Boehner's Suit

I survived the midnight fireworks and the crowds over the weekend. I love my sleep, but I love this nation more. I love celebrating our Declaration of Independence from the rule of a King who had no sympathy for minority views and no tolerance for folks of different mindsets. For George, it was his way or the highway, so we took the highway and look at the nation we built!

But, I just read Speaker of the House Boehner’s rationale for suing President Obama. Wow. Let me get this straight: the President proposes Congressional action, the Senate approves, and the House does not. The President then acts using Executive Authority. The House single handedly has shut down the government and threatened to do so multiple times, demanded a cut in spending in a time of recession, fought raising taxes on millionaires, blocked immigration reform, fought to undo the first national health care reform ever, and now the Speaker wants to sue the President? It appears to me that the dominant party in the House is convinced the government can’t do anything right, they got elected, and then set about proving their theory is correct. I am aghast.

I remember when George Bush went on national TV and told Saddam Hussein to get out of Iraq in 48 hours or we were coming in. That’s right. The US told a foreign leader in another country to abandon his position or face war. Again, I was aghast. At a Rotary Club meeting I expressed my concern about an American preemptive strike on a sovereign nation and I was told in no uncertain terms that my position was unpatriotic, un-American, and damn near treasonous. This same group supports suing the President of the United States now? Come on. Grow up.

 I get it that Boehner wishes he and his fellow Republicans could control the country. He must hate that the President and the Senate continue to find ways to implement action while the House continues to find ways to be obstructed. But to have the Speaker of the House announce a suit against the President of the United States because Boehner has not had the power to totally rule the United States of American, and to do so on the 4th of July weekend, is the most un-American act by an elected official since McCarthy and Nixon. If Boehner does not understand politics and the American way he should resign.

Or, If Boehner’s logic makes sense, then the US Senate should sue him and the US House for usurping the power of the Senate and the President. Boehner would have no grounds to oppose such a suit. It would be his own public rationale for suing the President that is a clear admission of culpability.

Yep, the Senate should sue Boehner. In this nation it may be time for a new suit to help inform Boehner of what the USA is really all about.

There. This little old lady is now happy having celebrated her right to express her opinion. Hope Boehner doesn’t sue me. Happy Independence Day!

Posts, Not Postal

What shall I say on this my 125^th post?  My posting frequency has declined as one might suspect of an 86 year old woman.  My passion has not.  Now as ever I love this nation, I love our civil liberties, I view democracy as so much more important than commerce, fellow humans more important than corporations, and public schools as the bastion of this democracy.  Ah yes, I am an endangered species: an Anglo Texas female liberal.  I rage against the forces that would undue our rights for the sake of profit or their own personal belief systems, and I rant against the forces that would attack public education because those forces resent taxes and hate the notion of educating all kids.  I shall not stop that raging and those rants.  I do not believe I am crazy, though that may be the major attribute of crazy people. 

And yet I grow weary of our failure to learn: 

Election to office does not endow humans with omnipotence or expertise, and yet we allow elected non-experts to continue to craft public education policy influenced by billionaire experimenters and wealthy testing companies when those legislators have absolutely no business doing so.  Would they write the specs for asphalt or cement for Texas highways?  No, and yet they do so for public education, a much more sophisticated and complicated and important realm than highways.  (It is interesting to me that the specifications for a highway are outlined in a document published in 2004, have not changed since and was written by experts in the field.  Education specs, on the other hand, are amended every time the Legislature meets!) A highway flaw is patchable, children not so much.

The same is true of amassing a fortune.  Because a person is worth a billion dollars does not make that person worthy of writing policy in areas where they have no expertise.  Knowledge, wisdom and understanding are not income-based in a way that more money in the bank automatically increases expertise.

Civil liberties remain the most important distinction of this democracy and other governments.  There is absolutely nothing unusual on planet earth today or in all of human history for the ruling group and/or the majority to force its beliefs and will on the citizens.  The conflict in the mid-east is grounded in belief systems where religious fundamentalists insist that their belief system become the law of the land, and worse, that anyone who does not subscribe to their beliefs is pagan and punishable.  We approach that same scenario here with clear adoption of Christian beliefs supported by our government.  It is now ok to pray to a Christian God prior to public meetings of elected officials.  It is ok to discriminate against homosexuals and the same time it is heresy to say anything discriminatory about a racial group.  I do not get it.  We should have the right to believe what we choose to believe.  We should not have the right to act on those beliefs if they harm others.  The government should never imply one belief system is supported while others are not.  You may be a bigot.  You may not discriminate.  You may be anti-gay.  You may not discriminate.  Period.

When will we recognize that if everyone in this country who was eligible registered to vote and actually voted our nation would be led entirely by Democratic rather than Republican officials?  Hence the Republican effort to make voting and registering so much more difficult.

