Tim McMullen's Blog
About the Author
Random opinions on contemporary issues
It's true that there are some in this country who would argue that women and blacks should never have been given the right to vote; there are others who think that if we were a bit more like the Taliban or other theocratic, authoritarian regimes, America would be a better place; however, for those living in the twenty-first century, the fear-mongering, distortion, and out right lies used by the religious and radical right to defeat marriage equality are an embarrassment to this nation.
Our penchant for hypocrisy in championing freedoms for the majority while oppressing those freedoms for the minority, as witnessed in Maine last night, are a travesty of justice and a victory for ignorance, prejudice, and superstition. Eventually, as with slavery, post-slavery racist laws, sexist laws, or anti-miscegenation laws, the unjust tyranny of the majority that continues to justify discrimination against same-sex marriage will be recognized as the offensive, unreasonable, ignoble injustice that it truly is.
I predict that this new era of true freedom and justice for our LGBT brothers and sisters will arrive surprisingly soon, but clearly not soon enough. Those of us who know that such discrimination is wrong must raise our voices against it. We must demand true morality and break the stranglehold of the false morality that is used to perpetuate injustice. It is important to remember that Christianity and the Bible were used to justify every one of the egregiously immoral laws listed above, and that each of those laws originally reflected the majority view.
Tell your friends, your social network friends, your local representatives, your senators, and President Obama that they must lend their voice to the fight for true freedom.
The Greatest Threat to Democracy is Hypocrisy!
Seek Truth! Speak Truth!
Tim McMullen
Our penchant for hypocrisy in championing freedoms for the majority while oppressing those freedoms for the minority, as witnessed in Maine last night, are a travesty of justice and a victory for ignorance, prejudice, and superstition. Eventually, as with slavery, post-slavery racist laws, sexist laws, or anti-miscegenation laws, the unjust tyranny of the majority that continues to justify discrimination against same-sex marriage will be recognized as the offensive, unreasonable, ignoble injustice that it truly is.
I predict that this new era of true freedom and justice for our LGBT brothers and sisters will arrive surprisingly soon, but clearly not soon enough. Those of us who know that such discrimination is wrong must raise our voices against it. We must demand true morality and break the stranglehold of the false morality that is used to perpetuate injustice. It is important to remember that Christianity and the Bible were used to justify every one of the egregiously immoral laws listed above, and that each of those laws originally reflected the majority view.
Tell your friends, your social network friends, your local representatives, your senators, and President Obama that they must lend their voice to the fight for true freedom.
The Greatest Threat to Democracy is Hypocrisy!
Seek Truth! Speak Truth!
Tim McMullen
This is the letter that I sent to my representatives concerning the Health Insurance industry. It was in support of bills that Senator Leahy and Congressman Conyers have introduced to fix a glaring error in the oversight of health insurance companies. Visit their site at:
http://ga3.org/campaign/hcr_antitrust/e3sg3nx24j3jnn8t?source=sep09_hcantitrust
The last five paragraphs are from their "stock" letter; the rest is mine.
The unconscionable profits of America's health insurance companies are crippling the economy and driving hundreds of thousands into bankruptcy.
One of our good friends has just recently been forced to sell her home, a home which had been fully paid for by her and her husband over the last thirty years. Both had worked diligently their entire adult lives. They had each retired with excellent pension plans (railroad retirement), and medical insurance. They even worked together overseeing a storage facility several days a week, just for fun.
About two years ago, he was diagnosed with cancer. He was a tough, positive fighter, and they tackled his malady head on. However, within a year, they were informed by their insurance carrier that they had "exhausted" their coverage. Our friends and their employers had been paying for this coverage their entire working lives, but within a year or so, it simply ran out. In order to continue the therapy that his doctors had prescribed, our friends had to re-mortgage their home.
Despite all their efforts, about nine months ago the husband died, and his wife, now on a fixed income, cannot repay the loan. This was not some spurious real estate or stock market speculation; this was not some outrageous, unproven medical chicanery; this was not some hopeless case in which they foolishly threw money down the drain.
Our friends had to "hock" their home, and now she has to give up that home simply to pay for the regular medical treatment which the insurance company stopped paying because they had reached the company's self-imposed (and non-negotiable) payment limit.
It is hard to imagine that this insurance practice is not patently fraudulent and, therefore, criminal, but because of the unregulated nature of the industry, it is perfectly legal. Congress bears great responsibility for such occurrences. In many ways, Congress is at much at fault for these human tragedies as are the conscienceless, morally corrupt, for-profit insurance companies.
The McCarran-Ferguson Act of 1945 exempts health insurance companies from the antitrust regulations that apply to nearly every other industry, rules that protect consumers from anti-competitive business practices like price-fixing.
Passing health care reform with an effective public option is one key way to promote competition in the health insurance marketplace, but we must also eliminate this unjustified and unnecessary antitrust exemption currently enjoyed by insurance giants.
That's why I urge you to support the Health Insurance Industry Antitrust Enforcement Act, S. 1681 and H.R. 3596.
This legislation, which has been introduced by Sen. Patrick Leahy in the Senate and Rep. John Conyers in the House, will eliminate the outdated insurance industry antitrust exemption, and force health insurance companies to compete fairly -- like virtually every other business in America.
Thank you for supporting S. 1681 and H.R. 3596.
http://ga3.org/campaign/hcr_antitrust/e3sg3nx24j3jnn8t?source=sep09_hcantitrust
The last five paragraphs are from their "stock" letter; the rest is mine.
The unconscionable profits of America's health insurance companies are crippling the economy and driving hundreds of thousands into bankruptcy.
One of our good friends has just recently been forced to sell her home, a home which had been fully paid for by her and her husband over the last thirty years. Both had worked diligently their entire adult lives. They had each retired with excellent pension plans (railroad retirement), and medical insurance. They even worked together overseeing a storage facility several days a week, just for fun.
About two years ago, he was diagnosed with cancer. He was a tough, positive fighter, and they tackled his malady head on. However, within a year, they were informed by their insurance carrier that they had "exhausted" their coverage. Our friends and their employers had been paying for this coverage their entire working lives, but within a year or so, it simply ran out. In order to continue the therapy that his doctors had prescribed, our friends had to re-mortgage their home.
Despite all their efforts, about nine months ago the husband died, and his wife, now on a fixed income, cannot repay the loan. This was not some spurious real estate or stock market speculation; this was not some outrageous, unproven medical chicanery; this was not some hopeless case in which they foolishly threw money down the drain.
Our friends had to "hock" their home, and now she has to give up that home simply to pay for the regular medical treatment which the insurance company stopped paying because they had reached the company's self-imposed (and non-negotiable) payment limit.
It is hard to imagine that this insurance practice is not patently fraudulent and, therefore, criminal, but because of the unregulated nature of the industry, it is perfectly legal. Congress bears great responsibility for such occurrences. In many ways, Congress is at much at fault for these human tragedies as are the conscienceless, morally corrupt, for-profit insurance companies.
The McCarran-Ferguson Act of 1945 exempts health insurance companies from the antitrust regulations that apply to nearly every other industry, rules that protect consumers from anti-competitive business practices like price-fixing.
Passing health care reform with an effective public option is one key way to promote competition in the health insurance marketplace, but we must also eliminate this unjustified and unnecessary antitrust exemption currently enjoyed by insurance giants.
That's why I urge you to support the Health Insurance Industry Antitrust Enforcement Act, S. 1681 and H.R. 3596.
This legislation, which has been introduced by Sen. Patrick Leahy in the Senate and Rep. John Conyers in the House, will eliminate the outdated insurance industry antitrust exemption, and force health insurance companies to compete fairly -- like virtually every other business in America.
Thank you for supporting S. 1681 and H.R. 3596.
Taking back the "L" word (the other "L" word)—A Response to "Sticks and Stones and Mincing Words..."
Dear MarieDNC—
You make excellent and important points. When Rush Limbaugh first began gaining traction, my phone machine message recited the definition of the word "liberal" and made the declaration that we need millions more, not less, of them (I don't mean to diminish your sentiment; I really do think that the lowly phone message can be a powerful tool for pithy, philosophical or political statements to friends and strangers).
You also tackle the absurd subversion of language and ideology that has execrated socialism, and you have succeeded in identifying the root cause of its defamation, ignorance.
In many ways, this country was founded on socialist principles, before such an ideology was articulated as an "ism." The idea that community mattered, and that one was not alone in this world, were the underpinnings of many of the various societies that sprang up. And the idea was manifested in community activities from barn raisings and church socials to tithing and civic zeal.
This social conscience and social duty was, of course, mixed with a spirit of rugged individualism, due in part to the nature of the wilderness being faced. However, individualism and independence were not generally equated with personal aggrandizement. In fact, aristocratic wealth and abusive greed were most vilified. America's first great literary artist, Washington Irving, wrote, with vicious glee in "The Devil and Tom Walker," of the greedy and miserly; he made the point that all the wealthy businessmen, religious hypocrites, slave holders, and money lenders were the Devil's people and doing old Scratch's bidding.
It was not really until the mid-1800's with the slaveholding aristocracy, quickly followed by the late 1800's Robber Barons and the rise of "Big Business" that we began to get the mantra of "free market capitalism" being perpetrated on the public (Thoreau's brief foray into "anti-government" sentiment notwithstanding).
Even the conviction that business could do whatever it wanted and that government had no right to interfere was never seriously entertained by the populace, and worker's movements began to emerge almost immediately to counter the abuses of economic power. After relatively few years of unfettered industry, another Teddy, Teddy Roosevelt, ushered in the "square-deal" and its recognition that business must be controlled. His populism was replaced with boosterism and Coolidge's "The business of America is business," followed very quickly by the great depression and our relapse into "socialism," i.e., that the government and business have "social" responsibility, with FDR.
The rabid zeal of the "new" free-marketers was fueled by Ronald Reagan's myopic anti-communism, and therefore, his natural affinity for Milton Friedman's despicable philosophy which claimed that any hint that a corporation has any social responsibility is SOCIALISM. The deregulation wave started under Reagan and perpetuated by both the Democrats and the Republicans has clearly lead us to our current series of economic debacles.
