Arsenic and Old Lace: A Fracking Story

I image many of you have seen the play or the move Arsenic and Old Lace where to lovely old ladies kill of some of their boarders who they deem would be much better off dead and then give them wonderful funerals. It’s a comedy extraordinaire.

Now we have some lovely folk who tell us we have unlimited fossil fuel that will take care of our need for a huge carbon footprint, fossil fuel needs, for years to come. All we have to do is stuff some fracking sand down some long drilled holes with some secret chemicals they will not reveal and all our problems will be solved (aside from the effect of the carbon footprint that is.)

I wonder what is in that secret formula. Perhaps a little bit of arsenic and old lace? Well, I’m sure they will give us a lovely funeral.

“Can’t Buy Me Love”

So goes the old Beatles song, and, according to an article in Psychology Today by Susan Heitler, PhD in October, it is true. Researchers at Brigham Young University and William Paterson University released a study on materialism and marriage. They don’t go together like a horse and carriage, more likely the horse will gallop away and toss the inhabitants in the ruined marriage ditch.

What they found was a link between Narcissism and materialism, “it’s all about me.” Duh! They also found that couples who score high on materialism score low of marriage skills, particularly communication.

If both of the couple of materialistic they are big trouble, if only one is they are still in trouble but a bit less so and if they aren’t materialistic they are in good shape martially.

So, does money matter? The study says no. They found no correlation between wealth and a degree of materialism. Poverty hurts marriages but if you have enough to get along then you are okay.

Now, what would happen to couples who were materialistic but learned how to communicate well? Perhaps that’s an oxymoron. Lucy should put her 5¢ counseling booth outside Best Buy.

Don’t Trust Anyone Under Forty

In the ‘60s the youth loved the saying, “Don’t trust anyone over 30.” But all of us of the 60’s are long past the 30’s now, so who do we trust now?

When I was a lad I asked my father something like just when, at what age, do you have to get to in order to make sense of life, or when is it you can trust your brain? A question something like that. I was also serious in that I realized I was a long ways from that point and wondered if it would ever happen. I remember being younger, 2^nd grade I believed and thought, here I am six or seven years old and I’ve been this little kid all my life, and all my life the adults I know have always been adults. I thought life was a plot, that kids would always remain kids and adults would always be adults – we were doomed to those roles forever. It was an upsetting thought. Adults romanticize about childhood, but kids like me just want to get it over with.

But back to my question to my father. He took my question seriously, thought a bit, and then said, “Forty.” My father was a very wise man.

His answer gave me solace and I have thought about it over the years and each time I’ve concluded he was right. At forty your frontal lobe has developed (if it ever will), the part  of your brain that contains your moral character, your ethical governor, the part that let’s you have a clue as to what is right and what is wrong. Also, by the time you are forty and have studied a reasonable amount, you have developed a significant enough knowledge base to make pretty descent decisions. It is also that time in life in life when you generally have the most responsibility; responsibility for family, community, citizen, job; things like that.

However, now they say the new 30 is 20, the new 50 is 30 and things like that, so is everything sliding back a bit? In Old Testament times you became an adult and had adult responsibilities in our teens. Now that time of accountability is much much later even though our bodies develop earlier. God has an odd sense of humor it seems to me.

Today one can wonder if some folk, even the majority, ever grow up. They’ve got data coming out of their ears, but don’t seem to have a clue as to what to do with it. Christmas remains a childish thing where we concentrate more on what we get as presents rather than a time to show our love and care for each other in giving presents as token and expressions of those feelings. Thanksgiving is blown out of the water with Black Friday and frenzied greed and buy buy buy.

Hmmm, can you trust anyone under 60? Is 60 the new 40? As a septuagenarian I think about these things. Now where did I leave my shoes? And, did I write this article before?

Retailers and Workers and Small Towns (or big ones)

When I was a wee lad growing up on a farm outside of New Sharon, Iowa the population of New Sharon was 1006 people, if I remember correctly. 10 miles away was Oskaloosa a booming metropolis of 10,000 good souls. We were also about 60 miles from the state capital Des Moines, Iowa; a big city we visited on rare occasions.

