Author: parvenu

The title of this post is an expression that I picked up years ago from an old timer. Essentially the meaning of this colloquialism is that IT IS TIME TO MAKE A DECISION. Today America stands foursquare on such a threshold. As a disclaimer, this post is not specifically intended to highlight the plans of any particular group or organization in the country; rather it attempts to point to the current conditions in American society which underscore the dangerousness of the present situation. We have all witnessed the birth of the “Tea Party” from the “knock about rag tag mob” that terrorized the Town Hall meetings on Health Care Reform last summer. The Tea Party has grown into a shiny new media attraction impatiently waiting to emerge over the coming summer months as the new darling of the Main Stream Media (MSM). More from the bait bucket below the fold.
I have written many times concerning the use by the Republican Party of AM Talk Radio as a 24/7 propaganda outlet. Further, I devoted a serious amount of text to the weak kneed feeble attempts of the Democratic Party to curb these propaganda outlets, the last attempt coming not to long after the Democrats won a majority in the Congress. The Senate Democrats ALL bailed out and left Senator Dorgan as the sole advocate for a bill that would have severely curbed the Limbaughs and the Becks ability to spew hate on an unrestricted basis over America’s air waves. Now these preachers of hate and racism left undisturbed and comfortable in their respective broadcast environs have grown in popularity such that their every twisted word or comment becomes classified as prime time news for the American people. Their insane ramblings have now become the belief mantras for millions of white Americans. It is important to put the situation in perspective. The mindless drivel that these “right wing” commentators saturate the airwaves with is simply the oldest of all of the dangerous components starting to coalesce around the “Tea Party” mobment.

The most significant component recently entering the Tea Party tent is money. Why is money important? Because money attracts money, and nothing moves, squirms, grunts, or slivers in America without money. Second, money has a tendency to supersede ideology and even political fanaticism (in America). Our TV communication channels are rapidly becoming polluted with outraged rhetoric from the opposing political camps. TV networks are in the business of entertainment and they will make their broadcast platforms available to whatever brings the most advertising revenue (money again).

Under the guise of “balanced opinion” the TV networks have hired heavy bombasts from both the liberal persuasion and from the right wing super conservatives to grace their respective broadcast studios. Needless to say there are hundreds of applicants for these jobs and the list is still growing. Thus those who are in these positions have very generous salaries to protect, so it is their goal to be more and more outrageous that the next guy. Outrageous violent speech equals job security and more money in the bank. Further, whoever is the greatest demagogue gets the biggest paycheck and the awesome power that comes with super public notoriety.

The next component to recently and very discretely enter the Tea Party tent is corporate lobbyists. Sensing possible congressional upsets by Tea Party endorsed candidates in the fall elections the lobbyists are scrambling to sprinkle their “just in case” money around so there will be no loss in corporate control over the new Congress.

Finally, the most dangerous component to enter the Tea Party tent is the powerful gun lobby. Now I don’t think that it was ever the gun Lobby’s original intent to get involved with the Tea Party. But I think that they were dragged into the fray by the crazy Town Hall protestor’s signs and slogans about not letting “Obama take away our guns”. As the loose cannons of the Gun Owner’s League (GOAL) pushed forward to carry/wear guns at Starbucks, shopping malls and other public assembly places in defiance of local ordinances for gun free zones, the gun lobby had to get involved.

So where has all this taken us? There appears to be a coalescing between GOAL members, and various Militias to sponsor “open Tea Party” rallies around the country this summer. The “open” in the designation of these rallies means people will be encouraged to bring their guns to the rally and many of these rallies will be sponsoring shooting contests just to liven things up. These rallies will be a dream come true for the TV media considering that the summer (without the Olympics) is a very slow time of the year for the networks. (There’s the money thing again.) (I know that I surely wouldn’t want to be a black cameraman covering one of these events for the networks!) Now don’t get me wrong, there won’t be any raging bloodthirsty white mobs spewing out onto the streets of hometown America following any of these “open Tea Party rallies”. However, what I am certain of is that these rallies will become the inspirational catalyst for much random spilling of innocent American blood around the country by highly influenced individual members or followers of the Tea Party moment. You know, it’s the T. McVeigh effect.    

So on a warm April afternoon, them’s the facts. Obama has already demonstrated that it is not in his playbook to take action beyond meetings and conferences targeted towards compromise and reconciliation. The gun toting right wing racist extremists have had a year to validate this quirk in Obama’s behavior, and their final evaluation is being proudly displayed in their open belligerence and contempt for president Obama and the government. Many in these Militias across the nation believe that a race war is inevitable, and they have been waiting and training for years in anticipation of such an event. Articles in the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) magazine, “Intelligence Report”, indicate the seriousness of the problem. In a recent article titled “The Year in Hate and Extremism” they state, “But what was most remarkable was the explosive growth of militias and the “Patriot” movement which jumped 244%”. In another article, SPLC cited the rapid growth of militias as extremely dangerous, lacking only a spark.

Cries for media responsibility have thus far gone unheeded, after all the MSM is a business and if they don’t keep pushing the sensational “hot button” racial stuff, Wall Street will punish them. Other people continue to call for Republican leaders to stand before the public and refute all of this hate and racist talk currently dividing the country. Fat chance, the Republicans smell Democratic blood in the water over the Health Care Reform bill. Many elected Democrats have already received death threats against their person and against members of their families.

