Category Archives: Culture

“We Can’t Afford That Anymore.”

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We hear it all the time. There’s no money to improve our schools. There’s no money to rebuild our infrastructure. There’s no money to ensure that our citizens have access to food and medicine. There’s no money to care for the mentally ill and the homeless. There’s no money to give our veterans the care they deserve. There’s no money for pensions and retirement benefits.

The US is broke…at least that’s what Teapublicans want us to believe.

So what happened? How did we go from the richest, most powerful nation on Earth to a nation that can no longer afford the things that our citizens value most? For starters, our economic ills are the result of two costly wars, the unparalleled expansion of government immediately following 9/11, an expansion of Medicare drug benefits and the Great Recession that began as the result of unfettered gambling by the so-called “too big to fail” banks.

But none of those causes have been as devastating as runaway greed, the off-shoring of jobs and money (it’s estimated that wealthy Americans, including Mitt Romney, and US-based multinational corporations have stashed trillions in off-shore tax havens), subsidies for large corporations, and tax cuts intended to benefit the very wealthiest portion of our populace.

Following World War II, when we could afford to build things, our top individual tax rate was 91 percent for those making more than $200,000 per year. The capital gains tax was 25 percent. And the effective corporate tax rate was 50 percent.

Compare those rates with today’s: The top individual tax rate is now 39.6 percent for those making more than $400,000. The capital gains tax is 15 percent. And the effective corporate tax rate is 17 percent (that is, if large corporations pay any taxes at all). In fact, some large multinationals now have a negative tax rate!

See the problem?

For most working Americans, wages have stagnated over the past 40 years, while worker productivity has skyrocketed, along with incomes for the wealthy. Most Americans are working harder and earning proportionately less…if they’re lucky enough to have a job! And the only answer Congress (at least the Teapublican portion of Congress) has for these problems is to cut spending, to protect tax cuts for the wealthy, and to cut taxes for corporations.

Speaker Boehner, Minority Leader McConnell and the rest of the Teapublicans in office want to “starve the beast.” They consider investment and compromise dirty words. And they steadfastly refuse to agree to one more dollar of revenue.

To relate that to family finances as Teapublicans are so fond of doing: It’s as if parents, faced with growing credit card bills, decided to give up food for their children in order to cut their work hours!

Yes, we have to cut government waste and be efficient with our spending. But there isn’t enough fat in discretionary spending to eliminate the deficit and still meet the needs of our growing population. We already have seen that with the sequester cuts, and they’ve only just begun. If we want to reduce our nation’s debt without destroying our fragile economy, we must find new sources of revenue.

At War With Ourselves.

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Not to diminish the loss and sacrifice of those fighting in Afghanistan, but America’s most lethal war is internal.

All of our wars since 1776 (and there have been far too many of them) have resulted in the deaths of 1,171,177 soldiers. But since 1968, 1,384,171 civilians have lost their lives to gun violence in America! Of course, that number is growing every day. For what purpose? So some wannabe “freedom fighters” can own a lethal collection of weaponry intended for military use?

If you’re one of the paranoid, anti-social nitwits who see tyranny around every corner, I have some news for you. The government isn’t coming to take your revolver, shotgun and hunting rifle. The black-shirted UN troops aren’t coming, either. And your neighbors aren’t coming for your stash of food, guns and gold.

Only a very small percentage of Americans are murderers, muggers, robbers and thieves. And the only reason they have guns is because you and the NRA are too damn paranoid to allow the government to institute sensible gun safety rules.

Because you feel it’s your constitutional right to arm yourself to the teeth, straw buyers are able to walk into any of the nation’s more than 58,000 gun stores and buy assault rifles for drug cartels. Because of your paranoia, gangstas are able to buy an array of semi-automatics from gun shows without even passing a background check. Because you want to think of yourself as a real-life Rambo, felons and children are able to buy guns on street corners throughout America so they can shoot innocents and each other.

