Campaign Finance Reform

I’d like to share an idea that could help end political corruption and restore fairness to our democracy. Recent cases of corruption illustrate how our democracy is at risk from influence peddling and the current system of campaign financing.

Think back to people like Jack Abramoff, Tom Delay and Randy “Duke” Cunningham, who got caught red-handed. We shook our heads and said shame on you, but we haven’t done much to fix the system. The problem is that our election process actually invites corruption. Our leaders are forced into year-round fundraising, just to pay for air-wave advertising and that’s not what the framers of the Constitution intended.

So, what can we do about it? Well, the cell phone could be the answer.
A 2005 FCC report says 93 percent of Americans have cell phones. According to the last census, there were over 159 million cell phone users in 2003. We know the number is higher now, so let’s round up that up to 160 Million.

If the FCC collected just 25 cents a month from every cell phone user, it would amount to 480 Million dollars per year. Since federal elections are held every two years 960 Million would be available for each election cycle.

That’s just an example. The point is the cell phone could solve the problem of political corruption by eliminating the need for political fund raising. This “pocket change” from cell phones would go into a “Lock-Box” only to be used to fund legitimate candidates for federal office. To keep costs down, only the top two candidates coming out of open primaries would qualify. Open primaries, followed by run-off elections seem to work well for cities and counties around the country.

We could then hire the two leading candidates as temporary employees until Election Day. Then the loser gets laid off, just like in corporate America

As temporary employees the candidates would be given a budget to stick to. This would help reign in out-of-control candidate spending. Out-of-control spending is one of government’s the biggest problems and it seems to start with the election process. Why not ask candidates to demonstrate their fiscal responsibility by sticking to a fixed budget? Shouldn’t fiscal responsibility be one of those important Family Values politicians are always going on about?

Now, nobody likes taxes. I certainly don’t, but funding elections with a small air wave user fee on cell phones would probably lower taxes by eliminating the special interest legislation congress keeps passing to keep big donors happy.

Of course, broadcasters could also contribute to the airwave election fund, either in dollars or in ad minutes. They could even pay their corporate taxes with ad minutes.

Wouldn’t we all be better-off if our elected representatives no longer had to seek handouts from oil companies, drug companies and other special interest groups?
Our founding fathers envisioned a democracy where candidates competed on the strength of their ideas, not on how much money they could raise.

Of course, our forefathers couldn’t have imagined the invention of modern mass media or the role it would come to play in our democracy. It’s time to update our democracy. It’s time for modern technology to better serve democracy.

An abbreviated video version of this posting can be seen at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vpAazLFJ6Y
Thank you for your time, and please, share this idea with your friends.

Sincerely,
Tom Heffernan

Abstinence (and birth control) are the solution to overpopulation. Ninety years is a long life even for our lucky ones, and women are fertile for only about 35 years maximum. So, logic dictates that a humane manageable adjustment could be implemented in something well short of a century.
So we see that population is not our hardest challenge. The attitude that excess persons must be disposed in cruel ways is the obsession of sadists and control freaks.

As for the city mouse and the country mouse there is an old hippy legend illustrating human nature. People on a human rights march through Tennessee got into a conflict. Some leaders wanted them to stay marshaled together for a show of force and for safety, especially when coming into a city where the police would become involved. Many of the egalitarian rank and file opposed this control, saying that free association and interacting with a variety of people was their primary joy in the effort. A big thunderstorm came as they approached Nashville and they massed in a crumbling barn. The issue came to a head.
The practice was that people spoke in turn to their heart's content and a consensus would formulate over time. After two hours of droning on as to the social merits of each view an old lady was seen trudging in wet as a sponge. She listened and dripped for awhile and then took the floor.

"I don't see why we can't mingle and move at our own pace in the country, then we could meet up and organize on the outskirts of town. If time was pressing none of us would be here anyway."

She had voiced the consensus.

Why don't the egoists on this blog chill out and let the rest of us seek a consensus? The one's of us who really care, I mean.

The main problem is we have built our society on steroids. We have built an artificial, non sustainable model for our world. There is not much alternative either way when it comes to billions of people.

http://dieoff.org/

Do we make gargantuan hell hole cities and pile every one in these concrete high rise monsters? Or spread the people out and use some fuel to cart em around?

Either way we are sunk.

I posted about population control to another group and one responder commented "if eating babies is right I want to be wrong."

Well, I have no answer as to how to go about pop control, but I can see we have too many people in our world for the limited resources that are available.

If the world was a perfect entity, no, the gov should not dictate pop control...but we are far from perfect.

Our future existence on this planet will demand some form of pop control, but I think nature will take care of that problem in the not so distant future.

And in the big picture, we can't fix the problem, we can only postpone the inevitable. But buying a little more time would make things much more livable in the not so distant future than the current path we are headed in.

The world is in a death spiral and politicians as well as industry are pretending this problem does not exist. We can only blame ourselves, for it is just how we have built our world over the years....too many people, living outside of natures intended balance and not an infinite supply of energy to fuel all our demands.

It would be one thing if we all reverted back to rural living, burning trees for fuel and housing and living within our comfortable means allotted to us by nature, as our ancestors did back in the day. But 7 billion people can't burn the trees!

The public just won't not go for pop control...too UN-American...goes against our religious upbringings...too controversial and all of the rest. I can hear the cries now...Communist!...Atheist!...Baby Killer....Hitler....Impeach the President!!!!

I think nature will help us humans out with that hard decision - for nature does not discriminate nor find the truth too controversial or provocative or opinionated to be true. And in the end, nature will settle the dispute of population control with even handed justice by removing excess population just as it does with all its species, ever reminding us all that nature does not bow to man...it is always man that bows to nature.

http://i280.photobucket.com/albums/kk187/fookisan/po3.jpg

Posted by: Adam Hester: I believe that the American dream has turned into a big American question mark. In my opinion, a large section of the American population bases their dream on the amount of things they can acquire. Consumerism has taken the place of what once was a simple need to be comfortable and without need. Hence the question mark. We buy and we buy; most of the time just moving ourselves further from level and lending more fuel to profiteers fire.

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Well, part of the 'dream' is still alive. After all we could all live in China or Russia and be killed for what we say here. Freedom of speech, albeit not perfect in the US of A and freedom to worship as we please costs nothing in money. And so far can't be outsourced to CHINDIA.

Thoreau said. "All good things are wild and free."

The problem with 'the dream' is America do not count their blessings with such free freedoms and only count what can be bought with dollars and comes with the Martha Stewart seal of approval.

Thoreau also wrote: "I am grateful for what I am & have. My thanksgiving is perpetual. It is surprising how contended one can be with nothing definite - only a sense of existence."

There was not many pre-qualifiers Thoreau needed to live the dream. Just opening up his eyes in the morning was enough for him.

And one last tidbit of wisdom from Thoreau.

Thoreau once said when people invited him to dinner they put their pride in how fancy and expensive a meal they could make. Whereas he put his pride in how simple and inexpensive a meal he could make.

Where do we put our pride?

We surely don't put American pride in living within our means and sustainabilty of the dream.

But when Al Gore talks of sustainability...lets be honest, we only pay it lip service.

We talk of living in a sustainable world, yet our actions betray our true feelings. All we have to do is to look at the stock market to see what happens when growth declines even a little.

Even if a company yields stable earning, but does not grow its earnings it is looked down upon. Stability and balance is part of a sustainable footprint, yet we shun such balance.

With one breath we talk about cutting global warming and how we have to cut our dependence of fossil fuel.

Then with the next breath we demand no cut backs in our standard of living, we must spend and consume above all else...build more, build faster, build bigger.

The GDP must only go up, up and away...all the while this consumption just increases global warming and keeps depleting the fossil fuels faster and faster.

Sick...sick..sick mentality, buy more cars, build more houses and monstrosities of architecture, spend more but 'cut back' to save our dear fossil fuels. For all practical purpose we will be out of crude oil and natural gas in 2 or 3 decades and possible much sooner.

Our economy is not based on sustainable health - it is based low interest credit to encourage compulsive spending, debt and living a life of constant consumption with a 'disposable mentality' when it comes to durable goods.

All this consumption to artificially fuel our economy to make our retirement funds only go up contributes to more and more global warming and the depletion of our natural resources.

