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Wes Side Stories: Thoughts on the coming storm of election season



by Wesley Dugle Apr 22, 2012 4:49 pm Tags: 2012 election, Bill Mahr, Bill Oreilly, Brack obama, election season, elections, Keith Olberman, media, Megyn Kelly, Mitt Romney, Political discourse, politics, President, presidentcy, Wes Side Stories, Wesley Dugle







Wesley Dugle is the Spartan Daily Opinion Editor. His column "Wes Side Stories" appears each Monday.





To slightly paraphrase Ned Stark from “Game of Thrones” — “Brace yourselves, election season is coming.”



Yes, with pro-life senator Rick Santorum effectively “aborting” his presidential bid and Ron Paul wallowing away in obscurity, the Republican nomination process is all but finished.



Now Republican governor Mitt “Money Bags” Romney takes on Democratic President Barack “The Debt” Obama in a no holds barred mudslinging fest for the Presidency.



Prepare for a non-stop political war from now until November as the nominees and political pundits alike trade barbs and try to bribe swing voters to one side or the other.



A long time ago I used to care about this process.



During the 2004 elections, when senator John Kerry faced incumbent George W. Bush for the presidency, I was really into politics.



I was firmly a blue-blooded liberal back then and despite not being old enough to vote I actively campaigned amongst my friends and even their parents to vote for Kerry.



In 2008, I again got into the political scene, phone-banking for the Obama party and casting my first vote in my freshman year for the man who would become our president.



Nearly four years later, though, I’m not nearly as enthusiastic about politics as I used to be, and you can thank the volatile political climate of the past few years for that.



While I wouldn’t say Obama is a particularly bad president, he largely failed to bring the “hope” and bi-partisan politics I was expecting after he was elected.



His inability to fulfill campaign promises, like closing Guantanamo Bay and cutting Bush tax cuts, are among the many things that have made me jaded about his presidency.



The Republicans have not helped their side either.



Their entire campaign strategy since Obama got elected has been too spam voters with as much negative criticism of the president as possible, no matter if it’s fact or not.



Some claims are true, but frivolous attacks such as questioning Obama’s birthplace and attacking his Ivy League school background has made me even more jaded about party politics these days.



Now with the election season about to begin in earnest, we can expect 24/7 coverage of these two politicians trading attacks, questioning one another’s credibility and character and both trying to prove they are more American than the other.



It’s going to be a shit storm, in short.



Most of all, the problem with this process is going to be the media coverage.



Expect media blow-hards and political pundits alike ranting and arguing their side to one another and increasing the negative tension between blue and red voters.



It’s pretty much Crips and Bloods at this point.



There are ways to make this process more clean and less divisive.



For one, I would stop having media and political pundit attention hogs commentate on each candidates platform.



The voters can’t make an unbiased call on a nominee’s views if they're being filtered through Bill Maher’s angry tirades or Bill O'Reilly’s “Spin Zone.”



We don’t need to hear the opinions of people who will do anything to make their side look better than the other.



Next I would encourage the media to simply report each candidate’s platform without giving voice or opinion on it.



I don’t want to hear what Megyn Kelly or Rachel Maddow have to say about ObamaCare, or RomneyCare for that matter — just give me the bare facts and I’ll form my own damn opinion.



Next I would require candidates to ONLY talk about their views and not the views of their opponent, until debate time.



Too often do candidates spend 99 percent of their campaign money making ads purely aimed at destroying the other’s views and choices that we don’t even know what the hell their views are on those issues.



Lastly, I would cut Super Political Action Campaigns because the money they garner to make ads is not good for politics.



The amount of spam voters receive through these non-stop ads cannot possibly promote political balance or unbiased-ness.



You see the problem is all this mud-slinging and negative ad campaigns just creates bigger and bigger divides amongst our nation, to the point where bringing up politics in an average conversation between a conservative and liberal could turn into a full-on fist-fight of words.



It doesn’t need to be this way.



Politics can have healthy discussion if the media and our politicians can rework the way we use political discourse.



If the media can promote unbiased coverage and politicians can focus on themselves more than each other then we voters could actually think for ourselves and make our own opinions instead of them making it for us.



Alas, this is probably a pipe dream and more than likely we’ll be treated to several months of party hackery and bad media coverage.



So once again, my friends, brace yourselves. Election season is coming.



