Chicken Sandwiches?

Boy are we in trouble! The nation continues to experience enormous problems but the nation’s media continues to devote much time to the rants of one CEO of a fast food chain.  Let’s review the situation (with appreciation from the Internet):

“We are so hosed:

·         We are in perpetual war with multiple countries

·         14 million of us don’t have jobs

·         We are $16 trillion in debt

·         Our education system sucks

·         We’ve been in recession for four years

·         Our government has assassinated US citizens

·         We have killed thousands of innocents with drones

·         We are on the edge of a fiscal cliff

·         Our Olympic team wore frickin’ berets made in China

And the one thing that motivates people to speak out is the opinion of a guy who sells chicken sandwiches!?”

Yeah, sure! This is what is important, right? I think not.

Here’s a little more perspective on the details behind Dan Cathy’s so called outrage:

            “This man [Dan Cathy] is not a hero.

Fact #1: Millions of dollars of Chick-fil-A’s corporate profits are donated to non-profit groups opposing or supporting the repeal of laws that grant same-sex couples equal human rights.

Fact #2: One of the organizations that gets Chick-fil-A money is the Family Research Council, which has been designated an official hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center

Fact #3: The Family Research Council spent $25,000 in 2010 lobbying congress to not condemn the Uganda “kill the gays” bill which would have subjected homosexuals in Uganda to the death penalty.

So, as you line up in support of this man and his business, please remember that part of every dollar you spend is being funneled into hate groups that encourage the execution of gay people in other countries.”

            Remember what Malcolm X said?  His caution was:

“If you’re not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.”

I think this point has been reached! Too bad. We let others do our thinking for us rather than doing our own work. We have the ability to think for ourselves and to do the research. It is not overly time consuming or physically taxing. We can also share our findings with others in informed discussions. This activity alone will spread the knowledge farther.

Free speech is one thing. Free hate speech is another. Spreading your religious beliefs far and wide as though you have totally uncontrolled freedom to do so ignores the reality of consequences.  If Dan Cathy wishes to spend his company’s public support for his products in this manner, he must also weather the losses of market share as consumers prefer their eats from fairer, more open minded companies. I for one will never darken the door of a Chick-fil-A. I hope you will boycott the chain as well.

When civil discourse and open minded tolerance for differences among us become our norm, then we can buy product and service from the best and cheapest provider. In the meantime the “free market” allows me to attach a penalty to Dan Cathy’s narrow-mindedness.

August 8, 2012

Stupid Politics that Make America Look Silly

From the Internet:

“Meet Viviette Applewhite. She’s 93. She marched with Martin Luther King, Jr. and has voted in nearly every election for the last 60 years. She has tried for years to get a photo ID to no avail. Pennsylvania’s new voter ID law would keep her vote from being counted in November. Pennsylvania Republicans passed the new law even though they admit they have no evidence of in-person voter fraud. Isn’t trying to stop her from voting the real fraud?

Not only is it fraud by law, it is also stupid. I thought American were smarter than this. We allow political hacks to manipulate the law like this? So what to do? Well, we could file a lawsuit and challenge the law and get it kicked out by higher courts. But that takes time, money and will distract our attention from the real problem: we do nothing and let dumb manipulators get away with this sort of thing. Why is anyone listening to the republicans?

My congressman, Randy Hultgren ~ an otherwise nice guy, acts the role of a total ass. His latest email newsletter claims the republican controlled house of representatives have passed 3 job acts that would create 700,000 jobs and save the treasury nearly a billion dollars compared with Obama’s lack of action on jobs and threats to raise taxes.

First of all, that is pure bunk and he knows it. But he writes it and says it. So somewhere many people will take this as fact. Sad isn’t it?  Actually, Obama has presented more than 3 job creation acts all of which have been denied in the House. He has been blocked by the House every time he has proposed economic corrections, financial stimulus, and job creating strategies. He is only promoting the re-imposition of income taxes present and applicable prior to Bush’s tax cut. And then, only on those individuals earning $250,000 a year or more. He has even pushed that proposal to $350,000 or more most recently. Still no talking or compromise offered by the republicans.  A shame.

Anatole France (a 1921 Nobel Peace Prize Winner) said:

“Stupidity is far more dangerous than evil, for evil takes a break from time to time, stupidity does not.”

And stupidity in today’s age has politicians saying up is down and down is up. That’s really stupid. Yet you hear it from my congressman, and Mitt Romney and all the other ideologues fighting for votes and power of congress and the White House. What is even more stupid: the American voters on the street seem to be falling for this line of baloney.

