Women
John McCain has declared war on women, vowing, if elected president, to overturn Roe v. Wade. McCain believes that abortion is morally reprehensible and wishes to impose his belief upon women, even if their pregnancy poses a threat to the mother or is the result of incest or rape. There is no doubt in John McCain’s mind that all pregnancies are wanted and must, regardless of consequences, be completed unless naturally and involuntarily terminated. But, McCain’s war on women doesn’t stop with eliminating abortion; he seeks to expand the legal definition of abortion to more closely match the position of the Catholic Church and some extreme fundamentalist Protestants. John McCain, in lockstep with the Bush administration, is supporting a Department of Health and Human Services plan that would classify most non-barrier contraceptives as abortion.
The draft regulation to expand this definition has already been posted, though the Department of Health and Human Services claims that it is only a draft and the expansion in scope was unintentional; and we really needn’t worry about it. The draft was posted months ago, and no changes to this “draft” policy have been declared. Essentially, the draft regulation would deny federal funding to doctors, pharmacists, and facilities that provide birth control pills, the “morning after” pill, and intrauterine devices (IUD’s) to women as means of contraception.
John McCain’s new VP choice, Sarah Palin, has said that she is “as pro-life as it gets”.
Veterans
Those of us who have served this country, and those who haven’t, must give respect for the service that John McCain gave this, our country, in Vietnam. But, no service member’s time gives him the right to dictate for the entire country what is right for veterans. Especially this holds true for those who, like John McCain in Vietnam and those now serving in Iraq, served during a time of wrong and illegal military duty predicated by the desires of corporation-appeasing foreign policy makers. Certainly John McCain understands by now that his service and that of thousands of others benefitted not American interests, but corporate American interests. But John McCain has consistently voted against expanded veterans’ benefits. Even when he has not voted against expanded benefits, he has plain not voted. This says much about McCain’s complete lack of dedication to the common cause of his sisters and brothers in arms. Furthermore, John McCain seeks to retain troops in Iraq despite the obviety of the failures and deceptions that permitted a corporate-driven administration to justify and rationalize criminal military action, continuing it past the stated mission point and despite the expressed will of the Iraqi people. McCain sees service members as tools for the workings of the corporation-owned Republican party, to be discarded and forgotten when broken or no longer useful.
The Poor
The poor usually know full well that the Republican Party still subscribes to the pseudo-science of social Darwinism. It is understood that the poor are to be pitied, but not assisted. In fact, in John McCain’s world, as in President Bush’s, the poor are to be outcast and criminalized. Poverty is a crime of willful actions designed to elicit unearned sympathy and support from the elite. Poverty, to the Republican, is the fault of the impoverished, and should be of no concern to those of the demographically shrinking financial elite who have earned their place in society through hard work and superior genes.
The Middle Class
Do not believe for one moment that John McCain will do anything to help you maintain your standard of living. John McCain’s tax plan does provide for tax reduction for everyone, but there is a twist to the reduction. The middle class will see significantly little of McCain’s proposed tax relief. The greatest share of tax relief goes to those making over $ 500,000. In John McCain’s world, the greater your earnings, the larger, percentage and real dollar wise, your savings. John McCain has attempted to fool the middle class by claiming that Barack Obama’s tax plan will raise your taxes; this is not true. Barack Obama’s tax plan will raise taxes only for those earning over $250,000, who happen to be paying less than their fair share, anyway. Under Obama’s plan, the average American, meaning about 92 % of us, earning less than $100,000, the tax cut will be far more substantial than what McCain has proposed. An examination of the two tax plans shows that John McCain seems to believe that if one is stupid or genetically inferior enough to be poor or middle class, then one doesn’t deserve to keep one’s money as much as those who have made it to the top on one’s back.
The Environment
John McCain, like his possible predecessor, has concerns for the environment only in the business sense. That is to say he is concerned for the business environment. John McCain supports unlimited expansion of off-shore drilling; he wants to open up the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge for exploration. He wants to continue the Bush administration’s assault on the EPA and the Endangered Species Act, allowing business development to take precedence over ecosystems severely strained by over a century-and-a-half’s worth of industrialization. John McCain seeks to discredit work of environmental scientists to further the interests of his corporate sponsors who want us to believe that global warming and the shrinking Arctic ice fields are inconsequential matters not worthy of study or notice unless they can be exploited for profit.
At one time, this writer held John McCain in high esteem. But the man who once should have been president is gone. Now McCain seeks primarily to walk with his Republican brethren to the tune of their corporate raider masters. George W. Bush has performed wreaked a renaissance of American imperialism upon the planet to the harm of most for the benefit of a few. Somehow, in this time, John McCain has succumbed to the Republican corporate nationalist expansionist rhetoric and alienated himself from the populace he once befriended.
