By Manifesto Joe
Most of you are, no doubt, familiar with the holiday classic "It's a Wonderful Life." In this endearing cinematic piece of Frank Capra-corn, there's a villain, played by Lionel Barrymore, a banking mogul of the town of Bedford Falls, Pa., Mr. Potter. In the vision of George Bailey (James Stewart) in which he literally was never born, the town isn't even called that anymore. It's called Pottersville, named after the loathsome Mr. Potter.
I nominate former Vice President Dick Cheney for mayor of Pottersville.
I always figured Cheney for a prize-winning SOB. That perpetual snear, the deliberate lying during debates, the hypocrisy of the $6 million man begrudging little people medical care while he gets a transplanted heart on the taxpayers' dime, etc., etc., etc.
But until recently, I don't think I'd ever grasped the full inhumanity of this man, the completely self-centered depravity that lurks in that demented brain.
In this link, Cheney voices an almost complete unconcern about the unfortunate person who was his heart donor. "It's my new heart, not someone else's old heart." He's not even curious about how this person died, or about the family. He told mummified interviewer Larry King that he doesn't even know the identity of the person who gave him a new heart. What complete, utter trash.
And yet this man lives on, with Secret Service protection and taxpayer pensions and subsidies of all kinds. I'm not sure there is a hell, but if there isn't, there sure as hell ought to be one, in light of what this wicked little asshole is like. Problem is, he might mastermind a coup to topple Satan and take over the place.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Wednesday, November 20, 2013
Saturday, November 16, 2013
The Real Problem Right-Wingers Have With 'Obamacare:' It Requires Insurers To Insure
By Manifesto Joe
It's obvious that President Obama made a big political -- I repeat, political -- mistake in selling his health care plan. And he should never have put any trust in computer geeks -- such people nowadays hold the Earth hostage to their "expertise," while in reality they are often among the most titanic fools on the planet. (Not only do their initial programs sometimes not work, they are forever changing programs that worked fine as they were. It seems that they never heard the old wisdom that if it works, DON'T FIX IT!)
But the Mainstream Media are failing to tell the entire story, which is, of course, nothing unusual. Obviously Fox News gives a distorted picture; that's their job as a right-wing propaganda instrument. But the MSM aren't doing a good job on this issue, either.
This isn't the case with everyone, but many of the plans that commercial "insurers" are canceling are "junk" insurance, policies that offer very limited "coverage" and would leave the "insured" in incredible binds if they actually needed things like hospitalization and such. The reason such "plans" are being canceled is that they don't meet the minimum standards that the Affordable Care Act set forth.
I got to see the flip side of this issue very recently, having been unemployed for 27 weeks. (Oh, and I still haven't been paid for the last week of that, and never will be -- thanks so much, Texas Workforce Commission.) I went with the expensive COBRA plan I was left with after being laid off, but went looking for cheaper alternatives to COBRA, in case I was jobless longer than I was.
In the first place, it was very hard to find anyone who would "insure" me at a reasonable price. I have asthma and allergies, and I take meds for high blood pressure. I was 56 at the time, too. If you're not absolutely healthy, you are usually rejected just for pre-existing conditions such as those. And they don't like older people, either.
The companies that would write me a "policy" were willing to write me junk. I was accepted by one company, then found out much to my horror that they didn't even offer a prescription drug plan to a customer who was willing to pay them over $400 a month. What they had was a discount "plan" that one can obtain cheaply at any retail pharmacy like Walgreens. And they wanted "mo' money" for that? I refused to pay these greedy scumbags one penny and canceled with them post haste.
Anyway, I wasn't making much headway at finding alternatives to COBRA, until I finally landed a job with benefits. Unlike many Americans, I was somewhat lucky.
But I got a good look at what's out there for people who buy their own health "insurance" a la carte, and it's dismal. It's either too expensive, or it doesn't cover jack shit.
For more details, here's a link to a story in Mother Jones magazine that presents more of the real picture.
The bottom line is that the insurance companies have been ripping Americans off for many decades. "Obamacare," minus the public option, was only a partial solution to the problem. It never was anything else. It was simply what Obama could manage to get through a Congress that is partially owned by the greedy, ruthless insurance companies.
WHAT HAPPENS IF THE REPUBLICANS SUCCEED?
It's pretty obvious, from all the political hay that they're making, is that the downtrodden Republican Party, ever desperate these days for an issue, is playing this up for all they can. It's their goal to derail the Affordable Care Act. In my own state, Gov. Rick "El Pendejo" Perry is absolutely refusing to cooperate with this law's implementation.
There are other sinister things going on, like Koch brothers-financed booths on college campuses, passing out free beer in trying to persuade young people not to buy health insurance, but rather just risk getting sick.
If "Obamacare" is derailed, then what? Well, it looks like we'll go back to the way things have been for decades. You know -- up to 50 million Americans uninsured, up to 30 million more underinsured, people with pre-existing conditions denied coverage, insurance companies getting obscenely rich while putting out little or nothing in return, people who do have health insurance paying higher premiums and higher taxes to cover the cost of uninsured people with their visits to ERs and charity hospitals. You know -- the very conditions that led to the passage of the half-ass "Obamacare" program in the first place.
I'm not an optimist. But what this all may mean is that, perhaps within a decade, Americans will at last get what they should have gotten long ago: Medicare-E (Medicare for Everybody). A single-payer system is the only solution to this travesty. But of course, what that means is that some people will simply have to die off, so that less brainwashed voters can force this to become law.
Let's face it -- the United States is the last, I repeat the very last, developed country on Earth that doesn't have a national health care system. We wouldn't have to do it the way everybody else has done it. Doctors and other providers don't have to become employees of a national service, the way it is in more "socialized" systems. In America, we can style it our own way.
But "free market" arguments don't wash on most points, and certainly not where health care is concerned. If I have a catastrophic illness, I'm not going to be in a position of shopping around for the best prices on doctors, hospitals, ambulances, etc., like some Arab trader. I'm going with whomever can take my case ASAP, with money as no object. (But of course, it's certainly the object, and the objective, of "providers" and "insurers." And they take everything that isn't nailed down.)
Perhaps you have noticed that among all the other developed countries on Earth, none, not one, of them seeks to emulate the American health care system. Interviews in those countries indicate that their people generally think Americans are just plain fucking crazy to have tolerated this shit for decade after decade.
I understand that one of the sticking points of "Obamacare" is that it requires coverage for mental health ailments. I hate to say such hurtful things, but in the case of many Americans, that strikes me as a pretty good idea.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
It's obvious that President Obama made a big political -- I repeat, political -- mistake in selling his health care plan. And he should never have put any trust in computer geeks -- such people nowadays hold the Earth hostage to their "expertise," while in reality they are often among the most titanic fools on the planet. (Not only do their initial programs sometimes not work, they are forever changing programs that worked fine as they were. It seems that they never heard the old wisdom that if it works, DON'T FIX IT!)
But the Mainstream Media are failing to tell the entire story, which is, of course, nothing unusual. Obviously Fox News gives a distorted picture; that's their job as a right-wing propaganda instrument. But the MSM aren't doing a good job on this issue, either.
This isn't the case with everyone, but many of the plans that commercial "insurers" are canceling are "junk" insurance, policies that offer very limited "coverage" and would leave the "insured" in incredible binds if they actually needed things like hospitalization and such. The reason such "plans" are being canceled is that they don't meet the minimum standards that the Affordable Care Act set forth.
I got to see the flip side of this issue very recently, having been unemployed for 27 weeks. (Oh, and I still haven't been paid for the last week of that, and never will be -- thanks so much, Texas Workforce Commission.) I went with the expensive COBRA plan I was left with after being laid off, but went looking for cheaper alternatives to COBRA, in case I was jobless longer than I was.
In the first place, it was very hard to find anyone who would "insure" me at a reasonable price. I have asthma and allergies, and I take meds for high blood pressure. I was 56 at the time, too. If you're not absolutely healthy, you are usually rejected just for pre-existing conditions such as those. And they don't like older people, either.
The companies that would write me a "policy" were willing to write me junk. I was accepted by one company, then found out much to my horror that they didn't even offer a prescription drug plan to a customer who was willing to pay them over $400 a month. What they had was a discount "plan" that one can obtain cheaply at any retail pharmacy like Walgreens. And they wanted "mo' money" for that? I refused to pay these greedy scumbags one penny and canceled with them post haste.
Anyway, I wasn't making much headway at finding alternatives to COBRA, until I finally landed a job with benefits. Unlike many Americans, I was somewhat lucky.
But I got a good look at what's out there for people who buy their own health "insurance" a la carte, and it's dismal. It's either too expensive, or it doesn't cover jack shit.
For more details, here's a link to a story in Mother Jones magazine that presents more of the real picture.
The bottom line is that the insurance companies have been ripping Americans off for many decades. "Obamacare," minus the public option, was only a partial solution to the problem. It never was anything else. It was simply what Obama could manage to get through a Congress that is partially owned by the greedy, ruthless insurance companies.
WHAT HAPPENS IF THE REPUBLICANS SUCCEED?
It's pretty obvious, from all the political hay that they're making, is that the downtrodden Republican Party, ever desperate these days for an issue, is playing this up for all they can. It's their goal to derail the Affordable Care Act. In my own state, Gov. Rick "El Pendejo" Perry is absolutely refusing to cooperate with this law's implementation.
There are other sinister things going on, like Koch brothers-financed booths on college campuses, passing out free beer in trying to persuade young people not to buy health insurance, but rather just risk getting sick.
If "Obamacare" is derailed, then what? Well, it looks like we'll go back to the way things have been for decades. You know -- up to 50 million Americans uninsured, up to 30 million more underinsured, people with pre-existing conditions denied coverage, insurance companies getting obscenely rich while putting out little or nothing in return, people who do have health insurance paying higher premiums and higher taxes to cover the cost of uninsured people with their visits to ERs and charity hospitals. You know -- the very conditions that led to the passage of the half-ass "Obamacare" program in the first place.
I'm not an optimist. But what this all may mean is that, perhaps within a decade, Americans will at last get what they should have gotten long ago: Medicare-E (Medicare for Everybody). A single-payer system is the only solution to this travesty. But of course, what that means is that some people will simply have to die off, so that less brainwashed voters can force this to become law.
Let's face it -- the United States is the last, I repeat the very last, developed country on Earth that doesn't have a national health care system. We wouldn't have to do it the way everybody else has done it. Doctors and other providers don't have to become employees of a national service, the way it is in more "socialized" systems. In America, we can style it our own way.
But "free market" arguments don't wash on most points, and certainly not where health care is concerned. If I have a catastrophic illness, I'm not going to be in a position of shopping around for the best prices on doctors, hospitals, ambulances, etc., like some Arab trader. I'm going with whomever can take my case ASAP, with money as no object. (But of course, it's certainly the object, and the objective, of "providers" and "insurers." And they take everything that isn't nailed down.)
Perhaps you have noticed that among all the other developed countries on Earth, none, not one, of them seeks to emulate the American health care system. Interviews in those countries indicate that their people generally think Americans are just plain fucking crazy to have tolerated this shit for decade after decade.
I understand that one of the sticking points of "Obamacare" is that it requires coverage for mental health ailments. I hate to say such hurtful things, but in the case of many Americans, that strikes me as a pretty good idea.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Wednesday, November 13, 2013
JFK Assassination Was A Defining Moment For Boomers
By Manifesto Joe
We, the baby boomers, are still talking about it 50 years later. We even indulge in gallows humor. My old man, who won five Bronze Stars in the Pacific Theater of World War II, was a much better shot than Lee Harvey Oswald, and I recall that Christmas as being one more generous and affluent than we could usually afford. Was he, my old man, the dude on the grassy knoll?
More seriously, the question that keeps coming up is, where were you when ...?
My memory of it wasn't very remarkable. I was in the second grade. We were playing during noon recess, right after lunch, when a teacher came out to the playground and told us that the president had been shot and wasn't expected to live. Our house was only a few blocks away from the schoolyard. When the teacher told us we were dismissed for the day, I walked home.
My dad owned and operated what was then a Humble gas station in our small town in South Texas. He was at work. I found my mother at home, crying, with the TV on. Walter Cronkite was crying, too. Funeral dirges went on for days on the tube. Instead of missing my favorite shows, I watched the proceedings. I was a fan of Jack Kennedy, but at that age I don't think I understood much about politics. What I saw was that he looked like the hero in the Westerns, while Dick Nixon looked like the dude with the black hat.
One of our neighbors, a very proper Southern Baptist spinster, was shocked at Roman Catholic funeral protocol. "They're passing around the beer!" she exclaimed scandalously. My mother didn't correct her, but did explain to me that the correct word is "bier."
Then Jack Ruby shot and killed Oswald. A few years later Ruby died in prison. Then Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, followed quickly by Robert F. Kennedy. Assassinations were commonplace, to be expected damn near all the time. Conspiracy theories abounded, for many years, decades.
I never thought the Warren Commission had much credibility, but the plethora of conspiracy theories became a laughingstock in itself. The one that seemed most plausible to me: The Kennedy brothers had done a lot to piss off organized crime during those thousand days in power. That was about the last period, the 1960s, when U.S. organized crime figures would have been able to pull off a military-style hit on a person that prominent and powerful. Oswald wasn't much more than a fair shot, and he was using a World War I-era Italian bolt-action rifle. My guess is that he was just a chump, a patsy, and it was Jack Ruby's job to shut him up -- for good. Then, later, Ruby had to be silenced.
But, there have been so many theories, so many lecture tours, so many books written, that the theories are like a smorgasbord. Take your pick. In the end I doubt that we'll ever really know what happened. But I can't bring myself to believe that Oswald acted alone.
In any case, the JFK assassination was one of the events that defined a whole generation. Just about all of us born between 1946 and 1958 can remember something about where they were, what they were doing, when they heard that JFK had been murdered. There are millions upon millions of memories in The Naked City. You just heard one of them.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
We, the baby boomers, are still talking about it 50 years later. We even indulge in gallows humor. My old man, who won five Bronze Stars in the Pacific Theater of World War II, was a much better shot than Lee Harvey Oswald, and I recall that Christmas as being one more generous and affluent than we could usually afford. Was he, my old man, the dude on the grassy knoll?