Truth is, If you’re so paranoid that you fear universal background checks and restrictions on some types of weaponry, you are as responsible for gun deaths in America as those who actually pull the triggers.

That must make you feel very proud.

The Underworld Of Homelessness.

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Out of sight, out of mind. That’s how most Americans deal with homelessness. So it’s not surprising that a few homeless people in Kansas City created an underground camp. They dug a series of tunnels which they ventilated with PVC pipe…a creative way to get out of the weather and out of sight of the good people who dislike seeing them huddling on the streets and dumpster-diving for food.

Of course, once the authorities discovered the tunnels, it was all over. The homeless were handed some materials about local services and sent packing. This is how we deal with the homeless today. “How horrible! We feel so sorry for you. But you can’t live here. Now, on your way!” This happens, not just in Kansas City, but in every city and town in America.

Homelessness is a serious and growing problem in our nation. It’s time we find serious solutions.

Tearing down the camps and handing the homeless flyers is no solution. Many of the homeless won’t live in shelters. They understand that the shelters offer no real security. They often don’t know if they’ll have a bed for more than a single night. Families are often separated. Many can’t stand to sleep in a large room full of snoring people. Many don’t like the religion that is pushed on them by the shelter owners. Many just want a quiet place to themselves.

So many of the homeless seek to take care of themselves. (Isn’t that what most Americans want to see…personal responsibility?) They find out of the way places for shelter; in camps, under bridges and overpasses, by railroad tracks, even in tunnels. When they’re discovered, the police usually tear apart their camp, destroy their meager possessions, hand them some literature about services and transport them to another suburb or town.

Out of sight. Out of mind…

When is America going to finally admit we have a problem? When are we going to realize that a single catastrophic event could put any of us out on the streets? When are we going to understand that the homeless are our neighbors? They are the chronically unemployed, the addicted and the mentally ill. Many are veterans who couldn’t adapt back into polite society after witnessing and participating in our far too frequent wars. Many are families displaced by greedy banks who foreclosed their homes.

Imagine the talent, wisdom and potential that are going to waste on our streets. It’s time to stop shoving these people aside; time to look them in the eyes and find ways to help them help themselves.

How The Drug War Is Destroying America!

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In 1971, President Richard M. Nixon announced a war on drugs to punish those who manufacture, sell and use illicit drugs. More than 40 years later, we’re still at war. And we’re losing badly.

Since the war on drugs began, we’ve spent more than $1 trillion to intercept drug smugglers; to arrest, prosecute and incarcerate drug dealers and users. What have we accomplished? We have broken the lives of users and small-time dealers. We have destroyed families and communities. And we have increased the price of illicit drugs. Meanwhile, the smugglers and dealers have simply found new ways to skirt the law. They have created new drugs. They have created new ways to manufacture, distribute and market them. And they have become progressively more violent.

As for the users, they have shown they will do anything necessary to afford their drug of choice. They have resorted to theft, burglary, mugging, prostitution and more. These people have choked our justice system and filled our prisons. Indeed, approximately 70 percent of all prisoners are clinically determined to be addicts, yet only 11 percent are treated for addiction.

Placed in the general prison population, many addicts are forced to become violent in order to survive. Once they’re back on the street, they often go back to using. And because they can’t find jobs, they resort to the techniques of violence and intimidation that they learned as inmates. 66 percent commit another serious crime within 3 years of being released from prison.

The war on drugs has been especially cruel for African-Americans. Although they make up just 14 percent of our nation’s drug users, they represent 56 percent of those incarcerated for drug crimes.

Of course, there have been some benefits to society. The war on drugs has created a new private prison industry that profits from the arrests. It has created more jobs for law enforcement and prison guards, more construction jobs to build new and bigger prisons, more jobs for probation officers and workers in halfway houses, and more jobs in Emergency Rooms.

