Warren Buffett or Jimmy Buffett?

Here's an URGENT APPEAL I received the other day on Facebook:

This is an idea that should be passed around.  The BUFFETT Rule!  Let's see if these idiots understand what people pressure is all about.

Congressional Reform Act of 2017

1. No Tenure / No Pension. A Congressman / woman collects a salary while in office and receives no pay when they're out of office.
2. Congress (past, present, & future) participates in Social Security. All funds in the Congressional retirement fund move to the Social Security system immediately. All future funds flow into the Social Security system, and Congress participates with the American people. It may not be used for any other purpose.
3. Congress can purchase their own retirement plan, just as all Americans do.
4. Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise. Congressional pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%.
5. Congress loses their current health care system and participates in the same health care system as the American people.
6. Congress must equally abide by all laws they impose on the American people.
7. All contracts with past and present Congressmen/women are void effective 3/1/17.

The American people did not make this contract with Congressmen/women. Congress made all these contracts for themselves. Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, so ours should serve their term(s), then go home and go back to work.

If each person contacts a minimum of twenty people, then it will only take three days for most people in the U.S. to receive the message.

It's time! THIS IS HOW YOU FIX CONGRESS! If you agree, pass it on.

There's a lot of confusion about this initiative.

 

According to several sources I looked at, Warren Buffett is not even officially behind the so-called Buffet Rule, that it was just a comment made in passing.

Moreover, he is not in any way responsible for the "Congressional Reform Act of 2017," which is just the latest version of the dubious and rather flawed "Congressional Reform Act of 2011".

Regardless, it absolutely astounds me that no one seems to see the ONE MAJOR DEFECT in this noble attempt to reform Congress.  This fatal error happens to apply to most of the ideas I've recently encountered, intended to fix America and get our country back on track.

This proposed act has to be passed by Congress.

Which begs the obvious question . . .

Why would they pass it?

 

This is like me challenging Roger Federer to a tennis match for a $1,000,000 prize, and then turning to him and saying:  "I have one simple request, Roger.  Please have both of your arms chopped off at the elbow before we meet on the court." 

What are these folks thinking?  Do they actually think that the current crop of corporate pay-for-play lapdogs who sit in their comfy jobs in Washington DC are going to do anything to jeopardize their free ride with the rich and powerful of this country?

I just love it, for example, when people propose progressive constitutional amendments.  According to the Article V:  "The Constitution provides that an amendment may be proposed either by the Congress with a two-thirds majority vote in both the House of Representatives and the Senate or by a constitutional convention called for by two-thirds of the State legislatures." Apparently, these wild-eyed dreamers haven't read the newspaper lately.  The Republicans own the White House, both chambers of Congress, most governorships, and the majority of state legislatures.  Even more shocking, we often see Democrats siding with the extreme right-wing legislative ideologues on a host of key issues -- increasing defense spending, perpetuating war, advocating more tax breaks to corporations and the wealthy.

Consider this . . .

It's impossible to get GMO labeling on food product legislated, something supported by 93% of all Americans, regardless of party affiliation.  Do progressive strategists actually believe they can get anything through Congress which genuinely serves the majority of Americans, with the current cutthroat mercenary puppets installed in the seats of power?  Here we have something 93% of Americans want and it gets killed by corporate greed and legislators who couldn't spell 'representation' if a gun was pointed at their heads.

I've said this over and over.  But it bears repeating until folks get it.

There is ONLY ONE SOLUTION!

We have to have a CLEAN SWEEP OF CONGRESS.  Regime change in Washington DC!

Let's stop kidding ourselves.

The people now in positions of power will not do anything for everyday U.S. citizens.  NOTHING!  They will do the bidding of their deep-pocketed financiers, their mega-rich and powerful masters . . . and that's it.  End of story.  So let's start doing some real work!  Let's begin the daunting but absolutely necessary task of swapping out 33 senators and at least 400 of the traitors who are currently in the House of Representatives in 2018.

I have a method for accomplishing this.  It's summarized in two of my books -- Candidate Contracts: Taking Back our Democracy and Fighting For The Democracy We Deserve -- and dozens of articles published here and all over the web.

In each congressional district, good decent citizens must choose four or five issues which are critical to them, things which are totally non-negotiable, things they are absolute and unswerving about.  For example:

1. Make no changes in Social Security and Medicare.
2. Raise the federal minimum wage to $12.50 per hour.
3. Eliminate corporate welfare and increase taxes on the rich.
4. Reverse by law the Citizens United decision.
5. Cut back on military spending.

