DON'T DARE CUT MEDICARE!!

BEFORE TRIMMING THE BLOATED DEFENSE BUDGET

What is happening today in Washington is so predictable, it is sad. Nothing changes! Elections come and go. One party wins decisively, but as they did in Ancient Rome, the Optimates (read plutocrats, oligarchs, modern Republicans) are making a sneak end-run around the Populares (progressives, liberals, etc.) as they have since time immemorial to get their way. The end run is an attempt to get the administration to cut our admittedly skimpy entitlements and social safety net (one of the weakest and least effective in the modern industrialized world) while protecting the bloated, massive military budget (the largest in the world) from cuts. These reactionary forces plan to undermine a weak necessary program in deference to military expenditures which actually need trimming down from spending levels presently higher than what they were during the Cold War. We now spend on our military ( in equal dollars) more than what we had spent during the Cold War when we actually had a serious military threat--not the leather-sandaled, rag-headed local insurgency presently arrayed against us in ever-diminishings numbers.

The most recent example of this attempt to foist the burden to the poor and middle class is the Republican post-election push to balance the budget and overturn the sequester act that would force an approximately ten percent cut across the board on the budget--and an equal amount on both defense and non defense spending. The powerful defense contractors--those companies infamous for having historically overcharged the US for military material and services since the Revolutionary War--have run to their friends in the military and Congress. As the time nears for a decision they shout into the ears of their paid lobbyists, Senators and Congressman. "NO CUTS TO DEFENSE SPENDING!!!". Unfortunately, the recipients of Medicare, and Medicaid have no comparable powerful voice to support their cause (except for a few, hoary and courageous souls like Sen. Bernie Sanders from Vermont). What these "Optimates" are attempting is to satisfy their financial supporters in the industry and their own voter-rejected ideology. The defense they are interested in the the defense of military contractor profits.

Way back in May 10th of this year, Dean Baker, (US News and World Report, "Defense Budget is Mismanaged") who is no progressive himself, but a co-director of Center For Economic Progress, who has worked for the World Bank, and authored: "The End of Loser Liberalism". Baker had this to say about what the Republicans are up to. "The Republican budget proposals are designed to save the defense contractors profits not the defense of the nation." Baker poses this question: "Should we cut cancer research to pay for more bombers? This is the agenda of many Republicans, as we start to get closer to the date where the sequestration rules from a 2011 budget agreement will actually bite. The deal was structured so that the immediate budget cuts were limited. The big hit was scheduled to take place in January 2013. At that point, spending on both the military and discretionary portion of the federal budget were scheduled to fall by roughly 10 percent."

Baker notes that even if the "drastic " ten percent cuts the sequestration would impose on the Defense Department went into place, military spending will continue to be 20% HIGHER, in 2013, than it was back in 2000.

But some will say that cutting the admittedly bloated defense budget can not fix the economy because defense spending is just another form of "jobs program". That is true, but dollars spent on defense generate fewer jobs-per-expended-dollar than almost any other government spending. Investment in education for one, produces more jobs per dollar spent. (According to a University of Massachusetts at Amherst study, education spending produces almost three times the number of jobs per dollar spent compared to military spending.) Therefore cutting defense spending could actually help the jobs problem by moving funds from less "jobs incentive" defense expenditures into spending which actually produces more jobs per dollar spent.

In August 3, 2011, Fareed Zakaria wrote a Washington Post opinion piece concerning the sequester legislation and the possibility of a $60 to $70 billion dollar annual cut to defense spending, in which he concludes..."let the guillotine fall".

To support his contention Mr. Zakaria offered a concise history of our burgeoning defense spending. He states: "First, some history. The Pentagon’s budget has risen for 13 years, which is unprecedented. Between 2001 and 2009, overall spending on defense rose from $412 billion to $699 billion, a 70 percent increase, which is larger than in any comparable period since the Korean War. Including the supplementary spending on Iraq and Afghanistan, we spent $250 billion more than average U.S. defense expenditures during the Cold War — a time when the Soviet, Chinese and Eastern European militaries were arrayed against the United States and its allies. Over the past decade, when we had no serious national adversaries, U.S. defense spending has gone from about a third of total worldwide defense spending to 50 percent. In other words, we spend more on defense than the planet’s remaining countries put together.

Therefore, our best and the most just course forward seems to be this: FIRST cut military spending to levels that are in correspondence with our actual and theoretical future military threats. There is no question that just by eliminating waste and duplication we can save $70 billion to $100 billion dollars annually. Just cutting out a few of our unnecessary 900 or more military bases around the world (many in long ago pacified Europe fit that bill) could do that. Eliminating a few of our bases in Japan which is a veritable US national military outpost bristling with armaments, would accomplish that as well. No one wants to "hollow out" our military...but the US now alone spends more than all the other nations in the world combined. No one can match those expenditures. After all, who are our most threatening opponents? Are they not North Korea, or weak, economically unstable Iran? Do we have to maintain a huge military for these insignificant opponents? Hardly! That would be like raising up a bank-safe to drive a ten penny nail rather than a tack hammer.

It's time to face the facts of our over-stuffed, over extended, massive defense budget which was born during the World War, then grew to a monster during the long Cold War. Those days are over. Today we face different threats. Economic , infrastructure, health care and educational problems need our attention, both intellectually and financially in order for us to compete in the modern world. We can not adequately prepare for those problems and our future while sinking our wealth into wasteful, unnecessary military hardware and adventurism. Let's not continue to be a nation armed to the teeth and bulging with outdated and useless weaponry while the rest of the world quietly advances beyond us to financial and economic ascendency with investments in infrastructure, health care, education and energy technology.

Don't dare cut healthcare, cancer research, environment, education programs and infrastructure investments while leaving our defense expenditures to useless burgeoning growth. That course is a retreat into the past and ultimate defeat. Let's move ahead into the 21 century. Let us advance to compete----not to fight.

Get the picture?

rjk

WELCOME TO THE NEW AMERICA

The 2012 election, was a demarcation point in our political history, sandwiched between two politically cataclysmic events. One "bookend" was a disastrous super storm, the other a sex scandal in the military and CIA. The election established a new political coalition which swept away core Republican principles, changed our national perceptions regarding the need for responsive government, altered the nation's discussion regarding the validity of climatic change and its consequences, while the scandals in the military served to alter our nation's unrealistic perceptions about our military. The USA will never be the same. Welcome to the new America!

In 2012, America, a nation still reeling from the Great Recession of 2007-2008 went to the polls. Seemingly against the economic tide and all odds, the nation reelected a black man for President. The vote-count and analysis after the election reaffirmed that the electorate emphatically rejected the far-right political philosophy offered by the Republicans and the core principles of its ideology, one based on greed, stark individualism, 1980s Reaganism, Ryanism, Ayn Randism, and the denial of science and global warming. Then on the very next day after the election, embarrassing and unpalatable revelations concerning our military burst another sacred cow of the right who in knee-jerk fashion have for too long given our generals a blank check and put them in an unrealistic, unhealthy position above reproach or question.

Since the days of WW II, America has had a love affair with the military. We dote on the boys in blue, gray, kaki and now, camo uniform. Correctly and deservedly we honor their sacrifice and heroism. But too often now we give their leaders a free pass, and supply the officer corps with near-unlimited funds. (We all have heard that we spend more on our military than the total combined amount spent by all the industrialized nations in the world. Furthermore we duplicate our efforts in the various military branches at great waste. Is it necessary that the Marine Corps, have its own air force the size of Great Britain's? But not only are these outlays more than the combined world expenditures, but they are also the largest component of our national budget too. When the costs of Social Security is rightly removed from the national budget--since it is an insurance program, not an entitlement--and the complete panoply of so-called "defense" expenditures--war costs, military health and other benefits, etc etc---are tallied, it is Department of Defense which takes the largest bite out of the budget pie by far. Our leaders are hesitant to make that known to the citizenry. Everything you heard from the Republicans about the need to address our habit of over-spending has validity, but only if you substitute the words "defense department" and "military spending" for their words :"social security, Medicare and Medicaid" in their refrains for austerity.) Defense spending bills usually pass unopposed and with more funds than the generals themselves request. We put these men and women on a high pedestal. But that love-affair with all things military may be coming to a hard and sad end, with the recent revelations regarding mis-deeds in our military, ranging from simple incompetence, poor judgement, and sleazy sexual affairs at the very top echelons, as well as mindless alcohol abuse and a vicious massacre of civilians in the lower ranks.

