Now I'm Not Racist, But...

If you ever hear yourself say the title of this post, or catch yourself writing it, say on facebook, then STOP!!! immediately, and rethink what you're about to say and/or write, and maybe large pieces of your worldview.  Saw a post on facebook, no details because I don't know the guy, but also because I fought and fought and fought against writing this in his feed and then couldn't find the post again anyway.

Essentially though, the guy posted two screenshots from CNN, I think, showing that Romney had won about 60% of the white vote and Obama won about 95% of the black vote and determined from this that Obama won the election because of racism.  I don't even know where to start with this, frankly.  I'm inclined to write this off as the uninformed opinion of an uninformed person; but the sheer level of ignorance involved here is, frankly, appalling.

First of all, historically since 1968 (post Civil Rights Act/Voting Rights Act) and also around the time exit-polling started) only a couple of Democratic presidential candidates have dipped below 85% of the African-american vote.  It's not at all unusual for the Democrat to have over 90% of African-americans support them.  Someone in that feed claimed Clinton received 83% of black votes.  The only chart i could find http://kingpolitics.blogspot.com/2010/06/chart-black-vote-in-1968-1972-1976-1980.html

put Clinton's share of the African-american vote at 91% in in 1992 and 93% in 1996.  But then there's also this:

The United States Census reported that 58 % of African Americans were voting in the presidential election of 1964. African Americans were voting Democratic 82% of the time. This number would swell to 92 % by 1968. With the exception of the 1972, 1984, and the 1992 elections Blacks would continue to give at least 80% of their collective votes to the Democratic presidential candidate says Minion K.C. Morris in African Americans and Political Participation.

http://suite101.com/article/african-american-voting-patterns-a63891

So, who has the right number?  I don't know.  In fact, how sure are we that Obama got 95%?  He definitely got 90% plus, but that isn't really unusual.  Even 95% wouldn't really be out of line with what we've seen since a Democratic president and a Democratic congress (with it's true, Republican support needed to counter-balance the southern votes) finally made sure that all citizens of this country could exercise their right to vote.  No matter where they lived or what color their skin was.  The bottom line is, to say that 95% of blacks voting for Obama purely out of racial feeling, is very, very close to saying that African-americans are too dumb to know what's good for them.

Whereas the truth is that blacks simply have better memories than Republicans would like.  They remember Reagan's stories about black welfare queens driving cadillacs and Jesse Helms' racist campaign ads, not to mention George Bush the Elder's Willie Horton ad.  They saw all the same old southern Democratic racist office holders like Strom Thurmond switch parties and become Republicans without missing a beat.  They know who defends affirmative action and who would eliminate it.  They remember David Duke.  They remember Trent Lott wishing Strom Thurmond had won his campaign for the presidency, saying we wouldn't have had all these problems if he had won.  They haven't forgotten Trayvon Martin.  They saw what happened this year and over the last couple years as Republican governors and legislatures enacted laws designed to keep minorities away from the polls.  Eliminating or reducing early voting, especially on weekends and Sundays, when black churches hire buses to go to the polls.  Requiring state id cards that a lot of minorities or even simply poorer people just don't have.  They heard Pennsylvania House Republican Leader Mike Turzai say that the Voter ID law would let Mitt Romney win in Pennsylvania.  They know who the 47% is.

Republicans don't get the fact that their actions matter more than their words.  You can't spend years working to kick latinos out of the country and expect to get their votes.  You can't use black people as a boogie man to scare white voters and try to disenfranchise the poor and the brown and expect them to turn around and vote for you.  Not even if you trot out every minority that's ever been in your party every 4 years at your conventions.  It's not racism for 95% of blacks to vote for Obama, it just means that 95% of blacks are smart.  As opposed to only about 39% of whites...

Obama Only Won Because....

The new conservative myth-making has already begun. I was pretty confident that Obama would win re-election and I even liked the D's chances to gain seats in the Senate. I was hesitant however to make any kind of sweeping predictions because I'm the guy that simply could not understand George Bush's appeal. I looked at him and saw no way he could beat Al Gore. And I saw even less chance for him to beat John Kerry, not because Kerry was so great, but rather now the country had gotten an eyeful of the actual George Bush. Alas, it didn't start to come apart for Bush until immediately after the election. I was hesitant to call anything for Obama or the other D's this time because I've been wrong before. This time though, I trusted the polls, and they turned out to be correct.

