September 22, 2012 - New Beginning

  It has been a long time since I have posted.  I got caught up with the election year and I was doing a lot of posting on facebook since my last post.  Facebook is nice in many ways, but it has too many ads and applications that are always bothering you to join and let your information used to spread their product among your friends.  I want to try to do some serious writing in this blog in the future as long as I can, with the future being so unsure it's hard to tell where I will be in a year, five years, ten?

  I was born in 1959, which makes me 53 years old, I will soon be 54 in January.  My father died of melanoma, skin cancer, when he was 53 on November 17th 1992.  I am reminded of my Dad every year when it is deer hunting season, he died right before it opened that year.  Dad didn't seem very old when he died I remember thinking at the time, but now that I am his age it doesn't seem very old at all, though after living with my disease twenty years I have felt old before my time.  My peers are just starting to catch up to me somewhat with limited mobility, I'm still probably closer to my friends that are ten years older than I. 

  Some days I wake, and I hurt so bad, and feel so sick, I wonder why I am even still alive.  Today I woke up and felt relatively normal, not my normal, but regular people's normal.  I don't get many days like this so it was a relief and I enjoyed it.  I have had fibromyalgia since February 15th 1993, no I take that back.  I had my back operation in 1993, it was a fusion of two of my vertebra, L5 and L4 I think.  I had crushed my disk, it happened after throwing a bale of hay up on an already full hay wagon on my Dad's farm. In x rays I learned later that I had one vertebra that didn't have the two tabs on the sides to keep everything together, it allowed one of my vertebra to slip out of place and crush the disk.  After the operation it looked like hell on the x rays, there are two steel bars with long screws that look like sheet metal screws pointed every which way.  The Dr. explained that if new bone growth covered three sides of my vertebra they consider it a success and I had a big fist like blob of bone covering the whole works, so I figured I should be fine.  I did know one other guy who had the operation that didn't go well, but then I had known others that were up and playing basketball after their operations.  I didn't really have a whole lot of choices, it felt like there was a knife stuck in my back.  It felt like hell standing, sitting, laying, laying on my side, my stomach, my back, I was lucky if I got a couple of hours sleep at a time, I was close to suicide.  Then I found out that the state would pay for an operation to try to fix my back, I was still hesitant, but then I found out my wife was pregnant with our first child and I decided to have the surgery, I figured, hey I could always go the other route if the operation didn't help.  My first born saved my life.

  The first two months after my operation, I wasn't sure if I had made the right decision between the operation and suicide.  The half of the 280 acre family farm that we had lived on sold right after my operation and my wife, her three boys, and I were forced to move in with my newly widowed Mother.  I was in so much pain and bed ridden that I was no longer even capable of doing myself in.  After the first month there were problems between my wife and my Mom about how the house was run and I got so tired of laying in bed and listening to it that I crawled out of bed and had everyone get in the car and we went to Cadott and rented a motel room and then moved into the low income apartments there.  I hated it at the apartments, there were at least sixteen apartments in the building we lived in and at least six other smaller buildings surrounding our building.  It reminded me of a bee hive, everyone seemed to know what everyone else was doing, the police were at the complex almost nightly breaking up domestic arguments, drunks, kids with drugs, theft, you name it.  There was no lawn area that a person could grill or sit that wasn't in sight of everyone else.  I always called it the hotel because that is what it felt like, usually the only people that lived here other than the older residents were just there for long enough to find a better place to live.  Five years later I offered to help a friend clear out and get a campground running in the southern part of the state.  I worked when I could, but it always made me so sore.  I had some Dr.s that tried to tell me that the pain was in my head, that many places I hurt didn't have anything to do with the operation.  I have to admit that at times I was wondering if I was losing my mind, it didn't make sense to me either, but I just knew how I felt.

  The helping out at the campground only lasted a year, then we all moved back to Cornell, the area I was raised in and went to school.  We got a nice big place, we had five boys now, that was close to school, gas stations, and down town so we wouldn't have to drive far.  I was able to get a little better internet connection, it was still new to me, I would search out different pain remedies for my back and body pain.  I was still bed ridden a lot with some days it being hard to get up to use the bathroom even.  My marriage was going bad, there wasn't much I could do to change anything.  One day I came across some information on fibromyalgia, as I read through the site I almost couldn't believe what I was reading.  There on one page was a list of symptoms that matched right up with everything that was bothering me, all the strange things that didn't seem like they could ever be connected, like becoming intolerant of alcohol and becoming allergic to the sun, the pain in the spots of the body that were giving me trouble, right down the line, my problems.  I printed out the articles I found along with the drugs that were listed to bring some relief to the sufferers of the disease.  It took a few more weeks to convince my Dr. to give it a try he was not familiar with fibromyalgia and it wasn't a widely accepted diagnoses at the time.  We had already went through the list of hard drugs and morphine, but I couldn't handle the side affects from them.  One of the Dr.s that wrote one of the articles my Dr. knew and happened to work on the other side of town so he said he would confer with this Dr. and get back to me.  I was contacted after that and examined again and the Dr. said that we had tried most everything else even some psychotherapy with no success so it wouldn't hurt to try.  Although I still have my bad days, weeks, months, my life has been a lot more easier on me, I can get to the bathroom when I need to anyways.

Now that I have got the getting to know me part out of the way, next time I write I will get back to the main idea of this blog, trying to wake people up and get them to realize that our country has been taken over by the big corporations and corrupt politicians that are out for their own profit and not concerned for the health and well being of the people other than to make sure we are trained well enough to run their machines and to keep us divided amongst ourselves that we don't notice what they have been doing to our country.

