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Published on Tuesday, October 27, 2009 by CommonDreams.org
Rhetoric and Reality
I just received a letter from President Obama. Right there on the outside envelope are the words “I need you.” After not answering several letters which I have mailed and faxed to him, I was, for the briefest of moments, curious about this personal plea for help. Then, of course, I realized that it was a form letter from Mr. Obama via the auspices of the Democratic National Committee (DNC).
I started reading the two page, single-spaced missive. His words prompt responses.
He opens with undeniable declarations, to wit: “There are times in the life of our nation when America’s course can only be set by the concerted effort of citizens determined to pull our country through.
This is one of those times—and your personal involvement in moving America forward is absolutely essential.”
Just what this “personal involvement” is all about is unclear, other than to make a “contribution of $25, $35 or even $50 to the Democratic National Committee” which is somehow supposed to make sure that “America’s families are actively engaged in the critical decisions that lie ahead.”
This money will fund something called “Organizing for America” under the DNC which will unleash “volunteers and activists” to “carry our message…all across this great country of ours.”
The “message” includes “reforms that will bring down the cost of health insurance for families.” But Mr. Obama has taken the one reform—single payer, which he used to support—off the table and replaced it with a bill over a 1000 pages that will do just the opposite—to the delight of the drug and health insurance industries (see singlepayeraction.org).
Continuing into the letter, Mr. Obama emphasizes that “in communities all across America, people are worried about whether they’re going to have a job and paycheck to count on.”
But he has done nothing to support the card check reform to facilitate workers forming unions—an objective he supported during his presidential campaign. Still no push on Congress, no ringing statement of support, as he has uttered numerous times in promoting his various bailouts of Big Business.
One way to help low income workers to pay their bills is to elevate the federal minimum wage to $10 an hour which is what the minimum wage was in 1968, adjusted for inflation. The federal minimum wage is now $7.25. Adding $2.75 per hour would increase consumer demand in our faltering real economy.
The Democrats and Republicans, who gave bailouts in the trillions of dollars for the paper economy of the mismanaged, speculating, reckless big banks, big investment firms and insurance giants like AIG, should provide some economic assistance to workers on Main Street and not just Wall Street.
Mr. Obama writes: “Let’s put America’s future in the hands of people who are willing to work hard, willing to take their responsibilities seriously….” Perhaps Mr. Obama should read the short book by one of his Harvard Law School professors, Richard Parker, titled Here the People Rule. Professor Parker makes a strong case that the government has a constitutional duty to facilitate the political and civic energies of the people.
An important pathway toward this objective is to provide facilities whereby the people can easily band together in their nonprofit civic advocacy associations which they would fund themselves. Mr. Obama can start this process now by supporting a provision to establish a financial consumer association (FCA) with the pending legislation to start a consumer financial regulatory agency.
Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) supported a Financial Consumer Association in 1985 when he was in the House of Representatives. Remember the savings and loan bailouts?
A similar provision can be included in the pending health insurance legislation. These facilities help to redress the present severe imbalance of power between the unorganized people and the corporate power machines which are often taxpayer subsidized and able to deduct lobbying expenses.
These consumer facilities have some precedents. In Obama’s home state of Illinois thousands of consumers of electric, telephone and gas companies voluntarily pay their membership dues to their private advocacy group: Illinois CUB (see http://www.citizensutilityboard.org).
He asks for our “personal participation.” Well why doesn’t he meet with the leaders of consumer, worker and poverty groups in the White House with the frequency with which he meets with the CEOs of giant corporations in the banking, insurance (Aetna), oil, gas, coal, auto and other commercial interests?
Instead he has turned his back on the very constituencies which gave him most of his votes. These are the people who remember Mr. Obama’s campaign promises and all his intonations of “hope and change,” including moving to reform the privileged tax laws for the rich and corporations and revising the notorious trade agreements.
Since Mr. Obama wants “personal participation,” how about moving for D.C. statehood or at least his expressed desire for voting rights and Congressional representation for the residents of the nation’s capital? As the months drag on with a Democratic Congress and a Democratic White House, people are losing hope for any change in their present state of political servitude.
I started reading the two page, single-spaced missive. His words prompt responses.
He opens with undeniable declarations, to wit: “There are times in the life of our nation when America’s course can only be set by the concerted effort of citizens determined to pull our country through.
This is one of those times—and your personal involvement in moving America forward is absolutely essential.”
Just what this “personal involvement” is all about is unclear, other than to make a “contribution of $25, $35 or even $50 to the Democratic National Committee” which is somehow supposed to make sure that “America’s families are actively engaged in the critical decisions that lie ahead.”
This money will fund something called “Organizing for America” under the DNC which will unleash “volunteers and activists” to “carry our message…all across this great country of ours.”
The “message” includes “reforms that will bring down the cost of health insurance for families.” But Mr. Obama has taken the one reform—single payer, which he used to support—off the table and replaced it with a bill over a 1000 pages that will do just the opposite—to the delight of the drug and health insurance industries (see singlepayeraction.org).
Continuing into the letter, Mr. Obama emphasizes that “in communities all across America, people are worried about whether they’re going to have a job and paycheck to count on.”
But he has done nothing to support the card check reform to facilitate workers forming unions—an objective he supported during his presidential campaign. Still no push on Congress, no ringing statement of support, as he has uttered numerous times in promoting his various bailouts of Big Business.
One way to help low income workers to pay their bills is to elevate the federal minimum wage to $10 an hour which is what the minimum wage was in 1968, adjusted for inflation. The federal minimum wage is now $7.25. Adding $2.75 per hour would increase consumer demand in our faltering real economy.
The Democrats and Republicans, who gave bailouts in the trillions of dollars for the paper economy of the mismanaged, speculating, reckless big banks, big investment firms and insurance giants like AIG, should provide some economic assistance to workers on Main Street and not just Wall Street.
Mr. Obama writes: “Let’s put America’s future in the hands of people who are willing to work hard, willing to take their responsibilities seriously….” Perhaps Mr. Obama should read the short book by one of his Harvard Law School professors, Richard Parker, titled Here the People Rule. Professor Parker makes a strong case that the government has a constitutional duty to facilitate the political and civic energies of the people.
An important pathway toward this objective is to provide facilities whereby the people can easily band together in their nonprofit civic advocacy associations which they would fund themselves. Mr. Obama can start this process now by supporting a provision to establish a financial consumer association (FCA) with the pending legislation to start a consumer financial regulatory agency.
Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) supported a Financial Consumer Association in 1985 when he was in the House of Representatives. Remember the savings and loan bailouts?
A similar provision can be included in the pending health insurance legislation. These facilities help to redress the present severe imbalance of power between the unorganized people and the corporate power machines which are often taxpayer subsidized and able to deduct lobbying expenses.
These consumer facilities have some precedents. In Obama’s home state of Illinois thousands of consumers of electric, telephone and gas companies voluntarily pay their membership dues to their private advocacy group: Illinois CUB (see http://www.citizensutilityboard.org).
He asks for our “personal participation.” Well why doesn’t he meet with the leaders of consumer, worker and poverty groups in the White House with the frequency with which he meets with the CEOs of giant corporations in the banking, insurance (Aetna), oil, gas, coal, auto and other commercial interests?
Instead he has turned his back on the very constituencies which gave him most of his votes. These are the people who remember Mr. Obama’s campaign promises and all his intonations of “hope and change,” including moving to reform the privileged tax laws for the rich and corporations and revising the notorious trade agreements.
Since Mr. Obama wants “personal participation,” how about moving for D.C. statehood or at least his expressed desire for voting rights and Congressional representation for the residents of the nation’s capital? As the months drag on with a Democratic Congress and a Democratic White House, people are losing hope for any change in their present state of political servitude.
197 Comments so far
Show AllAmfortas, it's ok. :) I have no quarrel with you. I didn't mean to slight you with my remark. I was just referring to the debate about your credentials. It doesn't matter to me what you do for a living. :) It seemed the battle was spilling over from elsewhere.
Sorry for being testy gang. I'm going through some shit right now, as if we all aren't right now.
That's one reason why I voted for Nader and continue to support him. If all of our officials had Nader's principles, life would be so much easier and worth living, for all of us.
Ralph Nader,
Once again, a SUPERB article.
Readers need to keep in mind that President Obama is not a Liberal, but is a Centrist.
Once one is fully concious of this, his actions are not at all surprising.
By comparison, if the brilliant AND decent AND patriotic Ralph Nader were U.S. President, then we would have a wonderful nation and the policies which he writes about would be reality, hopefully.
