Treason Enough?

I know it's a harsh word, and perhaps a little too charged, but what is treason anyway?

Today, when the disappointing unemployment numbers came out,  an interviewer asked of Michele Bachmann:  “Does it strike you that as unemployment goes up, your chances of winning office also go up?”  Bachmann responded by saying: “Well that could be.  Again, I hope so.”

Perhaps treason is not the most accurate term for her acknowledgement that a bad economy will help her defeat Obama is 2012.  Disloyal? Unpatriotic? What do you think this means?

Shared Sacrifice

What a Dream I Had

Right now, the Democrats and the GOP have reached an impasse over how to solve the budget deficit.  In short, the GOP wants all savings to come from budget cuts, and none from taxes.  The Democrats are proposing about 17% of the savings to come from closing tax loopholes.

In past times, when this sort of thing has happened, compromises were reached, with roughly half of the savings coming from cuts and half from taxes.  But we are living in an age where compromise is a dirty word, and we need to find some middle ground.

What I'm trying to do is simply start a 'meme' here.  The politicians are waiting for the public to provide enough support to push the negotiations in one direction or another.  I believe that the Democrats (worst poker players ever!) are asking for too little, and we need to return to the classic 50-50 compromise.

How is this supposed to work?
I have no experience with politics or grassroots movements.  I've started a simple one-issue facebook page where all you have to do is click on the 'like' button.  I'm hoping that you will also click on the little facebook 'f' that's just below the title of this blog post.  If for some reason this resonates with enough people, we'll take the next step and share this info with the politicians.  I'm hoping some of you are better at this than I am, and have some good advice too!

Maybe this is a crazy idea, maybe not.  Either way, I don't expect this situation to last for long.  What do you think?

Hostage Negotiations

Negotiating With Terrorists

How does one negotiate with the GOP on the budget?  Using the analogy of the satyrical magazine cover to the left, (apologies to animal lovers, it's a joke!) the basic GOP position is:

If you don't shoot the dog, we'll shoot the dog!

If that seems hard to make sense out of, I think the basic idea is that if the Democrats don't go along with dismantling the government, the GOP will allow the budget default to happen, further weakening the government, hurting the economy, and hopefully, ensuring Obama loses in 2012!

It's a great plan, right?

None Dare Call it Treason

Majority Leader Eric Cantor

Will They Get Away With This?

Something that has seemed obvious to me for quite a while is finally being publicly acknowledged by some Democrats. Yesterday, Democratic senators finally called out the GOP for being willing to hurt the economy, so that Obama will not be re-elected.  Today, Majority leader Eric Cantor dropped out of the budget talks until Democrats stop asking that billionaires pay their fair share of the taxes.  Purely and simply, it would seem the GOP is willing to let the economy collapse to insure that 2012 goes their way.

I think this is treasonous, and the GOP is essentially working for multinational corporate interests, and they don't care about this country.  There, I've said it.  If you agree, don't be quiet about this.

The line it is drawn

Harry Reid after vote.

The curse it is cast.

Today, before the Republicans in the Senate had a chance to wise up, Harry Reid held a vote on radical GOP congressman Paul Ryan's budget proposal, which includes the notorious plan to end Medicare as we know it.  While the bill was solidly defeated 57-40, if it were to be held a week from now, there would be even fewer Republican senators willing to take a stand.

After last night's historic special election in New York's 26th Congressional district, Reid quickly pushed to get GOP senators on record as supporting the GOP budget.  Now, if the Democrats have the resolve to stick to the message (even though they have a tendency to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory), they can spend the next year and a half reminding voters that Senator so-and-so voted to end Medicare.  There are only 10 GOP senators up for re-election in 2012, compared to 23 Democrats, so it would be a stretch to think the Republicans can be reduced to sub-filibuster levels, but in this era of unlimited anonymous election spending by right-wing billionaires, the Democrats need all the help they can get.

Speaking of Medicare, Bob Dylan turned 70 yesterday!

