Don’t listen. They are all saying the same thing, so it must be wrong. There aren’t that many intelligent people in finance, politics and the media.

We are assured that the crash of the stock market is the result of our massive debt. Really? The market, whose computers are among the fastest in the world, took four days to react to the government’s failure to really address the debt.

Well, then the drop in the market was caused by Standard and Poor downgrading our government’s credit-worthiness. You haven’t been paying attention. That rating is supposed to tell you how good of a chance you have of getting your money back if you loan it to the government. It is not directly related to the equity markets.

Standard and poor are often referred to as average and below average.

When people sell their stock they usually buy another. That’s not what is happening right now. People are selling stock and . . . get ready for this . . . loaning it to the government. These capitalists actually think their money is safer with the government than with the private sector. Irony, thy name is capitalists.

Treasuries come in 3 forms. T-bills mature in 28 days to 1 year. T-notes mature in 1 to 10 years. T-bonds mature in 20 to 30 years. The 10-year note is the one usually referenced when the media quotes rates.

The Treasury holds auctions and the winner is, quite naturally, the one who makes the highest bid. The closer to 100 that one bids, the lower the effective interest. The government pays 100% of the face value. If the winning bid is $97, that is what the government gets.

So much money has been bidding up the prices that the last interest rate I heard, 2.14%, was an all-time record low. Lower rates mean that the government borrows money at lower interest rates. That’s to our advantage.

That was just a little side trip to educate those unfamiliar with the bond market. Despite what S&P may suggest, those putting their money on the line feel that the US Government is the safest bet. As T-bills are traded every day, it is also the most liquid asset one can hold.

The chart below is just a little further evidence that the size of our debt is not as critical as the debt hawks in Congress think it is. I removed some countries but left some that may make for interesting comparisons. There are other methods for calculating the relevant data, but in no case does the US rank higher than 6^th. If you are unconcerned about the futures of Japan, Germany, France and the UK, don’t lose too much sleep about the US debt.

Source: CIA World Factbook – updated 07-25-2011

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Yes, I’m back from vacation. I know. You didn’t even realize I was gone.

Well, it wasn’t really a vacation. It was 9 days at Fall Creek Falls State Park with about 70 of my wife’s relatives. No it wasn’t as bad as it sounds.

Actually there is a little good came about while I was there. Perhaps I should relate that before preaching on the topic of the day. Each family is assigned a meal to cook. They either produce their specialty or whatever is easiest to prepare for that size of a mob. Hot dogs and hamburgers are de rigueur for the 4^th. Diet food, it ain’t.

That’s the problem. I overcame seven books on economics in the past couple of months. Why? Research on my next book.

I needed a break. So, I did some Internet searching for ideas on nutrition and downloaded to my Kindle 3 books that seemed to make sense. Okay. So it’s my form of recreation.

Actually, as age and weight have crept up I have been tested for diabetes, metabolic rate, tumors, everything. It’s nice to know I don’t have any of those problems but there were no definitive answers. Nothing seems to work.

The good news? Having just begun reading 2-3 days before the trip, I was far from having mastered the subject. Again, their wasn’t any diet food in sight. Considering those conditions, I am shocked that I lost over 7 pounds. I was not reducing calories. None of it was the fluid loss that causes many diets to look good the first week or so. The theory is that it’s what you eat, not how much and that your body will find its own ideal weight. I hope so.

I didn’t starve. I didn’t explore the great outdoors. My arthritic joints and ever-present cane have trouble navigating a round trip to the rear of a Walmart. But now, back to the topic of the day.

Dancing On The Ceiling

What is going to happen with regard to the debt ceiling? What will happen if it isn’t raised? The truth is that no one knows.

But, how do I answer the question? I am neither a prophet nor a fortune teller. They are different. Prophets don’t predict the future. Most everyone misunderstands. A prophet passes on messages from God to the people. Most fortune tellers are gypsies.

Neither Oral Roberts, nor Bob Jones, nor Jerry Falwell’s Liberty Bible College is on my résumé. I am not a gypsy. I’m just going to rely on my unfamous (infamous?) ability to see through political BS.

First, they will not recognize the unconstitutional nature of the debt ceiling law. Politicians prefer complex and obscure machinations. They offer opportunities to hide from and/or misrepresent to their constituents what they are really up to. They are not fans of Occam’s Razor.

The debt ceiling will be raised. The Republican leadership in the Congress publicly assured Wall Street that it would. The Democrats’ action was never in doubt. Both are owned by the casinos and have heard  their master’s voice.

There possibly is a horsefly, or the rear of a centaur, in the ointment. Eric Cantor has put Speaker Boehner under siege in his quest to satisfy his ego, his desire for John’s job. To do this, he has decided to sell his soul to the Tea Party. Why is it so common for a centaur to be looking to the rear?

By some counts, Eric can muster more votes from their caucus on this issue than can John. Eric hopes that will translate to votes for John’s office. That explains Mitch, over in the Senate, showing the white flag with his Rube Goldberg proposal.

Dissension among the Republicans in the House has given Obama a chance for victory. I have trouble crediting the White House with mature, nuanced strategizing but they have made a helpful move or two; even if by accident.

This hullabaloo about the debt ceiling is mere political posturing. It has been brought in to the game solely for political reasons. The last Bush raised the ceiling 7 times. St. Ronny did it 17 times – yes, 17. There should be a clear-cut severing of the problem and the play.

Obama should say that the question of the debt ceiling will stand on its own. Vote it up or down. Let the people decide who is jeopardizing the world economy.

Since I see it as almost a given that the ceiling will be raised, what remains in question is the timing. The financial world may be foolhardy gamlbers with other people’s money but they are cowards when their own neck in on the block. They are getting skittish.

One final point. The Treasury has actually borrowed more money from the Social Security and Medicare trust funds than from China or anyone else. That money may have been borrowed by Congress but it isn’t theirs.

If creditors are to get paid while others stand by, Social Security and Medicare should be at the head of the line. They are just getting back their own money. That is not the same as the oil, agricultural, drug and other industries holding out their hands for subsidies.

The President has been speaking about the possibility of Social Security checks not going out on time. That is pure political theater. It is scare tactics. No group shows up at the polls in higher percentages than do seniors. No one wants to alienate them. Enjoy the show but live in reality.

