San Antonio Elections: Requiem for a once great republic

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San Antonio Elections: Requiem for a once great republic

Our beloved republic is a foregone dream. Even the founders were convinced of it. The social experiment is over. The revolution is lost. Jefferson and Adams realized it even as they reached the end of their lives within hours of each other on the same day---4 July 1826.

The big money never loses. They just keep moving from one continent and culture to another. And when at last we move on to another planet or a different time-space the oligarchs will rape, pillage and plunder there as well. It is their wont.

This isn’t me being morose. It is me being realistic. It is what the futurists have known. The rich and powerful are little more than capricious, mean-spirited bullies, unthinking and malevolent. It is the history of the world.

But don’t take my word for it. Read the headlines. Open your eyes.

San Antonio greatly affected if proposed budget is signed into law

Texas House Approves 2-Year Budget

Budget Makes Massive Cuts To Public Education, Health Care For Poor

http://www.ksat.com/politics/27418257/detail.html

Crisis? What Crisis? Average Bank Pay Kept Rising at the Same Rate

http://www.propublica.org/blog/item/crisis-what-crisis-average-bank-pay-kept-rising-at-the-same-rate

According to report yesterday in American Banker, even while the economy took a beating and unemployment soared, average pay in the banking industry continued rising at the same rate as it had before the financial crisis:
The clear trend, in both nominal and absolute terms, is up: Over the last eight years, average compensation for a full-time bank employee has risen 35% to $83,050, twice the rate of inflation. In 2003, the banking industry's 1.3 million full-time employees took home $78.3 billion. In 2010, its 2.1 million employees took home $168.1 billion.
In the first half of that period, raises were to be expected given climbing industry profitability and bank equity's market gains. But the financial crisis appears to have had little impact on pay. Total compensation per full-time employee rose at the same pace from 2007 to 2010 as it did from 2004 to 2007. In the later time period, profitability plunged and the KBW bank index fell by more than 50%.

http://www.propublica.org/blog/item/crisis-what-crisis-average-bank-pay-kept-rising-at-the-same-rate

The U.S. Chamber doesn’t speak for me

http://chamber.350.org/sign/pc/

Stunning Statistics of the Week:

Public Citizen

www.citizen.org

• $750 million: The amount President Barack Obama raised and spent in the 2008 campaign
• $1 billion: The estimated amount his campaign will cost in 2012

Big bucks in the race for Oklahoma City Council
Oklahoma City Council members make just $12,000 a year, but apparently they are powerful enough to attract big bucks to their campaigns. Candidates and groups running independent campaigns to support candidates have raised $1.2 million and spent $1 million of that – an unprecedented amount, the Oklahoman reports. Two groups alone account for $545,000 of that. Although they are required to identify their donors, they merely list a nonprofit group as a donor, leaving the public in the dark as to who is really funneling money into the races.
Citizens United affects even local races, like this one in Alaska
An independent group is diving into the race for Anchorage’s Assembly, which is its city council. The new group, which is getting its money from developers and commercial real estate owners, is running ads designed to oust three progressive incumbents. Such independent spending would not have been possible for the U.S. Supreme Court’s January 2010 ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, an Alaska official told the Anchorage Daily News. That ruling gave corporations the green light to spend unlimited amounts of money to sway elections.
Tens of millions being raised for redistricting fights
Top Republicans and Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives are raising millions of unregulated money from hidden sources for redistricting fights, Politico reports. The lawmakers could raise upwards of $30 million. The Federal Election Commission has given its blessing; it voted last year to allow lawmakers to raise money for an organization called the National Democratic Redistricting Trust. It is anticipated that much of the money will go toward legal costs.
Two former White House aides mull creation of independent political group
Remember how in 2008 candidate Barack Obama decried special interests raising money for independent campaign efforts? How times have changed. It appears as though two former White House aides are going to launch an independent political group to help Obama and combat the flood of independent group spending on the GOP side.
Top 10 things every voter should know about money in politics
Our friends at the Center for Responsive Politics have put together the top 10 things every voter should know about money in politics. Number 8: Enforcement of campaign laws is weak. No. 7: The fundraising never stops. No. 2: Incumbents nearly always win. No. 1? Click here to find out.
U.S. Supreme Court hears challenge to Arizona clean elections law
U.S. Supreme Court justices this week heard arguments in a case challenging part of Arizona’s clean elections law. For proponents of the law, things didn’t go so well.
With higher dues, realtors may get say in political spending
The National Association of Realtors in May will ask its members if they support a dues increase to pay for political efforts to press for things like preserving the mortgage interest deduction. So far, the group has funded its political work by voluntary contributions. But since the Citizens United decision, the goalposts have changed, the groups said. The International Business Times summarized the group’s position: “[I]n the new political financing environment, it is both unrealistic and unnecessary to expect voluntary contributions to increase to the extent needed for realtors to maintain their influence.” If approved, dues would be raised from $80 to $120.
Romney giving lots of money to the Republican Party
Potential presidential contender Mitt Romney is currying favor with the Republican Party by sending money. Romney has sent $25,000 to New Jersey’s Republican Party, $5,000 each to the Wisconsin and Massachusetts state parties and $6,000 to New Hampshire’s state party. Oh, and he also has given more than $300,000 to Republicans in Congress.
Visit DemocracyIsForPeople.org to learn more!

