FDR - A Man for All Times

On October 31, 1936, President Franklin Roosevelt gave a campaign speech at Madison Square Garden where he famously proclaimed, "I welcome their hatred."  He was not speaking about foreign enemies, but his domestic enemies.  He spoke about the influence of money (read: lobbyists, corporations, etc.) on politicians and our government.

Money as political influence is nothing new in this country.  It has always had, and always will have, the biggest influence on what does and does not become the law of the land.  Last year, the Supreme Court ruled that corporations have the same First Amendment rights as individual citizens.   The narrow view of the decision is that the McCain-Feingold Act, which was created to limit broadcast electioneering by corporations and labor unions during the run-up to elections, was struck down.  However, in the long run, the justices may have opened Pandora's Box with this decision.

Mitt Romney famously declared, "Corporations are people, my friend."  He was speaking about taxes at the time, but his declaration highlights an ever growing divide in this country between the haves and the have-nots.  The poor and middle classes will always have a measurable amount of envy of the rich.  That has been the way of the world, and it always will be. Unfortunately, I don't see how giving corporations, unions (though their numbers have declined at a high rate for years), lobbyists, think-tanks, etc. the same rights as U.S. citizens will help this country in the long run.  I believe it will lead to an even greater amount of rage from people from all sides of the political spectrum.  Thus, we will see even more gridlock, shouting, and possibly violence.

Who ultimately loses from all of this?  We all do.  FDR is spinning in his grave.  Money truly is the root of all evil.

The Two-Party System Is Obsolete

Photo: Courtesy of Wikipedia

Tonight (9/12) CNN is televising the Tea Party Republican Debate.  Think about that for a second.  The Tea Party is having a Republican Party debate.  Tea Party members claim that they are a conservative-libertarian group.  The Republican Party is or was a center-right (conservative) group.  One could argue that Tea Party members are the far (to extreme) right wing of the Republican party.  No matter what you think about them, they are a force to contend with in American politics.  Their rise to power is yet another example of the futility that is the two-party system.

Where does the libertarian shift of the Republican party leave members who are centrist in nature?  If the recent theatrics in Congress have shown us anything, compromise is not an option to be considered by many Tea Party supporting members. Republican members who have not signed on to the Tea Party platform have been left without a voice.  More and more Republicans have been told to "shit or get off the pot."  Centrists have been successfully "primaried" by Tea Party candidates.  The U.S. House of Representatives looks like it will continue to be dominated by conservatives after next year's elections.

The Democratic Party is even more splintered than their counterparts.  The Democrats have become infamous for their circular firing squads.  New England and California (with the exception of New Hampshire) are the liberal epicenter of the party.  The South, with the few Democrats that it still has, is the conservative base of the party.  Democrats from other parts of the country usually fall in the middle.  That adds up to a single party with many diverging political and social views.  The Republicans, even before the Tea Party, have appeared to have solidarity, while the Democrats have squabbled with each other.

In the end, voters are the ones are who end up having to choose between, what South Park so eloquently phrased, "a giant douche and a turd sandwich." We are usually left with choosing between the lesser of two evils.  Just look at the field of Republican candidates this year.  There may be two or three viable candidates, but voters will only be able to vote for one of them during the primary and general elections.  The Solution?  Create more viable political parties.  The Republicans could easily branch of into two or three new parties.  The Democrats could branch into three, four, or even five parties.  The Result?  Voters having more choices in general elections. Many good candidates have lost in the primaries, never to be heard from again.  The two-party system is just too vague and incomplete for today's diverse society.  Many other countries have multiple-party systems, each with varying degrees of success.

One major obstacle is obtaining a majority in the House and in the Senate with a multi-party system.  You need not look any further than our allies in England.  When no English political party wins a majority of seats in parliament, parties ally themselves with other parties to form a majority.  This is what happened after general election of 2010.  In a weird twist, the Conservatives (who won the most amount of seats), led by David Cameron, allied with the Liberal Democrats to form a majority government.  Thus, David Cameron is now Prime Minister.  Our system is somewhat different than England's, what with them having a Monarch, a Prime Minister, bad food, etc.  However, the idea can be used in Congress to form majorities.  It may occasionally result in gridlock (shocking, I know), but could it be any worse than what we have now?

