The intent of this blog is to promote human equality, human progress, human peace and justice, and optimism. To accomplish this, to encourage the discussion of ideas after identifying and discovering problems, and then creating positive solutions for "we the people," in order to provide for the "general welfare" and "domestic tranquility" of America now and its "posterity" into the future. To encourage an emphasis on separation of religion and state for all, no matter if this is for those "of faith" in a Maker / Creator (Deists, God-loving people, Christians, various people of spirituality) and atheists or agnostics.

Archive for the ‘Commentary’ Category

Tony & Putting us through the dry cleaners

Commercial, Stanley Law. Tony says, “I have seen what it means for insurance to put us through the cleaners.”
Oh, yeah? I have never seen auto insurance companies “put us through the cleaners.” I have seen personal injury lawyers put me through the cleaners when I estimate the amount of tax money stolen in order to file the lawsuits. I have witnessed the increases in auto premiums in an astronomical higher prices, over the years, even when having no tickets or accidents. Nada.
In Florida, I have observed, over and over again, the unwillingness of homeowners’ insurance companies in paying for damages. I have observed Florida allowing PUP insurance companies and watched as insurance premiums increased very astronomically and the political party claiming they did not like regulations allow these unregulated companies to do this. I have observed increases in premiums about five times as high than what exists in other states of this nation. I have also observed a person in New York (my dad) who was able to get paid for damages while denied in Florida for some of the same, plus worse. Yet, Mattar, Stanley, Alexander, and all the rest never do lawsuits against big homeowner insurance companies.

According to the Boorstin book, The Americans: The Democratic Experience, an insurance commissioner  provided government regulation, not the GD lawyer crap, against insurance when the companies collected the premiums and never were accountable for using the money in the same way as lawyers in Congress have used our Social Security money and Medicare money to pay for their pet projects and then claim there “is not enough money” in those accounts. Those lawyers in Congress during the late 20th Century were ripping off people by taking from one of the best low-risk group retirement and healthcare plans which have ever existed. As with the insurance plans of the 19th Century which were attacked with government regulation. They were attacked for taking the money and putting that money in a black hole never to be seen again by the consumer on the demand side of the market. it is the same thing today with the money many of us have put forth in group funds (Social Security and Medicare). The only ones to benefit are the lawyers, as the same with the only ones to benefit from the funds we all put into group Social Security and Medicare (no interest earned over time, for US) are the politicians in Congress (primarily lawyers). Select groups who file the lawsuits have a small benefit while the rest of us, with personal injury lawsuits (and workman’s comp) are impacted by increased premiums.

Most of us are put through the dry cleaners by lawyers, not big insurance. Go to hell, lawyers, a bunch of hypocrites with your damn lousy commercials which also are paid for by increased insurance premiums.

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Commentary

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Anger

On the Rachael Ray Show last week, Jamie Lee Curtis was a guest. She made a statement that almost sounded as if she excused the thugs of insurrection on Jan. 6 because “all Americans are angry.” This statement disgusted me because angry people who learn self-control and moderation in life do not become violent and carry guns. She said nothing about the different photos taken when Black Lives Matter were in Washington and security was tight for them so they never could have gone to the U.S. Capitol building to attack it. Yet, with all the white folks on Jan. 6 and not one glimpse of a black person, the security was lax and we all got to see that. Security was lax for a bunch of white thugs who were angry, violent and carrying weapons. The security was tight when there were black folks who were angry but did not act like the thugs of Jan. 6. To me, Jamie Lee Curtis emboldened the white folks with Trump flags and sometimes with Confederate battle flags. Just like the SCOTUS of the 1850s with Yankees who wished to “appease the South [white power Confederate flag-bearing folks]” with the Dred Scott Decision.  We appease the white power and acknowledge they are “angry,” but the anger of black folks and others are not as important, right?

Go ahead and call me stupid for pointing this out, but I viewed a Facebook page filed by a political candidate running unopposed with the contrasting photos between Trump’s march to an Episcopal Church when Black Lives Matter people were trying to speak up and white power thugs on Jan. 6.

Would anyone care about my anger? I doubt it. I can provide a bulleted list of all the things which anger me. Much of the anger applies to senior citizens as group, rather than my own anger. Some of my anger results from the lousy way gay people have been treated and the attempts to bring back that lousy attitude. Other anger applies to my embracing of being a true Christian and following the “theories of moral sentiment” of theologian and economics theorist, Adam Smith (Presbyterian of Scotland?) as he challenged the existence of supply-side economics which, with the greed and selfishness, had caused a banking crisis similar to that around 2006 under George W. Bush. There are other anger parts regarding puritanical dictatorship in America.

You don’t wish to see my list? Oh, well. I will write it anyway. But I write with observations of successful experiences in America and try to include an “according to…” statement, not just my own emotions of anger. I also refuse to pick up a gun to point at other human beings or become violent, even as violent as Jesus Christ became after observing hypocrites (Sadducees, the lawyers of his day and anti-selfishness in the temple). 

Here goes with my list of “anger.”

