Enough Is Enough

To be called a "sucker" is a rather derogatory label. The classic definition of a sucker is a "person who is gullible and easy to take advantage of". The associated synonyms are even more descriptive: "chump, fool, mark, fall guy, schlemiel, soft touch and mug." Why do I bring this up? Recent news and info about our economy indicate that this writer and probably the few who by chance read this Blog are "suckers". We pay our bills, pay our taxes, handle our debts and are basically financially responsible. However; there is an ever increasing group of people who do not share these characteristics or values. These folks do not pay their bills, do not pay their taxes and ignore their debts. Add to this scenario our elected officials who continue to be free and easy with our money and what we have is the financial mess in which we now find ourselves.

A recent media investigation discovered that in the city of Seattle unpaid parking tickets amount to a whopping $54 million dollars and Seattle like many other cities is dealing with severe budget shortfalls. California's Franchise Tax Board lists the top 250 delinquent personal and corporate taxpayers and these 250 account for over $130 million in taxes owed. Unfortunately, these shortfalls will be met by the  usual solutions -- increased fees along with service cuts. The systems in place to process and deal with these dead beats is virtually ineffectual. Rather than continually penalize those of us who meet our financial obligations maybe it is time to aggressively go after the dead beats. A perfunctory review of the internet shows numerous individuals who flaunt their extravagant lifestyles and yet have considerable tax debt. Some of those who owe thousands in unpaid parking tickets state they have no intention of paying the fines because there is nothing Seattle officials can do to collect the money.

On a larger scale it is reported that Egypt's Hosni Mubarak has a personal net worth of around $70 billion dollars. Egypt is one of two countries that receive the largest slice of this country's foreign aid hand outs (Israel being the other) and it looks like Mubarak has done quite well over the last 30 years. When one considers some of the clowns, crooks and characters this country has financially supported with our foreign aid dollars one can only imagine the billions of dollars now stashed in Swiss bank accounts. As Seattle officials shake their heads in disbelief over $54 million in unpaid parking tickets and California's Franchise Tax Board waits for its 250 dead beats to pay up, the rest of us suckers endure and tolerate closed state offices, reduced public services along with ever increasing fees, taxes and assessments.

The middle class in this country continues to carry a heavy financial burden. Consider the fact that a college education is now so expensive that the total student loan debt is larger than the total consumer credit debit in the United States. Over one trillion of our federal tax dollars have been pissed away in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001. We have bailed out Wall street and the Big Banks only to see the ranks of the unemployed reach record highs and foreclosures escalate while the corporate elite continue to rake in lucrative bonuses.  Back in the 40's there was a movement called America First. It is time for a variation of this movement which  today could be called Americans First.

It should be fairly obvious to anyone with a pulse that we are in this current economic mess for several easily recognizable reasons and solutions are attainable:

• we have far too many members of congress and the senate who have placed their personal and party agenda above that of the country's agenda. The result is a kind of legislative grid lock.
• our continued expenditures on the mid-east wars is adversely effecting our economy ---one and quarter billion dollars spent to date and still climbing.
• tax dollars that have been collected must be better spent; that is, in America for Americans.
• past and present student loan rates must be immediately reduced  to 3%and frozen at that level.
• Foreclosures must be immediately halted and banks required t o re-set mortgage interest rates that will allow people to remain in their homes
• immediate moratorium on all foreign aid pending re-evaluation on actual need and how aid was spent.
• aggressive collection of all unpaid stat e and federal taxes as well as unpaid fines and assessments on local, state and federal level.
• immediately spread the burden of applicable sales taxes to include on line or internet sales.    

  
 
The solution is not cuts in Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and the relentless attack on the middle class and main street. The middle class has carried more than its share in this economic mess. If more revenue is needed and less needs to be spent the options have been clearly identified above. Enough is enough.

Obama The New War President

President Obama addressed the American people this evening from the United States Military Academy at West Point. Obviously this was the appropriate audience before whom to speak as many of the cadets will wind up in Iraq, Afghanistan or possibly Pakistan, where some believe Osama Bin Laden is hiding out. Thankfully there were few civilians around so the Secret Service did not have to fear gate crashers.

