We, the PEOPLE!!

Those of us who online research, or are curious about a subject or a historical event, know, love and depend upon Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia that has amassed the largest compendium of human knowledge in history.  So imagine how the millions of internet users are surviving today, Wednesday, January 18th, 2012 as Wikipedia has blacked out its web site for the entire 24 hours.

Wikipedia and other techno sites on the internet are protesting a pair of bills being considered in the US congress:  SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) in the US house of representatives and PIPA (Protect Intellectual Property Act) in the US senate.  What these bills aim to do is to provide more tools to prevent foreign web sites from infringing on copyrighted materials by offering pirated products such as software, movies, music, and so forth.

On the surface, this sounds like a good idea, and the problem is not that there is disagreement over the need to protect copyrights.  The real problem is, among other things, the near-unlimited power that would be granted to certain companies to black out suspected web sites without a court order or government oversight if the site has any copyrighted material on it.  That could include social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, and Google, where millions of people interact and it is impossible for anyone to examine and police every single item that millions of contributors place on these sites, or make available via these sites.

Additionally, the SOPA bill contains a provision that would allow the US government to target web sites that provide information regarding how to get around the censorship provisions in the this bill.  In other words, the government could pick and choose which web sites to go after, or black out, or order private internet providers to black out or hide, solely on the basis of available information on that site.  This would constitute an unconstitutional “prior restraint” against protected free speech, as guaranteed in the 1st amendment in the Bill of Rights of the US Constitution.  It would also have the effect of severely limiting online innovation, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).  For a more comprehensive examination of SOPA and PIPA and their detrimental effects on the internet and free speech, click HERE.

What’s interesting and even somewhat amusing about these bills is who supports them and who opposes them.  The bills are the result of intense lobbying by groups in the entertainment and media industry such as the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), Time-Warner and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).  They all support the bills as a way to protect their copyrighted properties.  On the other hand, the internet- and computer-techno-intensive companies such as Wikipedia, AOL, YouTube and the social networks are adamantly opposed to these bills in their present form.

Additionally, right-leaning venture capitalists seem to have joined with left-leaning free speech advocates by stating that they would not want to invest in online start-ups if these bills pass because of the massively increased liability they would face if someone posted something (anything!) found to be copyrighted.

As a result of the convoluted division of issues with these bills, both democrats and republicans are jumping on both the anti-SOPA and anti-PIPA bandwagons, just as some members of both parties support the bills.  It’s unfortunate that it takes something like this to see some bipartisanship occur in Congress.

On the other hand, Wikipedia shutting down for a day in protest isn’t something you get to see every day, either.

For those that have an opinion about these bills, several organizations have been sending out emails asking people to sign on to petitions against these bills.  If you go to Wikipedia today, you’ll see one way to get the message to your congresspeople.  Or you can go directly to this site to just fill in the blanks and get your view up to congress.

This actually is very important stuff.  Once censorship starts, even for the noblest of causes, it is very hard to stop and reverse.  And besides, who wants an internet where there is no Facebook, no Twitter, no free online encyclopedia with all human knowledge just a click away, and no YouTube?

No YouTube???  They may as will just shut the entire internet down if there’s no YouTube!!!  

Super PAC:  An independent-expenditure only committee, which is free to collect and spend as much money as it can, for the purpose of supporting a political candidate and/or agenda, as long as that candidate and/or agenda is not DIRECTLY tied to, coordinated with, or directed by a single political candidate or his/her campaign organization.

Super PAC’s were born out of two US federal court decisions:

Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission in which the US Supreme Court ruled that the US Constitution’s first amendment right to free speech extended to corporations and other non-personal entities, and

Speechnow.org v. FEC, in which the US Federal Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit decided that there could be no limit on the money contributed to groups such as independent super PACs which are prohibited from coordinating DIRECTLY with the candidates or political parties they support.  The only control exerted by the Federal Election Commission (FEC) is that Super PACs are required to disclose who their donors are.

So what?

Obviously, as long as a Super PAC doesn’t coordinate DIRECTLY with the candidates or political parties it supports, it can throw as much money toward a candidate’s success as it wants, which in this mega-media environment means buying TV and other media time to bash the opposition candidates and/or political party.

The problem with this abusive system is unfair political system influence.  These Super PACs are primarily supported by corporations and organizations with tons of money to spend on their singular agenda item of buying votes that enhance their corporate bottom line.  They are not, and never have been, about what is best for the nation, known as the United States of America (USA), as a whole.  The corporate and economic philosophy of enhancing the bottom line at all costs is driving these Super PACs.  The average lowly middle class USA worker cannot possibly compete with the resources that these mega-corporations can bring to bear upon the electoral system of the USA.

As an example to the huge out-of-proportion influence that only the super-rich can exert on the political system of the USA, the ultra-conservative Koch brothers and their buddy Karl Rove (engineer of GW Bush’s lying political campaigns, justifications for the war in Iraq, and the outing of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame), made available more than a quarter of a billion US dollars that have ALREADY BEEN SPENT under the Super PAC concept in the republican political campaign process underway during and following last night’s republican primary in New Hampshire (NH).

NH is just a tiny state in the grand political primary scheme of things, so it’s not going to be that big a numerical influence in the republican nominating process.  But what it does very well is provide the  Super PACs with their testing ground for future proposed hate-, fear- and falsehood-mongering, as well as misleading political ads.   All this happens at the expense of the average voting citizen who is either too busy or too stupid to do his/her own political fact-finding.

At least on the surface, it is unbelievably bizarre that today’s USA citizens would accept even a moment of this unbelievably assaulting abuse on their voting rights from entities able to exert enormous amounts of political and financial pressure on the American electorate system.  Perhaps the explanation is that the both the internet and  today’s instantaneous telecommunications have made people so lazy that they no longer check rhetoric against facts.

Yet, whatever it is, it’s proving the old axiom that people get the government they deserve.  If they’re too lazy or too stupid to check facts and reality before they vote, then too bad for them for electing liars and businesspeople that only care about the benefits to the sponsors of the Super PACs that spend millions (or in the case of the Koch brother industrialists, billions!) of dollars influencing an election in a way that is good ONLY for the already wealthy profit mongers.

There is no way to rationalize that the founding fathers of America intended for this to occur, all explanations by Corporate America and the Tea Party to the contrary.  The truth is that our founding fathers were VERY concerned with the powerful suppressing the less powerful.

Although the founders obviously couldn’t see everything coming, they saw far enough into the future to realize that they needed to provide an amendment procedure into the US constitution.  That means that it is ultimately possible to change the Constitution in order to fix past mistakes and to make the individual USA citizen more important than the obscenely rich corporate American company, as well as the middle class who is at least as important as our obscenely profit-capable corporate American environment.

Obscenely rich corporate American eletoral influence is not about true democracy….it’s the Roman Empire, just before it collapsed.

Only problem is…the wealthy  front-runners absolutely love this shit…so they will fight any effort to suspend their power.  And the hell wit true democracy.

Anyone paying attention to the GOP Iowa caucus circus last night knows that Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum tied for first place, each with 25% of the vote cast.  The unusual factor of this caucus vote was that Romney received 30,015 votes to Santorum’s 30,007 votes, a difference of only 8 votes.  That made Rowney’s “victory”, if you can even call it that, the closest in GOP caucus history.

Rick Perry spent over US$4 million on advertising in Iowa but only received 12,600 votes, or 10% off all votes cast, and did not win a single county among Iowa’s 99 counties.  The math says he paid $350 per vote!  In contrast, Rick Santorum spent only US$30,000 on TV ads, costing just US$1 per vote.  As a result, following the pasting he took in Iowa Perry said he was going back to his home state of Texas to “reassess” his campaign.   But Perry, with his bible-thumping mass prayer get-together functions and his belief that such things can make in rain in Texas (except that it didn’t), is out of touch with reality, perhaps more so than Michele Bachmann (if that’s even possible).

Michele Bachmann only received approximately 6000 votes, or just 5% of the votes cast, and also did not win a single county in Iowa.  She came in 6th in a field of 7 candidates, just behind Perry’s 10%, and beating only John Huntsman, who did noteven campaign in Iowa at all.  That’s like losing to everyone except a dead person.

After her defeat last night in Iowa, she told the press that was still going to press on with her campaign.  But leaks from her campaign people made that doubtful.   As weird and religiously oriented as Michele Bachmann is, she listened to her campaign advisers and withdrew from the race.  That’s to her credit, and the first smart thing she’s done in quite some time.

Not surprisingly, in announcing this action she misrepresented health care reform, the founding of the USA, and President Obama’s political views, all while making it sound as if she was simply doing “God’s work”, according to “God’s plan”.  It was a speech seemingly designed to fire up the most evangelical ultra-extreme right religious fanatics out there.  After all, she and her husband believe and actively advocate that homosexuality is a perverted choice (as opposed to a genetic predisposition), and they own and administer a clinic that purports to “cure” homosexuality with prayer therapy, which, evidently, they also believe is”God’s work”.

Additionally, Bachmann has made speeches claiming that the “founding fathers” of the USA (who signed the US Constitution in 1787) ended slavery in the USA, when most (or all) had been dead for at least 40 years when President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation ending slavery in the USA in 1863, or 76 years later!!!!