More stupid stuff to consider all from the Internet:

“The Republicans have introduced:

·         46 bills on abortion

·         113 bills on religion

·         73bills on family relationships

·         36 bills on marriage

·         72 bills on firearms

·         604 bills on taxation

·         467 bills on government investigation

And blocked the American Jobs Act.”

“Did you know that Republicans have held 33 votes to repeal the Affordable Care Act? This political grandstanding wasted 2 full House work weeks and over $50 million in taxpayer funds.” [www.schneiderforcongress.com]

Ozzy Amos has said: “Stop letting people who do so little for you control so much of your mind, feelings and emotions.”

Will Smith stated: “Formidable Republican Opposition; I can’t say what this is in regards to, but I immediately thought of all the misinformed angry Americans that vote against their own interests when voting Republican!”

From Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, “If this flood of outside money continues, the day after election, 17 angry old white men will wake up and realize they’ve just bought the country.”

Bruce Bartlett, a former Reagan Economic Policy Advisor, states: “Frankly, one of our political parties is insane, and we all know which one it is. They have descended from the realm of reasonableness that was the mark of conservatism. They dream of anarchy, of ending government.”

FDR said long ago, “We must especially beware of that small group of selfish men who would clip the wings of the American Eagle in order to feather their own nests.”

And Noam Chomsky said, “The general population doesn’t know what’s happening, and it doesn’t even know that it doesn’t know.”

And finally, an anonymous humorist said, “Scientists say the universe is made up of protons, neutrons and electrons. They forgot to mention the morons.”

That should do it for today. All I’m saying is the republicans haven’t come up with a good new idea for many years. They rely on our poor memory. And they constantly redefine the physics of gravity and try to make us believe up is down, and down is up.

Thank God we do know wrong from right. If you don’t understand the issues, please ask someone who does and you trust. And then spread the good word!

August 6, 2012

Free Markets & Free Elections?

Not anymore. Not in America, anyway. The markets are not free. Neither are elections.

Let me explain these stark statements.

First, markets have not been free for some time. There are plenty of reporters, pundits and financial TV anchor persons who make raving remarks on what is a free market and what is not. Truth be told, there are so many regulations and safeguards protecting the players that the only persons getting hurt are the buyers and sellers of the stocks, bonds or commodities in transaction. A lot of hullabaloo surrounds these markets. But all is staging to make people believe they are entrepreneurs acting on their own free will and will make a bundle of profit or lose it simply because they had the smarts to know when to buy and when to sell.

Bosh! That isn’t the truth and hasn’t been for at least a few decades. And here’s why.

Traders on the floor, and brokers in their offices glued to their computer screens make money when trades are made. They have no skin in the game. They just want people to buy and sell. The price does not make a difference. In past times commissions were a high percentage of the sale price, but now it is a matter of stocks traded, not the price. And those commissions or fees are much lower than they once were. So what’s driving the market? Volume! And what drives volume? Sheer nonsense. Plain and simple hawking by people who want you to think something is going up or down and now is the time to buy or sell. Their interest is not in your well being; they are focused on their own income. I kid you not.

There are still investor firms who coddle major investors and guide their clients to investment choices that will hold value and grow over the long term. These people are becoming rare. But notice: they focus on investors who are growing a significant portfolio. Try and get their attention if you only have $10,000 to $50,000 to invest. They prefer to spend their time in the several hundred thousand dollar portfolios, so they can get them into the millions. But notice again: these are the few clients, not the most.

Thus, Wall Street managers are focused on their own money and that of wealthy clients. Of course they want safeguards that protect them. To hell with the smaller investor. Or even the small firms trying to raise capital to expand their businesses.

The stock market was originally the place you went to sell stock in your firm. That is called raising capital so a business can be big enough to have an impact in the chosen markets of products and services. This is the business that is expanding and hiring employees and making good things happen in the economy. Instead the market is mostly made up of people and firms buying pieces of paper – stocks and bonds – and trading them on margins to make a profit. Not to build a portfolio of growing value and solidity in the economy. No, the traders are in charge; not you the owner of stocks or firms.

Watch the market indicators: Dow Jones Industrials, NASDAQ, Standard & Poors. They jump around on rumor, feelings, emotions. Not fact.  I repeat, not fact. And when that happens, what do you think really drives market prices?  Fear and trembling. And who is spreading the news of such fear and trembling? The stock brokers, stock traders, and news pundits on radio, TV and cable programs.

