Leadership Needed

Recently, I have made an effort to get more involved in political activities. This is a hard thing for me to do for a couple of reasons. First off, I am not an overtly social person in that I enjoy good conversation and the free exchange of ideas but have no interest in being bombarded with media minute facts from people who have already decided what they want to believe and are simply trying to find facts to justify it. Experience has shown me that it takes a great deal of patience to talk to someone like this and slowly but surely point out that they are missing some of the key points necessary to make informed decisions. In the instances where an actual discussion takes place I find this is almost always the outcome. In instances where someone is more interested in talking than listening it is not. As my dad used to say, some people are permanently stuck on Transmit and have no receiving function.

Second, what I value more than anything else is an open mind. In other words, every ideological bent that is deeply ingrained is more of a hindrance to understanding than a help. For this reason I believe that political parties are universally populated by people with less than an open mind to start with. I would also suggest that the more entrenched or active one becomes in a political party the more narrow and set in stone their views tend to become. While I realize this is not a universal truism it is a good gage with which to start basically knowing what to expect.
As anyone who has read my blog probably already knows, I am not a conservative by any stretch of anyone’s imagination. The readily apparent Republican bias for large corporate interests and right wing social issues is enough to make me sure I am not a Republican. My dilemma seems to be that I am equally unsure that I am a Democrat. The adage that you are “either with us, or against us” make work well when describing sporting events but it is a remarkably useless tool when trying to convince someone that they should adapt your views. Through my recent blogs and contacts that I have made in local political circles I have started to receive more and more email from Democratic Party sources. I suppose that anyone who reads my views on my blog or in fact talks to me in person can soon realize that I am opposed to most of the Republican Party platform as it exists now. However, it does not necessarily follow that I am in favor of that of the Democratic Party.


As a student of American history I am well aware of the vagaries of political parties and the platforms they have periodically put forth to support their position. The problem as I see it right now is that there is only one party in power. I would describe that party as the Corporate Interest party and from what I can tell it is holding all the cards right now which is exactly why we have swung so far to the right in this country. This party, which I believe started with Ronald Reagan, has steadily gained control over most of our political institutions in the last 30 years. It is rather ingenious that this party which actually only represents the wealthiest Americans in this country has also managed to convince much of the voting populace for the last 30 years that they have THEIR best interests in mind when they actually have done everything possible adopt legislation that effectively destroys the middle class. It is a classic bait and switch operation whereby they bring out the old standards of social programs that are perceived as thorns in the side of the working class every election without actually even addressing these programs once they are elected. A good example is the Tea Party which in my view is a bunch of well meaning middle class Americans who are mislead, misinformed, citizens who equate their home budget with the budget of the largest and most complicated economic system the world has ever seen. They are also absolutely convinced of their correctness; to the point of being zealously opposed to hearing facts that tend to point out their error. These people are actually being used by some of the wealthiest people in this country to get in office so that they can further advance their own narrow economic goals which can best be defined as “give me more money”.

Unfortunately, this Corporate Interest Party is also heavily invested in the Democratic Party as well. After all it was a Clinton led program that de-regulated the banking interests in this country and opened the floodgates to the recent economic disaster. Many of the top Democrats in Congress right now were a party to that particularly unfortunate piece of legislation, both in its formulation and adoption. It also seems that this is the most effective branch of the Democratic Party if one looks at the actual programs that get through Congress even in recent years when the Democratic Party has controlled Congress.


I believe there is a good reason for this. Outside of the Corporate Interest branch of the Democratic Party there presently is no core constituency that supports anything. A large segment of the Democratic Party today is composed of lots of special interest groups that have one main agenda that necessarily conflicts with those of the Republican Party. The problem is that all of these fringe groups have no common ground that they can agree amongst themselves to support. Effectively the Democratic Party has devolved into a combination of the same Corporate Interest groups that dominate the Republican Party and an array of special interest groups who only have in common their dislike of the Republican Party’s platform. This makes it impossible for them to govern effectively if they do happen to get into office because they immediately start arguing amongst themselves about issues that they didn’t agree on to start with. This leaves the only really effective arm of the Democratic Party the Corporate Interest branch of the party. In essence Corporate Interest wins no matter which party wins an election in this country.


