Fare and Fowl

Why We Can't Get No Satisfaction

2019-06-01T16:02:00.000-07:00

by Steve Balaban

I like to rethink issues that are unwanted yet persist. I believe that the best solutions come from looking newly at old problems that won’t go away. Most intractable issues remain stuck due to the notions of scarcity, no solutions and inevitability.

So think about this for a moment. Imagine that at this very moment, there is an angry man, probably white….he could be younger or he could be older. But almost certainly he is angry. And he is almost surely white. (Shocker: spoiler alert-the most recent shooter was not white)

He owns guns. He spends time hiding out. His family, neighbors and friends would say he’s a nice guy. Quiet. Keeps to himself a lot. He spends time online, in deep web chat rooms and on social media, sharing his anger and the only solution he can think of….murder fantasies…with his anonymous, like-minded virtual friends. They tend to be racists, bigots, anti-Semites, “incels”…..basically people that “can’t get no…no no…no…they can’t get no…no…no…no…they can’t get no…SATISFACTION. And there is someone they blame for this.

Others may get sucked into watching their stock portfolio online, or shopping on Amazon or eBay, or watching porn. Not him. His serotonin releases come from fantasizing about acting on his murderous impulses.

He stews over how unfair it is that he can’t get laid, or how he was wronged by co-workers or how fun it would be to walk into a class of 6 year olds and blow them away. He’s not happy that people who are different than he is exist. Oh yeah. He’s gonna show them. And just imagine what a hero he will be in the eyes of his fellow angry, white co-conspirators.

He may or may not be mentally ill. He may or may not play violent video games. But for sure he is angry and probably white.

One only need turn on the TV. Or wait a few days and then turn on the TV. And you will witness the coverage of another in a seemingly endless string of mass shootings.

Today, we didn’t need to wait. Today it is the murder of 12 innocent city works in Virginia Beach.(ok, this shooter happened to be black...exception to the rule?) Yesterday it was a school or a movie theater, or a concert or a church or synagogue.

We, the people, ask why nothing is being done. Those who run things, say we can’t violate our 2nd amendment rights. An organization, the NRA, buys off politicians to silence them. The gun industry profits.

The left and the right are at a stalemate over doing anything about this problem. All of the focus is on why or why we can’t have sensible gun laws. After all, other countries have these laws and they don’t experience this problem the way that we in the United States do.

We regulate other things, such as driving a car or owning a boat and that seems to make us safer. But nope, sensible gun laws would be a slippery slope right into an authoritarian government. I mean what would we do without this well-regulated militia?

But let’s get back to our angry, friend who is, as we speak at his computer celebrating, yet another mass killing as he inches ever closer to the moment when it’s his time to shine….as he takes out as many innocent victims has he can before he ends his own life or is killed by the swat team.

So, let’s try to re-think this issue. Let’s go back to square one and look at the problem with fresh eyes. What can we do?

How can we intervene? How can we interrupt this deranged thought process? How can we disrupt this person’s impulses?

This issue, this strain of like-minded people is a disease of society. How do you cure a disease? You vaccinate, you inoculate, you operate, you treat it in the best way you can. You look for biases and obstacles. You consider your own blind spots. You collaborate with others.

It starts with acknowledging there is a problem, studying the problem and then being open minded to dealing with it as best you can. You test possible solutions until you discover the treatment or treatments that are effective. But we must start with acknowledging the problem and committing to the possibility of a solution. Something our leaders, with their own vested interest of political donations and getting reelected don’t seem to be able to do.

How can we interrupt the thinking and ultimate action of mostly angry white men? I think there may just be something to the idea of a vaccination. Not as an injection of a serum into the bloodstream. But rather as a way to fight fire with fire. What is it that is at the source of this anger where their only solution is acting on a violent fantasy that destroys the lives of innocent victims?

I have no answers? Just questions that I think might lead us to answers. I suspect there are a million and one possible solutions to the problem. But we must first generate the will, both at a personal level and at the political level to discover solutions.

What say you?

Supreme Injustice

2018-07-09T21:00:00.002-07:00

My father, Leonard “Red” Balaban, was an “interesting” character. When he died five years ago, we mourned the loss of a father and husband and a jazzman who loved to fish and follow baseball stats. But what is on our minds today is that we also lost an important voice in the progressive movement.

Red Balaban wrote brilliantly about politics, government and history. He wrote with a wit, historical perspective and clarity that helped us see more clearly and left us wanting more.

Today, we always ask what dad would be saying about this or that. We say he’s got to be rolling in his grave.

And today, he walked out of his resting place and right into my psyche. What would dad say about who Donald J. Trump is, what he’s doing to our country and how we can Make America Kind, Respected, Admired and Sane Again.

If you never had the chance to read any of his writing, you can find them in the blog archivel.

What would Red say?

In the history of this experiment in democracy, America has never been perfect. But we have always aimed toward perfection. The ideals of this nation have always been; freedom, equality(for most) and the chance to make a buck.

But her emails? What about his hypocrisy?

An election that Hillary had in the bag, certainly affected by and possibly determined by Macedonian troll farms carrying out Putins orders. He never expected to win. He wasn’t ready to win and hell, he didn’t even want to win. But he won. And we lost. And we are living in the steamy pile he dumped on us.

Behind the reality show presidency is the money of the Koch Brothers, the complicity of the spineless GOP congress and obstruction started by Mitch McConnell the day Barack Obama was sworn in. McConnell's concern for party over country spanned the 8 years of the Obama administration and peaked with his stealing the supreme court seat ultimately filled by Trump with Gorsuch.

