Economic Liberty

Dylan Ratigan has a real passion for returning work to the American people. (click title to entry - thank you)

He is adopting the Liberty Bell for the purpose.

I have never seen the Liberty Bell.  I wanted to this past summer, but, I was called home due to my Father's illness.

Nice sentitment.  I hope Dylan is successful.

Commentary about liberals and liberalism doesn't get more demented than this.

Something tells me the morons actually miss "W."  How convenient to have a 'father figure' to make 'every thing okay.'

This Palinesque Blase Attitude about anything othter than extremism is some of the worst 'mind speak' I have ever witnessed.

Where does anyone in their right mind even begin to state this is a 'DRAMATIC FALL.' 

Hello?

I think Patrick's father died and the chronic LOSSES suffered by the Kennedy family has to take a toll as some point. 

My god. 

By ABBY GOODNOUGH

Published: December 16, 2010

...“This is a family that once had the presidency and two Senate seats, and they’re now down to the mayor of Santa Monica,” said Darrell M. West, a Brookings Institute scholar. “It’s a pretty dramatic fall, and it’s symbolic of the decline of liberalism.”...

The Kennedy family has been a backbone to the changes this country instituted on so many fronts, especially Civil Rights.  Where does any American  from the gall to begin to see this magnifident American family in some kind of defeat as if packing up with their tail  between their legs.

Ludicrous only begins to describe it.

The Right Wing Morons are so hungry for their money they are chomping at the bit for any kind of demise of some of the most magnificient Americans that lived.

I could begin with Joe Kennedy, a war hero that died with a return to service after having the ability to complete his service and return home.  The family lineage goes on from there and the toll 'service to country' took on them is more than any family should be asked to bear.

Normally, an assassinated President and Brother would have discouraged any other member of the family, but, both surviving Kennedy brothers went on to carry out the work of the nation without so much as a blink at their potential demise, which was realized with Bobby.

The Kennedy family has added to the landscape of Amerikana for decades of time that cannot and will not be erased.  My gratitude for their service to the country will always exist without a doubt.  They have inspired leaders that followed them, besides their family members such as Patrick, the Clintons were more than a disciple to the guardianship of sincere liberty to all Americans. 

People like Goodnough want anxiously to PLANT as sign stating "Liberalism is Dead," long live Sarah and the Momma Gizzlies.  I guess being a 'real American' has gone out of style in some ways being replaced by ME, ME AND ONLY ME.

If anything, the tombstone should read, "The USA is Dead, Long Live the Plutocracy and Greed."

Senator Ted Kennedy's death marks an end of an era. (click here)  The larger than life Kennedy family played an important role in American politics for decades. John F. Kennedy served in Congress from 1947 through 1960 and became President of the United States in 1960 before his assassination in 1963. Robert F. Kennedy was the United States Attorney General and a U.S. Senator from New York until his assassination in 1968....

'Gratefully, the American people aren't as dim as their press."

Poll: Bush most unpopular in modern history  (click here)

May 1st, 2008

02:30 PM ET

..."No president has ever had a higher disapproval rating in any CNN or Gallup poll; in fact, this is the first time that any president's disapproval rating has cracked the 70 percent mark," said CNN Polling Director Keating Holland....

If this was actually about rape it would be ludicrous. I do worry about the two women in the middle of all this, too.

...A British judged decided Thursday that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will be freed on bail with conditions, rejecting the Crown's appeal to an earlier court's decision to grant bail to the public face of the secret-spilling website.

Mr. Assange is to return to court Jan. 11 for an extradition hearing. The judge said if he absconded, Mr. Assange would make supporters, including director Michael Moore, look "naive, foolish and deceitful."...

The Huffington Post's Naomi Wolf is publishing some interesting articles regarding the rape charges, too.

...I started working (click here) as a counselor in a UK center for victims of sexual assault in my mid-twenties. I also worked as a counselor in a battered women's shelter in the US, where sexual violence was often part of the pattern of abuse. I have since spent two decades traveling the world reporting on and interviewing survivors of sexual assault, and their advocates, in countries as diverse as Sierra Leone and Morocco, Norway and Holland, Israel and Jordan and the Occupied Territories, Bosnia and Croatia, Britain, Ireland and the united States....

I worry the women's lives have been completely disrupted at some level and their safety is a concern.

