are biased towards Democrats? Well they even tried to create a site to "unskew" the polls. Except if anyone was oversampled it was older, landline users. Most young people use cell phones and they weren't asked their opinion for the most part. Still the poll samples were steady enough for people like Nate Silver who used basic Math, another elitist institution of the Education snobs, to call all 50 states correct for the Presidential race and all but one Senate race.
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The Majority of Americans Oppose Abortion Rights? You remember them saying this as they increasingly upped their attacks on George Tiller and other Abortion Doctors, the Kansas AG tried to make abortion records public to shame women, they went after Planned Parenthood funding and tried to make Abortion of any sort illegal everywhere they could? Well it turns out they were DEAD WRONG. They overreached with the rape comments but 60-70% of people that voted and were asked in exit polling, supported abortion rights. Turns out they have been wrong this entire time.
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Most Americans oppose Gay Marriage? Well tell that to the three states that voted for Gay Marriage, the one state that voted to block a ban of it, the state that voted for the judge that declared it legal with his ruling and the country who via electoral and popular vote majorities voted for a President who came out in favor of gay marriage. Homophobia is a dying cause it seems.
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Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, et al are truthtellers? It turns out everything they were telling their viewers was completely fabricated and they were wrong about pretty much everything. It's why so many Conservatives were and are STILL shell shocked by the results this past Tuesday.
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And here's the big one: "America is a Conservative/Center-Right Nation". Well they now know: It's not. Even with Independents that broke for Romney, Democrats didn't even NEED them. They hold a Majority coalition where it counts most (ie not White Males) in the future and they are able to attract a broader base of voters. Even Fox is saying they are no longer the majority (they lament it, grumble about it and then say that these people are leeches, essentially).
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This sort of set of revelations would usually get someone to think about their views and beliefs and do a little introspection about whether or not they have been listening to the correct sources. However I get the feeling that instead of self-correcting, they're going to insulate themselves further to protect their viewpoints.
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I've already heard them blame the poor/minorities/women as people who want "stuff" so they haven't stopped their attacks. The Susan B. Anthony List fools said the Right was anti-abortion enough. Fox and the like are saying there was voter suppression (100% pure projection) and they aren't really soul searching anything over there. In fact they just plan to take more steps to obstruct and steal the next vote. McConnell and Boehner have made clear that they refuse to do any deals with Obama which isn't 100% based on what they want to do. They won't work with him on anything.
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So that leads me to this question. If Conservatives keep following these people down this same path, knowing what they know now and after a barrage of facts just whooped their asses this past few weeks.... can we stop pretending these are serious people? Can we stop pretending that there are any smart, intellectual people on that side? Because for years people like Paul Ryan have been hailed as brilliant policy wonks when reality is we learned he has never done the math on his plans and really doesn't give a shit about how they would collapse the American economy. Ultimately he and his rich benefactors would get theirs.
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It's time to call these people what they are: <b>Thieves</b>. They get elected to office to embezzle public funds via contracts and subsidies and then use their personal portfolios, future job prospects and campaigns and PAC funding as a money laundering operation to get money back on their investments. They don't care about anybody in the Middle Class. Fuck them. They don't line their pockets later.
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Mitt Romney's 47% comment wasn't a slip. It was what they all believe. And so they use all of those lies I mentioned above to confuse the low information voters into thinking their cause is just and that most Americans agree with their premises. They've successfully conned these people into the voting booths for them a number of times. Last Tuesday should be a wake up call to the con that they have been played for, however I doubt these people are smart enough to come back to reality. Or some, will openly choose not to even with all of the facts in their plain view.
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After all, for some people they really would rather take the Blue Pill. Ignorance is Bliss, it would seem.Robert Poole Jr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04306170039293680126noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-215768401182592945.post-59417708166960458382012-05-10T22:12:00.000-05:002012-11-12T09:48:16.392-06:00Getting Back On Board with ObamaLook I am willing to admit I have been overly harsh with President Obama. I basically became a Liberal Independent when I felt like Obama's choices from his Right-Leaning Cabinet picks to his role in keeping liberals and advocates for Single Payer away from the table during the Health Care Reform Negotiations. Also his staffers openly mocked and attacked us while staying quiet on FOX for the most part.
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I <b>still<i></i></b> don't think we got a great deal with Obamacare, but it's the best we can get for now and states that want to not implement it are doing so for political reasonings to hurt Obama. I still am not happy with the NDAA or the continuation of Bush policies on Domestic Terror. I'm still not looking to come back to the Democratic fold even. I will vote for the Democrats that deserve it and where I can, vote for Green Party and other Liberal Candidates down-ballot.
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But I need to credit Obama for living up to his word on withdrawal in Iraq and then coming to his senses on Gay Marriage.
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Wait, you didn't hear? Yes. A sitting President came out in favor of Gay Marriage. All I can see online are sites filled with people applauding the decision. Of course that's because I refuse to visit Conservative websites since they are totally batshit insane.
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Read it and weep, Conservatives:
<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/obama-comes-out-in-favor-of-same-sex-marriage/2012/05/09/gIQA1RPCEU_story.html">
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/obama-comes-out-in-favor-of-same-sex-marriage/2012/05/09/gIQA1RPCEU_story.html</a>
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Don't Ask, Don't Tell? Gone. DOMA? Obama asked the DOJ not to prosecute it any further. FINALLY, we're heading in the right direction.
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I'm not 100% sure I am voting for Obama in November but it's pretty close. Like 99.5% sure. Not just on one issue mind you but since late last year he seems like a different President. One that has finally had enough of the Republican games and obstructionism.
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The Left and Dems in particular lost HUGE in 2010. We did that, I think, because the attitude towards liberal change was so lackadaisical by this Administration that Liberals stayed home during midterms. Maybe they finally took note of that.
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Let's hope so.Robert Poole Jr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04306170039293680126noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-215768401182592945.post-18416821804615398272012-01-17T23:50:00.004-06:002012-01-18T00:55:48.454-06:00Why SOPA Matters.<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2c6Ne8Rq6kAs0cMNJV7dXwTbJiOvAUgtAlzsQeTrC1OyIiouWgWq_sjQhf1xibKqMaGLyId1WmL7ovgRkCLMvB_HL8eGaGDhNtddpla4qV5y_v6nsPufiOWTngABQ1sG8V5cZhnhbkP4/s1600/Google+SOPA.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 269px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2c6Ne8Rq6kAs0cMNJV7dXwTbJiOvAUgtAlzsQeTrC1OyIiouWgWq_sjQhf1xibKqMaGLyId1WmL7ovgRkCLMvB_HL8eGaGDhNtddpla4qV5y_v6nsPufiOWTngABQ1sG8V5cZhnhbkP4/s400/Google+SOPA.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5698845687652467218" /></a><br /><br />Wow. Says it all doesn't it? When sites like Google, Wikipedia, Reddit, Craigslist, Wordpress, Democratic Underground, etc all feel the need to protest a bill then you know it is serious. <br /><br />The problem is, we have a group of idiots in Washington who always go too far and need to be kicked out on their asses immediately because their every action is always an over-reaction. <br /><br />Terrorists attack America on 9/11 so what is their response? <br /><br />1. Go to the country that harbored them and go after them. (Sounds good.) <br />2. Attack another country that had nothing to do with it. (Wait a second...)<br />3. Decide that the Constitution no longer applies and start arresting American Citizens without due process for indefinite detention in Guantanamo Bay where they are never charged and never given a chance to refute accusations made against them. (Holy Shit.)<br />4. Torture these detainees breaking every Geneva Convention law we signed onto back when we criticized the Germans and Japanese for their torture techniques during WWII. (Outrage is all that comes to mind.)<br />5. Pass The Patriot Act which now forces libraries to hand over a record of everything you ever checked out and allows for other civil liberty intrusions. Add on the erasure of FISA as a method to force law officials to use proper procedures and obtain warrants to wiretap your phone. Now EVERY CALL IN THE UNITED STATES IS TAPPED AND RECORDED. Oh and your internet, they own those records too. (Volcano, ready to erupt.)<br /><br />All of this because a jackass chose not to interrupt his vacation in Crawford and care about a Presidential Daily Briefing on August 6, 2001.<br /><br />That's not the only example of course. Every time this crew passes a law it takes a small issue and overblows it in the worst possible way. This crew feels that the best way to eradicate an ant problem in a small apartment is to NUKE THE ENTIRE COUNTRY. Sure, the ants are dead but everything goes with it.<br /><br />The issue at hand for SOPA is "Online Piracy". A few easily bought and sold tools in Washington are pressing hard for this bill to hand over the entire internet to the Motion Picture Association of America because they were <s>paid handsomely</s>, have ZERO knowledge of the inner workings of the internet. Senators tend to be old men with very little knowledge of things that matter to the 40 and under crowd. Remember when now deceased Senator Ted Stevens famously said the internet was a series of tubes? That was only a few years back and don't be all that shocked by this: most Senators think this way.<br /><br />They don't see the internet as the most free flowing form of social networking ever created. Hell, I doubt they'd even care about the significance of that. To most of these guys, it's been a big silver spoon world where they only have to be social with other people just like them. Enclosed in giant money laden bubbles and free from the realities of the outside world.<br /><br />The MPAA and RIAA also use the nuke them all approach. In the 1980s they made the claims that BETA and VHS machines would ruin the film industry. The RIAA said the same of cassette tapes. After all, the ability to copy movies or music meant surely nobody would ever BUY anything ever again. Except the exact opposite happened. The dubbed tapes were an intro to the movies and music a new viewer/listener might not have given a chance to before. Both industries took off with a massive boom that decade. <br /><br />We heard the same whining and griping when recordable CDs and DVDs came out. Yet revenues didn't really come down for either until the RIAA continued to jack up the costs of CDs at a time when their use was declining. Not to mention the PR failures of suing kids and families for downloading music was idiotic at best. Think Metallica ever truly recovered from how they were viewed in the fight with Napster?<br /><br />These anti-piracy measures have always been steps that have gone WAY too far. For decades they have had laws in place (quite visible on the beginning of videos) that will charge you with a Felony and a fine up to $250,000 just for showing the video in public. So gather some friends, grab a pizza and some popcorn and prepare for a sentence in prison. What moron came up with that? Does anyone even know where to apply for an exemption to that law? Or how much you have to pay to get "broadcast rights" in your own home?<br /><br />When you buy a DVD you should own the DVD and have the right to show it where ever you want. I'm also a big proponent of the concept that if you aren't making profit on the viewing of the movie, whether it be with friends or sharing it with people in an online streaming environment like Justin TV or Ustream, then there is no reason to complain about damages. Make the caveat be that the streams can't be recorded for people to watch at any given point so that it's not a movie that can be just picked up later. Make another caveat be that the broadcaster must make an effort to promote the actual sale of the movie. Hell they can provide free commercials that provide order details for these streamers to use.<br /><br />Of course that cuts into the licensing rights they care so much about. You know, the ones they try gouge HBO and Showtime for and are going overboard in overcharging Netflix for so that they have to raise rates and look like evil villains to you, the end user?<br /><br />The problem is they view streamers or file sharers as if they are killing the business. This couldn't be more untrue. Read this. There are at least 5 links at the very top of the article that disprove this theory about music file sharing but the main crux of the article proves that people who share movies online, spend more on movies in general.<br /><br />Read: <a href="http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110721/04092915191/industry-suppressed-report-showing-users-shuttered-pirate-site-probably-helped-movie-industry.shtml">Industry Suppressed Report Showing Users Of Shuttered 'Pirate' Site Probably Helped Movie Industry...</a><br /><br />Of course their counterargument will be that ticket sales are down 10% over the past 17 years. The problem with that being it is a dishonest argument. There are more entertainment options than ever before. More Cable Channels, the Internet, more Sports Teams... and all tend to be considerably cheaper than movies when you factor in ticket prices that have far outpaced inflation costs in this country. <br /><br />Ticket prices and how steep they are now play a major unspoken role in this as well (and as Jeff Katzenberg tried to cover for it in <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/01/business/media/as-ticket-prices-rise-theater-audiences-shrink.html?pagewanted=all">this article</a>, they'll continue to cover for it as much as possible).<br /><br />And I am not even going to begin to mention how horrendous their business decisions are. Year after year of sequels, prequels, remakes and comic book dreck. Original ideas are scrapped endlessly. I can't help but think if they had taken the $250 million used to finance that stupid Green Lantern movie and handed $10 million each to 25 hungry directors and screen writers to come up with something original, that 5-7 of those would have hit it big and made more money ultimately than that crap Lantern movie did.<br /><br />Still these same content providers that are whining about piracy crushing them are not hurting. I see reports about <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/nov/11/disney-reports-rise-in-profits">Disney</a>, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/03/business/media/internet-customers-and-advertising-sales-bolster-comcasts-profits.html">Comcast/NBC Universal</a>, <a href="http://thewrap.com/movies/article/viacom-announces-third-quarter-earnings-29795">Viacom</a>, <a href="http://www.proactiveinvestors.com/companies/news/20875/amc-networks-q3-profits-rise-nearly-60--20875.html">AMC</a>, <a href="http://thewrap.com/movies/article/imax-profits-surge-25-thanks-harry-potter-and-transformers-32231">IMAX</a> and on and on claiming huge profit increases. If piracy is an issue, it's not crushing their businesses in any way shape or form.<br /><br />So let's pin this down to what it is. Greed. The MPAA and RIAA will never be happy until they have your every dollar. (The RIAA already has practically every dollar from the musicians but that's another story.)<br /><br />You are not allowed to share, show clips of or hell, even talk about their products. My concern is, where will this leave the amateur Roger Eberts of the world? How about a Rotten Tomatoes? Are they next?<br /><br />YouTube is chalk full of funny, smart, witty... and yes total dumbasses who review movies. They sometimes use short clips of movies to show what they are talking about. Under the recently changed rules of the FCC, this was okay. SOPA ends all of that fun. It gives the MPAA/RIAA Government Enforcement of their property in ways no other industry has ever received. It makes your tax dollar, their tax dollar essentially because you are now employing their online security team.<br /><br />The major websites blacking out, shutting down or messaging you today are doing so because as a whole the rules in SOPA/PIPA would seriously change and possibly damage the infrastructure of the internet as we know it. It is not all completely virtual by nature, there are hardware issues involved as well. As suspicious as we tend to be towards corporations in general (and with good reason) this isn't just about their best interests either. Google has stood firm against the Government when the aforementioned Patriot Act overreaches tried to force them to hand over information on people. They have often erred on the side of caution when it comes to protecting internet privacy.<br /><br />Google Chairman Eric Schmidt said it best when he said that <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/198777-google-chairman-says-online-piracy-bill-would-criminalize-linking">SOPA would 'criminalize the internet'</a>. That's what those bought and sold fools in Washington will never understand. <br /><br />How could they?<br /><br />They're still hoping one of their Grandchildren will come over and program that pesky VCR clock that keeps flashing at them.<br /><br />Take action by going here and contacting your local Congressperson or Senator. Make your voice heard, while we still have an internet to do such a thing.<br /><br /><a href="https://www.google.com/landing/takeaction/">https://www.google.com/landing/takeaction/</a><br /><br />-Robert PooleRobert Poole Jr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04306170039293680126noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-215768401182592945.post-84344608105756531482011-04-13T01:15:00.005-05:002011-04-13T02:37:36.391-05:00Endgame: What the Corporatists Really Want To Do<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8dtXN4wXMmxy7DYLESYDIQA3GQgfPKAuXGcADNCnwxuTaN2rX6qY0sAadw7Z4b5AH-e3I62o_teBtUdema_28Y6OckLsOQ4VO300XUuTX_9kECMEmvF17N7tIdjsMWrG4g4WVZSKgWSo/s1600/factory.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8dtXN4wXMmxy7DYLESYDIQA3GQgfPKAuXGcADNCnwxuTaN2rX6qY0sAadw7Z4b5AH-e3I62o_teBtUdema_28Y6OckLsOQ4VO300XUuTX_9kECMEmvF17N7tIdjsMWrG4g4WVZSKgWSo/s320/factory.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5594969027518369202" /></a>In every town, you see these now. Once a thriving epicenter for commerce and labor to co-exist and thrive. America the manufacturing powerhouse that took the ingenuity of the Industrial Revolution and turned it into an economic bonanza. From the 1930s to the 1970s, the sweat, blood and muscle of the American worker represented the kind of society other countries dreamed of. Balanced with high taxes on the rich and corporations paying their fair share, society was a place of relatively low unemployment. It was a place with a middle class that could more than keep up with the cost of living and inflation. It was where the much ballyhooed 'American Dream' was born. Born of the ability to find a job, go to work, get a good education for your children, own a home and a car. Sure there were incredibly inequities towards racial minorities and women but in general terms, the way the middle class was build and sustained itself, off of in house labor, laws to protect the Unions and workers and taxes that made the top tier pay their fair share, society worked pretty darn well.<br /><br />Since that point though, something happened. A loud cry from the nation's wealthiest of them all came about as their new poster boy, Actor Ronald Reagan, was ushered into office. Using his tremendous acting skills he tricked many of the same baby boomers that had been out protesting Vietnam and speaking of peace and love while smoking weed at Woodstock, to put down their signs and joints and start caring about themselves. Their strategy was to divide America into different groups. The haves, who knew better than you and owned the companies you needed in order to be employed at all... and the have-nots, those poor people who went on welfare and stole your hard earned tax money with no actual will to go to work for themselves. They attacked Unions as threats to companies' ability to hire. Made them villains for demanding such incredible things as health care benefits or higher pay. Used the potential for strikes as a way to prove that they didn't care whether you had a job or not. Used Union dues as a way to pretend you were being taxed for their political agenda. <br /><br />When Reagan went after the Air Traffic Controllers he did so to make a point. Unions had no place in this new Right Wing America. Corporate donors didn't want it and their political appointees would work on their behalf.<br /><br />From that point forward the American experience has worsened dramatically. The American Dream became more a dream than a reality, so distant a dream in fact that it was like the one where you're sleeping with a supermodel who in real life doesn't know your name and would likely send security guards to rough you up if you got too close. <br /><br />The Wal-Marts and powerhouse corporations took advantage. Wal-Mart stopped buying USA only products and started to push their suppliers to have costs for their products so low that in order to be featured in the store it was a pre-requisite to move manufacturing overseas. Pennies for the worker makes for cheaper product.<br /><br />They continued to lower corporate tax rates, taking them all the way down from the one time 90% rate to a much lower 34% under George W. Bush. It was pretty amazing that when Democrats discussed returning the rates to the 39% they were prior to Bush that the Republican party, bought wholesale by their corporate masters and the media which was owned almost entirely by corporate entities whined like this was the beginning of socialism. Of course there were a lot of Americans with zero grasp of History to know what the hell socialism was or the prosperity we as a nation have had with strong unions and with higher corporate tax rates. <br /><br />All of this made no sense anyway since Republicans (and many corporate Democrats who might have been Republicans in the past but thanks to Reagan shifting the entire political spectrum, real moderates no longer existed) used their powers to give tax break and loopholes galore to companies. To the point where GE and many other corporations don't even have to pay a dime to the IRS on their billions of dollars in earnings.<br /><br />The tax burden has been consistently shifted in a way where the poor and middle class are expected to shoulder a heavier burden than the top 1% than own practically everything in the country. It's been said far and wide with complete merit this year that 400 people own more wealth than the bottom 150,000,000 combined. That's a staggering statistic.<br /><br />You'd think, hey they convinced Americans and even Democrats like Clinton and Obama to fall for the trickle down economic nonsense, they used work training tapes and propaganda in the media to make union membership practically non-existent. They stalled forever on raising minimum wages while inflation priced people out of society and were gleefully overjoyed when those people, out of money no matter how hard they worked had to turn to credit debt to make ends meet. But that was never enough. Nothing is never enough. Greed is a disease. It needs to be cut out like cancer. Forcibly and physically. It exists to devour all in its path and continues to grow no matter what may temporarily hinder it.<br /><br />Even with all of that they wanted more. They pushed for free trade agreements and then got Government officials to approve of and give tax breaks for outsourcing, sending your jobs overseas to pay workers pennies... not just for Wal-Mart but for every industry. Now you were expendable. The Manufacturing industry is on very weak if not last legs in this country. The places where you would normally see textile plants, automotive plants, paper mills, etc... they're filled with unemployed workers and abandoned empty building space that the cities can't fill with new owners or new hope.<br /><br />Free Trade Agreements were just the start. They spent the 1990s lobbying to get media consolidation so they could snap up every TV and Radio Station as well as every newspaper in every town. They now controlled the message. They owned what you heard and what perspectives you were going to be informed from. Everything you would learn from here on out was told with spin. Your kids also would fall prey to this as they bought up the textbook manufacturers and pushed their corporate backed candidates in races for school boards where textbooks were approved. They now could rewrite American History in classes. Whitewash any negativity associated with our past. A deluded American public is defiant and much more apt to defend the dysfunctional societal setup here than ever demand change. So The Revolutionary War was a war based on high taxes from the Government (corporations pet cause) and not because people were mighty upset about the tax breaks being given to the East India Tea Company nor actual representation in Congress. The Civil War was about States Rights, not slavery. Hell slavery wasn't so bad, cheap labor never is, according to our new history professors.<br /><br />They got Congress to enact laws protecting loan schemes and hedgefund managers who made money off of you losing yours and set you up to fail. Then when they drove everyone into an abyss where the lack of jobs added to the impossible payment conditions of the loans meant everyone had to lose their homes to foreclosure, they went to the Government and put their hands out to take your taxpayer dollars again with little to no oversight on how to spend it... took those billions and turned them into hefty corporate bonuses. A reward for ripping you off.<br /><br />They even made sure they were well compensated in other situations as well. <br /><br />Want to start some wars? Great! Our corporations will be there to provide minimal services with zero accountability, just use money laundering, er, war appropriation bills to transfer those trillions of dollars into our bank accounts. <br /><br />Oil spills? Sure we'll clean it up but expect us to bill you for our mess. Oh and we want further tax cuts and more drilling permits, since you know, we've shown such massive responsibility with the ones we're operating currently. <br /><br />Health Care Crisis? Sure we drove rates on insurance premiums through the roof so badly that you needed a massive "reform" but give us 40 million mandated new customers and no controls on future premium prices. Sounds like a win to us.. oh but we're still going to demand its repeal because we still aren't cool with paying out any actual claims let alone for those sick pre-existing people.