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What Has Happened To The Image Of The Police We Used To Have As Children And Young Adults?

Ronald Leave a comment

This author and blogger grew up totally respectful of police officers, admiring them for their courage and willingness to serve the citizenry.  It was never thought that we needed to be fearful of police officers.

But that has changed dramatically in recent years, and particularly in the past few months, as we have seen numerous cases of police officers all over the nation abusing their power and position, and too quick to shoot to kill many unarmed people, many of them African American or Hispanic, but also those who are disabled, and some victims who are also whites.

These abusive police have been quick to use their tasers and their firearms in an aggressive manner, when in so many of these cases, it has been totally unnecessary to do so.  They have lost the concern for life of their victims, and instead of, if needed, shooting to wound, they have gone for the chest and the head, in so many situations all over the country!

In Ferguson, Missouri, the perpetrator of the death of Michael Brown, a police officer named Darren Wilson has not faced any charges, or detention, while a grand jury takes forever to move forward, and one cannot be sure that they will even indict  Wilson at all. A grand jury in Ohio refused to indict a police officer who killed a young black man in Walmart, who had picked up a toy gun and was shot for holding it, while Ohio allows unlimited display of firearms in any public place, but obviously really only for white citizens!

A police officer in South Carolina opened up fire on a driver who went into his car to get his drivers license, and wounded him over an issue of not wearing seat belts!  All cases lately have been white officers against black men, many of them young black men!

This situation is out of control, and makes one feel as if our police officers are, in too many cases, abusing their positions, and acting as if they are Nazi Gestapo or a Secret Police force, while Omar J. Gonzalez, when he scaled the White House fence and ran to the North Portico and was able to gain entrance to the building without being stopped before that occurred, and carrying a pocket knife, was not even shot at by the Secret Service, when such an action deserved a shoot to kill order in that circumstance!

Of course, the multitude of police officers do their job well, but the renegades are undermining the whole concept of law enforcement, and there needs, desperately, for better training of police, and the drumming out of those who are ill qualified by temperament and their performance record to keep their positions as police officers!

Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Second Bill Of Rights (January 11, 1944) Not Yet Achieved In 2014!

Ronald 1 Comment

Now that THE ROOSEVELTS series on PBS, the seven part series presented to the nation by the great documentarian Ken Burns, is over, many thoughts and emotions cross one’s mind.

FDR offered so much to the nation in his New Deal, and in his leadership of the struggle against Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan in World War II.

But what struck this author more than any of this, while watching this 14 hour series over the past week, is an often forgotten speech, the State of the Union speech of January 11, 1944, delivered by FDR in a joint session of Congress.

The speech dealt with the issue of a “Second Bill Of Rights”.

FDR knew that the Bill Of Rights had made America the beacon of the civilized world, with the basic civil liberties it granted to all Americans.

But FDR was looking ahead to the end of World War II, and envisioned a nation that would extend the concept of a bill of rights to other issues that affected all Americans.

So FDR called for a future guarantee of everyone having a decent job with a living wage; a guarantee of decent housing for all Americans; a guarantee of a decent supply of food, clothing, and leisure for all; a guarantee of a decent education providing opportunity for all to advance; an expansion of Social Security beyond the beginning of the concept nine years earlier in 1935; and  provision for a decent health care system for all Americans.

Now 70 years later, none of these have been accomplished, although Social Security has improved tremendously for the elderly, and for women who are widowed and children who lose a parent or are orphaned: Medicare has done so much to help the elderly and disabled; and ObamaCare, under great duress, has provided health care for millions of Americans who never had health coverage before.

But yet, conservatives and Republicans are out to make Social Security and Medicare privatized, and want to destroy ObamaCare!

But we have too many people who cannot find work, due to the Great Recession of George W. Bush and cannot even gain extension of the New Deal concept of unemployment compensation; many Americans live in substandard housing; many people go hungry and live in dire poverty; many have to work multiple jobs and cannot have time for leisure, with most Americans not able to have vacation time, less than any European democracy, or Canada or Australia;  and many children are denied a good education system and can only gain minimum wage employment as adults.

The right wing extremists are trying to destroy the New Deal and Great Society reforms, and return American to a century ago before there was social justice and economic opportunity and political reform offered, starting with the Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt.

