Month: August 2011

Texas Governor Rick Perry: Savior Of The Republican Party And The Nation? NO!

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The author is shocked that Texas Governor Rick Perry is scheduled to announce his candidacy for President tomorrow, on the day of the Iowa Ames Straw Poll.

It seemed clear all along that all Rick Perry was trying to do was get attention, and build up his massive ego further. He had said he had no interest in the Presidency, but apparently he has been tempted and enticed to run because of all the attention he is getting, which he clearly craves! So this is an ego trip, nothing else!

Is Governor Rick Perry qualified to be President? Well, he IS the Governor of Texas, the second largest state in population and land area, and has been for the past eleven years, longer than any governor in the country.

However, one must realize that the Governor of Texas is more of an honorary position, as it is literally the WEAKEST Governorship constitutionally in the whole nation of 50 states! The Governor of Texas is a media star because of the tremendous size and population of Texas, but he has very little authority and power, and has loads of free time to pursue other ambitions, a fact that helped George W. Bush decide to seek the White House!

It is also said that Rick Perry has presided over a tremendous increase of employment, about 40 percent of the whole nation’s growth in employment in this recession, and Perry loves to brag about it!

But the fact that the vast majority of these jobs are MINIMUM WAGE is ignored, as if one can live and support a family on a minimum wage job! And the fact that the military and oil companies have a major role in Texas also distorts the reality of employment!

The fact is that Texas ranks very low on education funding, as well as educational curriculum in history and science being distorted and inaccurate to the extreme!

It is a fact that poverty in Texas is widespread, one of the worst levels of poverty in America! But Perry has no concern for the poor, the sick, the disabled, the elderly or anyone else, and instead prefers to promote states rights, as if that is the basic meaning of the US Constitution, which it clearly is exactly the opposite, federal supremacy!

It is the fact that health care is very inadequate for millions of Texans under Rick Perry, but Perry has no concern about that reality! Instead, he is refusing to cooperate on the establishment of the Obama Health Care plan, preferring to sue in federal court to deny health care to millions of Texans!

It is the fact that Rick Perry is described by many as a great campaigner, but a very lazy, shiftless governor who avoids work when he can, so it is obvious he loves the battle but not the challenge of leadership!

It is a fact that Rick Perry has no clue to an understanding of economics, and would be a disaster for us, having no clue as to how to promote an economic recovery!

It is a fact that Rick Perry is quite stupid in reality, and is best noted for his cockiness and swagger, reminding many of George W. Bush, with the only improvement from the image of Bush being that Rick Perry would be described as a more handsome man than Bush is, but are we to vote based on looks, or brains and character and intelligence, which in the long run matter more?

It is a fact that Rick Perry would love to make America a Christian nation, rather than what it is–a nation primarily of many different Christian sects, along with other religions! Perry does not believe in our basic principle of separation of church and state, and has no understanding of our history, being extremely ignorant! But then, Perry was a C and D student, much like George W. Bush, so what can one expect?

It is a fact that Rick Perry is a great fan of and is supported by the Tea Party Movement, the reckless, radical group which has helped to cause the downgrading of our credit by Standard and Poor’s, and will stop at nothing to make certain that there is NEVER any increase in taxes on the greedy, selfish top two percent of the population and the corporations, no matter how much it impoverishes the nation and makes a more stratified society with a disappearing middle class!

It is a fact that Rick Perry advocated secession of Texas from the Union,which is illegal and unconstitutional, and over which the Civil War was fought 150 years ago! Former Texas Governor, President, and Senator Sam Houston, were he alive today, would be ashamed of Rick Perry being the Governor of his beloved state, which he felt had gone wrong when it seceded from the Union in 1861 and joined the Confederacy, and courageously supported Abraham Lincoln and the Union during that Civil War!

It is a fact that the Bush family themselves oppose Perry, which says that establishment Republicans who want to remain in the mainstream, as at least father George H. W. Bush wishes, are terrified of the possibility that this unaccomplished, inferior man might be the leader of the free world, with his maniacal belief in his own superiority!

It is a fact that if Rick Perry somehow won the Presidency, the nation would suffer far worse under him than even the worst critics of Barack Obama might imagine!

If Rick Perry is the best we can gain for President in 2012, this nation is in far greater danger and trouble than we can possibly imagine in 2011!

