In the fall of 2008 a giant mud ball - created by Wall Street financial schemers and irresponsible big bank mortgage lenders, hit the fan - and it splattered on just about everyone in our country and even globally. The result of these frauds has resulted in double-digit unemployment and millions of home foreclosures. In order to stanch an economic meltdown and crash that threatened to reverberate at home and internationally the Bush Administration instituted bailouts for some of the largest banks and investment corporations. It was a necessary action agreed upon by a majority of the most respected, credentialed and acclaimed economists.
The close to one trillion in bailout money to these “too big to fail” corporations was supposed to go, in part, to loans to businesses to create economic stimulus and toward readjusting improperly made mortgage loans, but it hasn’t. The ranks of the unemployed and under employed have hardly budged, but the richest 1 percent among us received tax cuts amounting to hundreds of billions. About 400 wealthy Americans now have more wealth than 150 million Americans combined!
Even more egregious and mind-boggling than this incredible imbalance is the astounding fact that some of the biggest banks and corporations in America pay NO taxes or a pittance of what would be their fair share. In 2009, after having been complicit in the crash of the American economy and despite earning record profits, Bank of America and General Electric paid $0 taxes. In fact GE got a tax rebate of $3 billion. All the while we are being told that there’s no money for schools, food programs or health care, and that it’s the fault of the public sector. Yes, it’s the greedy teachers, firefighters and social workers that caused the crash on Wall Street, not the corporations that pay no taxes and the CEOs who make 500 times the average employee that have destroyed the middle class and absconded with the wealth.
Former Secretary of the Treasury and renowned economist Robert Reich states: “The only way America can reduce the long-term budget deficit, maintain vital services, protest Social Security and Medicare, invest more in education and infrastructure, and not raise taxes on the working middle class is by raising taxes on the super rich.” He goes on to point out that if this richest 1 to 2 percent were taxed at the same rates as 50 years ago, they’d be paying in over $350 billion more this year alone, “… which translates into trillions over the next decade.”
This theft of the American economy has got to stop, and that’s why a rally on the Plaza and demonstration in front of Bank of America will take place on Tax Day, April 18 at 5:00 P.M. America is not broke. Its wealth, our wealth, has been stolen and is being hoarded by the big corporations that pay no or a small semblance of the taxes they owe, and the super rich tax evaders.
On Monday the 18th we will present a bill for taxes to the Bank of America owed to the American people. We need you to walk with us in a peaceful protest and make your voices heard. Enough is enough. We will not be cheated and lied to by those who drove us into the worst recession since the 1930s, obliterated our jobs and took our homes. This is the day to make the deadbeats pay.
Saturday, April 23, 2011
A Sunday Sermon
Good Morning Friends-
Let us begin Sunday's sermon on an economic note with some pertinent quotes:
Small businesses are the backbone of our economy and the engine of job creation.
-- Ronald Reagan
I never met a small businessman yet who didn't have one finger up his ass and the other on the scales.
-- Mad Dog Howard
Now that you've had time to contemplate the socio/politico/financial-o/religio implications from important figureheads of note it brings us to consideration of the greasing of favored municipal projects through CA Redevelopment (funding) Agencies. Witness the mad scramble of county and city electeds and their administrative staff to secure RDA bucks for vital projects to combat blight and/or generate local revenue.
Among these worthy enterprises are a new massage business on the Plaza - no biggie, just 25 Gs to cover oil expenses - and a few bucks to the Jazz Plus Festival because, well, just because. Then there are the poor, starving non-profits huddled in the cold, begging bowls in hand as they line up for a little bond money largess. Now we're talking a little bigger buck-a-roos: $500,000 for the Community Center, and an undisclosed amount for the Visitors Bureau, because God knows we don't get enough tourists. Better line up soon, Sonomates, to get your piece of the $16 million pie for whatever biz or gig you'd like to get a little cash for. It's going fast.Better grab it wile you can before Big Bad Jerry gobbles it up.
