NOT SO RANDOM THOUGHTS

    THE SALEM WATCH: I was in the Capitol building yesterday and sat in on the House Health Care committee headed by Rep Mitch Greenlick (D, Beaverton). At one point a discussion/debate erupted over the decision last session to tax health care plan premiums by 1% to fund health care coverage for 80,000 children in Oregon.

    How sad it is for the USA to be saddled with a for-profit health care system that "rations" health care based on one's income while subsidizing a health insurance industry's bloated bureaucracy, bean counters and PR shills who can't deliver a low cost system which covers all Americans as is done is every other developed nation!

    Our well intentioned legislators tinker with the "system" aka the health care industrial complex like modern day Neros while Rome burns. We don't need health care reform we need a health care "revolution" which moves us from a "failed" system to a new health care paradigm.

    While tinkering may give 80,000 children health care, although the number to be covered in 2010-11 are projected to be @ 31,000 according to testimony by Dr. Bruce Goldberg, head of DHS. And even "if" we reach the 80,000 mark by 2011-12 - that still leaves 20,000 out in the cold.

    Just for the record, Oregon has 400,000 without any health insurance! A lucky 35,000 of 140,000 are "eligible" for the health care "reservation" list aka lottery. Lucky them! But as the economy goes into the toilet more will lose their health insurance and end up going to the nearest ER. Who pays then?

    POST 66/67: Sunday's Oregonian had two interesting op ed pieces on the possible effects of the passage of measures 66/67. One article was by my former colleague at Pacific, Jim Moore. The other was by associates of pollster Tim Hibbitts.

    Moore asks the rhetorical question did the unions win a victory with the passage of 66/67? He gives a cautious thumbs up. The pollsters suggest that measures 66/67 are simply in a long line  ballot measure wars going back to the passage of Measure 5 in 1991.

    The pollsters echo my analysis which upset some of my blog readers - that class struggle is alive and well in Oregon. The success of Measures 66/67 "...wasn't Oregonians saying yes to tax increases, it was Oregonians saying yes to tax increases on someone else..." aka the rich and corporate Oregon!

    In my visit to Salem Monday I talked to a lobbyist close to the NO side on 66/67 and like Colts fans he's not over being on the losing side! Measure 66/67 may be less a union victory and more of imprinting a line in the sand between labor and business which also translates into deepening Oregon's urban/rural divide.

    As long as Democrats rule state wide races and nothing suggests they won't with deja vu of John Kitzhaber or Bill Bradbury as the likely next governor - unions will have a friend in Mahonia Hall. But after 2010 will the D's have "workable" majorities in the state House or Senate to do heavy lifting on health care funding or kicker reform requiring super majority votes?

    The pollsters argue the initiative system has delivered a body blow to governance in Oregon. Will the grotesque politics at play in California move north? If this happens all will lose because within the public and the political class there is little evidence of bi-partisanship evident in the "golden years" of McCall, Straub & Atiyeh.

    Last night OPB ran a video of the only state sanctioned pot party - the spring 1970 "Vortex" love-in. To fend off a violent confrontation between thousands of American Legion conventioneers in Portland and anti-war activists GOP Governor Tom McCall took the political risk of thinking outside the box in an election year!

    McCall's re-election in 1970 brought Oregon the fruits of the McCall era - the bottle bill, land use planning and saving the beaches. This seminal legislation passed with bi-partisan votes at a time when the GOP under the leadership of moderates like McCall, Hatfield, Packwood, Frohnmayer and Paulus didn't play the "NO" card their successors now play.

    Will Oregon ever reclaim its Camelot? Recent history says it won't. So 66/67's passage may be not a victory at all but a lull in the coming storm!

    THE BLAME GAME: My Canadian Connection sent me a column from Slate which blames "the childish, ignorant American public - not politicians - for our political and economic crisis." I'm not so inclined to let our "duplicitous" pols off the hook.

    Anyone who follows the antics of the ubiquitous "undecided" voter at election time or the brain dead voters who voted for Nixon in '72, Reagan in '84 and Bush II in '04 has reason to wonder about the intelligence of the American voters!

    Being fooled once should be enough but often we re-elect these boobs! And it gets worse as we vote for the low hanging fruit at the congressional, senate, state or local level. Civics education in the USA has failed or we weren't paying attention.