Ladies and Gentlemen, this is all smoke and mirrors. It is stage craft. The newsy folk make lots of money saying outrageous things. Watch CNBC for a few months and you’ll see what I mean. The ladies and gents doing serious talking based on facts and trend analysis, often have much more to say that is important than the opinion people who anchor those TV programs. The latter opine all day long, and turn their news into political policy pap. And almost entirely such pap is conservative republican drivel.

And there is a reason for that. They want controls in ‘their’ economy so they can make money with less risk involved. That’s pretty basic.

Support republican candidates because they will legislate to protect investors, bankers, insurance companies and investment bankers. Their taxes will be at lower rates so they have more money to invest. Their dollars will be protected so they have fewer losses as the US government protects all these people.

If that were true the Glass-Steagall Act would still be the law of the land, or a close variation of it. If the markets should be free of regulation as it was when the latest boom bubble market went bust, then we would have had a calmer, more sensible investment environment. As it was, AIG was protected against loss by the Congress. So were the largest banks in the nation. And too investment brokerages.

Republican politics aside, Wall Street sold the nation down the river and continues to hide its own culpability by blaming Democrats and Obama.

Let’s be clear: Obama had nothing to do with creating the environment that led to the debacle of the home mortgage mess, the banking mess, the decline of the Euro due to the spreading global mortgage mess, the failing of huge banking enterprises, and what not.

Obama was responsible for addressing the debacle. TARP and the stimulus program saved the banking system and the economy from a total melt down. But republicans whined and blockaded every program to save the economy until they had assurances that their protected moneyed classes were held whole. Then, because such policy is rubbish and only adds to the burden of the economy, they blame Obama.

Economists come in many stripes and colors. But on the whole they will support the Obama brand of central government policy over the republican brand any day. Responsible people do that. They are mature enough to know the score and what needs to be done about it. And we have lots of such mature policy thinkers and doers.

Romney doesn’t understand foreign policy any better than he understands economic policy. He is the fox in the hen house watching out for his own kind, not the good of the nation. And he and his republican cohorts in Congress are itching to get their hands on the levers of policy making that will spread the wealth only to their own kind.

America, it is time to wake up and vote for sanity. Keep a democrat majority in the Senate, return the House of Representatives to a moderate course and hopefully pull the majority back to the Democrats. And without doubt, re-elect Obama to the presidency.  Then we will smooth out the policy wrinkles and get the country working again.

The policy that would do this has been proposed over and over again. But the republicans blocked it every time unless they could wheedle changes that would protect their special interests. We cannot let that happen again. It is time to make solid corrections so we can get back to growing both the economy as well as the nation’s spirit of possibility.

Tell the Tea Party they are empty headed. Demand all congressmen to act for the good of the nation, not special interests. Monitor them and their votes closely.

And above all, end private dollar financing of re-election campaigns. No private donations at all. None. No business donations. No PACs (political action committees), no private wealth donations. Just ideas. Just conversations that educate the voters and win the day by persuasion and factual discourse.

It will take guts to make this happen. There are plenty of bad guys on both sides of the aisle in congress. But it is up to us to make sure this horror stops and we get our nation back to a sane course moving strongly into the future.

Bill Moyers wrote:

“We hold elections knowing they are unlikely to produce the policies favored by the majority of Americans. We speak, we write, we advocate – and those in power turn deaf ears and blind eyes to our deepest aspirations. We petition, plead and even pray – yet the earth that is our commons, which should be passed on in good condition to coming generations, continues to be despoiled. The people have occupied Wall Street because Wall Street has occupied America.”

Please, let us stop this travesty!

August 5, 2012

This 'N That

A little bit of this, and a little bit of that for today.

Bill Maher states:

“We need more people speaking out. This country is not overrun with rebels and free thinkers. It’s overrun with sheep and conformists.”

I’m sure there are those who think otherwise, but in the main I think Maher has it right. It’s one thing to speak out with a loose and crazy tongue. It’s a whole different thing if you are speaking out with sound ideas, good questions and observations of what’s happening, etc. Those thoughts provoke conversations with meat and logic that leads to stronger understanding of problems and their potential solutions. The other type of dialogue is tendentious and distracting. I suspect that’s the purpose of such noise in the first place. So, we have some work to do. Let’s get down to it!

From the Internet:

“The only reason you are a citizen today is because your ancestors believed and practiced immigration.”