When will we recognize that if you earn less than $400,000 or so Republican policies hurt you?

When will we recognize that every time Republicans have controlled the federal elected branches and acted in ways to deregulate industry we have headed for terrible recessions as the top 1% prosper more and more?

When we will recognize that when we allow corporations and wealthy individuals to donate money to elections without limit we are allowing our government to rule us via a philosophy of wealth generation and protection, not philosophy of all men are created equal?  The rich have already won economically and seek to win even more by controlling our government.

It appears we will not learn.  Hence I feel it is my calling as a retired educator to continue to seek to teach.

I shall continue to post, to vote, to contribute to political campaigns that seek to implement the kind of government our forefathers dreamed about, not the kinds of governments they fled.

I grow weary.  My flesh is weak though my spirit is strong.  I shall take a nap and engage again in another instructional episode.  I shall maintain my passion, I shall maintain my anger and my frustration, I shall post, but I shall not become violent.  I shall post and not go postal.

Santa Hired by NSA

I confess to enjoying the TV show, “Person of Interest”.  The premise is timely: the government via a super computer is capable on monitoring all of us all the time.  The good guys find out who is at risk and intervene to save them.  It is fun.  It is action packed.  It works because we believe the good guys are in fact benevolent, they are good guys. 

What if we do not trust those who monitor us to be the good guys? 

More frightening to me is the notion that if you have nothing to hide you do not care if you are monitored.

I see myself as a “good guy”.  I am plotting nothing.  I am not funding any group who would undermine this country.  If we were attacked, I would volunteer to serve, though that may be self-deception as I doubt the armed services would need the help of a little old lady.  Regardless, I love America.  I love our freedom and our way of life.  I am good guy.

Could I survive surveillance 24/7?  No, I could not.  We are all human, we are all precious and we are all flawed.  There is not a sinless person among us.  What we do when we are totally alone and off the grid is very private, very personal.  My beliefs, my thoughts, my desires are all sacred to me and I hold them near and dear in my heart of hearts and do not want them monitored.  Whether those who monitor are good guys or bad guys does not matter to me.  I do not want to be monitored.  And, I do not believe there is a monitor who is sinless.  For the Christians who bask in fear rather than grace, such surveillance is a huge motivator assuming the Almighty like Santa does in fact monitor us all the time.

At what point are we willing to sacrifice our personal freedom to be safe from attack?  Should we be able to run a red light when there is no one around?  Not anymore, we have traffic cams.  Should we be able to send an email that remains confidential?  Should we be able to explore the world of terrorism via Google without negative consequences?  We have become a monitored society.  Sadly, as we feel more at risk we sacrifice more freedoms to ensure our safety, all the while we must believe that those who monitor us are really good guys, they understand the human condition, and will forgive us if we make a simple, non-threatening mistake.

So, the perfect person for the NSA to bring on board is Santa Claus.  There are few figures that are perceived to be as totally benevolent as Santa Claus.  And yet, he may be the largest monitor of all.  Since 1934 we have taught children to accept his monitoring.  He knows when you’ve been sleeping.  He knows when you’re awake.  He knows if you’ve been bad or good, he making a list, checking it twice, gonna find out who’s naughty or nice.  Santa is the perfect consultant for NSA.  He already has the list!

If Santa can do it, why not the NSA? 

Duh, Santa is a fictional character, that’s why. 

Scary.

Blind Spot

Ahh, the holidays are here.  I have survived the little masked extortionists at the front door and celebrated our national gluttony day with family.  I prefer Thanksgiving.  Stuffed turkeys are the precursors to lit trees.  My Thanksgiving was good, surrounded by family and their legal and significant others.  There is always some tension in the air as young men must posture regarding football, hunting, and manliness in general, and the women must practice superficial niceties while waltzing around each other in the kitchen checking out each other’s recipes and marking their territory.  Children romp oblivious to the adult games, and infants wail seeking to draw their parents in.  I have grown too old to engage in these silly competitions and for the most part am amused watching in-laws and out-laws merging holiday traditions and two sets of expectations regarding dressing and giblet gravy.  But the food was wonderful!  After eating way too much I was content to adjourn to the couch, settle in as the matriarch to watch football, digest, and politely nap.

The nap was not meant to be.  A young man in his early 50’s sat near me and engaged an older gentleman in his mid 60’s regarding the state of things in America.  The young man owns his own business, has property in Texas and California, drives a Mercedes, and is very wealthy.  (He has never married and my wish for him is that he could commit to another in the ways he has committed to his political perspective.)  The older man is a petroleum engineer working for a large oil company, nearing retirement and also very wealthy, trophy wife, groomed and affluent children and grandchildren.  Fortunately I am not directly related to either.  They sat together to lambast all things Democrat, liberal and Obama.  My blood pressure rose as I listened to them share lies and shared perspectives.  Neither was interested in thinking about the issues.  They were much more interested in proclaiming truths a la Cruz and Limbaugh, in which there are few truths at all.  As they told each other the same lies they confirmed for each other that such lies must be true.  I opted to listen, eyes shut, to see if I could discern where they went astray.  Neither of these men is stupid.  After about 30 minutes of mutually reinforcing demagoguery I finally understood.  Yes, I was mad enough to kick the cat, but I had learned.