In the last few days our most popular and most applauded military personage, one lauded as a "hero" and "genius" of the Iraq "surge"and Afghanistan campaigns, former 4 star General David Petraeus, (serving most recently as the top "spy" in the CIA) presented the nation with a sleazy, sexual affair. His consorting with Mrs. Broadwell while head of the CIA had the potential to compromise national security. Yet the press and many in Congress still in the sway of his military aura of invincibility let him off the hook very easily. Some even upbraiding the President for actually accepting his resignation letter. Petraeus' recent replacement in Afghanistan, General John Allen, who was slated to be Supreme Military Commander in Europe, was drawn into the imbroglio, where he was exposed as having a "platonic" though inappropriate e-mail dalliance with a young, married, Tampa, Florida "socialite", Mrs. Jill Kelly, also a close friend of Mr. Petraeus. Evidence unearthed by the FBI regarding General Allen included "20-30 thousand pages of emails" sent between Allen and Mrs. Kelly over the last two years. (One can not but help wonder how General Allen could fit in to his busy emailing schedule the Nation's work of commanding the war effort in Afghanistan when , according to the FBI record, he was writing and sending an average of more than 33 (!) email pages each day. (This calculation is based the quantity of pages and the assumption that he emailed Mrs. Kelly every day of the year, Sunday, holidays, Christmas and New Year's day). Perhaps he had too much free time on his hands. In another case, four star General, William "Kip" Ward of the Africa Command, was fired and demoted in rank (to only three stars) for "lavish spending and unnecessary travel". And sadly, the hard-working, mostly exemplary men and women of the lower rank and file have also been sullied by scandal. Today, as I write this, Staff-Sargent Robert Bales, an 11 year veteran was indicted for the methodical, diabolical murder of 16 innocent civilians (nine of them children) during a drug and alcohol soaked rampage in Afghanistan. Only those with their heads tucked under a rock in Wyoming's wide open spaces could remain unaffected by these disturbing revelations.

The events come on the very heels of the recent 2012 Presidential election, a contest which finally gave the voters a clear choice between the policies of conservative Republicanism----and a modestly progressive, center-right Democratic candidate. The electorate emphatically chose the progressives, and President Obama handily won reelection. In a previous blog, I pointed out how this 2012 election was a "watershed", since the voters clearly rejected the Republican core-philosophy, one which has been a component of the political conversation since the Reagan election in 1980. I noted in that piece, that the voters also seem to have had a change of mind in regard to the conservative position known as "global warming denial". This last alteration in perception being the realization in the public mind perhaps as a result of the impact of the super storm Sandy, that global climatic change is here to stay, will have serious impacts on our lives, and must be addressed. The huge super storm which brought widespread disaster and devastation to the nation's biggest metropolitan area just prior to election only underscored that fact and the need, nay necessity, of government help and largess supplied in times of disaster. The storm acted as a hard rebuke to those on the right who openly campaigned as global warming deniers, and on presidential aspirant, Mitt Romney who promised to "dump FEMA" as one of his first acts on being elected President.

This is not a case of schadenfreude on this author's part. Rather than being happy to see the other side squirm, I see the military revelations as a positive development which will hopefully result in a better, stronger, military, with more stable leadership, and perhaps ultimately election of a Congress with a more realistic view regarding the budget of the Defense Department. These revelations come at a time of economic stress when the military budget will have to be cut back to more reasonable and logical levels. We simply can not afford the likes of General Ward, Allen and Petraeus. (Recall that General Petraeus was the one who used his contacts with the press to unwisely orchestrate pressure on a recently elected President Obama to institute a troop surge in Afghanistan which only extended the war and cost lives on both sides.) Perhaps, if our officer cadre were not promoted simply on the basis of years in service, and the good ole' boy network, we would have fewer cases like that of Sargent Robert Bales, who in some ways, is a victim himself of a military gone astray in a sea of money and unwarranted adulation.

The Nation's voters took part in a turning-point election, sandwiched between a major super storm and an unprecedented sexual scandal. The over-all impact on the electorate was that the new Obama-coalition turned away from the Republican core-philosophy and its social, economic, and foreign policy positions, and perhaps it's unwise reflex support for the military. These aged policies were exposed to be outdated, invalid, untrue, unwise, or so unpopular that the GOP could not call on them again to support reelection on a national scale. Welcome to a new America!

Get the picture?

rjk

NATURE AND THE 2012 ELECTION DRIVE REPUBLICANS TO FACE SCIENCE AND REALITY

THE WATERSHED 2012 ELECTION BRINGS THE END OF REAGANISM, ROMNEYISM, RYANISM, RANDISM AND GLOBAL-WARMING-DENIAL.

The reelection of President Obama has turned out to be a watershed election, one to be remembered and revisited for years to come, comparable in its effects on the direction the nation will take to perhaps the election of FDR in 1932 and of Ronald Reagan in the election of 1980. The turning point event was preceded on the Mid Atlantic shore by Hurricane Sandy, which carried fierce winds and a 13 foot storm surge which devastated large swaths of New Jersey, Manhattan, Staten Island, and Long Island. The twin events have forced Republicans to face both the reality of science and uncomfortable political truths.

Sandy was the largest Atlantic Hurricane on record, second costliest storm in history, and a cyclonic event only surpassed by Katrina in 2005. The storm was unusual in its late development (10-25-2012), its interplay with a massive mid-latitude-storm, its large size, high winds (110 mph gusts), nearly 200 fatalities, and damage which brought the Nation's largest population center (of 19 million inhabitants) and the US cultural and financial center to a standstill for days on end with flooded subways, swamped cross-East River tunnels, flooded streets, downed electrical lines, no electrical service, and with critical wifi and telephone service down or crippled by overuse. Some areas of the metropolitan NYC area are still without power or access to heating fuel and gasoline, as I write this. The estimated costs so far are about about $52 billion US dollars.

The two events, striking almost simultaneously have commingled in the minds of the electorate to produce changes in perception which will be seen as a transformation point in recent US history. These two events altered citizen's concepts and will change the manner in which we conduct our affairs from here on. These two events, one political and one natural, brought new conceptual reality to our political and economic philosophy, and a new environmental awareness forced on our collective minds.

In the political sphere. What the electorate achieved in the 2012, 57th quadrennial election was earth shattering. The voters were given a clear choice between two widely divergent and distinct policies and philosophies represented by the candidates, Mitt Romney (R) and Barack Obama (D). They made a clear choice. The former, a wealthy business man, clearly positioned himself as a near-caricature of a Daddy Warbucks figure, with far-right policy pronouncements of tax cuts for the well to do and who openly espoused antiquated run-of-the-mill, Republican anti-government pablum from the Reagan era. Romney's party offered 1980s solutions, mixed with more recent and more radical economic and social dogma (these latter supported by his running mate, Paul-Ryan, a "Tea Party" member). Their proposals for the nation's future were salted with fringe-element postures on abortion mixed with pseudo-philosophical statements derived from (unbelievably!) a Russian emigre, and 1950s-era fiction-writer--Ayan Rand. Opposing Romney, the cautious, center-left Democrat candidate Barack Obama espoused a progressive set of policies which would protect the middle class, the existing social safety net, increase taxes on the super wealthy and focus more on nation building at home than abroad. The electorate overwhelmingly cast their votes, in spite of wide-spread sinister attempts at voter suppression by the Republicans, for President Obama. The non-white, the college educated, single females, the young, Latinos, Asians, Blacks and the lower 99 % on the earning and wealth rungs, came out in force to vote for Mr. Obama. The Republican candidate garnered the votes of the super-wealthy, the top 1% of upper echelon earners, and right wing, white-male voters. These citizens came out in force in those red-colored states, (pumping up the popular vote) but they simply did not have enough votes to carry the country as a whole and get their man elected. Candidate Obama ended up with 332 electoral college votes (62% of the total) to Romney's 206. Obama won the popular vote (50.6%- 47.9%) and the Democrats held the Senate and got a plurality of popular votes in the House but not enough to take over the chamber due to Republican controlled redistricting in 2012.

As a result of the clear choices the electorate had in 2012, it is clear that they rejected the policies of Reaganism, of the Mitt Romney-Paul Ryan brand, and the concepts of extreme individualism and greed, depicted in the novels of Ayn Rand. Thank goodness no sensible candidate will bring Rand up again as a model of his/her thinking on economics and philosophy and we will not be plagued with that nonsense again in any future elections. It was almost laughable if it was not so scary to hear Paul Ryan claim that the Rand (fiction) novels provided him with the underlying precepts of his economic and political beliefs.

In the environmental sphere. With the advent of Katrina in 2005, designated a presumably "once in a 100-year storm," but which was closely followed only seven years later by another "once in a 100 year storm"-(Sandy) is too much of of coincidence to sweep under the table, even for the non-scientist voter. Increasing numbers of more energetic, more destructive atmospheric events, droughts, floods, blizzards, hurricanes all support the contention of atmospheric scientists that the atmosphere is getting hotter, due to increased concentration of greenhouse gases. Higher air temperatures mean greater capacity to hold water vapor which is the energy source of the atmosphere. As water vapor condenses it gives off heat, the more water vapor in the air, the more heat generated. The enormous size and destructive power of Sandy was the result of those facts. The recent records of storms, so far out of the normal range make it increasingly difficult for Republicans to "poo pooh" the reality of global warming. Those who suffered in the damaging wind and storm surge of Sandy, as well as those who experienced the event only through harrowing news stories and graphic photos of devastation in Atlantic City, Staten Island, Manhattan and Long Island can not but help but be altered in their perceptions by the experience. Fearful voters will make their revised thinking known at the polls. They will demand a more realistic, science-based response from our legislators. No longer can the "global warming deniers" who are supported by powerful fossil fuel industries, have their way to foist an alternate reality on the unsuspecting.