30 August 2008
23 August 2008
American History Lies You Might Have Believed
Betsy Ross did not make or design the first U.S. flag. http://www.usflag.org/history/aboutbetsyross.html
George Washington’s cherry tree incident did not happen except in a fictional biography by Mason L. Weems.
http://www.lindseywilliams.org/index.htm?LAL_Archives/Cherry_Tree_Myth.htm~mainFrame
Thomas Jefferson was not such a great inventor. His dumbwaiter never worked properly, his wheel cipher had been in use for centuries, and his great clock involved no new technology or application, but was rather simply packaged differently. He did, however invent a much improved moldboard for plows, just as the steel plow was rendering the need for a moldboard irrelevant.
http://www.monticello.org/jefferson/dayinlife/vegetable/dig.html
Helen Keller did not want to be remembered for having overcome blindness; she wished for her activism as a Socialist and Progressive to be her legacy. She rejected racism, chauvinism, and unbridled capitalism, running afoul of many in the government, to include President Woodrow Wilson. http://www.answers.com/topic/helen-keller
America did not win the Second World War; the Soviet Union was rolling up both the Germans and the Japanese on the ground by the end of 1944, long before D-Day and the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In fact, it is believed by many historians that the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were intended to close the war out quickly thereby preventing the planned Soviet invasion of Japanese-held China.
The Cold War did not develop as a result of Soviet aggression during the 1950’s. The roots of the Cold War and the associated Russo-American tension and competition go back to the establishment of the Soviet Union and American ideological imperialist interference with the Bolshevik Revolution. Under Woodrow Wilson, American expeditions were sent to invade Russia and assist the “whites” in their counter-revolution against the “reds”. Lenin, Stalin, and Khrushchev were all historically justified in fearing and preparing against suspected U.S. interference and aggression.
Woodrow Wilson’s imperialist policies also served to expand communism in the Americas. Seeing the carnage wrought by US interference in other lands, many countries in Latin and South America sought a different route and chose socialism and/or communism in lieu of the imperialist American-style “democracy”. All too often in recent American history, the spreading of “democracy” resulted in violence and dictated totalitarianism.
Native Americans were not primitive nomadic hunter/gatherers. The native peoples of America lived in villages and towns. They were mostly agriculturalists who hunted managed game areas to supplement farm produce. The image of the wandering band following game and season comes as a direct result of white encroachment of native lands, destruction of game, and razing of their homes, sending the American native into an involuntary and unnatural state of transience.
America did not become a definitively and officially “Christian” nation until the 20th Century. “In God We Trust” first appeared regularly on US currency and coins during the communist scares post World Wars. The Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights of the United States make little mention of any “god”, instead relying on the term “creator”, to indicate a decidedly ambiguous reference to whatever power, supernatural or natural, by which we came to be. Only in the second half of the 20th Century has the religious (read Christian) right come into vogue claiming false origins for this country as they do for all existence. The primary sources for the philosophy of the Founding Fathers came from the Iroquois Confederation (Native American) and the Enlightenment Humanist schools.
The American motto “In God We Trust”, now appearing on all units of currency, was adopted during the Civil War for coins, first appearing on the two-cent coin in 1864. However, by 1883, the motto had been dropped and did not re-appear until 1907. It was not until 1938 that the motto was standardized for all coins. The motto’s inclusion on paper currency did not occur until 1957. As the official motto of the U.S., “In God We Trust” usurped “E Pluribus Unum” in 1956, as the latter had not been officially adopted by act of Congress and the U.S. was seeking to demonstrate its difference and superiority to the communists during the fervent period of “red scare” of the 1950’s.
The Pledge of Allegiance, with its alienating phrase “One nation, under God…,” likewise was a by-product of “red scare”, making its official, completed form debut in 1954. The Pledge had been around since Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, but the words “under God” were added much later. Many versions of the Pledge circulated post Civil War, but the religious reference, deliberately Christian, appeared first only in 1951, in a version adopted by the Knights of Columbus.
The American Civil War was not fought for “states’ rights” as many Southern revisionists have attempted to claim for the past century. In fact, South Carolina, the first state to declare secession, railed in its declaration against states’ rights and the Northern practice of ignoring the Fugitive Slave Act. South Carolina’s declaration also referenced the idea that the North had come to view slavery as sinful. The Civil War started, in large part, over the Northern states’ refusal to fund activities by law enforcement designed to apprehend and return escaped slaves. The South was attempting to force federal allowance of the expansion of slavery during the years immediately preceding the Civil War. As the Fugitive Slave Act was federal law and the South was attempting to impose federal control over Northern states’ rights in budgeting their own law enforcement, the long popular revisionist view is a provable lie. In his second Inaugural Address, Lincoln said that the Civil War had come about as a consequence of slavery.
