The Militant Moderate

According to the latest polls, 68% of Americans disapprove of the job that President Bush is doing, while 28% approve. Considering the mess we are in at home and abroad, I just don’t understand why 28% would approve of the president’s performance. And, what about that dinky 4% who don’t know what they think?

I have a lot of friends, and some family, who are Republicans. I credit most of them with having good sense, and some seem quite intelligent. But in this same poll Republicans gave Bush a 66% approval rating, and only 32% disapproved of his performance. I shall assume that those disapproving Republicans are the same group that I previously credited with high intelligence. Otherwise, I don’t understand it.

Further, I don’t understand why polls show almost half of the people would vote for a candidate who plans to continue Bush’s policies and his war.

Watching what has been going on at the State Capitol this year causes one to wonder just who voted and elected the majority in the state House or a big part of the Senate. They seem uncomfortable with serving the needs of the people, but comfortable in serving the special interests who lobby them and donate to campaigns.

The insurance lobby has halted or stalled coverage for the mentally ill, autism, and other catastrophic illnesses which beset a small segment of our people. More tax breaks have been awarded to corporate interests, including the multi-millionaires bringing a washed-up, third-rate basketball team to town.

Women have been loaded with more guilt trips (and doctors with paper work) if they need or want to end a bad pregnancy. This is done for those vocal people who want their own religion put into law, and who want dissenters made into criminals. How in the world did we get to this point?

The tax cutters are still at work, even though the disastrous results of their previous dirty work are already beginning to limit the state’s ability to perform its governing duties. “No new money for anything this year” is the rule, even though the expenses of educating children and college age youth are increasing, highway needs are accumulating, prisons are overflowing warehouses, child abuse and abuse of women is unworked, the mentally ill populate the jails, crime labs are ill equipped, retirements systems are broke, and state and education employees underpaid.

It just does not make sense why voters keep on electing tax cutters, when they should be able to see the inconsistency of that with needs of the people. Where are the statesmen and stateswomen? Don’t we have any?

And, just where did we get those nutty legislators who want to turn college campuses into old west, gunslinger towns? Even Wyatt Earp knew better.

Along come groups desirous of funding bridges and roads and county roads by taking money from education. Of course, they don’t say in their TV ads that they will take the money from schools. I don’t understand why we aren’t paying gas and diesel taxes equal to the surrounding states, if we want road funds. Oil companies and gas stations charge the high prices anyway.

Now the legislature is taking away gambling funds dedicated to scholarships for all students, and putting these into paying bonds for matching endowed chair donations primarily at just OU and OSU. I don’t understand that move, or why it was supported by local legislators from areas where smaller colleges are located. Did anyone ask questions about this?

I don’t understand how the legislature, the regents, the governor, or the college presidents could in good conscience allow college costs on students to escalate to the current level, excluding worthy students who cannot pay the exorbitant fees now charged. There is fault enough to go around for that.

Any person in a leadership position who stood idly by over the last ten or fifteen years and allowed all this to happen is guilty. Artificial barriers, financial or other, erected in the path of access for an academically qualified person into higher education are plainly undemocratic.

The basic tenet of equal opportunity in American democracy demands equal access to higher education.


Dr. Edwin E. Vineyard, AKA The Militant Moderate

Remember the movie of a decade or two ago entitled something like “Broadcast News?” At one point the lead character becomes so fed up with the injustices and the inanities of that business in America that he put his head out the window and yelled, “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore!” Then everywhere, others joined in a chorus of protest.

For those of us who have recently paid taxes, there are a couple of questions. “Do you feel good about it? Why not?”

The cartoon this past weekend in our major metropolitan newspaper would give some an easy (too easy) answer. It showed our tax dollars put into a trough with a fat tax hog eager to gobble them up. Our problem is that we do not recognize the tax hogs, or the tax cheats, when we see them.

All those honorable people who are educating the kids in schools, as well as the youth in our colleges, have been labeled as tax hogs by that newspaper in other years. Anyone who works for the public is a tax hog in some minds. Yet citizens are most demanding for public services.

We might be happier about paying our taxes if we thought the system was fair. When a super-billionaire like Warren Buffet admits the unfairness of paying a lower tax rate than his secretary, we know the system is loaded on the side of those with wealth versus those who earn a salary or wages. Sometimes it seems that everybody has an opportunity to cheat on his taxes, except the poor guy (or gal) who draws a paycheck.

The GAO (Government Accountability Office) tells us that 61% of American corporations pay no corporate income taxes, and only 39% of the Dow-sized companies pay a tax. Last year corporations shared only 14% of the national tax burden, as compared with 50% in 1940.

