American Exceptionalism has been a topic of Presidential campaign speeches and debates recently. Candidate Mitt Romney says he believes in Exceptionalism. Candidate Barack Obama seems to prefer the term "indispensable," which is a more diplomatic term.
The United States of America is hardly the first nation to think that it is exceptional: that it is blessed by God above all other nations, and that therefore it can do no wrong. Famously the Jews, in the ancient nations of Israel and Judah, made the same claim. That did not prevent them from being enslaved in Babylon. A few centuries later the Romans kicked them out of Jerusalem. Those remaining in Palestine mostly converted to Islam by 700 A.D.
Americans have done a lot better than the Jews, so far. Our founding fathers preferred to see us as a future Roman empire, only with as a Republic. By 1776 generations of Euro-Americans and African-Americans had died in this "new" continent. The survivors were a healthy, aggressive, rapidly breeding lot that eventually got us to where we are today.
The problem with Exceptionalism is that it glosses over real causes and effects. If America is exceptional, why? Could we lose our exceptional status?
Education, in the most general sense of preferring knowledge to ignorance, was a key generator of the wealth of this nation. Many of the founding fathers were highly educated men, and among other things they saw to the founding or expansion of a number of colleges and lower schools. Federal lands were set aside specifically to finance schools in the new territories to the west. Free public schooling became a foundation of both our democracy and our economy. By the 1850's Americans were among the world's best educated people. Between 1850 and 1910 American inventors, educators, and scientists joined with workers and businessmen to create the first economy that was not powered mainly by human sweat.
In the 1990's however, the U.S. education system began slipping into a steep decline. Can America remain exceptional if it has a sub-par education system?
Look at other nations that thought they were exceptional if you want to learn a thing or two. The prior most exceptional nation before the U.S. clawed its way to the top during the aftermath of World War II was Great Britain, aka England or the British Empire.
The Brits were sure they were favored by God. Their soldiers and bullets made the idea hard to argue with. The Sun never set on the British Empire. Until it did.
A promoter of American Exceptionalism might want to ask: how did the Brits loose their exceptional status? Idiots may think a capricious God just decided to punish the Brits for some slight, but policy makers should look for real world causes.
The main obvious difference between the British Empire and the global dominance of the United States was that the Brits ruled over people through colonies, while the U.S. has largely maintained a business empire in which we depend on puppet governments to rule our "allied" nations.
You might argue that God, or macroeconomics, favors the American System over the more old-fashioned British Imperialism. But I think you would be wrong. The baton was not passed from the British to the Americans because we perfected "soft" imperialism.
America took over the British Empire, and it was a well-planned maneuver, executed over decades. We did it with what can only be called exquisite timing. We encouraged the European great nations to fight each other, and we even encouraged the Japanese and Chinese to fight each other. [As my dad, a former Marine Corps intelligence officer, liked to say: "Let's you and him fight."]
In both World War I and World War II the U.S. lent money to the belligerent nations so they could buy U.S. goods (including weapons). Then when they were weakened and indebted to us we chose a side (the Brits in both wars), went in, and with the loss of relatively few men became leaders of the victory camp. More importantly, our economy was strengthened by each war, while those of the other nations were weakened.
In particular, in World War II the Germans destroyed British and Russian factories. The British destroyed German factories. The Japanese destroyed Chinese factories, and the U.S. destroyed Japanese factories (and helped destroy German factories).
At the end of World War II, we had the factories. We had mines, and we had a vast agricultural system. We also had the atomic bomb. We did not need God on our side. We just needed the British Empire to close up shop. After India and Pakistan became independent in 1947, we really just had to use our economic power to mop up. We also mopped up most of the colonies that had belonged to the Netherlands and France, and we sent Douglas MacArthur to play God in Japan.
The Communists tried to ruin it for us, and ran some nice nationalist revolutions here and there, and even defeated America's military might in Vietnam. But America's empire gave us so much economic muscle that the Soviets just ran themselves into the ground. They sought world dominion, but could not even conquer Afghanistan. Their economy choked on their vast military machine.
The dark reality is that you have to work hard to be exceptional. It isn't a gift from the gods. If you have years of drought, your agricultural output will not be exceptional. If you teach Genesis instead of Evolution in the schools, your engineers and scientists will not be exceptional. If you don't have air superiority, your armies will not be exceptional.
And if China or Germany has more and better factories than the United States, then like the British Empire and the Dutch Empire (and Ottoman Empire and French Empire, and Spanish Empire) before us, the larger our military is, the less exceptional we will become.
Personally, I am looking forward to a Return to Normalcy.
Showing posts with label Mitt Romney. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mitt Romney. Show all posts
Sunday, October 28, 2012
Friday, September 14, 2012
Poll Needed: Mormon v. Gay Marriage
Someone should take a poll. In addition to the standard "Do you support or oppose gay marriage," question, people should be asked: "Do you support or oppose Mormon marriage?"
Of course, to be able to answer that, American citizens would have to have an honest, factual description of the Latter Day Saints Temple marriage ceremony. Mitt Romney could describe it to the American people. But he won't. He would say it is a sacred secret. And it will remain secret, as long as the corporate media refuse to run the story, which is available from numerous ex-Mormons.
I have been trying to study up on the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, yet I did not hear about what actually happens at a "sealing" until last night. Of six people at a dinner party last night, four were former Mormons. Two had been members of the well-known Utah sect, while two had been raised in the Reorganized LDS. [For the record, I am a Naturalist but was raised Catholic, and the sixth person was vaguely New Age]
The truth about Mormon marriage is easy to verify from other former Mormons. Here is an extremely brief account of the marriage sealing, focused on the most troubling point:
Usually a number of marriages take place at the same time, like in the Unification Church. Everybody gets naked and then is given a very small poncho-like garment to wear. The anointing is done with oil, which the priest or priestess rubs on the orifices: ears, nostrils, mouth, genitals and anus. [Some report considerably more rubbing, including the head, neck, shoulders, chest, legs, and feet]. Apparently practices vary from temple to temple; in Salt Lake City, at least, the person doing the rubbing is behind a screen, but at least some smaller temples seem to omit that.
After the rubbing you get your secret name, secret handshake, magic undergarments, and presumable, make your vows. [For some typical first-hand stories see Naked Touching in the Mormon Temple, which includes the ritual words used with the "annointing".]
The question is, did Mitt Romney allow his wife to be forced through these indignities? Did he allow his children to be so abused when they were married? And is he part of a long-range plan to force these indignities on all Americans?
Another troubling point is that young people are not told in advance what is going to happen in the "ceremony." There they are at the Temple, with families waiting outside, under intense pressure to comply no matter what the secrets of the temple turn out to be.
Again, the professional pollsters should fact-check to find out what the official ceremony is, as well as the various local deviations.
Then we should see what Americans think of Mormon marriage, by a properly conducted poll. Maybe we need a Constitutional Amendment to ban it. Let the Mormons get married in a church or justice of the peace by taking vows, like normal people.
Note: I believe in both religious tolerance and the right to criticize. See my Toleration essay.
Of course, to be able to answer that, American citizens would have to have an honest, factual description of the Latter Day Saints Temple marriage ceremony. Mitt Romney could describe it to the American people. But he won't. He would say it is a sacred secret. And it will remain secret, as long as the corporate media refuse to run the story, which is available from numerous ex-Mormons.
I have been trying to study up on the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, yet I did not hear about what actually happens at a "sealing" until last night. Of six people at a dinner party last night, four were former Mormons. Two had been members of the well-known Utah sect, while two had been raised in the Reorganized LDS. [For the record, I am a Naturalist but was raised Catholic, and the sixth person was vaguely New Age]
The truth about Mormon marriage is easy to verify from other former Mormons. Here is an extremely brief account of the marriage sealing, focused on the most troubling point:
Usually a number of marriages take place at the same time, like in the Unification Church. Everybody gets naked and then is given a very small poncho-like garment to wear. The anointing is done with oil, which the priest or priestess rubs on the orifices: ears, nostrils, mouth, genitals and anus. [Some report considerably more rubbing, including the head, neck, shoulders, chest, legs, and feet]. Apparently practices vary from temple to temple; in Salt Lake City, at least, the person doing the rubbing is behind a screen, but at least some smaller temples seem to omit that.
After the rubbing you get your secret name, secret handshake, magic undergarments, and presumable, make your vows. [For some typical first-hand stories see Naked Touching in the Mormon Temple, which includes the ritual words used with the "annointing".]
The question is, did Mitt Romney allow his wife to be forced through these indignities? Did he allow his children to be so abused when they were married? And is he part of a long-range plan to force these indignities on all Americans?
Another troubling point is that young people are not told in advance what is going to happen in the "ceremony." There they are at the Temple, with families waiting outside, under intense pressure to comply no matter what the secrets of the temple turn out to be.
Again, the professional pollsters should fact-check to find out what the official ceremony is, as well as the various local deviations.
Then we should see what Americans think of Mormon marriage, by a properly conducted poll. Maybe we need a Constitutional Amendment to ban it. Let the Mormons get married in a church or justice of the peace by taking vows, like normal people.
Note: I believe in both religious tolerance and the right to criticize. See my Toleration essay.
Friday, September 7, 2012
GOP Ready to Implode?
As I listened to former President Bill Clinton's speech at the Democratic National Convention I agreed with almost everything he said. I had to remind myself that this was the guy whose corrupt regime gutted the old banking laws (like Glass-Steagall). That act led directly to the financial markets implosion of 2007-2008.
Sure, if Clinton had not done it, President W. Bush would have anyway, but the point is that for all his rhetoric, it was Clinton who deregulated the banks, not a Republican president.
Still, I am an it-takes-a-village guy more than an I-created-myself-out-of-nothing guy. I'll vote for the Green Party candidate, Doctor Jill Stein, in November. I will be voting in California, which the Romney-Ryan (RR) team is not even contesting. The only way President Obama won't win California is if it (or at least the coastal cities) sinks into the sea before election day.
I think there is a good chance the GOP (Grand Old Party) of Lincoln will implode in November despite polls showing RR still in the race. I base that on talking to business people, the usual Republican Party leaders, and observing their comments in the media.
Business people, like wage workers and even like welfare bums, come in a vast array of flavors. Some work on their own without employees, some manage vast global organizations. In addition to owners, many managers consider themselves business people, not just employees. Many are Democrats, some are apolitical, but a majority are Republicans. The question I have to raise here is, what type of Republican are they?
The national Chamber of Commerce seems to have been sipping too much Tea lately, resulting in numerous news stories quoting businessmen quoting the Chamber party line with the fervor of a Stalinist tarred by a rival as a Trotskyite being walked to the bloody wall. They aren't hiring, and it's because of President Obama. They don't like ObamaCare with its provisions for employee healthcare. They don't like regulations. They actually could hire people, may even need to hire people, but not unless the nation has the good sense to elect RR. They are not using the term, but they are on an employer strike. They are not kidding. It is one of the main reasons hiring has been slow this year.
On the other hand, many businesses have been hiring. Which means a lot of businessmen are not participating in this (illegal conspiracy of a) strike. It is not just Democrats who run businesses who are hiring.
Some business people actually put profits above partisan politics. If hiring someone before November is going to enable them to serve more customers, and make more money, they are going to do it. They are not against RR. They might even think they will do better under an RR regime. But they are not going to pass up a dollar in the meanwhile.
Then there are the smarter, more complex business people. They know that not everyone can run their business serving the rich and famous. Most business in America serves the middle class of better-paid wage workers, lower-level management, and smaller, marginal business owners. Given the vast numbers of minimum-wage, part-time, and unemployed workers as well as the seniors living on Social Security and, yes, about 4 million welfare bums (more if you include SSI), there are even a lot of businesses that get most or a substantial part of their revenues and profits from serving the lower class.
These business people know through experience that the world is a complex place. They are often moderate Republicans, and they know that destroying the safety net means a hard landing for their businesses. They see the food stamps come into there stores every day. They are landlords who see rent from seniors and welfare mothers and the unemployed. They may even be government contractors.
They are scared of RR and the faction of ideological Republicans RR represents, but they do not want to talk about it, at least not at Chamber of Commerce meetings. They just went through a recession, and they understand all too well how Wall Street screwed them. They may not like regulations, but ask them and you will find that federal regulations don't affect many of them very much, it is local regulations like building codes and health and safety codes that drive them crazy.
Many of them are politically astute, too. They have seen the Tea Party ravage the older, willing to compromise to get things done Republican politicians. They suspect this ultra-ideological victory within the Republican Party could just be setting up a big Democratic Party victory in November. If there is a Republican Party victory, they are worried, really worried, that it could be: BAD FOR BUSINESS.
The fact is that while the Republicans had a good run in the 1920's, the world has changed. Dialing back the clock will probably be an economic disaster. The Democrats have done a much better job handling the economy for the last century. Republicans are the party of microeconomics, but they (the ideological free market, Ayn Rand guys) fail to see that macroeconomics is a whole different game, as different as checkers and chess. Bill Clinton, for all his faults, is a macroeconomics type of guy. RR are microeconomics guys.
If I were hiring someone to manage my scant investments, I'd hire RR. But to run a national, indeed a global economy, the Clinton-Obama team is the clear choice. Not just for me, but for all of us business people. We could do better, but only by stepping outside the current two-party system.
Hopefully, after an Obama victory in 2012, moderates will fight to regain control of the Republican Party by 2014. If they don't, the Republican Party will just get smaller and purer. When it gets too small and too pure it will lose its gravy train, and then it will disappear like the Whig Party before it.
Disclaimer: William P. Meyers is a self-employed consultant and analyst.
Sure, if Clinton had not done it, President W. Bush would have anyway, but the point is that for all his rhetoric, it was Clinton who deregulated the banks, not a Republican president.
Still, I am an it-takes-a-village guy more than an I-created-myself-out-of-nothing guy. I'll vote for the Green Party candidate, Doctor Jill Stein, in November. I will be voting in California, which the Romney-Ryan (RR) team is not even contesting. The only way President Obama won't win California is if it (or at least the coastal cities) sinks into the sea before election day.
I think there is a good chance the GOP (Grand Old Party) of Lincoln will implode in November despite polls showing RR still in the race. I base that on talking to business people, the usual Republican Party leaders, and observing their comments in the media.
Business people, like wage workers and even like welfare bums, come in a vast array of flavors. Some work on their own without employees, some manage vast global organizations. In addition to owners, many managers consider themselves business people, not just employees. Many are Democrats, some are apolitical, but a majority are Republicans. The question I have to raise here is, what type of Republican are they?
The national Chamber of Commerce seems to have been sipping too much Tea lately, resulting in numerous news stories quoting businessmen quoting the Chamber party line with the fervor of a Stalinist tarred by a rival as a Trotskyite being walked to the bloody wall. They aren't hiring, and it's because of President Obama. They don't like ObamaCare with its provisions for employee healthcare. They don't like regulations. They actually could hire people, may even need to hire people, but not unless the nation has the good sense to elect RR. They are not using the term, but they are on an employer strike. They are not kidding. It is one of the main reasons hiring has been slow this year.
On the other hand, many businesses have been hiring. Which means a lot of businessmen are not participating in this (illegal conspiracy of a) strike. It is not just Democrats who run businesses who are hiring.
