Here is the platform:
A Third Party Stump Speech.
Eat your spinach. No whining.
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Monday, October 10, 2011
The Oligarchs
And what manner of government do you term oligarchy?
A government resting on a valuation of property, in which the rich have power and the poor man is deprived of it.
... The accumulation of gold in the treasury of private individuals is the ruin of timocracy; they invent illegal modes of expenditure; for what do they or their wives care about the law?
... And then one, seeing another grow rich, seeks to rival him, and thus the great mass of the citizens become lovers of money.
... And so they grow richer and richer, and the more they think of making a fortune the less they think of virtue; for when riches and virtue are placed together in the scales of the balance, the one always rises as the other falls.
... And in proportion as riches and rich men are honoured in the State, virtue and the virtuous are dishonoured.
... And what is honoured is cultivated, and that which has no honour is neglected.
... And so at last, instead of loving contention and glory, men become lovers of trade and money; they honour and look up to the rich man, and make a ruler of him, and dishonour the poor man.
... They next proceed to make a law which fixes a sum of money as the qualification of citizenship; the sum is higher in one place and lower in another, as the oligarchy is more or less exclusive; and they allow no one whose property falls below the amount fixed to have any share in the government. These changes in the constitution they effect by force of arms, if intimidation has not already done their work.
... And this, speaking generally, is the way in which oligarchy is established.
Yes, he said; but what are the characteristics of this form of government, and what are the defects of which we were speaking?
First of all, I said, consider the nature of the qualification. Just think what would happen if pilots were to be chosen according to their property, and a poor man were refused permission to steer, even though he were a better pilot?
You mean that they would shipwreck?
Yes; and is not this true of the government of anything? ... This, then, will be the first great defect of oligarchy?
... And here is another defect which is quite as bad.
... The inevitable division: such a State is not one, but two States, the one of poor, the other of rich men; and they are living on the same spot and always conspiring against one another.... Another discreditable feature is, that, for a like reason, they are incapable of carrying on any war. Either they arm the multitude, and then they are more afraid of them than of the enemy; or, if they do not call them out in the hour of battle, they are oligarchs indeed, few to fight as they are few to rule. And at the same time their fondness for money makes them unwilling to pay taxes.
How discreditable!
And, as we said before, under such a constitution the same persons have too many callings—they are husbandmen, tradesmen, warriors, all in one. Does that look well?
Anything but well.
There is another evil which is, perhaps, the greatest of all, and to which this State first begins to be liable.
What evil?
A man may sell all that he has, and another may acquire his property; yet after the sale he may dwell in the city of which he is no longer a part, being neither trader, nor artisan, nor horseman, nor hoplite, but only a poor, helpless creature.
Yes, that is an evil which also first begins in this State.
The evil is certainly not prevented there; for oligarchies have both the extremes of great wealth and utter poverty.
True.
But think again: In his wealthy days, while he was spending his money, was a man of this sort a whit more good to the State for the purposes of citizenship? Or did he only seem to be a member of the ruling body, although in truth he was neither ruler nor subject, but just a spendthrift?
As you say, he seemed to be a ruler, but was only a spendthrift.
May we not say that this is the drone in the house who is like the drone in the honeycomb, and that the one is the plague of the city as the other is of the hive?
Just so, Socrates.
And God has made the flying drones, Adeimantus, all without stings, whereas of the walking drones he has made some without stings but others have dreadful stings; of the stingless class are those who in their old age end as paupers; of the stingers come all the criminal class, as they are termed.
Most true, he said.
Clearly then, whenever you see paupers in a State, somewhere in that neighborhood there are hidden away thieves, and cut-purses and robbers of temples, and all sorts of malefactors.
Clearly.
Well, I said, and in oligarchical States do you not find paupers?
Yes, he said; nearly everybody is a pauper who is not a ruler.
And may we be so bold as to affirm that there are also many criminals to be found in them, rogues who have stings, and whom the authorities are careful to restrain by force?
Certainly, we may be so bold.
The existence of such persons is to be attributed to want of education, ill-training, and an evil constitution of the State?
True.
Such, then, is the form and such are the evils of oligarchy; and there may be many other evils.
Very likely.
Then oligarchy, or the form of government in which the rulers are elected for their wealth, may now be dismissed ...Let us next proceed to consider the nature and origin of the individual who answers to this State
... And when he has made reason and spirit sit down on the ground obediently on either side of their sovereign, and taught them to know their place, he compels the one to think only of how lesser sums may be turned into larger ones, and will not allow the other to worship and admire anything but riches and rich men, or to be ambitious of anything so much as the acquisition of wealth and the means of acquiring it.
Of all changes, he said, there is none so speedy or so sure as the conversion of the ambitious youth into the avaricious one.
And the avaricious, I said, is the oligarchical youth?
Yes, he said; at any rate the individual out of whom he came is like the State out of which oligarchy came.
... He is a shabby fellow, who saves something out of everything and makes a purse for himself; and this is the sort of man whom the vulgar applaud. Is he not a true image of the State which he represents?He appears to me to be so; at any rate money is highly valued by him as well as by the State.
