Week of 05/04/2009

How To Save The Auto Industry
– by David Matthews 2

The automobile is considered one of the hallmarks of American invention and innovation. Americans didn’t invent the automobile, but it was Henry Ford that invented the method of mass-production, and to do so with high volume and make them cheap enough for as many people as possible to get one.

In fact that was the big secret behind the success of the automobile industry back then. They made them in high volume, but they also made them affordable. And the business world and local governments help provide for this by improving the roads, paving them over, making them smoother, opening the door for mechanics and auto parts stores and gas stations to be put up.

Whole communities were built up and supported by the mass-production of American automobiles. Their very lives were dependant on the viability of the automakers.

Now the American automakers are dying. They’ve been dying for quite some time now… they’ve just been able to deny it for this long. They masked their symptoms, blamed them on other factors, minimized the scope of their condition, and led people to believe that nothing was wrong.

To be certain, the automobile industry itself is NOT dying. The automobile is far from endangered. But American automakers are struggling, and in fact two of the three companies that make up the “Big Three” are on the verge of going the way of the Tucker. Chrysler has recently declared bankruptcy and will have to scavenge most of its assets and facilities just to pay creditors. General Motors is struggling to keep from joining them. Ford is the only one that is surviving, and they may be the only ones left in America if things keep on going they way they have been.

There are plenty of fingers being pointed for the reasons behind this. Bad economy, failing banks, instability in the price of gas, inept management of America’s energy policy… and of course unions get the most heat.

But if you want the REAL source of the problem, you just have to look at what the “Big Three” were trying to do for the past decade.

For the longest time, the automakers have been shoveling high-cost high-powered vehicles, often with really low gas mileage. In the 1990’s those things were possible because gas prices were kept artificially low thanks to increased dependency on foreign oil. The federal government also helped tremendously by giving these vehicles waivers from fuel mileage standards and giving tax breaks for businesses to buy them. And of course there was plenty of financing for these vehicles.

In short, the social and economic environment was artificially maintained so these vehicles could be sold!

Unfortunately these conditions didn’t last. And rather than change and adapt, these automakers kept on churning the vehicles out and expecting the conditions to fix themselves. They ignored the warnings and dismissed them as wealth envy or jealousy or environmentalist hysteria.

Now those days of excuses are over with. The economy is in decline. The sins of the past have caught up with them, and like a bulimic model in denial, the automakers are scavenging everything they have just to survive. They’re shutting down plants, laying-off countless thousands of hard-working Americans, and in the process killing whole communities that have been built-up and sustained by the jobs they provided.

Sure the government has tried to help. They have been bailing out the Big Three off-and-on for years. They’re the needy addict-friend that calls up when they need money. Each time they PROMISE to change, and they PROMISE to improve, but the overall problems still exist.

So are they destined to fail? Are they beyond hope and beyond help?

The American automakers CAN bounce back. But only if they do things right.

Step one is to BURY the sport-utility vehicle. That needs to go away. The idea that you can create a mini-van from a truck was dependent way too much on the price of gas. The reason why the original mini-vans sold in the 1980’s was because they were fuel-efficient. Trucks are not, because they are heavier and rely on too much power, which consumes more fuel. If the automakers stuck with mini-vans, then they probably would not be in this situation today.

But fuel-efficiency is only part of the problem. The gas-powered vehicle has no future! It is a finite fuel and unless there are infinite pockets of oil that have intentionally gone untapped, then we have pretty much reached a saturation point with the resources we have. Even making a hybrid vehicle or using additives like ethanol only postpones the inevitable. It is destined to END. It is only a matter of figuring out under whose terms that it will come to an end, but make no mistake, it WILL come to an end.

The next step is to take several pages out of the history books. If Henry Ford made cars almost a century ago the same way his company does today, then he probably would have been out of business in a year. Likewise, the German automaker Volkswagen probably would have folded after World War II if they patterned their vehicles like their American counterparts of the time.

Their secrets? Affordable vehicles! They didn’t create an expensive car and then artificially create the means to afford it. They made the car affordable.