When the products of our apartheid public education system armed with little, if any, knowledge and understanding and even  less ability to think profoundly are in charge the republic is imperiled. It is what Alexander Hamilton termed  “The Beast.”

From Texas Red: a cratered landscape of prisons, deplorable apartheid public education, lack of healthcare and politicians and majority population intent on keeping it that way…

Hasta Siempre,

 

More:

 

 

“It’s All Relative”

http://baselinescenario.com/2011/04/02/its-all-relative/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+BaselineScenario+%28The+Baseline+Scenario%29&utm_content=Yahoo!+Mail

New Dark Ages here we come…

Tea Party Gains Wide Support Among Conservatives

As Democrats accuse Republican congressional leaders of being co-opted by the Tea Party in the federal budget negotiations, a new survey shows that half of all conservative voters ardently support the movement.

http://www.npr.org/2011/03/31/135011774/tea-party-gains-wide-support-among-conservatives&sc=nl&cc=ph-20110403

NPR's Coverage of Japan is 'Trivial.' Say What?

A New Hampshire woman is upset that NPR isn't treating Japan's nuclear crisis seriously. Another complains that earthquake coverage is "trivial." Someone wonders if a story about neon lights going dim in Tokyo is worthwhile when 27,000 people are dead or missing.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/ombudsman/2011/04/01/135039540/npr-s-coverage-of-japan-is-trivial-say-what?sc=nl&cc=omb-20110402

Why the Housing Market is Three Times Worse Than You Think

http://realestate.yahoo.com/promo/why-the-housing-market-is-three-times-worse-than-you-think.html

13 Bankers

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0307379051

Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer--and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class

http://www.amazon.com/Winner-Take-All-Politics-Washington-Richer-Turned/dp/1416588698

Aftershock: The Next Economy and America's Future

http://www.amazon.com/Aftershock-Next-Economy-Americas-Future/dp/0307592812/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1285922323&sr=1-1

PEW religion and democracy in the U.S

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGhBAgWNG3o

Bill Moyers on Plutonomy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSoglDcRbAg

A People's History of the United States – Howard Zinn

http://www.amazon.com/Peoples-History-United-States-P-S/dp/0061965588/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1290505605&sr=1-1

Women’s Reality: An Emerging Femail System

http://www.amazon.com/Womens-Reality-Emerging-Female-System/dp/B003H4RBEO/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1298943030&sr=1-1

The Conscience of a Liberal

http://www.krugmanonline.com/books/the-conscience-of-a-liberal.php

Good Capitalism, Bad Capitalism, and the Economics of Growth and Prosperity       

www.amazon.com/Good-Capitalism-Economics-Growth-Prosperity/dp/0300158327/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1285203922&sr=1-1

the quintessential compassionate conservative Christian nutjob

Florida pastor Terry Jones’s Koran burning has far-reaching effect

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/florida-pastor-terry-joness-koran-burning-has-far-reaching-effect/2011/04/02/AFpiFoQC_story.html?nl_headlines

Noam Chomsky - The Political system in the USA.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mk8pxyAWTBk

Feds seek $7M in privately made 'Liberty Dollars'

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_liberty_dollars_raid

Elections, Census 2010 consequences intended and not a continuum, right to far right; but not so right

Historically, nations and people tend to be more generous and giving, no wait---make that a little less greedy and hateful---when times are good.

Results of the 2010 Census stand in stark contrast to the Elections 2010 results. All the Election 2008 hoopla  has died down and apparently it’s back to the same ol’, same ol’. 

This  is specially true considering the past three years have not been good. Actually, my entire working life the economy has not been good.

In fact since I graduated college more than 30 years ago there have been seven---count them---seven recessions. At the same time not only have the average American’s wages not risen or at least stayed flat---wages have actually dropped about 11 percent.

