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FINALLY OVER

Posted on November 5, 2012 by halviv

At long last, it’s finally coming to an end. Today is the final day we’ll have to put up with all those vile, obnoxious, mudslinging TV ads; all the mendacious junk mail assaulting  our mailboxes every day advocating for every candidate from state assemblyman to president; and all the equally vile and obnoxious attack phone calls invading the privacy of our homes. The phone calls got so bad that I have had to unplug the phone in our bedroom when we turned in for the night. I was getting calls before 5 A.M or after 11 at night; probably from East Coast campaign workers oblivious to the 3- hour difference between Eastern and Pacific Coast times. But, as I’ve said, what started well over a year ago, finally comes to it’s conclusion tonight.

I do have to admit that I sort of miss the-carnival-is-coming-to-town atmosphere of the Republican debates that began in 2011. There, up-on-stage were the carnival actors or clowns if you prefer. There was the dingbat element represented by Michele Bachman and wacky Ricky Santorum, the old crank that was Ron Paul, rotund Newt the Lovable, the bible thumper Rick Perry, and, of course, His Mittness, who by appearing to act with some clarity and sanity out-lasted all of them and secured the Republican nomination, and is now on the very edge of becoming our next president. There was also one other candidate, Jon Huntsman, former governor of Utah. But his problem was that he spoke with such common sense and rationality, that Republican primary voters just couldn’t handle someone that didn’t feed into their world of delusion. Therefore Huntsman wasn’t able to gain any traction, and finally had to drop out of the race. Those were the fun days of the 2012 election, but now it has become a colossal and nauseating drag.

If nothing else, however, this election has richly displayed both the coarsening and polarization of modern-day America. The mean-spirited venom that has spewed forth from from each candidate and their surrogates, from president, to congressional, and to state and local races speaks to both social conditions. First, there is the mind-boggling $3 billion that will have been spent on all these candidates when it finally ends tomorrow. How many hungry people in the world could that $3 billion have fed; how much infrastructure, water or sewer pipes, electrical grids, roads and bridges, etc. could that money have built or repaired. When you think of all the good that money could have been used for versus the garbage ads some of you may be removing from your mailboxes even as I type this, you can only conclude-what a waste. About $2 billion of that amount will have gone into the presidential race where both men are now so hopelessly compromised and beholden to their fat-cat donors, that it’s hard to see how anything meaningful can be accomplished for the rest of the country.

The polarization of America can be seen in the fact that a day before the election, all polls show the race to be a 50-50 toss-up. About half the electorate believes the answer to our huge problems is to severely slash Government spending (except for  military spending),  and cut tax rates that will primarily benefit the rich, while the other half believes that Government is needed to help the poor, the sick, the unemployed and the elderly. Half believes that we should edge toward a Christian theocracy by banning abortion and gay rights and gay marriage, while the other half maintains that we should hold onto a secular society. There appears to be no meeting of the minds or a desire for compromise on either side. So even if Romney wins tomorrow (as I suspect he will) it will be a divided nation with a divided Government. The Democrats will have at least as many Senators as needed to mount a successful filibuster, which could throw a monkey wrench into a President Romney’s agenda. If Obama should manage to squeak out a victory the same would hold true for the Republicans ability to filibuster in the Senate. In the the end we are likely to have a Government that barely muddles through the process of governing and achieves nothing meaningful.

A good example of the coarsening of America could be seen after the 2008 elections. After it was clear that Obama was the victor, there was a huge run on gun stores to purchase as many guns and as much ammo  as people could stuff into their trucks. Now buying a gun is not like buying a loaf of bread. A gun goes for around $500 a pop and can increase in cost into the thousands. Yet millions of people, most of them of modest means, were buying firearms as if they were loaves of bread. In their minds, with the Democrats in power, tanks would soon be rolling down their streets, with armed military going door-to-door, and taking away everyone’s firearms. These people would be defenseless, and then soon shipped off to concentration camps if they opposed the administration. Of course, the gun mentality is just one example of the coarsening of our society. Everything from the degradation of our pop culture to the lack of civility in our everyday dealings with one another, to the lack of compassion in the way we treat the less fortunate among us, to the growing superficiality and shallowness among the populace, bespeaks to the constant dumbing down and coarsening of American society. And now with society so highly polarized, that trend seems to be going in a steady stream downhill.

One last thing. The worst possible outcome in tomorrow’s election would be if the voting was so evenly divided, especially in the swing states, that no winner could be readily ascertained. Counts and recounts could drag on for days or even weeks, with both sides fighting vociferously to get their guy declared the winner. The election results could even wind up for the courts to decide, the way the Supreme Court, by a 5-4 vote, granted George Bush the winner over Al Gore in the 2000 election. If something like that were to happen, imagine the bitterness and hostility that would emanate from the losing side. It would result in polarization on steroids.

 

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HELL AND BACK

Posted on October 29, 2012 by halviv

In 1948, when I was still almost a child, I became aware of politics and presidential elections for the first time. Yes, I know most of you think that my childhood took place around the time that Galileo was telling the world that the Earth really did rotate around the Sun, rather than vice versa. But, as I said, it was 1948 that I first became aware that their were Democrats and Republicans, and elections every four years. In that year, the presidential race was between Tom Dewey, the Republican, and Harry Truman, the Democrat. Truman, of course, had been FDR’s Vice-President, and took over the presidency in 1945 when Roosevelt died. A feisty Missourian, Truman decided to run for reelection in 1948 against very heavy odds. Supposedly, the country was tired of 16 years of Democratic rule, people wanted a change, Truman didn’t have the stature that FDR had, etc., etc. All the polls, and all the political pundits of that day proclaimed that the Republicans were a sure bet in the election. My father, who was a life-long Democrat, was bemoaning the fact that the Republicans would win that year. But somehow, I had an instinctive feeling that Truman would upset the applecart. Call it intuition. I told my father not to worry, that in the end, the Democrats would retain their hold on the White House. Whereupon, my father told me to keep my mouth shut, lest the neighbors overhear my remarks and discover what an idiot son he had raised.

Tom Dewey, the man that everybody expected to triumph, had been a racketeer busting District Attorney in Manhattan, and scored a boatload of convictions of Mafia kingpins, which subsequently propelled him into the Governor’s seat in New York.  He had  been nominated, ran against and lost to Roosevelt in 1944, but 1948 was supposedly going to be his year. Being a moderate progressive (yes, they still had some of those in the GOP at that time), Dewey picked Earl Warren, then Governor of California and even more progressive than himself, to be his running mate. The Dewey/Warren ticket looked to be unstoppable. But Truman and the Democrats had other ideas.