He has no shame. Today we witnessed one of the boldest displays of hypocrisy ever witnessed when McConnell stood in the senate chamber with a straight face and just took to the Senate floor to decry Democrats' "unfair tactics" in seeking to block a SCOTUS nominee.

All of this is historic. Expect a battle for the ages. We can call on our elected leaders to hold firm and hope for the best that a single Republican senator with a soul and a conscious is courageous enough to save our nation from itself. Either that or pray to be saved by Robert Mueller exposing the 45th president of the United States for what he is.....and then make sure the Dems take back the house and the senate.

Balaban & Cat!

2015-06-01T10:17:00.000-07:00

These two items showed up recently. First, many of us got an email from one of Red's best friends...Daniel D'Imperio. This is a fascinating podcast, a deep dive into the inner world of Eddie Condon's. Listen and enjoy.

The other item was forwarded by my cousin, David Balaban. David produced this half hour cable news show documenting the genesis and inside scoop on the club back in 1980. It's really great to hear Red and his compadres discuss the club, Eddie Condon and the world of jazz in NYC from that time. Watching this, I can feel the energy and excitement of the club...I hope you will take the time to listen and watch these.

By the way, there will be an evening of jazz at the Neighborhood Music School in New Haven, CT on July 28th. I hope you can make it there.

neighborhood music school • 100 audubon street • new haven, CT 06510

Please join us to celebrate a legend! Neighborhood Music School presents "A Night at Eddie Condon's" featuring the Red Balaban Tribute Orchestra on Tuesday, July 28, 2015 at 7:30 pm.. This very special evening of jazz will honorthe late jazz legend, Leonard "Red" Balaban, bassist, tuba player, house band leader at Eddie Condon's and friend of NMS. Featured musicians include Paul Bempke and others who performed with Red throughout his career. The concert will also celebrate the 86^th birthday of Red’s wife, Micki Balaban.

The concert will take place at Neighborhood Music School, 100 Audubon Street, New Haven in the Recital Hall and Park of the Arts behind the school. Picnic dinners with delectable sandwiches and confections will be provided by Chestnut Fine Foods, and cash wine and beer bar is also available.

Tickets prices are $30 each, including reserved table seats and picnic suppers. For information, contact Sue Davison or Julius Stone at Neighborhood Music School, 203-624-5189. Tickets go on sale June 1 to the general public; family and friends of the Balaban family should call asap to reserve their seats. More details to follow soon online at neighborhoodmusicschool.org.

Good times.

Who Dat Sound-Podcast #32 featuring Eddie Condon's and the Commodore-Red Balaban

2015-04-27T19:39:00.000-07:00

From Red's best friend, especially in his later years:

I have my own Podcast radio show called "Hip To It". I just put up my 32nd show and I did a tribute to Condon's and featured a remembrance of the club during my tenure there. You'll all dig it. I relayed some of my times spent with "The Commodore".

When you click on the site (below) click "Enter Here"....you will then see the most recent shows below my visage from the CD "Hip To It". At the top of the list is Eddie Condon's "Diversity of the 3rd Incarnation".

Click on that and enjoy the show. I know "The Commodore" would approve.

Danny D'Imperio

http://www.whodatsound.com

End of an Era-Final Post to Fare and Fowl Blog

2013-12-29T18:54:00.001-08:00

I wanted to be in touch with all of Red Balaban's friends and contacts to let you
know there will be no more Fare and Fowl entries to follow. Dad passed away
at 9am est this morning. His last days were peaceful.
He'd been in the hospital for a week and we knew he was fading, but we also
expected at any moment for him to come out of it and start demanding to be
let out of the hospital immediately.

We are making arrangements. We will be having a funeral in the on Sunday January 5th in West Haven or New Haven, followed up with a, yet to be determined, memorial celebration. We
would like to know who among you would be interested in an invitation to
either.

Both events will be held in or near West Haven, Ct.

Please respond to this commodoreljb@gmail.com (Red's email that I will be monitoring) or my email at cosmo46@earthlink.net or call Micki(my mom, Red's wife) at 203-934-5186.

Thank you for reading and following this blog.

Steve

Friends and Frenemies

2013-12-17T15:09:00.001-08:00

Some of you may may be wondering about the absence of my letters. The fact is I've been quite ill the past month. With what? I could answer "take your pick" or "congestive heart and kidney problems." My GP would be more apt to answer in more moralistic terms. From my point of view I'd be tickled to be able to vote in the 2016 elections.

Leonard "Red" Balaban

(note-Leonard is home from the hospital and recovering. He finally got back on the computer and put this together for his friends and readers. Please feel free to send him an email to see how he's doing.

commodoreljb@gmail.com )

Not Again

2013-11-21T20:55:00.001-08:00

Yes, I’m afraid it’s more about the Affordable Care Act. After all that’s the big news these days, unless you’re fixated on George Zimmerman’s latest escapades, so here’s the latest on what I, and some of the public may have learned since my last version.

Barack Obama was not lying when he said that people could keep their insurers and doctors if the ACA became law.Whatever policies were in place when the law was passed, even if they had sky high deductibles and extra limits to the people and conditions covered, were grandfathered from having to meet the higher standards set by the ACA. Of course premiums can change, insurers can terminate policies or simply go out of business and doctors can retire or die. But that’s always been par for the course.