  • One thing a Democrat might do makes the person a bad person and all good things are overshadowed by the one bad thing. If it’s a Republican, whether George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, Reagan, Trump or others, the bad thing is swept under the rug and support is given to the person. Democrat Bill Clinton, and all the good things he said and did are overshadowed by Lewinsky. Democrat Jimmy Carter did one thing and all the good things are overshadowed by the one bad thing. Andrew Cuomo with the same bad thing which former Democrat turned Republican, Donald Trump, but Cuomo ends up resigning while Trump and his cronies block investigation of the thug white insurrectionists of Jan. 6. And then, when I say, “it takes a village,” the goodness possible from that statement is scoffed at, due to the person who said it. This is one big anger I have and those who think badly of “it takes a village,” as far as I am concerned, can go to hell with their lousy attitude in which they need one big kick in the butte. This anger is a long winded. Let me continue.
  • Related to Bill Clinton who said, “safety net is not a hammock.” Republicans support the anti-safety net” position and never consider the “hammock,” while Democrats keep pushing for the hammock.  All due to the name, Lewinsky. Don’t you know that is more important to puritan s*** of America than what is good for America.
  • Anger because people embrace puritanical s*** with forcing and dictating their thoughts, whether alcohol, sex, nudity (in art), porn, or other aspects of life. Thus, as with Prohibition, America never teaches aspects of self-control and moderation in any of theses aspects of life. Puritans: “fearful that someone somewhere is having a good time.” Anger because so many don’t even take these words seriously.
  • Medicare privatization ignores the fact that me and many other senior citizens have invested in Medicare for 40 or 50 years or more, but are denied any interest earned which may give us a good amount and f*** the GD “tiers” and “donut holes” concocted by big business by paying off those in Congress. Medicare is a form of capitalism, not the GD remarks made by pharmacists or Trump groups as being “socialism.” That statement is BS. Democrats not picking up on what I am saying about this never helps gain something better by one inch, giving predominance to the lousy lies, cheating, corruption, false information of Republican bastards who don’t know their butte from a hole in the ground. Medicare and healthcare for all CAN be considered as regulated capitalism with supply and demand factors and returns on investments. Nobody takes note of this. Thus the anger because of going along with stupidity of big business greed and love of money.
  • Ditto Medicare when considering Social Security. No one in Congress wishes to remove the lid on the way wealthy people pay into Social Security. Anger because of individualistic greedy, selfish “rights” which overshadow “liberty and justice for all.” lovers of money get their “liberty and justice,” while the rest of us get bashed. That causes anger for which people like Jamie Lee Curtis refuse to acknowledge, but acknowledge the anger, like a bleeding heart liberal, regarding an attack on our government by people of white power and control.
  • People of the Reagan “flock” who refuse to acknowledge how greedy selfish big corporate businesses accepting corporate welfare (because they pay off Congress) and are so stupid embracing Reagan’s thoughts that “government is the problem.” The problem, due to what Reagan said, is with the pigs and hedge hogs of the big corporate crony club are the problem, helping to enforce interests and benefits for these lousy human beings by way of government. Yes, they MAKE government the problem, rather than helping government by supporting, financially or otherwise.
  • The ruination of small business in America, the backbone of business in America. George W. Bush may have said, “what’s good for business is good for America.” But the stupidity of too many Americans who embrace this ignore the destruction i have observed regarding large corporations with lawyers who have destroyed the small businesses and forced us into a supply-side economics adverse to true capitalism. What George W. Bush actually meant is this. “What is good for big corporate monopolized supply-side business is good for America.” It angers me that few people consider this aspect of the lies (among other lies) told by George W. Bush.
  • When someone like me tries to help people learn about what is happening, we get shut down and censored. We get shut down by those who embrace traditionalist beliefs which the herd mentality passes along with peer pressure, never standing up for what MIGHT BE more correct and better solutions. I learned this from my grandmother who taught me that we need to write to our Congressperson with rational and sensible ideas based on facts. At the time, it was Representative Howard Robison. My grandmother tuaght us to rid ourselves of violence on television. When we stayed with my grandmother on weekends, she refused to allow us to view Mannix or Gunsmoke or Mission:Impossible. When I mentioned that one of her friends loves to watch Gunsmoke, my grandmother stated that she understands, but when we are in her home, we abide by her rules. She did not force her rules upon society or upon others, but did differentiate with her expectations in her home. She took a stand and educated her family. She may not have done as good a job at times doing such teaching of her family in days gone by. A lover of money who rejected teaching as a profession so as to go off in pursuit of “ruby” rewards, poked fun at my grandmother and that still angers me, too. Love of money which predominates human considerations like teaching.
  • Rejection of public education and attempts to privatize and this angers me.
  • Privatization of the prison systems with the hidden agenda of putting black people in on minor offenses so they become criminals and can no longer vote. All in the name of privatized prisons which need to “fill cells” in order to make a profit. This is a hateful bunch of crap created by Jeb Bush in Florida.
  • Privatization of healthcare with a primary push by Reagan and a governor (and now U.S. senator) who followed Jeb Bush in Florida, Rich Scott. For my Grandpa Cornwell, the public system of hospitals was already too exponentially high in the 1940s that he departed from the hospital in order to avoid the costs and then went home and died. It angers me about this because I never got to know my Grandpa Cornwell, as i was born in the 1950s. Privatization by Rick Scott and others has done NOTHING but made costs of hospitals for consumers – the DEMAND SIDE of the market – worse than when my Grandpa Cornwell suffered. Private big insurance fat cats have also made it worse in terms of costs, while lawyers like Mattar and Stanley and Alexander all promote personal injury lawsuits and do nothing to help reduce the costs of healthcare overall.
  • Big pharma. Anger. According to Noam Chomsky, big pharma moans and groans about how much it costs for R&D, but the claim made by Chomsky is that big pharma lies to people. He also says that big pharma, like lawyers, spend more money on commercials and then expect the consumer to pay for their GD commercials. There was a da in America when there was no advertising by pharmaceutical firms regarding prescriptions. There were no commercials on the air by personal injury lawyers. These costs impact the consumer (demand side), unless one has an accident and can squeeze tons of money from the market and government. The demand side of the market suffers and people do not realize this. Anger.
  • Spectrum gets an “award” for best service for rural areas. Oh, really? No one asked me, did they? Why would they? i am no better than others in saying this. I DO have observations from experiences in my life to wonder and scratch my head as to how Spectrum could have won an award for rural areas. For a number of years in Florida, I lived in a rural area separated from the urban sprawl about as much as being in a rural area here in upstate New York. Perhaps I am not as qualified or better able to make a jdgment on this? In rural Florida, there was no Spectrum. We had a choice between Verizon and Comcast. Verizon for land line phone Internet delivery and Comcast with 75-ohm copper cable delivery. We also had options for Dish and DirecTV. I can attest to the fact that the Comcast Internet, even though there were sometimes problems, was better than what I have experienced with Spectrum in rural New York where there are no competitive alternatives (Frontier phone line delivery has been described as being worse than Spectrum). Some choices, right? Thus, whether urban or rural delivery by Spectrum, I see nothing worth an award. It angers me that the company can buy politicians and awwards while the demand side of the market is shafted.
  • Monopolized supply-side economics from Best Buy, Microsoft, Google (etc.) really hampers the ideas that once existed with the Bill Gates version of Microsoft in which we could do DIY with computers. The have made this far more difficult by nickel and diming the consumer. Need I explain the details? Take my word. This angers me. Those who know how to do DIY of the home with Lowe’s and Home Depot can do it. In other words, DIY with the hands becomes more predominant than DIY with the brain. Anger.
  • Flipping homes and deregulation of mortgages and real estate destroys the idea of long-term capitalist investment and return on investment for Americans.The stupidity of focus on primary residence homestead exemption (in Florida) negates, in the name of stupidity of attitudes regarding taxes (and also capitalist long-term returns on investments) destroys decent-cost housing and means we need to create more low-cost housing at taxpayer expense. It is all based on supply-side economics of developer and banker benefits, not the consumer and the demand-side of the market which gets stuffed in the process. Lower interest rates on long-term investments can be regulated and differentiated from interest rateds on short-term investments. Anger because we have relinquished our abilities, as citizens – lost our “…liberty and justice for all” as it is replaced by “…liberty and justice for bankers and developers and to hell with the demand-side of the market.”
  • Invasion of our electronic and technology equipment, from mobile phones to home computers and no recourse offered by law enforcement for protection for cybersecurity. Plenty for virus and malware protection, but nothing for actual cybersecurity as people are able to infiltrate remotely or by local “hidden networks.”
  • Computer updates which pop up on my screen and give me no alternative to reject them, but just an expectation as to when to do it. Whomever does this, company or individual, it gives me no choice for what I want to do. It’s not “if” I want to do it, but “when” would it be done? When I cannot reject the update with a “NO,” I am being dictated to by Microsoft, individuals who remote into my computer, or other individuals. That sucks and there is no law enforcement cyber security to stop it, only computer virus control or malware control, etc. Nothing to stop human organizations or individuals from disrupting my computer. That is my personal property and the shitheads who do this are as bad as the thugs of Jan. 6, 2021.

What I say IS important, so damn those who think it is not. Damn them as they consider the anger of the thugs, as Jamie Lee Curtis did on the Rachael Ray Show and the rest of us “angry” Americans who react without violence and guns are ignored. It takes a village to collectively solve these problems, but too many damn Americans are adverse to this idea, based ONLY on one thing which is promoted by propaganda supporting big corporate greed and their dislike of the person. If my writing sounds like anger, then think again about how much I am trying to describe a problem, pushing forth discussions, and hoping to have a “village” solve the problems. Whether bleeding heart liberals who create a wimpish environment in replying to the irrational ones with the “microphones” supporting extremist right-wing or left-wing values, it is lousy.

To Jamie Lee Curtis: regarding anger, there should be a differentiation between anger of Americans who never get their solutions solved and thugs of insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021. The thugs of insurrection or Jan. 6, 2021, become part of the problem not the solution. Those of us attempting to write and get a microphone for the anger we have need to be considered for the problems we address and discussions about the solutions. When we get set aside as “not being important,” then we become frustrated and the levels of anger can elevate even more. To many, they simply give up and become disenfranchised. When this happens, then those who are the thugs and their leaders who embolden them (like Trump and others) are elevated in what they wish to achieve with disenfranchisement of voters and smaller numbers of people who get out to vote. My anger, too, is at the efforts of the Republican white racists of Florida whom I observed taking power and creating a one-party state by using gerrymandering, lies about candidates, cheating, and working for ways, with privatized prisons, to jail some innocent young people who end up taught be criminals, not those with a reasonable sense of self-control and moderation.

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RE: “Ways and means” article about taxation in America, The Economist, 2 Oct 2021

Dear Editors:
For me, political parties are necessary to sustain a democracy. A one-party state, such as what once existed in Florida under racist white Democrats with power and now exists in Florida with racist white Republicans in charge, is absurd and anti-American, particularly considering democratic values. As a Republican most of my life, I found Howard Dean’s message in 2004 to be quite a good message. Sad to see his reputation shattered by ignorant and stupid scum in America. What a disgusting bunch of people who have evolved, clinging to their stupidity, into Proud Boys, Qanon, etc., as violent thugs of insurrection. Being that your magazine is published in Britain, the same type of thugs who got away with murder of a British agent because he was illegally importing rum for the Caribbean (John Hancock) and his friend, Sam Adams, we were led by such thugs, even if John Adams was not sure it was the correct path to follow. However, it was John, not Sam, who became the second president of the USA. The long and the short of it, we in America make a pledge with “…with liberty and justice for all.” The thugs are hypocrites in reciting such a pledge because they, along with 33K healthcare workers in NY who refuse vaccinations, actually mean, “… with liberty and justice only for me, myself, and I and the rest be damned.”