    But then again look the rise neo-fascism in Europe spawned by fears over immigration. Look at all the failed states in Africa or the despotic autocracies of the Middle East. China ravages its environment as it emerges as a global economic giant. How about our Canadian neighbors who like Alaskans are willing to rape their land for oil revenues and lower taxes?

    I could go on and on. Sadly genuine "dumbness" as Garrison Keillor says rules at all levels. In an era despite having access to more information than ever in human history, we are faced with a constellation of national and global challenges which boggles the mind while it stupefies the general public and political class.

    We live in "the best of times and the worst of times" where fear, prejudice, ignorance and greed rule. The Super Bowl proved the point - it eclipsed the last episode of Mash as the most watched TV event in history! Did you watch it for the game or the commercials? I boycotted it.  Aside from the symbolism of "Katrina" City's team victory - who cares?

    TIGER MANIA: Sure Tiger Woods is no hero or role model, sure he's a shill for corporate America, sure he displays bad manners on the course and sure he's proved to be a louse as a husband. But he's still the best golfer today and probably ever. And the 2010 season was supposed to be a Tiger Romp at Augusta, Pebble and St. Andrews as he chased Jack's record.

    My point is simple. Watching Tiger Woods play golf is for this generation akin to watching Babe Ruth play baseball in his era. Despite Maris et al - there was only one Babe and his record of 60 in one year still stands for we purists. But his private life was less than stellar. For golf nuts neither was Bobby Jones'. I hope Tiger returns with a public apology so we can watch the "A" gamer not the "B" gamers.

    He's a golfer not The Pope! If you judge him only inside the ropes, he's grace under fire. Not his manners - his swing GE... Phil hasn't stepped up, I like Stricker but to paraphrase Lloyd Bentsen's line to Dan Quayle - "we've known Tiger and Phil or Steve - you're no Tiger Woods." Yes, I know there's a double meaning here. But I'm talking pure golf not the private lives of public people.

    If we did a "morals" test of all the Olympians headed for Vancouver BC for the Winter Games how many would fail it? You design the test. Should that factor into the scores? Who was that US swimmer who smoked pot in Canada after the Summer games last time? Didn't I see him in TV ads last week?

    Bottom line watching the PGA sans Tiger is boring - like watching paint dry or grass grow! It would be akin to not being able to watch Apolo Anton Ohno speed stake this next week! Now as far as I know Apolo is nice dude from Seattle - Federal Way to be specific. And he won Dancing with The Stars.

    Tiger, it's time for your "hair shirt" public apology so you can get on with it and tee 'em up.  WM - how's that for combining realism, cynicism and hope?

PIT BULL WITH LIPSTICK

    Sarah Palin did her thing in Nashville Saturday before the "Tea Party faithful." 

    The soccer Mom aka the "pitbull with lipstick" bashed Barack and embraced the aura of Reagan. 

    What role is Palin auditioning for - the GOP Queen of Hearts or the reincarnation of oil billionaire Ross Perot?  Inquiring minds want to know!

    The "sainted one" on the Right and the maven of Fox News (an oxymoron at best) performed her political sideshow for $100K. Guess that's the reason why the entry fee to participate in this "grassroots" event was $500 per person. 

    Glinging to your Bible, hugging your guns and fearing immigrants has a high entry fee. 

    With only 600 attendees paying $500 per pop that earned them $300K.  Being familiar with such events the former Gov and VP nominee must have run up a bill well over $100K plus. 

    You can't throw this kind of party for $150K.  So who was really "fronting" this event - the RNC, Dick Armey's Freedom Works or Grover Norquist?  Who really paid the bill for America's political beauty queen with attitude aka Miss Piggy?

    At the end of the day while Palin is nice eye candy, she makes Dubya sound like a card carrying member of the "best and brightest."  She's the benefactor of a new quota in America - the politics of lowered expectations and dumbness. 

 

HOPE OR HOAX?

    As NPR's "car guys" might say - the signage above is "bogus."  

    Being cynical is easy, keeping hope alive is hard work.  I participated in Barack Obama’s online conversation with America via his organization, Organizing for America.  What I got was not a new form of political dialogue but simply the same old, same old spin game and as usual 30 minutes late! 

    Organizing for America turns out to be an arm of the Democratic Party (DNC).  It’s not an independent entity to put steal into Barack’s spine but simply a vehicle for him to give the same old stump speech he gives at any time he reaches out to his base.  

