posted by perkiset on Feb 20

I was driving home from a client’s today, when I heard a man on the radio making an analogy about the stimulus plan. He said it was like a man holding a gun to our head, forcing us to give money to the poor. And enforced redistribution of wealth.

Now stepping aside, for just a moment, that ANY tax system is a redistribution of wealth I was struck by the selfishness of his attitude … the lack of understanding of society, but I couldn’t quite place my hand on the philosophical reasoning for why I should feel thus. But the light went on and I was moved to do something I have not done in a while, and it gave me what I was looking for. I re-read one of my favorite pieces of literature - it’s a nobility play, lush with stirring notions and even a happy ending. Today I re-read the U. S. Constitution.
 

Wow. I mean, wow. How much I had fallen into simple arguments of faith, philosophical difference, the notions of selfishness and right/wrong, when the answer we have all been looking for was written in the boldest prose I’ve ever seen a couple hundred years ago.

We, the people of the United States, have an obligation. This is not one we signed on the dotted line for, it was borne by us the moment we were born. The obligation is to our Union … our country, our Constitution. You see, you can’t just have the parts of our Constitution that you really like… like “provide for the common defense” - you must also address two other, vitally important parts, of that sentence: insure domestic tranquility and promote the general welfare. And how do you do such things? Well, you need revenue to create a standing government that can do those things. If you think that fulfilling your obligation to America by paying taxes is equivalent to having a gun put to your head, then perhaps you need to find another country. Immediately.

I dislike paying taxes every bit as much as the next person. But I use the law to legally make sure that I am paying only my fair share - what I am required to pay and no more (thanks, Ben Franklin for that advice). But what I like even less is the thought of people who have profited in this country, people who have a helluva life and are monumentally successful and healthy that want to pay less and less ie., take the gifts of our forefathers and the tax payers before them and run. That is where the definition of selfish comes in. We have an obligation to our country, the essence of why we are a country and our countrymen. We have an obligation to carry forth the vision and brilliance of the framers and founders, and continue this Grand Experiment.

This is how, philosophically, I can stand strong when right-wing boneheads want to talk all their crap about how bad the stimulus is, how wrong it is to have a single payer health care system, wrong to nationalize the banks - all of the so-called “Socialist” programs are actually one way of insuring domestic tranquility and promoting the general welfare. Our country was founded on these very Liberal notions. We were built by Federalists that were not only fine with a strong central government, but had clear ideas for how that central government would promote the ideals of the enlightened age. It is time for us to get back to the essential thoughts of how and why our country IS, not what Rush Limbaugh, or Sean Hannity, or Billo don’tt want to spend their money on.

Our government needs careful and vigilant oversite. We should not spend or waste any more money than we absolutely have to … but we need to get back to the essence of why we have a government in the first place.

Get back to reading the classics. The prequel, The Declaration of Independence” is a page turner, and the sequel, The Bill of Rights is also an excellent, if wonky, read. But my favorite, hands down is our Constitution. I am pleased, that before there were able to shred the very last copy, the Republicans were kicked to the curb.

Let’s hope they stay in Time Out for a reasonably long time.

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posted by perkiset on Feb 19

According to the Wall Street Journal, Nova M, would be competitor to Air America Radio is filing for complete bankruptcy liquidation and leaving a trail of trouble in it’s wake.

When Randi Rhodes left Air America last year during the kerfuffle surrounding her making off-color remarks about Hillary Clinton during a stand up comedy show in San Francisco, she was picked up by Nova M and an awful lot of people thought NovaM had a nowhere to go but up.

But at the article which spells it out quite nicely HERE, it’s clear that things have been rough for a long time for the founders of Nova M, Anita and Sheldon Drobny. According to the article, Rhodes and Nova M had a legal disagreement regarding her protection from litigation and when it was not resolved she terminated her feed to the station. This was probably the last straw in a long, rather sad story for the Drobnys, founders of Air America as well. In a horribly ironic twist, Randi, the number 1 liberal talk show host in the nation, was replaced on her hometown station by Sean Hannity.

