Are we all in denial or simply apathetic?

Denial of the truth or just apathy?

I recently received this email message from a pen pal who lives in South Carolina. I initially thought about writing an article with these same thoughts. Then it occurred to me that I could not say it any better — or as well — so I decided to just share his email message directly. Thanks to Bob Bell for his willingness to allow me to reprint his thoughts, which are so well expressed.

Mike,

I was listening this a.m. to some postgame analysis of the New Hampshire primary; one story is that those in the Mitt Romney camp are so certain of victory that they have begun doing research on strategies and themes to take Barack Obama on in the general election; one of the themes they have evidently latched onto to capture what a Romney presidency is all about is "A Return to Normalcy!" They have been reported to be testing it in focus groups. Realizing that the job of message makers is to come up with something pithy that appeals to the largest percentage and insults the smallest, I thought this theme was quite relevant to the question you posed and that I attempted to answer: Why are people so convinced our current problems and issues can be solved by conventional wisdom and solutions that have worked before? It's the political equivalent of the old saying that the generals always fight the next war with the last war's weapons. It appears the Romney team has done its homework and has concluded a large percentage of the electorate lusts for the most recent version of "the good old days" — you know, when everybody had a job, your employer paid your health insurance, your 401(k) was growing daily and no one had to worry about whether or not their Social Security or Medicare programs would go belly up before they did. So what is normalcy, and when does yearning for it turn into complacency, or worse, an inability to adjust to new circumstances? I have used the phrase a "new normal" to describe how I read what is happening to our world, and I believe that conclusion to be valid because many of the factors influencing our world are neither normal nor minimal; but if our political leaders of both parties keep selling and our people keep buying the concept that nothing really important is going on and having an impact on our lives and that of our kids, then we are truly doomed. How can we be motivated to adapt and make the significant changes necessary if we actually believe in a past reality? There are a lot of things wrong with our political process; at the head of the list is the huge industry of consultants, strategists and message makers who work for candidates and advise them on how to manipulate public opinion, often based on research of what people "want" vs. what they might "need." I think that is what is going on in the GOP with all the appeals to the social conservatives, the tea party movement and the attempt to demonize the Occupy Wall Street movement as a bunch of radical hippies as opposed to citizens addressing a legitimate concern, if in a not-so-pleasant way for the rest of us who consider ourselves well mannered.

If Romney does use the "Return to Normalcy" theme, I have a question for him: Whose normal?

Regards,

Bob

As I said, I could not have stated this as well. I, too, believe our nation is in serious trouble, if not immediately so then most certainly for our children and their children. It is we, the current generation, whom our future citizens must depend on to save our nation's heritage that we were handed by our forefathers. For many of us to continue to remain in a state of denial is, to me, simply incredible. I have had a few readers and friends tell me that I am being too pessimistic. They usually then tell me that we, as a nation, have faced similar problems in the past and have always managed to come out OK, so why wouldn't we this time? The answer is that we have never faced such a "perfect storm" (to use a movie analogy) of an accumulation of critical problems that have been building up in America and globally for the past several decades. I may be wrong — and I hope that I am. However, I have asked all of those who have expressed this general optimism to share the points of light that they see on the horizon that will get our economy and job creation back to "normal."

No answers so far.

Too many of us seem to remain complacent and simply assume that somehow our elected officials will find some way to get us back to normal. I think that these folks sadly are missing the critical point. The old normal is dead and buried, and we can't get back to it.

All we can realistically hope for is a recognition by our leaders and our citizens that the paradigm has shifted significantly and that we will all have to suffer together in order to give our descendents any sense of hope at all.

This is what my pal Bob and I think. How about you?

Mike Tower

Hendersonville, NC

Please visit: 

Citizens Against Politics As Usual


Lee's Political Opinion

Unemployment much worse than BLS shows

Unemployment numbers are deceiving

Don’t let the new lower unemployment numbers fool you into thinking new jobs are being created at a rate that is truly meaningful. You have to remember how these “official” unemployment numbers are created in the first place.

They deliberately exclude those who have given up searching for jobs. They also exclude anyone working as little as even one hour per week, thus part-time employed are counted as employed. And they exclude anyone who is self-employed even though the person may have very little if any work to perform. Finally, don’t forget that these year end numbers include seasonal employment that will disappear as soon as the holidays are over.

