Midcan5's Blog

I thought this so funny it belongs in humor, the odd, paradoxical humor of contemporary political insanity. You couldn't make this stuff up! 'Ku Klux Klan Says It Doesn't Condone Tea Party or Koran Burning' "There are without doubt Islamic sects that teach extreme views of Islam but, going down to their level of hatred by burning their books is a dangerous and ignorant way to confront their teachings. The flames made by such unholy fires never die out! The Ku Klux Klan, LLC. opposes this most un-American thinking and activity." Read article here.

America needs to get back to building here, buying made here, if we are to continue be a leading industrial nation. The movement of business overseas for profit will eventually destroy us - Enemies couldn't do it but greed will. Check this out, interesting and see cspan for video if you want to learn and not just whine about our budget and unemployment. See video here. C-SPAN Video Library. “Manufacturing still accounts for nearly one in 10 U.S. nonfarm jobs as measured by the government, and those jobs tend to pay much better than burger-flipping or barista gigs. . . Between 1997 and 2009, we lost six million U.S. manufacturing jobs, or around a third of the total. How much should we care? Plenty, says Andrew Liveris, chairman and chief executive of Dow Chemical. In Make It in America, he calls for a national strategy to revive manufacturing. We need manufacturing jobs, he says, if we are to keep a growing population busy and start paying off our debts to the rest of the w...

Whenever I hear talk of American exceptionalism (AE) I wonder what does that mean? How different are we from a banana republic when one attack on native soil creates an atmosphere of fear so strong constitutional law goes out the window? How exceptional are we, when military courts hidden on foreign islands, is the best we can do? How exceptional are we when religion freedom means you can't build here because we hate you? This is just another example of how far America has traveled from its core values. But maybe AE like all things is just a myth used when necessary, forgotten much of the time. "Such tendencies in American Life as isolationism and the extreme nationalism that usually goes with it, hatred of Europe and Europeans, racial, religious, and nativist phobias, resentment of big business, trade-unionism, intellectuals, the eastern seaboard and its culture - all these have been found not only in opposition to reform but also at times oddly combined with it. One of t...

One of the truly good ones died. Joe Bageant saw things as they are, check out his site and read some of his insights into America below. See his writings here. "As an Anglo European white guy from a very long line of white guys, I want to thank all the brown, black, yellow and red people for a marvelous three-century joy ride. During the past 300 years of the industrial age, as Europeans, and later as Americans, we have managed to consume infinitely more than we ever produced, thanks to colonialism, crooked deals with despotic potentates and good old gunboats and grapeshot. Yes, we have lived, and still live, extravagant lifestyles far above the rest of you. And so, my sincere thanks to all of you folks around the world working in sweatshops, or living on two bucks a day, even though you sit on vast oil deposits. And to those outside my window here in Mexico this morning, the two guys pruning the retired gringoes hedges with what look like pocket knives, I say, keep up the go...

Having worked a good portion of my early career in a Union, I have seen the good and the bad. The good far outweighs the bad, for without some counter acting power or authority, humans often act poorly. No need for examples, our politics today demonstrates that daily. There are lots of 'bad' people out there, and while they exist on all sides of all fences, giving the bad power magnifies their inept qualities. Scott Walker is one of the inept. America grew strong on Unions, and it is good to see that many still recognize their positives. "The turmoil in Wisconsin is not only about bargaining rights or the pension payments of public employees. It is about transparency and openness. It is about neighborliness, decency and mutual respect. Joe McCarthy forgot these lessons of good government, and so, I fear, has Mr. Walker. Wisconsin’s citizens have not." Read article here. And check out articles here.

The more things change...Winston Churchill said it best, "The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter." Today with all this talk of recalls and the confusion that is our government, it seems nothing really changes. So long as single issues and low turnout control our elections, tea party ideologues and the unlearned are a given. Alexis de Tocqueville may still be the best commentator on America. "I have already observed that the American statesmen of the present day are very inferior to those who stood at the head of affairs fifty years ago. This is as much a consequence of the circumstances as of the laws of the country.... ...On entering the House of Representatives at Washington, one is struck by the vulgar demeanor of that great assembly. Often there is not a distinguished man in the whole number. Its members are almost all obscure individuals, whose names bring no associations to mind. They are mostly village lawyers,...

My wife teaches, she could have done just about anything in the business world but in the olden times - said facetiously - women taught, were mothers and home makers before returning to teaching. Because I have worked in corporate America, we live well. But if you are a teacher and bread winner, another old term, you'd have a tough go of it in America today. If we want a nation of educated citizens we must value education and pay for it, seems simple. Full article here. By Nicholas D. Kristof "From the debates in Wisconsin and elsewhere about public sector unions, you might get the impression that we’re going bust because teachers are overpaid. That’s a pernicious fallacy. A basic educational challenge is not that teachers are raking it in, but that they are underpaid. If we want to compete with other countries, and chip away at poverty across America, then we need to pay teachers more so as to attract better people into the profession."