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Labor Day has become the last chance to go to the beach before the kids go back to school instead of a celebration of our blue collar work force. With the decline of labor unions, we seem to have forgotten the power of motivated, intelligent and well paid workers. In the global economy, it has become increasingly clear our kids will be forced to get some education past high school. With good reason, parents are urging their kids to go to college and steering them away from a life of blue collar labor. This is understandable because blue collar workers are under siege from all sides today. Since, all but the most innovative and complex items will be manufactured in China for the foreseeable future, why would a parent wish for a life of layoffs and shrinking wages for their child. Why is the blue collar class even necessary in the new global economy?
Why should we care about our blue collar work force? Wouldn’t it be better for the United States if all blue collar workers were sent back to school to be doctors, lawyers, engineers and scientists?
Doctors, scientists and engineers are critical for US success in the global market place (a column for another day) but, we dismiss the blue collar worker at our peril. During World War II, we overpowered our enemies not only with our military but, with pure unadulterated industrial might. A pilot who survived a shoot down in that war would have a brand new plane the next day. This allowed total air supremacy in Europe and near air supremacy in the Pacific. The blue collar work force was so important in this effort we put our wives, daughters and mothers to work outside the home for the first time. The same is true to a certain extent today.
We need to maintain our ability to build military equipment in our country. Some would say our strategic partners like the European Union will be happy to build our tanks and planes for us. Let’s say, for example, we need to bomb Dilbert’s favorite place, Elbonia, into submission for harboring terrorist. For this example however, the EU has economic ties to Elbonia. Without a blue collar work force trained to build planes required for the war on Elbonia, the EU could simply cut us off.
The strongest argument, beyond defense, for the maintenance of a healthy economic middle class may be the situation we find ourselves in today. In previous recessions, the American blue collar worker was there to buy our way out. Cars, washers and big-screen TV’s were the economic engine which made life better for all. Today, with blue collar workers the victim of falling wages, increasing healthcare costs and credit extended to them by unscrupulous financial markets, they are simply not able to help. They work harder, smarter and productivity has never been higher. Blue collar workers, however have taken a beating and are sadly not up to the task. Many economist will tell us the 2009 recession will be long and deep because the blue collar worker is not there to bail us out.
So as you soak up the last rays of summer or fire up the grill, I am sure one of your free market worshiping absolutist friends will be there. They will tell you Darwin was right and economies work best on the principle of “survival of the fittest.” They will tell you it is natural, no, required, for blue collar workers to lose their jobs to cheaper Chinese workers. They will tell you business should be free to systematically exterminate blue collar workers who want to organize or demand a part of the stockholder’s dividend. After all, they will say, companies owe them nothing.
I might tell them to give the blue collar worker a break at least on Labor Day.
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Talking heads all over the news shows today eulogized healthcare reform. Many were right-wing Republicans with crappy grins on their faces. A few were liberal Democrats who think the President should ram legislation through which includes a public option. They feel this should be done with the reconciliation process designed for votes on budgets. The reconciliation process would allow no debate or amendments and pass with fifty-one votes. Shy of the reconciliation option, liberal Democrats would rather have no legislation at all.
During the President’s vacation I think he should consider a process he talked about in his campaign.
September 8th, President Obama should publicly invite the Speaker of the House, House Minority Leader, House Majority Leader, House Minority Whip, a spokesman for the Blue Dog Coalition, Senate Majority Leader, Senate Minority Leader, Senate Majority Whip, Senate Minority Whip, Chairmen of the five committees who have heard testimony on healthcare legislation and the ranking members of those committees to the White House. He should call C-SPAN and tell them the entirety of the proceedings will be on air. He should instruct both parties to have, in hand, a real plan for fixing healthcare. The plan should include numbered priorities. The meetings should begin on the 10th.
Neither party should have trouble meeting the deadline of the 10th because, according to their interviews, they have all the answers. The President should play the honest broker and alternate from one party priority to the other. No stakeholders like the insurance companies, doctors or pharmaceuticals should be there. They have already spread enough money around to the attendees. The stakeholder voices have been heard loud and clear.