...The fantasy is that somehow this treatment (click here) -- a global manhunt, solitary confinement in the Victorian cell that drove Oscar Wilde to suicidal despair within a matter of days, and now a bracelet tracking his movements -- is not atypical, because somehow Sweden must be a progressively hot-blooded but still progressively post-feminist paradise for sexual norms in which any woman in any context can bring the full force of the law against any man who oversteps any sexual boundary.
Well, I was in Norway in March of this year at a global gathering for women leaders on International Women's Day, and heard extensively from specialists in sex crime and victims' rights in Sweden. So I knew this position taken by the male-dominated US, British and Swedish media was, basically, horsesh-t....

Troops out now.

...Taliban momentum (click title to entry - thank you)  has been "arrested in much of the country and reversed in some key areas, although these gains remain fragile and reversible", the five-page summary said.
The review indicated that the administration was "setting conditions" to begin the "responsible reduction" of troops in July.

The overview of the long-awaited report contained little evidence to back up its conclusions and is considerably more upbeat than a separate, gloomier report carried out by the US National Intelligence Estimates. This report, which represents the collective view of 16 US agencies including the CIA, said the chance of success was limited unless Pakistan tackled safe havens for the Taliban along its side of the border....

I honestly don't know where to begin the insults anymore. I have listened to decades of stupidity and it doesn't get any better.

Complain to the website regarding the graphic nature of the definition.  I don't want to hear it.  It is  by far the best description of a Republican and Tea Party idiot that I can find.

dolt (click here) - A mental retard who is clueless not only about current events, but also has the IQ level of a rock. "Dolt" may be the most sophisticated insult in the English language. Dolts commonly populate such stereotypes as jocks, nerds, fruits, bookworms, and dorks.

You're a dolt.

Last night while I slept, Paul Rivere came riding through my dreams crying, "The Plutocrats are coming.  The Plutocrats are coming."  Woke me out of a dead sleep.

When Ronald Reagan was in office, it was that the Homeless have a right to be homeless in the USA.  That was the most amazing statement I thought I would ever hear from a United States President.  The man that stood at the Berlin Wall yelling to Mr. Gorbachev was now PROUD of the fact in the USA citizens have a right to sleep over a heating vent in the street.

Amazing.  How ludicrous does it get?  At least in some countries the HAVES take their responsibility of 'BROTHERHOOD' seriously.

Now after the greatest and most ludicrous economic collapse that would have been worse then the Great Depression if President Obama didn't come riding to the rescue of the country, the people of the USA have the right to not only be frisked by Wall Street, lose their homes to foreclosure, be homeless and jobless due to out sourcing for profit, but, they can also have the right to die for their country in the street so the HAVES can pocket the profits.

I have never heard anything as ludicrous as the decisions made in Virginia and the political fodder afterward in my entire life. 

When are the Plutocrats, including Reaganites, ever going to 'get it?' 

NEVER?

I can't wait until the USA Senate is AGAIN a majority by 51 votes. 

Every person in the USA is allowed to define and have their own culture.  They are allowed to share it and have it grow.  The Right Wing Dolts of the country seem to believe the ONLY aspect of life that is important is CULTURE.

They have it hugely "W"rong.

They have had it hugely "W"rong for decades of time and they just don't 'get it.' 

Dying in the streets of the USA from Plutocratic decisions in the private sector is NOT LIBERTY.

Pursing life, liberty and happiness REQUIRES one is breathing.

The mandate received by President Obama in the 2008 elections is completely obvious.  He was to save this country right Right Wing idiots that only learned to count money in school.

Liberty is NOT about money.  It is about the personal freedoms generations of Americans have died to protect.

It is about every American being able to reach beyond their current 'status' in life and achieve it.  It is not about bailing out banks that push an entire global economy over the edge while working people lose their homes to collapsing economies.

It is about enjoying the advancements of society as each generation is promised a more fulfilling life than the one before and fulfilling does not mean a person has reached millionaire or billionaire status at the cost of others suffering.

Foreclosure, homelessness and death by CEO Health Care Industry decision is NOT a right in the USA.  It is an unfortunate state of affairs NO ONE, including the Right Wing anybody should be proud of.  Being proud of THOSE values is political ambition and NOT morality.  Being at chronic war is not a STATUS symbol we should all be proud of either.  It is why the people of Russia seem to be taking pride in their President signing the S.T.A.R.T. agreement.  I like Russians.  They like us.  They want peace and so do I.  They want to save endangered species and host all kinds of world class games. 

