Tales of a Modern-Day Cassandra with a Philosophy Fetish
The New York Times has been sending out so-called impeachment briefings every morning and evening. Tonight was no exception. At the end of the message they asked if there was anything we want to see.
I responded. Continue reading “Well, there it is…”
When I started writing online, way back in 2004, my blogging was a combination of minutiae designed to keep a then-deployed husband in the loop on day-to-day life at home. We were not quite to the end of W’s first term, but it was already clear to me what his election meant to the country, in terms of an erosion of civil liberty, of a dramatic (but by no means complete) shift to the right, and long term lasting damage to our reputation as a world leader by his creation of the USA Patriot Act.
In an ever-increasing feeling of depression and anger over last November, I’ve lashed out repeatedly at people who still seem to think that we are operating “business-as-usual” even in the face of abject corruption and cronyism not seen in decades in this country, going all the way back to the Gilded Age of the robber barons. Continue reading “I was off by a month. My bad.”
Back on September 26, I posted this on my FB feed, but clearly I didn’t address the issue here because I’ve been looking for supporting material and can’t find it.
So, now, we’re just shy of a month away from the actual election and it’s time to deal with the issue.
Civil Liberties
garyjohnson2012.com
I have been accused (inadvertently or not) of talking about only two candidates for President. There is only one other of the five still running for office who appears on all 50 state ballots, six weeks out from elections. That morning I woke up to a feature on NPR’s Morning Edition, highlighting Gary Johnson, the Libertarian candidate. Continue reading “Republicans in Libertarian clothing…”
I’m going to riff off the post I made earlier on FB, because it summarizes the problem we’re facing today. If you already read my post, feel free to share it. I’m following on from my last post, Connecting the Dots, Part 4, where you’ll find the current stats for the 2016 Primaries and Caucuses. Continue reading “And another thing…”
Social Security isn’t entitlement and it isn’t an open gift to the government. It’s my money, taken by force out of my paycheck starting with my very first job in 1983. The government thugs who raided the fund in the first place should repay what they stole or go to jail, just like any other thieves.
Yes, all of them.
But who are they? Are they even still here? Well, that’s an interesting question. It requires some major fishing into the dark depths of history. Head all the way back to 1983 with me. That’s where it started.
Maybe you weren’t paying attention. I was, because I was receiving Social Security benefits as a teenager, thanks to the disability and early death of my mother. And here’s where it all began. With Ronald Reagan.
But not really. Actually, it’s Alan Greenspan who did the dirty work here. Reagan just signed off on the bill. Like the boulder in Raiders of the Lost Ark, it’s going to crush all of us unless we figure out a way to get out of the way.
What follows is a bunch of link sausage. A lot of these links are thick with details that may seem unnecessary, but trust me, they build my case that this is, and has been, the whole goal of the GOP, ever since Reagan’s election. And with all that hindsight, it’s clear we’re getting screwed. And we’re not even getting the courtesy of a thank you or a payment for services rendered.
See, from my perspective, it started when Reagan decided that survivor benefits could be cut. First direct cut into my direct benefits as a college student. Forced me to get a student loan for my first year in college. Lucky for me, my grandfather was in a position to help with tuition, after he buried my mother.
From the first article, at FedSmith.com: Ronald Reagan and The Great Social Security Heist, some choice selections for the TL;DR crowd:
Instead of being a proud day for America, April 20, 1983, has become a day of shame. The Social Security Amendments of 1983 laid the foundation for 30-years of federal embezzlement of Social Security money in order to use the money to pay for wars, tax cuts and other government programs. The payroll tax hike of 1983 generated a total of $2.7 trillion in surplus Social Security revenue. This surplus revenue was supposed to be saved and invested in marketable U.S. Treasury bonds that would be held in the trust fund until the baby boomers began to retire in about 2010. But not one dime of that money went to Social Security.
…
The $2.7 trillion, which is alleged to be in the trust fund, was all spent for wars, tax cuts for the rich, and other government programs. If the money is repaid at some point in the future, we could say is was just “borrowed.” But no arrangements have been made to repay the money, and nobody in government is suggesting that the money should be repaid. So, if it is never repaid, the money will definitely have been stolen.
And that brings us to Iran-Contra, G.H.W. Bush, and Black Monday.
Black Monday? Yeah. Stock market crash. Under Reagan’s watch. Tied to a small oil problem with OPEC. Funny thing, the Bush family is deep into oil. So, we put an oil man in the White House.
And what happens then?
Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm.
Fortunately for us, Bush fails to gain a second term. We have eight years of Bill Clinton’s administration, where we try to gain back some of the momentum, but we overbalance, and suddenly the GOP take the House. Hello, Contract With America. Goodbye cooperation in the House and Senate. For good and all, it seems in hindsight. And hello to the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy.
Another bubble, and then Enron, and suddenly the SEC is all over accountability. Finger pointing…goes nowhere. To be sure, it’s a problem, but soon forgotten in the post-election sorting out, 9/11 and infighting that comes out of the election, which put G.W. Bush in office. And like magic, the solvency of the Social Security Fund was an issue.