Clearly, this meeting will be manageable because only twenty people will be in attendance. If the President has other pressing business, he should be excused and Vice-President Biden may stand in his place. Otherwise, attendees will be excused only to eat and sleep. No staff will be allowed. Questions for staff and their responses will be read allowed and posted on the internet. No communication with lobbyist should be conducted in the halls during bathroom or lunch breaks and phone call logs should be published while the members are at their residence.
The Blue Dog Coalition will be there in a non-voting advisory capacity only. Each priority will be voted on. All ties will result in both parties returning with alternatives to the proposed legislation which created the tie.
C-SPAN should split screen the person speaking with their top twenty campaign donors. They should also give the topic of discussion along with the speaker’s name and state. Side negotiations should also be televised on one of the other C-SPAN networks. C-SPAN should also rerun the program in its entirety overnight.
No one should be dismissed until a concurrent bill is agreed on.
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Today, my six year-old daughter told a lie. It’s pretty easy to catch her in a lie at her age. The funny thing is how her mom and I give her an opportunity to tell the truth and faced with no TV, desert or not having friends over, she unexplainably sticks to her guns. She continues to tell the lie at her peril. It’s almost as if she believes her telling the same lie over and over will make it the truth. There are politicians in the health reform debate who also seem to have my daughter’s mentality. The problem with their lies is that so far these politicians have not gotten as much as a “time out.”
The problem with giving the former Lieutenant Governor of New York, Betsy McCaughey, the time out she deserves is there will be too many others in the time out chairs. It will be more like party.
A time out is supposed to be a time of quiet reflection on breaking the rules. A child’s life is so full of other things; a parent must slow the child down and make him or her think about the rules and why they are important. McCaughey needs a time out because she told a whopper on Senator Fred Thompson’s radio show on July, 16th. According to factcheck.org she said:
“the Congress would make it mandatory … that every five years, people in Medicare have a required counseling session that will tell them how to end their life sooner, how to decline nutrition, how to decline being hydrated, how to go into hospice care … all to do what’s in society’s best interest … and cut your life short.”
The bill said none of that hogwash. The bill was designed to only pay for end of life counseling if someone wanted it. The bill went on to explain what end of life counseling was. AARP was kind enough to call what McCaughey said a “misinterpretation.” At my house, we call it a lie. Moderates everywhere applaud discussion and debate but, this lady apparently subscribes to the “let them eat cake” brand of healthcare we have today. Moreover, she will obviously tell any lie to keep the status quo. It is hard to have a discussion with someone who we can not trust to tell the truth.
My theory of telling a lie enough times to make it truth is also in play in this discussion. Representative John Boehner (R-OH) and Thaddeus McCotter (R-MI) have also parroted many of the same lies McCaughey began in July. They tell us the legislation “encourages” doctors to force seniors to literally sign their lives away. Why didn’t they just tell the truth and say McCaughey’s assertions were inaccurate? Why perpetuate complete lie?
I have not yet figured out why my daughter tells a lie but, I think I know the motivation of the three public liars I have pointed out in this article. The intent is to create mayhem, cut off legitimate debate and finally, to kill reform. If you have watched TV news lately you might agree they have done a pretty good job.
Even though my daughter feeding the cat is not that big a deal, around here, a lie is a lie. In a family, we rely on telling the truth. In Washington, they call it something else like spin or misinterpretation. Around here, you get the TV taken away, no dessert or a time out. Maybe McCaughey and the others should have an old elementary school time out. Maybe some time to think about integrity and why we as a society reward truth tellers while dismissing liars will do her some good. Apparently, she knows we give all politicians a pass on lies so there wouldn’t be much to think about.
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Republicans in Congress had a 28 percent approval rating last week according to a CBS News/New York Times poll. Pundits and the media have had a pretty good time at the party’s expense lately and for good reason. Beltway insiders of all stripes have given the party advice on how they might return from the wilderness.
