It's a Desert in the Political Center

Bravo. Well said. So why do we settle for this?

http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/27/the-unraveling-of-government/?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20120928

Conservative Imbalance

Thank you, NY Times and David Brooks. This is what has been troubling me and I didn't quite know how to express it.  What happened to the compassionate conservative?

Op-Ed Columnist

The Conservative Mind

By DAVID BROOKS

When I joined the staff of National Review as a lowly associate in 1984, the magazine, and the conservative movement itself, was a fusion of two different mentalities.

read the rest.....

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/25/opinion/brooks-the-conservative-mind.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20120925

Why Aren't Our Children Safe?

There's arsenic in our rice. Not just traces - measurable amounts of arsenic. It's in fruit juice, too.
And the FDA says it needs to do more studies before establishing any regulation about how much arsenic is okay.
"Feed your children a varied menu," advises an FDA official on the evening news.
Why thank you. That takes care of it. Why was I worried?
Are you outraged?
Join Anna Hackman. Demand action.

Moving Over

There's been a lot of words under the blog bridge since I've been active here. This blog began with the recession - a way to vent my outrage over the policies and mindless drift that got us here.

It's led to online discussions that have infuriated me, informed me, depressed me and encouraged me.

It's time to move on, to get over it, to focus on what I can do instead of what I can't. It's time to put all that energy to productive use. I'm not disappearing from this blog, but I suspect I won't be visiting much.

If you'd like to keep in touch, please visit this site's new baby sister, Adventures of a House Junkie.
That's where I'm going to share the things I learn and discover as I start a new career as a house matchmaker.

Thank you, all of you who have read, who have become blogging buddies. Those contacts are a good thing about technology.  Where else could I have gotten virtually acquainted with a lovely man who, during a brief victory against cancer, had an entire blogosphere ringing a bell to celebrate with him? We all felt the loss when he finally succumbed.

Technology is good when it enhances our humanity.  I hope you stay in touch.

Love,
Susan

What is happening to me??

I've got a birthday coming - the big 55.  I'm truly okay with it, mostly.  A bit frightened about the unknown, but basically at peace with me, my life and my past. Most of the time.
But I'm having a quiet internal fashion revolution.
All my life, I rebelled against "Style."  I have been a bare feet, jeans or Indian skirt kinda woman. I taught high school English dressed in Indian print harem pants.  I have been defiantly nonconformist.
So why is Audrey Hepburn (who I have always loved but never sought as a style guru) looking so good to me now?
I'm drawn to simplicity, to monochromatic outfits with one splash of color.
When I was a young mother, I went through my cabbage rose phase.  Every knit top or dress I possessed had big, fat flowers on it. Somewhere along the line I sent them all back to Goodwill (from whence they came; I'm a lifelong thrift shop denizen) and traded them for plainer fabric or simple, small, abstract prints.
So there's a precedent for this shift.
Let me make this plain: I do not have the Hepburn body.  Maybe I could, if I starved.  I do not starve.  I have hips. And thighs that I prefer to not think about.
But even with my more generous proportions, there's an elegance that I'm shooting for.  It's what I think of when someone says "French."
I whacked all my hair off once, very much like Hepburn in this photo. It wasn't me and I grew it out immediately, but what surprised people I knew was that they suddenly found I looked "French" - whatever that means.
So I've got the potential.  And I'm undeniably grown up.  Despite the fact that I may be, as one person tells me I am, a bohemian artist, that doesn't mean I have to wear Earth shoes and drawstring cotton pants.
So I'm curious about all this fashion stuff.  I don't buy into it, and I absolutely deplore the prices women pay to copy it, but I'm interested to see it.
I saw it the other night on HGTV, of all places...and not where you might think.  There was a couple from Wisconsin or some other rosy-cheeked middle of the country state who were moving to Paris.  Their realtor is someone I remember from another Househunter International Episode.  Her name is Adrian Leeds. She looks like a NY deli expert transplanted into France.  Her salt and pepper hair is wiry and long, tucked back behind one ear.  She has huge glasses, bright red lipstick.  And topping it all was a jaunty beret.  She looked fabulous - and definitely someone I'd enjoy working with.