Again.
NPR: Bush Questions Solvency of Social Security Trust
Now to be sure, I’ve skipped hundreds of small details to get to this point, but I wanted you to have some background. What follows is essentially link sausage, but it all points to one thing: The GOP want you to pull your money out of what ought to be a stable financial environment and trust THEM to keep your money for you while you age.
So if you want some stomach-churning reading material, click away.
The Huffington Post: 7 Ways The Bush Tax Cuts Wrecked The Economy
The Hill: Scrapping the Social Security payroll tax cap
This. This is what we are fighting in the government. Were you born before 1965?
You’re going to see the hit, unless you die of cancer or heart disease first. Which is entirely possible if the GOP get their way and make the death…I mean health industry private for everyone.
With an entire subsequent generation in jail or jobless, and wages that are virtually unchanged in 30 years, we are indeed in a pickle, but it’s one we could have avoided if we’d managed to keep the greedy bastards from getting their hands on that money. MY money. YOUR money.
This is a disaster that could have been avoided.
How? By stopping these people from bankrolling the deception and the lies.
The Atlantic: A Guide to the Billionaires Bankrolling the GOP Candidates
Chew on this: How much have you heard the big buzz that privatization of social security is the only way to save it?
What does that mean? Pushing everyone to purchase stock, either outright or in funds.
Have you been paying attention to Wall Street this week? In just two days, my teeny tiny IRA has lost a third of its value, on three stocks. I’m not sharing which because that info’s irrelevant. Suffice to say, if I’d tossed the money into an index fund, there’d be even less. I might as well have invested the entire amount in PowerBall lottery tickets.
Welcome to the latest bubble. Tied to the sudden drop of oil.
And thank your stars the GOP hasn’t yet gotten its way, because if they had, many of you who might depend on Social Security for at least some of your income could be SOL right now.
Buy low, huh? Yeah.
Daily Finance: With Oil Prices So Low, Are Oil Stocks a Good Investment?
So, how long do you think it will take for oil prices to rocket skyward if the GOP takes the White House? Four months? Two?
And in the meantime, I hope your retirement fund, that IRA or 401(K) of yours survives. Because without that and your precious Social Security and Medicaid, you, my friend, are screwed.
This is what’s at stake with the coming election. Bernie Sanders knows it. So does Elizabeth Warren.
Do you?
When I wrote this post back in 2012, just before the 2012 election, I was doing everything in my power to get the word out that we couldn’t elect Mitt Romney because he was backed by American Fascists.
Well, folks, here we go.
It’s been a while in coming, but now that we’re finally loading the starting gate, it’s time to start paying attention to the horses in this race.
Trust me: This one’s going to be winner-take- all, unless something really bad happens in the next year and a half. This is a prediction and it’s not going to come as any sort of surprise if you’ve paid any attention at all to the things I’ve posted since I launched this blog.
There are two sites (and their articles) that I think you need to read and bookmark. First up:
PolitiFact.com from the Tampa Bay Times (http://www.politifact.com/).
If you think a statement is too good to be true (or too likely), check it here. This non-partisan site will debunk the statement to the best of its ability. Start here before visiting Snopes.com for anything that’s on the political spectrum, and that includes what the press has to say on the subject.
And second:
This specific article, from Daily Kos: What Happens if the Tea Party Patriots ever Do “Take Their Country Back”?. This study is as complete a damning of every GOP candidate as you’ll find.
Don’t know what the John Birch Society is? Here: Wikipedia: John Birch Society
Can’t stand Daily Kos? Here: The New John Birch Society
You can do the research yourself, by following the links in the Wikipedia article. There’s a ton of footnotes and links to external sites from the main Wikipedia page. You need to understand about reading between the lines.
Understand: If you support the Tea Party, you are supporting the next US Civil War, because that is what the GOP wants. And if they don’t get their way in 2016 because we elected Hillary Clinton, they’ll try again in 2020. And in 2024.
Mark my words: If the GOP takes the White House in 2016, there will be no returning to Democracy. None. Not in your lifetime or your children’s. Every bleak concept introduced in The Handmaid’s Tale, in Nineteen Eighty-Four, in The Prince for that matter, that will be our reality.
If you think for one moment that we can’t have a world like we had during World War II, if you think it can’t happen here, you’re wrong. A Second American Civil War isn’t just science fiction fantasy.
Start your reading now. You have roughly nine months.
ol·i·gar·chy (noun ˈä-lə-ˌgär-kē, ˈō-; plural: ol·i·gar·chies)Full Definition of OLIGARCHY:1 : government by the few2 : a government in which a small group exercises control especially for corrupt and selfish purposes; also: a group exercising such control [emphasis mine]
On April 9, 2014, this report was released on Princeton University’s website, and it’s shaken up news reports all over the world. It might come as no surprise to you, dear reader, that I’m not shocked at all by the finding. In fact, I’ve been using the term for at least the last several years, to describe in various threads just exactly what our country has become. If you think we’ve somehow escaped notice, think again:
Defence Pakistan: US is an oligarchy not a democracy, says scientific study
UPI: The US is not a democracy but an oligarchy, study concludes
All of a sudden, this is news. Only it’s not news.
