Boomer legacy?

Die Boomers! Die!

2010-04-09T06:56:00.000-07:00

My son has a bias against hippies. This surprises me. My perception of hippies is basically neutral - if anything I'm way more in favor of that life style rather than the Right Wing group led by the Karl Rove's, Dick Cheney's, and Grover Norquist's of the world.

It turns out that in part - his opinion about hippies was formed by a season 9 South Park episode - Die Hippie, Die - I have to admit it was pretty funny. South Park does a great job of making fun of just about everything.

As I watch all of my boomer friends rushing to retirement, expecting to be supported in the styles they've become accustomed to - the phrase "die boomers, die" comes to mind. If I were a young person - for example my adult children's ages - I'd be looking at the cost of that and be looking at some cheaper alternatives. Solyent Green anyone?

Bail me out...

2009-01-22T05:58:00.000-08:00

Dear Fellow Citizen and Mr. President Obama,

I've grown weary of listening to all the talking heads drivel on and on about how to save banks from the current financial crisis. All of it is "trickle down" to the people who really need it. Clearly the Bush regime demonstrated that corporate greed could not be curtailed in this manner - as bank after bank took the taxpayers money, spent it frivolously, bought other banks, paid bonuses, distributed dividends, and could give no public account of how they had done anything to help the citizens who need it. They simply ask for more billions and billions...

In contrast - I would like to suggest that the simplest way to help the people who need it the most - is to exempt the first $50,000 of income from any source from federal income taxes. This could end withholding form everyone's paycheck - putting money directly in citizen's pockets.

This could be expanded at tax time - end all tax deductions - exempt the first $50,000 from income taxes - couples filing a joint return would get $100,000 in exempt income. Apply this to everyone - treat us all equally - you and Michelle, Mark and Pasha, Bill & Melinda Gates - get $100,000 in exempt income - no other deductions...

It really is that simple - to put the money directly into the pockets of the people who need it...bail me out please!

I never thought that I would miss Nixon...

2008-12-23T08:21:00.000-08:00

One of the beauties of this page is that I can vent...

I was told about the bumper sticker on a recent trip to Southern Illinois - it reads: "I never thought I would miss Nixon" - He was my "Commander In Chief" and an unrepentant criminal - whose pardon by Gerald Ford may have been the greatest legal error and injustice done up until recently. Bush, Cheney, et. al. have clearly out done him - plundering everything they can from the working class of Americans and the rest of the world...will they be held accountable?

A sign seen in front of a church along U.S. Hwy 51 on the way north: "The Rapture Is Coming - Get Right or Get Left" -

Makes me long for the nostalgia of Nixon...

I know he won't do it but I have to get this off of my chest and since no one reads it - I think that President-elect Obama could spice up the whole inaugural spectacle by three rather trivial events. First, his first act after being sworn in could be having Donald Rumsfeld publicly executed with Bush and Cheney in stocks observing the event. Then he could go over to Cheney and have the crowd give him a thumbs up or thumbs down on whether he should meet the same fate, then repeat for Bush...they took a lot of pleasure in hanging Saddam and I for one feel that they should meet the same fate...

Forgive me for voicing these thoughts on vigilante justice...but I think that it would be a just fate for these members of the "greediest generation"...

Thankful...

2008-11-27T06:29:00.000-08:00

Today is the day celebrated as Thanksgiving in the United States. Many think that it is a misplaced celebration - after all the WASP committed genocide - to get us to this point.

One can acknowledge these sad facts and still be grateful for a day that causes us all to pause and be grateful.

I am thankful...

that I was born in this country - life is easier here than most other places.
for my parents - who through some twist of fate were also born here and chose to raise nine of us.
for my partner and fellow adventurer of 39 years and mother of our two children.
that I was saved by the Cold War and not killed in Viet Nam during my time in the U. S. Army Air Defense Command.
for our children, Zachary Elden and Emily Rose who have grown up and chosen different paths in life.
Zach has determined career and financial ambitions at the moment and Emily has chosen to be a mother - giving us two wonderful granddaughters - Michelle Faith and Elizabeth Mae.
for the friends and relatives that we have in many differing physical locations but always in a soft spot in our hearts.
all bless us with their qualities and character.
for the property that we live upon...we are learning with it.
that I can see the eagle fly and have the pileated rest in the crab apple next to me.
that I can chop wood, mow the hay, and till the soil through my physical efforts.
that we can reason our way to a different way of producing and consuming foods that will bless us with health.
for all my fellow Earth Companions...sharing and educating me about the Divine Creation that surrounds and supports us all.

Amen.

Bailout the car companies...

2008-11-18T05:37:00.000-08:00

As a veteran family business man - I must tell you that I find the "too-big-to-fail" concept beyond insulting - it's disgusting. Anyone who has been in a small business knows that the government makes no attempt to save us...and in fact asserts penalties to crush us whenever possible...

But enough on that - the too-big-to- fail concept was started to justify our elected elite to pick our pockets to bail out banking interests whose greed outdistanced their common sense. Not too worry - they are needed more than we are and who cares if you are struggling to make your mortgage and eat?

Now the American car companies are lined up at the end of the Bush administration with their hands out - wanting to put them in our pockets more than they have been for many years...

But wait - every one in Congress should be required to watch Who Killed The Electric Car before one more dime comes out of my money. Could it be Andrew H. Card had his hands in it?

Now after taking away full scale real life production models of cars their owners did not want to give up - GM has the audacity to tell us that they are now developing the Volt - for sale in 2010.

And they can be confident that the Congress will give them more of the citizens money...

Frankly, Barack would need totally clean house in Washington to have any hope of reversing the kind of governments Federal and State that are the deep pockets for the global corporations...

A little something to think about over coffee...

2008-11-12T05:24:00.000-08:00

I was listening to the "news" this morning on NPR - and I was informed that it was sponsored by The Department of Homeland Security. Hmmm...

How Orwellian...

Does the P stand for "Public" or "Propaganda"? Not to worry, maybe its just part of the "transition" of power...

Historic election...

2008-11-06T04:59:00.000-08:00

It truly is gratifying to see the joy and optimism reflected in most American faces with the election Barack Obama...having lived through the shock of the deaths of Martin Luther King, Bobby Kennedy, Selma, Viet Nam, etc...seeing tears stream down Jesse Jackson and Oprah's faces for a positive event was truly joyous - I'm thankful to be alive to share in it...

I stayed up and watched the returns and cheered when Ohio and Virginia went for Barack...the celebration in Grant Park, Chicago was a stark contrast to the police terror I witnessed in 1968 at the democratic party convention...but we the people have a long way to go...

Hopefully - this election will mark the end of the era of the greedy American imperialist bullying most recently - championed by war criminals - Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld. If you don't believe that they are war criminals - you are on the wrong page...hopefully they will be prosecuted somewhere in the world - so the rest of us have a chance to clear our names...

The profitable "commentary" about an Obama administration has already started - the "liberal" label - is being thrown around - this seems to be applied to any economic plan that doesn't give money to all the corporate conglomerates lined up for payback for their campaign contributions...

Thank you Barack and many blessings to you as you undertake the work - please stay the course where your heart leads you - not the expedient political habits that will be pressed upon you...

This blog's namesake...

2008-10-26T16:07:00.000-07:00

The Boomer Legacy is here right now - staring us in the face as Bush and his Congressional cronies rob the treasury to line their pockets and those of their corporate friends! Is it any surprise that they should not pay the consequences of their excess? Maybe they really do believe that the world as we know it will end in 2012? And they're figuring with enough money they can party hard and stay out of jail until then...

What's so unbelievable is that we've become so docile - so mesmorized - so seduced by sound bite marketing - that the great masses of us do NOTHING. Most of my friends are really worried about their "portfolios" - and pardon my french - but fuck everything else!

If your young, and have a semblance of consciousness between your ears - I recommend that you watch the Chicago 10 - and see what these money hungry retiree-wanna-be's once were - people who thought that this country could stand for something other than war and greed. If you want to have some fun do a little research on each of those who stood trial - google them if nothing else.

Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, and Bush II all happened on our watch and everyone counted their money as the government of the United States was taken over by the "military/industrial complex" that Dwight D. Eisenhower warned citizens about. And so it goes...

According to corporate Presidential candidate, Barack Obama, only five percent of American taxpayers make over $250,000 annually - and that's apparently enough for most of my generation to become the modern equivalents of Judas...

Obey Is No Obi-Wan...

2008-09-26T05:43:00.000-07:00

I have just completed reading David R. Obey's autobiography - Raising Hell For Justice: The Washington Battles of a Heartland Progressive.

I heard him talk about it once at a FightingBob Fest. He decided to write it because he was disgusted by former Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson's claim that:

"he and his conservative allies were the true, modern-day inheritors of the La Follette Progressive tradition. That claim is preposterous. In fact, the Thompson administration in Wisconsin, and the Reagan and Bush administrations nationally, restored to economic and political ascendency the very economic elites that LaFollette fought all of his life."

From my perspective the evidence presented by Obey in his book confirms that Thompson was aided and abetted by none other than David R. Obey.

More than anything else, Dave has demonstrated that he wants his job more than he wants to do it.

Long, long, ago...in 1972 to be exact Watergate was coming to the nation's attention. Dave wrote out a press release on the campaign trail that said that:

"...if the White House linkage should prove true, Nixon should resign.

I do not believe I have ever been more angry in my political life than I was that night. The idea that the leader of the free world would be corrupt enough to condone the kind of thuggery represented by Watergate blew my mind. But what made me even angrier was my conviction that Nixon would get away with it..."

One can't help but wonder where that sense of outrage has gone.