We must reintroduce the principle of "principles" in our public discourse and in our solutions to public problems. The socialism of "social good" must be resurrected. The frustration that offered Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama as alternatives to "business as usual" and the "hope" that propelled Obama into the presidency need to be empowered to take back our language from the double-speak of right-wing think tanks and "death (panel) squads" and demand that our politicians care more for the public, for their true constituents, than for the conscienceless, corporate criminals bankrolling their next run (too harsh? Nope, too true!)
One last point, as much as I enjoyed your posting, I do think one point of clarification needs to be made. When you put down that plastic card, and the pharmacist hands you your prescription, it wasn't free! I know that you know this, but I think in these times, it's important to not allow our thinking to be assailable, even on nit-picking grounds. A social solution is not "free," but a system that recognizes health care, for example, as a right rather than a privilege, is eminently more equitable and, ultimately, more efficient, than the "for-profit," market-driven, "our client is the enemy of our profit" system that we now have in America.
To honor both Teddy's, two of the greatest statesmen America has ever known and two men who exemplified the meaning of the word LIBERAL, we must ever increase our efforts to accomplish justice in this country and the world.
The greatest threat to democracy is hypocrisy!
Seek Truth! Speak Truth!
Tim McMullen
You make excellent and important points. When Rush Limbaugh first began gaining traction, my phone machine message recited the definition of the word "liberal" and made the declaration that we need millions more, not less, of them (I don't mean to diminish your sentiment; I really do think that the lowly phone message can be a powerful tool for pithy, philosophical or political statements to friends and strangers).
You also tackle the absurd subversion of language and ideology that has execrated socialism, and you have succeeded in identifying the root cause of its defamation, ignorance.
In many ways, this country was founded on socialist principles, before such an ideology was articulated as an "ism." The idea that community mattered, and that one was not alone in this world, were the underpinnings of many of the various societies that sprang up. And the idea was manifested in community activities from barn raisings and church socials to tithing and civic zeal.
This social conscience and social duty was, of course, mixed with a spirit of rugged individualism, due in part to the nature of the wilderness being faced. However, individualism and independence were not generally equated with personal aggrandizement. In fact, aristocratic wealth and abusive greed were most vilified. America's first great literary artist, Washington Irving, wrote, with vicious glee in "The Devil and Tom Walker," of the greedy and miserly; he made the point that all the wealthy businessmen, religious hypocrites, slave holders, and money lenders were the Devil's people and doing old Scratch's bidding.
It was not really until the mid-1800's with the slaveholding aristocracy, quickly followed by the late 1800's Robber Barons and the rise of "Big Business" that we began to get the mantra of "free market capitalism" being perpetrated on the public (Thoreau's brief foray into "anti-government" sentiment notwithstanding).
Even the conviction that business could do whatever it wanted and that government had no right to interfere was never seriously entertained by the populace, and worker's movements began to emerge almost immediately to counter the abuses of economic power. After relatively few years of unfettered industry, another Teddy, Teddy Roosevelt, ushered in the "square-deal" and its recognition that business must be controlled. His populism was replaced with boosterism and Coolidge's "The business of America is business," followed very quickly by the great depression and our relapse into "socialism," i.e., that the government and business have "social" responsibility, with FDR.
The rabid zeal of the "new" free-marketers was fueled by Ronald Reagan's myopic anti-communism, and therefore, his natural affinity for Milton Friedman's despicable philosophy which claimed that any hint that a corporation has any social responsibility is SOCIALISM. The deregulation wave started under Reagan and perpetuated by both the Democrats and the Republicans has clearly lead us to our current series of economic debacles.
We must reintroduce the principle of "principles" in our public discourse and in our solutions to public problems. The socialism of "social good" must be resurrected. The frustration that offered Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama as alternatives to "business as usual" and the "hope" that propelled Obama into the presidency need to be empowered to take back our language from the double-speak of right-wing think tanks and "death (panel) squads" and demand that our politicians care more for the public, for their true constituents, than for the conscienceless, corporate criminals bankrolling their next run (too harsh? Nope, too true!)
One last point, as much as I enjoyed your posting, I do think one point of clarification needs to be made. When you put down that plastic card, and the pharmacist hands you your prescription, it wasn't free! I know that you know this, but I think in these times, it's important to not allow our thinking to be assailable, even on nit-picking grounds. A social solution is not "free," but a system that recognizes health care, for example, as a right rather than a privilege, is eminently more equitable and, ultimately, more efficient, than the "for-profit," market-driven, "our client is the enemy of our profit" system that we now have in America.
To honor both Teddy's, two of the greatest statesmen America has ever known and two men who exemplified the meaning of the word LIBERAL, we must ever increase our efforts to accomplish justice in this country and the world.
The greatest threat to democracy is hypocrisy!
Seek Truth! Speak Truth!
Tim McMullen
A Facebook "friend" added this brief post to his page: "am I the only one who is seriously considering spearheading a revolution to take this country back to basics? I'm specifically talking about taxation...."
To this, one of his friends, A.S., replied in a light-hearted, spoofing tone,
"if i do will I be reported for legally carrying my pistol concealed to one of these meetings?"
He followed quickly with,
"It's much more than enjoying the right to carry my piece. It's the fact that the state government of Utah understands that it's my right to do so and respects it. They understand that the government does not give any of the rights named in the constitution. They are given by the All Mighty not some fool in the state capitol, and they are like that with taxation and government spending as well. Jason Chaffetz is someone that you should look up. He is our congressmen here, and the dude is awesome. He sleeps on a cot in his office rather than using taxpayer money to get himself an apartment."
I felt compelled to respond thusly:
"Seriously? The God given right to own guns? I don't recall a single gun in the Bible-not in either testament—nor the Book of Mormon. There are plenty of references to weapons, but in nearly all they are specifically identified as "weapons of war," and quite often they are being destroyed (beaten into plowshares).
"Does your congressman give back his salary, so he cannot afford a home? Does he receive less than the other legislators? Do they 'tax more' to get better apartments? Taxes have been around since way before Jesus—'Give unto Caesar what is Caesar's.'
"We have been cutting taxes, for 30 years, while our infrastructures erode. We have created a system, through term limits and supermajorities, through corporate lobbying and deregulation, and through an anti-government propaganda campaign so that the "higher taxes" we really pay are to corporate CEO's and boards (through inflated salaries) while they use our money to buy protection from the workers and the government."
A.S.:
"You are right Mr. McMullen, God did not give me the direct right to own a gun. He has, however, given me the right to defend my home and my family. If the means to do that are a legally concealed handgun or a 12 gauge under my bed, then in a way God has indeed given me a right to own a gun. No one can defend what's mine, as in my home and family, better than me. It is also my responsibility to do so and no one else's. Not even the police, Sir.
"If you read further in the Book of Mormon you would also read that many times weapons were taken up in defense to protect their homes, family and way of life.
"If your home was broken into and your only option was to call 911 and hide, what do you think the police would find after arriving there 10 minutes after the call was made by you? Probably your dead body with the aggressor way long gone. Why not give yourself the opportunity to even the odds and not let someone else decide whether you live or not?
"About taxation, you are right again. I expect to be taxed. But why should I pay taxes into government programs that don't work. Social Security, Medicare, Welfare, the Stimulus, the Post Office, Amtrak. Can you please tell me which one of these great programs full of good intentions has worked. I am paying into the first 2 and those 2 will probably not be available for me to use because they will be broke by the time I reach the age to use them. Now you want the government to run health care. Seriously?! You would give someone with a bad track record more of your money?"
"About corporations, I agree with you to a certain extent. There are corporations that are abusive and have bad people running them. Just like in government. But just like government, these people can be voted out by their shareholders since most of these companies are public companies. If you don't like the way they do business, don't buy their product and tell others to do the same. If you do like what they do than I hope you don't have a problem with them paying their CEO's whatever they feel they have to pay him. Even if it seems absurd to you.
Sir, all I have to do is look to California and see that what you believe in does not work. Unfortunately, that is the direction that this President is taking this country full steam ahead.
Rather than putting any more of this on someone else's Facebook page, I decided to post the rest of my answer to A.S. here.
As for guns in the home, I honestly think that they serve very little purpose, but they can be very dangerous. I have lived sixty years, and I have never had my house broken into. Neither have my parents or either of my brothers. My great aunt (who was a hundred and two when she died two years ago) was burglarized three times before putting bars on her doors and windows (a sad commentary on the area—twice it was someone in the neighborhood). She lived just around the corner from where I lived for thirty years, just off of Norwalk Blvd. in the little strip of county between Whittier and Pico Rivera. She was never home when they broke in. One of her (five) husbands had been a policeman, so she had his guns, and every single time, besides her jewelry, they stole a handgun. The result? Three handguns in the hands of criminals.
Check the statistics; the chances of people breaking into your home and threatening you with violence is almost non-existent, and unless you carry your loaded gun with you around the house while cooking, while watching TV, while going to the bathroom, etc., you will not be able to use your gun if your home is ever assaulted. Most criminals are cowards; they want to sneak around and steal your stuff; they don’t want to confront you. If, in fact, it is a hit or a true home invasion, the likelihood of your being prepared to repel that onslaught is basically nil. They count on the element of surprise. So, the fantasy of “defending your wife and kids with a gun” is extremely thin. Guns, however, do kill many thousands of little kids, spouses, parents or boy/girlfriends for every crook they stop. There are much better ways to protect your family. I think both Jesus and Joseph Smith would agree.
As for your point about taxes and government programs: This litany is particularly frustrating because it shows how successful the right has been in mischaracterizing reality. Since Ronald Reagan said, “It’s not the government’s money, it’s yours,” and “government isn’t the solution, it’s the problem,” we have been bent on trying to prove these specious and meaningless non-sequiturs. During his administration, he attempted to distort the purposes of government: he and his supporters in Congress took away the rights of individuals and heaped them onto corporations; he attempted to dismantle basic protections for the environment, to destroy public education, to turn back civil rights, to undermine or destroy unions (the people's way of fighting against corporate abuse), to reduce restrictions on media ownership, to deregulate industry, and to remove all restraints on corporate mergers, while building the biggest deficit in the history of the United States up to that time. Suddenly, corporations were given boondoggle tax-write-offs and government subsidies, grotesquely lowering the tax burden on the wealthiest while putting it directly on the shoulders of the middle- and lower-income working class.
