Thursday, December 10th, 2009 by Bill Swadley.

First published at The Huffington Post on December 9, 2009.

One of my closest friends, a brilliant, gifted, dedicated teacher at California State University, Los Angeles, was recently informed that because of budget cuts she is to be laid-off. In my conversations with her over the past few months (she knew this might be coming) something became very clear to me.  It would appear that “we the people” of California would rather take money out of the pockets of the most important and egregiously underpaid professionals in our society than pay a little more in taxes.

Teachers in California are being forced either off the payroll entirely or are being given so few classes to teach that they will need to find other work to supplement their already abysmal salaries. With unemployment in the Los Angeles area topping 10%, this is a sorry prospect for them indeed.

So rather than hit up the wealthiest Californians and most successful California businesses (like the oil companies) for a little extra dough they’d never miss, our representatives in Sacramento along with the Govenator are hacking furiously away at the public school system and other vital social services as if every well-off Californian has made it clear that they are unwilling to have their taxes increase by even the smallest amount.

I‘ve lived in California my entire life. I do well and don’t pay much state income tax (never have), yet I watch year-after-year as a supposedly liberal state congress led by a usually centrist governor fight and wrangle as they allow education and social services to suffer at the effect of budgetary deficiencies. Does anyone making more that a teacher’s salary in this state really think it’s fair for those worse-off than they are to carry the burden of our current economic downturn?  Obviously our lawmakers do, but they’re not representing me in this, that’s for certain.

This isn’t just about dollars and cents or teachers’ salaries, either. Along with cuts to education come  higher fees and fewer classes offered to students who can barely afford their current curriculum. It will cost them far more now and take a great deal more time to graduate. These people are the future wage-earners of the state. It doesn’t take an economist to tell you that the higher one’s level of education, the higher one’s earnings tend to be. It’s a no-brainer. People who earn more pay more in taxes and spend more in the economy. This is good for Caaleefoarneea, Arnold!

But for those who are in charge, raising taxes on the oil companies or the wealthiest businesses and  individuals in the state (and there are a great many of them) is entirely out of the question. Even though young teachers who have recently entered the teaching profession are losing their jobs. Even though Education graduates have no prospects whatsoever as they exit even the best universities with high honors. Even though everyone is in agreement that a well-educated populace has a positive effect on absolutely every aspect of the quality of life of a community.

Every state in the country is suffering along these lines. Many are much worse-off than California because they don’t have a ridiculously wealthy mother-lode of residents and companies to even consider tapping.   Schwarzenegger has the magic wand in his thick fingers that could readily alleviate all the financial woes the state currently faces.

The California Legislature needs to stop catering to the greedy, ivory tower residents that would put the likes of Meg Whitman in the governor’s mansion. They need to stop punishing the people at the bottom and in the middle with regressive tax schemes and unconscionable budget cuts by representing everyone in this state, not just their peers.

Posted in Politics, Blogroll, General | No Comments »

Tuesday, December 8th, 2009 by admin.

Cenk Uyger makes a great case for the latter here:

The Irrefutable Stupidity of Sarah Palin 

x

Posted in Politics, Blogroll, General | No Comments »

Monday, June 22nd, 2009 by Bill Swadley.

I’m one of those people who hasn’t had to worry about health care for the past 25 years or more. I’ve always worked for companies that provided decent health insurance, and as monthly costs and out-of-pocket increased, my salary did as well. I continue to have no worries.

This is true for me. Now, put those words in the mouth of every pundit and elected official speaking-out these days against healthcare reform. Of course they’re against it. They don’t need it and don’t care about those who do. Many of the politicians with the loudest voices railing against sweeping reforms are in the pockets of the insurance industry  to boot, so their vested interest in the status quo has no limit.

I live in California and have my entire life. I make a good living and don’t pay much state income tax (never have).  I watch year-after-year as a supposedly liberal state congress led by a usually conservative governor allow education and social services to suffer at the effect of budgetary deficiencies.

But raising taxes on the oil companies or the wealthiest individuals in the state (and there are a great many of them here) is entirely out of the question. Even though young teachers who have recently entered the teaching profession are losing their jobs. Even though education graduates have no prospects whatsoever as they exit even the best universities with high honors. Even though everyone is in agreement that a well-educated populace has a positive effect on absolutely every aspect of the quality of life of a community.

The mentally ill live a life of horror on the streets because the state no longer provides mental health facilities for them. They and the homeless whose ranks increase daily are left to the good graces of the private NGO’s who have seen their own revenues decline in the face of the current crisis.

Every state in the country is suffering along these lines. Many are much worse-off than California because they don’t have a ridiculously wealthy mother-lode of residents to even consider tapping.   But people like me and those running things in the state capitals and Washington haven’t felt any of this pain directly. We’re insulated and only see and feel what is demanded by our respective consciences.

We have our health insurance. If the public schools start to suck again the way they did in the past, we’ll put our kids in the private schools, just as we have before. We might give a little more to the Midnight Mission or make a contribution to our local school, but there is absolutely no substitute for political will.

