This site focuses on Republican politicians and conservatives that rip off their constituency. We have the Tea Party, fundamentalist churches, the corruption of ALEC and other special interests groups. But the site also supports progressive Democrats and the local Democratic Socialist of America. We must have ideas on how to replace regressive and corrupt politicians with something better. For comments steveotto2001@yahoo.com or ottozero2001@yahoo.com.
I'm a life-long Frank Zappa fan, so when I
heard that Dweezil Zappa, his son, was playing the Crown Uptown Theatre,
November 20, I just had to go. For such a well known celebrity, the crowd was
not so big that it took all night to get in. There was almost no line. But there
was plenty of people there—a packed house.
Dweezil mostly played his dad’s music,
which was fine with me. He played a lot of the classics, such as Valley Girl and Call Any Vegetable. He also played some of the songs known to his
followers, such as The Torture Never
Stops and Sleep Dirt, but best of all, he played a lot of the lesser known
songs, from such albums as Uncle Meat.
That included; Dog Breath and Sleeping In A Jar.
I’ve always heard that Zappa’s music is
hard to play and Dweezil said that between the songs they played. He had a
large well equipped band and the concert was wonderful. It was a real treat to
hear all those Zappa classics.
One thing I’ve always enjoyed about Zappa
was his witty and satirical lyrics. Songs, such as Trouble Coming Every Day, about the Watts Riots, I Am The Slime, a slam on the effects of
TV, and Porn Wars, a song about Congressional
hearings over music censorship. He also did a lot of silly songs making fun
of the latest trends, such as Disco Boy.
If there was an award for the most hypocritical president,
Donald Trump would probably win it. Hypocrisy is as American as apple pie. That
is especially true of US
foreign policy. And Saudi Arabia
is probably one of the worst foreign policies of the US. Both People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) and Saudi Arabia have handed down
political power from father to son, a monarchy type situation.
Every time some one has any kind of relationship to or with
Kim Jong Il, the leader of Democratic (DPRK) ,
reporters are quick to point out that Kim is a “murderer.” He has a “horrible
human rights record,” as any politician or celebrity will be reminded by
mainstream reporters. Consider this article
I wrote on Dennis Rodman and his trip to North Korea:
“Dennis Rodman is flying to DPRK,
with a documentary crew to spend four days helping train a team of DPRK
basketball players for a January exhibition in Pyongyang.
A CNN article about Rodman’s trip actually
looks more like an editorial then an actual news story.
The article states this opinion as
fact: “one of the world's most repressive regimes.”
The CNN article brought up
a whole pile of charges made by both the US government and its lap-dog
press.”
The point to be made here is that Saudi Arabia has about the same
type of human rights abuses. People are executed all the time in that country.
Our own CIA has figured out that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is a
murderer.
And yet President Trump defied the nation’s intelligence
agencies to declare his
unswerving loyalty to Saudi Arabia and its Crown Prince
Salman. He made the ridiculous claim that “the killing of Journalist Jamal
Khashoggi might never be known.”
We know perfectly well that Khashoggi was ordered to be
killed by the Crown Prince.
To be fair, no US
president has criticized or withheld aid to Saudi Arabia in the last 70 years.
Even though this Saudi
Arabia is an absolute tyranny, it has received steady US aid and that
includes a lot of military hardware. Last year Trump announced a $110 billion
arms deal. While North Korea
gets sanctioned, Saudi
Arabia, a very similar country with a
similar human rights record gets to buy weapons of all kinds. Trump simply
refuses to acknowledge the fact that Khashoggi was murdered by that regime. It
was an out right murder of a journalist who might criticize and expose the
tyranny that is so obvious in Saudi
Arabia. Trump has said before that the deal
he has
made involves $millions and will provide lots of jobs. Trump has made it
clear he values people’s jobs and the money that his deals bring into the
economy way more than the life of just one journalist. He is willing to except
that death. He and past presidents refuse to acknowledge that that country has
committed many more executions of innocent people than just that one journalist.
Such executions are common place and the idea that this was just a single
incident is ludicrous. This policy was not just in Trump's making. It
represents a policy that puts US
military and political power as priority one and it has nothing to do with
defense, freedom nor democracy. This is US
foreign policy and it is a system for removed from anything that is presented
to the US
public.
