Harold Titus's Blog, page 6
November 28, 2021
Letters, 2012, Into the Home Stretch, July 19, August 22, August 29, September 2
Two letters to the editor in the July 14 Register-Guard demonstrate how Fox News and company control the minds of their loyal viewers and listeners.
Lois Oleson wants President Obama to turn over his birth certificate, “hidden” records from his university years, his “legal” Social Security number, and how he received his college aid because (according to her) he applied as a foreigner.
Marcia Maclaine paints President Obama a tyrant. According to her, liberal government is the enemy of the people. She asserts that the president “demonizes the successful and makes impossible promises to the gullible. He has borrowed this country so deeply into debt that generations of Americans still unborn will be buried under it.” Does she know about our huge wealth inequality gap? That from 1932 to President Reagan in 1986 our highest marginal income tax rate varied between 50 to 91%? How much public debt Reagan and the two Bushes racked up? Must we genuflect to the Koch brothers and billionaires of their ilk, say: “Do what you will. Decide my future, the fate of our country, the existence of our planet.”
To win elections, corporate oligarchs direct the public’s anger about the consequences of their selfish actions at institutions and opposition leaders that strive to benefit society. They lie. They demonize. It resonates, with the hate-filled radical Right base and with many people who would be hard pressed to name four Twentieth Century U.S. presidents.
Printed July 19, 2012, in the Register-Guard
***
Marcia Maclaine answered back.
***
As I watched C-SPAN recently the Huffington Post reporter made a stunningly revealing statement.
After she had made the tedious plea for Mitt Romney’s income tax returns, a caller asked her why President Obama had paid taxes on only part of his income.
She replied, “I’m not really familiar with Obama’s taxes.”
There it is. The conservative needs to be examined through a microscope while the socialist get a pass.
Maybe it’s time we do a little research on the man who’s running our country. The mainstream media won’t do it. Read his books, look into the backgrounds of his advisers, let’s see his college transcripts and thesis (never mind, he won’t release those).
Don’t blindly assume that because the socialist calls him a Democrat, he must be the best choice. If he gets a second term he will fulfill his promise to fundamentally transform America – and it won’t be into something better.
Mark Kontny hated Bush’s Patriot Act (letters, July 21), so why would he support a man who not only embraces it but expands it? Harold Titus opined that I can’t name four 20th century presidents (letters, July 19).
I was born during the Truman administration and can name not only every president after him but every one before him.
More importantly, what do George W. Bush and my memorization abilities have to do with mistrusting a socialist president who changes duly passed laws by executive order in the hopes of improving his re-election chances?
Marcia Maclaine
Printed September 2, 2012, in the Register-Guard
***
It wasn’t just me that opposed the foreign-born Socialist’s opponent and party. Heavens-to-Betsy! The mainstream socialist media!
***
People who vote Republican Party candidates these days into public offices should have conversations with their consciences.
Massive voter disenfranchisement of citizens who vote mostly Democratic,
especially in the swing states Pennsylvania, Ohio, Florida, and Wisconsin, indicates a party dishonest to the core.
Allowing individuals who live mostly on investment income (interest, dividends, capital gains) to be taxed at a lower rate than people who live on a salary indicates a party that doesn’t represent most Americans.
The wealth gap between the very rich and the rest of us has become as
extreme as it was just before the Great Depression. The top marginal personal income tax rate between 1932 and 1986, as high as 94% and never lower than 50%, corrected that. It has been 35% for the past 12 years! Republican politicians refuse to raise it. They want to lower it!
“In 2011, corporate profits hit their highest level since 1950. … This
hasn’t translated into wage growth or more purchasing power for workers.” – Pat Garofalo.
“According to the Social Security Administration … the average paycheck for working Americans fell again – down over 1% to $26,364 a year. That’s the lowest level it’s been in 11 years.” – Thom Hartmann. Yet Republicans want to cut Medicaid, food stamps, and the minimum wage!
“People of all persuasions lie, but the right has a whole institutional structure of lying that has no counterpoint of the left.” – Paul Krugman.
“There are those who tell the truth. There are those who distort the truth. And then there’s Mitt Romney.” – Eugene Robinson.
“These days, it seems as if there’s not a fact that can’t be ignored,
rejected, or altered if you throw enough cash at it.” – Michael Winship. Does it bother you that not one Republican Party politician or conservative letter writer has condemned the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision that permits billionaires to determine most of the content, the quantity, and the frequency of TV political ads?
“The latest data show that multinationals cut 2.9 million jobs in the United
States and added 2.4 million overseas between 2000 and 2009.” – Jia Lynn Yang.
“Modern Republicans have a simple approach to politics when they are not in the White House: Make America as ungovernable as possible.” – Robert Parry.
The GOP blames Obama for current unemployment, “failed policies,” and massive debt. They refuse to acknowledge the huge carry-over of destructiveness caused by the Bush administration. They say nothing about their unprecedented use of the filibuster in the Senate and their current control of the House of Representatives. “When Republicans like Romney and McConnell talk about the bad economy – they’re bragging!” – Thom Hartmann.
Nearly everything requiring legislation that the Obama administration has proposed after the Recovery Act and the Affordable Care Act became law they have thwarted.
This election is about morality, justice, opportunity to achieve, and conscience. What could be more important?
Printed August 22, 2012, in the Siuslaw News
***
Two local hard-heads had to differ.
***
This is in response to the letter of Aug. 22, “Truth Gap.” The only thing in his letter I would agree with is his last paragraph.
“This election is about morality, justice, opportunity to achieve and conscience.” What could be more important?
The only thing I would add is honest, but where in the world would you find all of this in the Obama, Biden Administration or the Democratic party?
Erich Baumann
Printed August 29, 2012, in the Siuslaw News
***
I’m really getting tired of answering letters such as “Truth Gap” (Aug. 22). Suggesting that “Republicans should have conversations with their consciencies” and calling the Republican Party “dishonest to the core” is more horse manure.
The primary problems today with the United States are twofold: astronomic debt and alarming unemployment coupled with diminishing number of jobs.
Our debt has climbed in the last three years from $5 trillion [wrong] to a current total debt of $16 trillion. In those last three years, President Obama was in charge, President Obama’s words about hope and change have not worked.
On unemployment, in the last 42 months of an Obama Administration, the level is now over 8 percent, and 44 of the 50 states have recorded a sharp increase in unemployment. Of particular note, in the 18- to 25-year-old category, the rate has reached 12.4 percent, and many young Americans, including many college graduates, have had to move back into their parents’ homes. [Which Republican think tank provided these “facts’?]
Finally, the number of jobs available in our country has declined sharply in the last three years of President Obama’s term, except in the government sector.
My conscience is clear and I am supporting the Romney/Ryan ticket.
Joseph A. Raffeto
Printed August 29, 2012, in the Siuslaw News
This correction appeared in the Sept. 1 Siuslaw News paper.
In Joe Raffeto’s letter, “Jobs and Debt” Aug. 29, one of his personal statements was changed due to an editing error. The sentence should have read: “Our debt has climbed in the last three yeas $5 trillion to a current total debt of $16 trillion.”
***
At the Democratic Club’s October meeting I gave a presentation about how in 2004 John Kerry had probably been robbed of carrying Ohio and, consequently, winning the Presidential election. I was greatly concerned that the same thing would happen to President Obama.
After the election I came upon this article on truthout.
***
At around 11:25 pm EST on election night, Karl Rove knew something had gone terribly wrong.
Minutes earlier, Fox News called the key battleground state of Ohio for President Obama, sealing his re-election. But as the network took live shots of jubilant Obama supporters celebrating their victory camped outside the Obama re-election headquarters in Chicago, Karl Rove began building a case against the call his employer network had just made.
Rove explained that when Fox called Ohio, only 74% of the vote was in showing President Obama with a lead of roughly 30,000 votes. But, as Rove contended, with 77% reporting according to the Ohio Secretary of State office, the President’s lead had been slashed to just 991 votes.
“We gotta be careful about calling the thing,” Rove said, “I’d be very cautious about intruding in on this process.”
Rove was supremely confident that the numbers coming in from Ohio throughout the night that favored President Obama weren’t indicative of who would win Ohio when all the votes were ultimately tabulated by the state's computers. With a quarter of the vote still out there, Rove was anticipating a shift to the Right just after 11 pm, which, coincidentally, is exactly what happened in 2004.
That year, John Kerry and the entire nation were watching Ohio just after the 11pm hour. Florida had just been called for George W. Bush and according to the Electoral College math whoever won Ohio would win the election. And considering that exit polls from the state showed John Kerry with a substantial lead, there were a lot of tense moments for Karl Rove and the Republicans that night.
Then the clock struck 11:14pm, and the servers counting the votes in Ohio crashed. Election officials had planned for this sort of thing to happen and already contracted with a company in Chattanooga, Tennessee called SMARTech to be the failsafe should the servers in Ohio go down.
As journalist Craig Unger lays bare in his book, Boss Rove, SMARTech was drenched in Republican politics. One of the early founders of the company was Mercer Reynolds who used to be the finance chairman of the Republican Party. SMARTech’s top client was none other than the Bush-Cheney campaign itself and SMARTech also did work for Jeb Bush and the Republican National Committee.
And it was Ohio’s Republican Secretary of State, Ken Blackwell, who ensured that SMARTech received the contract to count votes on election night should the servers go down, which they did at exactly 11:14pm.
Sixty long seconds later the servers came back up in Ohio, but now with vote rerouted through SMARTech in Chattanooga. And, coincidentally, Bush’s prospects for re-election were suddenly a lot brighter. The vote totals that poured into the system from SmartTECH's computer in Chattanooga were flipping the exit polls on their head. The lead Kerry had in the exit polls had magically reversed by more than 6%, something unheard of in any other nation in the developed world, giving Bush the win in Ohio and the presidency for another four years.
Unger further explains in his book that the only independent analysis of what happened in Ohio was done by Richard Hayes Phillips and published in the book, Witness to a Crime. Phillips and his team analyzed more than 120,000 ballots, 127 polls books, and 141 signature books from Ohio’s 2004 election.
Phillips found zero irregularities in vote totals from all the counties that reported results before the servers crashed at 11:14pm. But of the fourteen counties that came in after the crash connected Ohio's election computers to SmartTECH's computers in Chattanooga, every single one of them showed voter irregularities - that all favored George W. Bush.
For example, consider Cleveland’s Fourth Ward. In 2000, Al Gore won 95% of that ward's vote. But in 2004, the county reported its results after the 11:14 pm crash, and it showed that Kerry had only won 59% of the vote – a 35% drop without any explanation. There were several other abnormalities across Ohio’s post-server crash that delivered the state to Bush.
John Kerry never protested the election and to this day, these 2004 voter abnormalities have never been addressed.
So the question is: on election night this year, when Karl Rove was protesting the call his network had just made in Ohio, was Rove anticipating a wave of unpredicted vote totals to swing the election back to Mitt Romney after a statewide server crash, just as had happened in 2004?
Perhaps. He did make the point that the race was about to drastically narrow according to the Secretary of State’s office. And as The Free Press reports, a number of odd similarities with 2004 began occurring in Ohio this year just after the 11pm hour once again:
“Curiously, the Ohio Secretary of State’s vote tabulation website went down at 11:13pm, as reported by Free Press election protection website monitors, and mentioned by Rove on the news. This was one minute earlier than the time on election night 2004 -- when Ohio votes were outsourced to Chattanooga, Tennessee -- and then the vote flipped for Bush…This time, the Cuyahoga County (Cleveland) vote tabulation site went down as on election night as well. In his rant on Fox, Rove argued that Fox News should not confirm Ohio for Obama until votes came in from the southwest Ohio GOP strongholds of Delaware, Butler and Warren counties and suburban Cincinnati. It was after the crash of the secretary of state’s site in 2004 that improbable vote totals came in from Republican counties in southwest Ohio – particularly Butler, Clermont, and Warren counties. These three counties provided more than Bush’s entire Ohio victory margin of 119,000.”
Only this time, when the servers came back up, the votes never flipped. President Obama’s lead held and he went on to win, while Karl Rove - and Mitt Romney - watched in slack-jawed amazement.
We know there was a parade of Conservative talking heads in the days before the election predicting a landslide victory for Mitt Romney. Is it because they lived in a bubble, lacking pollster Nate Silver’s facts and arithmetic that actually showed the President winning in a landslide? Could it be that Rove’s election night freak-out was just a result of this same Election Day ignorance held by all Republicans? Or was Rove genuinely shocked by what he was seeing because he knew the fix was in, just like in 2004, and there was no way President Obama was going to win re-election?
And if that’s the case, why did the plan to steal the election not work?
Here’s where the story gets really interesting.
Just a few weeks before Election Day, the hacktivist group Anonymous issued a video statement against Karl Rove. Anonymous is notorious for numerous cyber actions against the Justice Department, the Pentagon, the Recording Industry of America, the Motion Picture Association of America, and even the Church of Scientology.
In the video released prior to Election Day, Anonymous warns Karl Rove that he’s being watched. “We know that you will attempt to rig the election of Mitt Romney to your favor,” a black-robed figure in a Guy Fawkes mask says in the video. “We will watch as your merry band of conspirators try to achieve this overthrow of the United States government.”
The figure then warns Rove that Anonymous is “watching and monitoring all your servers,” and goes on to say, “We want you to know that we are watching you, waiting for you to make this mistake of thinking you can rig this election to your favor…If we catch you we will turn over all of this data to the appropriate officials in the hopes that you will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
Then, just two days after Election Day, as the Republican Party was in full-blown despair and Karl Rove was trying to figure out what went wrong, Anonymous released a press statement claiming it did indeed prevent an attempt by Rove to steal the election for Mitt Romney.
The statement reads, “We began following the digital traffic of one Karl Rove…After a rather short time, we identified the digital structure of Karl’s operation and even that of his ORCA. This was an easy task in that barn doors were left open and the wind swept us inside.”The “ORCA” that Anonymous is referring to in the press release is a massive, high-tech get-out-the-vote system created by the Romney campaign this year that will keep tabs on potential voters and coordinate with operatives to target who has and hasn’t voted yet on Election Day.
Romney’s Communications Director Gail Gitcho bragged about how sophisticated ORCA is saying, “At 5 o’clock when the exit polls come out, we won’t pay attention to that. We will have had much more scientific information based on the political operation we have set up.” In other words, ORCA will know who won Ohio better than any exit polls.
But, according to Anonymous, ORCA had nothing to do with getting out the vote and everything to do with rigging the vote.
“We coded and created, what we call The Great Oz. A targeted password protected firewall that we tested and refined over the past weeks. We placed this code on more than one of the digital tunnels and their destination that Karl's not so smart worker bees planned to use on election night.”
Anonymous alleges these “digital tunnels” were leading to servers in three different states. The release goes on to detail what happened on election night as Rove’s operatives attempted to access these tunnels.
“We watched as Karl's weak corrupters repeatedly tried to penetrate The Great Oz. These children of his were at a loss-how many times and how many passwords did they try-exactly 105.”
“Karl’s speared ORCA whale was breached, rotting with a strong stench across his playground, unable to be resuscitated,” claims Anonymous.
So might this have really been the reason for Karl Rove’s shock on election night? Under the guise of sophisticated get out the vote operation, had Rove and the Republican Party actually built up a massive system to steal the Ohio election, just like in 2004, only to have it thwarted at the last minute by a group of computer hackers?
If this is true, then the implications are enormous and could take down the entire Republican Party and finally wake Americans up to the fact that our privatized vote system is shockingly flawed and insecure.
In their press release, Anonymous concludes, “We have a warning for Karl – sail again at your own peril. We may just put all the evidence into a tidy little package and give it to a painfully bored nemesis hanging out in a certain embassy in London” (Hartmann and Secks 1-3)
Work cited:
Hartmann, Tom and Sacks, Steve. “Anonymous, Karl Rove and 2012 Election Fix?” Originally, The Daily Take, November 19, 2012. Net.
***
Tom Hartmann added the following:
You need to know this. There are major implications for our elections if recent claims by the hacktivist group Anonymous are indeed true. Last week – Anonymous issued a press release boasting that it successfully blocked an attempt by Karl Rove to steal the election on Election Night. For weeks leading up the election, Republicans have been hyping up a get out the vote system known as ORCA that would have played a big part in Mitt Romney winning the presidency. But Anonymous claims that ORCA wasn't meant to get out the vote, but instead to steal the vote. The hacktivists say they discovered Rove's plot months before the election and learned of the inner workings of ORCA and how it was created to rig the vote in three battleground states. Thus, Anonymous says it built a firewall on Election night that blocked ORCA from manipulating vote totals. That might explain why Karl Rove appeared so shocked on Election Night when Fox News called Ohio for President Obama. Regardless of whether or not Anonymous' claims are true – and if they are true, then evidence should be released - there are still serious problems with our privatized vote system. – Nov. 19, 2012
Lois Oleson wants President Obama to turn over his birth certificate, “hidden” records from his university years, his “legal” Social Security number, and how he received his college aid because (according to her) he applied as a foreigner.
Marcia Maclaine paints President Obama a tyrant. According to her, liberal government is the enemy of the people. She asserts that the president “demonizes the successful and makes impossible promises to the gullible. He has borrowed this country so deeply into debt that generations of Americans still unborn will be buried under it.” Does she know about our huge wealth inequality gap? That from 1932 to President Reagan in 1986 our highest marginal income tax rate varied between 50 to 91%? How much public debt Reagan and the two Bushes racked up? Must we genuflect to the Koch brothers and billionaires of their ilk, say: “Do what you will. Decide my future, the fate of our country, the existence of our planet.”
To win elections, corporate oligarchs direct the public’s anger about the consequences of their selfish actions at institutions and opposition leaders that strive to benefit society. They lie. They demonize. It resonates, with the hate-filled radical Right base and with many people who would be hard pressed to name four Twentieth Century U.S. presidents.
Printed July 19, 2012, in the Register-Guard
***
Marcia Maclaine answered back.
***
As I watched C-SPAN recently the Huffington Post reporter made a stunningly revealing statement.
After she had made the tedious plea for Mitt Romney’s income tax returns, a caller asked her why President Obama had paid taxes on only part of his income.
She replied, “I’m not really familiar with Obama’s taxes.”
There it is. The conservative needs to be examined through a microscope while the socialist get a pass.
Maybe it’s time we do a little research on the man who’s running our country. The mainstream media won’t do it. Read his books, look into the backgrounds of his advisers, let’s see his college transcripts and thesis (never mind, he won’t release those).
Don’t blindly assume that because the socialist calls him a Democrat, he must be the best choice. If he gets a second term he will fulfill his promise to fundamentally transform America – and it won’t be into something better.
Mark Kontny hated Bush’s Patriot Act (letters, July 21), so why would he support a man who not only embraces it but expands it? Harold Titus opined that I can’t name four 20th century presidents (letters, July 19).
I was born during the Truman administration and can name not only every president after him but every one before him.
More importantly, what do George W. Bush and my memorization abilities have to do with mistrusting a socialist president who changes duly passed laws by executive order in the hopes of improving his re-election chances?
Marcia Maclaine
Printed September 2, 2012, in the Register-Guard
***
It wasn’t just me that opposed the foreign-born Socialist’s opponent and party. Heavens-to-Betsy! The mainstream socialist media!
***
People who vote Republican Party candidates these days into public offices should have conversations with their consciences.
Massive voter disenfranchisement of citizens who vote mostly Democratic,
especially in the swing states Pennsylvania, Ohio, Florida, and Wisconsin, indicates a party dishonest to the core.
Allowing individuals who live mostly on investment income (interest, dividends, capital gains) to be taxed at a lower rate than people who live on a salary indicates a party that doesn’t represent most Americans.
The wealth gap between the very rich and the rest of us has become as
extreme as it was just before the Great Depression. The top marginal personal income tax rate between 1932 and 1986, as high as 94% and never lower than 50%, corrected that. It has been 35% for the past 12 years! Republican politicians refuse to raise it. They want to lower it!
“In 2011, corporate profits hit their highest level since 1950. … This
hasn’t translated into wage growth or more purchasing power for workers.” – Pat Garofalo.
“According to the Social Security Administration … the average paycheck for working Americans fell again – down over 1% to $26,364 a year. That’s the lowest level it’s been in 11 years.” – Thom Hartmann. Yet Republicans want to cut Medicaid, food stamps, and the minimum wage!
“People of all persuasions lie, but the right has a whole institutional structure of lying that has no counterpoint of the left.” – Paul Krugman.
“There are those who tell the truth. There are those who distort the truth. And then there’s Mitt Romney.” – Eugene Robinson.
“These days, it seems as if there’s not a fact that can’t be ignored,
rejected, or altered if you throw enough cash at it.” – Michael Winship. Does it bother you that not one Republican Party politician or conservative letter writer has condemned the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision that permits billionaires to determine most of the content, the quantity, and the frequency of TV political ads?
“The latest data show that multinationals cut 2.9 million jobs in the United
States and added 2.4 million overseas between 2000 and 2009.” – Jia Lynn Yang.
“Modern Republicans have a simple approach to politics when they are not in the White House: Make America as ungovernable as possible.” – Robert Parry.
The GOP blames Obama for current unemployment, “failed policies,” and massive debt. They refuse to acknowledge the huge carry-over of destructiveness caused by the Bush administration. They say nothing about their unprecedented use of the filibuster in the Senate and their current control of the House of Representatives. “When Republicans like Romney and McConnell talk about the bad economy – they’re bragging!” – Thom Hartmann.
Nearly everything requiring legislation that the Obama administration has proposed after the Recovery Act and the Affordable Care Act became law they have thwarted.
This election is about morality, justice, opportunity to achieve, and conscience. What could be more important?
Printed August 22, 2012, in the Siuslaw News
***
Two local hard-heads had to differ.
***
This is in response to the letter of Aug. 22, “Truth Gap.” The only thing in his letter I would agree with is his last paragraph.
“This election is about morality, justice, opportunity to achieve and conscience.” What could be more important?
The only thing I would add is honest, but where in the world would you find all of this in the Obama, Biden Administration or the Democratic party?
Erich Baumann
Printed August 29, 2012, in the Siuslaw News
***
I’m really getting tired of answering letters such as “Truth Gap” (Aug. 22). Suggesting that “Republicans should have conversations with their consciencies” and calling the Republican Party “dishonest to the core” is more horse manure.
The primary problems today with the United States are twofold: astronomic debt and alarming unemployment coupled with diminishing number of jobs.
Our debt has climbed in the last three years from $5 trillion [wrong] to a current total debt of $16 trillion. In those last three years, President Obama was in charge, President Obama’s words about hope and change have not worked.
On unemployment, in the last 42 months of an Obama Administration, the level is now over 8 percent, and 44 of the 50 states have recorded a sharp increase in unemployment. Of particular note, in the 18- to 25-year-old category, the rate has reached 12.4 percent, and many young Americans, including many college graduates, have had to move back into their parents’ homes. [Which Republican think tank provided these “facts’?]
Finally, the number of jobs available in our country has declined sharply in the last three years of President Obama’s term, except in the government sector.
My conscience is clear and I am supporting the Romney/Ryan ticket.
Joseph A. Raffeto
Printed August 29, 2012, in the Siuslaw News
This correction appeared in the Sept. 1 Siuslaw News paper.
In Joe Raffeto’s letter, “Jobs and Debt” Aug. 29, one of his personal statements was changed due to an editing error. The sentence should have read: “Our debt has climbed in the last three yeas $5 trillion to a current total debt of $16 trillion.”
***
At the Democratic Club’s October meeting I gave a presentation about how in 2004 John Kerry had probably been robbed of carrying Ohio and, consequently, winning the Presidential election. I was greatly concerned that the same thing would happen to President Obama.
After the election I came upon this article on truthout.
***
At around 11:25 pm EST on election night, Karl Rove knew something had gone terribly wrong.
Minutes earlier, Fox News called the key battleground state of Ohio for President Obama, sealing his re-election. But as the network took live shots of jubilant Obama supporters celebrating their victory camped outside the Obama re-election headquarters in Chicago, Karl Rove began building a case against the call his employer network had just made.
Rove explained that when Fox called Ohio, only 74% of the vote was in showing President Obama with a lead of roughly 30,000 votes. But, as Rove contended, with 77% reporting according to the Ohio Secretary of State office, the President’s lead had been slashed to just 991 votes.
“We gotta be careful about calling the thing,” Rove said, “I’d be very cautious about intruding in on this process.”
Rove was supremely confident that the numbers coming in from Ohio throughout the night that favored President Obama weren’t indicative of who would win Ohio when all the votes were ultimately tabulated by the state's computers. With a quarter of the vote still out there, Rove was anticipating a shift to the Right just after 11 pm, which, coincidentally, is exactly what happened in 2004.
That year, John Kerry and the entire nation were watching Ohio just after the 11pm hour. Florida had just been called for George W. Bush and according to the Electoral College math whoever won Ohio would win the election. And considering that exit polls from the state showed John Kerry with a substantial lead, there were a lot of tense moments for Karl Rove and the Republicans that night.
Then the clock struck 11:14pm, and the servers counting the votes in Ohio crashed. Election officials had planned for this sort of thing to happen and already contracted with a company in Chattanooga, Tennessee called SMARTech to be the failsafe should the servers in Ohio go down.
As journalist Craig Unger lays bare in his book, Boss Rove, SMARTech was drenched in Republican politics. One of the early founders of the company was Mercer Reynolds who used to be the finance chairman of the Republican Party. SMARTech’s top client was none other than the Bush-Cheney campaign itself and SMARTech also did work for Jeb Bush and the Republican National Committee.
And it was Ohio’s Republican Secretary of State, Ken Blackwell, who ensured that SMARTech received the contract to count votes on election night should the servers go down, which they did at exactly 11:14pm.
Sixty long seconds later the servers came back up in Ohio, but now with vote rerouted through SMARTech in Chattanooga. And, coincidentally, Bush’s prospects for re-election were suddenly a lot brighter. The vote totals that poured into the system from SmartTECH's computer in Chattanooga were flipping the exit polls on their head. The lead Kerry had in the exit polls had magically reversed by more than 6%, something unheard of in any other nation in the developed world, giving Bush the win in Ohio and the presidency for another four years.
Unger further explains in his book that the only independent analysis of what happened in Ohio was done by Richard Hayes Phillips and published in the book, Witness to a Crime. Phillips and his team analyzed more than 120,000 ballots, 127 polls books, and 141 signature books from Ohio’s 2004 election.
Phillips found zero irregularities in vote totals from all the counties that reported results before the servers crashed at 11:14pm. But of the fourteen counties that came in after the crash connected Ohio's election computers to SmartTECH's computers in Chattanooga, every single one of them showed voter irregularities - that all favored George W. Bush.
For example, consider Cleveland’s Fourth Ward. In 2000, Al Gore won 95% of that ward's vote. But in 2004, the county reported its results after the 11:14 pm crash, and it showed that Kerry had only won 59% of the vote – a 35% drop without any explanation. There were several other abnormalities across Ohio’s post-server crash that delivered the state to Bush.
John Kerry never protested the election and to this day, these 2004 voter abnormalities have never been addressed.
So the question is: on election night this year, when Karl Rove was protesting the call his network had just made in Ohio, was Rove anticipating a wave of unpredicted vote totals to swing the election back to Mitt Romney after a statewide server crash, just as had happened in 2004?
Perhaps. He did make the point that the race was about to drastically narrow according to the Secretary of State’s office. And as The Free Press reports, a number of odd similarities with 2004 began occurring in Ohio this year just after the 11pm hour once again:
“Curiously, the Ohio Secretary of State’s vote tabulation website went down at 11:13pm, as reported by Free Press election protection website monitors, and mentioned by Rove on the news. This was one minute earlier than the time on election night 2004 -- when Ohio votes were outsourced to Chattanooga, Tennessee -- and then the vote flipped for Bush…This time, the Cuyahoga County (Cleveland) vote tabulation site went down as on election night as well. In his rant on Fox, Rove argued that Fox News should not confirm Ohio for Obama until votes came in from the southwest Ohio GOP strongholds of Delaware, Butler and Warren counties and suburban Cincinnati. It was after the crash of the secretary of state’s site in 2004 that improbable vote totals came in from Republican counties in southwest Ohio – particularly Butler, Clermont, and Warren counties. These three counties provided more than Bush’s entire Ohio victory margin of 119,000.”
