Gingrich is a total Tool

So Newt on OWS: "“Let me take that for a brief moment to describe Occupy Wall Street. All of the Occupy movement starts with the premise that we all owe them everything."

Gingrich Being a Tool

Herein methinks he doesn't have a frickin' clue.

The OWS movement is about revisiting rules that have been calcified over 40 years that direct 95% of any improvement in productivity to 1% of the nation.  That create tax laws that ensure this perpetuates itself.  That value Capital over Labor, losing any sort of a balanced perspective, and that have sold our legislative and judicial systems to the highest bidder, depriving the 99% of any sort of real Democracy.  They're protesting the sham of a political process where, two parties bought and paid for by the corporations owned by the 1% (OK, by the top 5% in this case) create no real change, only useless gridlock which isn't even entertaining anymore.

The fact is, if you look at it, if you aren't part of this group, the odds of you ever being a part of the group, or even improving your measly lot in life are pretty slim for most Americans.

So Newt, why don't you get a job that doesn't involve leveraging your political position with corrupt companies to make a couple million a year?  Something real and tangible that adds value to the US.  You once were apparently a good history professor - why don't you try teaching history again.  And stop displaying your ignorance and total tool status in debates on nationwide TV.

11.11.11

On today, Veterans day 2011, 10 years into the Global War on Terrorism -


My fellow veterans: I salute you. Thank you for your service to our great country. I'm proud to have served and I know you are too. 

(stolen shamelessly from Monique Hayden Gary with whom I served not once, but twice, on two continents)


I saw a chart the other day that something like 0.45% of the American population has served/are serving in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars / occupations. This is down from something like 15% for WWII and 4% for Vietnam.

This is why the government and society can pay lip service to admiring our citizens in uniform, yet in actuality do nothing to support them. (Note the funding and state of the VA, burying remains of fallen servicemen in a garbage dump at Dover AFB etc.)

As a decision maker in the political or economic systems, you might know someone who knows someone in the service, but the odds that you or an immediate family member have or are serving are miniscule. And that's what's wrong with the military-industrial complex we've built - there are no longer personal consequences for the decision makers for employing our sword, or trying oil or resheath it.


So on Veterans Day 2011 remember, respect, support.  And please think about the system we've created that encourages us to put our brave citizen soldiers, airmen, marines and sailors in harm's way, and support them after they've served or given their all.

In God We Trust

A response to Congress  reaffirming this week as the national motto the phrase "In God We Trust" and encouraging its pronouncement on public buildings and continued printing on the coin of the realm. 


See the LA Times for an article on this matter.


Who's god?  Or gods for that sake?  Yaweh?  Allah?  "God"?  Ganesh is a favorite of mine - let's make Ganesh our god we trust in to provide, direct and favor us above all other nations on earth.  


For 175 years (give or take until 1956 that is during the hysteria of the Cold War and under the influence of such great American leaders as McCarthy) we realized that religion is divisive and plays no place in a modern, post - theocratic government.  This is why the Pilgrims and many colonists came to this nation in the first place - to get away from state religions.  This is what the Enlightenment was all about, and arguably why European nations have ruled the world for over 400 hears.  Let me hear the words - "Separation of Church and State".


While living a just, moral and contributory life is an integral part to being a human being and a member of society, there's no place for Congress, or your city council for that matter, to legislate morality.  Legislate actions, behaviors.  Outcomes.  But morality?  Please.


Your religion is your business.  No one else's.  And plays no role in the development and management of a well run secular society.


Now if you'd like to like in a Theocracy, where religion is major part of the governing of a people, then I'd suggest you move to Iran or Taliban controlled areas of Afghanistan.  Just watch out for those who might take issue with your god, or your interpretation of what he, she or it is telling you to do.  

Why don't they just get a job?

This is a typical comment from most my conservative friends - and they do somewhat have a point.

