What is Government?

Why do we submit to the law?

We can’t run very fast. We have no sharp teeth or claws. Long ago it became obvious that it was in humanity’s self interest to ban together for our mutual security. We each give up a small amount of personal freedom, for the greater good of the whole. That is the basis of the social contract.

As citizens, our responsibility is to uphold the laws of government. The government, in turn, also has obligations. The bare minimum of those obligations are to protect the majority of people from enemies both foreign and domestic. What enemies do we wish to protect ourselves from? At the very least hunger, disease, invasion by hostile forces (external security), and threats to our self-governance (internal security).

So how are we doing in that respect? Lousy.

We all but wiped out hunger in the US shortly after the Kennedy administration (ended 1963), but the government intentionally reintroduced it in the Reagan administration to drive down worker wages. What is left of our health care system is sowing the seeds of its own destruction. Foreign NGO’s have been invited by the Supreme Court to financially manipulate campaigns and thus our government. Internal threats to self-governance are too numerous to recount here, and in any case the Supreme Court has abandoned all pretense that this was a democracy and officially ruled the US a plutocracy.

We are in essence living in a failed state. Just because I am writing about the US, don’t think your country is doing any better. Most of the Western world is in the same boat.

Other articles have detailed the complex road we took to get here. That is not the purpose of this series. This series discusses how we get out.

Specifically, how to tell our government “No!”

“Duck House”:

I sit on the floor of the Duck House with thirty others, brainstorming for the January action. Neither men nor women dominate the group. We are young, and surprisingly old. Counter-culture and conservatively clad. We question whether it is nobler to seek permits or just show up unannounced. We speak of banners, flyers and street theater-anything to educate the public about our goal.

Even when I still lived in Arizona, I had heard of this place. Democracy Unlimited Humboldt County (DUHC) or “Duck” was on the forefront of the war against corporate power. In 1998, they helped pass a ballot initiative establishing the Democracy and Corporations standing committee in Arcata’s city council here in California.

The Committee’s primary functions are: to research and present to the Council options for controlling the growth of “pattern restaurants” in the community; to cooperate with other communities working on socially responsible investing and procurement policies; to make recommendations to the Council, and/or with the Council’s approval, provide educational opportunities to promote “fair trade”; to inform citizens of corporations with negative social and environmental impact; and to provide advice on ways to foster sustained locally-owned businesses, publicly or locally owned services and worker-owned cooperatives and collectives.–City of Arcata

The committee was hailed by Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky, and Jim Hightower. Ralph Nader commented, “I look forward to Arcata being a luminous star in the rising crescendo of democracy in our country.”

Embolden by this success, they passed Measure T in 2004. It forbid nonlocal corporations from contributing to local political campaigns. Two corporations immediately challenged the initiative as unconstitutional. Before the case could be decided by the courts, Humboldt’s Board of Supervisors succumbed to corporate pressure and declared this popularly elected law nullified.

DUHC learned from this experience. They won’t be going it alone, this time. They are but one small seed of democracy, but they are amassing with others to change the political landscape in America. They have joined Move to Amend in a miliary campaign, and this time their aim is not a city ordinance in some far off town on the edge of America, but changing the highest law in the land.

As Lieberman deliberated, the new chair of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), told HuffPost that the party would consider supporting Lieberman if he returned to the fold.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…

Joe & George the President

The feeling of ill will is mutual: Lieberman said during the health care debate that one reason he opposed a Medicare buy-in compromise was that progressives were embracing it.

Joe & John the Presidential Candidate

March 20, 2003

” What we are doing here is not only in the interest of the safety of the American people. Believe me, Saddam Hussein would have used these weapons against us eventually or given them to terrorists who would have. But what we are doing here, in overthrowing Saddam and removing those weapons of mass destruction and taking them into our control, is good for the security of people all over the world, including the Iraqi people themselves.”

http://www.lobelog.com/lieberm…

Joe and John in Iraq

September 29, 2011.    10 years and 18 days after 9-11 attacks on NYC



” It is time for us to take steps that make clear that if diplomatic and economic strategies continue to fail to change Iran’s nuclear policies, a military strike is not just a remote possibility in the abstract, but a real and credible alternative policy that we and our allies are ready to exercise.

It is time to retire our ambiguous mantra about all options remaining on the table. It is time for our message to our friends and enemies in the region to become clearer: namely, that we will prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapons capability — by peaceful means if we possibly can, but with military force if we absolutely must. A military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities entails risks and costs, but I am convinced that the risks and costs of allowing Iran to obtain a nuclear weapons capability are much greater.