Then the governments juggle the numbers to make the inflation figures seem artificially low, so everyone's retirement portfolio will make them happy so they will continue to buy and consume more...and on it goes....IT IS ALL WE KNOW and the bill is coming due soon!

http://i280.photobucket.com/albums/kk187/fookisan/po4.jpg

Posted by: TruthandConsequences : The "American dream" has been outsourced to China and India, as we watch their standards of living rise at our expense. That's what globalization has been about, allowing corporations to do business wherever they like and trade wherever they like with no regard to civil rights, labor laws or environmental standards. We have succeeded in making corporations far more powerful than individuals or countries. And capitalism doesn't care about ethics, morals or compassion, so until the U.S. and other governments find the balls to rein them in like the trust-busting of 100 years ago, we will watch the "American dream" shrink along with our living standards. A modern definition of the "American dream" also needs to include sustainability, but poorer Americans will have a harder time adopting more climate-sustainable habits because they are more expensive, just as many poorer people have bad diets because fast food is cheaper than good food.

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Yes, T & C, you are correct with your answer.

Global Attitudes Survey, PEW Research Center 2008 Posted by: LookInTheMirror

http://pewglobal.org/reports/display.php?ReportID=261

Satisfaction with Economy; Country in right direction.

China：-------82%
Australia：---69%
India：-------65%
Gemany：------53%
Poland：------52%
Russia-------52%
Egypt：-------44%
Brazil：------41%
USA：---------20%

As I wrote before T & C, we have become the bitch of China.

...more than 70 per cent of the commodities sold in Wal-Mart are made in China.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-11/29/content_395728.htm

Now, we could have limped along a lot longer on our hallucination of American life but a monkey wrench got thorn into the equation. We are running out of cheap fossil fuels to keep the dream going.

And other areas are starting to show cracks in the mantle such as commodities, water, food shortages, etc. Apparently we do not wish to accept that there are limits to growth...it goes against the American dream and the Goldilocks economy they promote at CNBC.

Remember what our politicians say...the American dream is not negotiable. We will keep a tight grasp onto it no matter what...even if it kills us.

...but like all fairy tales we must be brought back to reality one day as we reach the end of the fabled story.

Figgers: ("Jasper") Lionel Caspar Figgers was a distiller of sippin' whiskey near Riverbend, N.C. (now under Lake Norman)who retired to Switzerland during "the drought." He always complained that Rockerfeller funded Prohibition to protect the oil market from alcohol. Figgers also successfully invested in hemp production in Brazil, where he is regarded as a pioneer of alternative energy. Jasper was a profligate and fickle exploiter of young women until he went to Dr. Carl Jung complaining of migraine. Complete analysis and introduction to Jung's psychological transcendentalism radically reformed his interests, and he satisfied himself by painting nudes (male and female) incessantly from 1923 to his death in 1939. Figgers Institute began as an experimental distiller in Geneva in 1933, but he never returned to the U. S. to resume his business after the 22nd Amendment superceded the 19th. He thought alcohol both a fuel and a cultural gentility, to be shared with one's intimates cost free. His estate awards grants (recently again in America) to self-made and original thinkers. Our charter and modest edifice (Stanley, N.C.) was indirectly secured by submission of a collection of poetry from our newest benefactor Martin Verkamps Eigpt IV
to a Figgers review panel. Although we own the domain name "Figgers Institute" in America we have elected not to build a website until such time as we have artistic offerings to show as stipulated in our renewable grant. You may contact co-directors Gladdie Victrola and Coley Whitesides via beretco.op@gmail.com. We are producing sculptures, puppets and installation art; and writing on political blogs (as per our grant proposal). None of us have a "higher learning" connection.
Pilots are strange birds when it comes to labor, I suppose. They carry guns and kick the tires. AAP, you still haven't listed the groups we should check into. How about marching on Inauguration Day? Is that OK with you? I hear they will have monkey cages for dissenters at the conventions. How about that?

In speaking with Bill Moyers, Andrew Bacevich covered a lot of ground. Bacevich briefly spoke on the fundamental driving force that manifests itself politically and militarily. And that is what we call consumerism which simply put is materialism. In short, being focused on the material world, our view is that the ownership and control of mater is the path to happiness. Throw hedonism into the mix as well. Our obesity rate clearly points to that.

Solutions offered to date have all failed simply because all they offer is temperance and no one wants to temper his pursuit of happiness. Most will begrudgingly concede that wealth does not buy happiness but knowing no other path they pursue it anyway.

The difficulty in getting any attention at examining this failed world view is that “practical Americans” are absolutely convinced that material reality is the bottom line. It seems obvious that what is visible is real, especially considering a baseline of time relative to our own existences. But, what is really needed is the openness to look beyond our own failed philosophy.

To understand our materialistic view of reality, we can look at it from a historical and scientific perspective. At one time, reality was considered to be composed of earth, air, water and fire. Now it is mater, energy, space and time. The source of matter-energy-space-time therefore must be something else.

Human intellect evolved to relate to these elements and therefore is not a vehicle to “understand” the source of mater-space-time-energy. Eastern thought says that this source is Consciousness. This abstraction is totally at odds with the Western notion of a physical foundation to reality and its notion of deity. This is, BTW, illogical as any deity has definition but what has definition is a part of the creation so could not be the creator.

The path to happiness is the path to freedom from these delusions and the consequent development of identity in Consciousness. Such is practically attainable. When we start to progress in this direction, we will find that the compulsion to consume simply falls away. This, in turn, can be reflected in our national and worldly politics.

The American Dream has perished. The middle class has ceased to exist. Before you disagree, please look at the rest of the argument. I wrote about it on my blog:

viewfromthemiddle.org

So many wordy statements! May I tell a story? My parents, both New England textile workers before the work went South, built their own little cape (with their own labor)after WWII on a bit of land that became a platte of almost identical little houses. They raised us together for several years, then divorced. My mother continued to raise us by working in electronics assembly or nursing homes, or kitchens. Most years the family income was $4,000-$8,000. We rented. She washed clothes and household linens by hand in the kitchen sink. We had some basic furniture that she bought "on time". There were no vacations or cultural events. She never had time to attend school meetings or events.
I loved school. Someone suggested I write to Sen. Pell to ask for help to go to college. I learned about Pell grants and applied. That grant, a school grant and a workstudy grant covered four years at my State College. It felt like unbelievable bounty!
I was assigned a project in my freshman year to answer the question "How do voting habits relate to people's experience of the American Dream?" I passed the class with a notation on my project : "This is puzzling, but I respect the effort." In nineteen years as the bright and studious daughter of working poor parents I had never heard of the expression "The American Dream" and I'm sure the paper reflected my ignorance.
Well, that was 1974. I expect a whole new crew of college freshmen (not to mention kids with no access to college or employment)are as clueless now as I was then. The American Dream has no experiential relevance to them and the larger that population becomes, the sooner the notion itself will die. Without action - even sacrifice - to even out access to education and resources for every generation, whatever "The Dream" really is will prove unsustainable.
Postulate freely. You are speaking among yourselves. Fewer and fewer people even know what you're talking about.

Sorry, one more final comment:

A strike is not a fun bomb that you throw in the room as a prank. To union members, it is the final threat of mutual assured destruction. It has serious ramifications to the union members and their families as it means, at best, loss of income and, at worst, the bringing down of the company upon which his/her livelihood depends. A strike only makes sense as leverage in collective bargaining toward a systemic changes such as better wages, benefits or work rules.

I must admit that I don't have much empathy for arm chair revolutionaries that want to throw sand in the gears of our institutions without any real idea of what institutional systemic changes they wish to bring about once they bring the machine down. I suppose that if you don't know where you are going then any road will take you there, but I ain't gonna go with you.

Finally, you should know that airline pilots are not the elite that you would paint us as. As a profession, we have not seen an increase in real wages in decades. We are pretty much unionized, flying heavy equipment operators who are very much entrenched in the Middle Class worker crisis. Anyway, as a pilot at an airline that saw an average 30 percent cut in our wage scales and no cost of living increase in more than two years, I find it amusing to be patronized as elitist by nonunion, nontrade academics. Perhaps I'm wrong and you who speak for Figgers are yourselves poverty stricken, uneducated working class folks, but somehow I doubt it.