Most everyone I've known more than 20 years have made their way in life through hard work, many by serving in the military as I did.  They worked McJobs, they were baristas.  So their point of view is that, if they pulled themselves up by their bootstraps and made something of themselves, why can't all these OWSers?


Good question, but sort of missed the point in my estimation.  The world is full of individuals who've been successful despite the obstacles thrown in front of them.  Many haven't succeeded. Why should we knowingly create an economic and political system that favors the few to the detriment of the many?  I think this is the issue on the table here, not why can't a group of protestors get employed.  It's about the systemic destruction of opportunity for anyone but the already privileged, and whether that's the world We the People want to make ours, or if there is truly a better one out there.

When Citibank begins marketing financial products to the "Plutonomy" (clever taking a concept, changing the suffix and making it a trade-markable item) you know we're in trouble.  They don't even care about keeping the topic quite anymore.  (See this article on Plutonomy to get started on the details: Times Colonist)

What's really amazing to me is how the upper middle class (lets say the top 20%) have bought into this line of argument.  Coming from a world of relative privilege compared to the bottom 80%, yet a stone to the sun compared to the 1%, they've adopted the liturgy of the wealthy in some misguided belief that they too will get there.  They've been to the best schools (their parents' money can buy), networked into powerful business relationships, and are set to make their $250,000 or so a year, and somehow this has convinced them that they've succeeded on their own merits.  In reality, they've neither succeeded (A hedge fund manager can make $250,000 a day guys), nor competed on their own merits (they were favored from birth.)

If this group (which I'll agree I too belong to in comparison to the bottom 60% - I'd say I've moved from somewhere around the 60th percentile where my parents were to somewhere in the 3rd to 5th percentile today) can't see the disparity we've created in opportunity, and the wasted potential this represents for all of us Americans, then we're in trouble.  For as the Terror taught la France, so too shall OWS teach America - when the vast teeming masses that make up the bulk of this country see no future, no potential, no ability to improve their lives for themselves or their children, then things can and will get ugly.

Proposed Talking Points for OccupyWallStreet

After dropping by the Occupy Seattle non-camp ground yesterday I realized that the time has really come to begin coalescing this movement around a few basic efforts that more than the fringe can identify with.  I mean really, there might have been 100 people there, and they were all younger than 30, full of tats and dreds.  Not a middle class person amongst them.  The movement clearly needs a more inclusive theme other than nuke the banks or kill the capitalists.


This made me start thinking about what the theme might be, and today I had a great cab ride from my Client to SEATAC here in the People's republic of NorthWestia that really helped clarify my thoughts for what the talking points for the OWS movement should be.  I owe a debt of gratitude to my cabbie, an elderly gent from East Africa who spoke little English, but actively commented and drove home the points that I've been trying to clarify in my head for months now.


The conservative media has dehumanized and vilified them; most central in their message is that this is a rag tag group of discontents who have no platform to promote.  They acquaint OWS with the masked anarchists who have shown up at so many other anti-establishment protests.  And somehow they miss the point.


OWS today is an exciting example of Democracy in action.  It's gritty, unorganized.  A group of people with an enormous set of issues looking for a common direction that they can mobilize both themselves as well as a sizable chunk of the US around to make what they hope is real change.


Central to their complaints, I'll say central to OUR complaints are two themes that, if addressed would enable a democratic process to emerge in this great nation to address all the others.  I propose these as starting points to productively resolve our issues.  I think they'll both take Constitutional Amendments, but  with the power of social media and the internet certainly we can get sufficient energy around these to get them passed:


ISSUE ONE: CORRUPTION


Our current governmental system is corrupt and no longer can claim to legitimately represent us.  Our representatives are bought and paid for by wealthy individuals and corporations who, through campaign contributions buy access and action.  It's pure pay for play driven by greed, and the need to compete in dollars with other candidates.  At what point did we agree to let a dollar represent one's worth in society?  


