The Biden Home Stand

When Vice President Joe Biden walked to the stage of the NAACP’s convention, it was old home week. Biden, a lifetime member of the NAACP, took five minutes waving and hailing his friends, include “Mouse,” a Delaware activist who had mentored him in civil rights organizing against segregation. Clearly, Biden had stood in their shoes and marched for their causes.

Unspoken but obvious, he was a white male; a white male not opposed to the policies of a black President, but a white male selected and chosen by a black male to serve as Vice President, an office Biden clearly felt that brings no dishonor to America–or to white males. Before he spoke, he had won the video stare down of white males.  His lesser role pointed directly to the more: the guy at the top is black and American and president; and he’s made America proud.

Biden launched into a point by point recitation of the decisions that are tied to a President’s character, describing the vision President Obama upholds, a vision of “country first.” Not racial decisions, but American decisions. Defending America. Protecting its economy. Restoring its industry. Saving its jobs. Bold decisions. Confronting profound risks. Equal pay. Smaller class size. Voting rights. Health care for children. Proud decisions. Sounding sweeter when someone else told them, enlarging the dynamics of the group to embrace America.

And where were the hands across the aisle? On tax cuts, equal pay, the full faith and credit of the US? Those hands planned obstruction–at a private dinner the very night Barack Obama was inaugurated. Obstruction meant blocking Planned Parenthood and overturning Roe.

By standing up for Obama, Biden wasn’t a stand-in. His appearance reinforced the importance of loyalty to an America that protects rather than denies its right to be color blind, leading by “the power of its example.”

The New Patriotism; Lindsey Graham: Men, Women Die So Others Can Tax Cheat Legally

A military judge advocate, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham said “it’s American to not pay taxes.” He knows it was equally American to desert in conflict or to aid the enemy. From the country’s founding, men on American soil were loyal to Britain, betrayed their neighbors and cheered their deaths, without a care. In the Civil War, money brought conscripts who took the place of the rich in the fighting ranks. You could respond by answering an ad in the paper. In the same war, 300,000 (the total for both armies) left the ranks and the field, clearly a widespread behavior, by all standards, an American act of changing priorities.

So I guess Senator Graham feels its time for a sell-out President, who represents this country’s unique traditions and its society by sending money overseas like a tinhorn dictator. Bush send money shrink wrapped. Romney sends it by electronic transfer or courier pouch. According to Graham our soldiers should die so some can cheat–legally. It’s an American tradition, he says.

The heads of state will laugh (like the old gods of Zoroaster!) when they meet an American President, the leader of the free world, who, like those in our domestic war, cut bait and ran, when he could not find the courage or conviction to keep his money at home. This is the promise he makes with America, to allow his selfishness to curb and compromise the country and make our pride and principles a laughingstock of privilege and greed.

A Radical Conservative Perspective: Fraud Before Budgets

I promised to write ocassional comments in a radical conservative personna (RCP) to show, what conservatives, who claim the love of liberty and prosperity, ignore. Karen’s right, the addressed audience is not the one in the seats. The conservative message is equally misplaced.

The threat to freedom and prosperity is not government taxes but fraud underlining the collective safety and security government provides. Republicans argue over budget bills but the society is in moral decline, seen in the stealing of billions that robs us the protections freedom needs.

United Technologies was recently fined $75M for selling technology and software to China that actually undermined US foreign policy. A British company, BAES, a top 10 defense procurer violated arms laws 2,591 times. 58 tons of arms were discovered shipped to Sri Lanka. GSK was fined $3B. As a radical conservative, this fraud must be stopped. It is hypocritical for us to condemn “big govt” and condone the theft and pillage of billions that leave us less safe. I remind my conservative friends a regulation or expenditure is not as dangerous to order and prosperity as our failure to police ourselves and take the responsibility we say others have abrogated.

Conservatives should support criminal penalties for citizens and corporations who steal. Before repealing health care, the conservatives in Congress should revolt and go after the theft and bill rigging at the center not of freedom but concerted acts of power and greed.

American Voices Comment

~They have become a protection racket for the mega-rich.

~Is it because I am paying closer attention, or is it true that no political party in my memory has told so many lies? They come so thick and fast that the media doesn’t notice or care anymore.

~Politicians love to sing praises for small companies by pronouncing their love for idyllic mom-and-pop stores and little independent stores. However, the politicians know that they cannot win without the support of large businesses who wield the largest influence through funding and lobbying.

~On second thought, this really isn’t about money and taxes at all. It really is about these right wingers taking over total control of the government. They just aren’t satisfied with their present 98% percent share.

~Small businesses do not care as much about a tax cut as having more customers who can spend money buying their products and services. Romney and the GOP never stop talking about the job creators. Where are the jobs from the Bush tax cuts?

~ know one person who created a business which nets over $250,000 after expenses in these tough economic times. It employs 15 people…..8 fulltime and 5 part-time. It is an internet business that was started 6 years ago, just as the recession was getting started. Not once have I heard a word from the owner complaining about the taxes. As a proud American, my daughter is thankful for the opportunity she has had in creating a successful enterprise. I am so tired of the grouchings of the spoiled complainers who think the country is run on pipedreams. Maybe if they knew what real sacrifice was, as we elders do, havings lived through WWII, gas rationing and 18% mortgage interest rates, they would shut up and be willing to pay their fair share.

~The Republican operatives love to obfuscate an issue with misnomers.
Now we are all “small business owners”. They cannot just slap that name on all those above $250,000 on the scale of income and ignore the rest of us. I get to be a “small business owner” also.

If the “SBA defines a small business as one with fewer than 500 workers” then that means that I am of course a small business owner.
I did not know that; but it must be true since I am also on the income scale under consideration here.

What I do know can be found here.
http://stateofworkingamerica.org/who-gains/#/

Apply the 2 Timeline sliders to 1980 to 2008 – the period of Republican imposed tax cuts. Average income grew by $11,714. The richest 10% got 98% of that growth. The bottom 90% shared 2%. As a “small business owner” I didn’t do very well.

In 2010, 93% of all new income created the year before went to the top 1%, while the bottom 99% of “small business owners” got to wallow in the remaining 7%.

~Just because our kids don’t use the schools, does not mean we stop paying taxes or find ways to hide what we owe to the town, the state and our country, the land we so love.

~We’ve been waiting 30 years for the trickle from trickle-down economics to reach the working class.

~Politicians love to sing praises for small companies by pronouncing their love for idyllic mom-and-pop stores and little independent stores. However, the politicians know that they cannot win without the support of large businesses who wield the largest influence through funding and lobbying.