... Do you know where you will have to look if you want to discover his rogueries? ... You should see him where he has some great opportunity of acting dishonestly, as in the guardianship of an orphan.... It will be clear enough then that in his ordinary dealings which give him a reputation for honesty he coerces his bad passions by an enforced virtue; not making them see that they are wrong, or taming them by reason, but by necessity and fear constraining them, and because he trembles for his possessions.
... The man, then, will be at war with himself; he will be two men, and not one; but, in general, his better desires will be found to prevail over his inferior ones.
... For these reasons such an one will be more respectable than most people; yet the true virtue of a unanimous and harmonious soul will flee far away and never come near him.
... And surely, the miser individually will be an ignoble competitor in a State for any prize of victory, or other object of honourable ambition; he will not spend his money in the contest for glory; so afraid is he of awakening his expensive appetites and inviting them to help and join in the struggle; in true oligarchical fashion he fights with a small part only of his resources, and the result commonly is that he loses the prize and saves his money.
... Can we any longer doubt, then, that the miser and money-maker answers to the oligarchical State?
There can be no doubt.
Plato, "The Republic"
380 B.C. or so.
(apologies to the author for extracting 'relevant' text)
Sunday, October 9, 2011
From a "mobster" in Oregon
The other day Eric Cantor, Republican Majority leader in the U.S. House of Representatives, accused me and many others of being part of a "mob."
“I, for one, am increasingly concerned about the growing mobs occupying Wall Street and the other cities across the country,” Cantor said. (Read it here).
The same day Cantor was saying that, I was on Wall Street in the middle of a noisy, orderly demonstration. The people around me were claiming to be part of the 99%, that the top 1% should pay more taxes. I was talking with an out-of-work logger and a member of the Tea Party. It was surprising how much we had in common.
Oh, did I mention "my" protest happened on Wall Street in Bend, Oregon?
In Washington, Rep. Cantor, in an effort to pit Americans against Americans, said "Believe it or not, some in this town have actually condoned the pitting of Americans against Americans.”
What a perfect example of double speak. Wall Street (New York) banks pillaged retirement accounts and burned the jobs of those of us on Main Street through reckless and illegal acts; politicians bought-and-paid-for by those banks and others cut taxes for the rich and made profiteering easy for giant corporations through special interest legislation. Cantor should not be talking about "pitting Americans against Americans." He's been there and done that.
Just the opposite is true among the "mobs" toward which he would whip up a fear response. Americans are coming together in recognition that business as usual is a power grab, and men like Cantor are the grasping fingers.
The top brass of Goldman Sachs should be sent to prison. There should be true competition in the market place for pharmaceuticals. There needs to be true campaign finance reform that can't be overturned by three conservatives and two weasels on the Supreme Court. To say this is not divisive. To do so is to be an American.
That is what was amazing about the "mob" gathered in Bend, Oregon on the first Friday of October. The logger, the Tea Party activist and the Liberal all agreed on many of these things. Americans are being united, not divided, by being part of this "mob."
Heads up, Mr. Cantor.
“I, for one, am increasingly concerned about the growing mobs occupying Wall Street and the other cities across the country,” Cantor said. (Read it here).
The same day Cantor was saying that, I was on Wall Street in the middle of a noisy, orderly demonstration. The people around me were claiming to be part of the 99%, that the top 1% should pay more taxes. I was talking with an out-of-work logger and a member of the Tea Party. It was surprising how much we had in common.
Oh, did I mention "my" protest happened on Wall Street in Bend, Oregon?
In Washington, Rep. Cantor, in an effort to pit Americans against Americans, said "Believe it or not, some in this town have actually condoned the pitting of Americans against Americans.”
What a perfect example of double speak. Wall Street (New York) banks pillaged retirement accounts and burned the jobs of those of us on Main Street through reckless and illegal acts; politicians bought-and-paid-for by those banks and others cut taxes for the rich and made profiteering easy for giant corporations through special interest legislation. Cantor should not be talking about "pitting Americans against Americans." He's been there and done that.
Just the opposite is true among the "mobs" toward which he would whip up a fear response. Americans are coming together in recognition that business as usual is a power grab, and men like Cantor are the grasping fingers.
The top brass of Goldman Sachs should be sent to prison. There should be true competition in the market place for pharmaceuticals. There needs to be true campaign finance reform that can't be overturned by three conservatives and two weasels on the Supreme Court. To say this is not divisive. To do so is to be an American.
That is what was amazing about the "mob" gathered in Bend, Oregon on the first Friday of October. The logger, the Tea Party activist and the Liberal all agreed on many of these things. Americans are being united, not divided, by being part of this "mob."
Heads up, Mr. Cantor.
Friday, October 7, 2011
A note to The Left
Yeah, can't you just feel it, doesn't it tingle in your shorts, this slow build to a new "movement?" Does it energize you who remember the 60s, and delight those sorry to have missed it?
Don't indulge yourselves. This is too important.
If you want to capture this opportunity, you will need to focus. This is not about sustainability or mass transit, Portlanders; stop calling every employer a "fat cat," AFL-CIO, that's just not true; it is not about gay marriage, carbon caps, dams and salmon.
If you dilute this by pulling every cause onto your wagon, you will have only the same old gang on board. And that is not enough. Haven't you learned anything from the last 20 years?
This is about power. This is about money. This is about a system systematically abused by powerful people who own our politics. Keep it focused, keep it tight, and do NOT give it up when they throw scraps from their table to the floor where you sit.