 

IBM CEO Retirement Perks

Solutions?: The Problems

Our system of government is broken. Where else can you work for someone where you get better benefits, wages, pensions and perks than the owners? Where else can you work from 2-4 years, get fired and receive pension and perks till the day you die? Where else would you get better health benefits then the bosses? I'm not talking about the people who fix the buildings, sweep the floors, or work in offices doing the many things that are needed to keep our government going. I'm also not talking about the policemen, firefighters, or the people who keep our infrastructures going. I'm talking about the politicians, the people responsible for representing us.

How can our politicians be representing us when they continually vote along party lines? Are they really representing their constituents or pushing party agendas? The way things are set up now, they hold all the cards, they vote on their own pay raises, benefits packages, pensions, they have healthcare and the whole nine yards. There are only two major parties, between the two, their contacts, their clout, they make enough money from campaigning that they can effectively shut down any outsiders. Anyone with ideas that go against the party, or ideas that are too dangerous to keeping the status quo are shunned by their party and cut from the benefit of party raised money for campaigning.

The whole idea of needing so much money to campaign is part of what corrupts our system. Most politicians spend a lot of time when they should be working for us raising money for the next election cycle. Needing such vast amounts of money gives corporations and wealthy individuals the upper hand, because even if something is right and a good cause, a politician would be committing political suicide to support it if that cause wasn't in the best interests of the people footing much of their election campaign. It is the person who has the most money to buy the most airtime, that can slander the other person the most, who has the upper hand in our elections. Politicians like that are puppets of their highest donors and will not go against their biggest donors best interests. They will not be concerned with their constituents wishes, they are a broken cog in democracy.

It is time we the people take back our government from the rich elite that runs it now. Our whole election process is a joke. There is no accountability, no consequences for cheating or not telling the truth. These people are all applying for the job of our Representatives, but they do it all on their terms, not ours. We have to step back and say whoa on a second. Do all these commercials put together to mislead, about the flaws of the other opponent or brag up the triumphs of one's self really any good to the selection of our leaders? Is it any good to have two parties that basically have a monopoly on candidates and individuals having to tow the party line? What do we do to fix this? Can this be fixed? Next time I will give my thoughts.

The War on Poor

You know figures and stats can be manipulated to show anything you want them to. You could quot figures showing that the rich pay the majority of tax collected, and I could show you figures on how the common man pays a higher percentage of his income on taxes. They say that there are a lot of people who don't even pay taxes and should thus not be deserving of any assistance, but I see people who don't fit into a society that has evolved to the point that it is so costly that some can't afford the basic necessities let alone pay taxes. They say, give more money to the rich and they will hire workers," I say put more money in the hands of the many, they will spend it creating demand and more workers will be hired. No matter how much money you put in the hands of the rich, they won't hire workers if the common man can't afford the products and services their businesses have to offer, but if there is a demand, businesses will hire more workers to handle the extra work. The same people who argue that sticking more money in the education system won't fix it, are screaming for us to continue to lower the taxes on the wealthy. Sticking more money into rich peoples hands won't create jobs, it certainly didn't all through the last 10 years we have been giving them these tax breaks. Instead, corporations have been making record profits by laying off thousands of workers. There is a war going on in America.

One would naturally think that this class war would be between the richest and the poorest, but it isn't, it should be though. This war is between the poorest and the former middle class that are hoping to hold on to some remnant of their former glory. The super rich for the most part have shed themselves from being in the target sights of the majority. The wealthy have been successfully using the former middle class people as a buffer cushion between them and the people who they are hurting the most. The well off are convincing the middle class that it's the fault of the lower class that they aren't doing better in life. The middle class is told that all the lower class is fat and lazy and living well off the fruit of the middle class. When there is talk of stopping the tax cuts or adding more taxes to the rich, it is spun into a story of how this is going to cost jobs, hurt small businesses and cost them money. The dream of many middle class people is to start up their own business even though most will never get to that point and many who do will lose their ass, so they take that spin and side with the rich who in turn will cut off their toes and make it even tougher for new businesses to start up and compete. There is a sucking sound in this country, but it's not our jobs being sent overseas, that screwing was over a while ago, this sucking sound is the sound of what's left of our wealth being sucked out of every one of the common man into the pockets of the very few elites.

It has been the goal of a few elite groups to cause total meltdown of the nation for their gain. Really, what are a few years bad returns if it leads to most all of a countries wealth ending up in your pocket? Just like you can never hardly win in a legal battle with a corporation because they have the money and resources to out last the common person, how long would it take to liquidate the common man of everything he owns if he didn't have a job? How rough would it be for the super rich to go that long not making money? People you are being liquidated. One of the reasons they want to downsize government and cut all services? They want to get the money that's tied up in government programs and projects in your pocket temporarily, so it's where they can get their hands on it.

So what's their plan for the future? Here's one billionaire's idea in an article/blog on Yahoo. In this plan:

Thiel has been a big backer of the Seasteading Institute, which seeks to build sovereign nations on oil rig-like platforms to occupy waters beyond the reach of law-of-the-sea treaties. The idea is for these countries to start from scratch--free from the laws, regulations, and moral codes of any existing place. Details says the experiment would be "a kind of floating petri dish for implementing policies that libertarians, stymied by indifference at the voting booths, have been unable to advance: no welfare, looser building codes, no minimum wage, and few restrictions on weapons."

Kind of reminds me of something out of the science fiction movie, "Water World". Maybe they are getting ready to outlast the raising water from the melting ice caps from global warming that most of them refuse to acknowledge. Kind of makes me wonder where they are going to get people to work and live there with no laws or minimum protections. You might not want to drift too close to their "sovereign nations", you might just get Shanghaied and end up owing your soul to the company store on some off shore man made island. It's what he says later in the article that kind of sums up the attitude of the wealthy.