The South was not alone in utilizing slavery. The North also kept slaves. The difference was that the North did not rely predominately upon slave farm labor. Most slaves in the North were kept as household or artisanal servants for running errands and handling chores. This resulted in a much lower incidence of slavery for the North. Also, by 1820, most of the Northern states had rejected slavery outright and had joined the remainder of the world in the progressive act of abolition. By 1850, the difference between the “free” North and the enslaved South was apparent to any observer.
That Americans widely believe other versions of history comes from the inaccurate depiction and treatment of the subject in public primary and secondary schools. Most American textbooks portray the US in a positive light and ignore or gloss over the uncomfortable aspects of American history. Then too, most history teachers in American public schools are educated as teachers first and historians a very distant second. However, this phenomenon is not unique to America. During the era of the Soviet Union, schoolchildren were taught that America started nuclear proliferation with the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Soviet instruction ignored the American Pacific War and taught the bombings as unprovoked experiments with the new weapon.
George Washington’s cherry tree incident did not happen except in a fictional biography by Mason L. Weems.
http://www.lindseywilliams.org/index.htm?LAL_Archives/Cherry_Tree_Myth.htm~mainFrame
Thomas Jefferson was not such a great inventor. His dumbwaiter never worked properly, his wheel cipher had been in use for centuries, and his great clock involved no new technology or application, but was rather simply packaged differently. He did, however invent a much improved moldboard for plows, just as the steel plow was rendering the need for a moldboard irrelevant.
http://www.monticello.org/jefferson/dayinlife/vegetable/dig.html
Helen Keller did not want to be remembered for having overcome blindness; she wished for her activism as a Socialist and Progressive to be her legacy. She rejected racism, chauvinism, and unbridled capitalism, running afoul of many in the government, to include President Woodrow Wilson. http://www.answers.com/topic/helen-keller
America did not win the Second World War; the Soviet Union was rolling up both the Germans and the Japanese on the ground by the end of 1944, long before D-Day and the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In fact, it is believed by many historians that the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were intended to close the war out quickly thereby preventing the planned Soviet invasion of Japanese-held China.
The Cold War did not develop as a result of Soviet aggression during the 1950’s. The roots of the Cold War and the associated Russo-American tension and competition go back to the establishment of the Soviet Union and American ideological imperialist interference with the Bolshevik Revolution. Under Woodrow Wilson, American expeditions were sent to invade Russia and assist the “whites” in their counter-revolution against the “reds”. Lenin, Stalin, and Khrushchev were all historically justified in fearing and preparing against suspected U.S. interference and aggression.
Woodrow Wilson’s imperialist policies also served to expand communism in the Americas. Seeing the carnage wrought by US interference in other lands, many countries in Latin and South America sought a different route and chose socialism and/or communism in lieu of the imperialist American-style “democracy”. All too often in recent American history, the spreading of “democracy” resulted in violence and dictated totalitarianism.
Native Americans were not primitive nomadic hunter/gatherers. The native peoples of America lived in villages and towns. They were mostly agriculturalists who hunted managed game areas to supplement farm produce. The image of the wandering band following game and season comes as a direct result of white encroachment of native lands, destruction of game, and razing of their homes, sending the American native into an involuntary and unnatural state of transience.
America did not become a definitively and officially “Christian” nation until the 20th Century. “In God We Trust” first appeared regularly on US currency and coins during the communist scares post World Wars. The Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights of the United States make little mention of any “god”, instead relying on the term “creator”, to indicate a decidedly ambiguous reference to whatever power, supernatural or natural, by which we came to be. Only in the second half of the 20th Century has the religious (read Christian) right come into vogue claiming false origins for this country as they do for all existence. The primary sources for the philosophy of the Founding Fathers came from the Iroquois Confederation (Native American) and the Enlightenment Humanist schools.
The American motto “In God We Trust”, now appearing on all units of currency, was adopted during the Civil War for coins, first appearing on the two-cent coin in 1864. However, by 1883, the motto had been dropped and did not re-appear until 1907. It was not until 1938 that the motto was standardized for all coins. The motto’s inclusion on paper currency did not occur until 1957. As the official motto of the U.S., “In God We Trust” usurped “E Pluribus Unum” in 1956, as the latter had not been officially adopted by act of Congress and the U.S. was seeking to demonstrate its difference and superiority to the communists during the fervent period of “red scare” of the 1950’s.