Nonetheless, regardless of how delighted her niche constituency was, no one was more delighted than Rick Perry, whom, immediately after Bachmann’s withdrawal speech, was reported by members of his campaign to have completed his “reassessment” in favor of continuing his run for president, by concentrating on the South Carolina primary on January 21st.  After all, Perry knows he hasn’t got a chance against Mitt Romney in New Hampshire next Tuesday.   Additionally, Newt Gingrich and John Huntsman have campaigned hard in New Hampshire and will probably do well.  Perry’s strategy has always been to concentrate on the south, and now he seems to believe he’ll pick up Bachmann’s supporters.

For people who pay attention and think for themselves, Perry’s a buffoon who couldn’t debate well, couldn’t remember the names of the federal agencies he wanted to abolish, thinks much like Bachmann that he’s doing “God’s Work”, and simply cannot (or will not) see the handwriting on the wall that is screaming that he cannot possibly win the republican presidential nomination no matter what he says or does (or prays for).

The conclusion of this interesting turn of events is that though we may never know for sure if Perry’s “reassessment” was cut short by Bachmann’s decision to withdraw, it certainly seems to be more than a just a weird coincidence that the political campaign “leak” announcing Perry’s sudden decision to stay in the race was reported less than five minutes after the conclusion of Bachmann’s speech.

The one person who can’t be too happy with Bachmann’s departure is Mitt Romney.  He wants as many ultra-conservatives as possible to remain in the race to split the inevitable Tea Party, born-again, and evangelical vote which will make his vote percentages look better, since that’s the way plurality voting  systems work.  If Perry had dropped out as well, the anyone-but-Romney vote would have benefited Gingrich,Santorum and the space cadet (Ron Paul) the most.

And speaking of space cadets…Ron Paul did remarkably well last night with the 17-29 year-old folks, according to the polls.  Problem is…one has to be 18 to vote for president in the USA.

Except, maybe in Iowa??

By this time next week two things will be true that are not true right now:

First, the year will have changed from 2011 to 2012, and second, the Iowa caucus will be history.  It is widely believed that subsequent to the Iowa caucus, Rick Santorum will drop out of the race for republican 2012 nominee for president if he doesn’t do well.  If he does drop out, it will happen because running for national elective office is exceedingly expensive, and candidates, whose political campaigns are funded primarily by private and corporate campaign contributions, will not spend their own money unless they have a very good expectation of winning.  Rick Santorum does not that that expectation.

Rick Santorum was a lawyer who served as a republican congressman from Pennsylvania in the US House of Representatives for four years and also served as a US senator for two terms, but in this case he is just an example of the type of people that are in congress, from a financial point of view.  That is, members of congress have become part of the 1% that the Occupy Wall Street have been protesting against.

In 1984, the net worth of the average Americans was $20,648.  In 2009, that net worth, adjusted for inflation, actually declined to $20,500.  In contrast, the net worth of members of the US House of Representatives over the same time period rose from $280,000 to $725.056!  Interestingly, the republicans in congress always seem to have a higher net worth than democrats!  More detailed data is available HERE, but the chart below summarizes it pretty well:

2.  The Occupy Wall Street (or Occupy “Whatever”) bunch.  The best, last hope for the economic well-being of the USA probably rests with the Occupy crowd.  Why?  Because contrary to the propaganda machine of the 1%, the Occupiers are not against wealth any more than Warren Buffet or his son Howard Buffett are;  They are against greed and economic abuse of the “have nots” by the “haves”.   They’re not afraid to publicly proclaim that the emperor has no clothes.  All the propaganda in the world cannot overcome an unfrightened truth or the unfrightened folks willing to stand up for it.

Remember the Occupy Wall Street protesters camped out in Zuccotti Park in New York’s Wall Street financial district?  Now imagine those folks camped out in the hallowed halls of Congress….

Oh, baby….   

Have New Year to everyone from WE, the PEOPLE!!

T’was the week before Christmas, and all through the House,

Tea party reps scattered, and quiet as a mouse,

The House chamber emptied, with no one around,

Except democrat Steny Hoyer, lamenting the grounds

That the GOP House used to reject the senate bill

With bipartisan support, that was sent to hill,

For the GOP house to vote and pass right away,

Extending payroll tax cuts, and sending help on the way

For those with no income, and doctors as well.

But the senate’s intentions were sent straight to hell

By the House GOP and its tea party rookies

Who would probably also steal grandma’s holiday cookies.

Speaker Boehner was for it, then he was not

After getting an earful and possibly a shot

From his Tea Party fanatics who populate the House.

He must have been thinking, “The Tea Party’s a louse

To oppose such a bill without even a care!”

Then they rushed home to enjoy holiday fare

With their families and friends.  But they won’t even dare

face the middle-class people who are destined to get

a payroll tax increase or some help, you can bet,

for the chronically unemployed, or for doctors providing Medicare.

No, the Tea Party won’t go public since they just do not care.

And the endless GOP presidential auditions,

Prepare for the contest in the Iowa tradition

Of being the first caucus state, by intention.

But support for the GOP clearly is waning

As people wake up to see it is raining

Republican snake oil all over the land

And realize the GOP is so full of sand.

Their stated solutions to the problems they caused

Back when the government was locked in their claws,

When Bush and Cheney and the whole GOP

were helping the bankers create what would be

the worst economics since 1933

when the Great Depression gripped the entire country.

Yet, they have the audacity to forcefully claim,

with disdain for the truth and without any shame,

that the democrats are who are really to blame

’cause Obama hasn’t been able to tame

the recession he inherited from the very self-same

republicans who who use the extremely lame

excuse that three years should have been quite enough

for Obama to cure all if he had the “right stuff”.

But the House GOP has blocked action each time

Obama’s democrats tried to change the paradigm

of republican tax breaks, but just for the rich.

If the middle class wants one, they can just bitch.

So the government is deadlocked, since the GOP won’t play.

But it seems very likely that same group’s gonna pay

for their partisanship, saying constantly, “NO!”,

When voters in November tell the GOP where to go.

It won’t be to congress or the white house, for sure,

when the democrats win so that they can cure

the dysfunctional government the Tea Party has made.

Send the tea baggers home back to their strange Kool-aid! 

Wishing all of you the very best Holiday (of your choice) Season and an awesome 2012!!!!

Howie

…due to an unbelievable time crunch, but We, the PEOPLE!! will return next Wednesday with the 2011 edition of “T’was the Night Before Christmas…”

Try to stay positive until then.  The GOP is self-destructing with their endless presidential auditions.  Keep watching…you may be unexpectedly entertained! 

Howie

Ah, the holiday season.  You have to love it…..sitting in front of a roaring fire roasting chestnuts, the family gatherings, a time for peace on Earth and goodwill toward men…right?

Not in the USA state of Rhode Island (RI).

The only reference from above that applies to RI is that of a “roaring fire”;  the roaring fire of controversy after the state’s independent governor, Lincoln Chafee, called the official state Christmas tree in the state capitol a “holiday” tree, just as his predecessor, republican governor Donald Carcieri had done in the past.  But that didn’t deter about 3,500 people from calling the governor’s office to protest the “holiday” tree reference.  So much for the concept of “good will”.

In his defense, Chafee explained that he was only honoring RI’s origin in the sixteenth century as a haven for religiously persecuted people as well as its tradition as the country’s first colony to institute a clear policy of permanent separation of church and state.  But despite the historical traditions of Rhode Island, that explanation was brushed aside by many in the extremely predominant Roman Catholic state, including the Bishop of the Providence diocese.

Adding to the firestorm is the the state’s House of Representatives, which last January passed a non-binding “symbolic” resolution declaring that the tree in question would henceforth be known only as a Christmas tree and not a “holiday” tree.  In fact, the resolution’s sponsor, republican state representative Doreen Costa is now planning to trump the governor by erecting her own Christmas tree in her statehouse office in protest.  In a manner of speaking, one might say that the author of the resolution to call the official tree a “christmas” tree and not any other name is, herself, erecting a “protest”tree!

It really does defy imagination that RI, which is the smallest state in the USA and which one can drive diagonally across from Connecticut to Massachusetts in 30 minutes but which, for some strange reason, believes it needs no less than 36 school districts for its 39 towns and villages while experiencing a large budget deficit, high unemployment and the highest density of potholes of any state, is somehow putting all of that aside to fight this fight that never needed fighting in the first place.  But to many Rhode Islanders, state government is a spectator sport, like hockey, where the fans can’t wait for a fight to break out.

Fact:  The tree is question is unquestionably a Christmas tree, and regardless of anyone’s religion (or lack thereof), will always be a Christmas tree.  Why?  Because the origin of decorating a tree at this time of year is clearly associated with Christmas.  The first known Christmas trees were decorated in Livonia and in Germany in the 16th century, back when Christmas was a much more solemn and religiously oriented holiday than it is today.  To deny its direct and undeniable link to Christmas which is still viewed as a religious holiday by Christians is to deny historical reality.

But wait.  There’s more!

