The Two Political Parties are NOT the Same

Sure, campaign contributions can and do buy government representatives in the US in all states on every issue, definitely. If anyone gets that, it's me. I've been writing for a few years on how we need to kill campaign contributions.

But the fact is, if anyone in the US looks coldly and honestly at our US Congress, the representatives there and what they've written and done and who they've represented and defended and fought for, it's clear the Republican Party and their operatives have fought for and still are fighting for the wealthy and corporations far more than that other party.

Far more.

The CATO Institute and the Heritage Foundation and the Koch brothers and Waltons and others aren't all aligned with the Republicans and the Right Wing of this nation because they're fighting for the working man or the average man and woman on the street or the middle- or lower-classes. Not a chance.

And for proof?

Look no further than this list of things for the people, for the nation that the Democrats wrote and created:

• Social Secuity
• Medicare
• Medicaid
• The GI Bill
• Endangered Species Act
• Environmental Laws
• The Space Program
• The Peace Corps
• Americorps
• The Civil Rights Movement
• Earned Income Tax Credit
• Family & Medical Leave Act
• Consumer Product Safety Commission
• Americans With Disabilities Act
• Freedom of Information Act
• Women's right to control their reproductive future
• Allowing citizens to view their own credit records
• The Internet
• Balancing the federal budget
• The Brady Bill (5-day wait on handgun purchases for background checks)
• Lobbying Disclosure Act
• "Motor-Voter" Act
• The Voting Rights Act
• Unemployment Insurance
• Medicare/Medicaid
• Food Stamps/WIC
• Social Security
• Peace between Israel and Egypt
• Peace between Israel and Jordan
• The Department of Education
• The Department of Energy
• The Department of Transportation
• The Department of Housing and Urban Development
• Labor Laws
• The Marshall Plan
• Winning World War II
• Food Safety Laws
• Workplace Safety Laws
• The Tennessee Valley Project
• The Civilian Conservation Corps
• The Securites and Exchange Commission
• Women's Right to Vote
• Universal Public Education
• National Weather Service
• Product Labeling Laws
• Truth in Advertising Laws
• Morrill Land Grant Act
• Rural Electrification
• Public Universities
• Bank Deposit Insurance (FDIC)
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
• Public Broadcasting
• Supporting the establishment of Israel
• The United Nations
• NATO

And the Republicans and Republican Party were against virtually, if not actually, each and every one.

 
Now? 

The Republicans are against the Voting Rights Act and are, instead, trying to disenfranchise Americans and keep them from being able to vote. IN Texas alone, in the last election this year, it's been estimated that the Republicans' Voter ID laws--very Jim Crow like--kept 600,000 Texans from being able to vote.

Very American, eh? Very "Representative government" right?

So don't say the two parties are the same. 

They're anything but.

More than 10 million Americans got health care insurance in the last couple of years, due to Democrats.

They're not the same. 

No way.

I'll grant you, the money spent in and on elections makes them too similar but the differences, the wide differences, are still very much there.

And just now, Republicans are working on destroying Social Security. And Medicare. And Medicaid.

Finally,we need to stop seeing fellow Americans as "us vs. them." We need to all be Americans, working together for the benefit of America and Americans, all of us, and decidedly not just the wealthy and corporations as too many things have been in the last few decades, at least.

Link: What Have Liberals and Democrats Ever Done For Us?

The Cato Institute, defined

Click on the picture for easy reading

Quote of the day (from a Republican)

"For 20 years now, the GOP has been giving away the votes of professionals, upper-income non-whites, college-educated women, and other comparatively economically successful groups.

The party has rebased itself on the votes of whites without a college degree. Mitt Romney must gain almost two-thirds of their vote in 2012 to have any realistic hope of winning the White House.

Non-college whites are the most alienated and pessimistic group in the electorate and also the most nationalist. They may resent the "foreigner" Barack Obama, but there is one thing they hate even more: outsourcing—and those who do it.

Tanner is right that free trade, including outsourcing, raises national income in the aggregate. But it does not raise the incomes of each and every one of us individually. Trade creates losers as well as winners. John Stuart Mill proposed a solution to this conundrum more than 150 years ago: trade freely, then tax the winners to compensate the losers. That solution is not congruent with the Cato Institute philosophy. Result: losers and prospective losers—and they know who they are!—fear outsourcing. The losers and prospective losers also happen to provide the GOP with much (or most) of its voting muscle.

