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What we Americans are paying for health care is grand larceny! Costs keep shooting up far faster than inflation and at a rate much higher than do American salaries. As with last summer's ridiculously high $4 per gallon gasoline prices, the main cause is corporate greed, particularly in the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries. Their greed is an indefensible abuse of the marketplace, all the more so at a time when Americans' wages have been stagnating or in decline for years now, and food, energy, and almost all other costs have been on a steady rise.
Health insurance providers love to blame the high cost of health care on doctors, but this is a dishonest claim designed to focus attention away from their own most definite contribution. According to an industry survey done by Merritt Hawkins & Associates, in 2007, 81.29% of all primary care physicians made $225,000 or less annually (and only 8.9% made in excess of $300,000). Surgeons and specialists, of course, drew higher salaries, but their numbers are smaller than those of primary care physicians. And yes, all of these doctors have well-paid staffs including nurses, medical technicians, therapists, x-ray technicians, etc., but their salaries are all much less than that of physicians or surgeons. Not only that, but health insurance companies have large staffs themselves. Now $225,000 or $300,000 may seem like a gigantic amount to a person earing only $25,000 or $50,000 per year, but the number seems less gargantuan when one considers the many years of expensive higher education put in by physicians as well as the colossally high malpractice insurance rates they must pay. So this attempt by insurance companies to use physicians as whipping boys for the high and ever-rising cost of health care is a deliberate deceit.
Now that we have exposed the myth of the massively-overpaid physicians, let's look at the humungous salaries the health insurance and pharmaceutical company CEOs "earn" (steal?). According to an August 23, 2007 WEB MD blog called "Nad About Medicine," in an article entitled "CEO Compensation: Who Said Health Care is in a Financial Crisis?", in 2005 the CEO of United Health Group was paid a staggering $124.8 MILLION, the CEO of Forest Labs got $92.1 MILLION, Merck's CEO got $37.8 MILLION, Aetna's CEO received $22.1 MILLION, Becton-Dickinson's got $10 MILLION, and Eli Lilly's got $7.2 MILLION. Keep in mind, these are only CEO salaries and DON'T include Senior VPs', VPs', or other board members' compensation rates, which are also extremely high. You'll be guaranteed to grab your wallet or pocketbook in terror and puke green if you go to The Industry Reader's website at http://www.theindustryreader.com/index.cfm?account=radar&page=Healthplan_Executive_Co . Here you'll see that, in 2007, the top 6 health plan boards paid themselves a whopping $277,998,793. That same year, the entire Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches of our government cost us, in comparison, only $95,974,600. Damn few health insurance board members have ever directly saved a life or eased someone's pain. So why should these pigs and their counterparts in the pharmaceutical industry be paid salaries in the MILLIONS while the infinitely better-educated and more valuable physicians be paid only in the hundreds of THOUSANDS? This is unjustifiable, immoral, and we are most definitely not getting our money's worth from these vastly overpaid, leveraged parasite middlemen!
Clearly, with health insurance providers and pharmaceutical companies swimming in mounds of money and excessively profiting off of human illness and suffering, this setup is in need of radical reform. The piggish executives live lives of absolute luxury, while 1 in 7 of us cannot even afford health insurance, and the prospect of cancer treatments or major surgery spells certain loss of property and life savings. This is blatantly wrong and thoroughly evil. Hospitals (even so-called non-profit ones) have become giant money vacuums sucking the public dry. Doctors are being squeezed by health insurance bandits, who are now effectively dictating terms of health care for purposes of profit by cherry-picking whom and what they will cover, how often, and how much. Regrettably, the John Edwards health care plan will not be adopted. It would have truly provided universal health care for all citizens and would have closely resembled plans long in use all over Europe and Canada. It would have also booted the self-serving, profiteering insurance company pigs out of the picture altogether. Instead, we will most likely end up with a version of the Obama plan, which will still be far better than what we have today, but it will unfortunately allow the insurance parasites to still sit at the planning and operations tables. So it will fall short of the mark we truly need to hit. Oh well, I guess 10% of something is better than 100% of nothing...
One parting thought: The next time you are at your doctor's and feel like grumbling at the $15, $20, or $25 co-pay you must pay, just remember that your doctor, just like you, is also getting screwed by the profiteering insurance companies!
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Friday, January 9, 2009
GIVE AMERICAN WORKERS A BIG BREAK!
"Political freedom without economic equality is a pretense, a fraud, and a lie."
- Russian theorist Mikhail Bakunin -
""Less than 8 percent of private sector workers belonged to a union in 2004, and overall, only 12.5 percent of American workers carry a union card - down from about one-third of workers in labor's heyday of the 1950s."
- Fox "News" analyst Linda Chavez -
"Jobs are disappearing from every sector of the economy, from engineers to health care workers, forcing hundreds of thousands of families into unemployment and low-paying jobs."
- Rep. Jerry Costello (D-IL) -
"Unfair trade agreements, passed by both Republicans and Democrats, have sent millions of jobs to other countries. We need to stop this hemorrhaging and find ways for American workers to compete in the new market."
- Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) -
"Median wages of production workers, who comprise 80 percent of the workforce, haven't risen in 30 years, adjusted for inflation."
- Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich -
"In this 'New Economy,' there are no standards, no borders, and no rules. Clearly, the global economy isn't working for workers in China, Indonesia, and Burma, any more than it is for workers here in the U.S."
- AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney -
"There is no social program in this country that is as important as a good job that pays well, that gives someone an opportunity to go to work, have some security, have benefits, take care of their family and have a good life."
- Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND) -
"We want only loyal workers who are grateful from the bottom of their hearts for the bread which we have let them earn."
- Nazi Germany Industrialist Gustav Krupp -
(STUFF IT, Krupp! What you REALLY wanted was SLAVE LABOR)!
It is high time to stop beating up on the American worker. Today, though tops in the world in productivity, they are often subtly referred to as greedy and overpaid, (especially union workers), with a sense of undeserved entitlement. This is absolute bullshit constantly being soft-pedaled in the Op Ed pages of the notoriously wrong-wing, anti-labor, pro-corporate Wall Street Journal. It is echoed repeatedly, like a mantra, by that paper's severely misguided avid followers and parrots in the business community and Chamber of Commerce circles. The fact of the matter is that the American worker has been getting screwed for decades by both business AND government and this practice must now come to a screeching halt. FINALLY - now that conservative Republican Wall Street Journal types have nearly driven us into a 1930s-style depression with their absurd economic policies - FINALLY, our people and government are beginning to wake up. Come January 20, we may at long last start seeing some economic policy implementations beneficial to the middle class and poor rather than just the wealthy and big business. We have not seen such policy in more than 35 years, and its return will be a most welcome sight!
We have been fed a number of deliberate economic lies by the conservative Republican Wall Street Journal crowd for years. Each has been disastrous when adopted as policy. The first was that American workers were paid too much, so a concerted effort began to destroy labor unions and freeze or roll back wages and benefits. Today, moronic conservative mouthpieces like Mitch McConnell, Tom Coburn, and John Boehner love to spread this bullshit. This is a blatantly transparent attempt to pass blame for our current downslide away from their own misguided policy and onto organized labor. Their claim that Michigan UAW laborers are paid $70-$80 per hour (including benefits and retirement) is a bald-faced lie designed to destroy the auto union. They know damn well the REAL figure is around $40 per hour, a mere couple of dollars higher than their beloved southern, non-union Toyota workers. Of course, they mention nothing about how corporate boards have paid themselves exorbitant salaries for years while raping the American worker for much of the past 3 decades. In their view, that is perfectly ok, and the way capitalism is supposed to work. These guys are completely nuts: Stevie Wonder has clearer vision than they! Since the numbers of working poor and middle class VASTLY outnumber those of the tiny wealthy elite, and since those on the bottom and middle income levels are the ones who keep the economy going with volume mortgage, car, rent, grocery, and consumer goods expenditures, this "cut their wages" effort has now finally resulted in our economy contracting. Prior to this, the negative effect was a flood of buying on credit and resultant indebtedness, which has shamefully led us to change from the world's greatest lender nation 25 years ago to the world's hugest debtor nation now. In only 25 years! While a bit of foreign investment is always good and healthy, the increasing level we are at today, with foreign countries buying and now operating some of our ports, roads, and even some of our bigger corporations, we have reached an UNHEALTHY level which threatens our future leverage and freedom. Nice going, conservative idiots.
Another lie was that, by enabling the already wealthy to greatly expand their wealth, all levels of income would prosper and grow wealthier too, as a sort of "trickle down" effect. This was perhaps the biggest and most criminal lie of all. "Trickle down" economics have benefitted only the rich. Repeated tax cuts for the wealthy and huge corporations have NOT led to domestic investment and created millions of high-paying jobs here, as was initially promised. In fact, the exact OPPOSITE has occurred. Millions of jobs, and even entire plants, have LEFT this country for cheap and sometimes slave-labor markets overseas. American workers' wages and benefits have now been firmly frozen for a number of years, and a good many of them have dropped. Meanwhile, wealthy business owners', as well as corporate CEOs' and board members' salaries and perks have shot up as high as a Mars rocket. This is not progress and expansion. It is regression and contraction. The conservative crowd loves to trumpet the virtues of self-reliance and personal responsibility. We have seen precious little of these coming from them in recent years, though. They should practice what they preach. Their perversion of capitalism has resulted in a new form of domestic economic slavery for American workers. The "free market" has only realistically been free for business owners, officers of huge corporations, and the wealthy. American workers have lost ground and flexibility. Once more, we can thank the conservative Republican Wall Street Journal / Chamber of Commerce crowd for these detrimental developments, too. Great job, you criminals!
It's so ridiculous to hear the wealthy and their wannabe dreamers and apologists scream "socialism" or "class warfare" when workers complain about the economic status quo and cry out for higher taxes for the rich and a more level playing field regarding income levels. CLASS WARFARE? Exactly whom is attacking whom here? Which group is launching the artillery? If freezing or lowering workers' wages, breaking their unions, and sending their jobs overseas while simultaneously vastly raising your own salary doesn't constitute an act of war and dropping a bomb directly on American workers, I don't know what does! The pot should definitely not be calling the kettle black here!
Yet another dangerous myth fed us by the Wall Street Journal clique has been that deregulation would improve business efficiency and lower costs. What we have seen instead have been runaway energy and pharmaceutical costs, a massive mortgage and banking meltdown, widespread corruption IN Wall Street itself, plus an unheard-of and rising number of food poisoning cases all across the country.
Finally, we come to the unrestricted-free-trade-is-good-for-everybody lie. This "free trade" mentality has led to disastrously one-sided trade deals NOT beneficial to our interests. It has enabled China to peg its currency at a ridiculously low rate, effectively undercutting us severely on the world market. It has caused a gigantic trade deficit here, the net effect of which has been a massive and rapid transfer of our wealth out of the country. This has made it possible for China, the most populous nation on earth, to considerably grow its military and transform it from a defensive posture into an offensive one. It has also made it possible for they and the Arabian oil states to buy up billions of dollars of our national debt. That's right, folks: When you borrow money these days and pay it back, you're effectively paying it back to the Chinese and to wealthy Arabs. NOT a very smart move, conservative "free-traders."
