United We Stand

How Reagan lowered the bar for Republicans

2012-01-02T17:40:00.001-08:00

My personal experience with Ronald Reagan

Despite his "sainted" status by the "right," in reality, Reagan was a liar, a big one, and a bad one. That's just a fact.

That whole, "One... small shipment..." which was of course a bunch of planeloads and clearly arms to our enemies for hostages (and more favors) and he pauses, looks down, all the classic signs of lying--he's supposed to be an actor and he can't deliver it convincingly.

There are many reports of him being outright senile in office, too, people visiting the oval office and he thought they were visiting him on a set in Hollywood. May be apocryphal but I don't think so.

I met him once when I was in a singing dancing group--he was still gov of CA, so maybe I was 15 I have his signed photo.

He and Nancy rented a house for $2,000 a month (that's when my parents were paying $127 a month for their mortgage) because the governor's mansion wasn't nice enough.

It was a huge tudor estate and they'd built a stage over the pool in the backyard for this party.

We were flown up, put up in nice hotel rooms, given a bus tour, they went all out. We waited for the show in the basement pub of his house (just like a British pub), with a big pool table.

Several times Nancy came down and yelled at us, "Don't touch the pool table!"

So we did the show, over the pool, afraid we were going to fall in (there was enough of the pool left exposed for that to be possible).

After, Reagan had his picture taken with us, and we were all shocked because he was wearing full makeup--to a party (well, he had to look good in photos--but other politicians didn't do this and he wasn't that old at the time).

Weird.

But clearly, he played the part convincingly enough to get elected president.

But Reagan was really the end of the Republican party as anything even remotely reasonable.

Now the bar for Republican presidential candidates is just not to be crazy. So far very few of them have been able to get over that bar that's so low you could trip over it. Romney's "presidential" and I'll give him credit for persistence, too. He tried to run in 2008, he's run tirelessly now. Trouble he, he's changed his positions because he was too liberal. And, he's Mormon, which means most Christians in the south won't vote for him, because they think Mormons aren't Christians (and if they don't know it, they kind of suspect it because of the space alien underwear business).

I expect Palin to rear her ugly head at some point when there's no clear leader, but I also don't think she wants the job--she's quit every political job she's had--she just wants the attention and money.

---

Why is it difficult to find a Republican candidate who isn't crazy?

All it takes is a cursory glance at the Republican politicians running for President in 2012, and you start to wonder why it's so hard for Republicans to find a candidate who isn't either stupid (though Bush clearly lowered the bar on that one), or just plain crazy (or both).

The bar has gotten lower and lower for Republican candidates to the point where now all you have to be is "not crazy" -- though most of the candidates fall well under that bar.

Why is it difficult to find a Republican who isn't crazy? I wonder if it's because the belief system required to be a Republican requires not only a suspension of disbelief of reality, but of our constitution and the entire concept of a civilized society as well.

Ron Paul doesn't believe that education is a right? What, exactly, does he think the next generation, that will be taking care of the world (and him) will be like without an education? Has he ever looked at the countries that put the most emphasis and availability on education and how they do better than those that don't?

So let's go back to St. Reagan for a minute. To listen to Republicans today, the man is God-like in his brilliance and ability to cut taxes and government. They conveniently forget that he grew government, created the biggest deficit in the history of the nation, actually raised taxes, gave arms to our enemies--and lied about it all. It's true. But Republicans don't believe in reality, or education, or being smart or realistic.

Taxes: Reagan raised taxes four times between 1982 to 1984, increasing the payroll tax, broadening the base of Social Security payees, applying the income tax to higher earners and rolling back corporate and individual tax breaks.

Reagan’s historic tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, whose rate went from 70 percent to 28 percent during his administration, ultimately forced the president to raise taxes on more people than any other U.S. president during a time of peace, according to New York Timescolumnist Paul Krugman. In total, Reagan raised taxes 12 times during his two terms in office. (http://bit.ly/vc5r0Z)

More facts on Reagan, "The Great Taxer"

Look--I can totally understand "libertarians" if they have a real view of a smaller government. But this current group of Republicans want lower taxes on the wealthy and corporations, but not on 99% of us who earn our living. They want less interference on business, but more on our personal lives and what we can do with the people we love and even our own bodies.

That's called Fascism. And normal people who vote for fascists are either as stupid or crazy as the current crop of candidates. It's a very sad state for the world.

FACE FACTS: Changing your mind is STRENGTH when the facts change!

2011-05-07T01:40:00.000-07:00

Obama is responsible for killing Osama.

Pretty simple and clear, right?

Bush had 7 years to do it and either didn't bother (Bush In 2002: "I Truly Am Not Concerned About" Bin Laden. From a March 14, 2002, Reuters article titled, "Bin Laden not a concern: Bush"), or was too inept.

Obama got the job done.

Yes--to anyone who lives in the "fact-based reality" (that Bush mocked) knows this to be true. But anyone who still lives in BushWorld, the facts are irrelevant, and it's Bush's victory!

Washington Times' Brett Decker: "Bin Laden's Death Is More Mr. Bush's Victory Than Mr. Obama's." [The Washington Times, 5/2/11]

But, remember, facts don't matter to these people, not the propagandists at the top, and not the blind followers at the bottom.

They will always believe what they want people to believe/or are told to believe, because that's easy. Here's their mindset:

If you were to have to change your mind-based on facts of all things--then that might mean you were wrong at some point, and that's simply not allowed. Just not. You cannot be wrong, because that means you were weak--and worse, if you were wrong once, you might be wrong again, and that introduced doubt, which is the enemy of faith, right?

So if you admit you're wrong, you're consorting with the enemy, which makes you the enemy, and, Lord God, I can't even finish this thought without wondering where my handgun is and if I have enough bullets to shoot myself, given what a bad shot I am...

It's the year 2011. I keep hoping by this point in history people might have evolved enough to understand that when the world changes around you, you have to face the facts and react. Otherwise, if you just keep doing the same thing and expecting different results, well, we all know that's Einstein's definition of insanity.

Stop the insanity people (or at least the stupidity). Face facts.

Republican hate and fear is like Nazi rhetoric and leads the same terrible place

2011-02-06T14:22:00.000-08:00

I'm all for real libertarianism, less government everywhere. I'm not for the Republican idea of less government control for corporations and more for individuals. That's not progressive, that's regressive and dangerous.

And no, the Democrats are not doing that. Yes, they want more of a social democrat nanny state (which is what's been successful in European countries, like Scandinavia, where a friend of mine was aghast that I pay $720 a month for health insurance and get only two doc visits a year and am lucky to be able to get that!)

And I can understand when some people are against that kind of nanny state, because Americans have a long history of taking care of themselves. But in civil societies we must take care of each other, too. And since some people--and corporations--would harm us for their own profit, there must be some form of policing, just as we want a police force to keep us safe from people who would do us harm.

The real danger today is springing dangerously forth from the rabid right's rhetoric of hate and fear. It's the same tactic the Nazi's used, and left unchecked, it will lead to the same place.

Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

We like to think that can't happen now. Like we liked to think that a depression couldn't happen now. But it can, and if the hate and fear mongers have its way, it will. They will control your life, just as they invent outright lies to try to make you afraid that it's the other side that will.

I'm reading a book about WWII, about how the Nazi's gained power through their rhetoric of hate and fear. Sounded a lot like Beck and Rush and those so called "entertainers." And not just fear--fear of groups of people--gays, immigrants, Muslims, "foreigners."

And it made me wonder--are gays the new Jews to the rabid right? Can it possibly be OK to deny people basic human rights such as marriage? Can it possibly be constitutional when "all men are created equal"?

And is it just the start of a calculated attack on everyone who is not "like them"? Like Nazis.

First they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me.

By Pastor Niemoller

===

When hatred is used to create power, which is what the Republicans are doing, it erodes society, bit by bit, until unchecked power and persecution are the results.

So beware--because their language is coded, and what they say is the opposite of what they mean. They don't want freedom from government (except for corporations), they want to control your personal life with it. What they call "freedom" is like what was called freedom in the book 1984. It's total control of individual lives, and it's the worst kind of nanny state, because it's only in their best interest--not in ours.

love vs hate, hope vs fear--which choice is ALWAYS better

2010-03-25T12:15:00.000-07:00

I have been a harsh critic of Democrats in recent years, too--but overall I feel they do a better job.

The sharp divide between "us" and "them" is not a good thing, but both sides (and really, in this case, the Right, which has Fox and a great propaganda machine--and don't forget "you are either with us or against us," which became their credo) has pushed their followers further to the edges--and used the power of fear and hate to rally them--no good comes from that.

It's also meant the Left also has to move further to the edges to counter--it's a no-win game and the derisiveness it's created is toxic.

Yes, "wealthy" is a relative term, and especially in expensive places to live, like SoCal or the Bay Area (or NYC), the median income needs to be higher just to stay the same.

You talk about two parties agreeing to what's fair--and therein lies the problem today--given the sharper divisions created in the past 10 years by what was an openly Fascist regime (though they wouldn't call themselves that--their actions were clear). Yes, this country had been moving that direction for years-money=power--that's not new, but it was taken to new levels.

You and I aren't "normal" cases in terms of business. We can be individually creative--we're more like craftsman of ideas and things--some of them real, some of them digital.

And no, I don't think you're greedy. I think you would like a country with less interference from the government--in all forms. As I've said, true libertarianism makes sense--if it's consistent. But for too long we've had too much government control on individuals and not enough on corporations (whose sole goal is to make money--no matter the human cost).

No--I don't want small businesses to suffer--they are the most creative group of people. But there always have and always will be unfair, greedy employers who require rules and regulations to help keep them in check. This is also why there are labor unions--so much under attack. Yes, they, too, go too far and can undermine the very foundation that their members need.

But it all comes down to moderation--TRYING to get people to agree, being reasonable, trying for a win-win situation.

And you can't have that when one side's only goal is to eliminate the other side. It's long been a problem of religious battles all over the world (and still is in many places).

And, unfortunately, this religious fervor has been intentionally injected into the political party system, because "us vs. them" is a powerful motivator.

When one side's battle cry is, not only "we're right and you're wrong," but "we're real Americans and you're all perverts, and [inert bigoted name calling here] then there's no possibility for a discourse, no win-win.

So--no matter what party you're in, you need to be open to listening to the thoughts and fears of people who disagree. Which is what you and I have been doing in an intelligent way.

But do you think the much-publicized "tea baggers" (who are ignorant to so much, including the alternate meaning of this term!) are open to discussion?

No, for them it's religious fervor "us vs. them." For us the case is already closed--they're right, everyone else is wrong.

I can only hope that each new generation will be a little smarter, or more open, or more accepting, than the previous one, and overall I think that's true.

But, to quote Rogers and Hammerstein's angry anti-bigotry song written in the 40's right after WWII, "You've got to be carefully taught,"

You've got to be taught

To hate and fear,

You've got to be taught

From year to year,

It's got to be drummed

In your dear little ear

You've got to be carefully taught.

You've got to be taught to be afraid

Of people whose eyes are oddly made,

And people whose skin is a diff'rent shade,

You've got to be carefully taught.

You've got to be taught before it's too late,

Before you are six or seven or eight,

To hate all the people your relatives hate,

You've got to be carefully taught!

===

Today, unfortunately, that bad teaching extends to anyone who believes anything different from you do--be it religion. politics, or even simply who they love.

So I say--join with groups that are accepting and open minded. Those with positive goals. Avoid those who have their minds firmly shut and use hate and fear to control.

And everyone has a choice--they can choose love or hate, hope or fear.

Which of those choices tends to lead to new invention, progress, and a better world?

Just say YES! Fear vs. Hope. Progress vs. Stagnation.

2010-03-24T17:49:00.000-07:00

Op-Ed Columnist - Fear Strikes Out - NYTimes.com

www.nytimes.com

In the debate leading up to the victory for health care reform, President Obama urged lawmakers to do what is right, while opponents relied on fear and cynicism.

Yesterday at 3:42pm · Comment · · Share

Sandi Tinker, Sam Kuo and Brooke Cook like this.

Maria Russo

Or the party of "just say it often enough, and people will believe it"

Yesterday at 4:11pm ·

S Forest King

And the Democrats are the party of... Democracy? Ooops... guess not.

Yesterday at 4:46pm ·

Daniel Will-Harris

Democrats are the party of "of the people, by the people, for the people," as opposed to "of the corporations, by the corporations, for the corporations." The public demanded health care reform by a overwhelming margin (before negative propaganda designed solely to scare people worked). We NEEDED health care reform in this country, and, quiteamazingly, we got it.

It may not be perfect, but it's a start--and certainly better than the Republican plan of "do nothing, except maybe give more tax breaks to insurance and pharma companies."

Yesterday at 5:42pm ·

S Forest King

Daniel, if they were of the people as they are supposed to be, they would not have shoved this monster down everyone's throat without reading it themselves. Well over half the population in every poll I saw stated they didn't want the bill. In the case of Democrats who are supposed to be in support of "Democracy" it doesn't matter whether the fear was rational or not... the majority didn't want it. Remember how loudly the left wailed about democracy when they discovered the electoral college? And to further state they are not in bed with the pharma/insurance/unions which are also made up of organized groups of people... most of which are also corporations is utterly foolish.

Yesterday at 6:01pm ·

Daniel Senie

For the consideration of S Forest King: The USA PATRIOT act was not read by the members of either party. That shouldn't have been passed either. Are you sure all the reps and senators read the tax bills Bush pushed that borrowed money from the next generation to give to the rich?

The United States is not a democracy, we are a Republic. Recite your Pledge of Allegiance, and you will find that to be the case. Legislation is not enacted by popular vote. If you think it should be, examine why California is ungovernable.

Yesterday at 8:37pm ·

Sandi Tinker

I'm with the Daniels.

Yesterday at 8:58pm ·

S Forest King

I agree, the Patriot Act should not have been passed. Nor should Bush's Prescription Drug bill had seen the light of day as it was similarly rife with corruption, almost as bad as this Obamacare is.

Perhaps you should read my statement again, I never said the US was a Democracy, I stated that's the philosophy the Democratic party is supposed to adhere to. Just as the Republican party is supposed to be "representative". But now we see it's only when convenient and they are no better than their opponents. Neither party represents the people anymore, and until a critical mass of the people become aware of this, we will soon find ourselves in far worse trouble than we do now.

Yesterday at 9:25pm ·

Sandi Tinker

Without Part D, I would be dead.

Yesterday at 10:36pm ·

Daniel Will-Harris

The recent supreme court ruling doesn't help with "democracy" since now corporations have openly unlimited power to buy politicians. Then again, the Supreme Court stopped protecting and defending the constitution in the 2000 election when they votes to NOT count the votes--a supremely unconstitutional action we will be paying for for years.

14 hours ago ·

Maria Russo

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/a/m/americandad/

11 hours ago ·

S Forest King

Daniel, they have been buying politicians all our lives, all the way through McCain/Feingold too. The only thing the Supreme Court decision did, was put it back out in the open. Wouldn't you rather see the money trail as opposed to it's being covert? Seriously, why do you think there are over 16,000 pages (more depending on who you ask) making up the tax code? There is so much graft going on, it would boggle the mind.

Also, corporations, like all businesses are just groups of people with a common goal, the legal status of the group has nothing to do with it's integrity. There are good groups and bad groups, but pointing your finger at the people who buy the politicians is like blaming drug dealers for the drug epidemic. If there were no buyers, there would be no need to worry about who is supplying them. We are not supposed to have control over the groups of people, we are supposed to have control over the politicians.

10 hours ago ·

Daniel Will-Harris

I agree the tax system is a horrible mess.I'd like to see a flat tax. But it's too simple, not enough loopholes for wealthy people and corporations to wriggle through.

(a side note about "wealthy." I think it's great when people can make money and be rich. I have had years when I made a lot of money--and I GLADLY paid a lot of tax. I did it, because I said, "If I ever make a lot of money I won't complain about paying my share," and I did what I said. So--I CAN now complain about those who make a lot of money and whine about having to pay taxes. Amazingly, people are wealthy all over the world, even in countries with much higher taxes than in the USA. So taxes don't stop wealth.

And the whole "redistribution of wealth" thing--Bush and Cheney did more to redistribute it from the lower and middle class to the upper class than any other administration in history. That was the true redistribution of wealth, and we see how badly that's working for the overall economy. Yet then their supporters turn around and claim the Democrats are doing it--that's absurd, ridiculous and precisely the kind of misdirection propaganda the Republicans are so expert at.

Back to a flat tax--there were fake flat tax proposals like those from billionaire Steve Forbes. His version didn't tax income from investments, so it was like a half-flat tax--the half of the people who actually paid were those who actually have salaries, while the wealth could get away paying almost nothing. That was a bad joke.

And--corporations are owned by stockholders--and if they want to band together for political purposes--that's fine. They should vote on it within the corporate stockholders groups. If, however, the CEO or Board want something for political purposes, no, that's not the same as the individuals asking for it. And no, it doesn't mean that all the stockholders agree. So no, corporations are not individuals and should not be treated as such.

As for their contributions being transparent--yes, of course they should be, no matter what other restrictions apply. Your contributions are public record, so are mine--of course ADM, Exxon, and every other corporations contributions should be public.

Finally--I'm all for libertarianism--when it's consistent. But that's not what the Republicans or "neo-cons" are. In fact, they have done more to undermine the constitution than any outside force in history! They cry that Obama is a communist, when they really had a one-party system, they didn't allow Democrats to read bills before votes, and they just pushed through everything, from phony wars to tax cuts on the wealthy. So when they cry about Democrats being mean now it's' absurd--they may have learned from tricks from the right (at long last--that's the only way they got the health care bill through--giving Republicans a taste of their own medicine!), but they are at least working in the public good!

And--today's Republicans are not conservative by any measure. Just saying "no" doesn't make you consecrative, it makes you blind to the possibilities.

I'm not saying Democrats are saints or even always right, but I am saying that what they create is more in favor of citizens than what Republicans do--which is so clearly, TRANSPARENTLY aimed at the wealth of corporations and a small group of individuals. Those who don't get that are support them are simply voting against their own interests, and as I've said before, there is no other living being on the planet that works against it's own interests--which makes Republicans uniquely unsuited to sustaining life on this planet!

Health Insurance & Reform SCAM

2009-12-17T16:12:00.001-08:00

(First I'll say I'm always afraid to complain about my health insurance--because they could cancel me. I don't get much from it now, but if something major happened I'd need it--so I keep paying and paying--and they could cancel me at any time for any reason. Even so, it's important to speak out about what a criminal racket this really is.)

The more I deal with my insurance company, the more I realize it's a scam. I spent two hours today trying to get my insurance company to pay for a doctors visit. One pleasant rep told me one thing, I called the doctor's office, they called the insurance company who told them this wasn't true (and pretended they didn't know who I talked to). I called and spoke to another pleasant rep who knew who I'd talked to earlier (of course, it's all in my permanent record!) and said the first rep was right and the one who talked to the doctor's office was wrong and filed a grievance for me--which will take 45 days to resolve.

At issue--I get two doctors visits--a year. The insurance company counted one earlier this year for which they paid ZERO. They paid nothing, yet they counted it as one of my two visits. Then when I have a ear-nose-throat visit that needs payment, they refuse it. WTF? On one planet is this fair? No, it's a f-ing scam.

And the Senate's so-called health-reform bill is another scam which basically gives a half a BILLION dollars in tax breaks to health insurance companies. Huh? If Republicans can afford to give HALF A TRILLION DOLLARS to Health Insurance companies, why can they not afford to give Americans something, like a $1,500 per person tax credit for health care--or, better yet, a real public option like every other civilized democratic country has?

I guess money talks, and health insurance companies can afford to spend tens of millions in lobbyists and campaign contributions, and what a great deal for them--they'll get 100x return on their money!

Meanwhile, American citizens get what we always seem to get from the Senate--screwed.

It's time for us to get up in arms about this, to contact our representatives and DEMAND REAL CHANGE, not yet another givaway to big business.

Here's the email I sent to my senators:

I am mortified and disgusted that the Senate's so-called health reform bill is really yet another giveaway to big insurance companies.

We need REAL SECURITY in this country, we need a PUBLIC OPTION or at least strong laws that allow everyone, including the self-employed with pre-existing conditions, to buy AFFORDABLE health insurance.

I pay $600 a month. For that I get two doctor visits a year. Just two. this year, my insurance company has paid $40 for one visit, and NOTHING for the other. Meanwhile, they won't pay for the $400 specialist bill I have, because they counted the $0 visit as one of my two visits.

That's right, I pay $7,200 a year and they have saved me $40. This is criminal.

I simply cannot believe that the Senate is so beholden to the Insurance Industry lobbyists and campaign contributions that you cannot create a REAL HEALTH INSURANCE ACT FOR AMERICANS--NOT INSURANCE COMPANIES.

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE HELP US. Insurance companies don't need help. CITIZENS NEED HELP.

Obama White House mismanages mainstream media

2009-12-12T17:05:00.000-08:00

As he proved during the campaign, President Obama can be a great "persuader." Watch this recent weekly address to the nation and you'll see his tremendous ability to speak clearly and convincingly.

Now the question is--did you see that speech before? No? I didn't either. Where is it shown other than online? I don't know, either.

While candidate and President Obama has been very smart with his online and new-media efforts, he's failing on the mass-media front. There, screaming, crying Republicans are winning--because they're making the most noise.

There, President Obama shows up only in a few short clips per week, while the cry-babies (why people would take a crying man seriously about political issues is beyond me) are getting air time, eyes and ears.

Most people still get their news through network and cable TV.

And this is key--on TV you can't choose the stories you want to hear about--they're pushed at you. So even if you don't want to hear about Obama's strategy in Afghanistan, chances are the newscasters are going to talk about it (even if briefly, except on days when Tiger Woods private life becomes "news that affects us all."

On the web--if you don't want to read about world events, if you don't want to read about politics or the president, you can easily avoid it. Then you never know. Which is the case with the uneducated and many Republicans--they want to pretend Obama wasn't elect (even better--pretend he's not really American!).

While I agree it's important for the White House to be on FaceBook and Twitter, to have a comprehensive and useful web site and email blasts, it's clear that these forms of communication still don't have the impact of mass media--network and cable TV.

So if you aren't getting your message out--clearly--daily--then your opposition will be, and you will lose the war of minds.

