Month: April 2010

The Confusion Of The American People About The Purpose Of Government

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We have been hearing so much about the Tea Party Movement, which hates government, wants the government out of their lives, and feels overtaxed, despite the fact that taxes are the lowest they have been on the national level for 60 years!

Even those not allied with the Tea Party Movement seem to complain about government, and consider it not worthy of their trust.

And yet, whenever there is a problem, people look to their government! Government is necessary, and government is essential, but try to tell that to ignorant, emotional citizens who seem to think government IS the problem, a view promoted by Ronald Reagan and other Republicans for the past thirty years, as that party, in control of the Presidency for all that time except the eight years of Bill Clinton, and of Congress for twelve years, added tremendously to the national debt!

With all of that anger toward government, much of it totally irrational, now a Washington Post poll finds two thirds of those polled want MORE government regulation of the financial sector, just in time for the debate now beginning on regulation of that area of the economy!

And yet, so many people in polls complain that the government intervened to prevent what could have been a second Great Depression, in the Fall of 2008 under George W. Bush, and the Winter and Spring of 2009 under Barack Obama.

So what gives here? It is clear that a vast majority of Americans are acting like children in a temper tantrum! They want what they want from their “parents”, but yet resent their “parents” intervening! They also want what they individually want, but do not dare to care about other people!

This is selfishness, narrow mindedness, and greed–the ME attitude so well professed by Republicans and conservatives since the time of Ronald Reagan! They brought about this economic mess we are in, but when Barack Obama is trying to reform the system, the answer is to call him a Socialist and every other ridiculous libelous name, and yet also call for government intervention, which could very well be called Socialism, although it is NOT that!

Can the American people get their act straight, stop complaining, face the fact that we need government, and it is time to reject the naysayers who love to divide the American people and only promote what is best for the elite, not giving a damn for most of us?

In other words, let us not promote socialism, which is not what Barack Obama is attempting to do, but a new Progressive Era, where the government is of, by and for the people, instead of the corporations and the wealthy!

Energy Regulations: Coal, Oil, And The Federal Government

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President Obama is presently memorializing the 29 coal miners killed on April 5 at the Upper Big Branch Mine in Montcoal, West Virginia. The obvious need for greater regulation of mine safety has been recognized because of this, the latest, of numerous mine tragedies.

The country is also mourning the loss of 11 oil rig workers who are missing and presumed dead from the explosion in the Gulf of Mexico earlier this month, causing many to wonder about off shore oil drilling in the Gulf, which is part of President Obama’s plans.

The nation has a great need for the development of energy resources, but the seemingly persistent loss of life demands us to step back and try to figure out what can be done to promote safety for energy workers, who play such an important role in the welfare of our country! We also must consider the effects on the environment at the same time!

Despite the mistrust that exists among many people toward the federal government, it is only that government who can insist on safety regulations enforcement to protect the workers, and Obama is very aware of the need to increase and improve regulation.

Anyone who is against this is living in a fantasy world! We still need government, whether some want to accept that as a reality!

Ronald Reagan On American Currency: Vast Numbers Say NO!

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Republican Congressman Patrick McHenry (no Patrick Henry LOL) of North Carolina has introduced a bill to put Ronald Reagan on the $50 bill, replacing Ulysses Grant, but polls show 79 percent oppose such an idea, including 71 percent of Republicans, 83 percent of Democrats, and 79 percent of Independents! It is good to see that even sensible Republicans realize how crazy an idea this is!

Reagan is already memorialized on the Florida Turnpike, the largest federal office building in the national capital, and on the Washington, D. C. airport, and there is an active campaign to name as many places after him as John F. Kennedy, but it is apparent that there is no support for the former President to be on our currency supply.

People tend to forget that while Grant was an alcoholic, and presided over the Panic of 1873 and had tremendous corruption occur during his Presidency, he also won the key battles of the Civil War which kept our nation whole.