Your article about “ways and means” (subtitled “America will never have a European-style welfare state without a VAT)” struck a nerve with me. I became aware of a VAT, perhaps before Europe embraced it as it does. Where did I learn this? From CONSERVATIVE and founder of the magazine, The National Review, William F. Buckley, Jr.Today, iwth its fascist attitudes imprinted in that magazine, I would not touch it with a thirty-foot pole, as well as fascist news on Fox, Newsmax, and other sources which proclaim themselves as “conservative.” I find these groups to be very offensive.
What I once liked about being a Republican was the fact that so many were “socially progressive and fiscally conservative.” Buckley was socially progressive when he described smoking pot and finding nothing wrong with it. Yes, compared to the impact of alcohol, pot is non-addictive and better. I just don’t care to do it. At the same time, Buckley was fiscally conservative. In introducing the VAT (and other sources I have read), there is absolutely no desire to have a welfare state by using a VAT.

In this instance, I believe your writer used the ideas of Dr. Howard Dean, who urged Democrats to “re-frame the issues” so as to make them palatable for more people. Your writer has “re-framed” the issue so as to make the idea of a VAT un-palatable to the wealthy crust at the top. Another form of hypocrisy in that group at the top is to downgrade the ideas of a welfare state while looking the other way at ideas for CORPORATE welfare subsidies.

This last point is well expressed in your article, as you point out the convoluted mess we call an income tax here which is being used to help those at the top “subsidize” themselves and giving a free ride to those at the bottom of the welfare state. Meanwhile, the ones who are really being hurt is the destruction of a Middle Class which is pertinent for a democratic state to operate more efficiently. To me observing what has happened since Reagan took power in 1980, is a deliberate task to destroy the federal S&Ls, public health systems, public education with its teaching of civics education so the Middle Class can have some knowledge of what makes government good, rather than convincing them only that it’s Reagan’s idea of “only government is the problem.”  None of these aspects were described in our article, at all.

Yes, you did mention that VAT is similar to state and local sales taxes. One thing the Democrats of Florida did (and continued by the Republican one-party state machinery there) is to NOT have an income tax at all, but to have a sales tax, added to property taxes with primary residence homestead exemption. VAT would be better than a sales tax because of less figuring by the consumer of what the tax is on each item. The “sales” tax is added as the “value” passed along to the consumer. For small businesses (which have been destroyed in America by lawyers and big corporate “Goliath”-style (figurative) giants (given free rides by SCOTUS and the “Citizens United” Decision). Why do I say this? Because I observed the NY sales tax introduced and noted the impact on small rural businesses who had to do extra work in maintaining accurate records of sales and report them to the New York State Taxation Dept. This cut into small business overhead and eventually helped to destroy small businesses as big corporations experience less percentage of overhead (cutting into profits) than small businesses. A VAT would decrease such events and (boo hoo!) put accountants and tax lawyers with less business so they can do what they really SHOULD be doing and get out of the “tax” business.  Boo hoo t them, spoken as an educator who also witnessed the travesty of privatization of education by people like Jeb Bush and others in Florida. Nobody gave one damn about the impact on teachers and professors, did they? I can be a mean SOB and not give one damn about how the VAT would impact those making tons of money off taxes. For one thing, rather than invent ambulance-chasing, educators had to resort to other means of income and pull themselves up by the bootstraps the best they could. Educators in Florida often worked three and four extra jobs, especially if one-income families or as single moms or dads. Perhaps lawyers and accountants should experience the same things?

As for this crap about a “welfare” state, Bill Clinton once said, “a safety net is not a hammock.” Translation. Safety nets are not for “infinity and beyond” but a hammock is eome place where we can place our asses and never get up – for infinity and beyond. What a shame that the name Lewinsky overrides everything which Bill Clinton was about. His penis was more important than anything else, evidently. Oh, that’s right! I should not use the word, “penis,” in America because we Americans are so puritanical in thoughts that we don’t accept “fleshy” art work, as they do in Europe.  Americans apparently like the pope who ripped the penis off a statue of David. FOR SHAME to me for bluntly telling a Roman Catholic that he was trying to dictate and impose HIS ideas and his ideas alone, as he complained about nude paintings in the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach. There are many Americans who appreciate works of art, whether paintings, photographs, drawings, or what not, and that man has no right to infringe on the “…liberty and justice for all” by imposing his own idea of “…liberty and justice” which fits only him, as if we all where the same size glove or shoes.

I diverge here in order to emphasize how much there is a “norm” established and dictated to us all which treads on our own liberties and justice. This includes the way income taxes are so convoluted in America that it infringes on the “liberties and justice” of the Middle Class. Democrats want a welfare state? If so, I don’t like the Democrats who push such an agenda and refuse to consider other SOLUTIONS to our PROBLEMS. On the same token, we rarely find the Republicans who were the ones who came from the foundations of that party, opposed to slavery (of all kinds) and worked with ideas of “socially progressive and fiscally conservative.” Fiscally conservative, to most of us, meant regulated capitalist supply and demand, not an aristocratic fat hedge hog idea of supply side only. it was not a measure of whether the government spent money or not. It was a matter of doing so efficiently and for “liberty and justice for all.”  This article, “Ways and means,” does discuss the efficiencies which don’t exist in our American economics, but it burns me the way it goes into how the VAT helps create the welfare state, then burns the Democrats who it proclaims DO want a welfare state. For me as a Democrat, that is an insult. Perhaps when such Democrats scratch their heads at having to deal with this question, as Clinton perhaps did, they go off to find sex with someone? To relieve the pain? I don’t say this in forgiving Bill Clinton and his lack of self-control, but I do say this to try to come to grips with reasons WHY he might have done what he did, even if it is mere speculation. 

Sweden is mentioned in this article. I don’t question the statistics given because I have to trust they are true and factual. I do have to question the lack of discussion regarding the homogeneity of the race and culture in Sweden, as opposed to the USA. That is more of an important considertion in all of this discussion about “welfare state” or even about “socialism.” A recent New York Times book review told us about how President Nixon tried to provide for “incubation” of new black businesses in North Carolina, but failed due to one Republican who was considered so damn powerful that he must have scared Nixon. That Republican was jackass white racist Republican from North Carolina named Jesse Helms. Like Mitch McConnell, that bastard of North Carolina held this nation hostage with his ideas about white superiority. He did what many Southern Republican leaders are attempting to do today. According to a TV Guide article from the past, Helms was also responsible for manipulating things like destroying Star Trek due to an inter-racial kiss.   Helms also used his power and influence to destroy Robert Maplethorpe exhibits (and other matters regarding the arts) because of frontal nudity in the photographs.    Freaking Helms with HIS own definition of “liberty and justice” … FOR HELMS … was imposed on us all. Fortunately, the Star Trek thing backfired, but consider this. It was only when another southerner (Jimmy Carter) and the Democrats took power in 1976. That was NOT a question of “welfare state,” but a question of being socially progressive and anti-racist. Same thing can be said about another Democrat from the South whose image was tarnished by several things (like involvement in Vietnam). LBJ worked to get the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act passed, even if he fumbled the ideas for a “Great Society” in some of the unorganized urban development projects. In that case, his heart was in the right place, exemplified by the passage of civil rights legislation. As I always, say, if one expects perfection, then that person is a stupid idiot because perfection of human beings does not exist. If one has the expectation that Democrats are perfect, then think again, stupid. Even Frank Sinatra mentioned how he loved fixing our nation’s problems, even if this is an imperfect nation.

At the end of the day, one can argue that any tax can be considered regressive, as this article pointed out about the sales tax or VAT. One dictionary definition of “regressive” says, “taking a proportionally greater amount from those on lower incomes.” In order to avoid this from happening with income taxes, we give earned income tax credits to which, as the article pointed out, leaves almost nothing paid by that “lower” the proportion taken from the lower classes. The net result is a rebuke by the upper classes and the Middle Class being destroyed in the process as it becomes incumbent on that one “lower class” – the Middle Class – to absorb most of the taxes. That was NEVER discussed in this article, leaving the reader left out in the dark on this matter. Instead, the writer intones the “regressive” nature of the VAT or sales tax. The person appears to really speak as if he/she is against the VAT so uses various mechanisms to address his adversity, while appearing like the person is an advocate of the VAT. I don’t get it. Please tell me how a VAT is “regressive” when the ones purchasing their own personal yachts, planes, expensive elitist imported items (not affordable to those in the lower classes), and what not would end up paying a large chunk of taxes that many in the lower classes would not pay? By saying this, the person writing this article appears to have no sense of what “regressive” means.

