Monday, April 25, 2011
THE PRICE OF EMBARRASSMENT
We now know the price of political embarrassment for Oklahoma’s new governor. The price to avoid such embarrassment is worth $54 million to Mary Fallin. This is the cost to Oklahoma taxpayers for Ms. Fallin to avoid embarrassment by being caught again voting against a bill in Congress, but taking the money as governor.
While Republican governors all over America are finding their embarrassment much less expensive to their state’s citizens, Oklahoma’s republicans find ideology more important this time – even if it costs us $54 million in a budget year in which that amount looks like pure gold to most Oklahomans.
Perhaps our governor was just not adept enough to make up a good rationale for accepting the money for organizing the insurance pools required by federal law. Other republican governors were able to think up some reason why it was a good idea. Their states are better off for their mental gymnastics.
Perhaps the cost could be phrased in some different ways than just money, i.e. in terms of what that money would do this year in Oklahoma. The money would prevent cuts in medical treatment for indigent children, cuts in services in prevention of child abuse, and cuts in food programs for poor children. It would alleviate some cuts to public schools, or it would prevent fee increases for college students and their parents. It would get more juvenile and drug courts established to divert youthful offenders from prison or provide costs for better supervision of adult prisoners allowing more to be kept outside of prison walls.
We hope the governor will ignore the bill coming to her desk from a legislature often found lollygagging off in right field, far away from the path of the ball.
But the greatest embarrassment for the GOP nationally this spring has to be Donald Trump. People know that Trump has always been something of a wing-nut, but many take him seriously. Trump has unleashed a torrid media attack on the President, and has often added some leaders of the Republican Party to his target list. The problem is that so much of what he is saying is ludicrous.
Most embarrassing to republicans should be Trump’s attack on the President’s birth in the United States. Of course, surveys show that 48% of Americans believe this lie, in spite of the proven facts. Maybe we should all hold our heads in shame that 48% of our people, almost totally republicans, believe such disproven tripe. Perhaps ignorance about race, the odd-sounding name, a Kenyan father, or the existence of the real state of Hawaii influences this foolish susceptibility.
If people are really this gullible to media propaganda, is it hopeless that we will ever again have an honest election based upon a contest of facts, logic, and personality? Since the high court gave corporations and the millionaires unlimited spending in politics, things may never be the same.
An electorate this gullible and impervious to facts and reality will elect anybody the media is paid to sell to them. They will believe all the conspiracy theories that are planted, promoted, and circulated by whatever means money can buy. They will believe in those so-called “grass roots” parties like the Tea Party bunch, although behind the scenes it is supported by the billionaire Koch brothers.
Considering all this, rank and file republicans ought to be embarrassed by the early fund-raising methods of all their new freshman congresspersons elected on all those wild but purist campaign presentations paid for by big business donations last fall. Of course, pledging purity while taking campaign ads paid for by the special interest groups in business should have been a bit suspicious to all.
For 87 of those new GOP freshmen the price of embarrassment during the first three months of their terms has been minimum PAC contributions of $50,000 or more each. For 18 of those GOP freshmen the price has been a little higher at $100,000 or more each from special interest groups these last three months. These folk are now a little hard to embarrass, of course.
Mr. Obama has been considering requiring federal contractors to disclose their political donations, replete with names of beneficiaries. Democrats and public interest groups agree this is a good idea, but business interests and republicans are fighting it tooth and nail. It makes us wonder just how bad things really are when they want to hide such information from the public.
Disclosure of how many federal contract dollars come back to their sponsoring politicians might indeed prove embarrassing. Public disclosure of the monetary connections between those who get government dollars with their vest pocket politicians could even be embarrassing enough to dry up some of that cash flow.
Dr. Edwin E. Vineyard, AKA The Militant Moderate
While Republican governors all over America are finding their embarrassment much less expensive to their state’s citizens, Oklahoma’s republicans find ideology more important this time – even if it costs us $54 million in a budget year in which that amount looks like pure gold to most Oklahomans.
Perhaps our governor was just not adept enough to make up a good rationale for accepting the money for organizing the insurance pools required by federal law. Other republican governors were able to think up some reason why it was a good idea. Their states are better off for their mental gymnastics.
