An Idea for Pres. Obama

I've noticed a pattern in politics lately. You see, it used to be that the definition of socialism was government controlling the means of production. But that's apparently changed. These days, to hear conservative pundits define it, socialism is defined as: "Anything Barack Obama does."

We've seen it pretty consistently over the last two years. Obama made concession after concession to the Republican interests, and then never got one Republican vote. Not even an entirely Republican-structured healthcare reform bill which gave away the entire store to the insurance companies was enough. It was still deemed "Socialist."

All this has nothing to do with socialism. It has to do with denying Obama any victories. The basic idea from the Republican camp is this: "If Obama's for it, we're against it." And now that the content majority decided to not vote, and hand the latest midterm elections over to the malcontented minority, it looks like the strategy is going to be applied even more strongly. Nothing Obama is in favor of will be supported.

Okay, fine. I therefore have a suggestion. I think President Obama should reverse course. He should endorse tax cuts for the wealthy in the midst of a dire national debt crisis. He should openly oppose embryonic stem cell research. He should campaign to privatize Social Security and Medicare. That way, Republicans will have no choice but to oppose the President on all these issues!

Okay, I'm being facetious, naturally. But who knows? Things on Capitol Hill (excuse me, I meant Capital Hill), are so crazy that the strategy just might work!

Then again, maybe Obama should finally stand up to such thuggery. Okay, Obama's embodied the highest ideals of Jesus so far by turning the other cheek. I get that. We should all be proud. (Why we're not, I'll never know.) But how many times must he be stabbed in the back before he finally realizes he's in a knife-fight?

Come on, Barry. Fight 'em back!

Eric

What Really Happened to Keith Olbermann?

When I heard that liberal-leaning political commentator, Keith Olbermann, had been suspended by MSNBC for doing what that station pays him to normally do, namely, support a more left-leaning agenda, I was disgusted. He'd paid money to political campaigns without notifying his superiors first. I joined the hordes of protesters signing on every internet-based petition to get Keith back on the air, and it has apparently worked, since he'll be back on this Tuesday, which is a day late in my humble assessment. One thing is clear, however, Keith did violate an MSNBC policy of not contributing money to political candidates without prior notification. Now, this rule itself is silly, and is tantamount to having to ask Mommy permission before spending one's own allowance, but it is in place for an important historical reason. The more I explored this reason, the more I found that it has everything to do with the culture wars, and its current fight over the airwaves.

That's right. Freedom of speech is being lost over the airwaves due to the Culture War.

From the beginning of radio and television, there was a decided slant in favor of conservative viewpoint. Early hits on radio were Father Coughlin and Sister Aimee Semple MacPherson. Why, even the word, "broadcasting" references using radio to "sow the seed of God's Word." The FCC was instituted to be the airwaves' puritannical nanny. But then, in 1949, the FCC was persuaded that putting only one side of a controversial viewpoint on the air was detrimental to the public interest. And so the Fairness Doctrine was born. It was generally accepted at the time that news organizations should simply give the news, and leave the editorializing to local papers or other formats. These were the glory years of broadcasters with integrity. People like Walter Cronkite. People like Edward R. Murrow.

The Fairness Doctrine was finally challenged twenty years later in 1969, in a famous court case, Red Lion Broadcasting Co. vs. FCC. At issue was a book by Fred Cook, called 'Goldwater: Extremist of the Right.' Billy Hargis, host of a daily radio broadcast called "Christian Crusade" in WGCB, Red Lion, PA, blasted the book. Cook argued that he had a right, under the Fairness Doctrine, to respond to the personal attacks levied upon him. The Supreme Court agreed, and in an 8-0 vote, upheld the constitutionality of the Fairness Doctrine.

In plain English, the Supreme Court said that WGCB could not do precisely what Fox News and numerous A.M. radio stations are doing today! Both sides had to be presented!

Well, this handcuffed the would-be conservative moguls of the world, and they resented it. But broadcast networks really didn't mind. They felt it was their duty to maintain integrity and balance, regardless of what the rule said. So they did so. But the perception slowly developed among people of a media bias towards liberalism. Edward Murrow dared to speak out against Joseph McCarthy. Walter Cronkite dared to voice opposition to the war in Vietnam. All media outlets seemed anti-Republican during the Watergate scandal. Rightly or wrongly, conservatives grumbled increasingly against the "liberal media."

This came to a head in 1987. Ronald Reagan, facing the end of his presidency, issued an Executive Order to the FCC to abolish the Fairness Doctrine, which it did in August of that year.

