Tag: Political Theory

Professor Sez…….When Is It Pork?

Does anyone besides me get tired of the political rhetoric and use of buzzwords to gain political points?  Last week’s was “pork”.  Here is a news flash for all of you–ALL spending is pork to someone, somewhere!

Now there is a word that has got a bunch of play in the last 3 weeks or so.  But what is “pork”?  Is there really a such a thing as “pork”?

First of all there is a political saying, “it is not pork unless it is someone else”s district”.

“PORK” is a purely subjective word, depends on your point of view.  If you want to be accurate then ALL spending can be called pork even the billions upon billions the Defense Dept. receives.  It is a complete bullsh!t word that is used in the theatrics of Washington.

Pork comes from the term “pork barrel spending” or spending for pet projects of the representives in their home state.  Spending is helping some body somewhere with a project that is needed at least appears to be needed.  But think about this….how much military spending has been labelled pork?  Very little….that is one of those sacred things in Washington.

How about earmarks?  These are when a member of Congress tries to bring the bacon home to his/her home district.  These things are what gives the members of an appropriation committee their power.  These are to obtain federal money for projects back home…oh yeah..it is also called “PORK”.

In essence ALL spending could be called pork at some point.  We will see if the Dems counter-attack when the bills for the military comes up…these bills are where many Repubs attach pork for their home districts….will the Dems play the tit for tat game with the Repubs?  My guess is they will!

Professor’s Classroom

Another Monday…another quiz…another attempt at education……a daunting task at best…….Ok, political philosophy….

A political philosopher at a theory of an “organic state”, who was it and what does the theory say?

Come on this is not rocket science and there is a google button somewhere that can help….good luck….good day…

Why Is Poverty A Dirty Word?

A question that I have been trying to answer for 40+ years. Along with the one, why are we afraid of the poor? Both questions are difficult to answer. And really difficult to find a starting point to answer the questions. I have started this piece many times and after awhile and much thought I have thrown it away just to start over and over and…….

The poor have been tagged in the past and are still being tagged as lazy, cheap and promiscuous. Labels that are used to try and explain why there is a condition known as POVERTY. Many define poverty, few actually offer any solutions.

In The US there are approximately 35 million people living in poverty. The present economic crisis will no doubt raise those numbers considerably.

Poverty has become a dirty word because of several factors. One of the factors is the perception of poverty and the poor by society. Through many years and many political tap dances the poor have been used as a tool in elections, both pro and con. Thus perceptions are now standard in some political circles. The people have been taught to believe: 1) the poor are extremely disliked, 2) poverty equates to a moral failure, 3) the poor are uneducated, unemployed and on welfare, 4) the poor are a threat to the upper class who believe that we are in control of our lives, 5) the poor cost us money.

But the poor have a place in American society, they do the filthy, dangerous, temporary, undignified, menial jobs, the labor of the poor at low wages frees up the affluent for more important activities, the poor help create jobs which protects society from the poor, such as police, which would be less needed if there were fewer poor, the poor clear the stocks from the selves with day old bread, dent stores, etc.

In recent elections the poor have not been a concern of the candidates, other than a little political rhetoric they were never a problem to be solved. Look at this campaign season, the McCain camp talks about jobs for America, but offer plans like his home plan, or his gas tax holiday, none of which address the poor of the country. He wants to preserve human dignity by overturning Roe, protecting marriage, promoting adoption, but nothing about the dignity of the poor. As usual the Repubs basically ignore the poor and the problems they face.

Now we have the Dem side of the coin. Obama’s plan is to expand the earned credit, raise the minimum wage, increase affordable housing, and strengthen the family unit, and so on. All sounds good in speeches and sound bites; it does not address the core cause of poverty. The social system as well as the political system has created poverty and it must change to end poverty. Change is what is being promised by both candidates, but unfortunately, neither candidate has the answer. Their proposals are merely band-aids for a gunshot wound.

Until there is a serious attempt to end poverty, then the poor will continue to be joked about, pitied, and most notably feared. Yes, I said feared. Why? Because the poor are a reminder that all is not perfect in this country and a lot of work must be done to make it so. But sadly, no one wants to truly end poverty, just to use it for self-serving ends.

That Irene is why poverty is a dirty word.

McCain’s Trivialization

The sad truth in John McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate is that it betrays his repeated promise to put the needs of his country before the needs of his election campaign. That McCain would ask Americans to entrust their future to the health and acuity of a 72-year-old president and to an utter neophyte in national and international affairs completely trivializes the challenges this country faces. Were it not so tragic it would be worthy of “Saturday Night Live.”
Barack Obama’s criteria for his running mate included not only a shared vision, but also someone who would help him govern the nation and be a good president in case something happened to him. That is wise leadership.
In choosing Palin, McCain has sacrificed good governance to the litmus test of ideology. His choice indicates either that he thinks he is invincible or that leading America in the 21st century can really be done by almost anyone – or both. It is an insult to all of us, and I hope that sober reflection on the disparity between these two views of governance will lead Americans to make the wiser choice in November.
This is an article written by Douglas Johnstone and published in the Salt Lake Tribune. Will someone please tell Tina Fey to do something with her hair.

Anarchists And The Convention

Police arrested protesters near the St. Paul convention site this afternoon and blocked off pedestrian and car traffic into the city center for at least an hour.

While the remains of a peaceful protest parade swirled around one closed road after another, growing increasingly frustrated that they weren’t able to get back to their houses and cars, one officer told me that “anarchists” a few blocks away had been causing trouble — throwing bricks and breaking people’s property.

Anarchists? Please stop it! Because a person wears a black shirt with a large red “A” on it, does not an anarchist make. The truth is that a vast majority of anarchist, at all times and places, have opposed violence as morally repugnant and counter-productive. It is a folk myth for ill informed morons that anarchists are wild eyed bombers with no opinions, just an insane urge to destroy.

This shows the ignorance of those who cannot understand a concept so they must turn it into something evil and violent. They are wrong! They are lying! And they are ignorant!

Efforts Against Electoral College Manipulation

Green Party leaders said today that the outcome of the 2008 presidential election may be affected by the antidemocratic apportionment of Electoral College votes, with the popular vote misrepresented by the winner-take-all system of assigning votes to electors.

“We’re in danger of seeing the 2008 election stolen again, as in 2000 and 2004,” said Clyde Shabazz, Green candidate for the US House in Michigan (13th District) (http://www.migreens.org). “In Florida in 2000 and Ohio in 2004, we witnessed the obstruction and manipulation of votes by election officials and possible tampering with computer voting machines. But equally insidious is the malapportionment of Electoral College votes, which disenfranchises whole sections of the voting public.”

A civil action to protect the voting rights of presidential electors and the voters they represent was filed in the US District Court for the District of Columbia (1:08-cv-01294) on January 28, 2008, by Asa Gordon, chair of the DC Statehood Green Party’s Electoral College Task Force and executive director of the Douglass Institute of Government (http://members.aol.com/digasa/dig.htm).
The civil action seeks enforcement of the ‘Mal-Apportionment Penalty’ provided in Section 2 of the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution, which mandates a reduction of a state’s presidential electors and congressional representatives if “the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States… is denied… or in any way abridged.”
The civil action was filed on July 28, 2008, to commemorate the 140th anniversary of the adoption of the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution. Since the debacle of the 2000 presidential election, the Green Party in partnership with the Douglass Institute of Government has led the way in educating Americans about their constitutional “right to vote” under the provisions of 14th Amendment, Section 2.