Paul Ryan is Washington insider!

Can it be true? Paul Ryan has never had a job outside of Congress?

Paul Ryan has never met a payroll, never been in the "market place" he so blithely advocates for others? Never not had government perks? It's astounding!

Can it be true this man has never been in the private sector but has been paid out of our tax revenues his ENTIRE ADULT LIFE?!? If so, this is the best argument ever made for retroactively downsizing government.

No wonder Paul Ryan has so little compassion – he came of age in Washington D.C. He was born on third base, says he hit a triple, then tells everyone else coming to the plate that they should bat without a helmet. What gall. What hypocrisy.

He believes in Ayn Rand but leaves out that atheism is the core of her philosophy, which is baking a cake without adding flour. Or eggs. He says we cannot afford compassion as a country and really, it's a sign of weakness. Does this staunch Catholic think he is quoting Jesus!?

He makes up a silly budget fiction about how to give more money to the rich while cutting food and hospitals and schools for the poor. Then he says Democrats are divisive?! This ego-driven wanker even lies about his time in marathons. He's never even run in Oregon's rain!

Paul Ryan's budgets are a sleight of hand, his "everybody-on-their-own" philosophy heartless in this time of hardship, his adherence to "free markets" uninformed. Ryan is as ambitious as Mitt Romney and just as bogus.

AT&T's lies for all to see

How wonderful this last week to see the U.S. Department of Justice and Federal Communications Commission protecting markets, small businesses and consumers from a rapaciously hungry corporate monster.

Even "The Economist" magazine, hardly a liberal rag, opposed the AT&T takeover of T-Mobile.

AT&T's discomfort at the release of the FCC staff report on the merger is understandable, and wrong. That is OUR government staff, that is OUR report, transparency is GOOD, the people have A RIGHT TO KNOW. The company wasn't opposed to putting its falsehoods out there during the process. It's blatant hypocrisy to affect outrage when the government releases its findings.

In fact, ALL the documents of the proposed merger should be released. They were filed with a public body to get something from the public. We should be able to see them. Distortions and other bad things, like AT&T, grow in the mouldering dark.

Anyone who watched the AT&T CEO in action before Congress, read the canned pro-merger crap AT&T regional presidents planted in newspapers around the nation (it all reads the same!), watched the callously manipulated spectacle of gay and lesbian organizations, Latino advocacy groups, Black community leaders giving pay back by advocating outside their interest, watched AT&T lawyers preen with false outrage, read anything about this corporation or even just dealt with an indifferent AT&T representative after the company attempted to rip them off, knows that AT&T is a company without a soul.

Yeah, yeah, we get there are people working for AT&T who have souls. So far. Leave it alone.

AT&T will eat whatever it can until gorged and then eat some more, the only thing stopping it something larger.

Which is why we have laws against monopolies, why AT&T had to be broken up once before, and why this last couple weeks of courage on the part of the justice department and FCC is only the beginning. AT&T has already said, somewhat ominously, they will pursue "alternate means" to get what they want.

One day, see the ancient James Coburn movie, "The President's Analyst."

At&T's representative from Oregon, Greg Walden, a man corrupted by campaign contributions and who knows what other spores AT&T may have planted in his brain, must be sweating bullets. He will now have to work harder for his host, and risks even greater exposure.

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)

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

Republicans are anti-business

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.