That's what I'm shooting for - elegant personal style with a bit of  whimsy.  Nothing you'll find in a magazine and certainly nothing I would copy from anyone else.  But it'll take some research.
You'll find a couple of new blog recommendations listed on the side here from "fashionistas" (sorry - I have to go be sick for a sec).
Don't judge me.  I'm just curious.

Watering Down the Hate

I'm where conflicting groups come together. I'm the place where old hatreds are forgotten.  You may be, too.

That's the realization I had as I was reading Marshall Tito in Queens, an editorial in May 4th's New York Times.

In it, a Bosnian man describes the awkward community made up of warring refugees from the former Yugoslavia who now number ten thousand strong in Queens.  You don't easily forget the beloved teacher who later swats a loaf of bread from your hands and points a gun at your head.  You don't forget hiding from the former friends who later shun you because you are now the "enemy".  You don't forget hate.

And yet you have to.  Unless conflict is to continue for generation after generation, you have to move on.  How?

My grandmother was born in Dubrovnik.  It was 1900, long before the ethnic tensions bubbled over and tore the country apart.  Her parents moved to New York City, where her father, who was half Irish, practiced medicine.  But Dr. Mooney and his Slavic wife were homesick.  They sought other Yugoslavs, others with whom they could speak their language and relax their struggles to become American.   They found other immigrants from their world in a creekside Hudson Valley working town a couple of hours north of New York by train.  They bought a little farmhouse down the road from the Yugoslav lady who grew grapes and happily returned each summer to remember where they'd come from.

Their children, my grandmother and her sisters and brother, preserved some of those memories.  Together, they spoke in Serbo-Croation, though they were all Americans.  They called it "nashki" - "ours."  It bonded them. They used it to cut out people who didn't belong. 

Yet none of them married Yugoslavs.  My grandmother married a Jew.  So did her sister.  And here's where it gets strange.  My grandparents never told my dad and my uncle about their Jewish relatives. 

My father, born in 1937, often joined his father to visit a woman he remembered as a "nice old lady."  He didn't know until after his father's death that she was a relative.  He didn't know his father had been rejected by his family because he married a Catholic.  He didn't know his dad had bought a house for his parents and his aunt...and that aunt was the nice old lady who used to make pies in honor of their visit.  He didn't know his father's brother.  He didn't know he was a hybrid; a Catholic/Jew raised as a Catholic.

My mother, born a year earlier, was the eighth child of a poor dirt farmer in Indiana.  She told of boarding the creaking bus that took her to school, hearing the other kids hoot "Cat-Licker!"  Her mother was a Catholic of German descent.  Her father was a Protestant who didn't think a fight about the Pope was worth the trouble - he converted.  If those kids had known Lou Gobel's secret, my mother would have had a lot more trouble.  He was part Native American.

It was something he told his kids, but my grandmother would quickly deny it.  "He's just kidding," she told them.  It was bad to be Catholic.  It was much worse to be Indian.

There's no proof.  My mother looked for it.  Her father said his grandmother came from a tribe he called the PinkaMinks.  A ridiculous name.  It had to be a joke.  But the Iroquois River near Kankakee Illinois is also known as the Pinkamink River. He had the high cheekbones, the deepset eyes I've seen in pictures of native warriors. My mother believed him.  I do, too.

So here I am, the product of intermarriage between religions, between ethnicities, a blend of nationalities both friendly and fraught with tension.  I am no longer a Catholic.  My children combine all my bloodlines plus the Irish and Polish blood of their father.  Their children will blend those lines still further.

This is how conflicts end peacefully.  They end when there is no more "them" and "us."  It takes time.
 

