A Response to an Email

At the end of last week, a response I received to my blog on whether Obama deserves a second term caught my attention and I thought I would share it with you together with an expanded response.  My friend said, "Yes, Obama deserves another term. In part because the Supreme Court is at risk of admitting justices who are anti-abortion, this is a serious issue and will inject religion further into our national political landscape. I believe Obama has a far superior and progressive social policy than Romney."

My reply was basically as follows: I am always delighted when someone takes issue with me, particularly someone who is as bright as you.  People like you force me to take a second look at my position.  Having done so, I might have responded differently had I not watched "Need To Know" last Friday on PBS.  It covered the voting laws in Florida which some say are designed to take away voting rights of certain of its citizens, including felons. There was one African American woman who was a college graduate, written a book, and had started her own publishing company, all after being released from a federal prison after serving 20 years for a non-violent drug offense.  After years of trying to get back her right to vote she received a notification that her right would not be restored until 2017.

What bothered me most about this story was her having spent 20 years in prison. I am willing to bet that the majority of inmates in this federal prison are black, poor and uneducated. We both know that African Americans do not make up the majority of the prison inmates because crime is in their DNA. Yet in the 4 years that Obama has sat in the Oval Office, I have never heard him say one word about the blatant racism that exists in our judicial system.  My concern today is not with Obama's policies but his failure to use his office to take on what I would call "social corruption."

However, as for Romney, trust me ..., he has no intention of interfering with a woman's right to contraceptives or abortion; and he has no interest in turning this country into a theocracy. Romney is interested solely in this country being economically superior to the rest of the world and he understands that it is only achieved by having a strong middle class (anyone with even a passing familiarity with economics would understand this). Destroying the middle class would send us back to 18th and 19th century Europe, when the nobility thought they were secure with the poor tilling the fields. You know how well this worked out for them.

Obama knows that the rich is this country are really at the mercy of the middle class.  Why?  Because it is the middle class that buys all the goods and services.  Obama’s claim that he is the one who will save the middle class just does not comport with his record.  Compare how little he did to protect the housing market and the homeowners to the actions taken by FDR.   Any improvement to the housing market was in spite of Obama's policies.  Such improvement was the result of economics 101-supply and demand, boasted by the Federal Reserves QE policy to flood the market with newly printed  money.   Obama’s middle class policies were best summed up by Joe Biden when he said the middle class has been buried for the last four years.  Oops.  (Out of the mouth of babes and Joe Biden).   Look at what the stimulus money could have done had some of it been used to upgrade our outworn and outdated electric grid.  Many of those 8 million customers would not have lost their power as a result of Hurricane Sandy.  

America cannot remain the world's largest economy if it crushes the middle class.  Romney understands this.  Even the Chinese recognize this because they are doing everything they can to bring more of their people into the middle class.  This abortion issue is nothing more than a diversion. Without jobs more women will slide into poverty; and if you take a look around you will find that a whole lot of females of child bearing age who are poor and/or poorly educated are having babies. They are not getting abortions or using contraceptives, even though both have been legal for over fifty years.

A democracy is only secure if the electorate is informed.  People like Obama depend on people being uninformed, or at odds with one another.  They appeal to our basic animal instincts and not "the better angels of our nature."  These animal instincts are the ones that most threatened a democracy.  Obama's social policies is the opposite of superior and progressive. because if allowed to succeed they would bring us to a place we have never been.

An enlightened electorate will make mistakes as it did in 2008 although it could be argued that  Obama may have been the lesser of two evils.  But history tells us that the light will eventually break through.  I hope that it happens this November.

Does Obama Deserve Another Four Years?

My mother passed away the year Obama was nominated for president. I know that she would have felt such pride in pulling the lever for him in the voting booth. She was 101 at the time of her passing. She had lived through Jim Crow and would have understood the significance of a black man becoming President of the United States of America.  My mother would have believed that Obama would make a difference if not in her life, at least in the lives of those who came after her.  But she would have been disappointed.  

This time around, Obama will get 94% of the African American vote even though you cannot get 94% of any group to agree on whether the earth evolves around the sun.  Obama will get this vote because he is black.  But, can anyone name one thing that Obama has done to benefit black folks? The drop out rate of black kids in inner-city schools is the highest it has ever been. The incarceration rate of black men is off the chart.  The number of black unwed mothers has skyrocketed.  More blacks are unemployed and their slide into poverty is unparallel.  Yet, all we have demanded of Obama is he stay black. 