...
Casting our net further we observe the spectacle of New York's Peter King, a stalwart Republican Congressman who is going to rout out the nests of Islamic terrorist cells in our midst.
Taking a page, possibly a chapter or two out of Sen. Joe McCarthy's book, King has determined that American Muslims are either (1) plotting to attack us, or (2) not informing the authorities about legions of Muslims plotting to attack us. How does King know this, you might ask? Well, because, he just does. Why should he provide proof when he just knows this in his bones? Who cares about facts or evidence or such other inconveniences when what's really important is his unshakable conviction? Just like poor old Joe; so misunderstood. Here is Rep. King, trying to do God's work and protect America from her enemies, and loonies on the left are demanding his well-coifed head.
Don't let them get you down, Pete, even if they refuse to see who's hiding under their own beds. You're the guy to go under there and get 'em! And let's not forget, good old Pete knows about terror tactics and the killing of innocent civilians for that express purpose as a once staunch supporter and mouthpiece for the Irish Republican Army. Pete knows about this shit because he was into it up to his massive eyebrows. Nothing like on the job training, eh?
...
And finally, just like the ever elusive Where's Waldo, the same query might be asked of our valiant President and his conspicuous absence in Wisconsin. Remember when he boldly told us when on the campaign trail in 2007:
"If American workers are being denied their right to organize and collectively bargain when I'm in the White House, I'll put on a comfortable pair of shoes myself." "I'll walk on that picket line with you as president of the United States of America because workers deserve to know that somebody is standing in their corner."
Oh how stirring those words. How Presidential-ist. No doubt the Pres. is just picking out the right shoes, making sure the VP can handle matters in his absence, and will be jetting down to WI or wherever labor needs him to support the cause. Right on, Mr. President. Mr. President? Barack?
Let us begin Sunday's sermon on an economic note with some pertinent quotes:
Small businesses are the backbone of our economy and the engine of job creation.
-- Ronald Reagan
I never met a small businessman yet who didn't have one finger up his ass and the other on the scales.
-- Mad Dog Howard
Now that you've had time to contemplate the socio/politico/financial-o/religio implications from important figureheads of note it brings us to consideration of the greasing of favored municipal projects through CA Redevelopment (funding) Agencies. Witness the mad scramble of county and city electeds and their administrative staff to secure RDA bucks for vital projects to combat blight and/or generate local revenue.
Among these worthy enterprises are a new massage business on the Plaza - no biggie, just 25 Gs to cover oil expenses - and a few bucks to the Jazz Plus Festival because, well, just because. Then there are the poor, starving non-profits huddled in the cold, begging bowls in hand as they line up for a little bond money largess. Now we're talking a little bigger buck-a-roos: $500,000 for the Community Center, and an undisclosed amount for the Visitors Bureau, because God knows we don't get enough tourists. Better line up soon, Sonomates, to get your piece of the $16 million pie for whatever biz or gig you'd like to get a little cash for. It's going fast.Better grab it wile you can before Big Bad Jerry gobbles it up.
...
Casting our net further we observe the spectacle of New York's Peter King, a stalwart Republican Congressman who is going to rout out the nests of Islamic terrorist cells in our midst.
Taking a page, possibly a chapter or two out of Sen. Joe McCarthy's book, King has determined that American Muslims are either (1) plotting to attack us, or (2) not informing the authorities about legions of Muslims plotting to attack us. How does King know this, you might ask? Well, because, he just does. Why should he provide proof when he just knows this in his bones? Who cares about facts or evidence or such other inconveniences when what's really important is his unshakable conviction? Just like poor old Joe; so misunderstood. Here is Rep. King, trying to do God's work and protect America from her enemies, and loonies on the left are demanding his well-coifed head.
Don't let them get you down, Pete, even if they refuse to see who's hiding under their own beds. You're the guy to go under there and get 'em! And let's not forget, good old Pete knows about terror tactics and the killing of innocent civilians for that express purpose as a once staunch supporter and mouthpiece for the Irish Republican Army. Pete knows about this shit because he was into it up to his massive eyebrows. Nothing like on the job training, eh?