Thus, the twin realities of Sandy and the facts of the devastating Republican political loss in the 2012 General Election have intruded into a right-wing world where too often political ideology generate "reality" rather than the observable facts and figures of the natural world. In the real world, life and ideology will have to change drastically for Republicans if they want to survive as a national political party. Let us all remember this, that in the Fall of 2012 the REAL WORLD in the form of the forces of Mother Nature and the voters whom Romney characterized as the "47% takers and moochers" of this great land forced drastic changes on the GOP.

Get the picture?

rjk

VOTERS REJECT ROMNEY'S BRAND OF CONSERVATISM

Last night (Nov 6, 2012) I watched the election returns in Florida on CNN as that station’s ever-present Wolf Blitzer (or, "Wolfie", as my wife and I now affectionately and familiarly call him) excitedly colored-in the states as the polls slowly closed in succession across the nation. We watched the azure tint accumulate on the continental rim, as the election results progressed, squeezing the GOP-dominated red states into a small isolated central “island”. The resultant map presaged the outcome of the evening. For just as the red color receded on the map into a smaller and smaller core area, the data developing from the election revealed a similar constriction of Republican voter strength and America's changing demographics. Romney carried the white, male, elderly and wealthy, the President got all the rest. That map and the statistics from voter exit polls casts a pall over the future of the Republican party. It is apparent, progressivism is slowly seeping into the interior of this large isolated land seemingly from its Oceanic, more-diverse, periphery. The final result was an Obama tidal wave of 332 electoral college votes (including Florida's 29 EC votes) vs 206 for Romney. Obama took a full 62% of the total electoral college votes and bested the Republican in the popular vote too. He did it under the most trying of economic conditions, with an unemployment rate now for the first time dipping below 8% in more than 40 months. Yet he won handily. Republican pundits were heard the day prior to the election, wrongly predicting a Romney "landslide" with 330 electoral votes. Thankfully, that did not happen....but I hear few of them now admitting that Obama's 332 would be considered an Obama landslide.

Early in the morning, Romney finally conceded. He gave a subdued, generally gracious speech, offering up his prayers for the newly elected President, and stating that the voters had "rejected him in favor of another candidate”. That is the part I disagree with. I do not believe this was personal, at least not on the part of the left. (There was and remains a great many Obama haters out there. ) The voters did NOT reject Romney, who (except for a powerful lot of "stretchers", and full-throated lies spouted during the campaign, which, by my mom's standards were fully deserving of a good soapy mouthwash) seems like a decent, likable sort. I imagine him as a fine father and husband. The voters did not reject him! They rejected the far right-wing policies he presented as his own and those very well-documented positions of his radical Tea Party "tea server" Paul Ryan, whom he chose as his VP.

Thus, whatever the Fox News TV talking heads say about this brutally long, unbelievably expensive, bitter election, the fact is that the electorate for once truly had a real choice. This was not a “tweedle dee” versus “tweedle dum” contest of the mid-to-late 20th century, where both parties offered up the same pablum under two different banners. Not so this time, in the Romney-Obama contest, the voters had distinct options between two very different governing philosophies and economic plans. (Well, perhaps the choice was clear up to the first debate, late in the campaign, when Romney, realizing he was slipping in the polls made a down-field sharp feint, a stiff arm, and a 90 degree turn to the left, landing up in Obama's lap and upsetting the President's normal equanimity to the point that he flubbed the rest of that debate.)

But as the results poured in last night, it was clear, the voters gave President Obama a resounding landslide victory (with today, November 8, 2012 Florida falling into his column) of 332 Electoral College votes to 206 for Romney, soundly rejecting the Republican Platform and Romney's plans to turn back the clock, giving a thumbs down on his proposals, his Neocon associates, and his antiquated vision of America.

The election also permitted the electorate to decide on that persistent and pernicious policy known as “Reaganism” and the Reagan dictum that “government is the problem, not the solution.” The voters soundly rejected that idea which was central to Romney's candidacy.

The voters also rejected the corollary Reagan concept of “trickle down economics” which claims that fire-hosing tax breaks to the super-wealthy would somehow magically create jobs, and "raise all boats on a rising tide". Over the decades of Republican ascendency (and during the Clinton years too) this nostrum (termed "voodoo economics by Repulican George H. W. Bush) was tried and simply never worked. The tide did rise, and a few of the boats grew into great big yachts and were buoyed on the flood, but the majority of row boats and skiffs were left stuck in the mud, the rising tide simply washing over the gunnels. These small boats needed rapid bailing just to stay dry. After thirty or more years of these "tidal" effects everyone knew that all it did was concentrate wealth in the hands of the top "one-percenters"---the captains of the big yachts. These mislabeled “job creators” generated wealth for themselves, sent jobs overseas, and stuffed the dough into their ship's lavish great cabins and motored their gas guzzling vessels south to squirrel their money away in the Caymans. They never did create jobs here in the USA. The voters wisely rejected that myth by voting for Obama.

The voters also rejected ideas espoused by Romney "advisors", sidekicks and " money bags", like Vegas and Qatar gambling tycoon, Sheldon Adelson, who gained access to power by donating millions of dollars to the Romney campaign, and who would have the US become the “tail” wagging to the dangerous foreign policy positions of the Likud mastiff. Other Romney advisors were also rejected by voters such as George Bush-cast-off neocons like Dan Senor and John Bolton, who would have advised the pursued catastrophic, bloody, and ineffective foreign adventurism reminiscent of failed-President George W Bush.

The voters rejected the Romney plan to INCREASE spending on our bloated military budget. They rejected the Romney's foreign policy of unending wars and ballooning “Defense” Department budgets. (They rejected the Federal funding for an increased military which is largely "welfare" for the oligarchs, corporatists and military industrial complex.) Instead, they voted FOR the President to bring our long-suffering troops home and trim expenditures on the military establishment so as to lower that figure back to realistic levels in accordance with the actual threats we face in the wider world.

The voters rejected the idea of reducing the number of teachers in the classroom and of cutting back on Pell Grants which give opportunities to untold numbers of our college bound youth.

The voters rejected Romney's promise to shut down and "replace" the Affordable Care Act, also known as "Obama Care".

The voters rejected the radical-right policies and nostrums of the the Paul Ryan faction of the Republican Party. They rejected the idea of radical cuts to Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid, and the idea of converting these popular and effective programs (the backbone of our minimalist US social safety net) into voucher plans that would be controlled and funded by the individual States.

The voters rejected the Romney plan to defund the Dream Act and his plan to favor “self deportation”. The voters rejected treating Latinos as second-rate citizens.

The voters rejected the idea of solving the US deficit and debt problem on the backs of the middle class. They rejected the idea of retaining the Bush tax cuts for high wage earners.

The voters rejected the idea of indiscriminately slashing the minimalist funds we expend on worthy cultural programs, and the unbiased news offered by PBS (and of course Big Bird!), expenditures which enrich the lives of multitudes.

The voters rejected the GOP’s plank concerned with women’s health care. The Grand Old Party claims to espouse “freedom” but with the glaring exception of the freedom of women of child-bearing age in the US for whom the white male Republicans would like to peek into their bedrooms, and under their skirts, to formulate legislation to control this group’s most private and sensitive decisions regarding their health, and reproductive choices.

The voters rejected Romney's plan to defund Planned Parenthood, which provides health care for all women.

The voters rejected the Romney idea that our deficit and national debt (which WILL eventually need corrective measures) are of paramount importance and need corrective action "right now” during the worst recession since the Great Depression of 1929. The Republican strategy of "austerity now" is simply another variation of the sinister and destructive Reagan policy of "strangling the Democrat Party beast" by denying it funds. In Reagan's day, the President raised the specter of Communism to bolster an argument for increased defense spending (who could vote against funds for our troops?). Reagan's scheme was to create annual deficits i.e. "tight money" that would limit the Democrats ability to enact or fund social welfare legislation and improvements to infrastructure. The modern GOP has come up with an alternate unreasonable fear, "fear of the deficit", a fear most economists (read Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman) believe is unfounded.

The voters rejected the Romney plan to press for an austerity budget now to deal with the middle class is necessary now and is to be coupled with tax cuts for the super wealthy and more funding for our already bloated military. That dog don't hunt. The voters figured that out right away...they rejected it.

Finally, in the face of Hurricane Sandy which charged ashore with 90 mile-per-hour winds, and a thirteen-foot tidal surge, voters emphatically rejected the idea that FEMA should be defunded or its functions passed off to the states to manage on their own.

In one way the voters DID reject Romney. He was rejected as being the one who would likely choose the next Supreme Court Justice. Perhaps he and his VP choice seemed too much a pair of ideologues for the nation as a whole.

Get the picture?

rjk

HURRICANE SANDY, INFRASTRUCTURE AND MILITARY SPENDING

“For the past few years it has been hard to ignore America’s crumbling infrastructure,...America’s tradition of bold national projects has dwindled. The nation’s infrastructure is crumbling, it is time to revive it.” In: “The Cracks are Showing”, The Economist, June 26, 2008.