Being communist is NOT a precursor to being as ludicrous and stupid as the American Plutocrats are.  I especially like the Russian people for all the compassion they show in this world toward each other and the world in general.  The Presidents and Prime Ministers of that country have helped move their country to a place where productive dialogue can happen.  That is an achievement that the Plutocrats in the USA can't seem to get their minds around.

Why is that?  Why is it that a Russian President signed a treaty to return nuclear sanity to the world?  Why is it that a Russia Prime Minister is more interested in saving endangered species on a warming planet than a Republican USA President? 

I have to put up with Freedom of Speech at any cost, but, I sure as hell don't have to put up with idiocy and immorality at any cost. 

No different than a Republican that can't get their minds around the threat to arctic Polar Bears due to the Climate Crisis, we now have dead Americans due to the Climate Crisis.  Why does it make sense to SAVE THE POLAR BEAR?  I wonder.

Republicans rather pocket the cash, run up American debt to the peril of the fiscal stability of the country and have Americans die in the street because of misfortunte brought on by the Plutocratic priorities of Wall Street than EVER believe in sincere morality.  Somehow, yelling out patriotism at every rally has this 'wholesomeness' that citizrens want to believe is actually virtuous while people die in the streets of the USA by the same idiot decision makers.

(CBS)  When President Obama (click here) spoke of "the winter of our hardship" in his inaugural address, no one in America understood that better than the folks 60 Minutes met in Wilmington, Ohio. They're people in the grip of a brutal series of layoffs at DHL, the shipping company. Their experience was part of the news this past week that new claims for unemployment benefits are the highest in 26 years.

Since the economic crash of 2008, taxpayers have committed to more than $1 trillion in various bailouts of Wall Street. But not much of that is reaching families in crisis. On kitchen tables, headlines from Washington and New York lie beside unpaid tuition bills and foreclosure notices. After all the speeches and parties of Inauguration Day, what were the families in Wilmington asking?...

..."We could tell you what we did on a daily basis, but you wouldn't believe it. You know, boxes in a big container, and it'll weigh 800 pounds, you push it out the door through eight inches of snow, and push it up on a barge, and we were idiots enough that we did it by ourselves. We worked as a team, and we had a good friend right along side of us," Keith Rider tells correspondent Scott Pelley....

...The mayor told 60 Minutes one out of three households has a family member working at the air park.

Angela and John Pica are raising four children on two air park salaries. Angela started at Airborne Express when she was 19. Now, as a supervisor, she walks laid off workers to the company gate and takes their ID badges away.

"Today, I escorted five individuals out today. Last week, I think I escorted three," she tells Pelley.

Asked what the last thing is she says to them, Pica says, "I tell them that I wish them the best. And it has been a pleasure, working with every one of them, because they're a great bunch of people. And they deserve so much better than this."

Think LOCAL ECONOMY.  Think 'truly' Small Business.  Save your lives and your children's lives from the Plutocracy. 

 Do it TODAY !

...On 13 December 2010 the investor (click here) and trader community that has recently calmed down was simply dumbfounded by the announcement made by one of the world’s most trustworthy rating agencies, Moody’s. It forecasted that it might decrease US investment rating in 2012. According to Moody’s analysts, the economic situation in the US is getting worse and ‘is suffering’ because of an extension of tax benefits adopted as a compromise by US Congress upon agreement reached between Republicans and Democrats. What forecasts about the US are behind such rather strange wording of Moody’s?...

Now why doesn't everyone tell us who EXACTLY is fiscally responsible?  The President or the Right Wing Plutocrats and their defunct economic ideologies?

Since the Bush/Cheney adminstration parked missiles at Russian borders, the Russians have been serious about new capacity.

The new Russian ICBM is smaller, can be more easily carried in larger numbers and is as accurate as it reaches within 1000 feet of a targeted site.  Launch failures will be overcome in a matter of time. 

The new missiles may look a bit unreliable at this time, but, the Topols are still active.  The new ICBMs from Russia are designed to overcome "Star Wars."  They can be launched in multiples with deployment of multiple warheads.  The "Star Wars" 'response' would have to be huge in order to overcome the Russian nuclear capacity.  In other words, there would be some ICBMs destroyed by a successful 'Star Wars' program, but, there would be many that would find their targets.  It makes "Star Wars" mute.