Just remember the problem. Our economy is sick because there is insufficient blood (money) flowing through the system. Sending money to China and not letting seniors put it back into our economy would be the height of stupidity.

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Why the Tea Party? Why the absence of civility, what my mother called good manners?

It is the inevitable result of our devotion to various boneheaded ideologies. It makes no difference what the ideology is.

It’s time we recovered from this childhood disease of devotion to ideologies.

The incompetence of our politicians for the past few decades is to blame. They are in the game of politics but never learned the basics.

Parties play many roles. Parties can either be ideological or umbrellas. Umbrellas? An umbrella party is one that is deliberately non-ideological. It has no litmus test. If you want to join the party, come on, as long as you behave yourself.

So, why even have such a party? To help you get elected. That’s what politics is all about. If you don’t get elected, your chances of seeing any of your agenda enacted is severely curtailed.

No one ever accused George Wallace and Ted Kennedy of being ideological bed mates. But, they were both Democrats. I’m certain they didn’t relish the opportunity but when it came to endorsing each other they bit the bullet, smiled and said nice things about one another.

It wasn’t just a Democratic peculiarity. The Republicans likewise indulged. The distance between Arizona’s Senator Goldwater and New York’s Senator Javits was not merely geographical.

Given the rabid ideological posturing that has of late commanded the fields of battle, it is understandable if the behavior of those dinosaurs is perplexing. Why would they yoke themselves to people with whom they shared few, if any, positions on the issues of the day?

If you want to be a politician in the Deep South next year, your odds of success are much better as a Republican. The mirror image of that can be found in other locations.

The concept was not difficult. If you want to get elected, you position yourself to best advantage, at least as long as the others in that party are people with whom you can associate socially. They don’t have to agree with any of your policies. They just have to be willing to help you get elected and accept your help in their time of need.

Such arrangements can flourish only in an ambiance of cordiality. That atmosphere has an element of contagion. The supporters of the candidates are less likely to misbehave in public.

Two Is Enough

With umbrella parties two is all that’s necessary. Everyone, excepting the loonies, can find a home. The result is stability. Yes, I know that stability often translates as no change. I prefer to see it as allowing for deliberation and providing time for adjusting to changes. Although, the Great Depression proved alacrity was not forbidden when the times and events demanded.

Let me reminisce. I think it was in the 1980s when I took a look at Italy’s postwar political situation. The numbers may be slightly off, but only slightly. After about 39 years, the Italians had endured 37 administrations. There is a reason. Ideology. It produced a couple of dozen parties.

People seem never to be satisfied with just disagreeing. Catholics and Protestants disagree. Baptists and Presbyterians take issue with each other. Foot-washing Baptists don’t see eye to eye with Snake-handling Baptists. To some extent, the closer you are, ideologically, the more apt you are to produce another schism. Once you start splitting along ideological lines it’s just as difficult to stop as eating potato chips.

Hence, 37 administrations in about as many years. Political instability can lead to paralysis in the operation of a government. Do you commit to a significant project based on the orders of someone who will not last as long as the planning stage?

It was so bad that every few months the Italian post office would take all of the undelivered mail, bulldoze it into large piles and set it ablaze. Remember that the next time you complain about government efficiency.

We can see the beginning of that counting to 37. We have a Tea Party. Well, really, we have several tea parties. Seemingly, no one is ideologically pure enough to satisfy the rabid. They really don’t understand politics. They really don’t give a fig for democracy. They just want their way. They want to take their country back. Back from whom? From people who actually respect the concepts to which this nation has for so long been devoted?

Perhaps they should be speaking of giving the country back to the original inhabitants.

Are You Up For Some History?

We know that Michele Bachmann and St. Sarah are estranged from history and facts. That may be a requirement to belong to one of the tea parties. My first degree being in History, I have a fidelity to facts. Therefore, I will never be qualified to wear those silly outfits.

The original tea partiers dress as Indians. I probably would have tried to conceal my identity had I been involved. I guess that means I would have behaved cowardly too. If they weren’t Indians, who were they? Were they performing an act of patriotism for their fellow man’s liberty and posterity? Well, the answer has to be no.

Ninety thousand pounds of tea was dumped. Was it because of the tax? No. Really? Really. There were two reasons, neither was taxes.

The colonists were buying more tea from smugglers than from the East India Company. They wanted to change that. Parliament wanted to help. They passed the 1773 Tea Act. This was meant to accomplish the two things the Company wanted. First, it would give more emphasis to the Company’s monopoly. Sellers needed a license to legally sell tea.

The Company shipped tea from China and India to England, then to the colonies. A tax was collected for landing in a British port. The Tea Act eliminated that tax. Why? So that the Company could sell their tea for a lower price than the smugglers and the unlicensed sellers.

Now, can you guess who the ‘Indians” were? Just a hint: they were smugglers and unlicensed sellers.

Not all of their fellow colonists thought very highly of them. It was more than six decades before they first called it the Boston Tea Party. It was known as “the destruction of the tea.” That doesn’t have quite the same ring to it. For the most part, those who were around at the time didn’t consider the destruction of property laudable.

Many condemned their little party; Ben Franklin forcefully so. He insisted that the cost of the tea must be paid.

This was an act that was unnecessary and not indicative of the general mood of the colonies. New York, Philadelphia and other ports simply boycotted the tea. That tea was returned to England.

My Way – Or Else

So, what do we have? We have people who know no history. We have people who don’t understand politics. We have people who don’t like democracy. Despite their uninformed claims, they have no allegiance to the Constitution. They are missing any fraternal feeling for their fellow Americans. They are not patriots. They are spoiled brats.

Obviously, that is not a description of everyone who feels some sympathy for their averred aims. Americans, perhaps 98% of us, have good reason to be upset with our lack of influence on events. The Tea Party is not an acceptable response.

We don’t need these fake populist groups, funded by the plutocracy and corporations. We don’t need this distraction from the real, basic issues. We don’t need simplistic policies based on lies and ignorance.

I don’t appreciate being used and otherwise ignored by those running the country. However, the only alternative is not to be threatened with a gun by an ignorant bully who despises the things I cherish. Some make a lot of noise under the guise of patriotism and other laudable banners. Others put an unwarranted trust in those claims.

I would rather see them spend more time learning the facts, including historical ones, than making fools of themselves.