The true reason as to why the upper crust does not want a VAT is because this would have the impact, if implemented correctly, of removing the loopholes which the upper crust can use to justify THEIR corporate welfare. In America, this upper crust might complain about a “higher tax rate” for them, but have the ability with a regressive income tax to use “workarounds” which might be more difficult with an opaque VAT. Truly, I say to you, get rid of the capital gains tax, the income tax, the inheritance taxes. Replace them all with a VAT and stop with the BS of counting who makes out better. Just applaud and reward people for making money and profits and we can bring back American ingenuity.

Another problem with LBJ and his “Great Society” was the farm subsidies in order to take into consideration how selling more milk would lower the price of the milk in a capitalist economy. It completely removed ingenuity to meet the demands of the consumers and finding other ways to use the product, besides just the drinking of milk. With this black hole of ingenuity, a European dairy company, utilizing the notion about “pasture-raised” cow butter took a piece of the American market. A VAT would be designed with a higher “tariff” on imported goods and give home-grown products a leg up in the market. Subsidies for farmers simply destroyed the market. We have read about upstate NY farmers who “dump their milk.” Dump the milk? What the hell is that, when considering the many aspects of milk like that of peppermint and lemon for dealing with pests. In this case, a milk product has proven effective, with copper sulfide, in fighting fungus. There are other possibilities, too, which are ignored, in favor of mass market considerations, rather than meeting the needs of smaller markets, thus helping to bolster the prices paid to farmers. It is called regulated capitalism, not subsidies and handouts. Capitalism has been given a black mark by Karl Marx who was an idiot in his assessments of economics. Adam Smith wanted to counter the prevailing ideas of his day regarding supply-side economics of manors, feudal property, etc.. Supply-side economics which created a serfdom and slavery. To the “moral sentiment” of Scottish, Adam Smith, these were wrong. Yet, he got shafted by Marx because the industrialists chose to adopt Smith’s ideas but conform the ideas to what already helped the elitists gain all their money they horded over others. Supply-side economics, not capitalism with regulation of supply and demand was blamed. Thus we ended up with Marxist ideas of central control by big corporations and monopolies while proclaiming them as being “great capitalists.” The are not. They are centrally controlled. It might not be a government or nationalized corporations, but it is centrally controlled. In turn, these people work to control the very government which SHOULD be regulating supply AND demand. By use of corrupt practices and “martini lunches” these hedg hog elitists control our lives and thus bring about anger of people /like Proud Boys who don’t know anything about what true democratic government SHOULD be and just resort to violence and guns with the U.S. Constitution’s 2nd Amendment, while being coerced into believing colored people are at fault for their situation and never taking a look at how much better off THEY are, compared to so many other nations in this world – and living by APPRECIATING what they have, in comparison. Then I cringe at reading about the VAT needed to endorse the “welfare state” when the VAT was conceived by those who did not like the welfare state. Absurd and with a hollow tone.

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Commentary, Economics, Regulated Capitalism, Commerce

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Vaccines (Letter to Editors, Press & Sun-Bulletin, Oct. 16, 2021)

Dear Editors:
Interesting figures on the front page today about the number of health care workers who have lost jobs because of not taking the vaccine. Oh, boo hoo. Being a bleading heart liberal and lawyer, I must say oh boo hoo and feel sorry for them, right? Where is the number of people whom I have known who have died because of COVID-19 after refusing a vaccine. What are those numbers? Why make us feel sorry for these healthcare workers? What is the purpose for making us feel sorry for them? And where are the statistics of those who are not against the vaccine who have caught the COVID-19 virus and died? Or for those who have the vaccine and caught the virus and perhaps have not suffered as much as death, but still suffer? Why not project feeling bad for these others?D

Why did your newspaper make us feel bad and a huge photograph of someone with a sign, “Honk for medial freedom”? Oh, yeah. What about a sign which says, “honk for all American’s freedom to live and move beyond this war on a virus.” Or, a sign which reads, “honk for the freedom of all to be able to not wear masks and get a virus because it is no longer necessary.” What does that mean, only if we die and go to heaven? What a joke. We all want the ability to seek “life, liberty, and pursue happiness” while on this earth. These people seeking their own idea of “medical freedom” create a hell on earth for all of us.

I can go beyond this with other matters. How about my freedom NOT to pay such GODDAMN high prices for prescriptions and eye injections while on Medicare and not with a job with a medical insurance. Excuse me for saying, GODDAMN, but that is the way I feel about the evil people with greed and selfishness at big pharma and big insurance with their evil love of money. Yes, I mean it. GODDAMN them in the big fat lazy boardrooms at the top with hedge hogs and corporate welfare, while working to deny the return on investments of capitalism that we as Americans should be receiving after long-term investments in healthcare and Medicare (plus interest). Where is my “medical freedom” after spending tons and tons of money  in support of organizations researching solutions for diabetes, heart, Alzheimer’s, and cancer? But really. Spending money on investment in a supposed CAPITALIST… CAPITALIST… CAPITALIST… CAPITALIST… CAPITALIST…. economics for many years and that is not very important at all. So we give a voice on the front page of a newspaper in favoring these idiots who deny us our freedom to live in peace and justice in this society – with their loud microphones they are given. Where is my microphone?

There are other matters i could mention which address freedoms for us. Personal injury lawyers are another example, with people making money by pitting Americans against Americans and proclaiming a religious belief that to everything there is a good and an evil and never is there “time and unforseen circumstances which befall us all (Ecclesiastes).  Sure. I am cherry-picking the Bible when I say this. But is that as bad as the cherry-picking of the Bible by those against the vaccines? My cherry-picking involves examples in the Bible which demonstrate a God with agape for all God’s children, not a chosen race, religion, heterosexual traditionalism, or white power, etc.

How many have died because they did not get vaccinated? How many have died because of the spread of the virus while catering to the big mouths like those on the front page of today’s newspaper? Perhaps inquiring minds would like to know, but are denied when a newspaper chooses to invoke sensationalist journalism on its front page rather than present ALL the facts. Emotions of sensationalist journalism suck, big time.

And a member of the royal society also said that we need to devote more of our time and resources to fighting the problems on earth, before going off into outer space. Stuff that into your boots, Mr. Bezos, the trillionaire. Kudos to people like Bill Gates, one time person at the help of Microsoft, for working for world health considerations.

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RE: Letter to Editor, Press & Sun-Bulletin Regarding the Thugs Jailed Due to Jan. 6 Insurrection

Dear Editors:
I am a moderate person who believes in America first, political parties and political ideology last. I believe in solutions for American democracy and continuing American democracy by removing the SCOTUS stupidity regarding Citizens United which has destroyed the campaign finance reform laws of the past.

I am against false news of Fox, Newsmax, and others which is nothing more than what the Bolsheviks and Hitler dictatorships did to gain power.

I am against corrupt practices which emanated from big Goliath-type corporate supply-side economics while the backbone of America, small business and American ingenuity are destroyed.

I don’t like cheating and a lack of ethics which emanates from Trump people who define their own dictatorial ways of ethics which are never consistent with true ethics.

I am against those who seek white superiority dictatorial ways who try to claim the U.S. Constitution supports their efforts when it does not. Thus,

I am against the thugs of Jan. 6, 2021, and the insurrection endorsed by Trump who never spoke out strongly against it. These people are traitors who deserve what they get, whether in jail or being executed, as Timothy McVeigh was executed.

I am against the bleeding heart liberals and lawyers who feel sorry for such lain-brained attitudes which stimulated that insurrection on Jan. 6. I have no respect for lain-brained bleeding heart liberals like Jamie Lee Curtis who merely define this as “Americans who are angry.” I am angry, too, at big corporate supply-side economics which have been given the right to monopolize markets in technology and elsewhere which destroy capitalist competition by ridding us of the regulation which is necessary (emboldened by SCOTUS and Citizens United).