Why Does Political Debate Feel Like War?

One of the better analyses I've read - dispassionate, rational, even-handed.  March 18 NY Times.  Reprinted here in its entirety.

Forget the Money, Follow the Sacredness

By JONATHAN HAIDT

Clockwise, from top left: Eric Thayer for The New York Time; Daniel Borris for The New York Times; Joe Raedle, via Getty Images; Joe Raedle, via Getty Images

 Groups circle around a flag, an idea, a leader or a cause and treat it as sacred.

In the film version of “All the President’s Men,” when Robert Redford, playing the journalist Bob Woodward, is struggling to unravel the Watergate conspiracy, an anonymous source advises him to “follow the money.” It’s a good rule of thumb for understanding the behavior of politicians. But following the money leads you astray if you’re trying to understand voters.
Self-interest, political scientists have found, is a surprisingly weak predictor of people’s views on specific issues. Parents of children in public school are not more supportive of government aid to schools than other citizens. People without health insurance are not more likely to favor government-provided health insurance than are people who are fully insured.
Despite what you might have learned in Economics 101, people aren’t always selfish. In politics, they’re more often groupish. When people feel that a group they value — be it racial, religious, regional or ideological — is under attack, they rally to its defense, even at some cost to themselves. We evolved to be tribal, and politics is a competition among coalitions of tribes.
The key to understanding tribal behavior is not money, it’s sacredness. The great trick that humans developed at some point in the last few hundred thousand years is the ability to circle around a tree, rock, ancestor, flag, book or god, and then treat that thing as sacred. People who worship the same idol can trust one another, work as a team and prevail over less cohesive groups. So if you want to understand politics, and especially our divisive culture wars, you must follow the sacredness.
A good way to follow the sacredness is to listen to the stories that each tribe tells about itself and the larger nation. The Notre Dame sociologist Christian Smith once summarized the moral narrative told by the American left like this: “Once upon a time, the vast majority” of people suffered in societies that were “unjust, unhealthy, repressive and oppressive.” These societies were “reprehensible because of their deep-rooted inequality, exploitation and irrational traditionalism — all of which made life very unfair, unpleasant and short. But the noble human aspiration for autonomy, equality and prosperity struggled mightily against the forces of misery and oppression and eventually succeeded in establishing modern, liberal, democratic, capitalist, welfare societies.” Despite our progress, “there is much work to be done to dismantle the powerful vestiges of inequality, exploitation and repression.” This struggle, as Smith put it, “is the one mission truly worth dedicating one’s life to achieving.”
This is a heroic liberation narrative. For the American left, African-Americans, women and other victimized groups are the sacred objects at the center of the story. As liberals circle around these groups, they bond together and gain a sense of righteous common purpose.
Contrast that narrative with one that Ronald Reagan developed in the 1970s and ’80s for conservatism. The clinical psychologist Drew Westen summarized the Reagan narrative like this: “Once upon a time, America was a shining beacon. Then liberals came along and erected an enormous federal bureaucracy that handcuffed the invisible hand of the free market. They subverted our traditional American values and opposed God and faith at every step of the way.” For example, “instead of requiring that people work for a living, they siphoned money from hard-working Americans and gave it to Cadillac-driving drug addicts and welfare queens.” Instead of the “traditional American values of family, fidelity and personal responsibility, they preached promiscuity, premarital sex and the gay lifestyle” and instead of “projecting strength to those who would do evil around the world, they cut military budgets, disrespected our soldiers in uniform and burned our flag.” In response, “Americans decided to take their country back from those who sought to undermine it.”
This, too, is a heroic narrative, but it’s a heroism of defense. In this narrative it’s God and country that are sacred — hence the importance in conservative iconography of the Bible, the flag, the military and the founding fathers. But the subtext in this narrative is about moral order. For social conservatives, religion and the traditional family are so important in part because they foster self-control, create moral order and fend off chaos. (Think of Rick Santorum’s comment that birth control is bad because it’s “a license to do things in the sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be.”) Liberals are the devil in this narrative because they want to destroy or subvert all sources of moral order.
Actually, there’s a second subtext in the Reagan narrative in which liberty is the sacred object. Circling around liberty would seem, on its face, to be more consistent with liberalism and its many liberation movements than with social conservatism. But here’s where narrative analysis really helps. Part of Reagan’s political genius was that he told a single story about America that rallied libertarians and social conservatives, who are otherwise strange bedfellows. He did this by presenting liberal activist government as the single devil that is eternally bent on destroying two different sets of sacred values — economic liberty and moral order. Only if all nonliberals unite into a coalition of tribes can this devil be defeated.
If you follow the sacredness, you can understand some of the weirdness of the last few months in politics. In January, the Obama administration announced that religiously affiliated hospitals and other institutions must offer health plans that provide free contraception to their members. It’s one thing for the government to insist that people have a right to buy a product that their employer abhors. But it’s a rather direct act of sacrilege (for many Christians) for the government to force religious institutions to pay for that product. The outraged reaction galvanized the Christian right and gave a lift to Rick Santorum’s campaign.
AROUND this time, bills were making their way through state legislatures requiring that women undergo a medically unnecessary ultrasound before they can have an abortion. It’s one thing for a state government to make abortions harder to get (as with a waiting period). But it’s a rather direct act of sacrilege (for nearly all liberals as well as libertarians) for a state to force a doctor to insert a probe into a woman’s vagina. The outraged reaction galvanized the secular left and gave a lift to President Obama.
This is why we’ve seen the sudden re-emergence of the older culture war — the one between the religious right and the secular left that raged for so many years before the financial crisis and the rise of the Tea Party. When sacred objects are threatened, we can expect a ferocious tribal response. The right perceives a “war on Christianity” and gears up for a holy war. The left perceives a “war on women” and gears up for, well, a holy war.
The timing could hardly be worse. America faces multiple threats and challenges, many of which will require each side to accept a “grand bargain” that imposes, at the very least, painful compromises on core economic values. But when your opponent is the devil, bargaining and compromise are themselves forms of sacrilege.
Jonathan Haidt is a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia and a visiting professor of business ethics at N.Y.U.’s Stern School of Business. Parts of this essay were excerpted from “The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion,” which was just released.

