Capitalist Frogs

Most of us know the story about how to boil a frog.  Toss a live frog in boiling water, and it will jump right back out.  Even a frog's not stupid.  Put a frog in a pot of warm water, and it's comfortable.  When you turn on the burner under the pot, it adjusts to the slowly heating water.  And stays perfectly comfortable as it is boiled to death.   

Woodrow Wilson threw our capitalist society into the boiling water.  Americans, being at least as smart as your average tail-less amphibean, jumped out of that pot.  When FDR cranked up the heat, only because of the emergency brought on by the depression and then World War II, Americans endured the heat because it seemed to be the right thing to do.  But as soon as the twin crises passed, the country jumped out and swore that we'd never get back in!

So, we sat in our pot of water, perfectly comfortable in our little free enterprise beliefs.  Soon, our elected officials suggested that we subsidize farmers.  You know, pay them to not grow crops while the land recovered.  Kind of goes against free enterprise principles, but the water's fine, so a little heat can't hurt.  Minorities and women have been held down by our system for years, so let's give them a little help getting started.  I know, a real free market would eventually reward them if their work was worthwhile.  But that would take too long.  They deserve a break.  The water's barely warm, turn the heat up just a little.  No problem.

Nuclear power's really clean and we will never run out of it.  But wow, it's really expensive and innefficient.  Let's give them a little government money to get started.  The market will eventually catch up to our wisdom and pay us all back.  Turn up that burner a little more.  Well, the earth's getting a little too warm cold warm, we need some friendly energy.  Let's give a little tax money to solar panel makers and windmill generators.  Just to get them
started.  Getting warm yet?

Those darn rich Americans aren't giving their money to ACORN like they should.  Give them some tax money.  And then finally, Fannie, Freddie, AIG, Bank of America, those guys are all too big to fail.  We'd better throw boatloads of tax money at them, or  free enterprise will fall apart.  Now, it's definitely getting hot!

The water finally got hot enough to wake up us free enterprise frogs.  We've got to stop the subsidies and let the market decide who succeeds and who fails, from the doughnut shop on the corner all the way to the state level.  If Krispy Kreme knocks Sunshine out of the market, so be it.  Don't toss loads of money to Sunshine to keep them afloat.  If California keeps going further and further into debt to pay retirement benefits for 50 year old retirees, don't give them federal money to keep putting solar panels on their schools.  If $1000 of each Government Motors vehicle sale goes to retired union members, don't buy that Impala, unless of course, their car is $1000 better than the competition's.  And our tax dollars better not go to bail them out! 

A recent poll showed that just over 25% of respondents don't know that subsidies, bailouts, and welfare checks come from the taxpayers!  They think the government just has extra money laying around.  The report did not say how many of these 25% were actually members of congress.  Ribbit. 

Barack Hussein Obama is a Jewish Mother??

 A commentary on the average American's response to Arizona's new immigration law quoted poll results from Newsweek illustrating that Americans overwhelmingly support Arizona's position.  The question was phrased in several different ways.  In the different versions of the question, Americans' support of the law ranged from 65% to 78%.  The lowest positive rate was of the question, "would you support your state passing a similar law.  "Only" 58% answered yes.  So, why is everyone in the Obama administration criticizing the law, without ever reading it?  What is their goal?  In an already contentious mid-term election year, when most experts predict Democrats losing control of at least one branch of congress, why fly into the face of such overwhelming public opinion?


At the risk of sounding racist, I'm going to bring up the stereotypical Jewish mother.  You know how they are portrayed as using guilt to get their way with their children?  "No, son, you don't have to visit this Mother's day.  I know you are busy and all.  I wouldn't want to interfere with your hectic schedule.  I'm only 98, I'm sure I'll be around for many more Mother's days that I will be able to celebrate with you."


The president's big stick is our collective guilt over slavery, abolished about 145 years ago, by the way.  That's why he was never criticized or even challenged during his campaign.  Republicans were afraid of being labeled racist.  They couldn't question his choice of religion.  So what if he is a Muslim?  They couldn't question his choice of a pastor.  So what if he was a twenty year member of Jeremiah Wright's church that taught, among other outrages, that the 9/11 attacks were justified and even a message from God?  They couldn't question his relationship with domestic terrorists like Bill Ayers.  His political career started with a meeting in Ayers' basement, but that doesn't mean Obama knew him.  They couldn't question his wife's opinion of America when she said "for the first time in my life, I'm proud of America."  They couldn't even question his habit of voting "present" as a senator.  Any question or challenge was immediately met with charges of racism.  Even now, when Tea Party supporters carry signs with slogans such as "I want my country back," they are charged with using racist "code words."  And like the Jewish son, we get defensive and give in.