Last November the unemployment rate dropped from 9 percent to 8.6 percent. That's good, right? Or is it really? The report showed that 120,000 new jobs were created. That’s good, isn’t it? The report didn’t put this in perspective by also explaining that over the past 10 years the U.S. has averaged more than 200,000 new births during each month. According to that, we need to add 200,000 jobs to just stay even with population changes.

Those who would have you believe jobs are actually being added also fail to mention it was estimated that last month alone 300,000 unemployed stopped looking for work and thus are no longer officially unemployed. So unemployment didn’t actually get better. The “official” rate got better, but the true number of folks out of work and suffering got worse.

The number of truly unemployed or underemployed is significantly larger than the “official” statistics cited. The best estimates I have been able to find show that the true number is over 20 million unemployed instead of the 14 million-plus so commonly shown. Also remember that this does not include their dependents, so the numbers are much higher than even the 20 million in terms of human beings in our country who are suffering from no job income.

I don’t think the government is simply trying to spin these unemployment statistics for political gain alone. While I do think that’s part of the reason for the message deception, perhaps the bigger reason is an attempt to send a message to consumers prior to the end of the holiday shopping season to encourage us to go ahead and spend money because things are looking up. This will, of course, stimulate the economy for the benefit of the producers of goods and services, but that is a very short-term effect that will result in primarily adding more personal debt for far too many.

My personal opinion is that we remain in a jobless recovery, and spinning the unemployment numbers to show otherwise is just another example of all of our leaders being focused on spinning every statistic in order to attempt to artificially stimulate the economy instead of taking the actions so needed to actually create the jobs that are so badly needed.

These are my opinions. What do you think?

Mike Tower

Hendersonville, NC

Please visit:
Citizens Against Politics As Usual
http:leespoliticalopinion.blogspot.org

Incumbents are in serious trouble

January 23, 2012

I received this from my friend Bob Bell. This is very much worth reading and requires no editorial comments from me.

Mike Tower

capau.org

Lower Than Low

Congress’s approval ratings can’t get much worse. How many incumbents could lose their seats?

Updated: January 20, 2012 | 9:36 a.m.
January 19, 2012 | 1:00 p.m.

AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin
Thumbs-down: Attitudes toward Congress.

The ABC News/Washington Post and CNN/Opinion Research national polls released this week that show Congress’s job-approval rating dropping to record low levels are barely creating a ripple—because the news is not new. With the exception of the immediate aftermath of extraordinary events like 9/11, the public routinely holds Congress in, as they say, “minimum high regard.” But now, the new norm is record lows. Both polls showed that upwards of eight of 10 Democrats, Republicans, and independents alike disapprove of the institution—an instance of rare agreement for three such disparate groups.
What is new is that in recent months, the long-held distinction between how voters see Congress overall and how they view their own members of Congress seems to be diminishing as well. An NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey in August found that 54 percent of respondents would choose the option (if it were on the ballot) to defeat every single member of Congress, including their own. Only 41 percent would not do so. Now, routinely, when voters are given the choice of reelecting their own (unnamed) member of Congress or choosing to “give a new person a chance,” majorities opt for the latter.
One of the more unfortunate trends in recent years has been that Washington and the political world have increasingly looked at politics and policy on a single lateral partisan or ideological plane, without considering other possibly important dimensions. Too many view everything on a left-right ideological axis or on a Democratic-Republican plane, viewing every issue or development as a zero-sum game. If we can make the other side look bad on this issue or subject, we will look better, they reason.
Political operatives and reporters, cable political shows, and Internet blogs tend to feed this tendency. Members of Congress gamely go along with it. Little appreciation exists for how much these attacks damage the institutions or the process. Lawmakers seem unaware that they are also inflicting damage on themselves. The cumulative impact of this mutually assured destruction is that congressional service that used to be viewed back home as a pedestal may start looking like a ditch; the advantage of incumbency, in other words, can become a disadvantage.
When the Gallup Poll tallied up its 20,392 interviews over the 2011 calendar year, it found that a record 40 percent of adults called themselves independents. By comparison, just 31 percent identified themselves as Democrats and 27 percent as Republicans. Those people in politics should consider how independents react to this towel-snapping. Partisan attacks and jockeying for a better position may earn approval from a party’s adherents. But the reaction of independents is something else: They take a dim view of combatants on both sides. Also noteworthy is that while Democrats hold a 4-point edge in overall party identification, when independents are asked which way they lean, more of them point toward the Republican Party than to the Democratic Party—a new development as well. The Gallup “leaned party identification” is now dead even at 45 percent, meaning that 45 percent call themselves Democrats or lean that way, with an identical percentage tilting toward the GOP. The remaining 10 percent are “pure” independents. It’s a safe assumption that this 10 percent takes a dim view of both parties and both chambers of Congress.
Of course, so many districts are drawn so partisanly that it takes a fertile imagination to come up with a scenario in which many incumbents lose reelection. But that list of members who can pretty much do whatever they want shifts a bit from one decade to another as new lines kick in after redistricting. We will undoubtedly see more competitive congressional races in California in 2012 than in the entire last decade because an independent commission drew the lines, forcing some members to clean off the cobwebs on their political organizations, to the extent that they still have organizations, back home. Others may be facing a fresh set of constituents. Will voters see their new members of Congress in the same way that they saw the old ones, particularly if they know next to nothing about them?
Will one-fourth of all House members seeking reelection lose either their primary or general elections this year? Absolutely not. Will a fifth? Probably not, given that the Vital Statistics on Congress reports that the House’s lowest reelection rate in the past half-century was 86.6 percent in 1962. But we could see about a tenth of incumbents lose, an unusually high turnover rate, with some losses attributable to redistricting and others to the deteriorating environment for incumbents. While a tenth of all incumbents seeking reelection losing doesn’t sound like a disaster, it is catastrophic for the members (and their staffs) who come up short.
The bigger toll, however, may be the growing reluctance of able men and women to run for Congress. Although the House and Senate will never lack for ambitious people seeking seats, will the caliber match that of the past? How many good people will opt not to seek a seat in an institution that has taken such a battering? Since the mid-’80s, Congress has taken a furious pounding, from within. How will that damage ultimately manifest itself? The answer is not entirely clear, but no doubt it will.