Perhaps the cost could be phrased in some different ways than just money, i.e. in terms of what that money would do this year in Oklahoma. The money would prevent cuts in medical treatment for indigent children, cuts in services in prevention of child abuse, and cuts in food programs for poor children. It would alleviate some cuts to public schools, or it would prevent fee increases for college students and their parents. It would get more juvenile and drug courts established to divert youthful offenders from prison or provide costs for better supervision of adult prisoners allowing more to be kept outside of prison walls.
We hope the governor will ignore the bill coming to her desk from a legislature often found lollygagging off in right field, far away from the path of the ball.
But the greatest embarrassment for the GOP nationally this spring has to be Donald Trump. People know that Trump has always been something of a wing-nut, but many take him seriously. Trump has unleashed a torrid media attack on the President, and has often added some leaders of the Republican Party to his target list. The problem is that so much of what he is saying is ludicrous.
Most embarrassing to republicans should be Trump’s attack on the President’s birth in the United States. Of course, surveys show that 48% of Americans believe this lie, in spite of the proven facts. Maybe we should all hold our heads in shame that 48% of our people, almost totally republicans, believe such disproven tripe. Perhaps ignorance about race, the odd-sounding name, a Kenyan father, or the existence of the real state of Hawaii influences this foolish susceptibility.
If people are really this gullible to media propaganda, is it hopeless that we will ever again have an honest election based upon a contest of facts, logic, and personality? Since the high court gave corporations and the millionaires unlimited spending in politics, things may never be the same.
An electorate this gullible and impervious to facts and reality will elect anybody the media is paid to sell to them. They will believe all the conspiracy theories that are planted, promoted, and circulated by whatever means money can buy. They will believe in those so-called “grass roots” parties like the Tea Party bunch, although behind the scenes it is supported by the billionaire Koch brothers.
Considering all this, rank and file republicans ought to be embarrassed by the early fund-raising methods of all their new freshman congresspersons elected on all those wild but purist campaign presentations paid for by big business donations last fall. Of course, pledging purity while taking campaign ads paid for by the special interest groups in business should have been a bit suspicious to all.
For 87 of those new GOP freshmen the price of embarrassment during the first three months of their terms has been minimum PAC contributions of $50,000 or more each. For 18 of those GOP freshmen the price has been a little higher at $100,000 or more each from special interest groups these last three months. These folk are now a little hard to embarrass, of course.
Mr. Obama has been considering requiring federal contractors to disclose their political donations, replete with names of beneficiaries. Democrats and public interest groups agree this is a good idea, but business interests and republicans are fighting it tooth and nail. It makes us wonder just how bad things really are when they want to hide such information from the public.
Disclosure of how many federal contract dollars come back to their sponsoring politicians might indeed prove embarrassing. Public disclosure of the monetary connections between those who get government dollars with their vest pocket politicians could even be embarrassing enough to dry up some of that cash flow.
Dr. Edwin E. Vineyard, AKA The Militant Moderate
Monday, April 18, 2011
REDUCTO AD ABSURDUM
Literally, the Latin phrase reducto ad absurdum means reduction to the absurd. It is used primarily in philosophy and similar areas of academic discourse to prove a proposition false by carrying it to its own ultimate conclusion of absurdity.
The method implicit in this term was applied to demonstrate the utter fallacy of the Ryan House republican budget plan last week by Martin Wolf, noted macro-economist and chief economist and associate editor for the Financial Times. Wolf was backed by Paul Krugman, Nobel economist and columnist for the New York Times. The ridiculing logic offered by two such men of repute in the field made a strong impression on this writer.
These and various other critics have pointed out the more obvious flaws of the Ryan-Republican House budget and deficit reduction plan. Throwing senior citizens out of Medicare and onto the streets with a shopping voucher for private health insurance, questionably available, is seen quickly as nothing better than a cruel hoax to be perpetrated on defenseless old people. Who is dumb enough, or heartless enough, to follow that alternative?
Putting invalids and the elderly poor out of the nursing homes on the sidewalks, cutting benefits to sick kids, and adding another 50 million poor people into the ranks of the uninsured would be the consequence of Ryan’s proposed cuts of Medicaid. Surely anyone would see this as an absurd ending.
Meanwhile, as the poor and the elderly are being thrown to the predators, Ryan’s plan proposes more tax cuts for the rich. All this is done in the name of job creation, of course.
