Proud of Racism

We, as human beings who live in this country, the United States of America, many of us anyway, keep thinking we are past racism. It's been an ugly blot on the history we claim is so pristine and pure. It's not just blacks we have misused but Native Americans (too weak to hold their land from our thefts, wars, and manipulations), Chinese (yes, do our hard labor but then go home and abusing you is okay because not fully human are you?), Hispanics (ditto to both of above), and many others.

This kind of nature is not unique to Americans but aren't we supposed to be the ones who showed the way? Isn't that what we tell ourselves?

The greatest disgrace here or in any culture is that of slavery and the aftermath of which we in the US are still living today. Does affirmative action help when the attitude is of the heart? Well it at least gets doors open that some would slam closed. But then that self-righteous bunch claim it meant people like Condoleeza Rice weren't really that smart (ignore evidence to the contrary as that's what racists do).

Trump claimed how proud he was that he was able to get Obama to release his long-form birth certificate as though he had made a great accomplishment. Oh he did all right. He brought to light something that usually has been shoved under rocks. He's made it seem respectable to other bigots. Trump is so ignorant that he can't see that he showed his own bigotry in bright shiny letters. The pride that he said he felt should have been in his arrogance and ignorance of which he has plenty.

So he accomplished that but he can't rest until he shows the level to which he has sunk. You know the old joke we already know what you are, we're just debating how low you will go. He's illustrating it.

Now he's onto college scores and who gains admittance into a university. He hit on an earlier hot button racist resentment and now comes another-- affirmative action.

Clearly, he is trying to claim, it should not have been Obama or his ilk. What Trump wants is a world where people like G.W. Bush get into college based on their ancestry or people like Trump's children who should be allowed to buy their way in.

Diversity is an ugly word to those folks. The idea that colleges might take into account grades, civic accomplishments, ethnicity, parts of the country, lifestyle, all of those as factors, that's not good. Money is the valid way to determine it all.

Trump, and he knows those who hang on his words, does not want a world where someone like Obama can get into a good university at all. It works so well when it's all to the rich go the spoils, doesn't it? I mean look at Bush who got in based on mediocre scores, continued to do the same thing at university, and then bragged about it all after he became president which again came to him through parentage.

Obama, whatever his high school scores were, graduated magna cum laude. That is not given to anybody based on race. That means graduating with high marks and praise. He also was editor of the Harvard Law Review which once again isn't handed to people. He went onto a career he earned for himself which is something neither Trump nor his children can claim.

Noblesse oblige is a word Trump should look up. Too bad people like him don't remember or never knew what it meant. It seems for only a few, of our extremely wealthy people today, do they feel a sense of obligation to give back for what they have been blessed. Too few...

What Trump has done and the others like him is remind this country of how far we have to go to reach a point where people like them don't get the microphone. Where we treat them with the disdain they deserve.

This week I watched The Patriot again. It's a good film actually starring Mel Gibson about the Revolutionary War and the high cost of what that war cost some individuals and families. War is horrifying and fortunately this was one of the films that portrayed that strongly which is to Gibson's credit. There was also a subtle reminder in it of the huge mistake we made back then.

The hero, Gibson's character, used black, freed laborers on his farm. They worked for him by choice and he owned no human. But the country as a whole had not done that and when the war was over, when the new country was formed, the slaves remained what they had been even in the home of those like Thomas Jefferson.

What would our country be like today if slavery had been abolished right then and there, if there had never been a need for a Civil War? A lot of Americans back then didn't have the advantage of schooling. If slavery had been ended by our founding fathers, we'd have begun here on equal standing (other than that wealthy class who always start with an advantage from the time they are born).

It's hard to imagine what we might be like today if that had happened because bigotry and greed ruled the decision back then. Their kind couldn't handle freedom. Slave labor was needed to make this country prosperous. It was an opportunity lost.

It took another hundred years for a war to settle the slavery issue, then a hundred more to get civil rights laws enacted, and here we are fifty years later when we can watch a megalomaniac like Trump be given a microphone and say what he did without being booed by the country as a whole. It says we haven't come all that far when a black president must prove to over half the Republicans that he was born in the United States. It is enough to make a caring person cry.