The good news is that nationally there is already enormous support for these.

75% of Americans want a federal minimum wage of $12.50 per hour.
76% of voters want a cut back on military spending.
79% of voters want no reductions in Social Security, 70% support expanding it.
79% of voters want no reductions in Medicare.
80% of voters oppose the "Citizens United" U.S. Supreme Court decision.
68% of voters think taxes on the wealthy should be increased.


Next step is to draw up a contract or set of contracts on those issues.  Such a contract will look and read like this, one I drew up for raising the minimum wage to $15.00 per hour.

Then we simply put it to the candidates.  It's up to them.  Will they sign the contract(s) and guarantee that they will go to Washington DC and hit the ground running, doing exactly what we want them to do?  Or not?

If they sign, we vote for them.

If they don't, we vote for someone who will.

It's that simple!  And it's that clear.  Either they will decisively and unequivocally, with no excuses or double-talk, do the job we vote them in office to do . . .

Or we don't vote for them!

In the event there is no major party candidate willing to sign the contract -- and recognize that is a very distinct possibility -- then we turn to a minor party candidate, or put one on the ballot ourselves.

THAT'S how you take back our democracy!

THAT'S how we take the guesswork out of voting!

THAT'S how you make sure the voice of the voice of the people is heard!

THAT'S how you put "people" back in the equation . . . government of the people, by the people, for the people.

It's either that . . . or drink a lot of tequila and watch our country steadily descend into the sewer of economic medievalism and kleptocratic tyranny.

I like a good time as much as the next guy.

But maybe we should wait until we have good reason to celebrate.



[ This originated at the author's personal website . . . http://jdrachel.com ]



Warren Buffett or Jimmy Buffett?

A Nation of Relentless Savagery

 

You've been avoiding this for a long time.

You prefer to remember the times he took you to the park, that amazing camping vacation a few summers back, the funny things he often says at the dinner table, that beautiful dog he gave you on your 12th birthday.

But you can't deny it any longer.  The truth is painful.  But . . .

Dad is an alcoholic and he beats mom.

Do you hate him?  Do you reject him as your father?

No . . . but things have to drastically change and very soon.

This is not actually the story I wish to tell.  I'm merely drawing a parallel.  I'm talking about dealing with denial, facing reality, accepting responsibility, taking action.

There are many situations in life for which the above scenario is a metaphor.

The parallel I'm making is the relationship between a citizen and a government gone mad.

We've avoided it for a long time.  We prefer to think of America as a beacon of hope in the world, the fountainhead of truth and justice, a purveyor of democratic values and human rights.

But we can't deny it any longer.  The truth is painful.  But . . .

As Martin Luther King, Jr. said in his monumental, myth-shattering speech -- the one that probably got him assassinated -- at Riverside Church in New York City on April 4, 1967:

“The greatest purveyor of violence in the world: My own government, I cannot be silent.”

I won't go into the long history of American aggression.  Whole books have been written which detail our gruesome heritage of merciless wars, the most notable being Howard Zinn's classics, A People's History of the United States and the more recent A People's History of American Empire.  Nor will I indict the U.S. foreign policy apparatus for its gross deceptions and hypocrisies, elucidated with unparalleled clarity and candor in William Blum's excellent work, America's Deadliest Export: Democracy.

I won't talk about the millions of human carcasses piled on top of more carcasses, the result of countless war crimes and merciless military strategies which place no value on human life, whether the victims are in uniform or innocent civilians.  I've realized that the scale of the horror is such that its incomprehensible to most good decent citizens.  I myself when confronted by figures like 3 million Vietnamese killed, 1.5 Iraqis killed, on and on, find my eyes glazing over in the deluge of zeroes.  I literally cannot grasp these numbers and apply them meaningfully to the grief and physical suffering which they are supposed to somehow encapsulate.

Let's instead look at a few simple very recent facts and try to put them in perspective.

Fact 1:  The U.S. is not officially at war with any other country at this time.

Fact 2:  The U.S. has not been attacked in any sense of the word in the last 16 years.

Fact 3:  Last year the U.S. military dropped 26,171 bombs on seven different countries.



Mind you, these are the official figures.  Who knows what the real totals are?