More seriously, the question that keeps coming up is, where were you when ...?
My memory of it wasn't very remarkable. I was in the second grade. We were playing during noon recess, right after lunch, when a teacher came out to the playground and told us that the president had been shot and wasn't expected to live. Our house was only a few blocks away from the schoolyard. When the teacher told us we were dismissed for the day, I walked home.
My dad owned and operated what was then a Humble gas station in our small town in South Texas. He was at work. I found my mother at home, crying, with the TV on. Walter Cronkite was crying, too. Funeral dirges went on for days on the tube. Instead of missing my favorite shows, I watched the proceedings. I was a fan of Jack Kennedy, but at that age I don't think I understood much about politics. What I saw was that he looked like the hero in the Westerns, while Dick Nixon looked like the dude with the black hat.
One of our neighbors, a very proper Southern Baptist spinster, was shocked at Roman Catholic funeral protocol. "They're passing around the beer!" she exclaimed scandalously. My mother didn't correct her, but did explain to me that the correct word is "bier."
Then Jack Ruby shot and killed Oswald. A few years later Ruby died in prison. Then Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, followed quickly by Robert F. Kennedy. Assassinations were commonplace, to be expected damn near all the time. Conspiracy theories abounded, for many years, decades.
I never thought the Warren Commission had much credibility, but the plethora of conspiracy theories became a laughingstock in itself. The one that seemed most plausible to me: The Kennedy brothers had done a lot to piss off organized crime during those thousand days in power. That was about the last period, the 1960s, when U.S. organized crime figures would have been able to pull off a military-style hit on a person that prominent and powerful. Oswald wasn't much more than a fair shot, and he was using a World War I-era Italian bolt-action rifle. My guess is that he was just a chump, a patsy, and it was Jack Ruby's job to shut him up -- for good. Then, later, Ruby had to be silenced.
But, there have been so many theories, so many lecture tours, so many books written, that the theories are like a smorgasbord. Take your pick. In the end I doubt that we'll ever really know what happened. But I can't bring myself to believe that Oswald acted alone.
In any case, the JFK assassination was one of the events that defined a whole generation. Just about all of us born between 1946 and 1958 can remember something about where they were, what they were doing, when they heard that JFK had been murdered. There are millions upon millions of memories in The Naked City. You just heard one of them.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Friday, October 25, 2013
Shutdown Postmortem: Republicans Seem Determined To Again Be A Long-Term Minority Party
By Manifesto Joe
I'm not going to predict the demise of the Republican Party, although a number of other bloggers have been daring enough to venture such predictions. I don't think that's good historical perspective. Such people underestimate the lure of reactionary politics, and the irrationality of humans. They also underestimate the vast talent of prehistoric vermin, like cockroaches, to reinvent themselves and survive.
To wit: If you had told me in 1978, when it seemed like half the damned country was smoking pot, that possession of even small amounts thereof would still be a federal crime and illegal in 48 states 35 years later, I would have, at the time, called you a fool. At the tender age of 22, it was I who was foolish. I did not anticipate a period of socioeconomic reaction that would last for decades in the U.S.
But here's a bit of history: From 1930 until 1994, the Republican Party had control of the U.S. House of Representatives for exactly 4 out of 64 years. We had GOP presidents, some of them "moderates," during that time, but even Reagan had to deal with Tip O'Neill as speaker of the House and was often forced to compromise.
The Republicans staged a dramatic comeback in 1994, but it seems like they've been doing their best to blow it ever since. With this latest "shutdown" of the federal government, plus other miscalculations, I suspect they may have finally sealed their fate. They may have condemned themselves to another three generations of being just a shrill minority party.
History doesn't repeat itself, but it sometimes has an uncanny way of rhyming. The last time the Republicans did this to themselves, it was over a simple but monumental thing known as the Great Depression. That was such a trauma for my parents' generation, it was still defining Americans decades later. Enough people of that age group had to die off for the electorate to finally show permanent change.
This time, we had a Great Recession, with effects not as bad. But they've been bad enough, especially for the young. Those born in the late years of Generation X, and then the "Millennials," have taken it on the chops pretty hard over the past several years. Their unemployment and underemployment rates remain high, and going to college often means taking on debt of such magnitude that it can only end in bankruptcy. From what the polls show among young voters, most of them aren't blaming the Democrats for this.
Add to that the changing demographics of the country. Much of America has become, or is becoming, majority Hispanic. Being a native South Texan, I'm familiar with that culture, and there is a strong streak of social conservatism there. But the Republicans have clearly blown their opportunity to make related inroads. Their basic xenophobia had compelled them to take hard lines against illegal immigration, and even the Hispanics I know who are of strictly legal status take serious personal offense at such attitudes. Their overwhelming majority of votes cast for Obama in 2012 was not so much an endorsement of Obama as a statement of "We know who our friends AREN'T."
Then add to that the increasing involvement of women in politics. I admit to feeling very conflicted on the abortion issue, but I sure as hell am never going to be faced with the possibility of having one. And quite a few women are more than a bit pissed off that some lawmakers suffering from testosterone poisoning are presuming to tell them that can't be a legal option.
Then add to that the anvil-headed attitudes about gays and lesbians that one typically finds among Republicans. Even Chris Christie, New Jersey's obese governor, is under the gun about that, for simply saying that he's not going to fight a court ruling that says gays should be able to legally marry in that state. He was fighting gay marriage at first and vetoed a piece of state legislation. Now the hard-liners in his party are maligning him for simply acquiescing to the courts.
One group I never understood was the "Log Cabin Republicans." Oh, I can understand, if a gay person also happens to be a trust-fund baby, why paying taxes is distasteful. But why would one want to support a political party in which a majority considers you the worst kind of pond scum, the kind of people your parents warned you about?
What the federal "shutdown" revealed is who is really calling the shots in the Republican Party. It certainly isn't the old-line politicians, the "economic royalists," as I once heard them described. It's a radical, reactionary element that the Old Guard made a Faustian bargain with a couple of generations ago. It's the Nixonian "Southern strategy" come to life as the party's worst nightmare. When someone as manifestly foolish as Texas U.S. Rep. Louie ("Congressman Gomer") Gohmert is someone who's actually listened to, you know that political party is in trouble. The Tea Party and its politicians are not marginal -- they are flexing muscle and busy kicking "RINOs" out of the Republican Party as fast as they can.
The political reality of all this will become apparent to some Republicans in years to come. It's been said by several people that nobody ever lost a dime underestimating the intelligence of the American public. But you can't go around pissing off one large group of people upon another, and then expect to consistently win elections.
The Republican Party won't fade and smolder into the ashheap of history -- at least I am loath to predict that. White Southerners rapidly switched parties starting in the 1960s, and are likely to remain as they are even as they see life examples, time after time, that the GOP doesn't represent their genuine best interests. People often don't make rational decisions about politics.
But when you step on enough toes, you make enemies. After their remarkable comeback in 1994, the Republicans have spent the past 19 years doing tap dances all over sensitive feet. It may be too early to tell -- but they may be condemning themselves to another three generations of minority bellowing. Stay tuned.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
I'm not going to predict the demise of the Republican Party, although a number of other bloggers have been daring enough to venture such predictions. I don't think that's good historical perspective. Such people underestimate the lure of reactionary politics, and the irrationality of humans. They also underestimate the vast talent of prehistoric vermin, like cockroaches, to reinvent themselves and survive.
To wit: If you had told me in 1978, when it seemed like half the damned country was smoking pot, that possession of even small amounts thereof would still be a federal crime and illegal in 48 states 35 years later, I would have, at the time, called you a fool. At the tender age of 22, it was I who was foolish. I did not anticipate a period of socioeconomic reaction that would last for decades in the U.S.
But here's a bit of history: From 1930 until 1994, the Republican Party had control of the U.S. House of Representatives for exactly 4 out of 64 years. We had GOP presidents, some of them "moderates," during that time, but even Reagan had to deal with Tip O'Neill as speaker of the House and was often forced to compromise.
The Republicans staged a dramatic comeback in 1994, but it seems like they've been doing their best to blow it ever since. With this latest "shutdown" of the federal government, plus other miscalculations, I suspect they may have finally sealed their fate. They may have condemned themselves to another three generations of being just a shrill minority party.
History doesn't repeat itself, but it sometimes has an uncanny way of rhyming. The last time the Republicans did this to themselves, it was over a simple but monumental thing known as the Great Depression. That was such a trauma for my parents' generation, it was still defining Americans decades later. Enough people of that age group had to die off for the electorate to finally show permanent change.
This time, we had a Great Recession, with effects not as bad. But they've been bad enough, especially for the young. Those born in the late years of Generation X, and then the "Millennials," have taken it on the chops pretty hard over the past several years. Their unemployment and underemployment rates remain high, and going to college often means taking on debt of such magnitude that it can only end in bankruptcy. From what the polls show among young voters, most of them aren't blaming the Democrats for this.
Add to that the changing demographics of the country. Much of America has become, or is becoming, majority Hispanic. Being a native South Texan, I'm familiar with that culture, and there is a strong streak of social conservatism there. But the Republicans have clearly blown their opportunity to make related inroads. Their basic xenophobia had compelled them to take hard lines against illegal immigration, and even the Hispanics I know who are of strictly legal status take serious personal offense at such attitudes. Their overwhelming majority of votes cast for Obama in 2012 was not so much an endorsement of Obama as a statement of "We know who our friends AREN'T."
Then add to that the increasing involvement of women in politics. I admit to feeling very conflicted on the abortion issue, but I sure as hell am never going to be faced with the possibility of having one. And quite a few women are more than a bit pissed off that some lawmakers suffering from testosterone poisoning are presuming to tell them that can't be a legal option.
Then add to that the anvil-headed attitudes about gays and lesbians that one typically finds among Republicans. Even Chris Christie, New Jersey's obese governor, is under the gun about that, for simply saying that he's not going to fight a court ruling that says gays should be able to legally marry in that state. He was fighting gay marriage at first and vetoed a piece of state legislation. Now the hard-liners in his party are maligning him for simply acquiescing to the courts.
One group I never understood was the "Log Cabin Republicans." Oh, I can understand, if a gay person also happens to be a trust-fund baby, why paying taxes is distasteful. But why would one want to support a political party in which a majority considers you the worst kind of pond scum, the kind of people your parents warned you about?
What the federal "shutdown" revealed is who is really calling the shots in the Republican Party. It certainly isn't the old-line politicians, the "economic royalists," as I once heard them described. It's a radical, reactionary element that the Old Guard made a Faustian bargain with a couple of generations ago. It's the Nixonian "Southern strategy" come to life as the party's worst nightmare. When someone as manifestly foolish as Texas U.S. Rep. Louie ("Congressman Gomer") Gohmert is someone who's actually listened to, you know that political party is in trouble. The Tea Party and its politicians are not marginal -- they are flexing muscle and busy kicking "RINOs" out of the Republican Party as fast as they can.
The political reality of all this will become apparent to some Republicans in years to come. It's been said by several people that nobody ever lost a dime underestimating the intelligence of the American public. But you can't go around pissing off one large group of people upon another, and then expect to consistently win elections.
The Republican Party won't fade and smolder into the ashheap of history -- at least I am loath to predict that. White Southerners rapidly switched parties starting in the 1960s, and are likely to remain as they are even as they see life examples, time after time, that the GOP doesn't represent their genuine best interests. People often don't make rational decisions about politics.
But when you step on enough toes, you make enemies. After their remarkable comeback in 1994, the Republicans have spent the past 19 years doing tap dances all over sensitive feet. It may be too early to tell -- but they may be condemning themselves to another three generations of minority bellowing. Stay tuned.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Sunday, October 6, 2013
Texas Governor: Whither After El Pendejo?
By Manifesto Joe
Texas has a weak governor, strong lieutenant governor system. The No. 2 executive in the state, presiding over the Senate, is often thought to have at least marginally more power. But the governor does wield a veto pen and is at least symbolically the state's leader.
The 2014 race for governor seems to be taking shape, now that Rick "El Pendejo" Perry has, after 14 long years, decided that he doesn't want to be governor for life and hasn't ruled out another embarrassing bid for the presidency. Here's how things are looking now:
State Sen. Wendy Davis of Fort Worth, Democratic frontrunner
Like many who have somehow had greatness thrust upon them, Wendy isn't a highly remarkable person, as far as I can tell. One of her best assets is that she had the good fortune to come out of the womb looking pretty good, although she's not exactly my type. But to her credit, she's hardworking, and was in the School of Hard Knocks long enough to know, unlike many hotshot lawyers, what life is like for most ordinary hardworking folks.
A lot of people around Tarrant County knew Wendy WHEN, and know that she's "in touch" with blue-collar concerns. Problem is, I think she's running at least four years too soon. The last time the Democrats had a fair year in Texas was 1990, the year Ann Richards was elected to one term as governor. The demographics here are changing, but I don't think they've changed enough at this point to make this into a "purple" state. But if Wendy at least does reasonably well in a loss, the name recognition may help in 2018. Thanks to her ultimately unsuccessful Senate filibuster against Texas' unconstitutional abortion law, she had already scored big in that department. Stay tuned.
Attorney General Greg Abbott, Republican frontrunner
Never mind that he's a hypocrite. That never lost anybody in Texas an election.
What I refer to is that Abbott, a paraplegic confined to a wheelchair, was hit by a tree in 1984 while running after a storm. He sued the homeowner and won a $10 million settlement. Now, as AG, he's all for tort reform, opposing settlements of this very kind.
Polls show him as the clear GOP frontrunner, and this is a state in which the next governor is likely to be the Republican nominee. His wife is Hispanic, and you can expect to see him trotting her out in hopes of winning Hispanic votes. He's very anti-abortion, so he and Wendy Davis would most certainly clash on that issue. One of his big personal victories is winning Texas the right to display the Ten Commandments in front of the Capitol building in Austin.
At this point, I'd say Abbott is the betting favorite. He promises to carry on the legacy of El Pendejo with pride and verve.