One of Truman’s favorite proclamations when he was in office, was that if the Republicans didn’t like his policies “they could all go to hell.” He was roundly chastised by the GOP for this, as many Republicans protested how “undignified” it was for the President to use such profanity. Whereby Truman explained that ” I just tell the truth and the Republicans think it’s hell.” Well we all know what subsequently ensued. Dewey, believing the Gallop poll which showed him comfortably in the lead, eased up on the gas pedal, and pretty much coasted the last 10 days to election. Truman, on the other hand, showed his feistiness with an all-court press to the very end of the campaign. People woke up on Wednesday after the election to find that Truman had scored a major upset and won reelection after all. The “Chicago Tribune” which had been absolutely convinced that Dewey would prevail, printed its Wednesday edition on Tuesday night before the election results were in, with the blaring headline-DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN. In one of the most iconic photographs of the 20th century, a beaming Harry Truman is shown holding up a copy of that newspaper and headline in front of a multitude of news cameras.

While both my father and I cheered Truman’s victory, in retrospect, our country might have turned out better if the Dewey/Warren ticket had prevailed. The Republican Party might have retained the moderate progressivism of those candidates, to this day. Instead, after Eisenhower left the scene, the GOP began shifting further and further to the right, until today when it’s firmly entrenched in the streets of right-wing looney-tunesville. Moderate Republicanism has become as extinct as the Dodo bird.

Truman went on to have a successful 4 year-administration and today is usually ranked by historians as one of our best presidents. Dewey quickly faded from the scene after 2 losses in a row, but Earl Warren was subsequently appointed by Eisenhower to be Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. The Court under Warren’s leadership achieved some historic decisions, including the establishment of a criminal defendant’s “Miranda Rights, ” and establishment of the exclusionary rule whereby evidence obtained though illegal searches could no longer be entered in a criminal trial.

So what’s the relevance of these 64-year-old events to this years election? Well, for one, it would be nice if Obama were able to display some of Harry Truman’s spirit and feistiness and never-say-die attitude. Because he doesn’t he’s on the verge of being a one-term President. What’s also different is the mind-boggling amounts of money being spent this year versus the events of yesteryear. I guess with all those billionaires pouring multi-millions into Romney’s campaign, the Democrats always faced a severe uphill battle this year, even under the best of circumstances. Also the very essence of the democratic process has become a joke. Republican Governors in key swing states, have been systematically removing registered voters from the voting rolls, on the pretense that these people are not legitimate citizens of those states. To no one’s surprise, those being removed are from the lower classes that usually vote heavily Democratic.

Also, a number of those Romney-supporting billionaires like the Koch brothers own industries that employ thousands of people. Written word has gone down to those workers that if Obama wins, the jobs of all those thousands of employees will likely be in jeopardy, or the health care and other benefits these employees currently receive will no longer be available. Voter intimidation has become so massive, that one political columnist called it a coup-d’etat in slow motion. So through voter intimidation, and removing Democrats from voter eligibility lists, plus requiring people that are allowed to vote to present Government issued, picture ID, it’s hard to see how the Republicans can lose. That the race is so close a week before election day, bespeaks to what a piece of garbage the Republican platform is. But it’s almost certain that Romney will buy and bulldoze his way into the Oval Office. In the meantime, with still a week to go, it wouldn’t hurt if the Democrats raised all kinds of hell, the way Harry Truman would have done it.

 

 

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RELIGIOUS FANATICISM ….. AGAIN

Posted on October 25, 2012 by halviv

Next year will mark the 40th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s historic ruling on abortion in the case known as Roe V. Wade. In a 7-2 ruling, the Supreme Court, citing a woman’s constitutional right to privacy, struck down laws that existed in virtually every state, that restricted a woman’s right to terminate an unwanted pregnancy in a sterile medical facility. Abortions were still taking place prior to the court’s decision; but more often than not, women had to accept some back-alley butcher as the abortion provider. It didn’t happen frequently, but sometimes women died during the procedure, because the person performing the abortion was often not a medical professional. In the 39 years since Roe V. Wade became law, about 55 million abortions have taken place, over, of course, the strenuous objections of religious fanatics who have fought the de-criminalization of abortion every step of the way. The Republican platform this year would prohibit abortions in every circumstance, without exception. Since the prohibition of anything is meaningless unless there are serious criminal penalties attached, the tens of millions of women that have had abortions over the last 39 years would have to do some serious jail time (say 5-10 years or longer) to say nothing of the doctors that performed the abortions and the nurses that may have assisted them, had the anti-abortionists won the day. I always knew that there was a considerable shortage of prison space in this country.

This came to mind because during this election season, all the snakes seem to be slithering out from under the rocks that sheltered them. For example, about 6-8 months ago there were a series of vile sermons given in churches (all of which seemed to be in North Carolina for some reason) that sought to demonize homosexuality in general and gay marriage in particular using the most venomous language. The sermons were being recorded and later posted on YouTube for all the world to see. What was most disturbing about these exercises in pure, distilled hatred, was not the bible-thumping crackpots giving these sermons. It was the several hundred people who attended these churches and cheered wildly as the bible -thumpers promised hell and damnation to anyone living the gay life-style. So much for civility and love-thy-neighbor in the Christian community.

Then several weeks ago, the Republican running for the U.S. Senate in Missouri decided that he was going to outdo everybody in his fanatical anti-abortion beliefs. He came out with statements to the effect that he was told by medical professionals, that in cases of “legitimate” rape, a woman’s body would naturally cleanse itself of the fetus. He didn’t say what the body would do in cases of illegitimate rape, or for that matter, what his definitions of legitimate versus illegitimate rape were. The absurdity of his remarks were so mind-boggeling that even Mitt Romney, who goes to huge lengths not to offend any possible voter, issued a mild rebuke. However, even Karl Rove, George W. Bush’s former consigliere, who has created his own Super-Pac, with express intent of electing an all-Repulican Congress as a present to a Romney presidency, washed his hands of that one.

Still not to be out-done in religious fanaticism, the guy running for the U.S. Senate in Indiana, the other day, made the incoherent statement that if a woman gets pregnant because of rape (presumably both legitimate and illegitimate) it’s God’s will that she have that baby rather than seek abortion. ( Just the words that  the parents of a 15 year-old daughter that’s been sexually assaulted by some psycho animal, want to hear.) The problem in this case is that His Mittness had previously been caught on tape as endorsing this Republican candidate, as just the type of person that’s needed in Washington to clean things up. Fearing that he may have already alienated one evangelical nut-case too many with his previous rebuke of the guy in Missouri, His Mittness is still standing by his endorsement of the Indiana would-be Senator. Both the Missouri and Indiana religious extremists are Tea-Party favorites who believe that all our fiscal problems will be solved if we just cut-out the couple of million dollars the Government gives to Planned Parenthood. But don’t under-estimate depth of religious zealotry that prevails in much of this country, especially in the mid-west and south. Both men might still eke out a narrow victory in each of their races.