Cripes, the secret of the original Volkswagen Beetle was that it was powered by the same kind of engine used in lawn mowers! How complicated is that?

The other big thing is fuel. As I just said, and as I have continued to say for years now, the gas-powered vehicle is on borrowed time. It WILL be disappearing; it’s just a matter of when and under what conditions.

Forget gas-powered vehicles. There are plenty of alternatives out there today. They have been discovered and invented and tested and put on dog-and-pony displays for the media and for the White House for years! Pick ONE of them and use it!

So here is the challenge to the automakers… this is how you save yourselves: invent and mass-produce an alterative-powered vehicle for the average American, and do so for under $10,000.

The means to make the vehicles would not be an issue. The automakers would have plenty of eager workers and plenty of prime locations here in this country for the manufacture of an alternative-powered vehicle. You’d have plenty of hungry dealers looking to sell those vehicles. And given the liberal lean of the current White House, you would probably find them to be extremely open to an environmentally-friendly vehicle.

Not only that, but it would necessitate creating the means to support this alternative-powered vehicle, which would mean a whole new batch of businesses and jobs. That also would be a boon for the economy!

So why sell them for under $10,000 you ask? Simple. It’s to generate the DEMAND. Yes, people would LIKE to buy an alternative-powered vehicle, but if you tell them that it’ll cost $50,000 then they’re not going to be in a hurry to get one, especially in a bad economy.

But put the sticker price at less than $10,000, and factor in the depreciation of trade-in vehicles, you’ll find those same people being MORE than willing to make the jump. And then once you HAVE that demand and you can gradually raise the price to match the overhead costs.

Let’s get brutally honest here… it is WELL WITHIN the means of the American automakers to bring themselves back from the brink of oblivion. They were the ones that put themselves into this freefall and they are the ones that can change it. But they have to WANT to change first.

The “Big Three” have to be willing to make some SERIOUS and fundamental changes to their operations. Granted, they wouldn’t be the only ones that would have to. The unions have made plenty of concessions in the past, and while they are jaded by those decisions and how that trust has been systematically abused, they probably would be open to make one more concession if it means a brighter future for their members. Same with the government. It’s hard for environmentalists to say no to an alternative-powered vehicle. Cripes, they’re pushing lightbulbs on us that are classified as hazardous waste if they ever crack or shatter!

The dawn of a new day in automobiles does not have to be the dream of science-fiction writers. Not now. Not when the means of that day have been here and have only lacked the will to make it happen. The executives at Ford, Chrysler, and General Motors need to take the lead on this, and they need to do it RIGHT NOW, lest some European or Asian company beat them to it, because the ones that do it will set the stage for the others. If they sit on their hands on this, then they WILL be sounding the death-knell for the American automotive industry, as well as the death-knell for a HUGE faction of America.

Week of 04/27/2009

Let’s All Play The Same Game
– by David Matthews 2

Imagine a huge game of musical chairs going on, complete with referees to supposedly make sure that the game is played fairly. The rules, of course, are simple. Everyone circles a row of chairs, and when the music stops everyone scrambles for a chair, and the people who can’t find a chair are eliminated. Then when the music starts up again the refs pull out at least one chair and game continues.

Now let’s suppose that among the competitors are a group of men and women who all wear identical green shirts and they’re allowed to play by a different set of rules than the others. If one of them are left standing when the music stops, they’re allowed to rip someone else out of their chairs and take their place. Sometimes the refs will hand them a chair that was previously removed just so one of them wouldn’t be eliminated. The other players would complain, but their cries would fall on deaf ears. The refs would simply refer the complaints to the green-shirts, who would then side with their own group.

Finally, though, it gets to the point where there aren’t enough chairs and it becomes obvious that some green-shirt players would have to be eliminated. The refs decide to then introduce some more chairs. But rather than put the chairs directly into the circle, they instead would hand them to the green-shirt players, who would hold on to them through the game. Some of them would even carry two or three chairs in their hands and still take the available chairs if they’re near them. Sure they say they will “eventually” put those extra chairs into the game, but not right now. No, they just want to make sure that they’re safe first.