Look that up in your Funk and Wagnell’s.

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They are telling the teachers they are the problem. They are telling the teachers, “You’re Fired.”

What a load of simple-minded, self-serving crap.

Do any of these critics understand education? Emphatically, no. They have other axes to grind.

They neither understand nor care about our nation’s education. Is that hyperbolic? Emphatically, no.

What are their solutions? Charter schools? Evaluating teachers based on standardized tests? Getting rid of unions? Instead of just accepting their solutions without questions, as we have been doing, let’s actually look at what facts we have.

We know this country isn’t number one in education, by a long shot. Just who is? Finland. Why?

Finland has no charter schools – not one. But we were told charter schools were the panacea, the educational elixir. Well then, if it isn’t, what is?

Finland has no standardized tests. What? You’ve got to be kidding. How can they rate teachers without standardized tests? Perhaps we ought to ask them, rather than creating more standardized tests. Surprisingly, teachers make up their own tests.

Finland has a teachers’ union. In fact, 100% of Finland’s teachers belong to the teachers’ union. But . . . but, it’s all the union’s fault. Isn’t it? You mean those politicians who don’t know a fig’s worth about education have lied to us? Emphatically, yes. The truth doesn’t support their agenda, the one they failed to tell you about.

Perhaps we should pay attention to someone with expertise in the subject. Let me introduce Diane Ravitch. Both George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton appointed her to Assistant Secretary of Education. She is a historian of education, presently at New York University.

Just a quick observation. Her being appointed by both presidents would suggest that she is not pursuing a political agenda. That is not the case with the politicians that keep fighting over the stage now to outdo each other in how much they can cut teachers, their salaries and their benefits. I’ll return to this further down. Cutting education causes the children to bleed.

Professor Ravitch has recently given us her 20^th book, The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education.

During her book tour she spoke with a longtime principal in California. She asked how many teachers the principal had supervised over the years. The response was over 300. The next question was, how many of those were bad teachers. The answer was, “One, but I fired her.” Is some self-important politician with an ax to grind a better judge of good teachers or is this principal?

A few years back, my wife heard a businessman spouting off to another teacher how he could, with his business acumen (LOL), run the school system much better. The teacher asked him what he would do if he was selling blueberries and some were delivered that were damaged or spoiled. Why blueberries? I don’t know but I think he may have been in the supermarket business.

He said he would refuse to accept them. The teacher replied that she didn’t have the option of refusing to accept poor students. Education is not a business. Sometimes it seems closer to a zoo.

If the produce manager had to accept any and all blueberries, would he be labeled a bad manager if he could sell the spoiled ones for the same prices as the prime ones? If you fired him for that reason you would be deemed an idiot businessman.

Who’s To Blame?

It’s not the teachers. Almost every teacher I have met went into the profession because they felt they could have a positive effect on the children put in their care. It certainly wasn’t for the money. People say government workers are overpaid. Bull feces. Very few own private jets or apartments in Trump Towers.

It’s the politicians. It’s the ideologues. It’s you, the voters, for electing those miscreants.

They promise they’ll get rid of the bad teachers, as if they knew. And the voters fell for it. They are going to run the schools like a business and be able to cut back on funding. And the voters fell for it. It’s all the union’s fault. And the voters fell for it.

They’ve got your number. They know how to pull your strings. You can add a few more appropriate clichés.

Why?

Why was the first act of the Scott Walker, Honorable Clown of Wisconsin to give a tax cut to corporations? Why is he cutting $900 million from the budget for education? Why was he so nice to the caller he thought was David Koch? Why does he want to destroy the unions and balance his budget on the backs of the teachers, the firefighters, the police, the snow plow operators, the garbagemen and the others who serve their community?

Why? Two reasons: He likes the money and support of the Koch brothers and the corporations and it fits the drivel he thinks is a coherent ideology.

Those trying to break the unions claim to be experts on business. Really? Employee morale is a critical factor in productivity, turnover, training costs and other important matters. Expert businessmen don’t abuse the ones that actually do the work. Expert businessmen don’t call their employees scum. No. Despite their smug self-assessments, they are no more than businessmen wannabes.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, union membership in the private sector for 2010 was 6.9%. Union membership for public employees was 36.2%. Teachers are the largest segment of public employees. Remember, in most, if not all states, school budgets are primarily funded by local property taxes, not state monies.

Unions provide perhaps 20% or so of the campaign funds for Democrats. Horrors! A higher percentage of Republican campaign funds come from corporations and those in the top 2% of income. I’m guessing that is merely the way God planned it, so it’s copacetic.

A disinformation campaign of several decades has been eminently successful in portraying unions as the reason Eve gave Adam the apple. The unions have offered the other cheek. They have offered all four cheeks.

The corporations make an offer. Isn’t that nice of them? The unions make a demand. How rude of them. Doesn’t the corporation make a demand that the workers accept certain wages and other considerations? Doesn’t the union offer to work under certain conditions?

It’s more than pedantic semantics. It’s how the public views the opponents. It’s how the opponents see themselves. The unions lost the public relations battle long ago; before they realized there was one. The unions bought into it. They themselves usually describe their “offers” as “demands.”

If the Koch brothers and their ilk can destroy the last bulwark of unionism, they calculate that they can deprive the Democrats of adequate funds and essentially destroy the two-party system. Their aim is to eliminate the engine that created the middle class and any political opposition to their grotesque ideology. They are so blinded by greed they cannot see that they will have the most toys in a far smaller sandbox; one about the size of Mexico’s.

You need not listen to what they say. They don’t care what they say, as long as it gets the great unwashed to vote the way they wish. Do they care about their fellow Americans? You mean the ones they refer to as scum? Do they care about our economy? Then why do they pay for special laws to subsidize sending jobs overseas? Do they care about you? They spend unbelievable amounts to continue their “rights” to foul the air you breathe, the water you drink, the food you eat. So, listen carefully when they tell you for whom to vote.

The teachers, the garbagemen, the public unions didn’t cause our global economic mess.

You were nice enough to give Wall Street a few trillion dollars. Almost immediately, they gave themselves billions in bonuses. Many people cried foul. But, we were told, those bonuses were inviolate. They were guaranteed by contract. We couldn’t break a sacred contract.