In recent discussions with people within the Democratic Party it seems that the matter of raising money for the party is the main focus of much of their activity. While I realize this is one key to effectively combating Republican efforts along the same vein I am unconvinced that this is the issue Democrats should be focusing on. In my view, the Democratic Party needs new leadership. Running in opposition to Republican actions is not enough. Reacting to Republican actions is not enough. The Democratic Party needs a plan of action that is both detailed and comprehensive as to how to address the problems we have in this country. Unemployment, a stagnant economy, rising health care costs, and the deficit issue are all interrelated and we need to figure out how to deal with these issues. Effective leadership would propose solutions. The American public is starting to realize we have problems but they do not have leadership as to how to deal with them because most of these problems have been caused by a government that is bought and paid for by the Corporate Interests that are causing the problems and that group is deeply imbedded in both parties.


We need to restructure the tax codes to incentivize investment in industries that create jobs. As long as financial markets are the most lucrative way to make money that is where the wealth of this country will be invested whether it creates jobs or not. Republicans like to talk about “job creators” as a euphemism for the wealthiest Americans when the present reality is that profit maximization is most effective in markets that do not create jobs. Why not make them put their money where their mouth is and base the tax rate on employment opportunity? In other words, if you create jobs you get a break on your taxes. If you ship jobs overseas you pay a higher tax rate. The reality of the situation we find ourselves in is that most of America’s large corporations are making record profits while at the same time reducing jobs. The reason is simple. Under present conditions and existing tax codes investment in financial markets that do not create jobs is the most effective means of making more money. Until we change that fact the economy is not going to get better because we need to put people to work to get the economy going.


Instead of falling back on the idea of simply taxing the rich to increase revenue why aren’t Democrats explaining what they are going to do with the revenue. Americans know we need to change the way we do business in this country; they are simply waiting on someone to explain a viable way to do it. The basic flaw in the Reagan revolution was the destruction of our manufacturing base in favor of a service economy. Without the support of a good base of manufacturing jobs service industries are impossible to operate because they depend on people having money to spend to be profitable.


The next thing we have to do is to balance our trade deficit situation with China. China has been subsidizing their manufacturing industry for years by manipulating and artificially holding the value of their currency down and constructing trade barriers to our products. The source of our inability to effectively counter these policies can be traced to the fact that the same Corporate Interests who are controlling all facets of our government depend on money from China to invest in the same financial markets that caused the latest collapse to begin with. Not only do these interests refuse to allow government regulation of these markets they do not want to in any way upset the people who are helping finance the whole thing; the Chinese. If the main goal of American business is to maximize profits then we should just continue along the path we are on. However, we must take note of where that path leads; to ever higher unemployment in this country which means more widespread suffering amongst the middle class AND the inevitable increase of our deficit. Let no one fool you, the only way to cut social programs in this country presently is to quit paying the medical costs of the unemployed and cut back on programs that presently allow them to survive on the lower rungs of subsistence.


These are the kind of ideas that are needed to get us out of the situation we find ourselves in presently. Electing more representatives of the Corporate Interests in this country will not do anything to solve the problems and I am unwilling to invest time or money in ANY party that is devoid of actual solutions to the problem. We cannot logically expect the portion of the population who are profiting the most from the present situation to be the ones to change it. The fact is that it is not in business leader’s interest to change a situation wherein they are seeing record profits every year. There is a very disturbing tendency in both parties to insist upon electing business leaders as our government representatives. Conventional wisdom suggests these are the people best suited to bring us out of our current situation. I can think of no more erroneous and fundamentally flawed assumption than this. Business leaders who run Corporate Interests have been controlling our government since Reagan and we are now seeing the fruits of their labor; an ever growing destruction of the middle class combined with the redistribution of wealth into the pockets of these same leaders and their allies who are the wealthiest 1% of the nation. This is a truism that we once understood in this country. After the Great Depression there was a backlash against these same people for the destruction they had caused by their greed. This backlash led directly to policies that saw the great economic boom that put our country in the lead in the world economy. Allow me to quote from Adam Smith and his “Wealth of Nations” that is widely considered the first complete description of Capitalist theory as he describes this same Corporate Interest:


Merchants and master manufacturers are, in this order, the two classes of people who commonly employ the largest capitals, and who by their wealth draw to themselves the greatest share of public consideration. As during their whole lives they are engaged in plans and projects, they have frequently more acuteness of understanding than the greater part of country gentlemen. As their thoughts, however, are commonly exercised rather about the interest of their own particular branch of business, than about that of society, their judgment, even when given the greatest candor (which it has not been upon every occasion) is much more to be depended upon with regard to the former of those two objects than with regard to the latter. Their superiority over the country gentlemen is not so much in the knowledge of the public interest, as in their better knowledge of their own interest than he has of his. It is by superior knowledge of their own interest that they have frequently imposed upon his generosity, and persuaded him to give up both his own interest of that of the public, from a very simple but honest conviction that their interest, and not his, was the interest of the public. The interest of the dealers, however, in any particular branch of trade or manufactures, is always in some respects different from, and even opposite to, that of the public. To widen the market and to narrow the competition is always the interest of the dealers. To widen the market may frequently be agreeable enough to the interest of the public; but to narrow the competition must always be against it, and can serve only to enable the dealers, by raising their profits above what they naturally would be, to levy, for their own benefit, an absurd tax upon the rest of their fellow citizens. The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it.


Try and keep that in mind the next time you hear a Republican or a Democrat describing their fitness for public office by boasting about their business background.

Tea Party to the Rescue.....

I sometimes wonder if the Tea Party is more dangerous for the naive ignorance its supporters and candidates or the wholesale buying of elections that is currently underway by Corporate America under the guise of a grassroots movement. In either case it is abundantly clear that the Tea Party itself is actually a multi-headed organization that is being used as a tool to get out the vote for conservative ideas while at the same time disguising itself as a movement of the people. I am quite sure there are many people who are ardent supporters at the grass roots level but these people don’t even seem to realize who is pulling the strings and providing the money at the top. It is almost the perfect storm for political conservatives with the recent unfathomable ruling by the Supreme Court that corporations can take money from their operating coffers and put as much as they want into political campaigns aligning with this phantom movement that has no real leadership. I think we will see the results in the upcoming election in the form of even more corporate control of government policy which is after all the real goal to begin with.

While all of this is disturbing and somewhat depressing it isn’t exactly surprising. The recent economic collapse hurt a lot of mainstream Americans where they can feel it the most; in their pocketbook. It isn’t surprising that they would react with anger at the establishment that brought this about but it is a little surprising that these same people could be so naïve as to throw their support behind the party that caused it to happen in the first place through de-regulation of the banking industry and support of fiscal Ponzi schemes. Propaganda has always been a powerful tool and since Americans lost what was implicitly their ownership of the airwaves where most Americans get their news under the Telecommunications Act of 1996 without even noticing a takeover was in process it has become a reality in this country. No one should be surprised that the “Free Market” that news media outlets were clamoring for has turned into a monopoly since government regulations about who owns such outlets were abandoned. If you own all the media outlets you have a great deal of control over what kind of news they broadcast so there is little wonder that such a takeover was attempted but it is a little surprising that such an attempt was successful and it is even more surprising that more people don’t see the problems it is presently causing.

If that isn’t bad enough we now have evidence that TARP money that was given to financial concerns in this country is now being used to leverage political campaigns by these concerns. This would be comedic if it wasn’t so tragic. In other words, companies that CAUSED the economic collapse and were bailed out by taxpayers are now using taxpayer money to try to buy elections. I wonder how long after the elections it will be before they attack the recent regulations put in place to keep this from happening again. It doesn’t matter that the regulations themselves were toothless and didn’t go far enough to change the policies that caused the collapse; they are an irritant to the people who were stealing all the money and they will be done away with as soon as possible. Expect to see them high on the agenda of incoming Republicans.