The real power for change is in uniting and empowering common middle class working folks in ways that lead to beneficial systemic changes that in turn leads to an increase in Middle Class wealth. Certainly, even the poor will benefit if the Middle Class again expands. As I said before, the greatest increase in Middle Class wealth in the history of the world took place as a result of systemic changes to laws and institutions by policy makers who were part of the system and by union members who fought in practical ways toward those systemic changes. If you want me to take you seriously, much less join you, tell me what you hope to accomplish, otherwise you're just anarchists and rebels without a clue.

What is a "Figgers Institute"? Perhaps you should check your website because I can't seem to find it on any word search.

Perhaps your efforts will inspire some change, but I think it is unlikely. Hundreds of thousands have marched against the Iraq War with little result. On the other hand, various right wing groups have been masters at working within the process to change (and even take over) the process and to push their agenda. Examples are everywhere but the NRA and the Neocons are just a couple that stand out. For Middle Class workers to have a voice, their professional trade associations and their PACs must do the same. Given some combined efforts, average people from all walks of life. The average nurses, average teachers, average janitors, average bankers, average lawyers and yes even the average airline pilots have far more common interests with each other than they have with the one percent wealthiest in this country. They just need to realize that they are all alies in this struggle.

My last practical suggestion is that the Middle Class through such advocates essentially take over one of the two political parties. The hows of this suggestion are too complex for this forum.

In any event, I would have prefered the candor that anonimity allows. Your strange efforts to disrespect my desire for privacy (although not completely successful) will cause this to be my last post here. Perhaps that was your intent after all. Well, no matter. It was just something to do for a while between flights anyway.

Grady,

Admire your research ability, but I'm not from Alaska. Have to fly to HI today, but may have more comments to your comments later if I have time.

AAP/Tony Salmon:

You are correct about organizing (We appreciate your union work.) but you have not listed any specific organizations people should look into.
Is cabotized another word for piratized (sounds like privatized doesn't it?)?
The present civil wars among the unions are not Rove's fault, though he is a master on wedge issues, and a model for saboteurs.
We at Figgers agree (among ourselves) that power disparity exceeds even wealth disparity. People who have to charge gas and food (paying usury tribute to the privileged) are in no position to embrace the middleclass fundraising model. Flying so high you may not have realized that 75% of American households are in fiscal jeopardy.
Recently, our commentators have scolded the upper middle-class for their inaction and comfortable complacency. Coley Whitesides is preparing an essay on American sadism and hierarchy which pertains to this problem. One has to remember that high income groups do not generally follow the old physician/pilot model but report directly to their speculating employers as in the banking and investment world. No group is more toady than bankers.
You seem to be what we call a systems person, embracing adjustments of law and regulation. You attack a confusing morass that is rigged to trap like a spider web. We, rather, recommend organized direct actions such as physical non-violence, boycotts, general strikes and mild sabotage campaigns (anti-advertisements and defacement for example). You may see these things as childish or even risky, but we have to short-circuit the system in order to avoid co-optation. Haven't you ever been part of a sickout, or are Alaskans just so healthy that it is out of the question?

Second practical suggestion to fix the American Dream: Join a political action group, trade group, or special interest organization that specifically promotes middle class issues and that has the expertise to draft and lobby for specific changes to our institutions, laws and regulations to implement real changes.

Huge changes to the software (laws and regulations) and the hardware (public and private institutions) of our democracy took place after the Great Depression and World War II. Some remedies were designed to remedy the excesses in the financial sector, in corporate governance and in the farm sector, excesses that directly caused the Great Depression. Other changes were designed to counter the power imbalance between workers and huge corporations. Finally, sweeping changes after WWII, were also designed to stimulate a retooling of industry from a wartime to a peacetime economy thus promoting industrial growth and job creation.

Some of the sweeping changes that took place were a necessary reaction to the incredible economic crisis that was the Great Depression. Others were earned in blood and suffering by union organizing activities. The result of these institutional changes, however, was the largest growth in Middle Class wealth that the world has ever known.

Unfortunately, most of these positive changes to the Middle Class earned by our parents and grandparents have been slowly eroded away by the race to the bottom aspect of Globalization and by the wholesale acceptance of the myth of Free Market by the policy makers in both political parties. Unions have been shattered by outsourcing and cabotage. Corporate governance law has declined to the point where the leadership of failing companies walk away with tens and hundreds of millions of dollars, and no one is put in jail much less sued for unconscionable actions, fraud or breach of fiduciary duty. And regulation of financial markets has so disappeared that now banks and financial institutions are once again collapsing.

What is most amazing to me is the profound silliness of this fallacy that markets must somehow be completely “free” of all government regulation. By definition, there is just no such thing as a “free market.” Just at the basic level, markets cannot exist without both government defined and enforced property rights and government defined and enforced contractual rights.

Anyone who thinks that they actually have an inherent right to “own” something just hasn’t thought that much about the fairly recent inventions that are the concepts of “property rights“ and the “contract“. Property rights by definition mean a bundle of rights which allow one some abilities to use of personal or real property and to exclude others from use. Contractual rights are the legally binding rights and responsibilities regarding promises to provide goods or services. The legal existence of contracts and property are defined by government at law and enforced at law by governmental institutions such as the courts. Without government there are no contracts and there are no property rights. Without contracts and property rights there is no “market” because we basically go back to the strongest person or group owning everything by force of arms. I take what I can by force and I keep what promises I can be forced to keep by someone stronger than me.

In other words, without governmental control of the market, there is no market and there is no capitalism. One institution cannot exist without the other. What we are seeing now with the rise of the so-called “free market” system of Globalization is the collapse of real working capitalist markets. Put quite simply, a market without government involvement is like baseball without rules, without a regulation baseball diamond, without umpires and without a rule making body, it’s basically dodge ball with a very hard ball being thrown at you.

Much more could be said about this, but if the fallacy of the “free market” were actually true then how on earth can one explain the incredible growth of China, perhaps the most advantageously regulated economy on the planet right now? Indeed, how does one even explain the tremendous national and middle class growth of America during the years of increased government oversight as a result of the New Deal? Corporations are nothing more than legal fictions, useful institutions created by law by “we the people” and born into reality to serve our bidding. The idea that we create this monster and then must set it free to destroy us is simply ridiculous.

And now back to my suggestion. Because of the continuing collapse of unions and with them the methods and means of organizing workers, workers need something to take their place. I believe that we need workers to join and support political action groups and lobbying organizations that promote corporate governance law and programs that benefit workers in obtaining a greater share of the productivity of the labors. Such organizations should not pit one working group in one country against another, but instead should work on a globalized scale to level the playing field so that corporations cannot continue to externalize the cost of environmental destruction and unfair or unsafe labor practices to the workers in other countries.

Many such organizations are out there and more need to be formed, but basically we average Americans need to quit letting the Carl Roves out there stop pitting us against each other with hot button issues (abortion, flag burning, the gay menace, race baiting, etc.) that never actually change and have little actual effect on our daily life, and we need to start supporting and voting for our own economic best interests. If anyone on this blog is not the CEO of a major multinational company and thinks that he/she is rich enough to be a a freemarketeer, then your dreaming.

A paper offered to Bill Moyers on the Death of the American Dream 07/21/08

Our leaders meet in places not open to the citizen to decide how we will live. Is it that they do not trust us or is it they only feel contempt for us? Are the few more important then the many, do they know better then us what we need and how to live?

Is this the American dream or a Nightmare?

The rich live behind locked gates but, the poor live in public places exposed not only to inclement weather but to crime and disease. The police protect the rich, the land owner, the business man, and the government. The poor are left to defend themselves and denied the means to do so.

Is this the American dream or a Nightmare?

Corporations put the bottom line (profit) before the common citizen needs. They are betting that God is dead and scientist are wrong on two fronts, first Population and second Global Warming.

Is this the American dream or a Nightmare?

I learned that Germany has Fuel Cell Cars and convenient location to refuel them. They chose people over profit and pure water exhaust over green house gasses. Our big car makers and oil companies give us only excuses and care not one whit about us or our children facing a dying world. What happen to the attitude that America could overcome any obstacle? That is any obstacle with the exception of the Rich fleecing the poor. And we know that the Federal Government by way of the Congress makes that possible.

Is this the American dream or a Nightmare?

