Sunday, November 14, 2010

If you're cutting back, and I'm cutting back, and they're...

(10:34:30 PM)
Everybody's got an opinion on the federal budget. I've enjoyed Kevin Drum's analysis at Mother Jones, and the NYTimes has a sweet little roll-yer-own budget fix toy at their site. And the Republican's have the Tax Hike they wrote ten years ago and scheduled as a surprise for this New Year's Eve. Obama and the rest of the G-20 are talking spending cuts to solve the economic disaster brought to us courtesy of Phil and Cindy Gramm, Mozillo's Countrywide, and the folks that rolled and sold the mortgage securities we all got high on, before we crashed.

Here's what I know about the economy:
I'm in a high tech position in a low tech field, in the 6th year of a three-month contract at a privately-held company. I can be let go any day. My wife, on the other hand, has a secure position as a researcher (read "profit-center") at UCLA. As secure as a state employee's job can be in California these days, anyway.
Those things in mind, we are paying off the three credit cards and the second mortgage as fast as we can. We are not buying new cars any time soon. Mine's ten years old, her's is fifteen, but they'll last another five years, until we can buy used in the electric-car or hybrid markets.
We used to go out at least once a week. That ended a year ago, partly due to schedules, partly because of the economy.
We're putting everything we can into not being vulnerable to the banks or the unemployment line.

We ain't helping the economy.

Neither are the corporations that are sitting on, what's the latest sum, one trillion, two trillion in cash? They're flush, but they're afraid to invest in America, because they don't see where it's going. Obama keeps driving along the edge of the ditch, never quite pulling us back onto the road to the future, but never letting the Republicans steer us further off the road into the ditch. The Republicans, now with one-and-a-half houses of Congress, want to extend tax cuts and cut spending on oversight and regulation. Insanity isn't the only thing that is "doing the same thing, expecting different results." The death of America is caused that way, too.

And the wealthy sure as hell aren't spending. Not here. They're getting their exit plans in order. Mister Prince, former owner of Blackwater, now resides in Dubai, which has no taxes and no extradition treaty with us. Offshore accounts, in the Bahamas and on the Isle of Man for example, are doing more business than ever. Wealthy Americans now just consider themselves wealthy. They have enough to live anywhere, and to buy off anyone, to avoid taxes or "penalties."

You and I aren't spending anything we don't have to. Neither are corporations. Neither are the top half of 1%, who have taken their 25% or America's wealth, and taken it off the table. States are almost all in the red, and are bound by their own constitutions and laws to balance their budgets.

So demand is collapsing across the board, as every person, every company, every agency pulls back, holds onto what they have, only reluctantly spends anything, and only when it's absolutely necessary.

That leaves only one possible current source of demand, for goods and services, and research and investment. Only one source of income for the 15 million unwemployed, the 60 million uninsured, the tens of millions of aged and infirm on Social Security.

So the best way, the only way, to grow the American economy, to put Americans back to work, to get American corporations back in the game, not just at home, but in the world's markets, is for the Federal government to...cut back on spending, fire federal workers, reduce other workers income, and eliminate suppprts to the unemployed, the uninsured and the aged.

Because that's Investing in America's Future.

Assuming she has one.
(11:02:10 PM)

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Same GOP: '06, '08, '10: Never Give Up, Never Give Up , Never Give Up

(11:05:05 PM)
This one's to catch up on a note that's been burning a hole in my pocket.

Last Saturday morning, while I was running, I heard this interview on NPR's weekend edition. (transcript)
I hope you'll take the five minutes to listen to it. This is the enemy.

This is Mike Fitzpatrick, who just won back the PA-08 House seat he lost to a Democrat in '08. He is not a caricature, like Michele Bachmann or Christine O'Donnell, nor a sharp operator like Haley Barbour, or John Boehner. Fitzpatrick is the drone of the zombie horde, the enemy of the future of America, the walking dead idea. Listen to him. A calm, reasonable voice. Not trying to sell or convince, simply stating his long disproved, and recently re-disproved, Republican mantra: more tax cuts, fewer returns on our social investments, we must make cuts in entitlements, lower taxes to create jobs. You are getting sleepy, you will stay home, you will not vote against us, because we walk the land and feed on brains...brains...brains of FOX viewers....

He's not stupid, he just has no ability to question the  hive mind overlord,  Murdoch or the CofC, whatever those things out there are being controlled by,  but if it takes putting down NPR to keep them from infecting the rest of us, so be it....

Two final points, mildly related to this post.

1) I finally got around to re-upping my subscription to my all-talk NPR station. I re-joined for $10 a month, every month, until I tell them to stop. I had also done this for the Californuia Democratic party's DEM2010 program, starting back at the beginning of the year. That seems to have worked out. (C'mon, Kamala!) With Republicans threatening to take away the maybe 3% of the funding NPR gets through federal grants, I want to help make up the difference.

2) A joke I heard before Halloween: The Zombie Rallying Cry: "What Do We Want?" BRAINS! "When Do We Want Them?"...BRAINS!
(Well, FOX and its viewers do stay on message. Perhaps this explains why.)
(11:22:43 PM)

Thursday, November 04, 2010

Nimrata Randhawa Haley vs. Barack Hussein Obama

Now that the elections are over, I have two major writing projects ahead of me. First, I have (been) volunteered for the management of the neighborhood council's newsletter, which is due to have all copy and pics ready this weekend, delivered to the layout person for preliminary set-up. This is my first time out doing it this way, but this isn't a political newsletter, like I did monthly for a few years for my democratic Club.
This one has a circulation of several thousand, delivered, and is printed professionally. I'll be editing and corralling, but hardly write an original line.

