It's now 9/4/21 and a lot is different than it was just a year ago.  

Most importantly and most obviously the rich are richer than ever.

Home prices are astronomical and have risen about 25% in Seattle last year alone and it appears that investment companies are doing most of the buying.

The war in Afghanistan is over and no one seems worried that all that military hardware is un-maintained and going to waste.  Or is it?  Maybe the objective of the companies that make this stuff is for the government to buy it.  It doesn't matter if it's used or not.

And, as a small consequence of the Covid-19 pandemic, government subsidies of a few hundred dollars per family have lifted about 45% of the poor out of poverty.

That last thing sounds good but what is happening overall if we step back and take a look.  The rich are getting ever richer and stashing their money in real estate forcing the middle class out of the housing market but at least they won't be in abject poverty.  One percent of the population will have everything and the rest of us will be easily controlled.

Doesn't sound like a democracy to me.  More like an oligarchy.  Let's hope it's a somewhat civil oligarchy like the British in the 19th century and not like the corrupt Russian oligarchy. 

 The dictionary offers these synonyms for oligarchy ... autocracy, oppression, domination, cruelty, authoritarianism, despotism, totalitarianism, coercion, terrorism, absolutism, severity, monocracy, fascism, totality, imperiousness, high-handedness, unreasonableness, reign of terror, peremptoriness.

Wish us luck.

3/7/20

Biden surged in Super Tuesday after South Carolina voted.  Blacks led the way and apparently whites followed their lead.  Turnout was good but didn't seem to help Bernie much

I'm disappointed that Bernie isn't doing better but my position all along is to support any Democrat who wins the primary in order to get rid of Trump.  AND, regardless of who wins, keep the Movement going to make the Democrats more progressive or even lay the groundwork for a third Progressive Party.

Poor Bernie.  He hasn't lost yet but it has been apparent for months that he's not going to win going head to head with the drug companies, insurance companies and fossil fuel corporations and maybe all corporations and the one percenters.

If I were Bernie I would name Stacy Abrams as vice president if he wins, tell Elizabeth Warren that he would like to name her as Attorney General but that it's awfully important that she stay in the Senate.  I would also not pick fights with all the rich and all the corporations at the same time.  Target the corrupt and greedy but work with the few who see that regulation and fair taxes benefit us all and keep the system sustainable.

Bernie might have one last dramatic chance.  But most importantly we all need to keep the Movement going.  What is the Movement? The Progressive Caucus, Justice Democrats and Courage to Change as well as Bernie and AOC??

The democratic wing of the Democratic Party*
who don't take funding from corporate PACs
who are not rich and do not become rich in office
who practice transparency and full disclosure

Which leads to representatives who represent ordinary middle and working class people and not corporations and the super rich.

The democratic wing is not so much an ideology as it is a commitment to the democratic process. It might include some on the left, liberals, socialists and progressives without some of the pejorative connotations. It could also include centrists and conservatives but not those who represent corporations and the super rich.  The democratic wing favors transparency and full disclosure and democratic process in elections and government.

Okay, Bernie Sanders is in the race and just tied with Hillary Clinton in the Iowa Caucus. If he wins, Bernie says, we need a movement to achieve a "political revolution".

Seems to me we need a movement even more if Bernie doesn't win.

Who's going to organize it? Will MoveOn, Occupy, Black Lives Matter, the splintery leftist and socialist groups, the many single interest groups interested only in guns, immigration, women's rights, etc. all join together?  How about what's left of the American unions?  

Maybe Bernie's campaign organization? Obama said much the same thing in 2008 according to Robert Reich but his campaign organization, “Organizing for America”, morphed into “Organizing for Action” and essentially became a PAC for obamas 2012 election.

Socialism is not working for me anymore.  How about the American Cyber-Luddites Union (ACLU)? That was John's idea. Clever. But I really want a group not welded to a nineteenth century ism that works for a system that is not controlled by corporations, banks and very rich people. That's a lot of negatives.  So maybe the ACLU is not so bad after all.