This article appeared in the Saturday, January 21, 2012 edition of National Journal.


Mike Tower


Please visit:


Citizens Against Politics As Usual


http://leespoliticalopinion.blogspot.com

99% VS. 1% WRONG AND DANGEROUS

January 17, 2012

The flaw in the 99% vs. the 1%

I am increasingly bothered by those who want to heap all the blame for our country's many problems on the wealthiest 1%. This can only serve to further divide our citizenry...as if the wealthy caused all of the problems that our country is facing. Our country's many problems today have developed over many years and even decades, and have many easily identifiable other causes. Part of our problems have been caused by the IT revolution and globalization. As Thomas Friedman and Michael Mendelbaum have pointed out in their book “That Used To Be Us”, the information technology explosion is labor saving us out of millions of manufacturing jobs, and globalization which exploded at the end of the cold war is allowing billions of citizens in emerging economies to compete for what were formerly our jobs and for their piece of the global economic pie. In our foreseeable future reality we can no longer expect that our country, with less than 5% of the worlds population, will continue to be capable of producing and consuming a quarter of the worlds goods...and thus continuing to be the job creating machine that it has been. The second thing that all of our problems have in common is the failed leadership by the elected from both parties...especially over the past several decades. Our elected leaders have for decades attempted, mainly by policy and regulations, to forestall our nation's day of reckoning. They did all they could to encourage massive debt-financed consumption by the masses of our citizens by making sure borrowing was easy and cheap. Then when it became clear that this wouldn't be enough, the housing boom scheme was developed. Both of these worked for awhile...but the end had to come, and it did. The majority of Americans maxed out their personal debt capacity, then the housing bubble burst and too many of our citizens woke up with fewer job opportunities, lower pay, massively reduced home values, and no hope. It is natural for most of us to have feelings of fear and anger at what we see happening to our nation. To make things even worse our elected leaders have decided that compromise is a dirty word. While the choices aren't easy...doing nothing only makes things worse. With all of these clear causes for our problems, does it really make any rational sense to blame only the wealthiest citizens among us? Don't we understand that our elected leaders deserve all of our anger and protests. They are supposed to go to Washington to represent the best short and long term interests of the majority of we the people. They have failed that charge completely. Instead they have served the powerful special interests who pay to get and keep them in power. Do you think that politicians from both parties didn't see the future coming at us that we face today? I blame them the most for not leveling with us. They should have begun many years ago to prepare our country and our citizens for the negative changes that were inevitably coming our way. Instead they found it more beneficial to focus on staying in power and enriching themselves by continuing to practice politics as usual.