New York Times: Oligarchy, American Style (11/3/2011)
Mother Jones: How the Oligarchs Took America (12/2/2010)
Robert Reich’s film, Inequality For All, does a spectacular job of tying all the loose ends together to explain what happened to the U.S.A. over the last 30 years. I’ve written a lot about the symptoms in the last year and a half, but nothing connects them half as well as this simple, elegant movie.
Too many people spend their time repeating the talking points without understand the source of the platform. They trust the office without paying attention to the officer. They don’t know how to read between the lines because their education fails to explain that the subtext is just as important as the message. We got where we are today because the Republicans beat the Libertarians in 1980, and the Libertarians took a different path.
You can (and should) go back in this blog and read the articles I’ve posted on the Koch brothers, you can listen to the things Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert have to say (because comedy is the best source of truth these days), or you can analyze the political rhetoric that’s starting to hit for each of the Senate and House races this year, but the bottom line is, we have maybe two years to get our act together and do something about the GO(T)P.
They’ve got a lock on two of the four (yes, four) branches of government: The Supreme Court and the House. Without cooperation across the aisles, the Senate is barely holding on. Today, the Senate leans Democratic, but that’s not a given based on the 2014 election analysis.
If the Senate flips back to the GO(T)P, and we put another Republican in the office of President, we can write off our country. The poor will become modern-day serfs and the middle class will join them because that class is a modern myth. The combined branches will finally get to do what they always wanted – rewrite the Constitution with impunity.
The Presidency depends on having enough votes in key states – most of which are undergoing the same sort of voter crap that Florida’s done. We tip one or the other (senate or presidency) in the direction of the GOP, and what little remains of our safety nets will disappear completely. Want some practice at reading between the lines? Try these articles out for size:
Purge the rolls of Democrats, lean a little in the direction most conservatives think they need to go, or split the vote a little more with the splinter parties (Green or Socialist) and the GOP will have what they want: Total control of the US government. Once that happens, they can rewrite our constitution, revise the rules for who gets to vote. Can’t happen? We have three Supreme Court Justices who are on the edge of retirement, and the guessing game for who will retire first, and who will replace them, is heating up. Have a good look at the Tea Party line and platform and you’ll see the fundamentals of the Neo-Fascists who are presently armed to the teeth, thanks to the NRA.
We can still stop the madness, but it’s getting harder, not easier. I’d hoped the GOP was the party of the Old White Male, but that ignores the younger population who are moving in through the Tea Party. I recognize that the Democrats have issues, but the things they want to support – the Social Safety Net, universal health care, public education – will ALL go away if they lose. So like I said: We’ve got maybe two years to turn this around. We can’t wait until 2020. This election is important. The next one is critical.
And here we are, at the end of the first full week in January. That didn’t take nearly as long as I thought it would.
Koch-backed political coalition, designed to shield donors,
raised $400 million in 2012
“The political network spearheaded by conservative billionaires Charles and David Koch has expanded into a far-reaching operation of unrivaled complexity, built around a maze of groups that cloaks its donors, according to an analysis of new tax returns and other documents.”
It’s almost as if…as if…
But wait. That can’t be right. Can it?
Well, yeah, it can. And folks are finally starting to notice. It’s about time, after 30 years of Conservative howling about deregulation. 2014 promises to be a nasty, nasty year, if we can’t figure out how to force Corporate America to let our people go.
So here’s a preview. Watch what this year looks like, because with the mid-term elections, we’re still three years away from the real deal. The big question I have right now: How do we get rid of Citizens United so this nonsense stops for good? That’s an excellent question. Here’s what the Huffington Post has to say on the subject:
Well here. Let’s see how the Dark Money likes it when we get all uppity and try to make things better for ourselves. Wait. You mean we can’t? Whut?
Right. Because while corporations are people, my friend, people AREN’T corporations. And that, dear friends, is the sum total of what’s wrong with America right now. You heard it here…well…now, really. I’m just spreading the Word. It’s what I do.
You know, the more I think about this, the more I wonder. Is the President waiting for default to declare actual sedition against the members of the Tea Party and GOP who are pulling this stunt? They can try to impeach him if they want, but they don’t have the foolproof 2/3 majority they would need in the House anymore, and I imagine they’d be hard pressed to find Democrats who would back such a measure. Meanwhile, driving the country over the Debt Ceiling cliff could well be the seditious action required to arrest the key members who brought the country to its figurative knees over this.
Arguing about what sedition means, I found two links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sedition
and within that,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seditious_conspiracy
So, do we need to wait this out and see if the GOP pulls up? Is that why the Koch brothers have suddenly changed their tunes?
Might be a very good reason to backpedal, in public….
Trouble is, all you really have to do these days is follow the money. The New Yorker figured it out way back in August of 2010. It’s just not that hard to draw the lines between the dots.