The day the debt came due

Joseph Racioppi posted this in a column of his titled Subprime mortgage mess just a symptom of what ails us on NJ Voices yesterday, Monday, January 21 — Martin Luther King Jr. Day — when Wall Street was closed:

Our entire economy is debt based. The Federal Government is in debt $10 trillion. New Jersey is in debt billions and billions and many Americans are "maxed out" on credit cards. Rather than addressing the problem of a debt based economy, our leaders try to find more ways of continuing the spending that runs the economy. When our leaders, after September 11th, tell us to "go shopping", that says a lot.

This was my response for today, Tuesday, January 22:

How prescient of you, Joe. This may be the day the debt comes due.

The above the fold main story on the front page of the NY Times this morning was headlined: Awaiting Wall Street's Open, Asia Market Plunge.

The lead paragraph read:

"Stock markets across Asia plummeted again on Tuesday, and European markets saw volatile trading, as anxious sellers worried about the global ramifications of a slowdown in the United States."

Here's the link: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/22/business/worldbusiness/23cnd-asiastox.html

It's going to be an "interesting" day: "The Day the Debt Came Due"?

Do you think we the people will finally get it ... as Pogo told us: "We have met the enemy and he is us" ... or will we in more typical fashion start looking for scapegoats?

Personally? I'm rereading Thomas Paine's Common Sense ... and it is making a lot of sense.

Need I add, "Duh!"?

Hoo boy!

The New Jersey Star-Ledger poses this Q&A in its editorial, Foreign money to the rescue, January 19:

"Is foreign investment a bad thing? It is not."

This was my comment in response:

That's like asking if drinking water is a bad thing. Depends on how much you drink. Too much water and you upset your electrolytic balance, the brain swells, and you die ... or something like that.

Let's start with some economic basics that the common person can understand. (I have to do that because I am not an economist and I have never read one who has ever gotten economics right over time outside of tightly controlled models ... which is kind of like pouring sand through a funnel into neat little cone-shaped mounds on a beach on a windless, sunny day below the high-tide mark and thinking they are going to last ... but I digress.)

First, if you don't produce something of real value, you are not creating wealth. Money has no "real" value, it has "virtual" value relative to its ability to help exchange things of real value between strangers ... close and far. Money has value if the two parties to a transaction using money BELIEVE the pieces of paper they are using has the exchange value (translatable into real things of real use value -- like food that actually keeps us from starving to death) printed on it ... or something like that.

Now if you take something of real value and you auction it off to people who want it (think it desirable and worthwhile to own, like a house -- hint, hint) with an excess of money to spend (either their own or what they can borrow ... 'cuz that's the job of the Fed to insure we have enough liquidity to get the things we want 'cuz we're a nation of consumers), they will in all likelihood pay more for it than they would have otherwise. If they then turn around and get even MORE money for it than what they paid because others in turn bid higher with the extra money they have or can get ... well, the PRICE of that something will go up. Do I have to say, "DUH!"?

Let's not get too complicated here ... if a nation reduces the amount of real things of value that it produces ... and starts a bidding war on the things of value it does produce ... while the Fed keeps printing money so we can all bid as high as we want for something ('cuz -- you guessed it -- we're consumers now!) what do you think the outcome will be?

And you have economists with mathematical models who tell us this imbalance of real production to virtual wealth is what is real? and can continue indefinitely? and folks fall all over themselves BELIEVING it when they see with their own eyes that the real wealth of our nation has been deteriorating ... while the dollar amount (virtual wealth) of the money supply has been growing?

And now that our money has been siphoned off to the oil producing nations and the goods producing nations because our vaunted economic leaders thought it better to pass along windfall profits in a "free" market rather than "tax" ourselves for our own rational benefit ... you say there is nothing wrong here because this is the way the "free" market is supposed to work?

And I'm not supposed be laughing until I start crying?

From my notes about Milton Friedman and the so-called "free" market:

Milton Friedman, the guru of profoundly influential monetarist and laissez-faire ideas of the past few decades has pulled the plug on free markets ... maybe without realizing it.