Republicans believe that tax cuts for business and for the wealthy will create jobs. That notion was heralded by Ronald Reagan. It did not work then, as deficits skyrocketed to the highest seen at that time. It did not work for the Bush tax cuts, whose claims for prosperity were followed by diminution of wages for workers, the largest job losses in history, big deficits, the near collapse of our financial system, and a recession threatening to be another Great Depression.
Expecting these to work now exemplifies a major trait in mental illness – repeating the same action over and over and expecting a different outcome.
One very serious flaw in the republican House budget plan is that it does not actually reduce the net deficit over a ten year period at all. The tax cuts for the rich cost more than the spending cuts save. The presumption that tax cuts increase income is wrong.
An important, but little mentioned, problem is that the new voucher system privatization of Medicare removes the only really effective cost control we have over increasing health care charges.
Have you ever looked at a hospital bill to see what people without protection are asked to pay for the same procedure a Medicare claim is discounted by 90% or so? That is frightening. What kind of cost protection is there for that private insurance voucher – just the modest discount the insurer can negotiate with hospital management, doctors, labs, and providers? Without Medicare as a pace-setter, such discounts would likely turn out miniscule.
Medicare is the only insurer that can get by saying to providers, “This is what we will pay for this medical procedure and hospital stay.” They can do so, because the provider has no practical choice. If you think they are not happy with Medicare reimbursement, just watch all the TV and newspaper ads seeking to woo older patients to choose their hospital.
The nation needs desperately to control health care costs. Our economic viability and prosperity depend on lowering these in relation to our gross product. In order to do this, we desperately need a single payer health insurance plan like Medicare for all our people. This may well be the only solution to our dilemma of health costs and competition in the global economy.
Republican rejection of the Affordable Health Care Act (Obama-care), only a small step, is against the national interest. Throwing out a successful program such as Medicare is double-dumb, and it is obstructing to the nation’s economic and social future.
It is almost unbelievable that the republicans would actually propose radical changes which make no sense in human values or in economics. If this is the tea party influence, what is wrong with those people?
Dr. Edwin E. Vineyard, AKA The Militant Moderate
The method implicit in this term was applied to demonstrate the utter fallacy of the Ryan House republican budget plan last week by Martin Wolf, noted macro-economist and chief economist and associate editor for the Financial Times. Wolf was backed by Paul Krugman, Nobel economist and columnist for the New York Times. The ridiculing logic offered by two such men of repute in the field made a strong impression on this writer.
These and various other critics have pointed out the more obvious flaws of the Ryan-Republican House budget and deficit reduction plan. Throwing senior citizens out of Medicare and onto the streets with a shopping voucher for private health insurance, questionably available, is seen quickly as nothing better than a cruel hoax to be perpetrated on defenseless old people. Who is dumb enough, or heartless enough, to follow that alternative?
Putting invalids and the elderly poor out of the nursing homes on the sidewalks, cutting benefits to sick kids, and adding another 50 million poor people into the ranks of the uninsured would be the consequence of Ryan’s proposed cuts of Medicaid. Surely anyone would see this as an absurd ending.
Meanwhile, as the poor and the elderly are being thrown to the predators, Ryan’s plan proposes more tax cuts for the rich. All this is done in the name of job creation, of course.
Republicans believe that tax cuts for business and for the wealthy will create jobs. That notion was heralded by Ronald Reagan. It did not work then, as deficits skyrocketed to the highest seen at that time. It did not work for the Bush tax cuts, whose claims for prosperity were followed by diminution of wages for workers, the largest job losses in history, big deficits, the near collapse of our financial system, and a recession threatening to be another Great Depression.
Expecting these to work now exemplifies a major trait in mental illness – repeating the same action over and over and expecting a different outcome.
One very serious flaw in the republican House budget plan is that it does not actually reduce the net deficit over a ten year period at all. The tax cuts for the rich cost more than the spending cuts save. The presumption that tax cuts increase income is wrong.
An important, but little mentioned, problem is that the new voucher system privatization of Medicare removes the only really effective cost control we have over increasing health care charges.
Have you ever looked at a hospital bill to see what people without protection are asked to pay for the same procedure a Medicare claim is discounted by 90% or so? That is frightening. What kind of cost protection is there for that private insurance voucher – just the modest discount the insurer can negotiate with hospital management, doctors, labs, and providers? Without Medicare as a pace-setter, such discounts would likely turn out miniscule.