Does Your Money Support Greed?

Interesting article in the New York Times today - comparing a company that embraces social responsibility vs. one that pursues profit over customer service.  Starbucks vs. Goldman Sachs

I don't know enough about Starbucks to cheerlead for it, but I think what they're saying is what we hope for from an American business.

On Wednesday, Howard Schultz, the chairman and chief executive of Starbucks, will take the podium at his company’s annual meeting and talk about the importance of morality in business.

Yes, morality. I don’t know that he’ll use that exact word. But there can be little doubt that in recent years, especially, Schultz has been practicing a kind of moral capitalism. Profitability is important, he believes, but so is treating customers, employees and coffee growers fairly. Recently, Schultz has defined Starbucks’s mission even more broadly, creating programs that have nothing at all to do with selling coffee but are aimed at helping the country recover from the Great Recession. 

In the speech, Schultz plans to make a direct link between Starbucks’s record profits and this larger societal role the company has embraced. He will make the case that companies that earn the country’s trust will ultimately be rewarded with a higher stock price. “The value of your company is driven by your company’s values,” he plans to say. 

That's a sharp contrast to Goldman Sachs, which got a public smackdown from an executive who aired his concerns about the predatory greed as he resigned.  Bloomberg rushed to their defense.

Apparently, when Greg Smith arrived at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) almost 12 years ago, the legendary investment firm was something like the Make-A-Wish Foundation -- existing only to bring light and peace and happiness to the world. 

