The Turner Chronicles

The Turner Chronicles

The Coming of Tanis

This is not a traditional vampire novel. Vampires create the struggle that builds the tension good novels have but there is far more to consider.

I'm proud of this book. There are no awkward sentences and no slow moving paragraphs. Much of today's prose is poorly written. Readers skip entire sections to move the story forward. You will not skip a word of this book.

About the Book

Set in the Appalachian Mountains in the late 1800's the initial book of The Turner Chronicles (The Coming of Tanis) details the mountain peoples’ struggle against the vampires who rise every seven years.

There are no stereotypical images here of the Appalachian region or of cold, clammy vampires. This is a story of enlightenment and growth through struggle.

The Turner Chronicles is beautifully written and there are important things to consider. 

Have a look inside the book and buy it in paperback or Kindle. Here's the link.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1517457068?ref_=cm_sw_r_tw_awd_XlBhwbMDKHSDR   

Euphemisms by Daniel & Cletis

The extreme right wing has always been good at euphemistic language. States' rights was the favored code word justifying slavery 150 years ago and Jim Crow 100 years later. Religious freedom works well for denying women's right to control their own health care and doubles as justification for denying people's right to marry whom they choose. Voter suppression magically becomes about protecting electoral integrity.

Another euphemism in the news recently is right to work. Like states' rights, religious freedom and honest elections, right to work sounds like a good thing. It isn't. Right to work is nothing more than a cynical euphemism for union busting.

Trust me. What's good for the global economy is generally bad for workers. Corporations now have the whole world to find the cheapest available labor in their never ending pursuit for higher profits.

Unions won some early rounds but they've lost every round for the last forty years to an increasingly globalized economy. Can you spell NAFTA CAFTA and TPP?

Capitalism has no conscience. People are expendable. The environment is expendable. Reviving labor unions may well be the only thing standing between the American middle class and extinction.

Not Your Grandfather's GOP

Republicans have not always been totally crazy you know. Here are a few quotes from prominent members of the Grand Old Party you will not hear these days ... 

* “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.” Dwight D. Eisenhower

* “Labor is prior to ... and independent of ... capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital and deserves much the higher consideration.” Abraham Lincoln

* “I believe there should be a very much heavier progressive tax on very large incomes, a tax which should increase in a very marked fashion for gigantic incomes.” Theodore Roosevelt

* “Today’s so-called ‘conservatives’ don’t even know what the word means. They think I've turned liberal because I believe a woman has a right to an abortion. That’s a decision that’s up to the pregnant woman, not up to the pope or some do-gooders or the Religious Right. It’s not a conservative issue at all.” Barry Goldwater

* “While I am a great believer in the free enterprise system and all that it entails, I am an even stronger believer in the right of our people to live in a clean and pollution-free environment.” Barry Goldwater

* “We establish no religion in this country. We command no worship. We mandate no belief, nor will we ever. Church and state are and must remain separate.” Ronald Reagan

Now, contrast these words with those of Rick Santorum, Ted Cruz, Scott Walker, Mike Huckabee, or any of the other cave dwelling troglodytes who constitute today's GOP leadership ...

The Yellow Rose of Texas

I grew up in Kentucky and am well aware Stephen Foster did not write “… the people are gay” in his masterpiece, My Old Kentucky Home. He wrote “… the darkies are gay” which was changed some years back. However, until this morning when I was jumping around in Wiki, I did not know the fascinating story behind The Yellow Rose of Texas.

Here it is in brief:

Interestingly, the Yellow Rose alluded to in the song was most likely a mulatto woman named Emily D. West who was born a free woman in New Haven, Connecticut. In 1835 Emily indentured as a housekeeper for a year and was taken to Texas where, not long after, she was kidnapped by Mexican cavalry and forced to travel with Santa Anna’s army. 

In 1842 an Englishman, William Bollaert, wrote in his journal that Santa Anna was in bed with Emily when his forces were routed by Sam Houston's army at the Battle of San Jacinto in 1836.

Bollaert's story grew and after his journals were published in 1956 Emily's legend became more widely known. Apparently, the original lyrics of the Yellow Rose were a tribute to her skin tone and great beauty. Like My Old Kentucky Home the lyrics have been changed over the years and no reference to Emily’s color remains.

Here are the original, handwritten lyrics of the Yellow Rose dated 1836 and archived at the University of Texas. No authorship is claimed. 

A Spock would say, "Fascinating."