Regardless of the advice, Republicans seem bent on giving their party to the right wing.
Any possibility of moderating the party seems to have been dismissed out of hand. This was reinforced by three actions this week. First, 37 Republican Senators voted against the 2 Billion dollar Cash for Clunkers extension. This insanely popular program gave Americans up to $4,500 toward new cars and was so popular the first billion was gone in a week. The program seemed to be the exact kind of stimulus Republicans could support. Instead, partisans like Richard Shelby (R-AL) joked about the program asking if there would be a “cash for shoes” program next.
Secondly, Republicans chose the radical right instead of taking the opportunity to mend fences with Hispanics. They tell us they applaud bootstraps and instead of rewarding an accomplished jurist who pulled herself up by her own, they tried to beat her with them. Judge Sonya Sotomayor, by all accounts, was the kind of law and order judge and former prosecutor a good Republican could love. They however, chose to only placate the radical right. I can only guess they did this mostly to make abundantly clear they would never support a Democrat in the White House. They chose appearance over pragmatism.
Finally, they ran Senator Mel Martinez (R-FL) out on a rail 18 months before the end of his term. He and three other retiring Republican Senators (Kit Bond, Judd Gregg and George Voinovich) all voted for Sotomayor. Is this the changing of the moderate guard in the party? It could be most telling in Martinez’s case. Florida is almost 21 percent Hispanic. Florida is also a perennial swing state which has predicted the winner in 9 of the last 10 Presidential elections. Republicans still seem to feel the radical right trumps a 21 percent Hispanic vote every time.
I wonder if the Republicans are right. Can a few motivated right wingers who represent 20 or 30 percent of the population keep the Republicans in power? If this week’s “demonstrations” at town hall meetings on healthcare reform are any indication, they might be right. Again, I think the moderate middle has been silent on the subject. We are in the process of allowing a shouting match. In this shouting match we have lost our voice. Reason and pragmatism are losing to absolutism and greed. The same is happening to the Republican Party. “You’re either with us or agin us,” is a great sound bite but, will do little to help govern our nation. It could also marginalize a party with a few pretty good ideas.
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I have thought a good bit about President Obama’s comments on the situation with Henry Louis Gates and Cambridge Police. Being white, I must preface my remarks by saying I am woefully unqualified to address the plight of black America and justice. I have never been the victim of unfair treatment by someone with a gun and a badge because of the color of my skin. Since President Obama has indeed been a victim of unfair racial stereotyping, I guess he deserves the opportunity to speak against such injustice when it occurs. Some in the black community might even say he is obligated to address injustices. During the press conference on Healthcare this week the first black President indulged himself by commenting on the Cambridge situation.
The case can be made President Obama’s indulgence did a disservice to the black community.
While the President answered questions on the Cambridge situation for the next week, I wonder how many in the black community lost their healthcare coverage. I wonder how many were deciding whether to buy insulin or groceries. I wonder how many had to pay their periodic extortion payment to petro-dictators. I wonder how many lost their jobs. I wonder how many young black men were shot in the streets. I wonder how many young black people dropped out of school. I wonder if the President’s time would have been better spent addressing the desperate needs of the black community. Finally, I wonder if the President regretted his indulgence when so many other things need to be done for the black community and the other people he serves too.
I’m not naïve. I live in a state rife with racism. We have a huge Confederate Battle Flag which flies between Montgomery and Birmingham on Interstate-65. You can see it for miles along the interstate. They tell us it flies for the sake of heritage and not hate. I wonder if the irony of the flag’s placement between the two epicenters of the struggle for racial equality even dawns on the caretakers of the flag. A few weeks ago, I overheard someone who said he had elected Senator Jeff Sessions to keep the “N” word and liberals off the Supreme Court. If Sessions didn’t, he said, he would vote for someone who would. The person didn’t even get his bigotry right if he was referring to Judge Sotomayor. He was obviously too ignorant to tell the difference between a Hispanic and an African American.
