Our Leader

What are a people to do? How are they to protect themselves from themselves in a nation governed by a representative democracy? We live in a wonderful nation, a nation governed by the majority, yet ever protective of the rights and privileges of the minority. One of those protections is our Electoral College, an institution comprised of a set of electors who are, under the law, selected by the voters to choose who should lead the country. I submit to you that this time it failed us, an observation with which, if you are really watching with an open and informed mind, you must surely agree. We have elected the wrong person to office, political parties notwithstanding. Our nation is in serious trouble.

Leon Friedman, professor of Constitutional Law at the Maurice A. Deane School of Law at Hofstra University, wrote on November 10, 2016 in the Huffington Post, that the reason we have the Electoral College “goes back to our founders’ distrust of democracy. Alexander Hamilton in Federalist No. 68 explained that the ‘immediate election [of the President] should be made by men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station.’ Rather, a ‘small number of persons, selected by their fellow-citizens from the general mass, will be most likely to possess the information and discernment requisite to such complicated investigations.’” This having been said, I can’t help but wonder who is going to protect the majority from the minority, the 0.1% who have “all the money”. This is just to provide for you a brief summation as to why we have the Electoral College, but another thought relative to this election enters my mind. Was Donald Trump really elected legally? Wasn’t it just reported that twenty-one states were hacked in this election? How did that affect the vote of the Electoral College?

Now let’s talk briefly about the Presidency of the United States of America. Wikipedia tells us that “the President of the United States is the head of state and head of government…. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces. The president is considered to be the world’s most powerful political figure, as the leader of the only contemporary global superpower. The role includes being the commander-in-chief of the world’s most expensive military with the second largest nuclear arsenal and leading the nation with the largest economy by nominal GDP. The office of President holds significant hard and soft power both domestically and abroad”. This goes on, but you can check it out in Wikipedia and, also, Article II of the Constitution.

It has been said that the government of the United States is the “largest enterprise in the world”. If you will, imagine for just a moment being the CEO of an organization that huge and the immensity of the challenge such a job, arguably the biggest job in the world, entails. Think about it a long time because that is the problem before us. We have hired the wrong job applicant. We have hired the wrong man regardless of politics. He just ain’t qualified to fill the job for which he was hired.

Whether you love him or not, let’s look briefly at the problems currently facing our nation, problems which we must solve if we are to survive. Let there be no doubt about it, this is serious. These problems must be solved. The games have to stop.

 First, and above all, this nation is the most divided since our Civil War in which, according to historian J David Hacker, an estimated 750,000 soldiers died (it is said that is proportionally equivalent to 7.5 million US dead in 2012 [Ref: BBC News 4 April 2012]). We must come together and we need a leader who will do that. In almost every instance, rather than unite us, our president is serving to separate us—just listen to the news.

Second, we are on the verge of a nuclear war with North Korea. Our leader has done almost everything possible to exacerbate this threat, the nation of Iran notwithstanding. Do you think?

Third, our whole healthcare system is threatening to explode. Our people, most of them—I believe—simply can’t pay these massive increases in costs when, really, a solution is relatively simple if not for the petty very expensive political bickering of our elected representatives.

Fourth, as I have repeatedly written in the past, we are losing our democracy. The rights of our people notwithstanding, our nation is being governed by a shadow government of the Corporatocracy and Power Elite, controlling every move of our elected representatives through lobbying, campaign financing, and who knows what else. We must get money out of government. We must overturn the Supreme Court ruling to the effect that Corporations are people with equal rights. We must take back our country.

President Trump is not a leader either within our country or without. His position in the Trump Empire notwithstanding, he is not a manager; and, to say the least, he is intellectually incompetent. In his current position, he is a dangerous man—dangerous to our country and dangerous to you and to me. He should do the right thing and resign.

I have just now exercised my freedom of speech. Now you exercise yours. If you agree with me, please share this in the public venue, Facebook and otherwise. In the meantime, this is Ronald Miller.

www.sageobserver.blogspot.com

   

Tax Cuts

The New York Times reported yesterday that “Republican lawmakers are gearing up to battle a powerful force in the coming skirmish over a $1.5 trillion tax cut: Economists”. I submit to you that there is another more powerful force they better gear up for: “We the People”.

Let there be no doubts in anybody's mind. It's the Republicans, the Corporatists, and the Power Elite against the American people and the interests of this country. Our national debt was less than a Trillion dollars when Republican Reagan entered office just thirty-some years ago in 1981. Just twenty-eight years later, when Dubya, entering office with a surplus, left office, the debt had increased to $10 trillion. Today, it is $20 trillion. And don't blame today's $20 trillion on Obama either. In just eight years Dubya left him with a collapsed economy. a 1.3 Trillion Dollar Deficit, and an illegal war to deal with. In conjunction with all of this, they raped the middleclass, creating inequality between the rich and the poor not seen since the days before the great depression. There's a lot of hungry people out there, folks, and it isn't all because they won't work either. Now the Republicans are wanting to enrich themselves even further when our economy is threatened with poverty up to our ears and, maybe, potential collapse of the dollar. To this end, they have had not a little help from the Corporatists arm of the Democratic Party.