Back to the 99 vs the 1. Do we have income and wealth inequality in this country...absolutely, it's awful and only going to get worse. Our country was founded on the principal that one could rise from abject poverty if they were smart and worked hard. Will our future citizens have a chance at that dream? Here's a couple of facts; 1. The top 1% earned nearly 17% of all US income in 2009. They paid almost 37% of all federal income taxes. 2. The top 50% of American households earned almost 87% of all income that year, and paid nearly 97% of income taxes. The most striking thing about these statistics is the reverse corollary that shows that half our households earn about 13% of our national income. Unless some miracle occurs, and America somehow becomes the job creating machine it was for many decades, how can this possibly change? What does that honestly say about the American dream for most of our current youth and future citizens?

We are only wasting energy if we continue this blame game between citizens. Our politicians love it because their number one fear is that we will actually wake up and realize that we only have one direction that we should be aiming our anger, frustration, and blame...and that clearly has to be at the folks we keep sending to Washington election after election....hmm, maybe we ought to all look in a mirror??? Me, I'm going to keep beating the same drum....get 'em out, get 'em all out. I hope you will join capau.org in our efforts to get that accomplished. Meanwhile we must not allow this citizen on citizen blame game to grow and fester because it will only hasten the end of this great country. We must instead find ways to unite to solve our nations problems by holding our leaders feet to the fire to do what they were originally elected to do...and that is to do what's best for the vast majority of Americans...not just for the powerful special interests.

These are my opinion. What do you think?

Mike Tower

Hendersonville, NC

Please Visit:

Citizens Against Politics As Usual
http://capau.org

Lee's Political Opinion
http://leespoliticalopinion.blogspot.com

Third party is not the answer

INVITATION TO A DIALOGUE: TIME FOR A THIRD PARTY?

Published: December 27, 2011

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To the Editor:

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Dan Cassaro

Why does America have only two political options? Every day, the news from Washington showcases the inability of our two political parties to govern effectively.

Rigid partisanship has repeatedly hindered or prevented Republicans and Democrats from reaching compromise solutions on vital legislation, provoking a crisis of confidence in our political and economic system. And elected officials beholden to lobbyists and special interests allow their priorities to supersede those of ordinary citizens.

The economy is stagnant, unemployment remains high, and budget deficits and the national debt keep climbing. Yet no answers are forthcoming from our representatives in Washington. The continuing dysfunction reinforces the need for a third party of the center as an alternative to the current parties.

Using the Internet and social networks to organize and raise money from small donors, this new centrist party could be independent of the special interests and able to work for the benefit of all Americans. Its hallmarks would be ethical conduct, transparency and pragmatism. Instead of being constrained by ideology, it would be guided by common sense and practicality in its search for solutions.

A centrist third party could prosper in today’s political environment and end the stalemate in Washington. There is a large body of moderate Republicans, disaffected Democrats and dissatisfied independents looking for the kind of political home that this party could provide. Unhappiness with the political options now available to Americans will sooner or later translate into a groundswell for alternatives.

ROBERT A. LEVINE
Westport, Conn., Dec. 23, 2011

The writer is a neurologist and the author of “Resurrecting Democracy: A Citizen’s Call for a Centrist Third Party.”

December 29, 2011

A friend sent this to me a couple of days ago. I am not in favor of a third party because I don't think it provides a realistic opportunity to unite our citizens or leaders during these critical times when we so desperately need unification to find viable solutions for a too long list of problems.

I do think we need a centrist voice and it is for that reason that I have been preaching for all of us to register as Independent voters. This will force the politicians from both parties to think and speak to this rapidly growing constituency.


Thanks to Dave Hudelson for sending this to me.

Mike Tower

Hendersonville, NC


Please visit:


Citizens Against Politics As Usual

http://capau.org


Lee's Political Opinion
http:leespoliticalopinion.blogspot.com

THROW 'EM ALL OUT...AND GOOD RIDDANCE!

December 28, 2011

One of my friends sent this to me today and I decided that I couldn't say it any better. Thanks to J.R. Dunn, American Thinker, and my pal Dr. Philip Stanley who sent this to me.

Mike Tower
Hendersonville, NC




Throw 'Em All Out...And Good Riddance!

December 28, 2011

American Thinker

By J.R. Dunn

J.R. Dunn is consulting editor of American Thinker.

