Wages of Sin (Caution: Bible quotes used)

Have you ever attempted to discuss current events with a Republican? I am not talking about the average republican who is business oriented, fiscally conservative, likes to keep the money in the pockets of those who work for it.

I am talking about a Republican! The God fearing, GOP stands for "God's only Party," "Real Men Love Jesus," "Guts, God and Gun," Sara Palin for President, Tea Party, type of Republican. That kind of Republican. It is an amazing discourse.

Let me lay some ground work for you before I get into this discourse. My Christian counterparts would call this "testimony."

Can I get an "Amen," Sista?

I use to be an Evangelical Christian. A good, God Fearing, conservative Baptist. Moving to Texas was a revelation. Here I was in a Christian State and in the name of God we are all going to embrace corruption, uphold scientific ignorance, rewrite history in our own image, kill the sinner and the innocent alike, and call forth hell fire and damnation on the rest of the world before we slip out the back door, steal from our neighbor, cheat our customers, lie to the public, abuse our power and sleep with our neighbor's husband or wife. Come Sunday we will brag (confess) about our sins, and do it all over again next week. I call that hypocrisy.

hypocrisy [hɪˈpɒkrəsɪ]

n pl -sies

1. the practice of professing standards, beliefs, etc., contrary to one's real character or actual behaviour, esp the pretence of virtue and piety

2. an act or instance of this

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged 6th Edition 2003. © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003

Unfortunately, hypocrisy is one of those charges leveled so often and is so rampant that it holds no weight. The response is "Yeah, yeah, so what?" Lying is a sin. Even under the broadest definitions of both the Jewish and Christian definition of sin, lying is a sin*. This sin spreads into the political discussion as well. This is where it becomes a national, political issue and not just a personal failing due to the human condition.

If you listen to the Republicans, the GOP has done nothing wrong. Never. Not Once. There is no connection between the current economic decline in the nation and Bush's decision to cut the taxes of the top 1% of the U.S. population and go to war in Iraq and Afghanistan. No, no connection whatsoever. It was Clinton's fault. It is Obama's fault. It is FDR's fault. No, our current situation has nothing to do with Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush, or King George the Usurper. Yet, the republicans have been in charge of this nation for 28 our of the last 41 years; the Democrats held control for only 12 of those 41 years. Still, nothing is the responsibility of the Republicans. They want you and I to buy their lie. They want you and I to consider them a viable alternative. They want us to embrace them. It lacks any credibility what so ever! It is insane! It is sin!

Give me an "Amen," brother!

Now James the Just wrote, "Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works." I tell you, look at the works of the GOP. They favor the wealthiest, and put the burden of their colonial wars upon the poorest of the poor of our nation. They let people die of treatable disease because it is too expensive for them. They let the widow and homeless suffer in the cold. They turn their back on the afflicted and injured. They deprive men of wages earned. They make those who can least afford it support the burden of the prosperity that they enjoy! So, where then is their faith? Is it in Jesus? Is it in God? Or is it in the level of wealth that they have achieved at the expense of others?

I tell you, they love their gold. Oh, they love their gold**. It glitters and entices, and gives them the promise that they too can be an abuser of others.

It was Paul the Evangelist who wrote, "For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows." I ask you this, have they pierced themselves? Or do they pierce others? But it does not matter, they need their Gold. They need to build their fortune. It does not matter who they destroy in the quest for Gold. It is about them and only them. And, they are sinless because of Jesus! That is what they confess.

What did John the Faithful write about those who say they are without sin? He wrote, "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." So ... there it is. The truth is not in them. They say they have done no wrong. They say it is the sin of others. They say they want you to trust them because they believe in Jesus, but according to Saint John, and their own confession, the truth is not in them. Yet, you and I are supposed to trust them. How can that be?

Paul wrote in the letter to Roman Church, "For the wages of sin is death ...." Isn't that what we are seeing? Are we not seeing death and destruction sown in the quest of Capitalist Gold? As they earn the wages of their sin, they want to take us all with them. And there is no call to repentance for people who are without sin. So, all they can do is continue to rain death upon us, and upon the nation. Unless we stop them.

