Welcome to the Third World, America!

The Bush administrations reaction (or lack thereof) to the disaster of hurricane Katrina is perfect culmination of George W. Bush's legacy of turning the US into a third-world country.

First our elections are run like a third world country, with open fraud, corruption and an oddly un-American inability to count. Then we find ourselves with an unelected leader who does whatever he wants, the citizens and treasury be damned (and we have been).

Then Bush's criminal neglect (yet more grounds for impeachment) and insane desire to conquer Iraq meant he was blind to everything but his wishful thinking, his “faith-based” reality as he himself called it.

Let's be clear--the severity of this disaster is the fault of George W. Bush and the Republicans in congress and senate.

They have had all the power for the past six years, so they must take all the responsibility. They are constantly preaching "personal responsibility," which means we all have to take responsibility for our actions, so it's time they took responsibility for theirs.

Bush, in particular, is responsible. Why? If his administration had invested in upgrading the levees, which they knew were a disaster waiting to happen (they'd been warned by FEMA, independent experts and the press), they would have spared countless lives and trillions of dollars. You’d think that if even all they care about is money they’d at least think about that. But they are so supremely short-sighted they don’t even think their actions have consequences, or if they do, that they will matter (so far, they've miraculously managed to avoid the consequences).

Another reason--If the national guard and coast guard and reservists and military were here, they could have airlifted people and supplies, prevented looting, set up emergency shelters and hospitals. But they were 10,000 miles away, taking care of citizens of another country--or at least giving it a noble if futile effort.

If Bush hadn’t squanders a trillion dollars on an unnecessary war we would have the money to rebuild everything—better--rather than how it will be built, which is faster and cheaper.

While even I can’t blame the storm on W, we all must finally assign blame where it so clearly lies--in the lap of the Bush administration--they are solely responsible for the severity of the outcome. They may be trying to blame not just Clinton, but Carter, but they can no longer keep passing the buck when they have spent six years making decisions that have directly lead to this.

I know the South will dry out, that somehow the houses will be torn down to the studs and rebuilt, that somehow lives will be rebuilt.

I even have a suggestion of where the money can come from--the oil companies—their profits are up 30% from last year! Not revenues, but profits. I am a capitalist, I believe companies are in business to make a profit, but I also believe that excessive profits are a sign of profiteering, a war crime, and a crime against our country. Just as Enron was proven to be stealing from Americans, oil companies are doing the same thing now, to the tune of billions. And no one is stopping them, because they are all friends of the Bush family. That's no secret. They don't even try to keep it secret. The facts are all out there, plain as the noses on their Pinocchio faces.

Meanwhile--I don’t know how so many lives, in such a huge area can overcome this—or how it can possible not set the south back 20 years at least.

I also don’t know how the US can once again stand up proudly in the world and claim we’re the richest and strongest. I don't know how we can pretend that a huge number of our own people are living in poverty. How we can hide the fact that the rich are getting richer, while the poor are getting poorer, and more widespread.

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BUSH HAS PROVEN WE ARE NO LONGER A SUPERPOWER.

• Bush has proven how weak we really are. We can't take down a little country with almost no military, even by spending hundreds of billions. We can't fight their rocks with our rockets.
  
• Bush has proven we don’t take care of our own infrastructure, much less our own people.
• Bush has proven his “homeland security” is a total sham, a bizarro world where the politicians are congratulating themselves on a “remarkable response” while cities are flooded and burning at the same time (but I guess that is remarkable).
• Bush has proven that should this have been an “actual” emergency, like a terrorist attack, that his government would be not only unable, but apparently unwilling to step in and do its job—working for its citizens.
• Bush has proven how weak and bankrupt—both morally and financially our country has become in only six years.
  

That is a remarkable achievement, terribly remarkable.

Now, if the people affected (and those watching) don’t go out and start voting, and if they don’t start voting OUT the people who did this to them and voting IN people who pledge to actually help them, at home, in their life, with their jobs and their health, then maybe the fundamentalists are right—maybe God is trying to wash away the sinners, only I’d substitute “brain-dead lemmings” for sinners.

Because if God really wanted to wash away the sinners, he would have flooded the White House and probably three quarters of Congress. I can’t imagine that God’s aim is that far off.

Meanwhile, welcome to the third world.

How English will save the West

A few days ago, People's Bank of China announced that the Chinese yuan is no longer pegged to the dollar. As Paul Krugman explains in his New York Times Column, this will have a serious impact on western economies.

It may very well be China's way of taking over the US--not through military means, but our own game—capitalism.