Tom Pauken, former Texas Republican Party chairman and ex-Fagin of the "Workforce Commission"
I cannot fathom what this man's qualifications ever were to be chairman of the Texas Workforce Commission. He attended a Jesuit school in Dallas as a youth, then went on to Georgetown University in Washington. As far as I can tell, he's a professional right-winger who was never unemployed a day in his privileged life.
He was pretty clearly a political appointee to the job. Perhaps that's fitting, since anyone who's been jobless in this state for very long knows that the Texas Workforce Commission's main purpose appears to be to rob the unemployed of money and hope. During his tenure at the TWC, the agency appears to have been packed with Republican bureaucrats who, like him, have zero experience with joblessness and seem intent on denying benefits to poor people for any conceivable reason.
Nor does his time as GOP state chairman lend him any credibility. If you've ever read the Texas Republican Party's state platform, it can't be distinguished from a similar document from the John Birch Society. This party was dominated by kooks back when kooks weren't cool.
He appears to be Abbott's only serious challenger for the Republican gubernatorial nomination.
Well, that's the field right now. Sigh. Looks like Texans are in for at least four more years of silliness. But then, as Adlai Stevenson once said, people generally get the government they deserve.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Texas has a weak governor, strong lieutenant governor system. The No. 2 executive in the state, presiding over the Senate, is often thought to have at least marginally more power. But the governor does wield a veto pen and is at least symbolically the state's leader.
The 2014 race for governor seems to be taking shape, now that Rick "El Pendejo" Perry has, after 14 long years, decided that he doesn't want to be governor for life and hasn't ruled out another embarrassing bid for the presidency. Here's how things are looking now:
State Sen. Wendy Davis of Fort Worth, Democratic frontrunner
Like many who have somehow had greatness thrust upon them, Wendy isn't a highly remarkable person, as far as I can tell. One of her best assets is that she had the good fortune to come out of the womb looking pretty good, although she's not exactly my type. But to her credit, she's hardworking, and was in the School of Hard Knocks long enough to know, unlike many hotshot lawyers, what life is like for most ordinary hardworking folks.
A lot of people around Tarrant County knew Wendy WHEN, and know that she's "in touch" with blue-collar concerns. Problem is, I think she's running at least four years too soon. The last time the Democrats had a fair year in Texas was 1990, the year Ann Richards was elected to one term as governor. The demographics here are changing, but I don't think they've changed enough at this point to make this into a "purple" state. But if Wendy at least does reasonably well in a loss, the name recognition may help in 2018. Thanks to her ultimately unsuccessful Senate filibuster against Texas' unconstitutional abortion law, she had already scored big in that department. Stay tuned.
Attorney General Greg Abbott, Republican frontrunner
Never mind that he's a hypocrite. That never lost anybody in Texas an election.
What I refer to is that Abbott, a paraplegic confined to a wheelchair, was hit by a tree in 1984 while running after a storm. He sued the homeowner and won a $10 million settlement. Now, as AG, he's all for tort reform, opposing settlements of this very kind.
Polls show him as the clear GOP frontrunner, and this is a state in which the next governor is likely to be the Republican nominee. His wife is Hispanic, and you can expect to see him trotting her out in hopes of winning Hispanic votes. He's very anti-abortion, so he and Wendy Davis would most certainly clash on that issue. One of his big personal victories is winning Texas the right to display the Ten Commandments in front of the Capitol building in Austin.
At this point, I'd say Abbott is the betting favorite. He promises to carry on the legacy of El Pendejo with pride and verve.
Tom Pauken, former Texas Republican Party chairman and ex-Fagin of the "Workforce Commission"
I cannot fathom what this man's qualifications ever were to be chairman of the Texas Workforce Commission. He attended a Jesuit school in Dallas as a youth, then went on to Georgetown University in Washington. As far as I can tell, he's a professional right-winger who was never unemployed a day in his privileged life.
He was pretty clearly a political appointee to the job. Perhaps that's fitting, since anyone who's been jobless in this state for very long knows that the Texas Workforce Commission's main purpose appears to be to rob the unemployed of money and hope. During his tenure at the TWC, the agency appears to have been packed with Republican bureaucrats who, like him, have zero experience with joblessness and seem intent on denying benefits to poor people for any conceivable reason.
Nor does his time as GOP state chairman lend him any credibility. If you've ever read the Texas Republican Party's state platform, it can't be distinguished from a similar document from the John Birch Society. This party was dominated by kooks back when kooks weren't cool.
He appears to be Abbott's only serious challenger for the Republican gubernatorial nomination.
Well, that's the field right now. Sigh. Looks like Texans are in for at least four more years of silliness. But then, as Adlai Stevenson once said, people generally get the government they deserve.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Sunday, September 8, 2013
Too Bad There Can't Be A Mental Health Test For Voting -- Many In GOP Couldn't Vote
By Manifesto Joe
I honestly don't take much pleasure in demonizing conservatives. In an intended democratic republic such as this one, the system needs liberals for vision, conservatives for grounding. In history we have seen examples of both sides producing great statespeople.
Why, then, do contemporary American "conservatives" act like such psychos?
I suppose that one could argue that it's their turn. Within my lifetime, I can recall cases of delusional left-wing behavior. Jane Fonda's infamous antics in Hanoi around 1972 come immediately to mind. But that era ended quickly. By the end of the 1970s, Jane was very much back at work as an actress and had been very much replaced in the public eye by the likes of Phyllis Schlafly. And in thirtysomething years, we've gotten no break from the likes of that.
I remember the Jim Crow South using devices such as skewed literacy tests to disenfranchise potential black voters. For similar reasons, we'll never see a mental health test for voting, not even a fair one, because clearly the group that would suffer most from such a barrier would be Republicans.
There was a time when Republicans, in large part, were the necessary grounding for a democratic republic in the U.S. That was back when the party had a fair number of "moderates" in it, and they usually determined who the actual nominated candidates were. Now, genuine conservatives like Richard Lugar of Indiana can't even be seen in a photo with a Democrat without having a far less qualified Tea Party challenger knock them off in the GOP primary.
The latest evidence that the Republican Party has been effectively taken over by kooks comes from Louisiana (no big surprise there). When they polled rank-and-file Republican voters there, 29 percent said Barack Obama was to blame for the poor federal response to damage from Hurricane Katrina. That's right, 29 percent.
If you don't believe me, here's a link to a news story on the subject.
I shouldn't have to point out that Katrina ravaged New Orleans and surrounding areas back in 2005, when Obama was an obscure first-year member of the U.S. Senate. Il Doofus (Bush 43) was president then.
This, mind you, represents more than 2 out of 7 Republicans in Louisiana. The only pleas for saying a thing like this would be (1) ignorance, (2) mental illness, or (3) both. I'm inclined to think (3) is the answer.
It's taken the American people a long time, but after the last election it appears that just over 50 percent understand that Republicans are no longer responsible conservatives, but are instead under the spell of the lunatic right wing. These pathetic escapees from straitjackets are so desperate to blame a Democrat for anything, they are in large part blaming Obama for something that happened over three years before he took office. It would be like blaming the Vietnam War on Jimmy Carter, and not even the kooks of 1980 were rabid enough to try that.
The basic problem: America now has, for its two-party system, one group of right-wing crazies, and a group of centrists (Democrats) who are themselves so beholden to rich campaign contributors and giant corporations that they can't be depended on to enact genuine reform or to supply any real vision. We have a radical right and a marshmallow center, and that's just about it. With that kind of refuse to govern us, I don't think it will be long before we can kiss our "democratic republic" goodbye and say hello to raging anarchy.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
I honestly don't take much pleasure in demonizing conservatives. In an intended democratic republic such as this one, the system needs liberals for vision, conservatives for grounding. In history we have seen examples of both sides producing great statespeople.
Why, then, do contemporary American "conservatives" act like such psychos?
I suppose that one could argue that it's their turn. Within my lifetime, I can recall cases of delusional left-wing behavior. Jane Fonda's infamous antics in Hanoi around 1972 come immediately to mind. But that era ended quickly. By the end of the 1970s, Jane was very much back at work as an actress and had been very much replaced in the public eye by the likes of Phyllis Schlafly. And in thirtysomething years, we've gotten no break from the likes of that.
I remember the Jim Crow South using devices such as skewed literacy tests to disenfranchise potential black voters. For similar reasons, we'll never see a mental health test for voting, not even a fair one, because clearly the group that would suffer most from such a barrier would be Republicans.
There was a time when Republicans, in large part, were the necessary grounding for a democratic republic in the U.S. That was back when the party had a fair number of "moderates" in it, and they usually determined who the actual nominated candidates were. Now, genuine conservatives like Richard Lugar of Indiana can't even be seen in a photo with a Democrat without having a far less qualified Tea Party challenger knock them off in the GOP primary.
The latest evidence that the Republican Party has been effectively taken over by kooks comes from Louisiana (no big surprise there). When they polled rank-and-file Republican voters there, 29 percent said Barack Obama was to blame for the poor federal response to damage from Hurricane Katrina. That's right, 29 percent.
If you don't believe me, here's a link to a news story on the subject.
I shouldn't have to point out that Katrina ravaged New Orleans and surrounding areas back in 2005, when Obama was an obscure first-year member of the U.S. Senate. Il Doofus (Bush 43) was president then.
This, mind you, represents more than 2 out of 7 Republicans in Louisiana. The only pleas for saying a thing like this would be (1) ignorance, (2) mental illness, or (3) both. I'm inclined to think (3) is the answer.
It's taken the American people a long time, but after the last election it appears that just over 50 percent understand that Republicans are no longer responsible conservatives, but are instead under the spell of the lunatic right wing. These pathetic escapees from straitjackets are so desperate to blame a Democrat for anything, they are in large part blaming Obama for something that happened over three years before he took office. It would be like blaming the Vietnam War on Jimmy Carter, and not even the kooks of 1980 were rabid enough to try that.
The basic problem: America now has, for its two-party system, one group of right-wing crazies, and a group of centrists (Democrats) who are themselves so beholden to rich campaign contributors and giant corporations that they can't be depended on to enact genuine reform or to supply any real vision. We have a radical right and a marshmallow center, and that's just about it. With that kind of refuse to govern us, I don't think it will be long before we can kiss our "democratic republic" goodbye and say hello to raging anarchy.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Wednesday, August 28, 2013
America At The Economic Crossroads: The Second Gilded Age Must End
By Manifesto Joe
In 2013, America stands at the economic crossroads more starkly than perhaps ever before. The federal budget deficit, though reduced, remains staggeringly high. Two-thirds of U.S. corporations pay no federal income tax, and they employ armies of lawyers and CPAs, plus own scores of lawmakers through campaign contributions, to make sure things stay that way. Their well-paid mouthpieces tell us things can't really be any other way, that we can't be competitive by going back to an arrangement in which corporations paid 39% of the IRS take (Barlett and Steele, citing IRS figures for 1959).
There is some truth in this, and we have seen enough outsourcing and offshoring to know it. Big corporations are now armed with technology and tactics that they didn't have in 1959, and no socialist alternatives to the capitalist system are regarded as viable. Karl Marx predicted that there would be attempts to "reform" capitalism, to ameliorate its more brutal side, but that those efforts would all fail as capitalism stubbornly returns to its more primitive form. A few countries like Sweden and Norway seem to have found a comfortable coexistence of capitalism and socialism, with the mix much more weighted toward the latter than we've generally seen elsewhere in the West. But, as the social safety net is whittled down not only here but in many other countries such as Spain and Greece, the chances of other places in the West reaching a Swedenlike arrangement any time soon are quite remote.
But I don't believe that, in the long run, our corporate masters are going to get their way. The genie is out of the bottle, so to speak. Ordinary people know, from New Deal-era programs such as Social Security and institutions such as labor unions, that there actually is another path.
The Gilded Age, Part Two has been pursued mostly unabated in the U.S. for about 35 years now, and the results should be shocking. In 1982, CEO pay was 42 times that of an average worker. By 2012, pay for the former had swelled to 354 times that of the average U.S. worker. There seems to be no end to the number of apologists for this sort of obscenity, and many people have been cowed into silence as their faces are ground more savagely by the priesthood of "free markets."
Here's a link from the AFL-CIO with more details about this very organized thievery.
But there's nothing like discomfort to wake up the millions. That was what did it in the 1930s, after the first Gilded Age was at long last over. When you got nothin', you got nothin' to lose. It took a painfully long time back then, but it finally happened. And it will happen again. It's been said that history doesn't really repeat itself, but it certainly rhymes. Our corporate masters won't be able to hustle working people with "free" verse for very much longer.
At this point, people aren't uncomfortable enough. We will see that, though, and it won't be that much longer. Real disaster was averted during the meltdown that accompanied The Great Recession, and the means for the bailouts is less likely to be there next time. And there will be a next time, because clearly the high-class hustlers have learned absolutely nothing from the past five years, except perhaps that they very often end up back on top.
People in this country, and in others, saw collectively for decades that things can be different. And I don't think this is at all optimism, because what I see ahead is a lifetime of horror and struggle. Our corporate masters are discovering that they can perform many functions without employing flesh-and-blood humans to do them. But flesh and blood has to eat, has to have potable water, and will demand medical care when sick. During much of the 20th century, people in relatively affluent societies got used to taking such things almost for granted. They can't anymore -- the "social safety net" has too many gaps, and more are being torn on purpose.
We're headed for a time in which Social Security, Medicare and labor unions will be nostalgic folklore. There will be decades of illegal campfires, fights in which the faceless masses suffer horrendous losses, and coastal cities going underwater.
I'd like to see what comes out of all this in, perhaps, a century. But I'm glad that I'm 57 and that my wife and I stayed intentionally childless. I wouldn't want to see what the next two or three generations of Americans will go through. I wouldn't want to be 27 now, and certainly not 17.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
In 2013, America stands at the economic crossroads more starkly than perhaps ever before. The federal budget deficit, though reduced, remains staggeringly high. Two-thirds of U.S. corporations pay no federal income tax, and they employ armies of lawyers and CPAs, plus own scores of lawmakers through campaign contributions, to make sure things stay that way. Their well-paid mouthpieces tell us things can't really be any other way, that we can't be competitive by going back to an arrangement in which corporations paid 39% of the IRS take (Barlett and Steele, citing IRS figures for 1959).
