The OWL

Friday, May 31, 2013

"VOLCKER" talks to "CHARLIE"

"MY" FED Story

Paul Volcker talked to Charlie Rose last night. Google it, if you missed the conversation. http://www.charlierose.com/guest/view/239 During the time I studied at the Peter Drucker Institute, Claremont, CA, for my AEMBA, (1985-87), Volcker was FED Chairman and worked "miracles" to save our economy from the doldrums of the 70's. I think Volcker was the secret to whatever success Ronnie had as President. My Money and Banking class taught me more about the FED and its operations (and the real definition of MONEY) than I have found anywhere else. Peter's account of the "shocks" to our economy, from the days of Nixon, are also the best I've heard or read anywhere else.

In 1969, my new boss was an Air Force Major who arrived from the Washington, D.C., area. He told me I had better take a look at buying my first house, because "something strange" was going on. I took his advice, and bought my first house in 1971. The roller-coaster ride began at that point, and ran upward until early 2001, when Greenspan began lowering interest rates. At that time, I got off the "ride" and did not get back on until 2010.

If you don't know what the FED is all about, and how our economy, (and the entire world economy, for that fact) relies on Bernanke's skills; you can get a good start by catching this interview. Much older, now, Volcker is still "sharp as a tack". He skillfully avoided the traps Charlie set for him.

Stay Vigilant! Watch yur' Money!

Thursday, May 30, 2013

"CRABS in-a "BUCKET" ??

Reagan's "Real" Legacy ??

"Teeny-Teddy" Cruz (as measured by his "compassion") has enlightened us all: He explains that he and his fellow Tee-Pee's are "the children of Reagan". I sensed, early on, from Reagan's use of the likes of Lee Atwater, that he was pandering to the fascist and racist Right in this country. He was also a purveyor of a "screw your neighbor" philosophy that took hold in the early 80's, and spread rapidly.

The concept is as old as our country, and has many versions: "kiss up/kick down"; "I've got mine, you have to get your own"; "crabs in a bucket"; "pulling up the ladder" ... are just a few!

We didn't have to wait 24 hours before "Queen Ann" Romney stepped into the void left by "Bat-Sh*t" Bachmann! http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/05/30/ann-romney-2012-election-president-cbs/2371961/ The meanies are in a panic as they see the Republican Party fall apart. They may face an angry public, prepared to repeat history and bring the Corporate Plutocrats and "Boss-Hoggs" back under control of our laws. They might have to bring their hidden earnings home and pay taxes! They may see their loop-holes and escape routes in our Tax Code closed. Don't close the IRS!, Teddy. Make it WORK!! Cleanly and Fairly!!!

The numbers are out: lingering unemployment, and those without jobs; income for families, now being earned in astounding proportions by women; children, of all colors, who face hunger; un-checked gun violence on our streets. These are the features of a country the Tee-Pee's cream in their jeans to bring about!

Blacks, Whites, Hispanics, Native Americans -- we all adhere to this bullsh*t!! President Obama spoke to the graduates at Morehouse over the past week-end. Read the Speech! Black elites have been notorious in their adherence to the "I've got Mine!" philosophy. They also practice it across skin shade (why Condi and Clarence are so "angry")? The Hispanics have their own version of "pulling up the ladder". Check out the version of this attitude practiced by Indian Tribes that have Casinos. Republican operatives like Abramoff figured out the fact that their tribal wealth was in a few hands and was easy to get.

Cruz and Rubio are descendants of "Batista" Cuba -- look him up! They should not be confused with those Hispanics who suffer from inequities in immigration.

Stay Vigilant! Read the Fine Print!

Wednesday, May 29, 2013

"TURNIN" the 'CORNER' ??

Bye-Bye "Bat-Sh*t" ??

The "key" to the very profitable (for the top 1%) "insanity" we've all been subjected to since Mad Ronnie popped on the scene in 1980; is the ability of the hard Right to feed us ever-increasing doses of "bat-sh*t" and, get us to believe it! Religion has been a critical ingredient of the brew they concocted; followed by race. Both have been very artfully disguised.

However, with Bachmann's resignation note in the Media this morning (tricked out in true "bat-s*t" style); we might be seeing that important crack we need to see in the House Tea Party.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/05/29/bachmann/2368527/

It could also signal that "safe" districts are NOT, really, and the paranoia of being "primary-ed" may also pass? We can all hope and pray for this. Then, and only then, will this country return to some semblance of "sanity"!

This might take a while, though, because the number one enemy of this nation is our Media! None of our troubles could have materialized without them. We all have to learn better ways of using the Media, or it will do us all in!