I support President Joe Biden and Democrats and/or Republicans (like Joe Scarborough) who want to regulate Microsoft, Google, and Best Buy, along with other big fat pig corporate conglomerates who have no desire to understand the DEMAND side of the CAPITALIST… CAPITALIST… CAPITALIST… CAPITALIST…. CAPITALIST… (have I used this word enough?) markets, but just dictate the supply side because they think ‘that is what will make us all happy.”

With all this being said, I also believe that human beings are children of God who are not perfect and can, at times maker errors, but we don’t just look at those we don’t like as being lousy when they make one error, such as the local idiot around town who calls President Biden, “sloppy Joe.” I think of the person as being a disgusting one who expects perfection from Joe, but overlooks the multiple errors of a Donald Trump and others.
When I read in your newspaper about how people feel sorry for those from that insurrection who have been jailed and complaining “about the way they are being treated,” I am disgusted at acknowledging such bastards and feeling sorry for them. For if they had had any intelligence at all, they would not have become involved in that insurrection. They get what they deserve and are lucky they don’t get what many WISH they would get – being executed like Timothy McVeigh.   Stupid bleeding heart liberals and lawyers do this. Even Jesus Christ would have called them hypocrites and not been afraid of saying so, as he is recorded as saying such about the lawyers of his day, while he was on earth.

Shall I apologize because I make what I am trying to say too lengthy? Consider this. Would anyone reading this discover the details about what I am saying, should it be a short “snippet?”

I love the nation where I was born. It had a regulated economy, true democracy with sensible and rational people, worked towards campaign finance reform which worked better than the crap instituted by SCOTUS from Citizens United Decision, small business America which has been destroyed by Reagan’s supply-side economics and deregulation (which has become “re-regulation” by the industries who are given a lousy freedom and corporate welfare to regulate their own business – wish I had the same capability), “fairness doctrine” in journalism which moderated whether the information is true, accurate, not lies and hatred, and the resulting destruction of capitalist demand side of markets which can be used to create and regulate the media and call what are platforms or portals as “media.”  

The result is to get these lain-brained thugs whose voices are louder than reasonable and rational voices who don’t allow emotions to override democracy and certainly do not like the expression of “anger” by the violence of thugs in an insurrection. For one, I don’t feel sorry for those thugs in jail and find an article which describes such to be an insult against American democracy.

As a Christian, I am supposed to hope for forgiveness. But forgiveness only begins when there is true and sincere repentance. I have yet to hear this, as there are evil ones in America who embolden these thugs, as well as the bleeding heart liberals and lawyers who embolden them as well and never insist upon repentance – SINCERE repentance. No repentance, no feelings of sorrow for these folks.

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Return Audience Show & Jamie Lee Curtis

Dear Rachael Ray,
We love your new audience shows, the set and the seating which looks so homey. Kudos to you and the crew for doing this.
When Jamie Lee Curtis was on your show and appeared to brush off the attack of the thugs from Proud Boys and other groups in their attack on our government on Jan. 6, I am sickened to hear that. She sounds like a bleeding heart liberal comparable to Al Gore who geve up challenging George W. Bush in Florida at a time when me and many other Republicans like me voted for Al Gore. He gave up, like a damn bleeding heart liberal, ‘for the good of the nation.” In effect, his giving up has made matters worse so that Trump puts a spin on his loss and gets people to attack the halls of Congress. Al Gore really did win that election and the black man who represented the congressional district where I lived in Florida was rejected. Same thing happened in the 1850s when bleeding heart liberals on SCOTUS gave a decision of “justice” so as to appease “the South [and its white supremacy groups].” I refer to the Dred Scott Decision and the documentation of that decision demonstrates the stupidity of the bleeding heart lawyers and liberals who helped keep the war going for white supremacy.

To be blunt, those thugs on Jan. 6, 2021, are traitors and they are lucky to be alive after that event because at one time in America, traitors were hung by a noose and not by vigilante Jim Crow assholes, which is what those thugs are. It is an insult to me and others in this nation who love this nation the successful democracy it has been, not the authoritarian dictatorship which Trump emboldens Proud Boys and other thugs to promote. They take away the freedom, liberty, life, and happiness of those of us who want a democracy. It has nothing to do with “politics,” as the ignorance of a bleeding heart might give us.
My representative in Congress in 2000, had balls and guts to stand up. Al Gore had no balls or guts and, as a result, Trump today takes advantage of that factor. There were many Republicans like me who had the balls and guts to stand up for Al Gore and we were trashed in the process. Was Jamie Lee Curtis one who trashed us? In spite of Al Gore, I switched to Democrat, thanks to a Vermont man named Dr. Howard Dean. Dr. Dean had balls and guts, too, but was shut out of the Democrats when he attempted to be a leader. Still. I remain a Democrat, in spite of such BSby bleeding heart liberals feeling so sorry for traitors. King Charles of England was executed due to his lack of balls and guts and wanting to destroy the British Parliament. King George III lost part of his colonial empire, due to his tough stand against the people and the British Parliament. Now, we feel sorry for the freaking Proud Boys and the thugs who attacked our Congress? What a bunch of hooey.
P.S. I don’t apologize for what I say about lawyers just because your husband, John, is a lawyer. Bleeding heart lawyers and liberals are a disgrace to this nation. I  can only hope John is not a bleeding heart lawyer.

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Review of CBS News Report: Social Media Used to Embolden Kids to Vandalize and Attack Teachers: Sounds like a Bunch of Uncivilized and Ruthless Bolsheviks or Hitlerites

The National Education Association, for which I am a member (with AFT) is encouraging “social media”” to regulate what is published. The excuse given by Tik Tok is bizarre. Having worked with the Internet as a pioneer in the age of infancy of the Internet (even DARPANET), I can say that Tik Tok’s excuse is a flimsy one, at best.
We used moderators for anything published in forums and what not and we had no difficulties. Just as articles or letters to editors are submitted to editors who review for accuracy before publishing, a moderator on a forum (forerunner to blogs) moderates by reviewing for accuracy before publishing. It takes time and yes, we need to employ more people to do it. What a shame, right? Employ human beings rather than using computers and robots?
Those days were also the days when the Fairness Doctrine in media still existed. Republicans like Reagan and Bush tore down that doctrine which was established in a bipartisan agreement following World War II and gave us a more civilized nation rather than one with the mentally ill encouraging and emboldening young people to do acts of vandalism and assault. Hatred of fellow human beings was not allowed, especially when it is based on rumors, false conspiracy theories, and other false information. Once the Fairness Doctrine was destroyed, talk radio of hatred and false information sprang up, particularly that of Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck. Then we ended up with “social media” and no controls over it. If someone tries to control it, then the mentally ill who propagate the hatred proclaim such regulations go against “free speech,” liberties, and is a form of censorship. I argue that it is NOT any one of these things because regulation and moderation of such information means the stories are not banned, but are evaluated for accuracy and, if there is partial truth, then the stories are so notated. That takes time and pushes the mentally ill who want instant gratification, like little brats in a sandbox kicking sand at one another – little bratty kid attitudes – upset. They should be upset when someone tries to kick their buttes and stop them from being little children, grow up and mature and become the adults ina civilized world.
CBS News needs to include this aspect for which I am discussing here. But CBS and other media outlets do not do this. Shame on them all. Rather than call this junk in Facebook, Twitter, Tik Tok, or other sources “social media,” let us call it what it is. “Social technology.” “Social online portal.” “Social online platform.” It is NOT news and information and shame on the media for not pointing this out. What kind of fear do they have? Losing money? If so, shame on such a media where LOVE OF MONEY predominates. Love os money is evil.

My thanks to those of NEA who were given a chance to speak up on the CBS report this morning. So many of us are not given that opportunity and that is sad, too.

To establish power in Russia, by the Bolsheviks, they used hate speech and propaganda (false news) to accomplish the goals of vulgar and vicious people. To establish the Hitler Youth in Germany, there was the use of lies of propaganda for vulgar, vicious, and uncivilized and barbarian attacks on other people. Let us stop this in America and stop it now. Don’t “appease” the other side by going along with their crap about “censorship.” Civilized society needs to moderate the barbarism and stop it. That is NOT censorship, so stop it, and stop it NOW. it is important for America and important for keeping civilization civilized.