Lets go back, for the moment, to the elections of 2010 when the Tea Party movement was at its zenith. It was obvious that the GOP would capture control of the House of Representatives by a wide margin due to the country’s dislike of Obamacare and other issues. Karl Rove, who I mentioned earlier, also set his sights on Republican control of the Senate; but that would be more difficult because the Democrats had 59 Senate seats. But it was doable. One of the key Senate races that Rove was counting on to switch from Democrat to Republican was in Delaware. Mike Castle, one of dying breed of moderate Republicans, was running for that seat, and was considered a shoo-in victor against his Democratic opponent. He had been a popular Governor and then Congressman, and Rove considered his election to be a forgone conclusion. But first he had to win the GOP primary.

The Tea Party movement at that time, in its infinite wisdom, considered Mike Castle to be too moderate, and so put up their own candidate to oppose him in the primary. Their choice was a woman named Christine O’Donnell who had no previous political experience. Like Sarah Palin, she was pretty and perky, but a complete dingbat. However, only 12% of registered Republicans bothered to show up for the primary vote, and most of them were Tea Party fanatics. Christine O’Donnell, therefore, beat Mike Castle in the primary to became the GOP nominee, but thereby ended all hopes of the Senate reverting to Republican control. Upon hearing the news of Christine’s win, it was said that Karl Rove threw a tantrum, beating his fists into the floor and wailing for 24 hours.

In the general election (which was for Joe Biden’s old seat), it came out that Christine had practiced some form of witchcraft in the 1990s. As you may remember, that led her to cut a famous TV ad in which she starts out by saying: “I’m not a witch.” Words that the average American thought they would never hear in a political campaign since the 17th century. In any event, the Democrat, who was largely unknown, easily won the race and ended GOP hopes for Senate control.

In this coming election, the Tea Party is also strongly backing Mitt Romney and Republican Congressional hopefuls. It doesn’t matter that His Mittness used to be for safe and legal abortions before he was against them, that he was for universal health care before he was against it, that he was for gun control laws before he was against them and on and on. If I listed everything, I have a blog longer than the Dead Sea Scrolls. But if elected, Romney will make one major difference, and that is appointing an anti-abotion judge to the Supreme Court. The 40 year dream of zealots, fanatics, and outright religious crackpots, of overturning Roe V. Wade will finally be realized, if the public allows this by electing Mitt Romney as our next President.

 

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REPUBLICAN MATH

Posted on October 15, 2012 by halviv

In the waning days of Dwight Eisenhower’s presidency, Ike issued a very prophetic warning, which we as a nation, failed to heed. Ike, as he became known, was, of course, the Supreme Commander of allied forces in Europe that successfully prosecuted the war effort against the Nazi empire. He returned home as a conquering hero and subsequently joined the Republican party, and then ran for President in 1952. He defeated a hapless Adlai Stevenson by landslide margins in both 1952, and then again, in 1956. Stevenson had been Governor of Illinois and was a man of outstanding honor and integrity, but he had no chance against Ike’s popularity and friendly smile. Although Ike seemed to prefer spending most of his days out on the golf course, there were 2 significant accomplishments during the Eisenhower administration. One was the start of constructing the interstate highway system that auto travelers enjoy the benefits of to this day. The second was taking action to integrate the highly segregated public school systems that existed at that time throughout the South. In 1957 the courts had decreed that high schools in Little Rock, Arkansas must admit the first black students to an all-white high school which had been segregated since Civil War days. The Governor of Arkansas, a rigid segregationist, had sent the police to block the entrance of a school where 9 black students were to be admitted. Ike, thereupon, called out the national guard to personally escort the black students into school, and the first de-segregation of all- white schools in the South had commenced. Eisenhower took these actions reluctantly, as he was no great civil rights champion. But, nevertheless, he did achieve a landmark civil rights accomplishment.

In the last days of his presidency, Ike issued a proclamation warning us about the undue growing influence of the “military-industrial complex.”  He meant that our growing military might,  coupled the the growing power of the military weapons industry, was beginning to exert undue power, and if left unchecked, would exert continuing undue influence to assure their increasing domination over national affairs. Coming from a former 5-star general, this was certainly a warning to be taken seriously. So being a nation of exceptional wisdom, rationality and sanity, the U.S. immediately began slashing its military budget, began withdrawing troops from far reaching corners of the globe, and took actions to lessen the influence of the weapons manufacturers-NOT. Perhaps such actions might have been taken in a parallel universe, but in this time and space, Eisenhower’s admonitions went totally unheeded. Instead, the military budget has been sharply increased, and the growing influence of weapons manufacturers and other Defense contractors in our national affairs is huge.

The power and influence of the military-industrial complex led directly to the fiasco known as the Viet-Nam war. There was a belief in the early 1960s that the U.S. was militarily invincible, a belief fed to us by the military-industrial complex, which led us to confront the Viet-Cong in the hellhole jungles of Southeast Asia in the belief that we would score an easy victory over a ragtag collection of jungle insurgents. The rest, as they say, is history. That ragtag Viet-Cong army not only defeated us, but about 58,500 American lives were lost, to say nothing of the tens of thousands of American lives that were ruined because of severe war injury, to say nothing of the hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese lives that were lost and the gazillion dollars that were wasted. The scars from the Viet-Nam war remain fresh in the American psyche to this day. Which brings us to the Republican math problem and the future that a Romney presidency would bring to our country.

In the current election, large segments of the electorate have expressed a desire for sharply reduced expenditures leading to a balanced budget, while maintaing a strong military. So naturally, His Mittness has promised both. Except that the math doesn’t fit. Most people aren’t aware that that about 83% of our annual budget (for which we have to borrow 40 cents out of every dollar we spend) is comprised of 4 items, i.e., interest on the debt, Social Security, Medicare, and Defense spending. We can’t tamper with interest on the debt; if we did, we could never borrow again. Self-absorbed seniors like myself won’t stand for any meaningful cuts in Social Security or Medicare; thats like the third rail of politics that no politician is willing to touch. So that leaves Defense spending which comes in at over $700 billion a year as the one significant area where discretionary budget cuts could be made. But here’s where the Republican math goes bonkers. Instead of cutting Defense, His Mittness has promised to increase military spending by about $100-$200 billion a year. Chalk it up to the influence of the military-industrial complex which is especially powerful in swing states such as Virginia. Oh yes, Romney is also promising a 20% tax cut across the board. But somehow he will balance the budget, in defiance of all mathematical sanity. So far he stated he will do this by eliminating funding for PBS and Planned Parenthood, which, as I said last time, is like trying to empty the Pacific Ocean with an eyedropper.