And the conservative clowns on the right like Beck,  Hannity, and Limbaugh, along with the myopic  cynical, conservatives in politics like Schwarzenegger, Michael Steele, Olympia Snowe, and all the other usual suspects we come to know and despise, continue to decry any effort at taking  responsibility for those less fortunate. They call it socialism. Warn that we’ll be “like Canada or England” (I have friends who live in both countries, and, as shocking as it may seem, none of them are plotting their escape to the USA for some strange reason…)

Screw socialism, whatever happened to plain old human decency? I’m for that. Call it socialism or call it Bob for all I care.  I want everyone to feel the same sense of security I do about healthcare. I can pay a little more in taxes to keep the bright, young, teachers in my kids’ classrooms.  Let’s stop listening to those who have a not-so-hidden agenda in these matters and do what’s right for a change.

Posted in Politics, Blogroll | No Comments »

Wednesday, April 29th, 2009 by admin.

Posted in Politics, Blogroll | No Comments »

Friday, April 24th, 2009 by Bill Swadley.

As the horrific Bush Administration torture strategy continues to unravel and reveal, and I listen to the talking heads splitting hairs about what is and what isn’t torture and/or whether torture was justified and/or “yielded results,” I can’t help but hearken-back to the endless days I spent listening to the Clinton impeachment hearings as the strident and self-righteous Henry Hyde repeated, ad –nauseam, that the president must be impeached for perjury and other “high crimes” because, above all else, WE MUST UPHOLD THE RULE OF LAW!

Remember that? Remember the crime for which Clinton was impeached? Perjury. Bill Clinton was only the second president in US history to be impeached and it was for a crime completely unrelated to the office he held. The Republican-led House of Representatives tried to throw Clinton out of office for lying about having sex with Monica Lewinsky. That was it. No one was tortured, no wars were started needlessly , no one died. Even so, the entire country was put on hold while the right-wing played-out its righteous indignation. And let’s not forget the Starr investigation.

Now here we are, 10 years later, and  Bush, Cheney, et al have managed to escape Washington with nary an official accusation of any kind  leveled against them. We all knew that during the 8-years of Bush rule the Executive Branch was riding roughshod over human rights and the constitution. It’s no longer a question of whether they acted in accordance with the law. The memos and reports just now surfacing show that they not only side-stepped the law but intentionally diverted it. No one in this country, not even certain Fox News “journalists” can deny that they authorized the widespread use of torture on detainees at various U.S. run prison facilities around the world.

Is that enough or must we get Bush in a courtroom charged with littering and catch him lying about whether the gum wrapper was Juicy Fruit or Double Mint?

Bush, Cheney, Rice, Ashcroft, Gonzalez, Rumsfeld, and anyone else in the Bush Administration involved in the promotion and authorization of torture must be held accountable. There needs to be a full investigation. Charges need to be filed. Public trials need to be held. We need to redeem ourselves for ourselves, for our children, and in the eyes of the world as a nation that believes in its own principles.

Henry Hyde has passed-on,  so I’ll say it for him: WE MUST UPHOLD THE RULE OF LAW.

Posted in Politics, Blogroll | No Comments »

Thursday, April 23rd, 2009 by admin.

Posted in Politics, Humor, Blogroll | No Comments »

Wednesday, April 15th, 2009 by Bill Swadley.

Back in the heat of the election last year, TV and online reporters forayed courageously into crowds of Palin/McCain supporters to  interview them about why they loved the Republican ticket and hated Obama. Never very clear about either, these sign-wielding, slogan-spewing, demonstrators rarely had more to say than the misinformed and/or disinformational talking-points issued by Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, and the GOP leadership.

Today, teabaggers out in fairly meaningless numbers all over the country stand in impotent protest against a president who only took office a few months ago about problems in our economy that have been brewing  for 10+ years. As far as I can tell, these are the same people who blindly supported Sarah Palin last fall because she said the “right” words and all the anchors at Fox News all had a crush on her.

Never mind that the unfortunate term “teabagging” could have easily been avoided had anyone at Fox News or in leadership of the conservative groups hosting the so-called tea parties held even a 5th grade knowledge of the Boston Tea Party.

Like when it occurred.

In 1773.

Over 125 years BEFORE the tea bag was invented.

Remember American History class? Remember your classmates who didn’t do the homework, slept in class, doodled, traded notes, etc., and barely passed with a C? This is for them:

Now class. As I said, there were no tea bags back then. The tea at Boston Harbor was thrown into the water by British colonists from chests commonly used for tea exportation. That’s right,British colonists, not United States citizens. Why? Because the American Revolution was just being birthed and wouldn’t come to fruition for several years.  The colonists responsible for the Boston Tea Party were protesting taxes levied by their sovereign, King George III, without the consideration of colonial legislatures. That’s what set them off. Taxation without representation.  Is any of this ringing a bell? Oh, I forgot, you were asleep.

So, is there any significance to be drawn from a parallel between the Boston Tea Party of December 16, 1773 and the Washington Teabagging of April 15, 2009? Let’s see…

1773 -  Dictatorial monarch in desperate attempt to raise revenue  levies taxes on remote colonies only to elicit a profound outcry from said colonies. Monarchy greatly concerned, but steadfast.
2009 - Democratically elected president in cooperation with representative legislature cuts taxes for 95% of all citizens only to elicit a profound outcry from those who stand to benefit. Federal government puzzled.

1773 - Protest motivated primarily by taxation without representation and the iron-fisted rule of a monarchy and ocean away.
2009 - Protestors mostly unclear why they’re protesting except that it has something to do with socialism and maybe fascism, but not sure how.

