New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie likes it hard. As in, "to lead as my mother insisted I live, not by avoiding truths, especially the hard ones, but by facing up to them and being the better for it." Also in his 2016 acceptance speech in Tampa on Tuesday night, he said, "With $5 trillion in debt added over the last four years, we have no other option but to make the hard choices, cut federal spending and fundamentally reduce the size of government." A few lines later, there it was again: "Hard choices..." When he finally got around to mentioning the nominee of the Party That Wrecked America, wealthy Republican Willard Milton "Mitt" Romney, he promised, "Mitt Romney will tell us the hard truths we need to hear..."
Really? In a contest already remarkable for Republican deceit, including the outright lie that President Obama loosened welfare work requirements, this is the bunch that is not only going to tell us the truth, but "hard truths"? And remember, the Romney camp has put us on notice that "we're not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact checkers." Apparently the "hard truths" will also be heavily camouflaged in the racist dog whistles to the old, white party base. Did you know that the president is a Negro? Not even an American. Even Bill Clinton didn't face this from the Vast Rightwing Conspiracy.
One party platform stated that Hispanics and others should not “be barred from education or employment opportunities because English is not their first language.” It highlighted the need for “dependable and affordable” mass transit in cities, noting that “mass transportation offers the prospect for significant energy conservation.” And it prefaced its plank on abortion by saying that “we recognize differing views on this question among Americans in general — and in our own party.”
The other party platform said that “we support English as the nation’s official language.” It chided the Democratic administration for “replacing civil engineering with social engineering as it pursues an exclusively urban vision of dense housing and government transit.” And its abortion plank recognized no dissent, taking the position that “the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed.”
As you may have guessed, these are both Republican platforms. The first is from 1980, when Ronald Reagan ran for president. The second is from now. I especially love the phrase "government transit."
This is a party made up of equal parts plutocracy and know-nothing theocrats. It lives in a fantasy world created by Fox "News," Rupert Murdoch, the Koch brothers and their fellow toffs, the hater mega-churches and the well-funded think tanks, from the august Heritage Foundation to the little outpost of the "Goldwater" Institute in Phoenix. As if Barry would have anything to do with these people. Barry, for all his flaws and culpability in creating this mob, would lob one into the men's room of the party of Hard Truths.
Here are ten hard truths the Republicans won't tell you:
1. The time to address climate change was yesterday, but short of that today will do. Otherwise, it is going to produce damage, human hardship, disease, environmental destruction and, yes, if that's all you care about, economic costs that far outweigh any "benefits." A longer growing season won't matter if crops are devastated by drought. Responding to climate change will require massive investments and innovation, but also an end to the social engineered endless-driving, suburban/exurban American "lifestyle." We're out of excuses. Time to get busy.
2. The claims of "energy independence" with fracking and other fossil fuels extraction are nonsense. We are already living in the new era of higher energy costs. That, and the land-and-debt plays around drilling, is what's driving tar sands and other ecologically destructive efforts to find new ways to cook the climate. The age of happy motoring is over. As Jim Kunstler says, we will have to make other living arrangements, as hard as those choices may seem. The responses happen to include "government transit."
3. The permanent national security state and Military-Industrial Complex are destroying our liberties, distorting our economy, driving us into debt, and ultimately will place us in a war we won't win — and whose destruction won't be limited to some Third Worlders we don't care about and our volunteer troops that we claim to "support." Nothing could be further from the republican ideals upon which the United States was founded than the vast proto-police state and endless war that is accepted as normal.
4. We have been the victims of a quiet coup, where the ultra-rich, the financial and fossil fuel interests and their puppets have taken over our government. It predates 2000, but the unconstitutional outcome of that election was a sign of what was to come. Citizens United was another marker on the road to moneyed tyranny. Politics must be cleansed of big money or we're done. Corporate welfare must be drastically downsized and its beneficiaries' access to lawmakers curtailed and subject to close scrutiny. Unionization must be made easier. Most important, the rule of law must be applied to all, especially the rich and powerful.
5. The planet has too many people. America has too many people. We're playing with several kinds of fire that could relieve this problem the hard way. Better to recognize it and focus efforts worldwide on birth control and family planning, rather than having American leadership thwarted continuously by the theocrats of the right.