His beliefs were based on two things: rabid anti-communism and a rabid faith in the “free market” as envisioned by Milton Friedman and Arthur Laffer (author of “trickle-down" economics). Friedman actually said that anyone who believed that corporations had any moral or social duty were socialists—which, in his world-view, was tantamount to being a witch, and for which crime burning at the stake was too good. These two ideologues sold an entire generation (Bill Clinton and Barack Obama and their advisors as well) on the fantasy of the ultimate efficiency and righteousness of “the market.” Look up Friedman and read him. His attitudes are absolutely appalling, but they explain perfectly the continual failures and fallacies of his illusions as perpetrated on the American public and the world. The Savings and Loan crisis, the Exxon-Valdez, Bhopal, Three-Mile Island, media consolidation, Enron, Bernie Madoff, the banking crisis, the housing crisis, the education crisis, the healthcare crisis, or the turning of a budget surplus under Clinton into the biggest deficit in our history under Bush—these were all the direct result of lowering taxes and deregulating industries (not to mention an ill-advised, unwarranted and unnecessary war—a war that was clearly intended to promote the business interests of certain American industries). These are not isolated incidents or examples of a few rogue CEO's or corrupt politicians. These are simply the application of Friedman's claim that corporations have no moral responsibility except to make a profit for their shareholders. As a result of Bush going far beyond even what Reagan could have imagined, we now have the widest disparity in our history between the tiny 2 to 5% of the wealthiest vs. the entire working class who has seen its salaries, its real-dollar buying power, and its life savings, and even its actual jobs in free-fall, all as a direct result of the flagrant failure of the ironically named “free market.” It was never “free”; it just redistributed the protections. It took them away from the American people and gave them to the market.
Yet, despite the concerted effort of "in-the-pocket" politicians doing the dirty-work for industry by trying to dismantle social-programs and eliminate government regulation (on the grounds that they are too costly for business), many of our social programs have survived. Social Security, Medicare, the US Postal Service, the DMV, unemployment insurance, even welfare: these are not failures; they are absolutely incredible successes. It is truly astonishing that people can hold these systems up as evidence of government failure. Are Medicare and Social Security under-funded? Yes, because corporations and free-market politicians were able to exempt corporations and the wealthy from paying a fair share of their profits into the system. Is there waste and corruption in Medicare? Sure. Most of it is due to deeply under-funding the enforcement of the system because it is the private sector that perpetrates and benefits from the fraud. Nevertheless, it is nothing like the fraud, waste and life-threatening corruption in the private, for-profit sector. Who would you trust to protect the country’s interests, the American Military or the mercenaries of Blackwater Worldwide, Inc.? Safety regulation, police protection, fire protection, education: we constantly cut these services and make them do more with less. Do you really think that an unregulated free market would do a better job than the government? I find no basis in reality for this assumption. None whatsoever. It is simply an illusion—a falsehood.
Again, read Milton Friedman or his friends, Mr. “I do NOT believe in PUBLIC education” Howard Jarvis or Mr. Deregulator, Phil Gramm. Our problems are not the result of a few criminal CEO’s. They are the direct result of a carefully orchestrated snow job. We now have a thoroughly debased media system that actively prevents citizens from easily finding the truth. Do we have the greatest healthcare system in the world as the pundits and the politicians constantly claim? Absolutely not. We do have by far the most expensive, the most inefficient, and the most ruthless private health insurance system of any of the industrialized nations. To claim otherwise is to simply perpetrate and perpetuate a lie. Yet a corps of frightened and misinformed citizens can be whipped into a frenzy about “socialism” and protecting their “freedoms” while being convinced to shout down and disrupt any “free” discussion of an incredibly important national topic.
We have a private, for-profit corporate system that takes billions of our dollars in profits, then spends millions of those dollars to actively deny the care for which we have paid; we have a system that has, in fact, created “death panels.” I am not talking about the simple authorization to pay the fees for patients who seek advice on various end-of-life choices, as the proposed legislation does (a suggestion that originated with a Republican lawmaker but that was scurrilously and falsely distorted by Sarah Palin and others in their "do anything/say anything to prevent meaningful change" mode). I am talking about the real, for-profit insurance company bureaucrats who are currently and actively denying care or medication to millions who have already paid for those services. The pharmaceutical industry spent millions successfully lobbying the Bush administration and congress to prevent the government from negotiating fair prices on pharmaceuticals while the industry pocketed billions. If we look honestly at the government’s ability to tackle really important things, they have a much better record than those motivated only by profit. If we debunked the Supreme Court's patently absurd claim that "money is speech" and moved to end the stranglehold of corporations on the political process, we could restore the government's ability to do things remarkably well in a very short time. And there would still be plenty of profit left over for the market.
Thanks for reading. These are really important topics, and they will affect the lives of Americans for many generations to come. We should be trying to hash the issues out rationally and earnestly, speaking to our families, our friends, our neighbors, our co-workers, and not with the mindless name-calling, profanity, and gratuitous vitriol that passes for discussion on all of the political blogs and most of the mindless media, but with the most honest, sincere, forthright and informed dialogue of which we are capable.
The Greatest Threat to Democracy is Hypocrisy! Seek Truth! Speak Truth!
Tim McMullen
To this, one of his friends, A.S., replied in a light-hearted, spoofing tone,
"if i do will I be reported for legally carrying my pistol concealed to one of these meetings?"
He followed quickly with,
"It's much more than enjoying the right to carry my piece. It's the fact that the state government of Utah understands that it's my right to do so and respects it. They understand that the government does not give any of the rights named in the constitution. They are given by the All Mighty not some fool in the state capitol, and they are like that with taxation and government spending as well. Jason Chaffetz is someone that you should look up. He is our congressmen here, and the dude is awesome. He sleeps on a cot in his office rather than using taxpayer money to get himself an apartment."
I felt compelled to respond thusly:
"Seriously? The God given right to own guns? I don't recall a single gun in the Bible-not in either testament—nor the Book of Mormon. There are plenty of references to weapons, but in nearly all they are specifically identified as "weapons of war," and quite often they are being destroyed (beaten into plowshares).
"Does your congressman give back his salary, so he cannot afford a home? Does he receive less than the other legislators? Do they 'tax more' to get better apartments? Taxes have been around since way before Jesus—'Give unto Caesar what is Caesar's.'
"We have been cutting taxes, for 30 years, while our infrastructures erode. We have created a system, through term limits and supermajorities, through corporate lobbying and deregulation, and through an anti-government propaganda campaign so that the "higher taxes" we really pay are to corporate CEO's and boards (through inflated salaries) while they use our money to buy protection from the workers and the government."
A.S.:
"You are right Mr. McMullen, God did not give me the direct right to own a gun. He has, however, given me the right to defend my home and my family. If the means to do that are a legally concealed handgun or a 12 gauge under my bed, then in a way God has indeed given me a right to own a gun. No one can defend what's mine, as in my home and family, better than me. It is also my responsibility to do so and no one else's. Not even the police, Sir.
"If you read further in the Book of Mormon you would also read that many times weapons were taken up in defense to protect their homes, family and way of life.
"If your home was broken into and your only option was to call 911 and hide, what do you think the police would find after arriving there 10 minutes after the call was made by you? Probably your dead body with the aggressor way long gone. Why not give yourself the opportunity to even the odds and not let someone else decide whether you live or not?
"About taxation, you are right again. I expect to be taxed. But why should I pay taxes into government programs that don't work. Social Security, Medicare, Welfare, the Stimulus, the Post Office, Amtrak. Can you please tell me which one of these great programs full of good intentions has worked. I am paying into the first 2 and those 2 will probably not be available for me to use because they will be broke by the time I reach the age to use them. Now you want the government to run health care. Seriously?! You would give someone with a bad track record more of your money?"
"About corporations, I agree with you to a certain extent. There are corporations that are abusive and have bad people running them. Just like in government. But just like government, these people can be voted out by their shareholders since most of these companies are public companies. If you don't like the way they do business, don't buy their product and tell others to do the same. If you do like what they do than I hope you don't have a problem with them paying their CEO's whatever they feel they have to pay him. Even if it seems absurd to you.
Sir, all I have to do is look to California and see that what you believe in does not work. Unfortunately, that is the direction that this President is taking this country full steam ahead.
Rather than putting any more of this on someone else's Facebook page, I decided to post the rest of my answer to A.S. here.
As for guns in the home, I honestly think that they serve very little purpose, but they can be very dangerous. I have lived sixty years, and I have never had my house broken into. Neither have my parents or either of my brothers. My great aunt (who was a hundred and two when she died two years ago) was burglarized three times before putting bars on her doors and windows (a sad commentary on the area—twice it was someone in the neighborhood). She lived just around the corner from where I lived for thirty years, just off of Norwalk Blvd. in the little strip of county between Whittier and Pico Rivera. She was never home when they broke in. One of her (five) husbands had been a policeman, so she had his guns, and every single time, besides her jewelry, they stole a handgun. The result? Three handguns in the hands of criminals.
Check the statistics; the chances of people breaking into your home and threatening you with violence is almost non-existent, and unless you carry your loaded gun with you around the house while cooking, while watching TV, while going to the bathroom, etc., you will not be able to use your gun if your home is ever assaulted. Most criminals are cowards; they want to sneak around and steal your stuff; they don’t want to confront you. If, in fact, it is a hit or a true home invasion, the likelihood of your being prepared to repel that onslaught is basically nil. They count on the element of surprise. So, the fantasy of “defending your wife and kids with a gun” is extremely thin. Guns, however, do kill many thousands of little kids, spouses, parents or boy/girlfriends for every crook they stop. There are much better ways to protect your family. I think both Jesus and Joseph Smith would agree.