The Pledge of Allegiance, with its alienating phrase “One nation, under God…,” likewise was a by-product of “red scare”, making its official, completed form debut in 1954. The Pledge had been around since Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, but the words “under God” were added much later. Many versions of the Pledge circulated post Civil War, but the religious reference, deliberately Christian, appeared first only in 1951, in a version adopted by the Knights of Columbus.
The American Civil War was not fought for “states’ rights” as many Southern revisionists have attempted to claim for the past century. In fact, South Carolina, the first state to declare secession, railed in its declaration against states’ rights and the Northern practice of ignoring the Fugitive Slave Act. South Carolina’s declaration also referenced the idea that the North had come to view slavery as sinful. The Civil War started, in large part, over the Northern states’ refusal to fund activities by law enforcement designed to apprehend and return escaped slaves. The South was attempting to force federal allowance of the expansion of slavery during the years immediately preceding the Civil War. As the Fugitive Slave Act was federal law and the South was attempting to impose federal control over Northern states’ rights in budgeting their own law enforcement, the long popular revisionist view is a provable lie. In his second Inaugural Address, Lincoln said that the Civil War had come about as a consequence of slavery.
The South was not alone in utilizing slavery. The North also kept slaves. The difference was that the North did not rely predominately upon slave farm labor. Most slaves in the North were kept as household or artisanal servants for running errands and handling chores. This resulted in a much lower incidence of slavery for the North. Also, by 1820, most of the Northern states had rejected slavery outright and had joined the remainder of the world in the progressive act of abolition. By 1850, the difference between the “free” North and the enslaved South was apparent to any observer.
That Americans widely believe other versions of history comes from the inaccurate depiction and treatment of the subject in public primary and secondary schools. Most American textbooks portray the US in a positive light and ignore or gloss over the uncomfortable aspects of American history. Then too, most history teachers in American public schools are educated as teachers first and historians a very distant second. However, this phenomenon is not unique to America. During the era of the Soviet Union, schoolchildren were taught that America started nuclear proliferation with the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Soviet instruction ignored the American Pacific War and taught the bombings as unprovoked experiments with the new weapon.
19 August 2008
The Christian Right is Wrong
As a former Republican, fundamentalist, born-again evangelical Christian, I feel compelled to inform my readership as to why, in this environment, voting religion as opposed to politics is wrong. The failing comes from the view of the Christian right that anything contrary to their personal interpretation of the Bible (itself a very disputable document) is bad for the country and against God’s will, as well as the intention of the framers of the Constitution. This view, widely believed, is based upon falsehood, bad teaching, and outright deception in the presentation of scripture, history, and American origins. The purpose of the exposition of these false viewpoints is obviously to advance the lately conceived agenda of a hidden power structure that seeks to retain, consolidate, and expand itself.
In many ways, the American Christian Right is philosophically similar to the radical fundamentalist Islamic jihadists. Both groups contend that any perspective different from their own is anathema in the eyes of God. Both groups seek to overthrow established governments and principles to be replaced by theocracy wherein the guiding work for all law is to be found in religious texts. Both groups believe that their way leads to salvation and only their people are true followers, and only their people are entitled to rule. Both are avid subscribers to the uninformed anachronistic thinking behind the philosophies of divine right and manifest destiny.
The Christian Right attempts to make the false claim that the United States is a Christian country. While that may be true demographically, it is not true legally. In all of the federal documents encompassing the broad body of law that provided the framework for the creation of this union, God is barely mentioned, a Christian god not at all, and the establishment of such a Christian nation is specifically prohibited. The Declaration of Independence refers to “their Creator” and “Nature’s God”; neither term can be, even out of context, rationally thought to intend the god of the Christians. The other documents, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, make no reference to a God of any description. In fact, the First Amendment specifically prohibits exactly what the Christian Right is attempting to accomplish. That there should be no establishment of religion by government infers also the inverse proposition that there should be no establishment of government by religion. Yet, that is specifically what the Christian Right is attempting to do. In attempting to legislate morality to a particular religious standard, the Christian Right is establishing a state religion.
The Christian Right evinces a desire to impose, in a most un-American fashion, its minority views (while most of America shares theological ground, as Christians, with the CR, only about 10-15% agree politically) upon the majority of Americans, without regard to culture or theology. This may be due to the fact that the Christian Right is intellectually little more than an evolution of the same mindset that saw slavery, native dislocation and extermination as positives. All of these were, in their time, viewed as justified actions by people who were bringing the “Word” to America and its peoples. To the Christian Right, the 19th Century idea that the law should only favor the Christian believer (the new “chosen people”) and allow non-believers and non-Christians to be treated as infidels and apostates is an appropriate philosophy of governance.