According to the new documentary, The House I Live In, the war on drugs has resulted in 45 million arrests. Of the 2.3 million people who are currently incarcerated in America, one-quarter are being held for non-violent drug offenses. And, although the U.S. has 5 percent of the world’s population, our nation holds 25 percent of the world’s prisoners.

Obviously, it’s long past time to end America’s longest war. But that doesn’t mean we have to accept rampant drug abuse. Instead of legalizing drugs, we can decriminalize and regulate their use in much the same way we regulate pharmaceuticals. (This approach has worked in other countries. It can work here.) With access to cheaper drugs, users will no longer have to resort to crime in order to buy them. Some of the money spent on the drug war can be redirected to create more treatment programs and education programs to keep people from abusing drugs.

We can’t win the war on drugs. But we don’t have to let the drug cartels win!

The United States Of Crazy!

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A recent survey by Public Policy Polling found that 13 percent of Americans actually think President Obama is the antichrist. An additional 13 percent are unsure.

The same survey found that 37 percent of Americans believe global warming is a hoax, while another 12 percent are unsure. The survey also found that 28 percent of Americans believe in the New World Order conspiracy. (The Black Helicopters are coming! The Black Helicopters are coming!). Yet another 25 percent think it’s possible,

If that news isn’t depressing enough, a 2011 Fox News poll found that 24 percent of voters believe our president is not even an American citizen. A stunning 72 percent of Tea Party Republicans and 63 percent of all Republicans thought there was cause to wonder about his birthplace!

Further, a new HuffPost/YouGov poll shows that 32 percent of Americans would favor a constitutional amendment making Christianity the official religion of the United States. An even larger 34 percent would favor establishing Christianity as the official religion of their state. Even though the First Amendment of the Constitution clearly states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion…” these people seem to believe the Founders intended the US to be a Christian nation.

They apparently assume the Founders simply meant that there should be no establishment of any specific denomination of Christianity despite the fact that some of the Founders were deists and atheists. Many of these same clairvoyants have convinced themselves that the Founders also intended for individual Americans to own all forms of armament ranging from assault weapons to howitzers.

Except for the large numbers of crackpots, none of this is particularly surprising. The US is home to all sorts of crazy.

There are significant numbers of Americans who believe in unfounded conspiracies, such as the Agenda 21 conspiracy, the “truther” conspiracy, the Roswell conspiracy, the FDR-allowed-Pearl-Harbor-to-happen conspiracy, the Obama-is-going-to-take-your-guns conspiracy, the Obama-is-converting-the-US-to-sharia-law conspiracy, etc.

On a more positive note, a new Marist College poll found that 60 percent of Americans think the laws governing firearms sales should be more strict. (After all, who would want to put guns in the hands of the conspiracy nuts.)  59 percent favor a ban on assault weapons with only 37 percent opposing the idea. And 87 percent favor background checks.

Let’s hope those background checks include screenings for nut jobs!

Apocalyptic Politics.

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Many Americans seem convinced that the Apocalypse is upon us.  Remember Y2K? Remember Nostradamus?  Remember the Mayan calendar?

There have been dead-enders around as long as I can remember.  Usually, they were part of some wacko religious cult that had bet its future on the book of Revelation.  But, in recent years, the dead-enders have become mainstream, especially after the election of our first president of African-American heritage.

Fueled by Teapublicans and the right-wing media, we are constantly told to be afraid…be very afraid.  Unless we do as they say and accept their ideology, we will suffer the consequences of a failed, bankrupt state and, quite likely, the wrath of God.  (You know, the God who personally created America by taking land from the natives and giving it to God-fearing Christians.)

All of this is disturbing enough.  But our media seem to have bought into these fear tactics in the same way they bought into the Bush administration’s lies leading up to the invasion of Iraq.