This is just one example of Trump’s hypocrisy. Just recently
Trump accused a judge of being a Barack Obama appointee upholding Obama’s
policies and values. And all of this because of a federal judge who ruled that the administration must consider claims of
asylum no matter where migrants cross the U.S. border. Just because the
justice ruled
against him, Trump has accused him of being a stooge for the Democrats and
Obama.
The
official holiday season begins with Black Friday and Thanksgiving. Black Friday
officially starts the day after Thanksgiving, which now occurs in more than
just Friday usually way before that Friday and then there is that great
traditional and religious holiday Thanksgiving.
We
could include Halloween as the beginning of the holiday season, but that day is
more of a tradition that does not conger up as much money as Black Friday does.
Thanksgiving is not a real big money maker, either, but it comes the day before
the tradition of Black Friday and that allows for a paired holiday that
provides religious tradition as well as consumerism, capitalism, gluttony and
an orgy of gift buying and selling. While the average citizen sees the holidays
as a chance for families and friends to come together out of love and
generosity, which includes gift giving to our relatives and friends, it is also
a scam for corporate America
to make loads of money. So this article covers both holidays:
Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving claims to
have its roots in Plymouth Rock in the 17th century. But that event has little
to do with the holiday we celebrate today. Native American Indians and white
settlers from Europe came together to
celebrate a difficult year, where the settlers were helped by the Native
Americans, who helped them grow corn and other new world vegetables. There was
three days of feasting on native plants and animals, such as fish and deer,
corn and pumpkins. There were also games played. It was a real big bash. From
that event until the 20th century, people found various reasons to
get together and celebrate a kind of “end of the harvest” celebration.
The
holiday we celebrate today was officially established in 1941. A “Thanksgiving”
celebration has taken place from various days of the years and inspired by
various events, such as the end of the Civil War. This took place of and on
throughout US
history, until the official holiday was declared, by
Congress and the President, in 1941. The traditional fixings and food menu,
such as turkey, came from a women’s magazine in the 1850s. Thanksgiving is a
holiday dominated by Christianity, even though it is legally a secular holiday.
Being Christian isn’t necessary to this celebration, but most Christians see it
as a time to “give thanks to God.” While it is a nice day to get together with
friends and family, it is ironic that we celebrate an event in which white
settlers from Europe came together to feast
and party with Native American Indians. For most of our history after that this
country fought at least two Indian wars and Native American Indians didn’t
enjoy all of the benefits of being American citizens until the early 20th
century, when they were finally declared to be US citizens.
For a
truly ghoulish look at the Thanksgiving holiday see: “American Thanksgiving: A
Pure Glorification of Racist Barbarity” –from Humans
are Free.
There
are some groups of people who find it barbaric to celebrate a holiday by
killing a bird and eating it. Some people are vegetarians and don’t take part
in eating a dead bird. Some religions oppose eating and killing dead animals.
Each
year I write about Black Friday, that
fabricated holiday that corporate and capitalist leaders came up with to
promote an orgy of gift buying and selling. To be honest, many people take part
in the Christmas season mostly out of a combination of family tradition and
religion. Black Friday is promoted as a part of the Christmas season. People
buy gifts out of generosity for their family and friends. Capitalist, corporate
leaders see this as a great opportunity to cash in and make a lot of money. I
started writing about this earlier
this month. Black
Friday is a truly American idea. It is raw capitalism, a tribute to greed,
excess and gluttony.
In
years past people got up early, around 4am, the day after Thanksgiving, to go
to the malls and stores to get really cheap deals on everything from cars,
trucks, TVs, and stereo sound equipment (just about everything is on sale that
day). Since the internet is changing the way people shop, many stores are
opening up Black Friday days earlier. They make up all kinds of sales for just
about any item a person may want.
Santa Claus Used to be a
spirit of generosity and gift giving. Today he represents raw capitalism.
The
rigid rules against promoting tobacco go back to the 1950s and before that time
all kinds of lovable characters promoted its use, even Fred Flintstone.
There are a lot of communists, Marxist-Leninist and other
far leftists who strongly oppose voting. They believe our time is better spent
on building up a revolutionary movement that can overthrow our government. They
see voting as just a waist of time. Some times such far left people do read
this blog.