6. Many of you don't pay enough taxes. Yet Americans want the government services they want ("keep your government hands off my Medicare!"), while of course condemning those welfare queens in pink Cadillacs who voted for That (Black) Man in the White House. There's no free lunch. Federal and state income taxes need to go up significantly on the rich if we're going to maintain a healthy, competitive, livable society — have another American Century, as the Republicans claim they want. Tax shelters must be closed and the money carted off to the Treasury. Those trillions alone will go far to paying off the dreaded federal debt. We need a transaction tax on Wall Street. And plenty of middle-income people need to pay a little more. The legacy of a great country we're looting was built on tax rates that brought in adequate funds.
7. The federal deficit is not our biggest problem. Lack of jobs, opportunity and workers sharing in productivity gains are. Fixing this will require many federal efforts, from investment in infrastructure (not just or even primarily "roads and bridges") to breaking up highly consolidated industries, discouraging job-killing mergers and stopping the transfer of wealth from the middle to the top. We've got to invest in our state universities and public schools while insisting on excellence. The starting salary of a public school teacher should be $150,000, more in poorer schools. Only then can we begin to create a culture of achievement and accountability — and steer college students into something other than investment banking. But the answers are not all at the federal level, and many federal offices should probably be shut down and the tasks devolved to the states. We do need fifty laboratories of democracy, or maybe less because...
8. America is so divided that we need to revisit a belief widely held by many in antebellum America, that the Constitution is a compact among the states. In other words, we need to make peaceful secession possible. As currently constituted, American politics are so dysfunctional as to make the country ungovernable. I've got no problem with letting as many red states go as wish to, let them form a new Confederacy. Good luck without the surplus provided to you by the blue states. But...go. Set up your little Southern theocracy. Or, let us on the left coast go. We can't live together any more and trying to will only hasten national decline.
9. Americans must stop being consumers and start being citizens. We've spent too much, borrowed too much, helped send our own jobs overseas and give ourselves Wal-Mart work lives and living standards. This is the profligacy and debt about which we should worry. We need a national renewal, citizenship instead of stuff, a "we" society instead of a "me" society, a civilization not a market. We need to value the janitor and the artist more than the financial hustler. And we must read and learn our history and everything we can about the world. Put away the video games and turn off the television.
10. It's time to stop allowing Israel and the American Israeli lobby to pull us around by the nose. Israeli interests, particularly under Bibi, are not necessarily the same as American national interests. In a broader context, we should be the friend of all nations that seek our friendship. America should not be the world's policeman. John Quincy Adams said it best: "Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own."
His father said, "there was never a democracy that did not commit suicide." With the party that actually refuses to tell hard truths, that is committed to fantasy and Big Lies and an empire that "makes its own facts," the gun aimed at our national heart is cocked.
The trigger finger is a nation so accustomed to lying to itself and others, so at odds with reality.
Read more about the presidential race at Rogue's Campaign 2012 archive.
Your ten points are spot on; however I would add two more for an even dozen:
11. Social experiments to find causes and cures to the very serious environmental and economic challenges we face are unethical, and likely impossible. Yet the relentless assault against indigenous and traditional peoples -- the only "natural" laboratory to study these issues -- increases daily, from the high Arctic to Amazonia. The situation is precisely analogous to the heedless habitat destruction.
12. The fundamental rights of women and men regarding their own bodies are being co-opted on a scale never before seen. Further, persecution of the LBGT community by religious fundamentalism -- of all varieties -- has only increased, even as members of that community increasingly step forward to acknowledge their identity.
Thank you, Jon, for an insightful analysis. I'll do what I can to circulate this piece as widely as I can.
Posted by: Jeffrey H. King | August 30, 2012 at 06:25 AM
You are the anti-Hulk... I like you when you get angry.
Talton 2016!
Posted by: Petro | August 30, 2012 at 09:07 AM
Secession is an attractive idea. Just leave enough time for those stranded in the red zone to relocate into the blue zone.
Posted by: jmav | August 30, 2012 at 11:38 AM
It is amazing how the right wing media is able to plant chips in its viewers, displacing their reasoning and observation skills with vapid slogans.
Ryan made stunning misrepresentations in his convention speech and yet the audience does not hold him to a standard of honesty.
A Romney victory will stand for the proposition that fact based decision making by the electorate is a thing of the past.