How can any decent American not rise up in protest and anger at the selfishness and greed of the elite one percent and their propagandists, who do not care what happens to anyone other than their own class?  Why is acquisition of obscene wealth and power so important that these right wingers have no humanity, no common decency, no desire to see their fellow Americans have a chance to succeed as they were given?  Why is the hatred of taxes so vehement, as if one can take his or her wealth to the grave, or give it in obscene amounts to offspring who will never know responsibility or the virtue of accomplishing on their own?  What is wrong with this nation, that 70 years after the “Second Bill of Rights” speech of FDR, we have made very little progress on the goals of the speech, and have even backtracked on them, and we have evil forces wanting to destroy the most significant programs of the New Deal and Great Society?

Fifteen Most Right Wing States In America: The Candidates

Ronald Leave a comment

As America moves forward on so many issues socially, the “hinterland” of the nation languishes in its revelry of backwardness, allowing themselves to be influenced by Christian fundamentalists and business tycoons who do not give a damn about the rights of women, the rights of children, the rights of gays and lesbians, the right to safety from gun extremists, the right to labor protections, the right to promotion of the environment, the rights of minorities, the rights to basic health care, the rights to a public education, and the right to basic civil liberties for all citizens and non-citizens.

Instead, there are many states who are working to outlaw abortion completely within their boundaries; to deny poor children free breakfast and lunch; to refuse to recognize same sex marriage protections; to expand the rights of gun enthusiasts at the expense of public safety; to refuse to expand unemployment compensation and the minimum wage for workers; to undermine environmental protections and fight the federal government on the creation of new national parks and monuments; to imprison and execute minorities on a much larger scale than whites; to refuse to expand Medicaid or provide any kind of health care for the poor and disabled; to promote privatization of schools and charters and cut spending on public schools; to teach creationism as science in public schools; and to give police undue power to shoot and kill when uncalled for in many domestic situations that arise as part of a troubled social structure in America!

Trying to make a list of fifteen most right wing states is not easy, as there are numerous candidates for such dubious honors!

It is as if we live in two Americas–the progressive, modern, secular, advanced states of the two coastlines and the upper Midwest; and the backward, 19th century mentality, theocratic, backward states of the “hinterland”, resentful of a changing America that includes large numbers of people of very different backgrounds and agendas than these mostly rural, isolated states, many with much smaller population, but having influence through the US Senate, and the Tea Party ability to create barriers in the US House of Representatives.

Here is a list of states that the author believes have the unique distinction of competing for the most backward, reactionary states in America in the 21st century. These states are not being ranked, but just listed at this point.

Alabama
Mississippi
Louisiana
Arkansas
North Carolina
South Carolina
Tennessee
Kentucky
West Virginia
Nebraska
Kansas
Oklahoma
Idaho
Utah
Wyoming

Notice nine of the fifteen are the old South or border South; three are the Great Plains; and three are the Mountain West.

The author welcomes discussion of this list of most right wing states, and he will make a judgment later on which state is the most backward in 2014!

Widespread Sense Of Anger, Unhappiness, Discontent, Despondency In Electorate Favors Democrats!

Ronald Leave a comment

Many political observers seem unaware of a widespread sense of anger, unhappiness, discontent, and despondency in the electorate, and fail to understand that this favors the Democrats, not the Republicans, in the midterm elections of 2014.

The Republican Party in the House of Representatives has produced the most horrible record of lack of achievement, lack of concern for the middle class and the poor, and has simply come across as a party of obstruction in the past four years.

While the Democrats have far from a perfect record, they have been the party to bring about a health care plan that is covering millions of people for the first time; have fought for an increase in the minimum wage; have argued for an extension of unemployment compensation for the long term unemployed; have battled to make sure that the food stamp program is not gutted for the poor, the elderly, the children, and the disabled; have promoted the need for infrastructure spending and education, including a solution for students heavily indebted; have defended the need for environmental protection; have backed the need for strong labor protections; have supported fair treatment for gays and lesbians, including marriage rights; and have worked for immigration reform in a fair and balanced way.

For those who are angry, unhappy, discontented, and despondent to sit on their hands and do nothing, and NOT vote in the midterm elections, both state and Congressional, would be the height of stupidity, as no change can come if people stay home.