The KEY, in my opinion, is
#1) How many Liberals are in power, and
#2) How well those in power, including the media, TEACH the American people about the LOGIC of Liberal philosophy and the ILLOGIC of Right-Wing philsophy.
The Minimum Wage was .... (I moved this comment in its original form and connected it, as a reply, to my first comment. I am doing so because I am tired of having to defend what I am advocating, even though this comment clearly asked: "please do not think I am advocating anything here, I am only trying to give an objective explanation", I even went so far as to include some hints, so as to protect against "conclusion jumpers". Although, I still was accused of everything from defending Fascism, to not having enough education to make such claims, based on assumptions of what I was claiming. And this nonsense continued for several hours. My second comment, the one which was posted exactly here, put an end to most of this foolishness, however, it did not completely stop. I have since had one blogger(metal) who wrote thousands of words based on a false premise that he derived from the consensus of replies which were also based on false premises. There was evidently a "strengh in numbers affect" that created a chain reaction, presumably all having to do with a common bias of me, which is a long story that is of little importance insofar as the details are concerned. What matters here, is that this last blogger refused to read the comment which was posted exactly here; or at least he claimed not to read it, which came after his initial reply, which was posted among the other misguided replies, so perhaps he did read my second comment but chose not to admit that he had. This because any such admission would have forced him to admit that he had been wrong from the start. Which is an inescapable conclusion if my second comment is considered. So I am hereby ensuring that something similar will not happen again.
That said, I will leave it to anyone who cares, to decide for themselves, whatever that opinion might be. I should warn however that it gets ugly. This thread is not a testimonial to the good side of human nature. It may be important however to know that the ugliness began with my first comment (Oct. 27, 11:34am).
If I lived in the U.S (I'm Aussie) and in a strong blue state I would've voted Nader but I don't see any logical reason why the Democratic party can't be reformed. The problem is cultural-there needs to be more "respectable" lefties in the public eye. Even Chomsky, Zinn and Naomi Klein recommended voting Dem in red states. So many here talk like the Dem party can't be changed no matter how many progressives are elected into congress and it sounds like a conspiracy theory-If Ohio got Kucinich in why can't other electorates?
Po - with all due respect, like most Americans you clearly do not get it.
Its about Dems or Republicans - both parties are in the stranglehold of big business and the banks. we need a real 2nd party alternative that will not accept big biz $ and where term limits are a foundation of the platform.
I think you can organize and get progressives elected that don't sell out and Kucinich obviously agrees. The fact is many Americans fell for the red-scare propaganda and vote conservative, others don't vote at all. Imagine if the popular (and cult) celebrities were behind Chomsky. There needs to be more Jon Stewerts, Colberts, Mahers, Nine Inch Nails, Rage against the Machines etc.
“Organizing for America”
Last spring I attended three meetings of above group,
all three were in upper middleclass homes, all were
run by very conservative business owners or wealth
and standing and all was a pretense of wanting
healthcare reform.
For no one was allowed to discuss Single Payer or how to
organize large meeting. Even silenced me when I suggested
putting papers on car windows.
Thank you for posting this. I toyed with the idea of driving 15 miles to go to one of these on Long Island, but I had an inkling this would be the case. How did I think this? I read the forum on the Organizing for America site. This is where the super hardcore Obama-bots/worshipers reside. I thought about posting there on my concerns about health care and the need for single-payer, but someone got there before I did, and they were excoriated for their efforts. This is what makes health reform so confusing to so many people, what to support, what not to support.
There is going to be a health care meeting on Wednesday night at my parish (Catholic). The topic is "health care as a right for all." I am debating whether to go as a fly on the wall and see what they have to say and what they consider as health care for all, because this bill certainly is not it.
At this point in the discussion, anyone who voted for Obama should shut the f*ck up.
I say this with love. If you voted for Barack Obama, you have just proven yourself to be a complete screw-up. Why are you still pontificating about politics?
To speak plainly--your political opinions are not worth a turd. You should be listening to those of us who saw through Obama in the first place.
What are you trying to do, discredit us?
I'm suspicious.
Only a paid actor wotking for the rich would post your
hateful comment.
Surely, you agree with Perry's main point - that the Obama supporters no longer have credibility, and the opinions of those those of us who saw right through him (for me going back to 2004), who have faced contempt and slander at the hands Obama supporters, deserve much more respect now.
Nicely stated.
perry sounds like a Fox news talking head. Either stand with Obama or get out of the way.
And God bless Ralph Nader. I hope that someone will take on his mantle someday when he can no longer fight for us.
With all due respect, I don't know who RL or Jill Baines is or any of that and don't really care. I have had my share of message board drama before, and I'd rather leave that alone and try to stop taking the bait.
The real trolls too busy making obscene amounts of money at the expense of humanity to post on message boards.
Yes, I've fallen for it too and have wasted enough of my own time fighting what are essentially shadows. I just try to ignore the posters I don't like. Nothing's to be gained from clashing with people online, but it's easy to fall into regardless.
You are a time waster, why?
Rocky Hill,
I'm sorry I did not make myself clear in my comment to you in your views on R.L. Love. I was in agreement with you! I apologize for being allusive and unclear.
My view is that he is more 'devil,' than playing the 'devils advocate' or perpetuating some kind of pathetic hoax. I was not attacking you or being sarcastic. I also agree with you that this roundelay of 'drama' is becoming more a 'theater of cruelty' fueled more by megalomania than camaraderie.
You are correct to point out that ego aggrandizement, at the expense of others, is a sordid spectacle; it is more demeaning to the exponent than the victim.
–(Jill Bains)
Well said.
Your post is pure confusion, no doubt confusion on purpose.
pjd-Oh of course there's a lot more to it that just how much we make.
I have thought of moving abroad a bunch of times. But to me it's a biiiig leap. I'd be leaving a lot of people behind too. Besides, I'd rather stay here and be a pain in the ass to those in power. lol. I'd feel as if I was abandoning the U.S. Too many people are flocking to Europe and Canada anyway. How many more people can Sweden, France, and Norway take in? Do they even want me to come?
"Oh no. More USAns."
Nah. I'll stay put unless things get totally unbearable. There's hope.
Yeah,
My piont of intolerability was reached in the spring of 2003 and I was looking for a while to emigrate to Ireland - the celtic tiger with lots of jobs at the time.
But I never followed through, now I'm over 50, and getting work permits or immigrant status under programs like Canada "skilled worker immigration" program is much more difficult.
As you know, my brother and his partner emigrated to Canada, and he found that Toronto is no social-democratic worker's paradise, Pittsburgh was more progressive in some aspects. Conservatives are definitely on the increase up there. It is like they are learning nothing from watching us down here and the ghosts of Ronald Reagan and Ayn Rand are stalking the great white North big-time.
"I really wonder what many presumably well-off CD readers do for a living."
I've been wondering that about well-off folks my whole adult life.
It's not what ya know, it's who ya know.
$10 doesn't even seem enough to me. What would be too much?
I've been living off $8.50 an hour since January. And that's the highest I've ever been paid in the various jobs I've had since late 2002.
In EU countries, minimum wage is equivalent to from $13 to $18 per hour.
In Canada it is by Province - Ontario is $9.50, Quebec $9.00, bit less in the Martimes and West.
Of course you should also add to this the much greater "social wage" in the civilized countries outside the US in the form of more generous no-time-limit unemployment benefits, free uni. education plus living money while attending full time. Free or very cheap, sliding scale comprehensive health insurance - including (in France at least, I'm not making this up) vacations to the Rivera if the doctor prescribes it for stress; fully paid family and maternity leave for up to 2 years, 4 to 6 month paid vacations by law, generous sick leave by law, rent controls, very cheap or free, fast, frequent public transit, cheap, fast intercity trains going everywhere, cleaner air and water, healthier food, safer household products...
I'm too old, but you're not. Ready to learn another language and move yet?
I had to re-read Love's comments to fully understand, I'll admit. I'm just a laborer who didn't finish college. lol. Besides, after being worn out all day, comments like RL's are a little hard to grasp upon first glance. I never got that RL was being a devil's advocate though.
I do know that they wave $25,000 bonuses in the faces of military recruitment prospects now. Why work in McDonald's if you can get that kind of money? I also know they currently pay soldiers $1600 a month to go to school on top of the GI Bill.
We're not going to get a cozy living wage in a capitalist system.
"I never got that RL was being a devil's advocate though." –(thegreatrockyhill)
–Was he? He seems more like a low grade Mephistopheles wannabe to me than playing at 'devil's advocate.' I don't sense any irony. Where is the shadow and where is the act in his game? In an attempt to 'play' others he seems to be playing with himself. A cipher.
–(Jill Bains).
