Spanish Election Blues

Spanish voters have once again elected to ignore the obvious lessons of their history and chosen a regime of regression, repression and rot to govern for the next four years. Regression to the Regan-esque policies and Bush-like execution that got them into this mess in the first place: Repression of the unions, and privatization of hard-won social programs like education, retirement, unemployment and job protection and; rot from within the party that applauds the membership of dozens of people  involved in all kinds of corruption and malfeasance – some already under investigation or even indictment – and rewards them with powerful positions within the party. As a middle class, non-voting, resident American I watch from the outside and it is unlikely that whatever the ultra conservative Popular Party comes up with in the next few years will hurt me much one way or another.  Not so for the average Spaniard, I fear!

Unfortunately the situation here parallels much too closely the one we have in the U.S.. There is no longer a political spectrum. Instead there are ultras in both political directions ··· but that’s it. The moderate conservatives and liberals too, for that matter, have disappeared or leaned so far in their respective directions that the center ground (and thus the area of possible political consensus) has disappeared. I hope that, before they go to the polls in the upcoming U.S. elections, American voters and politicians will recognize this and learn something from the disasters that are bound to plague Spaniards in the upcoming months and years. But I am not optimistic!

Budget Blues – Coming Again Soon

Well, we have a budget ···· of sorts ···· but the way i read the posturing and threats of the opposition party it’ll only be six months or so before the ridiculous song and dance begins all over. What I’d like to know is who the dolts and incompetents that dominate both houses of congress think they are representing. Looking at the record and examining their political stances on today’s major issues it is difficult to believe that anybody who takes home less than a million a year would want most of them representing anything they actually care about. You would think that in this information age voters would be able to differentiate between the honest politician and the servants of the shadow government that apparently runs the country. But critical thinking seems to be at a premium these days. I guess that’s what happens when public education is vitiated and learning becomes something dominated by technology that only the rich can afford  Let’s hear it for the Wisconsin teachers!!

Four ways to balance the federal budget without wiping out the social contract.

1. Tax corporations as individuals. After all the wise men on the supreme court have decreed that our constitution protects their rights as individuals to bombard their favorite politicians with cash, so why should they not be taxed as individuals too? Dump most of the loophole exemptions that have accumulated over the years and set a flat tax on profits based on income brackets much like us working stiffs have to pay. And don’t listen to the b.s. about a 35% statuary corporate tax in the U.S. Practically no company pays that, certainly not the largest of the international corporations. Once all the tax breaks and exclusions are filtered in the actual average effective tax rate is somewhere around 13.5% and often much less for the largest companies.

2. If you think making big companies pay their fair share in of the cost of running their country would hurt United States businesses too much in our globally competitive economy how about lowering the corporate income tax instead? We could set it somewhere around 25% , a little under the declared rate in the top European economies thus making them competitive with the major industrialized economies because they would be paying practically no taxes on 25% instead of 35% of their profits.) We’d also have raise the ridiculously low 15% capitol gains tax to, say 30 – 35% and revamp the code eliminating all of the loopholes that allow the rich to ride almost free on the backs of the middle classes. This would shift a larger share of the tax the burden to those who benefit most economically from the American way.
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3. Hire more bureaucrats and pay enough to get expert people to clean up and police the government contracting mess. Give them the clout to police contracts and to write out the nonsensical clauses that have become part of government contracting boilerplate and are costing us billions every year. (i.e. Waste and fraud in military contracting) ··· enough said!

4. Get serious! Support the Peoples Budget as proposed by the Progressive Party  The Peoples Budget  It’s not perfect, but even though you may not agree with all of the party’s inclinations, the proposal is a sensible effort to begin to return the country to fiscal responsibility. I doubt if you’ll be seeing much about it in the mainstream media, however and it probably has less chance of being given serious consideration in government circles than my labrador retriever has of climbing a tree. It proposes ways to balance the budget without cutting services to the poor and middle classes by:

⁃ “Reducing unemployment—and thus the deficit—through extensive investment in infrastructure, clean energy, transportation and education; Ending almost all the Bush tax cuts, creating new tax brackets for millionaires and new fees on Wall Street; A Full American military withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan, along with other reductions in military spending; Ending subsidies for non-renewable energy; Lowering health care costs through a public option and negotiating Rx payments with pharmaceutical companies; and raising the taxable maximum on Social Security”.