Let’s not argue about legal or illegal immigration. At one time there was only one type and it was all legal. Today times are more complex. Legal definitions need to be refined; they also need temporary solutions to settle the outstanding policy issues surrounding illegal aliens. So let’s do it. John McCain tried to do it; so did George W. Bush, so has Obama. But depending on who’s in the White House at the time, the other camp always appears to rebel and make compromise impossible. So we need to try again with full honesty. The public must know we are trying to do the right thing and compromise. Those who don’t, will clearly appear as trouble makers. Maybe they will be not returned to office in the next election!  But that is up to the voters.

From the Internet anonymously:

There is a photo of a modest office building, then this caption: “This one building in the Caymans houses 18,857 ‘American Corporations’ that pay NO taxes.”

Imagine that. Sheltered income for the sheer purpose of avoiding taxes. Take advantage of all the loop holes available, yet still squeeze out of paying taxes. Taxes, by the way, which help pay for schools, universities, police and justice systems, roads, bridges, water supplies and distribution systems, communication systems and research and development. All these things are available for companies to use in order to provide goods and services to the market. Still the profits are too small for them; they hide their income and pay no national taxes on it. GE has done this. So have many other large corporations. And of course, there are countless smaller firms organized just for the purpose of avoiding taxes on their commercial interests. And let us not forget these tax regulations have been written into law by the wealthy people and firms who pay for lobbyists and PAC funds in support of specific politicians and special causes.

Shame! You and I have paid taxes for years for what we use. We helped create those services. We helped offer those services. Yet we paid taxes on our income. That’s us; the middle class. We are the engine of prosperity and always have been. We pay a good chunk of our earnings in taxes while inventing new industries, new knowledge, develop new jobs, and raise kids to repopulate the nation. Yet we have had our incomes slashed, our cost of living raised, and our nest eggs eliminated.

This is not about the poor although it could be. It is not about the rich. It is about the middle class. Screw with that long enough and we will fall back to another Great Depression Era. There are those who think we already have but I think not; however, the point of no return is approaching.

Sarah Palin said:

“Go back to what our founders and our founding documents meant – they’re quite clear – that we would create law based on the God of the bible and the Ten
Commandments.”

Wrong Sarah! If it was so clear cut then you wouldn’t have the opening to raise the question in the first place, and have so many of your fellow citizens nodding in agreement. The simple truth is much more difficult.

John Adams signed the Treaty of Tripoli in 1797 and said this:

“The government of the United Sates is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.”

Now that’s clear cut and in direct opposition to Palin’s comment. No doubt our nation was founded in a time when religion held more weight in the prevailing culture. It is out of that context our nation arose. But the framers of the constitution specifically avoided mention of Christianity. It was religious persecution in other lands which gave the largest motivation for people to come to our shores in the first place. Freedom of Religion does not mean ‘do it my way or else’.

A little more openness and honesty please. Civil discourse is just that: civil.

August 4, 2012

Culture & Reality

Andrew Sullivan is a writer born in 1963 in England, moved to the United States in 1984. He considers himself an openly gay catholic conservative. Although born and bred an Englishman, Sullivan has focused most of his writing career on American political themes.

I share a quote from him that I have saved for a while. It is very good. It deserves a serious read. Please take the time to read it now.

Andrew Sullivan wrote: (May 2012)

“... The core gay experience throughout history has been displacement, a sense of belonging and yet not belonging. Gays are born mostly into heterosexual families and discover as they grow up that, for some reason, they will never be able to have a marriage like their parents’ or their siblings’. They know this before they can tell anyone else, even their parents. This sense of subtle alienation—of loving your own family while feeling excluded from it—is something all gay children learn. They sense something inchoate, a separateness from their peers, a subtle estrangement from their families, the first sharp pangs of shame. And then, at some point, they find out what it all means. In the past, they often would retreat and withdraw, holding a secret they couldn’t even share with their parents—living as an insider outsider.

And this, in a different way, is Obama’s life story as well. He was a black kid brought up by white grandparents and a white single mother in Hawaii and Indonesia, where his color really made no difference. He discovered his otherness when reading an old issue of Life magazine, which had a feature on African-Americans who had undergone an irreversible bleaching treatment to make them look white—because they believed being white was the only way to be happy. He wrote:

‘I felt my face and neck get hot. My stomach knotted; the type began to blur on the page ... I had a desperate urge to jump out of my seat, to show [others] what I had learned, to demand some explanation or assurance. But something held me back. As in a dream, I had no voice for my newfound fear. By the time my mother came to take me home, my face wore a smile and the magazines were back in their proper place. The room, the air, was quiet as before.’