"There are quite a lot of people who think it's not possible," Thiel said at a Seasteading Institute Conference in 2009, according to Details. (His first donation was in 2008, for $500,000.) "That's a good thing. We don't need to really worry about those people very much, because since they don't think it's possible they won't take us very seriously. And they will not actually try to stop us until it's too late."

All something to think about.

Defense: The Double Edged Sword

While reading an Associated Press article on Yahoo titled, "Doomsday defense cuts loom large for select 12" , a few things come to mind, hardly any of them good.

Is it a coincidence that the six Republicans and six Democrats represent states that have the most to lose by the automatic cuts that would hit defense spending in their states? I guess that's pretty good incentive for them to come to some kind of agreement before the dead line. Myself, I think it's pretty sad that such a large percentage of our population is in the business of making things to kill other people. Yes, this would put a lot of people out of work if we didn't have these businesses, but we should be employing these people in different job fields.

Should it really be our responsibility to police the world? Should we spend more than most the other countries combined for defense? The really sad part is we are not only making these weapons for our wars, but we are making them for all the wars around the world, sometimes supplying arms to both sides of the conflict by one means or the other, so is it for jobs we allow people to be killed? It also goes to figure that it is more profitable for us to have wars around the world than to have peace, is this really right? How can you really be committed to peace when you need wars to keep your people employed?

If we were to put all that talent on solving our country's and the world's problems how much further along could we be as a species? Imagine putting them think tanks and talented people to work on coming up with alternative energy solutions and standards and infrastructure to make it all work? If we weren't policing the world we would use a lot less oil as fuel for all the toys of war, the ships, tanks, planes, hummers, what have you. How would that affect how long the oil we have lasts and the price at the pump? While we plan for war our infrastructure crumbles, our education fails us, we will die from within. We have to use these technologies for saving lives and making the lives we have better, not tear down what already is with bombs and missiles. We need to put these people to work to make life better for the living, not make a living off people dieing.

Egypt and the U.S.

Just a short post today. I have been watching closely the protests in Egypt and listened to banter back and forth about what this means to the U.S. and the rest of the world. Many in the U.S. seem to have the idea that this is bad for the U.S., it will destabilize the region, the new guys might not be as friendly to the U.S., the new guys might be radical Islamic, this will cause other countries in the area that have the same kind of political set up to revolt against it's leaders, etc., etc.

Here we are/were fighting two large wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with our leaders telling us that this is to promote democracy for those that can't have it. But here now is a large populace of Egyptians that are fighting for a democratic political system, and here we are arguing amongst ourselves if it is better to provide so much as a supportive statement for the Egyptian people, or try to keep the dictator in power some how because he is a U.S. yes man. How stupid are my fellow countrymen that they think they can spread democracy by the end of a gun barrel while destroying and leveling cities. In the dictionary this is the definition of a terrorist. Surely if we back the people we will be in a better position to negotiate with what or who ever the new leadership will be than if we continue to support the old and supply tear gas and rubber bullets to be used against the people. If we want to help spread the ideals of democracy, we must ourselves live by the ideals of democracy. We can't claim to have the best political system and then support dictators to rule over other countries. IF you change to a democracy, THEN we will help out financially, NOT before. If we expect other countries to follow the rule of law, we should be responsible to the rules of laws ourselves. None of this illegal getting fondled at the airport, secret government or secret prisons, no illegal wire, phone, bank, internet tapping, no no torture when there is, breaking international laws and agreements, or any of all the other things we do that don't follow the rules of law, but I digress.

I have a feeling what the real cause of anxiety to Egypt's surrounding countries and even some of the western countries and the U.S., is that something like this could happen in our country. We have many of the same things wrong with our country that Egypt has with it's country. A small percentage of the people controls a large percentage of the money and thus power. The people who are in power aren't doing things that are the best for their country, or it's people, only for the short term gain in their own pockets. The politicians that are supposed to be representing us and working for us are corrupt, working just to try to stay in power or get in power, voting along party lines with no regard to what their constituents want, for their own financial gain, without any compassion for the people caught up or destroyed by their greed. I think this is the real cause of concern of the U.S. and the world.

Problems of Our Government

One of the problems with government now days is that politicians have too much lea way of the facts. There is too much disinformation out there that overshadows the facts. These people work for us, but they work under their own rules. We as a people should demand that our leaders are held to a certain level of conduct both while in office and campaigning. All politicians should be held to statements of fact and have the references to back up what they say. If they claim that the other party voted a certain way, they should have to be able to prove their claims. There should be no innuendos of misconduct, or unethical motifs if there isn't any facts of it. Everyone makes honest mistakes at times, but when they do there should be a public acknowledgment if and when mistakes are made. If anyone is continually making mis-statements either on purpose or by their lack of knowledge of what's going on they should be fined, if the practice continues they should be replaced. There should be a lot easier way of expelling dishonest, unethical representatives from our employment, instead of slapping them on the hand and allowing them to continue being employed by us. The people should have media and news programs that they can trust as being factual and unbiased. Having honest, truthful information at the fingertips of everyone is essential to an informed public and an informed voter.

These people that supposedly work for us, are fat off our tax dollars. They have all the perks, health care, generous pensions, and the list goes on and on, all at our expense. With the technologies of our time why are we paying for our representatives to travel from their home states to the capital, they could use video conferencing or other such means of communication. Not only would we save the cost of their constant traveling back and forth, but they can have all their supplies, notes, proposals all in one spot in their own state capital building instead of hauling everything back and forth, just think of the savings in airfare, fuel, pollution, wasted travel time, multiple housing accommodations or hotel costs car rentals, cab fees, multiple offices, heating and air conditioning all them places, all could be eliminated, or at least cut a lot. Once the system is in place, it stays there and whoever is in office has it to use. If this would have to be implemented in fazes, it should start with the states farthest from Washington and states that are the poorest.