Corporations are not "We the people" written of in our Constitution. They should not have the "rights" of individuals. One man, one vote, how about one donation of one amount? Should the Koch brothers be able to buy $50 million of influence while the rest of us are stuck writing emails to our congressmen? Where is the "democracy" in that?
We need to fix it.
Goldman Sachs rules the world, along with 146 other entities that own 40% of the world's wealth. No, it was not illegal, but we can make it illegal, or at least the tactics they use to hold on to power. If those 147 control our governments, who controls the 147? A function of government is to protect the system of commerce. It can't do that if it is owned by commercial interests.
"Too big to fail" should become a footnote in history. Instead, a couple of short years after tax dollars flowed from Main Street to Wall Street, big banks are jacking us around and saying they will levy a surcharge for letting us use our own money (Bank of America: $5? Really?) while paying their CEOs millions.
Big banks need to be broken up so any of them can fail without taking down the system. That is a key element of "market" economics." There has to be a price for failure. At least, that seems to be the medecine the right is prescribing for the rest of us. If it's good enough for me, it's good enough for the Koch brothers.
Goldman Sachs? Whatever it takes to make that blood sucker less powerful should be done, now. The revolving door by which Goldman employees enter government and vice-versa is a door to corruption that needs to be slammed shut. The same rules apply to all such leviathans.
Including labor, by the way, OEA, AFL, etc. etc. etc.
Consolidation of economic power should be resisted, laws against monopolies and oligopolies rigorously enforced. No, that's not "anti-business." It is pro-business, because it establishes a fair and level playing field on which business can be openly conducted, especially small businesses on which most of our economy still depends.
And that brings the final point: transparency.
Oregon was once a leader of transparent government. Nothing is more critical today. If we don't know what's going on, if we don't know who the players are, we can't make informed opinions. That was one of the promises of the current administration. It has not been fulfilled.
Make a contribution, your name goes on it. If you want to buy an ad, fine, but let the rest of us know who foots the bill. An informed populace is a key requirement of democracy, according to Jefferson, ballots are only secret when they go in the box.
To the media: good reporting is not weighing words pro and con in mythical scales of "fairness" and distributing them evenly on page or screen. There is such a thing as truth. Deal with that, take the consequences of doing your best.
If this be a call to class warfare, the lower class did not start the fight. It started when the bankers blew up the economy after telling us to borrow as much as we could, lowering the standards and hiding the consequences. When pharmaceutical companies wrote the Bush prescription act. When Enron had the key to Dick Cheney's office. When Haliburton got the no-bid contract to run the war in Iraq.
But I don't think it is so much "class warfare" as it is "Main Street versus Wall Street." They have taken enough from us, and now it is time to take to our streets, since every other avenue has been closed to us.
The left needs to avoid being shunted downs its favorite side streets, too. There will be time for all that, if we ever get to our destination. That destination, after these several centuries, remains an allegence to "Liberty and Justice for All." We just need to keep focused.
Don't indulge yourselves. This is too important.
If you want to capture this opportunity, you will need to focus. This is not about sustainability or mass transit, Portlanders; stop calling every employer a "fat cat," AFL-CIO, that's just not true; it is not about gay marriage, carbon caps, dams and salmon.
If you dilute this by pulling every cause onto your wagon, you will have only the same old gang on board. And that is not enough. Haven't you learned anything from the last 20 years?
This is about power. This is about money. This is about a system systematically abused by powerful people who own our politics. Keep it focused, keep it tight, and do NOT give it up when they throw scraps from their table to the floor where you sit.
Corporations are not "We the people" written of in our Constitution. They should not have the "rights" of individuals. One man, one vote, how about one donation of one amount? Should the Koch brothers be able to buy $50 million of influence while the rest of us are stuck writing emails to our congressmen? Where is the "democracy" in that?
We need to fix it.
Goldman Sachs rules the world, along with 146 other entities that own 40% of the world's wealth. No, it was not illegal, but we can make it illegal, or at least the tactics they use to hold on to power. If those 147 control our governments, who controls the 147? A function of government is to protect the system of commerce. It can't do that if it is owned by commercial interests.
"Too big to fail" should become a footnote in history. Instead, a couple of short years after tax dollars flowed from Main Street to Wall Street, big banks are jacking us around and saying they will levy a surcharge for letting us use our own money (Bank of America: $5? Really?) while paying their CEOs millions.
Big banks need to be broken up so any of them can fail without taking down the system. That is a key element of "market" economics." There has to be a price for failure. At least, that seems to be the medecine the right is prescribing for the rest of us. If it's good enough for me, it's good enough for the Koch brothers.
Goldman Sachs? Whatever it takes to make that blood sucker less powerful should be done, now. The revolving door by which Goldman employees enter government and vice-versa is a door to corruption that needs to be slammed shut. The same rules apply to all such leviathans.
Including labor, by the way, OEA, AFL, etc. etc. etc.
Consolidation of economic power should be resisted, laws against monopolies and oligopolies rigorously enforced. No, that's not "anti-business." It is pro-business, because it establishes a fair and level playing field on which business can be openly conducted, especially small businesses on which most of our economy still depends.
And that brings the final point: transparency.