Some have suggested that we should simply learn to live with a nuclear Iran and pledge to contain it. In my judgment, that would be a grave mistake. As one Arab leader I recently spoke with pointed out, how could anyone count on the United States to go to war to defend them against a nuclear-armed Iran, if we were unwilling to go to war to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran? Having tried and failed to stop Iran’s nuclear breakout, our country would be a poor position to contain its consequences.

I also believe it would be a failure of U.S. leadership if this situation reaches the point where the Israelis decide to attempt a unilateral strike on Iran. If military action must come, the United States is in the strongest position to confront Iran and manage the regional consequences. This is not a responsibility we should outsource. We can and should coordinate with our many allies who share our interest in stopping a nuclear Iran, but we cannot delegate our global responsibilities to them.”

http://www.lobelog.com/lieberm…

http://lieberman.senate.gov/in…

There are over 15,000 clinics and hospitals in this country, which get their drugs for poorer patients from a government discount – drug act which was created in 1992.   They spend over $6 billion, and they are supposed to get a discount of 30% to 50% off.

During the past 8 years, (that’s mostly during the Bush administration 2002 – , with some overlap into the 3rd Term of Bipartisanbamaship ) the inspector general for HHS noticed drug manufacturers were overcharging their customers, but not getting dinged for it and being motivated to be good contractors.

Ted Slafsky, executive director of Safety Net Hospitals for Pharmaceutical Access — which represents 600 hospitals in the program — said that “manufacturers have been able to overcharge covered entities with impunity.”

http://www.californiahealthlin…

Santa Clara County and Santa Cruz County in California sued Astra Zeneca USA.   This upset Big Pharma.

In Dec 2009, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals of San Francisco ruled that clinics and hospitals could sue.

The Supreme Court is asked to rule next.

The U.S. Department of Justice, Eric Holder, Attorney General, under the Presidency of Barack Obama, is now siding with the Pharmaceutical companies to overturn that decision, and telling the Supreme Court they don’t want counties and clinics suing over drug price rip offs.   Per the DOJ, only the Federal Government (not meaning Congress, I guess, but the secret deal maker- in – chief) had the authority to enforce the law.

This must give avowed anti environmentalist and overall science denier, Drill Baby Spill, Tea Party Caucus Congressman Tom McClintock of CA 04 a nice, warm, fuzzy feeling inside, because now the area up around his homey base of right wing zealots, Susanville, is undergoing a wild horse purge with Federal Tax dollars-  for BP and Anadarko Petroleum.   Because he had a staffer rep at the BLM’s planning session per documents at the Dept of the Interior website.

They’re going to take 2000 mustangs off the northern California scrubby ranges and leave a small remnant herd of 500.   The roundup started yesterday, Wed Aug 11th.

There are only about 4000 wild horses in CA.  This removes half our state’s wild horses !   And they’re doing it now during the hot days so it won’t interfere with DEER HUNTING SEASON.

Flat Earth McClintock recently had a hissy fit that the Federal government might transfer some Federal land into a National Park or Monument here up in Northern eastern CA because the government doesn’t “create jobs.”    

edit. v2.

______________________________________

You can tell it’s an election year by the amount of wild horses that suddenly have to be removed off Federal range to “preserve habitat” for mule deer hunters and cattle ranchers who also lease it.   This year, 1200 in our sister state, home to the Senate Majority Leader.

The Obama administration touted that it would use so called “science based” decision making.  After watching the Bush administration decide to humor the National Park’s decision to murder a bunch of introduced, very cute, but non trophy type smaller deer at Pt Reyes National Seashore with helicopter hunting, (think more canned Tule Elk Special Hunts as a result ) under the guise of they weren’t “native,” and the helicopter contract went to a big Republican donor, while the Dems made stupid excuses for this, I was sort of cynical that this was going to happen.

Science does not = rotor cowboys.  

Science does not = Cattoor Livestock.

http://rtfitch.wordpress.com  7/12/2010 BLM – Infamous helicopter contractor returns for illegal tuscarora wild horse roundup.  “It was Cattoor Livestock that stampeded the horses of Pryor Mountain in 95º+ degree heat for miles, and again the Cattoors who were actually credited with running the hooves right off from several foals during the bloodiest of all roundups on record, the Calico Complex debacle.  Due to the deaths in the field, …. documented on video, the Cattoors launched an attack on the First Amendment and instructed their attorneys to issue threat/demand letters to news agencies, major non profits, magazines and blogs that were reporting the news to the public on the deadly Calico roundup.  The letters wanted to “fix” the news…. and insist on public apologies for reporting the facts as witnessed. The mention of company owner David Cattoor’s past indictment for capturing and selling wild horses to slaughter was likewise considered taboo. ”