Ted Rudow III, MA ·







The total debt of the U.S. alone is 14 trillion dollars! It's hard to even conceive of how much money that really is, but if you spent one million dollars every day it would take over 8000 years to spend three trillion dollars! The U.S. has gotten to such a totally hopeless, bankrupt state that they know they will never be able to pay off that debt! And yet they continue spending far more than they earn in taxes, getting more in debt every year! To continue their false prosperity they have borrowed heavily from the U.S. Federal Bank!--And where does the Federal Bank get this money? Well, they just print it!...Billions upon billions of paper dollars worth nothing more than the paper they're printed on, & no more valuable than the counterfeit dollars printed by criminals! It's like trying to pull wealth out of an empty hat! But wealth must be made from something of actual value! Only nothing can be made out of nothing!



Ted Rudow III,MA



Class of 1996



















http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2012/04/22/18711825.php




Earth day

by Ted Rudow III, MA ( Tedr77 [at] aol.com )

Sunday Apr 22nd, 2012







Ecowatch.org revealed that, in September 2008, nearly two years before the Deepwater Horizon explosion in the Gulf of Mexico, another BP rig had blown out in the Caspian Sea––which BP concealed from U.S. regulators and Congress.

Had BP, Chevron, Exxon or the Bush State Department revealed the facts of the earlier blow-out, it is likely that the Deepwater Horizon disaster would have been prevented.







Days after the Deepwater Horizon blow-out, a message came in to our offices in New York from an industry insider floating on a ship in the Caspian Sea. He stated there had been a blow-out, just like the one in the Gulf, and BP had covered it up.



But it's this damn use of oil that cause most of the world's troubles--industrially, automobiles, pollution, it pollutes the food, they cook their food on it & all the rest! . Most of man's modern inventions and so-called "improvements" are all dependent on oil, all these plastics and petro-chemicals. It's bad enough that plastics are littering the place and never decay or decompose or anything, but now they're discovering even after they've soaked at the bottom of the sea for a long time, they begin to give off some kind of poisonous substance that's killing the fish! They thought it was bad enough that plastics were just littering up the place & choking up things & killing people, but they found out now if it soaks long enough, sort of like when you burn it, it starts giving off poisonous toxic wastes.

Petroleum oil is what really caused the Industrial Revolution, cheap fuel. It's cheap fuel, but it's dirty fuel, polluting fuel, and coal is the same thing. Coal is nothing in the World but hard oil in rock form, because it gives off the same kind of oily smoke, polluting the atmosphere. It seems to me that instead of a blessing, petroleum oil has become a curse to the World!

Ted Rudow III, MA
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2012/04/26/18712151.php




The poor

by Ted Rudow III, MA ( Tedr77 [at] aol.com )

Thursday Apr 26th, 2012







The latest census data shows nearly one in two Americans, or 150 million people, have fallen into poverty — or could be classified as low income. "There seems to be a bipartisan consensus in Washington that the poor just don’t matter.



There seems to be a bipartisan consensus in Washington that the poor just don’t matter. President Obama is a part of that. President Obama is a part of that. Poverty is the new slavery. Oligarchs are the new kings. They’re the new heads of this structure of domination."

There is this gap between the haves and the have-nots, a growing gap, in fact. When 1 percent of the people control 42 percent—own and control 42 percent of the wealth, that’s a problem. When one out of two Americans is either in or near poverty—you take the perennially poor or the persistent poor, on top of them the new poor—we argue in this book the new poor are the former middle class—and the near poor, folk who are a paycheck away, that’s 150 million Americans wrestling with poverty.

MITT ROMNEY: The challenge right now—we will hear from the Democrat Party the plight of the poor, and—and there’s no question, it’s not good being poor, and we have a safety net to help those that are very poor. But my campaign is focused on middle-income Americans. My campaign—I mean, you can choose where to focus. You can focus on the rich. That’s not my focus. You can focus on the very poor. That’s not my focus. My focus is on middle-income Americans.

Ted Rudow III, MA













Sunday, April 29, 2012

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2012/04/29/18712382.php






Biggest con

by Ted Rudow III, MA ( Tedr77 [at] aol.com )

Sunday Apr 29th, 2012 6:22 PM

It is the biggest con game going. And the stakes are enormous. And the effort to regulate them is hopeless, because the very people who are in charge of regulating them are the same people who are wholly-owned subsidiaries of the lobbies that run them.

The connection between the legislators and the lobbyists is so intimate that it's not even embarrassing for a senator to say that in front of a room.