Posted by: jmav | August 30, 2012 at 11:45 AM
I think secession is a horrible idea; but then I am stubborn and think that in time things get will improve. It wasn't too long ago that minorities and whites couldn't eat together in the South or attend "white" universities.
Pearce lost his attempt at reelection, Sinema won, Quayle is toast (though Schweikert isn't a real centrist), and Tea Party candidates were dumped. I'm calling an Arpaio loss Nov. 3. Just like the predictions that Pearce would be recalled and Stanton would easily win the Mayoral race were correct.
Posted by: phxSUNSfan | August 30, 2012 at 11:50 AM
Secession is a worthy goal. The country is too diverse to be fairly governed. The US War Machine has murdered hundreds of thousands of innocent people in the past 70 years and will continue its murderous rampage unless the tax base is reduced and the machine truly reverts to defense concerns.
Posted by: wounded warrior | August 30, 2012 at 12:10 PM
Secession is a worthy goal. The country is too diverse to be fairly governed. The US War Machine has murdered hundreds of thousands of innocent people in the past 70 years and will continue its murderous rampage unless the tax base is reduced and the machine truly reverts to defense concerns.
Posted by: wounded warrior | August 30, 2012 at 12:10 PM
The US War Machine's mistakes can't all be blamed on "red states"; that is something the entire nation has to deal with. Trying to slough that off via succession is a cop-out.
Posted by: phxSUNSfan | August 30, 2012 at 12:15 PM
The the blame lies in the excessive funding of the US War Machine which is facilitated by a distant government and broad tax base to fund the atrocities committed by the US.
Posted by: wounded warrior | August 30, 2012 at 12:19 PM
And it will take a concerted effort by the entire country to reign in defense spending. Even after a hypothetical secession, the military legacy belongs to us all. Just like the atrocities committed in the name of the U.S.A. throughout history. People are too quick to dump responsibility which is what has gotten us in this situation. I point to the abysmal voting record in this country (EVERYWHERE) as the main culprit.
Posted by: phxSUNSfan | August 30, 2012 at 12:24 PM
Texans Bush and Johnson both escalated situations causing the deaths of hundreds of thousands of totally innocent civilians. Please Texas, exercise your illusory right to leave the US. Take your red neck fellow states with you.
Posted by: wounded warrior | August 30, 2012 at 12:30 PM
I thought that most of what you wrote was exceptionally well said. Three exceptions:
(1) "The starting salary of a public school teacher should be $150,000, more in poorer schools."
That's quite generous. Really too generous. Even the NEA is only advocating a nationwide starting salary of $40,000 for K-12 teachers.
http://www.nea.org/home/1277.htm
(2) "In other words, we need to make peaceful secession possible."
Terrible idea. Consider what you've written about suburbia draining off the assets of central cities. Now imagine what happens if secessionary conservative states eliminate all but the most basic public spending and eliminate all property, income, and capital gains taxes. The poor and working class are driven out into the remaining (non-seceded) states where they add to the existing funding burden, while professionals and entrepreneurs and others create a brain drain by rushing to live in the new (mostly White) Randian paradise where the poor can't be seen (because they can't afford to live there anymore) and taxes are low because there is virtually no civic sector, and privatization has replaced taxes with fees (for essential services) thus giving the illusion of choice.
(3) "It's time to stop allowing Israel and the American Israeli lobby to pull us around by the nose."
I don't think this is the case. Israel would like us to attack Iran for it, to eliminate Iran's nascent nuclear program. They also want us to give an explicit green light for them to take military action against Iran. Instead, President Obama has urged patience while the sanctions work (and they ARE beginning to affect Iran most bitingly).
Under President Romney things would be quite different, not because he can be lead by the nose but because he already wants to go there. Defense spending as a form of camouflaged stimulus spending goes back to Ronald Reagan and before. Any excuse to pump that up allows Romney to spend like a liberal while avoiding the label.
Also, I don't see Israel as responsible for American foreign policy in Iraq or Afghanistan, or America's stance toward Iran, or much of anything in American domestic or foreign policy. Perhaps I'm just ignorant on the topic.
The one thing America could do is take a more principled stand regarding illegal settlements and toward a Palestinian peace treaty and state recognition, that would rob most of Israel's hostile Arab neighbors of their biggest cudgel. (It would also rob Israeli conservative politicians of THEIR biggest cudgel.)