As incompetent as the Bush administration was at actually running anything, from hurricane Katrina to Iraq to the economy--that's how organized and effective they were at manipulating the US mainstream media.

The Bush White House's propaganda machine (starting with the 100% political Republican propaganda) managed to make reality take a back seat to staged events that were so simple it got their message out--with no possibility of the media re-interpreting them.

Despite some apparent blunders such as "Mission Accomplished" (or, to a lesser extent, the President continuing to read to children while the twin towers were attacked on 9/11 rather than actually doing anything about it), the truth is that the mainstream media never criticized those events.

9/11 became too sacrosanct ("we must all stand behind our president--unless he's a Democrat, in which case this would have been his fault!") and the propaganda effect of "Mission Accomplished" was that most people actually believed the words--it was accomplished.

Republicans understand that all you need are the words. You don't need the actions. That makes it much easier, because all you have to say is, "We've made America a safer place!" and that line is repeated over and over, despite the fact that what you did was actually make us more vulnerable to terrorists--and now financially, too! It doesn't matter, because the ignorant masses people have heard "We have made you safe!" repeated and repeated endlessly, so that's what they believe.

Democrats, the Obama White House included, mistake actions for words. They think if they actually do things, then people will recognize, appreciate and applaud their accomplishments.

But these accomplishments are bound to be complex--the way all political solutions must be, and therefore difficult to explain in under five words. And, being smart, if not "too smart for their own good," Democrats try to explain the situation or their accomplishments in 500 words.

Now--while 500 words can be more elucidating, most listeners won't know what "elucidating" means.

The bigger problem is that if you give the press 500 words, you give them the ability to edit them down to whatever 5 words they want. The ellipsis (...) is a powerful thing.

"Health Insurance companies are taking advantage of Americans. The citizens of the United States need and want quality, affordable health care, and it is the goal of this administration to finally bring true security to the health care of Americans."

can become

"Health Insurance companies... want... to finally bring true security to the health care of Americans."

Uh oh. Wrong message.

And when delivered on TV, where the "..." are invisible--there's no way to tell that the message was changed.

While this may be an extreme example, the truth is that if you give the mainstream media too much information, you give them the power to change your message.

The other truth is that if the mainstream media was really doing its job in news reporting, it wouldn't accept five word phrases as news, it wouldn't repeat them endlessly as if they were fact.

Reporters should go out, double check stories, demand two independent sources before quoting mere rumor as fact. That's what I learned when I got a degree in Journalism. For the most part, that's not what's happening today. Today somebody, anybody, even "Joe the Plumber" just has to say the words--words remember--doesn't matter if they're true or even actually make sense--and they're repeated and repeated until they sound true, and then are taken as fact.

Another twist on all this is that there's so much more noise and information from every direction--the TV, computer, radio, SMS, Social Media... So people have more information and less time. Which means that messages must be delivered in shorter, faster ways.

Complex stories need to be distilled down to bullet points.

While it's unfortunate, and leads to the oversimplification of complex issues, it's also necessary to get your point across.

This White House already does this online. Why did President Obama find it necessary to have a "New Way Forward" in Afghanistan? Well, first, "New Way Forward" is a great propaganda term--it sounds good but says nothing, and doesn't give any hint that the new way forward sounds suspiciously like the old way backwards.

But they distilled the issue to a few bullet points (originally posted on Twitter)--and to a 4 minute version of the President's speech (though they both should be on the same web page, otherwise the bullet points are under a 30 minute speech, which few are going to watch in its entirety).

But again we get back to the problem--did you see these bullet points? No. Did you hear the condensed version of the speech? No. Did the mainstream media get and regurgitate the bullet points? No (if they got them, they didn't spit them back out--and even if they got them--guess what--there are too many of them--guess how many--that's right, 514--ten times too many.

It doesn't matter that these were originally delivered via Twitter at 140 characters each--because they add up.

What could the White House have told the media?

"The Taliban still wants to kill us!!!," is 7 words (!!! doesn't count!!!), too long, but still simple and powerful--you are going to die unless we do this. Something even bawling Fox viewers can understand. And something that can't be as easily manipulated--at least not directly.

In today's newsless world (and I saw "newsless" because what passes for news is rarely straight reportage--it's most often now a form of editorial written in a newsy way) it will always be possible for pundits and commentators to outright lie--which is how Fox News operates. Because their lies are carefully crafted to be simple, they can be stronger than honest complexity.

So the best, if not only way to fight them is to fight fire with fire--be simple in return--make your message short, sweet, and clear even to third graders (which, thanks to another Fox show, we have learned that fifth graders can be smarter than most adults, so perhaps adults can understand at a third-grade level).

Remember the old adage: KISS=Keep It Simple Stupid

Let's hope the Obama administration can do that--if not, they'll continue to be too smart for their own good.

What is Obama thinking about Afghanistan?

2009-12-01T10:34:00.001-08:00

I sent this letter to the white house today. I truly believe President Obama is a brilliant man--so I can only hope he has his reasons for continuing our military presence in Afghanistan and Iraq. The problem is--he hasn't made those reasons clear to the country--or the world. So, unfortunately, it just seems like the same old-thing, when we'd hoped for a fresh start.

So I'm asking for an explanation, that's all--that the White House help us all make sense of their decision:

Mr. President

No one in the history of the world has ever won a guerrilla war. Why do you believe we can?

Russia bankrupted itself in Afghanistan. Why do you think we won't?

We voted for you for peace--why do you not to serve the people who voted for you?

We believed in you. Why do you let us down?

I'm sure you have your reasons--you're smart. But please tell us why continuing the wars you said you'd end is so important. There must be a reason--we need to know what it is. Otherwise it seems like a continuation of the ruinous folly of the Bush Administration. And we HOPED for more from you.

Thank you.

P.S. Thank you for your work on improving health care.

It's the key to real national security and despite my feelings about your handling of Afghanistan, I do deeply appreciate the work you are doing to help Americans be more secure about their health care.

My health insurance company does nothing for me except waste time

2009-11-25T01:41:00.000-08:00

I pay $600 a month for health insurance that doesn’t cover the procedures my doctors ask for, and then even makes it difficult for me to pay for them out of my own pocket. A company that would rather have me on the phone taking up their representatives time for three hours than just answer a simple question.

This is literally insane. They not only don’t provide the service I pay for, they get in the way of me paying for those necessary services myself. In no way does this make sense, or is it a useful, efficient way to run health care.

Here’s my story:

My ear nose throat doctor (who cost me $500 for one visit after insurance) wanted me to get an MRI of my sinuses, which have always been a problem for me. I'm having trouble smelling and of course he wants to know if it's a tumor or just bad genes. I'm voting for bad genes, but at some point you have to stop guessing and make sure, just in case it’s nothing serious, like a lemon sized lump in your noggin.

It takes the doctor two weeks to get an authorization (though a third-party company whose sole job is to get authorizations through insurance companies since it's clearly so hard). I get a letter saying I’m authorized, but I know better than to rush into getting the procedure, because I need to know how much this approved procedure will cost.

I call the insurance company to find out the co-pay. How much will this covered procedure cost me?"

"We can't tell you," they tell me, like that’s a good answer.

WTF? I think but don’t actually say. “Why not?” I ask, politely.

"We don't know, it depends on your policy and provider."

Well, you know my policy and here's the doctor's name.

"We still don't know. What I can tell is that we won't cover it."

WTF redux.

"You haven't met your "out of pocket" expenses."

No, I only pay $600 a month for which I get TWO doctor visits a year (that's it, just two!) and yet I haven't spent another $3,500 of my own money to pay for what they should be paying for out of the $7,200 a year I've been paying them for years--out of which I've gotten $2,600 worth of service (I know, because they do manage to keep track of that!)

It's a great deal, right? $7,600 a year for at least five years, $38,000 to get $2,600. Wow, what a value. And--even after paying them all that, they still won't cover a prescribed and approved procedure.

But--and this is great--I can get it at their contracted price! Whopee! Why am I happy? Because insurance companies usually pay less for service than individual human beings without unlimited profits do.

A few years ago I had a colonoscopy when I had no insurance. It cost me $5,000, which is when I realized I had to have insurance, because the insurance company would have paid $1,200 but the uninsured get to pay $5,000.

(Note, I've had a colonoscopy since getting insurance and and it still managed to cost me $1,500, even though according to Marin General hospital, the insurance company only paid them $1,200, so in reality insurance didn't cover anything at all, in fact, the insurance company seems to have made $300 from my procedure rather than paying me anything--and they still chalk it up to my lifetime limit of what they’ll give me!)

So now how much is their contracted price? They won't tell me. Part of their contract says that they protect doctors from the patients knowing what something really costs.

AH! Of course! Because otherwise I might know how much more I’m paying than they pay. The only reason I knew what they paid for a colonoscopy is because when I balked at $5,000 (since I was told $2,500 in advance), the hospital finance person told me that insurance would pay them $1,200 and I said, “I’ll pay that,” and she said, “We won’t accept that from you, only an insurance company.).

Oh.

I call the doctor. They don't know the price, either, it depends on the policy. Call your insurance company. Thanks.

An hour or so later of phone time (which costs the insurance company money--money they don't spend on care), I'm told I have to find out the tax ID and CTP code from my doctor. I call, and get it. Call the insurance company, go through the menus (I've memorized them, #4, my SS#, #2,#0 - waiting between each step), and give them the info and they say they'll get back to me--in a week. It takes them a week?

OK, so can they tell me? Which means they aren’t protecting the contracted price at all, which means none of this makes any sense and is just a gigantic waste of time designed to get people to simply stop bothering them.

Except they never do. I hear nothing from them. I do get an email saying I have an important confidential email in my secure email section of my online account. Well, I’ve been using the web since 1995, when it became public. I had one of the first sites on the web. I’ve worked with IBM on information design. And I could not find this magical secure email section. It’s not listed on the site at all after I log in. I try every single solitary link, even one that makes no sense to take me to WebMD or something, and there I see a link to a secure email box.

Why there couldn’t be a link in the main area is a mystery, except it seems to be part of the “let’s make it as hard as possible to do anything so they’ll give up and stop bothering us, other than to send us a check every month,” ethos.

That email turns out to be reminding me it’s time to have a physical, which I already got, on my own dime, because I didn’t want a routine office visit to count as one of my two doctor’s visits for the year, which somehow it ended up counting as anyway, meaning that they paid for an $120 visit instead of a $500 visit to a specialist.

Everything is clearly designed to simply make you the insured patient just give up. After a while it’s not worth the time or effort to get a fucking MRI that your doctor said you should have. Who the fuck cares what’s going on in my head other than the hold music of the Health Insurance call center.

Today I decide to call them back and try again. 45 minutes on the phone--they never called because the approved facility is no longer under a Health Net contract. Really? First, they couldn’t tell me this? Next--The company that does approvals didn’t know that when it’s their entire job? (They told me they get their database from the health insurance company).

I call the MRI company, get the Tax ID and CTP numbers again--they are the same.

800-blah-blah-blah, 4, ss#, 2, 0 wait... give them that information, and gee, it’s the same. That facility hasn’t been in their system since Feb 2008. Interestingly, the facility says they take my insurance, and the pre-approval company says they do, too, only the insurance company says they don’t! And it’s pre-approved, remember.

So finally, after another 45 minutes, I ask if there’s an approved facility, and she gives me another facility in my area, and will have the research department that never contacted me before contact me this time with the price. If the doc’s office would call they could find out today--but they already told me they won’t do it because it takes them a half hour and its a waste of their time--which it clearly as, just as it’s a waste of my time and the insurance company’s operator (and in this case supervisor, because she has to keep asking her, too).

BUT--first I have to now get it all approved all over again, because it’s a different facility. Same approved procedure--which will take weeks, and which, remember, the insurance company is not paying for. But in order for me to get the contracted price, it all has to be pre-approved again.

So I call the pre-approval company, MedSolutions, and they say they can make the change instantly online, it doesn’t need another approval, and they do. It’s the same procedure, it’s my legal right to have it done anywhere I want--except the insurance company never told me this--even though they’re not paying!!!

And how much will it cost? The nice woman at the pre-approver (the nicest person I’ve talked to) suggests I just call the facility and ask. I say, “I’ll try, but the other one didn’t know).

So I call the facility, Bay Area Open MRI, and yet another perky chipper nice person (Julie) answers. She knows the contracted price (how is that possible, given that nobody else does?) It’s $800. But wait--they have a special for the uninsured or those who don’t want to run it through their insurance. OK, I wait for it--since the uninsured always pay more than insurance companies who can afford to pay more.

The special price is $600.

WTFx3?

It’s the first time I’ve ever heard of an individual being charged less than an insurance company, but it probably is so much less trouble for the MRI company, and so many people are uninsured--or worse--unable to use their insurance because it won’t cover it, or get approval, or simply even return a call or an email, that I guess whoever runs this place is smart and figures that in this economy offering a 25% discount make sense (in the retail world, 15% discounts across the board are now standard--to start).

So, in the end, three hours of phone hassle is actually going to save me $200, which, amazingly, makes it a good use of my time. Of course, the insurance company could have just told me, “Here’s a place you can get it for $600” to start with, but I’m sure their contracts with doctors prohibit giving patients the best deal. Or, the insurance company could have paid for a necessary procedure, which, I used to think, is what I'm paying them $7,200 a year to do.

Now, the question is--why do Americans have to suffer through a terribly wasteful and stupid system like this? Hopefully it will be changing, but there are still many Americans who are afraid of this change. Afraid the big bad government will keep us from getting the health care we need--the way that the big bad insurance companies are already doing now.

Except with government involvement there will be caps on what we have to pay, instead of the current outrageous mortgage-sized premiums. And then we won’t be able to get canceled if we get sick (unlike now, where you can be canceled at any time, no matter how much you’ve paid--which is why I’m not naming my health insurance company here!). And then you will also be able to get insurance if you have a pre-existing condition, whereas now you simply cannot unless your employer offers it or you can pay a premium that’s higher than your mortgage (the entertainment industry insurance alliance used to be great--now it costs $1,400 a month--a month, which is a dirty trick so that the insurance companies can say, "See, we offer insurance to people with pre-existing conditions!" but they do it at such an outrageous price it's literally impossible for 99% of people to afford!

Anyone who cares about their health, and the health of their loved ones needs to support health care reform. Because even if you are afraid of the government in your health care--at least then you'll have some kind of vote on it. Now you have no say--except to not have insurance, which if so financially dangerous you can’t do it.

So give yourself a vote on health care and costs. Let the government do what good governments do--help you. That’s what they’re meant to do. That’s what they do in Canada, UK, France, Germany, Sweden, The Netherlands, Holland, Spain, Italy, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and countless other civilized free democracies. If they can do it, surely we can, too, right? Because anything they can do we can do better? Let's prove it, at long last.

Which GOP will win: infantile, idiotic, dangerous or conservative?

2009-10-29T04:15:00.000-07:00

The GOP is having an identity crisis. They're clearly losers--because they've lost (and this is the thing they can't stand the most--though losing to an African American man probably makes it worse for many of them).

The GOP is being exposed as "the party of NO," and as the RADICALS that they have been. They aren't conservatives, they are neo-CONS (con-men). They have given us the biggest government, the biggest deficit, the most intrusion on our personal lives of any US administration in history. They are really Fascists, controlled by corporations (that's what Fascists are) but they either don't know the meaning of the word, or pretend not to.

The GOP used to have solidarity through greed (by way of stupidity--as if what was good for the few was good for the many--instead of what Kennedy said, "A rising tide lifts all boats" which is really what happens in society).

Now the GOP has multiple directions it can go

The Palin (I'm so stupid I don't know I'm stupid and I'm afraid of smart people who might outsmart me, and I believe that stupid people are the best people to run things because they won't outsmart you except they will be so stupid they can only make things worse/Bush route).
The "we're really conservatives--we remember what that means--we're almost libertarians but we're not wackos.
The WE HATE EVERYBODY including ourselves *because we secretly like all the things we claim to hate)--but mostly we hate anybody who isn't one of us, because you're either with us or you're a terrorist--obviously.

Two of those three directions require a high-degree of stupidity, and an even higher degree of fear. One of those directions has logic behind it, rather than just infantile idiotic crying and screaming about how everyone else is going to ruin their lovely little country which is perfect as it is, and please, work against our self-interest, because we are the stupidest creatures on the planet.

But it's hard to imagine that the intelligent, logical, true-conservative (vs. the neo-con-men), can beat the screaming and crying which is so much easier to understand, because you don't have to understand anything at all.

The Republicans have a century long history of saying NO to anything new including Medicare and Social Security. Those both cost money and we don't want to spend our money--on other people. Though, interestingly, you don't see Republicans turning down that money and saying, "We have principals, and since we're against these programs, we aren't going to be part of them." No, they cash their checks, and then complain about the other people who had the unmitigated gall to cash theirs.

So which GOP do I think will win? The ones who are the biggest, loudest, most insincere hypocrites. Because when it comes to the history of the GOP, they usually have.

US Health Insurance is disgraceful--and so are the Democrats lack of backbone to fix it

2009-10-19T03:31:00.000-07:00

I don't know what's wrong with the Democrats.

Why do they even listen to the whining and screaming of the Republicans they know are either idiots or are totally in the pocket of pharma and insurance companies?

They know almost 80% of Americans want and need reform, and that they have a majority, and they still act like they're the whipped minority bitches of the GOP.

I don't get it at all.

It was one thing when they were in the minority and had no say in things--though even then they could have put up a fight and gone to the public and done some smart marketing--but they never did. Independent groups tried, but then the congresspeople and senators did nothing to stand up to them.

If you have no power, at least you can do is create a fuss.

You have to give Republicans credit, they have two things in common--greed and fear, and when they don't have power, they make one hell of a fuss and stop any kind of progress. I don't know why this makes them feel safe, since in reality it makes everyone much more vulnerable to the kind of insecurity and abuse that we're under from the insurance and pharma companies.

As I've said, Republicans must be the dumbest creatures on the planet, because they are the only ones who will actively work against their own interest. But work it they do. Which is more than can be said for the Democrats.

Here's my latest health insurance story--I went to an ear, nose and throat doc because I'd been coughing for weeks and had trouble with my sense of smell. He gave me a lot of free drug samples (pushers always give it to you for free first :) and then said I should get an MRI.

I said I would if he got approval. It took two weeks, but a nurse from his office called and said I had approval and to schedule an appointment.

I called the insurance company to find out how much the co-pay would be. The agent said they had no approval on file (I had received a letter in the mail from a third party company saying I had approval and giving me the active code and dates!), and what's more, they wouldn't pay for anything until I'd spent all of my $3,500 out-of-pocket max for the year.

Oh--I pay $600 a month, and have given them tens of thousands of dollars. For that, I get two doctor visits a year. That's all. I get $1,000 in prescriptions (worth about $500 at Canadian drug prices). So far it's been a great deal for them, because I have no claims--for years. Surely, out of those tens of thousands of dollars they could manage to cough up, oh, I'll guess, $500 tops. But no.

Now I want a test that with a "list price" of $1106. How they get the $6 I don't know, but this is what the doctor told me. Insurance companies only ever pay a fraction of the listed price, so I know it's less than that, but don't know how much less.

The good news is that my expensive insurance allows me to get the "contracted negotiated price," which means I only have to pay what the insurance company pays--not the $1106 I'd have to pay if I didn't have insurance. $300? $900?

This has never made sense--as without insurance it should cost less, since insurance companies have more money!

OK--so how much is that "contract rate?"

THEY WON'T TELL ME. The doctor doesn't know, because it's different for each carrier and policy, so I get that. They won't call and find out, either, as that would take them 45 minutes which is expensive. The insurance company told me to call them and they tell me to call in the insurance company.

Now the insurance company says I just need the doctor's tax ID number and their CPT code which they have to give me, so I call back and get them and they give them.

I call the insurance company back (it's taken almost four hours to get to this point, whereas the insurance company could have just told me what I needed to start). I give the info to the agent who tells me I'll get the price in 24 hours via email.

Now--this is the same insurance company that said they couldn't tell me the contracted rate, because it was in the contract not to tell, but apparently if you work hard enough and call enough people and spend four hours they can tell you.

Except--they never did. I got no email. No call. No nothing. I did get an email saying I had "secure" email on their site. I went to their site and couldn't see any place to read email, secure or otherwise. After 15 minutes of clicking on EVERYTHING I found something about health history that took me to a version of webMD.com that doesn't seem all that secure, and there were four messages, like "You're late for your flu shot!!!" (which the insurance won't pay for), and other nice reminders of things I was supposed to do--had I ever known to check this email area, which I never knew existed.

But no email with the price of the MRI. So--I guess I have to call the insurance company again and ask and waste more of my time (and theirs, talking to those agents costs the insurance companies money they could be turning into pure profit, if only us pesky human beings didn't have questions they don't want to answer, so they basically don't).

OK--so here's what I've finally figured out:

THE ENTIRE SYSTEM IS DESIGNED TO MAKE YOU GIVE UP.

"No, I don't need the procedure after all, it's just too hard to find out what it costs. I'll just give up."

"Oh, the insurance company decided they weren't going to pay for something they approved and I talked to 12 people on the phone and I still have no answers and it might just be easier to write that check..."

What a disgraceful, disgusting system. Designed to make you feel grateful they'll take your money and give you little or nothing in return--with the full knowledge that they can cancel you any time--when you actually have met all their requirements and it's their turn to pay for the services you've paid for for years.

But can the Democrats do anything about it? Well, yes, they could. But do they? No. Of course, they have great health insurance--for life. No wonder they work so hard to get elected--the insurance alone is worth it!

Maybe if we all had the same insurance they had there'd be fewer idiots running for office just so they could get it!

PROOF! Some Republicans are the dumbest creatures on the planet.

2009-08-11T01:57:00.000-07:00

Some Republicans are the dumbest creatures on the planet.

Proof: they're screaming their heads off--AGAINST THEIR OWN SELF INTEREST. There is no other animal on the planet that's stupid enough to scream AGAINST its own self interest.

It makes no sense. These people should have disappeared through simple evolution, yet somehow they remain, probably only because they don't believe in evolution!

Why do they do this?

For starters--clearly they're none too bright.

But more than that--they're scared, it's blind fear that leads to blind rage.

