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.

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.

A New Process for Selecting Our Representatives

What America needs is a new process for picking it's representatives. The way we chose our leaders has basically grown more and more flawed as the years gone by, morphing elections and thus changing politics into something totally different than our founders had ever in visioned. When this country was founded, there were only 13 colonies. It was a pretty easy task for everyone to know if one person held better leadership qualities than another person by their past actions. How we chose our leaders was much different than it is today. Through time, as our population spread out across the North American Continent, it became necessary for politicians to boast more and advertise their accomplishments to win over votes from people that they have never met or who have never heard of them before. Through the years the process of selecting our leaders has become broken. I'm not saying I have a completely worked out grand new plan to fix all our problems, but today I'm going to write about some of the reasons why I think our elections fail to bring before us good candidates for presidential selection who care as much for the interests of the common person on the street as they do for the interests of big business.

I've always heard that we are never going to get a person in office that is any more ethical or morally responsible then the people that put them in office. I somewhat agree with that statement. If the voters are not very ethical or moral, they won't hold the politicians they have elected accountable to being ethical or moral either. I do think that the way we select our politicians makes a big difference in the kind of leaders we have though.

One of the biggest failings in our process of selecting a government representative is the amount of money needed for anyone to run for office. This fails our government from the start in so many ways. One of the biggest ways this has a negative effect on our politicians is that they need to spend a pretty good share of time raising money for their re-elections, because they need lots of money to get re-elected. Usually, without some extenuating circumstances, or other form of fame and publicity, the person that spends the most money wins the election. It takes large amounts of money to travel around the district, state, or our country promoting one's self putting out television, internet, and radio ads. Ads must introduce the candidate, list where they stand on issues, tell of unscrupulous acts by the opposition, and defend one's self from smears made by the opposition. As our population grew and spread across the continent the cost of campaigning has grew.

Politicians are only human and it is human nature to do nice things for people who do nice things for us. Lets face it, people give large amounts of money or favors to candidates for basically one reason, and that is with the hope that their donations will help elect the candidate of their choice, and once in office that candidate will remember the donor's issues that they wanted help with. Other than that, whether it's a large amount of money from a large corporations or small amounts of money from individual donors, there is no other reason for anyone to give money to a candidate. It's a validation for the candidate. It's a way of saying you think like I do on the issues that matter to me, so here's some money to help you get elected so you can support those issues. Politicians are not supposed to think of who gave them how much money or let it influence their decisions when they vote on issues that may affect the donor, there are laws against it. But when money is so important to getting re-elected, who in their right mind would vote for something that would adversely affect someone who gives big money towards getting them elected?

Somehow we have to take the costs of campaigning out of the equation, that is about the only way to take the advantage away from big business and special interest groups. The government actually owns control of TV and Radio frequencies, there should be a certain amount of airtime given to the process of electing our representatives that they don't have to pay for. Candidates should have to present themselves within a structured format so that people can see where each candidate stands compared to their rivals. There should be no public advertisements by special interests groups smearing rival candidates. In fact anything that is said by a candidate or endorsed by a candidate should be factual. If it is found that any candidate lied about past voting records, past positions on issues, smears against rival candidates, they should be prosecuted for lieing or slander. It should not be up to the voting public to have to check up on every statement made by politicians and try to figure out whether it is a lie or not. We should demand that when politicians speak to us that they are telling the truth, they work for us after all.

What is Wrong With America

It's really hard to understand what is wrong with America. Water boarding and some of the other stuff we have done to prisoners since 9/11 are definitely torture. How Bush and everyone of the Republicans other than 3 can all vote against having laws against water boarding I do not know.

The reports about what Bush and others in his administration have publicly said even after knowing that what they were saying were not true.

All the illegal spying through the phone companies, the Internet Service Providers, the illegal use of NSA letters to libraries, banks, and other businesses that hold people's private information.

Bush having political appointees in all areas of government censoring any and all reports going out of these agencies. Cutting back on budgets for oversight personal and other agencies like the FDA and Social Security Disability so much that they can not carry on their sorely needed duties such as inspecting and overseeing their processes and procedures.

Disclosing CIA operatives names.

Running out un-Republican Federal Attorneys and replacing them with Republicans who are loyal to the party.