The Christian Right sees America as a geo-theo-political entity devoid of any ideal other than the advancement of Christianity and democracy. However, their democratic ideals are tainted; they espouse ideas of freedom and liberty while seeking imposition and intolerance. They seek to impose a monolithic morality conceived upon a particular, and very flawed, interpretation of religious text. They seek to do this as a minority actor on the American political stage and have no problem with breaking the commandment against false witness to see their ends met. Jesus taught a personal salvation and grace, he taught that his followers should be charitable to others, especially one another, but never did the Master instruct, nor is it anywhere present in scripture that it was a Christian duty to enforce their beliefs or moral standards upon others. The calling to Christ’s service is a personal event, and the relationship a personal one. Christ said to render unto Caesar what is his, but the Christian right seeks to force others to render unto God what is Caesar’s; the attempt to do so by the Christian Right is heresy.
It should be fairly obvious to anyone who pays attention to the news, or the evangelical broadcasts, many of which are sponsored by the Christian Right, that there is much money to be made in Christian evangelism. The message of salvation sells very well. As too does the condemnation of those who, by choice, acculturation, or biology, are different. The Christian Right is one of the largest among many others that seek to have their interests advanced through political manipulation, I mean contribution.
The Christian Right does not actually show any real concern for the issues facing voters in elections. While they may show strength in being tough on crime and standing for a “united” America, who doesn’t make those claims? The Christian Right does not show genuine concern for the economy or the environment, and seems to be quite pleased with the current criminal U.S. presidential administration. This makes one wonder how much they have profited off the fear- and war-mongering. Many of the Christian Right’s leaders are heavily invested in defense and oil, and not simply because they are profitable ventures.
Voting on religion is voting against freedom, it is voting against progress, it is voting for a monolithic, monotheistic, homogenized, military-industrial imperialist nation, wherein civil rights are ignored, and Jesus takes a backseat to greed.
In many ways, the American Christian Right is philosophically similar to the radical fundamentalist Islamic jihadists. Both groups contend that any perspective different from their own is anathema in the eyes of God. Both groups seek to overthrow established governments and principles to be replaced by theocracy wherein the guiding work for all law is to be found in religious texts. Both groups believe that their way leads to salvation and only their people are true followers, and only their people are entitled to rule. Both are avid subscribers to the uninformed anachronistic thinking behind the philosophies of divine right and manifest destiny.
The Christian Right attempts to make the false claim that the United States is a Christian country. While that may be true demographically, it is not true legally. In all of the federal documents encompassing the broad body of law that provided the framework for the creation of this union, God is barely mentioned, a Christian god not at all, and the establishment of such a Christian nation is specifically prohibited. The Declaration of Independence refers to “their Creator” and “Nature’s God”; neither term can be, even out of context, rationally thought to intend the god of the Christians. The other documents, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, make no reference to a God of any description. In fact, the First Amendment specifically prohibits exactly what the Christian Right is attempting to accomplish. That there should be no establishment of religion by government infers also the inverse proposition that there should be no establishment of government by religion. Yet, that is specifically what the Christian Right is attempting to do. In attempting to legislate morality to a particular religious standard, the Christian Right is establishing a state religion.
The Christian Right evinces a desire to impose, in a most un-American fashion, its minority views (while most of America shares theological ground, as Christians, with the CR, only about 10-15% agree politically) upon the majority of Americans, without regard to culture or theology. This may be due to the fact that the Christian Right is intellectually little more than an evolution of the same mindset that saw slavery, native dislocation and extermination as positives. All of these were, in their time, viewed as justified actions by people who were bringing the “Word” to America and its peoples. To the Christian Right, the 19th Century idea that the law should only favor the Christian believer (the new “chosen people”) and allow non-believers and non-Christians to be treated as infidels and apostates is an appropriate philosophy of governance.
The Christian Right sees America as a geo-theo-political entity devoid of any ideal other than the advancement of Christianity and democracy. However, their democratic ideals are tainted; they espouse ideas of freedom and liberty while seeking imposition and intolerance. They seek to impose a monolithic morality conceived upon a particular, and very flawed, interpretation of religious text. They seek to do this as a minority actor on the American political stage and have no problem with breaking the commandment against false witness to see their ends met. Jesus taught a personal salvation and grace, he taught that his followers should be charitable to others, especially one another, but never did the Master instruct, nor is it anywhere present in scripture that it was a Christian duty to enforce their beliefs or moral standards upon others. The calling to Christ’s service is a personal event, and the relationship a personal one. Christ said to render unto Caesar what is his, but the Christian right seeks to force others to render unto God what is Caesar’s; the attempt to do so by the Christian Right is heresy.