Does that sound like the kind of game that you would want to take part in? Well certainly if you can be one of the green-shirt people, but what it you can’t? What if you had to compete against those green-shirts? Would you want to? I don’t think too many of us would be willing to do it knowing that the game was intentionally rigged in their favor.

What if you had no choice in the matter?

Well guess what? That is PRECISELY the kind of situation that millions of Americans are in right now! They are stuck playing an eternal game of musical chairs, trying very hard just to stay in the game, and having to compete against a group of players that adhere to a completely different set of rules, and whom are favored to win by the officials.

The green-shirt players? The ones that are able to make and change the rules on a whim with the blessing of the referees? Well those are the perfect symbols for our banking institutions. Green for greed, but also green for money.

And there is no doubt in the world that the banking institutions are heavily favored by the refs in this game… specifically the government. Sure they’re supposed to be impartial, but we have long known that they are nothing more than political whores, selling out their favors to whomever pays their bills, and the banks DO have a lot of money to play with, don’t they?

The arrogant passive-aggressive stance that banks have with their very customers has been well known and well-documented. It has been the subject of many movies and TV shows, and it’s NOT in a good way. They CLAIM to be performing a public service, which is about as accurate as calling a homeless person an “urban outdoorsman”. They do THEMSELVES a service, and it’s with as much money from the general public as they can get as long as they can make a profit from it.

The problems with the banks - be it concerning mortgages or credit cards - in one that has been brewing and bubbling for years. These problems didn’t just manifest themselves overnight. In fact the massive foreclosures and the extent of its effect on the financial institutions was something that was predicted for years.

And yet the banks… did nothing.

And the government, which promised to oversee the banks to make sure that the economic devastations of 1929 did not happen again… also did nothing.

Or at least they did nothing to stop it from becoming a problem. It was only AFTER the scope of the damage started becoming apparent, after the critics were proven right, did the government recognize there was a problem that needed to be addressed.

And what did our supposedly “impartial” referees do? They handed out TRILLIONS of dollars to the banks, supposedly on the promise that they would free up the lines of credit that were frozen because of fear and the burdens of the foreclosures.

And what did the banks do with this money? Nothing. They held on to it. Or they used it to pay bonuses for their executives. Or they used it to pay other banks.

Free up lines of credit? Oh no, no, no, no. In fact they have TIGHTENED their lines of credit even more. They have used this opportunity to re-write the rules to which they loan money to others, either through mortgages or credit cards. They have made life worse for the very Americans that are footing the bill for their recovery! And they are doing it deliberately.

Pay back the bailout money? Yeah, they’re starting to do that… but only because they are finding out that the federal government is doing to them what they have been doing to their “valued customers”. Namely the government started changing the terms of their agreement.

Of course the banks are able to meet with President Obama, which is somewhat timely since he just came back from shaking hands with dictators like Hugo Chavez and Raul Castro. Castro, Chavez, credit card lenders… a political trifecta! They can meet with the president and tell him want he wants to hear. They can meet with Congress and tell them what they want to hear. They can make all sorts of promises… subject to revision, of course. But when it comes to their so-called “valued customers”, good luck even getting them to listen to you. They just want to pay the tab, no matter what it is, subject to THEIR revisions, even if it drives you into bankruptcy, and, oh yeah, thanks for the bailout.

Let’s get brutally honest here… these so-called “lending institutions” have LONG needed a comeuppance, and that can only come FROM the so-called “refs” in this situation.

For starters, if the banks don’t like having the terms of THEIR loans revised, then they shouldn’t be doing it to their so-called “valued customers” in the first place. I think it’s hilarious to see the looks of shock and panic sweep bank executives when they are told that the trillions they got may now have strings to them. Karma can be such a bitch.

Basically what the banks got last year was the equivalent to me showing up at their offices and telling them that they are going to give me fifty-thousand dollars, and then later on finding out that I spent it all on a two-week bender in Las Vegas, with no expectation of ever repaying the money. If they wouldn’t stand for that kind of arrangement, why should they expect us to sit back and tolerate them doing the same?