But now, let's return to the besieged American worker. There is something seriously wrong in this country when people are led to believe that those who sweat and get their hands dirty manufacturing products or providing services are somehow greedy for wanting a bigger slice of our economic pie, while those at the top who hold them down or transfer their jobs overseas are the only ones deserving of greater wealth and admiration. There is something fundamentally wrong with our country and its economic system when it effectively lowers our standard of living and forces our now overworked, underpaid, and highly productive workforce to compete for jobs with lesser-educated and less productive workers in developing countries. And there is something morally wrong with our government and business community when they pursue foolish, one-sided trade deals, and vote down minimum wage increases 9 times out of 10 (even as their own wages rise continually). We desperately need a change in economic direction, toward new pioneering technologies we can export at a PROFIT so we can reverse the downward trend conservative economic policies have put us on. The answer to restoring this economy's health lies in putting MORE money in the hands of our workers, not less. It is now time to stop heaping abuse on the overwhelming majority of our population, and to GIVE AMERICAN WORKERS A BIG BREAK!!!
IN A FEW DAYS: "WHY AMERICAN HEALTH CARE COSTS SO MUCH"
- Russian theorist Mikhail Bakunin -
""Less than 8 percent of private sector workers belonged to a union in 2004, and overall, only 12.5 percent of American workers carry a union card - down from about one-third of workers in labor's heyday of the 1950s."
- Fox "News" analyst Linda Chavez -
"Jobs are disappearing from every sector of the economy, from engineers to health care workers, forcing hundreds of thousands of families into unemployment and low-paying jobs."
- Rep. Jerry Costello (D-IL) -
"Unfair trade agreements, passed by both Republicans and Democrats, have sent millions of jobs to other countries. We need to stop this hemorrhaging and find ways for American workers to compete in the new market."
- Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) -
"Median wages of production workers, who comprise 80 percent of the workforce, haven't risen in 30 years, adjusted for inflation."
- Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich -
"In this 'New Economy,' there are no standards, no borders, and no rules. Clearly, the global economy isn't working for workers in China, Indonesia, and Burma, any more than it is for workers here in the U.S."
- AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney -
"There is no social program in this country that is as important as a good job that pays well, that gives someone an opportunity to go to work, have some security, have benefits, take care of their family and have a good life."
- Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND) -
"We want only loyal workers who are grateful from the bottom of their hearts for the bread which we have let them earn."
- Nazi Germany Industrialist Gustav Krupp -
(STUFF IT, Krupp! What you REALLY wanted was SLAVE LABOR)!
It is high time to stop beating up on the American worker. Today, though tops in the world in productivity, they are often subtly referred to as greedy and overpaid, (especially union workers), with a sense of undeserved entitlement. This is absolute bullshit constantly being soft-pedaled in the Op Ed pages of the notoriously wrong-wing, anti-labor, pro-corporate Wall Street Journal. It is echoed repeatedly, like a mantra, by that paper's severely misguided avid followers and parrots in the business community and Chamber of Commerce circles. The fact of the matter is that the American worker has been getting screwed for decades by both business AND government and this practice must now come to a screeching halt. FINALLY - now that conservative Republican Wall Street Journal types have nearly driven us into a 1930s-style depression with their absurd economic policies - FINALLY, our people and government are beginning to wake up. Come January 20, we may at long last start seeing some economic policy implementations beneficial to the middle class and poor rather than just the wealthy and big business. We have not seen such policy in more than 35 years, and its return will be a most welcome sight!
We have been fed a number of deliberate economic lies by the conservative Republican Wall Street Journal crowd for years. Each has been disastrous when adopted as policy. The first was that American workers were paid too much, so a concerted effort began to destroy labor unions and freeze or roll back wages and benefits. Today, moronic conservative mouthpieces like Mitch McConnell, Tom Coburn, and John Boehner love to spread this bullshit. This is a blatantly transparent attempt to pass blame for our current downslide away from their own misguided policy and onto organized labor. Their claim that Michigan UAW laborers are paid $70-$80 per hour (including benefits and retirement) is a bald-faced lie designed to destroy the auto union. They know damn well the REAL figure is around $40 per hour, a mere couple of dollars higher than their beloved southern, non-union Toyota workers. Of course, they mention nothing about how corporate boards have paid themselves exorbitant salaries for years while raping the American worker for much of the past 3 decades. In their view, that is perfectly ok, and the way capitalism is supposed to work. These guys are completely nuts: Stevie Wonder has clearer vision than they! Since the numbers of working poor and middle class VASTLY outnumber those of the tiny wealthy elite, and since those on the bottom and middle income levels are the ones who keep the economy going with volume mortgage, car, rent, grocery, and consumer goods expenditures, this "cut their wages" effort has now finally resulted in our economy contracting. Prior to this, the negative effect was a flood of buying on credit and resultant indebtedness, which has shamefully led us to change from the world's greatest lender nation 25 years ago to the world's hugest debtor nation now. In only 25 years! While a bit of foreign investment is always good and healthy, the increasing level we are at today, with foreign countries buying and now operating some of our ports, roads, and even some of our bigger corporations, we have reached an UNHEALTHY level which threatens our future leverage and freedom. Nice going, conservative idiots.
Another lie was that, by enabling the already wealthy to greatly expand their wealth, all levels of income would prosper and grow wealthier too, as a sort of "trickle down" effect. This was perhaps the biggest and most criminal lie of all. "Trickle down" economics have benefitted only the rich. Repeated tax cuts for the wealthy and huge corporations have NOT led to domestic investment and created millions of high-paying jobs here, as was initially promised. In fact, the exact OPPOSITE has occurred. Millions of jobs, and even entire plants, have LEFT this country for cheap and sometimes slave-labor markets overseas. American workers' wages and benefits have now been firmly frozen for a number of years, and a good many of them have dropped. Meanwhile, wealthy business owners', as well as corporate CEOs' and board members' salaries and perks have shot up as high as a Mars rocket. This is not progress and expansion. It is regression and contraction. The conservative crowd loves to trumpet the virtues of self-reliance and personal responsibility. We have seen precious little of these coming from them in recent years, though. They should practice what they preach. Their perversion of capitalism has resulted in a new form of domestic economic slavery for American workers. The "free market" has only realistically been free for business owners, officers of huge corporations, and the wealthy. American workers have lost ground and flexibility. Once more, we can thank the conservative Republican Wall Street Journal / Chamber of Commerce crowd for these detrimental developments, too. Great job, you criminals!
It's so ridiculous to hear the wealthy and their wannabe dreamers and apologists scream "socialism" or "class warfare" when workers complain about the economic status quo and cry out for higher taxes for the rich and a more level playing field regarding income levels. CLASS WARFARE? Exactly whom is attacking whom here? Which group is launching the artillery? If freezing or lowering workers' wages, breaking their unions, and sending their jobs overseas while simultaneously vastly raising your own salary doesn't constitute an act of war and dropping a bomb directly on American workers, I don't know what does! The pot should definitely not be calling the kettle black here!
Yet another dangerous myth fed us by the Wall Street Journal clique has been that deregulation would improve business efficiency and lower costs. What we have seen instead have been runaway energy and pharmaceutical costs, a massive mortgage and banking meltdown, widespread corruption IN Wall Street itself, plus an unheard-of and rising number of food poisoning cases all across the country.
Finally, we come to the unrestricted-free-trade-is-good-for-everybody lie. This "free trade" mentality has led to disastrously one-sided trade deals NOT beneficial to our interests. It has enabled China to peg its currency at a ridiculously low rate, effectively undercutting us severely on the world market. It has caused a gigantic trade deficit here, the net effect of which has been a massive and rapid transfer of our wealth out of the country. This has made it possible for China, the most populous nation on earth, to considerably grow its military and transform it from a defensive posture into an offensive one. It has also made it possible for they and the Arabian oil states to buy up billions of dollars of our national debt. That's right, folks: When you borrow money these days and pay it back, you're effectively paying it back to the Chinese and to wealthy Arabs. NOT a very smart move, conservative "free-traders."
But now, let's return to the besieged American worker. There is something seriously wrong in this country when people are led to believe that those who sweat and get their hands dirty manufacturing products or providing services are somehow greedy for wanting a bigger slice of our economic pie, while those at the top who hold them down or transfer their jobs overseas are the only ones deserving of greater wealth and admiration. There is something fundamentally wrong with our country and its economic system when it effectively lowers our standard of living and forces our now overworked, underpaid, and highly productive workforce to compete for jobs with lesser-educated and less productive workers in developing countries. And there is something morally wrong with our government and business community when they pursue foolish, one-sided trade deals, and vote down minimum wage increases 9 times out of 10 (even as their own wages rise continually). We desperately need a change in economic direction, toward new pioneering technologies we can export at a PROFIT so we can reverse the downward trend conservative economic policies have put us on. The answer to restoring this economy's health lies in putting MORE money in the hands of our workers, not less. It is now time to stop heaping abuse on the overwhelming majority of our population, and to GIVE AMERICAN WORKERS A BIG BREAK!!!
IN A FEW DAYS: "WHY AMERICAN HEALTH CARE COSTS SO MUCH"
Thursday, January 1, 2009
AN END TO DIVISIVE WEDGE ISSUES!
"A house divided against itself cannot stand."
-Abraham Lincoln -
Those words are timeless, and are as true today as they were when pronounced back in our Civil War era. Americans have nearly always had disagreements over political, economic, or foreign policy, but have usually managed to listen to each other long and rationally enough to forge a practical compromise or settle on a mutually agreeable course of action. For all voices must be free to speak, and to be listened to and actually heard if a democracy is to function properly. As the French philosopher Voltaire once said, "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." He understood this very fundamental necessity more than 200 years ago, and so must we today. All of us share the basic right to express ourselves in word or lifestyle without being personally attacked, ridiculed, or falsely labeled. Our Constitution guarantees us "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." 'Nuff said!
In this modern era, the politics of conservative Republican strategists Lee Atwater and Karl Rove have been very dominant. These are the politics of division, deliberately calculated to pit one group against the other, driving a wedge between people and forcing them to take sides against one another, often on social or religious grounds. They have polarized the electorate and turned us into the DISunited States. Acid-tongued copycats like Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, Gretchen Carlson, Mary Matalin, and a host of lesser known radio talk show hosts have become virtual attack dogs. quick to scorn and ridicule not only political opponents, but entire categories of people as well. Rather than debate a divergent viewpoint, they usually engage in personal attack on someone or some group. Chip Saltsman's tasteless and pointless song "Barack The Magic Negro" is a perfect example of how low the political right has sunk to ridicule their opponents and signal their unwillingness to cooperate with them for the public good. The political left has not been blameless on this account either. At various times, Jesse Jackson, James Carville, Rosie O'Donnell, Al Franken, and Al Sharpton have also been unnecessarily sharp-tongued, although they have generally been less frequent and utilized less venom in their attacks. The plain and simple fact, though, is that no amount of finger pointing or name calling ever solved a problem. Think about it, people: No one can build something when he's busy punching someone else in the mouth or ducking blows himself. In an all-out fist fight, that which so desperately needs building never comes into being. The American people AND its elected representatives must stop behaving like spoiled little children, out to get and have THEIR way, and ONLY their way at all costs. Such behavior is not mature and civilized; it is immature and savage. Worse yet, it is unproductive and destructive.
Let's examine and talk common sense about a few of these divisive wedge issues:
First, let's talk guns. Many on the left want an all-out ban on handguns and assault weapons, severe restrictions on gun ownership in general, or wish to ban them in inner cities altogether. I am not a gun enthusiast, but a lot of these positions seem a bit strong to me. Many on the right want no restrictions on gun ownership at all. Both extremes are impractical and wrong. In the first place, our Constitution guarantees the right of the people to form militias and forbids the occupation of private property by the armed forces. It does NOT guarantee everyone in the country a right to their own personal machine gun, bazooka, or atom bomb of choice. It is only common sense to supervise and regulate the privilege of personally owning and using a gun, just as it is common sense to supervise and regulate those wishing to own and drive a car. Standards must be set to ensure the safety of the user as well as all around him. Such standards are NOT the same as the state attempting to deny citizens their right to form a militia for their own protection, or the state trying to gain total control over its citizens. Right-wing gun enthusiasts and National Rifle Association members holding this view are fanatically wrong on this issue. Period.