And when enraged, there's no logic involved.

My father always said, "You can't argue with an idiot," and you can't--if they have no logic, then you can't "win them over" with a logical argument!

Just trying just gives them credibility where they deserve none--because they don't have a valid argument.

It's like the whole "defense of marriage" thing--who came up with that term? What is marriage being defended from? Not divorce. Not spousal ... Read Moreabuse. It's being defended from--love? No logic.

So we can't waste time arguing with idiots, we just have to forge ahead with what is really best--finally taking care of the health of the citizens of this nation, the way other civilized nations have been able to take care of their citizens for generations.

We've had eight years of doing everything out of blind irrational fear--that's lead to war, economic meltdown, and the undermining of democracy. None of that was good--because it all came from fear--not from hope for a better future.

Like I said, even the dumbest animal is smarter than some Republicans. The lesson, after 8 long, painful, stupid years, is to stop following them--or even letting them hijack the conversation for a minute.

They had eight years, they failed on every possible level. They've proven themselves fearful, stupid and unworthy of leadership. They're still proving they can't even be trusted to do the best thing for themselves--that's right, they can't even take care of themselves. What happens when people can't take care of themselves? They're institutionalized. Naturally they're going to complain about the institution, but they're insane--so you do what's best for them instead of catering to their insane delusions.

Palin/Repubican thought process

2009-08-10T14:47:00.000-07:00

Stupidity > Fear > Lies > Hysteria

Rinse and repeat.

See the latest lies about healthcare...

Sigh. They don't even bother to check the facts before they make up bald-face lies based on stupidity.

Your life and death vs. the Republican nonsense game

2009-07-12T15:51:00.000-07:00

Drug and Insurance companies make life and death decisions about you based on whether or not it's worth it to them for you to live or die.

These are companies that take your money but don't promise you anything in return. That's right. Insurance companies can deny your claims--based on their profits. Drug companies make persuasive claims such as:

"The benefits may outweigh the risks!" (Cymbalta anti-depressant, though a statement like that could make anyone depressed). How effective does that sound?

Wow--that's a great selling feature, since the risks include death!

Also, their site says, "The exact way Cymbalta works in people is unknown. More confidence inspiring copy! They make it and sell it but they aren't quite sure how or why it works... or if it works (since clearly, often the risks outweigh the benefits!

I find it sickening (no pun intended) to hear this "debate" about national health care--the old lying excuses as to why it's bad for all Americans to have health care, because it might not be great.

Let's also remember it was Republicans who were against Social Security and Medicare--that's right, those two vital programs for aging Americans--those two social safety nets, backbones of our system--Republicans were against them--remember that, because this is the same thing.

Well, look around folks, what we have isn't great. If you have money you can get more health care--not necessarily better, but more. Doctors are afraid to do anything other than what insurance and drug companies tell them to do--medicine by the numbers--because that way they're "safe" in terms of liability.

And even if you have health insurance now, you may not in the future. You might lose your job with tens of millions of other hard-working Americans. Your employer might not be able to afford health insurance benefits and drop them. Or your insurance company may simply drop you (or your company).

So don't feel safe even if you think you're covered now.

What will change? You will be able to feel safe that you'll get health care, no matter what happens to your job, your income, or your health.

If you have more money, you'll still get more health care--that won't change. All that will change is that you will always get health care--even if if profit-mad insurance companies won't cover you because you've ever been sick, or drop you for any reason (they don't need one--you just pay them $500 a month until they decide you might want some of it back), or you don't have $100,000 for a hospital visit you'll always get health care. Or that if you need a procedure you won't have a profit-based company saying, "No, your life doesn't make business sense for us."

The Republicans cry, "You don't want bureaucrats be making life and death decisions for you!"

Well, guess what folks, "bureaucrats" always do--that whole war on terror thing Republicans love so much is totally bureaucrats making life and death decisions for us.

And yes, I'd rather have bureaucrats who don't make a profit from my health care, deciding if I can have a procedure, than purely profit-driven businesspeople saying, "It doesn't make financial sense for him to have the medical care necessary to save his life."

That decision is made every single day by insurance companies who don't want to risk their already obscenely huge profits. I'm all for them making a profit, but not outrageously huge profits built on the backs of people they then reject for care.

So called "Socialized medicine" isn't perfect--but it is DEMOCRATIC.

True security comes not from starting wars that bankrupt the nation financially and morally. It comes from a government that takes care of its citizens--that's what government is meant to do--that's why we have it. Not to lie to us, abuse our civil rights, throw our money away on unnecessary wars that create more trouble for us--no, but to create a social network to support and care for individuals.

The 8 years of Bush were exactly the kind of bureaucracy that Republicans say they're against, and the kind we all should fear. But Republicans were fine with the horrible, lying, cheating, stealing, fascist regime that was bureaucrats at their worst.

Now that civil servants (that's right, they work for us!) are trying to do something for the people, instead of for corporations and profit--oh, that's bad. And God forbid we also raise taxes back to what they were under the Republican God Reagan. That would be horrible--except somehow it wasn't when he was in office.

How does that possibly make sense? It doesn't.

Which takes me back to one of the things my father always said to me, "You can't argue with an idiot."

So you can't argue with the Republican arguments against national health care. Because if you do, all you do is play into their nonsense game, and in the world of Republican nonsense, nobody can win, except insurance and drug companies.

OPEN LETTER TO DICK CHENEY - Everything you have EVER said was either a LIE or WRONG. So Shut the fuck up.

2009-05-21T20:18:00.001-07:00

It's worth repeating:

Dick Cheney: Everything you have EVER said was either a LIE or WRONG. So Shut the fuck up.

Slink back to your hidden bunker and entomb yourself there.

The Republikan Fascist Federation (Aka, "The party of NO"

2009-05-21T20:09:00.000-07:00

Why is it that Republicans always resort to childish name-calling
--and get away with it?

Now they're trying to rename the Democratic party to something so ludicrous I won't even repeat it here. Yes, Republicans are masters at propaganda and distorting language. They already undermined the term "liberal," and now that the Republican party itself is shrinking and dying after eight years of not being at all "conservative" they're trying to destroy the Democratic name.

And we live in a Democracy!

So, OK, if the Republicans say they're allowed to rename somebody else's political party, then so are Democrats.

So I dub the GOP (rather than merely the "Grumpy Old Party") "The Republikan Fascist Federation." This replaces my earlier name for them, which was simply "The Nazi Party."

In this case, it's entirely true. the Bush/Cheney years were one long exercise in turning democracy into Fascism--a government run by and for corporations. And we see where that lead--to the collapse of the world economy, to the undermining of the constitution (something Fascists now try to pin on Democrats--because they're from the"I'm rubber, you're glue" school of projecting their own vices out on everyone else).

The "Republican Party of No" once again has NO new ideas, NO positive plans, NOTHING to offer other than fear, anger, hatred--all Nazi tactics. They're still the GOP, only now they're the Grotesque Old Party.

Health Recovery plan

2009-05-20T12:26:00.000-07:00

If you're self-employed and have a pre-existing condition, then you simply cannot get individual health insurance, companies don't give it to people with pre-existing conditions, plain and simple. You're out of luck (I mean, it was kind of thoughtless of you to get sick, wasn't it?)

In some states, such as California, you might be able to get state backed high-risk insurance, for $1,500 a month... but you will have to wait for someone else on the plan to die. Honestly.

If you happened to work for a company with insurance in the past, you can keep it, for a while, because of legislation like COBRA or HIPAA. But both of those programs have set limits as to how long the insurance company must cover you. And even these plans can cost $600 a month for an individual. After that, they can cancel you at any time--even after you've given them tens of thousands of dollars and never made a claim. Fair? No. Scary? Yes.

There's no other major industrialized country where citizens have to worry about health and insurance and costs like this every month. My friends in Canada, England, Germany and Australia think it's insane--and so do I.

The USA needs REAL "national security" where American Citizens are not at the sole mercy of companies who make their life and death decisions based on profits.

How can we have a real "recovery" plan without helping individual American citizens recover when they are ill? "We the people" are people, not banks or corporations.

WE NEED A HEALTH RECOVERY PLAN FOR ALL AMERICANS AT LONG LAST.

The only thing to fear...

2009-04-15T12:01:00.000-07:00

So, Republicans have decided they are once again the only "real" patriots and must have "tea parties" to protest the new adminsitration's spending to try to keep the country moving and growing, rather than stagnating and falling into depression.

I understand that "the party of 'no'" has NO positive ideas, but this is ridiculous.

If these patriots were concerned about too much government and out of control spending, then where were they when the problem was being created--so blatently during eight years of W and Cheney?

And why is rolling back Bush's cuts to the most wealthy, a hideous form of Socialism, when they were even higher under the Republican God Reagan. They don't seem to like real history, only history invented by Fox.

All this spending and bailout was OK when Bush did it--did it once again without restrictions or oversight. Now that Obama is doing it, it's Socialism. How exactly does that work in their brains?

I'll tell you what I try to remember now when talking to people with a limited world view like this-- REPUBLICANS ARE AFRAID.

(FDR: The only thing to fear is fear itself. That still applies.)

I don't know why they weren't afraid under Bush, which, if they weren't blinded by their limited world view they would have been, but they weren't.

Now that they don't feel like "they" are in power, they are afraid, that's the root of it all, the anger, the greed, it's all fear that they might not get their little slice of the pie because big government is going to take it away from them.

Never mind that Bush's big government was the most intrusive and that it really DID take it away from them in the form of out of control spending and deficit.

But now that the government actually NEEDS to spend money ON Americans (rather than on wars and a few corporations), these same people are crying "tea" and acting as it we should just stop. Suddenly they're born-against libertarians instead of war-crazed, money-is-no-object spend spend spend just as long as you don't tax (oh, nevermind the deficit, it's good when we do it) neo-cons.

We wouldn't want them to tax their brains by thinking about the consequences of this--by making them look around and see the stores shuttered all over, the people out of work and without health care, and at the confusing mobius strip that is our world economy and how it's all interrelated and that if you just let a lot of things fall apart we can be plunged into a deep and long depression the likes of which they can't even imagine with their fearful little brains.

But those of who we CAN see the world as it is, who see how it got here, know we can no longer afford to listen to those same voices that
got us into this mess.

My hope is that the fear and anger that's blinding them can be let down long enough for them to remember that if they are really patriots, then they need to get behind our president (as even liberals did after 9/11), and work together to help our nation rebuild.

Rebuilding takes planning and effort, sacrifice, and money.

Yet these part-time-patriots have gone for eight years without planning, effort or sacrifice, and only want to spend other people's money (in the case of a deficit, their own children's)

We cannot rebuild by doing nothing or waiting for someone else to do it.

It's too late for that.

Now we have to work together.

As the great patriot Benjamin Franklin said to Americans before the signing of the Declaration of Independence, "We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately."

Socialism new "red menace" in Repubican fear mongering

2009-02-21T22:41:00.001-08:00

Socialism. Socialism! SOCIALISM!

"Socialism" is the new "communism" and for the Republicans it's still all about negativity--fear, greed, and mistrust if not outright hate of others who aren't "like us" (hence also repeating "Hussein" as part of Obama's name as often as possible--as if that bothered people in the election or should bother them now).

And, as always the Republicans "logic" makes no real logical sense. When Bushco had their stimulus bill, which was in essence an uncontrolled giveaway to Wall Street ($20 billion dollars in bonuses--how many teachers and firefighters would that pay for--over 3,000 jobs that actually help people)--no checks or balances--no time for that (like no time t count votes for president in 2000!), the Republicans were all for it--it was saving the country, it was patriotic.

When Obama does something similar--only with reasonable transparency and checks and balances, and with money for creating real jobs and real infrastructure, then it's terrible, it's socialism, and every single one of them votes no--because Republicans have no positive ideas, no positive plans.

Republicans are all about NO. No taxes. No services. No oversight (which is how we got into this). No control. No protection of citizens. Basically no government, except the parts they want, like the ones that tell individuals what they can and cannot do, while at the same time giving corporations free reign to use and abuse people.

This is the very definition of FASCISM. And, given that's what the Bush administration was--run by corporations, especially oil companies happy to charge $5 a gallon for gas which is now selling for half that--Republicans like Fasicism, but then this same group was often referred to as Nazi's by people all over the world--including in the USA. Because that's what their tactics were most like--starting wars, killing without compunction, a dictatorship without representation, and ruling by fear.

So Republicans still don't get it. Running a country by fear and greed doesn't work. It doesn't lead to expansion and growth, it leads to people holding tight onto what they have and being unwilling to share it--even to the point where they stop buying things, which helps set a depression in motion.

Then Republicans cry "Socialism!" when they never had a problem with the fascism they created and ran.

It's all semantics and the worst kind of "playing politics."

And then it's just what they then say the Democrats have done or are doing--because the other thing Republicans do--say others are doing precisely what they are.

Bob Cesca writes, "Hannity is once again joined in this crusade by very serious pundits like Rush Limbaugh, Steve Doocy, Alex Castellanos, Joe Scarborough, Laura Ingraham and Glenn Beck who, at one point, claimed that President Obama is both a socialist and a fascist..."

See--perfect example. After Bush allowed corporations to RUN the government, he then started socializing banks and corporations--which had been running the country into the ground--bringing them into the government--making the government bigger than ever. That was the synthesis of FASCISM.

Now the Republicans say this is what Obama is doing, when, in fact, it may be a form of Socialism, it's not Fasism--but remember--Bushco talked about Islamic Fascism. There's no such thing. There is Islamic Fundamentalism. But corporations don't run Islamic nations--and Fascism has to do with corporate control, not religious.

In fact, Bush ran Fundamentally Fascist Regime.

Socialism is GOOD for citizens who still have a true representative democracy because we need so many of the things that a government can and should provide.

Cesca says this to Socialism-hating Republicans:

"Refuse to send your kids to socialized public schools and universities; refuse to use socialized roads and highways; refuse to call upon socialized police and fire departments; shut down the socialized air traffic control; refuse to visit socialized national parks; tell grandma that her Social Security and Medicare will have to be sent back to the government; demand the immediate dismantling of our socialized American military. Sarah Palin and her supporters in Alaska should refuse all forms of "redistributed wealth" by sending back their checks from the socialized oil program there."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-cesca/sean-hannitys-ridiculous_b_168033.html?view=print

So Republicans--stop the word play and politics. Do something positive for the country for a change. I wonder if they even remember how.

In the mean time, the rest of us will actually put our money where our mouths are, we will do what we can.

Don't "penalize the successful" so everyone can be taken care of. What utter rot.

2009-02-01T00:05:00.000-08:00

My Republican friend emailed me this:
I will continue to call the socialist policies socialist if the shoe fits... no matter what version of it it is. There is a HUGE difference between providing services for the citizens, such as schools, libraries, the military and 'spreading the wealth'. Equalizing the citizens by penalizing success is just wrong no matter what you call it. I call that socialism.

I call it corporate socialism when the US government, for the past eight years, funneled billions to corporate interests though war profiteering, through tax breaks to oil companies (what good did those do? They had record profits, they could have paid tax). To me that's a "spreading the wealth" wealth from the middle-class to the upper class.

Helping people who are sick or injured is not what I call "spreading the wealth" or penalizing the successful. I call it not punishing the families of those who were as prepared as they could possibly be, yet were not well enough prepared.

Here's a quote from another friend:

What is a person like myself to do if my insurance company cancels me? I only have insurance because I was a member of a group, then the group was canceled, and I kept insurance through a government program, HIPAA. I pay almost $600 a month, I can only see a doctor twice a year, and if I'm canceled, which I can be at any time, all the money I've put it into it is lost (since I haven't made a claim). And it will literally be IMPOSSIBLE for me to get individual health insurance again. I might not even be able to get group insurance though an employer.

Then what am I supposed to do when I need a colonoscopy, which everybody over 50 should have. The last time I had one without insurance it was $5,000. For 2.5 hours in the hospital.

If, God forbid, I had a serious illness or heart trouble, that would be hundreds of thousands of dollars without insurance. Even with insurance it can be tens of thousands.

Now--if they cancel me, which, as I said, they could do once I made a claim--what happens? Do I sell my house? Do I lose my life savings?

DO YOU THINK THIS IS RIGHT?

Should I be penalized because I was sick--though no fault of my own?

Or, do we all pitch in to pay for universal health coverage that protects ALL OF US--everyone who is in a precarious position even when they do manage to get and afford health insurance?

You cannot possible tell me that the health insurance and healthcare system in this country is working, that it is even equitable or fair.

Can you? Can you tell me that I should lose my house if I get sick?

Can you tell me that I shouldn't get health care because for-profit companies say I'm a bad risk--even though I've already paid them $50,000 and claimed nothing?

The healthcare and insurance situation in this country is horrifying--it can literally worry you sick. If I'm lucky enough to make it to 65 then I'll get medicare--which is socialism. Is Medicare bad? It's socialism pure and simple and has been derided by the right since it was created. It's also saved the lives and property of millions of families. Is that bad?

Even if you work for a big corporation and think your health insurance is secure, it's not. You could be laid off, as almost 400,000 Americans have been in the last six months. There's no guarantee once you stop working your insurance will continue--or that you'll be able to afford it.

And if the company you worked for goes into chapter 11 then all bets are off for retirees or those who were laid off. The Republicans in the senate wanted automaker retirees to no longer be funded.

My Republican friend then goes on to explain to me how for-profit corporations should be running hospitals (if not schools and everything else) because they're so much more efficient.

I had a interesting conversation with an ER Doctor. She used to work at the new hospital here in Durango. She quit last year to pursue another interest. She spoke about the difference between the non-for-profit hospital and a new surgical center run by Doctors for profit. She said the non-for-profit was run by a board with no concept of how to keep employees happy and how to just plain keep employees! The turnover is huge. Therefore the quality of care drops. Her words, not mine. On the other hand, this new surgical center desires to make a profit so it strives to keep good employees by treating them well and paying them well. They require good customer service to stay in business competing against the nfp hospital.

Just because a non-profit board doesn't run a medical companies as effectively as a for profit-one isn't an idicator of what the government would do. In fact, the most efficiently run health insurance company in the country is Medicare, which by some accounts is 10 times more efficient than any private health insurance company.

And also note, that the doctor stopped being a doctor, something that took her almost a decade and several hundred thousands of dollars to learn. why is that? Because the current private insurance run medical system is just so good? No, it's just the opposite.

My personal doctor quit, too.

Why, because insurance companies were telling her what care she could give her patients--and not just in the way you think, meaning that insurance companies were pushing drugs as the ultimate care (which many of them do--"medicine by the numbers" they call it). No, it was a combination of insurance companies deciding what doctors should be paid (which was less than their costs, unless they turned themselves into a people mill), and their other insurance companies, for malpractice, that were bleeding them dry. She couldn't make a living.

Now, I'm sure I'll hear the whole "lawyers are evil and are just ambulance chasers" but there are legitimate claims. Some people die--or are killed because of true malpractice. People who a husband or father or mother who supported them and then are left out in the cold because of not just mistakes, but malpractice.

I guess those people should be penalized because the successful can't afford to pay into a national health care plan that will even protect them should they be stupid enough to end up unsuccessful at some point in the future.

And what about people who's health insurance now is precarious, because they had the bad sense to get sick?

Another friend writes me,

I lost three units of blood, yet my doctor wouldn't return my calls because I didn't have insurance. My blood pressure was so low I couldn't stand without blacking out and so low that doctors couldn't even draw blood, it wouldn't come out.

We went to a local doctor, who saw me without insurance, who arranged for a hospital to give me a transfusion (without insurance--which was hard) and required them to let me do it without spending the night so it only cost $1,500 for a transfusion, instead of $6,500 if I'd spent the night. All that took a lot of convincing on the doctor's part, because the hospital--a for-profit one, didn't want to bother with me.

So, again I have to ask--do you think this is right?

If you think the medical system doesn't need to fixed.

If you think that people (like yourself) don't deserve medical treatment.

If people should have simply die if they can't afford the $6,500 the hospital wanted for a life-saving transfusion.

That's why I'm angry.

We have a government which gave BILLIONS in tax breaks to Oil companies that are already making the biggest profits in the history of the world, but they can't afford to help law-abiding, tax-paying American citiens with health care--because that would be "Socialism."

This country was not born on socialist principles. More government is not the answer. Oversight is ok. But mostly government needs to stay out of my business!

Hmm--the so-called Patriot act allowed the government to be in your business your most personal business, more than any time in history. You're not a terrorist. You don't fit the profile at all. It's ludicrous to even waste their time listen to your phone calls and reading your emails and looking at your bank balances and credit card payments--and the books you checked out from the library.

Yet they did all that. They were not just in your business, they were up your ass.

Yet, meanwhile, when my friend needed help with a colonoscopy, this intrusive government was nowhere to be seen. They can't bothered withg you ass--unless they thought perhaps it was harboring terrorists.

So bring on socialized medicine. And tell me about how people have to wait for health care in the UK-but they do get it.

And don't use them as the be-all end all. Use a country like Australia where people get great timely care without supplemental insurance.

So let's stop with this preposterous propagandistic linguistic game of calling it "penalizing" anyone, when, in fact, we are protecting everyone.

It's all how you look at it. If you're so greedy you can't even pay to protect yourself, then of course you don't see why you should have to pay to protect someone else. Let's just hope that those people never need help. And oddly, it often turns out they do. And then they're not adverse to the government stepping in and giving them billions in bailouts, which they then give to themselves as bonuses.

Hmm. Interesting how that works. No, don't penalize them for goodness sake.

Penalize everyone else. That makes more sense.

America the FREE--as long as you can PAY for it

2009-01-31T22:05:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine wrote me a heartfelt email about his mother, who is in assisted living. He writes,

My brothers and I are a bit wide-eyed right now in we thought our parents would do okay until they died, and now my mother and stepfather are each in assisted living. My mother's breathing is so bad, her care costs $14,000 a MONTH. She'll run out of easy cash in a few months, so we're trying to sell her house. None of us expected this, and my mother always said, "Don't worry about me. I have long-term disability insurance that will pay for 24-hour nursing at my house, if necessary. She's been paying on it for years. It turns out it'll pay up to $80 a day. You can't get hotels for that anymore. $2400 a month is not close to $14,000.

