Letter to my local newspaper

I support President Obama's initiatives,

There has been enough stonewalling, and inaction from both the left and the right. I do not pay my taxes to have what amounts to "children fighting in the schoolyard" by our US Congress. Grow up. Stop playing with OUR lives and DO SOMETHING! We are sick and tired of the games!

I work for a small business. Get something done to help my employer and you will be helping me!

Get something done to create jobs and you will be helping my son.

Get something done to fix this economy so we can return to fiscal stability, and you will be helping my grandchildren.

You have the fate of three generations in your hands. DO SOMETHING NOW!!!!!!

Jefferson distorted…

It appears that politicians like to quote Thomas Jefferson, who is touted as the father of (American) democracy, to give credence or clout to their positions. The problem is that they don’t quote him properly. They alter his quotes to fit their immediate political and policy needs. Recently in the Republican response to President Obama’s State of the Union speech by Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, the Governor quoted Mr. Jefferson (the second governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia) as saying, “A wise and frugal government which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry .... and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.” The quote was not really a complete quote. Nor was it identified by Gov. McDonnell as a paraphrase of the original words of Thomas Jefferson. Mr McDonnell simply rearranged Mr. Jefferson’s words to fit his political agenda. The actual quote by Jefferson follows:

March 4, 1801: Still one thing more, fellow-citizens — a wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities.

I also wonder if the conservatives on the Supreme Court have read Thomas Jefferson’s quote about corporations? Or have they rearranged his words, in their minds, to nullify the disdain to which Thomas Jefferson held “monied corporations”?

“I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.” – Thomas Jefferson

I leave you to your own conclusions.

CORPORATOCRACY (the new American political system)

First Amendment: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Fourteenth Amendment: Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Abraham Lincoln would be rolling over in his grave if he knew that part of his Gettysburg Address…”government of the people, by the people, for the people”…was changed today to mean…”government of the corporations, by the corporations, for the corporations”.

Maybe we need a definition of the word cit·i·zen.
* A person owing loyalty to and entitled by birth or naturalization to the protection of a state or nation.
* A resident of a city or town, especially one entitled to vote and enjoy other privileges there.
* A civilian.

Did I miss it? When did a corporation/business become a person/citizen? When were businesses declared persons/citizens? The latest ruling by our Supreme Court has opened the floodgates. The next ten years will see a paradigm shift in the way our courts and our congress do “business”. Consider “eminent domain”. George W. Bush issued the following.

Executive Order 13406 of June 23, 2006
Protecting the Property Rights of the American People
Section 1. Policy.
It is the policy of the United States to protect the rights of Americans to their private property, including by limiting the taking of private property by the Federal Government to situations in which the taking is for public use, with just compensation, and for the purpose of benefiting the general public and not merely for the purpose of advancing the economic interest of private parties to be given ownership or use of the property taken.

Now that corporate “citizens” can buy influence and elections, any private property would be in jeopardy by the rule of eminent domain if a business friendly congress and/or president decides to alter or eliminate this executive order.

There are similar scenarios, more than I have time to write about here, where corporate “citizens” will change our country and our political system. Get ready to wear the company logo and chant the company ideology. You will owe your soul to the company store!

The following link offers an interesting viewpoint: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rob-warmowski/corporate-murder-charges_b_432633.html

Back to Square One (may not be a bad thing)

Health Care Reform is headed down a back alley of compromises in the name of bi-partisanship. That’s a fool’s errand. The loss of the Democratic Senate seat held by Ted Kennedy for about 4 decades could be a blessing in disguise for those of us who think the current iteration of the health care bill is light years from its original intent. The bill coming out of the Senate to be melded with the House version is NOT reform. It is, at its best, a bandaid to cover the uninsured and underinsured. At it’s worst, it is a giveaway to health insurance companies. We have a festering wound that is costing business and individuals in affordability, accessibility and quality health care. The insurance companies stand between me and my doctor today. Their motivation is greed. My company’s health insurance premiums just went up 15% for this next fiscal year. We probably won’t get a raise this year. Last year our premiums rose by 20%. Those increases are unsustainable by business and by individuals. We need the public option to keep insurance premiums from bankrupting us all. Actually, it would make more sense to expand Medicare. Medicare for all! If Congress wants to support business, they could take away one of the most expensive business operating costs, health care premiums. Business could then reinvest that money to grow and expand. Our national economy would grow, jobs would be added, salaries would rise, the deficit would be reduced by the collection of taxes on higher wages. It’s cyclical. We need a Congress with guts to do the right thing or they won’t have to worry about getting elected again in 2012. If the Dems screw this up, they will all wind up like Martha Coakley, defeated by a nude model, and actor who shoplifted record albums as a boy. Oh yeah, he’s a Republican from Massachusetts who wants to help defeat health care reform. Massachusetts already has universal health care thanks to former Republican Governor Mitt Romney. It’s working. Massachusetts voters focused on the economy and jobs issues because they don’t have to worry about their health care. They voted for the candidate who ran a campaign about a lack of fiscal responsibility in Washington DC. It worked! Maybe it’s a good thing. Now we may be forced back to square one to craft a real health care reform bill with at least a public option, I hope.

Pork Links

It’s becoming more difficult for me to get riled up over the ineffectiveness of our US Congress any more. It’s business as usual in the health care debate, which means we will get little or nothing in the way of true reform. It will be interesting to see how this brand of sausage is ground into our body of laws. No bi-partisanship from our lawmakers, just protection for “their constituents”…Big Pharma and Health Insurance companies. Legislators have had their hands in the pockets of big business for over 200 years forming a symbiotic relationship that has been impossible to shame, legislate, or criminalize out of our legislative system. So what to do? No state in the union wants to lose its conduit to millions of dollars in pork, so each Senator or Representative who brings home the bacon at the end of the year is likely to be re-elected. Sometimes these men and women will stumble and reveal some personal flaw, (being unfaithful, untruthful, untrustworthy, unethical, etc.) but we are unwilling to vote them out of office for what we internalize as a lapse in moral judgment because we don’t want to lose the prestigious seat they occupy on the Finance Committee or the National Security Committee, or dilute the influence they have in getting prime projects for local businesses. The “system” works for those lucky enough to be able to manipulate it. It works when our legislator secures for our home state some large grant from the federal government that brings jobs to our unemployed. It works when we are given large amounts of federal money to mitigate a disaster. We thank our legislators for carving out that large slice for us from the federal budget where 49 other states feed at the federal trough. But what do we really get for all the money we pay in taxes to the government? We probably won’t get true healthcare reform. We find out who benefits depending on whether it is an election year or not. When our legislators have to worry about our votes, they are more likely to pass laws that benefit the voters. When they don’t have to worry about winning an election, they pass legislation geared toward business. We are not happy with “the system” but we are so used to the way it works and comfortable with the predictability of its corruption that we have become resigned to enduring its perversity. But “we the people” ARE the government. We have become complicit in “the system”. We are its enablers. We provide the means by which we can screw ourselves. We are the butt of our own joke. We have no reason to complain unless we are willing to change the status quo. Those of us who voted for a Democratic majority in both houses of congress voted for change. I am ready to clean out the pig sty and not just apply another coat of lipstick on this pig.