Let me translate that: No votes were cast! No public opinion culled! No bill was presented to Congress. We The People were NOT consulted! Instead, an act of sheer Imperialism by one, lone man, ended the legal enforcement of presenting both sides.

You'd think an actor would have appreciated sharing airtime.

Bush Sr. won election in 1988, and so it would be nearly five years before conservatives realized that the shackles had been removed from their wrists. Enraged over Bill Clinton's election, they began buying up greater control over the airwaves, beginning with that media format which had always been maintained by elder conservatives -- radio.

Slowly, a media format which had largely been local and balanced became one-sided and nationalized. Rush Limbaugh caught the apex of this wave, and surfed it well. The rise of the Internet made turning to national media outlets the only way to avoid losing money, and the rout was on.

And here, we must recognize why the Fairness Doctrine was so important: If left to sheer market forces, monopoly will ensue. This is true for media as it is for any other business. Private interests simply cannot buy a radio or television station without a shitload of money, and so whomever wins the consolidation race has the ability to shut out the dissenting view. Anti-trust laws break up monopolies, but the only anti-trust law ever in place for broadcast media, the Fairness Doctrine, was removed without any input from either you or me. Conservatives recognize this, and crave monopoly of their interests over the air. They hunger for it. They yearn for it. Clearchannel is close to achieving it.

This finally brings us around to Keith Olbermann again. We must remember that MSNBC wasn't always so left-leaning. Rather, they were dragged to the left as upper management kicked and screamed against becoming so. When they launched (a few months before Fox News), they attempted a slightly more right-leaning approach to go head to head with a more liberal CNN. Ann Coulter and Laura Ingraham were regular contributers! They did live broadcasts of Don Imus in the morning! Fox News, gave a clearly more right-wing bias than MSNBC from the onset, and beat out MSNBC in winning the conservative viewership. At least, at first. During the Monica Lewinsky scandal, MSNBC had higher ratings. Keith Olbermann, who at the time had just recently been brought over from ESPN to provide edgy color, left the network in disgust over the treatment of the news story. Former Carter speech writer Chris Matthews was brought in to MSNBC to replace the failing Phil Donohue, and Laura Ingraham and Ann Coulter went their separate ways leaving MSNBC with a more liberal appearance, and the tug of war with Fox News was on. CNN assumed a new role in the balanced center. Air America Radio attempted to even the balance in the free radio market for liberal opinion, but radio was always a conservative old man's format, and liberal young people simply preferred Jon Stewart. But the career of Rachel Maddow was born of this, and added to MSNBC, drastically improving their ratings. They brought back Keith Olbermann from Fox Sports Net, and from 2007 on, received a boost in ratings with their more leftist approach, even though upper management was clearly less than comfortable with it. They simply couldn't ignore the left-leaning success during the 2008 presidential elections. Today, MSNBC has better internet ratings but lower cable TV ratings than Fox or CNN, and that's the way it appears it will stay.

So what's the deal with Keith Olbermann? Basically, the rule requiring news anchors to notify management before donating to political campaigns is a holdover from MSNBC's early years, when they hadn't been pushed to the left, and news commentators were meant to be impartial reporters rather than partial editorializers. That rule has now been made obsolete due to the evolution of the network's format over the years. Yet it seems that management is still resentful over having been dragged away from the center by the remnants of Air America and an ex-sportscaster. Having caught Keith Olbermann in a technicality, they yanked him from the air.

Here, finally is my ultimate point: Republicans yearned to "take back America" (as if they'd ever lost it). Now, in like manner, we need to take back the airwaves. Over and over again, conservative hacks bellyached over "The Inevitable Return Of The Fairness Doctrine" as a direct result of Obama's victory. They kept saying, over and over again (perhaps to convince themselves that it was true) that the Fairness Doctrine would rob them of free speech. (As opposed to robbing others of it, perhaps?) Two years later, it seems re-instating the Fairness Doctrine is simply not a priority in Barack's administration.

BUT IT SHOULD BE! Requiring both sides is simply NOT stifling of free speech! Not by any stretch of the imagination! We have between now and mid-January to persuade our exiting Democrat majority to do this one, last thing. Make no bones about it, we need the Fairness Doctrine put back before George Orwell's nightmare - that of a monopolized media - comes true!

It was taken away without our consent, and without representation (something our Founding Fathers got really pissed off about!). Let's put it back, WITH representation, and represent all sides of the politically controversial issues. Oh, Our Trophy President my reinstate it via Executive Order, just as Reagan took it away - but I'd rather see this done properly, through Congress, through We The People, who still, despite the recent election results, lean Democratic.

Eric

Post-Election Thoughts...