People like to think they're prepared for the future. We also liked to think we couldn't have another depression but that looks like a possibility now, too, due to the massive fraud, greed, governmental debt, lack of oversight, and just all around corruption.

In Australia all her needs would be taken care of--at home if she wanted. If you're sick or in an accident in Australia, they not only take care of you, they clean your house, cook your meals, take care of your kids.

But, according to my Republican friend, this is the terrible socialist big government we must avoid at all costs (let's not get into the reality of how Republicans create the biggest, most expensive governments, while cutting taxes to also create the biggest, most dangerous deficits--they like to have their cake and eat it too--while sending the bill to their children and grandchildren).

My Republican friend and I are having email debates, yet we're not convincing each other, because he's sure he's right.

Of course, I'm sure I'm right, too, which only makes me doubt myself--but I don't know if he ever doubts himself. He's SO sure, which is nice for him.

To him, socialism is bad. Bad. Bad. so bad you must repeat the word three times at least. Don't get into details of the difference between a socialist regime and democratic socialism, the whole idea of government helping people is a "nanny state' and is bad, unless they're spending trillions on defense, in which case it's a "daddy state" and it's good. This doesn't make sense to me--but then, I don't have all the answers and I'm not always right. Even so, it does seem hypocritical, doesn't it?

I chalk up a lot of this kind of "total assurance of the truth" to many religions, which teachers people from an early age that they are in the "right" religion, that God is on "their" side if they just follow the rules set up by the very political money and power bureaucracy that is the church. It's not just destructive, it causes many people to stop thinking for themselves--they don't have to, they've ceded their power to someone else ("a higher power" which is all fine and good if you're talking about true spirituality, but sad and empty if you're talking about organized religion, which, after all, is just a bunch of people.)

So here, in our "free country" it's free as long as you can pay for it. And my friend's mother worked all her life and paid for it--or thought she did.

Now she and her children find out now that the coverage she's paid for has profited the insurance company rather than her. And multiple families loses because of it--through worry about how to pay for it, and though the actual loss of the accrued work of their forebears.

The Republicans spout off about inheritance tax, calling it the "death tax." In reality, an estate of less than $3.5 million doesn't have this tax, so only few people pay it.

In the mean time, this shattering REAL "death tax" is that each generation is losing what the previous one built so they can pay for their care and death. That's so deeply wrong.

So don't let your fear of a word like "socialism" cloud the issue, that Americans are being bled dry by a government that does NOT help them, and would be far better off paying higher taxes to support a government that DID. A government that would help them even when they couldn't afford to help themselves.

That's the dirty little secret of socialism--it helps everyone, even when they can't pay for it. Geez, that's clearly not the way in the home of the free, is it? If you can't pay, it must be your fault and you must suffer. Right? You don't want to help no stinking loser who hasn't helped themselves.

And all that's OK, because it'll never happen to you, because you're prepared. You've paid all your life to make sure you're prepared. Right?

Except, as in the case of my friend's mother, who was a church-going, hard-working, well-compensated successful woman. She was as prepared as she could be--just as you may be. And when circumstances change, and all your work and investment and preparation isn't what you thought, isn't what all the experts told you it would be, then do you want to suffer, to have your family lose everything? Or do you want a government of good socialism to help?

That is your choice, after all. Because we still live in a democracy. Where you talk to your representatives and tell them what's important to you, whether it's "lower taxes no matter what," or "let's do what we can to help make people really taken care of."

Because, in the end, you may be the one who needs taking care of. You don't know. So it's good to have a social safety net, even if it's called socialism.

The Republican NAME GAME - it's not a serious debate

2009-01-30T14:19:00.000-08:00

If you read the comments of my previous post, you'll see a response from my "Republican friend." He asked for an open dialog of ideas, and presented his, which included calling Obama the Messiah, and repeating the word "Sociamism" as if it was some horrifying specter that was casting a dark cloud over democracy, as if eight years of Fascism and true undermining of the constitution hadn't been the real culprit.

I'm fine with an open dialog of ideas, which is why I posted his reply, and am now debating his points.

---

Why is it, that when Republicans let corporations control the country, give them massive tax breaks and also funnel billions to them--the very definition of FASCISM, this is somehow OK.

But when Democrats advance a stimulus package which is not all that different, except it includes more support for individuals, and government oversight to prevent 20 billion from being given away to a few in Bonuses--TWENTY BILLION--that money could build countless schools, bridges, homes... suddenly, that's "socialism." ?

I'd rather have socialism than fascism any day, because at least in socialism it's the citizens in control, not the corporations, and the citizens who benefit, not just a few high up in the corporate and financial food chain--like royalty--while most of the people in the country suffer the greatest depression since 1929.

Socialism is, in fact, far more democratic than Fascism--which by definition strips the people of their power and rights.

Why is there such a complete double-standard based on who is doing the giving and who it goes to?

When it comes from a Republican president and goes to the same Wall Street wizards who got us into this mess--without oversight--and billions go to a few, that's OK.

But when Detroit automakers want money then the unions and workers are blamed and all asked to take pay CUTS. Pay cuts that amount to less than the money that the Wall Street wizards just stole in unwarranted bonuses taken directly from Federal aid. Or when the money is going to actual infrastructure, the way FDR did SO SUCCESSFULLY in the past, that's socialism--as if it's a dirty word.

Explain to that to me, if you can.

As for this whole "Obama Messiah" NONSENSE, it's absurd, ridiculous, and even insulting. Did anyone call the previous president (who's name I won't mention at your request, but his initial was "W") that after 9/11 when he was going to be our big savior from the rest of the world?

When he was standing for his photo ops aboard aircraft carriers announcing "mission accomplished" and he was our great white hope?

No, you know why? Because Democrats may sometimes be lame, but they aren't childish name-callers. Yet Republicans have, consistently over the years, made personal attacks and resorted to name-calling to Democrats.

As for the so-called Liberal media--they were 100% behind bush, from the time they allowed him to take office without being duly elected to not offering ANY criticism of him for years. Yet did anyone every call him "our fearless leader" or "el Capitan" or any other made up stupid insulting name? No.

When he started a war without probably cause--STARTED a war, a "holy" war, in fact, did anyone call him a savior or messiah, even though his ACTIONS were, in fact, messianic?

We called his words and actions stupid--which they clearly were. That was an actual criticism of his words and actions--not some cutesy slander, or quasi-religious smear, as if anyone thought Obama was greater than God.

To even suggest that is merely playing into the hands of those who want to create fear and hate.

NAME CALLING IS NOT adding to a "serious dialog" as you call it.

And yes, once again, somehow the magical double standard comes into play and if people are merely HOPEFUL that Obama will help--that he is actually TRYING to help, after years of a Government that did nothing but PILLAGING the resources of the country--the treasury and the people, somehow it's not OK to hope and be positive without being mocked as being mindless messiahs.

I take offense at that and don't see it as at all constructive in a serious dialog.

Now--I agree that the Democrats could have TRIED harder, during the previous administration--but, if you will remember, during the "one party" years, Republicans simply shut them out--they weren't even allowed to see legislation before votes, and the Republican majority was such that it didn't matter if all the Democrats banded together to vote against it...

And so, the "blame game" as Republicans LOVE to call it, is apt in this case, because at some point our so-called representatives must take responsibility for their actions, and we are suffering for their actions right now.

Should the Democrats have grown a set and made a fuss--yes, they should have. Should they have tried to use the press as ruthlessly (and effectively!) as the Republicans to get their message across? Yes.

But does that make the Democratic minority, which did not set the agenda or create the rules, into the people to blame? No, and yet now YOU are playing the blame game against them.

Once again, it's a double standard, my friend. Where Republican buzz-words mask the truth behind a wall of words. And they claim the Democrats are "elite" while attending the same schools and using far more sophisticated and utterly calculated linguistics to distort and manipulate. Republicans have been geniuses at manipulating the language in their favor, to the point where they made "liberal," a word our founding fathers found a powerful force for good, into a "dirty word" they sneered at.

As for the individual actions of members of Obama's cabinet--let he who has never had a tax problem throw the first stone. Maybe it's you, in which case, fire away. If we want to start counting the number of scandals among people in the Bush administration then we're going to waste a long time arguing about this. Nobody is perfect--not even Obama, and nobody should expect them to be.

There are real crimes (Blagojevich, Cheney--yes, I must mention him for his war crimes and organized rape of the treasury), and then there are trivial personal ones.

It's time to put things in perspective, stop wasting time on the trivial and start looking at the big stuff.

As for the lobbyists, they are experienced people who worked in previous administrations (from both parties, mind you), and now they've had to sign an agreement that says they won't lobby this administration if they leave--that's the difference between this and previous administrations (of both parties).

You don't not use experienced people simply because they've been a lobbyist, which is the job of choice for former officials. But you do ensure that there is no current conflict of interest, and that in the future they don't use their pull in the same area.

---

Socialism. Socialism. Socialism. Sigh. Is that all you've got? You keep clinging to that as if it's the most horrible thing you can think of.

By your definition--there are plenty of happily democratic socialistic countries in the world. Let's include Australia in that--where if you are sick or hurt for any reason your medical bills are taken care of, someone will take care of your kids in your house if you can't do it, and you don't have to worry about going bankrupt because you were injured or sick.

That's GOOD socialism.

Compare that to here, where for-profit insurance companies tell you what medical procedures you can and can't have, where they can reject valid claims for care, and where, often, you simply can't get insurance, so you can lose your house and life savings trying to pay for care that is simply a "right" in every other industrialized nation on the planet. Every one. But ours.

Again--good Socialism.

So stop trying to turn it into a dirty word--it's not.

And, like I said, I'll take socialism over fascism any day. We've had eight years of fascism (much of it out and out unconstitutional), so democratic socialism offer a HUGE IMPROVEMENT to the lives of citizens, and the health and well being of our constitution.

Stop playing the name game, my friend, and start recognizing that at a time like this, when the country and world have been thrown into such serious trouble by the uncontrolled fascist power of a few, the hope and hard work of the many is what's needed. Everybody working together for the common good is good! That's not blind faith or any of the names you're calling it.

It's the American Dream, hard at work again, after 8 years of suffocation.

Bipartisanship - REPUBICANS ARE THE PARTY OF "NO"

2009-01-30T03:08:00.000-08:00

A recent piece in the WSJ by that bastion of Truth Justice and the Pharmaceutical way, Rush Limbaugh, suggested that to be truly bipartisan, 46% of the stimulus package should be controlled by him (as if anybody elected him) to give away as tax cuts--starting with corporations.

A Republican friend sent this to me and said "This is funny!" and I replied, "this would be funny if by you mean funny as "something smells funny."

If tax cuts could prevent the current problem, then we wouldn't have it, as Bush did a lot of tax cutting to a lot of people who could well afford the taxes. Didn't help anything but the income of the upper 2%.

If this kind of stimulus bill is so bad, then why is it what Bush and his financial people started-only in their case they started it without any kind of oversight, which has already lead to top CEOs giving themselves millions of dollars while they lay off thousands of people. At least this new bill has some oversight to make sure the money isn't being wasted.

"Supply side" economics has never actually stimulated the economy, it has only taken money from the future and moved it to the present via deficits, which is what Regan created the largest of, until Bush came along.

FDR's plans DID take the country out of the depression by creating work--and creating infrastructure that's still used in this country today. The WPA and CCC and other programs were extremely effective at creating jobs that actually created things the country needed, schools, roads, bridges. Tax cuts build nothing. Create no lasting legacy. If they did, then the Bush years would have been years of growth, rather than recession.

As for corporate tax, that's the joke. In 1960 corporations paid 80% of all the tax in this country--and yet, somehow, they made profits, they hired new workers, and business grew and grew. All that with high corporate taxes.

Now individuals pay 80% of the tax and corporations pay 20%, and corporations complain they can't make a go of it, and their way out is to give millions to the CEOs who ran them into the ground, while firing tens of thousands of employees. That's not about taxes, that's about greed and mismanagement, and, in some cases, the massive corporate burden of a health care system designed for insurance and pharma companies, rather than patients and doctors.

As for bipartisanship--Obama made concessions about tax cuts for the Republicans. And NOT A SINGLE ONE VOTED FOR THE PLAN, WITH THE FEATURES THEY DEMANDED. Not one. That's no bipartisanship. That's counter-productive, playing politics, without a care for their country or constituents. They voted for it when Bush proposed it, but not when Obama did it--with more input from them. That's childish, like little children crying when they don't get their way.

Well, guess what Republican party, you didn't get your way because you made such a horrible mess of things when you got your way--with the one-party system you had for almost eight years.

You messed up as badly as any other president and congress in the history of this country and because we somehow still managed to be a democracy, the citizens, your employers, FIRED YOU.

They voted AGAINST YOU. YOU LOST, REPUBLICANS.

And if you keep up this nonsense of not even voting to help give your employers more time to switch their TVs to digital signals (who votes against that--um, Republicans!), then you are going to lose even more jobs to the point where you're going to have to come up with a whole new name for your party, and a new logo, too.

Because now--the Republican party as become THE PARTY OF "NO."

That's fine if you're consistent about no new taxes and no bigger government. But after eight years of "NO to helping citizens" and YES to helping corporations and billions in handouts to oil companies and trillions in wars, well, you can't have it both ways, my friend. At least not without what's happening now.

So when the Republicans want to be responsible again, and be consistent about smaller government and less spending and balancing the budget, then I'll first say, "Um, where were you for the eight years you ran the country?" and then I'll say, "Great idea, but first don't you think the government has some responsibility for cleaning up the mess it made in the previous 8 years?"

A Letter to a Limbaugh listening, Drudge reading friend

2009-01-11T23:46:00.000-08:00

Your home page is the Drudge report. Your car radio is tuned to Limbaugh.

I love you too much to let you know exposing yourself to this kind of misinformation, propaganda, and outright hate speech.

One of my degrees is in journalism, so I have the background and experience to help you learn how to get the real facts, not those hand-picked by any individual or corporation.

I am not pleased with the state of all journalism myself now. It used to require two different sources to state something as fact, but somewhere along the way, someone merely spouting a "rumor of the day" (their actual term for it during an election), got reported as fact, not rumor. The corporate influence on news has been destructive, too, with corporate interests guiding news reporting. From major corporations such as GE owning NBC, to self-avowed right-wing Australian media magnate Rupert Murdoch owning Fox news--and now the Wall Street Journal, when corporations skew the news it's part of fascism.

My friend, I know you that you think most major sources are part of the "liberal media" but the facts show no such thing. If they were really liberal they would not have been complicit with Bush during the first 6 years of his presidency--or even the initial election.

If you look at the coverage you will see, in fact, that the so called "media elite" were highly supportive of GWBush until his poll ratings fell so low that the media felt safe pointing out his errors.

Obviously, anchormen like Keith Obermann are overtly liberal in their views--but they are vastly in the minority, given the rise of Australian Rupert Murdoch's empire, including Fox and the WSJ, which has a corporate mandate to be right-wing propaganda tools (I know you will argue with me on this, but you can save your breathe--I know journalism, and Fox is not journalism, it's propaganda).

Murdoch's stated goal is not news, but to forward his personal viewpoints and those that will make him the most money. That is the definition of propaganda.

You're right in saying that Drudge points to a lot of sources. But given that he has a specific political slant, he picks and chooses his stories, which is fine, but you don't get the full picture this way--or by viewing the news through any other single person or corporation's point of view.

With the internet there's no longer any excuse to get your news exclusively from either US or corporate media outlets.

By reading sources across the net I knew before the US invaded Iraq that the WMD documents were forged. The absolute proof of this was available online. Because of my experience in typography I could tell they were obvious fakes. so I'm sure someone in the CIA must have figured it out, too (I would hope they're smarter than I am). But somehow the major media outlets--in the US--didn't. They did in the UK, very clearly and specifically.

So I get my news from around the world and it's fascinating to see what news outlets that don't have a vested interest in a story say, because they are obviously less biased.

====

the bottom line is that to get a real view of "facts" rather than opinion (which has masqueraded as news since the start of newswriting, because reporters are people and their opinions get mixed in--much more so in recent years than in the past), you need to look at a variety of sources from around the world, including non-corporate ones.

====

Finally, I want to say that I respect and uphold your right to your political opinions.

You have firm beliefs as I have mine--and that's good.

I just don't think it's good for anyone to regularly expose themselves to people with messages of intolerance or even hate.

You're a loving person, and Limbaugh is not a healthy influence on you, or your family. It's not funny, it's hate. All Coulter is another negative influence--not funny, just hate.

Yes, there are liberal hate-mongers, too (they don't get much air time but they're there). I don't listen to them. I never have.

I did not hate Bush or Cheney personally. I hated some of their actions. Yet when I listen to right wing talk radio it's so often personal attacks on people they don't like, rather than on their actions. And one of the reasons I don't listen to it that often is because I so rarely hear positive plans of action of what they feel would better the situation and the world. "Everybody's a critic," the old line goes, but if you don't work on positive plans, you don't move in positive directions.

I just hope that you will try, whenever possible, to listen to Republicans who have POSITIVE messages. The positive messages may be "we don't think this is good because..." or "someone is wrong because" but they HAVE A REAL PLAN, not just an attack, and they deliver it way that's NOT personal, nasty, destructive, mean-spirited, or negative.

You deserve better than that, because you are better than that.

Give Civil Unions ALL THE SAME RIGHTS as Marriage

2008-12-19T00:33:00.001-08:00

It's almost 2009--and it's just plain wrong that all men (and women) still aren't created equal.

I support gay marriage and gay rights and I don't understand how so many people can vote to take rights away from other people. Or how a simple majority can remove those rights. What's next--blonds can't marry brunettes?

If your religious beliefs tell you that gays shouldn't get married--then don't get married if you are gay. But don't oppress other people. That's NOT what Jesus would do.

But let's stop fighting over semantics and get to the heart of the matter--restoring basic civil rights to at least 10% of Americans!

I HAVE A SIMPLE SOLUTION: GIVE CIVIL UNIONS ALL THE SAME RIGHTS AS MARRIAGE.

Let's stop fighting over the word "marriage." Not separate, just EQUAL.

In fact, the government shouldn't be in the marriage business at all. Anybody joined in union in a courthouse, straight or gay, gets a civil union. Anyone joined in union in a church is "married." Same thing, different names.

That's just the first step. But it can be done quickly and with less backlash from the unenlightened.

The next step is to make sure everybody can also get married--but in the mean time, the point is to ensure that everybody has the same RIGHTS, if not the same words.

Country First... California's Secession

2008-12-15T00:42:00.000-08:00

I know Palin is long, at least for a while, but I'm still fuming over the fact that she and her "Country First!" campaign were such utter hypocrisy. Until Palin was tapped, she was a secessionist who wanted Alaska to break off from the Country she was now supposedly putting first.

Why was this not an issue? Can you really be expected to put Country First, when just weeks previous you'd put country last, and were part of a group of outright haters of America?

I don't hate America--I love it. I was taught to love it, and there's much to love.

But I can love America and still hate the way it's been run for eight years, and still, at times, think the best plan for California would be to secede. I mean, it was good enough for the Republican running-mate, why can't it be good enough for our Republican Governator?

I think about this scenario when I'm angry about the way the country is being run--into the ground.

And the latest bonehead move is by Southern Senators who have blocked any loans to struggling US automakers--at least the automakers who aren't in their states!

How dare these soon-to-be-out-on-their-asses asshole Senators use their last few minutes in power to try to break the unions? Who are they to tell union workers that they need to make less money--at a time when it's not the unions who are at fault, it's management--and it's senators themselves for not following Europe's lead in terms of energy efficiency for cars.

So, while they still clung to power, these senators, mostly from the south, have screwed Detroit--and the rest of the country--including themselves.

The senators who kept the auto loans from happening just happen to be the senators of states where there are auto factories from foreign companies with non-union jobs: VW, Mercedes, Hyundai and Toyota.

These senators through it was within their power to insist that United Auto workers would agree to work for non-union wages, as if this had all been their fault. Let's not talk about the $700 billion given to money men who perpetrated fraudulent if not criminal financial schemes--they're OK, throw money at them.

Meanwhile, these senators are too stupid to realize that their auto workers would suffer, too. Because if GM or Chrysler goes bankrupt, all the major auto suppliers will be hit hard, if not into bankruptcy themselves, and since all major automakers use basically the same suppliers for dashboards, seats, airbags, brakes, even transmissions, all those German and Japanese automakers wouldn't be able to get parts to build cars!

What's more, the North's answer to the Southern union breaking should have been, "Sure, we'll work for non-union wages like your foreign automakers, just as soon as you give us nationalized health care, like the foreign auto companies give employees in their native countries so we don't have to spend a huge chunk of the cost of our cars and health care for current and retired workers."

Assholes. I'm sick of the politics of backwater states taking priority over truly national matters, and their spiteful little political moves that will even hurt themselves but they're too dumb to realize it.

So I'm once again back to wanting California to secede from the Union. We pay more federal taxes and get less back from the feds, while we're subsidizing the south. And to what end?

California doesn't need the rest of the USA. We're the 7th largest economy on the planet. We build computers and cars and planes and all things internet. We even produce more food than any other US state. So we'd have lots of exports to the US of A, even more than Canada!

Of course, Oregon and Washington should also secede and join California, because it would make sense to have the whole coast.

Of course, now that we will soon have a REAL president again, rather than a brain-dead puppet of fascist corporations, the US is going to need California to help rebuild and get through this depression. So we'd better stick around for a while, at least until the next fascist Republican president.

Why the US auto industry deserves to be saved

2008-11-28T17:35:00.000-08:00

I'm sick of hearing how the US Automakers somehow don't deserve a bailout, while banks and insurance companies, that were so poorly run they literally self-destructed, have been bailed out, paid off, propped up, despite the poor management, and without berating them or asking them for a plan to make it all better.

The government simply threw money at the white collar companies that produce nothing. Yes, it's important to have banks and insurance companies, it's vital that the money continues to flow.

But the US economy is built on more than shuffling money around--it's built on making things--or at least it used to be. There are fewer and fewer companies that actually make things now, and more that are either about ideas (that's fine), or just making money from money (is that really productive, or just exploitative?)

GM and Ford are building better cars today than they ever have--even in their golden age of tail fins.

US car quality is every bit as good as rivals from Japan and Germany.

And yet they're being treated as if "nobody buys them" and "everything they make it crap." Yet they sell over half the cars in this country. That's a majority of the market share, and a larger percentage than Presidents have gotten in elections in years.