From NPQ, the New Perspectives Quarterly:

Free Markets and the End of History

Friedman | ... "Free markets" is a very general term. There are all sorts of problems that will emerge. Free markets work best when the transaction between two individuals affects only those individuals. But that isn't the fact. The fact is that, most often, a transaction between you and me affects a third party. That is the source of all problems for government. That is the source of all pollution problems, of the inequality problem. There are some good economists like Gary Becker and Bob Lucas who are working on these issues. This reality ensures that the end of history will never come.

Intrepretation: Because transactions using the medium of money ALWAYS affect a third party, there is no such thing as a "free" or "unfettered" market in terms of the customary definition of the economic term. The reason for this is the clear fact that all costs incurred in the production and distribution of goods and services are not paid for out of the monetary selling price of the goods and services ... only the reimbursement of "ownership" costs ... so what is "free" about free markets is their being free of the costs they incur to others than the legally defined owners of the goods and services for sale--sellers and buyers.

http://www.digitalnpq.org/archive/2006_winter/friedman.html

Read that again: Because transactions using the medium of money ALWAYS affect a third party, there is no such thing as a "free" or "unfettered" market in terms of the customary definition of the economic term.

Need I add, "Duh!"?

Y'know, if something is too complicated for us common folks to understand ... when it affects our daily lives ... then we probably should figure something else out ... because the brilliant idiots are gonna screw things up trying to get more than their fair share of the real wealth ... which as the Good Book laid out: greed ... aka the love of money ... is the root of all evil.

All us working folks are asking is to give us the opportunity to go to work and create real wealth, and then be paid our fair share of what we have helped create. That's pretty darn simple. You'd think these geniuses could figure that out. Or ... could have figured out how not to screw it up.

Got a lot of "Duhs!" in this piece.*wink*

Too late for Hillary to go authentic on us

Apparently Hillary Clinton teared up yesterday in her bid to seek the nomination of the Democratic Party for president.

Hillary Rodham Clinton's eyes welled up and her voice broke repeatedly Monday as she talked with voters in a restaurant about her campaign for the presidency.

The former first lady was making a last-minute pitch for support as she spoke on the eve of the state's primary, with polls showing her trailing Democratic rival Barack Obama.

Asked by a sympathetic voter how she keeps going in the grueling campaign, she replied, "It's not easy. It's not easy."

"And I couldn't do it if I just didn't, you know, passionately believe it was the right thing to do," she said, her voice catching.

-http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/01/07/hillary-tears-up-on-the-c_n_80254.html

I can try to understand her feelings. I have witnessed them in others all too frequently now that I am in my 70th year. Here she is having lived her whole life in pursuit of a goal ... clawed, scratched her way to the top of the heap, done everything she thought she had to do to earn the prize ... remnants of opponents strewn left and right ... and it begins to dawn on her that it's been in vain. In fact, the very life she lived is now her biggest obstacle.

It's not fair!

I think she is really saying, "It's not fair, Bill!"

Sibel Edmonds on YouTube

References:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article3137695.ece

http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=12166

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_mike_mej_080107_times_of_london_blow.htm

A Political Tsunami: Obama's win in Iowa

For those of us who remember Bobby Kennedy's win in California before he was assassinated, Barack Obama's win yesterday in Iowa is a similar earthquake. The energy generated by the audacity of hope in our youth will again transform an epoch.

The youth turnout in support of Obama was huge. It represents an opportunity for we the people to alter the course of our nation in a historic manner. This is a politcal tsunami.

It will be interesting to watch the old guard politicians try to plug the breached dikes.

Note 1: Originally posted as a comment on the Star-Ledger's NJ Voices website in response to the John Farmer's column, For two also-rans, it's crunch time.

Note 2: According to the results of the entrance polls for the Iowa caucuses posted on CNN's website, Obama was supported by 57% of the 17-29 age group, and 42% of the 30-44 year olds.
(See http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/primaries/results/state/#IA )

New Jersey MUST apologize for slavery

Out of our reflections on our past, our history ... we create a narrative of existence that we then teach ourselves ... to guide us into the future.