Amen!

*See Sinless from January 21, 2010
** See Gold standard. (2010, February 5). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 20:01, February 7, 2010, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gold_standard&oldid=342039001

Obama's State of The Union Address (Part 7)

Game delayed due to unnecessary roughness ... I had a minor auto accident on Wednesday night. Riddle me this: How does a person hit a big, white, square box that is roughly five feet wide and over six feet tall and has big red lights on the back? I am still trying to figure that one out.

President Obama: After nearly a century of trying -- Democratic administrations, Republican administrations -- we are closer than ever to bringing more security to the lives of so many Americans. The approach we've taken would protect every American from the worst practices of the insurance industry.

According to White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel any Democrat who opposes Obama's premature reformation of the Health Insurance industry is "f------ retarded" -- oh, boy, here we go again.

Let me lay some groundwork before address the Health Insurance reformation or Mr. Emanuel's remark.

Rahm Emanuel was born in Chicago, Illinois on November 29, 1959. He served from January 3, 2003 to January 2, 2009 in the U.S. House of Representative from Illinois 5th Congressional District. This is the same district that elected Rod Blagojevich. It encompasses Chicago, Schiller Park, Franklin Park, River Grove, Elmwood Park, Northlake, and Melrose Park in a typical gerrymandering style of drawing district maps -- not all that different from Texas. Emanuel is no slouch.

It is at this point that I'd like to have a few words with Mr. Emanuel.

Last summer, when he was shooting off his big mouth, I hit the streets for the President (see amateur video blog entry). If you doubt my word, check in with Sam Hirst-Wade with Organizing for America. Understand this, I have a very bad back, and I was still walking the street here in Forest Hill, Texas for the almost nonexistent Democratic Headquarters of Fort Worth. This was in support of President Obama's cockamamie Health Insurance Reform initiate (was not even a bill in August). So ... what does that tell Mr. Emanuel?

As an individual, I am not the most enthusiastic supporter of the Health Insurance reform bill. To me it looks like a national version of the Massachusetts Model (see amateur video blog entry). Normally I would concede that something is better than nothing. However, I am having a little problem with the lack of a public option. Without a public option I see a concocted reform that will force us into the care of the same insurance companies which have done all they can to deny that care now. We will be told to purchase coverage from one of the current insurance providers, or else .... I am getting very tired of the "or else" clauses. As Colvin pointed out in his work on Crime and Coercion in 2000, the "or else" doesn't work.

I see a system where, sometime after 2013, a new regime takes over and releases the insurance companies from their obligations. I say that because the opposition is still offering no solutions but is insisting that regulation and control is a bad idea in any form of any industry. Without a safe harbor of a public option these companies, over time, will once again do what they damn well please.

I am going to stick with my original prediction from back in 2003. I recorded it in Radicals, Religion and Revelation in the chapter titled 2027. Something is going to hit the U.S. It will not be the Plague. It will not be Ebola. It will not be Swine Flu either. Something is going to hit us like the Spanish Flu of 1918, and it will probably hit us when we are in worse fiscal shape than we are in now -- we seem to hit a recession every three years in this new economy. That event will press the insurance firms so hard that they will go running to Uncle Sam for help. Uncle Sam will eventually pick up the tab since it is that or let the citizens die from a disease that is extensively treatable. At that point, rich or poor, liberal or conservative, Republican or Democrat, we will be stuck with some kind of socialized medicine. Crisis management tends to have long term effects well past the crisis.

If Mr. Emanuel wants to call me a "f------ retarded" because he has failed to convince me that the pattern of history is altered, then it is upon him; he has failed to get his message to the people. Still, I doubt if anyone in Washington really has any concerns about what it looks like at the ground level.

The rank and file republicans, the Tea Party crowd, are not going to give the Obama administration or Emanuel's White House any credit, or cut them any slack. To listen to them the Republicans are God manifestation on earth. They walk on water. They heal the sick with one touch. The hypocrisy is overlooked and nothing is ever their doing. Nixon, Reagan, and both Bushes have never done anything wrong. All that has gone wrong is the fault of "the other guy." This is funny coming from a group who embrace the Christian religion where confessing ones own sin is a primary tenant. As such, Emanuel and Obama can give up on them.