Barack Obama had to come out of a different closet. He had to discover his black identity and then reconcile it with his white family, just as gays discover their homosexual identity and then have to reconcile it with their heterosexual family. The America he grew up in had no space for a boy like him: black yet enveloped by loving whiteness, estranged from a father he longed for (another common gay experience), hurtling between being a Barry and a Barack, needing an American racial identity as he grew older but chafing also against it and over-embracing it at times ...”

Powerful stuff whether you are gay or straight. The personal journey each of us travels. Very much alone in many regards, but still in an ocean of love and support from family and friends. Even if they don’t know our deepest secrets.

The journey informs and develops inner strength. But it is not easy.

Now, insert the ‘difference’ as a woman in a man’s world, black in a white world, protestant in a catholic world, Muslim in a Christian world, and so on.

Differences should not matter among us as negative. They should enrich and inform. They are part of our blessed uniqueness.

Where did our public discourse go so wrong on matters such as these?

Now insert the Chick-Fil-A nonsense. Doesn’t the outpouring of support for the homophobic owner of the food chain tell gay people that our nation is still a place of deep discrimination? Freedom of religion? I don’t think so. Freedom of speech? Not without consequences in my mind.

Complicated isn’t it? And yet on such drivel we make decisions on who are our leaders and legislators. They can manipulate our feelings so we vote a certain way.

Aren’t we capable of being better than that?

August 3, 2012

Taking Care of Yourself

I can take care of myself. Not always an easy task. When we were born we were in diapers and totally dependent on others. When we age and are near our end of life, we also become dependent on others, and often back to the diapers as well!

However, the older I get the more I realize that we are each able to take care of ourselves during life much better than we think we can. Hardship teaches valuable lessons. We stretch our abilities and sensibilities. Here are few things garnered from the Internet that may guide our thinking:

Anonymous:

“Seven Lovely Logics:

1.      Make peace with your past so it doesn’t spoil your present.

2.      What others think of you is none of your business.

3.      Time heals almost everything; give the time some time.

4.      No one is the reason of your happiness except yourself.

5.      Don’t compare your life with others; you have no idea what their journey is all about.

6.      Stop thinking too much; it’s alright not to know all the answers.

7.      Smile. You don’t own all the problems in the world.”

Amazing how helpful each of these is if we actually implement them in our lives. It is not easy to do, but well worth the effort. I can’t move into the future if I’m rooted in past worries or resentments. Move on. Learn from the past but move on to a new place. What others think of you is their problem. Eventually they will learn how wrong they were, or maybe right; but then it truly doesn’t matter to you. Move on.

Getting over something painful takes time. You have to give it the time needed for the work to get done. Sometimes it is a deep breath. Most often is it a night’s sleep. But in the main, time will tell you what is right about the problem and what is wrong. Knowing that, learn the lesson and move on. Move on!

I cannot possibly understand everything. Nor can another person. Or anyone. So? Don’t measure your life with another’s. It’s also OK not to know the answers so don’t lose sleep over it. Together we can tackle the issue. And finally, you cannot solve all the problems. You are not responsible for driving the bus just because you paid a fare for a ride. Leave it in the hands of someone else. Let the team work. Move on. With peace. In team, too!

Seven brilliant quotes:

1. Shakespeare: “Never play with the feelings of others because you may win the game but the risk is that you will surely lose the person for a life time.”
2. Napoleon: “The world suffers a lot. Not because of the violence of bad people but because of the silence of good people.”
3. Einstein: “I am thankful to all those who said NO to me; it’s because of them I did it myself.”
4. Abraham Lincoln: “If friendship is your weakest point then you are the strongest person in the world.”
5. Martin Luther King: “We must learn to live together as brothers or we will perish together as fools.”
6. Mahatma Gandhi: “The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”
7. Dr. Abdul Kalaam: “It is very easy to defeat someone, but it is very hard to win someone.”

Each one of these quotes stands on its own merit. Read them carefully. Think on them Meditate on each if you find this helpful. But heed each one. There are treasures within.

From the Dalai Lama comes this statement:

“The world belongs to humanity, not this leader, that leader, kings or religious leaders. The world belongs to humanity. Each country belongs essentially to its own people.”

Is that so? Yes, I think it is. So what are we to do about it? Define our own leadership and get moving, that’s what. Who’s ready to do this?

From Anonymous:

“Don’t carry your mistakes around with you. Instead place them under your feet and use them as stepping stones!”

That’s enough for one day. Probably too much! If so take the time needed to digest it all.