However improved, racism still exists. President Obama’s election tells us we have gone a long way but, we still struggle. President Obama, however, can serve his community better by not providing the collateral motivation for right wingers to kill legislation which the black community and all Americans so desperately need. He is the President now. The President of the United States is the most influential person in the world. Every word he utters will be dissected and rehashed ad-nauseam. He makes a decision every time he speaks about the whole world’s conversation. Regretfully, we have a finite amount of energy for discussion. Maybe next time, the President will be a little more hesitant to change the subject.
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When the Senator from South Carolina, Jim DeMint, told the group Conservatives for Patients Rights,
“If we’re able to stop Obama on this, it will be his Waterloo. It will break him,”
most pundits and others passed the comment off as pure politics. I wish it were just politics. When I look at DeMint’s top twenty donors I begin to believe DeMint is using politics to take care of his campaign donors. If you look at his top twenty according to www.opensecrets.org you might begin to get another picture also.
The donor picture begins with the Club for Growth at 70 thousand. This is a right-wing bunch who believes in “freedom” among other things. DeMint and the Club for Growth using the word “freedom” is a little like yelling ice cream at a day care. I guess the implication is to disembowel the rest of us of our fondness for tyranny. The Scana Corporation, a utility, comes in second with 53 thousand. I don’t think we need to guess where he stands on climate change. Third on the list at 32 thousand is Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough, LLP. On their website they say:
Our attorneys guide healthcare providers, healthcare service companies, and investors through the sensitive hurdles and strict scrutiny of governmental and societal factors faced by the industry
I guess one way for healthcare profiteers to negotiate government’s strict scrutiny is to donate to a senator. Fourth on the list at 27 thousand is AT&T. I wonder how he voted on the keeping the phone companies from getting sued for wiretapping. Fifth on the list is Edens & Avant at 19 thousand. They own 130 shopping centers on the east coast. At sixth, eighth, ninth and twelfth were Cancer Centers of the Carolinas, US Oncology, Blue Cross/Blue Shield and United Health Group, respectively, for around 63 thousand dollars. Since they are second only to the right-wingers, I think I would be safe to say the healthcare industry helped DeMint get elected. I guess he feels like he owes them something. Maybe if he uses words like “freedom” to tell conservatives they can politically finish the President, he can motivate conservatives to kill health reform. Maybe if he delivers, he will have settled his debt.
To be sure, I may have been a little hard on Senator DeMint. Campaign finance is just too tempting. As a disclaimer, I must refer you to a previous article and tell you there are left wing DeMints too. All of them are in the pockets of those who would prefer to continue to profit from our literal misery. The forces aligned against healthcare reform are very good at the money game. They have one win under their belt and are pretty cocky. Since they only have to create enough doubt about a plan to maintain the status quo, I guess I would be pretty cocky too.
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Today a very good friend of mine invited me to Washington for a protest against healthcare reform among other things organized by Tea Party people. I told my friend I did not like runaway spending but, I felt something had to be done about healthcare. My friend is a very intelligent person who is always open to intelligent debate. Last week I would have told him the cost cutting in healthcare reform would decidedly reduce government expenditures in the long run.
I no longer have the luxury of the cost cutting debating point in light of last week’s Congressional Budget Office Report.
Today President Obama blamed the lack of Senate healthcare reform legislation on politics by people like Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC). I doubt DeMint’s motivation is primarily politics and there will be more on that in another article. I however, believe President Obama needs a little soul searching and possibly a new game plan on healthcare reform. So far, the President has put House Committee Chairmen in charge of writing healthcare legislation. The Chairmen include Henry Waxman (D-CA), Charles Rangel (D-NY) and George Miller (D-CA). Waxman has received more than 66 thousand and his committee has received more than 1.3 million dollars in campaign contributions from insurance and health interest groups. Rangel comes in at 70 thousand and his committee at 1.8 millon. The list is similar for both the Senate and House Committees who are drafting the legislation. Republicans seem to have the edge but, democrats too have received boatloads of cash from groups who would really like healthcare reform to go away.