In my hometown were two drug stores, one of which, Holybrands, whose owner would give we kids an ice cream cone if we showed him our report cards at the end of the year. As near as I can recall there were about 7 churches and an equal number of taverns. There was a grocery store that did a good business. There was also a thriving hardware store, a Minneapolis Moline Implement dealer, a blacksmith, several gas stations, an insurance company, a bank, a newspaper, a butcher shop/locker, a hair salon, two barbers, the was a Ford car dealership, there was a electronics store that sold fans, radios and eventually TVs (the first was a round 9” model with a magnifying glass over it the grocer bought),  3 or 4 restaurants, a movie house, an overall factory, a  local phone company (complete with an operator you talked to in order to place a call), a dairy queen (later on), oh yes, there was a gas station plus a grocery store that stayed open on Sundays much to the chagrin of the good church goers (who would stop there anyway if they needed something for Sunday dinner), and likely a bunch of other businesses I’ve forgotten about. There they were all those stores in that tiny town.

Now these were small businesses by definition. Some run by individuals, some by couples, some hired some help and paid them decently. As I recall they were all pretty honest trustworthy business folk; they had to be because it was a small town and if they pulled a fast one on their customers word would get around and pretty soon they wouldn’t have any customers.  All in all we lived pretty decently in that wee town.

Today my hometown has grown to 1,500. The churches while not as many outnumber the bars which one could say is progress (only 1 bar now I think). But the number of businesses, that is another story. There are still a couple of filling stations, none that do service that I know of. There is a wee grocery store and a Casey’s. My cousin has a big store that sells all types of stuff people need in a farm community; his motto is, “If we don’t have it, you don’t need it.” (Well, he retired but it’s in the family.) They generally manage to keep one restaurant going at a time. I think they have a barber that was a neighbor boy of mine. There is an artistic friend that invented some weird name and sells stuff, antique like and interesting and helps restore some of the buildings that have deteriorated over the years. Generously, maybe there is a third of the businesses that once were but that might be optimistic.

People still love my hometown and are loyal and proud of it. They now have a country club with gold course, swimming pool and club house. You can golf there cheaper than most places by a long ways. The elm trees died when all the elm trees died around the country so I miss them.

Oskaloosa has fewer stores as well but some of the biggies have come in. They have a Wal-Mart.

This was back in the 50’s as I graduated from high school there in 1960. Back then if you lived in a big city and worked at a motor company, say GM, you could earn about $50 an hour including your pension and health benefits. They were the largest employer in the country. Today, if you live in New Sharon or elsewhere, and you work at the largest employer in the country, Wal-Mart you’d get about $8.81 an hour and since most of their employees work less than 28 hours a week you won’t qualify for benefits.

Now I checked out other big stores – Target, J C Pennys, Costco, Menards, Cabellas and Gander Mountain, and you’d get about the same; a little better by about a buck at the sporting goods places.

Now if you are in management you can do better, $50,000 to $100,000 but to 1950 dollars I’m not sure that is a real big deal. What we do know is that most people work a lot longer and a lot harder today, (despite what we old fogies might tell you), but it will likely take two in your family working to make about what one made in my youth.

Some of us also have funny ideas about what constitutes a small business, just those millionaires unlike the billionaires that own their stock.

Oh yeah, Sam Walton who with his family who own Wal-Mart have more wealth than the bottom 40% of families in this country. They made a paltry $16 billion last year; I think that is better than my cousin in New Sharon.

Now folk in New Sharon for the most part don’t think much of unions but it seems to me that if they worked in union jobs there would be a lot more restaurants and stores in New Sharon and you’d have the money to go to them. But there are so few union workers left in the country they don’t have much clout. But they likely make more than they $18,000 to $21,000 that the average full-time retail worker earns a year.

Now some of you may be thinking, those Walton’s are just smart and making a buck (many bucks in this case), and they do employ most folk, so that good. And those Wal-Mart workers that demonstrated and tried to strike on Black Friday, are just a pain and stupid. We need money for big business (or small businesses that seem like big ones in New Sharon).

A word to the wise; something the Ford company knew when they began. They figured that if they paid their workers well they could buy those cars they were making. And that worked and the whole country benefited. Consider this, if retail workers and others got paid more, they would spend more and the country would prosper, meaning the whole country, especially the middle class. Robert Reich who keeps track of these things cited a study that showed raising the salaries of full-time retail workers to $25,000 a year would lift 700,000 out of poverty. Oh there’s a cost to that; we’ve have to pay 1% more for our stuff. It seems worthwhile to me.