Some business people actually put profits above partisan politics. If hiring someone before November is going to enable them to serve more customers, and make more money, they are going to do it. They are not against RR. They might even think they will do better under an RR regime. But they are not going to pass up a dollar in the meanwhile.
Then there are the smarter, more complex business people. They know that not everyone can run their business serving the rich and famous. Most business in America serves the middle class of better-paid wage workers, lower-level management, and smaller, marginal business owners. Given the vast numbers of minimum-wage, part-time, and unemployed workers as well as the seniors living on Social Security and, yes, about 4 million welfare bums (more if you include SSI), there are even a lot of businesses that get most or a substantial part of their revenues and profits from serving the lower class.
These business people know through experience that the world is a complex place. They are often moderate Republicans, and they know that destroying the safety net means a hard landing for their businesses. They see the food stamps come into there stores every day. They are landlords who see rent from seniors and welfare mothers and the unemployed. They may even be government contractors.
They are scared of RR and the faction of ideological Republicans RR represents, but they do not want to talk about it, at least not at Chamber of Commerce meetings. They just went through a recession, and they understand all too well how Wall Street screwed them. They may not like regulations, but ask them and you will find that federal regulations don't affect many of them very much, it is local regulations like building codes and health and safety codes that drive them crazy.
Many of them are politically astute, too. They have seen the Tea Party ravage the older, willing to compromise to get things done Republican politicians. They suspect this ultra-ideological victory within the Republican Party could just be setting up a big Democratic Party victory in November. If there is a Republican Party victory, they are worried, really worried, that it could be: BAD FOR BUSINESS.
The fact is that while the Republicans had a good run in the 1920's, the world has changed. Dialing back the clock will probably be an economic disaster. The Democrats have done a much better job handling the economy for the last century. Republicans are the party of microeconomics, but they (the ideological free market, Ayn Rand guys) fail to see that macroeconomics is a whole different game, as different as checkers and chess. Bill Clinton, for all his faults, is a macroeconomics type of guy. RR are microeconomics guys.
If I were hiring someone to manage my scant investments, I'd hire RR. But to run a national, indeed a global economy, the Clinton-Obama team is the clear choice. Not just for me, but for all of us business people. We could do better, but only by stepping outside the current two-party system.
Hopefully, after an Obama victory in 2012, moderates will fight to regain control of the Republican Party by 2014. If they don't, the Republican Party will just get smaller and purer. When it gets too small and too pure it will lose its gravy train, and then it will disappear like the Whig Party before it.
Disclaimer: William P. Meyers is a self-employed consultant and analyst.
Thursday, August 30, 2012
Republicans Celibate Labor Day Weekend
Good thing working people have the Republican Party looking out for them, as demonstrated by recent speeches and the Republican Party Platform.
Working people, defined as the people who don't have the initative to inherit wealth or the personality to risk what little they have on starting a small (let's be honest quantum-microscopic) business, need jobs to go to. They need bosses, and they need rich people to invest their money in setting up bosses in businesses.
The lack of jobs in America can be directly attributed to government regulations and the fact that rich people are not rich enough.
The Republican Party already controls the Supreme Court and House of Representatives. If you just vote for their candidates they can control the Senate and the Presidency, then no one can stop their job creation program.
First, they are going to lower the minimum wage, maybe even abolish it if they can get the support of moderate Republican politicians. Then retail chains and other minimum wage employers will be able to hire twice as many hamburger flippers and check-out clerks to serve you, without increasing their budgets. Or better still, since they already have an adequate number of workers, they can pay them a lot less and make a lot more profit. Which is good for working people because it will make rich people richer, which will create more jobs.
Then, they are going to deregulate the healthcare system. This is the main reason I am voting Republican this year. This will create a lot of jobs because you will not longer need to go to medical school to become a doctor, or to nursing school to become a nurse, or to junior college to become a licensed technician. I have my shingle ready to hang out the moment the law is changed. I am stocking up on herbal remedies and aspirin dyed to look like real drugs and hope to do a good business. I will cure the sick for much less than one of those government-licensed doctors. And who needs the Food and Drug Administration when we've got Free Markets to deliver quality food and drugs?
Which is a good thing for the elderly people near my future office in Point Arena, California, because the Republicans are going to Save Medicare. They are going to do this by privatizing it. So seniors will get vouchers to buy medical insurance. I have already told my Republican friends who own medical insurance companies how much money I can save them with their future Republican Care policy holders. They are keen on Hope and Real Change, in particular deregulation allowing me to kickback some of my income stream to them. Which will make the rich richer, which will create more jobs.
The Bush Tax cuts to the Rich will stay in place. Workers of the world, cheer! This will make the rich richer, which will create jobs. It will also mean less government safety net types of stuff, which will encourage you to take three of four new jobs to make ends meet.
Paul Ryan is a particular favorite of mine. He has a lot of experience in private industry: he mowed lawns for neighbors when he was a teenager. After that he went into government and stayed there for decades, reading Ayn Rand novels and fighting to get high profit margins for military contractors so they could create jobs for you and me.
The list of Republican reforms that will help working people is much longer, dear blog readers, but I know you don't want me to get into wonky details. But there is one more important reform we can look forward to with eager anticipation.
No Inheritance Tax! This is even cooler than eliminating the Capital Gains Tax (don't ask me, its a rich people thing). No matter how much you save up from your mowing lawns and other unregulated, non-minimum wage jobs, your children can inherit it all. More important, children of the rich can inherit every honest untaxed penny their parents have earned. Then they will be able to create more jobs for the rest of us.
What a wonderful place America will be,
Filled with Love and Liberty,
Vote for Paul Ryan and Romney too,
Vote for Jobs, red white and blue.
Working people, defined as the people who don't have the initative to inherit wealth or the personality to risk what little they have on starting a small (let's be honest quantum-microscopic) business, need jobs to go to. They need bosses, and they need rich people to invest their money in setting up bosses in businesses.
The lack of jobs in America can be directly attributed to government regulations and the fact that rich people are not rich enough.
The Republican Party already controls the Supreme Court and House of Representatives. If you just vote for their candidates they can control the Senate and the Presidency, then no one can stop their job creation program.
First, they are going to lower the minimum wage, maybe even abolish it if they can get the support of moderate Republican politicians. Then retail chains and other minimum wage employers will be able to hire twice as many hamburger flippers and check-out clerks to serve you, without increasing their budgets. Or better still, since they already have an adequate number of workers, they can pay them a lot less and make a lot more profit. Which is good for working people because it will make rich people richer, which will create more jobs.
Then, they are going to deregulate the healthcare system. This is the main reason I am voting Republican this year. This will create a lot of jobs because you will not longer need to go to medical school to become a doctor, or to nursing school to become a nurse, or to junior college to become a licensed technician. I have my shingle ready to hang out the moment the law is changed. I am stocking up on herbal remedies and aspirin dyed to look like real drugs and hope to do a good business. I will cure the sick for much less than one of those government-licensed doctors. And who needs the Food and Drug Administration when we've got Free Markets to deliver quality food and drugs?
Which is a good thing for the elderly people near my future office in Point Arena, California, because the Republicans are going to Save Medicare. They are going to do this by privatizing it. So seniors will get vouchers to buy medical insurance. I have already told my Republican friends who own medical insurance companies how much money I can save them with their future Republican Care policy holders. They are keen on Hope and Real Change, in particular deregulation allowing me to kickback some of my income stream to them. Which will make the rich richer, which will create more jobs.
The Bush Tax cuts to the Rich will stay in place. Workers of the world, cheer! This will make the rich richer, which will create jobs. It will also mean less government safety net types of stuff, which will encourage you to take three of four new jobs to make ends meet.
Paul Ryan is a particular favorite of mine. He has a lot of experience in private industry: he mowed lawns for neighbors when he was a teenager. After that he went into government and stayed there for decades, reading Ayn Rand novels and fighting to get high profit margins for military contractors so they could create jobs for you and me.
The list of Republican reforms that will help working people is much longer, dear blog readers, but I know you don't want me to get into wonky details. But there is one more important reform we can look forward to with eager anticipation.
No Inheritance Tax! This is even cooler than eliminating the Capital Gains Tax (don't ask me, its a rich people thing). No matter how much you save up from your mowing lawns and other unregulated, non-minimum wage jobs, your children can inherit it all. More important, children of the rich can inherit every honest untaxed penny their parents have earned. Then they will be able to create more jobs for the rest of us.
What a wonderful place America will be,
Filled with Love and Liberty,
Vote for Paul Ryan and Romney too,
Vote for Jobs, red white and blue.
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
Mitt Romney's Satanic Voter Problem
Who will Satan's followers vote for in September? If you are a Republican, chance are you expect Barack Obama to sweep the Satanist vote.
If you are Mitt Romney, you have a problem on your hands. You need those Satan votes in November. And you can get them only if you keep a very dark secret, and I don't mean about your tax returns.
By happenstance a friend of mine has been thinking of converting to Mormonism, or more specifically to the the largest of the Mormon sects, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, headquartered in Utah.
Reporting on her occasional doubts about converting, she said she was told, by a group of young Mormon priests, that anyone who discouraged her conversion was "speaking for Satan."
Um, let's see, who would be likely to discourage a friend or family member, or even just someone reading their blog, from joining the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints?
Certainly Roman Catholics would. Baptists would. Methodists would. I am pretty sure no Protestant Christian sect would encourage anyone to convert to Mormonism. Neither would Jews, Hindus, Moslems, or even atheists. I suppose agnostics, if you asked them if you should convert, would say "I don't know." I keep hoping agnostics will revive the American Party, more commonly known as the Know-Nothing Party.
I have nothing personal against any branch of the Mormons. The people I know who seem to dislike the Latter Day Saints the most are—former Mormons. Most people don't know much about Mormonism except that the Church was founded by an American, Joseph Smith, was run out of practically every state in the Union. After he died most of his followers settled in Utah, and used to be polygamists, although they mostly dropped that back in the late 1800's. We know more about the tiny polygamist sects because we've seen Big Love on TV.
So, with a Mormon looking like a potential President, with control of the world's largest army, economy, drone fleet and nuclear weapons, like most political bloggers I have been learning more about Mormon beliefs of late. At the same time the Church itself and cooperative corporate media outlets have been trying to paint a pretty picture of the self-styled Saints.
What kind of people would become followers of Joseph Smith, who claimed to be The Prophet and headed towards being God? Joseph Smith was killed by a mob, consisting largely of former followers, who were angry because he had been raping virgins and marrying other men's wives, running down Jesus as a second-rate demigod, and uttering nonsense that was supposed to be new Sacred Scripture.
Smith's religion was not a variation within Christianity, but an unorthodox form of Islam [See Four Pillars of Mormonism and Islam].
On the plus side, most seriously religious people believe that anyone who does not share their faith is a heretic, satanist, or atheist. Mormonism has no monopoly there. For the record, while I believe in religious toleration [See my Tolerance Statement], I don't think much of any religious sect.
I doubt Mitt Romney, who after all is really French, thinks that all the non-Mormons he works with are Satanists. That mode of operation might help pressure a weak, single woman into converting, but it is detrimental to the larger picture of trying to bring every single person in the world into the Church of Latter Day Saints. By now most people know that even converting every living person is not enough for the Mormons. They have a constant ritual going that baptizes dead people into the Church. Dead people can't say No. They can't hear Satan whispering doubts.
Mitt must win over voters that don't worship the One True Prophet Joseph Smith. He must keep hidden the fact that that his Church believes all those voters are Satanists. If he were as smart as he pretends to be, he would have left the Mormons years ago and joined a larger denomination. What attracts him to Joseph Smith? The bank scandal with Smith at its center? The ability to convince people to believe in nonsense, like the Republican Party Platform?
Right-wing nutcases have engaged in a long-running smear campaign against President Obama, claiming he was not born in the U.S. and, despite his long attendance at Christian Churches, claiming he is really a Muslim.
It is only right that the American people should understand what Mitt Romney's honest religious beliefs are. If we get nothing else from the Romney run, hopefully we will get a wider understanding of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
If you are Mitt Romney, you have a problem on your hands. You need those Satan votes in November. And you can get them only if you keep a very dark secret, and I don't mean about your tax returns.
By happenstance a friend of mine has been thinking of converting to Mormonism, or more specifically to the the largest of the Mormon sects, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, headquartered in Utah.
Reporting on her occasional doubts about converting, she said she was told, by a group of young Mormon priests, that anyone who discouraged her conversion was "speaking for Satan."
Um, let's see, who would be likely to discourage a friend or family member, or even just someone reading their blog, from joining the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints?
Certainly Roman Catholics would. Baptists would. Methodists would. I am pretty sure no Protestant Christian sect would encourage anyone to convert to Mormonism. Neither would Jews, Hindus, Moslems, or even atheists. I suppose agnostics, if you asked them if you should convert, would say "I don't know." I keep hoping agnostics will revive the American Party, more commonly known as the Know-Nothing Party.
I have nothing personal against any branch of the Mormons. The people I know who seem to dislike the Latter Day Saints the most are—former Mormons. Most people don't know much about Mormonism except that the Church was founded by an American, Joseph Smith, was run out of practically every state in the Union. After he died most of his followers settled in Utah, and used to be polygamists, although they mostly dropped that back in the late 1800's. We know more about the tiny polygamist sects because we've seen Big Love on TV.
So, with a Mormon looking like a potential President, with control of the world's largest army, economy, drone fleet and nuclear weapons, like most political bloggers I have been learning more about Mormon beliefs of late. At the same time the Church itself and cooperative corporate media outlets have been trying to paint a pretty picture of the self-styled Saints.
What kind of people would become followers of Joseph Smith, who claimed to be The Prophet and headed towards being God? Joseph Smith was killed by a mob, consisting largely of former followers, who were angry because he had been raping virgins and marrying other men's wives, running down Jesus as a second-rate demigod, and uttering nonsense that was supposed to be new Sacred Scripture.
Smith's religion was not a variation within Christianity, but an unorthodox form of Islam [See Four Pillars of Mormonism and Islam].
On the plus side, most seriously religious people believe that anyone who does not share their faith is a heretic, satanist, or atheist. Mormonism has no monopoly there. For the record, while I believe in religious toleration [See my Tolerance Statement], I don't think much of any religious sect.
I doubt Mitt Romney, who after all is really French, thinks that all the non-Mormons he works with are Satanists. That mode of operation might help pressure a weak, single woman into converting, but it is detrimental to the larger picture of trying to bring every single person in the world into the Church of Latter Day Saints. By now most people know that even converting every living person is not enough for the Mormons. They have a constant ritual going that baptizes dead people into the Church. Dead people can't say No. They can't hear Satan whispering doubts.
Mitt must win over voters that don't worship the One True Prophet Joseph Smith. He must keep hidden the fact that that his Church believes all those voters are Satanists. If he were as smart as he pretends to be, he would have left the Mormons years ago and joined a larger denomination. What attracts him to Joseph Smith? The bank scandal with Smith at its center? The ability to convince people to believe in nonsense, like the Republican Party Platform?