We as a people write our bibles, our stories ...

It takes time and distance to put things in perspective ... and correct the lies we previously told ourselves out of false understanding, a false narrative ...

False in the sense that our beliefs were wrong because we had been taught a false narrative of our past ... and these beliefs were proven wrong when we finally had the courage to examine them in the light of new evidence, new revelation.

An apology for slavery is not just important, it is necessary. We need to plant that marker in our collective consciousness, our narrative of our existence ... reminding ourselves how wrong we can be at times.

Note: Originally posted as a comment on the Star-Ledger's NJ Voices website in response to the editorial, Apologize for slavery:

The evil that men do: trial by jury

Trial by jury ... or the threat of trial by jury has too often become the denial of justice to the accused ... for reasons worth exploring in our nation.

From Hillel the Elder, a famous Jewish religious leader:

If I am not for myself, who will be for me?
If I am only for myself, what am I?
If not now, then when?

That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. That is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation; go and learn.

If the last quotation seems familiar, this is how it is attributed to Jesus in KJV of the New Testament:

Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.

- Matthew 7:12

Please read the following:

Juror in Long Island Killing Says He Was Pressured Into a Guilty Verdict
Article By
By COREY KILGANNON and NATE SCHWEBER
Published: December 25, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/25/nyregion/25jury.html

Colorado Hearings Re-examine ’87 Murder Case
By KIRK JOHNSON and DAN FROSCH
Published: December 27, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/27/us/27fortcollins.html

Their are many -- too many -- stories being accumulated in the annals of injustice. Some of the most egregious cases are chronicled in the:

Innoncence Project

http://www.innocenceproject.org/

If ever there was a stench of evil in a land ... have we become so used to it that we do not smell it? Or are our slogans for our type of justice such tribal marks that we dare not question them individually for fear of being turned upon ourselves? When will we question the evil we do to others?

"If not now, then when?"

Putting Ayn Rand to rest ... finally!

Please read Paul Krugman's column in today's (Friday, Dec 21) NY Times:

Blindly Into the Bubble
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/21/opinion/21krugman.html

Alan Greenspan was/(is) a brilliant idiot who wrapped old fashioned greed in the false Ayn Rand ideology of free market Capitalism ... destroying the safeguards that are needed to protect ANY market from thieves and charlatans. Even the ancients knew you had to have things like uniform weights, that some things cannot be left to the goodwill of the transient carnival vendors with no stake in the village.

I am tired of the "us vs. them" around here ...

Whites vs. blacks, GBLT's vs. straights, one religion against another, and on and on and on .... while it's really rich vs. poor.

America, the rich folks have got us laboring folks fighting among ourselves ... jumping up and down. Are we trying to get the attention of the rich folks so they will invite us to join them?

Here we are squabbling over a Democrat US Senator from New York running for President, Hillary Clinton, who shouldn't even be running on a Democratic ticket anywhere in Yankee territory -- and I ain't talking baseball.

Hell, they are making the street-hole covers for New York City in India under sweatshop/slave labor conditions, for chrissakes! We all know what has happened to fair labor practices under the Clintons ... they kiss up to the global corporationists to advance their personal political careers and leave the working families groveling for crumbs from the rich folks feast.

The United States of America is sliding down a Democrat greased slope to banana republic status ... with nothing left to break its slide ... while we the people are totally distracted by fighting over the dwindling scraps falling from the platters we deliver to the table.

And there are so many of us who believe this is a "God thing" based on our devotion to religious belief ... and who are so far removed from practicing what they preach, using their doctrines as tribal identifiers rather than guides to life ... that it's pretty damn obvious that we are going to need the kind of upheaval brought about by the depression of the 30's to actually get this nation back on track ... if it can get back on track and not descend into fascism.

Hope? What's hope got to do with it? We need practical solutions. We need jobs that pay a living wage ... that also don't destroy our health as we work.