    I thought, naïve me, that because Barack had been a “community organizer” his organization once it pivoted from campaign mode to goverance mode would go to energize mode – getting the base warmed up to battle the forces of "evil" who protect the status quo.  

    But all I heard was Barack’s stump speech not specific answers to the thousands of  posted online questions, most of them on health care and in favor of a public option. We were encouraged to believe Barack was different.  He’s not.  He’s just another liberal (sort of) politician who wants our unqualified adoration.  

    Organizing for America is not a grassroots organization to make sure Barack keeps his promises but instead is designed to create good vibes for a President who has failed to lead.  He good at talking but there is no delivery on the #1 issue – health care.  

    Don’t get me wrong, I’m not nostalgic for a re-run of Bush/Cheney.  I like Barack and Michelle.  I’m proud we elected an African-American as president.  But frankly if that all there is – that’s not enough! 

     Barack you promised a lot and except for the low hanging fruit like stem cell research via executive orders – what have you done to get a Democratic Congress off its “f….” duff.  Damn little.  

    We were promised health care reform, by August, then by December – now who knows?  We were promised reform of the financial system.  While we bailed out Wall Street and let Main Street shrivel up – we still don’t have any significant reform of the banks.  

    The dudes on Wall Street are going to get more bonuses.  Barack has said he’ll tax their ill gotten gains. 

    David Broder's column in Friday's Oregonian includes this factoid from the President's own budget:  "...Household net worth feel from the third quarter of 2007 to the first quarter of 2009...by $17.5 trillion or 26.5 percent...equivalent to more than one year's GDP..." 

    If this theft of the American people is not a crime I don't know what the word means.  My recommendation is that "if you do the crime, you do the time." 

    So while I was typing this blog I was watching Barack, "the anointed one," do his thing in front of an adoring audience of Barackanistas, probably DNC and congressional staffers with nothing better to day on a late afternoon in DC. 

    He promsed the audience that we’re going to get the job done.  Well good for you, Barack.  But you’ve squandered a year for what?  Well this resident out in the boonies isn’t buying any of the Barack BS.  

    I’m sad to say that Hillary was right – Barack is “all hat and no cattle.”  This was simply another stump speech.  He’s fired up and ready to go again.  The question is where is he taking us?  How about the answering our questions Barack?  

    After almost thirty minutes, he "responded" to 4 out of thousands of questions submitted by the online audience.  Question #1 was what’s the strategy to get health care reform done?  Hey, my question!  I wasn’t alone it seems.  Now read this answer very carefully.  

    Here’s the plan:  30 million will be covered; it creates a health care exchange; no more pre-existing conditions exclusions; no dropping people from care; reducing waste; prevention funding and it’s all deficit neutral.  

    Gee I’ve been reading this for months – what’s new Barack?  Where’s the beef?  The question was what’s your “strategy” not plan!  

    Next stage – a conversation about whose plan is best?  Compare and contrast all the options.  Gee I thought that’s what the last year was all about.      

    Barack said we must not let the moment “slip away.”  Well dude, that’s what you’ve been doing for a whole year!  

    Now read this carefully – “If Congress doesn’t do it – then people will be able to register their concerns via their vote in November.”  That's Plan B - the same time next year bail out!  Do "keep hope alive" folks have "stupid" written on their foreheads?

    Mr. President this is your party’s Congress.  By next year, you’ll lose votes in the House and Senate and possibly a majority in one or both.  So my question Mr. President – what is your strategy for getting Congress of the dime NOW not after the 2010 elections?     

    Bottom-line, Barack NEVER answered the question – what’s the strategy for getting health care reform done?  He made no mention of the reconciliation option and he gave no specific plan B option.  

    So again, all we got was hot air.  As the saying the “devil is in the details.”  But there were no details just spin.  

    This was a waste of my time.  I learned nothing new.  More importantly I got no sense that our President has the plan to get his agenda through Congress.  I see no evidence of any heavy lifting by the "decider-in-chief." 

    Some might say he’s not going to give us his "secret" plan because then the GOP could beat it.  They’ve been doing that with their 41 Senators already. Saying "NO" is easy. So the only “secret plan” out there is the one that’s secret from us not the GOP.  