Right-wing nutcases have engaged in a long-running smear campaign against President Obama, claiming he was not born in the U.S. and, despite his long attendance at Christian Churches, claiming he is really a Muslim.
It is only right that the American people should understand what Mitt Romney's honest religious beliefs are. If we get nothing else from the Romney run, hopefully we will get a wider understanding of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
Monday, July 30, 2012
Mitt Romney, Mormon, and Islam
Last night I was at a dinner party where three of the five attendees were former Latter Day Saints, better known as the Mormons. I am a former Catholic. I am not sure about the fifth person's childhood faith. In any case we had a good time talking about the Mormon faith and Mitt Romney.
Two of the Mormons had been mainstream, Utah Mormons. One had been in the much smaller Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (RLDS). That is the one that did not follow Brigham Young to Utah, and instead stayed loyal to the family of the founder, Joseph Smith. And I just leaned something new (from Wikipedia) that the ex-member did not know: this sect changed their name in 2001 to the Community of Christ, and now allows women to be priests.
We had a discussion of where Mitt Romney and the mainstream Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints fits into the theological spectrum. The Mormons, according to their former members, do not believe Jesus is God in the sense that most believing Christians do. They believe Jesus is a sort of planetary god. They believe that if they (the men, anyway) have enough wives and children and are holy enough they will reincarnate on planets of their own, which they will rule over as (small g) gods.
This strange combination of science fiction and primitive Christianity makes a lot of sense if you understand the culture of the United States of America in the 1820s, when Joseph Smith pieced his cult together. Science had discovered that planets were not just mobile stars, but bodies like earth, big enough to live on, perhaps. The large number of stars indicated that there might be large numbers of planets beyond the solar system. The Bible did not mention this (or foresee steamboats and railroads and other development), so either the Bible was not written by a omniscient God or it was only a partial revelation. Times were changing, and religion clearly needed a major update. Joseph Smith was the most successful of the updaters of that era.
Which brings us round to Islam. There can be no doubt that Mohammed, the Prophet, was the Joseph Smith of his day (570 - 632 A.D.). He too was born a nobody. He became a trader and capitalist (just like Mitt) and in the course of business visited much of the Middle East. He came in contact with people of many different religions. Most importantly, in addition to meeting orthodox Christians, he met both gnostic Christians and the original Christians. The original Christians were still Jews and thought Jesus was a prophet, not a god. Their historical records told them that Jesus had died on the Cross, but had not been resurrected.
Eventually Mohammed founded a new religion. He did not pretend to be a god, and his followers have been very strict about that issue. His religion must have met a lot of people's needs because it became wildly popular far faster than any prior religion. It is still popular today.
Just like the Latter Day Saints, early on Islam split into two sects. One, the main Sunni branch, was started by the powerful elders, mostly military leaders, who had known Mohammed. The other, Shia, was formed by the direct bloodline descendants of Mohammed. They have been fighting ever since.
Mitt Romney does not want potential voters to know what Mormons really believe. He does not want them to know that despite its name, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints could be categorized as Islamic. Joseph Smith certainly knew some of what was then modern science. He also clearly was influenced by ancient Egyptian precepts and Islam. Many passages of Smith's writtings are paraphrased from the Koran. The polygamy thing is obvious: Mohammed practiced polygamy. The concept of Heaven in the Mormon Church is right out of the Koran, with some 19th century science updates.
Of course Joseph Smith gave no credit to the Koran, which would have been impolitic. He was a new Prophet and according to his theology, was headed to being a god on his own planet when he died on this earth.
Like most small starter religions, Smith's new Church advocated religious tolerance. "We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our conscience, and allow all men the same privilege." [Pearl of Great Price] Thus they advocated for a non-Christian America where their version of Islam could be part of the cultural mix.
Why then, since he belongs to a branch of Islam, is Mitt Romney currently siding with Israel so strongly?
Mitt Romney has always been skilled at the art of deception and willing to do whatever lying it takes to get what he wants. He went to Harvard Law School to brush up on that skill. What else would you expect from a man who grew up in France, who speaks French better than English, and yet want to be the first Latter Day Saint President of the United States of America?
Romney needs to win in Florida to be President and establish Joseph Smith's vision of a Mormon Kingdom on the American continent. "We believe in being subject to kings," [Pearl of Great Price].
Mitt Romney needs a few hundred thousand Jewish votes in Florida to become President. Those of you who support the human rights of Palestinians don't need to worry about Romney's pro-Israel, zionist rhetoric. Mormons know the True Zion is on the American continent. Their leadership is very pro-Islam, and has already made deals with the Saudis to gain total economic control of the globe and its women. The Jews and Christians just need to be fooled for a few more months.
Two of the Mormons had been mainstream, Utah Mormons. One had been in the much smaller Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (RLDS). That is the one that did not follow Brigham Young to Utah, and instead stayed loyal to the family of the founder, Joseph Smith. And I just leaned something new (from Wikipedia) that the ex-member did not know: this sect changed their name in 2001 to the Community of Christ, and now allows women to be priests.
We had a discussion of where Mitt Romney and the mainstream Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints fits into the theological spectrum. The Mormons, according to their former members, do not believe Jesus is God in the sense that most believing Christians do. They believe Jesus is a sort of planetary god. They believe that if they (the men, anyway) have enough wives and children and are holy enough they will reincarnate on planets of their own, which they will rule over as (small g) gods.
This strange combination of science fiction and primitive Christianity makes a lot of sense if you understand the culture of the United States of America in the 1820s, when Joseph Smith pieced his cult together. Science had discovered that planets were not just mobile stars, but bodies like earth, big enough to live on, perhaps. The large number of stars indicated that there might be large numbers of planets beyond the solar system. The Bible did not mention this (or foresee steamboats and railroads and other development), so either the Bible was not written by a omniscient God or it was only a partial revelation. Times were changing, and religion clearly needed a major update. Joseph Smith was the most successful of the updaters of that era.
Which brings us round to Islam. There can be no doubt that Mohammed, the Prophet, was the Joseph Smith of his day (570 - 632 A.D.). He too was born a nobody. He became a trader and capitalist (just like Mitt) and in the course of business visited much of the Middle East. He came in contact with people of many different religions. Most importantly, in addition to meeting orthodox Christians, he met both gnostic Christians and the original Christians. The original Christians were still Jews and thought Jesus was a prophet, not a god. Their historical records told them that Jesus had died on the Cross, but had not been resurrected.
Eventually Mohammed founded a new religion. He did not pretend to be a god, and his followers have been very strict about that issue. His religion must have met a lot of people's needs because it became wildly popular far faster than any prior religion. It is still popular today.
Just like the Latter Day Saints, early on Islam split into two sects. One, the main Sunni branch, was started by the powerful elders, mostly military leaders, who had known Mohammed. The other, Shia, was formed by the direct bloodline descendants of Mohammed. They have been fighting ever since.
Mitt Romney does not want potential voters to know what Mormons really believe. He does not want them to know that despite its name, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints could be categorized as Islamic. Joseph Smith certainly knew some of what was then modern science. He also clearly was influenced by ancient Egyptian precepts and Islam. Many passages of Smith's writtings are paraphrased from the Koran. The polygamy thing is obvious: Mohammed practiced polygamy. The concept of Heaven in the Mormon Church is right out of the Koran, with some 19th century science updates.
Of course Joseph Smith gave no credit to the Koran, which would have been impolitic. He was a new Prophet and according to his theology, was headed to being a god on his own planet when he died on this earth.
Like most small starter religions, Smith's new Church advocated religious tolerance. "We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our conscience, and allow all men the same privilege." [Pearl of Great Price] Thus they advocated for a non-Christian America where their version of Islam could be part of the cultural mix.
Why then, since he belongs to a branch of Islam, is Mitt Romney currently siding with Israel so strongly?
Mitt Romney has always been skilled at the art of deception and willing to do whatever lying it takes to get what he wants. He went to Harvard Law School to brush up on that skill. What else would you expect from a man who grew up in France, who speaks French better than English, and yet want to be the first Latter Day Saint President of the United States of America?
Romney needs to win in Florida to be President and establish Joseph Smith's vision of a Mormon Kingdom on the American continent. "We believe in being subject to kings," [Pearl of Great Price].
Mitt Romney needs a few hundred thousand Jewish votes in Florida to become President. Those of you who support the human rights of Palestinians don't need to worry about Romney's pro-Israel, zionist rhetoric. Mormons know the True Zion is on the American continent. Their leadership is very pro-Islam, and has already made deals with the Saudis to gain total economic control of the globe and its women. The Jews and Christians just need to be fooled for a few more months.
Thursday, May 24, 2012
Mitt Romney Would Fund Ignorance and Hate
Mitt Romney's education proposal sounds nice. It is called A Chance for Every Child, [Chance Report] and it is 35 pages long [full text: Mitt Romney, A Chance for Every Child]. It might be just campaign propaganda, like Barack Obama's 2008 promises of hope and world peace, but then again it might become public policy. You should probably read it, but how would you get anything done if you tried to judge political candidates by actually reading 35-page memos or 1600 page bills they have voted for or against?
I read it. I also know about the privatization (really Christianization) efforts already enacted at the state level. I also served on a public school board for a K-12 district for 8 years. Allow me to walk you through the essential points.
Romney characterizes American schools as failures, except private schools. In Jeb Bush's Foreword we are told that the U.S. spends "more on public education than virtually every other nation" which is so close to being a lie we might as well call it that. But he is correct in saying that American children lag behind their global peers, particularly in mathematics and science. Bush attacks Obama's education leadership, even though Obama has mostly just continued the education policies of Jeb's brother, former President George W. Bush.
The key initiative in the Romney education package is providing alternatives for "students trapped in bad schools." "Parents must receive clear information about the performance of their current school," so that they can know if their kid's school is bad. Yep, parents need federal help to know that. Without the guiding hand of the Feds, parents and professional educators are lost in the desert of education, following some half-mad Moses about, waiting for the day they can massacre the Palestinians and enroll the kids in good schools.
Federal funding goes with the child. If the parents take the child out of the public school and into a private school, the new school gets the funds.
Effectively Romney believes education will improve by defunding public schools, putting in their place private schools taught by non-union, untrained, uncredentialed, but cheap teachers. Really, Romney is specific about this: "Eliminate unnecessary certification requirements ... [which] reinforce hurdles that prevent talented individuals from entering the teaching profession." Talented individuals like science teachers who use Genesis as a text book. Or history teachers who say the Holocaust never happened.
This is called "building on the success of charter schools." Even though test results have shown charter schools, while varying greatly in quality, as a whole have done worse at educating children.
Profits for education corporations are also part of the plan: "welcome private sector participation in providing information, financing and education itself." That is, to the extent capitalists like Romney have not moved the formerly American private sector to China. Or maybe he means Chinese state-owned industries could take over teaching civics classes.
This seems to be at odds with another part of the plan: "Repeal confusing and unnecessary regulations." Many of the current batch of regulations were put in place by lobbyists for private industry. Guess which regulations will be repealed? Not the ones that need to be.
Many aspects of the plan, and its underlying analysis, can't even pass the smell test. We are told too many high school graduates who enroll in college require remediation. But because wealthier parents tend to use private schools and have their children attend college in disproportionate numbers, we know that this has to be a failure of the private school system.
The Chance Report laments the poor average outcomes for non-white children. It says that this is because the schools who serve these children are of poor quality. But privatizing ghetto schools is likely to make the situation worse, not better. Given equal pay, the better private school teachers will seek positions in the less difficult middle to upper class private schools, just as they seek the easier jobs within the public school system. The parents of a ghetto private school will still lack friends in high places, the money to create an educationally stimulating home environment, and the high-level education and business skills that the more successful children are exposed to by their privileged parents. If ghetto children infiltrate a "good" private school, middle class parents will flee, taking their children's federal dollars with them.
The real problem is economic and ethnic segregation, and the only real solution is one that directly integrates people from differing income levels and ethnic identities.
Yes, the report directly attacks the right of teachers to be represented by unions. Having been on a school board, I am not overly fond of teachers unions. But I will say the union's occasional abuses of power are nothing in comparison to the abuses of power by private corporations, school administrators, and politicians. Romney hates unions because he hates all workers. He smiles at them because as a politician he needs their votes. As a capitalist he needs their cooperation; he certainly is not going to do any actual, direct contact with clients or products, work himself.
Romney's Chance Report laments the high cost of college and rising burden of student debt. He claims, perhaps correctly, that the recent increases in federal funding (loans, tax deductions and grants) for college have only enabled colleges to raise fees. Yet Romney fails to offer a solution! In 35 pages all he can say is that students should get private loans, not government ones. Perhaps they can put their tuition and expenses on credit cards at 20% interest and spend an entire lifetime in debt to Romney's capitalist cronies.
All this plan really amounts to is a bid to fund religious education. Capitalists like their workers ignorant, and that is the main value of private schools with religious affiliation. Teaching religious ideas requires forcing children to rely on authority, not on their innate ability to think for themselves. Religious private schools are a horror where fiction is taught as fact.
The only horror that could possibly overmatch religious schooling is a for-profit school system. Children pushed by federal dollars and clever marketing would become profit centers. Children would be branded with corporate logos instead of Jesus, Moses, Mohammed or Buddha. They would continue to emerge from schools dazed and confused, not ready to excel in this modern world of evolutionary biology, quantum-physics based electronics, and knowledge-based creativity.
Religious schools teach hate (sorry, no exceptions, just shades of gray). The only reason to force a particular cult view upon a child is to differentiate them from the other cults and from modern, non-religious persons. Telling children what is right about their creed always involves knocking other creeds, and usually verbal and even physical abuse for even bringing up ideas that challenge or differ with those being promulgated by uncredentialed, faith-inspired teachers. We have seen how the capitalist elite has used religious hate over the American centuries to motivate mobs to attack any social or political deviation from the capitalist agenda. That is what Romney and his Jewish, Catholic, and Protestant capitalist cronies are about with their privatization plan: creating the next generation of their army of heavily-indoctrinated, emotionally bent, hateful Tea Party types.
The only realistic path forward in a democracy is to create the best public schools we can. We can't expect schools to truly equalize opportunities between children of working class or impoverished parents (increasingly, the same thing) and middle class or upper class students.
Public schools were invented in the United States. Many of them are actually quite good, regularly turning out better-qualified graduates than most private and religious schools. Those that are not good are sometimes suffering from unmotivated teachers, but in my experience the real problem is usually lack of parental support for the teachers, not the other way around.
The only thing I agree with in the Republican position is that bad teachers should be fired. The teachers unions could do a lot to restore public confidence in teaching if they would police their own members, rather than always working on the assumption that every teacher is a great teacher who needs to be defended by the union lawyers.
Ultimately Romney's Chance Report is just a political ploy, buying religious sectarian votes with public funds.
Disclaimer: I attended Roman Catholic schools K-8, then a private high school and private college.
See also: Romney Calls Education Civil Rights Issue, New York Times, May 23, 2012
I read it. I also know about the privatization (really Christianization) efforts already enacted at the state level. I also served on a public school board for a K-12 district for 8 years. Allow me to walk you through the essential points.