This year the tax on individuals is expected to increase from $1.16 trillion to $1.21 trillion, while the corporate tax will decline from $370 billion to $364 billion. By 2013 experts predict that taxes on individuals will rise to $1.84 trillion, while corporate taxes will drop to $327 billion.

KBR, subsidiary of Halliburton and the largest Iraq war contractor, admits to major reductions in tax obligations and to cutting payroll tax payments to Social Security and Medicare by “hundreds of millions” with a Cayman Island shell office. In fact, The GAO says that 24 of the largest federal contractors use Cayman Island accounts to avoid taxes. Why would we allow such?

Now, if you are not ready to open the window and draw that deep breath yet, consider the fact that our major oil companies received $18 billion dollars in tax subsidies which are no longer needed or appropriate (if they ever were).

Are you are mad about gas prices? Perhaps oil and gas people among the few who are not. Add in all those who believe the oil company propaganda, of course, and include those who think gas prices are high because of big taxes or environmental regulations.

Major blame for oil prices goes to the oil cartels that control supplies from the Middle East and other world areas. Crafty oil market speculators are big time problems, leeching money while performing no service.

But do not take the oil companies out of the equation. Record annual profits in the tens of billions do not indicate clean hands. The oil companies are profiteering on the world market conditions at the expense of the people.

According to Malcolm Berko, syndicated business page columnist, Exxon “owns” 29 billion barrels of oil and at $100 a barrel that inventory is worth $2.9 trillion. He says that oil cost Exxon $5.45 per barrel. He goes on to give similar statistics for Chevron and Shell. “Those companies have a profit of over $95 a barrel, and they will fight to maintain that margin and the favorable tax treatments on their enormous profits per barrel,” he says.

This is an election year. There is a chance for the people to be heard, if they open their windows and yell loud enough.

But it will have to be really loud to overcome the decibels coming from the television sets with advertisements paid for by those who profit from favorable political treatment and profiteering advantages.


Dr. Edwin E. Vineyard, AKA The Militant Moderate

In the year 1854 Alfred Lord Tennyson wrote an epic poem called “The Charge of the Light Brigade.” Many of us studied this in school, and some of us have reviewed it from time to time, enjoying the words, rhyme, and meter, while pondering the bittersweet tragedy of misdirected valor. Let us recall a few excerpts from that wonderful piece.

“Forward the Light Brigade!
Charge the guns,” he said;
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
“Forward the Light Brigade!”
Was there a man dismayed?
Not tho’ the soldier knew
Someone had blundered;
Their’s not to make reply,
Their’s not to reason why,
Their’s but to do and die;
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

This poem came around the end of the Crimean War. Most scholars now question the wisdom of that war. It began as a dispute between the western Catholic Church and the Russian Orthodox Church over control of holy sites in Palestine, a territory of the Ottoman Empire. Then came France and Russia championing opposite religious causes. The resultant war extended to the British and the Turks. The British landed forces on the Crimean peninsula in the Black Sea bent upon capturing the Russian seaport of Sevastopol. The charge of the Light Brigade was a skirmish in that conflict.

The Crimean War accomplished little except to change administration of the holy sites to the Catholics, but it set the stage for the emergence of Florence Nightingale as the heroine establishing of the great humanitarian profession of nursing. But of the Light Brigade, Tennyson writes on:

Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of the six hundred.

When can their glory fade?
Honor the charge they made,
Honor the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred.

Somebody blundered, the poet tells us, and the soldiers knew it. Yet they charged into the mouths of the cannon, and their ranks were decimated – needlessly. They followed orders, not reasoning why, and bravely they died. Tennyson extols their glory, albeit in a futile action.

Although the glamour of war has been discounted in this last century, the question still arises: “Is there honor in bravery in a foolhardy action?”

In an American tragedy, the Confederate army under General Lee had advanced northward into Pennsylvania in 1863 with a momentum toward an early decisive victory which would bring a negotiated peace leaving the South separate. At Gettysburg Generals Lee and Longstreet ordered General Pickett’s division to charge up Cemetery Hill into the face of furious fire from established Union positions. The charge almost succeeded, but after huge casualties it was beaten back.

General Pickett lost half of his 12,500 man division in just two hours that day in what has since been termed as a strategic blunder by General Longstreet and the legend of the South, General Robert E. Lee.

The question arises: “Does the strategic error of the tactic diminish the heroism of the men in Pickett’s charge?