“In their care, 86 horses have died and 40 mares have aborted their late term foals….”

http://tuesdayshorse.wordpress…

“In late December, government contracted helicopters took to the air, rounding up every horse they could find on the vast 500,000 acre Calico range, an area designated principally for wild horse use since 1971, but grazed by thousands of privately owned, government subsidized cattle. The roundup….. has cost at least $1.3 million…. while causing injury and death to hundreds of wild horses.  ….. over 24 million acres have been withdrawn from wild horse and burro use.  The BLM “welfare ranching” practices continue allowing the land to be leased primarily to corporations at minimum fees of $1.35 per cow/calf pair or per 5 head of sheep per month, along with land leases to extractive and energy industries on Western public lands.

Must Read Eric Alterman article about our kabuki democracy — and what to do about it.

digbysblog.blogspot.com

     Face it, the system is rigged, and it’s rigged against us. Sure, presidents can pretty easily pass tax cuts for the wealthy and powerful corporations. They can start whatever wars they wish and wiretap whomever they want without warrants. They can order the torture of terrorist suspects, lie about it and see that their intelligence services destroy the evidence. But what they cannot do, even with supermajorities in both houses of Congress behind them, is pass the kind of transformative progressive legislation that Barack Obama promised in his 2008 presidential campaign. Here’s why.

thenation.com

    As for the “Here’s why” and how to fix things part, one should go read the whole article at The Nation, and go below the fold for more.

Cross-posted at DKOS.

In his latest column David Ignatius says McCrystal’s…

…comments actually understate the backbiting among these senior policymakers and their staffs.

Anybody who has been around Washington’s foreign policy elite (I have, at times had a window into that world) knows the tension between civilian leadership and various faction of the military and, indeed, between not only the services but between factions within those services. Also, most people don’t understand the balance of power has shifted, over the decades, toward the Pentagon because, frankly, money talks and the Pentagon budget has a enormous influence over political realities in Congress. So, at the moment, we are as close to military rule as we’ve ever been as should be obvious by the MSM’s obvious reluctance to criticize the military despite the overwhelming evidence of atrocities practiced by both low and high ranking personnel. It is important to understand that this civilian vs. military conflict is very much a cultural conflict between an institution dominated by southerners and red-state Republicans who have a strong need to have “enemies” to be psychically healthy and a strong disdain for people who can see both sides of issues. Life to them is a simple matter of “them and us.” Frankly, these guys just consider themselves more manly than the civilians involved in FP discussions.  

Take that you anti-American Teabaggers and Blue Dogs.

 Uncle Sam (Sam Dehne) is entering the fray but first only to put some hell in Rep. Dean Heller's (R, NV-O4) life like he has been doing for years for the Reno City Council.

Sam is no wimpy, mealy-mouthed progressive when he announces his platform:

http://www.renocitizen.com/con…

Some selected excerpts:

As a citizen activist in his state, Dehne has spoken at more

than a thousand public meetings to expose wrongful actions

perpetrated by public officials.

[Man oh man, I’m here to tell you that’s a fact.]

Dehne is also a long-time, world class, volunteer entertainer.

He has performed over 1,000 Charity concerts for seniors and veterans.

[You get what you pay for as far as Sam’s volunteer singing goes.]

Sam Dehne plans to initiate his Grassroots Campaign with some

of his own money and small donations from close supporters.

Dehne will not ask for,  nor accept, any contributions.

Any checks sent will be torn up. And any cash sent will

be put in the church collection plate… anonymously.

In other words… DO NOT send money unless

otherwise and subsequently officially advised.”

Sam says that every penny will be spent dearly…

as if it was his own money… which most of it is.

Make it a capital crime to tamper with the outcome of any election.

[That will open some seats on the Supreme Court in a hurry but Uncle Sam is not neglecting the other branches of government.]

Incarcerate for life any judge who works against truth and justice.

Incarcerate any elected official who swears to support and defend the Constitution without having a working knowledge of the supreme law of the land ~ especially including the Bill of Rights. (Swearing to serve something that you don’t understand is fraud.)

It gets better and better.  I leave you to enjoy as you will.

Best,  Terry

Crossposted at Daily Kos

    At a DNC fundraiser last night, President Obama had an interesting exchange with a Democratic organizer about health care reform, wherein he appeared to suggest that Congress could drop the ball and fail to pass a bill–and that voters should judge them harshly if they do.

    “[I]t may be that — you know, if Congress decides — if Congress decides we’re not going to do it, even after all the facts are laid out, all the options are clear, then the American people can make a judgment as to whether this Congress has done the right thing for them or not,” Obama said.

tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com

    More below the fold