Mitt Romney Says Corporations Are People! Really, Mitt?

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Mitt Romney made clear yesterday that he will refuse to raise any taxes on corporations, because “corporations are people, too”, and should not be discriminated against by EVER asking them to pay more taxes, when the corporate level of taxes is the lowest in the past 70 years!

Mitt, do you really believe corporations are people, or is that simply a way to gain Tea Party radical support, which shows you have no principles at all, except to be elected, but will discover, if you are somehow elected, that you cannot keep that promise, or the nation goes down the drain!

Corporations are people in the sense that people operate, manage, and work for corporations, but they are not there for the people of the nation!

Corporations are out to make as much obscene profit as they can, and avoid any responsibility to anyone outside of their greedy stockholders, who don’t care about the national interest; don’t care about the working conditions and wages of employees; and don’t care to take responsibility when mistakes are made in the production or distribution of their products and services to consumers!

The goal always is to cut costs, exploit employees as much as possible, and charge as much as they can get away with, and have no social compassion or concern other than the almighty dollar and profits!

So corporations are happy to get away with responsibility to the public, other than what governments force on them!

And it is obvious the Republican Party will NEVER hold corporations accountable no matter how difficult the economic climate in the future!

So Mitt Romney is totally lying in his assertion that corporations are people too!

50th Anniversary Of Berlin Wall: The Ultimate Symbol Of Oppression Remembered!

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Today, a half century ago, the East German government in lockstep with the Soviet Union, its master, started construction of the infamous Berlin Wall, which became the ultimate symbol of oppression, the true image of what Soviet Communism was all about!

For the next 28 years, until the evening of November 9 and day of November 10, 1989, the Berlin Wall became the center of the confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States, evoking the worst images of the Cold War.

Many people died trying to ram through the checkpoints with their cars; or attempting to climb over the wall with its barbed wire top, or jumping over the wall from nearby buildings at the location of the wall, or digging tunnels under the wall in a multitude of locations.

President John F. Kennedy and President Ronald Reagan were remembered for their condemnations of the Berlin Wall and what it represented.

When the wall came down suddenly in November 1989 during the Presidency of George H. W. Bush, it was a sign of the end of the Cold War, and the ultimate collapse of the Soviet system of government in 1991, after all of Eastern Europe was liberated from the yoke of communism in 1989.

It was a great moment of rejoicing, still in many ways hard to conceptualize, that the wall had actually come down, with East German border guards assisting in the destruction themselves.

It made many think that there would be peace in the world, and that the United States would be the only super power, with no realization that we were entering a new era, in many ways more dangerous, the era of Islamic Terrorism with those engaged in that terrorism having absolutely no limits, including suicide, in their fight against the Western world and Christianity and Judaism!

So today is a day to celebrate, but with great sense of the challenge that we still face in the future, and at a time when America has so many domestic complexities and lack of cooperation by the two major political parties, endangering, therefore, America’s future!

Extreme Poverty In America: 19 Million, According To Census Bureau Figures!

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Poverty is spreading, with 46 million Americans using food stamps, the highest number ever!

One out of four children go to bed hungry each night, and more than ever, they are homeless due to the inability of their parents to provide a roof over their head.

But even worse than that, according to the Census Bureau, there are 19 million Americans, many of them children, who are living in EXTREME poverty, about six percent of the population, while another 12 percent are also in poverty, but not as extreme.

How can a country which believes in opportunity and the “American Dream”, and has many claiming to have Christian values and are “good Christians” stand by and do nothing about it, and in many cases actually condemn the poor for being poor, blaming them for their own degradation.

If we as a country stand by and allow poverty worse than at the time of the War on Poverty under Lyndon B. Johnson, then we have failed as a country that has compassion and cares about the future of children in particular!

So while we must promote the survival of the middle class in tough times, we cannot ignore the most vulnerable among us, and stop blaming them for their sad state of affairs!

Rush Limbaugh And The Ultimate Right Wing Agenda: Reverse The Social And Economic Progress Since World War II!

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Radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh is on a roll with the Debt Ceiling Crisis and the Stock Market Crisis of the past few weeks, and he has declared war on all social and economic progress for the past 65 years, since World War II! Other right wing radio talk show hosts also promote what he does!