That’s why the President needs to go away and rethink his approach to this issue he says he cares so much about. Instead of allowing legislators who have monetary motives to craft healthcare reform legislation which does not reform, he should do it himself. He should publicly propose amendments which may actually shift some of the obscene profits of the healthcare industry to covering all Americans. He should use his bully pulpit and notorious arm twister, Rahm Emanuel, to shame the legislative industry stooges into actually reducing potentially catastrophic spiraling healthcare costs.
Reducing the cost of healthcare, believe me, is the key to winning the argument with well-informed and well-meaning moderates and independents. These citizens legitimately want to know why adding another trillion dollars to our deficit is a good idea. The only answer to the question is saving money later.
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You might have heard. The 40th anniversary of Neil Armstrong being the first man on the moon is coming up in a few days. Living so close to Huntsville, Alabama, I have seen a good bit of hype about the anniversary in the local press. I saw an article in the magazine section of my paper and I am sure there will be a few national news stories on the actual anniversary date. The story in the USA TODAY Sunday magazine insert caught my eye.
The story caught my eye because several people including Neil deGrasse Tyson, Sally Ride and John McCain were asked how the event impacted their lives. Tyson, the college professor turned PBS Nova Science Now host, seemed to have an experience similar to mine. I remember watching the landing on a small 19-inch black and white TV with my father, mother and infant sister in Nashville, Tennessee. I remember how awed my father was when NASA actually pulled off the feat. My dad should not have been surprised because he worked, for a time, for a space contractor, doing computer test simulations for the Saturn V launch vehicle. Perhaps his excitement rubbed off on me because adults had trouble making out the fuzzy image on the small TV. I am sure my six year-old mind did not comprehend what actually happened that day.
What happened that day was repeated six times in my young impressionable life and I am sure I probably said more than once I wanted to be an astronaut. I was never to slip the surly bonds of earth, except for a few flight lessons and a few commercial flights but, I did become an engineer.
What’s your point Joe?
If you feel technology is the way out of our economic mess. If you feel having more scientists and engineers are the way to get there. Then, you should understand the value of a manned space program. Let’s call it the Air Force method of recruiting.
Have you ever seen airmen greasing fittings on the tractor which pulls airplanes on a recruiting commercial? Have you ever seen an airman cleaning out the porta-potties on transport planes in a recruiting commercial? Well, of course they don’t show any of those critical tasks being performed on an Air Force recruiting commercial. What do they show a young 18 year-old when they want him to join the Air Force? They show the sexiest part of the mission. They show pilots breaking formation in F-22 Raptors. They show pilots flying simulators which make a kid’s X-Box at home look like Pong. How many Raptor pilots do you think are recruited each year as a percentage? I would bet it is a very small percentage.
For a large percentage of us, calculus is not really fun. I personally learned the math so I could do the fun stuff like science. My dad taught math and I still hated it. I did however, see the thrill in his eyes when he explained where Neil Armstrong happened to be on that hot July day in 1969. He and Neil inspired a love of science that would only be reinforced later by my high school science teacher. At the end of the day, like most kids, I would have never learned math for math’s sake. Like the Air Force, I was shown the Raptor and not the hard work required to make the Raptor fly.
My point in this article flies in the face of what another celebrated spokesman scientist, Doctor Carl Sagan, preached. He and many other scientists called the manned space program a waste of money. They would tell us a thousand robots like the famed rovers spirit and opportunity could be launched for the cost of one Shuttle mission. However true it may be, most kid’s eyes glaze over when they see a little six-wheeled rover digging in red dirt. You need a real person hopping in a big tall rocket and blasting into space to capture the mind of a twelve year-old. You may think twelve is a little early but, in today’s education system, twelve is when a kid begins to decide which math to take. To be able to take calculus in high school you have to take algebra in the seventh or eighth grade.
