The right wing is still pushing the message, "government is bad, people are good." Less government, lower taxes, more freedom, let free markets work.
The message "government is bad" resonates because, since WWII, our government and wealth have often been directed toward doing things government does not do well. There has also been a successful effort on the part of unions to protect government jobs and paychecks while reducing accountability, which has not been good PR.
But the pointed message "government is bad" has been co-opted as propaganda by radical right wing think tanks that have an entirely different agenda which is being fed to the American people by political puppets. Simply stated, their goal is to reintroduce hardship as a means to improve productivity, and encourage corporate culture to become America's culture.
Which is not bad in and of itself, as long as we are able to have a discussion about what is involved. But we are lazy and we are easily misled and the issues take work and they are hard.
Before we throw out rules and regulations and limit government, we need a real conversation about what will take its place. What will limit the power of those who can and will take advantage of other people's weakness?
"Free markets" without rules that keep as many players as possible in the game aren't free at all. Markets are not "moral." They can't be nor should they be. At best, we hope they are efficient at providing the products and services we want at the lowest possible cost through the mechanism of competition.
Without enough players, and that number varies by industry, markets become captive to the most powerful. Then the powerful take advantage of the rest of us.
In some "markets," such as health care, even the lowest possible cost is probably still more than we can afford when we attempt to postpone death as long as possible. Everyone is being false when we debate only cost and affordability without acknowledging the spiritual issue that Death is inevitable and hard. Horrific manipulation from the right (death panels!) only served to hide the fact that the Republican agenda is a fast track to the same destination. Again, not to disagree with the direction, but the dishonestly is breathtaking.
Or the "markets" in communication. There has been more than one revolution in the telecommunications industry since AT&T, then called "Ma Bell," was broken up (by government regulation). These revolutions would have been far different, and less likely, had Ma Bell's monopoly continued.
Now we have different technologies, and different requirements. But monopolies, or duopolies, or oligopolies still seek power and profit and the power that profit provides. As they should. The corporation has a duty only to itself.
The entity that stands between abuse of corporate power is government. Our system of laws is the "playing field" on which we play the economic game. It doesn't work if one player is able to walk up to any other player at any time and say, "give me all your money."
Which is what AT&T and Exxon and UnitedHealth Group Inc. and Goldman Sachs and Pfeizer and Monsanto are trying to achieve.
They don't want "free" markets, they want your money. Truly efficient markets would mean competition, which would keep costs down and limit how much they could take. So they attempt to reduce the government that could keep markets healthy.
So the Republicans who do their bidding (Bohner, Bachmann, etc.) don't like "free markets" either. They undermine government's role, or work to prohibit government from regulating industries that seek to monopolize our life blood services such as fuel, communication, health care, money and food.
Yes, price controls and direct government interference can do more harm than good. And government screws it up often enough. But let's not forget that government is not the only power, and that many laws are designed first and foremost to protect the public from robbery, either by a thug in a hoody or a Harvard grad in an expensive suit.
Successful efforts (by conservatives and liberals) to repeal banking laws that were enacted after the Great Depression, along with a failure to regulate new financial instruments, and a cultural change ("Borrow money against your house to buy ... toys! You deserve it!") promoted by banks led to the deep recession we have not yet survived.
Look at how much is spent on lobbying, by whom, and how the supreme court (why hasn't Clarence Thomas been impeached?) allowed corporations to hide their influence and spend as much as they like to upend "democracy."
There is an incoherence among a population that wants less government but more services. That incoherence is being manipulated by some very smart and greedy people who know that government is the last warden protecting the average American from a corporatist culture that views our nest egg as food.
And they are being aided unintentionally by a Left Wing that hates other people's money and thinks that good intentions are more powerful than the laws of economics.
Showing posts with label Palin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Palin. Show all posts
Monday, May 23, 2011
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Boehner's calculating ignorance
If one needs more proof that the Republican Party capitalizes on the venality of its more vulnerable members (yeah, I know, given Sarah Palin that's hard to believe), Republican leader John Boehner provided it this week.
