new highs in low...

Oregon Representative Sal Esquivel posted a video from the floor of Congress in which Representative McClintock of California lectures the president of Mexico on "butting out" of the American political discussion on immigration.

It's just breathtaking (even for those of us who no longer breathe) for an American politician, or two of them, to fault the Mexican government for "contempt" of American policy. Only the ignorant, tone deaf and out of touch (or cynical?) could do that without shame. Even the dead wonder about several things swept up in the flow of this hypocritical sewage.

I'll just focus on one of these things, for the sake of not confusing the two members of the House(s) of Representatives (of the United States and of Oregon) with too many facts at one time.

Americans first "butted in" to Mexican politics, of course, with the Monroe Doctrine and then with an army that invaded the country. That war was fought to protect American illegal immigrants to Mexico who, settling in Mexico decided that they didn't want to assimilate, learn the language or to adopt Mexican values. Eventually this completely un provoked military conquest led to the annexation of a substantial amount of Mexico, itself, to the United States. Why settle for anchor babies when you can just take the whole place away from it's rightful owners? Abraham Lincoln, then a mere member of Congress, opposed that war for what it was--an imperialist adventure. It was, by the way, an attempt by Southern politicos to get more territory--more states--to bolster its control of Congress to prevent the undermining of salvery.

If only American presidents, through our history, had only done what Mexico's president is now instructed to do by a sneering Representative McClintock, such instruction to which our Representative Esquivel of Jackson County, Oregon adds his own hail and hearty "right on." Imagine if interference from the United States in the affairs of Latin American countries was limited to our president giving speeches!

Instead, American presidents and Congresses have a record (that cannot be contested) of supporting a long stream of military invasions, creating revolution and engaging in political murder, funding death squads, and manipulating debt to demand that economies be "reformed" so as to allow America "access" to resources and markets, backing up corrupt elites that economically marginalize the majority of the citizens of these countries we have "helped."

In fact, the United States looks more and more every day like one of those countries, politically and economically. With more and more of the wealth of this country being concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, we look more and more like countries south of our borders from which people flee looking for work. Capital is currently "on strike" in the United States--withholding hiring--to bully politicians into keeping health, safety and financial regulation in the same hamstrung position it was left by the Bush Cheney administration....I digress.

Lectures from American politicians to Latin American countries about not meddling in our political discussions? We continue to operate the infamous "School of the Americans" where Latin American "leaders" (and those being groomed to become leaders) are being and have been trained for decades in how to replace current leaders if they turn out not to our liking and how to support those who "play ball" with us. It comes down to teaching them to do things contrary to the limits we once believed should be put on governments and up with which we would not put (at least I hope we would not) from our own military. Torture, for example, and other state terrorism inflicted on their own population is included in the curriculum.

Against this backdrop of commonly known and uncontroverted history any American politician--whether a federal or a state representative--lecturing any latin American president or leader (even Fidel or Senor Chavez) sounds like a shrill ignoramus.

Such politicians and their followers live up to the description of a newsman of my day--they are jackals who are worshipped by jackasses. (If you don't know who I am writing about Google the quote.)

Immigration policy is beyond the ambit of the duties of a state representative, a fact currently understood in all but one of our states (although an activist US Supreme Court--looking at "intent of the founders" rather than the preamble to the Constitution for guidance--that is capable of butting into an election to name a president in a most unconstitutional way, could well decide it's up to the states to preempt federal law--which is a new way of nullifying that law).

Mr. Esquivel would be better served, as would his constituents, if he could come up with some new ideas for Oregon economic recovery that were not a reprise of the Bush era policies that got us in this mess. Here's a hint--make Oregon's income tax progressive, again. Let the people with the best seats in the house pay the most for their tickets: let those who benefit from the way state and federal policy sets up the economy pay their fair share to keep it set up that way. Just an idea that seems to make enough sense at most every athletic venue. It's not like it's "socialist."

Unable to do that, however (because the point of Republican economic policy is to accelerate, not halt, the concentration of wealth), the Good Representative from Medford (like his counter part in Congress from California) will keep trying to distract us with fear of illegal immigrants.