Oregon was once a leader of transparent government. Nothing is more critical today. If we don't know what's going on, if we don't know who the players are, we can't make informed opinions. That was one of the promises of the current administration. It has not been fulfilled.
Make a contribution, your name goes on it. If you want to buy an ad, fine, but let the rest of us know who foots the bill. An informed populace is a key requirement of democracy, according to Jefferson, ballots are only secret when they go in the box.
To the media: good reporting is not weighing words pro and con in mythical scales of "fairness" and distributing them evenly on page or screen. There is such a thing as truth. Deal with that, take the consequences of doing your best.
If this be a call to class warfare, the lower class did not start the fight. It started when the bankers blew up the economy after telling us to borrow as much as we could, lowering the standards and hiding the consequences. When pharmaceutical companies wrote the Bush prescription act. When Enron had the key to Dick Cheney's office. When Haliburton got the no-bid contract to run the war in Iraq.
But I don't think it is so much "class warfare" as it is "Main Street versus Wall Street." They have taken enough from us, and now it is time to take to our streets, since every other avenue has been closed to us.
The left needs to avoid being shunted downs its favorite side streets, too. There will be time for all that, if we ever get to our destination. That destination, after these several centuries, remains an allegence to "Liberty and Justice for All." We just need to keep focused.
Thursday, October 6, 2011
How will Oregon play the revolution?
Herman Cain says it's my fault that I don't have a job.
I hope he becomes the Republican candidate for President of the United States. I think it would be wonderful for America to be choosing between two Blacks of high intellect for the highest office in the land. It would prove, in many ways, that Herman Cain is right.
Except that he is not. I don't have a job because two industries in which I was employed have effectively been wiped out. No one wants to hire someone my age, and I look. Goldman Sachs destroyed the value of what were considerable investments and was then bailed out with my tax dollars. My insurance went away with my employment.
So I hang on, underwater, hoping that I can hold my breath for as long as it takes to pop to the surface. If not, I drown, and it was my fault, according to Herman Cain.
Opportunity is such a tricky concept. On the one hand, we all know personal effort is necessary for success. On the other, we also know that luck of birth and circumstance plays a major role.
That is why our founding father's sought to secure the right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," and why this country's system of public education, especially by including returning soldiers after WWII, figured so prominently in American economic dominance of the second half of the last century. It was a time when personal effort and public support and a sense of "justice for all"-- and a bit of geopolitical luck -- came together to create wealth beyond imagination.
But that was then. This is now. And to those, like Herman Cain, who want to roll back the clock and say we all just need to roll up our sleeves, I say they need a reality check. It's now, not then, and we have to fix what's wrong now, not protect a system that evolved in a different environment and that has become corrupt because that is the nature of power -- it always corrupts, and the corruption is becoming concentrated.
Our schools are broken by having become a safe haven for mediocrity and by a lack of realism on the part of students, parents and society. Opportunity starts with high expectations at home, but is nurtured by demands in the classroom. We lack both. Our schools are pretty good at turning out lawyers and bankers, neither offering a lot of societal value-add.
Our political system is broken. Pharmaceutical companies, telecoms, insurance companies, energy companies -- they own our representatives (political system). And they are focused on the short term, so next year's profits (elections) take precedence over long-term public good (wider distribution of income). They (corporations, politicians) do whatever they can to make the system less transparent, so we can't follow what's going on.
Not that we have the schooling to do so. Or a media with the teeth to do the job entrusted to them by Jefferson and the first amendment.
If they can charge me $214 today for a generic drug I bought last month for $40 (yes, really!), so much the better, according to Mr. Cain. It is not immoral, it is the natural outcome of a system where power is purchased. That is the message of the right these days, under the cover of false "market economics," and the left whimpers about it not being fair and takes a fall in the ring.
If you don't have a job, blame yourself. If you don't have schools, blame yourself. If you don't have healthcare, blame yourself. If you don't have power to make a change, blame yourself.
Okay, I accept his challenge. I assert my right for change, and if that means protesting on Wall Street against the kleptocracy, then I protest. If I insist that elected officials represent me and my neighbors and not giant corporations (Greg Walden), I shout and protest and work for the other guy. If I want better schools, I will ask teachers and administrators to deal with the incompetent.
Once, a long time ago, Oregon's first Governor Kitzhaber proposed a revolutionary approach to healthcare. Why so silent now? When I was in school, Oregon had one of the finest systems of public education in the nation. Where is that vision and courage today? Oregon once sent statesmen to Washington D.C. who were effective, outspoken and moral. Those we send now croak about compromise.
That is not to say that the left has all, or even any, of the answers. Many on the left simply advocate for a bigger share of an ever smaller pie. And they get so distracted by red herrings of "social injustice," real and imagined. We have some actual economic injustice going on, the other can wait. Yes, it can. It must.
No, Herman Cain and Barrack Obama would not have the opportunity to face off against each other were it not for the civil rights movement. But that was then, this is now, and the problems are not the same. Opportunity requires that the pie become larger, so everybody can have at least a small slice.
Which is why we need a revolution. Why we will have a revolution. Because the opportunity for a better life through hard work has been lost to special interests. They not only play the game against us, but they own the refs, they slope the field and choose who gets which end, they draw the lines. The game is rigged, and if you and your children or grandchildren aren't on the inside, you will lose. It's a sucker's game. It's time to change the rules.