    This will be my one and only online Q&A with Barack.  I’m not interested in being pandered to.  I want a President who will ask us to roll up our sleeves get change made, not simply make us feel good. 

    The name of the group is a misnomer.  It’s really a front for the DNC and “organize for Barack.”  That’s not the change I believe in and not what I thought YES WE CAN meant.  

    Suckered once, not again.  

    Oh I noticed that Barack’s new budget reduces federal support to end homelessness among school aged children.  So much for change!  As my Canadian Connection might say we don’t need OFA we need a March on Washington.  

    I guess this my "Toyota Moment."  Been there, done that.  Never again!  Yes, "bogus" is the word for this Kodak moment.    

    PS:  The fans of the GOP and Tea Party may be celebrating but it's a pyrrhic victory at best.  Check out these links if you want to read more about Barack's trail of failed dreams.  The first takes you into the deep swamp land of $$$ and Congress; the second into what plan B might look like; the third some light stuff on PR firms and politics; and then more serious stuff about homeless youth and Barack's budget.  For more on the last point Google the National Association to End Homelessness (NAEH) website. 

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100222/lessig

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/hope-has-been-a-bust-its_b_427314.htmlhttp://www.thenation.com/doc/20100222/lessig
http://www.salon.com/technology/how_the_world_works/2010/02/03/murray_hill_inc_runs_for_congress
http://chuckcurrie.blogs.com/chuck_currie/2010/02/presidents-budget-will-leave-homeless-children-behind-in-public-schools.html

        

OUTSOURCING HOPE FOR CHANGE

    My “Canadian Connection” sent me this commentary from a fellow Canadian.  Sometimes others see us more clearly than we see ourselves.  Well, sort of.  Here are Rick Salutin’s comments with my point, counterpoint responses:  

    The change he brought was the election of a black man as president, full stop

    Rick Salutin, Toronto Globe & Mail, Jan. 28, 2010

    RS:  The saddest event in politics is the death of the hope that things can basically change. This genre of loss involves a setback not just to an individual but to a population, or a large part of it, which placed its hope in a candidate or party. We last saw it here [Canada] in the early 1990s, when Jean Chrétien's Liberals forsook the hope and change of their red book, on which they were elected, and chose instead the insipid task of balancing the budget by further shredding social programs. Now it's happening in the United States.

    RAD:  President Obama’s State of the Union address this week tacked to the right appealing to independent voters and cozying up to GOP legislators by focusing on deficit reduction.  In doing this he has earned the criticism of liberal Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman and the praise of conservative columnist David Brooks. 

    For Krugman's take check out this link.  I don't pimp for neo-cons like Brooks, look it up yourself. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/29/opinion/29krugman.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

     However, the outlines of the budget make the President as “deficit hawk” more symbolic than substantive.  His budget proposes increasing spending on education, civilian research, high speed trains and sending the states $26 billion supplementing the money currently in the pipeline for stimulating the economy including expanded unemployment payments.  

    If Barack is serious about bringing the deficit down bring the troops home NOW and then raise taxes on EVERYONE.  War time and an "almost" Depression demand "shared" sacrifice for those with jobs and taxable wealth.  Barack, the GOP and the Dems ALL need a reality check  The Bush war on terrorism coupled to massive tax cuts ended the Clinton era surplus and prosperity.  There is no free lunch. 

    Last week I attended a meeting focusing on homeless vets (mostly Vietnam era vets).  What I learned was shocking.  The VA is so incompetently run that they are decades, not years, behind in serving vets having lost files in fires and from general ineptness.  This story is confirmed by a friend who has worked for several federal and state agencies.  Public and private bureaucracies seem to run according to the "Peter Principle" or "customer no service." 

    How many engineers does it take to design and install a safe car accelerator peddle?  Humm... 

    So who is the real Barack Obama – the deficit hawk or the investment president?  If you want to see where the big money goes check out the President's "proposed" budget for the DoD.  It's a bureaucracy the Congress treats like a spoiled child who gets all the toys it wants and more so, even when the President tries to keep things under limited control  Check out the link below. 

http://www.slate.com/id/2243297/

    RS:  [What is] Barack Obama's presidency [?] It appears at this point that its main achievement will turn out to have been his election itself. That, I rush to add, was a big feat. But it is entirely different from governing in a new way. He promised “change,” which is pure rhetorical boilerplate for presidential candidates, and he brought it. But the change he brought was the election of a black man as president, full stop.

