I find it interesting that Republican governors of the reddest of the red states where government regulation and oversight are, to say the least, detested, are screaming at President Obama to fix a catastrophe caused by lax oversight and free rein for the oil companies.  In fact, preventative measures were ignored and no technology was in place for reacting to a possible blow out at 5000 feet under water. This is just the way the Republicans want it to be.  Furthermore, the 1300 off-shore wells in the Gulf of Mexico weren’t put there during the Obama Administration.  This drilling has taken place for decades without much, if any, protest from the on-shore business people now screaming about the loss of their livelihood.

It is really sickening to see the loony-tunes team of Carville and Matalin running around braying and bleating with Anderson Cooper about the poor job President Obama is doing handling this crisis.  What the hell is he supposed to do?  He has obviously been told by oil industry moguls that technology was in place to prevent this type of catastrophe.  OK so he didn’t have time to run out and get his degree in petroleum engineering so that he could figure it out for himself.  Although he is very smart, perhaps he is human.

Mary Matalin is Dick Cheney’s pal.  She has been one of the leading Republican cheerleaders for “starving the beast,” otherwise known as disassembling the Federal government.  In addition, I can remember her laughing and cheering for the “drill baby drill” crowd at the last Republican convention.

We can destroy the oceans quickly or more slowly and systematically over a longer period of time as we are now doing. The red state Republicans who are derisive about global warming could explain to us how acidification of the oceans due to increasing CO2 in the atmosphere will eventually affect the fishing industry in the Gulf, amongst other places.  I suspect that efforts to reduce burning of hydrocarbons through major changes in mileage standards, speed limits, public transportation, etc., etc., etc., and so on and so forth will be vociferously, emphatically, and forcefully opposed by the likes of Bobby Jindal, and the other red state governors.   So let’s just let them figure out how we are going to save our oceans on which they appear to be so dependent.

I don’t think we should be drilling one damn oil well in the Gulf of Mexico or any other ocean. 

In his book Running on Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties are Bankrupting Our future and What Americans Can Do About It, billionaire hedge fund mogul Peter G. Peterson focuses much of the blame for U.S. fiscal profligacy on “entitlements,” which has become a pejorative term for Social Security and Medicare.  His polemics are aimed at programs for keeping tens of millions of U.S. citizens from sinking deep into poverty while he ignores the obscene personal income and corporate income tax structures that have become increasingly “rigged” to benefit the powerful, wealthy, class of which he is a member.

Mr. Peterson has funded the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a think tank with inordinate clout in Washington, D. C.  It is from this power base – supported by the likes of Larry Summers, as well as most other influential players in fiscal policy – that Peterson and his cronies have launched a fiscal policy crusade.  A major issue for them is government debt, a major cause of which is, according to Peterson, “entitlements.” That deficit spending is such a bad thing is questionable and the subject of many Paul Krugman columns – who just happens to be my economics hero and guru.  Nevertheless, money in our economic system is finite.  The more money directed toward income classes below the super rich, the less available for them.  And that class doesn’t really like to share any more of the wealth than is absolutely necessary to keep the lid on things.

Hence, they skillfully and carefully propagandize in preparation for political moves to divert more resources from the middle and lower income classes to themselves.  For instance, after a long propaganda campaign against poor mothers on public assistance in the 1970s and 1980s, the Clinton Administration disgracefully pushed a so-called welfare reform program through Congress, which was nothing more than an assault on the poor.  At the same time, Congress was continuing to shift federal taxes from upper income classes and corporations to the middle class.

Much like the Peterson Institute is now launching an attack on the “Baby Boom” generation (more about that will be discussed on this blog in the future), Social Security, and Medicare, in the 1970s and 80s, a plethora of powerful, right-wing, think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute, and the Manhattan Institute supported Neo-Conservative academics and theorists who disseminated theories about the lazy, dependent nature of welfare recipients.  The influence of Charles Murray (bigot and co-author of the Bell Curve), George Gilder, James Q. Wilson, Edward Banfield and a host of other reactionary but highly influential social scientists prepared legislators and the public for passage of Clinton’s punishing program – we have far more hungry and homeless children and their mothers because of it.

Having reduced their tax burden by stereotyping and punishing the poor, it is now to programs needed by millions of aging Americans that the wealthiest of the wealthiest are turning their attention.  A message to “Baby Boomers” is you can ignore these people, but you do so at your own peril.

Attempts by the super rich to stereotype and discriminate against current 65+ citizens and aging “Baby Boomers” are given a boost by some less than super rich – but rich nevertheless – “Baby Boomer” pundits and self-appointed experts such as Thomas Friedman and David Brooks.  The following are a few of the examples of negative stereotypes that appear in the New York Times – the leading print-media outlet in the U.S.:

Thomas Friedman, “Root Canal Politics,” New York Times, May 9, 2010–

“The meta-story behind the British election, the Greek meltdown and our own Tea Party is this: Our parents were ‘The Greatest Generation,’ and they earned that title by making enormous sacrifices and investments to build us a world of a abundance.  My generation, ‘The Baby Boomers,’ turned out to be what writer Kurt Andersen called ‘The Grasshopper Generation.’  We’ve eaten through all that abundance like hungry locusts.”

David Brooks, “Geezers’ Crusade,” New York Times, February 2, 2010 –

“Far from serving the young, the old are now taking from them. First, they are taking money.”