The culture is so hermetically sealed from the rest of the country that it doesn't occur to them that there is something deeply outrageous and offensive and corrosive of democracy to admit that the money side of politics and the elected side of politics belong to each other. The other day, the president of CBS, Les Moonves, was reported by "Bloomberg" to have said "Super PACs may be bad for America, but they're … good for CBS." This is a windfall every election season, which seems not to even stop ever, for the broadcast industry. So not only are they raking it in, they're also creating a toxic environment for civic discourse.

So one of the big reasons that things are at the pass they are is that the founders never could have anticipated that a small group of people, a financial enterprise and the technology could create this environment in which facts, truth, accountability, that stuff just isn't entertaining. Instead, the purpose of these debates is in order to have commercials. The suspense and coming back, those are devices deployed, in order to have people watch what happens in between. These are moneymaking propositions. They give bragging rights for those that get high ratings. They have nothing to do with the content.

So because it's not entertaining, because the stations think it's ratings poison, they don't cover it on the news.

Ted Rudow III, MA

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Banana republic

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The term "banana republic" was coined at the turn of the 20th Century in reference to the economic and political domination of weak or corrupt governments in Central America by the United Fruit Company, the corporation now known as Chiquita. (This article will refer to the company formerly known as United Fruit as "Chiquita"). Throughout much of its modern history, Honduras has been the quintessential "banana republic," a poor country ruled by a small group of wealthy elites, with national politics controlled by multinational business interests, particularly Chiquita. In fact, Chiquita has historically been known as "El Pulpo" ("The Octopus") in Honduras, as the company's tentacles had such a firm grip on Honduran national politics.
During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Chiquita maintained its grasp on Central American politics with a range of illegitimate tools, including the use of mercenary force and bribes. Since the birth of modern public relations in the mid-20th century, though, Chiquita has successfully fought many of its battles for political control with the power of spin. Recent revelations suggest they have done the same in the case of Honduras in 2009.
Through the next 30 years in Central America, small peasants were pushed off their traditional holdings by local oligarchs flush with money and military equipment furnished by the U.S. The sickness pestilence, starvation disease, war, domestic violence, and civil unrest that every day steals and destroys lives are choices that man has made-choices to turn a blind eye, choices of greed over sharing, choices of selfishness.
Ted Rudow III, MA

Monday, April 16, 2012

Banana re

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2012/04/16/18711424.php
"Banana republic"
by Ted Rudow III, MA ( Tedr77 [at] aol.com ) Monday Apr 16th, 2012
The term "banana republic" was coined at the turn of the 20th Century in reference to the economic and political domination of weak or corrupt governments in Central America by the United Fruit Company, the corporation now known as Chiquita. (This article will refer to the company formerly known as United Fruit as "Chiquita"). Throughout much of its modern history, Honduras has been the quintessential "banana republic," a poor country ruled by a small group of wealthy elites, with national politics controlled by multinational business interests, particularly Chiquita. In fact, Chiquita has historically been known as "El Pulpo" ("The Octopus") in Honduras, as the company's tentacles had such a firm grip on Honduran national politics.


During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Chiquita maintained its grasp on Central American politics with a range of illegitimate tools, including the use of mercenary force and bribes. Since the birth of modern public relations in the mid-20th century, though, Chiquita has successfully fought many of its battles for political control with the power of spin. Recent revelations suggest they have done the same in the case of Honduras in 2009. Through the next 30 years in Central America, small peasants were pushed off their traditional holdings by local oligarchs flush with money and military equipment furnished by the U.S. The sickness‚ pestilence, starvation‚ disease, war, domestic violence, and civil unrest that every day steals and destroys lives are choices that man has made-choices to turn a blind eye, choices of greed over sharing, choices of selfishness.
Ted Rudow III, MA

Saturday, April 14, 2012

Social Darwinism

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2012/04/14/18711314.php
Social Darwinism
by Ted Rudow III, MA ( Tedr77 [at] aol.com ) Saturday Apr 14th, 2012
Social Darwinism is a belief, popular in the late Victorian era in England, America, and elsewhere, which states that the strongest or fittest should survive and flourish in society, while the weak and unfit should be allowed to die. The theory was chiefly expounded by Herbert Spencer, whose ethical philosophies always held an elitist view and received a boost from the application of Darwinian ideas such as adaptation and natural selection. The concept of adaptation allowed him to claim that the rich and powerful were better adapted to the social and economic climate of the time, and the concept of natural selection allowed him to argue that it was natural, normal, and proper for the strong to thrive at the expense of the weak. After all, he claimed, that is exactly what goes on in nature every day.
"Wow, what a great leap forward for mankind (or what passes for it these days). Stand you ground partner, but lose your civilization".
Mike Caggiano
Ted Rudow III, MA