The men that fought for and founded this country could not have imagined: That our Government would turn against the citizen in favor of an Elite 1% Upper Class. The abolishment of the Class System was one of the main reasons for birthing our Country. That the Government would to tax the citizen and then waste the tax paying citizen’s money by giving the 1 % and even the 10% all types of Pork Belly projects, special loans, grants, favors, and best of all “subsidies”, all paying the rich to do little or often times nothing. The Founding Fathers meant for a Government of Law to be fair and equitable and to protect the rights and welfare of the Citizen. If the Citizen is not protected, how will the Law prevail, how will the Institutions of Government stand?

Is this the American dream or a Nightmare?

That the Government would further invent a tax code so evil that it is used to control not just the citizen but the citizen’s ability to innovate, to invent, to start a business, to have a choice. The citizen is oppressed by taxes, the lion’s share going to Corporations, the Military Complex, allowing monopolies with out regulation, with little or no benefit to
the citizen. Wages adjusted for inflation have not risen since the 1970’s. The citizen is expected to do more with less. Propaganda keeps the citizens thinking they make progress. The only progress the working people are making is the size of the hole of their debt is getting larger by the day.

Is this the American dream or a Nightmare?

Usury law repealed – 1980. (Regan gives free rein to the republicans to fleece America) News Media keeps quite. Where are the democrats? Haven’t you heard, they joined the Republicans… did you really think there was a difference? The Federal Government, The Federal Reserve and the States let Banks, Brokerage Houses, and all sorts of charlatan lenders set up shop to fleece America by use of interest rates? Home loans, school loans, credit card debt, and even more despicable ways were found by what use to be called “loan sharks”. The number of examples are now counted as failed banks, home foreclosures, credit cards failed to be paid off. Then there is the Federal Government using Tax Payers money to bail out Brokerage Houses, Banks, Freddy Mack and Fanny May, this list could go on for years. What do you think, was this a good move for the good of the citizen?

The citizen once had Regulation to protect the citizen. Now we have the good will of the Government which is a misnomer.
Democrats say they want to protect the people but in the same breath they say they want Free Markets. Free Markets are what has made the Wealthy 1% own more then the bottom 90%.

You can not protect the people without Regulation.

Laws, Rules, Regulations came about to stabilize and protect the Citizen. That is way the Federal Government did away with the Rules and Regulations that stabilized and protected our Banking System, so Banks and Brokerage Houses could join up and get creative with instruments of investment that would serve the Top 10%. Now we, the bottom 90% are paying the bills and bailout and the Federal Government claims they are not to blame. If Senators and Representatives are not responsible… who is?

Is this the American dream or a Nightmare?

How is it the Government loans us tax payer’s money to go to College. Shouldn’t it lower taxes so we could pay our own way?

Is this the American dream or a Nightmare?

The benefits given to the citizen after 1945 made it possible for all the veterans who chose to to be a college graduate and a home owner and those citizens built the greatest country with the highest standard of living in the world.

I might add, it took a lot of Regulations to control Banks, Corporations, Mines, Construction, and many other industries. It is a fact that Corporations and Business will not do the right thing unless there are sufficient consequences to persuade them to act in the best interest of the Citizen and the Country. If they act in their own interest, greed will take over and the Devil be Damned.

“Escape and avoidance play a much more important role in the struggle for freedom… A person escapes from or avoids aversive treatment.” Thomas Moore
“Morally wrong or ethically wrong are not so much descriptions as indications of what has aversive consequences.” Thomas Moore

But then the Government and corporations wanted the take the money back and did so by downsizing, by sending jobs offshore, by stealing pension fund, by taking benefits back, and then allowing insurance companies and pharmaceuticals, and health care institutions to gouge the citizen with sub standard care and over priced goods and products, and services. It seemed that every Contract Government and Corporations had, was invalid if it concerned the Citizen. But, if the Citizen had a contract it was made invalid by Congress passing a law….

Is this the American dream or a Nightmare?
We now come to the most despicable thing the Federal Government ever did to the Citizen. The Congress voted to resend the Bill of Rights guaranteed by the US Constitution and now we the citizen are subject to an Outlaw Government that now has the power to spy on every citizen with out that citizen being able to seek protection under the constitution and other great documents, the bill of rights, the declaration of independence, the federalist papers. How can there be an American dream when our nation of Law has become an instrument of the Wealthy, an outlaw congress no longer interested in the citizen – we the people?

Is this the American dream or a Nightmare?

Inflation devalues the dollar and halts the citizen’s ability to save and prosper. Gas, Food, Transportation of all types, shipping cost of all products, and services are higher without any added value. Loans are harder to get and more difficult to pay back.

Yet, the Government does not emit that inflation exist and so doesn’t not allow the citizen a cost of living to simply stay even. The Government also says that there is no Recession still people lose jobs, suffer foreclosures, and pay higher prices at the pump and in the grocery store. Our Government lies to us every step of the way. They hide the facts and refuse to use the same mathematics the citizen is obliged to use in their Check Books.

They want to control us with the “Propaganda of Truth” that is to say the Government lies and the citizen suffers.

How do they the Senators and Representatives do it? For the saddest reason of all – the Citizen no longer has a backbone and does not say to our government that the US has no class of citizens and the working people have a right to protection from the non-human entities like corporations and organizations who do not have mankind’s best interest in mind.

So Folks what will it be? Population! and its counterpart Immigration!
Or? Global Warming!

Population growing unrestricted and over running the earth? To the point we have no quality of life, no life at all….
Immigration unrestricted and over running our country? And letting those number of people feed the Corporation Bottom Line with easy profits at the cost of our quality of life.

We should close the borders and tell the free loaders and get rich quick schemer to go home and fix their countries and solve the problems that caused them to leave. Not bring those problems to our home and ruin our country with them. Immigration if left to the government will turn our country into a cesspool not unlike and the same as the countries they left.

Global Warming – We will fail to stop G.W. and cause the end of mankind and causing the earth to take a thousand years to recover, maybe longer.

The reason we will fail is two part. First greed. Second we have never done anything about a problem until it was too late and broke. We are reactionaries not interested in maintenance or caring about the environment. So we don’t prevent we fix but this is too big to fix after a certain point and I believe we have already reached that point.

If the cost of fixing the problem is too great to save humanity then so be it. I am just thankful that the greed of the USA, China, India and soon to be Russia will only destroy the people and not the earth. This earth is so beautiful and unique in the Universe and we human beings want to destroy it our of greed… this has to be the final Evil Act of man.

Is this the American dream or a Nightmare?

Something must be said about drugs both legal and illegal. Physical illness mostly Cancer and Heart dieses are very costly and happen over long years of body abuse. Lifetime habits are hard to change and the result is the loss of hope for a better life.

Legal drugs for mental health, are the best reflection that the American Dream is non existent. Life is so disappointing and overwhelming people seek relief in a world of denial and unreality. The drugs are not the first choice that was a generation go…alcohol.

Neither of these methods solve problems and both cause physical problems. Not to mention discrimination by the general public. It would seem the General Public is the
precursor of Big Brother… more Propaganda then reality but reality never mattered to our Federal Government after 1980….

Illegal drugs could be stopped immediately if the Government cared about the citizen. (A trillion dollars for war but not one penny to stop drugs). Lip service is offered when the News is bad enough but there are no Severe penalty for all involved, only when the drug grower/dealer/user is caused enough hurt and loses their freedom forever… this is that which would stop drugs. Nothing will work as long as the Government wants the drug trade to be prosperous.

Do we, that being the Federal Government, not tell the Afghanistan farmer that we will not destroy their crops. Would it not be less costly to pay the Afghanistan farmer a good “Subsidy” as we do our Farmers to not grow it, that being drugs?

Is this the American dream or a Nightmare?

Education is so non-existent I don’t want to talk about it.

Libraries have become about cd's, dvd's, and Internet games. The book stacks are empty and magazines sit unread on the racks. The parents that do bring children see the library as a babysitting service.

Apprentices have diapered along with manufacturing and industrial jobs sent overseas.

Only industries that have to stay like farming and mining and utilities remain. The rest “sold the farm” and left for Asia.
Is this the American dream or a Nightmare?

Finally the FBI can now break into your house, arrest you without a warrant, seize your computer, seize your property, take you away without revealing where.

It is not just privacy and spying the citizen must endure.