In his chapter on Presidents, Obey points out that he has served "with", not "under", seven Presidents - I'll let you read his book if you want the difference between "with and "under" explained - my conclusion is that the American people have been "under" all seven of them and all the Congresses that Dave has been part of. At some length, Obey finally concludes:

"That is why I am left with the judgement that Nixon may in some ways be surpassed by the present occupant of the White House in comparative damage done this country...

His 'My way or the highway' mind-set demonstrated that he was determined to advance his uncompromising agenda...

It (the Bush administration) unilaterally declared that it would wage preemptive war in Iraq under the misleading banner of antiterrorism, even though the administration's own intelligence could not demonstrate in any way that Iraq was connected to Al-Qaeda's 9/11 attack on our country.

Bush led the nation into war on the flimsiest of intelligence, and when the information that was used to drive the nation to war was found to be wildly off the mark, the administration questioned the patriotism of those who challenged the misuse of that information...George W. Bush has mired us in a quagmire that will hold us captive for years to come..."

And David R. Obey, now one of the most powerful Congressman, insists that "impeachment is a waste of time" and that "impeachment is off the table." Did he support Feingold's motion to censure or was he one of the silent democrats?

This book is full of names but noticeably missing from his book are the names of people who have challenged this administration from minority positions - Paul Wellstone, John Conyers, and and Dennis Kucinich. He only makes grudging mention of Jack Murtha after the 2006 elections - "Jack Murtha and I worked more closely than we had in our entire careers in the House." But he laments:

"What Nancy (Pelosi) and I found especially frustrating was that even though the Bush White House and the Republican Party were vehemently opposed to our actions, several groups of far left antiwar protesters were targeting us for demonstrations and sit-ins at my offices and at Nancy's home. I told the press that their actions were akin to someone on a football team trying to sack their own quaterback."

Actually Dave the question is what team do you play for?

And I think that is summed up way back in your career during the Nixon days:

"McGovern was one of the most decent, conscience-driven men I had ever known in politics. He was a genuine war hero, a World War II bomber pilot in the
European theater, but almost no one knew it. I knew that, in November, the country would be more willing to bestow its trust on that paranoid in the White House than they would on a soft-spoken war hero who had sense enough to know the difference between a war worth fighting and a misguided adventure that we were sucked into by our leader's own lies. The futility and outrage of it gnawed at my gut, but I knew that there was nothing I could do about it. I hated the thought of four more years with such a political savage in the White House. McGovern was going down the tubes. The question was: Would he take people like me down with him?"

Like I said earlier - Obey wants his job more than he wants to do it. Standing on principle might lead to defeat - or - in these times - benching by the corporate team captains.

The heroic McGovern still stands - he wrote "Why I Believe Bush Must Go - published on January 6th, 2008.

David R. Obey knew that resistance to the empire was futile a long time ago - he is no Obi-Wan Kenobi . Only the "far left antiwar protesters" might have different expectations of what "raising hell for justice" might mean.

The Scandalous Gospel...

2008-03-17T07:38:00.001-07:00

Just when I thought that there were no Tolstoyan Christians left in leadership positions in America I came across this book by Peter J. Gomes, The Scandalous Gospel of Jesus: What's So Good About The Good News? Don't get me wrong - Gomes doesn't cite Tolstoy's intricate and exhausting analyses of the gospels but he starts where Tolstoy ended - with the Sermon on the Mount.

Gomes is not afraid to challenge the televangelists who lead the mega churches of prosperity, advocate the assassination of heads of state, and promote homophobia. Gomes ably separates what have become popular positions of denominations and churches from the actual words and meaning of the gospels. He titles Chapter Two - An Offending Gospel - and tells the story of a guest sermon he gave on the Sunday following the reelection of George Bush. He says that it started simply enough with the "gospel lectionary appointed for the day and heard by Episcopalians throughout North America on this All Saints Sunday."

He describes "the usual haze of familiarity" covering the faces of the congregation used to hearing the same verses over and over again, "the scriptural equivalent of white sound or ambient noise." According to Gomes, "people began to sit up and take notice" as the lesson went on with the verses one of his friends calls the "Woebetudes":

"But how terrible for you who are rich now; you have had your easy life;
How terrible for you who are full now; you will go hungry!
How terrible for you who laugh now; you will mourn and weep!
How terrible when all men speak well of you, because their ancestors said the very same things to the false prophets."

According to Gomes "the gospel message in Luke is simply that knowing this, we now have a chance to do something about it before it is too late. Thus, in the verses that follow... Jesus tells us to love our enemies, practice the Golden Rule, love those beyond our comfort zone, and be merciful to others as we hope God will be merciful to us."

Apparently the "niceties of this bit of exegesis were lost" among the "blue" and "red" members of the congregation - illustrating what he means by an "offending" gospel!

"Most people do not go to church to be confronted with the gap between what they believe and practice and what their faith teaches and requires...religious people are often cultural conservatives, and (they) take comfort in religion, (because) that religion is seen to confirm the status quo. When a member of the congregation says to the preacher at the door of a church on Sunday, 'That was a first-rate sermon,' he or she is saying that the preacher said all the things with which the person agreed, but only half as well..."
"In warning my preaching students of this dilemma, that people crave confirmation rather than confrontation in preaching, I remind them of how badly Jesus' first sermon went."

I felt both confirmed and confronted - reading a minister interpreting the gospels more like my heart and soul feel - knowing that I am unable to live up to this gospel.

In his penultimate chapter titled "A Gospel of Hope" Gomes draws a significant distinction between optimism and hope.

Optimism - as defined by Ambrose Bierce's "Devil's Dictionary" is "The doctrine, or belief that everything is beautiful, including what is ugly, everything good, especially the bad, and everything right that is wrong...an intellectual disorder, yielding to no treatment but death." Further he uses Voltaire's definition from Candide - the madness of maintaining that everything is right when it is wrong."

He contrasts this with Emily Dickinson's lines about hope:

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul
And sings the tune without the words
And never stops at all.

Gomes likes these images - it "offers an elusive, fleeting clarity, vividly vague, as it were, that endures in the most intimate of spaces and never gives up. Hope, in her view, is not a policy or doctrine or a form of nostalgia either theological or secular. ...There is something fragile about it and yet it abides, however precariously, at the very center of our being - the "thing with feathers."

Those of you - who like me are tired of hearing the rhetoric of torture from those loudly proclaiming themselves to be Christians who speak directly to God will find this a truly hopeful read.

Even Einstein Couldn't Do It...

2008-02-26T16:34:00.000-08:00

I recently completed Walter Isaacson's Einstein : His Life and Universe and I found it to be quite an interesting book. It dispelled some of the misconceptions that I had about his involvement in the development of the atomic bomb among many other things.

Einstein was once an adamant and outspoken pacifist. For example in 1930 he gave a speech in New York city that called for an "uncompromising war resistance and refusal to do military service under any circumstances." He issued what became a "famous call for a brave 2 percent:"

"The timid might say, "What's the use? We shall be sent to prison." To them I would reply: Even if only 2% of those assigned military service should announce their refusal to fight... governments would be powerless, they would not dare send such a large number of people to jail."

Later as Hitler rose to power Einstein changed his position about military service and encouraged nations to mount a military defense against Germany, but one might look at the draft resistance and anti-war protests during the Viet Nam war as evidence that 2% was at one time effective.

Einstein was not part of the Manhattan Project that developed the atomic bomb, J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI had an extensive file on him and it is most likely that he would not have been granted a security clearance though for no good reason.

In 1932 Einstein was involved in an exchange of letters with Sigmund Freud about war and politics.

Einstein advocated for "an international or "supranational" entity that would transcend the chaos of national sovereignty by imposing the resolution of disputes." This advocacy only became stronger with the development of atomic weapons. Einstein asked Freud - given that humans have within them "lust for hatred and destruction" that leaders can manipulate to stir up militaristic passions - "is it possible to control man's mental evolution so as to make him secure against the psychosis of hate and destructiveness?"

Isaacson characterizes Freud's response as "bleak." Freud replies to Einstein with this ditty - "You surmise that man has in him an active instinct for hatred and destruction, I entirely agree."

So what's changed since 1932?

Einstein was also opposed to the blatant greed and consumption of unregulated capitalism. He supported a version of socialism that would retain individual freedoms but check the greed of corporations and capitalists. This article "Why Socialism?" was reprinted as recently as 1998.

He spent his last 20 years doggedly pursuing his unified theory but was unable to solve this riddle - Isaacson called it Einstein's "white whale."

Over the same time frame he worked publicly and vocally in an unpopular crusade to raise his fellow human beings above the level of beasts - "People acquiesce without resistance and align themselves with the forces of evil."

Even Einstein couldn't persuade us to do otherwise.

Confessions - reflection...

2008-01-27T12:19:00.000-08:00

I just finished reading John Perkins - Confessions of an Economic Hit Man.

Perkins is now a dot-org "dedicated to changing the world" and the book has 592 cusomer reviews on Amazon. Hmmm...

Perkins said he was going to write this book 20 years before he did - why is that? Hmmm...

Why does he tell the story now - to "change the world" or hmmm...

Here is the most truthful part from his book in my opinion:

"It would be great if we could blame it all on a conspiracy, but we cannot. The empire depends on the efficacy of big banks, corporations, and governments - the coporatocracy - but it is not a conspiracy. This corporatocracy is ourselves - we make it happen - which, of course, is why most of us find it difficult to stand up and oppose it. We would rather glimpse conspirators lurking in the shadows, because most of us work for one of those banks, corporations, or governments, or in some way are dependent on them for the goods and services they produce and market. We cannot bring ourselves to bite the hand of the master who feeds us."