 ... There's a yellow rose in Texas, that I am going to see/No other darky knows her, no darky only me/ She cryed so when I left her it like to broke my heart/And if I ever find her, we nevermore will part.

Chorus: She's the sweetest rose of color this darky ever knew/Her eyes are bright as diamonds, they sparkle like the dew/You may talk about your Dearest May, and sing of Rosa Lee/But the Yellow Rose of Texas is the only girl for me.

When the Rio Grande is flowing, the starry skies are bright/She walks along the river in the quite summer night/She thinks if I remember, when we parted long ago/I promised to come back again, and not to leave her so.

[Repeat Chorus]

Oh now I'm going to find her, for my heart is full of woe/And we'll sing the songs together, that we sung so long ago/We'll play the bango gaily, and we'll sing the songs of yore/And the Yellow Rose of Texas shall be mine forevermore.

[Repeat Chorus] ...

This is not the original but it is very early .... 1858 

Beware the Preacher

Mike Huckabee says: "I almost wish that there would be, like, a simultaneous telecast, and all Americans would be forced — forced at gunpoint no less — to listen to every David Barton message, and I think our country would be better for it. I wish it'd happen."

Now, here are a few things we would be hearing courtesy of Huckabee's idea of a historian, David Barton: 

1. Demonic powers control the government.
2. The Founding Fathers opposed the teaching of evolution.
3. Jesus opposed the minimum wage.
4. The Bible opposes Net Neutrality.
5. The US would have won the Vietnam war if it had flown just one more bombing run.
6. Prayer stopped the BP oil spill.
7. Intolerance of gays is a sign a nation is undergoing a spiritual revival.
8. We can't find a cure for AIDS because it is God's punishment for sin.
9. Life begins not at conception, but before conception.
10. People are probably on welfare because they are not reading the Bible enough.

According to Barton, "The NRA was founded in order to protect freed slaves from lynchings and that there never used to be school shootings in the 1800s because all of the kids carried guns to school."

Want more?

Barton's book, The Jefferson Lies, was pulled by his conservative publisher because Barton fabricated quotes in an effort to depict Jefferson as a staunch Christian. According to Barton, Jefferson said this about separation of church and state,

"On January 1, 1802, Jefferson wrote to that group of Danbury Baptists, and in this letter, he assured them—he said the First Amendment has erected a wall of separation between church and state, he said, but that wall is a one-directional wall. It keeps the government from running the church, but it makes sure that Christian principles will always stay in government."

This one directional section is a completely made up by Barton whose lies were even too much for many conservatives to stomach. Yet, Mike Huckabee still believes in Barton and wants us to eat this swill .... at gun point if necessary.

Now, one from Huckabee:

 

"I have opponents in this race who do not want to change the Constitution," Huckabee told a Michigan audience on Monday. "But I believe it's a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living god. And that's what we need to do -- to amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than try to change God's standards so it lines up with some contemporary view."

No thanks, Mike ....

Selfish

I’ll make you a bet. Think back on your school days. Remember any selfish kids? I'll bet you do and I'll also bet you don't remember them fondly. Selfishness is not a quality most of us admire. 

Consider GOP presidential hopeful Sen Marco Rubio. Rubio is hard line on immigration and distances himself from his own immigrant heritage by falsely claiming his parents were political exiles fleeing Castro.

They weren't. Rubio's parents immigrated to the United States in 1956; three years before Castro took power in Cuba. Oddly, Rubio now works to shut down the immigrant dreams of others; even kids who were brought here as small children and have known no other home.

Consider also Ben Carson, a prominent neurosurgeon turned GOP presidential candidate, who grew up eating meals courtesy of the food stamp program and wearing glasses provided through a tax-payer supported initiative.

Food and vision care provided by government programs for a child who now says, "Obamacare is the worst thing that has happened in this nation since slavery. In a way, it is slavery, because it is making all of us subservient to the government."

Want more? Consider recent vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan whose dad died young. Ryan, who received Social Security benefits until he was eighteen, now does all he can to privatize and destroy Social Security; derisively referring to those who need help as, Takers.

Many conservatives fail to understand that Social Security was never intended to be just a retirement account. We pay into it with the knowledge there will be money for us in our later years, but also with the understanding we are contributing to the well-being of millions of Americans we will never even meet; people like a sixteen year old kid named Paul Ryan. 

Public assistance is a truly noble idea and goes to the heart of the fundamental American belief that we are in this together; that we contribute to a common cause; that we work to create a supportive, compassionate society.

In short most of us aren't self absorbed ... and most of us aren't going to support politicians who ask us to be that way.