The crazy crusading right wing however, is already working on the new myths of how Obama won. Some traditional stuff, old favorites like "The Media Favors the Democratic Candidate Forever and Always", with some puzzling new refrains like "Obama Has Built A Vast Coalition That No Other Democrat Will Be Able to Mobilize". And of course, "Romney Was Not a Good Enough/Conservative Enough Candidate", or the alternate take "Romney Did Not Explain the Conservative Position Well Enough". Despite the fact that candidates like Akin and Mourdock who DID explain the conservative position also got smoked. And of course they point to the GOP's success in the House races and Ted Cruz's Senate victory as proof that the Tea Party is not the problem, the GOP establishment is the problem. I'll get to their fantasies in a second, first up, I'll explain why and how Obama actually won the election.

First of all, he identified his likely opponent early, and spent a lot of time and money introducing that opponent to the public on his own terms. Instead of suddenly meeting Mitt Romney, awesome business man who saved the Olympics and can totally save America too in late July or August sometime, people started hearing about Bain Capital and Romney's tax returns and Let Detroit Go Bankrupt during the spring. That is, instead of waiting for Romney to leisurely start his campaign the way D's usually do, Obama said I have an advantage here, and I'm going to use it. Romney was playing defense the rest of the year.

Second, the Republican Party's BS is old and tired. The only message that Mitt Romney could give out without having half of his own party all over him every day is that if we just hand out another round of tax cuts and eliminate a few more regulations, then the magical Job Creators will appear and trickle down our Heart's Desire. But, he's also not allowed to increase the deficit, so he has to have a magical way to pay for his tax cuts which he... never really got around to explaining. To be fair, there is still a large segment of the population for which this is wine-flavored honey to their quivering, longing, aching ears; but this is not a line of argument that is going to win new voters to your cause.

Third, it is true that Mitt Romney was a terrible candidate that did stupid things like clockwork, pretty much every week and only managed to make himself look good compared to Obama once in the whole campaign; but honestly, the other candidates the Repubs had to choose from were even worse. Remember Michelle Bachmann? Or Pizza Guy? Or Newt Gingrich, who would have entered the race with more than half the country hating his guts? Or Ricky Santorum, who's main claim to fame was managing to reintroduce contraception as a campaign issue? Or, hey, remember Jon Huntsman? Yeah, me neither. However, none of this can really excuse what a historically awful campaign Romney ran. Until he got in Obama's face in the first debate even his own backers were getting ready to write him off. If the mainstream media was really as far in the tank for Obama as conservative like to suggest, then an idiot that ran a campaign as bad as Romney's would never even have made it to the debates. And let's not forget that Obama's margin of victory in the popular vote is going to end up at about 2%. Romney still did incredibly well for a doofus that told his donors that 47% of the country are freeloading dolts that will never vote for him because they have no self-respect.

Fourth, the Obama campaign combined a realistic electoral strategy with a ferocious get out the vote campaign. In contrast, the Republicans seemed to fall back on their tried and true efforts to stop people they don't like from voting. Now, again, the margins in the swing states were mostly very thin, so presumably the Republicans get out the vote efforts were also very effective. However, the Obama campaign correctly identified the states where their efforts could make the most difference, crafted a message designed to appeal to those states, and didn't spend time in states that were essentially off the board. That their strategy and ground game were effective is virtually proven by the fact that they won every state they targeted, except for North Carolina. Which was a stretch this year, but in 4 years?

Now it is true that the Republican candidate labors under a disadvantage in our current electoral climate. The realities of Democratic strength in the Northeast, Great Lakes and West Coast mean that the Republican candidate has far fewer plausible paths to 270 electoral votes. Example, while the Romney campaign dragged their feet on admitting that Ohio had put Obama over the top, Obama won Colorado, Iowa and Nevada, which made the Ohio results moot. Basically, to catch up and then pass President Obama, Romney had to win some combination of Florida, Ohio and Virginia and then move onto some combination of Wisconsin, Colorado, Nevada, Iowa, or New Hampshire. Obama, on the other hand, only ever needed one of the first three, and then maybe two of the second five. Or he could have just won all of the second five. Or two of the first three alone. Point being, Obama didn't really have any "must-win" states whereas Romney HAD to win Florida and either Ohio or Virginia just to stay in the game until the later poll closings.

