The president’s performance was not up to snuff and that’s for sure. Romney was aggressive and seemingly articulate though without the specifics that his rhetoric so sorely lacks. He also changed his explanation of how he would handle giving tax rate reductions yet again without any elaboration. So the president had a bad night for some unknown and unknowable reason and Romney came to fight. All of that changes nothing in the mind of an intelligent and well informed voter.
If you believe that we should have an every person for themselves society where the poor and disadvantaged are left to their own devices to improve their lot and reach a level of competency that allows for them to contribute to that society vote Romney. If you believe that by educating all children according to their desires and talent in order to build a sound foundation of competent and knowledgeable people able to advance our society vote Obama.
If you believe that the rich have no further obligation to the society from which they come and that they are entitled to pass laws that insulate them from the just interest of that society vote Romney. If you believe that to whom much is given, much is also required and that society has a moral obligation to protect itself from the poison and shoddy products of the immoral capitalist and his corporation vote Obama.
If you believe that society has no moral obligation to the genetically defective, aged, and infirmed or to the hungry and destitute vote Romney. If you believe that a just Society must provide for the least among them through their laws, their courts, and their traditions vote Obama.
If you believe in the privatization of prisons, schools, nursing homes, the military, and everything else vote Romney. If you believe that government should dispense justice, insure safety standards, inspect producers and enforce compliance vote for Obama.
If you want a hard right politically driven Supreme Court that will continue to steal elections, grant personhood to corporations and allow Wall Street to run away with your money vote Romney. If you want a Supreme Court that will overturn Citizen’s United, protect individual freedom and liberties, and see corporations for what they are, a legal fiction, vote Obama.
Elections are about choices and this one is no different. There are even more stark choices about the character, veracity, and openness of these two men that should be considered. A man who won’t disclose his past tax returns and manipulates his current ones in pursuit of the presidency is hiding something. So America make your choices and take your chances. The ball is in your court now.
Thursday, October 4, 2012
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Dirty Words
The Republican Party has done everything in its power to make compromise a dirty word. It has gone from describing the process of negotiation, for the sake of the greater good, to a pejorative of the worst kind. This certainly is not news to anyone, but it is also not the only word they have moved into this category. Profit is also now among the more despicable words in the English language. By associating profit with healthcare, education the environment, and the justice system they have endangered the capitalist system, diminished our republic, and made the word profit just as much of a pejorative as compromise.
In education for profit schools have turned into marketing machines that overcharge for an inferior product and provide such poor support that their dropout rates are exorbitant. In healthcare the United States has the most expensive healthcare on the planet and one of the lowest measures of quality. For profit prisons are becoming more prevalent everyday and have already been involved in scandals including unjust incarceration. They have waged war on science by denying global warming to protect profits regardless of the damage to our environment and the long term consequences.
Profit is a good thing when it comes from honest effort, good products, and excellent service. Monies that flow from the hardship inflicted on others are better described as unjust enrichment. Our system of government is also a profit center for the majority of the elected representatives now in office. For the most part they are more interested in the pursuit of power, riches, and prestige than in public service.
The trust, as measured by polls and popular acclaim, between the people and the politicians has been destroyed. They no longer represent our best interest, but rather those of the corporations and special interest with the money to fund their reelection and retirements. The system has been broken, and if the republic is to survive it must be fixed. We are just as oppressed, just as bereft of representation, and just as unjustly governed as we were in the days of our first American Revolution. It is time for the second American Revolution; time and past time.
The constitution gives us the tools to conduct this revolution peacefully and without bloodshed, deaths, and tears. It does not give us the courage and determination to lock arms and join in the good fight to reclaim our freedom and prosperity. That must come from within. It will require the majority of the “people” to rise up, read up, study up, stand up and be heard. We can restore the American dream by making our voices heard at the polls, and calling a constitutional convention to make the changes necessary. We can make profit and compromise intelligent and meaningful words again too.
