Votes Matter

Time to shame the shameless,
Name the people of the shadows.
They cannot hide from what they wrought
It is time that they be taught.

The light drives out the parasite.
The warmth of love wins over hate and misdirection.
Our vote still counts in this world,
and is the difference between a vote and an insurrection.

Chris Holte

DreamOfCaroline

Caroline Previdi

Dream of Caroline my friend.
My anger at you is gone.
I see her in my dreams again,
and she tells me you are wrong.

Dream of Caroline my friend,
we will soldier on,
until your kind are sane and clear,
and the desire to murder is gone.

Her life is over, but her spirit lives on,
she will talk to you each night,
until you hear her screams and whispers,
and decide to do what is right.

Christopher Hartly Holte

Written to one of my gun nut friends.

Edmund Burke Versus John Locke

Introduction

Most people know that Edmund Burke wrote in response to the French Revolution and is universally admired for his criticisms of Democratic Republicanism. They often are not clued in to what he actually said. Rather most intellectual conservatives refer to him in code. When conservatives quote Burke they usually first quote his earlier writings and speeches supporting the US Colonies revolt against the Crown.  They rarely quote “Reflections on the Revolution” directly. Instead they refer to it obliquely. I’ve come to realize why, over time. 

Burke was ostensibly arguing against the French Republicans, Jacobins and revolutionaries in Paris. But in reality he also was arguing with his own previous generation of Whigs and John Locke. He was arguing with the very notion of democratic republicanism.

The Case was too good to go forward -- Corruption and the Courts

In this weekends news is an article that shows just how bad things have gotten for the American Worker. Workers were trying to get a class action suit going based on evidence that our major IT companies were "allegedly forming an illegal cartel to tamp down workers' wages and prevent the loss of their best engineers during a multiyear conspiracy broken up by government regulators."¹. The Judge Ruled:

"U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose, Calif., issued a ruling Friday concluding that the companies' alleged collusion may have affected workers in too many different ways to justify lumping the individual claims together. She denied the request to certify workers' lawsuits as a class action and collectively seek damages on behalf of tens of thousands of employees."

This despite the fact that "The allegations will be more difficult to pursue if they can't be united in a single lawsuit. Koh, though, will allow the workers' lawyers to submit additional evidence that they have been collecting to persuade her that the lawsuit still merits class certification." So, all is not lost. But this case illustrates the difficulty of dealing with a system that is increasingly plutocratic and oligarchic, and where the oligarchs use their partial monopolies to oppress people instead of to uphold their fiduciary responsibilities and trust obligations over resources.

Workers are having trouble, because our wealthier "liberal" allies go along with the right on worker issues. From Rahm Emmanual to outright righties, we see that our wealthier brothers and sisters are making "hard decisions" on the backs of 99% of us, while many of them (not including Rahm yet) are hiding money in offshore banks. And there is no shared sacrifice. This is a system that is oppressive to most of us and getting more so. And we have to convince people to do the right thing instead. I hope the judge hasn't killed this lawsuit.

Source:
• http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/judge-deals-blow-high-tech-workers-lawsuit-18891744#.UWHFlldTmrh
• http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323916304578401023993657866.html
• http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2013/04/the-massive-corruption-behind-our.html

The massive corruption behind our current dysfunction

The international Consortium of Investigative Journalists has just published summaries of leaked documents demonstrating the massive scale of worldwide financial corruption in this country (and world). In my last blog post I explained why there really is a "one percent," why the concentrated weatlh and power have not been a good thing, and some other things about the one percent that I found disturbing. But this latest revolution takes the cake, and explains why the current system needs worldwide reforms.