Fifth and final, the Obama campaign recognized that the electorate changed in the last four years, especially in the swing states. That's part of what made them swing states. In 2004, the Republicans losing Virginia would have been a disaster of inestimable proportions. In 2012 the polls gave Obama something like a 70% chance to take Virginia pretty much from the get-go. Basically, the future is now. Obama won with 40% of the white vote and 80% of everyone else's votes. The Republicans have to find a way to appeal to minority voters immediately. Because this problem only gets worse for them in 2016. Virginia, North Carolina, Florida and Nevada especially aren't going to be any whiter in 2016 than they are now, if anything they'll be less so. By 2016 or 2020 who know? It's possible that Arizona and Texas might start drifting out of the Republican column as well, or at least become swing states. The cranky white man vote peaked in 2004,

The Republican Party has to evolve or die. But they won't. They're already whining about how awful Romney was. Which okay, that's true, but who else did you have? Ryan? Rubio? Santorum? Please. You have to be able to get through the primaries to go up against Obama. And it's been my theory since 2008 that it is no longer possible for a candidate capable of winning the general election to get through those Republican primaries. Their primary voters force the candidates to pledge allegiance to the dumbest crap anyone's ever heard of. So, that's myth number one - they didn't lose because Romney was so awful, they lost because it's impossible for a good candidate to survive the process.

Myth two - The Media did it. Cons love to whine about the liberal media, but here's a fun thought experiment. Imagine that the Democratic Candidate did even half of the stupid shit Romney did this year. Buried. No chance. Kerry going wind-surfing was enough to do him in for Christ's sake. The entire career of George W. Bush is the ultimate argument against this media bias argument. The guy, honestly, is kind of a chump. Basically he's Mitt Romney with a light coating of frat boy charm, if Mitt Romney had driven Bain Capital into the ground and then fucked up two more equity companies on top of that, then quit drinking and went into politics. In no functioning democracy with a media that's even trying to be fair does George W. Bush beat Al Gore for anything. Al Gore was, okay, a boring technocrat without Bill Clinton's verve and charisma. But if George Bush was black, he'd be in prison. Because you can't get away with the shit he's gotten away with if you're black. Anyway, I know I won't convince anyone that the media doesn't have a liberal bias, this myth has too much traction. But it IS a myth.

Myth three - Half the country just wants free stuff, and they've sacrificed our freedom to get it. Ugh. Such vile crap. Look, geniuses, don't take my word for this, look it up. Blue states, by and large, are net tax contributors. That is, they contribute more in taxes to the federal government than comes back to them in federal grants, highway money, etc. Got that? They GIVE the federal government more than they get back. And meanwhile most red states, one or two exceptions, suck up federal tax dollars like they're George W. Bush in the 80's and federal tax dollars are cocaine. Everybody get that? Red states, the people that vote Republican, that vote for this ideal of small government and low taxes and all that, the ones that are paying for all the freeloaders - those are the states where federal tax money gets spent! They get back way more federal tax money than they pay. The federal government could be accurately described as a system for transferring money from the blue states, which are mostly rich and have their shit together, to the red states, which are mostly poor as fuck and vote Republican, which is a big reason they stay poor. So, if this were really an issue of the have-nots voting to steal from the haves... the tally of states voting for each party would actually be almost completely reversed.

Myth four - Barack Obama has put together an amazing coalition: but it will only work for him. This one, frankly, is just weird. Maybe Obama 2008 was a cult of personality, but in 2012 he won - well I just spent 8 paragraphs detailing why he won. I see no reason why another candidate couldn't do something similar, especially in a country, that's 4 years less white, especially if the economy is 4 years better. Of course, the cons think Obama's going to crash the economy, but they've thought for the last 4 years. And they were telling us about the Romney landslide up until about 16 hours ago. So, yeah. Even assuming the Repubs find someone to run that isn't an embarrassing Tea Party joke there's no reason not to jump out and start highlighting their flaws (the party platform they'll be stuck with) asap. Combine that with identifying the best states to spend money and an aggressive get out the vote campaign and i see no reason this coalition won't turn out for another Democrat.

