Tag Archives: president

If You’ve Ever Wondered Who It Is Government Works For….

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Brucoe, a real man's stuffed animal who takes no crap from anyone, especially cell phone companies
Brucoe, a real man’s stuffed animal who takes no crap from anyone, especially cell phone companies

There’s an interesting situation going on right now in the US Government, and it involves cell phones. From the Wall Street Journal comes a story about how the president is trying to convince Congress that we should allow unlocked phones to be allowed so that people can switch phone providers after their contracts have expired. The interesting part of the story, and the part that most people won’t get, is that this isn’t the first time the president and Congress have dealt with this issue. As a matter of fact, Congress originally made this ruling with a previous law, but made it one of those cumbersome laws that expires, which they often do when they don’t really want to do something. After it expired, these “penalties” were enacted for unauthorized unblocked phones:

The Library of Congress’s rules establish federal copyright penalties for unlocking a cellphone. Wireless carriers can collect statutory civil damages of between $200 and $2,500 per violation and criminal penalties can rise to $500,000, five years in prison or both for the first offense. (from the previously linked article)

Only after a digital write in campaign did the president actually chime in with his own thoughts, backing the people rather than the rich bigwigs in Congress.

So, the question going through your mind should be: For whom does the government work? Because the last time around, Congress did nothing, which managed to benefit the phone monopolies instead of the people, because they realized they wouldn’t be held accountable for doing nothing (a common misconception by Congress). In my opinion, if there wasn’t a write in campaign to the president, I doubt he would have addressed the issue either.

I suspect nothing is going to be done about this, unless people rally and hold their representatives accountable. The telecoms love the way things are right now, even though they claim that they allow phones to be unblocked (so people can switch companies without having to buy a brand new phone), but they don’t make it easy. As a matter of fact, from AT&T’s response to the issue, they have to give permission, even though they claim they probably would. That’s not a right. That’s being locked into a post-contract situation over a phone that your contract actually paid for.

So, if you ever want to know for whom government works, watch how this plays out. People can say and claim all sorts of things, but until you see it play out in front of you, you don’t know how things really happen. Words are great, but actions trump works each and every time.

A Nation Without a Rudder

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Sometimes, it is so easy to fall into partisan bickering that it’s not even necessary to write the column. Circumstances fill in all of the details for you. But if you’re one of those people who purport to be lacking in partisanship, or at least trying to avoid the pitfalls, it’s a lot harder to talk about the same issues without someone automatically believing you are part of the status quo (one side or the other) and immediately fill in criticisms because of such observations and beliefs.

The President of the United States delivered his “jobs” speech last night, and it went over like a lead balloon. The Los Angeles Times (most definitely not a conservative newspaper) took a tongue in cheek approach to covering the speech, and wrote an article that is probably one of the most sarcastic I have read in ages. Here’s an example:

But here’s the catch that Obama and his Windy City wizards missed: Most Americans are not politically obedient machine Chicagoans. Like a linebacker reading the quarterback’s eyes, they’ve already figured out this South Sider’s game.

But after the laughing subsides, you have to start looking at the bigger picture and wonder what’s really going on here. If it’s just about one side failing, and the other side benefiting, I guess it would be fine (if you were on the side benefiting, I guess), but in this case, we’re not in a zero sum situation (where one side wins); we’re in a no sum situation (where no one wins). The United States is in such need for sustained success, and we’re nowhere near finding it.

Unfortunately, our country is like a boat with no rudder. Granted, it’s a pretty strong boat, capable of floating quite well, but at the moment, no one has any idea where to take it, and even if they did, they don’t know what to do with it once we get where we’re going. Instead, the hope is that things will get better, and all we have to do is just hold our breath until we get to that better place. That’s not a plan for sustained greatness. It’s a plan to avoid bad things by hoping things won’t be so bad if we get beyond the current wave of bad things.