I hate Republicans and in retaliation I often vote for
Democrats. That is not because I really like the Democrats. At times they are
no better than Republicans. But I often vote for Democrats as the lesser of two
evils. Many of these far leftists refuse to vote for any Democrats. They even
hate Bernie Sanders and they consider Bernie and groups such as Democratic
Socialists of America to be enemies of their far left parties. Politics can get
strange. The Socialist Party USA
rejects voting for Democrats. They will only vote for socialist parties such as
themselves. On the other hand the actual Communist
Party USA, does cooperate with Democrats and they do vote for Democrats at
times.
I think
this year left us with plenty of reasons to vote and that is what I did. I
voted.
In this
year’s elections we had a man who was determined to stop poor people and many
working poor people from getting health care. That was true of both our local
Republican for Governor,
Kris Kobach and our actual president Donald Trump. Trump wasn’t running,
but many people voted for Democrats in US House races across the country, to
put the brakes on our idiot president.
Trump is
also out to destroy our environment. That is true of most Republicans, such as
Ron Estes, our 4rth district US House Representative. He won re-election, even
though his opponent James
Thompson, worked extra hard and Estes shuffled through the election without
doing to much work.
In my
state of Kansas
we had a man, Kobach, who was trying to destroy our public school system. He
wanted to carry on what Governor Sam Brownback had done for nearly eight years.
The point of all of this is that the election was not about
supporting bourgeois Democrats, it was about survival. Many of us had to live
in this state and many more of us have to live in this country. Health care is
a matter of life and death for a lot of people. We can’t afford to wait until
an actual revolution to fix these serious problems. It could take many years to
build a revolutionary movement. We can’t afford to wait all that time. We also
can’t afford to let a stupid politician destroy our schools. Those eight years
of a decimated school system stole education from a lot of young people and
those are years that can’t be replaced.
Richard Ranzau and his fellow right-wingers sent back grant
money needed for the WIC program, simply because they didn’t want poor
immigrants to get the milk and other products the system provides. There are
all kinds of poor people who needed that milk and the other products. Children
went hungry due to the negligence of those county commissioners. Their
motivations were prejudice and racism.
Voting had a concrete reality for many of us this fall. It
was not just a luxury. People’s lives were dependent on politicians to do their
jobs and carry on their responsibilities to their constituents. To allow
destructive persons to use money and influence to win these seats and then
destroy people’s lives was inexcusable. In my opinion it is irresponsible to
let out-right criminals to rip us off. It is negligence to let bigots destroy
people’s lives. We owe at least some attempts, even if we don’t succeed, to try
and take part in these elections.
Each year I writeabout Black Friday, that fabricated holiday that corporate and capitalist
leaders came up with to promote an orgy of gift selling and buying. I’ve never
really liked this holiday, especially since I am a socialist and this phenomenon
is the antithesis of my beliefs, but I have to admit that it is almost amusing,
the sheer silliness of it. Most people who take part in this orgy of consumerism
wait until the day after Thanksgiving and they get up at ridiculously early
hours to buy things no one really needs really cheap at the stores who promote
this holiday.
This is a prelude to the Christmas season, two months, or more, of
shopping for gifts for family members and friends. People spend a ridiculous amount
of money on people who will probably never appreciate all the money, time and
effort it took to buy all these gifts for this gift-giving season, based on a
holiday about a poor god-man who was supposedly born on this day to promote a
religion that seems to have little to do with the actual Christmas holiday.
It almost seems that venders can hardly wait for the Christmas season
to begin. Christmas decorations go up in the stores the day after Halloween.
Corporations can hardly wait to begin hawking their wares. This year many
stores couldn’t wait for the traditional Black Friday sail to begin, so they
have started early.[1]
Many Black Friday sales have started already.
Every year I make fun of Black Friday and post satirical songs and
pictures. This year I’m starting Early to keep up with the stores. I will have
another posting for the actual real day of Black Friday, which should be
November 23.
Every year I run an article to commemorate various
holidays—some traditional, as Halloween or Christmas. Not being a Christian I
don’t celebrate Christmas, but instead I celebrate the Winter Solstice. There
are some holidays, Thanksgiving comes to mind, where the tradition involves controversial
events or beliefs.