In recent days as campaigns wind to a close we are seeing the effects of aligning ideals with fringe groups; groups that under normal circumstances are distanced from the central arena of political discourse. The Tea Party movement in its efforts to show numbers of supporters has done two things that are relatively dangerous in any political movement. They have heated up the rhetoric to a fever pitch while at the same time invoking imagery aimed at stirring up people’s anger at targets of their choosing. As a citizen of Alabama I am not a stranger to asinine and illogical fundamentalist religious rhetoric and its usage by corporate entities to support their real agenda but we are seeing it across the country this election and it is just as ugly there as it has always been here.

A candidate for the Senatorial seat in Alaska closely aligned with the Tea Party reacts to questions that bring into doubt his integrity by having para-military type private security forces handcuff a reporter and physically remove him from the event. It sounds strange but in reality it is even stranger than it sounds. The private security firm he hired, Drop Zone, is closely aligned with the Alaskan Militia which was founded by the Michigan Militia leader who was forced out of that state for his alignment with Timothy McVeigh of Oklahoma City fame. Miller, the candidate who hired Drop Zone, asserts that he was forced to hire private security because the function was on public property. Never mind that this excuse is complete and utter nonsense according to local officials, the hiring of Drop Zone actually corresponds with Miller’s decision that he is not going to answer any more personal questions for the remainder of the campaign. With his lead slipping in the polls and more and more evidence from his past coming to light that he is indeed nothing like he campaigns to be he decided that he just wasn’t going to answer such questions. It is his prerogative to decide what questions he will or will not answer but it is not his prerogative to decide to put people in handcuffs and physically remove them if they decide to ask them anyway. This is the same candidate who earlier responded to questions as to the veracity of the effectiveness of building a fence at the Mexican Border by responding that it worked pretty well in Berlin.

Perhaps he doesn’t understand the difference between keeping oppressed people in a country and keeping economically oppressed people out. In any case, he leaves out the fact that the wall itself didn’t keep people in Berlin, it was the machine guns and guards on top of it that were effective deterrents.

Mr. Miller's official response to the handcuffing incident was that the Drop Zone security people didn’t realize the man they handcuffed and restrained was a reporter. This leads one to believe that Mr. Miller believes such tactics would be acceptable if he was just a private citizen asking questions the candidate didn’t want to answer. While this would be perfectly acceptable behavior in East Germany where the wall Mr. Miller seems to have admired so much existed it isn’t acceptable in this country; at least not presently. That could all change after the Tea Party gets in power, especially if they continue to seek the support and muscle of groups like the Alaskan Militia.

Meanwhile, in Kentucky previous to a scheduled debate pitting the Tea Party candidate for Senate, Rand Paul, against his opponent there is a scuffle between a political activist from the Move on.org group and some of Mr. Paul’s supporters. It turns out that the activist was intent upon handing Mr. Paul a mock award for his achievement of vast economic support from corporate entities as he got out of his car at the event. Paul’s supporters, sensing something was up with the woman attempted to get the police to remove her from the scene. Unfortunately, the police officers happened to understand that the right to free speech trumps the innate sense of future embarrassment that Paul’s supporters seemed to possess so they declined to intervene. Maybe Paul’s supporters should have actually read one of those copies of the Constitution they are so proud of carrying in their back pockets before deciding to attack someone who might embarrass their candidate but that would assume they would take the time to read anything instead of letting Rush Limbaugh and Shaun Hannity pour half truths straight into their heads through their self anointed halos for many hours each day.

In any case, two of the more heroic Rand supporters ripped her wig off, forcibly tackled her and pinned her to the asphalt against the curb. Just to make sure she couldn’t utter something to embarass Mr. Paul while she was crammed into a fetal position with one man on top of her another man proceeded to put his foot on her neck and roughly stomp down on her. It was a perfect metaphor, the angry Tea Party advocate with his foot on the neck of someone with differing views. Unfortunately for Mr. Paul and his Tea Party supporters there happened to be a camera rolling at the time.