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Bank and special interests

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Peninsula readers' letters: April 11
From Daily News Group readers mercurynews.comPosted: 04/10/2012 07:26:06 PM PDTApril 11, 2012 5:17 AM GMTUpdated: 04/10/2012 10:17:19 PM PDT


Banks and special interests
Dear Editor: The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act was passed two years ago in the wake of our disastrous financial meltdown. The president signs it into law, but then we discover the fight's just begun, because the special interests immediately set out to win back what they lost when the reform became law. They spread money like manure on the campaign trails of key members of Congress. They unleash hordes of lobbyists on Capitol Hill, cozy up to columnists and editorial writers, spend millions on lawyers who try to rewrite or water down the regulations required for enforcement. And before you know it, what once was an attempt at genuine reform creeps back toward business as usual.
Especially vulnerable is a key provision of Dodd-Frank known as the Volcker Rule -- an attempt to keep the banks in which you deposit your money from gambling your savings on the banks' own sometimes very risky investments. It will come as no surprise that the financial industry hates the Volcker Rule and is fighting back hard. It stops them from doing speculative trading.
Ted Rudow III, MA
Palo Alto

Special interests

San Mateo Daily Journal

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Letter: Special interests
April 11, 2012, 05:00 AM Letter

Editor,


The president signs it into law, but then we discover the fight’s just begun because the special interests immediately set out to win back what they lost when the reform became law. They spread money like manure on the campaign trails of key members of Congress. They cozy up to columnists and editorial writers, unleash hordes of lobbyists on Capitol Hill and spend millions on lawyers who try to rewrite or water down the regulations required for enforcement. And before you know it, what once was an attempt at genuine reform creeps back toward business as usual.


The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act — passed two years ago in the wake of our disastrous financial meltdown. Especially vulnerable is a key provision of Dodd-Frank known as the Volcker rule — an attempt to keep the banks in which you deposit your money from gambling your savings on the bank’s own, sometimes very risky investments. It will come as no surprise that the financial industry hates the Volcker rule and is fighting back hard. Stop them from doing speculative trading.


Using your deposits to go speculate? It would permit ordinary trading to go on but take away the big speculative — big or small speculative activity. You’ve got great advantages if you’re a government-regulated bank. Take the two big remaining investment banks. We used to call them investment banks. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. Both during the crisis got a banking license. “While the Volker Rule will surely put a damper on bank trading profits, it will force many firms to go back to the basic blocking and tackling of the financial services business.”





Ted Rudow III,MA


Palo Alto

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Special interests?

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2012/04/10/18711082.php
Special interests?
by Ted Rudow III, MA ( Tedr77 [at] aol.cm ) Tuesday Apr 10th, 2012
The president signs it into law, but then we discover the fight’s just begun, because the special interests immediately set out to win back what they lost when the reform became law. They spread money like manure on the campaign trails of key members of Congress.
-->
They unleash hordes of lobbyists on Capitol Hill, cozy up to columnists and editorial writers, spend millions on lawyers who try to rewrite or water down the regulations required for enforcement. And before you know it, what once was an attempt at genuine reform creeps back towards business as usual. The Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform and Consumer Protection Act -- passed two years ago in the wake of our disastrous financial meltdown. Especially vulnerable is a key provision of Dodd-Frank known as the Volcker rule -- an attempt to keep the banks in which you deposit your money from gambling your savings on the bank’s own, sometimes very risky investments. It will come as no surprise that the financial industry hates the Volcker rule and is fighting back hard. Stops them from doing speculative trading. Using your deposits to go speculate? It would permit ordinary trading to go on but take away the big speculative-- big or small speculative activity. You've got great advantages if you're a government regulated bank. Take the two big remaining investment banks. We used to call them investment banks. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. Both during the crisis got a banking license. “While the Volker Rule will surely put a damper on bank trading profits, it will force many firms to go back to the basic blocking and tackling of the financial services business,"
Ted Rudow III, MA