The bailout that the banks got in October SHOULD have served as their opportunity to show their gratitude and their willingness to work with the taxpayers, the very customers that are having to foot the bill for their bailout. Instead, they declared it to be “business as usual”, and even when their CEOs were in Washington saying that they “got the new reality”, they were busy dictating the terms of that “new reality”.

The lenders need to be reined in, and it takes more than just empty promises and pledges subject to revisions. It takes new rules, hard rules, and rules that must be applied in all parts of the country. We are dealing with a business that goes beyond state borders. That means that the days of shopping for the lending state with the least amount of regulatory restrictions and using it to impose them on all their customers nationwide are over with. What the lenders have done by doing this is they have created THEIR OWN nationalized system. If this kind of tactic is wrong in regards to certain other businesses, then it should equally be wrong here.

And we need those new rules YESTERDAY. Not in 2010 after the lenders have thoroughly capitalized on the situation and fleeced their customers with as many redefinitions and fees and restrictions as possible.

We also need these new rules to be championed by people who are TRULY on the side of the American people. The Democrats and Republicans that sat back and watched these banks create the mess that we are all in right now need to be removed from their cushy positions of power. They need to hang their heads in shame and step down from their positions in those committees.

What the lenders have done over the years is they have created a modern-day serfdom. They have essentially created a system whereby millions of Americans are convinced to sell themselves into serfdom. And it’s done with teaser rates and pre-screened notices and offers of new monitoring and insurance services. And while some people are able to avoid the traps, others have had little choice but to put themselves further and further under their control. While it is unrealistic for that to end anytime soon, there does need to be a light at the end of that dark tunnel; a way for people who need that additional support to work out of it instead of being enslaved by it.

The lenders and their “clients” need to be playing the same game and under the same rules. That is the only “new reality” that will allow this financial system to survive and thrive without all-out revolt.

Week of 04/20/2009

The Scandal of Skin
– by David Matthews 2

There’s a very simple message to all young women who are even remotely thinking about becoming a teacher: stay away from photographers.

Don’t be anywhere near a modeling studio. Run if you see someone approach you with a professional-looking camera.

While we’re at it, don’t be caught at the beach wearing anything less than a muumuu. Don’t have any pictures taken of you in your underwear. Don’t take part in wet T-shirt contests or bikini contests; no matter how many times your friends would try to coax you into them. Don’t even go to any of the “party cities” for spring break. Stay away from New Orleans during Mardi Gras. Wear full sweats at the gym when you work out. Don’t ever get a tattoo… even if it’s someplace hidden that only your boyfriend would see. In fact it probably would be best if you hunted down all of those pictures your parents took of you when you were a baby of your first bath and burned them.

Oh, and… don’t have a boyfriend. Boyfriends are dangerous creatures. They’re the ones that talk you into the clutches of photographers and tattoo artists. Stick with arranged marriages, preferably to old people with no imagination, or else live your life as a cloistered nun.

Sure it’s all outdated, but at least you would be able to live your dream of working with kids.

This puritanical message is being brought to the general public through a pack of vicious spoiled teenagers, equally vicious ego-centered parents, hypersensitive government officials, the air-fluffed ego-driven media, and a young woman who made the mistake of living a double life.

Carlie Becker was a cheerleader coach for a high school in California. But when she wasn’t playing with pom-poms, she was modeling under the name of Carlie Christine, showing off what good genes (and a local tattoo artist) can give you.

Hey, why not, right? I mean, she’s young… and she’s every bit attractive. And the school officials supposedly KNEW that she was modeling and thought nothing of it. After all, as long as she’s modeling under another name and makes no connection to her day job, everything should be okay.

But then she had to make some cuts to the cheerleading squad. And that’s when vicious spoiled teenagers revealed that Coach Becker was really Carlie Christine, Playboy’s Cyber Club Model of the Week for February 9^th.

First, of course, they told their vicious ego-centered parents of the secret, along with some visual proof. Their vicious ego-centered parents then sent the pictures of Carlie’s exposed and tattooed rear end to school administrators. Then the hypersensitive school officials, who had previously had no qualms to Carlie’s extracurricular activity, quickly kicked her out on her exposed tattooed rear. The cheerleading cuts were reversed, the tryouts would resume again under the assistant coach, and the vicious spoiled girls got their pound of flesh, so to speak.