    RAD:  Barack promised “change we can believe in” beginning with revamping our health care system.  So far that campaign promise lies tattered on the congressional cutting room floor thanks to his failed congress-centered strategy.  How Obama ever imagined change could happen by “outsourcing” it to Congress is a mystery. 

    Congress is a cauldron of committees and sub-committees headed by chairs whose egos are inflated everyday on Hill by ambitious staffers and by oily lobbyists.  Being president requires one to provide a roadmap for change and to keep everyone on message with the help of pros like Rahm Emanuel.  We elect one president every four years, not 535 mini-presidents. 

    One of Barack's problems is that his experience as a law professor, community organizer, state legislator and US Senator didn't prepare him to be the USA's CEO.  He's still in the on the job training mode.  He thinks too much like a legislator not head of government.  His job is not to bring people together per se but to make an omelette which requires one to break some eggs.  If he isn't a quick learner his agenda and presidency is very much in jeopardy.

    For a parallel view of Obama see this link from the New Yorker:

  http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2010/02/08/100208tacotalk_hertzberg

    RS:  Some of the blame is his. He may have succumbed to a near inevitable hubris or, as someone said of Kim Campbell's abrupt fall from grace as Canada's first woman prime minister, “believing your own bullshit.” But the real problems are structural: There's not much any president can do outside the frame of what all others do. The list includes giving Big Money what it wants while occasionally bad mouthing it, and making war on small countries. You get some choice about which countries.

    RAD:  Yes, we are the choices we make.  Some feel Barack’s “to do” domestic agenda list was too big – health care, jobs, stimulus and climate change to say nothing of solving the rubric’s cube quagmires of Iraq and Afghanistan.  With 20/20 hindsight it appears so.  But had Obama been more disciplined and involved with managing his agenda via-a-vis congress things might have been different.  A year ago we all embraced “his bullshit” of change – now who knows?  Voters in Massachusetts and Oregon have sent conflicting messages in two weeks.  

    RS:  I mean it. If Howard Zinn, the splendid left-wing U.S. historian who died Wednesday, had been elected president, there isn't much he could have done that differs from a Bush or Clinton. He could have said he had other goals, like cancelling foreign adventures or huge military expenses. That's called “using the bully pulpit,” which Mr. Obama has done. But it has zero to do with making even minor systemic changes to, say, health care. For that, you need 60 votes in the U.S. Senate, which means, inter alia, overcoming the financial clout that drug and insurance industries have with senators, which you won't be able to do, no matter how much you bully them from your pulpit. The problem isn't the intentions, it's the mechanics.

    RAD:  Structural problems aside, Barack “as mechanic-in-chief” did not use the bully pulpit of the presidency enough nor follow-it up with his personal hands on approach to the Congress.  You can’t simply ask let’s reason together, you’ve got to be tough.  You do what any good president does – talk, smile, cajole and if that doesn’t work you send Rahm to the Hill to beat on people by pulling the plug on Joe Lieberman’s or Olympia Snow’s favorite pork projects.  You don’t negotiate with them as an equal you bend them to your will.  

    If that doesn’t work – then you go over their heads to the people.  You don’t sit on the sidelines all spring while the GOP, right wing talk jocks and the Tea Party nut cases go on the attack.  You go to the people and talk it up.  You use their anger at the system and make it yours not the agent of those whose only answer is NO.  For a community organizer to fail this test is unbelievable.  

    The president has four domestic audiences – the public, the media, the lobby and congress.  You bend them to your will working from the outside to the inside.  The basic rule of politics is that all politics in local.  Barack forgot the keys to his campaign’s success – the grassroots.  You get to congressmen and/or senators by subverting “their” base.  

    RS:  When politics can't do real things, it becomes by default a realm of entertainment and titillation, requiring ever new thrills and Susan Boyle-like surprises. If last year's American political idol was the neat black guy, what's better this season than repudiating him in favor of a right-wing former centrefold from Massachusetts who drives a truck?

    RAD:  Politics is theater but it doesn’t have to default to the theater of the absurd.  The anger in the spring was palpable to anyone who was paying attention.  Where was David Axelrod when the grassroots were on fire?  The Obama campaign machine never switched gears to keeping the grass roots well watered.  They dried up as Obama focused on the wars and inside beltway politics.

