Terror is a byproduct!

April 17, 2013

If we want it to stop we must quit playing the game.

By Jack E. Lohman

Unfortunately, now, it must be expected.

Our politicians have put our country on the line, for their own pocketbook, and that you or I don’t like it doesn’t matter.

Come up with enough cash if you want it to stop. Outbid the Lockheeds of the world, if you can.

We don’t know yet who was behind Boston,

… but I’d ask the perpetrators “Do you really want our world controlled by the likes of you?”

(Forget it. We could ask our politicians the same question!)

I personally wonder,

… would ANY of this be happening if our politicians used the defense manufacturers for national protection rather than as a source of campaign bribes?

And bribes from the recipient governments on the other side of the Atlantic?

Or would we be spending only what’s necessary to protect our people?

If our politicians were not relying on this payola, would we be spending taxpayer money on defense products that “exceeds the next 12 nations on the list combined?”

If our politicians were not getting a piece of the action, would we have placed our country in the position of policing the world?

If our politicians were not corrupt, would the U.S. be crossing everybody else’s borders, even while no one is crossing ours?

Would the U.S. have experienced September 11, 2001, or Boston, or the others, or spent billions on the TSA or Homeland Security?

I don’t think so. War may be hell, but it’s also very profitable.

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100% of America’s problem is corruption at the top

April 15, 2013

AND a population of voters that just doesn’t understand the connection between corporate profits and political bribes. And that they (the voters) pay them BOTH!

By Jack E. Lohman

Politicians have allowed our system to move from Left-Right to Up and Down… class warfare rather than Democrat v. Republican … because they get a piece of the action. From those at the top, not at the bottom. Cash works, but only for those who have it.

We have a corrupt government and until the people get their eyes off the “little fires” and battle the leaches at the top, the corruption will continue.

That Transparency International has us listed as 24th in political honesty in the world, rather than 1st, is telling.

Even doubling our wages, at this point, is NOT the answer. We’ll just send manufacturing jobs to some other country, because (please note … BECAUSE) the CEOs are allowed to!!! Not only do their corporations take a tax write-off for their $20 million salaries, but these high salaries and political bribes provide the incentive to screw the workers and public.

Don’t get me wrong.

I do NOT support $300K salaries for union bosses either. Or government bureaucrats with salaries 50% higher than the taxpayers who pay them, or those who grow government to protect and build their own job. As I’ve said before, even Scott Walker is not always wrong.

As a former union steward I view unions as a necessary evil, mainly because we have CEO and politician crooks seeking to depress wages to increase profits, which they share. They want in my (and my kid’s) pocket and they’ll do anything to make it happen.

AND while some union bosses will sell out their members to keep it all cool, that’s an issue that the members themselves must correct.

We have problems in both public AND private.

I’m basically a free market type. Not a crony-market supporter, however. If the shareholders voted for a $20 million CEO, fine, but that’s not what is happening. The politicians have been paid cash bribes to establish rules that make CEOs and bankers and petroleum companies like little Gods, and they have earned every penny of their take. At taxpayer and consumer expense, mind you.

But now we have to get the VOTERS to recognize that this problem exists because WE ALLOW it to exist, and only a near-100% turnover in 2014 will fix it.

NONE of our nation’s disparities would exist if we had an honest political system. THIS is where our future fights must begin.

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Lockheed and it’s bought politicians must love it!

April 12, 2013

Isn’t it a shame that North and South Korea are needlessly spending their country’s money on stupid defense systems?  And U.S. taxpayer cash to boot!

By Jack E. Lohman

Instead of on needed schools and development?

The answer is “Yea, but school kids don’t give campaign cash.” At least that’s what the answer would be here in America.

Indeed the North has a novice leader, taking his cues from a military who wants to keep itself needed and employed. But come to think of it, aren’t we Americans in the same boat?

I often wonder “Can’t we just get along? Is there ANY legitimate reason to cross someone else’s border and throw rocks?”

And then I remember, I live in the U.S.. That’s what we do. Or more accurately “That’s what our politicians ARE PAID to do.” By the Lockheeds of the world. The people who make tanks and war planes and drones. It keeps them in business.

I don’t blame the lobbyists, except when they give cash bribes. Otherwise they are doing what their clients tell them do do… educating our legislators.

But our “legislators” have turned into political crooks, prostitutes who say “Yea, lobby me, but with cash in hand!”

It is hard to accept that we have politicians who must rely so heavily on political graft. Do they not have kids and grandkids who will have to live in the country they leave behind?

I’m a capitalist…

But I don’t support crony capitalism. I’d trust most any political decision if I knew that it was reached honestly, without our politicians getting a piece of the action.

But that’s not the way our world of politics works. The United States didn’t reach #24 on Transparency International’s corruption index by being lazy. And yes, I said #24th, NOT 1st! That went to one of those socialist countries (New Zealand).