Wednesday, April 04, 2012

PP&J

Peninsula Peace and Justice Center
Peninsula Peace and Justice Centerwww.PeaceandJustice.org Tonight! Join us in the studio and take part in the conversation! OCCUPYTHEFUTUREA Brief History of Economic & Political InequalityAnd what we might do about it ... A talk byPaul GeorgeDirector, Peninsula Peace and Justice Center"We all learned more than we had expected, we have a better understanding of what we are up against, and we are more determined to persist." ~ Mike F., Occupy Mountain View, after Paul gave this talk for OMVOTHER VOICES TV TUESDAY, APRIL 3, 7:00 PMCommunity Media Center, 900 San Antonio Road, Palo Alto [ Map]FREE and open to all. Wheelchair accessible.[This month's Other Voices TV will undergo a slight (and temporary) change in format as PPJC Director Paul George delivers a talk, rather than interviewing a guest. Paul has given this well-received talk all around the Bay Area and PPJC thought it was time he delivered it for PPJC's own audience.]Over the past generation, the concentration of wealth in the hands of a tiny elite in the U.S. has grown at an astonishing rate. Today, a mere 1% of the population controls 40% of the national wealth, an all-time record. This concentration of wealth has also resulted in a concentration of political power, and this concentration of wealth and political power has brought us to what is being called plutonomy: an economy powered solely by and solely for the wealthy. The "average American" consumer no longer exists.In this talk, Paul George, Director of Peninsula Peace and Justice Center, will examine how this concentration of wealth and power came to be. (Unsurprisingly, it was not by accident.) He will explore what it means for a supposedly democratic society. Finally, he will propose some ways in which we might begin to reverse course. As former Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis noted, "We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both."Simultaneous live TV broadcast on Mid-Peninsula Cable Channel 27(But please come to the studio and be part of the TV audience!) The origins of the Arab Spring come from within Arab nations and we need a Arab Spring here!

Monday, April 02, 2012

Nonsense

The Daily Star
Monday, April 2, 2012
Nonsense
Ted Rudow III, MA, Encina Ave, Palo Alto, CA
One neo-conservative advocate of the invasion had predicted that a "cakewalk" had killed well over a hundred thousand Iraqi civilians, cost nearly 4500 American soldiers their lives, maimed many others, and incurred costs that could reach more than 3 trillion dollars before the last invoice comes due.
Yet here we are, nine years later, and once again the drumbeat sounds for war in the Middle East. This time the bull's eye is Iran, and many of the bloodthirsty cries are coming from the same lusty throats that agitated a decade ago for invading Iraq. Now the neo-con armchair warriors call for hitting Iran before it builds a nuclear bomb to drop on Israel a scenario that remains in doubt.
One would refer to Afghan history here, that this is simply not a place that accommodates foreign invaders who think they know how to run the place better than the local population. Some neo-conservatives believe that somehow we are responsible for the Arab Spring, that the Arab Spring is a natural outgrowth of the Iraq War and the George Bush Freedom Agenda. That's nonsense. The origins of the Arab Spring come from within Arab nations.
© thedailystar.net, 1991-2008. All Rights Reserved

Sunday, April 01, 2012

"Feudal society'

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2012/04/01/18710510.php
"feudal society"by Ted Rudow III,MA Sunday Apr 1st, 2012
The Koch brothers fueled the conservative Tea Party movement that vigorously opposes Barack Obama, the US president. They fund efforts to derail action on global warming, and support politicians who object to raising taxes on corporations or the wealthy to help fix America’s fiscal problems. They are so rich that their pockets are almost bottomless, and they can keep pouring money into this whole process".
The Koch brothers fueled the conservative Tea Party movement that vigorously opposes Barack Obama, the US president. They fund efforts to derail action on global warming, and support politicians who object to raising taxes on corporations or the wealthy to help fix America’s fiscal problems. They are so rich that their pockets are almost bottomless, and they can keep pouring money into this whole process". The Kochs founded and provide millions to Americans for Prosperity, a political organisation that builds grassroots support for conservative causes and candidates. Americans for Prosperity, which has 35 state chapters and claims to have about two million members, has close ties to Tea Party groups and played a key role in opposing Obama's health care initiative. Members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee that the Kochs supported have taken the lead in opposing US Environmental Protection Agency efforts to reduce global warming emissions.
The Kochs contributed to 62 of the 87 new members of the US House of Representatives in 2010. Rich just because there are a few feudal landlords(like the Kochs) who own every thing and are very rich, so they say the country's rich, when most of the people are mere serfs, slaves, peons and peasants on the land, like South America! There is also a broader definition, as described by Marc Bloch (1939), that includes not only warrior nobility but the peasantry bonds of manorialism, sometimes referred to as a "feudal society".
Ted Rudow III, MA