IF YOU READ NOTHING ELSE TODAY, DO NOT MISS #8 DAVID BROOKS COLUMN ON THE "REAL ROMNEY"
1. I missed this column last night, and upon re-reading the NY Times, I realize that it should have gone. It does seem that there is an injection of race into the campaign by Romney - and it is shameful and false at the same time. Harking back to Reagan's "welfare queens'', poppy Bush and WIllie Horton, and now how Obama is "taking your Medicare (mostly retired white people), and using it to pay for Obama Care (mostly people who have or have any job-related insurance programs, and mostly poor and minority). Are we sophisticated and learned enough to see this gradual morphing of moving tax revenues from the deserving to the undeserving? Is America a land occupied by those who deserve and those who do not? If so, who makes that determination, or is America one for all and all for one? This is a bitter and disgusting question, and does nothing but rip us apart. It should be called out every time it surfaces, and now is one of those times:
2. Before I go any farther, this has no link, and no supporting documentation. It is my own thought. Do we not need to rethink two very key programs that are deeply embedded in our culture and economy? Many years ago, employment was the hallowed base upon which the American Dream fostered economic survival and existence. Employers became the provider of health care insurance. This was done at a moment in our history when wages were frozen and at a time when employers used it to attract and keep qualified and good employees. Is that really the case these days? It seems that if given the opportunity, employers would dump it, and they have. Why is it that health care is defined by employers? Now and towards the future, people will be looking to careers that may involve eight to ten separate companies along the way. If there were a universal program that was portable, employees could change jobs as many times as necessary, and never have to be concerned with changes or differences in health care. Hiring on with one company as a young person, and staying with that organization for 30 or 40 years, and getting your gold watch are over. We need to recognize that, and free businesses from non-business programs. The same can be said for pensions. Companies and organizations (like cities and counties) are having to adjust to costs related to obligations made when they attracted employees to hire. When companies change, go bankrupt, or re-organize, pension obligations are usually scaled down to the point where there is almost nothing there at the end of the road for retirees. Where is it said that employers must provide retirement pensions? In this modern day, with many companies and organizations involved in what is called a career, pensions get lost in the shuffle, and leave retired employees in the dust of corporate capitalism's worst ethical conscience. My position is that business should be in the business of just providing jobs to do whatever it is that they do, and in exchange the employees receive fair and competitive compensation with good, clean, and fair working conditions. In reality, young people these days rarely find full-time employment right out of school. There are part-time, contract, paid internships, and a hodgepodge of other classifications that involve paychecks for work. We should redefine the role of companies and corporate American and get them out of being health and pension providers. If we can get to that point in a debate, we then can discuss how and what delivery system is workable that would provide health care and pensions. The concept of a benevolent and solid company providing good health care benefits and guaranteed and durable pensions is over. Corporate American is now corrupt with unethical conduct and inconsistent practices. Employees depend on corporate board decisions for their health and livelihood. Unfortunately, employees are last in line to reap the scraps of a failed venture.
Why should Pension Benefits Guarantee Corporation be the dumping ground for the failures of corporations? Is the PBGC the equivalent of the Wall Street bailout? It would be sweet if it were funded to that same level, bit it is not. I think we need to really put some effort in changing the obligations that have evolved that depend on businesses to provide health and pensions. What we put in place to deliver those programs is a subject for another day.
3. As the rest of the world looks upon us and mutterings of Todd Akin, are we comfortable as being viewed as a nation of dim-witted imbeciles? An elected member to the nation's House of Representative, AND on the Committee of Science and Technology, we are regarded with derisive laughter in some quarters, and mild amusement in others. What is going to result when the world starts paying close attention and finds out that Akin is just the tip of the ice berg with the newly redefined Republican Party?:
4. An analysis of what is going on in the Republican Party right now. This fairly well sums up my feelings. You have often seen me refer to them as the GeeOpee, but this week the GeeOpee will officially become the Republican Party - no more moderate connotations allowed. The election will be the Democrats vs. the Tea Party. It will sad to see the faces of the old line Republicans smiling in acquiescence to TV cameras as their once-GOP has been co-opted by a bunch of weird and crazy ideologues. This crazy bunch is the delivery system for the Super Pac billionaires who want to own the White House to get the legislation and deals through that legalize the criminal activity they wish for now:
5. Fipping and Flopping his way through the campaign, and saying anything to pander without regard to his previous sayings, Mittflop is at it again. In this case, apparently a woman must register her vagina on either the state level or the federal level to avail herself or deny herself access to birth control. The question is, how do you go about this method of Republican v-registration?:
6. Looking at the legacy that his Mittness left at Bain, this week, as the coronation caps the extravaganza that remakes the character and personality (how do you remake something that is not there?), a Bain investment is going bankrupt which exposes the failings of what Romney would like to consider his success:
7. Jonathan Capehart points out an obvious obstruction that Obama had to put up with ever since he took office. McConnell and the the Republicans in Congress did nothing at all for the American people and blocked every effort of the President to get anything done. How this is recalled by the American people is to be seen, but Romney is a fricken liar when he asserts the Obama is a failed administration. Any failure can be dropped around the neck of McConnell and Boehner, and that should be made loud and clear:
8. David Brooks has written the most perfect analysis of Mitt Romney I have ever read. Either this column was written while Brooks was experimenting with LSD (not LDS), or he lost a bet with a liberal journalist at his paper. It is entertaining, and far more accurate thatn anything your are going to see in Tampa this week:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/28/opinion/brooks-the-real-romney.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&pagewanted=print
--
Juan
Juan
"I would be most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think interior decorating consists mostly of building enough bookshelves."
-- Anna Quindlen
-- Anna Quindlen
"The only good ideas are the ones I can take credit for."
-- R. Stevens
-- R. Stevens
"A man is not idle because he is absorbed in thought. There is a visible labor and there is an invisible labor."
-- Victor Hugo
-- Victor Hugo
"Half of the modern drugs could well be thrown out of the window, except that the birds might eat them."
-- Dr. Martin Henry Fischer
-- Dr. Martin Henry Fischer
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