Tioga Herald

Is it negative to stand up for one self?  Is it negative to stand up for one self when false negatives of lawyers in the Tallahassee legislature control the minds of people who believe lawyers are ok, but teachers and unions are not?  Is it negative to attempt to turn around false perspectives that wealthy people wish to make the norm? 

For all the “solutions” lawyer legislators have to squash the teaching profession in Florida, I have some positive solutions which really would save money in this economy.  But my solutions would go against the ruling wealthy and lawyer classes in this state.  So, therefore, like the protestors in Cairo, those at the top right now might consider these “negative.” 

We know that in other Western nations, single-payer healthcare costs less per person.  The negative mind-controllers at the top would have us believe those systems are just awful and there are always long lines.  There are many long lines in American healthcare, too, but no more than what exist in Canada or other Western nations.

Canada, I am told, has no lawyers making high fees from workmans’ comp.  That’s because it’s paid by healthcare.  In other Western nations, there are no multitudes of paperwork to fill out in the healthcare system – so as to “avoid lawsuits.”  In fact, in other Western nations, lawyers receive a set fee like the rest of us do and are not able to collect millions on frivolous lawsuits.  In this way, they are not so super wealthy they become the only people able to buy their legislative seats – others like teachers actually have a chance. 

Right now, teachers have no voice in the Florida legislature.  Yet, there are decisions being made about us which will impact us heavily.  J.D. Alexander, senator from Fort Pierce, has supported big business and the developers of this state 100% of the time.  Yet, he has NEVER supported issues important to the AFL-CIO.  Alexander has constituents like me in his district who believe unions play a role in keeping management honest so it does not rip off the Medicare system.  People like me who believe there are bad union people and good ones; just as there are bad management people and good ones; just as there are bad lawyers and good ones.  J.D. Alexander should relinquish his seat in the Senate because he is not representing his district properly, considering the diversity of people who live there. 

But what is a “bad teacher?”  Why does it that Rick Scott does not ask what is a “bad lawyer?”  Growing up as a child, I never saw advertisements from lawyers.  We never knew what an “ambulance chaser” was.  We never considered, based on lawyers, saying, “Do unto your neighbor before they do unto you.”  There were no businesses called, Who Can I Sue.  To me, these are bad lawyers who cause the cost of our living to rise exponentially.  I would say these bad lawyers cause our cost of living to rise far more than any bad teacher does. 

But people are brain washed by all the drivel controlled by the lawyers who control our government.  People don’t consider the cost of our insurance premiums (insurance of ANY kind) driven by costs it takes to pay lawyers for unproductive jobs – and the paperwork shuffler jobs created to support lawyers.  George Will, a CONSERVATIVE columnist, pointed out the high cost of lawyers to EDUCATION IN FLORIDA.  Yet, Rick Scott proclaims his “CONSERVATISM” and ignores George Will.  That’s because Rick Scott has a fascist agenda and stubbornly clings to it, despite any data or information to the contrary. 

People don’t consider the fact that many smaller businesses go down the tubes because they cannot compete with the big boxes.  And why are they unable to compete with the big boxes?  In retail, it’s more than the competition due to monopolistic characteristics such as volume buying.  It also has to do with the high cost of insurance premiums caused by huge amounts of frivolous lawsuits.  I know because I had family which experienced this. 

No, the tea party brain washes people into believing the ONLY cause of small business demise is due to taxes.  And the tea party plays this up even more with Obama’s healthcare.  Such reform is the blame for our woes.  I beg to differ.  And if I am considered negative because I beg to differ, I feel sorry for those who consider this negative.  You need your brain washed with facts and statistics which are true, not those driven by Fox News, Wall Street, and the lawyers which control our government – or business people like George Bush and Rick Scott who do the bidding of whatever the lawyers tell them to do.

Happy Valentines Day! 

Amazing how a day named after a Roman Catholic saint who took pleasure in murdering Protestants could be used to exemplify “love!”  Sort of like Valentines Day wishes given to gay men and women by Archbishop Peter Akinola of Nigeria and the Ugandan leaders. 

On a brighter note…

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Renee Fleming!   Luciano Pavarotti was king of the high “C’s” and Renee Fleming is queen of the high “C’s!”  While I enjoy Renee’s rock genre CD, she is the best in opera!  To many more years of enjoyment of the sensitivity and vibrancy of Renee’s beautiful voice!  My colleagues kid me that I talk about Renee so much that they think she is my girl friend.  Is that such a bad thing?