Last month the teachers in Chicago went on strike for higher wages (the average pay for a Chicago teacher is $76,000.00 a year, the highest in the country).  The teachers also wanted to  maintain the status quo, meaning no performance evaluations, no time added to their school day, and no system of merit pay. The majority of the students attending the Chicago public schools are Black and Hispanic. The majority of them are poor. Over 55% of these kids never complete high school.  Here was a chance for Obama to take a public stand on behalf of the children, but he kept quiet during the strike because he did not want to offend the union. The Mayor, Obama’s former chief of staff,  brought the strike to a speedy conclusion because he was involved in Obama’s reelection effort.  In the end, Obama was safe but there was no meaningful improvement to the quality of education for the kids. 

Blacks want school choice yet Obama and the Black Caucus have done absolutely nothing in furtherance of securing for these kids any hope of attending the same public or private schools enjoyed by whites.  Obama has had two opportunities to appoint judges to the Supreme Court, yet he failed to appoint an African American even though blacks have been shafted by the judicial system since the Dred Scott decision.  Obama has been more interested in waging a war against the Arizona law which he incorrectly states allows the police to stop an individual who is doing nothing but  driving while Hispanic yet he has been silent on the decade long practice of police stopping individuals who are driving while black. 

Obama is now locked in a lawsuit with Catholic and Evangelical churches over birth control. During the Democrat Convention, he pranced a white law student out onto the stage to advocate a woman’s right to have her birth control pills paid for by her employer or her school. This $9.00 a month benefit was more important than attempting to do anything to halt the rate of teen pregnancies amongst black females who are guaranteed to spend their lives in poverty, while the law student will be spending her life on Wall Street.

I would guess that many Chicago parents voted for Obama because they believed he would do something to improve the education system. I am sure that many black folks voted for Obama because they believed he would do something to stop racial discrimination in America.  African Americans probably think Obama shares their values and understands their experience.  But this was not true in 2008 and it is not true today.   Folks, we deserve better.

Were my mother alive today, I would hope that she would understand why I am voting for Mitt Romney.

I THINK . . .: The Government Cannot Solve Societal Ills

I THINK . . .: The Government Cannot Solve Societal Ills: Some people are convinced that the government could solve the problem of poverty, poor housing, inadequate medical care, a substandard educa...

The Government Cannot Solve Societal Ills

Some people are convinced that the government could solve the problem of poverty, poor housing, inadequate medical care, a substandard educational system, if it would devote more resources. I do not agree. I think the government is ill-equipped to solve any societal ills.  Remember when President Johnson began waging the war on poverty in the 60s?  Since that time, trillions of dollars have been spent on housing, food stamps, Medicaid, education, and welfare, yet the percentage of people who are poor is greater than when the war began and our educational system has failed all but the affluent.  We speak of "government" as if it is some computerized contraption that can be fed a problem and spit out a solution. We think of the government as if it was IBM’s Watson.

The government is made up of a bunch of people in Washington who sit around and ponder how they can line their pockets, get reelected, or how can they get a promotion. We might define a politician as one who will say anything or make any promise, to get elected.  They talk about change we can believe in while hiding what they believe in.   The only hope they deliver is the hope we will not discover who and what they really are.   These are the same people who broadcast their genitals via tweets. These are the people who think that a report that Medicare will be broke in 10 years and Social Security benefits will be reduced by 25% within the next 23 years is proof that the programs are in good shape. These are the people that pass a health care law which prohibits Medicare from negotiating prices with drug companies. These are the people that want 310 million people to have health insurance yet do nothing to increase the number of primary care physicians or bring down the cost of health care.  These are the people who must be led kicking and screaming before deciding whether to intervene in Syria before the November election because their courage to act only occurs during lame duck sessions. These are the people who will not reform an unfair tax code and would rather keep corporate profits overseas than expatriate them at a lower corporate tax rate. These are the people that tell us there is nothing wrong with borrowing 40 cents of every dollar spent or that the national debt is 16 trillion dollars when it is actually 54 trillion dollars.  These are the people who refuse to cut the level of spending that brought about the fall of Rome, the British Empire, and today is threatening the economies of Greece, Portugal, Spain, Ireland and Italy. 