The new Russian subs are impressive.  I remember the launch of one a few years ago.  A START Treaty is more than a good idea.

It is time to 'start' START.

...Repeating failures (click here) have drawn much scrutiny and attention to the Bulava, but the Russian Navy insists there is no alternative to the missile. The missile started engine flight tests from ground launch pads in 2004. The first two sea launches in September and December 2005 were successful....

...Bulava was scheduled to equip the new Project 955 Borei class submarines, which will replace the older Typhoon class nuclear powered missile subs currently in service. The lead submarine Yury Dolgoruky was scheduled to receive its complement of 12 Bulava missiles around 2008, while two sister ships Alexander Nevsky and Vladimir Monomakh will be completed in 2008 and 2010. Delays in the completion of the SSBM will undoubtedly push back the commissioning of the new submarines.

Bulava -Nuclear, Intercontinental Ballistic Missile - Misil balístico in...

Bulava, Topol, Sineva: successful launches

How is all that Climate Crisis denial working for you folks?

Collapsed Plutocratic icon domes, freezing produce, record highs in the summer, record lows in the winter.

Well, it would seem as though things are GETTING worse, wouldn't you say?

MIAMI — Parts of Florida (click title to entry - thank you)  woke up to freezing temperatures on Tuesday, with some cities setting records for a Dec. 7 and others expecting to break records on Wednesday.

Fort Lauderdale at 40 degrees (42), and Vero Beach at 31 degrees (38), the National Weather Service reported.....

Sadly, the GOP is about as corrupt as it comes.

Cuccinelli, (click title to entry - thank you) who was elected to his current post in 2009, had brought the suit -- insisting that requiring people to purchase insurance violated a Virginia statute.
The case, which now seems almost certainly headed for the Supreme Court, will cast Cuccinelli -- already a conservative darling -- as the face of the attempts to repeal the president's signature policy achievement of his first two years in office....

Attorney General Cucinnelli took office in January of 2011 and already his ambitions are taking him for a Governor's race in 2013.

Ken Cuccinelli for Governor 2013 (Facebook - click here)

Now I realize simply being an Attorney General and having political ambtions does not indict wrong doing, but, MORALLY this guy is more about his own ambition than he is about the people.

The Cuccinelli EXTREMISM is even too much for the Virginai Governor.

By From staff and wire reports
Published: March 11, 2010

RICHMOND — Gov. Bob McDonnell directed state agencies not to discriminate against gay people in employment practices Wednesday, essentially overriding the Virginia attorney general’s advice to public colleges....

I believe Cucinnelle is seeing his strength as a Tea Bagger and not a Republican, actually.

Cuccinelli looks like presidential timber; but is Christie dead wood? (click here)

Published: Monday, December 13, 2010, 9:12 PM     Updated: Monday, December 13, 2010, 11:24 PM

The decision by a federal appeals court in Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli's effort to reverse the individual health-care mandate has a lot of peopletouting Cucinellie for president in 2012.
That's not good news for Chris Christie. Our governor has been famously noncommittal on the mandate, which is perhaps the greatest expansion of the federal government's power since the New Deal.
All conservatives reacted reflexively in opposition to the mandate. The federal government has never before required all American citizens to contract with a private company to buy a product we may or may not want.
The mainstream Republican Party was a bit slow to get the point. The Beltway Republicans backed Mitt Romney in 2008, despite the fact that the health-care plan he initiated as governor of Massachusetts was the forerunner of Obamacare....

So, at this point, there are serious concerns to the focus of the Attorney General of Virginia.  It would seem as though his ambition was in place before his run for AG and that office is meerly a stepping stone.  To say his focus is dangerous is an understatement.  At this point if his extremism continues and is followed up by leagal action against civil rights, etc., impeachment should be a focus.  Cucinelli and his ambitious, activist Judge are excercing abuse of power with little concern for the citizens of Virginia or otherwise.