In education for profit schools have turned into marketing machines that overcharge for an inferior product and provide such poor support that their dropout rates are exorbitant. In healthcare the United States has the most expensive healthcare on the planet and one of the lowest measures of quality. For profit prisons are becoming more prevalent everyday and have already been involved in scandals including unjust incarceration. They have waged war on science by denying global warming to protect profits regardless of the damage to our environment and the long term consequences.
Profit is a good thing when it comes from honest effort, good products, and excellent service. Monies that flow from the hardship inflicted on others are better described as unjust enrichment. Our system of government is also a profit center for the majority of the elected representatives now in office. For the most part they are more interested in the pursuit of power, riches, and prestige than in public service.
The trust, as measured by polls and popular acclaim, between the people and the politicians has been destroyed. They no longer represent our best interest, but rather those of the corporations and special interest with the money to fund their reelection and retirements. The system has been broken, and if the republic is to survive it must be fixed. We are just as oppressed, just as bereft of representation, and just as unjustly governed as we were in the days of our first American Revolution. It is time for the second American Revolution; time and past time.
The constitution gives us the tools to conduct this revolution peacefully and without bloodshed, deaths, and tears. It does not give us the courage and determination to lock arms and join in the good fight to reclaim our freedom and prosperity. That must come from within. It will require the majority of the “people” to rise up, read up, study up, stand up and be heard. We can restore the American dream by making our voices heard at the polls, and calling a constitutional convention to make the changes necessary. We can make profit and compromise intelligent and meaningful words again too.
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
Response to Romney's VFW Diatribe
One would have to be a complete idiot to believe that President Obama has been anything other than exemplary, insofar as his foreign policy management is concerned. He has done more to restore the national reputation ruined by the previous republican administration than we could have rightly expected. His penchant for truth telling has earned the respect of leaders worldwide if not the sycophantic adulation that the right would demand through sheer force.
Budget cuts pending for the military are the result of the rights intransigence and refusal to consent to a budget deal; that includes all the cuts they demanded, and the increase in revenues from the wealthiest one percent of the population. All that increase involves is a return to the once widely accepted tax rates prevalent until Bush decided to demolish the surplus Clinton bequeathed him.
As to things, the American people are entitled to know let’s start with Mr. Romney’s last twelve tax returns shall we? His talking about things people are entitled to know is like the pot calling the kettle black. People who live in glass houses should refrain from throwing stones at another’s brick abode. Did he have years where he paid no taxes? Was he involved in the Swiss amnesty deal in 09? Has he invested in China or other dictatorships for personal gain?
Quoting Romney these are things “that Americans are entitled to know, and know right now.” Romney has been so duplicitous about so many of his stances on various policy issues that one wonders why he is so insistent on refusing to be transparent about his earnings, investments and tax liability prior to 2010. It is not like him to take a firm stand on anything after all.
It is easy for a wannabe know nothing who has never been briefed on world affairs by the various intelligence and administrative agencies that monitor such things, to be critical of things in a general way. Specifics of course elude them because they are unaware of the underlying facts that require a top secret, need to know clearance. It is convenient also to ignore Bush looking into Putin’s eyes and seeing his soul.
Romney is a man of low intellect and less character. He wants the presidency so intensely he is willing to try and buy it, with the support of right wing extremists like the Koch brothers and others, who are willing to pay any price to rid themselves of a black president. He is a man who will try to sell a lame horse on drugs to mask the illness, tie a dog to the roof of the car, and refuse to disclose his finances to “you people”. His money does not command respect nor entitle him to the position he so desperately seeks.
He and the others of his ilk on the right are so fearful of the country becoming one where once all powerful white males find themselves in the minority of a population growing ever more colorful, diverse, and liberal that their paranoia is debilitating. It keeps them up at night, and in a state of perpetual terror about their ability to design the future according to their self-styled aristocracy. They have decided to wage a war of total destruction rather than acquiesce to the foregone conclusion driven by birth rates and the yearning of the poor for a fair shot at the American Dream.
