Monday, October 29, 2012

The Price of Racism & The Lost Opportunity


I must admit that I have been dispirited by the articles appearing in the NY Times in which the President's blackness is in question (most recently, "The Price of a Black President," by Dr. Frederick Harris, a Columbia University professor,  NY Times 10/28).  As a white man,  I do not presume to identify my opinion with any direct experiences with the sinful history of the African American in the United States; I cannot, however, refrain from defending a President who has already suffered too many attacks against his character by whites that he doesn't need to start counting his black detractors as well.

First, I must disagree with the argument that the President has been weak on representing black interests and is responsible for causing too many members of the educated black elite to distance themselves from more direct engagement in civil rights issue in order to align more closely with him.  To make such an assertion at this stage in the campaign is at best bad timing and at worst a complete disregard for the perilous position in which the President finds himself.  Stated simply, Barack Obama was not elected to be the president of a black activist organization, a position at which I have no doubt he would succeed.  As one who represents all Americans and who garnered a good deal of support from white voters, his mission was to make America a better place for all.  I am not saying that this vision was even remotely possible or that it was not in some ways incredulous:  but it remains his job description.

Second, doubts about the President's advocacy of policies that directly improve the lives of people of color is one of semantics, i.e. the policies aren't lacking, they have been promulgated in terms of ALL Americans.    But Dr. Harris seems to be stuck on semantics.  After rattling off the dismal statistics for African Americans (dismal educational statistics an interesting omission), he admits that the President cannot be blamed for any of these facts.  He rightly acknowledges "Republican obstruction" as the culprit.  Dr. Harris wants the black voice without regard for actions.  To that end he quotes from Frederick Douglas that "power concedes nothing without a demand."  Frederick Douglas, however,  was saying this as one seeking to break into the power structure.  This is hardly apropos for the President whose difficulty is not is not how to take but how to use power that he has gained.  If he is to be chastised by black activists and the black elite, then the President is truly in a no win situation-- fighting for causes that improve the lives of citizens from the middle class down (including and perhaps particularly people of color) which, being so anathema to Republicans, he can barely get passed while fending off people of his own race who want him to be more evocative of the plight of blacks in America.   Furthermore to compare Barack Obama with civil rights leaders who answer strictly to their limited black constituency is unfair.  How far does any reasonable person think the President would have gotten if he had used rhetoric and policy to promote his agenda in racial terms.  It is surprising that he got anything accomplished at all.  For example, a populace that in advance of the 2007 election responded to polls that that health care was their most pressing concern, now seem to wonder why so much energy was expended on a matter that was simply not that significant.  And for a black man (not a white man like LBJ advised by a black man like MLK) to have passed into law the very first piece of social legislation since the 1960s alone should confirm Obama as a successful president.  And even then, the Republicans immediately denigrated the Affordable Healthcare Act as Obamacare:  can anyone imagine that they would have been this insulting to a white Democratic President?  They could not even afford him the dignity of the office of President.

Racism is the single most determining factor in this election.  The incredible coagulation of former enemies and strange bedfellows has emerged like some giant teratoma to defeat one black man.  Think of the new Mormevangelicatholic monopoly on spirituality, morality, and decency.  And theirs is a win-win situation.  One has only to stand silently around while white men converse anywhere in suburbia to hear things like, "Anybody but HIM!"  They no longer need to use the N word anyone.  Why do the racists know how dangerous a force Obama can be, but certain intellectuals like Frederick Harris whittle his importance down to the "symbolic exceptionalism of his Presidency."  The groundswell of condemnation for the President among whites can now be couched as simple political dissent.  We know the birth certificate thing, the Muslim thing, his too amiable relationship with an activist preacher.  These have never disappeared; they have simply been mixed with newer insults-- apologies to Muslims, questionable patriotism, underminer of Christian virtues, the movie 2016, and the like.  Consider this:   Barack Obama is well ahead in the polls before the so-called Denver debacle; overnight, the race becomes a dead heat.  To one misdirected NY Times writer Frank Bruni ("Obama's Squandered Advantages," NY Times, 10/28) who dismisses racism and blames the President's apathy, his cool detachment, or whatever you want to call it, it was this debate that cost him.  My question is how a two hour debate can make such an incredible and lasting difference and not simply a temporary bump in the numbers.  The reason is clear:  a majority of white voters 1) had no concern for the stark divergences in the policies and ideologies that separate the two candidates and their respective parties if those who supported the President pre-Denver could jump ship so easily; and 2) they were already intending to jump on the Romney wagon anyway, waiting only for Mitt to demonstrate that his whiteness could cancel out his Mormonism, his only black mark, pun intended.   And the white prevailed.  Was it any wonder that the running mate was someone whiter than Mitt?  Is it coincidence that 90 percent of the Romney Ryan signs are placed on a stark white background.  Even Romney's chief advisor is aptly named Mr. White.

Romney showed his hand early (he has since changed decks several hundred times) when at the RNC and immediately thereafter he made a specious claim that he and so many of his white friends had put so much faith in Barack Obama that it is so gut-wrenchingly difficult now to admit that the dream was not fulfilled.  To make so blatant a lie trivializes the importance of Obama's election for African Americans some of whom may tragically have thought that such a milestone meant the beginning of the end to racism in America.  Is there not racist motivations in trivializing a singular moment in black history?  What Romney did was to slam the lid down on any residue of doubt or any remaining guilt in the national conscience about racial discrimination in politics and upheld the long-standing conviction that if given an opportunity to be President a black man or woman simply could not do the job.  The "black experiment" failed.  The white are ready to get along with their lives.  Racism may now establish itself in the national DNA:  it is coded, prodigiously replicated, and pronounced the new normal.

From a purely self-serving position, I confess that the Barack Obama's first term has re-opened my eyes to how racist a culture America really is.  All whites should feel a sense of shame at how a great portion of the white race has bullied and abused this president, when we all had the chance to embrace this moment, and urge our  white elected officials to work with the new President to accomplish so much.  To ask this, however, is to deny reality.  Pigs with wings cannot fly; one black President does not make America racism-free.  I had forgotten where I came from, the public schools I attended, and the wasteland there to engage thoughts more favorable and comfortable. It still holds true that the unexamined life is not worth living:  the prophet Daniel could well say to me, "You have been weighed in the balance and found wanting."

It is clear to me that our President is exhibiting signs and symptoms of battle fatigue.  There are times when I wouldn't be surprised if he were thinking to himself about just walking away.  FDR and LBJ gained entire Congressional and popular support for almost all of their grand social policies; Obama has been publicly demonized over the only one he has been able to get through Congressional obfuscation and obstructionism.