You want to change that dynamic? You'll have to reorient the party to a new voting base—one that does not thrill to the music that the Romney campaign has been playing all this week." --David Frum, former writer for George W. Bush

Link to original article here: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/07/18/defend-capitalism.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

On David Frum: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Frum

The "National Standards" debate in our schools

With the KCMO School District getting on a "national standards" program, thanks to our new Superintendent, it's worth pointing out that, right now, there is an excellent evaluation of this idea and program at The New York Times, "pro" and "con". You can find it here: http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2010/07/21/who-will-benefit-from-national-education-standards?hp

To the Iraq warmongers

Let's see, that's now-former President, George W. Bush, now-former Vice President Dick ("the Dick") Cheney, now-former Secretary of War Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz etc., etc.

To all of you, listed above, the Republican Party, any and all Democrats who went along for this hair-brained scheme, the media who didn't ask questions and also let the American people down and anyone and everyone who was for attacking Iraq pre-emptively and without provocation:

It was wrong. It was stupid. It was against our own, internal, national laws and it was against International Law.

And now this:

"In a Thursday panel at Cato on conservatism and war, U.S. Reps. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) Tom McClintock (R-Calif.) and John Duncan (R-Tenn.) revealed that the vast majority of GOP members of Congress now think it was wrong for the U.S. to invade Iraq in 2003."

Well, thank you, gentlemen. Thank you for joining us. You're 7 long years, 4,282 American soldiers --men and women--and trillions of dollars too late.

To say that you screwed up is the grossest understatement I can imagine.

And I say this for a few reasons, none of which are to gloat.

First, we told you so.

There were thousands of us, nationwide, who were literally on the streets, protesting this war before it happened. We told you, warned you this was a mistake.

You didn't listen.

Second, the UN told you Saddam Hussein had no "weapons of mass destruction", that he was cooperating and that you could find no evidence of any such weapons.

You didn't listen.

Third, 13 intelligence agencies of our own government declared that Saddam Hussein was not a threat to the US. This was broadcast before the war began on National Public Radio, very calmly and cooly. I heard it myself.

You didn't listen.

Fourth, again, this pre-emptive attack was against our own, internal laws.

No one listened.

Fifth, pre-emptively and without provocation attacking another sovereign nation was then and is now, to this day, against International Law.

You didn't listen.

Finally, and I'll put this last note in one heading instead of two--both history and common sense said that attacking Iraq was a mistake, and a big one. I have frequently, since this war began in March of 2003, quoted Winston Churchill on war and going to war. It is as true today as it was these 7 years ago as when first stated, all those decades ago:

"Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The statesman who yields to war fever must realize that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events."

But then no one ever accused George W. Bush of having a "world view" since he hadn't traveled outside the country before running for the Presidency, or of knowing history.

And he just wouldn't listen.

Fascinating ad

There was a fascinating--to me--full-page ad in The New York Times yesterday from The Cato Institure and some 126 different doctors and scientists, as represented, disagreeing with then-President-Elect Barack Obama's quote from the election last year.

That quote, from November 19, was that "Few challenges facing America and the world are more urgent than combating climate change." He went on to say "The science is beyond dispute and the facts are clear."

The scientists and doctors response: "With all due respect, Mr. President, that is not true."

So, okay, climate change or global warming may or may not be a scientific fact.

You know what? I can live with that.

But do you know what else?

It doesn't matter.

What does matter is that polluting the only planet we have to live on is wrong. It's dumb. It's virtually suicidal.

If you see what corporations, in particular, have done to our water, air and land, in even their mild cases, it will show that the way we have lived in the last 100 years isn't sustainable.

--We don't have unlimited electrical power from our power plants

--We don't have enough room for our waste

--We can't go on soiling our air and land and water and still have clean air to breathe, water to drink and soil to grow plants and crops

--We can't go on coaxing our soil with pesticides and have problem-free crops to eat or water without those pesticides. (This doesn't even mention the bees we need).

So the way we've lived isn't sustainable. We need to change. We need to pollute less. We need to develop clean, sustainable, supportable solar energy and good, mercury-free batteries to store the power.

And we need to get busy doing it, climate change or no.

Link to the original ad:
http://www.cato.org/special/climatechange/cato_climate.pdf