23. December 2008 by admin.

I think what is really bothering me of late is, as I read in a New York Times Op Ed today, the “rush to the bottom.” As a school teacher I watch how hard other teachers are working to help our students succeed in an atmosphere that is set up for failure, that being the so-called “No Child left Behind” policy of the Bush administration. Then I read and listen as many “pundits” place the blame for “failing schools” on the teachers. This is an unfortunate “setup” created by right wing politicians who want to see public education destroyed. And then you watch their attacks on one of the last bastions of productivity in this nation, the domestic auto industry, and you realize these guys have no scruples whatsoever. You don’t have to look too far past those two examples to get further evidence of what makes these, mostly republican, “lawmakers” tick. Today I read an article about the lobbyists who have been in a feeding frenzy over the graft provided by Ted Stevens of Alasks who is soon to be a part of the history of the US Senate.

Stevens, according to this article, was personally responsible (I hope that’s the right term) for about $60 million per year in lobbying fees paid to members of the “K Street” lobbyists who were in his inner circle. Stevens was sending billions in “earmarks” to Alaska each year and these lobbyists were evidently the conduit in which his power was connected to whatever mechanism made this work for the people of Alaska, the lobbyists, and the contractors all of which I’m sure were very unhappy to see him go, despite conviction on 7 felonies of political corruption. The thing that probably bothers me the most is that, while Stevens may very well have been at the top of this example of greed personified, it is pretty much commonplace in Washington DC over the past 30 or so years and kicked into high gear over the past 8 years. So while these republicans are attacking teachers and blue collar workers, especially those represented by unions, they and their compatriots have been fleecing the system by the billions with hardly any notice.

It’s not like people don’t know this is going on - I mean large gated communities with million dollar estates are springing up all over the Virginia counties adjoining Washington DC. And I’ll be that if someone were to check on who is filling these communities, who has the where with all to afford such an exhorbitant lifestyle, you’d find a combination of the contractors who are benefitting from the contracts passed around through the house and senate like candy, and the lobbyists who are facilitating the process. While all this is happening, the federal government is headed toward bankruptcy, the “financial sector” is in the process of bilking close to another trillion out of Uncle Sam, and all the while the people in those gated communities are complaining about how Obama might raise taxes on the “rich” and how the auto workers are making too much money and that’s what’s wrong with Detroit. Just take a quick moment to think about how all these communities have electronically controlled gates around them and some of the homes inside do as well. That is even happening out West where I’m writing this from. What we’re seeing is a great example of the “haves and the have nots” emerging in America.

In their intense effort to destroy unions and “put workers in their place” these politicians, lobbyists, and executives evidently are feeling a bit unsafe (has anyone out there read Marx and the ultimate destruction of a capitalist society once greed has squeezed almost everyone out of the middle class). It reminds me of my trip to Mexico a few years ago. Now, I’m not much of a world travelor, in fact I’ve only been to Mexico and Canada once each. My trip to Mexico lasted about a week, long enough to help build a small guest house at a children’s home in Madera which is located in Chiwawa (I hope I came close to spelling that correctly). During that week one of the things I remember was as we went back and forth from the hotel to the work site the difference between the run down homes of the average Mexican and the few nice homes of the, I assume, privileged. Each of the nice homes had high steel fences surrounding them with electronically controlled gates protecting the property. I remember thinking how this must be due to the fact that there is so much unemployment in Mexico that the people with nice homes feel the necessity to protect their property. Do we want this to happen in America?

Evidently there are many who would like this society to regress to something like that. I’m not sure how possible that is, but I’m anxious to see who purchases the millions of homes that are being foreclosed upon due to the political failures of the last eight years (I realize that republicans can always find someone else to blame for the problems that happen on their “watch” but I’m just telling it like it is - their greed has finally brought us all to this unpleasant place). The idea of gated communities for the rich - I guess the gates are necessary because the general public won’t be able to afford police and with a high level of unemployment there must be a bit of concern about people breaking into their homes - so that gates and fences must be designed to stop crime. I won’t be surprised if I start seeing security guards inside the gates ensuring that no one attempts to get in. Do you see what I’m getting at here? Sure, progress is happening, but is this the kind of progress that is good for the country? I’m honestly not understanding how some of these people think they can get along fine without the rest of us. Is somebody going to invent a car that has protective devices which will allow these people to go out into public if it gets that bad? Personally, I believe it’s time for this country to tear down the gated walls and rebuild the middle class!