These were not water-filled balloons or July 4th fireworks.  At the end of every explosion, there were body parts strewn all over the surrounding area.  Survivors were being crushed in collapsed buildings, or crawling along the ground with limbs torn off, leaving a trail of blood squirting out of severed arteries.  Innocent people, men, women, and children just going about the everyday business of living, were mangled by a lethal mix of high-velocity shrapnel, and chunks of rubble created by ton after ton of high-yield explosives dropped anonymously from the sky.

Rigorous studies have made it very clear that well over half of the casualties of current warfare are civilians.  In what are called 'internal conflicts' -- like Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia -- which now are by far the most prevalent form of military conflict, the percentages can be as high as 90% civilians.  These violent clashes are typically fought by proxies. In all of the countries just listed, the aggressors are mercenaries paid by the U.S. and its allies to enter and destroy a country in what is then deceptively characterized as a civil war or "people's uprising".  There is very disturbing recent evidence, for example, that the U.S. through CIA back channels has been funding ISIS, Al Nusra, as well as other extremely barbarous terrorist groups in Iraq and Syria.

By the way, that money they withhold from your paycheck?  Or that quarterly tax payment you regularly make?  Think about it.  This is where a big chunk of your tax dollars is going.  You're paying for this.

Does any of this make my point a little more comprehensible?

26,171 bombs . . . funding terrorism . . . innocent civilians die . . . all in a days work.

America can say with great pride that what it does, it usually does very well.

When we put our minds to something, we pull out all the stops.

Now we can put killing right up there in the Top 10.

We kill efficiently.  We kill without remorse.  We kill without hesitation.

NOTICE TO THE WORLD . . .

Beware!  We are a nation of relentless savagery!

Then again, a lot of countries already know that.

---

I've said this many times before and I'll keep saying it until people get it . . .
Peace will not come from the top.  There are too many incentives and rewards in our corrupt corporate kleptocracy to keep the wars going and the wheels of the defense industry churning out more mechanisms of death and destruction.

It is only when we everyday citizens finally have had enough of the carnage, enough of the military waste, enough of the chest-beating imperialism which makes us less safe, enough of the empty rhetoric which claims to embrace the noble virtues but is just more deception in the name of war and imperial conquest, it is only then that America will turn around.

Maybe there are detailed plans out there somewhere to mobilize the good decent citizens of this country.  I haven't personally seen any.  So here is mine.  Yes, it is outside-the-box, some would say radical, extreme.  But if we are the nation we claim to be in the world and in the eyes of God, isn't cruelly and senselessly dropping 26,171 bombs on mostly innocent people extreme and radical?
My plan demands very little of us individually.  We don't have to march on the capital or mount a revolutionary insurrection.  Despite that, it could make all the difference in the future we leave to our children and our children's children.  All that is really required is that we listen to the voice of reason and stand strong.

At least take a look.  Open your mind up to the possibility of a future without the madness.  Of a future without endless war.  Of a future when our hard-earned tax dollars don't go to fund the relentless savagery of a military gone mad.

 

The Peace Dividend: The Most Controversial Proposal in the History of the World is now available both as an ebook and deluxe paperback at all of the usual outlets . . .

Amazon (Kindle) / US . . . amzn.to/2cpIRfQ
Amazon (Print) / US . . . amzn.to/2cEhnCb
Amazon (Kindle) / UK . . . amzn.to/2cKXFsV
Amazon (Kindle) / Canada . . . amzn.to/2ciZKdl
Amazon (Kindle) / Japan . . . amzn.to/2cbf3TO
Barnes & Noble . . . bit.ly/2cWxvzd
Kobo (Indigo) . . . bit.ly/2cI8cB6
Apple iTunes . . . apple.co/2cqw7an
Smashwords . . . bit.ly/2cb6Cse
Direct from printer . . . bit.ly/2c3mJsl



[ This originally appeared at the author's personal website . . . http://jdrachel.com ]


A Nation of Relentless Savagery

All boats rise in a rising tide? Really?

 

The haves want the have-nots to believe sharing wealth is not a zero-sum game.

The mantra:  All boats rise in a rising tide.

But that's not the way things are working out, eh?  The wealthy get wealthier and the poor get poorer.  Certainly on a planetary scale, with human population increasing globally at about 1.11% annually, there is a rapidly swelling underclass who have no concept, much less any chance of sharing in the vast quantities of goods, services, opportunities, and resources churned out by our great engines of economic and technological development.