There is some truth in this, and we have seen enough outsourcing and offshoring to know it. Big corporations are now armed with technology and tactics that they didn't have in 1959, and no socialist alternatives to the capitalist system are regarded as viable. Karl Marx predicted that there would be attempts to "reform" capitalism, to ameliorate its more brutal side, but that those efforts would all fail as capitalism stubbornly returns to its more primitive form. A few countries like Sweden and Norway seem to have found a comfortable coexistence of capitalism and socialism, with the mix much more weighted toward the latter than we've generally seen elsewhere in the West. But, as the social safety net is whittled down not only here but in many other countries such as Spain and Greece, the chances of other places in the West reaching a Swedenlike arrangement any time soon are quite remote.
But I don't believe that, in the long run, our corporate masters are going to get their way. The genie is out of the bottle, so to speak. Ordinary people know, from New Deal-era programs such as Social Security and institutions such as labor unions, that there actually is another path.
The Gilded Age, Part Two has been pursued mostly unabated in the U.S. for about 35 years now, and the results should be shocking. In 1982, CEO pay was 42 times that of an average worker. By 2012, pay for the former had swelled to 354 times that of the average U.S. worker. There seems to be no end to the number of apologists for this sort of obscenity, and many people have been cowed into silence as their faces are ground more savagely by the priesthood of "free markets."
Here's a link from the AFL-CIO with more details about this very organized thievery.
But there's nothing like discomfort to wake up the millions. That was what did it in the 1930s, after the first Gilded Age was at long last over. When you got nothin', you got nothin' to lose. It took a painfully long time back then, but it finally happened. And it will happen again. It's been said that history doesn't really repeat itself, but it certainly rhymes. Our corporate masters won't be able to hustle working people with "free" verse for very much longer.
At this point, people aren't uncomfortable enough. We will see that, though, and it won't be that much longer. Real disaster was averted during the meltdown that accompanied The Great Recession, and the means for the bailouts is less likely to be there next time. And there will be a next time, because clearly the high-class hustlers have learned absolutely nothing from the past five years, except perhaps that they very often end up back on top.
People in this country, and in others, saw collectively for decades that things can be different. And I don't think this is at all optimism, because what I see ahead is a lifetime of horror and struggle. Our corporate masters are discovering that they can perform many functions without employing flesh-and-blood humans to do them. But flesh and blood has to eat, has to have potable water, and will demand medical care when sick. During much of the 20th century, people in relatively affluent societies got used to taking such things almost for granted. They can't anymore -- the "social safety net" has too many gaps, and more are being torn on purpose.
We're headed for a time in which Social Security, Medicare and labor unions will be nostalgic folklore. There will be decades of illegal campfires, fights in which the faceless masses suffer horrendous losses, and coastal cities going underwater.
I'd like to see what comes out of all this in, perhaps, a century. But I'm glad that I'm 57 and that my wife and I stayed intentionally childless. I wouldn't want to see what the next two or three generations of Americans will go through. I wouldn't want to be 27 now, and certainly not 17.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Saturday, August 3, 2013
Obama at 52: A Checkup
By Manifesto Joe
Granted, he's been a disappointment, but not a totally unexpected one. I confess to having voted for Hillary Clinton in the 2008 Democratic primary, for one big reason.
Politics isn't a sport for amateurs. I tend to oppose term limits because D.C. is a league that's strictly for professionals. Going into that primary, Hillary had 15 years of Beltway experience, and certainly knew what to expect from Republican rivals. Obama had been there a little over three years, and while it appears that he's a nice fellow, in politics that may be a weakness. For four and a half years, Republicans have hit him with everything including the kitchen sink, and his posture seems to be just starting to harden. I figured Hillary would have given no quarter from Day One.
So, Obama's lack of Beltway experience was as evident as I feared it would be. It's taken him until the first year of his second term to understand what political hardball is.
He's 52 tomorrow, and now that I'm 57, I look back on that as a watershed year. I'd been a fitness stickler for over 25 years until that year. I pulled a muscle and was sidelined. I realized that I'd reached upper middle age, and that it wasn't going to get any better.
Analogously, I saw multiple layoffs that year where I worked, and realized that my time would come someday. Fortunately, it took about four more years for them to get around to me. Then I went through the tortures of dealing with the cheap, greedy thieves at the Texas Workforce Commission, for six months and a week. They still owe me money that I'll never get.
But, to end the digression, at 52 I could suddenly see the end of a lot of things.
Obama turns 52 tomorrow, and he's a "lame duck." He's still struggling to make "Obamacare," his signature program, a reality against stubborn opposition. He's had to face one of the unpleasant realities of wielding power: You're responsible for the lives of a lot of people, and that can mean making choices you'd rather not make, like between privacy and safety, between social justice and responsible budgeting. He's alienated much of the left (or what's left of it) by choosing to continue domestic spying and compromising on Social Security cuts. And his deal-cutting hasn't endeared him to the right, which has reviled and vilified him from Day One.
52 is a time of life for soul-searching, and I suspect that Barack Obama will be no exception. It's time to think about legacy, about what you want to be remembered for. Obama has been reasonably pragmatic (though a bit too nice) in positioning himself as a centrist, but does he really want to be remembered as the president who approved of spying and secrecy, and who let the right needlessly gut Social Security and Medicare?
It's time for introspection. Obama must realize that alienating his base of support won't improve his standing in the history books, nor will it give him the Congress he wants in 2014. I hope he can make the right choices.
And which ones are those? To be honest, since I have no Beltway experience, I can offer no answers. Obama is there, in the thick of it. I hope he's grown into the job enough to make the best decisions.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Granted, he's been a disappointment, but not a totally unexpected one. I confess to having voted for Hillary Clinton in the 2008 Democratic primary, for one big reason.
Politics isn't a sport for amateurs. I tend to oppose term limits because D.C. is a league that's strictly for professionals. Going into that primary, Hillary had 15 years of Beltway experience, and certainly knew what to expect from Republican rivals. Obama had been there a little over three years, and while it appears that he's a nice fellow, in politics that may be a weakness. For four and a half years, Republicans have hit him with everything including the kitchen sink, and his posture seems to be just starting to harden. I figured Hillary would have given no quarter from Day One.
So, Obama's lack of Beltway experience was as evident as I feared it would be. It's taken him until the first year of his second term to understand what political hardball is.
He's 52 tomorrow, and now that I'm 57, I look back on that as a watershed year. I'd been a fitness stickler for over 25 years until that year. I pulled a muscle and was sidelined. I realized that I'd reached upper middle age, and that it wasn't going to get any better.
Analogously, I saw multiple layoffs that year where I worked, and realized that my time would come someday. Fortunately, it took about four more years for them to get around to me. Then I went through the tortures of dealing with the cheap, greedy thieves at the Texas Workforce Commission, for six months and a week. They still owe me money that I'll never get.
But, to end the digression, at 52 I could suddenly see the end of a lot of things.
Obama turns 52 tomorrow, and he's a "lame duck." He's still struggling to make "Obamacare," his signature program, a reality against stubborn opposition. He's had to face one of the unpleasant realities of wielding power: You're responsible for the lives of a lot of people, and that can mean making choices you'd rather not make, like between privacy and safety, between social justice and responsible budgeting. He's alienated much of the left (or what's left of it) by choosing to continue domestic spying and compromising on Social Security cuts. And his deal-cutting hasn't endeared him to the right, which has reviled and vilified him from Day One.
52 is a time of life for soul-searching, and I suspect that Barack Obama will be no exception. It's time to think about legacy, about what you want to be remembered for. Obama has been reasonably pragmatic (though a bit too nice) in positioning himself as a centrist, but does he really want to be remembered as the president who approved of spying and secrecy, and who let the right needlessly gut Social Security and Medicare?
It's time for introspection. Obama must realize that alienating his base of support won't improve his standing in the history books, nor will it give him the Congress he wants in 2014. I hope he can make the right choices.
And which ones are those? To be honest, since I have no Beltway experience, I can offer no answers. Obama is there, in the thick of it. I hope he's grown into the job enough to make the best decisions.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Tuesday, July 2, 2013
Firefighter Reaction Shows This Country Has Lost Its Soul
By Manifesto Joe
After coming home from my job very late in the evening after 19 elite firefighters were burned to death in Arizona -- the worst loss of life in a wildfire since the Great Depression -- I was channel-surfing the TV to find out the latest on this horrible development.
I was quite nonplussed to see that I couldn't find anything on it for a long time. Granted, it was all over the Internet. But even Fox News didn't have anything on it when I switched the TV channel there. Instead, they had some pasty-faced right-wingers on there decrying homosexual marriage, and then calling Texas state Sen. Wendy Davis and the Austin abortion rights protesters cheap thugs who hijacked the democratic process (if this had been the other side of the issue, of course they all would have been heroes who demonstrated the value of civil disobedience).
I couldn't find anything on the firefighters, at least not for a long time. Finally, as 2 a.m. came, my wife put the channel on CBS's Up to the Minute. At the top of the hour, there was finally an update on the 19 brave heroes who gave their lives trying to save people's homes from a raging wildfire.
CBS gave a very adequate account of the Arizona debacle. But it certainly took a long time for us to channel-surf enough to find it. This is when it hit me -- this country really has gone to hell, hasn't it?
This glaring omission by the news media, I considered, was just one of many ugly symptoms that some sort of rotten decadence has seized the very core of America. It's not ideological; it has little to do with right or left. It's more of a sense vs. nonsense question.
Something else I've been noticing is the carnage on the roads, and how many wrecks that kill and maim could easily have been prevented had the drivers used a bit of common (uncommon?) sense. In the city where I moved a little over five months ago, there are bloody wrecks on the local TV news almost nightly. People drive on the crosstown freeway here like it's the Autobahn, or perhaps even the Indy 500. They often don't even have the excuse of being drunk -- it's DWS, driving while stupid. Pickups, however shiny and new, and SUVs were not designed to be driven on freeways at 80 or 90 mph. When the driver loses control or has a blowout, the vehicle flips, and often someone, sadly in a nearby vehicle, is killed. And the police never seem to be there until it's time to pick up the pieces, and body parts.
American decadence isn't new. I started noticing it, big time, about 35 years ago, when I was still a very young man. But that's a long time, half a lifetime, for people, corporations and government entities to just keep exhibiting more and more brainlessness.
Yes, it's been happening to large institutions as well, and perhaps to them worst of all. For example, there's a general consensus that outsourcing has been a colossal failure. Jobs are being shipped to places on the planet where, quite often, English is not even the phone rep's second language, let alone their first. When I call some company for customer service or tech support, I often have to ask the rep to repeat what they just said. And it's usually the case that I have to call a second, or even a third time, to get the right thing done. Yet, despite the obviousness of this mistake, the profit-crazed corporations don't want to admit an error, and continue down this path unabated.
What we appear to be witnessing is the broad-based decline of a culture, and an empire. It can't just be something in the water -- the witnesses are drinking from the same reservoirs. The sad truth appears to be that this country has lost its soul, has become directionless. When 19 brave men die horribly in a wildfire battle, and it gets no more coverage, and perhaps not even as much, as gay marriage or a state-level abortion debate, then something has gone dreadfully wrong. It has little to do with which side of those social issues one is on. It's a very basic thread of human values that seems to have gone awry.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
After coming home from my job very late in the evening after 19 elite firefighters were burned to death in Arizona -- the worst loss of life in a wildfire since the Great Depression -- I was channel-surfing the TV to find out the latest on this horrible development.
I was quite nonplussed to see that I couldn't find anything on it for a long time. Granted, it was all over the Internet. But even Fox News didn't have anything on it when I switched the TV channel there. Instead, they had some pasty-faced right-wingers on there decrying homosexual marriage, and then calling Texas state Sen. Wendy Davis and the Austin abortion rights protesters cheap thugs who hijacked the democratic process (if this had been the other side of the issue, of course they all would have been heroes who demonstrated the value of civil disobedience).
I couldn't find anything on the firefighters, at least not for a long time. Finally, as 2 a.m. came, my wife put the channel on CBS's Up to the Minute. At the top of the hour, there was finally an update on the 19 brave heroes who gave their lives trying to save people's homes from a raging wildfire.
CBS gave a very adequate account of the Arizona debacle. But it certainly took a long time for us to channel-surf enough to find it. This is when it hit me -- this country really has gone to hell, hasn't it?
This glaring omission by the news media, I considered, was just one of many ugly symptoms that some sort of rotten decadence has seized the very core of America. It's not ideological; it has little to do with right or left. It's more of a sense vs. nonsense question.
Something else I've been noticing is the carnage on the roads, and how many wrecks that kill and maim could easily have been prevented had the drivers used a bit of common (uncommon?) sense. In the city where I moved a little over five months ago, there are bloody wrecks on the local TV news almost nightly. People drive on the crosstown freeway here like it's the Autobahn, or perhaps even the Indy 500. They often don't even have the excuse of being drunk -- it's DWS, driving while stupid. Pickups, however shiny and new, and SUVs were not designed to be driven on freeways at 80 or 90 mph. When the driver loses control or has a blowout, the vehicle flips, and often someone, sadly in a nearby vehicle, is killed. And the police never seem to be there until it's time to pick up the pieces, and body parts.
American decadence isn't new. I started noticing it, big time, about 35 years ago, when I was still a very young man. But that's a long time, half a lifetime, for people, corporations and government entities to just keep exhibiting more and more brainlessness.
Yes, it's been happening to large institutions as well, and perhaps to them worst of all. For example, there's a general consensus that outsourcing has been a colossal failure. Jobs are being shipped to places on the planet where, quite often, English is not even the phone rep's second language, let alone their first. When I call some company for customer service or tech support, I often have to ask the rep to repeat what they just said. And it's usually the case that I have to call a second, or even a third time, to get the right thing done. Yet, despite the obviousness of this mistake, the profit-crazed corporations don't want to admit an error, and continue down this path unabated.