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23. December 2008 by admin.

Another night where I just need to write to make myself better able to deal with the reality of what is happening to this country that I love. And if you’ve read many of my posts, you know that I’m not much of a fan of George W. Bush or the republican party as it is presently constituted. In fact, the more I watch what is going on as the days slowly dwindle away in the administration of President Bush giving way to the optimism of the Presidency of Barrack Obama the more I’m concerned about the next four years. I’ve watched with a quiet curiosity as Obama has put together a “team” which will be challenged as no other president has been challenged since the days of Franklin D Roosevelt. I’m going to reserve judgement on his choices, most people are very impressed with the majority of them, and I’m not even in the camp that is upset that Obama has reached out to Pastor Rick Warren to give the invocation at the inauguration - I’ve read the book that made Warren a national figure “Purpose Driven Life,” and found it quite good - because someone has to let the so-called “Christian Right” understand that the conservative movement in this country is no more “Christian” than many of the issues they vehemently oppose. In fact, I’m convinced that once the Christian movement fully realizes what they’ve been the “base” to, the republican party will either have to make monumental changes or be a “thing of the past.”

My concern tonight is the nagging thought that Obama is going to do too much reaching and not enough extinguishing (for lack of a better word). I’m really worried that President Obama, in the interest of “unity,” is going to just “move on” and let bygones be bygones. In my opinion, if he chooses this path, IT WILL BE A HUGE MISTAKE. I’m reading lots of stuff, In fact the other day I was stuck in my car during a snow storm and decided to force myself to listen to some conservative talk radio, and I’m convinced that the conservative movement is all fired up and is gearing up the propaganda machine to start the attacks on Obama well before he becomes President (In fact, they’ve already started). I actually like the thought of unity, but not at the expense of standing up for the principles that have brought this nation to the role of “leader of the free world.” I believe that if Obama shows the “gumption” to emphasize that this is a nation ruled by laws and not “men” we will have taken a huge step forward. Unfortunately, in my opinion the reverse holds true as well. Should he choose to allow the “Bush Crime family” to walk away without consequence for their actions he will have just proved what the republicans always say, that the democrats have no spine - they are weak.

Let me give you some examples of the problems that I see growing if something isn’t done forcefully about them (and, believe me, there are plenty more than what I’m going to list here). Because it’s so important in my mind; there simply HAS to be accountability for the abuses in President Bush’s “warrantless wiretapping” program. I continue to be amazed that there isn’t more outrage about the fact the government has been and is spying on virtually all of it’s citizens. As with most of their abuses the Bush administration throws up the “National Security” excuse for a behemoth of felonies committed on the behalf of stopping terrorist attacks - even though they had the necessary authority to stop 9/11 and bungled everything when the opportunity was there. To me, the thought that every email I send, every phone call I make, and even every purchase I make online (and probably offline using a credit card) is being monitered by my government is more than a bit chilling. The fact that they don’t have a reason to worry about what I’m doing is not the point (although, when you think about it, the day could possibly be closer than we think, should this continue, where bloggers could be considered “enemy combatants” if their thoughts are not in concert with the “powers that be) - the point is that we seem to be willingly giving up one of the basic rights (the right to privacy) that men and women have been fighting and dying to protect for the past 200+ years.

Here’s what’s worse about the warrantless wiretapping program. The United States of America has spent billions of dollars creating huge facilities to gather, store, and analyze an unbelievable amount of data over the past 8 years (they were spending a lot prior to Bush II but he’s really raised the bar and there seems to be no limit on what he’s willing to dole out for the latest greatest technology). In the process we have become beholden to at least two companies from Israel(I believe a third is emerging) who specialize in gathering information from cell phones, hi speed internet cables, whatever methods people use to communicate from one to another. These companies, quite naturally, are in business to make a profit - and the satellites and internet cables they have figured out how to intrude on actually circle the globe many times over. Cell phones and the internet are not just common in America, even many third world countries are wired to the hilt - many of the countries where we are concerned about the human rights practices of their governments - like Viet Nam, China, Sudan, etc. These countries are buying the technology that is being developed by the Israeli complanies for the US government, but technology that the US government has no proprietory ownership of, and they are using this same technology to virtually halt any dissent in their nations. There is not only technology to gather virtually all the info, but now they have developed software to “sift” through this technology at alarmingly fast rates to descipher key words or phrases. So not only has this program of Bush’s allowed our government to intrude on its citizens, it is allowing foriegn nations to clamp down on dissenters who are seeking free societies. THE DAMAGE OF THIS PROGRAM IS SEVERE.