So what is the answer? Well, we need leadership that can focus on what’s really the problems with America and then do something about fixing them. But as long as every leader is only interested in self-interests, like getting re-elected, we’re never going to find a solution because we’re too stupid to realize that we need to allow them to fix things first instead of punishing them for trying to do what’s right. It’s like the whole Jimmy Carter election where he spent his re-election period trying to point out what needed to be done to fix America. He got slammed and destroyed by his opponent because he “hated America” and other such false-isms. We’re so stupid and incapable of realizing our own self-interests that we’ll let someone say nice things about us and then convince ourselves that the person must be a great leader because he said good things about us. That’s how simple the America psyche is. And that’s why we’ll never actually get any success.

America needs a splash of cold water in its face to wake up and realize what’s really wrong. But we’ll never get that because anyone who wants to run for office is doomed to have to say nice things and embrace American exceptionalism rather than try to fix anything that’s wrong. Think of it this way: If I was to run for office and say that the way to fix our cities is to eradicate poverty by actually focusing our attention on improving the lives of people in poverty, while creating a new atmosphere of intolerance towards gangs, racism, hatred, and corruption, and then turned around and devoted my political life to doing just that, my career would be over before it started. However, if I got up on stage and talked about how great America is, how I’ll use my office to put more police on the streets to “stop crime”, and that I will support business to “rebuild this country”, I have a far better chance of being elected, and once in office, I’ll be completely ineffective, but will probably be able to enrich myself by giving rich lobbyists exactly what they need to make sure their clients become richer, while people who really need help get limited help and lots of condemnation for not raising themselves up by their bootstraps. Think about that for a second because I’ve described practically every politician out there, from your local mayor to the President of the United States. And somewhere out there is a voice thinking to itself, “well, the problem is too big, so there’s really nothing that can be done about it” and another voice thinking, “well, if I can’t fix it, I may as well try to profit off of it and make a good life for myself”.

And so the band will keep on playing on.

America Needs a Social Messiah

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Most people feel it but don’t really know how to put it into words. Something’s wrong with our country, everyone seems to know it, but no one really knows what to do about it. Our politicians keep claiming they have it all figured out, but they’re floundering, unsure of what to do and constantly going back on everything they say because they’re as confused as the masses. Something’s wrong, and we’re at a stage where something needs to happen to fix what’s wrong.

Having said that, I have to point out that one of two things is going to happen (aside from nothing happening and this state of morass continuing for more years before a solution finally occurs). Either someone is going to come along and rally everyone together to lead them off the end of a cliff, or someone, or some thing, is going to arrive and lead us to a better place. We’re at that stage where we need something, and unfortunately everything already in place is totally incapable of doing the trick.

This is part of why Obama became president. He came after a crappy period in US history, when we had a president and and administration that led the country down a road into near despair and depravity. He came along and promised a new sense of America that would put the country back on track, kind of like a political messiah who would lead us to the proverbial promised land. Instead, he gave us a lot of what we already had, and basically became Bush Light, leaving us in a state where we’re still waiting for someone to come along and pick up the slack he was supposed to actually use to make things better.

It’s not just a bad economy that’s causing the frustration. It’s a sense that no one knows what to do with the most powerful country on the planet. We have no rudder, steering us to some place better because we honestly don’t know where a better place might exist. Technologically, we’ve created the computer and hand held devices that make life simpler, although they tend to make things even more complicated (adding to our work day instead of cutting it down). Intellectually, we kind of have a lot of science and medicine already figured out, although we still can’t provide health care for everyone, our medicine is created by companies that make only the drugs that are profitable and lobby to make sure things don’t get better for the masses, and we pay our businessmen far more than our engineers and scientists, which means we’ll always have more people making money than making better products. Our political landscape hasn’t changed since the 1800s, as we still rely on diplomacy that requires tit for tat game theoretical models which reward last year’s actions and beg next year’s compliance (even the Roman Empire planned five years ahead, rather than this “what have you done for me lately” policy we seem to have fallen into).

In other words, we don’t seem to have a direction, or even a clue as to how to get ourselves pointed in any direction. People are so focused on the now that they could care less about the future, and anyone who things progressively is seen as foolish and foolhardy, which means we are like ten year olds planning for lifetimes of mediocrity.