Original writing will be left (mostly) to a second year of effort at NaNoWriMo.org, writing a novel of 50,000 words in 30days. >Whew!< Yes, but I did it last lear, and fortunately, this year, Election Day was as early as consitutionally possible, "first Tuesday after the first Monday" and all that.

I will not be boring you with the contents of that novel.But it means that what I post at the blog will usually be short, without much elaboration, but hopefully worth reading.

That said, let me beat on TeaBaggers one more time. Not the 'last time,' just 'one more time.'

Many one-liners stood out in last night's victory, and hard-reality, speeches. Harry Reid's 'that bell is just the sound of the start of the next round' was a winner. Rick Santorum admitting that the reason the 'Contract On America' didn't succeed in 1994 is because 'we didn't have FOX to carry the message.' I couldn't watch the victory speech of whatever clod Feingold lost to in Wisconsin, because I can't afford a new TV right now, and I'd have put my foot through the jerk's picture, mid-sentence.

But the one that struck me was Nikki Haley's speech. You know, Nimrata Randhawa Haley, the new TeaBagger-elect of the state of South Care-a-Lotta Nuthin for Ethics, home of Gov. Sandford of the Appalachian/Argentinean Trail, and Sen. Jim DeMentalCase, and Rep. Joe 'You Lie!' Wilson.

"Eighteen months ago, I saw a state and a federal government losing control. Arrogant in its spending, arrogant in its responsibilities, and a need to step in and say we need to take our state and our country back."

Eighteen months ago, Barack Hussein Obama had been in office less than 100 days. He had not proposed a budget. He had not passed Health Insurance Reform (HIR.) he had not added a nickel to the national debt, and was barely started on a budget that ended up with less deficit spending than the last one the Republicans had passed for their fearless leader, Junior Bush. Obama was still trying to get out from under the steaming turd of an economy that Junior and The Dick had dropped in his lap as they hot-footed it out of DC.

Eighteen months ago, the only thing that had changed was that Bush TARP'd the banks, and Obama took office.

No, eighteen months ago, the real thing that happened as far as any South Carolina Republican was concerned is, omigawd, they's a darkie in the White House.

I suppose it should be nice to see a person of color (Nikki) hate another person of color, on actions and policies. Except that couldn't be what this was about, 'cause Obama hadn't been in office long enough to act much, or have any policies other than the ones he ran on for over two years before the election.

No, the only thing that changed was, thay's a darkie in the White House.

And it's an ugly thing to see self-haters in government. All the gay Republicans who hate gays (David Dreir, I'm talking to you), women who hate women (pick any Teabagger candidate, from Sarah Palin to Michelle Bachman to Carly Fiorina to Virginia Lamp Thomas), and all the people of color who hate people of color because they think that's how to get ahead (Michael Steele, Clarence Thomas, and now, Nikki Haley. It's a short list. Republicans hate people of color)

The corporatists like the Bradleys and the Kochs and Forbes all saw this racist wave come out of the closet the day Obama was sworn in, and they put a shitload of money (that's more than $10 million and less than $1 billion, which, of course, is a fuckload) into getting racists to run against their own interests but in the corporational interests.

And down the toilet we go. Enjoy the ride, because it's dark down in the sewer of racist, corporate shit streams, and it'll be a few years, and at least one more Republican president, before we really solve these problems. And I'm not sure America has that kind of time left.

Like I said, dark.

 

Monday, November 01, 2010

How I Love America (And Why I Sent Money To Al Franken)

I know Al Franken's book, "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them," is old news by now, and the paperback promised to include the transcript of proceedings of FOX's suit against him over the title. But I'd like to add a note about the book that no one else seems to have noted. In academia, you earn a doctorate, a PhD, by adding a new idea to your chosen field. In that case, among the devastating analysis, satire, and flat-out great jokes, Al earned a PhD in Poli Sci for the following opening to his fifth chapter:

    If you listen to a lot of conservatives, they'll tell you that the difference between them and us is that conservatives love America and liberals hate America. That we "blame America first." That we're suspicious of patriotism and always think our country's in the wrong. As conservative radio and TV personality Sean Hannity says, we liberals "train our children to criticize America, not celebrate it."

    They don't get it. We love America just as much as they do. But in a different way. You see, they love America the way a four-year-old loves her mommy. Liberals love America like grown-ups. To a four-year-old, everything Mommy does is wonderful, and anyone who criticizes Mommy is bad. Grown-up love means actually understanding what you love, taking the good with the bad, and helping your loved one grow. Love takes attention and work and is the best thing in the world. 


    That's why we liberals want America to do the right thing. We know America is the hope of the world, and we love it and want it to do well. We also want it to do good.


    When liberals look back on history, we see things we're very proud of. And we also see some things, which might have seemed like good ideas at the time, but turned out to be mistakes. And some things we did, well, they were just bad. That doesn't keep us from loving our country --- it's part of loving our country. It's called honesty. What do you think is more important to a loving relationship: honesty or lies?


beginning of Chapter Five, Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, by Al Franken

I use this to comfort me, that I am dealing mostly with the immature when I meet Republicans, led though they are by some genuinely mean, bitter people....

PS: A simple comparison of signs from Glenn Beck's 8/28 rally and those at the Rally To Restore Sanity on 10/30/10 demonstrate a lot of this.