What if we all as a nation stopped selling American designed weapons, like airplanes, ships, subs, missiles, helicopters, tear gas, et cetera to foreign nations and groups?

What if we brought home all of our overseas troops, no matter where they are, discharged all of them except the ones we need to secure our own borders, and sent all of them to University or Trade School?

What if we create a new kind of entity called a Corporation that had to die after 75 years? All the corporate patented and trademarked assets would become public domain, and physical assets liquidated and distributed to shareholders.

What fs we taxed at 100% all estates above a certain threshold, and ensured that a hereditary oligarchy would be stopped in its tracks?

What if we increased the highest tax rates to 65% of income or capital gains or any kind of investment income?

What if we became a single-payer nation for health insurance, and reinvested in creating upward mobility by making our public Colleges and Universities the inexpensive wonder of the world they once were?

Just imagine if the purpose of government was to provide for the general welfare and common defense by taking care of certain things like infrastructure, environmental regulation, education, and health care so that people could focus on the more important things in life, like becoming the best, most creative, generous, kind and loving person in their work and personal lives, fully invested citizens. If we all recognized that we are all in this together, that “E pluribus unum” are words by which a great nation should live.

We can make this progressive dream happen.
Doesn’t that world, where all pursue their dreams because all the stuff that government does really well are being taken care of sound great? The only way to make it happen is to pay attention, wake up, organize, and vote!

“Look forward, rather than back.”

“political sensitivities”

That’s the logic and reasoning the Obama administration is giving in ruling out prosecuting those who have justified, approved, or administered torture in the Bush administration. In recent days, we found out that back in 2002, two of the 9/11 suspects were tortured hundreds of times, and that the information we got from these people was completely worthless. A key author of the torture memos is a Federal Appeals Judge now.

So, we know that torture doesn’t work, except perhaps as a means of revenge, and that the current administration isn’t going to do anything about those who committed these terrible acts.

Looking back is exactly what a criminal investigation of any kind is about. Do we say to other criminals that we want to “look forward, rather than back” and not investigate or prosecute?

Saying that we will not torture in the future yet not doing anything to make amends to the world for the torture that already occurred is essentially legalizing torture. It’s saying that “oops, my bad” when you break the window, but not paying to fix it. It still leaves a broken window.

Shame on President Obama for taking the foolish and cowardly way out of this terrible mess left by the previous president. This decision is not going to improve out standing in the world, and will just go to make him an accomplice in the crime.

TAKE ACTION: lobby your Representative and Senators to investigate, to request a special prosecutor, to impeach, to do whatever is necessary to get the Obama administration to do their job.

Very thoughtful and articulate, Mike Rowe dispels some of the sacred cows that Americans have put upon the value of work. Hat tip to Noelbear for finding this gem.

After President Obama’s Address to Congress, the Republican Party’s response was delivered from Louisiana Governor, Bobby Jindal.  I am loving that Sarah Palin, Michael Steele and Bobby Jindal are the new faces of the Republicans – they are the new Three Stooges!

I wonder if he even bothered to watch the President’s speech? I wonder what planet he’s living on? He’s got an interesting personal story, but his ideas? Just more of the same failed Republican policies that got us into this ridiculous mess to begin with – tax cuts for the rich, abandoning public education. Really, Bobby Jindal? Is that the best the Republicans can do in this time of economic crisis?

Tax cuts will increase the debt but not have an appreciable effect on the economy, except to encourage more borrowing – people will pay off old debts but not buy new stuff. Recent history has shown this to be the case. And while paying off debt is good, it won’t create any jobs right now, which we need.

And charter schools and vouchers? There’s plenty of indication that charter schools do not improve education over traditional public schools – they are essentially a wash.

And getting rid of corruption and increase transparency in Washington, DC?  No one has seen the text of the stimulus package?  I guess he hasn’t seen http://recovery.gov/ yet,  or the other websites the Obama Administration has published to enable the public to see how the money is being spent.

It’s no wonder that the Republican Party is becoming more and more irrelevant, and no longer a national party, but a regional party of the South.  If this is the best they can do, then I say let them fade more and more into obscurity.

But what I want to know is which of the Three Stooges is Jindal?  Moe, Larry, Curly, Shemp, Curly Joe?

Seems self-appointed Ethics Queen Sarah Palin just can’t but help surround herself with losers and the ethically challenged:

Just as Alaska Governor Sarah Palin is pushing an energy plan that fronts her as presidential material for 2012, two of her top aides– Communications Director and Press Secretary, Bill McAllister, and Palin’s Anchorage office director, Kris Perry–are being hit with new ethics charges, to be filed with the state Attorney General on Monday.

Well-known Alaskan political watchdog Andree McLeod–a registered Republican who was once a close political associate of Palin’s and who has worked at a variety of jobs in Alaskan government–said that she is filing the complaint because “employees working for Palin conducted partisan political activities while on the clock and on the public’s dime.”

In August of last year, before Palin was nominated as John McCain’s GOP running mate, McLeod filed ethics charges against the Palin administration over the hiring of Palin political crony Tom Lamal. She also has a legal case pending against Palin in which she is trying to make public more than 1,000 state emails that were copied to the governor’s husband, Todd. In October, an Anchorage judge ordered Palin and others in her office to “retrieve and preserve” any emails from private accounts that concern state business that were copied to the so-called “First Dude.”

via Geoffrey Dunn: Palin Agonistes: Governor’s Aides Charged with New Ethics Violations.

To paraphrase John McCain, “Run, Baby, Run!”  I so hope she decides to run in 2012 to put the GOP out of our misery once and for all.