Every two to four years all salaries and pensions should be adjusted to average privet sector equivalent job rates. Their health care should be at the same level as the rest of us, so either all their care isn't free, and easy to get, and the best money can buy, or ours is. These people are not kings. If we can't afford such perks for ourselves why would we provide them for our employees? Our representatives run around like teenagers at college abusing their first credit cards. It's fun while it lasts, but eventually it will catch up with us. Our government should be run like a business, not running on a deficit constantly, we should be coming out a bit a head so we can invest in the future. We are doing everything for immediate gain and profit instead of having the vision to look ahead to the future. We should be looking out for our best interest as a country instead of looking out for the best interest of big corporations making obscene record profits. Corporations have no business in government, they have their votes and donations of the individuals, just like everyone else, but they should not be free to donate to political parties period.

The process of voting for our representatives is getting to be a real joke. With all the disinformation and lies, it's a circus and no one knows what to believe.

Our representatives public life should be all business and being there and taking part in the task at hand. When they are doing their job in their public capacity politicians should be professional, honest, efficient, and ethical. They shouldn't be spending their time in between elections in a continual campaign mode. On the other hand their private lives unless they are involved in illegal activities should be that, private. If it isn't illegal or if they are not trying to pay for their private lives with their public funds, or if it isn't affecting their public responsibilities, their private lives should be left out of politics. I guess you could argue that maybe their involvement with the KKK or something might affect the way they vote on things, but in a way that is a public display...

Okay, so I don't have all the answers, but the point here is to get others thinking. How can we shake things up, reduce costs, improve our government. If you have any suggestions feel free to post your opinions, I reserve the right to remove offensive posts, but you can disagree with me without profanity.

Yet Another New Beginning: Politics in a changing world

With the recent shooting in Arizona I have really mixed feelings about everything political. Let's give our prayers to the survivors of the people who got killed and the people injured during this tragic senseless event. I was hoping that maybe this might be a wake up call against the climate of our political events of late. As of today though I realize this is never going to happen. I think our news media, political, and justice systems are really broken in this country. During the last couple of elections the tone of things has just gotten out of hand.

I believe in the 1st amendment and free speech, but there are limits. It has always been against the law to say certain things, for an instance, you can't stand up and yell fire in a crowded theater. I thought there were laws against slander where you can't publicly say untrue things about people, but in our political arena this seems to be common practice. I also thought you couldn't make threats against other people, and I even thought that you couldn't incite a riot or incite violence, but perhaps I'm wrong because you can see this go one everyday, specially in political settings.

Now before anyone starts getting bent out of shape, I don't think that the shooting actually had anything to do with Palin's gun slogan remarks, I'm not going to point the finger at Palin or her other Republican buddies and say that it was their fault this troubled person went postal, but I do think that the other issues the Arizona Congresswoman has had with people smashing her office door and making threats does have to do with the Republican Tea Party getting everyone riled up into a frenzy with prophesies of doom and hate speech. Pretty much all everyone was hoping to get out of Republicans after this horrific event were statements denouncing the strong language used during campaigning and against violence of this kind directed towards innocent people and politicians. This was not a demand for an admission of guilt, it was just a statement that was hoped to come to try to help deescalate some of the hot emotions that have been inflamed more and more the last few of election cycles. Instead we first got some double talk about how posters and things said were misconstrued, then came the cry of we can say anything we want as it is protected by the 1st amendment. I'm sorry, but these weren't just harmless metaphors, these were cries to come to arms and take back their country from people who don't have the same opinions that they do. What's even more disappointing/saddening/stupid is it wasn't that long ago, that these were the same people that were calling for the assassination of the founder of Wikileaks for exposing some mostly embarrassing, but some possibly criminal things that have been going on in our government and other governments around the world. These people have been bending over backwards trying to figure out how to strip any 1st amendment rights from Wikileaks to stop information that should be coming out of our major news organizations if they weren't all on the dole with these people in power, or it would maybe be more correct to say if they didn't have the people in power on their doles.

It's too bad that the tragedy of what's happened, the lives lost and lives damaged are getting lost in the back and forth finger pointing and arguing about who's to blaim.

Politically Speaking: Now What?

Well the midterm elections are past and the Republicans gained power in the House while the Democrats kept control of the Senate. The big question is what does that mean for us? It was quite a election season with not only the Democrats and the Republicans fighting in the ring, but the Tea Party was there also, with both the Republicans and Tea Party thinking of victory by riding each others coat tails. My feelings are that the Tea Party got owned by the Republicans, time will tell, but it already looks like there is some dissension between the ranks, and it's only been a couple of days since the election.

I tend to lean towards the Democrats, but I am frustrated and disappointed with their spinelessness. There were investigations of wrong doing by President Bush and some of his close associates that showed that he was doing things wrong and he was intentionally doing them even though he knew they were wrong. Why then is it that the subject of prosecuting Bush, and whoever else involved, such a taboo subject even from the Democrat side? To make things worse, now George Bush has a book coming out where he admits once again of his war crimes. Will the insanity never cease?