What the automakers have yet to do is change the PERCEPTION of their brands and vehicles.

True, the Big Three put out some bad cars for a number of years, they wrecked their own brands and reputations--but now they have fixed their products--it takes longer to repair their images.

I went to the San Francisco auto show and in looking at car designs and interior quality, GM absolutely had some of the best looking, most well-designed and put together cars. The Chevy Malibu's interior is beautiful and more customizable than just about anything under $150K--I thought it was better designed and built than the Maserati Quattroporte, which cost five times as much.

The Cadillac interiors with their leather-wrapped everything, including dash, are more attractive and better made than more expensive European cars, including Mercedes (and head and shoulders above Lexus, which somehow manages to create truly ugly car interiors with atrocious Maraschino cherry red "wood" accents).

At the low end--the Chevy HHR is less expensive than the Scion xB, gets better gas mileage, is more attractive, and clearly has a better interior design and quality. The Scion's interior is hideous, it looks like a cheap boombox made of hard black plastic.

As for Ford, the Edge is thoroughly and thoughtfully designed inside and out. The Mustang is cool and desirable, even to my European friends. The new Flex, a "mini on steroids" is a wonderful design, practical and attractive. And while I feel the entire Lincoln and Mercury lines could go and not be missed, the main Ford product line is strong. Except for Jeep and the mini-vans, Chrysler is weak, but it still sells a lot of cars and employs a lot of people. It could be pared down to its strongest assets and continue--even as Jeep alone. Jeep minivans anyone?

As for the bailout--Washington was happy to give 120 BILLION to AIG, a company that did so much wrong, and literally played with money. Yet somehow they could be trusted "without a plan."

Yet when it comes to automakers who actually CREATE and PRODUCE something, who actually CREATE JOBS, they are scolded like bad children and told to go home and do their homework before they can be given 1/10th of what went to profligate AIG, a mere 12 billion. It makes no sense.

It's time for the feds to help bail out companies that actually create jobs, rather than just playing with money.

---

Here's a great article that compares the US automakers market share with Apple's. Apple's is much smaller, yet is considered more successful. This piece helps put things in perspective.
http://www.motorobilia.com/2008/11/of-apples-and-automobiles.html

And this is another excellent piece about the bailout by the same author.

Republicans: "We're rubber, you're glue..."

2008-10-18T23:10:00.001-07:00

CONCORD, North Carolina (CNN) – John McCain stepped up his rhetoric against Barack Obama on taxes in his weekly radio address, comparing his plan to 'socialist' programs that would “convert the IRS into a giant welfare agency, redistributing massive amounts of wealth.”

What's so astounding about the current Republican propaganda machine is that they're eager to take whatever criticism can factually be applied to them, and throw it at their opponents.

You say Obama doesn't have enough experience? Introduce Palin!

The head of McCain's transition team worked on Saddam Hussein's behalf? Say Obama pals around with terrorists! Your biggest weaknesses? Say they're the other guy's! Works like magic!

McCain has been in the forefront of two major US bank meltdowns (Keating, then now with his friend Phil). So Bush has to literally socialize the banks. So what do you do--call Obama a socialist!

Of course, Bush's plan is not really socialism, which would mean health care and social services. It's fascism, which means taking care of businesses, not people. I wrote about this a few weeks ago.

"redistributing massive amounts of wealth" that's been the main goal of the Bush administration from day one--but it's been a reverse Robin Hood scheme, robbing the poor and middle class and giving it to the rich.

We have had, in the past eight years, the most massive redistribution of wealth in US history, much of it going outside the country to Iraq--and foreign corporations (of which Cheney's Halliburton is now one--they moved to Dubai to escape potential prosecution from war profiteering).

And so, since they've done it themselves, they are now pinning it on someone else.

What I don't get is why the so-called liberal media never stops to say, "Hey, wait a second, you're calling him a socialist but YOU are the ones socializing major corporations, he's just for programs to protect people."

Why does nobody say that?

A POSITIVE PATH (real American Freedom from fear, lies, greed)

2008-10-05T19:19:00.000-07:00

The Cheney /Bush administration has left this country (and world) in a crisis.

Their policies of lying, cheating, stealing, killing, destroying--somehow sold as "Family Values" have done nothing but undermined everything that Americans grow up holding sacred--freedom and democracy.

In the guise of "protectors" Cheney/Bush have turned this country from a democracy into a Fascist state--where the corporations and government tag-team to tell average citizens what we can and can't do.

Bush/Cheney have turned the government against us. Against you. Against me. They lie to us. They steal from us. They spy on us.

They say they're for "less government interference" but in reality they've created the biggest, most dangerous government this country has ever had.

And now that we're on the brink of disaster--they don't know what to do. So they just do what they got away with before, they lie, they cheat, they steal, they kill, and they tell you it's good for you.

But the neo-CON-MEN don't want to be responsible the shit they themselves shat. They don't know what to do with it, because neo-cons have no positive ideas--only fear-mongering and attacks. Propaganda is all they can do.

You can't get out of this massive mess, now financial as well as military, with propaganda.

So they need a Democrat for at least four years (it took Clinton 8 to remove the Reagan/Bush1 deficit and turn it into a surplus) to clean it up for them.

This mess can be cleaned up, but it'll take intelligence (something we know is lacking in the neo-cons, who can't think more than a few days ahead, hence the financial crisis that anyone with a brain would have seen coming and could have avoided), dedication and time.

And, sadly, while paying for all this unnecessary war, financial gambling and the ultimate redistribution o wealth, there won't be much left for little things like health care, infrastructure and preparing for the future by developing green energy, three things that are essential for real national security.

Sadly, the fascism of the Cheney, a group of people so sad and devoid of even basic human compassion, could only imagine spending that money killing and destroying--not to mention stealing--stealing from the taxes most of us pay, and stealing from the investments people made for their future.

They could have spent the far less money on health care (for life!), and rebuilding bridges, roads, water systems, sustainable energy and other vital infrastructure.

They could have created rather then destroyed. And in creating--they could have made friends instead of enemies, and they would have been improving the world, rather than literally tearing it apart.

And that, in a nutshell, is the choice. The Bush/Cheney/McCain neo-CON path of bankrupting the country on a rampage of greed, death and self-destruction.

Or the Obama/Binden POSITIVE path of REBUILDING the country in the true American way.

Some people who know nothing but fear and hate will vote for the only candidate they can see--because he's selling fear and hate--McCain.

I truly believe that the American people are weary to the bone of 8 years of fear, hate, and destruction.

That we long for real American values of working WITH our fellow man--not against him. Of buildig a better world. Of freedom (freedom from want and fear and greedy financial criminals--freedom from our own government who has been spying on us, lying to us, and stealing from us).

The people who want a better world for themselves and their children must vote for the candidate who has a positive message, and a postive path--Obama.

Obama Wins. Country Wins. YOU: REGISTER & VOTE

2008-10-04T10:47:00.001-07:00

The good news is that internal Republican pollsters have basically said McCain has lost.

Palin's performances give her LESS credibility, only 25% say she's ready and those are the die hard brain dead Republicans (we might possibly know one or two personally--oh, sorry).

So, I'm convinced Obama will win the votes.

Now the question is--will they be counted? And will the Republicans do electoral college shenanigans.

I actually think Republicans will be relieved to have this mess they created in somebody else's hands. That's their pattern. Look at Reagan/Bush1, they screwed things up royal, then gave it to Clinton to clean up. They attacked him mercilessly for eight years but he cleaned it up and gave us a surplus.

Then Bush2 takes over (face it, folks, he didn't win, the Supreme Court unconstitutionally gave it to him), messes up the economy and world worse than any president in history--and now Daddy Democrat has to come in and be the adult and clean it up--while Republicans throw tantrums the entire time and try to undermine him.

Clearly Republicans are very spoiled children (if not "the bad seeds" :)

Of course, I will be surprised if Cheney allows there to be an election at all--I am still waiting for him to pull something, like another terrorist attack.

Then again, he may take his freshly printed billions and go to Dubai, like his company, Halliburton, where he can't be extradited to the world war tribunal and held up as the war criminal he is.

I live in hope :)

Better ways to spend 700 BILLION DOLLARS!

2008-09-29T19:59:00.001-07:00

The people who need to be protected are AMERICAN CITIZENS, not Corporations who knowingly and willfully took actions for temporary profit that they had to know would lead to long-term disaster. Giving them money produces nothing.

We need to get back to making things -- that's what made this country great.

We've had too many years of "trickle down" economics where the people in the middle and bottom basically just get pissed on.

It's time to try "Bubble Up" economics--where money is spread out among the people so it can rise up. JFK said, "A rising tide lifts all boats."

The perfect example of this is FDR's public works programs which created jobs, pumped money into the economy--and resulted in building huge public works we still use today!

YOU and I deserve to be protected from greedy criminals on this huge of a scale.

Here's how we need to use the money:

Fund the FDIC to make sure our bank accounts are safe. If you're worked hard and saved money, then you expect it to be there. We've been told the FDIC insures our money so it's safe. But the truth is that the FDIC doesn't have enough money to cover all our bank accounts--and it should.

It's one thing to lose money on stocks--stocks are not insured, they are risk. But "money in the bank" is supposed to be safe, protected, insured by the government!
Rewrite mortgages. The only people who can possibly blame homeowners for the crisis are the same greedy ones who gave the loans. Anyone who's had a home loan knows that normal people cannot figure out the hundreds of pages of small print. That's not our job. If someone wasn't qualified to get a loan, then WaMu and the others shouldn't have given them.

Now the government could come in, rewrite mortgages, let people keep their homes, and that alone would help stabilize the housing market which is a key to this crisis.
Fund national health insurance so people don't have to go bankrupt if they get sick. Most home foreclosures come from people going bankrupt from their medical expenses. That's absolutely insane. My Australian and Danish friends think this is unbelievable since it's so alien to them. Nobody should lose everything trying to pay for their health care. And nobody else in the industrialized world has to--just us. Meanwhile, insurance companies won't insure people with pre-existing conditions, and often cancel people when they get sick. We can stop this insanity now with some of this money!
Create a new WPA to create jobs and rebuild our infrastructure. Roads. Bridges. Schools. Water systems. Our country is literally falling apart--and this money would both create jobs and rebuild the nation. This money would make something!
Pay off McCain/Palin to get out of the race. Instead of electing McCain/Palin, I say just pay them off to go away. I think Palin would take 100 million, and McCain doesn't really need the money so he'd take half that. Just as we could have paid off people to get rid of Saddam for a few hundred million, (thereby saving trillions of dollars and tens of thousands of lives!) we can save the country by paying off these people to just go away!

We already are so massively in debt we can't afford 700 billion loaned from more foreign banks--imagine the interest on the debt alone. But if we're going to spend money we don't have there are GOOD ways to spend it :)

Say Hello to SOCIALISM... really FASCISM!

2008-09-29T13:10:00.000-07:00

Since the takeover of major banks, brokerages and insurance companies, the USA has just changed from Democracy to what some people think is Socialism. The change is really to fascism, as true socialism, in the Scandinavian manner, would also have socialized health care and made sure people are taken care of.

They should be bailing out the FDIC to protect YOUR money in the bank. They should be protecting legitimate homeowners (not speculators), funding universal health care (since so many mortgage defaults come from bankruptcy caused by paying medical bills), and creating a WPA-like group (if you're going to go socialist, that's the way to go) to create jobs and rebuild our infrastructure.

But this isn't about protecting people or rebuilding the country.

This is about completing our move to Fascism, where we must bail out the greedy corporations that screwed us in the first place, and hand more money than the bloated Pentagon gets, to one person with no oversight or control--and judicial immunity.

That's not democracy. That is the very definition of a Fascist dictatorship, only in this case even our El Presidente would be overridden by this new financial wizard who was so smart he didn't see all this coming.

That's where we've been moving for eight years under Bush and the neo-cons--to a state where we had a government by corporations, for corporations and of corporations, rather than our traditional democratic rule of "of the people, for the people, and by the people."

I have said since the start of the Neo-Con administration (since this is wider than just Bush and Cheney, though they have been the leaders), that their goal was nothing less than to destroy our economy.

WHY?

Because that was the only way they could fundamentally change the government from representative democracy, to corporate fascism.

This administration may not have been competent at much of anything--not at preparing for or dealing with national disasters like Katrina, or preparing for or running a war, but they have been brilliant at things always associated with fascists:

Propaganda
Seizing control of the government away from the people (secret meetings with oil companies to create an "energy plan" that's only in their interest)
Taking property away from the people (nationalizing formerly private owned companies, leaving the stockholders with nothing--Lehman Brothers stock went from around $70 to seventeen CENTS! Meanwhile--YOUR money is being used to bail out these corporations)

Done.

And--while YOUR MONEY is used to pay for this RISK, any profits from these corporations will be private. That's right--YOU PAY THE RISK, THEY REAP THE PROFITS. Is that fair?

They have basically bankrupted the country with tax cuts to ONLY the rich and corporations, then spending trillions on the war (which funnels money back to corporations.

Look at the national debt--right now we have no means of paying it off. Each citizen--THIS MEANS YOU--owes more than $31,000

Then, without really the money to do so, the government has NATIONALIZED the corporations that were the backbone of our economy--controlling money, stocks, mortgages. (And "nationalized" means they bought these companies with YOUR money, which, in a democracy, would mean you owned part of them--but that's now how Fascism works--here you have no ownership or control).

So, in a mere eight years, the Neo-cons have managed to take us from the Democracy of our Founding fathers, and, with little complaining from the press (also corporately controlled), turned the USA into a FASCIST STATE.

Some would call this a bloodless coup--but it required the deaths and mutilation of tens of thousands of Americans, and countless people of other nationalities.

What's so ironic is that Republicans have always tried to scare Americans with communism and the "Red menace" for years. Yet now, the "Neo-cons" (who only pretend to be conservative--they are radicals who only call themselves Republicans but don't reflect true Republican values, they are and have always been Fascists), have turned this country into exactly what they warned people away from--a totalitarian state that smothers the individual.

Meanwhile, the rich have fewer taxes, more money, and can now more easily buy your house at fire sale prices.

And you? YOU ARE WORTH LESS, if not WORTHLESS. Everything you own is worth less--except the gasoline in your car. If you owned a house, it was your biggest asset--and now it's worth 25-50% less than it was two years ago. That's less money for you, less security.

YOU ARE NOT PROTECTED. The government won't help you keep your house if you have a bad mortgage, one that lenders understood but you didn't. They have only bought up the lenders to control them. You can lose your house.

Traditionally socialist countries have nationalized health care. And some Socialism has worked in this country--Social Security and Medicare.

But in Fascism we won't get health care or any other form of protection--because Fascism is run for the corporations--and insurance and oil companies are making huge profits the way things are--they are both bleeding you dry.

YOU ARE ONLY A CONSUMER. Your only job is to shop, to spread your money around. That's your job in this new fascist state.

Now--you may be saying, "Hey, it's still a democracy, and we'll prove it in November with a presidential election."

Really? Like we proved it in 2000 when the Supreme Court took the unconstitutional step of selecting, instead of electing a president?

Like in 2004 where in Ohio and Florida there was widespread electronic voting machine fraud?

"Yes, I still get to vote," you cry. Well, you can vote all you want, but if your votes aren't counted correctly, then it doesn't matter--it's a sham, all for show. And with the takeover of electronic voting machines, with no paper trail, there's NO WAY TO TELL IF YOUR VOTE IS COUNTED. NONE.

And the company behind these machines, Diebold, is run by neo-cons, who can now decide who wins elections.

How do we stop the race to Fascism and move back to Democracy?

The only way is to make the election so obviously in favor of someone who is NOT part of the fascist plan. In this case that choice is Obama. Whether you like him or not--he is the only AMERICAN FOR DEMOCRACY on the ticket.

McCAIN FLIP FLOPPED so much he's pointing in the totally opposite direction of where he used to be. Palin is nothing more than a tool of the fascists, with the perfect smiling facade.

But don't be fooled--this Fascist takeover cannot be stopped by the very people who created it. Their goal, and the goal of the political machine behind them, is to continue the transformation to Fascism.

But--if the election is NOT close, if Obama has an 8 point lead, then hacking voting machines in a few states won't be the deciding factor as it was in the past.

IF YOU LOVE THE DEMOCRACY OF OUR FOUNDING FATHERS, AND YOUR FOREFATHERS, THEN YOU MUST VOTE FOR OBAMA.

Because the only way to stop the march of Fascism is to put people who love democracy in the white house. That's the only way to stop it now.

So the choice is clear.

McCAIN=FASCISM
(corporations rule)

OBAMA=DEMOCRACY
(of the people, by the people, for the people)

Which do you want? Which one will work for you--the people?

CHOOSE DEMOCRACY

McCain's tie and ties--who is he, a USED CAR SALESMAN?

2008-09-26T18:58:00.000-07:00

McCain's odd candy-striped tie was NOT presidential.

In fact, his tie and ill-fitting suit both made him look like a used car salesman.

But a mere fashion faux paux is trivial--what's important is that McCain isa used policy salesman--Selling old, worn out, tired. FAILED.

And let's talk about McCains TIES to the people behind the failure of the savings and loans, behind the deregulation and current failure of banks. Those are the ties that bind.

And what about McCain's ties to lobbyists? He had an affair with one and then gave her lobby special treatment!

Would you buy a country from a man like this?
A man who lies even when it would be simple to tell the truth?
A man who was in the middle of the failure of savings and loan failure, and is now in the middle of the biggest financial crisis since the great depression?
A man who's best friend and financial advisor is Phil Gramm, who wrote the laws that deregulated the market--which caused this current crisis?

Why would we want to buy used failed policy from McCain?

We need a NEW model, new policy, new ideas--WE NEED CHANGE. We need OBAMA.

Palin - A RUSSIAN SPY TRYING TO TAKE OVER THE USA?

2008-09-16T00:57:00.000-07:00

I AM AFRAID TO VOTE FOR SARAH PALIN, BECAUSE SHE COULD BE A RUSSIAN SPY!!!

SHE'S NOT A MOM, SHE'S A POLITICIAN--and maybe a SPY!

SHE NEVER HAD AN F.B.I. BACKGROUND check!!! For all we know, she could be a Russian spy. She lives close enough to Russia as Cindy McCain reminded us.

LAST YEAR SHE WANTED ALASKA TO LEAVE THE UNION, to stop being part of the USA.

She is so AGAINST OUR GREAT NATION that she was working to separate oil-rich Alaska from the rest of the U-S of A!!! She's not what anyone would call a patriot.

And why did she want to take Alaska and all it's oil? Did she want to give it to Russia?

And why would anyone want our next VP or president to have recently wanted to be no part of this country? She was Alaska first, NOT country first.

We don't know who she really is? Maybe she's going to kill McCain, take over the country, and then, at last, the Reds will have control over the USA.

We don't know, because McCain, in one of the hasty decisions even he has said he regrets, didn't leave enough time for a thorough background search.

Because McCain didn't care enough about this country to spend enough time looking for the person who would be president if he died.

McCAIN DOESN'T CARE ENOUGH TO SEND THE VERY BEST, and PALIN COULD BE A SPY. THAT'S UNAMERICAN.

Don't let the Red's take over the Red White and Blue!

DON'T VOTE FOR PALIN--IT COULD BE A SOVIET PLOT!!!

ARE YOU BETTER OFF NOW? No? Don't be DISTRACTED!!!

2008-09-11T20:52:00.001-07:00

Palin's main job, which she is doing like a smart politician, whose main job is to be a DISTRACTION.

That's pure Karl Rove strategy. He ran the white house (into the ground) for 7 years. He started a war as pure politics! He traitorously exposed a CIA operative (doing that really is treason and there's proof he did it).

And his ploy is simple, yet effective"

Let's not talk about war, or the economy, or home foreclosures or gas prices.

No, let's talk about VP Barbie.

And, of course, it works, because the media is so shocking shallow, superficial and stupid. It used to be called the "fourth estate" like it was part of the US government Judicial/Legislative/Executive.

But it long ago shirked its responsibility in exchange for ratings. And for some reason, that has generally mean, "Pick Democrats to death while repeating Republican lies as truths and giving them a free pass."

I don't understand why Republicans get to lie and not be challenged on it, whereas if a Democrat does one little thing it's the end of the world (lipstick on a pig, anyone--another distraction). I don't get it. I don't see how the press benefits from attacking democrats and kissing Repugnantcan ass, but they do.

Maybe it's their corporate parents--but even then, Republicans are BAD for the economy. They have been for over 100 years. A recent study shows that the country and individuals do TWICE as well under a Democrat president than under a Republican.

It's not hard to figure out why. The Republican party is the party for the rich, greedy or stupid (and "no child left behind" was designed to keep people stupid by not really teaching, just forcing kids to remember--and believe--what they're told!). No wonder Republicans don't help. They don't have positive ideas, they just have negative attacks.

Not one major government project that really helps people--we're talking about Social Security, Medicare, things like that, has been created by Republicans--in fact, they always fight them, and then try to dismantle them (as Bush tried to do with Social Security--he would have put all our money into the sub-prime mortgages and the if Bush has his way--Social Security would have been wiped out. Maybe that was the plan, yet another way to suck all the money from the middle class and give it to the rich).

But it stinks. STINKS. And people are too stupid to smell it deserve to be lied to and cheated, as they have been for eight years.

But the 49% (or probably more) that does smell it--we don't deserve to be dropped into the dump because of the stupid people.

That's why we have to fight stupidity.

NOW, before it's too late.

Start by ignoring Sarah Palin (or admitting she could be a Russian spy!). Focus on the real problems of this country.

ARE YOU BETTER OFF NOW THAN YOU WERE EIGHT YEARS AGO?

OF COURSE NOT.

DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT.

Morning in America - SELL THE SUNSHINE!

2008-09-09T20:22:00.000-07:00

Republicans are good at one thing--propaganda. They have no positive ideas at all, it's really sick and sad.

As for what to do:

1) McCAIN=BUSH - "the country can't afford four more years."

2) OBAMA=HOPE (he's kind of lost that message)

There's a great piece about the old "morning in america" ad Reagan ran. It was nauseating, but it was totally effective.