This Sunday on "Meet the Press," host David Gregory asked Boehner if he thought Obama was a Christian and a citizen. Boehner said he did. But about the conspiracy nut jobs who think Obama is a Muslim and was born in Kenya, Boehner said "... it's not my job to tell the American people what to think ... The American people have the right to think what they want to think."
What a facile, manipulative thing to say. Of course people have the right to think stupid things, and not just Americans. The question was whether Boehner has a responsibility to "inform their ignorance," in the words of Thomas Jefferson.
Of course he does. He is not a national leader if he does not. Facts are not matters of opinion or preference. If we can not agree on simple facts, we do not have "One Nation indivisible, With Liberty and Justice for all" (the original wording of the pledge).
But Boehner is not a national leader, he is a right wing flack who would rather use ignorance to further a shallow political agenda. "Informing their ignorance" is politically inconvenient; correcting that ignorance might allow people to think more calmly about more important issues.
"... he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong," said Jefferson. In saying it is not his job to speak truth to his troops, by hiding behind a shallow rhetorical gimmick, Boehner shows the world what he is, and what the Republican Party has become.
In this, Boehner has more in common with those who spread lies and hate about America than he does with the founding fathers of this great nation.
This Sunday on "Meet the Press," host David Gregory asked Boehner if he thought Obama was a Christian and a citizen. Boehner said he did. But about the conspiracy nut jobs who think Obama is a Muslim and was born in Kenya, Boehner said "... it's not my job to tell the American people what to think ... The American people have the right to think what they want to think."
What a facile, manipulative thing to say. Of course people have the right to think stupid things, and not just Americans. The question was whether Boehner has a responsibility to "inform their ignorance," in the words of Thomas Jefferson.
Of course he does. He is not a national leader if he does not. Facts are not matters of opinion or preference. If we can not agree on simple facts, we do not have "One Nation indivisible, With Liberty and Justice for all" (the original wording of the pledge).
But Boehner is not a national leader, he is a right wing flack who would rather use ignorance to further a shallow political agenda. "Informing their ignorance" is politically inconvenient; correcting that ignorance might allow people to think more calmly about more important issues.
"... he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong," said Jefferson. In saying it is not his job to speak truth to his troops, by hiding behind a shallow rhetorical gimmick, Boehner shows the world what he is, and what the Republican Party has become.
In this, Boehner has more in common with those who spread lies and hate about America than he does with the founding fathers of this great nation.
Sunday, October 12, 2008
McPalin make-believe
“I think there have been quite a few reporters recently,” said Mr. McCain’s closest adviser, Mark Salter, “who have sort of implied, or made more than implications, that somehow we’re responsible for the occasional nut who shows up and yells something about Barack Obama.” (Read it here)
After weeks of lies that Obama is "pallin' around with terrorists," after weeks of McPalin saying "it's time Obama told the truth about his relationship with terrorists" (Obama was 8 years old at the time), Salter is now saying McPalin aren't responsible for the hatred they have encouraged? That it's the fault of "reporters?"
What amazing dishonesty. It's on tape, Mr. Salter. Like Palin herself saying yesterday that the Alaska inquiry found she had done nothing illegal or unethical in firing a department head who wouldn't fire her ex-brother-in-law. True, there was nothing illegal. Governors have the right to fire people for any reason they like.
The inquiry did find the ethics questionable. Palin wouldn't recognize that, though, because she has no ethical compass to go by. Taking a man's job because he wouldn't carry out a personal vendetta is unethical in our book, an abuse of power and trust, but she plays by different rules, and always has.
McPalin has no substance at their core. They are mean, angry people. They do mean and angry things. They do little else, and it doesn't matter if they do it with a pretty smile (her) or a weird one (him). Where is their plan? Not their slogans, (it is laughable for McPalin to claim they are the ticket of change) which are lies, but their plan?