Second, let's talk abortion. This is an issue I believe the state should not even involve itself with other than to ensure the safety of the woman involved. Abortion has been unfortunately occurring for centuries, and will continue to be in the future. It should be neither encouraged, nor forbidden. It is a private and personal matter which must be dealt with by the woman and her mate who are involved. It is a decision open to one's own conscience and religious belief. We do not arrest, imprison, or forcibly prevent people from smoking, drinking too much, or encouraging those around them to smoke or drink, and all of those activities threaten life just as abortion does. I believe churches and counselors have the right to comment on abortion, as a matter of exercising free speech and to provide moral guidance. But for the state to forbid all abortions would result in the same unsanitary and unsafe clandestine coat hanger, back alley techniques engaged in many years ago. That cannot happen. I personally HATE abortion and view it as a legalized form of irresponsible murder for economy or mere convenience. I would never counsel someone to have an abortion, and would instead encourage them to choose adoption or keeping the baby. But I recognize the situation as a matter of individual decision. This stance makes me and all others who share my viewpoint pro-CHOICE. It is a grave injustice and a severely deliberate misstatement to call us pro-ABORTION or "baby killers," as some on the right are prone to do!
Third, let's talk gay rights. We have had gays and lesbians since nearly the beginning of human history. We will ALWAYS have them, like it or not. Get over it. You don't have to like them or be like them. But I don't believe the government should have any say on establishing or prohibiting rights for any person based on their sexual preference. Just as in matters of race and creed, the state should not be used as a means to persecvute or deny gays the same rights everyone else has. Some gay relationships are far more stable and monogamous than heterosexual ones! Why, then, should one's sexual preference be used as a basis for determining whether or not one has hospital visitation rights, property rights, marriage rights, or the right to raise children? Protecting gays from unfair discrimination is NOT endorsing or advocating being gay. It is simply a matter of ensuring equal rights for all. Do we ask the cop who dies protecting us or the soldier on the battlefield whether or not they are gay? Of course not. Does persecuting gays solve any problems? Absolutely not!
Fourth, let's talk religion. Our Constitution guarantees everyone in this country the right to belong, or NOT belong, to a church or religion of their choice. It also provides for the separation of church and state to prohibit the state from establishing a state religion. People can believe in a God or gods, or NOT believe. Yes, our state and its legal code werte founded on Judeo-Christian values, but this is NOT a Judeo-Christian state! Such a government would be a theocracy, and we are a democracy, not a theocracy. Therefore, to deny someone political office, or legal rights, or to label them as evil or suspect because they are not Jewish or Christian is wrong and unconstitutional. Worse yet, it is not even Christian! God Himself gave all people the right to believe or not believe. That is bona-fide Judeo-Christian fact. Who are we, then, to insist and demand that others must be Jewish or Christian or they can't serve in a leadership role? And as far as espousing one's own values is concerned (a favorite prejudice of the right), the Constitution does NOT state that everyone must have the same values. Instead, it provides for and protects freedom and diversity. So this crap about candidates lacking proper values is just intolerant and restrictive crap. On the other hand, a number of those on the left believe that religion should be excluded from all matters relating to the state. In other words, prayer or the display of religious icons in public schools or on government property must be forbidden. These folks also believe that the words "under God" should be removed from our pledge of allegiance, and "so help me God" should be stricken from our courts and presidential Inauguration ceremonies. Since the Constitution provides for the free practice of religion, prohibitions of these religious expressions are an infringement on individual freedom of speech and are therefore unconstitutional, right? You bet!
Think about it, folks: With all the seriously crucial problems facing us today, don't these wedge issues seem like a waste of our time? Shouldn't we instead be concentrating on working TOGETHER to get us all back on a firm footing?
Happy new year, everybody. We stand at this dawning of a new year; a new administration; a new era. We are faced with a myriad of crucial situations which demand sober thought and immediate attention! We can either meet these challenges and pass this test, or fail miserably by sliding into strife and chaos. Let's put the old name-calling and division behind us. Encourage your Congresspersons to abandon rigid ideology and political party obstructionism. Tell them you want them to start COOPERATING or you'll kick their sorry asses out of office! Harp at them non-stop, until they know your voice by heart or can recognize your handwriting or email address. Tell them to LISTEN: To YOU---AND to the opposition! Tell them to talk WITH members of the other party, not just AT them! With committments to COMMUNICATION, CIVILITY, COOPERATION, and PROGRESS, we can achieve ALL of those, plus many other needed and wondrous works. We HAVE to!!!
-Abraham Lincoln -
Those words are timeless, and are as true today as they were when pronounced back in our Civil War era. Americans have nearly always had disagreements over political, economic, or foreign policy, but have usually managed to listen to each other long and rationally enough to forge a practical compromise or settle on a mutually agreeable course of action. For all voices must be free to speak, and to be listened to and actually heard if a democracy is to function properly. As the French philosopher Voltaire once said, "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." He understood this very fundamental necessity more than 200 years ago, and so must we today. All of us share the basic right to express ourselves in word or lifestyle without being personally attacked, ridiculed, or falsely labeled. Our Constitution guarantees us "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." 'Nuff said!
In this modern era, the politics of conservative Republican strategists Lee Atwater and Karl Rove have been very dominant. These are the politics of division, deliberately calculated to pit one group against the other, driving a wedge between people and forcing them to take sides against one another, often on social or religious grounds. They have polarized the electorate and turned us into the DISunited States. Acid-tongued copycats like Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, Gretchen Carlson, Mary Matalin, and a host of lesser known radio talk show hosts have become virtual attack dogs. quick to scorn and ridicule not only political opponents, but entire categories of people as well. Rather than debate a divergent viewpoint, they usually engage in personal attack on someone or some group. Chip Saltsman's tasteless and pointless song "Barack The Magic Negro" is a perfect example of how low the political right has sunk to ridicule their opponents and signal their unwillingness to cooperate with them for the public good. The political left has not been blameless on this account either. At various times, Jesse Jackson, James Carville, Rosie O'Donnell, Al Franken, and Al Sharpton have also been unnecessarily sharp-tongued, although they have generally been less frequent and utilized less venom in their attacks. The plain and simple fact, though, is that no amount of finger pointing or name calling ever solved a problem. Think about it, people: No one can build something when he's busy punching someone else in the mouth or ducking blows himself. In an all-out fist fight, that which so desperately needs building never comes into being. The American people AND its elected representatives must stop behaving like spoiled little children, out to get and have THEIR way, and ONLY their way at all costs. Such behavior is not mature and civilized; it is immature and savage. Worse yet, it is unproductive and destructive.
Let's examine and talk common sense about a few of these divisive wedge issues:
First, let's talk guns. Many on the left want an all-out ban on handguns and assault weapons, severe restrictions on gun ownership in general, or wish to ban them in inner cities altogether. I am not a gun enthusiast, but a lot of these positions seem a bit strong to me. Many on the right want no restrictions on gun ownership at all. Both extremes are impractical and wrong. In the first place, our Constitution guarantees the right of the people to form militias and forbids the occupation of private property by the armed forces. It does NOT guarantee everyone in the country a right to their own personal machine gun, bazooka, or atom bomb of choice. It is only common sense to supervise and regulate the privilege of personally owning and using a gun, just as it is common sense to supervise and regulate those wishing to own and drive a car. Standards must be set to ensure the safety of the user as well as all around him. Such standards are NOT the same as the state attempting to deny citizens their right to form a militia for their own protection, or the state trying to gain total control over its citizens. Right-wing gun enthusiasts and National Rifle Association members holding this view are fanatically wrong on this issue. Period.
Second, let's talk abortion. This is an issue I believe the state should not even involve itself with other than to ensure the safety of the woman involved. Abortion has been unfortunately occurring for centuries, and will continue to be in the future. It should be neither encouraged, nor forbidden. It is a private and personal matter which must be dealt with by the woman and her mate who are involved. It is a decision open to one's own conscience and religious belief. We do not arrest, imprison, or forcibly prevent people from smoking, drinking too much, or encouraging those around them to smoke or drink, and all of those activities threaten life just as abortion does. I believe churches and counselors have the right to comment on abortion, as a matter of exercising free speech and to provide moral guidance. But for the state to forbid all abortions would result in the same unsanitary and unsafe clandestine coat hanger, back alley techniques engaged in many years ago. That cannot happen. I personally HATE abortion and view it as a legalized form of irresponsible murder for economy or mere convenience. I would never counsel someone to have an abortion, and would instead encourage them to choose adoption or keeping the baby. But I recognize the situation as a matter of individual decision. This stance makes me and all others who share my viewpoint pro-CHOICE. It is a grave injustice and a severely deliberate misstatement to call us pro-ABORTION or "baby killers," as some on the right are prone to do!
Third, let's talk gay rights. We have had gays and lesbians since nearly the beginning of human history. We will ALWAYS have them, like it or not. Get over it. You don't have to like them or be like them. But I don't believe the government should have any say on establishing or prohibiting rights for any person based on their sexual preference. Just as in matters of race and creed, the state should not be used as a means to persecvute or deny gays the same rights everyone else has. Some gay relationships are far more stable and monogamous than heterosexual ones! Why, then, should one's sexual preference be used as a basis for determining whether or not one has hospital visitation rights, property rights, marriage rights, or the right to raise children? Protecting gays from unfair discrimination is NOT endorsing or advocating being gay. It is simply a matter of ensuring equal rights for all. Do we ask the cop who dies protecting us or the soldier on the battlefield whether or not they are gay? Of course not. Does persecuting gays solve any problems? Absolutely not!
Fourth, let's talk religion. Our Constitution guarantees everyone in this country the right to belong, or NOT belong, to a church or religion of their choice. It also provides for the separation of church and state to prohibit the state from establishing a state religion. People can believe in a God or gods, or NOT believe. Yes, our state and its legal code werte founded on Judeo-Christian values, but this is NOT a Judeo-Christian state! Such a government would be a theocracy, and we are a democracy, not a theocracy. Therefore, to deny someone political office, or legal rights, or to label them as evil or suspect because they are not Jewish or Christian is wrong and unconstitutional. Worse yet, it is not even Christian! God Himself gave all people the right to believe or not believe. That is bona-fide Judeo-Christian fact. Who are we, then, to insist and demand that others must be Jewish or Christian or they can't serve in a leadership role? And as far as espousing one's own values is concerned (a favorite prejudice of the right), the Constitution does NOT state that everyone must have the same values. Instead, it provides for and protects freedom and diversity. So this crap about candidates lacking proper values is just intolerant and restrictive crap. On the other hand, a number of those on the left believe that religion should be excluded from all matters relating to the state. In other words, prayer or the display of religious icons in public schools or on government property must be forbidden. These folks also believe that the words "under God" should be removed from our pledge of allegiance, and "so help me God" should be stricken from our courts and presidential Inauguration ceremonies. Since the Constitution provides for the free practice of religion, prohibitions of these religious expressions are an infringement on individual freedom of speech and are therefore unconstitutional, right? You bet!
Think about it, folks: With all the seriously crucial problems facing us today, don't these wedge issues seem like a waste of our time? Shouldn't we instead be concentrating on working TOGETHER to get us all back on a firm footing?