The only policies subject to cancellation were written during the three years after the law was passed and before it took effect that didn’t meet or weren’t modified to meet minimum ACA standards. Obama has just extended the deadline for compliance an additional year. Surely insurers worth their salt knew that these contracts had a limited life and had an obligation to inform their prospective clients all of whom may not have read the “small print” in the law, although given the direct stake of consumers in this legislation the small print is deceptively bold.

While some of the holders of these inferior policies have been duped by unscrupulous insurers I strongly suspect many of the “victims” are plants, the more pathetic the anecdotes the better. Some of them are ringers. I saw two of these poster boys in business suits on Fox, where else, pleading personal hardship who were later identified on MSNBC, where else, as corporate executives.

Republican spin masters have been referring to this scenario as “Obama’s Katrina,” a bit of a stretch to equate a malfunctioning website and deadly storm in the Gulf of Mexico. Then too this president’s has yet to say to Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sibelius, “Katy, you’re doing one heckuva job.”

Cancelled

2013-11-16T00:07:00.002-08:00

One of several mistakes in making the Affordable Health Care Act or “Obamacare” law was that even now too few people are informed of its details. In commenting on it we can only speak of what we know or believe we know. To my knowledge this law by itself has not and cannot order the cancellation of a single policy. Only the insurance companies and policy holders can do this. Sub-par policies in existence before the law was passed have been grandfathered while policies written in the three years since, including those now mandated by ACA, must meet minimum standards. This is the cause of many of the cancellations now making news. Has the government set unreasonably high qualifications? This is a question that might be raised by the insurance companies. Their silence on this subject should be noted.

A typical right wing response to the issue would be to invoke the free market as a guide to what consumers should get for their money. But there is another consideration here. The cheaper the policy the less the coverage, with considerably higher deductibles and more exceptions for customers and ailments. This may be all that poorer people can afford yet they are the ones most vulnerable to these limits to their coverage. Those who need comprehensive coverage the most can afford it the least.

The per capita cost of our health care is by far the world’s highest yet the results are worse than nations that provide universal health care. The discrepancy is that our national health care doesn’t begin until a person reaches the age of sixty five. A lot of people die before that age and many more develop conditions that preventive medicine would have cured or lessened had they been treated before becoming eligible for government sponsored health care. It is common sense that the cost of treating Medicare beneficiaries would be considerably less had their conditions had been tended to earlier.

Unmitigated self-interest is just that. I can think of no part of our complex society in which it is more reprehensible than caring for the sick.

Mimimum But No Cover

2013-11-09T07:02:00.001-08:00

I recently emailed the New Haven Register saying that while I agreed with its editorial that Obama had not been 100% square with us I had something to add. Specifically, inasmuch as Congress, the President and the Supreme Court have concluded that mandated health insurance was within federal purview, it is incumbent on the government to require that this insurance meet some reasonable minimum standard. I equated this with auto emission controls in which state government can force consumers to change cars if they decline to have theirs brought up to minimum requirements.

Obama can be faulted for not mentioning that mandated health care must be part of a plan that meets minimum standards. Sub-par policies are grandfathered. But the insurers are prohibited from issuing new policies in effect forcing them out of business. I suppose he could be guilty of a half-white lie.* I would also argue that it was done to pass legislation that was clearly in the national interest. I wonder how St. Peter would balance the two.

Opposition attempts to sabotage “Obamcare” have been disingenuous. Pricier policies are being peddled by insurance companies under the threat of even more expensive plans after the law kicks in on Jan. 1, yet available new policies, which affect about 3% of the population, are expected to be the same if not cheaper. A friend who is the widow of an IBM employee, is quite pleased with her new policy. But since she is a devout Republican I expect this to be temporary. It’s easy to understand the opposition to this law by much of the medical complex beginning with insurance companies. But one would think that corporations like IBM would be glad to be relieved of the expense of administering these policies.

There’s very little of Marquis de Queensberry influence in American politics. Still there have to be some limits. Most people have standards to which they adhere. Relatively few condone murder. These standards vary with individuals and groups and have been declining steadily, too fast as I see it. To this unabashed partisan, at any given time the ethical bar both political parties have set for themselves is much lower for Republicans.

*My apologies to those who consider this politically incorrect. But I just couldn’t resist it.

GOP Priority

2013-11-03T20:24:00.002-08:00

Shortly after the last presidential election a friend, whom I consider reasonably intelligent but unsophisticated politically, told me that he voted for Romney because “the other guy has had four years and hasn’t fixed things.” While there may be a grain of logic here it ignores a major part of the picture. This is the same line of reasoning that elected Hitler. Yes, he was elected.

Of course it’s quite a stretch to equate a vote for Romney with a vote for Hitler. The common line of reasoning here also led to the election of FDR a year earlier, an outcome that most of us view favorably. Germans had suffered much more after the fifteen years that followed the Great War than we had after just four years of the Great Depression. For this reason it seems obvious that today’s Republican Party has a motive, if it desires, to drive this nation closer to the conditions that created the Third Reich, at least as long as there’s a Democrat in the White House.

To view the Republicans Party as a monolith is an over simplification. The establishment, which contains a majority of the current leadership, is driven by an insatiable desire for wealth. It is the home of whatever rationality exists in the party. The base, which provides an indispensable portion of votes, is driven by a combination of religious fervor, racism, xenophobia and a propensity for hatred in general. It’s hard to imagine how these people would govern together. The only thing they share is an intense dislike of Democrats; the establishment for their trying to regulate its thievery and the base for what it considers cultural depravity.