They don't have a plan, they have only a strategy, and that is to ask over and over again questions that have already been answered. That is not "Country First." That is "Win no matter what damage we do."
Americans are going to be able to work ourselves out of this crisis if we have the leadership of Obama in the White House. Americans are going to reassert our values if we can restrain the greed that McCain advocated in his Senate career. America will be strong when we are again building our own economy instead of Iraq's, our own roads and our own schools and alternative energy and efficient cars.
We are a great country and Obama will help us remember how to achieve our best.
After weeks of lies that Obama is "pallin' around with terrorists," after weeks of McPalin saying "it's time Obama told the truth about his relationship with terrorists" (Obama was 8 years old at the time), Salter is now saying McPalin aren't responsible for the hatred they have encouraged? That it's the fault of "reporters?"
What amazing dishonesty. It's on tape, Mr. Salter. Like Palin herself saying yesterday that the Alaska inquiry found she had done nothing illegal or unethical in firing a department head who wouldn't fire her ex-brother-in-law. True, there was nothing illegal. Governors have the right to fire people for any reason they like.
The inquiry did find the ethics questionable. Palin wouldn't recognize that, though, because she has no ethical compass to go by. Taking a man's job because he wouldn't carry out a personal vendetta is unethical in our book, an abuse of power and trust, but she plays by different rules, and always has.
McPalin has no substance at their core. They are mean, angry people. They do mean and angry things. They do little else, and it doesn't matter if they do it with a pretty smile (her) or a weird one (him). Where is their plan? Not their slogans, (it is laughable for McPalin to claim they are the ticket of change) which are lies, but their plan?
They don't have a plan, they have only a strategy, and that is to ask over and over again questions that have already been answered. That is not "Country First." That is "Win no matter what damage we do."
Americans are going to be able to work ourselves out of this crisis if we have the leadership of Obama in the White House. Americans are going to reassert our values if we can restrain the greed that McCain advocated in his Senate career. America will be strong when we are again building our own economy instead of Iraq's, our own roads and our own schools and alternative energy and efficient cars.
We are a great country and Obama will help us remember how to achieve our best.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
The truth about Sarah
This letter about Sarah Palin from Anne Kilkenny needs to be read by every Republican.
Sarah put Wasilla in debt. Sarah likes big government projects. Sarah raised taxes on the middle class. Sarah doesn't "get" budgets. She is not conservative: The defining characteristics of Sarah Palin are ambition and political opportunism.
Here we present excerpts. The whole is worth reading (The original is here).
I am a resident of Wasilla, Alaska. I have known Sarah since 1992. Everyone here knows Sarah, so it is nothing special to say we are on a first-name basis. Our children have attended the same schools. Her father was my child’s favorite substitute teacher. I also am on a first name basis with her parents and mother-in-law. I attended more City Council meetings during her administration than about 99% of the residents of the city.
She is enormously popular; in every way she’s like the most popular girl in middle school. Even men who think she is a poor choice and won’t vote for her can’t quit smiling when talking about her because she is a “babe”.
.... Her experience is as mayor of a city with a population of about 5,000 (at the time), and less than 2 years as governor of a state with about 670,000 residents.
During her mayoral administration most of the actual work of running this small city was turned over to an administrator. She had been pushed to hire this administrator by party power-brokers after she had gotten herself into some trouble over precipitous firings which had given rise to a recall campaign.
Sarah campaigned in Wasilla as a “fiscal conservative”. During her 6 years as Mayor, she increased general government expenditures by over 33%. During those same 6 years the amount of taxes collected by the City increased by 38%. This was during a period of low inflation (1996-2002). She reduced progressive property taxes and increased a regressive sales tax which taxed even food. The tax cuts that she promoted benefited large corporate property owners way more than they benefited residents.