Actually, showing his total ignorance, Limbaugh probably means the past 80 years, since the New Deal of Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1930s!

By declaring, in any case, that it is time to reverse the past 65 years, that means the following:

1. The Harry Truman improvements on the New Deal programs of FDR.
2. Reversal of Truman’s executive order to enforce racial integration in the military.
3. Reversal of racial integration as ordered by the Supreme Court and enforced by Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson.
4. Reversal of Eisenhower’s acceptance of the New Deal and institutionalizing it.
5. Wiping out of the programs of the New Frontier of JFK and the Great Society of LBJ–including Medicare, Medicaid, Federal Aid to Education, Consumer Protection Laws, Civil Rights and Voting Rights Act, programs to fight poverty, Environmental laws, National Public Radio, Public
Broadcasting, and other programs.
6.Ending of Richard Nixon’s domestic reforms–including the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Environmental Protection Agency, Consumer Products Safety Commission, Affirmative Action programs, and others.
7.Ending of programs to aid the disabled and handicapped, begun under George H W Bush.
8. Other reforms passed under Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and now Barack Obama.

This is totally insane, and the progressive movement MUST fight tooth and nail to prevent such total destruction of everything which has made America a better nation, a more tolerant nation, a more compassionate nation!

We cannot afford to go back to the 1920s, and there is no way that this agenda of Rush Limbaugh and his ilk can be allowed to triumph!

Three Years Of “The Progressive Professor” Today!

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Three years ago today, “The Progressive Professor” began commenting on public affairs, politics and history!

At this point, there have been 2, 207 posts, and 1,012 comments, including some responses by the author to questions or comments of those who have contributed to this blog directly, with others having responded on Facebook.

Readership is growing, and it is hoped that more who read this blog will decide not just to read it, but to write directly on the blog, with their thoughts and perspectives, in order to enrich the material that this blog offers.

So happy 3rd Anniversary, and many more years in the future, as this nation deals with the challenges that will affect the future of all of us!

The author promises always to be honest and blunt in his assessment of events and personalities, as understanding the effects of what goes on in public affairs is crucial to the knowledge and understanding of our democracy which faces tremendous challenges every day!

Right Wing Talk About Impeachment Or Resignation: A Dangerous And Preposterous Idea!

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The right wing will stop at nothing to get President Barack Obama out of office!

Talk of impeachment comes from a Texas Republican Congressman Michael Burgess of the Dallas area, the same district that used to be represented by Dick Armey, the head of Freedom Works and promoter of the Tea Party Movement. Burgess’s reasoning is that Obama is totally ineffective and should be removed for that reason, rather than any specific violation of the Constitution.

The concept of impeachment has already been abused, as with the proceeding against former President Bill Clinton in 1998-1999. It is preposterous to say that even if a President is ineffective, which is highly debatable, in the case of Obama, that it should be considered an impeachable offense. In any case, even were an impeachment proceeding to develop, there is no possibility of a two thirds vote in the US Senate to convict and remove the President, and all it would do, therefore, is cause more economic tumult and political disarray, which is precisely what this country does NOT need!

If one wants to place blame for the chaos and tumult going on right now, it must be shared not only by the President and his party, but also, and to a greater extent, the refusal of the Republicans in the House of Representatives, and their extremist Tea Party allies, to negotiate and compromise on any agreement that would raise taxes to help balance out the budget crisis!

But now, we also have right wing critics who are suggesting that the President resign because of lack of public support, and that he first replace Joe Biden as Vice President with someone more unifying. This assumes that Joe Biden would resign, and one wonders who would the right wing prefer to become Vice President temporarily before becoming President. Would the extremists accept Hillary Clinton? Highly doubtful, and in any case, why should the right wing tell us who our President is, when Obama was elected for a four year term and should finish that term, and leave it to the American people as to whether they prefer him or the Republican opponent as their next President!

It would be unprecedented for Obama to resign, even if one thinks of him as a failure, which he is clearly NOT!

Only Richard Nixon has resigned, just 37 years ago on August 9 because of the Watergate Crisis, and that was for criminal activity!

Only Woodrow Wilson secretly planned to resign in 1916 if he lost reelection, with World War I on, and America in danger of getting involved. His secret idea was to hand over the Presidency to his opponent, Charles Evans Hughes, ahead of time, if Hughes had won.