The people involved in this program have known all along that it is illegal, even to the point that when it was made public in 2005 the employees began training on how to lie in front of congress if they were called to testify about what they were doing. Bush and Cheney got a couple of their own lawyers to write bogus legal “opinions” to provide them “cover” but they knew right from the start what they were doing was illegal. They just didn’t want to go through the hassle, and possibility of denial, that would have been involved in getting the FISA law tweeked to give them more leeway in “fighting terrorism.” These two guys in particular just didn’t like the idea that the President of the United States was obligated to follow the laws that they had taken an oath to protect when they took their offices. This attitude, of course, carried over into other areas. The idea that the United States of America is now regarded internationally as a country that believes in torture, is torture to me - as a citizen. In my research into this problem I discovered that torture isn’t something altogether new for our government, it’s just been done in more discreet ways in the past.

For example, during the 70’s and 80’s our CIA facilitated several coups in South America and other places around the globe, orchestrating in governments that were willing to support our taking their national resources (such as copper in Chile, oil in Venezuela, etc.) in return for us helping them to stay in power and to thwart dissent through “disappearing” of dissidents and the secret prisons that have become so commonplace since 9/11 - no wonder our CIA is looked at around the world with such disdain (the reason the Iranians hate us is because in the 50’s our CIA put the Shah in power at the expense of a freely elected government with the result being a despot who was, in the minds of many, worse than Saddam Hussein). IT IS TIME FOR THE US TO LET THE REST OF THE WORLD KNOW THAT THIS STUFF IS GOING TO STOP!!! And the way to do this is for Barrack Obama to hold those in the Bush administration accountable who authorized “enhanced interrogations.” We know this includes Cheney and Rumsfeld via admissions on national TV, and there can be little doubt that this includes the President as well. The thought that a few sargeants and privates would take the fall for Abu Ghraib, for instance, is deplorable. Obama can take a huge step toward REALLY CHANGING the direction of this country if he stands up to these arrogant cowards! (Yes, cowards - neither Bush nor Cheney would ever have thought about going into combat, but they didn’t think twice about ruining the lives of millions of people in their quest for oil or whatever else was on their mind when they illegally invaded Iraq).

I’m not going to get into detail about the abuses that have occurred in the “financial sector” of our economy - but there has to be accountability there as well. These people have been robbing us blind for years and it hit the crescendo stage during the Bush administration. Many of the “thieves” in Bush’s “army” got their start under either Richard Nixon or Ronald Reagan. And don’t kid yourself, most of these people are the ones best ready to “weather the storm” that lies ahead in the economic recession/depression that Obama is facing as he takes the “reins” of office. These guys didn’t go away during the eight years of Bill Clinton (in fact they have the money to pay for the attacks that will insure that our nation stays divided, because that’s how they make such huge amounts of money) and they won’t go away during the Obama administration if they are not ferretted out and held legally accountable for the corruption that has been rampant during the last 28 years. One thing that is really important here, there can be no favoritism for democrats over republicans, which is why this part of the accountability will be so difficult. There will be a lot of Washington’s “elite” going down if this is fully investigated. When you get an environment where it is OK for the CEO’s to be earning (I say earning a bit tongue in cheek) 4500 times what their workers are earning, you know things are way out of tilt. A quick look at the lobbying “industry” and how it is connected to the Senate and Representative “industry” and you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to realize that there’s a lot of corruption “on both sides of the isle.” This need to be investigated if we are going to have the “Change we can believe in.” Without accountability for the past corruption and lawbreaking change will be an empty word.

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