Happy new year, everybody. We stand at this dawning of a new year; a new administration; a new era. We are faced with a myriad of crucial situations which demand sober thought and immediate attention! We can either meet these challenges and pass this test, or fail miserably by sliding into strife and chaos. Let's put the old name-calling and division behind us. Encourage your Congresspersons to abandon rigid ideology and political party obstructionism. Tell them you want them to start COOPERATING or you'll kick their sorry asses out of office! Harp at them non-stop, until they know your voice by heart or can recognize your handwriting or email address. Tell them to LISTEN: To YOU---AND to the opposition! Tell them to talk WITH members of the other party, not just AT them! With committments to COMMUNICATION, CIVILITY, COOPERATION, and PROGRESS, we can achieve ALL of those, plus many other needed and wondrous works. We HAVE to!!!
Friday, December 26, 2008
A NEW LATIN AMERICAN TSUNAMI
"People don't give one shit [about Latin America]."
- Richard M. Nixon -
"Well, I learned a lot. You'd be surprised. They're all individual countries."
- Ronald Reagan -
"[Latin America] is a dagger pointed at the heart of America."
- Henry Kissinger -
Gone are the days we could smugly consider Central and South America "ours." The arrogance and ignorance which led then-Vice President Nixon to dismiss Cuba's Fidel Castro as "a communist" after meeting with him for only one hour in 1959 (and for President Eisenhower to blow off that meeting altogether to play golf), and for President Ronald Reagan to assume that Latin America was monolithic, was as fatally flawed then as that condescending attitude is today. Nixon and Reagan would shit hemorrhages if they could see the state of Latin America at present. For what was once an entire region wholly dominated by the United States is now one acting completely independent of, and often contrary to, the wishes of Washington. Nixon, Reagan, corporate America, and even Bush never realized it, but their short-sighted and self-centered policies have pushed nearly all of our southern neighbors into the varying degrees of anti-Washington frenzy they are now in. Unless we soon alter our course and apractice, we will feel negative consequences from this for many years to come.
One might assume that our current dicey scenario in Latin America is all the fault of Republican rule. That is not the case. Democratic Presidents John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson also contributed, albeit with GOP pressure and influence never far removed. The Cuban embargo, begun under Eisenhower (but tightened under Kennedy) remains in force to this very day. The ill-fated Bay of Pigs invasion (another Eisenhower/CIA gem) was foolishly followed through upon by Kennedy. Both actions pushed Cuba further away from us and firmly into the outstretched arms of the Soviet Union. Johnson sent American troops into the Dominican Republic in 1965 to "restore order," but the end result was the same it has always been: The overthrow of a democratically-elected leftist government and its replacement by a military junta or repressive right-wing dictatorship beholden and subservient to the United States. There is a shamefully long list of countries in this region we have directly or indirectly interfered with just in my lifetime: Guatemala, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Chile, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Jamaica, Grenada, Panama, and Haiti. Our business interests and CIA have also worked diligently and clandestinely in Honduras and Mexico to influence their economies and politics. These actions have not spoken well for our supposed desire to spread freedom and democracy all across the globe, our moral and ethical standards, or our credibility. For, in much of Latin America (as in Iraq) we have often attempted to forcibly install democracy at the point of a gun. In extreme cases, we haven't even attempted to install a democracy, but have instead overthrown governments we felt would threaten our business or strategic interests, and then accepted whatever new, U.S.-friendly group came in to fill the power vacuum. In 1973, for example, our CIA (with Nixon White House backing) even directed the coup in Chile which resulted in the death of the first democratically-elected Marxist President, Salvador Allende. No matter that he won fair and square, or that he was committed to democracy and a free press: He threatened our business interests and was too friendly with Cuba. His replacement? The brutally repressive and murderous military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. Shameful indeed. But, at last, there are clear signs today that Latin America as a whole is finally throwing off the burdensome yoke of Yankee domination in favor of radical reform designed to greatly reduce our influence and relieve longstanding, widespread poverty.
Since 1959, Fidel Castro's Cuba had been a lonely voice repeatedly calling out for an end to U.S. domination of Central and South America. In 1999 it was finally joined by Hugo Chavez's Venezuela. Both countries nationalized American and foreign-owned companies and subsidiaries and began a long series of radical reforms designed to aid their poor and end the poor's exploitation by big business interests. Regrettably, Cuba's revolution evolved into a dictatorship, with murder and imprisonment of opponents and political prisoners, as well as suppression of press freedom. But Cuba now has universal education and a literacy rate of 96%, compared with an ILLITERACY rate of 95% when its 1959 revolution began. It also has universal health care in many ways superior to that received by the "free" citizens of many other Latin American countries! Thankfully, subsequent change in Venezuela and other Latin American nations has not been as brutal or undemocratic. In the past few years, Cuba and Venezuela have been joined by a tsunami of popularly-elected leftist governments dedicated to similar reforms. Their degree of radicalism varies from Cuba's, Venezuela's, and Bolivia's to more moderate forms found in Brazil, Chile, and Argentina. The extent of this wave of change is phenomenally widespread, from Daniel Ortega's Nicaragua, to Evo Morales' Bolivia, to Rafael Correa's Ecuador, to Fernando Lugo's Paraguay, to Argentina's Cristina Fernandez De Kirchner, to Michelle Bachelet's Chile, and beyond. These are indeed monumental and exciting times south of our border! ALL of these governments are leftist, which would give both Nixon and Reagan severe indigestion. In fact, a recent conference of Latin American countries held in Costa Do Sauipe, Brazil, was attended by 33 like-minded nations and included our neighbor, Mexico. They called for a regional union of these countries (to EXCLUDE the United States), and for the U.S. to end its unnecessary 49 year embargo against Cuba. A number of these governments are now even courting direct Chinese investment. Such occurrences would have been unthinkable even 15-20 years ago!
Naturally, little of this amazing transformation has been covered in much detail by our corporatist, sensationalist media. They have been far too busy dazzling us with stories about the excesses of Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, Sarah Palin's clothes and calendars, Barack Obama's beach physique and basketball prowess, and Joe the phony Plumber's attempts to secure a country music recording contract. They have severely underreported the breadth and scope of Latin American change. The overwhelming majority of Americans are as painfully ignorant about events in our own back yard as Sarah Palin is about foreign affairs generally. Unforgivable. Our media provides us with more info on the planet MARS than it does on our southern neighbors! This is disgraceful and cannot serve us well long term. For the days are gone where we can immorally prop up corrupt and friendly Latin American regimes doing our bidding and representing only the 1-2% wealthiest elite while the rest of the population struggles and suffers. Our government, media and people MUST begin developing a better knowledge and understanding of our southern neighbors. Continued ignorance and benign neglect of these countries is inexcusable and cannot continue.
We are NOT the center of the universe! Readers of this blog, and ALL Americans, can take the lead by Google-ing each Latin American country and each leader and learning more about them. Hopefully, with a new and more enlightened administration set to take office soon, our CIA will finally be directed to keep its nose out of Latin America's private affairs and will begin to aim its focus where it should, as in defeating the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. The incoming Obama administration can work wonders in Latin diplomacy right off the bat by ending the ridulous Cuban embargo. ALL of our friends and allies alike, including Canada, Mexico, and the European community, trade with Cuba. So does China. And so, at long last, should we. Our new administration can also encourage new and greatly expanded cultural, educational, and trade relations with Latin America. Properly doing so will restore good will and may also limit China's penetration and influence in our own neighborhood. We can even learn from these countries and gain from their experience, but not if they hate us or we have blinders on. Brazil, for example, took only about a decade to become fully energy independent, and achieved this long ago. Rather than fight the forces of change, as we have so often done in Latin America in the past, we now have a golden opportunity to embrace and ride the crest of this exciting new wave of Central and South American independence. Doing so will benefit all nations in this hemisphere immeasurably!
NEXT WEEK: AN END TO DIVISIVE WEDGE ISSUES!
- Richard M. Nixon -
"Well, I learned a lot. You'd be surprised. They're all individual countries."
- Ronald Reagan -
"[Latin America] is a dagger pointed at the heart of America."
- Henry Kissinger -
Gone are the days we could smugly consider Central and South America "ours." The arrogance and ignorance which led then-Vice President Nixon to dismiss Cuba's Fidel Castro as "a communist" after meeting with him for only one hour in 1959 (and for President Eisenhower to blow off that meeting altogether to play golf), and for President Ronald Reagan to assume that Latin America was monolithic, was as fatally flawed then as that condescending attitude is today. Nixon and Reagan would shit hemorrhages if they could see the state of Latin America at present. For what was once an entire region wholly dominated by the United States is now one acting completely independent of, and often contrary to, the wishes of Washington. Nixon, Reagan, corporate America, and even Bush never realized it, but their short-sighted and self-centered policies have pushed nearly all of our southern neighbors into the varying degrees of anti-Washington frenzy they are now in. Unless we soon alter our course and apractice, we will feel negative consequences from this for many years to come.
One might assume that our current dicey scenario in Latin America is all the fault of Republican rule. That is not the case. Democratic Presidents John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson also contributed, albeit with GOP pressure and influence never far removed. The Cuban embargo, begun under Eisenhower (but tightened under Kennedy) remains in force to this very day. The ill-fated Bay of Pigs invasion (another Eisenhower/CIA gem) was foolishly followed through upon by Kennedy. Both actions pushed Cuba further away from us and firmly into the outstretched arms of the Soviet Union. Johnson sent American troops into the Dominican Republic in 1965 to "restore order," but the end result was the same it has always been: The overthrow of a democratically-elected leftist government and its replacement by a military junta or repressive right-wing dictatorship beholden and subservient to the United States. There is a shamefully long list of countries in this region we have directly or indirectly interfered with just in my lifetime: Guatemala, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Chile, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Jamaica, Grenada, Panama, and Haiti. Our business interests and CIA have also worked diligently and clandestinely in Honduras and Mexico to influence their economies and politics. These actions have not spoken well for our supposed desire to spread freedom and democracy all across the globe, our moral and ethical standards, or our credibility. For, in much of Latin America (as in Iraq) we have often attempted to forcibly install democracy at the point of a gun. In extreme cases, we haven't even attempted to install a democracy, but have instead overthrown governments we felt would threaten our business or strategic interests, and then accepted whatever new, U.S.-friendly group came in to fill the power vacuum. In 1973, for example, our CIA (with Nixon White House backing) even directed the coup in Chile which resulted in the death of the first democratically-elected Marxist President, Salvador Allende. No matter that he won fair and square, or that he was committed to democracy and a free press: He threatened our business interests and was too friendly with Cuba. His replacement? The brutally repressive and murderous military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. Shameful indeed. But, at last, there are clear signs today that Latin America as a whole is finally throwing off the burdensome yoke of Yankee domination in favor of radical reform designed to greatly reduce our influence and relieve longstanding, widespread poverty.