Only this time, when the servers came back up, the votes never flipped. President Obama’s lead held and he went on to win, while Karl Rove - and Mitt Romney - watched in slack-jawed amazement.
We know there was a parade of Conservative talking heads in the days before the election predicting a landslide victory for Mitt Romney. Is it because they lived in a bubble, lacking pollster Nate Silver’s facts and arithmetic that actually showed the President winning in a landslide? Could it be that Rove’s election night freak-out was just a result of this same Election Day ignorance held by all Republicans? Or was Rove genuinely shocked by what he was seeing because he knew the fix was in, just like in 2004, and there was no way President Obama was going to win re-election?
And if that’s the case, why did the plan to steal the election not work?
Here’s where the story gets really interesting.
Just a few weeks before Election Day, the hacktivist group Anonymous issued a video statement against Karl Rove. Anonymous is notorious for numerous cyber actions against the Justice Department, the Pentagon, the Recording Industry of America, the Motion Picture Association of America, and even the Church of Scientology.
In the video released prior to Election Day, Anonymous warns Karl Rove that he’s being watched. “We know that you will attempt to rig the election of Mitt Romney to your favor,” a black-robed figure in a Guy Fawkes mask says in the video. “We will watch as your merry band of conspirators try to achieve this overthrow of the United States government.”
The figure then warns Rove that Anonymous is “watching and monitoring all your servers,” and goes on to say, “We want you to know that we are watching you, waiting for you to make this mistake of thinking you can rig this election to your favor…If we catch you we will turn over all of this data to the appropriate officials in the hopes that you will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
Then, just two days after Election Day, as the Republican Party was in full-blown despair and Karl Rove was trying to figure out what went wrong, Anonymous released a press statement claiming it did indeed prevent an attempt by Rove to steal the election for Mitt Romney.
The statement reads, “We began following the digital traffic of one Karl Rove…After a rather short time, we identified the digital structure of Karl’s operation and even that of his ORCA. This was an easy task in that barn doors were left open and the wind swept us inside.”The “ORCA” that Anonymous is referring to in the press release is a massive, high-tech get-out-the-vote system created by the Romney campaign this year that will keep tabs on potential voters and coordinate with operatives to target who has and hasn’t voted yet on Election Day.
Romney’s Communications Director Gail Gitcho bragged about how sophisticated ORCA is saying, “At 5 o’clock when the exit polls come out, we won’t pay attention to that. We will have had much more scientific information based on the political operation we have set up.” In other words, ORCA will know who won Ohio better than any exit polls.
But, according to Anonymous, ORCA had nothing to do with getting out the vote and everything to do with rigging the vote.
“We coded and created, what we call The Great Oz. A targeted password protected firewall that we tested and refined over the past weeks. We placed this code on more than one of the digital tunnels and their destination that Karl's not so smart worker bees planned to use on election night.”
Anonymous alleges these “digital tunnels” were leading to servers in three different states. The release goes on to detail what happened on election night as Rove’s operatives attempted to access these tunnels.
“We watched as Karl's weak corrupters repeatedly tried to penetrate The Great Oz. These children of his were at a loss-how many times and how many passwords did they try-exactly 105.”
“Karl’s speared ORCA whale was breached, rotting with a strong stench across his playground, unable to be resuscitated,” claims Anonymous.
So might this have really been the reason for Karl Rove’s shock on election night? Under the guise of sophisticated get out the vote operation, had Rove and the Republican Party actually built up a massive system to steal the Ohio election, just like in 2004, only to have it thwarted at the last minute by a group of computer hackers?
If this is true, then the implications are enormous and could take down the entire Republican Party and finally wake Americans up to the fact that our privatized vote system is shockingly flawed and insecure.
In their press release, Anonymous concludes, “We have a warning for Karl – sail again at your own peril. We may just put all the evidence into a tidy little package and give it to a painfully bored nemesis hanging out in a certain embassy in London” (Hartmann and Secks 1-3)
Work cited:
Hartmann, Tom and Sacks, Steve. “Anonymous, Karl Rove and 2012 Election Fix?” Originally, The Daily Take, November 19, 2012. Net.
***
Tom Hartmann added the following:
You need to know this. There are major implications for our elections if recent claims by the hacktivist group Anonymous are indeed true. Last week – Anonymous issued a press release boasting that it successfully blocked an attempt by Karl Rove to steal the election on Election Night. For weeks leading up the election, Republicans have been hyping up a get out the vote system known as ORCA that would have played a big part in Mitt Romney winning the presidency. But Anonymous claims that ORCA wasn't meant to get out the vote, but instead to steal the vote. The hacktivists say they discovered Rove's plot months before the election and learned of the inner workings of ORCA and how it was created to rig the vote in three battleground states. Thus, Anonymous says it built a firewall on Election night that blocked ORCA from manipulating vote totals. That might explain why Karl Rove appeared so shocked on Election Night when Fox News called Ohio for President Obama. Regardless of whether or not Anonymous' claims are true – and if they are true, then evidence should be released - there are still serious problems with our privatized vote system. – Nov. 19, 2012
November 25, 2021
Letters, 2012, Standing with Obama, March 14, March 24, March 26, May 23
Election year. Local, county, state, and nation. Much to comment about. So much GOP bull crap to expose. Such an uphill climb to surmount the stench.
***
Why do you suppose that close to 62 percent of Americans support a constitutional amendment that would take personhood status away from corporations, thereby denying them the ability to spend unlimited amounts of money to sway elections?
Maybe it is because in their pursuit of huge profits large corporations do things that substantially harm ordinary citizens.
Maybe it is because large corporations seek unlimited power to exploit.
Maybe it is because large corporations contrive to pay little or no taxes.
Maybe it is because large corporations readily buy politicians to protect and advance their interests.
Maybe it is because those corporations and those politicians obfuscate and lie.
Maybe, most probably, it is because citizens recognize that corporations are not actual people. They should not be ceded the constitutional rights accorded people. Contributing huge sums of campaign money should not be deemed the exercise of “free speech.” It is, plain and simple, abuse of power. Corporations are corrupting our right to determine, wisely or foolishly, our future.
Mayors, city council members, county commissioners, governors and state legislators, and members of Congress, you were elected to serve us, not behave like corporate board members. Support a constitutional amendment to eliminate corporate “personhood.”
Printed March 14, 2012, in the Siuslaw News and in The World
***
But then, the Fox News Pavlovian dogs are quick to refute, utilizing projection and false equivalency.
***
Once again our local liberals are in a panic. On March 14, Harold Titus stated the 62 percent of Americans support a constitutional amendment that would take away personhood status from corporations, thereby denying them the ability to spend unlimited amounts of money to sway elections.
I am not sure where he comes up with these figures. Perhaps he means 62 percent of Democrats.
Everything Mr. Titus accuses corporations of is the same thing unions have been doing for years. The difference is, unions pour millions of dollars into liberal politicians’ campaigns.
A good example of this is Obama’s payback to unions for their help for getting him elected, when he illegally took over General Motors and gave a large piece of the company to the unions. You will find a majority of Democrat office holders beholden to some union. Worst is the public employee unions. They are in effect paying off their bosses.
On March 17 Rick Staggenborg wrote a letter thanking the Coos Bay City Council for voting 7 to 1 in favor of a resolution to support the amendment against corporations. I think councilman Hanson was correct voting against this action. The City Council should take care of city business and not national politics. I am pleased that our newest councilman has common sense.
Mr. Staggenborg goes on to parrot the same lame liberal line as Mr. Titus, ignoring the corrupt union connection in the Democratic Party. Mr. S. says a small group gathers every Wednesday with signs. I can see why it is a small group. One thing that comes through on all these liberal articles is the socialist mindset. Always against the wealthy and class warfare.
And last is Ms. Ramirez’s article about her congressman. The lying Peter DeFazio. She is now whining about the two Robinsons running against him in the upcoming election. She should be very concerned about DeFazio, as his lies and sneaky ways are coming to light and it is very possible that he will lose the next election. Either Robinson would be a great congressman. It is time to dump DeFazio!
One last thing, as in my previous letters I have asked liberals why they would vote for and support a person they know is lying to them. So far no one is able to answer this simple question. Can you, Ms. Ramirez?
Phil Shellabarger, Coos Bay
Printed March 24, 2012, in The World
***
One major difference between Republicans and Democrats is that GOPers lack empathy.
***
On March 16, 2012, in Atlanta, Georgia, President Obama talked about the American Dream, the belief “that if you work hard you can make it, regardless of what you look like, where you come from, what your name is, that … you can support a family, buy a house, send your kids to college, retire with dignity and respect. That core American Dream has been fraying for too many people.”
We know what happened in the fall of 2008. We know who has profited the past 30 years and who has not. President Obama has worked hard against unprecedented Republican Party opposition to restore our economy and American’s faith in the Dream.
Reading his March 16 remarks, I was reminded of something linguistics professor George Lakoff wrote.
“Democracy is about empathy – caring about your fellow citizens, which leads to the principles of freedom and fairness for all. Empathy requires both individual and social responsibility. The ethic of excellence means making the world better by making yourself better, your family better, your community better, and your nation better. Government has two moral missions: protection and empowerment for all. To carry them out, government must be by, for, and of the people.”
Lakoff and the president are together on this.
At the end of his remarks, President Obama called for our support. “I’ll be counting on you, and more importantly, the American people are counting on you.”
Are they ever!
Printed March 26, 2012, in the Register-Guard
***
So what do Republican voters have going for them, not caring diddly for the welfare of those who are not like them?
***
Where would the voting public be without common sense?
If the general public would consistently keep track of what our political leaders and parties say and do, being knowledgeable voters they wouldn’t need to fall back on common sense. We’d all be better off.
The Republican Party tells the inattentive voter that he should use his common sense to figure out what’s right. Elitists -- those who commit the crime of being educated and knowledgeable -- are deceitful liberals, not to be trusted. You can’t fool a man if he watches “fair and balanced” Fox News and trusts his “horse sense.”
Because President Obama had close ties with “radical” mentors (Sean Hannity says so), it stands to reason Obama is a dangerously radical president who in his second term will destroy this country. Common sense.
Because national achievement scores do not compare favorably with those registered in certain foreign countries, our public school system is horrible. (Heed Art Robinson) [Robinson was Rep. DeFazio’s opponent] We need charter schools. Home schools. Common sense.
Stands to reason that large corporations and the rich are important job creators. (They do the hiring, right?) Why then would you want to raise their taxes? Less taxes, more jobs. Common sense.
When you haven’t had a pay raise in years and you’re having a heck of a time paying your bills, why would you go out and buy a new car? Being that our country is in deep debt, we should be cutting, cutting, cutting, not passing a second expensive stimulus bill. (John Boehner knows). Common sense.
All those business regulations! (Hear Scott Roberts) [Roberts was Arnie Roblan’s opponent for the state senate] You don’t send a major leaguer up to the plate to hit a fast ball using just one hand! Free the marketplace! Everybody wins! Common sense.
The Siuslaw News reported May 2 that the phrase “common sense” was used frequently by the speakers at the Art and Matthew Robinson, Scott Roberts, and Nancy Brouhard [opponent of Democratic candidate for the state house Caddy McKeown] dog and pony show here in Florence several days earlier.
Printed May 23, 2012, in the Siuslaw News
***
Below is a brief, interesting article about “common sense” taken from The Saturday Evening Post, August 14, 2019.
***
Common sense, defined as “sound judgment derived from experience rather than study,” is one of the most revered qualities in America. It evokes images of early and simpler times in which industrious men and women built our country into what it is today. People with common sense are seen as reasonable, down to earth, reliable, and practical.
But here’s the catch. Common sense is neither common nor sensible. The word common, by definition, suggests that this fine quality is held by a large number of people. But the idea that if a belief is held by a large number of people it must be sound has been disproven time and time again (e.g., the world is flat, vaccines are dangerous, Korean pop star PSY has talent).
If common sense actually made sense, then most people wouldn’t make the kinds of ill-advised decisions they do every day. People wouldn’t buy stuff they can’t afford. They wouldn’t smoke cigarettes or eat junk food. They wouldn’t gamble. In short, people wouldn’t do the multitude of things that are clearly not good for them.
In recent years, the idea that common sense is more worthy than, oh, actual knowledge based on rigorous study, has been weaponized by politicians. Republicans use it as an ideological cudgel, inferring that this quality is somehow lacking among coastal elites. Democrats counter this criticism by playing up their working-class cred; they wear jeans, drive pick-ups, and attempt to warm the hearts of voters with tales of their up-by-the-bootstraps backgrounds.
Perhaps the biggest problem with the common sense argument is that it is invariably supported by anecdotal evidence. For example, in a discussion about the weather, the economy, child-rearing, sports, what have you, how often do you hear some variation of “Well, it’s been my experience that [fill in the blank].” As we all should have learned in Science 101, a single observation does not a theory make: “What do you mean, global warming? I’m freezing my butt off here!”
We need to jettison this notion of the sanctity of common sense and instead embrace “reasoned sense,” that is, sound judgment based on rigorous study of an issue. We can, and should, apply many of the basic principles of the scientific method (develop hypotheses, collect and analyze data, draw reasoned conclusions) in our daily lives and challenge the facile and sometimes harebrained ideas that our friends — and even some of our leaders — unthinkingly spout. That is the kind of sense that makes the most sense, however common or uncommon it might be (Taylor 1-3).
Work cited:
Taylor, Jim. “Contrariwise: Common Sense Is neither Common nor Sensible.” The Saturday Evening Post, August 14, 2019. Net. https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2...
***
Why do you suppose that close to 62 percent of Americans support a constitutional amendment that would take personhood status away from corporations, thereby denying them the ability to spend unlimited amounts of money to sway elections?
Maybe it is because in their pursuit of huge profits large corporations do things that substantially harm ordinary citizens.
Maybe it is because large corporations seek unlimited power to exploit.
Maybe it is because large corporations contrive to pay little or no taxes.
Maybe it is because large corporations readily buy politicians to protect and advance their interests.
Maybe it is because those corporations and those politicians obfuscate and lie.
Maybe, most probably, it is because citizens recognize that corporations are not actual people. They should not be ceded the constitutional rights accorded people. Contributing huge sums of campaign money should not be deemed the exercise of “free speech.” It is, plain and simple, abuse of power. Corporations are corrupting our right to determine, wisely or foolishly, our future.
Mayors, city council members, county commissioners, governors and state legislators, and members of Congress, you were elected to serve us, not behave like corporate board members. Support a constitutional amendment to eliminate corporate “personhood.”
Printed March 14, 2012, in the Siuslaw News and in The World
***
But then, the Fox News Pavlovian dogs are quick to refute, utilizing projection and false equivalency.
***
Once again our local liberals are in a panic. On March 14, Harold Titus stated the 62 percent of Americans support a constitutional amendment that would take away personhood status from corporations, thereby denying them the ability to spend unlimited amounts of money to sway elections.
I am not sure where he comes up with these figures. Perhaps he means 62 percent of Democrats.
Everything Mr. Titus accuses corporations of is the same thing unions have been doing for years. The difference is, unions pour millions of dollars into liberal politicians’ campaigns.
A good example of this is Obama’s payback to unions for their help for getting him elected, when he illegally took over General Motors and gave a large piece of the company to the unions. You will find a majority of Democrat office holders beholden to some union. Worst is the public employee unions. They are in effect paying off their bosses.
On March 17 Rick Staggenborg wrote a letter thanking the Coos Bay City Council for voting 7 to 1 in favor of a resolution to support the amendment against corporations. I think councilman Hanson was correct voting against this action. The City Council should take care of city business and not national politics. I am pleased that our newest councilman has common sense.
Mr. Staggenborg goes on to parrot the same lame liberal line as Mr. Titus, ignoring the corrupt union connection in the Democratic Party. Mr. S. says a small group gathers every Wednesday with signs. I can see why it is a small group. One thing that comes through on all these liberal articles is the socialist mindset. Always against the wealthy and class warfare.
And last is Ms. Ramirez’s article about her congressman. The lying Peter DeFazio. She is now whining about the two Robinsons running against him in the upcoming election. She should be very concerned about DeFazio, as his lies and sneaky ways are coming to light and it is very possible that he will lose the next election. Either Robinson would be a great congressman. It is time to dump DeFazio!
One last thing, as in my previous letters I have asked liberals why they would vote for and support a person they know is lying to them. So far no one is able to answer this simple question. Can you, Ms. Ramirez?
Phil Shellabarger, Coos Bay
Printed March 24, 2012, in The World
***
One major difference between Republicans and Democrats is that GOPers lack empathy.
***
On March 16, 2012, in Atlanta, Georgia, President Obama talked about the American Dream, the belief “that if you work hard you can make it, regardless of what you look like, where you come from, what your name is, that … you can support a family, buy a house, send your kids to college, retire with dignity and respect. That core American Dream has been fraying for too many people.”
We know what happened in the fall of 2008. We know who has profited the past 30 years and who has not. President Obama has worked hard against unprecedented Republican Party opposition to restore our economy and American’s faith in the Dream.
Reading his March 16 remarks, I was reminded of something linguistics professor George Lakoff wrote.
“Democracy is about empathy – caring about your fellow citizens, which leads to the principles of freedom and fairness for all. Empathy requires both individual and social responsibility. The ethic of excellence means making the world better by making yourself better, your family better, your community better, and your nation better. Government has two moral missions: protection and empowerment for all. To carry them out, government must be by, for, and of the people.”
Lakoff and the president are together on this.
At the end of his remarks, President Obama called for our support. “I’ll be counting on you, and more importantly, the American people are counting on you.”
Are they ever!
Printed March 26, 2012, in the Register-Guard
***
So what do Republican voters have going for them, not caring diddly for the welfare of those who are not like them?
***
Where would the voting public be without common sense?
If the general public would consistently keep track of what our political leaders and parties say and do, being knowledgeable voters they wouldn’t need to fall back on common sense. We’d all be better off.
The Republican Party tells the inattentive voter that he should use his common sense to figure out what’s right. Elitists -- those who commit the crime of being educated and knowledgeable -- are deceitful liberals, not to be trusted. You can’t fool a man if he watches “fair and balanced” Fox News and trusts his “horse sense.”
Because President Obama had close ties with “radical” mentors (Sean Hannity says so), it stands to reason Obama is a dangerously radical president who in his second term will destroy this country. Common sense.
Because national achievement scores do not compare favorably with those registered in certain foreign countries, our public school system is horrible. (Heed Art Robinson) [Robinson was Rep. DeFazio’s opponent] We need charter schools. Home schools. Common sense.
Stands to reason that large corporations and the rich are important job creators. (They do the hiring, right?) Why then would you want to raise their taxes? Less taxes, more jobs. Common sense.
When you haven’t had a pay raise in years and you’re having a heck of a time paying your bills, why would you go out and buy a new car? Being that our country is in deep debt, we should be cutting, cutting, cutting, not passing a second expensive stimulus bill. (John Boehner knows). Common sense.
All those business regulations! (Hear Scott Roberts) [Roberts was Arnie Roblan’s opponent for the state senate] You don’t send a major leaguer up to the plate to hit a fast ball using just one hand! Free the marketplace! Everybody wins! Common sense.
The Siuslaw News reported May 2 that the phrase “common sense” was used frequently by the speakers at the Art and Matthew Robinson, Scott Roberts, and Nancy Brouhard [opponent of Democratic candidate for the state house Caddy McKeown] dog and pony show here in Florence several days earlier.
Printed May 23, 2012, in the Siuslaw News
***
Below is a brief, interesting article about “common sense” taken from The Saturday Evening Post, August 14, 2019.
***
Common sense, defined as “sound judgment derived from experience rather than study,” is one of the most revered qualities in America. It evokes images of early and simpler times in which industrious men and women built our country into what it is today. People with common sense are seen as reasonable, down to earth, reliable, and practical.
But here’s the catch. Common sense is neither common nor sensible. The word common, by definition, suggests that this fine quality is held by a large number of people. But the idea that if a belief is held by a large number of people it must be sound has been disproven time and time again (e.g., the world is flat, vaccines are dangerous, Korean pop star PSY has talent).
If common sense actually made sense, then most people wouldn’t make the kinds of ill-advised decisions they do every day. People wouldn’t buy stuff they can’t afford. They wouldn’t smoke cigarettes or eat junk food. They wouldn’t gamble. In short, people wouldn’t do the multitude of things that are clearly not good for them.
In recent years, the idea that common sense is more worthy than, oh, actual knowledge based on rigorous study, has been weaponized by politicians. Republicans use it as an ideological cudgel, inferring that this quality is somehow lacking among coastal elites. Democrats counter this criticism by playing up their working-class cred; they wear jeans, drive pick-ups, and attempt to warm the hearts of voters with tales of their up-by-the-bootstraps backgrounds.
Perhaps the biggest problem with the common sense argument is that it is invariably supported by anecdotal evidence. For example, in a discussion about the weather, the economy, child-rearing, sports, what have you, how often do you hear some variation of “Well, it’s been my experience that [fill in the blank].” As we all should have learned in Science 101, a single observation does not a theory make: “What do you mean, global warming? I’m freezing my butt off here!”
We need to jettison this notion of the sanctity of common sense and instead embrace “reasoned sense,” that is, sound judgment based on rigorous study of an issue. We can, and should, apply many of the basic principles of the scientific method (develop hypotheses, collect and analyze data, draw reasoned conclusions) in our daily lives and challenge the facile and sometimes harebrained ideas that our friends — and even some of our leaders — unthinkingly spout. That is the kind of sense that makes the most sense, however common or uncommon it might be (Taylor 1-3).
Work cited:
Taylor, Jim. “Contrariwise: Common Sense Is neither Common nor Sensible.” The Saturday Evening Post, August 14, 2019. Net. https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2...
November 21, 2021
Letters, 2011, Allusions to Books, Films, August 20, September 27, October 7, 8, 13, 15, 19, October 24
Sometimes what I see in a movie theater causes me to want to write. What I read that runs counter to what I have learned from personal experience can evoke a written response. What I have written in my first historical novel and literary works that I have had my eighth grade English students read may provide factual basis for arguments I wish to make. Such was the case with this post’s letters.
***
In 1963 civil rights leader Medgar Evers was murdered in Jackson, Mississippi. That event is noted briefly in “The Help,” a movie about the exploitation of black house maids by racist white middle and upper-class housewives living in Mississippi’s capital.
People of my generation were in their late twenties or early thirties during that pivotal year in our nation’s history. It was no coincidence that most of the folks that watched the film in the local theater the Sunday my wife and I attended had gray and white hair.
I am concerned that younger people, having little or no knowledge of the civil rights struggle of the late 1950’s and the 1960’s, will never see the connection between the white ruling class’s hatred and persecution of blacks at that time and what we are presently experiencing. I speak of the vilification, exploitation, and legislative punishment of our middle and lower economic and social classes by large corporate interests and their legislative lackeys – the Republican Party and certain corporate-bought Democrats.
To squeeze every advantage out of the powerless and near powerless, those controlling the levers of autocratic power must make themselves (and others sympathetic to their agenda) believe that their victims are undeserving of civilized consideration.
This has been a practice the origins of which began before the writing of history.
I urge all folks here in Florence whose hearts are not calcified to view this
remarkable film. There have been times in our history when status-quo injustices are quite suddenly no longer tolerated. Necessary change happens when enough of our citizens, their hearts pierced by inequities, demand it.
Printed August 20, 2011, in the Siuslaw News
***
I was especially incensed with the film and book Waiting for Superman. Back in May I devoted almost an entire Florence Area Democratic Club meeting to a discussion of the Republican Party’s attack on public education and advocacy of charter schools. Here is the announcement of that meeting.
***
The Florence Area Democratic Club will meet Saturday, May 7, at 11 a.m. in the Siuslaw Public Library’s conference room. Members will receive and analyze information about proposed changes in public education promoted by advocates of charter schools, standardized tests to evaluate teachers, merit pay, and the firing of “bad” teachers. Such proposals were popularized by the recent documentary “Waiting for Superman” and are supported by President Obama’s “Race to the Top” education funding program.
***
The discussion was a disaster. I had planned to have the members discuss too many categories. I hadn’t anticipated that their limited personal experience with public education would restrict them substantially in what they had to offer. I made the mistake initially of asking them to tell briefly what they thought about public schools. Oh, they had their opinions. Their opinions kept coming non-stop. One person would say something that caused another person to want to veer off the track of discussion that I wanted followed. They went all over the place – seven yards wide and one inch deep. The overall result was a miss-mosh of blather. None of the categories I had hoped to examine received a cogent airing.
I had written for myself a detailed outline of the points I wanted to present. A week after the meeting I emailed my outline of all the points to the members. I suspect that the length of the outline persuaded most to decline to read it.
According to Diane Ravitch – an assistant Secretary of Education under President Bill Clinton, a research professor of education at New York University, and a historian of education – this was the message of Waiting for Superman, the book and film.
American public education is a failed enterprise. Its problem isn’t money. Schools already spend too much.
There are major obstacles.
Teachers unions – – contracts define specifically everything that can happen in a school
Teacher tenure – hard to get rid of poor teachers
Nobody’s job or career is heavily dependent on school performance.
Current school personnel are generally not interested in making large-scale changes in what they do.
Failing public schools follow the same strategies year after year.
Test scores are low because there are so many bad teachers, whose jobs are protected by powerful unions.
Students drop out because the schools fail them. They could accomplish practically anything if they were saved from bad teachers.
They would get higher test scores if schools could fire more bad teachers and pay more to good ones.
Extend the school day and the school year.
The only hope for many children is escape from public schools to charter schools.
Here were the discussion topics I had hoped would broaden the club members’ perspectives.
What is an excellent teacher?
How well can a principal evaluate a teacher?
What should be done about “bad” teachers?
Should student performance, school performance, and teacher effectiveness be measured primarily by standardized test results?
Should teachers be paid based on merit rather than by a salary schedule?
Are “poor” teachers the prime reason why certain schools don’t meet expected standards?
Here was Ravitch’s criticism of the book/film.
Film does not present the successful side of public education
No successful public school teacher or principal or superintendent appears
There is no mention of any successful public schools.
There is no mention of union activities to mentor struggling teachers and how unions counsel such teachers out of the profession.
There is a constant drumbeat on the theme of public school failure.
Film gives misleading statistics – misuse of National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) information.
Facts about charter schools
CREDO study evaluated student progress on math tests in half of the nation’s 5,000 charter schools.
17% were superior to a matched traditional public school.
37% were worse.
Remaining 46% had gains no different from public schools.
Guggenheim, the film’s producer, paid no attention to charter schools run
by incompetent leaders or corporations concerned mainly about making money.
Charter chains were mired in unsavory real estate deals.
Charter school students were getting lower scores than neighborhood public schools.
Charter principals were indicted for embezzlement.
Charters blurred the line between church and state.
Charter leaders were paid $300,000-$400,000 a year to oversee small numbers of schools and students.
Successful charter schools featured in the film are heavily subsidized by philanthropists.
The film claimed that teachers are the most important factor in determining student achievement.
Can overcome disadvantages of poverty, homelessness, joblessness, poor nutrition, absent parents, etc.
Consensus of high-quality analyses:
Teachers account statistically for around 10-20% of achievement outcomes.
Teachers are the most important factor within schools.
About 60% of achievement is explained by nonschool factors: students’ backgrounds, families, income.
The film skirts the issue of poverty and other handicaps.
Shows only families that are intact and dedicated to helping their children succeed
No reference to the many charter schools that enroll disproportionately small numbers of children who are English-language learners or have disabilities
Poverty is the “single biggest correlate with low academic achievement.
Children who grow up in poverty get less medical care, worse nutrition, less exposure to knowledge and vocabulary, and are more likely to be exposed to childhood diseases, violence, drugs, and abuse.
They are more likely to have relatives who are incarcerated.
They are more likely to live in economic insecurity, not knowing if there is enough money for a winter coat or food or housing.
This affects their academic performance. They tend to have lower attendance and to be sick more than children whose parents are well- off.
The film claims that public schools can’t get rid of bad teachers.
a. Claims only 1 in 2,500 teachers loses his or her teaching certificate
b. Doesn’t mention that 50% of those who enter teaching leave within 5 years, mostly because of
1. poor working conditions
2. lack of adequate resources
3). stress of dealing with difficult children and disrespectful parents
c) Some teachers “fire themselves’; others are fired before they get tenure.