Is this the American dream or a Nightmare?

96% of incumbents are reelected……………

Is this the American dream or a Nightmare?

AAP: I have to read about 8 or 9 hours a day now, then get on the computer 2 or 3 at home,so I'm not going to be reading about "systemantics" or Transcendental philosophies anytime soon. I do talk in a brusque manner as a rule, maybe because of my unique stature (3'2"/55lbs.)as a "little person" and my African American heritage. I've been awarded several degrees and am disappointed in what I achieved by paying tuition. 52 is too old for law school. How about critiquing the article over on the "Novel Approach to Politics" page by my Puerto Rican/Italian spouse Gladdie? I would appreciate it and so would the other members of Figgers Institute.
If you are a woman pilot (or male), that was some exquisite fandancing you did to explain your response to Hearsay. I've flown so frequently from and to Charlotte recently you may have noticed me as a passenger. You're very clever, but do you have a social conscience? We consider this blog a good place to meet wonderful people.

AAP: I have to read about 8 or 9 hours a day now, then get on the computer 2 or 3 at home,so I'm not going to be reading about "systemantics" or Transcendental philosophies anytime soon. I do talk in a brusque manner as a rule, maybe because of my unique stature (3'2"/55lbs.)as a "little person" and my African American heritage. I've been awarded several degrees and am disappointed in what I achieved by paying tuition. 52 is too old for law school. How about critiquing the article over on the "Novel Approach to Politics" page by my Puerto Rican/Italian spouse Gladdie? I would appreciate it and so would the other members of Figgers Institute.
If you are a woman pilot (or male), that was some exquisite fandancing you did to explain your response to Hearsay. I've flown so frequently from and to Charlotte recently you may have noticed me as a passenger. You're very clever, but do you have a social conscience? We consider this blog a good place to meet wonderful people.

Ted wrote: “And sociologist Kurt Samuelson demonstrated that part of Weber was bunk. Both Catholic and Protestants used the same methods of create capitalist Europe.”

I don’t completely disagree. Perhaps nothing is the complete answer to anything so complex as why the Industrial Revolution happened in the West and no where else until much later. Perhaps changes to society wrought by the Protestant work ethic started the competition and the Catholic countries followed suit to keep from being left behind. Paul Kennedy in “The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers” proposed that fierce economic and military competition between European powers may have in due course given rise to the Industrial Revolution. After all banking, that prerequisite institution to capital investment and industrialization, was first invented to finance these endless European wars. No doubt the seeds of industrialism may have even gone back even further to the post Dark Ages rediscovery of the Greek Philosophers, to the resulting rise in rationalism and to secularization of government, science and business. I tend to think that there is a little truth in all of these theoretical causes.

What’s important, however, is that the American Dream is a bi-product of the Industrial Revolution. Without the increase in worker productivity brought about by mechanization, without the union organizing effect of huge capital intensive factory and mining operations, without opportunities provided by a nearly classless society in America and perhaps even without the mechanized killing and destruction coming out of WWI and WWII, we perhaps would not have had an American Dream at all.

There’s no easy cause to point to, but if we do not try to understand the many complex causes that have promoted and sometimes fulfilled the American Dream, we certainly can’t figure out to fix it and make it possible for generations in the future. I appreciate you're trying to discredit my point about these causes. I'm just not sure what point you're trying to make.

Now that I have laid a little foundation, let me get to the my promised practical suggestion on how we here can fix the American Dream. (Yes, Grady, it may appear that there is madness in my method, but what may have seemed off message was actually aiming at something eventually).

First suggestion: If you have not done so already, go to law school and become a lawyer. Lawyers are the 21st Century equivalent to the aristocracy and the knights of the Middle Ages. Whether you like it or not, lawyers founded the country and they basically run the whole show. Trying to fix government without a graduate level technical understanding of Juris Prudence is like a witch doctor trying to perform brain surgery. Perhaps some of you are smart enough to become expert through your own studies or perhaps this proficiency can be gotten from comparable graduate level degrees, but I doubt it.

To change anything so effected by government as the American Dream you have to speak the language of the law. You have to have a strong foundation in Constitutional law, including the development of basically got a new Constitution and a new form of government with the post Civil War Amendments. You have to understand how the various court systems (yes, systems) work and how they write and rewrite law, even our sacred constitutional law, every day. You have to understand jurisdiction and venue and conflicts of law and standards of review and how the various courts and layers of government are empowered by the law, as well as a host of other complex topics that make up the software and hardware of the machine that is our government. Expertise in history, theology, philosophy, economics, sociology and business would also be a plus.

And when you’re done and you have your JD posted proudly on your wall and you have passed the Bar somewhere, you would just be beginning to have the tools to either fix things a little or to screw them up even worse, but at least you would have the tools.

P.S.

Sorry about the long posts and I admire your stamina if you actually took the time to read them. I've been flying all nighters lately and so am on a wierd schedule even at home. Too much time to waste I suppose.

Sociologist Max Weber believed that this social change may have been the catalyst that ultimately launched the Industrial Revolution starting in Protestant England and spreading to Protestant America, and that the Industrial Revolution could not have been possible without the radical shift in theology brought about by the Reformation. Weber also believed that the Protestant ideology that made moneymaking socially acceptable also became corrupted over time. The higher motivation of making money for the greater glory of God was left by the wayside and the moneymaking itself became its own reward". . . ."

And sociologist Kurt Samuelson demonstrated that part of Weber was bunk. Both Catholic and Protestants used the same methods of create capitalist Europe.

“Hearsay“: (Blacks, 6th Ed.) “A statement other than one made by the declarant while testifying at a trial or hearing, offered into evidence to prove the truth of the matter asserted.”

“Hearsey“: the person who offered the intelligent post below. My sincere apologies for the misspelling of your name. (And “typical pilot chauvinism” Grady? How totally ’70s, or perhaps ‘50s, of you. Besides other than my use of the generic masculine “serviceman”, how chauvinistic of you to assume that I am not female? Incident to the bankrupting effects of the free market deregulation of the airline industry and the ensuing decline of the pilot profession, women have flocked into the pilot occupation in great numbers, just in time to once again inherit a field where they can receive less pay than their male associates in professions of comparable education, skill and training).

Ms. Hearsey, I did not “disregard your observations” but instead found them very insightful, with the one correction that I took advantage of to lay a foundation for a few points that I want to make. (And yes, Grady, I’ve seen the play, and enjoyed it, but for its aesthetic merits; I don’t subscribe to the morose self absorbed absurdity of the Existentialists. For basics, I’m more inclined to the Transcendental Idealism school of philosophy. It isn’t what it appears to be so please look it up before you embarrass yourself in another lame attempt at satire by stereotype - start with Schopenhauer and then work backwards and forwards in history).

Please forgive the wonky nature of some of my posts, but I’m assuming that I my meager pearls, such as they are, are not cast before those who suffer from the unpremeditated original sin of ignorance. (Present company very much included Grady). I know that sounds a bit elitist even to me, but for good or for bad, the nation is just not run by the ignorant masses.

No, it’s not such a perfect democracy, and I would argue “thank goodness.” Certainly, with the same tools that bring us all together here, we actually now live in a world where the “perfect” democracy could be at least technologically feasible, but be careful what you wish for. Yes, it’s certainly technically possible that every citizen in America could be granted the computer access to vote in real time on every governing issue, whether that issue be local, state or national. There you have it, perfect democracy.

Now imagine all of us sitting around doing nothing but voting on computers all day. Even better, imagine all of us trying to get informed enough to cast our votes smartly on the myriad of budgetary, economic, social and security issues that face a nation this size every day, not to mention all the state and local issues. Who’s going to be minding the stores, or making the stuff to go in the stores, or buying the stuff in the stores, including the very computers that we would need to cast our endless votes from? Ultimately, only the indigent and the liesure class would have the luxery of voting, and my guess is even they would get bored after a while.

The practical reality is that we have an "elite democracy" where the third of us who actually vote elect representatives to legislate, litigate and enforce policy that is influenced (and often written) by special interest groups, lobbyists and corporations. At best, and not even that lately, our scanty electorate’s main responsibility is to provide a meaningful check on the extremes elements of our two brands. A vast army of bureaucrats, technocrats and lawyers actually perform the job of running the country. Please don’t take from this that I am complaining about the system. Although this is not “the best of all possible worlds,“ it is what we have and it actually works most of the time.