Romney characterizes American schools as failures, except private schools. In Jeb Bush's Foreword we are told that the U.S. spends "more on public education than virtually every other nation" which is so close to being a lie we might as well call it that. But he is correct in saying that American children lag behind their global peers, particularly in mathematics and science. Bush attacks Obama's education leadership, even though Obama has mostly just continued the education policies of Jeb's brother, former President George W. Bush.
The key initiative in the Romney education package is providing alternatives for "students trapped in bad schools." "Parents must receive clear information about the performance of their current school," so that they can know if their kid's school is bad. Yep, parents need federal help to know that. Without the guiding hand of the Feds, parents and professional educators are lost in the desert of education, following some half-mad Moses about, waiting for the day they can massacre the Palestinians and enroll the kids in good schools.
Federal funding goes with the child. If the parents take the child out of the public school and into a private school, the new school gets the funds.
Effectively Romney believes education will improve by defunding public schools, putting in their place private schools taught by non-union, untrained, uncredentialed, but cheap teachers. Really, Romney is specific about this: "Eliminate unnecessary certification requirements ... [which] reinforce hurdles that prevent talented individuals from entering the teaching profession." Talented individuals like science teachers who use Genesis as a text book. Or history teachers who say the Holocaust never happened.
This is called "building on the success of charter schools." Even though test results have shown charter schools, while varying greatly in quality, as a whole have done worse at educating children.
Profits for education corporations are also part of the plan: "welcome private sector participation in providing information, financing and education itself." That is, to the extent capitalists like Romney have not moved the formerly American private sector to China. Or maybe he means Chinese state-owned industries could take over teaching civics classes.
This seems to be at odds with another part of the plan: "Repeal confusing and unnecessary regulations." Many of the current batch of regulations were put in place by lobbyists for private industry. Guess which regulations will be repealed? Not the ones that need to be.
Many aspects of the plan, and its underlying analysis, can't even pass the smell test. We are told too many high school graduates who enroll in college require remediation. But because wealthier parents tend to use private schools and have their children attend college in disproportionate numbers, we know that this has to be a failure of the private school system.
The Chance Report laments the poor average outcomes for non-white children. It says that this is because the schools who serve these children are of poor quality. But privatizing ghetto schools is likely to make the situation worse, not better. Given equal pay, the better private school teachers will seek positions in the less difficult middle to upper class private schools, just as they seek the easier jobs within the public school system. The parents of a ghetto private school will still lack friends in high places, the money to create an educationally stimulating home environment, and the high-level education and business skills that the more successful children are exposed to by their privileged parents. If ghetto children infiltrate a "good" private school, middle class parents will flee, taking their children's federal dollars with them.
The real problem is economic and ethnic segregation, and the only real solution is one that directly integrates people from differing income levels and ethnic identities.
Yes, the report directly attacks the right of teachers to be represented by unions. Having been on a school board, I am not overly fond of teachers unions. But I will say the union's occasional abuses of power are nothing in comparison to the abuses of power by private corporations, school administrators, and politicians. Romney hates unions because he hates all workers. He smiles at them because as a politician he needs their votes. As a capitalist he needs their cooperation; he certainly is not going to do any actual, direct contact with clients or products, work himself.
Romney's Chance Report laments the high cost of college and rising burden of student debt. He claims, perhaps correctly, that the recent increases in federal funding (loans, tax deductions and grants) for college have only enabled colleges to raise fees. Yet Romney fails to offer a solution! In 35 pages all he can say is that students should get private loans, not government ones. Perhaps they can put their tuition and expenses on credit cards at 20% interest and spend an entire lifetime in debt to Romney's capitalist cronies.
All this plan really amounts to is a bid to fund religious education. Capitalists like their workers ignorant, and that is the main value of private schools with religious affiliation. Teaching religious ideas requires forcing children to rely on authority, not on their innate ability to think for themselves. Religious private schools are a horror where fiction is taught as fact.
The only horror that could possibly overmatch religious schooling is a for-profit school system. Children pushed by federal dollars and clever marketing would become profit centers. Children would be branded with corporate logos instead of Jesus, Moses, Mohammed or Buddha. They would continue to emerge from schools dazed and confused, not ready to excel in this modern world of evolutionary biology, quantum-physics based electronics, and knowledge-based creativity.
Religious schools teach hate (sorry, no exceptions, just shades of gray). The only reason to force a particular cult view upon a child is to differentiate them from the other cults and from modern, non-religious persons. Telling children what is right about their creed always involves knocking other creeds, and usually verbal and even physical abuse for even bringing up ideas that challenge or differ with those being promulgated by uncredentialed, faith-inspired teachers. We have seen how the capitalist elite has used religious hate over the American centuries to motivate mobs to attack any social or political deviation from the capitalist agenda. That is what Romney and his Jewish, Catholic, and Protestant capitalist cronies are about with their privatization plan: creating the next generation of their army of heavily-indoctrinated, emotionally bent, hateful Tea Party types.
The only realistic path forward in a democracy is to create the best public schools we can. We can't expect schools to truly equalize opportunities between children of working class or impoverished parents (increasingly, the same thing) and middle class or upper class students.
Public schools were invented in the United States. Many of them are actually quite good, regularly turning out better-qualified graduates than most private and religious schools. Those that are not good are sometimes suffering from unmotivated teachers, but in my experience the real problem is usually lack of parental support for the teachers, not the other way around.
The only thing I agree with in the Republican position is that bad teachers should be fired. The teachers unions could do a lot to restore public confidence in teaching if they would police their own members, rather than always working on the assumption that every teacher is a great teacher who needs to be defended by the union lawyers.
Ultimately Romney's Chance Report is just a political ploy, buying religious sectarian votes with public funds.
Disclaimer: I attended Roman Catholic schools K-8, then a private high school and private college.
See also: Romney Calls Education Civil Rights Issue, New York Times, May 23, 2012
Sunday, April 8, 2012
Income Taxes and the 2012 Election
It may be a coincidence that I am working on writing notes to Cordell Hull's memoirs just before the 2012 income tax deadline. Cordell Hull claims that when he was a young member of Congress he initiated the plan to use income taxes as the main source of federal revenue. It is probably true, because most people would not boast of such a thing. [See Introduction of the Income Tax]
Taxes, in particular income taxes, will be a big issue in the 2012 election. As usual, the real battles will be in the congressional districts, but to keep it brief we can use the major party Presidential candidates, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, as surrogates for their parties. Mitt Romney will say he can lower everyone's taxes, with the key point being that everyone includes rich people. Barack Obama will claim to lower taxes overall while shifting some of the burden from "middle class taxpayers" to the rich.
The problem with the Obama stance is that is just a plain old lie. The Democrats held the Senate, House and the Presidency for two years, 2009 and 2010, but did not even reverse the Bush era tax cuts for the rich. They also promised, when running in 2006, to end the war in Afghanistan and the destructive military and homeland security expenses, but they did not do that either, even though they gained control of the House and could have done it.
Mitt Romney probably genuinely believes that even lower taxes on the richest Americans would allow them to keep more of their gains, thus allowing them the capital they need to build more factories in China and datacenters in the U.S. to sell Chinese goods to those few Americans who can still afford them. Of course the reality is that since 2008 most rich Americans, most of the time, put most of their wealth into government bonds, not the stock market or new businesses. [See Where have all the Capitalists Gone?]
Whatever their campaign rhetoric , whoever is elected President will be looking at both an unprecedented national debt and a large by any standards annual deficit. Ever escalating medical costs are eating a hole in the economy even greater than defense spending. Short term, the economy is recovering from the Great Recession, but long term, disruptions are going to happen.
So you can plan on no one reducing taxes, except in specific cases where very large campaign donations are made. The temporary tax breaks of the recession are likely to disappear. On the other hand, general tax increases, even for the rich, are highly unlikely.
So, why not present my fantasy, Log Tax Plan. It is based on a simple idea. Incomes have become so disproportionate between ordinary Americans and our economic Overlords, we need to start using a logarithmic scale. I assume, since this is a fantasy, that all income will be taxed equally, including capital gains and dividends. Stock market gains will be marked to market annually.
Under $200,000, things stay about as they are.
From $200,000 to $1 million the new rate would be 40%.
From $1 million to $10 million, the rate would be 50%.
From $10 million to $100 million, the rate would be 60%.
From $100 million to $1 billion, the rate would be 70%.
From $1 billion to $10 billion, the rate would 80%.
Only those making over $10 billion a year would pay the new maximum rate of 90%.
I can hear the ghost of Steve Jobs crying out: that's unfair! Of course Steve paid almost no taxes in his lifetime, as most of his income was from capital gains. Capital gains are only recognized when stocks are sold. Since he died with his fist closed around most of the Apple shares he ever owned, he never paid taxes. Since he had clever lawyers (who for instance kept him out of jail for backdating stock options), he probably paid little in taxes even in death.
Steve Jobs was a hero for our age, a Silicon Valley Robber Baron who kept his eye sharply focused on the mighty dollar while almost half of Americans lost most of what they had in the Great Recession.
But ask yourself: would you rather make $30,000 and pay about $5000 dollars in taxes this year (mostly Social Security and Medicare), or $10 billion and have the government take away all but two billion? I'm guessing most of you are for the 80% tax rate, and would be happy to pay the 90% rate if you make more than $10 billion in 2012.
Taxes, in particular income taxes, will be a big issue in the 2012 election. As usual, the real battles will be in the congressional districts, but to keep it brief we can use the major party Presidential candidates, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, as surrogates for their parties. Mitt Romney will say he can lower everyone's taxes, with the key point being that everyone includes rich people. Barack Obama will claim to lower taxes overall while shifting some of the burden from "middle class taxpayers" to the rich.
The problem with the Obama stance is that is just a plain old lie. The Democrats held the Senate, House and the Presidency for two years, 2009 and 2010, but did not even reverse the Bush era tax cuts for the rich. They also promised, when running in 2006, to end the war in Afghanistan and the destructive military and homeland security expenses, but they did not do that either, even though they gained control of the House and could have done it.
Mitt Romney probably genuinely believes that even lower taxes on the richest Americans would allow them to keep more of their gains, thus allowing them the capital they need to build more factories in China and datacenters in the U.S. to sell Chinese goods to those few Americans who can still afford them. Of course the reality is that since 2008 most rich Americans, most of the time, put most of their wealth into government bonds, not the stock market or new businesses. [See Where have all the Capitalists Gone?]
Whatever their campaign rhetoric , whoever is elected President will be looking at both an unprecedented national debt and a large by any standards annual deficit. Ever escalating medical costs are eating a hole in the economy even greater than defense spending. Short term, the economy is recovering from the Great Recession, but long term, disruptions are going to happen.
So you can plan on no one reducing taxes, except in specific cases where very large campaign donations are made. The temporary tax breaks of the recession are likely to disappear. On the other hand, general tax increases, even for the rich, are highly unlikely.
So, why not present my fantasy, Log Tax Plan. It is based on a simple idea. Incomes have become so disproportionate between ordinary Americans and our economic Overlords, we need to start using a logarithmic scale. I assume, since this is a fantasy, that all income will be taxed equally, including capital gains and dividends. Stock market gains will be marked to market annually.
Under $200,000, things stay about as they are.
From $200,000 to $1 million the new rate would be 40%.
From $1 million to $10 million, the rate would be 50%.
From $10 million to $100 million, the rate would be 60%.
From $100 million to $1 billion, the rate would be 70%.
From $1 billion to $10 billion, the rate would 80%.
Only those making over $10 billion a year would pay the new maximum rate of 90%.
I can hear the ghost of Steve Jobs crying out: that's unfair! Of course Steve paid almost no taxes in his lifetime, as most of his income was from capital gains. Capital gains are only recognized when stocks are sold. Since he died with his fist closed around most of the Apple shares he ever owned, he never paid taxes. Since he had clever lawyers (who for instance kept him out of jail for backdating stock options), he probably paid little in taxes even in death.
Steve Jobs was a hero for our age, a Silicon Valley Robber Baron who kept his eye sharply focused on the mighty dollar while almost half of Americans lost most of what they had in the Great Recession.
But ask yourself: would you rather make $30,000 and pay about $5000 dollars in taxes this year (mostly Social Security and Medicare), or $10 billion and have the government take away all but two billion? I'm guessing most of you are for the 80% tax rate, and would be happy to pay the 90% rate if you make more than $10 billion in 2012.
Sunday, April 1, 2012
Corporate Security State Declares Victory in 2012 Elections
After an extensive analysis of the situation, the United States corporate security state declared a victory in the November 2012 Presidential election, in an internal March 31st memorandum circulated by analysts to key figures.
"We are now that certain that, barring extreme circumstances, either Barack Obama or Mitt Romney will be the next President of the United States," a source who saw the memo told me.
But which of the two men did they favor? "We almost always prefer Democrats, as long as they are firm supporters of our security agenda, as Obama is. Democrats are good at heading off troubles among poorer Americans. Throw people a few food stamps and you don't have to worry about them getting very out of line."
Wouldn't any of the Republican candidates have been acceptable? "Mitt Romney was the best of the lot. He really wants to be President, just like Obama, so he'll be easy to control. Santorum gets people too whipped up over religion and morality, which is a security concern. Newt is, well, a time bomb waiting to go off. Ron Paul was a real danger because he would have tried to close down our global empire."
Aren't Democrats cutting the military budget? "Our own analysis showed the economy would crumble under current spending projections. We are reining things in to assure our long term prosperity."
What about withdrawing from Afghanistan? "We decide how to prioritize our missions. The President can help with that, but it is not his final decision. Not if he doesn't want to be Kennedied."
How about Congress? "During an election year in certain districts they have to moo about being concerned about Afghanistan or military spending. We want them to be re-elected. Let them moo."
Not even Norman Solomon, running for Congress in northern California? "Having a couple of people in token opposition in Congress keeps our control system credible. We don't think Solomon can win, and if he does we don't think he'll be a problem. He spent his younger years using nonviolence as a bludgeon against Marxists and Anarchists. These last few years he's been a big help in destroying the Green Party in California. We can work with him. We can show him off as proof that we are a democracy."
So no problems at all? "We are keeping an eye on Derrick Jensen
and his attempts to inspire a new generation of eco-terrorists. We keep an eye on Occupy. We keep an eye on a lot of people. But we are not going to overreact to a bunch of amateurs. Frankly, the greatest danger to the corporate security state is that our own people will get too greedy and cause our temple to collapse under its own weight."
I am not venturing an opinion. They have an eye on me. I am just reporting what my source said.
"We are now that certain that, barring extreme circumstances, either Barack Obama or Mitt Romney will be the next President of the United States," a source who saw the memo told me.
But which of the two men did they favor? "We almost always prefer Democrats, as long as they are firm supporters of our security agenda, as Obama is. Democrats are good at heading off troubles among poorer Americans. Throw people a few food stamps and you don't have to worry about them getting very out of line."
Wouldn't any of the Republican candidates have been acceptable? "Mitt Romney was the best of the lot. He really wants to be President, just like Obama, so he'll be easy to control. Santorum gets people too whipped up over religion and morality, which is a security concern. Newt is, well, a time bomb waiting to go off. Ron Paul was a real danger because he would have tried to close down our global empire."
Aren't Democrats cutting the military budget? "Our own analysis showed the economy would crumble under current spending projections. We are reining things in to assure our long term prosperity."