<br /><br />It would be laughable if it wasn't so horrific.<br /><br />Americans are unemployed at incredibly high rates. If you look up any job site you'll notice most the jobs pay very low wages and have little to no benefits. The corporate elite have already won, haven't they? What's possibly left for them to pillage?<br /><br />If this were a war, our city would be destroyed from firebombing raids, the last remaining structures still ablaze, a few survivors covered in soot roam the area listlessly unaware of what to do next. There is a class war in America but it's been waged by the ultra rich and it represents the conflict in Israel. The Israelis have missiles and planes and nukes and the Palestinians have rocks, sticks and the occasional suicide bomber. Not a fair fight and we've been annihilated in similar fashion.<br /><br />What else could they want? They have everything already.<br /><br />My ex-boss once said this about one of my accounts: "I never want you to be happy. If you make $1 million tomorrow in sales on that account, work for $1.5 million the next day and $2 million the day after that. Being happy means you're complacent and have given up trying in my opinion." Now he said this when at that point the account had never broke $55k in a single day. It let me know how vast his greed was and greed is an animal that never stops eating because it's never not hungry.<br /><br />To me when is enough, enough? If I own at a company that isn't #1 in the world but is in the top ten, makes really good money to support me and my family and my workers. It shows some growth but doesn't always light the world on fire. Isn't it good enough to be comfortable? Do I have to keep that company growing bigger and bigger, taking on debt and risk to my own personal finances as well as the job security of my workforce? For whom am I doing this for? I imagine if you get into the stock market game you've already declared: "I am never going to be happy! I want to own it all and be a billionaire!" Giving away that sort of autonomy with your company means you don't mind having the influx of cash nor the masters whom you now must answer to. Myself, I see things differently.<br /><br />You have to understand where these people are coming from. Their intense need for power and control allows them to take risks and have their companies obtain cash for the purpose of expansion and growth. They're cool with having to meet huge goals for their financial benefactors because they too want that growth. It increases their own pocketbook size. Step by step they use this as their ladder to power. They become more and more rich and they use that financial status to gain access to the politicians whom might have never given them a listen before. You realize really quickly that these people aren't there for their constituents, they're there for you. You can offer them a nice above the board $5k donation for their primary and general campaigns and another $25k, $50k, hell even $100k for some outside group that will advertise on their behalf. <br /><br />Now the world is your oyster. Having zoning issues? Not anymore! Worried about getting a tax break for something? Have no fear! Want to gut the rights of labor so that you can make America a place of low cost slave labor like China or India and line your pockets with the profits reaped from not paying regular wages? Well now, we can do that...<br /><br />And that my friends, is endgame.<br /><br />That's what they want. <br /><br />They want it all. The only way to get it all is to decimate the American workforce and their rights to the point of making us like China. They need no environmental regulations, no safety regulations, elimination of paying social security taxes or paying into Medical Benefits... and then they need to gut minimum wage.. to say, "stay competitive in the marketplace with other major industrialized countries"... since China and India are definitely industrialized at this point.<br /><br />They go after Public Service Unions partially to break the last bastion of Democratic Party Support after their bought and paid for US Supreme Court gave them the Citizen United Ruling and allowed them to advertise with unlimited dollars to buy any election they wanted, this just whittles down their opposition quite a bit. Also though they did it because with those unions out of the way their Republican friends can bring in corporate low paid workers from private firms to do these jobs. The CEOs will negotiate a hefty fee for this out of your tax dollar but don't expect that to be reflected in these workers' pay or benefits.<br /><br />Also by taking out teachers, they can work to force kids into corporately funded private schools which will double as a propaganda factory, telling children only what they want them to know and making them feel it's okay to be trained to work at their slave labor camp like jobs.<br /><br />Going after schools and teachers is the last real hurdle to the total revising of the American Education System in a way that will lead kids to accept and understand the importance of corporate overlords and why critical thinking is dangerous.<br /><br />They want it all and they have a few well outlined goals to take it.<br /><br />Once they achieve endgame, that is the systematic destruction of the middle class and the regulations which protect them in the workforce, they can begin to institute their dream scenario. Jobs might return to America but it won't resemble previous American Industrialism.<br /><br />For some companies overseas, they already see America the way we see China and India. Honda and Toyota and many of the German Auto Manufacturers have invested huge in building auto plants in Mississippi and Tennessee and Ohio. Why here? Non-union states run by Republicans that gave them sweetheart tax breaks. They can pay their workers rather low wages compared to the going rate of their profession and not have to deal with any of the usual "headaches" that having a strong financially balanced society might have. Being a good corporate citizen with a conscience costs money after all.<br /><br />Look at what <a href="http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-ikea-union-20110410,0,5341610.story">IKEA has done</a>. In Sweden their workers would make $19 an hour and get 5 weeks paid vacation. Sweden's economy thrives, unemployment levels are reasonable and they have a government run health care system. Things are good for the Swedes. You'd think IKEA would say, "we've done very well here, let's continue to have great jobs in these conditions". But greed doesn't allow them to think that way. They want to make more money than they know what to do with. <br /><br />So they come to a downtrodden town like Danville, VA. This town has been run ragged by other manufacturers bolting from their city for similar outsourcing reasoning. Greed killed them. Yet it seems by some sheer magic, they would be spared from the same fate as many dead towns now face, when IKEA came to open a plant. And then they did. Low wages near the minimum wage, only 12 days of vacation, most of which were dates picked by the company not by you, a horrible morale and just not a good environment. <br /><br />They are but another symptom of what America is becoming. The endgame is near. Corporate lackeys like Scott Walker and the like, they are willing to fight this war (even stealing elections to make sure of it) this time whereas their predecessors may have balked in the face of overwhelming anger. The John Kasich's, Rick Scott's, Rick Snyder's, Mitch Daniels... they all feel emboldened to finally drive the final nails in the coffin of union existence on state levels. The Paul Ryans and Eric Cantors feel emboldened to make the attempts to go after Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid in Washington. This is it, they've wanted it all for years and now they're finally going after it.<br /><br />We wander down a completely uncharted path. They've never been this close before. Not even in 1927 or during the Great Depression. It's up to us to fight them off.<br /><br />Court battles, mass protests, civil disobedience, general strikes, the greatest get out the vote effort ever... The term "keep your powder dry" has never been so appropriate.<br /><br />Are you ready to fight for the soul of America? <br /><br />I am.Robert Poole Jr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04306170039293680126noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-215768401182592945.post-37929956490805973352011-01-09T02:09:00.013-06:002011-01-09T03:46:29.158-06:00A quick note about the shooting of Rep. Giffords<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPg0Y-1_n5LnPbuwuML4qO67P4cH4v3ovkIkXibr6A0FW5RVfv-V2RTWtTRIXH19tp47fBo5ro9s1tt3jOGa8SIzU7R05VFnT-uymqiUFoRzwo7jZ6AErNYv4ytpAhYeAo42kSLMAc4xU/s1600/Giffords.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 239px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPg0Y-1_n5LnPbuwuML4qO67P4cH4v3ovkIkXibr6A0FW5RVfv-V2RTWtTRIXH19tp47fBo5ro9s1tt3jOGa8SIzU7R05VFnT-uymqiUFoRzwo7jZ6AErNYv4ytpAhYeAo42kSLMAc4xU/s320/Giffords.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5560113504698941170" /></a>I am 33 years old. I don't know what this is like. A politically charged assassination attempt on a current elected official in my home country. None of my generation of American Youth has ever gone through this. Yes, Reagan was shot but that still is before many young people can remember and John Hinckley was just crazy, not politically motivated. <br /><br />What happened yesterday, I've only read about it in books. The 1960s in particular seems like such a crazy time period. I close my eyes and remember what I have seen in old video clips and from old newscasts. I remember what I read about. Something seems eerily similar. <br /><br />A group of people fighting for their civil rights and another group of people steadfastly holding out against them for fear that the America they grew up and in always known was changing rapidly. It was a time period where a young charismatic President was in office. He was a Catholic which at the time was a pretty scary thing for so many Americans. Not unlike that of a purported Muslim being in office (even if he's not).<br /><br />Talks of peace when there was clearly still lingering war going on with the Communists scared the Right Wing at a time when the beginning of social change at home was already driving them into a frenzied fear. After two World Wars and Korea, war was all these people knew. Now we were talking about pulling our boys out of Vietnam, not invading Cuba and god forbid brokering a deal with the Russians?<br /><br />I imagine the culmination of all of this combined with the fear that blacks were going to run rampant and take over was scaring the right wing white male into a frenzy. The difference is there weren't as many television outlets then and they still bought into the concept of legitimate news. Not completely unbiased mind you because Edward R. Murrow sort of broke that barrier. Rather it was fact driven using serious sources and strong journalistic practices and because of this it wasn't working off of talking points or purposely catering to a specific ideology. <br /><br />Back then, instead of having Fox News peddle their causes to a much larger, easier to lead audience they used back room techniques. They joined the John Birch Society (somewhat representative of the tea party today) and used such groups to help spread their propaganda.<br /><br />I look at America today and I see similar shades of a totally unbalanced, scary time period.<br /><br />People can look back now and see the 60s with hindsight. We made progress and broke through on Civil Rights. Woodstock occurred. The Vietnam War resistance began and eventually helped end the war, even if it was many years later. All of that required struggle and even the sacrifice of blood and lives of leaders. <br /><br />I can't imagine watching the television on November 22nd, 1963 and seeing Walter Cronkite read off a bulletin that my President had been shot and murdered. Or to hear the same about his brother Robert or Martin Luther King, Jr. in such a short timeframe. <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-tFJxxhBvfKhyY-Z_w-Eroi4rCtFSQPlINkzWhtjo8PR-c-lffEs6nMgHND187HKyFpbdY6gBfl_3-P8N_9hfV74Hwk2jlISx7Lb0kY1Hck5h7utoK6n5vIVqv_b29gIo0nHf0RibSVo/s1600/rfk-conspiracy-test.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 319px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-tFJxxhBvfKhyY-Z_w-Eroi4rCtFSQPlINkzWhtjo8PR-c-lffEs6nMgHND187HKyFpbdY6gBfl_3-P8N_9hfV74Hwk2jlISx7Lb0kY1Hck5h7utoK6n5vIVqv_b29gIo0nHf0RibSVo/s320/rfk-conspiracy-test.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5560113748909087554" /></a>I imagine that the person that I am now would have felt hopeless that America could and would never change or be allowed to change. Of course the case can be made that certain elements of the Government were behind each killing and of course one can clearly look at the elements of Government that would have been involved in pulling such a trigger and would see such right leaning elements as those John Birchers I mentioned before. To them and to the unelected and fearful, any progress at all was a threat to a group of people who had irrationally built up fear inside of them to believe that if they did not arm themselves and fight back.<br /><br />So they did. <br /><br />Imagine the feeling of those people that lived through that. Every day wandering around a world of political hopelessness and helplessness where you know you don't count in America. Your voices will be silenced.<br /><br />Yet knowing this, they fought on and protested more. They stopped a damn war.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbeD9sAMcrwWBI4vp0RbnlkRfwgiCWpxZAntE4SGsWzJalv7UJYGpMjMcsvdgZi7a4d4qVGjogw0XvPJV8VS4TrrMMvWncpfhNvINVArTAJHe__Vj6uG2n3NWEiqARuH8NNS2fpojBHhM/s1600/vietnam_protest_rs.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 244px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbeD9sAMcrwWBI4vp0RbnlkRfwgiCWpxZAntE4SGsWzJalv7UJYGpMjMcsvdgZi7a4d4qVGjogw0XvPJV8VS4TrrMMvWncpfhNvINVArTAJHe__Vj6uG2n3NWEiqARuH8NNS2fpojBHhM/s320/vietnam_protest_rs.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5560114604790907218" /></a><br /><br />The dates may have changed but is anything really that different? We have our insidious fascist groups thinking they are arguing for political power but using fear to whip up the troops. They are preying on a group of people afraid of Blacks, Muslims, Mexicans and now Gays from taking over their world. They fear the President who looks different than them. They fear the changes to the Government in the form of Health Care regardless of what it might offer them in terms of positives.<br /><br />The bullhorn is louder now. Fox News, Conservative Radio, the corporately owned Mainstream Media... they shout from the rooftops and are much more effective than the old backdoor whisper campaigns. The genius of this is they don't need insiders in the Government to do their dirty work. They can call for the armed uprisings against politicians all they want and wait for their sheep to do their dirty work and they can scream first amendment all day long. They know they can call the person a fringe nut and absolve themselves of their responsibility. They know nobody has the guts to call them out for what they've done. They'll never face charges, never be publicly shamed. And when tomorrow comes and they hit the airwaves, they'll move their target and start anew. They succeeded in taking out their enemy without having to lift a finger. It's all so perfect now.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo0N0SLzoUO7hRAyPoM_J-O8NrGkXI0jzoU1FUsb_Ez9B8BxAmwqZsX6CwBitHUNTV-ZQJNFVOFzCunDwyCcx57g6w-VX6fFkt1QeO2T-WvNxyA46p6mhVyFRZsB3nCAN8gOHstC2NDsk/s1600/race.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 215px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo0N0SLzoUO7hRAyPoM_J-O8NrGkXI0jzoU1FUsb_Ez9B8BxAmwqZsX6CwBitHUNTV-ZQJNFVOFzCunDwyCcx57g6w-VX6fFkt1QeO2T-WvNxyA46p6mhVyFRZsB3nCAN8gOHstC2NDsk/s320/race.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5560114049876608626" /></a>I don't want to live in the 1960s. That time period is one of lost innocence. One where all the history books about how good America was started to show how inaccurate they were. Any real historian would laugh at the irony that we taught our kids how great our country was, by lying to them.<br /><br />What we knew about America had been tied together with pretty wrapping paper and a shiny red bow. The bow was perfectly proportioned and you almost wondered how it got that way without a machine. Human hands can mold things into wondrous shapes if they are diligent at changing the form to fit their needs after all.<br /><br />When we started unwrapping America: The Gift we start to see things we don't want to see. A murderous enterprise engaging in exactly what <a href="http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=C2624774544F1502">President Eisenhower warned us abou</a>t. War for Profit. Killing to enrich military and corporate contractors. <br /><br />Was there ever a legitimate target? Not so much. A vague threat of potential communism in Vietnam. A weak and moronic enemy in Iraq. A pretty pathetic government in Afghanistan and a leader of a terrorist group we never fully intended to capture (See: Nov. 2001 - <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/11/29/politics/main5818292.shtml?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+CBSNewsPolitics+%28CBS+News%3A+Politics%29&utm_content=Google+Reader">Troops stand down in Tora Bora and Bin Laden escapes</a>).<br /><br />Lies. All of it.<br /><br />Their job. To keep you scared. <br /><br />We need war or they'll get us. Now let us loot your tax dollars and social security funds so we can redistribute money to our connected wealthy friends.<br /><br />We need tax cuts or else more of you will lose their jobs or they won't create new ones. And these rich people need zero estate taxes or their heirs can't employ you either. Don't worry though, we'll make sure when our rich friends get that money that there is no regulation forcing reinvestment. Oh and you better believe we're not going to stand for closing any foreign loopholes that prevent our friends from paying the little bit of tax money they still might owe.<br /><br />They kept people scared in the 1960s about everything and ultimately it was about money. They needed endless war. They're better at the game now and a tad bit hungrier. War is not the only way they figured out that loots the American Treasury. It's still the best way but not the only way.<br /><br />So to keep you distracted they make you look at the changes in your life. <br /><br />High Unemployment? It's not the corporate greed downsizing or outsourcing your jobs away, it's Mexicans taking your job.<br /><br />Gay Rights? A new group of people that want to ruin YOUR marriage.<br /><br />Welfare and Unemployment Benefits? Robbing from the hard working middle class and giving to the lazy poor people that want to leech off of the sweat and effort you put in every day. Oh and hey, they're almost always lazy drug addicted minorities that would rather collect welfare than work.<br /><br />An attack 10 years ago? That could happen to anyone at any time, regardless of what we're doing to them overseas. So give up your constitutional rights about unreasonable search and seizure and we'll tap and record your every phone call and internet movement without a warrant. Oh and hey, those evil Muslims hate you and your religion and will force you to wear a burqa.<br /><br />Christmas? Atheists and other non-religious people HATE your holiday and want to destroy it and while they're at it they want to eliminate the Baby Jesus from every being a part of anyone's life.<br /><br />Sound familiar?<br /><br />Whip up this internal terror in people and they'll do whatever you want. Including murder Democrats on your behalf.<br /><br />So when you tell people that you constantly at rallies whip into a frenzy with eliminationist rhetoric that they need to reload and put target crosshairs on a Representative's district basically sicking the dogs on them, you're calling for a hit on that person. (Below: the images Palin tried to scrub from her website immediately after the attack)<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilx60gHjhZEnzf3JcEkkka1Ip1Ucpr0qGptRXYVXvdDin-ASZng5MxQylJPMQQoaUVvfMJ_HZhyphenhypheniyI7lKVUtEEV6TuPhxUbH955F9oWnh7p7uxBIrMzlyPp_ETITXAJnMW0PjD1P6b4lU/s1600/palin-tweet-fb-reload-aim.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 75px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilx60gHjhZEnzf3JcEkkka1Ip1Ucpr0qGptRXYVXvdDin-ASZng5MxQylJPMQQoaUVvfMJ_HZhyphenhypheniyI7lKVUtEEV6TuPhxUbH955F9oWnh7p7uxBIrMzlyPp_ETITXAJnMW0PjD1P6b4lU/s200/palin-tweet-fb-reload-aim.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5560120215466891186" /></a><br /><br />Everyone called out this nonsense when she did it originally. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGoZcPayJds">The View</a> denounced it back in March of 2010. Yet here we are.<br /><br />My heart and thoughts go out to Rep. Giffords and to the families of each and every family member that either lost a loved one in that attack yesterday or had a friend or family member be senselessly wounded in it.<br /><br />Regardless of what the media chooses to do with this info now, it's clear that the blood is on Sarah Palin's hands for this. Just as it should have been on <a href="http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2009/05/31/tiller/">Bill O'Reilly's hands when Dr. Tiller</a> was murdered after he labeled the man, "Tiller the Killer" and aired the man's address.<br /><br />But let's not kid ourselves here. These people know what they're doing and what results their actions are creating. They need to be held publicly responsible for what they have done and be shamed from the spotlight for good.<br /><br />I don't want to experience the 1960s. Yet, yesterday sure felt like a small bitter taste of it.Robert Poole Jr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04306170039293680126noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-215768401182592945.post-78911659570281687212010-12-29T21:14:00.006-06:002010-12-30T17:24:26.544-06:00The Chill of the Winter Morning<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgumQpm_bNQGqzgEsJJB2dAsDDJChY0ly5bMOX4ZoDs8Iraj3V6AF90CfNopNn9ygtKz0PjvcwulXnzzHsv7SaVgOVKnFBU3rXBriGoX6Sk2DIfCSf-st5k2V2_fgr69LpwbTHklL0gDIw/s1600/poverty.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 216px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgumQpm_bNQGqzgEsJJB2dAsDDJChY0ly5bMOX4ZoDs8Iraj3V6AF90CfNopNn9ygtKz0PjvcwulXnzzHsv7SaVgOVKnFBU3rXBriGoX6Sk2DIfCSf-st5k2V2_fgr69LpwbTHklL0gDIw/s320/poverty.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5556308753912536706" /></a>Imagine this. It's the cold of December. Winter has hit. Blustery winds outside of 15-20 mph. Temperatures in the teens but made worse by wind chills in the low single digits (or worse). A good amount of snow outside and definitely more on the way. Just going outside to start your car means breathing in the chill and watching the steam of your warm breath fog up the windshield from the inside. Your fingertips redden quickly and sting from the touch of the freezing cold steering wheel.<br /><br />Ah yes, it's the dead of winter already. The holidays are over and clearly this is time for these temperatures and the snow to become less and less enjoyable. <br /><br />Now add this to your imaginary stroll through the winter wonderland in your mind. Instead of just starting the car, you're going inside of it - to live there.<br /><br />It's happening more and more these days and the worst part is there appears to be no end in sight. <br /><br />Someone close to me had a predicament come up where they were put in a situation by an unsavory family member who decided to kick them out of their place to live right after Christmas had passed just based on a mood swing. This left these people in a bit of a predicament. Being homeless in the winter, when the conditions are <a href="http://uspoverty.change.org/blog/view/how_to_do_the_right_thing_this_winter">more dangerous</a> than at any point of the year, should invoke a perking up of the consciences in all of us to try to prevent such things. As I have<a href="http://usapolitik.blogspot.com/2010/05/what-happened-to-us-once-we-grew-up.html"> mentioned here before</a>, part of our social structure as children at least in the stories we are read, the movies we watch, who we are as people should be encased in empathy for others.<br /><br />In America it seems, most of our concerns are for ourselves. The Tea Partiers and Anti-tax crew rode into Washington thanks to a wave of electoral anger from the public in general on the very promise to cut social services that helped the people most in need. <br /><br />It seems the "welfare queen" narratives of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welfare_queen">Ronald Reagan</a> have taken shape and thus the poor are vilified for supposedly stealing the money of the hard workers in the middle class. Reality shows that <a href="http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/20/welfare-for-bankers/">corporate welfare</a> is where there money is really being stolen but hey never let facts get in the way of a good rant against the downtrodden who can do nothing to combat you on it. <br /><br />In conversations I have had with conservatives personally I have found very much of the same mindset that Fox News host <a href="http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=271878">Bill O'Reilly employed</a> during Christmas week (and was promptly crushed in rebuttal by <a href="http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/368914/december-16-2010/jesus-is-a-liberal-democrat">Stephen Colbert</a> on). O'Reilly tried to use the infamous (and found nowhere in the bible) quote about God not helping someone that doesn't help themselves. That is self-justification to hoard your money and not give to others. In fact, Jesus... you know the guy they built the entire CHRISTIAN religion around, had other ideas about holding on to your precious belongings:<br /><br /><blockquote>Mark 10:21<br />Jesus looked at him and loved him. "One thing you lack," he said. "Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."</blockquote><br /><br />Here's a few more for good measure: <a href="http://encouragingbiblequotes.com/versesmercya.html">http://encouragingbiblequotes.com/versesmercya.html</a><br /><br />To conservatives/right wingers it's not their problem. They have no obligation to help the poor or to help people in need. They can if they choose to but ultimately it is these people's belief that many of these people (if not all in their minds) "did it to themselves". The conversations I have personally had have been shocking and eye opening. They make blanketed claims of all homeless and exceptionally poor people being "too lazy to work" or "alcoholics" or "drug addicts". So this is their lot in life. Their penance in a world filled with punishments from their angry God. <br /><br />To them they have been trained that being taxed is stealing from them. Liberals and most Democrats believe that it is a good thing to be taxed more to pay for public services and to provide a social safety net in case of worst case scenarios. <br /><br />The rich approach every tax increase, no matter how minuscule, as if they were Mr. Potter - the warped frustrated old man in "It's a Wonderful Life" who basically stole an $8,000 deposit from the Bailey Savings & Loan to try to railroad them and their poor customers out of business for his own personal gain. Our government as it turns out, <a href="http://www.wisebread.com/fbi-considered-its-a-wonderful-life-communist-propaganda">sided with Mr. Potter back then</a> and would do the same now. They called such themes in a movie, "advancing communism" and "attacking capitalism". Our government has not changed one bit since then.