Worst of all is the possible legacy if the President does not (and maybe if he does) win a second term-- a confirmation that an African American's only means of betterment is in separatism.  For me as a white man, I can only hope to be allowed in the back door-- African America's contribution to American culture is incredible, earned through obstacles, unknown by most whites.  As the rapper Lupe Fiasco has recently written, They gave us scraps, some of it old.  We cooked it up, and called it soul."  For such creatively not to be advanced and integrated into American society is tragic.  The African American has never had his story adequately told in public school system.  Presently the good that comes from black culture is seized upon by white capitalists so that we end up, for example, with professional level college basketball and football teams comprised mostly of black students whose athleticism is exploited without them ever experiencing the opportunity to learn.  Maybe Dr. Harris should be cleaning out his own house in the Ivy League Schools (and universities in general) rather than trying to redecorate the President's.




Monday, October 22, 2012

Billy Graham to America: "We Need a Cult Leader in the White House!"

Hypocrisy is now a Biblical Value!
     How desperately do these Republicans want to keep a black man from becoming too uppity?  They figure that we all had our fun; the country engaged in its own prolonged four year Saturnalia, you know that old Roman holiday where, for a week, slaves got to be the masters and masters had to play the slaves.  Four years was long enough, I guess.  Now its time to get normal again.  Don't want to give us too much hope.  Don't want any of us to think that any real change can happen.  They never expected that Obama might just win a second term.  Time to crush that.  So they even dragged out one of their sacred relics without even dusting him off and cleaning him up.  Did anyone else think that Billy Graham had died years ago?  He's back and with plenty of full page advertisements in some of the nation's newspapers to endorse a candidate who can pass on biblical values to the next generation.  Like hypocrisy.  Didn't anyone have the sense to delete all the references he made to Mormons as a cult on his website before letting him out of the home.

     I volunteered for a few Billy Graham Crusades in the Pittsburgh area when I was younger.  He was good at what he did:  a man of average intelligence without real oratorical skills, a mediocre author, never prone to deep thinking, chosen by God to deliver a simple message-- Christ died for your sings; repent; accept him as your Lord and Savior; get eternal life. And thousands would wind their way to the front of the stage to the tune of "Just As I Am."  We as volunteers would make sure to distribute information about one's new life in Christ that included the need to start attending a local Christian church.  That was all good.  But this 180 of his just proves that in the end the only biblical value that matters is to be a conservative white guy.

Although raised Presbyterian, I attended a variety of Evangelical and Charismatic conferences to which my mother dragged me from the time I was in elementary school.  For example, we were told never to allow the travelling Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses into our homes because they were wickedly adept at sophistry and could shake our apparently unreasoned faith.  While I no longer list Mormonism as a cult, it is certainly NOT Christianity, in spite of the fact that for obvious PR, their new name is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.  The Mormons may be a church, and Jesus may be involved in their creed, but Mormonism is not Christianity.  Take for example the belief that God is a physical being who has a physical wife with whom he engendered two sons-- the bad one, Satan, and the good one, Jesus; or the fact that they have an entire additional sacred text describing the way in which the risen Christ visited the white natives of America, presumably at some unknown time before the actual native Americans arrived.  Now all this is just water under Billy Graham Cracker's "Christian" bridge.

My disdain for Romney has to do with his policies not his religion.  I wonder, however, whether any of the "right wing Jesus Christ was born in the U S of A and swaddled in the Confederate Flag"  crowd are uncomfortable each time Romney ends a speech with God Bless America?  I mean that God isn't the Christian God.  We must presume that white Evangelicals just love to hear God and America mentioned together, assuming that the clean cut conservative white guy speaking must be referring to their own God, the anthropomorphic one that approves their message.   What a country!

Saturday, October 20, 2012

Activist Justices & Racist Laws: Dedicated to the Memory of George Whitmore




 Above:  the late George Whitmore.  Jesus told his disciples, "Situations that cause people to lose their faith
are certain to arise. But how horrible it will be for the person who causes someone to lose his faith! 
 
     I have a vague recollection that my ninth grade history teacher, trying to making American government as painlessly simple as possible, said something to the effect that in a democratic country in which the majority rules through elections, the Supreme Court is there to protect the minority against the majority.  Now that was not exactly right, but it has remained my gut feeling about our Supreme Court.  When the laws enacted through the representatives of the majority  interfere with the equality and freedom our Constitution purportedly promises those in the electoral minority, then the courts have a duty to act.

     In the recent Vice Presidential debate when asked whether a Romney administration would seek to eliminate a woman's choice to have an abortion, Ryan answered that "we don't think that unelected judges should make this decision.  People, through their elected representatives and reaching a consensus in society through the democratic process, should make this determination."  In other words, judges should not intervene so readily to overturn laws and promote freedoms--  to do so would create what the political right has condemned as judicial activism.  It is through its laws that society is shaped.

     If, as is unfortunately seeming more and more likely, the Romney ticket wins, there will be a groundswell of public opinion that will emerge as a bevy of more state laws to restrict or outlaw a woman's right to choose an abortion.  If so, there may not be a sufficient number of activist justices to declare the laws unconstitutional.   The reason why justices who intercede to preserve individual rights are deemed activists is that to limit oneself to a strict interpretation of the Constitution is ipso facto to begin from a discriminatory stance from which is is very difficult to argue out.  The majority of ideological conservative justices on the U.S. Supreme Court will be prone to rendering decisions that restrict human freedom in favor of laws that reflect the majority sentiments, i.e. they will not advance judicial activism and they will keep all crazy opinions to themselves.  No doubt Ryan would prefer if there were no Supreme Court involvement at all.  The good news for conservatives is that judicial activism is the exception to the rule that justices should not travel too far from the prevailing world view of white males in determining the constitutionality of laws written and passed by a majority of white males in which they seek to protect the rights of white males-- the same select group by whom and for whom the U.S. Constitution was written.  Even with the number of minorities and women who have gained access to the political system, it will take more than that to alter entrenched social mores and prevent the codification of these into laws.

     The challenge in arguing from constitutionality was always the antithesis between the language of the document evocative of universal human freedom and equality and the reality of the framer's intent who either owned slaves or did nothing to encourage or demand their emancipation unlike England from whose fetters they declared their own freedom.  Take as example the 1857 case of Dred Scott v. Sanford in which the plaintiff, a slave, declared his emancipation the moment he was taken by his master to a free state.  In a 7 to 2 ruling, the Supreme Court denied his claim in words that seem better suited to a propaganda piece for white supremacy that from the hallowed chambers of the U.S. Supreme Court.  Here are some of the more shocking bits from Taney's majority opinion


   We think they [people of African ancestry] are not [citizens], and that they are not included, and were not intended to be included, under the word "citizens" in the Constitution, and can therefore claim none of the rights and privileges which that instrument provides for and secures to citizens of the United States.

