State of Nation speech 2010

Barak Obama’s state of the union address on Jan. 27, 2010 was long on words and short on viable solutions to the nation’s problems. The speech was poorly written. Obama stressed bi-partisanship proving that he had learned little over the past year about working with Republicans.
Those who expected to be disappointed with Obama’s proposals were disappointed. He proved that Winston Churchill’s observation that “You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they’ve exhausted all other possibilities,” still applies.
The president failed to identify the real problems and their causes. Some of his facts were wrong. He claimed the Bush Administration left a $3 trillion hole in the budget. In fact, it was $5 trillion. The billions Bush spent to eliminate the Clinton $200 billion per year surplus should be added in also. Obama pointed out that the solutions offered by the Republicans are the policies of the past eight years that were so disastrous. In fact, it was Republican practices since Ronald Reagan. The Republican response, nevertheless, trotted out those old failed policies as if they were new and untried.
There was little sign that Obama was ready to fight for any of his proposals. Apparently all of his rhetoric in Elyria, Ohio about fighting took all of the fight out of him. Instead he wound up his speech trying to shame the Republicans into working for someone other than their beloved corporations, but the all-white side of the isle was hanging no heads. He reminded them that security and American values are not mutually exclusive.
The president proposed a jobs program in areas such as high speed rail and clean energy. He also proposed a three-year freeze on government spending. He failed to mention the promised tax increases on the rich, a plan enacted under Bill Clinton that contributed to the prosperity of the 1990s, and four years of balanced budgets.
It’s not as if the current economic crisis is uncharted territory. We’ve been here before. We know what caused it. We know what worked to solve it. Why do our leaders pretend to be in the dark? From 1921 to 1933, the Republicans controlled every branch of the Federal Government. They implemented supply-side economics and deregulation and tumbled the country into The Great Depression. Massive government spending by Democrats beginning in 1933 came to the rescue until 1937 when caution led to a stall back into economic sluggishness. The Republicans under Reaganomics repeated their 1920s catastrophe. Why does Obama feel a need to make the same 1930s Democratic mistakes?
Obama still believes, or claims to believe, that the bank bailouts were necessary. If so, why did the financial institutions have record profits in 2009. He promised to slap the biggest banks on the wrists with a small fee. In this nation, only the poor are punished. If the banks can afford large bonuses, they can afford to pay back those loans, he claimed. But what about the trillions given to them by the Federal Reserve. Congress doesn't know the exact numbers because the Reserve refuses to provide them. The Federal Reserve seems to be beyond the reach of the law and and Congress. Yet, U.S. citizens are responsible for their debts.
Obama made promises to the nation to emphasize technology and science education and close the education gap with our commercial competitors. China, Germany and India are leading in this area, and the U.S. must do better to compete, he observed. Whoever leads the clean energy economy will lead the global economy, he predicted.
He would like to bypass the banks in the student loan process where they skim off a nice profit for themselves. Loan repayment amounts should not be more than 10% of the graduate’s annual income. Obama bemoaned the inferior products of our educational system. Of course, the wise approach would be to do what most other nations do, provide free higher education for all of those who perform well. That way talented children, rather than spoiled, borderline retarded rich children, get the degrees.
Obama began the speech claiming he has never been more hopeful about the nation’s future. If he could see the politicians from our perspective, he wouldn’t make that claim.
The president promised “Jobs would be the number one focus in 2010.” He added that companies that ship jobs overseas would lose their tax breaks. Thirty nine billion dollars will go to banks to make loans to small businesses and tax breaks to those that create jobs and increase wages.
Obama had a bag of goodies for students, small businesses, healthcare assistance, childcare and other constituencies, but he lacked the bold enterprises necessary to overcome the crisis. He is following the American tradition of trying everything else before doing the right thing. He will look for the uniquely American way which always is so elusive and doomed to failure.
The obligatory time was devoted to praising the humanity and high values of the American people. Even though these have never existed, all presidents must pretend they do.