Oh and by the way beginning next month, “more than 10,000 baby boomers a day will turn 65, a pattern that will continue for the next 19 years.”

More daunting still is the fact that we are told that our national debt is approaching 13 trillion dollars. Though I don’t know where that came from since throughout the “w” administration we were told our national debt was not even $1 trillion.  Notwithstanding, combined these are grim, sobering facts.

“Wait”, you say, “How about the dot com era?” “What about the fact that so many Americans bought houses in the 1990’s?” “What about the fact that most Americans paid for years into company pension plans, social security?”

Well basically it’s been like a very well timed joke--- mostly on us--- the boomers.

Step back for a moment and refocus.

What little (very little) the 1970’s may have given it took back with ridiculous gasoline prices, low wages, the close out cost of the quarter century long conflict in (officially)Vietnam, (and unofficially including Laos, Cambodia and Thailand), not to mention the start of an out of control inflation rate that would spread into the 1980’s.

The 1980’s---ah yes the Uncle Ron years---a/k/a the “me” years ruled by greed and more greed. Where do you begin? There was so much greed and corruption it is impossible to cover it all.

In addition to the inflation of the 1980’s there were the Gordon Gekko’s of the decade, Ivan Boesky, Mike Milken and Charles Keating and the meltdown of the Savings and Loans across America. Don’t forget the Iran-Contra scandal and Reagan’s dismantling of the Fairness Doctrine and almost every other progressive program put in place since the Great Depression.

Following the egregiously Red 1980’s the decade of the 1990’s seemed to have so much promise. Though maybe because Slick Willy a/k/a Bubba was so--- well--- slick no one would have guessed the decade and maybe Bubba were just setting us up---yet again.

Yes, I know the 1990’s witnessed the dot com boom, the rise of home ownership and not just a balanced budget but money in the bank! The tote board in Times Square calculating and broadcasting the amount of interest on the national debt was actually brought to a grinding halt. Of course the fact that the nation was not paying interest on the national debt just served to piss off the oligarchs and when that happens there’s hell to pay! And we have been ever since. Do you have any idea what the interest on a billion dollars is over the course of a year?

People lose sight of the fact that when we borrow to balance our national books someone is paid a great deal of interest. That is usually the world’s largest banking interests. So for those in power who want only to please the oligarchs (those who own those large institutions) there is absolutely no incentive to balance the budget. Career politicians have to please their benefactors. Politicians doing otherwise pay the price. Ask Bubba.

Viewed from a different perspective, the oligarchs are really the Cadillac driving welfare mothers Ronald Reagan often cited for his acrimonious, racist, sexist assault on anything progressive (healthcare, equal employment opportunity, the Fairness Doctrine and Glass Steagall).  [By the way, pushed to support his often cited in GOPer presence reference to the Cadillac driving Black welfare recipient Reagan backed down and admitted it was something he had been told and didn’t actually ever see one. You think?]

Clinton started out much too progressive for his own good. He knew what presidents going back to the Great Depression Era knew, Americans desperately needed a new healthcare delivery system. But you guessed it, the oligarchs would have none of that. Of our approximately 14 trillion dollar economy insurance alone is a more than one trillion dollar industry mostly a rip-off and a fraud. Even the military-industrial complex doesn’t amount to that much, though  it gets closer every year. The 1990’s hosted the first Gulf War and still the military industrial complex spending did not reach $1 trillion dollars and the national buget was balanced.

Rounding out the decade Texas Red’s Phil Gramm and others put in place those processes sealing the fate of Glass Steagall and putting in motion events resulting in the inevitable collapse of the nation’s banking and financial industry.

Then the year 2000 brought us such notable “w” flops as Windows ME and of course the presidential election stealing “w” himself. His repugnant and rapacious slash and burn assault on any progress made by the average American in the previous decade was of historic proportion.  Not only did he give the oligarchs a disproportionate amount of the money “we the people” had in the bank his public policies also ensured that for the next eight years Americans would lose pensions, jobs, homes and with them quality of life and of course any chance of retiring. Oh yeah I almost forgot “w” and his buds also made certain we the tax payers paid another shakedown in the waning hours of his administration. Remember when “w” said the sky was falling? (There’s no such thing as coincidence)

Americans balanced the budgets through the enormous bailout for the nation and world’s largest financial institutions that under the philosophy of laissez faire had experienced mission creep into insurance (AIG) and real estate (all of them).