Cyprus is just the beginning…

They had a run on their banks, and it will happen here too. Though prosecuting Jamie Dimon and Lloyd Blankfein, presidents of our two largest banks, could forestall that.

Remember that “people” cause runs on banks, and we Americans are getting nervous.

Don’t look to President Obama to avoid that; he is part of the problem. He is even now capitulating on his promise not to cut Social Security and Medicare, because his corporate cronies want our money spent on their projects instead. And of course, their tax breaks.

The bottom line is that no one, conservative or liberal, would object to an honest political system.

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Free Markets Don’t Mean Free People

April 8, 2013

Globalization For The Common Good Initiative: Senior Ambassador

By Keith Roberts, PhD

You can always tell if an organization or think tank is trying to pick your pocket if it has “free market” in it’s title or as one of it’s goals. Organizations like the Club for Growth, The Heritage Foundation, Wisconsin’s own McIver Institute:The Free Market Voice of Wisconsin, and of course the ghost writer of all of Wisconsin’s Republican Legislation, The American legislative Exchange Council. Their policies are benefiting an ever shrinking minority of people who control an ever growing majority of America’s wealth.

I am here in Vietnam where GE is hiring 600 people to work in its state of the art Wind Turban Facility. You see, unlike Wisconsin, the Vietnamese government believes in green energy. I am currently working at a Vietnamese university that has a center for studying climate change… good for them! It is partially funded by a US grant awarded during the Bush administration. It looks as though even “W” had to go to a Communist country in order to find a university that didn’t have any Republicans on it’s board of Regents, a place that believes in science, a place that isn’t owned by the Fossil Fuel Industry..yet.

So, the idea of “Free Markets” continues to fascinate me as I analyzed the latest Forbes “Richest people on the Planet” report. India, the worlds largest democracy, has 55 Billionaires. China, the worlds largest Communist country has 122 Billionaires. The US is still at the top with 442 billionaires while Russia, new to Capitalism, already has 110 Billionaires. These folks are all Plutocrats and they have more in common with each other than they have with their fellow Indians/Chinese/Americans/Russians. You see, these folks don’t need an American middle class, they just need customers from anywhere in the world. As Chrystia Freeland states in her book “Plutocrats”, “Henry Ford needed a domestic middle class with buying power, increasingly, his successors can look to emerging markets to supply those mass consumers” Henry Ford paid honest wages so that his workers could afford his automobiles, Walmart pays subsistence wages so that their employees can afford to only shop at Walmart. And the Plutocrats’ corporations pay slave wages in China and Bangledesh. Why would they pay $8.25 in Wisconsin? Or, why would they pay $2.25 in Wisconsin? These Plutocrats don’t need a middle class and will prosper as a result of their demise. Scott Walker’s Promise to Plutocrat Dianne Hendricks to divide and conquer is evidence of this.

In fact, Scott Walker’s Wisconsin (bought and paid for by Plutocrats) has become a microcosm of this Plutocratic greed. The classic extraction colonialism has played itself out masterfully in the manner in which the Republican legislators delivered Wisconsin’s natural resources to Florida Plutocrat Chris Cline. Chris Cline who, incidentally, will probably sell his interest in the mine to some Chinese Plutocrat who is in a better position to profit from all of that Wisconsin Iron ore. Walker is a zombie-like tool of these Plutocrats as he is systematically dismantling public schools, public transportation and public trust (after all, the Russian Plutocrats became billionaires by buying government enterprises and utilities at bargain basement prices, sound familiar?).

The Walker administration will become a textbook case of the power of the Plutocrats (Kochs, Adelson et al) and the corporate media in dismantling the middle class. In the meantime, if you’re poor you will not be able to take a bus to that welding job ($10.00 and no benefits) in New Berlin no matter how qualified you are because, after all, folks who ride public transportation can’t afford to buy politicians.

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Bangladesh, The Ultimate “Right-to-Work” State

April 7, 2013

Globalization for the Common Good Initiative: Senior Ambassador

By Keith Roberts PhD

Scott Walker, the Club for Growth, The McIver Institute, ALEC, the Heritage Foundation and other ‘Free Market’ think tanks continue to make villains out of unions and pressure states to become “right-to -work” states. Walker did promise Diane Hendricks (one of his Plutocrat co-owners) that he would “divide and conquer” the Wisconsin’s middle class in his determination to make Wisconsin a “right-to-work” state. He has done this successfully, with the help of right-wing radio, and now Wisconsinites are pitted against each other, private employees are pitted against public employees and rural against urban dwellers. But, no reduction in wages and workers rights will satisfy the plutocrats who own Walker. As long as there is a 14 year girl in Bangladesh who they can force to work for $38 a week, these billionaires will not be happy with American workers making anything more than minimum wage. In fact, Ron Johnson, our Senior Senator recently told a constituent that he supports the lowering of the minimum wage as a stimulant to job creation. Just as there is no end to their greed and no amount of money or profit that will satisfy the free market folks, there is no limit to the sacrifice that they will expect from labor and workers to increase their profits.