And when one considers that Reagan promoted economic policies where the rich became richer, the poor became poorer, and the middle class declined; environmental policies that were the worst in American history; tripled the national debt; destroyed the labor union movement; and promoted an anti government, anti intellectual attitude in America, how can anyone think he should replace historical figures such as Grant, who represent the concept of the saving of the Union and the downfall of states rights? Without Grant’s military prowess, the country would not be what it has become in the past nearly 150 years!

As time goes by, it is already evident that Ronald Reagan has been built up by Talk Radio and Fox News Channel, and certainly, there are positive things that could be said about the 40th President. But historians are also coming to grips with the faults of Ronald Reagan, and the love affair that many have had with Reagan is starting to crumble!

Barack Obama, Abraham Lincoln, And Cooper Union

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When Barack Obama delivered his speech on financial reform at Cooper Union College, just a short distance from Wall Street, last week, it brought back memories of another event that took place at Cooper Union 150 years ago, and transformed American history!

The Cooper Union speech of Abraham Lincoln in 1860 transformed the one term Congressman, from a dozen years earlier, into a prominent candidate for the Republican nomination for President.

Historian Harold Holzer, a leading Lincoln scholar, wrote a very significant book on this precise topic in 2004. Lincoln came across at Cooper Union as very reasonable and rational as a candidate.

In the same way, Obama came across at Cooper Union as reasonable and rational in his call on Wall Street to stop fighting necessary financial reform, so that never again will the stock market and banking crisis of 2008 ever happen again!

This week, the Senate considers a financial reform package which is essential, and if it is opposed by the Republican party, it will be obvious who is to be held responsible in the future for a repeat of the disaster of two years ago! Fortunately, as we get closer to that moment, it seems as if many Republicans realize that they cannot afford to appear as if they are in bed with Wall Street.

The Cooper Union speech of Barack Obama is calling on Wall Street to cooperate in appropriate regulation, and we shall see this week whether it worked. But Obama at Cooper Union certainly evoked thoughts of Lincoln, and not for the first time! 🙂

The Nevada Senate Race : Will Nevada Reject Harry Reid For Sue Lowden?

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Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, who has been in the Senate for 24 years, may not be a charismatic figure, but he is very much underestimated inside and outside the state.

It is hard to imagine Nevada giving up the great advantage it has with Reid being the Majority Leader. He has always done well by the state, and when one looks at his leading opponent, Sue Lowden, who has been the state’s Republican chairperson, it seems that the voters would have to be crazy to reject Reid!

Sue Lowden has made a fool of herself in suggesting that citizens should go back to what she calls the “barter system”, whereby in the “olden days”, patients paid doctors by giving them “chickens” or offering to paint their home!

When observers first heard and saw Sue Lowden say this in a television interview, they had to pause and wonder if they were imagining what she said! This makes one wonder about the woman’s sanity and fitness for office!

Lowder still faces a primary against another Republican, but if this is an example of what the GOP can come up with, and with the other Nevada Senator, John Ensign, a Republican, under fire for having a sexual affair with a staff member, and then trying to pay off the husband with funds supplied by his parents, it seems hard to believe that Nevada will want to turn their back on Harry Reid, who comes across as effective, if not exciting as a personality.

If Nevada rejects Harry Reid and loses his influence and clout, then it will be a sign that they deserve whatever the results will be!

The Work Ethic And Ethics Itself In Crisis In America!

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When the news emerged regarding the 33 employees of the Securities and Exchange Commission who spent all of most of their time at work surfing the Web for pornography, some for eight hours a day on the office computer, it really brought to reality the fact that this is just a symptom of what is really wrong with America in the 21st Century!

Of course, it is wrong to put the onus on the thousands of employees of the SEC who do their job with professionalism and commitment every day! But the thought that highly trained professionals, many of them attorneys, would act so disgracefully at the work place, is extremely disturbing!

This is just a symptom of the tremendous collapse of the work ethic, as well as ethical standards themselves, which has in all walks of life become a growing menace to the future growth and advancement of American democracy!