As for your point about taxes and government programs: This litany is particularly frustrating because it shows how successful the right has been in mischaracterizing reality. Since Ronald Reagan said, “It’s not the government’s money, it’s yours,” and “government isn’t the solution, it’s the problem,” we have been bent on trying to prove these specious and meaningless non-sequiturs. During his administration, he attempted to distort the purposes of government: he and his supporters in Congress took away the rights of individuals and heaped them onto corporations; he attempted to dismantle basic protections for the environment, to destroy public education, to turn back civil rights, to undermine or destroy unions (the people's way of fighting against corporate abuse), to reduce restrictions on media ownership, to deregulate industry, and to remove all restraints on corporate mergers, while building the biggest deficit in the history of the United States up to that time. Suddenly, corporations were given boondoggle tax-write-offs and government subsidies, grotesquely lowering the tax burden on the wealthiest while putting it directly on the shoulders of the middle- and lower-income working class.
His beliefs were based on two things: rabid anti-communism and a rabid faith in the “free market” as envisioned by Milton Friedman and Arthur Laffer (author of “trickle-down" economics). Friedman actually said that anyone who believed that corporations had any moral or social duty were socialists—which, in his world-view, was tantamount to being a witch, and for which crime burning at the stake was too good. These two ideologues sold an entire generation (Bill Clinton and Barack Obama and their advisors as well) on the fantasy of the ultimate efficiency and righteousness of “the market.” Look up Friedman and read him. His attitudes are absolutely appalling, but they explain perfectly the continual failures and fallacies of his illusions as perpetrated on the American public and the world. The Savings and Loan crisis, the Exxon-Valdez, Bhopal, Three-Mile Island, media consolidation, Enron, Bernie Madoff, the banking crisis, the housing crisis, the education crisis, the healthcare crisis, or the turning of a budget surplus under Clinton into the biggest deficit in our history under Bush—these were all the direct result of lowering taxes and deregulating industries (not to mention an ill-advised, unwarranted and unnecessary war—a war that was clearly intended to promote the business interests of certain American industries). These are not isolated incidents or examples of a few rogue CEO's or corrupt politicians. These are simply the application of Friedman's claim that corporations have no moral responsibility except to make a profit for their shareholders. As a result of Bush going far beyond even what Reagan could have imagined, we now have the widest disparity in our history between the tiny 2 to 5% of the wealthiest vs. the entire working class who has seen its salaries, its real-dollar buying power, and its life savings, and even its actual jobs in free-fall, all as a direct result of the flagrant failure of the ironically named “free market.” It was never “free”; it just redistributed the protections. It took them away from the American people and gave them to the market.
Yet, despite the concerted effort of "in-the-pocket" politicians doing the dirty-work for industry by trying to dismantle social-programs and eliminate government regulation (on the grounds that they are too costly for business), many of our social programs have survived. Social Security, Medicare, the US Postal Service, the DMV, unemployment insurance, even welfare: these are not failures; they are absolutely incredible successes. It is truly astonishing that people can hold these systems up as evidence of government failure. Are Medicare and Social Security under-funded? Yes, because corporations and free-market politicians were able to exempt corporations and the wealthy from paying a fair share of their profits into the system. Is there waste and corruption in Medicare? Sure. Most of it is due to deeply under-funding the enforcement of the system because it is the private sector that perpetrates and benefits from the fraud. Nevertheless, it is nothing like the fraud, waste and life-threatening corruption in the private, for-profit sector. Who would you trust to protect the country’s interests, the American Military or the mercenaries of Blackwater Worldwide, Inc.? Safety regulation, police protection, fire protection, education: we constantly cut these services and make them do more with less. Do you really think that an unregulated free market would do a better job than the government? I find no basis in reality for this assumption. None whatsoever. It is simply an illusion—a falsehood.
Again, read Milton Friedman or his friends, Mr. “I do NOT believe in PUBLIC education” Howard Jarvis or Mr. Deregulator, Phil Gramm. Our problems are not the result of a few criminal CEO’s. They are the direct result of a carefully orchestrated snow job. We now have a thoroughly debased media system that actively prevents citizens from easily finding the truth. Do we have the greatest healthcare system in the world as the pundits and the politicians constantly claim? Absolutely not. We do have by far the most expensive, the most inefficient, and the most ruthless private health insurance system of any of the industrialized nations. To claim otherwise is to simply perpetrate and perpetuate a lie. Yet a corps of frightened and misinformed citizens can be whipped into a frenzy about “socialism” and protecting their “freedoms” while being convinced to shout down and disrupt any “free” discussion of an incredibly important national topic.
We have a private, for-profit corporate system that takes billions of our dollars in profits, then spends millions of those dollars to actively deny the care for which we have paid; we have a system that has, in fact, created “death panels.” I am not talking about the simple authorization to pay the fees for patients who seek advice on various end-of-life choices, as the proposed legislation does (a suggestion that originated with a Republican lawmaker but that was scurrilously and falsely distorted by Sarah Palin and others in their "do anything/say anything to prevent meaningful change" mode). I am talking about the real, for-profit insurance company bureaucrats who are currently and actively denying care or medication to millions who have already paid for those services. The pharmaceutical industry spent millions successfully lobbying the Bush administration and congress to prevent the government from negotiating fair prices on pharmaceuticals while the industry pocketed billions. If we look honestly at the government’s ability to tackle really important things, they have a much better record than those motivated only by profit. If we debunked the Supreme Court's patently absurd claim that "money is speech" and moved to end the stranglehold of corporations on the political process, we could restore the government's ability to do things remarkably well in a very short time. And there would still be plenty of profit left over for the market.
Thanks for reading. These are really important topics, and they will affect the lives of Americans for many generations to come. We should be trying to hash the issues out rationally and earnestly, speaking to our families, our friends, our neighbors, our co-workers, and not with the mindless name-calling, profanity, and gratuitous vitriol that passes for discussion on all of the political blogs and most of the mindless media, but with the most honest, sincere, forthright and informed dialogue of which we are capable.
The Greatest Threat to Democracy is Hypocrisy! Seek Truth! Speak Truth!
Tim McMullen
I have been a teacher for nearly forty years, so I am not shocked to discover that “the TX State Board of Education is choosing to allow biased ‘expert’ panelists to use their children's social studies curriculum as a platform for their political agendas” (a quote from a form letter from the UFW).
In all honesty, school textbooks have generally been used to propagate what e.e. cummings called "the shrill collective myth." Inglorious stories of collective cowardice, hypocrisy and deceit have often been "swept under the rug" or barely mentioned, and women and minorities have been woefully underrepresented in the curriculums; then, the curriculums have been used as proof that these "others" don't belong in the social science or literary collections. I am sorry to report that I have heard teachers say, “If they were important, they would be in the books.” Only in the last couple of decades has this overt marginalization of the non-white or non-male figure and movement been hesitantly addressed.
Corporations (including the publishers of text books) and local and national politicians have good reason to want to remove the struggle of workers and their unions from America’s story; therefore, Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta, and the incredible battle of the UFW to wrest fundamental human rights from an unscrupulous and entrenched industry and a disinterested government bureaucracy are natural targets for minimizing, then deriding, then expunging from the historical record.
It is not merely workers’ rights that corporations wish to undermine, however; all struggles for equality and basic human rights are fundamental challenges to the ideology that “might makes right” and that greed, selfishness, and personal aggrandizement are the only legitimate pillars upon which to build a society. The “laissez faire” capitalist agenda has been at the heart of our historical myth for many generations; however, with the recent help of Milton Friedman, Arthur Laffer, Ronald Reagan, Howard Jarvis, Phil Gramm, and George W. Bush, it may have reached its most virulent and debased form yet. As a result, “outsiders” or the “unprivileged” (i.e., women, people of color, immigrants, gays and lesbians—all those whose rights have been denied or ignored) are inconvenient to “history,” which is, of course, the “story” told by the “winners.”
These “others” are very problematic to the ironically named “free market” philosophy. If blacks have rights, then slavery is unacceptable. Downplay Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. Du Bois, or Paul Robeson, and you diminish their impact on America and the grotesque truth that the United States was the last “first world” nation to abandon slavery—An abolition, I might add, which took a civil war to accomplish and which many vitriolic bloggers obviously believe never really ended.
If blacks have rights, then lynchings, Jim Crow laws and systematized, supreme court-supported subjugation of these rights were an abomination. Keep in a couple of lines of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech so that we Americans can feel good about ourselves, but erase Thurgood Marshall, a remarkable champion of civil rights and an outstanding Supreme Court Justice, and you diminish the legitimacy of that on-going struggle.
If women and children have rights, then corporations can’t run sweatshops. By all means, purge from our collective memory the stories of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Margaret Sanger, Ida B. Wells, or Betty Friedan. Ignore the contributions of these women, and suddenly “equal” opportunity, the right to vote, and the right to privacy are all assailable and revocable.
Give us a romanticized Pocahontas or Sacagawea, but not the songs of Buffy Sainte-Marie, the leadership of Wilma Mankiller, or the advocacy of Charlene Teeters; give us sanitized, subservient versions of Squanto and Sequoya, but not the white man’s betrayals of Powhatan, or Tecumseh, or Osceola, or Chief Joseph, or Crazy Horse, or Sitting Bull.
Speaking of Native Americans, their stories, like the stories of Asians in America and the stories of Asian Americans, are, for the most part, simply too embarrassing to America’s self-image to be honestly told in the annals of American history.
Clearly, as Patrick Buchanan said recently on The Rachel Maddow Show, “…[W]hite men were 100% of the people who wrote the constitution…. This has been a country basically built by white people.” So why mention that it was built on the backs of slaves or on the backs of their wage-slave or sharecropping progeny who became fodder for the corporate economic machine? Why mention that the machine was built on the backs of Native Americans who were cheated out of their lands, or who were “recruited” to build missions, or whose surrender was “purchased” with disease-ridden blankets, or who were simply decimated to make way for the “more deserving” white men? Why mention the Asians who built the railroads or worked the mines while being forbidden to own property or to earn citizenship? Why mention the Latinos who planted and harvested our food and made our clothing while having their basic human rights denied?
If humans have a real right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, as our founding document claims, then they have a right to clean air, clean water, and safe food. They have a right to gainful employment or an alternative means to provide for themselves and their families (self-sufficient food production, communal systems, bartered services—yes, other forms can be contemplated). They have a right to a safe and healthy work place. They have a right to not be unduly exploited by the privileged and the unscrupulous. Finally, they have a right to an honest education. Unfortunately, none of these things fit the current corporate agenda.