Only a revolution can upset a status quo that has evolved to protect the powerful. According to a recent well-respected study, 147 organizations control 40% of the world's wealth. What do you suppose they talk about when they get together? We'll guess: more for themselves of what they already have.
They won't do anything else, unless they have to, unless driven by economic collapse or an "American Spring." It should should start now. It should start here.
I hope he becomes the Republican candidate for President of the United States. I think it would be wonderful for America to be choosing between two Blacks of high intellect for the highest office in the land. It would prove, in many ways, that Herman Cain is right.
Except that he is not. I don't have a job because two industries in which I was employed have effectively been wiped out. No one wants to hire someone my age, and I look. Goldman Sachs destroyed the value of what were considerable investments and was then bailed out with my tax dollars. My insurance went away with my employment.
So I hang on, underwater, hoping that I can hold my breath for as long as it takes to pop to the surface. If not, I drown, and it was my fault, according to Herman Cain.
Opportunity is such a tricky concept. On the one hand, we all know personal effort is necessary for success. On the other, we also know that luck of birth and circumstance plays a major role.
That is why our founding father's sought to secure the right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," and why this country's system of public education, especially by including returning soldiers after WWII, figured so prominently in American economic dominance of the second half of the last century. It was a time when personal effort and public support and a sense of "justice for all"-- and a bit of geopolitical luck -- came together to create wealth beyond imagination.
But that was then. This is now. And to those, like Herman Cain, who want to roll back the clock and say we all just need to roll up our sleeves, I say they need a reality check. It's now, not then, and we have to fix what's wrong now, not protect a system that evolved in a different environment and that has become corrupt because that is the nature of power -- it always corrupts, and the corruption is becoming concentrated.
Our schools are broken by having become a safe haven for mediocrity and by a lack of realism on the part of students, parents and society. Opportunity starts with high expectations at home, but is nurtured by demands in the classroom. We lack both. Our schools are pretty good at turning out lawyers and bankers, neither offering a lot of societal value-add.
Our political system is broken. Pharmaceutical companies, telecoms, insurance companies, energy companies -- they own our representatives (political system). And they are focused on the short term, so next year's profits (elections) take precedence over long-term public good (wider distribution of income). They (corporations, politicians) do whatever they can to make the system less transparent, so we can't follow what's going on.
Not that we have the schooling to do so. Or a media with the teeth to do the job entrusted to them by Jefferson and the first amendment.
If they can charge me $214 today for a generic drug I bought last month for $40 (yes, really!), so much the better, according to Mr. Cain. It is not immoral, it is the natural outcome of a system where power is purchased. That is the message of the right these days, under the cover of false "market economics," and the left whimpers about it not being fair and takes a fall in the ring.
If you don't have a job, blame yourself. If you don't have schools, blame yourself. If you don't have healthcare, blame yourself. If you don't have power to make a change, blame yourself.
Okay, I accept his challenge. I assert my right for change, and if that means protesting on Wall Street against the kleptocracy, then I protest. If I insist that elected officials represent me and my neighbors and not giant corporations (Greg Walden), I shout and protest and work for the other guy. If I want better schools, I will ask teachers and administrators to deal with the incompetent.
Once, a long time ago, Oregon's first Governor Kitzhaber proposed a revolutionary approach to healthcare. Why so silent now? When I was in school, Oregon had one of the finest systems of public education in the nation. Where is that vision and courage today? Oregon once sent statesmen to Washington D.C. who were effective, outspoken and moral. Those we send now croak about compromise.
That is not to say that the left has all, or even any, of the answers. Many on the left simply advocate for a bigger share of an ever smaller pie. And they get so distracted by red herrings of "social injustice," real and imagined. We have some actual economic injustice going on, the other can wait. Yes, it can. It must.
No, Herman Cain and Barrack Obama would not have the opportunity to face off against each other were it not for the civil rights movement. But that was then, this is now, and the problems are not the same. Opportunity requires that the pie become larger, so everybody can have at least a small slice.
Which is why we need a revolution. Why we will have a revolution. Because the opportunity for a better life through hard work has been lost to special interests. They not only play the game against us, but they own the refs, they slope the field and choose who gets which end, they draw the lines. The game is rigged, and if you and your children or grandchildren aren't on the inside, you will lose. It's a sucker's game. It's time to change the rules.
Only a revolution can upset a status quo that has evolved to protect the powerful. According to a recent well-respected study, 147 organizations control 40% of the world's wealth. What do you suppose they talk about when they get together? We'll guess: more for themselves of what they already have.
They won't do anything else, unless they have to, unless driven by economic collapse or an "American Spring." It should should start now. It should start here.
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Steve Jobs changed our world.
Steve Jobs died today.
Steve Jobs changed our world with his designs. He did not create computers, he revolutionized them. He did not create music distribution, he revolutionized it. He did not create cell phones, he revolutionized what they are, what they do and how we use them.
He has altered the lives of all of us in significant ways. It is as if we lived during the time of Edison.
Read here a few of his words from six years ago. It's worth it. May his vision inspire others.
Steve Jobs changed our world with his designs. He did not create computers, he revolutionized them. He did not create music distribution, he revolutionized it. He did not create cell phones, he revolutionized what they are, what they do and how we use them.