Passing on Wisdom

Biting My Tongue
Today I went to the California Academy of Sciences since I have the week off, and just before I left, after having a nice, overpriced lunch in their killer cafeteria, I went to visit the Foucault pendulum. I had just done a small pendulum lab in my physics class, and felt like just closing the circle, so to speak.

Not to be too technical, but what this pendulum proved, over 150 years ago, was that the earth truly was spinning on its axis in space.  The swinging ball would stay pointed toward some spot in space while the earth turned beneath it.  There's a sign on the side saying essentially just that.

So, there I am, kind of mesmerized, thinking of how I used to watch this same ball as kid, when some dad starts explaining it to a group of kids.  He talks about how some motor swings it back and forth, and how the earth's magnetic field makes the ball move in a circle!

I wanted to tell him he was wrong, that he was misinforming the kids, but I didn't.  I can be a real know-it-all jerk in situations like that, and just sort of suffered silently as he led his little group on to who-knows-what. It's a good thing that parents bring kids to a science museum, right? I'm not really sure what to say here, but I'm sure we've all passed along some sort of misinformation to the younger generation.  I know I have.  Still, I wish those kids could know just how cool this spinning ball was!

Is Your Hair On Fire Yet?

Keith Olbermann

Does Tax Law Make You Crazy?
I've lost track of exactly what day it happened.  All the days seem to be running together since Obama 'caved in' to Yertle the Turtle Mitch McConnell.  Although, depending on who you talk to, I might be referring to the day Obama hoodwinked Mitch McConnell into going along with some more government stimulus.  I guess it depends on whose analysis you believe the most.

Now, given my lazy druthers, I might spend every workday evening in front of the TV, watching MSNBC between the hours of 5 and 8 PM.  I have even been known to watch Chris Matthews if I come home early.  Now, I really don't do this every night, it even gets to me after a while, but I do have a lot of respect for the opinions of Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, and Lawrence O'Donnell.

During the fifteen minutes or so that I travel to work in the morning, I listen to Stephanie Miller on Green960, and listen to Randi Rhodes (if I get out early enough) or Karel on the way home.

So, let's go back to the day we found out Obama and McConnell had negotiated a deal to give the Republicans their cherished Bush-era tax cuts for the rich folk for another couple of years, and some ruling class props to rich families to evade more estate taxes, in return for an extension for unemployment benefits, and some investments in small business and green energy.  To be honest, it's not easy for us ordinary folk to figure this stuff out, so we turn to people we trust to help sort things out.  So, let's see, how do my political gurus feel about this?

Keith Olbermann says Obama is 'Goddamned wrong' and betrayed his base.

Rachel Maddow thinks Obama completely sold out, and looks somewhat pitiful in the whole affair.

Lawrence O'Donnell thinks Obama got the best part of the deal.

Randi Rhodes, on the other hand says we should relax.  There's more bucks for stimulus than sops to the rich, so Obama got a better deal.  Stephanie Miller also thinks Obama did the only thing he could, and Karel is 'done with Obama.'

Not a very unified picture, is it?

When the news broke, I was angry too, and emailed Senator Bernie Sanders from Vermont, who I had heard was going to filibuster the bill. Bernie spoke for almost 9 hours about the evils of the bill, and I agreed with most of what he said.  But then strange things started to happen on the right wing...

Charles Krauthammer, the right wing nutjob pretender to the William F Buckley throne of self-important pundits, wrote an article about how Obama swindled the Republicans, and the Democrats didn't even know it!  Then Rush Limbaugh, the drug-addled Jabba the leader of the GOP tells us that he hopes Obama's tax deal fails!  Pretty much the same words he uttered two years ago that defined the party of HELL NO YOU CAN'T!  And finally, to put the nail in the coffin, if you think you can read Sarah Palin's tweets it would also seem she's against the deal!

Many of my friends on facebook have passionately posted their disgust for Obama selling out, so it's a real mixed bag of feelings out there.