What about withdrawing from Afghanistan? "We decide how to prioritize our missions. The President can help with that, but it is not his final decision. Not if he doesn't want to be Kennedied."
How about Congress? "During an election year in certain districts they have to moo about being concerned about Afghanistan or military spending. We want them to be re-elected. Let them moo."
Not even Norman Solomon, running for Congress in northern California? "Having a couple of people in token opposition in Congress keeps our control system credible. We don't think Solomon can win, and if he does we don't think he'll be a problem. He spent his younger years using nonviolence as a bludgeon against Marxists and Anarchists. These last few years he's been a big help in destroying the Green Party in California. We can work with him. We can show him off as proof that we are a democracy."
So no problems at all? "We are keeping an eye on Derrick Jensen
and his attempts to inspire a new generation of eco-terrorists. We keep an eye on Occupy. We keep an eye on a lot of people. But we are not going to overreact to a bunch of amateurs. Frankly, the greatest danger to the corporate security state is that our own people will get too greedy and cause our temple to collapse under its own weight."I am not venturing an opinion. They have an eye on me. I am just reporting what my source said.
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
President Obama's Gasoline Problem
Just when it looked like the economy of the United States of America was recovering, and Barack Obama was well on his way to joining the second term Presidents club, the price of gasoline started shooting up. If gas prices go significantly higher and stay high they could derail both the recovery and Obama's re-election.
Naturally the Republican candidates, thought to be dead in the water just a week ago, are perking up and blaming the President for the high price of gasoline. As usual, Republicans are good at identifying problems while offering solutions that would make matters worse. Newt Gingrich, who has not won a primary since South Carolina (citizens of which mostly believe they are not even legally part of the U.S.A., but an independent, sovereign state occupied by a foreign power since the end of the Civil War), says he would lower the price of gasoline by drilling everywhere in the United States and occupying Iran.
Allow me to point out that the big oil companies are not interested in drilling everywhere. Drilling for oil is an expensive and chancy proposition. There are only so many drilling rigs available. They want to drill in just a few particularly lucrative American places they have been excluded from because those places are particularly environmentally sensitive. It would take three to five years to get a major drilling program underway, and what would be the result? The price of gasoline, and of oil, would go down. Which means the U.S.-based international oil companies would be losing money five years out. That is not their idea of a sound investment.
Then you have Rick Santorum, who attacks the demand side of the equation. He wants to go back to the Dark Ages, when the Pope was an emperor, birth control consisted of one Roman Catholic army invading another Roman Catholic nation and slaying its maidens after raping them, and you were lucky to own a donkey or a horse.
Mitt Romney, on the other hand, is still trying to figure out how the Tea Party got control of the Club House. He keeps painting himself with Tea Party camouflage, but they won't forgive him for his past bouts of sanity. He will let us know what he thinks when he his aides figure out what the Tea Party thinks.
Finally, there is Ron Paul. He has a more workable plan than Santorum. His way back machine would take us to 1928, before the big crash, when unfettered capitalism and the gold standard looked like they might actually work out. Gasoline then was something like $0.21, but then again the minimum wage was $0.00, so go figure.
The real problem is that the oil companies and corporate security state are lying to us, with Barack Obama as their front man. Right now they are saying Iran is the problem, Iran is the cause of high gas prices. But Iran would be happy to get back to the Republican ideal of Free Trade. It is willing to trade its oil to anyone, and wants a bunch of things it can't produce itself. Like parts for nuclear weapons and reactors. Iranians just want parity with Israel, which has had nuclear weapons and reactors for decades.
Here's an idea, Mr. President: push back a little at the war hawks. Pretend to be nice to Iran until you have won a second term. Ship some of that good Iranian crude to California so our Prius fleet does not run out of gas.
Wait. I take that back. There is the Jewish vote in Florida and New York to think about, two swing states with a lot of Electoral College votes. I guess the rest of us are going to have to pay through the nose for gasoline until after the election.
So I'm voting for Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate. Her plan is to cut back U.S. military spending slightly and then use the money to buy Toyota. The whole company. She'll move all the Toyota factories to the U.S. and hire all American workers. They will all build Prius variants, and everyone over the age of 17 would get one on a sliding-scale basis. We'll have full employment and the price of gasoline will drop to $1.50 a gallon. Of course, that would be socialism.
Naturally the Republican candidates, thought to be dead in the water just a week ago, are perking up and blaming the President for the high price of gasoline. As usual, Republicans are good at identifying problems while offering solutions that would make matters worse. Newt Gingrich, who has not won a primary since South Carolina (citizens of which mostly believe they are not even legally part of the U.S.A., but an independent, sovereign state occupied by a foreign power since the end of the Civil War), says he would lower the price of gasoline by drilling everywhere in the United States and occupying Iran.
Allow me to point out that the big oil companies are not interested in drilling everywhere. Drilling for oil is an expensive and chancy proposition. There are only so many drilling rigs available. They want to drill in just a few particularly lucrative American places they have been excluded from because those places are particularly environmentally sensitive. It would take three to five years to get a major drilling program underway, and what would be the result? The price of gasoline, and of oil, would go down. Which means the U.S.-based international oil companies would be losing money five years out. That is not their idea of a sound investment.
Then you have Rick Santorum, who attacks the demand side of the equation. He wants to go back to the Dark Ages, when the Pope was an emperor, birth control consisted of one Roman Catholic army invading another Roman Catholic nation and slaying its maidens after raping them, and you were lucky to own a donkey or a horse.
Mitt Romney, on the other hand, is still trying to figure out how the Tea Party got control of the Club House. He keeps painting himself with Tea Party camouflage, but they won't forgive him for his past bouts of sanity. He will let us know what he thinks when he his aides figure out what the Tea Party thinks.
Finally, there is Ron Paul. He has a more workable plan than Santorum. His way back machine would take us to 1928, before the big crash, when unfettered capitalism and the gold standard looked like they might actually work out. Gasoline then was something like $0.21, but then again the minimum wage was $0.00, so go figure.
The real problem is that the oil companies and corporate security state are lying to us, with Barack Obama as their front man. Right now they are saying Iran is the problem, Iran is the cause of high gas prices. But Iran would be happy to get back to the Republican ideal of Free Trade. It is willing to trade its oil to anyone, and wants a bunch of things it can't produce itself. Like parts for nuclear weapons and reactors. Iranians just want parity with Israel, which has had nuclear weapons and reactors for decades.
Here's an idea, Mr. President: push back a little at the war hawks. Pretend to be nice to Iran until you have won a second term. Ship some of that good Iranian crude to California so our Prius fleet does not run out of gas.
Wait. I take that back. There is the Jewish vote in Florida and New York to think about, two swing states with a lot of Electoral College votes. I guess the rest of us are going to have to pay through the nose for gasoline until after the election.
So I'm voting for Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate. Her plan is to cut back U.S. military spending slightly and then use the money to buy Toyota. The whole company. She'll move all the Toyota factories to the U.S. and hire all American workers. They will all build Prius variants, and everyone over the age of 17 would get one on a sliding-scale basis. We'll have full employment and the price of gasoline will drop to $1.50 a gallon. Of course, that would be socialism.
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Rick Santorum for Pope?
Republican Party presidential hopeful Rick Santorum clearly believes that he has a good chance to beat out Mitt Romney for the nomination. Then, presumably, he plans to rally American voters around him to defeat the incumbent, Barack Obama. Mr. Santorum is now polling well among Republicans, despite being almost unknown 6 months ago, before other rivals of Mr. Romney imploded.
Aside from knowing he was not all that popular in his home state of Pennsylvania, where he lost a re-election bid to the U.S. Senate in 2006, and knowing he was "conservative," like most of the public I paid little attention to his positions or record until lately.
Rick Santorum is not conservative: he is reactionary. Conservatives may argue against same-sex marriage (which is an innovation) and abortion (which is an ethical dilemma). They may deny the reality of global warming, which after all as a science theory is less than 100 years old. Santorum goes further. He wants to prohibit birth control, and abolish the public education system. Given his public agenda, it is fairly easy to surmise what his hidden agenda is: to restructure the United States of America to resemble European nations during the Dark Ages.
I hope that shining the light on Santorum's unstable mental world will insure that his campaign implodes like Herman Cain's, Michelle Bachman's and others before him. On the other hand, the issue may not be decided by the time of California's presidential primary this June 5th. It is time for California Republicans to consider whether they really want an to undermine what remains of American industry and military might by destroying public education.
Do California Republicans really want to risk a socialist revolution by making it impossible, rather than merely unlikely, for our working class children to have decent economic opportunities?
People used to say that Santorum was looking for the Vice President slot. I think, given the age of Pope Benedict XVI, who is 85, that Mr. Santorum would do us all a favor by declaring he is a candidate for Pope. If successful, he would be the first American Pope.
Whereas in America even our Founding Fathers would have found Rick Santorum to be an unenlightened reactionary, in the Vatican he would fit right in. Benedict XVI has been a staunch advocate of taking the Roman Catholic Church back to the Dark Ages, with Latin as the language of choice and burning scientists as good moral instruction and monarchy as the only practical form of government.
Rick Santorum does not even seem to realize he is unbalanced in a way that even most Tea Party activists should find disturbing. Rick Santorum's program is not within the American tradition of freedom (and liberty, and justice) for all.
Adolf Hitler (who was a Roman Catholic) used his power to force (while he was alive) the Lutheran Church in Germany into a unified organization with the Catholic Church. That one-religion-fits-all view really is the inevitable end of the line of logic Santorum espouses. There is only one way to think, and that is Santorum's way, the Roman Catholic way.
Protestant Christians beware. You may think that Santorum is an ally against secularism, and for a while he may be. But you will find that if he defeats the modern, secular Americans with his crusade, he will not be satisfied. He will put pressure on Protestants to submit to the authority of the Pope. With five Roman Catholic judges already forming a majority on the Supreme Court, in a nation where only 1 in 5 citizens is even nominally Roman Catholic, you may wish you had worked harder to preserve the separation of church and state, rather than trying to bring it to an end.
Aside from knowing he was not all that popular in his home state of Pennsylvania, where he lost a re-election bid to the U.S. Senate in 2006, and knowing he was "conservative," like most of the public I paid little attention to his positions or record until lately.
Rick Santorum is not conservative: he is reactionary. Conservatives may argue against same-sex marriage (which is an innovation) and abortion (which is an ethical dilemma). They may deny the reality of global warming, which after all as a science theory is less than 100 years old. Santorum goes further. He wants to prohibit birth control, and abolish the public education system. Given his public agenda, it is fairly easy to surmise what his hidden agenda is: to restructure the United States of America to resemble European nations during the Dark Ages.
I hope that shining the light on Santorum's unstable mental world will insure that his campaign implodes like Herman Cain's, Michelle Bachman's and others before him. On the other hand, the issue may not be decided by the time of California's presidential primary this June 5th. It is time for California Republicans to consider whether they really want an to undermine what remains of American industry and military might by destroying public education.
Do California Republicans really want to risk a socialist revolution by making it impossible, rather than merely unlikely, for our working class children to have decent economic opportunities?
People used to say that Santorum was looking for the Vice President slot. I think, given the age of Pope Benedict XVI, who is 85, that Mr. Santorum would do us all a favor by declaring he is a candidate for Pope. If successful, he would be the first American Pope.
Whereas in America even our Founding Fathers would have found Rick Santorum to be an unenlightened reactionary, in the Vatican he would fit right in. Benedict XVI has been a staunch advocate of taking the Roman Catholic Church back to the Dark Ages, with Latin as the language of choice and burning scientists as good moral instruction and monarchy as the only practical form of government.
Rick Santorum does not even seem to realize he is unbalanced in a way that even most Tea Party activists should find disturbing. Rick Santorum's program is not within the American tradition of freedom (and liberty, and justice) for all.
Adolf Hitler (who was a Roman Catholic) used his power to force (while he was alive) the Lutheran Church in Germany into a unified organization with the Catholic Church. That one-religion-fits-all view really is the inevitable end of the line of logic Santorum espouses. There is only one way to think, and that is Santorum's way, the Roman Catholic way.
Protestant Christians beware. You may think that Santorum is an ally against secularism, and for a while he may be. But you will find that if he defeats the modern, secular Americans with his crusade, he will not be satisfied. He will put pressure on Protestants to submit to the authority of the Pope. With five Roman Catholic judges already forming a majority on the Supreme Court, in a nation where only 1 in 5 citizens is even nominally Roman Catholic, you may wish you had worked harder to preserve the separation of church and state, rather than trying to bring it to an end.
Saturday, February 4, 2012
Week Unreviewed
The number of blog entries I mentally outlined and should have written really piled up this week:
An analysis of Barack Obama's state of the union address, probably compared to those of Democratic Party founder Andrew Jackson.
A victory over U.S. imperialism blog, since the Obama administration essentially admitted this week it can't subjugate Afghanistan forever, and will speed up its withdrawal of combat troops. Obama, the peace candidate, yet again. Mitt Romney making a fool of himself by saying he would stay in Afghanistan until the U.S. is bankrupt, or longer.
Why I am not supporting Norman Solomon in his bid to become a congressman representing the northern California coast.
A proposal to ban the use of drones in war, that is to make the use of drones for anything other than observations a war crime. Not that the U.S. or other imperial powers ever get tried for the innumerable (an exaggeration: obviously the number of war crimes committed by the U.S. could have been enumerated) war crimes they have, do, and will commit.
Why the new rural zones forest fire taxes in California are on a per structure basis. Because if they were on a acreage or potential value of losses basis, the timber corporations would have to pay them. Instead rural homeowners will have to pay them. Thanks, Wes Chesbro, timber company pawn.
How the U.S. government policy (often violated) of non-interference in foreign nations became a policy of constant interference in foreign nations, with a nod to Cordell Hull.
How the Obama administration decision to refuse to allow Somali-Americans to send funds back to relatives in Somalia amounts to a crime against humanity.
Why did I miss such stellar writing opportunities? A combination of work and distractions with the fact that on any given day only about 1000 people read my blog. Eliminate the other analysts and pros (CIA, FBI, homeland security, foreign agencies, comedians, political science guys, etc.) and the number probably falls to more like 500 ordinary citizens. The pros never click, it is against policy. It requires about 100,000 daily readers to make a minimal living as a blogger. If I had that many readers, I would probably write every day, and drop the other work I do.
But actually I had a good week. The Last Days of Christ the Vampire kindle edition is now available. My Biography of Andrew Jackson is starting to sell. David Cobb of MoveToAmend.org visited and spoke to a good sized crowd in Point Arena.
I might even get around to writing up some of the above ideas. Next week.
An analysis of Barack Obama's state of the union address, probably compared to those of Democratic Party founder Andrew Jackson.
A victory over U.S. imperialism blog, since the Obama administration essentially admitted this week it can't subjugate Afghanistan forever, and will speed up its withdrawal of combat troops. Obama, the peace candidate, yet again. Mitt Romney making a fool of himself by saying he would stay in Afghanistan until the U.S. is bankrupt, or longer.
Why I am not supporting Norman Solomon in his bid to become a congressman representing the northern California coast.