Bush basically passed his own pardon and pardoned everyone who took part in all the illegal activities before he left office, put people in key parts of the government, while he was in office, that would allow him to get away with doing things that were wrong. Don't forget that both Bush and Cheney got on national television and admitted that they gave the orders and supported water boarding and other torture techniques, had secret prisons, performed secret renditions, and crimes against the American people and the constitution by the unlimited phone and internet monitoring, arresting people in the middle of the night and not charge them of any crime for 5 years if at all, with no rights, and going against the Geneva Convention rules and international laws and agreements. This upsets me with the Democrats. When Obama stood there and said, let's not bother going back and dwelling on the past, but look towards the future in reference to prosecuting Bush I stood in shock... I think there were many others who had the same reaction. In my opinion the people's mandate for election a great majority of Democrats in 2008 was so that something could be done about the rouge, run away government that the Bush Administration turned into, that included bringing to justice the people who blatantly and openly broke the laws of our constitution and how our government is supposed to operate, both at home and abroad.

The other thing that I and I think many other people that supported Obama are disappointed about is the health bill. Not for the fact that it was passed, but how fast the best parts of the bill were negotiated out before it even came to vote, and then that it really never mattered any way because it was pretty much a straight party vote, so there never was any compromise from the other side at all. Many people would have liked to see the single payer option at least seriously considered. Health care should not be run by organizations that their main purpose is not health care, but stockholders profits, that's just wrong. We need to get rid of all the swindling, lieing, profit machines that we call health insurance companies. A lot of money could be saved if the government took care of people with that money instead of a big company not worrying about if they will break even, but make record profits. This was another thing that didn't make me too happy with the Democrats.

The thing with the Democrats in general is that it's hard to try to compete with the bullies on the playground while playing by the rules and bending over backwards trying to appease any of them. Both sides worry more about being elected, getting their side in power, or keeping their side in power, that they don't really seem to care too much about us. In all fairness I guess I have to say the Democrats tried, they came in at the worse time since the great depression and actually did some good, tried to pass some good financial reform, credit card reform, health care reform, it just was a little too slow to help them for the mid elections.

What will we see going forward? I fear not much different than we seen these last couple of years. In the mean time we, meaning us common folk, will suffer while they all have their pissing contests.

What do you think? Agree or disagree, feel free to leave a comment.

Campaign Finances

It's time we get rid of the party system, there has been too much party and not enough system governing the the country. Each candidate should be running on his or her own platform and not be constricted by their parties as to what they can or can say, can or can't do, they are supposed to be doing the will of their electorates, not their party, not the special interests that are funding their campaigns, our government is broke in it's present form. We need to change campaign financing to fix things in Washington. How can we expect our representatives to vote with the interest of the people at heart when it is special interests that pay to get them elected in the first place? We need to finance elections with money from tax payers, or a pool of some sort. Somehow we need to start with a pool of people to run for the positions in government and then a way to quickly weed out the unwanted or unsupported, then support the runner ups by providing them all with the same amount of airtime, but only by showing their records and/or platforms factually and get away from the smears, lies, and rhetoric. The American people need a way to make informed decisions on electing their representatives without having to worry about getting fleeced by the lies told by the opposition. This could also save a lot of money that is now wasted on elections that could be spent better in other places. This would remove the conflict of interests that come into play now when politicians have to vote on bills that affect the people that paid to get them into office. Because we all know money is not the way to gauge the support or popularity of a candidate when special interests and corporations can spend more than individuals, this is why we have all these bills and laws catering to special interests, companies and the wealthy.

Tax Breaks for the Wealthy

We are only talking about the top 2-3% of the population losing tax breaks, not being taxed extra. We have gave these same people a break the past 8 years or so, now they scream bloody murder that they are being unfairly taxed. How can that 2-3% of the population scare the other 97-98% that the government is out to take income away from them? How can that big a chunk of the population be so gullible? Where has the tax breaks that the top 2-4% of the population got us? The way they talk it will make the difference of there being jobs or not, where are all the jobs that were being developed during the last 8 years? There wasn't any jobs made in this country in the last 8 years, only over seas by the tax breaks of the wealthy. While the general public has been providing tax breaks for the wealthiest 2-3% they have reciprocated by sending jobs overseas creating record profits for the big corporations while the rest of the country goes broke. If you are in the top 2-3%, vote Republican, otherwise, wtf are you thinking?

Fiscal Responsibility

Fiscal Responsibility = Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele has raised $96.2 million during his tenure, but he has spent $109.6 million. (The Washington Post)

Where Does Dick Cheney Get his Special Powers

I was reading along through my news emails the other day and I came across an article talking about Dick Cheney criticizing the appointment of a special prosecutor by Eric H. Holder Jr. What caught my eye was a transcript of Cheney stating, "at his request" the CIA release a document showing whether or not the Bush Administration's interrogation methods were responsible for defeating all efforts to attack our country. Later in the article said something else about the CIA memos released at Cheney's urging.

I have one BIG question. Who the hell is granting Dick Cheney the power to advise the CIA about anything? Hey Dick!, I thought you were a vise president, not only that, but didn't your side lose the last election? What gives Dick the power to be still advising the CIA on anything? Releasing documents?...Dick? Weren't you the one in the last administration that was calling most everything in the form of documents, that were requested by oversight committees, protected by executive privilege?

In your defense of torture you say that it worked, it kept all the evil powers from hurting anyone in the US. What doesn't seem to get through the thick Dick head is it doesn't matter if you think what you did worked, it doesn't even mattered if it did work, breaking the law is breaking the law, and torture is breaking the laws of both the United States and of international treaties we have agreed to. I get jumping up and down, pulling my hair out mad as hell that we have a person like Dick on just about every major television network, if not every major television network, admitting publicly, in the light of day, that he is proud of what he done, and that he'd do it again, he'd still be doing it. Even though it is illegal. Why isn't he arrested already?