Obamacare victory launches Cuccinelli to national stage  (click here)

By: Stephen Groves 12/13/10 8:05 PM
OpEd Contributor

"What you see with Cuccinelli is what you get," say fans, foes and observers of Virginia General Attorney Ken Cuccinelli, R, who scored a victory in round one of his lawsuit against the health insurance mandate on Monday. In the 4th District Court in Richmond, Judge Henry E. Hudson ruled the insurance mandate, a part of Obamacare that hasn't yet gone into effect, is unconstitutional.
"This case is not about health insurance. It is not about health care. It's about liberty," Cuccinelli said at a press conference on Monday. "We've won the first round of this particular fight, but we know there are others to come."
This is the first serious case against the health insurance mandate that a judge has ruled in favor of those challenging its constitutionality. And conservatives say there isn't a better person to carry the banner.
"He's bold," said Richard Viguerie, the conservative direct mailer who runs ConservativeHQ.com and mentors Cuccinelli. "He doesn't wait for others to take action."...

Wouldn't it be nice to be the ONLY Judge to rule against the Federal government, have the AG plaintiff become president and then receive a nomination into the Supreme Court when Scalia retires.

My, my.  What ambition we actually have. 

What are we going to do without him? So, sorry.

Deepest sympathies to Ambassador Holbrooke's family, friends and colleagues.

His passing is sincerely tragic.  He leaves a huge void in the USA State Department and the USA efforts in some of the most turbulent lands on Earth.

We will all miss him. 

A remarkable career to secure the nation he loved.

Thank you, Richard.

"Tonight America has lost one of its fiercest champions and most dedicated public servants," Clinton said, confirming the death at age 69 of a troubleshooter that the Obama administration named as its main diplomat for the conflict in Afghanistan and Pakistan.  (At the title, please.)

Boner has a lot of reasons to cry. Both he and Beck can't 'handle it.'

...We (click title to entry - thank you) watched a clip of Boehner crying, then Boehner cried again when Leslie Stahl asked him about crying. Stahl took him to the bar he used to work at as a child. She didn't mention the apartment Boehner rented (still rents?) from a lobbyist who represented the restaurant industry and lobbied Republicans to oppose minimum wage increases.
And oddly, the name "Jack Abramoff" never came up once! (I know, that was like a billion years ago, we can't expect our journalists to still care.)
The man who heroically hand-delivered money from tobacco lobbyists to Republican members on the floor of the house is presented as a sensitive family man....

I mean give me a break.  If he can't handle the job, then resign and go home.  He can't see 'little children' at SCHOOLS where they are all getting an ENFORCED education without crying? 


...Emotionally, (click here) crying is often our “temperature light”. When we live under a lot of emotional, social, and personal pressure from jobs, family, money, relationships, etc. — we are emotionally stressed and running hot. Like the auto, it doesn’t take much to start a crying spell. These frequent and uncontrollable crying spells are high stress indicators and warnings. Like the temperature light in the auto, frequent crying spells tell us we are emotionally operating under a lot of stress....

It is an "Anxiety Disorder."

If there is any prohibiton to the new Health Care Reform at all, it is due to the fact a Public Option is mandatory to any private offering.

It might just be that the courts will have to order a public option be an intricate aspect of the new health care reform laws, because, where federal authority has used the Commerce Claus 'historically' is in regard to Medicare. 

Needless to say the court issuing the opinion in Virginia is a "W" appointee.  Henry Hudson does not have the authority to over rule precendent in regard to TRADITIONAL roles for the federal government in regard to health care.  He could have been PROGRESSIVE and relieved the higher courts of the burden, but, he rather cause political chaos.  He won't succeed in doing that because there are already federal mandates for Medicare and Medicaid.  This health care reform is 'missing' the PUBLIC OPTION and therefore 'understates' the urgency of implimenting such health insurance.

What Hudson has done is OPT for 'State Rights' in regard to 'insurrance' rather than addressing the PARTICULAR clouts of 'health insurance.'  Previous to pasasge of the current law the tenents were put through constitutional measures and passed the test.

The fact that Hudson did not stand in the way of implementation while the law is 'on appeal' is because he already knows there is a basis for the law.  He's just being a jerk and deciding to rule with tradition rather than being prudent to the needs of a nation.

It is my opinion the brevity of the need for insuring the nation while citing the gross malpractice of 'corporate' insurance companies which have caused the deaths of Americans will order to bring the law into compliance the people of the USA will have to be offered a Public Option along side the private offerings simply because the corporate health insurance carriers have IN FACT carried out 'homicidal' decisions regarding the well being of Americans, including children.  Why the CEOs aren't up on charges given the completely obvious infraction to laws of Manslaughter it beyond my understanding.  They chose to allow people to die to collect greater profits for their companies.  If that isn't manslaughter than I don't know what is. 