A proposal to ban the use of drones in war, that is to make the use of drones for anything other than observations a war crime. Not that the U.S. or other imperial powers ever get tried for the innumerable (an exaggeration: obviously the number of war crimes committed by the U.S. could have been enumerated) war crimes they have, do, and will commit.
Why the new rural zones forest fire taxes in California are on a per structure basis. Because if they were on a acreage or potential value of losses basis, the timber corporations would have to pay them. Instead rural homeowners will have to pay them. Thanks, Wes Chesbro, timber company pawn.
How the U.S. government policy (often violated) of non-interference in foreign nations became a policy of constant interference in foreign nations, with a nod to Cordell Hull.
How the Obama administration decision to refuse to allow Somali-Americans to send funds back to relatives in Somalia amounts to a crime against humanity.
Why did I miss such stellar writing opportunities? A combination of work and distractions with the fact that on any given day only about 1000 people read my blog. Eliminate the other analysts and pros (CIA, FBI, homeland security, foreign agencies, comedians, political science guys, etc.) and the number probably falls to more like 500 ordinary citizens. The pros never click, it is against policy. It requires about 100,000 daily readers to make a minimal living as a blogger. If I had that many readers, I would probably write every day, and drop the other work I do.
But actually I had a good week. The Last Days of Christ the Vampire kindle edition is now available. My Biography of Andrew Jackson is starting to sell. David Cobb of MoveToAmend.org visited and spoke to a good sized crowd in Point Arena.
I might even get around to writing up some of the above ideas. Next week.
Friday, January 20, 2012
Newt Gingrich's Open Presidency
Newt Gingrich, who still has a decent chance of becoming President of the United States, actually has a lot in common with Barack Obama. Both are consummate politicians with spines so flexible they can stick their heads up their respective sphincters if they think they can find some votes there. Barack has the votes to get the Dem nomination, so let's take a look at Newt's situation.
Rick Perry, having proven yet again that people who would have been sterilized under the old eugenics programs can indeed become governors of Texas, finally dropped out and endorsed Newt. The field, if that is an appropriate word ("coven" comes to mind) has narrowed to Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, and Ron Paul.
So much for right-wing evangelical control of Republican primaries. Mitt Romney is a religious man who practices monogamy. Unfortunately (in terms of Protestant bible brewing voters) he belongs to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. He and his fellow Mormons essentially deny the Roman Catholic and Protestant basis of faith: the Trinity, or three gods in One. Nor are the Mormons monotheists like Jews and Muslims. Mormons believe in a male god with a Heavenly Mother consort; we are all the children of Dad and Mom, just like Jesus himself. For all their family this and family that, Protestants overlook the fact that, according to the orthodox New Testament, Jesus had no family of his own. Nor did he recommend having one.
Rick Santorum must have been designed by God because he certainly did not evolve in any rational manner. He is Roman Catholic. When I was a child Protestants in South Carolina lumped in Roman Catholics with Jews and people of undesirable skin color. They still really don't trust the Pope and a bunch of Catholic doctrine that obviously is not in the Bible. Rick Santorum believes in the sanctity of human life until it emerges from the womb, after which it should not be eligible for food stamps, public schooling, or any other waste of taxpayer money. He is all for spending taxpayer money on homeland security and turning the whole world into an American armed camp. He's unemployed, so is probably hoping to be tapped for Vice President, an office that pays well and does not require anyone to get up early in the morning or break into a sweat during the day.
Ron Paul will do better in other primaries. South Carolina is a funny state. People (and not just Republican people) there have almost all experienced socialism and liked it. Only they call it patriotic public service: working in the military sector, usually beginning as soldiers. Ron Paul is the only candidate who is honest about the need to get the people of South Carolina disengaged from the military tit if the federal government is ever to get its debt and deficit under control. The other candidates probably know that, but are not about to say it when votes are at stake.
Newt needs to come in first or second to keep the donations rolling in. His native state of Georgia is next door, so a loss would be embarrassing. But it is hard to embarrass Newt. Despite being a deeply conservative man, he is also an intellectual who prides himself on new ideas.
Newt wants to be President. He already was once Speaker of the House, which back before the development of the Imperial Presidency was considered by many to be a more important job than the Presidency. The House controls taxation and appropriation, it represents the people, and it was considered the most important branch of government until around the Civil War.
Newt's new idea is the Open Presidency. It will make the world a better, more efficient place. If Americans select Newt Gingrich as their President, that will just be a start. He will play the field. If the Canadians want him, he can also be their Prime Minister. If the Mexicans show some love, he can be their President. Who knows, maybe he can be the head of the European Union too. Perhaps something more exotic would excite him: Pakistan, Afghanistan and Somalia all are looking for better leaders right now. Perhaps he can become Emperor of the World.
Open Presidency? Haven't some Presidents been tired out by having to run just this one country? Sure, but Newt is an extra-energetic guy, and this is the era of multitasking. If anyone can keep more than one nation happy, it is Newt.
Also, Newt is a Roman Catholic. There is plenty of historical precedent for a Catholic being head of state of multiple nations. Such open marriages are made in heaven.
Rick Perry, having proven yet again that people who would have been sterilized under the old eugenics programs can indeed become governors of Texas, finally dropped out and endorsed Newt. The field, if that is an appropriate word ("coven" comes to mind) has narrowed to Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, and Ron Paul.
So much for right-wing evangelical control of Republican primaries. Mitt Romney is a religious man who practices monogamy. Unfortunately (in terms of Protestant bible brewing voters) he belongs to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. He and his fellow Mormons essentially deny the Roman Catholic and Protestant basis of faith: the Trinity, or three gods in One. Nor are the Mormons monotheists like Jews and Muslims. Mormons believe in a male god with a Heavenly Mother consort; we are all the children of Dad and Mom, just like Jesus himself. For all their family this and family that, Protestants overlook the fact that, according to the orthodox New Testament, Jesus had no family of his own. Nor did he recommend having one.
Rick Santorum must have been designed by God because he certainly did not evolve in any rational manner. He is Roman Catholic. When I was a child Protestants in South Carolina lumped in Roman Catholics with Jews and people of undesirable skin color. They still really don't trust the Pope and a bunch of Catholic doctrine that obviously is not in the Bible. Rick Santorum believes in the sanctity of human life until it emerges from the womb, after which it should not be eligible for food stamps, public schooling, or any other waste of taxpayer money. He is all for spending taxpayer money on homeland security and turning the whole world into an American armed camp. He's unemployed, so is probably hoping to be tapped for Vice President, an office that pays well and does not require anyone to get up early in the morning or break into a sweat during the day.
Ron Paul will do better in other primaries. South Carolina is a funny state. People (and not just Republican people) there have almost all experienced socialism and liked it. Only they call it patriotic public service: working in the military sector, usually beginning as soldiers. Ron Paul is the only candidate who is honest about the need to get the people of South Carolina disengaged from the military tit if the federal government is ever to get its debt and deficit under control. The other candidates probably know that, but are not about to say it when votes are at stake.
Newt needs to come in first or second to keep the donations rolling in. His native state of Georgia is next door, so a loss would be embarrassing. But it is hard to embarrass Newt. Despite being a deeply conservative man, he is also an intellectual who prides himself on new ideas.
Newt wants to be President. He already was once Speaker of the House, which back before the development of the Imperial Presidency was considered by many to be a more important job than the Presidency. The House controls taxation and appropriation, it represents the people, and it was considered the most important branch of government until around the Civil War.
Newt's new idea is the Open Presidency. It will make the world a better, more efficient place. If Americans select Newt Gingrich as their President, that will just be a start. He will play the field. If the Canadians want him, he can also be their Prime Minister. If the Mexicans show some love, he can be their President. Who knows, maybe he can be the head of the European Union too. Perhaps something more exotic would excite him: Pakistan, Afghanistan and Somalia all are looking for better leaders right now. Perhaps he can become Emperor of the World.
Open Presidency? Haven't some Presidents been tired out by having to run just this one country? Sure, but Newt is an extra-energetic guy, and this is the era of multitasking. If anyone can keep more than one nation happy, it is Newt.
Also, Newt is a Roman Catholic. There is plenty of historical precedent for a Catholic being head of state of multiple nations. Such open marriages are made in heaven.
Sunday, January 8, 2012
The Republican Five Year Plan
Although I resolved to write no blogs while on vacation, watching just part of the Republican debate running up to the New Hampshire primary made my blood boil. Even allowing for the candidates needing to appeal to the most misguided wing of their party, the economic generalship they displayed can only be compared to plans for British mass infantry attacks on German trenches in France during World War I.
The central theme of economic planning, Republican style, is eliminating the taxes the rich pay. The truly rich, the already rich, actually don't worry that much about income taxes. Income taxes are for the working poor and the small class of professionals who get wages or salaries over $100,000 per year. The truly rich get their money from inheritances, capital gains, interest, and dividends. All the Republicans want to reduce taxes on these categories of non-income. Most of the candidates wanted to reduce the rates on these categories to zero. Mitt Romney, the moderate, settled for reasonably near zero. In addition, they want to cut the corporate tax rate.
They gave two rationales, both about as plausible as medieval Catholic tests for witchcraft. One is that these cuts only incidentally help the rich, but they really are aimed at helping the middle class. That might be true if by middle class you mean families with assets between $10 million and $100 million, which would indeed generate capital gains, interest and dividends worth worrying about.
The other is job creation, Want jobs? Stop taxing the rich!
If you believe that you probably also believe that God was so infertile he only could manage one child.
What will rich people and corporations do if their tax rates are lowered?
Oh, sure, they may add a job or two here or there. But mainly they will either spend the money on themselves or play financial games with it.
Rich people spending more money could create a few more jobs, especially for luxury leather goods workers in China (whose work product is labeled as Italian). A few people will upgrade from private prop planes to private jets, which I suppose would require a few more factory workers. More cocaine will have to be ponied into the U.S., which creates jobs. Mansions may be expanded or remodeled, expanding the construction work force by a few tens of thousands.
Let's talk about reality now.
Job creation and destruction is dependent on a large number of variables.Most jobs are created when employers (corporate and individual) think they can make larger profits by adding staff. Jobs of the self-employed type are also created by increased demand for services: if consumers are willing to pay (well) for a service, someone will provide it.
To increase demand, American consumers as a whole need to be able to spend more. This can be because more of them are gainfully employed, or because those that are employed are getting higher wages.
The Republican Five Year Plan, essentially central planning by capitalists to further enrich themselves at the expense of the working class, doe not address generating increased demand.
Jobs, and demand, would be generated naturally (in our mostly-free-market system) by increased employer and consumer confidence. Those rely, in turn, on a stable credit and money supply (the job of the Federal Reserve) and a lack of turmoil in Washington.
While the federal deficit and debt need to be addressed once we have an economic recovery, what we really need now is higher taxes on the rich and a closing of corporate tax loopholes and subsidies. The rich, unlike the poor, love money above all else. Tax them more and they will climb out of their $1000 bottle of wine stupors to make up the difference. To make up the difference, they will need to exploit more workers. To exploit more workers, they will have to hire them.
Higher taxes on inheritance, capital gains, dividends and interest are the best policy for job creation in the United States. The taxes could be set too high, but that is not our problem right now. When Republican President Dwight Eisenhower left office in 1960, during our period of greatest prosperity, the maximum tax rate was 91%. We may not need to go that high again, but rates should certainly be higher than they are now, if we want the U.S. to continue to be an economic leader of the world.
The central theme of economic planning, Republican style, is eliminating the taxes the rich pay. The truly rich, the already rich, actually don't worry that much about income taxes. Income taxes are for the working poor and the small class of professionals who get wages or salaries over $100,000 per year. The truly rich get their money from inheritances, capital gains, interest, and dividends. All the Republicans want to reduce taxes on these categories of non-income. Most of the candidates wanted to reduce the rates on these categories to zero. Mitt Romney, the moderate, settled for reasonably near zero. In addition, they want to cut the corporate tax rate.
They gave two rationales, both about as plausible as medieval Catholic tests for witchcraft. One is that these cuts only incidentally help the rich, but they really are aimed at helping the middle class. That might be true if by middle class you mean families with assets between $10 million and $100 million, which would indeed generate capital gains, interest and dividends worth worrying about.
The other is job creation, Want jobs? Stop taxing the rich!
If you believe that you probably also believe that God was so infertile he only could manage one child.
What will rich people and corporations do if their tax rates are lowered?
Oh, sure, they may add a job or two here or there. But mainly they will either spend the money on themselves or play financial games with it.
Rich people spending more money could create a few more jobs, especially for luxury leather goods workers in China (whose work product is labeled as Italian). A few people will upgrade from private prop planes to private jets, which I suppose would require a few more factory workers. More cocaine will have to be ponied into the U.S., which creates jobs. Mansions may be expanded or remodeled, expanding the construction work force by a few tens of thousands.
Let's talk about reality now.
Job creation and destruction is dependent on a large number of variables.Most jobs are created when employers (corporate and individual) think they can make larger profits by adding staff. Jobs of the self-employed type are also created by increased demand for services: if consumers are willing to pay (well) for a service, someone will provide it.
To increase demand, American consumers as a whole need to be able to spend more. This can be because more of them are gainfully employed, or because those that are employed are getting higher wages.
The Republican Five Year Plan, essentially central planning by capitalists to further enrich themselves at the expense of the working class, doe not address generating increased demand.
Jobs, and demand, would be generated naturally (in our mostly-free-market system) by increased employer and consumer confidence. Those rely, in turn, on a stable credit and money supply (the job of the Federal Reserve) and a lack of turmoil in Washington.
While the federal deficit and debt need to be addressed once we have an economic recovery, what we really need now is higher taxes on the rich and a closing of corporate tax loopholes and subsidies. The rich, unlike the poor, love money above all else. Tax them more and they will climb out of their $1000 bottle of wine stupors to make up the difference. To make up the difference, they will need to exploit more workers. To exploit more workers, they will have to hire them.
Higher taxes on inheritance, capital gains, dividends and interest are the best policy for job creation in the United States. The taxes could be set too high, but that is not our problem right now. When Republican President Dwight Eisenhower left office in 1960, during our period of greatest prosperity, the maximum tax rate was 91%. We may not need to go that high again, but rates should certainly be higher than they are now, if we want the U.S. to continue to be an economic leader of the world.
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Iowa Caucuses and the GOP Tragedy
The State of Iowa plays the opening role in America's Presidential election years. It is a farm state with a population of just over 3 million, most noted for its rich soils and agricultural productivity. Despite that over 60% of its citizens now live in urban areas.
When Iowa became a state in 1846 (notably, a "free" state, one prohibiting slavery) the Whigs were slugging it out with the pro-slavery Democratic Party. When the Republican Party formed at the far-left of the American political spectrum in the 1850's, Iowans embraced it. In 1856 Iowa voted for the first Republican Presidential candidate John Fremont. The Civil War cemented the Republican triumph. Although the Democrats returned in strength during the Great Depression, afterwards Iowa reverted to the Republican fold.
Of late the Democrats and Republicans have been more evenly balanced in Iowa, with Clinton and even Al Gore carrying the state, then it switching to George W. Bush. Most recently Barack Obama captured the state in 2008, but Republicans captured most statewide offices in 2010.