He has altered the lives of all of us in significant ways. It is as if we lived during the time of Edison.
Read here a few of his words from six years ago. It's worth it. May his vision inspire others.
Monday, September 12, 2011
Greg Walden for Sale
Rep. Greg Walden is a representative for ATT. The telephone companies have bought themselves a congressman from Oregon.
Walden, Republican Representative for Oregon's second district, signed a letter designed to fire a shot across the bow of the United States Department of Justice for suing to block ATTs purchase of T-Mobile. Read more here.
The DOJ fears ATT's acquisition of T-Mobile would harm competition.
Walden isn't willing to let the DOJ lawsuit play out in courts. He wants to haul the DOJ and Federal Communications Commission before congressional staffers to explain “the extent to which each agency has been considering the impact on jobs and economic growth.”
How absurd. Should the DOJ also justify the extent to which they considered the impact on plate tectonics, or global warming? The issue is competition and the long term harm to the markets and consumers if ATT gobbles up the only other national GSM wireless provider.
Walden is the top recipient of cash from the telecom services and equipment companies AND telephone utilities. Verizon, Qwest, Comcast, ATT, they LOVE Greg Walden. Read more about that here. They give him a lot of money, so he does them favors. It is that simple.
Walden's letter is just a ploy to threaten the DOJ and FCC, force them to face more work, more explanations. He wants to let them know that he might look hard at their funding if they don't buckle under. Because he wants to protect the source of his income.
Oregon, one of our congressmen is back in Washington, threatening the justice department for trying to protect the market from a duopoly (Verizon and ATT are the remnants of old Ma Bell), because he is in their pocket and owes them big.
Would you like to give him a call?
Rep Greg Walden
2182 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
Main: 202-225-6730
Fax: 202-225-5774
Central Oregon office:
1051 NW Bond St., Suite 400
Bend, OR 97701
Main: 541-389-4408
Fax: 541-389-4452
Southern Oregon Office:
14 N. Central Ave., Suite 112
Medford, OR 97501
Main: 541-776-4646
Fax: 541-779-0204
Toll free: 800-533-3303
Eastern Oregon office:
1211 Washington Avenue
La Grande, OR 97850
Main: 541-624-2400
Fax: 541-624-2402
Walden, Republican Representative for Oregon's second district, signed a letter designed to fire a shot across the bow of the United States Department of Justice for suing to block ATTs purchase of T-Mobile. Read more here.
The DOJ fears ATT's acquisition of T-Mobile would harm competition.
Walden isn't willing to let the DOJ lawsuit play out in courts. He wants to haul the DOJ and Federal Communications Commission before congressional staffers to explain “the extent to which each agency has been considering the impact on jobs and economic growth.”
How absurd. Should the DOJ also justify the extent to which they considered the impact on plate tectonics, or global warming? The issue is competition and the long term harm to the markets and consumers if ATT gobbles up the only other national GSM wireless provider.
Walden is the top recipient of cash from the telecom services and equipment companies AND telephone utilities. Verizon, Qwest, Comcast, ATT, they LOVE Greg Walden. Read more about that here. They give him a lot of money, so he does them favors. It is that simple.
Walden's letter is just a ploy to threaten the DOJ and FCC, force them to face more work, more explanations. He wants to let them know that he might look hard at their funding if they don't buckle under. Because he wants to protect the source of his income.
Oregon, one of our congressmen is back in Washington, threatening the justice department for trying to protect the market from a duopoly (Verizon and ATT are the remnants of old Ma Bell), because he is in their pocket and owes them big.
Would you like to give him a call?
Rep Greg Walden
2182 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
Main: 202-225-6730
Fax: 202-225-5774
Central Oregon office:
1051 NW Bond St., Suite 400
Bend, OR 97701
Main: 541-389-4408
Fax: 541-389-4452
Southern Oregon Office:
14 N. Central Ave., Suite 112
Medford, OR 97501
Main: 541-776-4646
Fax: 541-779-0204
Toll free: 800-533-3303
Eastern Oregon office:
1211 Washington Avenue
La Grande, OR 97850
Main: 541-624-2400
Fax: 541-624-2402
Thursday, September 8, 2011
Google + Motorola + T-Mobile = ?
I can't be the only one thinking this.
Smart or stupid or ridiculous or common sense, someone with a lot more horsepower than me has thought of this. So why haven't I read anything about it?
Now that ATT's bid to stifle competition -- with Verizon's tacit if silent support -- has hit rough water, why doesn't Google tender a bid for T-Mobile? Say $25 billion or so? Google can afford it, and if my recently demised (not Google's fault, I dropped it corner-first to my concrete floor) Nexus S is any indication, the "pure Google" experience would draw many fans.
What a wonderfully disruptive party that could start.
I think a Google purchase of T-Mob should pass anti-trust concerns. It could increase competition in the market rather than diminish it, with Google cash shoring up T-mob's weak position. With software/hardware/network integration, it would possibly speed up the rate of innovation and lower prices across the market.
Why not? We could anticipate ATT, Verizon and Sprint would pretty much stop selling Android phones immediately. Since Google's business model has a primary strategy of market penetration, that would be a problem.