Boeing and the IAM 751

Boeing has really irritated me recently as they attempt to blackmail and break the local machinists union, the IAM District 751 by threatening to move the 777X
plant to one of 22 other states they have conned into offering Boeing massive tax give-aways.

It’s just another drive to the bottom. North Carolina is just a step toward Mexico. No different from Walmart or COSCO.

You might think machinists enjoy a high union wage scale but take a look at it at the current wage scale. The average union wage turns out to be about $16 per hour. Meanwhile the Boeing Corp is racking up record profits and CEO, Jim McNerney, just got a nice multi-million dollar bonus.

It’s unfortunate that the national union is not backing the local. The national is parroting the Boeing threat in what appears to be a hopeless and short sighted appeasement effort. In fact all the politicians (except one) also back Boeing. Save the jobs - we don’t care if they are minimum wage jobs. This is just a way to drive union workers out of the middle class which is exacerbating the polarization of income in America.

Boeing’s competition, Airbus, is owned by EADS, a mostly government-owned European consortium.

Hey, there’s an idea. Why not nationalize Boeing?

“Boeing's attacks on its workforce, together with the company's demand for $8.7 billion in concessions from the State - to be paid  for out of increased taxes on all workers and small businesses - can only be described as corporate blackmail.” and …

“The only viable response to such a situation is to say the needs of the people of Washington – the same ones who have subsidized Boeing with tens of billions of tax payer handouts – come first.  While Boeing CEO’s are free to leave, Boeing's assets - including the intellectual property developed by generations of dedicated engineers and machinists – would need to be taken into democratic public ownership.”*

That’s where I stand and I can’t say it any better than the one elected official who sides with the local and understands the stakes  - * Kshama Sawant who was just elected to Seattle City Council.

Attempt to Privatize Fort Worden State Park

The Attempt to Privatize Fort Worden State Park

In his July message to the Port Townsend community, tucked into our water bills this week, our mayor, David King, tries to promote the Fort Worden Public Development Authority (FWPDA) - the group that wants to take over the management of Fort Worden State Park here in Port Townsend. Many of us think that is a bad idea and that state parks should be owned and managed by the state.

For one thing the mayor points out that a PDA can issue bonds but he also says "the park can never be mortgaged". Really? Don't you need collateral to issue bonds just as with any other debt? When the bonds can't be paid what do the investors get? Wouldn't we in fact be mortgaging the park?

The mayor also claims that the park cannot be "hijacked by private interests" because it will always be under the authority of the City. (At best he is advocating that the state park be managed by the city.) But the next sentence is even worse where he points out that the PDA would be "insulated" from the political process. Is that just a positive spin on not being transparent? It's precisely because the park should be owned and managed openly by the state (not the city) and not "insulated" from the checks and balances of the political process that we oppose control and management by the FWPDA.

The mayor, well-intentioned though he may be, says that control by the FWPDA does not "privatize" the park - a word that he uses - as well as the wonderfully evocative "hijacked by private interests".  I think he has given us a great slogan:

You like the privatization of liquor? You'll love the privatization of of our state park.

Good for the 1% - not so good for the rest of us. More information at "http://tinyurl.com/7dqklng" Or email us at "21stCenturyFortWorden@gmail.com"

Distinguishing between Good and Bad Corporations

Today the New York Times reported that stockholders voted against a $15 million pay package for Citigroup's chief executive, Vikram Pandit. "C.E.O.'s deserve good pay, but there's good pay and there's obscene pay." quipped Brian Wenzinger a principal at Aronson Johnson Ortiz, a money management company that voted against the pay package.

So, does that make Aronson Johnson Ortiz or Citigroup "good" corporations? Hardly. But it does indicate a fissure or an opportunity to influence corporate behavior.

More interestingly today several corporate donors pulled back from supporting the right wing lobby groups, American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and the National Rifle Association (NRA). They were McDonald's, Wendy's, Intuit, Mars, Kraft Foods, Coca-Cola and PepsiCo. Again, does that make these corporations "good"?