. . . [T]he legislation and histories of the times, and the language used in the Declaration of Independence, show, that neither the class of persons who had been imported as slaves, nor their descendants, whether they had become free or not, were then acknowledged as a part of the people, nor intended to be included in the general words used in that memorable instrument.

     It would give to persons of the negro race, who were recognized as citizens in any one State of the Union, the right to enter every other State whenever they pleased...to go where they pleased at every hour of the day or night without molestation, unless they committed some violation of law for which a white man would be punished; and it would give them the full liberty of speech in public and in private upon all subjects upon which its own citizens might speak; to hold public meetings upon political affairs, and to keep and carry arms wherever they went. And all of this would be done in the face of the subject race of the same color, both free and slaves, and inevitably producing discontent and insubordination among them, and endangering the peace and safety of the State.

     African slaves were not among those for whom the Constitution was written-- state laws were upheld because to say otherwise would be to recognize non-white ethnicities as human.  At the very least, we have to say that not only was Taney highly eloquent in his endorsement of racism, but he was right-- judged by the actions of the founding fathers, the Constitution could not have granted any degree of humanity to Africans.  He forcefully illustrated his point by imagining a county in which blacks could go unmolested in public, speak in public, and enjoy the same level of public protection as the true white recipients of the Constitution's benefits.  What kind of horror movie would that be?  In fact, the only way Dred Scott would have won his case is through judicial activism, a total disregard for the Constitution.

     When the question of states rights was nullified by Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation and after a civil war had to be fought in order to confirm this Proclamation, the old Confederacy simply turned to it's rights to ratify new racist laws believing as Ryan does today that unelected judges should not make this decision...[but that] people, through their elected representatives and reaching a consensus in society through the democratic process, should make this determination."  This determination at that time was to quarantine all African Americans through the specious argument of "separate but equal."  When Plessy appealed to the Supreme Court, the majority of justices upheld the racist laws that codified the discriminatory custom of prohibiting any "commingling" of ethnicities that would infect the white race.  So the response to having their property taken away from them and declared human was to find more creative ways to legalize discrimination.  The justices claimed that laws per se have no social ramifications, but they affirmed a racist law that codified social norms.  Once again in avoiding judicial activism and allowing the laws created by majorities to stand, they reinforced the kind of racism that was an integral part of the founders' nation-building documents.

     When Warren in 1954 overturned the separate but equal argument as set forth in Plessy, he did so with what one might depict as reckless disregard of judicial precedent, i.e. he was one of those activist judges Paul Ryan et al. despise so much.  This was one of those singular moments in American History in which someone stands as the exception not the rule, audaciously choosing not to take the wide and well worn path set before him or her in order to protect the unprotected.  It only took 178 years!  Now at last Americans were compelled by law to begin the hard work of repairing and rebuilding the nation into a more just and equal one.

     When colleges, however, began to implement procedures designed to increase the number of black students in colleges and universities, they were confronted with students whose history had given them anything but desirable educational opportunities.  In order to accept one black student, one "deserving" white student would be rejected.  And so The Civil Rights Act of 1964-- legislation that was miraculously promoted by Lyndon Johnson one whose personal history was stamped with the mark of ancestral racism, a step toward a lofty ideal, the creation of a Great Society-- was prostituted by whites for their own ends, who as a race had never been characterized or treated by law as property.  Thus we heard whites actually claim that they were the victims of discrimination.  Specifically, when Bakke claimed discrimination under Title VI of the Voting Rights Act of 1964 and the 14th Amendment because he did not gain admission to a medical school that had shown preferential treatment to minorities, the Supreme Court agreed.  Just think of this evolution-- the language of the Constitution that contained no hint of inherent human freedom to Africans and flatly rejected as a basis for claiming any such such freedom was now being used by whites, the only group for whom freedom was actually granted, to claim that by showing any preference to blacks, their own freedom as whites was being undermined.  Only in America!

     In the real world of college admissions at that time, there was no equality.  If, for example, Mr. Bakke had attempted to gain admittance into another medical school, he would have had little trouble.  There is little doubt that the black student would never find another medical school except one that also implemented a similar program of affirmative action.  No undue burden would be placed on the white students rejected.  Where the educational stakes are all in their favor, a plurality of colleges would be happy to admit more white students.  Compare this to  the possibility of a black applicant's only choice, and any philosophical discussion should be a no brainer.  The bottom line is that if Bakke was not admitted because his spot was taken by a black individual, he would still be a doctor today, but we will never know the black individuals who lost out for every white admitted.

     While the 2003 Grunder case did uphold the compelling interest of a university to achieve diversity as an educational element, 4 of 9 Justice dissented-- three of whom are current members of the court (Justice Scalia, Justice Kennedy, and Justice Thomas).  These three at the time determined that "the Law School has managed its admissions program, not to achieve a “critical mass,” but to extend offers of admission to members of selected minority groups in proportion to their statistical representation in the applicant pool. But this is precisely the type of racial balancing that the Court itself calls “patently unconstitutional.”  Sandra Day O'Conner in writing the majority opinion, however, affirmed that to achieve racial diversity is a compelling enough interest in the educational duty of institution of higher learning.  Her argument was tenuous, and I suspect she was doing the unthinkable:  she was being a pesky activist.  Why?  Because she knew what was right!

     And now enter Miss Fisher whose claim to racial discrimination from the University of Texas was upheld by a lower court.  The University is now trying to win a case it has as much of a chance winning as a black girl the Miss Arizona pageant.  Miss Fisher has graduated from college.  I wonder whether or not she would now regret her decision and still mumble cliches about hoping that this makes a level playing field for all who come after her, if in her four years she would have taken a U.S. History course that actually taught the truth about U.S. History.  Is she really proud of what she is dong?  Does she really understand the destruction she is causing.  If she does, she is just another one of the many racists in a country that may forever be a racist one.

     In a recent NY Times article, blame was laid at the feet of the attorneys for the University who are arguing on racial grounds alone.  The author suggests that using an argument based on socio-economics and now race would allow many blacks to enter universities because they are poor, and justices would be more inclined to accept this argument.  First, isn't it terrible that in order for universities to increase the number of black students, they should be forced to these sneak tactics.  "We can't get you in as a black individual (that would be unfair to whites), but if you call yourself poor, we can get most of you in!"  Maybe the ends justify the means, but the truth is that the poorest of the poor white student was never enslaved in America because of his or her race, or was actively declared not good enough for white society even after he or she was emancipated.  Only blacks can claim this travesty.   That should be the de facto argument from which all others flow.  The deleterious effects on American society, particularly in the South, of legally, socially, and religiously endorsed slavery cannot be overcome without time, hard work, and a certain degree of white discomfort.