Oh, just a note to folk who complain about the high wages, said to be $70/hr, of today’s auto workers. Here’s some facts about that I found out: Let's start with the fact that it's not $70 per hour in wages. According to Kristin Dziczek of the Center for Automative Research--who was my primary source for the figures you are about to read--average wages for workers at Chrysler, Ford, and General Motors were just $28 per hour as of 2007. That works out to a little less than $60,000 a year in gross income--hardly outrageous, particularly when you consider the physical demands of automobile assembly work and the skills most workers must acquire over the course of their careers.

More important, and contrary to what you may have heard, the wages aren't that much bigger than what Honda, Toyota, and other foreign manufacturers pay employees in their U.S. factories. While we can't be sure precisely how much those workers make, because the companies don't make the information public, the best estimates suggests the corresponding 2007 figure for these "transplants"--as the foreign-owned factories are known--was somewhere between $20 and $26 per hour, and most likely around $24 or $25. That would put average worker's annual salary at $52,000 a year.

But then what's the source of that $70 hourly figure? It didn't come out of thin air. Analysts came up with it by including the cost of all employer-provided benefits--namely, health insurance and pensions--and then dividing by the number of workers. The result, they found, was that benefits for Big Three cost about $42 per hour, per employee. Add that to the wages--again, $28 per hour--and you get the $70 figure. Voila.

Even so, that only $20 bucks more per hour than they got over 50 years ago.

I thought I'd add this graph to go with the article. Click to enlarge.

Deficit Messyfit: It Is the Jobs Stupid

Robert Reich is dead on as usual in keeping the focus in the right place. Grandpas and Grandmas will always lament about the future burden we will place on future generations; they said the same the same thing when I was a kid. But it is not the point in a sagging economy. Governments should be spending during a time of recession and recoup those losses during the good times (admittedly we don’t do a very good job of the later.) This is basic macroeconomics, not the economics of the home (however, sometimes it is, i.e. student loans). If we concentrate on getting jobs, good jobs not just minimum wage ones that will generate taxes so we can reasonably pay down the deficit. Decreasing debt in a weak economy is akin to shooting yourself in the foot.

As Reich points out in the 1990’s Clinton balanced the budget and had a surplus because they had faster job growth than expected. This is where some countries in Europe are screwing up; they are reducing debt during recessions causing fiscal crises.

Another red herring is taxing the rich slows the economy. Just listen to Bill Gates, and the other billionaires who are telling us to tax them. 

I do not understand why more is not made of the inequity of wealth in this country. That happened because of government deregulation and to the detriment of middle and lower classes.

Another area we constantly ignore is the cost of healthcare which really stops fiscal growth. Entrepreneurs should be clamoring for national health care not opposing it; it is against their own interests.

Leave misdirection to the football field, the economy is more than a game.

To Win without Boasting to Lose without Whining

As a kid in 4H club we had a motto of “to win without boasting and to lose without whining.” Doing a Google search on that phrase is difficult but you can find some references to it in relation to 4H and else where particularly in the south. I don’t find it in modern 4H statements, which is too bad. But it was common in 1929 and a few year following, at fairs [link]  no I’m not that old but apparently the sentiment was alive when I was a kid. It came from a book A Organizations of 4-H Club Work: A Guide for Local Leaders.

Whatever the origin, it is a good statement. It came to mind after to listening to post election comments by Romney, what was his name? Oh, Mitt, how soon we forget. From his less than gracious concession speech to his latest complaints about President Obama winning by giving free stuff to his homeboys, liberal people, and brown people who are just lazy. Romney is no 4-H ethicist. It seems the consensus of liberals and conservatives alike Romney is now officially politically dead in the water.

I lament this. I am pleased that Obama won the election, but to me, with some exceptions, he seems to reflect the position of conservatives/Republicans of my youth. Though I have a party preference, I believe in a two party system, and the traditional values, of fiscal conservatism, and moderation in progressive forward movement are needed in our society that Republicans stood for. The current Republican Party has morphed into something unrecognizable and unhelpful in our society, or to use the technical jargon, they’ve become whacko.

In a recent article from Salon.com, “10 reason Republicans think their party’s dysfunctional: It’s too right wing! It’s not conservative enough! The only thing for sure is that everyone hates Karl Rove, (thanks dmarks). Here is just a list of their reasons; you can read it for yourself here.