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Commentary on Recent Dr. Oz Show

​It is sad, but i cannot obtain an email address to write directly to Dr. Oz. Either Tweet him or use an online form. I refuse to do either, so I write to the overall media. Don’t get me wrong. I like Dr. Oz. I just don’t like Twitter which is called part of a “social media.” It is NOT media, so I write to the media. Twitter, Facebook and others are social technology or social portals or social platforms. They are NOT media. But of course, who listens to my perspective on this topic. I was only involved in the early days of the development of the Internet in the DARPANet project. But not as involved as Tim Berners-Lee or Vannevar Bush or… So I am just chopped liver and a stupid idiot, right? 

However, I feel compelled to comment about a recent episode of Dr. Oz. It was about the guy in South Carolina whom, it is believed, had people murdered and then arranged an attempt to have himself murdered. A bizarre and perverted tale, for sure. Just proves the irrationality of so much of America today, the land I grew up loving, due to people in the Binghamton, NY, area like George F. Johnson and Thomas J. Watson, plus others. Shame on me for being inspired by such people who actually provided healthcare and other benefits for their employees. That is another topic for another day.
Dr. Oz went into the increase of murder in the USA today. How sad, for sure. He said there is evidence there are too many who are “getting away with murder.” That, too, is sad and sounds like the bizarre sheiks of Saudi Arabia, the Taliban, and Putin of Russia, among others in the world. Oh, that’s right. Obama and Biden administration made certain that Bin Laden DID NOT get away with the mass murders he committed while Bush with his (and his father’s) personal vendetta against a leader hated by the Saudis and the Taliban (Hussein) was brought down and attention drawn away from what was necessary to do to track down Bin Laden. Yet, the freaking media goes after Biden in the past few months regarding Afghanistan, after nothing was accomplished there by Bush. In effect, I can say, Bush, too, gets away with murder. (Meanwhile, today, the dismal and wimpy Democrats are being laughed at by freaking lousy people like Rick Scott who got away with stealing money at a hospital in Florida. People there KNOW what happened, but Rick Scott pleads the “fifth” and gets away with it with the help of stupid freaking lawyers in America).
What I also need to add to this Dr. Oz discussion is historical information. According to a documentary on the History Channel, the one with the large signature on our Declaration of Independence got away with murder. It is a hidden thing. Yet, we talk about our “john hancock” signature like it is a wonderful patriotic thing. I contest such vile things and wish America would come to its senses. So hearing Dr. Oz describe those who, today, “get away with murder,” is appalling, to say the least.

I wish to sing a song, “Where have all the lawyers gone?” Because they spend their money on commercials about their lousy jobs with personal injury lawsuits and workman’s comp and allow things like murder to pass us by. In this respect, lawyers are negligent in not doing the jobs they SHOULD be doing. Protecting Americans against murder and mayhem. They take money from our government by filing frivolous lawsuits and refuse to seek tort reform, as what exists in Britain. It was a British agent trying to stop John Hancock from illegal importation of rum from the Caribbean who got murdered and then we had a war in the name of John Hancock. Makes me ill to think about this. And the lawyer who ended up helping John Hancock and his friend, Sam Adams? John Adams, the 2nd president of the USA. It is a disgusting thought, to say the least. But this was not discussed on the Dr. Oz Show and perhaps it needs to be discussed.
Don’t get me wrong. We were dealing with a mentally ill jerk named King George of Britain. He was like Trump in his mental illness. George had no sense of what it takes to be a king, let alone a good leader. The democratic process in the British parliament actually attempted to put down George and curtail some of the taxes for which the American colonists objected. But no. The mentally ill king prevailed and we had a civil war. We call it the American Revolution, but in effect, it was a civil war because America was then part of the British Empire.

I know. I speak as if this is not the “norm,” so how stupid I am, right? We don’t want the words of Mister Doug published, so let us rip him apart in every way possible and never take into consideration something Mister Doug says which goes against the norm. Mister Doug may speak with metaphors and parables. But Mister Doug is just plain stupid. Wait! Was there not someone else in history who spoke in metaphors and parables? Got milk anyone?
Thank you, Dr. Oz, for the information, not conspiracy theories like that of a Mark Levin and others, which seem to predominate the lousy brain cells of so many people and with no evidence at all in something we call “social media.” It’s not social media. It is social portals or social platforms and part of social technology. Just the facts, ma’am, just the facts. That is media. Where art thou, media?
—

Professor Douglas Willet Cornwell (Retired)

Newark Valley, NY

bibsinger@gmail.com

———————————“Love your neighbor as yourself.” “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” “The problems of the world are not that some people love in a different way. The problems are that so many people don’t know how to love at all (CGA, 1970).” A Puritan is someone in fear that someone, somewhere, is having a good time. “Liberty and justice for all [not priorities on individual and selfish rights].” “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”  “We the people, in order to form a more perfect union [and overall wealth of American society]…” 
​Benjamin Franklin: “​Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are ​affected.” Stacey Abrams: “Compromise about actions, but not about values.”  Oscar Wilde: “​​​I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best.”  Oscar Wilde: “Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.” Benjamin Franklin: “Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.”  Whoopi Goldberg: “To handle this COVID-19 pandemic effectively, we all need to get on the same page.”  Note: To be clear, I do not like being patronized. I do not express my disdain over what happens to my fellow humans just for my own sake and to pursue favors and handouts. I do it in order to gain R – E – S – P – E – C – T for me and for millions of other Americans of any race, ethnicity, religious belief, or sex and sexual identity who try to walk in integrity as they attempt to achieve, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  PERIOD.  One nation under God [our Creator] with liberty and justice for all.

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These are the Good Old Days

Recently, I learned about my hometown high school alumni concert to be held in October. This concert has been held for many years. My mother once participated. I participated in Oct. 2019. There was no concert in 2020, for obvious reasons.

The concert theme this year is to be about happiness. This seems very appropriate since there has been so much turmoil in people’s lives. I asked if John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads” would be appropriate. I have various independent lyrics to this song, too. Rather than sing about returning to West Virginia, many years ago, I created some lyrics about returning to upstate New York. It made me happy. My kids would hear the lyrics and came up with lyrics about roads leading to their birthplace area, Tampa Bay, Florida. Then a friend of mine in the church where I attended in Palm Beach County came up with lyrics about returning to Palm Beach County. I could use them all, added to the original ones from John Denver. They bring happiness into a number of people’s lives regarding the area where they were born and/or living.

To exemplify the need for such a “happiness” concert, I have experienced, several times, some rather negative things here in town for which people do need “happiness.” For instance, someone began speaking about “wishing for the good old days.” My reply was words from a Carly Simon song which my partner and his brother have mentioned as having meanings of happiness, too. The song was “Anticipation.” It includes words about “… these are the good old days…” These words are repeated numerous times. “These are the good old days.” I don’t know what the person was thinking about when saying, “oh, but those words depend on what you have experienced.”

Oh? What I have experienced? Shall I speculate as to what these means and the basis for someone saying this? Is it someone who wishes to lambast Democrats as all being bad while elevating Republicans to the top? I speculate on this because I hear this type of BS today which predominates so much it makes me sick and tired of hearing them.

Or, are there no “good old days” today because of sex, drugs, alcohol predominance? To which I can say history demonstrates to us that making such things illegal does nothing to end them. Furthermore, there are plenty of examples from the “good old days,” Prohibition and a damn dry town to name just two examples, which caused more harm and chaos in America than if we just do something different and work together to regulate and control such things effectively. It has been proven over time that when properly implemented, regulation and rehab for the sake of alcoholics does much better than just making the stuff illegal. We do the same thing over and over, like the stupidity of laws recently passed in Texas, expecting different results. Such maneuvering to keep doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is called mental illness. Yet, how many times have such evangelicals and others tried to say anyone who opposes what they want is mentally ill? You don’t believe me, then read what the late Dr. Thomas Szasz, one-time psychiatry professor at SUNY Upstate Medical Center in Syracuse says about “creating mental illness” in his book, The Manufacture of Madness. It is quite enlightening.