The same old Republican speech:

The Republicans chose newly elected Virginia governor Bob McConnell to read the Republican response. The speech always is the same so they should just show a video of Ronald Reagan or Herbert Hoover reading it. McConnell wasn’t allowed to walk up to the podium after the Bobby Jindal fiasco that ended the sharp rise of the Louisiana governor’s presidential bid.
McConnell charged Obama and the Democrats with the obstructions the Republicans practiced over the past year. The Republican base never will catch on.
McConnell blamed the deficits and debts on the Obama Administration even though 92% of it was the consequence of Reaganomics. In fact, Republicans like Dick Cheney claimed Reagan proved that debt doesn’t matter. It’s only money we owe to ourselves, Reagan proclaimed.
McConnel now becomes the Republican golden boy, and leading candidate for the 2012 presidency. He has good hair, so he meets all the qualifications. If only he can keep his mistresses or boyfriends quiet until he moves into the White House, the Republicans might get another chance to rob fetuses.

Reagan rips off workers

Greider vs Geitner

As a former employee of the Social Security Administration, I was thrilled to see William Greider’s article “Looting Social Security” (The Nation, January 25, 2010). The massive surplus figures of $3 trillion are readily available, but the mainstream media seem unable to find them.
I would quarrel with the tendency to define Social Security as an entitlement. It’s the Federal Insurance Contribution Act (FICA). It’s an insurance program paid out of wages. Benefits are distributed according to the amount paid in and years worked.
A looting issue Greider didn’t address was the outright criminal theft from lower and middle class workers. Social Security is a flat tax, so deductions begin with the first dollar of wages each year. Deductions continue up to a ceiling. In 1981, when Ronald Reagan became president, that ceiling was $29,700. When Reagan left office it was $48,000. Today it is slightly over $100,000. When that ceiling is reached, which happens only for the richest Americans, it’s like receiving a huge tax cut. The exception is Medicare for which there is no wage ceiling. That deduction is about 1.5% plus a matching amount from the employer. Healthcare for our oldest, sickest, neediest citizens costs 3% of wages in the public sector. For the younger, healthier segments of society, it is 17% of GDP.
Reagan also increased the percentage of deductions by 25%. In effect, there was a 55% tax increase on lower and middle class workers. That is the largest tax increase in history. It also is the largest larceny in history. The mainstream media missed that one too.
The final turn of the knife is the interest paid on the bonds bought by surplus Social Security contributions. Reagan used the bond money to conceal the costs of tax cuts for the wealthy and a massive military buildup to spend the Soviet Union into the Stone Age. That interest plus the principle must be paid back out of income taxes. Part of a worker’s income taxes goes to replacing his own Social Security contributions.

Greider vs Geitner

Barak Obama used the verb “fight” more than a dozen times in his speech in Elyria, Ohio on Jan. 22, 2010. He vowed again and again to fight for the people against abuses, excesses and predatory practices of the big corporations in general and the financial institutions in particular.
Obama spent his first year in the White House proving that he is not a fighter. He bent over backwards and wasted most of the year trying to please Republicans who want nothing but his failure. He said he is not going to prosecute the two most evil criminals and mass murderers of the 21st Century, even though his oath of office requires him to do so.
If Obama is sincere about changing his ways and fighting for the people against the rogue, predatory corporations, Rahm Immanuel, Larry Summers and Timothy Geitner will no longer be in his administration by April 30, 2010. If they are, we will know that the candidate for change still has no intention of changing, or fighting.
Obama spent his first year proving that he is not a fighter. Like most Democrats, he is somewhere on the spectrum between a compromiser and a surrenderer. Will we get three more years of timidity and weakness? My bet is “yes.”

Republican Candidate Requirements

Due to rigid requirements, Republicans don’t have a viable candidate to run for president in 2012. The election of Scott Brown in the Massachusetts special election on Jan. 19, 2010, has produced a potential candidate. Below are the guidelines for this rarefied position:

1) Intellectually, must be a moron or higher.
2) English should be the primary language, but mastery of grammar is not mandatory. Most Americans consider someone who speaks correctly to be a smart aleck.
3) Ability to give speeches is not necessary. We have speech writers.
4) Ability to write legislation is not necessary. Lobbyists do that for us.
5) A thick shock of hair is a plus.
6) White skin is a plus.
7) Blue eyes are a plus.
8) Six feet tall or taller is a plus.
9) Ignorance of the Constitution is a plus. The Constitution confuses the Republican base.
10)Acts of adultery are excusable until age 45. That’s when Republicans pass into adulthood. We believe those are the two stages of life.
11)Fondling someone who is not your wife, as Bill Clinton did, is the worst crime imaginable. Groping women who are complete strangers, as Arnold Schwarzenegger does regularly, is just boys being boys.
12)Should have been born in the United States, but advocate adding Austria to that qualification. We need a backup candidate.
13)Be a Christian. It allows you to be a total asshole all of your life but get into heaven if you confess your sins before you die.
14)Contend that Ronald Reagan was the second coming. His likeness should be carved into Mt. Rushmore, replacing George Washington, so Republicans will have a holy place where they can go, pray, confess and condemn all those they hate.
15)Contend that the United States is the most noble nation that ever existed. Genocide of 10 million Indians, slavery until 1865, lynchings of over 5,000 negroes, the only nation ever to incinerate hundreds of thousands of people with nuclear weapons, notwithstanding.
16)Don't think. You will receive a fax each day with "talking points" you are to use no matter what question you are asked.

WCIU, The U / You and Me This Morning / Home / Dog Agility

WhyIt and Lydia in Agility class 1/14/2010

WCIU, The U / You and Me This Morning / Home / Dog Agility

Avatar's sole opponent

Steve Huntley, conservative columnist n the Chicago Sun Times, is the only person I know who didn’t like the movie “Avatar” (Op-ed Jan. 12, 2010). The primary reason, I would guess, is that his side lost. The advocates of greed, gluttony and aggression were unable to defeat a primitive people even though the invaders had vastly superior weapons. That happened in our war in Vietnam and is happening in our war in Afghanistan, so it is not a pie-in-the-sky ideal.
Secondly, Huntley didn’t understand many parts of the movie. When Jack Sulley fell hundreds of feet to the ground and got up unhurt like the cartoon character Wile E. Coyote, it’s because Pandora is a smaller planet and has less gravitational force. Consequently, the people also can be and are taller and slimmer.
The invading mercenary army, led by a corporate executive, represents a society where only property is sacred. They are willing to damage their environment, go to any expense and kill any number of people, including their own, to get a rare mineral.
The primitive natives, on the other hand, are in tune with their environment and each other and can interact as one entity similar to the synapses and neurons of the brain.
If Huntley believes “Avatar” is the worst movie of the year, it has to be the best.

Our real threats

Steve Huntley’s articles always are fascinating. His article “Take down Web jihadists, one way or another,” (Chicago Sun Times op-ed, Jan. 5, 2010) is typical. He begins the article condemning extra-judicial murders and ends the article advocating extra-judicial murders. He condemns using the mass media to spread hate and destruction, then uses the mass media to spread hate and destruction.
This ethical confusion is called cognitive dissonance and is typical of the majority of American minds. Moral contradiction was identified thousands of years ago. A Chinese proverb points our that we judge others by their acts and ourselves by our intentions. Jesus made a similar observation stating that there are some among us who can see the splinter in their neighbor’s eye but can’t see the log in their own eye.
Steve’s logs must have felled a forest. Steve is a statutory terrorist as are all Americans. The World Court convicted the U.S. of terrorism in the case The Republic of Nicaragua v the United States. When a nation is convicted of terrorism or other heinous crimes, that nation must punish the perpetrators which were Ronald Reagan and his Administration. If the nation does not administer the punishment, then all of its citizens are complicit, and in this case, terrorists.
Bin Laden never was convicted in any court. Abdulmutallab has not been convicted in any court. It’s questionable whether a convicted terrorist can bring terror charges against another person or persons. That’s very likely the reason for U.S. reluctance to try accused Muslims. Instead, it kidnaps and detains them in violation of everything American stands for.
Conservatives usually oppose rights and rule-of-law. They prefer frontier, lynch-mob justice. They want the government they claim can’t be trusted to act arbitrarily and hastily. They trust their impulse, hunch, visceral reaction and stimulus-response instincts. They have blind faith in their executive, and distrust judicial procedures that involve input from ordinary citizens.
Huntley, Bush, Cheney and their fellow terrorists have murdered over 1.3 million Iraqis, according to a John Hopkins‘ study. They murdered more Americans than were killed on 9/11 and subsequent al Qaeda attacks combined. They hope that screaming against terrorism will distract the world from noticing their far more horrendous acts of carnage. They point to the splinters and hope no one notices the avalanche of logs.
Our greatest threat is the Huntleys, Bushes, Cheneys and their collaborators in our own back yard.