Come with me to Wisconsin. Don’t just break the contracts the government employees have with the cities, counties and school boards. Just eliminate the unions. Presto! There can be no contract with an entity that doesn’t exist. So much for the sanctity of contracts with the scum.

Most are in the high sixties but one poll shows 81% of the voters in Wisconsin think public employees should be able to have collective bargaining. So? The Koch brothers don’t want it. The public and their creepy ideas of democracy can take the next ferry across the River Styx.

Give multimillion dollar bonuses to the culprits and let the unappreciated public servants bear the entire burden. It’s too bad the teachers didn’t fail these bozos when they had the opportunity. Maybe they should fail every child of the politicians supporting the governor. OH, NO!!! That would be unfair. So, now we want fairness?

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I have been so otherwise engaged these past few weeks that much of my usual reading has been thrown in a pile.

I watched an interview this morning with Chrystia Freeland. It concerned her newest article in The Atlantic. I will get to it. That is one of the magazines in my pile.

According to the interview her article focuses on the ultra-wealthy. However, the most salient points she makes are also pertinent in understanding various other communities.

She points out that the wealthiest one-tenth of one percent, or so, the ones who actually own most of the governments of the world, have more in common with each other than with you and me, or even most of the members of their country clubs. These people are constantly seeing each other at meetings in Hong Kong, Biarritz, St. Barts or Wal-Mart. However far-flung their primary residences, they see more of each other than of their fellow PTA members.

On the surface one might not see the commonality. Here we have the latest senior member of generational European wealth. There we have the newest of the new; the winners of the transition resulting from the fall of the Soviet Union.

Do they really have so much in common? Yes. They have more houses than they can use. They have more yachts than they remember. They have multiple private jets. Yet, they still have money; tons of it.

What can they do with all of that money? Is it useless? Hush yo’ mouth.

Money can be converted into power. Even the most jaded scion of title and fortune can get enthusiastic about power. They have the two most powerful aphrodisiacs. How much more do they need to have in common?

Back in my salad days, I would frequently have reason to associate with another special community. It is the diplomatic corps. Diplomats from the US and Libya have much more in common with each other than either shares with those they represent: Moammar Gadhafi or the people of the US.

They speak a common argot. They attended the same schools. They have the same interests. They are a community.

Then we have the most obvious: politicians. You may see differences in Republicans and Democrats in Washington  that don’t really exist. You may see them excoriate each other on C-SPAN or on the cable channels. You don’t get to see the parties they attend most evenings. The speak a common language. It’s one you think you understand. It isn’t.

They smooze the same bagmen. They feed from the same trough. They are a special community.

None of these communities understands your daily commute, your car payments, how much an illness in the family will cost you in financial and emotional stress. They can’t relate to the trauma caused by a layoff, actual or potential.

Neither do they care.

Most people don’t know the people in their own neighborhood, other than to say hello when putting out the garbage or bringing in the mail. You have some sort of community but it is unlikely to be based on the block on which you live. Community has changed. This isn’t Mayberry any more.

Some of these communities, such as the diplomatic corps, just don’t have you on their radar. Others do. They are looking for ways to use you or otherwise screw you.

You may think of various dangers represented by various communities. It could be argued quite easily that the oligarchs, the Wall Street parasites and the politicians have done us more harm than the terrorists. I wish we had a system where the politicians were a part of our communities, instead of apart from them.

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The Democrats will learn the wrong lessons from the election. The Republicans will learn the wrong lessons from the election.

How can I say that? Because of the truth embodied in the old saw, garbage in, garbage out.

The bulk of the society has decided that what they want to be facts really are facts. People actually believe that Obama is a Muslim. They don’t believe it because it is true. They believe it because they want it to be true.

And besides, the Internet told them so.

One of the memorable moments from election night was Rand Paul, in his victory rant, saying that he had a message he was taking to Washington. Americans are going to take back their government. My question is, “from whom?”

Whatever happened to the melting pot? He gets to claim the mantle of American and brand everyone who differs as unAmerican? I grew up imbued with the sentiment behind the statement, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” That was then. People now will readily stomp your head for daring to disagree with them.

Sharron Angle speaks of 2^nd Amendment remedies if they don’t get their way. Governor Rick Perry, Congressman Zack Wamp and others talk secession if the Republicans don’t get their way. These are the real American patriots? God help us.

And what is it that tops their lists? Tax cuts for the plutocrats. Next? Repeal ObamaCare.

Yeah, I know. Somewhere in there is to impeach or otherwise rid the country of Obama. Is this where they intend the 2^nd Amendment remedy?

Anyway, what did the Republicans think they learned?

They learned that the nation gave them a mandate to implement their agenda. Wrong

What was the public’s top issue? The economy, at 42%. Where did the public rank tax cuts, the Republicans’ top issue? At 4%. They heard what they wanted to hear.

Every mention of job creation is predicated on tax cuts for the top 2%. It had ten years to create jobs but didn’t. What has changed? Nothing. Let me be emphatic. There is not one shred of evidence that those tax cuts have or will create a single job. There is concrete evidence that unemployment insurance creates jobs. I feel better about ensuring a family has food and a roof than about giving a billionaire an extra half million, or even a whole.

An exit poll showed 30% of voters had a family member who is unemployed or has been since the last election. So, do you still remember the campaigns? The 2^nd Amendment. Immigration. Birthers. Gay Rights. Abortion. A Manhattan Mosque. Sure, any wedge issue to divide a country that needs unity to work its way out of a crisis.

Mitch McConnell and John Boehner are telling every camera that the voters repudiated all of the policies of Obama. Pat Buchanan sees a bit more nuance. He says that the people did want Obama’s agenda two years ago but they no longer want what Obama wants.

In this election the Republicans gathered 5 million more votes than the Democrats. In 2008, 23 million voters in the 18 to 29 age group voted for Obama. This year. 9 million of that age group voted for Democrats. Fourteen million didn’t show up. Why? Not because of what Obama did. Because of the promises Obama failed to deliver. They sat on their hands, not because they wanted to give the Republicans a mandate. They sat it out from disappointment with the Democrats.

The overwhelming Republican turnout failed to materialize. What enthusiasm was seen resulted more from anger than love of the GOP. Polls showed higher approval for the Democrats but that didn’t translate into votes. Many of those who voted for Republicans were simply wanting to send the Democrats a message. It just wasn’t the message Rand Paul heard.