 I've had the good fortune to have traveled around the world some and the curiosity to jot down my observations while on my way. I've enjoyed foreign roadways and infrastructure both from behind the wheel and as a passenger while traveling over large swaths of our own USA, and through Western Europe, Greece, and Turkey. So when I read that the USA ranks twenty third (23) behind Barbados (!) in infrastructure, I was not all that surprised. (See: Time, “Are Americas Best Days Behind It?”, Fareed Zakaria, March 3, 2011).

 Most Americans sadly, do not travel enough to have a meaningful yardstick upon which to gauge the infrastructure of their own country. As a result, they can easily be swayed into thinking that highway potholes, crumbling bridges, dangling overhead electrical wires, intermittent train service, slow and spotty Internet service, an insufficient and outdated electrical grid, dangerous dams, poor quality drinking water, and so on, are just part of the natural scheme of things. They are NOT. Most modern industrialized nations far outstrip the USA, (the wealthiest, most militarized and most technically advanced nation in the world) in these critical matters, and our shortcomings are apparent even to a casual observer.

 In 2009 the American Society of Civil Engineers, (ASCE) published its annual report on the status of US infrastructure. It appears in the form of a school "report card”. In that year, 2009, the US again received a grade of “D", and a warning that it would take an investment of $2 trillion dollars to bring our infrastructure up to snuff. The 2012 report had a similar findings. But over those years, instead of infrastructure our leaders in Washington were busy sticking their noses into the business of other nations far away, spending our wealth on weapons, dropping bombs in those places and pursuing "nation building" abroad. As a result, the ASCE warnings went unheeded and US infrastructure projects remained unfunded.

In the 2009 survey ASCE analysts noted that many elements of US infrastructure were "below standard”. The category of "Aviation" was assessed as “D", "Drinking water" as “D-”, "Bridges" was graded a "D-", (noting also that one in four US bridges are "structurally deficient or obsolete"). For the category of "Highways", the engineers assessed many highways as obsolete and calculated that resulting traffic congestion on these roads "wastes 4 billion hours of American’s work-day each year". Regarding "Hazardous wastes", they note that Hasmat sites are too often leaking into groundwater water systems or unconfined. Our "Rail service" was assessed as out-dated, slow and inefficient or (as passenger service) nonexistent, and so on and on.

Underscoring these pronouncement of professional engineers is the now apparent and undeniable fact of climate change and the resultant vulnerability of our nation’s crumbling infrastructure to more frequent violent and damaging storms, (such as Sandy and Katrina), floods, super tornadoes, droughts, prairie and forest fires and other phenomena that are characteristic of a dynamic earth attempting to shed excess heat in a changing climate regime. Just a few days ago Hurricane Sandy, a huge Stage I hurricane, hit the northeast (October 29, 2012) with winds of 80-90 mph pushing up a thirteen-foot high storm-surge in front of it. The complex tropical storm mixed in with a cold mid-latitude cyclone over Pennsylvania to wreak havoc on unprepared shoreline communities in New Jersey and on NY City where, roads were inundated, bridges closed, the outdated exposed-wire electrical grid was snapped, tangled and grounded by high winds, electrical fires ignited in drowned substations, gas fires flared up, subways were swamped, schools closed, and vital connecting tunnels such as the Holland and Battery were flooded and closed down, bringing the nation’s financial and cultural center to a soaked,soggy, windy closure. Nearly one-hundred citizens perished. Billions of dollars of revenue were lost as a result of absenteeism, closures, and uncompleted jobs, and billions more in losses resulting from damaged buildings, infrastructure, roads and property.

Sandy was touted as a once in a “100 year storm”. But wait a minute, was not Katrina with its 175 mph winds and giant storm-surge also touted as a “once in a century” storm? that event was only seven years ago, in August 2005! So thus we have experienced two (2) “once in a century” storms in only seven years! Perhaps this concatenation of super storms will prize open the so-far close minds of climate-change deniers who should now, after Sandy, be forced to acquiesce to the climate scientists warnings that we should expect more such “once in a hundred year” storms as earth heats up due to increasing amounts of human-generated greenhouse gases.

That prospect and our long ignored infrastructure problem should drive us all to turn our attention back to our own nation again, back to "nation building"--but joining in that activity here at home. For too long, we have been mentally and financially engaged abroad, in costly and wasteful military adventurism...nay, some would call it imperialist fantasies or attempts at military world-domination. As a result of this neglect and a misguided national foreign policy we have failed to be good husbandry-men and women of our own land. We have foolishly squandered trillions of our wealth on unnecessary wars, and on war materiel. We tragically lost thousands of our soldier's young lives. In pursuit of a foolish foreign policy our Congress has "fire-hosed" tax dollars into exotic weapons, new ships, useless weapons systems, city-sized military compounds abroad, as well as spy and other unmanned drones. And either by design (on the part of the Republicans) or by neglect we have left our native homeland infrastructure to decay and become obsolete and vulnerable to changing climate and more vicious and powerful storms.

At this point in this essay, I must mention that the budget plan of Presidential hopeful, Mitt Romney to INCREASE military spending to 4% of GDP is the absolutely wrong course to take. But his claim to want to DECREASE taxes for the super wealthy AND to further bloat Defense spending is unconscionable.

Perhaps, sadly, Hurricanes Sandy (and Katrina), a dangerous "lady of the night", might have been just the unhappy, costly and tragic visitor this nation needed to turn our leader's minds away from the boozy delirium, and senseless flirtation of unnecessary, counterproductive military adventurism and unnecessary war spending toward more practical and sensible pursuits. Perhaps its tragic impact and the realization of our vulnerable national state can save future lives if as a consequence of this disaster our nation's leaders turn back to basic, down-to-earth, sensible tending of our own national garden.

As the conservative, business-friendly international magazine, "The Economist" has noted..."it's time to tend to America's crumbling infrastructure". The well-being of our homeland, its roads, bridges, waterways electrical grid, etc., supports our nation's businesses, and the health and well-being of our citizenry. These elements make this nation great, and nourishes it real strength. Without these underlying elements, we CAN NOT have a strong nation or military. The fact is we can no longer afford to continue to toss more than 3% of our GDP in the form of military spending into rat holes around the world and ignore our own infrastructure here at home. America turn your eyes homeward!

My Dad’s favorite saying was: “First things first”! Our homeland must be first! He was right.

Get the picture?
rjk

LOW TAXES ON WEALTHY A MAJOR US PROBLEM

It all began with Reagan.  He started the low tax, trickled own, supply side idea, which was termed "voodoo economics" by George Bush Sr. (41).  "Lil" George (# 43) took the idea to extremes when he fought two wars on the cuff and at the same time cut high-wage-earner taxes to the bone.  The plutocrats and corporatists now generally pay less than 10% on their earnings, or at least those earnings that they do not squirrel away in the Cayman Islands.  Understandably and predictably, as a result of the low taxes on the wealthy (as well as continued unwise deficit spending) US government revenues have declined and the deficit climbed.  During the "Lil" Bush years the huge housing bubble, war-footing-economy and general mindless optimism of that period masked the problem for a while. Though in the end the boom period came to an abrupt and disastrous conclusion in late 2007-2008 when the Great Recession hit.  Revenues collapsed with the economy thereafter and the deficit climbed.  When Obama took office the deficit figure stood at about 1.4 trillion dollars (it had not doubled).   Those "lost" dollars of uncollected taxes and war spending went into the hands of the few super wealthy and the one-percenters, as well as the war profiteers like Dick Cheney.

My Dad always used to say "follow the money" when he wanted to allot blame.  Doing  just that we can see how the funds moved from the calloused hands of Chinese laborers and entrepreneurs who saved it and then into the Chinese banks which bought our bonds, in effect lending us the money, and then due to those tax breaks, into the coffers of the super wealthy, who tucked it away in the Caymans, or bought monster yachts, or their second Lear jet.   That very same US debt on borrowed money will have to be repaid....by us, our kids and grandkids.  Not fair? You bet it ain't.

Obama would like to recoup some of that money....it's still there, after all being held by the wealthy cruising our waters in their yachts and leaving contrails in the ionosphere with their private jets.

Under Obama the deficit did not double as Mr. Romney likes to claim, for today it stands at about 1.2 trillion.   But the national debt did climb and now our kids and grandkids will have to pay that back to the Chinese and our other bond holders.  It would be sweet revenge if we could recoup some of that money from the hands of the war profiteers and the one-percenters who helped to fuel the awful Great Recession and where much of those funds still remains.  How do we do that?  Raise taxes on those folks as President Obama suggests.   That seems only fair.

AN AMUSING STORY REGARDING TECHNOLOGY AND IPHONES

I crouched down and made a "fast draw" motion that would have put a smirk on the faces of "Hop -along" Cassidy, Roy Rogers or even Gene Autry, as I reached for my iPhone holster. But I was a goner! The holster, strapped down tight on my thigh, was empty! Ugh! Disarmed and disabled and vulnerable!