His Mittness is just trying to emulate the playbook that worked so well for Ronald Reagan in the 1980s. Reagan also promised to cut taxes, sharply increase Defense spending, and yet somehow, magically, balance the budget. Except that Reagan’s actions of cutting taxes and boosting military expenditures led to a 300% increase in the public deficit. But it did get him elected, twice. It’s amazing though, how mathematical computations always seem to trump political promises. In any event, Romney’s positions are on the threshold of getting him elected as our next President, no matter how mathematically impossible they are. Mitt Romney is our do anything, say anything it takes to get elected candidate. I’m firmly convinced he would be hesitant to criticize a group of Nazi skinheads with swastikas carved in their foreheads if he thought it might cost him a few votes.

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GREAT EXPECTATIONS

Posted on October 8, 2012 by halviv

No, this isn’t a piece on the classic masterpiece written by Charles Dickens in the 19th century, although a discussion of that novel would certainly be a worthy topic. Instead, I’m writing about new-found Republican optimism following last week’s acclaimed performance by Mitt Romney at the first Presidential debate. He came charging out-of-the-gate with just the right amount of strong aggressiveness mixed with smiling friendliness to win plaudits from both Republicans and Democrats alike. President Obama, on the other hand, appeared weak and indecisive, as if he believed the latest polls showing him in the lead in key states, and felt as long as he didn’t commit any major gaffes, he could just coast along until election day. But as any football team can tell you, trying to just sit on a lead and let the clock run out is often a recipe for disaster. So Obama’s poor performance may well cost him the presidency as the most recent polls show Romney surging into the lead. Couple a very probable Romney win with the strong possibility that the GOP will also capture control of the Senate and House, and I thought it might be fun, if you want to call it that, to see what an all Republican-run Government might look like come next January.

Let’s start with the comment made last week by a Republican Congressman from Georgia. He said that everyone who believed in Darwin’s Theory of Evolution was either going straight to hell, or deserved to be sent to hell. He further stated that the Earth was only 9000 years old, and anyone who believed otherwise was going, again, to you know where. I guess those dinosaurs that roamed the planet 65 million years ago only thought they were on planet Earth. They must have been in an entirely different galaxy altogether. While I can’t find the words to describe the grandiose stupidity of such remarks, the most troubling aspect is number of citizens and voters who believe such delusional thinking. The tens or hundreds of thousands of voters that elected this guy to Congress in the first place. Or the fact that numerous polls show a majority of the populace does not believe in Evolution, even though one visit to any museum of natural history in any major city, would prove to them otherwise. But I guess people who prefer to live in a state of delusion, especially religious delusion, are not big museum goers.

In any event, His Mittness has focused on the poor job market and our huge deficit spending as his main targets to address when entering the Oval Office, so let’s see what would happen come January. In the debate, Romney stated that he would eliminate Government assistance to the Public Broadcasting System and Planned Parenthood. The total Government subsidy to these 2 organizations is about $2.5 million out of an annual budget of $3.8 trillion and an accumulated deficit of $16 trillion. It would be like scooping a glass of water out of the ocean in order to reduce the sea level. So why does Romney even mention these 2 examples? Because PBS is perceived as being favorable toward liberals (even though they’re not) while Planned Parenthood, of course, performs the unforgivable sin of allowing abortions. If PPS favored the  conservative cause, the GOP would want to shower it with funding. On the other hand, His Mittness has stated that he wants to sharply increase Defense spending, i.e. buy more ships, planes, missiles, etc., and significantly increase troop strength. He’s talking about increasing the Defense budget, which already stands at over $700 billion annually, anywhere from another $100-$200 billion a year, but hasn’t said where he would get the additional funding. Oh I know. He could obtain the extra cash from  Big Bird’s nest egg. Romney has publicly stated that he want’s to cut income taxes by 20%, increase Defense spending by $1-2 trillion over 10 years, and yet magically balance the budget. He would follow the same formula that Ronald Reagan used in the 1980’s. Only Reagan’s actions led to a 300 percent increase in our accumulated deficit. These are all crucial points that Obama could have made but didn’t, as he snoozed his way through the debate.

The supposedly rotten economy is Romney’s other big selling point. Except it’s not quite as rotten as it has been made out to be. The vast majority of Americans are working in their preferred jobs. The stock market has been on a steady surge upward. The unemployment rate is higher than the preferred norm by about 2 percent, but it’s getting better. If some of the 15-20 million jobs that American companies have shipped overseas were brought brought back to the U.S., the unemployment numbers would be so low that there would be dancing in the streets. The real estate market, which was the main culprit behind the entire economic downturn in the first place, is still in poor shape. But real estate prices had become so over-inflated, and banks and mortgage companies had acquired so much worthless paper, that it will take years for the market to make a reasonable recovery. This is true no matter who had been elected President. Also true is that whether it’s Obama or Romney in the White House next year, the economy will continue to steadily improve, regardless of the President’s actions. Further points that the Democrat’s could have, but didn’t make.

One last thing. To show the incredible level of Democratic political ineptness and incompetence, one needs to look no further than the very blue state of Conn. There is a Senate race this year that pits the Democratic candidate against a Republican woman whose primary qualification is that she is or was co-owner of the Worldwide Wrestling Federation. This she be a no-brainer win for the Democrat in this, as I’ve said, very blue state. Yet the latest polls show the GOP WWF owner to be winning. If the Dems lose that race, it’s very likely they will lose control of the Senate. When it comes to political competence or smarts, the GOP is like the N.Y. Yankees playing, not a triple A minor league team, but a double A team, for the World Series. It’s a miracle that the Dems ever win any important race. I can only chalk it up to how rotten the Republican agenda is.