It never works

So Obama gave up in showing his long form birth certificate, something no white president has ever been asked to do. He did it to get the conversation back on the issues and because so many Americans are stupid.

I think he did the correct thing but it is infuriating to me and I'll bet to him that he had to do this and why? Because he's a half black man. It had become an issue that was distracting from those that mattered with the smug and ugly Mr. Trump constantly beating the drum to gain his own popularity (it works so expect more to follow that path).

What won't work is showing the long form. They, the racists and bigots, will claim it's a forgery. The ignorant Mr. Trump, with the icky hair, has already claimed it should be inspected. By whom? Why Mr. Trump himself doubtless as he has taken credit for it being shown and is already onto the next accusation that Columbia University let Obama in when they should not have.

Doubtless the plot to make Obama president went way back. The idea that more than grades are taken into account for admittance to universities, forget that one. What does the Donald know about any of that.

What the Donald knows is manipulation and exploitation and dishonesty is fine with his game. He has already convinced a large percentage of gullible Republicans that all they really want is a multimillionaire who can make a lot of money, live like a king, has no sense of personal taste, and doesn't mind cheating people. He bragged about that with Gaddafi.

I don't doubt Obama is angry right now and it showed up in an interview where he chided a Texas reporter for never letting him finish an answer. That's what O'Reilly did also. Do these interviewers do this as a way to show their disrespect for him due to his race? Respect the presidency-- not anymore. If Obama didn't resent being disrespected and say as much, they'd call him milquetoast and if he does, he's out of line. He cannot win with a certain percentage of our population; and the sooner he figures that out, the better for the rest of us.

A genuine conservative would run against Obama on the issues. There are plenty to choose between where we have real differences on what should be done in the country. What we are getting from the right currently are pretenders. They are ignorant about history and will use anything to win. The Donald is at the top of that list but only at the moment. I have faith they can dig deeper. They always do!

Matt Taibbi is my hero

Although I usually like to write something when I post a link, there are exceptions, where the writer of the link has said it so perfectly that I don't have a thing to add. This is the way it is with Matt Taibbi all the time.

I don't have Taibbi linked alongside here because the link ended up taking people to Rolling Stone articles, the most recently posted, and it wasn't always political. I do recommend everybody bookmark him as I do and regularly read his blog at Rolling Stone. He calls it like it is-- whichever party is behind it. In this case, the link is to his last article but hit the first link tere for his research on the real housewives of Wall Street. Always nice to know where our money is going.

Matt Taibbi-- Republicans are only too happy to spend on the rich

Economic Justice and expenses of governing

Continuing on the subject of economic justice, check out this link which I saw at [Projections]:

9 things the rich don't want you to know about taxes

The lies from the right support a system of economic justice that hurts the majority of Americans but most Americans don't know and believe what they are fed by the mouthpieces of the right.

Another blog I read regularly, [Can it Happen Here?], had several interesting charts on spending to let citizens see how much of the budget is currently about different kinds or programs.

The issue here has to also be whether we are paying just our share of the military expenses for the world. Does the world even appreciate what we do or is this all for the military industrial complex that Eisenhower warned us about?


Can we continue to bear the burden we currently do and have any level or prosperity at home? For those who resent the poor so much, they seem to not mind military expenses at all. They don't even want those looked at. Bush didn't even count the cost of the two wars into the budget.

Ignoring the biggest part of your spending is a good way to head toward bankruptcy. The same people who resent welfare programs likely supported our efforts in Libya. Right or wrong to go there, how do you pay for it? The right hasn't worried about that as they know they can just pass it on down the road as a way to end social programs.


Incidentally you might notice I am not discussing Obama's speech on economics. There is a reason. I am not sure whether his rhetoric will be matched by his actions. With him, it's a wait and see kind of approach that I take. The speech sounded good if a little naive to think that most Americans want a nation of social and economic fairness. For some Americans, their definition of economic justice is protecting what they already have and growing it. Concern for others is kind of a big pffft! I am not sure how big a piece of a pie chart that percentage would be,

Economic Justice

When I use a term like economic justice, the far right comes unglued and immediately sees communist warning flags and a Hitler wantabe (how that one comes up, I don't know but it does. Maybe it's because they don't know much about what Hitler did but just that he was bad and that's enough). The very thought of discussing economic justice has their hair on end.