     And now as the court is ready to reject any preferential treatment of minorities in higher education, should anyone really be surprised?  After all, this is a country that never dreamed that Africans would ever be a free, equal,and participating member of American society.  The Supreme Court is set to re-establish what most of us already knew-- that America is now and will always be a white nation who will accept blacks and other people of color only in small doses.   White earlier justices at least promulgated their racism without dissimulation, shortly the current Supreme Court justices will eliminate affirmative action not to preserve racism in this country but in the name of freedom and equality for all exactly as the Constitution never intended.
     
     As the public schools in which a majority of African American students are forced to attend continue to provide lackluster education and offer minimal educational opportunities, a lack of colleges and universities that maintain an affirmative action mission will devastate an already unequal system.  Justice Brennan in writing for the majority in Brown v. Board of Education declared education to be the sine qua non of human development.  It will now in 2013 be returned as a monopoly for those applicants who have had a more rewarding, challenging, and more expensive education.   By refusing to allow young black men and women from realizing this crucial aspect of their humanity, this country finds itself in a familiar historical position-- the devaluation of the African in America.  And we will have stepped backward once again, while groups of conservatives will congratulate themselves as upholders of the law and of the values that made this nation the greatest on earth and so on and so forth...

     A sadder reality is that if the granting of so-called preferential treatment to African Americans who apply to colleges involved the kind of gargantuan profits that college football and basket ball elicit, a way would be found to justify, elevate, and laud the process.  The fact is that thousands of African American high school students who are incredible athletes are being admitted into colleges and universities with scholarships without any concern over their educational past or their educational future.  Easy courses with ridiculous majors are created and even then GPAs are fudged, all so that in putting a winning product on the courts and fields, the money comes pouring in.  Less than one percent
make it to the professional level where they make millions so that owners may make every more; the majority, however, 80 percent, never graduate, and those who do are often left with having spent four years in the halls of education without ever having been shown its tremendous life altering power.  There is no groundswell of litigation citing the number of football or basketball scholarships granted African American student-athletes as a peculiar source of reverse discrimination.  To come away from such experiences without a true education is just another failure on the part of a country that is directed by profits and the freedom to use anyone and anything in order to make more money.

 
     On October 8, 2012, George Whitmore passed away, another black American nobody, victimized and forgotten as all bad history is.  He was a young black man who after being coerced by white police detectives into confession for crimes against white that he did not commit, found himself in and out of the criminal justice system until the last of the illegal charges was dropped.  His entire life was overturned from the age of 19.  The only good that came of his victimization was a Supreme Court ruling that rights have to be read including the right to remain silent.  Just think, it was only after extreme examples of police brutality and a discriminatory criminal justice system that police were forced to do something as simple as telling an individual his or her rights.  That speaks volumes for what blind trust anyone of us should have in legislation.  We need the courts, especially their so-called "activism;" but we need them to think in a way that puts human freedom and rights first, having at least a clue to the reality of the society in which many of these litigants live, those well outside the comfort and sterility of their chambers.




Thursday, October 11, 2012

Three Girls

Today is the first International Day of the Girl.  This is the story of three girls.

Samantha Pawlucy with Romney shirt
The first is 16 year old Samantha Pawlucy who resides in Philadelphia Pa.  She gained notoriety because she was singled out and humiliated by her teacher for wearing a Romney shirt to school.  My daughter,who attends a private Catholic school in suburban Philadelphia, has not been harassed, but her history teacher makes it a point each class to remind his students that he is a Republican and that Republicans are the best choice for the country.  He does so because he has a pretty good idea that the student body comes from a mostly Republican stock.  My daughter and I have talked about what she and I believe politically, and we try to determine in what ways our views differ from what this teacher says in class and why.  I have no problem with a history teacher talking about elections, but no teacher has the right to impose his or her views on students-- at the very least this is an easily avoidable distraction and at worst an easy way to make a student who does not agree feel inferior or less likely to learn from that teacher.  The single most important connection between a teacher and student is trust-- the action make by this teacher forever disables this trust.

I do have an issue with this girl's (and her family's) decision to wear this shirt to a school which is overwhelmingly African American?  Did the parents know?  Did they think there would be no ramifications?  My son loves the Pittsburgh Penguins, but we do not wear any Penguin paraphernalia to Philadelphia Flyer's games-- we are free to, but why would we?  If I were to enter certain towns in the deep South, I might avoid wearing anything Obamaesque.  Even while my wife was attending law school in Virginia, I cannot tell you how many times my PA license plate provoked comments from the natives such as "We are still fighting the war!" I shrugged my shoulders and drove quietly away.   Just because we are free to do something doesn't mean we must do it.  There are actually times when exercising our right not to express ourselves is best.  What possible good could come of wearing a Romney shirt into a place where it would not be respected.  While I agree that the teacher must be punished (one should never humiliate children, especially one whose job it is to nurture them), I cannot agree with all those supporters who came to cheer her on and into school as a kind of hero.  Heroes do not provoke for the sake of provoking.  Not all things are right for all situations.  Picking spots, learning when to make assertions and when to let things slide, these are part of the maturation process.  These parents should never have allowed this girl to walk out of the house with an advertisement likely to cause their discomfort for absolutely no good reason.

Abigail Fisher, plaintiff suing the University of Texas
     Abigail Noel Fisher, a young women of college age, is right now in the middle of a law suit before the United States Supreme Court which is likely to end affirmative action in colleges.  Conservative talk shows are lauding this girl as a heroine.  I just cannot see how.

     First of all, the University of Texas automatically admits all applicants who have graduated in the top 10 percent of their classes.  So if this girl had only studied a little more, she would have had no problem getting into the University of Texas.  The fact that she has to resort to using the success of others as a rationale for her own lack of success is the classic example of sour grapes.  As a teacher, I understand that colleges always look at several factors in determining admittance-- SAT, ACT, and other standardized test scores; grades and the difficultly of classes from transcripts; personal interviews; and involvement in extra-curriculars-- anything from having worked in a recording studio to making regular service visits to the local veterans hospital.  In fact, these extra-curriculars are often the reason why a student who does not have the absolute best grades and test scores is admitted while the one who does is not.  I see this all the time.  Purely in terms of creating a diversified student body, preference given to African American students achieves the same end as accepting students who have unique characteristics but may not be the stereotypical "smart" student.  