<br /><br />It's protect the rich and the bankers at all costs these days as well. When TARP and the bailouts came about they were put in place to prop up the banks, not help the people they scammed out of their houses with shady mortgages. Those CEOs who had helped run their companies and the American economy into the ground got <a href="http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Issues/The-Economy/2010/10/12/Wall-Street-Rakes-in-144-Billion-Two-Years-Post-TARP.aspx">bigger bonuses than ever</a>... some even got bonuses just for <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN136517920090214">procuring the TARP funds</a>. <br /><br />And of course to shore up unemployment extensions for 2 million of the 6 million people that need them, for a whopping 13 weeks, they gave the rich another $700-800 billion in extended tax breaks as well. President Obama, <span style="font-style:italic;">always looking out for the little guy</span> (with as little of a fight as he can muster). <br /><br />Still getting the tax breaks that have crippled America and helped foster the environment of greed that has collapsed the economy, outsourced millions of jobs (and entire industries) overseas should have been enough to quiet this group of thieves down. Unfortunately it's not. They're now passing around the 'Social Security is broke' meme to eliminate that "entitlement" which is just another way of saying, "Rich people have no problem with their retirements and don't want to contribute to society anymore". <br /><br />This mentality is prevalent amongst that community of people and their brainwashed political allies on the lower income half of the scale. <br /><br />The conservatives will pass around the information they find in a few various articles that they, not liberals, are more charitable to dispute my commentary here. ABC News had an <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=2682730&page=1">interesting little article</a> on this some time back in which they try to dispel myths but sort of avoid the obvious overarching themes to how these "myths" came into existence. A couple assertions they make (with my observations in parenthesis):<br /><br />-<span style="font-weight:bold;">Rich people give more in overall dollars than the poor but the poor give more in total percentage of income.</span> (Well no kidding since the poor have far less to work with in total and anything they give to causes, bills, etc is going to have a greater impact on their total working capital.)<br /><br />-<span style="font-weight:bold;">People going to church give far more than those who don't and not just to their own church.</span> (The reason is that churches are collecting for their church every single week - be that for food pantry/shelter services or just to use to advertise the church or whatever that may be for, as it seems this is not quantifiable in these reports as to where the donations are going to, so their parishioners are a bit more trained to give for the good of their church. Also they give to <span style="font-style:italic;">other</span> churches - mostly other Christian churches - because many churches have networks in which their faith is practiced regionally in different locations with the same basic tenets of their faith. I doubt very seriously these Christian people are donating to Muslim, Jewish or other faiths' charities for the most part and a lot of times if they donate to non-affiliated Christian charities they do so just seeing the "Christian" label and with a large amount of ignorance as to what that sect stands for.)<br /><br /> <br />There is apparently more overall giving to charity from conservatives than from liberals but we also must take a look into the pervasive mindset that makes that so. A larger portion of liberals are poorer than conservatives are, thus as noted above the dollar amounts will be disproportionate in favor of conservatives. Also, and this is based solely on my personal observations, conservatives will give more to charities to assuage their pesky consciences (for those who have such a thing) because they hope that in doing so it will be enough to allow others to perceive them as good people. Rarely do they research or care about whether a charity is actually doling that money out to the people they profess to help. They just do it hoping for the best and washing their hands of it. <br /><br />While they give money to charity there are also other nefarious reasons for such that are discounted. Such as: tax benefits. Rich people receive hefty tax breaks for being charitable. Many times the only reason they are being charitable at all is to be compensated for it. Also never figured into this is how much this same cast of characters have spent lobbying Congress or local state governments to do away with social safety net programs. If a person gives $100,000 to charity, if they get a tax benefit for it and spent say $1-2 million lobbying against Unemployment Benefits, against Social Security Benefits, against financial regulation to keep people in their homes and prevent shady mortgages and did all of this while their donation went to say, <a href="http://mobile.theweek.com/article/index/201384/sean-hannitys-charity-scam">Sean Hannity's charity</a> - one of the most corrupt out there, should we applaud them for being so "charitable"? Can we figure out a net negative charity figure for them?<br /><br />On the flip side, while liberals aren't as charitable dollar for dollar, they're usually the ones that attempt to go to Washington to help others. We have ridiculous amounts of money going into tax coffers every year and while tax breaks (especially for the poor and middle class) are valid, the ones for the richest of the rich are overly excessive. Also if we cut off a large majority of our military expenditures, stopped handing out corporate welfare and used the government regulatory commissions in a way where they were law enforcement and not racquetball buddies with the companies they oversee, there would be ample money left for the most generous of charitable expenses: Single Payer Health Care for All, Better Social Security Benefits, Expanded Section 8 Housing and more funding for homeless shelters/food pantries across the country, improved public education with repaired inner city schools and better teachers/class sizes, fully paid college education grants. <br /><br />All of that is not only doable, but easily so if we stopped giving corporations the money to buy a big shiny knife to stab us in the back with. <br /><br />So back to the topic at hand, these people that were close to me called around to find a place to stay. I don't live in the same state as them and am not an option for them to get to. They called the local shelter and found out there is a lengthy waiting list to get in. It seems they are full and there is nowhere for most of these people to go. In the dead of winter.<br /><br />Now if this were an isolated problem I would chalk it up to them being in a smaller community (around 100,000 people) but it's not. In fact it's an epidemic and has been for a couple of years.<br /><br />Providence, RI: <a href="http://www.projo.com/news/content/SHELTER_OVERFLOW_12-30-10_4PLN18G_v15.26cdcc.html">R.I.’s homeless shelters overrun as weather, recession take toll<br /></a><br />Dover, DE: <a href="http://www.fosters.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20101223/GJNEWS_01/712239704/-1/FOSNEWS0107&template=DoverRegion">No room at the inn this year: Area shelters are full up during the holidays</a><br /><br />Omaha, NE: <a href="http://www.wowt.com/home/headlines/35083629.html">No Room At Homeless Shelters - Micah House, Open Door Mission report higher numbers</a><br /><br />Lakeland, FL: <a href="http://www.theledger.com/article/20070127/NEWS/701270400">Homeless Shelters Maxed</a><br /><br />Minneapolis, MN:<a href="http://www.tcdailyplanet.net/article/2009/03/10/homeless-minneapolis.html"> Homeless in Minneapolis</a><br /><br />There are way more articles out there. Some are just byproducts of the people that tough it out normally coming in for the abnormally harsh weather condition days but ultimately that doesn't change much. These people are all still homeless. <br /><br />Not everyone that is homeless is there because of drugs or alcohol yet the implication is there and made by right wing blowhards that this is their plight. <br /><br />Nobody wants to talk about the real reasons for most of these situations. The greed of the wealthy. To make more money they step on more people. Massive sectors of the manufacturing industry were shipped to China and Taiwan and anywhere they could send the jobs for exceptionally cheap labor. If they couldn't send the jobs elsewhere because of the required geography for the job, they recruited illegal immigrants (ironically while attending Republican events and angrily yelling against those immigrant workers "taking our jobs"). They then took all the service industry jobs they can like call centers and such and sent those to India. No need for American workers making the American money they need us to spend right?<br /><br />You can't talk about it because it shines the spotlight on who they are. When the real light shines down the roaches start running. In their protected little circles they can be hateful and spiteful of the poor. They can be bigots and make condescending jokes about those that they rip off and squash. When it's out in the open, they look like assholes and thus they try to turn their anger on you for shining such a light rather than discuss why they feel the way they do at all.<br /><br />The income gap between the rich and the poor has been growing for a decade. Right now it's wider than it was during the Great Depression (strange how the media doesn't want to mention exactly WHY we had a Great Depression considering the direction we've been taken in the past 30 years). <br /><br />According to the <a href="http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/09/census-finds-record-gap-rich-poor/">census</a>: <br /><blockquote><br />The income gap between the richest and poorest Americans grew last year to its widest amount on record as young adults and children in particular struggled to stay afloat in the recession.<br /><br />The top-earning 20 percent of Americans — those making more than $100,000 each year — received 49.4 percent of all income generated in the U.S., compared with the 3.4 percent earned by those below the poverty line, according to newly released census figures. That ratio of 14.5-to-1 was an increase from 13.6 in 2008 and nearly double a low of 7.69 in 1968.<br /><br />A different measure, the international Gini index, found U.S. income inequality at its highest level since the Census Bureau began tracking household income in 1967. The U.S. also has the greatest disparity among Western industrialized nations.<br /><br />At the top, the wealthiest 5 percent of Americans, who earn more than $180,000, added slightly to their annual incomes last year, census data show. Families at the $50,000 median level slipped lower.</blockquote><br /> <br />Add on top of that the indisputable fact that the<a href="http://money.cnn.com/2010/09/16/news/economy/Census_poverty_rate/index.htm"> poverty number is the highest it has been since 1994</a> AND that the total number of people in poverty is the highest it has been in 51 years and we're talking about a tidal wave of people requiring the social safety net Republicans and corporate Democrats want to gouge.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_uw93TPj7FSHZB5DLhancC4AKm0VUQAi7dywKTQFjDwmoP2HLGLCospQnUUodWrhe8zYHEWlUC6-nOY4cpV0sBTHrtSwUbnMioJ6lPGMXe5YnYQ6nv9fluDwoxwmuYUnQu8FyduTybfs/s1600/chart_poverty_rate2.top.gif"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 163px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_uw93TPj7FSHZB5DLhancC4AKm0VUQAi7dywKTQFjDwmoP2HLGLCospQnUUodWrhe8zYHEWlUC6-nOY4cpV0sBTHrtSwUbnMioJ6lPGMXe5YnYQ6nv9fluDwoxwmuYUnQu8FyduTybfs/s320/chart_poverty_rate2.top.gif" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5556568845856378242" /></a><br /><br />So when homeless shelters are out of room at a time when people can easily <a href="http://www.lehighvalleylive.com/bethlehem/index.ssf/2010/12/dropping_temperatures_homeless.html">freeze to death</a> what are they to do? The lack of temporary shelters means gathering together, starting a fire and wait for it, <a href="http://uspoverty.change.org/blog/view/where_do_the_homeless_go_when_its_freezing_at_night">drinking alcohol to increase body heat</a>. Hmm, maybe they're not all listless drunks after all. I suppose if you had to choose between some completely disconnected fool labeling you an alcoholic or staying alive because that same person voted for someone who cut off funding to your shelter or center while propping up the company that laid you off and the company that screwed you with a bad mortgage it would be an easy choice wouldn't it?<br /><br />What's worse is, it's not just shelters that are strained. It's <a href="http://www.evesun.com/news/stories/2010-12-21/11167/Local-food-pantries-struggling-during-holiday-season/">food</a> <a href="http://www.vvdailypress.com/articles/food-23130-struggling-steady.html">pantries</a> <a href="http://www.wsaz.com/news/headlines/Food_Pantries_Struggling_for_Food_110883529.html">across</a> <a href="http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/s_713403.html">the</a> <a href="http://www.lewisvilleleader.com/articles/2010/11/21/plano_star-courier/plano_insider/385.txt">country</a> <a href="http://www.necn.com/11/16/10/Many-food-pantries-struggling-ahead-of-T/landing_newengland.html?blockID=354171&feedID=4206">that</a> <a href="http://www2.nbc4i.com/news/2010/aug/16/3/local-food-pantry-struggling-meet-demand-ar-195076/">are</a> <a href="http://www.wjactv.com/news/25814337/detail.html">running</a> <a href="http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2010/10/21/westchester-food-pantries-struggle-to-meet-rising-demand/">out</a> <a href="http://boston.cbslocal.com/2010/11/15/thanksgiving-back-story-food-pantries-recipients-struggling/">of</a> <a href="http://www.portclintonnewsherald.com/article/20101223/NEWS01/12230303/Ottawa-County-food-pantries-need-help-so-they-can-help-others">food</a>. It's <a href="http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2010-12-23/health/bs-hs-home-for-amira-20101220_1_affordable-housing-housing-advocates-low-income-renters">low income housing</a> in <a href="http://www.columbiaspectator.com/2010/05/08/year-review-budget-shortfalls-public-housing-strained-harlem">various</a> <a href="http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/14/more-strain-found-for-low-income-working-families/">communities</a>. <br /><br />Charities, the ones that operate on the level (and try to use <a href="http://www.charitynavigator.org/">charitynavigator.org </a>to help decipher how much of your money is actually going to program expenses so you get the best bang for your buck) are important pieces in helping to strengthen a community and providing a helping hand for those in need. However charity is not enough. We need to be a better society and we need our government policies to reflect this.<br /><br />If you consider yourself a Christian I ask you this: What would Jesus do? According to scripture, not according to the way ideologues in your church or others might manipulate his words. Would Jesus allow his fellow man to die freezing in the cold? Would he allow people to go hungry and starve to death? Would he ask people to stay sick and not provide them with the health care they need? Especially ask yourself this: Would he do it for a couple extra tax dollars back on his paycheck to use for material things like extra DVDs, a TV set, a snuggie? <br /><br />Outside of Christians I ask the same of you? Is this the type of society you want to partake in? One where the filthy rich on the top of the ladder control all the wealth and you fear for your job every day because to make that much more money, shipping your life away is but a minor inconvenience to them? <br /><br />What makes you so different than those who are on the streets right now? Most of them were laid off from their jobs and were hard workers just like you are. Very few of them are the lazy stereotype that Reagan and his Neo-Conservatives wanted you to hate and demonize. Most caught a bad break. 20+ years at a manufacturing plant, laid off... weakened unions thanks to years of Republican demonization prevented a very strong severance package from being negotiated on your behalf. Trying to find work is rough especially when other CEOs for other plants in the area did the same exact thing. Move the jobs to China or Mexico to increase their bottom line and fatten their wallet with huge bonuses. You're nothing but a pawn in their game.<br /><br />The months out of work eat up your savings. No college for your kids. No money for the bills or the mortgage. No place to work soon means no money and no place to live. Just like that you have slipped from one station in life to another. Middle Class Blue Collar worker, The Pride of America, to homeless bum who <span style="font-style:italic;">probably deserves it</span> and is <span style="font-style:italic;">probably a junkie</span>.<br /><br />Sure, they could have gone back to school. Amassed a ton of school loans they couldn't pay off. Retrain themselves for a new workforce. Of course then when they finally get out of school they'll notice the stark reality that what they went for has now also been outsourced. Computer related jobs? Hope you can relocate to India pal. The piece of paper you thrust yourself into debt for is now but a window dressing to the failure your life appears to be. College Grads with Masters degrees are flipping burgers at Fast Food joints or checking people out at the local big box retailer. They're young and still struggling. Who wants to hire a 40 year old who worked in a now obsolete field in the American workplace and then went to school to train for another obsolete field in the American workplace?<br /><br />This is not an exaggeration. This is the current landscape. The American experience.<br /><br />The people I know personally and mentioned above, they're working on various options and may not end up on the street at all. However we know what they're facing if it happens to get that bad.<br /><br />We need our policies, our politics to be one where we're not just looking out for ourselves right now. Our tax dollars need to be directed in ways that prevent companies from shipping jobs overseas in such a laissez-faire manner. One that protects our money by closing corporate loopholes and regulates companies the way they are supposed to be. One that doesn't waste incredible amounts of money on military boondoggles. One that then redirects that money towards the welfare of the people to give the American people the bailout they deserve. <br /><br />Protecting Americans from the greediest among us and providing us with the help that charities can't possibly try to provide at every turn.<br /><br />Aside from politics, find your local shelter or pantry. Donate money or time if you can and try to help. It's rewarding in ways that cannot even be described. I brought my 11 year old son with me to help with last year's Salvation Army Thanksgiving Dinner and honestly I think it helped shape him as a person and probably helped in attempting to make his a better citizen and greater part of society in the future. All of us need to have such an experience. These are our fellow men, women and children. We all live a shared life experience here on this planet and we should do whatever it takes to make that experience one where we look out for one another as well as ourselves.<br /><br />In Washington with our policies and in our neighborhoods with our deeds, we can prevent more people from having to venture out into the winter cold for good. We can help people from having to worry if every morning they inhale the cold breeze under a blanket, will be their last.<br /><br />The question is: Who's side are you on? George Bailey or Mr. Potter?Robert Poole Jr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04306170039293680126noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-215768401182592945.post-24352304012950055312010-11-08T11:56:00.006-06:002010-11-08T15:03:28.722-06:00Mid-Term Aftermath: Democrats did it to themselves.<a href="http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/cartoons/2010/11/5/1288957296526/President-Obama-after-mid-006.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 460px; height: 276px;" src="http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/cartoons/2010/11/5/1288957296526/President-Obama-after-mid-006.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br />I imagine humans are hypocrites by nature. It’s pretty hard, even for the purists out there to avoid it. After all, the mind is full of changing opinions based on changing events and that ever so crazy concept of nuance. The more information we absorb can tend to alter our original views and eliminate that initial visceral emotional reaction many of us (myself included) tend to have about things.<br /><br />Still this past Tuesday was definitely the height of such hypocrisy. What makes it different than the reasonable scenario above is that the people behind the hypocrisy don’t use facts at all to change their opinions. They use zero logical reasoning oncesoever. In fact, facts contrary to their own opinions, only <a href="http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/07/11/how_facts_backfire/?page=full">strengthen their resolve</a> to push back and defend their ignorance. So with that line of thinking, Americans went to the polls in rather large numbers are voted in Republicans and Tea Party candidates. Their rationale? The economy is not recovering fast enough and Washington spends too much. <br /><br />What a blanket term that is. Washington is “spending too much”. <br /><br />Of course when you break it down program by program, that vast majority of people that disagree with the overall blanket term of spending, start showing that they don’t really want to cut spending.<br /><br />They approve of Medicare and Social Security and they definitely approve the war formerly known as the ‘war on terror’, despite its open ended commitment and no definite resolution in sight.<br /><br />What’s amazing is that around <a href="http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/11/02/first-exit-polls-show-voters-dissatisfied-with-government-worri/">half approve of or want expansion of the health care bill</a> which is extremely incredible after most of these Republicans and a non-stop media and corporate ad blitz campaigned against it for almost two years.<br /><br />They hated TARP and didn't know what the hell to think about the Stimulus but didn’t seem to care that many Republican candidates like Ron Johnson from Wisconsin, actually <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/22/strange-days-tarp-critic-_n_735406.html">took some related money from bailout receipients</a>… while they were campaigning against it.<br /><br />They also probably didn’t realize that TARP <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/01/business/01tarp.html?_r=1">isn’t going to ultimately end up costing us much</a> as most of it has been paid back or that the Stimulus actually helped to <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/jul/28/us-bailouts-prevented-1930s-style-great-depression">prevent us from going into another Great Depression</a>. Same with the Auto Industry Bailout that saved that industry and has pretty much paid itself back already.<br /><br />The voters that came out decided that even though Republicans and their policies drove us into the ditch, they were going to get another chance to do so. They ignored that <a href="http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=3750">Republicans spent like maniacs the last time in office</a>. They ignored the facts that tax cuts for the rich not only <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-09-13/rich-americans-save-money-from-tax-cuts-instead-of-spending-moody-s-says.html">did not create jobs here</a> but only <a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9e6a18ec-c019-11df-b77d-00144feab49a.html">created jobs overseas </a>(hey those used to be your jobs!). <br /><br />They overlooked some serious bouts of the crazy. Christine O’Donnell’s witchcraft and Sharron Angle’s <a href="http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/sharron-angles-second-amendment-remedies-c">Republicans should arm themselves if they lose these elections </a>rhetoric lost. But Wisconsin alone elected a Senator that lobbied <a href="http://www.jsonline.com/features/religion/104025709.html">on behalf of Child Sex Predators</a>, a Governor that <a href="http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/99700384.html">never graduated college</a>, a Lt. Governor who touts herself as another Sarah Palin and railed against Government Healthcare when she beat her cancer(<a href="http://www.cnbc.com/id/39654516">she campaigned openly as a cancer survivor</a>) only due to her Husband’s Government Healthcare plan, and almost elected an <a href="http://blogs.citypages.com/blotter/2010/10/wisc_secretary.php">alleged rapist</a> to Secretary of State. Not to mention the Jan Brewers or Rand Pauls or many other whackjobs that got elected.<br /><br />Yeah, the sanity went out the window because it appeared all that mattered was if these candidates were willing to rail against Obama and the Government.<br /><br />Now I am not an Obama apologist. He did a lot to bring this voter collapse onto himself and it wasn’t all racism (though much of it was) where a double standard was applied to him and not to his predecessor. He was cast as an outsider. A muslim. A socialist. Trying to take the American capitalist system down. Fox News and Right Wing pundits/hosts everywhere beat this drum every second after November 2008’s result and it worked. The American people are easily suckered into such emotionally charged diatribes no matter how false they are.<br /><br />What can be learned from Tuesday’s results is this: Blue Dogs/Centrists/DLCers who more closely resembled Republicans and voted against any true progressive policies lost almost 50% of their seats. Progressives/Liberals lost less than 5%. Why is that?<br /><a href="http://www.democracynow.org/2010/11/4/as_right_leaning_blue_dogs_lose">People want a choice</a>. They always have. They want strong backbones, articulating different positions. <br /><br />Republicans, for whatever they were otherwise, were strong. They held the line and <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/01/gop-filibuster-record-rep_n_480722.html">obstructed every bill or appointment for 2 years straight </a>and were rewarded for their do-nothingness. For no other reason than they appeared stronger. Obama came to them and attempted to compromise before bills were even set forth. He dismissed the Left at every turn, refused liberal ideas like <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/3/1/10238/98623/503/703263">Single Payer to even get a seat at the table</a> for consideration. He started negotiations on the Right and only got pulled further and further over so whatever he did pass was a watered down corporate giveaway, which is exactly what Republicans wanted their friends to have. And Republicans by saying no, even if they were happy internally with what their buddies reaped financially, paid no political price for it.<br /><br />I’ve said it a million times. You don’t go to a car lot attempting to negotiate by offering to pay the sticker price up front. That’s idiotic. You start off low and negotiate to a middle somewhere. Obama started at the sticker price on health care. HMOs and Pharmaceuticals had to make minor concessions but got 40 million new mandated paid customers in the process with no price controls.<br /><br />Similarly weak bills saved the Credit Card Industry and Banking Industry from the sort of reforms with teeth needed to reign in what was crushing us. We did not return the Glass-Stegall regulations to end a lot of the scheming against the American Economy done by big banks. We didn’t do much of all to end any of that.<br />Did Republicans go along with any of that? Not really.<br /><br />Also when Democrats had 58-59 seats to work with in the Senate (depending on which way the wind was blowing for Lieberman) they claimed inability to pass anything because Republicans would threaten to filibuster. Strangely enough Republicans were at 51 for much of the decade and got all of their items through. Democrats never had the spine to call them out on it and force them to filibuster. They never did what Republicans did and use procedural moves (especially budgetary reconciliation) to force qualifying items through. On appointments, Obama only used recess appointments sparingly despite Bush brazenly using them in previous years and Republicans stalling practically every appointment brought forth.<br /><br />Democrats, despite being bitch slapped at every turn, acted like a prostitute that was overly loyal to their pimp and crawled right back to try to get in their good graces.<br /><br />The ‘American people’ is an electorate filled with emotion and not so many facts. They had no interest in why we got to where we are they just wanted to blame Obama for it all. He didn’t come out and fight either. He waited until the last two weeks, when most of these races were already lost, to bother to campaign.