And of course, this quickly hit the periphery of the air-fluffed ego-driven media so other vicious ego-centered parents can scream about it.

By the way, the kids didn’t have to go too far into the Internet to find the pictures. Carlie’s face and ink-stained backside were (and still are) both featured in the free section of the Playboy website.

Once upon a time, Carlie COULD have pulled it off. She could have been both a cheerleader coach AND a Playboy model and nobody would have been the wiser as long as she kept the two aspects of her life separate. As long as she didn’t announce as a coach that she was a model, and as long as she didn’t mention when she modeled that she was a coach, she could have had the best of both worlds, at least for a little while. She certainly could have had it longer than the couple of months that her coaching job lasted.

Unfortunately, as the old story goes, the Internet changed things.

Now a schoolteacher that goes to spring break and participates in a bikini contest will find herself out of a job before the summer recess. A teacher that follows through with a risqué bet in some remote section of the world will end up being a media celebrity around the world.

Now folks, as strange as it may sound, I’m with Carlie on this matter. It’s NOT right that she should be fired for something that school officials KNEW she did before she was hired! The fault in this case rests with the self-centered spoiled girls along with their ego-centered vicious parents who were willing to do anything to get what their precious little tax deductions want.

Sadly, though, it is the vicious ego-centered parents that usually call the shots in local governments. They are the ones that are willing to ruin lives and destroy careers just so their precious tax deductions can get that little bit of social status. To them that’s more important than any kind of lesson learned in the classroom.

Let’s get brutally honest here… this is the secret reason why school teachers were traditionally expected to be joyless automatons. The dysfunctional expectation was that teachers had no life so they could not influence the lives of their students. They couldn’t teach anything that was contrary to the lessons the parents of the students wanted them to learn. That’s why nuns and priests were considered to be ideal teachers, and why that mold was imposed on all others.

Of course, Carlie was not a teacher. She was a coach; and that put her at an even greater risk of the wrath of ego-centered parents and students obsessed with status.

Vicious ego-centered parents will do anything for their precious tax deductions to get that little bit of status. They will hire professional consultants. They will get up early and wait in line for HOURS for their kid’s registration. They will even hire hitmen to kill their rivals.

And that is precisely the kind of lesson that is taught to their tax deductions! Their obsessive fixation on status is the one lesson that their precious tax deductions will take to heart more than any other lesson in school. Forget rules! Forget ethics! Status rules the day and “win at all costs” is the only ethic they adhere to. Nothing is more sacred than their social status, and if they have to ruin lives and destroy careers to get it, then they will do it without losing a moment of sleep over it.

Equally sad is the knowledge that school officials, be they government or private schools, would much rather fire the individual that stands out instead of taking on and fix the systemic problem. This is the real hindrance to dealing with the obsessive behaviors of the ego-centered parents and their spoiled spawns.

Ideally it should not matter that Carlie is model, or that she poses for Playboy. As long as she kept that part of her life separate from her work with the school, it should not have mattered one bit. Unfortunately our school systems are far from ideal, and quite literally the only way to avoid scrutiny in that situation is to purge yourself of any kind of personal pleasures and commit yourself 24-7 to being nothing more than a teacher.

And thus we go back to that sad and repressive advice I presented concerning those women who want to be teachers. It’s painfully obvious from the hysteria generated from those vindictive ego-centered parents, from the hypersensitive hypocritical school officials, and from the panic-inducing ratings-obsessive members of the media, that teachers are supposed to be cloistered automatons with no kind of life or beauty whatsoever. And thus if you ever had a life or if you ever hope to have a life, you should re-think your goals. Perhaps instead of teaching kids, you could start teaching dogs. At least they don’t hire assassins if they can’t fetch.

Week of 04/13/2009

Politics Before Principle? Where Have I Heard THAT Before?
– by David Matthews 2

I HATE déjà vu.

I really do.