"We have some real egomaniacs here."
Ohhh yeah.
Would a $22 an hour living wage be too much? I've read that it's what the wage of the average worker should be if it kept up with CEO pay. Would it be more than that?
Talk about stimulating the economy, especially if we nationalized the banks and forgave everyone's debt.
I delete all the Obama spam I get anymore.
If only there was a Freaky Friday switcheroo between Obama and Nader.
i send these things back in their DNC postage paid envelope...
either in shreds from the scissors...
or...
using my most obnoxious magic marker to convey any current screed that comes to mind...
i still get these every week... maybe if they start seeing their fundraising lists sent back... at their expense... millions and millions of these... they might start getting the message...
it's a direct line. they DO look at these things. remember... they are expecting a check or credit card number... and... they're paying for it...
we whine a lot about the "message" imbalance... folks... here's your direct line to the people who count... the ones who count the money...
Excellent idea. Well done.
henry did you miss fox on the tool bar again and end up
here again?
What balls has DNC to send this lying letter to voters! After backstabbing them multiple times since the Black Bush took office in January, not to mention since they took over in 2006, for instance, after promising to end the wars only to escalate them. Vicious, lying war profiteers.
As for Obama the Black Bush, he's the supreme criminal. This letter belongs in the trash bin, as do he and the rest of the Democratic Party (or the War Party, as it's more truthfully known).
Most of Nader's points in the article are glaringly valid, the most powerful for me being N's asking Obama why he doesn't meet in the WH with consumer, worker, and poverty groups as often as with CEO's of giant corps, etc.
This bullseye question could be used to much greater effect by Nader if he asked it other than rhetorically.
The WH public log shows that Obama and his upper tier staff almost never personally meet with such citizen groups for substantive talks, while it simultaneously shows that they do meet with the rich and powerful consistently and for huge blocks of Executive time.
Would the public care if this fact were documented and blared in newspaper ads across the country?
Would enough people care, if, through Nader's efforts, they had it shoved in the faces that O's WH provably shuts-out the concerns of average citizens even as it cynically pretends to be encouraging their high level participation?
How can we know, if no one including Ralph even tries to drive the point home with greater force?
After three grueling campaigns for the presidency, including thousands of appearances, speeches and papers, I give the now 75-year-old Ralph Nader due credit for exercising as much force in the pursuit of truth and justice as anyone in my lifetime.
Ralph, run for Dem Congress and return the party to its progressive roots, now hijacked by Dem cons.
Obama is setting up a fascist police state for the corporations and bankers as fast as they want him to, with indefinite detention, torture, Blackwater, Monsanto over the FDA, pushing RFID chipping and control of the internet.
But all that betrayal may be moot as he just declared a swine flu emergency for a swine flu that CBS just proved the CDC lied about (98% of "swine flu" samples in California are not swine flu, 97% in Georgia ..., some not even flu but colds), so he's suspended the Bill of Rights and now activated FEMA camps.
He's doesn't care about the things Nader mentions. He's part of a corporate take over here that comes with removal of the Constitution and a phony pandemic as a pretext for control, such as Homeland Security now saying they may need to shut down website in a pandemic emergency.
The left has not even seen what he did or gets that the flu was a hoax prepared by Bush and Cheney.
Moore,
I voted for Obama and was very excited about what I thought was the change we needed. But since then I have learned so much and have come the same conclusion that you state in the first paragraph of your post. now I find myself moving from shock to being really pissed off and determined to find a way to do something about it.
I have come to the conclusion that there is no thread of 'we the people" left with the current so-called "2 party system" (its really a one party system ruled by the bankers and big biz). So we need a real 2nd party made up of citizen activists who see what's going on and rise up to fight it.
But the first step is to expose the deals being made in the dark that really run our government and are methodically stripping away our liberty. Then we can wake up those like I was, that are numb to reality and mobilize the electorate and take back the freedom that our forefathers (many of them) worked so brilliantly to enable.
I think we have a fantastic opportunity to watch carefully and document opposition to HR 1207 and S604 calling for an audit of the FED. Obama will need to fully support this effort for "transparency" or be exposed as a fraud. We need to watch and document and expose all opposition to these bills and when we see who opposes it, we need to follow the money and expose the real influence on our legislators, who work in the shadows and who are selling out our freedom.
Do you feel as I do, compelled to take action and find a way to drive the change we need win back our liberty?
Anyone else reading this - do you agree? Are you not determined to find a way to make this right?
...less is Moore
What progressive roots? The main principle guiding the Democratic Party has always been opportunism.
Ralph would never run as a Dem after all the dirty tricks the Dems have pulled to mess with him.
He should run for Senate against Chris Dodd.
The Dems wouldn't have him, of course; they wouldn't even consider Nader unless he elected to have a full pre-frontal lobotomy first.
And Nader wouldn't join them, of course; he doesn't strike me as the type who would allow the Gorgon Pelosi to harvest his gonads and put them in the Sub-Zero with the others.
And he's admittedly shaky on the one quality prized above all by our devolved and depraved corporatized duopoly: Playing Well with Others.
· Yr Obd't Servant
Exactly.
Ralph could already be an incumbent Democrat for say, Vermont, and the Democrats would still be doing everything to get him out - such as running lavishly funded, slime-throwing, primary challengers. This is called getting "Cynthia McKinneyed".
And in my District, I've seen the DNC "zero out", and hang out to dry, far less progressive challengers to out scumbag suburban Republican congressman.
Ralph Nader writes: "He asks for our 'personal participation.' Well why doesn't he meet with the leaders of consumer, worker and poverty groups in the White House with the frequency with which he meets with the CEOs of giant corporations..."
Nader is the one who believes appealing to CEOs will save America - and the world! Obama is merely following Nader's advice. In his new book, "Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us!", Nader turns Warren Buffett into a hero of the working class. In real life, Buffett threatened to disown his adopted granddaughter for being too vocal about how the executive class has created an economy that primarily benefits the wealthy. Buffett is diligent in ensuring his businesses pay as little tax as possible - it's not about paying too much tax, it's about wanting to pay NO TAX - corporate or personal!
In a previous article, people were praising Nader, saying what a god he was, and how his new idea of pleading with CEOs to galvanize Americans into action could bring about the change "progressives" have been yearning for.
I guess Nader now realizes his idea was rubbish, that Warren Buffett - along with all the other "celebrity" CEOs! - ignore him as much as Obama.
Nader at least has the consolation of being wealthy.
"Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us!" - you said it Nader, NOT Obama. Now live with it!
listen to his interviews about the book...which is fiction by the way.. you're putting words into his mouth I think.....the book is really pointing out the absurdity of being in a place where the super-rich control EVERYTHING and so the few super-rich that think they themselves are progressive need to step up to the plate....and do something besides talk a good interview and do basically nothing else..it's time to put up or shut up for the ultra-wealthy liberals is basically what the book was written to do. And he wanted to show a blueprint of what the wealthy could do besides talk the talk.
And I have t hand it to Nader - he was right about Obama - regardless of how much we wanted it to be otherwise.
Well said.
Could there be a reason the book was published as fiction, Sane?
To those people who now realize that Obama had no intention of delivering health care to all and bring an end to the war, you also have to realize that if you mistakenly voted for him, you are the one who helped enable him to carry out these policies.
While people complained that Nader wasn't winnable, you have to realize that every 5% of the vote Nader would have gotten would have brought us 10% closer to single payer health care and an actual end to the war.
Sometimes mistakes can not be taken back and we have to live with the consequences. This may be one of them.
I also realize that the next election will again have people on the 'liberal' side voting for democrats for all the same reasons as in the past (those that don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it).
Single payer health care or single term.
Public option is not an option.
NotOneMore: Like you, I didn't vote for Obama in 2008 -- I voted for Ralph Nader.
I actually fell for the argument in 2004, and I deeply regretted my decision! However, in 2004, except for my vote for Kerry, I voted 3rd Party on other offices.
And, I agree with you that the public option is NOT the option we need -- we need single-payer for everyone!
And I agree with you. I did not vote at all in 2008.
Mr. Nader,
This is my 2nd posting - last one to your post "Time for Citizens to Convene".
I have have recently been woken up to what I think is really going on with our government. I voted for Obama with great passion, but what I have recently discovered gives me great pause. I know that what I am about to say is old news to you. we do not have a 2 party system. we have one party system run by big business and the banks (FED). There is no liberal or conservative - those battles are nothing but great distraction of the electorate by the real governing powers. I could go on but me must get to actions that have a shot at real change - change to bring the government back to the people. We need a viable 3rd party (or really a viable 2nd party), independent and truly dedicated to reestablishing and protecting our liberties. Mr. Nader, we are on a very dangerous path in this county and in this world. I'm looking to you - asking you - is that your mission? We need to organize, mobilize take our future back. Obama proved the power of grass roots mobilization and fund raising. The internet and social media offer great mobilization potential. I'm looking for like minded folk and leaders who are determined to do what it takes to reverse this dangerous trend. Are you there?