What we appear to be witnessing is the broad-based decline of a culture, and an empire. It can't just be something in the water -- the witnesses are drinking from the same reservoirs. The sad truth appears to be that this country has lost its soul, has become directionless. When 19 brave men die horribly in a wildfire battle, and it gets no more coverage, and perhaps not even as much, as gay marriage or a state-level abortion debate, then something has gone dreadfully wrong. It has little to do with which side of those social issues one is on. It's a very basic thread of human values that seems to have gone awry.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Wednesday, June 12, 2013
Wal-Mart Gets Rich Off Government Subsidies
By Manifesto Joe
Bashing welfare is a very easy thing to do, and with some reason. I just saw my hometown not long ago, and it looked like a scene from The Last Picture Show. Storefronts that used to thrive were boarded up. Half the town, probably more, is on government assistance of some sort. Agriculture is moribund because of Texas' drought, and there's no industry nearby to speak of. The tax base pretty much consists of the substandard school district, which is heavily subsidized by the federal government, and the local supermarket, which gets much of its money through the food stamp program. Welfare programs appear to have created a town full of dependents.
Couldn't these people work? That's the natural thing to ask. If the city fathers lure in an industry, they would likely have to do it through huge tax abatements, and that wouldn't add much to their tax base.
And then, one can always commute to one of the nearby towns and work at the Wal-Mart store.
Problem is, that probably wouldn't get you entirely off government assistance. Because the pay at Wal-Mart is so shitty -- an average hourly wage of $8.81, I've read -- Wal-Mart "associates" often have to stay on food stamps to be able to feed their families. The company doesn't offer benefits to many of its "associates," so that means the employees have to stay on government health programs like Medicaid and CHIP. Meanwhile, as we the taxpayers pick up the tab for all this, the company rakes in profits for some of the richest people on Earth.
It's an indirect government subsidy, but a subsidy nonetheless. You and I are paying for stuff that any "decent" corporation would offer employees enough money and benefits to afford. From what I've read, the annual subsidies are usually at least $900,000 per store, and they can run as high as $2 million. Here's a link to an article on the subject.
I briefly mentioned tax abatements earlier in this post. This is another way that corporate entities get subsidies, with these coming generally at the local level, in the realm of property taxes. It's the ordinary shmoes in American communities -- including some of the ones who take jobs with these cheap blackmailers -- who end up paying more in property taxes because of the abatements. And if the city and/or county fathers don't put out, they are essentially told, "We'll just take all these jobs someplace where they will."
Yet another problem all this creates is the disincentive to work. With wages so low, and with one often having to commute to a neighboring town to find a peon's job, why work? Why not just sit at home and collect entitlements, when "work" isn't likely to provide a path to a better life?
Yep, it's very easy to cuss people on welfare -- as long as they're the poor ones. It becomes more difficult when it's some of the richest people on the planet who happen to be sucking on the government tits. When poor people do it, it's evidence of moral degeneracy. When the rich do it, it's called "smart business."
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Bashing welfare is a very easy thing to do, and with some reason. I just saw my hometown not long ago, and it looked like a scene from The Last Picture Show. Storefronts that used to thrive were boarded up. Half the town, probably more, is on government assistance of some sort. Agriculture is moribund because of Texas' drought, and there's no industry nearby to speak of. The tax base pretty much consists of the substandard school district, which is heavily subsidized by the federal government, and the local supermarket, which gets much of its money through the food stamp program. Welfare programs appear to have created a town full of dependents.
Couldn't these people work? That's the natural thing to ask. If the city fathers lure in an industry, they would likely have to do it through huge tax abatements, and that wouldn't add much to their tax base.
And then, one can always commute to one of the nearby towns and work at the Wal-Mart store.
Problem is, that probably wouldn't get you entirely off government assistance. Because the pay at Wal-Mart is so shitty -- an average hourly wage of $8.81, I've read -- Wal-Mart "associates" often have to stay on food stamps to be able to feed their families. The company doesn't offer benefits to many of its "associates," so that means the employees have to stay on government health programs like Medicaid and CHIP. Meanwhile, as we the taxpayers pick up the tab for all this, the company rakes in profits for some of the richest people on Earth.
It's an indirect government subsidy, but a subsidy nonetheless. You and I are paying for stuff that any "decent" corporation would offer employees enough money and benefits to afford. From what I've read, the annual subsidies are usually at least $900,000 per store, and they can run as high as $2 million. Here's a link to an article on the subject.
I briefly mentioned tax abatements earlier in this post. This is another way that corporate entities get subsidies, with these coming generally at the local level, in the realm of property taxes. It's the ordinary shmoes in American communities -- including some of the ones who take jobs with these cheap blackmailers -- who end up paying more in property taxes because of the abatements. And if the city and/or county fathers don't put out, they are essentially told, "We'll just take all these jobs someplace where they will."
Yet another problem all this creates is the disincentive to work. With wages so low, and with one often having to commute to a neighboring town to find a peon's job, why work? Why not just sit at home and collect entitlements, when "work" isn't likely to provide a path to a better life?
Yep, it's very easy to cuss people on welfare -- as long as they're the poor ones. It becomes more difficult when it's some of the richest people on the planet who happen to be sucking on the government tits. When poor people do it, it's evidence of moral degeneracy. When the rich do it, it's called "smart business."
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Monday, June 3, 2013
A Brief Detour Into Boxing
By Manifesto Joe
Here's one answer to an old debate in boxing circles: Muhammad Ali vs. Joe Louis. Here's the opinion of an old pro who had just fought the prime Ali:
"Louis wouldn't have a chance; he was too slow ... There's no way to train yourself for what he (Ali) does. The moves, the speed, the punches and the way he changes style every time you think you got him figured. The right hands Ali hit me with just had no business landing but they did. They came from nowhere. Many times he was in the wrong position but he hit me anyway. I've never seen anyone who could do that. The knockdown punch was so fast that I never saw it. He has lots of snap, and when the punches land they dizzy your head; they fuzz up your mind. He's smart. The trickiest fighter I've seen. He's had twenty-nine fights and acts like he's had a hundred. He could write the book on boxing, and anyone that fights him should be made to read it."
-- Zora Folley
Sports Illustrated, April 10, 1967
I just watched the YouTube archives on Ali vs. Ernie Terrell, of which sportswriter Tex Maule said: "It was a wonderful exhibition of boxing skill and a barbarous display of cruelty." Ali was clearly pissed because Terrell kept calling him "Clay." -- MJ
Here's one answer to an old debate in boxing circles: Muhammad Ali vs. Joe Louis. Here's the opinion of an old pro who had just fought the prime Ali:
"Louis wouldn't have a chance; he was too slow ... There's no way to train yourself for what he (Ali) does. The moves, the speed, the punches and the way he changes style every time you think you got him figured. The right hands Ali hit me with just had no business landing but they did. They came from nowhere. Many times he was in the wrong position but he hit me anyway. I've never seen anyone who could do that. The knockdown punch was so fast that I never saw it. He has lots of snap, and when the punches land they dizzy your head; they fuzz up your mind. He's smart. The trickiest fighter I've seen. He's had twenty-nine fights and acts like he's had a hundred. He could write the book on boxing, and anyone that fights him should be made to read it."
-- Zora Folley
Sports Illustrated, April 10, 1967
I just watched the YouTube archives on Ali vs. Ernie Terrell, of which sportswriter Tex Maule said: "It was a wonderful exhibition of boxing skill and a barbarous display of cruelty." Ali was clearly pissed because Terrell kept calling him "Clay." -- MJ
Friday, May 31, 2013
Obama, Reagan And The GOP Double Standard
By Manifesto Joe
An old joke: Ronnie and Nancy are back in Southern California, at their favorite restaurant on Rodeo Drive. The waiter asks for Nancy's selection.
"I'll have the filet mignon," she tells him.
The waiter asks, "What about the vegetable?"
Nancy quickly replies, "Oh, he'll have the same."
Groan! I happened to think of that one because, in view of all the flack President Barack Obama is catching over (1) Benghazi, (2) the IRS beating up on poor little Tea Party folks and (3) AP reporters being subjected to wiretaps, the Republicans in Congress seem to be preparing impeachment proceedings -- well, for something.
I seem to recall a little something called Iran-Contra. Reagan seemed to get a pass on that one in a great many circles, and his claims of not knowing the illegalities of the arms-for-hostages deal were not seriously challenged by many observers.
Of course, now, the congressional GOP is ready to lynch Obama for anything they can, and it's obviously presumed that he was the mastermind behind each and every one of these "scandals."
Regarding the attack on the U.S. Embassy in Benghazi, Libya, last Sept. 11, the evidence is such that not even Secretary of State Hillary Clinton apparently knew anything about the security decisions there, let alone Obama himself. The late Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens himself actually turned down extra security before the attack, sources say. Not just once, but twice. Thomas Pickering, a distinguished diplomat who has served under both Republican and Democratic administrations, was co-author of an independent report on the incident, and he exonerated Clinton. He all but openly called U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., a liar on the Sunday morning talking heads show, when Issa grandstanded about this issue. (Issa appears to be the Republicans' new incarnation of Joe McCarthy.)
Regarding the IRS targeting of Tea Party groups, Obama says he found out about that when he first heard media reports on the subject.
Now, let's flash back about 25 years, to the last months of the Reagan administration. Reagan was a very disengaged president. He worked about 25-30 hours a week, and was known to fall asleep at meetings. Somehow, people at the time didn't think too ill of him for that. His predecessor, Jimmy Carter, was a brilliant workaholic who still somehow couldn't keep on top of what was happening in his administration. Carter's approach to the job was that of a chief operating officer. Reagan wasn't even what you would describe as a CEO -- he was chairman of the board, and his admirers mysteriously thought that was just wonderful. He was not a "hands-on" guy, but rather a "Great Communicator" who set the tone for the time.
Although there were 14 Reagan administration officials indicted over the Iran-Contra affair, including Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, Reagan's "Teflon" kept him absolutely free of any stain. Being president of the U.S., and the leader of the Free World, we were told, is comparable to being mayor of a very large city. You couldn't possibly know when some street cop is skimming off the Tenderloin, or if some code enforcement official is taking money under the table from people they should be citing as code violators. It isn't possible, given the size and scope of the Executive Branch of the federal government, to know when you've got felons or even minor scofflaws afoot.
That doesn't appear to be the case with President N****r. He's supposed to have known all about every bit of it, from the very start. He's obviously being held to a very different standard than Reagan was.
Exactly what the president knew, and when he knew it, are matters that we will presumably find out more about in weeks and months to come. But I implore the reader to remember history. What exactly makes Obama different from Reagan, besides the color of his skin and his party affiliation?
I'm concerned that Obama apparently didn't know much about these matters, and I believe that he should have. A CEO needs to have a handle on what's going on inside the company. But he seems to be under judgment from a very different standard than the now-revered Reagan. (That was always a mystery to me -- I never understood the mass appeal of the grandmotherly, turkey-necked Reagan.)
If Reagan got a pass on Iran-Contra (and he got them on plenty of other things), then Obama should get one, too.
Postscript: This is Joe's first post in four weeks. I've had a lot of stuff on my personal plate lately. I'll try to do better.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
An old joke: Ronnie and Nancy are back in Southern California, at their favorite restaurant on Rodeo Drive. The waiter asks for Nancy's selection.
"I'll have the filet mignon," she tells him.
The waiter asks, "What about the vegetable?"
Nancy quickly replies, "Oh, he'll have the same."
Groan! I happened to think of that one because, in view of all the flack President Barack Obama is catching over (1) Benghazi, (2) the IRS beating up on poor little Tea Party folks and (3) AP reporters being subjected to wiretaps, the Republicans in Congress seem to be preparing impeachment proceedings -- well, for something.
I seem to recall a little something called Iran-Contra. Reagan seemed to get a pass on that one in a great many circles, and his claims of not knowing the illegalities of the arms-for-hostages deal were not seriously challenged by many observers.
Of course, now, the congressional GOP is ready to lynch Obama for anything they can, and it's obviously presumed that he was the mastermind behind each and every one of these "scandals."
Regarding the attack on the U.S. Embassy in Benghazi, Libya, last Sept. 11, the evidence is such that not even Secretary of State Hillary Clinton apparently knew anything about the security decisions there, let alone Obama himself. The late Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens himself actually turned down extra security before the attack, sources say. Not just once, but twice. Thomas Pickering, a distinguished diplomat who has served under both Republican and Democratic administrations, was co-author of an independent report on the incident, and he exonerated Clinton. He all but openly called U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., a liar on the Sunday morning talking heads show, when Issa grandstanded about this issue. (Issa appears to be the Republicans' new incarnation of Joe McCarthy.)
Regarding the IRS targeting of Tea Party groups, Obama says he found out about that when he first heard media reports on the subject.
Now, let's flash back about 25 years, to the last months of the Reagan administration. Reagan was a very disengaged president. He worked about 25-30 hours a week, and was known to fall asleep at meetings. Somehow, people at the time didn't think too ill of him for that. His predecessor, Jimmy Carter, was a brilliant workaholic who still somehow couldn't keep on top of what was happening in his administration. Carter's approach to the job was that of a chief operating officer. Reagan wasn't even what you would describe as a CEO -- he was chairman of the board, and his admirers mysteriously thought that was just wonderful. He was not a "hands-on" guy, but rather a "Great Communicator" who set the tone for the time.
Although there were 14 Reagan administration officials indicted over the Iran-Contra affair, including Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, Reagan's "Teflon" kept him absolutely free of any stain. Being president of the U.S., and the leader of the Free World, we were told, is comparable to being mayor of a very large city. You couldn't possibly know when some street cop is skimming off the Tenderloin, or if some code enforcement official is taking money under the table from people they should be citing as code violators. It isn't possible, given the size and scope of the Executive Branch of the federal government, to know when you've got felons or even minor scofflaws afoot.
That doesn't appear to be the case with President N****r. He's supposed to have known all about every bit of it, from the very start. He's obviously being held to a very different standard than Reagan was.
Exactly what the president knew, and when he knew it, are matters that we will presumably find out more about in weeks and months to come. But I implore the reader to remember history. What exactly makes Obama different from Reagan, besides the color of his skin and his party affiliation?