Myth five - Keeping the House and Ted Cruz winning prove that conservatives win if they blah-blah-blah. Look, no House race is anything like running a national campaign. Frankly, most House districts are gerrymandered to the point that even Michelle Bachmann can win them. There's X number of districts no Democrat could ever win, by design and Y number of districts no Republican could ever win, by design. Then there's Z number of districts filled with leftover voters that are competitive simply by accident. Not enough die-hard partisans that live in conveniently contiguous areas to give everybody a fool-proof district. And arguing that Ted Cruz proves anything... Ted Cruz is a deep red candidate in a deep red state that managed to close his mouth before he said anything about how rape is God's judgment on sluts or something else completely reprehensible. You could just as easily say Kirsten Gillibrand winning in New York is proof that no conservative can ever win anywhere. Anyway, whatever, this was all probably a waste of time anyway.

The Romney Problem

For more than a year I've been hearing the pundits and party apparatchiks droning on and on about how Mitt Romney is the presumptive Republican nominee for president. And for more than a year I've been saying to myself, "Self, there is no way that Mitt Romney will ever be the Republican nominee for president." Then my two selves generally high-five and go get some Turkish Delight.

Granted these press functionaries do have one very good reason for appointing Romney as the heir-apparent of the Republican Party's nominating season: Money. That is to say, Romney's got a metric ton of it and nobody else in the race has enough to float a model of Romney's yacht in. Or even to buy the said model of Romney's yacht for purposes of said floating.

The Romney problem is that money is all he's got. Some of the things he doesn't have, money can actually stand in for. Money can buy an organization, campaign workers, ads, etc. Money can buy you the illusion of success. The so-called inevitability argument. If you have 250 million dollars and you announce you're running for president, you are going to see your name in the paper a lot from that point forward no matter how the actual voting or polling goes. Especially if your opponents are each basically funded by one guy apiece.

However, there is all too much that money cannot buy you, especially in politics. It can't buy you an actual base of support. It can't buy you fervent campaign volunteers. It can't buy you dedication or excitement. And most importantly, it can't buy you votes. And Mitt Romney has had problems getting all of these things.

The Romney problem is that Republicans just flat out don't want him, at any price. When I say Republicans here, what I mean is the heart and soul of the party. The primary voters. The people that think Mormonism is kind of a creepy cult. The people that called John McCain a Republican In Name Only in 2008. The people that were energized by adding Sarah Palin to the ticket. The people that believe Barack Obama is a secret Muslim who was born in Kenya and yadda-yadda-yadda. Romney needs their support to get the nomination, and that support can't be bought. He's reversed every position he held as governor to get that support. He's toed the party line, cravenly parroting anything his fellow candidates have said. And none of it seems to be working.

Thus far Romney has won 4 contests this election season. He's won in New Hampshire, Florida, Nevada and Maine. Of those states, Florida comes the closest to being a traditional Republican stronghold. The story so far, however, is that in the south and midwest, where Republicans are strong, Romney is weak. He's managed to get over 40% of the vote only twice in what's essentially been a 3 person race since Iowa. Romney, Paul and either Gingrich or Santorum - but not both. He's in the embarrassing position of having to fight tooth and nail campaigning in his home state of Michigan (in which he currently trails).

The inevitability argument that no other candidate can survive a long campaign is severely dinged and dented at this point. If Gingrich leaves the race before Super Tuesday, supposing most of his support would swing to Santorum, that would probably sound the death knell for Romney's candidacy.

There are really only two ways Romney can get the nomination at this point. Scenario 1 depends on Newt Gingrich staying in the race and managing to siphon enough support away from Santorum to allow Mitt to squeak by in enough key states to get the delegates he needs. Scenario 2 involves Romney's Super PAC, because he's going to need to find a way to convince his party's primary voters that Santorum is fundamentally unable to be elected president.

In the end, the Romney problem is that the gate to his desire is kept by a horrible rabble that he just doesn't understand and can't communicate with. He doesn't speak their language the way that Newt and Santorum do. Hell, Santorum is one of them. And all Mitt's efforts come off as somehow strained and fake. Pandering and desperate. Mitt Romney is running for the nomination of a Republican Party that he just doesn't belong in. The voters know it and they can tell that, deep down, he does too.