The icing on the cake was that after we paid off essentially super inflated, unrealistic mortgages incurred by people new to home purchasing encouraged by a corrupt, greedy financial industry those banks turned around and foreclosed on those mortgages the tax payers had just paid. To date that is 10 million foreclosures.

Two years ago there was much fanfare heralding the arrival of the first African-American, okay bi-racial president.  He announced ready with this super majority congress to change conditions in America.

Would he narrow the chasm between those who have and those who don’t?

By 2008 the gulf between rich and poor was wider than at any other time in American history since before the Great Depression. Ronald Reagan, George Bush, “w”, Newt Gingrich and the oligarch pleasing GOPers had managed to strip away all things progressive.

Two years later we are still three years short of healthcare reform. There are approximately 25 million unemployed or under-employed Americans and 10 million Americans who have lost their homes and hope.

The oligarchs are poised to return to the good old days of reaping large interest payments from tax payers paying on the national debt, depleting any chance Americans will see an increase in their net worth. The gulf between the haves and have-nots is widening yet again.

At the same time Americans are saddled with funding two wars with no end in sight financed by a shaky economy and recovery.

2011 brings us the result of our "democracy"; reactionary right-wing GOPers, Tea Partiers and other fringers results of the 2010 Census notwithstanding. These Ronald Reagan clones are ready to again strip away, on behalf of the oligarchs they serve, anything of value the average person might be poised to receive. 

As I stated at the outset; historically, nations and people tend to be more generous and giving, no wait---make that less greedy and hateful---when times are good and times are anything but good.

It all looks too familiar---Texas and more and more U.S. Red and getting Redder….

From Texas Red: a cratered landscape of prisons, deplorable apartheid public education, lack of healthcare and politicians and majority population intent on keeping it that way…

Hasta Siempre,

More:

Baby boomers near 65 with retirements in jeopardy

Texas' Census gains not necessarily good news

Texas Matters

Show #538, December 17, 2010

Segment 1:  Boyd Ritchie is the Chairman of the Democratic Party of Texas. This week, two democrats in the state House changed parties and became Republicans - Allan Ritter of Nederland and Aaron Pena of Edinburg.

http://audio.tpr.org/txm538.mp3

Hispanics seek to increase political power

It Might Be Time to Rebrand It the South American Dream

MOYERS ON AMERICA: "Capitol Crimes" 

 Bill Moyers on Democracy

The Year in Wall Street Investigations

Where Things Stand: Foreclosures Paperwork Scandal

The Conscience of a Liberal

Good Capitalism, Bad Capitalism, and the Economics of Growth and Prosperity       

13 Bankers

Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer-and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class

Aftershock: The Next Economy and America's Future

Republicans map out their agenda of less

Tax Cutters Set Up Tomorrow's Fiscal Crisis: Simon Johnson

Crimes Against Nature

Christmas: spiritual or material; it leads to Elections, Public Policy

When precisely did the celebration of the Christ Mass become so material or consumerist? Was it ever more than just a celebration of the material led by the god of capitalist Christmas, Santa Claus?

I’ve long held the belief that the capitalist Christmas celebrated today is more about capitalism and the god of capitalism, Santa Claus, than anything remotely related to the Christ. This is a large part of the twisted, tortured, tormented reality about which I often blog.

That’s the way it is with our republic as well. Capitalism/consumerism has held the republic in a death grip---some might say by the gonads---for a very long time. In many ways capitalism/consumerism is, to put it in trendy terms, a vampire. The oligarchs keep the host (all of us not in the top 2% who own it all) just alive enough to keep feeding on us no matter how Ayn Rand-types attempt to color it.

This time of year all I hear, see and experience is people I know well talk about running themselves ragged shopping for Christmas gifts.  How much time do you suppose the Christ spent Christmas shopping?

 I mention this because those who self-proclaim to be “compassionate conservative Christians” are especially prone to such behavior.

Part and parcel of this behavior is the pretending thing about Santa Claus. Compassionate conservative Christians who know better still engage in the pretending thing and in the shopping.

Those who have the means also enjoy a particularly generous god of consumerism/capitalism while “have nots” are taunted by a less generous one. What psychotic purpose does the Santa Claus pretend thing serve?

Where is the Christ in this?

What does this have to do with either Elections 2010 or Public Policy? I was wondering when you were going to ask and since you’ve read thus far I’ll indulge your question.

The office holders/elected representatives of this republic and state are egregious practitioners of this spiritual/material psychosis as is the voting majority population that votes them into office.

These office elected officials and by extension the majority population responsible for electing them create our public policy. Public policy favors one segment of the population over all others.