Since 1959, Fidel Castro's Cuba had been a lonely voice repeatedly calling out for an end to U.S. domination of Central and South America. In 1999 it was finally joined by Hugo Chavez's Venezuela. Both countries nationalized American and foreign-owned companies and subsidiaries and began a long series of radical reforms designed to aid their poor and end the poor's exploitation by big business interests. Regrettably, Cuba's revolution evolved into a dictatorship, with murder and imprisonment of opponents and political prisoners, as well as suppression of press freedom. But Cuba now has universal education and a literacy rate of 96%, compared with an ILLITERACY rate of 95% when its 1959 revolution began. It also has universal health care in many ways superior to that received by the "free" citizens of many other Latin American countries! Thankfully, subsequent change in Venezuela and other Latin American nations has not been as brutal or undemocratic. In the past few years, Cuba and Venezuela have been joined by a tsunami of popularly-elected leftist governments dedicated to similar reforms. Their degree of radicalism varies from Cuba's, Venezuela's, and Bolivia's to more moderate forms found in Brazil, Chile, and Argentina. The extent of this wave of change is phenomenally widespread, from Daniel Ortega's Nicaragua, to Evo Morales' Bolivia, to Rafael Correa's Ecuador, to Fernando Lugo's Paraguay, to Argentina's Cristina Fernandez De Kirchner, to Michelle Bachelet's Chile, and beyond. These are indeed monumental and exciting times south of our border! ALL of these governments are leftist, which would give both Nixon and Reagan severe indigestion. In fact, a recent conference of Latin American countries held in Costa Do Sauipe, Brazil, was attended by 33 like-minded nations and included our neighbor, Mexico. They called for a regional union of these countries (to EXCLUDE the United States), and for the U.S. to end its unnecessary 49 year embargo against Cuba. A number of these governments are now even courting direct Chinese investment. Such occurrences would have been unthinkable even 15-20 years ago!
Naturally, little of this amazing transformation has been covered in much detail by our corporatist, sensationalist media. They have been far too busy dazzling us with stories about the excesses of Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, Sarah Palin's clothes and calendars, Barack Obama's beach physique and basketball prowess, and Joe the phony Plumber's attempts to secure a country music recording contract. They have severely underreported the breadth and scope of Latin American change. The overwhelming majority of Americans are as painfully ignorant about events in our own back yard as Sarah Palin is about foreign affairs generally. Unforgivable. Our media provides us with more info on the planet MARS than it does on our southern neighbors! This is disgraceful and cannot serve us well long term. For the days are gone where we can immorally prop up corrupt and friendly Latin American regimes doing our bidding and representing only the 1-2% wealthiest elite while the rest of the population struggles and suffers. Our government, media and people MUST begin developing a better knowledge and understanding of our southern neighbors. Continued ignorance and benign neglect of these countries is inexcusable and cannot continue.
We are NOT the center of the universe! Readers of this blog, and ALL Americans, can take the lead by Google-ing each Latin American country and each leader and learning more about them. Hopefully, with a new and more enlightened administration set to take office soon, our CIA will finally be directed to keep its nose out of Latin America's private affairs and will begin to aim its focus where it should, as in defeating the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. The incoming Obama administration can work wonders in Latin diplomacy right off the bat by ending the ridulous Cuban embargo. ALL of our friends and allies alike, including Canada, Mexico, and the European community, trade with Cuba. So does China. And so, at long last, should we. Our new administration can also encourage new and greatly expanded cultural, educational, and trade relations with Latin America. Properly doing so will restore good will and may also limit China's penetration and influence in our own neighborhood. We can even learn from these countries and gain from their experience, but not if they hate us or we have blinders on. Brazil, for example, took only about a decade to become fully energy independent, and achieved this long ago. Rather than fight the forces of change, as we have so often done in Latin America in the past, we now have a golden opportunity to embrace and ride the crest of this exciting new wave of Central and South American independence. Doing so will benefit all nations in this hemisphere immeasurably!
NEXT WEEK: AN END TO DIVISIVE WEDGE ISSUES!
Friday, December 19, 2008
YEAR-END MUSING
As we approach year's end, and the dawning of a new administration (thank God!) in 2009, I am left musing over some nagging American contradictions and paradoxes. For example, why is it:
We seem to jump to conclusions and employ polar opposites as we do? I mean, why do some say those of us who want to close Gitmo and end our military misadventures in Iraq are aiding terrorists, or surrendering to them? Isn't adding fuel to their fire aiding their cause and recruitment rather than defusing their argument against us? And why are those who call themselves pro-choice labeled as being pro-abortion? Many who are pro-choice HATE abortion, and it's clear they are not necessarily one and the same...
We are supposed to be the land of the free, but the religious right and social conservatives want our government to deny gays specific rights, and women the right to their own reproductive choices...
Ideally, we are supposed to invest in our "free enterprise" system (our businesses and the stock market) and, as the system prospers, we are supposed to prosper too, through the payment of dividends. Yet, in the case of Enron, and also Madoff, and many others, only a small handful (crooks) profited immensely from investing, and everyone else lost their ass. Does this mean our system of investment is no longer relevant, and that Wall Street and the stock market are parasites (with the rest of us mere unwitting pawns in their dirty little game) and that investing should now be avoided altogether?...
The Bush administration and Republicans take credit for our not having had another terrorist attack on U.S. soil since 9/11? Why then have they consistently been lax about our border and port security? Why did they invade Iraq without real provocation, turning it into a magnet and rallying cry for Al Qarda? Could it be their REAL aims were to allow us to be flooded with cheap, illegal labor to further weaken our labor unions and keep workers' wages low? Could it also be they merely wanted close proximity to and/or outright control over Iraqi oil, or to establish a permanent military base in the region?...
We'll gladly help out a friend, relative, or neighbor who has lost his or her job, but the person across town on unemployment we DON'T know is a son of a bitch and a welfare cheat...
Many liberals proclaim stromg support for individual rights, but abortion advocates place a woman's right to abortion, even if for reasons of convenience, economy, or as the result of careless sexual practice, far ahead of the innocent, unborn child's right to be born and live...
Business wants bright, young, highly educated people for its labor force, but once an individual hits 40 or so, he or she is regarded as being overqualified or costing too much to employ...
We claim to be pro-democracy, but we have a habit of overthrowing democratically-elected governments we don't like and replacing them with military juntas or right-wing dictatorships. This happened in Iran in 1953, Guatemala in 1954, the Dominican Republic in 1965, Chile in 1973, and Grenada in 1983. In 2003, we overthrew a corrupt and murderous dictator in Iraq only to invade and occupy the country and forcibly install a democratic government at gunpoint...
Many conservatives call themselves "pro life" and oppose abortion under any circumstance, but many of these same people strongly support pre-emptive war and the death penalty...
It's scandalous and a crime when someone we don't know is nailed for tax evasion, but when we take deductions we're not really entitled to or cheat on our taxes, that's just "good business"...
Neocon Republicans and free trade Democrats told us for years that reducing taxes on big business and the wealthy, as well as engaging in unrestricted free trade would result in the creation of millions of high-paying jobs and a rising standard of living here, but what those things actually brought was millions of jobs exported out of this country, huge and expanding CEO salaries and perks, but stagnant or lower wages and reduced benefits for everyone else, as well as a reduced standard of living overall...
Many liberals profess to be for full freedom of speech, but when it comes to prayer of any kind in public schools, even voluntary, this should be forbidden...
We think those in higher income brackets should pay a much higher percentage of their income in taxes than they do, but once we reach their income level, we scream for tax cuts...
Liberals judge a public servant by his or her public policy, and overlook their private behavior. Conservatives judge a public servant by his or her public AND private behavior, and often overlook their public policy (unless it relates to taxes)...
We tend to respect and admire the wealthy, regardless of how that wealth was obtained...
Many conservatives value education as a means to produce wealth. But they scorn those who use their education to create, think, or challenge the status quo, and call them "eggheads" or "intellectuals." They apparently want their children and students to be smart, but not TOO smart...
Many liberals value education as a means for achievement. They prize the attainment of titles, and some look down on those without higher education or titles.
Some of the strongest racists I know are blacks, and some of the most intolerant are liberals. Also, some of the most intolerant people I know are whites, and some of the biggest racists I know are conservatives...
Many conservatives want all people to succeed. They just don't want the government helping them TO succeed. They think success will invariably follow hard work, even though that's not always the case...
Many liberals want all people to succeed. They just don't want to pay for that success out of their own pocket, and some don't wish to associate with those who are trying to succeed...
We seem to jump to conclusions and employ polar opposites as we do? I mean, why do some say those of us who want to close Gitmo and end our military misadventures in Iraq are aiding terrorists, or surrendering to them? Isn't adding fuel to their fire aiding their cause and recruitment rather than defusing their argument against us? And why are those who call themselves pro-choice labeled as being pro-abortion? Many who are pro-choice HATE abortion, and it's clear they are not necessarily one and the same...
We are supposed to be the land of the free, but the religious right and social conservatives want our government to deny gays specific rights, and women the right to their own reproductive choices...
Ideally, we are supposed to invest in our "free enterprise" system (our businesses and the stock market) and, as the system prospers, we are supposed to prosper too, through the payment of dividends. Yet, in the case of Enron, and also Madoff, and many others, only a small handful (crooks) profited immensely from investing, and everyone else lost their ass. Does this mean our system of investment is no longer relevant, and that Wall Street and the stock market are parasites (with the rest of us mere unwitting pawns in their dirty little game) and that investing should now be avoided altogether?...
The Bush administration and Republicans take credit for our not having had another terrorist attack on U.S. soil since 9/11? Why then have they consistently been lax about our border and port security? Why did they invade Iraq without real provocation, turning it into a magnet and rallying cry for Al Qarda? Could it be their REAL aims were to allow us to be flooded with cheap, illegal labor to further weaken our labor unions and keep workers' wages low? Could it also be they merely wanted close proximity to and/or outright control over Iraqi oil, or to establish a permanent military base in the region?...
We'll gladly help out a friend, relative, or neighbor who has lost his or her job, but the person across town on unemployment we DON'T know is a son of a bitch and a welfare cheat...
Many liberals proclaim stromg support for individual rights, but abortion advocates place a woman's right to abortion, even if for reasons of convenience, economy, or as the result of careless sexual practice, far ahead of the innocent, unborn child's right to be born and live...
Business wants bright, young, highly educated people for its labor force, but once an individual hits 40 or so, he or she is regarded as being overqualified or costing too much to employ...
We claim to be pro-democracy, but we have a habit of overthrowing democratically-elected governments we don't like and replacing them with military juntas or right-wing dictatorships. This happened in Iran in 1953, Guatemala in 1954, the Dominican Republic in 1965, Chile in 1973, and Grenada in 1983. In 2003, we overthrew a corrupt and murderous dictator in Iraq only to invade and occupy the country and forcibly install a democratic government at gunpoint...
Many conservatives call themselves "pro life" and oppose abortion under any circumstance, but many of these same people strongly support pre-emptive war and the death penalty...
It's scandalous and a crime when someone we don't know is nailed for tax evasion, but when we take deductions we're not really entitled to or cheat on our taxes, that's just "good business"...
Neocon Republicans and free trade Democrats told us for years that reducing taxes on big business and the wealthy, as well as engaging in unrestricted free trade would result in the creation of millions of high-paying jobs and a rising standard of living here, but what those things actually brought was millions of jobs exported out of this country, huge and expanding CEO salaries and perks, but stagnant or lower wages and reduced benefits for everyone else, as well as a reduced standard of living overall...
Many liberals profess to be for full freedom of speech, but when it comes to prayer of any kind in public schools, even voluntary, this should be forbidden...
We think those in higher income brackets should pay a much higher percentage of their income in taxes than they do, but once we reach their income level, we scream for tax cuts...
Liberals judge a public servant by his or her public policy, and overlook their private behavior. Conservatives judge a public servant by his or her public AND private behavior, and often overlook their public policy (unless it relates to taxes)...
We tend to respect and admire the wealthy, regardless of how that wealth was obtained...
Many conservatives value education as a means to produce wealth. But they scorn those who use their education to create, think, or challenge the status quo, and call them "eggheads" or "intellectuals." They apparently want their children and students to be smart, but not TOO smart...
Many liberals value education as a means for achievement. They prize the attainment of titles, and some look down on those without higher education or titles.
Some of the strongest racists I know are blacks, and some of the most intolerant are liberals. Also, some of the most intolerant people I know are whites, and some of the biggest racists I know are conservatives...