Many non-Christians in the USA and other advanced western nations celebrate the entire holiday season, which over the years has become as much a social, economic, tree-buying, bargain-hunting, gift-giving, family-get-together, decoration-viewing, over-eating, office (among others) party event as anything else.  As a result, the original tradition of the “Christmas” tree has morphed accordingly into a “Holiday” tree, symbolizing the entire holiday season from Thanksgiving through to after New Years Day, as well as a fun activity that children of any religion enjoy when it comes to its decoration.

So the tree is both a Christmas tree and a Holiday tree!  People call it what they want, based upon their religious views and/or other preferences.  That’s okay, since what someone calls it is protected by that pesky first amendment of the Bill of Rights of the US Constitution.

However, not everyone is happy about that.  Many on the right claim there is a “war on Christmas“, and consider any reference to the tree other than “Christmas tree”  as both an attack on Christianity and blasphemy.  They abhor the social and economic associations many people now have with the holiday, even though they also fight for a totally free market and tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires.  If it sounds like these right wing “war on Christmas” fanatics are fighting for opposing goals, it’s probably because they are.  But don’t tell them unless you want to be called an unpatriotic socialist!

Actually, it’s entertaining to have this argument renew itself every holiday season.  It helps people forget about other problems such as a weak economy, high unemployment, budget deficits and other depressing facts such as Iran wanting to blow all non-Muslims to bits with its still-in-development nuclear weapons.

Instead, people can focus on the real important issues that affect their lives…like what to call that poor dead tree that’s shedding a million needles on their living room rug…and the next big crisis to be addressed:

Changing the Easter Bunny’s name to Peter Cottontail!   

Sex is an undeniably strong factor in the lives of most people, for obvious reasons:  The sexual reproductive system evolved to ensure survival of the species by making sex feel physically pleasurable (as in really GOOD) among animals with higher intelligence and lesser instinctive preconditioning.  So it’s fair to say that humans have a certain amount of control over when they have sex that lower, instinct-driven animals do not have.

Over the course of human history, that control has lent itself to two very tragic realities.  The first is that certain societies, religions and cultures used human control over sexual urges to suppress and repress all manner of sexual activity among non-sanctioned consenting adults.  The other was that, partly because of this organized repression, the strong increasingly preyed sexually upon the weak and innocent.   While this sexual predation, assault and rape occurred against innocent victims of all ages, the absolute worst crimes were committed against children.  And despite increased public awareness of these crimes, it still happens today.

The recent Penn State University football sex abuse scandal involving assistant coach Jerry Sandusky, who is accused of sexually assaulting at least eight minor-aged boys over 15 years is a example of this abhorrent sexual behavior, as is the Syracuse University sex abuse scandal involving assistant basketball coach Bernie Fine who stands accused of sexually abusing at least three minor boys several years ago.  And, of course everyone has heard or read of the long-running child sex abuse scandals by clergy of the Roman Catholic Church.

In all of these cases, unsuspecting young children were sexually abused by adults to whom they admired, respected and often idolized, sometimes seeing them as god-like or even extensions on Earth of  a deity.  The systemic reason why this is even possible is present on our cultural programming.  It teaches children from infancy to trust adults, authority, religious representatives, sports heroes, etc as perfect.  In other words, these very young children are indoctrinated by their parents, their religious institutions and others to believe in the unbelievable, to not question authority, to believe that adults always tell the truth, and that authority figures are trustworthy and special.

Thus, if one of these authority figures calls upon a child to do “something” that, so the child is told, will make them very special, some of these children will believe it.  They are ill-prepared to be skeptical and to demand proof because their own parents may have taught them that priests, coaches, boy scout leaders and the like are adults to be trusted, with special powers and/or authority over a wide range of enviable things and events.  And if the “grooming” these children have been subjected to is strong enough, they will agree to submit to the wishes of the adult authority figure, even though these children might be uncomfortable or even traumatized by the actions of the adults and/or their participation in those acts.

Obviously, not every child will allow this to happen, even if the child was raising in a way that might enable such victimization.  People have different genetic predispositions, and even in the same environments, children will experience different developmental stimuli.  But the fact that it does happen to as many children as it does (and those we hear about are only the tip of the iceberg) indicates a systemic problem that facilitates child acquiescence to such activities by sexual predators, especially in those cases in which the abuse occurs repeatedly over time.

Obviously, no caring parents and no moral adult authority figure would knowingly set a child up for such an action.  But the operative word is “knowingly” .  In case after case of child sexual abuse it has been established that the parents and non-involved authority figures had no idea the abuse was happening or even how or why the child agreed to participate, albeit reluctantly.  And yet, in case after case the victims reveal that they knew the abuser, often for years, before the abuse started.  They will also reveal that they implicitly trusted the abuser, and that they had been encouraged by the trusted adults in their lives to do so.  Because of that encouragement, the victims believed the abusers’ rationalization for the abuse, such as “this is God’s plan”, or some similar statement about how special and righteous it is.

If there is one thing that parents, teachers, clergy and other moral and caring adults should do, it is to teach children from infancy to think for themselves and question authority, as Dr. Timothy Leary used to say (albeit not the for exact same reasons). They should be taught reality, and some basic codes of conduct that all people should follow, such as to reject inappropriate touching by any adult, as well as the need to be respectful, but vigilant.

Because if people keep teaching children in the same old way, children will continue to be victimized in the same old way.

To almost no one’s surprise, the congressional “super-committee” refused to bite the bullet of shared deficit-reduction solutions,  and instead declared failure this week.  They had until last Monday to formulate and submit a bipartisan alternative to the US$1.2 trillion in automatic cuts that are scheduled to take effect in January 2013.  Assuming that they has succeeded, today would have been the day that they would have presented their plan to congress for straight up or down votes in December.

The main sticking point, more than any other by far, was a democrat-proposed tax increase on millionaires.  But the republicans have signed a pledge to Grover Norquist to never, ever raise taxes.  The democrats were actually willing to agree to cuts to entitlement programs such as social security and medicare if the GOP would just agree to even the most rudimentary tax increase for the nation’s millionaires, even though addressing/reducing entitlements is very painful for democrats.  But the dems were not willing to agree to entitlement cuts, which benefit the poor and the middle class, without a sharing of the burden among the richest people in the USA.  The republicans said simply said no.

Since the 2010 congressional elections, the GOP has controlled the US House of Representatives.  They swept into office as a result of what many people saw as a failure of the then-20-month-old Obama administration to reverse the economic disaster cause by eight years of the GW Bush administration’s outrageous spending coupled with reduced incoming revenue due to massive tax breaks for the richest Americans.  They were also mad that the Obama administration had not fixed the housing and foreclosure debacle in the USA, which was also caused by Bush policies.

It is certainly true that there are things that the Obama administration could have done better while it still had a democratic majority in the House of Representatives.  Even though they did not have filibuster-proof majority in the senate, they probably should have at least put on the show, for all the people to see, that it was the republicans, not the democrats, that were preventing job creation, assistance to homeowners, and any other program that could benefit the middle class and rescue the economy, bill after bill after bill.

On the other hand, the moment the republicans lost the 2008 general election, the remaining GOP survivors in congress adapted a strategy of unified obstructionism and unified non-cooperation with the democrats.   .  Their single most important priority and motivation was now doing whatever was necessary to make Obama fail and thus subsequently lose the next election, even over helping the USA recover from the GOP-caused recession, mortgage fiasco and other excesses and failed GW Bush administration policies.  They did this at the expense of doing the work of the American people.

It’s been like that ever since, except now it’s far worse, because of GOP control of the house.  With very few exceptions, the GOP house will not agree to any legislation passed by the democrat-controlled senate, and vice versa.  Last summer’s debt-limit debate fiasco was an example of just how far these folks will go to make the Obama administration look like bad.  And there is absolutely no reason whatsoever to hope that somehow this scenario will change….With one possible (and feasible) exception:

The 2012 election.   The scenarios look like this:

1.  If either political party wins control of both houses of congress in 2012 but not the presidency, there is at least a chance that congress will produce bills that both houses can pass and send to the president.  Then the president can either sign or veto the bill.  If he/she vetoes it, there is still a chance that congress could overturn the veto.  So there is at least a path out of gridlock.

2.  If either party wins both houses of congress as well as the presidency, it is likely that much more will get done, also defusing  gridlock.  And if the winning party can achieve a 60-plus seat majority inthe senate, then that makes it even easier for the majority party to achieve its agenda goals.

3.  If, on the other hand, congressional control continues to be split between the major parties (regardless of which party wins the presidency), the USA could be in for acute long-term paralysis.  This would be incredibly dangerous, since the politicians have already demonstrated that they care more about party than about the country and its people.  The USA would lose whatever credibility it still has in the world, but the worse part of this is yet to be encountered.  It could get to the point where public safety is threatened.

4.  One other possible solution would be term limits for members of congress.  But they would have to pass a bill that limits their ability to run for a third term of office.  That’s akin to them firing themselves from a job that pays well, strokes their egos, and provides lots of power, perks and “special” opportunities.

What do you think the chances of THAT happening are? 

The republicans really need to consider changing their party’s name from Grand Old Party (GOP) to Greedy One Percent.