“When will they learn the government can’t do everything!” was the final shot across the bow, expressed by the younger and enthusiastically endorsed by the elder.  I was ready to vent my spleen when the conversation quickly morphed to football.  I took a deep breath and attempted to calm down.  As I did so, I realized I had just been granted an epiphany for which I remain ever so thankful.

The “they” in this final statement clearly refers to liberals, Democrats and the like.  I find it interesting that I have never seen nor read any liberal proposal for the government of the US to do “everything”.  That would be foolish.  The government is never likely to manufacture automobiles, develop a retail chain store, or open a fast food restaurant.  Virtually everything that is produced and sold in our market economy is done so by the private sector via mom and pop operations, partnerships and corporations.  In this I agree with my mislead friends, the government cannot do everything, nor should it, nor does anyone propose that it do so, even staunch liberals such as me.  So why do “we”, the onerous “they,” propose that the government do anything at all?

The market has been a wonderful structure for generating jobs and goods and innovations and wealth, etc., etc.  The market, however, is not moral.  It has a bottom line.  The goal in the market is to make money for the owners of the operation.  Clearly, if the owners are making less money they will cut their employees, so the goal is not employment.  Clearly if the owners can produce their product for less by manufacturing it oversees they will do so, so the goal is not patriotism.  Clearly if the owners can make more money by ignoring health risks they will do so, so the goal is not the health and well being of their employees.  The goal is making money for the owners.  If there is a demand for goods the market will provide a producer for that good, whether we perceive the good to be moral or not.  That is why we have large fire arms manufacturers and drug dealers, prostitutes and pornography.  There is a demand, the market produces the goods.  The market looks only at the profit from production, not the morality of the production.  The debacle of 1929 and 2008 were both symptomatic of an unfettered market run amuck. 

What should we as a nation do when we discover that the market is generating goods and services that we deem immoral or unhealthy?  The owners will not change production because to do so will reduce profits.  Profit is the raison d’être.  Upton Sinclair pointed out that the meat packing industry was making a lot of money but they were doing so with no regard for the health of the consumer.  Therefore, the government intervened.  That is why we have regulatory agencies to oversee the production of the food we eat.  It would be more profitable for the producers of food to not worry about E. coli and other diseases.  The same is true in restaurants.  The same is true with the water we drink.  The same is true with the drugs we take.  The same is true regarding the working conditions in our economy.  The same is true regarding the dependability of the goods we buy.  The same is true regarding the pollutants we release in our atmosphere.  On and on and on “we” have turned to the government to overlay a moral principle on the market economy when people are at risk.  Yes, that is government intervention in the market.  But it has occurred because as a people we have learned that the market is not moral.  Producers will not raise their costs and reduce their profit because it is moral.  When the government intervenes with a regulation it levels the playing field.  All producers must comply with the moral requirement, so no one producer suffers the cost of going broke acting on moral grounds.  To put it another way, the government does what it does because of the failure of the market economy to have a conscience. 

So, what about health care?  Insurance companies will clearly make more money if they can refuse to cover people based on pre-existing conditions.  Insurance companies will clearly make more money if they only insure those who can afford the insurance and those who are healthy.  As a nation, should we allow the insurance companies, and the employers who select them, to determine who can have insurance and who receives appropriate medical care?  The answer for years has been yes, we should allow the market to determine such things.  Now, we look at the data and the market solution has been deemed by many to be immoral. Only some people get insurance.  Those who can get insurance pay more if they are more at risk, or in other words, the more you need insurance the less likely you are to get it and if you do the more it will cost.  Is that what we as a nation want:  Big bucks for insurance companies while millions of Americans go without?  I find that immoral.  I wonder and worry about the folks who do not.  I suspect they all have insurance and/or own stock in insurance companies.  Again, the government has stepped in only because the market has failed to do the moral thing. 

The conservative flaw is the assumption that the market functions better than the government on moral issues.  It clearly does not; it clearly has not.  As I look at the ways in which the market selected employees prior to the legislative end of discrimination and the required equal employment opportunities, and the rise of women in the ranks of CEO’s it is clear the market would never address these issues.  As I look at the number of hungry and mistreated children it is clear that the market would never address these issues.  As I look at the health risks in manufacturing it is clear the market would never address the issue.  As I look at the wages paid and overtime pay it is clear the market would never address these issues.  In fact, the market has a stellar record of ignoring all things moral for the sake of making money.  To do otherwise would end the production in a competitive setting.  (You may care to look at my earlier posts regarding competition.)