The same is also becoming more and more true here in America, with wealth inequality increasing astronomically over the past several decades, vastly accelerating after the crash of 2008 crippled the middle class, further sunk the lower class, decimated savings and home equity, destroyed jobs and job security, and plunged already indebted average citizens into even greater debt. True, the rich did same somewhat of a hit as a result of the 2008 financial crisis, but predictably bounced back with a vengeance. 95% of the wealth generated in the slow but steady economic recovery over the past eight years went to the top 1%. In 2016 alone, the world’s rich elite increased their wealth by $237 billion.

In terms of our boat analogy . . .

I suggest we regular folks buy life jackets.

Because as the luxury liners supported by the subservient ship of state rise to even greater heights of opulence for the already wealthy and privileged, our fragile boats will be swamped in the wake of their showy extravagance and wasteful wanton affluence.

The rich and powerful have never made much of a secret of their disdain for regular folks. But as long as America citizens remain incurably detached from the reality of their lot, when the ravenous kleptocrats of the Trump administration rev up their feeding frenzy beyond anything ever before witnessed in the history of the world, everyday Americans probably won’t have to worry about being put in cages or internment camps — of course, the prisons will be kept bulging in our for-profit prison system but that’s business as usual. In their callous indifference and Machiavellian marginalization of the less fortunate, the wealthy if nothing else are coldly efficient. Extermination by war or disease or relentless grinding poverty are the time-honored and road-tested methods for effortlessly "draining the swamp" of unwanted creatures like you and I.  The wealthy don’t need to ponder and won’t even flinch at the inevitable carnage.  They won’t even notice.  Their evening wear won't even get soiled or their reputations sullied by the noxious clouds of incinerated souls and destroyed lives, families, communities, and even whole nations, as poverty, war, chaos and human neglect on every front stampedes the unprivileged — the slobbering masses — into the abyss of sociopathic excess.

There are no pangs of conscience for those who don’t have one.

Wealth is a zero-sum game.  That’s true regardless of how much wealth exists in the world. If someone has something, then everyone else does not have it.  We can make more of that something but capitalism — especially its grotesquely virulent current iteration, neoliberal capitalism — is built on want and shortage, thus quite by design there will never be enough of that something for everyone to benefit equitably.  Recent history is all the evidence we need for this: while it’s true that since the dawn of the industrial revolution the engines of progress have mounted bigger piles of everything, it is also apparent that those piles have ended up in fewer hands.

In what may be the most astonishing, outrageous and incomprehensible economic statistic I’ve experienced in my lifetime, Oxfam just released a study of global wealth distribution which offered this gem:  Eight individuals now own as much wealth as the bottom 3.7 billion people on the planet.  Or presented another way:  The top .000000107% of the world population have as much wealth as the bottom 50%.

Under these conditions, as the tide rises a handful of luxurious and unsinkable yachts inch closer to God and millions of sunken hulls rot at even greater depths in the dark void at the bottom.

Does any sane person really think it can continue to go on like this?

Are there enough sane people around to make a difference?


[ This originated at the author's personal website . . . http://jdrachel.com ]



All boats rise in a rising tide? Really?

Megaphonics

 

A lot of people want me to shut up.

They find me annoying, grating, shrill.

Some have even claimed I hate America.

I really have to wonder where these people are coming from.

I'm not claiming any heroics here, certainly not comparing myself to those courageous individuals who spoke out against Nazism or the persecutions in the Soviet Union under Stalin, in Cuba under Batista, in Iran under the Shah, on and on — sadly too many to enumerate here.

But I am saying I share with them a duty, as we all do.  I share with them as do all citizens of any country, to speak out against injustice, to criticize the country to which they belong.  We must all speak out and geography is not pertinent.  Whether one lives inside a country or has by circumstance or choice lives outside, oppression is still oppression.  Tyranny is still tyranny.  Villainy and genocide are still villainy and genocide.

Speaking out to praise or to criticize one's own country is not just an option, it is a duty.  And the volume of that voice is not to be arbitrarily turned down or turned off.

Each of us is identified with a nation.  We both have the rights and privileges that are conferred by citizenship, and likewise have a stake in what that nation does in our name, hence a responsibility not just to be aware of those activities but to be discerning and laudatory or critical when necessary.

So I won't shut up.

On the other hand, there is a difference between caustic damnation and constructive criticism.

I see a lot of the former, little of the latter.