People may obtain the wrong impressions about others merely by judgments from blogs and social networking.  Yesterday on my blog, I made some comments based on knowledge from conservative and liberal writers of the 1960s.  The comments were poking fun of Abraham Lincoln.  Some could conclude that my “what if…” scenario about Lincoln never attacking the South would have ultimately -perhaps (no certainty – as I said in my post) proven better for African-Americans and USA race relations.  Those are ideas based on history and the way humans function.  If someone concludes from that posting I am racist or anything else which is negative, I feel real sorry for them.  

After all, Abraham Lincoln was a lawyer.  Other than leaving me in great debt and forcing frivolous lawsuits on society – the cause of our higher insurance premiums and what not – what have lawyers done for me that is positive?  I have a hard time determining what good has come from lawyers – the people who control the Florida and Federal legislative branches – I have heard figures of 90 – 95%.  But I will NOT be like Fox News and impose these figures on the public.  Instead, I will ask this question:  Am I correct? 

Have a great day – the day after Abraham Lincoln’s birthday.

12 February 2011.

“Happy birthday, Abie baby,
Happy birthday to you
Happy birthday, Abie baby,
Happy birthday to you
Bang!
Bang? Ha ha. Shit, I’m not dying for no white man.
(Tell it like it is, baby.)”

(Lyrics from Broadway musical, Hair)

Happy Birthday, Abe Lincoln, the first Republican president! 

Abie Baby defined deception.  Like George Bush and other contemporary Republicans, Abe Lincoln used a human rights issue (albeit in a positive mode when compared to George Bush – the negative one with a Masters of Beer & Ale or MBA) as a wedge issue.  The true intent of Lincoln was to create a strong Federal government in the USA.  The Republican Party was formed as a human rights party.  It was New York City businessmen and Abie Baby who dissected it into the party of “Fat Cats” and humanists.  The party of George Washington, the “Whigs,” and the Federalists were all dying and needed to rise again.  So out of the ashes came the Republican Party as its abolitionists sold their souls to the greedy devils of the land and attached to the old conglomerate of Federalists.  People like Ezra Cornell, founder of Cornell University and an avid abolitionist, stood together with greedy businessmen in an alliance made for Satan.  It was great for each side to rub each other’s backs.

The “Happy Birthday, Abie Baby” lyrics from the musical, Hair,  imply a sarcastic attitude about Abraham Lincoln which I believe is rooted in what I describe above.  Sung by African-American girls (to be politically correct, I shall not say, “Black girls,” despite the fact that was how they were described in the 1960s when Hair was first produced), the song implies a certain disrespect for the man who was the “Great EE-mancipator!” – also lyrics used in Hair.  Abie Baby was no different than the “Great Commmm-unicator,” sleazy Ronald Reagan. 

When I was a kid, I read the words of conservative William F. Buckley, Jr., and liberal Gore Vidal.  I got a picture from both sides, but was happy to see our government really did not divide so pervasively into these two factions during the 1960s.  We were divided by a war and civil rights.  Ideological divisiveness, in my opinion, is based on nothing and accomplishes nothing except extensive bickering in order to see who can yell the loudest and which group has more control freaks.  In this volatile environment, solutions are out of the question. 

It seems my greatest nightmares about this situation have come to pass!  Both Buckley, Jr., and Vidal are now dead.  And what we have is a nation as divided as it was during our past history, but based on unreasonable demands of each stubborn side of the ideological fence.  Unlike our earlier periods, this period is dangerous because this divisiveness bears more similarities to 1917 Russia and Hitler’s rise to power in the 1930s. 

Back in the 1960s, I recall reading an essay by Gore Vidal which shocked me.  The Hair lyrics about Abie Baby validate what Vidal  said.  Mr. Vidal suggested that Abie Baby should have just left South Carolina alone when it decided to secede from the USA.  For if Abie Baby was truly in favor of ending slavery… if slavery was Abie Baby’s first priority… then he would have stood a better chance of ending slavery with less bloodshed had he just left the Confederate States of America go off and face the world on its own.  For in 1807, Britain had outlawed slavery.  Had Abie Baby left things alone, the Dixie justices in the Supreme Court could have been replaced with those favorable to abolition and overturned the Dred Scott Decision, thus allowing African slaves in the South a shorter route to freedom.  Perhaps the CSA would have constructed a big fence – sort of like the one described by a nitwit contemporary Republican Congessman… sort of like the Iron Curtain the communists built.  Eventually, what happens to such walls? 

This may be a “what if…” scenario.  Perhaps the results would have been far different.  No one can say for certain. 