What about ObamaCare? Polls showed a little over 50% opposed it. One poll I recall but don’t have in front of me was 51% opposed, 41% favored. Well, that settles that. Just a minute.

The same poll then asked the same people their positions on six major parts of the healthcare reform that became law. You know, no more denial for preexisting conditions, coverage for kids until 26 years old, etc., etc. Surprise, surprise. Those 51% who opposed it supported every one of those six parts by from 59 to 78 percentage majorities.

Okay. Where is McConnell’s and Boehner’s claimed rejection of ObamaCare? They will not tell you that ObamaCare is almost indistinguishable from what Reagan offered Teddy Kennedy. Kennedy turned it down. He later said that was the political mistake he most regretted. Should we rename it RonnyCare? I guess St. Ronny wasn’t really a true conservative.

Do you realize that if half or two-thirds of that 14 million missing youth had voted, it would have been enough to eliminate every Republican from the House of Representatives and every one of the Republican Senators and governors up for reelection? Has anyone heard that message?

Over half of the conservative Democrats are gone from the House. One percent of the progressive Democrats lost. That makes the remaining Democratic caucus more progressive than before. Obama sees only the smaller numbers of Democrats and accepts the Republican interpretation of the results. One of his first post-election comments was that he may be willing to compromise on the tax cut.

The tax cut is a made to order Democratic battering ram. Regardless of what they say, the Republicans cannot reduce the debt by borrowing more than a trillion dollars. Well, you say, there could be spending cuts.

So, why have McConnell, Boehner and the others absolutely refused to identify a single spending cut? They know, as voters seem not to, that debt service, the military, Social Security and Medicare cannot be cut for legal and/or political reasons and total 93% of the budget. If you cut the FBI, the CIA, Homeland security, everything in that 7%, the government would essentially disappear but the deficit would remain.

The Republicans do not, under any circumstances, want to reduce the deficit. They want it increased. Really? Yes. Despite the Republican demands for tax cuts, the the resulting debt would add to the debt accumulated during Obama’s administration. He would get 100% of the blame. If he is stupid enough to concede anything on that issue, he deserves to be a one-term president, and probably will be.

The right has been louder. The left sat on their hands, with some exceptions, such as Nevada, California and a couple of other places.

The public did not make a big right turn between 2008 and 2010. The support for the progressive agenda is there. It will continue to trend that way if the progressives in Washington get their act together. More youth are coming of age. They lean heavily to the left. The older voters, who tend to be more conservative (as me) are dying off. They need leadership. They want to believe.

These are the times that try men’s souls. It will not be civil but it will be war. It will elicit howls of anger from those who claim the Flag as their own personal property. Obama may be too queasy to lead. If he understands that the Oval Office functions differently than a law school classroom, he has the other attributes to lead. Without that, he needs to step aside for the next election cycle.

One last secret from PoliSci 101. Bringing everyone together, were that even possible, can make a temporary majority. However, it is weak. It is soft. To put such a coalition together requires fuzzing the picture, fuzzing the politician’s image. It will take very little for those weak ties to disappear. The fuzziness doesn’t create enthusiasm.

Even a politician with less than majority support can win by dividing the electorate. That’s what the Republicans understand and the Democrats don’t. Making it us against them, creating strong lines of differences, whether they truly exist or not, generates enthusiasm. These people are motivated to get out and vote.

Bipartisanship is a viable option in an emergency such as WWII. It didn’t last long, even after 9/11. The rest of the time bipartisanship is the mark of the amateur, the naive.

The Republicans understand the above but, as for the results of this past election, they just don’t get it. Obama and some other Democrats seem to agree with the Republicans. Wrong.

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There are a few truisms in politics. It is obvious that the Democrats have yet to learn them. It appears necessary to take them back for a review of PoliSci 101.

Any nationwide election is multifaceted. This one was especially so. That means both the mistakes and correctives are many. I can cover them all but most of you have lives. So, I’ll touch on just the most glaring problems and their remedies.

Okay, class. There is no need to take notes. You must, however, pay attention. Truancy is its own punishment.

Friends and Enemies

Friends and enemies. There is a difference.

You dance with the one what brought you, not bought you. In 2008 Obama energized some existing constituencies. He also developed others. He had enthusiastic support from progressives, from unions, from youth, from women, from Blacks, from Latinos, from those who realized what the plutocrats and corporations had done to them and to their country.

He has spent that enthusiasm. Many of those in the groups still support him but many have put themselves at some distance. Hope and Change have been supplanted by Disappointment and Frustration.

They didn’t just decide one day to change their attitudes. It was brought about by the policies, positions and prostration of the administration. The White House and congressional delegations need to acknowledge their culpability and accept the blame. If they refuse to do so, they will lose on every point.

Not a single Republican in Congress voted for Obama. Not a single one will cooperate on the issues important to his constituency. The people that put him in office are important. Bipartisanship would be nice, but it is not the Holy Grail. It would make his job easier but its absence should not seen as his failure. Blind devotion to it will ensure his failure.

There was also the matter of trying to placate the Blue Dogs. The role they played in weakening the President was critical. They are a bunch of ideologues who actually think they understand economics and even other topics.

They love being called moderate, as though that was honorable. It may be when the center is the center but not when the entire political spectrum in this country rests on the right. It just means they are not as extreme right as some others.

The Blue Dogs paid a price. Even their constituencies didn’t see them as a recognizable political animal. They were seen as being as confused as their message. They were Republicans wearing a Democratic name tag. Of the 54 Blue Dogs, 31 are now gone and 3 others are in races too close to call. Good riddance.

Leadership

Leaders don’t always lead in the right direction. Leaders aren’t always nice. The most recent Bush was a leader. He saw himself as a leader. He told us he was a leader, or decider, or whatever. He acted as a leader.

The people accepted his claim of being a leader. Many who disagreed with him on almost every point willingly accepted his leadership.

People really, really want leadership. Admittedly, they were tired of LBJ’s and Nixon’s brands and thought they didn’t want a leader. So, both parties offered them non-leaders. The people quickly realized that they really wanted a leader. How conscious they were of what they wanted may be debated but those wants were there.

A conductor doesn’t just stand on the podium and see what happens. A conductor doesn’t expect a member of the stagehands union to thrill the audience with a virtuoso performance. He knows who to expect to contribute. He expects a concerted effort from them. He leads them.