PROPOSAL


Contributions to elected officials or candidates for public offices shall be limited to no more than one day's average wages for the bottom 20% of Americans.  It shall be a felony to give more than this amount to any elected official or candidate.  It shall be a felony to receive more than this.


PACS and other aggregators of funding shall be illegal and disbanded.  It shall be a felony to establish one, a felony to contribute to one.


ISSUE TWO:  PERSONHOOD


Last I checked our Constitution read "We the People of the United States" not "We the Businesses of the United States."  Corporations are not people, no matter what tortured legal thinking you apply to the issue.  


PROPOSAL


Corporations do not have the legal rights of persons.  Therefore they shall not be permitted to contribute or give money to any elected official or candidate for office.  A corporation found to be doing so shall have its license to do business in the jurisdiction the offense occurred REVOKED.  (If found giving money to a state official or candidate they shall be forbidden to do business in that state, if found giving money to a US Governmental official or candidate they shall have their right to do business in the US REVOKED.




By doing these two things we can take the money and power out of politics, and reintroduce a democratic process in our great nation.  We once more can have real elected representatives, not the charade of options presented by the two equally corrupt parties today.  Once we've done this we can address all the other issues the way a democracy is supposed to - by open dialog and debate.  It will be messy.  It will be contentious.  But at least it will happen, rather than being shoveled under the carpet the way it is today.

Rethinking Occupy Wall Street

So the interesting thing about Occupy Wall Street is that the protestors seem to be asking the government, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of corporate America thanks to the fiction of corporate personhood and the treasonous practice of campaign contributions, to increase regulation of the very corporations which own it. 


And then we're surprised that the police, the enforcement arm of this corrupt (and therefore I'd say illegitimate) government violate the civil rights of the protestors? This is the same government that, ignoring both our own and international laws, has been using extraordinary rendition to do away with foreign "terrorists". The same government that has executed US citizens without trial. And you're surprised?

No - it's time for a major shift in how we think about what legitimate representation is, what the role of government is in our society, and how we the people (the 99%) agree or not agree to engage in discourse or interaction with a corrupt and illegitimate government. I'd suggest a re-read of Voltaire and other Enlightenment philosophers about what a legitimate government looks like. Or even easier, re-read our own Declaration of Independence:


US Declaration of Independence

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed...."

Dissent is Patriotic.

If you aren't pissed off then you haven't been paying attention

Once again I agree with Ron Paul - well sort of ...

Ron Paul is dead on in this piece on the need to define the sanctity of life in America, not the first time that I've agreed with him, much to my chagrin.   However, I'd guess where I'd part ways with him is on how we do this, and the implications for our domestic, economic and social policies.  I see no role for government telling a woman what to do here; having said that, I'm generally anti-abortion except in early stage pregnancies (say first trimester) and where the life of the mother is at stake.  I hear a lot of talk about incest, rape or other situations, but I think these can easily fit within that first trimester.


Ron Paul on Life

On a broader topic, that of life and the sanctity of it in general, and the need to have an agreement in place for our society to lay a moral compass for our actions - absolutely.  Having said that I'd move to two places - war and poverty.

On war - what is different between a late term abortion and sending one of our citizens to some hell hole and having them either kill or be killed?  Usually it's economics or some misguided principle of nationalism that we haven't fully though through.   I'd say it's incredibly hypocritical to be virulently anti-abortion and pro war simultaneously.

On poverty - if life is sacred, should we be focused on creating an environment where those alive can live a fulfilling, meaningful life without the pains of hunger, homelessness and sickness?  Shouldn't our public policies be maximizing the happiness of the maximum number of people we can?  How can we, the greatest nation and people ever to have existed, live with ourselves with 16% of the nation in extreme poverty, >25% of our children going hungry at night, and the degree of homelessness we have today?  I'm staggered by the evident hypocrisy of those who would try to impose their will on women through so called "pro-life" policies and dogma, yet allow this condition to perpetuate and grow worse.