Yes, naming this blog post with anything having to do with "post-election" has probably guaranteed that nobody will read this blog. I'm as over-saturated with political commentary about it as all of you are. But hopefully you'll bear with me for just one more tidbit. I don't think you'll be disappointed.

First: The election results were awful! No, not with Republicans winning. We can deal with those clowns. No, I'm talking about Prop-19 being defeated in California. Prop-19, for those who aren't aware, would have decriminalized small amounts of marijuana in the most medical-cannabis-friendly state in the nation. Yet in the state where nearly 100% of the people have smoked pot, 53% somehow found the hypocritical hubris to vote against that which they've done, presumably on the notion that it will prevent their children from doing it, as if that ever works. How is it conceivable that, at a time when the tsunami of LESS government intrusion was overwhelming, people would vote for MORE government intrusion?

I'll tell ya: Those who are raking in the dough from cannabis' illegality suddenly woke up and realized that Prop-19 would cut into their profit margins. I think they suddenly began to grease the opposition palms to keep the status quo, just to avoid having to pull up stakes in Beverly Hills and move back to Oakland. Why else would a referendum with a nearly 2/3rds pre-poll approval suddenly crash to below 50% in the final two months?

But I have another thought: Yes, we've had a big pro-Republican swing. And the Elephant is dancing, dancing, dancing. BUT, beware what you wish for! Historically, when an opposition party takes over, the sitting party has about 2 and 1/2 months to strike one final blow before exiting, stage left. Remember when the Republicans took back congress in 1994 under Newt Gingrich's Contract With America? One month afterward, on December 1, 1994, President Clinton signed the bill that created the World Trade Organization! (Interesting, huh?) Some doubt he would have had adequate support from his own party, but when you're a lame duck, you have the luxury of voting exactly what you think without fear of reprisal.

The G.O.P. picked up 60 house seats and 6 senate seats last time I counted. That's 66 democrats who have absolutely NOTHING to lose -- more than enough to swing some BIG legislation! What that means for happy conservatives, I predict, is this:

1.) You can kiss your precious stem-cell research ban goodbye! It's history!

2.) You can forget the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthiest 2%. They're gone.

3.) Expect at least one more economic stimulus package to breeze through, unhampered.

4.) President Obama will likely use his Executive Authority at least once after late January.

About that last one, there's again precedent. In January of 1993, blocked by the Republican-led Congress, President Clinton used Executive authority to rescue the national debt of Mexico -- a bad idea, in retrospect, but illustrating that Congress can be sidestepped, if the Pres. really feels he must.

And he will. Why? Because the Republicans under the Contract With America were bright, young, idealistic, and open-minded. They made a great foil for a Democrat president, and we saw the deficit eliminated, and the national debt begin to get paid off. This time, however, the new Republicans are neither bright nor young. They are not open-minded, and rather than idealistic, they are idealogues. Clinton had to deal with intellectual opposition. Obama will have to deal with opponents who are one tick shy of carrying pitchforks, torches, and rope! I fear this, truly.

But mark my words: Backlash swings both ways!

In defense of Ron Johnson and Scott Walker, I'll say this: They're comparable to the Contract With America style of Republican, and so at least there's hope on that front. If people like them can reign in the Tea-Party wing-nuts, we should be able to stop them from pulling the temple down over our very heads.

Eric

How Democrats Can Win Today

Well, it's already Election Day, and I know I'd promised to do a little bit more expounding on how Ron Johnson managed to get duped into defending priestly pedophiles, but my how time flies when you're too busy to have fun. I haven't even had time to levy another round of insults at our under-educated ex-IBM toner-cartridge junkie, "Little Boy Blue" (a.k.a. Scott Walker). So, I thought I'd share my brief analysis of today's election-day fracas, and illustrate why I think Democrats actually have a fighting chance today.

As has been reported in quite a few news organizations this fall, among registered voters, the majority still favor the Democratic party. 49% approve of the Democrats, while only about 44% approve of Republicans. Yet among LIKELY voters, the numbers flip: 49% favor Republicans, while 43% favor Democrats. If you run the numbers, and assume that all 43% of the Republicans are voting (which they likely are) the only thing capable of producing a percentage shift that large is if between 12 and 15% of registered democrats stay home.

That's a HUGE number! To suggest that well over 1 in 10 democrats just doesn't give a shit this election cycle is too mind-blowing to believe. Yet polls show it's true. So, while expectations for Republicans are high, and projections show that big gains will be had for the G.O.P. after today, the underlying numbers show that if that extra 12% of Democrats decide to get off their asses and go vote, the Republicans will suffer massive surprise upset losses.

What could possibly make the Democrats decide to go vote today?