A recent “University of Washington Institute for the Study of Ethnicity, Race & Sexuality (WISER)” multi-state survey led by Prof. Christopher Parker examined the question, “Is America Now a post-racial society?” As part of this survey they found that 45% of the whites polled had either strong approval or somewhat conditional approval of the Tea Party. Of this 45% only 35% believe blacks to be hard working, only 45% believe blacks are intelligent and only 41% believe blacks are trustworthy. These statistics should provide a wakeup call to those progressives who continue to cling to the myth that ours is an “Obama led Post-Racial Society”. This MSM propagated myth needs to be buried once and for all, particularly after the veteran civil rights leader, Congressman Lewis in a recent encounter with Tea Party people was repeatedly called a “nigger” to his face. There is nothing post racial about the current American society where 45% of white Americans embrace the racialist rhetoric of the Tea Party mobment.  

So the question now is WHO will STEP UP to make sure that no spark falls on this powder saturated fuse? It can only be the American people. Regardless of your bigotry or racism, I don’t think any reasonable American wants to see blood running in the streets. For those progressives who steadfastly refuse to believe that such a bloody outbreak of violence could occur in our country, I would cite the growing membership within the “Promise Keepers” right wing organization among local law enforcement officers. Weather wise we are experiencing the early stirring of spring with record level summer like temperatures. But beyond the weather, the Tea Party promises to make this one helluva summer.

So listen up America, it’s time to turn off those Ipods, tweets and TV’s. For real, it’s Time to Fish or Cut Bait!

The Japanese contingent led by Mr. Aiko Toyoda spent 3 hours before a House Committee this afternoon. Most of the testimony and the questions behaved like ships passing in the night, where the answers given by Mr. Toyoda and his executives bore little resemblance to the questions asked except in the sense that the subject was about Toyota automobiles. Toyoda was particularly evasive when questioned about the possibility that the sudden uncontrolled acceleration (SUA) could be caused by the electronic throttle control system. It was a little disconcerting that the Congressional committee didn’t have a software/systems engineer there to help guide some of the more technical questions. However, as a (retired) software engineer I am prepared to offer my own perspective on this deadly problem below the fold.
Before I start, let me lay out some facts. The American auto manufacturers have had their own computerized system for years, along with the Japanese car makers. However, the American manufacturer’s computer “black box” contains memory that records engine performance events continuously providing data that can be subsequently be downloaded by external “reader” equipment which is available on the commercial market. Toyota executives were very careful to say that data from their car’s computers cannot be downloaded to be read by any commercially available “readers”. You have to peel back what they actually said. First of all they said that “their car’s computers cannot be downloaded to be read…..”  Further, they said that they will not be ready to support commercial “readers” until middle or late 2011, and they have just started working this month on the idea of making their vehicle’s computer data downloadable. I believe what they didn’t reveal was the fact that currently none of their cars are actually capable of recording all of the engine performance events, so there is no post crash data to download!! Most Americans who are familiar with the data recording provided by the “black boxes” in American cars just assumed that all cars would have this feature included as a standard. Now I think we are finding out that this was an incorrect assumption.

During the testimony it was inferred that the reason that Toyota did not have this data download capability in their cars/trucks was that they wanted to protect proprietary information. Mr. Toyoda and his executives acted if this inference about the company being over cautious about exercising proprietary control over their car’s computer generated data was something that they were loath to reveal to the public. This bit of acting on Mr. Toyoda’s part was a clever ruse to cover up the fact that Toyota has no in-vehicle recording capabilities for saving the engine control computer’s events for later analysis. So the real reason why “the data” can’t be downloaded and read is that it simply doesn’t exist.

I have no idea how many computers are in Toyota cars and trucks that are dedicated to engine control and performance, and this is of little consequence. What is really important is the software control architecture and the numbers of lines of code that make this puppy run. The exact structure of the design is also of no consequence. But what is important is how the master control computer handles and processes interrupts from other real-time events in the system, and how distributed the control functions may be. These parameters are important because the complexity of software testing and verification is directly proportional to the size of the population of these variables.

Let’s take a simple example. I have a pedal controller on the floor in my make believe vehicle on the right hand forward side of the driver’s seat. This pedal has an electronic component that sends out pulses, the rate of which is proportional to just how hard and fast I press down on the pedal. Those pulses are transmitted to a port on the throttle control computer in the engine compartment. This computer decodes the pulse rate and based on its calculations it will send an electrical command signal to an electromechanical ratchet device that will mechanically move and through linkage to a valve increase the flow of gasoline into the carburetor. Likewise, if I let up on my foot pressure on the gas pedal a return spring will bring it back upwards towards its no acceleration position and the pulse rate input to the throttle control computer will also decrease in frequency. This causes the throttle control computer to put out a reverse command to the electromechanical ratchet decreasing the flow of gasoline into the carburetor and so the car slows down.

Now let’s suppose that I add a performance analysis computer that is independently monitoring the flow of gasoline and air into the carburetor along with the actual rate of acceleration and the pulse rate from the driver’s foot pedal. Let’s further suppose that this performance analysis computer performs some calculations and decides that the car is not accelerating fast enough in accordance with data from the driver’s foot pedal, so it sends a command to the carburetor’s throttle ratchet device to increase the amount of gasoline for some brief period of time. The purpose of the performance analysis computer is to attempt to enhance the overall performance and response of the vehicle’s engine. Now we have a situation of shared control over the vehicle’s engine and software testing and verification just got more complex by a magnitude. If we encounter a runaway acceleration situation how do we determine which computer’s software is at fault? Is it the main throttle computer or is it the performance analysis computer? The only way to determine fault during any real-time operation is to record all events. This is why airliners all are required to have on board “black boxes” the recordings of which can be used for post crash analysis. We have reached a point with computerized street vehicles that an on board event recording “black box” must be mandatory equipment.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not blaming Mr. Toyoda and his company exclusively; he’s just the one who got caught with his hand in the cookie jar. It was bound to happen sooner or later and it just came up on the Toyota product. With all of the new electric cars on the drawing boards and in manufacturing, the prospect of a breakdown in computer software Quality Assurance was just a matter of time. I wonder how many computers are built into the Chevy Volt or in the Tesla.