     But there is something else wrong with the decision made by this girl and her family and attorneys to pursue this matter.  They all missed what I would call a extraordinary teachable moment.  When Abigail first complained that "this is so unfair," someone should have explained the rationale behind affirmative action.  One would start by saying, "So, you think this is unfair..."  This young woman's eyes might have been opened to certain facts about her country's history:  founding documents like the Declaration of Independence and Constitution that proclaimed all people to be free while considering a whole race to be less than human but that for purposes of reckoning the number of states' federal representatives counted each piece of their black property as 3/5 of a person; that a group of states continued o demand their states' rights to maintain human beings as property until they forced the country into a devastating civil war; that once these slaves were emancipated, they were treated as lower than second -rate people, particularly in southern states where they were segregated to protect the purity of the white race through Black Codes and Jim Crow laws.  So many men, women, and children lacked basic human rights in America from its birth in 1776 until the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.  But changes in law did not suddenly and miraculously alter the entrenched social and cultural status of blacks in America-- they still suffer the highest rate of poverty, the highest rate of unemployment, the greatest number of students attending the nation's worst public schools.  And I would conclude my history lesson by telling this girl that it is more than fair for her to experience a little rejection when the entire history of blacks in America has been one of legalized discrimination followed by the a still present and deep-seeded racism. Why is it so hard to view the matter from an objective historical perspective?  There is not a level playing field between whites and blacks.

Malala Yousafzai, gunned down by the Taliban
Finally there is a 14 year old girl in Pakistan named Malala Yousafzai who nearly paid the ultimate price for wanting to be free, in particular the freedom to learn.  My allergist is a woman who was born in Pakistan and whose mother practiced medicine in Pakistan her entire life.  This young girl has done far more to show the international community just how wicked organizations like the Taliban are than any world leader ever could.  This girl spoke out for the right reason.  She spoke for women all over the world who are still humiliated and abused because they are not considered equal members of human society.  In order to experience the totality of human life, this girl was willing to risk her own life.  This is the hero of today.  Not going out of one's way to be provocative,  not selfishly complaining about a situation for which one lacks historical perspective, but staring violence and death in the face in order to claim the right to be a human being worthy of education.

One of the best ways to express our appreciation for the learning we all have had is to continue to learn.  If we do so, we may find that some of those misperceptions of ours, which fear seems to have rooted like weeds so deeply in our souls, will disintegrate and be replaced by the fresh blooms of an American spring.

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Choices, Choices...

Living by the Numbers


It was only minutes ago that Barack Obama was far enough ahead in the polls to take some time off during the first debate.  The latest polls post-debate reveal that the same people who were not only planning to vote for the President but who considered him such things as more in touch, more likable, more human, etc., have now all swung Romney's way.  I understand the race is not over by any means, and I have not begun to check out the polling numbers for individual states (although I see that Romney is leading the President 49& to 48% in Ohio).  Tomorrow, the VP debate could have some impact on the polls.  And who knows what will transpire after the next two presidential debates.

This only suggests that the American public is as fickle as we would expect any group of people to be.  I always like to give as example the monumental switch in Jesus' favorability rating from Palm Sunday to Good Friday six days later.  There was less than a week between Hosanna and Crucify.  Jesus' mission was a heavenly one.  The President, unfortunately, needs the public to go fickle again.  This is not so easy, although if I were Romney, I would not get too overjoyed-- the public giveth and the public taketh away.

How can this turn be explained?  
Not a whole lot of room for information or thinking about it

The main reason is that the American public is now a well-seasoned group of consumers.  Every time a purchase is made or an Internet site is searched, info is collected to assess that person's wants and desires, i.e. the product that would satisfy his or her wants and desires.  And the public has bought in.  We want to be pleased.  We want toys.  We want fast.  We want things that elicit a "Wow!" from friends and an envious grimace from enemies.  We have had Barack Obama for four years;  in consumerville that is an unbelievably long time.  We upgrade computers after around four or five years; we get the latest phone ever year or less; we change out conventional Starbucks morning beverage every month.  Because of the unlimited variety of products to switch to, we will never be lacking in the ability to buy something new and different.  

Obama knew as much when his entire first campaign was run under the heading of CHANGE.  McCain was old, and not the good antique old that you would love to display in a position of prominence in your home.  He was the second hand yard sale kind for which you pay next to nothing out of sympathy for the seller.


Mommy, do we have to get the black one again?

And perhaps even I could feel that the public wanted to get on the Romney band wagon, straining at the proverbial bits.  When the product was first introduced, however, it did not have that something human or at least humanoid that consumers wanted.  At the debate, they got two hours of human behavior out of Romney, plenty to discard any negative opinions they had held before.  This time the Romney company was out to demonstrate just how human and normal human their product could be-- they were not worried about what the product had said or done in the past.  They knew that consumers do not care about the past; it's now they want.  The fact that the product that appeared on the debate stage looked like Romney, but did not think or speak like Romney was inconsequential.  It was that moment that mattered.  Here  was a product available for just one free vote that would not give a tax break to the wealthy, had no idea of any tax incentive for moving businesses overseas, was so in favor of federal regulation of business that he would crack down on anyone who opened up a bank in his or her garage; someone who told us we were all created by the same God and that without the government we were adult enough to eliminate the plight of those were were less fortunate; and that since we were no longer children but adults, we should not be embarrassed to give the smack down to Big Bird.  
I don't care if you do win; I'm gonna
stick this sunflower so far up your...

The rest of us were left scratching our heads that someone had the ability to lie so comprehensively and without mitigation in so public a forum.  We were shouting to our televisions, "What about what you said before..."  And even as we are thinking that his words might come back to haunt him, we are now shaking our heads today at the new polling numbers.

It should also be noted that many of our white consumers (men and women) really wanted to exchange this black product for a whiter one.  Contrary to what they thought, it just didn't go with their typical lifestyle.  Of course, many of these feel good about themselves for giving the black product a chance to begin with.  The results were good but nowhere near the kind of miraculous that would have been necessary not to trade him in.  Of course these consumers experienced some initial hesitancy because the white product only came in Mormon and they wanted the Christian version they were used to.  But now that the debates have given them reason to believe that the Mormon white will work just as well as the Christian white, they are ready to vote.  Just give us the white-- and if you don't have Mormon, give us the Catholic instead...same difference.  

Mitt looks so much better to us now!
Of interest is of course what we will all of us get with this white product.  No matter what the labels currently say, there is one thing you can count on-- no new ideas.  We will have four years in which supply side economics will fail once again to get the country out of a deficit and back to work, not to mention ever getting buying power up or anywhere close to where our take home wages can buy us more goods than they did decades ago.  

Get it now! Get it often!


Democracy has been influenced so much by the innovations in technology and the emergence of the quickly gratified consumer that it probably does not work as well as it did when real information had to be obtained with effort-- getting a newspaper, buying a journal, going to hear a candidate speak in public, getting involved in campaigns, reading a newspaper or a journal.  Too much comes in too easily.  And so I find myself thinking-- regardless of who ends up being the product of choice-- that the only thing that saves us from real revolutionary change is the mollification of the masses with enough gimmicks that leave most people so mentally soporific that they could care less about the details and with those instant tests of a product's morality (moral if the tester turns red; red if pro choice and anti gay marriage) that allow people to feel good and confident about their choices.  