Next week Iowa will hold its partisan caucuses. These require more of citizens than just showing up and voting; they have to actually sit through a meeting. The process amplifies partisanship, since only the most committed partisans are willing to engage in it.
No one substantial is challenging President Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination this year, despite his unpopularity in his own party. That leaves us with the Republican lot of would-be Presidents.
Pretty much all of the Republicans are more experienced than Obama was when he became President. On the whole the problem is not the candidates, though I have enjoyed criticizing each of them individually. The problem for America is the Republican activists who will dominate the caucuses.
Historically, there is a lot good to be said about the Republican Party. They abolished slavery and tried to make the former slaves equal in the eyes of society and the law. They treated the American Indian tribes much better than the Democrats ever had. They tried to do something about America's alcoholism problem. Excepting the Spanish American War, they were the anti-war party until President Eisenhower retired in 1960. The Republican core values of being an economically responsible, law-abiding, moral citizen and good neighbor are hard to argue with.
Where did the people who dominate the Republican primary process come from? It is as if the doors of hell have opened and the legions marched forth. Instead of taking responsibility and building an economically strong, just, and durable America, they want to blame anyone but themselves for their troubles. They don't want to pay taxes even though Iowa is probably the most heavily subsidized state in the nation. Iowa's relative prosperity is propped up by food stamps (which prop up grain prices), ethanol subsidies, and direct crop subsidies.
The Christianity of these people makes Islam and atheism both look good. It is a narrowly-constructed Christianity, carefully avoiding entire directives from God himself. Jesus said to pay your taxes and stop complaining ["Give unto Caesar ..."]. He said to be kind and charitable. He asked Christians to find a way to feed the hungry even if only a few loaves and fishes are available. The activist Republicans instead want to regulate birth control, deny human rights to women and homosexuals, and let the weak starve and freeze.
The Republican activists pretend to be supporters of free-market capitalism, but mainly they have a criminal mentality that should frighten all decent American citizens. They want to make money by destroying the environment, destroying the health of their neighbors, and endangering the lives of workers. Why not just sell crack or weed or untaxed bathtub gin, if you need money?
I'm not saying that every government agency or regulation is necessary, but I do know that the threat of enforcement deters crime. Have we had too little economic crime these past 10 years? Too few Madoff's and mortgage derivative scams? Too few nuclear reactor meltdowns? Too few oil spills? I think not.
I know there are plenty of sensible Republicans out there. It is still a big party. With a little bit of reform—throwing out the Tea Party mad dogs and the corporate security state operatives—it could be a beloved American Party again.
But who could those sensible Republicans vote for in Iowa?
While I like Ron Paul's stance on dismantling the U.S. global military empire (which would straighten out the federal budget deficit pretty quickly), his love of nutty, discredited ideas like the Gold Standard limits him to being my second choice.
I think Mitt Romney is by far the most competent of the Presidential candidates in the field. This might seem like a dangerous thing to Democrats, who would prefer an less competent opponent, like Michele Bachman. But consider:
When highly competent people have been elevated to being President of the United States they have usually stepped outside of the narrow interests of their pasts. It Mitt's case, I don't think his Latter Day Saints upbringing or Bain Capital days will prejudice him.
I think he is the kind of individual that will try to serve all of the American people if elected. He won't just serve his Wall Street friends, or any particular constituency. He'll do what a President can to get the economy humming, without disregarding environmental or consumer safety. He'll stand up to corrupt interests in Washington, and to the worst impulses of the Tea Party.
Let me repeat: Romney excels in competence. He didn't use his family fortunes to put coke up his nose and then party on borrowings against his inheritance. He got both an MBA and a Law Degree from Harvard in just four years, no easy feat. He excelled in business and then served as governor of Massachusetts.
Romney makes me think of Joe Kennedy, the father of President John Kennedy. In his early life Joe was a lot less ethical than, but just as competent as, Mitt Romney. Joe got rich on Wall Street and was notorious for his slick dealings that made him a billionaire (he even sold his stock holdings well before the 1929 market crash). When it was time to reform Wall Street, President Franklin Roosevelt chose Joe Kennedy to be the first head of the SEC. Having used every trick in the book himself, Joe was able to create a set of regulations that served American investors, large and small alike, from the 1930's until a new wave of mischief was invented in the 1980's.
Of course, there is the opposite story of competence, Robert Rubin, U.S. Treasury Secretary from 1995 to 1999. He used his position to gut regulations, including the Depression-era Glass-Steagall act, thereby heavily contributing to the economic calamities of the following decade.
So, if Mitt Romney becomes President, let us hope he turns out to be a Joe Kennedy, not a Robert Rubin.
In any case, it would take three or four Barack Obamas to match the competence of one Mitt Romney. Muddling through is not what we need right now. Four years of that is enough.
I am not, however, endorsing Mr. Romney. He is still part of the two-party, corporate security state system. I will probably support the Green Party nominee, Gill Stein, or an independent candidate, depending on who emerges. Mitt is just the best I think we can hope for out of the old, hopefully dying, two-party system.
When Iowa became a state in 1846 (notably, a "free" state, one prohibiting slavery) the Whigs were slugging it out with the pro-slavery Democratic Party. When the Republican Party formed at the far-left of the American political spectrum in the 1850's, Iowans embraced it. In 1856 Iowa voted for the first Republican Presidential candidate John Fremont. The Civil War cemented the Republican triumph. Although the Democrats returned in strength during the Great Depression, afterwards Iowa reverted to the Republican fold.
Of late the Democrats and Republicans have been more evenly balanced in Iowa, with Clinton and even Al Gore carrying the state, then it switching to George W. Bush. Most recently Barack Obama captured the state in 2008, but Republicans captured most statewide offices in 2010.
Next week Iowa will hold its partisan caucuses. These require more of citizens than just showing up and voting; they have to actually sit through a meeting. The process amplifies partisanship, since only the most committed partisans are willing to engage in it.
No one substantial is challenging President Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination this year, despite his unpopularity in his own party. That leaves us with the Republican lot of would-be Presidents.
Pretty much all of the Republicans are more experienced than Obama was when he became President. On the whole the problem is not the candidates, though I have enjoyed criticizing each of them individually. The problem for America is the Republican activists who will dominate the caucuses.
Historically, there is a lot good to be said about the Republican Party. They abolished slavery and tried to make the former slaves equal in the eyes of society and the law. They treated the American Indian tribes much better than the Democrats ever had. They tried to do something about America's alcoholism problem. Excepting the Spanish American War, they were the anti-war party until President Eisenhower retired in 1960. The Republican core values of being an economically responsible, law-abiding, moral citizen and good neighbor are hard to argue with.
Where did the people who dominate the Republican primary process come from? It is as if the doors of hell have opened and the legions marched forth. Instead of taking responsibility and building an economically strong, just, and durable America, they want to blame anyone but themselves for their troubles. They don't want to pay taxes even though Iowa is probably the most heavily subsidized state in the nation. Iowa's relative prosperity is propped up by food stamps (which prop up grain prices), ethanol subsidies, and direct crop subsidies.
The Christianity of these people makes Islam and atheism both look good. It is a narrowly-constructed Christianity, carefully avoiding entire directives from God himself. Jesus said to pay your taxes and stop complaining ["Give unto Caesar ..."]. He said to be kind and charitable. He asked Christians to find a way to feed the hungry even if only a few loaves and fishes are available. The activist Republicans instead want to regulate birth control, deny human rights to women and homosexuals, and let the weak starve and freeze.
The Republican activists pretend to be supporters of free-market capitalism, but mainly they have a criminal mentality that should frighten all decent American citizens. They want to make money by destroying the environment, destroying the health of their neighbors, and endangering the lives of workers. Why not just sell crack or weed or untaxed bathtub gin, if you need money?
I'm not saying that every government agency or regulation is necessary, but I do know that the threat of enforcement deters crime. Have we had too little economic crime these past 10 years? Too few Madoff's and mortgage derivative scams? Too few nuclear reactor meltdowns? Too few oil spills? I think not.
I know there are plenty of sensible Republicans out there. It is still a big party. With a little bit of reform—throwing out the Tea Party mad dogs and the corporate security state operatives—it could be a beloved American Party again.
But who could those sensible Republicans vote for in Iowa?
While I like Ron Paul's stance on dismantling the U.S. global military empire (which would straighten out the federal budget deficit pretty quickly), his love of nutty, discredited ideas like the Gold Standard limits him to being my second choice.
I think Mitt Romney is by far the most competent of the Presidential candidates in the field. This might seem like a dangerous thing to Democrats, who would prefer an less competent opponent, like Michele Bachman. But consider:
When highly competent people have been elevated to being President of the United States they have usually stepped outside of the narrow interests of their pasts. It Mitt's case, I don't think his Latter Day Saints upbringing or Bain Capital days will prejudice him.
I think he is the kind of individual that will try to serve all of the American people if elected. He won't just serve his Wall Street friends, or any particular constituency. He'll do what a President can to get the economy humming, without disregarding environmental or consumer safety. He'll stand up to corrupt interests in Washington, and to the worst impulses of the Tea Party.
Let me repeat: Romney excels in competence. He didn't use his family fortunes to put coke up his nose and then party on borrowings against his inheritance. He got both an MBA and a Law Degree from Harvard in just four years, no easy feat. He excelled in business and then served as governor of Massachusetts.
Romney makes me think of Joe Kennedy, the father of President John Kennedy. In his early life Joe was a lot less ethical than, but just as competent as, Mitt Romney. Joe got rich on Wall Street and was notorious for his slick dealings that made him a billionaire (he even sold his stock holdings well before the 1929 market crash). When it was time to reform Wall Street, President Franklin Roosevelt chose Joe Kennedy to be the first head of the SEC. Having used every trick in the book himself, Joe was able to create a set of regulations that served American investors, large and small alike, from the 1930's until a new wave of mischief was invented in the 1980's.
Of course, there is the opposite story of competence, Robert Rubin, U.S. Treasury Secretary from 1995 to 1999. He used his position to gut regulations, including the Depression-era Glass-Steagall act, thereby heavily contributing to the economic calamities of the following decade.
So, if Mitt Romney becomes President, let us hope he turns out to be a Joe Kennedy, not a Robert Rubin.
In any case, it would take three or four Barack Obamas to match the competence of one Mitt Romney. Muddling through is not what we need right now. Four years of that is enough.
I am not, however, endorsing Mr. Romney. He is still part of the two-party, corporate security state system. I will probably support the Green Party nominee, Gill Stein, or an independent candidate, depending on who emerges. Mitt is just the best I think we can hope for out of the old, hopefully dying, two-party system.
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Tea Party Ovens
A tea party sounds so nice, so elegant. Savor the pagan flavors of India sipped from pretty matching porcelain tea sets. Or perhaps you might like the romantic American patriot version: dress up like American Indians and dump British, privately owned tea from India as a protest against a tax that explicitly was to pay to defend American colonists from American Indians.
Yesterday the world, or at least the few people who were not already sick of watching Republican presidential candidates debate, got to see a darker sort of tea party. The kind where you are sipping your tea, hoping to get to know your host and suddenly your host sprouts fangs and tears at your throat. Fade to black.
I did not listen to the debate. My wife heard about the incident on NPR and, as she related it, which may not exactly correspond to NPR's report, the entire Tea Party audience (about 1000 people) at the Tea Party sponsored debate demanded the death of a hypothetical working guy, following a question about medical insurance put to Ron Paul, to be known henceforth as Uncle Death.
I found a replay on the internet easily enough. As far as I could tell from the audio portion, only three or four audience members were screaming "let him die" or "death". Ron Paul had a weasel answer. If a working guy has no private medical insurance and needs prolonged hospitalization, Ron Paul strongly recommended that he retroactively buy medical insurance. Pressed, he talked about the freedom to take on risk. Asked if the man should just be turned away to die, after the four idiots in the audience did their death chant, he talked about religious charities dealing with such cases instead of the government. He never really answered the question.
I agree with Ron Paul on a thing or two, like bringing U.S. troops home from our imperialist adventures. His attachment to the Gold Standard, however, distinguishes him as a nutter who has been unable to adopt to industrial, much less post-industrial, reality. But I never knew he was as dead, as cold at heart as old General Franco himself.
As Adolf Hitler showed, it is not much of a leap from allowing people to die from lack of medical care to putting people in ovens and gas chambers to save on the cost of bullets.
What was scary about the moment was not that four extreme libertarians expressed such an extreme every-man-for-himself philosophy at a public, televised debate sponsored by the Tea Party.
What was scary is that no candidate took the opportunity to distinguish himself or herself by scolding the deathers. Not one. They are cowards individually, and cowards collectively. Let me name them, in no particular order:
Jon Huntsman, coward
Herman Cain, coward
Michele Bachmann, coward
Mitt Romney, coward
Rick Perry, coward
Newt Gingrich, coward
Rick Santorum, coward
In particular, if Mitt Romney had jumped in and scolded the deathers, I think that might have put a damper on dominance of the political debate by Tea Party extremism. Moderate Republicans don't want obvious nutters like Bachman, Perry or Paul to lose an election against a vulnerable Barack Obama. But when they see even Mitt molded like plastic by a few Tea Party thugs, moderates get intimidated.
Clearly the tail is wagging the dog now. The thugs are in charge of the Republican Party nomination process.
Yesterday the world, or at least the few people who were not already sick of watching Republican presidential candidates debate, got to see a darker sort of tea party. The kind where you are sipping your tea, hoping to get to know your host and suddenly your host sprouts fangs and tears at your throat. Fade to black.
I did not listen to the debate. My wife heard about the incident on NPR and, as she related it, which may not exactly correspond to NPR's report, the entire Tea Party audience (about 1000 people) at the Tea Party sponsored debate demanded the death of a hypothetical working guy, following a question about medical insurance put to Ron Paul, to be known henceforth as Uncle Death.
I found a replay on the internet easily enough. As far as I could tell from the audio portion, only three or four audience members were screaming "let him die" or "death". Ron Paul had a weasel answer. If a working guy has no private medical insurance and needs prolonged hospitalization, Ron Paul strongly recommended that he retroactively buy medical insurance. Pressed, he talked about the freedom to take on risk. Asked if the man should just be turned away to die, after the four idiots in the audience did their death chant, he talked about religious charities dealing with such cases instead of the government. He never really answered the question.
I agree with Ron Paul on a thing or two, like bringing U.S. troops home from our imperialist adventures. His attachment to the Gold Standard, however, distinguishes him as a nutter who has been unable to adopt to industrial, much less post-industrial, reality. But I never knew he was as dead, as cold at heart as old General Franco himself.
As Adolf Hitler showed, it is not much of a leap from allowing people to die from lack of medical care to putting people in ovens and gas chambers to save on the cost of bullets.
What was scary about the moment was not that four extreme libertarians expressed such an extreme every-man-for-himself philosophy at a public, televised debate sponsored by the Tea Party.