It is correct to say that we do not have a two party system. We have a one party system run by big business and the banks. It is nearly impossible to start a third party (or really a viable 2nd party) at this time. The sad fact is that most American voters firmly believe that they MUST vote for the Democrats or the Republicans. They vote year after year for which they think is the lesser evil. The people must break this choke hold of the big money boys on our democracy. We must not continue to vote for representatives who are obviously working for their corporate pay masters.
I suggest we all rank our representatives state of corruption on how that rep voted on three issues. How did your rep vote on the bankster bailout? (nearly 100% of the people said NO) How did your rep vote on the surge in Afghanistan? (The vast majority of the people say "end the war---don't expand it!) Has your rep signed on to vote YES on HR 676, Medicare for all Single Payer? (a poll by the New York Times indicates that 74% of the people support this)
If your rep is not voting on the advice of the constituents in the district, that person must be removed from Congress. That would allow new candidates to step forward and the possible return to democracy in our nation. In a democracy the voice of the people is heard and honored. If a new person does not vote as the people want---throw that one out too. The people in Congress may learn that to get votes (these are needed to keep their sweet job) they must heed their constituents, or join the growing ranks of the unemployed.
Want
I think the first critical step is to educate the electorate. we need a wake up call in this country. This two party competition between Ds & Rs, red states and blue states, liberals and conservatives, is what is distracting us from recognizing whats really going on and the powers that be are feeding it - they love watching us squabble as the chip away at our liberty in the darkness. I point to movies like "Food, Inc" that so clearly illuminate the blatant manipulation of our liberties and our very well being by big business and it's manipulation of our government with it's insatiable hunger for profit at all costs.
I have some experience at the local level in exposing the manipulation crafted in the shadows where the electorate can't see - or does not take the time to watch carefully. We need to be a floodlight brigade, doing the work that our journalists should be doing. we need to shine the strongest lights and illuminate what's going on in our government - a light so strong as to fill all the cracks and crevices where the manipulation deals are made. Then we can call our neighbors to see what's really going on and ask, "do you see that there?, what do you think about that? Is that OK? shouldn't somebody do something about that? shouldn't WE do something about that?
We need to wake up America! Only then can we mobilize to protect our liberty.
A couple of weeks ago, I read an article about Mayor Bloomberg and Al Gore pairing up for a new project here in NYC -- green jobs, painting the roofs of buildings white, as I recall. Here's the kicker, though: the two men are rounding up volunteers to do the work.
Volunteers? The last time I read about the number of unemployed in NYC, the number was solidly sitting at 1.5 million. We can't run an economy with volunteers.
At last count, Mayor Bloomberg was worth $20 billion, and I'm certain that Al Gore must be worth a lot of money, too. During my own lifetime, I have volunteered thousands of free hours on a number of different very good causes, but nothing has ever returned to me in any kind of recompense or job opportunities.
On Sunday, I was walking up 3rd Avenue toward East Harlem, and I heard a small group of people talking, saying they were going to refuse to volunteer -- "We deserve to be paid!" It wasn't until I had passed them by a couple of blocks that I remembered the article, and wondered if they had signed up as volunteers and were NOW changing their minds due to the fact that "these men are rich," as I heard them say when I was walking up the Avenue.
We have empty commercial real estate in every neighborhood in the city, and they are building more spaces as I am writing this post. Over the past few years, developers have built nothing but luxury apartments in the city, most of which, today, are sitting empty. And, the biggest real estate deal in history -- $5.4 billion in 2006 -- is about to bite the dust! "According to a new report from Realpoint, a credit rating agency," the properties, 110 apartment buildings, are now worth only $2.1 billion. California pensions are invested in this deal (Jerry I and Rob Speyer, and their partner BlackRock Realty), too, according to a September 10, 2009 NY Times article by Charles V. Bagli. He lays out the entire fiasco in the article. In addition, the involved parties illegally deregulated the buildings to the tune of $200,000,000 -- the case has already been through the NY courts.
What a mess! And, the Obama administration, as well as Bloomberg, here in NYC, seem to have no real solutions for "we the people," except to want us to volunteer our time for, of course, good causes -- this is a solution? I wrote telling them that it might feel good to volunteer, but volunteering won't pay the rent or buy food.
Vote Reverend Billy Talen for mayor of New York City. He's got a platform to make NYC livable, vibrant, sustainable and just. Bloomberg and the Democrats offer more of the same - government of, by, and for the richest, empty rhetoric for everyone else.
VoteRevBilly.org
" And, the Obama administration, as well as Bloomberg, here in NYC, seem to have no real solutions for "we the people," except to want us to volunteer our time for, of course, good causes -- this is a solution?"
This is the *NEW* economy. Volunteer!!! Hell, it may not pay the bills but at least you will feel good about it?
So, either private businesses save us from climate change, or they ask for volunteers. God forbid the government employ people directly for something this important!
FDR's guy Harry Hopkins hired 3 million workers in 6 weeks - with a less than 3% overhead. We are still using the schools, airports, parks etc that these workers created. Obama is no FDR that's for sure......he is more likely Hoover than FDR for those who know their depression history. AND where in the Obama WH is even one progressive like Hopkins or Francis Perkins or other progressives that FDR had? Not to be found that's where. Even the big business hack Paul Volker is too liberal for Obama and has been basically run out of the WH by Geitner nad Summers - true sociopaths if there ever were ones.
Doesn't that make you feel good that our economy and our HOPE AND CHANGE is being driven by the likes of summers and geitner?
I know about the work of Harry Hopkins, and how fast they put the programs together and implemented them. I have written to all of my elected officials, and even made phone calls on this issue.
I agree, there are no Harry Hopkins or Francis Perkins in the current Obama administration. Like you, I have been shocked that Volker is to the left of Obama, et. al. -- after having been at the helm of the Fed during the 1980s.
I was already alerted to Obama -- his FISA vote and his intent to escalate the war in Afghanistan -- and didn't vote for him. When he appointed Summers and Geithner, I was horrified!
HOPE and CHANGE -- none that I can see!
Actually, it makes me sick to my stomach :-)
I wish this guy was in charge of our economy: http://www.newdeal20.org/?p=5783
I got the same thing from the Obama team as well but I get a lot of junk mail from both parties. Maybe that's the "curse" for being a registered independent but no amount of junk mail will change my registration ! By the way, why aren't the so-called "environmentalists" calling for an end to junk mail? A lot of trees a year can be saved and there's nowadays TV and the Internet to view them.
"By the way, why aren't the so-called "environmentalists" calling for an end to junk mail? A lot of trees a year can be saved"
Excellent point! And why do they get a break on postage anyway?
Some are calling for an end to it, but apparently that's how the postal service gets the bulk of its revenue, so it's fighting tooth and nail against it.
I'm sure you're right. But maybe they should try something different?
I have no objection to directly funding the postal service as a government agency. But I'm sure many (conservatives) would.
"The letter will provide the Dems a gauge of how many suckers they can still count on to grasp their ankles and ante up."
This was so well put, I thought it should be at the top rather than the bottom. Expressed by raydelcamino, not me....though I fully agree with the sentiments.
Thank you fellow posters for expressing your contempt for Obama and the Dems at this juncture. It is comforting to me to know that not everyone was fooled by this corporate puppet!
so it is OK to dissent as long as you are not on Fox News?
You can dissent on Fox, just don't call it News or Fair or Balanced.
the real news is on ABC, CBS, MSNBC, NBC, CNN. they are non-partisan and ask the tough questions!
This on purpose, Owl, or are you just hooting in a tree?
Bring America Back !!!!..........!!!!...Why this would matter to anyone in here, but it's about time you include in Mr Nader's credits the fact that he was candidate for the US Presidency. Not as good as a book writer, but it counts, you know--in the hierarchy of modern thinking !
***Lucky Ralph Nader who must be on the preferred donor list,as I still get e-mails from Team Obama asking for just $5 from everybody then we can change the World !! Nader gets asked for the big $25.
***Seems to me if Nader realizes Obama has miserably failed on each and every campaign promise to us, that would inspire him to throw his hat into the ring NOW, rather than wait to the last minute then play his traditional role of bad boy and spoil sport.
**They say Nader is too old for another run for the Gold.
So then he can just keep on being a sniper, a hacker, a
gaffer and a back seat driver , and arm chair quarterback !