It seems easier and easier to fool the American people. But it's damned hard to fool the dead. I'll seeing you (and don't doubt that).

one of America's great national past times...

one of America's great national past times
is chocolate fudge,
holding a grudge
bribin' the Judge.

So said the Eagles in a fast moving song from a while back.

Here's an article that shows us one more example of how "money is just free speech" makes a mockery of the republican form of government and allows the wealthy to "vote" many times more than you can at every election.

They own of Congress and state legislatures
They own the initiative petition process
And they own judges

It's been this way for a long time and it's just becoming more apparent now.

Will anything ever be done about it?

More Class Warfare from "Just to the Right of Center"--Whatever did you expect?

New face--same old class warfare, but it's a less extreme class warfare, no longer coming from the hard right but from "Just to the Right of Center."

Well, that's a relief.

Ms. Elizabeth Hovde says the Oregon legislature blew it by not lowering the minimum wage in this session.

As a spokesperson for those Just to the Right of Center, those who used to call themselves Conservatives and/or Libertarians, Ms. Hovde wants to "tweak" the minimum wage law that was passed by the people through an initiative vote.

Typically, not letting the hob-goblin of consistency get in their way, this comes from people with a history of rising up in outrage when anyone suggests "tampering with the will of the people" by "tweaking" any of the cock-eyed tax or prison "reforms" that Conservatives have used to undermine the infrastructure upon which Oregon's middle class once rested.

But, hey, to change "the will of the voters" about the minimum wage--well, that's no big deal to the very people who not so long ago could preach, with the straightest of faces, the benefits of "local control" here in Oregon while, at the same time, passing laws prohibiting such control by school districts that wanted to keep military recruiters off campuses or by cities and counties that wanted to pass gay rights ordinances.

I digress.

Ms Hovde's commentary "justifies" lowering the minimum wage with a commonly used rhetorical device--a string of allegedly ironic "never mind" statements.

All of these she trots out are actually "so what?" statements in that they are either prove nothing or are based on the reality-denying fantasies of the Just to the Right of Center/Conservative oracle--the School of Religious and Economic Faith at the University of Chicago. You would do well, therefore, to do as she says--never mind what she says.

She begins with "never mind" that Oregon has the second highest unemployment rate in the country.

No one has ever shown me a study of sound methodology that demonstrated any substantial link between minimum wage and the availability of jobs. You will have as many jobs as there is business going on to need them, generally speaking. Her statement that a high minimum wage stifles employment is a warmed over Libertarian myth that they prove by saying it's "just common sense." (Ever notice how what people say is common sense has more commonality than it does, upon reflection, sense?) This is repeated and repeated notwithstanding the inability to show convincingly (just read the studies they've ginned up to "prove" it) any such connection in the real world. If you want to see Libertarianism in action, by the way, visit Somalia today. There's a place where you don't have to worry about "men with guns" showing up if you don't do what those in charge want.

I digress, again.

This connection between the minimum wage and the availability of work is very like that argument you bought a while back in passing property tax "relief." Remember? Based on the ideological fantasies of the those now locating themselves Just to the Right of Center you were told that lowering property taxes on businesses would lead to lower rents and prices in stores. That's because, they told you, it was just common sense. In a free market if the cost of doing business goes down the imperative of competition forces sellers to lower their prices. Since property taxes are a cost of doing business if they are cut so are prices. The iron and hidden hand of the free market would force rents and prices down.

Makes sense, doesn't it?

You do remember them saying this to convince you to pass property tax "relief," don't you?

Still waiting for those lower rents and prices, are you?

I digress, once more.

"Never mind," Ms. Hovde continues, that Oregon's minimum wage is higher than the national minimum wage.

Again, never mind this statement because it is even less sincere than it is persuasive.

I wonder if Ms. Hovde, upon seeing the federal government jump off of the capitol dome, would think it a good idea for Oregon state government to do the same. I wonder, too, what other federal standards she and the Conservatives and Libertarians standing "just to the right of center" with her here in Oregon think we should adopt because they are federal standards.

Those now styling themselves as being "just to the right of center" often argue, in regard to Roe v. Wade, that the United Sates is a federal republic in which things should be worked out in the laboratory of the states, as the people there see best for them.