August 2, 2012

Religion and Politics

Blog Draft August 1

Religion and Politics

I know this gets old. The war between religion and politics, but who made it that way? Why are we even talking about this stuff? Especially in a country like ours where these topics are free to be discussed without impinging on the other? Or does the impingement thing have to be present in these battles?

I think maybe that’s the whole point. In America you can be an insulting boor, dumping your views on others, perhaps as nasty as can be ~ because you are allowed.

Well that may be true to some extent, but standards of civility require something different. It suggests we all remain respectful of each other. When that is not present, then that’s when the freedoms come forth raging while civility makes a not so discreet withdrawal!

Cory Booker is the Mayor of Newark, New Jersey. He has said:

“Before you speak to me about your religion, first show it to me in how you treat other people. Before you tell me how much you love your God, show me in how much you love all His children.”

Every religion with which I’m familiar includes a loving God. Also a forgiving God. How then do followers of today’s religions think it’s OK to attack other people based on their religious beliefs? Are there different Gods involved, or just the one? If more than one, then which is more loving and more forgiving? And if this is all so, why is there so much distrust, anger, and yes, even hate present in our public discourse?

President Obama has said:

“I think we recognize the traditions of gun ownership that passed on from generation to generation…but I also believe that a lot of gun owners would agree that AK-47s belong in the hands of soldiers, not in the hands of criminals, that they belong on the battlefield of war, not on the streets of our cities.”

This is not a discussion of religion. It is one of politics and our US Constitution. Having the right to bear arms is one thing, but it was included in order to allow the formation of a well armed militia of citizen-soldiers in order to place a balance against the tyranny of government should it go awry. That is not the same as allowing all citizens the right to own a personal arsenal. Those arsenals are used against the citizenry by criminals, gangs and mobs, in fact, the very groups the rest of us expect the government to protect us from! Why do we make this so difficult? You want some guns? Fine. A few. Something appropriate to personal protection (handgun) or hunting/sport (rifles). What part of this equation allows AK-47s or large bore guns suitable for an army position?

Another anonymous quotation from the Internet:

“Lower income, less educated voiceless people, are so much easier to own and control.”

Is that what the taxation of higher income households is about? That the growth of the gap between the highest of incomes and the lowest needs to be supported in order for the wealthy to control the least among us? Last I heard anything like this was a Biblical exhortation that the wealthy are to care for the poor. But they don’t. And now they want government programs to be cut back so they can continue to maintain their lower tax rates? Something is not right here. It goes against everything the conservatives and republicans have been preaching all these generations. And they don’t see it? They continue to pull the wool over their very own eyes? Odd don’t you think?

From Facebook.com/groobiecat comes this quote:

“Republicans hate Obamacare because it’ll cost money. Okay, but seriously, what is it about taking care of people and paying for it that makes right-wingers so damn angry? Shouldn’t that be a national priority? Why weren’t they angry at the fact that George W. Bush got us into wars that cost over $2 Trillion and killed hundreds of thousands of people, and oversaw the worst economy in 80 years? Reallly?? At least it’s a great lesson for our kids:

                        Healthcare is bad.

                        Killing people is good.

                        Morons make great leaders.”

First of all it is not Obamacare. That is a political label made up by republicans. The actual legislation is named The Affordable Care Act which is an appropriate label. It seeks to make healthcare accessible and responsive to the needs of the American public. Nothing wrong with that. We all pay for it in so many ways. Not all from income tax, either. Many from sales taxes, use taxes, pricing schemes, insurance premiums and more, much, much more. So don’t say the poor don’t pay for their own medical care. Or that senior citizens haven’t paid their dues for their coverage either.

I’ve had talks with doctors lately and they are bewildered by the stagnation of fee schedules they can charge and receive compensation for. They are mostly restricted to the rates of 2001. They do more work for the same money as nearly a dozen years ago. This begs the question: If we are paying more as a society for medical care, who is getting the money? Corporations? Suppliers? Hospitals? Insurance companies? If the doctors aren’t getting it, someone sure is. Who then?

Seems to me those who are getting must be the republicans or their supporters.

Do you see how silly all this sounds?

There’s a problem that needs a solution that involves all of us. So let’s get to work and make this a group effort. Not a political one, or a religious one, or an ideological one.

We are Americans and we stand together to solve the big problems facing us. Nothing wrong in that. Let’s use our heads and logic and get the job done. I think we will get farther along in that direction by eliminating political parties from the process.

August 1, 2012