Smith, who was executive director and head of the firm’s U.S. equity derivatives business in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, does not go into details in his already notorious op-ed article in Wednesday’s New York Times, “Why I Am Leaving Goldman Sachs.” But one imagines Goldman bankers spending their days delivering fresh flowers to elderly shut-ins and providing shelters for abandoned cats. Serving clients was paramount. “It wasn’t just about making money,” Smith writes. “It had something to do with pride and belief in the organization.” 

That article is one of the saddest things I've ever read.  Corporate responsibility, community involvement is so far from the Wall Street pale that it's actually mocked.  There was a time when a company's reputation was its most valuable asset.  To be accused of putting profit above morals and ethics would be a slur that would have to be answered vehemently and definitively.  These days, the response is a cynical "Get your head out of the clouds, Pollyanna - that's business."

It doesn't have to be.  Research. Go to Good Company - see the company ratings.  And stop doing business with the ones that don't share your values.

Civil Public Discourse - I think not

Enough is enough, already.  I've had it.  America has forgotten its manners and the fans of what they call good old fashioned American family values are currently the worst offenders.

Rush Limbaugh is not worth discussing.  He hasn't been for some time.  The disconnect between his views and his life makes everything he has to say just noise.  I'm not surprised at his latest sexist rant.  I am surprised anyone - anyone! - would defend him.

This post was inspired by someone specific, yes indeed. Someone I know wrote a Facebook post agreeing with Limbaugh after he demanded sex tapes from a college student speaking up for insurance coverage for contraception.  This person said Limbaugh was "right!" for calling her a slut and prostitute.

No, he wasn't. You're wrong. 

It's also a gut reaction to Rick Santorum's assertion that only a "snob" wants a college education for America's young people.

Really.

I thought that the American dream was to want better for your children.  Instead, now we're supposed to view higher education as sour grapes - since we can't afford it, it must be something we didn't want anyway.

What an incredibly transparent ploy to persuade the disappearing middle class that there's nothing wrong with our system.

That's the end of it for me. 

There is NO excuse for character assassination in a policy debate.  I've had it with name-calling and I refuse to try to understand this angry hysteria any more. Snob - slut - prostitute - those words have NO place in this conversation.  Any similar words from the other side - equally inappropriate.

These rants are indistinguishable from childish temper tantrums - and I have no patience for them.  I hereby declare my independence - I can't hear you when you use that tone of voice.

Fair and Balanced?

I'm not banging the drum for anyone this presidential election.  With one exception, I don't see much difference between them all.  Vote for Romney, Santorum, Gingrich or Obama - you're voting for someone who's been vetted and approved by the corrupt system that is destroying our economy and wiping out the middle class.

And the media, which is owned by the same multi-national corporations that control the system, wants to be sure you don't pay any attention to that little man, Ron Paul,  who somehow keeps quietly accumulating followers and holding on in the primaries.

Here's today's New York Times Headline:  Romney Edges Past Paul in Maine Caucus .  He "averted embarrassment", says the first line, by beating Ron Paul by 3%.  "Mr. Paul was unbowed, and gave no indication that he would drop out."

I beg your pardon?  It would be embarrassing to lose to Ron Paul? The once- assumed GOP candidate loses to Santorum in three states, then finishes just 3% ahead of Paul in Maine, and the question is whether Paul's ready to say "uncle"?

Dear New York Times - time for a little remedial journalism.  These headlines would have been objective versions of campaign developments.  The copy that followed should have expanded on these themes:


Romney Hangs On to Slim Lead, Paul Is Strong Second in Maine

Maine Rejects Santorum and Gingrich, Pits Romney vs. Paul


As Romney Struggles, Paul Has Strongest Showing Yet

This campaign is a perfect example of what journalism has become.  Dana Bash of CNN infamously said, on camera, that many people are worried, as she is, that Ron Paul won't drop out and will weaken the GOP's chances against President Obama in the general election. Ron Paul's supporters are big into YouTube, so you can see it over and over - and see people's reaction.  The New York Times says a strong second place finish should be persuading Paul to drop out.