Many conservatives want all people to succeed. They just don't want the government helping them TO succeed. They think success will invariably follow hard work, even though that's not always the case...
Many liberals want all people to succeed. They just don't want to pay for that success out of their own pocket, and some don't wish to associate with those who are trying to succeed...
Friday, December 12, 2008
SANTA'S BOZOS FOR 2008
Season's greetings, everyone! HO! HO! HO! That's the sound of Santa belly laughing at the record number of Bozos we have this year (stupid clowns doing outrageously stupid things which would in many cases be funny, except for the fact that they were sooooo utrageously stupid). It's hard to know where to even begin with 2008's outrageous crop, but I may as well start right at the top.
GEORGE W. BUSH-this clown lives in denial. He won't admit he was wrong to attack Iraq, and he didn't admit the country was in recession until a full YEAR after it had slipped into one! He gave us the dumbest Attorney General of all time, Alberto ("I don't seem to recall") Gonzales, and he still can't pronounce the word nuclear correctly. DEFINITELY a Bozo, and a big one!
JOHN McCAIN-Mr. "Straight Talk Express" took a severe detour and drove off a cliff when he and his crew began waging the most negative, vicious, and dishonest presidential campaign of all time. Were he Pinocchio, his schnozz would now stretch out way beyond the moon. But what REALLY made him a Bozo was his pick of the thoroughly unqualified Sarah Palin as his VP choice, and his embracing of the fraudulent Joe the Plumber as an example of a typical American to be admired by all.
WILLIAM JEFFERSON-this Democratic Representative from Louisiana was caught with $90,000 in bribe money neatly wrapped in his freezer. This love of cool cash earned him exactly what he deserved: Ouster, and replacement by a Republican in the fall election.
RUSH LIMBAUGH-he becomes a Bozo every time he opens his mouth, which is constantly. Why? Because he is a bigger liar than George W. Bush and Karl Rove combined, and that takes some doing! I have never heard this Bozo make a claim that wasn't grossly distorted, wildly exaggerated, or an outright lie.
THE FOX "NEWS" CREW (aka THE BUSH WHITE HOUSE PROPAGANDA BUREAU)-always quick with a right-slanted story, or to withhold or undereport stories which contradict them (or acknowledge liberals doing something correct), these people are all Bozos, from owner Rupert Murdoch to Sean Hannity to Chris Wallace to Bill O'Reilly to Dick Morris to the token liberals they have on from time to time. Their presentations are sometimes so fabricated they could rightfully be called "the National Enquirer of Television." Thankfully, at long last, their ratings seem to be slipping. I guess they could fool some of the people some of the time but couldn't fool all of the people all of the time...
ELIOT SPITZER-this Democratic Bozo just couldn't keep his pants zipped up. While Attorney General, and later even as Governor of New York, he engaged the services of high-priced prostitutes and may have even paid for them with campaign cash! We're all used to politicians screwing US once they've gotten our money, but this is the first time in recent memory supporters paid for a POLITICIAN to be screwed! Hats off to the media for exposing this Bozo. He got what he deserved: Resignation and replacement.
LARRY CRAIG-first this clown gets arrested in a Minneapolis airport restroom for soliciting gay sex from an undercover cop in the next stall, by stepping all over the cop's shoes and waving his hand repeatedly beneath the stall. Next, he pleads guilty. Then, he attempts to withdraw and overturn his guilty plea, saying he has a "wide stance" when seated on the pot and that he wasn't soliciting sex at all. YUH, RIGHT...ladies and gentlemen, this guy is a REAL Bozo!
MITCH McCONNELL (KY), DAVID VITTER (LA), BOB CORKER (TN), RICHARD SHELBY (AL), TOM COBURN (OK), JIM DeMINT (SC), AND JEFF SESSIONS (AL)-these clowns, each of whom is a Republican Senator who hates organized labor and/or has foreign auto manufacturing plants (but no American-owned ones) operating in his state, led the charge to deny the financial rescue of GM, Ford, and Chrysler. They blamed our auto industry's woes on the unionized auto workers being paid too much, but said nothing about the vastly overpaid auto executives, or the way these executives have failed to keep pace with foreign competitors' more fuel efficient and better quality products. These misguided Senators are deliberately trying to destroy the United Auto Workers union. For wanting to roll back American workers' wages, and for trying to bankrupt our Big 3 (effectively benefitting foreign manufacturers), these Senators are GIGANTIC, COLOSSAL Bozos!
JEREMIAH WRIGHT-Obama's old reverend really knows how to deliver a fire and brimstone speech...and burn himself in the process! Regrettably, after a long and admirable career of charity work and service to the poor, the public now regards him as an extremist flake. He could easily have gotten his points across about America's racial injustice and aggression in Iraq without publicly saying God should damn America. America encompasses a broad cross section. Should nurses, charity workers, and his congregation be damned too? For this rash statement, and for repeatedly making other controversial statements to the media early in Barack Obama's campaign, this old minister definitely deserves the title of Bozo.
MICHELE BACHMANN-this 6th district Republican Congresswoman from Minnesota is a Bozo because she has a pattern of shooting her mouth off and saying something stupid first, thinking later, and then denying what she stupidly said in the first place (or claiming she was misquoted). Her latest Bozo statement was saying the media should run an expose on those members of Congress who may hold anti-American views. Subjective witch hunt, anyone? Because she has a pattern of making these dumb statements and will undoubtedly do so again, she is a PERENNIAL Bozo!
RUDY GIULIANI-this guy is a very sick joke. A mediocre mayor, all he did during 9/11 was say the right things and make himself abundantly present before TV cameras. The fact that he was aware of the incompatability between police and fire radios years prior to the disaster and did nothing about it led to confusion and unnecessary deaths ON 9/11. Yet this self-serving buffoon tried to tell us HE would be the best (only?) man capable of saving us from another attack, so that qualified him to bePresident. His third (current) wife was given free city car shuttling service to rendezvous points while he was still married to and living with his second wife. Now this goof thinks he'll run for Senator in 2010. Completely full of himself, this guy is pure, 100% Bozo!
JOHN EDWARDS-how this guy could trash a wonderful career of service to the poor and as a former Senator and potential future President to have an affair behind his lovely wife's back shortly after she went into remission from cancer is waaaaay beyond me. This guy is a DISGUSTING Bozo!
SARAH PALIN-this airhead with the severely aggravating voice just won't shut up, and keeps on lying and babbling! She is VERY irritating, VERY shallow, VERY divisive, VERY uninformed, and VERY unqualified for national office. She is painfully ignorant of history, law, geography, and world and current events. Yet this delusional little prima donna thinks she's qualified to be President come 2013. Folks, Sarah Palin is a CERTIFIED Bozo (or BoZETTE, if you choose. Personally, I'd like to turn her into a CREPES SUzette so I'd never have to hear that shrill, irritating voice ever again)!
JOE THE PLUMBER-this clown is too dumb to know that his undeserved 15 minutes of fame ended much longer than 15 minutes ago, and that he should now just finally shut up and go away! In the first place, the guy is a fraud. He told Obama in front of cameras that he was a plumber (NOT LICENSED at the time) who wanted to buy his boss's business worth $250,000 (NOT TRUE). Then, it turned out he had a $1,200 TAX LIEN against him at the time. Yet Maverick McCain and his sidekick Palin quickly tried to portay him as an average, everyday American folk hero being victimized by unfair, mythical Democratic tax plans. Now this buffoon thinks he's qualified to run for Congress in 2010. That goes way beyond clown, and should be considered court jester material. For being so dishonest and delusional, this guy, too, is a certified Bozo.
ROD BLAGOJEVICH-this crooked Democratic Governor of Illinois showed a lot of arrogance and greed when he brazenly tried to sell off President Obama's vacated Senate seat to the highest bidder for his own personal gain. This dreamer even had fantasies of ending up on Obama's cabinet or running a Warren Buffett-sponsored foundation at a high salary. It's clear this fool never understood what being a public servant entails. All he could master was being a cheap, crooked politician. In doing so, he easily became this year's biggest Bozo of all!
GEORGE W. BUSH-this clown lives in denial. He won't admit he was wrong to attack Iraq, and he didn't admit the country was in recession until a full YEAR after it had slipped into one! He gave us the dumbest Attorney General of all time, Alberto ("I don't seem to recall") Gonzales, and he still can't pronounce the word nuclear correctly. DEFINITELY a Bozo, and a big one!
JOHN McCAIN-Mr. "Straight Talk Express" took a severe detour and drove off a cliff when he and his crew began waging the most negative, vicious, and dishonest presidential campaign of all time. Were he Pinocchio, his schnozz would now stretch out way beyond the moon. But what REALLY made him a Bozo was his pick of the thoroughly unqualified Sarah Palin as his VP choice, and his embracing of the fraudulent Joe the Plumber as an example of a typical American to be admired by all.
WILLIAM JEFFERSON-this Democratic Representative from Louisiana was caught with $90,000 in bribe money neatly wrapped in his freezer. This love of cool cash earned him exactly what he deserved: Ouster, and replacement by a Republican in the fall election.
RUSH LIMBAUGH-he becomes a Bozo every time he opens his mouth, which is constantly. Why? Because he is a bigger liar than George W. Bush and Karl Rove combined, and that takes some doing! I have never heard this Bozo make a claim that wasn't grossly distorted, wildly exaggerated, or an outright lie.
THE FOX "NEWS" CREW (aka THE BUSH WHITE HOUSE PROPAGANDA BUREAU)-always quick with a right-slanted story, or to withhold or undereport stories which contradict them (or acknowledge liberals doing something correct), these people are all Bozos, from owner Rupert Murdoch to Sean Hannity to Chris Wallace to Bill O'Reilly to Dick Morris to the token liberals they have on from time to time. Their presentations are sometimes so fabricated they could rightfully be called "the National Enquirer of Television." Thankfully, at long last, their ratings seem to be slipping. I guess they could fool some of the people some of the time but couldn't fool all of the people all of the time...
ELIOT SPITZER-this Democratic Bozo just couldn't keep his pants zipped up. While Attorney General, and later even as Governor of New York, he engaged the services of high-priced prostitutes and may have even paid for them with campaign cash! We're all used to politicians screwing US once they've gotten our money, but this is the first time in recent memory supporters paid for a POLITICIAN to be screwed! Hats off to the media for exposing this Bozo. He got what he deserved: Resignation and replacement.
LARRY CRAIG-first this clown gets arrested in a Minneapolis airport restroom for soliciting gay sex from an undercover cop in the next stall, by stepping all over the cop's shoes and waving his hand repeatedly beneath the stall. Next, he pleads guilty. Then, he attempts to withdraw and overturn his guilty plea, saying he has a "wide stance" when seated on the pot and that he wasn't soliciting sex at all. YUH, RIGHT...ladies and gentlemen, this guy is a REAL Bozo!
MITCH McCONNELL (KY), DAVID VITTER (LA), BOB CORKER (TN), RICHARD SHELBY (AL), TOM COBURN (OK), JIM DeMINT (SC), AND JEFF SESSIONS (AL)-these clowns, each of whom is a Republican Senator who hates organized labor and/or has foreign auto manufacturing plants (but no American-owned ones) operating in his state, led the charge to deny the financial rescue of GM, Ford, and Chrysler. They blamed our auto industry's woes on the unionized auto workers being paid too much, but said nothing about the vastly overpaid auto executives, or the way these executives have failed to keep pace with foreign competitors' more fuel efficient and better quality products. These misguided Senators are deliberately trying to destroy the United Auto Workers union. For wanting to roll back American workers' wages, and for trying to bankrupt our Big 3 (effectively benefitting foreign manufacturers), these Senators are GIGANTIC, COLOSSAL Bozos!