For both the first order of business is taking over the nation and soon, before they become extinct. This goal is not out of reach. They’ve held a narrow but secure control of the judiciary since 1991 when Poppa Bush engineered the replacement of Thurgood Marshall with Clarence Thomas. They’ve developed gerrymandering to a state of the arts level which has given them the House for another seven years and, as I’ve mentioned, could set the stage to steal the presidency at the state level next year by changing Electoral College vote counting.

“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” “a stitch in time saves nine” “better to be safe than sorry. Choose your metaphor.

Hoist By One's Own Petard

2013-10-10T14:05:00.004-07:00

In 2008 there was no question how incipient Tea Partiers, the future backbone of the Republican base, would react to the election of our first president of color. A quality ranging from dislike to hatred of the “other” is in their makeup. The reaction of the establishment was less predictable. We don’t know if Mitch McConnell is a racist or just a snob. But we do know now that when it came to treating Barack Obama as president he and his professional ilk behaved as both.

The various devices used by the birthers are common knowledge. Those used by the leadership haven’t been as obvious. They denied formal courtesies to a Democratic president traditionally extended to Democratic colleagues. Republicans in Congress from the start managed to find requests for social or political meetings inconvenient. He was shouted at from the floor of Congress.

Given this setting what could have been more up their alley than the Affordable Health Care Act? This subject has been a burr in the saddle of presidents since Teddy Roosevelt. Bill Clinton’s influence was shredded by it. No issue was as badly mishandled by Obama as the Clinton’s did this one. The disaster of 2010 may have been worsened by Obama’s health care legislation. But it is now law.

Naturally the immediate Republican response was to affix the president’s name to it, hence “Obamacare.” Amy Holmes, a right wing wag, mentioned it numerous times in a soliloquy on the Bill Maher show when the word “it” would have sufficed nicely, in the process saying less at greater length.

Now, like it or not and I suspect not, they have “Obamacare.” It was passed in both Houses of Congress, signed by the president and supported legally by a Supreme Court majority. In common parlance they will now have to refer to it as such, although some of the folks in three cornered hats might have found that affordable health care is too many syllables to remember.

At the beginning of the year Republicans were outraged by almost every entitlement that didn’t benefit their establishment. Now they’ve shut down the government and are threatening default unless Congressional Democrats and the president agree to repeal just the one law to which they have given his name.

If there is the life after death, as many of these people profess to believe, the perfect fate for those who fail the heavenly entrance test would be to spend eternity repeating the words “President Barack Obama.”

Your Vote Please

2013-09-30T13:18:00.001-07:00

A few months ago I fell for the Republican line about their “reaching out” for the African American and other minority votes and wrote a serious letter debunking their plan. In retrospect the whole thing was an act. I don’t think even Republicans have that kind of chutzpah. A major political party works openly to create obstacles to voting, financial and otherwise, that diminish the participation of the less affluent who tend to be people of color who vote for the opposing party. They then approach the very people they’ve been trying to disenfranchise and say, in effect, “If you are able to, please vote for us so we can make it harder for you to vote the next time.”

I started this effort as an attempt at humor, but this is as far as I can go in that direction because after all, we’re dealing with preserving a semblance of representative government, sometimes known as democracy. The game as played under our current rules is in the process of marginalizing and possibly eliminating the Republican Party as it now stands because the national complexion is growing steadily darker. That party’s only hope for survival is to change the rules, in the long run drastically.

Selective voter suppression is only one of several ways of doing this. It would be perfectly legal and not without precedent for Republican state legislators in swing states like Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin to apportion their delegates to the Electoral College by Congressional Districts as is now done in Maine and Nebraska. Conducted nationally this system would have elected Mitt Romney president, given the gerrymandering following the 2010 elections. There was open talk by some Republican Governors recently of doing just this which was quickly put to rest when cooler heads realized it could only work as a surprise if kept secret until after the 2014 mid-term state elections. Don’t expect to hear more about it till then unless Democrats treat the next mid-terms more seriously than they did the last.

This country cannot survive as anything resembling a democracy if these people, as they are now constituted, produce the kind of government their long term survival demands. There’s no trusting the morals of this Republican Party’s Wall Street establishment or the sanity of its Tea Party base.

Number Two

2013-09-22T11:29:00.000-07:00

The second of the Ten Commandments opens with, “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I the Lord am your God………”

It’s obvious that guns would qualify as such an idol, most gun butts having been literally carved. And it’s my view that some of the more avid gun worshippers who claim to be observers of a Judeo Christian faith are in in fact worshiping guns to a greater degree than the deity of their choice. Certainly few of them would admit it. But I hear more intense passion for unregulated and hence unlimited gun possession coming from missionary types than I do enthusiasm for their Lord. I suppose Christians could argue that the Ten Commandments are Old Testament stuff.

They proudly think of and refer to themselves as Conservatives, strict constructionists and the like. They are helped in this by the five of nine Supreme Court Justices having ruled that the words “well-regulated militia,” with which the writers opened the Second Amendment, were irrelevant.

OK. When I was about twelve I fired a BB gun at a sprinkler, it ricocheted and glanced harmlessly off my mother’s arm. That was the end of the BB gun for me. Now I call that conservative! People now proudly calling themselves conservative have made possession of guns free choice in public places, like bars where you always have the calming influence of alcohol. Is there something wrong with this picture?