1.            Bobby Jindal: G.O.P. = “the stupid party”. 2. Lindsey Graham “We’re in a big hole,” and Romney keeps digging. 3. Bill Kristol: “We have a huge middle class problem. 4. Newt Gingrich: Romney “insult[ed] all Americans. 5. Paul Labrador: Republicans are defending big business, which love big government. 6. Peggy Noon: A kinder, gentler Tea Party needed. 7. Ralph Benko: GOP’s “Bush Mandrians” ran from Reagan agenda. 8. Mike Murphy: Demographics add up to “an existential crisis for the Republican Party.” 9. Karl Rove: The ground game sucked, and consultants made too much money. (Srsly.) 10. Meghan McCain (John McCain’s daughter, another Republican who became total irrelevant and embarrassing in his comments after is loss): Karl Rove sucks. See footnote for her recent video transcript.

I had real hope that Obama would reach out to Romney following the election and offer to have him work in getting both parties together to work on closing tax loopholes and other tax reforms that would be for the common good. Romney’s whining has pretty well put the kibosh on that.

Obama may have won but he still has the same old issues to deal with. With 68% of the voters favoring getting rid of tax cuts for the wealthy, the Republicans seem oblivious to this and maintain the same old crap about the economy. How can we get the congress to listen to their constituency? I recently wrote to the Speaker of the House, Boehner, and the president of the Senate, Joe Biden (it went to the President) with a simple question. If folk running for congress can email mail me from all parts of the country asking more my dollars to support their campaign, why can I not in turn email all these same people to express my concerns on issues? They only read and accept email from members of their own voting district. So, like others I keep signing petitions and wonder if they have any impact at all.

Here’s hoping for more congressional cooperation, but I’m not counting on it.

Transcript of Meghan McCain’s video, part of her “Stark Raving Meghan” series.

So, Republicans, we lost again. I have voted three times in my life, and I have never voted for a winning candidate. I’m sick of this friction’ track record. Everyone knows I’m Republican; I worked very hard trying to get Mitt Romney elected, defending him on television hundreds and hundreds of times. And Republicans, we lost because we were talking about rape and abortion and we can’t get behind our gay friends getting married…I don’t want everyone to break out the ice cream and Nora Ephron movies, because in all failure, there is opportunity. I am many things, but I am no freakin’ pessimist. I think we have a chance to rebuild right now, and I think it can be awesome, and we have another four years. People just have to stop listening to frickin’ right-wing lunatics like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity — ’cause see where it’s gotten us? I think losing — a lot. And losing early.

I frickin’ hate it when election nights are called early. I always think it’s gonna last all night and then it’s called at, like, 11.

I hate Karl Rove. I have hated Karl Rove before anybody else hated Karl Rove. I hated Karl Rove when I was, like, 14 years old. I hate — hate — Karl Rove. I think he’s an idiot, a pretentious blowhard, and I think he was ruined a lot of things for the Republican Party during the Bush administration. All these millionaires that keep giving him $400 million for him to not win one election — maybe it’s not working! Maybe it’s not working.

Give me five freakin’ dollars — I’ll tell you for free what we gotta do. You can’t keep going and trying to get white men, because they’re dying off; it’s not a demographic anymore. We need the single women. But you don’t care. Seriously, I hate Karl Rove. Karl Rove needs to go away and retire, and just crawl back to the hole he emerged from…Everybody hates Karl Rove; he’s like a Bond villain.

Politically Homeless

I’ve seen a couple of articles recently that refer to Barack Obama as a possible Eisenhower Republican (i.e. Psychology Today, the Daily Beast.) It is an interesting thought. There are some interesting comparisons; both seem to reflect common middle-American values and both were forced to deal with issues that may have interfered with their primary objectives. Obama had to face a horrible recession not of his making which got in the way of his social agenda of aiding the American middle class and the poor; forcing him into big spending he didn’t want. Both seem to be fiscal conservatives but Obama had wars and a recession to deal with as Eisenhower had to send troops to Little Rock to defend minority children. Eisenhower wanted the country to evolve and did not want revolution, but was pushed there by rampant racism in the country. He was much more interested in building the infrastructure of the country and began that work with the interstates, but the follow up with rail, air, and water travel improvements got left on the drawing board.

The Republican moderates of the 50’s and 60’s seem to have no place to lay their heads. Their party seems to be hijacked by radicals such as found in the Tea Party, and the self-serving interests of the extreme wealthy whose views are less the centrist. Note the change in Romney’s rhetoric during the Republican Campaign and his Presidential campaign.