Well tell me what something like this tells you about the economic situation in our country?

Top One Percent

Basically the top one percent has the power, the money and most of the material goods in our country. They have five members on the Supreme Court, and control of one of the country's major parties with a fair number they more or less control in the other one also. Obama seems to feel he must move toward them if he wants to have a second term which doesn't bode well for the middle.

Corporate interests can now donate any amount they want to any candidate with no questions asked as they are considered to be the same as any other voter. Interestingly Justice Roberts, writing for the majority when they knocked down Arizona's campaign finance law, said basically that for the state to match the funds for the opposing candidates that say a wealthy man/woman had given, would take away that wealthy person's freedom of speech. Scratch your head over that one!

Did you read Suzy Orman, the financial something or other, suggesting that for most people renting is better than owning? It means give it up people. They have most of it and want the rest. You can be a sharecropper-- at best. What those people want is a feudal system and that is their definition of economic justice. Clearly there is never enough money for some people.

Now why would the majority in a culture support the top 1% having all the money, all the power, all the benefits? Why would ordinary people actually fight for tax cuts for the wealthiest? Think about it. Right now there wouldn't be all the concern over paying for Medicare and Medicaid, over helping the poor with heating, with all the reasonable social programs in this country IF they had not extended the tax cuts for those who have incomes (this is after deductions remember) of over $250,000. IF they had not started two wars they didn't want to pay for, the poor wouldn't be threatened this way. This isn't about the poor but they are bound and determined to convince Americans it is.

Some say it's for the benefit of small business that they fought for those tax cuts. No, it's not. Small businesses have many deductions and in the end if they are having a net income of over $250,000, they can afford to pay that extra 2 or 3% which is only on that part over $250,000 anyway. The question has been raised-- it wouldn't be enough to do that, the problem is bigger. Fine but it's a start. Statistically is doesn't work out to be a help; so why not do it?

I have read one theory, on the resistance in the right to doing this, that ordinary folks think they'll be rich someday; so out of selfishness, they are protecting the interests of the wealthy. Well given the rate of inflation (which is soooo hidden and so dominant a factor for the value of dollars), they might get those dollars all right, but it won't mean much when they do. It's lucky most people don't carry around cash anymore and use debit cards because the amount of cash you'd have to carry is expanding rapidly.

Another reason the middle supports this economic imbalance is religious. They have a favorite cause like fear of gays having normal family lives or of a woman being able to decide for herself whether to have an abortion. On figuring out the secular voices supporting more and more for the richest, I give up as it makes no real sense to me. I do understand those on religious grounds but I wish they'd use their head and especially Christians remember who it was they claim they follow.

Why is the concept of economic justice so controversial? I think some is because people really haven't thought what it means. They have a fear it means giving most of what they have now to someone else. They see it as about social programs for the poor. It actually is not the case. In a system of economic injustice, which more and more we have, you could have programs that give pittances to the poor to keep them from revolting.

I think economic justice is more establishing a level playing field, having an environment where everyone has a chance to earn a living, where jobs are available and at a wage that provides basic living expenses, where living conditions are not intolerable for anybody, and where businesses are encouraged to reinvest in their inventory and hire more employees as their profits rise.

I have to think also that, at least for me, a world of economic justice would not have the poor on the streets or people starving. Is there really joy for people with a lot of money when they know some cannot afford the basics of life? How long can they convince themselves that those children deserve to starve? Economic justice to me is about jobs and fairness.

So I'd be interested in hearing what others think economic justice means. The great mystics, those who have gone beyond living in caves and have come back out to look at human lives, they generally support economic justice. It makes sense even for the rich but when greed takes over a country, logic and sense aren't factors anymore.

How can it be better for the rich to have a group of people with less and less education, less and less ability to support themselves and more reason to attack others as they have no concept of morality taught to them? How can it be fun to have so much when you know others are suffering?

Economic justice means that when you do a job, you get a fair wage for the work. It means that you don't have some work (CEOs for instance) valued thousands of times over what others receive when all jobs are needed.

When so many of our manufacturing jobs were shipped overseas, where they can be done cheaper, the elites in this country didn't have to worry about economic justice anymore. They just had to worry about whether to get that fourth home in the Hamptons or Cape Cod.