The GOP, which has been vehemently opposed to any tax hikes for the very rich, claims that those tax hikes would paralyze job creation by these millionaires whom the GOP calls “job creators”.  Of course, they ignore the fact that under the massive Bush tax cuts for the rich, the USA lost 4.4 million jobs in 2008 alone (by the end of the Bush administration in January 2009,with another 4 million lost by January 2010 because of the recession that began in December 2007, while the USA added 22.4 million jobs under the increased taxes environment of the Clinton administration

So much for how protecting tax breaks for those “job creating” millionaires causes job creation…

The Occupy Wall Street movement is changing the political landscape by diverting new and increased media attention to itself and away from the Tea party Movement‘s agenda.  Despite accusations from some of more ignorant republicans and conservatives who claim that the Occupiers are merely lazy young people who don’t want to work and ex-1960′s anti-war protesters looking for relevance and attention, the facts are that Bank of America felt their influence when it recently reversed its proposed $5 per month ATM usage fee which was set to start in January 2012.  Additionally, the Occupiers have actually been instrumental (according to the richest man on the planet Warren Buffet’s son, Howard), in getting two dozen of the USA’s millionaires to visit the US congress yesterday demanding a tax increase on themselves and their brethren.

It seems these folks actually got to talk to the congressional “super-committee” of six democrats and six republicans who are tasked with finding at least US$1.2 trillion in budget savings over the next 10 years by November 23rd.  If this super-committee can’t agreed to a plan or the full congress doesn’t pass the plan in December, automatic (and somewhat draconian) budget cuts to both defense and non-defense spending will kick in starting in 2013.  Not one of the super-committee members wants that to happen, but with less than a week left, they still seem far apart.  Yet the GOP members have been absolutely unyielding when it comes to tax increases on anyone, especially millionaires, even as those same millionaires are advocating the reverse.   Meanwhile, the republicans continue to demand unilateral entitlement cuts from the democrats (which the democrats are will to provide, by the way, in a deal that shares the burden evenly).

Thus it must have been somewhat embarrassing for the congressional republicans when these two dozen millionaires showed up to demand that income taxes on the very rich be raised.  If these millionaire folks, who logically are more knowledgeable about job creation and the economic impact of paying more taxes than the GOP congressionals, are openly advocating for higher taxes for themselves and other millionaires, then what, exactly, are the republicans really trying to defend by refusing to do so?

The answer to that question is multifaceted and not so simple.  For three decades republicans were against raising taxes, notably represented by then-presidential candidate George H. W. Bush said in 1988 “Read my lips:  no new taxes!”, which followed then-President Ronald Reagan’s declaration that he would veto any tax-increasing bill to reach his desk by stating “Go ahead;  make my day!” in 1985.  Yet, both of these republican presidents realized that sometimes taxes must be raised for the good of the nation;  Reagan raised taxes 19 times as president, and Bush did so as well in 1990.

Recently, however, three newer factors came into play:

First, GW Bush gave the very rich not just one, but two massive taxes cuts while fighting two unfunded wars and increasing a policy of deregulation of the financial industry which ultimately ushered in the sub-prime mortgage debacle and subsequent great recession.

Second, the tea party movement rose in strength and media attention, and repeatedly screamed that the big problem in America is that the US government is too big (real message:  we don’t want to pay taxes).

Third, a comedian-turned-self-appointed-economic-know-it-all ultra-conservative named Grover Norquist somehow managed to scare the hell out of almost every republican in congress and get each of them to sign a “no new taxes” pledge.

These factors are hugely responsible for the vast majority of economic problems the nation is facing today.  And what’s absolutely unacceptable is that the party that helped cause the the economic fiasco we’re in now refuses to bite the bullet to necessarily raise tax revenue to help pay the bill, in conjunction with the democrats’ willingness to help reduce government spending by seriously addressing entitlements.

So if the GOP ignores the millionaires’ plea to help save America and instead keeps its pledge to Norquist the Fearful ex-comedian, will the American people blame the republicans or the democrats when the automatic cuts take effect in 2013?

The smart money says they’ll blame everyone but the guilty.

Rarely but very so often the stars align, the rogue gravity waves cancel each other out, and the ducks all line up in a row.  When these things all occur (or so it seems), special things can happen .

Such a rare and special moment occurred yesterday,Tuesday, November 8, 2011, the day of some special state and local elections in the USA).

First and perhaps most significant was the Tea Party’s and ultra-extremist-religious-right-fundamentalists effort to amend the state constitution of Mississippi (the poorest state in the USA) to bestow full citizenship rights on a fertilized human egg (a zygote) from the moment of fertilization.  It FAILED by a 60-40 margin!  Had it passed, it would have, among other horrors, set up the opportunity to overturn the landmark 1973 supreme court decision in the Roe vs. Wade case which legalized abortion in the USA.

Second was a Ohio state referendum to accept or reject a law passed by the GOP-controlled Ohio legislature and signed into law by republican governor John Kasich, which severely limited state employees’ rights to collective bargaining and negotiations.  The referendum FAILED by a similar 60-40 margin.  Evidently voters weren’t willing to throw middle-class public employees under the bus the way the ultra-conservatives would have liked to.

Third was the recall vote of Arizona conservative republican state senator Russell Pearce, the author of Arizona’s first-in-the-nation discriminatory, profiling, anti-minority show-me-your-papers anti-immigration law, which had already gone into effect but has been ruled illegal by the 9th Circuit US Court of Appeals.  Pearce only managed to win 45.3% for the vote against 53.4% for his opponent.  Another tea-bagger bites the dust!

And finally, the frosty-white icing on this wonderful gift-cake was ultra-conservative, Tea-Party-favored, GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain. Last week he was dogged by unspecified allegations of sexual harassment of two unidentified women.  Seemingly as innocent as the driven snow, Cain blamed everyone but himself.

But THIS week, no less than four women made allegations of sexual harassment against him, with two of them identified and one of them (so far) graphically explicit and detailed about the event that impacted her.  The other identified woman, who has not yet released details, has stated that the harassment occurred on several occasions.

Ol’ Herman himself, after first accusing the Rick Perry campaign of a smear effort, then the the mainstream media for the problem, told the mainstream media this past weekend that he was done with the issue.

But yesterday he held a press conference on national television to declare how innocent and lilly-white-squeeky-clean he is in all of this.  He again blamed the mainstream media, but also accused the “democratic machine” (whatever THAT is) for his troubles.  He did the true tea-bagger thing – blame the victim – when he called the woman who provided the detailed account a “troubled”.

Even republican pundits who heard his press statement and answers to questions by the press couldn’t easily defend him.

Cain’s statements during his press conference were reminiscent of the story of the man standing against a street lamp-post, a knife in his hand and a dead body with seventeen knife wounds at his feet, telling the police that he had just been leaning up against the lamp-post minding his own business when this man came out of nowhere and accidentally ran into his knife….seventeen times.

All of this seem to indicate that at least some of the American electorate is finally waking up to the bullshit snake oil that the conservative tea-baggers and even mainstream GOP presidential candidates have been trying to sell since the GOP took over the US House of Representatives in the 2010 elections.  The conservatives settled into doing what they have consistently done since GW Bush stole the 2000 election from Al Gore – they over-stepped their new-found political power and grossly and arrogantly overplayed their hand.  And they’ve once again managed to piss off John and Jane Q. Public, if yesterday’s voting results are any indicator.

It seems clear that the issues the conservatives have been pushing, including protecting the super-wealthy at the expense of the middle class while doing nothing to help create jobs for that same middle class, are opening the eyes of the public for the first time in months and months.

The Occupy Wall Street efforts have clearly had their effect on John and Jane Q. Public as well.  Even the all-powerful Bank of America has been forced to wake up, smell the acid in the coffee..and reluctantly cancel their previously-scheduled monthly $5 ATM usage fee.

This is the pattern the GOP fell into during the GW Bush era that got them UN-elected in 2006 and 2008.  They forgot (as did the democrats approaching 2010) that if they piss off the voters, the voters will fire them.

Voters only remember two years into the past…a lesson that politicians should never forget.  For now, though…

ENJOY!!!  

The mainstream republican party leadership (if there is even such a thing still in existence) must be thanking their lucky stars that Herman Cain is mishandling the sexual harassment charges against himself so poorly.  Surely, they must have been extremely apprehensive over the possibly that Herman Cain could possibly win the GOP nomination for president.

They realized that such an eventually would have absolutely guaranteed that Barack Obama would win re-election in a cake walk.  And before anyone assumes that this is sort of racist, know that it is entirely about race.

The reasons and methodology for this are crystal clear.  Barack Obama is considered by most people to be an African American, just as Herman Cain is, even though Obama is biologically half African-American (black)and half Caucasian (white), while Cain seems to be fully African-American.  And based upon the 2008 election results, it is fair to conclude that most democrats and perhaps most independents are “color-blind” when it come to politics and elections (and good for them for being so).