To lesser extent democratic liberals may feel a bit homeless too and look with envy and the social progress made in European countries which seem to place more value on all the citizens that we do. We spend a lot but it has not made us happier. Consider Sweden which has an over 50% income tax rate and yet are rated as the happiest people in the world. Concern for the poor seemed to have been a casualty in the recent elections issues.

Many have pointed out that until we get the obscene amounts of money out of political campaigns the average moderate American will have lost the political voice to which they are entitled. Inherent in our constitution is equal freedom of speech.

I do think there are traditional Republicans and Democrats left in congress but they are overshadowed by their intolerant and the inflexible colleagues and the nation suffers. Though no great political mandate came from the election one was clear, increases taxes on the very rich supported by the vast majority of Americans both Republican and Democrat. But can they prevail?

Where will we be able to find a political homeless shelter for today’s moderates? We can always seem to unite against a common enemy such as in the world wars, but we seem incapable of united for common causes that benefit all citizens; fiscally responsible, thankful for the gifts we get in this country to enhance our lot, and caring for those who are in need.

An Economic Suggestion Mr. President

When I was studying economics back in the dark ages (which seem enlightened to today’s economic pundits) when Keynesian (supply side) were understood, we didn’t have all this palaver about the debt. One of the functions of government we understood was to stimulate the economy with government spending during recessive times and to rein in the economy (decrease government spending) during recessive times all with corresponding increases and decreases in the interest rates of the FED. That understanding seems to have gotten lost today or perhaps people just don’t get it.

Debt has become a red herring. The importance of debt is its relationship to the overall economy. And when the economy is in a recession let the debt rise so the economy can expand. When economies are robust the debt rate ratio is less, when economies are sluggish the debt rate becomes an additional drag. We don’t want to follow several of the Europeans countries down that path of decreasing the national debt during recessions. That just makes the problem worse.

Let us hope that Obama can get the congress to okay the continuing tax cuts for those making less the a quarter a million and raise it on rich folk for long term debt reduction, but keep middle class spending vital so the economy can grow. Or, let’s not fall over the fiscal cliff.

Real work has to be done to decrease the widening margins of wealth between the haves and the have-nots not just because it is fair, it is also good economics. I’d suggest to President Obama that he hire Mitt Romney (give him a cabinet position or something) to work across party lines on plugging those loopholes Romney campaigned about but never specified. It seems to me that if he did this, his win, while not a mandate, would have more clout in fixing the economy and give increased confidence to invest and hire in businesses.

Hmm, I wonder if the president follows my blog?

Post Election Action

It’s over at last. The presidential/congressional races are over, at least for awhile and I am sure most of us are heaving a great sigh of relief. But the problems and issues of the national remain. And I believe we need to encourage more political activism than ever before.

I note with dismay that congressional representatives will only accept email from members of their own district. If the will of the people are to be heard it seems we should be able to contact all our representatives. We need to continue to study issues and make our feelings known to all members of congress.

If we want unity and compromise we must write and exhort our representatives to work together for the common good not just special interests. Big money can obviously contact as many congressional leaders as they please; we the people need to be able to do the same. We also need to be specific in our requests not just post ideological harangues which will likely be ignored anyway.

I don’t care where you stand on issues your views need to be made know to our representatives (though I wish the hate mongers would just shut up as they don’t help.)

If any of you know of a way around the block to contacting all representatives please let me know; publish it on Facebook and let’s be a generation  with a truly populous movement. We need to nudge, push, shove our public servants to work together for our interests not just the special interests that can lobby and fund them.

In the day in age there should be an easy way to make more voices more prominent to our representatives.

Any ideas? [I’m trying for a more positive approach here.]

Whoever Wins the Presidential Election Likely Loses

I remember thinking when Barrack Obama won the 2008 election that he stood very little chance of having a successful presidency. The country was in a complete mess domestically and on the foreign front. Despite a supposed majority of support in congress there were enough Blue Dog Democrats and intractable Republicans that it would be very hard for him to make an impact. Then in the 2010 election put him in a worse position with congressional leaders elected with the sole purpose of getting rid of him and to undo the good he had done. During the Clinton years we talked about gridlock; talk about the good old days. Now check out the use of the filibuster during the Obama years; 400 times it was used; perhaps a record that will never be broken. Compromise between the parties is only a memory for those old enough to remember it.

And now we have gone through the most expensive and vitriolic campaign most of us have ever seen and perhaps the worst ever. Some have compared it to the Civil War.