 

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FEAR ITSELF

Posted on October 4, 2012 by halviv

At the height of the depression, in May 1933, Franklin Roosevelt, during his inaugural address when being sworn in as President for the first time, uttered these now famous lines: “…there is nothing to fear but fear itself, nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”  Indeed, the Depression itself resulted from unreasoning terror when people discovered that stock market prices were considerably inflated, and began a panic selling spree which caused the stock market to crash. As more terror and fear spread throughout the populace, people were rushing to withdraw their money from banks, which then led to hundreds of bank failures and further economic misery for millions of people. Anyone that has checking or savings accounts with a bank knows that the bank has only a tiny fraction of the cash on hand supporting those accounts. If all account holders show up at once, demanding withdrawal of their entire assets, the bank would go under in less than 2 hours, and that was exactly what was happening in the early phase of the Depression. Between the stock market crash and the multitude of bank failures, millions saw their life savings vanish almost overnight, only to be followed by a bleak future of economic poverty.

Sometimes fear is a good thing, in that it can motivate us to take life-saving actions. For example, if an intruder was attempting to break-in to your home, the accompanying fear one would feel could lead to self-defense actions that could save one’s life. Similarly, a life-threatening illness would certainly motivate one to seek necessary therapies. So fear can be a positive emotion, when the source of that fear is genuine, but it can be highly destructive when it’s fed by paranoia or irrationality. During the 1930s there was generally a lack of concern in this country that we would be dragged into the coming world war, even as Nazi and Japanese military machines were on the march in Europe and the Pacific. This lack of fear, if you will, fed by a false sense of security that the Atlantic and Pacific oceans would protect us from becoming involved militarily, directly led to the disaster at Pearl Harbor, and our huge unpreparedness when we were forced to enter the war. After WWII, however, the fear factor relating to the rise of Communism swung completely in the opposite direction, as fear and paranoia came to rule of the day.

Shortly after the end of WWII, Communist Russia, then ruled by Josef Stalin, one of the greatest butchers in history, marched into Eastern Europe, and almost effortlessly, took over control of a slew of countries such as Poland, Hungry, Rumania, etc. About the same time, a Communist revolution in China, under the leadership of Mao Zedong, overthrew the existing Chinese government and took control of that country. Mao was also no stranger to the butchery of thousands of people he felt were opposed to his regime. When, in 1949, Russia detonated its first H-bomb, fear and panic swept through the U.S. like the bubonic plague. It seemed as if Communism was on the march everywhere, and would soon engulf the entire world, us included. Suddenly, everyone was suspicious of everyone else, including family members, friends, co-workers, Government employees and so on. Maybe they were secretly Reds, or Communist sympathizers, Russian spies, left-wing pinkos, the list just went on and on. Of course Congress soon took notice of this fear of Communism and started investigations into the so-called red-menace that supposedly was proliferating in this country. Nothing like a strong dose of paranoia to help further one’s political ambitions.

It thus came to pass that a little-known Senator from Wisconsin named Joe McCarthy saw great opportunism and potential to further his political career by pushing the Communist scare. Tail-gunner Joe, as they called him because of his war service on a fighter-bomber, began by claiming there were hundreds of people working in the State Dept.,  or for the Army, or for other Government entities, that were secretly Communist traitors or spies covertly employed by the USSR to destroy America. After, there ensued years of Communist witch-hunting in hearing after hearing before McCarthy’s Senate committee where mostly innocent people were paraded forth and charged with being Communist traitors, causing their lives to be forever ruined. The House of Representatives, not to be outdone, established the House Un-American Activities Committee that investigated the so-called spread of Communism in Hollywood. Again, hundreds of innocent lives were dragged before that committee, and saw their lives ruined by innuendo or false accusations. Richard Nixon served on that committee, and gained the fame and notoriety that enabled him to eventually become President.

McCarthyism, as it subsequently become known as, was a classic example of irrational fear run rampant, and is a word in the dictionary to this day. Finally that all-consuming fear of Communist dominance began to somewhat subside in the late 1950s, but not until thousands of lives had been ruined by false accusations and the occurrence  of several suicides. Around 1956, the US Army stood up to McCarthy and demanded hearings on McCarthy’s accusations that its ranks were being infiltrated by Communists. Until then, virtually everyone was too intimidated to take on Tail-gunner Joe’s false charges. Those hearings exposed McCarthyism for the evil that it was, and McCarthy himself was subsequently condemned by Congressional resolution. Being a near alcoholic, Joe McCarthy subsequently drank himself to death in the late 1950s. However the fear of Communism lived on until 1989, especially in right-wing quarters, until the old Soviet Union collapsed under the weight of its own cumbersome system.

Irrational fear and paranoia, however, the type that FDR spoke of, has never really disappeared from the American political scene. Today it lives on in the ranks of the right-wing tea party movement that would seek to turn the Government clock back to what it looked like in the 19th century. And they are within shouting distance of taking over both the Presidency and Congress in the coming election. Won’t life be fun then. We could all take our paranoia pills every morning, just popping them in like vitamins, and go tiptoeing thru the tulips without a care in the world.

 

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BRAND NAMES

Posted on September 25, 2012 by halviv

One of the more curious events of the recent Republican convention that was totally under reported by the media, was the fact that neither of the last 2 Republican Presidents, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush were not only not invited, but were never mentioned during the convention process. On the other hand, Bill Clinton, the last Democratic President before Obama, was hailed at the Democratic convention as the second coming, and one could almost see a halo ringing the top of his head when he gave his convention speech. This despite the whole Monica Lewinski scandal thingy. Yet both Bush the Elder and Bush the Younger were both persona-non-grata at the GOP production. Although I disagreed with some of his policies I always considered the elder Bush to be a man of integrity and decency. At least, for a politician. But, I guess, that since he’s a pretty old man now, and he did lose his reelection bid, were factors leading to his aura of invisibility at the Republican festivities. The younger Bush, who also possesses a high level of decency, was made a non-person as far as Republicans were concerned, for several reasons. One, of course, was the economic crash we endured during the last 2 years of his presidency, which got us into the mess that we’re still trying to emerge from today. But the other reason was that W. showed too much moderation for today’s GOP, which has swung totally over to the dark side of political fanaticism. After all, it was under Bush’s reign that the Medicare drug benefit was enacted and federal aid to education, as well as other social programs, was significantly increased.  Can’t have that, as far as today’s Republicans are concerned.