As a result, we’re exposed to Teapublican and Christian evangelical fear-mongering at nearly every turn.  Fire-and-brimstone pastors preach fear from the pulpit and tell their flocks that they will go to hell if they support Democrats.  Hate mongers such as Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Mark Levin spew apocalyptic nonsense daily.  And the gun manufacturers’ lobby, otherwise known as the National Rifle Association, tells you that your neighbors are out to get you and your government is coming to take your guns.

To make matters worse, mainstream cable channels offer studies in paranoia such as Doomsday Preppers.  Even the movie studios have gotten into the act with a never-ending series of disaster movies.  And, in the most egregious example, the History Channel recently produced a TV series on the Bible, casting an Obama look-alike as Satan!

The clear message is that we will all perish and go to hell unless we all become right-wing Christian Teapublicans who bow to multinational corporations, turn our backs on the poor, ignore the rights of women, show intolerance to minorities, and worship at the altar of intolerance and greed.

Now that would be a REAL apocalypse!

Let’s Create A New Tax System!

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The US is a patchwork of federal taxes, state taxes, sales taxes, property taxes, capital gains taxes, gasoline taxes, tobacco taxes, etc. In addition, there are a myriad of tax loopholes allowing billionaires to pay lower tax rates than the secretaries who work for them. Worse yet, some of the world’s largest corporations are able to avoid paying income taxes, despite billions in profits.

If all of that isn’t confusing enough, taxes in some states are higher than in others, leading to competition between states.

For decades, states have spent more time trying to coax companies from other states than helping their own entrepreneurs to create new companies. Low tax states such as Arizona and South Dakota try to lure away businesses (and jobs) from higher tax states like California and Minnesota where the businesses began and grew, likely because of tax incentives and other state-funded investments in those businesses.

This kind of nonsense has to stop!

Businesses are not created by low taxes.  They are created and nurtured in states which value education, innovation, technology, infrastructure, and quality of life.

If states like Arizona and South Dakota want more jobs for their citizens, let them invest in the things necessary to create them. Let’s stop the competition to see which state can cut taxes to the lowest possible rate at the sacrifice of everything else. Let’s level the playing field. Let’s eliminate the multiple layers of taxes. Let’s create a single, federal tax system in which each state charges the same tax based on income and cost of living. (I think we can all agree that a $250,000 salary in Wyoming goes a lot farther than the same salary in New York.) The money would then be parceled out by the federal government based on population and defined need.

This system would end the free ride for low tax states and encourage real development and innovation.

After all, why should Minnesota, Delaware, New York and New Jersey have to contribute far more taxes per person to the government than they get back? And why should states like Alabama, Arizona, Mississippi, New Mexico and Wyoming get more out of the federal government than they pay in? And why should companies be encouraged to uproot their offices, production facilities and personnel just because another state offers a slightly lower tax rate?

Think about it.

If I Were King.

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Ever think about what you might do if you were named King (or Queen) of the US for a day? I realize this is a somewhat narcissistic exercise, nevertheless, here’s what I would do:

1 – Cut the defense budget in half and use the leftover money to rebuild our antiquated and decaying infrastructure

2 – End the war on drugs by decriminalizing the use of illicit drugs

3 – Empty the prisons of those incarcerated for drug use and petty drug sales

4 – Prosecute those who have ordered or participated in war crimes

5 – Prosecute the bank executives who crashed our economy by stealing trillions from ordinary citizens

6 – Prosecute those who have created off-shore bank accounts for tax evasion

7 – Limit the number of Congressional lobbyists and ban campaign contributions

8 – Institute public financing for electoral campaigns

9 – Implement a national holiday for elections with mandatory voting

10 – Institute a tax on financial transactions

11 – Index federal income tax rates based on cost of living for each taxpayer’s permanent address

12 – End sales taxes on everything except luxury items

13 – End tax exemptions for more than one home

14 – Restore the FCC Fairness Doctrine requiring electronic media to operate in the public interest and withholding licenses to those who knowingly tell lies

15 – Create a single-payer national healthcare system

16 – Strengthen Social Security by removing the income cap for FICA deductions and means test Social Security recipients to prevent millionaires from receiving it

17 – Reduce the influence of multinational corporations on our State Dept.