So, in that light, the law is probably going to be stated to have to offer Americans a public option in addition to the private health care industry offering.  The evidence just points in that direction.

The Hudson dialogue, if allowed to stand, could be a threat to Medicare. 

"Morning Papers" - Its Origins

The Rooster
"Okeydoke"

"Good Night Moon"

On December 12, 2010 at 2358 (military time) the Moon of Earth is visible of 44% at a distance of 404,327 kilometers or the equivalent of 251,237.15 miles.

So, let's end this on a high note. The Supreme Court robbed the vote from the people of the USA in 2000.

The Plutocracy is dangerous to the American landscape. 

Al Gore won the popular vote by more than 500,000. But it was the contentious recount in Florida – halted by the Supreme Court – that gave it to Bush. What that meant still is being argued.  (click title to entry - thank you)

By Brad Knickerbocker, Staff Writer December 12, 2010

Some battles in American history and politics never end, at least in terms of passionate public argument. The Civil War. The Vietnam War. Abortion. The Red Sox and the Yankees. Bush v. Gore....

...Depending on one’s point of view the 5-4 Supreme Court vote cutting off the Florida recount was either as it should have been (given how messed up the balloting and recount procedure had become there) or a political travesty as bad as the 1857 Dred Scott decision denying constitutional protections to slaves of African descent....

...“What made the decision in Bush v. Gore so startling was that it was the work of Justices who were considered, to greater or lesser extents, judicial conservatives,” writes Toobin, a lawyer and legal analyst for CNN. “[But] the Court stopped the recount even before it was completed, and before the Florida courts had a chance to iron out any problems – a classic example of judicial activism, not judicial restraint, by the majority.”

For political junkies who appreciate the ironic and the fanciful, New York magazine has “Memories of the Gore Administration.” Written by “five (sometime) novelists” – Kurt Anderson, Kevin Baker, Glenn Beck, Jane Smiley, and Walter Kirn – it’s an imaginary look at the last ten years as if the 2000 election had gone the other way....


Ten years ago this month, (click here) a Supreme Court ruling ushered in George W. Bush as our 43rd president. We asked five (sometime) novelists to imagine the past decade as if the election had gone the other way. America: This is your parallel life....

The next highest unemployment rate in recent history was inherited by Former President William Jefferson Clinton.

He had very little to work with, the manufacturing sector of the USA was mostly destroyed by Wall Street and its abandonment of the American work force.  So, he focused on the strongest part of the economy, 'A Service Economy.'

It worked.  (click title to entry - thank you)

He moved the unemployment rate from February 1992 at 8.2 percent to a rate of 3.2 % in December of 2000.

The current rate as of November 2010 is 9.3 percent.  An AVERAGE for the USA is about 4 to 5 percent.  Of course everyone wants to see it better than that, but, at this point in time achieving 'the average' would be nice.  That means we have to move it by approximately 4.8%.  It sounds like a lot, but, Clinton did it.  We can, too.

Personage.  Service Economy.  The appreciation of WORK. 

The empowerment of our youth and the Middle Class.  I don't know of a more noble pursuit, do you?

The return of gentry.  I don't want to hear complaints about tips either.  Inching an economy back to prosperity is a thankless job and no one knows that better than our President. 

Speaking of energy efficiency in building design and effective use of space...

... did you know the Conservatives in the country are calling environmentalists WATERMELONS? 

According to the Righties in the country environmentalists are communists in disguise.  They are green on the outside and red on the inside.

Now, if one is familiar with old watermelon references, it is easy to say it is more than propaganda, but, down right racism.

But, there isn't any sense in going there really.  It isn't productive.  What also isn't productive is calling environmentalists communists.

Because.;

Because the sincerely communist enthusiasts are the Red Party GOP Republicans.  Don't know about the Tea Party, but, it is my guess they are just as red on the inside as the GOP.

It was the Republicans that sold out the USA to China.  It is due to the Chinese influence in the USA that our wages are so low, our benefits are so poor and our pay scales low.  The Republicans couldn't break down the unions by themselves, so they had to out sourced American jobs in order to LEVERAGE pressure in the American work force to bring down wages so they can increase their bottom line AT ANY COST.