Tomorrow is Veterans Day and it is probably my least
favorite holiday in the US.
All across the nation, and on my TV, people will honor the brave men and women
who fight wars to keep America
the dominant world power. It is a system of imperialism. It is built on
arrogance, violence and war. Not long ago I heard singer Patti
Smith say something to the effect, that it is ridiculous that we still have
the institution of war in the 21 century. And for the US, this is the most pro-war period
in history since World War II. To our leaders, both Democrat and Republican,
the entire world is our back yard and they are free to do with it as they want.
Gone are the illusion that the world is made up of free people who have the
right to decide their own sovereignty and destiny. For this article I’m
focusing on one imperialist problem—Afghanistan.
“After the 9/11 attacks, there
were two main goals in Afghanistan: First, to deny Al Qaeda a safe haven from
which to plan, train, and launch terrorist attacks on a global scale, and
second, to remove the Taliban regime from power as punishment for not
cooperating with the international community and for harboring terrorism.
Both were accomplished with
relative speed.”
This is the longest war the US has fought in modern history. The
US accomplished these goals,
he lays out, almost immediately after the war in Afghanistan started. The goal now
seems to be to completely destroy the Taliban. Al Qaeda left years ago. Now Afghanistan has a US built government which as not
been acceptable to all or even most Afghanis. The Taliban is a part of Afghanistan’s
political landscape. The US
is still trying to punish them for something they did years ago. According to a
commentary in The
WashingtonPost, Daniel R.
DePetris, a writer and fellow at Defense Priorities:
“To believe the Taliban wouldn’t
think twice before again hosting transnational terrorists is far-fetched: The
group lost its control of Afghanistan
because of it. Indeed, in the years since, Taliban officials have openly
regretted their past association with
al-Qaeda.”
Unfortunately no one is listening to DePetris or anyone like
him. From IOL:
“The Trump administration has no
intention of leaving Afghanistan,
despite all of President Donald Trump’s campaign bluster about withdrawing US
troops and putting America
first. According to Trump, he has now “studied Afghanistan in great detail, and
changed his mind."
What lies behind this about-turn
is the view of the security establishment that in order to maintain US global
dominance, having a plethora of US bases in Afghanistan is imperative.”
Today we will hear quotes by those who have put military
service on a religious level as something sacred:
“On this Veterans Day, let us
remember the service of our veterans, and let us renew our national promise to
fulfill our sacred obligations to our veterans and their families who have
sacrificed so much so that we can live free. -Dan Lipinski”
And the bottom line is that line that we will hear over and
over again, “we can live free.” But that last line is a lie. We don’t depend on
controlling Afghanistan
for our freedom. Our freedom has nothing to do with that. This is all about the
national arrogance of a nation that feels a need to control everyone else’s
government. It is all about what works well for this country and the lives of
those who live in such countries is barely an after thought.
What bothers me most about his is that there is so little
debate or discussion on these national issues. I belong to the Peace and Social Justice Center, of South
Central Kansas. There are peace groups such as this all across the country. But
anyone wanting to find out about them through the mainstream news media will be
disappointed. I do all I can to work with that group to promote peace issues.
But it seems like I’ve accomplishes little. Most groups, as the one I belong
to, are religious. Even though I am an agnostic and a Marxist, I find a lot of
common ground working with these people.
So year after year I write these articles and take part in
activities with the Peace and Social Justice Center. As of today I don’t see
any positive changes coming our way. But I keep opposing imperialism and the
unnecessary wars that naturally come with it. Today is no different than last
year’s Veteran’s Day.
It was Tuesday mid-morning, this week, that I saw two women
protesting gun violence outside my window at Wichita East High, were I work as
a substitute teacher. The girl on the left has a sign that says “Stop the NRA”
the other girl had two signs, the first said “No more deaths” with a picture of
a gun with a red circle around it and a slash through it. This protest seems to
be a follow up to walk outs that were held last March 14 of this year. These
students were taking considerable risks since school officials have
threatened punishment to students who take part in such walk outs.
I am glad to see such commitment from high school students.
We need committed young people who will take on the establishment and not cower
down. They may also be young people who are not afraid to take on the
Republican Party. The future here in Kansas
may be very bright for some young people.
