Our Second World Nation

Welfare reform from the 1990′s is leaving families with no place to turn in this recession.

At the same time, job training funds are drying up just as many employers are looking for qualified new hires.

No jobs. No job training. No public relief. No birth control. No sex education. No general education. No health insurance.

More police. More jails. More wars. More military. More super rich. More anger. More ignorance.

Welcome to second world America.

Houston Memorial Day Observance At Federal Cemetery To Feature Non-Inclusive Prayer—We Each Must Choose What Kind Of Nation We Are Going To Have

A federal judge has allowed a Texas pastor to use a non-inclusive prayer at a Memorial Day ceremony honoring Americans who have died in the service of our nation.

From the Houston Chronicle-–

“The nation’s agency for military veterans has agreed to stay out of religious refereeing for now, backing down from its attempt to tell a minister how to craft a prayer for a Memorial Day invocation. Assistant U.S. Attorney Fred Hindrichs told federal District Judge Lynn Hughes that the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs will not demand that Memorial Day prayers at Houston National Cemetery on Monday be as non-denominational as possible. ”(The agency) will let the prayer go on this Monday,” Hindrichs told Hughes. The change of heart came one day after the judge granted the Rev. Scott Rainey a temporary restraining order against the agency after officials told the pastor to edit his prayer to make it as general and non-denominational as possible. Rainey’s prayer, submitted for review at the agency’s request, included the recitation of the Lord’s Prayer and thanked Jesus Christ, the Christian savior, in closing….Roy Walter, senior rabbi at Congregation Emanu El, said he agrees with Rainey’s free-speech position. ”I do believe the government doesn’t have the right to tell him what he can and cannot do,” Walter said. But the rabbi said Rainey’s prayer doesn’t reflect that all veterans are not Christians. ”I don’t think it’s sensitive to the fact that a great many people who are veterans, who gave their lives or lived through service, are not Christian.”

I’ll simply say this–The judge and the pastor here each had a decision to make about including everybody, or not including everybody, in a Memorial Day observance at a federal cemetery.

We all know that people of many religious beliefs, and atheists as well, have fought and died for our nation.

We all have to make a choice about what kind of nation we are going to have.

The judge and the pastor in this matter have presented one view of America.

I would submit that there is a more generous and hopeful choice that can be made that honors the value of every American who has fought for our freedom.

In Support Of The Dream Act

The Dream Act now before Congress would allow undocumented persons who entered the United States at age 15 or younger to gain a chance at citizenship by either joining the military or by going to college.

While this bill does have some bipartisan support, it is not clear it will pass in the lame duck session.

The House has approved the Dream Act. It is now stuck in the Senate. President Obama has said he will sign the bill.

One hinderance to passage of the bill is the broken promise of Republican Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson.

While in the past Senator Hutchinson supported Dream Act type legislation, she no longer does. It seems Senator Hutchinson’s fear of a far-right Tea Party primary challenger in 2012 is more important than anything else in her mind.

America is a nation of immigrants. I know this is almost a cliché at this point—But it is still true.

Either we are a welcoming and confident nation or we are not.

It is not the fault of people brought here as children that they are not legal citizens.

It is not the fault of immigrants that some of our Anglo fellow citizens, who seem amongst most bitter and angry of Americans today, come from families that have over the years not been able to take advantage of free land taken from the native population, of the exclusion of blacks from opportunity because of slavery and Jim Crow, and of the refusal until the mid 1960′s to allow many Asian people to emigrate to the United States.

Maybe we would have more opportunity in this nation if these folks had over the years allied themselves with fellow working people instead of with segregationists and red-baiters and with the states rights crowd.

I’m for the Dream Act. I’m for welcoming people to our nation who know what America is truly about.

Call your Senator and ask that they support the Dream Act.

American Companies Report Record Profits—I Guess That Means More Layoffs

American companies have reported record profits for the third quarter of 2010.

From the New York Times-–

“The nation’s workers may be struggling, but American companies just had their best quarter ever. American businesses brought in $1.66 trillion at an annual rate in the third quarter, according to a Commerce Department report released Tuesday. That is the highest figure recorded since the government began keeping track over 60 years ago, at least in nominal or non-inflation-adjusted terms. Corporate profits have been going gangbusters for a while. Since their cyclical low in the fourth quarter of 2008, profits have grown for seven consecutive quarters, at some of the fastest rates in history. This breakneck pace can be partly attributed to strong productivity growth — which means companies have been able to make more with less — as well as the fact that some of the profits of American companies come from abroad.”

What do you think these profits mean for working people?

Layoffs?

Wage cuts?

Benefit cuts?

More temporary workers instead of full-time positions?

Who should we blame for the hard times facing the American worker?

Obama?

Immigrants?

What a country this is right now.

And when things are seen as in batter shape by American companies, will they hire at decent wages or will they keep folks unemployed and underemployed with temporary workers and two-tiered wage scales?

I Follow Our Laws And I Follow Baseball—Fight back And Take Charge

As I’ve stated before, I carry a copy of our U.S. Constitution with me at all times.

This is in case I am randomly accosted by somebody asserting that Health Care Reform has no basis in the Constitution.

I’ll tell these crazies—”I got you commerce clause right here.“

Click this link to see all that Health Care Reform will do for you and the American people.  Do you want to go back the days were you could be kicked off your insurance for getting sick and where there are lifetime caps on policies?

