WCGreen
WCGreen's JournalA light beautiful snow is falling now...
Right in the gloaming made more so because of the heavy sky.
There is no wind, not a hint of breeze, just snow gently fluttering about, accumulating.
All the trees are bare from the back of the house and all the pine trees in the front are loaded down with accumulated snowfall.
There is just a hint of the deer tracks, results from the in between houses yard path that is one stand of wood to another.
It's times like these that I love, sitting in my home, with the wall of windows the only thing that separates me from the elements.
I am lucky to be on this side of the cold winter snap we are in.
Peace, calm and reflection on this midwestern winter night.
My letter to Ohio republican Senator about voting against Aid for the Sandy disaster....
What exactly were you thinking when you cast a vote AGAINST federal aid for the Sandy hurricane disaster? Did it ever occur to the Esteemed Senator from the great state of Ohio that we might one day face a devastating natural disaster? By not voting for the assistance, are you comfortable setting the precedent that natural disasters are well natural and must be handled by those afflicted and those who would give private monies.
By your action, I guess you would be all right if the Senators and House members in the afflicted area might remember that vote and vote against aid for Ohio?
Again, being that this is my second time contacting your office, I thought you would be a thoughtful and reasonable Senator being that Ohio is pretty much a bi-partisan state. But I have to ask, when did you decide to embrace the idea of too much spending as damaging the National Economy.
You see I remember you were in the Bush Administration as the head of the OMB participating in developing the massive build up in budget deficits thinking that money would just appear via increased economic activity. But then again, you probably wanted to run up the debt to make it easier to take federal money off the table for anything but defense spending. You supported trillions for an unfunded and unnecessary war and unfunded tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans and yet not a cent for people in New York and New Jersey.
Shakespeare said it best when he said "What a piece of work is he.."
You, Senator Portman are some piece of work…
You know it's good to watch the movie Mississippi's Burning every once and a while
just to remember what happened and to keep that right on the mind to know that we aren't that far away from all of that...
I remember it and unless we all remember that can happen, something like this can happen again.
All these people who in this day and age toss off ignorant shit like "You're not a REAL AMERICAN" can directly trace their hate to what happened when Mississippi was burning...
The idea that you should run the government like a business...
is ridiculous in the reality based world.
First of all, a business is in marketplace, competing. Government operates outside the marketplace.
A business has a primary mission to turn a profit. There is no profit incentive in government. If you don't have enough to supply the basic needs of your citizens, you raise funds. If you have a surplus you cut taxes. A business does not have that luxury.
A business makes a commitment to its customers. A government has to provide for citizens without any other connection except that they are alive and live in that governments jurisdiction.
A government is there to provide access to the basic functions of society. A business is not.
A business can not operate with a deficit for very long. A national government can borrow money to keep providing essential needs by borrowing.
By the way, pushing more and more government provided by the federal to the states is just another way to get rid of the functions of government because states cannot run a deficit like the federal government.
So mull that over, offer some more examples and think about this the next time a conservative says privatize.
All this talk about Co-opting pagan rituals is starting to sound a wee bit over the top....
Did anyone stop to think that the Druids adopted stuff from the people who came before they did because what they were doing worked for them.
And don't forget that the people who trekked out of Africa in the dawn of Humanity took their spirituality to the rest of the world where the region and the environment shaped the religion that came after .
We have always, we humans, been picking things from here, there and everywhere jumbling them together to make something that works for us.
Religion and spirituality have been a part of the Human Animal since the first person looked up at the wonder of the night sky and realized that there is something out there that is bigger than I am.
And so it began.
The religion, the mythology of the state, the way we deal with tragedy when tough times comes, comes from something in all of us, grounds us in something. And we can trace that back to that very first person who looked at all those stars that stretched from horizon to horizon and asked why am I here.
Don't get me wrong, I don't believe in an after life or an omnipotent God, it's just that the Pagan rituals in the time before Christianity were there as an assurance that they would make it to Spring and renewal. And why do we capture that same feeling even though it is ancient, let it overtake our emotions and bring us to celebrate the old with the new.
Because, my dear DU community, we are human.
Yes, I admit that I have sometimes been a little over the top with my criticism of our
president when it comes to any potential cut in Medicare and Social Security benefits.
And there is a reason. I depend on Social Security in order to offset most of my medical and prescription costs. My check is about $650.00 a month and I have about $450.00 of monthly medical expenses.
My medical expenses have increased over the years far more than the COLA so any potential talk of cuts in future benefits really have a stark affect as we look out on our future bottom line.
Anyway, I could survive with a so-called "chained" benefit but I know there are millions of people who are far less fortunate than I.
So please forgive me if every now and then I get a little hyperbolic when it comes to SS and Medicare.
That is all.
Why are your earned wage taxed more than those, like Romney, who invest for a living.
Think about it. Wages and Salaries are taxed at the regular incomes tax rate while Capital Gains and Dividends are treated differently and have caps on how much these kinds of income can be taxed.
Why do you think Romney, and those like him, were able to amass a huge fortune while the rest of use Wage Slaves are treading water.
This all happened when Capital Gains taxes were given special treatment starting in 1986 because you held the investment for an amount of time and no one, the theory goes, should be taxed on inflation.
Well, the income level that sets the floor for our tax rates are indexed for inflation so there should be no special treatment for Capital Gains or, for that matter, dividends.
The poor schlubs that work for a living can't catch a break. Guys like Romney have scorched earthed our economy so that million of people have lost any opportunity to get ahead of the game.
And to top it off, the person still lucky enough to have a good job and making a decent wage are paying taxes at a higher rate than guys like Romney.
So these people at the top do everything they can to divert their income to capital gains and walk away paying, at most, about 20%, and at best, 15%.
God Damn it, a dollar is a dollar no matter how you earn it.
So for the last few years, the meager increase in my SSI Benefits has been gobbled
up by Medicare increases.
For 2009 and 2010, the SSI had no Cost of Living increase.
In 2011, the COLA was 3.6% and for 2012, the COLA was 1.7%.
Just thought I would put that out there.
COSI is a museum in Columbus and the name of a Bus line. Sorry about that confusion. It should have been COLA.
What bothers me most about these current talks about changes in SSI and SS....
Is that the most privilege people in our Democracy have been using the SS trust funds to finance unpaid for wars, tax cuts for the wealthiest and the returns for people who invest...
If this isn't class warfare, I don't know what is.
I mean when you blatantly treat capital gains as more valuable to the country than wages what should we expect from the over entitled ruling class. The Romney's of the world never pay taxes at the same rate as school teacher, firefighters, office workers, store clerk, all the people that keep our society running for the benefit of the few.
How many democrats will just give up when it comes to voting for the lesser of two evils in future elections.
If they cave this time, then really, what is the point of supporting the one party with two heads.
When was a young man, I was mixed up. I was ravaged by acne and had parents
basically left us alone to grow up, using us pawns in a nasty divorce.
I'm not blaming them, my mom started a twenty year battle with cancer when I was in fifth grade. My dad was an alcoholic of the worst kind and was never able to break out of the family curse.
My Mother made a second mistake when she remarried when I was going into seventh grade. She was a fighter and a strong willed woman who tried very hard.
I just wanted to put that out here.
Thankfully, there were a few songs I remember that truly spoke to me.
This is one....
At 17...
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Gender: MaleCurrent location: Cleveland Ohio
Member since: 2003 before July 6th
Number of posts: 45,558