So we avoided a major catastrophe
by voting out Kris Kobach. We don’t have to worry about him trashing our
schools as Governor Sam Brownback did. We can count on 4 to 8 years of
normality. Our lackluster slacker Republican Ron Estes
won the fourth district so he will continue to be a yes man for our Idiot and
Chief Donald Trump. He will also continue to support doing nothing on behalf of
our health care. He is now the laziest politician in Kansas.
Kansas elected Sharice
Davids is the only Democrat to win a US House of Representative seats from
Kansas. She can help us put the brakes on Trump.
The one bright spot
here in Sedgwick County was the win by Lacy Cruz,
over far-far-far right-wing bigot Randy Ranzau. Cruz is one of our local
progressives so it will be interesting to see what she does.
For the rest of the election, we can be
thankful that our idiot President Trump will not have a blank check to do as he
wants—which is to wreck this country and punishing poor people. His
far-far-far-far right agenda will be under check from the US House. This
country is now badly divided by people who want the Trump agenda to go forward,
smashing worker’s rights and the environment all the way. Now we have some people
who can stop the march of America’s dullards.
We have one of the most ridiculous leaders since Sam
Brownback wanting to run Kansas or as I should
say ruining Kansas
to the ground. As a substitute teacher who survived the last 8 years of
Brownback, I can attest that those years were miserable. It is crazy to
want to return to those years and yet that is what Kris
Kobach wants to do. It is almost a suicide plan. But Kobach is serious
about it and so is Trump and many Kansas Republicans. For those of us who want
some kind of normality, we need to get out and vote for Laura
Kelly. She plans to run the state in a somewhat normal manor.
There are several US House races this year. In District 1 Democrat
Alan LaPolice is
challenging Republican Roger Marshall. In District 2, Democrat Paul Davis is
challenging Republican Steve Watkins. In District 3, Democrat Sharice Davids is
challenging Republican Kevin Yoder. As stated
in the above article there are good reasons to get out and vote for the
Democrats in these races. Also the polls look good for the Democrats.
Here in District 4 I have been following the race between
slacker Republican Ron
Estes and Democrat James
Thompson, who was endorsed by Bernie Sanders.
So let’s not let the state down. Let’s get out and vote
Democrat. Unlike a lot of commentators, I am not in the spirit of “everyone vote,
no matter who they vote for.” We need to vote for Democrats and save our nation
for the “wrecking crew.” If you are a Republican I have no problem with you
staying at home tomorrow. It matters who you vote for.
Tomorrow is Election Day. This is one of the most important
elections in a long time. I realize that there are those on the far left,
Marxist-Leninists, Maoists and others who believe there is no real difference
between the Democrats and the Republicans. Their arguments are sound, but the
reality is that the Republican Party, under its leader, President Donald Trump
are out to destroy all the rights of workers, the working poor and the poor in
general. I don’t agree that there is NO
DIFFERENCE between the parties and how they will affect people. Many of us
have already voted early.
An example of this is health care. Republicans don’t want
poor people or working poor people to have access to health care. They want to
help the insurance companies to profit off of the sick. Since Trump came to
office, he has worked hard to
destroy Obamacare (Affordable Care Act) and he has not made any effort to
replace it with anything. The Republicans now have plans to destroy all the protection
to those who have pre-existing conditions. They are saying they will
protect such people as they stump across the country, but the reality is they
plan to get rid of such protections. The truth has suffered under the
Republican Party.
Then there are the tax cuts the Republicans are so proud of.
They gave big businesses hefty tax cuts, but they took out a lot of tax deductions
for people, such as teacher’s abilities to deduct the money they spend on
school supplies. What Trump has actually done is to move
the tax burden from the wealthy to the poor. Poor people now pay more taxes
than wealthy people and some middle class people. There is no fairness to the
tax system.
The Republicans have created some issues
out of non issues such as immigration. Regardless of what we think of illegal
aliens, they
are not the major threat Trump claims they are. He is sending thousands of
troops to the southern border in a response to poor people, from Central
America, who are traveling in a Caravan to the US border to request asylum. What
will these troops do?—Shoot unarmed men, women and children? It makes as much
sense as using a shot gun to kill mosquitoes.
