Who Will Be At Fault If ....

In a previous post, I voiced my opinion of the hate and fear campaign being waged by the Republican party. They appear to be losing and they are becoming desperate. They are rabble rousing and hopefully we will not suffer from the fruits of their evil labors. Their words arouse the passion and hatred of the extreme right for Obama in particular and liberals in general. They paint them as unpatriotic, un-American and enemies of the state. Some have even gone so far as to apply the cold war label of communists. They have given the bigots an easy way out by supplying these emotional labels to Obama and the Liberals. Division and fear are the only means of salvation for the right. Their plan is to divide and conquer, but there are other consequences, they evoke similar feelings towards themselves from their intended targets. After all hate does engender hate.

So I ask you, Senator Mc Cane and Governor Palin, what if your plan works too well, what if the unspeakable happens? The country can not stand another JFK, RFK  or MLK, so will you and your right wing cronies accept the responsibility for such a tragedy, I doubt it. I pray that it does not happen, but if it does, I will hold you responsible.

What Is Positive About This Political Season?

Even though I have said why I can not support Obama, there are some positive aspects about his campaign. Specifically, the large number of people who have decided to participate in this election. There are some who will just vote and others who will contribute time and/or money. It does not matter to me whether they are Republicans or Democrats, at least they are participating.

However it does not end with November 4th. If your candidate for POTUS, congress or state and local government wins, you have to keep on them and make sure that they stick to the principles which they espoused during the campaign. You must be committed to followup because there are numerous forces which will try to divert the candidates from their promised goals.

Business Schools

What are business schools teaching? While it seems that they are teaching the basics of capitalism, business, marketing, economics, finance, accounting, etc; it seems that they fail to teach and instill in their students some other basic disciplines that are necessary to function in modern society. What do they need to do differently? They could start out with teaching ethics, not just business ethics, but ethical behavior in general. How about courses in civics and citizenship? How about some studies of the humanities to humanize them. Then they could throw in some studies about what they owe to a society that allows them to prosper and why they should not treat business as nothing more than a zero-sum game. Social responsibility has certainly been lacking from the behavior repertoire of our modern business leaders. Sure they owe the shareholders, but what laws of God and man are they allowed to ignore in order to service their share holders. Their behavior certainly tells us what they believe. Bend over society!

GORDON GEKKO IS ALIVE AND WELL

Greed is good or so says Gordon Gekko. Well, we see where that has gotten us. Over the past 8 years the unrestrained, anything goes business environment has lead us and the world down the path to ruin. Even Allen Greenspan seems to grudgingly admit that lack of, or failure of regulation has lead us to this sorry point. He could not foresee this outcome? Well the man must be a totally uneducated boob. He knows nothing about history or human nature and how it applies to business and economics. That along with the naive assertion that government IS the problem totally ignores why government and laws and regulation have proved necessary throughout history. If men were angels there would be no need for government, would there, but wait, wasn't Satan an angel?

History? Well it would seem that most of the neocons  and business people either never studied history, never learned from it or just ignored it for their own short term gain. Thus, we repeat. The problem is that their screw-ups don't effect them, just the rest of us poor schmucks.

This idea that they owe nothing to the country, that they should keep all of their "hard" earned money is crap. Don't they think that they owe something to the country that has given them the freedom the environment and resources that they have used to "earn" their money? I guess not! If not, they should go somewhere else and see how they fare. Their patriotism ends with their wallet.

Many business people seem so enamored with China, I wonder how they would do there. Of course, if they pulled some of the same stuff there that they have done here, their reward would be a bullet behind the ear. Then, their families would be billed for the bullet. Perhaps we should make bank and Wall Street fraud a capital offense.

Instead we bail the SOBs out and they make off with their ill gotten gains, while the rest of us see our savings and pensions disappear. What about all of those who have or will lose their jobs? Who is going to bail out all of those who are retired or soon to retire who have seen their homes and pensions lost or decimated?  Certainly not the Gordon Gekkos, the George Bushes and the John McCains of the world. They have theirs and their aim is to keep it at all cost. Their motto: Let them eat cake!

Greed is good!

The Party of Hate and Fear

The Republican party used to be a respected alternative party. They were the party of fiscal restraint and national security. However the party of Barry Goldwater, let alone the party of Lincoln is gone. Their current issues are the issues of hate and fear. Their issues have moved from traditional conservative values to the issues which appear to be motivated by bigotry and fear.

Now we have the Christian right being pandered to by Republican candidates. We have proposed constitutional amendments banning gay marriage. They think that "don't do it" is all there is to sex education. They are against birth control and at the same time they oppose abortion. If we had more of the former, we would need less of the latter. They shout about family values, but don't promote those things that foster families, like education, health care, etc.