 “Crony capitalism is the most serious current danger to the American community, a threat not simply to government or the economy, but to our very way of life.  It is the worst such threat since the trusts and monopolies of the early 20th century, and in much the same way. Cronyism is one of the major forces behind the establishment of the corrupt pseudo-aristocracy that has been taking shape in this country over the past two decades, a synthetic privileged class made up in large part of politicians, hustlers, and hangers-on who have become expert in exploiting the rest of us.

The legacy media, for some obscure reason, tends to bury discussions about this group. While the reportage on discrete incidents is there -- see the parade of stories on Solyndra, Goldman Sachs, and MF Global for examples -- we find little effort to pull it all together. Academics, with the single exception of Angelo Codevilla, who sounded the alarm two years ago in The Ruling Class, appear oblivious, as if they had no idea what's going on, which may well be the case.

The customary watchdogs having remained asleep, we need to rely on independents.  Chief among these in Peter Schweizer, whose latest book Throw Them All Out (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011) gives us the clearest picture we've yet had of the activities of the new crony class.

Schweizer examines the new cronyism through the lens of the old -- specifically, the political philosophy of George Washington Plunkett, 19th-century Tammany stalwart who seen his opportunities and took 'em. Plunkett's modus operandi was based on "honest graft" -- rather than fish for bribes or payoffs, Plunkett would discover what contractor was putting up the new schoolhouse and then mosey over to drop a few hints about his cousin's brick company. It worked every time, and was completely legal. Plunkett was never brought to book on it.  The basic axiom of cronyism reads: why break the law when there are plenty of loopholes to use?

Though Schweizer makes an honest attempt to remain bipartisan, the book is dominated by members of a certain political party the name of which I will not mention but which is run by politicians named Kerry, Durbin, and Pelosi among others.

John Kerry specializes in using advance information on upcoming bills to make investments, which Schweizer correctly characterizes as a form of insider trading. During the ObamaCare debate of 2009 Kerry invested $200,000 in the healthcare company ResMed, the value of which shot up over 70%, a tidy little windfall even to a man married into one of the richest families in the United States. At the same time, ObamaCare cut Medicare reimbursements, so Kerry dumped all his shares in United Health, a medical insurance company deeply dependent on Medicare. Kerry, it seems, didn't have to pass the bill to know what was in it.

(John Boehner also played this little game, though not a shiftily as Kerry, actually waiting until the debate was over to purchase, in December 2009, stock in several large health-related companies.)

Dick Durbin attended the now-famous September 2008 meetings in which Henry Paulson and Ben Bernanke warned members of Congress of imminent and universal financial collapse. He immediately unloaded large chunks of his stock holdings. A natural reaction; he was a little panicky at the time. You'd do it too.

"We despise professional athletes who bet on their own games." Schweizer tells us. "Why don't we feel the same way about politicians who bet on the outcome of legislation?"

Another tool of corruption is the IPO (which, according to Schweizer, means "Invest in Politicians Often"). Companies about to go public invite certain strategically-placed politicians to make the first purchases in the offering, before the stockbrokers or anyone else. You can't really call it a payoff.

Nancy Pelosi is a particularly avid IPO fan. She and her husband made an incredibly large purchase of the Visa IPO amounting to 10% of their stock portfolio, raking off nearly a 50% profit on the original purchase in only two days.  (Nancy Pelosi also had a station built on a light rail line in San Francisco near one of her office buildings. Real estate manipulation is yet another tool of the privileged class.)

Schweizer also offers a complete rundown -- the first one I've seen -- of the actual extent of Barack Obama's "stimulus" program, which he characterizes as the biggest political payoff since the heyday of Boss Tweed. Reading this will make your blood boil. It should be a major topic of discussion in next year's campaign.

The level of corruption revealed here is breathtaking, even to me, and I take a back seat to no one in political realism. This is worse than Plunkett's day. In his time, there were limits on behavior put in place by accepted custom and traditional morality. Both of those factors have been relentlessly undermined in the past century. What is left is only a kind of kindergarten positivism -- if it's not explicitly forbidden, then it's allowed. So Congress, both houses, along with the bureaucracies, and the little layers of government all the way down to Yourtown, are populated by relentless loophole miners. We have not merely returned to the epoch of Tammany and Boss Tweed, we have surpassed it.

(Is there anybody left with clean hands? Well yes -- Schweizer identifies James Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin, who, though he owned large amounts of health care-related stocks, made not one sale before or after the health-care debate. It's a sad thing to have to praise a man for doing what anybody ought to have done, but that's our situation.)