Thoreau said, “It is truly enough said that a corporation has no conscience….” Free market guru Milton Friedman went much further; he unequivocally espoused the doctrine that corporations should not have a conscience. A conscience is bad for business. The title of his September 13, 1970, article in the New York Times Magazine, “The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase Its Profits,” pretty much says it all, but let me clarify with a quote: “What does it mean to say that ‘business’ has responsibilities?” asks Friedman. “Only people can have responsibilities.” For a ruthlessly immoral and chilling account of the intellectual underpinnings of the current mess in which we find ourselves, simply read this article. It is truly horrifying.
These accusations of “socialism” that are currently being hurled at any attempt to improve social conditions in the United States come straight from Friedman and can be found in this and similar articles. He says that anyone who claims that “business” has any social responsibility is “preaching pure and unadulterated socialism.”
One wonders if the people being orchestrated to shout down reasoned dialogue about health care in town hall meetings, or if those being encouraged to spread such hate-filled, racist, sexist, profane and venomous blog comments across the internet really understand the current status quo that they are defending. I defy any rational person to read Friedman’s article and come away with the conclusion that this is the system that they wish to defend. It is indefensible, even as the absurd philosophical exercise that Friedman offers. Yet, for Friedman, his philosophy cannot be immoral because morality has no business in business, nor does the discussion of morality have any place in the discussion of business. Period.
When reading Friedman’s essay, I am reminded of the 1832 essay by Thomas R. Dew in which, in his defense of slavery, he posited the claims that slavery was endorsed by God and Christ, that the system of slavery in the south was the most moral and democratic form of government yet devised by man, and that “a merrier being does not exist on the face of the globe than the Negro slave of the United States.” Though superficially well reasoned, the underlying assumptions, like Friedman’s, reveal themselves to be either corrupt and cynical deceptions or self-induced delusions.
Nevertheless, judging from the last thirty years, it is obvious that most corporate boards, most CEO’s, and most of the politicians on both sides of the aisle who are put in and kept in office to do the bidding of corporations subscribe wholeheartedly to this now thoroughly, because concretely and empirically, discredited philosophy of the “free” market.
So, a couple of political ideologues in Texas have been appointed to try to revise history in order to protect the privileged, corporate, economic and ideological interests of the few and to perpetuate the prejudices of the many. Big whoop—that’s par for the course.
However, under no circumstances should they be allowed to succeed. It is up to the rest of us—the true grass roots—those who still cling to rational thought—those who still have hope for a modicum of decency and morality in our society—it is up to us to see that they don’t succeed in further debasing or erasing our truer history and replacing it with one that better suits their wallets or their politics!
You can go here to help the UFW's campaign against removing Thurgood Marshall and Cesar Chavez from the textbooks of Texas.
www.ufwaction.org/campaign/tx709/w8iksk3rh73mxm3i?
Go to my blog to see a video of my "Talking Herstory" which provides a little historical and hysterical perspective.
http://timmcmullenmissivesandtomes.blogspot.com
Thanks for reading, for listening, for thinking, for acting,
Tim McMullen
In all honesty, school textbooks have generally been used to propagate what e.e. cummings called "the shrill collective myth." Inglorious stories of collective cowardice, hypocrisy and deceit have often been "swept under the rug" or barely mentioned, and women and minorities have been woefully underrepresented in the curriculums; then, the curriculums have been used as proof that these "others" don't belong in the social science or literary collections. I am sorry to report that I have heard teachers say, “If they were important, they would be in the books.” Only in the last couple of decades has this overt marginalization of the non-white or non-male figure and movement been hesitantly addressed.
Corporations (including the publishers of text books) and local and national politicians have good reason to want to remove the struggle of workers and their unions from America’s story; therefore, Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta, and the incredible battle of the UFW to wrest fundamental human rights from an unscrupulous and entrenched industry and a disinterested government bureaucracy are natural targets for minimizing, then deriding, then expunging from the historical record.
It is not merely workers’ rights that corporations wish to undermine, however; all struggles for equality and basic human rights are fundamental challenges to the ideology that “might makes right” and that greed, selfishness, and personal aggrandizement are the only legitimate pillars upon which to build a society. The “laissez faire” capitalist agenda has been at the heart of our historical myth for many generations; however, with the recent help of Milton Friedman, Arthur Laffer, Ronald Reagan, Howard Jarvis, Phil Gramm, and George W. Bush, it may have reached its most virulent and debased form yet. As a result, “outsiders” or the “unprivileged” (i.e., women, people of color, immigrants, gays and lesbians—all those whose rights have been denied or ignored) are inconvenient to “history,” which is, of course, the “story” told by the “winners.”
These “others” are very problematic to the ironically named “free market” philosophy. If blacks have rights, then slavery is unacceptable. Downplay Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. Du Bois, or Paul Robeson, and you diminish their impact on America and the grotesque truth that the United States was the last “first world” nation to abandon slavery—An abolition, I might add, which took a civil war to accomplish and which many vitriolic bloggers obviously believe never really ended.
If blacks have rights, then lynchings, Jim Crow laws and systematized, supreme court-supported subjugation of these rights were an abomination. Keep in a couple of lines of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech so that we Americans can feel good about ourselves, but erase Thurgood Marshall, a remarkable champion of civil rights and an outstanding Supreme Court Justice, and you diminish the legitimacy of that on-going struggle.
If women and children have rights, then corporations can’t run sweatshops. By all means, purge from our collective memory the stories of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Margaret Sanger, Ida B. Wells, or Betty Friedan. Ignore the contributions of these women, and suddenly “equal” opportunity, the right to vote, and the right to privacy are all assailable and revocable.
Give us a romanticized Pocahontas or Sacagawea, but not the songs of Buffy Sainte-Marie, the leadership of Wilma Mankiller, or the advocacy of Charlene Teeters; give us sanitized, subservient versions of Squanto and Sequoya, but not the white man’s betrayals of Powhatan, or Tecumseh, or Osceola, or Chief Joseph, or Crazy Horse, or Sitting Bull.
Speaking of Native Americans, their stories, like the stories of Asians in America and the stories of Asian Americans, are, for the most part, simply too embarrassing to America’s self-image to be honestly told in the annals of American history.
Clearly, as Patrick Buchanan said recently on The Rachel Maddow Show, “…[W]hite men were 100% of the people who wrote the constitution…. This has been a country basically built by white people.” So why mention that it was built on the backs of slaves or on the backs of their wage-slave or sharecropping progeny who became fodder for the corporate economic machine? Why mention that the machine was built on the backs of Native Americans who were cheated out of their lands, or who were “recruited” to build missions, or whose surrender was “purchased” with disease-ridden blankets, or who were simply decimated to make way for the “more deserving” white men? Why mention the Asians who built the railroads or worked the mines while being forbidden to own property or to earn citizenship? Why mention the Latinos who planted and harvested our food and made our clothing while having their basic human rights denied?
If humans have a real right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, as our founding document claims, then they have a right to clean air, clean water, and safe food. They have a right to gainful employment or an alternative means to provide for themselves and their families (self-sufficient food production, communal systems, bartered services—yes, other forms can be contemplated). They have a right to a safe and healthy work place. They have a right to not be unduly exploited by the privileged and the unscrupulous. Finally, they have a right to an honest education. Unfortunately, none of these things fit the current corporate agenda.
Thoreau said, “It is truly enough said that a corporation has no conscience….” Free market guru Milton Friedman went much further; he unequivocally espoused the doctrine that corporations should not have a conscience. A conscience is bad for business. The title of his September 13, 1970, article in the New York Times Magazine, “The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase Its Profits,” pretty much says it all, but let me clarify with a quote: “What does it mean to say that ‘business’ has responsibilities?” asks Friedman. “Only people can have responsibilities.” For a ruthlessly immoral and chilling account of the intellectual underpinnings of the current mess in which we find ourselves, simply read this article. It is truly horrifying.
These accusations of “socialism” that are currently being hurled at any attempt to improve social conditions in the United States come straight from Friedman and can be found in this and similar articles. He says that anyone who claims that “business” has any social responsibility is “preaching pure and unadulterated socialism.”
One wonders if the people being orchestrated to shout down reasoned dialogue about health care in town hall meetings, or if those being encouraged to spread such hate-filled, racist, sexist, profane and venomous blog comments across the internet really understand the current status quo that they are defending. I defy any rational person to read Friedman’s article and come away with the conclusion that this is the system that they wish to defend. It is indefensible, even as the absurd philosophical exercise that Friedman offers. Yet, for Friedman, his philosophy cannot be immoral because morality has no business in business, nor does the discussion of morality have any place in the discussion of business. Period.
When reading Friedman’s essay, I am reminded of the 1832 essay by Thomas R. Dew in which, in his defense of slavery, he posited the claims that slavery was endorsed by God and Christ, that the system of slavery in the south was the most moral and democratic form of government yet devised by man, and that “a merrier being does not exist on the face of the globe than the Negro slave of the United States.” Though superficially well reasoned, the underlying assumptions, like Friedman’s, reveal themselves to be either corrupt and cynical deceptions or self-induced delusions.
Nevertheless, judging from the last thirty years, it is obvious that most corporate boards, most CEO’s, and most of the politicians on both sides of the aisle who are put in and kept in office to do the bidding of corporations subscribe wholeheartedly to this now thoroughly, because concretely and empirically, discredited philosophy of the “free” market.
So, a couple of political ideologues in Texas have been appointed to try to revise history in order to protect the privileged, corporate, economic and ideological interests of the few and to perpetuate the prejudices of the many. Big whoop—that’s par for the course.
However, under no circumstances should they be allowed to succeed. It is up to the rest of us—the true grass roots—those who still cling to rational thought—those who still have hope for a modicum of decency and morality in our society—it is up to us to see that they don’t succeed in further debasing or erasing our truer history and replacing it with one that better suits their wallets or their politics!
You can go here to help the UFW's campaign against removing Thurgood Marshall and Cesar Chavez from the textbooks of Texas.
www.ufwaction.org/campaign/tx709/w8iksk3rh73mxm3i?