I hate that nagging feeling that I’ve said or written or read something that was said or written before. I hate it because I then have to look back to see precisely WHERE I’ve heard it before, and see if it was something I had said or wrote, or if someone else did. I certainly don’t want to plagiarize someone else’s work, and I don’t like repeating myself.

So here we are not even into the 100-day mark and I’m hearing this strange noise coming from liberals concerning President Barack Obama and his brand-new White House tenure, which still has that new-car smell to it. It’s a noise that sounds vaguely familiar.

The noise is the result of some very disappointing news from the Obama Administration… namely that they would be sustaining and supporting many of the things that the Bush Imperium did, including the ones that then-candidate Obama objected to. The Department of God, the secrecy, supporting unquestionable detainment of those that used to be called “enemy combatants”… all of the dirty little secrets that used to infuriate the liberals… Obama’s people are now supporting and defending them.

Obviously that sort of realization is raising some hackles from the people that expected that Obama and company would actually do something OTHER than support it. They EXPECT changes, and they’re starting to wonder if maybe they were betrayed… AGAIN. After all, they WERE let down in 2007 by the Congressional Democrats that promised to reign in the abuses of the Bush Imperium and then did nothing of the sort.

And that’s when this little buzzing noise started appearing from amongst the liberals. This little buzzing noise that is telling the liberals that are starting to feel betrayed that they have to swallow their feelings and stand tall in support of the Obama Administration, even if they are doing the very things that they had previously opposed.

I HATE déjà vu.

I really do.

Wait… didn’t I just say that earlier?

Now where DID I hear that little argument before? It sounds oh-so familiar…

OH YEAH! That’s right… it was the SAME argument that the neo-conservatives were telling the conservatives they had to do concerning the Bush Imperium’s actions!

You remember those days, right? They used to complain about things like those FEMA responses and the oil screwjob of 2005 and the problems with the Iraq War. They wouldn’t say them too loudly, of course. They would just be grumblings.

And the moment those grumblings could be heard, the neo-cons would pull those cons aside and tell them in no uncertain language to shut the hell up. They can’t complain about these things! They can’t complain about the actions of their President and his people! We’re in a WAR, don’t you know? You have to set aside your concerns and back your president 100%, no matter what!

Those were the days, huh? Back when the neo-cons were dictating policy, driving the national debt higher and higher, spending like there was no tomorrow, coming up with this program and that program… in other words, acting like a bunch of Democrats! And then… then… when their partners in crime would complain, they would pull them aside and tell them to shut up and put political loyalty over their principles.

And they did just that! That was the best part of it all! They actually cowered! These guys kept on screaming about character and principles and values, but when push came to shove, they started singing the same old tune of those scandal-filled Clinton days. You know which tune that was, right? “Dance with the one that brought you…”

That probably explained the eventual bitterness of conservatives like Sean Hannity when it was all over with. How they would complain that they had “their concerns” but they somehow decided that it was more important to shut up and back the President instead of standing up for principles. And now they’re kicking themselves because they’re out of power and they’re screaming even louder because they did the very things that they accused Democrats of doing.

And now of course the Democrats are once again in charge, and already there is dissent. Already there are people questioning the decisions made by the Obama Administration. They’re already asking why the Obama people supporting and sustaining many of the things that the old Bush Imperium did. And they are already being told to sit down and shut up, just like the neo-cons told their conservative brethren to do just a few months previously.

So I’ll be blunt about this… to all you Obama supporters that are telling their friends to put politics over principle…

YOU shut up!

Yes, YOU, the ass-kissing toadies posting your diatribes in HuffPo and Daily Kos and the rest of the liberal-dominated forums telling your fellow liberals to keep their yaps shut and singing “Dance with the one that brought you”. It is YOU that need to SHUT THE HELL UP!

Let’s get brutally honest here… you Obama supporters NEED that dissent from your own rank and file! You NEED to be reminded of WHY you’re there and what needs to be done! Obama and his people need to be kept HONEST and that can only happen through reasoned dissent when they stray off-message.