<br /><br />By then he had allowed the right wing media to define him for two straight years and the only prolonged, coordinated media attacks he ever bothered to make, were against the Left. He alienated the very base that elected him and attacked them at will but allowed almost unchallenged attacks to continue on the Right.<br /><br />Democrats continued to kiss the same corporate rings in Congress that Republicans did only without the guarantee of protections like their counterparts received come election time. Without that corporate money trough and without your most fervent, ardent base supporters whom you’ve now alienated, good luck winning the race against a non-stop media war.<br /><br />Tuesday proved that a Democratic party more interested in working for corporate masters like their Republican counterparts do not provide a viable alternative to voters. <br /><br />Republicans are a one note deal. They get elected every time with the same exact line of policies: More tax cuts for the rich, no regulations to prevent companies from stealing from you, more war, if possible (already calling to attack Iran again) and giant cuts to the social safety net. Again... <a href="http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/boehner-we-cant-have-war-and-social-s">more war, less social safety nets </a>is their big deal.<br /><br />When they say we want to cut Government Spending, the biggest whiners about it like <a href="http://www.capitolhillblue.com/node/34886/comment-page-1">Rand Paul and Jim DeMint have nada in terms of actual plans</a> as far as programs go. However if the past is prologue as it so often is, we know right where they’ll go for. They came up with an incredibly galling line saying people should be <a href="http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/even-bill-maher-falling-republican-me">means tested for Unemployment</a>, as if poor people who paid Unemployment Insurance don’t deserve it. Everyone paid for it, it’s their money. Yet Republicans want to steal from that pot of money. They want to privatize social security and have for years and <a href="http://www.gazette.com/articles/security-95673-borrow-social.html">they already stole $2.5 trillion from that pot of money </a>which we have to pay out now. After they raid these funds they then make sure to whine about Social Security not being solvent. You know, because the funds they stole aren’t there.<br /><br />They make similar arguments about Government not working and then get into office and prove it immediately.<br /><br />No such cuts are asked of the Pentagon. <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/01/29/eveningnews/main325985.shtml">$2.3 trillion went missing</a> there under Bush as if it was change that fell into a couch cushion. Nobody called for a cut to Pentagon spending. In fact they tripled the Pentagon’s spending using 9/11 as their primary reason. More money to the non-accountable.<br /><br />The GOP will tout their plans to cut spending but all they have is their attempt to repeal the Health Care Reform bill. Aside from that and possibly cuts to welfare, unemployment funding and maybe education. The real cuts to be made are really the bloated military/defense budget. <br /><br />Anyway, whether Obama will win or lose 2012 will be determined in how he responds to Republicans. He can come out and be willing to compromise, AGAIN, like he signaled he was willing to do immediately after the mid-term results. And he will be rightfully be painted as a coward and not a fighter. Democrats will continue to look milquetoast and even a pseudo Republican strongman like dumbass Sarah Palin will win the Presidency. Or he can fight back and Democrats can turn the ‘Party of No’ into something that works for them. Reject all Republican ideas out of hand and never allow them to pass the Senate. <br /><br />Pass Tax Cuts for the Middle Class only. Make huge budget cuts to the Pentagon to drop it back to 1/3rd of what it is today. Hell, I would not give the Pentagon a dime until I took the $2.3 trillion they “lost” and applied it to the $2.5 trillion we stole from Social Security to pay that back. That would force the Pentagon to look a little harder for that money and push them to be accountable for their actions with OUR money. If people want to be outraged, there’s where they should have redirected their anger.<br /><br />I’d end the Afghanistan fiasco immediately, <a href="http://www.indianagazette.com/articles/2010/11/06/news/doc4cd583ede9b48066367748.txt">which costs American taxpayers $190 million a day</a> to NOT catch Osama Bin Laden. Sounds worth it for one guy.<br /><br />I’d create tax incentives for businesses that create new jobs here and bonuses that kick in after keeping a specific number of them here for 10 years or more. Make it a ladder structure to reward good behavior. Penalize those that take all their business to India and China with higher tax rates. Sorry but American jobs have been hemorrhaged for decades now. We don’t manufacture a damn thing anymore and we’re killing ourselves.<br /><br />Regardless what Republicans and the ultra rich want you to believe, it’s the poor and the middle class that drive the economy. When they have jobs, they spend. They have to because it’s much harder to save for them. When they spend it creates demand for supply and demand for supply creates more jobs… manufacturing, shipping, retail/sales. More people now working means more spending and thus the cycle continues. And who makes out the best? Corporations. Because a humming economy like that means they are selling more products and increasing their bottom line.<br /><br />But hey, trickle down seems so much better doesn’t it? The fantasy of the American Dream as we pray for crumbs to fall off a table.<br /><br />Democrats, specifically those who were thumped on Tuesday, never cared to articulate that line of thinking because they too were in the pockets of the elite. They didn’t fight for you anymore and couldn’t strongly suggest that they were. And they got shellacked. Why vote for the imposter when you can get genuine crazy? <br /><br />2012 will be more of the same unless Obama retrains himself to be a fighter and Democrats stiffen their message to be the working people’s party again. And if he’s unwilling to be that guy, primary him and let’s end this centrist disaster once and for all.Robert Poole Jr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04306170039293680126noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-215768401182592945.post-20561888871425041902010-09-10T02:54:00.006-05:002010-09-10T04:12:31.770-05:00"Us versus Them" - Why the Qur'an Burning is So Wrong.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgw5yLvq55bvPqjecLUBLwU1TexiRtngpGD21eOdtY_feVX23PvruJ4eGXHgacF4SHB6RjXU7enpSmou3KZfhW9VzWBt0ZuAtYKJn2QgM7DXP0OycakzJRGoKP9BPjaAVasVyR9o30fmFc/s1600/crusades.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 251px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgw5yLvq55bvPqjecLUBLwU1TexiRtngpGD21eOdtY_feVX23PvruJ4eGXHgacF4SHB6RjXU7enpSmou3KZfhW9VzWBt0ZuAtYKJn2QgM7DXP0OycakzJRGoKP9BPjaAVasVyR9o30fmFc/s320/crusades.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5515209352088312274" /></a>When a right wing whackjob led by sensationalistic sources like Fox News or Rush Limbaugh or the like get drawn into the whole "Muslims are evil! Obama is a muslim!" propaganda it barely draws my attention. <br /><br />It seems like every single day the media is giving that Michelle Bachmann/Sarah Palin batshit crazy 30% that supported Bush and Cheney no matter what they did more and more airtime. They absolutely love following these people because they're unstable and angry and fear makes for some compelling television. Which is fine if you're programming a horror movie or suspense thriller show for your TV audience but when you pretend to be journalists, well you owe the audience some facts and serious balance.<br /><br />Instead we get bombarded with daily severe imbalance. Imbalance in coverage and chemical imbalance from their lunatic guests. Since Obama's election they have made sure to claim illegitimacy at every turn with that foolish birth certificate nonsense and portraying him as a Muslim who attended a Madrassa. It's rather insane but realize they tried to illegitimize Bill Clinton at every turn as well. This is the typical GOP playbook. Smear, demean, inspire fear into your base and be stubborn 2 year old children with temper tantrums and say NO to anything the Democrats offer up.<br /><br />The worst part is that the crazy 30% is winning in some polls (likely push polls but whatever) and poised for a Washington re-take. Why? Don't people remember that these are the people that messed it all up to begin with? It was their tax cuts and deregulation that ran us into the ground and we want more of this?<br /><br />Well Obama and a complicit Democratic Congress seemed to suffer from a sort of Stockholm Syndrome from being rolled over by Bush for 8 years... maybe it even dates back to Reagan's rule. They have no spine, don't fight for the poor or middle class even remotely as hard as they fight for their corporate buddies and well they've alienated their base to the point that they are likely responding to these polls in ways that doesn't count them as potential Democratic voters. Likely to stay home, the very base that got Obama elected and that Rahm Emanuel and Robert Gibbs have taken glee in demeaning are now being told to shut up and get out and vote or else! Or else more of the Bush years! <br /><br />Yeah that should get them out and working. Thanks for all the back stabbing but if we want all the policies Republicans want (yeah they're voting No because it wins them political points as the opposition party but behind the scenes they absolutely love all the money going to their rich friends), we'll vote for them directly.<br /><br />Anyway the point I am making is this... Liberal/Progressive voter apathy will have more of a direct correlation to November's Mid-term results than any pretend surge in Republican support or pretend impact of a fringe right wing nutjob group like the Tea Party.<br /><br />So with that in mind we must remember that Republicans (and their phony separatist group) know one trick to turn out voters: FEAR!!!!<br /><br />In 2004 they used gays as their target. As it turns out Gays just aren't the bogeymen they used to be. Muslims however, well it was Muslims involved in 9/11, the Republicans' favorite holiday, so why not bring them up and scare people some more about them? After all, there's one in the White House right?<br /><br />They target a "Mosque" being constructed "2 Blocks" from Ground Zero. Except it's not a Mosque, it's basically the Muslim version of a YMCA. It's not 2 blocks away either. It's actually a bit further than that. There's already a Mosque closer than that which has existed since 1970 since before the World Trade Center ever existed. But hey, who needs facts. Besides Keith Olbermann covered this in a much better way than I ever could.<br /><br /><object style="background-image:url(http://i2.ytimg.com/vi/QZpT2Muxoo0/hqdefault.jpg)" width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/QZpT2Muxoo0?fs=1&hl=en_US"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/QZpT2Muxoo0?fs=1&hl=en_US" width="425" height="344" allowScriptAccess="never" allowFullScreen="true" wmode="transparent" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"></embed></object><br /><br />So in all of this fake outrage, the right wing lie pushers... Fox News, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, etc, kept the narrative about this Mosque out there until it drove people to a fever pitch. Winning an election has always meant more than the effect on human lives to the right wingers.<br /><br />Things start to happen. <a href="http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CBYQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.newsweek.com%2Fblogs%2Fthe-gaggle%2F2010%2F08%2F25%2Fmuslim-cab-driver-stabbed-in-n-y-bias-attack.html&rct=j&q=muslim%20cab%20driver%20stabbed&ei=ieqJTIXQHYaY8QSziomEBg&usg=AFQjCNEStyQ3vG4Pcjdg8SZXAq5F61zGtQ&sig2=7lrFityMX2cAlyGDnSA3Dg&cad=rja">Muslim cab drivers get stabbed</a>. <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38863919/">Mosques get desecrated with urine</a>. And of course other mosques face opposition outside of the magical hallowed ground of Ground Zero and are <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/09/03/national/main6834071.shtml">met with Arson</a>. Oh and <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1305255/Ground-Zero-mosque-protest-The-moment-angry-crowd-turns-man-skull-cap--think-Muslim.html">let's not forget</a> how those protests on Ground Zero against that "Mosque" went. <br /><br />When you start the ball rolling down that steep of a hill, it's often difficult to stop it. Of course, they don't care about the repercussions of their actions as long as they find a way to win in November. <br /><br />So now that the whackos are out in full force, the reverends of tiny fringe churches come out and have a National Burn the Qur'an Day to try to create more xenophobia against Muslims and worse to enrage an entire population of over 1 Billion people who follow the Qur'an with the same devotion as Christians do with their Bibles. How do you think a Bible burning that had national media coverage on it would go on our shores?<br /><br />Christians tend to believe they're the most persecuted people in the world anyway, I assume that would just reinforce their rather ludicrous world view.<br /><br />Now the Qur'an burning appears to be off, temporarily at least because Terry Jones the really crazy and inconsiderate Pastor of this Church tried to come up with some fake story about if he stopped the burning the NYC "Mosque" would be moved. <br /><br />And hey, even if he doesn't, the world's craziest reverend, Fred Phelps of the "God HATES Fags" Westboro Baptist Church has said he will step in to make sure it goes down anyway. Aww, don't you love when crazies get together and make friends?<br /><br />Of course the real story here is that, oh yeah, the same people that stoked this paranoia and fear, also chose to send our troops over there to work with Muslims... in THEIR countries... in a war. They are skeptical enough over our mission but they truly have a right to be.<br /><br />American politicians are making <a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0810/41112.html">reckless statements</a> about Islam to make this worse and they see this all over our media as a mainstream story. It appears as if America is taking a side against them. The side of Christianity versus Islam. <br /><br />Well after all, John McCain ran for President in the last cycle purposely excluding all other religions by spouting that '<a href="http://articles.cnn.com/2007-10-01/politics/mccain.christian.nation_1_john-mccain-christian-nation-christian-nation?_s=PM:POLITICS">America is a Christian nation</a>' nonsense.<br /><br />But we have troops over there in harms way. You'd think they'd be smarter about this. We don't want to appear to be fighting a new crusade with Muslims in their own nations do we? We remember how that last one went. There is no end to such a fight.<br /><br />Or do we?<br /><br />There's been a never ending trickle of stories, mostly buried in the papers over the past few years that makes it seem as if the Pentagon does indeed want to make sure we're sending a Christian Army out there to Muslim lands.<br /><br />For instance, check these stories out:<br /><br />-<a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/us-military-weapons-inscribed-secret-jesus-bible-codes/story?id=9575794">US Military Weapons inscribed with Christian Scriptures</a><br /><br />-<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-rodda/us-soldiers-punished-for-_b_687051.html">Soldiers punished for not attending Christian Concert</a><br /><br />-<a href="http://www.military.com/news/article/iraqis-marines-try-to-convert-muslims.html">Iraq: Marines try to convert Muslims</a><br /><br />Not to mention the many things <a href="http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/05/25/mikey_weinsteins_crusade?page=0,0">Mikey Weinstein</a> has been fighting against in terms of Christianity's grip on the Military.<br /><br />So what are they seeing over there? They see us pulling this stuff at every turn and of course they are more and more unwilling to work with our troops and unwilling to find peace with us. They don't see us as honest brokers. <br /><br />They see things like <a href="http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/index.php/civil-liberties/1866-bruce-wilson">Mass Baptisms in the Military</a> as proof and validation of their fears.<br /><br />Ultimately what all of this should be is a major eye opener. To anyone with any sort of honesty, we have to start to address this head on. Are we in fact a tolerant melting pot or is intolerance, much like that showed towards Gays and Mexican Immigrants in recent years or Blacks and Women before that or even intolerance towards different European immigrants... is that the real fabric of our nation?<br /><br />Are we made up of so much fear and angst that our only reaction to anything is the most irrational response possible? Is it worth more soldiers dying so that we can scream incoherently against people that don't share your religious beliefs? Should we then go after Jews and Buddhists next? <br /><br />If we are a country of a single religion what do we do about the large population of people who disagree with your beliefs?<br /><br />And when it comes to that... are even other Christian sects safe from your paranoia?<br /><br />What Would Jesus Do?Robert Poole Jr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04306170039293680126noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-215768401182592945.post-43171327627352060382010-05-31T00:56:00.003-05:002010-05-31T02:40:51.657-05:00What happened to us once we grew up?<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbWEgP-_95EFbcY_P3J7-d-cWHU79j40GjHtu8fdQ6xjznbF25MpV49wfc8qNbzBJL8yqg1l-Ew3ryBp0pDNscxqpYlVl4NisDYrAiYi1klxNrb0eUPPGOoAP9ZOjEyxHKxGZLleFazEk/s1600/share.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 263px; height: 203px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbWEgP-_95EFbcY_P3J7-d-cWHU79j40GjHtu8fdQ6xjznbF25MpV49wfc8qNbzBJL8yqg1l-Ew3ryBp0pDNscxqpYlVl4NisDYrAiYi1klxNrb0eUPPGOoAP9ZOjEyxHKxGZLleFazEk/s400/share.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5477309445691497810" /></a>As I look around on a regular basis I generally find contempt for much of the world around me. It's not because I choose to be a particularly unhappy person or that I just want to be angry but rather it's because I look at a lot of things through the basic moral lenses I was issued as a child and wonder, where did we go wrong?<br /><br />I honestly have had so many things just since the start of the Obama Administration bother me that I could be on here every day and it would definitely feel that this blog could become a regular soliloquy where I just rant to myself for the need to get it off my chest. Many of the topics would probably be incredibly justifiable as well.<br /><br />Between the bank bailouts and the basic middle finger to LGBT groups (aside from this token Don't Ask, Don't Tell thing which is honestly the least that Obama could do) to the Arizona Legalized Racism Law to this total fucking mess known as the BP disaster, I could be here all day, every day complaining forever.<br /><br />Usually, I use my Facebook to post links these days and complain about what punches into my soul. It's a much shorter version of this blog and to be honest, to write here I feel I want well thought out observations with source references on most days to make sure I am reaching the right notes. On FB, I can use all emotion (although I almost always source my work with links there as well) which is so much easier to do. Hell it's what conservatives live on. Facts require a lot of work and effort sometimes. Not to mention facts contradict their every single myopic belief.<br /><br />But with all of these problems there is an overarching theme I believe. What were we taught as children about right and wrong?<br /><br />We were taught to share. We were taught to be nice to others and to accept them if they were different. We were taught to not lie or cheat or steal. We were taught hurting people or threatening them was wrong. We were taught that everything good comes from hard work and perseverance. You were taught to respect your elders. <br /><br />What the hell happened to us?<br /><br />Could you imagine if we applied those principles to society today? You know what you would have? Socialism. Or at least a peaceful society that cares for those around us.<br /><br />I think of this often when a new Robin Hood movie comes out or A Christmas Carol comes out. Teabaggers should rail against both of them. <br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">"Robin Hood steals from the rich to give to the poor. That's WEALTH REDISTRIBUTION! The Poor are too LAZY to work!"</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">"Scrooge worked hard for his money. Being forced to give it away is SOCIALISM. If poor people want a handout they should go to work for it!"</span><br /><br />What in the hell? <br /><br />The reason those two stories are so beloved is because they are two of the greatest stories in which the plight of the poor is championed and where giving them a leg up is shown in a positive light. It's pure fantasy but we teach children with these stories and Oliver Twist and the sort that caring for those less fortunate is not shameful but rather a rewarding virtue and something that shapes your character here and in the afterlife, should there exist one.<br /><br />Jesus Christ himself championed such beliefs. I suppose he too would be a pariah with this gang of unruly Capitalists that make up a large majority of our population.<br /><br />Going back to what we taught our kids. Imagine how the issues of today relates to the lessons of our youth...<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">We were taught to share. </span><br />To put this in context a little bit, imagine that you had four Kindergarten classrooms of 25 kids each and 1 kid took 90% of the toys from ALL of the classes for themselves and basically told the rest of you to make due with what was left over. That you weren't good enough to play with these toys and that kid rigged the system so that every day when they got into class they had access to get to the toys and any more toys that they wanted out of that box before you even got into the classroom. Pretty unfair right?<br /><br />Well congratulations because in America, that's what we see on an everyday basis. The top 1% control our entire economic wealth and the rest of the World's right along with it and they use every cheating advantage they can to make sure that the American Dream stays just that. A never ending dream from which you will never awake.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">We were taught to be nice to others and to accept them if they were different.</span> <br /><br />This one was a big deal. First, your parents didn't want you getting into fights at school because many times your mouth would try to cash checks your ass couldn't cash. But also they wanted you to make as many friends as possible. You see making friends makes school and life way less stressful and a lot more fun. You don't have to be best friends with everyone in your class but if you at least try to get along with them and understand their differences, it makes the time when you have to stand in line by each other on the playground for any length of time far less awkward. Have to sit on the school bus for a long field trip ride? Well guess what, we can talk and get along!<br /><br />But today and obviously as we used to do in the past we have not always followed the same guidance we shared with our children. As adults we have tended to move to locations to shelter ourselves from different people. Despite the racial desegregation that helps to alter the demographics of the classroom and provides diversity, as adults we re-segregate ourselves into communities where we shelter ourselves from the every day realities of those different than us. In cities you will find African-American neighborhoods, Asian neighborhoods, Latino neighborhoods and in many suburbs or rural areas that's where you find most white people living. It's this distance from one another that tends to make us not understand each other fully.<br /><br />Inside the urban areas where most minorities live though there is a far greater understanding of each others' daily struggles and needs. They tend to see the same economic struggle because they share the same job market. They see the difficulty in their schools because they share the same school districts. White people in surburbia and rural areas don't see the same things. They forget that their grandparents and maybe even parents populated those places in the city a generation before and they too may have had an impact on the deterioration of the community. We all do our share at some point or another.<br /><br />Yet from their safe distance many people tend to point fingers at one another. To hate another race of people. After the Civil War most had hoped that things would be settled once and for all on this issue. Another 100 years later and we were still working to pass a Civil Rights Act. Now we've decided to use an economic downturn and massive job losses as a reason to pass xenophobic laws that legalize racial profiling against Hispanics in Arizona and have tried to roadblock Homosexuals in every attempt to have the same legal rights as their heterosexual brethren.<br /><br />In the annals of history the side that has discriminated has always come off looking as the most evil assholes of all time. Aside from White Supremicists, nobody has a very fond memory of the Strom Thurmonds or George Wallaces of the world. And the right wingers that constantly work against the equal rights and basic fairness of others, 20-30-50 years from now... will be in the same conversation as those well noted racists or hate mongers.<br /><br />I'll come back to the main solution for the Arizona problem in a second. <br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">We were taught to not lie or cheat or steal. </span><br /><br />Basic rules to follow right? Except that our President got busted 7 years ago lying to our faces on national television to twist our arms into letting him play war for fun and there was no consequences. This after he and his brother and their henchwoman Katherine Harris cheated and stole the election down in Florida in 2000 and then were able to repeat the feat in 2004 with Kenneth Blackwell in Ohio.<br /><br />I suppose the basic rules of conduct go out the window when the leader of your country broke every one of them while in power. However we know this isn't the case for low level thieves. Police investigate the small guys and they go into jail.<br /><br />The problem is that it's not proportionate in how these crimes are addressed. There are probably a million political operatives and elected officials breaking the law every day in terms of how they fatten their wallets while in power and what laws they can break to continue to seize the levers of power from the American people in favor of their corporate benefactors. However we know damn well they are not ever going to see a criminal charge for a single one of those offenses. <br /><br />Instead they get off Scot free while the guy that robs a liquor store gets 15 years in prison.<br /><br />"Well the liquor store guy used a gun! His was putting lives in danger and there was force involved!"<br /><br />Sure. Except that when you're raiding the treasury for your rich pals to get government bailouts or contracts at the expense of the social safety net (Unemployment Insurance, etc) then you really are putting lives in danger. People losing their homes and living on the streets because a company was told by our government that outsourcing is a good thing and so they laid you off, all the while you had been duped by a junk mortgage with an ever raising interest rate that you now all of a sudden couldn't afford and the only net you had was unemployment while you struggle to find work during a supposed economic recovery that is not creating many real jobs... well you just put these people in serious danger. Sure they could hope to find a place to live in a shelter.. if the shelters in their areas have room for them.. many do not.<br /><br />I'd argue that in most cases the guy robbing the liquor store is at the end of his rope and doing it out of necessity. While Congress and CEOs are doing this with already overloaded and incredibly fat wallets. That to me, makes their act even more callous.