It doesn’t matter who wins elections.  Consider the Black and Hispanic Congressmen in Washington.  They were voted in because it was believed they could represent the interest of their constituents, many of whom are disadvantaged. In the end, most of them have turned out to be no better than those they replaced.  Like all of Congress, these lawmakers have accumulated power and wealth, while their constituents are still poor, live in the most dangerous neighborhoods, have the highest rate of incarceration, the highest rate of unemployment, and attend the worse schools.   For two years following the election of Barack Obama, the Democrats had a filibusters proof Senate and a large majority in the House. Yet during this same time, there was no Buffett Rule proposed, no comprehensive immigration bill introduced, no attempt to pass the so-called Dream Act, no attempt to extend the minimum wage beyond the 2007 amendment which only provided for $7.25 per hour effective July 24, 2009, no attempt to extend the low interest on student loans beyond 2012, no attempt to rein in the high cost of prescription drugs, no real attempt to aid homeowners who were underwater on their mortgages in spite of the banks receiving almost a trillion dollars in bailout money, no attempt to end corporate subsidies, and, no stimulus money was used to put large numbers of people to work on any major rehabilitation of roads, bridges, rails, airports, or electric grids.  These are the people that want us to forget the past when they did nothing but remember to vote for them now when they can do nothing.

As for those employed by the government, these are the people who get into arguments with prostitutes in Columbia over the fee for services, who spend almost a billion dollars on team building retreats in Vegas and give out “jackass” awards in order for their meals to be paid by the taxpayers, who allow drugs to be smuggled onto airplanes in exchange for money and demand that old ladies remove their underwear, or who loss track of guns they have allowed to be run into Mexico, one of which was used in the death of a border agent. I once saw a definition of these bureaucrats as officials who work by fixed routine without exercising intelligent judgment.

No, the government cannot solve societal ills until principle starts to trump self interest and desire to hold on to power at any cost.  Unfortunately, all attempts at this have failed throughout history.   Perhaps that is why it is said that in the end we must take responsibility for ourselves and voluntarily take responsibility for our neighbor.

Recently, I was asked if the government has ever done anything right. I think there is one thing. From time to time the government has been successful in waging war. However, let us all hope that it never decides it can make the guns, bullets, tank, and other armament because there will not be enough room on that hill to which we will all have to run.

I THINK . . .: Is There An Antidote To Greed?

I THINK . . .: Is There An Antidote To Greed?: Does the Occupy Wall Street movement believe it has the antidote to greed? Is simply protesting the disparity in income and assets between ...

Is There An Antidote To Greed?

Does the Occupy Wall Street movement believe it has the antidote to greed? Is simply protesting the disparity in income and assets between the 1% and the 99% enough to overcome that age old deadly sin?  I suspect that most of us belonging to the 99% think the 1% are greedy but would trade places with them in a heartbeat. So why are we so upset that some people have a lot of money when so many of us wish we had it?   We tend to think of greed as one of those seven deadly sins which afflict only rich people.  However, if this was merely a disease suffered by the rich, it probably would not really qualify as a deadly sin since so few people are rich.  Greed is an equal opportunity affliction. Greed is behind just about every major crime committed in the world.  It has been the primary cause of every revolution since recorded history.  It has been the downfall of every attempt to create a utopian society.  It is ignited by the fear that we will not get something we want or we will lose something we have.  It is at the root of hoarding.  Even if we got what we wanted or we kept what we have, we would want more. Why, because in order for greed to sustain itself, it can never be satisfied.

Earlier this week, I was invited to attend a workshop on how to organize immigrants. Since immigration is not one of those issues putting me over the edge, I spent the first part of the workshop wondering why I was there. Once I thought about the fact that I had adopted a new approach to life called “do what comes next,” I decided to sit back and listen with the expectation that I would learn something.  I had been invited to attend this workshop by a woman who is very committed to empowering Latinos. Her commitment interested me more than the empowering. She was a young white woman from an upper middle class family who was certainly not reaping any great economic reward for her effort. Although she was employed by an organization helping immigrants, she was probably just making enough to satisfy basic needs. Yet when I looked at her I saw more than a woman committed to immigrants, I saw a woman waging a war on greed simply by her generosity.

I was glad I attended the workshop because I did learn for the first time just how the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) had created wide spread poverty in Latin America. This was the driving force for so many Latinos and Haitians coming to the United States after 1994.  Days later, two questions came to my mind: who benefited from NAFTA and why is the United States so attractive to immigrants from these third world countries?  I think the answer to both questions is money. Money in the abstract is like oxygen. It serves no purpose unless we use it, unless we spread it around. Money is the means by which we fairly exchange goods and services, and unless that fair exchange is going on, we are as poor as those immigrants who fled to the States. 

Greed is like a Catch 22.  If immigrants who have come to the United States are fortunate enough to get a job, they start buying those items manufactured in countries that have benefited from NAFTA. These are the same products that cost them their security in the first place.  But fair exchange is not going on here.  Money is simply creating more money because the quality of those goods and services is declining and bears little relationship to how much is spent on them.  The poorer the quality, the more money is spent.  Today, money has become another name for greed and everybody wants some or what it can buy.

