Every time someone argues for the elimination of the Bush tax cuts for the rich the right hauls out their "class warfare" talking point. If that doesn't work they go to the "less taxes on the rich will create jobs" trickle down rant. Really it's about tax equity and fairness and the fact that higher taxes on the rich really don't create the jobs that they claim they do.
The elephant in the closet in all the arguments about deficit reduction and taxes that almost always fails to get addressed is the fact that we are conducting two very expensive wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that are draining this country's coffers and are essentially unfunded mandates.
Real class warfare is what's going to happen sometime in the future if the middle class wakes up to the fact that they've been getting screwed for years by the corporate and financial oligarchy and their political enablers.
In early 2009 I wrote a post that pointed out that it looked like the Glacier Northwest no gravel pit on Vashon environmentalists had reached the end of the line in their attempts to stop the multinational Corporation from expansion of it mining operations on the Island. After a 10-year battle I reasoned it appeared to me that the company had in fact jumped through all the governmental hoops and should probably be allowed to run their business as they saw fit. I offered the opinion that perhaps the protesters should accept the fact and open up lines of communication with the company for the overall betterment of the community.
Boy was I wrong.
Instead of accepting my call for a retreat the opponents of the expansion of mining redoubled their efforts. The turning point in the battle royal came with the election of a new State Land Commissioner Peter Goldmark. The new Commissioner Of Public Lands had, during his run for office, promised that if elected he would review the granting of the lease to aquatic areas surrounding the project that previously had been granted to Glacier Northwest by the outgoing Commissioner Doug Sutherland. Sutherland’s granting of the lease was controversial because it was done at the end of his term and appeared to be a quid pro quo to the mining company in return for their campaign contributions.
Goldmark won the election and he fulfilled his promise. He informed the company that he had “grave concerns” about the project and had called for a complete review. That action put the company once again on the defensive and probably turned the tide in favor of the opponents of project. The other factor was the election of County Executive Dow Constantine. The new executive, and former 34th District State Senator, which includes Vashon Island, had been an opponent of the project for years.
Today the County Executive announced an agreement to purchase the property from its present owners CalPortland Materials Group. Large parts of the property will be converted to a park open to the public. The purchase is contingent on the Cascade Land Conservancy Group raising 2 million of the purchase price total of $36 million dollars and the approval of the King County Council.
Is this the end of the fight? Maybe it’s the beginning of the end. But what will we do if we don’t have the Vashon gravel pit controversy to kick around anymore?
Android's answer to the I-Pad takes a beating in funny review from Gizmodo.
"This thing is just a mess. It's like a tablet drunkenly hooked up with a phone, and then took the fetus swimming in a Superfund cleanup site. The browser is miserable, at least when Flash is enabled. It goes catatonic, scrolling is laggy, and it can get laughably bad. When better browsing is half the reason to go for a larger screen, that's insanity."
I'm not an atheist, but I certainly sympathize with their logic and the outrage they aim at the hypocritical organized and run of the mill religious bigots we see all over the place nowadays. I tend to beleive in Theism, just in case you care to know. Besides being a satirical observation on gospel songs this video has some bodacious harmony singing!
In what maybe a precedent setting case, the National Labor Relations Board ruled that a worker fired because she said on Facebook that her employer had psychiatric problems should be reinstated.
"Dawnmarie Souza lost her job at a Connecticut ambulance service after starting a thread on Facebook suggesting that her supervisor was a psychiatric patient. Because Souza's co-workers chimed in—making it a "concerted protected activity"—the NLRB ruled that the conversation was guarded by a law guaranteeing employees the right to discuss their workplace conditions."
The NLRB was considered a toothless entity under Republican rule. Often doing next to nothing when employee workplace organizing and association rights were violated. The ruling could be an indication that the NLRB under the Obama administration is now willing to vigorously address valid complaints from workers when interference takes place concerning their rights to associate and organize unions to combat employer abuses or improve working conditions. The National Labor Relations Board was created during the Roosevelt Administration to administer the National Labor Relations Act that mandated protection of employee rights to organize unions and have government administered elections where employees could vote for union representation or not free from employer reprisal and retaliation. I expect that the Chamber of Commerce won't take the ruling laying down. So this may not be the end of the story.
Bill Moyer, Director of the Backbone Campaign and fellow Vashon Islander, had his piece entitled, Hell With Congress - We Need A Movementprominently featured on Huffington Post yesterday. The Backbone Campaign movement is known for its unique use of political theater, puppets, satire and irony in its organizing and activism activities. Moyer's has a dogged believes in local "community based organizing" as the foundation of any meaningful attempt to build a larger reform movement.
"The strategic response to Tuesday's election results is not to fight to defend private mandates or toothless financial reforms. The strategic response is to refocus and redouble our efforts to build a nationally-networked, community-based progressive populist movement that makes a real difference in the people's lives."
The Backbone Campaign's 2nd annual Chocolatada fund-raiser is scheduled for November 27th at the Open Space on Vashon Island.
Here's a June 2010 video of Moyer in action on, of all places, the Fox Business channel where he's talking about the Backbone Campaign's call for a nationwide boycott of British Petroleum.