My thought is that he had not yet accumulateded enough personal wealth to feel secure about his financial future. Now that he has enough - he can tell us peasants the story. Hmmm...

He was happy to make the big bucks as a corporatist but you shouldn't be. End of story.

As John Lennon once said about us in "Working Class Heroes" -

There's room at the top they are telling you still
But first you must learn how to smile as you kill
If you want to be like the folks on the hill

A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be

If you want to be a hero well just follow me
If you want to be a hero well just follow me

Perkins is telling us that there is no "room at the top" - other than that he seems to say that we're "still fucking peasants as far as he can see " - wouldn't it be better if we could have grown old with John Lennon - not John Perkins.

Silencing the opposition...

2008-01-18T13:01:00.000-08:00

Today is the third Friday of January 2008 and another Iraq War Moratorium Day.

The war is a horrible waste of humanity and treasure - but things are actually much bleaker than any thinking citizen can contemplate.

In America, the Presidential "selection" process has just started. One might expect that citizens would get the opportunity to hear from all of the candidates - far right, middle, and far left - blue, green, orange, whatever, but that would be incorrect. Kucinich was excluded from the Iowa debates by the AARP - one of the nations largest insurance companies and since then Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich have been silenced by the media giants - Disney and General Electric.

Both of these candidates offer ideas outside of the narrow corporate and party boundaries. And both were deliberately excluded from broadcasts over the people's airwaves with the major political parties helping to silence them. What, you say?

What about the group vying to be the leader of the "free world" - those who were allowed to speak and claim to want to be President? Did any of them speak out about an insurance company, a network, or their party excluding candidates from a discussion of ideas?

No... and the silence is deafening.

These are the "leaders" who want us to believe that they will actually "preserve and protect the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic"?

Here was a golden opportunity for a civics lesson - a lesson in democratic leadership.

Candidates Obama, Clinton and Edwards said NOTHING about Kucinich being barred. Apparently they consider that maiming an opponent and disenfranchising his/her voters is a better path to victory rather than educating and explaining why he or she is the best candidate.

These actions speak louder than their words about how far we've come from being a democracy of free citizens.

I searched for news about this and Kucinich is right - you won't see it on the networks, you won't see it on public television, Amy Goodman wrote a piece about it but that just might be the total coverage. Why would we let the corporate owned mega-media decide who gets to speak to the American people?

For a far-ranging in-depth interview with Dennis Kucinich that will give you a small inkling of how different he would make our country if he were President read this post by Chris Hedges.

And...ho hum the totally asleep at the wheel masses - don't notice? Don't care? Don't what?

We the people or we the sheep?

Right speech...

2008-01-02T08:32:00.000-08:00

A friend called me last Monday and asked me to appear and speak at a session to be held by our Congressman. I'm to ask him to support impeaching the powerful folks who sit in the people's white house.

Now here is a challenge for me - use "right speech" to communicate with my powerful and arrogant Congressman who suffers no fools and frequently vents his anger at the people he supposedly represents...

As you can see, I'm not off to a good start.

Optimism...

2008-01-01T10:13:00.000-08:00

It is a blessing to see the New Year and start it off with an optimistic and joyful outlook.

This wondrous message comes from Vietnam survivor - Thich Nhat Hahn and his book Interbeing - Fourteen Guidelines for Engaged Buddhism:

"Aware of the suffering created by attachment and intolerance, we are determined not to be idolatrous about or bound to any doctrine, theory, or ideology, even Buddhist ones. Buddhist teachings are guiding means to help us learn to look deeply and to develop our understanding and compassion. They are not doctrines to fight, kill, or die for."

Let us all be optimistic that America will declare itself to be a nation following this guideline.

Despair...

2007-12-31T08:45:00.000-08:00

The year 2007 is coming to an end - and I am thankful to see it go - I cannot remember a year where the total lack of any national American moral integrity was more manifest.

We elected a "congress" that promised change and then continued down the corporate fascist path without missing a single step. Integrity, like impeachment of the treasonous, has been and continues to be "off the table".

All in the name of "security" - a popular term these days. It is used to cover wire tapping, suspension of Habeous corpus, torture, mercenaries, pre-emptive invasions, constant surveillance, and much more. The modern spin would not escape Tolstoy's observation more than 100 years ago.

"If we would stop rushing for a minute and examine our lives objectively, we would realize that everything we do to try to make our lives more secure is in vain. While spending time on trying to obtain this imaginary security, we forget that our lives can never be secure. Worse, while deceiving ourselves and ruining our true lives in this quest for imaginary security, we often create the opposite effect. A rich man acquires a lot of money to feel secure; and then the money attracts a robber, who kills the rich man. A hypochondriac goes to doctors to try to preserve his life, and then the medical treatment slowly kills him - and if it does not kill him, it distracts him from seeking his true life. Likewise, countries arm themselves to protect their lives and freedom. These "protections" result in the deaths of millions of people in wars as well as deprive these countries of their freedoms..."

Most disheartening and despairing for me is that the American masses continue to be deceived by the marketing genius of these pseudo-Christians speaking from the pseudo-pulpits of the their pseudo-churches, built for pseudo-religions. Something which did not escape Tolstoy's observation either:

"Church creeds are studied and recited as prayers in all the churches, but the Sermon on the Mount is read officially only as a Gospel reading once a year and on a weekday at that. It could not be otherwise, because people, who believe in an evil, irrational God who damned the human race and then directed His Son to be a sacrifice and a portion of mankind to suffer eternal torments, cannot believe in a God of Love.
A person believing in a God-Christ who will come to glory to judge and punish the living and the dead cannot believe in the Christ who urges us to present the other cheek to an offender and not to judge but to forgive and love our enemies.
A person who can believe in the divine inspiration of the Old Testament or in the sanctity of David, who on his deathbed ordered the murder of an old man who had insulted him and whom he himself was unable to kill because he was bound by an oath (Third book of Kings, Ch. II, line 8), not to mention the other obscenities with which the Old Testament is rife, is not capable of believing in the moral law of Christ.
A person who believes the Church's dogmas that say that Christianity allows the death sentence and war cannot believe in the brotherhood of man.
Primarily, a person who believes that people can be saved by a belief in salvation or by sacraments has no incentive to devote his efforts towards implementing Christ's moral message in his life.
A person who has been indoctrinated with the blasphemous Church dogma that a person is not saved by his own efforts but can resort to other means, inevitably will resort to those means and will not make the personal effort that the Church assures him is sinful to rely on. Church dogmas - all of them with their emphasis on repentance and sacraments - contradict Christ's teachings in their true sense."

More recently, Ray McGovern a former CIA analyst, has described the American parallels to the rise of the Nazis and a few of the impeachable offenses and Congressional inactions along the way.

None of this would surprise Tolstoy:

Christ's teaching that it is impossible to obtain security for your life and that we must be ready to die at any moment actually brings us more happiness than the world's teaching that we must obtain security for our lives..."

I end the year 2007 - wondering if my fellow baby boomers are really stupid enough to believe that they will simply be forgiven for their personal greed and thirst for personal security.

Third Iraq Moritorium Day...

2007-11-16T08:28:00.000-08:00

Today is the third organized Friday vigil to end the war in Iraq. It is modeled after the protests that helped end the Viet Nam war. You can get more information and sign up to participate at http://www.iraqmoratorium.org/.

An aquaintance called in to a local community radio program and asked where the churches are on this issue? Why aren't they leading the protests to end the war?

More than 100 years ago Tolstoy answered those questions for most of the Christian churches.

One might sum it up as I do: they refuse to bite the hand that feeds them because they directly profit from it. But here are the words of Tolstot from Pathways of Life, Volume I, False Religions.

"The substance of the teaching of Christ is in his manifestation of that divine perfection towards which men must strive throughout their life. But people who do not desire to follow the teaching of Christ, sometimes intentionally, sometimes unwittingly, understand the doctrine of Christ not as He taught it : as a constant striving after perfection, but as though He had demanded divine perfection of men. And taking this corrupt view of Christ's doctrine, men who do not desire to follow Him have two ways open to them: they very correctly claim that perfection is unattainable, and then reject the entire doctrine as an impractical dream (this is done by worldly people), or they adopt another method the most popular and the most harmful, the practice of the majority of people who call themselves Christians, namely admitting that perfection is unattainable, they correct, that is they corrupt the teaching, and in place of the true Christian teaching consisting of constant striving towards divine perfection, they observe certain so- called Christian rules, which for the most part are directly contrary to Christianity.
The idea of gatherings of Christians being gatherings of the elect, of superior beings, is a non-Christian, a proud and an erroneous idea. Who is better, and who is worse? Peter was better until the cock crew, The robber was worse until he reached the cross. Do we not know in our own self an angel and a devil taking part in our life, there being no creature that has banished the angel completely from his heart, nor one without a devil leering at times from behind the angel. How can we, contradictory beings as we are, compose gatherings of elect and of righteous?"

The Gospel According to Tolstoy...

2007-11-14T05:54:00.000-08:00

The "Pathway of Life" was published in two volumes in 1919 - posthumously for Tolstoy.

In their preface the original publishers stated that Tolstoy: "Filled with the yearning to help his fellow man struggling against sin, error, superstition and temptation, the sage labored on this compilation down to his last days, reverting to this labor of love even after the distressing fainting spells that preceded his decease, until, very shortly before his death, in "THE PATHWAY OF LIFE," he succeeded in collating the consensus of human wisdom and genius of all lands and all ages into a modern gospel that bears the self-evident impress of divine truth and immortality. The publishers reverently offer this work of Tolstoy to thinking humanity."

Thinking humanity? Hopefully there are a few of these people left in the world in 2007.