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">We were taught hurting people or threatening them was wrong.</span> <br /><br />Or so I thought. My son's elementary schools constantly teach about the negative effect of bullying. As adults we seem to forget that the bullying in real life has a different name. These are the people that abuse - emotionally and physically - people around them. Have you ever seen an abused spouse? Many times they allow themselves to be trapped into the routine. They have legitimate fear of leaving the situation because it could get worse if they try to go. They hold on to whatever few good times they had even when there are almost none currently nor have there been in a very long time because holding onto hope is less scary than running away and starting over... or trying to get away and being abused further if they can't leave.<br /><br />I think of this pattern and see America. We remember our country's heartwarming tales. The absolute courage of the Colonists that risked their lives against a military empire just to fight for the very concept of freedom. The stories of the Underground Railroad. The Martin Luther King Jr. Civil Rights marches. So many of the moments we canonize as this concept of America revolve around the indelible mark the founding fathers had on us when it came to what the term 'freedom' means as a nation.<br /><br />And then 9/11 comes along and we toss all of that aside for safety and protection from an enemy that does not have the ability to strike at will and planned the 9/11 major attack for years and years before finally getting lucky enough to pull it off. And this isn't even counting the fact that if Bush had cared at all to read his August 6th, 2001 Presidential Daily Briefing and act upon it, we likely wouldn't have had an attack at all.<br /><br />A big event happens and we, the emotionally abused victims, lied to and cheated on over other military issues in the past (Vietnam specifically), clung to our abuser even though we should have known that he was completely untrustworthy. The abuser took more liberty to take our liberties. Illegally wiretapping ALL of us (not some of us or even just suspected victims). Eliminating Habeas Corpus. Detaining American Citizens as well as regular muslim men with no association with al-Qaeda together in a place where they had no right to have a fair trial, make a really proper defense in their case or worse yet, they can be held indefinitely without even being charged with anything. It's a crime to humanity and it would make our forefathers vomit violently in their graves.<br /><br />This was, of course, proceeded by the Patriot Act which helped strip our rights as Americans away.<br /><br />But this is just the freedom and civil liberty thing. If you really want to see how we act like abused spouses, take a look at how moronically we cling to capitalism even when we have proof that the concept of profit over all (the very basis of capitalistic thought) means purposely destroying moral boundaries and wrecking the lives of millions. Congress plays along. They deregulate everything to help grease the skids. They pass laws making it easier for these companies to create junk products to sell people and eventually collapse the system under. They do this neatly while basically being on the payroll for these people come election time.<br /><br />They have Americans so brainwashed into believing that despite the meltdowns that cost you your car, house, job and possibly family... that any other economic system, namely socialism, is Nazi Germany or Communist Russia. <br /><br />Even though they totally distort the values of another economic system because they want to confuse you with examples of evil violent authoritarian governments, they do it because they know you're still confused into buying into the "American Dream". <br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><br />We were taught that everything good comes from hard work and perseverance. </span><br /><br />Ahh and here's where that American Dream comes in. It's the core basis of Reaganomics isn't it? Work incredibly hard and great things will happen to you! You may never be rich but if you go to work every day you might own a house and a car and make a decent wage and live comfortably for the rest of your life.<br /><br />Of course that sort of has been the mirage the rich have been using since the beginning of time right? Spruced up just enough to keep modern and relevant to your current belief system.<br /><br />Reaganomics believed that if you target everything for the rich, most notably major tax cuts, that they will take that money, reinvest some of it into their business and the crumbs that fall off their lavish dinner table might just reach you in terms of potential new jobs...<br /><br />Except that the top-down economic philosophy is just a consistent failure. What we've learned is those rich guys up top they pocket that tax cut. If they hire anyone at all it's overseas for pennies on the dollar thanks to outsourcing. And in fact this new found money might allow them to expand operations in China or India or whatever and that tends to mean more factory closings state-side. The companies then report record financial numbers. The assholes that could afford large amounts of stock love this. It's an economic upturn for them. For the average guy who was working hard and living for the American Dream, they just had the dream turn into a Freddy Krueger style nightmare and they're sort of hoping they lose in the dream just so they don't have to wake up to the hell that awaits them financially.<br /><br />Corporations have unprecedented access these days to Congress. It's so blatant that even the Democrats, once considered the party of the people while Republicans held the banner of the Corporate Elite above their heads proudly, turned into the same greedy, CEO-beholden group of politicians as their opposition. Corporatists like the DLC got one of their biggest players in Rahm Emanuel helping to control Obama's agenda and from there it's been a windfall for them.<br /><br />The Banks and specifically Goldman Sachs got bailed out to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars. HMOs and Pharmaceuticals got everything they could have wished for in a Health Care bill that forces every American to buy coverage from them and provides no price controls to prevent them from continuing to scalp consumers. And BP, when they, Transocean and Halliburton (of course) create possibly the largest environmental disaster ever does anyone force them out or do something to penalize them? Not a chance. <br /><br />Oh and hey getting back to that Arizona thing like I promised... while crazed xenophobic people look at illegal immigrants as the reason they are losing jobs, I think it's time to point the finger at the people that are keeping Americans out of work. It's clearly corporations that are hiring illegal immigrants and specifically recruiting them to come here. The penalties they pay (if any regulatory agency even does anything at all about it) is usually less than the actual immigrant themselves faces. It all adds up to a cost effective solution to avoid paying the American worker even the minimum wage they deserve.<br /><br />Let's not kid ourselves people. Most of these jobs are farming jobs or jobs that require the person to be on-site in the specific geographic region in which they are hired. If they could outsource this they would but they cannot due to the necessity of the job being done where the immigrants are hired.<br /><br />They recruit these people for the same reason they outsource. Because they could care less about America, the community or people around them and because their CEOs want to make ungodly profits. And hey, you people can be angry and forcibly toss as many of these workers out of the country as you want, they're not getting penalized so they'll just find more. So much for your brilliant strategy now suckers...<br /><br />Create a forceful regulatory agency that regularly goes through the books of these companies and double checks social security number duplication to sort out fraud and penalize these companies at $1,000,000 per offense, per worker.<br /><br />Stop the recruitment and watch the immigration numbers fall sharply.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">You were taught to respect your elders. </span><br /><br />Sometimes as a kid I hated this. Parents... Grandparents... man they can be assholes. However you still had to respect them because, well, it was the rule.<br /><br />I don't necessarily think you have to listen to them as if they're always right. I mean being generations older usually puts you on the wrong side of a lot of issues that have long been settled amongst younger people (racism, homophobia, etc). However it is good to at least respect our elders enough to take care of them when they get older. Such respect is hard to find when Congress aims specifically to make cuts to Medicare or wants to turn Social Security into a similar stock boondoggle that 401Ks have proven to be (biggest ponzi scheme ever?). <br /><br />I think the belief in Washington is that, "well the elderly never really know what's going on anyway, let's buy off AARP and we can confuse them into whatever we want to do."<br /><br />They certainly did this with the Medicare Part D Prescription Drug plan. Guys like Rep. Tom Petri who has over a $1 million in Walgreens stock were able to sponsor and pass a law that made most seniors pay even more for their prescription drug plans and prevented Medicare from doing what the VA does and group negotiate for lower drug prices. What a pile of shit.<br /><br />Every time we turn around corporations are eliminating pensions leaving seniors with no retirement money and then you get Bush, the Republicans and now even Obama saying they want to "fix Social Security" which only means, "privatize it and make it a giveaway to Wall Street"... you know the guys that fuck everything up for a profit.<br /><br />There is no respect for elders or for that matter other people anymore.<br /><br />When I see America, I see a country that is at each others' throats. Blaming one another for the problems we see today. Victims in a misinformation campaign that has managed to create an illusion that there is no class war by the rich onto the poor and middle class but rather it's just the lazy, uninitiated poor that want to take the last of what the ever shrinking middle class has left.<br /><br />That's just not true.<br /><br />But you know, if we even remotely followed the rules and tenets of our childhood lessons, we might start to see the forest for the trees. We'd begin to understand that America as currently constructed is a failed state in which unless real change occurs, (not the false hope campaign sloganeering of a corporate protectionist) the concept in which our forefathers most notably Jefferson envisioned for us, will die a cruel humiliating death.Robert Poole Jr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04306170039293680126noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-215768401182592945.post-15733609446587836062010-02-26T14:32:00.003-06:002010-02-26T14:43:44.038-06:00Feingold respondsFirst let me say the following. I am not sure whether or not this is his canned response (all elected officials have them) or not especially since it does address a lot of the points I made in my original letter to him. However, I still disagree with him on the very specific point that we need a Constitutional Amendment to go further on this. Senator Feingold is looking at this singularly in the context of this one case.<br /><br />In this one case we're discussing, federal elections spending is at issue. So he narrows his focus to change the decision based on this one issue. However, my issue is larger than that. What the Supreme Court did was not a one-off out of character move. It was not relegated to this one case nor will their process affect just this one decision.<br /><br />It was what enabled them to come to their conclusion, the obvious application of Corporate Personhood that allowed them to make the assumption that corporations, since they are viewed as people by the courts, have the same rights as people and hence this somehow impeded their free speech.<br /><br />So while the good Senator and I agree completely on the disastrous ramifications of this court decision, our remedies couldn't be any more completely different. He discusses passing laws that will cripple aspects of the ruling however I see that as a futile choice. What is to stop conservatives from challenging the laws in court and having the conservative, pro-corporation Supreme Court make the same exact decision in their favor once again, thus striking the new laws down?<br /><br />The only Supreme Court proof option is to eliminate Corporate Personhood all together with a Constitutional Amendment. There is no other way and no, this is not a kneejerk reaction to a single case. Ever since the initial court mistake that allowed this glitch become precedent we the people have had an ever shrinking voice in our democracy at the expense of corporate money. It's time to change this for once and for all.<br /><br />Here's Senator Feingold's response. (Below is the Op-Ed he enclosed as a .doc file)<br /><br /><blockquote><br />Dear Mr. Poole,<br /><br />Thank you for contacting me about Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. I appreciate hearing your suggestions.<br /><br />I agree that the U.S. Supreme Court made a terrible mistake in deciding this case. Presented with a relatively narrow legal issue, the Supreme Court chose to roll back laws that have limited the role of corporate money in federal elections since Teddy Roosevelt was president. Ignoring important principles of judicial restraint and respect for precedent, the Court has given corporate money a breathtaking new role in federal campaigns. Just six years ago, the Court said that the prohibition on corporations and unions dipping into their treasuries to influence campaigns was 'firmly embedded in our law,' yet this Court has just upended that prohibition, and a century's worth of campaign finance law designed to stem corruption in government. <br /><br />The American people will pay dearly for this decision when, more than ever, their voices are drowned out by corporate spending in our federal elections. However, it is important to note that the decision does not affect the ban on unlimited "soft money" contributions, which was the central provision in the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA) that Senator John McCain (R-AZ) and I authored. The ban will continue to prevent corporate contributions to the political parties. Knowing of your interest in this issue, I have attached a newspaper op-ed I wrote in response to the Supreme Court's decision.<br /><br />In the coming weeks, I will work with my colleagues to pass legislation restoring as many of the critical restraints on corporate control of our elections as possible. Thank you again for contacting me about this important issue. </blockquote><br /><br />ENCLOSED OP ED:<br /><br /><blockquote>High court opens the floodgates <br />By Russ Feingold<br /><br />In its ruling in the case of Citizens United v. FEC, the Supreme Court unraveled campaign-finance laws that stood for more than a century. The court was originally presented with a relatively narrow legal issue in the case, but chose instead to consider a much broader question: whether to roll back laws that have limited the role of corporate money in federal elections since Theodore Roosevelt was president. Now the court has handed down its ruling, and made a terrible mistake in giving corporate money a breathtaking new role in federal campaigns. <br /><br />It is important to note that the decision does not affect the ban on "soft money" contributions, which was the core provision in the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, also known as McCain-Feingold. That ban will continue to prevent corporate contributions to the political parties from corrupting the process. But the decision does significantly increase corporations' clout in campaigns. <br /><br />For decades, corporations could only contribute to candidates and pay for political ads from funds collected from their administrative and executive employees and kept in special accounts called PACs. With the court's decision, corporations will now be able to dip into their huge general treasuries to pay for independent advertising. With their enormous resources, corporations can now vastly outspend the candidates and other outside parties in almost any race.<br /><br />With the gates opened for a virtually unlimited amount of corporate money, I fear that our elections will become like NASCAR races — underwritten by companies. Only in this case, the corporate underwriters won't just be seeking publicity, they will be seeking laws and policies that the candidates have the power to provide.<br /><br />During the 2008 election cycle, Fortune 500 companies alone had profits of $743 billion. By comparison, spending by candidates, outside groups, and political parties on the last presidential election totaled just over $2 billion. There's just no comparison; corporations and unions have the resources to effectively dominate federal campaigns. <br /><br />Just six years ago, the state of campaign-finance law was quite different. When the Supreme Court ruled that the Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act that Sen. John McCain and I championed was constitutional, it noted that the prohibition on corporations and unions dipping into their treasuries to influence campaigns was "firmly embedded in our law." Yet the court only a few years later has upended that prohibition. <br /><br />A majority of the court ignored several time-honored principles that have served for the past two centuries to preserve the public's respect for and acceptance of its decisions. One is the concept of "judicial restraint," the idea that a court should decide a case on constitutional grounds only if absolutely necessary, and should rule as narrowly as possible. Here, the court did just the opposite — decided the constitutionality of all restrictions on corporate spending in connection with elections in an obscure case in which many far more narrow rulings were possible. <br /><br />The court also ignored stare decisis, the historic respect for precedent, which Chief Justice John Roberts termed "judicial modesty" during his 2005 confirmation hearing. It's hard to imagine a bigger blow to stare decisis than the court's decision to strike down laws in over 20 states and a federal law that has been the cornerstone of the nation's campaign-finance system for 100 years. <br /><br />Finally, the court ignored the longstanding practice of deciding a case only after lower courts have fully examined the facts. Here, because the broad constitutional questions considered by the Supreme Court were not raised in the court below, there was no factual record at all on which the court could base its legal conclusions.<br /><br />We now face the undoing of laws that have helped to prevent corruption in government for more than a century. Some will say that corporate interests already have too much power and that members of Congress listen to the wishes of corporations instead of their constituents. While the campaign-finance system certainly needs further reform, I can only imagine how much worse things will be in a system where the views and interests of American voters are completely drowned out by corporate spending. <br /></blockquote>Robert Poole Jr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04306170039293680126noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-215768401182592945.post-75942156340211535142010-02-04T16:31:00.004-06:002010-02-04T16:46:50.990-06:00Russ Feingold makes a horrible judgment call...Sadly enough Russ Feingold who was right on The Patriot Act and right on The Iraq War and did so by using the logic that rushing to a judgment call out of response to something immediate is a major long term ramifications-having mistake<a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/79791-feingold-opposes-constitutional-amendment-to-overturn-scotus-decision"> applies the same logic</a> to the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/22/us/politics/22scotus.html">horrific Supreme Court case ruling </a>that basically allowed Corporations free reign over our elections.<br /><br />That would be a rational point to make if the Supreme Court hadn't spent the last 30 years ruling for corporations over individuals and worse using the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_personhood_debate">mistake</a> of "Corporate Personhood" to trample the spirit of the Constitution.<br /><br />I respect Russ as much as any Senator in that chamber however I will call him out if I disagree with him and sent the following letter to him today to plead for sanity on this issue.<br /><br /><blockquote>Dear Senator Feingold,<br /><br />I have been a supporter of yours since you first ran for office and have even volunteered on a local level for your campaign when I lived in the Oshkosh area. I have always thought you to be a voice for the people in a Senate Chamber that is too often a place where the voices of the people are drown out by the voice of Big Business Interests.<br /><br />It's been your steady, independent judgments on serious issues like The Patriot Act and the Iraq War, unpopular as they may have been at the time but correct as they were long term that have made me stick with you even when my devotion to the party began to waver.<br /><br />I understand that you have always called for calm and rational thought and not overreacting to a current situation in a way that would hurt us down the line. It was that line of thinking that made you so correct in the two aforementioned examples I cite here.<br /><br />However your recent statement where you oppose a Constitutional Amendment that would prevent Corporations from having a direct voice in our election process and ultimately expands the original mistake of Corporate Personhood further than any court previous ever has, has me shocked and saddened.<br /><br />In the cases I mentioned before, our choices were made on fear and were in fact irrational. Even though we had other terrorist attacks on US soil, the original WTC attacks in 1993, the Oklahoma City Bombing... we had never had an attack of such magnitude on US soil and it drove even the best Congressmen and Senators to make rash decisions based on their own fears and the fears of their constituents.<br /><br />This is different altogether because this is not a one time blunt object type of shot from the bow from the Supreme Court. This is in fact, a repeated process where the more conservative Supreme Court has ruled consistently with the Corporation over the Person. <br /><br />Over the course of 30 years the courts became more conservative and Supreme Court judges were specifically vetted by previous Administrations for their right wing ideology while Democratic Administrations chose Centrist/Moderate Judges that did not swing the balance back to a complete center.<br /><br />In that ideology lie the principle that money equals power and that people do not overrule the almighty corporation. <br /><br />I don't need to give you a history lesson of the mistake that created corporate personhood nor would I insult your intelligence by running down the plethora of cases that have proven that the Supreme Court is far from an independent impartial observer in these cases any longer. I know you already know these examples and are a very smart man.<br /><br />It's for that very reason that I cannot fathom for the life of me why you would oppose such an important measure. Especially when the biggest beneficiary of such a move would be the strengthening of your pet cause, Campaign Finance Reform. <br /><br />A few wealthy Corporations already own the media thanks to poor decisions by previous Administrations and their FCC appointments to deregulate/relax media ownership laws. In doing so they use their outlets to spout pro corporate propaganda and control the narrative on most of the issues you're attempting to pass. Jon Stewart pointed this out on The O'Reilly Factor just last night about how Fox News creates the narrative and people become hysterical about real issues. <br /><br />The point of this is to drive panic so nobody regulates industry or changes how they are working internal scams to continue boosting profits through the roof. The news never covered war profiteering, much of which involved their parent company's other corporate holdings. Never bothers to cover much in the way of corporate scandal until it blows up so large that they can't avoid it (Enron). They protect the narrative that Big Business can do it better than the Government and that we should trust them no matter how corrupt they may be.<br /><br />It's sort of backfiring on them now as banks have become the scourge of America for their reaping huge profits at the expense of regular people who work hard and see similar corporations outsource their jobs and create massive layoffs all to make their CEOs and major shareholders more money.<br /><br />Americans, despite what Fox or other corporate owned media might say, are mostly united on one thing. They are tired of being ripped off.<br /><br />By giving in to this Supreme Court decision and in effect a huge swath of previous incorrect decisions and future slanted decisions you're saying, "Yes, I think corporations should have the same equal rights as the American People."<br /><br />They already try to bounce around the McCain-Feingold laws and start "advocacy groups" to sell their issues to people in a confusing way and by saying that distribution of campaign ads and materials by ultra rich corporations should be allowed and basically uncapped, pretty much ends the democratic process as we know it.<br /><br />Ask third party candidates who deserve as much as anyone to have their ideas heard, how not having a voice in the media or any money to put out a serious ad campaign works for them? Now think of it like this. Aside from the candidate they support running their own ads they will have corporate backers putting out endless ads in support of this person. They will have multiple PR firms putting out and coordinating messages that presents a completely unfair advantage. <br /><br />For the major party candidate on the losing end of such a corporate war it's going to be an incredibly steep uphill climb to battle the amount of market saturation and name recognition that their opponent will have going for them. For the third party candidate, why even bother getting into the race? Unless you're Ross Perot and a billionaire, there's no chance at all you will be heard... and considering how often they are ignored now you just eliminated a major portion of the Democratic Process.<br /><br />The reason for the amendment has nothing to do with free speech and everything to do with fair elections and upholding the forefathers' intent behind the concept of a Democracy. Thomas Jefferson, often wary of such meddling be it by businesses or clergymen, was strongly opposed to businesses having a large say in Government politics. <br /><br />As a Democrat who often attends local Jefferson-Jackson dinners, I would plead with you to use his frame of mind on this issue for guidance.<br /><br />The need for an Amendment is to provide clarity as to the place of the people in their government. Corporations often do not pay taxes, or avoid doing so with off shore shelters, yet we're willing to give them not so much equal but rather superior placement in the laws of society and the elections that decide who controls it?<br /><br />This to me is an abomination of Constitutional purpose. <br /><br />Aside from what political gains this would make for Democrats or your pet causes, since that is not the point of this, I want to appeal to your sense of history and Constitutional fairness. <br /><br />We are at a tipping point in America in terms of how powerful we have allowed Corporations to become. The corporate elite have managed to use their unlimted lobbying resources to have practically every major law and regulation, most notably Glass-Stegall, overturned in their favor and what we see now is a stifled Democracy where in order to have a chance at any major office you need to be vetted at a pro-business advocate. We see now a country whose economic future is in dire straights. Where the top 1% own 3/4ths of the country's wealth and the rest of us grovel for a steady job that can just pay the bills while we drown in debt over house payments or overpriced health care costs.