"Keep Christ in Christmas"

I have noticed a plethora of these signs this season-more so than in the past. It is a nice message if it weren't for the fact that they are politically motivated and intended to skewer another over their political beliefs. It reminds me of the anti- Vietnam war protest so many years ago when a construction worker in NYC tried to impale a protester with an American flag pole. There is something un-American and un-Christian about using Christmas to drive home a political message. Is the point an anti-Obama one or is it a statement about what some believe is happening in public schools in this country? No child is kept from praying if they want, as long as it does not disrupt the class. No student group that wants to pray before class is stopped from doing so. The only thing that has changed from 50 years ago is that the school or teacher can not lead students in prayer; the establishment clause of the First Amendment so demands. A Supreme Court ruling in 1962 made this ruling.

Corporations and Taxes

I have always heard from the GOPers in my family that corporations should not pay taxes, due to the fact that those profits are already being taxed via the individuals tax payment. At least that is what I believe the argument is. However, due to the recent Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United it would seem to me that this argument not longer holds water. In that Supreme Court case the justices decided that corporations are people and-in this case at least-are entitled to spend whatever they want to on political campaigns because to deny them that right would be a violation of the First Amendment's free speech protection. Thus if a corporation is a person, and a person must pay income tax to the federal government, then it should follow then that the corporation should also have to pay income taxes to the federal government.

"Class Warfare"

With all this talk about "class warfare", I've been thinking about the teaching of the "isms". Under Fascism the classes were all suppose to work toward the betterment of the state and the individual did not count for much other than what they could do for the state. Under Communism the classes were all suppose to disappear with society then being one big classless structure. What about the classes under American Democracy? They clearly exist, there does not seem to be any disagreement with that. It seems that in this country all the classes are suppose to be happy in their place-you know the phrase "know their place"-and even look up to or hope to become one of the "elite" one percent.

It just appears to me that the lower classes-which ever ones they are-are placed in a status of second-class citizenship who are suppose to accept whatever the society-the elite-wants to let them have. I am going to use a term here that everyone knows and I hope you try to understand where I am coming from. You don't have to be an Afro-American to be a nigger in the USA today. A person put in that group is one without rights and open for persecution. I see that term as what our society imposes on other people; not what those other people in fact are. I remember back in my teaching days in the 1970's we used an article entitled "the student as nigger" and while I don't have that article anymore, I have a sense that it could apply to many in our society today: gays, poor people, Latinos, certain religious groups, homeless.

Politics and Spending

Congress has passed a $ 662 billion defense bill, that was $ 27 billion less than President Obama wanted. Only 13 Senators and 136 House members voted against the spending.

President Obama wants an extension of the payroll tax cut that was in effect this year, and he wants to increase that tax cut for next year. That's great for those middle class folks who are still working but why, when Social Security is under attack from the GOP, does a democratic president want to further undermine the funding for that program.

We have a major debt problem, and we can't get the wealthy to kick in a little more from the tax breaks they benefited from over the last decade, so we add to that debt problem by further reducing the revenue the government takes in. Doesn't make much sense to me.

Mission Accomplished-Again

Now it is Barack Obama's turn to tell us that the war in Iraq is over. First Bush from the aircraft carrier while dressed in a flight suit, and now Obama. We are now being told that by the end of the year all US combat troops will be "home for Christmas". NBC's Nightly News program tells us tonight that while the US Army will be out of Iraq, the US government will not. The new US embassy in Baghdad will be the biggest in the world and a new consulate building in Basra-near the oil fields-will also be a massive structure. There will remain in Iraq after the new year some 16,000 to 17,000 US government "employees", many of them CIA officers. Basra, as we know, is in the oil region of Iraq and it is also very close to Iran. A high ranking officer interviewed for the program-I did not note his name-said that if the need arises there are still divisions of US troops in "the region" if not in Iraq. With a major consulate building and scores of "diplomatic" types in the oil region, can you now still hold to the belief that it was not about the oil all along?

"Class Warfare"

I will be recording comments that deal with another issue of concern for the GOP this election season; that being the charge of "class warfare" leveled at the democrats and liberals because of some program they might support.

My first entry is that of the payment to chief executives of "stock options" in lieu of salary. Salary would be taxed at the rate of that persons accumulated income...maybe as high as 33 % for those at the top of the income ladder. If that same executive was paid in stock options and he sold those stocks at some latter date, that income would be taxed as a "capital gain" and would be at a much lower tax rate-somewhere around 15 % I believe. Now this is contingent upon my understanding the stock option plan. More research will be required.

Another issue here is that of income made as "interest" and money made as "dividend". Dividend income is not taxed at all while interest income is taxed as part of a worker's total income which usually makes it around 15 or 20 %. On top of that the banks are only paying less than one-tenth of one percent on that money paying interest.

To me, these two items are an indication that there is in fact class warfare being waged in this country and the only conclusion one could come to is the rich are winning-or have already won the war.

"Exceptionalism"

I will be starting a new file about items I read of that might deal with the issue of American "exceptionalism" that the GOP candidates like to talk about. America is an exceptional nation they say, and my guess is they think there are few if any things we have to regret in our past or present conduct as a nation.

I will start the file with a notation about a program I read about in the New York Times on-line on 12/11/11 that dealt with the "eugenics" program in the state of North Carolina. From 1933 to 1977 that state ordered the sterilization of some 7000 people who the state considered of low mentality, poor or in one case at least of a woman who had been raped by an older man. The state is due to release a report in February 2012 about this program and if any money will be paid for the victims who still alive. More on this later.

Herman Cain

So I read that Herman Cain is "at piece with his God", "at piece with himself" and "at piece with his wife". He sure knows a good piece when he sees one.

On another note...how can a religious fundamentalist politician break the commandment of "thou shalt not commit adultery" and then say he is "at peace with his God?"