Many Presidents have been seen as failures in different ways, but NEVER has a President resigned because of that belief, and it would destroy the whole American system of government if every time there was discontent, the President should be forced out by resignation.

Think of the many cases that would exist:

1, James Madison, when Washington, DC was attacked by the British, and Congress and the President had to flee, during the War Of 1812.
2. Martin Van Buren, when the country suffered from the Panic of 1837.
3. John Tyler, upon succeeding the dead William Henry Harrison in 1841, being told he was illegitimate even though he had been Vice President.
4. James Buchanan, when we went through the Panic of 1857, and later when the South was seceding from the Union.
5. Abraham Lincoln, when he waged war against the South, and violated civil liberties in wartime for purposes of saving the Union.
6. Andrew Johnson, who was actually impeached but found not guilty, who many wanted to resign as well, because of his opposition to the goals of the Radical Republicans on Reconstruction policy.
7. Ulysses S. Grant, who presided over the worst political corruption up to that point of time, and under whom we suffered from the Panic of 1873.
8.Warren G. Harding, who had the most corrupt administration after Grant, but died just as we learned about the extent of the corruption.
9. Herbert Hoover, who was cautious and ineffective as the Great Depression became the worst economic crisis in American history.
10. Franklin D. Roosevelt, for his controversial domestic and foreign policy actions and strong executive leadership in the time of the Great Depression and World War II.
11. Harry Truman, who many thought should resign after the Republicans won both houses of Congress in 1947-48, and for his Korean War policies.
12. Jimmy Carter, for his ineffective policies on the economy and the Iran hostage crisis.
13. Ronald Reagan, for the Iran Contra scandal which erupted in his second term of office.
14. Bill Clinton, for various accusations of scandals, and for his affair with Monica Lewinsky, which led to impeachment, but not conviction by the Senate.
15. George W. Bush, for taking us into war In Iraq on false pretenses, and reckless spending, creating the debt problems of today.

The answer is NOT to have a President resign, but rather to overcome partisanship in a crisis as we have now, and unite around the President, help him, not attack him, and put COUNTRY FIRST!

The Presidency will be destroyed if we let the naysayers rule the roost, and tell the occupant of the Oval Office to resign, as that will not restore confidence!

We have survived good and bad Presidents, and the answer is to follow the US Constitution and stop this irresponsible attack by the right wing on the Constitution they claim to revere, but in practice violate and abuse on a regular basis!

President Obama: Why Are You MIA, When We Need You To Demonstrate Courage And Conviction For The Middle Class And The Poor?

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As anyone who reads this blog knows, the author is a great fan and supporter of President Barack Obama.

The author is very pleased with a lot of the reforms that President Obama has helped to bring about in his two and a half years as President, but it is disturbing that he seems to be MIA (Missing In Action) at a crucial time like now, when the stock market is going awry after the Debt Ceiling Controversy, and the decision of Standard and Poor’s to lower the credit rating of the US government from Triple A to Double A Plus.

President Obama, you are rapidly losing the faith and support of many labor union members; blacks; Hispanics and Latinos; the young; the progressive base in the media, the universities, and Hollywood; Independents; suburban voters; the unemployed; those losing their homes; and all others who were inspired and motivated to vote for this passionate, seemingly committed progressive, when he ran for President in 2008.

What has happened to this man? He is not out there fighting against the Republicans like Harry Truman would. He is not committing himself to help the Democrats in the recall elections going on this week and next in Wisconsin, where if he had intervened in the past week, we might have seen THREE Democrats or more win, instead of two, leaving the State Senate in the hands of the Republicans who are loyal to Governor Scott Walker. Obama always said he believed in labor rights, but has done nothing this whole year to step into the battles in Wisconsin or in other states, such as Florida, New Jersey, Ohio, Michigan, and Maine. What is he afraid of? That he might be attacked for speaking his mind and showing his principles and beliefs regarding the middle class and the poor?

It would be far better for Barack Obama to fight tooth and nail than to seem ineffective, seem wimpy, seem scared of a challenge from the extreme Right, seem defeatist!

How can he expect us who want to support him to back him if he will not openly back us and give the opposition HELL as Truman did, or welcome the attack of his critics as Franklin D. Roosevelt did during the Great Depression!