Others have suggested that the computers in the Toyota vehicles may have experienced some sort of outside electrical interference in the environment and this might be the cause of the SUA crash events. I rather doubt this and such a problem is easily fixed by installing shielded cables in the cars wiring harness runs. If I’m right about Toyota not having an onboard engine event recorder for the vehicle’s control computers, this will result in some major changes for the company. Not only will they have to add the flash memory to store the engine events, but each event will have to be identified, defined and then coded into the software. Then they will have to make all of the distributed control computer’s events accessible to be recorded. They will also have to add the data collection download capability for an external reader. Finally they will have to build a test simulator capable of generating simulated external physical event signals. The simulator will be capable of being programmed by test case software which has been designed and written to make sure that random or unexpected real-world events don’t cause the vehicle’s computer software to malfunction. The test simulator would also provide constant monitoring and evaluation (via downloads to the external reader) of the response of the vehicle’s computer software to test case events. This is a definitely a lot more work than  just taking the floor rugs out of the driver’s compartment or installing shiny new shims to fix the “sticky gas pedal” problem.  

The media understandably THRIVES on gossip as we have become a nation consumed by need to get all the details of the latest celebrity scandal. Eyeballs on copy make money. The Republicans march like geese in a line so that there is no accidental screw-up from the official party line. The Democrats on the other hand constantly act like a convention of tabby cats. Virtually no organization exists and far less strategic communication. Herein lies a season of dumb political moves that the goose stepping republicans always capitalize on to their great political benefit. Chronologically let’s move back to January 20, 2009, roughly one year ago.

Barack Obama, a colored man, was now the President of the United States. Barack’s qualifications are impressive, graduate of Harvard Law School, Editor of the Harvard Law Review an honor in itself, and United States Senator from the State of Illinois. Barack excited the electorate with his promises of change. He was swept into office on the wings of national hope for change in America for many, but a silent hate filled sizeable group of Americans were looking for anything that they could use to show their contempt and hatred for this new black president. For a long time all they could do was circulate racist jokes and cartoons about Obama, but after a while the Democrats gave them an organizational gift.

Obama for all of his academic brilliance has been a political failure since entering the White House. First of all he unwittingly copied Jimmy Carter’s playbook for staffing. Obama made his campaign managers his closest advisors in the White House. Second mistake, he made Rahm Emmanuel his chief of staff. Third mistake, he appointed Larry Summers his economic czar. With only a few exceptions all of his staff selections have been disasters.

Think of Obama’s first year as a baseball game. It’s the Obama White House team against a team composed of a depression level economy and eight years of uninhibited spending by the previous president and his Republican controlled Congress. It is obvious if your team does not match up against the opposition no matter how good the coach is your team is going to lose the game. This is the current problem that Obama faces. Unfortunately he is fiercely loyal to all those people he has around him so chances are slim that he would ever wise up and clean house, and he needs to clean house if he is ever to change course and achieve the goals that he desires. Frankly the people comprising the present White House staff are just not creative enough to come up with answers to solve America’s unemployment and economic problems.

Fourth mistake, Obama put Joe Biden in charge of the Stimulus project. Wrong guy, a real duck out of water with NO ADMINISTRATION EXPERIENCE to effectively manage a project of this size. Now a year later the Republicans are starting to carp about a gigantic waste of Stimulus money and that no jobs were created. They have planned all along to use this for the 2010 Congressional campaign. They decide upon this course against Obama as soon as it was made public that Biden would be running the Stimulus project.

Fifth mistake, not controlling the Democrats in the Congress. Obama was so busy trying to woo the Republicans into some form of bipartisan relationship that he neglected to work closely with the Democrats in the House and the Senate on the Health Care Reform (HCR) bill. As a result, the Democratic House members decided to schedule “Town Hall” style meetings to inform the public about the provisions in the bill, and to counter the intense propaganda campaign that was being waged by the health care industry against the HCR bill. These town halls gave the anti-Obama racists an opening to raise hell “On Camera”. Town Halls became a media circus as Democratic Congressmen were badgered and threatened by people holding signs calling Obama a black Hitler. Out of this racist turmoil around the town halls was born the “Tea Party” movement, a product of a not to imaginative racist trying to connect this racist anger and outrage to something historical in American history. Now the “Tea Party Express” has been validated and elevated by the media from a mob of rag-tag howling crying racists to a legitimate populist movement with third party possibilities. From the media’s point of view it’s George Wallace all over again. However, if the Democrats in the House had the common sense to recognize that the Health Care and Drug lobby money was setting up people to disrupt Democrat Town Hall meetings, they would have scratched the idea from their agenda, and if that happened , presto NO TEA BAG PARTY. Unintended consequences.

Finally, what is know in Democratic circles but never mentioned was that Ted Kennedy’s ego actually helped Scott Brown become the 41st Senator. Get this. In the final days of his life Kennedy knew that if he resigned his Senate seat, that Gov. Patrick would appoint another Democrat to fill out his term. This would have guaranteed that his beloved HCR bill would pass Congress and become law, as it would maintain the 60 votes that the Senate Democrats needed. Kennedy was approached quietly with this suggestion and he refused. He was not asked again because of the frailty of his health and no one wanted to be guilty of verbally harassing a man facing death. Kennedy dies in office so a special election is now required. However, there is no time to hold a statewide convention so that the party faithful can pick their candidate. As a result a weak inexperienced Martha Coakley with a small base was able in the primary to beat out the other Democratic candidates none of which had any sort of base at all.

