Thoughts About the Government Party

Good clip. (View Video Clip Here!!) It shows how we have created a new political party which is in control of our lives – it is the Government Party.  It is made up of government workers at all levels, private parties and entities whose success is tied to government largess and assistance and who are favored by the Government Party, and political parties which now pander to the Government Party and the favored commercial powers whether they be the current Republicans or the Current Democrats.  Are we creating a new form of National Socialism – but perhaps one with a smiling face (for now, because the largess will fail and the power of government will have to be used to quell discontent thus becoming a police state). 

 

I do not know the answer – but some how the power of the truly independent voter must be energized to defeat this new Government Party, if indeed it can be defeated. 

However, I see nothing on the horizon which provides any hope of the defeat of the Government Party.  

 

But, I may be all wrong in my concern.  Maybe this new control of America and its citizens by Government Party and its favored private entities is not so bad.  The Government Party may well be thought to be enlightened by those of us who assent to what is happening by the way we vote.  Enlightened because we might already have been convinced everything is all right or will be made all right.  Perhaps we are convinced the Government Party will always do good things for us.  This is the underlying message – that the government we have is a government of good things (at least for a majority of the voters).  

 

We may have a government of illusion  — illusion which is adhered to by the voters by reason of their immediate short-term economic and social interests.

 

Frankly, I think we have a mess on our hands.

Mary Verner: The story continues, questions should be answered

Former Spokane mayor, Mary Verner, took out an ad in the Inlander this past week.  She did so to address the matter of her requests of the city regarding her salary and retirement benefits.  She says:

Recent ‘news’ about my City pay resulted from misplaced trust in advisors who said that, if I submitted letters, written just-so, I would receive an evaluation of the last two years of my declined salary and impacts on my retirement.   . . .   I presumed these were private personnel matters.

Then she says:

But as hastily as my letters were prepared, they were hastily leaked and … a story was born! I walked into a crafty political trap, and I’ve learned another valuable lesson that strengthens me for the work ahead.

Was there a trap?  Was there a crafty political move?  We need to know whether or not what  former mayor Mary Verner says in true.  If it is then steps should be taken to identify the people involved and punishment or censure of some sort should be undertaken.

Mayor Condon and the Spokane City Council cannot let this go.  The people of Spokane need to know the truth.  If things are as Ms. Verner says they are, action must be taken.

 

 

The Occupy Movement

What is the Occupy Movement about?

From what one reads over the Internet the movement is about evils of  “corporatism.”  Energies of movement supporters are directed to the separation of corporatist interests from the state.

Think of the constitutional principle of separation of church and state.  Do we want a government tied to a religious movement?  Of course not.  Along these same notions, do we want a government tied to “corporate” movements – certain economic and power groups?  Of course not.

The people of Occupy are saying that the government we are developing in the United States of America is the government which is joined with a movement like that of a religious movement. The government has already been handed over to the corporatists. Occupy seeks to say something about this, seeks to change the direction we have taken or are taking – perhaps things can be put right before it is too late.

Corporatism has many definitions. The basic idea is expressed in this from the Occupy LA website:

The marriage between Corporations and Governmental Power has overthrown the basic principles of Rule of Law, Equality Under the Law, Due Process and the protection afforded to the Citizens of the United States by the Constitution.  As long as the above described condition is allowed to persist, the interests of the People will be prejudiced in favor of the Corporate interests of the 1%.  We will seek out all peaceful means, including citizen legislative, legal and protest action to END CORPORATISM.

The dictionary definition of corporatism is as follows:

A system or principle in which a whole society is organized into industrial and professional corporations serving as organs of political representation and controlling to a large extent the persons and activities within their jurisdiction with emphasis on labor-management cooperation.”  Reference is made to the corporatism of Fascist Italy.  Merriam Webster.

The notion of corporatism is found in the experience of national socialism, our military industrial complex, the never-ending desire to create “public – private partnerships”, government economic development gimmicks and endeavors, the extensive control of the legislative process by lobbyists, the corporate financing of political campaigns and the new American political reality of “crony capitalism.”