I'm concerned that Obama apparently didn't know much about these matters, and I believe that he should have. A CEO needs to have a handle on what's going on inside the company. But he seems to be under judgment from a very different standard than the now-revered Reagan. (That was always a mystery to me -- I never understood the mass appeal of the grandmotherly, turkey-necked Reagan.)
If Reagan got a pass on Iran-Contra (and he got them on plenty of other things), then Obama should get one, too.
Postscript: This is Joe's first post in four weeks. I've had a lot of stuff on my personal plate lately. I'll try to do better.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Friday, May 3, 2013
El Pendejo Is Making Texas Look Even More Foolish With Demand For Apology
By Manifesto Joe
Gov. Rick "El Pendejo" Perry has already done plenty in his 63 years on this planet to make Texas, and Texans, look foolish. His absent-minded, tongue-tied participation in the 2012 GOP presidential race was embarrassing enough.
Now he's demanding an apology from the Sacramento Bee for a Jack Ohman political cartoon. Ohman's cartoon was something like this: In one panel, Perry is shown standing at a podium, next to signs proclaiming low regulations and low taxes, saying something like, "Business in Texas is booming." The next panel, on the right, depicts the deadly April 17 explosion at a fertilizer plant in West, Texas.
Ohman's cartoon indulges in dark humor, but he raises a very pertinent point. These people had a fertilizer plant, which housed ingredients similar to the ones used by Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols in the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, very close to a school and a nursing home. It's actually quite fortunate that more than 14 people weren't killed.
Not only was state oversight of the plant probably insufficient -- the fact of where it was is a crime. Such a plant should never have been located in such a place. In addition to the deaths, up to 200 people were hurt, and about 100 homes were destroyed.
Perry has said that more state oversight or regulation wouldn't have prevented the explosion. Perhaps not -- but why was such a plant even there, to begin with?
Governor, please retire and leave state government to someone who actually has a brain, and perhaps even a dark sense of humor. Sometimes it's better to laugh than to cry -- I think lots of people have done plenty of crying in West, thank you.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Gov. Rick "El Pendejo" Perry has already done plenty in his 63 years on this planet to make Texas, and Texans, look foolish. His absent-minded, tongue-tied participation in the 2012 GOP presidential race was embarrassing enough.
Now he's demanding an apology from the Sacramento Bee for a Jack Ohman political cartoon. Ohman's cartoon was something like this: In one panel, Perry is shown standing at a podium, next to signs proclaiming low regulations and low taxes, saying something like, "Business in Texas is booming." The next panel, on the right, depicts the deadly April 17 explosion at a fertilizer plant in West, Texas.
Ohman's cartoon indulges in dark humor, but he raises a very pertinent point. These people had a fertilizer plant, which housed ingredients similar to the ones used by Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols in the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, very close to a school and a nursing home. It's actually quite fortunate that more than 14 people weren't killed.
Not only was state oversight of the plant probably insufficient -- the fact of where it was is a crime. Such a plant should never have been located in such a place. In addition to the deaths, up to 200 people were hurt, and about 100 homes were destroyed.
Perry has said that more state oversight or regulation wouldn't have prevented the explosion. Perhaps not -- but why was such a plant even there, to begin with?
Governor, please retire and leave state government to someone who actually has a brain, and perhaps even a dark sense of humor. Sometimes it's better to laugh than to cry -- I think lots of people have done plenty of crying in West, thank you.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Saturday, April 20, 2013
I Understand The Strategy, But Obama May Be Making Worst Mistake Of His Career
By Manifesto Joe
I've taken a lot of time to weigh the pros and cons of President Obama's proposal for a "chained CPI" to bring about cuts in Social Security, etc. I've read a piece in defense of it, from the Democratic perspective. And, of course, it's not hard to find plenty of excoriations from the left.
I've decided that my sentiments are more with the left. I can appreciate that Obama is a practitioner of "real politics," but he's already tried that with the Republicans for over four years. They've made clear that they're not interested in actually governing.
Obama now stands on the verge of his worst mistake -- not just of his presidency, but of his entire political career. He is about to alienate his core constituency in one more desperate bid to "compromise."
Social Security is indeed a different program than the one created during the New Deal in 1935. Participation isn't voluntary, and demands on the system are far greater. But it has mostly done what it was intended to do. The poverty rate among elderly Americans was once around 50%. Thanks to a compulsory pension system, it's now down to about 10%.
I understand why Obama is trying, one last time I hope, to compromise here. He hasn't been able to get Republicans who still control the U.S. House to sit down at the table and give something up on their "no new taxes" (i.e., no new taxes on big corporations and the super-rich) pledges. New revenue is clearly needed, and two-thirds of big corporations are paying no federal income taxes. In addition, super-billionaire Warren Buffett has acknowledged that he pays a lower percentage of his income in federal personal income tax than does his secretary. And he's far from alone among the richest elite.
Something clearly has to give. But Obama is giving first, as usual. As former Labor Secretary Robert Reich phrased it, "The president throws things on the table before the Republicans have even sat down for dinner."
House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi has strong misgivings about the president's strategy. The general feeling among Democrats was expressed well by U.S. Rep. Rush Holt of New Jersey: "If he's trying to do it to show he is forthcoming as a negotiator, then why doesn't he wait until he gets to the negotiating table? There's a lot of talk about the fact that politically this is not a winner. Our brand is the party that brought you Social Security."
In America, this is the day of the locust. I spent 27 weeks unemployed just recently, and for a long time was falling through the cracks. Oh, there are plenty of part-time, temporary and contract jobs, if you want them. Having a lot of medical ailments, I don't have the option of taking jobs that don't offer health insurance. And Social Security is a cornerstone of my someday retirement. It's not an option for me, and I've been paying into the system since I was a teenager.
And the same big corporations that are offering these feces-paying jobs with no benefits are the ones getting by paying little or nothing in corporate income tax. Oh, the rates are comparatively high -- for those who don't have tax attorneys good enough to get them out of paying. It just came out that Facebook not only isn't paying any income tax for 2012, on profits of $1 billion, they may actually get a refund worth nearly $430 million.
I've understood why Obama has done much of what he's done in a game of political hardball with Republicans. But as many times as he's felt their spikes, it's time to start digging his in and saying no. Otherwise, he unwisely risks his core Democratic constituency, and it should be clear by now that nothing's going to get done anyway. The Republicans, who are interested only in power, not in governing, are already trying to score political points by turning up their noses at this idea.
The president needs to abandon the idea of the "chained" Consumer Price Index now, while he still can. Then he should take his case directly to the American people. It's been estimated that U.S. senior citizens could lose as much as $112 billion over 10 years if this idea floats. If they know the facts, they'll certainly say no.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
I've taken a lot of time to weigh the pros and cons of President Obama's proposal for a "chained CPI" to bring about cuts in Social Security, etc. I've read a piece in defense of it, from the Democratic perspective. And, of course, it's not hard to find plenty of excoriations from the left.
I've decided that my sentiments are more with the left. I can appreciate that Obama is a practitioner of "real politics," but he's already tried that with the Republicans for over four years. They've made clear that they're not interested in actually governing.
Obama now stands on the verge of his worst mistake -- not just of his presidency, but of his entire political career. He is about to alienate his core constituency in one more desperate bid to "compromise."
Social Security is indeed a different program than the one created during the New Deal in 1935. Participation isn't voluntary, and demands on the system are far greater. But it has mostly done what it was intended to do. The poverty rate among elderly Americans was once around 50%. Thanks to a compulsory pension system, it's now down to about 10%.
I understand why Obama is trying, one last time I hope, to compromise here. He hasn't been able to get Republicans who still control the U.S. House to sit down at the table and give something up on their "no new taxes" (i.e., no new taxes on big corporations and the super-rich) pledges. New revenue is clearly needed, and two-thirds of big corporations are paying no federal income taxes. In addition, super-billionaire Warren Buffett has acknowledged that he pays a lower percentage of his income in federal personal income tax than does his secretary. And he's far from alone among the richest elite.
Something clearly has to give. But Obama is giving first, as usual. As former Labor Secretary Robert Reich phrased it, "The president throws things on the table before the Republicans have even sat down for dinner."
House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi has strong misgivings about the president's strategy. The general feeling among Democrats was expressed well by U.S. Rep. Rush Holt of New Jersey: "If he's trying to do it to show he is forthcoming as a negotiator, then why doesn't he wait until he gets to the negotiating table? There's a lot of talk about the fact that politically this is not a winner. Our brand is the party that brought you Social Security."
In America, this is the day of the locust. I spent 27 weeks unemployed just recently, and for a long time was falling through the cracks. Oh, there are plenty of part-time, temporary and contract jobs, if you want them. Having a lot of medical ailments, I don't have the option of taking jobs that don't offer health insurance. And Social Security is a cornerstone of my someday retirement. It's not an option for me, and I've been paying into the system since I was a teenager.
And the same big corporations that are offering these feces-paying jobs with no benefits are the ones getting by paying little or nothing in corporate income tax. Oh, the rates are comparatively high -- for those who don't have tax attorneys good enough to get them out of paying. It just came out that Facebook not only isn't paying any income tax for 2012, on profits of $1 billion, they may actually get a refund worth nearly $430 million.
I've understood why Obama has done much of what he's done in a game of political hardball with Republicans. But as many times as he's felt their spikes, it's time to start digging his in and saying no. Otherwise, he unwisely risks his core Democratic constituency, and it should be clear by now that nothing's going to get done anyway. The Republicans, who are interested only in power, not in governing, are already trying to score political points by turning up their noses at this idea.
The president needs to abandon the idea of the "chained" Consumer Price Index now, while he still can. Then he should take his case directly to the American people. It's been estimated that U.S. senior citizens could lose as much as $112 billion over 10 years if this idea floats. If they know the facts, they'll certainly say no.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Wednesday, April 3, 2013
Jim Carrey's Video Is Hysterical
http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/0433b30576/cold-dead-hand-with-jim-carrey
This hilarious video is no longer available on You Tube because too many people have been violating copyright laws. But it's well worth it to visit the address I've published above.
You can also get the lyrics of Jim's parody song at democraticunderground.com
As "Sam Elliott" says, "Enjoy the show." -- mj
This hilarious video is no longer available on You Tube because too many people have been violating copyright laws. But it's well worth it to visit the address I've published above.
You can also get the lyrics of Jim's parody song at democraticunderground.com
As "Sam Elliott" says, "Enjoy the show." -- mj
Friday, March 22, 2013
A Republican Split? Don't Hold Your Breath
By Manifesto Joe
There's been much ado in the MSM lately about change in the Republican Party. Last month, Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, became the first major Republican politician to come out in favor of gay marriage, and said his son is gay. On immigration overhauls, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush has endorsed a path to citizenship for legal immigrants, and his son, the very Latino-looking George P. Bush, is launching a statewide political career in Texas and appears to be making some inroads with Hispanic voters in this state. U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Florida, touted as another GOP rising star, has specific ideas for immigration overhauls that sound strikingly like what the Obama administration proposes.
These developments are anathema to the GOP's hard-core Tea Party types, who generally projectile-vomit at the mention of gay marriage and are often hard-line opponents of even legal immigration. Their reaction to these changes has primarily been bilious disgust.
This has some unsympathetic observers speculating that the Republican Party is about to break into two factions: (1) the economic royalists it has always represented, but those whose "social" views are moderate, and (2) the die-hard right wing.
Don't hold your breath. The Republicans have fought all these battles before. Phyllis Schlafly's 1964 screed A Choice Not an Echo illustrates how old this battle is. In those days, it was mainly being fought over economic issues (Barry Goldwater referred to the Eisenhower administration as "the dimestore New Deal") and general sanity about avoiding nuclear war with the Soviet Union. Gay marriage and immigration have merely taken the place of those Cold War and New Deal issues.
The Kool-Aid that both factions have drunk, and with gusto, is supply-side economics. That's different from the GOP infighting that was going on 50 years ago. They are very, very united on that crucial point, and that's the glue that will hold them together no matter what.
Dwight Eisenhower, a conservative in the more pragmatic sense of the word, realized the value of New Deal economic reforms such as Social Security and unemployment insurance. He at least privately regarded these changes as more or less permanent. Now, even the alleged "reform" faction of the Republican Party seems united on gutting Social Security and perhaps even considers benefits for the jobless to be wasteful welfare that just makes the unemployed into paunchy bums.
The Democrats have even more rifts under their tent than the Republicans have, especially now with a quasi-pragmatic centrist like Barack Obama as president. This faction, the pragmatic center, has pretty much controlled the Democratic Party since the McGovern debacle of 1972, but many on the far left remain idealists. Despite the failures of the past, they sincerely believe that "real Democrats," i.e. hard-core lefties, are what the party needs.
I'd be among the first to concede that Obama has been all-too-accommodating. He still doesn't seem to realize that the Republican concept of bipartisanship is to do everything entirely and absolutely THEIR way. But neither do the Democrats need their own version of Tea Party extremists.
The Democrats need to stay as united as possible, because they can't expect any less from the Republicans. The GOP is just doing what its rank-and-file thinks it needs to do to be electable, in reaction to losing the last two presidential races rather badly. They did the same thing starting with Alf Landon in 1936, when the moderate Republican governor of Kansas didn't flatly oppose some parts of the New Deal, he just said it was being poorly administered.
Landon lost badly, but the Republicans kept inching toward the perceived political center, until they finally came up with a winner with Eisenhower in 1952. They'll do that again, this time with gay marriage, immigration and similar "social" issues. The thing that will hold them together this time is that they all remain social Darwinists. They all agree that the poor should be punished for being that way.
Don't expect the GOP to deviate from the formula of the past. When they experience national defeats (the 1930s and '40s, and to a lesser extent now), they will move toward the center. When they start winning again, they'll move back to the far right (the 1980s and '90s, and briefly in 2010-11). They'll stay together -- and if the Democrats are to continue to win, the Democrats must, too.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
There's been much ado in the MSM lately about change in the Republican Party. Last month, Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, became the first major Republican politician to come out in favor of gay marriage, and said his son is gay. On immigration overhauls, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush has endorsed a path to citizenship for legal immigrants, and his son, the very Latino-looking George P. Bush, is launching a statewide political career in Texas and appears to be making some inroads with Hispanic voters in this state. U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Florida, touted as another GOP rising star, has specific ideas for immigration overhauls that sound strikingly like what the Obama administration proposes.