Budget cuts pending for the military are the result of the rights intransigence and refusal to consent to a budget deal; that includes all the cuts they demanded, and the increase in revenues from the wealthiest one percent of the population. All that increase involves is a return to the once widely accepted tax rates prevalent until Bush decided to demolish the surplus Clinton bequeathed him.
As to things, the American people are entitled to know let’s start with Mr. Romney’s last twelve tax returns shall we? His talking about things people are entitled to know is like the pot calling the kettle black. People who live in glass houses should refrain from throwing stones at another’s brick abode. Did he have years where he paid no taxes? Was he involved in the Swiss amnesty deal in 09? Has he invested in China or other dictatorships for personal gain?
Quoting Romney these are things “that Americans are entitled to know, and know right now.” Romney has been so duplicitous about so many of his stances on various policy issues that one wonders why he is so insistent on refusing to be transparent about his earnings, investments and tax liability prior to 2010. It is not like him to take a firm stand on anything after all.
It is easy for a wannabe know nothing who has never been briefed on world affairs by the various intelligence and administrative agencies that monitor such things, to be critical of things in a general way. Specifics of course elude them because they are unaware of the underlying facts that require a top secret, need to know clearance. It is convenient also to ignore Bush looking into Putin’s eyes and seeing his soul.
Romney is a man of low intellect and less character. He wants the presidency so intensely he is willing to try and buy it, with the support of right wing extremists like the Koch brothers and others, who are willing to pay any price to rid themselves of a black president. He is a man who will try to sell a lame horse on drugs to mask the illness, tie a dog to the roof of the car, and refuse to disclose his finances to “you people”. His money does not command respect nor entitle him to the position he so desperately seeks.
He and the others of his ilk on the right are so fearful of the country becoming one where once all powerful white males find themselves in the minority of a population growing ever more colorful, diverse, and liberal that their paranoia is debilitating. It keeps them up at night, and in a state of perpetual terror about their ability to design the future according to their self-styled aristocracy. They have decided to wage a war of total destruction rather than acquiesce to the foregone conclusion driven by birth rates and the yearning of the poor for a fair shot at the American Dream.
Saturday, February 4, 2012
One Percent Economics
When Romney tried to make his ten thousand dollar bet with Newt it was taken as a sign, of his cavalier attitude toward what he certainly considers chump change. It adds to the impression that he is a card carrying member of the “one percent”, and has no regard for the challenges, aspirations, or life style of the “ninety nine percent”. To him ten thousand dollar bets are equivalent to the five dollar bets, of the average person participating, in the office Super Bowl scoring pool.
Speaking of the Super Bowl, this year’s ticket prices are the highest yet, and fifty yard line seats on the bottom level even exceed the dollar value of Romney’s proposed wager. Of course, neither of these expressions of economic value can hold a candle to the asking price of the Jaguars owner Shahid Kahn’s yacht, which at One hundred and twelve million dollars exceeds the team’s annual payroll. Then there is the Koch brother’s decision to spend one hundred million dollars to defeat President Obama.
What all these expressions of monetary value have in common, is the sort of people who consider them just the usual cost of satisfying their current inclination. The access to vast wealth does not in and of itself make one an immoral person or diminish one’s sense of the most valuable things in life like love, truth, and kindness. Take Warren Buffet and Bill Gates, for example, they are extremely wealthy people whose selflessness and philanthropy set shining examples to their financial peers.
There is though the other either already extraordinarily wealthy or wannabe wealthy individual, whose value system is driven exclusively by the pursuit of wealth. I am talking about the hard, right wing tea party republican who believes they should be taxed at less of a rate than the common member of the proletariat. This individual judges their own self worth, and everybody else’s, by their amount of net worth. You know the type; they are the ones who want to destroy Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
These are the ones who will resort to any tactic, no matter how unpleasant, any prevarication, no matter how false, and any subterfuge, no matter how reprehensible, to further their aims. They revel in their ability to hoodwink the masses into believing the unbelievable with propaganda, innuendo, and outright lies. They have called into doubt Obama’s genealogy, birth place, religion, and political affiliation with no regard to the truth. They have lied to the country to garner support for unjust and immoral wars.