For example federal employees, our congress, supreme court and president all have paid compassionate conservative Christian holidays. (that’s back to tyranny by majority). The same is not true for Muslims, Hindus, Wiccans, Jews, atheists or agnostics and the list is near endless---unless of course, they are celebrating capitalist Christmas.

That. compassionate conservative Christians would have you believe. is because we were founded as a Christian nation. Wrong.

Four to five hundred years ago it was all about religious freedom and tolerance. When did that change? There was not so much Christmas shopping at the mall then I think.

There are those who tell me it is both a spiritual and a material celebration.  Balderdash. Poppycock.

That’s like asking me to believe that the majority population of Texas Red really are compassionate conservative Christians.  If so, it is a psychotic version of the philosophy.

Why do I say this? Because Texas Red’s majority population favors the death penalty, keeps senators and representatives, state and federal in office who have never done a kind, generous, Christ-like thing for anyone.

Recall the Christ was no friend of the organized religion of his day. The Christ did for those whom the organized religion of his day would not.

Consider this, Texas Red’s majority population and elected representatives are responsible for the state’s egregious apartheid public education system, severe lack of public healthcare insurance, an ever growing prison-industrial complex and an increasing number of those executed by the collective compassionate conservative Christians, guilt not a requirement. These compassionate conservative Christians are also adamantly opposed to the DREAM Act. Moreover,these elected officials are even worse stewards of the environment.

Does any of that sound remotely Christ-like to you? If so, you must be one of the delusional compassionate conservative Christians whom I call out.

The collective psychosis of capitalist Christmas, its god Santa Claus (the pretend thing), the shop till you drop mentality and more reprehensibly the cold, indifferent, hateful, mean-spirited public policy that results from the will of those who self-identify as compassionate conservative Christian is unacceptable and has nothing to do with the Christ. 

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Jesus Is a Liberal Democrat
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog</a> March to Keep Fear Alive

If in fact the capitalist, consumerist Christmas is what the occasion is about then there is no need for the Christ in that.  In that case what our elected representatives do or don’t do for the poor, the minority, the disenfranchised in the state makes more sense. What doesn’t make sense is why it’s called Christmas at all.

From Texas Red: a cratered landscape of prisons, deplorable apartheid public education, lack of healthcare and politicians and majority population intent on keeping it that way…

Hasta Siempre,

More:

What Jesus Meant

American Theocracy The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century

Atlas Shrugged

The prison-industrial complex, apartheid public education system, racism and Elections 2010

http://robertruiz-respublica.blogspot.com/2010/10/prison-industrial-complex-aparatheid.html

http://www.examiner.com/public-policy-in-san-antonio/the-prison-industrial-complex-aparatheid-public-education-system-racism-and-elections-2010

Standard Examiner – Framers refused God’s help in writing Constitution

http://www.standard.net/topics/opinion/2010/02/22/framers-refused-gods-help-writing-constitution

Article Six [clause three] of the United States Constitution

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_Six_of_the_United_States_Constitution

The Texas Observer Investigates Natural Gas Safety

http://www.tpr.org/programs/thesource.html

Say it isn’t so…..

2 civil rights groups claim Texas education discriminates against minorities

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/education/stories/122010dnmetlulac.33a01874.html

It Might Be Time to Rebrand It the South American Dream

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/it-might-be-time-to-rebra_b_800515.html?utm_source=DailyBrief&utm_campaign=122310&utm_medium=email&utm_content=FeatureTitle&utm_term=Daily+Brief

Top censored stories of the year

Secret strip-mall immigration prisons, how our military props up the Taliban, and ongoing efforts to wipe the U.S. dollar off the map

http://www.sacurrent.com/news/story.asp?id=71860

A People's History of the United States – Howard Zinn

On the Border

Profiles in Courage

Slavery by Another Name

Illusions of Justice

The Rope, the Chair, and the Needle: Capital Punishment in Texas, 1923-1990

“However, James W. Marquart, Sheldon Ekland-Olson, and Jonathan R. Sorensen offer a more complex thesis. In their book, The Rope, the Chair, and the Needle: Capital Punishment in Texas, 1923-1990,[5] they argue that Texas' execution rate reflects the Southern "cultural tradition of exclusion," and that "[s]uch exclusion was a basic element of the legacy of slavery."

The Powers That Be

The Best and the Brightest

Colbert follows O'Reilly logic: "We've got to pretend Jesus was just as selfish as we are"

Colbert follows O'Reilly's logic: 'We've got to pretend Jesus was just as selfish as we are'