But my personal oddball theory is that the thing that will protect the US (and by association, Europe) is English. It’s already the defacto "world language," learned by people around the world the way they would have learned French in the 19^th century.

I have many friends in Brazil where they speak Portuguese, despite being surrounded by the Spanish-speaking South America. Their second language of choice is not Spanish, but English. I have a 17 year old graphic designer friend there and he speaks excellent English with no desire to speak Spanish.

Chinese, like Japanese, is just too old--and too complex to spread around the world. It takes too long to learn--and while learning it may actually help the mental acuity of those who do, it's not an efficient or direct language, it's not a language design for business, the way English is.

I went to Japan three times and learned first hand how hard Japanese is for business--because it was designed to be indirect, polite--it's specifically structured along cultural lines. Clearly the Japanese are doing well in busienss despite this, but their success, even at its height, never caused a flood of “foreigners” to learn Japanese.

Chinese is similar, and while people can clearly learn it (over 1 billion served!), it's not going to be a second language of choice for Western people because it's too alien, it's roots are not in Latin the way all Western languages are.

That doesn't mean that china won't become the US of the 21st century in terms of “Super Power,” they very well might--though it will take one or two more generations who are allowed free communication and contact so they can express their creativity in ways that are good for business.

But I don't think future generations of people in the West will be speaking Chinese, which means that the culture war will still be won by the west.

Yes, we all love kung fu movies, but how many have affected styles of dress, music, and pop-culture in general. Even after many years of westernization, Japan's Anime is one of the very few Japanese pop-culture phenomenons.

So my money's on English and Western pop-culture, and that tends to have a great deal of power over the imagination and perception of power. And it's perception of power, rather than real power, that counts in the end.

The Culture of Cheapness

When money is all that matters, life is cheap.

I was checking out at K-Mart and the “impulse items” by the registers were those long-stemmed lighters you use to light a fireplace or candles. You could buy a red one with 1 oz of lighter fluid for $2.59. Or... You could buy a blue one that contained 2 oz of lighter fluid, had a big sticker on the package that said, “Twice as much fuel!” and cost $2.95. Which one do you think sold the best? Probably the one that offered “twice as much for 36 cents more.”

The choice seemed obvious—it was clearly a better value. I asked the woman at the register, “Did all these sell out?” and she looked at me like I was nuts. “Nobody wants those,” she said, shaking her head as if I was nuts. “Why not?” I asked, innocently enough. “Because they cost more!” she said, as if I was just too stupid. Honestly, how could I be so dumb? The cheaper one was, well, cheaper.

My problem is that I’m used to stores like Target, Costco, Marshall’s and Ross. Stores that value quality—good products at good prices.

But Wal-Mart and K-Mart have only one value: cheapness.

Not inexpensive but cheap. Not good. Not desirable. Just cheap.

Places like K-Mart and Wal-Mart based everything on cheapness. That’s the only value they value. This belittles and cheapens everything in its path.

• EMPLOYEES ARE CHEAP: they don’t get decent wages or benefits, they're dehumanized.
  
• MANUFACTURERS and their laborers are cheap. They’re squeezed to death and forced to hire out to sweat shops in Asia so they can sell for ever lower prices. More people dehumanized.
  
• EVERYBODY SUFFERS ON THE PATH TO CHEAPNESS. Everybody's dehumanized.
  

LIFE BECOMES CHEAP—When saving thirteen cents becomes your main value, then you lose sight of morals—like the other people you had to injure along the way.

If you truly want the lowest possible prices, there are countless thrift stores that let you buy good items at prices 1/10^th of what they cost at Wal-Mart—and your money goes to non-profit, charitable organizations at the same time. You save money by doing good. It’s true moral values at work in the economy.

CHEAP is just another word for contemptible, despicable, shameful, shoddy, inferior, second-rate, substandard, stingy, miserly, mean.

This is the polar opposite of Loreal’s “because you’re worth it.” These stores drum in the message you aren’t worth it. That’s one of the most demoralizing things you can tell someone.

A few years ago my friend’s marriage was falling apart, and so was his car. He went to replace it with a new, low-cost Toyota, but when he brought it home, his now ex-wife said to him, “This is too nice, you don’t deserve this.” It’s not like he bought a Cadillac, he bought a low-end Toyota, but the point was clear—he was unworthy.

That’s what Wal-Mart and K-Mart tell their customers. you aren’t worthy. It’s demeaning and more than that dehumanizing and de-moralizing.

No wonder people are becoming confused about what “moral values” really mean. They are being bombarded with negative messages—not just the traditional advertising of inadequacy, but a constant and steady mantra of how little they are worth.