...
And finally, just like the ever elusive Where's Waldo, the same query might be asked of our valiant President and his conspicuous absence in Wisconsin. Remember when he boldly told us when on the campaign trail in 2007:
"If American workers are being denied their right to organize and collectively bargain when I'm in the White House, I'll put on a comfortable pair of shoes myself." "I'll walk on that picket line with you as president of the United States of America because workers deserve to know that somebody is standing in their corner."
Oh how stirring those words. How Presidential-ist. No doubt the Pres. is just picking out the right shoes, making sure the VP can handle matters in his absence, and will be jetting down to WI or wherever labor needs him to support the cause. Right on, Mr. President. Mr. President? Barack?
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Sticks and Stones…
Despite the old adage it’s known by most that the impact of words – harsh, accusatory, judgmental or condemnatory – last and fester far longer than bodily bruises. Words matter. Ask the preacher or the politician or the pundit. Ask the dictator. First come the words, then the actions.
Since the latest tragic event in Tucson we are hearing from politicians and pundits alike – some of them – to turn down the inflammatory and violence-oriented rhetoric, to cool the hate speech, and to understand that such words have consequences, as we’ve been told so may times. It happens every time these kinds of brutally insane and heart-wrenching rampages occur.
Of course words matter. It’s an old, old story, but we’ve only to look a short way to past history: the rationale for stolen land because its inhabitants were godless savages; an excuse for slavery, one of the depths of human depravity, because its victims weren’t fully human; the Nazis’ rise to power on the defamation of Jews; the oppression and subjugation against women and minorities and their relegation to second-class status; the McCarthy Era, and the arousing of our nation to go to war in East Asia or the Middle East through fear and the demonization of some “enemy.”
Calls for more civil discourse, less personal attacks, and easing off violent, militant words and symbols are heard throughout the land, as always follows tragic, senseless killings, and while this is the proper and right response, it is undermined by a fundamental hypocrisy in our culture: We are a violent people.
We tell our children that problems cannot and should not be solved by violence, and that our differences cannot be rectified through aggression, but what do we show them on the world stage?
We invade countries that we disagree with when we believe it is in our interest to do so, and we manufacture the reasons and rationales to get our people to accept, support and fight in these wars. But ‘invade’ is a too surgical, too clinical word. It does not describe the reality of the act. A recent example: Before our military set foot in Iraq in 2003 we rained bombs and missiles on sections of the country for two weeks. Remember “shock and awe”?
Those bombs and missiles not only destroyed, rendered into rubble, buildings and infrastructure, they tore apart human beings: families, babies and children of people who just happened to be living in the wrong place, at the wrong time. These were other human beings, no different than our families, friends and neighbors; no different than us. Our military, before and during the invasion of Iraq killed, brutally and violently murdered and maimed a countless number of people no different in their hopes, dreams and desires than you or I. That’s the reality of war. Indiscriminate bombing and so-called collateral killing was done in Vietnam and Cambodia as well, and there’s no reason to believe it will not happen again.
We tell our children not to engage in violence to solve their problems and it’s the first thing we resort to. We exhort our children and our fellow citizens to eschew violence and physical aggression while at the same time manufacturing and selling arms – machinery that kills people and destroys cities and countryside – to practically all the nations of the world. We spend about half of our entire budget fighting and preparing to wage wars. How can we tell our children, tell ourselves, to seek non-violent solutions when our actions belie our words?
We are currently cautioned by out leaders, the putative more reasonable and intelligent ones, to cool the rhetoric and incitement to violence-laden language, while at the same time sending drones to kill designated enemies regardless of who else happens to get killed or wounded in the process. We preach non-violence and at the same time justify the use of torture. Torture! We have a Congressman recently calling for the assassination of Wikileaks’ Julian Assange – not a trial to establish innocence or guilt, but an assassination; a mob hit. This is and other such utterances are the level of discourse from some of our political leaders and extreme right wing pundits.