Ralph Nader's contributions to this nation are incomparable on the consumer advocacy front. His life is exemplary. But he does not understand our current economic circumstances and is therefore not valid in his recomendations. Not to suggest that his intentions are not genuine, but that he is instead allowing his lack of economic understanding to mislead his thinking, and that translates to his readers also being mislead.
In real terms the minimum wage reached its historical highpoint in 1968. But that corresponds with another historical highpoint, one of dissent and internal conflict; and this was not a coincidence. What Mr. Nader fails to include in his thinking is that military recruitment is affected by wage levels, both as related to recruitment and as matter of direct costs. On the recruitment side, the military competes with the domestic job market in regards to choices. Recruitment efforts are of course aimed at those who are young and at a stage of life when they are weighing their choices for their futures. So it is the choices which must be limited so as to encourage recruitment -- and the 1960s taught this lesson. And of course the direct costs for the military are the result of competion in regards to how much must be offered to potential recruits as pay. In other words, the domestic labor market influences the cost of war because it dictates what soldiers must be paid. The cost of labor also affects all other military costs although some of these costs benefit the economy and this is a little beside the point. That point being that the minimum wage can not be raised significantly with the military being deployed at current levels.
That is not to suggest though that the domestic economy would not benefit from higher wage levels right now, because it would, any comparison to economic trends of the 1960s shows that. But there is a more pressing consideration. For decades the IMF has encouraged poor nations to buy dollar related assets. These assets were then used as criteria so as to deturmine credit worhtiness and this affects the interest rate levels that poor nations are required to pay on devolopment loans etc.. So, without going into the moral issues here, which I doubt the word limit would allow, the value of the dollar affects the global economy to such an extent that its value trumps all other considerations. (please do not think that I am advocating anything here, this is all intended to be objective)
So, now it is important to understand just how fragile the value of the dollar is. Hypothetically, if the the Chinese for example, decided to exchange their vast dollar related holdings for gold and other simular assets the supply of dollars to the currency market would cause the dollar's value to plummet. This would simutaneously cause gold values to spike with commodity values not far behind. But of course the Chinese would not actually benefit because the global economy would collapse. And it is this balance between gain and loss that maintains economic order. So it is critical to understand that economic stability is in part due to the global dependence on the dollar's value, that maintains economic order. A type of deturrent exists as the result of the incentivizing done through the development loan process and other reserve currency implications. This due in part, as I explained, by using the holding of dollar related assets as criteria so as to encourage a dependency on the dollar's value. (Clever and Arrogant)
What this dependency has done though is create a positive wealth flow from poor nations to rich ones. According to Dr. Stiglitz, for every dollar the developed nations give in aid, three dollars is gained by the developed nations. And so it is critical to understand that the U.S. military is a defacto global-economy-police-force. It is widely known in leadership circles that hegemony is intrinsic to world trade and so the potential for conflict is very high at the national level. The little wars that have become so much a part of this nation's foreign policy, are in part intended as a warning to those who might threaten economic stability. Which, conviently, happens to be in the world's best interest. But it is what it is, and wages are not going to rise significantly in this country so long as the current world order exists. The U.S. has chosen its role in the Globalization plan and it thereby has limitted the alternatives of its people. But this must be understood if the citizens are to make better choices moving forward. Uninformed or misguided citizens do not make for a good Democracy!
The Minimum Wage was adopted as policy in 1938. Since that time, the longest period for this minimum not to be raised(Congress), was from 1998 to 2006. A period widely perceived as one the most prosperous in U.S. history. (we know otherwise now)
From the year 2000 to 2005, the poverty rate rose from 12.2%, to 13.3%, or at a nominal rate of about one million people per year. But the minimum wage, which is the most effective option the government has to minimize poverty, was raised less frequently than the norm of about 3 years. So Congress delayed almost three times the norm, and about twice the norm, if the norm were based on inflation factors alone. Which would be a misleading comparison considering the percieved prosperity. Especially when considering the economic mantra of the period, which is often summerized as, "a rising tide lifts all boats". So, why would the powers that be, risk exposing the fraudulent side of their precious theories, the Laffer Curve, EMH, supply-side etc., theories which they believe to be the underpinning of THEIR success, over a few quarters per hour, a wage increase that would most certainly boost consumption, which is money that finds its way back to its origins anyway? The only logical conclusion is that the lesson of "Viet Nam" taught the importance of low wages in regards to military recruitment. A conclusion which is supported further by the recruitment PR campaign itself, which is obvious beyond the need for any substantiation here.
The point then, in an effort to connect here with my original comment, is that any effort to convince Congress to raise the Minimum Wage, considering the implications on the value of the dollar, which I tried to explain in my first comment, are not just futile but misguided. This would be like attacking an enemy on an impregnable front, a front shown to be worth any and all needed sacrifices. But one must understand this, if he or she is to apply the necessary effort to find where the defences are pregnable. And the corportocracy does have one exposed weakness, that weakness being our documented protections against tyranny. And the social engineering of these manipulations to affect military recruitment, manipulations which are also evident in the government's use of farm subsidies to control labor values, and trade dependencies, are social engineering used as leverage in a type of class tyranny -- that can not withstand the scrutiny of understanding, in a modern democracy. But these manipulations benefit most Americans in some way, and especially the franchised class. So it is complicated, and this tyranny is allowed to exist as a result of its inherent complications, because those complications are not widely understood. A better understanding would, I suspect, lead to a less partisan approach to our common circumstances, because our problems going forward will be defined more by socio-economic class, than by political parties as they currently exist.
And without doing the math, the Minimum Wage should be considerably higher than $10.00 per hour, it should be based on economic efficiency factors. An asset bubble is too much investment capital in the system, so an economy's maximum efficiency is dictated by the balance between the most favorable amount of investment along with foreign inflows, weighed against, wage, consumption, productivity, and upward mobility factors. But, as I tried to explain, economic efficiency is not as much a concern, on a domestic level, as matters of maintaining the EMPIRE. So why do the math, which is maybe beyond my skill level in the first place, and certainly beyond the time considerations for something that would only be ignored anyway. Which serves my point in regards to Mr. Nader's efforts to affect the Minimim Wage. There will not be any significant Minimum Wage increases until the demand for recruits is not a factor.
ray ~ I would prefer that only those who have read both of my comments reply here, thanks.
What you point out is that our whole economic system is just a shell game that will tumble even more, and at the expense of the common people (assuming your comment was serious).
But to say that Nader does not understand economics is a little naive (and wrong).
Of course Nader understands that the system is working exactly like it is supposed to be, and the power elite constantly take steps to ensure the continuation of the status quo (whether through republicans or democrats).
Just like most people are discussing whether they should be outraged if the public option in healthcare is taken off the table. If that is your concern you have missed the boat. It should be about single payer health care that you are fighting for. Anything less is unacceptable. Nader is fighting for single payer health care.
So you took a college course in economics and can expound on the need to maintain the dollar's value. What you fail to address it that our current economy isn't just unfair and causes unnecessary suffering, but that it is unsustainable. It is destroying our planet.
Nader knows very well the connection between economics, social justice, sustainable planet, and survival. And he knows that there are a power elite that are causing it to happen because people won't stand up against them. What do you think he has been talking about for the last 40 years?
NotOneMore,
Finally a reply that only insults me on the subject at hand. And a supported claim too. Supported with the assumption of what I fail "to address", which is of course beside the point, and on environmental issues, which I write about more than anything else, but at least it is SOMETHING SUPPORTED. On a relative scale, as compared to most of the other replies here, this is like only being hit from behind with a baseball bat, as opposed to being shot in the back while sleeping. And nothing about my spelling. All things considered, a good reply, in a lack-of-reading-skills-sort-of-way. Thanks.
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
Your windy pretense at objectivity is revealed by your regularly interspersed subjective assumptions and grand leaps of absolute nonsense that invariably support the status quo and include false descriptions of an "order" that does not exist and never has--anymore than the "free market."
Referring to Nader: "But he does not understand our current economic circumstances and is therefore not valid in his recomendations."
Here you fail to explain how Nader does not understand our current economic circumstances or why he is not valid in his recommendations. I am familiar with Nader's extensive credentials with regard to economics and economic regulatory policies. What are your credentials regarding economics and related regulatory policy?
"And of course the direct costs for the military are the result of competion in regards to how much must be offered to potential recruits as pay. In other words, the domestic labor market influences the cost of war because it dictates what soldiers must be paid. The cost of labor also affects all other military costs although some of these costs benefit the economy and this is a little beside the point. That point being that the minimum wage can not be raised significantly with the military being deployed at current levels."