In the present time we are faced with similar human tragedies in the conduct of an unpopular war. Although more than 60% of our people favored that war in the light of what we were told by our leaders at the beginning, more than 60% of us now regard the war as a gross mistake by our nation’s leaders.

We are experiencing the return of soldiers from this war, some maimed physically and some mentally. We are experiencing the return of some in caskets, four thousand of them. We feel the sorrow of families, because we have experienced the same tragedies ourselves in previous wars.

Now the question arises: “Are these men who served, who suffered, and who died, deserving of honor, although their duties were performed in a war of which most of us disapprove?”

The answer to all of our questions is, of course, a resounding: “Yes!”

If we have issues about the justification for a war, then we take that up with those who made that decision. If we have issues about the foolhardiness or futility of a battle tactic, then we take that up with those who planned and directed that strategy. Our high regard for those who serve is not diminished by the mistakes of their leaders.

But the converse is also true. Our high regard for those who serve, and for those who suffer, does not extend to support for leaders in what we see as a mistaken war. Don’t ask us to behave as though we do. We shudder at the sight of such. We are not unpatriotic if we don’t!

The futile, but brave charge of the Light Brigade brought no honor to their officers or to the government that sent them there. The bravery of Pickett’s men brought no honor to their generals, or to the questionable cause of the Confederate government.

The sense of duty demonstrated by those who are assigned for long months in Iraq under hazardous conditions reflects honor upon them, but none to government that sent them there.


Dr. Edwin E. Vineyard, AKA The Militant Moderate

Evaluating the political scene at this time, the Militant Moderate is ready to project the winner. Meet your new president – John McCain.

Mind you, conditions do change, and with those the predictions also change. Nevertheless, at this point in time (as we pundits are prone to say), it looks like John McCain is a winner in November. Put your money on McCain.

“Why such a prediction so early?” one might ask. “Why have you chosen McCain as the winner?” you might add. “What is wrong with the winner of the Hillary and Obama contest?” you could continue.

Democrats have a way of shooting themselves in the foot. This time they have done so in narrowing the choice – to two non-traditional candidates, both of whom would enter the general election carrying negative baggage. No finalist is a traditional, middle-of-the-road candidate.

Further, as it now appears, the more mainstream of the two finalists is behind. The more liberal candidate is ahead, and the centrist candidate is behind. The voters of this country do not normally elect liberal candidates to be president, not recently anyway.

Obama is now the favorite to win the nomination. In so doing, he has alienated a large segment of the democrat voters, who are unlikely to give him enthusiastic support in the fall. The same would be true if it turns out the other way around.

The “Swift boater” groups have already raised millions and will raise much more before fall. They will run interminable ads featuring Obama’s outspoken church pastor condemning America. These ads will also feature his wife’s statement about only lately finding something to be proud of in America. The picture of his not saluting the flag will be everywhere. There will be other allegations and insinuations.

His statements about not wearing the flag lapel pin will be exploited. One wonders why he did not come right out and say, “Because the republicans have made that lapel pin a symbol of support for the Iraq War.” Lots of people resent that, and they would understand.

Some of us are appalled at the degree to which voters are influenced by emotion rather than by logic. Sometimes they seem oblivious to their own self interests – to those of the common citizen. Instead they tend to vote based upon emotional issues extraneous to the real problems facing government and the nation’s welfare.

No one knows this better than the special interest advertisers, who are allowed to ply their trade under loopholes left by the law passed in the guise of campaign reform. Before the political season is over Mr. Obama will look like a black Muslim of foreign allegiance, named Hussein, plotting with his liberal followers to overthrow the Christian government of the United States and turn the country over to Arab terrorists.

Voters will then forget all the woes brought upon the nation by eight years of republican rule. They will overlook the misbegotten war, after McCain softens his position by saying that we will exit as soon as the time is right. People will be misdirected away from the problems of budget deficits, rising national debt, recession, mortgage foreclosures, and the economic trauma of the lower and middle classes.

The voters will be brainwashed away from concerns for universal health insurance and health care, hearing fears of socialized medicine from “Harry and Louise” ads again. Fears of terrorists, fears of big government, fears of Social Security going broke, and all kinds of other fears will be used as smoke screens to obscure the real problems of this country.

“Good old” John McCain will then come across as the solid, fatherly type who will look after us if we just trust him and his friends to keep on running the country for us. People will vote him into office as a hedge against all those wild-eyed liberals in Congress like Nancy Pelosi.

And, folks, that is the way the story from the political tea leaves reads today.


Dr. Edwin E. Vineyard, AKA The Militant Moderate