<br /><br />The last thing we need is the Supreme Court to continue to advocate against our well being in their pro-corporation stances. And since Bush and Rove stacked the lower courts with like-minded judges, the judiciary as a whole can work against the rights of the individual versus the rights of the corporation. <br /><br />Most certainly the makeup of the court can and will change from time to time but what should be a constant is that no court should be able to rule that corporations, who do not do their fair share to be a loyal American citizen, are in fact people in the eyes of the law.<br /><br />An American citizen pays taxes here, has their jobs here and resides here, does not break the laws on a regular basis here and does not have the financial wherewithal to influence their representatives. And unfortunately because of this their individual voices are often ignored or responded to with a form letter that hardly does enough to address their very real concerns.<br /><br />Preventing corporate personhood and preventing corporate tampering with elections prevents undue foreign influence on our elections. It prevents undue foreign influence on our laws, most notably the constant war to avoid regulatory measures that we purposely put in place to protect the American citizen.<br /><br />Once you end Corporate Personhood you realize that they do not have the same right to free speech that the American people were granted via the blood of our ancestors fighting for such freedom over the years. Did corporations go to war? Or did they just profit from their involvement of it?<br /><br />Please Senator Feingold, as one of your greatest supporters I plead with you to make the choice that supports the American citizen over the rights of the Corporation. This is not the rash judgment of one Court Decision this the result of an Avalanche of recent cases that proves that the defense of corporations in the Federal Court system has gone too far and needs to be written into law in a way that prevents future misinterpretation of law to give corporations an unfair leg up on the rest of us who pay the taxes that grease the skids and allow them tax breaks to build in new locations, buy more equipment, hire more workers, etc. We pay the taxes and corporations reap all the benefit including practically them owning most of Congress thanks to their constant lobbying and offering of post-Congressional opportunities. <br /><br />The scales of justice are tilted. Please help us place the weight back on the side that is launched into the sky at the moment. It would be nice for America if all of us had a shot at equality for once.<br /><br />Sincerely,<br />Robert Poole, Jr.</blockquote>Robert Poole Jr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04306170039293680126noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-215768401182592945.post-796317599872524792010-01-07T11:01:00.006-06:002010-01-07T14:39:52.309-06:00More on the Afghanistan CIA bombing...<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibh75E7uE0sS7Y7ZE8JFliIbrx_WKUiDiYVLTgHSqwG9EWyCYkT-0_TQblklNADKBjAenOsTZg6BbwRW3VFNGTHM-2ueqzcq05YsgdsC1l7_knBrUi7gJMZsmT-rtLVPr9B9ZQfiQ2rjA/s1600-h/Kabul_665838a.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 191px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibh75E7uE0sS7Y7ZE8JFliIbrx_WKUiDiYVLTgHSqwG9EWyCYkT-0_TQblklNADKBjAenOsTZg6BbwRW3VFNGTHM-2ueqzcq05YsgdsC1l7_knBrUi7gJMZsmT-rtLVPr9B9ZQfiQ2rjA/s320/Kabul_665838a.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5424048081963871026" /></a>Last week I wrote up an article on Cause and Effect. I want to discuss the cause and effect because some statements came out that change the initial snap conclusion of the last post, but rather could prove disturbing in the ultimate scheme of things.<br /><br />I went by the timeframe in which three news articles were posted but there was smoke to that fire after all. Al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing in Afghanistan that killed 8, 7 of which were CIA agents reportedly. They said they did this because of <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34737634/ns/world_news-south_and_central_asia/">drone attacks the US had made on them</a>. Now, we're in a war supposedly and I don't feel bad for Al-Qaeda members being picked off during it. They knew what they were getting into with the two WTC bombings, the Cole bombing, the Embassy bombing, etc. So frankly I have no sympathy for them.<br /><br />My problem was the first half of my cause and effect note - the one where Afghans were irate about NATO/US raids that killed civilians. The Cause in my post was actually justifiable drone attacks. The effect was them bombing us. In a war this is something that happens and it is hard to avoid.<br /><br />What isn't hard to avoid is when we make foolish, war crime decisions on the battle field which is what those Afghan protests were about.<br /><br />What we did there was beyond the pale. The type of stuff that creates sympathy amongst the Afghan people for the Al-Qaeda cause and works as a recruitment tool for generations of new terrorists. <br /><br />In the raid US/NATO troops went into three buildings, grabbed out 10 people, most of which were children. Handcuffed them so they posed no armed resistance... and killed them.<br /><br />From the <a href="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/Afghanistan/article6971638.ece">London Times</a>:<br /><br /><blockquote>“The delegation concluded that a unit of international forces descended from a plane Sunday night into Ghazi Khan village in Narang district of the eastern province of Kunar and took ten people from three homes, eight of them school students in grades six, nine and ten, one of them a guest, the rest from the same family, and shot them dead,” a statement on President Karzai’s website said. <br /><br />-snip-<br /><br />“First the foreign troops entered the guest room and shot two of them. Then they entered another room and handcuffed the seven students. Then they killed them. Abdul Khaliq [the farmer] heard shooting and came outside. When they saw him they shot him as well. He was outside. That’s why his wife wasn’t killed.” <br /><br />A local elder, Jan Mohammed, said that three boys were killed in one room and five were handcuffed before they were shot. “I saw their school books covered in blood,” he said. <br /><br />The investigation found that eight of the victims were aged from 11 to 17. The guest was a shepherd boy, 12, called Samar Gul, the headmaster said. He said that six of the students were at high school and two were at primary school. He said that all the students were his nephews. In Jalalabad, protesters set alight a US flag and an effigy of President Obama after chanting “Death to Obama” and “Death to foreign forces”. In Kabul, protesters held up banners showing photographs of dead children alongside placards demanding “Foreign troops leave Afghanistan” and “Stop killing us”. </blockquote><br /><br />So while the cause wasn't correct in my initial posting of the Afghan incident last week, the effect could be the same. Increased terror attacks now and for years down the road, just as I mentioned with the Yemen situation. Our actions help in the creation of new terrorists. We may not want to hear it but it's true. The longer we seem imperialistic and invade countries at will to push our own agendas, the more enemies we create. <br /><br />And as critical I am of Obama, I know damn well this isn't all his fault. He didn't start both of these wars. Hell, we were running ops in Yemen before Obama ever took office. And as US Ambassador to Morocco Marc Ginsberg points out, it was <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/amb-marc-ginsberg/dick-cheneys-role-in-al-q_b_410614.html">Dick Cheney's personal authorization </a>of the release of the Saudis who fueled the resurgence of Al-Qaeda in Yemen to begin with. Tough on terror that guy. <br /><br />I just want Obama to earn that Nobel and make the right call. That call is withdrawal. There are very few Al-Qaeda operatives in Afghanistan now. Less than 100 by some estimates. The longer we stay there the more we make clear that the entire purpose for being there is to protect and prop up the Karzai Government, which took the recent elections by stealing them... the way Karzai's friend Bush did in 2000 and 2004. <br /><br />Karzai is illegitimate to the Afghan people. Our presence is illegitimate to the Afghan people. How many of those people are going to join Al-Qaeda's cause if it means getting us out of there? How many <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/24/world/middleeast/24terror.html?_r=1">Iraqis did the same thing</a>, not for love of Al-Qaeda but to fight against us occupying their nation?<br /><br />This is all common sense logic. Sadly enough, not enough people in our Government have the willpower to use it.Robert Poole Jr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04306170039293680126noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-215768401182592945.post-82842236504116445202009-12-30T14:44:00.005-06:002009-12-30T14:51:20.636-06:00Cause and EffectJust a quick update that further illustrates my point about what happens when you attack civilians...<br /><br />These articles all were posted within a span of hours of each other...<br /><br />1. Afghan probe says NATO fighting killed children<br /><a href="http://www.wral.com/news/national_world/world/story/6708561/">http://www.wral.com/news/national_world/world/story/6708561/</a><br /><br />2. Afghans Protest Civilian Deaths <br /><a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126218273073510225.html">http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126218273073510225.html</a><br /><br />3. US citizens killed in Afghanistan <br /><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8435502.stm">http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8435502.stm</a><br /><br />Hmmm...<br /><br />But I've had military people tell me how beloved we are over there and how grateful the people are. Yeah... it looks like it. I never want to be this "beloved" ever.<br /><br />RpRobert Poole Jr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04306170039293680126noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-215768401182592945.post-72600583663545804842009-12-30T14:02:00.004-06:002009-12-30T14:27:21.657-06:00Got to love all that Change he's working for...First some spot on, must see political toons about Obama's Health Care Reform plan:<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFZ_YflMFmDJtzy_MkkORXI8QP3l5inJbUD0aYtZoeRb6DDU73YXBybR-D6mJONOrbL3IQ8TTANh14gcE9dwEh9UGqmq9J30CIuGukIBdqBp1Yw3RQRahC4kVd3D476y0X7adFEd3lZmM/s1600-h/BorsM20091230_low.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 287px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFZ_YflMFmDJtzy_MkkORXI8QP3l5inJbUD0aYtZoeRb6DDU73YXBybR-D6mJONOrbL3IQ8TTANh14gcE9dwEh9UGqmq9J30CIuGukIBdqBp1Yw3RQRahC4kVd3D476y0X7adFEd3lZmM/s400/BorsM20091230_low.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5421122854955390098" /></a><br /><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieu5gY5YAVJSJNP31R-PYqxPwAWPYeu2qZWdD5LDeKME9MEe0m9PwgZb7qjh3KnH8FIgINOb7Pi-KqYREvQMXwnhxyOULQjJW7oUoWsqMdCqY2s2Zfg7c2wvSZkNsxbsUu7DRHHQuUMEY/s1600-h/k2ctc2.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 308px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieu5gY5YAVJSJNP31R-PYqxPwAWPYeu2qZWdD5LDeKME9MEe0m9PwgZb7qjh3KnH8FIgINOb7Pi-KqYREvQMXwnhxyOULQjJW7oUoWsqMdCqY2s2Zfg7c2wvSZkNsxbsUu7DRHHQuUMEY/s400/k2ctc2.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5421122987296119762" /></a><br /><br />And aside from Health Care, it's good to know that we're doing the same kind of crap that Bush and previous Administrations did... which of course helped stoke the fires overseas and make 9/11 happen.<br /><br />Last week when there was a Christmas plane incident, practically identical to the Richard Reid shoe bomber situation, it was learned that the guy had ties to Yemen.<br /><br />So what does Holy Joe Lieberman do? Call for <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/73651-lieberman-yemen-will-be-tomorrows-war-if-preemptive-action-not-taken">pre-emptive strikes</a>! Of course, murder is the ONLY solution to deal with potential murderers! <br /><br />However, one has to wonder what the hell Joe is talking about since we already have been preemptively striking Yemen for <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34606578/ns/world_news-the_new_york_times">OVER A YEAR</a>.<br /><br />In fact just a week before the failed "attack" (I say that loosely because one moron trying and miserably failing to do something of this scope really isn't an all out "attack"), we were <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/cruise-missiles-strike-yemen/story?id=9375236">killing people in Yemen</a>. Illegally I might add. We have not declared war on Yemen.<br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/rBrwZDXjadI&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/rBrwZDXjadI&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br /><object width="560" height="340"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/oHyHWXEpFXw&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/oHyHWXEpFXw&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="560" height="340"></embed></object><br /><br />Look, if al-Qaeda is actually plotting attacks in Yemen or anywhere else, the route to go is not military action. It's cooperating with other governments and rounding up suspects personally. Not using planes or drones and blanketing an area with bombs. What tends to happen when we do this is we kill civilians (in this case 63 of them, 28 being children). What happens when you kill those civilians? You killed mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters and you turn off those people to your cause... and worse you probably just recruited family and friends of the victims to fight with your enemy.<br /><br />And then situations like last week occur. <br /><br />You reap what you sow. If you always go up to someone and slap them in the face and tell them it's for their own good, you'd better expect it when they finally get tired of it and punch you in the stomach out of retaliation.<br /><br />Two wrongs don't make a right. This guy needs to be tried and convicted and get a life sentence... just as Reid did. However, we're still committing wrongs in these situations too and we need to realize that we are accountable for our actions. And what we have done to people in Iraq and Afghanistan may seem hard to control today but when the kids there who suffered through the violence we brought to them grow up... we'll have a much bigger base of angry people (or "terrorists" as we'll label them) looking for revenge... revenge that we earned against us.<br /><br />RpRobert Poole Jr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04306170039293680126noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-215768401182592945.post-48103763307662001072009-12-22T15:56:00.001-06:002009-12-22T15:58:57.749-06:00Where we went wrong…I look back now at the 2008 Campaign season with the sort of disdain you hold for your worst enemy. Hindsight is 20/20 and as a very strong liberal it’s hard not to feel completely and utterly betrayed by how events occurred. As liberals went we weren’t sure what to make of the field, once deemed the “best field of contenders in Democratic history” by many in the media. Best field for whom?<br /><br />Aside from Dennis Kucinich the field was lacking any real liberal or progressive candidates. Of the main three, John Edwards was the only one using the populist rhetoric that attacked the central issues that are plaguing this country. But even he was lacking the bonafides to make anyone believe him. Russ Feingold put it succinctly when he said Edwards was using his platform but didn’t have the Senate record to back it up.<br /><br />Liberals bit their lip and decided to choose the unknown quantity (Obama) who was speaking with hopeful change rhetoric over the known quantity (Clinton) who had in a previous Administration shown that they were as pro-corporation as the Reagan Republicans were.<br /><br />We’re only a year in and the disappointment and frustration couldn’t be any worse. Any liberal with a brain knew exactly how this was going to go when Rahm Emanuel was named Chief of Staff. Rahm, who famously recruited rich Republican businessmen to run as Democrats because it would be an easy seat pick up had helped (along with Chuck Schumer in the DSCC) to weed out real liberals and progressives in primaries. Specifically intervening for corporate candidates and raising so much money for them that the real progressives had to bow out or face a humiliating defeat.<br /><br />Rahm kept this process going once he became Obama’s top guy by keeping Progressives out of nearly every cabinet post and purposely keeping them out of policy meetings. Every progressive campaign promise was jettisoned for whatever pro-corporate policy they could support. Gays & Lesbians were given lip service but complete inaction for their rights. Single Payer advocates were purposely excluded from the negotiating table and then arrested at Congressional Hearings by order of the corporatist Democratic allies of Obama’s Administration. Obama also escalated the war in Afghanistan and managed to do so the week before he picked up a Nobel Peace Prize that he won for just not being George W. Bush. Pretty ridiculous.<br /><br />Health Care “Reform” passed the Senate by a 60-40 vote this week and now goes to committee where I bet the contentious atmosphere between what House Democrats want and Senate Democrats want stalls the process quite a bit. <br /><br />Still if the bill that ultimately passes resembles anything like what the Senate passed, we would have all been better off with nothing. Mandating people buy insurance when they really can’t afford to and eliminating almost all cost control provisions just means that you fed insurance companies a huge amount of customers that they can continue to overcharge. Sure there are no pre-existing conditions to fear but also no real regulatory methods in which to prevent insurers from jacking prices up any time they would like as well. There’s nothing to really like in this bill.<br /><br />The whole thing is a byproduct of the Democratic sell out to lobbyists in the Health Care Industry. They spent $1.4 million a day lobbying Congress and by the end they owned them all. It’s sickening.<br /><br />But it opens up the reality of what the process should have been all along. Health Care, as pressing as it is as an issue for most Americans should have been second on the docket.<br /><br />Campaign Finance Reform should have been first. Of course this would require a President who wasn’t a complete sell out to corporate interests or Republican rhetoric and Obama is neither. <br /><br />Still the ONLY way for real reform on the issues in a way that benefits the entire populace and not just the top 1% of this country is to make CFR the #1 issue to change.<br /><br />And it requires a real overhaul not just a small change here or there like the Democrats pathetically weak lobbyist gift rule changes from 2006.<br />To me this reform is the one that changes all reform after it because taking private money out of the game makes the Congress accountable to one special interest: constituents.<br /><br />Before I break down the concept that I propose let me say two things.<br /><br />1. I think this is a plan BOTH Republicans and Democrats would support. No, not the elected ones but the grass roots. But you have to sell it differently to each constituency. There is something to like for both. <br /><br />2. This plan is very strict but if enacted I assure you the Presidency and Congress would no longer be stooges to CEOs and lobbyists.<br /><br />So here’s the plan, point by point.<br /><br />• All parties that want to participate in national Presidential elections must fulfill signature requirements to be placed on ballots in at least 3/4ths of the 50 states. By meeting participation guidelines they will receive public funding equal to the other candidates and receive equal time on each national debate.<br /><br />• For local Congressional and Senate elections, candidate must receive prerequisite signatures to receive money and guaranteed debate slot/time.<br /><br />• To qualify as a candidate all candidates must divest in all stocks, bonds and financial holdings aside from personal home real estate. All assets must be liquid at the time of campaign opening and this includes all immediate family (parents, siblings, spouse, children, grandchildren). This will eliminate any impropriety from being assigned to a committee and steering dollars to friends or companies that you are personally invested in. Failure to liquidate assets will result in automatic disqualification from campaign and should offense not be discovered until after the race is over, a candidate will be expelled from their seat retroactively for such a violation.<br /><br />• The election cycle is 6 weeks for party primaries and 6 weeks for the national campaign. <br /><br />• Each candidate will receive the same amount of public funding. This will be used for live campaign events (speeches, travel). Each campaign will additionally receive an equal amount of primetime TV ad time, networks cannot refuse to air any candidates’ ads or they will be stripped of their FCC license.<br /><br />• Corporations and Special Interest Groups are banned from airing ads. The way the law will be written, these groups will be defined as political parties rather than advocacy organizations and by definition the private money they will collect would be in violation of federal law. A candidate will be limited to only representing one political party so they cannot have an advocacy group represent them, to which that group would then need the prerequisite signatures to receive a spot on the ballot.<br /><br />• Employers and Unions are strictly prohibited from organizing for or advertising/advocating on behalf of a candidate. <br /><br />• Political Parties will be granted a specific amount of money, capped to a certain amount, in which they can use to organize grass roots and build party loyalty. They will be allowed, within their financial construct, to advocate for their party’s candidates but due to the limited amount of funds, they would make better use of the funding by building a ground campaign for multiple elections rather than one at a time.<br /><br />What this does is majorly clamp down and end all outside money from coming into a campaign. It prevents the process from being closed to just two parties and eliminates the need to be one of the financial elite to run for office. It eliminates special interest ads which usually smear candidates and obfuscate facts. It eliminates pressure from employers and union organizing behind a candidate.<br /><br />When I say this will appease both parties, it will. It takes the corporate money out of every bill. Makes the candidates beholden to the will of their constituents and gives regular people a chance to run for office and make a difference (whereas that is nearly impossible now). The Left will be ecstatic about this. In the Health Care debate this makes Single Payer a legitimate option and eliminated many of these corporate run tea bagger town hall attacks that helped screw up the debate. It would prevent the Max Baucuses and Joe Liebermans from being able to have a seat let alone selling out the entire country for some of their rich buddies. And it opens doors for Green Party Candidates, Libertarians, etc to all have equal time on the main stage and have their views listened to and heard.<br /><br />The Right will be excited because this all but ends the Democratic stranglehold on Unions and the work Unions do on campaigns. It also eliminates many of the 527 groups they hate, most notably MoveOn.org, from being a serious threat to their way of life.<br /><br />If you market this for the reasons they would like the bill to each separate group, you can create a groundswell to get this type of reform passed. The media will try to fight it tooth and nail. The elected corporate sell out politicians will as well. But with a legitimate push from the grass roots on both sides, they might have no choice but to relent.<br /><br />And then we’ll have a system where the laws are made of the people, by the people and for the people. Just as our forefathers seemed to intend originally, or at least they implied as much.Robert Poole Jr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04306170039293680126noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-215768401182592945.post-77175831479559774982009-12-16T15:24:00.004-06:002009-12-16T15:35:58.909-06:00The End of My Support for the Democratic PartyI haven't written anything since election day but if you look back at my final posts they couldn't have been any more spot on. I warned people to look past the pretty image presented by the packaging of change and selling of hope. You could tell something was completely different about Obama as soon as he was nearing election day and in the days preceding in it was all about him ignoring the progressives and liberals that elected him and going after the right with the help of his DLC/Blue Dog corporate Republican as Democrats' recruiter, Rahm Emanuel. Most of what I wrote below was lifted (with a few alterations) from what I posted in a reply to a thread on Democratic Underground, but it explains my disappointment and abandonment of a party I spent 21 years strongly supporting and being very participatory in. <br /><br />In all of this time off of writing I stayed away specifically because of my disgust with my party. I worried that this would be the direction they took us and they did so with glee. I have had a lot of personal things and work related stress to handle on the side so rattling off more angry diatribes about politics and specifically the selling out of my values by my party was just too much to handle. I think I will be posting again. Out of frustration for what is happening and because everyday is just an extended continuation of George W. Bush. Just as Bill Clinton was a continuation of George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan before him.<br /><br />I have no hope left for our country so long as it elects people who believe in corporatism over what's best for their constituents. We liberals never really had a choice. Obama, Hillary... even John Edwards. All were fake populists who really were corporatists. Edwards at least took an anti-corporatism plank in his election. However there were no real choices in 2008. It was sickening. I documented this before.<br /><br />And now the rant I posted on DU.<br /><br />---------------<br /><br />I have a very hard time supporting this President or this party anymore after their continuous blatant sell out to corporate interests.<br /><br />At first I used to think this was Democrats just being weak and spineless. I mean come on, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi sure play the part of ineffectual cowards well enough. However I realized that all along we have been played for suckers. Democrats are not weak at all. They are not caving either. They don't support us at all. They're using us for votes. They really do believe in the pro-corporatist crap they put out there to enrich their well connected friends. Washington is a hustle for them. They get into office and make as much money as they can. OBSCENE amounts of money. And the only way to do this is to load up your buddies or companies you have a vested interest in and watch as your family, friends and even yourself once you retire from the role of bank robber, er, Congressperson get rich as hell. <br /><br />Liberals and good hearted Democrats are probably just as easy to use as the people on the right. Think about it. The right is easy to use because they are intellectual lightweights who are incurious to facts and are pulled along on emotional social issues like Abortion and Gay Rights that conflict with years of bigoted teachings in their families and churches.<br /><br />The Left while far more educated on all issues and topics can be used emotionally as well. Especially now. After 30 years of watching their jobs disappear, watching their loved ones die or suffer because of health care corruption, watching their friends and family be shipped to wars of choice meant to enrich corporate buddies in the military corporate industries, seeing the Constitution shredded and watching friends and loved ones discriminated against because of their sexual preference... we were ripe for change. And ripe to be used.<br /><br />The cheerleaders will say, "Obama never said he was going to do ______". The problem is he never really had to. He said "Hope" and "Change" which IMPLIED far more than some of his conservative promises.