This is the time when someone can come along and change things. This could be a great thing, especially if we find an enlightened thinker, but unfortunately we’re so 18th century in our thinking that we all seem to believe we need an enlightened “leader” rather than an enlightened “thinker.” Think about that for a moment. When it comes down to it, we’re going to end up going to the polls, or erecting an homage to a power base, rather than follow the enlightened ideas of someone who has the right ideas. We’re so Hobbesian in our ideals (needing a leader to lead us) that we have forgotten that the US was created in Lockeian ideals (where we control the leader), and really should have been leading to Rousseauian ideals (where the group identity has more power than the individualistic desires that we have today…where some corporate entity can dominate the masses because it has economic power that speaks louder than ideas and voices).

Part of my fear is that most of the west is filled with people who are only capable of the lowest levels of Maslowian achievements (basic needs) rather than higher level analysis (using logic to figure out ways to fulfill needs rather than immediate gratification). This means that when someone comes along and tells us what we want to hear, we’ll comply and expect great results, and when that person proves to be no better than your average Detroit politician (i.e., corrupt), we’ll back that person even when things turn into Ponzi schemes and false hopes and promises. When people are incapable of thinking logically through higher level concepts, they’re constantly doomed to being cheated and exploited by their leaders (kind of where we are today).

The ideas of Rousseau are probably interesting to point out here because the ideas he espoused were those of an enlightened society that realizes its needs are met through its communicative knowledge, but as long as we want things fulfilled within easily constructed plans, we’re always going to be doomed to Hobbesian outcomes (the leader telling us to do what to do so he can get the payoff instead of us). The solution, unfortunately, involves more and more people talking to each other about how to make things better, but as long as media is one-way communication (them to us), we’re never going to get there. Social networking is designed to be two-way, but as I look at the recent approaches of Facebook and Google+, all I see are attempts to create celebrities with bullhorns, rather than a process to open communication between both sides. Which means we’re moving further and further away from where we need to be.

At the end of a diatribe like this, I’m sure the logical question will come: “Do we need to know this for the test?” And when I say no, thinking stops and texting starts.

So I give up again.

Can Anyone Actually Beat Obama in 2012?

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There are a bunch of Republicans trying to run for office, and tons of talk about stupid subjects, like will Sarah Palin run for office, but what no one really seems to be discussing is the HUGE elephant in the room, and that’s the fact that the incumbent rarely loses, especially when no one else is massively popular in the same arena. If you would have asked me back during the second election for George W. Bush if he was going to win or lose, I would have actually thought his chances of winning were slim. But it turned out that incumbency was the overriding factor that propelled him towards a second victory.

We’re in that ballpark again right now. We have a president who was thrown into office with a massive wave of popular support, but even his most loyal critics would be willing to say he’s been quite disappointing as a president. There was a lot of hope for hope and change, but unfortunately the only thing that really changed was the person in office, and to be honest, this man has been somewhat of an after the fact speech maker who seems to think that the bully bulpit is the only thing he needs to run the country. It’s one thing to have a great orator in office, but when all he does is make great speeches, you start to wonder what kind of person you really put into the Oval Office.

But having said that, the Republicans have absolutely no one with any sense of popularity that can get someone elected. Their options are crap, more crap, and a lot of the same. Their show stoppers are carnival clowns that make the audience jump up and laugh, but other than that, they have no one capable of doing any real damage during the election. So, unless they somehow find an underdog that no one is expecting, or one of the boring people running right now suddenly becomes infused with superpowers, I don’t see anything happening this time around other than another four years of a very insignificant, do-nothing president who will basically be a place-holder until someone new comes along.

If you think otherwise, say something. Let us know. I certainly don’t have the last word here, but for some reason people seem so quiet over this issue, or they end up being reactive, falling into political paradigms and relying on talking points that don’t mean anything. So speak up and let us know what you have to say. Otherwise, this is going to be a very boring election with absolutely no surprises whatsoever.