I believe, however, that we, as a society learn more about our path to the future if we consider such scenarios and openly discuss them, rather than embrace the Dick (Armey) heads and reject solutions based solely on ideology.  I never fully accepted or embraced what either Buckley or Vidal had to say.  But I considered the value of their words for human knowledge and understanding. 

Abie Baby was a man who compromised the original goals of the Republican Party – abolition of slavery – in order to invoke the powers of a centralized government and this, and the race relations have been a huge unsolved problem ever since.  Just prior to the American Civil War, a Mississippi writer stated his distaste for the “despotism” of the North.  Perhaps this writer was correct.  But taking an objective look at this, I have to ask:  what about the despotism of the South in the form of the Dred Scott Decision?  This was an example of one faction of this nation imposing its will upon another faction – through the court system.  Faction A (the South) forced Faction B (slaves and abolitionists) to live in misery when Faction A was not forced to live in misery. Faction A had its extreme wealth.  In Faction B, there were those who had nothing (slaves) or were those in the North able to carve out a decent living without the extremes of feudal land ownership and sacrificed their time to civil liberty issues that should have been a natural part of our society in the first place.  At the most, Faction A would have had to accept a little bit less for the sake of overall HUMANITY. 

HUMANITY, not an ANIMAL KINGDOM.    Animals cannot create democracies, but humans are able to do so as long as barbaric animal-like control-freak obstructionists, with plenty of greed and selfishness, are not allowed to impose animalistic characteristics upon society.  I prefer humanity. 

So, once again, Happy Birthday, Abie Baby!  Each year, we honor what you did for (to?) this nation with President’s Day sales in the retail outlets.  Our societal lust for shopping has obscured the real date of your birth.  Most Americans probably do not remember you were born on Feb. 12.  The American society which has developed in the intervening years appreciates the racial divide and states’ rights issues which still exist today.  After all, we can simply ignore all those issues and march off to the mall.  

Thanks, Abie Baby!  You did a wonderful job!

Given the situation in Egypt, we can appreciate what we have in America.  Or can we?  Or will fascist ones in this nation force the people into a corner?  There are signs of impending fascist leaders who wish to push us in such a direction.

The Autocratic wing of the Republican Party (also known as tea sippers in Boston Harbor) continue their senseless push to an austerity budget.  Despite the historical evidence to the contrary, these autocrats (or despots?) continue to push us into a hole when we need to create opportunities.  How well connected are these guys to the Chinese Communist regime?  After all, Tricky Dickey opened that door many years ago (Mr. Adams even wrote an opera about it – Nixon in China) and many people in the Autocratic wing of the Republican Party are those die-hard Nixon fans.  How much are these people pushing us towards subservience to the Chinese Communists and many people go along figuing these guys could not actually be supporting communists because they label liberals as such!  Think about this situation and how well a bunch of hoodlums would be able to cover over – in Watergate style after learning the lessons of failure during Tricky Dickey’s term in office. 

Americans need to wake up.  Three times in American history American people were fired upon – like the guys in Tien Mien Square.  Each time, the Republicans were in charge.  Take notice, Mr Allen West:  learn your history because one of those presidents, Mr. Herbert Hoover, received his support from the KKK and fired upon veterans AND THEIR FAMILIES returning from World War I. 

Castro had many people thinking he was going to introduce democracy to Cuba, but our leaders pulled the rug from beneath him.  So why would a loner go seek aid from another nation like the Soviet Union?  I don’t know.  I guess it’s called survival. 

Ho Chi Minh openly characterized himself as a communist.  The Viet Cong were communist.  Yet, who was Ho Chi Minh’s REAL HERO?  President George Washington of the United States of America!  Look at that capitalist nation called Vietnam today and tell me that ideology played a large role in defining Ho Chi Minh.  And how many men and women died in that crazy war?  And at the height of that war, Tricky Dickey fired upon college students protesting the war in Vietnam/Cambodia – in the same manner that Herbert Hoover fired upon veterans WHO HAD GIVEN THEIR LIVES FOR THIS COUNTRY. 

I am saying ideology is NOT the deciding factor.  It’s about how well control freaks are able to grab power and screw millions of people in the process.  I say the decisiveness today in America is based on ignorance and unreasoning encouraged by the strategies of control freaks.  They have so many people believing things about commuinsm and socialism that are absolutely false.  These messages blind the REAL reasons we need to examine as to why Stalin, Lenin, Mao Tse-tung, and Castro gain power – and it has little or nothing to do with communism, but it has bunches to do with the top of control freaks we see dishing out propaganda at Fox News.

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