That's not socialism or communism ... that is "fair is fair"-ism in a nation as wealthy as ours.

Note (January 5, 2008): Barack Obama has won a transforming political victory in the Iowa caucuses. "Hope" may have a lot to do with it! -NCS

Concerning organized labor and Hillary ...

From posts to HuffingtonPost.com ... where I post as hglindquist ...

Hoo boy ... did you see the picture on the front page of the NY Times recently of the New York City street-hole covers being cast in India under slave-like wages and conditions? Where was labor when THAT was printed? American organized labor has been contemplating its navel for so long that there are no jobs left to worry about fair treatment over.

Been to Pittsburgh lately? I guess working retail on the river is supposed to compensate for steel-mill jobs?

Unions got suckered into hanging onto their turf as it got smaller and smaller ... when they should have been looking out for all workers. There is no freedom to do anything if you are a worker and you don't have a job that pays enough to meet your needs let alone your wants.

When we gave up on requiring everything sold in this country to be produced under fair labor practices, we gave up on the America our labor had built ... and decided we should become a banana republic.

The horse is already out of the barn on what our old unions should have/could have done. We need a new revitalized labor movement for all workers.

And that is NOT socialism or communism. It is "fair is fair" ism.

And that sure ain't gonna come with Hillary!!!

New York Manhole Covers, Forged Barefoot in India

NY Times
By HEATHER TIMMONS and J. ADAM HUGGINS
Published: November 26, 2007

Photo caption: "Workers in Haora, India, have few protections while making manhole covers for Con Edison and some cities" utilities."

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/26/nyregion/26manhole.html

Now tell me again about Hillary's support for fair treatment for workers!!! I know she lived in Arkansas for awhile, but isn't she the U.S. Senator from New York? And isn't New York City in New York?

Concerning vouchers ...

Concerning vouchers ... and being a member of the working class ... with bono fides extending from my parents and their parents to my children and their children ...

Most of us from the small towns and communities that spawned the public education system were part of mostly homogeneous communities ... at least I was in most of my years in public education. My family's values were the values taught in public school ... yes, religious, ethical, and social values were pretty much common ones ... at least publicly ... including prejudices (all one has to do is read the text books).

And I think the majority of folks still believe their particular public school is teaching the values they want taught. (Which is why they are against vouchers. They think vouchers will be net resource losers for their schools.)

But it is appears to be equally obvious that a (growing?) number of families -- particularly the working poor in large urban centers -- are discovering that their children come back from public school in worse condition than when first enrolled ... with the strong arm of the state forcing them to keep sending their children to these schools even though the parents know it is harming their children's value system. They would like vouchers ... but they are a minority.

Gunfight at the DC Corral

The Baker Boys are shooting it out at the DC Corral with the Cheney Gang ...

A fictionalized scenario ...

Poppy Bush was keeping his hands off the Shrub presidency ... as Poppy watched his son once again slide into ignominy ...

Decision time for the senior Bush evolved through the outing of Valerie Plame as a CIA operative by Robert Novak on July 14, 2003 followed by the awarding of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the United States, on December 14, 2004 to L. Paul Bremer III, Tommy R. Franks, and George J. Tenet.

Privately grousing about the situation with his wife, Barbara Bush, Poppy Bush realized "It's like déjà vu all over again". Shrub was screwing up again.

Moma Bush (Barbara) cried, "You have to do something, Poppy! Look what that Cheney Gang is DOING to our boy."

"I know, I know," Poppy replied. "And I will. Those Baker Boys -- our boys -- can shoot straighter than the Cheney Gang." (To be proved later when Dickie -- leader of the Cheney Gang -- shot his hunting companion on Feb 13, 2006.)

The Baker Boys first attempt to extricate Shrub from the clutches of the Cheney Gang failed. Shrub disregards the Baker-Hamilton Report and the cowardly Democrats inexplicably fail to act on it -- even though they had just won majorities in both the House of Representatives and the Senate of the U.S. Congress and could hold Shrub's feet to the fire by withholding funding unless he went along with the bipartisan report. The cowardly Democrats were so focused on winning the 2008 election that they stumbled over what was placed in front of them on an oil-slick platter.