Posted by: Emil Pulsifer | August 30, 2012 at 01:19 PM
Grrr...
"...lead by the nose" should read "...led by the nose".
Posted by: Emil Pulsifer | August 30, 2012 at 01:27 PM
"Barry, for all his flaws and culpability in creating this mob, would lob one into the men's room of the party of Hard Truths."
Naw. We're talking about the guy who ran a states rights campaign in '64 and voted against the Civil Rights Act. But he might drop a deuce in the urinal over a few of the current Republican Party's social policy positions.
Posted by: Emil Pulsifer | August 30, 2012 at 01:30 PM
Again .... Brilliant.
What's even worse is that the 4th Estate seems to be running away from the duty to point out the lies (or what they refer to politely as "mistruths").
It does no good ........ "their minds are made up, don't confuse 'em with facts."
We are so F *****d.
Posted by: Bearsense | August 30, 2012 at 01:31 PM
The Republican Party hasn't even made any "hard choices" regarding the national debt.
You can't reduce federal debt until federal budgets are running a surplus. A quarter-century into the Ryan budget and the country is still running deficits. That's assuming that his unspecified tax cuts ever come to pass. Even Republican cheerleading websites admit this:
"The CBO projects that the federal budget would only be balanced in 28 years (by 2040). In addition, there are also questions on the specific details of the plan’s proposed cuts, which was not incorporated into Ryan’s Path to Prosperity."
http://2012.republican-candidates.org/Ryan/Budget.php
Finally, the Republicans have nominated Romney, not Ryan. Ryan's budget won't even get a hearing unless Romney kicks off while in office and Ryan takes over.
Posted by: Emil Pulsifer | August 30, 2012 at 01:45 PM
I don't know why the media hasn't jumped on this. If both the "liberal" administration of Obama and fiscal conservatives like Paul Ryan don't even consider the possibility of balanced budgets for decades to come, it says something about fundamentals in the economy and in demographics, that aren't being explained and aren't being explicitly addressed by any candidate.
Why do conservatives get a free pass to pretend to make "hard choices" and spout off about how big of a problem federal debt is, if they don't have a plan to accomplish what they claim are their policy objectives?
Posted by: Emil Pulsifer | August 30, 2012 at 01:49 PM
P.S. Sorry, "republican-candidates.org" is not a Republican cheerleading site. It's non-partisan. I was misled by the name.
Posted by: Emil Pulsifer | August 30, 2012 at 01:58 PM
"Days of Destruction, Dayd of Revolt"
Posted by: cal Lash | August 30, 2012 at 04:01 PM
Days not Dayd.
phxsunfan left u a note on previous blog
Posted by: cal Lash | August 30, 2012 at 04:04 PM
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/revolt-of-the-rich/
Mike Lofgren served 16 years on the Republican staff of the House and Senate Budget Committees. He has just published The Party Is Over: How Republicans Went Crazy, Democrats Became Useless, and the Middle Class Got Shafted.
Posted by: cal Lash | August 30, 2012 at 05:28 PM
quite an article calvinator.
Posted by: AZRebel | August 30, 2012 at 05:39 PM
did u mean Kelvinator?
Posted by: cal Lash | August 30, 2012 at 07:47 PM
While we are waiting for the Russians a little something before I go to sleep.
A concerned white republican friend of my recently asked if I "had a Country"?
my response follows>
The Hard Truth of living and learning for 72 years.
Naw, I was born in the country (on a farm no doctor) but I quit countries along time ago. I just don't have the patience for counties, states and countries. I am pretty busy just thinking about the planet earth. We can draw lines in the sand and build fences but it does not stop the killing fields. Of course the positive side to killing (for the planet) it keeps the population down. If you believe in a theocratic proselytizing white supremacist society all you had to do was watch the RNC convention. All those white pasty and sweaty obese folks were enough to make me puke. Of course voting is almost a non issue for me as I will not vote for a politician that espouses a belief in organized religion.Don't know if you have seen Burt Lancaster in Elmer Gantry but I watch that movie once a year (Xmas time) to remind me of my child hood and the robbing, thieving, sexual predators of anything that stood still by religious types particularly the tent traveling evangelists that came to small town America.