Union Made

The golf links lie so near the mill
That almost every day
The laboring children can look out
And see the men at play.

Sarah Cleghorn 1915

 

Not so long ago child labor was wide spread in America and widely accepted. There were no protections for kids and adult workers were little better than slaves. To a large degree it was union men and women who put an end to that. 

Now, by design, we again find ourselves headed in the wrong direction. Workers' rights are increasingly non existent; taken away by corporations and the politicians who do their bidding. So called Right to Work Laws, unfair trade agreements, and outsourcing have destroyed unions and consequently much of our middle class. 

None of this is an accident. The corporate take over of America is a choreographed, generational effort that has largely achieved its aims ... average real wages have not grown since 1973 while investor returns on an hour of American labor have more than doubled ...

Why? Consider this graph. Without unions workers have little say and the loss of union political influence has created a vast wealth disparity in America. Now, this 0.1% of our population, with the help of the best government money can buy, speaks of the wealth of Midas in dismissive terms. 

Oddly, these very Conservatives often scream about *wealth redistribution* policies when they are liberal efforts to feed the hungry or house the homeless but say nothing about tax laws that redistribute wealth upward.

Every work related benefit each of us enjoys was hard won by union men and women and we need to point that out to everyone we meet. We will not rebuild a vibrant middle class without first rebuilding unions that speak for workers.

With Gusto

Few people get through life without saying something embarrassing. I've done my share but the most embarrassing thing I’ve ever done did not involve saying a word. Although I did, in a manner of speaking, make myself heard.

For a few years, I taught at a middle school conveniently across the street from a very busy McDonald’s. Most mornings I stopped in, ordered coffee and an Egg McMuffin, and settled down with the sports page of the Washington Post. It became routine and like most routines it became comfortable. Sometimes, that’s not a good thing.

Hot coffee, an Egg McMuffin, and the early morning light of a beautiful October day throwing leaf patterns across the room distorted my sense of place. I forgot where I was and being male ... think active gastrointestinal system ... and being ... I believed alone in the world … well, who would have thought a run of the mill McDonald’s would have acoustics rivaling Carnegie Hall?

The tone of the room altered and like Dorothy I realized I was no longer in Kansas. I slowly lowered my paper and was greeted by at least a hundred people ... frozen in mid bite ... staring in my direction. There was nothing to do but raise the newspaper, wait as long as I could, and slip out the side door.

The next morning I skipped breakfast and went straight to school. On my desk ... just the way I like it ... was a cup of McDonald’s coffee with two creamers and two packs of sugar. No one ever claimed responsibility.

High Places ...

"For behold, He who forms mountains and creates the wind And declares to man what are His thoughts, He who makes dawn into darkness and treads on the high places of the earth ..." Amos 4:13

I grew up in the Appalachian region of Kentucky and my friends and I spent a lot of time in the mountains. As children, we tore up cardboard boxes and slid down the sedge grass on the lower slopes. We drank from cold, mountain springs and swam and fished in the rushing waters of silver quick streams.

As teenagers, we spent a lot of nights parked on wide spaces along the roads that crossed the mountains. We drank beer and sat on car hoods and tried to grow up. We struggled with doubts, argued, and debated philosophy in accordance with beer consumed. There was never a better place to be young.

It was Huckleberry Finn in the Appalachians. It was James Still’s River of Earth. In the shadow of Still's sun-ball, we were “a borning, a begetting, and a dying.”

Sadly, it seems the love of money always trumps plain good sense and in recent years Old King Coal has rearranged the Appalachian landscape. There's money to be made and the most cost effective way to make it is to blow the mountains apart and scrape up the coal.

Streams that have nourished the rivers of Kentucky for eons are choked off now. Trees that have stood watch since Daniel Boone walked through the Cumberland Gap lie broken and rotting on the ground ... the destruction of entire ecosystems ... the death rattle of a dying industry ... 

Genesis says we have been given dominion over the earth and over the plants and animals of the earth, If that's the case, I'm pretty sure God envisioned careful stewardship not carte blanche issuance of mountain top removal permits.

The Appalachians are among the oldest mountains on earth and they are sacred ... the province of the pilgrim ... and when coal is mined it should be mined in the least intrusive way possible. When we destroy places of the spirit, we erase our collective memory ... and we lose our ability to appreciate our smallness.

Here's Terry Muncy ... 