How do we overcome this? Peter Schweizer's suggestions include an immediate ban on insider trading, defined as any form of trading involving bills that are or may come before Congress. A prohibition on any business deals involving conflict of interest. A ban on land deals involving political contributors. Full and honest transparency in any financial dealings involving a politician. (Schweizer reveals that those so-called "blind trusts" are actually no such thing.) All this is well and good, and some of it is actually in the works. But as long as we have laws, we will have loopholes, and as long as there are loopholes, they will be mined. What we truly require is a return to ethics on the mass scale. How this is to be done I have no more idea than anyone else.

But the first step is knowledge -- read this book and pass it on.”

Mike Tower
Hendersonville, NC

Please visit:

Citizens Against Politics As Usual
http://capau.org

Lee's Political Opinion
http://leespoliticalopinion.blogspot.com

OWS...PROTESTING AGAINST THE WRONG TARGET

2012

A few thoughts about OWS

It has been interesting to watch the OWS (Occupy Wall Street) movement over the past several months. Like many of you, I allowed my early opinions to be shaped mainly by the media. Early on I concluded that these folks were a motley crew of mainly younger people who had no rational idea of how the country or economy actually work and who is to blame for all of our problems. They know our country is in trouble, but they demand outcomes with no suggestions about how to rationally get to these endpoints. What I really found particularly distasteful then and now is their notion of the 99 vs the 1...meaning that the 1% of the wealthiest Americans are the enemy and the cause of all the financial problems for the rest of our population.

I’m still unsure of the genesis of this movement. Was it truly a spontaneous occurrence?  Who actually funded the start? it seemed to have attracted a lot of money mainly from the liberal powers and media. They also seemed to have attracted a wide variety of ordinary Americans from all walks of life and ages as the movement expanded. In our own town of Hendersonville, I happened to know a few of the “protesters” and can say without reservation that these are decent and ordinary Americans. They represent the courageous vocal minority of Americans who clearly see the danger our country is in and don’t know how else or where else to stand up and shout a warning to the rest of us...who as expected...go about our lives hoping that somehow our elected leaders will unify to save the day. This latter thinking is simply delusional since we see absolutely no evidence of that happening.

The more I see the events unfold around the OWS movement the more I felt compelled to make a few observations. The folks who named the movement and planned the target location strategy really don’t get it. They are protesting against the wrong organizations and in the wrong locations. Blaming Wall Street and the rest of the financial institutions for being greedy beyond the pale is like blaming a lion for being a carnivore. It is simply the nature of the beast. Their sole reason for being is to make a profit any way they can...legally. Of course that last word is where our real problem begins. If our elected leaders can be persuaded to change the laws and regulations to allow them to make more money more easily...that is worth a lot of campaign contributions. Since staying in power is a stronger driver than doing what is best for our country and citizenry...we the people lose every time. Thus the culprits who should be the target of all of our protests every day until we get their attention are those whom we have elected to represent us in Washington. I am, of course, talking about members of both congressional houses and whomever happens to be our President. Our federally elected from both parties have for several decades, under the influence of the the lobbies for the special interests of all types (including but not limited to Wall Street),  allowed them to bend the economy in their favor. We the people have been the suckers. We see the danger and we even know that our elected are to blame...the 8% approval rating for congress proves that. Then what do we do? We re-elect them at a rate of over 90% cycle after cycle. Any wonder that they no longer listen to our complaints? Should we have any reasonable expectations that they will unless we take tangible action? If I could give one significant piece of advice to OWS it would be to change your name, strategy, and locations. rename yourselves OW (Occupy Washington) and go there now. I suspect that they would gather an amazing amount of support and actually force our elected to take pause before continuing to lead our country deeper into danger.

I have been, for many months, advocating for all of us to change our voter registration to Independent as soon as possible as a way of sending a signal to our elected that we are no longer willing to tolerate politics as usual. My second belief is that we must vote all incumbents out of office over the next three election cycles. My greatest fear is that this will be too little too late. I am beginning to think that protesting broadly might be the right steps to take immediately to make sure our elected begin to change behavior before it’s too late.

The organization that Lee Goldman and I have co-founded; Citizens Against Politics As Usual has finally gotten its website online at www.capau.org (pronounced Kapow). I hope you will take a few minutes to go there and let your friends know about it. We also value your feedback.

These are my opinions. What do you think?