Greed has become the new religion and it is best practiced by people that package and sell empty worthless paper. And this country does not need MORE JOBS it needs LESS PEOPLE. And a lot more road less wilderness. There were 4 Million or so Indians and 4 Million buffalo in American when the Europeans arrived with their commodity possessing ways. We even passed a law that made it illegal for Indians to hunt and fish for food. We managed to kill off all about 400,000 Indians and all but about 1000 buffalo. I favor a Hunter gathering society return to the planet as opposed to living in our on shit, called CITIES.
So I guess most white Americans are going to vote for a Amway guy with lots of hair gel that thinks the environment sucks and its OK to just keep raping the landscape and that having five kids is not a crime. I had one child and I don't believe that horseshit that by having lots of kids and wives U get a bigger slice of heaven and become a god like god.
Have fun at the voting booth voting for no one as there really isn't any "real" people on the ticket.
Maybe I will write my dog in for president but she is dead. Is that a crime?
Good nite and ............
Posted by: cal Lash | August 30, 2012 at 11:24 PM
Thanks for the link, cal. For those who don't recall, Mike Lofgren left the reservation last year, with some salvos reminiscent of what we imagine Barry G. would echo: Goodbye to All That: Reflections of a GOP Operative Who Left the Cult.
Posted by: Petro | August 31, 2012 at 08:10 AM
Nice riposte to your conservative friend. I completely forgot about Elmer Gantry - the last time I saw it was as a child and it definitely deserves a new screening.
Posted by: Petro | August 31, 2012 at 08:16 AM
I've often thought Elmer Gantry was the darker version of The Music Man.
Posted by: eclecticdog | August 31, 2012 at 09:24 AM
Harold Wilson and Elmer Gantry are both con men that appear to perform miracles while "ramming the fear of god" into the resident virgin.
Posted by: cal Lash | August 31, 2012 at 09:51 AM
Another classic about demagoguery from the same era, starring Andy Griffith: A Face in the Crowd.
Posted by: Petro | August 31, 2012 at 10:45 AM
" If you believe in a theocratic proselytizing white supremacist society all you had to do was watch the RNC convention. All those white pasty and sweaty obese folks were enough to make me puke." Cal
Yes, and it was obvious on the third night that the camera person on PBS went out of her way to deliver shots with people of color. Like all good camera work, distortions can be made, but the overhead shots told the real story of the WHITE RIGHT party.
PBS also went out of its way to kow tow to the stupidity of the Republican Party and the lies of Virginia racist redneck McConnell. No doubt the white right has effectively put pressure on PBS to embrace their utter deceit and stupidity.
Posted by: jmav | August 31, 2012 at 10:52 AM
jmav, it dont matter. Romney and Ryan will slit the throats of PBS funding.
And maybe make it illegal to have a "public" radio and TV outlet
Posted by: cal Lash | August 31, 2012 at 11:11 AM
Petro wrote:
"For those who don't recall, Mike Lofgren left the reservation last year, with some salvos reminiscent of what we imagine Barry G. would echo: Goodbye to All That: Reflections of a GOP Operative Who Left the Cult"
Call me a stick in the mud, but I just don't agree with the hagiography of Goldwater. Sure, he later spoke out in favor of abortion rights and gay rights and against religion in politics. He also defended tough regulation to stop polluters. OK.
But when he said things like "the radical right has ruined our party" he was referring to Pat Robertson, Jerry Faldwell and the radical religious right, in the context of gay rights and other social issues such as abortion. Here's his own op-ed from the Washington Post:
http://www.worldpolicy.newschool.edu/wpi/globalrights/sexorient/1994-0713-goldwater.html
Goldwater rejected the New Deal and all that followed from it. He fought tooth and nail against labor unions and "welfare", organizing with the Conservative Coalition (a coalition of Republicans and conservative Democrats) in opposition to the New Deal Coalition. He stood against everything that enlarged the middle-class and improved the lot of the working class. He even voted against the censure of Senator Joseph McCarthy in 1954. He was a "states' rights" nut.