The film is a “powerful weapon on behalf of those championing the ‘free market’ and privatization. The charter schools and testing reform movement was started by “right- wing think tanks like the Heritage foundation” for the purpose of destroying public education and teachers’ unions.
II believe that President Obama’s “Race to the Top” program is not an improvement of George W. Bush’s “Leave No Child Behind.” It Invited states to compete for $4.3 billion. To qualify to compete, states had to agree to
evaluate teachers by student test scores.
award bonuses to teachers based on student scores,
permit more privately managed charter schools,
“turn around” low-performing schools by such methods as firing the staffs and closing the schools
Emphasis is upon testing, accountability, and choice
It is ill-advised
It goes even beyond No Child Left Behind (NCLB) in its reliance on test scores as the ultimate measure of educational quality.
It asserts that teachers alone – not students or families or economic status – are wholly responsible for whether test scores go up or down
Teachers rightfully feel scapegoated for conditions that are often beyond their control. They see these measures as an attack on their profession.
Drilling children on how to take tests
discourages innovation and creativity,
punishes divergent thinking,
prioritizes skills over knowledge
Endless hours devoted to test preparation deaden students’ interest in school.
Curriculum will be narrowed even more than NCLB because of the link between wages and scores.
***
By September I was ready to express in print my disdain for Waiting for Suoerman and the political motives behind charter schools.
***
Tom Brokaw (Opinion, Sept. 23) needs to delve first into the specifics of reactionary public education “reform” before espousing his celebrity opinion.
Epitomized by the recent documentary, Waiting for Superman, opponents of public education – principally the Republican Party and large corporate interests -- have emphasized superior student achievement test results in specific foreign countries. They have blamed American school teachers, administrators, and teachers unions for our nation’s unfavorable ranking. They advocate certain “reform” measures that would simultaneously destroy faculty unity and individual job security and impede student academic development. They have promoted charter schools to benefit private enterprise interests.
They say that the damage done to students by poverty can be overcome
by “great” teachers. Simple? Simplistic!
A student is prepared to learn when he is well-fed, well-rested, and fully supported by two parents engaged in his educational development. These critics do not connect the decline of student achievement scores with the increased difficulty middle-class families experience trying to remain economically functional. They say nothing about the loss of decent-paying jobs and unremitting unemployment. They do not mention that more than 20 percent of our nation’s children live in poverty!
Finland is currently ranked number one in student achievement. Finland’s teaching force is completely unionized. Finland rarely tests its students, its national curriculum is broad-based (not restricted to the basic skills of reading and math), and fewer than 5 percent of its children live in poverty.
Printed September 27, 2011, in the Register-Guard
***
In the fall I announced to the club members the publication of my first historical novel, Crossing the River, a narrative of the experiences of combatants in the Battles of Lexington and Concord, events that began the American Revolution. I saw correlation of elements in the book with our nation’s current governance.
***
When General Thomas Gage sent 700 elite redcoat soldiers off to Concord, Massachusetts, April 19, 1775, to seize and destroy illegally stockpiled gunpowder and weaponry, he was utilizing force to attempt to quash provincial disobedience. At stake was the issue of who should govern, who should have the power to determine how the people of the province were to exist.
Massachusetts was an English colony, a possession, a capital asset. The land and its people were profit-making resources. The King and Parliament were willing to wage war to preserve their power to dictate.
Periodically, oppressed people, unconscionably exploited, attempt to take away that power. Dictators fall, revolutions occur, corrupt political parties are voted out of office, corporate behemoths are broken up or vigorously regulated.
Our century’s Lexington and Concord time has arrived. We, the people, must wrest the power to govern away from our greedy capitalists and their bought politicians, who profess to own us. Like King George III, our rulers are determined to maximize their power to exploit. We must be vigilant; we must be vociferous; we must support courageous demonstrations like Occupy Wall Street. We must neither permit ourselves to be deluded by dishonest characterizations and deliberate falsehoods nor be fearful nor be divided in purpose by social, racial, ethnic, or religious wedge issues. We must win back the Constitutional levers of governance designed for us by our forebearers and then utilize them to generate the blessings that a free, empathetic nation bestows.
Printed October 7, 2011, in the Yuba City Appeal Democrat
October 8, 2011, in the Siuslaw News and Seattle Times
October 13, 2011, in the Eugene Weekly
October 15, 2011, in The World
October 19, 2011, in the Coast Lake News
***
And, again …
***
In my historical novel Crossing the River, a distraught Massachusetts mother, reacting to the maiming and killing of militiamen and British soldiers April 19, 1775, exclaims: “The ambition-driven wickedness of callous men!”
Today?
David and Charles Koch, Rupert Murdock, the Walton family, Thomas J. Donohue, Karl Rove, John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, Ben Nelson, Scott Walker, John Kasich, Rush Limbaugh, the Fox News lineup.
Universal, single-payer health care? Hell no. Preserve the planet? No. Shut down our out-of-control war machine? No. Assist the indigent, the elderly, the disabled? No. Adjust our system of capitalism so that ordinary people may earn incomes more commensurate with the value of what they produce? No.
I wonder which side my former Orinda CA English students -- those 13 and 14-year old, bright-faced innocents whose sensibilities were aroused reading The Pearl, To Kill a Mockingbird, Black Boy, Flowers for Algernon, and The Diary of Anne Frank -- take?
Are we that stupid, are we that selfish, are we that malleable that we would allow greedy capitalists and bought, dissembling politicians destroy our children’s future? Hear the “occupy” protesters, speaking for me, shout emphatically, “No!”
Printed October 24, 2011, in the Register-Guard
Note: The RG editor took out the “Donohue,” “Nelson,” “Walker,” and “Kasich” names in the third paragraph and changed the wording of the first line in the last paragraph.
***
In 1963 civil rights leader Medgar Evers was murdered in Jackson, Mississippi. That event is noted briefly in “The Help,” a movie about the exploitation of black house maids by racist white middle and upper-class housewives living in Mississippi’s capital.
People of my generation were in their late twenties or early thirties during that pivotal year in our nation’s history. It was no coincidence that most of the folks that watched the film in the local theater the Sunday my wife and I attended had gray and white hair.
I am concerned that younger people, having little or no knowledge of the civil rights struggle of the late 1950’s and the 1960’s, will never see the connection between the white ruling class’s hatred and persecution of blacks at that time and what we are presently experiencing. I speak of the vilification, exploitation, and legislative punishment of our middle and lower economic and social classes by large corporate interests and their legislative lackeys – the Republican Party and certain corporate-bought Democrats.
To squeeze every advantage out of the powerless and near powerless, those controlling the levers of autocratic power must make themselves (and others sympathetic to their agenda) believe that their victims are undeserving of civilized consideration.
This has been a practice the origins of which began before the writing of history.
I urge all folks here in Florence whose hearts are not calcified to view this
remarkable film. There have been times in our history when status-quo injustices are quite suddenly no longer tolerated. Necessary change happens when enough of our citizens, their hearts pierced by inequities, demand it.
Printed August 20, 2011, in the Siuslaw News
***
I was especially incensed with the film and book Waiting for Superman. Back in May I devoted almost an entire Florence Area Democratic Club meeting to a discussion of the Republican Party’s attack on public education and advocacy of charter schools. Here is the announcement of that meeting.
***
The Florence Area Democratic Club will meet Saturday, May 7, at 11 a.m. in the Siuslaw Public Library’s conference room. Members will receive and analyze information about proposed changes in public education promoted by advocates of charter schools, standardized tests to evaluate teachers, merit pay, and the firing of “bad” teachers. Such proposals were popularized by the recent documentary “Waiting for Superman” and are supported by President Obama’s “Race to the Top” education funding program.
***
The discussion was a disaster. I had planned to have the members discuss too many categories. I hadn’t anticipated that their limited personal experience with public education would restrict them substantially in what they had to offer. I made the mistake initially of asking them to tell briefly what they thought about public schools. Oh, they had their opinions. Their opinions kept coming non-stop. One person would say something that caused another person to want to veer off the track of discussion that I wanted followed. They went all over the place – seven yards wide and one inch deep. The overall result was a miss-mosh of blather. None of the categories I had hoped to examine received a cogent airing.
I had written for myself a detailed outline of the points I wanted to present. A week after the meeting I emailed my outline of all the points to the members. I suspect that the length of the outline persuaded most to decline to read it.
According to Diane Ravitch – an assistant Secretary of Education under President Bill Clinton, a research professor of education at New York University, and a historian of education – this was the message of Waiting for Superman, the book and film.
American public education is a failed enterprise. Its problem isn’t money. Schools already spend too much.
There are major obstacles.
Teachers unions – – contracts define specifically everything that can happen in a school
Teacher tenure – hard to get rid of poor teachers
Nobody’s job or career is heavily dependent on school performance.
Current school personnel are generally not interested in making large-scale changes in what they do.
Failing public schools follow the same strategies year after year.
Test scores are low because there are so many bad teachers, whose jobs are protected by powerful unions.
Students drop out because the schools fail them. They could accomplish practically anything if they were saved from bad teachers.
They would get higher test scores if schools could fire more bad teachers and pay more to good ones.
Extend the school day and the school year.
The only hope for many children is escape from public schools to charter schools.
Here were the discussion topics I had hoped would broaden the club members’ perspectives.
What is an excellent teacher?
How well can a principal evaluate a teacher?
What should be done about “bad” teachers?
Should student performance, school performance, and teacher effectiveness be measured primarily by standardized test results?
Should teachers be paid based on merit rather than by a salary schedule?
Are “poor” teachers the prime reason why certain schools don’t meet expected standards?
Here was Ravitch’s criticism of the book/film.
Film does not present the successful side of public education
No successful public school teacher or principal or superintendent appears
There is no mention of any successful public schools.
There is no mention of union activities to mentor struggling teachers and how unions counsel such teachers out of the profession.
There is a constant drumbeat on the theme of public school failure.
Film gives misleading statistics – misuse of National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) information.
Facts about charter schools
CREDO study evaluated student progress on math tests in half of the nation’s 5,000 charter schools.
17% were superior to a matched traditional public school.
37% were worse.
Remaining 46% had gains no different from public schools.
Guggenheim, the film’s producer, paid no attention to charter schools run
by incompetent leaders or corporations concerned mainly about making money.
Charter chains were mired in unsavory real estate deals.
Charter school students were getting lower scores than neighborhood public schools.
Charter principals were indicted for embezzlement.
Charters blurred the line between church and state.
Charter leaders were paid $300,000-$400,000 a year to oversee small numbers of schools and students.
Successful charter schools featured in the film are heavily subsidized by philanthropists.
The film claimed that teachers are the most important factor in determining student achievement.
Can overcome disadvantages of poverty, homelessness, joblessness, poor nutrition, absent parents, etc.
Consensus of high-quality analyses:
Teachers account statistically for around 10-20% of achievement outcomes.
Teachers are the most important factor within schools.
About 60% of achievement is explained by nonschool factors: students’ backgrounds, families, income.
The film skirts the issue of poverty and other handicaps.
Shows only families that are intact and dedicated to helping their children succeed
No reference to the many charter schools that enroll disproportionately small numbers of children who are English-language learners or have disabilities
Poverty is the “single biggest correlate with low academic achievement.
Children who grow up in poverty get less medical care, worse nutrition, less exposure to knowledge and vocabulary, and are more likely to be exposed to childhood diseases, violence, drugs, and abuse.
They are more likely to have relatives who are incarcerated.
They are more likely to live in economic insecurity, not knowing if there is enough money for a winter coat or food or housing.
This affects their academic performance. They tend to have lower attendance and to be sick more than children whose parents are well- off.
The film claims that public schools can’t get rid of bad teachers.
a. Claims only 1 in 2,500 teachers loses his or her teaching certificate
b. Doesn’t mention that 50% of those who enter teaching leave within 5 years, mostly because of
1. poor working conditions
2. lack of adequate resources
3). stress of dealing with difficult children and disrespectful parents
c) Some teachers “fire themselves’; others are fired before they get tenure.
The film is a “powerful weapon on behalf of those championing the ‘free market’ and privatization. The charter schools and testing reform movement was started by “right- wing think tanks like the Heritage foundation” for the purpose of destroying public education and teachers’ unions.
II believe that President Obama’s “Race to the Top” program is not an improvement of George W. Bush’s “Leave No Child Behind.” It Invited states to compete for $4.3 billion. To qualify to compete, states had to agree to
evaluate teachers by student test scores.
award bonuses to teachers based on student scores,
permit more privately managed charter schools,
“turn around” low-performing schools by such methods as firing the staffs and closing the schools
Emphasis is upon testing, accountability, and choice
It is ill-advised
It goes even beyond No Child Left Behind (NCLB) in its reliance on test scores as the ultimate measure of educational quality.
It asserts that teachers alone – not students or families or economic status – are wholly responsible for whether test scores go up or down
Teachers rightfully feel scapegoated for conditions that are often beyond their control. They see these measures as an attack on their profession.
Drilling children on how to take tests
discourages innovation and creativity,
punishes divergent thinking,
prioritizes skills over knowledge
Endless hours devoted to test preparation deaden students’ interest in school.
Curriculum will be narrowed even more than NCLB because of the link between wages and scores.
***
By September I was ready to express in print my disdain for Waiting for Suoerman and the political motives behind charter schools.
***
Tom Brokaw (Opinion, Sept. 23) needs to delve first into the specifics of reactionary public education “reform” before espousing his celebrity opinion.
Epitomized by the recent documentary, Waiting for Superman, opponents of public education – principally the Republican Party and large corporate interests -- have emphasized superior student achievement test results in specific foreign countries. They have blamed American school teachers, administrators, and teachers unions for our nation’s unfavorable ranking. They advocate certain “reform” measures that would simultaneously destroy faculty unity and individual job security and impede student academic development. They have promoted charter schools to benefit private enterprise interests.
They say that the damage done to students by poverty can be overcome
by “great” teachers. Simple? Simplistic!
A student is prepared to learn when he is well-fed, well-rested, and fully supported by two parents engaged in his educational development. These critics do not connect the decline of student achievement scores with the increased difficulty middle-class families experience trying to remain economically functional. They say nothing about the loss of decent-paying jobs and unremitting unemployment. They do not mention that more than 20 percent of our nation’s children live in poverty!
Finland is currently ranked number one in student achievement. Finland’s teaching force is completely unionized. Finland rarely tests its students, its national curriculum is broad-based (not restricted to the basic skills of reading and math), and fewer than 5 percent of its children live in poverty.
Printed September 27, 2011, in the Register-Guard
***
In the fall I announced to the club members the publication of my first historical novel, Crossing the River, a narrative of the experiences of combatants in the Battles of Lexington and Concord, events that began the American Revolution. I saw correlation of elements in the book with our nation’s current governance.
***
When General Thomas Gage sent 700 elite redcoat soldiers off to Concord, Massachusetts, April 19, 1775, to seize and destroy illegally stockpiled gunpowder and weaponry, he was utilizing force to attempt to quash provincial disobedience. At stake was the issue of who should govern, who should have the power to determine how the people of the province were to exist.
Massachusetts was an English colony, a possession, a capital asset. The land and its people were profit-making resources. The King and Parliament were willing to wage war to preserve their power to dictate.
Periodically, oppressed people, unconscionably exploited, attempt to take away that power. Dictators fall, revolutions occur, corrupt political parties are voted out of office, corporate behemoths are broken up or vigorously regulated.
Our century’s Lexington and Concord time has arrived. We, the people, must wrest the power to govern away from our greedy capitalists and their bought politicians, who profess to own us. Like King George III, our rulers are determined to maximize their power to exploit. We must be vigilant; we must be vociferous; we must support courageous demonstrations like Occupy Wall Street. We must neither permit ourselves to be deluded by dishonest characterizations and deliberate falsehoods nor be fearful nor be divided in purpose by social, racial, ethnic, or religious wedge issues. We must win back the Constitutional levers of governance designed for us by our forebearers and then utilize them to generate the blessings that a free, empathetic nation bestows.
Printed October 7, 2011, in the Yuba City Appeal Democrat
October 8, 2011, in the Siuslaw News and Seattle Times
October 13, 2011, in the Eugene Weekly
October 15, 2011, in The World
October 19, 2011, in the Coast Lake News
***
And, again …
***
In my historical novel Crossing the River, a distraught Massachusetts mother, reacting to the maiming and killing of militiamen and British soldiers April 19, 1775, exclaims: “The ambition-driven wickedness of callous men!”
Today?
David and Charles Koch, Rupert Murdock, the Walton family, Thomas J. Donohue, Karl Rove, John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, Ben Nelson, Scott Walker, John Kasich, Rush Limbaugh, the Fox News lineup.
Universal, single-payer health care? Hell no. Preserve the planet? No. Shut down our out-of-control war machine? No. Assist the indigent, the elderly, the disabled? No. Adjust our system of capitalism so that ordinary people may earn incomes more commensurate with the value of what they produce? No.
I wonder which side my former Orinda CA English students -- those 13 and 14-year old, bright-faced innocents whose sensibilities were aroused reading The Pearl, To Kill a Mockingbird, Black Boy, Flowers for Algernon, and The Diary of Anne Frank -- take?
Are we that stupid, are we that selfish, are we that malleable that we would allow greedy capitalists and bought, dissembling politicians destroy our children’s future? Hear the “occupy” protesters, speaking for me, shout emphatically, “No!”
Printed October 24, 2011, in the Register-Guard
Note: The RG editor took out the “Donohue,” “Nelson,” “Walker,” and “Kasich” names in the third paragraph and changed the wording of the first line in the last paragraph.
November 18, 2021
Letters, 2011, Fighting the Party of No, February 23, March 14, 15, May 7, May 24, July 16, July 29, 30
The beginning of 2011.
Nobody in the Florence Area Democratic Club was willing to take on the job of Chair. I decided to do it for two more years resolving not to serve a year longer.
The Republicans now controlled the House of Representatives. McConnell’s use of the Senate filibuster would no longer be necessary. “The Party of No” could now stop everything beneficial that Obama and the Congressional Democrats wanted to pass. How could this have happened?
***
To garner enough votes to service the wants of corporate America and the very rich, Republican leaders must exploit universal weaknesses of character. The avaricious? The authoritarian rule-maker? The get-off-your-lazy-duff critic? Check. How to convince working class men and women that scapegoats, not unregulated capitalism, have deprived them of the “American Dream”? Magnify fear, channel anger, vilify. Convince them that servicing the needs of ordinary people is tyrannical governance. Turn reality on its head.
Eric Alterman (The Nation, Feb. 3): “Conservatives are floating the notion that states should be allowed to declare bankruptcy to escape their pension obligations.” They want to destroy public employee unions, “just about the only institutions with sufficient financial and organizational muscle to make a difference in close elections.”
The Far Right’s second-prong attack scapegoats public employees, living high (erroneously) on their wages and benefits.
William Rivers Pitt (truthout.com, Feb. 18): “Wall Street doesn’t have to sacrifice, the ‘defense’ department doesn’t have to sacrifice, insurance companies don’t have to sacrifice, banks don’t have to sacrifice, but you absolutely have to eat a pay and benefits cut, right?”
Enter Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin, one step ahead of the Republican governors of Ohio, Indiana, Tennessee, and Florida.
Claiming the need to cover a state budget deficit that he himself created providing corporate tax breaks, Gov. Walker wants to pass legislation that would substantially reduce public employee benefits and collective bargaining.
Thousands of public employees have been protesting in Wisconsin’s capital. Rush Limbaugh’s take: “Whiners! … Freeloaders! … You’re on the side of the protesters or on the side of the country.” Baloney.
Printed February 23, 2011, in the Siuslaw News
***
The GOP was now threatening to shut the government down. Read this information about government shutdowns.
***
(from Wikipedia)
Under the separation of powers created by the United States Constitution, the appropriation and control of government funds for the United States is the sole responsibility of the United States Congress. Congress begins this process through proposing an appropriation bill aimed at determining the levels of spending for each federal department and government program. The finalized version of the bill is then voted upon by both the House of Representatives and the Senate. After it passes both chambers, it proceeds to the President of the United States to sign the bill into law.
Government shutdowns tend to occur when there is a disagreement over budget allocations before the existing [appropriations] cycle ends. Such disagreements can come from the President – through vetoing any finalized appropriation bills they receive – or from one or both chambers of Congress, often from the political party that has control over that chamber. A shutdown can be temporarily avoided through the enactment of a continuing resolution (CR), which can extend funding for the government for a set period, during which time negotiations can be made to supply an appropriation bill that all involved parties of the political deadlock on spending can agree upon. However, a CR can be blocked by the same parties if there are issues with the content of the resolution bill that either party has a disagreement upon, in which case a shutdown will inevitably occur if a CR cannot be passed by the House, Senate or President. Congress may, in rare cases attempt to override a presidential veto of an appropriation bill or CR, but such an act requires there to be majority support of two-thirds of both chambers.
***
WASHINGTON, Feb 20 (Reuters) - Senior U.S. Senate Democrats slammed Republicans on Sunday for a “reckless” threat to shut down the government amid deepening political posturing on both sides over federal spending and the budget deficit.
The House of Representatives voted on Saturday to cut federal spending by $61 billion through September. But the Republican measure will likely die because Democrats who control the Senate oppose it and President Barack Obama vowed to veto it.
Obama has outlined his own plan for less-severe spending cuts in 2012, and has warned that tightening the belt too much too soon could harm the slow economic recovery.
Democratic Senator Charles Schumer criticized House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell over talk among some Republicans that they would rather shut down the government than relent on their spending cut demands.
“Unfortunately Speaker Boehner seems to be on a course that would inevitably lead to a shutdown ... That’s reckless,” [Democratic Senator Chuck] Schumer said on CNN’s “State of the Union” program.
“We have said shutdown is off the table ... Boehner, Mitch McConnell, other Republican leaders have not taken it off the table when asked, and there are lots of people on the hard right clamoring for a shutdown.”
With the government funded only through March 4, the government could run out of money if lawmakers fail to act, but both sides have been urging compromise. That was seen as the likeliest outcome, even by one of the House’s new breed of small-government, deficit-slashing freshman Republicans.
...
The House bill is more than an effort to cut the deficit. Republicans are also trying to use the budget process to starve government programs such as healthcare and regulation of Wall Street and the environment that they have long opposed.
Republican Representative Paul Ryan, chairman of the House Budget Committee, downplayed the shutdown scenario on CBS’ “Face the Nation” program.
“We’re not looking for a government shutdown, but at the same time we’re also not looking at rubber stamping these really high, elevated spending levels that Congress blew through the joint two years ago,” Ryan said (Drawbaugh 1-3)
Work cited:
Drawbaugh, Kevin. UPDATE 1-Gov't Shutdown Threat Looms over U.S. Budget Fight.” Reuters, February 29, 2011. Net. https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-b...
***
The GOP has always been the enemy of labor unions. In the following letter I highlight their intention to damage severely public employee unions.
***
You have to wonder about Republican Party office holders like the spate of recently elected governors that are presently hell-bent on destroying public employee unions. Coming out of their mothers’ wombs, they absolutely missed out inheriting the empathy, honesty, there-but-for-the-grace-of-God-go-I gene! Team players for our morally corrupt multi-national corporations, which don’t give a damn about 98 percent of our citizen’s physical, mental and economic well-being, our country’s economic stability, world peace, and our planet’s very existence, these politicians are motivated solely by monetary gain and the rush of political combat and the attainment of dictatorial power.
You have to wonder just as hard about the working class people and seniors who vote these sociopaths into office. How the GOP and their media mouthpieces play them! Paul Krugman observes: “A large segment of the population … is completely impervious to rational argument and the presentation of evidence. In our country, learned ignorance is on the rise.”
Has the enemy among us finally triumphed? Is the outrage manifested in Wisconsin a turning of the tide? We’ll know very soon. Will the President and Senate and House Democrats cave to draconian GOP budget cut demands? Or will they say to Boehner and McConnell, “Shutting the government down and its cruel consequences are entirely on you”?
Printed March 14, 2011, in the Register-Guard
March 15, 2011, in The World
***
Virginia Conley called me to compliment me on the above letter. We had communicated several months before. She lives in Eugene and is 90. A former school teacher, she is a very strong liberal activist. She taught an “open classroom” that encouraged students to think critically. She does not approve of how schools teach students now. George Myers and Ron Preisler complimented me via email.
In the next letter I expressed some hope that voters might be waking up to Republican Party chicanery.
***
How encouraging it is to see registered Republicans criticizing Republican congressmen at their town hall meetings for having voted for Rep. Paul Ryan’s deficit reduction plan.
I say “encouraging” because it demonstrates that not everything economically and socially detrimental to middle and underclass Americans is being transformed in the minds of the susceptible into examples of “fiscal responsibility,” “free enterprise job creation,” “the protection of taxpayer wallets,” and “the destruction of welfare dependency.”
Most Americans recognize the value of Social Security, Medicare, and the need for some sort of safety net. More and more citizens are conscious now of the huge wealth discrepancy in this country, even though many don’t know yet how that came to be. They know that multi-national corporations are making huge profits, are not creating jobs in this country, and are paying little or no corporate taxes.
It takes a terrible recession, perhaps, and an outlandish deficit reduction plan to wake people up to the fact that the right-wing media machine’s fact-reporting and Republican officer holders’ repeated use of loaded word frames like “job killing” and “job creating” are so much smoke-and-mirrors barn sniffle.
What we have in common, regardless of party affiliation, is the desire for fairness and honesty.
Printed May 7, 2011, in the Siuslaw News
***
I submitted the following letter to the Register-Guard. It was not printed, maybe because of its sarcasm. The World newspaper in Coos Bay printed it.
***
Let us thank our lucky stars that we have the Republican Party on the job making certain that America is the greatest country ever.
Not only are newly elected GOP governors and Republican-controlled legislatures in states like Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio, and Florida putting high-living public employees in their places while helping out profit-deprived corporations like Koch Industries. They are passing legislation that will bring the hammer down once and for all on systemic voter fraud!
No longer will we be having 80-year-olds who get around using walkers in assisted living facilities voting two or three times under different names. And thank heaven that clever inner-city minimum wage workers -- using public transportation to get to work to wait tables or clean hotel rooms -- won’t be traveling to two or three voting places. And those college students! How dare they vote twice – once at the voting place near where they and their parents live and again hundreds of miles away near where they go to college!
Not having a driver’s license or passport or not having a birth certificate handy is pretty suspicious!
George W. Bush’s Justice Department discovered that 38 cases of voter fraud resulting in 13 convictions took place nationwide between October 2002 and September 2005. Heck of a job laying out the problem, W.!
Count on high-minded Republicans like Karl Rove to know whom to target.
Printed May 24, 2011, in The World
***
The Congressional Republicans were going “into overdrive” to destroy the idealistic but cautious, accommodating-minded President. I kept writing letters, therapeutic to a degree, consciously defensive, as if I could change obdurate minds, at least validate what like-minded liberal readers believed.
***
World Public Opinion quizzed news consumers in 2010 and found that Fox News viewers were significantly more likely to be misinformed than those who get their news from other sources.
“In our country, learned ignorance is on the rise.” – Paul Krugman.
“A lie gets half-way around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.” – Winston Churchill
Too many Republican Party supporters believe that socialism is terrible, big government is tyrannical, corporations are over-regulated and overtaxed, global warming is a hoax, tax cuts grow the economy, Social Security and Medicare are driving us to financial ruin, labor unions are blood-suckers, Muslims are especially dangerous, capitalism is the way of all things, etc. They make these assertions convinced that what they have chosen to believe is fact.
People are entitled to their opinions. Opinions expressed in public, however, should be supported by actual facts.
Republican Party operatives are counting on being able to persuade enough low-knowledge, independent voters to believe that Obama and the Democrats are to blame for the terrible economy. Never mind that GOP senators did everything they could the first two years of Obama’s presidency to derail everything the Dems tried to pass in Congress to take corrective measures. They are saying, “See? Awful economy. Obama’s been in charge. Case closed.” This is like a corporation, wanting to privatize a fire district, setting on fire a bunch of houses, then slitting the tires of the department’s fire trucks and putting sand in their gas tanks, and afterward saying, “See? The fire department never came out to put out this terrible fire! We’ll do much better. Trust us.”