These reforms are just the start of Health Care Reform’s benefits for the American people.

Above you see the Constitution with a baseball I bought at the Houston Astros’ game a few days ago.

It seems that the Astros ripped off the Obama logo to design that ball.

I am all-American. I follow our laws and I follow baseball.

Don’t let right-wing extremists define our laws and our  nation.

Fight back and take charge of our future.

What Is America?—How Should America Be Defined?

What is America? How should America be defined?

America is the idea and the fact of a strong federal government over the lesser powers of the states as written in our United States Constitution. The Constitution was in many ways a response to failure of the Articles of Confederation and the incompetence and corruption of state legislatures.

America is Emancipation and the victory of freedom over states rights treason in our Civil War.

America is the expanded economic freedoms and opportunity of the New Deal.

America is the hopeful progress of the Great Society and the Civil Rights Movement.

These are the things that define America.

It is a story of progress, of ever-expanding freedom, and of an always widening definition of what it means to be an American.

If America ever becomes something else than the progress we see detailed above, then it will no longer be America.

15.8% Of Americans Live In Poverty—This Should Be A Focus Of President Obama

The Census Bureau says 15.8% of Americans live in poverty.

This is up from a 13.2% “official” estimate that the Census Bureau announced last month.

The difference is that the new number reflects medical expenses, transportations costs, child care costs and geographical differences in the cost of living.

From the Christian Science Monitor—”Here are the alternative poverty rates, followed by the official rate in parenthesis, for groups where the gap is significant:

• Single dads: 19.8 percent (versus 14.2 percent)

• Hispanic Americans: 29 percent (versus 23.2 percent)

• People in the West: 19 percent (versus 13.5 percent)

• People in the Northeast: 16.1 percent (versus 11.6 percent)

• People age 65 and up: 18.7 percent (9.7 percent)

The poverty jump for the West and Northeast reflects higher living costs in some of the most populated areas in those regions….For one prominent group, children, poverty is about 1 percent lower using the alternate measure than the official one. But Americans under 18 had a poverty rate of 17.9 percent, higher than the national average.”

(I’m sorry, but because of ongoing browser and blog troubles, I can’t add the link to the story. The Christian Science Monitor article was written by Mark Trumbull and appeared on October 20. There are many stories on this issue on Google News if you use the search term poverty rate. Or, if you want better time for reflection, your local newspaper may well run a story on this concern in the morning. Then you can think about it at home with your corn flakes and coffee.)

It is no surprise to me that one in six Americans live in poverty. Where are people going to get good 40 hour jobs with good benefits in this society?

I’m glad that President Obama is addressing the issue of health insurance. After he makes progress on that concern, he should then address the issue of poverty in our nation.

One in six Americans in poverty here in the so-called “Richest nation on Earth.”

This tragic fact of poverty in our nation is hardly a political issue at all. Where is the President? Where are the Democrats in Congress? Where are all the bible-thumpers? Where are the so-called good people? Where are the so-called liberals?

Urban & Rural America Are Not So Far Apart

I flew over many farms today between Houston and Chicago. Though I’ve always lived in a city and don’t know anything about farms, I’ve long thought that urban areas and rural areas have many problems in common.

There are issues of finding good jobs and substance abuse that urban and rural areas have in common. Both areas depend very much on good public schools.

I wish that in state legislatures across the country, urban and rural legislators would caucus and discuss ways to work together.

At least at 600 miles an hour,there does not seem to be a so great a distance between urban and rural America.

Attention Right Wingers—America! Love It Or Leave It!

All of us on the left know what we’ve been told by conservatives for the last 40 years when we’ve protested our government. 

“If you don’t like it get out”

“Go back to France”

“America–Love it or leave it.”

Well—Here’s right back at you folks. You lost the 2006 election and the 2008 election and we live in a country with a government taking an active role in our economy and with a President named Barack Hussein Obama.  

America—Love it or leave it.

Here is a link to the lyrics of Lee Greenwood’s God Bless The USA as posted at a Boy Scouts songbook web page. 

From the song–

If tomorrow all the things were gone,
I’d worked for all my life.
And I had to start again,
with just my children and my wife.

I’d thank my lucky stars,
to be livin here today.
‘Cause the flag still stands for freedom,
and they can’t take that away.

That’s right!

Below is a picture of the President of the United States. We were told so often after September 11 how we should rally around our President during a time of crisis. We are now in an economic crisis as bad as any we have faced since the Great Depression. 

If folks don’t love our America, they can move to Somalia or some other place with hardly any government. See how that goes for all these protesters.

Yeah—I’m talking to you screwballs below. (Pictures from The  Huffington Post)

 

 

A Great Week For Progress, Freedom & Hope!

A Great Week For Progress, Freedom & Hope!

These important moments came on the anniversary of The March on Washington, and the anniversary of ratification of a woman’s right to vote.

We’re ready to move forward now to even greater victories for all Americans.       

Martin Luther King

Barack Obama

 Susan B. Anthony

Hillary Clinton

What Is America?

What is America?

I believe America is the rule of law, the acceptance of the results of free and fair elections, and the inclusion of people of all kinds in the national life.

What America is not is any specific religion, skin color or language.

This does not mean people should not learn English. It does mean that if America is a majority Spanish-speaking nation in 100 years, that it could still be an America of laws, democracy and inclusion.

America is both a political state and a product of the imagination.

This is my view of America.