It’s time to Focus on helping People and not the Liberal Versus Conservative Divide

From downwithtyranny.blogspot.com

In the United States, we have divided the political landscape into liberal versus conservative for too long. These terms only serve to divide us and stereotype each other and this infighting only benefits the ruling classes.

Fox News commentators and Republican politicians have painted liberals as unAmerican, lazy, anti-work, pro-terrorist and made many other false claims about this group they call “liberal”. There are also the bumper stickers that highlight this stereotype, “Annoy a liberal: work hard, succeed and be happy.” Do liberals really want others to be unhappy? Who are these liberals? I am still looking for them.

A better question than is someone liberal or conservative is to ask, “Is this person, policy or politician pro-corporate or pro-human.” What do I mean by pro-corporate or pro-human? Let’s take a look.

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have clearly benefitted corporations more than the American people. Corporations who make military hardware, supply the troops, and commodify oil have benefitted from the war. The wars have also damaged our economy, greatly increased our debt, damaged our credibility in the world and sacrificed thousands of U.S. soldiers for corporate profit. Soldiers lives are traded for corporate profit.

How about the Troubled Asset Relief Fund, or TARP. That saved the economy from collapsing and thus, helped all Americans, didn’t it? Well, no. TARP was a $700 billion dollar bailout for major lending and banking institutions in America. The idea was that the recipients of this money would free up lines of credit for businesses and individuals and this would jump start the economy. In truth, those banks loaned less after TARP and increased bonuses they paid themselves. The TARP money didn’t trickle down at all and only helped the major players at the major lenders. Now we learn that banks were loaned $7.7 trillion in federal dollars at .01% interest. They then turned around and loaned money at 3% to the government who had loaned it to them to make over $13 billion in profit. How does that help the people?

How about those corporate tax loopholes and rates? Those cuts lead to job creation, and thus benefits the people, right? Wrong. We have had 12 years of the Bush/Republican tax cuts and official unemployment is still around 9%, much higher than when those tax cuts were enacted. Clearly, only corporations benefit from those tax cuts and loopholes, and they have not turned that extra cash into jobs.

What about cutting regulations, that leads to jobs, right? In fact, deregulation of the banking industry was a major cause of the banking collapse and thus recession of 2008. The idea that allowing companies to pollute more, or ignore health and safety laws, or other forms of deregulation leads to more jobs, is ludicrous. Are you telling me that the deregulation of the off shore oil platforms that helped cause the BP oil disaster  lead to jobs.  Really? Obviously, deregulation of industry helps corporations and hurts citizens.

What about the Affordable Health Care for America Act? Doesn’t that help people? Perhaps. It clearly captures more customers for insurance companies with the individual mandate while doing little to address overall costs in the system. It does help more Americans get insurance by eliminating most of the “pre-existing condition” barriers to health care. The law does provide some help to low income people and also tax credits for small businesses to buy insurance.

In the long run, this law is less cost affective than a single payer plan where corporate profits are taken out and it’s managed either by a private or public agency. There is some benefit to some of the public, but corporate interests are still protected at long term budget expense with this health plan.

Even our attempt to regulate the environment with cap and trade is a compromise that doesn’t really address the fundamental problem of global warming.  Cap and trade  is an attempt to get those that pollute to pay for that benefit and those that don’t pollute to get credits. Companies will game the system, buy and trade the carbon credits and eventually it will do nothing to reduce long term emissions. If we want to reduce carbon emissions we need to set limits and create technology to reduce those emissions while investing in and installing cleaner energy plants. We should not allow corporations to buy their way out of pollution with cap and trade laws. Ultimately this type of regulation would do nothing for the people and the planet.

Why was it possible to end don’t ask don’t tell and allow gays in the military? Doesn’t that benefit the people? It is because allowing gays in the military doesn’t ultimately hurt the corporate bottom line and the ban wasn’t useful anymore as a divisive issue to distract the public from our economic crisis. It also props up the progressive credibility of their man, Obama. “See, Obama supported ending don’t ask don’t tell, so he’s not corporate.” It does allow more Americans to join the military, so perhaps that helps some, and it does end discrimination which is always a good thing.

If you are to be an informed citizen, you must drop the conservative and liberal dichotomy that the corporate and political elite promote to keep us separate. We must all look at politicians and decide for ourselves whether their actions and policies benefit the most people and will help the weakest members of society or if they are only there to benefit the 1%. If you are part of the 99%, you must support those politicians and policies that help the 99%, not those that benefit only corporations and the 1%.

Peace,
Tex Shelters

Billionaires and their Allies tell the Occupy Movement to Stop It!

Image from http://www.dailykos.com

This is a call to all Americans to stop occupying things. Can’t you see that by making all this noise about how unjust our economic system is that you are hurting job creators. And we were just about to take our $1.8 trillion in surplus cash and create some jobs, but you had to ruin things.

Why is it that these occupy people hate capitalism. Capitalism is working quite well for us billionaires. And as Herman Cain makes clear, if you’re not a billionaire, you have only your self to blame. Sure we helped pass laws that benefit only us. You too can have laws written for you, but you are too lazy to buy Congress members to do your bidding. Why not hire some lobbyists who use free speech to get our agenda through Congress? President to be Cain was right; if your not rich, you have only yourself to blame.

First, you accuse us of sending jobs overseas. Well, if you want a job, move to China or Indonesia. We send jobs where the workers are, why don’t you move to where the jobs are?