His social liberalism stemmed from his libertarianism, not from political progressivism. Libertarians are some of the most socially liberal individuals you'll ever encounter. But in most respects, he was as reactionary as they come. Here he is in his own words, on the two parties:
"One of the great attributes of our American two party system has always been the reflected differences in principle. As a general rule one party has emphasized individual liberty and the other has favored the extension of government power. . .I’ve always stood for government that is limited and balanced and against the ever increasing concentrations of authority in Washington. I’ve always stood for individual responsibility and against regimentation. I believe we must now make a choice in this land and not continue drifting endlessly down and down for a time when all of us, our lives, our property, our hopes, and even our prayers will become just cogs in a vast government machine."
http://www.4president.org/speeches/1964/barrygoldwater1964announcement.htm
There is nothing here that is inconsistent with current rhetoric from the Romney camp. Goldwater even voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as an unconstitutional encroachment of federal power. Of course, the "extension of government power" was not only completely consistent with "individual liberty" in that case, but specifically necessary for it to flourish. Barry would have none of it!
Arizona liberals must really be desperate to invoke Barry Goldwater.
This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man's hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.
Posted by: Emil Pulsifer | August 31, 2012 at 04:11 PM
I'm smoking what your rolling there, Emil, but I will oblige: "Stick in the mud!"
Seriously though - within their straw-man framing of the opposition (that collective responsibility is equivalent to favoring "the extension of government power" - the libertarian mind-set being congenitally unable to understand that "government" is quite simply the only voice that people have, outside of the dog-eat-dog Darwinism of the profit imperative), I respect the intellectual honesty of conservative analysis, Barry-style.
And libertarianism is an adolescent philosophy, so I can't be particularly angry with them. In contrast with the cynicism of the contemporary two-faced Straussian GOP ideals - inseparable from political aspiration (hey, and that's not a bad benchmark for identifying morally bankrupt "idealism"!) - Goldwater was refreshing.
Ah... you've noticed! :)Posted by: Petro | September 01, 2012 at 09:52 AM
So the Republicans are the party version of "The sheriff who couldn't shoot straight". (They keep shooting themselves in the foot)
And the Democrats are "Barney Fife".
It's going to be one sad shoot out at the OK corral.
Posted by: AZRebel | September 01, 2012 at 10:48 AM
"cal Lash" wrote:
"This country does not need MORE JOBS it needs LESS PEOPLE."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k80nW6AOhTs
Even if we could wave a magic wand and instantly eliminate all new births in the United States, starting today, there are currently about 12.8 million officially unemployed Americans, 41 percent of whom have been out of work for more than six months. There is another 8.2 million who work part-time because they are forced to by the economy, some of whom have inadequate weekly income as a result. There are another 2.5 million (including discouraged job seekers) who aren't counted as unemployed because they didn't look in the last four weeks.
There are about 2.4 million deaths per year in the United States. Most of those deaths involve diseases affecting, and fatal to, the elderly and the very young, neither of whom are working (some exceptions for the elderly, but mostly retired). Their deaths would not open up jobs slots. So, it would take decades for enough job slots to open to employ those currently unemployed, underemployed, and on the margins, if jobs were frozen at current levels.
Meanwhile, it takes money to rent or buy shelter, food, medical care, insurance, transportation, heating and cooling, telephone service, and other things that are usually provided by income from full-time employment.
So, the country DOES need MORE JOBS, unless you're proposing, like Marie Antoinette, to "let them eat cake".
Furthermore, there are no policies that would reduce births to zero, as well as reducing immigration to zero, even if federal officials were crazy enough to consider this a desirable policy outcome. Even in a police state like China with an official one-child per family policy and unfettered powers of enforcement, China's population grows about half a percent annually, which is comparable to the United States' annual population growth of 0.84 percent per year.
http://www.indexmundi.com/facts/indicators/SP.POP.GROW
Here's some of what Calvin wrote in a letter to Mayor Stanton:
"I have been around Phoenix since 1950 and remember when it was a nice TOWN. A town where the tallest building was The Hotel Westward Ho and most houses were one story. If I was in charge Arizona would become a Federal wilderness."
Cal's idea of a "nice" city is a town of about 100,000 consisting of single-story, low-density ranch housing. There's nothing wrong with that, but instead of misanthropic rants against full employment or cranky letters to elected officials saying what he would do if he were Godzilla, why doesn't he simply MOVE to a smallish town with similar features and no plans for expansion? There are plenty of such towns, frozen in time, scattered throughout Arizona.
Posted by: Emil Pulsifer | September 01, 2012 at 02:20 PM
Petro wrote:
"I respect the intellectual honesty of conservative analysis, Barry-style."
Yeah, he was a straight-shooter with an eloquent prose style that came "from the heart" and not from some hired public relations service.