Printed July 16, 2011, in the Siuslaw News
***
Garry Kelly, Lu Herr, and Wende Jarman complimented me. Wende had Rep. Arnie Roblan read it while he was getting a haircut in her barbershop.
***
What angers me more than hearing Speaker of the House John Boehner say repeatedly, “The American people want ______” (fill in the blank with any GOP agenda objective), is a talking head TV “journalist” championing “shared sacrifice” and “reasoned compromise.”
The middle class and the poor have been taking it on the chin economically from thirty years. Wages have remained stagnant. Decent-paying jobs are gone, performed now by cheap overseas labor. Multinational corporations and the very rich are awash with money. Yet we wage earners and retirees, not the top 2 percent wealth recipients, are expected to sacrifice!
We are told that both parties need to compromise to solve the debt ceiling crisis. Just raise the damn thing! Congress has done it many times. Holding a gun to our (and the world’s) economy system’s head,
Congressional Republicans have manufactured a huge crisis. “Give me everything I want or I’ll shoot your daughter,” is what they’re saying. President Obama, use the 14th Amendment. Wield a pointed stick!
Why aren’t Republicans content to have the voting public sort out a year from now what crises are real and what are concocted? Tactics. Smoke and mirrors. Outright falsehoods. Exploit ignorance, voter anger, individual prejudices. Thwart recovery. Confuse. Vilify.
Republicans want our government to be a corporatocracy. I want our government to solve problems so that we all benefit. Why would you want to compromise that?
Printed July 29, 2011, in The World
July 30, 2011, in the Register-Guard
***
The Register-Guard edited the third sentence of the third paragraph to read “Holding a gun to our and the world’s head ….” It also deleted the last sentence of the letter.
Below is one of the internet comments submitted to The World’s website.
***
The World has changed, Mr. Titus. It’s no longer an economy that’s kind to anyone without skills or an education and we’re never going back, so best to move on. And if you’re looking to the government to “solve problems” you are sorely misguided, because we have one of the most inept and misguided governments on earth. Unfortunately, there’s not enough Chris Christies around it get it fixed.
Sherman
Nobody in the Florence Area Democratic Club was willing to take on the job of Chair. I decided to do it for two more years resolving not to serve a year longer.
The Republicans now controlled the House of Representatives. McConnell’s use of the Senate filibuster would no longer be necessary. “The Party of No” could now stop everything beneficial that Obama and the Congressional Democrats wanted to pass. How could this have happened?
***
To garner enough votes to service the wants of corporate America and the very rich, Republican leaders must exploit universal weaknesses of character. The avaricious? The authoritarian rule-maker? The get-off-your-lazy-duff critic? Check. How to convince working class men and women that scapegoats, not unregulated capitalism, have deprived them of the “American Dream”? Magnify fear, channel anger, vilify. Convince them that servicing the needs of ordinary people is tyrannical governance. Turn reality on its head.
Eric Alterman (The Nation, Feb. 3): “Conservatives are floating the notion that states should be allowed to declare bankruptcy to escape their pension obligations.” They want to destroy public employee unions, “just about the only institutions with sufficient financial and organizational muscle to make a difference in close elections.”
The Far Right’s second-prong attack scapegoats public employees, living high (erroneously) on their wages and benefits.
William Rivers Pitt (truthout.com, Feb. 18): “Wall Street doesn’t have to sacrifice, the ‘defense’ department doesn’t have to sacrifice, insurance companies don’t have to sacrifice, banks don’t have to sacrifice, but you absolutely have to eat a pay and benefits cut, right?”
Enter Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin, one step ahead of the Republican governors of Ohio, Indiana, Tennessee, and Florida.
Claiming the need to cover a state budget deficit that he himself created providing corporate tax breaks, Gov. Walker wants to pass legislation that would substantially reduce public employee benefits and collective bargaining.
Thousands of public employees have been protesting in Wisconsin’s capital. Rush Limbaugh’s take: “Whiners! … Freeloaders! … You’re on the side of the protesters or on the side of the country.” Baloney.
Printed February 23, 2011, in the Siuslaw News
***
The GOP was now threatening to shut the government down. Read this information about government shutdowns.
***
(from Wikipedia)
Under the separation of powers created by the United States Constitution, the appropriation and control of government funds for the United States is the sole responsibility of the United States Congress. Congress begins this process through proposing an appropriation bill aimed at determining the levels of spending for each federal department and government program. The finalized version of the bill is then voted upon by both the House of Representatives and the Senate. After it passes both chambers, it proceeds to the President of the United States to sign the bill into law.
Government shutdowns tend to occur when there is a disagreement over budget allocations before the existing [appropriations] cycle ends. Such disagreements can come from the President – through vetoing any finalized appropriation bills they receive – or from one or both chambers of Congress, often from the political party that has control over that chamber. A shutdown can be temporarily avoided through the enactment of a continuing resolution (CR), which can extend funding for the government for a set period, during which time negotiations can be made to supply an appropriation bill that all involved parties of the political deadlock on spending can agree upon. However, a CR can be blocked by the same parties if there are issues with the content of the resolution bill that either party has a disagreement upon, in which case a shutdown will inevitably occur if a CR cannot be passed by the House, Senate or President. Congress may, in rare cases attempt to override a presidential veto of an appropriation bill or CR, but such an act requires there to be majority support of two-thirds of both chambers.
***
WASHINGTON, Feb 20 (Reuters) - Senior U.S. Senate Democrats slammed Republicans on Sunday for a “reckless” threat to shut down the government amid deepening political posturing on both sides over federal spending and the budget deficit.
The House of Representatives voted on Saturday to cut federal spending by $61 billion through September. But the Republican measure will likely die because Democrats who control the Senate oppose it and President Barack Obama vowed to veto it.
Obama has outlined his own plan for less-severe spending cuts in 2012, and has warned that tightening the belt too much too soon could harm the slow economic recovery.
Democratic Senator Charles Schumer criticized House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell over talk among some Republicans that they would rather shut down the government than relent on their spending cut demands.
“Unfortunately Speaker Boehner seems to be on a course that would inevitably lead to a shutdown ... That’s reckless,” [Democratic Senator Chuck] Schumer said on CNN’s “State of the Union” program.
“We have said shutdown is off the table ... Boehner, Mitch McConnell, other Republican leaders have not taken it off the table when asked, and there are lots of people on the hard right clamoring for a shutdown.”
With the government funded only through March 4, the government could run out of money if lawmakers fail to act, but both sides have been urging compromise. That was seen as the likeliest outcome, even by one of the House’s new breed of small-government, deficit-slashing freshman Republicans.
...
The House bill is more than an effort to cut the deficit. Republicans are also trying to use the budget process to starve government programs such as healthcare and regulation of Wall Street and the environment that they have long opposed.
Republican Representative Paul Ryan, chairman of the House Budget Committee, downplayed the shutdown scenario on CBS’ “Face the Nation” program.
“We’re not looking for a government shutdown, but at the same time we’re also not looking at rubber stamping these really high, elevated spending levels that Congress blew through the joint two years ago,” Ryan said (Drawbaugh 1-3)
Work cited:
Drawbaugh, Kevin. UPDATE 1-Gov't Shutdown Threat Looms over U.S. Budget Fight.” Reuters, February 29, 2011. Net. https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-b...
***
The GOP has always been the enemy of labor unions. In the following letter I highlight their intention to damage severely public employee unions.
***
You have to wonder about Republican Party office holders like the spate of recently elected governors that are presently hell-bent on destroying public employee unions. Coming out of their mothers’ wombs, they absolutely missed out inheriting the empathy, honesty, there-but-for-the-grace-of-God-go-I gene! Team players for our morally corrupt multi-national corporations, which don’t give a damn about 98 percent of our citizen’s physical, mental and economic well-being, our country’s economic stability, world peace, and our planet’s very existence, these politicians are motivated solely by monetary gain and the rush of political combat and the attainment of dictatorial power.
You have to wonder just as hard about the working class people and seniors who vote these sociopaths into office. How the GOP and their media mouthpieces play them! Paul Krugman observes: “A large segment of the population … is completely impervious to rational argument and the presentation of evidence. In our country, learned ignorance is on the rise.”
Has the enemy among us finally triumphed? Is the outrage manifested in Wisconsin a turning of the tide? We’ll know very soon. Will the President and Senate and House Democrats cave to draconian GOP budget cut demands? Or will they say to Boehner and McConnell, “Shutting the government down and its cruel consequences are entirely on you”?
Printed March 14, 2011, in the Register-Guard
March 15, 2011, in The World
***
Virginia Conley called me to compliment me on the above letter. We had communicated several months before. She lives in Eugene and is 90. A former school teacher, she is a very strong liberal activist. She taught an “open classroom” that encouraged students to think critically. She does not approve of how schools teach students now. George Myers and Ron Preisler complimented me via email.
In the next letter I expressed some hope that voters might be waking up to Republican Party chicanery.
***
How encouraging it is to see registered Republicans criticizing Republican congressmen at their town hall meetings for having voted for Rep. Paul Ryan’s deficit reduction plan.
I say “encouraging” because it demonstrates that not everything economically and socially detrimental to middle and underclass Americans is being transformed in the minds of the susceptible into examples of “fiscal responsibility,” “free enterprise job creation,” “the protection of taxpayer wallets,” and “the destruction of welfare dependency.”
Most Americans recognize the value of Social Security, Medicare, and the need for some sort of safety net. More and more citizens are conscious now of the huge wealth discrepancy in this country, even though many don’t know yet how that came to be. They know that multi-national corporations are making huge profits, are not creating jobs in this country, and are paying little or no corporate taxes.
It takes a terrible recession, perhaps, and an outlandish deficit reduction plan to wake people up to the fact that the right-wing media machine’s fact-reporting and Republican officer holders’ repeated use of loaded word frames like “job killing” and “job creating” are so much smoke-and-mirrors barn sniffle.
What we have in common, regardless of party affiliation, is the desire for fairness and honesty.
Printed May 7, 2011, in the Siuslaw News
***
I submitted the following letter to the Register-Guard. It was not printed, maybe because of its sarcasm. The World newspaper in Coos Bay printed it.
***
Let us thank our lucky stars that we have the Republican Party on the job making certain that America is the greatest country ever.
Not only are newly elected GOP governors and Republican-controlled legislatures in states like Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio, and Florida putting high-living public employees in their places while helping out profit-deprived corporations like Koch Industries. They are passing legislation that will bring the hammer down once and for all on systemic voter fraud!
No longer will we be having 80-year-olds who get around using walkers in assisted living facilities voting two or three times under different names. And thank heaven that clever inner-city minimum wage workers -- using public transportation to get to work to wait tables or clean hotel rooms -- won’t be traveling to two or three voting places. And those college students! How dare they vote twice – once at the voting place near where they and their parents live and again hundreds of miles away near where they go to college!
Not having a driver’s license or passport or not having a birth certificate handy is pretty suspicious!
George W. Bush’s Justice Department discovered that 38 cases of voter fraud resulting in 13 convictions took place nationwide between October 2002 and September 2005. Heck of a job laying out the problem, W.!
Count on high-minded Republicans like Karl Rove to know whom to target.
Printed May 24, 2011, in The World
***
The Congressional Republicans were going “into overdrive” to destroy the idealistic but cautious, accommodating-minded President. I kept writing letters, therapeutic to a degree, consciously defensive, as if I could change obdurate minds, at least validate what like-minded liberal readers believed.
***
World Public Opinion quizzed news consumers in 2010 and found that Fox News viewers were significantly more likely to be misinformed than those who get their news from other sources.
“In our country, learned ignorance is on the rise.” – Paul Krugman.
“A lie gets half-way around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.” – Winston Churchill
Too many Republican Party supporters believe that socialism is terrible, big government is tyrannical, corporations are over-regulated and overtaxed, global warming is a hoax, tax cuts grow the economy, Social Security and Medicare are driving us to financial ruin, labor unions are blood-suckers, Muslims are especially dangerous, capitalism is the way of all things, etc. They make these assertions convinced that what they have chosen to believe is fact.
People are entitled to their opinions. Opinions expressed in public, however, should be supported by actual facts.
Republican Party operatives are counting on being able to persuade enough low-knowledge, independent voters to believe that Obama and the Democrats are to blame for the terrible economy. Never mind that GOP senators did everything they could the first two years of Obama’s presidency to derail everything the Dems tried to pass in Congress to take corrective measures. They are saying, “See? Awful economy. Obama’s been in charge. Case closed.” This is like a corporation, wanting to privatize a fire district, setting on fire a bunch of houses, then slitting the tires of the department’s fire trucks and putting sand in their gas tanks, and afterward saying, “See? The fire department never came out to put out this terrible fire! We’ll do much better. Trust us.”
Printed July 16, 2011, in the Siuslaw News
***
Garry Kelly, Lu Herr, and Wende Jarman complimented me. Wende had Rep. Arnie Roblan read it while he was getting a haircut in her barbershop.
***
What angers me more than hearing Speaker of the House John Boehner say repeatedly, “The American people want ______” (fill in the blank with any GOP agenda objective), is a talking head TV “journalist” championing “shared sacrifice” and “reasoned compromise.”
The middle class and the poor have been taking it on the chin economically from thirty years. Wages have remained stagnant. Decent-paying jobs are gone, performed now by cheap overseas labor. Multinational corporations and the very rich are awash with money. Yet we wage earners and retirees, not the top 2 percent wealth recipients, are expected to sacrifice!
We are told that both parties need to compromise to solve the debt ceiling crisis. Just raise the damn thing! Congress has done it many times. Holding a gun to our (and the world’s) economy system’s head,
Congressional Republicans have manufactured a huge crisis. “Give me everything I want or I’ll shoot your daughter,” is what they’re saying. President Obama, use the 14th Amendment. Wield a pointed stick!
Why aren’t Republicans content to have the voting public sort out a year from now what crises are real and what are concocted? Tactics. Smoke and mirrors. Outright falsehoods. Exploit ignorance, voter anger, individual prejudices. Thwart recovery. Confuse. Vilify.
Republicans want our government to be a corporatocracy. I want our government to solve problems so that we all benefit. Why would you want to compromise that?
Printed July 29, 2011, in The World
July 30, 2011, in the Register-Guard
***
The Register-Guard edited the third sentence of the third paragraph to read “Holding a gun to our and the world’s head ….” It also deleted the last sentence of the letter.
Below is one of the internet comments submitted to The World’s website.
***
The World has changed, Mr. Titus. It’s no longer an economy that’s kind to anyone without skills or an education and we’re never going back, so best to move on. And if you’re looking to the government to “solve problems” you are sorely misguided, because we have one of the most inept and misguided governments on earth. Unfortunately, there’s not enough Chris Christies around it get it fixed.
Sherman
November 14, 2021
Letters, 2010, Democrats Good, Republicans Bad, September 11, September 22, December 3, 4, December 18
If only all candidates for political office met the following standards.
***
I vote for political candidates that meet these criteria.
The candidate must be empathetic. He must demonstrate, not just say, what Theodore Roosevelt declared long ago: “The welfare of each of us is dependent fundamentally upon the welfare of all of us.”
He must be honest. If he criticizes his opponent, his message must be completely factual. No half-truths, no misrepresentations permitted.
He must be intelligent, inquisitive, broadly knowledgeable, and resourceful. He must recognize that there are no simple solutions to complex problems but still be committed to strive to solve them.
He must be open to opposing viewpoints. He must respect his own value judgments but he must also know that others may have valuable ideas to contribute.
He must strive to serve all of his constituents.
He must not be a finger-in-the-wind politician. He must have the courage to fight for what he believes is right.
I honor, respect, and wholeheartedly support Peter DeFazio, John Kitzhaber, Arnie Roblan, and Jerry Rust. I will not vote for their Republican opponents because I agree with these statements:
“Since greed is not self-governing, hardly anyone raking in the dough ever stops to say, ‘That’s it. Enough is enough!” – Bill Moyers and Michael Winship
The Republican Party “is against anything that supports the common good and undercuts the profits of corporations and the rich.” – Henry A. Giroux
“Disgust tends to stick around. This is why so much time, effort, and money is dedicated to painting the opposition with negative feelings.” – Joe Brewer
“Suspicion is the companion of mean souls, and the bane of all good society.” -- Thomas Paine
Printed September 11, 2010, in the Siuslaw News
***
A local Republican resident had to answer back.
***
Okay, I think I get it, finally. Democrats good, Republicans bad.
One reader uses empathy as the prime determinant for this vote. Empathy? Maybe for a grief counselor, social worker or college professor.
I would have thought that our elected officials should be honest, intelligent, accountable, and have a sense of integrity regarding their responsibilities as our representatives in this republic based on democracy.
Is it really compassionate to spend trillions of borrowed dollars on distinctly unstimulating projects and then pass the bills on to our kids and grandkids?
Wouldn’t we all benefit more from a dynamic job and wealth-creating economy in which government is the servant of the public and not its fearsome master?
Carlton Smith
Printed September 22, 2010, in the Siuslaw News
***
I was in a snarky mood when I wrote the following. What would be your answer?
***
Multiple choice question:
What best explains why lock-step Republican House and Senate members want the Bush tax cuts for the rich permanently extended but oppose extending unemployment benefits?
A) The tax cuts will provide jobs and grow the economy,
B) The unemployed are lazy and need to get off their duffs,
C) Fiscally responsible, Republicans are concerned about the deficit,
D) Republicans place their own and corporate America’s interests ahead of the welfare of the country,
E) Whatever Fox News says.
Printed December 3, 2010, in The World
December 4, 2010, in the Register-Guard
***
According to Carlton Smith and most other Republican voters, the Democrats are responsible for our country’s huge national debt. I felt the need to present facts to disprove that false talking point.
***
Regarding taxation, the national debt, and which political party to hold responsible, historical facts need to take precedence over Republican Party mythology.
A Siuslaw News letter writer recently wrote: “The answer is not to tax.”
Facts – The highest personal income marginal tax rate in this country has been 50% or higher in 58 of the 97 years that the federal income tax has existed. The past 23 years it has been no higher than 39.6%. Low tax rates and ill-advised fiscal practices instituted by Republican administrations have preceded hard economic times: 1925 through 1931, a 25% rate and the Great Depression; 1988 through 1991, a 28% rate and sky-rocketing national debt; 2003 to the present, a 35% rate and our present economic mess.
The letter writer wrote: “The position that the rich are not paying a greater share of the tax bill is incorrect.”
Facts – Official US poverty numbers indicate we have the highest number of poor people in 51 years. The real incomes of middle-class families are lower at the end of the business cycle of the 2000s than they were at the beginning. The richest 1 percent have an average annual income of more than $1.3 million. They more than doubled their share of the total US income between 1979 and 2006. The US has the greatest inequality between rich and poor among all Western industrialized nations. Income disparity in the US is as bad now as it was right before the Great Depression.
The letter writer also wrote: “The Democrats have spent us into this hole, and they now want the Republicans to bail us out by taxing the rich.”
Facts – Between 1944 and 1972 the national debt rose from about $201 billion to $437 billion. Presidents before Ronald Reagan actually tried to keep the national debt in check. Reagan’s “voodoo” economics and huge defense spending increased the debt (in 8 years) by 260%, to $2.6 trillion. None of the spending went to education, infrastructure, or programs to help the poor. During G. W. H. Bush’s 4 years the debt rose another $1.4 trillion.
Under Bill Clinton’s 8 year tenure, the debt increased by $1.6 trillion. The debt was $5.728 trillion when George W. Bush began his first day as President. Tax cuts for corporations and the rich, reduced taxes on capital gains and dividend income, estate tax reductions, wars of choice and Medicare Part D put on the credit card, terrible trade imbalances: the debt climbed by $4.899 trillion to $10.627 trillion by the time Barack Obama was inaugurated President.
As of December 10 of this year, under Obama, the debt has risen to $13.847 trillion. Most of that borrowing was done to attempt to stave off the devastating consequences of Bush II and previous Republican administrative national defense and economic policy.
Conclusion – The modern Republican Party practices the adage: “A lie repeated often enough becomes the truth.” Historical information reveals that GOP administrations tax less and borrow more. Additionally, they facilitate unbridled greed, which ultimately causes, except for the very top income earners, severe economic hardship.
Printed December 18, 2010, in the Siuslaw News
***
I vote for political candidates that meet these criteria.
The candidate must be empathetic. He must demonstrate, not just say, what Theodore Roosevelt declared long ago: “The welfare of each of us is dependent fundamentally upon the welfare of all of us.”
He must be honest. If he criticizes his opponent, his message must be completely factual. No half-truths, no misrepresentations permitted.
He must be intelligent, inquisitive, broadly knowledgeable, and resourceful. He must recognize that there are no simple solutions to complex problems but still be committed to strive to solve them.
He must be open to opposing viewpoints. He must respect his own value judgments but he must also know that others may have valuable ideas to contribute.
He must strive to serve all of his constituents.
He must not be a finger-in-the-wind politician. He must have the courage to fight for what he believes is right.
I honor, respect, and wholeheartedly support Peter DeFazio, John Kitzhaber, Arnie Roblan, and Jerry Rust. I will not vote for their Republican opponents because I agree with these statements:
“Since greed is not self-governing, hardly anyone raking in the dough ever stops to say, ‘That’s it. Enough is enough!” – Bill Moyers and Michael Winship
The Republican Party “is against anything that supports the common good and undercuts the profits of corporations and the rich.” – Henry A. Giroux
“Disgust tends to stick around. This is why so much time, effort, and money is dedicated to painting the opposition with negative feelings.” – Joe Brewer
“Suspicion is the companion of mean souls, and the bane of all good society.” -- Thomas Paine
Printed September 11, 2010, in the Siuslaw News
***
A local Republican resident had to answer back.
***
Okay, I think I get it, finally. Democrats good, Republicans bad.
One reader uses empathy as the prime determinant for this vote. Empathy? Maybe for a grief counselor, social worker or college professor.
I would have thought that our elected officials should be honest, intelligent, accountable, and have a sense of integrity regarding their responsibilities as our representatives in this republic based on democracy.
Is it really compassionate to spend trillions of borrowed dollars on distinctly unstimulating projects and then pass the bills on to our kids and grandkids?
Wouldn’t we all benefit more from a dynamic job and wealth-creating economy in which government is the servant of the public and not its fearsome master?
Carlton Smith
Printed September 22, 2010, in the Siuslaw News
***
I was in a snarky mood when I wrote the following. What would be your answer?
***
Multiple choice question:
What best explains why lock-step Republican House and Senate members want the Bush tax cuts for the rich permanently extended but oppose extending unemployment benefits?
A) The tax cuts will provide jobs and grow the economy,
B) The unemployed are lazy and need to get off their duffs,
C) Fiscally responsible, Republicans are concerned about the deficit,
D) Republicans place their own and corporate America’s interests ahead of the welfare of the country,
E) Whatever Fox News says.
Printed December 3, 2010, in The World
December 4, 2010, in the Register-Guard
***
According to Carlton Smith and most other Republican voters, the Democrats are responsible for our country’s huge national debt. I felt the need to present facts to disprove that false talking point.
***
Regarding taxation, the national debt, and which political party to hold responsible, historical facts need to take precedence over Republican Party mythology.
A Siuslaw News letter writer recently wrote: “The answer is not to tax.”
Facts – The highest personal income marginal tax rate in this country has been 50% or higher in 58 of the 97 years that the federal income tax has existed. The past 23 years it has been no higher than 39.6%. Low tax rates and ill-advised fiscal practices instituted by Republican administrations have preceded hard economic times: 1925 through 1931, a 25% rate and the Great Depression; 1988 through 1991, a 28% rate and sky-rocketing national debt; 2003 to the present, a 35% rate and our present economic mess.
The letter writer wrote: “The position that the rich are not paying a greater share of the tax bill is incorrect.”
Facts – Official US poverty numbers indicate we have the highest number of poor people in 51 years. The real incomes of middle-class families are lower at the end of the business cycle of the 2000s than they were at the beginning. The richest 1 percent have an average annual income of more than $1.3 million. They more than doubled their share of the total US income between 1979 and 2006. The US has the greatest inequality between rich and poor among all Western industrialized nations. Income disparity in the US is as bad now as it was right before the Great Depression.
The letter writer also wrote: “The Democrats have spent us into this hole, and they now want the Republicans to bail us out by taxing the rich.”
Facts – Between 1944 and 1972 the national debt rose from about $201 billion to $437 billion. Presidents before Ronald Reagan actually tried to keep the national debt in check. Reagan’s “voodoo” economics and huge defense spending increased the debt (in 8 years) by 260%, to $2.6 trillion. None of the spending went to education, infrastructure, or programs to help the poor. During G. W. H. Bush’s 4 years the debt rose another $1.4 trillion.
Under Bill Clinton’s 8 year tenure, the debt increased by $1.6 trillion. The debt was $5.728 trillion when George W. Bush began his first day as President. Tax cuts for corporations and the rich, reduced taxes on capital gains and dividend income, estate tax reductions, wars of choice and Medicare Part D put on the credit card, terrible trade imbalances: the debt climbed by $4.899 trillion to $10.627 trillion by the time Barack Obama was inaugurated President.
As of December 10 of this year, under Obama, the debt has risen to $13.847 trillion. Most of that borrowing was done to attempt to stave off the devastating consequences of Bush II and previous Republican administrative national defense and economic policy.
Conclusion – The modern Republican Party practices the adage: “A lie repeated often enough becomes the truth.” Historical information reveals that GOP administrations tax less and borrow more. Additionally, they facilitate unbridled greed, which ultimately causes, except for the very top income earners, severe economic hardship.
Printed December 18, 2010, in the Siuslaw News
November 11, 2021
Letters, 2010, Be Well Informed, May 21, June 5, July 21, July 24
HBO’s ten-part miniseries, “The Pacific,” moved me. In his excellent memoir, With the Old Breed at Peleliu and Okinawa, Eugene Sledge, one of three marines featured in the HBO series, concluded: “War is brutish, inglorious, and a terrible waste. Combat leaves an indelible mark … [Until] countries cease trying to enslave others, it will be necessary to … make sacrifices.”
We applaud our veterans, past and present, but we take for granted that which has set them apart from us. We who have not experienced combat need to fathom as best we can their sacrifices. Thank you, HBO, for assisting us.
“As the troops used to say,” Eugene Sledge wrote, “‘If the country is good enough to live in, it’s good enough to fight for.’”
I respect his sentiment, but I cannot accept his framing. At what point does a country cease to be “good enough”? When it has become acutely callous and selfish? When its policies are determined not by its citizens’ needs but by tons of money? When its soldiers are sent to war for reasons other than defense of country? We are not the America of 1944.
We citizens have, therefore, our own burdens of responsibility: to be well informed, proactive in effecting change, contributive in restoring America to that state for which soldier sacrifice is not dishonored and about which Eugene Sledge’s words ring true. History will record whether our degree of love of country sufficed.
Printed May 21, 2010, in the Register-Guard
May 22, 2010, in The World
***
I had somewhat of a dust-up with the Siuslaw News editor about the printing of the following letter. After having waited a week and a half to see it printed, I emailed her with an explanation of my intention of advocating State Representative Arnie Roblan’s candidacy until the Nov. election. I received back this message:
I appreciate your letters, Harold, and will always run them when I can. But using the editorial paper to campaign for a single candidate is not a great idea. You might consider trying to get others to write in.
I responded with this email message.
***
I want others to write, as you suggest. No doubt two or three or four will do so sometime this late summer or fall. If you believe this letter is premature or inappropriate at this time, so be it. I do want to endorse this candidate, however, soon, with some information that most people just don’t know. Be certain that his opponent and his supporters will smear him and the Democratic legislative majority soon without compunction. It is frustrating to call registered Democrats on the telephone to speak on behalf on Arnie Roblan and recognize that the vast majority know him only as a name with a “D” after it. Correct me if I have misunderstood your message but I believe you are advising that I not go crazy writing a bunch of letters about this candidate. I appreciate that your duty is to present a broad spectrum of opinion, not be a blog site for a particular point of view. Having one person extolling the same candidate repeatedly would not only, probably, be counterproductive but it would open you and the paper up for deserved criticism. Consequently, how many letters would you advise that I not exceed? I really need to know. Assuming that they were worthy of being printed, would 3 be too many over the course of 5 months?
***
The editor printed the letter two days after receiving my message. She hasn’t responded to it; I strongly suspect she will not. I will have to find out by submitting future letters just what kind of limited she will place on my submissions. Here is the letter eventually printed.