Go to my blog to see a video of my "Talking Herstory" which provides a little historical and hysterical perspective.
http://timmcmullenmissivesandtomes.blogspot.com
Thanks for reading, for listening, for thinking, for acting,
Tim McMullen
Dear Democrat in San Francisco--
Racism is real, and it can be found in all races, but the facts in no way bear out your assumptions. Professor Gates was not accused of disturbing the peace. Police officers had come into his home erroneously; they had verified that he was rightfully there, then they "cautioned" him (which, according to your explanation, the officer then "translates for himself" to mean "calm down, lower your voice"). Are you saying that officers can come into your home, ascertain that you have done absolutely nothing wrong, and then arrest you because you are not calm enough or quiet enough to suit them.
You say that the professor was overreacting? This is simply absurd in the extreme. Again, by his own testimony, the officer made it clear that his so-called warnings were overt threats of arrest. He made them while waving his hand-cuffs and "warning" the professor. The president's use of "stupidity" was probably an ill-chosen epithet, but it was not wrong. It was a grotesque abuse of authority. Disorderly conduct because he was wrongfully accused of being in his own house and then threatened because he was upset by this flagrant error? The instant that the officer found that they had committed the error, a simple, "I'm sorry, sir," and an immediate exit would have ended the situation. I don't care how loud he was yelling (but from what I've read of the professor, I'll bet it wasn't even that loud), his arrest was an absolute miscarriage of justice and an abuse of authority, and simply dropping the case is in no way an adequate recompense for the officer's crime. Yes, crime. False arrest and false imprisonment are crimes!
I have great sympathy for police officers, and I understand your wanting to be an apologist for the officer. It is an incredibly difficult job that we ask them to do, and the burden of good judgment is incredibly hard to maintain, but to suggest that the Professor was being a racist for being angry or that the officer was "just doing his job" is an egregious misreading of the facts in this particular case, even as you have outlined them.
To suggest that this was merely the case of an overreacting black man getting his just desserts is a good indication of just how far we still have to go before race does not color our perceptions. (By the way, lest you leap to any other racial assumptions, I am a somewhat pinkish, slightly tannish person, yet despite the obvious distinction between my flesh and the crayola color, I am nevertheless categorized by others as WHITE, a rather humorous misnomer, I might add, as are all our other "racial" colors).
Tim McMullen
Racism is real, and it can be found in all races, but the facts in no way bear out your assumptions. Professor Gates was not accused of disturbing the peace. Police officers had come into his home erroneously; they had verified that he was rightfully there, then they "cautioned" him (which, according to your explanation, the officer then "translates for himself" to mean "calm down, lower your voice"). Are you saying that officers can come into your home, ascertain that you have done absolutely nothing wrong, and then arrest you because you are not calm enough or quiet enough to suit them.
You say that the professor was overreacting? This is simply absurd in the extreme. Again, by his own testimony, the officer made it clear that his so-called warnings were overt threats of arrest. He made them while waving his hand-cuffs and "warning" the professor. The president's use of "stupidity" was probably an ill-chosen epithet, but it was not wrong. It was a grotesque abuse of authority. Disorderly conduct because he was wrongfully accused of being in his own house and then threatened because he was upset by this flagrant error? The instant that the officer found that they had committed the error, a simple, "I'm sorry, sir," and an immediate exit would have ended the situation. I don't care how loud he was yelling (but from what I've read of the professor, I'll bet it wasn't even that loud), his arrest was an absolute miscarriage of justice and an abuse of authority, and simply dropping the case is in no way an adequate recompense for the officer's crime. Yes, crime. False arrest and false imprisonment are crimes!
I have great sympathy for police officers, and I understand your wanting to be an apologist for the officer. It is an incredibly difficult job that we ask them to do, and the burden of good judgment is incredibly hard to maintain, but to suggest that the Professor was being a racist for being angry or that the officer was "just doing his job" is an egregious misreading of the facts in this particular case, even as you have outlined them.
To suggest that this was merely the case of an overreacting black man getting his just desserts is a good indication of just how far we still have to go before race does not color our perceptions. (By the way, lest you leap to any other racial assumptions, I am a somewhat pinkish, slightly tannish person, yet despite the obvious distinction between my flesh and the crayola color, I am nevertheless categorized by others as WHITE, a rather humorous misnomer, I might add, as are all our other "racial" colors).
Tim McMullen
This is being reposted per a friend's request.
I understand your ambivalence. Bad law produces bad results. We have thirty years (backed up with a hundred and twenty years) of evidence that business--especially corporate America--when left to its own devices or when allowed to control the rules--will corrupt every system, oppose every reasonable reform, destroy the rights of the individual in the name of greed.
Perhaps the biggest problem that we have in this country is the fact that we create and cling to myths in spite of all the facts to the contrary. Reagan had no problem telling us that we are the "greatest country in the world" but "our government is the real enemy." He also transmitted the absurd anti-tax mantra and intellectual straw man by claiming "it's your money, not the government's." We are constantly told that we are grossly overtaxed and that our money is wasted, that public employees are over-paid leeches, ad nauseum. These falsehoods have had an incredibly destructive impact on the American psyche.
We constantly hear from the opponents of reasonable regulation, "We have the greatest health system in the world!" This statement is flagrantly false unless by "great" they mean that a tiny segment of our society, chiefly insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies, makes an incredible amount of money by gouging, cheating, exploiting the common man and their employers--if, by "greatest" they mean sacrificing the medical health and economic welfare of the vast majority of the American people while providing exemplary health care for a tiny minority of the most wealthy in this country, then perhaps they are right. But if the words are actually meant to mean what they say, then we need to challenge such falsehoods every time someone recites one.
The latest attacks on a "public health system" (can you say "socialist/communist"?) from the Republican machine is the "bureaucracy" bogeyman. House Republican Leader John Boehner's proof that government bureaucracy is a failure are the examples of the DMV and the US Postal Service. Is he kidding? Compare the incredible efficency of the post office or even the DMV, considering how many customers they have to serve on a daily basis, and compare them to Enron, Goldman-Sachs, Arthur Anderson, General Motors, AIG, ad infinitum. We move from one corrupt corporate debacle to another while we are told that this is the greatest system in the world. The "free market" fantasies and fallacies of Milton Friedman and Phil Gramm have been an absolute disaster, and they are patently and demonstrably wrong, except that their philosophies inevitably benefit a handful of market predators while unabashedly, sometimes proudly, devastating the masses.
Unfortunately, most of the supporters of "change" and most of Obama's economic advisors--in fact, most Democrats and Republicans, have been sold the Friedman/Gramm failed fantasies of the "free market." Even if they are not completely culled by these economic errors in philosophy, they subscribe to the politician's primary platitude, "Don't rock the boat!" In this case, it is time for the falsifed and failed "free market" boat to be capsized and sunk, and replaced with "justice, including economic justice, for all." Health care, as a basic human right, needs to be built into the foundation of this new and necessary structural change.
If given the choice between a system designed by today's General Motors, AIG, or ENRON, and the designers of government non-profit systems like the postal service, the DMV, and our police or fire protection, as Friedman said (though advocating the incorrect choice), "It's a no-brainer." Despite the likelihood that we would encounter some significant problems (many of which would be caused by those corporate and congressional opponents who would work to undermine the system), I wouldn't hesitate to argue that the interests of the vast majority of the American people would be much better served by a non-profit, public health service than they would by our present for-profit, private insurance, corporate-corrupted system.
The Greatest Threat to Democracy is Hypocrisy! Seek Truth! Speak Truth!
Tim McMullen
I understand your ambivalence. Bad law produces bad results. We have thirty years (backed up with a hundred and twenty years) of evidence that business--especially corporate America--when left to its own devices or when allowed to control the rules--will corrupt every system, oppose every reasonable reform, destroy the rights of the individual in the name of greed.
Perhaps the biggest problem that we have in this country is the fact that we create and cling to myths in spite of all the facts to the contrary. Reagan had no problem telling us that we are the "greatest country in the world" but "our government is the real enemy." He also transmitted the absurd anti-tax mantra and intellectual straw man by claiming "it's your money, not the government's." We are constantly told that we are grossly overtaxed and that our money is wasted, that public employees are over-paid leeches, ad nauseum. These falsehoods have had an incredibly destructive impact on the American psyche.
We constantly hear from the opponents of reasonable regulation, "We have the greatest health system in the world!" This statement is flagrantly false unless by "great" they mean that a tiny segment of our society, chiefly insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies, makes an incredible amount of money by gouging, cheating, exploiting the common man and their employers--if, by "greatest" they mean sacrificing the medical health and economic welfare of the vast majority of the American people while providing exemplary health care for a tiny minority of the most wealthy in this country, then perhaps they are right. But if the words are actually meant to mean what they say, then we need to challenge such falsehoods every time someone recites one.
The latest attacks on a "public health system" (can you say "socialist/communist"?) from the Republican machine is the "bureaucracy" bogeyman. House Republican Leader John Boehner's proof that government bureaucracy is a failure are the examples of the DMV and the US Postal Service. Is he kidding? Compare the incredible efficency of the post office or even the DMV, considering how many customers they have to serve on a daily basis, and compare them to Enron, Goldman-Sachs, Arthur Anderson, General Motors, AIG, ad infinitum. We move from one corrupt corporate debacle to another while we are told that this is the greatest system in the world. The "free market" fantasies and fallacies of Milton Friedman and Phil Gramm have been an absolute disaster, and they are patently and demonstrably wrong, except that their philosophies inevitably benefit a handful of market predators while unabashedly, sometimes proudly, devastating the masses.
Unfortunately, most of the supporters of "change" and most of Obama's economic advisors--in fact, most Democrats and Republicans, have been sold the Friedman/Gramm failed fantasies of the "free market." Even if they are not completely culled by these economic errors in philosophy, they subscribe to the politician's primary platitude, "Don't rock the boat!" In this case, it is time for the falsifed and failed "free market" boat to be capsized and sunk, and replaced with "justice, including economic justice, for all." Health care, as a basic human right, needs to be built into the foundation of this new and necessary structural change.
If given the choice between a system designed by today's General Motors, AIG, or ENRON, and the designers of government non-profit systems like the postal service, the DMV, and our police or fire protection, as Friedman said (though advocating the incorrect choice), "It's a no-brainer." Despite the likelihood that we would encounter some significant problems (many of which would be caused by those corporate and congressional opponents who would work to undermine the system), I wouldn't hesitate to argue that the interests of the vast majority of the American people would be much better served by a non-profit, public health service than they would by our present for-profit, private insurance, corporate-corrupted system.
