Questions for a Conservative Friend

OK, I really don't understand. I've tried, I've listened; but I just don't get it. Perhaps my friends and readers on the right will explain this to me. Rather than write yet another "left wing" litany of the evils of the corporate takeover of American; here is a letter to a good, very conservative friend asking him some specific questions about his life. All responses, comments and chortles are welcomed.

Dear Alex,

Please help me understand your position, I really do want to understand. I enjoy our back and forth politically charged emails. But if you don't mind,  I would like to get serious for a moment and ask you to explain to me why you still hold the economic beliefs you do.

Four years ago when you activated your retirement plan you bought that great place in Arizona and put your St. Paul house on the market. I know that had been your retirement plan since early in the 90s when you refinanced the Minnesota home, consolidated your debt and started your business. I understand that was a 15 plan you had that was both well thought out and financially viable. You didn't take some crazy negative amortization refinance loan, you got a solid 30 yr. fixed rate and took the extra cash out of your house to start your business. The plan was to sell that house and put the equity into the Arizona place so you could retire without a mortgage.

Now, however, you have two houses, two mortgages and thankfully a long-term tenant in the St. Paul place. But both properties are underwater, even that beautiful St. Paul house is worth less than the mortgage you refinanced nearly 18 years ago. You didn't take a loan you weren't qualified for, you always paid on time and I know you would never walk away from either property. As you have said many times - a mortgage is a contract and you honor your debts.

Someone(s) clearly screwed with the real estate market.

Then there is your retirement. You sold your business for a nice chunk of cash and a ten year payout based on the profitability of the business. But the economic collapse means that business has done poorly under new ownership. I know you have been advising the young guy who bought it and I know he is working his butt off to stay in business, but as a consequence of the double down economy your retirement nest egg is producing almost no income for you. You started taking social security even though your well thought out retirement plan was to wait to do that until you were 70.

Someone(s), perhaps the same someone(s), screwed with the economy.

So here are my questions. You worked hard, made a solid financial plan and the bottom fell out. But you are a smart guy, you know why this happened, you know who got rich, yet you still support them.

Alex, you are not one of the 0.1% who got richer in the financial collapse. You aren't one of the 1% or even the 10%; you are a middle class guy who did everything right and then got screwed by a system rigged to make other people rich at your expense. So why do you still support them?

Why do you oppose taxing the uber-wealthy? You aren't one of them and never will be. You know they stole your retirement and everything you worked years for. You have kids, you know how they are suffering because of the greed of Wall Street, yet you still act like corporate America is honest, straight forward and has your best interest at heart. You are too damn smart to actually believe that, so why not start acting and thinking in your own best interest?

To get your retirement plan, your life plan, back on track the financial corporations, banks and yes, Wall Street have to be brought under control. The unregulated free market screwed you and you are not the type of guy to just take something like that lying down. So, yes your dyed in the wool republican ethic got you where you were three or four years ago, but those ideas no longer serve you. So my question is:

Why not change?

Vote Obama? Hell no! That's just a different sleeping pill.

Support Occupy. Join the millions of Americans who have been screwed over my a non-responsive government that has clearly been bought and paid for my corporate America. Get this country and your retirement plan back on track. Stand Up! Speak Up! Don't let the olde right vs. left noize get in your way. Keeping us quiet is what the rich need. Making those Occupy camps go away is exactly what the rich want and they are paying their politicians to do exactly that. So I ask again:

Why not change? Why not act in your own self interest? You worked for your piece of the American Dream, why aren't you pissed at the people who stole it?

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Penn State vs. Cal

Getting a college education should be about expanding your view of the world; about obtaining facts and opinions different from your own and thinking critically on those new ideas. So I have a reading and writing assignment for students at Penn State University and the University of California at Berkeley.