Look at the label in any recent garment you may have purchased. If it is from Bangladesh it is from a “Right-to-Work” state. Bangladesh has 3.5 million workers in 4,825 garment factories. These workers produce goods for export to the global market, principally Europe and North America. The Bangladeshi garment industry generates 80% of the country’s total export revenue. However, similar to the United States, the wealth generated by the workers has led to few improvements in the lives of those same workers, 85% of whom are women.

The majority of garment workers in Bangladesh earn little more than the minimum wage, set at approximately $38 a month. Remember those pesky American Labor unions and their greedy demands for decent salaries, the eight hour day, safe working conditions, week-ends off. These unreasonable demands have no place in Bangladesh, and for that matter, in Ron Johnson’s America.

A recent report by the ‘War on Want” NGO reveals; “As well as earning a pittance, Bangladeshi factory workers face appalling conditions. Many are forced to work 14-16 hours a day seven days a week, with some workers finishing at 3am only to start again the same morning at 7.30am. On top of this, workers face unsafe, cramped and hazardous conditions which often lead to work injuries and factory fires. Since 1990, more than 400 workers have died and several thousand more have been wounded in 50 major factory fires. Sexual harassment and discrimination is widespread and many women workers have reported that the right to maternity leave is not upheld by employers. Factory management also take steps to prevent the formation of trade unions, a right protected under the Freedom of Association and Collective Bargaining ILO Conventions, which Bangladesh ratified in 1972.”

If the Club for Growth can purchase a Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice election and Plutocrats like the Kochs and Sheldon Adelson can purchase the election and reelection of Scott Walker, the Wisconsin worker who is likely to now be working two or more part time minimum wage jobs to make ends meet will either not find the time to vote, or vote based upon a misleading slick TV or radio commercial. If the Republicans continue to maintain a core of voters who resent the few workers left with living wages, and fear the “other” urban dweller, then Scott Walker,s Wisconsin will proudly march past Mississippi on its way to Bangladesh.

This article first appeared at Uppity Wisconsin

1 Comment | Labor | Permalink
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When half the country thinks it’s right, nothing will get fixed. And that’s what the Pols count on.

April 5, 2013

The Tea Party has whittled down the R’s, and now we must trim the D’s and convert to a four-party system!

By Jack E. Lohman

The best way is to develop a center party.

Our government has gotten too damned big, because they control your life and politicians get a piece of the action. Watch this 3.5 minute video, then do something about it!

ObamaCare is as destructive as RomneyCare, but don’t tell the R’s that. The only reason Obama didn’t get R support is that the R’s knew it would pass nonetheless. So they sat it out and played the heroes.

All because BOTH SIDES were bought and paid for by the healthcare industry, with $125 million in campaign bribes!!! The system is broken and the politicians want to keep it that way.

In this war the public is the loser. Not the government and not the politicians. We, guys, are being played for fools. And as long as we fight the little fires and avoid the big one, our enemies (the politicians) are home free. Live with it!

If the R’s were smart…

They’d realize that it was more the dirty money and less their position on immigration that cost them the 2012 election. But politicians are more greedy than they are smart, so I don’t see an immediate change.

We can change it in 2014!!!

If you are a hard-core D or R, don’t read any further. We are NOT your supporters. But IF you want to fix the political system, you CAN!

Because YOU own it.

It’s called Single Issue Voting. Or better, “Mr. Politician, fix the system or you’re outta here!”

I never thought I’d have to “force” my politicians to be honest, or to do the right thing. But here we are. The Mafia-types have taken over our government, all while WE bury our heads in the sand.

The center-right and center-left are pretty reasonable people, but they need motivation. Watch Dylan Ratigan and then LET’S DO IT!

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Graduated Term Limits?

March 29, 2013

Yea, 95% of politicians should be ousted, but how do we protect the good guys? Can Wisconsin pave the way?

By Jack E. Lohman

The first shocker is why 95% of politicians are corrupt in the first place, and that answer is easy: once elected, they grow that way. They turn into political whores that spend 30-70% of their government-paid time soliciting bribes for their next campaign.

And it works. They get re-elected 95% of the time.

Instead we should have public funding of campaigns, which would cost taxpayers a fraction of what our current system costs.

And a “None-of-the-above” ballot selection, which would give us a do-over option.

Term limits, yea, but some guys you really want to keep.

Bill Proxmire, Bernie Sanders, and Ronald Reagan come to mind.

Scott Walker would likely not make the list, though his private solicitation record is impressive. $30 million from mostly non-Wisconsinites.

So let’s implement “Graduated Term Limits,” which will keep raising the bar for re-election. Like 50% of votes on your first run, 60% on your second run, and 70% on subsequent runs.

It’s called “tougher odds” and you have to be damned good to stay in the game! (But wait, don’t politicians have to set the rules?)

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