I know a lot of liberals, few in Texas.  I do not know a single one who awakes each day seeking new ways to intervene in the market for the sake of government usurpation of production.  That is pure folly.  I do see and I do experience an ongoing exasperation with the private sector argument that what is good for business is good for the USA.  We have heard that before and it has not worked, or at least it has not worked for anyone other than the owners of production who have grown very rich.  I am a liberal because of my belief system, my sense of moral right and wrong.  I have a hard time understanding the conservative argument that allowing the market to freely operate is in our best interest.  We keep trying that and the market keeps spitting in our collective faces. 

The government only intervenes when the market fails.  Period.  It does not intervene for reasons other than the protection and promotion of the citizens of this country.  And when the market crashes, and major companies are on the verge of failing, they change their tune very quickly and turn to the government for support.  Amazing.

The conservative blind spot is an honest appraisal of the market, its strengths and weaknesses, and honest support when the government should intervene.  If they argue that it should not, not ever, then I see them as immoral, worshiping the profit god.  If they drink water from the tap, buy meat at the grocery store, take medications, drive on highways, fly on planes, talk on cell phones, drop letters in the mail, purchase new vehicles, take a deep breath of air, or ever have to go to the emergency room to be treated by doctors and nurses then they should celebrate and support the role of government as watchdog, protector, monitor and insurer of moral practices more than profit. 

Worse, if the conservatives take a purely government function like education and argue that it will be improved if it functioned more like the market then my knickers really are in a twist.  When it comes to the education of our children why would we abandon a moral motivation for an immoral one?

Why is that so hard to see?  Must be in a blind spot.

I close my eyes to nap, but never to injustice.

Awake or Asleep?

Have you noticed that:

People who oppose the Affordable Care Act already have health insurance?  Congress has health insurance paid for by tax dollars?

People who support the trickle down economic theory (or supply side, or whatever you want to call it) tend to either have money to trickle down but don’t want to, or have been convinced to support that theory by the rich?

When fundamental Christians embrace conservative political philosophy their mantra changes from “to whom much is given, much is required,” to “for whom much is earned, little shall be taxed”?

People who pray, “Thank you, Lord for our nation where we are free to worship and call you Lord,” also tend to support codifying their particular religious values in law?

The very churches who bask in the benefits of separation of church and state promote political perspectives from the pulpit and argue to implement their religious beliefs into law?

The national debt in January of 2009 when Obama was inaugurated, the debt he inherited from Bush, was $10.6 trillion and no one said a word?  Today it is $16.8 trillion and conservatives are screaming.

If every Latino, Black and poor person in Texas actually registered to vote and did so Texas would be a state dominated by the Democrat Party.  Republicans want to restrict voter rights?

The candidates that spend the most money in the campaign tend to get elected? Since the conservative Supreme Court now allows corporations to donate political money in unlimited amounts that the number of conservatives elected to office has increased?

The schools that consistently have high student outcomes on high stakes standardized tests are the schools with the wealthiest kids and the schools with the highest expenditures per kid?  Perhaps that is why conservatives want to take more money away from public schools, especially poor schools, rather than put more money into schools that need it the most.

The percentage of Americans who are millionaires is 1%.  The percentage of Congressmen who are millionaires is 50%?

Those who earn the most money set about structuring the rules to maintain their wealth?

Despite the evidence across the globe that the restriction of gun ownership reduces violence and death, and despite the continued occurrence of malcontents and disturbed folks using weapons to kill innocent people, we continue to argue that owning a gun is a right that should not be limited?

The number of poor children in Texas is escalating and the number of businesses moving here is escalating; and at the same time the state is cutting benefits to the poor kids and offering more benefits to businesses moving here?

If a patient dies it is not the doctor’s fault, if a tooth must be pulled it is not the dentist’s fault, if a lawyer loses a case it is not the lawyer’s fault, but if a kid fails to learn it is the teacher’s fault, or the principal’s fault, or the superintendent’s fault?

Many educators support conservative philosophies despite the fact they are government employees paid by tax dollars and hired to promote the learning of all kids?

It is not unique on this planet for a small ruling class to accumulate wealth and refuse to share it with others less fortunate?  It is unique on this planet to argue that all people are created equal and that all people have certain inalienable rights.

Those who proudly stand on the corner and promote the USA are the first to persecute liberals, atheists, homosexuals and anyone who thinks differently from them in direct contradiction to what makes this nation unique?

To identify these simple truths is risky in the current political climate in Texas?

If you haven’t noticed the above then go back to sleep. 

If you have noticed and live in Texas then I believe you are awake.  Hang in there.  I believe the day will come when our government cannot be bought and we will return to the basic principles that made us great.

And for that belief I am truly thankful. 

 

Happy Thanksgiving!