News coverage is not impartial and it is not balanced.  It's been a long time since journalists had the goal of finding the truth and reporting it.  Corporate ownership and advertising dollars destroyed journalism and now your only hope of at least seeing behind the lies is Jon Stewart - he's the closest thing to a media watchdog we have.  After noting the media ignored Ron Paul back in August, he was back to note that nothing had changed a month later.

The media laughed at Ross Perot, hoping American would laugh with them.  He scared them to death - he didn't play the game they'd learned to play.  Ron Paul is a similar threat.  Whether you agree or disagree with him, he is stating views that would threaten a solidly entrenched system of corruption.  And the media doesn't want you to notice.

Outsmart them.  Listen, pay attention, notice how they try to influence what you think, and then think for yourself.

I WANT My Tax Dollars to Support Social Programs

The New York Times this morning had two stories about people suffering from the winter cold with no way to escape it.  One was a child who froze to death in a refugee camp in Afghanistan.  The other was about desperate people who cannot afford heat in Maine.

People on fixed incomes cannot afford oil and cannot afford to retrofit their homes for alternatives to oil.  Our austerity measures, designed to help the economy recover from the recession, are cutting programs that used to help.  But as the funding is cut, the price of oil continues to rise.  So an elderly couple turned on all four burners on their electric stove, rerouted the dryer hose back into the basement, and, in desperation, offered the local oil company the title to their old car in return for oil.

The more I read, the more I pay attention, the more I conclude that capitalism has ruined this country.  A system with profit as its end motive, not surprisingly, leaves humanity by the side of the road in pursuit of more, more, more. We are not a democracy - that illusion was discarded long ago but we still like to use the word to describe ourselves.  We are not free - the only freedom we still have is the ability to leave.  But we stay, hoping to recover the illusion of what we thought America was. We work harder and harder to pay bills that rise faster than our two and three job incomes, education for our young children is de-funded and college is equivalent to buying a Mercedes Benz every year for four years.

Meanwhile, Washington makes the rules - and multi-national corporations (people, according to the Supreme Court) call the shots.  They fund the campaigns, they fund the PACs, they pay trillions for lobbyists and they have one agenda:  profit.  Please find me an administration that hasn't been in bed with Goldman Sachs.  Goldman Sachs and other predators influence policy to create new money making opportunities.  And somehow, an entire segment of the population has been convinced that a policy based on profit is GOOD for people.

It's bizarre logic and requires a particular brand of tunnel vision.

Government, they argue, shouldn't be providing basic services for its citizens' welfare.  That's socialism.  In capitalism, it's every man for himself.  Meanwhile, their elderly parents scrape by on Social Security and Medicare while living in subsidized housing. 

Capitalism's apologists argue for the tax breaks and loopholes that maximize corporate profits, for to deny those benefits would discourage business.  But big business squats in this country like Jabba the Hut while many of the jobs it creates are sent off shore (it's cheaper and there are fewer annoying safety regulations to worry about - right Apple?) and it demands even more tax incentives to create jobs within the US.  Local officials pant after them only to discover that they're paying dearly, and constantly, for the privilege of having industry in their communities.

New York's Comptroller this week warned that the state's economic situation is still tricky - it's health is tied to the health of its biggest industry - Wall Street.  The message:  "Don't mess with the goose that lays the golden eggs."  Regulations have been twisted to allow Wall Street and its big business cronies to maximize their profits.

Wall Street is the world's biggest casino and they're gambling with your money.  The media breathlessly reports every gasp and burp the Dow utters as though it's a meaningful indication of a trend.  It's just the outcome of the latest game of craps.  We don't see the profits when they win, but we pay when they lose.

I am sick of it.  All of it.

I pay taxes.  Like every American (except for those who can afford to hide in the loopholes), I pay far more taxes than I can comfortably afford.  But I have no say in how my money is spent.