The huge increases in tax revenues during her mayoral administration weren’t enough to fund everything on her wish list though, borrowed money was needed, too. She inherited a city with zero debt, but left it with indebtedness of over $22 million. What did Mayor Palin encourage the voters to borrow money for? Was it the infrastructure that she said she supported? The sewage treatment plant that the city lacked? or a new library? No. $1m for a park. $15m-plus for construction of a multi-use sports complex which she rushed through to build on a piece of property that the City didn’t even have clear title to, that was still in litigation 7 yrs later–to the delight of the lawyers involved! The sports complex itself is a nice addition to the community but a huge money pit, not the profit-generator she claimed it would be. She also supported bonds for $5.5m for road projects that could have been done in 5-7 yrs without any borrowing.
While Mayor, City Hall was extensively remodeled and her office redecorated more than once.
These are small numbers, but Wasilla is a very small city.
As an oil producer, the high price of oil has created a budget surplus in Alaska. Rather than invest this surplus in technology that will make us energy independent and increase efficiency, as Governor she proposed distribution of this surplus to every individual in the state.
In this time of record state revenues and budget surpluses, she recommended that the state borrow/bond for road projects, even while she proposed distribution of surplus state revenues: spend today’s surplus, borrow for needs.
She’s not very tolerant of divergent opinions or open to outside ideas or compromise. As Mayor, she fought ideas that weren’t generated by her or her staff. Ideas weren’t evaluated on their merits, but on the basis of who proposed them.
While Sarah was Mayor of Wasilla she tried to fire our highly respected City Librarian because the Librarian refused to consider removing from the library some books that Sarah wanted removed. City residents rallied to the defense of the City Librarian and against Palin’s attempt at out-and-out censorship, so Palin backed down and withdrew her termination letter. People who fought her attempt to oust the Librarian are on her enemies list to this day.
Sarah complained about the “old boy’s club” when she first ran for Mayor, so what did she bring Wasilla? A new set of “old boys”. Palin fired most of the experienced staff she inherited. At the City and as Governor she hired or elevated new, inexperienced, obscure people, creating a staff totally dependent on her for their jobs and eternally grateful and fiercely loyal–loyal to the point of abusing their power to further her personal agenda, as she has acknowledged happened in the case of pressuring the State’s top cop (see below).
As Mayor, Sarah fired Wasilla’s Police Chief because he “intimidated” her, she told the press. As Governor, her recent firing of Alaska’s top cop has the ring of familiarity about it. He served at her pleasure and she had every legal right to fire him, but it’s pretty clear that an important factor in her decision to fire him was because he wouldn’t fire her sister’s ex-husband, a State Trooper. Under investigation for abuse of power, she has had to admit that more than 2 dozen contacts were made between her staff and family to the person that she later fired, pressuring him to fire her ex-brother-in-law. She tried to replace the man she fired with a man who she knew had been reprimanded for sexual harassment; when this caused a public furor, she withdrew her support...
... As Mayor, she had her hand stuck out as far as anyone for pork from Senator Ted Stevens. Lately, she has castigated his pork-barrel politics and publicly humiliated him. She only opposed the “bridge to nowhere” after it became clear that it would be unwise not to.
As Governor, she gave the Legislature no direction and budget guidelines, then made a big grandstand display of line-item vetoing projects, calling them pork. Public outcry and further legislative action restored most of these projects–which had been vetoed simply because she was not aware of their importance–but with the unobservant she had gained a reputation as “anti-pork”.
She is solidly Republican: no political maverick. The State party leaders hate her because she has bit them in the back and humiliated them. Other members of the party object to her self-description as a fiscal conservative.
Around Wasilla there are people who went to high school with Sarah. They call her “Sarah Barracuda” because of her unbridled ambition and predatory ruthlessness. Before she became so powerful, very ugly stories circulated around town about shenanigans she pulled to be made point guard on the high school basketball team. When Sarah’s mother-in-law, a highly respected member of the community and experienced manager, ran for Mayor, Sarah refused to endorse her.
