Tioga Herald

Frederick Douglass said, “If any demand of me why I speak, I plead as my apology the fact that abler and more eloquent men have failed to speak.”

Simon & Garfunkel’s 1960s song said, “…silence like a cancer grows.” “…abler and more eloquent” speakers are silent. Many of us choose to not “fail” to speak. We cannot do it alone.

One of the men who was living around the time Mr. Douglass was living was someone from my allied family of Cornells. My branch of the Cornell family chose Cornwell because they had moved to New Amsterdam and tried to make the name fit. We often say, “anglicized.” Is there a word for “dutch-ized?” Ezra Cornell, founder of Western Union and playing a role in establishing the university which carries his surname, was an abolitionist. He found a home in the Republican Party which was in its early days of being formed. Cornell also spoke out. But he had money. I don’t have money. So therefore, I am lacking in any divine rights to speak out? How much money did Mr. Douglass have, in comparison to Ezra Cornell? Hmmmm… Something to ponder.

I became a member of Toastmasters by achieving the level of Competent Toastmaster. In the process, I belonged to a Toastmasters club in Florida which also had engineers, lawyers, accountants, supervisors, and clerical workers at the corporation where I was employed.

In a Toastmasters meeting, we gave awards each meeting. One was for best speaker of the day. Another was for best Table Topics speaker (extemporaneous speech answering a question by the Table Topics leader of the day). Another award each meeting was the one for the best evaluator. There was always a portion of the meeting in which each speech was evaluated by an assigned evaluator and presented at the club meeting. I rarely got awards for my speeches or, especially, extemporaneous speaking. I have dozens of award ribbons for being the best evaluator. All the meeting awards were made by a vote by our peers who were present at the meeting.

Today, I use some of the same evaluation techniques, but not delivering in a speech. My approach is about giving a positive assessment first, but then go into constructive criticism for the purpose of teaching the speaker, and then concluding with and overall assessment.

Today, I feel as if I get chastised for my similar approach for the purposes of teaching and solving problems. It really dismays me that so many people today dig in their heels about what THEY are thinking and dislike a person who might be thinking outside the box and able to distinguish and differentiate. Seems as if too many people do not even consider what Thomas J. Watson, founder of IBM said about “THINK.”

Under such circumstances, can anyone blame me when I try to make the point in a similar manner to Bill Clinton’s advisor when he said during the campaign of 1992. I say, “it’s not the politics, stupid, but it’s about human justice.” Or. “It’s not the politics stupid, but it’s about the capitalist economics being controlled by the supply-side and negating any needs of the demand-side.” It’s not “the government which is the problem, stupid (as supply-side advocate Sleepy Ronnie in the Cabinet proclaimed), but it is the destruction of public campaign finance and replacement with PACs and lobbyists, which are the problem. Might appear to be the government, but one has to examine the “root of evil” which is caused by a love of money which precludes all human justice considerations and predominates our government and society too much today.

This love of money has destroyed newspapers and small businesses by moving everything to centrally controlled large corporations which do not care about the local level. The Economist Magazine recently indicated that this loss of newspapers at the local level has meant that people are not as knowledgeable about local politicians and are at odds on so many issues which are at the national level. In other words, these fat pigs of the news media have divided America.

There is more. Not only are Americans being trained by these fat pigs that print newspapers are antiquated, but also that if we don’t have streaming television, then local broadcasts are antiquated and we can do better with individual mobile phones. We also are taught by the fat pigs in the industry that if we don’t have streaming television with hundreds and hundreds of choices of channels, we are stuck with antiquated local broadcasting AND CDs / DVDs.

When we purchase software from Microsoft and get it installed on a computer or laptop, we have this “app” installed. There was a day when we purchased the “app” on a floppy disk (or series o floppy disks). Eventually, we ended up with CDs and DVDs for an “app” because it was larger and the entire “app” could be on one disk. Without the disks, the supply side has used this to their advantage by charging exorbitant prices. They also refuse to be held accountable for the problems of “streaming” and “cloud” services which are used for software “apps”, music, and videos. Today, the consumer pays for hundreds and hundreds of crap they don’t use, but are given access to it. Thus, for Spectrum and many of the streaming services, PLUS the Internet to provide these services, we pay more than $300 per month. Even with the high price of gasoline today, I spend about half of that amount of money each month. I spend about equal to $300 per month (+/-) for food. I pay less than these amounts for an auto loan. I pay more, per month, for a mortgage. I pay less than that, per month, for home insurance or auto insurance (per month; not true in Florida, but is true in upstate NY).

So, I ask this. Why is it so important to make all the noise about a recovery in which unemployment is down and the fat pigs have to pay more for labor (as if it is going to break their bank), and inflation is up. Those fat pigs LOVE a recession because they can layoff people and keep the money to themselves.

With this scenario, to me, it sounds like shit happens with these fat pigs, during a tim of inflation, but during a recession, shit happens for those on the labor side of economics, especially as the big fat pigs have destroyed local business, local newspapers, local broadcasting media (reduced power of the signal, due to cell phones being increased means those of us in rural areas with hills and shit happens to us, too; actually, I have heard from those in an urban area like Palm Beach County who live in high rises and the local broadcast signals are often too terrible to receive).

In addition, the distribution of “apps” has been a better means for the big fat pigs at the centrally controlled big businesses to come up with “streaming” type subscriptions and controlling them so much that I get my privacy ruined by Microsoft focusing on me and putting lousy popups into my work. Perhaps if they are doing this, it might explain the reasons why the “app” no longer works. It’s called sabotage for the purpose of making more money.

You know. the way that a former communist and KGB agent who loves to parade around shirtless on a horse, for photo opps, so as to show off the “macho” image and disgrace those who are not macho, especially gay men. In case one did not get the drift, I am describing the ways of Putin and other dictators. Must be Putin impresses the fat pigs of America.

When will America do something to acknowledge what is happening with the loss of local control and local news replaced by a concentration of national news, with the result being a larger polarization of the American people? Do something about this and stop the concentration on oligarchic (aristocratic fat pigs who dictate with a predominance on love of money. There are plenty of suggestions as to how America can be improved and brought back to the TRUE ideas about what has made America great with the backbone being local business, local politics, and local news sources which can keep those in charge held accountable.

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