1773 - Some protestors disguise themselves as Indians to deflect potential legal repercussions from themselves onto an oppressed minority.
2009 - Some protestors dress as Indians because they don’t understand the bigotry behind the original motivation for the  Indian garb worn by some Boston Tea Party participants.

1773 – Colonial leaders know the gravity of their situation and understand that their actions will likely be met with serious consequences.
2009 – Any real impact or important message is lost in the snickering of pretty much everyone because of the use of the term “teabagging.”

1773 - Word of the protest and the monarchy’s extreme reaction gets out in a few weeks to other colonies and the American Revolution is under way.
2009 - Minute-by-minute coverage of the non-event fills the airwaves, cable news, and the Internet for endless hours.  Almost everyone loses interest by the close of the day.

It might have been much more effective to mirror a different tea party to draw attention to the current situation.

Wonderland – Alice sits, uninvited, at a tea table after a long and tiring adventure only to find it occupied by three psychotic characters. She attempts to apply logic to the insane jabbering of the Mad Hatter and the March Hare. Gives up. Leaves.
2009 – Obama brings to the table exactly what he promised during an extremely long and tiresome election only to find it dominated by the same jabbering, psychotic characters who opposed his presidency on unclear grounds all along. He tries to use logic to reason with the loudest opposing voices…

Posted in Politics, Humor, Blogroll | No Comments »

Friday, March 6th, 2009 by Bill Swadley.

Remember the movie, The Matrix? Remember how everyone had been tricked into thinking they were living real life when it was really only a computer simulation of a made-up reality? Remember how the only threat to this fantastical, non-existence was the people who were outside the matrix?

It’s starting to appear to me that what we’re witnessing in the meltdown of Wall Street and the collapse of the financial well-being of the U.S. is like a whole bunch of people getting flushed out of the matrix at once, looking around doe-eyed at the destruction around them, wiping the muck off themselves, and wondering, “What the hell was that?!”

Some of them wish they could climb back into the goo and go back to sleep. Others are looking at their barren stock portfolios or bankrupt employers and wishing they’d seen it coming. Still others, who haven’t yet been touched by the success of The One in destroying that which held us prisoners of illusion, wait in fear that they might be next.

The matrix is consumerism… Make that rampant consumerism. Rampant consumerism fueled by a financial system and national mindset that encourages everyone to live in a house they can’t afford, drive a car they can barely pay for each month, eat in restaurants that in the old days were only frequented by wealthy jet-setters, buy big-ticket electronics and appliances… we all know the story.

Part of the philosophy behind the TARP at the end of Bush and the stimulus passed at the start of Obama is to “get the banks to start lending again.” Usually the context of this objective, especially in selling it to Congress and the people, is so that businesses can continue to run, which makes sense. Many businesses need some sort of credit instrument in place to be able to keep things functioning without interruption due to cash flow considerations. I get that.

But behind the veil of helping-out businesses is the real reason we want to get the banks lending again. So that we can go back to our irresponsible consumerism-based economy. That’s right, climb back up the tube, into the tepid, viscous liquid so that we can continue pretending that our economic house of cards is made of brick and mortar, not thin cardboard. We want to be virgins again.

Well, America, you can’t untake the red pill and this genie’s not going back into the bottle. Doing so would be tantamount to sticking our heads back into the sand and believing it’s not all going to come crashing down once more when the current bandaids break free.

We’ve crossed an eye-opening threshold, and I would love to see what the real world of mass financial responsibility looks like. As with anything, the unknown can be dark, scary, and foreboding, but transforming the economic basis of this country from wealth-as-illusion to wealth as a function of real value, created by and for the people, can only be a giant step in the right direction.

Posted in Politics, Blogroll | No Comments »

Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009 by Bill Swadley.

There’s a lot of talk right now about liberals and Democrats giving porn-king lookalike, Rush Limbaugh, too much attention and far too much airtime, and thereby, affording him undeserved credibility.

I disagree.

For one thing, how do we know Rush isn’t a hard-core, left-wing, liberal, mole whose mission it is to lead his Dittoheads over the cliff of their own fear-based ideology, lemming-like into irrelevant oblivion? Judging from the firestorm of modern-day Peters, denying Rush in the more moderate ranks of the Republican Party, one would think that he’s not acting in the best interest of his party, but to the great benefit of the Democrats. If this is the case, then Rush needs the support of those who would see Obama succeed, not their disregard.

Okay, maybe not, but I’m one of those people who believes that if you give crazy a megaphone, everyone will eventually come to realize that it’s just crazy talking his crazy talk again. So if the Rush-effect is already taking a toll on the right, Dems and liberals shining a spotlight on the strident words and regressive ideas of Limbaugh and his conservative cohorts can only be beneficial to any group from right-of-center to the far left.

With the exception of the Republican Party itself, of course.

In the same way fiscal conservatives cringed with every new hundred-billion squandered during the Bush years,  so moderate Republicans are mortified by the extremist rhetoric voiced by the loudest (albeit not the wisest) orators of their party.