Everyone must know by now that the party is over. We must begin to pay the bills amassed by our excesses and return to financial sanity. There are almost as many proposals for balancing the budget and beginning to draw down the national debt as there are senators and congressmen. In general it seems that the Republicans would finance them by decimating all social programs while the Democrats are in favor of some form of wealth redistribution that will keep the social contract basically intact. The Peoples Budget attempts to find a viable road between the two that would lead us back sanity in our national finances. But everybody would have to sacrifice something and, in the words of the Bard, therein lies the rub.

Time to Bite the Budget

Everybody whose take-home pay is less than $250,000 please bend over – the Grand Old Party is about to do it to us again. If some miraculous solution is not found by the end of the week the Republicans, having refused compromises that would have met them more than halfway, will refuse to submit a new budget to the house, thus shutting down the U.S. government until an agreement on its terms can be reached.
The budget impasse is less financial than political. The two sides can agree to compromise on most of the important money issues but Republicans are insisting on using the budget to advance their pet political programs such as a ban on abortion, killing Obamacare, emasculating federal financial regulators and pulling the teeth out of most environmental programs, and Democrats are flatly (and rightfully I believe) refusing to allow the budget negotiations to used to further the political agenda of the right.
This is not the first time Americans have gone through this charade. There have been 18 shutdowns in the past, ranging in length from 1 to 21 days, caused by our elected representatives squabbling over money. So we have certainly been there before. A shutdown does not really affect all of the government. Things like security services, military operations, senators pay and other programs deemed essential by our politicians go on. What closes are things like health care centers, veterans benefits administration, national parks, social, security services, etc. – In other words the services that are most important to the health and well-being of the poor and middle classes.
So, once again if the GOP holds sway we will end up balancing the budget on the backs of the working classes so the Republicans can solidify their hold on an America of the rich, by the rich and for the rich in which a servile working class shall endure.
Maybe it’s time to take a hard look at the whole annual budgetary crapshoot and make changes that will keep the process narrowly confined to the finances of running the country and out of the game of politics. Anybody who comes up with a way to de that would certainly get my vote.

Choices – Are we too Late?

Back in 1873 Edward Ryan, a fiery Irish radical who rose to the position of chief justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, while speaking to University of Wisconsin students in 1873 said:

 

“There is looming up a dark new power. . . . The enterprises of the country are aggregating vast corporate combinations of unexampled capital, boldly marking, not for economic conquest only, but for political power ··· money is taking the field of organized power. The question will arise, and arise in your day though perhaps not fully in mine: ‘Which shall rule–wealth or man? Which shall lead–money or intellect? Who shall fill public stations–educated and patriotic free men, or the feudal serfs of corporate wealth?’”

 

Two generations later the unfortunate answers to these questions have become self evident.  We the people have given up most, if not all, of our rights and freedoms to a socio-economic-political system that puts our destinies into the hands of the money-mongers and power brokers. The new question of the day is what are we going to do about it? Egypt and others in the Middle East have shown us that there is still power in the people. But is there the will in America today?  The answers to these questions will shape the world of our children and grandchildren.

 

Open Letter to the class of ’56

I remember with nostalgia high school in the 50s. That was the time when the first credit card was introduced by Diners Club, The “Police Action” in korea finally ground to a halt, Crick and Watson explained for the first time how DNA was structured, Edmund Hillery conquered Everest for the first time, Dylan Thomas completed the task of drinking himself to death, and the Warren Court struck down the separate but equal doctrine. There was a cold war going on that would last until the USSR was dissolved in 1991, Senator Mcarthy held his infamous “hearings”, The Salk vaccine ended the ravages of polio, Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac spearheaded the rise of the “beat Generation”, and a young Miles Davis took the first Newport Jazz Festival by storm. We watched movies by the likes of James Dean, Natalie Wood and Rock Hudson, Rock and Roll was our music and we danced to Maybelline, Heartbreak Hotel and Moments to Remember. The boys wore pegged pants, narrow ties, and duck-tail haircuts and the girls wore bobby socks, Crinoline skirts and ponytails.