Look at what’s happened so far? It’s not even 100 days in and already the Obama Administration is not only defending the Bush Imperium, but they’re supporting those programs and want even MORE of them!

Whatever happened to ending “politics as usual”? Whatever happened to all the talk about transparency and accountability? What happened to “putting away those childish things”?

WHY ARE YOU ACTING LIKE A BUNCH OF NEO-CONS???

Here’s a little hint for you Obama cultists: telling your fellow liberals to shut up and chanting “Dance with the one that brought you” IS POLITICS AS USUAL!!!

Do you need to have it droned into your heads? Do you need to have it tattooed on the inside of your eyelids in bright neon colors so you’ll see it when you sleep?

Maybe if the feminists spoke up earlier about Bill Clinton’s dalliances, then they would have kept him honest, and Kathleen Willey wouldn’t have been propositioned in the Oval Office while begging for a job on the same day her husband committed suicide. Maybe the whole mess with Monica Lewinsky would have been dealt with quickly and without giving the Republicans cause to seek articles of impeachment if the feminists spoke up earlier and told Big Bubba Spin to keep “it” in his pants. Instead, they cowered and catered to the political tricks of the status quo.

Certainly the conservatives have no moral ground to retreat to on this. If anything, they’re damned even worse because they claim to put principle above everything else! Maybe if the conservatives spoke up sooner and bitch-slapped their neo-con silencers, the Iraq War could have been handled better. Maybe they could have forced Defense Secretary Donald “Zen Master-General” Rumsfeld to change strategies earlier… or forced him out earlier… and thus cut down on the THOUSANDS of American lives lost during that time. Maybe the situation with FEMA and Hurricane Katrina could have been better handled instead of letting it sit and become the fuster-cluck that it was in 2005. Maybe they could have prevented the Justice Department from being politicized, which is supposed to be specifically against federal law. All they had to do was speak up and remind the Bush Impeirum about why they were there. Instead, they cowered and catered to the wrath of the neo-cons.

It was Edward R. Murrow - speaking out against the abuses of the McCarthy era - that aptly said that “We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty.” If the people behind the Obama Administration steer off course, then it is the urgent responsibility of the people that supported the President and helped to put him in office to CALL him on these decisions and to get the Administration BACK on track. THEY need to keep the Obama people honest, and NOT wait until the next election, where they will be told that they have to “Dance with the one that brought you…”

I HATE déjà vu.

I really do.

Wait… didn’t I just…?

Week of 04/06/2009

GOP: Really Bad Salesmen
– by David Matthews 2

When America was just starting as a nation, the big struggle was to figure out what kind of country it would be. They had just broken away from the British Empire, and there were many in the colonies that still wanted to go back to King George. But many of America’s Founding Fathers wanted to try something different… something that they talked about but never really were able to implement. The hard part was getting this new idea accepted by the masses, though.

What the Founding Fathers did, then, was to write a series of papers detailing the need for this new system to keep the kinds of government abuses committed by the British Empire contained. The papers explained the need for people to embrace this idea of a new system of government so they could enjoy something that they really didn’t understand too well at the time… namely freedom.

These papers were originally written anonymously and submitted to newspapers either as “A Citizen of New York” or under the pseudonym “Publius”, but eventually they were identified as Alexander Hamilton (the future-first Treasury Secretary), James Madison (the future-fourth President of the United States), and John Jay (the future-first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court). The papers themselves were known as “The Federalist Papers”, and without them, we would probably not have the kind of government that we have had for over two centuries.

That’s right folks, our ancestors didn’t automatically embrace democracy. Most of them didn’t even know what it really meant. They had to be SOLD the idea of a representative form of government. They didn’t just say “This is how it is going to be” and the masses just went along with it. The Federalist Papers were the 18^th Century version of the infomercial, and Hamilton, Madison, and Jay were its pitchmen.

How ironic, then, to know that a political party that CLAIMS to embrace “heritage” and “history” doesn’t know a damn thing about either.

The Republican Party is in dire straits. They spent eight years playing “King of the Hill” until the voters knocked them off it, and while they keep on talking about coming back in 2010 or 2012 to reclaim “the hill”, they certainly don’t seem to act like they want it that much.