Regarding the economy, however, the economic disaster in 2008 was not Bush’s fault,  nor is it ever the President’s fault. Although Democrats in general, and Obama in particular, have made lifetime careers out of blaming Bush for the bad economy, the reality is that the fault lies in the inherent nature of our capitalist system, and the speculators that try to game the system. In the 1920s, the economy was on a roll and the stock market was booming. It was known as the roaring ’20s. There were big profits to be made in the stock market, and investors were making money hand-over-fist. It really didn’t matter what stock a person bought, the stock market could only go one way, and that was up. Or so the speculators and other capitalistic gamers would have you believe. Until one day in October 1929, someone took a second look at what was supporting highly inflated stock prices, and found there was really nothing there. Word got around, and sooner rather than later, panic began setting in. People started selling their stocks in a mass frenzy, and the entire market collapsed. We all know about the great Depression that ensued, and the misery that America went through for about a dozen years, until WWII pulled us out the hard times.

Similarly, in the 2000s, capitalistic speculators zeroed in on the real estate market where values could only go one way, and again, that was up. Whereas, in previous decades, people bought houses primarily for living quarters, in the early 2000s, speculators were grabbing houses to to make big, quick and easy bucks. Indeed, we bought our house here in Las Vegas in the year 2000, and saw the property nearly triple in value before the roller-coaster ride came to an end sometime between 2006-2007. Almost on a weekly basis, I would tell my wife that our builder had increased the prices of new homes by somewhere between 25,000 to 50,000 dollars, and she would shake her head and utter words of disbelief. We saw speculators buying up scores of houses in our development, in one get-rich-quick scheme after another. Until, as in 1929, someone took a second look, and asked how real estate prices could possibly be so astronomical, given what was being offered for those prices. As previously, panic selling started to set in, and speculators were dumping their properties on the market for whatever price they could get. Today, my house is back down to roughly what we paid for it almost 13 years ago, which is okay since we bought it to live in, not for speculation. Plus, I have the satisfaction of knowing that many speculators and gammers were financially ruined when the housing bubble burst.

Of course, the greatest economic downturn since the great Depression resulted from the bursting of that bubble, and the economy continues to limp along weakly since 2008. Once again the flaws of our capitalistic system raised their ugly heads. But Mitt Romney and the Republicans see the poor economy as their pathway to the presidency and perhaps full control of Congress. Just blame the high unemployment rate and huge deficit spending on Obama and the Democrats, and winning in November should be in the bag. So why isn’t it. When it became a sure thing that Romney would be the Republican nominee back in April or May, and given the lousy state of economic conditions, I expected His Mittness to open up at least a 10%-15% lead in the polling numbers. Yet here we are, a little over a month from balloting time, and the latest polls show the race to be a dead heat with Obama actually having a small lead. What happened?

Could it be that the Republican brand of politics just isn’t selling too well? That the GOP way of fixing the economy by giving tax cuts to the rich while sharply cutting Government spending for the poor, sick and elderly, is not the way many people view reality. You know, that pesky 47% of us always looking for a Government handout. Including veterans from Mid-East wars with brain damage, blindness, missing limbs, or PTSD that insist on asking the Veterans Administration for benefits. Or perhaps those obnoxious seniors always carrying-on about their Medicare or Social Security benefits being tampered with. Or perhaps those receiving food stamps, where the GOP wants to make substantial cuts. After all, if you have no money to feed yourself, is it really the Government’s responsibility to keep you from starving to death.

Or perhaps people are objecting to the Republican brand when it comes to social issues. Like the Republican platform that would not allow any abortions, even in cases of rape, incest, or where the mothers life is at peril. Or the GOP guy from Missouri running for the U.S. Senate, claiming that a woman’s body would take care of her in cases of “legitimate” rape. (I would hate to see what illegitimate rape looks like.) Or the Republican continuing war against gay rights and gay marriage. Thus, in a year when a bad economy should enable the GOP to sweep into power, Republicans, as I said previously, have gone so far over to the dark side of right-wing whackoism, that the race for both President and Congress remains exceedingly close. I still think that Romney will likely win, because he has more billionaires willing to spend whatever it takes to get him elected. But by this point in time it shouldn’t even be close, except for the Republican brand of extremism. And as I’ve said many times, Mitt Romney remains the best candidate the billionaires could buy.

 

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AT THE WATER’S EDGE

Posted on September 20, 2012 by halviv

There used to be a saying, back in the day, that politics stopped at the water’s edge. What it meant to convey was that although there could be great debates and divisiveness about domestic policy and issues, when it came to foreign affairs, we should always present a united front to the rest of the world. Liberal or conservative, Republican or Democrat, when it came to foreign policy issues, it was in the best interests of our country that we would all act as one. This thinking stemmed largely from the time shortly before World War II, when our foreign policy was basically isolationism. Although storm clouds indicating mammoth wars were about to begin in Europe and the Pacific, most Republicans and some Democrats too, believed that having vast oceans on our east and west coasts would somehow protect us from becoming involved in those conflicts. The Roosevelt Administration tried desperately to assist England as it fought for its very existence against the maniacal evil of Nazi Germany. But a largely isolationist Congress refused to let Roosevelt engage Hitler militarily.

Of course, the folly of isolationism came abruptly to an end in December 1941 when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. The Atlantic and Pacific oceans would not give us immunity from being involved in the rest of the world’s affairs. Thereafter, a new breed of Republicans, known as internationalists, started getting elected to office, and isolationism was supposedly a discredited and dead issue. As I stated earlier, foreign policy was deemed to be at the water’s edge by this new wave of Republicanism,  where neither party would criticize the other on such matters. That began to unravel around the 1960s when Republicans began using foreign policy as a campaign issue, by stating that the Democrats were “soft on communism” especially when dealing with the old USSR and Red China. Those were the times when the cries from right-wing circles went forth such as: “Better dead than red, or lets kill a Commie for Jesus.” Ronald Reagan especially exploited the soft on communism theme in winning the presidency twice in the 1980s. We probably spend about one or two trillion dollars extra in defending against the “red menace.” In the end, the old USSR collapsed under its own unmanageable weight, and Red China became a market, instead of Marxist economy, and today is one of our largest trading partners, as well as holding about a trillion dollars of our debt. The Viet-Nam war, where we lost about 58,500 men, to say nothing of the hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese that were killed, was another exercise in the futility of fighting the “red menace.” Today we also have extensive trade agreement with the government of Viet-Nam, the same government we had fought against in vain decades before. Funny how unforgivable irony can be when recounting the foibles of man’s history.

All this came to mind a few days ago when Mitt Romney was fast to assault President Obama with the charge that having a weak foreign policy led to the deaths of 4 US ambassadorial members in Libya. He made this charge, of course, before any facts were known or verified. Once the facts were known, Romney was proven wrong, but apparently little things like facts will not dissuade the Republicans from attacking Obama”s foreign policy initiatives. No more stopping at the water’s edge this time around. Of course, to be fair, the Democrats strongly attacked George W. Bush’s handling of the Iraqi war, so I guess both parties have waded into the water and it’s now up to their necks. But getting back to Libya, as well as other Arab or Islamic nations, it would be useful to understand the rage, turmoil and protests going on against any US presence in that part of the world. To do this, lets look at the facts this time.