Medicare is the only insurer that can get by saying to providers, “This is what we will pay for this medical procedure and hospital stay.” They can do so, because the provider has no practical choice. If you think they are not happy with Medicare reimbursement, just watch all the TV and newspaper ads seeking to woo older patients to choose their hospital.
The nation needs desperately to control health care costs. Our economic viability and prosperity depend on lowering these in relation to our gross product. In order to do this, we desperately need a single payer health insurance plan like Medicare for all our people. This may well be the only solution to our dilemma of health costs and competition in the global economy.
Republican rejection of the Affordable Health Care Act (Obama-care), only a small step, is against the national interest. Throwing out a successful program such as Medicare is double-dumb, and it is obstructing to the nation’s economic and social future.
It is almost unbelievable that the republicans would actually propose radical changes which make no sense in human values or in economics. If this is the tea party influence, what is wrong with those people?
Dr. Edwin E. Vineyard, AKA The Militant Moderate
Thursday, April 14, 2011
RADICALS AND ZEALOTS
Radicals, zealots, and demagogues roam among us today. These are known to some of us, but not to all. The more radical the political demagogue, or the more zealous the religious demagogue, the more dangerous these are to society as a whole. The more numerous and zealous the followers of demagogues, the more dangerous they are to all of us. The more radicals and the more zealots there are standing around, waiting for a demagogue to follow, the more volatile our society and our country.
As a young lad during the late 1930’s, this writer recalls well the belligerent, shouting voice of Adolf Hitler on the radio. Even if not for that distinctive voice, I could sense the significance of those radio speeches in the attitude of adults.
On a summers’ eve one could hear that disquieting voice outdoors as it came through the open windows from radios all around the neighborhood. Adults, including my father, might be found gathered in small groups discussing in low tones what was happening. Lads like me with big ears were listening. “War” was often mentioned in a tone of dread and anxiety.
That angry, bellicose voice echoed around the neighborhood, punctuated by cheers of “Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil!” from thousands of voices. It demanded attention, but it was also a bit frightening. Hitler’s voice elevated the naturally bombastic qualities of the spoken German language to a threat level. Instinctively we knew this man was up to no good, and we sensed that he was extremely dangerous as a result of the masses of zealots who followed him.
Some of us can also remember the voice of “The Kingfish,” Huey P. Long. the political demagogue from Louisiana, and we recall the enthusiasm of his followers. That voice was silenced by an assassin.
Vaguely I recall the screeching voice of Amy Semple McPherson, and the negative articles against her in the religious publications at my grandfather’s home. I gathered that she was taking money and leading people to hell, all in the name of religion. Her voice was soon muffled as well. But she had an impact on many, and she threatened mainstream religious people back in the 1930’s.
Not all would-be demagogues make it long in this world. From recent events, one might project that Glen Beck’s heyday on the Fox Channel is coming to a close. It is doubtful he will ever have such a platform again from which to spout his religious and political venom, conspiracy theories, or lies and near-lies. But he has had a huge following of gullible zealots. Who knows what comes next?
Still we have quite a line-up of demagogues among those mentioned as republican presidential candidates. Newt Gingrich has been a demagogue on the national scene since the 1990’s, and he still has a following despite his moral and policy lapses. Donald Trump ought to have “demagogue” stamped on his forehead, and just below that “bully.” While Gingrich is dangerous because he is smart, Trump is just a cagey bully, who happens to have a following that thinks he is smart. And, no, Trump does not really think President Obama was born abroad. He knows better. It serves his own shady purpose to spout lies and fools’ folly.
Michelle Bachman has taken over much from Sarah Palin. Each engages in her own kind of demagoguery, and neither has respect for facts or truth. Both are dangerous because each has her following of semi-literate, unthinking zealots. Both are tea party queens, known to be popular but ignorant and illogical. Perhaps that says enough. Just as the tea party has its billionaire backers, so do both Bachman and Palin. Either can raise millions in a few days.
Billionaire and corporate money make Palin and Bachman dangerous, along with the millions of gullible tea party zealots who should know better.
When radical zealotry and religious zeal run in the same crowd, a horribly combustible situation is created. Much of the political zealotry demonstrated in this country has an emotional religious base. These are loose cannons.
These zealots do not always recognize right and wrong, because God has spoken to them through his modern day prophets – or directly. Such people are irrational. They are difficult to reach, because they do not reason. Facts and logic have no place in their minds. Their perceptions are closed, and their minds are shut.