So when we talk about seventh and eighth graders making poor math scores on achievement tests, I submit the best way to fix the problem is to inspire them. Inspire a new generation of Joes, Neils and Sallys. It’s easy to talk about a manned program and hard to fund it in an ongoing meaningful way. It is especially hard when we consider manned space flight a luxury. If you think about space flight in terms of a recruiting tool to help our country regain it’s technical edge, it begins to look more like a necessity.
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There a moments from time to time when you wonder if people are, as my high school civics teacher would say, “using there head for something besides a hat rack.” When a group of lawmakers who I believe to be mostly Democrats decided to reverse the reduction in GM and Chrysler dealerships, I found myself wondering what the crap they were thinking.
For about two seconds the idea sounded reasonable. We do have an economy which is hemorrhaging jobs. Automotive dealers do provide jobs. The government does own a controlling stake in these companies by virtue of the bailouts. I guess the legislature is a sort of voting member of the board. Ok, that’s where the logic begins to break down.
Break downs in management, as any basic management course will tell you, almost always occur when there is an unclear chain of command. Trying to make two bosses happy almost never works. In case the lawmakers haven’t noticed, the man at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is trying to manage the problem. The Obama Administration, an army of bankruptcy lawyers and boat load of stakeholders have spent months trying to save the two car companies. The bankruptcy of the car companies has been painful for everyone. Workers, management, bond holders and stockholders all got punched in the financial nose. Some dealers got hit too.
So why would a few members of Congress decide to pick winners and losers after months of negotiation have been mercifully concluded? Why are dealership jobs more important than assembly line jobs or bond holder losses? I’m no economist or automotive expert but, in my town I see a two to one ratio of domestic to foreign dealers. Having too many dealers has to be counter productive.
I haven’t looked but, I’ll bet, as usual, Congress’ interest is probably about the money. Dealer groups have donated the right amount to the right Congressional campaigns. Obviously, they gave more than the other interested groups I mentioned. I wonder if we will ever be tired of people with the most money getting the best representation in our capitols.
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If you listen to National Public Radio’s (NPR) All Things Considered (ATC) in the afternoons, I am sure you have heard the voice of Melissa Block. She and Robert Siegel host the weekday shows. NPR, in general, and Block in particular go out of their way to be polite to interviewees. Sometimes, when she interviews a particularly mean person, I even get a little nauseous because she is almost too polite.
So when Block interviewed the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, this afternoon you can be assured Block’s tone and delivery shouldn’t have made Pelosi answer with the venom she chose.
Pelosi’s venom was apparently directed at Block over a line of questions regarding today’s tiff between the House Intelligence Oversight Committee and the CIA over alleged lies told to the Committee by the CIA. Questioning Pelosi was fair game because she had made similar allegations earlier in the year over water boarding. Moreover she is the leader of the U. S. House of Representatives. It is beyond belief that Pelosi, at a minimum, was not aware of the committee’s interactions with the CIA. Block began by asking what the CIA was alleged to have concealed from the Committee. Pelosi responded by saying it was classified. The interview went downhill from there. Persistent but kind, Block tried to get any indication from Pelosi regarding how she felt about the Committee’s activities. “…I don’t know how many times I have to tell you…I only have a few more minutes… If that is how you want to spend your time,” was Pelosi’s tenor throughout the interview.
I get it. Pelosi is dealing with classified material. If however, negotiating national security and answering questions which were sure to come was too tall an order, she could have simply declined the interview. Now, Pelosi has never been accused of having the best delivery but, being down right ugly to Melissa Block might lead someone to think Pelosi isn’t up to the job.
In doing her job, Pelosi has not seemed to be the happy warrior. I get the impression she and a few other Democrats are a little nostalgic for the days of a right wing Republican in the White House. Both left wing Democrats and the CIA ironically have a lot in common these days. They have both traded a clear cut enemy for one who is more elusive. In their respective new worlds, old friends disagree and it is sometimes hard to tell who is on your side. Today, Pelosi sounded like she could be withering under the pressure of the new political world in Washington.