It can be easily argued that a twelve year old boy is not mature enough to be entrusted with even something as small as a BB gun which can under certain circumstances inflict physical damage. Thank God, and our guns, that we have a group of responsible adults running the show now.

Syria

2013-09-09T14:40:00.000-07:00

I’ve been asked on several occasions recently what my take is on the situation in Syria, about which I didn’t consider myself sufficiently informed at the time. But the passage of time and more information can be a big help, except to some of the more enthusiastic Tea Party members. I had no strong opinion on the subject then and still have some ambivalence because the arguments on both sides seemed quite reasonable, even Rand Paul’s.

Enough has been heard publicly so I’ll briefly summarize the arguments. The president and his people feel that an international treaty, agreed on by enough nations including the United States to constitute a quorum, should be honored. To allow this blatant violation to take place without reprisal, would amount to tacit approval of the use of chemical weapons. The most convincing of several opposing arguments concerns the possible ramifications, including an international war of unknown dimensions. Based on political Ideology the Congressional response to the president’s request is unpredictable. One could conclude that making wars is in the Republican DNA had it not been isolationist before World War II. Maybe they just considered Hitler a lesser threat than Stalin. On the other hand it’s hard to imagine them supporting anything that might help Obama politically.

In Groucho Marx’s words I’m now against it, “it” being unilateral action against Syria. I’m skeptical about this nation’s concern over the use of chemical weapons. Ronald Reagan knew that Iraq was using them against Iran during their 1980s war. But that was OK because we were with Saddam on that one. But then in the buildup to the First Gulf War we were told that Saddam was “gassing his own people,” as if he considered the Kurds his people. Later we learned the war was all about the sovereignty of Kuwait and the commodity that went with it. But most important is that Barack Obama’s claim that any action he might take would be enforcing “world” law rings hollow when one considers that only we would be doing the enforcing.

Either Way the international law in question will be effectively null and void. And punishing the slaughterer of 1400 people by damaging his nation’s ability to wage war is not exactly an eye for an eye. It looks to me as if regime change is the only sure fire solution. Now don’t say it can’t be done. Just remember Granada!

The Fifteenth Amendment

2013-08-30T03:16:00.001-07:00

The following is the text of the Fifteenth Amendment. (1) “The right of citizens of the United States [to vote] shall not be denied orabridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude” and (2) “That Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.” I italicized abridged, “to reduce in scope: minimize,” because it covers situations where people can vote, but with greater difficulty, financial or otherwise. As I see it section one by itself, properly exercised, should cover it all and section two as simply a “right on guys” to Congress to encourage it to enforce the law.*

The phrase Jim Crow attests to the fact that the Constitution by itself wasn’t sufficient so in 1964 Congress did what it been empowered to do for a century and passed its own legislation. That wasn’t working either so in 1991 it designated nine states that were simultaneously violating both a Constitutional amendment and an act of Congress, for scrutiny of any proposed changes in pertinent legislation.

Things went along fairly well until this year when the Supreme Court, at the request of the states in question, ruled that this scrutiny was no longer necessary. This was proved a major miscalculation in a matter of days when these states began rewriting voting rules that would never have passed muster previously.

I see the importance of this matter as extending beyond these outlaw states to the entire nation in electing candidates for federal positions, not only to proposed revisions, but to the rules as they now stand. There is nothing more essential to representative government than the integrity of its voting system.

This deck is already stacked against citizens of lesser means. Witness the inverse relationship between wealth and time spent waiting to vote. To lose at cards with a stacked deck is to be cheated. But this game is not being played with smoke and mirrors. If we lose this one it will be to bullies doing what bullies do best.

*I suspect there are Republican legal “scholars” who would claim it meant that further Congressional approval was required. But then Republicans are known to be a bit contrary.

Food Stamps

2013-08-21T12:04:00.001-07:00

Hooray! Republicans have found themselves a real live food stamp cheat. No phony like Reagan’s palpably fictitious welfare queen, this guy seems like the real thing, thoroughly unlikable, possibly a product of Central Casting. But then we didn’t expect these guys to pick a pleasant scoundrel.

The main purpose of this effort staged by Fox is to show that the undeserving are receiving a major portion of food stamps. This guy sneering at the camera does an excellent impression of undeserving. He may be only one person, but a million like him wouldn’t surprise me. As part of forty seven million food stamp recipients would they justify punishing the other forty six million? If not how large a percentage of miscreants do Republicans consider enough, a mystery in light of their creative sense of proportion? Remember the fellow who said that Benghazi was our worst tragedy since 9/11?

A second purpose of the program is to expose the do-gooders proselytizing people unaware of their eligibility for food stamps. What a terrible thing, advising people that they are entitled to benefits of which they are unaware. TV commercials commonly do this sort of thing. But snitching on the government by private citizens informing others that it is holding benefits due them, well that’s un-American.

We also hear the continued harping that it’s in the national interest that shame should come with accepting food stamps. Ah the warm side of Republican thinking! I’m certain many of these people already feel built in shame on their own for being on the dole, particularly former tax paying citizens who have been done in by the economy.

There is a built in degree of waste and fraud in all government programs to which the Pavlovian response from the right would be that government programs are inherently inefficient. My riposte would be to ask, as an example, why Medicare insures people at considerably lower cost than the private sector.

There’s such an abundance of conflicting electronic “information” these days that it requires a healthy dose of skepticism to separate the wheat from the chaff. If we believed all of it our politics would slide back to the days of Pony Express and government by anecdote.