A few years ago I was in a store shopping for Christmas. The prices were low because everything had been made in China or India. I remember thinking about the number of American jobs that had been lost but I kept on buying. I was championing free trade. Now that our factories have closed up and there are around 20 million people out of work, we are still buying goods made in India and China. We are told that our economy is dependant on our spending.  We are obliging and going deeper and deeper into debt.  But what if we stopped and put our greed on hold for just a little while and shared what we have with those who have less just as this young woman is doing. I think we would learn that generosity is really the  antidote for greed.  In this way, greed might just lose its place as number two on the list of the seven deadly sins.

The Root Of All Evil

I cannot count the number of times I have heard that the Bible says money is the root of all evil. If you search the Bible to find this you will be disappointed because the Bible doesn’t say it. What it does say is the love of money is the root of all evil. I think this is more than a distinction without a difference. There is nothing wrong with having money but there is a whole lot wrong with loving it. Take Warren Buffett for example. Buffett is 81 years old. He has 44 billion dollars and he is the third richest man in the world. He lives in a modest home in Nebraska and drives his own car. It has been reported that Buffett doesn’t really care about money he just enjoys making it. He is like a chef who doesn’t care about food, but just enjoys cooking it. Buffett has been called a great philanthropist but all I have ever heard is he plans to leave 99% of his estate to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Whatever he has donated over the years has not made a dent in his net worth. Unlike Facebook's Mark Zuckerman who gave 100 million dollars to the Newark Public Schools, I have never heard of Buffett doing much to help improve the lot of Americans living at or below the poverty line, or decrying the state of our educational system.   I have not heard of Buffett helping citizens who lost their homes, their savings, who cannot afford to send their children to college.  When Americans lost 10 trillion dollars in equity as a result of the financial crisis of 2008, Buffett remained one of the richest men in the world.  Buffett made money investing in companies who received bailout money. Since the start of the financial crisis he has made lucrative profits in Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, and General Electric.  It has never been reported that Buffett has ever tried to persuade financial institutions to make any widespread effort to help homeowners who are underwater on their mortgages, even those who have been diligent in their payments.  Why?  Because such an effort would impact his return on his investments.  Buffett says that the rich should pay more in taxes but he has yet to pick up his pen and write a check to the IRS. I have never heard that he even returns his social security check.  And while he doesn’t purchase the big houses, cars, and boats, he does use his money to acquire power.  Buffett delights in being called the Oracle of Omaha. He is like EF Hutton, when he speaks, people listen. The so-called Buffett Rule is hailed as the solution to our tax problem. His op-eds are talked about for weeks. When he is interviewed he never wipes the smile from his face.

I believe that Buffett loves money, because he loves power. President Obama has not invited the poor, the unemployed, the underemployed, and members of the dwindling middle class to the White House to give him advice on entitlements, homelessness, poverty, or jobs. Buffett is a regular visitor.  In spite of the fact that Americans made the Buffetts of the world rich because these people bought their goods and services, the rich don't offer the President advice on how to rebuild the middle class because they no longer need the middle class. There are only about 150 million American workers but there are millions more in China and India.  The rich don't offer advice on how to bring the gas prices down because they have no problem paying these prices.  Don’t be fooled by the rhetoric that alternative sources of energy is the real solution to high gas prices,  the rich see this as the new source of wealth. They tout the need for wind, solar and electricity, yet they love it that GM made a huge profit on vehicles that use gasoline. They push the Chevy Volt which cost $40,000.00 and which has been recalled due to problems with the lithium battery.  The rich talk out of both sides of their mouth.  They give advice which keeps the cost of gas at $5.00 a gallon (helping the oil companies), extolling the virtues of buying American cars (keeping the automotive industry profitable), and focusing on wind and solar energy (tomorrow’s source of wealth).  Making gasoline affordable is not on the agenda of the rich and powerful. Affordability is so yesterday. That small change adds up to a lot is passé. Today, there is not a need behind every decision made in Washington, only a dollar.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t begrudge Buffett making money. I want everyone to make money and lots of it. I would never subscribe to putting a cap on earnings nor would I want to impose taxes on the rich to punish them for their success. The haves do create the jobs. Yet, we have to remember that but for the have-nots, people like Buffett would have very little. But for the taxpayers paying for the roads, the military, the fire departments, and the police, the rich would not be able to transport their goods or be safe in their homes and businesses.

When the love of money takes precedent over the social contract, a contract that provided for all Americans to have an equal opportunity to succeed or fail in a system that was only partially rigged, we end up with greed, 20 million people unemployed or underemployed, and ultimately resentment.

I think the love of money is what is at the core of America’s problems because we can never get enough of what we love.