Coakley’s campaign inexperience showed up very early in the general election when Scott Brown was over 30 points down in the polls. Coakley went on a two week vacation. Meanwhile Scott Brown started driving his truck around the suburbs of Wrentham and knocking on doors. The Tea Party people liked what they saw in Brown and sent money and volunteers in to work. The tea Party people also got the attention of the RNC and their money started flowing in. Meanwhile Coakley continued running the same old TV ad crowing about the 100 million she retrieved from the insurance companies as the Massachusetts Attorney General. Coakley DID NO political ORGANIZING in the African American and other minority communities, which meant she had no presence in Roxbury Dorchester, New Bedford, Fall River, Lowell, Lynn and Springfield. Minorities in these communities did not vote for Scott Brown, they just did not come out to vote, period. These votes Coakley effectively threw away. The National Democratic Party noticing Brown’s rise in the polls offered their help to the Coakley campaign and were turned away until the last 9 days before the election. They advised the Coakley campaign to go negative in a last ditch effort to pull out the election. The Scott Brown voters were composed anti-tax people, anti-Washington people, anti-people-of-color, anti-immigration people, and other racists. These people did not need to be motivated to go to the polls and could hardly wait until the polls opened to cast their votes. You know the rest of the Scott Brown story. Check this out… The number of votes cast in the heavily African American community of Roxbury Massachusetts was 129!! Yep, that was ONE HUNDRED TWENTY NINE votes!! Nuff said! Unintended consequences!

Finally, Democratic Congress people are scared stiff by the media hype about independents engineering Scott Brown’s victory in Massachusetts. As I just explained above, this is pure B.S. So now Congressional Democrats are scrambling to protect their seats. Obama now has the awesome task of trying to herd this group of Congressional cats to work towards stabilizing and rebuilding the national economy, which continues to promise only a heavily subsidized jobless recovery.

Watching Supreme Court Justice Alito’s performance last night at the State of The Union speech by President Obama, I was struck with the sudden revelation that America has entered into a new and dangerous era of political fanaticism. Political fanatics are nothing new in America, some of them came over right after the Mayflower. However, what is new and disturbing is this fanaticism has  infiltrated the very foundational governing fabric of this country. More about my concern below the fold.
In the past there have always been sharp and often violent ideological differences between political factions, but not since the Civil War has that divide so threatened the security of all Americans and the stability of the nation in general. Five of the justices currently sitting on the SCOTUS are ideologues whose ability to think and reason is blinded by their fanatical dedication to their common “conservative” ideology. When this block acts in this manner without thoughly weighing the effect of their decision on the future of the nation it becomes a very serious problem. Effectively the five justices that supported this ruling were legislating from the bench, because to apply the freedom of speech provisions without restriction to a legal entity created by the States, namely a corporation, and then blithely apply a silly canard that a corporation is a person and is entitled to free speech protection under the constitution is completely devoid of logic on any scale of reasoning. Their weak association is limited to that fact that a corporation is composed of people instead of dogs, cows or birds. So therefore it must be a person (guilt by association). From this point of reasoning a TupperWare party is entitled to the free speech provisions as it is also composed of people.

All of the argument considered by the SCOTUS was bounded around the idea that all of the corporations in question are domestically owned. The majority didn’t utter a peep about multinational corporations in their written decision. You would think in this era of multinational corporations this would be front and center in their minds urging caution in respect to this global reality. This is the blind spot that I am referring to caused by their ideological fanaticism. Do the rabid five think that the Chinese are stupid and don’t know what is going on in this country?

Over the past decade many foreign corporations have purchased well known American businesses, such as Firestone, Dial Soap, Shell Oil, Holiday Inn, Trader Joe’s, 7-Eleven, Budweiser, coors, Miller, Ben & Jerry’s Babe Ruth, Eskimo Pies, and Nestle. Now these retail firms though foreign owned for the most part have little interest in influencing our government. However, The Peoples Republic of China (PROC) is a much different problem when it comes to the prospect of ownership of American businesses. The American business community and Wall Street have devoted much energy to obscuring the fact that China is still very much a strongly Communist country. Covered up in all the business dealings with Walmart is the fact that technically we are still at war with China. No cease fire or treaty has been signed between the United States and China following the Korean war. The United Nations, along with the United States signed an agreement with the North Koreans which ended the Korean war, but this agreement does not extend to China. Wall Street and Walmart have not been empowered by the Constitution to manage such agreements between the United States and its enemies. So shiploads of stuff from China does not officially change the goals of the government of the PROC.

I personally believe it would be economically healthy for China to invest in the United States. However, it has to be done carefully with the appropriate safeguards to preserve national security while preventing interference with our democratic system of government. However, the five justices gave none of this any thought when they blundered thoughtlessly into the delicate balance between the U.S. and China regarding relations. For example the U.S. Military has been very concerned recently with China’s acquisition of several new large aircraft carriers. No one in the government is comfortable with China’s current and future position in world affairs. The decision by the five justices opens the door for ANY OWNER of any American corporation to freely interfere or meddle in Congressional and Presidential campaigns. Just a couple of weeks ago China announced that she will be in the market to purchase struggling American businesses. This was before the five justices rendered their decision and I predict unless Congress moves rapidly to fix this SCOTUS back door political blunder, China will move in and take advantage of it.

Those who embrace the extreme oligarchy rapidly spreading throughout America are becoming more and more fanatical in the effort to institutionalize their ideology within the governmental fabric of the United States. The common thread that unites these people is their dedication to reducing the Federal government in size to little or no government. Further, they place no limitations on their efforts to accomplish this, even to the entering, knowingly or unknowingly, into collusion with sworn enemies of the United States. Therein lies the danger of this upsurge of ideological fanaticism as it becomes embodied in people holding high positions in the very government they originally swore to UPHOLD and PROTECT. I saw it clearly expressed by the behavior of Justice Alito during the president’s remarks when he raised concern over the recent SCOTUS decision.

