Time for a Peaceful Revolution

The majority of Americans in this country are not represented properly by either political party. Looking left or right anyone with an internet connection can see that both parties are bought and paid for by the same conglomerates, whatever side controlling the government receiving the most money. Both sides have an equally polarizing television network in their corner (MSNBC/Fox News), and both seem to always blame their lack of movement on any issue on the opposition. The more people realize this, the more frustrated they become, and the more they want to change things. When this happens people mobilize and throw out elected officials. That is what happened last year when Barack Obama was elected president. Unfortunately, not much has yet to change, and with the recession growing, people are growing more disenchanted.

Not many people are willing to admit that when people have jobs and a steady paycheck, they do not care who is in office, as long as their respective family is secure. But now 17% of our country is out of work or underemployed, and the other 83% of working Americans are in some way fearful they are going to lose their job. This is when small fears becomes a larger fear. This is when people start swallowing lies. This is when factory workers are duped into thinking that free trade is going to make their job more secure, when teachers take pay cuts, when unions are strong armed, when people compare the holocaust to healthcare reform, the president to a dictator, and any government program as over-reaching. In a world with money, having economic security is essential, and it would only make sense that in our country people start focusing on what makes us different from each other when it seems when the light at the end of the tunnel is all but burnt out.

Regardless of what someone’s ideological persuasion is, it is baffling to see that the Democrats have yet to do anything. This is because of the aforementioned corporate control of the government. Ideologically blind liberals are just as dangerous as ideologically blind conservatives, and slowly but surely both are waking up to the fact that everything they stand for is irrelevant, because belief system has been hijacked and used against them. This is usually the point that disenchanted voters start mulling over the issue of a third party. And while a third party would certainly shake things up, in the current system the end would be the same. Corporations would donate to the third party, naturally, and in the end our country would be at yet another ideological gridlock. For there to be a functioning third party in this country, all political parties need to function period. One way to accomplish this would be a complete overhaul of campaign finance reform that eliminated all corporate contributions and limited personal contributions. Still, one has to ask themselves what a third party would be all about.

Most people seem to define themselves as ‘moderate,’ but the more people debate each other, the more people add ‘meat’ to their respective belief systems, the more apparent it is that many people fall into the category of moderately liberal. This is not a finding that is based on any bias, but the fact that most American citizens fall into a category of being middle class, and their socio-economic lifestyle is best maintained by so-called liberal values. But there is already a ‘liberal’ party, and like it’s conservative counterpart it misrepresents it’s voters and does not get anything done. So having a moderately liberal third party would not accomplish much of anything. Neither would a party based on theology (a commonly proposed third party) because although most Americans identify themselves as ‘religious,’ most people firmly believe in church and state separation, since our country was founded on the basis of escaping a theocracy. A party based in the idea of the 'free market' would also fail, as it is an extension of a neoconservative viewpoint that in the end would only maintain and extend the prosperity of a few Americans. The lack of identifiable party ideals in the end, leaves us with only one option: revolution.

Revolution is a fairly strong word that brings with it a great deal of emotion. Yet when the government fails to meet the needs of it's citizens, it is the responsibility of any citizen in any democracy to revolt and press for change. That does not mean we should blow up buildings or run through the streets with machine guns. What it means is that people should organize peacefully, with a unified message. That our nation of middle income workers should collectively strike, and with the exception of those working for vital industries (power, health, etc) the middle class in this country should literally walk away from their jobs at the same time, and refuse to work until changes are made that actually benefit everyone instead of large conglomerates, billionaires, and millionaires. While it may seem like a radical idea, it is peaceful, and actually plausible. What would our government do if everyone stopped working and went home for the day? Would they force everyone back to work? Would they let people sit at home and starve? No. They would be forced to stop making excuses and do something. If they chose not to, it would be revealed that our entire system of government was a sham.

Any revolution must strike down the status quo. Our president may have campaigned on tearing down that status, but instead chose to embrace it. Each of us, this young generation, needs to rise up and embrace the rights and obligations placed upon us by our forbearers, fought for by our ancestors, and instilled in us by our parents; that our nation is one of many, yet stands above others as a land of opportunity, equality, and hope. If we choose to ignore the injustice in front of our eyes we shall become blinded by the falsehood that prosperity is reserved for the few, and in this blindness the ideals of generations will be erased by the unforgiving current of history.