Go to one of these stores and look around. Under the acres of glaring florescent lights if you stop and really look you’ll find it an eye-opening experience—so ugly, so base, so, CHEAP, that it just deadens you.

It teaches you that money is all that matters, and that cheapness is the ultimate virtue, no matter how immoral the price.

Thinking is hard. FEELING is EASY

The Democrats' mistake in recent years has been so simple they keey overlooking it, even as the Republicans polish their marketing skills:

You CAN'T make people THINK.

But you CAN make them FEEL.

The Democrats try to persuade people through facts. Figures. Logic. They tell people to think about what's best for them. It just doesn't work.

Meanwhile, Republicans come right out and tell people: facts don't matter, ignore the numbers, logic is for "intellectuals." Their message is always simple: FEEL. FEAR. HATE. EASY.
Republican marketers have been pressing the right buttons in an almost Speilbergian way. It works.

So always remember:

• You CAN'T make people THINK.
• But you CAN make them FEEL.

The problem with Presidents

Last week on NBC’s brilliant TV drama, The West Wing, representatives from a new Eastern European nation came to the White House to meet with a constitutional scholar who was going to help them write their own constitution.

The scholar wanted them to have a presidential democracy, but Toby Zeigler, the White House Communications Director, explained that other than the U.S., no presidential democracy in history has lasted more than 30 years.

The U.S. is the only exception. The danger is that too much power can be put in the president's hands, and the checks and balances are too easily defeated.

He urged them to choose a Parliamentary democracy where the Prime Minister was under much more direct control of the members of Parliament and therefore less likely to seize control.

We’ve seen how easy it’s been the Ws to break the system of checks and balances and put all power in their own hands. What's amazing 1) the press has not only gone along with it, it’s helped create it and 2) the members of the House and Senate didn't realize that they gave away their power and became redundant, down to the point where the White House was talking about "what will we do if the Congress is all killed?" Yes, let's plan for that with a shadow government of our own choosing...

The question now—what are we going to do with the president we have? How are we going to make him accountable to the people, not just the corporations? How are we going to stop the march into total fascism, turn around, and head back towards democracy?

The 14 Characteristics of Fascism

Are we heading towards fascism, or are we already there?

Here are the 14 characteristics of fascism, written by Dr. Lawrence Britt who studied the fascist regimes of Hitler (Germany), Mussolini (Italy), Franco (Spain), Suharto (Indonesia), and Pinochet (Chile), Dr. Britt found they all had 14 elements in common.

He calls these the identifying characteristics of fascism.

For more details on these elements, see this piece in the Old American Century.

THE NEW RIGHT

Think about the terms for the political sides, "Right' and "Left."

Who chose those sides? How did the Right get to be "Right?" Those terms are slanted right from the start. The left has always been "sinister" coming from the original Latin for left.

During the election I had a statement on my home page that read, "Democrats are the new conservatives," which is very true.

But interestingly, all Republicans have had to do is say they're for things--for "value," for family... and people took them at their word--even when their facts showed their
words to be very clear lies.

If we learn nothing else from Rove, it's that the pen can be mightier than the sword (certainly more efficient). That words now speak louder than actions.

So we see the power of words. We see how you can call lying, cheating and stealing "values" and get away with it, simply because you used the words "moral values."

I had lobbied to get people to start calling Bush's actions immoral, rather than wrong or stupid, and some people did call it that, but it still didn't matter, because he had the positive words on his side.

So I think it's time to stopping calling ourselves the Democratic party. The Republicans have tarnished the terms "Democrat", "left" so badly that the only way for them to recover is for the Republicans to self-destruct, which they may do, but then again, they may do it while still saying
they're moral patriots, in which case the 50% may not notice.

Democrats need to become
THE NEW RIGHT

Democrats are, in fact, more conservative than the neo-cons. We are against the kind of big government and big spending currently going on (though not necessarily against big government help in other areas, such as health care but those are issues in the best interest of citizens, which are in the best interest of business, too despite what Republicans say).

The neo-Right is Wrong.

We have to take their words away from them.

We are right, so we have to call ourselves Right. Not Lefties. Not Liberal. Not even "progressive."

We are THE NEW RIGHT, we are the TRUE CONSERVATIVES. in our case, we're not just using the words, this is what we are. We are for conserving democracy and the constitution. For
preserving the traditional values, freedoms and responsibilities that our American forefathers gave us.

I know it's a radical concept--but only in terms of terminology--our direction remains the same--for the people. The neo-cons are true radicals in that they are undermining
and demolishing the system. The only thing radical here is the terminology--and it's only radical to those who think the words "liberal" and "left" are positive things--and that's clearly a minority.