It Was You Ronnie

Ronnie, when you announced your candidacy for president in 1979, you gave us these inspiring words. "A troubled and afflicted mankind looks to us, pleading for us to keep our rendezvous with destiny; that we will uphold the principles of self-reliance, self-discipline, morality, and, above all, responsible liberty for every individual that we will become that shining city on a hill."

That's good stuff, Ronnie. So, what happened to the "morality and responsible liberty?" How about the slaughter of our marines in Beirut? Did their lives matter? Were the lies later told by your party to invade Iraq an example of the morality you reference? How did your vision of a "shining city on a hill" lead us to this place of despair for so many? What part did you play, Ronnie?

Wasn't it you who allowed Poindexter and North to set aside our Constitution and operate a shadow government while you napped? Of course it was. It was also you who fired the air traffic controllers and encouraged the ongoing assault on unions that has destroyed America's middle class. You are the person most responsible for creating a corporate aristocracy in America and a wealth disparity unseen since the Gilded Age.

You spoke of Morning in America but brought forth only darkness and despair. You're the one who begat George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Grover Norquist and the countless legions who have diminished our Republic. You are the true patriarch of the Tea Party and current Republican wannabes like Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and Rick Perry are your idiot progeny.

Good job, Gipper. Good fucking job.

Rewind the Insanity

"Pick Sarah Palin," they said. She'll bring in the women's vote. Sure

she's dumb but she looks good and we can control her." 

"Get her on the phone ... bring her on board," I said. 
"Oh yeah. I said it. God forgive me I did."

"Then, I said I cheated on my wife because I had worked so hard for the good of the country I needed to calm down some. I swear to God, Rick, the Teabaggers lapped it up."

"Ron, I swear .... make one more negative remark about me and I'm telling everybody you're Secret Service code name is Depends."

"Well, I don't care what the others say, Lindsey. You look fabulous."

"Damn! I make it to the top and America finally gets around to judging a man by the content of  his character. Thanks a fucking lot, Martin ..."

Sing Along With Cletis

Randy Randy

Give us your answer do

Are you crazy

Thinking we’d vote for you

I shouldn't deign to disparage

But it won't be a miscarriage

Cause your deceit

You lying cheat

Means America would get screwed

Christie Christie

Wassa matta witchu

Are you bonkers

Thinking we'd vote for you

What a terrible miscarriage

Is yours and Jersey's marriage

And we'd rather be switched

Than see you hitched

To the rest of America too

Newtie Newtie

Give us your answer do

Are you loony 

Thinking we'd vote for you

Your poor wife's embarrassment

Due to your serial harassment

Means we'd rather be switched

Than see you hitched

To the rest of America too

Voices From The Clown Car

" .... War? Oh, hell yeah! Thumbs up ..." 

 "... sure I got free eye glasses through a government program and mamma was getting food stamps but just think what I could have been without Big Brother interfering in my life ..."

" ... George W Bush? The name sounds a little familiar but I can't place him. Is he in the movies or something ..."

" ... I swear ... that bitch is wearing my pumps ..." 

"... really? ... so if evolution is survival of the fittest how do you explain idiots like me ..."

GOP Hopefuls ..... God Save Us

".... that's right ... the first thing I do each morning is wake up and smell the coffers .... er coffee ... smell the coffee ..."

"Oh myyyyyyyyyy ... look at the size of the wallet on that man ..."

"How do we best help working people? How the hell should I know? Do these look like the hands of a man who has ever done a lick of physical labor in his life ..."

"Hmmmm ... immigration reform? .... Give me a minute ... don't rush me ... trying to remember what I said yesterday ..."

"And my head I'd be scratchin' ... While my thoughts were busy hatchin' ... If I only had a brain ..."

Really Mike? Really Rand? Really?

Recently, Reverend Mike Huckabee criticized President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama for allowing their children to listen to the music of  Beyonce Knowles. I have to tell you the sound you heard at that time was me falling off the couch.

Not two days before Huckabee said this I came across an article on the internet regarding Rev Huckabee’s son. The piece detailed the horror of David Huckabee, then seventeen years old, and a friend who hanged a dog while working as camp counselors. Some years later, the same son was arrested for carrying a gun onto an airplane.

I'm not sure what music Rev Huckabee permitted at home but at this point I want to know how the hell he has the balls to criticize anyone's parenting.

And what of Senator Rand Paul linking Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky to Hillary Clinton’s current pursuit of the presidency. Normal people consider that quite a stretch but it isn't necessarily surprising considering Sen Paul's obvious issues with strong women.