No matter who wins, and the way it looks we might not even know that for months, they will be in for a hard time of it. If Obama wins the same tactics will remain as were used during his first term and his hair will get greyer and greyer. If Romney wins, he has set policies that are doomed for destruction; his budget plan while not revealed is a mystery that folk will not like the end of. You can’t promise folk everything and expect them to be happy when those promises mutate and are unfulfilled. If the Ryan plan is adopted chaos will likely ensue ~ the numbers just can’t work. Will the Democrats be as combative and intractable as the Republicans under Obama? I would like not to think so, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.

So, whoever wins the election good luck, you are going to need it. And as for the support of your electors, good luck there too, as they will continue to feel cut out of the process as ever.

Whoever wins, you may have some good news to begin with as the economy is coming around. Mitt’s promise of a 120 million new jobs will happen no matter who is elected; it is in the cards unless we jump over the budget cliff which is possible.

And as for an intelligent informed populace, the media will continue to sell bad news and folk will eat it up, and complain and not work to be informed citizens.

There may be a short honeymoon period but don’t count on it being very long. The major issues still remain and lines have been drawn in the sand that may have turned into concrete. Needed election reform has little chance of taking place unless we develop a strong populus movement but we are likely too complacent for that to happen. The rich will remain rich and the poor poor and the middle class will likely continue to shrink as the ultra rich pull their puppet’s strings.

Aside from that I’m really hopeful. God is in her heaven and while the weather report here from earth may be cloudy and cold, there will be a spring sometime somewhere.

The real good news is that we will get some respite from all those rotten miserable, negative, annoying, irksome, ... political ads. Sigh!

Ruling/Power Elites

Regular contributor dmarks has commented frequently on the “ruling elites” in our country. If I understand him correctly he sees these as members of the government, a power group unto themselves working only for their self interest at the expense of everyone else. It pictures government as the enemy of which we must be wary and fight. Carried to the extreme it becomes an argument for anarchy, which I do not believe he really advocates; though I am often confused as to what he is advocating.

Years ago many talked about the Trilaterial Commission which many believed were the powers behind the powers in this country calling the shots as to the direction the country would go. It existed. It was formed by David Rockefeller and Zbignew Brzezinski in 1973 and had headquarters in New York, Paris and Tokyo supposedly funded by Ford, Lilly Endowment, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the German Marshal Fund (non profits) and corporations: Time, Bechtel, Exxon, General Motors, Well-Fargo among others.

They did not advertise themselves but they didn’t hide either and eventually we reported on by major media. They had their own magazine called Trialogue (no, I was not on the subscribers list). Their stated purpose was to make closer working relationships between the Western Europe, Japan and North America for common problems.

If you want to know more there is plenty of information about them on the internet. I bring them up because many folk, including myself, when we first learned about them, were very wary and suspicious of such a group and wondered if they were trying to have undue influence on we common folk. As it turns out they were just gifted people working on common interests and had the potential of enhancing the lives of those they represented.

There are genuine elites in any group, even if we may not like the word; people of unusual talents and abilities. How they chose to use those talents and abilities is the real issue of elites. The founding fathers, though we can demonize them over their stances on issues of their day we for the most part the benefactors of those types of elites. A gifted group who chose to use their gifts to benefit the country they were beginning and leading. They are models of governmental leadership. We need our brightest and best to be the public servants of our country. And many today are such if we put our cynicism aside at look at the records of such people like Russ Feingold and Herb Kohl from my state. Good public servants who served their constituency well. And of course, there are those who do not do as well, which the media reports on more fully.

And then there are those elites who choose to use their gifts and power to further their own selfish self-interests and use the money and power to exert undue influence on others, and they often try to hide their efforts. We know some of them. The Brad Blog revealed the Koch Brothers to the nation and their agenda of seeking undue control over government and politicians and the judiciary. More publicly, in one sense, are the Super PACs but those names are often not known just their organization. These are the ones the hire the lobbyists to write legislation to benefit themselves often at the expense of the general public. There are the ultra rich who want legislation that keeps them ultra rich at the expense of the common working folk and even at the expense of the poor. Unfortunately these ruling elites have been very effective in their aims and have paved the way for the incredible imbalance of wealth in our country. They rule not because they lay their agendas before the public or run for public office but do their work behind the scenes with their power and influence. They infect both parties but their allegiance is primarily with the right which best reflect their interests.