Part of leadership is a clear objective, a clear direction, a clear message. All of that gets muddled in the attempt to bring the opposition on board. The opposition gets a free trump card by simply refusing to play. They don’t need a policy. They don’t need answers. They don’t need solutions. They just need to be seen as standing firm. Why? Because, while different leaders may follow different policies, firmness is a constant of leadership.

But, you say, we need to position ourselves and govern from the middle. Wrong. That is not the middle. It is the muddle. Perhaps Abraham Lincoln should have been advised to move to the middle. The middle is treacherous. One must be on guard on both sides. Being to the right or to the left leaves only the other side to be guarded.

Who won this election? The Republicans didn’t win by moving to the middle. They won despite making a hard right. Again, they won by displaying one aspect of leadership: standing firm. One was enough. It was one more than the Democrats evinced.

Is governing from either the right or the left the correct way? Not necessarily but it is a lot easier. And, the people will prefer it and reward it. That easier factor is particularly important when one is not very accomplished at leading. The only two accomplished leaders we have had during my lifetime were FDR and Eisenhower. Leaders are rare.

Someone will blurt out that St. Ronny was a real leader. Sorry. The Lipper was an actor. He wasn’t even very good as an actor, except he had that leader role down cold. Real leadership does require a bit of actual leading.

Talk to Them

With all of the money spent on campaign ads, it may be difficult to think that either side failed at effective communications.

It isn’t a matter of volume or money. It’s a matter of clarity. It’s a matter of selling what you have to offer or what you have done, not what your opponent says you are selling and doing. The opposition has been quite good at defining the Democrats and their products for them.

What did the voters buy? It certainly wasn’t what they thought they were buying.

The voter was concerned about the budget. They voted for politicians vowing to add a minimum of $3.5 trillion to the debt. They wanted jobs. They voted for people who stood against removing the tax incentive for moving jobs overseas.

They want to blame someone for America not being number one but voted for reduced spending on education, policemen, firemen, unemployment compensation, research on renewable energy, building a high-speed rail system, repairing roads and airports, cleaning the air you breathe and the water you drink.

They voted for politicians who want to eliminate consumer protections on credit cards, foreclosures, manipulation of the stock market and anything else the parasites want. Many voters blamed the Democrats for Bush’s and Paulson’s bailout.

They voted for people who want to eliminate Social Security and Medicare, put healthcare out of reach for 40 million people, allow insurance companies to refuse to cover people for a preexisting condition (btw, being a battered wife is having a preexisting condition) while placing no limit on price increases (remember those 56% increases attempted in California).

Somewhere the Democrats failed to get their message out. Other than the debt mostly caused by them and tax cuts, the Republicans had no message of their own. They wrote the Democrats’ message and fed the anger and fear. The Democrats deserved to lose but the people will pay a heavier price.

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Have you ever been angry? Surely you have experienced it at least once.

Would you consider that time of anger the optimal time for making consequential decisions?

The two definitions of mad often get so close to each other that they actually become entangled. There may be occasions when that serves a purpose but probably not while you are standing in the voting booth.

The fact that you may be justifiably angry doesn’t mean that you should cast your vote for a candidate that is venting his spleen.

There are several candidates that seem to be foaming at the mouth. They are saying things that may rev up their core constituency but should be embarrassing in the light of day.

What do you think of a politician calling unemployment insurance unconstitutional while another calls it an entitlement program? Both statements are ludicrous but they come from two candidates for the Senate who are leading their opponents in the polls. This seems strange as 80% of the people support Unemployment insurance.

How are they ludicrous? The Constitution means what the Supreme Court says it means. They say that unemployment insurance is constitutional. Further, unemployment benefits are a part of what one works for. It’s part of the package. You are paying for it. That means it is insurance, not an entitlement or welfare.

Interestingly, the winners of the Nobel Prize for Economics were announced today. Of the three winners, one is a professor at MIT. A part of his work that is being honored centers on unemployment insurance. What does he have to say on the subject? He says that it is a beneficial program for our overall economy.

It seems that, if there is some income available to an unemployed person, a person will take slightly longer to return to the domain of the gainfully employed. The income provides a greater opportunity to find the best fit for his or her talents, education, training and experience. This, according to prospective Nobel Laureate Peter Diamond, helps make the economy more efficient.

Beyond his arguments, that income has a couple of other benefits. It acts as stimulus to the economy. People rarely do anything with their unemployment benefits except spend it.

We are fortunate that this, Social Security and other programs were enacted during the Great Depression. They keep a flow of money coursing through the economy. They put a floor under us, limiting how far the economy can slide.

Were it not for the monetary flow, the fundamentals of our present economic mess strongly suggest that this would have been a deeper depression than was experienced during the 1930s. If unemployment insurance were unconstitutional, we would be well-advised to amend the Constitution in record time.

I left out the argument that the Constitution makes the government responsible for aiding the general welfare of the people.

Anger does not justify putting people in positions of power who have such unbelievable ignorance about economics and the Constitution. They represent a real danger. That danger isn’t to Democrats. That danger is to the entire country.

Where do these people come from? They have been recruited by Dick Armey, Karl Rove and a bunch of miscreants that put us and our nation in jeopardy.

Do the people of New York really want a governor that threatens to “take out” the leading reporter in the state on the state political beat? Do they want a governor who delights in sending emails with bestiality pictures attached? What is his primary qualification? He has become a multimillionaire as an attorney for mobsters.

Is politics no longer a serious matter? Does it not matter who we elect? I am as critical of the scum that rules this country as anyone. That does not mean that I want to deliberately cripple the country for the gain of those parasites.

I want our country to succeed. Do I have feelings of anger? Naturally. Am I willing to vote for people who are ignorant of history, the Constitution, economics, Christianity and the misery that persists? If you break down their rants, you cannot avoid the anger that they direct towards the people, the nation itself. Calling oneself a Christian and a patriot does not make it so.

Be angry. It is justified. But, don’t lose your cool.

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No. I’m not talking about a do-it-yourself lobotomy. I am, however, speaking of something with about the same level of difficulty – taking control of the government away from the oligarchs, the career politicians and the corporations.

That seems like a nice little project to keep us busy for a few weeks.