Here's my answer: Republicans gloating in advance! Hell, it seems like conservatives have been guffawing all week about how badly the Democrats are going to lose. They're doing it so much, that they'll goad the apathetic Democratic base into getting pissed off and going to the polls, if they're not careful!

So, go ahead, Republicans! Gloat! Celebrate your victory too early! Tempt fate! Count those chickens before they hatch! Be as impolite today as you've been this entire year! Nothing will help get out the Democratic vote better. It might not get Feingold re-elected by itself, but it might make for an interesting photo-finish!

Eric

Lower Case On Traffic Signs

So, the latest outrage is that the Feds are requiring that all municipal street signs have upper-case caps, and lower-case lettering, like all proper nouns in a book would be. Also, that higher reflectivity be applied to street signs. This means that all street signs will have to be replaced over the next several years costing municipalities and states tens of millions each. This, naturally, has tea-partiers all the more outraged against a federal government it sees as too intrusive enough.

What's my take on this? Immediately I began to suspect a rider -- that is, a clause in a bill which was included in another bill dealing with something else entirely. Riders are a common way to get concessions to secure enough votes for passage, and without them, very few bills would ever get passed. One wonders why this is necessarily such a bad thing, but that's how it goes. So I began researching if there was a rider that was pushed through by the Democrats over the last two years.

As it turns out, there wasn't. So what's the driving force behind these new and excessively costly federal regulations? When they say, "The Feds" are requiring this, what do they mean? Why, they mean something called the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices, or MUTCD. All street signs must conform to it on penalty of fine, or suspension of federal programs. And who updates or alters the MUTCD? It's something called the FHWA, the Federal Highway Workers Association. Who the hell are they? They are a bureaucratic arm of the Department of Transportaion, or D.O.T., whom we're all familiar with. This, in turn, is controlled by cabinet post appointees, not Congressmen.

In other words, all the outrage that is being directed at the democrats over these new regulations is being misplaced. NOT ONE elected official is behind them!

The man in charge of the D.O.T. is one Mr. Ray La Hood. An Obama appointee, yes. But acting independently of Congress or the Office of the President. When the FHWA updates its rules on signs, it takes input from interested parties or certain jurisdictions, factors in any successful experimentation involved, and then approves or disapproves the change. It is they, the underlings of the cabinet appointees, who have enacted this costly change.

And they will NOT lose their jobs if the Democrats are voted out!

The very most Republicans can do is take the presidency in 2012, then appoint a new head of the DOT. That head, in turn, will likely not undo any of the changes already in place. It's all a tempest in a teacup.

Okay, conservatives have a good point about too much bureaucracy running people's lives. This is, in fact, a prime case example. However, this isn't the Democrats' fault (this time, anyway), and it is wrong to place the blame at their feet. It is therefore illogical to vote them out of office based on this travesty, which was never their doing. We may call for Ray LaHood to step down, and this seems reasonable to me.

But if I may ask, would you rather have government wasting money on street signs, or wasting even more money on a pointless war with Iran? Because that's what you'd be voting for by voting for Tea-Party Republicans.

Both sides waste money. I just happen to dislike the way Republicans waste money more than the other guys on the platform of fiscal responsibility. At least the D.O.T. provided a few extra jobs in all this nonsense.

Eric

Firefighters Getting Burned?!?!

Well, I was going to blog about the new findings I've had in my research regarding Ron Johnson's ill-advised testimony against an anti-pedophilia bill, but it seems that will have to wait. What everybody's talking about at the water cooler is a bombshell of a news story regarding Firefighters who recently allowed a man's home to burn down because he hadn't paid the $75 fee for fire protection from his municipality. The fire department finally did show up, but only because his neighbor's property began to burn, and that neighbor had paid the fee. When the man begged and pleaded, saying he'd pay any price for the firemen to put out the fire, he was told he was too late.

This has gotten all kinds of press from all kinds of, well, press. People are weighing in on it from all sides, and everybody's got an opinion. So how can I resist?

Seriously, firefighters not putting out fires? What next? Dogs not fighting with cats? Lawyers not chasing ambulances? Politicians not accepting bribes? Sheesh, next thing you know, Lindsey Lohan is going to stay off drugs!

What blows my mind about this story is this: some folks are actually defending this municipal rule, saying that because he didn't pay his meesley $75, he's S.O.L.

Okay, before I rip into this, let's settle a fundamental question: What is the purpose of a fire department? Seriously, why does a municipality even have firefighters? At it's very heart, the purpose of a firefighting unit is to contain the fire so that if, heaven forbid, a fire breaks out, it does not spread.

