What Are You Trying To Conserve

God, I Love Rebublicans

2011-05-02T04:31:00.000-07:00

The problem with being SO self-righteous is that you look so silly denying things when you get caught with your hand in the cookie jar.

www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2011-04-28/pawlenty-bachmann-sought-pardon-for-minnesota-donor-accused-in-ponzi-scheme/

Kasich, Corruption

2011-05-01T09:52:00.000-07:00

Now the Repubs are trying to pass a bill that will turn over public money to for profit charter schools but with no oversight of what the schools accomplish. And the for profits get to keep whatever they buy with public money, regardless of how bad a job they do.

Unbelievable! And what is even more unbelievable is that Kasich, according to polls, still has a forty point approval rating. Maybe that 40 % are the friends of Kasich who stand to be enriched by their connections with the governor.

I think school vouchers and charter schools are a good idea but I hope no one can take seriously the idea of giving public money to FOK's (Friends of Kasich) with no controls and no direction from the government. I cant quite make up my mind if this more like the banks being allowed to run loose until the whole financial system came down or more like another wonderful Ohioan whose administration was famous for graft and corruption, U. S. Grant.

We Americans are so shallow and silly that we lurch from one pole to the next, trying to avoid taking responsibility for our own mess. If Obama hadn't spent the money he did, we would be talking about the second Great Depression instead of the Great Recession. We do need to curtail spending but after some thought. Tea Baggers, I'm sorry to use language you're unaccustomed to like think or some derivative of the word. You rednecks are being played by the folks with all the money. Yes, I meant to say all the money, because after Bush, and Obama's cave in, the top 1% of income earners control 50% of the wealth in this country.

If I ever get rich I'm going to buy my own politician; from what I can see, it's a good investment.

Shame On You Big Banks

2009-10-25T20:29:00.000-07:00

The cops break up a demonstration at the ABA meeting, which is no surprise since the police always protect the money.

Health Insurance Competition Now

2009-10-23T10:37:00.001-07:00

The Economics Of Healthcare

2009-10-20T17:07:00.000-07:00

Uwe Reinhardt is an economist at Princeton and he might know more about the economics of healthcare in The United States than any other economist. If you've got thirty minutes or so you can listen to Dr. Reinhardt's enlightening interview on Talk Of The Nation from NPR news. Dr. Reinhardt says Americans should quit whining about healthcare and look at it logically. Logically? When the poor screamers at the healthcare town hall meetings didn't know that Medicare was a government run program and the insurance industry produces reports with made up numbers. Good luck with that, Dr. Reinhardt.

South Carolina Republicans: The Group That Just Keeps On Giving Stupid

2009-10-20T12:10:00.001-07:00

Sometimes I can't think of a thing to say. South Carollina Republicans refer to Jews as "penny pinchers" when talking about Republican Congressman Jim Demint. Well, yee haw!

Ridiculous Republicans

2009-10-20T12:01:00.000-07:00

And I'm not supposed to say insulting things about Republicans? Really? Think about this as you're watching this video featuring Bill Maher: even in a year in which Michelle Bachman and The Birthers and The Tea Baggers were the face of the Republican party, a fifth of all U.S. citizens still claim to be Republicans. And they're the ones with guns. It should be enough to give thinking Americans, the ones who may read a book not authored by Glenn Beck or Sarah Palin, the shivers.

Chamber of Commerce Spends $34Million On Lobbying

2009-10-20T08:22:00.001-07:00

I mentioned the U.S. Chamber of Commerce lobbying in the previous post. Do you wonder how much The Chamber is spending to try to hold on to the Bush years? Well, it's more than the next eighteen players are spending combined. And that doesn't count what was spent by a separate organization under its control, The Institute For Legal Reform.

What are you trying to conserve: A world in which the super rich get the most favorable tax treatment. A world in which big corporations can pollute practically at will. A world in which insurance companies can cancel the health insurance of those who are sick. A world in which thousands and thousands of Americans go bankrupt because of healthcare bills. A world in which the poor get poorer and the rich get downright obscene. A world in which any move to reality is opposed.

And I am supposed to somehow respect these people as citizens of The United States and the world? Pulease. They'll do whatever they can to conserve a system in which they can pollute, unfairly enrich themselves and keep most Americans down so they can grow fat.

We Have The Technology To Produce Zero Waste

2009-10-20T07:26:00.000-07:00

Leslie Kaufman, a writer for The New York Times, writes about the movement to zero waste. According to the article the technology exists today to recycle nearly all waste, a practice that seems like a no-brainer to me. Recycling all wastes--moving to package goods only in biodegradable containers, composting yard waste and restaurant waste--can save taxes, landfill space and keep methane gas from contributing to global warming.

A worthy project for The National Chamber of Commerce? Well, since the organization, which seems trapped in 1928, is resisting any government move to curtail greenhouse gases, don't look for them to pick up the project any time soon.

I know cities moving to recycle everything will be expensive but it seems to me to be worth the effort. New York City sends trainloads of garbage out of state, some to Ohio landfills. The city, like all American cities, produces a lot of garbage that wouldn't have to be landfilled if a few changes were made. The biggest barrier to zero waste is lack of will.