Maybe Dick does get it. Maybe he knows that on the merits of law and order he is guilty as sin. That is why he holds that the ends justified the means. It worked, this makes it better than the law. He thinks that if he can paint enemy combatants as sub human, others will commit unheard of acts against them out of fear, and he is right, but does that make it right. Didn't this happen before...hmm...perhaps Nazi Germany with the Jews? This is just the thing that happens when a group of people acquire power with no oversight. It was what we got as a result of a closed door meetings with what was said vailed by the phrase executive privilage.

Still, after all this, Cheney crawls out from under his rock, from the death of his political career, and he still has the power to request and urge the CIA to release documents

Let's Applaud Those Who Stand up for What is Right

Dear Senator Feingold,

I just want to thank you for your stand against not only CIA torture abuses, but your outspokenness that the interrogation probe on CIA abuses, does not go far enough and that "The abuses that were officially sanctioned amounted to torture and those at the very top who authorized, ordered or sought to provide legal cover for them should be held accountable,"

I do not know why there are not more people in Washington who will take a stand against this blight that is contrary to the ideals on which our country was founded.

In the past our great country could take the high road in fighting against the tyranny of rulers from other world countries, but now we need to take the high road to fight the tyranny the Bush Administration.

Other countries knew that they could depend on our high morals and honor and even the solders of countries that we have fought against knew that they could have faith in the humane treatment that they would receive if captured fighting us.

The Bush Administration has given our country a black eye that won't heal in the eyes of the rest of the world if we don't honor our international agreements concerning the treatment of our captured combatants.

Our country was instrumental in bringing to justice people from Germany and Japan for the same types of apostrophes that people in the Bush Administration have encouraged.

I can't believe that Dick Cheney can go out in public in the light of day and try to justify breaking of US and International laws by using the ends justify the means argument.

If nothing is done to correct things done during the Bush Administration, history is going to report that not only did people in the Bush Administration do horrendous wrong, but that the following administration was just as horrendous for not making things right.

Please continue to stand up against the wrongs done in the name of our country until what is wrong is right. You, me, our descendants, and our country will be the better for it. Thank you.

IndictBushNow.org

Congressional leaders demand:
"High-ranking officials and lawyers …
be held legally accountable."

Help the IndictBushNow movement grow by making a donation today!

As hundreds of thousands of people at the grassroots are taking action, leading members of Congress are joining in to demand that the coming prosecution for Bush-era crimes include the high officials who authorized the criminal acts.

The disgusting, outrageous and criminal acts were not committed by a few bad apples. It is Cheney and Bush and Rumsfeld and others who are guilty, and they must be held accountable.

Congressman Jerrold Nadler, D-NY, sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder Tuesday reiterating his calls for a special prosecutor that makes these demands crystal clear. Nadler is chairman of the panel’s subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties Committee on the Judiciary.

"There simply is no legal, moral or principled reason to insulate those who authorized the torture of detainees, either through legal reasoning or other policy directive, from investigation," Nadler wrote. "This country has been instrumental in establishing the principle that high-ranking officials and lawyers who use legal reasoning to justify or otherwise authorize war crimes can, and should, be held legally accountable.

"The ban on torture is absolute and we have a legal obligation to investigate torture and all of those who may have been party to its use."

Nadler’s letter is a follow-up to one sent to Eric Holder in April that was signed by other members of the House Judiciary Committee. That letter stated:

"The Geneva Conventions obligate High Contracting Parties such as the United States to investigate and bring before our courts those individuals ‘alleged to have committed, or to have ordered to be committed grave breaches of those Conventions."

There is not a moment to spare in this historic effort to restore the Constitution and to send a message to future officials that no one is above the law. Election to high office can never be seen again as a blank check to torture, to carry out secret assassinations, establish secret prisons, spy on the people and launch unprovoked wars of aggression all in the name of "protecting" the country.

Please make your contribution today so that we can sustain this vital work in the coming weeks and months.


--From all of us at IndictBushNow.org

The United States Energy Outlook

There has been much talk about getting new alternative energy policies going in the United States, but so far I have not seen an effective solution put into action. Using money earmarked for improving the economy, the government is suppose to give a certain amount of money towards developing alternative fuel sources to oil. I would imagine that this would mean giving amounts of money to solar, wind, fuel cell, electric, hydrogen, and what ever other alternative energy ideas there are out there. I think we are essentially putting the cart before the horse on this plan unless the government takes prudent steps first.

Before we get to talking about the solutions, let's think about why we need alternatives to oil in the first place, just in case you have been living under a rock since the 70s. The world is running out of oil. As things stand now, at this point in time, everything we need, want, produce, and/or use is dependent on foreign oil. Our food industry needs foreign oil to power the tractors to work the land, plant the crops, cultivate and harvest the crops. In order for that food to get to us, the consumer, fuel made from oil is needed for the trucks, trains, and ships. Not only is the oil used to make the fuel to power our cars, but it lubricates almost every moving part in all of them.

When oil was first discovered it was practically bubbling out of the ground in some parts of the country, it was cheap and abundant. It was the stuff that made the industrial age possible. Then a way was figured out how to also use this oil to power the engines to run the machines in the industrial age and life was good. Since then though there are a lot more of us, using even greater amounts of oil to power our cars, oil also makes plastics that have made our way into every aspect of our lives, and everything else from medicines to paints. At one point someone figured out that we only had a limited supply in the United States. It was decided to save much of the oil that was within the US boarders for national security matters so we started getting the majority of the oil we used from other countries. At first we had a good time, many of the places we were getting the oil from were countries that didn't have the tech to use the new found oil so it wasn't worth much to them so we got it cheap.