Well, here in Oregon our current minimum wage is an example of that very principle at work. Is Ms, Hovde, on behalf of those Just to the Right of Center saying that the people of Oregon--you--aren't smart enough to govern yourself as you see fit? In passing the minimum wage law does Ms. Hovde think you were too stupid to know what was good for you? Do you, the voters of Oregon, need some "smarter" entity (see below) to set the minimum wage at an "appropriate" level?

Ms. Hovde skips on to say that you should "never mind" that one in six people in Oregon receive food stamps but here she's wrong--you should mind this fact, although not because it has anything to do with the minimum wage. The sad fact of one in six Oregonians being on food stamps should be firmly laid at the feet of the class war waged on you from Just to the Right of Center.

Would people making a minimum wage that was lowered to a level "appropriate for the economic conditions" (to be determined, apparently, by those Just to the Right of Center) be earning enough to ineligible for food stamps?

Is she gunning for two in six people in Oregon getting food stamps?

She returns to being correct, however, when she says you should "never mind that Oregon would need 1,200 to 2,000 new jobs a month to stay even with population growth" because there is no hope that cutting the minimum wage will increase the number of jobs.

Think about this: employers wouldn't "invest" the money from cutting wages in hiring new people because they would have to pay for the book keeping and the tax contributions and unemployment insurance and all the rest of the overhead involved in having workers. More employees, with the same revenue, would lower the bottom line.

So, Ms. Hovde's advice to "never mind" anything she said is, pretty much, good advice. It's all irrelevant to the minimum wage and proves nothing.

Does she just want to distract you into continued sacrifice to those tired and once more discredited economic idols so you heed the guidance of their priests--you know, the people like her and good old David (what was his last name?) who stomped off the editorial page once there were fewer people on his side of the Red Rover game than on the other.

Or is she so taken with her faith in her savior--the hidden hand--that she really thinks that there is such a thing as a free market, one that is beyond the manipulation of human beings, especially human beings with a lot of money?

It doesn't matter which, of course. If you were in the middle class, or aspired to be there, the people now presenting themselves as being from Just to the Right of Center have knocked the snot out of you for 30 years. And if you listen to her they will keep right on doing that.

You made some real progress between the Great Depression and President Reagan, but that's gone, dismantled and sold for scrap by so called Liberals as well as the Conservatives--those Just to the Right of Center--all of whom rely on the campaign contributions of those who, perched on piles of money, can hire/bribe politicians to set things up to make their piles larger. And you know where the money comes from to increase the size of their piles. But that's another post. One you've read, from me, several times, now.

Just as in my day, these people--whatever they call themselves in the moment--have handed you this stuff for years. Now they have been in charge of economy for the last eight years, after chipping away at the safeguards built into it for twenty years before that. All the time talking about tax cuts bringing prosperity and unleashing the power of capitalism.

How has that worked out for you?

If they are right why are you so worried about the future they have created for you?

In the end you will have to crawl out your window, away from the control of the Just to the Right of Center Libertarian Conservative types, if you are going to set things right in Oregon, set things right for you and for your children.

Trust me, I know this is hard.

But remember, this aint beanbag. This is class warfare Ms. Hovde is waging on you, from Just to the Right of Center, as it's been waged on you for years. And you are losing.

A Pair to Draw To

We are going to have HB 2005 and people on both sides are, as usual, deceiving you.

And you need a dead guy to see through this...

One of them, Senator Ted Ferrioli, says it will undermine your wonderful initiative system and the other, Secretary of State Kate Brown, wants you to think it is a significant step toward fixing it. Neither is truthful.

Look, all this new law addresses is signature collection and how ballot titles are selected.

If you think this is big onions you need to look for perspective in someone else's garden.

This bill touches none of the real problems that the initiative causes you. For example, once this bill becomes law:

1. Unfunded mandates benefiting single interest groups will continue to undermine the budget process, changing the spending priorities worked out among the competing interests in that process that your state constitution, like all state constitutions, is required to provide for you if it is to conform to the republican form of government clause of the US Constitution. (Did you ever actually read the Supreme Court cases that uphold the initiative process? I digress...)