This is just the latest example of how Mr. Paul’s association with radical fringe elements has come around to embarrass him as there have been several others already. It is worth noting that the man who literally stomped on the woman to protect him from possible embarrassment is not exactly that much of a fringe element as far as Mr. Paul is concerned. He was in fact the head of Mr. Paul’s organizing committee in that part of Kentucky and a man Mr. Paul had proudly brandished the endorsement of previously. As it turns out, both he and the man who tackled the woman were senior officials in the Tea Party movement Mr. Paul is so proud to receive support from.

The man who infamously stomped the woman’s head into the concrete curb had several excuses for his actions. The first one was that he had tried to get the police to remove her before it “came to that.” Maybe he should have hired Drop Zone for security instead of trying to depend on the police who are actually familiar with the Constitution his party claims to be protecting. His second excuse was that it wasn’t as bad as it looked on camera and had a lot to do with the fact that he has a bad back. Presumably, if he hadn’t had a bad back he could have bent over far enough to punch her in the face or physically apply a gag in her mouth instead of having to rely on just stomping her head into the curb to keep her quiet.

Tea Party of the Religious Right?

Being unusually interested in the idea of government of the people, by the people I sometimes find myself drawn to movements who purport to express such sentiments. I would basically define my political leanings as moderate to libertarian, depending on which particular issue I happen to be pondering at the moment. I reserve the right to be proven wrong and jump at the chance to learn something new with the reservation that I don't like smoke being blown up my ass, no matter what particularly fine blend it might happen to be.

Recently I have noticed some excitement over a grassroots movement known as the Tea Party Movement. Portraying itself as a movement of the "we're mad as hell and not going to take it any more" type I have noticed it has a decided leaning to the right of the political spectrum judging by its loudest proponents but as it defines itself as a movement of the people I found the idea interesting. Anything that can stir the American public beyond its lethargy of an American Idol Dancing with the Stars induced coma could be a step in the right direction. Of course the original Tea Party which illegally dumped what in today’s terms would amount to some one million dollars worth of private property into the sea can be construed many ways depending on what perspective you have. Still, it is a little ironic that so many right wing conservatives with their mantra of private property rights would seize upon an incident whereby private property was randomly destroyed to make a political point as the fulcrum upon which to leverage their arguments.

On a recent edition of a local morning talk show that I sometimes listen to I was interested to hear two of the founders of the Tea Party Movement here in Huntsville discussing their movement. One of the basic tenets they were espousing that day had to do with trying to force candidates for office to stand on their principles. In other words, the representative of the group on the show was asking that politicians simply stand up for what they believe in rather than pander to whatever idea seems the most likely to get the most votes. I have long held the opinion that this would be a marked improvement over the way elections are currently carried out so I was interested to learn more about this movement. I was directed to their website to further my education about their purpose.

The website proposed that the purpose of the group was to promote their core principles in each and every level of government:

“fiscal responsibility, limited government, individual freedoms, and the free market system”

I found these principles to be much in line with most of my own core principles so I did a little more perusing of the website. It occurred to me that these principles are about as vague and general as one could possibly get but I liked them just the same. Still, I wonder if a group that is interested in getting a candidate for political office to stand up for his principles would accept these as a statement of his purposes. I decided that if the group was incredibly naïve and vacuous they probably would but most intelligent individuals would require more information about a candidate before deciding whether to throw their support his or her direction. Maybe there is a difference in a candidate and a political group as far as how specific they should be in espousing their principles but I suspect there probably shouldn’t be.