Posted by: Emil Pulsifer | September 01, 2012 at 02:22 PM
As long as we're discussing hard choices:
"cal Lash" wrote
"(The Obama) administration has done little to address the illegal use of prescribed drugs, a larger problem in the US than illegal drugs."
Well, I don't know what the Obama administration has or hasn't done to address the problem of illegal use of legal drugs.
What puzzles me is how someone like Calvin (who seems to be a libertarian Republican) can advocate the legalization of narcotics yet complain about the (alleged) failure of the Obama administration to crack down on abuse of prescription drugs.
Posted by: Emil Pulsifer | September 01, 2012 at 02:59 PM
I've said it before: Population is a symptom, an effect - not a cause. Addressing it directly is tilting at windmills - which is good because addressing it directly brings up way too many moral dilemmas.
Population adjusts itself to resources... or, more accurately, to how we allocate our resources. That's less of a moral dilemma, if we are keeping an eye out for future generations.
Posted by: Petro | September 01, 2012 at 04:59 PM
Whine, whine, whine. Go occupy.
Posted by: Occupant | September 02, 2012 at 03:06 PM
What ever happened to diversity of tactics, Occupant? Hmmm?
There's some edumicatin' goin' on 'round these parts.
Posted by: Petro | September 02, 2012 at 05:09 PM
Re the NYT link on the Front Page showing that most jobs added since the recession are low wage: did anyone see the Lumina Foundation (Georgetown University) report recently reported on, that shows most jobs added since the recovery require a bachelor's degree or higher, with "some college or AA degree" being second, and "high school or less" actually losing jobs in the recovery?
I'd like to see this sorted out.
Out of online time.
Posted by: Emil Pulsifer | September 02, 2012 at 05:46 PM
Perhaps employers, faced with such a buffet of potential employees, are upping their criteria for even low-wage jobs?
Posted by: Petro | September 02, 2012 at 05:52 PM
Bingo Petro.
Friend of the family is a recent graduate of the ASU SChool of Sustainability. After a year of looking he is sustainably employed as a part time life guard at a Peoria City pool.
Posted by: AZRebel | September 02, 2012 at 10:06 PM
Wow, Reb... are there any more openings? I think my resume qualifies me to skim leaves...
Posted by: Petro | September 03, 2012 at 09:16 AM
Need a job,
try financial fraud. The conviction rate is about 2 percent.
Slightly higher than the conviction rate for murder in Juarez. Where they are working on the population issue.
Posted by: cal Lash | September 03, 2012 at 12:06 PM
"What ever happened to diversity of tactics, Occupant? Hmmm?"
You're sittin' on the fat side of the teeter-totter . . . and the damn thing won't budge.
Posted by: Occupant | September 03, 2012 at 01:58 PM
"Friend of the family is a recent graduate of the ASU SChool of Sustainability. After a year of looking he is sustainably employed as a part time life guard at a Peoria City pool."
It's good that potential employers recognize that any graduate of an oxymoron is probably not a good candidate for a job. ASU is the antithesis of sustainability.
Posted by: Sun Drizzle | September 03, 2012 at 02:04 PM
Petro wrote:
"Perhaps employers, faced with such a buffet of potential employees, are upping their criteria for even low-wage jobs?"
Looks like you're right.
I took a look at the Lumina Foundation report that said most jobs created since the recession have gone to those with some college or better, with net losses for those with high-school or less, and two things stood out:
p. 26 "TABLE 9: Low-education occupations had larger net gains in the recovery, while a few of the high-education occupations reported net job losses."
So, even the Lumina Foundation report admits that most jobs created since the recession are in low-education occupations (which are generally low-wage, these days).
p.27 Figure 14: "Half of the job gains in the recovery in the low-education occupations went to individuals with some college or an Associate’s degree"
In fact, 58 percent went to those with some college or an associate degree or to those with a bachelor's degree or better. Only 42 percent of "low-education" jobs went to those with a high-school diploma or less.
Note also (Figure 14) that the net loss in jobs since the recession for those with a high-school diploma or less, results from layoffs/attrition of low-education workers in the "middle education" occupational class: in other words, before the recession lots of "low-education" workers were doing "middle-education" jobs (probably because they were cheaper), and now those employers are hiring lots of college educated applicants (probably because they can now get them for the same wages they were paying low-education workers).
http://www9.georgetown.edu/grad/gppi/hpi/cew/pdfs/CollegeAdvantage.FullReport.081512.pdf
Newspaper accounts made it sound like the lesson was that the new economy is producing lots of jobs REQUIRING higher education and that those with a college degree are doing better BECAUSE of this.