There have been great accomplishments in all fields of human endeavor in the  years since we left high school. However, as a generation, we have left much to be accomplished by our children and grandchildren. Our “democracy” that was once the showcase of individual freedoms has been reduced to a sham in the hands of elite power brokers and the very rich. Our “free press” has become another tool of the power interests. Poverty and hunger are on the rise thru-out the world. The first ever Preemptive military intervention (that is the phrase we use when we don’t want to say the W word) took place in Irak where civilians died by the thousands and homes were destroyed for the foreseeable future in order to, lets see, I believe it was in answer to a “clear and imminent threat” to our country with “weapons of mass destruction”. Or was it a “war on terror”? Or maybe the latest reason, to “free the people and bring them (US style) democracy”, is the final answer. The fact is that it is all about oil and keeping the rich and powerful rich and powerful.

Look almost anywhere and you find examples how our generation has failed to live up to its promise. The worlds wealth is controlled by a handful of people while 800 million suffer from hunger and malnutrition and 2.8 billion live on less than $2 per day. Our health care system would be a joke if it were not so tragic. The soft underbelly of poverty in America was exposed by hurricane Katrina and years later thousands are still waiting for the help we promised. And on and on…
The concentration of wealth that is a fact in our world today is natural to our form of capitalism and might not even be bad if that wealth were being used to maintain our freedoms and to create opportunity for others. But wealth is being used mostly to gain more wealth for the already wealthy, power is used to gain more power and on and on. Our freedoms and access to information as guaranteed by our constitution and reinforced by our courts are being eroded bit by bit by the powers that be, making it more and more difficult to make intelligent decisions at the polls.
It is NOT our government or our leaders that are at fault, however. It is us. Our generation; overfed, and much too comfortable, too busy to bother uncovering the truth about the state of the world beyond what we see on TV or read in newspaper headlines and too apathetic to do anything about it when we do.
Our leaders listen, at least when the public outcry is loud enough to make them worry about their positions, and we still get to vote every few years. So the culprit (call it what you want, culprit is my term) is us. But there is still time. Granted there is not as much as we had back in the late fifties but  we’re smarter now and could have a bit more clout..

Homeless Again

Finally sold our house and are officially homeless as of last week.  We got most of what we expected which, in this crisis market, is not too shabby. We have decided  we’ll rent -  just don’t want all of the baggage that comes along with home ownership any more.  I have already done my fair share of repairs, improvements and general crap that goes with owning a house – when something breaks from now on I just want to call the landlord.  And I’m too old to worry about building up equity for the future.  We plan to move to town to a small place that is easy to take care of.  You cannot imagine the amount of stuff we have accumulated over the years that we will have to get rid of in order to downsize to a town house!  Maybe this will be the last move for us???  It will be the 15th since we married if memory serves me which it often does not any more.

Agora – My kind of Movie

Went to see Agora yesterday.  A great film set in the historical background of 4th century Roman Egypt. A must-see for movie fans.  I probably liked it so well because It  gives voice to my own opinion on religions in general and the development of Catholicism in particular the bottom line of which is there just ain’t no good guys!  All of them begin with a basis of love and respect for your fellow man then quickly progress to love and respect for those fellow men who believe as you do.  And they have all ended up stoning each other figuratively and physically.  The pursuit of power and growth have become the true ends of all, and much like the capitalist model, they have to grow or die. By the time any of them have been around for a couple of centuries or so they have morphed into militaristic political organizations who use whatever means that are available to continue to add followers and eliminate conflicting views. The film depicts one phase of this in a great story that kept me riveted for a little over 2 hours which is more than my backside can usually handle in a movie seat. Definitely worth the price of a ticket but probably not suitable for zealots of any western religion.