 Whoa? "Where is my iPhone?" I queried, speaking to myself, as I frantically slipped my hands around my waist, and patted down my empty pockets. Nothing there! I punched my hands deep down into my empty pant's pockets several times-over as I unsuccessfully searched for that familiar hard, flat, rectangular object. My iPhone was definitely missing!

 I literally eat, sleep, rest, bathe, and do most everything else with this modern marvel of technology near at hand. The iPhone has taken the place of my radio, TV, small computer, dictionary, encyclopedia, thesaurus, language translator, news source, camera, jogging-route recorder, pedometer, compass, and what else. Besides those functions, it is a multi function communicator extraordinaire, and of course, a hand-held telephone too! This general electronic marvel is always at hand. It has become something between a mechanical robotic "Jeeves" and a third hand. It is always on my belt, or if not there, on my night-stand. ( I would not want to a actually know the results of a bacteriological swabs taken from its surface. It must have a complete and thriving colony of body germs and viruses of many and varied species. I do give it a scrub-off every now and again with an antiseptic wipe. But I do it carefully.)

 It was a busy unusual day, when I attempted that fast draw pull of my IPhone 4 from its hard-box holster as I prepared to begin my exercise for the day. I use popular, "Map-my-Run" app to record each walk and run. But as explained above--the instrument was was not there. Mentally, I quickly ran down my previous early-morning schedule. I recalled taking it downstairs to the breakfast table where I read the morning news. I read some of my favorites, the NY Times, UK Guardian, le Monde, Huff Post, Drudge Report, and Real-Clear Politics. I remembered some of the morning stories I digested about the Romney candidacy, Afghanistan and the economy. So I knew I had it in my possession at home.

 I also recalled being interrupted during my breakfast electronic-read in by the frantic barking of our Jack Russell terrier, Milo. Milo is a ten-inch high canid with the temperament and self-image of three foot high, 90 pound Pit Bull-Mastiff-cross breed. On hearing him, my fear was that his frantic vocalizations were the consequence of him chasing the mailman or a delivery man across the lawn. He has been known to chew at the ankles of these "interlopers" into his domain, which more than once has resulted in financial and legal difficulties for me---and pain for the mailman. So I clearly recalled pushing off from the table, and with night-clothes and bath robe flying in my slip stream, I ran off to intercede on behalf of Milo's presumed victim to protect him or her from torn trouser-bottoms and bloody ankles.

Outside, the barking had stopped. But ominously, I spotted the little brown and white dog slowly and silently stalking a delivery-man who had parked his truck near our house. The man had stopped and turned to face his stalker with outstretched hand. Aware of what was about to happen, I raced across the lawn, caught up with the tiny dog, scooped him up just as he was going to bite into the proffered hand of the innocent painter-contractor who unthinkingly had in mind an attempt at befriending this mighty-miniature canine whose evil intentions to draw blood, were ingrained in his terrier genes. I smiled at the man, and waved with one hand, as I tucked the snarling and growling little beast under my robe with the other arm and marched off back across the lawn.

 That was just the beginning of a hectic day. Our regular schedule including a brisk morning three-mile walk, leisurely breakfast, a few hours of writing and paperwork, light chores, lunch and relaxation prior to light entertainment and preparation for an early dinner, had deteriorated on this day. The grandkids required collecting and transport to school, "critical" shopping had to be done, a short stopover in the barbershop was a necessity, simply for safe vision, then picking said kids up from school, and general transportation and baby sitting services. By late afternoon my wife and I were tired and cranky. I needed a good walk to clear my head. That's the situation I was in when I discovered the iPhone missing. I sought it ,out my "marine ditch bag" which is where I keep all my valuables between "docking" and rising from the bunk in the morning. A thorough search of bedroom, kitchen, family room, etc. etc. revealed no IPhone. Calling the iPhone from our home telephone resulted in no corresponding ring from the missing instrument. We searched the car, the basement the attic, the clothes dryer, the clothes hamper, the toilets. No iPhone. I checked for it in my workshop in our back yard. F.... called the iPhone while I was out there. No response...no instrument. I retraced my steps over the day--but no luck. Finally, I called my Italian barber in town. "John did you happen to see a phone in the shop today?" "Yeah, I gotta da phone." "You found the phone there?" I asked excitedly. "No, I gotta da phone. Número 638-7768. You call me to make appointsament?" "No, no, no. I know YOU have a phone. I lost my phone." Then I tried speaking loudly into the receiver, saying slowly "Ho----perduto----mio telefono." "Ahh "gats en goul," cursed the barber, sorry and embarrassed all at the same time that he did not at first understand me. "No, signore, I ma sorry, I seen no phone here." In desperation F.... tried calling the IPhone again. We listened carefully, for it's ring. Expecting the sound to be faint and far off, perhaps buried under some pillow, some place in the house. I tallied the rings up, one,.....five.....six. I strained my ears to listen for the faint ring. But then some one answered! "Hullo?" "Who's this?" Demanded F....sternly. "Hullo?" "Look, whoever this is, if you found this phone, you better return it to...." retorted F forcefully. The person on the other end did not reply. The only sound was the clatter and click of the receiver as it was slammed down into its cradle. "Someone found it and is planning to wipe its data off and use it for themselves," concluded F.... angrily. She sat down in the chair next to me. "I bet you lost that phone in the barber shop, and some creep from town, instead of turning it in, they picked it up and now they are going to use it." "I don't know about that...I'm not so sure..." I stammered, thinking of the spartan metal chairs in John's shop and the hard tile floor. "I know, I'll call K..., (our youngest, most tech-savvy daughter) she will know what to do when some one steals your phone." "Wait! We don't know yet if the phone IS stolen." "Didn't you hear that call?" "Yeaa ....yes." "It 'was' lost. Now it's stolen." F called our daughter K, who advised us that we immediately call AT&T to cancel the phone account, so that no one could use it to make long distance calls and run up our bill. F duly made the call and cancelled the account. At this point, I began trying to think positively about the loss. After all, the case was scratched. A fine hairline crack appeared on the back case after that fall I had in the winter. I could use more memory. The new iPhone five was coming out soon. Good reasons for a change were piling up. I was actually beginning to feel not that sad about the loss. Of course, I didn't know at that time of the $300-$500 tab for a replacement. K called back. "Dad did you have the "Find My Phone" app on your instrument? "Yes, but don't worry, so much about it. I'm sure it will show up soon." I was thinking now about the new IPhone 5, and becoming inured to the idea of my loss. But she did not seem to believe me. "I'll call back," she said determinedly We sat around gloomily for a little while, I thinking of how I was going to get around replacing all the contacts and other data I had lost, and then F.... began thinking of the replacement costs. Just then the house-phone rang again. It was my daughter K. "I texted your phone, and sent this message," she said. The message read: "This telephone does not belong to you. Return it immediately to where you found it and call this number......" "Oh that's a good idea, but Mom has just cancelled the account on that phone." "Good, I'm glad she did that. I've got another idea. I'll get back to you right away." Some time passed as we waited. The house-phone rang again. "I contacted your phone using my computer and your "Find My IPhone" app." she said excitedly. "Dad, I have a map here on my computer screen, I see here that it indicates that your phone is at your home address! It is somewhere in your house or on your property." "So no one took it? We didn't have to cancel the account number?" I asked incredulously. What about the guy who answered the call?" "No! Mom probably called the wrong number. Gotta go. I'll call you back." A few minutes later the home phone jangled again. It was K. " I have a 'Find My IPhone map' of your place on my computer now," she said excitedly. " The map shows that the phone is somewhere in the backyard, perhaps near your fence." F grabbed the home phone from me and excitedly scuttled out into the backyard with the receiver pasted to her ear. As she walked she spoke to K, who directed her toward the corresponding place where the little blue dot was glowing on K's computer screen in the next town east. From the kitchen, I watched as F move toward a big clump of emerging day-lillies near our back fence. I had actually been there earlier in the day and that fact raised my hopes of finding the phone. F pushed the tangled leaves apart, but could find nothing. She came back into the kitchen waving the house phone at me. "No, just a false alarm! It's not there. I still think someone took it." We sat down at the kitchen table. By this time we were exhausted physically and mentally. We had missed our dinner and had been actively searching for several hours. I was ready to give up. The home-phone rang again. "You want to get that?" I begged, burying my head in my hands and resting my elbows on the table. "It's K! She has a better, more detailed map, and has found a way to make the phone ring." said F. "But the signal is turned off. We shut that number down," I responded. To myself I sounded like a quitter and non-believer in advanced modern technology. But I was very tired now and had more or less come to accept the fact that I was getting a brand new iPhone 5. "She says that doesn't matter, as long as the battery is charged." She handed the phone over toward me. I backed away. "I'm too tired. Please, you do it," I said, resignedly. With the telephone at her ear again, F again began taking directions. Over the land line K moved her mother around as she studied her map on her computer screen. K directed her now toward the front yard, but on the same side of the house as she had been searching before. I wearily watched through the front window as K described where the little blue dot was appearing on her map at her computer station as she directed her mother this way and that toward the spot on the ground. From my perch, I watched F with the phone at her ear moving around in our front lawn. I realized that F was slowly walking toward the path that I had been over earlier in the day when I chased Milo down. A light went on. Perhaps that was when and where I dropped the IPhone? "Wait, I hear something," said F, excitedly. " It's a steady humming sound," she said into the receiver. "Make it louder," she requested. K responded over the phone. "Oh, you can't, I thought 'you' were controlling the sound." A pause in the conversation occurred here, as F crept along the grassy path. "The ring is louder." "Oh there it is, right on the grassy path." My iPhone was recovered! AT&T quickly and easily restored my number and in a few minutes, I was back in operation. I learned a few things. It might be a good idea to have a security code on your iPhone and use it regularly. It can prevent loss or compromise of our personal data in case you loose your iPhone someplace where it can be found by some unscrupulous sorts. The "find my iPhone app"works. So it should be installed on your iPhone too. Finally, one must marvel at our modern technology that we have available on hand. It helps to save dummies and poorly organized sorts like this author from loss and excessive costs. Get the picture? rjk

ROMNEY'S GRIEVOUS FLAWS EXPOSED IN THE THIRD DEBATE

ROMNEY'S TWO DISQUALIFYING FAULTS 


I watched the third presidential debate last night. Romney's flip flops, lies and his faux pas on basic knowledge and geography reveal Romney as not up to "prime time" standards.