I don't want to give Wall Street a break.  I do not consider them too big to fail.  I consider them too big.  Period.

I don't want my tax dollars to go to wars that are nothing more than efforts to open up new commodities for corporations.  I don't want my tax dollars to help give breaks to the exploitation of finite, unsustainable energy sources.  I don't want my tax dollars to give incentives to businesses that don't pay taxes and send most of their jobs overseas.  I do not consider a big box store an economic driver - it kills entrepreneurship and competition and creates minimum wage jobs.

I want my tax dollars to provide a good education for every American.  I want my tax dollars to provide every American with health care.  I want my tax dollars to make sure every American can meet their basic needs - and has access to programs that lead to self-sufficiency.  I don't want my government dictating my behavior or limiting my rights so long as I abide by a basic rule of law.

I pay for the privilege of living in this country, and I'm okay with that.  But it's not giving me value for my dollar.  And that's not the capitalist way.

I am not in need of a Big Daddy Government.  Nor am I willing to play serf to a corporate overload anymore.

I want my tax dollars to fund government programs that assure a basic, decent quality of life for its citizens.  And I want corporations to pay taxes.  And I want all tax breaks withdrawn for every single corporation that ships its work overseas.  I do not care if they threaten to leave.  Call their bluff.  Let's see if they can be competitive from the Third World.


I'm heading for my Howard Beal moment -  "Network" has proven to be far more than a movie.

Monsanto Knows What's Good For You

 Another black eye for the president.  First, he signed the NDAA - authorizing sweeping changes that expand his powers and move us one step closer to a police state.  Now he's appointed the fox to watch over the hen house - making Monsanto-boy Michael Taylor an advisor on food safety for the FDA.  Couldn't you just die laughing?

 Family farmers are about to go to court, suing Monsanto for contaminating their organic crops with GMO seeds. FoodDemocracyNow.org writes:  "In the past two decades, Monsanto’s seed monopoly has grown so powerful that they control the genetics of nearly 90% of five major commodity crops including corn, soybeans, cotton, canola and sugar beets.

 

In many cases farmers are forced to stop growing certain crops to avoid genetic contamination and potential lawsuits. Between 1997 and 2010, Monsanto admits to filing 144 lawsuits against America’s family farmers, while settling another 700 out of court for undisclosed amounts. Due to these aggressive lawsuits, Monsanto has created an atmosphere of fear in rural America and driven dozens of farmers into bankruptcy."

And our president has appointed Michael Taylor, a Monsanto-VP, to advise on food safety.

Did I miss something?  Didn't Monsanto make floor cleaners?  Now they're a massive chemical company.  And we want their advice on food safety?

Monsanto Man to Advise on Food Safety

Michael Taylor - Monsanto's Man in the FDA

Angry yet?  Start yelling.

write to the White House

Land of the Tax and Home of the Papagallo

I've been trying to keep my mouth shut, remembering my mother's advice about what to do when you don't have anything good to say.  But what Americans accept as a presidential primary campaign is too much for me.  The hypocrisy on every side is remarkable, but the stupidity and mindless acceptance of well-funded lies by the voting public is mind boggling.

I am not immersed in this - it makes me too angry.  I can just skim off the top of the headlines and explain why I cannot dive deeper - there is no clean air down there at all.

Yet a nation of bobble head dolls believes what it hears, or worse, knows it's all crap and rationalizes it away.


Allow me to begin with Newt Gingrich (what an perfect name for such a lizard) - the man of the people who will take on the Washington "insiders".  He was Speaker of the House, a lobbyist for Freddie Mac (a government agency) and he made millions for other lobbies by helping them gain access to government decision makers.   Am I expected to believe that because you say you're not part of the corrupt, incestuous system, Newt, you're not?

