This applies to almost all politicians-just look at the white house for starters- he's ruining the country (at least he got a good start before the last election) so what [PA Gov.] Corbett does [with "fracking"] is minor to that. But that does not condone what either party is doing.
Dear Brother,
So, what do we do? What’s the shake out? Obama does not “do” what we like – not for me, not for you, at polar opposites. – so let’s poison our water supply with the zillions of chemicals that it takes to do the fracking that yields the gas? Haven’t you seen the documentary Gasland? Those chemicals find their way into our PA wells and water supply?
At some point, we have to ask ourselves if we want an America that brings us back to sweatshops and pre-1900s Robber Baron days. Or do we value what Trust-busting Teddy Roosevelt began? What his fifth-cousin FDR did to establish economic “security” for the impoverished Middle Class?
Too many questions?
It’ll take a generation or two to shake out and settle down. Do Americans have a social contract? Are we brothers? Or is America a conglomeration of corporate interests?
Domenic
I think a start would be term limits and tort reform. We should [go] back to our founding principles of a representative democracy when those in office stayed their 1-2 terms and then "retired". We ought to get away from our giveaway government mentality which destroys all incentive to work and better ourselves. And we should create real jobs, something that the current administration has failed to do; government jobs are only robbing Peter to pay Paul; it does not generate any new income/capital but merely redistributes it.
There are a lot of good and well intentioned ideas that work on a micro level but they are applied on a macro level, e.g.,outcome based education, no child left behind, socialized medicine, welfare programs, ecological developments, etc which only creates greed, confusion and distrust. This has occurred over a long gradual basis, multiple generations, and will take many years to correct, assuming that is a possibility.
America is a conglomeration of political and corporate interests all run by the almighty buck.
Let me take this a few steps further. Humor me. I'll comment on these pearls of wisdom one pearl at time. Hang on to your hat, Bro.
My dear Brother,
Let me comment, specifically, on a few “things” -- pearls, I called them, sarcastically -- that you've tossed off but that I’ve given no small thought to for the past two or three decades.
You'd be surprised.
You said,
I think a start would be term limits
What about the revolving-door of regulatory agencies, congresspersons, and six-figure lobbyists?
and tort reform.
There probably should be a cap on damages. Should we destroy the company that loses its case? No. Tell me who decides what that cap should be?
We should [go] back to our founding principles of a representative democracy when those in office stayed their 1-2 terms and then "retired".
Not realistic, Sir. I’d like you to serve, Bro. Would you leave your job do so? Say, for one or two years? Would your "generous" employer give you back your job after you've finished your tenure in the U.S. Congress? I doubt it. Hence, we’d lose the genius of good “public servants” who might otherwise think about a career in public service.
I’ve an idea, though: Eliminate term limits.
Let's take all private money out of politics. [Yeah, I’ve got a bridge in Brooklyn, too, I’d like to sell you.] Take all money out of campaigns, too. Hell! I’d make it illegal to contribute a dime – any any sum of money at all -- to a candidate or to an office holder. Goodbye lobbyists. Goodbye corruption. Goodbye billionaires. I’d limit election campaigns to several weeks. [That's gotta violate the First Amendment.] I’d fund campaigns with whatever sum that contribution line on our IRS 1040 form allows. ONE BIG RULE, therefore: I’d suspend First Amendment Rights for all elections, including primaries: I’d make it a criminal act to support a candidate by ad or commercial of any kind. No outside money: NONE. Except for public funds, I’d ban all funding of elections. What about the press? Any newspaper, news magazine, “broadside,” pamphleteer, broadcast TV, cable TV, Internet site, etc., i.e., ANYBODY who “offers” time and/or space to one candidate has to "offer" it to all. Yes, has to. Has to provide it to all candidates. Billionaires who want to paper the nation with snail-mail flyers and mailings Go Directly to Jail. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200. Let's call it the Monopoly Rule.
We ought to get away from our giveaway government mentality which destroys all incentive to work and better ourselves
I’m sure you don’t want to destroy our economy during “Recessions” and “Depressions” by eliminating insurance. Do you? Unemployment insurance. We pay in when we work; we collect when we’re between jobs. I like insurance. Don’t you? I like that Social Security is an insurance program that is adequately funded for decades to come. I couldn’t pay my bills without it. I’ve lost 50% of Anna’s City pension since her death last year. Yes, we should allow workers to pay into Social Security beyond that punitive, artificial $106,000 earnings cap. Jesus Christ! If you’re making more than $106k per year, I’d say, "God bless you." Except that God has already blessed you. Hike it up and deduct up to one million dollars in earnings and all – ALL -- of our Social Security “concerns” will disappear. I promise. Those at the high end of the earning’s scale won’t miss it, either.
And we should create real jobs, something that the current administration has failed to do; government jobs are only robbing Peter to pay Paul; it does not generate any new income/capital but merely redistributes it.