Mr. President, respectfully, it is time to get out of the White House and show the fighting spirit we expected from you, and have not seen occur!

It is time to fight for the American people, and even if you lose the Presidency in 2012 for some reason, you would go down as a statesman who did his best, rather than go down in history as a loser in every respect!

Mr. President, IMMEDIATE ACTION for a jobs program proposal and fighting openly for the people in Wisconsin and elsewhere is REQUIRED NOW!

The Death Of Former Senator Mark Hatfield Of Oregon: A Great Public Servant And Mainstream Republican!

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The death over last weekend of former Senator Mark Hatfield of Oregon reminds us of just how far the Republican Party has shifted from the 1960s through the 1990s mainstream historical tradition.

Mark Hatfield was a Senator’s Senator, one of the giants of the Republican Party, much admired and respected by Democrats, as well as mainstream Republicans.

The fact that South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond in the early years of Hatfield’s Senate tenure, and newly elected Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum in 1995 moved to harm Hatfield’s seniority over different issues such as civil rights and the so called “balanced budget” amendment, only adds to his historical stature. And today, we have people of the ilk of Thurmond (Rick Perry, for instance), and Santorum himself attempting to be the nominee of his party for President on a platform promoting hate and lunatic ideas, demonstrating the moral crisis in the GOP these days.

Hatfield believed in government, supported social programs with vigor, and opposed defense spending and intervention in foreign lands, having the distinction of NEVER supporting a Pentagon spending bill in his thirty years in the US Senate.

Hafield was a religious man, a Baptist, but believed in separation of church and state. He was the true image of a really religious man, who believed that we are here to help our fellow human beings, not be mean spirited and uncaring about those less fortunate. He was the true follower of the beliefs of Jesus Christ, not phonies such as Rick Perry, Michele Bachmann, Rick Santorum, and Herman Cain, among others in the GOP Presidential race.

Mark Hatfield was a principled progressive in the Republican tradition, and was willing to cross the aisle to work with Democrats for the good of the nation.

How can we mark his death at age 89, without a sense of mourning that the party he was a proud member of, has become a disgrace, an embarrassment, a dinosaur, as the party has allowed itself to be taken over by greedy, selfish interests, and Tea Party radicals that are anarchists, with willingness to destroy the American economy in their hatred of those less fortunate, and particularly their despising of the first African American President, who if he were white, would not have as much poison and venom directed at him, as Barack Obama has to bear daily from despicable talk show hosts and bigoted, right wing corporate spokesmen, and most Congressional Republicans.

Mark Hatfield will be remembered as in the best tradition of Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Robert La Follette, Sr., George Norris, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and numerous other moderate progressives, including Jacob Javits, Nelson Rockefeller, Charles Percy, Charles Mathias, Lowell Weicker, Edward Brooke, Clifford Case, William Scranton, Bob Packwood, George Romney, Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. and others not mentioned here.

So may Mark Hatfield rest in peace, and we should continue to honor him, and teach about his principles and contributions to our political history!

The Wisconsin Recall Elections: Good Sign For The Future

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In the past 100 years before yesterday, there were only 20 state recall elections, and only 13 officeholders were removed.

Yesterday, in Wisconsin, in reaction to Republican Governor Scott Walker’s anti labor, anti education, and anti public worker legislation forced through the legislature, we saw six Republican state legislators in the state Senate face a recall, and two were defeated, narrowing the Republican edge to one vote, 17-16.

While it was disappointing that the Democrats failed to win control of the state Senate by one vote, needing three seats, and only winning two, one must recognize the massive amounts of money brought in by corporate interests, including the Koch Brothers, and the fact that the six state Senate districts had been solidly Republican for years, in some cases more than a century.

So winning two seats was close to a miracle, and it shows that the labor and progressive movement in Wisconsin begun more than a century ago by Robert La Follette, Sr. is alive and well.

It is a sign that when people organize and fight, progress can be made, and the hope is that the recall movement can lead to an election to attempt to force Governor Scott Walker out of office next year, instead of completing his term at the beginning of 2015.

It is also a warning to John Kasich in Ohio, Rick Scott in Florida, Rick Snyder in Michigan, and Paul LePage in Maine, as well as Chris Christie in New Jersey, that the middle and working class will fight their reactionary, fascist like attack on ordinary citizens and workers!