Fast Food Nation and My Own Hypocrisy

Famous TV personality and former chef Anthony Bourdain (of whom I am a fan) got into a recent imbroglio with Paula Deen after he called her "the worst most dangerous person in America..." Bourdain has a particular disdain for the Food Network and many of its stars.  See: Ray, Rachel  He has a valid argument this time, however crass and over the top it may be.  


Paula Deen uses butter in every single recipe.  And not just a little butter: A LOT of butter.  She is possibly the most famous TV cook in America.  In addition to her own shows, she also has her own line of cookware, and she is a national spokesman for Smithfield (which is also one of the countries worst polluters).  People know and love Paula Deen.  So, it's not a stretch to say that people are using her recipes in every day life.  What's wrong with that?  Well, by the middle of the century over half the citizens of the United States will be classified as obese or morbidly obese.  In other words, we are a nation of fat fucks. Obviously, the whole situation can't be blamed on Paula, but she contributes to it.


The rise of fast food restaurants over the past 60 or so years has had a major impact on our diets.  It wasn't until recently that some of them finally succumbed to the pressure and started to offer healthy alternatives on their menus.  On the other side of the spectrum, Denny's recently came out with a 1,690 calorie sandwich.   Think about that.  The recommended daily intake of calories is 2,000.  You can basically have the sandwich, drink three cokes, and you would only have 10 calories to spare.  However, fast food restaurants aren't fully to blame either.  No, most of the blame should fall on parents and on schools.  Parents need to feed their kids healthy meals and teach them about fat, carbs, cholesterol, etc. when they are young.  Admittidly,  I was a porker between the ages of 6 and 12.  Then one day, as I was devouring a tray of Old-Forge-style pizza, my mother had a talk with me.  I can't really remember the details (I've probably blocked them from my memory), but the gist of it was that I was a fat bastard and needed to eat better.  I did eat better (though not much), and, luckily, I had a growth spurt.  Today, I'm having the same conversation with myself.  Eat better, get some exercise, go to bed at a decent hour.  Will it happen?  I hope so.

As for schools, they need to start serving healthier meals that kids will actually eat.  Soda machines need to be taken out, and they need to be replaced with water fountains.  Health classes need to aggressively reinforce healthy eating habits, and kids need to actually participate in gym class.  No more showing up and sitting around.  Actually, that should be everyone's new motto.








Note: This is not me.

Having Faith in U.S. Credit

I know I am a little late to this party.  That's what happens when an event happens before a blog even exists.  But, this will be a huge issue again at the end of the next year.  I am speaking, of course, about the national debt limit.  Representative Steny Hoyer (D-MD) recently wrote an opinion piece for Politico about the need to have a balanced approach to reducing the national deficit.  I agree with him.  But, how do we go about doing such a thing during a time of political and economic turmoil?

First, the government must reduce spending.  However, I do not believe we should do it on the backs of senior citizens.  Some Republican members of the House and Senate want to do away with both Social Security and Medicare.  All Americans who pay payroll taxes should be outraged by this.  Would you be apoplectic if you paid off your 30 year mortgage and the bank decided to take your home from you?  The same thing would happen if those who are in charge decide to do away with Social Security and Medicare.  Wanna know why its called an entitlement?  We paid for it, we are entitled to it.  Everyone who has worked legally in the U.S., with a few exceptions, has paid into Social Security and Medicare since their first paycheck.  Talk about not getting any benefit from your taxes.