So the job of Democrats is to come out of their shell, fight for what they believe in, be proud of what they have done and stood for, stand proud, and motivate those who usually do not vote, to do so this time, and give the Republicans a well deserved defeat in the House of Representatives, keep the Democrats in control of the US Senate, and work to defeat Republican “Bully” Governors elected in 2010, who have been a literal nightmare for the masses of people who are not wealthy, and not part of the one percent oligarchy which is taking over American politics in an alarming way, while the middle class and the poor sit on the sidelines, lacking motivation to react in their own self interest!

The Worst Governor In Florida History: Rick Scott!

Ronald 1 Comment

Florida Governor Rick Scott may have gained less attention than other “Bully” Republican Governors elected in 2010, but he is, in many ways, the absolutely worst governor in America, and easily, the worst Governor Florida has ever had in modern history!

Florida has had some really outstanding Governors, including Leroy Collins (1955-1961); Reubin Askew (1971-1979); Bob Graham (1979-1987); Lawton Chiles (1991-1999); and Charlie Crist (2007-2011). Republican Governors Claude Kirk (1967-1971) and Bob Martinez (1987-1991) both lost re-election and were controversial. Jeb Bush (1999-2007) had his controversies, but did an excellent job dealing with eight hurricanes during his time in office.

Rick Scott came into office with the record of having paid a record fine for his Medicare corruption as the leader of the nation’s largest hospital chain, and should have gone to prison instead, for his misdeeds. He won the Governorship by only 50,000 votes, the smallest margin in Florida history.

Scott spent $73 million of his own money to get himself elected, despite a personality that was and is a turn off to most people who have any intelligence or compassion for others. It was an example of how backward Floridians were, that they would allow a convicted felon to become their Governor.

Scott has done massive damage on voting rights, privacy rights, public schools and higher education, environmental protection, and health care. His party controls three fourths of the seats in the legislature, and has taken Florida backwards at a time when it is about to become the third largest state in population.

Scott has made it harder for Florida citizens to vote; for those who are unemployed to gain unemployment compensation; for renters to avoid eviction; and made it easier for borrowers to be charged high interest rates on short term loans.

Scott has refused to accept Medicaid money for the poor, despite the fact that the federal government will pay all the costs for three years, and 90 percent after that. He fought ObamaCare tooth and nail, and still makes it difficult for citizens to apply for it.

Scott rejected federal money for high speed rail, while creating another state university, Florida Polytechnic University, which undermines the University of South Florida market for students. His administration spends less per public school student than when he took office, and promotes private charter schools over public schools. He has undermined respect for a liberal arts education, and teachers at all levels have been treated with disrespect by his education policies.

Scott has undermined the environment protections put into effect by his predecessors, and sees Florida as equivalent of a corporation that needs to be given freedom to abuse in every way possible, including health insurance rates, higher electric rates, and tax breaks for businesses that have not created the promised number of jobs.

Scott has demonstrated little concern for individual rights, wanting drug testing for state employees and welfare recipients; purging voter rolls, and restricting early voting. Luckily, there has been reaction against these ideas by courts, county elections supervisors, and the public.

The man has no compassion or empathy, and comes across as a cold, calculating individual, and it makes one wonder how Floridians could possibly consider him for a second term, but Scott is willing to spend whatever it takes to fool people, and to keep the vote numbers down by any means he can conjure up.

Scott gains less attention nationally than Scott Walker of Wisconsin, Rick Perry of Texas, Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, and other “Bully” Governors, all of whom are considered Presidential possibilities, but IF Rick Scott is re-elected, do not be surprised if he tries to bring his corruption, mean spirit, callousness, and lack of empathy or compassion to a national campaign for President.

One might say, wait, there is already Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio as potential candidates for President from Florida! The answer is: So What? Scott has never let ego or ethics get in his way in the past, and do not be surprised he might mount a national campaign if he defeats former Governor Charlie Crist, who has switched parties, and faces a massive challenge to be elected Governor as a Democrat, in a state with such a large Republican dominance in the state legislature!

The problem is that, even if Crist were to win, he is likely to face a hardline legislature, where only his veto might sometimes be effective, as Florida politics now represents one of the most backward agendas of any state, despite the fact that the state has nearly 20 million citizens, including many elderly, poor, sick, and disabled!