The GOP is already having trouble trying to find their footing in the ever-darkening shadow of the Bush years and the emergence of Limbaugh as their mouthpiece isn’t helping. Other “entertainers,” like Hannity and Coulter, who likely perceive that Limbaugh is gaining some sort of positive traction, are engaging in a sort of conservative onupsmanship, driving the center mad in the process. Let’s face it, identifying only the most extreme on the right as “real” conservatives, contrary to their myopic viewpoint, leaves out a lot of Republicans and most Independents.

If the mainstream of the Republican party can’t find a common ground with these people, it will splinter, and in that splintering, lose any leverage it might have in the federal government now and in the future. Once that leverage is gone, the party will eventually slip from irrelevance to nonexistence. This is not an unprecedented event in US history. If it happened to the Whigs it can happen to the GOP. The Whig Party fractured on the slavery question and never recovered. “The Republican Party,” the history books may one day say, “fractured on the issue of conservatism and never recovered.”

Once the Republican Party either ceases to exist or is so marginalized that it carries no influence in the country, a viable third party will arise. Or maybe two. Or three. One of them might be a party of megaphone-toting crazies led by Rush himself, screaming at the top of their lungs that everyone is out of step except them. We’ll just shake our heads and smile benevolently.

It’s just the crazy talking.

Posted in Politics, Blogroll | No Comments »

Friday, February 27th, 2009 by Bill Swadley.

Well, it now seems that the careless lack of proper vetting due diligence on the part of John McCain when he impulsively chose Sarah Palin as his running mate last year may not have been an isolated incident of Republican bad judgment. Either that, or the people who convinced McCain that Palin would have a positive impact on the ticket are the same misguided, cynical, ideologues who convinced the GOP leadership that Piyush “Bobby” Jindal was their rising star.

It now seems that, just as Palin’s anatomy must have been the major factor in McCain’s choice, Jindal’s skin hue is all it takes to be dubbed, “Future of the Party,” by the old, rich, white guys who are currently facing-down irrelevance with sheer terror.

Everyone agrees that the speech was badly delivered, and the charitable on both sides of the aisle concur that he had a “tough hand to play” and a “hard act to follow,” but now it turns out that, aside from casting misinformed aspersions on volcanic science, JINDAL’S A BIG FAT LIER!

From TPM Muckraker:

Jindal Admits Katrina Story Was False

“Remember that story Bobby Jindal told in his big speech Tuesday night — about how during Katrina, he stood shoulder-to-shoulder with a local sheriff who was battling government red tape to try to rescue stranded victims?

Turns out it wasn’t actually, you know, true.” [Read the whole story.]

Posted in Politics, Blogroll | No Comments »

Wednesday, February 25th, 2009 by Bill Swadley.

I’ve been reading this morning all a the comments all over the media about Piyush “Bobby” Jindal’s address to the nation last night following President Obama’s speech to Congress.

Poor Piyush. Poor Republicans.

From Chris Matthew’s heartfelt, “Oh God,” to the Kenneth-the-page comparisons, it just doesn’t get much worse. I’m just waiting now for the “media bias” recriminations to start echoing from the halls of Fox News and whatever cave from which Rush Limbaugh broadcasts, because, obviously, the liberal media is now going to tear down “Bobby” the way they did Sarah Palin during the election.

When Bush junior first took the presidency, my personal, self-consolation was that, after being embarrassed in the eyes of the rest of the world for the next 4 years, we would never have to endure another Republican in the White House. When the man had another 4 years handed to him, that dream was shattered and replaced with a deep, unyielding cynicism about this country and politics in general.

Last night I watched the first 10 minutes of Jindal’s speech, and rather than becoming incensed at the usual Republic rhetoric (as I expected to), I yawned and changed channels. I didn’t even take an extra moment to ridicule the man. I just moved on.

This may be the best the GOP can do for now. Maybe forever. If so, not only might we never have to endure another Republican in the White House, we may never have to endure Republicans-as-we-know-them in general ever again except and an irrelevant, extremist, fringe group.

The dream is alive.

Those of us on the left and in the center must never become complacent as we watch the Republican Party’s full-bore sprint towards the precipice of terminal irrelevancy, on the other hand, we really don’t need to do much of anything at this point to help push the back wheels off the cliff. They’re doing just fine without our help. At least not while Jindal and Palin are their best hope for the future and they continue to pay homage to their so-called base of ideological extremists rather than trying to find a way to be an agent of positive change in their own right.

[Jinal/Kenneth morph via THE DAILY WHAT]

Posted in Politics, Blogroll | No Comments »

Wednesday, November 5th, 2008 by Bill Swadley.

Imagine for a moment that initiatives in several states in the recent election prohibited interracial marriage and would ultimately result in the unions of interracial couples invalid. Outrage from every corner of the map would be swift and vehement.  How do otherwise fair-minded, rational people convince themselves, not only that they have an interest in depriving another group of their rights, but that it’s the right thing to do?

Tradition: Since the beginning of time, white-marries-white, black-marries-black, and so on. That’s the way it’s always been and that’s how it should stay.

Religion: God does not want people who are not of the same skin color to marry. It’s a sin and my church will be compelled to marry people of different races unless it’s illegal.

Morality: My personal morality code says that it is wrong for people of different races to get married, therefore, even though it has no direct impact on my life, I cannot allow something to exist that is contrary to my belief system.

Children: I don’t want my kids’ teachers telling them that interracial marriage is acceptable because they might marry someone from a different ethnic background when they grow up.

