Friends and Family: Calmer Version

Friends and Relatives,

I have begun writing a weekly blog. Our nation is facing a serious media crisis, manifested in the fact that centrist political positions, my political positions, are not being heard. The airways are dominated by right-wing rhetoric and their talking points mock the very existence of opposing points of view. It's time for centrists and liberals to talk back. My blog is a humble attempt to do that. I have a good life, but I feel morally obligated to express my deep concern with the present direction of our democracy. Politics is not just entertainment. Politics is not just about winning. Politics is also about what kind of a place the United States will be in 50 years, after I'm gone.

So I expect to just be a lone voice in the wilderness, but I do hope you'll check my blog periodically to tune in to some of the intense anger and discouragement that centrists and liberals are feeling at what's happening to our country. Believe me, we are every bit as upset as the Tea Party, even if we have received no funding to match the millions given to the Tea Party by big oil.

If you want me to e-mail my blog entries to you let me know. That would be very easy to do.

Don

The Truth about the Tea Party

A recent article in the New Yorker, August 30, 2010, by Jane Mayer, entitled: Covert Operations: The Billionaire Brothers who are Waging a War against Obama, documents the pivotal role played in the rise of the Tea Party by the right-wing political organization called Citizens for Prosperity. This organization was created and is funded by two of the world's richest men: Charles and David Koch (pronounced "coke"), owners of the oil-refinery conglomerate: Koch Industries. The combined wealth of the two brothers ranks behind only that of David Gates and Warren Buffet. They were the founders in the 1970s of the right-wing Cato Institute and have funded scores of right-wing causes over the years. Please read the New Yorker article on the Koch Brothers and the Tea Party at: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer

The key role played by the immensely wealthy, right-wing Koch brothers finally makes the whole episode of the rise of the Tea Party make sense. It explains how the government deficit created by 10 years of Bush tax cuts and a financial crisis caused by the greed of Wall Street, was blamed on a Democratic administration left to pick up the pieces. It explains how anger at our government's failure to regulate the industry was redirected toward the governments attempt to assist the victims.

From the beginning, the rise of the Tea Party was strange. I understood the anger, I was angry myself. To hell the deficit, we were told, if trillions of federal tax dollars weren't immediately pumped in to the banking system, the entire world would be plunged into another great depression. The American people were quite united about one thing. These banks by all rules of fairness should just be allowed to go out of business and everybody connected to their fraudulent mis-management should be in the street like the greedy speculators who lost everything in 1929. Derivatives, repackaged mortgages, ponzie schemes, junk bonds, things too complicated for the public to understand had led to immense fortunes. These people deserved to pay the price for their failed schemes. But hey, two presidential administrations came forward to say that these banks were too big to fail, so we went along with it.

Fast forward to 2012. How are the Wall Street mega-banks doing? Great. Stock market? All the way back. How about the 8 million people who lost their jobs from 2008-2010? Still unemployed. There has been no recovery for the working class. Employment is exactly where it was in the depths of the crash. (Yes, you hear how we create jobs every month, but it has only been enough to make up for the young people coming in to the labor force.) In Ohio, I read today that 4 out of 10 school children are on the free lunch program due to the financial difficulties of their families. And how about reforming the big banks? At least we can say they were broken up so that this would not happen again, right? But no. They are still there. They never once stopped paying the mega-bonuses, and now they are looking at smaller, more local banks as targets for future mergers.

All this left me mad as hell. Deeply disappointed in both political parties. Feeling powerless at the impotence of democracy in the face of immense wealth. Here again, I think my feelings were shared by the overwhelming majority of the American people.

I first became aware of the Tea Party sometime in 2009. Finally, someone was expressing my anger, I thought. But then it started to get really weird. These people had no concern for the bailout of the wealthy banks. They had no concern for the 8 million people who had lost their jobs through Wall Street greed. No concern that the Wall Street crisis had left us with homes worth half what they were. Indeed, one of their main objects of attack was the stimulus program, a modest, totally inadequate attempt to help the victims.

Today, the Tea Party is pushing the agenda of the Right-Wing propaganda machine the Kochs helped create. The Tea Party claims to be concerned with the deficit. But this is only the means to get at what really drives them. Nobody truly concerned with the deficit, would be talking about cutting taxes by 2.9 trillion dollars. What drives the Tea Party is hatred of government. This means, first of all, hatred of the programs of the New Deal: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and hundreds of lesser programs ensuring children are educated and our people can maintain steady employment. But this also explains the meanness of the Tea Party. The goal of their propaganda is to make you think that our political system is a joke and that all our elected officials are morons. This is why they are completely brazen about lying and repeating lies. Their goal is to make us think that politics is all about lies. Everybody in politics lies, right? When ordinary citizens naively pass on insulting stories about our congressmen, senators and president, they are contributing to the Tea Party agenda (or should I say the the agenda of Charles and David Koch). The right-wing propaganda machine wants to make hatred of government a national sport.

Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining

The following is my summary of a report I heard today, May 23, on Democracy Now, a liberal 100% listener-supported news program hosted by Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez. I get it whenever I can by downloading their podcast at: http://www.democracynow.org/. They can be heard on over 900 stations, but that's not a lot when you consider that they are spread across the United States.

You won't hear this kind of news unless you look for it. The country needs you to start looking for it. If you just sit back and wait, you'll be fed information by those whose interest in politics is to ensure they can become ever more wealthy. The richer people get, the more obsessed they become with wealth.

Massey Energy is a leader in mountaintop removal coal mining in the states of West Virginia, and Kentucky. The process begins with the detonation of an explosion the size of a Hiroshima bomb, which blasts open the top 400 feet of a mountain. This opens up the coal reserves to exploitation. The process is completed by filling the hole back in, as much as possible, and the excess materials, including unwanted toxins, are dumped into the valley below. Originally, they were required to fill the area in with topsoil, but one of the early accomplishments of the George W. Bush administration, was the ruling that they could just fill in the damaged area with the rubble and waste from the mining operation.

You can imagine what this does to the environment. The rivers are polluted and sometimes simply disappear into cracks in the ground caused by the explosion. Entire small towns are purchased ahead of time, and boarded up. Some 500 mountains have been destroyed over the last 10 years. The total acreage destroyed is estimated at 1.4 million acres, the size of Delaware.

Of course, we all know the necessity of this, right. First of all, West-Virginians depend on the good-paying jobs provided by the coal industry. Our national economy depends on the cheap electricity coal provides. As for pollution, we are told how the Environmental Protection Agency has run amuck with its ridiculous and trivial regulations. Unfortunately, this is all propaganda and the true story is an example of how big industry has taken control of our country.

Let's start with the jobs. The mountaintops are being blown off to save labor. With this technique, they can get away with hiring 70% fewer miners. Good-paying jobs for West Virginians? Think again. While the CEO of Massey Energy makes 30 million a year, West Virginia is ranked 49th in the nation in terms of poverty. Massey Energy led the way ten years ago in breaking the United Mineworkers Union and slashing wages. One of the results of this union-busting strategy is that Massey today prefers to hire people from out of state, running ads in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, the Atlanta Constitution and in USA Today.

Regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency? Think again. Massey practices a policy of systematic obstruction and disregard for all environmental regulations. They have been cited 60,000 times for violating the Clean Water Act for a total of 1.8 billion dollars in fines. The West Virginia EPA, however, has never collected a penny. The federal EPA agreed that the fines should be reduced to 20 million. This from a company worth 7.1 billion dollars.

And there's the tax base, right? All that mining must be a real boondoggle for the local governments. Think again. The estimated annual tax revenue for blowing up a mountain is $30,000/year. The construction of a wind farm on the same mountaintop would provide 1.5 million annually in tax revenue, and this would continue indefinitely.

Behind this is a story of big money corrupting our political system. It has been estimated that the coal energy has invested a billion and a half dollars over the last 10 years to elect the right politicians and to influence the political process. The CEO of Massey Energy once spent 3 million dollars to ensure the defeat of a judge who had ruled against another coal company. When an appeal from Massey was being heard the same CEO was photographed on vacation on the French Riviera with a second judge hearing the case. And yes, surprise, Massey Energy won the appeal.

With the election in 2010 of Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, they also have a senator they can count on to see things their way.

Friends and Relatives. Please start looking for this type of information. Our democracy and our future are in peril.

Does the Republican Budget Plan Really end Medicare?

Word has it that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is going to run an ad stating that the Republican budget plan, known as the Ryan plan, calls for the elimination of Medicare. Here's the scoop:

Ryan's plan calls for replacing Medicare with vouchers for seniors to buy their own insurance. There are a couple of problems with this. First of all, private insurance today costs 11% more than Medicare does. So right from the beginning, seniors are going to have to kick in from their savings. Secondly, it does not account for the rise of health care costs, which are projected to increase, and to increase dramatically if Obamacare is eliminated. The Congressional Budget Office (non-partisan) estimates that by 2030, the voucher will cover only between 35 and 40% of the cost of private health insurance. So after spending your life paying payroll taxes, yuo'll receive a check for 40% of the cost of health insurance. Actually, this will only apply to those who today are under 55. So don't worry about it, right?

Unfortunately, the rest of this bill, isn't any better.

Congressman Ryan proposes reducing deficits by 4 trillion over 12 years.

To do this, Ryan starts in the usual Republican way, by giving away 2.9 trillion to corporations and the wealthy. He reduces the income tax rates for millionaires, eliminates the capital gains tax, and eliminates the tax on estates over a million dollars. There is nothing in there for you.