The most recent translation is available in one volume titled "Path of Life". There are 31 chapters in this edition: 1. Belief; 2. Soul; 3. One Soul in All; 4. God; 5. Love; 6. Sins, Temptations, Superstitions; 7. Gluttony; 8. Lust; 9. Sloth; 10. Greed; 11. Anger; 12. Pride; 13. Inequality; 14. Violence; 15. Punishment; 16. Vainglory; 17. “Superstition” of the Nation-State ; 18. Pseudo-Religion; 19. Pseudo-Science; 20. Effort; 21. Living in the Present; 22. Inaction; 23. Words; 24. Thoughts; 25. Self-renunciation; 26. Humility; 27. Truthfulness; 28. Evil; 29. Death; 30. After Death; 31. Life – the Greatest Good.

Tolstoy challenges all conventional thinking - well worth the effort of reading and meditation.

It may look very long but Tolstoy is succinct - here is but one example:

" Without the prohibition of rendering evil for evil, the whole Christian doctrine is empty words."

That's the kind of thing that got him excommunicated.

Tolstoy Christians - where have they gone?

2007-09-13T05:51:00.000-07:00

Late in June, I was hustling down an aisle in the library searching out a call number when a rather large tome "jumped" out at me. I don't know if this ever happens to you but I hope that someday it does because it is usually a pleasant educational experience. On this particular occasion the book was David Halberstam's - The Children. In it Halberstam chronicles the history of the American civil rights movement from the perspective of the Nashville sit-ins and the influence of Jim Lawson on the non-violent training and discipline these students demonstrated - Diane Nash and John Lewis are two examples. Halberstam was a young reporter in Nashville when it all started and this gave him some remarkable insights into the real struggle.

I learned that Lawson was greatly influenced by Gandhi and that Gandhi credited Tolstoy's - The Kingdom of God Is Within You - with changing his life. Whoa - now that is a recommendation! So I was off to the library again and as a person who has not read any Tolstoy - I confess that I had no idea what to expect and I actually was somewhat apprehensive since I consider myself to be a recovering Catholic.

The book was originally published in 1893 and promptly banned in the Czar's Russia but it was rapidly translated into English and published in 1894 when Gandhi was sent a copy.

It's actually a sequel in a sense. Tolstoy explains in the preface that in 1884 he wrote a book titled "What I Believe" which was "suppressed" by the Russian censorship, but in spite of this it was circulated through an underground network. In it he laid out his belief in Christ's teaching but he "could not help explaining why I do not believe, and consider as mistaken, the Church's doctrine, which is usually called Christianity."

"Among the many points in which this doctrine falls short of the doctrine of Christ I pointed out as the principal one the absence of any commandment of non-resistance to evil by force. The perversion of Christ's teaching by the teaching of the Church is more clearly apparent in this than in any other point of difference."

Tolstoy received criticism - both hostile and sympathetic - so ten years later he undertook what is in my opinion a scholarly tour de force with - The Kingdom of God Is Within You. The book consists of twelve chapters and Martin Green who wrote the forward to the University of Nebraska Press edition of the book admonishes those that are looking for the literary Tolstoy to turn to the last chapter - "Repent Ye, for the Kingdom of Heaven Is at Hand." After some reading which I found both fascinating and courageous I did turn to the last chapter but I found every chapter worthwhile.

Tolstoy challenges everyone of us as individuals - he questions the church and the state and all that we are told to believe by either one or both. Some of the chapter titles will give you a sense - "Christianity Misunderstood by Believers"; "Christianity Misunderstood by Men of Science"; "Contradiction Between Our Life and Our Christian Conscience"; "Evil Cannot Be Suppressed By the Physical Force of the Government".

It's not possible for me in a short space to do justice to Tolstoy's writing and scholarly work. It's worth the read and you'll ask the same question that I asked in the beginning - where are these real Christians now?

The Art of Human Sacrifice

2007-09-02T09:46:00.001-07:00

Many people were awed by the swiftness with which the Republican demagogues distanced themselves from Idaho Senator, Larry Craig. I was not - he was a very public example of the state of the art in human sacrifice.

The toilet paper was hardly dry when Norm Coleman, the Senator from Minnesota who believes that the President of the United States "dictates" policy, called for Craig to resign.

Hollywood Republican mouthpiece, Ben Stein, former speech writer for Nixon and Ford, took his patrons to task on the CBS Sunday Morning show. According to Stein, "This is insane. If a police officer can wreck a man's career over this trifle, then we might as well not have a Constitution or a Bill of Rights... What I don't understand is why the GOP is tossing Senator Craig overboard as if he were a terrorist."

Of course this is the same Ben Stein who has in the very recent past implored President Bush on this same CBS show "not to cooperate with Congressional investigations" into administrative wrong doings. "Cooperating" was the only mistake Nixon made according to Stein.

Gee...and the rest of us thought that it was just possible Nixon had broken a law or two - and apparently President Ford was convinced that a full pardon was necessary.

Not to worry, apparently when it comes to bathroom etiquette - if we are not protected there - then Stein questions why we have a Constitution and Bill of Rights. Well Ben while you were pleading with Bush not to cooperate with Congress - America's politicos managed to shred the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and now spying on people (even Republican Senators) in public bathrooms is considered par for the course in the name of Homeland Security.

I believe that Craig's head was hoisted on the spike just to show all of the Congressional cowards the lengths that these evil war mongers will go to save their fortunes. By mercilessly sacrificing one of their own in a heartbeat without so much as a whimper - they are letting Reid, Pelosi, Obey, Conyers, Feingold and anyone else who might be considering getting in their way what they'll do to embarrass them or their loved ones.

Rip Van Winkle Wakes Up In the Middle of Night of the Living Dead

2007-05-17T12:18:00.000-07:00

I wrote this quite some time ago while recovering from what I call a near fatal case of the “Magnet mind melt.”

An exert from Al Gore's new book reminded me of it again so I reprint it here. Mr. Gore should acknowledge that he spent many years helping feed the corporate domination the globe is now experiencing.

My debilitating mental paralysis was the result of reading President Bush’s second favorite book – and the source for “the text for George Bush’s doctrine of ‘compassionate conservatism’” - Myron Magnet’s, The Dream and the Nightmare: The Sixties’ Legacy to the Underclass.

I never thought that these words would come out of my mouth, but I’m nearly convinced that this book should be banned.

The pernicious attitudes expressed in its pages have clearly infected and emboldened (for lack of a better word) the ignoranuses, in control of America and the current government of the global corporation, by the global corporation, and for the global corporation.

One might ask how a politically homeless person stumbled across the Magnet book. On occasion, I feel like one of the few remaining members of an endangered American species – those who still believe that: reasonable people can disagree…

At one time, it was not uncommon to hear people say things like – “I like to hear both sides of an argument before I make up my mind.” This general sentiment was very American and part of our democratic tradition. On the surface, it appeared to be what Jefferson once termed “a self-evident truth.” The United States were founded during the Age of Enlightenment when human beings turned to reason and science to develop an understanding of nature and natural law. Thomas Jefferson went so far as to admonish his ward and nephew, Peter Carr with this charge:

“I repeat that you must lay aside all prejudices on both sides, and neither believe nor reject any thing because any other person, or description of persons have rejected or believed it. Your own reason is the only oracle given you by heaven, and you are answerable not for the rightness but uprightness of the decision.”

It was David Brock’s book - The Republican Noise Machine - that sent me off on the path where I became exposed to the “magnet.”

Brock describes himself as defecting from the Republican Party and this is his second insider expose about his role in helping the far Right Wing come to power and control of both politics and the major media. His experiences included writing for Reverend Moon’s Washington Times, a “research” fellow at the Heritage Foundation, “investigative” writing for The American Spectator, and authoring two right wing books – The Real Anita Hill and The Seduction of Hillary Rodham.

To quote Brock – “I forwarded the right-wing agenda not as an open political operative or advocate but under the guise of journalism and punditry, fueled by huge sums of money from right wing billionaires, foundations, and self-interested corporations.” Brock documents the progress of the media takeover, starting with a 1971 memorandum written by Lewis F. Powell for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Powell “argued that the American system of free enterprise was under attack by the four institutions that shaped American public opinion: the academy, the media, the political establishment, and the courts. Business needed to ‘stop suffering in impotent silence, and launch a counter-attack,’ harnessing its ‘wisdom, ingenuity and resources’ against ‘those who would destroy it.” Later Powell was appointed to the Supreme Court by Richard Nixon.

Brock’s second Chapter is titled “Nixon’s Revenge.” Ironically, one of Brock’s references (Buying A Movement – Right Wing Foundations and American Politics) specifically mentions him in his earlier incarnation as a right wing propagandist.

At one time Senator Feingold laid out the reasons for Congress to censure President Bush for violating constitutional protections proscribed for citizens. It was all very logical and reasonable. One could easily move from his speech and ask: What are the arguments on the other side? What are the reasons for not censuring the President?

But this is where the real disconnect comes – the false assumption is that we are dealing with reasonable people.

And this brings us to Magnet. In a nutshell…

His book contends that virtually every New Deal and Great Society program were mistaken undertakings that ultimately worsened the plight of the economically disadvantaged and undermined society as a whole. Mistakes included the “War on Poverty, welfare benefit increases, court ordered school busing, more public housing projects, affirmative action, job-training programs,” among others. In later chapters he adds the protections provided by Miranda to the list of mistakes.