So, when Republicans and their right wing media decide to call environmentalists 'Watermelons' perhaps they sincerely should take a long look in the mirror.

Small Climate Deals Forged Outside Int'l Talks  (click title to entry - thank you)

Climate change action forges ahead, regardless of treaty talks. World Bank: We can't wait

The Associated Press

By ARTHUR MAX Associated Press

CANCUN, Mexico December 12, 2010 (AP)

Walmart is going green in its Chinese factories. George Soros is exploring investments in the restoration of drained peatlands in Indonesia. Denmark is joining South Korea in a new fund to transform developing economies.
As delegates to the latest U.N. climate talks struggled to come up with a modest pair of global warming accords, governments, businesses and individuals working behind the scenes forged ahead with their own projects to cut emissions....

Now, do I think there should be a turbulent over throw of the current economic PICTURE in regard to quality of life?

Thursday October 18, 2007 Cheboygan, MI

Photographer states:

Tornado over Black Lake, Michigan, during the October 18, 2007 tornado outbreak. This tornado was rated EF1 with winds up to 94 mph. Damage consisted of a barn destroyed just north of M-68. The sporadic damage path up through Black Lake was 1/8 mile wide and around 10 miles long. Some tree damage was seen around Black Lake. The photo taken by Nathan Krinsky from the back deck of his home on Black Lake in northern Michigan, 15 miles southeast of Cheboygan. The sun was setting at 5:25 pm EDT when this photo was taken, and if you look closely, you can see a rainbow, thanks to the spray kicked up by the tornado.

Of course not. 

I think it this way.  There is a lake in the USA.  A real lake.  It contains a significant amount of an aquatic invasive species of plant.  Now that plant does not supply the best nutrition for the fish in the lake.  A real lake with real fish.  But, it does provide a place where fish feel secure from sunlight and boat traffic and fishing hooks, so it is a place where they sleep and socialize and breed.  Basically, the WEEDS are important to the fish, but, the landowners surrounding the lake want to rid the lake of this invasive species of plant so the fish will grow bigger and more abundantly.

Good idea.

But, how exactly does a community go about changing the plant populations without destroying the fish?

Over time.  The current plant populations will have to be supported until the new native species of native species TAKE OVER the area and overrun the invasive plants.  During that time the native fish will start to thrive better.

Now, I don't believe the USA economy is like a lake or fish, but, the concept of 'incremental' and 'meaningful' change can occur rather painlessly. 

See, recessions since Reagan were reversed by government spending.  George Walker Bush buoyed his economy through chronic job bills.  So it isn't really fair to say the spending currently being used to reverse the trend of The Great Recession is wrong.  It isn't.  It saved this country and put it back on the right track.  But, it isn't enough.  It isn't going to be enough unless the American landscape includes 'personage' and the appreciation for that personage in the equation again. 

We know for a fact and it was mentioned on this blog that since the Small Business Loans have returned in September of 2010, the number of jobs generated by those businesses are growing.  We know that for a fact.  That didn't occur because Investment Banks decided to return to lending, it was due to sincere legislation that created opportunity for lending to Small Businesses.  And these are 'faux' small businesses that front for corporations such as Bechtel.  These are sincerely small businesses that 'real people' build and hire other real people to work.

How we define our values and our lifestyles are important.  How we appreciate the quality of life and the ability to reduce stress and embrace community is important.  These are all 'value' judgements. 

There is absolutely no reason why a favorite BIG BOX STORE could not provide PROPER 'personage' to assist customers.  EXCEPT.  It cuts into their bottom line. 

Is their bottom line truly important to us or are we allowing 'cheap life styles' override what is best for ourselves and the USA's economy.

I don't trust them and I want an infrastructure that lasts.  Not one that simply feeds the wealthy and diminishes the quality of life for Americans.

This is a Main Street in the USA. Not a Hollywood set, but, a Main Street.

Now, it is possible that every Main Street can contain the same exact stores or type of stores found in the Shopping Mall.  I think there is a basic understanding about that.

But, think for a minute.  About the WASTED SPACE in a mall.

Lots and lots of wasted space. 

It would be like putting a dome over the Main Street and calling it progress or an improvement. 

Now, think about the ENERGY it would take to keep that dome warm in the winter and cool in the summer.

What is more energy efficient, Main Street or a Shopping Mall?

I just love those trees, don't you?