For Stephannie and Mike….

Stephannie White

One of the things which makes the ‘net a wonderful place is that you can actually ‘meet’ people from all over the world. In my case, it’s enabled me to learn more about other parts of the planet than I’d ever learn otherwise – from the eyes of people who are living there.

Occasionally, we learn things which uplift us – stories of great courage; other times, we learn happy things – a wedding; a birth, or other great news from our online ‘friends’.

Then again, sometimes we learn of tragedy.

Unfortunately, this is one of those. Bear with me.

In early ’07, Stephannie White (‘Steph’ being her online name, and how most of us here on the ‘net know her) asked me to add her to my friends-list. I was happy to do so; she was an ex-pat living in Korea with her then-almost-13-year-old son; she was an instructor at a university in Korea, having moved there some four years earlier.

Mike (on the right) and friend

Reading about her life was genuinely fun. She wrote about the culture; how she taught; the things she and her son did on the weekends. It became obvious to me that she was not only a good Mom, but the kind of best-friend a boy that age needed.

Single motherhood isn’t a cakewalk – but Stephannie was making a go of it, and in a country where the language could be bewildering at best.

Her son, Mike, made friends easily and adapted well to a life which included a lot of travel. He was smart, happy, and had a ready smile. Built like a football-player with the good-nature of a kid from the south, he was without doubt the center of Stephannie’s life.

On May 10^th this year, Mike died.

The actual cause is highly suspicious. While the ‘official’ word is that that cause was natural, his age (14), his robust health and complete lack of physical problems points to another cause.

I’d ask you to do three things here.

First, I’d ask that you write a note to the American Embassy in Seoul. Secondly, I’d ask that you write the Korean Ambassador to the U.S., and ask that a complete and impartial investigation be allowed/conducted in Mike’s case (there’s an email address at the bottom of the page).

Lastly, I’d ask you to drop by Steph’s website, and show her a little love.

She needs it right now.

Best,

–“Astra”

The Swan-Song of the American Century….

Whose head this is I think I know
The idiot, from the village, though
He will not see me stopping here
To smoke the poppies there below

He can’t pronounce it ‘nu-cle-ar’
But with the help of medicine
We make the situation clear
As change begets a change this year.

So, with the help of surgeons’ hand
An operation, clear and grand
McCain, you see, he’s not quite dead
As Bush’s brain goes in his head.

The cloning’s done, and done quite deep.
But he has promises to keep.
And miles to go before he sleeps.
And miles to go before he sleeps.

“The Cloning of Bush in John McCain” — WDN; ©2008
(with sincere apologies to the memory of Robert Frost)

Folks, it’s over.

The American Century ended, for all practical purposes, with the announcement today of the conclusion of Hillary Clinton’s campaign for President.

It’s not that I was a Hillary supporter – far from it – but Obama’s all-but-guaranteed nomination means a square-off between the Lesser of Two Evils – a panderer from the senate, or a clone of G.W. Bush, soon to be late of the White House with eight full years of nonsense-passing-for-policy under his belt; said predations on the freedom, pocketbook, and persons of the American People now ready to be duly whitewashed by his likely successor.

Let’s look at the history of Neoconservatism.

In the 1960’s, America ‘suffered’ under the onerous burden of 17-cent-per-gallon gasoline; the fact that fully 60% of the world’s goods were manufactured here in the U.S., and had the benefit of plenty of disposable income. American society underwent an explosion of creativity – both ethnically and socially, American music, art, film, and other creative media saw a creative period like none other in its history.

Liberalism, the movement from the 1920’s which culminated in the three Roosevelt administrations and the sociopolitical movement which followed through the Kennedy administration, espoused the establishment of a ‘safety net’ for the social fabric, an experiment with socialized medicine (Medicare and Medicaid), as well as other acts which formed Roosevelt’s “New Deal” and Johnson’s “War on Poverty”.

The ‘vital center’ (a term coined by Arthur Schlesinger) was the concept that Liberalism was America’s sole intellectual – and hence, educational – tradition. This was echoed by classic Conservatives such as Barry Goldwater, who held with many Liberal traditions such as caring for the less-fortunate and guaranteeing personal liberty.