It should be fairly obvious to anyone who pays attention to the news, or the evangelical broadcasts, many of which are sponsored by the Christian Right, that there is much money to be made in Christian evangelism. The message of salvation sells very well. As too does the condemnation of those who, by choice, acculturation, or biology, are different. The Christian Right is one of the largest among many others that seek to have their interests advanced through political manipulation, I mean contribution.
The Christian Right does not actually show any real concern for the issues facing voters in elections. While they may show strength in being tough on crime and standing for a “united” America, who doesn’t make those claims? The Christian Right does not show genuine concern for the economy or the environment, and seems to be quite pleased with the current criminal U.S. presidential administration. This makes one wonder how much they have profited off the fear- and war-mongering. Many of the Christian Right’s leaders are heavily invested in defense and oil, and not simply because they are profitable ventures.
Voting on religion is voting against freedom, it is voting against progress, it is voting for a monolithic, monotheistic, homogenized, military-industrial imperialist nation, wherein civil rights are ignored, and Jesus takes a backseat to greed.
18 August 2008
The Legacy of George W. Bush’s Presidency
As I look about today, I find myself faced with so many scary and miserable situations and potentialities. From Zimbabwe to Guantanamo, this President has done more to undermine the security, safety, stability, and successes of the United States and the Free World than any anti-American state, terrorist, or organization could have planned or hoped for.
Presidential hopeful John McCain says that in the 21st Century nations don’t attack other nations, while his apparent recently adopted mentor, the President, warns Russia to stop bullying. I fail to see how anyone could miss the hypocrisy here. The truth is that this administration has made it possible for autocrats and dictators everywhere to do as they wish and to justify it by the precedent and example of the United States. The cyclone, humanitarian, political crisis in Myanmar, the political turmoil of Zimbabwe, Russia’s attack on Georgia; all of these and more point to the Bush Administration’s weakening of America’s geo-political strength and position. Everyone else has figured it out: we are stretched too thinly to respond, so, everyone else is prepared to flex their muscles. Thanks to GW and company, they can, and will.
Concentrating troops on the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and the resultant obligation of occupation distracted the U.S. from the legitimate War on Terror. If the administration of George Bush had bothered with the facts instead of an undisciplined, ill-planned oil grab, the object of the world’s attention, Osama bin-Laden would now be incarcerated or dead. In overreaching, George Bush has missed every mark. Iraq is still in turmoil and unstable, Al Qaida and bin-Laden are still free and alive and very much a potential threat while Iran has ascended to Middle East power player. Troop obligations in the Middle East have made military responsiveness a talking point without purpose.
Meanwhile, thanks to Republican laissez-faire economics and encouragement of the greed of their corporate sponsors, the American economy has tanked, dragging the world, to a lesser extent, with it. Although the world economy has moved from absolute American dependence, the American economy is still large enough to impact globally. Americans at the middle class and lower have seen their tax rebates devoured by corporate and government sponsored inflation in fuel and food, the two absolute essentials for day-to-day living. A greater percentage of Americans now live in poverty than at any time since the Great Depression, and many more are daily falling below the line in practical terms.
Still, George Bush’s administration wants to make additional in-roads against progress, proposing to expand the definition of abortion to include non-barrier contraception and seeking to scale back protections for wildlife and wilderness areas. Can this Administration not see that it has done enough damage?
Presidential hopeful John McCain says that in the 21st Century nations don’t attack other nations, while his apparent recently adopted mentor, the President, warns Russia to stop bullying. I fail to see how anyone could miss the hypocrisy here. The truth is that this administration has made it possible for autocrats and dictators everywhere to do as they wish and to justify it by the precedent and example of the United States. The cyclone, humanitarian, political crisis in Myanmar, the political turmoil of Zimbabwe, Russia’s attack on Georgia; all of these and more point to the Bush Administration’s weakening of America’s geo-political strength and position. Everyone else has figured it out: we are stretched too thinly to respond, so, everyone else is prepared to flex their muscles. Thanks to GW and company, they can, and will.
Concentrating troops on the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and the resultant obligation of occupation distracted the U.S. from the legitimate War on Terror. If the administration of George Bush had bothered with the facts instead of an undisciplined, ill-planned oil grab, the object of the world’s attention, Osama bin-Laden would now be incarcerated or dead. In overreaching, George Bush has missed every mark. Iraq is still in turmoil and unstable, Al Qaida and bin-Laden are still free and alive and very much a potential threat while Iran has ascended to Middle East power player. Troop obligations in the Middle East have made military responsiveness a talking point without purpose.