Whether it is government, business, medicine, the law, religious institutions, education, social service agencies, the media or anything else, the trend has been toward greater numbers of people failing to meet their responsibilities at work and having low ethical and moral standards in the way they interrelate with others!

If we do not regain the high standards that made America great, then we may be witnessing the permanent decline of the American way of life, and that is something that should alarm everyone who cares about the future of this great nation! 🙁

The Saga Of Florida Governor Charlie Crist: Independent Candidacy For The Senate?

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The Republican Party is at a crossroads nationally, as it is in process of “eating” its moderates, in the mad dash to please the Tea Party Movement.

The likely victims are Florida Governor Charlie Crist, if he stays in the party and continues his “lost cause” campaign for the GOP nomination for the Senate; Arizona Senator John McCain, desperately trying to hold off former Congressman J. D. Hayworth for the Senate nomination; and Utah Senator Bob Bennett, who is being challenged by Tea Party people who think he is insufficiently conservative. Other “victims” may yet arise in future years, including Maine Senators Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins and South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham.

This attempt to eliminate more moderate voices (by comparison), is really a suicidal move by the GOP establishment, and it is most evident in the case of Charlie Crist, who looks ready to “throw in the towel” as a Republican candidate for the Senate, due to the total abandonment by all of the leading Republicans, including John McCain, who is forgetting the concept of loyalty, as without Crist’s support, it is likely that he would not have been the Republican Presidential nominee in 2008!

The question is whether Crist will “fall on his own sword”, or decide to run as an Independent. The odds seem heavy that he will leave the party battle, and declare as an Independent by the end of April, the deadline to take that move in Florida.

The odds seem difficult, but doable that he could win in a three way race, as Joe Lieberman did in Connecticut in 2008, after losing the Democratic nomination for another term, but the difference is that the Democrats welcomed him when he won the seat back in November, 2008.

Were Crist to win, one wonders whether he would feel comfortable in a party which rejected him BEFORE the primary, and even whether they would be so “pure” that they would not welcome him in their party caucus. So the thought is that, were he to win, he just might join the Democratic caucus, which would really be “justice” after the shabby treatment the Republicans have given him.

Expect, in all likelihood, that Charlie Crist will announce an Independent candidacy in the middle of next week, which will make the Senate race in Florida one of the most interesting and most watched races of 2010!

A Different View Of Barack Obama: A Pragmatic Moderate!

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In the midst of so much progaganda that terms Barack Obama a “socialist”, the very intelligent and perceptive Norman Ornstein, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, published an article last week in the Washington Post, in which he declares that, based on the 15 months so far of the Obama Presidency, it is clear to him that the President is a “pragmatic moderate”!

Hooray to Norman Ornstein, who is absolutely correct in his assessment! He dismisses the attacks of Newt Gingrich, Liz Cheney, Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage and numerous others who regularly assault the President as not only “socialist”, but also “radical”, “totalitarian”, and willing to promote “retreat” and “surrender” in foreign policy.

Ornstein points out that the new Health Care reform is not radical at all, and that most of it was backed by moderate Republicans in the time of the failed Bill Clinton health care plans, and that Mitt Romney had made that moderate Republican plan the basis of the Massachusetts health care system in 2006. Now the former Massachusetts governor is trying to separate himself from what Obama has done, even though it is very similar to what was enacted in the Bay State!

The economic stimulus was not radical, according to Ornstein, and could have done much more on public works programs, but has thankfully started to have an effect on the economy in a positive way as shown by recent economic statistics. And most of the funds loaned to banks, insurance companies and auto companies are being paid back already!

The nuclear treaty with Russia was supported by Senator Richard Lugar, the leading Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and pushed also by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who served also in that capacity under George W. Bush.

On the subject of terrorism, Obama has had successes, and is following the similar strategy of Bush. His energy policies, while opposed by many, includes some off shore oil drilling and nuclear power development. He is also trying, with some criticism, to promote accountability in education reform.

