Anybody Have Any Boxes?

‎"I don't know. I'll just tell you this, if this [health care reform] passes and it's five years from now and all that stuff gets implemented -- I am leaving the country. I'll go to Costa Rica."--Rush Limbaugh.

Need help moving?

Of course, Rush is already denying that he will actually move. He says he just meant he would go on vacation there.

Out In The Cold?

The first Cold War was political consisting of the West vs. the Iron Curtain countries. Are we at the beginning of a second Cold War--an economic Cold War, that we are losing to China?

And with our reliance on surveillance, the Patriot Act, detainment of enemy combatants and illegal immigrants with minimal due process, and corporate dominance are we becoming "Cold Fascists?" Kinder, gentler fascists?

Ethical Mayhem

People in power will have you believe that you have to accept what can be gotten along with. To a certain extent that may be true, but this is much more subject to change that their limited viewpoints may allow. The way it works is you have to get what you can grab. That's how they got where they are.

And I don't mean that people should run around bopping each other on the head and taking each other's stuff at random. You have to target what you need and what you ethically deserve based on your contributions, and go for it balls-out.

The Last Liberal President?

Nixon is looking like a liberal these days. A proposed guaranteed income, wage and price controls, creation of the EPA, enforced integration in southern schools, engagement with China and the Soviet Union, ending the Vietnam War. All that happened during the Nixon administration. Though Nixon pushed the drug war, two-thirds of the money went to treatment of addicts. "In many respects, [Nixon was] 'the last liberal president'"--Noam Chomsky.

Compare the Obama administration's talk. Obama seems to be writing the Republicans' strategy for them. It is pretty sad that after advocating single-payer as a State Senator, President Obama won't go anywhere near talking about it now. Supposedly, this can be chalked up to pragmatism, or a desire to build a consensus. But pragmatism is supposed to be a means for getting things accomplished, not for letting your opponents make you look foolish. C'mon, President Obama. Step up.

The Republicans are winning the language war in coming up with slogans that inflame people's emotions and point them at enemies, even if those enemies are straw men. Yet the Democrats have a former writer for one of the most popular shows on television as their leaders. C'mon, Senator Franken. Step up.

"Lead, follow, or get out of the way."--Thomas Paine

The Upside of an Economic Catastrophe

Our society is in a challenging place right now. There is no denying that many people are going through difficult times. There is evidence that many are suffering, and that some of the things that appeared to work in the past simply don't appear to work any more.

The problem is, some of the things that appeared to work really didn't work. They just created a bigger problem. There is no easy money. America simply doesn't have the right, nor apparently the ability any more, to just haphazardly grab most of the world's wealth and resources.

After World War II, we went on a huge binge. We partied like there was no end, and we bought into the myth that unparalleled, unlimited wealth was just out there for the taking. We helped create a myth that big, unregulated business built wealth out of nothing, and expert after expert added to the mythology by insinuating that creation of wealth was nearly unlimited. But it isn't. The world is a closed system. There is only so much stuff to go around. And when the population was expanding at a large rate, there were always people to pass the Ponzi scheme on to to keep the whole carnival of dreams going long enough to gorge ourselves on more and more cotton candy.

So now it appears that many of our young, and their young, won't have a pile of stuff to collect that approaches the piles of their parents. And there is a lot of resentment and backlash about that. It's easy to assign blame, but hard to find solutions. It's easy to whine and moan, and difficult to build a sustainable future.

But maybe some of the priorities that had gone so wrong can start getting right again. What we have had for a very long time is a society that is completely built on lies. The television, altar to our misguided paradigms, is an absolute icon to the lies that we have been sucking on like a mother's breast that only spews forth poisoned condensed milk.

There is no Huxtable family. Gilligan is not the Skipper's little buddy. That news reporter who cradled the diseased orphan in his hands and looked so concerned just left and moved on to the next story. Those people in that movie didn't fall in love from across the room, and their lives didn't just unfold easily and breathlessly from then on. If a guy buys that product, it won't make women more likely to have sex with him. That movie that told you how bad capitalism was raked in a pile for the various business organizations that backed it. I could be driving a Mazda, but I could be having sex with an ape, too, and I'm not. That frumpy loser in that sitcom doesn't live in a pristine, high-end house with a gorgeous wife despite having no apparent means of support.

A society that has lies so embedded into it as a core value couldn't have a better high priest than the television set. But maybe now that the lies are starting to fall apart, people will discover some truths.

We are defined by what we do, not by what we have. We need our community, not our possessions. That boat, or Porsche, or house in the Hamptons, won't fill a hole in your heart.

So if people spend as much time working on their communities rather than their bank accounts, maybe we will have a culture that is really based on traditions that do special things for all of us, rather than images created by faceless corporations. The corporate world would have you believe that our common heritage is Mickey Mouse and formulaic action films. They create a structure where if Steve Jobs wins, Bill Gates loses, because you will only buy one of their shiny boxes to masturbate to. We have the opportunity here to create something that is more than that. Actually, we had the opportunity the whole time, but most people didn't feel like doing it.

America--Improve It Or Leave It!

Many years ago, in a response to the counter-culture of the '60s, the refrain, "America, love it or leave it!" was a common talking point for the conservatives. I guess the implicit message behind it was that people should leave this idealized illusion of a perfect alone.

But every political system has its problems. The whole notion behind the formation of the United States was that the people should have the right to fix things that were not working right.

So maybe we should have a new refrain, as our country's problems mount: "America, Fix it or leave it!"

The Rich Taxed Us First

The rich started the class war, too.

New Union of the Unemployed

There is a new union of the unemployed. It is called UCubed and it looks like a really innovative idea for some of those in the lowest echelon of power to group together for leverage. If you are unemployed, you may want to strongly consider joining. Go to http://www.unionofunemployed.com/ for more details.

Democracy In Action, Sort Of

At our Democratic Precinct convention in 2008, there were about 1000 people who showed up. All the people couldn't even fit into the school cafeteria where the event was held. This year, two years later, only five showed up. Three of us were elected delegates, though we had space for 33 delegates and 33 alternates. But still, the precinct will have its full voting force at the convention. If the three show up, then each one will have the voting force of eleven people. But it is not clear if all three will show up for the Travis County Convention as some were ambivalent, and there are no alternates. Will we have a situation where only one person speaks for the entire precinct?

The Radical Corporatist Fringe

The radical corporatist fringe has taken control of our society and is determined to succeed even if many of us are driven into homelessness, hunger and destitution by their policies. They are inspired not by the spark, drive and compassion that characterize us as a people, but by the oceans of dirty money that they can tap into to strip our culture of its most precious resources. That is a condition that none of us should tolerate.

We should be building on our strengths, not tearing them down. There is no excuse for allowing anyone to be hungry, homeless or needlessly ill in a world where the resources exist to stop all of these conditions.

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