The One percent is a problem because they tend to band with the mega-rich. They don't all have the access to offshore accounts the super rich do, and so they are as much prey as predator for their wealthier relations. The article lists a bullet list of findings about the mega rich that ought to disturb anyone:

• Government officials and their families and associates in Azerbaijan, Russia, Canada, Pakistan, the Philippines, Thailand, Mongolia and other countries have embraced the use of covert companies and bank accounts.
• The mega-rich use complex offshore structures to own mansions, yachts, art masterpieces and other assets, gaining tax advantages and anonymity not available to average people.
• Many of the world’s top’s banks – including UBS, Clariden and Deutsche Bank – have aggressively worked to provide their customers with secrecy-cloaked companies in the British Virgin Islands and other offshore hideaways.
• A well-paid industry of accountants, middlemen and other operatives has helped offshore patrons shroud their identities and business interests, providing shelter in many cases to money laundering or other misconduct.
• Ponzi schemers and other large-scale fraudsters routinely use offshore havens to pull off their shell games and move their ill-gotten gains.

Tip of an Iceberg

Lest the moderately rich think this system is good for them, the lower half of the one percent are those purveyors of Ponzi schemes are their targets. Looks like Bernie Maddoff was the tip of an iceberg in more than one way.

And the article exposes some typical behaviors that come with this Virgin Islands Territory. It details for instance how Tony Merchant, a Canadian Businessman hid his money and lied about his income. It tells how "Between 2002 and 2009, he often paid his fees to maintain the trust by sending thousands of dollars in cash and traveler’s checks stuffed into envelopes rather than using easier-to-trace bank checks or wire transfers, according to documents from the offshore services firm that oversaw the trust for him." Obviously this guy is small fry. Most folks involved in this sort of thing have their lawyers do the dirty work so they can hide behind client confidentiality, but his wife is a Canadian Senator.

The list of names includes a lot of foreign despots, and others we are already familiar with such as the wife of Mark Rich, Denise Rich, who was famous in the 90's for Clinton pardoning him. Today's list was only a sampler of a few dozen out of thousands of names.

Source:

http://www.icij.org/offshore/secret-files-expose-offshores-global-impact

April Fools, it ain't an April Fools Joke, and it ain't funny

Today was April fools day. My friend Dave Paulson wrote a long article on the current state of America called "Common Nonsense" that shows just how far we've drifted from the America that resisted the East India Company, and in the process found independence. But the news is what gets me. There was a major incident at a nuclear power plant, and two massive oil spills in Arkansas, and they barely got a peep from the major media. You see there is a disaster going on in a nuclear power plant there, and it barely got a footnote in the news. Amazing.

The Report says:

"At 0750 [CDT] on 3/31/2013, during movement of the Unit 1 Main Turbine Generator Stator (~500 tons), the Unit 1 turbine temporary lift device failed. This caused a loss of all off site power on Unit 1. The ANO Unit 1 #1 and #2 EDG [Emergency Diesel Generator] have started and are supplying A-3 4160V switchgear and A-4 4160V switchgear. P-4A Service Water pump and P-4C Service Water pump has been verified running. Unit 1 has entered [procedures] 1202.007 - Degraded Power, 1203.028 - Loss of Decay Heat, and 1203.050 - Spent Fuel Emergencies. Unit 1 is in MODE 6.

Mode Six is pretty serious. I was talking to someone and she said it means "they can't switch the steam loop from the turbine.. is issue.. so running water over loop.. let-out as steam through the turbine pressure relief valve.. not made for this" -- which means that while the problem is stable, it isn't over.

"ANO-1 entered TS 3.8.2 A, 'One Required Offsite Circuit Inoperable'. All required actions are complete. The event caused a loss of decay heat removal on ANO Unit 1 which was restored in 3 minutes and 50 seconds.

Apparently the problem isn't over yet, even though cooling has been restored. But if the unit is in mode 6, that means that the situation is still serious. Apparently the primary loop is still offline so they'll have to "keep feeding the secondary loop new water.." and this will" [piss] "out the over-pressure relief valve to outside until they get the pumps and internal power back on." So they are minimizing a problem that could rapidly cascade to further issues.

...."At this time, the full extent of structural damage on Unit 1 is not known. There was one known fatality and 4 known serious injuries to workers. The local coroner is on site for the fatality and the injured personnel have been transported offsite to local hospitals. Investigation into the cause of the failure and extent of damage is ongoing."

Probably nothing. Seems they dropped the stator on a generator and damaged the power lines in the process, causing 3 minutes of loss of cooling on the reactor. Is that serious? Will we ever know?