Now, the places we have left to supply our oil habit are a bunch of countries that don't really like us a whole lot so we pay a lot more for our oil and we face the possibility of someday one or more of these countries will cut us off for differences in opinions, or as a retribution to issues we don't agree on. This makes us nervous, makes the other countries wealthy, and it gives the countries where we drill for oil power over us. What's worse is that even with getting oil from other countries there is only so much oil and it will eventually run out.

Our country is now starting to think about alternative energy, but we really need to stop and think before just throwing money to the wind. We already have numerous alternative plans out there, electric, hydrogen, propane, ethanol, but what we really need is standards and infrastructure. There isn't any alternative that stands a chance if there isn't an infrastructure to support it. If I take my electric, fuel cell, or hydrogen car out on a trip and I get 300 mile out and I need to charge up or refuel and there isn't places where I can do that, or there are only a limited few places I can refuel that I have to search for and I have to plan my route around them, it isn't going to fly. I don't care how environmentally friendly or efficient the alternative is, if people can't travel as we do now with gasoline, it isn't going to go over with the public.

Where does this leave us? We have alternatives to gasoline, but right now, because they are not convenient, and/or their cost is too high, there are not many people who can use any of them. What we need is for smart people who know the facts to sit down and come up with a strategy of how to go ahead. One of the first things they have to figure out would be which alternative energy option would be the best. They have to take into consideration the affect on the environment, costs, leaving room for future technologies, and how abundant the alternative energy source is. I have read of many different ideas, fuel cells, electric, hydrogen, ethanol... What we need though is to have government incentives and support for the winning option. We don't need an approach which is going to put the country's energy needs in the position where it is going to be a battle like VHS vs. Bata, or Blue Ray vs. DVDs. This approach would waste too much time and resources battling for a winning technology where the losers would end up being obsolete and having the cost of having to change over to the winning technology. This is where we need government to step in and say, this is the direction we are going to go, the standard we are going to adopt, and then step in to support the infrastructer for that alternative energy.

I read an article that made sense for supporting the idea of electric cars. Most any of the alternative energy ideas out there can be used to make electricity, if we have the resources to make enough of it, the cost should be low. The problem with electric is with our existing technologies we can only drive so far before needing to recharge the batteries, which is a long process requiring quite a bit of time before you are ready to continue your drive again. I read about an inventor, I think from Iraq, who has what I think is a really great idea. Instead of having to charge up the batteries in your car when your batteries are low, you just swap your battery pack for a charged up battery pack and you are back on your way. This inventor wants to standardize battery packs so that you pull into a charging station and within 10 minutes your low battery pack is swapped out for a charged battery pack. The battery pack is hung in the car the same way missiles are hung on plane wings being able to be swapped easily and quickly. As battery technology improves it can be swapped out over time with the lesser technology batteries, but keep the same standards so that any changes won't interfere or make hardships for the consumer, they would just drive in and get their battery pack swapped out as usual. When battery packs get older and fail they would just be swapped out with new ones at the distrabution centers and not cause the consumer great expence by having to replace all the battery packs in their cars, also it would make recycling of the old batteries easy as everything would be done at the battery distrabution centers after swapping the batteries out instead of having to disasemble the vehicle to take batteries out of here and there all over within the vehicle. We could still support a maze of various alternative energy ideas, but they would be used to make electricity instead of trying to cram the different technologies into the vehicles.

When we were involves in the great world wars, there was a shift in our production plants to support the building of all the planes, tanks, ships, bombs and ammunition. It didn't happen all by acident, the government stepped in and directed everyone to who was making what. The government stepped in and said this is what we need, money was spent retooling factories to make what was needed and it was made. It was an amazing feat that we achived in little time. We need to be weaning ourselves off of oil and into using a form of alternative energy that is clean and non-poluting, we need to strenthen our national security of not having to depend on our energy needs from other countries that don't like us, we need to stop supporting these countries with our oil money. We need to put as much effort into finding alternative energy sources as we put into war.

Indict Bush Now

The crimes of the Bush administration must be proclaimed, acknowledged and remembered because their disastrous human consequences, dictatorial tendencies, subversion of Constitutional government and violation of the rights and dignity of humanity. They include wars of aggression, the crime against peace and the "Supreme International Crime," war crimes, and crimes against humanity, genocide by military violence "with intent to destroy in whole, or in part, a national... or religious group," authorizing and condoning massive violations of the Constitution of the United States, its Bill of Rights and other Amendments, international treaties including the U.N. Charter, Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, Convention Against Torture, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the Geneva Conventions.

The clear duty of the American people and their elected representatives -- on which the changes in U.S. government policies essential to achieve a peaceful, decent and humane future depend -- is the vigorous pursuit of the indictment of former President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and other high officials who have participated in their crimes, followed by rigorous criminal prosecution wherever the evidence, having been fully and fairly presented to a federal grand jury, results in their indictment.

The indictment of George W. Bush and other high officials is the challenge facing 'We, the People.' Will we rise to meet it? This is not a matter of politics or partisanship. It is the defense of the basic tenets of the Constitution.

Sincerely,

Ramsey Clark,
Former U.S. Attorney General

Failure Bonuses

AIG in the news again. Hundreds of millions of dollars have to be paid out in three payment for bonuses and retention to employees of the company AIG which has received the largest amount of any financial institution from government bailout money paid for by American tax payers. What kind of financial system you have going that you have to pay bonuses to people who ran your company into the dirt. In most companies an employee would get fired for losing a lot less money than these people getting bonuses lost for their companies.

"Liddy said he had "grave concerns" about the impact on the firm's ability to retain talented staff "if employees believe that their compensation is subject to continued and arbitrary adjustment by the U.S. Treasury." Washington Post."