An illegal war costing up resources and billions, 4,000 US solders dead, millions of Iraqis. A whole country leveled and torn apart. High gas prices here at home.

Missing emails, videos, pretty much everything that could be used as evidence to what's be going on through out out our country.

Just what does the rest of America think by leaving this administration in power for any amount of time? Why isn't there charges being filed, and people held accountable?

A Big Thank You to the Telecommunication Companies

According to President Bush we need to thank the telecommunication companies for their involvement in the illegal intelligence gathering by agencies under the Bush Administration. Well here goes.

A big thank you to all the telecommunication companies who complied with the illegal requests to turn over customer records to the government. Thank you for going against your own end user agreements and customer contracts stating that you would protect my privacy and information unless confronted with legal warrants to turn over said information. Thank you for giving me the assurances that your end user agreements are legal binding contracts between your company and myself or my business, it's good to know that I am held accountable to such agreements, but you are not. Thanks for trying to stifle and protect me from any information that would come out in a court hearing that might influence me to take my business elsewhere, perhaps to another company that didn't roll over when presented with illegal requests for their customer information. Thank you for the peace of mind that I have for trusting you and taking you at your word that my private conversations were that, private. Thank you for the scrutiny that my searches, inquiries and conversations into current events were put under to gauge my patriotism. Thank you for laying out any information you might have that could be taken in such a way as to subject me to possibly be held in secret prisons for years at a time without being charged with a crime. Thank you for driving up the cost of business by encouraging private face to face meetings to discuss sensitive issues because your networks can not be trusted. Thank you for the warm feelings of the publics trust in big businesses. Thank you for the assurances that we have nothing to fear from rouge political agendas and our government in general. A big thank you for letting us know where we stand in this Democratic society where we are mistakenly under the impression that our country is run under rules and laws that protect the individual against the special interests of government or big business. Thank you for giving us faith in the laws of our country.

The Irony of Arlen Specter

Friday there was an AP article about Republican Senator Arlen Specter-PA, stating that Senator Specter wanted the NFL to explain why it destroyed evidence of the New England Patriots cheating scandal, stating that he was concerned about the underlying facts on the taping, the reasons for the judgment on the limited penalties and, most of all, on the inexplicable destruction of the tapes.

This is from a Republican senator... Senator Specter, you are concerned about such things when it has to do with a football game? I mean, yes by all means, we have to hold these games above the accountability that your buddies in the Republican party have demonstrated while in power. After all the stakes are so much higher than say whether we as a country have illegally used torture such as water boarding against prisoners and the videos of that were destroyed. Football is maybe much more important to you then missing emails from the administration's deliberations to start a war on false pretenses, or information on the political firings of 8 U.S. Attorneys, or the leaking of a CIA operative's name. I think you are having a case of sour grapes maybe cause you had some money riding on the game or something. Same thing with the congressional investigation into doping in baseball. Is doping in sports disturbing? Yes. Is doping in sports wrong? Yes. Is it something that is so important that we should be spending time and money in the senate investigation? I don't think so. With all the other problems that we need to be sorting out, war, lies, stonewalling, illegal activities, missing emails and other missing evidence by upper administration members, wouldn't it be better to leave the sports problems to be settled out among the sports leagues and associations. Baseball is a multi billion dollar industry I think they could afford their own investigators, set their own regulations and enforce them without tax payers having to front the bill.

Update 3/13/08

I was maybe out of line somewhat on Arlen, it is noted that in the illegal wiretapping subject he wants to change defendant from the telecommunication companies to the government in the court cases now against the telecommunication companies for them going along with illegal requests by the government. I can see the logic to having the government as a defendant, I can understand how it is hard to refuse something the government is pushing you to do. I am not familiar with what effects that may have on any court case. It does seem like it's a rip to the tax payer to have to pay for the government's illegal actions of spying on tax payers. It would amount to the same thing as if someone stole something from a person and they sell it on the black market, spend the money they got from selling the stolen goods, and then we make the person that was ripped off have to pay the thief's fines and court costs. So maybe I'll reserve my praising Arlen for wanting to do that after all. To really be fair, if this was Bush's idea and he convinced the intelligence communities to take this route as a legal option, who in turn convinced the telecoms that this was legal request for information, Bush should be made the defendant and the one liable for any jail time or fines.

