Main Street vs. Bombs

Reading the morning news I am riveted to the article about the defense budget’s final figure of $662 BILLION and how easily it passed the House. Really, aren’t we going through tough financial times? Times that we cannot possibly put people to work because we are hung up on ideological notions about frugality? Weren’t they all distraught about the shrinking middle class and lower class having health care just a while back because “our children are being saddled with all this debt”? Who is paying for that defense budget do you suppose?

We are hopelessly and intentionally detached from reality… To be blunt that defense bill passed because of the money it brings to the pockets of congressmen through government contracts handed out across the house floor in trade for election contributions from those contractors. That budget is as big as each of the stimulus bills the Bush and Obama administrations supported, and it will do less to protect us in the long term than putting people back to work and regaining a strong economy. It is as big as the health care bill that would have benefitted all of us except for the insurance and drug companies that propagandized it into failure. That budget is not full of protection for our freedom by any stretch, it is full of PORK to use a term the GOP controlled House stood on a year or so ago.

A slim number of my friends are convinced that big business is great and will create jobs if left alone to do it, and while that is certainly true to an extent, it statistically does not inject long term and sustainable economic impact like small business does, not to mention that at this time much of the big business is off shore and not doing any of us any good anyway. Except to stock our shelves with Chinese made junk we can all live without, most big companies are not doing a great job of helping us out economically because they blow with the winds of Wall Street, and in many cases they cost us heavily on the backside.  Small businesses tend to grow more solid over time because folks who own them have all their eggs in that one basket and are inclined to nurture it with care; far more care than what was taken to cause this mess in the first place. Small business overall pays its way by injecting money locally and providing jobs locally that produce revenue that is spent or banked locally. The very loud noise we hear from some politicians these days is in support of big business, big coal and big oil and the “jobs” they will bring, and they take that stance because the aforementioned groups pay them to support them.

I personally cannot support big business buying our legislators. It is undermining a truly exceptional democracy and destroying this country from the inside out and supporting it from the top down.   Probably the most ardent supporter of our government is me for it is the best there is on this planet, but having said that, with every government contract or subsidy out there comes control that we all need to take a really hard look at. If they are controlling our politicians, they are controlling policy. Government is not the enemy, the ones who control our politicians are.

Meantime, we are still vastly unemployed and under-employed and staring the end of American dominance and “exceptionalism” square in the face, not to mention another great depression. If we do not demand congress get to work on America’s Main Street soon and stop playing the fool they would like us to we are in deep trouble. They are holding out hope that Obama does not get re-elected so they can stand up and say that HE ruined this country and they will have won. While a few of you applaud that and it is agreeable to your politics, the vast majority of us could care less who gets this country on track because we are hurting individually and as a country we are teetering.  While big business is taking our money and making bombs for thirty years in the future so politicians can enjoy their Christmas vacations in style Main Streets are empty and many will have no Christmas. Do we really want America to fail for the sake of those few who gain from our pain?

The Institution

Just when we thought we had seen it all, the story from Penn State broke a few weeks ago, raising for me more than just concerns over sexual misconduct. I still find it appalling that no one in a leadership role at Penn could find their way clear to turn Sandusky in to police? No, they maintained the status quo so that their isolated institution could go on about their business of winning football games. They no doubt saw the 1.52 billion dollar annual endowment or the 765 million dollar research enterprise the University amasses as the end game. What were they thinking? Is the damage done to even one kid worth protecting anyone? Is the failure of the whole she-bang worth protecting one guy? They were out on the prairie of Pennsylvania; in their own little isolated world thinking maybe the whole thing would go away and the institution would be preserved to continue serving all of them; they were the power.

We all belong to a similar institution in our Federal government whereby the good of a few is increasingly trumping the good of the many. The same type of questions can be raised of this government as Penn State: Is protecting the greedy institution worth selling out your values and your constituent’s wellbeing? Is the failure of the entire country worth a few ideological doctrines? Is the defeat of one guy worth compromising our economic health and place in the world? Correct me if I am wrong, but isn’t democracy all about working problems out, and coming to the table with an outcome in mind?