2. Expensive, deceptive propaganda campaigns, based on simplistic slogans and the manipulation of symbols and emotions, will continue to limit the amount and quality of information available to voters, especially information about consequences unintended by advocates or contrary to the interest of voters.

3. Un-vetted provisions written by people not artful at drafting statutes will continue to be jammed into law, requiring extensive rewriting and even changing of laws that are already on the books.

4. The Oregon constitutional structure will continue to be distorted, not just by cluttering up that Christmas Tree document with measures that should be statutes but also by limiting the ability of the legislature to make or change policy and by promoting minority rule.

5. The initiative will continue to used to take apart the social and economic infrastructure upon which middle class well-being depends and the burden of paying for what government continues to do will continue to be shifted away from those who benefit the most from that and onto those who are disadvantaged by it.

Ignoring these, only some of the real problems the initiative causes you, both sides in the HB 2005 debate are putting on a show.

See Senator Ted Ferrioli? He speaks for those who have so effectively taken over the initiative to profit from using it to advance their anti-middle class agenda. If HB 2005 doesn't really do any harm to his team, why would he (and they) be so upset about it? Perhaps successfully addressing these meaningless problems will embolden those who might want to do something about the serious ones. Besides, such howling as he has been doing is part of the effort to keep you thinking that in having the initiative you have something valuable to you.

And then there is Secretary of State Kate Brown. Her dog in this fight are those in the middle class or upwardly mobile toward it. These are the people, like you, who have been victimized by the success of the Good Senator's team at hijacking the initiative. Through some mixture of nostalgia, ignorance and wishful thinking you continue believing that the initiative can be fixed so as to fulfill the vision my friends and I had when we implemented it all those years ago. Maybe Ms. Brown has as much hope in small steps as Senator Ferrioli has fear of them.

Well, good luck with that. If you are clinging to our dreams remember we supported the single tax, too. If you don't know what that was use Google.

As I have explained to you in previous posts, there is no way, given the way that money corrupts it, that the initiative system can ever be of use to anyone except Senator Ferrioli and those who run the poker game it's turned into--a game of Oregon Hold Em Down and Fleece Em at which you can never afford to buy a seat.

Is your brain as dead as I am?

The initiative needs to go.

Don't even try to mend it. Just end it.

And while you're at it, next time you think about the average kicker check, ask somebody who gets the ten biggest ones.

number 41--and drowning

Wednesday June 10, 2009 and the Oregonian is reporting that a little boy died and his sister was saved by "good Samaritans" while the official emergency response--from Portland Fire and Rescue--took 30 minutes to lumber to the scene in the David Campbell, a boat built in 1927, and not built for the mission into which it was pressed that night. Part of the delay had to do with a slow speed of the craft--a quarter of the speed of a boat stationed on Hayden Island that responds to such incidents in that neck of the river--and part to do with the necessity to raise the Steel Bridge to let the big old boat through. Another boat--stationed with the Campbell but out of service for repairs--could have cut 7 minutes or so off the trip.

Now, understand, the Sheriff's Department has a separate rescue capability--with craft faster and a lower profile, not requiring the raising of a bridge between here and there and capable of making the trip at 39 MPH. But, because of "budget cuts" those faster, shorter boats are not on duty at the time of night these children hit the water.

Oregon ranks #41, according to the US Census Department, in state and local tax paid, per capita. Yeah, for all the times you've been told that you are overtaxed here in Oregon you are #41.

In Bill Sizemore talk, that means you are in the 9th "best" state and local tax situation in the country.

Congratulations, Oregon.

Thanks, Bill.

To all the the other costs of being in that exalted class of the "top" 20% for local state and local taxation add the death of one little boy.

But it's not just keeping the Portland Fire and Rescue budget "reasonable" that you could connect to this benefit conferred on you by the tax bashers, if you cared to pick up a pencil.

The "reasonableness" of the budgets of the several agencies that fall into the definition of "mental health" here in Oregon is also responsible for this boy's death and for whatever is the ultimate fate of his mother--sick enough to have pushed him and his sister off of the Sellwood Bridge.

There are probably a number of other underfunded parts of your social, governmental and economic infrastructure you could connect to all this--and plenty of other unfortunate victims you could put on the other side of the ledger. Most of them just die out of sight.