“Second, they are taking freedom.”

“Third, they are taking opportunity.”

“In the private sphere, in other words, seniors provide wonderful gifts to their grandchildren, loving attention that will linger in young minds, providing support for decades to come.  In the public sphere, they take it away.”

Ross Douthat, “Telling Grandma ‘No,’ New York Times, August 17, 2009 –

    “And if you think reform is tough today, just wait.  We’re already practically a gerontocracy:  Americans over 50 cast over 40 percent of the votes in the ’06 mid-terms.  As the population ages – by 2030, there will be more Americans over 65 than under 18 – the power of the elderly and nearly elderly may become almost absolute.

    “In this future, somebody will need to stand for the principle that Medicare can’t pay every bill and bless every procedure.  Somebody will need to defend the younger generation’s promise (and its pocketbooks).  Somebody will need to say ‘no’ to retirees.”

TALLGRASS ACTIVIST COMMENTS:

The above types of quotes are becoming increasingly common.  “Baby Boomers” approaching retirement should take these vicious stereotypes seriously and begin to push back.  Journalists such as David Brooks and Thomas Friedman have no professional credentials in the areas about which they pontificate.  They are, however, taken seriously by major media outlets and the public.  For instance, they appear periodically and not infrequently on NPR and PBS where they sound off on a wide variety of issues.

The columns from which the above quotes were pulled are filled with factual errors regarding demographic changes.  Furthermore, they distort reality concerning Medicare and Social Security.  This blog will be dedicated to providing credible information provided by professional demographers, health care researchers, and other individuals and publications recognized as scholarly as well as respected in the scientific community.

The so-called “Tea Party Movement” has made a lot of noise, has been fairly vicious, and has been effectively destructive.  However, it is just the latest anti-intellectual, racist, populist movement that pops up from time-to-time in the U.S.  This current version of mob hatred in the political process has been made more potent by a dedicated cable channel (i.e. Fox News), right-wing billionaire benefactors, and a lack of push back by the mainstream media as well as by moderate and liberal politicians.  It won’t be around very long.

Unfortunately, it won’t be liberal organizing and political activism that will overcome this ill-informed, misguided mass of government haters with a fantasy view of the framers of the U.S. Constitution.  Much bigger forces, already in motion, will determine the role of government in the decades ahead.   

As I write this, the population of the U.S., as well as the population of the Planet, is growing rapidly.  The U.S. population will increase by 38% – from 312 million to 430 million – by 2050.  The environment, the infrastructure, and the education system cannot handle this increase.  But no one is talking about it. All we hear is that “baby boomers” will be fiscally overwhelming, which is scapegoating, pure and simple.  The baby boom generation peaked in 1964 at 70 million children.  Today we are approaching 80 million children and will have 101 million citizens under age 18 in the U.S. population by 2050.

The World population will grow from its current 6.8 billion to at least 9 billion by 2050.  With economic systems based on growth and consumption, the earth cannot sustain this population.  In fact, in terms of global warming and other environmental disasters, we are beyond the point of no return now.  Environmental catastrophes will begin recurring at an accelerating pace with increasingly severe consequences.  If you think the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is disastrous, you haven’t seen anything yet.

Furthermore, without a massive government infusion of public funded jobs and higher education assistance, the U.S. economy will not be able to provide jobs and education to a huge segment of the U.S. population.  These jobs must come in the health care, construction (of infrastructure), and environmental sectors. Otherwise we will have to learn to live with much higher unemployment and lack of access to college for all but the wealthy.

The Tea Party will be put out of business by Mother Nature and human selfishness but I am not optimistic that its disappearance as a viable political force will result in an enlightened democracy.  Liberals and moderates have a tendency to sit on their hands and hope that things will get better.  If you don’t believe me, attend environmental demonstrations, liberal political meetings, and other liberal to leftist events and see how many people show up.

 Capitalist elites, through lobbying and payoffs, along with the U.S. Supreme Court (e.g. United Citizens case) have been setting up conditions for continued oppression of middle and lower socio-economic strata.  The ability of the wealthy top few percent to control the legislative process and manipulate the media cannot be underestimated.  The question is, “what kind of democracy do we have when the rich expropriate the mass media along with legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government for the purpose of enriching themselves at the expense of the masses?”

The Deepwater Horizon used a blowout preventer (BOP) that was “beyond the customary warranty period.”  And it didn’t work.

http://houston.bizjournals.com/houston/stories/2010/04/26/daily60.html

See paragraph #10.

You couldn’t make this stuff up.

In regard to the Federal Government’s Minerals Management Service, Lisa Margonelli, director of the New America Foundations energy initiative, had the following to say:

“Several years ago, the agency considered requiring the installation of relatively inexpensive ($500,000) remote-controlled switches on offshore drilling rigs as a backup mechanism for shutting down spills like the one that’s running out of control today – but decided it wasn’t needed because there were other ways for drillers to cut off their wells.”  (“A Spill of Our Own,” New York Times, May 2, 2010).

As the post preceding this one from Richard Kershenbaum suggests, the oil industry magnates are not going to give a rat’s patooty about the environment and our health.  Furthermore their cozy relationship with our legislators and bureaucrats will insure them relief from any oversight from the agencies that are supposed to protect us.  In the final analysis, the BPs, the EXXONs, the Kochs, the Shells, and the whole damn industry doesn’t care about anything but profits and buying off politicians.