However, the same cannot with any credibility or reality be presumed regarding republicans, who run the entire gamut from moderate or perhaps somewhat fiscally and/or socially and/or liberterianistically conservative, to lunatic-fringe ultra-extreme-religious-right fascist-oriented-white-supremacists-gay& lesbian & non-White-Anglo-Saxon-Protestant (WASP) hating bizarros.

There is no known reliable survey of the number or proportion of republicans who would not vote for a black person for president, but via anecdotal data observed at tea party rallies as well as comments recorded after the election of Barack Obama in 2008, it is clear that racism in the USA is still alive, albeit not as overt as it was 40 years ago.  However, since a significant part of the GOP identifies itself as evangelical Christians (many of whom are also fundamentalists), and since it is clear that it has been the democrats, not the republicans, who have supported and passed affirmative action legislation and other pro-minority programs over the years, one can conclude that there is far more racism on the right than on the left.

What it all means is this:

Given the choice between a black republican and a black democrat, most democrats would vote for the black democrat.  But a significant number of republicans would simply stay home, unable to support Herman Cain because of his race.  Of course, they will also NEVER vote for Obama who is both black AND a democrat/socialist/communist/Kenyan.  Despite Cain’s recent rise in the polls, the enthusiasm of rank and file republicans probably would have been flaccid at best on election day had he faced Obama.  More than likely, the extreme right of the party would have stayed home, diluting the republican vote to the point that even right-leaning independent voters wouldn’t have been enough to rescue the election for the GOP.  Obama would win his second term (which he probably will anyway, considering the probable GOP nominee), but it would have been significantly more lop-sided than it probably will.

In the meantime, Mitt Romney, who at this juncture appears to be the favorite to be nominated, must be thanking his lucky stars for this diversion from his image as the ultimate flip-flopper.  And Rich Perry must be looking at this and thinking that he just might still be in the race.

The rest of the GOP field, while clearly (albeit quietly) happy that one of their competitors is about to be eaten alive by cannibals, has been strangely silent since this story broke all over the press like a pregnant whale about to calf.  In fact, one of their members, Michele Bachmann, has been uncharacteristically invisible for the past week or so.  It’s almost as though she withdrew from the race.

And that’s a shame.  Because if there is one GOP candidate that is worth his or her weight in comical relief, it’s Michele.  No other GOP candidate gets facts more mixed up than Michele, and no other candidate is more fun to fact-check at politifact. or fact-check.  But she’s been incognito, evidently content to allow Herman Cain to bask in the heat of public scrutiny over his behavior with women co-workers in the 1990′s.

You really can’t blame Michele for enjoying the criticism-free break.  After all, it’s never happened before.

And you really can’t blame Herman Cain for his neophyte and cavalier attitude toward the press as he refused to answer their questions today, asking them “What part of no do you not understand?” in response to their requests for answers to their questions about the sexual harassment allegations.

After all, who knew that he would be up so high in the polls of republican candidates (at least before the sexual harassment story plays out)?

Certainly not Herman Cain.  Or the mainstream GOP leadership.

New Proposed GOP election Motto:  “A vote for us is like a box of chocolates…you never know what you’re going to get!“  (with apologies to Forrest Gump   )

Perhaps no other time in history has a political party bet the well-being and future economic survival of an entire nation to solely to achieve their primary goal of unseating a sitting president more so than the republican party in the USA.  It is playing an incredibly dangerous game that depends entirely upon the stupidity and laziness of many of this country’s voters, folks that never do any research to ascertain the truth about anything.  Instead, they just tend to listen to the people saying the same thing loudly, over and over.  That loud repetitious message shapes their opinions and their vote.

They want Americans to forget that it was the GOP that caused the present financial mess because of runaway spending and huge tax breaks for the very rich during the GW Bush administration, while fighting two unfunded wars and passing an unfunded prescription program that made “BIG PHARMA” even wealthier than they were before.  Having lost their grip on government power in the 2008 elections, they decided to oppose every effort put forth by the Obama administration to create jobs, stimulate the economy and raise additional revenue to reduce the deficit and pay down the national debt..  Their total opposition to anything Obama proposes has now essentially brought the US government to a dead stop.

Perhaps most disturbing and the epitome of this arrogant drive to unseat Obama is the GOP’s opposition to the withdrawal of essentially all US troops from Iraq by the end of this year, ESPECIALLY since President Obama is simply complying with an Iraqi-USA agreement formulated during the Bush administration!  Obama this week announced this action which polls indicate is favored by a 2 to 1 majority of Americans.

Besides the economic dangers posed by the GOP’s intransigence to any Obama proposal to create jobs (favored by a majority of Americans), raise taxes on millionaires and billionaires (favored by a majority of Americans),  or to even attempt to compromise with the democrats, the GOP is arrogantly ignoring the will of a majority of Americans.  The republicans are going to attempt to convince the 66% of Americans who oppose the war in Iraq that American troops should not be withdrawn!

Remember that these are the same people who claimed that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (WMD), which was their entire rationale for invading Iraq in the first place.

(Note to “new” humans:  There were never any WMDs in Iraq.  The story was fabricated upon the sketchiest of unverified and ambiguous information and quite possibly premeditatedly “embellished” into a national security imperative for the USA to invade Iraq, which was GW Bush’s desire from before he became president.)

As previously stated, the GOP depends upon citizen ignorance and laziness (as well as fear and hatred) to work their agenda of lies, revisionist history, failed theories, and favoritism toward the extremely wealthy.  They don’t want anyone to remember that 40 years ago many of them wanted the US to continue its combat role in the failed Vietnam war, or that the military-industrial complex, which makes huge profits and gains power from war, wanted the USA to stay in Vietnam forever.

Rather, the GOP would have people believe that the day after the USA leaves Iraq, Iran will invade it and conquer it.  Sounds a lot like what they claimed 40 years ago about leaving Vietnam and how the Chinese would invade and conquer all of southeast Asia, doesn’t it?

Stunningly, the arrogant GOP doesn’t even attempt to hide its intentions.  Senator Mitch McConnell, the republican minority leader in the senate, said on national TV that the number one priority of the republican party in the US congress is to insure that Barack Obama is a one-term president.  And he’s not alone;  so have Rush Limbaugh and Michele Bachmann, as evidenced HERE.

It is natural and acceptable for any political party to want to win the next elections.  But making political victory the supreme goal, far above such noble and necessary objectives as creating jobs, preventing home foreclosures, growing the economy, easing pain and suffering and the like is tantamount to stealing the public trust for one’s own selfish and private goals.

Despite that, GOP has strategized that if they can obstruct every proposal by the Obama administration for another year until the next election, the economy will degrade further and no new jobs will be created, which will keep unemployment high.  The middle class will continue to suffer and they’ll blame Obama for all of it, because most of the electorate is too stupid or too lazy to know better.

An old proverb says that people get the government they deserve.  In today’s world of instantaneous communications, internet, Google, multiple mass media, and almost universal access to all of it, there is absolutely no reason for the GOP to succeed at their snake-oil pitch….except for voters allowing them to get away with it…by being stupid…or lazy…or both.

This week the republicans held another in their never-ending series of debates.  Besides the fact that it resembled a hockey game (where people watch hoping they’ll see two players beat up on each other), it was just more of the same-old, same-old.

Imagine, though, a debate that went something like this:

Moderator:  Welcome to the 84th republican national presidential debate.  I’m pleased to introduce our GOP candidates, starting on the left, Newt Gingrich, Jim Huntsman, Mitt Romney, the guy from Pennsylvania, Rick Perry, Michele Bachmann, Ron Paul, and New Gingrich.  With a minute…Mr. Gingrich, weren’t you on the left?

Gingrich:  Yeah, but I moved.

Guy from Pennsylvania:  Hey, I have a name, y’know..it’s…

Herman Cain:  You forgot to mention me!  I’m standing here, too.  Is this a black thing?

Moderator:  Where are you standing?   I don’t see you…

Herman Cain:  I’m standing behind Newt.  He blocked me when he moved.

Moderator:  I apologize, Mr. Cain.  Folks, allow me to introduce Herman Cain, who just side-stepped out from behind this evening’s rather large mover, Newt Gingrich.

Guy from Pennsylvania:  Are you going to mention my name, or not?

Moderator:  Absolutely!  I again apologize….Uh…  What was your name again?

Guy from Pennsylvania:  Rick Santorum!!

Moderator:  Ladies and gentlemen, the guy from Pennsylvania, Rick Santorum….okay let’s get started.  The first question is for Herman Cain.  Mr. Cain, you continue to tout your 9-9-9 tax plan as revenue neutral and that it won’t raise taxes on the middle class.  But every non-partisan tax expert in the country says that’s not true.  How do you respond to that?

Cain:  They’re wrong.  Those economic experts know nothing about economics.  If they did, they’d be working on Wall Street! (applause from the audience which was bussed in from Wall Street).  I have the best economic advisers that my campaign money can buy, and they say 9-9-9 will work!

Moderator:  Next question is for Michele Bachmann:  you’ve said many times that Obama’s health care reform kills jobs and should be repealed.  Yet, a report in the paper today said that the US presently lags behind all other advanced countries in health care.  Can you tell us how the new law has killed jobs, what jobs it has killed so far, and why does the US lag behind everyone else?