If they really want to get the Health Insurance Reform passed (name change noted on February 7, 2010), he is going to have to stop pandering to the right and drive it home. This is what King George the Usurper would have done. This is what Ronald Reagan would have done. More importunately, this is what Boss Daley would have done, and what Harry S. Truman would have done. Obama is the President of the United States, if he want this done, then he has all the position power he needs to get this done. He can be as humble as he wants, it is still up to him to get the job done. As Truman said, the buck stops at the President's desk. Obama is the man in charge, and Obama is the one who has to get the job done.

Obama's 2010 State of the Union Address (Part 6)

I am one lucky man. Over the past 35 years I have had the privilege to do almost everything I have ever wanted to do. I worked at Chicago's O'Hare International Air Port as a busboy for Carson Pirie Scott's Snack-bars and watched a massive people moving system in operation. I have worked in the, now all but dead, television repair industry as ICs (Integrated Circuits) replaced vacuum tubes (Certified Television Services, Inc.). I worked for the second largest manufacture of Electronic Test Equipment in the world (Lecrotech Inc.). That was all before finishing High School!

I have worked construction. I've painted rooms, hauled up muck, replaced sewer tiles, and tuck-pointed exterior brick walls (hard work that I am paying for now, but rewarding in its own way). I spent three years as a runner at the CBOT (Chicago Board of Trade); and lost $6,000.00 (on paper) in five seconds. I was there when the opened the new pits (by now they are probably the "old pits"). I worked as an inserter operator for a Christian Mission in San Francisco producing hundreds of pounds of bulk mail, and touching lives all over the United States. I patrolled buildings that others insisted were haunted. I was on site and supervising for Wells Fargo Guard Services in 1984 when story broke that Jewel Foods had tainted milk on the shelves. I worked for a firm doing research for a Navy sonar cable brake ... and packed it up in cosmoline when the plug was pulled on the project. I was there when Bell&Howell pulled their manufacturing plant out of Chicago and auctioned off everything in the plant; and I got to walk the halls of the first DeVry Campus before it was bulldozed and turned into a mega-mall.

After graduating from college, I worked for three different Disaster Recovery firms. The first was in Long Beach, California. It was a small, but well known, data vault. It was there that I wrote my first published work. The installation manual for the Disaster Recovery 2000 was my work. This was still five years before the internet. The next was a Disaster Recovery firm in L.A. Aeroscopic was involved in the recovery of damaged equipment. That lead, eventually, to Metropolitan Services in Libertyville, Illinois. All of this, interesting, but somewhat disappointing since I had graduated third in my class with a B.S. in Telecommunications Management.

Along the way, I also met a man working at a defense contractor in Long Beach. He told me to work with BASIC and get into AI. Never managed to get certified on AI; could not afford it. However, I did have the skill to write an integrated customer tracking and accounts receivables program for the small Disaster Recovery firm in Libertyville, Illinois. Too, when I was a whole 19 years old, I worked at as a Quality Control Test Equipment Engineer for a, now, long ago, defunct company; prototypes, I learned, are meant to blow up. That is what Underwriters Laboratory is all about. I also worked "The Road" (Illinois' Toll Highway) as a toll technician fixing the automated collection machines. Too, for a while in 2002, I worked at KLIF as a "Technical Producer" and I produced the segments of Hands on Health that aired on KCLE in Cleaburn, Texas. And, for a little while, I was a hired gun (all legal, I assure you). With that, however, I am getting ahead of myself.

In 1994 I got my one and only break. I went to work for ISSI (Integrated Sales Solutions Incorporated) making outbound sales calls to pitch Norther Telecom's Ethernet Switch. Since I was the only one who was willing to crack the case on a computer I eventually became their Novell Administrator, their Telemagic Administrator, their trainer, and their telecommunication administrator. Many hats for $12.50 an hour. It got better. In a short time, with many projects, and so many different, small, independent technical firms that I now don't remember them all (most are out of business), I was able to double that. I was on my way ... or so I thought. It came to an end in 2000. Actually, by 1998 one could already see the slow down. For me it stagnated. My last decent paying technical job ended in October 2000. Then ... boom!