There is also issue of trade wars, with such countries as China. In the
long run, Trumps tariffs may drive up the cost of steal and other materials
that we need in this country.
Then there is the general stupidity of Trump. He comes
across as an unsophisticated thug. He is one of the most sexist presidents in
decades. He has had numerous affairs, and he has been dismissive of sexual
assaults of women, such as his
pick for Supreme Court, Brett Kavanaugh.
All of this is a good reason for voters to vote for the
Democratic candidates. I realize there are a lot of really bad Democrats who
run lackluster campaigns lacking any substantial issues. But the Republicans
want to support one of the most damaging leaders this country has ever seen.
Voting out his Republican minions is the only way to put the breaks on him. We
need to stop him. He may be the worst president since Richard Nixon. Also there
some progressive Democrats such as James
Thompson, backed by Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Everyone is telling us all to get out and vote. Voting is
just one tool to try and control and obtain the rights of working people and
the poor. We are not just bourgeois democrats. We need to work for the rights
of the poor and working poor. Voting tomorrow is just one important tool to help
us obtain such rights. By itself voting does little. But this is an important
election and we can’t afford to just sit this one out.
I received this mail mailer from Richard Ranzau. He sent out
these lying printouts that claim Lacy Cruz is a member of DSA and he sent it
just days before the election. That is not even true. This is just plain old
red-baiting, a throwback to the 1950s. This printout is liable. He sent it out
late enough that Cruz can't respond to it. He is also using dirty tricks that
unscrupulous Republicans use when they can't win an election. Votes need to ask
themselves: "If the information is relevant, why not release it early so
it can be discussed and debated?"
The big race here in Kansas is the contest for governor.
Some races, such as the James Thompson-Ron Estes race will affect the whole
country. President Donald Trump needs all the yes-men he can get. He will need
and depend on mindless flunkies such as Estes. And Estes is just right for the job—he
is a passionless dupe who lacks any real ideas or agenda of his own. Less
nation-wide is the governor race.
Republican Kris Kobach is running against Democrat Laura
Kelly. Kobach has made quite a name for himself. He started his career out
by traveling around the country and looking for ways to suppress voting, with
such restrictions as requiring IDs to vote.
According to CNN’s
Jeffrey Toobin on Kobach: “Kris has devoted his career to stopping black people and
poor people from voting.”
Such opinions on
Kobach’s career are common on the internet. According to The
New York Times:
“Kris Kobach Is the G.O.P. at Its
Worst”
And I believe that is right. I’ve already had a
few articles on Kobach and the governor’s race. By now it should be a
no-brainer. There are the usual hot button issues, anti-abortion, gun rights
and anti-gay bigotry—all issues championed by the Republicans. But the real
issue in this campaign is Sam Brownback and his legacy. Those of us who lived
through Brownback’s miss-rule remember how it was. Schools were seriously
damaged. There were shortages of supplies, teachers were fired, days were lengthened
to try and save money. The states infrastructure was damaged. All this was
based on Brownback’s huge tax cuts for businesses. It was a tax experiment that
went terribly wrong. Despite the failures of these policies, Brownback would
not turn back. He was an ideologue. He was determined to stay the course and
over eight years, he destroyed the state’s ability to function.
It is hard to imagine that anyone would want to return to
those dark times, but Kobach does. He is determined to bring back the destructive
tax cuts that brought this sate to its knees. He doesn’t care what the cost, he
is determined to cater to the corporations he has put so much faith in. No
matter how much damage those tax cuts cause, he is determined to bring them
back. He also wants to follow Brownback’s determination to destroy any kind of
health care for the poor. Brownback refused to expand Medicaid, as other states
had done. He sent back grant money that President Barack Obama sent to the
state of Kansas because he wanted nothing to do with Obamacare (Affordable Care
Act.)
Kobach wants to follow in Brownback’s foot-steps. He wants
to give us eight more years of state destruction based on a seriously flawed
ideology. It is hard to imagine anyone who wants to return to the bad ol’ days
we just went through. But Kobach is in a dead heat in the polls. For whatever
reason, many Kansans want to return us to those miserable days.
To avoid this disaster we need everyone who isn’t crazy to
go out and vote for Laura Kelly. She is a moderate centrist and has something
Kobach seriously lacks—common sense.