Arab or Islamic countries in the Mid-East (Iran is Islamic but not Arab) have some of the most wretched economies in the world. Living conditions are often deplorable, and the the unemployment rates, especially for young men, are through the roof. Thus, you have tons of young men with tons energy, but with no outlets such as job opportunities, to release that energy. For tens if not hundreds of thousands of young men in their late teens, or twenties, or even thirties, their days consist of a dismal process of sitting around with no hopes for decent employment or a satisfying future. They have already given up on any prospects that their lives will, in any way, ever amount to anything. Their futures have already been taken from them. Thus, these young men with no hope or prospects, make fertile breeding grounds for the vile and hate-mongering radical islamists and terrorists, ever eager to wreck vengeance on the US, Israel and the West in general.Those that seek power through hate, as has been shown throughout history, will always look for willing followers among those that believe they have no future. And this is exactly what happened in Libya, Egypt and throughout the Mid-East. Using the slightest pretext, such as the making of a piece of garbage anti-Islamic film, tens of thousands of protesters, almost all young men, took to the streets in rage and anger, burning American and Israeli flags, setting fires to Embassy buildings, and in the worst case scenario, murdering 4 innocent diplomats in Libya. That rage and protest gave young men who had no other prospects, a new purpose for living. If it wasn’t for the pretext of a bad, hate-filled movie, the violent protesters would have come up with some other excuse to wreck their vengeance. And to try to score political points off those events could be considered perhaps a new low in mudslinging in American politics.

Just one more point I want to make about the presidential race. A few weeks back Mitt Romney  made the curious statement before a campaign crowd, that if young people couldn’t find decent jobs, they should borrow money from their parents and go into business for themselves. And I thought, of course, why didn’t I think of that when I was young. All those years I worked for someone as an employee, I could have started my own business and been the boss instead. I could have asked my parents to loan me their entire life savings, all $164.82 worth, and gone into the venture capital business like His Mittness did. Again, why didn’t I think of that?

 

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THE BETTER SALESMAN

Posted on September 11, 2012 by halviv

So all the conventions and hoopla are over and the race for President has started in earnest. Watching the rapt attention that convention delegates gave to their leaders’ speeches, one could see the adoration of the true believers that I’ve written about previously, and the blind trust they had that their guy, if elected, will truly transform life on this planet, and make it so much better for all of us. Now the race for the the White House goes into full throttle, and in the end it will likely be the better salesman who also has the most cash, that winds up sitting in the oval office. The one that can more effectively sell his visions and promises for America’s future, most of which, of course, will never come true. And by the way, is everyone enjoying those mean-spirited and nasty TV commercials blasting away at the other side with at least 95% fiction. They’re only going to increase in volume and viciousness over the next 8 weeks. In any event, I thought it would be useful to summarize what each party has politically accomplished over the years to improve our society, so that we don’t have to rely on those fictitious ads in deciding who to vote for. Lets start with the Democrats.

When Franklin Roosevelt took office in 1933 the great depression was in full swing, and the unemployment rate topped 25%. Tens of millions of people had just about lost all hope for a better future, or that anyone could help them, least of all, their Government. Roosevelt quickly ushered in the New Deal, which marked the first time in our history that a Government stated objective would be to play an active role regarding the economic welfare of its citizens. The New Deal created the Civilian Conservation Corps and the Works Progress Administration which together put millions of unemployed back to work and receiving a paycheck. Also created was Social Security, which for the first time established a federal pension system for the elderly. Other accomplishments of the New Deal were laws establishing the rights of workers to legally form unions and strike if necessary; unemployment insurance so people out-of-work wouldn’t necessarily starve or become homeless; workman’s compensation for employees injured on the job; the creation of the Securities and Exchange Commission to oversee Wall Street stock and bond trading which led to the depression in the first place through excessive speculation, and much more. Perhaps Roosevelt’s greatest accomplishment, however, was the establishment of a decisive federal role in the welfare and economy of our country.

Fast forward now to 1961 when John Kennedy took office. Though Kennedy’s term was tragically cut short by his assassination, he began the long march toward equality for all Americans, and especially black people who were denied basic civil rights, mostly in the South. Segregation laws throughout the South were increasingly being challenged, sometimes violently, as some civil rights protestors lost their lives during demonstrations. Blacks were often denied the right to vote through most of the South, and JFK pushed for a voting rights law which came to fruition in 1964 under Lyndon Johnson, after Kennedy lost his life in November 1963. (Interestingly, southern states justified their racial and voting rights discrimination laws on the basis of “states rights,” i.e., the federal government had no constitutional right to interfere with how individuals states governed their citizens. Not unlike tea party members of today screaming that the federal government has no role in the welfare of the people. Only the states do. As the old adage goes: the more things change, the more they stay the same.) As I mentioned LBJ brought the voting rights bill to success in 1964, and for the first time, blacks were able to vote in large numbers. Once that occurred, formal segregation, or Jim Crow laws began to crumble, and blacks throughout the country, after a hundred years of semi-slavery since the end of the Civil War, began to enjoy the freedom of equality.

LBJ’s accomplishments didn’t end with passage of the voting rights act. Working with a largely Democratic Congress, he was able to enact two major health care laws, Medicare for the elderly, and Medicaid for the poor. Also established were food stamps for the poor, which currently puts food on the table for over 45 million Americans. Even the most rabid anti-government types are fearful of advocating reversal of these acts. Unfortunately, LBJ allowed us to get hopelessly bogged down in the quagmire of the Viet-Nam war, which greatly tarnished his reputation and destroyed his chances for re-election. Jimmy Carter’s presidency has largely been maligned because the economy was in poor shape at the time. But he did manage to get Israel and Egypt to make peace, which has had huge consequences for the Mid-East until this day. Bill Clinton gave us the best 8 years of peace and prosperity in my lifetime. Barack Obama in his first term, has given us universal health care (if it survives the Republican onslaught) and greater financial oversight over the banking business. However the economy remains in poor shape.