When presented with a budget championed by President Barack Obama, the Republicans first decided to play a pissy little political game. Mimicking the failed tactic of Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, the Republican leadership called a press conference and laid out “their alternative”, which consisted of nineteen pages full of almost nothing. The one figure listed would be a major reorganization of the tax code, reducing the myriad of tax levels to only two… those making over $100,000, which would be taxed at 25%, and everyone else, which would be taxed at only 10%.

But the problem with this is that it was simply presented to the media… with a promise that the details would be forthcoming. That’s it. No explanation as to why this would be better than the program offered by the Obama Administration. No discussions as to how it would stimulate the economy or cut down on the deficit. It’s just… THERE…and if you want more details, then you’ll just have to wait a week.

Meanwhile, President Obama was out there doing town hall meetings and prime-time press conferences. He’s pushing and plugging away at his plan and how it is needed to help the country.

It should come as to no surprise, then, that Obama’s plan soared through both houses of Congress, while the Republicans were left wallowing in their misery.

If Hamilton, Madison, and Jay did what Congressional Majority Leader John Boehner just did, then we probably would not have a United States of America. We probably would have ended up with some kind of monarchical system, or fragmented into various smaller government united only by a common geographic land mass.

Congressman Boehner and his ilk committed a FEMA-level error, and now they’re wondering why nobody believes them.

Their problem is a simple one: they failed to SELL their idea.

Let’s get brutally honest here… the reason why the Republican Party has become the party of MISERABLE FAILURES is because they failed to learn the lessons of its predecessors. They are failing to SELL their ideas!

Cons and neo-cons are continually complaining that Democrats like Barack Obama never really stop campaigning, even after they won. Bill Clinton did the same thing. And even this commentator has noticed that trend. But I figured out why the campaigning is needed. It’s because THAT is how they get their ideas accepted in society. They SELL the ideas! They have to!

For far too long, the Republicans have adopted an imperialist attitude when it comes to their ideas. They’ve gotten used to simply saying “Here it is, this is what we’re going to do, and you’re going to like it because we SAID so!” And in some instances they were even able to muffle any kind of opposition to their stances.

In fact it could very well be that they have become so badly detached from the rest of the world that they have forgotten what it’s like to have to SELL their ideas. It’s not like they haven’t had to sell an idea to the masses before. After all, that was the whole business with the “Contract with America” from 1994. It was a sales pitch in the same vein as the Federalist Papers.

This is the same mistake that the Bush Imperium made when it came to foreign policy. They pompously believed that freedom would just magically be bestowed in places like Afghanistan and Iraq like it was manna from the heavens. Sorry losers, but it doesn’t work like that. It didn’t work for America’s founding fathers two hundred years ago, and it certainly wouldn’t work today with the scourge of theocracy and moralism running rampant in those parts of the world. You have to SELL the idea of freedom, not just talk about it.

And that is what the Republicans have to do now if they want to have even the slightest bit of credibility. They have to get their act together and whatever idea they have, they have to actually get out there and SELL it to the public! And they can’t just show up on Rush Limbaugh’s show and talk about it amongst the followers. They have to SELL their plan to the masses in general! They have to convince the public that their plan is better than that of the Democrats. They can’t just throw out a teaser pamphlet and then a few days later put out a whole bunch of numbers and expect the masses to simply accept it on face value! You have the President of the United States going on road tours! The GOP needs to do the same!

Even worse is that the Republicans need to work TWICE AS HARD in selling their credibility than the Democrats do, because these guys had a hand in CREATING the mess that we’re in! Their guy was in office for the past eight years, and they were the party in power for much of that time. They set the stage for the mess, and now they have to convince people that they know how to fix it.

If Republicans want to be taken seriously in time for 2010 or even 2012, then they can’t just sit back and wait the Democrats fail. They have to actually PROVE that they are worthy of another look. Even now there are already grumblings of new political parties ready to take over. If the GOP fails to learn the lessons of history… a subject they claim to be the masters of… then they will join the Whigs and the Bull Moose Parties and BECOME history.