... McCain is the oldest person to ever run for President; Sarah will be a heartbeat away from being President.
There has to be literally millions of Americans who are more knowledgeable and experienced than she.
However, there’s a lot of people who have underestimated her and are regretting it...
...WHY AM I WRITING THIS?
First, I have long believed in the importance of being an informed voter. I am a voter registrar. For 10 years I put on student voting programs in the schools. If you google my name (Anne Kilkenny + Alaska), you will find references to my participation in local government, education, and PTA/parent organizations.
Secondly, I’ve always operated in the belief that “Bad things happen when good people stay silent”. Few people know as much as I do because few have gone to as many City Council meetings.
Third, I am just a housewife. I don’t have a job she can bump me out of. I don’t belong to any organization that she can hurt. But, I am no fool; she is immensely popular here, and it is likely that this will cost me somehow in the future: that’s life.
Fourth, she has hated me since back in 1996, when I was one of the 100 or so people who rallied to support the City Librarian against Sarah’s attempt at censorship.
Fifth, I looked around and realized that everybody else was afraid to say anything because they were somehow vulnerable....
Anne Kilkenny
Sarah put Wasilla in debt. Sarah likes big government projects. Sarah raised taxes on the middle class. Sarah doesn't "get" budgets. She is not conservative: The defining characteristics of Sarah Palin are ambition and political opportunism.
Here we present excerpts. The whole is worth reading (The original is here).
I am a resident of Wasilla, Alaska. I have known Sarah since 1992. Everyone here knows Sarah, so it is nothing special to say we are on a first-name basis. Our children have attended the same schools. Her father was my child’s favorite substitute teacher. I also am on a first name basis with her parents and mother-in-law. I attended more City Council meetings during her administration than about 99% of the residents of the city.
She is enormously popular; in every way she’s like the most popular girl in middle school. Even men who think she is a poor choice and won’t vote for her can’t quit smiling when talking about her because she is a “babe”.
.... Her experience is as mayor of a city with a population of about 5,000 (at the time), and less than 2 years as governor of a state with about 670,000 residents.
During her mayoral administration most of the actual work of running this small city was turned over to an administrator. She had been pushed to hire this administrator by party power-brokers after she had gotten herself into some trouble over precipitous firings which had given rise to a recall campaign.
Sarah campaigned in Wasilla as a “fiscal conservative”. During her 6 years as Mayor, she increased general government expenditures by over 33%. During those same 6 years the amount of taxes collected by the City increased by 38%. This was during a period of low inflation (1996-2002). She reduced progressive property taxes and increased a regressive sales tax which taxed even food. The tax cuts that she promoted benefited large corporate property owners way more than they benefited residents.
The huge increases in tax revenues during her mayoral administration weren’t enough to fund everything on her wish list though, borrowed money was needed, too. She inherited a city with zero debt, but left it with indebtedness of over $22 million. What did Mayor Palin encourage the voters to borrow money for? Was it the infrastructure that she said she supported? The sewage treatment plant that the city lacked? or a new library? No. $1m for a park. $15m-plus for construction of a multi-use sports complex which she rushed through to build on a piece of property that the City didn’t even have clear title to, that was still in litigation 7 yrs later–to the delight of the lawyers involved! The sports complex itself is a nice addition to the community but a huge money pit, not the profit-generator she claimed it would be. She also supported bonds for $5.5m for road projects that could have been done in 5-7 yrs without any borrowing.
While Mayor, City Hall was extensively remodeled and her office redecorated more than once.
These are small numbers, but Wasilla is a very small city.
As an oil producer, the high price of oil has created a budget surplus in Alaska. Rather than invest this surplus in technology that will make us energy independent and increase efficiency, as Governor she proposed distribution of this surplus to every individual in the state.
In this time of record state revenues and budget surpluses, she recommended that the state borrow/bond for road projects, even while she proposed distribution of surplus state revenues: spend today’s surplus, borrow for needs.