These ideas are not original to me. If anyone is interested in a painfully realistic view of our so-called democracy, how it actually works rather than how it idealistically works, then I recommend Judge Richard A. Posner’s scholarly treatise, “Law, Pragmatism and Democracy” and I will just associate myself with the basic description of our Republic that Posner lays out in his monumental book.

P.S.

Nice to be watched by you Grady’s spouse. Sorry about “enthuse” but my vocabulary is weak and I’m running out of synonyms for motivate, insight, prompt, encourage, stimulate, and provoke. Grady seems like a smart fellow, and while I enjoy the repartee, perhaps you could get him to contribute less in inspired sniping, more in substance. Post where it is published and I will read your article. As we say in the South, Namasté back atcha.

Ron Rodd: Either advocate for individual taxpayer designation of the use(s) of your contribution, or move to sunny Costa Rica and shut up.

cognitive dissonance- that's the term you 3 are seeking.

Mr. Pilot:
"enthuse" is not an acceptable or meaningful intellectual term. (Grady is my husband.I am co-director of Figgers. I am watching you AAP...) See my pending co-authored article (with Jack Martin) on "A Novel Approach to Politics" Recite the pilot's prayer 10 times as penance. Go in peace, my son.

Mr. Pilot:
"enthuse" is not an acceptable or meaningful intellectual term. (Grady is my husband.I am co-director of Figgers. I am watching you AAP...) See my pending co-authored article (with Jack Martin) on "A Novel Approach to Politics" Recite the pilot's prayer 10 times as penance. Go in peace, my son.

Deer Average AP: If you're actually writing this involved Western Civilization textbook while you're flying the plane someone should report you to the TSA. Just joking. I have to admit I'm receiving a free education from you and others on this blog. (The back lot tutors at the studio mostly liked to play cards, and if you could spell and agreed with him Senator Specter thought it adequate, so I'm catching up at 52.) Most of what you say is correct, AAP, but what is the point blowing your mighty wind on a blog where we are making strategy and calling for needed change? (You are off subject, mostly.) If that rotten potato you're eating has mold with hallucinogenic properties, that's fine, but your head is bigger than the Twin Towers. (James Joyce, now that's a model for reform! Though I know you and your motherlove worship your words.)
It was Hearsey, Tiffany Hearsey, not Hearsay!( Now there I have you, lazy one-note.) You either have not read, or cannot comprehend Sartre's "No Exit." It is the premier existentialist play of modern times, and yet is a morality play rivaling those of Medieval times.
You disregard Ms. Hearsey's observations, plowing right on with your work ethic drivel. It is plain to see that the moderation of this blog page is your little kingdom and that you are threatened by a competent female intellectual. Typical pilot chauvinism!!!!
Ms. Hearsey: Your observation as to the underlying importance of the collective consciousness to reform (rewriting, reinterpretation of folk-myth) is extremely useful to myself and my colleagues at Figgers Institute (formerly Beret Co-op). When we recently presented a live public reading of "No Exit" people stopped us to laugh at the justice in it. One senior therapist suggested the actors read the psychological theory of Carl Jung and explained how powerful the hidden side of our nature can be. She believes we all must harbor a dormant conscience, repressed by out socialization, which is impacted and bringing great pain upon what could be a joyful existence.
I would say to APP and you that one never gets grubbier or more exhausted than in the theatre, and that being an actor (oft rejected, rarely understood)requires a persistent and resilient work ethic for continuance. I am finding my job as a corporate shill much less taxing than performing, though I have a moralist's headache that is about to kill me.
I respect you both AAP and Ms. Hearsey. Nice conferring with you.

Ms. Hearsay wrote: “The ‘American dream’ is, arguably, the most quintessential terms in American pedagogy, dictating the protestant work ethic, that hard work and determination will bring prosperity and happiness.”

Actually, I believe that the concept of the “protestant work ethic” was originally based on the Protestant Reformation’s theological invention of the “individual calling”. Prior to that point in history, work in and of itself, especially work in the mercantile and trades, was considered a menial and money grubbing activity. In other words, occupations were considered necessary evils that actually took people away from God‘s light. The only occupations that brought one closer to God, other than of course that of the divinely righted aristocratic class, were those of the clergy. European conventional social and theological wisdom to that point was that through the prism of the anointed clergy, God’s light was presumably filtered to the common, lowly working folk exclusively during certain proscribed intercessionary worship activities.

The concept of the “calling” essentially newly promoted all work, if done for the greater glory of God and God’s community, as holy and in and of itself as connecting one to God. A dramatic social change took place. Hard work, even the money scheming work of merchants, was seen as almost sacramental. For the first time and place in history it became socially OK to make as much money as one’s hard work and creativity would allow.

Sociologist Max Weber believed that this social change may have been the catalyst that ultimately launched the Industrial Revolution starting in Protestant England and spreading to Protestant America, and that the Industrial Revolution could not have been possible without the radical shift in theology brought about by the Reformation. Weber also believed that the Protestant ideology that made moneymaking socially acceptable also became corrupted over time. The higher motivation of making money for the greater glory of God was left by the wayside and the moneymaking itself became its own reward.

The reason I point this out is not because I disagree with what you wrote (I actually agree with all of the comments in your post). Instead, I point out this difference because I think it is an important distinction in showing where the American Dream may have gone astray in Modernity, and also in a related matter, why the rise of extremist religious fundamentalism may actually be a misplaced aesthetic gut overreaction to the soullessness of rationalist Modernity’s rampant prurient consumerism.

Unless we can deal with the soullessness of even our Middle Class aspirations, and especially since social changes have put the unionizing organizational factors in decline, it will be difficult to inspire a collective ideological organizing enthusiasm for any new transcending systemic social changes. Fear of others and the love of God generally have been the organizing ideological factors in much of our historical social change (more than a quarter of Europe is said to have perished in the Reformation related wars and in the Inquisition). Every man (or woman) getting more for himself unfortunately just doesn’t enthuse much unity of action in our instant gratification society.

Joyce’s character, Stephen Dedalus, famously described history as a “nightmare” from which Dedalus said he was desperately trying to awaken. Well, our history of the collective waking “Dream” that is characteristically American could just as certainly also be portrayed as a nightmare for many. However, the fact that we here, each with our own high tech gadgetry and our own ready access to the internet, can freely share our views on this public forum openly criticizing the supposed pathology of our American nightmare seems to beg for a little ironic introspection on our parts, don’t cha think?

We’ve all grown up spoon fed on the national myths. Now some of us are shocked, shocked to find that our “elite” national founders’ motives were not always exclusively noble and munificent, but this discovery of some clay footing in our nation’s foundation shouldn’t be so much a cause to tear down the house as it should leave us wondering how the national structure has held up so well for so long as to allow us all the means, the motivation and most importantly, the liberty, to have a frank and critical debate about it all here in cyber land. In order to understand why our system isn’t working sometimes shouldn’t we first ask ourselves how and where it has actually worked much of the time to the practical benefit of more people than ever before in the sad enslaving history of mankind?

Let’s face it. In almost any other time in almost any other civilization, most of us here having this lively intelligent discussion would have been ignorant, half starved, sodden surfs and slaves -- meaning few or no possessions and what little discussion that takes place mostly centers around simple, raw, basic, survival issues (give me that half rotten potato you‘re eating or I‘ll kill you). So I guess what I am starting to say here is, after we have discovered and condemned all our social curses, let’s not only count our blessings but let’s see if we can analyze the system itself so as to minimize the present and future curses and to discover what systemic changes can make our mutual blessings continue to multiply.

America has lost its soul, and a nation without soul, will never find its dream.

Bill thanks again for another thought provoking show. My recent experience with a Hospital; well after paying over $4890.00 in cash for a surgical procedure I was told I could not see the surgeon for my follow up visit until I paid a balance due of $290.00
that I did not know I had I was told originally that the amount I paid was for the complete procedure. Who is watching the store? Americans are being cheated abused and violated and it seems nobody cares.
I agree that if my taxes went to help those less fortunate I would not mind but for bail outs of institutions that grossly mishandled funds and employed illegal policies the buck should stop.