 

The TV commentators have it wrong as to what is fueling the Massachusetts
voter’s real anger. They are all highlighting health care as the reasons for the big Republican surge against Coakley in Massachusetts. Granted a certain minority group of seniors will vote for Brown because they feel that their own health care plans are at risk under the current HCR bill in congress.

Health care is not the reason why the Massachusetts independents and many disgusted Massachusetts Democrats will likely vote for Brown. They reason that they are swinging towards Brown has nothing to do with either candidate or their positions on the issues. Brown is simply reaping the white hot anger among the voters over one issue, WALL STREET BAILOUTS and BONUSES!! If Kennedy was alive and running in this race he would lose. More below the fold.

Voters in Massachusetts and across the nation have their pitchforks out against Congress, the Fed, and the Secretary of Treasury for dumping TRILLIONS into the “TOO BIG TO FAIL” Wall Street Investment houses and Banks. In the aftermath of receiving these huge bailout sums of money, these same Wall Street firms turned around and spit in the eye of the taxpayer by paying out record level bonuses to their employees. Meanwhile the Main street voter has had to struggle with severe local budget cuts, layoffs, and a local economy that is in the toilet. Food stamp distribution is at a record level all across the country, while the custodian at Goldman got a $14,000 bonus. From the voter’s perspective, this outrageous situation continues to exist with little consideration of fairness for the struggling taxpayer.

The Fed chairman has seen this tidal wave of public anger coming, which is why yesterday he called for a full investigation of the AIG payouts to counter parties and the NY Fed’s role in that post bailout situation in advance of his upcoming confirmation vote in congress. Sorry Ben, I think you’re just a little late.

Regardless of whether Brown wins or Coakley wins, the genie is out of the bottle. If people in Massachusetts are really pissed enough about this to use the first national level election to express their anger, imagine what awaits incumbents throughout the rest of the country. I should like to point out that no one can manipulate this anger, e.g. The Tea Party Express, because it’s become such an explosive issue with the voters that it crosses party lines.

The angry Massachusetts voters were so pissed that they gave no attention to Brown’s statements that he would be against any legislation that would effectively rein in the Wall Street Bonuses. Those angry one issue voters don’t care what any politician says. They are driven by only one goal, kick all incumbents out of office in Washington, home of the TRILLION DOLLAR BAILOUTS.

Even if the Democrats in Congress cobble together a HCR bill for Obama to sign before his State of The Union address, it will do little to cool the “Bail Out/Bonus” anger among voters. The writing is on the wall for the 2010 Congressional elections and unless between now and the elections Congress can produce a couple million jobs and reduce the budget cuts on the local level, the voters will be poised to “throw the bums out” the moment the polls open.

During the panic hours all day Wednesday, the Obama Administration emergency plans for Haitian rescue operations were assigned to coordinated under the direction of the head of AID and the Military Commander of Southern Command. General Russel Honore (Retired) publicly disagreed with this command structure for the Haitian emergency relief project. General Honore advised President Obama that the control over coordinating the relief effort should be exclusively under the American regional military Commander. I agreed then with General Honore completely yesterday and as today’s events unfold it is becoming rapidly clearer that we are about to witness a relief disaster in the making. I will tell you just how below the fold.
The only hope for any successful relief operation was to assign coordination completely under the military and here is why. Only the military has the capacity to schedule demanding high speed tightly controlled operations and expect results. Further, only the military has been trained to move into an area WITHOUT and expectation of utilities and facilities to be operational. Only the military has heavy equipment and construction vehicles available on standby for immediate deployment to any theater of operation.

Haitian infrastructure was none existent before the earthquake, this was a well known fact. The harbor itself was literally falling apart and would be incapable of providing support for the required relief ship traffic even if it hadn’t been destroyed by the earthquake. So virtually no roads, no sea port, the only access left is the airport. The Airport certainly did not have enough runways and aircraft parking space to support an air relief mission of this magnitude.

The coordinator would estimate the amount of cargo plane traffic would be required to support the relief  effort and use these calculations to determine how many additional runways and parking spaces would be required. The project at this point would be to first fly in the number of bulldozers required to start building the first additional runway. Flight traffic initially would be limited to getting the runway construction equipment and fuel on site. Once on the ground the Army engineers would immediately start the construction work on the second runway. Meanwhile the shuttle airplane traffic would start delivery of the metal reinforcements for the runway under construction.
When the new runway opens for use construction would already be started on another runway if needed.

This bootstrap procedure would result the quick implementation of an Haitian Airport capable of facilitating a reasonable shot at a viable relief operation for the country. Further, it would provide the first vanguard of heavy equipment critical to removing the huge slabs of concrete still imprisoning victims around the city. The U.S. Military would be the only agency capable of performing such an operation. As a matter of fact the Army Corps of Engineers has a record dating back to World War II in building landing/takeoff strips for aircraft in record time.

Now it is Thursday and the news out of Haiti is already reporting that the current big roadblock threatening to turn the relief effort into a recovery operation is the airport. Currently, no further planes will be allowed to land at the airport due to the congestion. Hence, most of the relief principles are now placing their hopes on the arrival of the U.S. Aircraft Carrier with a fleet of heavy lift Coast Guard Choppers, but this will add another 48 hour delay to the relief effort. At this point it does not appear that in consideration of the 48 hour delay that the relief operation most likely will have minimum success.