In fact, the real story is that most new jobs are in low-wage, low-education occupations, but because it's a hirer's market with lots of desperate applicants, employers are hiring overqualified applicants in greater numbers than before the recession, as well as hiring properly qualified applicants in middle-education positions that they previously staffed with talented low-education workers to save money.
All the more reason to go to primary sources. Newspapers are a great place to look for information leads but frequently do a poor job accurately characterizing the facts.
Here's the NELP study cited by the New York Times story:
http://www.nelp.org/page/-/Job_Creation/LowWageRecovery2012.pdf?nocdn=1
Posted by: Emil Pulsifer | September 03, 2012 at 03:06 PM
Posted by: Petro | September 03, 2012 at 05:04 PM
"Internecine bickering amongst the ninety-niners is counterproductive."
Alright, Trotsky. :)
Please define your, "bickering". Otherwise, you're wrong.
Posted by: Occupant | September 04, 2012 at 07:05 AM
WRONG?
Looks like god is har
found a dime underneath my pillow this morning.
Posted by: cal Lash | September 04, 2012 at 08:35 AM
I realize that you would respect my efforts more if I blogged on a sidewalk using chalk, but I yam what I yam, and contribute in whatever small ways that I am able.
Some of us are out of our comfort zone in crowds, and would appreciate your indulgence.
Posted by: Petro | September 04, 2012 at 09:09 AM
I'm for more internecine bickering. Lenin had it right with his party-splitting, only he didn't take it far enough.
I've created my own party, the Me Party. Among the articles of the new Constitution:
Article II As a party of one I am both dictator and democrat.
Article IV Nincompoops cannot form an opposition party, because they are nincompoops.
(Of course, in Article IV I had in mind Lenin's treatment of the Cadet party, and by "cannot" I mean "are not legally/morally entitled to".)
Nincompoops think (as-if) that I'm joking. I can assure you that I am not. The rest of the new Constitution, as it currently stands:
Article I Crush nincompoops!
Article III Crush nincompoops!
(This might seem redundant, but you have to bring them back to first principles before they wander too far from the foundations.)
Article V Science is bunk.
(I really believe this. Of course, by "science" I mean what nincompoops call science. There is a kind of super-science or meta-science (yet to be discovered -- but I am to be the Newton of this new Science and I stand on the shoulders of pygmies) that is natural (where "nature" is not) and scientific (where "science" is not).)
Article VI I will not be restricted by bureaucracy.
(This might seem redundant in a party of one; after all, I propose the laws, second them (or not) and sign or veto them, as I see fit. Still, one must not become hidebound even by self-created quasi-parliamentary or other rigid procedures.)
Articles VII, VIII and IX are as yet to be filled. I did pass Article VIII once upon a time, but subsequently repealed it.
Article X Crush nincompoops!
(To gather up the threads...)
Posted by: Emil Pulsifer | September 04, 2012 at 07:56 PM
Whining about challenges to your whining and stasis changes nothing.
Posted by: Occupant | September 05, 2012 at 08:41 AM
A "Swift" retort from Emil. :)
Funny, Occupant, I had resisted the urge to make the easy point that you are here, yourself, "whining", I not being inclined towards the cheap shot. But there you go again...
In any case - you're drifting towards personal attack here, so I think I'll drop out of our little conversation. As a parting gift, I'll only note in passing that you have zero information about my personal growth, or devolution, or position on the ladders material or spiritual, and it is highly presumptuous to pull up "stasis" as an apt characterization of my life or my contribution to Life. Get a few more years under your belt.
Posted by: Petro | September 05, 2012 at 09:17 AM
To no one in particular (ahem):
Effective action requires contemplation. A contemplation that cannot be short-circuited, lest one becomes like the fool who tries to still the waters by patting down the ripples. To point out one barrier, relevant here, for early initiates - who may have stumbled upon something actually useful to pursue - is to resist the utter myopia of thinking that unless one is doing exactly what they are doing, one cannot possibly be moving things in the favored direction.
Posted by: Petro | September 05, 2012 at 10:05 AM