Mike Tower

Hendersonville, NC

Please visit:

Lee's Political Opinion
http:leespoliticalopinion.blogspot.com

Citizens Against Politics As Usual

http://capau.org

IRAQ WAR OVER...WHAT FOLLOWS WAS PREDICTED

2012

Was the war in Iraq worth it?

After over eight years of fighting yet another war on foreign soil...the fighting is finally over. At least for coalition troops. Thinking back over the course of this war it is important for us to reflect on what we should have learned. Of course it’s a shame that our leaders have such short memories.

Let’s start back at the beginning when what liberals have termed “Bushes War” first began. Were the intelligence reports about WMD’s (weapons of mass destruction) inaccurate, faked, or simply lied about? Did we invade Iraq with a primary purpose of creating a democracy in the middle east? Did we go to war to free Iraqis from the brutalities of Saddam Hussein? Did we go to war to protect the flow of oil? Did we go to war to help the manufacturers of war weaponry and supplies, and to help stimulate our economy? I doubt if any civilian will ever know the true answers to any of these questions.

We do know the results. We did not win the war. Instead we abandoned the fight and this country just like we have in every war since WW II. Just like we will soon do in Afghanistan.

We leave behind a huge cost in dollars and human lives and suffering. The best estimates I could find show that we spent over one trillion dollars on this war. Worse though are the costs in terms of human losses. We know that 4,482 brave American made the ultimate sacrifice by dying in this war that would never be won. Another 32,000+ Americans were wounded and many of these will be disabled for life. Approximately 55,000 Iraqi insurgents were killed...though given our military leaders past penchant for exaggerating enemy casualties...who really knows. Like in Vietnam, we report a killing ratio of at least ten times greater than our own losses...yet we don't end up with any sort of victory. The other incredible statistic is that over 100,000 Iraqi civilians were killed. Add to all of this human suffering of the several million Iraqi citizens who have been displaced. Finally, add to these numbers the deaths and injuries that will result from the sectarian violence that is beginning to unfold now that our forces have withdrawn.

I remember when the war first started reading an article in the WSJ in which a middle east expert tried to warn U.S. leaders that they had no idea what havoc they were about to unleash by entering into this war. This person (whom I am sorry to say I cannot recall his name) said that Iraq was a country that could only be held together by a tyrant like Saddam Hussein. He also said that we should not enter this war without a clear exit strategy. He went on to explain in detail that this was a country of tribes and religious sects that have historically hated each other. The largest segment of the population, over 85%, are Shia Muslims, with the remaining population being Sunni (which includes the Kurdish Sunni population in the north). Saddam Hussein was a brutal leader, of that there is no doubt. Saddam as a member of the small minority Sunni religious sect had ruled the majority Shia, and even the Kurd with an iron fist. This fellow said that with Saddam gone the payback from the majority Shia population, who had long been under the minority Sunni control, would amount to a genocide once this yoke was lifted. Add to the equation the fact that the only other large Shia majority country in the world is neighboring Iran...one of our most worrisome enemies. What has already begun to happen is that we are seeing the inevitable war between the sects begin to unfold. It will only get worse. It will only be a matter of time before Iran takes over Iraq and unites to form an even larger Shia Muslim country. I’m guessing this is Israel's worst nightmare.

Many critics call this “Bushes war” but that spins the facts just a bit. Many Democrats from both houses voted in favor of the war resolution. Remember in 2001-03 the House consisted of 211 democrats, and 39% of them supported the war. In the Senate which was evenly split between both parties, 48% of the Democrats supported the war. Democrats have to accept part of the blame. The truth is that both sides were supporting the military arms producers.

Was the war worth it? I don’t see how any reasonable person can answer in the affirmative. Looking back at this war eight years after it started, it seems obvious that this region and the Iraqi citizens would have been better off if Saddam had been left in power. The one positive statement that could be made is that that we most likely won’t again enter into another of these unnecessary wars because our country is going broke and we won’t be able to afford it.

These are my opinions. What do you think?

Mike Tower

Hendersonville, NC


Please visit:  

Citizens Against Politics As Usual
http://capau.org

Lee's Political Opinion
http:leespoliticalopinion.blogspot.com

CITIZENS AGAINST POLITICS AS USUAL

2011

A good friend and columnist named Lee Goldman and I have recently started a new organization called Citizens Against Politics As Usual and have just opened our website;  www.capau.org (pronounced Kapow). We hope you will take the time to visit our website to learn more about what we believe has caused the majority of the problems that America faces today, and what we believe we the people must do to take back control of our country from the professional politicians in  Washington who have fallen under the influence of power and the money that must be raised from special interests in order to stay in office. These elected leaders no longer serve our nation in the best interests of we the people...instead they focus first on the interests of the organizations served by the lobbies who work so hard to affect legislation in their favor.