Am I a committed revolutionary? Am I a delusional idealist? Am I a disgruntled geezer? Well, . . .

First An Apology

It may appear that I have been among the missing for a couple of weeks. Life is messy. My wife fell and broke her arm in three places. An aunt died and a new granddaughter was born. An upgrade of the blogging software created some problems, for which a jury-rigged solution has been found.

Some may suspect that I harbor some tendencies usually described as OCD. I signed up for ancestry.com about 3 weeks ago. I have already exceeded 900 people on my own family tree and 465 on my wife’s. One strand has reached as far as 1370, to Salisbury, England, famed as the location of Stonehenge. I thought I remembered when we were building it.

I am writing this from Fall Creek Falls, Tennessee’s nicest state park. It may seem ill-advised to come to a place so named when my wife was the 6^th of 7 members of her family to fall within a period of less than 3 weeks. But, it’s her family’s annual reunion.

Back To Matters At Hand

It costs tons of money to keep getting reelected. Congressmen spend more time raising money for their reelection than for any other purpose. Who has the greatest amount of disposable funds? Corporations. You cannot help but feel an obligation to the one who owns you. You and I get left out of the game.

People say we can just vote them out. That’s theoretically true. However, the primary factor in how people vote is name recognition. Next comes party affiliation. Other factors include personality, looks and other such important considerations.

It would be nice to have legislation providing for term limits. That is not going to happen. The pigs will not limit their time at the trough.

First we need a simple stratagem. Then we need to identify our allies, actual and potential. These are key. Let’s take the latter first.

Enemies and Friends

The hue and cry of recent political campaigns has everyone thinking that the tea partiers are off to one side of the spectrum and the progressives are on the other. And never the twain shall meet. Hold on. Don’t jump to conclusions, particularly the obvious ones.

The political divisions that are generally accepted are artificial. They were designed to keep us busy chasing chimera. They were structured to ensure that there appeared to be no solution to our lack of power.

There are many possible political positions. Disagreements do not always mean that the parties to a disagreement are thereby mortal enemies. The powers-that-be have told you that these petty disagreements are of paramount consideration. This is untrue. This is done to distract you from the fact that we share, or should share, unifying principles that dwarf those that get our undies in a wad about.

With all of the matters over which we express dissention, we ignore the unifying element. And it is?

There is a basic division. There has been since the begnnings of civilization. There have been those with power and those who have been the victims of that power. Any progress on the spectrum of civilization is measured in terms of how much say-so the people have over their own fates.

Is the result of the exercise of power always bad? In the hands of one or a few, very seldom is it otherwise. Once upon a time there was an historian named John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton, (1834–1902). He was known simply as Lord Acton. In a letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton in 1887 he expressed a sentiment you have likely heard many times, at least in part: Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men. It is a difficult proposition to dispute.

You may use money to clothe your body, fill your belly, provide shelter or a trip to Disney World. But, how many clothes can one wear? How much can one eat. How many houses can you use? There are practical limits on how much money one can spend to provide the necessities. Even Bill Gates would have trouble spending all of his money on Mickey Mouse t-shirts and ears.

Corporations have even more money. When you have more than you can spend to gratify your needs and sate yourself in pleasure, you look for another outlet. That usually exhibits itself as a desire for power. Money can be converted to power.

There are quite a few wealthy people with infantile personalities who only see money as a means of keeping score in the silly little game they play. Most of these are found to gather around Wall Street. Those who are slightly more advanced crave power. It is also the sign of a stunted personality but marginally more complex than simple addition.

All developed societies also have a sub-class of people who have personality disorders centered around diseased egos. These people rarely have sufficient disposable funds to transmute into power but they are willing to grovel at the Berluti Rapiécés Reprisés- or Prada-clad feet of the self-styled Masters of the Universe. They are frequently called politicians; sometimes prostitutes.

The oligarchs, the corporations and the politicians are the enemy. Getting rid of the influence of the oligarchs and corporations simply requires ridding ourselves of the scourge of career politicians.

Who are our allies? Everyone else. You mean those funny people screaming at the politicians and cameras that  wear tea bags as earrings? You mean those bleeding-heart matrons and self-important college kids who should be studying? Yes and yes. How can that be?

Let’s get down to basics. It may be that the government is too big. It may be that the government is not doing enough for us. It may be both, but that is not the point. The point is not the size or involvement of the government.

The problem is that government is not responsive. It is not responsive to our needs or our wishes. It ignores us except for the incessant blather intended to rile us up or quiet us down, depending on the immediate needs of the masters or their flunkies.

It sometimes seems that almost everyone uses the term populist with their own special meaning. The media and many politicians spit it out as though it were some foul-tasting excrement. Some associate it with whatever  the unwashed are saying. Few ascribe to it any element of nobility.

There are two interest groups. The people and those who wish to exert power over the people. Populism is politics that favors the interests of the people. Politics that favors the interests of the other side are sometimes called corporatists. Benito Mussolini defined corporatism and fascism as the combination of corporate power with the power of the state.

Listen closely to the stances of the people who are the angriest. Anger reduces ones analytical powers. You see someone having been screwed out of his retirement savings by corporate thieves and/or financial parasites mouthing the talking points of the politicians and media mouths that owe their livelihoods to those selfsame thieves and parasites. Couched in colorful language, it is gobbled hook, line and sinker by its victim.

Oh. We need to leave it to the “free market.” As if they could define or recognize a free market, even if one existed. Prayer in the schools, sex education, anything to distract or manipulate the people. Those are not what we should be bothering with; certainly not being divided by. That is what the powers-that-be intend.

Hell, we have two major wars and numerous smaller fires that need to be put out. We have 10 million unemployed. We have an environmental and economic disaster in the Gulf. We have real problems while career politicians try to score points against each other instead of solving them.

Family purchasing power reached its peak in 1973. Even with a slight uptick in the 1990s, the trend for nearly 40 years has been down. Is that the fault of the Democrats or of the Republicans? Yes.

Since 1981 we have gone from the world’s biggest exporter of finished goods to the world’s largest importer; from largest importer of raw materials to the largest exporter. We have gone from the largest creditor nation to the largest debtor nation. Is that the fault of the Democrats or of the Republicans? Yes.

Is our infrastructure important to you? Do you know how old it is? Sink holes in Florida or steam pipes exploding on the streets of Manhattan, you have no idea where the next failure will happen. Who didn’t invest enough in infrastructure, Democrats or Republicans?