Our leaders need to finally stand up and act like the responsible people they should be.  Cutting spending without producing more revenues will not do the trick.  To do away with the deficit, Congress would have to cut spending by so much that over 100,000 government and non-government employees would lose their jobs.  The effect that would have on the economy could be catastrophic, especially when the official unemployment rate is 9+% (higher in reality).  The first thing I would do is end our occupation of both Iraq and Afghanistan.  We've been spending billions of dollars a month funding these wars/occupations, and we've been in those countries for a decade.  It is not an issue of cutting and running.  It is time for their governments to effectively govern themselves without the U.S. propping them up.  Second, as I talked about in my first post, tax reform is desperately needed.  Corporate tax rates need to be reduced so that companies will hire more people, individual tax rates for the rich need to be raised so that they are on par with the percentage that the rest of us are paying, and tax loopholes need to be closed.  Trickle down economics do not work.  The amount of billionaires that this country has produced has risen precipitously, while the average wage in America has laid stagnant for well over a decade and unemployment is at its highest rate since the 70's.   All of that means the rich are getting richer while the middle class and poor are getting poorer.

Next, medical costs need to be reigned in.  Since I am not in the healthcare field, I don't know how to do that.  A majority of politicians aren't in the healthcare field, either.  They need to listen to the doctors and administrators who know what they are talking about, and come up with a plan that works everyone.  Medicare can be fully funded by the payroll taxes we already pay if a solution can be hashed out.  Can this be done with the current crop of lawmakers?  Doubtful.  Medicare fraud is another huge problem that we don't hear much about.  Major enforcement efforts need to be made to combat those who are stealing money right from our pockets.

There are many more ways to cut the deficit, and many ways to cut spending without hurting the public.  Subsidies (aka corporate welfare) to giant companies comes to mind.  But, I've written enough.  The U.S. and the world do not need another political circus like the one we just had over raising the deficit ceiling.  S&P cut our credit rating (shadily or not) because of the inability of our lawmakers to make a deal.  The stock market freaked out.  If another ratings company does this, interest rates will skyrocket.  Then, we all will pay dearly for our lawmakers' misdeeds.  We need to elect people who will work with each other, not grandstand on illogical political and social views.

Welcome

Welcome to this experiment in goofiness free speech and political activism.  The reason I created this little space in the vast digital world is to share my political views.  I know, I know.  Who cares?  Opinions are like....ears.  Everyone has them.  However, it is important to be involved and to let our "leaders" know what you think.  I'm opinionated, and this is a better forum than using Facebook or Twitter.

So what are my views?  I used to lean to the far-left (pinkish you might say).  Now, I've meandered toward the center.  My biggest concern is the environment.  We are alive because our planet has a very precise set of conditions that make it possible for us to live.  And, if we upset those conditions enough, we are all goners.  Quite frankly, I ignore and despise anyone who chooses to deny the years of work that highly trained scientists have done.  However, I do see the need for business to be able to be conducted without too many regulatory encumbrances.  That said, it should never be acceptable for a company to release dangerous toxins into OUR air, water, land, etc.  I stress OUR because we all share it.

My other major concern is the decline of the middle class.  Major corporations have laid off hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of Americans over the past 20-30 years in order to maximize profits.  They've done this through technology and mechanization upgrades, and by shipping jobs to countries with low wages and low safety standards.  I am not sure what the solution to this problem is.  However, I do believe that U.S. corporate tax rate (35%) is much too high.  Company headquarters are moving to countries with lower tax rates, and thus are keeping the profits in those countries.  Those profits can be used to hire Americans at living wages.  Lower the corporate tax rate and more companies will come back to the U.S.  Conversely, I do believe that income tax rates for the top 1-2% of Americans are much too low, as are the capital gains taxes.  The richest Americans pay the smallest amount of their total income in taxes when compared to those less fortunate.  Warren Buffet said it best, "It's time for our government to get serious about shared sacrifice..."  Don't look at the tax rate tables either.  There are so many loopholes and cheats built into the system that the wealthiest of Americans pay roughly 15-18% of their income in taxes, while the average citizens pays around 35%.  Maybe a flat tax rate for everyone (including corporations) is the solution?

I'll go into much more later.  I'll share links as well.  Until we meet again.

Image: Chuck Felix / FreeDigitalPhotos.net