Whew, who would have thought THAT was going to happen?!

But the Baker Boys were undeterred. They knew the intelligence had been cooked on Iraq and was being cooked on Iran. With Shrub refusing to be extricated from the manure piling up in the DC Corral because the cowardly Democrats weren't hauling it away -- even though they now had the manure hauling contract for the place -- the Baker Boys realized THEY would have to pump it out -- like NOW -- meaning they would have to shoot it out with the Cheney Gang.

The Baker Boys fire a shot that hits the target. In August, 2007 the new NIE report was issued.

Shrub still doesn't surrender or fall.

Blam-blam, in quick succession the Baker Boys "commence firing at will" ... the NIE report is released and the CIA Director is forced to acknowledge the destruction of the interogation tapes ...

Shrub staggers ... but will he fall? Will the DC Corral be saved? The manure drained or carried away?

Stay tuned, folks ... this is getting interesting.

Fear and fairness in determining the collective good

Author's note: My post from September, 2005, Katrina and the collective good is my "most read" post. This post expands on the concept of the collective good by examining the essence or essential nature of fear and being fair in an industrial/technological society. Also, two recent books make this an appropriate time to revisit these issues:

The Squandering of America,
by Robert Kuttner

and

The Soul of Capitalism: Opening Paths to a Moral Economy,
by William Greider

Plus, this article in the December, 2007 issue of Vanity Fair:

The Economic Consequences of Mr. Bush,
by Nobel laureate, Joseph E. Stiglitz

To live in fear is the essence of slavery, or the essential characteristic of liberty is to live without fear. Freedom is having no fear.

As FDR -- President Franklin Delano Roosevelt -- said in his first inaugural address, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."

I am certain that my fellow Americans expect that on my induction into the Presidency I will address them with a candor and a decision which the present situation of our people impel. This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that theAnd only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory. I am convinced that you will again give that support to leadership in these critical days.

- Franklin Delano Roosevelt
First inaugural address

And fairness? What is fairness in our individual lives interacting with each other? What is fairness in the commons, the public arena? How does what we do privately affect others publicly, and what is fair about it? How does what is done publicly affect us privately, and what is fair about it?

In political history we have specific interpretations attached to fairness such as President Harry S. Truman and his Fair Deal, and the Fairness Doctrine as an FCC regulation.

Here I want to strip away this historical baggage and get to the core meanings of fear and fair as we live our daily lives ... starting as children on the playground where we learn to handle bullies, and we go by the rule, "fair is fair".

Here I will explore the premise that my country, the United states of America, is faltering because our leaders are bullies who have abandoned fairness.

Economic smoke and mirrors ... or the love of money is the root of all evil

Fact: The cost of oil and food are not counted when measuring "core inflation".

Fact: The unemployment rate does not include workers who have given up looking for a job.

And our vaunted leaders have kept telling us the US economy was doing great ... right up until now when the plummeting value of the dollar has pulled back the curtain ... a la Wizard of Oz.

And we no longer have the industrial base to take advantage of a weaker dollar. We don't have anything to sell except Manhattan real estate. (That's metaphorical, folks ... just in case you didn't catch the sarcasm.)

And we the people have our brilliant idiots — our leading economists — conspiring with our greedy elite ruling class of global corporationists to thank for the mess we are in, and the coming catastrophe ... which they will sell to us via the religion of True Believers as the moral decline of the people ... when they should be reminding us of the age-old wisdom of "the love of money is root of all evil."

For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.

- 1 Timothy 6:10 KJV

"The flimflammery of official statistics ... "

The country has been in denial for years about the economic reality facing American families. That grim reality has been masked by the flimflammery of official statistics (job growth good, inflation low) and the muscular magic of the American way of debt: mortgages on top of mortgages, pyramiding student loans and an opiatelike addiction to credit cards at rates that used to get people locked up for loan-sharking.