You have to sell people the dream, not the reality. You can't "convince" voters for president. You have to either promise them a sunny day, or make them afraid of the approaching storm.

Sunny is better.

Obama: It's NOT strategy, it's PERSONALITY!

2008-08-03T01:06:00.000-07:00

I am seriously worried about Obama.

He's clearly being run into the ground by the same group of political hacks who undermined Gore. The giant "triangulation" brain idiots who don't realize that wasn't the thing that got Bill elected--it was Bill's personality. He could have said anything. Yet they're sure it was strategy, when it was just personality.

Now Obama's talking about drilling. What's next?

This is the most basic marketing mistake. You don't try to sell your product to people you know don't want it--yet that's what they're trying to do, and in doing so, they're making people who did want what he was selling less sure they want it.

So in the end, they're not persuading the non-believers and losing the believers. It's dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb.

Obama needs to stop listening to these political hacks, be himself again, and remember his most important job is to inspire! That it's not about strategy, it's about personality (stupid!)

I still do not understand how McCain can have 44% in polls--I know 25% of the public is either ignorant, insane or both. But what's wrong with that other 19%? Have they been in a coma for the past eight years? Have they not seen the country go to hell in a hand basket (I love this line, "Why am I in this hand basket and where are we going?"

If nothing else, have they not noticed the price of gas and wondered why Exxon made more profits than any corporation in US history and realized it's at their expense!

How can they be SO oblivious (or ignorant/insane).

So unless Obama gets back on track as "the Man from Hope" (hmm, I remember someone else named that, and he won!), then he's just going to be someone who's kind of like McCain, except more wishy-washy, and we know how the ignorant swing voters love wishy-washy (and how they won't remember that McCain has changed his stance on so many things since selling his soul to the GOP).

Sigh.

So, for the moment, I'm left not wanting to have too much hope because I'm afraid of being disappointed.

YOU OWE $31,302.33 - Thank Bush and Republicans

2008-07-25T00:06:00.000-07:00

DO THE MATH! You CAN'T "Lower Taxes. Raise Spending. Balance the Budget."

"I'll lower taxes, raise spending on the war, and balance the budget." John McCain.

It started with Ronald Reagan and his famous "Reagonomics," which was code for, "I'm going to tell you I can do the impossible, because that sounds so much better than telling you the truth, and that's what you want to hear anyway."

That's like me saying, "I'm not going to earn as much money, I'm going to spend more, and yet somehow I am going to magically make my budget balance at the end of the month.

How? HOW?

DO THE FREAKING MATH, PEOPLE!

Amazingly, no one bothered to ask how Reagan would do it. The press simply never asked the question so he didn't have to answer.

And the result--the largest deficit in history--until now, of course.

Then President Clinton managed to not only pay off this deficit in record time, but turn it into a surplus.

Then along comes yet another Republican who, in nearly the blink of an eye, not only burns through the surplus but plunges the country into a unprecedented, huge deficit that, as of July 2008, is approximately $31,000 PER PERSON. That's right -- because of George W. Bush and Dick W. Cheney and the Republican W. Pimps in the congress and senate, you and your children owe over $31,000--and that's just for the deficit!

Um, let's see, WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO PAY IT OFF?

Huh?

It WILL come out of your pocket eventually.

The war debt alone is more than $10,000 PER PERSON!

Where will this money come from? Well, not from corporations, oh no, we can't tax them, that's bad for the economy! Gas companies, no, they're only making billions, that's not enough.

WTF?

By the way, the current national deficit is
9,528,997,575,696.25

I think that's a quadrillion, but it's so big I don't know, and so big none of us can envision that much. I can't even really envision a billion (a thousand million). But I can envision $31,000, I know what that will buy, and what you and I won't be able to buy as we have to spent it paying off George W. Bush's debt.

(See the National Debt Clock)

Drugs and Oil

2008-07-08T18:27:00.000-07:00

I think medicine has been in decline ever since insurance and drug companies took over.

Now they're talking about giving cholesterol lowering drugs to kids as young as 8. That's really, really sick. They have no idea of the long term implications on kids, yet they are happy to risk the lives of millions of children (who will become millions of adults with as now unknown ailments because of it).

Why? So they can sell more drugs. The insurance companies will pay the pharma companies and it ensures that we all need MORE insurance and drugs. I'm suspicious of all those drugs, since you can get Red Yeast Rice at any health food store, it has the same NATURAL chemicals in very low dose, which works fine. Even then, don't give it to kids. Jesus F. Christ on a cracker.

What's amazing is that we have managed to grow into reasonably healthy human beings without it, and wow, our parents did and they ate eggs and bacon every day. How is that possible?

Pixar's Wall-E presents a wonderful and sad vision of humans in the future--a vision that "nanny corporations" are working tirelessly to achieve. They want to turn us into Matrix-like beings that do nothing but consume and spend.

And they're doing a great job of preparing us for this future, one news bite at a time.

Yesterday regular gas cost $4.45 a gallon in Northern California.

And yet I found myself being grateful it wasn't $6. Why? Because in that one day I'd I heard three different people say they'd heard gas was going to $8 a gallon! This after the "gas is going to $7 a gallon" a month or so ago.

This is clearly all designed to make us grateful to pay $4.45 now, and $6 (or $7!) in a year, because at least it's not $8. How adaptable we are! How stupid we are!

And the citizens of this country, most of whom are more like farm animals than people, are just going, "Oh, well," instead of getting furious and screaming, "Those f-ing fascists Bush and Cheney are screwing the entire economy so their friends can suck up all our money!"

Do they not remember that gas was under $1.50 a gallon in 2000? That even after 9/11 when it jumped to $1.70, it went back down?

It's only after the concerted efforts of the Bush Fascists (and they are fascists--because fascists are corporate-run governments), starting a war on the oilfields *partly out of the insane stupidity of thinking they could take over Iraq's oil, and partly because it was their way to getting total power--look people, we're in a war!) that gas is the price it is.

And when it's $7 or $8 this country's lifestyle is going to change drastically. No more WalMart "Buy it cheap while we screw everyone!" (which is a little like those psychological tests where normally people off the street would give apparently lethal shocks to other people because they were told to--not caring who they hurt because they were following orders and getting theirs).

No more relatively cheap food (yes, a loaf of bread is now an amazing $4, but our parents complained about bread when it was a quarter, and overall I'd say food is cheaper based on the value of the dollar). No more cheap clothes and cheap everything from China--too expensive to process and ship.

A LOT of jobs lost, as people can't pay for luxuries and entertainment (except people at the top end). I've read that the first thing people cut out are restaurants, movies, clothes. We are now mostly a service economy and people will cut out the services. Great.

But gas companies will still be making billions--and getting billions in tax breaks at a time when we have McCain going the Reaganomics route of saying, "I'll lower taxes and keep the war going and balance the budget."

How? HOW? Do the freaking math people! No one bothered to ask how Reagan would do it and he created what was, at the time, a gigantic deficit. Now we have one so huge (the war debt alone is more than $10,000 PER PERSON), where will this money come from? Well, not from corporations, oh no, we can't tax them, that's bad for the economy! Gas companies, no, they're only making billions, that's not enough.

WTF?

OK, enough of all that. I know that China and India's increasing need for gas has a little something to do with, and that mostly, we're over peak oil and we can't continue on this way forever, so rising prices and lower consumption can be a very good thing.

But there were smart ways to do all this and literally insane and stupid ways of doing this, and we have allowed the insane and stupid to chart our course. Sigh

More Republican lies about health care

2008-05-15T01:55:00.000-07:00

Dick Armey is aptly named. This Republican corporate shill is once again attacking the idea of health care for all Americas by pulling out the same tired arguments.

And yet his argument now not only sounds tired, it sounds outright absurd, like something from a political bizarro world, where lies are truth and truth is irrelevant.

EVERYONE knows the American health care system is broken. Patients know it. Doctors know it. Employers and employees know it. The self-employed know it (they often can't get it).

EVERYONE knows that it's increasingly difficult (not to mention expensive) to get health insurance, and without it, we can either go bankrupt, or go without life saving medical care.

Everyone knows that every other industrialized country in the world has government run health care for all--care that works. My friends in Australia and Denmark simply can't believe that in the USA, the richest country in the world, our citizens are left to fend for themselves in an insanely expensive system, when they have no financial worries about health care. They need it, they get it.

So why, at a time when everybody knows this common obvious problem, does someone write an editorial, and Murdoch's WSJ print it, trying to say that a there's no problem, and a national health care system isn't an improvement.

This is a total throw-back to the ignorant and fact-deprived arguments of the past.

How long will Americans have to endure this kind of corporate pandering nonsense?

How long will some Republicans claim we can't afford health care for all Americans--when that is the SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF "NATIONAL SECURITY." Why is it Republicans have no problem throwing almost a TRILLION dollars at Iraq, which has only proven you can throw away a trillion dollars and end up with less security, but they can't spend one month's budget in Iraq to protect the health of all Americans?

How can you argue against truly protecting Americans like this? The townspeople should be chasing this monster with torches.

When's the last time we needed another nuclear missile? When's the last time you got sick? Everyone gets sick. We haven't used a nuclear weapon in over 50 years (nor should we).

This argument is the very definition of insanity, and it's repulsive that the WSJ is following the sick path of neo-cons who think that just because they say something it's true, even when everybody else knows they're false.

The day when they can simply repeat the same lies over and over and over are--over.

VOTE DEMOCRAT

2008-01-30T19:50:00.000-08:00

First--I don't care who you vote for as long as they're a Democrat, or even a true conservative, such as Ron Paul.

Just don't vote for yet another hypocritical liar who says one thing and does another, who steals from the poor to give to the rich, who starts wars and kills hundreds of thousands with no good reason, and who is trying to undermine democracy and personal freedom at every turn.

OK?

That's not much to ask.

Next--While John Edwards was my first choice, since he's out of the race, I urge you to vote for either Hillary or Obama. Either one. Take your pick.

Either will seem like the height of competence and honor after eight years of total incompetence and dishonor.

Nobody knows how long it will take to undo all the damage the Cheney/Bush Regime has done to this country--and they've make it their priority destroy democracy and freedom as we've known it, and that's the only thing they've been successful doing!

But we all know that we have to change direction, that we have to try to repair the damage and move on.

As much as I used to respect McCain, he's shown in the past four years that he is willing to sell his integrity to the GOP, which is very sad. I'm sure he's fine man, but he hasn't demonstrated backbone, integrity and honor the past four years.

So--whether you want Obama's slick if calculated Kennedy-esque brand of Change, or Hillary's slick if calculated newfound warmth brand of Change--just choose one and vote.

Vote with your money, vote with your voice, vote with your vote.

The Reagan Playbook of Presidential Platitudes

2008-01-29T19:36:00.000-08:00

There's a candidate out there, I'm not going to name names, who others find inspiring and personally I have so far found unconvincing.

Why? Because this candidate is a Democrat who's selling a 21st century "Morning in America" shtick straight from the Reagan Playbook of Presidential Platitudes.

I remember hearing this all before.

Then again, I think it's meant for a young audience who will find it all very new and inspiring.

While it doesn't make me think less of this candidate, it makes it difficult to see who they really are beneath the rhetoric.

The good news is that there are still two liberal candidates in the race, and it's still a race, so the media hasn't been able to declare a winner without even an election.

So Vote.

Why I'm for John Edwards

2008-01-06T20:44:00.001-08:00

(Postscript: Edwards exits with honor) Salon Magazine's Walter Shapiro wrote a great piece about Edwards's exit:

"Edwards ran boldly as a unabashed heart-on-his-sleeve, union-windbreaker-on-his-back old-fashioned populist. As the most liberal (whoops, progressive) major Democratic presidential contender in more than two decades, Edwards walked the picket lines and spoke passionately of poverty and injustice.

What Edwards offered -- through all the debilitating and often irrelevant flaps over haircuts, hedge funds and humongous houses -- was an opportunity to return the Democratic Party to its blue-collar roots. As he put it with characteristic fervor Wednesday, "I don't know when our party began to turn away from the cause of working people, from the fathers who were working three jobs literally just to pay the rent, mothers sending their kids to bed wrapped up in their clothes and in coats because they couldn't afford to pay for heat."

...Edwards requested only one thing when he telephoned Obama and Hillary Clinton Tuesday night to confide that he was considering withdrawing before the Feb. 5 primaries.

What Edwards asked for and received was a commitment from his erstwhile rivals that they make the eradication of poverty a central theme in their campaigns."

This is the kind of man who would have made a president for the people, and will, I imagine, continue to make a positive difference in this country and world.

--------------------------------------------------------------

A president is elected, because people like them, even trust them, to do the right thing.

John Edwards has the charisma, warmth--and experience it takes to be win the election and make a good president. While the president is perhaps the most difficult and important job in the world (I say that from the POV of an American!), it's also one where intelligence and even their stated goals aren't the most important thing--their personality is.

When I see John Edwards speak I trust him to do the right thing. He'll stand up for what's right, rather than just what's politically convenient. Here's a strong statement he makes about giving all Americans health care (rather than the ones who can afford whatever the insurance companies may demand, and are then lucky if they're not canceled if they get sick).

Here's Edwards talking about his Patients Bill of Rights--he's fighting for you and me, not insurance companies, or pharmaceutical firms:

“When I’m president I’m going to say to members of Congress and members of my administration, including my cabinet: I’m glad that you have health care coverage and your family has health care coverage. But if you don’t pass universal health care by July of 2009 – in six months – I’m going to use my power as president to take your health care away from you. There’s no excuse for politicians in Washington having health care when you don’t have health care.

Why do I support Edwards? Because I think he's the most "real" honest and connected of the candidates. Hillary is brilliant and would make a fine president, but she's a political animal, and so while things may get passed, they will get watered down along the way. Obama is a fine man,
but he speaks in political platitudes. I've listened to his Iowa speech and he speaks as if he's a presidential hallmark card. All very nice and grand, Regan-esque in its lack of specifics.

John Edward talks like a smart, caring man.

Hillary and Obama are playing political games, waiting to vote on issues regarding the war until they see how the other votes. We don't have time for games, we need action.

Watch Edwards' speech after Iowa--he talks about people, about health, about jobs. Unlike the others, Barak and Clinton, he speaks in specifics--what needs to be done for the people of this country.

And here's an American who lost his job talking about what Edwards said to his son:

Go to Edwards' site and see more.

Let's hope true conservatives make a comeback

2007-05-30T16:16:00.002-07:00

I'm a democrat, but I'm hoping true conservatives make a come back? Why? Because real conservatives who want less government interference (along with lower taxes) are libertarians. They support freedom and the constitution. They are, in short, everything current so-called Republicans aren't. And currently, the only true conservative I know is Ron Paul.

They're what Republicans used to be about before they turned into neo-CONS, con-men and out-and-out liars who sell the idea you can lower taxes, raise spending and eliminate the deficit at the same time. That all started with Reagan. It was "tell people what they want to hear and they'll buy it," which they did.

That was bad enough, but then it degraded into "Tell people what we want them to believe, and they will," and they did.

The same Republicans who said they were against big government have created the biggest, most intrusive governments in US history (this also started with Reagan) with the biggest deficits to match.

They worked to build the Federal government into a frightening power that steals control from the states (and individual citizens!), defeating one of the most basic protections the founding fathers fought for--keeping federal powers in check.

They systematically remove oversight from corporations while making the government more intrusive in personal lives. That means they have, in a few (but seemingly endless) years, turned our democracy into something not far from a true regime (one where corporations control government).

The Feds are now run in great part by corporations. This is especially true of energy companies , one reason the US went to war--oil (argue all you want, but it's painfully true).

Energy companies also crafted the governments still mostly energy policy--Cheney's still never had to say who he met with or how they formed the policy--much less what the policy really is.

Meanwhile, gas prices have more than doubled since Bush took office. Why aren't Americans outraged? Especially when oil company profits reach new levels of greed. I believe companies should make a profit, but making more of a profit when the country is bleeding money into oil companies coffers is outrageous un-American price-gouging. Yet it's precisely what the neo-CONs are doing--redistributing the wealth of the country from individuals to a select group of corporations.

The "Republicans" in control now are not Republicans in the classic sense, hence the "neo-CON." They are, in fact, radicals who are working tirelessly to undermine the very roots of democracy.

They got a president in office who wasn't elected, through the Supreme Court, which was itself unconstitutional and a radical violation of constitutional law.

They have given the president unprecedented powers, while idiotically limited their own in the house and senate. And we've seen now how hard the Executive branch has been working to turn the Justice department, one of the balances of their power, into a tool for their power.

In the mean time, Democrats have been turned into "conservatives," trying to protect the constitution and protect individuals from the ever-escalating and out of control federal government. That used to be what Republicans said they were doing to protect us from Democratic socialist ideas--like Medicare!

There are still true conservatives in the Republican party, and they've been disgusted by what "their" party has foisted on America--and the world.

The trouble is, the neo-cons are good at really only one thing--propaganda. They're brilliant at it, just like all fascists must be in order to control citizens.

Fear is the big motivator. Greed is #2. They play on people's most base emotions and fears to control them--and make people want to be controlled.

They're also masters of language. Recently the escalation of the was was called a "surge" and the Democrats stupidly bought into it.

You cannot win using their language. Democrats needed to call it an escalation, and they need to start saying that the current administration is immoral--which it is. Lying. Stealing. Killing. All immoral. All Bush administration highlights.

Paul uses this word several times, including "an immoral monetary system," and "Though opposition to totally unnecessary war should be the only moral position"

Words like Morality and Immoral have been warped and perverted by the Neo-cons, but when people stop and think what those words really mean to them, then they start to see that they don't mean starting wars, killing and maiming people, and allowing corporations to rape our treasury and plunge us into debt (some of the worst corporate offenders, like Halliburton are actually leaving the US for the protection of the middle east, while others simply have offshore money laundering operations as efficient as those of the drug cartels!)

I have no beef with true conservatives. People who truly want to defend freedom and civil rights. Those who are against big government interference in our lives.

That said, I hope that those same people will also realize that a national health system, or an affordable insurance guarantee system is not big government, but good government, one that's really working for the security of the people.

Meanwhile, let's hope that Republicans stop being radical fascists and go back to being true Republicans again.

It's called the DEFENSE DEPARTMENT and NOT the OFFENSE DEPARTMENT

2007-04-25T17:46:00.000-07:00

Republicans keep trying to act as if they're heros because of 9/11.

The truth is the Bush administration and Republican majority needs to take responsibility for 9/11 happening in the first place!

Of course, they don't take responsibility for anything. Not for starting a war. Not for the massive deficit. Not for unemployment and a weak economy. Not for the loss of American jobs. They preach "personal responsibility" merely as a way of trying to avoid their own responsibility.

Sep 11 happened under the watch of A REPUBLICAN PRESIDENT AND MAJORITY.

That's unarguable. They might try to say that Clinton's years in office allowed it to happen, but in truth, the Clinton administration met daily--with the president, to counter-terrorism.

Did we have a terrorist attack during the Clinton administration? No.

Did we have a terrorist attack during the Bush administration? Yes. The Bush administration ignored the situation, ignored memos reading, "Bin Laden Determined to Strike United States." That's not Clinton's fault, that's clearly Bush's fault.

Now some candidates, including the formerly centrist and only recently right-wing Romney (and of course Mr. Cheney, with his massive public support of a 9%, probably the lowest of any politician in US history!) is claiming the Democrats want the US to go back on the "defensive."

That's right. We do.

Our military is called The DEFENSE DEPARTMENT and not The OFFENSE DEPARTMENT. It's called that for good reason--the US is not supposed to start wars. We are supposed to finish them. Prevent them if possible.

But the Bush administration didn't allow the defense department to plan the offense, Rumsfeld and Rove and Wolfowitz and their political cronies planned it (if you can call what they did planning), over the heads and the objections of the trained military generals.

Yet have men take responsibility for their mistakes? No. Have they taken responsibility for 9/11 and the attacks on American soil in the first place? No.

Finally, virtually everything the Bush administration has said or done regarding this offensive and unnecessary war has been wrong since the start. And yet they keep acting as if doing more of the same will make it better.

The very definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results. What does that say about the Bush administration and their "plans" for the future?

Think about it. Yes, THINK. They don't want you to, but you can. It even feels good. You'll be so proud of yourself. Give it a try.

Health insurance – unattainable or unaffordable

2006-10-28T16:14:00.000-07:00

I’m mad as hell, and it’s not good for my health, which is a problem, because in a few months I may not have health insurance.

I was careless enough to have been sick in the past, which, in insurance parlance means I have a pre-existing condition which means that no insurance company in the US will sell me an individual health insurance policy. Not one.

What’s worse is that without insurance, I pay five to ten times more for healthcare than insurance companies. That’s right. I had a colonoscopy without insurance and it cost $5,000. And insurance company would pay around $1,200 for the same procedure with the same doctors and facilities.

That’s the exact opposite of how it should be. If you can’t afford insurance, you certainly can’t afford to pay five times more than insurance companies do. And yet, if you’re “self-insured” (meaning it all comes out of your pocket), doctors and hospitals charge you much, much more.

The only way I might possibly get individual health insurance is through a special “high-risk” group in California, but the cost is almost $1,500 a month, and I literally have to wait for other people in that group to die before there’s space for me to join.

That makes health insurance unattainable.

Anyone who’s ever been really sick knows that without your health you have nothing. Yet this most basic need of its citizens is not only ignored by the government of the United States of America.

This government is more concerned about the corporate well being of insurance and drug companies, than the individual well being of American citizens. That’s the very definition of fascism, which a most famous fascist, Mussolini, called “Corporatism.”

Why haven’t the Republicans, who have been in total power for the past six years, bothered with health care? Because they’re in the pockets of insurance companies, and pharmaceutical companies, all of who are making billions with the current system. Why would they want to change?

Proof positive of this is the prescription drug plan for seniors, a plan so needlessly complex and convoluted that a majority of seniors aren’t taking advantage of it because they can’t understand it. As an example, a senior could accidentally sign up for a certain type of plan that might not even cover their specific prescriptions! Plans cover seniors for a few thousand dollars, then inexplicably leaves them without coverage for a few thousand dollars more, than covers them again. Huh? What kind of insanity is that?

The same kind of insanity that leads lawmakers to write into the law a clause that prevents the government from negotiating with drug makers on drug prices. Medicare can do this. Private insurance companies can do this. But wait, the US government plan for seniors can’t. Who profits? Only the drug companies.