This blast of hot air is so rife with false and incomplete assumptions that dismiss decades of documented and outrageous Pentagon overspending on procurement it sounds like something written by an early 1970s high school sophomore boy scout trying to impress his Republican troop leader. Decades of Congressional testimony have proven the thoroughly out of control and unaccountable nature of Pentagon spending on everything from toilet seats to aircraft engine stabilizers. If the level of wages for military recruits are so closely wedded to prevailing wages for corresponding civilian domestic jobs, then why the Pentagon's tactically failed over-reliance on mercenaries who are far more expensive than regular military recruits? Pentagon-hired mercs have consistently outnumbered the entire British compliment to the "coalition of the willing" in Iraq. They have won no hearts and minds there and Blackwater, Inc. (now Xe, Inc.) developed a global reputation for casual mass murder of civilians, including low level Iraqi officials. Pentagon operating costs including, mercenaries, failed "rebuilding" contractor scams, black ops programs and secret R&D operate outside any and all of your quaint notions of economic order. The U.S. spends $360 Billion dollars a year more on its annual military budget now than it did at the peak of the Reagan era Cold War defense budgets--back when we had a real enemy on an order of threat magnitude that posed an existential threat of global thermonuclear annihilation. Not gaggles of unshaven Muslims with Stinger missiles, AK-47s, RPGs and IEDs.
There are, in fact, several things the government could do to raise revenue or cut spending in other areas to provide a significant increase in the minimum wage regardless of current military deployment levels. These include raising income taxes on the richest 1% to an emergency level of 85% to 90%; eliminating government corporate welfare subsidies in excess of $300 Billion per annum that go to already profitable corporations; gradually renegotiating environmental and labor protections into the global "free trade" regime on an industrial sector-by-sector basis; strengthening union voting rules; providing adequate federal law enforcement against $60 Billion dollars in annual Medicare fraud, etc., etc. Even professionally auditing the Pentagon's entire budget for the first time since the end of the Cold War in order to eliminate waste, obsolete programs and technology, procurement & contractor fraud and redundancies would be an enormous start.
"Hypothetically, if the the Chinese for example, decided to exchange their vast dollar related holdings for gold and other simular assets the supply of dollars to the currency market would cause the dollar's value to plummet. This would simutaneously cause gold values to spike with commodity values not far behind. But of course the Chinese would not actually benefit because the global economy would collapse. And it is this balance between gain and loss that maintains economic order."
This depends, among other things, on how fast the Chinese move to diversify their currency interests, how far they take diversification, and what basket of other currencies they move toward. Were they to do it in a matter of a few months the global economy would collapse. But the BRIC nations and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, of which China is the economically dominant member, are pushing an agenda to remove the U.S. dollar as the world's sole reserve currency within 9 years. A lot can happen in the global economy in 9 years. This situation also depends on how much more the Chinese can diversify their export markets around the rest of the world relative to what they import just to America along with how many other nations (and how economically significant those nations are) that they can convince to go with them in moving toward a basket of reserve currencies.
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
There is increasing DISORDER and record breaking wealth disparities in the global economy right now because of global reliance on the dollar as the sole reserve currency--not order or better distribution of wealth. The rational "balance between gain and loss" of which you speak depends, among other things, upon the rationality and moral compass of the bankers and regulators overseeing the U.S. economy. Even the fabled Alan Greenspan had his Friedmanesque cud-chewing interrupted long enough to admit before a Congressional hearing that his worship of the "rationality" of a deregulated "free market" was a failed proposition.
"And so it is critical to understand that the U.S. military is a defacto global-economy-police-force. It is widely known in leadership circles that hegemony is intrinsic to world trade and so the potential for conflict is very high at the national level. The little wars that have become so much a part of this nation's foreign policy, are in part intended as a warning to those who might threaten economic stability. Which, conviently, happens to be in the world's best interest. But it is what it is, and wages are not going to rise significantly in this country so long as the current world order exists."
The U.S. military is a global fossil fuel/strategic minerals market police force. It does not enforce U.S. policy wishes concerning every aspect of the global economy as your over-broad generalization attempts to assert. There are other components of the U.S. government, especially the State Department, CIA, NSA, their various contractors and the WTO to do that. The CIA and NSA and NRO have their own surveillance satellite constellations that are separate from the Pentagon's.
Economically stability is in the world's best interest if it is environmentally sustainable, but America's various "little wars" that "are in part intended as a warning to those who might threaten economic stability" have neither increased stability nor proven themselves as an effective threat. Resistance to American military policy from North Korea to Iran to Iraq to Afghanistan to Pakistan to Russia and even China has only increased tremendously since George Duhhbya Bush embarked on his bloody "war-time prezdint" misadventures. The current world order has far less to do with American working-class wages than our increasing domestic disorder, extreme income disparities, regulatory collapse, crony corruption at the highest levels of the oligarchy that now permeates much of the court system and the lack of solidarity that exists across our, by turns, ignorant and brainwashed working- and under-class.
metal,
So much context twisting and dishonesty that your comments do not warrant much of my time. So instead of supporting these claims, which could be achieved using ANY of your contentions, I will use your primary premise to show WHY your contentions could not be anything but dishonest.
Trying to contend that my intentions are to "support the status quo", is ridiculous. My comments expose a violation of Article IV, Section 4, of the Constitution. And it just dosn't get any more anti-status quo than that. So your arguement is, as your arguements have all been, in my experience, based on a false premise. Although this time, your premise is the exact opposite of what is rather obvious, especially if my second comment is read. So I suppose that even at your reading level, you will be able to understand why trying to argue from a complete and totally wrong premise, requires a distorted point of view that affects all else. Your view on military spending is a good example. You cite "out of control" military spending on "toilet seats", and on "aircraft engine stabalizers", as part of a tirade that suggests that the military has a bottomless spending limit. Which I suppose is integral to your "oligarchy view". But how does that reconcile with the Iran-Contra funding scandal, and the money that Charlie Wilson used to fund the Afgan resistance to the U.S.S.R., etc. ? And are you the only person in this country who is unaware of the allegations that military contractors over-charging for items is part of a scimming and fund diversion tactic? And what about the endless wrangling between Congress and the Pentagon over funding? Do you really believe that military spending is limitless and therefore not a factor? Or is this what your ideology requires you to believe? Which is something so simplistic so as to suggest that the military just receives a lump sum that is delivered in a dumptruck -- and that is all there is to it. And as for the fact that our country was nearly torn apart by the unrest of the 1960s, which was central to my argument, the part which of course you ignored, well, we have talked about honesty before, have we not?
But with your rancor and thirst for revenge, which is evidently a holdover, from the first time I showed how dishonest you are, and from the time after that, and combined with the lack of reading skills necessary for you to reach your distortional conclusions, in both cases, your simplistic and idiotic assertions come as no surprise.
If you must persist in your quest for revenge, at least have the courage to attach your reply to my most recent comment (Oct. 29, 8:12pm), and be sure to read that comment -- at least twice. Placing your criticizms down here among other replies makes it difficult for other readers to compare what is being claimed to have been said, with what was actually said. But of course you know that, don't you?
You even went so far as to wait until the conversation was over, by a couple of days, before "making your move". I, of course, might have unfinished business here, just like on that other thread, where you you appeared from the shadows, so even your being here is suspect. Perhaps you should change your handle to, the "Blogstalker". With the credentials ~ sneaky context distortions ~ will search when necessary ~ no task below my standards ~
You are the most devious blogger I know of. Come out into the light! ( I can not explain how wierd it is for someone to lack courage, when using an alias. What ever happened to "'freedom' is just another word for nothing left to lose"?)
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
You can spew your partially-informed, misspelled hoo-haw and hollow put-downs all you want, but your posts on this and several other subjects are poorly supported, poorly thought-through, poorly articulated (filled with vague and conflated allusions and implied relationships between ideas that you never specify or elaborate) and narrow in perspective to put it mildly. Your worst qualities are your intellectual laziness, utter lack of a sense of humor and entirely too thin skin. You frequently start to make some good points and then undermine your chosen premise with your sloppy, chock-full-'o-empty-filler windage. This makes your posts read like a combination of political idea fragments and non sequiturs. I'd rather watch an episode of Allo, Allo on PBS whilst eating sweet potato french fries in raspberry mustard dipping sauce than give you another tutorial for which favor I really should be paid, but here goes:
Exhibit A: "My comments expose a violation of Article IV, Section 4, of the Constitution. And it just dosn't get any more anti-status quo than that."
OK, how, specifically do your comments expose a violation of Article IV, Section 4 of the Constitution, and how, precisely, does it not get anymore status quo than that.