The President began with a Cliff Notes like summary of our involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan since the attack of September 11th. He reminded us that not only did our own House of Representatives and Senate overwhelmingly approve and support military action but the even the UN gave its blessing. Of course he omitted the fact that our response was based on the misinformation and lies of the Bush administration.

President Obama worked hard to convince us that we had moral, ethical, economic, military and security reasons to not only continue our presence in Afghanistan; but to increase the number of ground forces by 30,000. It was an excellent speech almost in the style of a pep rally talk before a big game. He told the American people that NATO is with us in this expanding ground war. One would think that there is a multi-national ground force in Afghanistan; but this is far from the truth. This is a United States War with only token NATO and UN support. The continuation of this big game is going to be very costly for this country. The former Soviet Union had its years in Afghanistan and got its ass kicked.

It is unfortunate to see President Obama become another U.S. President mired in a hopeless foreign war when his attention should be focused on the multitude of problems facing this country within our own borders. Consider the following article by columnist Bob Woodward from December 28, 2006:

"Former president Gerald R. Ford said in an embargoed interview in July 2004 that the Iraq war was not justified. "I don't think I would have gone to war," he said a little more than a year after President Bush launched the invasion advocated and carried out by prominent veterans of Ford's own administration.

In a four-hour conversation at his house in Beaver Creek, Colo., Ford "very strongly" disagreed with the current president's justifications for invading Iraq and said he would have pushed alternatives, such as sanctions, much more vigorously. In the tape-recorded interview, Ford was critical not only of Bush but also of Vice President Cheney -- Ford's White House chief of staff -- and then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who served as Ford's chief of staff and then his Pentagon chief.

"Rumsfeld and Cheney and the president made a big mistake in justifying going into the war in Iraq. They put the emphasis on weapons of mass destruction," Ford said. "And now, I've never publicly said I thought they made a mistake, but I felt very strongly it was an error in how they should justify what they were going to do."
In a conversation that veered between the current realities of a war in the Middle East and the old complexities of the war in Vietnam whose bitter end he presided over as president, Ford took issue with the notion of the United States entering a conflict in service of the idea of spreading democracy.

"Well, I can understand the theory of wanting to free people," Ford said, referring to Bush's assertion that the United States has a "duty to free people." But the former president said he was skeptical "whether you can detach that from the obligation number one, of what's in our national interest." He added: "And I just don't think we should go hellfire damnation around the globe freeing people, unless it is directly related to our own national security."

Iraq & Afghanistan -- Vietnam II & III

In the preface of former Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara's, apologia on Vietnam, In Retrospect - The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam, one will read:

"We of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations who participated in the decisions on Vietnam acted according to what we thought were the principles and traditions of this nation. We made our decisions in light of those values. Yet we were wrong, terribly wrong. We owe it to future generations to explain why."

Tens of thousands of American service men and women died in Vietnam and billions of tax payer dollars were wasted and in 1995 Mr. McNamara writes that it was a terrible mistake. That mistake is part of our history. As this country continues to stumble haphazardly through Iraq and Afghanistan one can only wonder if our current elected and appointed leaders remember the debacle of the United States policy in Vietnam. Did our current political and military decision makers study world history and political science? Have they forgotten the cost to the USSR after its 10 years of war in Afghanistan? Consider the warning of philosopher George Santayana "Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it". It appears as though we are repeating the mistakes of our past.

It is becoming more obvious every day that the lessons of Vietnam have been lost and forgotten. As a result of the Bush administration's lies and deviousness we now find ourselves militarily involved on two fronts: Afghanistan and Iraq. We seem to have no clear military object nor do we have a rational political objective. I seem to recall Obama's campaign pledge to get the US out of both Afghanistan and Iraq. How does the plan for sending tens of thousands more troops into Afghanistan bring about this promised withdrawal?

The President continues to meet with his war council trying to decide how many more U.S. troops he will send to Afghanistan. I tend to agree with the skeptics that the decision has already been made to send tens of thousands of additional ground forces. The delay in announcing this troop build-up is due to the fact that the right language has not been formulated by which to make the announcement and convince the American people that this unpopular war will continue ... indefinitely.