***
You cannot recognize the worth of a man if you don’t know him.
How well do you know our State Representative Arnie Roblan? Very little, I suspect; state officials receive scant media coverage. Having audio-taped most of his Florence public appearances and having conversed with him often enough, I can tell you quite a bit.
I met Arnie in February 2004 when he came to speak to the Florence Area Democratic Club. He was retiring as principal of Marshfield High School in Coos Bay that June and had filed to run for the House District 9 seat. Believing his father’s dictum, “Always leave a place better than when you found it,” ending his 32-year career as an educator, he wanted to serve in a larger capacity. He has, admirably.
Arnie Roblan is a genuine public servant. He once said, “I am willing to do what I do if I believe there is hope to improve things that are really important: education … the heart and soul of what I believe in …, public health, welfare of kids.”
You recognize, talking with him, that he is very intelligent, that he has a curious mind, and that his range of knowledge is broad.
He knows that “simple solutions to complex problems never work.” He believes that government has a definite role to play in people’s lives.
He is compassionate. “Unless people believe there is hope for them in this world, opportunity for them, we are in real trouble.”
He has that rare attribute of wanting to bridge differences to achieve beneficial solutions. “If there are really good ideas,” he has said, “I don’t care what side of the aisle they come from.” Elected in 2009 President Pro-Tempore (the number two position in the House) unanimously by members of both parties, he is the most respected member of that chamber.
Accessible, fair-minded, principled, Arnie Roblan, up for re-election this November, has served us well.
Printed June 5, 2010, in the Siuslaw News
***
The Republican Party excels in disseminating misinformation. One tactic they use is called “word-framing,” the attachment usually of an untruthful, negative opinion to a word or short phrase that is to be used repeatedly. Here is a letter I wrote on the subject and a letter amplifying it.
***
A recent Gallup poll found that independents favor Republican Party congressional candidates over Democratic Party candidates 45 percent to 35 percent. They would put back into power the party that in so many destructive ways brought this country to the brink of disaster.
What should we have learned since the 2008 election? Republican officials will say and do anything to protect and maximize corporate interests and regain political majority. The juggernaut Republican propaganda machine never slows, snaring susceptible minds. Republican word framing to support political assertions (example: tax cuts grow the economy) never deviates from GOP ideology. Repetition, repetition.
Despite ample evidence that its assertions are bogus, the word frames become a part of the language of the mainstream media. Democrats are lousy at word framing. Many Democratic officials lack the courage to champion liberal ideology. Rather than to attempt to shape public opinion, Democrats too often take polls and then adopt specific Republican policy positions to woo outside-the-party support. Example: We should pay down the national deficit rather than increase it in the short term by rebuilding infrastructure, investing in green energy and bailing out state governments.
Take away the ruthless exploitation of the Senate filibuster rule by Republicans and you would have seen the Democratic majority pass into law major beneficial legislation on several vital fronts.
Democrats, get truthfully nasty!
Printed July 21, 2010, in the Register-Guard
***
Thanks to Harold Titus for his July 21 letter about “framing” and the difference between Republican and Democratic language. The terminology is from the work of George Lakoff, a University of California, Berkeley, professor of linguistics and his 2004 book, “Don’t Think of an Elephant.”
Lakoff’s central idea is that Democrats argue using facts while Republicans argue using ideological “frames” and that, in any debate, frames trump facts. It’s an oversimplification, but it has some truth to it. Frames combined with facts work best of all, but facts alone, sent against frames alone, will lose every time.
Corporate-sponsored think tanks have understood this for decades with impressive results, which generally involve regular conservatives supporting big business against their own interests. “Liberals” are only beginning to grasp this dangerous tactic, as evidenced by their recent use of “progressive” to replace a word that implies wishy-washy and undisciplined.
In other words, by agreeing to refer to themselves as “liberals,” they had accepted a Republican framing. Something similar happens every time anyone refers to the “right” and the “left.” The word “right” obviously enjoys the association of “not wrong,” while the word “left” carries baggage from the days of anti-communism (‘leftist” equals un-American) as well as biblical associations with the devil, and the simple fact that most people are right-handed. Just using this terminology lets Republicans start any race 10 paces ahead.
I recommend exploring Lakoff’s ideas on YouTube. Whether you’re conservative or progressive, you owe it to yourself to understand this subtle brainwashing.
Steve Downey
Printed July 24, 2010, in the Register-Guard
***
Here are several paragraphs from an article/interview of George Lakoff that provide a Republican Party example of word framing.
***
The phrase "Tax relief" began coming out of the White House starting on the very day of Bush's inauguration. It got picked up by the newspapers as if it were a neutral term, which it is not. First, you have the frame for "relief." For there to be relief, there has to be an affliction, an afflicted party, somebody who administers the relief, and an act in which you are relieved of the affliction. The reliever is the hero, and anybody who tries to stop them is the bad guy intent on keeping the affliction going. So, add "tax" to "relief" and you get a metaphor that taxation is an affliction, and anybody against relieving this affliction is a villain.
...
[So what should they be calling it?]
It's not just about what you call it, if it's the same "it." There's actually a whole other way to think about it. Taxes are what you pay to be an American, to live in a civilized society that is democratic and offers opportunity, and where there's an infrastructure that has been paid for by previous taxpayers. This is a huge infrastructure. The highway system, the Internet, the TV system, the public education system, the power grid, the system for training scientists - vast amounts of infrastructure that we all use, which has to be maintained and paid for. Taxes are your dues - you pay your dues to be an American. In addition, the wealthiest Americans use that infrastructure more than anyone else, and they use parts of it that other people don't. The federal justice system, for example, is nine-tenths devoted to corporate law. The Securities and Exchange Commission and all the apparatus of the Commerce Department are mainly used by the wealthy. And we're all paying for it.
[So taxes could be framed as an issue of patriotism.]
It is an issue of patriotism! Are you paying your dues, or are you trying to get something for free at the expense of your country? It's about being a member. People pay a membership fee to join a country club, for which they get to use the swimming pool and the golf course. But they didn't pay for them in their membership. They were built and paid for by other people and by this collectivity. It's the same thing with our country - the country as country club, being a member of a remarkable nation. But what would it take to make the discussion about that? Every Democratic senator and all of their aides and every candidate would have to learn how to talk about it that way. There would have to be a manual. Republicans have one. They have a guy named Frank Luntz, who puts out a 500-page manual every year that goes issue by issue on what the logic of the position is from the Republican side, what the other guys' logic is, how to attack it, and what language to use (Powell 5).
Work cited:
Powell, Bonnie Azab. “Framing the Issues: UC Berkeley Professor George Lakoff Tells How Conservatives Use Language To Dominate Politics.” UCBerkeleyNews, October 27, 2003. Net. https://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/r...
We applaud our veterans, past and present, but we take for granted that which has set them apart from us. We who have not experienced combat need to fathom as best we can their sacrifices. Thank you, HBO, for assisting us.
“As the troops used to say,” Eugene Sledge wrote, “‘If the country is good enough to live in, it’s good enough to fight for.’”
I respect his sentiment, but I cannot accept his framing. At what point does a country cease to be “good enough”? When it has become acutely callous and selfish? When its policies are determined not by its citizens’ needs but by tons of money? When its soldiers are sent to war for reasons other than defense of country? We are not the America of 1944.
We citizens have, therefore, our own burdens of responsibility: to be well informed, proactive in effecting change, contributive in restoring America to that state for which soldier sacrifice is not dishonored and about which Eugene Sledge’s words ring true. History will record whether our degree of love of country sufficed.
Printed May 21, 2010, in the Register-Guard
May 22, 2010, in The World
***
I had somewhat of a dust-up with the Siuslaw News editor about the printing of the following letter. After having waited a week and a half to see it printed, I emailed her with an explanation of my intention of advocating State Representative Arnie Roblan’s candidacy until the Nov. election. I received back this message:
I appreciate your letters, Harold, and will always run them when I can. But using the editorial paper to campaign for a single candidate is not a great idea. You might consider trying to get others to write in.
I responded with this email message.
***
I want others to write, as you suggest. No doubt two or three or four will do so sometime this late summer or fall. If you believe this letter is premature or inappropriate at this time, so be it. I do want to endorse this candidate, however, soon, with some information that most people just don’t know. Be certain that his opponent and his supporters will smear him and the Democratic legislative majority soon without compunction. It is frustrating to call registered Democrats on the telephone to speak on behalf on Arnie Roblan and recognize that the vast majority know him only as a name with a “D” after it. Correct me if I have misunderstood your message but I believe you are advising that I not go crazy writing a bunch of letters about this candidate. I appreciate that your duty is to present a broad spectrum of opinion, not be a blog site for a particular point of view. Having one person extolling the same candidate repeatedly would not only, probably, be counterproductive but it would open you and the paper up for deserved criticism. Consequently, how many letters would you advise that I not exceed? I really need to know. Assuming that they were worthy of being printed, would 3 be too many over the course of 5 months?
***
The editor printed the letter two days after receiving my message. She hasn’t responded to it; I strongly suspect she will not. I will have to find out by submitting future letters just what kind of limited she will place on my submissions. Here is the letter eventually printed.
***
You cannot recognize the worth of a man if you don’t know him.
How well do you know our State Representative Arnie Roblan? Very little, I suspect; state officials receive scant media coverage. Having audio-taped most of his Florence public appearances and having conversed with him often enough, I can tell you quite a bit.
I met Arnie in February 2004 when he came to speak to the Florence Area Democratic Club. He was retiring as principal of Marshfield High School in Coos Bay that June and had filed to run for the House District 9 seat. Believing his father’s dictum, “Always leave a place better than when you found it,” ending his 32-year career as an educator, he wanted to serve in a larger capacity. He has, admirably.
Arnie Roblan is a genuine public servant. He once said, “I am willing to do what I do if I believe there is hope to improve things that are really important: education … the heart and soul of what I believe in …, public health, welfare of kids.”
You recognize, talking with him, that he is very intelligent, that he has a curious mind, and that his range of knowledge is broad.
He knows that “simple solutions to complex problems never work.” He believes that government has a definite role to play in people’s lives.
He is compassionate. “Unless people believe there is hope for them in this world, opportunity for them, we are in real trouble.”
He has that rare attribute of wanting to bridge differences to achieve beneficial solutions. “If there are really good ideas,” he has said, “I don’t care what side of the aisle they come from.” Elected in 2009 President Pro-Tempore (the number two position in the House) unanimously by members of both parties, he is the most respected member of that chamber.
Accessible, fair-minded, principled, Arnie Roblan, up for re-election this November, has served us well.
Printed June 5, 2010, in the Siuslaw News
***
The Republican Party excels in disseminating misinformation. One tactic they use is called “word-framing,” the attachment usually of an untruthful, negative opinion to a word or short phrase that is to be used repeatedly. Here is a letter I wrote on the subject and a letter amplifying it.
***
A recent Gallup poll found that independents favor Republican Party congressional candidates over Democratic Party candidates 45 percent to 35 percent. They would put back into power the party that in so many destructive ways brought this country to the brink of disaster.
What should we have learned since the 2008 election? Republican officials will say and do anything to protect and maximize corporate interests and regain political majority. The juggernaut Republican propaganda machine never slows, snaring susceptible minds. Republican word framing to support political assertions (example: tax cuts grow the economy) never deviates from GOP ideology. Repetition, repetition.
Despite ample evidence that its assertions are bogus, the word frames become a part of the language of the mainstream media. Democrats are lousy at word framing. Many Democratic officials lack the courage to champion liberal ideology. Rather than to attempt to shape public opinion, Democrats too often take polls and then adopt specific Republican policy positions to woo outside-the-party support. Example: We should pay down the national deficit rather than increase it in the short term by rebuilding infrastructure, investing in green energy and bailing out state governments.
Take away the ruthless exploitation of the Senate filibuster rule by Republicans and you would have seen the Democratic majority pass into law major beneficial legislation on several vital fronts.
Democrats, get truthfully nasty!
Printed July 21, 2010, in the Register-Guard
***
Thanks to Harold Titus for his July 21 letter about “framing” and the difference between Republican and Democratic language. The terminology is from the work of George Lakoff, a University of California, Berkeley, professor of linguistics and his 2004 book, “Don’t Think of an Elephant.”
Lakoff’s central idea is that Democrats argue using facts while Republicans argue using ideological “frames” and that, in any debate, frames trump facts. It’s an oversimplification, but it has some truth to it. Frames combined with facts work best of all, but facts alone, sent against frames alone, will lose every time.
Corporate-sponsored think tanks have understood this for decades with impressive results, which generally involve regular conservatives supporting big business against their own interests. “Liberals” are only beginning to grasp this dangerous tactic, as evidenced by their recent use of “progressive” to replace a word that implies wishy-washy and undisciplined.
In other words, by agreeing to refer to themselves as “liberals,” they had accepted a Republican framing. Something similar happens every time anyone refers to the “right” and the “left.” The word “right” obviously enjoys the association of “not wrong,” while the word “left” carries baggage from the days of anti-communism (‘leftist” equals un-American) as well as biblical associations with the devil, and the simple fact that most people are right-handed. Just using this terminology lets Republicans start any race 10 paces ahead.
I recommend exploring Lakoff’s ideas on YouTube. Whether you’re conservative or progressive, you owe it to yourself to understand this subtle brainwashing.
Steve Downey
Printed July 24, 2010, in the Register-Guard
***
Here are several paragraphs from an article/interview of George Lakoff that provide a Republican Party example of word framing.
***
The phrase "Tax relief" began coming out of the White House starting on the very day of Bush's inauguration. It got picked up by the newspapers as if it were a neutral term, which it is not. First, you have the frame for "relief." For there to be relief, there has to be an affliction, an afflicted party, somebody who administers the relief, and an act in which you are relieved of the affliction. The reliever is the hero, and anybody who tries to stop them is the bad guy intent on keeping the affliction going. So, add "tax" to "relief" and you get a metaphor that taxation is an affliction, and anybody against relieving this affliction is a villain.
...
[So what should they be calling it?]
It's not just about what you call it, if it's the same "it." There's actually a whole other way to think about it. Taxes are what you pay to be an American, to live in a civilized society that is democratic and offers opportunity, and where there's an infrastructure that has been paid for by previous taxpayers. This is a huge infrastructure. The highway system, the Internet, the TV system, the public education system, the power grid, the system for training scientists - vast amounts of infrastructure that we all use, which has to be maintained and paid for. Taxes are your dues - you pay your dues to be an American. In addition, the wealthiest Americans use that infrastructure more than anyone else, and they use parts of it that other people don't. The federal justice system, for example, is nine-tenths devoted to corporate law. The Securities and Exchange Commission and all the apparatus of the Commerce Department are mainly used by the wealthy. And we're all paying for it.
[So taxes could be framed as an issue of patriotism.]
It is an issue of patriotism! Are you paying your dues, or are you trying to get something for free at the expense of your country? It's about being a member. People pay a membership fee to join a country club, for which they get to use the swimming pool and the golf course. But they didn't pay for them in their membership. They were built and paid for by other people and by this collectivity. It's the same thing with our country - the country as country club, being a member of a remarkable nation. But what would it take to make the discussion about that? Every Democratic senator and all of their aides and every candidate would have to learn how to talk about it that way. There would have to be a manual. Republicans have one. They have a guy named Frank Luntz, who puts out a 500-page manual every year that goes issue by issue on what the logic of the position is from the Republican side, what the other guys' logic is, how to attack it, and what language to use (Powell 5).
Work cited:
Powell, Bonnie Azab. “Framing the Issues: UC Berkeley Professor George Lakoff Tells How Conservatives Use Language To Dominate Politics.” UCBerkeleyNews, October 27, 2003. Net. https://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/r...
November 7, 2021
Letters, 2010, Combatting the Letter-Writing Right, February 24, March 8, March 10, March 20
The start of a mid-term election year. The start of Obama’s second year. The second year of my second term as chair of the Democratic club. Much at stake.
***
Former long-time Florence resident and Democratic Club member Wilbur Patterson once wrote, “I believe politics is too important to leave only to those who can afford to control the process. Because the Democratic Party comes closest to being ‘of the people, by the people, and for the people,’ I am glad to call myself a Democrat.”
We who advocate equal opportunity and protection for all are now compelled to fight like heck to secure what our Constitution founders intended.
We are a hair’s width from being governed by a vast corporatocracy that is sociopathic in nature, exploitive in purpose, and ruthless in execution. Examples: Health care insurance companies, credit card companies, Exxon-Mobil, West Virginia coal companies, Blackwater, Halliburton, Goldman Sachs. Enough?
We have an opposition party that has evolved into an entity that exhibits no morals, no honesty, no integrity, and no allegiance to anything other than achieving its unprincipled quest for unlimited power and serving inexorably the interests of viral capitalism.
The election of Barack Obama and the Democratic Party majority in Congress was supposed to reverse the ills that the Bush administration and preceding administrations after 1980 had wrought. The president and the Democratic Congress did legislate the beneficial stimulus package. On all other major issues, they haven’t delivered. We know the reasons: Republican obstructionism, too many Republican-minded senators claiming to be Democrats, a president that speaks extremely well but refuses to accept that Republican politicians have stone hearts.
If the Senate Democrats do not pass a strong public option health care bill through budgetary reconciliation and Obama does not morph into Harry Truman within the next 30 days, there is going to be hell to pay. Why? We are the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party. “Of the people, … for the people,” we do not quit.
Printed February 24, 2010, in the Siuslaw News
***
My letter generated the following.
***
A recent letter, “For the People” (Feb. 24), raised a few questions in my mind. The author of the letter referred to his alliance to the Democratic party and states his reasoning for such is that it is a party “of the people, for the people.”
The first question that came to mind was who is he including in his definition of “of the people, for the people”? Does this include “people” who have an opinion different than his?
He wrote about business and “an opposition party” that he claims “exhibits no morals, no honesty, no integrity.” In all due respect the targeted individuals in my view are “people” as well as those who share the author’s views. In fact it is business that employs “the people” and supplies the funding through taxes that pay for the current government programs, and it would be on the backs of business to support “all the major issues they haven’t delivered” in government programs that he is demanding.
A simple truth is that only business is capable of raising revenue and that includes the revenue that pays for government. It would seem to me the very same people he discredits are the only avenue to achieve his goals.
An honest view of our current state in America is we have been on an unsustainable path for a very long time with entitlement programs and out-of-control spending.
As we continue down this path of borrowing money from foreign countries and pretending the problem does not exist, we are placing the financial burden on “the people” of the next generation. In my view this is immoral and dishonest and any politician that supports such behavior is lacking integrity. These are the same words the author used to describe what he referred to as “the opposition party.”
I don’t care which party you hold an alliance to, it is time to expect more from our elected officials to act in the best interests for our country; and in the mean time belittling others who have a difference of opinion achieves nothing. Let us seek solutions to our dismal financial situation through fiscal obedience before it is too late so our children and our children’s children can call themselves “the people” of this great country.
Bill Specht
Printed March 10, 2010, in the Siuslaw News
***
Here was my response to Specht’s letter.
***
Bill Specht (letters, March 10) took exception to my Feb. 24 letter, which criticized both large corporations for exploiting the American public and the Republican Party for its deceptive, unprincipled support of said corporations.
Objecting apparently to my belief that the Democratic Party comes closest to being “of the people” and “for the people,” Mr. Specht wanted to know if by “people” I meant exclusively those who agree with me. The answer is “no.” Goldman Sachs, Exxon-Mobil, Anthem Blue Cross, Halliburton, et al. don’t care a fig about tea partiers, libertarians, conservatives, small business people, moderates, liberals, anybody lacking substantial power or authority.
Mr. Specht wrote at length about the interconnectedness of employers, employees, and the generation of tax revenue necessary to fund government programs, as if I, and, you the reader, need a lesson in macro-economics. Democrats are not anti-business. We respect anybody willing to challenge the perilous unknown to attempt to achieve his dreams. However, …
Henry Ford famously said that he wanted his workers paid enough to be able to buy his automobiles. Over the last 30 years, as worker productivity has steadily increased and CEO compensation has sky-rocketed, employee wages have stagnated – by design, not by accident.
Deregulated capitalism, in the pursuit of greed, has now cut us to the quick.
As for Mr. Specht’s call for “fiscal obedience” to protect our children and grandchildren, I offer this distinction. There is a major difference between what must be done now (federal and state job stimulation – which the GOP opposes) and what the Bush administration did which never should have happened: large tax cuts for the rich, an out-of-control defense budget, the military adventurism of two wars (which have killed thousands of our children). Republican officials that now accuse Democrats of “fiscal irresponsibility” deserve to be called out.
Printed March 20, 2010, in the Siuslaw News
***
I also clashed with a socialism-Is-terrible writer. He wrote first, responding to a letter written by a friend of mine, Alice Shapiro.
***
In response to Alice Shapiro’s “bring it on” with regard to socialism (letters, March 4) I would point out the word “theory” in her listed definition.
Want fact and truth? Hard work coupled with persistence, patience and proper harmonious relationships with co-workers, employees and employers always has proven a way to prosperity and success here in this great country. Unfortunately that success is threatened when the great thinkers and hard workers are forced to give large percentages of their income to the lazy, incompetent and unwilling leeches who refuse to work and prefer a free ride.
With as much discontent as Shapiro obviously has, maybe she should move to a socialist country and live happily ever after.
Patrick Roelle
Reedsport
Printed March 8, 2010, in the Register-Guard
***
Here are excerpts of an article written about the Republican Party’s use of the term “socialism.” I consider myself a Democratic Socialist.
***
How much political power does one word hold? We like to think of the media and politicians as messengers of unbiased facts. But the state of the political game today proves otherwise. Reporters play on the fears of their audience much like a jungle cat toys with its prey. One of the most powerful words in their arsenal is one that connotes images of dictators, of corruption and of oppression. It is a word that we have seen no shortage of in recent American political campaigns — the “S” word.
Socialism.
Political scientists Toff and Kim explain how calculated word usage (or the lack thereof) among politicians and the American media proves to be a meaningful insight into their partisan intentions. In the case of the “S” word, these intentions are generally negative and appearing with startling frequency in American politics. In Toff and Kim’s 2013 Twitter analysis of politicians and media personnel, they found 42 instances of the word “socialism,” with the large majority of usage coming from Republicans.
Why does this matter? Well, if we consider what “socialism” is, a doctrine that calls for public rather than private control of property and natural resources, it’s obvious that the United States’ gigantic private economic sector is anything but socialist. Ranked in the top ten countries worldwide for economic competitiveness, the United States’ success rests on high private investment and productivity.
Nonetheless, Obama has been accused of being a socialist, and strangely enough, even a more radical communist. However, in different rankings of political ideology based on congressional voting record, fundraising and public issue statements, Obama isn’t even on the farthest left on the spectrum, let alone venturing into socialist territory. …
…
By socialism I do not mean a regime modeled after Cuba or China. I do not believe in the eradication of private property or the suppression of free will that Republicans are quick to associate with socialism. I mean a belief in a type of democratic socialism that would decrease the influence of money in politics and foster government action to deal with the severe income inequalities — not to nationalize businesses or control the economy. … (Trujillo 1-2)
Work cited:
Trujillo, Aimee. “Socialism, Rhetoric and American Politics.” The Stanford Daily, January 12, 2015. Net. https://www.stanforddaily.com/2015/01...
***
Here is my response to Patrick’s Roelle’s letter.
***
Every morning Patrick Roelle (letters, March 8) must down a 32-ounce serving of GOP Kool-Aid.
He who works hard in harmony with his co-workers and employers prospers, Mr. Roelle declares. Keep the great capitalistic engine running; protect the rich; you will be rewarded. Ah yes, the American Dream.
Why then are so many Americans these days in such dire straits?
Are these Americans all, using Mr. Roelle’s words, “lazy, incompetent and unwilling leeches who refuse to work and prefer a free ride”?
Government’s core purpose is to defend its citizens and promote their common good. That entails protecting them from viral corporate exploitation while providing them the level playing field upon which talent and perseverance (and luck) might frequently lead to something.
The less-government, low-taxation crowd (of whom Mr. Roelle must be a member) wants to keep it otherwise. “No, we must not have Medicare-for-All type health care [which is not currently being proposed]. That would be Socialism!” shout the know-nothing morning imbibers of the GOP hallucinatory elixir.
Wrong. Nations are at their best when they combine the strength of regulated capitalism with the protections of targeted socialism. America is way behind being its best. Most of us need to understand that selfishness is societally counterproductive and that any political party that justifies it needs to be punished.
Printed March 10, 2010, in the Register-Guard
***
Former long-time Florence resident and Democratic Club member Wilbur Patterson once wrote, “I believe politics is too important to leave only to those who can afford to control the process. Because the Democratic Party comes closest to being ‘of the people, by the people, and for the people,’ I am glad to call myself a Democrat.”
We who advocate equal opportunity and protection for all are now compelled to fight like heck to secure what our Constitution founders intended.
We are a hair’s width from being governed by a vast corporatocracy that is sociopathic in nature, exploitive in purpose, and ruthless in execution. Examples: Health care insurance companies, credit card companies, Exxon-Mobil, West Virginia coal companies, Blackwater, Halliburton, Goldman Sachs. Enough?
We have an opposition party that has evolved into an entity that exhibits no morals, no honesty, no integrity, and no allegiance to anything other than achieving its unprincipled quest for unlimited power and serving inexorably the interests of viral capitalism.
The election of Barack Obama and the Democratic Party majority in Congress was supposed to reverse the ills that the Bush administration and preceding administrations after 1980 had wrought. The president and the Democratic Congress did legislate the beneficial stimulus package. On all other major issues, they haven’t delivered. We know the reasons: Republican obstructionism, too many Republican-minded senators claiming to be Democrats, a president that speaks extremely well but refuses to accept that Republican politicians have stone hearts.
If the Senate Democrats do not pass a strong public option health care bill through budgetary reconciliation and Obama does not morph into Harry Truman within the next 30 days, there is going to be hell to pay. Why? We are the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party. “Of the people, … for the people,” we do not quit.
Printed February 24, 2010, in the Siuslaw News
***
My letter generated the following.
***
A recent letter, “For the People” (Feb. 24), raised a few questions in my mind. The author of the letter referred to his alliance to the Democratic party and states his reasoning for such is that it is a party “of the people, for the people.”
The first question that came to mind was who is he including in his definition of “of the people, for the people”? Does this include “people” who have an opinion different than his?
He wrote about business and “an opposition party” that he claims “exhibits no morals, no honesty, no integrity.” In all due respect the targeted individuals in my view are “people” as well as those who share the author’s views. In fact it is business that employs “the people” and supplies the funding through taxes that pay for the current government programs, and it would be on the backs of business to support “all the major issues they haven’t delivered” in government programs that he is demanding.
A simple truth is that only business is capable of raising revenue and that includes the revenue that pays for government. It would seem to me the very same people he discredits are the only avenue to achieve his goals.
An honest view of our current state in America is we have been on an unsustainable path for a very long time with entitlement programs and out-of-control spending.
As we continue down this path of borrowing money from foreign countries and pretending the problem does not exist, we are placing the financial burden on “the people” of the next generation. In my view this is immoral and dishonest and any politician that supports such behavior is lacking integrity. These are the same words the author used to describe what he referred to as “the opposition party.”
I don’t care which party you hold an alliance to, it is time to expect more from our elected officials to act in the best interests for our country; and in the mean time belittling others who have a difference of opinion achieves nothing. Let us seek solutions to our dismal financial situation through fiscal obedience before it is too late so our children and our children’s children can call themselves “the people” of this great country.
Bill Specht
Printed March 10, 2010, in the Siuslaw News
***
Here was my response to Specht’s letter.
***
Bill Specht (letters, March 10) took exception to my Feb. 24 letter, which criticized both large corporations for exploiting the American public and the Republican Party for its deceptive, unprincipled support of said corporations.
Objecting apparently to my belief that the Democratic Party comes closest to being “of the people” and “for the people,” Mr. Specht wanted to know if by “people” I meant exclusively those who agree with me. The answer is “no.” Goldman Sachs, Exxon-Mobil, Anthem Blue Cross, Halliburton, et al. don’t care a fig about tea partiers, libertarians, conservatives, small business people, moderates, liberals, anybody lacking substantial power or authority.