First for those Penn State students who participated in the riot Wednesday night in College Station. Here is a link to the Grand Jury Report on Jerry Sandusky, your former Penn football coach. Your assignment is to read it, all of it and then write a letter of apology to the Penn State Board of Trustees. Last night you lashed out with anger and the destruction of property in support of a rapist, a pedophile and those who kept silent when they knew of this monster's crimes against children. 

You should be ashamed.

Next, for the students are UC Berkeley who were peacefully protesting at that same hour and were attacked by elements of the UCB police force and the Alameda County Sheriffs Department. Your reading assignment is this report on the May 4th (1970) Shootings at Kent State University. Part of your university education should be history in context, what you did yesterday, what you will continue to do today and tomorrow is going to bring a response from the establishment. The response is likely to be violent and therefore not under anyone's control on-campus or off.

I applaud your zeal, I stand with you. I was there yesterday and will be back today, but I do not intend to sacrifice my health or my life to the armed minions of the 1%. I want you to be informed of exactly what it is you may face during the Occupy protests. Please read the Kent State report and be prepared.

For everyone else - Remember Allison Krause, William Schroeder, Sandy Schreuer and Jeffrey Miller.

Four Dead in Ohio - May 4th, 1970.

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Teach Your Children Well

Parents are you feeling more and more like part of the 99%? Well, here is something else you need to think about, if you have kids away at college. Might I strongly suggest you contact the University administration and make it clear to them what your opinions are on the Occupy Movement. I was on the University of California at Berkeley campus yesterday afternoon when the riot thugs from Alameda County attacked peacefully demonstrating students. The riot gang then went away only to return around 9:30 PM and started instigating all over again.

Read one student's ordeal.

Up until now I have not even used the word "cops" when referring to the local police but those riot geared pigs were there today only to inflict pain and beat heads. I don't know what the Cal Regents were thinking or not thinking but calling out the same armed forces who attacked the demonstrators in Oakland last week was clearly not one of their more thoughtful moments.

Need we remind UCB officials and any other college or university administrators of the consequences of mixing armed militia with the student body.

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False Words, False Hopes

"Last month protesters took to the streets across the country to demand their universal rights, a government that is accountable to them and responsive to their aspirations." - Barack Obama

To all my liberal and moderate friends out there. Before you even consider voting for Barack Obama again - watch this video. Listen to his words. Is this really the person you want leading your country? Perhaps a better question might be: Is this really the person who is leading anything at all?

Video

Don't look away - Watch the video.

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Another Must Read

"It is vital that the occupation movements direct attention away from their encampments and tent cities, beset with the usual problems of hastily formed open societies where no one is turned away. Attention must be directed through street protests, civil disobedience and occupations toward the institutions that are carrying out the assaults against the 99 percent. Banks, insurance companies, courts where families are being foreclosed from their homes, city offices that put these homes up for auction, schools, libraries and firehouses that are being closed, and corporations such as General Electric that funnel taxpayer dollars into useless weapons systems and do not pay taxes, as well as propaganda outlets such as the New York Post and its evil twin, Fox News, which have unleashed a vicious propaganda war against us, all need to be targeted, shut down and occupied. Goldman Sachs is the poster child of all that is wrong with global capitalism, but there are many other companies whose degradation and destruction of human life are no less egregious." Chris Hedges TruthDig.com

There are several 'must read' articles every day that I would point out to you or are sent to me by my readers and friends. Yesterday's piece by Chris Hedges is one of the "must, must reads."

It will particular appeal to those who you know are part of Occupy but haven't quite had the light turned on yet. Circulate it to everyone who needs to engage in this protest against the greed and lack of humanity that threatens us all.

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To Encamp or Not to Encamp

One of the major obstacles to the Occupy Movement is going to be - winter. There may have been a reason that the cultural upheaval in the Middle East is called the Arab Spring. But we're here and winter is coming. So let's say it flat out:

"Basing a once in a lifetime protest on fragile tent encampments, in February, in the Northern Hemisphere, might not be the best laid strategy to topple wall street and reform the world's financial institutions."