If you could provide the private sector jobs, Bro., you would have my vote for deity. I’d worship you. If you know how to advise our president to create jobs, tell him, please. He needs help. Tell the Republican leadership, too. Oh, I forgot. They know how to create jobs. Stop taxing millionaires and billionaires and jobs magically appear. In China. In India. Where our major corporations are creating new jobs better and faster than they are here because those jobs are better jobs. For better workers. For workers who will work for less. Capitalism cannot do a better job than it does because it is in hock to Wall St. and the Bottom Line and Quarterly Report. It’s that simple. It thrives on inequality. Extortion, if necessary.
There are a lot of good and well intentioned ideas
[that’s condescending talk]
that work on a micro level but they are applied on a macro level, e.g.,outcome based education, no child left behind, socialized medicine, welfare programs, ecological developments, etc which only creates greed, confusion and distrust.
Either you care about people, Bro., or you don’t. Either their hardships, outrageous medical bills, escalating education costs, etc., concern you – as a fellow citizen – or they don’t. Either you are a “Brother” to those who suffer, or you are not. The “greed, confusion and distrust” that you speak of has been created by the “greedy, confused, and distrustful,” who’d rather not think of you as a brother, you, who, by chance or circumstance, have fallen on hard times. It is not the unfortunate who have created the wealth that trickles down as a dastardly poison. Dreck. It’s a big lie. Treacle down Reagan economics is, to paraphrase one of our presidents, “Voodoo economics.”
This has occurred over a long gradual basis, multiple generations, and will take many years to correct, assuming that is a possibility.
You said it:
America is a conglomeration of political and corporate interests all run by the almighty buck.
Yes, it is. But that does not mean that you have to like it, live it, or not have the courage to change it.
I’m so disappointed in our electorate: Traitors to Common Sense. I’m angry too that the top 1% of the nation in the past quarter century has earned more than the bottom 50%. That CEOs used to earn 40 times more on average than their workers and today earn 400 times more? Bro., if I’m smart enough to work for you, to make money for you, by what algorithm does our Board of Directors decide that you should earn 400 times more than I do? Twice as much? Ten times as much? Not 40. Certainly not 400. That’s obscene. It ought to be sinful. It’s a disgrace. Yes, let’s eliminate the “Welfare State.” Let’s give everybody a job. Let’s put everybody to work.
While we’re at it: Let’s banish those corporate gangsters, too, whom we call “Contractors,” and whom – while we hate government spending -- we nonetheless love to spend billions to support because they are private contractors and not public employees. Hate those public employees. My wife was a hard-working public employee in Philadelphia’s Municipal Court. Worked her sweet ass off. A bum, she was, nonetheless, because she was a government worker. Right? Government cannot create jobs. Right? Ought not to do so. Right? Let’s privatize City Hall.
As a taxpayer, Bro., I do not see how the billions we give to Xe or Blackwater or Halliburton is money that is better spent that way than our hiring you or me or one of our children to do the same goddamn job on a government payroll. Oh, I forgot. Government money that creates jobs is not fungible. It’s bad money. Bad jobs. How did you figure that out? Did it keep you awake last night?
government jobs are only robbing Peter to pay Paul;
You hate government jobs because the workers' paychecks come out of taxes. Really? You’d rather pay Halliburton or Blackwater and let them pay you. Then its O.K. Then it’s good money. Good jobs. That’s fucked up thinking, Bro. I’m surprised that your logic is so fucking unsound. Money is fungible. To say that jobs that we allow the government to create in the short term to boost spending in a weak economy are not long-term jobs is a tautology. Of course, they’re not. They’re not meant to be. St. Peter and St. Paul, if they had lived on the same block, might have been buddies. Robbing one to pay the other? Nah! How about their making a personal loan? Is that O.K.?
So, why don’t you, Mr. Corporate Mogul, Mr. Rough-and-Ready Capitalism, go and create those goddamn jobs. Do what Hoover did. End the Depression. Screw F.D.R. Bring public assistance and love the poor to an end. Bury Jesus, that misguided hippie. That’s where he belongs, anyway. Right? In the grave. Along with the poor, the sick, the aged, the unemployed, the kids, their whoring single-moms – What else do we have that we fear and hate? Tell me, Fox non-News. I'm listening. The immigrants? The blacks? The browns? The yellows?
Let’s start a ground war in Iran. Then we can put everybody back to work. That’s sound Republican philosophy. Let’s demobilize the armed forces first, though, then we’ll privatize the war in all of its minutia. That’ll do it. Let’s bring business to bear on this economic morass. That’ll create jobs. That’ll fix us.
Tell me how your Masonic background has prepared you for your brand of politics? Or is it your simple love of Christianity?
Domenic, the Secular Humanist in Your Eye.