Tier One Technical Support paid $25.00 and hour in 2000. The last job I finished on January 22, 2010 paid $14.00 an hour for the same responsibilities and additional sales quotas atop the technical support and customer satisfaction ratings.

We can't afford another so-called economic "expansion" like the one from the last decade –- what some call the "lost decade" -– where jobs grew more slowly than during any prior expansion; where the income of the average American household declined while the cost of health care and tuition reached record highs; where prosperity was built on a housing bubble and financial speculation. -- President Obama, January 27, 2010

I have indeed been lucky. I have seen it all come to this moment. Having vindication from none other than the President of the United States is a plus, of sorts. There are plenty of jobs that afford a person a wealth of experience, but most don't pay worth a tinker's dam. This last one paid just enough to spend it all on going to and from work and keep working.

We will double our exports over the next five years, an increase that will support two million jobs in America. (Applause.) To help meet this goal, we're launching a National Export Initiative that will help farmers and small businesses increase their exports, and reform export controls consistent with national security. (Applause.)

If Obama pulls this off, I will be surprised. I hear allot about planned growth, and expansion, but I am not seeing much. I have seen allot. Most of what I have seen has been the complete opposite of his brave, new idea.

As I point out in Wealth, Women and War, watch what they do, not what they say. Just remember, it is not entirely up to Obama, there are many, many players that have to come together to push this nation forward. Maybe this Son of Chi-Town can pull off some Boss Daley arm twisting and make it happen.

Obama's 2010 State of the Union Address (Part 5)

It is Tuesday, February 2, 2010; Groundhogs Day! Tradition holds that I make a bag of popcorn, or two, and pop in the DVD of the 1993 movie of the same name, and listen patiently for the immortalized words, "Winter, slumbering in the open air, wears on its smiling face a dream... of spring. Ciao" I know, such excitement in this American life. Still, at least I have a TV and a DVD and a copy of the movie to watch. Many don't even have that. And, even unemployed, I can stop in the middle of a day and write about bigger issues than one man's search for meaningful employment in a darkening age. Doesn't that sound ominous?

Whatever one can find to be grateful for one also has to acknowledge that unemployment is no fun. That is an understatement. The whole process is demeaning. It is socially acceptable prostitution. And one never knows exactly what the employer is looking for to make the final cut and land the job. Then add to the equation that work, to some, has to be a hostile environment.

I work for one owner in 1991 who would come into the work room and tell us how many people he had just turned away at the door. He made a point in telling us that we should be grateful for the $10.00 an hour he was paying us in Los Angeles, California. I worked for another manager, also in L.A. who seriously threatened me my life. And my ex-mother-in-law wanted to know why I left that employer. With behavior like that, and the attitudes the enable it, it was no wonder that L.A. burned in 1992 (even if Rodney King was behaving like a jerk). Heavy handed authoritarianism has been a cultural marker in California for years. The history of the changes in criminal justice is littered with corps of innocents differed and civil right trashed for the sake of expediency in the name of crime control. But, I digress. The quest remains looking for gainful employment in an environment where there is mutual respect and relatively adequate "middling" income levels. That of course throws us back to the discussion of the darkening age.

And the quest goes on ....

One thing I had touched on yesterday was the colonization of the Moon. Actually, I was talking about the end of the lunar missions. In all honesty, I don't think that colonization was the mission to begin with. Colonization was a dream of the decade, but not the goal. We may have extended our reach further than our grasp, but we did reach it, and then we did let it go. It is a mark in the history book likened to the Vikings first landing in North America. We now know they made it, but they could not capitalize on the discovery. Conquest and capitalization did not occur until after Columbus reach the "new world" in 1492; some 490 years after Leif Ericsson's all but forgotten expedition. Gaspar de Côrte-Real is credited for being the first European to set foot on North America in 1500.