There is no limit to their perfidy, and no limit to the deaths, and destruction they are willing to inflict on the rest of humanity, to further their pursuit of money. Their value system does not consider justice, truth or common humanity of value. They care not one whit for the health of the planet or anyone on it, including their own children. They are self indulgent, self-absorbed, and greedy beyond measure; and consider all of these attributes to be among their finer qualities.
Some will disagree and point to Romney’s supposed largess in contributing so much to his church. One must take into account his belief though that god commands him to do that, in order to achieve the highest of three levels of exaltation that exist in the Mormon version of heaven. His tithing is not from the heart as much as from a fear of his god. When it comes to how he feels about the poor he has made that exceedingly clear through his actions and pronouncements.
President Obama and the democrats are right that this coming election is about choices, consequences, and the direction of the country into the foreseeable future. If we don’t give him a clear and decisive mandate along with the house and senate needed to achieve it, we are guaranteeing the destruction of the middle class as we know it, and the impoverishment of all, but the one percent. Oh, we’ll get our bread and circuses in the guise of soup lines, and super bowls, but the American Dream will die a miserable death, and the stench will live in our nostrils for generations.
Speaking of the Super Bowl, this year’s ticket prices are the highest yet, and fifty yard line seats on the bottom level even exceed the dollar value of Romney’s proposed wager. Of course, neither of these expressions of economic value can hold a candle to the asking price of the Jaguars owner Shahid Kahn’s yacht, which at One hundred and twelve million dollars exceeds the team’s annual payroll. Then there is the Koch brother’s decision to spend one hundred million dollars to defeat President Obama.
What all these expressions of monetary value have in common, is the sort of people who consider them just the usual cost of satisfying their current inclination. The access to vast wealth does not in and of itself make one an immoral person or diminish one’s sense of the most valuable things in life like love, truth, and kindness. Take Warren Buffet and Bill Gates, for example, they are extremely wealthy people whose selflessness and philanthropy set shining examples to their financial peers.
There is though the other either already extraordinarily wealthy or wannabe wealthy individual, whose value system is driven exclusively by the pursuit of wealth. I am talking about the hard, right wing tea party republican who believes they should be taxed at less of a rate than the common member of the proletariat. This individual judges their own self worth, and everybody else’s, by their amount of net worth. You know the type; they are the ones who want to destroy Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
These are the ones who will resort to any tactic, no matter how unpleasant, any prevarication, no matter how false, and any subterfuge, no matter how reprehensible, to further their aims. They revel in their ability to hoodwink the masses into believing the unbelievable with propaganda, innuendo, and outright lies. They have called into doubt Obama’s genealogy, birth place, religion, and political affiliation with no regard to the truth. They have lied to the country to garner support for unjust and immoral wars.
There is no limit to their perfidy, and no limit to the deaths, and destruction they are willing to inflict on the rest of humanity, to further their pursuit of money. Their value system does not consider justice, truth or common humanity of value. They care not one whit for the health of the planet or anyone on it, including their own children. They are self indulgent, self-absorbed, and greedy beyond measure; and consider all of these attributes to be among their finer qualities.
Some will disagree and point to Romney’s supposed largess in contributing so much to his church. One must take into account his belief though that god commands him to do that, in order to achieve the highest of three levels of exaltation that exist in the Mormon version of heaven. His tithing is not from the heart as much as from a fear of his god. When it comes to how he feels about the poor he has made that exceedingly clear through his actions and pronouncements.
President Obama and the democrats are right that this coming election is about choices, consequences, and the direction of the country into the foreseeable future. If we don’t give him a clear and decisive mandate along with the house and senate needed to achieve it, we are guaranteeing the destruction of the middle class as we know it, and the impoverishment of all, but the one percent. Oh, we’ll get our bread and circuses in the guise of soup lines, and super bowls, but the American Dream will die a miserable death, and the stench will live in our nostrils for generations.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