Mr. Specht wrote at length about the interconnectedness of employers, employees, and the generation of tax revenue necessary to fund government programs, as if I, and, you the reader, need a lesson in macro-economics. Democrats are not anti-business. We respect anybody willing to challenge the perilous unknown to attempt to achieve his dreams. However, …
Henry Ford famously said that he wanted his workers paid enough to be able to buy his automobiles. Over the last 30 years, as worker productivity has steadily increased and CEO compensation has sky-rocketed, employee wages have stagnated – by design, not by accident.
Deregulated capitalism, in the pursuit of greed, has now cut us to the quick.
As for Mr. Specht’s call for “fiscal obedience” to protect our children and grandchildren, I offer this distinction. There is a major difference between what must be done now (federal and state job stimulation – which the GOP opposes) and what the Bush administration did which never should have happened: large tax cuts for the rich, an out-of-control defense budget, the military adventurism of two wars (which have killed thousands of our children). Republican officials that now accuse Democrats of “fiscal irresponsibility” deserve to be called out.
Printed March 20, 2010, in the Siuslaw News
***
I also clashed with a socialism-Is-terrible writer. He wrote first, responding to a letter written by a friend of mine, Alice Shapiro.
***
In response to Alice Shapiro’s “bring it on” with regard to socialism (letters, March 4) I would point out the word “theory” in her listed definition.
Want fact and truth? Hard work coupled with persistence, patience and proper harmonious relationships with co-workers, employees and employers always has proven a way to prosperity and success here in this great country. Unfortunately that success is threatened when the great thinkers and hard workers are forced to give large percentages of their income to the lazy, incompetent and unwilling leeches who refuse to work and prefer a free ride.
With as much discontent as Shapiro obviously has, maybe she should move to a socialist country and live happily ever after.
Patrick Roelle
Reedsport
Printed March 8, 2010, in the Register-Guard
***
Here are excerpts of an article written about the Republican Party’s use of the term “socialism.” I consider myself a Democratic Socialist.
***
How much political power does one word hold? We like to think of the media and politicians as messengers of unbiased facts. But the state of the political game today proves otherwise. Reporters play on the fears of their audience much like a jungle cat toys with its prey. One of the most powerful words in their arsenal is one that connotes images of dictators, of corruption and of oppression. It is a word that we have seen no shortage of in recent American political campaigns — the “S” word.
Socialism.
Political scientists Toff and Kim explain how calculated word usage (or the lack thereof) among politicians and the American media proves to be a meaningful insight into their partisan intentions. In the case of the “S” word, these intentions are generally negative and appearing with startling frequency in American politics. In Toff and Kim’s 2013 Twitter analysis of politicians and media personnel, they found 42 instances of the word “socialism,” with the large majority of usage coming from Republicans.
Why does this matter? Well, if we consider what “socialism” is, a doctrine that calls for public rather than private control of property and natural resources, it’s obvious that the United States’ gigantic private economic sector is anything but socialist. Ranked in the top ten countries worldwide for economic competitiveness, the United States’ success rests on high private investment and productivity.
Nonetheless, Obama has been accused of being a socialist, and strangely enough, even a more radical communist. However, in different rankings of political ideology based on congressional voting record, fundraising and public issue statements, Obama isn’t even on the farthest left on the spectrum, let alone venturing into socialist territory. …
…
By socialism I do not mean a regime modeled after Cuba or China. I do not believe in the eradication of private property or the suppression of free will that Republicans are quick to associate with socialism. I mean a belief in a type of democratic socialism that would decrease the influence of money in politics and foster government action to deal with the severe income inequalities — not to nationalize businesses or control the economy. … (Trujillo 1-2)
Work cited:
Trujillo, Aimee. “Socialism, Rhetoric and American Politics.” The Stanford Daily, January 12, 2015. Net. https://www.stanforddaily.com/2015/01...
***
Here is my response to Patrick’s Roelle’s letter.
***
Every morning Patrick Roelle (letters, March 8) must down a 32-ounce serving of GOP Kool-Aid.
He who works hard in harmony with his co-workers and employers prospers, Mr. Roelle declares. Keep the great capitalistic engine running; protect the rich; you will be rewarded. Ah yes, the American Dream.
Why then are so many Americans these days in such dire straits?
Are these Americans all, using Mr. Roelle’s words, “lazy, incompetent and unwilling leeches who refuse to work and prefer a free ride”?
Government’s core purpose is to defend its citizens and promote their common good. That entails protecting them from viral corporate exploitation while providing them the level playing field upon which talent and perseverance (and luck) might frequently lead to something.
The less-government, low-taxation crowd (of whom Mr. Roelle must be a member) wants to keep it otherwise. “No, we must not have Medicare-for-All type health care [which is not currently being proposed]. That would be Socialism!” shout the know-nothing morning imbibers of the GOP hallucinatory elixir.
Wrong. Nations are at their best when they combine the strength of regulated capitalism with the protections of targeted socialism. America is way behind being its best. Most of us need to understand that selfishness is societally counterproductive and that any political party that justifies it needs to be punished.
Printed March 10, 2010, in the Register-Guard
November 4, 2021
Letters, 2009, Trying To Change Obdurate Minds, August 28; September 2, 26, 30:; October 7; November 4, 7
“Whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, the people, if well informed, may be relied on to set them to rights.” -- Thomas Jefferson
“In our country, learned ignorance is on the rise.” – Paul Krugman
The misinformation disseminated by right wing radio, television, and internet platforms is massive. In 2009 it was well underway. My letters and documentary presentations at the local library were my naive attempts to educate. The following letter had two critical purposes: emphasize the mind-control the Right has over its supporters and infer that ABC, NBC, CBS, and PBS were attempting to be neutral more than being accurately critical in their presentation of the news.
***
“Woof Blitzer here for Mainstream Media Corporation. We have in the studio representatives of two conflicting points of view regarding existing conditions on George Orwell’s Animal Farm.
“Paul Klugman, noted Nobel Prize winning economist, what say you about what has happened on the farm?”
“Well, Woof, the animals expelled their owner, Farmer Jones, and set up an economic system where the pigs exploit the rest of the farm animals worse than Jones did.”
“Sheep #23, what do you have to say about this allegation?”
“Four legs good, two legs bad! Four legs good, two legs bad!”
“Professor Klugman, what sources of energy are being used on the farm?”
“Physical labor. Horses work until they drop and then get sent to the ‘glue factory.’ They need to develop wind and solar power.”
“Sheep #23, what is your solution?”
“Drill here, drill now! Drill here, drill now!”
“Professor, you alleged that workers’ health is regarded as unimportant.”
“Yes, Woof. Every animal should be guaranteed equal health care benefits paid for out of the profits of the farm. What’s more, I believe …”
“Rationing! Rationing! Socialism! Just say ‘no!’ Just say ‘no!’”
“Well, there you have it. An even-handed, in-depth analysis of a very complicated situation. This is Woof Blitzer signing off. Remember, if it isn’t MMC, it isn’t news.”
Printed August 28, 2009, in The World
***
Of course, the true believers have their letter writers. I tried to answer three of them with this letter.
***
Three Republican letter writers sounded off August 26: Susan Berman about the specter of socialism, Martin Cable with a kitchen sink list of health care scare complaints, and Jimmie L. Moe about liberal “scams” perpetrated on the public.
Berman: “This country (even the Democrats) prefer liberty and freedom over socialism, which not only will dictate their health care but will be involved in their bank accounts.” [my response] Conservatives always invoke liberty and the threat of economic ruin to convince the unwashed masses that their freedom to be exploited by soulless corporations should not be interfered with by a protective government.
Cable: “Health care will not get cheaper until you get the government regulations off the insurance companies, the drug companies and the doctors.” [my response] Indeed, remove all these non-existent regulations and these abused insurance companies will cut CEO pay, cover all applicants, uncap and pay all medical expenses, and reduce insurance premiums.
Moe: Global warming scam, oil shortage scam, sugar scam, contaminated groundwater scam. “Is the next scam going to be health insurance?” [my response] Waitressing single moms supporting young children and 55-year-old couples losing life savings because of serious illness and dropped coverage must not be tricked into believing that health care is a humanitarian right! To be forewarned is to be forearmed! Unfettered capitalism is our deliverance. Government, stay back. Maintain the status-quo. All engines, full speed dead ahead.
Printed September 2, 2009, in the Siuslaw News
***
I asked Florence Area Democratic Club members if anyone would submit the following letter in their name to the local paper. One person did. Here is the letter.
***
R. Giannola (Letters, Sept. 23) asserted that Democratic Party House and Senate members voted against the 1964 Civil Rights Act in greater numbers than Republican Party members. Therefore, Democrats today do not have just cause to criticize Republicans as being “racist.”
Wikipedia confirms the accuracy of Mr. Giannola’s numbers. What Giannola did not mention is that virtually all of the Democratic representatives and senators that voted against the Civil Rights Act were from the former Confederate states. The granting of civil rights protections to African-Americans caused most of these Southern Democrats to become Republicans. Long-time segregationist Republican Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, originally a Democrat, was a famous example.
Also in need of correction: Mr. Giannola listed Richard Nixon as a notable Republican that voted for the Act. Nixon ceased being a senator in 1952. In 1964 he held no public office.
Racial animosity remains strongest in our Southern states. It is where we find the preponderance of Republican Party office holders and President Obama’s fiercest critics.
***
The club member added the following to the end of the letter: “When all think alike, no one thinks very much.”
Printed September 26, 2009, in the Siuslaw News
***
Here in the following letter are what clear-eyed, knowledgeable commentators have said that support Paul Krugman’s “learned ignorance” statement and at the end what I fancy regular Fox News watchers probably believe.
***
“The American public is intolerant, and too many know little more than what they are told by talk radio, which means that they haven’t a clue as to what really is going on in the world.” – William Pfaff
“This decline in civility, the emergence of mob behavior and the utter blurring in the media between a truth and a lie suggest … that we have become one of the most illiterate nations on the planet.” -- Henry A. Giroux
If “tea party” protesters’ signs accurately revealed what their holders (one would hope, unwittingly) believed/supported, we would be reading the following:
Facts Lie; Rush Knows
Medicare, Yes; Socialism, No
Preserve Corporate Greed
Nuke Muslims, Torture ACORN
War and Tax Cuts, Yes; Health Care, No!
Boot Straps! Boot Straps! What’s Mine Is Mine!
The Earth Is Cooling
In God and Sean Hannity We Trust
White Male Culture!
Bottom line, Obama’s Black!
I Enable Fascism
Limbaugh and Beck 2012
“A middle class that has lost a decade. Two wars. The Great Recession. Gilded Age inequality. Catastrophic climate change accelerating faster than most predictions. … We are witnessing a harrowing test of our democracy.” – Robert Borosage
Printed September 30, 2009, in the Siuslaw News
***
I suppose that the documentaries our club screened in the public library were not attended by my imaginary sign holders or like-minded, deluded Republicans. But you have to try. Here were announcements we put in the Siuslaw News for two upcoming screenings.
***
The Florence Area Democratic Club will screen Robert Greenwald’s new documentary, “Rethink Afghanistan,” Sunday, Oct. 11, at 2:00 p.m. in the Siuslaw Public Library’s Bromley Room. Admission is free.
President Obama is re-evaluating our nation’s commitment of waging war in Afghanistan. Commander, U.S. Forces Afghanistan General Stanley McChrystal has recommended a substantial increase in troop deployment. A majority of Americans oppose escalation; many believe we should leave the country.
One side of the political spectrum argues that increased troop involvement is essential.
John McCain: “We need additional troops and the longer we wait and delay the more Americans will be put at risk unnecessarily.”
Condolessa Rice: “If you want another terrorist attack in the United States, abandon Afghanistan.”
Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty: “The rule needs to be, when the United States goes to war, the United States wins. … That includes putting more troops into Afghanistan if needed.”
Many print commentators disagree.
Norman Solomon: “The real myth is that this war is about helping people in Afghanistan. I see no appreciable evidence of that.”
Bob Herbert: “If we had a draft – or merely the threat of a draft – we would not be in Iraq or Afghanistan.”
Nicholas Kristof: “A group of former intelligence officials and other experts are now reluctantly going public to warn that more troops would be a historic mistake.”
Ex-CIA agent Ray McGovern: “I’ve seen this Afghanistan movie before. The first time, Vietnam was in the title.”
“Rethink Afghanistan” advocates a major change in current policy. Interviewed September 23 on MSNBC’s The Ed Show, Robert Greenwald made these statements:
“They need jobs, they need schools, they need doctors, they need teachers. We could supply all those things, but we’re not going to supply them and we’re not going to make ourselves safer by going to a military solution.”
“You can argue it’s going to make us less safe by encouraging terrorism and alienating the population.”
“The reality is that al-Qaeda is around the world in different places. … Finding them, hunting them, capturing them: the way you do that is with international co-operation across countries. They don’t stop at a border.”
“The notion that you go in and you occupy a country and then people are going to co-operate with you – it makes no fundamental sense.”
The screening begins promptly at 2:00 p.m. A general discussion will follow.
Press reviews and trailers of the film are available at rethinkafghanistan.com.
Printed October 7, 2009, in the Siuslaw News
***
The practice of mountain-top removal coal mining is the subject of the Sierra Club’s 40-minute documentary, “Coal Country.” Hosted by the Florence Area Democratic Club, it will be screened in the Siuslaw Public Library’s Bromley Room Tuesday, Nov. 10, at 6:30 p.m.
Mountaintop removal coal mining blasts apart the tops of mountains to reach thin seams of coal buried below and then, to minimize waste disposal costs, dumps millions of tons of waste rock into the valleys and streams below, causing permanent damage to the ecosystem and landscape. This destructive practice has damaged or destroyed approximately 1,200 miles of streams, disrupted drinking water supplies, flooded communities, and damaged homes.
Investigating whether the benefits of mountain-top removal justify its particular damage, “Coal Country” probes the dilemma faced by Appalachian coal miners and their family members – work, leave, stay and die early. The film touches upon other deleterious coal energy outcomes: water pollution -- caused by coal preparation slurry, stored in large waste pits, leaking into local water supplies and mercury raining down into streams and lakes; carbon dioxide – 40 percent of our nation’s entire CO2 emissions; dust, soot, smog, arsenic, and lead.
Because the coal industry is presently lobbying the federal government for permits to build new coal-fired power plants and it expects to be excluded from newly legislated pollution regulations, the general public should understand better the particulars of whether coal should continue to be one of America’s major energy sources.
View the trailer of this documentary at www.coalcountrythemovie.com/trailer_p....
Printed November 4, 2009, in the Siuslaw News
***
I had the paper print another announcement three days before the screening.
***
“When the strategic interest of the nation and the world is so clear, can a few gluttons with a few bucks really drive our policy? Does this great nation not have better leadership than that?” -- Climate Scientist Jim Hansen
Given what we have seen regarding health care reform bills and the absence of meaningful regulation of financial institutions, the answers appear to be “yes” and “no.” Author/Environmentalist Bill McKibbon puts things succinctly. “The most carbon we can safely have in the atmosphere is 350 parts per million. … We’re already … at 390 parts per million. The bill making its way through Congress explicitly aims for a world with 450 parts per million carbon.”
One corporate glutton is the coal industry. Coal provides about half of our country’s electricity. Its power plants account for 40% of the nation’s carbon dioxide, about 2/3 of its sulfur dioxide, 22% of its nitrogen oxides, and roughly a third of its mercury pollution. Nearly 40% of Oregon’s power comes from coal.
Health consequences are enormous.
“We are going to have to phase out emissions from coal in the next 20 years,” writes Dr. Hansen. Bill McKibbon has pushed for an 80% reduction in carbon emissions by 2050.
Power plant emissions is the second villain of coal’s terrible story. Extraction of coal also wrecks havoc. “President Obama should go to Appalachia and see mountain top removal,” Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has written. “When will the Obama administration stop this Appalachian apocalypse?”
When grass roots pressure forces him to.
We start with public awareness. See for yourself mountain-top removal and its detrimental effects on the Appalachian populace by viewing the 40-minute documentary, “Coal Country,” which the Florence Area Democratic Club will screen in the Siuslaw Public Library’s Bromley Room Tuesday, November 10, at 6:30 p.m. Statistics and factual statements instruct. Images and spoken testimony touch the heart.
Printed November 7, 2009, in the Siuslaw News
“In our country, learned ignorance is on the rise.” – Paul Krugman
The misinformation disseminated by right wing radio, television, and internet platforms is massive. In 2009 it was well underway. My letters and documentary presentations at the local library were my naive attempts to educate. The following letter had two critical purposes: emphasize the mind-control the Right has over its supporters and infer that ABC, NBC, CBS, and PBS were attempting to be neutral more than being accurately critical in their presentation of the news.
***
“Woof Blitzer here for Mainstream Media Corporation. We have in the studio representatives of two conflicting points of view regarding existing conditions on George Orwell’s Animal Farm.
“Paul Klugman, noted Nobel Prize winning economist, what say you about what has happened on the farm?”
“Well, Woof, the animals expelled their owner, Farmer Jones, and set up an economic system where the pigs exploit the rest of the farm animals worse than Jones did.”
“Sheep #23, what do you have to say about this allegation?”
“Four legs good, two legs bad! Four legs good, two legs bad!”
“Professor Klugman, what sources of energy are being used on the farm?”
“Physical labor. Horses work until they drop and then get sent to the ‘glue factory.’ They need to develop wind and solar power.”
“Sheep #23, what is your solution?”
“Drill here, drill now! Drill here, drill now!”
“Professor, you alleged that workers’ health is regarded as unimportant.”
“Yes, Woof. Every animal should be guaranteed equal health care benefits paid for out of the profits of the farm. What’s more, I believe …”
“Rationing! Rationing! Socialism! Just say ‘no!’ Just say ‘no!’”
“Well, there you have it. An even-handed, in-depth analysis of a very complicated situation. This is Woof Blitzer signing off. Remember, if it isn’t MMC, it isn’t news.”
Printed August 28, 2009, in The World
***
Of course, the true believers have their letter writers. I tried to answer three of them with this letter.
***
Three Republican letter writers sounded off August 26: Susan Berman about the specter of socialism, Martin Cable with a kitchen sink list of health care scare complaints, and Jimmie L. Moe about liberal “scams” perpetrated on the public.
Berman: “This country (even the Democrats) prefer liberty and freedom over socialism, which not only will dictate their health care but will be involved in their bank accounts.” [my response] Conservatives always invoke liberty and the threat of economic ruin to convince the unwashed masses that their freedom to be exploited by soulless corporations should not be interfered with by a protective government.
Cable: “Health care will not get cheaper until you get the government regulations off the insurance companies, the drug companies and the doctors.” [my response] Indeed, remove all these non-existent regulations and these abused insurance companies will cut CEO pay, cover all applicants, uncap and pay all medical expenses, and reduce insurance premiums.
Moe: Global warming scam, oil shortage scam, sugar scam, contaminated groundwater scam. “Is the next scam going to be health insurance?” [my response] Waitressing single moms supporting young children and 55-year-old couples losing life savings because of serious illness and dropped coverage must not be tricked into believing that health care is a humanitarian right! To be forewarned is to be forearmed! Unfettered capitalism is our deliverance. Government, stay back. Maintain the status-quo. All engines, full speed dead ahead.
Printed September 2, 2009, in the Siuslaw News
***
I asked Florence Area Democratic Club members if anyone would submit the following letter in their name to the local paper. One person did. Here is the letter.
***
R. Giannola (Letters, Sept. 23) asserted that Democratic Party House and Senate members voted against the 1964 Civil Rights Act in greater numbers than Republican Party members. Therefore, Democrats today do not have just cause to criticize Republicans as being “racist.”
Wikipedia confirms the accuracy of Mr. Giannola’s numbers. What Giannola did not mention is that virtually all of the Democratic representatives and senators that voted against the Civil Rights Act were from the former Confederate states. The granting of civil rights protections to African-Americans caused most of these Southern Democrats to become Republicans. Long-time segregationist Republican Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, originally a Democrat, was a famous example.
Also in need of correction: Mr. Giannola listed Richard Nixon as a notable Republican that voted for the Act. Nixon ceased being a senator in 1952. In 1964 he held no public office.
Racial animosity remains strongest in our Southern states. It is where we find the preponderance of Republican Party office holders and President Obama’s fiercest critics.
***
The club member added the following to the end of the letter: “When all think alike, no one thinks very much.”
Printed September 26, 2009, in the Siuslaw News
***
Here in the following letter are what clear-eyed, knowledgeable commentators have said that support Paul Krugman’s “learned ignorance” statement and at the end what I fancy regular Fox News watchers probably believe.
***
“The American public is intolerant, and too many know little more than what they are told by talk radio, which means that they haven’t a clue as to what really is going on in the world.” – William Pfaff
“This decline in civility, the emergence of mob behavior and the utter blurring in the media between a truth and a lie suggest … that we have become one of the most illiterate nations on the planet.” -- Henry A. Giroux
If “tea party” protesters’ signs accurately revealed what their holders (one would hope, unwittingly) believed/supported, we would be reading the following:
Facts Lie; Rush Knows
Medicare, Yes; Socialism, No
Preserve Corporate Greed
Nuke Muslims, Torture ACORN
War and Tax Cuts, Yes; Health Care, No!
Boot Straps! Boot Straps! What’s Mine Is Mine!
The Earth Is Cooling
In God and Sean Hannity We Trust
White Male Culture!
Bottom line, Obama’s Black!
I Enable Fascism
Limbaugh and Beck 2012
“A middle class that has lost a decade. Two wars. The Great Recession. Gilded Age inequality. Catastrophic climate change accelerating faster than most predictions. … We are witnessing a harrowing test of our democracy.” – Robert Borosage
Printed September 30, 2009, in the Siuslaw News
***
I suppose that the documentaries our club screened in the public library were not attended by my imaginary sign holders or like-minded, deluded Republicans. But you have to try. Here were announcements we put in the Siuslaw News for two upcoming screenings.
***
The Florence Area Democratic Club will screen Robert Greenwald’s new documentary, “Rethink Afghanistan,” Sunday, Oct. 11, at 2:00 p.m. in the Siuslaw Public Library’s Bromley Room. Admission is free.
President Obama is re-evaluating our nation’s commitment of waging war in Afghanistan. Commander, U.S. Forces Afghanistan General Stanley McChrystal has recommended a substantial increase in troop deployment. A majority of Americans oppose escalation; many believe we should leave the country.
One side of the political spectrum argues that increased troop involvement is essential.
John McCain: “We need additional troops and the longer we wait and delay the more Americans will be put at risk unnecessarily.”
Condolessa Rice: “If you want another terrorist attack in the United States, abandon Afghanistan.”
Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty: “The rule needs to be, when the United States goes to war, the United States wins. … That includes putting more troops into Afghanistan if needed.”
Many print commentators disagree.
Norman Solomon: “The real myth is that this war is about helping people in Afghanistan. I see no appreciable evidence of that.”
Bob Herbert: “If we had a draft – or merely the threat of a draft – we would not be in Iraq or Afghanistan.”
Nicholas Kristof: “A group of former intelligence officials and other experts are now reluctantly going public to warn that more troops would be a historic mistake.”
Ex-CIA agent Ray McGovern: “I’ve seen this Afghanistan movie before. The first time, Vietnam was in the title.”
“Rethink Afghanistan” advocates a major change in current policy. Interviewed September 23 on MSNBC’s The Ed Show, Robert Greenwald made these statements:
“They need jobs, they need schools, they need doctors, they need teachers. We could supply all those things, but we’re not going to supply them and we’re not going to make ourselves safer by going to a military solution.”
“You can argue it’s going to make us less safe by encouraging terrorism and alienating the population.”
“The reality is that al-Qaeda is around the world in different places. … Finding them, hunting them, capturing them: the way you do that is with international co-operation across countries. They don’t stop at a border.”
“The notion that you go in and you occupy a country and then people are going to co-operate with you – it makes no fundamental sense.”
The screening begins promptly at 2:00 p.m. A general discussion will follow.
Press reviews and trailers of the film are available at rethinkafghanistan.com.
Printed October 7, 2009, in the Siuslaw News
***
The practice of mountain-top removal coal mining is the subject of the Sierra Club’s 40-minute documentary, “Coal Country.” Hosted by the Florence Area Democratic Club, it will be screened in the Siuslaw Public Library’s Bromley Room Tuesday, Nov. 10, at 6:30 p.m.
Mountaintop removal coal mining blasts apart the tops of mountains to reach thin seams of coal buried below and then, to minimize waste disposal costs, dumps millions of tons of waste rock into the valleys and streams below, causing permanent damage to the ecosystem and landscape. This destructive practice has damaged or destroyed approximately 1,200 miles of streams, disrupted drinking water supplies, flooded communities, and damaged homes.
Investigating whether the benefits of mountain-top removal justify its particular damage, “Coal Country” probes the dilemma faced by Appalachian coal miners and their family members – work, leave, stay and die early. The film touches upon other deleterious coal energy outcomes: water pollution -- caused by coal preparation slurry, stored in large waste pits, leaking into local water supplies and mercury raining down into streams and lakes; carbon dioxide – 40 percent of our nation’s entire CO2 emissions; dust, soot, smog, arsenic, and lead.
Because the coal industry is presently lobbying the federal government for permits to build new coal-fired power plants and it expects to be excluded from newly legislated pollution regulations, the general public should understand better the particulars of whether coal should continue to be one of America’s major energy sources.
View the trailer of this documentary at www.coalcountrythemovie.com/trailer_p....
Printed November 4, 2009, in the Siuslaw News
***
I had the paper print another announcement three days before the screening.
***
“When the strategic interest of the nation and the world is so clear, can a few gluttons with a few bucks really drive our policy? Does this great nation not have better leadership than that?” -- Climate Scientist Jim Hansen
Given what we have seen regarding health care reform bills and the absence of meaningful regulation of financial institutions, the answers appear to be “yes” and “no.” Author/Environmentalist Bill McKibbon puts things succinctly. “The most carbon we can safely have in the atmosphere is 350 parts per million. … We’re already … at 390 parts per million. The bill making its way through Congress explicitly aims for a world with 450 parts per million carbon.”
One corporate glutton is the coal industry. Coal provides about half of our country’s electricity. Its power plants account for 40% of the nation’s carbon dioxide, about 2/3 of its sulfur dioxide, 22% of its nitrogen oxides, and roughly a third of its mercury pollution. Nearly 40% of Oregon’s power comes from coal.
Health consequences are enormous.
“We are going to have to phase out emissions from coal in the next 20 years,” writes Dr. Hansen. Bill McKibbon has pushed for an 80% reduction in carbon emissions by 2050.
Power plant emissions is the second villain of coal’s terrible story. Extraction of coal also wrecks havoc. “President Obama should go to Appalachia and see mountain top removal,” Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has written. “When will the Obama administration stop this Appalachian apocalypse?”
When grass roots pressure forces him to.
We start with public awareness. See for yourself mountain-top removal and its detrimental effects on the Appalachian populace by viewing the 40-minute documentary, “Coal Country,” which the Florence Area Democratic Club will screen in the Siuslaw Public Library’s Bromley Room Tuesday, November 10, at 6:30 p.m. Statistics and factual statements instruct. Images and spoken testimony touch the heart.
Printed November 7, 2009, in the Siuslaw News
October 31, 2021
Letters, 2009, The Tea Party Revealed, July 18, August 12, 20, 26
I had reached the farthest left of my liberalism. This was evident in the following letter.
***
Some Republicans would still have us believe that America is a “shining city on the hill,” a beacon of freedom to inspire the earth’s downtrodden. Step outside Fox News’s fanciful world and what do you see?
Today’s America embraces war. Weapon-making is hugely profitable.
Assisting our multi-national corporations, our “democratic” government destabilizes third-world economies and covertly overthrows or assassinates recalcitrant leaders because those nations possess rich natural resources.
The corporatocracy that recently has run our government permits our air and water to be polluted and our food, drugs, and chemical products to go mostly untested because, hey, what’s a few consumers’ lives compared to billions in sales?
Until its recent crash our “free-enterprise” system squeezed productivity out of our workers as it denied them fair compensation, but wait! “Keep buying the junk we make,” these capitalists said, “because here are some more credit cards and you’d be a sucker not to tap into the equity of your house.”
What Western industrialized country insists that health care be a multi-billion dollar profit-making enterprise?