Here, in this instance, is a case where a municipal rule thwarted the very purpose of why we have firefighters at all: It allowed the fire to spread. And what happened? The man's neighbor paid the price. His property caught fire.

Seriously, this neighbor should sue! He has a legitimate gripe. The only reason his property burned at all is because the firefighters were derelict in their duty. In court, the municipality and the firehouse will both say that this rule barred them from action. In response, I hope the court gives an injunction ordering them to change this rule. Because that's the way it should be. This rule sucks. And, as many have pointed out, this rule is very similar to paying an insurance fee in order to get healthcare.

Now, there's a fundamental difference between doctors providing healthcare and firefighters putting out blazes. Namely, that firefighters don't have anything like a Hypocratic oath requiring them to act. (Why don't they, by the way?) But paying a fee to receive the service is the common thread. Many people have been pointing out that this man, by not paying his $75, was effectively mooching off his neighbors in hoping the fire department wouldn't actually be the pricks that the law required them to be. They therefore conclude that this guy got what he deserved. They also say that those who aren't willing to pay for their insurance coverage shouldn't be asking the government to do so, because that's every bit as unfair.

Hang on, WHAT?! After drawing the analogy between healthcare and this firefighting fiasco, do people really think that both systems are fair? Isn't it far more reasonable to conclude that both systems are patently unfair?

Of course it is. Government-mandated fire insurance is wrong. Dead wrong. Every bit as wrong as government mandated healthcare insurance. But that's the insanity we have. Viruses and bacteria, much like fire, will spread wherever they can, and they don't give a damn who's paid or not. So when you, much like the neighbor in the example above, get sick because the poor incubated the disease you got infected with, you will have every bit as similar a gripe as he does. And if you're unlucky enough to be too poor to buy the insurance your government has forced you to buy into (which is the same thing as a tax, by the way), and you suffer or die as a result (especially if you're unlucky enough to meet a doctor who's unethical enough to be dictated to by an insurance company), then just remember, WE wanted this. We, the silly, stupid people of the world, didn't want government running things because we're afraid of the government. And now we'll all suffer at the hands of the even more evil insurance companies going forward.

Maybe, instead of us being afraid of the government, the government should be afraid of us! Then we'll have few qualms about letting it run healthcare.

Eric

For Profit Colleges

Today's Journal Sentinel reports that the Art Institute, located in the Third Ward, is now beginning classes, providing another option for students who want a career in art or design. Interesting...

This is part of a general trend nationwide, to create colleges that cater to adults looking to improve their careers or reinvent their careers. University of Phoenix or Ottawa University are two excellent examples. It's a good idea: There are literally tons of adults who work from 9 to 5 who would like nothing more than to take their lives in a different direction. But who on earth can make the sacrifice to quit their job in order to go back to school? The for-profit college trend provides these people an option they wouldn't otherwise have, sometimes helping to re-forge happier lives, and other times landing well-intentioned people into heavy loads of debt. (And if you thought the credit card companies were bad, check out the hardball tactics of the financiers behind for-profit colleges!)

The answer to my earlier question on who can afford to make the sacrifice to go back to school is this: People like me, that's who! Yes, only individuals like myself can afford the seeming-luxury of quitting one's job and going back to school during the day. And that's only because I have no wife, no kids, and never advanced high enough in my career to think that dropping accounting as a profession was all that big a sacrifice. Yet even I feel it: The crushing blow of going from $40K per year down to $25K, the grinding course workload that leaves no options for a beer on the weekends, the insane prices one must shell out for parking unless you're willing to throw away an additional 45 minutes for a round-trip on a bus. It's insane. I don't blame people for wanting to go to night school for adults instead.

Yet, until recently, the only options for night school have been business majors. Sure, if you want to be an accountant, an actuary, or get your MBA, there are lots of options for you. Hell, you can't go out your front door without tripping on one. But what's out there for anything else? Well, it seems that now, one has the option for art. Yes, you can become a designer, or a draftsman, or perhaps even a cartoonist, if you're willing to go to school at night.

So my question is this: How goddamned long do we have to wait before we get a serious option for science majors? Sure, if you want the bare-bones basics for nursing school, that's available, but if you want a serious biology or physics degree, you're shit out of luck! But apparently, we value art above science, even though a lack of knowledge about art won't destroy us, and a lack of knowledge about science will.

Yes, I'm lashing out because I so wish I could go back to making $40K per year while continuing with school. Wouldn't anybody? But my point is still a valid one: Isn't there just as much money, if not more, in a night-school for the sciences as there is for a night-school for art?

Shit, I hope so.

Eric