Maybe not but maybe we could refine the criteria suggested in my February 12, 2012 post and begin to think of a continuum of "good" to "bad" corporations. Most would, of course, be somewhere in between.

Amended guide or point system for judging "good" corporations - the more points the better the corporation:

1) Make something of value or provide a service of value - up to 5 points

2) Have a workforce that is unionized or in some sort of worker ownership arrangement - up to 5 points

3) Is small, locally owned - up to 2 points

4) Is Transparent and accountable to the public - up to 2 points

5) Does something - a single event or press release in any of the above categories - up to 1 point

So far here is a list:

Southwest Airlines - 7 points (4 points for being unionized and having a worker/ownership plan, 2 points for doing something useful and 1 point for being open and transparent.)

Apple - 4 points (3 points for making something useful and 1 point for being responsive to worker conditions in China)

Starbucks - 3-1/2 points (1 points for making something useful, 2 point for practicing a kind of moral capitalism including buying sustainably grown coffee and 1/2 point for their recent support for same-sex marriage

McDonalds - 3-1/2 points (2 points for making something useful, 1 point for deciding to buy organic potatoes and 1/2 point for ceasing to fund ALEC and the NRA)

Kitsap Bank (Olympic Peninsula) - 2 points (1 point for being small and local and 1 point for being transparent and accountable to the community and customers)

Goldman Sachs - 0 points

Bank of America - 0 points

Obviously this will take a lot of work but at least it might give us a measure to use in evaluating a corporation's actions, policies or contributions to causes or politicians and it might help us in determining how to work with or against certain corporations.

The Obama Administration just proposed to lower corporate taxes (bad idea) in exchange for closing some loopholes (good idea). Why don't they just close the loopholes? One feature, however, does strike me as interesting. The Administration proposes to tax manufacturers at even a lower rate than other corporations - 25% as opposed to 28%. It's probably insignificant but it does raise an important question: What do you make? If you make something of value, like bricks or windmills or cars or build homes, roads or schools, then you should be encouraged with a lower tax. If what you make is money, like investment banks and hedge funds, then maybe not. Can we begin to distinguish between "good" corporations and "bad" corporations as I suggested back in November, 2010? Yes we now have the very encouraging movement of the 99 Occupiers but with both Democrats and Republicans vying to be the spokespeople for corporate interests, as we rush headlong into fascism, it looks as if we the people, the 99, us Americans, are losing. Divide and conquer is a useful strategy in war, politics and chess. Can we find and promote good corporations that make something and obey laws against the bad corporations who are basically gamblers who hide their winnings off shore and take advantage of loopholes? They don't have to break the law like old fashioned gangsters because they own the politicians who they instruct to make the way they steal legal. What would a "good" corporation look like? Maybe we can set some guidelines - points for companies that ... 1) Make something of value or provide a service of value. 2) Have a workforce that is unionized or in some sort of worker ownership arrangement. 3) Is small, locally owned. 4) Transparent and accountable to the public.

Watching Mitt Romney in the South Carolina debate say he wouldn't apologize for being successful reminded me of the Willy Sutton's famous answer, "Mister Sutton, why do you rob banks?" "Well that's where the money is."

Willy thought it was an silly question with an obvious answer. He didn't assume any deeper meaning. He didn't think it was wrong to rob banks. Just as Mitt doesn't see anything wrong with forcing businesses into bankruptcy and putting hundreds of workers out of jobs as long as he and his fellow investors made a lot of money.

From a progressive perspective - nay from an American perspective - Willy is the less evil. He at least distinguished between a person's money and the banks money and didn't steal from individuals. In fact Willy probably would have agreed with Mitt about government regulators. Without so many police he could have robbed more banks more safely.

THREE CHEERS FOR THE MONTANA SUPREME COURT Story in AlterNet.org.

Party of The 99 Platform

What might be the platform of a new Party of The 99?

1) Progressive tax structure.

2) Promote US manufacturing and infrastructure construction - not speculation and gambling.

3) Tax speculative transactions on Wall Street to make rapid computer-generated speculation unprofitable.