In the end, we were told that we needed to address problems here at home. On our own Earth before we went "gallivanting among the planets." We had to cure poverty. We had to address the scourge of racism. We had to put sexism to rest. There were diseases to concur. We had to make a lasting peace with the Red Menace (no, not the Republicans). We had to silence the dogs of war in Southeast Asia.

Here we sit, some 38 years later ... and we are still addressing the same issues. We are still trying to provide employment for everyone who wants to work. Racism is still an issue for many. We now begin to see through such works as Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus by John Gray, Ph.D. that men and women are indeed different (viva la difference!). We have HIV, Swine Flu, SARS, Avian Flu, and a host of ailments best left to others to catalog. Cancer is rising and Hearts still fail. The Soviet Union folded, and Communist China is now a preferred trading partner. The dogs of war moved from Southeast Asia to the Middle East. So, what exactly did we gain by giving up on the lunar colony?

This is where we continue with Obama's 2010 State of the Union Address delivered on January, 27, 2010.

President Obama: I know there have been questions about whether we can afford such changes in a tough economy. I know that there are those who disagree with the overwhelming scientific evidence on climate change. But here's the thing -- even if you doubt the evidence, providing incentives for energy-efficiency and clean energy are the right thing to do for our future -– because the nation that leads the clean energy economy will be the nation that leads the global economy. And America must be that nation.

I will refrain form the obvious opening to bounce into a discussion about energy from space. I will not mention that building massive, unshielded, safe reactors on the moon and microwaving it back to Earth has been in the design stages since 1940 when Heinlein wrote Blowups Happen. I will not tell you that Scientific American published Farming Solar Energy in Space: Shrugging off massive costs, Japan pursues space-based solar arrays by Tim Hornyak in the July 2008. I will withhold the comment that at least one site, Space Future, clearly make it plan that such a source is viable. Such comments might be seen as self-serving and lacking magnanimity*. So be it.

What I will say is simple: If for no other reason, We the People of the United States of America have to get off the foreign energy teat! If we are going to get the nation back on track at a consumer of other good and services -- and I don't see us getting off that track anytime soon unless we change how we view ourselves -- then we are going to have to find a way to feed our own infotainment, celebrity crazed, covetous hedonistic, pleasure driven service economy without depending on the whim and wishes of alien (using "alien" in the absolute legal definition here) entities who view us with disdain at best. We need Energy Liberty ... and that is only going to happen when we decided, in the Corporate Board Rooms, that it is good for business.

And here people think I hate American Business. Ha! I chide them because I know they can do much, much better. We are Americans, for crying out loud, and we can make this nation one to be proud of again!

More Later

*Space-based solar power. (2010, February 2). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 17:48, February 2, 2010, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Space-based_solar_power&oldid=341501166

Obama's State of the Union Address (Part 4)

In the last installment, the topic of Wal-Mart came up. Understand, Wal-Mart is not evil. Wal-Mart has become a force of nature. This is due to their size. They are the globe's largest retail outlet.

When Wal-Mart moves into a region, they tell the local establishments to find a niche market. Find something that is not a main stream item and the locals will find plenty to go around. That is all fine and dandy advise. However, what is a niche market today may be tomorrow's main stream commodity. That was the case in 2004 with Gourmet Coffee. Suddenly something that was left for specialty houses was in the middle of Wal-Mart's already well stocked coffee isle. The small operators, let alone the likes of Starbucks, got crushed.

In another topic raised even before the President's state of the Union Address we were talking about unions. Part of that discussion, more to the side, was about the contribution of the labor to the demise of Chrysler and General Motors. It is worth remembering that the UAW also represents Ford's workers at the bargaining table. Ford, as you may have noted is still doing quite well. Could it be that Ford's management was in a better place to weather these storms of change?

Having mused of all that, let us get back to the issue at hand. The President's State of the Union Address delivered before congress on January 27, 2010; only five days ago.