"You cite "out of control" military spending on "toilet seats", and on "aircraft engine stabalizers", as part of a tirade that suggests that the military has a bottomless spending limit."
The outrageously wanton, unaccountable and secrecy-laden spending habits of the Pentagon are old and thoroughly documented news. Even Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned against a run-amok military-industrial complex: Next.
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
"But how does that reconcile with the Iran-Contra funding scandal, and the money that Charlie Wilson used to fund the Afgan resistance to the U.S.S.R., etc. ?"
My critique of open-ended military spending with respect to your contention that the wages of military recruits are somehow closely tied to the wage levels of corresponding domestic civilian jobs dealt exclusively with regular, routinely and wildly bloated Pentagon defense appropriations. The issue of funding for Iran-Contra concerned an extensive set of SPECIAL APPROPRIATIONS and was not part of regular defense appropriations and procurement schedules. This was because the legality of mission components had to be debated in separate Congressional committees related to intelligence gathering and defense oversight that were not directly related to the regular defense appropriations process whose committee chairmen found the legal basis for certain proposed Iran-Contra mission components dubious. This was in a period when the executive branch was lying to both Congress and the public about the nature and extent of the secret war in El Salvidor and our related training and support operations in Honduras.
Charlie Wilson began "his war" with skillfully negotiated increases in the CIA special activities budget and matching contributions from the Saudi royal family not regular Pentagon defense appropriations. The CIA's anti-communism budget (used in part to help provide weapons to Charlie's mujahideen to battle the Soviets in Afghanistan) during the relevant period of the 1980s and early 1990s evolved from $5 million to over $500 million (the upper amount matched by Saudi Arabia who supported Charlie's mujahideen). Even $500 million dollars with respect to the currently proposed 2010 $685 Billion dollar Pentagon budget is a drop in the bucket. Special appropriations spending matched by Saudi contributions in the late 1980s and early 1990s has a fiscally negligible relationship, at best, with contemporary military recruit wages vs. corresponding domestic civilian jobs. This barrel-o'-canards about Iran-Contra and Charlie Wilson's war raised by you is Exhibit B of the far-fetched nonsense you resort to because you obviously lack the first clue about the Congressional appropriations process with regard to the Pentagon and CIA, specifically, the difference between regular and special appropriations channels.
"And are you the only person in this country who is unaware of the allegations that military contractors over-charging for items is part of a scimming and fund diversion tactic?"
These are no longer allegations in several instances, but well-known Congressional findings that have resulted in several contractors being stripped of participation in the Pentagon's bidding process for several years. This includes Halliburton Oil Service's former largest subsidiary, Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR). The Pentagon knowingly disburses funds via area commanders inside Iraq to Sunni chieftains in return for non-existent "rebuilding projects." I never implied to the contrary of what you suggest here, so what is your point?
"And what about the endless wrangling between Congress and the Pentagon over funding?"
What about it?
metal,
My point is simple. Why would the military need to go to illegal lenths if your contentions about bottomless, oligarchal, spending were correct? My premise was never that corruption does not rule the day. And if you would post at the bottom of my second comment, as I asked you to, you would not be wasting my my time trying to reconcile your contradictions.
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
Because of several reasons:
(1) U.S. fossil fuel pipeline hegemony and U.S. defense spending (which includes the Pentagon as well as civilian agencies with limited national security relationships with the Pentagon) go hand in hand and enrich the corporations involved to an immoral degree that is unjustified in terms of national or global security outcomes, overall federal expenditures vs. revenue sources, global environmental degradation and failure to simultaneously wean America away from dependence on imported oil and develop a more environmentally sustainable domestic economy to create new and better paying jobs within the U.S. Greed trumps the broader public interest as far as Big Oil and Big Munitions (and its spin-offs) are concerned and some of their more outrageous illegal conduct still doesn't pass the public smell test even in these jaded days. Congress keeps ferreting out new Pentagon crimes and cover-ups because there is much that the Pentagon still obviously prefers to do and to hide from Congress and the public that is illegal and cannot stand principled Congressional oversight or legal scrutiny. This includes everything from torture-murders to repeated contractor fraud from the same, well-known fraudulent contractors over many years, to black markets in weapons & drugs, and sales of high impact military ordinance to be deliberately illegally used against highly populated civilian areas such as Gaza and Lebanon.
(2) Oligarchy is rule by a few persons, a dominant class or clique. The ruling power cliques in Washington D.C. are revealed by a combination of factors: The astronomical sums of money that they have annually compiled for decades; the amount of money they regularly donate to finance the campaigns of politicians; the sheer numbers of lobbyists they field in the halls of Congress; the annual related federal government expenditures they command with respect to legislation that benefits their bottom lines; their continual overwhelming influence on political policy despite decades of irrefutable evidence that they have elevated their own corporate interests above (and too often counter to) the interest in the common good. Follow the money, R.L. The obvious ruling oligarchs are Big Oil & Petrochemicals, Big Mining, the Military-Industrial Complex, Big Banking, Big Insurance, Big Pharma, Agri-Giants and Big Media. The public and the politicians who are supposed to represent them both serve the oligarchs more than the oligarchs serve the public or their political "representatives." My reply to your question here is another question: Why do you seem to think that Pentagon criminality and cover-ups are not simply
part of the "cost of doing business-as-usual" for the relevant military-industrial and oil industry oligarchs?
Metal,
They probably are part of the cost of doing business as usual. But that is beside the point, and I think I already explained why. ( the site refused my last post, [I think]. if need be I will reply again on next effort.)
What I think got lost here is this, in 1973 I worked as a hot-roofing apprentice at
$7.00 per hour. Now, in real terms, that would be $36.00 per hour. Consider what affect that would have on the current war efforts, and that should get us back to my original thesis. You are assuming too much about my positions! I should not need to explain my views on everything from negative externalities, to why I went to Nicaragua in the 1980s. I am devoutly honest, and an atheist, so spare me the nonsense about my morals.
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
"Do you really believe that military spending is limitless and therefore not a factor?"
The Pentagon, defense industries and Congress have treated the Pentagon budget almost as if it were limitless since late in the Cold War era. Peak defense budgets under Reagan topped out around $300 Billion dollars. This was when the U.S. had a legitimate enemy in the USSR that posed the existential national and global security threat of global nuclear war. The proposed 2010 Pentagon budget is fully $685 Billion dollars--more than twice the Cold War peak. If that isn't tantamount to unlimited defense spending--especially in an era of unprecedented tax cuts for the super-rich during war-time and the worst domestic economic downturn in 75 years, then what would constitute unlimited spending in your terms, R.L.? The Evil Bizarro-World Superman running the Fed, the big banks, the Pentagon and all their regulatory oversight as well?
"Or is this what your ideology requires you to believe?"
Americans across the political spectrum over a certain age are well aware of how long the Pentagon budget has been allowed to explode in size, lack of effective oversight or professional (let alone independent) auditing. I concur with you that Pentagon spending is "a factor" in the relationship between wages for military recruits and wages for corresponding domestic civilian jobs--just not a mathematically significant one relative to other, far more excessive and misguided Pentagon, and, more pointedly, defense industry spending priorities. This is even more the case in the broader context of regressive tax policy, and downward pressure on domestic wages created by the "free trade" regime and illegal immigration. Your pretense of objectivity equates to your pretense at being uninfluenced by your own ideological biases, whatever they may be. Ideology, other biases and their influence on the conceptual continuity of individual human beings are an inherent part of the human condition.
"Which is something so simplistic so as to suggest that the military just receives a lump sum that is delivered in a dumptruck -- and that is all there is to it."
In point of fact, the Pentagon air-delivered upwards of $9 Billion dollars in plastic-wrapped bundles stacked on pallets inside Iraq to be used as slush money for what were assumed to be organizations sympathetic to the American invasion--only to "misplace" all those billions without the first clue who they went to or where they went. Rebuilding and reconstruction contractor operations were even more corrupt and on a far grander scale. Congress has estimated contractor waste and fraud--just from the period of no-bid contractors, let alone the ongoing contractor scams--in terms of hundreds of Billions of dollars. The occupation was so fiscally and structurally botched from the git-go that it's outrageously destructive aftermath continues to this day by every measure of pre-invasion infrastructure conditions on the ground. With as much as the Pentagon pisses away on its globally historically unprecedented and spectacular combination of failed tactics & strategy, waste, fraud, incompetence, black market graft, misappropriated give-aways to the defense industries, mercenary firms and their sub-contractors, etc., ad nausea, they might as well deliver the annual defense funds in a fleet of dumptrucks: One that would be miles long in any case. Your naivete on this issue is ridiculous.
metal,
My original argument only applies to accountable military spending. None of this matters. And as news, it is trite. What does any of this have to do with your ridiculous case regarding the status quo and my alledged protection of it? How far astray must you go to get your foot out of your mouth? Why do you do this to yourself? So much hatred.