18 – Require 2 years of service for all US citizens

19 – Ban semi-automatic weapons, high-capacity clips and military-style ammunition and offer federal buy-backs of banned guns and ammo

20 – Require universal background checks for all gun purchases

21 – Proclaim equality for all and increase penalties for any form of discrimination

22 – End tax exemptions for church property, except that used to perform charitable services, such as education, medicine, services for the poor, etc.

23 – End all corporate welfare, especially for those corporations who export jobs or pollute our environment

24 – Ban elected officials from working for government contractors as employees or lobbyists for a minimum of 10 years

25 – Require that corporate offices of government contractors be located in the US

I’m sure I’ll think of more. Of course, our nation is as likely to implement these ideas as it is to make me King for a day. Thanks for allowing me to indulge in my fantasies.

Let Them Eat Horse!

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According to new studies, 1 in 3 Americans believe that hamburger tainted with horse meat should be given to the poor. In essence, they’re saying, “I wouldn’t eat it, but it’s good enough for the poor.”

Of course, in the minds of Teapublican deficit hawks, the poor are merely freeloaders who don’t deserve what the hard-working job creators enjoy. But why stop with horse meat? Why not subject the poor to other indignities?

For example, we could give them all of our outdated and spoiled food. Instead of paying rent for community food shelves, we could just throw the food in dumpsters and turn all of the poor into dumpster-divers.

Why waste perfectly good medicines on the poor? This is a perfect opportunity to get rid of expired medicines and avoid polluting the environment at the same time. And you know all of those medicines that have been deemed unsafe for consumption? If we gave those to the poor, we’d eventually have less poor – especially if we quit wasting money on MedicAid and hospitalization.

We could save even more money by throwing all of the poor out of public housing. And why waste money on educating poor children? If they learn too much, they’ll just call for class warfare. Finally, why not build a fence around our nation’s poorest land and let the poor create their own country (it worked for Native Americans). We could surround it with video cameras and broadcast it on a network channel as the hottest new reality show.

We could call it Les Miserables America.

Tax Cuts For The Rich, Budget Cuts For The Poor.

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Following are a few numbers that clearly show the results of more than 40 years of Republican economic policies:

1 percent of Americans now control more than 40 percent of the nation’s wealth, while the bottom 40 percent of Americans control 0.2 percent of the wealth.

46.2 million Americans are living in poverty. 3.9 million working Americans are paid at or below the minimum wage. 12 million Americans are unemployed. 650,000 Americans are homeless. 50 million Americans, including 17 million children, don’t know where their next meal is coming from. 48.6 million don’t have health insurance.

Naturally, Teapublicans in Congress want to protect these people from further harm. I’m referring, of course, to the 1 percent! Even though taxes for the wealthy are at historic lows, Teapublicans believe they’re overtaxed. They absolutely refuse to consider asking these people to pay one more cent of their enormous wealth.

Those other people, according to Teapublican leaders, are merely the freeloaders who rely on the federal government for assistance. 

Is it any wonder, then, that Congress is locked in a budget standoff with the president? The austerity cuts resulting from sequestration will cut 9 percent from unemployment checks and $175 million from energy assistance for the poor. Sequestration will cut rental assistance to 125,000 low-income families. It will put 100,000 previously homeless back on the streets. It will cut 70,000 kids from Head Start. And it’s projected to cost up to 750,000 jobs.

But these cuts are less cruel than the Teapublican demands to end sequestration. They want to cut SNAP food assistance for the poor. They want to cut Medicaid health assistance for children and low-income families. They want to cut Medicare, Social Security and more.

But don’t worry about the poor. They’ll get by. After all, they still own 0.2 percent of our nation’s wealth.