The leftward drift of the Democratic party in the late ‘60’s and early 70’s, as embodied by the candidacy of George McGovern in 1972 against the right-wing conservative Richard Nixon, who was running then for his second term, created disillusion within the Democratic party and a seemingly-paradoxical shift to the right (political scientists make much of the ‘pendulum swings’ in politics; while it’s beyond the purview of this post to discuss that in any detail, it makes for a helluva discussion).

The swan-song of intellectual Liberalism in America was the candidacy and presidency of Jimmy Carter. He admittedly created a double standard regarding his human-rights policies, which allowed for a ‘bye’ given to some Communist regimes, while enacting sanctions against others with whom America either had little trade or which had little influence over the U.S., economically. The further disillusion created by the Carter administration drove some classic Liberals “over the fence” to the right-wing of American politics, and set the stage for the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980.

The chart, below, is probably the most single-damning evidence of the damage caused by the Neoconservative movement.

While decrying Liberals for a ‘tax and spend’ mentality, the Neoconservatives did something far worse. Let’s look at the facts:

1. In 1980, the tax-rate on an income of $10
0,000 was approximately 50%. Reagan, in a widely-celebrated move labeled “voodoo economics” by some, he proposed halving the tax rates – which he did, and which hold true today: The average tax-rate for a $100,000/yearly income is around 25-28%, depending upon deductions, which can reduce it to around 15-17% or lower.

2. In 1980 (per the chart, below), the real run-up in the national debt began. We might ask, “How can this be, because trade should balance, or nearly so?” You’d be right at the elementary level – a ‘trade deficit’ is largely artificial, as the difference has to be made up with currency. The only question is where the money originates.

In the case of the Reagan administration – and most administrations afterward, including Clinton and G.W. Bush – the source is borrowed money – which is why the national debt is now so high.

(Oops. Sorry. That sound you just heard? Those were the pet-theories of a lot of Republicans, hitting the wall at Mach-1. It was the sound of a paradigm, shifting without a clutch. I’m sorry if I just skewered a fantasy with a few ugly facts, but we should all realize sooner than later that the Emperor isn’t wearing any clothes, and there’s a huge shit-train that’s about to pull into the station, economically-speaking – and the Republicans, along with their Neoconservative cronies, aren’t our friends.)

The miracle of borrowed money enabled America to listen to the pandering of the Neocons while lowering real tax rates and seeing gasoline drop to under a dollar a gallon in 1985. (Demand-pull inflation as well as cost-push inflation had driven the price of fuel from seventeen cents per gallon in 1965 to over a dollar a gallon in 1983.)

You’ve read the chart – and you’ve seen the run-up, and where it started. I also don’t have to tell you who took office in the early ‘80’s – and it wasn’t a Democrat.

With further apologies to my Republican-aligned friends, Mr. Obama isn’t going to ‘effect change by taking it from your pocket’ – that’s a cheap shot, created by Neoconservative P.R.-flacks and policy wonks who’d have you believe that money-laundering (cutting taxes and borrowing the difference from the Chinese) is preferable to cutting our belts, paying our bills, and curing our economic woes by creating wealth.

It’s 2008. Inflation – both kinds – is back. The Neocon’s money-laundering scheme has finally caught up with us. The new president is going to have to do some things to deal with the problem – but we have two choices: A president who’ll tell the Great Unwashed what they want to hear (Obama); or a president who’ll give us Four More Years of the Same Thing (McCain).

Unfortunately, the clock is ticking, and we don’t have a lot of time left to fix the friggin’ problem.

(I just learned that McCain’s ‘economic advisor’ is none other than Carly Fiorina. For those of you who don’t know who she is, she virtually dismantled Hewlett-Packard, getting herself ousted by the board of directors for her ill-thought and poorly-executed merger of Compaq with HP. Putting her in charge of the economy would be like putting the fox in charge of the henhouse — a little research will convince you that her brand of ‘leadership’ is not only divisive, but destructive. Will someone wake me when this is over?)