Meanwhile, thanks to Republican laissez-faire economics and encouragement of the greed of their corporate sponsors, the American economy has tanked, dragging the world, to a lesser extent, with it. Although the world economy has moved from absolute American dependence, the American economy is still large enough to impact globally. Americans at the middle class and lower have seen their tax rebates devoured by corporate and government sponsored inflation in fuel and food, the two absolute essentials for day-to-day living. A greater percentage of Americans now live in poverty than at any time since the Great Depression, and many more are daily falling below the line in practical terms.
Still, George Bush’s administration wants to make additional in-roads against progress, proposing to expand the definition of abortion to include non-barrier contraception and seeking to scale back protections for wildlife and wilderness areas. Can this Administration not see that it has done enough damage?
15 August 2008
Update/ Correction/Retraction on earlier post: Georgetown Garbage Collection Fiasco
I spoke with Georgetown City Council members and Mayor Karen Tingle-Sames this week and learned that the blog I posted on Georgetown garbage collection was based on less than accurate information. Some of this information came from residents while other parts came from garbage collectors themselves. And as anyone knows, front porch and workplace gossip only points in the direction of truth; it rarely points to the truth, and one can get lost along the way. Unfortunately, I jumped to conclusions and wrote as though the information I used was fact, without doing the work necessary for confirmation.
All of this comes from discussions and observations not properly vetted. The issue of reducing the crew size was a matter of discussion and was tried on a limited basis, but the pilot was not implemented according to plan, which resulted in the observed collection delays. For overstating the case, I owe apologies to the Georgetown Council and Mayor as well as the city government.
There are many ideas being floated about in an attempt to balance the budget of Georgetown. In my discussions with council members and the mayor, I learned that much of what I presented herein was in consideration, although some items mentioned had not been. Overall, Georgetown has a plan, and that plan is being assessed and adjusted as the process unfolds. The plan, as I received it from the mayor, involves upgrading all workers to drivers, with rotating responsibilities and commensurate pay increases. The plan includes a reassessment of routes to maximize efficiency and reduce fuel consumption and the acquisition of new and improvement of current equipment. The plan is designed to reduce operating costs while permitting for an expected January 2008 curbside recycling startup. The recycling plan is still in development, although its initial costs have already been introduced in garbage service billing.
Although there is much work yet to be done, the situation with Georgetown garbage collection is nowhere near as dire as I had claimed in the original post, which I have included below.
Georgetown Garbage Collection Fiasco
Georgetown cut city garbage collection truck crews by a third, eliminating one of two men per truck who actually picked up garbage from the curb. The effect was to cut the workforce, in terms of amount of physical labor to remove garbage from curb to truck, in half. The driver doesn’t determine how long a route takes; the men on the ground do. The new labor arrangement has caused fully predictable delays in the garbage pick up for many, if not all, residents of Georgetown. Due to the delays, it has been reported that garbage crews were threatened with replacement by private companies if the current crews could not keep up with the schedule.
The cutting of the garbage crews has been blamed upon the necessity to cut costs and save taxpayer dollars. If this labor reduction is meant to offset the rising costs of fuel for the city, it is entirely wrongheaded and shows a lack of fiscal understanding on the part of the city. If the issue is fuel costs, it seems a more reasonable and responsible approach would be to cut fuel consumption rather than labor. By cutting labor, the city has forced the collection process to slow, raising fuel consumption by effectively doubling the amount of time trucks are on the road. The net effect of this will be reflected in increased fuel costs for garbage collection. A saner approach would have been to consolidate routes so that there is less travel in fewer trips from garage to routes. Putting five days’ routes into four days would have increased the daily travel and work load by 25% while reducing engine running time at idle. This would have saved on fuel without hurting the garbage collectors and the fuel expenses. Then again, if the city really wanted to save labor costs in its garbage collection, why not, as has been done successfully in other communities, use the labor of inmates in the county jail?
The threat to privatize brings up interesting points. Why would the city adopt a cost saving plan that hurts employees and reduces service to residents without having positive impact on the true culprit, fuel costs? Why would the city not directly address the real issue by consolidating routes to reduce non-essential travel and idle time? Why would the city, having doubled the garbage collectors’ labor requirement, threaten them with privatization when they expectably fail to maintain the original schedule?
Privatization will not save money for the residents. The only way it can save money for the city is if the private company handles billing itself and gives the city a royalty or permit fee. If this is the case, and it usually is when municipal waste management is privatized, then residents’ bills will go up while the city can plausibly deny responsibility and still collect “fees”. All of this is an apparent effort by the city government to dupe its residents into paying more for services and being able to claim deniability.