Magnet finds errors in Thomas Paine’s thinking (pg. 153); disparages Ken Kesey’s book “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (pg. 87-89); ties Christianity to prosperity “the cultural values and aspirations that individuals and groups hold go a long way to determining their economic condition. The sociologist Max Weber explained how the Protestant ethic powerfully promotes success in a free economy, given Protestantism’s emphasis on the individual and his works rather than his faith, along with the Protestant willingness to see in worldly prosperity a sign of inner grace” (p. 26); and justifies imperialism through literature “…Roman imperialism that brought the techniques of civilized life to barbarian Britain” (pg. 201).

According to Magnet (pg. 196) “…ever since early-Victorian geologists began finding fossil evidence that the biblical story of creation in seven days wasn’t true – ever since Darwin theorized an entirely different account of the origin of species and the descent of man from the scriptural account – the religious understanding of the world has inexorably crumbled, and a secular one has taken its place. In our century, religious certitude about divine authority has ceased to be the principal foundation of our beliefs, values, and morality.”

And with that statement the rest of us should observe that – reason has left the building!

More recently, to quote Bob Jones III, letter to President Bush:

“In your re-election, God has graciously granted America- though she doesn’t deserve it – a reprieve from the agenda of paganism. You have been given a mandate. We the people expect your voice to be like the clear and certain sound of a trumpet. Because you seek the Lord daily, we who know the Lord will follow that kind of voice eagerly.

“Don’t equivocate. Put your agenda on the front burner and let it boil. You owe the liberals nothing. They despise you and your Christ.”

Whoa!

Seen in this light, seems like Senator Feingold’s reasonably simple call for censure of a fallible human being in the form of our president has now taken on a new meaning where liberal pagans are questioning divine authority.

Fellow citizens, we have departed from the Age of Enlightenment into a New World of Darkness again represented by divine authority and those appointed or anointed to interpret it for us.

I’ve emphasized that reason has vacated the premises, but this is not just a friendly absence.

“Every Wednesday morning in Norquist’s Washington offices, the leadership of more than 80 conservative organizations – including major right wing media outlets and top Bush White House aides – convene to set movement priorities, plan strategy, and adopt talking points. Norquist seems a cross between a Communist Party boss and a Mafia don as he presides over these strategy sessions of his self-styled “Leave Us Alone Coalition,” a catchy anti-government organizing principle that was something of a misnomer in that many of its members wished to impose their ideology through government action or were seeking government favors of one sort or another.

What really united the coalition was savage partisanship and antiliberalism – a desire to roll back the economic and social gains made in the country since the New Deal. ‘Our goal is to cut government in half as a percentage of the economy over twenty-five years, so that we can get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub,’ Norquist has said. He has compared the estate tax to the ‘morality of the Holocaust.’ ‘Our goal is to inflict pain,’ Norquist told National Journal in 2003. ‘It is not good enough to win; it has to be a painful and devastating defeat. We’re sending a message here. It is like when the king would take his opponent’s head and spike it on a pole for everyone to see’” (Brock, p. 50).

In this scenario – anyone who attempts to reason can consider themselves collateral damage.

To Impeach or not to impeach...

2007-05-17T06:20:00.000-07:00

With apologies to Mr. Shakespeare and his eloquent soliloquy - in my opinion, this is not a question!

George Bush is no Hamlet - Bush lied and thousands have died. He didn't do it alone. He was led, aided and abetted by many, many, many arrogant and greedy people who failed to do their sworn duty to uphold and defend the constitution of we the people. Money and power were more important to them - one and all.

Truly knowledgeable people like Ray McGovern, Scott Ritter and others have spoken out about the lies and liars that helped make the false case for war in Iraq and continue to mislead the public about Iran.

Every elected official including those in Congress has taken an oath to uphold the constitution. It is their sworn duty to bring forth and consider articles of impeachment - it can not be "off the table".

The process will bring forth the evidence required to determine if conviction is warranted. And it will require a transparency that may restore some faith in the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Taxes for dummies...

2007-05-02T09:41:00.000-07:00

Friends, I'm sure that you've noticed that another great American tax day has come and gone!

I read some of the "think tank" thinking and I have to confess that it gave me a headache. There was too much talking about "framing", "revealing truths", and "intertwining" - maybe you'll get more out of it, but...

Here's some really simplistic thinking to put into your think tank.

First and foremost taxes should go to support the common good. Secondly, the basic needs of citizens should not be taxed.

Given these two principles, one might propose a magically simple system where the first $50,000 of income from any source would be exempt from income taxes. Any and all income above $50,000 would be taxed at a flat rate (let's say 10%). And all income from any source would be subject to Social Security and Medicare taxes. And finally, each individual earning income files an individual tax return - no joint returns.

The entire IRS instructions for individuals have been reduced to one paragraph.

Let's work through a few examples:

Example 1. Joe earned $23,000 in 2006:

Federal income tax: $23,000 - $50,000 exemption = $-27,000, therefore any tax withheld from Joe's paychecks would be returned as a refund to him.
Assuming Joe was paid weekly, the income taxes withheld from his check would be $23 a week - totaling a $1,196..00 refund for the year.
Social security - employee contribution (0.062) - $1,426.00
Medicare - employee contribution (0.0145) - $333.50

Joe pays a total of $1,759.50 in federal taxes, leaving him at an effective tax rate of 7.65% all going to Social Security (SS) and medicare. He ends up with $21,240.50 in expendable income.

Example 2. Mary earned $53,000 in income in 2006:

Federal income tax: $53,000 - $50,000 exemption = $3,000 in taxable income. She owes $300 in income tax, any amount above that withheld from Mary's paychecks would be refunded to her.
Assuming Mary was paid weekly, the income taxes withheld from her check would be $105 - totaling $5460 for the year. Mary would receive a $5,160.00 refund.
Social security - employee contribution - $3,286.00.
Medicare - employee contribution - $768.50.

Mary pays a total of $4,354.50 in federal taxes - leaving her at an effective tax rate of 8.22% with some in the general fund but most of it in SS and Medicare. She ends up with $48,645.50 in expendable income.

Example 3. Paul Wolfowitz's banking friend earned $193,000 in income in 2006:

Federal income tax: $193,000 - $50,000 = $143,000 in taxable income. She owes $14,300 in income tax. Assuming she is paid weekly, the income taxes withheld from her check are $797.83 totaling $41,487.16 for the year. She would receive a refund check for $27,187.16.
Social security - employee contribution - $11,966.00.
Medicare - employee contribution - $2,798.50.

Chickie pays a total $29,064.50 in federal taxes with the majority going to the general fund. This leaves her at an effective tax rate 15.06% and an expendable income of $163,935.50.

Example 4. Rex Tillerson, CEO of Exxon Mobil, earned $38,000,000 in 2006:

Federal income tax: $38,000,000 - $50,000 = $37,950,000 in taxable income. He owes $3,795,000 in income tax.
Assuming that he has a cash flow problem and needs a weekly check, the income taxes withheld from Rex's check would be $255,207.74 - totaling $13,270,803 for the year. Mr. Tillerson would receive a refund of $9,475,802.50.
Social security - employee contribution - $2,356,000.
Medicare - employee contribution - $551,000.

Mr. Tillerson pays a total of $6,702,000 in federal taxes leaving him at an effective tax rate of 17.64% and an expendable income of $31,298,000.

If you've been paying attention - you've noticed that the "flat tax" rate has actually "progressed" as individuals earned more money.

Would the majority of American citizen's benefit from such a "simplified" tax system?

I could have simplified it further on the withholding and refund side but I became concerned for all the tax preparers, financial advisers, accountants and tax lawyers whose lives have just passed before their eyes.

Legislators that represent me?

2007-02-18T08:43:00.000-08:00

Recently, I've attended two different meetings where my elected "representatives" told me that they wouldn't initiate legislative action for things that the people they represent clearly want.

What's that about?

In the first case, a veteran state senator, listened to three health care plan proposals, got up and told the people present about the Governor's plan - which was none of the three we had already heard about. Then proceeded to inform us that even his caucus couldn't figure out what to support! He was mostly concerned with what would "pass" - not what we wanted.

A knowledgeable person in the audience, courageously stood up and respectfully challenged him "not to come home" without a "single-payer" plan. Anything less was a waste of our time and money and not what he was elected to do for we the people! This comment received vocal support from the vast majority of those of us present - only one person declared that he voted for the Shrub!

In response, our(?) fearless(?) Senator got up and said that his wife would like to see him come home and that pragmatically speaking there was no hope of getting such legislation passed - after all he was surrounded by "right-wingers" who still want everything privatized!

So...huh?

Does this mean that he shouldn't go on record as supporting a "single-payer" health care? Does it mean that he should set his sights lower than what is morally right? Does it mean that we the people should let him off the hook?

The second occasion happened last night in a conversation with my veteran State Representative. I asked why the legislature had not gone on record demanding the return of Wisconsin's National Guard troops deployed in Iraq?

I was told that it wouldn't make any difference - W is the Commander In Chief - end of the story - he can send the troops wherever he wants.

What?

Not!!! Unless everyone rolls over and plays dead for him.

Every state legislature is condoning the massacre of its sons and daughters on foreign soil, when they enlisted to support their state's emergency needs. Deployment and redeployment overseas in mortal combat is more than they bargained for! And every legislator and Governor should be held accountable for their inaction and silence when they could and should be a powerful force to bring an end to a conflict - that is draining the individual states of their resources - human and financial - that could be put to positive and constructive use.

Silence on the part of any elected representative anywhere is simply wrong and cowardly - they should declare where they stand in public and on the record. We the people should not let them off the hook. Do they represent us?

Why doesn't Wisconsin's Governor lead and call on the Legislature to begin the process?

A Marching We Will Go...

2007-02-06T10:10:00.000-08:00

My wife and I participated in the rally and march in Washington on January 27th. The event was organized by United for Peace and Justice a "coalition of more than 1300 local and national groups."