Thus, I really don’t know what the conclusions are about those “good old days” from the past, when I hear someone mention it. Dare I ask what they mean? Not on your life, due to the lack of abilities today to discuss matters sensibly and rationally. We do need a little happiness in our lives today.
Besides the “Country Roads” song, I can also think of John Denver’s song, “Today.” My college fraternity would serenade the sisters of another professional fraternity with this song. It was our “trademark” song, as opposed to the chapter of the same fraternity located at Ithaca College which used another song from Rodgers & Hammerstein which portrays happiness: “You’ll Never Walk Alone.” When the two fraternity chapters, plus one at Fredonia State College, were together at “province” meetings, we would all sing our songs with beautiful 4-part male harmony to see who did the best!  I will be darned if I can locate a copy of that male chorus arrangement of “Today.” Seems as if none of my fraternity brothers have a copy of it.

This makes my message very lengthy, but here is a copy of the lyrics of “Today.”
Today
John Denver
Refrain
Today, while the blossoms still cling to the vine
I’ll taste your strawberries, I’ll drink your sweet wine
A million tomorrows shall all pass away
‘Ere I forget all the joy that is mine, today
Verse 1
I’ll be a dandy, and I’ll be a rover
You’ll know who I am by the songs that I sing
I’ll feast at your table, I’ll sleep in your clover
Who cares what the morrow shall bring
Refrain
Today, while the blossoms still cling to the vine
I’ll taste your strawberries, I’ll drink your sweet wine
A million tomorrows shall all pass away
‘Ere I forget all the joy that is mine, today
Verse 2
I can’t be contented with yesterday’s glory
I can’t live on promises winter to spring
Today is my moment, now is my story
I’ll laugh and I’ll cry and I’ll sing
Refrain
Today, while the blossoms still cling to the vine
I’ll taste your strawberries, I’ll drink your sweet wine
A million tomorrows shall all pass away
‘Ere I forget all the joy that is mine, today

We have joy and sorrow from the past. We only dwell on the sorrows of today, but forget the joys. This really disgusts me to view this so much today. If you wish, I can list a whole bunch of sorrows from my past, so those bygone days are not always full of only joys. Shall I share the sorrows from the past?
1. I never met my Grandpa Willet Cornwell because his stay in a hospital in 1948 was too expensive for him, so he checked himself out of a Binghamton area hospital and went home. Within days he died and then the lawyers descended upon the family.
2. I don’t remember it because it happened when I was only a little older than one year of age, but due to the stupidity of a dry town run by a ruthless dictator with the money, my uncle drove off to other surrounding areas, in his teen years, came back and almost died in an auto accident. Thank God, he was the sole person involved in the accident. But as I was growing older, I do recall seeing my uncle and asking him why his face was all dug up? It was the scars from that accident. Add to this the numerous other people who drove out of town to drink. One person hit a railroad train and they say he was decapitated, as the Taliban and Saudis do to their citizens because they make all this money from opium and oil.  My bet is that more young people today can get opioids and other types of stuff more easily in this town than they can belly up to a bar or have a drink at a restaurant and be able to come home to drink. Sorrow from the past. Sorrow from the present and no change in sight which would likely make many of us happy.

3. A Republican member of the Board of Trustees who ran the college where I worked in Florida once commented about how he desired the days gone by because people “did not define their own happiness.” Thus, this idiot wanted to define it. Reason? Because he thought the entire faculty was having sex and using alcohol and drugs. Funny. But me and many of the others were not doing such stuff, so we were pretty disgusted at a Republican who would stand in front of the faculty and tell us he wanted to define our happiness for us. Funny, too, because although we had a dry town in the days gone by, I NEVER heard Republicans smear the names of people just because they were Democrats. Today I hear this so much it sickens me. I guess, in this case I long for those “days gone by,” don’t you know?  Except for the fact that I see many things today in which we could work together to make life better in the future, so I dwell on what the problems are and try to light a fire for people to work collectively to fix such problems. I don’t long for the days gone by because those days contain joy AND sorrow.
4.  I would have had a sister who would be age 56 this year. She went full term in my mother’s womb and died at birth. My mother has commented that she thought the baby died in her womb during the week before she gave birth.

5.  I had a wife who suffered about three or four miscarriages. Such events really hurt her in those years. Add to that my grandmother dying the same year and a very good friend who died in Utica, NY, in an accident which I have reason to believe was a pre-meditated accident which no one was able to prove as being such. Add to that two other people who died at that Air Force base in upstate NY, due to pro-Reagan Republicans. Am I speaking like a conspiracy theory person? You bet and I have no proof of any such things, only circumstantial evidence and intuition. So it is not very important to consider. But the death of my good friend, a mathematician and graduate of the same college where I graduated, threw our contract with the Air Force into limbo, at a time when the governor put a freeze on hiring professors and teachers so the job I had been told might be possible at SUNY Upstate Medical Center just did not stand. Me being the sole breadwinner in the family had to pursue other avenues for jobs and, not happily, we ended up moving to Florida, for a job. Thus, the song about “country roads, take me home” brings me happiness, not what happened in the bygone days.

There were many other sorrowful times from my past. My mother in big disagreement with her brothers. My grandmother who rejected the courtship of the ruthless dictator in town because of his lousy treatment of one of her sons. But, at the same time, I witnessed the very close kinship within the paternal side of our family, as we had many very happy family reunions. The other great times also involved times with student teachers and teachers who were borders at our home. Plus the numerous foreign exchange students who bordered with our family. The family holidays were joyful. Family vacations were very joyful. All of the joyful events from the past remain at the top of my memory list, while I try not to remember the more sorrowful events.

I had never given a thought to Carly Simon’s song, “Anticipation” and “…these are the good old days” until speaking about this with my partner and his brother. After suffering from all the BS from a woman whom I came to discover never really loved me, but gave me some beautiful and wonderful children, the joyful part comes from having those children and watching them grow to become 20- and 30-something adult ages.  There might be some event, though, which brings to mind the bad things in that relationship with the wife. I was a registered Republican when I met her, but Republicans were, at that time, particularly the leadership, much more rational and reasonable people than they are today. I recall the day, during our junior year in college, I was walking to the music school and met the woman who eventually became my wife. She was crying because Gov. Hugh Carey, in revenge to the Republican NY Senate majority leader (from Binghamton) had cut the string quartet and for our senior year, this woman was not going to be able to study with the viola professor with whom she had studied for several years. A very popular string quartet which gave concerts with standing room only attendance and the governor cut it because, like Trump today, he was thinking only about himself and what was best for New York City and wanted to shut down several of the upstate SUNY colleges and open up new facilities in the NY Metro area. Oh, that’s right. In those years, Trump, like Hugh Carey, was a Democrat in New York City! The man has brought a vengeful attitude from the Democrats to the Republican Party leadership, aligning with the white superiority people and bigots of Dixie.  To me, this makes the days we currently are living a sorrowful bunch of days, not the Democratic Party leadership.  But to the stupidity of Republicans, particularly the RINOs, it all becomes the fault of the Democrats because Fox News, Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani, Mitch McConnell, Dan Abbott, Ron DeSantis, Rick Scott, Mark Rubio, and many others, say so. Add to this the stupidity of conspiracy theorists who think they tell the truth (i.e., the government is putting something in the vaccines to track us all). Add to this the remnants of thoughts from the stupidity of the Reagan hatred of government. Stupidity which ignores centrally planned economics which destroy local capitalist business, creating a centrally planned economy modeled after the Soviet communists and then blaming the government and Democrats for this. Wrong. 