One political party is rabid bat-[bleep] crazy, beyond selfish, and unrepentently dishonest. The other listens to the siren call of greed, avarice, and power.
We voted in 2008 to blow up our filthy hovel on the hill. Yet we see in Congress, particularly with the crafting of health care legislation, just how emphatically we the people are simultaneously dismissed and controlled.
If Congress ultimately passes the stinker of a health care bill that Big Insurance and Pharma are perfuming and that we the majority with our emails, phone calls, and petitions have emphatically rejected, shouldn’t we -- like the Iranian people -- take to the streets?
Printed July 18, 2009, in the Siuslaw News
***
I received in the morning a very complimentary phone call from Lucius Gent. He was concerned that I might be “disappeared” and offered [my wife] Janet help should that event happen.
I had wanted our organization, the Florence Area Democratic Club, to perform services for the community at various times during my tenure as chair. We had screened documentaries at the local library. We held a food collection drive at the local Safeway store to benefit Florence Food Share, which dispensed free supplies to the needy. The following announcement, printed in the local paper, referenced two previous club projects and the current one in which we urged the Florence populace to partake.
***
Low-income families here in Florence and throughout the county find any unexpected out-of-pocket expense difficult to bear. My daughter-in-law, a hard-working single parent who drives an 8 year old car with the transmission going out, has that difficulty. You probably know somebody similar.
We seniors, secure in our retirement, and others -- hundreds, perhaps thousands – have helped our community’s less fortunate.
A warm clothing drive in February 2008 produced 587 articles of clothing for distribution to the needy. A used cell phone drive this past April generated 42 phones for use by battered women. I have participated in these events. You’ve participated in other events. We know that Florence is a generous community.
Here is another cause that we should champion.
Each school child in Oregon is expected to provide his/her own school supplies for the upcoming school year. The Democratic Party of Oregon is sponsoring back-to-school supplies drives throughout the state to help income-strapped families. Here is what we can do.
Our community drive will begin Aug. 16 and end Aug. 30. Fred Meyer, Safeway, and Rite Aid will have receptacles in their stores into which you may place the school supplies that you purchase. (Fred Meyer will end its collection drive Sept. 7) These donations will be taken to Boys and Girls Clubs of Western Lane County, located at 1601 15th Street. If you want, you may take your purchased supplies there rather than leave them at one of the stores.
If you have children attending Florence’s schools and cannot afford to purchase their school supplies, you may obtain what is available without charge at the Boys and Girls Clubs location no sooner than Aug. 18.
Thank you, stores, Boys and Girls Clubs, and all who participate.
Printed August 12, 2009, in the Siuslaw News
***
I would soon witness Tea Party belligerency first-hand. Here is useful information provided by britannica.com about the beginnings of the Tea Party movement.
***
The Tea Party movement [is a] conservative populist social and political movement that emerged in 2009 in the United States, generally opposing excessive taxation and government intervention in the private sector while supporting stronger immigration controls.
… The catalyst for what would become known as the Tea Party movement came on February 19, 2009, when Rick Santelli, a commentator on the business-news network CNBC, referenced the Boston Tea Party (1773) in his response to Pres. Barack Obama’s mortgage relief plan. Speaking from the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Santelli heatedly stated that the bailout would “subsidize the losers’ mortgages” and proposed a Chicago Tea Party to protest government intervention in the housing market. The five-minute clip became an Internet sensation, and the “Tea Party” rallying cry struck a chord with those who had already seen billions of dollars flow toward sagging financial firms. Unlike previous populist movements, which were characterized by a distrust of business in general and bankers in particular, the Tea Party movement focused its ire at the federal government and extolled the virtues of free market principles.
Within weeks, Tea Party chapters began to appear around the United States, using social media sites such as Facebook to coordinate protest events. They were spurred on by conservative pundits, particularly by Fox News Channel’s Glenn Beck. The generally libertarian character of the movement drew disaffected Republicans to the Tea Party banner, and its anti-government tone resonated with members of the paramilitary militia movement. Obama himself served as a powerful recruiting tool, as the Tea Party ranks were swelled by “Birthers”—individuals who claimed that Obama had been born outside the United States and was thus not eligible to serve as president (despite a statement by the director of the Hawaii State Department of Health attesting that she had seen Obama’s birth certificate and could confirm that he had been born in the state)—as well as by those who considered Obama a socialist and those who believed that Obama, who frequently discussed his Christianity publicly, was secretly a Muslim.
The Tea Party movement’s first major action was a nationwide series of rallies on April 15, 2009, that drew more than 250,000 people. April 15 is historically the deadline for filing individual income tax returns, and protesters claimed that “Tea” was an acronym for “Taxed Enough Already.” The movement gathered strength throughout the summer of 2009, with its members appearing at congressional town hall meetings to protest the proposed reforms to the American health care system.
***
Below is a report that I emailed to the members of the Florence Area Democratic Club. It summarized my experience attending our Congressman Peter DeFazio’s August town hall in North Bend, Oregon, close by Coos Bay. The contents speak volumes. I make reference to HR3200 in my report. Wikipedia.com provides this information about the bill.
The proposed America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 (H.R. 3200) was an unsuccessful bill introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives on July 14, 2009. The bill was introduced during the first session of the 111th Congress as part of an effort of the Democratic Party leadership to enact health care reform. The bill was not approved by the House, but was superseded by a similar bill, the proposed Affordable Health Care for America Act (HR 3962), which was passed by the House in November 2009, by a margin of 220-215 votes but later abandoned.
***
Janet and I managed to find seats in the convention hall, she on one side of the center aisle (fourth row) and I an aisle seat on the right side (fifth row). The room was packed, many people standing along both side walls and five or six rows deep of standing people at the back. The newspaper reported that approximately 1,200 people attended.
While I waited for Rep. DeFazio to appear I took a sense of the crowd. One fellow standing along the left wall near the front was wearing a white wolf mask, for whatever reason. Farther back along the wall were Florence’s faithful Hwy 101/126 protesters, Don Norton, Jim Wellington, and David Dumas and two other fellows I didn’t recognize, all holding Stu Henderson signs. Immediately in front of me were 4 guys all in the senior-age category, clearly working-class people, that had the Republican look about them. One of them wore a veteran’s cap. Two were seated in front of the other two and they were talking to each other (couldn’t hear what they were saying), seemingly reinforcing their shared opinions. Not the sharpest knives in the drawer, was my impression.
Rep. Defazio entered the building from the right entrance. People applauded. Not everyone. Where I was seated hardly anyone applauded, including the four dull knives.
I had brought a 5 by 7 yellow pad with me to take notes, deciding not to audio-tape the meeting (I’m tired of doing synopses). I wish I had brought the recorder. My summary is not going to be what it could have been. This meeting was fascinating, and very disturbing. The World’s article about it was pretty much a whitewash. (Google “The World” to read it) Republican attitudes dominated the questioning and the audience responses. People said rude things, people far behind me shouted rude comments. Through it all, DeFazio handled himself well. Only once did anyone go after him rudely. A man several rows behind me and then, presumably his wife, exclaimed, “You didn’t answer my question!” and “Answer the question!”
Curiously, everyone entering the room had the opportunity to take two handouts. One was a brief summation of HR 3200 and a presentation of health care reform myths. The other was the July issue of “Advocate,” a monthly publication put out by the Coos County Democrats. The issue strongly endorsed single payer health care. My four dull knives hadn’t availed themselves of the handouts. Progressive information is wasted on Fox News addicts.
DeFazio opened with some brief comments before taking questions. He said that he had read HR 3200, all of it. This brought great applause, because one of the Right’s talking points is that the Left likes to ram through 1,000 page bills at light speed, not bothering meanwhile to know or care what’s in them. Defazio criticized the Medicare reimbursement formula used to determine how much money practitioners receive in different states for treated Medicare patients. Oregon’s rate is especially low. He is not in favor of a Medicare + 5% reimbursement rate. He wants, instead, more of an equalization of rates among all the states.
The first question was asked by a Doctor Craig. I thought, Great, we’re going to hear an authority calling for meaningful reform. But, no. Craig said that House legislation would set up a huge bureaucracy, would cause the patient to lose “autonomy,” and would phase out private insurance. Defazio’s answer was, That’s not going to happen.
Maybe the only liberal to ask a question/make a comment came next. He emphasized the need for getting money into public projects to create jobs. DeFazio declared that he had voted against the stimulus package (bringing great applause from the Republican crowd) because not enough money had been directed to do just that. He said it made the most sense to build infrastructure that would benefit future generations, that would be a lasting benefit. This part of his response didn’t receive much applause.
A person asked why there was such a hurry for a health care bill to be voted on. Why, the stimulus bill had been passed “in the middle of the night.” DeFazio answered, “There is no rush.” That brought an immediate angry, crowd response, almost a growl. The Fox News people weren’t having that. Several in the crowd, not liking the crowd’s reaction, shouted back. DeFazio said, “Let’s act like Oregonians.” He then defused the moment by saying in essence, that the public votes Congresspeople to take their time to do their job right. He had voted against the cap-and-trade bill (causing much applause) because of deals that had been made at the last minute that had made it a bad bill. (Funny that the action he takes is more important to these people than the reasons he had for doing so). He said that he does not approve of the legislative practice of passing something quick with the promise of fixing what is wrong later because “later never comes.” That comment the know-nothings in the crowd liked.
One of my dull knives, the one wearing the veteran’s hat, was next. He was against “frivolous lawsuits.” (Again, enthusiastic applause) He wanted to know if DeFazio supported tort reform. Now we on the Left know that a lot of the expense in health care is the result of doctors ordering probably unnecessary medical testing and procedures in order to protect themselves from possible law suits, so this is a legitimate issue for discussion. DeFazio wants to put a reasonable cap on normal damages, but he also would want that cap waived when negligence is extreme. He cited as an example a surgeon making a surgical mistake while talking on his cell phone.
Up to the microphone came a woman wearing surgical scrubs. Okay, maybe we’ll get some balance here, I hoped. But, no. I am a single mother that has worked hard, got a bachelor’s degree, she said, got to where I am today through my own hard efforts; so why aren’t we looking for other options for health care reform. Why are we going to be helping people “who don’t get off their butts?” DeFazio clearly didn’t like the question. He answered back that the working poor have serious problems and many can’t get on the Oregon Health Plan. Many people can’t afford premiums and as a result get sicker as a result. People’s houses are taken away because they can’t pay medical expenses. “There are big holes in the system.”
A woman with a long ponytail took the microphone. “I have good health care,” she said. She supported the bill. (An angry murmur went through the crowd) Hearing it, she said that she was a Republican. Someone in back shouted, “No, you’re not!” I shouted back, “Shut up!” She went on to say that she had grown up in poverty, a member of a family of 16 people. That information didn’t seem to make a dent in the pervasive disapproval that she was receiving. DeFazio said that his number one priority was to fix the Medicare system and to make sure that people were not discriminated against.
The next person brought up the subject of “mandatory counseling.” Oh brother, I said to myself. DeFazio explained about advanced directives and that physicians would be compensated every 5 years for offering voluntary counseling to terminally ill patients and/or their relatives.
The next person began with the declaration, “Doctors are going to tell people about living wills!” DeFazio was clearly irked. He explained how his mother had sought out advice about having a living will and how it had been a good thing.
Someone declared that the House bill was going to fund abortion. DeFazio – No, there is a specific provision in the bill that says it won’t.
A man rather full of himself declared, “There are no political parties here. We’re all Americans.” Okay, I thought, let’s see what this fool has to say. It was, Considering what the 10th Amendment says, what gave Congress the right to meddle with health insurance? DeFazio – A decision by the Supreme Court.
The next person, citing the history of insurance company practices, asked, How much do we have to pay insurance companies to play fair in accepting proposed restrictions like accepting people with pre-existing conditions? Good question, I thought. He’s somebody not married to Fox News. DeFazio answered that insurance companies would profit because a lot more people would now be covered.
Someone was afraid that doing away with subsidies paid to insurance companies that offer Medicare Plus plans would cause people to have to pay more for Medicare. DeFazio’s answer – No.
A person was concerned about the public plan. Where are the checks and balances to prevent abuses? DeFazio’s opinion: First, pass anti-trust legislation that takes the exemption away from insurance companies. If that doesn’t happen, then have a public plan to try to check private insurance abuses.
What about illegal aliens being covered? the next person asked. DeFazio – They aren’t eligible. To be eligible they would have to file a legal tax form and a social security number to get into an insurance pool. Well, what about their getting treated in emergency rooms? DeFazio – Hospitals do not turn them away.
The next person didn’t want socialized medicine. Didn’t want the terrible thing that Canada has. Seething, I missed DeFazio’s response.
A man objected to the fact that the House bill wording was vague. (He said that he, too, had read the bill) The bill said nothing definitive. He was sure that Obama’s “Marxist administration” would twist provisions to their own purposes. DeFazio – Making the wording more precise would make the bill longer.
The next person cited how California Medicaid was taking money back. Wouldn’t the federal government, running up debt, be forced to do the same? DeFazio – The health care plan would have to be paid for. If necessary, that would mean we would end up paying higher premiums.
A man wanted a mechanism put in place to remove past, ineffective legislative regulations. DeFazio said he would favor a 2-year cycle budgetary system with the second year used to review what had been budgeted to get rid of or fix what wasn’t working.
A man complained that he was receiving VA health care and couldn’t get assigned a primary health provider. He was being treated like a “second-class citizen.” DeFazio said he wanted the VA to have a mandatory budget that politicians couldn’t fiddle with. The VA care should be funded first.
Finally, a man wanted the Federal Reserve audited. DeFazio favored the idea.
Because my wife and I had been seated near the front, it took us awhile to get to the back of the room and the rear exit after the meeting had concluded. Near the back I ran into Kathy Verger Muscat, [State] Senator Verger’s daughter. I asked her, incredulously, “Was this an accurate representation of voters down here?” She nodded. “That’s why we like to come to Florence.” Nick Batz, Arnie Roblan’s former campaign manager, appeared. He commented that we were seeing the effect of Fox News. [Our State Representative] Arnie Roblan appeared. I asked him the same question I had asked Kathy, adding that Coos Bay has a local radio station that carried progressive talkers. He intimated, Now you know what it’s like.
We all know how the Republican Party adroitly utilizes working class anger and frustration, bigotry, paranoia about “government,” and selfishness for its corporate purposes. What this meeting drove home to me was how pervasive the Right’s successful manipulation actually is. I have two conservative friends in town that are excellent people. Both of them would have felt right at home at this meeting. They have exactly the same prejudices and diminished, skewed knowledge of national and international conditions and events as this crowd displayed. I believe it no stretch to believe that these people would have been supportive citizens in Germany during Hitler’s ascension and maintenance of power prior to WWII.
***
I felt compelled to write letters to The World and the Siuslaw News to relate what I had seen and heard.
***
Never have I witnessed so many disciples of Fox News and conservative talk radio congregated in one place as I did at Rep. Peter DeFazio’s North Bend town hall meeting.
Ignorant of fact, allegiant to distortion and rank falsehood, one questioner after another revealed the hard right’s mastery in utilizing working class anger and frustration, bigotry, paranoia about “government,” and selfish pride to serve the Republican Party’s and corporate America’s selfish interests.
We heard how HR 3200 would cause patients to “lose their autonomy.” Private insurance companies would be driven out of business. One person asked, Why the rush? Stop trying to pass bills in the “middle of the night.” A woman wearing surgical scrubs proudly proclaimed she had worked hard to get where she was and she didn’t want to pay health care for people “who don’t get off their butts.” A woman with a long ponytail – years ago a child of a family of 16 -- declared that she supported HR 3200. Reacting to the angry crowd murmur, she declared that she was a Republican. Someone in the very back of the room shouted, “No, you’re not!”
We heard about how HR 3200 required “mandatory counseling,” i.e. end of life information, hospice, advance directives; that HR 3200 covered abortion; that it covered illegal aliens. One man thought that the 10th Amendment made Congressional legislation of health care illegal. A woman stated that we were headed toward socialized medicine and that, heaven forbid, we would end up with a Canadian system. A man said that the wording of HR 3200 was vague. Obama’s “Marxist administration” would twist its wording to nefarious advantage.
How much did Rep. DeFazio’s forthright, accurate responses resonate? I had the impression that the majority attending were impervious to fact. That is because Fox News and hate-talk radio, they have been told, tell it straight!
Printed August 20, 2009, in The World
August 22, 2009, in the Siuslaw News
***
Of course, a true believer of all things Republican had to respond.
***
I would like to answer the “Town Hall Untruths” letter (Aug. 22). First of all, one only need read the bill to understand its intentions; obviously this person [I, Harold Titus] does not care enough to read the bill. [I hadn’t, not feeling the need]
It is alright to hypothesize that the Republicans are being led around by various talk show hosts, but it is another thing to listen to what is being said as well as the ramifications this bill would cause for current and future generations.
Apparently enough Democrats on the “hill” have finally read the bill and now are arguing with each other over its measures.
The President’s rating is now 30 percent. He has fallen from grace and his party members are jumping ship. Again this fact is being discussed by the Democrats who are now in a real quagmire as to what to do.
Never before in modern times have citizens taken to the streets in this degree to protest a bill. This country (even the Democrats) prefer liberty and freedom over socialism, which not only will dictate their health care but will be involved in their bank accounts.
If there is any doubt about this, read the bill. It does not need an interpreter to understand what is being said. It does not need anyone to distort what this bill states.
Dr. Susan Berman
Printed August 26, 2009, in the Siuslaw News
***
Some Republicans would still have us believe that America is a “shining city on the hill,” a beacon of freedom to inspire the earth’s downtrodden. Step outside Fox News’s fanciful world and what do you see?
Today’s America embraces war. Weapon-making is hugely profitable.
Assisting our multi-national corporations, our “democratic” government destabilizes third-world economies and covertly overthrows or assassinates recalcitrant leaders because those nations possess rich natural resources.
The corporatocracy that recently has run our government permits our air and water to be polluted and our food, drugs, and chemical products to go mostly untested because, hey, what’s a few consumers’ lives compared to billions in sales?
Until its recent crash our “free-enterprise” system squeezed productivity out of our workers as it denied them fair compensation, but wait! “Keep buying the junk we make,” these capitalists said, “because here are some more credit cards and you’d be a sucker not to tap into the equity of your house.”
What Western industrialized country insists that health care be a multi-billion dollar profit-making enterprise?
One political party is rabid bat-[bleep] crazy, beyond selfish, and unrepentently dishonest. The other listens to the siren call of greed, avarice, and power.
We voted in 2008 to blow up our filthy hovel on the hill. Yet we see in Congress, particularly with the crafting of health care legislation, just how emphatically we the people are simultaneously dismissed and controlled.
If Congress ultimately passes the stinker of a health care bill that Big Insurance and Pharma are perfuming and that we the majority with our emails, phone calls, and petitions have emphatically rejected, shouldn’t we -- like the Iranian people -- take to the streets?
Printed July 18, 2009, in the Siuslaw News
***
I received in the morning a very complimentary phone call from Lucius Gent. He was concerned that I might be “disappeared” and offered [my wife] Janet help should that event happen.
I had wanted our organization, the Florence Area Democratic Club, to perform services for the community at various times during my tenure as chair. We had screened documentaries at the local library. We held a food collection drive at the local Safeway store to benefit Florence Food Share, which dispensed free supplies to the needy. The following announcement, printed in the local paper, referenced two previous club projects and the current one in which we urged the Florence populace to partake.
***
Low-income families here in Florence and throughout the county find any unexpected out-of-pocket expense difficult to bear. My daughter-in-law, a hard-working single parent who drives an 8 year old car with the transmission going out, has that difficulty. You probably know somebody similar.
We seniors, secure in our retirement, and others -- hundreds, perhaps thousands – have helped our community’s less fortunate.
A warm clothing drive in February 2008 produced 587 articles of clothing for distribution to the needy. A used cell phone drive this past April generated 42 phones for use by battered women. I have participated in these events. You’ve participated in other events. We know that Florence is a generous community.
Here is another cause that we should champion.
Each school child in Oregon is expected to provide his/her own school supplies for the upcoming school year. The Democratic Party of Oregon is sponsoring back-to-school supplies drives throughout the state to help income-strapped families. Here is what we can do.
Our community drive will begin Aug. 16 and end Aug. 30. Fred Meyer, Safeway, and Rite Aid will have receptacles in their stores into which you may place the school supplies that you purchase. (Fred Meyer will end its collection drive Sept. 7) These donations will be taken to Boys and Girls Clubs of Western Lane County, located at 1601 15th Street. If you want, you may take your purchased supplies there rather than leave them at one of the stores.
If you have children attending Florence’s schools and cannot afford to purchase their school supplies, you may obtain what is available without charge at the Boys and Girls Clubs location no sooner than Aug. 18.
Thank you, stores, Boys and Girls Clubs, and all who participate.
Printed August 12, 2009, in the Siuslaw News
***
I would soon witness Tea Party belligerency first-hand. Here is useful information provided by britannica.com about the beginnings of the Tea Party movement.
***
The Tea Party movement [is a] conservative populist social and political movement that emerged in 2009 in the United States, generally opposing excessive taxation and government intervention in the private sector while supporting stronger immigration controls.
… The catalyst for what would become known as the Tea Party movement came on February 19, 2009, when Rick Santelli, a commentator on the business-news network CNBC, referenced the Boston Tea Party (1773) in his response to Pres. Barack Obama’s mortgage relief plan. Speaking from the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Santelli heatedly stated that the bailout would “subsidize the losers’ mortgages” and proposed a Chicago Tea Party to protest government intervention in the housing market. The five-minute clip became an Internet sensation, and the “Tea Party” rallying cry struck a chord with those who had already seen billions of dollars flow toward sagging financial firms. Unlike previous populist movements, which were characterized by a distrust of business in general and bankers in particular, the Tea Party movement focused its ire at the federal government and extolled the virtues of free market principles.
Within weeks, Tea Party chapters began to appear around the United States, using social media sites such as Facebook to coordinate protest events. They were spurred on by conservative pundits, particularly by Fox News Channel’s Glenn Beck. The generally libertarian character of the movement drew disaffected Republicans to the Tea Party banner, and its anti-government tone resonated with members of the paramilitary militia movement. Obama himself served as a powerful recruiting tool, as the Tea Party ranks were swelled by “Birthers”—individuals who claimed that Obama had been born outside the United States and was thus not eligible to serve as president (despite a statement by the director of the Hawaii State Department of Health attesting that she had seen Obama’s birth certificate and could confirm that he had been born in the state)—as well as by those who considered Obama a socialist and those who believed that Obama, who frequently discussed his Christianity publicly, was secretly a Muslim.
The Tea Party movement’s first major action was a nationwide series of rallies on April 15, 2009, that drew more than 250,000 people. April 15 is historically the deadline for filing individual income tax returns, and protesters claimed that “Tea” was an acronym for “Taxed Enough Already.” The movement gathered strength throughout the summer of 2009, with its members appearing at congressional town hall meetings to protest the proposed reforms to the American health care system.
***
Below is a report that I emailed to the members of the Florence Area Democratic Club. It summarized my experience attending our Congressman Peter DeFazio’s August town hall in North Bend, Oregon, close by Coos Bay. The contents speak volumes. I make reference to HR3200 in my report. Wikipedia.com provides this information about the bill.
The proposed America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 (H.R. 3200) was an unsuccessful bill introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives on July 14, 2009. The bill was introduced during the first session of the 111th Congress as part of an effort of the Democratic Party leadership to enact health care reform. The bill was not approved by the House, but was superseded by a similar bill, the proposed Affordable Health Care for America Act (HR 3962), which was passed by the House in November 2009, by a margin of 220-215 votes but later abandoned.
***
Janet and I managed to find seats in the convention hall, she on one side of the center aisle (fourth row) and I an aisle seat on the right side (fifth row). The room was packed, many people standing along both side walls and five or six rows deep of standing people at the back. The newspaper reported that approximately 1,200 people attended.
While I waited for Rep. DeFazio to appear I took a sense of the crowd. One fellow standing along the left wall near the front was wearing a white wolf mask, for whatever reason. Farther back along the wall were Florence’s faithful Hwy 101/126 protesters, Don Norton, Jim Wellington, and David Dumas and two other fellows I didn’t recognize, all holding Stu Henderson signs. Immediately in front of me were 4 guys all in the senior-age category, clearly working-class people, that had the Republican look about them. One of them wore a veteran’s cap. Two were seated in front of the other two and they were talking to each other (couldn’t hear what they were saying), seemingly reinforcing their shared opinions. Not the sharpest knives in the drawer, was my impression.
Rep. Defazio entered the building from the right entrance. People applauded. Not everyone. Where I was seated hardly anyone applauded, including the four dull knives.
I had brought a 5 by 7 yellow pad with me to take notes, deciding not to audio-tape the meeting (I’m tired of doing synopses). I wish I had brought the recorder. My summary is not going to be what it could have been. This meeting was fascinating, and very disturbing. The World’s article about it was pretty much a whitewash. (Google “The World” to read it) Republican attitudes dominated the questioning and the audience responses. People said rude things, people far behind me shouted rude comments. Through it all, DeFazio handled himself well. Only once did anyone go after him rudely. A man several rows behind me and then, presumably his wife, exclaimed, “You didn’t answer my question!” and “Answer the question!”
Curiously, everyone entering the room had the opportunity to take two handouts. One was a brief summation of HR 3200 and a presentation of health care reform myths. The other was the July issue of “Advocate,” a monthly publication put out by the Coos County Democrats. The issue strongly endorsed single payer health care. My four dull knives hadn’t availed themselves of the handouts. Progressive information is wasted on Fox News addicts.
DeFazio opened with some brief comments before taking questions. He said that he had read HR 3200, all of it. This brought great applause, because one of the Right’s talking points is that the Left likes to ram through 1,000 page bills at light speed, not bothering meanwhile to know or care what’s in them. Defazio criticized the Medicare reimbursement formula used to determine how much money practitioners receive in different states for treated Medicare patients. Oregon’s rate is especially low. He is not in favor of a Medicare + 5% reimbursement rate. He wants, instead, more of an equalization of rates among all the states.
The first question was asked by a Doctor Craig. I thought, Great, we’re going to hear an authority calling for meaningful reform. But, no. Craig said that House legislation would set up a huge bureaucracy, would cause the patient to lose “autonomy,” and would phase out private insurance. Defazio’s answer was, That’s not going to happen.
Maybe the only liberal to ask a question/make a comment came next. He emphasized the need for getting money into public projects to create jobs. DeFazio declared that he had voted against the stimulus package (bringing great applause from the Republican crowd) because not enough money had been directed to do just that. He said it made the most sense to build infrastructure that would benefit future generations, that would be a lasting benefit. This part of his response didn’t receive much applause.
A person asked why there was such a hurry for a health care bill to be voted on. Why, the stimulus bill had been passed “in the middle of the night.” DeFazio answered, “There is no rush.” That brought an immediate angry, crowd response, almost a growl. The Fox News people weren’t having that. Several in the crowd, not liking the crowd’s reaction, shouted back. DeFazio said, “Let’s act like Oregonians.” He then defused the moment by saying in essence, that the public votes Congresspeople to take their time to do their job right. He had voted against the cap-and-trade bill (causing much applause) because of deals that had been made at the last minute that had made it a bad bill. (Funny that the action he takes is more important to these people than the reasons he had for doing so). He said that he does not approve of the legislative practice of passing something quick with the promise of fixing what is wrong later because “later never comes.” That comment the know-nothings in the crowd liked.
One of my dull knives, the one wearing the veteran’s hat, was next. He was against “frivolous lawsuits.” (Again, enthusiastic applause) He wanted to know if DeFazio supported tort reform. Now we on the Left know that a lot of the expense in health care is the result of doctors ordering probably unnecessary medical testing and procedures in order to protect themselves from possible law suits, so this is a legitimate issue for discussion. DeFazio wants to put a reasonable cap on normal damages, but he also would want that cap waived when negligence is extreme. He cited as an example a surgeon making a surgical mistake while talking on his cell phone.