What was scary is that no candidate took the opportunity to distinguish himself or herself by scolding the deathers. Not one. They are cowards individually, and cowards collectively. Let me name them, in no particular order:
Jon Huntsman, coward
Herman Cain, coward
Michele Bachmann, coward
Mitt Romney, coward
Rick Perry, coward
Newt Gingrich, coward
Rick Santorum, coward
In particular, if Mitt Romney had jumped in and scolded the deathers, I think that might have put a damper on dominance of the political debate by Tea Party extremism. Moderate Republicans don't want obvious nutters like Bachman, Perry or Paul to lose an election against a vulnerable Barack Obama. But when they see even Mitt molded like plastic by a few Tea Party thugs, moderates get intimidated.
Clearly the tail is wagging the dog now. The thugs are in charge of the Republican Party nomination process.
Sunday, July 3, 2011
Crazy Republicans with Guns and Presidential Aspirations
The right to own a gun (rifle or handgun) is a perennial favorite talking point of political candidates. The Democratic Party was founded by a gun enthusiast, Andrew Jackson, who began life a child warrior. To the extent that the Republican Party, founded in part by pacifists who wanted to abolish slavery, might have been less gun-happy, that went out the window when the Civil War began.
Of the Republican Presidential candidates, without a doubt the best shot is Sarah Palin, who could doubtless outgun Annie Oakley, were such a match up possible. Michele Bachmann, however, favors the heavy firepower of the fully automatic Uzi, which she learned to strip and reassemble blindfolded as a teen in Israel. Unlike President Jackson, however, neither of these candidates has actually shot anyone, unless it was covered up. The most recent shooting of a human by a near-President was in 2006 when Vice President of the United States Dick Cheney shot Harry Wittington. Cheney favored a shotgun, which is fine for certain types of hunting and which Michele recommends for brushing back juvenile delinquents in the home.
Of course many former U.S. Presidents besides Andrew Jackson had experience in the military or actual wars.
We have to go back a bit in history, however, to find the best example of a crazy Republican with a gun and Presidential aspirations. His name was Charles Guiteau. He receives little attention in standard U.S. history books because his actions cut against the current of U.S. propaganda.
Charles was born in 1841 but apparently managed to avoid serving in the Civil War, in which the Republican Party defeated the slaver masters of the Democratic Party. He pursued religious writing and journalism, then became a lawyer. He was a Republican, and when 1880 rolled around he supported the comeback of former President Ulysses S. Grant. At the time the Republican Party had two factions, the "Half-Breeds" led by James Blaine, and the Stalwarts led by Roscoe Conkling. The Half-Breed favored filling civil service positions based on non-political criteria. The Stalwarts wanted to continue to use civil service positions to reward supporters.
Presidential candidates of political parties were not chosen in primaries back then, but at party conventions dominated by elected officials. The Republican convention of 1880 saw a standoff between supporters of Blaine and of Grant. Finally, a compromise was reached, with James Garfield, a moderate Half-Breed nominated for President and Chester Arthur, a moderate Stalwart, nominated for Vice President.
Given the lack of ideological differences between the factions, you would not think anyone would get too worked up about the compromise. Charles Guiteau supported Garfield, giving speeches in his favor and even handing out copies of the speeches. When Garfield won, Guiteau thought he would be rewarded with a civil service job.
Garfield, however, had no office he wanted to give to Guiteau (who wanted to be an Ambassador, but probably would have been happy to be appointed a Postmaster or Customs official, those being the only major national bureaucracies back then). Thank God for the Second Amendment. Charles went out and bought a handgun, then practiced up. He shot President James Garfield twice on July 2, 1881.
Garfield probably would have lived, the wounds being serious but probably not deadly, but doctors intervened and he died on September 19th.
At his trial Guiteau's defense lawyers argued he was insane. Charles Guiteau considered himself a hero of the Stalwarts and began to plan a campaign to be President. "Guiteau went so far as to ask all those who had benefited politically by the assassination to contribute to his defense fund." His aspirations were cut off by a hangman's noose on June 30, 1882.
So please, no more lefty complaints that the current crop of Republican candidates are crazy. I don't care if Michele Bachmann thinks God created the world in 1776 or that Sarah Palin believes she shot Bigfoot or that Mitt Romney swears he emerged from Massachusetts untainted by liberal ideas. Those thoughts are no more crazy that the Lefty idea that we can all collect disability and be artists if only taxes on CEO pay were higher. Republican Presidential aspirant ideas may not match up to reality very well, but we are talking politics, the art of telling voters what they want to hear, their own crazy ideas. As long as the Republicans don't start shooting at each other, our republic survive despite whatever the politicians throw at us.
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Yet the War Goes On
It is a strange day when the leading contender for the Republican Party nomination for President puts himself firmly to the left of a Democratic President on the issue of national security. In yesterday's Republican debate Mitt Romney did just that. Of course he hedged a bit, saying that the war was expensive, we had killed Osama bin Laden, and not exactly calling for a total, immediate withdrawal.
Big Brother is indeed watching, and laughing. In 2006 the Democratic Party captured control of the House of Representatives largely by pretending to be against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But the war went on. In 2008 the housing bubble popped, so in the election that year the economy was the central issue. Barack Obama won, playing the typical politician who implied he was against the war without saying so. In the meantime President George W. Bush's troop surge in Iraq did have its intended effect, allowing a basically democratic government to function their. President Obama was able to withdraw troops from Iraq, forgetting to give the ex-President credit for the situation.
Attention centered on Afghanistan in 2009, and Obama decided to try his own troop surge their, largely using veterans of the Iraq war. The Taliban has been beaten back in some areas, only to pop up in others.
Meanwhile, the U.S. has a little debt problem on its hands. Between the Bush Tax Cuts (supported by most Democrats in Congress back then, though they would like to only remind their wealthiest donors of that fact), the economic suicide after the bubble burst, and the ongoing hundreds of billions spent on wars, the U.S. has become the world's beggar.
Some Republicans (and here I even include some Republican politicians, for instance Mitt Romney) realize there is a relationship between war spending, national debt, and their own fortunes. Only a few months ago they thought they could just cut back on services (welfare, food stamps, Medicare, Social Security) for Democratic Party constituencies and achieve a balanced budget. Now they are looking at two formerly untouchable gods: taxation and defense spending.
It is simple. Mitt Romney is no pacifist. He is no Eugene McCarthy or George McGovern. But he would rather cut military spending that raise taxes. The easiest way to cut military spending quickly is to get the hell out of Afghanistan.
If the vote were today, I'd vote for Romney, not Obama. I know Romney might be lying, he might continue the war if elected President. But Obama has already shown himself to be a liar, a fraud, and a war criminal.
Hopefully a strong Green Party or Independent contender will emerge, because Romney is far from my ideal candidate. Or maybe there is a Eugene McCarthy out there somewhere, and Barack will get what he deserves: a one term Presidency.
Friday, January 11, 2008
Presidential Power and Primary Horse Races
Political consultants and media outlets that play political ads are rejoicing at the outcome of the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire Presidential nomination primary. No clear victor has emerged, though some lesser lights have been eliminated from the Democratic Party and Republican Party contest. The first contested Green Party presidential primary will be contested in California on February 5th. Voting-by mail is becoming the norm in California and such voters have their ballots in hand or may have cast them already.
The funny thing is that the President of the United States is an executive officer. He (or maybe she) does not actually make policy. The President is supposed to see that the executive branch, the bureaucracy, carries out the laws written by Congress, with occasional instruction on constitutionality from the Supreme Court.
So Congress is where citizen voters should focus their efforts. But in most districts in the U.S., and certainly in California, there are no real contests. One party machine or another dominates. Only rarely does a district change hands.
Partly this is because citizens have been trained to accept their politics in bundles. Accept the pro-abortion, pro-ruling class bundle; or accept the anti-abortion, pro-ruling class bundle.
That said, there are differences in the Presidential candidates, and those will make some difference in how the United States and its imperialist possessions are run. Who wins votes tells us political analyst types what people want, even if they and we know the promises are mostly empty.
I like Hillary Clinton the best. I don't like her politics, of course: I think she is pro war and not willing to buck the corporate ruling class in any significant way. Like all the other candidates who were taken seriously by the corporate media and big-pockets donors. I think she can at least try to be fair. I admire a woman getting so far in within our political establishment. I like the fact that the genetic-throwback Republicans hate her so much.
It is every male against Ms. Clinton right now, which shows you how shallow both American politicians and voters are. Barack Obama, on the other hand, is offering hope and a fresh face. It seems to me the last time the Democrats offered hope and a fresh face was when Mr. Clinton ran back in 1992. We got global trade agreements but no health plan from the Clinton-Gore team, which by the way did absolutely nothing about global warming. Still, it would be a change of pace to have Barack as President. He'd be about the least experienced presidents since John F. Kennedy, but he probably would not have the Kennedy family's ties to organized crime to haunt him. John Edwards would have been the best Democratic Party candidate in decades, but had the bad luck to finally have to take the fall for the run of white males we've been having.
On the Republican side, I like Mitt Romney. Of course his free-markets for workers and consumers, subsidies for rich corporations and individuals economic policy would be a disaster. But I think he is honest and however strange their taste in underwear, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints seems to do a better job than most religious cults in instilling values I share like honesty, taking personal responsibility, and working hard at what you believe in.
Unless you can hire a lobbyist, expect the next Congress to do nothing for you.
The most important thing citizens can do right now is to help to build a party that does not have a long history of committing and commitment to war crimes. While there are some other choices, the best party to work with right now in the United States is the Green Party. I hope to write quite a bit about the problems of creating an election-winning Green Party in this blog.
The funny thing is that the President of the United States is an executive officer. He (or maybe she) does not actually make policy. The President is supposed to see that the executive branch, the bureaucracy, carries out the laws written by Congress, with occasional instruction on constitutionality from the Supreme Court.
So Congress is where citizen voters should focus their efforts. But in most districts in the U.S., and certainly in California, there are no real contests. One party machine or another dominates. Only rarely does a district change hands.
Partly this is because citizens have been trained to accept their politics in bundles. Accept the pro-abortion, pro-ruling class bundle; or accept the anti-abortion, pro-ruling class bundle.
That said, there are differences in the Presidential candidates, and those will make some difference in how the United States and its imperialist possessions are run. Who wins votes tells us political analyst types what people want, even if they and we know the promises are mostly empty.
I like Hillary Clinton the best. I don't like her politics, of course: I think she is pro war and not willing to buck the corporate ruling class in any significant way. Like all the other candidates who were taken seriously by the corporate media and big-pockets donors. I think she can at least try to be fair. I admire a woman getting so far in within our political establishment. I like the fact that the genetic-throwback Republicans hate her so much.
It is every male against Ms. Clinton right now, which shows you how shallow both American politicians and voters are. Barack Obama, on the other hand, is offering hope and a fresh face. It seems to me the last time the Democrats offered hope and a fresh face was when Mr. Clinton ran back in 1992. We got global trade agreements but no health plan from the Clinton-Gore team, which by the way did absolutely nothing about global warming. Still, it would be a change of pace to have Barack as President. He'd be about the least experienced presidents since John F. Kennedy, but he probably would not have the Kennedy family's ties to organized crime to haunt him. John Edwards would have been the best Democratic Party candidate in decades, but had the bad luck to finally have to take the fall for the run of white males we've been having.
On the Republican side, I like Mitt Romney. Of course his free-markets for workers and consumers, subsidies for rich corporations and individuals economic policy would be a disaster. But I think he is honest and however strange their taste in underwear, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints seems to do a better job than most religious cults in instilling values I share like honesty, taking personal responsibility, and working hard at what you believe in.
Unless you can hire a lobbyist, expect the next Congress to do nothing for you.
The most important thing citizens can do right now is to help to build a party that does not have a long history of committing and commitment to war crimes. While there are some other choices, the best party to work with right now in the United States is the Green Party. I hope to write quite a bit about the problems of creating an election-winning Green Party in this blog.
Monday, December 3, 2007
Forget Iowa, New Hampshire: California Primary Will Rule
Everyone is worrying about the Iowa caucuses, but they will be totally inconsequential this year for everyone except possibly Mike Huckabee. The caucuses are on Thursday, January 3rd. A cold day in Iowa. You can't just show up and vote. Only the most politically motivated will be at the caucuses, and then no matter what happens there is a real primary on Tuesday, January 8th in New Hampshire. And who cares about that, when Michigan has a primary on the 15th?
But more important, most California citizens who bother to vote now vote by mail. While election day is February 5th, you can vote by mail in California beginning January 6th. That is before the New Hampshire primary and just after the Iowa beauty contest. Californians favor Clinton and Giuliani.
February 5 is also Super Tuesday, with about 22 states voting (See primary schedule). After Super Tuesday, unless the race is close between front runners, the game is essentially over.
Which means come November you will probably be allowed to choose between the two Candidates from Wall Street, Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani. Giuliani is well ahead in the polls in California as well as nationwide; so is Clinton.
Aside from the possibility of heart attacks narrowing the field, it is hard to see any surprises. Things will happen too fast. Even if Barack Obama does well in Iowa, even if he continues to raise a lot of money, it is hard to see him surging. People surge when they look like winners, and Barack looks like a lightweight who wants so badly to be President that he acts like a pile of gelatin next to the beautiful predator Hillary. Think of Hillary as the creature in the Alien movie, no, better still, think of Barack as the creature in the Alien movie (he was cute when he popped out of the corpse of Chicago politics, not unlike Adlai Stevenson), but Hillary is the Sigourney Weaver character, Ellen Ripley, and in the end Barack will feed the vacuum. The corporate ore will get to Earth and Ripley will get her share.
On the Republican side Mike Huckabee is pretty lovable as right-wing populists who like their women barefoot and pregnant go, but a surge in Iowa won't lead him anywhere. Sure, a lot of Republican's don't like the fact that Rudolph did not round up New York City's gay boys and use them for target practice; they don't like his divorces; they don't like his letting women decide for themselves whether to kill their potential babies or not. But those idiots aren't in charge right now. Republicans have two "realistic" choices: Giuliani and Romney. Mitt Romney could have had a chance if he had an honest hair on his head, but instead he decided to lie about his pro-abortion, pro-gay record and pretended to be one of the Southern Baptistas just as they had totally succeeded in discrediting themselves. It isn't that conservative Christian leaders have a big problem with hypocrisy; they just don't like it freshly minted. It needs to be practiced for decades to really get it down.
So, odds are it will be Giuliani versus Clinton come November. The commercial media want to pretend that is not so, because it is so amazingly boring.
One oddball outlier: enough independents will vote for Ron Paul to pull an upset in California. In California, under our odd election rules, independents (called Decline to State here) can vote in the Republican or Democratic primary, but not in the Green Primary. I don't think that will happen, I'll be surprised if Ron Paul hits 10% of the vote, but it is not impossible.
The Green Party has seven people on its primary ballot in California. Ralph Nader will probably win because he has name recognition, but he has declined to campaign or even say if he would accept a nomination if offered. Most activists in the state are getting behind the Cynthia McKinney campaign. If she can top Nader in California she will probably get the nomination. Elaine Brown, former Oakland Black Panther Party leader, will also be on the ballot and may get most of the ultra-left Green votes. California activist Kent Mesplay is a good man but has never held political office and is having trouble getting people to take him seriously. Unknowns Kat Swift, Jesse Johnson and Jared Ball round out the Green ballot.
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