Now immigration policy is the hot topic.  Anyone who has read Arizona's law knows that it is only a repeat of current federal law.  The law only empowers local and state law enforcement to aid the federal government in enforcing current law.  It goes to great lengths to make illegal any type of racial profiling, with strictly worded definitions of restrictions of who can be questioned and why, and punishments for violating those restrictions.  So immediately after the law, actually a state bill at the time, was reported on national news, the president publicly called it misguided and requested a department of justice review of its legality.  Without ever reading it!  He was quickly followed with public condemnations of the law by his attorney general, homeland security secretary, and numerous governors and mayors, most of whom still claim not to have read the law!

Now, last week, the president of Mexico was invited to speak on the floor of the House of Representatives.  His topic?  The racist components of the United States immigration policy and specifically the Arizona law.  His speech was followed by a standing ovation by Democratic members of the House!  And remember this is a policy overwhelmingly favored by Americans.  What is the progressives' purpose in making these comments.  The whole guilt over slavery thing is getting a little tired to most Americans, so if that's the plan, it's obviously not working.  Or are they trying to divide the country even further.  It is apparent that many Americans will blindly follow the Democratic party no matter what.  So they are inclined to believe the charges of racism.  Some legal immigrants and minorities are genuinely worried about harassment.  And admittedly some have read the law, know that it mirrors federal law, but believe that the federal law should be changed.  So at the very least, the progressives seem to be trying to widen a gap between the approximately 60% who oppose them and the 40% who support them.  What could be their endgame?  The possibilities are a little scary to think about.

Here's a video of Representative McClintock's, a Republican congressman from California, response to Mexican president Calderon's speech last week.  


Just to be fair, California gets slammed a lot, but it's obviously not all California that is so completely screwed up.  Just the cities, as the case in most of the country.  It's just that the rest of us that have to pay for their stupidity!  Hope that wasn't too racist.  I'm feeling a little guilty.

My Hometown

On my drive to and from Texas, I had only three unscratched CD's, and no good radio for several hundred miles.  So these three CD's got a lot of playing time.  One was a collection of my favorites from Bruce Springsteen.  I can't remember the name of the music critic of the Dallas Morning News in the 1990's, but he had one of my favorite comments.  He said, "when it comes to poets in rock music, there's Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen, and then there's many others who wish they were."  One of the songs from Springsteen that I love is My Hometown.  The song starts with the singer saying, "I'd sit on his lap in that big ol' Buick, Steer as we drove through town.  He'd tousle my hair and say son, take a good look around.  This is your hometown."  The song goes on to describe how the town declines with racial tensions and then the loss of jobs at the textile mill.  "Now main street's whitewashed windows and vacant stores.  Seems like there ain't  nobody wants to come down here no more."

Graham never, at least that I was aware of, had problems with race relations, but there has been plenty of upheaval with loss of jobs.  When I was a kid, Graham Magnetics and Hexcel were two of the largest employers in the town. Both closed shortly after I graduated from high school.  The other major industry, oil, has seen numerous ups and downs in my lifetime.  I drove around downtown and recognized very few stores that still had the same occupants from my childhood.  But few had whitewashed windows or were vacant stores.  What makes some areas bounce back from hard times, while others wait for the government to come rescue them? 

Check out Youtube for videos of Detroit today.  Not only is the city practically dead, but there is a sense of hopelessness.  None of the stories you hear or the articles you read talk about exciting new plans for developing the abandoned neighborhoods.  Everyone seems to be waiting around for, not a hand up, but a handout.  Or in the case of one widely circulated video, "get me some of that Obama money."  Why?

I think that it is all about the way the people in those cities and industries are educated.  Educated not only by their public schools, but by their unions.  "The man" is out to get the little guy.  "The man" uses the little guy to make million$, then tosses him aside when he's done.  The only hope for the little guy is the union.  They will stand up to "The man."  Oh yeah, be sure to elect democrat/progressives.  They work with the unions to make sure you won't be taken advantage of.  Of course, the union support will cost you.  You will have dues taken out of each check, but it's worth the money.  Who else is going to stand up for you?  You are helpless on your own.  Now the unions have all their candidates in place in Washington D.C.  They will take tax dollars out of your check too.  But only to pay for programs to protect you when "The man" fires you, takes his million$ and leaves Detroit.  Well, GM got its bailout.  Chrysler got its dollars.  The UAW seems to be doing fine, or at least the union itself is.  Not the little guy though.  Seems like the union took all its dues and gave them to elect its candidates.  The government took its taxes, and bailed out the union with them.  Where does that leave the little guy?  Trying to survive and mostly seeming to be waiting for their rescue by their beloved unions and caring elected officials.