State of the Nation, Part 3

As our nation continues it’s downward spiral, it seems that both commonly accepted mainstream ideologies are pointing fingers. But as any wise parent tells their child: “When you point a finger at someone, there are three pointing right back at you.” Such is the case in modern America. In the 80’s the republicans embraced the free market and began tearing down regulation. In the 90’s the democrats furthered the process by deregulating banks. In the last nine years, both parties have shown their collective ambivalence towards regulation of any kind. In these thirty years of deregulation and mass consumption, something quite odd has happened in America: the middle class have become fervent supporters of not only the ruling class, but the idea of upward mobility.

It is strange to see that during this health care debate, those most in need of affordable health care have chosen to side with large conglomerates instead of their friends and neighbors. Suddenly, these massive companies are not only patriotic, but have been anointed as the spirit of American free enterprise. It is baffling to listen or read about how someone can actually try to defend how people do not have a fundamental right to something as simple as healthcare. Often times, these are the same people that claim those who do not work are lazy, or those who want health care should seek a job that provides it. Are there lazy people in the world? Absolutely. But the 17% of Americans that are currently unemployed or underemployed are surely not all lazy people. And of the 30 million Americans that do not currently have health insurance for whatever reason probably want a job that provides health care of some sort. Unfortunately, any person with reading comprehension skills could see that 30 million and 17% are pretty large numbers, and to make the claim that someone is ‘lazy’ or ‘needs to find another job’ is shortsighted to say the least. What this problem points to in my mind is not only how sadly misinformed that American populace is (Who really believes that half of all the doctors in American would quit their jobs if there was any healthcare reform? I mean seriously?) but how absolutely selfish our society has become over the last 30 years.

Most of those who rage against health care seem to stand by two points: the government is big enough, and do not take ‘my money’ for your ‘socialism.’ So let us start off with the size of the government. Most conservatives point to FDR as the go to guy for a mushrooming government. Well, look at Reagan, Nixon, and George W. Bush. First, Reagan worked as hard as he could to grow the military during the cold war, by spearheading development of missile protection systems. Nixon did the same thing (he even started the EPA, much to the chagrin of conservatives who know nothing about history). Now let is move on over to George W. Bush. He actually founded an entirely new branch of government: the Department of Homeland Security. This was the largest expansion of the role of government in the history of the United States. Wait a second; I thought only liberals grew the government. Nope. It seems that all conservative ideologues are concerned about is whether or not our growing government helps people of different heritage, not whether or not we build more bombs and spy on our own citizens. We would not want to actually help anyone, or give them a leg up in the world, would we? Nope.

Then we move on to listen to people complaining about ‘their money’ and ‘socialism’. Here are a few ‘socialist’ enterprises: police and fire departments, parks and recreation departments (ever played in a city ran little league? Congratulations, your family just supported a socialist enterprise), the public education system, the national park system, the interstate highway system, and the military, just to name a few. So, when I hear or read about people complaining about which money is theirs, and how they do not like where it is going, I often scratch my head in befuddlement, as almost every one of my peers was educated at a public school, and has used some form of a government program in their lifetime. What is more frustrating about this is that people either lack the understanding or the will to see that paying taxes helps everyone, not just poor people. All of these ‘socialist’ programs I just mentioned are paid for with tax dollars. We cannot pick and choose. We cannot say: “Well I have to take care of my family, and my kid doesn’t play football, so I should not have to give them my money,” because in the end, this same person may need to use another service that their taxes provide. These are the same people that are either related to teachers who are underpaid and only make a reasonable living because of their strong union, or have actually personally experienced what it is like to have to go to the community and ask for money due to astronomical medical bills. Not only is this a fundamental failure in understanding, but it is the pinnacle of American ignorance; a virus that my generation has yet to cure.

In the end we are left with a society that only seems to be focused on ‘me’ rather than ‘we.’ There is no excuse that our country lacks an efficient health care system that covers everyone at a fair cost. There is no excuse that people are unable to understand that helping everyone reach a level of prosperity should be the goal of any society, and the goal of the government is to protect it’s people. Our generation may volunteer more, but from what I have seen and experienced that does not matter. What actually matters is that we must work together as a society to make the lives of everyone around us better. This is not some deadly ‘ism,’ this is what it means to be human.

Ideological Noise

People rally around chants of ‘less government’ and ‘lower taxes’ without having the slightest inkling of what those statements actually mean.