4) Fund education and medical services for all.

5) End all wars of aggression and start by ending assassinations especially by drones.

6) Rationalize immigration policy

7) Revoke U.S. Supreme Court’s decision that decreed corporations had constitutional rights

Transparency should be required of the government (with few exceptions which would also soon be made public), all lobbyists and publicly held corporations.

Voting out most of the current Democrats and Republicans who serve corporate interests and replacing them with representatives of The 99 should be a peaceful and lawful goal. The 1% won't just give up, however. We should be prepared to see an increased police/military response using increasingly violent tactics.

Occupy Congress? What a great idea. And DC is warmer than Wall Street. In fact let's take over Congress. We can start with a platform-developing convention and start to create a new party of The 99.

9/26/11

I gave the Obama campaign $50 for 2012 - reluctantly. I guess I think it's worth $50 to support Obama in his last year even though I am very disappointed in his leadership. We are still at war and turning into a police state.

After the campaign thanked me I replied to Rufus as copied below, since I doubt that Rufus will ever read it or that I will ever hear from him.

Rufus, I wish Obama would stand up to the corporate gangsters and their political sycophants. Right now I'm saving my money and real organizing efforts for a program much more progressive than the Obama administration. If no more progressive group arises and Obama continues to be weak, I guess I'd better save my money for the coming hard times. Good luck, Jim Buckley

On Mon, Sep 26, 2011 at 8:17 PM, Rufus Gifford wrote:

Dear Jim,

Thank you for your generous donation of 50.00.

This movement has always measured our strength not just in dollars but in the number of people who step up to own a piece of this campaign.

Will you take the next step and recruit five friends to join you today?

It’s quick and easy on our grassroots fundraising pages, and you’ll be playing a key role in bringing new people into the fold for 2012. Get started here:

https://donate.barackobama.com/Grassroots-Fundraising

Whether you bring in one new donor or 10, you’re building the foundation of this campaign -- and I think you’ll be surprised at how much you can do in a short time.

This movement would not be possible without supporters like you.

Thank you again for your generosity,

Rufus

Rufus Gifford National Finance Director Obama for America

Are There Any Good Corporations?

Chris Hedges, in his article in TruthDig at http://www.truthdig.com/report/page3/power_and_the_tiny_acts_of_rebellion_20101122/ and in his new book, “Death of the Liberal Class” describes the increasing corporate control of American society and our spiral into fascism.

His writing is lucid and well reasoned. I agree with him almost completely. He speaks the truth.

But it is pretty dreary. Hedges ends the article with "I do not know if we can win this battle" but he urges us to keep on "resisting".

Hedges details how corporate America keeps us divided between meaningless dichotomies and cites Dr. Margaret Flowers, a pediatrician from Maryland who he says was blacklisted by the corporate media and locked out of the debate on health care reform by the Democratic Party and liberal organizations such as MoveOn:

“The Democrats and the Republicans give the illusion that there are differences between them,” said Dr. Flowers. “This keeps the public divided. It weakens opposition. We fight over whether a Democrat will get elected or a Republican will get elected. We vote for the lesser evil, but meanwhile the policies the two parties enact are not significantly different.

That got me to wondering if we can't also play divide and conquer. Is Corporate America so monolithic? Are there no good corporations? Seem to me that lots of (mostly small) corporations are ethical, operate within the law and support American democracy. How about Apple and Southwest Airlines and Google? Most of the companies I know in the masonry industry are family-owned. For many the image of John Gault seems to be a goal.

Or is it the corporate hierarchical structure that makes corporate America inherently and necessarily at odds with and in contradiction with American ideas about democracy and freedom? As I quoted the New Yorker, writing about Wikileaks back in June: Considering that many corporations are as big and powerful as whole countries, it's instructive to note that in a corporation there is no right to vote, all power emanates from a central committee, there is no balance of power, no fourth estate, no judicial review and no freedom of speech. The economy is centrally planned, there is pervasive surveillance, no right of association and no opposition.