The System is Down

I really don't understand what's wrong with everyone. These last couple of terms that Bush has been in office have been just unbelievable as far as constitutional rights the American people have lost. Our current administration has pretty much done what ever they wanted, even as the shady deals they were doing were being reported on the television, the radio, newspapers, and the Internet. After the last presidential elections we find out that through trickery and deceit the republicans stolen the elections both by getting people (democrats) taken off lists of of eligible voters, and intimidating other whole groups of people who would have probably tended to vote for democrats. The American people got confusing ballots, voting machines that didn't work properly and didn't have paper records to give an accounting of votes made on them, people intercepting voters on the way to the polls to discourage certain demographic groups of people from voting, voting laws changed to favor one party over another, absentee votes not counted or taken into account. During the last election in places where the president campaigned for reelection, anyone known to be against his objectives and policies, people with signs, posters, or t-shirts, that did not agree with the president's views, or anyone that seemed like they would speak up against the president's policies were barred or removed from the area, arrested if necessary to keep them out of earshot, eyesight and keep their messages from being shown on cameras at his conventions. This was done to try to give the illusion of how well the president was doing, by showing that there was hardly anyone in opposition to the president. Once in power republicans banded together to pretty much rubber stamp any thing the president wanted. Information out now suggests that the administration has in the past encouraged torture, or at least turned a blind eye to it. People in the USA and in other countries were whisked off the streets and taken to third world countries secret prisons, where they do believe in torture and they have been locked up without any charges being brought against them or any contact with their families to even as much to let them know if they are dead or alive for years. We as a country are being forced to ride along with the Bush administration as it runs the good name of America down in the eyes of the other countries in the world. I think it's in Germany that US CIA agents are charged with picking up people on their streets and sending them away to secret prisons. As word gets out that the US used water boarding, a form of torture, our president Bush appears on our TVs and tells us, the United States doesn't torture prisoners. If I could ask Mr. Bush a question, it would be, just what do you classify torture as, when prisoners die? Even that wouldn't be truthful as there has been many prisoners that have died as a result of being captured by us and our "aggressive interrogations". There probably is and will be many more prisoners though that will be marred mentally forever from their ordeals of being a captured prisoner of the US. Many of these prisoners are innocent. How many movies and books have told the story of innocent people persecuted who go back for revenge against the people who wronged them? That's us, US that has wronged them. Could it be that we are breeding the next generation of terrorists? Speaking of terrorists, the Webster's Pocket Dictionary defines terrorism as n. violence committed to achieve a political end. It defines Terrorize vt. to terrify, especially by acts of violence; to intimidate through terrorism. Now didn't Bush with an arsenal of mostly lies and bent truths lead our country into war, without an act of congress and without the support of the United Nations, invade Iraq with their "Shock and Awe" attack, with the intentions of securing our oil interests, er I mean to save the Iraqi people and advance the ideology of democracy to the middle east? Couldn't that be an act of terrorism? What about the way that we are trying to advance democracy by bombing the hell out of places of resistance members that don't agree with our plans on how to run their country? Are we trying to Terrorize them into submission? At this point in time who are the terrorists? But wait, that's not all, there are missing emails from the White House that just seem to coincide with dates of the CIA agent's name being leaked and deliberations about going to war in Iraq, they just conveniently got taped over because they were reused. Or the video tapes that the CIA had, on the interrogations of prisoners thought to be conspirators of 9/11, that just happened not to get mentioned through multiple committee investigations and now we know about them, but it is after they have been destroyed. Children's health care, economy stimulus payments, the lists just go on and on. Why didn't the democrats start impeachment and criminal proceedings when they took over being the majority in office? Why do we let such a lying crook get away with all this? Like we started impeachment proceedings on Bill Clinton pretty much cause he couldn't keep his pecker in his pants, but someone who lies, obstructs the constitution, starts illegal wars, creates secret prisons, and whisks people out of their sovereign countries and the speaker of the house and our newly elected members of congress says impeachment is off the table. I think it is owed to the American people to put impeachment back on the table. Who in the government will stand up for our constitutional rights?

Forward

I am starting this blog to vent my frustrations, disbeliefs, and outright anger about our government, the audacity of its actions, the excuses it gives for these actions and the placidity of the masses to accept it all.