JEREMIAH WRIGHT-Obama's old reverend really knows how to deliver a fire and brimstone speech...and burn himself in the process! Regrettably, after a long and admirable career of charity work and service to the poor, the public now regards him as an extremist flake. He could easily have gotten his points across about America's racial injustice and aggression in Iraq without publicly saying God should damn America. America encompasses a broad cross section. Should nurses, charity workers, and his congregation be damned too? For this rash statement, and for repeatedly making other controversial statements to the media early in Barack Obama's campaign, this old minister definitely deserves the title of Bozo.
MICHELE BACHMANN-this 6th district Republican Congresswoman from Minnesota is a Bozo because she has a pattern of shooting her mouth off and saying something stupid first, thinking later, and then denying what she stupidly said in the first place (or claiming she was misquoted). Her latest Bozo statement was saying the media should run an expose on those members of Congress who may hold anti-American views. Subjective witch hunt, anyone? Because she has a pattern of making these dumb statements and will undoubtedly do so again, she is a PERENNIAL Bozo!
RUDY GIULIANI-this guy is a very sick joke. A mediocre mayor, all he did during 9/11 was say the right things and make himself abundantly present before TV cameras. The fact that he was aware of the incompatability between police and fire radios years prior to the disaster and did nothing about it led to confusion and unnecessary deaths ON 9/11. Yet this self-serving buffoon tried to tell us HE would be the best (only?) man capable of saving us from another attack, so that qualified him to bePresident. His third (current) wife was given free city car shuttling service to rendezvous points while he was still married to and living with his second wife. Now this goof thinks he'll run for Senator in 2010. Completely full of himself, this guy is pure, 100% Bozo!
JOHN EDWARDS-how this guy could trash a wonderful career of service to the poor and as a former Senator and potential future President to have an affair behind his lovely wife's back shortly after she went into remission from cancer is waaaaay beyond me. This guy is a DISGUSTING Bozo!
SARAH PALIN-this airhead with the severely aggravating voice just won't shut up, and keeps on lying and babbling! She is VERY irritating, VERY shallow, VERY divisive, VERY uninformed, and VERY unqualified for national office. She is painfully ignorant of history, law, geography, and world and current events. Yet this delusional little prima donna thinks she's qualified to be President come 2013. Folks, Sarah Palin is a CERTIFIED Bozo (or BoZETTE, if you choose. Personally, I'd like to turn her into a CREPES SUzette so I'd never have to hear that shrill, irritating voice ever again)!
JOE THE PLUMBER-this clown is too dumb to know that his undeserved 15 minutes of fame ended much longer than 15 minutes ago, and that he should now just finally shut up and go away! In the first place, the guy is a fraud. He told Obama in front of cameras that he was a plumber (NOT LICENSED at the time) who wanted to buy his boss's business worth $250,000 (NOT TRUE). Then, it turned out he had a $1,200 TAX LIEN against him at the time. Yet Maverick McCain and his sidekick Palin quickly tried to portay him as an average, everyday American folk hero being victimized by unfair, mythical Democratic tax plans. Now this buffoon thinks he's qualified to run for Congress in 2010. That goes way beyond clown, and should be considered court jester material. For being so dishonest and delusional, this guy, too, is a certified Bozo.
ROD BLAGOJEVICH-this crooked Democratic Governor of Illinois showed a lot of arrogance and greed when he brazenly tried to sell off President Obama's vacated Senate seat to the highest bidder for his own personal gain. This dreamer even had fantasies of ending up on Obama's cabinet or running a Warren Buffett-sponsored foundation at a high salary. It's clear this fool never understood what being a public servant entails. All he could master was being a cheap, crooked politician. In doing so, he easily became this year's biggest Bozo of all!
Friday, December 5, 2008
GRIEVOUS GOP MISTAKES: A CHRONOLOGY
"Four fifths of all our troubles would disappear, if we would only sit down and keep still."
- Calvin Coolidge -
"The United States of America does not have friends; it has interests."
- Dwight Eisenhower's Secretary of State John Foster Dulles -
"The press is the enemy."
- Richard M. Nixon -
With the exception of its very earliest days, just before and during Abraham Lincoln's administration, and for a brief time at the turn of the 20th Century during Teddy Roosevelt's terms in office, the Republican Party has acted mainly in the interests of big business and social conservatives. It has advocated a minimal role for government, preferring to let business and industry (particularly their owners) determine much of the course of the nation's affairs. As such, the party has not generally supported the needs of the majority of the country who were workers and small farmers. This minimalist approach to government and the support for a small minority of the wealthier, upper elites has led to an undeniable pattern of the Republican Party being consistently on the wrong sides of many, many issues and/or mismanaging the country's affairs. Below, in chronological order, is a listing of numerous grievous mistakes the Grand Old Party has made since the end of the Civil War in 1865.
1867 - Radical Republicans take over the party. They immediately turn their backs on assassinated President Lincoln's desire to mercifully reassimilate the Old South back into the Union. They enact harsh policies against ex-Confederates (many of whom had been southern Democrats before the war). These penalties included stripping them of voting rights and the ability to hold public office. They instead set up unqualified newly-freed blacks and corrupt northern businessmen to govern the South under the banner of the Republican Party. While they did free poor blacks from slavery, they provided no education or training for them to enable a seamless merge into white cultural society. Now free, buth with their former masters bankrupt and powerless, most blacks migrated to urban centers and settled into slums, barely being able to eke out a substandard living doing unskilled and often backbreaking labor at very low wages.
1869 - Republicans begin to become increasingly allied with and dominated by big business and banks. Bribes and extortion run rampant, culminating in the Credit Mobilier scandal of 1872.
1870s-present - Republicans and conservatives begin to side with big business against the formation of labor unions, and, once unions are established in 1935, actively try to suppress them.
1880s - Huge corrupt trusts are set up by big banks, big business and industry, and are supported and aided by Republicans.
1919 - GOP Senators play a heavy hand in preventing the US from joining the League of Nations, leaving that body weak and ineffective. Its eventual failure helps lead to World War II. Social conservatives in the party push through Prohibition, one of the worst and most impractical laws ever passed in the history of the human race.
1920s - Republican pro business, laissez-faire, anti regulatory policies (especially concerning the stock market) lead to terrible rural poverty and lay the seeds for 1929's Great Depression.
1935-1937 - Republicans oppose the adoption of government programs like Social Security, Unemployment Compensation, Welfare, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), the National Recovery Act (NRA), and the Works Progress Administration (WPA) - basically, any government-sponsored program designed to provide federal aid or employment to needy individual citizens. The GOP took the standpoint that government had no jurisdiction in those areas and that only private enterprise did. The problem was, of course, that businesses were too broke to provide those opportunities and SOMETHING had to be done for millions of hungry citizens. Thank God the GOP's numbers in Congress were too weak to prevent passage of all this beneficial legislation!
1947 - The GOP passed the Taft-Hartley Act, which weakened and restricted labor unions.
1950 - Republicans strongly support Sen. Joe McCarthy's infamous anti-communist witvh hunts, painting many Americans (especially Democrats) as soft on combatting communism. They use these accusations as a political tool to unseat Democrats and get themselves elected. These witch hunts wrongly accused many innocent people, ruining their lives and destroying their careers.
1953 - Ultra-conservative Secretary of State John Foster Dulles directs the CIA to help overthrow the democratically-elected pro-Islamic Mossadegh government in Iran, replacing it with the brutally repressive, pro-western Shah of Iran. This turns many Iranians against the US, the negative effects of which will become repeatedly evident years later.
1954 - John Foster Dulles again engineers the overthrow of a democratically-elected government, this time a leftist government in Guatemala, replacing it with a right-wing government more to his liking. Coincidentally (?), his brother, Allen Dulles, just happens to be on the board of directors of American Fruit Company, which had large holings in Guatemala and felt threatened by the leftist government. Dulles also prevents Vietnam from holding a national election, fearing that leftist nationalist Ho Chi Minh would win. So Dulles maneuvers to get Vietnam split into two countries, with Ho Chi Minh ruling the north and US-installed pro-western playboy Bao Di controlling the south. This lays the seeds for America's future bloody 15 year involvement in Vietnam.
1954-1965 - Many Republicans ally themselves with conservative southern Democrats to oppose and filibuster against major civil rights legislation.
1965 - Republicans oppose LBJ's Medicare and Medicaid programs and the entire War on Poverty program in general. These programs have benifitted millions of needy citizens since their inception.
1970- present - Republican Presidents, beginning with Richard Nixon and his Supreme Cort appointments Warren Burger and then William Rehnquist, begin their long attempt to pack the Supreme Court with conservative, pro-Republican justices. The Republicans call these types of justices "strict constructionists", who interpret the law strictly on precedent and Constitutional principle. But what justices like these have really done is strengthened the Executive Branch of Congress, effectively weakening the power of both the Legislative Branch (Congress) and the Judicial Branch. This has resulted in an erosion of civil liberties. It has also enabled corporations and special interest groups to exert more control over government and the population as well. The Nixon-Kissinger CIA overthrows the neutral Cambodian government of Norodom Sihanouk in favor of a pro-US military junta headed by Gen. Lon Nol. The US also begins illegal bombing and military incursions in Cambodia in an effort to choke off North Vietnam's military supply lines to the south.
1971 - Nixon orders a break-in at the Brookings Institute and attempts to steal files of anti-war critic Daniel Ellsberg. Nixon also approves illegal secret wiretapping of political opponents.
1972 - The Watergate era begins when Nixon operatives are caught breaking into Democratic Party national headquarters during this election year. Nixon is implicated in a massive deliberate cover-up, but is strongly supported by a hardcore group of conservatives and Republicans all the way up to his resignation in 1974.
1981 - Republicans, led by Ronald Reagan, break the power of labor unions by firing all striking air traffic controllers and by engaging in numerous union-busting activities. They also begin passing tax cuts for the rich.
Early 1990s-present - Republicans launch support for various unrestricred "free trade" initiatives, resulting in millions of high-paying American jobs being shipped to Mexico and Asia. This lowers our wage levels, increases pollution levels in foreign countries, and produces massive and record trade deficits. In effect, we become slowly poorer and the other countries become richer.
1993-1994 - Republicans spread disinformation about the Clinton national health care plan, effectively killing it.
1995 - A new breed of radical Republicans, the ultra-conservative neo-conservative (Neocon) faction, gains control of the Republican Party and both houses of Congress.
Late 1990s-2005 - Republicans begin a push to privatize Social Security and force through rollbacks on regulation of banks, mortgage companies, energy speculators, and many other businesses.
2001-2009 - Republican President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney unconstitutionally expand the powers of their respective offices in a deliberate effort to make them barely accountable to Congress. Congressional Republicans act as their rubber stamp and do little to stop them. They appoint business leaders as the heads of agencies designed to regulate their businesses, ensuring that government regulation will be for the benefit of businesses rather than for the public as a whole. Bush awards unqualified Texas loyalists and old buddies important administrative jobs. Cheney meets secretly with energy industry representatives and fuel prices skyrocket. Bush politicizes the Justice Department by stocking it with right-wing ideologues. Both Bush and Cheney refuse to comply with legal Congressional attempts at oversight. Republican congresspersons do nothing.
2002-2005 - Bush and Congressional Republicans pass massive tax cuts for the wealthy and big corporations (including oil companies), and very little for the rest of the country. Torture, and rendition (kidnapping and transferring to secret locations in other countries) of Afghan and other prisoners of war begins. US military outpost in Guantanamo, Cuba, is set up as a holding and torture center for captured enemy combatants, in clear violation of the 1954 Geneva Convention. Republicans pass the so-called Patriot Act, enabling the government to illegally wiretap and obtain personal information on private citizens. Habeas Corpus rights are suspended. Opponents are branded as unpatriotic or aiding terrorism.