 One glaring error, among many, was his faulty knowledge of elementary Middle East geography. I would expect a presidential candidate who has stated in the past, and even repeated during the debate last night, that "Iran is the USA's greatest threat", and was also the candidate who blustered and threatened how a "Romney president" would "bomb Iran" to prevent it from gaining the "capability" of building a nuclear weapon.

But last night Romney revealed he has not even a passing knowledge of that nation's geography or location in the Middle East. In a glaring error, he stated for the entire world to hear that "Iran needed Syria as a means of reaching the sea". He apparently did not know that Iran has a huge coastline of its own. I giggled at this stupidity when I heard it. But it was not funny. It is frightening that a man in his position, potentially the leader of the free world, has such limited knowledge of the part of the world he would turn our nation's awesome power against and perhaps start another world war. With that level of expertise one wonders what nation in the ME would he bomb accidentally.

So for me, at that instant, Romney revealed himself to be an intellectual lightweight. One wonders too about his ability to choose advisors....for those who "prepped" him for this debate were apparently deficient as well.

 This last debate proved that all those years as a businessman typically concerned only about the "bottom line" and not the "details" did not serve him well as preparation for the highest office in the land. I conclude his experience, training and preparation for the office of the POTUS does not meet minimal standards. His second fault is one of character. Romney's lies, flip-flops and 180 degree turns on policy and his "death-bed conversion" to more moderate positions solely to smooth his path to election, are dangerous for a President and paramount world leader. During the third debate he agreed with all of President Obama's foreign policies, a "180" from his previous positions. His behavior raises the question of his character. How can we trust anything that this man says? In foreign policy, as our Republican friends would assert, a la Reagan, that nothing is more potent in a leader than the knowledge that what a President says is what he means. Even President G W Bush, with whom I had little in common, could be believed (as erroneous that his positions were) at least on what he said he would do. Romney's character flaw, on his relationship to the truth, precludes that trust, and weakens him, and his administration were he to be elected to our highest office. His failure to be able to be believed makes him dangerous to his nation and the world. Get the picture? rjk

ROMNEY TURNS VOTING INTO A GAME OF CHANCE

Romney's lies, flip-flops and obfuscations, have made a shambles out of the first Presidential debate and as they continue, will make voting for him a "crap shoot". With Romney's refusal to come clean with the voters on his tax returns, his Cayman Island accounts, and his policies,changing the latter at the drop of a pin to suit whim and venue---and the polls, an honest, informed voter can not really know who or what they are voting for. When we step into that voting booth on November 6, we don't want to be faced with a "one armed bandit"instead of a voting machine. But that is the kind of choice we will face.

 On the tenth of October Mike Tomasky penned a piece in the Daily Beast (10-10-2012) which includes a list for President Obama on how to make Mitt unacceptable again. (See: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/10/10/michael-tomasky-on-how-obama-needs-to-make-mitt-unacceptable-again.html) His list is a great one, and includes Romney's tax plan, his vagueness on what he would cut, his disdain for the poor, whom he would relegate to a hospital ER and then call that a "health plan", his problem with women's health issues, his desire to cut basic government functions, and Romney's repetitious lie that Obama's $716 billion-dollar cut (over ten years) to health care PROVIDERS--- is a cut to services....while he ignores his health care cut of the same magnitude which would be taken away from recipients and that money funneled into tax cuts for the wealthy.

 But it is Romney's skimpy resume and basic inability to be honest with the American people that disqualifies him and makes him unacceptable in my book.

 Let's begin with Romney's resume. It's thin! What has he done? He has no foreign policy experience. He is a one-term governor of a small state, which he left in worse economic condition than when he was elected. He had a much-touted role in managing the Olympics. And with a great deal of financial help and direction from others, he established Bain Capital...a vulture capital firm which made a great deal of money by buying up companies and exporting jobs overseas. To my way of thinking, the fact that he he created great wealth for his buddies and himself on the backs of the US worker is not a recommendation for higher office in the government, or acceptable preparation to make decisions for the future and welfare of a great nation. It makes me question Romney's preparation for the job.

 We are now just recovering from the G.W. Bush administration's emphasis on cutting taxes for the super wealthy and hollowing out the middle class. Those policies left us with two costly and simmering wars and the Great Recession of 2007-8. Romney would like to repeat, continue and intensify those disastrous Bush-policies of continuous war and "trickle down" economics. Why would any knowledgeable voter want to revisit that awful period?

But unlike Bush junior, who began his destructive policies while we were affluent, Romney would embark on the same course of failed economic policies in 2012, when we have been weakened and undermined by the disastrous, lingering effects of the Bush wars-on-the-cuff and irresponsible tax cuts. The Obama first term has been able to raise the suffering US carcass only to its knees in the time it had, (while bucking stiff Republican obstructionism determined to make this our first black President---fail).  After the Bush years, we find that the top 400 most wealthy in the nation have more assets than the bottom 150 million. When the top ten percent own more than the bottom 90 percent. When wealth is accumulating in the coffers of the super-wealthy at an alarming rate. When the middle class is hobbled by high unemployment, higher tax rates than the wealthy classes, low wages, lack of universal health care, limited upward mobility, and the prospect of an old age suffused in ill health and poverty.

 These are the present circumstances that Romney's policies would have us revisit and extend and intensify. Recall, that his tax policy would cut domestic spending in half, and that he sees 47% of Americans--the elderly, working poor, retired and military class on the bottom, in his own words, as "moochers and takers".  His "clients" are the upper class, super wealthy, the so-called "makers" and "job creators" classes. It is well to recall here that given the chance as a "job maker" Romney himself failed during his business career--firing and laying off more employees than he hired.

Finally, we must address Romney's absolute lack of core principles. He has been all over the map on health care, women's health issues, taxes, foreign policy, etc., etc. Ted Kennedy once referred to Romney as "multiple choice Mitt", a truly apt epithet. His icon should be some sort of moving and flip-flopping image. His present turnaround on almost every issue that he had formerly cemented himself to in the primaries, (it seems only to gain the approval of the hard right) he is now retreating away from at warp speed.

In a Democracy, we must have a minimum expectation that the candidate whom we elect is truthful and states generally what he actually believes. In Romney's case, we have no idea where he stands on anything. He has been successful in blurring his image so effectively that a voter really does not know who or what he or she is voting for. One could imagine him as taking on any political complexion--socialist, democrat, or even Tory or Whig. He could be any of those since he changes like a chameleon as he moves from one venue to another as circumstances require. Such behavior should disqualify him as presidential material. One thing is certain, that as a rich successful guy with money to spend, he now wants to be the President of the USA and he will do or say anything to close that deal and get his heart's desire.

In this election, if you pull the lever for Romney, a spinning double row of brightly colored fruits may appear in before you in the voting booth, like the "one-armed bandit"of Vegas or Atlantic City. What you get from pulling that lever will just be luck! That is no way to elect a president! Don't fall for it! I'd say demand a straight answer from Mitt, except for the fact that his history indicates whatever he says is suspect. How can we elect a guy like this?

Get the picture?

rjk

BEWARE THE MORPHING MITT!!

I was watching a news report on TV, last night (September 26, 2012) when a Romney TV add appeared during the commercial break.  Old familiar Mitt Romney looked so different.  The lighting was warm and glowing, like that in a technicolor romantic movie.  Mitt's face was slightly out of focus--like a close up of Greta Garbo in "Camille" or "Ninotchka".   His eyes looked as soft and moist as those of my old Lab " Sandy".  As he spoke he tilted his head to the side and mouthed his words, gently and soothingly, like a mother pleading with her children to come in from the cold for some warm milk and cookies.   He continued speaking. "There are millions of people out there hurting, during these hard times. I want to help them. I care." I shook my head and checked the settings on the TV.   They were OK.