Who’s been screwing you? The corporations, the oligarchs, the politicians, the Democrats, the Republicans, the Tea Party, the liberals, the conservatives are all working very hard to screw you, and most of you aren’t even that attractive. The person out there under the banner of the Tea Party has much, much more in common with the college student who campaigned for Kucinich than either has with any of the corporatists or their flunkies.

The Strategy

Now that we know who our friends and enemies are, what do we do? How do we do it? It is even simpler than it sounds.

Vote against every incumbent. That means for the Senate, for the House of Representatives, for your state legislature, for judge, for sheriff, for city council, for county commission, for any position that attracts career politicians and is not term-limited. I did not list the presidency, as it is term-limited. The same is the case for governor of most states. You are more than welcome to vote against them too, but they are less critical.

Does that mean you should vote for a Democrat because there is a Republican in office? No. Vote for a different Republican in the primary, if you still believe it makes a difference. It is important to get incumbents out, regardless of the party.

Will this result in a different balance in the legislatures. Possibly. Probably, but not significantly, even if there were a real difference. Keeping or getting rid of a party is not the issue. Such thinking is based on the bull they have been feeding the public for generations.

Admittedly, it is, it will be, difficult to break the intellectual bonds but it is absolutely necessary. Keep focused on the goal, the real goal.

You may have a particular incumbent that you are fond of. He may deserve your positive feelings or he may not. It doesn’t matter. Are there any incumbents who can be described as good guys? Possibly. It doesn’t matter.

The purpose is not to get rid of the bad guys. The purpose is to change the way we do the public business. The purpose is to break the death grip that corporations have on the government. Will there be casualties? It is likely there will be a few nice guys lose an office. Is that vital? No, but accomplishing the goal is as vital to the survival of our society as any issue before us.

Even nice guys don’t own the seat they hold. We own it. We can find other nice guys to sit there.

There is another consideration here. While polls show public approval of the Congress to be in the teens, almost all incumbents are reelected. Why? Because it is easier to blame some faceless congressman from several states away. Your congressman has name recognition. He belongs to the right party for your area. He is probably personable. But, the odds are he has sold you out. You don’t really know. And, once again, it doesn’t matter. Get rid of him.

What this accomplishes is sending a message. We are the government. Elected officials must serve our interests. Failure to do so will guarantee replacement. Getting rid of even a few good guys will show that we are serious; we are united.

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Thirteen states have filed a lawsuit claiming that the healthcare bill is unconstitutional.

Will they win or are they just wasting taxpayers money in an attempt to look good to their political bases? If you guessed the later, you didn’t require anyone to read this to you.

Given that we have five Supremes who can’t differentiate between human beings and things that human beings create, anything is possible. By the way, since voting is the most important form of free speech, why have corporations never voted? Sorry, I didn’t mean to give them any ideas.

Even if the courts were to rule in the favor of these thirteen grandstanding attorneys general, they can’t win.

They claim that it is unconstitutional to require people to purchase private health insurance. If someone doesn’t have health insurance, others must pay for it out of their taxes. The requirement is a protection measure for the rest of us.

Don’t get me wrong. I have no desire to see people forced to give these private monsters more money. This law, as presently configured, gives these corporations an additional 31 or so million customers. That is estimated to increase their bank accounts by some $70 billion annually. No. I definitely am not pleased with that.

Having the public option is less rational than Medicare-For-All but it would at least provide an alternative for many of this 31 million and others. Most of that $70 billion would not go to the leeches. We have been promised that the Congress will amend the law to include the public option.

So, there is a possibility that the courts could rule in their favor. What happens? This law, as with most others of any complexity, includes a separability clause. That means, if the courts rule against any part of it, the entire law is not scrapped. The remainder remains.

Interestingly, the suit cites no case law or precedent. Why? Because there is none. Federal law overrules state law.

Under the commerce clause of the Constitution the government has broad, unchallenged power to regulate interstate commerce. Interstate commerce has historically been interpreted very broadly. Also, the right of the government to tax has been firmly established.

Even given the present makeup of the Court, there is almost no likelihood that the attorneys general can prevail with this suit. A few may prevail in their races for the governor’s seat in their state based on the publicity they will garner.

The solution, should the courts rule in their favor, is to offer the public option, or make a public program mandatory. All the former would do is offer a better deal at less cost by eliminating about 30% of the costs that unnecessary overhead represents. Making it mandatory simply means reducing the amount one pays for coverage and calling it a tax rather than a premium. The courts have already ruled that Social Security, Medicare, et al., are constitutional.

So, if they win, and their win brings a public option or Medicare-For-All, what have they won?

America’s Favorite Loon, Michelle Bachmann, or as she calls herself on her web site, Amaricas Congress Woman, has introduced a bill which calls the healthcare bill unconstitutional. If she can’t spell America’s correctly or punctuate it correctly or doesn’t know that Congresswoman is one word, her bill may need the services of an editor.

Were it anyone else, save Sarah, we would consider her to be doing this only for its symbolic effect. She, however, seems convinced that the bill will succeed. How she will attain majorities in either house no one can explain. Then, either the President must sign it or his veto must be overridden by a two-thirds majority in each house of Congress. I would be hesitant to put too much money on any of those possibilities.

Then we have the Republican leadership saying that the passage of this bill is the death knell of the Democratic Party. Before passage they were exhibiting great concern for the welfare of the Democrats (pun intended). Their solicitude was impressive and heartwarming. Despite their concern for the wellbeing of their compatriots they intend to take advantage of this misstep by the Democrats by running on the position of repealing the healthcare bill.

I can see their logic. The people will swarm to their standard in order to reinstate the bar by the insurance companies of preexisting conditions. Their support will be overwhelming for reimposition of annual and total limitations of coverage.

Kids up to the age of 26 want to be independent. They will flock to the sides of the Republicans freeing them from sharing their parents coverage. Geezers like me will truly appreciate their efforts if we don’t have to worry about what to do with all of our money. We can just luxuriate in the do-nut hole and let the drug companies do all of that worrying.

I think those cagey Republicans have discovered the magic talisman of electoral politics.

Silly suit? Of course. But look to the source. To paraphrase Forrest Gump, “Silly is as silly does.”

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