The big story out of Mr. Bernanke’s appearance before the Joint Economic Committee was his prediction that the economy was likely to worsen. Only the people still trapped in denial could have believed otherwise.

This is what Representative Maurice Hinchey of upstate New York told the chairman:

“This economy is not doing well. And the example of the mortgage closures on 2 million people — and maybe a lot more than that as time goes on — is really not the cause of the economic problem we’re facing, but it’s just a factor of it. It’s a factor of the weakness of this economy.”

In an interview after the hearing, Representative Hinchey discussed the disconnect between official government reports and the reality facing working families. He noted that the unemployment rate does not include workers who have become so discouraged that they’ve given up looking for a job.

And the most popular measure of inflation, the Consumer Price Index, does not include the cost of energy or food, “the two most significant aspects of the increased cost of living for the American people.”

The elite honchos in Washington and their courtiers in the news media are all but completely out of touch with the daily struggle of working families. Thirty-seven million Americans live in poverty and close to 60 million others are just a notch above the official poverty line.

- Bob Herbert
Recession? What Recession?
OpEd - NYTimes
Saturday, November 10, 2007

When the labor movement in the United States failed to fight for the right of every person willing and able to work to be able to work at a job that at least paid a living wage for a worker's family, the labor movement failed the worker and his/her family.

The principle of having a job that pays a living wage for a worker's family for everyone willing and able to work is NOT socialism, communism or even unionism. It is the cornerstone of a free society.

Variations on the human theme ...

We all know that people have different eye colors ... and that there are major differences like brown and blue ... and that there are tint and pattern variations of the main differences.

Most of us know that traits like response to certain stimuli also vary, like sexual arousal to specific visual images ... and that individuals are aroused differently, to different levels of arousal, by different images.

What we may not have thought about is how that translates to different levels of group identification. I would suggest a spectrum of emotional commitment to one's "identity groups" -- family, and other forms of "tribe" such as religion, alma mater, company, etc. --from intense embedding to casual acceptance like, "Oh yes, I belong to the local bowling league."

I would speculate further that the ability of the symbols of any one of our identity groups to trigger an emotional response is a key indicator of "embeddedness" within that group. In examining the relationships of symbols to their emotional responses, the variations of individual emotional response need to be factored into the analysis.

"Symbols" in this context mean any "identifying" signs, sounds, rituals, etc. For instance our national anthem, The Star-Spangled Banner" is a symbol of our national identity.

Taking a leap ahead, we can envision a political party that unites the "religious identity" with "national identity" as creating a strong pull on its members. And those individuals with the strongest positive emotional response to religious symbols are -- hypothetically at least -- the ones who would develop the strongest positive emotional connection to the political party and its symbols.

We should keep in mind that slogans and phrases can become symbolic elements of group identity as opposed to rational elements of public discourse.

And if the political leaders merge the religious and national identities of the people by using symbols of the religious identity to interweave the emotional connection rather than overt statements which would be rationally rejected out of hand ... and if they do this consciously ... don't we have what is actually going on today in the United States? And what went on in Hitler's Third Reich within the lifetime of some of our citizens?

And isn't this the whole thrust of the neocon a la Leo Strauss political movement?

References:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neocon

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Strauss

"They" are trying to hold back worldwide panic over the dollar ...

Just before Christmas in 2005 I advised my friends that they should either sell their home in the coming year or plan on staying in it for awhile.

Their children were going to college and it was obvious from all the key indicators that the housing bubble was getting ready to pop. Mostly I had been reading Paul Krugman's column on the OpEd page of the NY Times and putting two and two together.

Currently it is obvious that the economy of the United States is tanking. And if the US Dollar becomes funny money, the Chinese are going to be pissed. Like 1.5 trillion dollars is a lot of swag anywhere ... and there is only so much Manhattan real estate ... and as the dollar plummets ... the amount you can get for any given million or so is less and less.

What will our brilliant financial idiots do then? Like, when the dollar tanks? Right now they are trying desperately to hold back the panic that a real run on the dollar would cause.