We rode on one of three busses organized by Peace North and the Northland Coalition for Peace. Roughly half of the 49 on our bus were college students.

The rally part was pretty straightforward - most people assembled in some fashion on the Mall facing the speakers platform. To quote from the organizers:

"January 27th began with an energizing rally on the National Mall and, with the Capitol building as the backdrop, the message of the day was crystal clear. It is time for Congress to use its Constitutional powers and to act on the mandate of the November elections -- it is time for Congress to stand up to Bush and end this war. But the rally was just the beginning.

And then, hundreds of thousands of people marched around the Capitol. If you have never been to Washington, it might be hard to imagine what this looks like, but this is a very large area. As far as we know, this is the first time -- ever -- that any protest has surrounded the Capitol. On top of that, the U.S. Capitol Police, over the weeks leading up to the march, had refused to grant our permit request to do just that, telling us we had to take another route. But when we brought 500,000 people and several members of Congress -- they had to change their minds. In the end, with no incidents, we marched around the Capitol! By the time the front of the march got back to the starting point, the last of the marchers were just leaving the rally site -- we had completed the circle.

I can tell you that what you just read is pretty much true - we were there.

The great debate seems to be about how many people were there. It used to be that we would have seen helicopter coverage of the event by all of the network news teams - but we didn't. There was only one helicopter in the air over us all day - and one must assume that it was a government helicopter. Based on pictures that I've seen of MLK's "I had a dream" speech, we were not as many but we surely numbered in the hundreds of thousands. When the march actually started it took us over an hour to move 50 feet and we were near the front with the Veterans for Peace group which wanted to lead the march! There is no question that the march part was like a herd of cats - great fun with street theatre, Code Pink, and the Raging Grannies!

The best rally coverage that I've seen or heard was on DemocracyNow! But the very simplest story that captured the essence of why most of us were there was published on Common Dreams. If you want to get a sense of what it was like I recommend that you watch some of the more than 2000 slides posted on this site.

You might be wondering, like I was, why I am having to cite "alternative media" for all the coverage of an event in Washington of this magnitude? When public television failed to have any coverage on Monday January 31, I e-mailed the ombudsman for PBS :

"It is pathetic that the News Hour did not cover the March on Washington on January 27th. Public television has a responsibility to cover these events and inform the public about them. Perhaps you should do a piece on "erroneous reporting" about yourselves. Shame on you!"

According to Linda Winslow, Executive Producer,The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer:

"There is no weekend news broadcast produced for PBS by the NewsHour (or anyone else that I know of). If there were, I am sure the march on Saturday would have been reported on the day that it was news."

There is no shame at public television - but not to worry - Fox Network to the rescue, Bill O'Reilly had kind words for all of us. And the Family Resource Council attacked reasonable Christian groups that participated for associating with anarchists and demanded that Nancy Pelosi begin an investigation and prosecution.

Back on the bus, for the return trip to Wisconsin, several students asked me what a sign held by the small group (less than 50) of anti-protest demonstrators meant: "Don't take the brown acid!" To me it meant that they were trying to dismiss us as Woodstockians - hippies and ne'er do wells - something that can't be done if you look at the evidence by any reasonable measure.

The late Molly Ivins would have been proud of us - hundreds of thousands of people stood up against the surge! Would we do it again? Yes, and we'd bring some pots and pans to bang on!

Learning to sing the chorus...

2007-01-29T06:44:00.000-08:00

We attended the March in Washington on Saturday, January 27th. Thousands of people singing from the same hymnal, singing in harmony, singing as part of the chorus, not as soloists. This is important and this is the lesson we need to learn.

Divided we are conquered.

Each of us may make a great soloist but we make the best and most powerful music as part of the full choir, marching band, or orchestra.

Constitutional government...

2007-01-20T09:56:00.000-08:00

The organizer of our first anti-war demonstration made the comment that he still "believed in our constitutional government" and hoped that the rest of those present did also.

I can't agree with that sentiment - our constitution is broken and we need to fix it.

The 800 lb. gorilla in every citizen's living room is that we do not have a democracy, we don't have a representative government, and until we the people acknowledge that and take the necessary steps to fix it - history will repeat itself.

Let's go back to the beginning, words from the Declaration of Independence:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,..."

I no longer give my consent to this government.

We need constitutional change favoring a democracy - a government of the people by the people and for the people.

We need a constitution that:

Allows majority rule and protects us from a tyrannical majority.
Allows us to be capitalists and protects us from capitalists.
Allows us to be socialists and protects us from socialists.
Allows us to be communists and protects us from communists.
Allows us to be right-wing republicans and protects us from right-wing republicans.
Allows us to be left handed and protects us from left handers.
Allows us to be progressives and protects us from progressives.
Allows us to be prejudiced and protects us from the prejudiced.
Allows us to be atheists and protects us from atheists.
Allows us to be religious and protects us from the religious.
Provides every citizen equal justice, not the justice one can purchase.
Provides every citizen equal access, not the access one can purchase.
Provides every citizen equal protection, not the protection one can purchase.

Silence is betrayal...

2007-01-18T08:01:00.000-08:00

My wife and I attended our first anti-war demonstration last Saturday.

It doesn't sound like much but it was a big step for us.

We don't like to make a spectacle of ourselves - and frankly, we don't think that most people like people who make public statements about anything. There's something a little bit embarrassing and confrontational about the whole thing - private thoughts made public.

The words of Martin Luther King, Jr. call out to us... once again in American history - the time has come when "silence is betrayal." We the people find ourselves with a great vacancy of leadership having been sold into corporatist slavery.

"I come to this magnificent house of worship tonight because my conscience leaves me no other choice. I join you in this meeting because I am in deepest agreement with the aims and work of the organization which has brought us together: Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam. The recent statements of your executive committee are the sentiments of my own heart, and I found myself in full accord when I read its opening lines: "A time comes when silence is betrayal." And that time has come for us in relation to Vietnam. "

"The truth of these words is beyond doubt, but the mission to which they call us is a most difficult one. Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government's policy, especially in time of war. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within one's own bosom and in the surrounding world. Moreover, when the issues at hand seem as perplexed as they often do in the case of this dreadful conflict, we are always on the verge of being mesmerized by uncertainty; but we must move on."

Like him, we are "pressed by the demands of inner truth..." Reading or listening to the entire speech demonstrates the resolve we'll need to put an end to this madness. It's not too late to sign up for the march on January 27th.

The Activist bone...

2007-01-12T05:52:00.000-08:00

One of my web friends described her spouse as "not having an activist bone in his body." Yet he's now wearing a sweat shirt that reads "Bush Lied, Thousands Died". They are also sponsoring an advertisement in their local paper petitioning the local government to pass a resolution to impeach the Bush.

Sounds to me like some bone has morphed into the "activist bone."

A similar thing is happening to my wife and I.

I believe that the activist bone is actually connected to the backbone and now that we've found it we the people should use it to drive the Grover Norquist gang out of power and into prison. With the corporatist takeover of America complete in only 30 years - Grover and his pals were able to plot the economic takeover of Iraq! Only the Iraqis turned out to be less sheeplike than Americans. See "Nose-Twists Hidden Hand" for a complete explanation.

America has been operating under Grover's "economic plan" for way too long! It's time for we the people to make a "more democracy" plan for America.

Draft me...

2007-01-12T05:51:00.000-08:00

I know that this is something that the majority of Americans do not want to hear - Congress should re-instate a draft.

Not a lottery, no deferrments, just a plain old draft. Everyone of a certain age should stand the same chance of being chosen.

It is the fastest way I know to end the war.

Right now the "all volunteer" army is used as an excuse for sending our young people off to fight the corporatist battle. They "volunteered" for it, didn't they? This effectively exempts most of the Baby Boomer descendants from serving. We the people would not stand for sending our own children off to this war in order to preserve the profits of the mega-corporations. The spotlight that a draft would shine on the profiteers would cause a national uproar - something that the corporatists want to avoid like a national single payer insurance program.

In my opinion the "all volunteer" Army has always been dangerous - it was only a matter of time before an idiot became the Commander in Chief and a corporatist Congress would aide and abet his actions. A standing army was dreaded by Thomas Jefferson - he knew that having one tempted you to use it.

A nationwide draft would again cause actions like these - cited by Howard Zinn in "A People's History of the United States." Posters in Mississippi reading:

"No Mississippi Negroes should be fighting in Viet Nam for the White man's freedom, until all the Negro People are free in Mississippi.
Negro boys should not honor the draft here in Mississippi. Mothers should encourage their sons not to go...
No one has the right to ask us to risk our lives and kill other Colored People in Santa Domingo and Viet Nam, so White Americans can get richer."

Zinn goes on to describe that:

"Young men began to refuse to register for the draft, refused to be inducted if called. As early as May 1964 the slogan "We Won't Go" was widely publicized."

Unfortunately, I did not join that group back then. Digging through some old paperwork the other day to find my DD214 so I could become a documented member of Veterans for Peace - I came across "Certificates of Appreciation" signed by Richard Nixon and General Westmoreland - the war was wrong then and it's still wrong today.

My sister who protested back in those days told me that she is against re-instating the draft as it existed back then. Instead she suggested that we the people draft men and women 45 years and older! I like it and that way we leave the young people out of it.

How fast do you think that the chant - "HELL NO! WE WON"T GO!" would reverberate around the Nation?

Free at last...

2007-01-09T07:31:00.000-08:00

Last Friday, my wife and I sold our business. We both expressed it this way: "Free at Last, Thank God Almighty, Free At Last!"