Discomfort: Just the thought of two people from different races getting married and having children makes my skin crawl.

Apathy: It has nothing to do with me so what do I care? I just won’t decide either way on this issue and stay out of it.

In the context of interracial marriage, these rationalizations and justifications seem absurd and backwards and based in ignorance and bigotry. It wasn’t all that long ago, however, that people of the same ilk as those against same-sex marriage (and probably some of the same people!) were having these very discussions with regard to laws that declared  interracial marriage illegal. We’ve come a long way. Or have we?

What made the difference in finally getting all those outrageously discriminatory interracial marriage laws off the books wasn’t solely the activism of the people at the direct affect of these laws, interracial couples, but the involvement of those who had no vested interest in the issue except for a strong sense of equality and justice.

On one hand I am ashamed and embarrassed that my group, straight people, continue to vote against allowing people of the same sex to marry (or, as in California, vote to strip fellow citizens of that right).  On the other hand, I am just as dumbfounded as any gay person by the bald-faced bigotry demonstrated by the people of  this “land of the free” who continue to allow fear, ignorance and prejudice to override their ability to do the right thing.

In the Age of Obama there can’t possibly be more straight people against equal rights for all than there are on my side of the fence. I have to believe that the problem here is more one of apathy than anything else and that’s why I now call upon my fellow straights to step-up. Start paying attention to issues of this sort, especially when a small group manages to manipulate large blocks of voters into believing that they must discriminate against others for their own well-being and that of their children. Don’t shut down your radar when the word “gay” appears because it’s not part of your reality. Don’t think that “they” can handle “their own” issues alone. They can’t, they need our help, so pay attention and make your voice heard.

The same-sex marriage issue isn’t going away. Right-wing Christians and Evangelicals often cited two issues during the presidential campaign for why they would vote for McCain (and, by extension, George Bush twice). Those two issues were abortion and gay marriage. So if you think this isn’t your issue, think back over the last 8 years, then think again.

Posted in Politics, Civil Rights, Blogroll | 9 Comments »

Wednesday, November 5th, 2008 by Bill Swadley.

The jubilance expressed in this picture might lead one to think that this is a group of avid Obama supporters for whom hope is indeed still alive.  But it’s not. This is a photograph from Wednesday morning’s LA Times of Proposition 8 supporters last night upon hearing that their measure passed.

Proposition 8 is the California initiative that is 14 words in length: “Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.”

The fact that half the citizens in a state like California can’t overcome bigotry, fear, and ignorance in the name of equality shows that the fight for fairness and “justice for all” in this country is only just starting with the election of Barak Obama and his mandate for hope and change.

Posted in Politics, Civil Rights, Blogroll | No Comments »

Wednesday, October 15th, 2008 by Bill Swadley.

I’m tired of hearing every other Sarah Palin fanatic compare her in terms of experience to Barack Obama. It seems a so obviously contrived and absurd tactic that even the blindly faithful should be able to see through it at a glance. Bottom-line, there’s as much comparison between the careers of Obama and Palin as there is between that of Ted Kennedy and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Experience isn’t limited to any one particular aspect of a person’s life such as, in this case, time spent in public office and the responsibilities of one particular job over another. Experience includes personal history, educational background, and basic intelligence.

Education-wise, Obama has a law degree. Not just any law degree, mind you, Harvard Law. Call it elitist if you will, but any Joe-Undergrad student with an eye on law school can tell you that anyone who gets into Harvard is bloody smart and make no mistake about it. Whilst at Harvard Obama gained notoriety as editor of the Harvard Law Review and was later elected president of the Law Review, yep, you guessed it, first black man to do so.
He wrote a book, he practiced law, he made a difference working with community organizations (as referred to mockingly by former NYC mayor and drag queen Rudolf Giuliani at the Republican National Convention). He was elected to the US Senate. He wrote another book. The list of his accomplishments are stunningly and endlessly impressive.

Obama’s political career officially began in 1997 in Illinois when he was elected to represent the state’s 13th District and its 800,000 residents. Illinois subsequently elected him to the US Senate in 2004. This year he was ranked as the 11th most powerful senator by Congress.org.

Sarah Palin? She graduated high school in Wasilla, Alaska then made a valiant effort to cram college in around her demanding beauty pageant schedule, finally earning her bachelor’s degree in communications on a Miss Congeniality scholarship 5 years later. That’s it on education.

After college Sarah was a part-time sports reporter and had other part-time jobs including working for her secessionist husband in-between giving birth to lots of Palins. Her political career started when she served on the Wasilla City Council from 1992 to 1996 at which time she was elected mayor of the same town of about 6,000 people. Palin termed-out as mayor in 2002 and ran unsuccessfully for a few state offices in Alaska until being appointed by the governor to the Alaska energy commission in 2003. She resigned from this post less than a year later on ethics principles. Subsequently, she worked for convicted felon Ted Stevens for 2 years and by all accounts had no ethics issues with that job. In 2007 Palin took up residence… well, at home, mostly, but she was officially allowed to sleep at the governor’s mansion in Juneau as Alaska’s governor.

All told, Palin’s experience as an elected official amounts to about 4.5 years so even by a strict time definition, Obama has 5.5 years on her. Add to that the disparity in population (yes, it’s absurd to compare Wasilla’s 6000 people to the Illinois 13th District’s 800,000, but how about to the entire state of Alaska at 700,000?)