All of this taken into account, it seems that perhaps the city government has set about creating the circumstances that will "force" privatization. As the city's decisions stand now, the city has made it nigh on impossible for acceptable garbage collection service to take place barring the introduction of a private company. The questions then turn to, who in the city government has interests with private waste management or who stands to profit from this arrangement through some unethical, if not outright illegal, kickback scheme? Then again, it seems that the money has been already paid or promised. The interest of the city government is supposed to be the city and its residents; the actions taken and threatened thus far in Georgetown address neither. Therefore, the city government of Georgetown, KY is either incredibly inept or.., well I’ll leave the reader to fill in that blank.
All of this comes from discussions and observations not properly vetted. The issue of reducing the crew size was a matter of discussion and was tried on a limited basis, but the pilot was not implemented according to plan, which resulted in the observed collection delays. For overstating the case, I owe apologies to the Georgetown Council and Mayor as well as the city government.
There are many ideas being floated about in an attempt to balance the budget of Georgetown. In my discussions with council members and the mayor, I learned that much of what I presented herein was in consideration, although some items mentioned had not been. Overall, Georgetown has a plan, and that plan is being assessed and adjusted as the process unfolds. The plan, as I received it from the mayor, involves upgrading all workers to drivers, with rotating responsibilities and commensurate pay increases. The plan includes a reassessment of routes to maximize efficiency and reduce fuel consumption and the acquisition of new and improvement of current equipment. The plan is designed to reduce operating costs while permitting for an expected January 2008 curbside recycling startup. The recycling plan is still in development, although its initial costs have already been introduced in garbage service billing.
Although there is much work yet to be done, the situation with Georgetown garbage collection is nowhere near as dire as I had claimed in the original post, which I have included below.
Georgetown Garbage Collection Fiasco
Georgetown cut city garbage collection truck crews by a third, eliminating one of two men per truck who actually picked up garbage from the curb. The effect was to cut the workforce, in terms of amount of physical labor to remove garbage from curb to truck, in half. The driver doesn’t determine how long a route takes; the men on the ground do. The new labor arrangement has caused fully predictable delays in the garbage pick up for many, if not all, residents of Georgetown. Due to the delays, it has been reported that garbage crews were threatened with replacement by private companies if the current crews could not keep up with the schedule.
The cutting of the garbage crews has been blamed upon the necessity to cut costs and save taxpayer dollars. If this labor reduction is meant to offset the rising costs of fuel for the city, it is entirely wrongheaded and shows a lack of fiscal understanding on the part of the city. If the issue is fuel costs, it seems a more reasonable and responsible approach would be to cut fuel consumption rather than labor. By cutting labor, the city has forced the collection process to slow, raising fuel consumption by effectively doubling the amount of time trucks are on the road. The net effect of this will be reflected in increased fuel costs for garbage collection. A saner approach would have been to consolidate routes so that there is less travel in fewer trips from garage to routes. Putting five days’ routes into four days would have increased the daily travel and work load by 25% while reducing engine running time at idle. This would have saved on fuel without hurting the garbage collectors and the fuel expenses. Then again, if the city really wanted to save labor costs in its garbage collection, why not, as has been done successfully in other communities, use the labor of inmates in the county jail?
The threat to privatize brings up interesting points. Why would the city adopt a cost saving plan that hurts employees and reduces service to residents without having positive impact on the true culprit, fuel costs? Why would the city not directly address the real issue by consolidating routes to reduce non-essential travel and idle time? Why would the city, having doubled the garbage collectors’ labor requirement, threaten them with privatization when they expectably fail to maintain the original schedule?
Privatization will not save money for the residents. The only way it can save money for the city is if the private company handles billing itself and gives the city a royalty or permit fee. If this is the case, and it usually is when municipal waste management is privatized, then residents’ bills will go up while the city can plausibly deny responsibility and still collect “fees”. All of this is an apparent effort by the city government to dupe its residents into paying more for services and being able to claim deniability.
All of this taken into account, it seems that perhaps the city government has set about creating the circumstances that will "force" privatization. As the city's decisions stand now, the city has made it nigh on impossible for acceptable garbage collection service to take place barring the introduction of a private company. The questions then turn to, who in the city government has interests with private waste management or who stands to profit from this arrangement through some unethical, if not outright illegal, kickback scheme? Then again, it seems that the money has been already paid or promised. The interest of the city government is supposed to be the city and its residents; the actions taken and threatened thus far in Georgetown address neither. Therefore, the city government of Georgetown, KY is either incredibly inept or.., well I’ll leave the reader to fill in that blank.
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