Now I know that Martin Luther King meant those words in a different way, but I believe that they apply to all of us trying to free ourselves from corporatist domination. Much in the same way that if you are not poor, black or Muslim, you have no idea how the system is stacked against you, the same holds true for small businesses in America today.

Greg Palast probably describes it best and most succinctly - we are in the midst of a class war - the rich are getting richer and the rest of us are getting poorer - with no end in sight.

"The World Bank reports that the USA has more millionaires than ever - 7.4 million! And over a decade, the number of billionaires has more than tripled, 341 of them!...
If that doesn't make you feel that you're missing out, this should: You, Mr. Median, are earning, after inflation, a little less than you earned when Lyndon Johnson reigned. Median household income - and most of us are 'median' - is down. Way down...
Mr. Bush and friends are offering us an 'ownership' society. But he didn't mention who already owns it. The richest fifth of America owns 83% of all shares in the stock market. But that's a bit misleading because most of that, 53% of all the stock in the market, is owned by just one percent of American households.
And what does the Wealthy One Percent want? Answer: more wealth. Where will they get it? As with a tube of toothpaste, they're squeezing it from the bottom. Median paychecks have gone down by 4% during the current regime, but Americans in the bottom fifth have seen their incomes sliced by 20%...
When Reagan took power in 1980, the One Percent possessed 33% of America's wealth as measured by capital income. By 2006, the One Percent has swallowed over half of all America's assets, from sea to shining sea. One hundred fifty million Americans altogether own less than 3% of all private assets...
Is America getting poorer? No, just its people...
The gap between what we produce and what we get is widening like an alligator's jaw...
The more you work, the less you get. It used to be that as the economic pie got bigger, everyone's slice got bigger too. No more. The One Percent have swallowed your share before you can get your fork in."

The saddest part of all of this is that the great majority of Americans are delusional enough to think that they are part of the One Percent - they believe the Norquist slogan - "less taxes, less government". What's missing here is the more true and complete statement: Less taxes for the rich, less intrusive government for the rich; more taxes for the poor, more intrusive government for the poor.

What's your experience been?

Fantasy democracy

2007-01-01T08:05:00.000-08:00

It's New Year's Day and every football addict should be getting their fill of the game today except that the corporatists have decided that there is more money to be made by prolonging the season. Whatever...

My son plays in several fantasy football leagues and this made me think that until we the people get a real democracy - it might be useful to start a fantasy democracy league.

Since this is probably a marketable idea I'm going to start by making some dictatorial corporate rules that provide me many advantages. The first rule is that I make all the rules. The second rule is that my fantasy team gets control of anything that could be construed as a weapon other than pen knives and nail clippers. Rule number three is if you don't like what's happening refer to rule number one.

Magnanimously, I'm going to pick the W's team first - the great "decider" is the captain and cheerleader, and his roster includes Dick Cheney, Rumsfield, Tom Delay, the Christian Reconstructionists, the Heritage Foundation, Newt the Gingrich, Grover Norquist, his daddy, mommy and brother, FOX News, Tony Snow, and the rest of the multinational corporatists, Bill and Hillary Clinton, and other picks to be purchased later.

I'll take Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, George Washington, Thomas Paine, Abraham Lincoln, Henry David Thureau, Mahatma Ghandi, Martin Luther King, Jr., George Orwell, Stephen Colbert and others to be named later.

I think that I'll start Ghandi as President and Franklin as VP, and it sure is fun to try to figure out which positions to put the others into. Would you start Orwell or Colbert as press secretary?

W is concerned about how we'll keep score - he wants to count the bodies, McDonald's, Mega Malls, shopping days until Christmas, size of the military, days he spends at the ranch, number of standardized tests we can give the poor, and the like.

Since I make the rules - I rejected all of those.

Which team do you think the majority of Americans would root for and how would they like to keep score?

New Year Resolutions...

2006-12-31T11:11:00.000-08:00

I'm not making any.

The year 2006 ends with former U. S. ally, Saddam Hussien, hung by his arch enemies, the great "decider" Bush keeping the former dictator's pistol as a trophy of his personal triumph, and former un-elected president Ford being buried in a state funeral overseen by one of the constants through all of these years - Dick Cheney.

You can't write stranger or darker fiction.

I just re-read Henry David Thoreau's essay "On the Duty of Civil Disobedience." I believe that I last read it in high school - it's probably banned now. Certainly, he would be arrested under the Patriot Act and since the last Congress abolished Habeus Corpus, he wouldn't just spend a night in jail, he'd be shipped to Guantanamo or worse for "extraordinary rendition." I can't help but wonder what Bush would keep as a trophy of his triumph over Thoreau? Maybe an ear, a finger, or a tongue? Probably more than one part, so he could share with Mommy, and because unlike most of us Thoreau had the fortitude not only to speak, but also to act.

I leave you with a small bit of Thoreau - the strange reality is that at most only three words would need to be changed to make this an accurate description of the times as we move into 2007!

"...There are thousands who are in opinion opposed to slavery and to the war, who yet in effect do nothing to put an end to them; who, esteeming themselves children of Washigton and Franklin, sit down with their hands in their pockets, and say that they know not what to do, and do nothing; who even postpone the question of freedom to the question of free trade, and quietly read the prices-current along with the latest advices from Mexico, after dinner, and, it may be fall asleep over them both. What is the price-current of an honest man and patriot today?
...They will wait, well-disposed, for others to remedy the evil, that they may no longer have it to regret. At most, they give only a cheap vote, and a feeble countenance and Godspeed, to the right, as it goes by them. There are nine hundred and ninety-nine patrons of virtue to one virtuous man;..."

What resolutions does this challenge us to make? Maybe we cowards better stick to diet and exercise? It's too late to dick Cheney before he dicks us!

Leader of the free world tells us to shop?

2006-12-21T15:14:00.000-08:00

Yesterday the leader of the so-called free world, George The Bush, told Americans to go shopping - the same line he used after September 11th!!!

And this person is allowed to live in the people's house! He is supposed to be the leader of the world's greatest democracy, not a retail business! Talk about having things confounded!

For a moment, I was afraid that he was going to lead the press puppies in a cheer - Give me an S, S; Give me an H, H; Give me an O, O; Give me a P, P; What's that spell? SHOP!!!

A self-proclaimed born again Christian that says he talks to God tells us to go shopping! That should give great comfort to America's poor, all the underemployed who've had their $50,000 a year jobs exported to people who are desparate to work for $300 a month, all of our troops in harm's way and their families!

Both Jefferson and Jesus would be appalled!

All I Want for Christmas...

2006-12-19T06:30:00.000-08:00

Given the old adage, be careful what you ask for, I propose the following wish list for we the people. Some of them were on Thomas Jefferson's list too.

1. That America stop trying to "export" democracy until we the people get one of our own.

2. We the people dissolve the current non-representative federal government.

3. We replace it with 10,000 of our fellow citizens elected from a random sample of 20,000 taxpayers from across the continent.

4. These 10,000 will serve one, and only one, 6-year term as representatives of we the people.

5. We the people will severely limit the power of the federal government. Local governments have a better ability to listen to citizens and decide local issues. The role of higher level governments is to ensure that local entities provide every citizen equal access to decision making.

6. No one serving as a representative of the people may receive any government benefit in the form of a pension, insurance, or health care greater than that provided by the government to the poorest of our citizens. We the people shall set compensation for our representatives by referendum question requiring support by 2/3 of the electors every 10 years.

7. The federal government shall have a balanced budget with debt no greater than can be paid in 18 years.

8. The federal constitution must be reviewed and approved by 2/3 of the electors every 20 years.

Why a minimum wage increase is a lump of coal for the people

2006-12-15T04:13:00.000-08:00

Tis' the season and the new Congress is promising we the people an increase in the minimum wage as our present this year. Forgive me, if I find little comfort and joy in it. Frankly, its worse than a lump of coal for we the people. Why, you might be curious to know.

First, and foremost, it violates a fundamental principal of a real democracy - it applies only to a portion of our population and therefore, is unequal. In this case those of us who make the least money from hourly wages. On the surface it sounds good, but it repeats the mistake we often make - it confounds our economic system with our government system. And historical evidence demonstrates that the way that works in actual practice means that our government will give some economic benefit to the other economic subdivisions of we the people. Further subdividing those of us who are supposed to be equals under a democratic governing system. It's simply wrong in principal. We the people should be equals under the governments' laws and these are different than the economic system's laws!

Secondly, it is literally "tax and spend" by all levels of government! It increases the wages the economically impoverished part of we the people pay state federal, state, and local income taxes upon. It increases revenue to all levels of government - it gives the government more money to spend on things like the war in Iraq. And it comes from the poorest part of we the people who currently have the least influence on how it is spent. It also increases revenues for Social Security and Medicare from both the employees and employers.

If you do the math you'll find that government coffers are the biggest winners on the backs of the poorest part of we the people.

But whoa! Before you dismiss me as the latest Grinch or Scrooge I hope you'll please hear me out. Is there an alternative that treats we the people equally?

What if we the people exempted the first $50,000 of income from any source from federal income taxes and taxed all income above $50,000 at a 20% level. Period - no gimmicks - no deductions - no tax credits - no differentiation between the economic classes of we the people.

Bill Gates, Mark Sherman, and every other citizen pays 20% on every dollar of income above $50,000 - regardless of how big a home mortgage they have, how many children they have, how much energy they save, how many jobs we provide, how many lawyers and accountants we can hire, etc. This exemption applies equally to every member of we the people - not just the one's with economic resources and political influence.

Further, we the people should end the exemption of any income from Social Security and Medicare taxes. Every member of we the people and their employers should pay these taxes on every dollar of income not just the economic subdivision of us who earn less than some arbitrary number.