It now seems that Dr. Mike Newcomb, another popular liberal talk show host, will be taking the physical infrastructure and the frequency here in Phoenix (KNUV) left in the rubble that was Nova M and creating a new station. It looks like Mike Malloy will be going there as well, so at least the new station will be starting with some talent. Perhaps they entice Randi to come back. Hopefully they’ll keep streaming Stephanie Miller in the morning, she is about the only thing out here in the wild west that keeps the morning drive reasonable.

Well, best of luck to Dr. Mike and Mike Malloy - the valley certainly needs their voices. And let’s hope that the disrepair that is liberal talk in America today straightens itself out. The right wing certainly has their act together, what the hell is our problem?

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posted by perkiset on Feb 19

In an invertview with the Washington Times HERE, Richard Steele, the new RNC chairman, made it clear that he intends to really shake things up. Announcing a PR offensive that will be “off the hook,” he intends to move the message in more “urban-suburban hip-hop settings.” To those that disagree, his answer is a simple, “Stuff it.”

Clearly sounding like an old man trying desperately to be cool, Mr. Steele has managed a political trifecta by simultaneously pissing off many in his party, trivializing the Republican message and insulting blacks, hispanics and his other targets by inferring that all they need to come to the Republican party is hip hop message. Although some in the party have said the winds of change are coming, one cannot help but wonder from whence, or perhaps from whom, that wind broke.

How about something a tad more pedestrian, like a new idea? How about plans that will help young people move from a position of jaded cynicism about politicians and their future into a place where they are hopeful and see a way to better themselves and their lives? How about a set of values that make clear that the elected officials are not simply taking advantage of the non-white-mail vote for personal gain? How about the notion that their choice of music & color of their skin has nothing at all to do with their politics: where the government values them for their thought, effort and involvement in our future rather than their numbers as a voting bloc?

[Note: Insert kudos here to people who voted for a president who is doing just that…]

Face it: The Republicans are a staunch, stuck old white man’s party. Let’s not try to glib it up and imagine it’s anything other. It’s like Bay Buchanon on the radio this morning claiming that the recent New York Post cartoon (the thinly veiled, racially explosive illustration of 2 cops, having just shot a monkey, saying, “They’ll have to get someone else to write the next stimulus bill”) claiming that it’s not racist, it’s not violent, it’s not about Obama, it’s not inflammatory. It’s just a cartoon.

[Make your own decision: SEE IT HERE]

You can have an African American in the top job at the RNC, you can try so very hard to be cool - but when the rubber hits the road, you’re the same old group of cronies. With the same old ideas. Old. White. Stuck.

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posted by perkiset on Feb 13

I was listening to Stephanie Miller this morning (usual drive to school with kids faire, they love it!) and I was struck by a couple callers from the Dittohead side of the aisle. One in particular, just wanted to lash out - much like my right-wing exemplars, Trent and Edgar, do here - about how “Obama lies” and how he’s turning our nation into a socialist state and and and… it was just amazing to me. He even called the current “Democratic Power Grab” a totalitarian state, believe it or not.

Well first off, to those of similar thought, the democratic “Power Grab” is very real: it’s called an election, and the voice of the people was heard. Interestingly, if you call a democratic election where the people choose to go in another direction anything other than the beauty of an intelligent populace taking control BACK from the attempted dictatorship reign of the Bush White House, you’re just ill informed. Welcome to the world where people are considerably less swayed by vociferous attacks from loud-mouthed demagogues and are starting to see things for what they are again.

All that said, I found this quote interesting today. Andrew Sullivan, from the Atlantic said, “I have to say even I am a little taken aback by the force of the Republican assault. Even in a downturn as swift and alarming as this one, even after an election that clearly favored one approach over another, even after the most conciliatory efforts by an incoming president in memory, these people have gone to war against the president. The president should stay cool. The rest of us should realize what motivates the GOP: the opportunism of selective ideology.”

Brilliantly said and spot on. The Republicans MUST go to war with the president, because he has a mandate to dismantle the iron fisted control they’ve had on government for the last 8 years. He is poised to help the nation return to a semblance of the direction outlined for more than 2 centuries ago - one that made us the envy of the world and an economic and moral high water mark. He is in a position to begin to expose the rhetoric of the neoConservative Republican political body: that they are NOT in favor of bettering America or Americans, they are in fact simply in favor of lining their own pockets and crippling the actual freedoms that Americans enjoy and deserve.