The American Dream? Remember, when the middle class disappears anarchy rules. And what dream? I am considered in the top 5% of wage earners, yet I must save every month in order to pay my taxes. This is money that I could use on fixing my house, or going on a vacation(none for 10 years now) or saving money for my grand childrens education. It scares me to death that Obama wants to tax me more!! and my Calif. Governor wants to do the same. For years I have considered retiring to escape the high cost of taxes on my salary. Little of which I have to show for it. I have neighbors who are allegedly suffering from disabilities(that I cannot see) and they thrive. They fix their lawns, install new kitchens, roofs, go on vacations, have two cars and have what appear to be easy lives. I work 12 hour days, and worked harder to obtain my education by financing my college by working as a police officer. Everyday I drive home and see my neighbors working on their lawns from sunup to sundown leaving an uneasy feeling in my stomach that all my strife and effort in my life to make a better living for me was and is a joke. And my neighbors ask me: "Why don't you come over to visit" Are they blind. I am working from 7Am to 7 and 8 PM daily.

Don't get me wrong, If my taxes were helping the poor young mother obtain a car highlighted in Bill Moyers lastest program on corporate american targeting the poor to get rich I would be thrilled. I would receive the direct knowledge that my taxes were helping someone directly. But their is an imbalance here. I see too many people in my middle class neighborhood on disability and they seem fine Physically and psychologically and emotionally. Is this a failure of Calif. institutions of finding cheats among us. Apparently, it is easy to do so given what I see around me. Seems the American dream that hard work is the road to salvation is gone(the old Protestant Ethic). At least for some of us.

I want to help, but our institutions are failing around me. I would rather give my taxes(over 15K) directly to those who are in need. As the mother highlighted in Moyers program.

A Response to Deepening the American Dream

In Jean-Paul Sartre’s play “No Exit” three damned souls must endure confinement with each other in hell. The accursed include a deserter, a narcissist, and a sadist. Grappling with their dire situation, each character desperately tries to overcome the fact that they are cowards, that they are no longer sexually desirable, that they no longer exercise control over others. Each character searches, and fails, to find their self-worth determined not by their own actions and beliefs, by the beliefs and judgments of their fellow sinners. The play ultimately reveals that hell is not laden with medieval torture devices and fire and brimstone. Hell is, in fact, other people. The three characters take part in a tormented dance, each in their own right, searching for validation and decisiveness in the other.

Much like the characters in Sartre’s play, Americans are also entranced in this dance. We are plagued by the same self-debasing convictions. This self-debasement, though, is reinforced not in the confines of hell among sinners, but within a rich and complex outer world. Our society promulgates and promotes a cultural archetype that defines the value of every man, woman and child. This archetype reinforces the ideal that prosperity and success are attained through hard work and determination. As a society, we look to this archetype for validation. This archetype is manifested into the cultural ideological phrase, the “American Dream.”

The “American dream” is, arguably, the most quintessential terms in American pedagogy, dictating the protestant work ethic, that hard work and determination will bring prosperity and happiness. Yet, the term excludes many institutional and socio -economic barriers. For instance, the lack of political representation for the working class and poor, people of color and women; in addition, these marginalized and often oppressed masses are excluded from cultural and societal dialogues, misrepresented or under represented in the main stream media, are bound by an economic system that sustains poverty, and reside in a society that promotes patriarchy. Yet, according to the “American Dream” dogma, the poor and the marginalized are indolent and deficient. This societal invalidation is a powerful force because it creates a culture of despair and demoralization which ultimately lead to complicity and resignation.

We must shatter our cultural illusions and assert and claim a collective consciousness that transcends hopelessness and complicity. To begin that journey, we must destroy our cultural effigy and rip up the pages of our dogmas. It is equally vital that we tear our selves away from our repetitive, destructive dance and transform that energy and momentum into a culture and society that reflects, promotes, and protects, the experiences, the dignities and ultimately, the rights and freedoms, of our multilayered and multifaceted society.

Collateral damager: I have this suggestion. Read the work of Charles Beard and learn what an elitist flawed instrument the U.S. Constitution has always been. You call yourself a practical and principled social engineer, yet you cannot see that the sacredness of great wealth is the main obstacle to our success. "And if them bundled mortgages don't float, Mama gonna get you a 10 year note..." Do you really still sleep with your mantoys in the bed, Rightpalmpilot?

Mr. Howard,

The tone of your last entry seems a little petulant. I’ve got no time for assuaging hurt feelings or for cyber tiffs. You accuse me of being “afraid”, I guess supposing that this will get my “former serviceman dishwasher airline pilot light” ire up. I will freely admit that I have been afraid for my life many more times than I care to relate here. But you know fear is a prudent thing, especially for a pilot, as long as it is prudence that also drives that pilot’s actions. Prudence is also an important part of pragmatism.

You seem to equate being a “pragmatist” with being an immoralist, and perhaps pure pragmatism without an underlying ideology is at least amoral. However, I’m not saying that I’m against ideology. I’m saying that I’m not an “idealist”, meaning that I don’t think that it is useful to let blind ideology govern our immediate actions any more than a pilot should let panic be his first reaction to a wing fire or to bad weather. Pragmatism in this sense means that one realizes that everything, for good or for bad, works as a process, a system, and for anything to change for the good, one must understand and work to alter the process to produce something good, or at least to produce more good with less of the unintended bad. And always keep in mind that even the normative qualities of “good” and “bad” are not the same thing to every ideology of everyone concerned.

Although far from perfect, especially at the beginning, the premier blueprint of the most egalitarian system of government ever known to man, the Constitution, is itself only tangentially idealistic. To the contrary, the Constitution is almost completely about a process of a governing which has as an underlying ideology an aim toward preventing tyranny and promoting individual liberty. What I am saying here is that the Constitutional system of checks and balances, power sharing and the due process protections of individual rights are essentially a pragmatic processes. From the moral perspective, it is the ultimate example of the god in the machine.

Now from my experience and from my own education, I am perfectly willing to build on this premise to explain to you how I think that we can pragmatically change things in order to repair the American Dream. I am also interested in what you and others propose. However, given your stated proclivity to stage guerilla attacks on others’ ideas rather than presenting something useful of your own, I fear we shan’t have a meaningful discussion unless we get over ourselves. What do you say we call truce to the personal zingers and talk about real things?

For any hope of an American Dream, there has to be handling of the overpopulation issue and a full and complete restoration of the Bill of Rights. Those who advocated and allowed torture need to be tried in a Nuremberg-like trial series. They need to be impeached and removed from the offices of responsibility that they held from the presidency on down.

OVERPOPULATION is a big problem that must be addressed seriously and immediately for there to be any hope for the American Dream for anyone. Even your shows fail to address this urgent social issue sufficiently. I would definitely like to see you cover this issue at great length.

We have to have a populace that cares about others and about fairness--not allowing torture and other harm to come to others -- and a populace that will see to it that we tread the slow path back to restoring the Bill of Rights.

We need better politicians who stand for something. Ralph Nader and others just like him need to be voted to be in charge in the presidency and in the Congress for decades and decades for there to be any hope for full restoration of the hope there once was for this to be a fair country for all. When you have a society where people don't mind admitting they don't read, you don't have much hope of any American Dream.

Let's face it: you cannot even have a competent, well run dictatorship with such willful ignorance running amok. So one hopes the nonreaders and nonthinkers are more of a minority than they seem to be in my area and that more people will fight for fairness for all. The Bill of Rights really comes down to an effort to provide fairness for all.

Part of fairness is that all people are valuable and children are not more valuable than the elderly or other adults. Too many lazy parents are foisting their untended, unsocialized children off on society. These children need to be guided and to be protected from these parents and the general public needs to be protected too. Too many in the public and in the media claim an accident or death is only noteworthy if children are injured. This ageism must be taken seriously and not tolerated just as other discrimination is not tolerated.

The discrimination of allowing criminal juveniles to be unnamed has to stop. They must be named if other people criminally accused are named.

All privatization must be stopped and reversed and those responsible for it need to be put on trial for malfeasance of duty as it is in my opinion complete malfeasance and completely at odds with the founders' intent in my opinion.