Then you accuse us of manipulating the markets and betting against our overvalued mortgage bundles and by creating hedge funds.  If only you had created your own hedge funds, you too would have been rich.

Then there are those of you so lazy as to point out that the top 5% of earners is the only group to have their real wages increase in the last twenty years. If you want high wages, why do you choose to be poor? It’s not our fault that 95% of America doesn’t know how to manage their money and become rich. The top 5% deserves their raises, the rest of the America does not. Otherwise, you would have earned them.

Some liberal whiners want to TAX the job creators. My Dollar Almighty! Why should we have to pay our share of the benefits we reap from society when we are the only ones contributing to the wealth? The occupy movements have it all wrong. We should get things for free and you should pay our taxes for us, for without us job creators, you wouldn’t exist. It’s a tribute you must pay to us because of our magnificence. At least we won’t chop off you heads like Genghis Khan would have if you didn’t pay tribute, yet.

The occupy movement has no focus, because without one talking point, it’s too hard to understand. Do you expect us to read your manifesto? That’s over 600 words and we are too busy laying people off and paying out bonuses to read things.

Here are a few of the things our members think they saw on Wall Street and why you should be afraid of the protesters. We know they hate capitalism, are violent and will invade your homes; Bill O’Reilly and Fox News told us. If you watch the videos of protesters being beaten and pepper sprayed, you will see how dangerous they are.

But that’s not all. We interviewed other reliable sources on how to fear the protesters.

“There are witches on Wall Street that want to turn you into a toad, or worse, make you poor,” says Salem Tribunal II. “I swear I saw them fly around on brooms.”

“They are pod people from outer space who will invade the bodies of Wall Street bankers and ruin us all,” screams Connie Spiracy III.

Christian Striker of the Alien Defense League Enforcement Division, A.D.L.E.D., testifies, “They are mutants, with mutant powers, and they will control your minds and invade your bead at night and make you believe that the top 1% don’t deserve all our nation’s wealth and political control.

An anonymous source states that, “They are Yeti abortion communists!”

The facts are in. The occupy movement is dangerous because they remind you how good we billionaires have it at your expense. But mostly they are dangerous because they make average Americans realize they can make a difference and have a voice.

Find and Occupy Group in your area: http://www.occupytogether.org/

Peace,
Tex Shelters

Tex Shelters’ Speech at the Conservative Republicans Engaged in Excessive Politics, C.R.E.E.P

From http://peoplesworld.org/the-rich-are-dying-to-avoid-paying-taxes/

Tex Shelters’ Speech at the Conservative Republicans Engaged in Excessive Politics, C.R.E.E.P., meeting at Rancho Mirage in Palm Springs.

(yelling) FELLOW SELFSERVATIVES! (raising hands in what looks like a combination Nazi salute and black power fist)

(Tex waves his hands to calm down the hooting and hollering of the crowd)

Thank you, thank you! I am so glad to be here with you fellow conservatives of CREEP. President Obama couldn’t be here tonight, he’s out asking forgiveness from Wall Street for talking about raising taxes. (the crowd laughs, hoots and hollers)

Our triumph is nearly complete. We are on the doorstep of making everyone in the United States beholden to corporations, for everything. A special thanks to those that arrived here on the Greyhound bus today, you Tea Baggers. Without you hard working class racists and paranoid white folks, it would be a lot harder to take your Social Security and Medicaid money to reinvest in jobs, (pause) overseas. (A scattering of laugh among the well healed)

And to the folks that arrived in Jets, now that we have extended your tax cuts for years to come, I am sure you met no turbulence. (chuckles)

So we have extended the tax cuts and are now chipping away at the last defense against complete fascist rule! (Yeah!) But there is more work to do.

We must continue to go after a woman’s right to choose and force women to be baby incubators for future soldiers and slave labor.

We must also continue to take voting rights away from college students, the poor and others living on the margin. Without the vote in the wrong hands, we won’t have to rig the voting machines and scare voters away from the polls or use other means of persuasion.

We must rid our nation of the minimum wage. It’s too much to pay, and it’s not the starvation wage we had hoped for.

We must privatize the police to ensure they spend even more of their time protecting and servicing us, the top 1%, not you Greyhound bus riders…(pause) who of course can continue to defend yourselves with the guns we protect from liberal regulation. It’s a slippery slope from keeping automatic weapons away from serial killer rapists and taking away guns from everyone.

The military, keep it up. The earnings from military contracts couldn’t be better. And now, our media has convinced the joint chiefs that Libya is a threat (laughter). (raising a glass) Onward to Iran!

And to the media, you are doing one hell of a job focusing on the elections almost two years in advance, talking about Casey Anthony and the Norway “crazy” killer, Anders Breivik, and talking about the debt ceiling instead of discussing unemployment and the jobs crisis. Way to go! (Tex salutes).

I would also like to put a special thinks out to the Koch Brothers and their (finger to lips, in a whisper), shhhhhhh, Americans for Prosperity  for funding the Tea Party and writing so many damn good talking points for the media and Michelle Bachmann. Way to go on the “job creators” (thumbs up) line about the wealthy who avoid creating jobs and the idea that “Social Security is insolvent”. We’re selling shit, and public is buying.

(Looking at the camera) And special thanks to the American public. As the Bible says in Proverbs 22:6-8,  “The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is slave to the lender.”

(Raising hands) God Bless America.

Peace,
Tex Shelters