  

Was this the Mitt Romney we have gotten to know so well over the awful, boring last year, with all those debates among the less than "prime time" Republican field?  Is he not the rich-guy candidate who proposed a $10,000 dollar bet with Rick Perry in front of the Nation?   Is he not the hard-nosed "businessman", "vulture"-capitalist, who picked up companies in trouble, boosted up their debt, fired employees to cut expenses, off-shored their employee contracts, cut outlays, then with better-looking books, raised money with bank loans so as to retrieve his investor's raiding capital and take a big chunk of cash, then let the company and its remaining employees sink or swim, as he went on to raid another target?  

The man on the screen was  transformed, yet he looked the same.  The sturdy well tanned handsome face, the dark eyes, the flashing smile, were all there.   Even that little touch of gray at his temples which he never darkens up with black so as to underscore to voters his maturity and experience. 

But the  gray matter in my frontal lobe, kept resisting messages my occipital lobe was receiving from my eyes.  I shook my head again, just like lovable old Sandy used to flap his ears violently when a fly entered one of his soft, brown, floppy auricles.  But the image didn't disappear.  Mitt continued on speaking as if he loved everyone, even those 47 percent "takers" he called out in Boca Raton in May.

Was this new "I care" candidate, the same Mitt Romney who wanted to let GM go down the tubes?  Who picked frighteningly radical conservative Paul Ryan (co-author of "legitimate rape" legislation with wing-nut Representative Todd Akin, and modern-day advocate and spokesperson for radical libertarian conservative Ayn Rand) as his running mate?   The same guy who claimed that 47% of Americans were moochers, on the government dole and were not responsible for themselves?  Or as Robert Reich tabulated so well in: "Repackaging Mitt", HUFFINGTON POST(9-26-12), and who therein reminds us that Mitt is the candidate who "cares" so much that he is against "extending unemployment  benefits. Or providing food stamps or housing benefits for families that have fallen into poverty. Or medical benefits."    

I blinked my eyes.  Yeah, wait, isn't this the very person who wants to repeal the Affordable Care Act, and as Robert Reich points out, wants to "save" Medicare by turning it into a voucher system, then hand that voucher system over to the "cash-starved states". That is a plan to destroy Medicare not save it. Just imagine what would happen to health care in the hands of the elected officials in Louisiana, Mississippi, or Arizona.  Wasn't this the Mitt who just a few days ago on "Meet the Press", when challenged on what he would do about health care for the fifty million without coverage, responded that "the US does have universal health care!"  He reminded the questioner--with a straight face that indicated how far away from the real world he was--that in the US anyone who gets sick enough ("to be collected from their 'apartment' with an ambulance") can be taken to  the emergency room of "any" hospital and get treatment.  Yes, the professional ER staff will stop the bleeding and patch over your open wounds, but then with no prospect of being paid, they will quickly send you on your way, perhaps if you are lucky, with a small packet of aspirin to stop the pain.  But they can not and will not treat the cause of your condition.  That's not the new caring Mitt I was seeing on my TV screen today!  

In a wink of the eye, right before you, Mitt was transforming himself yet again, like an amoeba changing its shape to fit through a tiny confluence of air bubbles on a microscope slide, he was morphing over again into a new and different Mitt. He is truly amorphous.  As I watched the old Mitt's hard image was fading away, as his etch-a-sketch was being vigorously shaken by someone off screen, perhaps, a Sheldon Adelson or Dan Senor, or some other neocon advisor. 

Beware the Morphing Mitt!

Get the (changing) picture?

rjk   

SEPTEMBER 10 MUSLIMS ATTACK EMBASSY---SEPTEMBER 16--US DRONES KILL 8 AFGHAN WOMEN

On September 11, 2012,  a Muslim mob enraged by an anti Moslem film attacked the US embassy in Benghazi, and burnt it to the ground.  In the confusion, four of our of our embassy staff  were killed, some by gunfire, others by smoke inhalation, as was our well liked ambassador Christopher Stephens who died in a Benghazi hospital after being rescued by Libyan citizen passers-by.  A day later, a US drone struck and killed a group of Afghan women and girls, foraging for wood on a hillside in rural Afghanistan early in the morning. Eight women and children were killed.  

How are these two events related?  Was this a US retaliation ?  I think not, though, I can not know what went through the mind of the drone ”pilot” sitting in a hangar someplace in Arizona who squeezed off the trigger on those innocent women and children, who were simply gathering wood in the forest for their breakfast meal.  But that aside, the US killing of innocent Muslim women and children, at the very time the world was erupting in anti-American demonstrations was either the result of simple stupidity, monumental hubris, and/or phenomenal disdain for Muslims and what they might think of us.

Let us assume that in the Pentagon, and the Halls of Congress they simply don't care  what  two billion Muslims who make up the second largest religious affiliation in the world--think of us.  Religious insults and purposeful humiliation to Muslims have emanated from the West, before. But after the introduction of hundreds of thousands of western troops into the Middle East these events have increased.  The often-reported Koran burnings, use of the Koran as a target, Koran toilet-flushings,  Korans found in US military trash heaps, US troops urinating on dead muslims, and most recently, demeaning depictions of the Prophet Mohammad in a US-produced film and French cartoons featuring a naked Mohammed  have had their effect.  A trailer of the offending US film was edited and translated into Arabic and placed on the internet.  It was an instant, phenomenal "success", garnering millions of "hits" a day.  Demonstrations by enraged Muslims against US targets began in Egypt and spread across the Arab world to Yemen and finally to Libya.  There on the night of September 10-11 a mob attacked the US Embassy. Libyan Ambassador, J. Christopher Stephens was somehow separated from his staff and later found and rescued near death in a locked ”secure room” within the fire-bombed ruins of the embassy. He died of asphyxiation and smoke inhalation at a Benghazi hospital, later that night.  The attending physician stated that they had worked on him for nine hours in an attempt to resuscitate him but failed. 

After the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, the nation’s media went off on a feeding frenzy focused on ”Muslim rage”.  This morning (September 17, 2012  eponymous  Joe of  "Early Morning Joe" the right wing host of  the MSNBC morning show,  went into a tirade after discussions of another ”green on blue” attack in Afghanistan which killed several US troops.  On air, Joe Scarborough attempting to relate two unrelated events, stated ”they hate us” and ignorantly blamed Muslim rage on "their religion”.    

In the print media, Newsweek, apparently desperate to increase its magazine sales, printed an issue with a close up picture of seemingly screaming Arab men in headscarfs, (were  the editors attempting to generate the stereotypical ”rag head” image?) their flashing teeth and dark swarthy faces prominently displayed to scare the ”bejeebers” out of Middle America. The irony of this is that the incendiary picture itself, may act as encouragement for the irredeemably violent in our own society, a nation no stranger to violence and anti-moslem sentiment. Such imagery have the potential  to generate further violence, perhaps attacks on US Muslims and presumed Muslims, or other dark-skinned members of our society---and to the burning of more mosques.  In this manner, our corporatist controlled press and media continue to play their role as facilitators for the worst sentiments and ideas in our society--with pitifully few exceptions. 

Our press corps and leaders in Washington would like to present these incidents as those of a poorly socialized, backward people affiliated with a violent religion. They would prefer that we do not reflect on our own behavior and that of our government.  They wonder why  some insignificant film clip, a Koran being torn in two by a bearded yahoo in Florida, or a French cartoon depicting a naked Muhammad can send these "unreasoning" folks into paroxysms of violence.   That's what they would like to have you think. 

You don't have to be a Muslim or an Arab, just a sentient human being to understand that the causes are more complex. Muslims are angry, and some understandably do hate us. Placed in historic context, their feelings can be seen as "reasonable" and "likely to occur" after a decade and more of economic sanctions, war, devastation and social disruption visited on them by the US and its allies in retaliation for the 9-11 attack.  

Why do they hate us?

1- We unconditionally support--in knee jerk fashion--the State of Israel, a small, nuclear-armed, highly militarized, expansionist state which sits on illegally occupied  Muslim lands and refuses to relinquish them.  Its behavior, its brutal occupation, its humiliating treatment of the Palestinians it governs in the occupied territories are a  powerful irritant in the region and generate  resentment against the US, which facilitates it behavior, though grants in aid, money, and international support in the UN.  We signed the Camp David Accords but preferred to forget them.  Our support and silent collusion with the Israelis, though we pay lip service to "peace negotiations", is well known and much resented. 

2- We have for many decades used the region as our fiefdom...controlling oil resources, removing unpalatable leaders on our whim, installing others which grew into intolerable despots whom we continued to support as long as they took orders from Washington.  