But forget about quantity. It’s really all about quality. Presumably Palin’s been trying her best, but there really seems little focus or much intention to her haphazard political career. Obama hasn’t just been trying, he’s been doing, and doing a lot. An overachiever to be certain, he shoots for the moon and hits the stars so, frankly, a comparison between the two is really unfair.

Then why do her supporters keep making the claim that these two are on a par experience-wise? It makes little sense and I’m sure the outcry from Palinheads would be loud and fierce were anyone from the Obama camp to even attempt an apples-to-apples analysis with any seriousness. Keeping it vague, as they have, makes the weak talking-point they’re looking for. Unfortunately for them, even a broad-strokes examination reveals Obama as a man of rich experience, high intelligence and great substance while just a little peeling-back reveals Palin’s intellect, background, and political career to be the hollow onion that it is.

Posted in Politics, Blogroll | No Comments »

Thursday, October 9th, 2008 by Bill Swadley.

The guys in the white hats aka “the good guys,” live by a code that cannot be violated. Barack Obama represents a hero to many in this country right now, and though he repeatedly has denied desiring such beatification, favoring a we’re-all-gonna-do-this-together mantra, it may be his mantle to wear whether he likes it or not. In that, he will be required to accept a great deal of responsibility and, to the frustration of his take-off-the-gloves supporters, continue to demonstrate restraint in the face of  the most egregious attacks I’ve seen in a presidential election since the Bush camp went after McCain in 2000.

In the story-telling game we learn early-on that there are some very reliable structures inherent in the art that allow the writer to construct the basic characters and storyline, the bones of the story if you will, early in the process and with little effort. For example, to use a couple of extremely popular Good versus Evil films by way of illustration (yes, I could reference Aristotle and Shakespeare, but not today) we find the protagonist (Batman/Luke) and antagonist (The Joker/Darth Vader), aka, the Hero and the Villain.

Much storytelling throughout time has stuck to this very basic structure. It continues today and will outlive the Ages. George Lucas has been criticized for the simplicity of the original Star Wars as nothing more than a standard Greek classic in space. To his credit, Lucas knew his Jung and executed Campbell’s hero-myth brilliantly. Thirty-three years later, the Nolan Brothers and David Goyer have been lauded by fans and critics alike for taking that same basic story and twisting it into something new and thrilling: This year’s outrageously successful, The Dark Knight.

I believe Obama is the hero in this play of passion we’re witnessing on the national stage right now. How do I know?  All one need do is observe the actions and apparent motivations of both sides. The Obama campaign has primarily stayed on its message of change and hope for the future. They have responded in-kind on occasion, but for the most part he has stuck with his working formula in the form of  rousing speeches of hope and vision for the future, and the job of reversing the crimes and missteps of the past eight years. As everyone knows by now, the negative ads playing loose with the truth and rabble-rousing speeches on the stump, especially from Palin, are largely the message from the McCain campaign. As Bush did 8 years ago, in the face of weak poll numbers and general deficit of new ideas for the nation’s problems, they have decided to tread on the dark road of character assassination.

Now please don’t misunderstand me here. In saying that Barack Obama is the hero I am not casting either John McCain or Sarah Palin as the villain. Neither of them are capable of true villainy. Especially not John McCain who has shown himself to be a true hero and not just in the Vietnam War. McCain was a man I admired throughout his congressional career. I always said John McCain was the GOP’s Bill Clinton. It takes talent to equally piss-off people on both sides of the aisle and still get things done. Both of these men were masters of walking the centrist tightrope and I applaud them for their courage and determination.

In fact, I believe that if the GOP had bestowed the nomination on McCain in 2000 instead of Bush, he would have beaten Al Gore handily. No recounts, no hanging chads, just a clean victory.  Remember, Al Gore was not the Oscar winning, Nobel laureate, righteous dude you see today. He was just ol’ “Lockbox Al” trying to put as much distance between himself and Bill Clinton’s sullied reputation as possible.

As for Palin, even though she’s no former hero like her running mate, she’s no villain either. Contrary to her current venom-spewing persona, she’s really nothing more than a dim-witted puppet who’s strings will be cut as soon as the landslide sends her back to her home office in the semi-frozen North. Though no villainess, Palin’s particular brand of hate-mongering is frightening in particular because it incites and brings forth the old “angry mob” mentality that can only lead to disaster if left unchecked. Palin’s words and crowd-firing theatrics, combined with no effort on the part of either her or McCain to temper the crowd’s overreaction, do constitute evil in action, but of the kind that is born of desperation on McCain’s part and ignorance, misguided self-promotion, and unforgivable irresponsibilty on Palin’s.

So where’s the villain? McCain, Palin and many who work side-by-side with them were seduced by the Dark Side just as was Anakin Skywalker. Just as the Joker tried to do to Batman. The GOP collectively,  in the guise of people like Carl Rove and Steve Schmidt (though I’m sure that behind even those two tools stands a creepy little guy in a black hooded robe or a psychotic sociopath in smeared clown white), in the unbalanced rantings of Fox News “journalists” like Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, and now, Mike Huckabee, along with random right-wingers like The View’s Hasselbeck and Rush Limbaugh. But all the villainy doesn’t rest with their ilk. The rabid crowds of true-believers they stir up must accept their responsibility both for giving audience to fear-mongering and hate speech and for adding to hit with racial epithets and dissemination of disinformation.