    RS:  Does this mean basic change in the U.S. is impossible? No. It means the road to it does not run directly through the White House. The last major social legislation – the civil-rights laws of the 1960s – followed a decade of freedom rides, lunch counter sit-ins, nonviolent clashes with police, etc., until a president had the impetus behind him to pass the laws. Before that, the big changes of the 1930s occurred in the context of union drives, radical parties, marches of the unemployed – you get the changes your society is mobilized to demand. Then you wander over to the White House.

    RAD:  Here’s where the next generation of grass roots activists must step up.  Vets have a right to be pissed off, so do the millions of unemployed.  I fear the problem is that those of us engaged in our local communities and states are so focused on putting band aids on the safety net to help the homeless et al we don’t have the energy to connect the dots.  Where is today’s MLK?

    RS:  One of the silliest conceits (or scams) of the Obama machine has been the idea that a campaign organization that elected a president can somehow be converted to a social movement on issues like health care. It doesn't equate. Elections are too broad, superficial, brief and personality-based.

    But there is a movement for the Canadian-style, “single-payer” health care in the U.S. that about two-thirds of Americans consistently say they want. It includes 17,000 MDs and has run campaigns in many states. If they continue to gain momentum, they could one day drop by the White House.

    Who knows how long that might take? Maybe the current prez should request a rain check for the position, till the rest comes to pass.

    RAD:  A columnist in Canada can easily say maybe we should take a rain check.  The reality of 47 million uninsured and 90 million who lose coverage during the year makes this option the default position of the cowardly.  It’s hopeful that Barack refused to let the issue die the death of a thousand Congressional cuts or deals in his State of the Union address.  But don’t expect any help from the “NO”- nothings of the GOP or for a new bi-partisan spirit to take hold in DC.  

    When is somebody going to organize a March on Washington?  I’m involved with the faith community in Oregon planning a summit on homelessness in June which will be preceded by a prayer vigil on the Capitol steps in Salem in February and lobbying our legislators.  Why stop there?  The faith community, labor and physicians & nurses for single payer need to call for national day of mobilization for health care reform?  That’s how it was done in the ‘60s.

    The time has come again for raising hell not being passive.  What we need is a Poor People's March on Washington and every state capitol to put a face on poverty, homelessness and health care disparities.  Here's an article in today's Oregonian by Miami Herald columnit Leonard Pitts, Jr. which says it well - it's too easy to marginalize the poor: 

http://www.miamiherald.com/living/columnists/leonard-pitts/story/1454250.html

    The problem is that we think Barack Obama is our savior.  He’s not.  He’s just another politician who right now is looking at the 2010 election trying to stop the slide into minority party status by appealing to the so-called independent voter – the least engaged, least informed and most conflicted voter out there.  But that’s what politicians do – they triangulate.  So much for the ex-community organizer as president.

    Progressives need to quit being co-opted by “electeds”!   

    Spring in DC can be nice for a rally around the Washington Monument and march up Pennsylvania Avenue.  New York has Grand Central Park, Boston “The Green”, San Francisco Union Square, Portland the Park Blocks and so on…  You know May Day used to mean something besides putting some cash in the florist’s till.  When are progressives going to wake up and smell the roses?  

    We had the “summer of love” it’s time for the “spring of the great awakening.”  We all need to put down the I-pod and cell phone and get off our derrières and start walking to tell the “truth to power.” 

    It's not about Barack, it's about US - YES WE CAN. 

   

AMERICA'S HISTORIAN OF THE COMMON MAN PASSES

    Howard Zinn, author of a "People's History of the USA" passed away this week at age 87.  Go to Bill Moyer's Journal for a recent interview of Zinn several weeks ago.  Zinn wasn't just an academic he was an agitator in the finest sense of that term.  He was a man of conscience and conviction who reminded us not to give up and that the people could be heard if they organized.  He's not alone - Bill Moyers, Garrison Keillor, Jim Hightower are voices of the "left" who speak "truth to power" without being "ideological or puritanical."  Few would accuse me of that trait, I make no apologies... 