Corporatism is antithetical to capitalism, and it is antithetical to socialism.  It is a new power within the political spectrum, a power which has infiltrated government, political parties, candidate character and allegiances, it is the new political force, the force of the “government party.”  It is a force which seeks power, its own aggrandizement.  Economic success is sought but so is political control and solidarity.  Those on the outside of this new force are there to serve, to consume, to legitimize.  Corporatists seek to control the government – they seek to be the force behind what might be called deep government – the forces behind whatever government we have — whether it leans toward capitalism or socialism.  Corporatism seeks to be THE GOVERNMENT PARTY.  Sure they are there to serve, but in reality, they are there to be the government.

The world economic social systems are houses of cards ready to fall.  Yet, as things now stand, the people who make up the corporatism class are very strong:  Very strong because they are so enmeshed into the system of things “they” cannot be allowed to fail.  Already we have seen this and  we are now,  must be, convinced it is indeed true.  The 1% are so necessary we have been convinced that we, the 99% , will have to shirk and suffer anything just to maintain the corporatists’ claims to the benefits and power of the system, of the government.

The Occupy Movement uses the idea of the “1%” to speak of its concerns about the this new merger of “religion” – corporatism–  and the state.

The hope of the 1% is that the Occupy Movement will go away, that it will somehow be made unimportant, inconsequential.

Perhaps in Davos, Switzerland in the coming days the champions of this new world national socialism will find a way to placate the restless.  Look here. The restless however cannot be placated.  Why?  Because the course of the history of the economic nature of things is such that no change will have an impact regarding the desire of corporatists to take over and become the state.  Just as there is no way to have a government merged “to some extent” with religion, there is no way to have a government merged with some corporatism.

There is no way to have a middle ground.  Either you have a cancer or you do not.  Government cannot serve two masters.

Will the leaders of the 1% actually talk about what needs to be done?

In the next few days people who seem to be the spokespersons for the 1% seem interested in discussions about their form of capitalism and the need for change.

We have a general morality gap, we are over-leveraged, we have neglected to invest in the future, we have undermined social coherence, and we are in danger of completely losing the confidence of future generations,” said Klaus Schwab, host and founder of the annual World Economic Forum.

Davos elites to seek reforms of ‘outdated’ capitalism.  

Or, so one can hope.

Shawn Vestal of the S-R raises some serious questions about Mary Verner

Shawn Vestal of the Spokesman-Review has a good piece in today’s paper.  It is well worth a read.  Verner’s defense of pay request cruelest cut.

I was ready to be done with the whole Mary Verner back-pay thing. It was politically thumb-fingered in the extreme, but the vilification she endured seemed more than sufficient. The matter had been hashed out. Verner asked for back pay and a bigger pension after making hay out of her decision to take a lower salary, and she was turned down.

Then Verner started talking. Explaining. Defending. Deflecting. She went on TV to “set the record straight.” She posted a long “thank you” note on her Facebook page, in which she defended, denied and blamed. She was, she said, the victim of a “crafty political trap.” A lot of people were responsible for this screw-up. None of them was she.

But there was another surprise which left Vestal’s head spinning.

Most astonishing was this assertion, which she made to an interviewer at KHQ: “My take-home pay after deductions put me right about an average middle-class family’s income in the city of Spokane.”

The median family income – the middle of the middle – in the city of Spokane during Verner’s term was about $40,000. The mayor’s annual salary was $170,000 but Verner voluntarily capped her pay at $100,000 a year, which will cost her in retirement benefits.

She tries to suggest that her take-home pay of $68,000 is the number to pay attention to. But of course, that $40,000 family has deductions and pays taxes, too.

Verner establishes herself as completely out of touch with her constituents.  No wonder she had no difficulty imposing a $25 tax every $100 of city utility services.  That, by the way, is a sales tax of 25%!

`The median household income is more like $32,500 per year.

What I have quoted is just the beginning of what Mr. Vestal has to say.  Read the article.  You will not regret it.

More on the Mary Verner Story: Something’s Fishy

More on the Mary Verner story in the Inlander.  On her Facebook page the Inlander reported

“Recent ‘news’ about my City pay resulted from misplaced trust in advisors who said that, if I submitted letters, written just-so, I would receive an evaluation of the last two years of my declined salary and impacts on my retirement,” Verner wrote.