Google seems like a nice corporation. But as they get larger, richer and more powerful and have all this information about everyone, are they destined to become tyrannical?

I wonder if, like Democrats and Republicans, corporations can be categorized or divided and identified by their internal structure, motives or the good intentions of their owners and officers. Or is it all about and only about money?

Even if it is only about money, democracy and the creation of a forum where dissenting ideas can be discussed was thought by 18th century political theorists and by the American Founding Fathers to be a rational way to make decisions for governments. Why not for corporations? If you wanted to make a lot of money and make good decisions in a more of less sustainable way wouldn't democracy and freedom work within a corporation as well as for a government?

Some corporations have and even encourage unions or are collectively owned by their employees. Some may have board meetings and internal policies that reward innovation or even dissent. On the other hand the corporations that seem to be mostly in the news these days appear to be greedy, arrogant and willing to pollute, screw their employees and the public alike and break laws if can't outright make laws favorable to themselves and nobody else. Can we begin to list these corporate features and distinguish between the "good" corporations with democratic and rationalizing structures and "bad" corporations which operate more like North Korea or the Mafia?

Maybe corporate America isn't as monolithic as Hedges supposes and the way to "resist" is to understand these corporate differences and work the contradictions.

Fourth Amendment

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

The main legal gripe we have against the Border Patrol's highway, bus and ferry check points is, we say they are violating the Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable searches and seizures without probable cause. We know the Supreme 
Court has made an exception to this right at our borders but the 100 mile extension of our borders that effectively abridges the Fourth Amendment for two thirds of the American population seems overreaching.

Law abiding Americans seem to have trouble understanding any need for the Fourth Amendment. "I'm an American, I'm not breaking any laws, the search only takes a few minutes and maybe it helps protect us from terrorists. What's wrong with these random searches?" Well it certainly irritates and scares a lot of minority Americans who think they are being racially or ethnically profiled when they are pulled over and searched thoroughly while white Americans are waved through. Actually to some white Americans it is reminiscent of police state tactics in Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union.

But let's look a little deeper. What is the history and the purpose of the Fourth Amendment? Who is it supposed to protect? What's wrong with police state tactics if we are all law-abiding citizens?

Interestingly the protection against unreasonable search and seizure dates back at least to 1603 in England. ''Every man's house is his castle'' was a maxim much celebrated in England when in the 18th century the courts restrained the King's officers from raiding homes looking for John Wilkes' polemical pamphlets without due process. 
So maybe John Wilkes was exercising his right of free speech but in 17th century England the King thought he was guilty of "seditious libel".

In the American colonies, smuggling rather than seditious libel afforded the leading examples of the necessity for protection against unreasonable searches and seizures.

So the Fourth Amendment really protects those who criticize the government, evade taxes, smuggle or maybe are guilty of other illegal or unpopular activity. We are back to "What's wrong with these searches if I am not breaking any laws?"

Are you sure you are not breaking any laws? Do you pay all your taxes - even on stuff purchased on the Internet? You wouldn't mind those nice Boarder Patrol officers - or maybe the police or IRS agents coming into your house to check your records would you? And, if you were suspected of not paying a tax on the book you just bought from Amazon or couldn't prove your innocence you wouldn't mind being incarcerated in that private prison in Tacoma with the concertina wire on the fence, would you?

Of course I'm exaggerating. It could never come to that. But there is that flap over the 1099s that the government wants to require to close an estimated $300 billion gap between taxes paid versus what is owed. There was that court case in which the state of North Carolina wanted Amazon to divulge all their customers so that NC could go after them for state sales taxes not paid.

Maybe it's more about draconian and disproportional enforcement. We don't mind so much getting a speeding ticket. And there is always the right to appeal in court if you really are not guilty. But being locked up in a prison for not paying a few dollars in state tax? It'll never happen. Yet a Mexican teenager in Forks who has been in this country nearly all of his life and doesn't even speak Spanish or a Guatemalan woman who has lost her Green Card or let it lapse can be imprisoned, charged with a felony and deported with no recourse short of paying many thousands of dollars in legal fees.