And you see, folks ... there isn't any vast industrial base to pick up the slack ... in like churning out something the world wants at the lower prices the falling dollar would bring ... so we are caught in the economic vise of our own making ... not the making of we the people, but of the making of our great greedy leaders ...

The only question left is who are "they" going to blame.

Oh ... and my friends didn't sell their home. They enjoy living in it, their neighborhood, and their community. And they will not retire for another ten years or so. They love what they do and how they live.

Well, we're in for it now ...

How I see things as an American citizen ... now that General Musharraf of Pakistan has declared a state of emergency and suspended that country's constitution.

Our military's ground forces are almost totally decimated by the protracted military occupation of Iraq since our victory there in the Second Iraq War ended by mid-2003 with the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. (But we still have our nukes.)

Russia, Venezuela, and Iran are earning gajillions off the "risk tax" added to the price of oil by our participation in destabilizing the Middle East.

China is buying up the world's resources with our U.S. dollars as fast as it can, ahead of the falling value of the U.S. dollar.

What else? There is so much more going on ... like the resurgence of Hezbollah in Lebonon and the Taliban in Afghanistan ... and we haven't even begun to decipher the deterioration of our moral authority with the all but concrete revelation that we tortured human beings in our custody.

The Cheney/neocon/Bush 43 administration's foreign policy has been a disaster in so many ways that it is hard to keep track of them all ... and the large number of problems cannot be hid by the relatively small fig leaf of General Petraeus's tactical surge with its principle outcome being the balkanization of Iraq ... which, by the way, benefits Iran to a great degree.

My God, it is a mess, isn't it?

What is more ... our enemies know all this.

Wages for labor is the primal discussion ...

Wages for labor is the primal discussion ... how do we divide the rewards of the hunt ...

If we view "labor" as a cost like any other material than we actually/literally make those who labor into commodities, something other than primary participants. But we all know this ... and we console ourselves by becoming consumers.

The narratives we pass onto our children and our children's children is "be good and we will buy you something" ... the emotional expectation of becoming an adult gets wrapped in the opportunity to buy ... not in the ability to do ... for too many of us.

We who labor have all to often accepted the role of gun-bearer and guide to the Great White Hunter as if he were some kind of god-man when it is our labor and skills that allow him to hunt.

The problem from the labor side is that too often labor has been organized to exclude, and organized labor becomes viewed as an obstacle to many -- if not most -- who want to work ... an obstacle to those who want to, but are not allowed to join the hunt.

As long as organized labor colludes with the man to limit access to work, labor in general will lose.

That is not to say that specific skill sets/individual parameters cannot be defined or selected for specific jobs/assignments, or that pay rates can't vary. It is to say that labor solidarity must be for the principle that everyone willing and able to work must be given work at a living wage (in the context of a working family's needs).

I don't really give a rat's butt how many rich folks there are, as long as all who want to work can earn a living wage.

My labels ...

Politically, I consider myself a conservative progressive ... for example, I believe in states rights but not to block minimum standards from some, rather to provide a necessary flexibility on how we apply those standards in our communities for all.

I know, I know ... issues like that can get rather nuanced ... and that is why our founders created a republic with a balance of powers (not a one-man, one-vote herd-like democracy) based on levels of representation ... so we could sort it all out as we moved forward ... carefully. (The "moving forward" is the "progressive" part.)

Now, I gotta admit, our Declaration of Independence is a pretty radical document ...

Philosophically, I consider myself a Christian Existentialist ... for example, I believe the values of individual dignity and worth coming out of our Judaic-Christian heritage are supreme ... and without a sense of purpose and destiny expressed in the concept of "God", we descend into brutish chaos as Nietzsche predicted with his "God is dead."

As an Existentialist I believe with Sartre that it is immaterial whether God exists or not. What is material to MY awareness of MY existence (existence preceding awareness) is whether I BELIEVE in God ... or not.

I choose to believe that human existence IS in itself (life is, actually) an expression of purpose and destiny ... therefore God exists.