Now we know that “advisors” whom she trusted told her to submit the money letters so she would receive and “evaluation of the last two years of my declined salary and impacts on her retirement.”  One can’t say what the meaning of this truly is.

It is further reported

“But as hastily as my letters were prepared, they were hastily leaked and … a story was born! I walked into a crafty political trap, and I’ve learned another valuable lesson that strengthens me for the work ahead.”

She is saying she was deceived into writing the letters and that there are those who are trying to do her harm.

Is any of this true?  Somebody should get to the bottom of it.  Sounds like there is some real wrongdoing going on. 

Or, is Mary Verner dissembling.  She has to come forward with the names of those who deceived her.

Former Mayor Verner, KHQ Interview

Former Spokane mayor Mary Verner was interviewed on KHQ this evening about her request for money and higher pension benefits from the city. Spokesman – Review.

There was something surreal about her.  She was poised, controlled, well dressed, pleasant of demeanor.  It seemed a bit much.  She presented herself as if she was acting, playing a part. 

She said the letters for more money were letters she was told to send to the city.  She was supposedly told to do so by people who are part of the institutional leadership of the city.  She said she only wrote what she was told to say. She did not say who the people were that told her to do and say.  The reporter did not ask.

She said the requests had been turned down, and that the matter was over with.  There was nothing to it she claimed. Calmly and confidently she said she did not understand what the fuss was about.

My impression was that she was not being truthful.  She seemed to be avoiding her own truth.  She seemed to be in denial about her responsibility about the letters and what it was she was asking for.

Her demeanor, her response, gave me the shivers.

The Nature of God? — Or Human Ignorance, Arrogance and Vanity.

Apparently a considerable number of people think God is providing special support to Denver quarterback Tim Tebow.  To think that God takes sides, to think God can be caused to intervene in the way of things, to think human beings actually know the will of God is absurd.  It is vain and ignorant.  See Denver CBS.

Former Mayor Verner Wants More Money for Being Mayor!

Mary Verner’s request to have the city give to her what she gave to the city is disturbing.  Spokesman -Review.  It gives us an idea about Mrs. Verner’s character. She made a big splash by giving up the money. She did it for political purposes. Her plans did not work out. She was not re-elected. Now she wants the money back — she wants to reset her salary back to an earlier time. Sad.

The city does not have the authority to give the money “back” to her. As mayor she had the authority to set her salary. She set it at a level less than the amount it could have been set under the city charter.

She now says she wants the money back. Even if the city wanted to give money to her in an amount measured by what she could have been paid less the amount she was paid, it cannot do so. What Mrs. Verner wants would be a city gift to her.

The city cannot make gifts of public funds. The Washington state constitution is quite clear about this. In Article VIII, Section 7 it says:

No county, city, town or other municipal corporation shall hereafter give any money, or property, or loan its money, or credit to or in aid of any individual, association, company or corporation, except for the necessary support of the poor and infirm, or become directly or indirectly the owner of any stock in or bonds of any association, company or corporation.

There are other legal reasons why the money cannot be given to Mrs. Verner. The constitutional prohibition is only one reason. Another is that Mrs. Verner is no longer the mayor. She has no authority to reset her salary.

Israel and Palestine

In a letter to the editor of the New York Times, Richard B. Sobol wrote to correct the record concerning Israel and the Palestinian situation.

He states “[p]rogress in resolving the stalemate between the Israelis and the Palestinians would be easier if the historical facts were distinguished from the positions of the parties.”

He points out that the record asserted by a reviewer of the work of Gershom Gorenberg, author of “The Unmaking of Israel,” must be corrected: First, the Israeli action at the start of the Six Day War was “pre-emptive.” Second, the “oft-made claim that the Palestinians unreasonably rejected an ‘equitable arrangement’ at Camp David has been described . . . as a ‘myth’ in “The Truth About Camp David,” a book based on firsthand accounts of participants.’

These are important facts.

If acknowledged, they will help in an understanding, and possible resolution, of the Palestine — Israel conflict.