One of the sections of the Huntsville Tea Party website listed books that presumably would further the reader’s understandings of what the movement’s core principles are. After all, if I am being asked to contribute money and support to such a group I would like to know what I am contributing to in a little more detail than such a vague statement of values. An alarm bell went off when I saw some of the books on the recommended reading list. “Original Intent” and “America’s Godly Heritage” by David Barton were the first two that seemed to be noticeably out of place on a website considering “individual freedoms” to be one of their main tenets. I am pretty familiar with Mr. Barton and his ideology. Mr. Barton is founder of a movement known as “Wall Builders” which is dedicated to tearing down the wall between church and state in our constitutional government. His movement seeks to inculcate Christian ideology into our school systems through the means of historical revision and outright deception by numerous dubious and disproven claims among which one is how the Supreme Court has misquoted Jefferson in making its separation of church and state a part of our legal edifice. Mr. Barton himself claims that he received a message from God to study SAT scores and compare the decline in said scores with the removal of religious prayer in public schools. Evidently, God is punishing us for no longer praying in school by making morons out of our children. I presume all the locusts and frogs were too busy elsewhere or he was too busy causing earthquakes in Haiti to punish them for making deals with the devil to remove the French so he just decided to make our children stupid instead. Besides, it would be a more directly cause and affect relationship so that such brilliant oracles as Mr. Barton could more easily make the connection between the terribly devastating effect of removing prayer from school and the fact that our education system is failing. Forget all that stuff about more money and better teachers; just start praying in school again and we will instantaneously turn a failed system back into the shining example of education it was in the good old days.

As far back in history as you care to look you will be hard pressed to find many instances where conservative religious leaders have been champions of “personal freedoms” and it doesn’t appear that they are today either. Mr. Barton’s group lists their goals as follows:

WallBuilders' goal is to exert a direct and positive influence in government, education, and the family by (1) educating the nation concerning the Godly foundation of our country; (2) providing information to federal, state, and local officials as they develop public policies which reflect Biblical values; and (3) encouraging Christians to be involved in the civic arena.

I suppose this could be construed as championing personal freedom; provided of course you either don’t understand anything at all about what either term actually means or you are simply so ignorant of history that you never heard of inquisitions or dark ages.

The second author on the list is a man named H. L. (Bill) Richardson who is the founder of Gun Owners of America amongst other things. Mr. Richardson is an ex Senator from California who is also the author of “Slightly to the Right” which is somewhat of a conservative primer for taking on the Communists and Socialists amongst us. In June of 2009 he posted the following in a blog in response to a question as to what could be done to correct the political problems we have today:

“No matter what the response, I have to tell them anyway. Why? Because the Scripture tells me that if I know the answer, I should give them an ear full. In Ezekiel 3:18, the prophet Ezekiel was told to inform the people to shape up or else. The Lord commanded him to tell the impudent and stubborn children, both the good and the bad ones, to repent and ask for forgiveness. God told Ezekiel that if he didn't tell them, their blood was on his hands. What was good advice for Ezekiel was meant for all of us today. If we know and don't tell, the blood is on our hands as well.”

Presumably, this message was delivered from something less than a burning bush but with no less authority. Mr. Richardson later in the same blog goes on to describe Darwin as “thoroughly discredited and debunked my modern science, logic and time.” I would surmise that he is also a proponent of the same “intelligent design” theories that Mr. Barton is pushing so hard to have inserted into our public school system. Once again, an agenda that seems somehow diametrically opposed to the core belief of “personal freedom”.

I was concerned to find such rabid Bible thumpers on the Tea Parties recommended reading site but more concerned that the group itself couldn’t seem to recognize the disparity between what they say they promote and the thoughts contained in their recommended reading section so I contacted the local leader of the group via email to point out these discrepancies. This leader was kind enough to respond to my email with an email that included the following:

“The purpose of the Huntsville Tea Party is not at all to promote specific religious agenda. It is to teach, promote, and secure our core principles: limited govt, fiscal responsibility, individual rights, and free market.”

She explained that she hadn’t actually read any of these books but the “core leadership” of the group recommended them. Because this seems to be very much where I started in researching their site I responded by asking how it is possible to promote such an agenda while simultaneously recommending literature which is diametrically opposed to one of these basic principles. I have yet to receive a reply to my last question but I will be glad to pass it on when I do.

It seems that the Huntsville Tea Party is pretty good at saying one thing while simultaneously doing something else. Maybe they should run for office. No wait… I have a better idea; they shouldn’t actually run for office or put an agenda out there so that everyone knows what they stand for because they could easily gain more power by simply telling everyone else who to vote for while simultaneously hiding their own agenda.