President Obama: You see, Washington has been telling us to wait for decades, even as the problems have grown worse. Meanwhile, China is not waiting to revamp its economy. Germany is not waiting. India is not waiting. These nations -- they're not standing still. These nations aren't playing for second place. They're putting more emphasis on math and science. They're rebuilding their infrastructure. They're making serious investments in clean energy because they want those jobs. Well, I do not accept second place for the United States of America.

This passage has one glaring point that begs to be addressed: They're putting more emphasis on math and science.

That phrase has been the mantra of our elected officials for as long as I can remember. And, yet, after landing on the moon, after building the Personal Computer, after implementing the internet with all the complex calculations, after all this, we still hear that we are failing in math and science. Is that really where we are failing? This is enough to make one go screaming into the night.

I guess this is the place to pass along a quote from Senator Kohl a Democrat from Wisconsin. The quote is from the "Crisis in Math and Science Education" hearing in November of 1989.

There are young people out there cutting raw cocaine with chemicals from the local hardware store. They are manufacturing new highs and new products buy soaking marijuana in ever changing agents, and each of these new drugs is more addictive, more deadly and less costly than the last. How is it that we have failed to tap that ingenuity, that sense of experimentation? How is it that these kids who can measure grams and kilos and can figure out complex monetary transactions cannot pass a simple math or chemistry test?

That was over twenty years ago. Since then we have had two Republican Presidents, and two Democratic Presidents, and yet we hear the same tired mantra. Why?

Perchance there is a key in something said by Philip Kovacs in “Gates, Buffett and the Corporatization of Children”

Data worship results in a myopic view of what the world could and should be. Children, we might remind corporate America, are more than math and science scores. While math and science play important roles in our lives, there are other scores we might help children increase: their creativity score, their empathy score, their resiliency score, their curiosity score, their integrity score, their thoughtfulness score, their take-initiative score, their innovation score, their critical thinking score, their passion score, their problem-solving score, their refusal to follow leaders who lie to them score, their democratic engagement score...and so forth.

Maybe there is a myopic mesmerizer in the bottom line of a spreadsheet that we can no longer see the end result. Too, maybe it is simply "not cool" to be educated in math and science because in the end there are no laurels awarded to the team who huddle in tunnels under the earth to find the secrets of the cosmos.

At one time, in the 1960s, boys had dreams of passing beyond the envelope exosphere and setting foot on the moon. That dream was ended on December 19, 1972 when the last Apollo mission (Apollo 17) splashed down in the Pacific off the cost of American Samoa. We gave up on the moon and all other endeavors became petty, small, and commercial. The space shuttle had its moments, but even those are best remembered in the failures and not the successes. Eugene A. Cernan, Ronald E. Evans, Harrison H. Schmitt were the last of the great heroes of math and science.

There may be some good news. It really depends on the corporations. To put the best spin possible on the story, Obama is passing the torch of space exploration and development to the private sector; Obama is cutting the budget for the proposed lunar landing in 2020 (ten years from now). Rather than argue if the private sector is up to the task, let us ask if they are willing? That is the only real question.

There is little doubt on this side of the computer monitor that the private sector can do the job. They can do it for less. They can do it faster. They can do it in a shorter time frame. That is so apparent that it is not worth wasting bits in any argument. If the likes of Gates, Jobs, Brin and Page wanted it, we would be on the moon and setting up the first lunar hotel in two years. The question is, do they want it? Will Buffett back it?

That is the challenge of this era. Will the private corporations who can move humanity off this globe, do so?

More to Come

Obama's State of the Union (Part 3)

This is a continuation of the project started a couple of days ago to look at some points in Obama's State of the Union Address. I am an unabashed supporter of President Obama. I am not about to apologize of that. Living down here in Texas that makes me a rear individualist. I came to Texas in 1998 to work on a project which the locals did not want to touch. Through a set of circumstances best left for another telling, I have been here through the past decade.