Please check out our website and let us know what you think.

Best regards,
Mike Tower
Hendersonville, NC

Please visit:

Citizens Against Politics As Usual
http://capau.org

Lee's Political Opinion
http://leespoliticalopinion.blogspot.com

LABOR UNIONS...GOOD OR BAD?

December 4, 2011

Are labor unions good or bad?

Early in my career I worked for two years as a member of the Teamsters Union at a warehouse for a major grocery chain. The day I started that job two things became immediately apparent; 1. I was making more money than I had the day before as a non-union employee in the same facility's mail room. 2. I was now working in an environment in which employees had an adversarial relationship with management. My union representative’s job seemed to be to make sure that I did no more than the minimum required by the work agreement signed by management and the union. My boss’s job seemed to be to make sure I did no less.  During this time I do not remember my bosses ever addressing me by my first name. I was "Tower"...as in "Tower did you get xyz done yet?” I was making more money but it became clear that I was simply a human machine at the union and company’s disposal. I remember once coming up with an idea that could have improved efficiency and reduced operating costs. I naively brought the idea to my union representative, who very quickly informed me that I was not paid to think…just work. I never did bring another idea forward, even though it was in my nature to always look for improvement ideas. One day all union workers were asked to come in early to attend a meeting in which we were informed that some folks with stop watches and clip boards would be observing us for the next week. This was being done, we were told, to prove to the union that we were over-staffed. We were instructed to slow down as much as possible to make sure that this study did not result in any jobs being lost. We all did exactly as asked, and one month later, after the study results were finished, the company was required to actually add staff! In my entire career this was the least enjoyable job I had even though I made decent money and sure didn’t have to stress out by doing any thinking. I have two friends who have spent their entire careers working as UAW members in auto assembly and parts fabrication plants. Both have been paid well, but told me that they felt as if they had traded their souls for dollars. They also both reported that they were treated more like machines than valued humans. They describe a work environment in which the unions and their members and the company's management are adversaries every single day. I spent the next thirty years of my career working for Eli Lilly and Company. This organization never had a labor union in its history, and management prided itself on human resource practices that always demonstrated that employees really were the company’s most valued asset. I started in that company in the lowest pay rated job they had. I soon became aware of the company's suggestion box system in which ideas for productivity or cost improvements would share with the suggestor a portion of the economic benefits to the company. In my early years, before becoming a member of management, along with hundreds of other employees each year, I submitted several ideas that improved both the company’s and my earnings. In my entire career with Lilly I was always treated as a valued resource.  I look back at the time when I worked in the Teamster’s Union job and shudder to think of the work career I might have ended up with.

Unions primarily came into existence because of the actions of some greedy industrialists who were simply too unenlightened to understand and trust in the immense power that can accrue by allowing and encouraging employees to give their best efforts by rewarding them individually and appropriately for doing so. In my experience people are almost all pretty smart, even if not formally educated, and if encouraged and rewarded for looking for improvements in the work they are asked to perform, will offer incredibly valuable ideas that can truly benefit their organization. To maintain a union vs. management adversarial relationship system in which management and union leadership believes the leaders for each must do all the thinking and workers must just do the work assigned is simply missing the opportunities for performance enhancements and job satisfaction that can be incredibly mutually beneficial. This has resulted in immense losses in human potential that many members of unions and their employers ought to look back on with regret. One is left to ponder the lost enjoyment of the work for the workers, the missed ideas for improvement from the folks actually doing the work, and the lost opportunities for gained revenues for the employers. To the headline’s question; Are unions good or bad…my opinion is they have been both, but more bad than good. Management and labor leaders must equally share the blame. The workers…they were simply stuck between warring leadership factions whose least important goal was the worker’s or even the organizations true long term best interests. Sounds a lot like our situation in Washington these days doesn’t it?

These are my opinions. What do you think?

Mike Tower

Hendersonville, NC

Please visit: 


Citizens Against Politics As Usual
 http://capau.org

Lee's Political Opinion
http:leespoliticalopinion.blogspot.com