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
"And as for the fact that our country was nearly torn apart by the unrest of the 1960s, which was central to my argument, the part which of course you ignored, well, we have talked about honesty before, have we not?"
OK, lazy-bones, how, specifically, was the turmoil of the 1960s central to what particular argument of yours? Which part of said argument is "of course," the part I ignored? You seem to think I take you and your overly incensed insults much more seriously than I, or anyone else who has charbroiled your conflicted mush, actually do. I'm doing this because it is pouring rain outside, I'm doing laundry next to the computer room, and you obviously need a writing critic to suggest ways for you to improve your writing. I think the general train of your posts may be honest; it's just your rationales that are so slap-dash and conflicted that they are inept. I'm probably going to get censored for devoting so many sequential replies to forensically refuting your junk, so play nice or I'll stop giving you lessons and you'll have to learn the hard way.
"But with your rancor and thirst for revenge, which is evidently a holdover, from the first time I showed how dishonest you are, and from the time after that, and combined with the lack of reading skills necessary for you to reach your distortional conclusions, in both cases, your simplistic and idiotic assertions come as no surprise."
I gave a suitably melodramatic reading of this bit in the voice of Bela Lugosi to my 11 year old niece who is preparing to go trick-or-treating and she laughed so much she nearly spilled her pumpkin pie on the floor:-) Get a life, R.L.! My "thirst for revenge!" Moo-hoo-ha-ha-ha-ha-hawww! All those barbs about my reading skills and reading levels from the CD poster most likely to get brownie points deducted for being too lazy to use a spell-check.
"If you must persist in your quest for revenge, at least have the courage to attach your reply to my most recent comment (Oct. 29, 8:12pm), and be sure to read that comment -- at least twice. Placing your criticizms down here among other replies makes it difficult for other readers to compare what is being claimed to have been said, with what was actually said. But of course you know that, don't you?"
Here's a counter proposal: Why don't you quit acting like an irate dozy cow just woken up from a nap and take the time and space to explain the specifics of your oblique references to off-post remarks from previous comments lost somewhere in long strings of comments to a given article? You sound very sheltered, but neither the world nor the CD website nor its posters revolve around you and what is convenient for you. You are far too sensitive about your screeds considering how lazy-minded you are and I'm growing weary of your tirades. It probably will shock you, but regular readers and writers of posts on CD are not fixated on the work of R.L. Love to the degree that R.L. Love is. If you want to contest a position of mine using your own previous posts, well you sound like a big boy now, you can copy and paste just like the rest of us.
"You even went so far as to wait until the conversation was over, by a couple of days, before "making your move". I, of course, might have unfinished business here, just like on that other thread, where you you appeared from the shadows, so even your being here is suspect. Perhaps you should change your handle to, the "Blogstalker". With the credentials ~ sneaky context distortions ~ will search when necessary ~ no task below my standards ~"
Now you are starting to sound like Richard M. Nixon as the paranoid flop sweat broke out on his upper lip. Posts in response to Nader are a favorite category of mine on CD. I sometimes come back to read follow-up comments based on specific article writers and their subjects, not because I singled you out for scrutiny. I've poked some sticks at you because you have potential--you just need to subject yourself to a somewhat more rigorous and higher standard. On the subject of context: My general critique of you is that your contexts are typically too narrow and fail to take into consideration directly related aspects that seem obvious to policy wonks and news junkies like me.
"You are the most devious blogger I know of. Come out into the light! ( I can not explain how wierd it is for someone to lack courage, when using an alias. What ever happened to "'freedom' is just another word for nothing left to lose"?)"
Sticks and stones. How do I know whether R.L. Love is an alias and why should I care? I don't need to automatically resort to the sort of personal insults and slurs you routinely do because I prefer to argue on the basis of the merits of my arguments.
Metal,
"an alias", why would someone go to the trouble of putting periods after initials if he or she were not trying to signal accountability? And I put my first name(ray) at the end of of the comment I repeatedly asked you to read, but of course, you chose instead to keep everything beside the point. Which, I suspect, is because when you read my second comment, and maybe the one positive reply to my first comment, you realized how foolish you were being, so you went into the rant above. The rant with endless crap that nearly everyone who cares knows, but that you evidently consider telling.
You repeatedly overlook the subtle aspects that make it all interesting. Which is why you must always evade: that, 'devil' in the details. Those nuances that reveal, that lead to valid conclusions. But nuances are not your stong suit, are they? You still can not understand the difference between "personal insults", and why the "merits" of your arguments, have no merit without support, or why just saying so, isn't enough. And I too am hereby guilty of not supporting these claims, but you just provided thousands of words that do just that, so I am going to bed. I am "lazy" afterall.( even though I am the only person on this site who routinely includes data from The Bureau of Labor Statistics, etc.)( and my spell-check does work on this site but Mozilla lacks the necessary compatibilty option for this PC. So I have a choice between fuzzy text, and spell-check. I suppose there is a solution but I do not intend to use this site much longer, and I never meant to spend any time here in the first place. But, as I explained in our first conversation, I am currently interested in Populism, and this site is interesring in that regard. And the petty criticizm that is so prevelant here, just makes things more interesting. So I suppose this last bit here does support my contention regarding your dullness where fine distinctions are concerned. But your assumptions make it difficult for me to respond without supportive material, so it just happens natually, even unintentionally sometimes.)
But, like I said in the beginning of this pointless conversation, your central premise, that I am protecting the status quo, was ridiculuous in the first place. So it was predictable that petty concerns based on assumptions would need to fill some space. And if I remember correctly, I predicted most of the rest as well, which was not hard to do given the impossible task that you so stubbornly held to. I would suggest that you go back and read your first comment here, but we each know how that goes, don't we. If there is one thing you are good at, it is ignoring what your beliefs require you, to ignore. (I wonder if the words "ignore", and "ignorance", are related somehow?)
metal,
I did not read your latest nonsense, but I don't need to, so I gave it a glimpse.
Without considering the percieved benefits of military spending, which are included in each of my comments, your efforts at making a case on economic grounds is folly. Why do you refuse to read my second comment, which I assume you have not read because you still are not respectful enough to use my name, as offered. It is Halloween, a celebration of humans overcoming their fears, give the cowardly tactics a break. Stop assuming that "unlimited" and xxx billion are the same, they are not. Your views all depend on assumptions. And your premises are dishonest, and I am tired of explaining why! I will give you a clue though, there is a big differance between using numbers for hyperbole, as opposed to being used for showing trends, and for factual absolutes.
Let me see if I understand your first point correctly:
Are you saying that raising the minimum wage will harm recruitment efforts, and that the military-related economy (unfortunately a large part of the total US economy) will be harmed? And that the cost of the current military deployments would increase?
Keep in mind that this is Common Dreams. I think most here would agree that all of those outcomes would be completely desirable.
You are out of line to be advocating against a minimum wage increase in order to continue our current foreign adventures and misguided destructive economy.
I am coming to the conclusion that no progress will be possible without destroying or shaking to its foundations the current order. The value of the dollar will collapse, the US will lose its supremacy, and the finance-centric economy will disappear before we can move forward. You seem to be saying the same thing. Your response seems to be to try and maintain the status quo in order to avoid the pain of the alternative. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's what I got from your post.
account,
I said: "(please do not think I am advocating anything I am only trying to give an objective explanation)". Why do so many people here have such a difficult time accepting that not all writing is subjective. My writing skills are well above average, and I know that because I scored in the top 5% on my college entrance exams. I was an English major with a 3.75 gpa when I dropped out of college, so my writing is not so bad -- that it is not readable.
I'm explaining why Mr. Nader's well intended efforts are a futile waste of time. I appreciate that you were at least cordial in your reply so I will explain further. The Left is splintered mostly because the movement has lost its intellectual leadership. This mostly because the academics have joined the investment class. Upton Sinclair put it thusly:" It is difficult to get someone to understand what that person's livelihood depends on that person not understanding."
I think if you were to read my comment more carefully, not presumming that all bloggers regurgitate talking points, you will learn at least a little something. I have been active on the left almost as long as Mr. Nader has. But while he was out promoting his agenda, which I agree with in principle, I was studying. (It hasn't helped my spelling though.) And perhaps it would help if you knew that I side with the Labor-Left. But you and others here would do well not to worry so much about who is on what side. Valid information comes from everywhere.