After watching the President's state of the union address, two things immediately came to mind: 1- If he is going to use executive orders to circumvent GOP electeds in Congress and the Senate who are trying to sabotage his initiatives, why didn't he do it sooner? If his Presidency were a football game, we would say that it is now well past halftime. The President's attempts at trying to take a “bipartisan” approach with the Republicans have diluted most of his initiatives, helped their obstructionist tactics succeed and allowed their lies to become the ongoing dialog among many low information voters. 2- The theme that pervaded his state of the union was that of fixing income inequality. The cold hard truth is that the main driving force behind income inequality has been high paying manufacturing jobs that “patriotic”, “job creating” U.S. corporations have shipped overseas to places like China. The loss of those jobs created a buyer's market for employers by generating desperate workers willing to work for lower wages and less benefits. From actual experience, we know that “free” trade agreements have been the driving force behind job offshoring, less jobs in the U.S.A. And by extension, income inequality. President Obama has expressed strong support for fast-tracking the mother of all “free” trade agreements, the Trans-Pacific Partnership commonly known as TPP. He was strangely silent about it during his state of the union. The interesting thing about fast-tracking the TPP is that it would make an end run around public congressional debate. That's sort of combines the worst aspects of item one and item two above. He's making an end run around Congress but doing so to foist a “free” trade agreement us that will cause more income inequality. Experience has proven that in the case of President Obama's State Of The Union addresses, what he doesn't say is far more significant than what he does say. Judge his latest speech accordingly!
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Many of the people who I hear harping about the government stepping on their Constitutional rights are selective in their outrage. They have an endless reserve of anger about government incursions on the particular part of the Constitution that affects them or their particular special interest, but couldn't give a damn about any other part. Why? Because we have become a nation of self-interested, self-serving people who could care less about anything that falls out of our limited areas of interest. It seems like every time I mention the issue of net neutrality on Twitter, everyone grows strangely silent. Whether you realize it or not, net neutrality is today's embodiment of both free speech and freedom of the press. Even that choice fact doesn't seem to be enough to motivate some of the folks who usually get all bent out of shape about the slightest bit of corporate censorship on the mainstream media into fighting for a free, uncensored, unencumbered and unmetered internet. I expect that from people who narrowly focus on gun control or their style of so called religious “freedom” that frees them to enslave others, but not from a number of free speech advocates and not from many of the people who purport to to be “liberals.” The latest net neutrality court decision knocks down the FCC 's pro-net neutrality rules enacted in 2010 and basically gives cable and telephone corps. the power to speed up, slow down or out and out block any website or portion of the internet that they desire! That decision was based on a technicality in the FCC rules that was put in during the Bush administration that defined the internet as being a data service as opposed to it being a telecommunications service. It says that the FCC only had the authority to regulate telecommunications services and by protecting net neutrality, overstepped its authority. That translates to corporations winning out over the rest of us on a technicality! The fix that will restore the pro-net neutrality rules is simple. The FCC must redefine the internet as being a telecommunications service subject to all applicable FCC and state public service commission rules and regulations. They want to do that but need our encouragement and support to counteract corporate special interests by showing them that we want it accomplished! If you don't want the internet to become a mirror of the mainstream broadcast media with a few mega corps. literally owning it and deciding who the winners and losers will be, now is the time for action! The choice is yours, you can sit on the sidelines and keep watching some idiotic “reality” show or you can get involved by signing petitions, contacting the FCC and supporting the many pro free speech organizations who are fighting for an open internet! Disclaimer: As a casual observer of government, I am going to make an observation! Having never been a government insider, my observation should be taken as opinion, not fact. The sad truth is, if I were an insider, you probably wouldn't be able to trust my perspective anyway. So it looks like we're all in this together, on the outside looking in and trying to make sense of it all. When certain corporations use campaign funding and other forms of political largesse to attempt to influence the outcome of a particular Congressional, Senatorial or on the state level, statehouse vote, they might call it “business as usual” I call it CORRUPTION! The worst kind of this variety of corruption is where an elected official is out and out owned by his or her corporate sponsor, thus influencing every one of his or her votes. I think that I nailed it when I first coined and said on the air years ago the now widely circulated phrase, “If I wrote the laws, most of our Congressmen and Senators would have to wear car racing style jackets with the logos of the corporations who own them! These days, there are few good elected officials in government, only bad and worse. Our “two” party system has devolved into a system that consists of two levels of corruption: 1- A Republican Party that represents the worse level with many of its elected politicians actively doing the bidding of their corporate backers at the expense of John and Jane Q. Public. 2- A Democratic Party that represents the bad level by closely following the Edmund Burke quote, “The only thing necessary for evil to triumph over good is for good men to do nothing.” I feel that the reason that Democratic politicians are so quick to “compromise” with the GOP, even to the extent of offering up tried and true programs like Social Security and Medicare on the sacrificial altar of austerity cuts is because many of them do so at the behest of their corporate backers. As you can clearly see from the description of bad and worse above, corporations use GOP electeds as stalking horses to champion their causes and Democratic electeds to put up a fight for show but not get in their way. So there you have it, both parties are controlled by corporations that liberally use campaign contributions to insure conservative results. That situation negates the effectiveness and purpose of our votes. The question for you to ask yourself is “What am I going to do about it?” My suggestion is that we get a new untainted party going quickly because the two incumbent parties have no reason to change the status quo when it benefits them! |
AuthorHave you noticed that there's no one on Talk Radio who speaks for John and Jane Q. Public? I want to change that situation. When I go into the studio and get on the air, I say the things that you've always wanted to say. The big corporate interests have their lobbyists, I want to be your voice. Just think of me as your guy fighting for your interests. Proud To Be On:Archives
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