If REAL PROGRESSIVES would summon the courage to step back from the entire Health Care Reform events and analyze them from the start to the present day, they would be shocked to see clearly the REAL POWER structures in this American “pretend” democracy. Political historians in the future will use the Health Care Reform debate as an example of centralized power at work. More discussion to follow.
In actuality, the real governing power in America today is the Corporate/Financial Oligarchy that controls the critical institutions of the nation from the Mainstream media (MSM), to Wall Street, to the Congress, to the Federal Reserve. Contrary to conspiracy theory, this Oligarchy does not need to hold shadowy board meetings to plan their operations. The Oligarchy has been in existence and growing in this country for decades such that each key component is able to interpret publicly published conversation over it’s controlled communication media to determine priorities and strategic dynamics. When the financial turf of the Oligarchy wound up in dire trouble as the result of creating and trading reckless new financial instruments in the form of Credit Default Swaps and such; the political arm of the Oligarchy came to the rescue to the tune of 6 trillion dollars from the American treasury.

Recognition of their association with this POWER is why the Republican Party has been so comfortable to simply remain the party of “NO” over the course of this past year. They are well aware that the Democratic Party is completely shut out of any control over the MSM. On the other hand the MSM is a resource just waiting for any Republican created propaganda that the Party decides to feed the American people. Back to observations concerning the Health Care Reform debate. When Obama initially proposed Health Care Reform, over 70% of Americans were for the legislation. Since then the Oligarchy has executed a “full court press” against the bill by financing Town Hall riots, financing Tea Party demonstrations, buying off individual obstructionists in Congress, financing an army of lobbyists, and conducting a 24/7 anti-health bill propaganda campaign targeting the general public using the MSM communication channels. I dare say when someone has the resources to total up the aggregate expenses paid by the American Oligarchy to have its way with the Health Care Reform Bill it will most likely be over a trillion dollars.

The simple basic question is how does the American citizenry fight against such overwhelming power in its midst, short of bloody revolution? The Health Care Reform bill is a classic demonstration that the American government is NOT a Government of the people, or by the people, for such an American institution seems to have quietly perished from the earth.

A few observations on the current state of the Union. The MSM continues to feed the public with Tiger Woods gossip as the preferred distraction of the moment.

The public needs to be informed so they can watch the final destruction of the American middle class now playing out on the small screen. It is currently the longest running reality show.

It has recently been estimated that the loss in capitol from the collaspse of the private home real estate market has drained out over 6 billion dollars from the wealth of the American middle class. More observations below.
Working class people in America are being given a bare knuckle demonstration of exactly WHO wields political power in the United States. Just follow the money and the political votes in Congress and it becomes crystal clear. Corporate wealth easily commands trillions of Taxpayer’s dollars to bail out failing investment houses on Wall Street, including some offshore banks. American corporate wealth built an army of lobbyists who have successfully bribed and bought members of the Senate to slowly but effectively shred the Health Care Reform Bill so that all that is left is the mandate to push 40 million Americans into private health care plans that will do little for their health, but will allow the insurance companies to collect a stupendous windfall of profits from the government.

Corporate wealth engaged the complete and uncompromising support of the Main Stream Media to brainwash and confuse the public with an unrelenting 24/7 propaganda campaign against the Health Care Reform Bill. They sent their CEOs to White Conferences and meetings to capitalize on the good will of the President while lying about supporting his effort to achieve Health Care Reform.

White House slight of hand accounting and cooking the books produce glowing reports announcing a slow down in home foreclosures. Meanwhile, actual foreclosures are still increasing. The announced increase in home sales, actually was spurred by the extension of the $8,000 home buyer credit provided by the government. The remaining new sales was actually due to the sale of distressed properties at foreclosure firesale auctions, where properties were sold at less than 40% of their market value.

A new wave of foreclosures are expected in 2010 when the millions of ARMs will reset, suddenly adding an average increase of $1000 to the home owner’s monthly mortgage. Most of these home owners in this current economic climate will not be able to meet this new increase, hence a new wave of foreclosures is expected about mid 2010. A great deal of concern exists over just how a new wave of foreclosures will impact the weak recovering economy. The concern is that such a new wave of negative economic activity might cause the recession to slide back into a another dip which would result in a national economic catastrophe.

Just before the high tech bubble burst, America was creating millionares at the rate of over a thousand new millionares a week. Many of these people strategically invested their wealth and did not lose it through Madoff or Bear Sterns or any other Wall Street gamblers. So over the years, the middle class contracted, the poor class expanded, but the wealthy class expanded.

Most economists are predicting a “jobless” recovery, which means a recovery for America’s corporations with offshore operations and their Wall Street associates. However, a jobless recovery means an economic depression for main street and a never ending fiscal disaster for city and State governments. America will become a two class society, the super rich and the extreme poor. The Obama administration does not give this possible scenario the seriousness that it deserves. All of the severe economic events that I have described above coupled with a double dip recession WILL KILL the middle class. In this climate where American corporate interest is directed primarily towards offshore business functions, it will be impossible for the American middle class, who used to work at these companies, to find jobs again here in the United States. Small business will be able to restart and hire small groups of people, but it is a huge leap from a light manufacturing operation in a small suburban plant to a full scale multi-facility large industrial manufacturing corporation. Many small successful small business owners will most likely participate in international sales as well as domestic sales. But their expansion capability will be limited.

From my perspective we are currently watching the demise of the American middle class, and since the global marketplace is here to stay, I see little possibility of a recovering American middle class. Further, no country can exist with domestic peace and prosperity with ONLY TWO CLASSES, the very rich, and the very poor. Without a strong viable middle class no country can remain stable.