Michele Bachmann:  Jobs have been lost everywhere!  Just look around!  We have almost 10% unemployment!  Where do you think THAT came from?  I’ll tell you where:  OBAMACARE!!! And just because the liberal media fabricates a story about the US lagging behind doesn’t make it true.  The US is the greatest country on Earth, so how can we possibly lag behind in ANYTHING?  That makes no sense.  Besides, we know for a fact that God is on OUR side.  So how how can God lag behind?  We need to repeal Obamacare and free the health insurance industry of all those unnecessary regulations, and we need to have our schools teach our children the power of prayer and faith healing.  Then the country wouldn’t need health care, and everyone would have a job.

Moderator.  Oh.  Okay.  If you say so.  John Huntsman, care to comment?

John Huntsman:  Yes.  Thank you.  I’m John Huntsman, and I’m running for president!

Moderator:  Hmmm.  Thank you.  We’ll keep that in mind.  Okay, next question for Rick Perry:  You brag about 243 executions in Texas since you’ve been governor.   What if DNA evidence shows that some of those executed were actually innocent?

Rick Perry:  Hey, Texas is the biggest state in the US…with the minor exception of that large empty area up north where almost nobody lives.  So we can agree it’s big.  In a state this big, in a business this big, you have to expect some losses.  So what??  It’s the American way.

Mitt Romney:  Yeah?  Well, Massachusetts doesn’t have a death penalty.  What do you say about that, Rick?

Rick Perry:  So what??  Texas doesn’t have health care.  So we’re even.  So there.

Moderator:  Okay.  Next question to Ron Paul:  You believe the smaller the federal government is, the better.  Can you tell us what size you think would be ideal for government?

Ron Paul:  Sure!  I think the federal government serves no purpose.  That’s why I wanted to be a senator, which I am.  And if the rest of my colleagues would just vote no on everything like I do, the government would be perfect.

Moderator:  For Newt Gingrich…where are you, sir?

Newt Gingrich:  I moved over here to the extreme right.  Do you see me?

Moderator:  Yeah, now I see you over there by that female staffer …okay.  You were speaker of the house during the Clinton years;  do you have any regrets of that time?

Newt Gingrich:  Yeah.  I regret Bill met Monica before I did.

Moderator:  Well, folks, we’ve heard from all the candidates and that concludes tonight’s debate…

Rich Santorum:  Wait a minute..how about me?

Moderator:  Oops!   Sorry!  Okay, Rick Santorum from the great state of Ohio…

Rich Santorum:  No, no, no….I’m the guy from Pennsylvania!!!!

John Huntsman:  I’m John Huntsman, and I’m running for president!

Moderator: There you have it, folks.  Don’t miss the next GOP debate, their 85th, coming up next Monday!

The news in the USA yesterday was dominated by the Republican party:  They held their sixth or seventh debate (depending upon how you’re counting them), they voted unanimously in the US senate to block Obama’s job bill from proceeding to debate on the senate floor (the bill needed 60 votes to advance), and they continued to protect millionaires and billionaires keeping their tax loopholes to pay little or no income taxes in the USA.

In the meantime, the “Occupy Wall Street” movement successfully continued their demonstrations in New York City and other elsewhere around the nation for the 25th day in a row.  Since beginning their protests against corporate greed on September 17th, “Occupy Wall Street” has spread to almost 4 dozen other cities in the USA.  The group is diffuse in nature;  there is no clear central leadership and no narrowly defined goal.  However, these folks are essentially against the corporate greed that is preventing investment toward creating jobs in the USA.  They are also against the favored tax status of the very rich.  And contrary to false reports by conservative pundits such as Jonah Goldberg and his Tea-Bagger cronies, “Occupy Wall Street” does indeed have certain demands which are available for review by anyone on their web site HERE.

The unemployment rate in the USA continues to stagnate at a dismal 9.1% while corporate America continuse to rake in their millions and billions of dollars.   The republicans have been condemning every single move and proposal of the Obama administration, deadlocking the country in legislative paralysis.   The middle class is shrinking, the economy is tanking, and Wall Street has the best of all possible worlds to play in, because they own much of the government team.

But they don’t own the “Occupy Wall Street” participants, just they they didn’t own another group of protesters 45 years ago.

“Occupy Wall Street” protests harken back to a time when these same conservative corporate fat cats were defending their corporate greed by promoting continued and escalating US involvement in the Vietnam War during the 1960′s and early 1970′s.  They were literally raking in enormously huge corporate profits from the sale of war hardware and products that supported an expensive, useless and unwinnable war in southeast Asia, in which 55,000 Americans, many involuntarily drafted into the US military, died.

As the war dragged on through 1967 and 1968, protests against it grew in numbers and frequency, involving many cities and many groups of people.  Some of the protest events were designed to occupy university offices and recruiting offices, while others displayed for the whole world to see the growing anger against the war and its supporters.  Conservatives condemned the protesters, calling them unpatriotic, enemies of America and communists.

The anti-war demonstrations did not immediately end US involvement in the war, either.  It took years for a majority of Americans to see involvement in the Vietnam War as a monumental mistake.  But the constant pressure brought to bear by the anti-war demonstrators eventually had its effect, as Americans soldiers began disengaging from active combat in 1970.  The protesters prevailed because they didn’t give up.

Many republicans today aren’t sure what to do or say about “Occupy Wall Street”.  Some of the most fanatical tea-baggers have already called the participants anti-American, anti-patriotic, extremists (THERE’S the pot calling the kettle black!), left-wing socialists, and all fashion of names designed to demean and belittle the participants.  Others, such as Newt Gingrich in last nights GOP debate, have attempted to divide them into “good” and “bad” sub-groups.  Either way, one thing is certain from all the negative comments the GOP has thrown at the demonstrators:  The republicans are afraid of them, and that is making Wall Street afraid of them.

Conversely, democrats and progressives, and even Obama, have issued statements of praise and support for “Occupy Wall Street”.  That was to be expected, since these demonstrators have shown that they are willing to  fight back against all the things the GOP defends about Wall Street, while the democrats had been strangely reluctant to do so in any effective way.  And while the Tea Party has sequestered the GOP in congress, there’s growing hope that ‘Occupy Wall Street” is exactly the “pair” that the democrats needed to grow to take on the republican bullshit machine…the one from which the GOP claims that corporate America needs its tax breaks to create the jobs America needs…you know…the jobs that aren’t being created, even with the tax breaks.

“Occupy Wall Street” was probably a surprise to most folks, just as the emergence of the Tea Party and its influence were in 2009.  Many didn’t see it coming, and when it did, many didn’t think it would amount to much.  But it’s here, it’s growing and it’s applying increasing pressure.

The big question is:  Can it short circuit the GOP in the 2012 elections?

Remember 1968…the year support for the Vietnam War started to weaken…

Remember how the Tea Party movement get started?

At the end of  2008 the Bush administration’s Troubled Assets Relief Program TARP bailed out Wall Street and its financial markets.  These were suffering from self-inflicted blood-letting caused by deregulation of the banking and mortgage industriesincluding the “sub-prime mortgage” fiasco.  TARP prevented a stock market crash and probable depression after Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy, in what could have been the first of many bankruptcies on Wall Street.

Although TARP was funded to US$700 billion, it has actually cost less than $25 billion.  But after the unfunded and outrageous deficit government spending during the eight years of the GW Bush administration, TARP was the last straw for some fiscal and religious right conservatives who fundamentally disagree with any government involvement in the capitalist free market.  Even if it was in the form of interest-earning loans which gave endangered companies the necessary capital to keep operating thus potentially saving millions of jobs, these angry folks wanted no part of it.

As a result, some of these right-wing conservatives started to organize small like-minded groups and publicly protest against what they saw as government spending run amok.  These gatherings began in different cities and on different schedules.  Although they initially appeared to be independent of each other, they collectively brought forth the Tea Party movement.  Today, these tea-baggers pretty much control the republican party in congress.

Fast forward to 2011.

Corporate America has been largely saved from oblivion by the average taxpayer, but it continues to lobby for and vigorously defend its extremely generous tax breaks and loopholes which allow it to contribute, on average, a much lower percentage of its income in taxes than the average middle class taxpayer struggling to make ends meet.   In addition, banks had been raising interest rates on credit card balances with little or no warning to make up for reduced profits resulting from the very recession that they themselves caused.  In response, the Obama administration has passed new regulations designed to prevent the banks from engaging in such anti-consumer practices in the future

The banks have responded by raising their fees for checking accounts, ATM usage, and the like:  “So what if you gave us life support when we needed it”, the banks seem to be saying to the average taxpayer.  “That was yesterday, and you haven’t done anything for us today!”  And while corporate America reported post-TARP record-breaking profits quarter after quarter, these so-called “job creators” who enjoy such favored status in the USA SLASHED 5000 jobs in September, while the small and medium businesses added 91,000 US jobs!

The GOP likes to claim that these job creators need all their tax loopholes and breaks and subsidies in order to create American jobs.  Well, these “job creators” HAVE their tax loopholes and breaks and subsidies.   So where’s the job creation??

China, maybe?