It Came From Mills' Facebook Page!!! Part Deux

1. I didn't discuss George Meaney because I've never heard of him. Am i safe in assuming he was against public employee unions because, like FDR, he felt workers shouldn't have the right to shut down the government with strikes? No problem. There is no public employee union in the country that has the right to strike. That's why all these teachers are using sick days. Right to strike is the first thing they give up in these contracts. As far as the danger of public employees electing their nominal bosses and gaining too much power that way... That's simply insane. Have you noticed how public workers go from a tiny percentage of the people when you're talking about their benefits to some kind of electoral majority when you're talking about their influence on elections? But it wouldn't matter if FDR and George Meaney were God and Moses when they said those things. Union members are people too, and they are citizens of the US. The constitution guarantees them the right to assembly and the right to free speech, they don't have to give up their citizenship rights to get a government job. If they want to join a union they can.

I keep saying "a deal's a deal" because in every other aspect of American life, the deal is sacred. It is only working people who can get screwed out of what they deserve by the other side simply tearing up their deal. And I compared teacher salaries (or prison guard salaries, or truck driver salaries, or lawyers salaries, all of whom work for the state) to CEO salaries, because you keep comparing them to the bottom rung, to people who flip burgers or work at Wal-Mart. Both comparisons are kind of unreasonable.

CEO's of small companies do a little bit of everything. They negotiate with vendors, they keep the books, they try to squeeze a little more from clients/customers, at a small company the CEO makes every decision that's above the level of simple day to day operations.

At a big company, like say, AIG, all of these things are delegated. They have whole departments devoted to keeping the books, teams of lawyers to negotiate contracts, the CEO is just the guy that approves their decisions. And plays a lot of golf. That was the Enron CEO's entire defense. That he didn't know what was going on was illegal, he depended on the assurances of the CFO and the outside auditing company, Arthur Anderson. He just signed his name to their work because they told him it was all right. Yeah, the CEO is the guy holding the bag. But it's a bag filled with money and get out of jail free cards. I'm not saying they should make $19,000 a year and be grateful. But, really, they have an easy job compared to teachers. And notice how nobody's saying we need to cut CEO salaries, or executive salaries, or corporate profits to balance the budgets. As you yourself say about public employees why shouldn't the recession affect them?

But, honestly, nobody IS saying they should be immune to the recession, they're WILLING TO NEGOTIATE. They're even willing to make the fiscal concessions the governor wants. But they're not going to negotiate themselves out of existence.

Union influence in elections simply can't be compared to corporate influence. You yourself stated that unions are less than 15% of the workforce. And they're not the best paid 15% either. If the Democrats really depended on unions to win elections the Democratic Party would have gone extinct sometime in the '80s.

Unions do serve a purpose. They keep people from being exploited. The 40 hour work week, child labor laws, workplace safety laws, basically everything that separates us from serfs on a salary, was won for us by unions. The wealthy interests in this country want to roll back the clock, and they've been working against unions behind the scenes for decades. Looks like they're about ready to come into the open. Once the unions are gone, they can start rolling back every other labor protection. And as far as the market goes... unions are as much a part of the market as any corporation. What? People shouldn't be able to help determine how much their work is worth? We just have to trust the bosses to be fair? Sounds like a sucker deal to me. There has to be at least two sides for there to be a market. That's what the market is, people negotiating on an open playing field. Somebody standing in a booth screaming "Lemonade, $500 dollars a glass! Take it or leave it!" is not a market.

The difference between a union and a corporation, Mills, is that a corporation could fire every one of its employees, and as long as its shareholders were willing to maintain their investments, just hire a whole new workforce and continue on. That's actually been done. If the union "fires" all its members, what it's just done is disband. What matters for a corporation is how much money it has, what matters for a union is how many people it has. Yes, there's some overlap, but even a union that's completely broke can still negotiate as long as it's membership stays united. A corporation that goes broke is out of business.

2. I did address this point, but Facebook only allows entries of 8,000 characters max. I wouldn't cut a goddamn thing. Social spending in this country has been under the ax for 30 years already. It's not Democrats who are doing the spending, it's Republicans. But since they're spending$100 billion a year on wars instead of health care, I guess that's ok. I would raise taxes on rich people. The richest people in this country have been paying less and less in taxes ever since the Reagan Administration. They went from paying 90% under Roosevelt and Truman, to maybe 35% now under Obama.

Meanwhile the budget keeps getting bigger. Not social spending though. That was slashed under Reagan. Clinton cut welfare spending. Bush II looked for even more cuts. And added two very expensive wars to the tab. The military budget however has not been cut. Clinton made some modest cuts, but that funding was largely restored even before 9/11. And we've packed on more and more state security agencies since then. The big spender however, is Medicare and Medicaid. Again, this is somewhere where Bush II added a bunch more spending to the tab with the prescription drug benefit. Republicans think the answer is to eliminate all government programs that don't turn a profit and cut rich people's taxes to 10%.