Meanwhile two oil spills seem to be warning us of the stupidity of approving that pipeline for the Canadians.

April Fools? Who?

The Saint Scam

Torturer Thiessen is trying to help the Republican party "rehabilitate" itself by raising it's level of mendacity by aping the theatrics of the new Pope Francis.[See the War against Vatican II] He's not advocating that they care more about the poor or minorities, just that they act like they care -- like the pope does. This is a pope whose first claim to fame was turning two of his fellows over to the torturers (rendering them I guess) for the crime of being too enthusiastic about the poor. But who is famous for going and washing the feet of poor people. Not feeding them, or clothing them, or actually doing anything for them; just coming in and doing theater. And Thiessen says:

"If Republicans want to change that impression, there is a simple solution: Be more like Pope Francis — defender of the family, the unborn and the poor."

Now, if you ask the rest of us the best way to change the impression that they are anti poor is to stop pursuing projects to persecute, oppress and dispossess the poor. But he goes on:

"One lesson from the Holy Father is that saying the right things about poverty is not enough. You have to show up."

Doesn't mean your policies have to actually help people, they merely have to be seen as caring, as "helping". It can all be theater if one merely puts in the appearance. Like Bush's "Kinder, Gentler" or Bush Junior's "compassionate conservativism." If people can be convinced it's not a PR Tactic they might actually buy it. All it takes are little things like:

[The Future Pope]“would arrive on a bus to their little chapel; how he sponsored marathons and carpentry classes, consoled single mothers and washed the feet of recovering drug addicts; how he became one of them.”

To be fair Thiessen also says:

It's not enough for Republicans to simply vote for school choice; they need to spend time with students struggling in failing schools. It's not enough to rail against dependency; they need to spend time helping those trapped in dependency to get the skills they need to get off public assistance. It's not enough to complain about Obama’s class-warfare rhetoric; they need to spend time fighting for the vulnerable.

Butif they do that, they can avoid real change. All they need is the appearance of doing these things. You need to give lip service to the "right to life:"

They don't have to abandon their principles to do it. As a cardinal, Bergoglio urged the faithful to “defend the unborn against abortion even if they persecute you, calumniate you, set traps for you, take you to court or kill you.” But also he insisted that “No child should be deprived of the right to be born, the right to be fed, the right to go to school.” Notice that he did not stop at the right to be born. Neither should Republicans. The GOP needs to put as much emphasis on ensuring that children are fed and educated as it does on their fundamental right to life.

And of course one doesn't have to give priority to edcuation or training. Just talk about it, and show up at the right events.

Spending on social-welfare programs for the poor has grown by 50 percent since 2007, yet under Barack Obama, more than 2.6 million Americans have slipped out of the middle class and below the poverty line. The left fought a war on poverty, and poverty won.

Thiessen misses the fact that we've had another Republican Great Depression, that while gross spending may have increased by 50% the numbers of the poor have increased 10x that number due to unemployment, foreclosures and budgetary squeezes. But that never phases the "free market" types -- even though we don't have free markets.

Thiessen:

Let the Democrats be the party of dependence and downward mobility. The GOP needs to become the party of independence, upward mobility and opportunity for all. During the fall campaign, Mitt Romney declared, “We will hear from the Democrat party about the plight of the poor . . . but my campaign is focused on middle-class Americans.” This was disastrously misguided. If Republicans want to be seen as a more welcoming party, the best way to prove it is by welcoming the poor and championing the vulnerable.

And this Rovian Strategy might work if we are stupid enough to buy the arguments. The playing field has never been less level. All of the improvements in productivity and opportunity have gone to the one percent who have inherited wealth over the past 30 years, and the kind of opportunity the Republicans offer is the opportunity to win a lottery where the odds are stacked against them unless they come from wealth and privilege or luck.

He's not advocating a new strategy. The Catholic Church has pursued this policy for thousands of years with a lot of success.

Article referenced: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/marc-thiessen-what-republicans-can-learn-from-pope-francis/2013/03/25/2d8a1446-9551-11e2-b6f0-a5150a247b6a_story.html