Frankly, it’s getting tedious.

There are a lot of people — apparently some 64% according to the polls — who object to Trump as president and what he represents.

This makes entire sense.  He is objectionable at best, foul and pestilent at worst.

But we have to recognize, it’s not just the man we are at loggerheads with here.  “What he represents” has been in the making for a long time.  Over forty years at least, many would argue much longer.  Maybe it was set in motion from the very beginning of our country, as America was founded by slave-holding elitists who were to one degree or another fearful of mob rule.  'Mob rule' is of course just an ugly euphemism for government by the people — all of the people.

A nation run by an elite few is not a democracy by any stretch.  It is the exact opposite of a democracy.  That those elite few then guilefully brainwash the "mob" into thinking they actually have some say in the decisions which determine the direction of the nation and the future is an insult — a vile and patronizing form of manipulation.

Trump and his crew will attempt to rule by fiat.  As corporate businessmen this is all they know.  They will play the "enlightened patriarch" card the whole way.  Some will go along.  Most — at least 64% — will not and have every right to raise hell.

Recognize that raising hell is but one approach.

How about this?  What if we try raising heaven?

Ha ha ha!  Funny play on words, eh?

Not really. Here’s what it boils down to . . .

2017 and 2018 will present historical opportunities.  We will be presented dramatically and starkly contrasting visions for the future.  People who have never been interested in "politics" will start seriously paying attention, because everything that America allegedly stands for, its most noble and worthy values and dreams for all its citizens, will be under assault.

And it will then come down to this . . .

Certainly we know WHAT WE'RE AGAINST as enlightened progressives.

But more crucially we have to know WHAT WE'RE FOR as enlightened progressives.

It's time to be decisive, clear, engaging, positive, thorough, meticulous, captivating.

And truly visionary!

Because within the next two years, American citizens will be hungry as never before for a truly genuine, positive and sweeping renewal.

With no irony here's my take:  There is enormous opportunity which will spring out of the dark days ahead.  I hope we’re ready.  Alert, informed progressives know what's going on.  The vast majority of the American public does not. They are distracted and misinformed, numb and preoccupied with daily life.  They are not to be vilified for this.  They are victims of a highly organized, well-orchestrated assault on the public consciousness, maybe more accurately, an inducement of a hypnotic public unconsciousness.  Trump is just the most effective recent embodiment of that assault.
Certainly there are some big bumps in the road coming soon.  The crash of the economy is inevitable, accelerated by Trump's extremely inept and uninformed administration.  The neocons will get their war because some diseases are beyond any medical intervention.

When war and bankruptcy destroys any hope for improvement of living and working conditions under the orange autocrat, there will be at least 160 million new very angry Americans — many who voted for Trump — asking the questions we progressives have been asking ad nauseam for many years.

It will all come to a crescendo.  Progressives MUST BE READY with an agenda presented in the language of everyday Americans -- not politico-jargon-speak -- but BIG, CLEAR messaging which presents a POSITIVE PROGRESSIVE VISION for America. 

We can do it.  But we have to start now!

When it all starts to crumble, it'll be too late to be brainstorming and formulating plans.




[ This originated at the author's personal website . . . http//jdrachel.com ]

Megaphonics

It’s a very special time of year!

As is now becoming a tradition, here is my holiday greeting card to all.  It comes from my heart, prompted by hope that we can find harmony and peace in our troubled world.

"Happy New Year!"

 

It’s a very special time of year

For family and friends holiday cheer
For those no longer with us
We shed a tear
A time to share
A time of feast
A time to care
And pray for peace
A time to give to those
Who have the least

(Chorus)
Merry Christmas
Happy Hanukkah
Peace be with us
Happy New Year

This is the time to start anew
Atheist Christian Muslim Jew
To reach within
And find the love inside of you
Discard the old seek out the new
Reject the false embrace the true
To look ahead decide
To bring out the best in you

(Chorus)
Merry Christmas
Happy Hanukkah
Peace be with us
Happy New Year

(Chorus – Japanese)
Akemashite
Omedetoo
Peace be with you
Happy New Year

(Chorus)
Merry Christmas
Happy Hanukkah
Peace be with you
Happy New Year

May the new year finally bring peace to the world.  May we discover and embrace the understanding needed to live together in genuine and lasting harmony.


[ This originated at the author's personal website . . . http://jdrachel.com ]



It’s a very special time of year!