This is NOT a state where anyone who has a choice to move would decide to remain. YES, the weather is great, but the future for the elderly, the poor, the sick and the disabled, and for children in general, is gloomy!

Maryland, anyone?

The Republican War On The IRS Is An Anarchistic, Extremist Attack!

Ronald 6 Comments

The Republican Party has declared war on the Internal Revenue Service, the basic backbone of how the federal government operates, how it protects the nation, and advances the domestic agenda of the United States, to make it the nation of freedom, justice, and equality that it was meant to be!

If you left it to the Republican Party, which operates as an anarchistic, extremist movement against the whole structure of our federal government, they would move to repeal the 16th Amendment to the Constitution, which Republican President William Howard Taft advocated.

The Republican Party calls for abolition of the IRS, without saying how they would replace the funding that it provides for our national defense; for our multitude of federal government agencies that give Americans all kinds of services; and for protection of our elderly, our children, our disabled, our poor!

It seems that the Republican Party wants to go back to America and what it was in 1789–a nation of four million people with state governments having all of the power, or lack of it, to help maintain the safety, security, and advancement of its citizens!

Anyone who has studied American history knows that state governments have always been incompetent, inept, and too corrupt to be in charge of all of the massive responsibilities that the federal government has had since the First World War, the Great Depression, and the Second World War!

If the Republican Party were, somehow, able to accomplish what they advocate, it would lead to total chaos, anarchy, disruption, and the dissolution of a stable government!

So the right wing of the GOP is a dangerous, anarchistic, extremist group! Let’s call the reality what it is, a danger to all of America’s citizens!

The False Voter Fraud Issue Of Republicans Challenged Head On By Barack Obama

Ronald 1 Comment

One of the most outrageous activities of the Republican Party is its attempt to prevent people from voting by requiring all kinds of documents, and cutting voting days and hours, and refusing same day voting registration.

The GOP claim of widespread voter fraud is absolutely ridiculous, and Barack Obama took it on in a speech yesterday, at a time when the Supreme Court, Republican dominated majority, has weakened enforcement of the Voting Rights Act, just as we celebrate 50 years of the Civil Rights Act, and next year, 50 years of a now weakened Voting Rights Act, something civil rights workers died for in the early 1960s.

As Obama pointed, statistics demonstrate that between 2002 and 2005, out of 197 million votes cast, there were ONLY 40 examples of people indicted for voter fraud, a infinitesimal number, a percentage of 0.00002 percent!

For this, we need millions of African Americans, Hispanics and Latinos, elderly, poor, disabled, and young voters denied the basic right to vote?

What the Republican Party is doing in Republican controlled states with Republican legislatures and governors is against the whole concept of fairness, justice, and equality, dating back to the old Jim Crow days in the South, but now embraced in areas outside the South as well.

Abraham Lincoln is turning over in his grave as to what his party has done, a true example of their political corruption, and lack of ethics!

Paul Ryan Self Destructs Any Chance To Run For President!

Ronald 10 Comments

Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan, who this blogger spent a lot of time working to undermine his Vice Presidential candidacy in 2012, and got blasted for it by right wing websites and bloggers, has again shown further evidence of what a terrible choice Mitt Romney made in his Presidential race, in selecting Ryan to be a heartbeat away from the Presidency!

Ryan, who knows nothing about budgets, except that the poor, the elderly, the disabled, veterans, and the young should see cuts in Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Food Stamps, and other social programs; and there should be no extension of unemployment compensation for desperately unemployed people; and there should be no rise in the minimum wage, now has gone off the “deep end” with his assertion that those who live in the “inner cities” have no sense of the importance of work, and have not worked for generations!

This is a direct and racist assault on African Americans in particular, but also on Hispanics and Latinos, who are a majority of the poor in the urban areas of our nation.

But Ryan acts as if it is only minorities who are poor, and are unemployed, and in some cases, have not worked in a long time. From this statement, one would think that whites are not poor, that they all work, that they all have a heritage of understanding the point of work, and nothing could be further from the truth!

It is a fact, and always has been, that the vast majority of the poor do not live in cities, and are not minorities, although one would think so from a stereotype!