Remember way back when Obama used the old saw “lipstick on a pig?”  The cries of outrage from the right were deafening even though the likelihood that he meant it as a slam against Palin was a pretty big stretch. Over the past few weeks the McCain camp has thrown everything plus the kitchen sink in negative campaigning at Obama. The villain can get away with things the hero can’t even consider. In this light, it would seem that  even his opponents see Obama as the hero of the piece.

In storytelling if the hero takes an action that is un-heroic and like that of his enemy, if he dissembles villainous, and/or, most importantly, proceeds against his own moral code of honor, he is instantly and for all time judged to be fatally flawed and no longer worthy to wear the white hat. Once this occurs, no matter his track record, his assets or attributes, he must, and he will, fall.

As the finish line fast approaches, it’s obvious that Obama beat them at their game by sticking to the high road and keeping his white hat out of the dirt.

Posted in Politics, Blogroll | No Comments »

Tuesday, March 25th, 2008 by Bill Swadley.

In the language of economists, opportunity costs represent what is lost or what must be given up when a decision is made to spend money or focus resources in one area to the exclusion of another. A business, for example, might choose to invest capital on retooling its factory rather than purchasing new office furniture for its corporate headquarters based on many economic factors, usually which opportunity will have the greatest net impact to the bottom-line.  In the same way the federal government must decide how  limited annual revenues will be spent. Not with the end result to maximize profits as in the private sector, but to bring the greatest benefit to the country as a whole. The Bush Administration, in its decision to invade Iraq and maintain an occupying force there for the past 5 years, has spent  hundreds of billions of dollars, a figure that analysts predict will enter the trillions in the not so distant future.

What are the opportunity costs of the war in Iraq? There are many ways to consider and answer this question. First and foremost it must be pointed-out that the money being “spent” on the war in Iraq is largely borrowed funds in that the US government operates at a current deficit of $9.3 trillion dollars, [1]  so when considering how and why the government spends it’s worth noting that the greatest opportunity cost of all is the cost of running the country at an extremely high deficit. This is true not only in terms of the cost to service such a debt, but in the cost of the general weakness a deficit economy encumbers on a country. Given the nation’s wealth, the US should easily be capable of not only operating under a balanced budget, but of being the country that makes loans to its weaker international counterparts, not the other way around. Clearly that’s far from the case at this point in history.

It is currently estimated that the war in Iraq runs at about $175-275 million per day, depending on the source cited and the metrics used to derive the daily cost. At the low end, that’s $63.9 billion per year, however, the current funding request for the war and war related expenditures is expected to hit $82 billion plus an additional $73 billion the Bush Administration is proposing in additional funding for FY08  bringing the total cost of the war in Iraq through FY08 to well over $600 billion. [2] According to the National Priorities Project, “Taxpayers in the United States will pay $155.5 billion for proposed Iraq War Spending for FY2008. For the same amount of money, the following could be provided: [3]

44,330,909 People with Health Care or
160,931,429 Homes with Renewable Electricity or
3,478,615 Public Safety Officers or
2,698,795 Music and Arts Teachers or
25,660,964 Scholarships for University Students or
15,637 New Elementary Schools or
1,209,236 Affordable Housing Units or
66,294,593 Children with Health Care or
21,332,592 Head Start Places for Children or
2,646,531 Elementary School Teachers or
2,336,286 Port Container Inspectors.

At the annual rate of $155.5 billion, the US could create a robust economy unrivaled worldwide. With such a direct infusion domestically, the revenues generated would pay for any debt incurred, bolster the dollar, balance the budget and create surpluses in short order. As it is, aside from the military industry, money spent on the Iraq war is leaving US shores never to return in any significantly beneficial way.

At a time of economic struggle and impending recession, money that currently escapes the US to be used overseas could provide real and long-lasting stimulus in the form of green technologies, infrastructure investment, global competitiveness, and community development, just to name a few. The missed opportunities represented by the war in Iraq are well-illustrated by examining a few key areas of the US economy and demonstrating how an influx of investment by the government could not only provide more security than the wars overseas, but shore-up our economy  for the future.

Security
The Office of Homeland Security recently celebrated its fifth anniversary. Analysts examining the goals and accomplishments of the new federal agency found, ironically enough, that the single most significant achievement of the agency was the creation of the agency itself (color coded alerts not withstanding). The invasion of Iraq was initially launched in the name of national security, but while we’ve spent billions in the Middle East battling a threat that never materialized, the physical borders between Canada and Mexico are no more secure, air travel safety is only slightly improved, the coasts and shipping ports have seen little significant attention, and Osama Bin Laden is still at large.
With the exception of Bin Laden, expenditures on actual homeland security, i.e. money spent within our borders, would enhance the domestic economy by creating new jobs in the security industry and foster improved security technologies that could be exported to other countries facing similar concerns. So even as the Bush Administration and other proponents of the war in Iraq point to security as the primary impetus for initiating and perpetuating the war in Iraq, and with 4,000 US Troops dead and tens of thousands wounded, not only are we less secure at home, but our military has been weakened and demoralized in the process, making us less capable of defending ourselves and our allies in the event of a military crisis at home or abroad.