Up to the microphone came a woman wearing surgical scrubs. Okay, maybe we’ll get some balance here, I hoped. But, no. I am a single mother that has worked hard, got a bachelor’s degree, she said, got to where I am today through my own hard efforts; so why aren’t we looking for other options for health care reform. Why are we going to be helping people “who don’t get off their butts?” DeFazio clearly didn’t like the question. He answered back that the working poor have serious problems and many can’t get on the Oregon Health Plan. Many people can’t afford premiums and as a result get sicker as a result. People’s houses are taken away because they can’t pay medical expenses. “There are big holes in the system.”
A woman with a long ponytail took the microphone. “I have good health care,” she said. She supported the bill. (An angry murmur went through the crowd) Hearing it, she said that she was a Republican. Someone in back shouted, “No, you’re not!” I shouted back, “Shut up!” She went on to say that she had grown up in poverty, a member of a family of 16 people. That information didn’t seem to make a dent in the pervasive disapproval that she was receiving. DeFazio said that his number one priority was to fix the Medicare system and to make sure that people were not discriminated against.
The next person brought up the subject of “mandatory counseling.” Oh brother, I said to myself. DeFazio explained about advanced directives and that physicians would be compensated every 5 years for offering voluntary counseling to terminally ill patients and/or their relatives.
The next person began with the declaration, “Doctors are going to tell people about living wills!” DeFazio was clearly irked. He explained how his mother had sought out advice about having a living will and how it had been a good thing.
Someone declared that the House bill was going to fund abortion. DeFazio – No, there is a specific provision in the bill that says it won’t.
A man rather full of himself declared, “There are no political parties here. We’re all Americans.” Okay, I thought, let’s see what this fool has to say. It was, Considering what the 10th Amendment says, what gave Congress the right to meddle with health insurance? DeFazio – A decision by the Supreme Court.
The next person, citing the history of insurance company practices, asked, How much do we have to pay insurance companies to play fair in accepting proposed restrictions like accepting people with pre-existing conditions? Good question, I thought. He’s somebody not married to Fox News. DeFazio answered that insurance companies would profit because a lot more people would now be covered.
Someone was afraid that doing away with subsidies paid to insurance companies that offer Medicare Plus plans would cause people to have to pay more for Medicare. DeFazio’s answer – No.
A person was concerned about the public plan. Where are the checks and balances to prevent abuses? DeFazio’s opinion: First, pass anti-trust legislation that takes the exemption away from insurance companies. If that doesn’t happen, then have a public plan to try to check private insurance abuses.
What about illegal aliens being covered? the next person asked. DeFazio – They aren’t eligible. To be eligible they would have to file a legal tax form and a social security number to get into an insurance pool. Well, what about their getting treated in emergency rooms? DeFazio – Hospitals do not turn them away.
The next person didn’t want socialized medicine. Didn’t want the terrible thing that Canada has. Seething, I missed DeFazio’s response.
A man objected to the fact that the House bill wording was vague. (He said that he, too, had read the bill) The bill said nothing definitive. He was sure that Obama’s “Marxist administration” would twist provisions to their own purposes. DeFazio – Making the wording more precise would make the bill longer.
The next person cited how California Medicaid was taking money back. Wouldn’t the federal government, running up debt, be forced to do the same? DeFazio – The health care plan would have to be paid for. If necessary, that would mean we would end up paying higher premiums.
A man wanted a mechanism put in place to remove past, ineffective legislative regulations. DeFazio said he would favor a 2-year cycle budgetary system with the second year used to review what had been budgeted to get rid of or fix what wasn’t working.
A man complained that he was receiving VA health care and couldn’t get assigned a primary health provider. He was being treated like a “second-class citizen.” DeFazio said he wanted the VA to have a mandatory budget that politicians couldn’t fiddle with. The VA care should be funded first.
Finally, a man wanted the Federal Reserve audited. DeFazio favored the idea.
Because my wife and I had been seated near the front, it took us awhile to get to the back of the room and the rear exit after the meeting had concluded. Near the back I ran into Kathy Verger Muscat, [State] Senator Verger’s daughter. I asked her, incredulously, “Was this an accurate representation of voters down here?” She nodded. “That’s why we like to come to Florence.” Nick Batz, Arnie Roblan’s former campaign manager, appeared. He commented that we were seeing the effect of Fox News. [Our State Representative] Arnie Roblan appeared. I asked him the same question I had asked Kathy, adding that Coos Bay has a local radio station that carried progressive talkers. He intimated, Now you know what it’s like.
We all know how the Republican Party adroitly utilizes working class anger and frustration, bigotry, paranoia about “government,” and selfishness for its corporate purposes. What this meeting drove home to me was how pervasive the Right’s successful manipulation actually is. I have two conservative friends in town that are excellent people. Both of them would have felt right at home at this meeting. They have exactly the same prejudices and diminished, skewed knowledge of national and international conditions and events as this crowd displayed. I believe it no stretch to believe that these people would have been supportive citizens in Germany during Hitler’s ascension and maintenance of power prior to WWII.
***
I felt compelled to write letters to The World and the Siuslaw News to relate what I had seen and heard.
***
Never have I witnessed so many disciples of Fox News and conservative talk radio congregated in one place as I did at Rep. Peter DeFazio’s North Bend town hall meeting.
Ignorant of fact, allegiant to distortion and rank falsehood, one questioner after another revealed the hard right’s mastery in utilizing working class anger and frustration, bigotry, paranoia about “government,” and selfish pride to serve the Republican Party’s and corporate America’s selfish interests.
We heard how HR 3200 would cause patients to “lose their autonomy.” Private insurance companies would be driven out of business. One person asked, Why the rush? Stop trying to pass bills in the “middle of the night.” A woman wearing surgical scrubs proudly proclaimed she had worked hard to get where she was and she didn’t want to pay health care for people “who don’t get off their butts.” A woman with a long ponytail – years ago a child of a family of 16 -- declared that she supported HR 3200. Reacting to the angry crowd murmur, she declared that she was a Republican. Someone in the very back of the room shouted, “No, you’re not!”
We heard about how HR 3200 required “mandatory counseling,” i.e. end of life information, hospice, advance directives; that HR 3200 covered abortion; that it covered illegal aliens. One man thought that the 10th Amendment made Congressional legislation of health care illegal. A woman stated that we were headed toward socialized medicine and that, heaven forbid, we would end up with a Canadian system. A man said that the wording of HR 3200 was vague. Obama’s “Marxist administration” would twist its wording to nefarious advantage.
How much did Rep. DeFazio’s forthright, accurate responses resonate? I had the impression that the majority attending were impervious to fact. That is because Fox News and hate-talk radio, they have been told, tell it straight!
Printed August 20, 2009, in The World
August 22, 2009, in the Siuslaw News
***
Of course, a true believer of all things Republican had to respond.
***
I would like to answer the “Town Hall Untruths” letter (Aug. 22). First of all, one only need read the bill to understand its intentions; obviously this person [I, Harold Titus] does not care enough to read the bill. [I hadn’t, not feeling the need]
It is alright to hypothesize that the Republicans are being led around by various talk show hosts, but it is another thing to listen to what is being said as well as the ramifications this bill would cause for current and future generations.
Apparently enough Democrats on the “hill” have finally read the bill and now are arguing with each other over its measures.
The President’s rating is now 30 percent. He has fallen from grace and his party members are jumping ship. Again this fact is being discussed by the Democrats who are now in a real quagmire as to what to do.
Never before in modern times have citizens taken to the streets in this degree to protest a bill. This country (even the Democrats) prefer liberty and freedom over socialism, which not only will dictate their health care but will be involved in their bank accounts.
If there is any doubt about this, read the bill. It does not need an interpreter to understand what is being said. It does not need anyone to distort what this bill states.
Dr. Susan Berman
Printed August 26, 2009, in the Siuslaw News
October 28, 2021
Letters, 2009. Health Care Wars Begin, May 20, May 30, June 12, June 15
Here is a description of Frank Luntz, provided by Wikipedia.
Frank Ian Luntz (born February 23, 1962) is an American political and communications consultant, pollster, and pundit, best known for developing talking points and other messaging for Republican causes. … He advocated use of vocabulary crafted to produce a desired effect; including use of the term death tax instead of estate tax, and climate change instead of global warming.
Luntz has frequently contributed to Fox News as a commentator and analyst, as well as running focus groups during and after presidential debates on CBSN. Luntz describes his specialty as "testing language and finding words that will help his clients sell their product or turn public opinion on an issue or a candidate." He is also an author of business books dealing with communication strategies and public opinion.
***
The Republican Party immediately went on the attack to defeat the intention of the newly elected Obama administration to make significant changes in the existing system that dictated how Americans paid their medical care expenses. Luntz, of course, sided with the large insurance companies, which were profiting handsomely from the existing system. I wrote this letter to express my opposition.
***
To the rescue of the party of torture, tax cuts for the rich, and sociopathic capitalism rides pollster/wordsmith/propagandist Frank Luntz, the creator of such GOP word-palliatives as “clear skies,” “ownership society,” “climate change,” and “energy exploration.” Luntz has sent a 28-page memo to Republican politicos advising them how to turn public opinion against a Democratic Party-backed public, Medicare-type health care plan, the antithesis of what the GOP strives to protect: coverage-denying, premium-gouging, private, for-profit health coverage.
“Acknowledge the ‘crisis,’” Luntz states. Tell the public what it wants to hear: “Healthcare quality = ‘getting the health care treatment you need, when you need it.’” Be sure to “individualize. Personalize. Humanize.” Emphasize the word ‘more,’ as in “more access to more treatments and more doctors.” Above all, “call for the ‘protection of the personalized doctor-patient relationship.’”
“Arguments against the Democratic plan must center around ‘politicians,’ ‘bureaucrats,’ and ‘Washington.’” Note, “healthcare horror stories from Canada & Co. do resonate.” Reference that with “the phrase ‘government takeover,’” link “the importance of timeliness,” and raise “the specter of ‘denial.’” And “Waste, Fraud, and Abuse are your best targets for how to bring down costs.”
Odious barnsniffle! But no matter. Luntz believes that “persuadables” and “wayward Republicans and conservatives” are reachable.
GOP members of Congress have started already.
“The American people want everything but a Washington take-over.” – Rep. Michael Burgess, TX.
“We got to go back to centering our focus on patient-doctor relationships.” – Rep. Eric Cantor, VA
“The American people are worried that we’re going to place government, or should I say bureaucrats, between themselves and their doctors.” – Sen. Orrin Hatch, UT.
Economist Dean Baker makes the argument simple. “If the government can provide health care better and cheaper, then why do we need private insurers?” Over 60 percent of Americans are saying, “We shouldn’t.”
Printed May 20, 2009, in the Siuslaw News
***
A new Florence Republican letter writer – he would become a regular contributor, his thinking always muddled, in my opinion – referenced my letter.
***
Mr. Titus in his recent letter to the editor (“Health Care Crisis,” May 20) could not have said it more clearly or simpler in his reference to the debate on health care. “It’s all politics …” We do not have a health crisis here in the United States of America. Instead we have a political agenda of big government with less and less individual responsibility.
Look at all the “improvements” the government has given us in education, transportation, energy, agriculture and housing, just to name a few. The facts are clear, the federal government has never been able to run a viable business or enterprise other than the military in our many years of existence.
We are a “country of cowards” (as stated by our Attorney General, Eric H. Holder Jr.) especially when it comes to our selfishness to provide for ourselves. Many well-informed individuals like Mr. Titus believe the federal government is the only answer. Sure, there are many who cannot afford health insurance, but there are even more of us who can, but have better things to do with our money. So thinking that having the government provide health insurance is the one thing that will end this so-called “health crisis” is just ludicrous and without merit.
If only we could believe, but that’s very hard to do when bills are being passed by our representatives and signed by our president without first reading them or understanding what is being made into law, because of the lengthy number of pages. We built the complex interstate highway system in the 1950s by a bill that was only 29 pages only.
Jimmie L. Moe
Printed May 30, 2009, in the Siuslaw News
***
I answered back.
***
I have two quotations to offer in response to comments made by two May 30 letter writers.
Jimmie L. Moe wrote, “We have a political agenda of big government with less and less individual responsibility” and, regarding paying into a government-run health care system, we “have better things to do with our money.”
Response – Although I have no reason to believe that the following applies to Mr. Moe individually, I do believe that people that hold fast to the “boot-strap” philosophy, abhor taxes, and embrace corporatism qualify [for criticism]. This is addressed to them. “There are people who go after your humanity, Sister, who tell you that the light in your heart is a weakness. Don’t believe it. It’s an old tactic of cruel people to kill kindness in the name of virtue.” – Father Flynn in the movie Doubt.
Addressing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, David M. Lynch wrote, “I am outraged at your recent comments regarding the CIA and past briefings … You should resign if you refuse to admit to your lies.”
Response – “It is a nonsensical distraction to place her [Pelosi’s] failure to speak out courageously as a critic of the Bush policies on the same level as those who engineered one of the most shameful debacles in US history.” – Robert Scheer
Printed June 6, 2009, in the Siuslaw News
***
The administration had so many Democratic senators opposed to anything that approached the legislation of a universal single payer medical care system. They would not even sign on to establishing in individual states a single payer plan option to compete with private insurance company plans. Turncoat Joe Lieberman, running mate with Al Gore in the 2000 election, especially incurred my wrath.
Over the Bush years (2001-2008), now an Independent, Lieberman was a bosom pal of John McCain and Lindsey Graham. Mitch McConnell had pledged that he would make Barrack Obama a one-term President. As long as the Democrats controlled the Senate (They did the first two years), using the filibuster rule, he would force the Dems to scratch and scrape to try to garner 60 votes to pass what they wanted.
***
I had this to say about the obstructionist, so-called Senate Democrats.
***
What national referendum made Democratic Party Senators Max Baucus, Ben Nelson, Mary Landrieu, Blanche Lincoln, Evan Bayh, Kent Conrad, Bill Nelson, and Arlen Specter the policy-deciders of this country?
Rejecting nearly 30 years of disastrous conservative governance, fed-up Americans voted last November for major, progressive change. Yet this cabal has erected a stone wall to defeat single-payer health care, clean energy mandates, organized labor revitalization, just tax policy revision, and fair home mortgage renegotiation.
Addressing health care reform, Senator Landrieu has stated, “I am not open to a public option. However, I will remain open to a compromise, a full compromise.”
A legitimate, government-operated, single-payer option -- like that included in Senator Edward Kennedy’s bill-in-the-making – placed for consideration beside Big Insurance’s profit-making, promised faux-compromises is the “full compromise.” Why? Economist Dean Baker: “If the government can provide health care better and cheaper, then why do we need private insurers?”
So Big Insurance CEOs can make 7 and 8 figure incomes?
Flood the offices of Peter DeFazio, Ron Wyden, and Jeff Merkley with hand-delivered letters, send emails, make phone calls. Remind them precisely what is at stake.
Printed June 12, 2009, in The World
***
I had written a similar letter to the Register-Guard. The editor made some changes that I did not like. A fellow Florence Area Democratic Club member wrote the following to the Eugene paper.
***
Harold Titus (letters, June 11) asks why a group of Democratic Senators – Max Baucus, Ben Nelson, Mary Landrieu, Blanche Lincoln, Evan Bayh, Kent Conrad, Bill Nelson and Arlan Specker – are voting against the single-payer health care reform bill.
I can supply a good part of the answer. They have all received massive donations from pharmaceutical companies and health organizations. Senator Baucus alone received over $2.5 million. They are bowing to their money masters. What do they care about public need or public opinion?
Barbara Prisbe-Sutton, Florence
Printed June 19, 2009, in the Register-Guard
***
The club, and I, definitely favored a government run single payer system and were not happy about Democratic Congressmen and Senators dragging their feet. I hand-delivered copies of the following letter to the Eugene offices of Representative Peter DeFazio and Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley.
***
Florence Area Democratic Club
PO Box 635
Florence, OR 97439
June 15, 2009
The Florence Area Democratic Club voted unanimously June 6 that representatives of the organization should personally deliver a letter to your Eugene office to emphasize our desire that you support a strong single payer, not-for-profit, universal health care plan.
We reject the statement made by anti-single payer Democratic Party office holders that most Americans are satisfied with their health care coverage. Many of us, the undersigned, have Medicare and supplemental private insurance to cover our needs, but at a considerable cost. Like so many Americans, some of us have only Medicare. Some seniors do not receive Medicare Part A coverage free; they must pay a high premium to obtain it. And this says nothing about the millions of Americans under the age of 65 that are underinsured or have no health coverage at all.
Our country is resilient; it has overcome turbulent crises; it is certainly capable of surviving a medical coverage “upheaval,” especially because the desired outcome is so necessary and just.
We reject the assumption that private insurance companies can be sufficiently regulated and reformed to drive down costs.
Private insurers complain that single payer health care would destroy their ability to make profits. When did making money by exploiting the status of a person’s health become an acceptable, moral practice?
We recognize that the “trigger” idea championed by Senator Snowe is a cynical ploy to secure and maintain the pernicious status-quo. For the same reason, we reject the cooperative approach proposed by Senator Conrad. Also, his proposal does not incorporate the economies of scale that will drive down costs. We are additionally aware that the Puget Sound model he promotes is not as well accepted by its participants as he says it is.
Two years ago one of our club members wrote, “At its most basic level the Democratic Party stands for two things: the goal of securing the well-being, the rights, and the access to equal opportunity of every citizen and the belief that government has a responsibility to foster it.” A vote against single payer -- however Congress tries to paint It -- is a vote for corporate governance. At its core, our health care debate is about human rights, about our country's founding principles, about whom government serves. Because single payer has been excluded in policy hearings and because too many Democratic members of Congress have said they will not support It, disillusioned Democrats across the country are reconsidering whom they wish to have as their senators and representatives in Washington.
We urge you to strongly endorse affordable, single payer, not-for-profit, universal health care.
Sincerely,
Harold Titus
Electra Adams
Stephanie Chestler
Jerry Christean
Bill Collins
Emily Cutting
Bill Hager
Lucille Herr
Wende Jarman
Michele Jean
Garry Kelly
Jane Meyer
George Myers
Jerry Nordin
Leah Patten
Nancy Rickard
Hugh Schneider
Janet Titus
Jenny Velinty
Frank Ian Luntz (born February 23, 1962) is an American political and communications consultant, pollster, and pundit, best known for developing talking points and other messaging for Republican causes. … He advocated use of vocabulary crafted to produce a desired effect; including use of the term death tax instead of estate tax, and climate change instead of global warming.
Luntz has frequently contributed to Fox News as a commentator and analyst, as well as running focus groups during and after presidential debates on CBSN. Luntz describes his specialty as "testing language and finding words that will help his clients sell their product or turn public opinion on an issue or a candidate." He is also an author of business books dealing with communication strategies and public opinion.
***
The Republican Party immediately went on the attack to defeat the intention of the newly elected Obama administration to make significant changes in the existing system that dictated how Americans paid their medical care expenses. Luntz, of course, sided with the large insurance companies, which were profiting handsomely from the existing system. I wrote this letter to express my opposition.
***
To the rescue of the party of torture, tax cuts for the rich, and sociopathic capitalism rides pollster/wordsmith/propagandist Frank Luntz, the creator of such GOP word-palliatives as “clear skies,” “ownership society,” “climate change,” and “energy exploration.” Luntz has sent a 28-page memo to Republican politicos advising them how to turn public opinion against a Democratic Party-backed public, Medicare-type health care plan, the antithesis of what the GOP strives to protect: coverage-denying, premium-gouging, private, for-profit health coverage.
“Acknowledge the ‘crisis,’” Luntz states. Tell the public what it wants to hear: “Healthcare quality = ‘getting the health care treatment you need, when you need it.’” Be sure to “individualize. Personalize. Humanize.” Emphasize the word ‘more,’ as in “more access to more treatments and more doctors.” Above all, “call for the ‘protection of the personalized doctor-patient relationship.’”
“Arguments against the Democratic plan must center around ‘politicians,’ ‘bureaucrats,’ and ‘Washington.’” Note, “healthcare horror stories from Canada & Co. do resonate.” Reference that with “the phrase ‘government takeover,’” link “the importance of timeliness,” and raise “the specter of ‘denial.’” And “Waste, Fraud, and Abuse are your best targets for how to bring down costs.”
Odious barnsniffle! But no matter. Luntz believes that “persuadables” and “wayward Republicans and conservatives” are reachable.
GOP members of Congress have started already.
“The American people want everything but a Washington take-over.” – Rep. Michael Burgess, TX.
“We got to go back to centering our focus on patient-doctor relationships.” – Rep. Eric Cantor, VA
“The American people are worried that we’re going to place government, or should I say bureaucrats, between themselves and their doctors.” – Sen. Orrin Hatch, UT.
Economist Dean Baker makes the argument simple. “If the government can provide health care better and cheaper, then why do we need private insurers?” Over 60 percent of Americans are saying, “We shouldn’t.”
Printed May 20, 2009, in the Siuslaw News
***
A new Florence Republican letter writer – he would become a regular contributor, his thinking always muddled, in my opinion – referenced my letter.
***
Mr. Titus in his recent letter to the editor (“Health Care Crisis,” May 20) could not have said it more clearly or simpler in his reference to the debate on health care. “It’s all politics …” We do not have a health crisis here in the United States of America. Instead we have a political agenda of big government with less and less individual responsibility.
Look at all the “improvements” the government has given us in education, transportation, energy, agriculture and housing, just to name a few. The facts are clear, the federal government has never been able to run a viable business or enterprise other than the military in our many years of existence.
We are a “country of cowards” (as stated by our Attorney General, Eric H. Holder Jr.) especially when it comes to our selfishness to provide for ourselves. Many well-informed individuals like Mr. Titus believe the federal government is the only answer. Sure, there are many who cannot afford health insurance, but there are even more of us who can, but have better things to do with our money. So thinking that having the government provide health insurance is the one thing that will end this so-called “health crisis” is just ludicrous and without merit.
If only we could believe, but that’s very hard to do when bills are being passed by our representatives and signed by our president without first reading them or understanding what is being made into law, because of the lengthy number of pages. We built the complex interstate highway system in the 1950s by a bill that was only 29 pages only.
Jimmie L. Moe
Printed May 30, 2009, in the Siuslaw News
***
I answered back.
***
I have two quotations to offer in response to comments made by two May 30 letter writers.
Jimmie L. Moe wrote, “We have a political agenda of big government with less and less individual responsibility” and, regarding paying into a government-run health care system, we “have better things to do with our money.”
Response – Although I have no reason to believe that the following applies to Mr. Moe individually, I do believe that people that hold fast to the “boot-strap” philosophy, abhor taxes, and embrace corporatism qualify [for criticism]. This is addressed to them. “There are people who go after your humanity, Sister, who tell you that the light in your heart is a weakness. Don’t believe it. It’s an old tactic of cruel people to kill kindness in the name of virtue.” – Father Flynn in the movie Doubt.
Addressing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, David M. Lynch wrote, “I am outraged at your recent comments regarding the CIA and past briefings … You should resign if you refuse to admit to your lies.”
Response – “It is a nonsensical distraction to place her [Pelosi’s] failure to speak out courageously as a critic of the Bush policies on the same level as those who engineered one of the most shameful debacles in US history.” – Robert Scheer
Printed June 6, 2009, in the Siuslaw News
***
The administration had so many Democratic senators opposed to anything that approached the legislation of a universal single payer medical care system. They would not even sign on to establishing in individual states a single payer plan option to compete with private insurance company plans. Turncoat Joe Lieberman, running mate with Al Gore in the 2000 election, especially incurred my wrath.
Over the Bush years (2001-2008), now an Independent, Lieberman was a bosom pal of John McCain and Lindsey Graham. Mitch McConnell had pledged that he would make Barrack Obama a one-term President. As long as the Democrats controlled the Senate (They did the first two years), using the filibuster rule, he would force the Dems to scratch and scrape to try to garner 60 votes to pass what they wanted.
***
I had this to say about the obstructionist, so-called Senate Democrats.
***
What national referendum made Democratic Party Senators Max Baucus, Ben Nelson, Mary Landrieu, Blanche Lincoln, Evan Bayh, Kent Conrad, Bill Nelson, and Arlen Specter the policy-deciders of this country?
Rejecting nearly 30 years of disastrous conservative governance, fed-up Americans voted last November for major, progressive change. Yet this cabal has erected a stone wall to defeat single-payer health care, clean energy mandates, organized labor revitalization, just tax policy revision, and fair home mortgage renegotiation.
Addressing health care reform, Senator Landrieu has stated, “I am not open to a public option. However, I will remain open to a compromise, a full compromise.”
A legitimate, government-operated, single-payer option -- like that included in Senator Edward Kennedy’s bill-in-the-making – placed for consideration beside Big Insurance’s profit-making, promised faux-compromises is the “full compromise.” Why? Economist Dean Baker: “If the government can provide health care better and cheaper, then why do we need private insurers?”
So Big Insurance CEOs can make 7 and 8 figure incomes?
Flood the offices of Peter DeFazio, Ron Wyden, and Jeff Merkley with hand-delivered letters, send emails, make phone calls. Remind them precisely what is at stake.
Printed June 12, 2009, in The World
***
I had written a similar letter to the Register-Guard. The editor made some changes that I did not like. A fellow Florence Area Democratic Club member wrote the following to the Eugene paper.
***
Harold Titus (letters, June 11) asks why a group of Democratic Senators – Max Baucus, Ben Nelson, Mary Landrieu, Blanche Lincoln, Evan Bayh, Kent Conrad, Bill Nelson and Arlan Specker – are voting against the single-payer health care reform bill.
I can supply a good part of the answer. They have all received massive donations from pharmaceutical companies and health organizations. Senator Baucus alone received over $2.5 million. They are bowing to their money masters. What do they care about public need or public opinion?
Barbara Prisbe-Sutton, Florence
Printed June 19, 2009, in the Register-Guard
***
The club, and I, definitely favored a government run single payer system and were not happy about Democratic Congressmen and Senators dragging their feet. I hand-delivered copies of the following letter to the Eugene offices of Representative Peter DeFazio and Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley.
***
Florence Area Democratic Club
PO Box 635
Florence, OR 97439
June 15, 2009
The Florence Area Democratic Club voted unanimously June 6 that representatives of the organization should personally deliver a letter to your Eugene office to emphasize our desire that you support a strong single payer, not-for-profit, universal health care plan.
We reject the statement made by anti-single payer Democratic Party office holders that most Americans are satisfied with their health care coverage. Many of us, the undersigned, have Medicare and supplemental private insurance to cover our needs, but at a considerable cost. Like so many Americans, some of us have only Medicare. Some seniors do not receive Medicare Part A coverage free; they must pay a high premium to obtain it. And this says nothing about the millions of Americans under the age of 65 that are underinsured or have no health coverage at all.
Our country is resilient; it has overcome turbulent crises; it is certainly capable of surviving a medical coverage “upheaval,” especially because the desired outcome is so necessary and just.
We reject the assumption that private insurance companies can be sufficiently regulated and reformed to drive down costs.
Private insurers complain that single payer health care would destroy their ability to make profits. When did making money by exploiting the status of a person’s health become an acceptable, moral practice?
We recognize that the “trigger” idea championed by Senator Snowe is a cynical ploy to secure and maintain the pernicious status-quo. For the same reason, we reject the cooperative approach proposed by Senator Conrad. Also, his proposal does not incorporate the economies of scale that will drive down costs. We are additionally aware that the Puget Sound model he promotes is not as well accepted by its participants as he says it is.
Two years ago one of our club members wrote, “At its most basic level the Democratic Party stands for two things: the goal of securing the well-being, the rights, and the access to equal opportunity of every citizen and the belief that government has a responsibility to foster it.” A vote against single payer -- however Congress tries to paint It -- is a vote for corporate governance. At its core, our health care debate is about human rights, about our country's founding principles, about whom government serves. Because single payer has been excluded in policy hearings and because too many Democratic members of Congress have said they will not support It, disillusioned Democrats across the country are reconsidering whom they wish to have as their senators and representatives in Washington.
We urge you to strongly endorse affordable, single payer, not-for-profit, universal health care.
Sincerely,
Harold Titus
Electra Adams
Stephanie Chestler
Jerry Christean
Bill Collins
Emily Cutting
Bill Hager
Lucille Herr
Wende Jarman
Michele Jean
Garry Kelly
Jane Meyer
George Myers
Jerry Nordin
Leah Patten
Nancy Rickard
Hugh Schneider
Janet Titus
Jenny Velinty