But it may be a comfort to know that whatever was not available to help this wretched woman there will be a prison cell available for her--with no wait list or exemption for a pre-existing condition.

Look around at everything else the lack of which is considered "reasonable"--acceptable--in exchange for your "great" tax rate here in Oregon.

Of course, there is always room for improvement. After all, Oregon business taxes are rated #2 in the country by an advocacy group that skews its numbers so as to make such taxes seem as high as possible in its propaganda.

Imagine how great you'd have it living here in Oregon if your state and local taxes were the second lowest, per capita, in the country!

Makes me glad I'm dead.

et tu Democrats?

Am I dead, or are you?

I have been saying that money corrupts the political process for more than 100 years. Most often my examples to prove this is have described the Republican Party and the people who own them.

That's not fair.

Today I want to talk about how, notwithstanding propaganda and folklore and all the symbols they like to manipulate, the Democratic Party is not somewhere you can go to find representation based on your best interest. It's just as bought and paid for as the Republicans.

It's just the system: it's the money.

Let us take a field trip to the US Senate. I helped turn that body from the millionaire's club it was during the Gilded Age into...into...well, into the millionaire's club it is today. Didn't mean to do that, but I did it.

My thinking was that if we took selection of US Senators out of the hands of state legislators and had people vote directly for them, then Senators would be more likely to do what voters want. Common sense, right? Well, no. Like most of what's called "common sense" it was based on faulty premises so it did not do what my Populist and Progressive brothers and sisters and I thought it would do.

It did make the Senate like the House of Representatives which, since the Constitution was adopted, is made up of people elected by "the people." Big deal. No one there has ever really cared about what's happening to anyone except the people who bankroll them.

And it doesn't matter which party you belong to. Samey-same. I'm guessing, now, that even if we Populists had caught on (or as you would say, today, "gotten traction") the big money guys would have bought us off. Hint: the real change will come when the buyers can no longer buy.

But for two things it would strike you as ironic that a glaring example of this would play out on May 1, 2009. First, it plays out every day in Congress and every state legislature (and county commission and city council and ....) in the United States. Second, most of you don't even know why it would be ironic that the best interest of the people is thwarted by big money on May Day.

May 1, 2009--The Durbin Amendment was killed as 12 Democrats (including the newest Democrat, Arlen Specter) voted against it.

The Durbin Amendment would have given bankruptcy judges back the ability to adjust the terms of a mortgage so that people could stay in their homes and the banks would still get paid what they were owed (just not the premium wind fall profit they get through foreclosure).

The Durbin Amendment would not have instituted some new "socialist" idea--it would have rolled the law back to where it was 30 years ago. That's when bankruptcy judges lost this ability in one of a string of major legislative victories, battles won by wealth, in the current class war that has been successfully all but dismantled the American the middle class.

The Durbin Amendment would have helped 1,700,000 Americans stay in their homes rather than losing them to foreclosure.

The Durbin Amendment was supported by unions, civil rights organizations, and those representing retired persons. It was opposed by the American Bankers Association and real estate lobbyists.

I know you're not allowed to say "class warfare," in this country, but I wonder if you can you even recognized it when you see it, when it's being waged against you.

Richard Durbin said on the floor of the Senate on May Day 2009 that the American people were about to find out whether the people or the bankers owned that place.

He already knew who owns the place, and the Durbin Amendment went down with 12 Democrats voting "no."

Senator Nelson (D-Florida) has received $1,400,000 in campaign contributions from the bankers over the years and it's estimated that 3,700 homeowners he represents will lose their homes thanks to his "no."

Senator Landrieu (D-Louisiana) has received $2,000,000 from bankers and real estate types over the years and it's estimated that 12,000 homeowners she represents will lose their homes thanks to her "no."

Here's a telling epitome of how this works:

"Sen. Ted Kaufman, a Democrat from Delaware, a state nearly wholly-owned by the financial industry, voted his conscience, opposing the banks. He is not running for reelection. "I'm liberated from fund raising," said Kaufman afterwords.

"His Delaware colleague, Democrat Tom Carper, voted with the banks."