This is a brief peek under the skirts of the reason behind President Obama’s China trip. The gassy TV pundits have all pontificated as to why Obama decided to schedule his Asia tour at this time. Of course they all zeroed in on the trillion dollar debt that China is holding and most decided that Obama had to go and personally assure the Chinese that the treasuries that they are holding are still a solid investment. Some even speculated that the Chinese were concerned about the upcoming Health Reform legislation and its financial impact on the American Treasury. All of this is pure bull and I will explain why.
While many Americans are aware that the Chinese have financed our government’s debt to the tune of a trillion dollars. However, I doubt many Americans are aware that China is the world’s exclusive supplier of precious minerals that are needed industrially across the globe. These commodities are Lithium for batteries and rare earth metals cerium, thulium and samarium which are used to make magnets for motors. Several recent actions by China have caused great concern in Washington. First, China has signed a “Super Asia” contract with Toyota of Japan to supply both Lithium and rare earth metals for the projected expanded sale  of the Toyota Prius hybred automobile throughout Asia. (Lithium for the batteries and Rare earth metals for the magnets used in the electric motor of the Prius.) The second issue is that China has decided to reserve a significant portion of these commodities for its own future manufacturing needs, thereby removing a significant supply from the current world marketplace.

The Pentagon accordingly has recently started reviewing its future equipment needs in terms of deciding its dependence on Chinese supplies. All of this is the real reason why the President needed to make this trip, without giving the appearance of urgency. I should also point out that these rare earth magnets are a key component of computer disk drives, so just imagine how the cost of computers would skyrocket if China reduced the supply of these metals available to manufacturers around the world. Just imagine….. Forget the trillion dollars, this is the real problem facing America.

It is during periods of extreme national turmoil and stress that the fractures and distortions appear in the frame work of Government. The current era is such a time. Dramatic proposals are currently being debated in our American Congress, the outcome of which will shape the destiny of America for decades in the future. Roll up your sleeves and get more below.
The American public has indicated that they want the Public Option included in the Health Care bill by some 76% in recent polling. However, the entire Health Care industry stands in solid opposition to the Public Option provision and is spending upwards of $1.4 million a day to influence defeat of the Public Option provision. Many members of the House and Senate were recipients of huge sums of money from the Health Care lobby long before the Health Care Reform debate started and are not included in the current $1.4 million per day lobbyists are currently spending. (There are over 31 members of Congress who have received money from the Health Care industry ranging from $7,504.867 to $788,650.)  However, the current massive lobby effort is unprecedented in the history of American lobbying, and represents a direct override of the wishes of the overwhelming majority of American people. This is an unabashed smack in the face of the American public by the apostles of corporation greed. There is a strange dichotomy in the behavior of Congress in this situation. First it gave almost two trillion dollars of the people’s money to bailout of Wall Street investment houses. Meanwhile the same bailed out investment houses fund the Health Care Corporations, who in turn are currently spending $1.4 million per day through their respective lobby firms to persuade Congress to write legislation that will disenfranchise American citizens from their right to access a Public Option for their health care.

It is important here to understand the relationship between Wall Street, Corporate America and the Congressional Lobby industry. It is not an understatement to say that Wall Street is the main temple of American greed. Wall Street analysts and investment bankers do not care about the actual functioning of American business beyond a casual look at the “fundamentals” of the business. The majority of their time is spent attempting to design a foolproof predictive system that will determine how many shares of a given equity will be bought and sold and what the price per share will be for either transaction. The American business’s relevance to the Wall Street industry has no sociological implications whatsoever. The standard corporate remedy for any temporary business shortcomings (regardless of the cause) of laying off thousands of workers is always welcomed by Wall Street because preservation of corporate capitol is of ultimate importance to the Investment Houses.

All corporations hosted by Wall Street Investment Houses are continuously under the Wall Street analysis’s whip to improve their “bottom line” or cash profits. There is never any question of ethics when it comes to improving the bottom line, anything goes. There was no shock or outcry several years ago when a fortune 500 company bought out the entire holdings of a woman who had built an empire of pornographic magazines and films for some 50+ million dollars. Wall Street was happy, as it would greatly improve the corporate bottom line. The long and the short of Wall Street is that this industry is like a hammer. It is only designed to do three things, invest money, make a profit, and pressure companies to create that profit. As a hammer is designed to apply sudden force to whatever it strikes, Wall Street is likewise designed to constantly build profits without any semblance of integrity. To believe otherwise is to romance a snake.

If the nation is to survive and prosper in the 21st century, American business must wean itself off of public investment as it currently exists and return to private funding exclusively. It is only in this business stature can businesses plan and manage their destiny. I have personally witnessed many corporations that were forced to conceal the actual cost and budgets for their in-house Research and Development for the Wall Street analysts for fear of huge stock losses if the size of their R&D budget became known. So they used propriety as the reason for the extraordinary amount of secrecy surrounding any new product development, imposing threats of termination on any employee leaking company information about the new product.

To return to the question of health care, obviously the main product of this industry is servicing member’s health needs. This industry like all other corporations funded by the Wall Street Investment houses is constantly under pressure to improve their “bottom line” profits. Under these conditions greater profits can only be derived by either of two ways, reducing the cost of patient care or increasing the cost of patient care. The Health Care Industry has taken advantage of both private and Government health insurance program to fix costs to keep Wall Street happy with their bottom line from year to year. However, now the Government is proposing the Public Option, a plan that would be administered by the Government! Yikes!! Corporate Health Care has been screeching for years because the Government is so inefficient and prone to waste, it must be kept out of the health care business. However, now that it looks like the Government might actually get into the health care business, these same private Health Insurers are finding that they cannot compete with the Government’s 3.5% inefficiency rating (as currently in Medicare).

Why can’t private Health Insurers compete? Because their profit “bottom line” has been inflated to meet the demands of Wall Street. Hence they are pulling out all the lobbying stops to derail the Public Option in congress. People, for these corporations it is a time of gut wrenching desperation. These folks are fighting to survive.