For example, the Media is bloviating the fake scandals like "Benghazi", while trying to bury the "Hunger Games comes to London" beheading story last week. It took place in broad daylight, and the perpetrators did not try to "get away". They stood around, inviting the MEDIA to a feast! Yet, it is obvious by the silence on this story, that the Media will not treat it the way they treat trivia. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/10073910/Woolwich-attack-terrorist-proclaimed-an-eye-for-an-eye-after-attack.html

Gerrymandering, raised to a pinnacle by the likes to Tom Delay during the Cheney/Bush reign, could also be on its last legs? It certainly is not working any more for Bachmann in her "safe" district.

We all have to learn how to "live" and prosper with our Media; or we, and our "Democracy" will surely "die" at its hands!

Stay Vigilant! Can U Think "past" the Media??

Tuesday, May 28, 2013

TRAYVON ALERT !!

The "Media" Way???

The lawyers for the killer of Trayvon Martin are showing their hand in the media. It appears they want to use the "Media" to beat the rap for the killer. So, since O.J., what else is new?? Well they apparently seek to establish an "image" of the victim that will shift public sentiment in favor of the killer. The image held by the killer on the night of the killing was evidently sufficient for him to make possible Trayvon's death; but, evidently, the slick lawyers think they can "boost" other, more "negative", images in the white media. They also are using Media to fund-raise to benefit the killer!

What if the Martin family were to legally protect that image of Trayvon in the white "hoodie" and commission the sale of that image on T-Shirts, Mugs, and other commonly seen items. I keep a copy of that image on my computer desktop, for instance. Massive public displays of the "appropriate" image of Trayvon, could "head off "the sleazy use of visual media to contaminate a jury, dont'cha think?

My advice to the family would be to get VERY GOOD legal advice and deal only with ethical and reputable business people -- they're hard to find, but they DO still exist.

Stay Vigilant! Don't let this "sneak" past us!

Monday, May 27, 2013

DON'T "BLAME" SHENSEKI !!

Let's STOP Blaming the "Redeemers" ??

On this Memorial Day, we can do our Veterans, and ourselves, a big favor if we adopt the attitude that our President, and Our VA Chief, and our new Defense Chief, are NOT to "blame" for the state our veterans are in!

All three are trying their best to "fix" a mess that has been building for more than 50 years!

Every step of creating that mess can be laid at the door of CONGRESS: especially the HOUSE of Representatives!! Now that the eligible class has expanded to include Agent Orange, the situation seems impossible to "fix".

As a Disabled Veteran, it took more than 25 years to win my claim through the VA. My health had deteriorated to a point that was obvious to everyone. Unlike most veterans, I kept copies of my medical records when I retired in 1982. Even that was not enough, over the years, largely because of actions, or inactions, of Congress. I finally won; because a VA civil servant sacrificed some of his Christmas vacation to work my case! So those of you who want to blame Shinseki http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/19/us/shinseki-faces-mounting-criticism-over-backlog-of-benefit-claims.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 can just "knock it off"!!

I expressed my fears to my Veterans Group several years ago that the citizens of this country had no clue of the costs that would be associated with the wounded soldiers who suffered the types of head and limb damages we were witnessing in Iraq. Brain damage is EXTREMELY expensive to treat, both medically, and non-medically (including PTSD)! I remember reading Bertolt Brecht's Threepenny Novel during my college days. The soldiers heading off to the Boer War died in rotten ships barely out of harbor; the warmongers had their quick profits; and the public couldn't give a damn! We were all eager to comply with "W"'s wishes: we paid no heed to what Cheney was up to, and obeyed his instructions to just "go shopping"! What's that again about chickens coming home??

My solution: The President, the VA Chief, and the new Defense Chief should get some very large baseball bats and go through the halls of Congress bustin' heads until this mess is "fixed"!! Then those b****rds may have some real scandals to investigate!!

Stay Vigilant! DO SOMETHING Real for our Veterans! Clean HOUSE !!

Saturday, May 25, 2013

THE "RODNEY" QUESTION .. AGAIN !

"Post-Obama" Politics??

Garcetti replaced Villaraigarosa as Mayor of Los Angeles http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-mayor-daily-20130524,0,3008842.storys. Eric Garcetti, the son of Gil Garcetti, D.A. or Los Angeles during the time I was a resident and property-owner, is also the Garcetti of "O.J." notoriety, as I remember. Of course, Bradley, the "first black" (and last?) Mayor, preceded Villaraigarosa .