One of the greatest thinkers and writers of all time is also one who is barely read anymore-- Thomas Carlyle.  Although he was good friends with John Stuart Mill, he was adamantly against Mill's philosophy of rule by the people.  Carlyle pronounced that democracy was despair.  I was so upset with Mr. Carlyle when I first read him as an undergraduate:  he was so right it seemed about everything else.  But is he really wrong?  

Even now voters are voting not to retain judges in Iowa and Florida not because of incompetence (for which the election process was designed) but because they are activist, i.e. not willing to uphold conservative standards of behavior.  Do people really have the ability to choose something as important as political leaders-- probably not.  Not only that, the choices we end up having to make are probably far     worse than ever.  I still believe in democracy:  it's better than the alternatives.   


In the end, no one should put many eggs in their political basket.  Save most of them for those things that nourish your spirit and your mind, and you will find that you will not have to depend on the ignorance and uncertainly of anyone else.  You will know the truth and the truth will set you free.  Even if you are the only one.


Monday, October 8, 2012

Doers and Debtors


Obama needs to get out the message:  first an increase in taxes on those making over $250,000 will reduce the federal deficit; second, that his economic policies over the last four years have been solidly pro small business


I.  Deficit Spending

President Obama allowed the Bush tax rates to continue--that was a mistake.  Obviously he has learned from this.  If President Obama is re-elected and his plan to increase taxes on those who earn over $250,000 at the 38% Clinton rate is passed (up from the current 35%), there is reason to expect a decrease in the federal deficit.

When did America become so overwhelmed in debt, a deficit that causes the Tea Party and their ilk such angst?  Ronald Reagan, the Republican saint.  Reagan was the first president to take the budget deficit over $100 billion in 1982.  In 1983, in only one year, he doubled the deficit to  over $200 billion.  

What caused this overwhelming debit?  Supply-side, trickle down, Reaganomics.  The brainchild of Milton Friedman.  The same economic policy that Romney is still selling the American public today.

Did the United States ever have a budget surplus?  Yes, during the Clinton Administration.  By the time he left office, America had a nearly $200 million surplus.  During Clinton’s Presidency, 22 million new jobs were created.

How did Clinton do this?  During Clinton’s first year he pushed through a large tax increase which fell almost exclusively on upper-income taxpayers, contributing to budget surpluses in future years.

What happened when W. took over? Within one year, W turned $128 billion surplus into a budget deficit of $157 billion.  In his eight years, W created only one million new jobs.  

What caused such a turn around?  W returned to the trickle down nonsense and cut taxes for the rich policies.  Obama should be clear.  He should express regret that he allowed the W tax cuts to continue for the richest Americans.  He should promise to return to the tax rates adopted by the Clinton Administration for those Americans making over $250,000 per year.  He should give the historical perspective-- the only surpluses in the last thirty years have come through a tax increase on wealthiest Americans, one that is hardly onerous, given the fact that when Reagan, the Great Debtor, lowered the tax rate for the rich it was still at 50 percent.



II.  Small Businesses 

President Obama, contrary to what even many Democrats believe, has been overwhelmingly supportive of the American small-businessman. 
Romney, as Republicans before him, has been allowed to continue to employ the Republican myth that only they are in the small businessman's corner and that all Democrats want to restrict small businesses into paralysis.

Won’t the higher tax rates on those making over $250,000, as proposed by President Obama if re-elected, hurt small business owners?

The truth is that only 3 to 4 percent of small business owners report income in excess of $250,000. That means that as many as 97 percent of small business owners will still be taxed at the current lower rate.

Have the Obama economic policies been conducive to or prohibitive of small business start-ups?

Of the 4.5 million private sector jobs created since Obama took office, about 2.6 million (roughly 60 percent)  were created by small businesses.

Is that a reasonable amount? 
George Bush the elder created just 1.8 million small business jobs during his full four years in office.  If we add the number created under two terms of W., we will find that Obama has created as many small business jobs in one administration as his two Republican predecessors accomplished in three terms.

What has Obama done to make it easier to start and run small businesses?
President Obama has cut taxes on small businesses-- 18 different tax cuts, many via the 2009 American Recovery Act (the Stimulus Bill), others via the Small Business Jobs Act of 2010.

Under the Obama Administration have loans been readily available for those who would start small businesses?
President Obama has helped to make billions available for small business loans.  Obama established the Small Business Lending Fund (SBLF) which made it easier for community-based banks to provide start-up loans.  In 2010, he set up $30 billion under the Small Business Administration (SBA) to help underwrite commercial lending to small businesses.

Hasn't Obama made it harder to run a small business by increasing the number and purview of federal regulations?
President Obama has eased regulation for small businesses.  Through his Jumpstart Our Business Start-Ups (JOBS) bill, Obama has relaxed federal security regulations to make it easier for small start-ups to access investment capital.

In conclusion, do not believe that Republicans are the fiscally responsible party who are the small businessman's best friend.  Facts speak otherwise.  The President should be refuting these myths with solid facts and beginning to tell a different story so that small business and deficit reduction are as much associated with the Democratic Party as Social Security, Health Standards, Labor Standards, Environmental Standards, and Civil Rights Reform.

Sunday, October 7, 2012

On Freedom and Eating

Question:  Should the federal government via The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 make extra federal funding for public school lunches dependent on the school's  restricting meals to no more than 750 calories and to mandatory portions of fresh fruits and vegetables?

Bad Taste, Less Filling
Argument:  Freedom of Eats No!  Free Eaterprise YES!!

Isn't there something in the U.S. Constitution or any of the Amendments that we have the freedom to eat what we want.  No state shall deprive any person of life, liberty, property, or the pursuit of calories.  There has got be something there.  Where are the attorneys?
Unfortunately not.  But there is something better-- the freedom to make money.

Great Taste, More Filling



Now my school experience may not be reflective of the entire nation of people who attended public schools between 1970 and 1982.  I developed from a scrawny elementary age child, dressed in tough skins, corduroy bell-bottoms, and his mother's homemade shirts (complete with embroidered yokes and puffed sleeve) who carried his lunch from home in a post office themed lunch pail, and who regularly distributed his Suzy Q's according to who created threats most likely to be executed.  After distributed all the attractive portions of my lunch, I was typically left with a chicken loaf sandwich until it was suggested by the recipients of my largess that I tell my mom not to include such a lame sandwich-- when I began to bring peanut butter and jelly, I was left with nothing.   Even the contents of my thermos were regularly drained until I implored my mother to change the apple to prune juice.  From then on, at least I could quench my thirst worked up after the mentally exhausting process of choosing the more worthy donees and having to incur the anger of the many have-nots.  Suffice it to say that I went through elementary school hungry, a disability I silently blamed on the government whose idea of a healthy lunch was an unappealing cold or equally unsatisfactory hot combination that including healthy fruits and vegetables.  If supplied with something more gastronomically tempting, bullies would never have gravitated to me, and I would have been able to enjoy my own lunch.