So let us start with the notion of ‘less government.’ Where do we make the cuts? Surely a few things could go, maybe cutting down on certain parts of government bureaucracy that, like all forms of bureaucracy, are just a little redundant. But who decides what should be cut? And from where? How could we guarantee that this accountant was free of ties to industry that could benefit from cutting a few ribbons of government? These are questions that a bunch of people shouting buzz words simply cannot answer with factual information. What about the people that actually lose their jobs from these cuts we are going to make? What do we tell those who have undoubtedly given incredible amounts of their time to average paying jobs? Do we tell them they just picked the wrong career, and wish them well and send them into a most likely hostile job market? More questions which happen to be impossible to answer. Most times the answers to these questions will be answered with hostility and the claim: “I am not in the government, I don’t do the budget. I just think there should be less government.” So even though these people have no idea how the government functions, they want to make cuts. There is no other way to put it: this way of thinking is not only embarrassingly idiotic, but dangerous.

Continuing down the road to nowhere is the idea of ‘lower taxes.’ Paying taxes does not put a smile on anyone’s face, but if a taxpayer actually stops to think about where the money goes, they tend to realize that the money is well spent. But since we are on the way to ‘lowering those high taxes,’ let us ask some more questions. First, for whom do we lower taxes? If we lower taxes, how will the government be able to pay its employees to work? What do we do about the massive budget shortfalls that will result from lower tax revenue? More questions that those rallying around buzz words cannot answer. Why is it so difficult to answer the core questions surrounding a position? Because both of these questions cancel each other out.

Shrinking the size of government would lower the tax revenue the government would be able to generate, since government employees also pay taxes. One would then argue that the government would be shrunk and then taxes would be lowered to make up for the surplus generated by a suddenly streamlined government. This is just asinine. Because the fact is that the higher the unemployment, the more strain there is on the government’s coffers. Therefore, shrinking the size of government is never a positive solution since the effect of a large swath of newly unemployed people would hurt the books of the government. And that is where the problem of cutting taxes hits the wall, because if we cut taxes we have to lay off government workers or workers contracted by the government, thus raising the unemployment rate.

It could be said that this train of thought could lead to everyone being employed by the government. Then again, those who make this claim are the same people who believe the ideologies denounced in the paragraphs above. While the government is a tool like any that should be used when things are broken, the government is not always the solution. The government is more of gauze for when the bleeding becomes too severe. Not understanding that the role of the government has always been to protect the people is a failure of common sense. This lack of understanding is disturbing because putting the blinders on and heading down the track never leads anywhere positive. These same people rallying against socialism and dictatorships fail to understand that is exactly what their ideologies promote.

Rationalizing the Cost of a National Health Care Plan

With the talk of a national public health care option heating up, the current conservative response to a looming national plan is decry that it is too costly to provide the nation with health care. When in reality, who cares? I ask this question because six years ago the Congress gave President Bush authority to wage war against Iraq, not requiring a price tag, let alone an estimate. The war on multiple fronts has cost our country trillions of dollars, money that could have been spent on a health care plan. Therefore, one could argue that anyone against health care because of cost values going to war with other countries in the name of ‘security’ instead of providing every American with affordable health care. Health care makes Americans far more secure than a war ever could.

Simply put, I am willing to be that more lives have been lost in this country because of our profit based health care system than the total deaths of 9/11, both wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and every other act of terror against Americans combined. So what those who are afraid of spending money on something that will benefit many instead of a select few (like every war in history basically has) have to ask themselves is: How do you sleep at night?

Public Health Care Solutions

Unless one happens to have their head in a hole in the ground, the legislative fight over public health care has begun. And while the benefits of a public health care option should be obvious to anyone who has ever had to pay a medical bill, the arguments against a public option have taken center stage in the media. Obviously this has to do more with the boat load of medical advertisements and corresponding revenue generated than reasonable arguments against providing inexpensive health care to every American. Conglomerated media has identified the drop in revenue that would result with a nationwide health insurance plan mainly based off of preventative care and cost control. Once the government competes with private health providers, the astronomical price of medication will decrease, and many drug companies will have to cut their advertising budget. This is why many media outlets labeled ‘liberal media’ by conservative fundamentalists are actually more in line with free market ideologies than those same conservatives are willing to admit. Still, there are realistic compromises that must be made on the issue of a national health care system, and understanding those compromises will bring satisfaction to both the right and left.

Cost is not an issue. No matter what someone who claims to be a deficit hawk happens to believe. If there average cost of health insurance for a family of four is $12,000 a year, surely the government’s cost would be less. One would in turn then argue that the amount of people using a public option would drive the total cost of health care up. Wrong again, as the entire concept of insurance is that the pool of risk is spread out to cover the cost of actual care and while the starting costs would be great because people would actually be going to the doctor, the long term costs of a public option would be considerably less.

Making a public health care option is not socialism. In fact, having a public option will only make private business work harder to keep their customers. Obviously the government and its unlimited resources will win the battle over time, but a public option will not prevent people from having private insurance and will undoubtedly allow the private industry to become more specialized in the realm of supplemental insurance or even plastic surgery insurance.