Slowly but surely some people are waking up and smelling the coffee stinking of bullshit.   Some of them have started to organize small like-minded groups to publicly protest against what they see as unbridled capitalist fascism and corporate greed run amok.  These gatherings began recently on and near Wall Street with protest rallies.  In a group process strangely reminiscent of the protests and university occupations by anti-Vietnam-war activists of the late 1960′s, these folks have gathered day after day, growing their numbers, developing their message and raising awareness of the financial abuses suffered by main street middle class America at the hands of corporate America facilitated by their wholly-owned subsidiary, the congress.

They threaten to “Occupy Wall Street”.  Their sentiments and efforts are spreading to other cities.  Although these groups appear to be independent of each other, they could easily join and coordinate their energy and efforts into a single voice much as the Tea Party did in 2008 and 2009.

If anything is ever going to break the tea-baggers’ death grip on congress, it just might be these anti-corporate-greed protesters, much as it was done to the death-grip of the military-industrial complex of the 1960′s Vietnam era.  After all, the Vietnam war and the present-day economy have something in common:  They both involve a middle class forced to participate against its will.  Sooner or later, involuntary participation results in protest, and that protest only grows in strength over time.  So it is reasonable to expect that there will be some kind of fallout, or change, to the political landscape for these protests to end.  The only question might be “how long will it take?”

Or, perhaps more appropriately, the question might well be:

“How long before the light comes on for the majority of Americans and they see the conservative mantra of “tax breaks and deregulation (smaller government) for the corporate American job-creators!!” as so much snake oil, and they finally realize that the corporate emperor and his GOP guardians have no clothes?

If you were born around mid-20th century you  probably remember a simpler time, when you knew who the USA’s enemies were;  when the two political parties had significant ideological differences but understood the absolute need to work together for the good of the entire country;  that if you worked hard you could get ahead;  when natural disasters struck the US government was there providing competent relief to the needy; and citizens were proud of the strength and resourcefulness of the United States of America.

Then the Reagan administration came in.  It was hell-bent on reducing the central government by privatizing its functions,reducing funds for education, eliminating social safety networks, adding religion to politics, providing tax breaks for the rich, and re-categorizing ketchup as a vegetable in school lunches.  The political power of the radical-right military-industrial complex was increased with contracts for US$300 toilets in military aircraft and US$ 500 hammers for military construction projects.  The beginning of right-wing extremism as a large force in American politics had begun.

During the Clinton administration (1993-2000), the more left-leaning liberals, starved for even one political achievement after 12 years under republican rule, attempted to implement universal healthcare in America.  While truly a noble effort, this totally overstepping action hit the ground with a loud thud.  The see-saw of American politics swung back into the radical right’s favor.  Republicans retook congress in the 1994 elections.  But the Clinton administration became more centrist to work compromises with that newly GOP congress.  Together they passed comprehensive welfare reform and national budgets that generated surpluses for four consecutive years in a row.  The economy boomed, demonstrating that the political centrist road was working for the country and its people.

Unfortunately, bipartisanship drove into a brick wall during the GW Bush administration with the reintroduction of religion in government, more tax breaks for the rich, and more favoring of the military-industrial-corporate complex, two expensive (but unfunded) wars, an unfunded prescription drug program for seniors that guaranteed even more monster profits for corporate big pharma, deregulation of financial and mortgage markets which caused the housing bubble to explode,  Wall Street and the economy to implode, and exploding national budget deficits to be left to the next president to solve.  The partisan extreme right believed that “deficits don’t matter”, as then vice-president “Tricky Dick” Cheney is famous for saying.

The extreme political partisanship which began under Reagan really didn’t come into its own until republicans took control of both house of congress for 6 years beginning in 2002 during the GW Bush administration.  From then on congressional democrats were more and more marginalized until, in 2006, senate republicans threatened to deploy what they called the “nuclear option“, i.e., they would their majority in the senate to change senate rules so that filibusters could be shut down with a simple 50% plus one majority, as opposed to the 60% requirement the rules demanded.  The only thing that stopped this was the “gang of 14” moderate senator from both parties who got together to forge a bi-partisan solution.  Bi-partisanship had dodged yet one more bullet, but the power-addiction of the GOP was no beyond the point of no return.

While the democrats won back the senate in 2006, the GOP still controlled the house of representatives.  However, when the democrats also took both the white house and the house of representatives in 2008, the withdrawal symptoms caused by the GOP’s power addiction really kicked in.  The GOP in both houses of congress started voting as a single block of votes on almost every issue.  Senate republicans used the filibuster rule to stop almost all of the democrat’s proposals.    Uncompromising partisanship had finally become the standard for these republicans.

And when the GOP won back the house in 2010, it just made them even more  partisan.  The newly-GOP-controlled house pushed through legislation they knew would die in the senate or be vetoed by president Obama.  Their partisan extremism had been further enhanced by the 61 new Tea-Bagger congresspeople whose only stated agenda was to impose their way or the highway.  The debt-limit increase debacle of last July and August is how business is now conducted on Capitol Hill.  This is hurting the weak economy and making the US government look like it belongs in a lunatic asylum.

As a result, a group of moderate centrists democrats, republicans, and independents fed up with the partisan bullshit known as “No Labels” has been meeting and growing, much like the extremist Tea Party movement did several years ago.  In fact, they recently participated in a conference call with 100,000 attendees!!

With the Tea-baggers controlling the GOP and the leftist liberals mad at Obama (a centrist democrat, by the way), no is the perfect time for “No Labels” to “mix it up” by offering a third political choice at the polls.

They just need a better, catchier name….

Like, maybe…We the PEOPLE!!!‘s party!  

So the USA’s unemployment stands at a stubborn 9.1%, the national debt keeps climbing, and the USA doesn’t seem to be very popular with the global community, despite spending billions on it.

But wait:  isn’t this the same country that contributed to the demise of the Soviet Union in the late 1980′s?

Right-wing conservatives often credit their ultimate icon, then-US-president Ronald Reagan, with “bankrupting” the Soviet Union by forcing it into an extremely expensive arms race to develop and field more capable intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and an anti-ballistic missile (ABM) defense system cutely known at the time as “Star Wars”.  Others argue that it collapsed under the weight of its own economic deficiencies and the built-in defects of a communist methodology.  But those folks are ignoring the truth: without the people of the Soviet-bloc countries demanding democracy and western-style economics and goods, the Soviet Union might still around today.

The USA traded freely with the Soviets, mostly to the USA’s financial gain.  Everything from grain to blue jeans to western pop and rock and roll was exported to the Soviet Union, along with the information about the outside world which accompanied these exports.  The more they got, the more they wanted, and the residents of the USSR went to great lengths to get what they wanted.  Corporate America ate it up;  the increasing demand was exponential.  It was a huge money tree for the USA’s and Europe’s capitalists: almost like selling heroine to addicts.

In the course of becoming addicted to more and more western culture, the Soviet citizenry began demanding more and more access from their government;  they just couldn’t get enough.  The Soviet government responded by taking the path of least resistance:  it relaxed its restrictions and allowed more and more importation of western culture (and subsequent information).

In a classic snowball effect, western culture became critical to Soviet life.  The Soviet government had made a critical mistake:  once allowed into the country, western cultural contamination portrayed the west as cool, instead of the evil destroyers that decades of government propaganda proposed.  The people’s demand to be more “western” ultimately grew past the point of no return, and the internal pressure to dismantle the Soviet empire became an irresistible force.  The USSR began crumbling from within.  The arms race and economics defects stuff just helped it along.

In other words, blue jeans and rock and roll crushed the USSR.

So riddle this reverse logic if you can:

For over 50 years, a piddly little Caribbean island nation with practically no modern weapons or technology and only 90 miles from Key West, Florida, has been a thorn in the side of every American leader since John F Kennedy was president in the early 1960′s.  The USA imposed a trade embargo on Cuba in 1960, and made it even more restrictive in 1962.  With only occasional lapses, this embargo is the longest such economic action in modern history.  Its stated goal was to force the collapse of the communist Castro regime in Cuba.  This was supposed to cause a new democratic government to take hold in Cuba.

However, after more than 50 years, even an 11-year-old can see that this stupid embargo is a massive failure.  It has only hurt the Cuban people.  They’ve existed without the American influence that comes with every pair of American jeans, every rock cd and every car part needed to repair their ancient American Chevies.   Meanwhile the USA spends billions in foreign aid to fund local infrastructure projects in places like Africa, which accomplishes…what?

While the USA suffers unemployment and financial deficit/debt problems, Castro’s Cuba spends money fomenting international hatred of the USA, which the USA spends money trying to reverse (unsuccessfully).  Meanwhile, Americans sit at home without a job.

The obvious solution is to lift the trade embargo against Cuba completely and immediately.  Flood the island with American blue jeans, rock and roll cd’s, and free consultation for improving their crumbling infrastructure.  Then offer to supply free materiel and unemployed American workers for those infrastructure projects and repairs. .  Select workers based partially upon their friendliness and knowledge of the benefits of democracy.  Addict the Cuban to American culture.  Let the same process that brought down the USSR work its hedonistic magic in Cuba.