She’s not very tolerant of divergent opinions or open to outside ideas or compromise. As Mayor, she fought ideas that weren’t generated by her or her staff. Ideas weren’t evaluated on their merits, but on the basis of who proposed them.
While Sarah was Mayor of Wasilla she tried to fire our highly respected City Librarian because the Librarian refused to consider removing from the library some books that Sarah wanted removed. City residents rallied to the defense of the City Librarian and against Palin’s attempt at out-and-out censorship, so Palin backed down and withdrew her termination letter. People who fought her attempt to oust the Librarian are on her enemies list to this day.
Sarah complained about the “old boy’s club” when she first ran for Mayor, so what did she bring Wasilla? A new set of “old boys”. Palin fired most of the experienced staff she inherited. At the City and as Governor she hired or elevated new, inexperienced, obscure people, creating a staff totally dependent on her for their jobs and eternally grateful and fiercely loyal–loyal to the point of abusing their power to further her personal agenda, as she has acknowledged happened in the case of pressuring the State’s top cop (see below).
As Mayor, Sarah fired Wasilla’s Police Chief because he “intimidated” her, she told the press. As Governor, her recent firing of Alaska’s top cop has the ring of familiarity about it. He served at her pleasure and she had every legal right to fire him, but it’s pretty clear that an important factor in her decision to fire him was because he wouldn’t fire her sister’s ex-husband, a State Trooper. Under investigation for abuse of power, she has had to admit that more than 2 dozen contacts were made between her staff and family to the person that she later fired, pressuring him to fire her ex-brother-in-law. She tried to replace the man she fired with a man who she knew had been reprimanded for sexual harassment; when this caused a public furor, she withdrew her support...
... As Mayor, she had her hand stuck out as far as anyone for pork from Senator Ted Stevens. Lately, she has castigated his pork-barrel politics and publicly humiliated him. She only opposed the “bridge to nowhere” after it became clear that it would be unwise not to.
As Governor, she gave the Legislature no direction and budget guidelines, then made a big grandstand display of line-item vetoing projects, calling them pork. Public outcry and further legislative action restored most of these projects–which had been vetoed simply because she was not aware of their importance–but with the unobservant she had gained a reputation as “anti-pork”.
She is solidly Republican: no political maverick. The State party leaders hate her because she has bit them in the back and humiliated them. Other members of the party object to her self-description as a fiscal conservative.
Around Wasilla there are people who went to high school with Sarah. They call her “Sarah Barracuda” because of her unbridled ambition and predatory ruthlessness. Before she became so powerful, very ugly stories circulated around town about shenanigans she pulled to be made point guard on the high school basketball team. When Sarah’s mother-in-law, a highly respected member of the community and experienced manager, ran for Mayor, Sarah refused to endorse her.
... McCain is the oldest person to ever run for President; Sarah will be a heartbeat away from being President.
There has to be literally millions of Americans who are more knowledgeable and experienced than she.
However, there’s a lot of people who have underestimated her and are regretting it...
...WHY AM I WRITING THIS?
First, I have long believed in the importance of being an informed voter. I am a voter registrar. For 10 years I put on student voting programs in the schools. If you google my name (Anne Kilkenny + Alaska), you will find references to my participation in local government, education, and PTA/parent organizations.
Secondly, I’ve always operated in the belief that “Bad things happen when good people stay silent”. Few people know as much as I do because few have gone to as many City Council meetings.
Third, I am just a housewife. I don’t have a job she can bump me out of. I don’t belong to any organization that she can hurt. But, I am no fool; she is immensely popular here, and it is likely that this will cost me somehow in the future: that’s life.
Fourth, she has hated me since back in 1996, when I was one of the 100 or so people who rallied to support the City Librarian against Sarah’s attempt at censorship.
Fifth, I looked around and realized that everybody else was afraid to say anything because they were somehow vulnerable....
Anne Kilkenny
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