When I got to public high school, however, school lunches had evolved into better fare-- mashed potatoes, Salisbury steak, hamburgers and cheeseburgers, pizza, and the like.  These were available to all at full, reduced, or no cost.  I was somewhere in the middle.  During these idyllic days, I  discovered that a little charisma went far in securing extra helpings from the lunch ladies.  To hold up the line for only a few seconds, I could say things like "Give my compliments to the chef," "You hair looks lovely today under that hair net," or "I just want to let you know that you make lunch worth living."  In return, it was not unusual for me to receive two cheeseburgers, an extra square of chocolate cake, or even three pizza slices always demurring with the pleasant, "If you insist."  I am sure that during those days in Arcadia, I put away some 2000 plus calories per meal.  Then I would hurry out to the playground to smoke a cigarette or two to ward off any imminent dyspepsia.


The strange thing is that during my high school years when the lunches were chalk full of fat and carbs, there were only a few obese or corpulent students.

I think for many of us, school was the only place where we cold feast on such unhealthy but filling food.  McDonald's or Dairy Queen were once a month treats, and even then there were no such combination meals or extra large sizes that compelled us to engorge ourselves.

Let's face it.  Back in the day, food was not that tasty, and we were all so much better for it.  I think out of necessity, we ate to live.  No one was running around thinking about what to eat next.  No one was walking around eating out of habit.

A drink of Pepsi, Coke, or RC Cola and a Slim Jim or bag of Funyuns was the special reward for a successful expedition for recyclable soda bottles for which we would receive a nickel apiece.  And we sat on someone's steps and yapped and made jokes about the loud-mouth lady in the second floor apartment across the street with the huge breasts or the bearded lady who lived in the corner group home.  The food was never the raison d'etre but always just a side for something more important.

Now food products have become so must tastier, the packaging has become so much more appealing, and there is an almost unlimited variety.  Food  has become yet another form of American entertainment.  Now, kids no longer need to be responsible for their own entertainment.  We no longer need to make ii up.

In the old days we were not consumers.  Today thanks to the success of the free enterprise system, that is all we are.

So, the only thing we can do is to make cafeteria fruits and vegetables such that our kids absolutely must have them.  Give them new names; have Lil Wayne or One Direction or Nicki Minaj all over the walls munching on Pomows,  a succulent Chitty poised between their lips or golden grille, licking a Trottah.  I am confident that the same country that brought us happy meals and Glee can open up a whole new market for accumulating large profits off of healthy fruits and vegetables.





Saturday, October 6, 2012

Mitt Romney is the New Normal

And then the liberal guy gets really agitated and says to
the normal guy,"That's what I said, Tax Cuts for the Rich!"

Mitt Romney won the first debate.   It's not so much that I could not join in the all the fun broadcast over conservative radio.  It was not so much that Mitt had so much better forensic skills honed from private school debate teams clubs or being a door to door religion salesman.  It was not so much that President Obama, perhaps nervous at the prospect of his first debate in four years, took one too many Xanax and transformed cool and collected into stolid and soporific.  It was that no one seemed to appreciate that the most significant thing about this debate was the emergence of the new and normal Mitt.  No longer was he the craven plutocrat at the mercy of his billionaire benefactors and completely out of the mainstream who was caught whining about how millionaires aren't properly coddled like the 47% of free-loading Americans.  This first debate was America's first chance to meet the Mitt Normal.

How normal is Mitt.  Read on!

I.  Middle class Mitt knows the rich don't need a tax cut.  Come on!

Romney seemed thunderstruck that anyone, most of all the President, would think that anyone, most of all Mitt, would have any plan as crazy as reducing taxes on the rich.  Where in the world did anyone come up with that idea?  Answer:  the liberal spin doctors who had promulgated the lie that Mitt Romney, in what little of an economic plan that he has, was eager to lower the tax rate of the wealthiest Americans.  Character assassination.  Slander.  Don't you believe it for one second.  Mitt has no interest in making the lives of the excessively affluent any better than they already are.  In what might be this year's "Read my lips.  No new taxes!"  Romney has made it clear, "It doesn't matter what I said yesterday.  Trust me today: no tax cuts for the really rich!"


The normal Mitt made this point at least five times during the debate.  

And the answer is, yes, we can help, but it's going to take a different path, not the one we've been on, not the one the president describes as a top-down, cut taxes for the rich. That's not what I'm going to do.

My view is that we ought to provide tax relief to people in the middle class. But I'm not going to reduce the share of taxes paid by high-income people. High-income people are doing just fine in this economy.

And finally, with regards to that tax cut, look, I'm not looking to cut massive taxes and to reduce the -- the revenues going to the government. My -- my number-one principal is, there will be no tax cut that adds to the deficit. I want to underline that: no tax cut that adds to the deficit.

But I do want to reduce the burden being paid by middle-income Americans. And I -- and to do that, that also means I cannot reduce the burden paid by high-income Americans. So any -- any language to the contrary is simply not accurate.

Number two, I will not reduce the share paid by high-income individuals. I know that you and your running mate keep saying that and I know it's a popular thing to say with a lot of people, but it's just not the case. Look, I've got five boys. I'm used to people saying something that's not always true, but just keep on repeating it and ultimately hoping I'll believe it. But that -- that is not the case. All right? I will not reduce the taxes paid by high-income Americans.

OK.  So a lot of us have really gotten the wrong idea of Mitt.  We had characterized this wild and crazy tax-cutter who was going to reduce tax rates for the millionaires so that they could continue the dumping of that magnanimous economic rainfall on the less deserving

We are giving you a collective apology.  We got that ludicrous idea from what you told us. We will never get you wrong again.


And Mitt gave us a glimpse into the inner workings of the Brain Romney when he told us how he wasn't going to reduce the tax rate for the wealthy.


Number two, let's look at history. My plan is not like anything that's been tried before. My plan is to bring down rates, but also bring down deductions and exemptions and credits at the same time so the revenue stays in, but that we bring down rates to get more people working.


So Mitt is not going to reduce taxes for the wealthiest Americans by a new approach:  lowering the taxes for the wealthiest Americans.  

This has the feel of those great mystery novels or movies we love where the solution is the last thing we would ever suspect:  because we are not the super-sleuths like Sherlock Holmes or Miss Marple or Hercules Poiret or Mitt Romney.   