In your twisted brain, the answer is probably yes.  You live by the mantra of do as I say, not as I do.  That is evidenced by your behavior - you were the first Speaker of the House to be disciplined for an ethics violation, your personal behavior is serially repugnant and rather than take responsibility for it, you blame your ex-wives and the press.  It's the behavior of a two year old - throw dirt on someone else in hopes your own filth isn't noticed.  You are not only an insider with huge wealth amassed because of your public career, you're morally destitute.

Yet I heard a home-schooling evangelical mother who drove several states to campaign for the lizard explain away his behavior, saying, "If he's made his peace with God, and I believe he has, I can't ask for more."

Oh yes you can.  And I do.  I expect a hell of a lot more from a man who wants to lead a country.  Why doesn't everyone?

Mitt Romney - he's the man who seems destined to be no one's favorite, the wealthy handsome guy who somehow just doesn't do it for anyone.  There's not a poor man among any of the candidates, but he's become the Richie Rich of the GOP field.  That's what seems to bother most voters.  Plus he's too moderate, too reasoned and just a little too inclined to waffle.  Voters appear to want a snarling, snapping junkyard dog, not a photogenic cardboard cutout.  He is running simply because it's his turn to steer.

Rick Santorum - another candidate with a twisted sense of how the rules apply to him.  He's not a fan of public schools - in fact his own kids were home schooled.  That's a wonderful luxury in a world where most folks can't pay the rent if both parents don't work. But he also enrolled his kids in an online charter school (which came under investigation for other reasons) for which Santorum's home school district in Pennsylvania had to pay the bill.  Just one problem - they were living in Virginia.  When the story broke, the charter school offered to let the kids stay for free if Santorum would pay just the costs for the technology they used.  Santorum pulled the kids out.  The state ended up paying $55,000 to the school to settle up.

Then there's Ron Paul.  He's got a lot to say that resonates with folks who are fed up with an insatiable system that's only goal is to perpetuate itself.  But he's also been the author of a newsletter that's spewed some incredible quotes - were gays really better off when they were forced to stay in the closet, Ron?  He's made some sweeping generalizations about minorities that literally make me cringe.  He's a man comfortable with conspiracy theory and survivalists.  I don't mock the conspiracy theorists - just because you're paranoid doesn't mean everyone isn't out to get you.  But there's a thin line between skepticism and paranoia and Ron Paul gets too cozy with the extreme side of those questions.

Lest I leave anyone out, let me say that the irony of the fact that our president, the winner of the Nobel Prize, has proven to be the most effective assassin of any president in recent memory is not lost on me.  The massive power grab of the NDAA - giving him the authority to indefinitely detail any belligerants, including US citizens - is a solidification of an imperial presidency that somehow the public is still able to ignore.

This is not a democracy.  Let's stop pretending it is.  It's not socialism, either. That's a smokescreen.

This is the Empire of America and it is led by an elite ruling class and supported through the taxation of the public, which has the privilege of choosing which of a limited field of elite players will be chosen to make future policy.

In a land where corporations are people and the serfs pay ever-increasing premiums to the empire to be allowed to work until they can't work anymore, where children are sent to centers to be kept safe while both parents work to pay the bills, where those same children are later sent to die in wars that are about profit while a flag of principle waves over the real motives, where health care and higher education are not a right but a privilege, where basic education is increasingly under fire, where the old and the sick must fight for basic care and dignity, how can we use the word democracy? 

Let's call it what it is - it's an empire.  And don't tell me there's a presidential race that needs to be decided.  It's already decided - it doesn't matter who wins - the nuances may be different, but the basics are the same.  The machine will not allow any serious diversion from the only path that matters - the path that leads to the continued growth of the machine.

I knew a man who told me his father used to ask him his opinions of world events.  When he spewed back whatever he'd heard or read, his father chided, "Papagallo...parrot!  Don't tell me what you heard.  Tell me what you think!"

If you must participate in this farce, at least do your research and don't rationalize away hypocrisy. 
Demand answers and accountability.