2003-2005 - Bush, Cheney, and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld push for pre-emptive war with Iraq, wildly supported by congressional Republicans as well as a number of coerced Democrats. They greatly increase the number of private contractors supplying military services, awarding non-bid contracts to friendly contractors like Halliburton and Blackwater, who have previously been large campaign donors. Bush, again with overwhelming congressional Republican support, begins intercepting cheaper Canadian pharmaceutical drugs at the border, a move which hurts the elderly on fixed incomes but benefits giant US pharmaceutical companies selling their goods at a price double that of foreign countries.
2004 - Republicans, courtesy of political strategist Karl Rove, utilize a wide variety of divisive wedge issues to isolate and defeat their opponents in the general election. They also employ the use of deliberate disinformation about their opponents, deliberate LIES, a process repeated with less success in 2006 and 2008.
2008 - In the final months of his presidency, Bush grants leases to permit drilling for oil in previously protected wildlife areas and weakens government regulations over a number of industries, resulting in relaxed pollution standards. He also implants a number of right-wing key employees in regulatory agencies, making it difficult for future Presidents to gain effective control over rechanneling of these agencies once he leaves office. At their convention, Republicans jubilantly chant "Drill, baby, drill!", in support of more oil consumption rather than endorsing conservation, higher gas mileage requirements, and development of alternate energy sources.
From nearly day one, the history of Republican rule has meant favoritism for concentrated capital and less-than-desirable results for many ordinary citizens. This chronic favoritism and pattern of devastating mistakes and mismanaged governance have not spoken well for the Republican Party. They have demonstrated a repeated pattern of inability to effectively govern. They should therefore never again gain power without first undergoing a massive transformation in their philosophy and method of governing!
- Calvin Coolidge -
"The United States of America does not have friends; it has interests."
- Dwight Eisenhower's Secretary of State John Foster Dulles -
"The press is the enemy."
- Richard M. Nixon -
With the exception of its very earliest days, just before and during Abraham Lincoln's administration, and for a brief time at the turn of the 20th Century during Teddy Roosevelt's terms in office, the Republican Party has acted mainly in the interests of big business and social conservatives. It has advocated a minimal role for government, preferring to let business and industry (particularly their owners) determine much of the course of the nation's affairs. As such, the party has not generally supported the needs of the majority of the country who were workers and small farmers. This minimalist approach to government and the support for a small minority of the wealthier, upper elites has led to an undeniable pattern of the Republican Party being consistently on the wrong sides of many, many issues and/or mismanaging the country's affairs. Below, in chronological order, is a listing of numerous grievous mistakes the Grand Old Party has made since the end of the Civil War in 1865.
1867 - Radical Republicans take over the party. They immediately turn their backs on assassinated President Lincoln's desire to mercifully reassimilate the Old South back into the Union. They enact harsh policies against ex-Confederates (many of whom had been southern Democrats before the war). These penalties included stripping them of voting rights and the ability to hold public office. They instead set up unqualified newly-freed blacks and corrupt northern businessmen to govern the South under the banner of the Republican Party. While they did free poor blacks from slavery, they provided no education or training for them to enable a seamless merge into white cultural society. Now free, buth with their former masters bankrupt and powerless, most blacks migrated to urban centers and settled into slums, barely being able to eke out a substandard living doing unskilled and often backbreaking labor at very low wages.
1869 - Republicans begin to become increasingly allied with and dominated by big business and banks. Bribes and extortion run rampant, culminating in the Credit Mobilier scandal of 1872.
1870s-present - Republicans and conservatives begin to side with big business against the formation of labor unions, and, once unions are established in 1935, actively try to suppress them.
1880s - Huge corrupt trusts are set up by big banks, big business and industry, and are supported and aided by Republicans.
1919 - GOP Senators play a heavy hand in preventing the US from joining the League of Nations, leaving that body weak and ineffective. Its eventual failure helps lead to World War II. Social conservatives in the party push through Prohibition, one of the worst and most impractical laws ever passed in the history of the human race.
1920s - Republican pro business, laissez-faire, anti regulatory policies (especially concerning the stock market) lead to terrible rural poverty and lay the seeds for 1929's Great Depression.
1935-1937 - Republicans oppose the adoption of government programs like Social Security, Unemployment Compensation, Welfare, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), the National Recovery Act (NRA), and the Works Progress Administration (WPA) - basically, any government-sponsored program designed to provide federal aid or employment to needy individual citizens. The GOP took the standpoint that government had no jurisdiction in those areas and that only private enterprise did. The problem was, of course, that businesses were too broke to provide those opportunities and SOMETHING had to be done for millions of hungry citizens. Thank God the GOP's numbers in Congress were too weak to prevent passage of all this beneficial legislation!
1947 - The GOP passed the Taft-Hartley Act, which weakened and restricted labor unions.
1950 - Republicans strongly support Sen. Joe McCarthy's infamous anti-communist witvh hunts, painting many Americans (especially Democrats) as soft on combatting communism. They use these accusations as a political tool to unseat Democrats and get themselves elected. These witch hunts wrongly accused many innocent people, ruining their lives and destroying their careers.
1953 - Ultra-conservative Secretary of State John Foster Dulles directs the CIA to help overthrow the democratically-elected pro-Islamic Mossadegh government in Iran, replacing it with the brutally repressive, pro-western Shah of Iran. This turns many Iranians against the US, the negative effects of which will become repeatedly evident years later.
1954 - John Foster Dulles again engineers the overthrow of a democratically-elected government, this time a leftist government in Guatemala, replacing it with a right-wing government more to his liking. Coincidentally (?), his brother, Allen Dulles, just happens to be on the board of directors of American Fruit Company, which had large holings in Guatemala and felt threatened by the leftist government. Dulles also prevents Vietnam from holding a national election, fearing that leftist nationalist Ho Chi Minh would win. So Dulles maneuvers to get Vietnam split into two countries, with Ho Chi Minh ruling the north and US-installed pro-western playboy Bao Di controlling the south. This lays the seeds for America's future bloody 15 year involvement in Vietnam.
1954-1965 - Many Republicans ally themselves with conservative southern Democrats to oppose and filibuster against major civil rights legislation.
1965 - Republicans oppose LBJ's Medicare and Medicaid programs and the entire War on Poverty program in general. These programs have benifitted millions of needy citizens since their inception.
1970- present - Republican Presidents, beginning with Richard Nixon and his Supreme Cort appointments Warren Burger and then William Rehnquist, begin their long attempt to pack the Supreme Court with conservative, pro-Republican justices. The Republicans call these types of justices "strict constructionists", who interpret the law strictly on precedent and Constitutional principle. But what justices like these have really done is strengthened the Executive Branch of Congress, effectively weakening the power of both the Legislative Branch (Congress) and the Judicial Branch. This has resulted in an erosion of civil liberties. It has also enabled corporations and special interest groups to exert more control over government and the population as well. The Nixon-Kissinger CIA overthrows the neutral Cambodian government of Norodom Sihanouk in favor of a pro-US military junta headed by Gen. Lon Nol. The US also begins illegal bombing and military incursions in Cambodia in an effort to choke off North Vietnam's military supply lines to the south.
1971 - Nixon orders a break-in at the Brookings Institute and attempts to steal files of anti-war critic Daniel Ellsberg. Nixon also approves illegal secret wiretapping of political opponents.
1972 - The Watergate era begins when Nixon operatives are caught breaking into Democratic Party national headquarters during this election year. Nixon is implicated in a massive deliberate cover-up, but is strongly supported by a hardcore group of conservatives and Republicans all the way up to his resignation in 1974.
1981 - Republicans, led by Ronald Reagan, break the power of labor unions by firing all striking air traffic controllers and by engaging in numerous union-busting activities. They also begin passing tax cuts for the rich.
Early 1990s-present - Republicans launch support for various unrestricred "free trade" initiatives, resulting in millions of high-paying American jobs being shipped to Mexico and Asia. This lowers our wage levels, increases pollution levels in foreign countries, and produces massive and record trade deficits. In effect, we become slowly poorer and the other countries become richer.
1993-1994 - Republicans spread disinformation about the Clinton national health care plan, effectively killing it.
1995 - A new breed of radical Republicans, the ultra-conservative neo-conservative (Neocon) faction, gains control of the Republican Party and both houses of Congress.
Late 1990s-2005 - Republicans begin a push to privatize Social Security and force through rollbacks on regulation of banks, mortgage companies, energy speculators, and many other businesses.
2001-2009 - Republican President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney unconstitutionally expand the powers of their respective offices in a deliberate effort to make them barely accountable to Congress. Congressional Republicans act as their rubber stamp and do little to stop them. They appoint business leaders as the heads of agencies designed to regulate their businesses, ensuring that government regulation will be for the benefit of businesses rather than for the public as a whole. Bush awards unqualified Texas loyalists and old buddies important administrative jobs. Cheney meets secretly with energy industry representatives and fuel prices skyrocket. Bush politicizes the Justice Department by stocking it with right-wing ideologues. Both Bush and Cheney refuse to comply with legal Congressional attempts at oversight. Republican congresspersons do nothing.
2002-2005 - Bush and Congressional Republicans pass massive tax cuts for the wealthy and big corporations (including oil companies), and very little for the rest of the country. Torture, and rendition (kidnapping and transferring to secret locations in other countries) of Afghan and other prisoners of war begins. US military outpost in Guantanamo, Cuba, is set up as a holding and torture center for captured enemy combatants, in clear violation of the 1954 Geneva Convention. Republicans pass the so-called Patriot Act, enabling the government to illegally wiretap and obtain personal information on private citizens. Habeas Corpus rights are suspended. Opponents are branded as unpatriotic or aiding terrorism.
2003-2005 - Bush, Cheney, and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld push for pre-emptive war with Iraq, wildly supported by congressional Republicans as well as a number of coerced Democrats. They greatly increase the number of private contractors supplying military services, awarding non-bid contracts to friendly contractors like Halliburton and Blackwater, who have previously been large campaign donors. Bush, again with overwhelming congressional Republican support, begins intercepting cheaper Canadian pharmaceutical drugs at the border, a move which hurts the elderly on fixed incomes but benefits giant US pharmaceutical companies selling their goods at a price double that of foreign countries.
2004 - Republicans, courtesy of political strategist Karl Rove, utilize a wide variety of divisive wedge issues to isolate and defeat their opponents in the general election. They also employ the use of deliberate disinformation about their opponents, deliberate LIES, a process repeated with less success in 2006 and 2008.
2008 - In the final months of his presidency, Bush grants leases to permit drilling for oil in previously protected wildlife areas and weakens government regulations over a number of industries, resulting in relaxed pollution standards. He also implants a number of right-wing key employees in regulatory agencies, making it difficult for future Presidents to gain effective control over rechanneling of these agencies once he leaves office. At their convention, Republicans jubilantly chant "Drill, baby, drill!", in support of more oil consumption rather than endorsing conservation, higher gas mileage requirements, and development of alternate energy sources.
From nearly day one, the history of Republican rule has meant favoritism for concentrated capital and less-than-desirable results for many ordinary citizens. This chronic favoritism and pattern of devastating mistakes and mismanaged governance have not spoken well for the Republican Party. They have demonstrated a repeated pattern of inability to effectively govern. They should therefore never again gain power without first undergoing a massive transformation in their philosophy and method of governing!
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