What Else?

2013-07-15T17:14:00.002-07:00

I’m glad the Zimmerman trial is over. Now we can learn what else is happening in the world. It’s not that the trial was unimportant, but that I knew the ending to the story. There was no way he was going to be, or should be, convicted beyond a reasonable doubt of second degree murder for a shooting that took place during a fight. A guilty verdict would have made pariahs of the six jurors who rendered it in Seminole County and well beyond. This says something of a trial by a jury of one’s peers. I say that if justice is a concern these peers should come from diverse parts of the country. This point is demonstrated precisely by the trials of Rodney King’s beating by local police and of O.J. Simpson, whose trial was a mirror image of Zimmerman’s. I’d say that in this case the prosecution left something to be desired. At times I suspect the second degree murder charge was to make it harder for any kind of conviction.

My feeling about the trial doesn’t mean that I believe justice was done. An armed man who violates police orders by getting out of his car, leading directly to the fatal shooting by that man of another, clearly deserves incarceration.

The trial is now history. But it should raise again the perennial question of who enforces our laws. As I understand it amateurs have a legitimate role in vigilance although Zimmerman clearly violated its limits. But the purview of pulling triggers belongs exclusively to professionals who have been trained for the job. Putting one’s hand on a rock, looking to the sky and saying “I am a cop” doesn’t qualify. Had this propriety been observed in Sanford the killing would never have taken place.

As Zimmerman said in the last words of his cell phone call to the police, “they always get away.” It looks as if this also applies to deluded racists like himself.

Who Goes There?

2013-07-07T12:00:00.001-07:00

Given what is known now about the George Zimmerman case I believe he is guilty of the racially inspired murder of Trayvon Martin. He was an armed aggressor stalking an unarmed person without any justifiable cause. If anyone was standing his ground it was Trayvon Martin. Zimmerman ignored police instructions to remain in his car. He was a man looking for trouble. Nevertheless if I were a juror I’d probably vote to acquit. The fact that there was a fight just before the shooting opens the door for “beyond a reasonable doubt” against the serious charge of second degree murder.

My greatest concern is the consequences, whatever the verdict, neither of which bodes well. We’ve seen inner city reaction to adjudication of Rodney King’s beating which was limited to Los Angeles and the assassination of Martin Luther King which went national. In this case I fear that reaction to acquittal would more closely resemble the latter. The consequences of a conviction, while less predictable, are potentially as ominous.

Given the inter-racial nature of the event, it may seem that we are dealing with race, which to an extent we are. But of equal importance in the longer run is the place of vigilantism in this country. It involves militias, guns and the thinking that goes with them. There’s no mystery how this issue will play out along political lines. Days after the event Fox was soliciting donations for Zimmerman’s defense in a trial more than a year away. This was not for his benefit.

There are many gated communities in this country and their occupants have a legitimate concern for their security, in many cases the reason for living there. But there was no legitimacy to Zimmerman’s behavior prior to the confrontation.

An acquittal would just postpone an inevitable showdown. My hope is for a guilty verdict for something less than second degree murder. As I see it legitimate law enforcement is the purview of only authorized people. We know that some of them are less than perfect. For this reason it makes no sense to entrust these life or death jobs to people who are even further from perfect.

Who's In Charge Here?

2013-06-26T07:50:00.001-07:00

Who are the most influential spokespeople within the Democratic Party? I can only think of one, Barack Obama. We are a relatively diverse bunch that only knows what we hear or read, so we aren’t privy to much of what happens behind closed doors. But as microphones go the president has a loud one.

It’s much easier with Republicans where three names leap out, Rush Limbaugh, Grover Norquist and Rupert Murdoch. The Fat Man is listened to by so many of the faithful for three hours a day that no Republican with serious ambitions dares criticize his most atrocious statements. Norquist demands a “no new tax” pledge from candidates that has been taken by all but a handful of current party members in both Houses of Congress. He considers elimination of deductions and subsidies as tax increases, although I doubt that he thinks of Medicaid as such. Murdoch, through Fox News, the Wall Street Journal and other sources of “information” specializes in turning fiction into fact beneficial to the right wing in general.

One thing these three men have in common is that none has served elective office nor, as far as I know ever tried. Yet here they are telling people who have been elected how to vote, indirectly in Murdoch’s case.

What this says about the nation has provided material for many books. What it says about the Republican Party leads to the inescapable conclusion that many of its members if challenged would respond with old GOP warhorse, “They all do it.”

No Virginia they don’t. To my knowledge it’s now unacceptable for lobbyists to sit next to Congressmen while in session and examine the text of proposed legislation before a vote is cast. In any case the pioneers of this practice were Republicans in the wake of the Gingrich Revolution.

The words spoken by Lincoln at Gettysburg, ”government of the people, by the people, for the people” may apply in some manner today, but differently to our two major political parties. If voter suppression efforts by Republicans say anything they are thinking of fewer people. By allowing private citizens to publicly give marching orders to their elected officials they are clearly thinking of the wrong people.

Wolf In Sheep's Clothing

2013-06-21T17:45:00.002-07:00

It warmed the cockles of my heart to hear Bill Maher take Ronald Reagan apart in the finale of his June 7 show. He opened by taking issue with Bob Dole’s saying that Ronald Reagan himself couldn’t make it today as a Republican. Hogwash! In Maher’s words “He wrote the Tea Party playbook on every issue of consequence.” “Ronald Reagan was anti-government, union busting, race baiting, anti-abortion, anti-gay, anti-intellectual, who cut rich people’s taxes in half, had an incurable case of military industrial complex and said Medicare was socialism that would destroy our freedom.”