Equal treatment of we the people under the laws of our government - now that would be a real Christmas present!

Tidings of comfort and joy?

2006-12-13T08:53:00.000-08:00

Today I heard a new (to me) version of this old Christmas carol - God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen by Zigo. It made me ponder the "season" for a moment...

Tidings of comfort and joy? In Iraq? In Lebanon? In Darfur? In the U.S.? Where?

I'm not a zealot of any religion but American Christian hypocrisy is just about beyond belief to me.

Didn't Jesus teach peace on earth and good will toward men? How about the little ditty - do unto others as you would have them do unto you? Or forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us?

I don't think he taught the shop until you drop gospel that our corporatists preach. Could this be what the Islamics are objecting to?

Consider for a moment how we would be behaving if Iraq had bombed and invaded us to impose a democratic regime...

A place to start...

2006-12-07T08:21:00.000-08:00

Let's role this one out to see if there is a place to start - even talking to myself.

First, I'm convinced we need more democracy in America. Fundamentally, I'm committed to a direct democracy. Let's dump "representative" government in total. I can't think of anyone in government who represents me - none of them reflect what I think, nor what I value. I realize that I might be in the minority here, but what the hell, I'd rather take my chances with all of the people - certainly there will be some issues where the majority will agree with me.

One of my good friends whom I would consider "pro-democracy" freaked when I told him that I was in favor of a direct democracy - he reminded me that we lived in Christian Reconstructionist territory. "We'd have to teach the Bible in the public schools!"

Hmmm...not if the Constitution was written clearly, respected, and enforced. A well written document would protect us from the tyranny of the majority of the religious; just as it would protect the minority of blacks from the tyranny of the majority of whites; and protect those of us with the minority of dollars from the tyrrany of the majority of dollars; etc.

Maybe this is a little too ideal for the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Control of the agenda?

2006-11-29T14:17:00.000-08:00

Lately some celebrities have been calling for a more in-depth look at what has been taking place in America. Richard Dreyfuss talked about the need for citizens to redevelop the skills needed to participate in civil discussion. Bill Maher himself wrote about the need to reexamine the American constitution but while I agree with him - I would submit that "we the people" need to regain control of the agenda.

The people's "control of the agenda" is one of the five fundamental characteristics of a "democracy" as listed by scholar Robert Dahl. The five being: 1. Effective participation; 2. Equality in voting; 3. Gaining enlightened understanding; 4. Exercising final control of the agenda; and 5. Inclusion of adults.

By any reasonable measure our system is broken in terms of citizen control of the agenda. Dahl calculated that for any member of the U.S. Congress to spend just ten minutes with each of the adults that they "represent" would take them more than 20 years at 8 hours a day, seven days a week!

To call members of Congress "representatives of the people" is a lie and just plain wrong.

Corporatist democrats - our new abusive mothers

2006-11-16T06:02:00.000-08:00

I'm surprised to see all the angst about the fact that there will be little change in America after the elections. With only a handful of exceptions, the huge global corporations hand pick the candidates of both parties. corporatists all. It's time to acknowledge our problem - not deny it.

"I stood before Father in total shock. He didn't even look at me. Somehow, I felt if he could at least turn a corner flap of the paper and search into my eyes, he would know; he would feel my pain, how desparate I was for his help. But, as always, I knew that Mother controlled him like she controlled everything that happened in her house. I think Father and I both knew the code of "the family" - if we don't acknowledge a problem, it simply does not exist."

Dave Pelzer, A child called "it", 1995.

The American experiment in democracy succeeded because the signers of the Declaration of Independence pledged to each other “our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.” Is that kind of zeal still around? Or are we better described by the old joke – the attorney asked the attractive young woman if she would sleep with him for $1,000,000 and she said yes. He then said: Would you do it for $100? She took great offense – What do you think I am? To which he responded – we’ve already established that, we’re just negotiating price. Most of the Baby Boomers appear to have obtained their price – comfortable homes, many toys, some sort of pension that they feel is adequate and don’t want to risk.

This is the situation that Jefferson also described, “…under the pretence of governing they have divided their nations into two classes, wolves and sheep. …Cherish therefore the spirit of our people, and keep alive their attention. …If once they become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress, and Assemblies, judges and governors shall all become wolves. It seems to be the law of our general nature, in spite of individual exceptions; and experience declares that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the governments of Europe, and to the general prey of the rich on the poor.”

Jefferson was very disappointed in the U.S. Constitution. He was in Paris when it was drafted. He ended up insisting that a Bill of Rights be appended. He drafted a Constitution for the State of Virginia that was not adopted, but it is published. Its emphasis on strict separation of powers, term limits, and very limited compensation for elected officials might make a good starting point for drafting constitutional amendments that would return rule to the people of America.

The 10th amendment in the Bill of Rights reserves things not specifically enumerated in the Constitution to the states and the people. We've not been very vigilent in this respect and the federal government has grown and usurped many local perogatives. For example, over the past 100 years, the number of school boards in the U.S. has declined from nearly 200,000 to less than 15,000 nationwide. The current “federalists” call this “economic consolidation” but this “Federalization” is a great loss to rule of the people, by the people, and for the people. To quote the prophetic words of Thomas Jefferson in 1791: “To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of definition.”

Confounded?

2006-11-08T19:30:00.000-08:00

My American Heritage dictionary has two definitions of confound - 1. To confuse or cause to become confused. 2. To fail to distinguish. The Latin root confundere, to pour together, mix-up.

Political speech in America confounds elements of government, capitalism, and religion. This confounding prevents clarity and deliberately confuses citizens. If politics were played with rules like baseball, this would be called an illegal pitch! We're thrown a spitball with a little democracy covered by lots of capitalism and religious zealotry.

As citizens we need to confront the confounders.

Democracy is about equality. Capitalism is not. Religion is not.

In a real democracy:

You and Bill Gates are equals.
You and Bill Gates have equal access to government services.
Your opinions count as much as Mr. Gates's.
Your elected representatives return your phone calls as quickly as they respond to Mr. Gate's calls.

Hmmm...so what do you think? Do you live in a democracy or some other confounded thing?

Why would anyone vote for less freedom?

2006-11-07T19:27:00.000-08:00

I voted today but really for only one reason - the state of Wisconsin had a proposed constitutional amendment effecting same-sex relationships. I went to vote No on the question.

Today they came for the gay people - and I decided to stand with them.

Hopefully they'll stand with me when the come for the left-handers.

Early returns show the proposed amendment passing with 60% of the votes cast.

Why would anyone go out of their way to restrict the rights of otherwise law-abiding citizens?

"However wise and worthy the members of a ruling elite entrusted with the power to govern a state may be when they first take power, in a few years or a few generations they are likely to abuse it. If human history provides any lessons, one surely is that through corruption, nepotism, the advancement of individual and group interests, and abuse of their monopoly over the state's coercive power..., the Guardians of a state are likely to turn into despots."

Robert A. Dahl, On Democracy, p. 74.

Democracy - what is it?

2006-11-05T09:46:00.000-08:00

Most Americans take for granted that we live in a democracy. But there may be as many different definitions of democracy as there are individuals. Clearly we never had a direct democracy. The founders established a form of representative democracy.

Over time it has grown less and less representative in terms of sheer numbers. For example, in 1790 there were about 4 million Americans and the House of Representatives had 65 elected members - about one representative for every 60,500 people. Today we have a population of about 300 million people and 435 members of the House of Representatives - about one representative for every 650,000 of us.

If one adds in all of the various forms of local representative governments (county boards, city councils, school boards, etc.) it is estimated that only 1/32 of 1% (0.0003125) of Americans serve in elected public office. Nationwide this is roughly one per 3300 people. To me, that is a very small number to be called rule “by the people.”

Given the technology that is available to us now compared to 1790 or 1860, one would think that this trend to rule by the few could be reversed.

How will you feel on election night?

2006-11-05T05:49:00.000-08:00

I received an e-mail plea for money that came with this question as a title. I think it is a pretty good one. Will all the state and federal electioneering will have meant something? Will we have more democracy as a result? Will we have more freedoms as a result? I think not - I haven't heard a single candidate speak of their interest in increasing these for the American people. Is this the legacy boomers want to leave - a country with less freedom and less democracy?

One of the things that I learned long ago was that it was a good thing to leave a place better than you found it. On election night I know that I'll feel that we'll have failed our ancestors and our descendants miserably by allowing the farce into which our elections have degenerated to continue. The question is can we figure out how to develop something better.

Still politically homeless...

2006-11-02T15:53:00.000-08:00

The election is only a few days away and the rhetoric has reached fever pitch. Will the Democrats win enough seats to displace the Republican majorities in Congress?

Karl Rove says no. NPR says it's too close too call. Other media pundits and talking heads prattle on, and on, and on, and on.

My prediction is it won't make any difference. The 535 people who supposedly represent us are bought and paid for by corporate and special interests. Ronnie Dugger wrote about it years ago and David Sirota wrote about it more recently. According to Sirota, a former Congressional staffer, you can count the good guys left in Congress, on one hand.

Think about it. 300 million Americans "represented" by 535 people. That's roughly one representative for every 560,ooo of us. First, who could honestly even pretend to represent the views or values of 560,000 of us? Secondly, given these odds, would you pay more attention to the few folks who give you lots of money or the majority of your constuents who didn't give you any?

The "Takeover" Sirota writes about wasn't hostile - it should have been but most of weren't paying attention and still don't seem to be.

I e-mailed Mr. Dugger and asked him if the "takeover" was complete or if there was a group to join that had any momentum to accomplish change. He didn't respond and that is speaking pretty loudly to me.