Well, some do. It seems to me that the Dittoheads and followers of Faux Noise got exactly what they deserved in the last 8 years - the only president to simultaneously cry out that he kept us safe, was better for the economy and was about bettering America while we were attacked right here in the continental states, are now suffering from a near-catastrophic depression and are still not recovered from Katrina. In just 3 weeks Obama has put upwards of 11 million children into a position to receive health care, reversed the course for stem cell research, has pushed hard to pass a stimulus bill that will create another 3.5 million jobs and save our crumbling infrastructure and given Americans hope, rather than a war, catastrophe and tax breaks for billionaires.

Say what you want, but adults and patriots are in charge of the country again. I am actually optimistic that he will get something done. Honestly.

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posted by perkiset on Feb 6

I love how Republicans think. It’s excellent comedy as well as great pretzel logic to keep my thinking sharp.

Take Senator Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) yesterday as he lashed out against the stimulus, claiming there is “stinky stuff” in it. He said
“there’s is a ton of stuff we need to cut of out this bill,” and that lawmakers “need to be in a 10-step program” to get the country back to what the founding fathers envisioned. An interesting point, since his voting record would show him to be an excellent and reliable backer of the Bush crime family’s crusade AGAINST the Constitution and the notions that made this country great. But I digress.

First off, let’s go ahead and have the cheap giggle that it’s actually a 12-step program, not a 10 step. But second, let’s consider that this addition to spending is something that the Republicans have had for the last 8 years while they were in control. So long as the programs were things that THEY wanted (like war or tax breaks for the wealthy) they were in the right and it’s OK to be so. Now that the tide has turned and the American people have voted in an administration to undo that horseapple, they suddenly want to be in recovery. Balderdash. Republicans don’t like spending money on Americans, they like spending money on corporations that enhance their own personal positions and wealth. Or that of their buddies. They do not want to assist the common man or the American worker.

Perhaps Senator Lindsay Graham is another good example, as he waved the bill about on the Senate floor yesterday talking about how we should be doing things differently in this post-partisan period. Ah, now I understand. Since the Republicans are no longer in control, it needs to be a post-partisan period. Well, it is fair to say that Obama got elected on such notions - but non-partisan wrangling means that the Republicans get to come towards the middle of the issue as well. The problem is that Republicans want post-partisan to mean that Democrats STILL come over to their way of thinking. Unlike the last 8 years, when the Republicans essentially spat upon any notion that was even middle of the road - if it wasn’t their way, it was the highway.

We see this on right wing talk as well as the Senate floor. The RushoReillyHannity clan is trying desperately to make any noise they can to squash the wave of change that is coming. It will not bode well for them if, after about 30 years of their fiscal policies (yes, again I lump Clinton in on that) we have been left with a bankrupt country that does not take care of it’s own people, yet is masterful at putting money into the hands of wealthy corporate interests. Worse, if the new spending notions actually increase the quality of life here in the good ol’ USofA they will be exposed for the liars and thieves that they have been.

Let’s think logically for a moment here. If tax cuts were really the panacea that the Republicans claim them to be, then the last 8 years should have put us into great straights. If Republicans were really concerned about America and American people, then, having seen the failing economy, they should have done more tax cuts while they had the chance. But whom are we kidding? Tax cuts are not the answer, we all know it. Tax cuts are a little bit more cash in (my) pocket while the rest of the country goes to hell. And that’s part of the problem here: Republican philosophy is all about selfishness and what’s in MY pocket, not realizing that it’s A) not all about them and B) sometimes, when other people get a job it benefits you.

The Republican philosophy is all short term gain with no long term game. And it’s not that the Republicans are stupid - it’s that they are working hard to continue to Reagan revolution ideals that espoused the elimination of social entitlements. The best way to do that is to bankrupt the country, so they are hard at work on it. Make no mistake, their goal is the elimination of social safety nets or anything that takes money from them or their buddies. And the current noise is simply a continuation of that policy.

Anti-America, Anti-American thugs. that’s all. Partisan boneheads that do not have the best interests of the country in mind, or we’d not be where we are today. Keep that in mind: The Republicans screaming about how the stimulus is all wrong now, after they spent their way into a coma over the last 8 years is not just laughable, it’s borderline criminal.

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