The real problem however is that we're spending money like our top tax rate is 70 or 80% but it's less than half that and we've been borrowing the difference for the last 3 decades. We've been cutting and cutting and cutting for 30 years. We can't cut anymore. If we cut more, then we might as well not have a government because it won't be doing anything anyway and a whole lot of our most vulnerable people will have to just fend for themselves.

It Came From Mills' Facebook Page!!!

Hello, all

Apparently Facebook comments can't be longer than 8,000 characters. So, here's what I just tried to post to Mills Facebook page, in its entirety.



James Jordan Halsey Mills, if those figures are right, that means the per capita income in Milwaukee is only $18,883.33. And you think it's the teachers whose salaries are out of whack? You think everyone should be making closer to $19,000 then $60,000? Why? I've never understood this. Why is it that teachers, and police, and firefighters and garbagemen, and people who do budget projections, or manage parks, or whatever; people who draw a government check, why is it foregone that they should survive on whatever scraps society is willing to hand out at the moment? Meanwhile, business executives pull in millions of dollars every year, mostly for playing golf and approving other people's work, while throwing around the appropriate buzz words.

You think the CEO of AIG, who mostly sits at a desk talking to other CEO's in between golf outings, when he isn't busy completely tanking the economy, really deserves to make more money than Dave or Rob Corday?

Anyway, we can call all that neither here nor there, if you want. And I'll move on. I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of what a union is. A union is its members. Its not like a corporation, which is essentially a fictional person given flesh and bone and sinew by its top officers and the shareholders. A union dies if nobody pays dues, if nobody shows up to meetings, if nobody comes out in the streets to show their support. A corporation can be basically one person, for instance the way Michaell Eisner was at Disney for 20 years, a union needs multitudes. It's not the unions negotiating on behalf of the workers. The workers ARE the unions. No workers, no members, no unions.

Do you see how it's multiple unions out there protesting? Even unions that aren't affected by the present bill? Because the principle behind unions is that individually we are all weak, but together we are strong. And the more of us, the stronger. Yes, unions have small professional staffs to manage dues, membership benefits, and even political strategy. Although when one political party is basically at least tolerant of unions and the other is constantly... well doing stuff like this, trying to bring about the end of unions; the strategy maybe isn't so hard to come up with.

The reason I said I don't take newspaper articles at face value is that they don't do the work. Take what you said up there about the unions refusing to negotiate. "The unions have expressly said they aren't negotiating". Well, that's simply not true. What the article probably said was something like "A spokesman for Governor Walker stated that the unions have expressly said they aren't negotiating, and until they're willing to talk we have nothing to talk about". And then they didn't bother to check. Either that or this is an old article.

The truth is that the unions made concessions to the previous governor to balance the last budget, and they've said they're willing to discuss concessions to help balance this budget with the new governor. They've even willing to give up the pension and health care concessions he's demanding, which amounts to an 8% pay cut for state workers. What they won't do, is negotiate over their very right to exist. They're not going to sit down and negotiate while what's on the table prohibits collecting dues and requires them to recertify every year. Recertification means an election, which is expensive. And if they can't collect dues... Basically, Scott Walker thinks he's found a way to outlaw public employee unions without saying "I'm outlawing public employee unions".

The solution to these budget problems, not just in Wisconsin, but for the whole United States, is simple. You. Fucking. Raise. Taxes. On. Millionaires.

It's that easy. Once upon a time in this country, during World War II and immediately after, people remembered the Depression, how we got in and how got out. And the top tax bracket in this country was 90%. The largest millionaires in the country got 90% scooped off the top by Uncle Sam. And they were STILL millionaires. And the economy didn't collapse, in fact it purred along. And the government could pay for all its returning soldiers to go to college and buy houses and cars on the GI Bill. Under Eisenhower the top bracket went down to 70-80%. Kennedy cut it to around 60-65%

The Reagan came in and it got silly. He cut the top income tax rates in half, while raising payroll taxes! Ugh, what a scumbag. The top rates have gone up and down a few times since then, but I think right now they're around 35%. The story of corporate tax rates is even sillier. I'm not sure what the rates used to be or what they are now, but it doesn't even matter because there are so many loopholes and tax breaks and giveaways and shelters that most corporations don't even pay corporate taxes. It's, like, optional.