<br /><br />I remember many of those same cheerleaders who are saying these things now telling us after the primaries that Obama had to play to the right and move to the center to win the election and that once he was elected he wouldn't be so centrist because nobody ever stays completely at the center.<br /><br />The problem was it wasn't an act. The entire time he was spouting "Hope" and "Change" he was moving to the center right for good. Positioning himself permanently. That's never really how these elections are supposed to work. Previously, moving to the center was always just a tactic to assuage fears from the undecided independents.<br /><br />After 8 years of Bush, "Hope" and "Change" meant a LOT more than Obama's ardent supporters on this site care to admit or understand. Bush was CHANGE in the other direction. He took the Reagan era and put it on steroids. They declared war on the Constitution and Geneva Conventions and two countries all at once. They used their secret tactics and federal agencies to attempt political warfare, not just on elected politicians but also on political interest groups. They pushed Washington even further into the realm of corporate piggy bank than anyone had before (a tough task considering the three Presidents before him) and they almost ruined the nation economically doing it.<br /><br />Change from that has to be drastic by the very nature of the amount of damage caused. Going to the left is the only direction politically and policy wise that we can possibly move to after Bush-Cheney. <br /><br />Instead Obama and his corporate cronies decided that they would make the smallest changes possible and on the things that mattered most, continue the Bush Doctrine of Corporation over Citizen. <br /><br />He defended and expanded Bush's State Secrecy rules. He refused to go after anyone for torture or war crimes. Never closed down Gitmo and pushed out an Administration policymaker that was working on that on their behalf. He announced a draw down in Iraq but wants to keep tens of thousands of troops there and is increasing troop levels in Afghanistan, an unwinnable war with no real end goal other than to prop up a corrupt election stealing government.<br /><br />He decided gay rights were better to talk about in speeches to pacify the base then to actually defend. He decided Health Care Reform should in fact be a corporate giveaway and worked with Max Baucus to make it so. All so he can declare victory over a major issue, even though that victory just made it completely worse. He employed corporate cronies all throughout his cabinet and Administration and made sure that two of the biggest from Goldman Sachs got to enrich all of their Wall Street friends while refusing to really make the necessary changes to end what got us in this situation in the first place.<br /><br />Where is Teddy Roosevelt's big stick? There's got to be a stick lying around in Washington SOMEWHERE.<br /><br />A few months back I wrote a post on Democratic Underground (a fairly liberal site that wasn't completely supportive of the party, so much as the principles for which it stood) asking whether you consider yourself a Democrat anymore or not. I was on the fence. I'm off of it. I don't anymore. I was slammed pretty heavily for even asking such a question.<br /><br />From the time I was eleven I followed politics and supported this party. I always sold myself the idea that Republicans represented big business and Democrats represented the rest of us. That Democrats actually had morals and believed in the concept of right and wrong.<br /><br />My eyes have finally opened. They started to during the Clinton years but I like most here, wrote that off and blamed the Republican Congressional Majority. There's just no excuse this time around. We have full control and they don't care. THEY don't represent us. And for the past few decades, I wonder if they ever did.<br /><br />RpRobert Poole Jr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04306170039293680126noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-215768401182592945.post-46766349079941226552008-11-05T09:05:00.007-06:002008-11-05T11:33:16.218-06:00An Obama Presidency and Other Tidbits About Yesterday<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUXzYbdeuq2aGTLglQY759gtbepfoY4k4U1PCbyLrVXaBi5kLkCwBK7ha6Njyw8ntlTCEO2nx6FmywKx4F4vBMUFEcZQ_We7NvygElXKUR3u4wQ2ZyoI6ftxPD-YVMKrMvwSDWwYcrBog/s1600-h/timecover1105.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUXzYbdeuq2aGTLglQY759gtbepfoY4k4U1PCbyLrVXaBi5kLkCwBK7ha6Njyw8ntlTCEO2nx6FmywKx4F4vBMUFEcZQ_We7NvygElXKUR3u4wQ2ZyoI6ftxPD-YVMKrMvwSDWwYcrBog/s320/timecover1105.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5265226860591174258" /></a>When it was all said and done last night and Barack Obama was named President-Elect at the end of the night you had to feel some incredible pride about what had happened. <br /><br />I've been hard on Obama because I feel that the Center and Center-Right have been over-represented the past 30 years and that it was time the liberals and progressives of this country get the same sort of creedence that the right gets. Somehow progressive values have been deemed as not mainstream, yet it turns out that Americans always end up coming back to the left. They came back to agree with the left on war, on the economy and regulation, on healthcare... in fact the only place the left hasn't completely won out is gay marriage and the more and more narrow votes on gay marriage bans make it apparent that we're closing in on the majority on that as well.<br /><br />There's this tendency to listen to the pundits on TV bloviate about how this country is center-right and give it complete credibility despite the fact that it couldn't be further from the truth. The media loves this false narrative and pushes it hard and that's what makes it hard for some liberals like myself to let Obama off the hook with the whole, "he's just playing the center for the election" theory.<br /><br />Still you have to have faith in Obama to do the right thing and give him that opportunity. He ran an excellent campaign and did what Kerry was somewhat prevented from doing in fighting back the smears at every turn.<br /><br />I think the Obama campaign learned well from the 2004 debacle and were able to corner McCain on every mistake he made. It was definitely the most brilliantly run campaign I have ever seen and the 1992 Clinton Campaign was pretty darn impressive as well.<br /><br />Last night I have never seen so many tears of wonderful joy. Obama provides hope in ways only Bobby and John F. Kennedy have in the past 50 years. African Americans and minorities everywhere felt a real sense of inclusion in their country's future for the first time and there just hasn't been a moment like last night in my lifetime.<br /><br />Yesterday had some hiccups as well. There were still voting machine issues in Pennsylvania, Florida and many other places... only solidifying why we need to enforce a paper ballot over the touch screen garbage. <a href="http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/11/04/actor-waged-5-hour-battle-to-cast-vote/">Tim Robbins was purged from the voter rolls</a>, oddly enough just a short time after talking about this very issue on Real Time with Bill Maher.<br /><br />Nutcase Michele Bachmann narrowly won re-election which makes her district easily one of the craziest ones out there (right up there with Jean Schmidt's district in Ohio and Jim Sensenbrenner's district in Wisconsin). Al Franken still sits in limbo with a possible recount coming soon. Somehow it appears FELON Ted Stevens is going to retain his seat in Alaska. A fight will definitely happen to prevent him from serving. We didn't get the 60 Senate seats to make Obama's agenda filibuster proof... that could be costly down the road because Senate Republicans were record-breaking obstructionists the last two years even knowing Bush could veto... imagine what they will do when they have nothing but that filibuster to stop us.<br /><br />All in all though you can't complain about the results.<br /><br />Now it is our job as citizens and I mentioned this yesterday, to hold President Obama and his Administration accountable. Obama himself mentioned this in his speech, that he will listen to us even when we do not agree with him. The only way for a functioning democracy to work is for the electorate to hold their leaders accountable. To show them when we disapprove and enforce it with calls, letters, protests and our votes. It's the only way for this long-running American experiment to work.<br /><br />So Congratulations are in order to President-Elect Obama and frankly for all Americans. We took our country back last night. As Benjamin Franklin once famously said we have, "A Republic, if you can keep it."<br /><br />As it turns out we wanted to keep that Republic last night, despite the past four years of near Monarchy ruling us all.Robert Poole Jr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04306170039293680126noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-215768401182592945.post-51881268352272585452008-11-04T14:50:00.002-06:002008-11-04T14:59:19.812-06:00On The Cusp of History<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGHQ8gaipf7xI25UMXui_Gr34dr07s5GMtxi06eywvALXI71R_8qq4fSZ2YWkJgX1K9u2WK8fpLEZzFv3v2p0cSbKYyKNgwvGZP5Gyy91KXmE9oSH63ncapGN5kW6AAC14tJdyRoAQIBg/s1600-h/obama+100000.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 207px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGHQ8gaipf7xI25UMXui_Gr34dr07s5GMtxi06eywvALXI71R_8qq4fSZ2YWkJgX1K9u2WK8fpLEZzFv3v2p0cSbKYyKNgwvGZP5Gyy91KXmE9oSH63ncapGN5kW6AAC14tJdyRoAQIBg/s320/obama+100000.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5264909716564352530" /></a>Well here we are. <br /><br />Soon to be awaiting the results that will surely mean history tonight. It would take a theft unlike the previous ones before in 2000 and 2004 to overtake this turnout. For the first time we will be watching results with the knowledge that an African American CAN be president in this country and that it's not some myth or fairy tale that African American parents have to tell their children out of blind inspiration.<br /><br />I know I have not been as enthused as many. Obama has been true to the word he set out to not go after the hard right wingers who have taken this country into the nosedive we're in currently. As a liberal that is tired of being told I am unamerican, communist/socialist/marxist, wrong on everything, lazy because I am not rich, a baby murderer because I believe in choice, anti-troops because I am anti-war and quite frankly a traitor to my country if I dare say the President is bound to the laws of the Constitution... well I want revenge.<br /><br />The media has helped this gang of thieves steal two elections with voter suppression and rigged machines and not reporting any of it. They spread right wing memes and no matter how crazy they are made them seem truthful. For Obama to not fight against all of that and still play the nice guy who wants to reach across the aisle to these assholes when they will not and have not done the same for us seemed unfathomable.<br /><br />Rachel Maddow <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJLcb1jcwKE">interviewed</a> <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOS0XaBvvxE">Obama</a> and pretty much shared my frustration with him on this. After all the GOP has been lying through their teeth and calling Obama the "most liberal senator" even though Bernie Sanders is a Socialist and he's the Senator from Vermont.<br /><br />But I concede that Obama's approach, should it be just to win this election is going to work and we're going to win tonight.<br /><br />Yes I wasn't as enthused as I could be but I was still fully behind Obama and I am still very proud that he will be our President.<br /><br />As a liberal I think that once the election is over and Democrats have overwhelming majorities in the House and the magic 60 in the Senate we need to act quickly to pull our government's policy back to the center. In the 6 years Bush had Republican rubber stamp rule, they jettisoned thousands of laws put in place by far more reasonable Administrations before them and we need to work fast to put these back in play. Banning Torture, banning illegal wiretapping, eliminating Signing Statements, establishing exactly which laws the Bush Administration was breaking and prosecuting them for all of it...<br /><br />If we want to be a nation of law and order we need to defend the "goddamned piece of paper" (as Bush put it) that our country was built upon. Our Constitution needs restoration like nobody's business. <br /><br />Then while we're here we need to use our majority to push through Healthcare before Republicans can fight it. Push through election reforms that prevent them from stealing it when it's close and demands a paper trail so we know who voted for whom. Push through changes to the tax code that shift the lions share of the burden back to the rich and provides relief to the poor and middle class. Bring troops home from Iraq and end our occupation there.<br /><br />We need to move on this stuff so it is done in the first two years. It will prevent the GOP from stopping the most important stuff before they get another chance to slander and lie about Democrats again and prevent these changes from occurring.<br /><br />If Obama goes in as President looking to give in to Republicans in the name of compromise, he'll find out that the only compromise is giving them their way. It's something the 2006 class of Democrats disgracefully executed and why they have such a low approval rating from voters.<br /><br />We've given them their way enough and they messed everything up in the name of greed. Now with Democrats so close to all of the levers of control we must push through liberal/progressive legislation. The entire political spectrum and the policies behind it were tilted hard right. If we don't push back left we'll never get to the real center again.<br /><br />Tonight when President-Elect Obama is named by all of the networks, history will be made. History for African-Americans. History for Voter Turnout. But we need to keep making history by staying on Obama to fight for the left. We're a bigger majority than the right and have had nobody fighting for us for decades.<br /><br />Corporate America had their Presidents. It's our turn.<br /><br />Congratulations to America. Here's hoping we finally have that President this time around.Robert Poole Jr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04306170039293680126noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-215768401182592945.post-50888408740930082352008-08-28T15:25:00.005-05:002008-08-28T15:55:09.746-05:00"Where's the Red Meat?"Right. Fucking. <a href="http://thepoliticalcarnival.blogspot.com/2008/08/john-kerry.html">Here</a>.<br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/05udZa68P4U&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/05udZa68P4U&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br />John Kerry's speech was the best of the convention thusfar (Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo <a href="http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/210916.php">Agrees</a>).<br /><br />He nailed McCain. He took him to task on his exploitation of his military experience, on his constant reversals on issues, he even slammed him for saying "Next up, Baghdad!" right after 9/11. <br /><br />That was MY President up there talking. The guy I worked my ass for and believed in. The guy who sat in front of Congress during the Vietnam War and asked, "How do you ask a man to be the last to die for a mistake?" and practically ended the war with his performance there single handedly.<br /><br />That was the John Kerry I knew. Not the one who was swarmed by Clinton advisors who were unbeknownst to Kerry playing for Hillary in 2008 and not for the Democratic Candidate to win.<br /><br />According to TPM, Kerry scripted this whole speech<a href="http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/210977.php"> himself</a>. There wasn't a group of handlers stepping all over who he was. It was John Kerry, on the attack, showing why he was better than the media ever dared give him credit for.<br /><br />They stepped on him when he OWNED Bush in the debates. They walked all over him during the primaries when they thought he had no chance. They repeated the Swift Boat smears verbatim and constantly re-ran the ads for free on talking head shows to "discuss them", or rather perpetuate the lies. And when Kerry went to give a solid speech at the 2004 Convention, he was warned that the networks would cut him off if he didn't keep it short, so he was <a href="http://d-day.blogspot.com/2004/07/thank-you-john-kerry.html">forced to rush</a>.<br /><br />So it didn't surprise me that Kerry was considered inconsequential to the networks. Filler to go between Bill Clinton and Joe Biden. <br /><br />And as Kerry spoke, a lot of Democrats who believe the negative spin the media gave him or think foolishly that he gave up in Ohio too easy, (forgetting that the lawsuit presented by David Cobb against Ohio for vote tampering <a href="http://www.homelandstupidity.us/2006/02/10/ohio-recount-lawsuit-thrown-out/">was thrown out</a> and that Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell <a href="http://www.homelandstupidity.us/2004/12/02/why-the-ohio-recount-doesnt-matter/">certified the election results before any recount would have been allowed</a> anyway) sat there quiet at first.<br /><br />It didn't take long for Democrats that were present to realize what this was... a great speech that tore McCain to shreds. Suddenly they started to cheer his lines and maybe many realized why they voted for the man just four years ago...<br /><br />The Networks however had stayed away from the speech. Weren't going to air any of it... until they realized his speech was hammering McCain and cut in towards the very end.<br /><br />Still they only caught part of the speech and unless you were watching C-SPAN or PBS you got to see only a snippet of it.<br /><br />The entire three days of the convention so far the idiot talking heads kept screaming, "Where's the Red Meat?". Downplaying comments from the Democratic speakers for not being angry or divisive enough. They want conflict... it draws ratings.<br /><br />But they missed the one speech that REALLY DID provide such so-called "red meat". They were too busy making the same ridiculous cliched complaints over and over to hear themselves talk and they forgot to listen to a man who should have been President in 2004 and a man who has been thusfar Obama's best surrogate by far.<br /><br />I sat there in shock too after Kerry's speech to hear Pat Buchanan go on and on about how he hasn't heard a single thing about Guantanamo Bay and have that remain unchallenged from the MSNBC panel when Kerry not only mentioned it but talked of closing it down and ending torture forever!<br /><br />If you're wondering why America seems so stupid these days, turn on your cable news.<br /><br />The Mainstream Media is a joke.<br /><br />RpRobert Poole Jr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04306170039293680126noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-215768401182592945.post-38249109678542127622008-08-18T13:06:00.008-05:002008-08-19T12:10:28.134-05:00Time for Obama to Stop Pandering<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDq5MsjPmQ9CrBcnhRTcsjNIPsIaAwDEz2CFgLg8FvH8ESVJQ4nCLfBP2dQuP8fFWurrei9Pzrbfiigf3Q3IfXz_mnxPAey4oiRdvtya7jOBqJCO7-dILSNDKxiUP8FRe8-Lv5ih6e-ds/s1600-h/art_kerry_gi.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDq5MsjPmQ9CrBcnhRTcsjNIPsIaAwDEz2CFgLg8FvH8ESVJQ4nCLfBP2dQuP8fFWurrei9Pzrbfiigf3Q3IfXz_mnxPAey4oiRdvtya7jOBqJCO7-dILSNDKxiUP8FRe8-Lv5ih6e-ds/s320/art_kerry_gi.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5235921952232913026" /></a>I have a friend named Sam who is about 24 years old (ahh to be young and politically motivated) and is excited about Obama. He has been for months and to be truthful he's been backing Obama since the beginning of the primaries. <br /><br />I have not. <br /><br />He asks me to help volunteer for Obama and I just can't bring myself to do it. I gave up months and months of my time for John Kerry but I can't do it for Obama. Truth is Obama's not half the man nor the hero Kerry was.<br /><br />I think I have mentioned here that I had to very slowly come around to Obama after first picking Edwards... and my decision to support Edwards was laced with hesitancy as well.<br /><br />For all of the propaganda the DNC put out about this being the best field ever assembled in a Democratic primary a whole hell of a lot of us knew better. Aside from the incredibly unelectable thanks to the media Dennis Kucinich, there wasn't a single liberal in the field. Just a bunch of Washington worn centrists who are used to playing ball with big business. <br /><br />So when John Edwards railed against big business, of course I was for his rhetoric even though I knew that Russ Feingold slamming Edwards for stealing his platform (but never enacting it when he was in the Senate) was spot on.<br /><br />For all the talk that Social Security is the third rail in politics, I say big business is the third rail. It is the corporatization of America that has destroyed so much of what our country was in the past 30 years. Look at any system that is failing in America and you'll see funds that were diverted from a public system to private corporations/companies and see that the privatization has actually worsened us in the areas that it was supposed to help.<br /><br />This is more evident in the public school system than anywhere else. We have schools falling apart, underpaid teachers, mandates on curriculum that force the teaching of two subjects, math and reading and water down or eliminate vital studies such as science, social studies, music, art, etc.<br /><br />Kids are dropping out at ridiculous rates, especially in inner cities where Republicans decided to mandate test scores while underfunding schools and teacher's pay and using this under performance as a way to prop up private school vouchers.<br /><br />It would be far cheaper to overhaul the public school system, fix schools, employ better teachers, get non-right wing propaganda textbooks than to keep funding vouchers for a few lucky kids.<br /><br />But hey, business will work better for you than your government.<br /><br />Republicans always say government doesn't work and then they get elected and prove it.<br /><br />A disturbing trend came out of Bill Clinton's Presidential win in 1992, the Democrats moved to the Right.<br /><br />They also supported big business over the little guy which in effect left the little guy to fend for himself in an ever growing class war they couldn't possibly win. After all they didn't own the newspapers or the television stations or the radio stations or even the textbook publishers so there's nobody propagandizing their point of view.<br /><br />And with politicians in Washington, both Republicans AND Democrats willing to bend over backwards to allow deregulation and media consolidation, the chance of the little guy ever having a voice just turned into nil. Can't have a voice when Washington rips out your vocal chords.<br /><br />If you think the impact of all of the media leaning towards the right hasn't had a profound effect culturally on America I ask you to look closer.<br /><br />From the way Unions have been demonized and nearly eliminated to the way public schooling is considered bad and the teachers given the heat for it (regardless of who defunded them). From the way abortion has been able to be portrayed more effectively as cold heartless murder to the way the war was for all the right reasons despite the fact that Bush blatantly broke the law and lied to make those reasons up. From the way oil companies and their huge profits are portrayed not to be to blame for high gas prices to the way people are basically told to just accept illegal wiretapping as if it's good for you.<br /><br />No matter what the situation, your media is working against you and for the big business that get extra benefits for spinning things that way. Most of the media companies cheer led for the war because other parts of those companies received billion dollar military contracts or at the very least huge ratings boosts during the invasion. There was profit motive involved in helping Iraq look justifiable so nobody questioned Bush hard on anything when clearly the liberals who were anti-war knew that the so-called "intelligence linking Iraq and al-Qaeda" was bogus from the start.<br /><br />Only the right wing media could convince you that despite mega rich corporations illegally not paying their taxes and shifting most of their money into overseas tax shelters to avoid paying their fair share, that's okay and it's for the good of America. Then they pass tax cuts for the ultra wealthy top 1% that don't affect you and trick you into thinking they made everyone's taxes lower. Then when we have HUGE deficits and debt that will cost all of our children and grandchildren down the road they have taught you that raising taxes for the ultra rich is raising taxes for everyone and it's unfair.<br /><br />So you continue to pay more than your fair share of the tax burden while the ultra rich pay nada.<br /><br />They tell you it's okay to bail out Bear Stearns and other subprime mortgage lenders even though they don't want to help the people that were tricked into these scam mortgages and are going to lose their home. Their spin is that it was uneducated, low credit bums that took these loans and it's their fault the economy is dying.<br /><br />They tell you global warming, despite every study to the contrary is fake because they want to protect the businesses most guilty for creating it, and instead they convince you that science which has been the foundation of our country since Ben Franklin, is a scam.<br /><br />You'll notice a theme here: It's never the rich's fault. It's always the poor people that fuck it up for everyone else.<br /><br />And by Democrats increasingly feeding at the corporate trough, it's impossible to see a difference in parties. That to me is a bigger death knell to this party than Obama losing and McCain continuing the Bush term.<br /><br />In 2000 and 2004 I honestly could say that there was no way in hell that anyone could use the "There's no difference between them line". Gore's stance on the environment was in stark contrast to any Republican I had ever heard and John Kerry had liberal bonafides before his Clinton-esque advisers pushed him to run to the center.<br /><br />There were differences. And to be fair there are some with Obama. But the more Obama and his advisers believe playing to the center (which thanks to political spectrum re-alignment by the media means center-right) the more they alienate the left wing of the base who is absolutely sick and tired of this crap.<br /><br />When JFK ran in the 1960 election the question was whether or not his Catholicism could be too influential on him as President. Now the right wing media has convinced everyone that if you're not a full on Christian that you are not acceptable for public office.<br /><br />That's a stunning reversal from what our Founding Fathers believed. Many of them were indeed Christians but most including Jefferson believed many priests and preachers to be charlatans who used the pulpit for personal gain rather than for the cause of good. <br /><br />Doris Kearns Goodwin, one of the leading Presidential Historians made an absolutely spot on comment on Hardball the other night when she declared it troubling because a man like Abraham Lincoln whose moral character was as great as any President in history would not have been elected today because he did have strong ties to a church.<br /><br />That to me pretty much sums it up. An atheist or agnostic running for President? Forget it! The heathens do not have God or Jesus in their heart and must be working for Satan!<br /><br />What makes Christians believe they have moral righteousness on their side above all other religions? <br /><br />Another fun media misnomer is "The War on Christianity". They extend this out to a war on Easter or war on Christmas. It couldn't be further from the truth, in fact it goes the other way. When communities don't want "Christmas" stuff on public property all they are doing is following the edict of separation of church and state as laid down by our forefathers. It is important to remember that when Bill O'Reilly or John Gibson or some other FAUX News tool goes out of their way to attack communities that try to even the playing field for all religions by not allowing any one of them to display on government property that they're ultimately doing this arguing to increase Christian viewership since they are a majority in our country.