As I have said previously, I am not against power elites per se, if they use their talents for the common good, but I am against those power elites who use the power and influence only for self interest.

You can go on the internet and easily find lists of corporations, banks, and other groups who have used their power primarily for self interest at the expense of others. And we know of power brokers like the Koch Brothers, Karl Rove and others who use unsavory tactics to get their way.

Our country is in real danger of the unscrupulous power elites and many believe they have already created an oligarchy or plutocracy that runs the country and have undone the democratic process. We need a means to hold these power elites in check with election reform and better governmental accountability to the public.

Dr. Hassan El-Najjar in 2010 wrote and interesting piece on the tunnel vision of some power elites in an article called The Disastrous Power Elite Tunnel Vision, to Which a Population Is Indoctrinated. In it he says, There are four major differences between these two groups of the US power elite, which alternate control over the US government in particular, and the US society as a whole. All pertaining to internal US politics.

Republicans are champions of tax cuts for the wealthy, against some adult sexual practices, advocates of the least government intervention to help the poor, and proponents of the tight indoctrination of the masses to the degree of violating their basic human rights (Such as the adoption of the Patriot Act and the security measures resulting from it).

Democrats are champions of more taxes on the wealthy, tolerant to adult sexual practices, advocates of government intervention to help the poor, and less zealous towards indoctrination of the masses. However, like Republicans, they uphold the indoctrination of the masses concerning the holiness of Israel.

Members of the power elite, or their loyal representatives, maintain a tight grip over venues of information allowed to be received by the masses (mass media, publishing houses, boards of education, and religious establishments). This has resulted in the indoctrination of Americans to the viewpoints of their rulers.

This explains why the vast majority of Americans have not objected, protested, or revolted against the policies of their rulers, which have led to the financial, economic, and military disasters, particularly during the first decade of the 21st century.

My point is there are power elites, but we need to be clear as to who we are talking about and whether the motives are good or bad. We need to not confuse the power elites with those who pull their strings. There is nothing wrong with being elite from the standpoint of having gifts, talents and resources; but there is a major difference in how elites use their gifts. All elites need to be conscious of the seduction to believing in noblesse oblige. We need to seek the balance between accepting elite gifts and humility in understanding there are indeed gifts we have received.

Thomas Jefferson ~ Liberal

I just finished reading Thomas Jefferson’s autobiography. He wrote it when he was 77 and it reflects the latter part of his life, in particular his time overseas and especially in France. A man who was intimately involved in freedom movement in two countries and trying to maintain friendly relationships with the country they fought to win the freedom from. In his search for freedom he was influenced by European thinkers such as John Locke, Adam Smith, and a score of other major thinkers of his day.

Jefferson is also viewed as the founder of liberal thinking in this country; the Federalists of his day, now called Democrats. Abraham Lincoln was also a liberal but in his day when Democrats/liberals were called Republicans; we seem to have name recognition problems in this country. And Jefferson was a strong advocate for the Republic or a Republican from that standpoint. Nevertheless, a liberal is a liberal and the founding fathers were liberals of varying nuisances.

The big debate of the day was where the primary strength of government should lie, in the states on nationally. Jefferson was for states dominance (The Presbyterian form of government) and Hamilton was for a Centralized form of government (Congregational form of government.) Jefferson won but folk might argue that it worked out that way. Of course Burr, Jefferson’s VP shot Hamilton but Jefferson thought Burr was a turd anyway.

Jefferson saw the need for a strong public education for the survival of democracy. He wanted the country to stay agrarian rather than industrial (guess that didn’t work out.) He wanted slavery outlawed in the constitution but owned slaves himself and argued for their deportation (for humanitarian reasons.) He was against a national bank (you know those that appear too big to fail by another name.) He thought the president should have one 7 year term (good idea, gets rid of all that campaigning and long enough to get things done.) He also in his presidency used central power to block power.

Yet the fact remains Jefferson was an out and out liberal believing in those liberal principles of “all men are created equal,” and “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” are fundamental human rights. It is the form of Liberalism that Obama espoused during the debates. …Everywhere we look, there is work to be done… we will act — not only to create new jobs, but to lay a new foundation for growth. We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together…restore science to its rightful place, …raise health care's quality and lower its cost….harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories…. transform our schools and colleges and universities…without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control…a nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous….we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our founding fathers, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man… Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake.”

Liberal ideas needed to lead the country as Jefferson envisioned it.