QUOTE OF THE MONTH: “These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.”
Thomas Paine
The American Crisis, no. I
December 23, 1776
SENSE AND NONSENSE—‘SUNSHINE PATRIOTS’ AND SMOKESCREENS
From the editor: Characters, mostly men, are spewing such hate over the publicly owned airwaves that the country finds itself at a crossroad approaching the import of Thomas Paine’s observation in 1776. The soul of our country is at stake, and the mid-term election of 2010 will separate the “sunshine patriots” from those who deserve “the love and thanks of man and woman.”
The characters range from a bigot sporting an American flag-adorned hardhat to Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell fielding a softball question from “Meet the Press” host David Gregory. When asked by Gregory if he thinks President Obama is a Muslim, McConnell responded by saying, “The President says he is a Christian. I take him at his word.” Both the hardhat demagogue and McConnell represent hate, fear, and religious intolerance. They are joined by Billy Graham’s son Franklin Graham, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and anyone participating in protest against a Muslim community center and mosque to be built two blocks from “ground zero” in New York City.
Democratic leaders such as Harry Reid and Howard Dean have supported such bigotry by suggesting the Muslim center should find another location. On this issue, Reid and Dean have joined the “sunshine patriots.” Instead, they should take the opportunity to support the religious freedom guaranteed by the Constitution. New York Mayor Bloomberg now “carries the water” for religious freedom.
Unfortunately, one real winner in this manufactured “crisis” is the broadcast media, both television and radio, who are paid to create controversy. Muslim Americans were among the “first responders” to the bombing of the World Trade Center and were among the 3,000 Americans who died in that tragedy.
Corporate/libertarian America also loves the ground zero issue. It is a smokescreen that takes the country’s focus away from their relentless power grab. The corporate Republican Party knows that, in spite of their bigotry, greed, and demagogic behavior, they have a very good chance of capturing the House of Representatives in November and gaining seats in the Senate. How can that be?
The answer to that question is always the same. If the middle class is strong, the so-called independent voters swing toward the Democrats. In tough economic times, independent voters want change hoping beyond hope that new faces can bring better times. The exception was a stolen Presidential election in 2000, which Bush won by 537 votes while Gore received more than a plurality of one million popular votes. And a recount of votes was short-circuited by the U.S. Supreme Court.
The irony of the 2010 mid-term election is it potentially represents change but such change will strengthen the oligarchy that continues to have a strangle hold on the lives of hard-working middle class Americans.
The 2010 election is not about an Islamic center to be built two blocks from ground zero. It is about the enormous gap between a very rich corporate structure bolstered by the recent Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (Case No. 08-205) and a middle class struggling to survive on a day-to-day basis.
Between now and November 2, 2010, the Obama Administration needs desperately to stay “on message.” The message is “JOBS.” And then paint the picture of what has happened to jobs under Republican rule and what the turn around looks like in the first two years of Obama. The Democratic Party needs to speak with one voice about “TURN AROUND.” It has taken the Republican/Libertarian/Corporate power brokers 30 years to dismantle the middle class. It will take at least eight years to rebuild it.
Maynard Chapman, Editor
The Compass
HARD-CORE POLITICAL PORNOGRAPHY
From the editor: While conservatives scream about the deficit, Senate Republicans led by Mitch McConnell are blocking all Democratic efforts to put middle and lower class citizens of this country back to work. The claim that Republicans are pro business does not pass the smell test—or more accurately, it does not pass the greed test. The House of Representatives passed H.R. 5297 on June 17, 2010. The bill is titled the “Small Business Jobs and Credit Act of 2010.” Its short title is “Small Business Lending Fund Act of 2010.”
The media should be screaming about what is going on in the United States Senate to block passage of this legislation. And the White House should be sending out an army of messengers every day to talk about what is happening in the Senate. It is obscene.
New York Times reporter David Herszenhorn documented the Republican shenanigans in a July 29, 2010, article headlined “Republicans Block Bill to Aid Small Business.” The headline should have been in big, bold capital letters.