Recently 60 Minutes news magazine on CBS ran a piece on our congress men and women participating in insider trading which is totally legal for them to do in their isolated world. Yup, they voted themselves exclusion to that practice right in front of behind our backs. When asked about “timely” transactions in her personal portfolio Nancy Pelosi looked like she saw a dagger coming at her, and although John Boehner was somewhat cooler, he certainly did a lot of lip licking while quipping that he does not control his own investments. That one stunt alone should make all of you demand their resignations, but it goes beyond that; some of them are selling inside information through power brokers on “the hill” to the highest bidders. In other words selling committee info on up and coming legislation to a high stakes fencing operation like stolen car parts. Say for instance selling information about an area to be opened up for oil leases in Wyoming, and if the info got into the right hands soon enough they could make a bundle on land speculation in that area. I still cannot believe this crap is going on while Americans are discussing where Obama was born or who is on the right side of gay marriage. These guys are committing real and serious crimes and with our money! They would throw away the key if any of us participated in that kind of thing.

Another piece that 60 Minutes ran involved long-time lobbyist Grover Norquist who has authored a “pledge” to not raise taxes and then coerced legislators to sign it in the name of fiscal responsibility or some such catchy phrase. The whole thing sounds innocent enough until you start thinking about what he has effectively done; he now “owns” those legislators. If they break “the pledge” he blackballs them with lobbyists that will cut their election funding therefore losing their seat on the Capitol Hill gravy train. Where I come from that is often viewed as extortion. What is to keep this guy from holding Congressmen and Senators up on anything really? What is to keep him or others from manipulating voting on issues other than taxes? Say like being approached by insurance companies that give him money to get legislators to sign a ridiculous “pledge” like: “I pledge to never agree or vote to fund public health”. Great, now what happens if we have an epidemic of monstrous proportions in New York or a category 5 hurricane that threatens the health of 2 million people in Texas…are we going to think it is so great then? That is a silly analogy perhaps, but I am trying to get your wheels turning…it is not good for any individual, group or corporation to control our legislators with money. We pay them to work for us, not him. We pay them to make decisions for the good of America, not their pockets or their ideals.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, politicians are not about to lose sight of what the game is on “the hill” and that is to protect and defend…their special interest groups who keep them in office at all cost, even this countries failure. They are sworn to uphold the Constitution, but they seem to be above it and the laws that the rest of us have to obey. They write their own rules, wages and benefits. As I write they are mulling over legislation that addresses the aforementioned insider trading issue. Mulling it over? Every jack one of them should have been lined up at the door to sign on, but they are not. No, they are trying to find a way to draw attention away from it and frankly there are not that many people who are privy to that insider trading exclusion so a little diversion might just do it.

With good intentions many Americans have been unknowingly coerced into a high stakes game where the winner will take all while we fiddle with the cards. The “special” interests be it corporations, churches, insurance giants, investment firms or energy companies have discovered they can be in command of the message through a combination of media and controlled politicians and they are doing just that. Social items, that while individually important to many of us, have absolutely zero to do with the end game that we are unwittingly engaged in. They are intentionally taking our eye off the ball by haranguing on stuff like abortion, birth certificates, “family values” and the price of crude and who is to blame on both sides of the aisle and for what. We are so desperate for jobs in this country all the advertisers and the politicians have to say is that they will “create jobs” and many of us are lured into thinking that whatever they are selling is just dandy. But, like a rancher leaving the pasture gate open while feeding the cows, the horses are out behind our backs while we throw the hay off the wagon to the open mouths of the noisiest.

We are standing by while they toy with cutting Social Security, which by the way none of them pay into and legislators are cutting education that our parents and grandparents coveted because it brought them to a place of security in this world. These cuts and many more are there only because they irresponsibly marched off to two wars that are the first in this nation’s history to have gone unfunded because they thought Americans would not swallow a tax hike to fund more conflicts that had no end; and they were right. Now Americans are pissed and rightfully so but they are being steered away from the real issues because they can be, because we are not paying attention. No one is talking about the two wars nor have they been. No one is talking about the slide of small business and Main Street which indeed does feed 70% of our overall wealth in this country. And certainly, no one is mentioning the only way to get moving is to build on what we have.

Most of the people I know have no idea how our legislative body works really. They don’t know what a “bill” is or how it gets written; they don’t know how legislation is decided on, and worst of all they do not understand that all the obstructionism is a ploy to buy time for positioning for the future so they can start the whole thing over again. None of it is being done to save us. None of this is for the future of this country. It is for their pockets and their future pockets and their lobbyists’ pockets who are often former politicians. So the rotation continues and we are washing farther out in the wake.

The Honorable Sandra Day O’Connor, former Supreme Court Justice said not long ago she felt good course in civics would serve many in this country well. And that old cowgirl is putting her money and time where her mouth is and spreading the lessons through E-readers and such in the school systems. Touché!