In contrast, ranchers, farmers, and small oil companies are independent.  They go through just as many, if not more, economic ups and downs as any other industry.  But they survive and adapt.  Businesses close, but a new one steps in.  Drilling rigs sit idle for 5, 10 years or more.  But as soon as the business climate is healthy again, they are ready to work and thrive again.  All the while knowing that just as surely as a boom came, a bust is around the corner.  People help each other out when they can, because they realize that soon the tables will turn.  They know better than to count on the government or paid unions to rescue them.

It really seems like there are some tumultuous times ahead, as the self-reliant, mostly westerners (not including California or California lite aka Oregon) adapt and recover from the latest hard times.  Even in California, it seems that the smaller towns and farming/ranching communities are trying to do the right thing.  Unfortunately their state politics are dominated by their cities, who like the union dominated areas of the country wait for the payoff from their campaign contributions to bail them out.  There seems to be a great divide in the country now about things as basic as who we are, and what kind of country we want to live in.  It also seems that our elected officials in Washington are not trying to close this divide, but expand it.   We need to figure out why.  But first we have to make sure we know who we are, and what America is.

Pop, Pop, Pop, Pop

 Did you hear a pop, pop, pop?  Kind of like a series of champagne bottles being opened?  That is the sound of the media pulling their collective heads out of their collective....  Maybe I'd better use a light bulb metaphor.  So, did you see a few small lights coming on the past ten days or so?

A couple of weeks ago, in the Sunday Denver Post, I read an editorial.  The writer, whose name I can't remember, wrote about his surprise about local politics.  He quoted several stories from local meetings and elections.  He was surprised that even with all the distrust of Washington, especially here in the west, most people actually feel pretty good about their local government.  Several of his stories even involved raising local taxes for local issues.  His point was that people are willing to pay for what is important to them.  If it is handled locally.  Sound familiar?  Constitutional even?  It is easy to trust people you see everyday, whether you voted for them or not.  And on the flip side of the equation, it is hard to take advantage of constituents that you see frequently.  You don't steal from, or over-tax people you know, or people you have to answer to.  The writer quotes former speaker of the House, Tip O'Neill, "All politics are local."  A slightly less complex version of Jefferson's creed, 

Our country is too large to have all its affairs directed by a single government. Public servants at such a distance and from under the eye of their constituents . . . will invite the public agents to corruption, plunder, and waste. . . . What an augmentation of  the field for jobbing, speculating, plundering, office-building, and office-hunting would be produced by an assumption of all the state powers into the hands of the federal government.

Pop.  Pop.  


Last week three of the four editorials in the Sunday Denver Post were about the importance of local control of issues, not federal.

Pop.  Pop.  Pop.

Monday night, Brian Williams from NBC news, appeared on David Letterman.  He said that he felt the huge swing in the stock market last week had nothing to do with "fat fingers" or automated trading or any of the other official explanations given by analysts.  He said that all that was showing on monitors all over Wall Street was news video of the riots in Greece.  He said that he had the same sick feeling he had on 9/11.  

Pop.  Pop.  Pop.

Today's New York Times, yes, THE New York Times, you know None "of the news that's fit to print."  That New York Times.  They ran a story about the parallels between the path the current administration and its leaders (yes, leaders, not followers) are taking our country down and the situation in Greece that led to the current union-led violence.  Of course, the article never mentioned unions.  Some heads are buried so deep, it'll take some pulling to get them out.  

Keep listening for the pops.  I mean looking for the dim bulbs to brighten. 

Catching up

My vacation started this week.  I traveled to Texas to visit family.  Driving always gives me time to think.  My big discovery on this drive was that I have become one of the old people in hotels.  You know the old people that are up in the room next door, taking a shower while you are trying to sleep in?

Well, I was wide awake,taking a shower, and watching Sportscenter at 3:30 in the morning.  Luckily the rooms on each side of me were filled with high school age kids that were celebrating graduation.  Teens could sleep through Armageddon, so I didn't disturb anyone when I left at 4 to finally get my photos of the Cadillac ranch.  

 

 

Especially in the dark, the Cadillacs are barely recognizeable as Cadillacs.  The grafitti is the only interesting feature left.  It does make photography for a challenge, when they are for a family audience.  The ranch was originally in a site a couple of miles further east.  They were buried at an angle matching that of the great pyramids in Egypt.  The cars look like they were hurriedly re-planted in their new location, with no regard for what they originally were intended to represent.

Like so much in our me-first society, they are now just a venue the new Me generation to deface.  Maybe I am getting old.  Just another episode of old-timer's syndrome.