Great Moments In American History

One of the first victims of America's concentration camps was Benjamin Franklin Bache. He was the grandson of Benjamin Franklin, and inherited his printing presses. He was arrested for allegedly publishing seditious material and never returned to freedom. He died of yellow fever in prison at the age of 29.

If you ask most Americans who the United Empire Loyalists were, you will get a blank stare. The United Empire Loyalists were some of the first victims of ethnic cleansing in the United States. They were American citizens who had either sympathized with Britain or had failed to declare loyalty to the breakaway Colonialists.

Another person you usually won't read about in American history books is William Walker. William Walker was an American who decided it was his destiny to turn Latin America into a slave-holding empire with himself as emperor, and created a private army backed by American corporations to conquer a number of Central American nations. He is something of an Adolf Hitler figure in Central America, but you hardly hear a peep about him in the U.S. He first conquered and declared the Republic of Baja California. He tried to take over the Mexican state of Sinaloa, and when he failed, he declared Baja California to be part of the greater Republic of Sinaloa, planning to return and complete his conquest. He then conquered Nicaragua and sentenced an American journalist to death for reporting that he was setting up a slave-holding empire there; the journalist escaped disguised as a woman. Walker was turned back in Costa Rica by fierce fighters fighting with rudimentary weapons; some only had pickaxes and hoes. He was then executed in Honduras.

And, finally, an unsung American hero you probably won't hear much about: Tom Ogle. Ogle invented a carburetor in the 1970s that would make a clunky big American car (a Ford Galaxy) get over 100 miles to the gallon. His device burned gasoline vapors instead of a fuel-air mixture.

He first got the idea for such a device when he was mowing his lawn and ran over a rock that punctured the fuel tank. The fuel all ran out, but the mower kept running for a very long time afterwards, running on just the fumes.

Ogle's device burned the fuel so efficiently that there was almost no exhaust; the output was almost completely condensed water vapor. Engineers pored over his altered Ford Galaxy and other cars in which he had installed his device, suspicious that he had hidden fuel sources, but all of them appeared to find that Ogle's claims were true. There is some controversy about how much efficiency you can get from vapors, though.

What happened to Ogle? He started marketing his device. Then shortly thereafter, he was sued by the oil companies. He was hit with investigations by the IRS and the SEC. He was driven into bankruptcy, and several death threats were made on his life. He was shot once by an unknown assailant. And then, after he told his lawyer that he had received threats that someone was going to poison his drinks, he died of an overdose of Darvon and alcohol. His death was ruled a suicide.

Language and Politics

It's time to redefine some terms.

"Construction"--the removal of obscene corporate icons to money, and the restoration of the land on which they were built to natural habitat

"Destruction"--the creation of large obscene monoliths out of concrete and glass to house banks, insurance companies, and the like

"Entitlements"--government programs that allow lobbyists to feel entitled to control our government, regulatory structures that allow corporations to plunder our natural wealth, and the bold allowance of the purchase of our elected officials

"Socialism"--a structure whereby social networks interact to provide support for our friends and families outside of the corporate rubric

Of course, action is required also, but conservatives have long realized that through the control of language, the argument is defined. It's time for us to take the rhetorical initiative so we can take start fighting the real battles.

Entitlements

I think that most lobbyists have a greater sense of "entitlement" than just about anybody. They feel they are "entitled" to move America toward the vision of their corrupt corporate clients. They want to be "entitled" to be paid unethically high amounts of money to manipulate elected officials. Are they "entitled" to pour cash into elections and bring in elected officials who have very little connection with the interests of the electorate? It's time for us to end entitlements!

Investments vs. Waste

There is some myth out there that liberals like to spend huge sums of money. It seems to me that the debt has been run up the most under conservative administrations. The Representative for my district, Lloyd Doggett, is a good example of a deficit hawk who is still pretty liberal. I sure wish he would sign on to end the drug war, though.

Kennedy lowered the top marginal tax rate from over 90%, and Clinton balanced the budget (not that Clinton was a huge liberal). Liberals make better investments in society.

Light Rail In Austin

I'm all for light rail, and amazed and delighted that we are actually getting it started in this sometimes brain-dead state of Texas. But it has to WORK! A year and a half of delays in getting it started is not going to endear this project to anyone.

Desperate Actions For Health Care?

They are doing their best to stop universal affordable health care. What do we have to do, stop traffic on all the freeways? Cover ourselves with maple syrup and give politicians big hugs? Incidentally, I'm all in for the maple syrup. I recommend Vermont light amber grade A...it forms an airy froth when playfully whipped, and is not only a gustatory sensation, but also a tactile symphony on the tongue. It has that certain "je ne sais quoi."

But I digress. The insurance companies are already rationing care by denying coverage, terminating policies and screening out pre-existing conditions. That's the most cruel form of rationing; one run by nothing but some corporate executive's bottom line. It's almost unbelievable that a human being would make those decisions, chalk them up to "business" and then go home and play with his or her children.

I am constantly amazed by the people who accept the multiple reasons that somebody can be excluded from having health insurance as just an acceptable business practice rather than an absolute human rights violation. And that is why it should not be run by a profit-motivated business that answers to shareholders. While we're at it, why don't we open concentration camps for the homeless and the people who whine about not being insured, and assign them to a company with a profit motive? Maybe then some of them will actually get health care.

By the way, Texas has the nation's highest percentage of uninsured--25 percent.

Going Bayh-Bayh

Evan Bayh decides to retire from the Senate one day before the deadline for Democratic candidates to submit signatures to qualify to run. What is up with that?! Daniel Coats, former Senator, has already announced on the Republican side. There is a movement to draft John Cougar Mellencamp, but he'd have to want to, and he'd have to get the signatures by tomorrow.

A long shot is a provision that allows party leaders to select a candidate if there is a vacancy, but Bayh would have to file and then drop out.

Hardball Time

There is no excuse for letting a minority lock up the Senate and gum up the House unless you are not really committed to getting something done in the first place but want to sound like you do. It is time to play hardball, not tiddlywinks.

Your Tax Dollars

The U.S. Gov't paid bounty hunters in Afghanistan $5K each for 6 Uighur detainees who weren't even involved in the war. Then we kept them at Guantanamo, and paid Palau $100K each to take them off our hands. More of your tax dollars at work.

Texas' Legislative Districts

Ah, the memories. It wasn't that long ago that Tom DeLay and the Texas Legislature came up with their grand plan to re-draw Texas' legislative districts. As a result, my district (District 25) is now a long, narrow, snake-like object that goes all the way to the coast. Austin was carved up pretty much out of spite in an extremely anti-democratic maneuver. I attended the hearings in the Texas Capitol when this change was proposed, and the whole time I was there, I didn't hear a single person speaking in favor of this. The committee politely listened to everybody overwhelmingly testifying that this was a bad idea, and went ahead and imposed Tom DeLay's vision on Texas anyway.

And where is DeLay now? A reject from "Dancing With The Stars." But he will be making huge amounts of corporate money for his influence and connections. There is a powerful employment agency for the well-connected, even if there are few decent jobs for the average American