Then sit back and watch as Americans working in Cuba lower the US employment rate for a fraction of what we used to spend on foreign aid. Watch more jobs created in the USA, as Cuban cigars and other goods are now featured and sold . Watch US markets make enormous new profits, while the US government spends less, generates new import and other revenues, as democracy takes hold in Cuba because of demands for what the Soviet people demanded (and got).  A win-win for everyone.

Alas…it will never happen.  Why?  Because neither Cuban-Americans in Florida and elsewhere, nor the American ultra-right can see past their self-righteous fanatical indignation over such a proposal…it doesn’t have any anger in it.

Based upon the latest polling, President Barack Obama’s re-election prospects seems to be in real trouble:. those disapproving his job performance has reached 55%.

Last Thursday, he presented an extremely-well-crafted jobs recovery bill before a televised`joint session of congress..  Some folks think it was the best speech of his political career.  He should have gotten a 10%-20% bump in the polls, but he didn’t.  Obama’s numbers stayed at the  55% disapproval rate he’s had since the debt-limit-increase debacle of August.

Yet, another poll released today (9-14-11), informed Americans actually like his jobs recovery bill by a margin of 43% to 35% (80%), while fully 20% have no idea what’s in Obama’s jobs bill, or don’t know about it, and thus have no opinion.  Most were probably too busy watching the opening game of the  National Football League (NFL).  Keep those ignorant 20% in mind, and add them to the 35% who oppose the jobs bills.  Is it just a coincidence that they add up to 55%?

If you even had the stomach to watch Monday’s GOP debate among the eight GOP/Tea Party candidates (without getting too nauseous), you probably noticed two things:

1.  The GOP/Tea Party candidates did not seem to have any use for facts or truth, and

2.  They never mentioned Obama’s proposed jobs bill.

Thus, it’s reasonable to calculate that 35% of Americans who watched the debate would approve of most of what they heard (almost all of it lies and stupid statements), because they are either conservative republicans, ultra-extreme-religious-right Tea Party activists/supporters, or head-in-the-sand libertarians who believe that the only justifiable function of federal government is to build an extremely strong military force to defend the Sovereign Associated States of America (SASA for short, the name they would call the USA if they could).  Tea Partiers believe in that same strong military force, by the way, except they also believe that this armed force can be used to invade any country that does not support their Tea-Party agenda….or that has lots of oil…or both.  They also tend to agree with the SASA idea.

Against this backdrop of extremism, the GOP/Tea Party candidates in the debate essentially attempted to revise history, law and reality to serve their personal agendas.  And while all of them participated in this practice to one extent or another, the bullshit award of the evening has got to be given to Michele Bachmann, the ultra-extremist, right-wing evangelical fundamentalist ignoramus from Minnesota.

Bachmann, continuing a tradition she started for herself of talking out of her ass without ever checking the facts, accused president Obama of “stealing US$500 billion from Medicare” (a program, by the way, that she would end if she could).  Obama did nothing of the kind.  The bill passed by Congress and signed into law by Obama is expected to lower the Medicare budget by that amount of money through the reduction of rampant fraud and abuse and by implementing streamlined systems.  Obama stole nothing.

She also claimed that Rick Perry of Texas personally forced 12-year-old girls in Texas to receive a “state-mandate-government-injection” without the ability for parents to opt out and say no.  The truth is that while Perry issued an executive order in Texas to have all 12-yead-old girls receive the HPV virus vaccine UNLESS they opted out,  And even so, the Texas legislature rejected Perry’s executive order, and then passed it’s own version of the law, which included the opt-out provision.  The hypocrite Bachmann never mentioned that she doesn’t oppose children receiving state-mandated mumps or chicken pox vaccinations, or any of a myriad of other vaccinations, however.

Bachmann also clearly stated that the HPV virus vaccination is dangerous to kids because it can cause metal retardation, a bullshit claim she repeated the next day on CNN.  She seems to base this claim upon an unknown “mother” coming up to her and claiming that her daughter had a “mental health episode” following an HPV vaccine.  The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia has repeatedly made it clear that no such danger exists.

She also claimed that the health care reform law funds abortions, at Obama’s personal direction, because the law mandates that health insurance companies cover the “Plan B” morning-after contraceptive, which Bachmann falsely proclaims is an abortion-inducing pill.

Michele Bachmann has a long history of spouting bullshit about founding fathers, slavery, the US Constitution, and revising history to back up her beliefs and agenda.  Weirdly, the rest of the GOP candidates seem to be emulating her.  The stupid and the lazy in this country are eating it up!

If Obama and the democrats don’t want endure a “shellacking” again in the coming 2012 elections, they better start spoon-feeding the American electorate every single time the GOP candidates lie and ignore facts and reality by aggressively waving that bullshit flag over and over…

Because if they don’t…well…how did you like the eight years of Bush and 6 years of republican control of congress?

Tonight the declared republican candidates candidates for the USA presidency will participate in the first of three national debates scheduled within 15 days.  This is the first conservative Texas governor Rick Perry, who along with the rest of the GOP pack, will surely claim that he has a plan to reduce the budget deficit and national debt, while further reducing taxes on the wealthy, beefing up the military, and creating jobs.

What Perry will probably not mention is that his predecessor, former republican US president George W. Bush and his vice-president “Tricky Dick” Cheney, inherited a strong economy and a national budget surplus when they took office in January 2001.  Nor will Perry (described by some as Bush on steroids) mention that in eight years Bush/Cheney turned that strong and healthy economy into a recession-infested disaster, while millions of Americans lost their jobs and homes.  The USA operated all eight Bush/Cheney years with large budget deficits each year.  The national debt doubled from US$ 5 trillion to over US$ 10 trillion.  Two unfunded tax cuts for the wealthy, two unfunded wars, and an unfunded private-industry-friend medicare prescription drug program, along with allowing for unregulated risky mortgages for people who couldn’t afford them were primary causal factors of the recession.  But Tricky Dick famously stated in 2004, “Deficits don’t matter”.

American possess two very bad characteristics that favor republicans when it comes to politics:  Incredible gullibility, and very short memories.  Thus, the Tea Partiers and other extreme-right GOP folks have been able to convince Americans that the deficit and the debt are both the fault of President Obama and the democrats.  American tend to believe the loudest and most repetitious.  Plus, they’ve forgotten that  Bush/Cheney were still in office and republicans controlled congress when the recession began in December 2007.

Oops.

Enter “Tricky Dick” Cheney, hawking his new book which, according to him, will “make heads explode”.   After months of silence, “Tricky Dick”s public reappearance just as the GOP race is heating up, is actually fortuitous for democrats for two reasons:  Cheney’s presence can remind American voters where the deficits really came from and who caused them, and they can ask people if they really want a return to Cheney’s of arrogant “we’ll-do-what-we-want-and-rationaize-it-later” form of governing, reminding people about how the Bush/Cheney syndicate ran the country into the ground.

If “Tricky Dick” Cheney was anyone else, he probably would have timed his book’s release so as to interfere as little as possible with the republican candidates’ political campaigns.  He also might have expressed so regrets and admitted to some critical mistakes during his time as vice-president and surrogate brain for GW Bush.  But true to form, Tricky told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer just the opposite during an extensive interview you can watch in various segments HERE,

“Tricky Dick” made it very clear that he has no regrets.  Not a single one.

He doesn’t regret deficit spending while giving his rich buddies large tax breaks.  He doesn’t admit to anything the Bush syndicate did wrong, or that any of it was causal to the recession.  He doesn’t regret that more than 4000 American lives were lost and hundreds of billions of dollars were spent on the Iraqi war.  He doesn’t admit that invading Iraq over false intelligence information regarding Iraqi WMDs was a mistake, or that the US diversion in Iraq also caused the USA to “take its eye off the ball” in Afghanistan, including the pursuit of Bin Laden and the Taliban, which is partly why the USA and its NATO allies are STILL fighting in Afghanistan 10 years after 9-11.

When it comes to the economy, he doesn’t regret a single Bush policy, and has no expressed regret nor accepted any responsibility whatsoever for the recession.  And perhaps most horrendous of all, he seems proud of using “enhanced interrogation techniques” such as water-boarding and other forms of torture on detainees.  Moreover, he still insists that these torture methods were instrumental in preventing any more “mass casualties attacks”, as he puts it, on the USA since 9-11.

Of course, ol’ Tricky Dick  doesn’t say which “planned attacks” upon the USA since 9-11 were prevented, or when they were scheduled to occur, or who specifically were the almost-perpetrators, or how and where they were supposed to happen.  He also didn’t explain why the 2005 Al-Qaeda London bombing and 2004 Al-Qaeda Madrid train bombing weren’t prevented, or how come the shoe-bomber or the underwear bomber weren’t discovered before they were already airborne on their respective target aircraft.

Finally, he doesn’t acknowledge how hypocritical the USA now appears when it criticizes another country for “human rights abuses”.

Yep.  “Tricky Dick” Cheney is a republican with no regrets.  You know.  Like Perry, Romney, Bachmann. Palin, Cain, and the rest of the pack.

Americans need to believe it.  They need to remember it.

Democrats had best make certain that they do.