We are heading for a feudal system as the rich have convinced the rest of us that their way is the best. So government cannot do anything better than the private sector. Convenient for them if people buy into that, isn't it?

What this all means is the next generation won't be able to rise up as was possible for my generation. People will be locked into caste systems based on no way to get educations or training if there were even jobs to do. They won't be able to get an education as this bunch is doing all they can to end public education. They won't have the infrastructure to support doing anything but slave labor. They won't have the investment in research, none of the things that got us where we were when the downturn began thirty years ago.

Economic justice is about everybody who has the strength to work being able to find jobs and at wages that enable their families to live.It means one bunch don't take it all even though, and this happens too often, those taking it have been contributing nothing to the culture.

This is a matter of Christianity. Try what Jesus said about it in: Matthew 20:1-16. Some try to spiritualize this to a meaning other than what he literally said. Why can't it be both?

It's in Judaism: "Speak up, judge righteously, champion the poor and the needy," King Solomon in Proverbs. "You shall not abuse a needy and destitute laborer but you must pay him his wages on the same day, for he is needy and urgently depends on it." Moses in the Torah

Economic justice doesn't mean there will be no poor, but it means the system is not weighted to take more and more for one group as a way to enrich themselves off the sweat of another.

Free Trade

While I am researching and thinking more about what I feel regarding economic justice, I thought this was an interesting look at what one economist thinks many other economists have gotten wrong regarding free trade.

The theory that's killing our economy

Do people in power, those who could seriously look at something like this, do they really ever think beyond party doctrine? Do they make up their mind and then simply spend their time defending their previous opinions?

How I think we got here

When we, meaning the left wing, in 2000-2006 saw the right wing, with control of three branches of government (Presidency, House and Senate), enter into a war with Iraq without paying for it, and when we saw them pass tax cuts that weren't paid for, many of us wondered what on earth were they thinking. Nobody can have things for which they don't pay.

Well if we wondered why they did it, we know now. It's an amazingly sneaky and underhanded plan that they have been following. It's not new nor unique to the United States. Read Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine for how well it has worked over and over again throughout the world. We are seeing it play out again this week with Congress.

These people wanted to get the country into a panic mode so they could do what they have wanted all along which means cut and then pretty much end all social programs. Safety net? Fergetaboutit! I don't think many of us guessed their agenda was even destroying public education-- that just seemed so self-destructive to a nation. Back then we thought, that while we might not agree on how to get there, we all want the same basic things, and what were those things?

Well, I'd say a country that had jobs for its citizens, jobs that enabled them to live in a home of their own whether that meant rented or purchased. We believed all of us cared about the poorest among us, that we wanted real programs to help such people get back on their feet, and if they could not, that they didn't have to freeze to death or starve.

We thought everybody cared that we can all have doctors to go to when we get sick. Who could have dreamed someone would want a baby who had epilepsy to not have treatment for the seizures unless her parents had health insurance and pretty good health insurance?

We were so dumb. We really believed everybody valued clean air and water. We thought people wanted their food to be inspected to make sure when they bought something it would be safe to eat. We thought they wanted safe banks in which to put their money. We thought an education system that gave us workers who could do the jobs that would be there, that was important, universities that let in the rich and the poor. It was the equalizer.

Basically I think we assumed everybody understood that stupid saying that you can manage your money better than the government was not only ignorant but totally off the mark. Reality is we cannot all go out and inspect a bridge or build a freeway. We have to pay someone else to do it and the government has been that someone else for many things. Government is us united together and it can do what we cannot. We favored taxes because we knew they paid for things like our military and protection of our borders as well as enriching our culture.

Infrastructure was part of how we as a people could grow businesses and ensure safety of our citizens. Investing in new technology kept our country ahead of the game and that wasn't happening mainly through industry but often through university grants. We thought we all knew, because we'd gone through the age of the robber barons, that some people had to be regulated or they'd keep taking and taking.

Naive as hell is what that was as we have since learned through their actions that the right wing doesn't want any of that. They couldn't. It hasn't been honest enough though to go at it straight forward and try to convince the citizens they don't care about the poor, don't care if the elderly end up in poor houses (if this bunch is even willing to fund such as that) nor do they want public education. They set out very underhandedly to end those programs not by convincing Americans of their lack of value but by spending, spending, and knowing that the day would come there not be money for any programs for anything other than blowing people up.