Obviously, the answer to every fiscal crisis is not going to be raise taxes. But in this case? With taxes lower than they've been at any time since the Great Depression? With the government talking about cutting $100 billion in real essential domestic spending to fix a $1 trillion dollar yearly deficit? I mean, here's the real story. Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid are paid for out of money jacked straight from everyone's check every week or every other week. Yes, those programs are sliding from surplus to deficit, but those surpluses were all invested in government bonds. The Federal Government has been using those programs (at least Social Security) as a piggy bank for decades, definitely since Reagan, probably before. That same Federal Government owes those programs, billions or trillions of dollars as those bonds mature. Are they just going to default on those bonds? That would probably cause the economy to collapse faster than any other single thing they could do.

Income tax money is only used to pay for the other 40% of the budget. Defense spending is most of this number, with everything else, all discretionary domestic spending being only about 15% of the total budget. So, unless you want to cut defense spending, or Social Security, or Medicare/Medicaid, you're talking about making up our entire $1.65 trillion dollar deficit out of only about $600 billion in spending. Which is what the House Republicans are trying to do. The fact that the deficit is almost three times more than the entire piece of the budget pie they're trying to cut doesn't seem to phase them.

Anyway, this is too long, and has drifted off topic, what I've been trying to get you and others that might read this to do, is to stop seeing these union workers as "the other". As greedy parasites that want to soak your taxes up to pay for their own retirement after a career of loafing. In reality, these people are people you know. People just like you. I thought about apologizing for the Hitler stuff, but you know what? I'm not going to. Because while the stakes maybe aren't "people in ovens" high yet, they're still plenty high enough. You think it's perfectly fine for people in Wisconsin to see their wages and benefits go down since they make more than the average and since taxes pay their salaries. You think that they don't deserve to have collective bargaining, or a union to put them on a more equal footing with their bosses. And you think that none of this can ever effect you, except maybe you won't have to pay as much tax.

But you're wrong. As everyone slides down to the average per capita income, as the top 2% of earners take more and more and even the per capita income starts to slide downward, maybe all that will happen is more and more people will decide they don't have extra money to buy instruments or take instrument lessons. Or maybe the next time a state has to balance its budget on the backs of its less advantaged citizens, it will be Virginia, and it will be the schools that take the hit, and music departments, school bands, etc. will be eliminated. I don't know. All I know is that we are all connected, all of us. The people in the same state, same country, obviously more tightly, more clearly than others, but we're all connected just the same. The people in Wisconsin fighting for their rights and their economic survival are just like you. They are you. They're just further down the path we're all probably on. You think this doesn't affect you, but it does. Or it will.

First they came for the communists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.

I don't intend to wait until they come for me with the new 12 hour a day 7 days a week, work week. I'm not waiting until kids Kayle's age have to get jobs to help their families make ends meet and the laws change to allow this. I'm speaking out now, and I hope everyone that reads this will join me.

Demonstrations!

I'm not talking about the foreign variety of Islamo-Fascist pro-democracy demonstrations sweeping the Middle East like the latest Justin Bieber single. I'm talking about the labor movement's last stand, taking place right now, as I write this, in Wisconsin. 30,000 people showed up in Madison today to protest the Republican Governor's decisions to not just refuse to negotiate with the state employees unions, but to send a bill to the legislature that would end collective bargaining for public workers in Wisconsin. Effectively outlawing public employee unions within the state of Wisconsin. And he wants that bill voted on by next week.

Today was actually the sixth day of these demonstrations, apparently. The first day, 2,000 people came. By day three, 15,000. Today, day six, as I mentioned earlier, at least 30,000 people came to the capitol to make their voices heard. Everyone needs to follow their example and make themselves heard. Because this is it. This is the big business, anti-labor end game. The American labor movement has been in retreat since Reagan's first term. The public sector is the last bastion of unionization in this country. If the Republicans can break the public unions in Wisconsin, they will break them in Ohio, they will break them in New Jersey. Eventually, the public employees union will go the way of the pink-headed duck and will be a thing of the past.