Infrastructure
The construction and maintenance of roads, bridges, dams, public parks and buildings is a vital industry across the US and can have an immense impact on the economy given appropriate funding and management from a local to the national level. Economic stimulus opportunities and jobs in every strata of the economy from investment in government bonds to construction workers are created when a government is willing to focus resources on infrastructure.

Instead, however, state and local governments, without the financial resources or significant federal assistance to take action,  watch helplessly as their roads fall further into disrepair and bridges age precipitously. It is predicted that the Minneapolis bridge failure in August of 2007 will become an increasingly common story and concern in the future across the U.S. There is also concern that airports, tunnels, ports, and railroads will be increasingly affected by climate change in their vulnerability to extreme weather patterns and flooding, especially in the Gulf region where scenarios like the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina will become more and more commonplace. [4]

Climate Change/Green Technology
Global warming not only represents the most serious ecological crisis in history, it is also a golden opportunity for any country that can develop technologies to halt and ultimately reverse the effects of greenhouse gases to be sold worldwide. While the US has spent hundreds of billions of dollars fighting a war it should never have started, other technologically advanced countries have invested in the research and development necessary to avert the climate crisis and positioned themselves to lead the industry.
Cleantech Venture Network reports that North American venture capital investment in green technologies and businesses totaled a record $2.9 billion for 2006, representing a 78% increase over 2005.[6]   This isn’t unreasonable growth fueled by wild speculation and baseless valuation at the hands uninformed stock market newcomers a la the dot.com boom in the 90’s, this is the private sector’s savviest venture capitalists seeing a future that’s already here for new investment opportunities that promise high yields to those first-in.

In an effort to develop clean energy, Abu Dhabi has started to build what it says is “the world’s first zero-carbon, zero-waste car-free city,” investing $22 billion in the project. In addition, the government of Abu Dhabi has announced a $15 billion project to further develop green technologies over the next 5 years. In addition to the long-term benefits to the environment, Abu Dhabi and other equally motivated countries stand to gain economically in the potential export of the results of their investments to other cities worldwide. [5]

But as the U.S. government labors under misguided fear fighting a futile war that will only result, at best, in facilitating and perpetuating its addiction to oil. And as U.S. citizens pay crippling prices at the gas pump and watch their economy slide into recession,  growth-oriented countries and private investors look forward to a future that not only cares for the environment and reduces the effects of global warming, but that fosters a healthy industrial economy with high employment and robust growth.

Society at Large
Poverty, hunger, education, health care, child services, care for the elderly, the social security system, job training, veteran services and homelessness are just a few of the societal ills in need of far-reaching solutions that are cynically and often tragically ignored or slighted by politicians who act in “big picture” terms for “our protection.” In its rush to war the Bush Administration has spent hundreds of billions and ultimately trillions to fight phantoms overseas of their own creation for motives on which one can only speculate, but that clearly have little or nothing to do with the child who goes to bed hungry every night or the senior citizen who must sell his family home to pay for medicine or hospital fees not covered by Medicare.

In a wealthy country such as the United States, the idea is patently absurd that there is a scarcity of financial resources to provide for our security at home, to build, improve and maintain our infrastructure, to develop and produce the technologies required to solve the global warming crisis, and to create a social system that really does “promote the general welfare.”

If the U.S. can squander hundreds of millions each day on a war that will do little good for and potentially a great deal of harm to our national economy, surely it can redirect all or part of those same funds to promote change, institute fairness, revitalize economic growth and create a future for our county and the world that we will be proud to pass on  for the benefit of generations to come.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

FOOTNOTES
[1]  U.S. National Debt Clock
http://uspolitics.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ&sdn=uspolitics&cdn=newsissues&tm=18&f=20&tt=2&bt=0&bts=0&zu=http%3A//www.brillig.com/debt_clock/

[2] National Priorities Project - Budget Briefs
http://www.nationalpriorities.org/budget_briefs
[3] National Priorities Project – Federal Budget Trade-Offs
http://www.nationalpriorities.org/cms/tradeoffs?location_type=1&state=888&program=574&tradeoff_item_item=999&submit_tradeoffs=Get+Trade+Off

[4] Studies: Climate Change Threatens U.S. Roadways http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=88116192

[5] BBC News: Work starts on Gulf ‘green city’
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7237672.stm

[6] Detroit Business News
http://detroit.dbusinessnews.com/shownews.php?newsid=103252&type_news=latest

OTHER SOURCES
War at Any Price? - The Total Economic Costs of the War Beyond the Federal Budget
A Report by the Joint Economic Committee Majority Nov 2007
http://jec.senate.gov/Documents/Reports/11.13.07IraqEconomicCostsReport.pdf

Brookings Institute Iraq Index
http://www.brookings.edu/saban/iraq-index.aspx

Brookings Institute: America’s Infrastructure: Ramping Up or Crashing Down
http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Files/rc/papers/2008/01_infrastructure_katz_puentes/01_infrastructure_katz_puentes.pdf

iCasualties.org
http://icasualties.org/oif/default.aspx

The Nation: Threats Of War, Recession Going Ignored
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/01/18/opinion/main3728991.shtml

Posted in Politics, Archives | No Comments »