What are you trying to conserve? Resisting the zero waste movement means that we are trying to conserve a system in which tons and tons of garbage is produced with less and less space to put it. (I worked for Waste Management at one time in my life. I know how much land a well-run landfill takes.) It means we are conserving a system which produces more and more methane gas in an already warming world. It means that we are conserving a system that will create a crisis--the garbage crisis--in the near future.

Poor Louisiana

2009-10-18T07:41:00.001-07:00

It has taken me a long time to get to this place, but I am finally embarrassed for my home state. The justice of the peace refusing to marry the interracial couple is what finally pushed me over the edge. Yes, yes, I know lots of folks in the state who will be appalled by the news, but I also know--or at least know of--a bunch of folks who think the JP made the right choice.

David Duke, klansman, designer of a plan to segregate the races, New Africa and all that, hater of Jews, was almost elected governor of Louisiana. In fact he got the most white votes when he ran against Edwin Edwards. Only a Louisiana election would could feature bumper stickers that read, "Vote For The Crook, It's Important." The crook was Edwin Edwards, an acknowledged scoundrel who was later convicted of multiple federal crimes. But at least the bumper stickers acknowledged he was better than David Duke, the Nazi.

At a high school in Southwest Louisiana, a noose was left on a tree under which a group of black kids regularly hung out. Much was made about some of the African American students not being model citizens. But it was a noose. I don't give a damn what the black kids were like, you don't hang a noose on a tree in Louisiana without knowing what it symbolizes. I'd always hoped that with passing generations the fire of racial conflict would be cooled, but the flames seem to have the energy of some horrible, hateful bunny, they just keeps going and going.

And it could have been made better. Baton Rouge schools serve as a good example. A past treasurer for the Baton Rouge school board wrote a letter to the editor of The Advocate, Baton Rouge's daily paper, before I left the state pointing out how the school board, an all white board in those days, did not negotiate in good faith and purposely dealt with the NAACP lawyers in an underhanded way. Finally, the atmosphere became so toxic that calamity was the only destination for the schools.

So, does anyone, the racists, the klansmen, or the apologists for them, give a good damn whether I'm embarrassed for the state in which they live? Well, no, of course not. But the economy of Louisiana is being held up by the massive amounts of federal money that is flowing down to the state. Sometime the money spigot is going to be turned off and Louisiana will be called on to stand on its own. Wouldn't it make it easier to build a modern economy if the people of the state tried now to join the rest of the United States, to adhere to The U.S. Constitution and to Supreme Court decisions? The oil ain't gonna flow forever and sooner or later the state will have to pay for its failure to try to make peace with its past.

Food Has To Be Produced For A World Population Of 9 Billion By 2050

2009-10-12T17:18:00.000-07:00

Has anyone ever read Soylent Green or seen the movie? Those are the images that popped into my head when I read this. But let's not worry about climate change and population control now. Let's take a nap. We'll feel better and tomorrow's another day. Let's click our Conservative Ruby Slippers together three times and say, "There's nothing like denial, there's nothing like denial, there's nothing like denial."

Hey, it will probably work as well as what we're doing now.

Six Year Old Suspended--Poor America, We're Just So Dumb

2009-10-12T07:56:00.000-07:00

Sometimes bureaucratic action in The United States is so inane that I just shake my head. Like it's another Newark joke, here's a story about a six-year-old who was suspended for taking his Cub Scout fork, spoon, knife combination to school. I suppose our weird decisions are formed because we are so frightened. But are things really so bad? I don't think they're bad enough to start kicking out little boys who take their Cub Scout utensil to eat lunch with. But maybe that's just me.

2009-10-12T06:04:00.000-07:00

I've got a link to Andrew Sullivan's Atlantic blog, The Daily Dish, just to the right of this text but I wanted to point out this piece in particular. In it you will find evidence of two big reasons why I am ambivalent about Obama--that he's not carried through on campaign promises in general and on shedding light on our past torture of innocents in particular.

James Carville Imitation From SNL

2009-10-12T05:45:00.000-07:00

This is an old episode of SNL but I am posting it because it shows a great caricature of James Carville, the wild political consultant from Louisiana. Old James is as nasty as they come and his wife, right-winger Mary Matlin, seems to be equally extreme and sharp-tongued. The couple's children will have two clear positions to choose from; I just hope they don't end up with an uncontrollable twitch.

Ross Douthat On Obama's Nobel Prize

2009-10-12T04:19:00.000-07:00

I wrote yesterday that I didn't think Barack Obama deserved the Nobel Peace Prize; that the Nobel committee was injecting themselves into U.S. domestic politics by giving the president the award. I also wrote that the Republicans who were calling for him to deny the prize were being hypocritical, that John Boehner or Mitch McConnell certainly would not have turned down such a prestigious gift that plopped down into their laps. I still think those things.