He is liberated from fund raising, the man said, and therefore allowed to vote his conscience. Remove the imperative to raise campaign contributions and integrity springs right out, like Jesus from the tomb.

And next week it's credit cards.

Next week it's the bankers and their Senators versus credit card holders (you!) who want relief from the contracts of adhesion that allow the banks, among other unfair provisions, to raise interest rates without notice, even making increases effective before providing notice to the customer, even on balances that existed before the rate increase, and without any kind of process or recourse.

Sure, the bought-and-paid-for R's are going to be there to help the banks try to knock the snot out of the people like you, even those among you who elected them. But D's will be right there with them. Doesn't matter which you voted for, this last go 'round: they turned you and the rest of the middle class over long ago to people we used to call plutocrats. Plutocrats--not you--fund political campaigns. You, not the plutocrats, get pushed away from the table where, as old law school professor of mine used to say, you can put on your tin beak and peck with rest of the chickens.

I don't mind sounding like a broken record: you are equal to the bankers--dollar for dollar you are equal. They have millions of dollars worth of equality. And you have...

In America "money is speech." That's why no one hears you--Democrat or Republican, Clinton or Bush. Big money talks more loudly than your small money. You might be better off buying whiskey or a big screen TV. Or a share in a community garden along with a good sturdy tent.

Hey--even Obama: Obama's "team" is made up of bankers who got us into this mess and who are friends with those who are getting federal money right now (and I am thinking they are going to get more next week when the "stress tests" on the banks are made public).

By the way, President Obama has made a very big deal out of credit card reform. We'll see how that works out for him--for you. I wonder why he was luke warm about the Durbin amendment.

Class warfare? The bankers and their ilk have political office holders sending your money to them to cover "their" losses. They get these office holders to do this by giving them campaign contributions and then paying lobbyists to make sure that the recipients of their largess don't forget where it came from.

That's the millions of dollars of "free speech" they use to drown out your voice--in many instances your TARP money supports their ability to do that to you.

Now, if you received a federal grant you would be required to forego lobbying--but not banks. And don't tell me they don't lobby with the TARP funds, they lobby with "other" funds. That's as stupid as saying campaign contributions don't buy a Senator's vote but only "access." Fact is that the TARP funds free up "other" funds to pay for lobbyists. It doesn't matter which pocket it comes out of, you are paying for that fountain pen and the ink that they use to rob you!

In my day we tried to do something about this dynamic. Yeah, some of our stuff backfired on us and made things worse. But we tried and some of the Populist/Progressive ideas got picked up by FDR and formed the base for the strongest middle class in history. Now that middle class, and the stability it brought to the United States, has been sucked dry and its assets trickled upward to create the most wealthy oligarchy in history.

Is the best you can come up with in the middle of this a strategy pitting one pile of money against another pile of money and thinking that one of those piles of money is going to care about anything except making itself bigger at your expense?

Really? What if the problem is the big piles of money dominating politics, in the first place?

And you think I'm dead?

Catching up on the Mail

Although there is a "comment" feature to this blog people seem to want to respond by email. No Problemo. But really...

So Representative Wingard was kind enough to respond to my quoting the union official about the use of the rainy day fund. He wrote:

"Mr. Uren:

The Democrats control the House and Senate in this State. They and they alone decide whether or not we use the Rainy Day Fund money. Your union organizer has you focused on the wrong party. Democrats currently run this state.

Rep. Matt Wingard"

So I am pleased that Representative Wingard is in favor of using the rainy day fund to tide over state employees and schools and apologize to anyone I might have misled (the union will have to do its own apologizing) for associating Representative Wingard with "Republicans."

And the same to Senator Kruse...

Dear William,

You have that wrong. The republicans have been advocating for the use of the rainy day funds for months. It has been the Governor and the democrats, but mostly the Governor who have been saying no. In fact the Governor said he would veto any bill spending any of the rainy day fund.

Sincerely,

Senator Jeff Kruse

I hope they will write me soon and let me know how they feel about the NW Republican website's lying about the Employee Fair Choice Act, too.

At the bottom...comment...

So I haven't heard from the union organizer...about this...where do we suppose she got her information?