The one argument that actually has traction is it is a bad idea to completely destroy the health insurance industry by offering a no deductable option against the private insurance industry. Even though a no-deductable insurance plan should be the eventual goal of a public option, offering it to the masses immediately instead of only to Americans with the lowest incomes would be detrimental to the American economy. Mainly because the amount of people that would shed their health insurance plan and jump over to the free plan would be massive, and would be answered by the private industry with layoffs. While it need not be said that there is no pity for an out of work executive, a layoff of the claims adjuster who makes $38,000 a year will affect the economy. And while many of those working in the private industry will go over to the public plan, it is not like our government is nationalizing the industry and retaining all of the workers. A public option will result in redundancies, but it is important that they happen gradually instead of all at once.

But this is not at all where the public option dies; it only hits a snag and becomes gradual instead of immediate change. Cost is not an issue; neither is race, or concepts of socialism. What is at issue is the risk of massive job loss with a significant change in the insuring of a majority of Americans. This is why it is important that the public option is weighted to provide health care to the poorest Americans at no cost, and to significantly reduce the cost of health care for average Americans. Because an immediate shift from cost based care to free care would only hurt our economy, whereas a planned transition to a national plan would allow the job losses to be staggered and absorbed. This would also allow the added pocket money middle class Americans to be directly injected into the economy instead of the saving that would result in another unemployment spike.

At the core of every anti public option argument it is difficult to comprehend why conservatives are against public care, as conservatives tend to believe that giving the people more money in their pockets is a good thing. If 70% of our economy is based off of consumer spending, giving middle class people more money will surely make up for the losses of massive gains the drug companies and health insurance companies manage to see every quarter. But it quickly becomes apparent that the reason for conservative backlash is simple: being for a public plan completely goes against the ideologies that have been the forefront of conservatism for the last 30 years, and a successful public plan would only invalidate conservative ideology and bring about a democratic swing in the government not seen since Roosevelt. But one thing is certain: a public plan would allow the private health care industry to do what it has been doing to Americans for decades: die a slow death.

Advancing American Society, Part 1

There comes a time when all services whose benefits outweigh those of free enterprise be absorbed by the government for the betterment of a society. While the idea of expanding government disrupts theories of free enterprise, what needs to be reevaluated is our understanding of ethical choices in regards to equal global prosperity. When a service is provided that becomes integral to everyday life, eventually it becomes necessary for that service to function as an entitlement. Two prime examples of this concept are banking and health services. Both of these industries have transcended and overwhelmed the value of free enterprise, thus endangering their ability to advance positively.

For a time it made perfect sense for banks to be public for profit institutions. The world was less connected, and the amount of small town banks made competition close to what could constitute a free market ideal. But over time the sense of capitalism eroded as all available markets were cornered and filled. Demand would always fluctuate, and like most businesses there would be highs and lows that would shape loans, interest rates, and other variables in the banking sector. But there was not any new product to dramatically raise demand, and with public banks the bottom line and short term gains became more important than long term investment. Essentially, the publicly owned banks had goals of profit which directly contradicted the aims of saving and lending. These new ‘products,’ however detrimental in the long run brought about short term gains that made even the most wary warm to increasingly large sums of money. Like all things speculative, the end was catastrophic and required government intervention. Unfortunately, the intervention was not nearly enough as these banks were basically allowed to shore up their losses by breaking the backs of faithful customers, and positioning themselves for another series of speculation and high profit margins. It is at this time apparent that it becomes the responsibility of the government to absorb these banks to protect citizens from the pitfalls of capitalism. In a modern society banking should not be for profit: banks should lend to fuel private enterprise, not be a private enterprise. Therefore it is important that our society addresses the importance of limiting the power of banks by decreasing their size, removing ownership from the public sector, and bringing clear regulation into every inch of savings and lending. Letting the guardians of free enterprise become devoured by out of control capitalism has led our society down the road to ruin. And as our countries ability to finance itself has become crippled, so has our ability to care for ordinary citizens.