Build baby build! Thirty thousand union wage jobs created and we all get a brand spanking new waterfront. What are we waiting for Seattle? The political mouse has been milked dry. Survey says 62% of people who are informed about the tunnel and seawall replacement favor its construction. So get informed because I believe you'll see it is the best option that's doable. Enough talking and Mayor McSchwinn sandbagging for god's sake.
Holy Shit! Residents in Oklahoma thought they were voting to ban Sharia law last Tuesday but it turns out that the new constitutional amendment may also extend to the Ten Commandments.
"His (Hitler) primary rules were: never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it."The Nizkor Project
Rachel Maddow's report above on the propensity of right wing news sources to report and regurgitate bullshit as fact is profound. Triggered by last week's $200 million dollars per day cost of Obama's trip to Indiastory promulgated across the airwaves by the likes of Hannity, Limbaugh and Glenn Beck. We remember the lies about death panels, Obama's fake birth certificate and numerous other so called news reports that seem to bubble up from the right on a daily basis. Many of these scandals have their source in the heart of darkness bullshit news factory right wing tool bag known as the Drudge Report.
I remembered the right wing methods that Maddow is talking about resembling closely the World War II era Nazis Party propaganda machine practice of using what became known as the big lie. They never let facts get in the way, the bigger the lie the better. Researching the practice I came across the holocaust victims website The Nizkor Project that has complied some old OSS physiological reports on Hitler. That is where I found the above excerpt that described some of Hitler's core beliefs.
There are a number of news stories about the capture of a radioactive rabbit on November 4th at the Hanford Nuclear reservation in Southeastern Washington State. Apparently workers find the exposed rabbits by monitoring their glowing poop droppings. I wonder if these rabbits could lead to a new species of mutant fauna the likes of the Rodan monster I remember from the 1956 science fiction movie about a flying pterodactyl wreaking destruction on Japan. But, what's more likely is that humans end up getting exposed to radioactivity when the contaminated nuclear waste enters the ground water that eventually gets into the Columbia river and its tributaries. Unfortunately, the possibility of that happening is NOT science fiction.
The West Seattle Blog reports progress on plans to build a new Trader Joe's at the site of old Huling Brothers car dealership. I like shopping at Trader Joe's because I like their products and prices. Having an outlet located in West Seattle would certainly be more convenient for me.
I'm hoping that we can continue to get Trader Joe's corporate masters to be proactive about worker safety when it comes to farmworkers and others who are employed by their wholesale suppliers. There is a history of some abuse that lead to the death of a 17 year old farmworker connected with production of Two Buck Chuck's wines, sold exclusively at Trader Joe's stores.
If you voted for I-1053 I'm sure you'll probably like it when absolutely nothing gets done in this State from now into the foreseeable future. I hope some government service you depend on gets cut first. Roads go to hell, ferry service is cut, kids don't get the medical treatment they need or your kid's school goes to hell. Little old San Juan was the only county in the state that rejected this bullshit initiative having apparently had enough of Mr. Eyman's past smoke and mirror routine with initiatives 1033 and 601.
Washington State is now headed strait for major budget cuts and/or legislative gridlock because this law effectively blocks the regular absolute majority legislative process. If you like tyranny by the minority, your going to get a belly full of it for sure. This arcane process is now going to be the law in Washington State. Oh, I know Tim Eyman and the rest of his we got ours cronies made it sounds real good, but even if you didn't understand what it really meant when you voted for I-1053 your going to find out now for sure. It's called....
"Tyranny of the minority, is most often applied disparagingly to processes in which a minority is able to block legislative changes through super-majority threshold requirements. For example, if a 2/3 vote in favor is required to enact a new law, a minority of greater than 1/3 is said to have "minoritarian" powers."
I didn't vote for a selfish Republican no tax asshole to represent me and it looks like a majority of other citizens of this state didn't either. But some how the Republican minority will end up with veto power over the Democratic majority in both chambers of the legislature. Tim Eyman's I-1053 assures it will happen. Government here will be just like it is in California now, unable to pass a budget that 3/4 of the assembly can agree on and, dead broke!. There is just no way that you are going to get 2/3 or the State House and Senate to agree to raise any tax, not matter how worthwhile or needed, given the Republican just say no rich angry white man philosophy on taxes and life. Apparently an absolute majority vote used in most all democratic processes wasn't good enough for you was it?
I'm sure that 65% of the voting nitwits in Kitsap and Island Counties who ride the ferry system and also voted for this Machiavellian rule will love it when their ferry service is cut. "Oh shit, what happened?", they'll muse. When the viaduct falls down and the State can't build the necessary road to replace it because they can't pass a a toll fee to pay for it for sure these shills will blame it on those damn politicians in Olympia or the overpaid state employees instead of their own uninformed ignorant vote.
And another thing, tell your State Representatives and Senators whatever they do, not to tax my candy or soda pop because I can't afford to pay that extra 2 cents tax on a bottle of sugar filled soda pop or candy bar those health nuts in the legislature tried to impose last year on my fat misinformed ass.!
Fuck those poor people and their kids anyway if they get sick!