Their issues in the current campaign are tax breaks for the rich, continuing a war that was started under false pretenses, drill baby drill, and continued calls for deregulation. The latter, even when deregulation led us into the current fiscal and economic mess. They continue to add to the deficit and the nation debt at a rate that boggles the mind. They tout free trade, even though many of our industries are no more. They export our jobs and try to force down our wages in the name of free enterprise and the market economy. Who in the Hell do they think will buy their crap that they import from China when the only jobs left are flipping burgers? Our once mighty steel industry is almost gone. Commercial ship building is no more. I say what electronics industry! You can't but a TV that is made in the USA, nor can you buy a pair of shoes or a shirt that is made here. They refuse to reinvest in our infrastructure, so roads, bridges, ports, etc. are crumbling. They refuse to regulate even when it is in the interest of our national security. Examples are the refusal to increase fuel economy standards, they say let the market control it. Well look at the price of oil and fuel earlier this year. Their market economy is pricing us right out of prosperity. So, given that performance, what do they have left? Hate and Fear.

Sieg Heil Michelle Bachmann

Our fathers fought WW II to get rid of people like Rep. Michelle Bachmann, R. of Minnesota. However, people like her keep popping up like a bad penny. Her comments on Hardball the other night were over the top. While I can not support Obama, her attempt to make him into an anti-American terrorist and to equate liberals with anti-Americanism, Communists and terrorists is too much. Her Fascist inclinations are reminiscent of Joe McCarthy. I believe that Ms. Bachmann is the real anti-American traitor and the real terrorist. She is attempting to incite her Slobbering Neanderthal Right Wing Wacko followers to violence on the perceived enemy, the dreaded liberals aka commie pinko goons. People like her are too stupid to realize that words have real meaning and consequences. Then again, perhaps she knows exactly what she is doing: Spreading hate. Ms. Bachmann, Ms. Palin and others of their ilk will not be satisfied until someone actually kills him, not being content to just shout it. Words do incite. People who are sickened by people like Ms. Bachmann should send her a white sheet and hood to wear in the halls of congress.

Write in Hillary

Well I got my absentee ballot yesterday and there are a zillion (13) candidates for POTUS. As I stated in my previous post, I can not vote for either McCain or Obama. The rest of the names on the ballot are either unknown or extreme fringe groups which I can not support. It is hard to soar with Eagles if you vote for Turkeys.  I could decide not to vote for POTUS, but I need to show my displeasure with the system. Sooooo, I think that I will write in Hillary Clinton for POTUS and Joe Biden for vice. Take that Obama and McCain!

What a Turn Off!

The negative ads, the negative speeches are too much.

I can not bring myself to vote for Obama because he played the race card during the primaries. He tried to make Bill Clinton out to be a racist and by association tar Hillary Clinton with the same epithet. Bill Clinton is a lot of things, but neither he nor his wife can be said to be racist. How can Clinton go from being "The First Black President" to being a redneck bigot. Bull feathers!

So, I was reluctantly considering voting for John McCain. However, his attempt to portray Obama as a terrorist, an Arab and God knows what else, while ironic considering the above, prevents me from supporting McCain. I guess I will not vote for president because I consider both choices to be equally distasteful.

Energy

I just joined the Pickens Plan for Oil independence. Basically, his plan is to use wind power to generate about 20% of our electrical needs and then use the natural gas that is freed up to power our cars and trucks. Pickens proposes placing wind turbine farms where we have enough wind to generate about 20% of our electricity. Most of the wind farms would be built in the center of the country from Texas to North Dakota where the wind is the strongest and most consistent. He estimates the costs of the wind farms at $1 trillion with another $200 billion to be spent on a distribution system. Pickens estimates that his plan could be implemented within the next 10 years. This could work.

I started this post a few days ago and I just came from reading some comments on the Pickens site about his meeting with Palin. Same old crap, people arguing Democrat or Republican, McCain or Obama. Bull! On this issue, it makes no difference who wins the election, which party controls the government. Both parties are part of the problem, they are certainly not part of the solution. Arguments about sex education do not belong in discussions of the Pickens plan. I am beginning to think that the human race is stupid, that it does not deserve to survive. Arrggg!

We the People

"We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

The Preamble to the Constitution says it all. The rest of the document just fills in the details and/or corrects oversights and errors. What is the importance in terms of our modern day society? Well it would seem that politicians conveniently ignore or interpret the document to suit their own political point of view. Take the phrase "... promote the general welfare ..." What did the framers mean by this? It is hard to tell, but I would say that the government should not show favorites.

 The phrase "promote the general welfare" means that where possible all segments of society should benefit equally. Is that the case today? I think not. If McCain is elected, one segment of society will benefit disproportionately; on the other hand Obama's supporters will benefit if he wins. Our political parties play this as a zero-sum game; thus if someone wins, someone else has to lose. While this approach may be valid in business, it is not the business of government to enrich one group at the expense of another. The monarchies in the 17th, 18th 19th centuries took this approach and guess what happened to them?

What is really ironic, is the fact that if we fail to promote the general welfare, then none of the other aims expressed in the preamble will come to fruition. Is it too much to hope that McCain and Obama will put the country as a whole first? We shall see!