Our people don't have to have a degree in economics to know they are being screwed. They may not be educated or know the difference between a Representative and a Congressman (calling all Representatives Congressman and Senators Senator, although everyone knows a Senator is just as much a Congressman as any Representative), but they aren't blind or stupid. And yet we wonder why the people elect misfits like Donald Trump. Why wouldn't they want a change? I tell you, the dysfunction being created is going to rain hell down upon us if Republicans don't straighten up. The rich don’t need tax cuts, and our country doesn't need tax cuts for them. We cannot afford them.

It's long past time for real tax reform. It's time for everybody to pay taxes according to their ability to pay. We, the United States of America lived "high on the hog" in the fifties, sixties, and seventies, the highest standard of living of any people as a whole in the history of civilization, and the top tax rates hovered around 90%. The Republicans have reigned, for the most part, ever since and now look at us—look at where they have brought us. Look at our condition. We are going down hill folks. Does it really take a pair of binoculars to see that?

The real irony of all this is that so many of we the people have let ourselves be sucked into the Republican lies and propaganda luring us like lemmings over the cliff. I submit to you that, in the scheme of things, the Republican Party has never really represented the people of this country from the beginning during the industrial revolution. Their only interests have been in the Corporatocracy and Power Elite that fill their pockets with riches. Open your eyes people. 

This is no longer Grandpa and Grandma's world. We are being taken for a ride, folks. Theodore Roosevelt pulled us out of the fire created by these people in the twenties and Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Harry Truman again in the forties (and we thrived after both these times). I don’t know who, but somebody must do it again. I must tell you, however, it ain’t no Trump. You’ll see why soon, if you haven’t yet.

I have just now exercised my freedom of speech. Now you exercise yours. If you agree with me, please share this in the public venue, Facebook and otherwise. In the meantime, this is Ronald Miller

www.sageobserver.blogspot.com

Single Payer Universal Healthcare

Lindsey Graham says as to single payer healthcare, “you have a choice between Federalism or Socialism”. I say to you, “Hogwash! Absolute Hogwash!” I mean no offense to anyone; but, I daresay, if you asked all the American people to write a short essay defining Socialism, the vast majority of us couldn’t do it. We wouldn’t know where to begin. What I’m telling you right now is that single payer universal healthcare with access for all is not Socialism.

Before going any further, let me let me first attempt to put an end to one other piece of misinformation I hear repeatedly from people. Generally, it goes this way or means this: “the government will give it to me”, or “the government will pay for it”. Again, Hogwash! In the end, our government doesn’t pay for anything. You do through your allegedly fair share of the taxes or your share of government borrowing for which, ultimately, you the people are responsible. Nothing is free. Somebody pays—if not you, your neighbor.

There are, also, those who define Socialism as that which we do in common with one another in governance, economic associations, etc, to which please answer (just to yourself) a couple questions. Every year or so, in our representative democracy, we go to the polls together and vote for our representatives in government. Is that Socialism? We do it in common. Whether you realize it or not, in the business world today, most notably in banking and investments, we capitalize profits and socialize losses. One immediate and more obvious example of this you will recall was the bailout of General Motors during the financial crisis in 2008—another, the bailout of the financial markets. A less obvious example is home financing wherein you borrow money (your mortgage) and pay interest (profit) to the lender. Yet our government (you the taxpayer) guarantees the loan. Is that Socialism? When the Multi Trillion Dollar derivative markets of the world collapses down the road for which we will all pay in one way or the other (they did in 2008 [you will recall that derivatives are mortgage backed securities]), ask yourself if that, too, is Socialism. I could go on, but….

I tell you this, single payer universal healthcare with access for all is not Socialism, what Congressman Lindsey Graham says notwithstanding (I know, Lindsey Graham is a Senator; but it is just as correct to call him a Congressman as it is to call a Representative a Congressman—but I digress). When it is adopted, and I believe it will be because it is the only sensible way, single payer universal healthcare, i.e. Medicare for all, will be “paid for” by all, and it will be billions of dollars cheaper. Take note, however. You will be the payer through your taxes. Private enterprise will participate in providing the service, i.e. hospitals, doctors, pharmaceutical companies, drug stores, etc. THIS IS NOT SOCIALISM!

Let me tell you THE REAL ISSUE. The real issue is MONEY (investments, income sources, campaign contributions, etc), and then Politics, and Pride. The interests of the American people and our nation, which should be on the table in the forefront, are constantly being subordinated and shoved aside. I’ll also remind you of this.  The purpose—the only purpose—of any business is to provide a quality product or service to the people. People were on this earth long before business. Business exists to serve the people—not to dominate and rule over them. It is wrong to continually support a business which is no longer needed whether that business is insurance, or whatever.

We continue to ridiculously argue and bicker, wasting billions of dollars in the process, adding to our national deficit and, accordingly, national debt while simultaneously neglecting to deal with other economical, political, and social issues critical to the welfare and security of our nation and our people. Right now, our government is a mockery to the institution of representative democracy here and abroad. It’s past time for them to do their job.

If you agree with me, please share this in the public venue, Facebook and otherwise. In the meantime, this is Ronald Miller.

www.sageobserver.blogspot.com