He's going to finance that with various budget cuts, but he doesn't say how. He only says that spending on everything aside from health and Social Security can be cut in half. I don't know about your state, but in mine teachers, policeman and firemen are being laid-off even as we speak.

Then there are pure fantasies about the wonderful effects of how cutting taxes on the wealthy leads to prosperity for all. Ryan predicts that by 2015, unemployement will be back to the peak level of the 1990s, and by 2021 it will be the best we've had in 50 years! The 8 million who lost their jobs in 2007-2008, will all have their jobs back back plus a couple million more. Never mind that, last I saw, unemployment was still rising. With everybody working, tax revenues will actually go up by almost $600 billion. (Please note that this is the same House of Representatives that fights Global Warming by voting that it doesn't exist. Cut taxes on the wealthy and dreams come true!)

Then there's Medicaid. I guess you can always save money by reducing support for the poor. Ryan's plan is to stop paying for Medicaid directly and, instead, to give block grants to the states. That means that when health care costs go up, that will no longer be his problem. Leave it to the states to decide how to gut social programs.

Two thoughts to conclude:

1) This country can afford to pay for the programs it wants. We are still one of the wealthiest countries in the world.

2) We have 14 million unemployed people. That is the real problem. Put them to work and our deficit issues will be easy to solve. In this, Ryan is right. But giving trillions of dollars to wealthy people is not going to put these people back to work.

Basic Republican Propaganda Techniques, 1: The Preposterous Assertion

This involves saying and repeating preposterously false things until they come to pass as true among large numbers of poorly informed people.

For example, this morning, on WCPN, public radio, there was a debate over whether public sector unions in Ohio should be abolished. The Republican spokesman asserts that immense sums of money are being funneled by these unions in to lobbying the political process. This is total nonsense that you hear all the time.

The Democratic spokesman doesn't want to call the Republican spokesman ignorant and he doesn't want to call him a liar, so he just avoids the ridiculous statement. He stays civil and positive. He knows that in the end the truth will come out and that the American people are very good at separating truth from nonsense.

The trouble is that the American people, right now, are not doing a very good job of separating truth from nonsense.

It's time for Republicans to stop repeating shocking, surprising information just because it supports their preconceptions. It's time for centrists and Democrats to start contradicting those who repeat baseless, false information. It's time for all of us to take a look at who stands to profit if this false information is taken as truth.

It's called standing up for America.

(Note: While this propaganda technique is not unique to Republicans, there is no left-wing propaganda machine comparable, in any way, to that of the right.)

To My Friends and Relatives

Friends and Relatives,

For most of my life, I have been a detached observer of politics. I've voted more Democratic, than Republican, but I have voted for two Republican candidates for president, and by temperament I have sought the center where I could make an informed choice between two competing alternatives.

With the recent spectacle of the passage and opposition to the heath care bill and the election of a radically conservative House of Representatives, it became clear that my traditional centrist position is no longer tenable. The Republican party has become dominated by a propaganda machine financed by the extremely wealthy. Its stated goals are to dismantle the active and assertive government that grew out of the catastrophe of the Great Depression and dominated American Politics from the 1930s until 1980. So successful has this propaganda machine been, that Democrats seem embarrassed to stand up for what their party has achieved. As for you Republicans, you need to get back on firmer ground. It's time to stop passing on misinformation and downright lies, bought and paid for by the extremely wealthy.

Two considerations oblige me to become active in opposing what I consider to be a powerful and frightening right-wing propaganda machine:

1) The Republican party is winning elections by deceit. If I believed that all those Americans voting Republican really wished to go where the Republicans are taking them, I would keep quiet and sleep easily. I don't mind being in the minority. But when I see misinformation, not to say crude lies, being presented and repeated until the average uninformed American takes it as truth, then I feel obligated to speak up.

2) I am very concerned about where our society will be in 50 years. I am not concerned about myself. This society has treated me well. My education was affordable. Steady employment has allowed me to live in a comfortable house. Social Security and Medicaid are there to make me feel comfortable about my retirement. The end results of allowing big energy pollute the environment without restriction will not be felt in full force until after my death. Tax cuts for the wealthy have led to major layoffs in our schools and police departments, but if it becomes too violent, I can just move away when I reach retirement age. But for those being born in this country today, I am very concerned.

Over the last few years, I have received a large number of e-mails from friends and family transmitting right-wing propaganda. Please continue to send them to me. I have already begun a policy of responding to them, and will continue to do so.

This is the only unsolicited political e-mail you will receive from me. My relations with most of my friends and family are a-political and I want to keep open the option of keeping it that way.

For further development of the ideas I have just expressed, please read my blog at http://donaldleach.blogspot.com/

On average, new entries will appear weekly.

To give you an idea of what I have to say, here are two blog entries.