First they came for the Mexicans but I wasn't a Mexican ...

1099 Forms to Catch Tax Dodgers?

A little-noticed provision of the health care overhaul law will require small businesses to file a 1099 form with the Internal Revenue Service if they buy supplies or services worth more than $600 from any vendor - even corporations. The controversy has been over the administrative burden of keeping records and filing 1099s for things like gasoline, office supplies, lunches, etc.

But the interesting question is why anyone ever thought this was a good idea.

"The intent behind the change" according to one insider (www.ithinkbigger.com) "is to close an estimated $300 billion gap between taxes paid versus what is owed. Because a copy of each 1099 is filed with the IRS, the change seeks to close this gap ... by making it more difficult for companies to underreport revenue ..."

What?! Corporations don't report all their income and don't pay all their taxes? Gee I thought only unlicensed contractors, itinerant painters, undocumented immigrants, landscapers and handymen who give discounts for cash made up the under ground, under the table, cash only please economy. I wonder how much of that $300 billion gap is the drug and insurance companies as opposed to the little guys not reporting all the cash they take in.

I'm trying to make a point here that a lot of Americans and maybe especially corporations cheat on taxes and aren't that different from the Colonial gun runners and tax evaders the Fourth Amendment was intended to protect.

But as a passing aside maybe doing all the work it would require my company to file a few hundred more 1099s would be worth it if it forced Shell Oil, Apple and Pfizer to pay their taxes.

Take Money off the Table

John Dayton sent me a video by Daniel Pink about motivation, See http://www.danpink.com/archives/2010/06/whiteboard-magic. I thought it was interesting and cute.

Then I read "Management Lessons from Mayo Clinic" because I was so impressed with how well the Mayo Clinic is run. Mayo has institutionalized Minnesota "nice" by creating a purposeful organization - just what Pink was talking about.

If people work because they want to be creative, cooperate, be productive, and give back to the community - rather than work for money - what does that say about the moral foundations of our society?

WikiLeaks

After reading the article in the 6/7/10 issue of the New Yorker about WikiLeaks and it's founder, Julian Assange, I was prompted to take a look at the WikiLeaks website. I love this take on corporations and why it's important to civilize them.

Corporate corruption comes in many forms. The number of employees and turnover of some corporations exceeds the population and GDP of some nation states. When comparing countries, after observations of population size and GDP, it is usual to compare the system of government, the major power groupings and the civic freedoms available to their populations. Such comparisons can also be illuminating in the case of corporations.

Considering the largest corporations as analogous to a nation state reveals the following properties:

1) The right to vote does not exist except for share holders (analogous to land owners) and even there voting power is in proportion to ownership.

2) All power issues from a central committee.

3) There is no balancing division of power. There is no fourth estate. There are no juries and innocence is not presumed.

4) Failure to submit to any order may result in instant exile.

5) There is no freedom of speech.

6) There is no right of association. Even romance between men and women is often forbidden without approval.

7) The economy is centrally planned.

8) There is pervasive surveillance of movement and electronic communication.

9) The society is heavily regulated, to the degree many employees are told when, where and how many times a day they can go to the toilet.

10) There is little transparency and something like the Freedom of Information Act is unimaginable.

11) Internal opposition groups, such as unions, are blackbanned, surveilled and/or marginalized whenever and wherever possible.

While having a GDP and population comparable to Belgium, Denmark or New Zealand, many of these multi-national corporations have nothing like their quality of civic freedoms and protections. This is even more striking when the regional civic laws the company operates under are weak (such as in West Papua, many African states or even South Korea); there, the character of these corporate tyrannies is unobscured by their civilizing surroundings.

Through governmental corruption, political influence, or manipulation of the judicial system, abusive corporations are able to gain control over the defining element of government — the sole right to deploy coercive force.

WikiLeaks endeavors to civilize corporations by exposing uncivil plans and behavior. Just like a country, a corrupt or unethical corporation is a menace to all inside and outside it.

http://www.wikileaks.net/wiki/WikiLeaks:About

Episcopal Church in Tucson