These developments are anathema to the GOP's hard-core Tea Party types, who generally projectile-vomit at the mention of gay marriage and are often hard-line opponents of even legal immigration. Their reaction to these changes has primarily been bilious disgust.
This has some unsympathetic observers speculating that the Republican Party is about to break into two factions: (1) the economic royalists it has always represented, but those whose "social" views are moderate, and (2) the die-hard right wing.
Don't hold your breath. The Republicans have fought all these battles before. Phyllis Schlafly's 1964 screed A Choice Not an Echo illustrates how old this battle is. In those days, it was mainly being fought over economic issues (Barry Goldwater referred to the Eisenhower administration as "the dimestore New Deal") and general sanity about avoiding nuclear war with the Soviet Union. Gay marriage and immigration have merely taken the place of those Cold War and New Deal issues.
The Kool-Aid that both factions have drunk, and with gusto, is supply-side economics. That's different from the GOP infighting that was going on 50 years ago. They are very, very united on that crucial point, and that's the glue that will hold them together no matter what.
Dwight Eisenhower, a conservative in the more pragmatic sense of the word, realized the value of New Deal economic reforms such as Social Security and unemployment insurance. He at least privately regarded these changes as more or less permanent. Now, even the alleged "reform" faction of the Republican Party seems united on gutting Social Security and perhaps even considers benefits for the jobless to be wasteful welfare that just makes the unemployed into paunchy bums.
The Democrats have even more rifts under their tent than the Republicans have, especially now with a quasi-pragmatic centrist like Barack Obama as president. This faction, the pragmatic center, has pretty much controlled the Democratic Party since the McGovern debacle of 1972, but many on the far left remain idealists. Despite the failures of the past, they sincerely believe that "real Democrats," i.e. hard-core lefties, are what the party needs.
I'd be among the first to concede that Obama has been all-too-accommodating. He still doesn't seem to realize that the Republican concept of bipartisanship is to do everything entirely and absolutely THEIR way. But neither do the Democrats need their own version of Tea Party extremists.
The Democrats need to stay as united as possible, because they can't expect any less from the Republicans. The GOP is just doing what its rank-and-file thinks it needs to do to be electable, in reaction to losing the last two presidential races rather badly. They did the same thing starting with Alf Landon in 1936, when the moderate Republican governor of Kansas didn't flatly oppose some parts of the New Deal, he just said it was being poorly administered.
Landon lost badly, but the Republicans kept inching toward the perceived political center, until they finally came up with a winner with Eisenhower in 1952. They'll do that again, this time with gay marriage, immigration and similar "social" issues. The thing that will hold them together this time is that they all remain social Darwinists. They all agree that the poor should be punished for being that way.
Don't expect the GOP to deviate from the formula of the past. When they experience national defeats (the 1930s and '40s, and to a lesser extent now), they will move toward the center. When they start winning again, they'll move back to the far right (the 1980s and '90s, and briefly in 2010-11). They'll stay together -- and if the Democrats are to continue to win, the Democrats must, too.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Thursday, March 14, 2013
'The Poor Rich': More Tiresome Mainstream Media Obfuscation
By Manifesto Joe
Several days ago, newspapers all over the U.S. had wire editors stupid enough to drink another round of strong Kool-Aid. A "story" by Stephen Ohlemacher of The Associated Press went viral in the MSM. The crux of it: The share of federal income taxes that the rich pay is close to a peak since 1979.
What this "story" amounted to was cherry-picking of the worst possible kind. It was misleading and generally beside the point. But, let's start by examining the thesis:
For 2013, families with incomes in the top 20 percent of the nation will pay an average of 27.2 percent of their income in federal taxes, according to projections by the Tax Policy Center, a research organization based in Washington. The top 1 percent of households, those with incomes averaging $1.4 million, will pay an average of 35.5 percent.
Those tax rates, which include income, payroll, corporate and estate taxes, are among the highest since 1979.
The average family in the bottom 20 percent of households won't pay any federal taxes. Instead, many families in this group will get payments from the federal government by claiming more in credits than they owe in taxes, including payroll taxes. That will give them a negative tax rate.
Please note that what this "story" by Ohlemacher (who obviously has figured out who ultimately pays his salary) focuses on is federal income taxes, exclusively. Conveniently omitted are:
(1) State and local taxes, which are notoriously regressive.
(2) Corporate income taxes. About two-thirds of U.S. corporations, among them the largest, pay ZERO federal income tax, and some even got credits.
(3) Social Security and Medicare payroll taxes, which stop entirely after a certain income level, so they are by definition as regressive as a tax can be.
(4) The assorted breaks that go only to the very, very rich -- we're talking here 0.1%, not just the top 1%. Some of them are mind-blowers.
(5) The U.S. economy doubled in size in 30 years, and yet real wages for ordinary people remained about the same. Obviously somebody has been profiting handsomely from this increase in productivity, and it hasn't been the ordinary run of Americans. Given this trend, wouldn't one expect the top 20%, and even the top 1%, to pay a lot more?
What happened? When newspapers across the U.S. took a great big swig of this Kool-Aid it was, in essence, an acceptance of about one-sixth of relevant data when one honestly and thoroughly examines the effect of taxation on the growing gap between rich and poor. In other words, this "journalist" wrote a "story" based on one of six factors in the overall picture.
Mr. Ohlemacher did one-sixth of the job as well as one could expect. Here's a link to his original "story," courtesy of USA Today.
But now, let's examine the other five sets of data.
(1) A New York Times series on the growing American gap between rich and poor points out:
While the federal government has largely stuck by the principle of progressive taxation, the states have gone their own ways: tax policy is particularly regressive in the South and West, and more progressive in the Northeast and Midwest. When it comes to state and local taxation, we are not one nation under God. In 2008, the difference between a working mother in Mississippi and one in Vermont — each with two dependent children, poverty-level wages and identical spending patterns — was $2,300.
I live in a state (Texas) where there is no income tax. In contast, sales taxes and user fees are very high. These obviously hit consumers at the lower income level, at which more money is spent on basic goods and services, much harder than they affect consumers who spend relatively less on such things. In essence, such taxes are an effective way of punishing the poor for being that way. Texas ranks 5th on the list of 10 most regressive tax states, according to one study. Here's a link to that one.
I'll give my home state credit for one big thing -- grocery items are mostly exempt from the sales tax (although not all convenience store operators have heard that news yet, and related enforcement is very lax). Oklahoma, where I once lived for something under a year and a half, has a state income tax. But they levy a sales tax on everything, including ALL groceries. That wipes out most of the progressive effect that the state income tax has.
(2) The corporate income tax rate in the U.S. is alleged to be relatively high. The problem is, not very many corporations pay it, and that's especially true of the largest and most powerful ones. Even economic conservatives, when pushed into a corner, will admit this. I found a New York Times piece in which Bruce Bartlett, a former Reagan administration official, came clean on this issue. (Sorry, the link no longer works.)
What has the effect been on the federal budget -- which is of so much concern to both major political parties now? Here's a hint: Barlett and Steele, the reporting team that wrote America: What Went Wrong?, reported that in 1959, corporate income taxes comprised 39% of IRS revenue. By 1989, that had declined to 17% And, by the way, those are IRS figures.
It's one thing for Worthington Farthington, CEO of Corporation X, to pay higher personal income taxes than Jack Shitt of Biloxi, Miss. But what if Corporation X, which employs Jack part time with no benefits, pays, effectively, no income tax? And that is increasingly the case.
(3) Yes, I know that corporations pay into the Social Security system, and that they support Medicare as well. But look at the bigger picture. The employee pays 6.2% for Social Security, and the employer matches that, for an effective federal rate of 12.4% But the payroll tax is capped at $106,800, which I would place as the upper threshold of middle-class earnings. No taxes are paid on anything above that. For an illustration of the effect this has, here's a link to the Center for Economic and Policy Research.
This is called regressive taxation. Any questions, class?
Although Social Security's general effect on U.S. society since its inception in 1935 has been a reduction in poverty, the tax that supports it is clearly regressive. But this was largely by design. One of the reasons it has always been this way is to give fatcats some sort of incentive to reluctantly participate in the system.
Now, the swine don't even want to do that. They have all manner of schemes to "privatize" Social Security, to phase it out, give it over to the tender mercies of Wall Street. The arrogance of these people is such that even asking them to do their "part" in a regressive tax structure is just too damned much.
(4) There are tax breaks that go only to the VERY, VERY wealthy that are astonishing. For the sake of brevity, I will cite only one example. The corporate jet tax loophole, it is estimated, will be worth at least $3.2 billion over the span of 10 years. Some estimates, such as the one on this link, put the break's 10-year worth at more like $4 billion.
(5) So, who's been getting rich since 1980, with the U.S. economy doubling in size? Here's a link on the subject. Here's a hint: It hasn't been me, and it's unlikely, if you've read this far, that it's been you, either.
It's mind-boggling to still be hearing allegations that American mainstream news media have a liberal bias, when it's so obvious to whom they are kowtowing. Mr. Ohlemacher certainly seems to know that it's the U.S. Ownership Class that ultimately pays his salary.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Several days ago, newspapers all over the U.S. had wire editors stupid enough to drink another round of strong Kool-Aid. A "story" by Stephen Ohlemacher of The Associated Press went viral in the MSM. The crux of it: The share of federal income taxes that the rich pay is close to a peak since 1979.
What this "story" amounted to was cherry-picking of the worst possible kind. It was misleading and generally beside the point. But, let's start by examining the thesis:
For 2013, families with incomes in the top 20 percent of the nation will pay an average of 27.2 percent of their income in federal taxes, according to projections by the Tax Policy Center, a research organization based in Washington. The top 1 percent of households, those with incomes averaging $1.4 million, will pay an average of 35.5 percent.
Those tax rates, which include income, payroll, corporate and estate taxes, are among the highest since 1979.
The average family in the bottom 20 percent of households won't pay any federal taxes. Instead, many families in this group will get payments from the federal government by claiming more in credits than they owe in taxes, including payroll taxes. That will give them a negative tax rate.
Please note that what this "story" by Ohlemacher (who obviously has figured out who ultimately pays his salary) focuses on is federal income taxes, exclusively. Conveniently omitted are:
(1) State and local taxes, which are notoriously regressive.
(2) Corporate income taxes. About two-thirds of U.S. corporations, among them the largest, pay ZERO federal income tax, and some even got credits.
(3) Social Security and Medicare payroll taxes, which stop entirely after a certain income level, so they are by definition as regressive as a tax can be.
(4) The assorted breaks that go only to the very, very rich -- we're talking here 0.1%, not just the top 1%. Some of them are mind-blowers.
(5) The U.S. economy doubled in size in 30 years, and yet real wages for ordinary people remained about the same. Obviously somebody has been profiting handsomely from this increase in productivity, and it hasn't been the ordinary run of Americans. Given this trend, wouldn't one expect the top 20%, and even the top 1%, to pay a lot more?
What happened? When newspapers across the U.S. took a great big swig of this Kool-Aid it was, in essence, an acceptance of about one-sixth of relevant data when one honestly and thoroughly examines the effect of taxation on the growing gap between rich and poor. In other words, this "journalist" wrote a "story" based on one of six factors in the overall picture.
Mr. Ohlemacher did one-sixth of the job as well as one could expect. Here's a link to his original "story," courtesy of USA Today.
But now, let's examine the other five sets of data.
(1) A New York Times series on the growing American gap between rich and poor points out:
While the federal government has largely stuck by the principle of progressive taxation, the states have gone their own ways: tax policy is particularly regressive in the South and West, and more progressive in the Northeast and Midwest. When it comes to state and local taxation, we are not one nation under God. In 2008, the difference between a working mother in Mississippi and one in Vermont — each with two dependent children, poverty-level wages and identical spending patterns — was $2,300.
I live in a state (Texas) where there is no income tax. In contast, sales taxes and user fees are very high. These obviously hit consumers at the lower income level, at which more money is spent on basic goods and services, much harder than they affect consumers who spend relatively less on such things. In essence, such taxes are an effective way of punishing the poor for being that way. Texas ranks 5th on the list of 10 most regressive tax states, according to one study. Here's a link to that one.
I'll give my home state credit for one big thing -- grocery items are mostly exempt from the sales tax (although not all convenience store operators have heard that news yet, and related enforcement is very lax). Oklahoma, where I once lived for something under a year and a half, has a state income tax. But they levy a sales tax on everything, including ALL groceries. That wipes out most of the progressive effect that the state income tax has.
(2) The corporate income tax rate in the U.S. is alleged to be relatively high. The problem is, not very many corporations pay it, and that's especially true of the largest and most powerful ones. Even economic conservatives, when pushed into a corner, will admit this. I found a New York Times piece in which Bruce Bartlett, a former Reagan administration official, came clean on this issue. (Sorry, the link no longer works.)
What has the effect been on the federal budget -- which is of so much concern to both major political parties now? Here's a hint: Barlett and Steele, the reporting team that wrote America: What Went Wrong?, reported that in 1959, corporate income taxes comprised 39% of IRS revenue. By 1989, that had declined to 17% And, by the way, those are IRS figures.
It's one thing for Worthington Farthington, CEO of Corporation X, to pay higher personal income taxes than Jack Shitt of Biloxi, Miss. But what if Corporation X, which employs Jack part time with no benefits, pays, effectively, no income tax? And that is increasingly the case.
(3) Yes, I know that corporations pay into the Social Security system, and that they support Medicare as well. But look at the bigger picture. The employee pays 6.2% for Social Security, and the employer matches that, for an effective federal rate of 12.4% But the payroll tax is capped at $106,800, which I would place as the upper threshold of middle-class earnings. No taxes are paid on anything above that. For an illustration of the effect this has, here's a link to the Center for Economic and Policy Research.
