Vote Like Your Life Depends On It

At some point soon, it just might.  

Weird Wally (that would be me) didn’t get serious about blogging until 2007.   And that was about the time he got his head out of his butt and took a look around.  Something was up, but not yet obvious and Wally took to blogging to help him figure it out.  Although nothing more than an online journal, he learned to question authority, and in the process, finally started paying attention.  A lot of other people also started paying attention, but we could not believe what we were seeing.

Besides the irrational tax cuts and big bank deregulation that no one really wanted, we also saw a gigantic increase in corporate welfare, billion dollar no-bid government contracts, and a senseless war in Iraq.  And not too long before the financial crises of 2008, President Bush and other Republicans were pushing hard to privatize social security and hand the money over to Wall Street.  Fortunately, that didn’t happen.  But would President Obama be sitting in the Oval Office today, were it not for the financial meltdown of September 2008?  

For a while, we believed that our votes actually made a difference, but as Obama’s first term progressed, he didn’t stand up for much and many began forgetting what he once stood for.  Nobody from Wall Street went to jail, foreclosures continued, wages remained stagnant and the rich kept getting richer.

Meanwhile, with the help of a super-secret society, known as the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), many states were busy finding ways to keep minorities, single moms, seniors and single women in general, away from the polls, and voter suppression was just a start.  ALEC also promoted cutting state taxes for large corporations, fighting unions and keeping worker wages as low as possible.

In Washington, DC, things were equally as bad.  The Supreme Court had gutted the Voting Rights Act of 1965, immigration reform stalled and in Congress, the House voted over 50 times to repeal “Obamacare” and Republican politicians cowered to talking heads like Rush Limbaugh and people on Fox News and denied that they were all just bunch of women hating racists, anyway.

But as things started getting uglier, Wally could not yet believe how ugly things already were.  Black men and women who were unarmed were getting shot by cops and regular citizens alike.  Seems like, if you shot and killed an African-American, all you have to say is, that person was “black and I feared for my life,” and if you’re white, you might just get away with it.

Even as Obamacare shows major signs of success and the president is getting his mojo back, no one from Wall Street has gone to jail and the “too big to fail banks,” continue to keep private their profits and make public their loses (by way of the tax code, monetary policy and government subsidies), I’m pissed, but will vote this November in spite of it.

Had Romney been elected in 2012, he and his administration would have ignored ALEC and its attempts at voter suppression and a lot of states would be throwing people off voter rolls unhindered.   As it is, it’s an uphill struggle. 

So if we don’t vote in November, there’s a good possibility we won’t ever have to stress about it again.  A lot can happen in only two years.  Meanwhile, keep an eye out and please pay attention, because you never know.

Corporate Welfare Really Sucks!

Are we screwed?

At first glance, everything looks so boring that it’s hard to care.

And that’s the secret.  When we don’t care, we don’t give it a second glance and that’s how a lot of crap gets by us.  Meanwhile, while we’re not looking, there is a lot going on and massive underplunder is afoot.  Worse yet, we can’t even believe what we think we’re seeing.

We are told, for instance, that society is mainly composed of makers, takers and the rest of us.  The makers are the job creators and we should be grateful to them and praise their very existence.  The takers, on the other hand, are busy living off everyone else.  Meanwhile, the makers are hard at work creating jobs and prosperity for all.  Even as the takers just sit around all day getting high and making babies.  And those people, we are told, are not to be pitied.  If anything they need to be taught a lesson, even if it hurts them badly.

Welfare queens, pimps, drug addicts are usually thought of as brown or black.  People of color.  And they are unlike most of the country.  They are, after all, minorities; well, at least for now.  But everyone seems to know what they're up to.  Even Cliven Bundy, the infamous “welfare cowboy,” wants to tell all who will listen,that he knows “something about the negro.”

And even while grazing his cattle for free on government land, he looks down on, what he sees as, the takers, never realizing that he too, is a taker.  Difference is, he thinks he owns the land.

Even the so-called takers look down on other takers.  The elderly and physically challenged tend to look down on the mental and emotionally challenged, who in turn, look down on people who sit around all day making babies.  But regardless of category, all who depend on government for either income or subsidy will get hurt.  Its budget cutting time and let’s screw the takers real good.  They deserve it.

But who are the real takers?

Ever hear of “corporate welfare?”  Such a thing exists, and it is huge.  In 2006, the government spent about $59 billion on traditional social programs like food stamps and housing assistance, while spending $92 billion on corporate subsidies.    And it’s gotten worse every year ever since.

Corporate subsidies take many forms, from tax breaks to free money for big banks, and a lot in between.  A good example of corporate welfare is the $52 billion “Uncle Sugar” gave to the oil, gas and coal industry alone, in 2013.  In return, the government received absolutely nothing.  No-thing.

So while some politicians are busy trying to convince us to piss all over those beneath us, we might try looking high up, for a change.  At the very people whom we are distracted from ever thinking about.  Those who can afford lobbyist, accountants and high end law and public relations firms.  And although we might have to strain our eyes, if we look high enough, we just might see that that trickledown effect we often feel on the tops of our heads, well, for starts, it ain’t money.

The Hungry Oligarchs

If you’re not scared of the hungry oligarchs yet, you haven’t been paying attention.

According to a study scheduled for release later this year, it’s the economic elites and well-connected business people who are running the country and us average voters don’t really count for much.

Worse yet, even when we organize into citizens and public interest groups, “we have much less influence than corporations or and business-oriented groups,” a Professor of Decision Making at Northwestern University, one of the study’s authors. Page and his co-author, Marten Gilens, a politics professor at Princeton University are hinting that our democracy may have morphed into an oligarchy without us even noticing. 

If recent efforts to enact background checks for potential gun buyers is any example, things are only going to get worse.  "The Supreme Court's recent decisions, which have removed most legal limits on big financial contributions to politics, are likely to increase the political clout of wealthy individuals and leave average citizens with even less influence than they have now," said Page. "I find this very troubling. The Court's view that political donations constitute 'speech' protected by the First Amendment opens the door to money-driven politics and a distortion of democracy."

Which brings to mind an old saying, “money talks and bullsshit walks.”  In the case of our devolving democracy, however, money may talk and our votes may walk; straight into oblivion. 

Walter Lide