Ornstein’s conclusion is that Obama is mainstream, pragmatic and moderate, operating in the center of American politics, with a tip to the left. Ornstein calls it “center-left”, but not left of center!

What Ornstein states is precisely the view of the author, and the extremist language from Talk Radio, Fox News Channel, and many Republican and conservative spokesmen, is really starting to wear thin!

Barack Obama is in the tradition of earlier Democratic Presidents–Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson–and in some respects Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and Republican President Richard Nixon in his better moments–moderate, pragmatic centrist!

The Tea Party: Analysis Of What Makes Them Tick! Not A Pretty Picture! :(

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A New York Times/ CBS News poll last week examined the issue of what makes the Tea Party backers tick, what motivates them, and who they really are. It is all very revealing!

The poll shows that the Tea Party has 18 percent of the people behind them. It depicts them as more likely to be wealthier and well educated than the general public, and are very likely to be white, male, married and Republican. They are also older and define themselves as very conservative, and see Barack Obama as very liberal.

More than half feel Obama is more concerned about the poor than about them when it comes to policy making, and one out of four think that the administration favors blacks over whites.

The Tea Party people resent the Health Care overhaul and increased government spending, and think by overwhelming numbers that Obama is a Socialist, and do not like the President on a personal level. Many believe, wrongly, that he has increased taxes for most Americans.

And more than half hold a favorable opinion of President George W. Bush, and blame Congress for what has happened in the past two years.

They have the view that programs should be cut, by getting rid of “waste”, meaning those who are poor and deprived being supported by various social programs. But don’t dare cut Social Security and Medicare, while cutting spending and lowering taxes!

When one analyzes this poll date, it is obvious who the Tea Party people are. They are angry, white, upper middle and upper class people, who don’t like the fact that the country is changing so rapidly with growing minority groups, and they don’t want taxes to go up, but also don’t want their programs that benefit them to go down.

They are conservative and Republican in orientation, who have troubles dealing with a Democratic administration, which is led by an African American President, an African American Attorney General (Eric Holder), and has a Latina Supreme Court Justice (Sonia Sotomayor). They would be the first to applaud the new Arizona immigration law, failing to see it as what it is–a racist, discriminatory law, not all that different than African Americans faced in the South for more than a century until the Civil Rights laws were finally passed and enforced in the 1960s.

The Tea Party people want an America which is no longer that of their youth, and have trouble adjusting to rapid change. And they are certainly self centered and selfish, only concerned about “ME” rather than “WE”, the good of the nation at large! They would claim they are patriotic, but they are far from it, as they see the advancement of the nation only in the sense as to how they avoid taxation and have the least responsibility to their fellow men and women! And yet, many would claim to be “religious”–a mockery of the true meaning of having faith! 🙁

Truth Vs. Conservative Propaganda: Taxes Lowest In 60 Years!

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If one listens to Talk Radio, watches Fox News Channel, or believes Tea Party activists, one would think that our taxes have skyrocketed under President Barack Obama.

The truth is just the opposite: Taxes are the lowest in 60 years, as stated by the Tax Policy Center at the Brookings Institution!

And when one recognizes that taxes were at their highest percentage during the Eisenhower Administration (1953-1961), at a 92 percent rate for the wealthy, it makes one wonder how so many Americans (34 percent according to a recent poll) can believe the propaganda that is out there complaining about the basic responsibility of all Americans to support their government, particularly when all Americans expect their government to provide services!

Does anyone really believe that we can get services from government, as we all do, and somehow, NOT have to pay our fair share of taxes?

Is the country becoming that self centered that it thinks only everyone else should pay taxes, but not oneself? This is the result of thirty years of conservative propaganda, which has only been aimed at making middle class Americans pay taxes, while the wealthy are supposed to be able to avoid their fair share of responsibility to pay taxes.

And remember, the highest level of federal taxes took place under a Republican President, not a Democrat, and this during the so called “conservative” 1950s! 🙂