Mr. Obama’s First 100

The situation on our world occupies my mind most of the time these days. The economy gets worse and worse and as fast as we pump money into the big players the more they seem to fail or come back to ask for more. After reading literally thousands of learned analyses I still cannot fathom just how we let ourselves get into this situation but I am sure that I must have had something to do with it, even though I never did vote vote for a Republican.

In 2008 the American people made it perfectly clear that they were fed up with a government of lies, subterfuge and self interest by booting out the Republicans. Obama became president in the midst of scandal and corruption on his promise of clarity and truth in a government that was to give back power to the people. Since then the economic house of cards built by President Bush and his cronies has fallen, causing economic issues to overshadow all other governmental concerns as banks and major corporations fall like flies.

Mr. Obama may not be able to stem the tsunami of failures in our economy. He still talks of hope but he is looking and sounding tired these days. I signed a petition recently on the internet asking him to keep his promises, but I fear he is beginning to sway in the storm of big money interests and political expediency. But hope is a keystone of his policies and speeches so I will continue to hope that he will be able to lead us out of this mess. As I see it there is no reasonable alternative.

GWB goin out with a bang

Here we are a couple of weeks into the new politics in America and I am still riding a high that has me more optimistic than I have been in a long time about anything even vaguely political in my home country. I’m not sure if this euphoria is because of hopes for the incoming administration or just my elation that the incumbent is finally on the way out: but whatever it is it feels so good that I have not yet begun to revert to my customary cynicism. Given there is a hard road ahead. Pulling us out of the quagmire that Bush and his cronies are leaving behind may be an impossible undertaking no matter who is driving the train. In fact, I doubt seriously if the task can be completed in my lifetime. But suddenly there is hope – which is something we’ve had damned little of during the past eight years.

But, during all of the jubilation we are feeling as what is certainly the most shameful chapter in Americas’s history grinds to a close, we would do well to remember that it is not over yet. In this sixty days or so, when George Bush knows his administration is history but still has all the powers of chief executive of the United States, he can, and I believe will, make major changes to legislation already on the books through the use of executive orders. By revoking past orders or issuing new ones he can change the intent of literally thousands of laws and regulations without going through the bother of seeking congressional approval. Some will be reversible by Mr. Obama if he so chooses, but many will be very difficult to undo. (http://pr.thinkprogress.org/2008/11/pr20081110 )

For example he probably will authorize strip mining right up to the very edge of our national forests, drilling for oil in hitherto protected areas, lift the protection of endangered species, and on and on. Once done, and contracts are approved or permits issued, it will be very difficult to reverse these orders. (See EPA moves to Ease Air Rules for Parks; Washington Post, Nov. 19, 2008)

We are also about to give a huge and unprecedented bailout to banks and businesses that were dropping like flies because of their own corporate greed and scandalous business practices. But watch out – while the bailout was usurping the headlines, the treasury department quietly arranged a little bailout on their own. A unilateral tax code change made by Mr. Paulson’s treasury gave the banks a 140 billion dollar windfall to supplement the rest of the taxpayer bailout. (http://www.truthout.org/111008A ) And, besides the sheer immensity of the bank bailout, the Fed refuses to disclose just who will be the recipients of the two trillion or so of our tax money that will be distributed under the plan.
http//www.truthout.org/111108B

On another front the administration is frantically pushing to sign a new version of the SOFA (status of forces Agreement) with the current shaky government in Iraq in order to
secure a long-term presence in Iraq and insure the protection of U.S oil interests, http://www.truthout.org/111108A

The nefarious gerrymandering going on during the slow demise of Bush and his band can cause much irreparable damage to our society. And the truth is these shady actions are mostly all legal and difficult if not impossible to thwart. We need to alert our representatives in Congress to the danger of these moves and prevail upon them to do everything in their power to keep Bush from going out with a bang that will felt around the world all the way into the next century.

I wish Mr Obama well in his endeavors. He is a fresh breeze in an America whose leaders have wallowed too long in the muck of greed. self interest. and power politics. I am counting on him to restore the ideals and freedoms that once made this country an example for the rest of the world. That is a lot to hope for, but I believe we have finally elected a leader who will at least start us down that road.