This is Tea Party “logic” almost verbatim. But its current adherents are speaking it in anger and often fury, occasionally brandishing weapons to show they mean business. Reagan on the other hand knew that many voters saw him as the radical right winger he was, so he put his Hollywood experience to use by gently crooning lyrics that would have been X rated if sung by Barry Goldwater 16 years earlier.

Of course Reagan wasn’t elected on charm alone. He was lucky in having an unpopular incumbent as his first opponent. It’s should be mentioned that possibly the biggest of Jimmy Carter’s problems was, in my opinion, exacerbated by private citizens comprising Reagan’s campaign making foreign policy with another nation, Iran during the hostage crisis. This is commonly known as treason.

The world of politics is directly affected by and can’t be fully judged without considering the time in which events take place. Nixon is lauded by many of his fans as some sort of enlightened bi-partisan for having signed clean water legislation, an idea that would be out of the question for a Republican with presidential ambitions today. Even George Bush never suggested some of the things that this crop of Congressional Republicans has. Does that qualify him as a moderate?

As to “Ronrico,” as I used to refer to our 40^th president, I disagree with my friends on the left who criticize Barack Obama for calling him a transformative president. He was certainly that and in a big way. So was a World War 1 German corporal named Schicklgruber.

History Lesson

2013-06-05T17:29:00.001-07:00

Republicans, who have been aiming their guns at Barack Obama for the past four plus years are now aiming them at Hillary Clinton, his heir apparent. They must be finding it harder to beat up on a white woman that a man of color, judging by a recent right wing electronic missive I received through a third party.

It cites six presumably damaging quotations from her that are by themselves rather innocuous, except by Tea Party standards. These patriots might find the first, “we’re going to take things away from you for the common good” more than a little dicey, not knowing that this is precisely what happens every time a tax is raised or a benefit reduced. Whatever the context in which she spoke rather bluntly, it had to be in support of a larger point or I’m overestimating her acumen.

From this point on their case against her falls apart. “It’s time for a new beginning, for an end to government of the few, by the few and for the few……and replace it with shared responsibility.” Isn’t shared responsibility pretty much what is expected of a democracy? I’m curious as to how or if Republicans would argue otherwise publicly.

“We have to build a political consensus and that requires people to give up a little bit of their own in order to create this common ground.” This sounds mighty like JFK’s “Ask not” words spoken at his inauguration, not during his campaign.

“I think it’s time to send a clear message to what has become the most profitable sector in the economy that they are being watched.” The only people that would disagree are those who are, or are deserving of, being watched.

Whatever the effect of this piece comes from the format, a multiple choice quiz to “see how much history you know.” The choices for answers to the first question are Karl Marx, Adolph Hitler, Joseph Stalin and “None of the above.” Naturally “None of the above” is always the correct answer and always happens to be Madame Clinton. If she says anything that Joseph Stalin or Karl Marx might have said, that makes them all fellow travelers. How about “it’s a nice day”

The others with whom she must keep company on this “history” quiz are (2) Lenin, Mussolini and Idi Amin, (3) Nikita “Khrushev,” (if the writer won’t look up the correct spelling why should I?) Joseph Goebbels and Boris Yeltzen, (4) Mao Tse Dung, Hugo Chavez and Kim Jong Il, (5) Karl Marx, (what again?) Lenin and Molotov and (6) Pinochet, Milosevic and Saddam Hussein. I’m terribly disappointed that the writer omitted two of my favorites in this hall of fame, George Steinbrenner and Donald Trump.

State of the States…or a Word to the Wise

2013-05-31T20:36:00.001-07:00

I can’t remember an election, general or mid-term, that someone didn’t say would be the most important in our history and I’m certain next year’s will be the same.

But there is a serious difference this time in the dramatically increased importance of state elections. Not all of them of course! What happens in Massachusetts and Texas is predictable. But control of governorships and state legislatures in six states, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Virginia and Florida could affect America for years to come, and not for the better.

It’s common knowledge that Republican governors in these states, with sympathetic legislatures, were considering reapportioning the state’s votes in the Electoral College by Congressional Districts rather than popular vote. This is perfectly legal and is he law in Maine and Nebraska. But had it been the process last year Mitt Romney would be president today.

One of these governors, Michigan’s Rick Snyder, publicly flirted with the idea before speaking against it. Of course he finally publicly rejected it. Why tell the world what you’re planning nearly two years before an election in which the seats of state legislators whose votes are needed will be at risk? There’s little public support for a state electoral college to add to the already unpopular federal version.

I think and hope Republicans screwed up by mentioning the subject so early. Governors in three of these six states were more circumspect during their election campaigns, saying nothing about their drastic plans for labor. This should not be forgotten!

This ugly possibility is a direct consequence of the Tea Party inspired Republican landslide in 2010. Being a census year the Congressional maps of the states became etched in stone for ten years. As I see it the repeal of the Bush tax cuts should have been put to the Senate then, not two years later. The decision was made by party leaders in that body. But I strongly suspect the president was influential, preferring to postpone the issue until his reelection year.

Granted my opinion is debatable. A presidential election trumps all others and Democrats might have lost both if they’d done as I’d hoped. But having been warned now there’s no excuse now for them not to make this a major issue in next year’s state elections. A word to the wise should be sufficient.