But the same argument could be made that Samsung and HTC would stop making Android phones after Google's purchase of Motorola's phone business. While that hasn't happened yet, it's still early. We also don't know what Google execs told the manufacturers to allay their concerns.
Still, it makes one smile to think of buying an Google Android phone made by Google Motorola to run on a Google T-Mobile.
I wouldn't be able to have one, though. T-Mobile reception sucks where I live in the mountains, even worse than ATT. And since I can't even have a land line ... where's my Bionic or Nexus Prime, Verizon?
Of course, now that I think about it, another contender for T-Mobile might be... oh no, it can't be ... might be ... I can't stand it ... he owns my music, his computers fill my house, he wants my TV ... oh, Mr. Jobs, please let go of my future ...
Smart or stupid or ridiculous or common sense, someone with a lot more horsepower than me has thought of this. So why haven't I read anything about it?
Now that ATT's bid to stifle competition -- with Verizon's tacit if silent support -- has hit rough water, why doesn't Google tender a bid for T-Mobile? Say $25 billion or so? Google can afford it, and if my recently demised (not Google's fault, I dropped it corner-first to my concrete floor) Nexus S is any indication, the "pure Google" experience would draw many fans.
What a wonderfully disruptive party that could start.
I think a Google purchase of T-Mob should pass anti-trust concerns. It could increase competition in the market rather than diminish it, with Google cash shoring up T-mob's weak position. With software/hardware/network integration, it would possibly speed up the rate of innovation and lower prices across the market.
Why not? We could anticipate ATT, Verizon and Sprint would pretty much stop selling Android phones immediately. Since Google's business model has a primary strategy of market penetration, that would be a problem.
But the same argument could be made that Samsung and HTC would stop making Android phones after Google's purchase of Motorola's phone business. While that hasn't happened yet, it's still early. We also don't know what Google execs told the manufacturers to allay their concerns.
Still, it makes one smile to think of buying an Google Android phone made by Google Motorola to run on a Google T-Mobile.
I wouldn't be able to have one, though. T-Mobile reception sucks where I live in the mountains, even worse than ATT. And since I can't even have a land line ... where's my Bionic or Nexus Prime, Verizon?
Of course, now that I think about it, another contender for T-Mobile might be... oh no, it can't be ... might be ... I can't stand it ... he owns my music, his computers fill my house, he wants my TV ... oh, Mr. Jobs, please let go of my future ...
Friday, August 5, 2011
Obama: America's greatest president since Lincoln
When he took office, Barrack Obama inherited two wars, banks suffering a near fatal hangover from a binge on power and greed, a meltdown in the financial system via a faltering economy and unrealistic expectations, unions that still fight for responsibility without accountability, a political system that trades integrity for mediocrity by promoting ignorance, and a population that believes each of us and all of us are entitled without consequence as the common good is trampled by shouts of "where's mine?!?"
And now, from left and the right, come accusations of him of not doing anything.
Health reform. Major economic calamities probably averted. Wars winding down. A shift in responsibility back to where the founding fathers intended it to be, to the Congress. Which just now is blaming Obama for not preventing them from spending too much money.
And he got Bin Laden. For a great account of that, read this story in The New Yorker.
Obama was coolly giving no hint of pressure that weekend as he participated in a black tie dinner and checked in on the operation. Our president has more cool than any 20 of the whiny pundits who are now throwing rotten tomatoes. And he ended the operation by thanking the men involved and without putting up a "Mission Accomplished" banner in a photo stunt on an aircraft carrier. Imagine that. The man also has class.
Oh. What? You weren't paying attention? You all need all those stunts to know what to think?
Obama has always held that Congress has a job to do and should do it. The left says this is lack of leadership, and the right says he is failing the country. In fact, his methods have accomplished much that is visible, and prevented some disasters that, because they were not experienced, tend to be discounted.
More importantly, he has forced some accountability back to the institution where laws are made and votes are taken. Just the way Jefferson and Adams and the others intended it to be. "Lead from behind" has become a way of mocking this president. It also may be his way of forcing others in this country and around the world, those acting like privileged adolescents, to step up and do what they need to do.
I believe Obama may go down in history as the greatest president since Lincoln, and I say this on another day of a severe stock market dive (long overdue, by the way, and reflecting many things, few of them overtly political.) Some medicine does not taste good, and it is time we stopped blaming the doctor.
Maybe not. Maybe all of you are right, that Obama can't lead, that we are doomed, and that it's always the other guy's fault. But I don't think so.
Time will tell. Not the headlines of this week or this year, but of several years, and decades. Because that is how long it takes to see the impact of actions on a country as vast and complicated as ours.
And now, from left and the right, come accusations of him of not doing anything.
Health reform. Major economic calamities probably averted. Wars winding down. A shift in responsibility back to where the founding fathers intended it to be, to the Congress. Which just now is blaming Obama for not preventing them from spending too much money.
And he got Bin Laden. For a great account of that, read this story in The New Yorker.
Obama was coolly giving no hint of pressure that weekend as he participated in a black tie dinner and checked in on the operation. Our president has more cool than any 20 of the whiny pundits who are now throwing rotten tomatoes. And he ended the operation by thanking the men involved and without putting up a "Mission Accomplished" banner in a photo stunt on an aircraft carrier. Imagine that. The man also has class.