The Greatest Threat to Democracy is Hypocrisy! Seek Truth! Speak Truth!
Tim McMullen
[This was a response that I wrote to a comment on an earlier blog, but I thought that it merited it's own post.]
I understand your ambivalence. Bad law produces bad results. We have thirty years (backed up with a hundred and twenty years) of evidence that business--especially corporate America--when left to its own devices or when allowed to control the rules--will corrupt every system, oppose every reasonable reform, destroy the rights of the individual in the name of greed.
Perhaps the biggest problem that we have in this country is the fact that we create and cling to myths in spite of all the facts to the contrary. Reagan had no problem telling us that we are the "greatest country in the world" but "our government is the real enemy." He also transmitted the absurd anti-tax mantra and intellectual straw man by claiming "it's your money, not the government's." We are constantly told that we are grossly overtaxed and that our money is wasted, that public employees are over-paid leeches, ad nauseum. These falsehoods have had an incredibly destructive impact on the American psyche.
We constantly hear from the opponents of reasonable regulation, "We have the greatest health system in the world!" This statement is flagrantly false unless by "great" they mean that a tiny segment of our society, chiefly insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies, makes an incredible amount of money by gouging, cheating, exploiting the common man and their employers--if, by "greatest" they mean sacrificing the medical health and economic welfare of the vast majority of the American people while providing exemplary health care for a tiny minority of the most wealthy in this country, then perhaps they are right. But if the words are actually meant to mean what they say, then we need to challenge such falsehoods every time someone recites one.
The latest attacks on a "public health system" (can you say "socialist/communist"?) from the Republican machine is the "bureaucracy" bogeyman. House Republican Leader John Boehner's proof that government bureaucracy is a failure are the examples of the DMV and the US Postal Service. Is he kidding? Compare the incredible efficency of the post office or even the DMV, considering how many customers they have to serve on a daily basis, and compare them to Enron, Goldman-Sachs, Arthur Anderson, General Motors, AIG, ad infinitum. We move from one corrupt corporate debacle to another while we are told that this is the greatest system in the world. The "free market" fantasies and fallacies of Milton Friedman and Phil Gramm have been an absolute disaster, and they are patently and demonstrably wrong, except that their philosophies inevitably benefit a handful of market predators while unabashedly, sometimes proudly, devastating the masses.
Unfortunately, most of the supporters of "change" and most of Obama's economic advisors--in fact, most Democrats and Republicans, have been sold the Friedman/Gramm failed fantasies of the "free market." Even if they are not completely culled by these economic errors in philosophy, they subscribe to the politician's primary platitude, "Don't rock the boat!" In this case, it is time for the falsifed and failed "free market" boat to be capsized and sunk, and replaced with "justice, including economic justice, for all." Health care, as a basic human right, needs to be built into the foundation of this new and necessary structural change.
If given the choice between a system designed by today's General Motors, AIG, or ENRON, and the designers of government non-profit systems like the postal service, the DMV, and our police or fire protection, as Friedman said (though advocating the incorrect choice), "It's a no-brainer." Despite the likelihood that we would encounter some significant problems (many of which would be caused by those corporate and congressional opponents who would work to undermine the system), I wouldn't hesitate to argue that the interests of the vast majority of the American people would be much better served by a non-profit, public health service than they would by our present for-profit, private insurance, corporate-corrupted system.
The Greatest Threat to Democracy is Hypocrisy! Seek Truth! Speak Truth!
Tim McMullen
I understand your ambivalence. Bad law produces bad results. We have thirty years (backed up with a hundred and twenty years) of evidence that business--especially corporate America--when left to its own devices or when allowed to control the rules--will corrupt every system, oppose every reasonable reform, destroy the rights of the individual in the name of greed.
Perhaps the biggest problem that we have in this country is the fact that we create and cling to myths in spite of all the facts to the contrary. Reagan had no problem telling us that we are the "greatest country in the world" but "our government is the real enemy." He also transmitted the absurd anti-tax mantra and intellectual straw man by claiming "it's your money, not the government's." We are constantly told that we are grossly overtaxed and that our money is wasted, that public employees are over-paid leeches, ad nauseum. These falsehoods have had an incredibly destructive impact on the American psyche.
We constantly hear from the opponents of reasonable regulation, "We have the greatest health system in the world!" This statement is flagrantly false unless by "great" they mean that a tiny segment of our society, chiefly insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies, makes an incredible amount of money by gouging, cheating, exploiting the common man and their employers--if, by "greatest" they mean sacrificing the medical health and economic welfare of the vast majority of the American people while providing exemplary health care for a tiny minority of the most wealthy in this country, then perhaps they are right. But if the words are actually meant to mean what they say, then we need to challenge such falsehoods every time someone recites one.
The latest attacks on a "public health system" (can you say "socialist/communist"?) from the Republican machine is the "bureaucracy" bogeyman. House Republican Leader John Boehner's proof that government bureaucracy is a failure are the examples of the DMV and the US Postal Service. Is he kidding? Compare the incredible efficency of the post office or even the DMV, considering how many customers they have to serve on a daily basis, and compare them to Enron, Goldman-Sachs, Arthur Anderson, General Motors, AIG, ad infinitum. We move from one corrupt corporate debacle to another while we are told that this is the greatest system in the world. The "free market" fantasies and fallacies of Milton Friedman and Phil Gramm have been an absolute disaster, and they are patently and demonstrably wrong, except that their philosophies inevitably benefit a handful of market predators while unabashedly, sometimes proudly, devastating the masses.
Unfortunately, most of the supporters of "change" and most of Obama's economic advisors--in fact, most Democrats and Republicans, have been sold the Friedman/Gramm failed fantasies of the "free market." Even if they are not completely culled by these economic errors in philosophy, they subscribe to the politician's primary platitude, "Don't rock the boat!" In this case, it is time for the falsifed and failed "free market" boat to be capsized and sunk, and replaced with "justice, including economic justice, for all." Health care, as a basic human right, needs to be built into the foundation of this new and necessary structural change.
If given the choice between a system designed by today's General Motors, AIG, or ENRON, and the designers of government non-profit systems like the postal service, the DMV, and our police or fire protection, as Friedman said (though advocating the incorrect choice), "It's a no-brainer." Despite the likelihood that we would encounter some significant problems (many of which would be caused by those corporate and congressional opponents who would work to undermine the system), I wouldn't hesitate to argue that the interests of the vast majority of the American people would be much better served by a non-profit, public health service than they would by our present for-profit, private insurance, corporate-corrupted system.
The Greatest Threat to Democracy is Hypocrisy! Seek Truth! Speak Truth!
Tim McMullen
This is a short version posted on Facebook to encourage friends and family to speak out. The link at the bottom is for the petition being circulated by Senators Durbin, Leahy, and Schumer.
We need to break the stranglehold of insurance, pharmaceutical, banking, and other corrupt corporate interests and the predatory politicians who do their bidding. No pun intended, they are bleeding us dry.
I support the public health care model and positively deny the distortions, fear tactics, and downright lies that have crippled good government and government oversight in favor of corporate plunder and greed.
The "free market" hoaxters and hucksters need to be run out of town and replaced with principled people who seek the truth and speak the truth to the American people and to the world. Let your voice be heard by your friends, neighbors, and your local and national politicians. We need real, fundamental, systemic reform, and we need it NOW!
The Greatest Threat to Democracy is Hypocrisy!
Tim McMullen
Citizens Supporting a Public Option
Source: www.citizensforapublicoption.com
Health care reform
We need to break the stranglehold of insurance, pharmaceutical, banking, and other corrupt corporate interests and the predatory politicians who do their bidding. No pun intended, they are bleeding us dry.
I support the public health care model and positively deny the distortions, fear tactics, and downright lies that have crippled good government and government oversight in favor of corporate plunder and greed.
The "free market" hoaxters and hucksters need to be run out of town and replaced with principled people who seek the truth and speak the truth to the American people and to the world. Let your voice be heard by your friends, neighbors, and your local and national politicians. We need real, fundamental, systemic reform, and we need it NOW!
The Greatest Threat to Democracy is Hypocrisy!
Tim McMullen
Citizens Supporting a Public Option
Source: www.citizensforapublicoption.com
Health care reform
In honor of her latest announcement, here is a song that I wrote for the end of the election--literally, four days before the vote. It would seem to still be appropriate. You can see and hear it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjpohj5cXA8
Small, Sad John
Written by Tim McMullen, 10/30/08Brave John, Yeah!
Big, Brave John
When Old John McCain picked sassy Sarah Palin
He was certain to the Whitehouse he would soon be sailin'
Disavow with a grin slimy lie e-mailin':
Then do a little Muslim, Pinko, Commie railin'
Small John,
Small, Sad John
But in every poll he still found himself trailin'
Turned out that the straight talk express was derailin'
Karl Rovian smears and false fears were all failin'
His neo-con con left the economy ailin'
Befuddled John,
Neo-con John
Then the generals, even Colin Powell, started bailin'
"Sarah Palin's gone rogue," McCain's camp started wailin'
Up North here were Proud of Teenage Girlfriend nailin',
And my old pal Ted Stevens they're soon to be jailin'
Poor old John grasped at straws when he plucked Sara Palin
She turned out to be a poor man's approach to Dan Quayl'n
Poor John,
Last Gasp John
So let me make this one thing plain:
A Vote for McCain is a vote down the drain!
Four more years is no way to get out of this trauma
So, on Tuesday our one clear choice is OBAMA!
The greatest threat to democracy is hypocrisy!
Seek Truth! Speak Truth!
©2008 Tim McMullen
All Rights Reserved
This is a composite of letters written to my two senators:
Dear Senator Boxer (also to Senator Feinstein in a separate letter)--
I spoke on the phone to someone in your Washington office today, but I decided to send this to your e-mail as well. I know that it will get tallied by a staffer or by a machine and that I will probably receive a form response as I have in the past. I don't mind; it is not reasonable to expect more from a hard-working and dedicated senatorial staff.
