Episcopal Church in Tucson

Waking Up From the American Dream

Yesterday MoveOn sponsored a forum in Port Townsend entitled "Waking Up From the American Dream". It was on target. 200 people attended and told moving stories about health care and the food we eat being controlled to their detriment by big corporations. It was a good rally.

Unfortunately, however, MoveOn has yet to come up with a realistic way to support candidates who are not in the corporations' pocket - they all are - or find a way to fund an effort by the People to take back our government by taxing the corporations and publicly funding elections.

So let me repeat a proposed solution I made earlier:

Since our elected officials can't or won't do it, we the people should mount a referendum - here in Washington and across the nation - proposing a simple progressive income tax on both corporations and individuals - something like 30% on all income above $200,000, 50% on that above $500,000 and 75% above that - no loopholes. Make it expensive to be "too big to fail". Give the local hardware store a chance to compete with Home Depo. End insurance and drug company control of the health care system. Promote competition, favor American enterprise. Put a dent in corruption and corporate control of our government at all levels.

And pay for it, $10 at a time, by clicking on our cell phones - like we were able to help with the relief effort in Haiti a couple of months ago. We the people have the votes and the power to control our own lives, even if the corporations and political parties they own don't like it.

Representative Anthony Weiner, D, NY, says it pretty well, "Republicans are a wholly owned subsidiary of the insurance industry". See http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/#35573472

I'd like to find out what his support is and how he gets elected. And his friend, Pete DeFazio of Oregon, too.

Tax the Corporations

The Democrats say,"for less than ten percent of Exxon's 2008 profits, it could spend $10 million on every congressional race in America. I say tax the corporations with a really simple progressive tax to make it expensive to be "too big to fail".

And publicly fund elections so politicians will represent the people - not corporations.

Health care and corporations

I participated in a MoveOn sponsored rally for health care today in Port Angeles, WA. This, of course, just after the Democrats lost Kennedy's seat in Massachusetts and the Supreme Court ruled that corporations need no limits in exercising their free speech rights as "individuals".

I thought the rally was a little disappointing. Only about twenty people showed up at Congressman Norm Dick's office to urge the Democrats to "have a backbone" and stick with the program. Dicks wasn't even there. Nice people begging for help and fairness but we had no plan that I could see to seize power and accomplish anything.

Here's what I would do and it takes considering the following, seemingly disparate, elements:

1) Tim Eiman has scared the bejesus out of Washington politicians by his referendums.

2) This week there is a referendum in Oregon to tax the rich and tax corporations.

3) The news is full of outrage about the size of corporate salaries and benefits.

4) I just donated $10 to Haiti simply by texting a few numbers into my iPhone.

5) Americans, from the Tea Party radicals to those who wish the Obama Administration would stick to the program of ending the wars, reforming health care and regulating the banks, insurance, drug and auto companies are "mad as hell'.

Okay, that's enough. All the above are tied together and I have a solution ....

Mount a referendum - or many state-level referendums - proposing a simple progressive income tax on both corporations and individuals - something like 30% on all income above $200,000, 50% on that above $500,000 and 75% above that - no loopholes. Make it expensive to be "too big to fail". Give the local hardware store a chance to compete with Home Depo. End insurance and drug company control of the health care system. Promote competition, favor American enterprise. Put a dent in corruption and corporate control of our government at all levels.

And pay for it, $10 at a time, by clicking on our cell phones. We the people have the votes and the power to control our own lives, even if the corporations and political parties they own don't like it.

So, are we getting anywhere?

Obama's Nobel Prize acceptance speech was okay for a practical, pacifist Christian war president - straight out of Reinhold Niebuhr. Find a way out, Mr. Obama. You can't have 100,000 troops in Afghanistan and Iraq "keeping the peace". As Niebuhr says, "Goodness, armed with power, is corrupted".

And the health care bill passed last night: No single payer, no public option, no downward extension of Medicare. All it seems to do is close some gaps for those who are uninsurable due to pre-existing health problems - much needed, by the way, but paid for by taxpayers. Taxpayers will also foot the bill for subsidies for low income people who will be required to buy health insurance and pay out of pocket $6,000 to $12,000. So, as I understand it, it's a boondoggle for the insurance and drug companies at tax-payer expense. Wouldn't we get a better deal if the government just ran the program?

And the auto companies and banks are back with their executives making obscene salaries and benefits.

I guess I can't expect even Obama to get the insurance companies, drug companies, banks and auto companies all to play fair and obey the law at the same time in just a few months. Of course it isn't all Obama's fault. Congress - both houses and both parties - appear to be unduly influenced by big corporations.

Maybe Obama has a plan I don't see yet and is biding his time for the right moment as his other hero, Lincoln, was so good at doing. I hope so. If it were up to me I would re-instate the draft, publicly fund and limit campaign financing and revise the income tax laws to make it expensive to be "too big to fail".

At least I didn't see it coming

6/4/09

I hadn't seen the grey whale everyone has been talking about so I rowed out to Rat Island this morning - and hit it! I thought you'd be interested in the details.

I was rowing around the south end of Rat Island about 100 yards past the turn inside the green buoy. At very low tide I know it's about 20 or 30 feet deep there since I can sometimes see the eel grass. Anyway my right blade hit something and immediately thereafter the whale blew briefly right under my port rigger - and then dived, brushing the bottom of my boat with its back or tail.

I'm pretty sure the whale was as surprised as I was which answers the question I have had since a grey whale breached about ten feet away along side the Salish Star we were rowing about five years ago just off Chetzemoka Park: Did the whale see us? That one was about 40 feet long and could have easily overturned the Salish Star. No, I decided today. Greys don't look where they are going.

So, after our encounter this morning the whale took off toward the Navy dock, and then circled back to swim parallel to my path and blew a couple of more times. It never did breach and I never really saw it but I would guess it was at least 25 feet long and made quite a wake just below the surface as it swam away from me.