Like Huckabee, Paul is another smug, self righteous nut job who has also done a less than stellar job parenting. Just the other day his twenty-two year old son was arrested in Kentucky for driving under the influence of alcohol and without proper insurance. This on top of being drunk and disorderly on an airplane a couple years back.

Personally, I'm thinking William Paul's behavior is the result of Sen Paul's libertarian philosophy ... to hell with rules and regulations, son ... don't let that dang nanny government get in your way out there ... 

Here's Jimmy McMillan's take ... 

TPP ... Obama's Horror Show

TPP is a horror show and if a Republican president were leading this charge my fellow progressives would be screaming. Obama speaks eloquently to his vision for this treaty but he has lost his way and all his well chosen words do not alter facts.

TPP will lower wages for many Americans, give corporations even more power, and literally usurp our laws and Constitution.

Here's what Bernie Sanders points out ...

1. TPP will allow corporations to outsource even more jobs overseas.

2. U.S. sovereignty will be undermined by giving corporations the right to challenge our laws before international tribunals.

3. Wages, benefits, and collective bargaining will be threatened.

4. Our ability to protect the environment will be undermined.

5. Food Safety Standards will be threatened.

6. Buy America laws could come to an end.

7. Prescription drug prices will increase, access to life saving drugs will decrease, and the profits of drug companies will go up.

8. Wall Street would benefit at the expense of everyone else.

9. The TPP would reward authoritarian regimes like Vietnam that systematically violate human rights.

10. The TPP has no expiration date, making it virtually impossible to repeal.

Now, watch Robert Reich dismantle this horrible legislation in two and a half minutes. 





Want more? Here are two links to well written articles. 

 
http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2015/04/trans-pacific-partnership-negotiations-explainer-obama

http://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/04/18/obamas-trade-agreements-are-gift-corporations

Beware the Heirs of Robert Bork

One of the more important powers delegated to the president by the Constitution is the power to appoint judges ... in particular the justices of the United States Supreme Court. These are lifetime appointments and short of impeachment most justices hang on for a long time. 

Several years ago in Citizens United the Roberts Court essentially ruled money, in the form of political contributions by corporations, is the same as free speech and protected by the First Amendment. This was an astonishing finding on the part of the Court and dramatically changed the political process in our country ... essentially putting our government on the auction block to the highest bidder.

This is the power of the Supreme Court and why we must carefully consider the person who will be appointing future justices. Personally, I make  no apologies for my fervent prayers asking that today's opportunistic and lying Republican leadership be struck by lightning before being allowed to appoint another justice.

During the last presidential campaign, Romney's go to guy for advice selecting potential judges was the odious (now dead) rejected Supreme Court nominee, Robert Bork. Bork would scare the hell out of Attila the Hun ... abject evil.

Here are a few of Bork's views Conservatives so readily embrace:

Bork defended poll taxes and literacy tests for voters and he called the Civil Rights Act unsurpassed ugliness.

He believed politicians should be able to outlaw birth control.

He believed the First Amendment shouldn't apply to literature, art, or science.

Bork believed the Constitution's promise of Equal Protection didn't apply to women.

He ruled that a corporation is free to tell female employees to be sterilized or be fired.

Following Bork's nomination to the Court in 1987, Senator Ted Kennedy took to the Senate floor with a strong condemnation of Bork declaring:

"Robert Bork's America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens' doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists could be censored at the whim of the Government, and the doors of the Federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens for whom the judiciary is—and is often the only—protector of the individual rights that are the heart of our democracy ... President Reagan is still our president. But he should not be able to reach out from the muck of Irangate, reach into the muck of Watergate and impose his reactionary vision of the Constitution on the Supreme Court and the next generation of Americans. No justice would be better than this injustice."

Bork was not confirmed but his influence endures in Conservative circles. Senator Kennedy may as well have been describing Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, or any number of today's Republican hopefuls. 

Those who love our democracy must never allow another Republican to appoint another Supreme Court justice ... can I get an amen? 

They Were Women Then

I smile and shake my head when I hear a politician like Rand Paul showing his obvious contempt for women. He is a fool. Dignity and courage are not ethnicity nor race specific but women seem to have gotten the lion's share. Here's Alice Walker ...

Women by Alice Walker

They were women then
My mama’s generation
Husky of voice—stout of
Step
With fists as well as
Hands
How they battered down
Doors
And ironed
Starched white
Shirts
How they led
Armies
Headragged generals
Across mined
Fields
Booby-trapped
Ditches
To discover books
Desks
A place for us
How they knew what we
Must know
Without knowing a page
Of it
Themselves.