In this sense, I DO long for the “goodness” of the days gone by. But not to return to them and base that return on traditionalist thoughts and traditionalism as the sole reason for “bringing back good days” based on persecution, bigotry, and a white superiority complex. Such things do NOT make me happy. My happiness for me and the next generations is to work to solve the problems which promote such attitudes. As a friend once said, “these people with their bad attitudes need to have their buttes kicked over the moon.” Our attitude is one of working together and is not defined by “working together only means just do as McConnell and Republicans wish to have done.” This is a democracy, not a dictatorship. Playing off a commercial for garbage bags: “we want to be happy, happy, happy, not wimpy, wimpy, wimpy.”
P.S. Like John Denver and his happiness, I have a similar experience. He, too, was married to a woman who changed to the same religious cult my woman did. As reported by those in this cult, he treated the members of that cult with disdain. It was reported that he would begin his concerts with an announcement that should there be members of that cult in the audience, they should leave and do so now. That is only hearsay from some of the members of that cult, so is it true? One can see by the words of these songs that he was a happy person. He had even composed a song for this wife whom he loved and called it “Annie’s Song.” When I was out of sight of others, I would think, “Leannie’s Song,” when singing this song. Ever hear Placido Domingo sing this song? That rendition is beautiful, too.
P.P.S. As Diana Butler Bass says, “Seek traditions, not traditionalism.” Add to that:  “Seek wisdom, not certainty.” “Seek practice, not purity.”
—

Professor Douglas Willet Cornwell (Retired)

Newark Valley, NY

bibsinger@gmail.com

———————————“Love your neighbor as yourself.” “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” “The problems of the world are not that some people love in a different way. The problems are that so many people don’t know how to love at all (CGA, 1970).” A Puritan is someone in fear that someone, somewhere, is having a good time. “Liberty and justice for all [not priorities on individual and selfish rights].” “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”  “We the people, in order to form a more perfect union [and overall wealth of American society]…” 
Benjamin Franklin: “Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are affected.” Stacey Abrams: “Compromise about actions, but not about values.”  Oscar Wilde: “I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best.”  Oscar Wilde: “Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.” Benjamin Franklin: “Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.”  Whoopi Goldberg: “To handle this COVID-19 pandemic effectively, we all need to get on the same page.”  Note: To be clear, I do not like being patronized. I do not express my disdain over what happens to my fellow humans just for my own sake and to pursue favors and handouts. I do it in order to gain R – E – S – P – E – C – T for me and for millions of other Americans of any race, ethnicity, religious belief, or sex and sexual identity who try to walk in integrity as they attempt to achieve, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  PERIOD.  One nation under God [our Creator] with liberty and justice for all.

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Commentary

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Book Review by Paul Krugman RE: Fight over How Extensive Free Markets Should Be

Paul Krugman was right on the mark with his book review of Nicholas Wapshott’s Samuelson Friedman: The Battle Over the Free Market (3 Aug. 2021).

As a historian, not an economist, I take a look at this free market idea through the lens of a historian. Paul Krugman, the economist and his ideas from the perspective of an economist agree with what I have been writing for so long.

As expected, Krugman delves into the ideas for free markets which were pushed by Friedman and opposed by Samuelson. He also identifies Reagan and Greenspan as perpetrators. I so agree with that. I would also ad the queen of “virtues of selfishness,” Ayn Rand, as well. The net result of what Reagan and his goons did in the 1980s has been monopolized business by big corporate giants who resemble Goliath in the Bible and work to destroy capitalist competition, on the notion that this is a prime example of “free markets.” In fact, destruction of competition is annoying as it destroys the ideas of regulated capitalism which is designed to help both supply AND demand. Reagan’s notions of “deregulation” have resulted, besides promoting a “trickle-down” philosophy, is “reregulation” done by the corrupt practices of privatized huge corporate conglomerates. We might think we the people have no voice, but with privatization by the supply-side big fat cats.  Business in the hands of the big fat cat supply-siders, similar to plantation-style, manorial, and feudal economics of the Medieval period is more atrocious because it can more easily shut down the voice of the people than can be done with government (especially when there is more predominance of the existence of government controlled by the big fat cats, as a result of a dim-witted U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) decision with a propaganda-style title of “Citizens United” and its hidden agenda).

Case in point. Privatized forms of government called homeowners’ associations which are given more teeth to do injustice to people by the Republican one-party state in Florida. The HOAs of Florida have come to be known as the “condo commandos.” However, the HOAs have spread more widely than just condos, as yours truly had to pay a HOA fee when he owned a single-family home, not a condo. The HOA played the role of the local nearby government where I also owned a home. They would inspect lawns, as the local government did, and cite us if it was not cut correctly. Both village and HOA did the same thing (there was no HOA in the village). Big, big difference. The annual HOA fees were far higher than those of the village and we had no recourse to go to a village board meeting and express disdain over the regulatory practice of inspecting lawns. Compared to a local village in upstate New York, the HOA fees were three times higher than this village and its taxes.  The village shed itself of a police unit, so it became more like a HOA, but at much less the cost of a HOA. Yet, people here complain about the tax of this village. Be careful for what you wish for.
My point being that privatized supply-side businesses are vicious, malicious, and bullying. They are the ruination of local business and local control. Case in point also about the privatized hospitals created by a man who sits in the U.S. Senate: Rick Scott. With an overall consideration, even hospitals still run by religious organizations are far better at dealing with the demand-side – the patients (consumers) – than privatized hospitals and nursing homes. I have plenty more personal experience examples I can share. Certainly, there are plenty of facts and statistics to validate my experiences.
The historical examples are about the “norms” established by the aristocratic wealth and royalty when Adam Smith drew up his ideas of capitalism which were meant to challenge the supply-side economics of feudal economies run by aristocrats. I am able to prove that the aristocrats were one step ahead of Adam Smith. They embraced the “new” idea of capitalism in the late 1700s and early 1800s, as if it was their own baby for which they gave birth. When Marx went to England to generate interest in the common folks of the demand side of the market, he blamed capitalism because the supply-side aristocrats were the ones coining the phrase of capitalism for themselves. America had plantations in the South and the North thought it was better with its “industrial revolution” consisting of crap like sweatshops and so forth. Those sweatshops may have paid workers earnings, it was dismally small and not a living wage, while the big fat cats became just as wealthy as the plantation owners of Dixie. They were better in not putting African slaves in chains, but were they really any better, just because they did NOT enslave people, as they used immigrants in the sweatshops?

In the 20th Century, Gov. Teddy Roosevelt of New York State began to intercede for workers. From child labor laws to many other laws, Gov. T. Roosevelt, worked with people. Gov. T. Roosevelt also became known as the “trust buster” as he busted the organized syndicates with Boss Tweed and other sources which, with their corrupt practices, controlled the supply-side economics as well as government.  America became great due to the trust buster, unions, pooled finances in retirement systems which were really designed to be capitalist returns on investments. Same thing with the “health savings account” we call Medicare, where there was an intent to have a return on investment.  The original intent for these resources was not to have lousy corrupt representatives propagandize false ideas that such resources were “taxes” and then steal such money for other purposes. They stole from such funds for projects “back home,” in order to keep their constituents happy and then get re-elected in the process. Using propaganda, such corrupt politicians and lawyers destroyed the ideas of long-term capitalist investments into short-term, “I want it now” instant gratification ideas. With the older ones dying off and the younger ones not worried about long-term investments, those corrupt people in a representative democracy convinced people to do the things most beneficial to the wealthy fat cats at the top. Shall I go into actual examples of what I am talking about?
Krugman expressed his ideas in terms of economics and academia. His explanation is very good. But someone needs to address this to those who do not follow the details of economics.  Meanwhile stupid people like Mark Levin and others from Fox, rely on not presenting facts, but only emotions. The best seller lists contain books by such people which are false. And yes, I challenge Mr. Levin as a dumb jerk with his emotionalism being the sole means of capturing the hearts and minds of people. I don’t challenge Mr. Krugman, but wish someone could put what he says in the words more conducive to the “lay person.” It would really help cut down on the chaos and contention of pitting American against American. Let us shed the damn emotionalism and traditionalism which pervades the land and get back to rationality and common sense.

—

Professor Douglas Willet Cornwell (Retired)

Newark Valley, NY

bibsinger@gmail.com

———————————“Love your neighbor as yourself.” “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” “The problems of the world are not that some people love in a different way. The problems are that so many people don’t know how to love at all (CGA, 1970).” A Puritan is someone in fear that someone, somewhere, is having a good time. “Liberty and justice for all [not priorities on individual and selfish rights].” “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”  “We the people, in order to form a more perfect union [and overall wealth of American society]…” 
Benjamin Franklin: “Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are affected.” Stacey Abrams: “Compromise about actions, but not about values.”  Oscar Wilde: “I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best.”  Oscar Wilde: “Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.” Benjamin Franklin: “Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.”  Whoopi Goldberg: “To handle this COVID-19 pandemic effectively, we all need to get on the same page.”  Note: To be clear, I do not like being patronized. I do not express my disdain over what happens to my fellow humans just for my own sake and to pursue favors and handouts. I do it in order to gain R – E – S – P – E – C – T for me and for millions of other Americans of any race, ethnicity, religious belief, or sex and sexual identity who try to walk in integrity as they attempt to achieve, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  PERIOD.  One nation under God [our Creator] with liberty and justice for all.

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Book Reviews, Commentary, Economics, Regulated Capitalism, Commerce

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