    The quote below is what Zinn had to say about the much aligned word "socialism."  As the debate over health care morphs into lies, stupidity and moral myopia - keep these words in mind.  Democratic "socialism" - a species of which is practiced in Canada and Europe, not the old Soviet version, works.  Democratic socialism and market capitalism can be joined at the hip.  They are not like oil and water contrary to the benighted arguments of so many liberals and conservatives.  The GI Bill and the Marshall Plan were "socialistic" programs which rebuilt Europe and Japan and gave America's "greatest generation" entry into the middle class - the lodestone of democratic society. 

    The "bailout" of the banks and auto corps was "socialism in action" - your tax dollars and mine buying shares of US bank and auto stocks.  We are now getting our return and a bit more if Barack's tax the banks plan is passed.  But Barack needs to go further.  While the private economy is slowly picking up the pace we need some version of the old Depression Era Works Progress Administration (WPA) to put people back to work - look at the unemployment map on the right side bar.  If "socialism" for the Wall Street is OK, why not for Main Street?  Bottom line, socialism is NOT a 4 letter word... 

    In listening to NPR tonight they talked about Barack's using stimulus money to fund railroad improvements, including high speed rail.  As I blogged on this months ago (see left sidebar under the train picture) this is good stuff for the "trainman."  However, while we are putting $8 billion into this effort for infra-structure and jobs, the Chinese are putting $200 billion into high speed rail infrastructure.  If you know anything about the history of the American railroad system it was heavily subsidized by the federal government in the post-Civil War era about the same time the British were doing the same in India. 

    You see "socialism" works as long as you don't call it by that name.  Instead we use euphemisms like capital investments, public/private partnerships, leveraging public and private dollars.  Now if you think the private sector can do this on it's own you are NOT paying attention to the tragedy in Haiti.  Most of the food purchased by your generosity via the Red Cross et al is NOT getting to the people, it's still at the airport or docks in Haiti.  It was only until the US military arrived (the most "socialist" institution of them all in the USA) that things began to change but too little too late so far.  Fortunately Haitians are an enterprising lot via the "black market" - no pun intended. 

    Katrina proved race and class exist in the USA, now Haiti has repeated the lesson.  But are we learning - nope.  Americans don't like "class" politics because it brings out divisions into the open.  The rich never worry about such niceties.  They know where their butter is breaded.  Can the best of capitalism and socialism be blended you get - visit Canada or Europe.  But "class" in America is the dirty little word nobody talks about because then "socialism" would be in our political lexicon as it is the rest of the world. 

    The media, pundits and campaign gurus rather talk about the "independent voter" - the least informed, most disengaged and most alienated voter out there.  But all "pols" know the secret of winning - #1 rally the base - the "conservative" class for the GOP and the "liberal" class for the Dems; and #2 winning the "hearts & minds" of the "independent voter" -  those who only vote for the candidate, not the party.  It works every time just ask Newt, Slick Willie and now Barack.  But it doesn't end the gridlock in DC.  Why not?  Why do they call Congress K Street's "Gucci Gulch"?

     Money walks and talks, that's why?  Follow the money.  And the Supremes just opened the flood gates.  But didn't I say that unions won the battle of 66/67 over business?  So the little guy won?  Yep sort of.  But do you think "union bosses" care about YOU?  I've been there in Salem... and I know better.  I've never seen the AFL-CIO lobbyists testify in favor of housing for the homeless or for low income Oregonians.  It's all about power not principle.  At the end of the day, Oregon still has 400,000 without health care insurance and 16,000 who are homeless. 

  “Let’s talk about socialism. … I think it’s very important to bring back the idea of socialism into the national discussion to where it was at the turn of the [last] century before the Soviet Union gave it a bad name. Socialism had a good name in this country. Socialism had Eugene Debs. It had Clarence Darrow. It had Mother Jones. It had Emma Goldman. It had several million people reading socialist newspapers around the country… Socialism basically said, hey, let’s have a kinder, gentler society. Let’s share things. Let’s have an economic system that produces things not because they’re profitable for some corporation, but produces things that people need. People should not be retreating from the word socialism because you have to go beyond capitalism.”

    PS: Zinn in 2005 urged students at Spelman, Atlanta's historic Black college - to take as role models not the African-Americans such as Condoleezza Rice, or Colin Powell, "who have become servants of the rich and powerful", but WEB Dubois, Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jan/28/howard-zinn-america

    Check out The Nation's eulogy of Zinn -

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion/522763