Texas is an interesting state. Not surprisingly there is a population shift towards Texas in this recession. If nothing else, Texas has the most business friendly environment of any of the 50 states. It is easier to start a business here than in California, Illinois, or Wisconsin. It is, however, just as easy to fail here. It may actually be easier to fail here. Texas friendly, does not equal friendly acceptance. New and innovative is not embraced here in Texas. During the Bush years, Texas was described as place were islands of Japan like innovation were surrounded by a sea of third world stagnation (part of that discussion can be found in an article from 2007). I have not seen anything to argue against that assessment. While the up swing in Texas population may be due to Texas' business friendly environment, it may also be due to Texas ex-pats coming back home due to the dismal economic opportunities elsewhere. That is a factor which cannot be ruled out. Having said that, however, for those who are coming to Texas, I would recommend reading Fixin' To Be Texan by Helen Bryant.

Having said that I am picking up where I left off yesterday: page three of the New York Times reprint of Obama's State of the Union Address.

President Obama: We should start where most new jobs do –- in small businesses, companies that begin when -- (applause) -- companies that begin when an entrepreneur -- when an entrepreneur takes a chance on a dream, or a worker decides it's time she became her own boss. Through sheer grit and determination, these companies have weathered the recession and they're ready to grow. But when you talk to small business-owners in places like Allentown, Pennsylvania, or Elyria, Ohio, you find out that even though banks on Wall Street are lending again, they're mostly lending to bigger companies. Financing remains difficult for small business-owners across the country, even those that are making a profit.

He is absolutely right. To create jobs, to create wealth in the community, to create a stable economic environment that can sustain the rip tides of the Globalized economy the small business is the key to growth. It is way past time to make the distinction between the local Mr. Monk's Market and Delly and Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart, and their Wall Street backers, have proved through their actions not to be concerned about what happens on Main Street. They move in, Main Street dies. There is no competition against the likes of Wal-Mart. There is no competition against Microsoft. There is no competition against at&t. By favoring these behemoths main street losses out. The documentation on this is covered extensively in Wealth, Women and War, and Radicals, Religion and Revelation.

Being critical of the MultiNational Corporations, being suspicious of the intent of a corporation is not being anti-business. Right now doing business with Wall-Mart is almost a necessity, but being aware of what Wall-Mart represents and how it (and the others) have been able to dominate the marketplace is a good place to start understanding what has gone wrong with this economy.

Obama: We can't afford another so-called economic "expansion" like the one from the last decade –- what some call the "lost decade" -– where jobs grew more slowly than during any prior expansion; where the income of the average American household declined while the cost of health care and tuition reached record highs; where prosperity was built on a housing bubble and financial speculation.

Thank you, President Obama! With this statement the President of the United States verified what I observer and documented in all three of my works from 2003 to 2008.

Labels are funny things. We all use them, but they are often inaccurate. So in the discussion of who opposes what the labels conservative, progressive, liberal don't really work. As such the wording here is a bit difficult at 6:55 AM on a Saturday morning.

First, to the amateur political hack and obstructionist documentation does not matter. Their fervor is a religious fervor not unlike a religious alliance or team franchise fanaticism. No matter what proof is laid on the table they can excuse their actions or blame someone else. Effectively this direction abdicates any responsibility what so ever for the effect. Often they show all the signs of Neutralization (covered in Wealth, Women and War): the alliance with a "higher" authority.

Second, this abject denial of documented fact covers both sides of the political spectrum.

In this one short statement, President Obama summed up everything I was authenticating for six years. Just because the religious in Texas don't want to see it, and the Republicans in Kansas don't want to admit it, does not mean that it did not happen. Even now, if Georgia's Republican Price, or Wisconsin's Ryan do not want to accept culpability in this economic fiasco, it does not mean that such culpability does not exist. It may not be personal culpability, but it is there.

More to Come.

Obama State of the Union Address (Part 2)

The way I am progressing on this, I might just have it finished by the time President Obama gives the next State of the Union Address. As you can tell, I have not begun any discussions on the "policy." I may do that. Then again, I may not. That is left to the talking heads and experts. Like I said yesterday, these are my notes on the address and on the State of the Union from my down on the bottom end of the economic food chain.

Obama: One in 10 Americans still cannot find work. Many businesses have shuttered. Home values have declined. Small towns and rural communities have been hit especially hard. And for those who'd already known poverty, life has become that much harder.