The fact is that there are millions of whites who live in the rural and suburban areas of the nation, and many are them do not work, have no hope of work, and live in depressed conditions often worse than urban slums. Many of these people are living in “Red” states, where Republicans vote to hurt their own constituents, while making it seem as if only minorities do not work, or have no work ethic. They live in Appalachia, the Great Plains, the Rockies, in comparatively sparsely populated areas, as compared to the urban areas on the East and West Coasts.

More whites receive food stamps, and the level of poverty percentage wise is higher in such places as Kentucky, West Virginia, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, and Alaska.

It is the lack of education; the tendency to have large families which are also dysfunctional; the reality of drugs and alcohol; the refusal of these state governments to give a damn about their white poor, along with minority poor; and the tendency to turn poor whites against poor minorities so that the GOP can keep power in the House and in the state legislatures, which is destroying generation after generation of deprived people of all races!

Only when there is a REAL war on poverty, instead of exploiting the issue based upon race, as Paul Ryan has now done, will we ever be able to guarantee a good future for millions of whites, as well as African Americans and Latinos!

And Paul Ryan, your potential Presidential candidacy is dead in the water, and while you might run, you have forfeited any realistic chance to be President of the United States, but that was clear, anyway, in 2012!

13 Years Since “President” Al Gore Failed To Be Elected!

Ronald 1 Comment

It is hard to believe that it is now 13 years since Vice President Al Gore, who won the national popular vote by over half a million vote margin, failed to be elected, due to the intervention by the Supreme Court, the vast majority selected by Republican Presidents, who chose to intervene, defying the idea that the judicial branch of the federal government had no authority to decide who wins the Presidency.

Therefore, a precedent was set that could reverberate and lead to another election in which the wishes of the people of the United States could be ignored, and we could end up with a President who represented special interests, a reality becoming more evident with the growing power and influence of right wing elites, who are having great success in undermining the desire of the American people to prevent the destruction of the middle class, and the degradation yet further of the working poor, the disabled, the elderly, and children.

When one realizes that a Gore Presidency would likely NOT have started a war in Iraq; and would have promoted domestic reforms that would have avoided the greater maldistribution of wealth to the extreme it has become, due to the economic policies of George W. Bush, it is hard not to mourn what occurred 13 years ago, which has certainly harmed the long term future of the nation!

War Against The Elderly: The Most Vulnerable In Society!

Ronald 2 Comments

So now not only has Michigan decided that retired employees in Detroit, who devoted their lives and safety to their work, shall see their pensions cut, but the state of Illinois, governed by Democrats, has enacted legislation to the same effect!

Normally, the power of legal agreements prevents such action as to cast the elderly, on a fixed income, out to the wolves! But no more by the power of courts and legislatures and governors to defy the law and get away with it!

As one retired employee in Detroit said yesterday, he has to decide between eating and his medication come next year.

This is unconscionable, and shows the lack of respect for the elderly, and for life itself!

Already, there has been an attack on poor children, taking food out of their mouths, through cuts in food stamps. But the thought that maybe poor women should have access to birth control and abortion, so that they and future children might avoid poverty and deprivation, never crosses the minds of those who insist all life in the womb, from conception, should be born, but then to hell with what happens after birth!

If Michigan and Illinois can destroy public pensions for the elderly, what will stop many other states from doing so, rather than facing the facts that the wealthy have been ripping America off with the help of conservatives and Republicans, who have no problem subsidizing the wealthy and corporations, but do not give a damn for the poor, the sick, the young, the elderly, women, and workers?

With all of the progress of the progressive movement, the New Deal, and Great Society, we are now witnessing a return to a true Gilded Age, a return to a century and a half ago, effectively wiping out the 20th century movement toward humane, compassionate government!

Now it is back to laissez faire, Social Darwinism, dog eat dog, no concern for those less fortunate, and Democrats are starting to act like Republicans, all so that the wealthy do not have to pay taxes in a fair, honest way!

How can one have any optimism about the future of the “great experiment” known as American democracy?

And imagine with all of the reality described, how much tougher it is if one is African American, Hispanic, Native American, or disabled?

What has happened to our souls, our ethics, our morals, as we honor the almighty dollar, and fight over “things” on Black Friday and even Black Thanksgiving?

The middle class is being ground down to the level of poverty, as a small elite takes all of the wealth of America, and now wants to privatize EVERYTHING, including our national parks, in the almighty quest for profit and MORE MONEY, never enough, a level of materialism enough to make one want to vomit!