If the beginning of the Hippocratic Oath is to ‘First do no harm,’ it is entirely contradictory in the practice of medicine that anyone is ever turned away from medical treatment. While this has been said repeatedly, it should be the aim of a good government to place the care of citizens within its priorities. Because if a government can guarantee military protection from war, surely it can provide care for the far more consistent and constant threat of illness. Some would argue in the case of medicine that government control would halt development of new treatments and cause scientific stagnancy. Yet the concept of medical invention for profit itself is unethical; people will always want to cure disease and prolong life. This is something proven throughout history, as some of our greatest medical achievements have come not under the guise of profit but under the desire to extinguish disease. Government intervention would actually have the opposite effect in medicine, as its ability to research can out pace any private business. Government non-profit medicine would not remove people from choice either; rather it would shift more of the responsibility onto the individual rather than for-profit corporations who seek profit alone. Government medicine is not about individuals getting rich. What needs to be understood by business as well as individuals is how important it is for our society to move away from individual achievement into the realm of societal advancement. While the individual must be honored and respected for contributing to society, what should be recognized is the importance of the contribution. Like banking, medicine has the ability to help individuals while enriching the lives of many. Where banking provides the loan that helps a business grow, medicine provides the treatment for the business owner’s family and the employees of the aforementioned business. With this a connection is made; anyone can see that if a government provides entitlements to citizens other sectors of free enterprise will emerge, thus allowing the concept of American capitalism to flourish. This same concept of interconnectivity can be tied into the government having a role in societal advancement.

When a service or field is emerging that could provide a country with prolonged internal stability, it is the responsibility of the government to help develop that field. Like healthcare and banking, our national security should be rooted in the concept that what is good for ordinary citizens is even better for the government. This is why it is in the best interests of our government to pursue clean and renewable energy with all of its capabilities. Petroleum, coal, and nuclear energy are all commodities that require more energy to defend than to produce. They are also limiting the possibilities of our long term survival as a species. Therefore it becomes the role of government to either take control of scientific development, or to nudge private business into the driver’s seat. In this situation it is obvious that using government resources is cheaper than those of private corporations, and that in the long run citizens will benefit rather than share holders in a publicly traded company. Let me provide an example. Say the government developed cost effective and free solar panels for every home in America. While not entirely relieving our dependence on inefficient commodities, this would allow a massive reduction in their consumption. This would also spur private sector development in other renewable energy sources, like wind and geothermal to fill in the rest of the gap. Furthermore, while the government would employ citizens to design and manufacture the panels, the private sector would be used to transport and install them. Thus the argument for government hurting the private sector is erased, as is the idea that private corporations would cease to exist if the government competed against them. Because while there will always be things the government can do better, the private sector is still essential because it brings balance to the field of play and vice versa.

One could argue that these ideas are overly idealistic and utopian. One could also argue that in a society like this bureaucracy would takeover, and cronyism could run rampant. This is surely a real possibility. But what must be understood is that by removing certain essential fields from the category of being ‘for profit institutions’ and moving them into the sector of societal entitlements, we allow other forms of growth and innovation to rise in their place. What has occurred over the course of my life is the opposite; our society has become infected with a poisonous brand of capitalism that violates the rights of citizens under the guise of shareholder satisfaction. This is not free enterprise, this is unethical greed centered individualism that has destroyed our ideals and threatens to tear the fabric of our nation apart. It is time for solutions that benefit the many instead of the few.

I can fix America in 3 paragraphs

No matter where side is spinning, America is in a free fall. Most of out banks are solvent, true unemployment is in double digits, our planet is being killed by our apathy towards scientific progress, and the deck is stacked against the average American. One could argue that the solution to these problems requires common ground, but all of the compromises that we as a people have made are no longer the bedrock of America they are shifting sand. The time for compromise is over. Honest people have been told for too long that compromise is moral high ground of idealism. That should end now.


To fix our broken financial system we need air tight regulation, a simplified and strict tax code that punishes people who cheat it, and trade policies that are beneficial to importers and exporters alike. A cap of all interest rates at 10%, and the elimination of for profit banking institutions would not only make it easier for people to borrow, but limit the probability of future banking meltdowns. As a society, the idea of ownership without work needs to end. All immigrants within our borders should be given amnesty so businesses are forced to pay them fair wages, and racist whites stop blaming them for taking jobs. Unemployment can be solved two ways: by increasing the minimum wage so that it is a living wage and by creating a robust Works Progress Administration to rebuild the parts of our country we have let deteriorate.


To restore our manufacturing base and embrace our future energy needs we need to create a national solar panel company that provides solar panels for every home and business in America. To lower the costs of operating a business and to promote equality, we must provide a public health care option to compete with private insurance. Doing this will cover every American and lay the ground work for universal Medicare. Keeping our society healthy is a goal we can make progress on by regulating our food industry to guarantee that the animals we slaughter are healthy and treated humanely, and that the produce we eat does not harm the earth it grows on. In furthering the opportunities of citizens, education should be realistically affordable to those who seek it. Most importantly, stop believing that change is a utopian impossibility.