Exclusive

2013-05-27T11:33:00.001-07:00

Among the “scandals” plaguing the Obama administration the one that interests me at the moment concerns the scrutiny given applications from right wing “Social Service” organizations for tax exempt status. A logical place to start is with the rules, or law if you prefer, as written by Congress in 1954. It states that for an organization to be eligible for tax exemption it must be “not organized for profit but operated exclusively(italics mine) for promotion of Social Welfare.” This rule is still on the books. In 1959 the IRS, on no authority other than its own, changed the wording of the practice, not the law, from “exclusively” to “primarily.”

A change from zero tolerance to a theoretical 49% makes it harder for the IRS inspectors to monitor this requirement which involves more than a random selection of audits. Some groups are statistically more likely to cheat than others. Outfits with letterheads including the words “Tea Party” and Patriot” are suspect, particularly when they debut in an election year. These are mostly small operations. Serious righties like Karl Rove use non-committal letterheads like “Crossroads.” Words like “minority rights” or “choice” would also draw red flags. But either there are fewer of them, or lefties are more subtle.

This unique IRS interpretation has been with us for more than half a century and wasn’t as much of a problem until Citizens United. Now corporations as “people” also qualify for this tax exemption, so the agency’s work load has increased considerably while Congress has cut its budget.

Whoever is to blame for what has happened, the solution is obvious. Simply enforce the law as it stands. No legislation is needed and no potential filibuster stands in the way. Many Americans, possibly a majority, oppose public financing of political campaigns. Something on the order of “what, my tax money being spent to pay for these crooks’ elections” is common parlance. Yet this is precisely what is happening with as much as 49% of many “charitable” donations and more in some cases. These organizations cannot be primarily and legallylegitimate unless they are runexclusively for social service.

Shazam

2013-05-14T06:39:00.001-07:00

Michelle Bachman was being pursued by a gaggle of reporters asking about the most recent misadventure in her struggle with logic. Most politicians in these situations are silent. But Ms. Bachman shouted “Benghazi” several times. Apparently like many other Republicans, she felt that the mere mention of this city has something of a Pearl Harbor, Maine or Alamo feel to it. Then there is “shazam” for captain Marvel readers.

Some full throated Republican Congressman was all over TV news recently claiming that this event was the worst thing that has happened to this country since9/11. Even If one overlooks the competition for this honor from intervening events, like say the Iraq war, isn’t it a bit hyperbolic to equate the death of four Americans doing government service in a country engaged in a civil war with that of nearly three thousand people at their jobs in downtown Manhattan? As I recall there was some property damage too.

It’s no secret that the target is Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State at the time and now a likely presidential candidate in 2016. Benghazi wasn’t a big issue before the last election. Was her predecessor, Condoleeza Rice better informed about security at our far flung diplomatic posts? Apparently not since the occurrence of these incidents was more frequent while she was serving under Bush. Her qualifications for State were evidently enhanced by having been National Security Adviser on 9/11, for which she and her boss accepted no responsibility as Hillary has for Benghazi.

We have a lot of people around the world representing our interests, not all of which coincide with the interests of a good part of the native populations. Our people know that there is additional risk in many of these jobs. Were our ambassador not among them, the murder of four diplomatic workers in the Middle East would normally have been stuff for a slow news day.

However I must confess feeling that information released by the Obama administration was something less than forthcoming. Granted, with a presidential election less than two months away, any incumbent administration would do its best to divert an investigation into something potentially damaging. I’m embarrassed at having to resort to “they all do it,” a Republican battle cry that has served the party well in all its scandals since Watergate. What makes this case different is a lack of proportion, for example the numbers 4 and 3000.

That Toddlin' Town

2013-04-28T15:08:00.001-07:00

It’s been two years since I took a shot at the business of privatizing functions and facilities that could be subject to public, or government purview. At that time I mentioned that metered parking in Chicago, run by a corporation from an Arab Emirate State, was $4.00 an hour. Today it’s $6.50. My conclusion, then as now, is that while gouging the public should be frowned on, it’s better done by the city. There’s always an outside chance that some of the swag will find its way into municipal coffers.

Of course Chicago’s metered parking is a drop in the bucket of privatization. Daddy Warbucks types have been trying for decades to privatize anything they can get their hands on. The list is long. Some, like electricity, have been theirs for quite awhile. Others like education are still a gleam in the eye.

One of the most egregious cases is private control of prisons which is still in a state of flux. 31 States and the District of Columbia now have 154 privately run prisons. It shouldn’t take Sherlock Holmes insight to see what’s wrong with this picture. One of our fastest growing industries, like the others, benefits from high volume. Rumor has it that Judges have been and can be bought. Got it?

The United States has the world’s highest incarceration rate, five times that of the United Kingdom. How can “the greatest nation in the world” have by far the largest percentage of miscreants? Are we a nation with more than our share of bad people? Or is our judicial system bent on punishing more of its citizens? I’d put my money on the latter.

A major share of our prison population consists of people arrested for marijuana possession. The absurdity of this “crime” was comically evident in the description of the younger Boston bomber as being one of the “regular guys” in school because he smoked grass with them. The legal status quo is obviously financed by money from corporate run prisons. A disproportionally large part of those incarcerated are younger, lower income people from ethnic minorities who will face life with felonies and jail time on their resumes, the direct result of judicial decisions that happen to coincide with the financial interests of privately owned corporations. The obvious result is perpetuation of an underclass which may be precisely what these people want.