Well, right there's my email address and you can't even send me a note of acknowledgement. I serve no spam and send no links, but you're afraid.
Never on this blog have I seen substantive simple workable proposals to make our world fairer or more efficient. The closest thing has been the brainwashed free traders who expect Adam Smith to solve it all, and even they are usually debt-ridden business students hoping to hop on the wealth bus. You, former serviceman dishwasher pilot light will have to go first in revealing your master key, because all I can say is I love being outdoors on the trail with all kinds of people, wishing they had health care (not the system we suffer now), decent housing and meaningful work, fair wages and constructive hobbies. Habitat would have been a good experience for me except for religious biases, and Community Exchange (Time Dollars) would have been good if not for institutional and business parasites, and the river keeper would have been a good woman if her husband had not been a developer of waterfront property...... the list goes on. I know pragmatism better than you ever will because I worked with Arlen Specter (the king of sellouts) for 20 years on and off and never saw one good thing come of it. Excuse me while I go water my tomato and pepper patch to refresh my spirit- looks like that thundershower passed over.

Mr. Howard,

Putting aside the personal missiles aimed in my direction as well as some of the Hollywood conspiracy theories, now you’ve actually said somefewthings substantive. Bravo!!

Unfortunately, you assume a bit too much and apparently know too little about the “average airline pilot“ to make your conjectures about my occupation as persuasive as they are just plane off-putting to a whole class of your readers. Work, be it a profession or a trade or just washing dishes, is not something you should criticize if you want to be taken seriously as defending the lowly working classes and wanting to mend the “American Dream.” I’ve had all of these types of work in my life and my supposed airline pilot “ego” is not above admiration for any type of honorable honest labor, even that of recalcitrant financial advisors. Workers, even flying heavy equipment operators, are not the enemies in this class war.

I’m not an idealist so you must forgive me for poking a little fun at your romantic enthusiasm. My experience as a former serviceman leads me to distrust idealists as those who often get other people hurt or killed. I instead subscribe to pragmatic, systemic change. Please don’t tell me what you believe in. I’m more impressed with what you are going to do to the process to make it better. Have you researched your proposals and thought of all the unintended consequences? Are they so outlandish that no one will even listen to them? Are you willing to compromise?

I’ve studied this topic quite a bit throughout my life, and I have actually worked in the field to implement small changes with real people in real life. I say this only to give some background to support my assertion that high minded hyperbole doesn’t change anything.

I can see that you are a good writer and that you are passionate in your beliefs. So now that we are starting to talk like grownups here, tell me what systemic changes you advocate in order to carry out some of your less lofty goals. You show me yours and I’ll show you mine.

P.S.

I laud you for your openness in giving your name and your email address, but I have no desire to jam up my email or my phone line with either the serious folks or the unfortunate nuts who might try to reach me, so I must decline to do the same. I do promise, however, that here on this blog I will try to talk to you like you were standing right here next to me rather than callously or outrageiously as someone hiding behind the anonymity of the ethernet.

In case anyone cares I usually write these posts between discussions with workmates and strangers in airports, or at the Figger's Institute office in Stanley, N.C. while visiting former Beret Co-op members. My speech can be as direct and critical as my issues are urgent. If you can't take the rhetoric, you probably can't face the issues. I am not hiding anything. I am Grady Lee Howard, a 52 year old former actor and political aide, who lives in Dallas, N.C. and mostly travels for a living. The Moyers blog is more real and important to me than anything except my wife and friends. "Gadfly Leap Howard" is a new nickname they've given me at "Sacks of Gold."

Honourable Shorter-than-average- fuse(elage): Thanks for taking my post seriously and realizing I have made a valuable contribution to waking people up.
You present yourself as a pilot (a highly paid and responsible career) but I wonder if it may be only your aspiration. Do your daughters (&sons) and granddaughters (& grandsons)deserve to be airline pilots too (or to be addressed as "el capitan") owing to your achievement? Or would you rather let people succeed or fail on their own merits and efforts within a community with equal opportunity and a real safety net? I don't understand your POV beyond the assumption that your consumer goals are threatened by my critique. Can you go without a Prius or a big vacation a year if it would help out 20 lower income families in gaining access to education or energy production?
Yes, I like words, and I work as a spokesperson for a dubious employer because I recently incurred a big medical debt. Yes, my Moyers writing gives vent to my frustration at having to reassure 100K bank employees each day that their employer is sound, their jobs and retirement secure, when everything I see leads me to believe these things are not so. It is like the airline pilot reassuring doomed passengers everything is OK as they plummet to a fiery death. (I wanna tell them to bail out, but I would be fired.)
As a "pilot" you know the plight of airline employees and why they need a union.
People in unions make sacrifices and pay dues. They demonstrate and take political action. My purpose on this blog is fourfold: 1.To advocate for a march on Washington, on Inauguration Day 2009, by as many informed citizens as possible no matter who wins our suspect elections. 2.To advocate for decentralized worker owned enterprise, especially in the area of energy production.
3.To recommend healthy outdoor activities, along with the necessary infrastructure, that will conserve energy and cause people to interact in a healthful way.
4.To point out the contradictions that lead me to believe 9/11 was a inside job, as indicated by other related crimes and conspiracies which deserve investigation and punishment. (I was wrong on the Hamdan sentence, but they say he will serve a life term anyway. Please look at the shoddy Amerithrax investigation carefully.)
I would think a "pilot" would be right on board with my issues. The urgency I convey is real and is based upon our collapsing environment. Huey Long once said,"All things are possible with time." We have run out of time and now must reform or die. The days of mindless consumption of slave made Chinese goods have expired.
Our plane is about to run out of turbo, Buddy. Are you looking for an alternate runway or just turning through the in flight sales catalog? I'm asking you to wake up and be a man, Average airline pilot, and stop living in an ego fantasy. beretco.op@gmail.com

Howard,

Sorry to single you out because you're not the only one here, but I guess my question is: Do you really talk like this to real people in real life? If so, I applaud your acquaintances for their obvious tolerances. Or is this sort of vitriolic venting reserved only for the safe anonymity of the blog world? Do you seriously see these diatribes as enlightening to your readers? Do you sense that it is in anyway helpful to the world‘s problems? Or instead, does this fulfill a self gratifying need, some sort of demagogic cyber catharsis, damning the whole world while sitting alone in your room with only your computer to see that your spleen is exposed and is dripping with slimy innuendos.

I guess that I appreciate Mr. Moyer’s attempts to get to the source of issues, including the Future of the American Dream. I’m not hopeful that this will save us, but it is a beginning, and perhaps such attempts at illumination of the truth have their own reward. I believe that our best institutions, like the Constitution and its governmental creations, are flexible contraptions that can either save us or enslave us, if we only are willing to make the proper adjustments when they are required.

It’s childish to believe that just because something is not perfect, it must be forever wrong. Nothing is perfect, only correctable for a time until it needs another correction for the unforeseen and unintended consequences that always come with the new circumstances generated by an ever changing world. I’m particularly interested in the opinions of people with something to actually say, but I find watching socio-political masturbation at the internet board masquerade just a little tiresome. Of course, you could say that I don’t have to read it if I don’t want to but that is an immature justification to excuse what can only be poor home training.

These essays of "New Yorker" self-satisfaction repel those of us outside the bubble. The dream Prius in the driveway and daddy's 1959 lunch pail are irrelevant now, for the deeper the crap of the American Dream the deeper the crap of the American Nightmare. Consumerism is death, and reminiscence is denial. (How I resent you comfortable parasites flinging your platitudes at workers. Most of you and your children will soon share a deprived circumstance if you do not wake up soon.)
Ron Suskind in "Way of the World" has documented how President Bush ordered George Tenant to undertake the fabrication of a letter between Iraqi leaders to mislead government officials and the public in the run-up to invading Iraq. An administration that would pervert our intelligence agencies for private gain would also order anthrax mailings (Maybe Bruce Ivins was innocent; maybe he was under orders from above; maybe he didn't act alone. We'll never know...) and allow the 9/11 attacks for the same purposes. You appraise the new I-phone, a cruise to Alaska, the trendy leather purse, but you are trash (detritus to human welfare) if you cannot help overcome the outlaw government our greedy lifestyle has created. You send a driver to jail for life (Hamdan) in a show trial to celebrate American power, but all is hubris as that power evaporates. The next time the military-Congressional-Corporate-
Industrial Complex steps on the gas maybe the "service engine soon" light will come on and China will do a highway drive-by on our ass. Hard time are coming, Moyeristas.