In the mean time we have seen Secretary of State Clinton standing with that fraud of a President Hamid Karzai promising all who will listen that he will try to do a better job. American soldiers now have to conduct themselves as if they were a civilian police force in dealing with suspected enemy detainees, complete with evidence gathering and paperwork. All the while the money keeps flowing out of the USA and into the black holes of Iraq and Afghanistan. To date these two wars have cost the American taxpayers almost $935,000,000,000 ... read that as 935 billion dollars and it will more than likely exceed one trillion dollars by year's end. To see the counter go to ---- http://www.costofwar.com/. Imagine what this amount of money could have done for the U.S. economy had it not been wasted in and on Iraq and Afghanistan?

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

Obama on Education

Obama Outlines Plan for Education Reform

I just finished reading President Obama’s plan for educational reform. Much of what he said has already been said and much of what he proposes may effect change. However; his comments, proposals and promises are as flawed as those of countless past educational reformers. Due to budget shortfalls almost 20,000 American teachers have been given pink slips this year. For the 2009-2010 school year our schools will be under funded, short of teachers and students will be taught in over crowded classrooms. Some districts will be forced to eliminate all athletic programs. I wonder if the $600 billion dollars spent on the war in Iraq could have been put to better use in the USA?

See: http://www.nationalpriorities.org/costofwar_home

President Obama continued by praising Charter Schools, proposing merit pay and calling for the removal of bad teachers. These are hardly new ideas. Charter Schools are a real enigma. They are like semi-private schools in the public school system. Charter Schools allow for more freedom and innovation in the teaching and learning process. Charter Schools are a reaction to the rules, regulations and heavy handed interference of local, state and federal mandates. Why not allow all public schools the same level of freedom that Charter Schools enjoy?

Merit pay in the public school system is absurd. Arguments for merit pay are sometimes linked to the “corporate world”. Well, in the corporate world poor functioning or failing employees are terminated. We do not terminate failing students in our schools. When I taught, the students in my classes who failed failed for a variety of reasons: unruly behavior, poor attendance, bad attitude, failure to do homework and disinterested and uninvolved parents. These are all factors I had little or no control over. I was a classroom teacher, not a police officer, truant officer, or foster parent. Should teachers be labeled “bad” for this kind of student/parent behavior? Should this kind of student/parent behavior affect a teacher’s pay or cause termination?

Like so many other educational reformers President Obama placed far too little importance on the role of parents in their child’s lives. He has hinted at the role of parental responsibility in a child’s education; but not nearly as strong as the role demands. Parents must see schools as more than day care. Parents must see that their children, regardless of grade level, are prepared each day to do their best in school. Parents need to assure that their children are properly fed and clothed. Student’s time on the phone, the computer and TV must be controlled and monitored. Assigned homework must be completed at home

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Finally, President Obama wants bad teachers removed. Well, this may come as a surprise to Mr. Obama; but good teachers also want bad teachers removed. Individuals without the necessary personal and professional skills to teach put a strain on good teachers and have a negative influence on both staff and students. The solution or answer is simple - administrative involvement. In all schools there are procedures for administrative warnings, evaluations, interventions, corrective actions, and even termination of bad teachers. The problem in too many schools is the reluctance, inability, or refusal of administrators to follow these procedures.

Too often teacher unions or associations are blamed for protecting bad teachers. Nothing is further from the truth. All a union or association will do is see that proper procedures are followed. If administrators will leave the comfort of their offices and observe and evaluate poor performing teachers then a case can be made for removal.

Finally, the educational playing field must be leveled. It is absolutely unfair to speak of quality education for all students when the state of Vermont spends $15,000 per pupil and the state of Utah spends $5900. My own state of California ranks # 47 with a per pupil expenditure of $7500 per student. Maybe it is time for another Supreme Court challenge to educational disparity like the Brown vs. Board of Education lawsuit that struck down the concept of “separate but equal’. How does Vermont manage $15,000 per student?