And we'll all lose. Wages in this country have been effectively stagnant for over 30 years, just barely keeping pace with inflation. Unions and collective bargaining are one of the few upward pressures that exist on wages. Non-union employers have to keep their wages and benefits at least competitive with union employers or else continually lose their most desirable workers to the unionized companies. If that pressure disappears, if the principle of collective bargaining goes away...

Eventually, that pushes a huge group of Americans out of the middle class. Right now, if you're a teacher, or a fire-fighter, or a police officer, or you work at the DMV, or you work for the state in some other capacity, then you are comfortably middle-class; assuming that you're single, or that your spouse is also employed. If public workers are no longer allowed to have unions or bargain collectively it won't be long until these jobs become minimum-wage jobs, simply by virtue of inflationary pressure and the state budget process. It's a lot easier to balance your budget on the backs of your employees when you can make each individual employee a take it or leave it offer, rather than bargaining with your entire labor force collectively.

Of course, once the unions are broken, the corporate interests can turn their attention to eliminating the minimum wage. And the 40 hour work week. And maybe even child labor laws. The point being that the day is coming when your salary will depend, not on your performance, not on established industry standards, not even on some kind of government mandated wage-floor; but instead on the whims of the people at the top. Company have a bad quarter? Five percent salary cuts for everyone below vice-president. Executive bonuses need a little fattening? Shit, fire everyone whose last name starts with "F". This will be the future unless we fight now.

Of course, Governor Scott Walker, and the Republicans in the legislature would argue that the state is in a financial crisis and that this bill offers the only solution. This, it turns out, is not true. Wisconsin's budget crisis was averted prior to Walker's election, in no small part due to sacrifices made by the public employee unions. Furlough days, hiring freezes, etc. Walker's plan, while requiring public employees to essentially give up the right to bargain with their employer; also includes tax breaks for big out of state corporations like McDonalds and Wal-Mart. Corporations that provide mostly minimum or low wage jobs and will take their profits out of state. Meanwhile, state employees foot the bill, a bill made worse by Walker's tax giveaways.

Honestly, it wouldn't matter if Walker was right and the only way for the state to balance its budget was the end of collective bargaining and the Wisconsin labor movement. Some things are simply evil and must be resisted on that basis. I imagine Wisconsin could make its books look fantastic if they simply enslaved half the state to do all the state's work for free. And yet this simple solution is being entirely ignored in the halls of the state capitol. Maybe it's a little too on the nose? Or just too early.

But this is classic Republicanism. Republicanism 101. When the economy's good, it's time for tax cuts to let people keep more of the money they earned. When the economy's bad, it's time for... more tax cuts, especially for the wealthy, to stimulate the economy. The middle class and the working poor can pay for it. And they usually get to use both lines, since Republicans have an amazing facility for turning good times into bad times.

I'm not saying the unions shouldn't make concessions, even on top of the ones they've already made, I'm saying that the governor should negotiate in good faith. I'm saying the unions shouldn't have to be the only ones making concessions and sacrifices. I'm saying the governor and legislature don't, or shouldn't, have the power to wipe away basic human rights and turn the population of Wisconsin into actual, literal wage slaves. This is a democracy and they're elected officials, servants of the people, not their masters. That is all that I am saying.

Because, You, the (1) Reader Demanded It

Whoever you are, wherever you are, please vote Democratic today. I shouldn't have to explain why. But here goes. Since the Reagan Administration, the Republican party and their policies (aided and abetted at times, it's true, by the Democrats) have been primarily responsible for the dismantling of the New Deal. Social spending has been slashed, tax rates (especially for the extremely wealthy) have plummeted, and wages for actual workers have been stagnant. With the rise of the George W. Bush administration and its aftereffects, however, the country teeters on the edge of complete collapse.

Financial collapse, endless wars, using the deficit as an excuse to evade our national responsibilities, abandoning the entire population outside of their wealthy donor-base and corporate clients - this is the not-so-secret agenda of the Republican Party and it can lead only one place in the end. And I for one don't want to live in the Third-World Superpower they have in store for us.

I wish I could say that voting Democratic will reverse all these trends. Unfortunately, that's too much to hope for. Obama is about the best we could really expect, but he's not really world-beating. Yes, he's pushed through a lot of stuff, but it's mostly watered-down half-measures. And on a lot of civil liberties/fundamental human rights issues, he's very nearly as bad as Bush. Still, voting Democratic is our only real option, until the revolution at least. Viva la revolucion!