How can we expect our people to behave respectfully, to debate differences honestly and logically, to keep our national discourse civil when the reality of how we act and what we say projects just the opposite? Only when we stop exhorting and resorting to violence in order to get what we want will we be able to bridge the divides that have grown deeper and wider in our country. Only when our actions mirror our words will we be able to advise our children and tell ourselves and the rest of the world how to live in peace. Will such a time ever come?
Since the latest tragic event in Tucson we are hearing from politicians and pundits alike – some of them – to turn down the inflammatory and violence-oriented rhetoric, to cool the hate speech, and to understand that such words have consequences, as we’ve been told so may times. It happens every time these kinds of brutally insane and heart-wrenching rampages occur.
Of course words matter. It’s an old, old story, but we’ve only to look a short way to past history: the rationale for stolen land because its inhabitants were godless savages; an excuse for slavery, one of the depths of human depravity, because its victims weren’t fully human; the Nazis’ rise to power on the defamation of Jews; the oppression and subjugation against women and minorities and their relegation to second-class status; the McCarthy Era, and the arousing of our nation to go to war in East Asia or the Middle East through fear and the demonization of some “enemy.”
Calls for more civil discourse, less personal attacks, and easing off violent, militant words and symbols are heard throughout the land, as always follows tragic, senseless killings, and while this is the proper and right response, it is undermined by a fundamental hypocrisy in our culture: We are a violent people.
We tell our children that problems cannot and should not be solved by violence, and that our differences cannot be rectified through aggression, but what do we show them on the world stage?
We invade countries that we disagree with when we believe it is in our interest to do so, and we manufacture the reasons and rationales to get our people to accept, support and fight in these wars. But ‘invade’ is a too surgical, too clinical word. It does not describe the reality of the act. A recent example: Before our military set foot in Iraq in 2003 we rained bombs and missiles on sections of the country for two weeks. Remember “shock and awe”?
Those bombs and missiles not only destroyed, rendered into rubble, buildings and infrastructure, they tore apart human beings: families, babies and children of people who just happened to be living in the wrong place, at the wrong time. These were other human beings, no different than our families, friends and neighbors; no different than us. Our military, before and during the invasion of Iraq killed, brutally and violently murdered and maimed a countless number of people no different in their hopes, dreams and desires than you or I. That’s the reality of war. Indiscriminate bombing and so-called collateral killing was done in Vietnam and Cambodia as well, and there’s no reason to believe it will not happen again.
We tell our children not to engage in violence to solve their problems and it’s the first thing we resort to. We exhort our children and our fellow citizens to eschew violence and physical aggression while at the same time manufacturing and selling arms – machinery that kills people and destroys cities and countryside – to practically all the nations of the world. We spend about half of our entire budget fighting and preparing to wage wars. How can we tell our children, tell ourselves, to seek non-violent solutions when our actions belie our words?
We are currently cautioned by out leaders, the putative more reasonable and intelligent ones, to cool the rhetoric and incitement to violence-laden language, while at the same time sending drones to kill designated enemies regardless of who else happens to get killed or wounded in the process. We preach non-violence and at the same time justify the use of torture. Torture! We have a Congressman recently calling for the assassination of Wikileaks’ Julian Assange – not a trial to establish innocence or guilt, but an assassination; a mob hit. This is and other such utterances are the level of discourse from some of our political leaders and extreme right wing pundits.
How can we expect our people to behave respectfully, to debate differences honestly and logically, to keep our national discourse civil when the reality of how we act and what we say projects just the opposite? Only when we stop exhorting and resorting to violence in order to get what we want will we be able to bridge the divides that have grown deeper and wider in our country. Only when our actions mirror our words will we be able to advise our children and tell ourselves and the rest of the world how to live in peace. Will such a time ever come?
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