Hopefully with this brief explanation of the relationships between Wall Street, Corporate America and Congress, we can move on to the political specifics and the immediate ramifications of this unholy alliance on the future of America and the American voter. At this point a consideration of the Senate side of Congress is in order.

The founding fathers were in great admiration of the British form of Government with its two Houses, the House of Commons and the House of Lords. The creation of the House of Representative was a direct copy of the English House of Commons. However, since America was being founded as a refuge for all men from the tyranny of rule by Royalty, the founding fathers had to find a different name for the governmental body functioning like the House of Lords. So they looked to the Roman Empire and chose to name this alternate body, the Senate. Unfortunately they winked at the recorded history that the Roman Senate was actually composed of Roman aristocracy, not plebeians.

The 17th Constitutional Amendment passed in 1913 directed that Congressional Senators would be elected by popular vote in each State. Here-to-fore Congressional Senators were appointed by each States legislatures. Congress felt that this change would make Senator’s more sensitive to the wishes of the American public, while providing greater insulation in the Federal Government from local and regional State politics. However, this essentially created a political vacuum which Lobbyists quickly moved to fill. Over the decades the political influence over the Senate has grow into a massive force, currently dwarfing the wishes and needs of the respective Senator’s constituents. Make no mistake; lobbyists have been a part of the American Government since its inception. A brief history of American Congressional lobbying follows below.

The following excerpt was taken from an address to the United States Senate by Senator Robert Bird on September 28, 1987. In this particular address Senator Bird traces the history of Lobbying of the American Congress.

“Lobbyists have been at work from the earliest days of the Congress. William Hull was hired by the Virginia veterans of the Continental army to lobby for additional compensation for their war services. In 1792, Hull wrote to other veterans’ groups, recommending that they have their “agent or agents” cooperate with him during the next session to pass a compensation bill. In 1795, a Philadelphia newspaper described the way lobbyists waited outside Congress Hall to “give a hint to a Member, teaze or advise as may best suit.”
As early as the closing years of the eighteenth century, there were widespread suspicions that large, well-financed interests were receiving special attention from the government. During the first half century of our Republic, the most distrusted and despised special interest was the Bank of the United States, a private bank chartered by the federal government. Critics of the bank pointed out that a number of sitting senators served as its directors, a clear case of conflict of interest. James Madison wrote to Thomas Jefferson in 1791, “Of all the shameful circumstances of this business, it is among the greatest to see the members of the Legislature [Congress] who were most active in pushing this Job, openly grasping its emoluments.” On December 21, 1833, Senator Daniel Webster of Massachusetts wrote from Washington to the bank’s president, Nicholas Biddle: “Since I arrived here, I have had an application to be concerned, professionally, against the Bank, which I have declined, of course, although I believe my retainer has not been renewed, or refreshed, as usual. If it be wished that my relation to the bank should be continued, it may be well to send me the usual retainer.” That is stating it plainly, isn’t it?
The perception of impropriety that the bank fostered was a contributing factor to President Andrew Jackson’s decision to remove government funds and to veto attempts to extend its charter.”

Currently, the there are three super powerful lobby groups on K Street in Washington DC. These are the Health Care Industry lobby, the gun lobby, and the Pharmaceutical Industry. There are many other lobby groups representing hundreds of different special interest groups, but none come close to the power and influence of the big three above. In essence these three groups constitute a “shadow” government as often they not only influence legislation, but they often write draft legislation for their Congressional associates. This is obviously something that the founding fathers never for a moment intended or even visualized when they wrote the Constitution. From the earliest days of the American Government, Congressional personnel have publicly cursed and condemned the presence and actions of these “pernicious lobbyists” in their presence, but no serious effort was ever taken to remove them. All Government officials grudgingly accepted the “right of the people to petition” their representatives. So it is that this transmogrification has become a challenger to the workings of the legislative branch of the Government such that it imperils the sanctity and relevance of the American Constitution itself.  

The idea has been for centuries that lobbyists are only narrowly concerned about the interests of the people who employ them. But in a fast moving global environment, these interests are becoming more diverse, international, and complex, such as impinging on Government policy itself. Lobbyists would have long taken over the U.S. Military, but they are held at a distance by the enormous power of the impregnable Pentagon which acts as a filter in both directions, i.e., employing lobbyists and receiving petitions from lobbyists.  

All of the current problems plaguing America are traceable to legislative lobbyists. Lobbyists work constantly to control the legislative interaction between the Democrats and the Republicans. In this effort the lobbyists define when bipartisanship will be observed and when it will be rejected in the House and in the Senate. Lobbyists are extremely effective on the committee level, in many instances staging and documenting congressional hearings. Many Congress people come to Washington with the resolution to avoid lobbyists at all costs. However, they soon find as a freshman that their staff resources are often either shared or limited. They grudgingly learn that if they expect to have any success they must engage with lobbyists.

In this regard CONGRESS ITSELF must clean up its act in order to save America from lobbyist government. The solution is not complex. Simply provide the funding necessary to provide adequate staffing to provide for the legislative needs of all Congress people. This includes live and video tutorials as how to perform the process of conceptualizing, composing and writing legislation for the United States of America. Information must be provided for all issues the good, the bad, and the ones with warts. The “old boy” networking structures must be eliminated by encouragement of a sincere love for all Americans. Special closed seminars must be made available to Congress to deal with really tough questions ranging from ethics to ethical legislative conduct to influence administration, proper and otherwise. These are minor changes as compared to the possible national social train wreck that powerful legislative lobbying can create. The 21st century awaits America, and you the voter needs to take this situation seriously and get busy.