Herszenhorn writes, “The measure, championed by Senator Mary L. Landrieu, Democrat of Louisiana, had the backing of some of the Republican Party’s most reliable business allies, including the United States Chamber of Commerce and the National Federation of Independent Business. Several Republican lawmakers also helped write it.” (Emphasis added.)
“But Republican leaders filibustered after fighting for days with Democrats over the number of amendments they would be able to offer. A last-ditch offer by Democrats to allow three was refused by the Republican leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.” (Emphasis added.)
McConnell wanted to allow amendments that would have added $1.3 trillion to the deficit between 2012 and 2021 by repealing the estate tax. He also wanted the Bush tax cuts to remain permanent. In addition, loan guarantees for new nuclear power plants are on the Republican wish list. In essence, McConnell is saying, “If you don’t allow my amendments, I will take my ball and go home.” And irony of ironies, McConnell’s minions such as Senator George LeMieux (R. Florida) then arrogantly claim that it is the Democrats who are creating a partisan fight.
In the past several weeks, President Obama has criticized the Republican blockade on this aid to small businesses in comments made from the White House rose garden. Obama needs to take the criticism out of the rose garden and out of the oval office to the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and give his own version of the “I Have a Dream,” speech.
By demanding that Democrats adopt “poison pill” amendments to what, otherwise, is legislation that would create jobs and create a $30 billion lending program to be administered through local neighborhood banks, Republicans create the illusion that the Obama administration is incapable of creating jobs.
The Republican political strategy is brilliant and supremely destructive. It focuses voter anger on the Obama presidency, while Republicans silently remain the cause of the very economic and fiscal crisis that is creating the anger. They claim to be concerned about the federal deficit while promoting policies that doubled the national debt under Bush and will exponentially add to the debt should they regain power.
This country needs an army of voters shouting “H.R. 5297 Or Bust,” We desperately need a filibuster proof Senate consisting of 60 Senators who will vote as a block to create jobs. Currently, Democrats are literally one vote shy of making that possible.
KOCH BROTHERS PAVE THE WAY TOWARD PLUTOCRACY
From the editor: A veil of secrecy is slowly, but surely, being lifted around the propaganda campaigns being relentlessly waged by billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch. Author Jane Mayer writes a revealing article for The New Yorker magazine in the August 30, 2010, issue. The subhead in Mayer’s article reads, “The billionaire brothers who are waging war against Obama.”
Jim Hightower’s newsletter The Hightower Lowdown also explored the far reaching tentacles of the Koch propaganda machine in the February, 2010, edition of The Lowdown. The Hightower article explores how “two multibillionaire brothers are remaking America for their own benefit.”
The Koch brothers inherited their vast wealth when their father Fred died in 1967. Koch (pronounced “Coke,” as in cocaine) Industries operate oil refineries in Alaska, Texas, and Minnesota, and control some four thousand miles of pipeline. The Kochs also own Brawny paper towels, Dixie cups, Georgia-Pacific lumber, Stainmaster carpet, and Lycra, according to Mayer.
Mayer writes, “The Kochs are longtime libertarians who believe in drastically lower personal and corporate taxes, minimal social services for the needy, and much less oversight of industry -- especially environmental regulation.”
Charles and David inherited and internalized their father Fred’s conservative politics which grew out of a hatred of the Stalin regime in Russia. Stalin brutally drove Fred Koch’s business interests out of Russia in the 1930s. Fred Koch was a founding member of the John Birch Society. Charles and David are devotees of anarchist Robert LeFevre who opened the “Freedom School” in Colorado Springs in 1956.
Hightower’s February article reminds us that the Kochs “founded and funded their own think tank: the Cato Institute.” He writes, “The institute also serves as a loyal champion of corporate ‘rights.’ Among its pet causes are the total privatization of Social Security, elimination of tobacco regulation and taxation, and shifting control of America’s water supplies into corporate hands (thus making our water just another market commodity to be bought and sold for profit).”
George Mason University Foundation, Cato Institute, and Freedom Works were the largest recipients of Koch money between 1976 and 2007. Other recipients include The Heritage Foundation, the Americans for Prosperity Foundation, the Reason Foundation and the Federalist Society. All of these institutions promote the idea that political power should be concentrated in the hands of the wealthy.
Copyright © 2010, The Compass Society
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