Now lets see what the Republicans have given us. Basically it can be summed up thusly- tax cuts for the rich, trickle down economics, anti-abortion, anti-gay-rights, and anti-gun control laws. So why is the GOP commanding at least half, if not more, of the vote, and is within striking distance of taking over the White House and Congress, in a few weeks. I believe the reasons can be summed up in two words: redistribution and evangelicalism. On the financial side the Republicans appeal to people’s basic greed and fear of being taken advantage of. Many Republicans view the Government as a vast redistribution point, where a person’s hard earned income is taken away in taxes and given to those who receive any form of Government assistance. After all, the thinking goes, anyone receiving welfare, food stamps, unemployment checks, etc., has to be either lazy or stupid or both. Ronald Reagan called them “welfare queens” and made huge political profit as a result. Newt Gingrich has called Barack Obama the food stamp President. Never mind that Defense, interest on the debt, Social Security and Medicare take up 85% of the Government’s budget. In the minds of average Republicans, their tax money all goes to those that refuse to take care of themselves, and Republicans are perpetually irate over that.

The other half of Republican successes come from religious fanatics, better known as evangelicals. They interpret both the old and new testaments literally, (regardless of the huge number of contradictions), and hence, their fiercely anti-abortion and anti-gay rights stances. In a country where more than half the population denies the existence of evolution, the GOP has found a rich mine-field of religious fanatics to enlist in their cause. Financial greed and selfishness, coupled with bible thumpers and holy rollers, and the GOP believes it has a winning combination for this year’s election. And why shouldn’t they. It has frequently worked for them in the past. Given that the economy is still in poor shape, it may very well work for them once again.

 

 

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ADORATION BY THE MASSES

Posted on September 3, 2012 by halviv

Watching parts of the Republican convention last week, I was particularly fascinated when the cameras swept to the the faces of the thousands of delegates in attendance, as various speechmakers gave their orations. For many, those faces were of pure, rapt adoration, as the promises being made would surely transform their lives into eternal bliss. Just elect the Romney/Ryan ticket, and thereafter, the sun will shine, the birds will chirp, and every morning we can tiptoe thru the tulips with carefree abandon. All the orator had to do was say: United States of America, we’re number one, and the crowd would erupt into screaming hysterics. Sort of like at a football game. It reminded me of films made by Nazi propagandists during the 1930s of Hitler’s motorcades through the hearts of Berlin or Nuremberg. Thousands would line the streets as young frauleins, with faces beaming in sheer adoration, would toss flowers at Der Fuher’s motorcade. Of course all that adoration turned to dust in the 1940s, as the war progressed and Allied forces were bombing German cities into piles of rubble.  If there’s one thing I’ve learned after all these years, it’s this. If you’re unhappy with your life, or things aren’t going well, there is only one person that can make the changes needed to rectify the situation, and you all know who that person is. Yes, you can get help from outside sources, but it sure as hell won’t be from some lowlife politician.

That’s not to insinuate that there aren’t consequences regarding who gets elected to run our government. For example, in the year 2000, Al Gore was elected President, but was not allowed to take office. Instead the Supreme Court handed the Presidency to George Bush through a highly questionable ruling. Bush was determined to get rid of Saddam Hussein, then the unquestionably evil despot ruling Iraq. Bush initiated the war in Iraq (a war Al Gore would never have started) which did depose Saddam who was later executed. But the cost of this war was almost a trillion dollars, plus the loss of over 6000 American military and civilian lives, plus another 30,000 seriously wounded Americans whose lives are effectively over because of injuries such as blindness, brain damage, or being paralyzed from the neck down, etc. To say nothing of the over 100,000 Iraqi lives that were lost. But without the war Saddam Hussein would likely still be in power, so one has to weigh the costs and make his or her own determination as to whether it was all worth it.

In any event, watching the convention last week, one could see the expressions of the true believers that I wrote about last time, on the faces of many of the delegates, and I’m sure we’ll see the same expressions of pure adoration when the Democratic convention starts tomorrow. So I thought it might be worthwhile to look at some actual facts surrounding this upcoming election. You know, those pesky little things that politicians like to mumble over when making soaring promises that never seem to materialize. Take Medicare, for example, a subject I’m quite familiar with since I’ve been on it for quite awhile. Medicare is a reasonably good plan but nothing great. It doesn’t cover stuff such as eye exams, eyeglasses, hearing aids, dentistry and a bunch of other stuff that seniors increasingly depend on with advancing age. Plus there’s a significant co-pay with every doctor’s visit. Every senior knows that if one depends on Medicare, one must also acquire a medigap policy with additional premiums to pay, in order to cover what Medicare does not. While Medicare premiums are not unreasonable, once the cost of a medigap policy is factored in, costs start to add up. But costs to the government are going up even faster, so Paul Ryan has a plan to address this issue, that is so convoluted that I won’t bore you with the details. The bottom line, however, is that new seniors entering Medicare would have to pay a lot higher share of the doctor’s bills. That’s it, plain and simple. The Democrat’s plan is to pretend that Medicare is not going broke, and keep it as it is.

Both positions are ridiculous, because neither party will face the true issues. Of course Medicare costs will skyrocket as people live longer, baby boomers for example, and as new and expensive medications and therapies come onto the market. But the answer is not to make vulnerable seniors, especially those on the lower rungs of the economic ladder, pay thousands of dollars more than they can ill afford, as the Republican plan would stipulate. The solution is simply to raise the age of eligibility to say 70, instead of 65 as it is today. Raising the eligibility age would be entirely justified, because life spans have significantly increased over the years since Medicare became law in the 1960s. The same is true with Social Security which is also going broke if nothing is done. Just raise the retirement age, commensurate with increased life spans and the problem is solved. Yet both parties will spend tens of millions of dollars on obnoxious and obscene TV commercials, accusing the other side of destroying Medicare and Social Security. Such is the nature of politics these days.

The important thing to remember is that when people vote for President, they’re also voting to bring in the entire Democratic or Republican establishment to run the country. That can be a frightening thought. For example, the Republican platform has a section advocating the total elimination of all abortions, even in cases of rape or incest or where the life of the mother is threatened. When Romney is elected President the people who wrote that policy will be brought in to oversee social issues. (Romney has said he would advocate allowing abortions in those limited cases. Who said he wasn’t all heart.) It’s also interesting to note the men who drive up in black limos and go into these conventions through the side entrance, as quietly as possible. These are the multi-millionaires and billionaires that fund the Presidential campaigns, and they expect big-time payback when their guy is elected. Currently, there are about 14 billionaires in the Romney camp, all old and religiously fanatical white men. Of course Democrats have their billionaire backers too, so it might be worthwhile to research out which set of rich white guys who will really run the country, you want controlling your lives. In any event, as I’ve said previously, Mitt Romney is the best candidate the billionaires could buy thus far.

 

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