But Ross Douthat's column in this morning's New York Times arguing that Obama should have turned it down makes sense. Obama's award seems cheap if you put it next to certain figures who could have won. The more I think about it, the more the awarders are revealed to me, "five obscure Norwegians," as Mr. Douthat writes, and I would add five silly Norwegians. The whole thing is embarrassing for all concerned.

What are you trying to conserve? It isn't that I think any Republican or Conservative politicians would have turned down the prize. But a declination by Obama may have not only conserved the illusion that he isn't just another politician, it may have conserved the aura of the Nobel committee itself. It may have conserved the notion that it isn't made up of five Norwegian hacks who let their own distaste for certain types of politics interfere with their good judgement.

On Obama Winning The Nobel Peace Prize

2009-10-11T07:10:00.000-07:00

I heard the news on NPR, that President Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize. My first thought was that the Norwegians were trying to inject themselves into U.S. domestic politics. After a couple of days, I still think that. How can a President who has increased troop strength in Afghanistan; who has not yet withdrawn from Iraq; who has not closed Guantanamo; and who has accomplished very little domestically deserve the Peace Prize?

Yes, I know that the attitude of the world toward the U.S. seems to have changed and many Muslims seem to hate us less. But is that reason enough to award the international award for bringing peace to the world? Jimmy Carter, who did accomplish something memorable in his presidency by bringing Israel and Egypt together, had to wait two decades to get his prize.

I've been away from papers and Internet for the last couple of days so I haven't read what the Republicans have been saying. I'm told that they're saying Obama should refuse the prize, that he should decline The Nobel Peace Prize. He should do what I'm sure John Boehner or Mitch McConnell would do if they were in Obama's place. (Putting names in makes a difference, doesn't it? It's different from saying "Republican leaders." John Boehner refusing an international award? He'd keep it even if it was for the best tan in The United States House of Representatives.)

I don't know how much difference Obama winning the prize will make, maybe none at all. But I have mixed feelings about it like I do about a lot of things in the world. On this one I don't think I am clearly Conservative or Liberal, as the labels go. I'll think of myself as moderate on this one.

What Are You Trying To Conserve?

2009-10-07T18:55:00.000-07:00

A good friend of mine, a Southern Democrat who seems very much like a Republican to me,
e mailed a couple of weeks ago to continue our healthcare argument. He not only sent me the usual push-pull argument that, even though we are about to bankrupt Medicare, we can't do anything to lower costs because that would involve our government in healthcare. Also in that
e mail, he stated that I was not, as I've contended in the past, a moderate. My friend stated that I was a Liberal. I wrote back to let him know that I was indeed a moderate if only the sane seventy percent of the electorate were counted. I don't include tea-baggers and birthers in any calculation of where I stand in the political spectrum.

But now, after weeks of thinking about my answer to my friend's accusation that I am a Liberal, I'm really not sure what political name I would claim for myself.

I believe I am a conservative American; but not a Conservative. I think we the people of this country should demand that any money our government collects and spends is not mindlessly taken and doled out. All taxes on our revenue and all programs should be constantly reviewed. Aggressive philanthropists demand that charitable programs actually perform or they are canceled.

But it seems that many government programs live on and on, whether they are actually good for the country or not. I offer as an example big farm subsidies. Can anyone defend the dollars spent on big agriculture after studying how the money is spent, how the money is distributed and how that distribution affects farm communities? Can anyone not think the dollars could be spent more wisely after looking at data on how our national nutrition is undermined by the farm subsidies and at how the subsidies damage our environment? Can anyone defend the subsidies when they see how cruelly farm animals are treated by big agriculture?

Does it make sense to keep spending to subsidize domestic sugar plantations when the money could help build domestic green manufacturing? Most of the money spent on sugar goes to a relatively small number of farmers, while green manufacturing would employ tens of thousands. Even China is going green--an article in Crain's Business Cleveland informs about some local manufacturers who are benefiting from the new Chinese green policy. I haven't read a credible economist who thinks our support of big sugar makes sense.

I think my feelings about wasteful government spending on big agriculture makes me a conservative. But any wasteful spending makes it harder to conserve what is best about America. Stupid government spending is especially corrosive when it goes to a small group of the powerful and connected. It wouldn't be so bad if money were just wasted on farm subsidies. But money is squandered to subsidize insurance companies, banks (domestic and foreign), defense contractors, foreign manufacturers and private colleges that only a few can attend.

I take other conservative positions. I want to conserve an Earth on which we can live. I want to conserve a system in which one can rise above the economic class one is born into. I want to conserve an education system that one can use to move up socially and economically. I want to conserve religious tolerance. I want to conserve the family-including those of gays and lesbians-as the primary social unit. I want to conserve innovation and entrepreneurship. The difference between me and the big C Conservatives is that I don't think doing nothing or wasting even more tax money on the very rich will help conserve my vision of America.

So this blog will often look at positions taken by congressmen and senators, regulators and economists and ask, "What are you trying to conserve?" Mostly I will be trying to decide what label best fits me, conservative, liberal, moderate or some other moniker that I've not thought about yet.

I want to sign off with this link to a column from The New York Times by David Leonhardt. It has questions for the big C Conservatives that someone should try to answer.