TPP ... An Oligarch's Dream

Twitter now permits me to see a list of those I've blocked from interacting with me. My political philosophy is generally progressive so, as you might suspect, the vast majority of those who may no longer view my account are right wing nut jobs.

However, there are also a good number of left wing nut jobs who place their loyalty to Barack Obama far above their loyalty to their alleged principles. Once I realize a person is incapable of reason because of fidelity to a particular ideology I’m through with them.

Now come unto us Trans Pacific Partnership; a treaty orchestrated and championed by Barack Obama which will further destroy America’s middle class and exacerbate environmental destruction worldwide. 

For several years, I've attempted to focus attention on this looming disaster in real life and on the internet. Irrespective of how mildly I phrase my criticisms of Obama and his efforts to fast-track this treaty, many of my fellow progressives scream like the proverbial banshees.

Generally, they make no effort to dispute my points opting instead to make statements like, “President Obama would not do anything to hurt the middle class.” This despite the fact that even a brief reading of the leaked provisions of TPP shows conclusively this treaty is essentially a race to the bottom. It literally gives corporations veto power over duly elected governments . . . via secret courts. Yes, you read that right.

Without a doubt, my progressive friends and followers would be apoplectic if TPP were being put forth by a Republican president. Of course, Republican leaadership is totally on board with this treaty as it helps in their ongoing efforts to create the FSA ... Feudal States of America ... ruled by an elite corporate aristocracy.

Read the paper or watch your favorite cable television news in the coming days. TPP is on the doorstep. Fast tracking has been approved by Congress and that means there will be no public discussion by our elected representatives nor will those  representatives be allowed to amend this disastrous treaty.

I've defended President Obama time and again because he has been unjustly criticized and even vilified by fools and knaves. TPP, however, is Obama's baby and he deserves every serious criticism he receives for bringing this disaster to fruition.

How amazingly hypocritical to speak so eloquently of transparent government, and the need to grow and strengthen America’s middle class, while working secretly to implement an economic treaty that will do the exact opposite.

Read this op/ed from the NYT and see if you are still committed to supporting Obama irrespective of his policies.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/14/opinion/dont-keep-trade-talks-secret.html?_r=0

He Did Make Us A Man ... His Name Was Woody

"Then God sat down -
On the side of a hill where he could think;
By a deep, wide river he sat down;
With his head in his hands,
God thought and thought,
Till he thought I'll make me a man!"

James Weldon Johnson

Every now and then someone steps out of the mists and tells the world the truth. They are never received warmly. If you don't believe me, ask Jesus Christ ...

Jesus is one of my heroes. Another is Woody Guthrie. Woody would be over a hundred years old now so it's doubtful he'd be riding the rails, but there's no doubt he'd still be speaking truth to power.

Listen to the lyrics below and read up on the Ludlow Massacre. Past is often prologue you know. 

  

A man ....

Clowns ... but dangerous 

Eliminate The Cap

Well, they're at it again. This time it's Chris Christie up in New Hampshire making a lot of noise about the need to make hard choices in dealing with the solvency of Social Security. As usual, those hard choices are hard only for the poor and middle class.

Of course, Christie failed to say anything about the most obvious solution for shoring up Social Security ... simply remove the taxable income cap.


Don't be embarrassed if you didn't know there is an income limit for collecting Social Security taxes. Most of you have probably never experienced it. The cap, adjusted each year for inflation, is currently around $117,000 thus most Americans pay 6.2% on their total income. As income rises, the percentage of Social Security taxes paid relative to income drops thus those earning a million dollars pay 0.66% or less.


Why is there a cap in the first place and why does your local school teacher pay 6.2% of her income while those earning a million a year pay 0.66%?  It's the same reason rich folks get tax cuts and subsidies ... the wealthy have more influence on Congress than the poor and middle class do.


Why do we then maintain the income cap in the face of alleged Social Security insolvency? If you ask a commentator at Fox News the reasons are the same lame ones offered up for continuing the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy ... removing the cap would result in a crippled economy and would be a massive job killer ... Of course, this is just more GOP bullshit.

Most Americans are patriotic and more than willing to make individual sacrifices for the good of the whole. Ironically, the objections for paying a fair share usually come from those who can most afford to show their appreciation for all America has given them.

Here's the truth of this from an honorable man ...


"... eliminating the cap makes the system more progressive and minimizes the added burden for low and moderate income workers ..." Jimmy Carter ~ 1977