We trust you now.  Don't bother giving us the details of these exemptions and loopholes.  You probably know all of them a lot better than we would, having used them and created them in your former life as a financial detective posing as an entrepreneur.

We promise not to listen to the facts.  Facts are for the inane and prosaic, not for super sleuths.  Like that fact that the plan you have been touting in reality would provide the very richest Americans a $264,000 tax break; or would current tax rates on investments that are otherwise set to expire at the end of the year; or would eliminate the estate tax, paid by only the richest 1/4 of 1% of Americans.   Or that even if we can hypothesize these loopholes and exemptions it would be mathematically impossible to keep the wealthiest Americans from receiving excessive tax breaks according to the Tax Policy Center.  These purveyors of facts do not understand the world where super-econo- heroes are more than willing and able to do the impossible.

II.  Businessman Mitt knows businesses need regulations.  Duh!

The President and, I must confess, many of his supporters forgot that Mitt has been a businessman all his life, even when in utero, when God was building Mitt's genetic code.  Why would we think that he would be adverse to federal government regulations.  Where in the world did we get that idea?  We again must apologize for misconstruing your past denunciations of regulation as the death of American business.  You know better than we do, and we know you better now that you are normal.  You certainly gave us a good example of the need for regulations during the debate.


Regulation is essential. You can't have a free market work if you don't have regulation. As a businessperson, I had to have -- I need to know the regulations. I needed them there. You couldn't have people opening up banks in their -- in their garage and making loans. I mean, you have to have regulations so that you can have an economy work. Every free economy has good regulation. At the same time, regulation can become excessive.


You are so right.  The last thing we want in this country that is so free enterprise gaga, so laissez-faire wacko, so capitalism or bust, is a bunch of vigilante entrepreneurs opening up banks in their garages and making loans.  In fact, if not for federal regulations on business which, according to the normal Mitt,  do not hamper making money but direct it, we might have an epidemic in which two-car garages, purportedly built for the safe harbor of two cars, who knows who is giving out loans willy-nilly to whom knows whom-- a favorite neighbor, a son's baseball coach.  And what next?  Would the so-called bank manager get it into his greedy head to use his children as innocent victims in his thirst for easy money and open up a lemonade stand where borrowers' thirsts would be refreshed over and over again while awaiting the garage-board decision on their loan request.  


III.  Empathetic Mitt knows individuals not government help the “less fortunate” God Bless us Everyone!


And we thought you just didn't care about the little people.  Now we know.  It's not assistance for the worthless that you are against, it's having government do it.  Governments unlike corporations are not people.  They are cold.  There is certainly nothing like the sympathy that comes only through the human touch, no reassuring words like "You know, I am unemployed too!  Have been since running for President."  Now we understand.  Our government is not really we the people.  We are we the people-- when we do "we the people things" like attending root-beer soirees, flying off to one of our vacation homes, setting up IRS-proof trust funds for our kids.  That's when we are really helping out. 

We are endowed by our creator with our rights...we are endowed by our creator with the right to pursue happiness as we choose. I interpret that as, one, making sure that those people who are less fortunate and can't care for themselves are cared by -- by one another.

We're a nation that believes that we're all children of the same god and we care for those that have difficulties, those that are elderly and have problems and challenges, those that are disabled. We care for them. And we -- we look for discovery and innovation, all these things desired out of the American heart to provide the pursuit of happiness for our citizens.

You are so right empathetic and altruistic Mitt to point out on several occasions during  the debate that 1 out of 6 people in poverty, 47 million on food stamps.   We are not acting appropriately if we pause for a minute and think that according to your definition of we the people this overabundance of the less fortunate should be impossible, that if we the people naturally care for each other so much so that the government need not hang around, then why is anyone on food stamps, why is anyone poor?  Wouldn’t the free-spirited American who pursues his own happiness naturally gravitate toward helping out his fellow man-- a no-interest loan?  a job?  a rent-free apartment?  Those who think this way are like those annoying people who cannot enjoy a good movie because they keep finding flaws in the plot.  Sometimes it is right to just go with the flow.  Enjoy.  Listen to Mitt.


IV.  Tax Filing Mitt Knows There's no Reason to Outsource


Although we haven't seen many of Mitt Romney's tax returns, that is no reason not to think he has no idea what they entail.  He's been finding loopholes for years in his quest to understand that crazy money-grabbing mind of the so-called entrepreneur.  If there were any tax incentive for moving businesses out of the United States wouldn't the super -duper financial sleuth have sniffed it out?   Again we have been so wrong believing the facts that he has moved American businesses out of America through his private equity firm to reap any sort of financial gain.  Then again we used to think that Mitt Romney was the guy who wanted to make money and lots of it.  Let normal Mitt speak for himself why don't I?


The second topic, which is you said you get a deduction for taking a plant overseas. Look, I've been in business for 25 years. I have no idea what you're talking about. I maybe need to get a new accountant.

Some people still want us to backtrack (I thought it was about moving forward) and listen to the old Mitt:

"Big business is doing fine in many places - they get the loans they need, they can deal with all the regulation. They know how to find ways to get through the tax code, save money by putting various things in the places where there are low tax havens around the world for their businesses."
But that was way back in August, so many Mitts ago.  If you are going to bring that up, why not start talking about ways to streamline the Pony Express?
The fact that there is a feature in the US Tax Code called “deferral” that allows U.S. corporations to defer the kind of taxes they pay on domestic profits indefinitely on anything made on foreign profits.  Whenever the income is “repatriated,” or brought back to the United States, corporations are allowed a credit for foreign taxes paid.   At least that's what Seth Hanlon wrote at Center for American Progress Action Fund, July 16, 2012.  Who invited him to the party?


And then there is always some party-pooper economist like Martin Sullivan of Tax Analysts who wants to chime in with a big bundle of facts.  
Under current law, if an American corporation opens a factory in Indiana, the profits of that factory are subject to the 35 percent U.S. corporate tax rate. If the same corporation instead opens a similar factory in Ireland, the profits from that factory are subject to a 12.5 percent tax rate [Ireland’s corporate tax rate]. If that factory generates a profit of $100, the choice is between an after-tax profit of $65 in the United States and $87.50 in Ireland. Obviously, U.S. tax law provides a large tax advantage for building and moving factories to low-tax countries

Heroes don't come out of cumbersome economic books or tax codes.  Look, whenever we hear anyone quoting something in context or giving specifics statistics or facts about anything meant to undermine Mitt's character by telling the truth, all we need say is simply, "Mitt knows!"

President Obama is certainly going to have his hands full now that his opponent is a normal one.  Only if I were he, I wouldn't get too used to the new normal Mitt lest he show up at the next debate with a beard and pony tail talking about environmental rights and vegetarianism.  Keep 'em guessing Mitt!!