However, I do hope that someone takes these many thousands of contacts from concerned citizens seriously. We gave up the chance for comprehensive health-care reform nearly a generation ago. Now we stand on the brink of what may truly be, for generations to come, our only chance to alter our broken system. Many, as they have in the past, are doing their best to derail that chance. Thomas Paine wrote, "Should a thought so fatal and unmanly possess the colonies in the present contest, the name of ancestors will be remembered by future generations with detestation." It is not hyperbolic to suggest that his sentiments may be applied to the present contest for genuine healthcare reform in the present time.
We need a drastic change in our healthcare system. We can no longer be held hostage to the predatory practices of greedy pharmaceutical conglomerates and ruthless insurance companies. I strongly urge Ms. Boxer/Ms. Feinstein, my Senator, to not merely stand with President Obama in his demand for reform, but to do all that it takes to boldly deny Republican and Democratic attempts to derail a true public health-care system.
The government does not work when it is in the hands of those who would thwart it and eviscerate it for their own selfish interests, but the American people and the American government can achieve marvelous accomplishments when permitted and empowered to do so.
The "no-government bargaining clause" in the "Medicare Part D prescription drug legislation" was a perfect example of corporate interests and a thoroughly discredited "market" model being served while the interests of nearly all individual Americans were trampled upon.
This cannot be allowed to happen again. I call on Senator Feinstein/Senator Boxer to use all of her persuasive power and all her political clout to serve her constituents in California and the people of the United States by repelling any attempt to eliminate or weaken a true, public health care system. We need a program that does not tax existing employer-provided medical coverage and that does not yield to the corrupt and self-serving manipulation of the medical and pharmaceutical giants. These "corporations without consciences," as Thoreau called them, have destroyed our healthcare system by denying fair and reasonable care to millions while pocketing unprecedented and unconscionable profits.
Please, do not do what so many Democrats have done too often in the past and give in to political pressure; do not fear speaking out and voting for basic Democratic principles. The voters of California want you to act on their behalf alone, and they will support you for so doing. They are counting on you and your colleagues to acknowledge and support the right of every American to an efficient and efficacious health care system.
Thank you, Tim McMullen
Dear Senator Boxer (also to Senator Feinstein in a separate letter)--
I spoke on the phone to someone in your Washington office today, but I decided to send this to your e-mail as well. I know that it will get tallied by a staffer or by a machine and that I will probably receive a form response as I have in the past. I don't mind; it is not reasonable to expect more from a hard-working and dedicated senatorial staff.
However, I do hope that someone takes these many thousands of contacts from concerned citizens seriously. We gave up the chance for comprehensive health-care reform nearly a generation ago. Now we stand on the brink of what may truly be, for generations to come, our only chance to alter our broken system. Many, as they have in the past, are doing their best to derail that chance. Thomas Paine wrote, "Should a thought so fatal and unmanly possess the colonies in the present contest, the name of ancestors will be remembered by future generations with detestation." It is not hyperbolic to suggest that his sentiments may be applied to the present contest for genuine healthcare reform in the present time.
We need a drastic change in our healthcare system. We can no longer be held hostage to the predatory practices of greedy pharmaceutical conglomerates and ruthless insurance companies. I strongly urge Ms. Boxer/Ms. Feinstein, my Senator, to not merely stand with President Obama in his demand for reform, but to do all that it takes to boldly deny Republican and Democratic attempts to derail a true public health-care system.
The government does not work when it is in the hands of those who would thwart it and eviscerate it for their own selfish interests, but the American people and the American government can achieve marvelous accomplishments when permitted and empowered to do so.
The "no-government bargaining clause" in the "Medicare Part D prescription drug legislation" was a perfect example of corporate interests and a thoroughly discredited "market" model being served while the interests of nearly all individual Americans were trampled upon.
This cannot be allowed to happen again. I call on Senator Feinstein/Senator Boxer to use all of her persuasive power and all her political clout to serve her constituents in California and the people of the United States by repelling any attempt to eliminate or weaken a true, public health care system. We need a program that does not tax existing employer-provided medical coverage and that does not yield to the corrupt and self-serving manipulation of the medical and pharmaceutical giants. These "corporations without consciences," as Thoreau called them, have destroyed our healthcare system by denying fair and reasonable care to millions while pocketing unprecedented and unconscionable profits.
Please, do not do what so many Democrats have done too often in the past and give in to political pressure; do not fear speaking out and voting for basic Democratic principles. The voters of California want you to act on their behalf alone, and they will support you for so doing. They are counting on you and your colleagues to acknowledge and support the right of every American to an efficient and efficacious health care system.
Thank you, Tim McMullen
The Greatest Threat to Democracy is Hypocrisy!
[For the purpose of this article, all references to political parties refer to party politicians and strategists. Such references have nothing to do with the voters and non-voters who self-affiliate with these parties since, too often, "the people" have little or nothing to do with the policies of the parties.]
Too many Republican legislators are personally corrupt and hypocritical ideologues, who, nevertheless, present a relentless and unyielding "in your face" political tenacity and unanimity on behalf of their corporate handlers while attacking and subverting the fundamental rights of all but the most affluent in our country.
Democrats, on the other hand, while believing in the rights of individuals and the duty of government to protect the welfare of the American people, are constantly cowed and compromised by political expediency and their fear of the right wing smear machine. Democrats and Republicans live in a world of oxymoronic-double-speak. The Democratic fear of being labeled "unpatriotic" gave us the grotesquely un-American Patriot Act. Fear of being labeled "liberal" or "pro-big government" or "socialist" gave us thirty years of government and corporate deregulation that has decimated the very core of our American life.
We have a corrupt media system that has degraded public discourse into name-calling, that presents opinion or outright lies as fact while "reporting" the latest blatherings on twitter, facebook, or blogger, rather than pursuing, verifying and reporting actual news. This flagrant irresponsibility on the part of media and other corporations coupled with greed and opportunism on the part of Republican lawmakers and political cowardice on the part of Democrats, has lead to two recent illegal wars, trillions of dollars of debt, and immeasurable human suffering.
Democratic complicity with the "Reagan Revolution," the "Contract for America," and "the Bush Doctrine" has given us corporations that oppose every attempt to reign in their immoral, free-for-all recklessness and greed; their brazen and corrupt influence on every level of our government has destroyed our health care systems, our educational systems, our financial systems, our national and local infrastructures, our environment, and our international credibility, while devastating the lives of well over 90% of all Americans--not to mention the long-term devastation to the rest of the world.
"Land of the brave and home of the free"? We have allowed ourselves to degrade national bravery into the cowardly courage of the bully. We have sacrificed or compromised our fundamental freedoms on the altars of fear, cowardice, and greed. We have consecrated ignorance, apathy, and arrogance in the name of these Holy Hypocrisies.
It's time for America to grow up. It's time for Americans to tell the truth. It's time for immediate, selfish greed and exploitation of others to be replaced with a long-term respect for the world, the world's people, and the world's future.
Stop the logjam of petty personal politics by becoming better informed, by communicating directly with your legislators, by joining with like-minded citizens in grass-roots efforts, by holding local and national officials accountable, and by ending our self-indulgent self-deception.
It's time to take back "WE, the People of the United States." It's time to take back this government "Of the people, by the people, for the people." To quote from a song of mine, "Tomorrow is forever, and forever is now!" IT'S TIME!
The GREATEST THREAT TO DEMOCRACY IS HYPOCRISY! Seek Truth! Speak Truth!
Tim McMullen 6/25/09
[For the purpose of this article, all references to political parties refer to party politicians and strategists. Such references have nothing to do with the voters and non-voters who self-affiliate with these parties since, too often, "the people" have little or nothing to do with the policies of the parties.]
Too many Republican legislators are personally corrupt and hypocritical ideologues, who, nevertheless, present a relentless and unyielding "in your face" political tenacity and unanimity on behalf of their corporate handlers while attacking and subverting the fundamental rights of all but the most affluent in our country.
Democrats, on the other hand, while believing in the rights of individuals and the duty of government to protect the welfare of the American people, are constantly cowed and compromised by political expediency and their fear of the right wing smear machine. Democrats and Republicans live in a world of oxymoronic-double-speak. The Democratic fear of being labeled "unpatriotic" gave us the grotesquely un-American Patriot Act. Fear of being labeled "liberal" or "pro-big government" or "socialist" gave us thirty years of government and corporate deregulation that has decimated the very core of our American life.
We have a corrupt media system that has degraded public discourse into name-calling, that presents opinion or outright lies as fact while "reporting" the latest blatherings on twitter, facebook, or blogger, rather than pursuing, verifying and reporting actual news. This flagrant irresponsibility on the part of media and other corporations coupled with greed and opportunism on the part of Republican lawmakers and political cowardice on the part of Democrats, has lead to two recent illegal wars, trillions of dollars of debt, and immeasurable human suffering.
Democratic complicity with the "Reagan Revolution," the "Contract for America," and "the Bush Doctrine" has given us corporations that oppose every attempt to reign in their immoral, free-for-all recklessness and greed; their brazen and corrupt influence on every level of our government has destroyed our health care systems, our educational systems, our financial systems, our national and local infrastructures, our environment, and our international credibility, while devastating the lives of well over 90% of all Americans--not to mention the long-term devastation to the rest of the world.
"Land of the brave and home of the free"? We have allowed ourselves to degrade national bravery into the cowardly courage of the bully. We have sacrificed or compromised our fundamental freedoms on the altars of fear, cowardice, and greed. We have consecrated ignorance, apathy, and arrogance in the name of these Holy Hypocrisies.
It's time for America to grow up. It's time for Americans to tell the truth. It's time for immediate, selfish greed and exploitation of others to be replaced with a long-term respect for the world, the world's people, and the world's future.
Stop the logjam of petty personal politics by becoming better informed, by communicating directly with your legislators, by joining with like-minded citizens in grass-roots efforts, by holding local and national officials accountable, and by ending our self-indulgent self-deception.
It's time to take back "WE, the People of the United States." It's time to take back this government "Of the people, by the people, for the people." To quote from a song of mine, "Tomorrow is forever, and forever is now!" IT'S TIME!
The GREATEST THREAT TO DEMOCRACY IS HYPOCRISY! Seek Truth! Speak Truth!
Tim McMullen 6/25/09
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