The Republican politicians in power, from the President on down through the Congress and Senate, already all get the best Federal Health insurance. Why can’t these politicians give their constituents the same health coverage they get?

They say, “It’s too expensive.” Really? You could pay for this system simply by raising income tax on the top 2% of taxpayers to the pre-Bush levels. Just 2% of the population. That means people earning over $200,000 a year. That’s probably not you and me, and if it is you, you can afford it.

I’m lucky to have insurance now, and only do because of a government law called HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) that forces insurance companies to allow me to buy a policy because my previous group policy was canceled. HIPAA protects health insurance coverage for workers and their families when they change or lose their jobs, or when policies are canceled.

In my case, I had a group insurance policy through a group called the Media Alliance. They offered insurance to their members for 30 years, until last year when insurance companies claimed they weren’t a legitimate group. They most likely have all their medical coding from home with few trained employees. Even though they had been for the 30 previous years. Bunk.

My current insurance company offered me a choice: I could go from paying $600 a month, to paying $1,400 a month. I guess I was supposed to be grateful to be offered this by the same insurance company I’d paid for three years to the tune of almost $15,000. In return, I’d received maybe $3,000 in benefits. So they’d made $12,000 profit from me, and now would reward me by only charging me $1,400 a month. I declined their offer to earn more profit from me in a single year than they’d made in the previous three.

Or I could take advantage of HIPAA to find another policy for $500 a month, which I did. But HIPAA only protects you for 12 months after which, you’re out in the cold.

What do I do then? There are still some “Professional Associations, Guilds and Societies (groups you can join if you meet certain professional criteria) that offer group insurance. This insurance costs $600 a month, at least until the end of the year, but they’ve announced “major rate increases” that suggest it will cover $1,000 a month.

That’s unaffordable.

So far, after months of research, I’ve yet to find one high-deductible plan in California that basically only covers major medical or hospitalization (and allow me to pay the same “negotiated rates” as insurance companies, not 5 to 10 times more as individuals, as they do now).

I’ve yet to find any group insurance that offers access to a “Health Savings Account,” yet another government law that’s so complex it manages to exclude most of the people who could use it. Why can’t anyone just have a Tax-exempt Health Savings Account without first having to find an insurance company that will accept them? Clearly because the insurance company is more important than you are.

I just want a policy that protects me in case of something major, not everyday stuff. And yet, that’s not an option (or at least not one I’ve found and I’ve been researching this for over two years).

US only industrialized nation not to protect its citizens

You surely already know that the United States it the only industrialized nation that doesn’t offer national health insurance. It is truly, deeply sad (and pathetic) that this country can spend hundreds of billions on a war that was based on lies, but we can’t afford to take care of our own people. In the US, we spend more money on health care than any other country. Yet we do not receive the best health care. What’s worse, almost 50 million Americans can either not get, or afford health care.

According to The World Health Organization “The U. S. health system spends a higher portion of its gross domestic product than any other country but ranks 37 out of 191 countries according to its performance,” The United Kingdom, which spends just six percent of gross domestic product (GDP) on health services, ranks 18th .”

The US needs a national healthcare system—and already has a good one—Medicare. But you can only get it of you’re over 65 years old.

Medicare operates with administrative costs of just 2.6%
The average HMO operate with administrative costs of 25.2%.

That means Government health insurance is 10 times more efficient than private health insurance. That’s good sense and good business.

If the government can provide good, efficient care for 1/10^th the cost of private insurance, shouldn’t they be doing it?

It would save the entire country billions, which would, in turn, increase the GNP for business (and, as a nice side effect, help all American citizens with their health care...)

I’ve heard the arguments against a national health system, but my many friends in countries such as the UK, Denmark and Australia, are all happy with their health care systems. They don’t have to worry about it. It’s there.

In Australia, if you’re in an auto accident, not only are all your medical expenses covered, but so is your physical therapy, so is any home care you require (including child care, cooking and house cleaning).

In Australia, if you are in an auto accident, the government makes sure you are properly taken care of. In the US, if you are in an auto accident, you are on your own. Even if you have expensive insurance it may not cover home care and most certainly won’t cover child care, cooking or cleaning.

Based on that—where would you rather get sick or injured?

The US system is most expensive, but not best.

Medicine here is now controlled by insurance companies who tell doctors what they can and can’t do. And by malpractice insurance companies who tells doctors what they should and shouldn’t do. And by pharmaceutical companies that push drugs because they are easy.

I went to an expensive doctor in one of the richest counties in the country. He looked at my blood tests, not at me, and he gave me what I call “medicine by the numbers.” If your blood number is this, we do that.

He didn’t bother to see what other health issues I had or other medications I was taking. He treated me as if I was a machine rather than a human being who might be even slightly different from other human beings.

So we’re in a system where even expensive doctors can be bad doctors, because they are working under so many constraints that they choose the simplest route that will cause them the fewer liability problems.

And a recent study even showed that there are many doctors in this country who still don’t wash their hands regularly between patients!

Doctors aren’t happy with this system that controls and often prevents them from providing the best health care options to their patients. A system that can even prevent patients from being treated as individual human beings. A system where insurance companies pay them too little, while simultaneously charge them so much for malpractice insurance that it can put them out of business.

As for choice of doctors, if you have insurance, your choice is already limited. You can use a doctor who’s in the program and the insurance will pay a higher percentage, or one who isn’t, and if you’re in an HMO your insurance won’t cover it, if you’re in a PPO they’ll pay a much lower percentage (sometimes as low as 20%).

So a national program would actually give you more choice.

It would also give you more protection.

Right now your private health insurance company can stop you from getting treatment. If they don’t think the treatment is valid or cost-effective, they can deny it, which means they don’t pay for it. Every day valid treatment is denied and people have to sue their own health insurance companies to get the coverage they’ve been paying for. This doesn’t happen with national health care systems.

What this country needs:

The right to be able to buy health insurance you can afford, that will protect your home if you get sick. Right now you can go bankrupt paying medical bills.

Every other industrialized nation already does this, so the health of their citizens is taken care of. It’s clearly possible. All it takes is for politicians to put their constituents ahead of corporations. Will that happen? I will if you make it an issue, tell your elected representatives it’s important to you—and most importantly—vote them out of office if they fail to put citizens health before corporate profit.

I believe: God loves me. He's not necessarily crazy about you.

2006-03-20T22:49:00.000-08:00

I am a believer.

I choose to believe a great many things, including that the future will be better today if people open their hearts and minds.

But not everyone chooses what they believe, and by now it's clear that the only people who really believe George Bush is doing a good job are the same people who have been taught by their fundamentalist church (of any religion) that you believe what you are told—because your you are judged on your ability to believe the unbelievable. Thinking is discouraged, as it gets in the way of blind belief.

And while the ability to believe is crucial for humanity—one has to choose what they want to believe, not just believe whatever they are told.

Here's a list of things "believers" are told to believe.

1. Bush is doing God's holy work. That explains why a lot of what he does doesn't make sense, because it's all part of God's grand plan and it's just too complicated for us to understand, and besides, what are you doing questioning God's plan? Do you think you're smarter than God? You are so going to rot in hell.

2. George Bush is our savior. Because he's speaking directly to God in the white house, rather than listening to all those shrill voices of people like US Citizens and other mere mortals, we will all be saved. Thank you, baby Jesus!

3. God comes before the US government, which is why we must do his work from our tax dollars.

4. God Bless America. Of course. I mean, it's right on the money and everything.

5. God Damn everybody else. This would be on the money but they ran out of room.

6. There is only one God, and he's ours God Dammit! Everyone else worships false gods and idols. We, meanwhile, have lots of statues and saints and things we pray to, but that's OK because they're white.

7. God will forgive us anything if we just confess our sins and apologize nicely and give money to the church. This doesn't apply to Arabs, Jews, Asians, Blacks and Gays, who may say they're sorry but are known to be sarcastic and insincere and would say anything to get out of trouble so they're going to burn in hell while we float around on clouds. When we say this they laugh and say, "We wouldn't want to go to any heaven where you were" which just shows how Satan has gotten to them.

8. God hates fags because they are scary and might want to look at us naked in the gym or God forbid, kiss us when we don't expect it which of course would turn us into fags--it works kind of like vampires and werewolves, which we're also afraid of. We are afraid we are gay but God will save us as long as we only do gay or kinky stuff in the basement.

9. God hates fags because they mock marriage even more than the 50%+ plus heteros who get divorced. We don't want gays or vampires or werewolves to be able to marry.

10. God hates Arabs, all Arabs, no matter what they believe because look, they're wearing dress-like things and scarf-y things on their heads, which means they must be gay, even though they are very hairy and if they were in the US they would have to be waxed.

11. God isn't crazy about Jews--yeah, they're his chosen people, but that doesn't mean he can't be pissed that they don't believe Jesus is his son which is what he told us to believe, and we believe it, despite much proof against it, including in The DaVinci Code which we loved and we're looking forward to the movie with that nice Tom Hanks who played gay but thankfully isn't really because he's married and can't be.

12.God finds the Chinese downright annoying. But he says it's OK for them to make toys and clothes and electronics and almost everything else we buy because they have little hands that are good for this kind of work.

13. We can't wait for Armageddon so we can quit our jobs where we have to work with blacks and Jews and go to heaven with all the right people.

14.We're always right.

15.They're always wrong.

16.Life is black and white, and white is right.

17.God bless us, everyone, except for you, because your shoes look gay.

(P.S.) I don't believe in any of those things. I'm just reporting what I see.

A message to Values Voters

2006-01-08T19:11:00.000-08:00

The past few elections have been decided by you, the "Values Voters." The question is--what do you consider to be values?

I'm sure you don't actually value lying, cheating, stealing, and killing, but that's what the administration you voted for has done under the banner of "values."

I can understand that you may have been too busy to notice that the Bush administration and Republican-run Congress are immoral.

I know, it's shocking, but if you look at what they've done there's really no arguing against it. It's all true. I know you think they mean well, and they probably do--but their actions of endless lies, taking from the poor to give to the rich, starting wars that kill thousands of Americans and tens of thousands of other human beings is unquestionably immoral.

Republicans don't want you to have affordable health care. They don't want you to have clean air and water. They don't care about jobs for your--or your kids.

If they did, why have they voted against all those things over and over and over? Ask your Republican politicians why. And compare what they say to what they've done, because it's what they've done that matters.

Yes, lying, cheating and stealing are values--they just don't happen to be the values this country was founded on, or the values that most Americans really share.

That's why in 2006 and beyond, you need to look at what politicians have done, not what they've said. When you do that, you'll see Democrats are the party of Morals.

That's right, DEMOCRATS ARE MORAL.

Now, severe-right-wingers will say this isn't true, since Democrats think gay people should have all the rights given to them under the constutution and other outrageous things.

But the fact is--treating all people equally is moral. It's even what Jesus would do. So how come it's good enough for Jesus but not good enough for a group of people who now think they can redefine morals into their own perverted definition?

DEMOCRACY is based on MORALITY. Freedom. Equality.

Democrats believe in those things. Republicans say they do, but their actions have shown they don't. Republican actions show they don't believe in freedom or equality. Not freedom of speech. Not freedom to choose what you will do with your own life and body. Only freedom for corporations. That's not democracy, that's fascism.

So, to recap: The current administration and republican-lead congress are IMMORAL.

Democrats are moral--they work to take care of our families and communities through healthcare, education, and honesty in goverment.

Remember that on the next election day.

Welcome to the Third World, America!

2005-09-03T22:48:00.000-07:00

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.

===

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

2005-07-22T13:36:00.000-07:00

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

2005-03-21T20:03:00.000-08:00

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

2005-02-20T13:24:00.000-08:00

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

2005-02-18T17:08:00.000-08:00

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

2005-01-28T16:29:00.000-08:00

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

2005-01-03T01:02:00.000-08:00

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.

Apologizing for Bush and Cheney

2004-10-19T17:30:00.000-07:00

For the past few years I’ve been wondering what could possibly be going through the minds of Bush and Cheney to make them do the things they’ve done. At first I thought it was just stupidity. There are jokes about Cheney’s heart condition being that he lacks one but that didn’t seem explanation enough. Then I came to believe they were both truly evil, in the purest sense of the word.

But as a writer, I know that villains never think of themselves as villains. The “evil genius” thinks of him or herself simply as “a genius.”

So with this in mind, what’s going through Bush and Cheney’s minds (I’m assuming they both have one, even though that fact is in doubt).

How do they sleep at night? The answer is simple, they sleep because they think what they are doing is right. They also think that pretty much everyone else on the planet is wrong.

In short: Bush has lead such a rich, sheltered life that he can’t relate to normal people and their everyday issues, even things as simple as making money and paying bills. Cheney believes that Corporations are the only true democracy (one vote per share of stock), and they should run everything because they’re so much more efficient than government. Corporations are easily accountable, when they make money they are successful. Period. Money is the bottom line because it’s the only true signifier of success.

"The rich are different from you and me." -- F. Scott Fitzgerald

"Yes, they have more money." -- Ernest Hemingway

Baby Bush

Let me start with W. first. He suffers from something that’s common among the very, very rich and privileged. This means it’s extremely uncommon in the real world. And right there you have the explanation. His entire life has been so removed from the reality of the lives of 99.99999% of normal people that he simply can’t relate to them.

Just the way you and I can’t relate to a mass murderer, a mass murder can’t relate to us. But it’s even more basic than that—Bush has never had to get a job for himself, he’s never had to actually work and be productive to keep a job. He’s never had to worry about money, wonder if he has enough or how he can make more. He’s never had to balance a checkbook, pay a bill or ask himself, “How can I afford that?” With anything. Ever.

When I was growing up I had a friend who was the son of an immensely wealthy man, a man so wealthy he owned famous places I thought were public buildings. And so my friend, Bernard, had grown up with everything done for him. He wasn’t stupid, but he had almost no common sense, because he didn’t need it. Other people took care of him.

My favorite example of this was one time he invited me over to his father’s house. It was summer and very hot. All the doors and windows of the house were open, and the three industrial size air conditioning units were working overtime to keep the house cool—and make sure cool air was blasting through the doors in case you were by the pool and needed a cool breeze.

In trying to be a normal host to a visiting friend, he went into the kitchen, opened the refrigerator and offered me a basket of red berries completely covered in a greenish mold. I said, “Um, those are moldy.” He replied, “No, it’s frost.”

He didn’t know what mold looked like, because he’d probably never seen it before.

And this is how George Bush is about just about everything. He doesn’t know what it’s like. So he can’t understand anyone not being super-rich the same way he can’t understand someone speaking Martian. He can’t even comprehend it. He can’t sympathize or empathize because it’s not within the realm of his experience, much less his imagination.

Everyone he knows is rich. Everyone he knows is in business. So if he does what’s good for the people he knows, understand and relates to, he is doing good. Period. No one else really exists.

A prime example of his inability to even see other people as people was when he was running for president and he appeared on the David Letterman show. During the commercial, the show’s producer came up to the desk, as she often does, to talk to Letterman.

While she was leaned over talking to Letterman, George W. Bush grabbed the bottom of this woman’s jacket and cleaned his eyeglasses on them. That’s right, he used her clothing like a Kleenex.

Basically, he had no respect for her as a person. He had no regard for her property. It was there, he needed it, he used it, just as it should be in his little world.

Magnify this on a global scale and you can understand his action. Kill thousands of people? Spend billions of dollars? That’s OK, he needed to do it. And he was just killing bad guys anyway, right? “SADDAM TRIED TO HURT MY DADDY!” Bush said publicly. Well, then we all understand how you could take the entire resources of the United States of America, disregard the UN and other nations, ignore over 50% of the citizens of the country, let over 1,000 Americans and thousands of innocent Iraqi’s be killed. Of course we do.

Bush is doing what’s best for himself, because what’s best for himself is best for himself. And that’s all he’s ever known. And look at how well he’s doing? He must, then, be right. And if he’s right, then everything he does is right. It’s really very simple.

Cheney—it’s just business

Cheney didn’t grow up rich. His father was a “soil conservation agent” for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. He lived close to the land and saw its potential for use (or exploitation). He learned about geology, which lead him to learn about all the oil under the land. And he was off.

What Cheney soon learned was that land is money, and money is power. Cheney was successful in the corporate world because money was all that mattered to him. That’s how you got power, and without power, you were nobody.

And there’s the key to Cheney. In his word, the business world, money is power, and power is all that matters.

The way he sees it, Corporate America is America. It drives the economy, so it is America, and it’s what matters. It’s the “engine of democracy” and in his mind, stockholders voting for corporate boards are the only democracy that matter.

Corporate boards are elected, and stockholders get one vote for each share. Notice it’s not “one person, one vote,” as it is in the country, but “one share, one vote,” which is, in Cheney’s mind, how it should be. Why? Because you get as much say as you can afford.

In his mind, if you have money, you have influence, and if you have influence you are an important member of society. If you don’t have enough money to buy your power and your vote, then what good are you, really? You’re just one of those necessary people who carry things. You aren’t a mover or shaker. You are a person of no importance—and he can prove it, because if you were important, you could buy your vote.

While in his mind it’s not so cold and clinical, and he might even be able to relate to the fact that other people have families and lives (especially if they are stockholding families), that’s the underlying thought.

And this leads to his other major viewpoint—that you make it on the Board of Directors because you are smarter than everybody else. You can prove this because you have more money, more stock, and more power. You must be smarter, or you wouldn’t have those things.

Cheney believes he’s so smart he should simply rule the world. And while that seems insane to us, he has his logic. First, the world is a screwed up place. Even little people who carry things can agree to that.

All kinds of governments have had thousands of years to straighten it out and they never have. Democracy has tried for over 250 years and failed. The world is still a mess. The country is a mess.

Part of the problem is that there are too many opinions, too many voices, too many people trying to make decisions. This leads to arguments when there should be action. A dictator can get things done fast. You don’t have to put up with, much less listen to opposition. Things get done.

This is how it is in Corporate America—he who owns the most stock makes the final decision (unless other people can get together and pool their stock and vote you out—see, democracy in action!)

What’s more, Corporations are more efficient than the government. They have to be, because they have to show a profit. The government doesn’t make a profit. So how can you ever tell if Government is working successfully? How can you correctly gauge that success without profit, the only true indicator?

If a corporation fails, they were doing something wrong, and they are replaced by another Corporation which can try to do it right, and prove they’ve done it right by making a profit. Corporations treat people as well as it’s profitable to treat them, and if people want to be treated better they need to buy stock in the company, band together, and have enough shares to make decisions. That’s democracy.

Cheney is so much smarter than we are, even so much smarter than the Founding Fathers of the United States. Washington, Jefferson, Adams and Franklin were smart, for their time, but it just doesn’t work now because now we have Corporations to run things for us, and it’s so much more efficient—you gotta move with the times.

“Democracy moves too slowly...”

Condi actually said that as one excuse for why they didn’t do more. It was a clear view into the underlying “logic” of the Cheney administration.

Democracy does move more slowly than a dictatorship, and with good reason. But the Cheney Gang don’t see it as a good thing, they see it as a detriment, a failing, and something they must overcome by overcoming democracy.

So now Cheney’s true mission is to rid us of the terrible overhead that is democracy and move us directly into a corporate fascist state—oh, wait, we’re already there! See what a success Cheney is!

Cheney knows a better way than democracy. Wasting all that time with representatives like Congresspeople and Senators, much less actual citizens who, as I’ve said before, mostly don’t own stock, so they just didn’t care enough to be buy stock and vote and be involved.

In his mind, Cheney is the John Adams of the 21^st century. He sees a better way. He must be a radical, as our founding fathers were. He is going to lead us into the future with him in charge, because, after all, he’s smarter. We are lucky to have him in power.

Aren't we? If you don't think we are, then you must just be ungrateful. It's your fault. And your responsibility--that's right, Bush and Cheney like to tell us all that we have many responsibilities as citizens. But they seem oblivious to responsibility themselves..

And while it makes sense that Bush doesn't understand the concept of responsibility, Cheney's corporate background should make him sensitive to responsibility, and yet he's still oblivious of it. That's something I can't find any logic for, no matter how twisted.

But don't forget--we are lucky to have them ruling us. We didn't really want all the mess and bother of democracy, did we? Isn't it easier just to turn it over to people who are smarter, or at least richer than we are? That is, of course, what Bush and Cheney want you to believe. Do you?

Even Bush's shoulders lie...

2004-10-10T19:10:00.000-07:00

Watching video from the most recent debate, I was of course looking to see if Bush had the odd bump in his back that was so obvious in the first debate even TV news this weekend was
carrying it. No bump this time (Was that a transmitter in his pocket or was he just happy to see Kerry?).

What WAS odd was the appearance of massive shoulder pads. All suits have padded shoulders, but seeing him from the back, you could see how large these were--they were wide and also ran down down his side (to make his torso look wider and make the whole thing more proportional).

Bush looked puny next to Kerry in the first debate, so this time they padded him up (unless it's a new kind of bullet-proof shoulder protection :)

The Bush camp's excuse for the first debate's back-lump/transmitter? "It was a tailoring problem." Really? He uses the most expensive, exclusive master tailor in New York, Georges de Paris, (who has made suits for every president since Johnson). A quick gaggle of Googling reveals Mr. de Paris stating (well before this event) that he had a special affinity for Reagan and both Bush presidents, but he didn't care for Carter or Clinton. Doesn't sound partisan at all...

It's not credible that his highly paid, highly skilled tailor would install such big, obvious and poorly integrated shoulder pads. Then again, the campaign was so worried they got Mr. de Paris to say it was a bad seam. Yes, they got the French tailor to take the blame! Hardly good for his business don't you think? If he's going to admit he's that sloppy, then maybe he did install these bad shoulder pads.

But now we know, even Bush's shoulders lie!

Experience - Bush had NONE

2004-10-06T13:30:00.000-07:00

The Republicans are lying yet again, trying to make you believe that Kerry doesn't have enough experience to be president or that Edwards isn't qualified to be VP or take over the presidency.

Well, Mr. Bush says he wants to run on his record, so let's look at his record before he took office:

Bush had never held a national office.
Bush had no experience with foreign policy of any kind.
Bush had no experience with national security.
Bush had never even been outside the United States! (other than just south of the Texas border to Mexico)

In other words, Bush was grossly unqualified to take any national office, much less the presidency.