So here we are with a group wanting to be mercenaries of the world, a group who don't give a damn about the old or the sick. They barely understand how entitlements work but what they do know is they don't want anything for anybody except themselves in the way of government programs, and they barely understand that some of those programs have been for them. Clueless is what they are about what entitlements mean. They have used a religion as their hammer, forgetting what the religion even taught. Here's where we are when discussing the very topic of economic justice is considered fascism with no clue by those using the word what it even means.

Whenever I think about any of this, I am so mad I could spit. Before GW Bush got in office, we were affording the social programs we had. We even had Medicare in a working format and what did he do to ruin that? He put in a drug benefit that was unfunded and enough to screw the whole system. One more instance of creating a shock to get through what they wanted done.

Incidentally all that the federal government had to do to keep drug costs down was let Americans (or even just seniors) buy their drugs from other countries through the Internet-- using that thing they call competition that capitalists are supposed to like. One simple solution but that wouldn't make American drug companies happy, would it?

I am angry at the right and the left-- the left for being either naive or in on it and trying to hide behind the guise of helplessness. I am mad at myself for not realizing how underhanded some people can be. Why do we always want to think the best of others? It so often proves to be a mistake!

Next blog follows through with this to ask the question-- what is economic justice? I will enjoy a real discussion on this if we can manage it. Ideally without getting into the two parties but just the concept of economic justice. Does it matter? It is a philosophical concern for a nation? In my opinion, if we don't think in terms of our guiding philosophies as a people, we will be run like sheep and believe me that's not a flattering image. Know what you believe in and hold the line on it without letting the 'shock doctrine people' rule the day.

from Oregon's senator

I had planned to write a blog for here on a subject I've been thinking a lot about-- economic justice. It's not hard to see why I'd be thinking about this with Paul Ryan being praised for his own idea of what that means-- give the rich more money and take more from seniors for their health care. Oh they're clever to not start it for the current batch of elders. Wait for those under 55 to get up there and show them what they will get-- the shaft. Definitely Ryan's plan, and that of many other Republicans and maybe even Obama, is helpful for the rich but not sure about anybody else.

Anyway I got this in my email from our senator and thought it would be better put out now and my thoughts will come later. The ... oh wait, I almost started writing mine. Here is Senator Jeff Merkley's take on what's going on--

*****************************

For months now, the House Republicans - led by Budget Committee chairman Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) - have been promising a bold, new plan to cut the deficit.

After much anticipation, Rep. Ryan released his plan today. But it's hardly a bold, new plan. Instead, Ryan's plan is a rehash of the same old failed ideas they've been touting for years.

What's the Republican solution to our budget crisis? More tax cuts for the wealthy and big multinational corporations; attacks on our teachers, firefighters, and other public servants; and announced today, a plan to end Medicare and give our seniors coupons for private health insurance.

Unbelievable.

Make no mistake: No one is going to kill Medicare on my watch. We're not going to go back to the days when many of America's seniors were living in destitute poverty without access to health care. We've made a solemn commitment to our seniors, and we're not going to break that promise.

So, how do we bring down the deficit?

• End the exclusive tax breaks available only to millionaires and billionaires.
  
  
• End the subsidies for the highly-profitable oil and gas industries.
  
  
• Bring the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to a responsible end.
  
  
• Get our economy back on track - by investing in education and clean energy technology, boosting manufacturing, and keeping families in their homes by fixing the broken housing market.

Public opinion has begun to turn against the Republicans' radical ideas - and you can help me tell the truth about the Republican plan, and our better ideas. I hope you'll share this email with your friends, join me on Facebook or Twitter, and stand up for a future that brings America together, instead of tears us apart.

The Tea Party-- you know, the real one

If you thought you knew the true story of what was behind the Boston Tea Party, please check out this link from Thom Hartmann reading from a very old book on a first hand account of the event. It is a YouTube and also can be found through YouTube and other sources.

History is our protection especially in a time of lies and shallow knowledge about anything. People use symbolisms but half the time they have no idea of what is behind them. We better be sure we do.

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