Oh. What? You weren't paying attention? You all need all those stunts to know what to think?
Obama has always held that Congress has a job to do and should do it. The left says this is lack of leadership, and the right says he is failing the country. In fact, his methods have accomplished much that is visible, and prevented some disasters that, because they were not experienced, tend to be discounted.
More importantly, he has forced some accountability back to the institution where laws are made and votes are taken. Just the way Jefferson and Adams and the others intended it to be. "Lead from behind" has become a way of mocking this president. It also may be his way of forcing others in this country and around the world, those acting like privileged adolescents, to step up and do what they need to do.
I believe Obama may go down in history as the greatest president since Lincoln, and I say this on another day of a severe stock market dive (long overdue, by the way, and reflecting many things, few of them overtly political.) Some medicine does not taste good, and it is time we stopped blaming the doctor.
Maybe not. Maybe all of you are right, that Obama can't lead, that we are doomed, and that it's always the other guy's fault. But I don't think so.
Time will tell. Not the headlines of this week or this year, but of several years, and decades. Because that is how long it takes to see the impact of actions on a country as vast and complicated as ours.
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Class warfare
In the Wall Street Journal last week, a writer whined that Republicans, at least, had not resorted to "class warfare" in the debt ceiling/budget debate. More of this sentiment can be had from Daniel Henninger, deputy editor of The Wall Street Journal's editorial page.
Mr. Heninger is not opposed to class warfare, mind you: very recently, he blamed the working class' faltering morality for their lower-drifting standard of living. But Mr. Henninger is a hypocrite and a mouth piece, and what can one expect of an employee of a (formerly great) paper now owned by that ultimate advocate of class warfare , Rupert Murdoch?
Yes, teachers unions have harmed education. We all get that, Mr. Henninger. That does not mean that banks and insurance companies and big pharma have not abused the power of their purchasing power in the U.S. House and U.S. Senate to declare war on their customers.
The fact is, there IS a class war going on, and banks that pushed "liar's loans" are no less at war with the general public than tobacco companies that used cartoons to sell cigarettes to poor children and lied under oath about the results of their own research into cancer, all the while shifting the health cost of the addiction onto the taxpayer.
You don't have to call that class warfare. But it fits.
Or Golden Sacks, which managed to get taxpayers to bail them out (directly, and through AIG) into a year of great profits, while our local banks had to stop making car, house and business loans. Golden and others tranched their way into unforgivable risk with our money. Lost it. Then got us to pay them back. Some of them should be in jail, and that they are not is because they have wealth and power.
You don't have to call that class warfare. But it fits.
That the wealthy class cries out that their victims should not indulge in "class warfare" is an old tactic, often employed: "Thou shalt not speak any truth that I label the speaking of which as immoral." This gives the wealthy ownership of the playing field, and the rules, while they rip us off and try to get us to stop talking about how they have rigged the system.
It is sophistry, casuistry and it should be confronted as such.
We call foul. Corporate kleptomaniacs are hurting America. It was George Bush and his gang, not Barrack Obama, who put this country into this great financial peril. It is the bitterness of the right wing, exposed too often as amoral extortionists (Enron was NOT the exception), that we hear now in these laments about class warfare.
Yes, we need education reform. We also need bank reform. We need campaign finance reform. We need Clarence Thomas off the Supreme Court. And we need real journalism in America.
Mr. Heninger is not opposed to class warfare, mind you: very recently, he blamed the working class' faltering morality for their lower-drifting standard of living. But Mr. Henninger is a hypocrite and a mouth piece, and what can one expect of an employee of a (formerly great) paper now owned by that ultimate advocate of class warfare , Rupert Murdoch?
Yes, teachers unions have harmed education. We all get that, Mr. Henninger. That does not mean that banks and insurance companies and big pharma have not abused the power of their purchasing power in the U.S. House and U.S. Senate to declare war on their customers.
The fact is, there IS a class war going on, and banks that pushed "liar's loans" are no less at war with the general public than tobacco companies that used cartoons to sell cigarettes to poor children and lied under oath about the results of their own research into cancer, all the while shifting the health cost of the addiction onto the taxpayer.
You don't have to call that class warfare. But it fits.
Or Golden Sacks, which managed to get taxpayers to bail them out (directly, and through AIG) into a year of great profits, while our local banks had to stop making car, house and business loans. Golden and others tranched their way into unforgivable risk with our money. Lost it. Then got us to pay them back. Some of them should be in jail, and that they are not is because they have wealth and power.
You don't have to call that class warfare. But it fits.
That the wealthy class cries out that their victims should not indulge in "class warfare" is an old tactic, often employed: "Thou shalt not speak any truth that I label the speaking of which as immoral." This gives the wealthy ownership of the playing field, and the rules, while they rip us off and try to get us to stop talking about how they have rigged the system.
It is sophistry, casuistry and it should be confronted as such.
We call foul. Corporate kleptomaniacs are hurting America. It was George Bush and his gang, not Barrack Obama, who put this country into this great financial peril. It is the bitterness of the right wing, exposed too often as amoral extortionists (Enron was NOT the exception), that we hear now in these laments about class warfare.
Yes, we need education reform. We also need bank reform. We need campaign finance reform. We need Clarence Thomas off the Supreme Court. And we need real journalism in America.
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