It would seem that in my uneducated opinion that these people can't be all that talented if they drove your company into the ground requiring hundreds of billions of dollars in tax payer's money to bail you out and keep you in business.

From the start I have felt that these institutions should have been allowed to fail and not have been bailed out in the first place. If we would have did that these institutions that have for only one conceivable motive, greed, would have had to down size, be more modest in their profits, and/or fold. Any institution following in their wake would be much more cautious in their approach of bad lending practices and be more fiscally responsible with everyone's money.

At the very least, the companies that are failing this bad need to have most of their upper executives fired and if they do get hired back, hired back at a rates that reflects their value, not reward them for bankrupting the institutions that they work for. If they were all fired the companies would not be under any contractual obligations to pay people for failing so miserably.

I finally agree with a Republican, Republican Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa who made the statement:

"I would suggest the first thing that would make me feel a little better toward them [AIG executives] is if they follow the Japanese example and come before the American people and take that deep bow and say, 'I am sorry,' and then either do one of two things: resign or go commit suicide," he said. "And in the case of the Japanese, they usually commit suicide." "Cedar Rapids, Iowa, radio station WMT"

Pretty much sums up my feelings about the subject.

Catching Up

It's been awhile since I've wrote. There were quite a few things going on since January, many things worthy of writing about. A close friend of mine father died and it seems like I kind of got in a rut after that. My own father died about 13 years ago and I still miss him a lot. We had kind of a rough time during my teenage years and we were just starting to get to where we enjoyed each other's company and respected each other's differences shortly before he died. There is a lesson here for all you that still have your fathers around.

Some of the things Cheney was saying during TV interviews before Obama come into office I was really surprised that Bush didn't pardon him or the rest of his buddies before he left office. Cheney pretty much admitted that he approved the torture of detainees and a lot of the other illegal things that went on while he was in office. Cheney complained publicly that he was pretty upset with Bush not fully pardoning Libby who was involved in disclosing the name of the CIA agent who's husband spoke out against starting the war in Iraq. I was amused when Cheney was in a wheelchair at Obama's inauguration, supposedly from moving boxes. Think about it, here is a guy that was second in command, and arguably maybe first in command, moving his own boxes when he left office. Why do you suppose he was moving his own boxes? Could be that he didn't trust anyone else carrying his boxes because of what was in them? You know that was kind of suspicious when he had a fire in his office too. I never did hear what they figured was the cause of the fire. I bet there is a place somewhere that a lot of papers were burned to keep them from ending up in the wrong hands, and I'm not talking about the hands of would be terrorists.

I also been watching what's been going on with Obama's Administration to see which direction he is going to go and how much he will, or be able to fix from the Bush Administration. While Obama has been doing much to try to fix what was wrong from the Bush Administration, he is still trying to preach that we should be looking forward and not back when it comes to the illegal activities of the Bush Administration. I still feel that this is the wrong decision on Obama's part. We can not go forward without finding what all it is that needs fixing. If we let Bush and his buddies get away with the things they did while in office, future presidents will figure that they have the right to do the very same things as Bush did. At least hope isn't fully dead as many people both in and out of politics are still pushing that we need to investigate what all the Bush Administration done behind closed doors and if there are illegalities charges brought up. We can only hope that Obama will do the right thing in this situation and appoint an independent investigation on this topic. Actually for a lot of this they don't need more investigations because they already have reports from past investigations concluding that Bush took us into war illegally on false information.

There are other things I disagree with the Obama on, but in general I agree on many of the things he's doing. At least Obama is trying a different path instead of the stay the coarse plan that Bush pretty much stuck with. I'm ok with the closing down of the secret prison in Cuba and not sending detainees to countries that do torture. I agree of the process of telling everyone involved that torture is not an option. What did we gain with the Bush Administration's approval of torture? We got some of the worse criminals outside the Bush Administration that we can not try in court because of the torture. I also agree with the gradual getting our troops out of Iraq, a place that we never should have been in the first place.

Maybe this is enough for now to get the creative juices flowing. Don't forget to check back again.

I'm almost afraid to talk about this subject for another 6 days because it still would be enough time for Bush to blanket pardon a lot of his administration. But it really scares me the way Obama talks about he would rather look to the future instead of spending too much time looking back. There is something just wrong about not looking at the past in regards to the Bush Administration. There are just too many questions that need to be brought out into the open, answered and some form of accountability established. I think it would be a big mistake for Obama not to address the wrongs of the last eight years of the Bush Administration

The Bush Administration has from the start refused to hold itself up to any oversight. It has stonewalled Congress with information in the forms of email and video tape, refusing to let people even testify in House hearings, the Bush Administration has been one of the most secretive Administrations in modern times.

We can't begin to right the wrongs if we don't investigate the past well enough to tell what wrongs have been committed or set in motion. As far as making sure that any crime committed would be taken up, there has been numerous reports from Congress itself stating the many laws broken both within the United States and internationally that have been approved by Bush and Cheney and others in the Bush Administration so that there should be no question that there should be trials taking place.

By not addressing the wrongs that took place during the last administration we can not start to get our reputation back in the rest of the world as a country that stands for our high ideals. Being branded as a country that does torture does not make us friends around the world, it helps dangerous organizations recruit members of people that want to stand up against the U.S.

We will not get our reputation back with the rest of the world if we let these issues slide into the past. The American people deserve better than to have to wait until some UN or world commission holds Bush and his Administration accountable for their crimes. To show the rest of the world that we do stand behind our country's high ideals we can not do anything less than hold the Bush Administration accountable for its wrongs against the American people and people of the world. It is embarrassing to be an American until we restore our laws and our honor with the rest of the world.