And his lack of experience has been painfully obvious in his actions.

Bush has been unable to work with international leaders. As big and strong as the US is, we cannot do everything in the world all by ourselves. As we can see in Iraq alone, our military and national budget are both stretched to their limits. Had Bush built a true coalition, as his own father did in the first Gulf war, our military and deficit would not be out of control.
Bush has been dishonest. Lying about weapons of mass destruction got us into that war, but there was no real plan to get us out.
Bush has been unrealistic. He thought the Iraqi's would welcome us with open arms, then lie down and let us tell them how to run their own country. If another country attacked and occupied the US, our citizens wouldn't act that way--we'd fight for the right to control our own destiny. Why did they not even consider that the Iraqi's would do the same thing we would do?
Bush hasn't planned. His unprovoked attack of Iraq was unnecessary--but worse, unplanned. Our military gets there, ill-equipped for the situation--with no plans for sand storms. This is the desert, the same desert Bush's father lead a war in just over a decade earlier--and no one seemed to remember there was sand?
Bush hasn't considered consequences. When you're confronted with a rabid dog, you don't kick it in the balls, thinking this will protect you. All that does is anger the dog and cause it to lose any reason and attack you mercilessly. And that's what we've done to the Arab world, we've kicked them in the balls. That doesn't stop them, that just makes them mad. That just makes it easier for them to recruit more terrorists.
Bush has made our country, and the world more dangerous. Though a combination of inexperience, ineptitude, dishonesty and stubbornness, Bush has done the exact opposite of what he said he wanted to do--he has made the world more dangerous. Rather than having most of the world united in the fight against terrorism, he has made the US into an isolated target. We are proving that we cannot fight it alone. We need the entire world on our side. But Bush has no understanding of international relations, because he had no experience in international relations.

So don't buy the lie. Kerry and Edwards have more experience than Bush did.

And Cheney? His experience is all about corporations, money and war--and we can see the direct result of that now. We're in an unnecessary war. Much of our money is being funneled directly to Cheney's Halliburton (which, in turns, avoids paying US taxes by having illegal offshore operations--operations proven by CBS's 60 minutes). Cheney sees the US as a corporation and himself as the chairman of the board. Yet he's forgotten the basics--things like moral responsibility, fiscal responsibility, and the possibility stockholder revolt throwing him off the board.

We need to throw Bush and Cheney off the board, out of office, and out of power. We need to return power to the people, a statement that's only radical in the way Washington, Jefferson and Adams were radical. We need to take back America, and bring back democracy--while we still have the chance.

Cheney killed in terrorist attack on LA

2004-10-03T23:12:00.000-07:00

YOU READ IT HERE FIRST:

Two weeks before the election, the Bush backers will clandestinely launch their own pre-emptive terrorist attack on some city in California (they'd prefer San Francisco, but it may be LAbecause they don’t care if they destroy Democratic California, serves us right and a quake would get us eventually anyway, right?).

This is designed to create multiple results at once

Instill fear in everyone
Make it seem unpatriotic not to rally behind our President and "fearless leader."
Kill VP Cheney so he can be replaced with a more likeable person, perhaps John McCain.
This will also create a sympathy vote

The problem with the plan is that another terrorist attack inside the US will now be considered Bush's fault. Not the CIA's. Not the FBI's. But Bush, and his Homeland Insecurity team. If they couldn't prevent this, then why should we trust them to keep us safe?

The other problem is that after a while, people stop being afraid and start being annoyed and angry. You see this with earthquakes. The first quake petrifies people. Your most basic instincts come into play. It's life or death.

And then there are the aftershocks. Sometimes several a day. And you stop being scared and start being pissed. "OK, enough of this shit already."

And this is what happens with terrorism, too. It's happened in England after years of the IRA. It happens in Israel and other areas plagued with terrorism. People stop being afraid because you can only be afraid for so long. It drags you down, sucks all your energy, and undermines your life.

So if anyone from the Bush organization is reading this (they probably are since it has the words "Kill and Cheney" but I am not advocating any kind of violence, I am predicting that administration operatives are), just know that the plan won't work. You will only piss people off and they will vote for Kerry--someone with experience, someone who actually can work towards keeping America safe.

So my advice to you operatives is to drop this pointless plan. We already know about it. And it's not going to work.

Go ahead, prove me wrong.

Hacking Electronic Votes--FOR GOOD

2004-10-02T18:46:00.000-07:00

Afraid there won't be a fair election, because electronic voting machines will be hacked? There's hope...

Programmers tend to be more educated and more progressive, which means that Democrats and other progressives could turn out to be the ones hacking voting computers--with votes for Kerry.

It's the opposite of what most people feared--but it is what the Republicans fear--they just haven't talked about it because they don't want to give anybody ideas.

I'm not condoning vote hacking--I think it's wrong no matter who does it or what it's for. It goes against the idea of "one person, one vote" which is central to voting and democracy.

But the idea of progressive hackers making sure regressive hackers aren't tampering for Bush is something we can hope is a reality.

Now--these electronic voting machines are, in principal, a good idea. But they're poorly and insecurely executed, and they have no paper trail. Here's some background:

Electronic touch-screen voting machines are just computers. As you sit at your computer and read this, just remember how much trouble you have with your own computer. How often it refuses to do what you want, or freezes, crashes or loses your data.

Now, imagine trusting the future of your country to a lot of unlireable machines. And--remember that these voting computers are newer, they're the V 1.0 of voting computers, so imagine how many bugs they still have.

In fact, many groups have pointed out the bugs in these systems--not the least of which that they are insecure, easily hacked, and that they have no paper trail. That's like putting your most precious data on your computer with no backup copy and no printout. Not very smart.

And to make it dumber, these machines and the servers they work with have backdoors that allow them to be accessed--and maniplated, by people outside the election office. There are already clear cases of this kind of remote vote tampering taking place.

And they lack paper trails. Simple receipts that show you how you voted, and provide a tangible paper trail that's impossible to "hack." The companies that make these voting machines make other machines, ATMs, machines at colleges that let you pay for your lunch, credit card machines. Every single machine these companies make create a receipt--except the voting machines! That's right, if you go in and spend 59 cents for coffee in a cafeteria, they can give you a receipt, but your priceless vote somehow isn't valuable enough to merit one.

So while progressives fear that electronic voting machines won't accurately tally the votes, there's hope that progressive hackers will make sure they do.

For more information about electronic voting machine issues:

Black Box Voting The definitive site about electronic voting machines and their flaws

Verified Voting Championing reliable and verifiable elections

What kind of example has Bush set for the youth of this country?

2004-10-02T16:28:00.000-07:00

I'd like to ask Mr. Bush "What kind of message do you think it sends to the youth of this country (the same youth you're sending to die) when you, the president, cheat to take office, lie to us to start a war, and steal from us to pay for it?"

Or when you cut back funding for education? (Of course, we know education was never important to you).

Or when you cut 30% from the funding of children's hospitals?

Or when you hire a coal industry executive to head the department of the interior, so he can give away national treasures to energy companies for their profit?

Or when you take from the poor and give to the rich?

Or when your VP thinks it's funny to tell another senator to go "fuck yourself" (if the VP can say it, certainly it has to be OK for me to write it, and for kids to read it, right?

Your administration has set one horrific example after another for the youth of our country. If you believe in "trickle down economics," then you must also believe in "trickle down morality." If that's the case, as your VP says, we're all "fucked."

Towards a polar society & civil war

2004-09-29T18:45:00.000-07:00

We seem to be living in a time of extremes. Not just “extreme sports” and “extreme makeovers” and even toothpaste that claims to give you “extreme clean.” But in a time when opinions, options and actions have all become extreme.

Four years ago we had a presidential election that was split, almost 50/50. While the popular vote was half a million votes apart (with the loser becoming president), that’s still a tiny percentage difference between these two groups. Traditionally elections are not this close. And the same pattern has been repeating in elections around the world.

This year the highest grossing movie is a right-wing revisionist history about the Passion of Christ, while the best selling book, the DaVinci Code, is a polar opposite revisionist history. Both are wildly popular yet their messages are diametrically opposed.

What’s going on?

The universe is constantly trying to remain in balance. “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.”

There are always extreme fringe factions—a small minority with the strongest opinions, and usually the most closed minds. Whether on the left or right, they are all radicals in their own way. They all think the system isn’t just broken, it needs replacement.

In the past, most people were near the center—they could lean to the right or left, depending on the circumstances.

But now the fringe factions are center stage. The smallest, loudest, most closed-minded groups have taken power. It started on the “right” with the so-called conservatives who are about as conservative as Karl Marx.

While the radical right loves to use the word “liberal” as if it was a four-letter-word, they are rampantly liberal in terms of the changes they are making to the very core of American Democracy. They are not just challenging, but dismantling over 200 years of Democracy. They aren’t merely liberal with democracy, they are libertine.

In reality, the “extreme right wing” are total radicals who don’t believe democracy works. They are working towards a fascist dictatorship model. Even current members of the administration publicly says (and this is a quote from the White House), “Democracy moves too slowly.”

And so, for the universe to counter this growing force, the extreme left-wing, traditionally known as “radicals” is now having to take on the role of conservatives. These so-called radicals are fighting for such radical ideas as freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of choice, personal freedom and fiscal responsibility.

The current “left-wing radicals” are, in fact, fighting for the exact same things as our founding fathers. In their own time, Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Franklin—they were all radicals, proponents of freedom and representation.

The agenda of the right-wing is radical. This, then, forces the left-ring to react in a radical way to try to stop them—with a conservative goal of preserving democracy and freedom.

While these two “radical” groups are still comparatively small, as their pull grows stronger, it exerts force on the majority of people in the center--pulling them out of the center and towards the edges. It becomes more difficult to sway left or right, when each extreme is so convinced of their point and so closed to the other opinion that there is no room for compromise.

Franklin once said that compromise was the heart of democracy

One of Franklin’s biggest contributions to the convention was his sense of compromise. If delegates decided to be unwavering on every important issue, the constitution could never have been formed. It is only through the compromises of all parties involved that the system of government which has thrived for over 200 years came into being. Franklin compared compromise to a skilled carpenter when he brought up this illustration:

“When a broad table is to be made and the edges of planks do not fit, the artist takes a little from both, and makes a good joint. In like manner here both sides must part with some of their demands, in order that they may join in some accommodating proposition” (Bowen 130).

Yet the radical right has continually set a “no-compromises” tone on every thing they do. It’s their agenda or else. IT doesn’t matter if the issue is large or small, because they are in the majority in the house, senate and control the white house, they allow for no representation from the left.

This puts everything out of balance, and it staggered on this way for several years, until the left finally realized that trying to compromise with the right left them with nothing but compromises, that the right was never giving them even a crust, and that conservative government was starving to death.

And so, with stronger forces at the polls, the center, which can normally adjust to the times, feels more pressure to move away from the center, to the fringes. Once again this puts things even more off balance, and as the radical right moves away from democracy, the conservative-left must counter balance by fighting harder for democracy.

But this polarization is dangerous. It leaves less and less room for debate and compromise. It makes every issue contentious. It forces people to “take sides” politically, rather than based on issues. And, in the end, it closes more minds, which only serves to prolong this vicious cycle.

All this can only end when the side that’s pulling the hardest, in this case the radical right, admits that there are other opinions, other solutions—basically other people in the world besides themselves. When they let up, the equal and opposite reaction is that the left can let up.

You say, “Why doesn’t the left just let up, and then the right will?” The answer is because the left is only pulling so hard as a reaction to the right. If the left lets up, the right, which continues its “no compromise” position, will pull things tragically off-balance.

The right started it, and they will finish it, one way or another. Either they will ease up and allow for compromise, or they will pull harder and eventually break the system in half. It’s called Civil War and we’ve already seen one in this country. Given the close-minded, logic-defying, “no compromises,” “it’s our way or else” fervor of the right, we might just yet see another.

Why bother with polling places when we have polls!

2004-09-29T18:39:00.000-07:00

When did polls become news? They aren't really news. They aren't concrete facts. They're easily manipulated demographic surveys. Gallup polls, which tend to be Republican, tend to put Bush in the lead, sometimes by a margin so far outside all other polls that it simply defies the traditional "margin of error" and makes the entire survey highly questionable.

But even without this—why is it news? I understand that polls are vital for campaigns who are trying to figure out what people want to hear—it's not pandering, it's politics. Despite what we've seen the past four years, where many politicians have worked solely on political agendas and ignored a majority of their constituents—Politicians are supposed to represent we the people.

So polling is fine for politicians trying to get elected—and even those in office, so they can better represent their constituents.

But why is polling news? How does polling help you and I? Should it matter to us how other people are voting? It does, of course, and it especially does to the notorious "undecideds" who can be swayed by things like, "He's going to win, I want to vote for the winner."

The problem with polls is that they become self-fulfilling prophecies. Election experts and psychologists both say that many people "want to vote for the winner." So if the polls keep telling them that one candidate is going to win, they lean towards that candidate simply because they think he or she will be the winner.

That's not reporting news--that's making news. That's s like TV networks sitting around with crystal balls, trying to tell us what's going to happen, trying to change the future to fit their predictions.

Plus they're notoriously inaccurate. A tradition margin of error of "plus or minus three" simply means that they could be wrong by 6%. When two candidates are against each other, and one has 51% and one has 48%, that's three points. So the poll could say one candidate is "winning" when in reality, they could still lose, even within those very poll results.

And it's not enough for "news" agencies to trumpet polls like election results, they seem desperate to tell us, even months in advance, who will win and who has "already lost."

But they're even more inaccurate about this. Clinton was called "unelectable," by many major pundits and news agencies. But he was elected twice. Howard Dean was "unstoppable" and on both Time and Newsweek. He was absolutely the Democratic candidate, he had no competition, and he would even have beaten Bush if the elections were held in early 2004. But elections aren't held in early 2003, and a few weeks later Dean was history.

As soon as Kerry won the Iowa caucus (not even a real election!), the media dubbed him "unstoppable," and "the winner." This was repeated and repeated, right at the time other states were having elections, and this propelled him to the top. The media gave him the same "unstoppable" treatment they gave Dean, but this time the timing was such that Kerry didn't even need to win all the primaries, because he'd already won in the press.

When I worked on previous presidential campaigns, I saw, first hand, how people are persuaded by polls—especially on election day when I was going door to door trying to get people to vote. Registered voters would just give up and not vote, because the polls "told them who'd already won."

So how, exactly, are these polls strengthening democracy?

They don't. So why not stop running them as if they were news, or worse, election results.

Otherwise, I can see a future like some sci-fi movie. In a few years, government and media will collude and decide elections are too drawn out and expensive. Instead they’ll just poll 1500 likely voters and we’ll all live with whatever the sample tells us. Why bother with polling places when we have polls! And if we fall for that one, you can kiss democracy goodbye for good. Or bad.

Why I’m proud to be a progressive liberal

2004-09-29T03:45:00.000-07:00

Liberals stand for Freedom. Freedom of speech. Freedom of choice. Freedom of religion. Freedom to be who you are, to love who you choose and raise your family the way you want.

Liberals stand for “liberty and justice for all” not just some.

Liberals believe in such radical things as “all men (and women) are created equal.” That was a radical belief, 250 years ago, but the generations of brave American men and women who have died for democracy, have done so to protect those once radical beliefs which are at the core of our beliefs as Americans—our freedoms of speech, choice, and equality.

Those things are worth fighting for, because they are the keystones of what our country was founded on. If you believe in democracy, if you believe in our constitution and bill of rights, then you believe in those things. If you don’t believe in those things, then you can say you love America, but you are confused as to what America is really about.

Liberals believe in an America “of the people, by the people and FOR the people.” Not for corporations like Enron and Exxon, but individuals—like you and me.

Liberals believe in the American dream—where every child can grow up to be what he or she wants, where every immigrant can make a better life for themselves and their children, the way our immigrant ancestors did for us.

In short, Liberals stand for the very things that our forefathers stood for—freedom of speech, religion. Freedom from oppression.

Neo-Conservatives are now Regressives
Yet, strangely, “Regressives” (also called neo-cons or the Right Wing) don’t believe in the most basic tenets of our Republic. They say they do. They wave flags and sing songs and call themselves patriots.

But their actions speak louder than their words. Regressives say one thing, and do another. That’s called hypocrisy. It’s also called lying. Their actions show they don’t believe in freedom of speech. They don’t believe it’s right to criticize your government, unless your government consists of duly elected Democrats. If your government is run by Republicans who didn’t win the popular vote, then you should “shut up” or you are unpatriotic. But that, my friends, is unpatriotic.

I’m not talking about real conservatives—those who believe in less government interference for all. I respect real conservatives. I don’t respect people who call themselves “conservatives” but are really radicals in traditional clothing who are actively trying to undermine civil rights and our very constitution.

Regressives want fewer controls on corporations and more on personal lives. They work to make discrimination a constitutional amendment. Those people are not conservatives. They are radicals, and their very actions show that they do not understand or agree with the most basic tenets of democracy and our Republic.

Regressives don’t believe in freedom of choice. They don’t approve of freedom of expression. They want to restrict what you say, what you hear. They work tirelessly to censor people’s freedom of speech, to intimidate those who try to speak their minds, to punish and fine those who do.

They want to tell you how to live your life. They want to tell you what you can do with your body—even who you can love. They want to control you, personally, just like any communist, fascist, dictator-controlled state.

Regressives don’t even believe in your most basic civil rights—the right to be considered innocent until proven guilty. They have already passed laws that let the government arrest you—for no reason. Imprison you, for no reason, without access to your family or legal representation. This is the kind of thing that happens in dictatorships—it’s not supposed to happen here.

And yet it can—and it does—because Regressives have undermined your basic civil rights as an American. While doing so, they’ve repeatedly told you how they’ve made you safer. It’s a lie. You’re not safer from terrorists, and worse, you are in more danger from your own government.

Regressives have learned from oppressive regimes how to say one thing and do another, and as long as they keep repeating the “good stuff” they keep doing the “bad stuff” and people are confused. And scared. They want you to be scared. Not happy. They want you to be angry and unhappy. No happy.

Liberals agree with Thomas Jefferson and what he wrote in the Declaration of Independence, “the pursuit of happiness.” Regressives believe in “the pursuit of money and power.”

Regressives don’t even believe in family...
Regressives don’t believe in “America the Beautiful.” They believe only in profit. Now, there’s nothing wrong with profit—America is built on profit. But Regressives believe in profit at other people’s expensive—profit at your expense. For profit, they will despoil your land, pollute your skies, and say it’s OK for your kids to have more poisonous mercury in their milk. This is a fact—this is what they have done in the last four years. They have poisoned your children for their profit.

They have killed your children for their profits. They have sent them to wars they knew were not needed, but wars from which they could make profit. Billions and Billions of dollars of profit. So much profit that it’s costing you, personally, at least $31,000--this year. Oh, you can’t pay that all this year—that’s OK, they’ll keep taking the money from you in the future—and from your children, to pay for their profits.

Regressives are stealing from you. Right now. And what do YOU get from this? Do you get a more secure country? No. Do you get a cleaner environment? No. Do your children get a better education? No. Do you get better health care. No. What do you get out of it? Screwed.

Regressives are immoral.
Let me repeat that, because it’s something people haven’t seemed to notice. Regressives say they are religious. But their actions show them to be immoral hypocrites. A highly religious friend wrote this:

To those people who have studied the Jesus of the Scripture, - we understand that he taught that evil often pretends to be 'righteous' and the hallmark of evil, is hypocrisy. Therefore, if the large factions (denominations) are indeed following a false version of Christianity (anti-Christos), -- then collectively they will be the very thing they claim to abhor. Their primary doctrines will be based on lies, and they will use a superficial 'study' of the Scriptures to allege their doctrines (of demons) are "The Word of the Lawd".

This described regressives, neo-conservatives, the Republicans in power.

They start wars. They kill thousands of innocent people. They steal money from you—and worse, your children’s future. They lie about what they do. They say they for education and they cut educational spending. They say they are for the environment, yet they eliminate environmental regulations designed to protect you—and they destroy your world, and your health. They say they are for health care, but they do nothing for you—while actively working to ensure that drug companies make more money.

Regressives want to create amendments to the constitution which deny rights to at least 10% of Americans. That’s downright un-American. And it’s immoral. It’s immoral to deny basic human rights, and yet Regressives want to turn their immorality into law—law that runs so counter to the constitution that it would require the constitution be amended. That’s wrong.

So why don’t Regressives “seem” immoral? Because they talk a good game. They talk about freedom and American Values, and all they do is talk. Their actions speak louder than words. Their actions show them to be dangerous revolutionaries, true anti-American radicals who are tirelessly working to undermine democracy as we know it.

They talk about how bad Communists are, then they use their tactics against us. They work to remove our right to vote. They try to not count our vote. They try to postpone and cancel elections. They don’t bother counting votes, and instead have their friends on the Supreme court decide the election. They create presidential powers not in the constitution, upsetting the balance of power, so the perfectly balance system designed by our forefathers, the executive, legislative and judicial branches are out of whack, the executive branch has all the power, unchecked. This is not democracy.

The regressive angenda is not what Washington and Jefferson and Adams gave their lives to create. What the Regressives are doing is sliding our government into a Fascist Dictator state. Instead of “freedom from oppression,” the Regressives are turning our own government into the oppressors.

Neo-conservative regressives stand for “the land of the oppressed, and the home of the bully.”

Liberals stand for the “land of the free and home of the brave.”

LINKS

2004-09-28T15:33:00.000-07:00

Read this passionate and perceptive piece:

WITH TREMBLING FINGERS

By Hal Crowther

“... I don't think it's accurate to describe America as polarized between Democrats and Republicans, or between liberals and conservatives. It's polarized between the people who believe George Bush and the people who do not. Thanks to some contested ballots in a state governed by the president's brother, a once-proud country has been delivered into the hands of liars, thugs, bullies, fanatics and thieves. The world pities or despises us, even as it fears us. What this election will test is the power of money and media to fool us, to obscure the truth and alter the obvious, to hide a great crime against the public trust under a blood-soaked flag. The most lavishly funded, most cynical, most sophisticated political campaign in human history will be out trolling for fools. I pray to God it doesn't catch you.”

Read the entire piece here.

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