Politics is a very complex, convoluted form of energy transfer.  I think that it probably was the best deal that could have been made, given these circumstances, and who Obama was dealing with.  The GOP was perfectly willing to let taxes go up for all Americans, and let the unemployed sink deeper into poverty, so there was no incentive on their part to 'play nice.' I think the lure of getting these totally unnecessary, totally hypocritical (from a deficit POV) tax cuts was irresistible to McConnell. In return, Obama saved a lot of Americans (the hostages) a lot of pain, and got more stimulus money too.  This is all about jobs, jobs, jobs.  If we're still at this rate of unemployment in two years, there is little hope for Obama, save the possible candidacy of Palin.

Could this deal have paved the way for the historic repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell we witnessed yesterday?  Hard to prove either way.

So here's the deal: We have 2 years

• to take back Congress
• to mount some creditable media pushback to the FauxNews propaganda machine
• to halt the flood of anonymous political money
• to get this country's economy back on track

Otherwise, these tax giveaways for the rich will never expire, and you can kiss America, as we think we knew it, goodbye.

Is your hair on fire yet?

Obamapology, Take 2

The Government We Deserve
Step away from the ledge!

By now, I'm sure you have all heard about how Obama 'caved in' to the GOP, or broke his campaign promise, or whatever.  Personally, I'm really unhappy about it too.  I'm willing to have my taxes go up if it means the rich people's taxes go up too.  All this talk about deficits has been exposed for what it is, just talk.  Just another excuse to bash Obama and the Democrats, and another opportunity for the powerful to raid the treasury.  But...read and listen to these words spoken today by Obama:

"This isn’t an abstract debate...This is real money for real people and it will make a real difference in the lives of the folks who sent us here."

The ugly irony in the tax situation is that percentage-wise, the people on the bottom would suffer the most in a tax increase.   And it was not an idle threat by the GOP; they would be perfectly happy to let millions of folks lose unemployment benefits, and sink further out of sight.  This was blackmail, pure and simple.

While I don't believe in caving in to blackmail, I'm not sure Obama had much choice.  I guess what I'd like to see is a concerted effort to make the GOP pay for this politically, but in the age of limitless anonymous corporate donations via shadowy Super-PAC's, it's hard to see that happening either.

What do you want Obama to do?  I think many people voted for him as if he were the second coming, and we would no longer need to do any more hard work.  All our utopian dreams would become reality.

As long as Americans can be bamboozled into electing Republicans, even if it means harming Americans, we will get treated this way over and over again.

What say you?

Webcor Dreams

an old Webcor, not the same as my folks'

Electronic Memories
Where have all the gray cells gone?

Tonight after band practice and dinner, I stumbled across the John Sebastian Folk Rewind special, and got sucked in.  Lots of old black and white recordings of ancient TV shows.  Earnest young men and women singing old songs.  Perhaps the most telling moment for me was when The New Christy Minstrels sang Today.  It's a totally sappy song, but still, the wistful emotions of passing time hit me hard.  I thought back to the days when I used to listen with my family to reel-to-reel tapes of old folk songs.  Songs like "Tom Dooley," "500 Miles," and "The Streets of Laredo."

These tapes are long gone, and even if they weren't, it would be hard to find many people interested in listening to them.  My dad has been gone for 15 years, and my mom's not doing very well, and it's memories like this that remind me of a time when they were younger, younger than I am now.

So, I'll continue to play "Get Together" every chance I get, "Blowin' In The Wind" every now and then, and maybe even "If I Had a Hammer."  Someone else can get nostalgic over Lady Gaga someday.

PS, for those of you in Bay Area, here's the link for repeats of the Sebastian Show.

Open Letter to President Obama

Dear President Obama,
Let me say this simply and directly.  Please protect the American people these next two years.  The Republicans are coming for us.  They have already bought themselves the Congress, and the Senate and Presidency cannot be far behind.

Please stop compromising with the GOP, they have no intention of meeting you anywhere near the middle.  You will be under constant attack from their media, but you need to be strong for us.

If we don't get our act together in the next couple of years to take Congress back, then I guess we don't deserve saving!

If you need to veto, then veto.  They will call you names, and try and destroy you.  But remember, you are protecting us.  This is what we need the President for.

And please, don't let them defund the Secret Service!

Yours in Justice,
Geoff Gould
high school science teacher