Garcetti, of mixed Mexican and Jewish descent, continues a pattern begun by the architects of "Backlash" following the riots that sprang up across this nation in the wake of the assassinations of the 1960s. Their theory was to put non-white mayors in office to confuse blacks and make them stop rioting. It worked. We saw a wave of "black mayors" (from Newark to Chicago, to Los Angeles, to Seattle) during the 20 years following the riots. I worked on the election of Norm Rice in Seattle, only to see the "victory" taken away by moneyed interests. The more things change ... as the old saw goes!

But this time may really be different! J-Lo (Jennifer Lopez) has inked a deal with Verizon to capitalize on the burgeoning Hispanic population that "sprang from the dead", politically, during my time in Los Angeles; when Bradley was Mayor. http://articles.latimes.com/2013/may/23/business/la-fi-verizon-jlo-latino-20130523. They have the twin advantages of country-of-origin and language.

But, most importantly, Lopez will use her connections to community organize the rising Hispanic Juggernaut! This is something the blacks have failed to do throughout their 20-year opportunity! As a result, black political power has diminished; resulting in out-migrations from all of the cities in which there were black mayors. One exception -- Chicago; where Harold Washington was. perhaps, the most successful of all of the black mayors. There may be no accident that the first black president sprang from that political base.

That brings us back to the topic of yesterday's blog THE BLACK "DIVIDE". It can be argued that the post-Obama era will leave black citizens weaker, politically, than at any time since they began their drive (Post World War I) to free themselves from the twin grips of Klan Terrorism and Jim Crow Peonage. The "TOM" side of the "Divide" has been supported and held in place by the architects of Backlash. Young black politicians from the South prefer the "Tom" route to personal wealth and power, eschewing effective community organizing (witness the story of North Carolina).

The new face of Backlash now appears in the quartet of Cruz, Rubio, Graham and Paul. Facin shrinking white voting power, the Tea Party is driving toward an anarchic goal of dividing this country between those who choose to live behind armed walls of "apartheid", and everyone else. Only effectively organized "communities" of voters will defeat them; given the power of gerrymandering and terror politics. Do the "frogs" feel the heat yet?

Stay Vigilant! "Organize" your butts off, if you expect to survive!

Friday, May 24, 2013

THE BLACK "DIVIDE" ??

Still in Search of a "New Dawn"?

Looking back more than a half-century, to 1959, a time when Eric Lincoln's book about this nation's Black Muslims surfaced; I left Lincoln University in Missouri to take a long "trek" to San Francisco State College to continue my studies for a degree in Physics.

In the Bay Area, those (few) black students in area colleges were contemplating and debating the messages of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, and their competing approaches to "black advancement". Within a ten year period thereafter, both men were dead. Assassinated: as were also the Kennedy brothers (one the President of the United States, and the other our Attorney General). These four deaths, from what we have learned over the years, serve to explain a lot about the status, then and now, of this nation's black population.

We speak and worry today of chronic unemployment among black men in this country. In 1959, there was NO employment (except for menial jobs) for blacks throughout the corporate U.S. President Kennedy changed that in 1963; two years after I was commissioned as an officer in the United States Air Force. Black professional workers, before 1963, worked for government, or were doctors, lawyers, preachers, or teachers. I will always believe that the actions taken by the Kennedy brothers to end racial segregation and the agitation by both Martin and Malcolm for economic advancement for black citizens of this country were key causes for their deaths. Liddy Biddy Johnson gets more credit than he deserves for Civil Rights. Now that we know more of his connection with J. Edgar Hoover, the picture is becoming clearer.

In a speech in Selma, weeks before his death, Malcolm X spoke of the historic divide among blacks in this country. http://yeyeolade.wordpress.com/2007/04/05/brother-malcolm-x-lives/ Similarly, days before his death 3 years later, Martin Luther King addressed the economic plight of poor blacks during the garbage-workers strike in Memphis. If you check out my earlier blogs, you will find the views of E. Franklin Frazier on the subject of the historic black "divide". Today's Republicans have seized upon this divide to run their closet racist politics. Beginning with Daddy Bush' appointment of Clarence Thomas to replace Thurgood Marshall, on through the "use" of Condi and Colin by "W"; the "accommodationist" side of the "divide" has served the extreme Right well.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/22/ew-jackson-three-fifths-clause_n_3321339.html

During my 20 years in the Air Force, I met officers (black, white, Hispanic) from every corner of this country. I was amazed at the differences geography made in determining who these people became. There is more than a single divide among blacks in this country. The same is true for whites and Hispanics. Region and age grouping also made a great difference, both then and now.

Samuel Jackson's role in "Django" can serve as the starting point for a serious debate among blacks? Nobody but blacks should participate in the debate! The best education, economic opportunity, and mental health of black children in this country depends on it.

Stay Vigilant! Give black kids (all kids-of-color?) A CHANCE!