In a related story, released today by AP:

The economy grew for a second straight quarter from October through December, posting a better-than-expected 5.7 percent annual rate, the fastest quarterly pace since 2003.

This makes absolute sense. We hit bottom in 2008. Any growth from that point is going to be a positive. If a vehicle is stalled on the side of the road with a blown rod and it is driving at 10 miles an hour, it has an increase in movement forward. That would be a positive movement. Our fictitious vehicle has increased speed by 10%. Same too with the economy ... except it wasn't exactly dead on the side of the road. Bush did leave us with a little something to work with.

The real indicator of economic growth is the U6 table from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The U3 table is the official unemployement rate. It is sitting at 10.0% as of December 2009. The U6 table, the measurement of "Total unemployed, plus all marginally attached workers, plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all marginally attached workers" (the real unemployment figure) is sitting at 17.3% as of December 2009. So while the economy was growing, according to the AP report, we are still not generating jobs ... as a matter of fact we are still dumping people on the street.

There is a report from AP this morning which states:

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office recently analyzed several proposals to create jobs and improve the economy and concluded that a payroll tax credit for companies that increase payroll would be among the most effective.

It is odd that our Corporate Citizens have to be bribed to do what is best for them and the nation. Still, they look to China as the next consumer market and can't seem to wrap their head around the idea that the foundation of the United States needs to be firm before they go diddling in the colonial economy of a second world nation. Discussion with Google should confirm that one.

Obama: Despite our hardships, our union is strong. We do not give up. We do not quit. We do not allow fear or division to break our spirit. In this new decade, it's time the American people get a government that matches their decency; that embodies their strength.

The union is strong. It is strong because of our hardships. It is strong because we are, Republican and Democrat, Libertarian and Socialist, all facing the same decline strength and national prowess. It is a funny thing when one thinks about it: the Rabid Right Attack Dogs that are so annoying are essentially some of the strongest supporters of the Obama cause (I can hear them barking now over that one). They are the ones who demand "decency" -- it would be nice if they would define it within the parameters of authenticated historic context rather than propagandist colloquialism, but it is still a cry for decency.

Obama: To recover the rest [of the TARP funds], I've proposed a fee on the biggest banks. Now, I know Wall Street isn't keen on this idea. But if these firms can afford to hand out big bonuses again, they can afford a modest fee to pay back the taxpayers who rescued them in their time of need.

This idea may get lost soon. From where I sit, right now, at this moment, this administration is still bowing to the needs of the few at the expense of the many. What I find so interesting is that people who are bright and intelligent still seem to think that catering to the whim of Wall Street is best of the whole nation. It is difficult, at best, to understand this. They have nothing to gain. They slave to the beat of the master's lash. Yet they bow and grovel to them ... my guess is they represent a fifth column. They believe in the Wall Street class because they are somehow tied to the Wall Street class. Yet, many of these same people lost so much during the last decade. It is strangeness to be pondered.

Obama: And we haven't raised income taxes by a single dime on a single person. Not a single dime.

As it was in the Bush years, it is now; you can't tax incomes that are declining. As incomes go down, so do taxes. That is a no-brainer.

Obama: But I realize that for every success story, there are other stories, of men and women who wake up with the anguish of not knowing where their next paycheck will come from; who send out resumes week after week and hear nothing in response. That is why jobs must be our number-one focus in 2010, and that's why I'm calling for a new jobs bill tonight.

Refer back to the AP story from this morning that is what he is working on. CHARLES BABINGTON and STEPHEN OHLEMACHER, Associated Press Writers seem to indicate that Obama will have a rough go of it. According to the story Representative Mike Pence is trying to play hard-ball with President Obama as the President meets with house Republicans today. We will see what comes of it.

A little note here from a Facebook friend:

You should really cut him some slack. The Constitution, free enterprise and personal liberties have been around for over 200 years. You can't destroy those overnight or even in just one year. Give him some time...he's trying and, even more importantly, he *says* he's really trying...to get something done.

No, you cannot destroy the economy of the Unites States in one year. It took Bush eight years to screw it up.

More to Come