Which does not mean I don't support you and I will continue to march with you and donate supplies to the encampment. But at my age I am simply unable and unwilling to spend this winter in a tent. 

Yes, I know we are all "one lost job away from being on the street" but that is simply revolutionary rhetoric for most of the 99%. We are mostly two or three or more steps away from being homeless. We're older and yes perhaps softer or simply less adventuresome. Fine, not everyone will be in a tent come the new year.

But might it not make sense, where possible, to move Occupy indoors for the winter. Yes, that raises a lot of problems. Yes, that makes it easier for the reigning government to control and even raid the encampments. But there are abandoned buildings in most of the encampment cities. Buildings that can provide shelter and even utilities for the Occupy encampments.

Surely in some, if not many cities the local politicians would dearly desire to trade a city public space for an abandoned building. Teach-ins become easier with heat, media coverage does as well. Yes, there are logistical issues; not to mention negotiating with "the man." But this is all new ground for all of us - flexibility seems to be one of the natural characteristics of the Occupy Movement. So, shall we explore the reality of a tent city in winter before it's actually upon us?

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Class Warfare

"It's class warfare, my class is winning, but they shouldn't be." -Warren Buffett

We hear a lot of sound bytes about class warfare these days. Yes, most of it comes from conservative politicians. This is what politicians do, they craft a message in ten seconds or less and then pass it off as thoughtful insight into the American psyche. Conservatives are no more guilty of this than Liberals, the right wing is simply better at it.

On the matter of class warfare there are really two rather obvious positions. First from the left: "Are you nuts? You think the Occupy Movement is a call to begin class warfare? Hell the rich have been at war with the poor for centuries, it's only recently that they have taken on the middle class as well." There really isn't a lot more to that argument, either you think the rich prosper at the expense of the rest of us or you don't. I have seen very little movement on the right in response to the arguments, facts and/or figures that have come out time and time again in the last six weeks.

The other argument is a bit more nuanced. It begins by suggesting that the essential democratic economic premise is simply that anyone can become wealthy in America. This endeavor requires some set of character traits that involve hard work, a great business plan and leadership skills. The argument further says that things like tax breaks, low corporate taxes and government subsidies are available to every business and that taking advantage of what the market offers is what the free enterprise system is all about. 

What both arguments fail to address, of course, are the people involved. There certainly are many wealthy Americans who use their capital for good through charities and other philanthropic deeds. A primary example would be Warren Buffett quoted above. But Mr. Buffett also knows that if the economy were thriving, if the middle class was not burdened with foreclosures, joblessness and shrinking retirement funds; if those things had not happened, he would be making even more money with his investments.

But back to class warfare. Is it getting worse? Yes. Does Occupy suggest it will get even more so, Yes. The facts are that much of the newly created wealth in America is stolen money. The simple facts behind the mortgage crisis that pushed the entire globe off this economic escarpment is that banks in the U.S.A. made horrible loans to unqualified borrowers. Then they packaged these loans to sell to pension funds and other financial institutions while, wait for it, paying off credit rating companies to grossly overrate the potential value of these hundreds of billions of dollars of bad loans. Finally, after selling the loans, the banks bet on the predictable foreclosures and sold the debits short. They lied about the creditworthiness of the loans they sold and then turned around and bet those loans would go bad.

Criminal fraud pure and simple. And people suffered in all segments of the community but those are the bottom with the least ability to recover got hit the hardest. But truth be told, there would be no Occupy if the pain hadn't climbed so high and hurt so many. 

We are the 99% and we all got hurt by the greed of Wall Street. Otherwise there would be no encampments, no protests, no 99%.

So is there real class warfare happening in the United States today. Yes and it's going to get a lot worse if the political demagogs of both parties don't start listening soon.

For a somewhat different slant on class warfare, stuffed cabbage and Jimi Hendrix you might want to read my friend Arlene Goldbard.

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