3- For the last decade we have been killing Muslims, hundreds of thousands of them, in Iraq in an illegal war claimed to be over (what was revealed to be non-existing) weapons of mass destruction. While our questionable war against the Taliban in Afghanistan killed  additional thousands of civilians (some as recently as September 16, when the eight women and girls were killed by a US drone missile). Other US drone and cruise missile attacks in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Libya and Sudan have killed and maimed hundred more innocents in recent years.    These estimates of deaths do not include the indirect deaths we are responsible for as when as in Iraq and Afghanistan we degrade a nation’s infrastructure, its electrical grid, its power sources, its sewers and water treatment plants, close its hospitals and retire its police forces, and disrupt its farms and food production facilities.  Such degradation leads to hunger, impoverishment, infirmity, sickness, early death and infant mortality.  These actions  certainly do not make us popular in those places. The dead and injured have grieving husbands, children and other relatives that can not forget what they see as examples of US brutality. I dare say that given the number of Muslims killed and maimed by US actions over the last ten years, there must be many millions of Muslims who have a relative, friend, or acquaintance who has been killed or maimed by US actions either directly or indirectly.  That is not a pleasant reality and certainly helps to explain our lack of popularity---and Muslim rage.

Thus it is clear, we are not popular in a wide swath of the world where two billion Muslims live where perhaps we have been less than the best of neighbors.  When some seeming innocuous, (to us) scrap of a demeaning cartoon, or a snippet of film which demeans and mocks the Prophet Mohammed is released in the west, Muslims respond, in what seems to us, inexplicable violence. But viewed in context, (a context that our press and media will not or can not provide--based on who owns their newspaper or TV station), their motivations becomes clear.  Some of our leaders (and the neocons) would like us to believe that Muslim rage is caused by THEIR religion.  But is it perhaps more to do with OUR behavior, OUR foreign policy and the actions of OUR leaders? 

Get the picture?

rjk

MUSLIMS KILL US AMBASSADOR, US RETALIATES KILLS 8 AFGHAN WOMEN

SEPT 10: MUSLIM MOBS KILL US AMBASSADOR IN BENGHAZI.     SEPT 16: US DRONES KILL EIGHT WOMEN AND CHILDREN IN AFGHANISTAN!  

”Thus it is clear, we are not popular in a swath of the world where two billion Muslims live.  When a seeming innocuous, (to us) scrap of a cartoon, or a snippet of film which demeans the Prophet Mohammed is released in the west, Muslims respond in, what seems to us, inexplicable violence. But viewed in historic context, a context that our press and media will not or can not provide, their motivations becomes clear.  Some of our leaders (and the neocons) would like us to believe that  Muslim rage is caused by THEIR religion.  But is it perhaps MORE the result of OUR behavior, OUR foreign policy and the actions of OUR leaders?” rjk

The above headline reflects some recent facts, but was the drone attack a US retaliation? I think not but, I can not speak for what was going through the mind of the so-called drone ”pilot” sitting in a hangar someplace in Arizona who squeezed off the trigger on those innocent women and children who were simply gathering wood in the forest for their breakfast meal. Who knows what his or her motivations were.  But killing Muslim women and children, as the world erupts in anti-American demonstrations sure does show a disdain for the Muslims and what they might think of us.

But the headline does underscore the fact that there is more to the story of Muslim rage than the religious insults which have been emanating from the West, now for a long time. The often-reported Koran burnings, use of the Koran as a rifle target, Koran toilet-flushings, Korans found in US trash heaps, and most recently, demeaning depictions of the Prophet Mohammad in a US produced film and French cartoons-designed to have an incendiary effect on the Muslim population--and have.

For this author, the religious insults are but the final straw which breaks the camel’s back---not the cause of the phenomenon.   But our American press corps, with a few exceptions, is unwilling and unable to tell these stories like they actually are, and prefers to cast the problem in terms of  the religion of the two billion in this world who profess Islam as their faith. 

So now for a short review that you can not get elsewhere:

After the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, the nation’s media have gone over the wall about ”Muslim rage”. This morning (September 17, 2012  eponymous  Joe of  "Early Morning Joe" the right wing-nut of  the MSNBC, AM talking heads went into a tirade after discussions of another ”green on blue” attack in Afghanistan which killed several US troops.  On air, Joe Scarborough stated ”they hate us” and ignorantly blamed Muslim rage on their ”religion”.    

In the print media, Newsweek, apparently desperate to increase its magazine sales, posted on its front page under the heading:”Muslim Rage” in bold black letters, the frightening picture of seemingly screaming Arab men in headscarfs, (apparently the editors were attempting to generate a stereotypical ”rag heads” image) their flashing teeth and dark swarthy faces prominently displayed to scare the ”bejeebers” out of Middle America. The incendiary picture alone, may act as encouragement for the irredeemably violent in our own society, no stranger to anger and anti-moslem sentiment. Perhaps it will generate further attacks on Muslims and presumed Muslims or any dark-skinned members of our society---and to the burning of more mosques.  In this manner our corporatist controlled press and media continue to play their role as facilitators for the worst sentiments and ideas in our society--with pitifully few exceptions.

Muslim rage exists, but does it have anything to do its Islam? Probably it does not have more input than the tiny spark that ignites a fire.  

You don't have to be a Muslim or an Arab, just a sentient human being to understand why Muslims are angry, and some understandably do hate us. Placed in historic context their feelings are well justified.  That anger is the fuel that a spark can ignite. 

Poke a stick into an animal's cage--even a normally docile one, and if you do it often enough, the poor critter is very likely to snap at you first chance it gets .

Sometime earlier this year a US film, made in Hollywood by unknown producers was released and marketed with the express purpose and intention of demeaning Islam. Snippets of it translated into Arabic were then placed on the Internet. It was an instant ”success” getting millions of hits all around the Muslim world. 

The results, perhaps timed to coincide with the 9-11 observances here in the US, had their desired effects.   Demonstrations against US targets began in Egypt and spread across the Arab world to Yemen and Libya where on the night of September 10-11 a mob attacked the US Embassy. Libyan Ambassador J Christopher Stephens was somehow separated from his staff and later found near death in a locked ”secure room” within the ruins of the embassy. He died of asphyxiation and smoke inhalation at a Benghazi hospital, latter that night, being taken there by Libyans who didn't know who he was. 

But why do they hate us?

Let’s go back a few years in US-Muslim history.  But let us just skim over ancient history like the fact that we were responsible for the overthrow of the democratically-elected prime minister, Mossadegh and WE imposed the despot Mohammad Pahalavi on Iran (he was more malleable and more likely to take USorders) who coined himself the ”Shah of Iran”; and WE were responsible for the imposition of Saddam Hussein on Iraq (yes, he was ”our boy” once.); and WE also helped to establish ”our boy” Mubarak in Egypt who took our money and our orders as well. These men ran their nations for OUR best interests (well for a while). In time some of them had to go, or we got rid of them or we're overthrown by their own people.  Our past behavior wasn't what you might describe as neighborly or nice.

For the last decade we have been killing Muslims, hundreds of thousands of them, in Iraq; hundreds in Pakistan, and in Yemen, in Somalia, and in 

Afghanistan over the last decade we have killed and maimed thousands of Afghans.  Here I am counting only where our misdirected or purposely aimed drone strikes have killed innocent civilians like those women and young girls who were killed on September 16.  This is not counting the indirect deaths we are responsible for as when as in Iraq and Afghanistan we degrade a nation’s infrastructure, its electrical grid, its power sources, its sewers and water treatment plants and its hospitals and police forces, its food production facilities.  Such degradation leads to hunger, impoverishment, infirmity, sickness, death and infant mortality.   These actions and events certainly do not make us popular in those places. The dead and injured have grieving husbands, children and other relatives that can not forget what they see examples of our brutality. I dare say that given the number of Muslims killed and maimed by US actions over the last ten years, there must be many millions of Muslims who have a relative or friend or acquaintance who has been killed or maimed by US actions either directly or indirectly.  That is not pleasant reality and certainly helps to explain our lack of popularity.

Finally, for domestic politics and often not our nation’s well-being or best interests we unconditionally support (too often in knee jerk fashion) the State of Israel. We supply it with arms, information and billions of dollars in aid each year. This small, nuclear armed and powerful expansionist nation, with our help and collusion, continues to illegally occupy Muslim lands. It has a policy of active and surreptitious expansion into Palestinian, occupied and vacant land, farms, and olive groves. In the occupied territories it controls and limits scarce water resources, unfairly limiting it the native Palestinians. It brutally humiliates and suppresses the native population. Israel’s domestic policies, seen by others as being supported by the US (who after all continues to supply hardware and money whatever they do to the Palestinians) and it's brutal military attacks (which are supported by military hardware we supply) such as on the Gaza flotilla, and the ”Cast Lead” incursion into the enclosed enclave of Gaza in which a thousand unarmed civilians were killed by the Israeli ”Defense” Force, do not help our image. The world remembers well how President Bush (a good friend of Israel) sat by and watched doing nothing to stop the massacre of innocents. Such behavior is seared into Muslim minds. They do not help OUR image. 

Thus it is clear, we are not popular in a swath of the world where two billion Muslims live.  When some seeming innocuous, (to us) scrap of a demeaning cartoon, or a snippet of film which demeans the Prophet Mohammed is released in the west, Muslims respond in, what seems to us, inexplicable violence. But viewed in context, a context that our press and media will not or can not provide, their motivations becomes clear. Some of our leaders and the neocons would like us to believe that their rage is caused by THEIR religion.  But is it perhaps simply the result of OUR behavior, OUR foreign policy and the actions of OUR leaders? 

Get the picture?

rjk