This is called regressive taxation. Any questions, class?
Although Social Security's general effect on U.S. society since its inception in 1935 has been a reduction in poverty, the tax that supports it is clearly regressive. But this was largely by design. One of the reasons it has always been this way is to give fatcats some sort of incentive to reluctantly participate in the system.
Now, the swine don't even want to do that. They have all manner of schemes to "privatize" Social Security, to phase it out, give it over to the tender mercies of Wall Street. The arrogance of these people is such that even asking them to do their "part" in a regressive tax structure is just too damned much.
(4) There are tax breaks that go only to the VERY, VERY wealthy that are astonishing. For the sake of brevity, I will cite only one example. The corporate jet tax loophole, it is estimated, will be worth at least $3.2 billion over the span of 10 years. Some estimates, such as the one on this link, put the break's 10-year worth at more like $4 billion.
(5) So, who's been getting rich since 1980, with the U.S. economy doubling in size? Here's a link on the subject. Here's a hint: It hasn't been me, and it's unlikely, if you've read this far, that it's been you, either.
It's mind-boggling to still be hearing allegations that American mainstream news media have a liberal bias, when it's so obvious to whom they are kowtowing. Mr. Ohlemacher certainly seems to know that it's the U.S. Ownership Class that ultimately pays his salary.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Thursday, February 28, 2013
Good Riddance To Pope Ratzo
By Manifesto Joe
Today is reported to the be last day in office for Pope Benedict XVI (real name: Herr Joseph Ratzinger). Not that I have any stake in this at all -- to me, one of the most telling arguments AGAINST conservatism's invocation of venerable human institutions is the Roman Catholic Church. But as far as I'm concerned, it's time for a going-away party. But it should wait until AFTER Ratzo is gone.
Pope Ratzo embodies all that is corrupt and moth-eaten about Roman Catholicism. He may be just an asexual religious fanatic himself, but his just-under eight years as pontiff will be forever tainted by his determined embrace of the "traditions" of the church, which are nothing short of profound stupidity.
Pope Ratzo was a university theologian in his day, and was originally regarded as a liberal in the church. After 1968 -- a pivotal year for many globally -- he turned right-wing, and became the chief apologist for the church's increasingly absurd world view.
In the 1960s, it was common knowledge that many homosexuals were drawn to the Catholic priesthood as a sort of "cover" for their preference. (I well remember a line from William Peter Blatty's 1971 novel The Exorcist: "Basic black is in.")
Hey, those were the good old days. By the 1980s, it was equally common knowledge that a lot of vermin were going into the priesthood, too -- the pedaphile priests who had taken those vows so that they could bugger their altar boys. It took the church at least 20 more years to catch up with what the general public already knew -- that the Catholic priesthood was rife with the most loathsome kinds of perverts.
All it would take to bring this pathetic old institution in touch with the modern world is to open the priesthood to married men, and also women, for that matter. Being a serious, believing, practicing Catholic is, to me, strong evidence of mental retardation anyway. But we have to accept that a lot of people are going to do this. If they must, then what's wrong with having the priesthood open to red-blooded people with hormones, people who actually like having sex (and with OTHER ADULTS, most importantly)?
I can't find much fault with his general handling of the pedaphilia problem in the church -- he was generally regarded as firm and judicious in his approach, before and after his papacy. Nor can I knock the old boy much about his early links to Nazism -- although, since this is a theologian who has written much about the evils of relativist peer pressure, his capitulation to peer pressure as a German youth of 14 is notable.
The biggest problem with this doddering fool is that, in an age in which the church cried out for change, he did his best to keep it mired in the 14th century.
It really isn't hard to see that the refusal of men to use condoms is a serious problem in priest-ridden developing countries. Nor is it the exclusive domain of mental giants to understand that in a church that "requires" its priesthood, and nunnery, to be celibate, you're going to attract a lot of sexual pond scum, folks who look for a good "cover" for their moral depravity.
Change in the church is inevitable. It's been common knowledge for many years, among Catholics and non-Catholics alike, that the church is having trouble getting an adequate number of people to commit to a lifestyle of relative poverty and, at least officially, no sex. As fewer people, men or women, are willing to do this foolish shit, necessity will bring change to Catholicism.
Pope Ratzo will be remembered as just one more decrepit fool who held back inexorable change. And since the cardinals who will elect his successor were largely handpicked, change in this senile institution will not come soon. I think we can expect the "conclave" to just name another Ratzo type to the post.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Today is reported to the be last day in office for Pope Benedict XVI (real name: Herr Joseph Ratzinger). Not that I have any stake in this at all -- to me, one of the most telling arguments AGAINST conservatism's invocation of venerable human institutions is the Roman Catholic Church. But as far as I'm concerned, it's time for a going-away party. But it should wait until AFTER Ratzo is gone.
Pope Ratzo embodies all that is corrupt and moth-eaten about Roman Catholicism. He may be just an asexual religious fanatic himself, but his just-under eight years as pontiff will be forever tainted by his determined embrace of the "traditions" of the church, which are nothing short of profound stupidity.
Pope Ratzo was a university theologian in his day, and was originally regarded as a liberal in the church. After 1968 -- a pivotal year for many globally -- he turned right-wing, and became the chief apologist for the church's increasingly absurd world view.
In the 1960s, it was common knowledge that many homosexuals were drawn to the Catholic priesthood as a sort of "cover" for their preference. (I well remember a line from William Peter Blatty's 1971 novel The Exorcist: "Basic black is in.")
Hey, those were the good old days. By the 1980s, it was equally common knowledge that a lot of vermin were going into the priesthood, too -- the pedaphile priests who had taken those vows so that they could bugger their altar boys. It took the church at least 20 more years to catch up with what the general public already knew -- that the Catholic priesthood was rife with the most loathsome kinds of perverts.
All it would take to bring this pathetic old institution in touch with the modern world is to open the priesthood to married men, and also women, for that matter. Being a serious, believing, practicing Catholic is, to me, strong evidence of mental retardation anyway. But we have to accept that a lot of people are going to do this. If they must, then what's wrong with having the priesthood open to red-blooded people with hormones, people who actually like having sex (and with OTHER ADULTS, most importantly)?
I can't find much fault with his general handling of the pedaphilia problem in the church -- he was generally regarded as firm and judicious in his approach, before and after his papacy. Nor can I knock the old boy much about his early links to Nazism -- although, since this is a theologian who has written much about the evils of relativist peer pressure, his capitulation to peer pressure as a German youth of 14 is notable.
The biggest problem with this doddering fool is that, in an age in which the church cried out for change, he did his best to keep it mired in the 14th century.
It really isn't hard to see that the refusal of men to use condoms is a serious problem in priest-ridden developing countries. Nor is it the exclusive domain of mental giants to understand that in a church that "requires" its priesthood, and nunnery, to be celibate, you're going to attract a lot of sexual pond scum, folks who look for a good "cover" for their moral depravity.
Change in the church is inevitable. It's been common knowledge for many years, among Catholics and non-Catholics alike, that the church is having trouble getting an adequate number of people to commit to a lifestyle of relative poverty and, at least officially, no sex. As fewer people, men or women, are willing to do this foolish shit, necessity will bring change to Catholicism.
Pope Ratzo will be remembered as just one more decrepit fool who held back inexorable change. And since the cardinals who will elect his successor were largely handpicked, change in this senile institution will not come soon. I think we can expect the "conclave" to just name another Ratzo type to the post.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
Back In Action
This was the most difficult move of my life, our lives -- 425 miles, and yet we're still in Texas. I had my first day at work Jan. 28. I had the computer hooked up by then, but held off on posting until I felt reasonably comfortable at work.
I will be posting again soon, probably starting this week. Thanks for hanging around. -- mj
I will be posting again soon, probably starting this week. Thanks for hanging around. -- mj
Monday, January 21, 2013
As Roe v. Wade Ruling Nears 40, What's The Bottom Line?
By Manifesto Joe
Abortion as a concept alone is ugly -- there's no denying that. If any female relative of mine were pregnant and asked me what I thought about the prospect of her getting one, I'd advise her not to do it. It's a decision that will haunt you for life, I'd say. You will always wonder what sort of human being this fetus would have been. It's as though you killed a part of yourself.
But amid the sound and fury of debate, the nucleus of this issue is conveniently ignored: It is impossible to establish the point at which "human life" truly begins, and it cannot be proved that a fetus is interchangeable with an infant.
Abortion foes usually offer prompt responses to this crucial point. If it isn't a baby, what is it? Look at a photograph of a fetus -- I know it's a baby. The Bible says life begins at conception (even if the language of Scripture is metaphorical, I know that's what it means).
These arguments carry dangerous implications -- that intuitive knowledge is sufficient basis for criminal law, and that religious tenets should be legislated and the violators prosecuted.
If we base our epistemology only on what our five senses can tell us, we know that a fetus carries all the genetic data needed to form a baby. We know that if it is brought to term, or at least to the point of certain viability, it becomes a human being.
Consequently, we know that a fetus is a developing human life form. But is it empirically, legally and medically definable as a human being? Does it have a soul? The answer is simple -- no one knows. Or at least, no human being knows.
Long ago, abortion opponents released a film, Silent Scream, which showed graphic footage of abortions. Some scenes were chilling, such as the implications that a fetus about to be aborted will instinctively pull away from the surgeon's threatening instrument. This and other points of the film forge an inductive argument against abortion. But it falls short of proof, as all inductive arguments do.
That a fetus might try to elude a strange object gives it no distinction from numerous life forms that humans can legally kill for no reason -- to wit, millions of dogs and cats in animal "shelters."
Therefore, when abortion foes attack those who favor choice as "baby killers," they attack hysterically, from an unsound assumption.
Even if the point of empirical proof is conceded, many abortion opponents fall back on Scripture. It seems fair, then, to conclude that some abortion foes believe that Scripture and religious dogma should dictate secular law. They prefer pre-1789 theocracy to modern constitutional democracy/republicanism.
Many of the "founding fathers" had religious convictions, and Judeo-Christian ethics have certainly influenced American law. But they have not been a determinant, as Islamic fundamentalism is in countries that embrace Sharia law. In fact, our Constitution explicitly forbids any such religious establishment.
Those who want to outlaw abortion may point to U.S. legal precedent in rebuttal. Abortion was illegal in the U.S. for more than a century.
But there's a catch to that. In The Brethren, Bob Woodward's book on the U.S. Supreme Court, Justice Harry Blackmun discovered during his legal research for the Roe v. Wade majority opinion that "abortion had been commonly accepted for thousands of years, and that only in the 19th century had it become a crime in the United States. At that time, abortion had been a very risky operation, often fatal. The criminal laws had been enacted largely to protect pregnant women."
Among modern ethical questions, abortion is one of the grayest of gray areas. To believe, based on religion and intuition, that it is a sin comparable to murder is understandable. But without empirical evidence that feticide is homicide, it is a travesty against reason -- and an authoritarian abuse of our legal system -- to threaten some who believe otherwise with fines and imprisonment.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Abortion as a concept alone is ugly -- there's no denying that. If any female relative of mine were pregnant and asked me what I thought about the prospect of her getting one, I'd advise her not to do it. It's a decision that will haunt you for life, I'd say. You will always wonder what sort of human being this fetus would have been. It's as though you killed a part of yourself.
But amid the sound and fury of debate, the nucleus of this issue is conveniently ignored: It is impossible to establish the point at which "human life" truly begins, and it cannot be proved that a fetus is interchangeable with an infant.
Abortion foes usually offer prompt responses to this crucial point. If it isn't a baby, what is it? Look at a photograph of a fetus -- I know it's a baby. The Bible says life begins at conception (even if the language of Scripture is metaphorical, I know that's what it means).
These arguments carry dangerous implications -- that intuitive knowledge is sufficient basis for criminal law, and that religious tenets should be legislated and the violators prosecuted.
If we base our epistemology only on what our five senses can tell us, we know that a fetus carries all the genetic data needed to form a baby. We know that if it is brought to term, or at least to the point of certain viability, it becomes a human being.
Consequently, we know that a fetus is a developing human life form. But is it empirically, legally and medically definable as a human being? Does it have a soul? The answer is simple -- no one knows. Or at least, no human being knows.
Long ago, abortion opponents released a film, Silent Scream, which showed graphic footage of abortions. Some scenes were chilling, such as the implications that a fetus about to be aborted will instinctively pull away from the surgeon's threatening instrument. This and other points of the film forge an inductive argument against abortion. But it falls short of proof, as all inductive arguments do.
That a fetus might try to elude a strange object gives it no distinction from numerous life forms that humans can legally kill for no reason -- to wit, millions of dogs and cats in animal "shelters."
Therefore, when abortion foes attack those who favor choice as "baby killers," they attack hysterically, from an unsound assumption.
Even if the point of empirical proof is conceded, many abortion opponents fall back on Scripture. It seems fair, then, to conclude that some abortion foes believe that Scripture and religious dogma should dictate secular law. They prefer pre-1789 theocracy to modern constitutional democracy/republicanism.
Many of the "founding fathers" had religious convictions, and Judeo-Christian ethics have certainly influenced American law. But they have not been a determinant, as Islamic fundamentalism is in countries that embrace Sharia law. In fact, our Constitution explicitly forbids any such religious establishment.
Those who want to outlaw abortion may point to U.S. legal precedent in rebuttal. Abortion was illegal in the U.S. for more than a century.
But there's a catch to that. In The Brethren, Bob Woodward's book on the U.S. Supreme Court, Justice Harry Blackmun discovered during his legal research for the Roe v. Wade majority opinion that "abortion had been commonly accepted for thousands of years, and that only in the 19th century had it become a crime in the United States. At that time, abortion had been a very risky operation, often fatal. The criminal laws had been enacted largely to protect pregnant women."
Among modern ethical questions, abortion is one of the grayest of gray areas. To believe, based on religion and intuition, that it is a sin comparable to murder is understandable. But without empirical evidence that feticide is homicide, it is a travesty against reason -- and an authoritarian abuse of our legal system -- to threaten some who believe otherwise with fines and imprisonment.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
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