<br /><br />But those people are quick to forget that Christians are the ones pushing their displays onto public grounds to force these fights. They put nativity scenes up in parks or push ten commandments statues into courthouses where they have no place and are not the ruling laws that our judges need to adhere to. <br /><br />The Bible is written in a vague and ridiculous subjective way to draw multiple conclusions from all those who attempt to interpret it. To even suggest that this is how our law should be structured is stupidity at it's finest.<br /><br />All this goes back to my initial point about Obama. He has fallen into the corrupt media's "Christian or Bust" trap repeatedly. <br /><br />After they spent considerable time portraying him as a Muslim to low information voters, he had to come out forcibly for some reason to practically scream that he was a Christian. The media found that useful when Jeremiah Wright was out there making dumb statements so they could play "gotcha" with Obama on them but ignored that Christian background for the most part while he was painted as a "terrorist fist jab" artist on air.<br /><br />So once again he falls into their trap and agrees to go on the worst possible forum for Democrats at Rick "A Purpose Driven Life" Warren's evangelical church. A FAITH forum. What a stupid idea this is.<br /><br />So now we're trying to Out-Christian, nutcase right wing evangelicals who don't mind destroying the Earth because they think the rapture is coming?<br /><br />At least 75% of that crowd had no intention of ever voting for Obama anyway, so a stacked audience along with an anti-gay, anti-abortion preacher asking loaded questions that McCain could hear backstage and likely had in advance screams total set up. And anybody with a brain would have told Obama that there was no way to look good in this situation. <br /><br />You can't talk truth with a host of people who have black and white absolutes in their lives as guiding principles. They don't care what truths there are and any answer that is not absolute is John Kerry style waffling, which is what the media slammed Obama on.<br /><br />Forget that Pro-Choice really ISN'T pro-abortion, the media has painted it as such and any explanation to the contrary is ignored immediately. Forget that gays are people too and that discriminating against them is no different than discriminating against Blacks because the media has made being gay a choice and evangelicals call that choice a sin (although if a single damn one had ever read their bible they would understand we are all sinners, Jesus died for our ability to sin and as long as you repent before death you are welcome into heaven... so gays are no more sinners than everyone else). <br /><br />The audience loved McCain and made him look like a rock star because he gave absolutes for answers. "What can we do about evil?" McCain: "Defeat it." <br /><br />No matter that this question is completely stupid at every turn and it fails to look at how we could also be evil for what we have done across the world. <br /><br />Obama just setting foot in a forum that is this divisive towards other religions or views proves that he like the centrist Democrats that run Washington just don't get it. This doesn't even mention the fact that McCain cheated when he heard the questions in advance or address the totally different tones that Warren used to ask each candidate the same question. Obviously the whole thing was a set up from the get go but the problem ultimately lies in Obama's lack of judgment to participate in this charade to begin with.<br /><br />Democrats will always be treated as the media's red headed stepchild as long as they accept the media's framing of these arguments and continue to play by Republican rules. <br /><br />It casts them as weak and pushovers and the hard right wing pundits who have no such morality as to prevent them from lying every time their lips move know that the bigger the lie the more it will stick. It's been a Rovism since day one that you accuse your opponent of anything no matter how crazy or unrealistic because the time they have to use denying it costs them money and ultimately allows the image to stick in the public's mind.<br /><br />To all of those who will come out and say, "oh there's another anti-christian who hates religions" I say this... Imagine if schools were allowed to have religion in them. You'd probably be very happy if Bibles were handed out as textbooks. But what if Korans were also handed out? How would you feel about "Muhammad as a Prophet", being a class title? What about Buddhism, Hindu or Jewish studies?<br /><br />That's where the prejudice really lies. It's Christian or nothing. They don't want equality for religion in the public square, they want forced teaching of Christianity.<br /><br />Big Business, as usual is totally on board with this. After all Christians are a majority of our country and they want to make their customers happy. So the media plays them up as some sort of persecuted victims like this is the Roman time period or the Spanish Inquisition. It's not true, and if anything Christians have persecuted and attacked more people of other religions since those time periods than vice versa.<br /><br />Obama disappoints me because without the advisers that steered Kerry wrong he has purposely believed that the only way to win the election is to pander to the Right Wingers and hardcore evangelicals who don't believe him anyway.<br /><br />And in doing so he has left the left-wing of the party in the dust. An afterthought and a political casualty. If they don't want Bush III they have no choice but to vote for Obama.<br /><br />Oh don't start with that, "See! Hillary was a better choice!" shit either. Bill and Hillary started this whole move to the right movement and have helped groups like the DLC, DCCC and DSCC push only moderate-right candidates in elections everywhere.<br /><br />She would have been an even greater unmitigated disaster than Obama is.<br /><br />Look, we need to reclaim who we are. When polled, the majority of Americans side with Democrats and Liberals on Roe vs. Wade, on the Environment, on the economy, on foreign policy and especially on ending the Iraq War. <br /><br />But instead of running on all of these issues as they are, to the left of the current media-created spectrum, Obama has run to the right. As if EVERY independent voter he is courting will come from the right (that just isn't so). <br /><br />Instead of standing for strong progressive values, we are now the party of enablers. Nancy Pelosi enables Bush to break constitutional and Geneva convention laws at will when she refuses to endorse impeachment and outwardly claims no laws have been broken. Harry Reid enables Bush to continue to break the law by even allowing the FISA bill to hit the floor. The so-called Blue Dog Dems, courted by Rahm Emanuel and basically Republicans who ran as Democrats because the Republican brand is tainted, enable Bush by voting for his every bill.<br /><br />Now Obama is enabling them too... by continuing to pander to them and giving everyone a reason to choose between the right wing bullshitter or the guy who is trying to be like the right wing bullshitter.<br /><br />In a choice between those two, most voters go for the guy who's at least lying to your face rather than lying about wanting to lie to your face.<br /><br />I'll vote for Obama because of the two evils he's less evil, but I think we need to be careful when hearing the spin about a new kind of politics. A new kind of politics would allow liberals to be liberals, right wingers to be right wingers and to honestly lay out where both sides stands on everything. That my friends, is a war we win every time. Nobody would side for a pro-perpetual war, anti-health care, anti-social security, anti-environment, anti-choice, pro-huge pentagon and government spending, anti-public schools or public assistance, anti-gays and minority candidate over the alternative. <br /><br />There are Democrats I still support. I am fond of Dennis Kucinich, Tammy Baldwin, Robert Wexler, Russ Feingold and a few others. But for the most part the party has been corrupted by corporate campaign cash and influence.<br /><br />There needs to be two parties once again. One for the rich, one for the people. As it stands there are two parties in name only and one party in philosophy running everything.<br /><br />-RpRobert Poole Jr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04306170039293680126noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-215768401182592945.post-34354570412245220482008-08-05T16:27:00.001-05:002008-08-05T16:27:51.565-05:00"Fiscal Conservative"<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjrUO_AiWtxk3hb7nNuei1BlInGqqjb6Z7q5Kv56aq3ui3Mmdu2AqfGcHdv-WK1znSNAUjMs6CtoKZ5xaBnexo5wR_MT0v8abfkYkaO7UZfeJAAiLo1kqDuMDVQAYDd5Pm7l2yidi3BRo/s1600-h/fiscal+conservative.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjrUO_AiWtxk3hb7nNuei1BlInGqqjb6Z7q5Kv56aq3ui3Mmdu2AqfGcHdv-WK1znSNAUjMs6CtoKZ5xaBnexo5wR_MT0v8abfkYkaO7UZfeJAAiLo1kqDuMDVQAYDd5Pm7l2yidi3BRo/s400/fiscal+conservative.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5231148422450472066" /></a>Robert Poole Jr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04306170039293680126noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-215768401182592945.post-66451297333641619052008-07-18T12:47:00.003-05:002008-07-18T12:49:26.678-05:00We Can Solve The Climate Change IssueAl Gore gives an incredibly important speech. Now we'll see how corrupt Washington politicans and big oil lobbyists attempt to squash this.<br /><br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/idlJDcr669o&rel=0&hl=en"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/idlJDcr669o&rel=0&hl=en" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>Robert Poole Jr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04306170039293680126noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-215768401182592945.post-36561850455877682942008-07-16T19:43:00.000-05:002008-07-16T19:44:18.850-05:00John McCain = Illiterate Flunky<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/srbX26vp57c&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/srbX26vp57c&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>Robert Poole Jr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04306170039293680126noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-215768401182592945.post-50941181337683199742008-07-15T00:48:00.004-05:002008-07-15T01:04:53.594-05:00The Value of Life<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNvXsz7eBSmKmNUDS69w8SVKDJNHYMaCMKEyzVUzdqFB93g-_XuCFMb8WKLIumOSC7B7a6pDnJLj6C4tQ8KyBfX00OMob5Bycj_rAP8nQkcukSOuX1WaqQvVFTFmWlrx2Zoo2PtJYPA9E/s1600-h/babs.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNvXsz7eBSmKmNUDS69w8SVKDJNHYMaCMKEyzVUzdqFB93g-_XuCFMb8WKLIumOSC7B7a6pDnJLj6C4tQ8KyBfX00OMob5Bycj_rAP8nQkcukSOuX1WaqQvVFTFmWlrx2Zoo2PtJYPA9E/s320/babs.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5223114285995893410" /></a>I guess it came as no surprise to me this past week when I found out that not only was our government calculating the dollar amount each of our lives were worth but also that since Bush took office our lives <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/07/10/american-life-worth-less_n_112030.html">lost nearly $1 million</a> in said value.<br /><br />After all I can’t think of very many Americans outside of well connected rich people (see: Oil company executives) and the Bushies themselves who haven’t felt that we just lost close to a decade of our lives (or set our children back 20-30 years in progress and debt). <br /><br />What a wasted opportunity after all. We ended the year 2000 with a budget surplus, gas prices were still fairly low, we hadn’t started a war of choice with an enemy that had nothing to do with an attack on us and FEMA still existed as a way to help citizens rather than to murder them and steal their property.<br /><br />Our environment wasn’t exactly on a full path to green energy but we might have President Gore there to make that a reality.<br /><br />Instead we have had eight years of the biggest disaster ever to hit America. Sure, 9/11 was bad, Katrina was horrible but none of them top the totality of Dubya.<br /><br />After all had he not been President there is certainly a case to be made that 9/11 might never have happened because we are fairly certain President Gore wouldn’t have ignored that August 6, 2001 PDB nor would he have told the agents that briefed him that they had “<a href="http://mediamatters.org/items/200608240013">covered their ass</a>” in attempts to shoo them away out of annoyance.<br /><br />Katrina would have still happened. It was an act of nature after all. But President Gore was far more likely to approve the funding needed to repair those levies. And even if that had not happened he sure as hell wouldn’t have left them to die in the Superdome, cutting residents off from any form of escape and then after waiting days to do nothing offered short term trailers that poisoned the people that stayed in there. Not even to mention, his FEMA would not have allowed these trailers to be used since <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/19/AR2007071901039_pf.html">the agency knew they were poisoned</a>.<br /><br />Of course the woulda, coulda, shouldas count for nothing at this point. <br /><br />However you have to wonder, since they’re putting a price tag on us, how much are Iraqi lives worth?<br /><br />You could try to count the deaths (suppressed or uncounted by our Defense Department) and take our current spending on the war and divide it up but that brings up two issues.<br /><br />1. Since the death count is going up daily and we aren’t given legitimate numbers how do we even know these numbers are legitimate? Oh yeah and we’re still not done throwing money at this war so those numbers will change too.<br /><br />2. That money is going to <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0615-05.htm">Halliburton</a>, GE, Blackwater, etc. Not to Iraqi people. We’re paying them regardless of <a href="http://www.airforcetimes.com/news/2008/01/military_iraqcontractors_080124w/">whether or not they fulfill the contract</a>. This money has no relation to the Iraqi citizens. In fact if it were not the Iraq War, Bush would most certainly find another way to launder this money to them. See the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xU4GdHLUHwU">$2-3 trillion that is missing from the Pentagon</a>. No accountability = theft of your tax dollars.<br /><br />So when I try to put in context how much the Iraqi life is worth I think the foremost expert of life worth evaluation, <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0905-04.htm">Babs herself said it best</a>.<br /><br /><blockquote>''Why should we hear about body bags and deaths and how many, what day it's gonna happen?'' Mrs. Bush declared. ''It's not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?''</blockquote><br /><br />And why should she? Her beautiful mind sees the biggest fucking lemons you have ever seen and she makes lemonade with it!<br /><br />When speaking about Hurricane refugees that were staying at the Astrodome in Houston <a href="http://www.boston.com/news/weather/articles/2005/09/08/mrs_bush_remarks_were_observation/">she said</a>:<br /><br /><blockquote>''What I'm hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them."</blockquote><br /><br />I know Barbara Bush doesn’t make policy but her equally uncaring son does. We now have proof that Bush was going into Iraq no matter what evidence steered them away from 9/11 wrongdoing. <br /><br />Bush didn't care who died. He wanted his War glory and he wanted Saddam as his trophy. When you consider that and how those contracts would have been given to those companies, if not for Iraq then for something else, the answer is clear. Iraqi lives are worth zero (well at least according to our current Government). If they're not worth being counted correctly or worth protecting by not invading nor pulling out then Bush obviously sees these people as expendable. <br /><br />And if Iraqi lives are worth zero while being set up as a corporate power grab for his buddies, Afghanistani people must be worth even less than that. Especially when you consider that we invaded there to capture Bin Laden and then let him go and just stopped caring or thinking about him at all. They died for nothing and weren’t even worth the corporate hullabaloo that Iraq was.<br /><br />And hey you can make conflicting cases for the value of American lives either going up or down.<br /><br />On one hand the value of the dollar is less thanks to Bush tanking our economy with deregulation of housing and energy markets so it’s only natural our lives would be worth less with that devaluation. <br /><br />On the other there are more of us dead thanks to two wars, 9/11, countless disasters where the government didn’t care about acting and a completely broken health care system that only rewards drug and insurance companies. So by that theory there should be more American money to spread to fewer people right?<br /><br />Oh wait, Bush has sold America to Chinese debt basically so there actually is less value to each of us… well at least in American Dollars.<br /><br />The point of this that through the past eight years we have seen the value of human life actually be defined. Although it’s not in dollars as the EPA’s report says. <br /><br />Human life is something you put a price tag on when you are evaluating whether or not to protect people through regulatory laws (aka how does protecting people hurt my rich corporate friends?)<br />And Human life is also a valuable political football… red meat to throw at the Christian Right when you play the abortion card. Of course nobody mentions that the GOP and Bush owned Congress for 6 years and they could have passed something to end Roe v. Wade or seriously restrict or possibly even end legalized abortion. They know better. They don’t really care about it until it’s campaign time when they can sucker you in with all of those extreme photos of “botched abortions” and all the dead fetuses (which again are incredibly dishonest since most abortions look nothing like this and occur well before the baby has developed into anything even close to that large).<br /><br />Once these mothers to be give birth though, Republicans again don’t care about life. They cut programs like Food Stamps, Medical Assistance, Energy Assistance, WIC, AFDC, School Lunch Programs, public education funding, etc. They make it impossible to get help in raising the baby they insist you have.<br /><br />The combination of that complete lack of caring about young children. Their usual eagerness to support torture and the death penalty. Their incredibly stupid plans for perpetual war. Their aggressive attempts to build more nukes to destroy the world. Their smash and grab style of theft to people who suffer through natural disasters as their Government leaves them to die. Their attempts to <a href="http://www.whistleblower.org/doc/2007/Final%203.28%20Redacting%20Climate%20Science%20Report.pdf">edit, censor and re-write EPA reports that prove that our planet is in peril</a> thanks to our energy habits. Their lack of willingness to take care of 9/11 first responders or to veterans returning from these wars.<br /><br />Forget that EPA report. You, just like the Iraqis are worth nothing. Zero. Zip. Nada.<br /><br />It’s their world. Only the ultra rich are worth anything and they use lobbyists, their owned media outlets and basic propaganda to keep you blaming yourself.<br /><br />It’s the stupid people who lived in New Orleans that didn’t leave that deserved to die. Not the Government who forced many to stay.<br /><br />It’s the lazy people that don’t work that abuse welfare and steal your hard earned tax dollars but it’s not the corporations fault if they require billions more than social welfare could ever cost you in corporate welfare to make sure they make bigger profits and those CEOs can make $20-200 million.<br /><br />It’s the idiots that didn’t understand home loans and took ones they couldn’t afford that made the housing market bust, not the mortgage lenders who purposely schemed to rip these people off with conveniently confusing loans that changed terms easily.<br /><br />Blame the victim. And why not? They’re worthless anyway.Robert Poole Jr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04306170039293680126noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-215768401182592945.post-88722456098330043922008-06-19T20:34:00.006-05:002008-06-20T11:39:08.333-05:00Oil Prices: How Drilling Offshore will do nothing to lower prices and how we got where we are today<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1aGUITSt0h9t1n7T2RXX9H46tulPLeq9Rk2BMszmHdgMHbmCzFsM5zy2WwtskjDz2dOmBYO6El8CGRGBxxDqXd34m362_UIE0W1iIqSLv-UyMRhk1AzOVWAkGlDiA6NeLE8Abqa6unAk/s1600-h/enron+logo.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1aGUITSt0h9t1n7T2RXX9H46tulPLeq9Rk2BMszmHdgMHbmCzFsM5zy2WwtskjDz2dOmBYO6El8CGRGBxxDqXd34m362_UIE0W1iIqSLv-UyMRhk1AzOVWAkGlDiA6NeLE8Abqa6unAk/s320/enron+logo.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5213772953739715378" /></a>Wow it didn't take long for Republicans to find a cheap ploy to use politically in their favor did it? And a lot of Americans seem to be buying it hook, line and sinker. <br /><br />McCain and Bush went out of their way to push for offshore drilling making the argument that if there was more oil out there that prices would drop. There's two major flaws in that argument. But before we move forward, let's review how we got here and why prices are actually inflated:<br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/ugss-PcNomg"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ugss-PcNomg" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br />Okay so now we see that the Enron Loophole create deregulation that basically allowed Energy Companies and Banks to own the market. They could use their influence in a corrupt way to fuel a speculation bubble and essentially they could buy the market into a higher profit zone. Great for them, horrible for us. <br /><br />Luckily help is on the way. The Farm Bill that Keith references, McCain voted against and Bush vetoed, was passed thanks to a veto override in Congress. That means on September 30, 2009 the loophole closes and economists predict that gas/oil prices could be lowered as much as 25-50% overnight.<br /><br />Finally a light at the end of the tunnel. <br /><br />What about offshore drilling? Could that <em>also</em> help?<br /><br />From <a href="http://www.theseminal.com/2008/06/18/drilling-is-a-fraud/">The Seminal's Jason Rosenbaum</a>:<br /><blockquote> Reason #1: Offshore Drilling Won't Increase Oil Supplies For 7-10 Years<br /><br />That's right, even if we repeal all bans on drilling anywhere in the U.S., we won't see the benefits for almost a decade:<br /><br />That's the estimate from the American Petroleum Institute, the oil industry trade group. Major environmental groups think the increased supply would be at least that distant before arrival, and say it mostly would benefit Big Oil.<br /><br />"It would take a decade to bring new leases into production, and then they would only line the coffers of the oil industry," said Carl Pope, the Sierra Club's executive director.<br /><br />Reason #2: Offshore Drilling Only Makes Financial Sense When Oil Prices Are High<br /><br />Offshore drilling is expensive:<br /><br />However, analysts on all sides agree that drilling faces political, regulatory and economic hurdles. Individual states could forbid it. If exploration were allowed, permits would have to be granted, and before that environmental concerns must be addressed. Drilling also would have to make economic sense: Offshore drilling is expensive, and the more remote the site, the more costly it is.<br /><br />Therefore, offshore drilling would only make economic sense if the oil tapped could be sold at a high price. Once the price of oil drops (which it is unlikely to do, but let's think hypothetically), offshore drills lose money, they get shut down, and prices go up again. Offshore drilling will not solve our gas price problem.<br /><br />Reason #3: There's Probably Not A Lot Of Oil Out There<br /><br />Bush and McCain tout drilling as a way towards energy independence. It's not; it's only a very short-term fix. Once we get the drilling going (remember, 7-10 years), there isn't much oil to drill:<br /><br />The Interior Department offered a wide range of estimates of how much oil might be within reach of U.S. offshore drilling in a 2006 report. It estimated that the Outer Continental Shelf could hold 115.4 billion barrels. However, it also estimated that recoverable reserves off U.S. coasts in areas now banned from production probably hold only about 19 billion barrels.<br /><br />…<br /><br />The world consumes about 86 million barrels a day. The U.S. share of that is about 20.6 million barrels, 60 percent of them from foreign sources.<br /><br />One thousand million barrels equals 1 billion, so if there are 19 billion barrels in the areas McCain would open to drilling, that's enough to provide about 920 days, or about 2.5 years, of current U.S. consumption.<br /><br />That's right. Drill in all the places you can't drill now and you get (gong!) a whopping 2.5 years worth of oil. And that's assuming consumption levels stay static, which they have never done.<br /><br />Reason #4: Oh, And There Are No Ships To Carry That Oil<br /><br />Even if you did build the wells (7-10 years), make it economically feasable to keep them open (that means high oil prices), and tap all that oil (only 2.5 years worth), you wouldn't be able to find a ship to drill the oil and ship it back to shore for use:<br /><br />In recent years, this global shortage of drill-ships has created a critical bottleneck, frustrating energy company executives and constraining their ability to exploit known reserves or find new ones. Slow growth in oil supplies, at a time of soaring demand, has been a major factor in the spike of oil and gasoline prices.<br /><br />Mr. Bush called on Congress Wednesday to end a longstanding federal ban on offshore drilling and open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil exploration, arguing that the steps were needed to lower gasoline prices and bolster national security. But even as oil trades at more than $135 a barrel — up from $68 a year ago — the world’s existing drill-ships are booked solid for the next five years. Some oil companies have been forced to postpone exploration while waiting for a drilling rig, executives and analysts said.<br /><br />You can even explore for new oil fields for 5 years due to lack of ships!</blockquote><br /><br />Jason's first four points are incredibly valid ones (his fifth point, that speculation is not making oil prices rise is a bit off although in fairness it's deregulation coupled with the speculation that these energy companies and banks are orchestrating in concert that has created this problem so to blame it solely on market speculators would be leaving a lot of this story out). As he mentioned drilling oil might be impossible because of the <a href="http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/06/18/business/ships.php">shortage of drilling ships</a>.<br /><br />There is <a href="http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2008/jun/19/MCCAINOIL/">no immediate gain to be had</a> from drilling now.<br /><br />In fact McCain's own advisor <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/2008/06/18/top-mccain-adviser-offshore-drilling-will-have-no-immediate-effect-on-gas-prices/">admitted as much</a>:<br /><br /><blockquote>But McCain’s message was contradicted yesterday by his top economic adviser, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, who told reporters that new offshore drilling wouldn’t help lower current gas prices:<br /><br />Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a senior advisor to McCain’s campaign, acknowledged in a conference call to reporters that new offshore drilling would have no immediate effect on supplies or prices.<br /><br />The Energy Information Administration says that new offshore drilling wouldn’t have “<a href="http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/aeo/otheranalysis/ongr.html">a significant impact</a>” on gas prices until 2030.</blockquote><br /><br />By 2030 shouldn't we be well on our way to alternative energy? There's pretty much no excuse if by that time we're not using solar and wind energy pretty close to exclusively. <br /><br />RpRobert Poole Jr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04306170039293680126noreply@blogger.com0