This is the state of “democratic discourse” in America. It is extremely difficult for those with positions based in humanistic values, facts, and logic to deal with those in politics who loyally comprehend only their own ideological zealotry. In the end, they must be held accountable for their irrational zeal.
Dr. Edwin E. Vineyard, AKA The Militant Moderate
As a young lad during the late 1930’s, this writer recalls well the belligerent, shouting voice of Adolf Hitler on the radio. Even if not for that distinctive voice, I could sense the significance of those radio speeches in the attitude of adults.
On a summers’ eve one could hear that disquieting voice outdoors as it came through the open windows from radios all around the neighborhood. Adults, including my father, might be found gathered in small groups discussing in low tones what was happening. Lads like me with big ears were listening. “War” was often mentioned in a tone of dread and anxiety.
That angry, bellicose voice echoed around the neighborhood, punctuated by cheers of “Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil!” from thousands of voices. It demanded attention, but it was also a bit frightening. Hitler’s voice elevated the naturally bombastic qualities of the spoken German language to a threat level. Instinctively we knew this man was up to no good, and we sensed that he was extremely dangerous as a result of the masses of zealots who followed him.
Some of us can also remember the voice of “The Kingfish,” Huey P. Long. the political demagogue from Louisiana, and we recall the enthusiasm of his followers. That voice was silenced by an assassin.
Vaguely I recall the screeching voice of Amy Semple McPherson, and the negative articles against her in the religious publications at my grandfather’s home. I gathered that she was taking money and leading people to hell, all in the name of religion. Her voice was soon muffled as well. But she had an impact on many, and she threatened mainstream religious people back in the 1930’s.
Not all would-be demagogues make it long in this world. From recent events, one might project that Glen Beck’s heyday on the Fox Channel is coming to a close. It is doubtful he will ever have such a platform again from which to spout his religious and political venom, conspiracy theories, or lies and near-lies. But he has had a huge following of gullible zealots. Who knows what comes next?
Still we have quite a line-up of demagogues among those mentioned as republican presidential candidates. Newt Gingrich has been a demagogue on the national scene since the 1990’s, and he still has a following despite his moral and policy lapses. Donald Trump ought to have “demagogue” stamped on his forehead, and just below that “bully.” While Gingrich is dangerous because he is smart, Trump is just a cagey bully, who happens to have a following that thinks he is smart. And, no, Trump does not really think President Obama was born abroad. He knows better. It serves his own shady purpose to spout lies and fools’ folly.
Michelle Bachman has taken over much from Sarah Palin. Each engages in her own kind of demagoguery, and neither has respect for facts or truth. Both are dangerous because each has her following of semi-literate, unthinking zealots. Both are tea party queens, known to be popular but ignorant and illogical. Perhaps that says enough. Just as the tea party has its billionaire backers, so do both Bachman and Palin. Either can raise millions in a few days.
Billionaire and corporate money make Palin and Bachman dangerous, along with the millions of gullible tea party zealots who should know better.
When radical zealotry and religious zeal run in the same crowd, a horribly combustible situation is created. Much of the political zealotry demonstrated in this country has an emotional religious base. These are loose cannons.
These zealots do not always recognize right and wrong, because God has spoken to them through his modern day prophets – or directly. Such people are irrational. They are difficult to reach, because they do not reason. Facts and logic have no place in their minds. Their perceptions are closed, and their minds are shut.
This is the state of “democratic discourse” in America. It is extremely difficult for those with positions based in humanistic values, facts, and logic to deal with those in politics who loyally comprehend only their own ideological zealotry. In the end, they must be held accountable for their irrational zeal.
Dr. Edwin E. Vineyard, AKA The Militant Moderate
Monday, April 04, 2011
HAVE THEY NO SHAME?
News headlines one recent morning featured the hiring of a new basketball coach at the University of Oklahoma. He will receive $16 million for a 7-year contract, it is reported. This writer was faced at home with the query: “With all that is going on in Oklahoma, the nation, and the world, is there nothing of greater importance to feature in newspaper headlines?”
That was not an easy question to field. Perhaps it would be correct to say, “Apparently not to them.” Or, one might have correctly have said, “Probably not to the majority of their daily readers in Oklahoma.” One might add, “It’s okay with fans that a coach makes 25 times as much as a faculty member.”
Admittedly, there is the shame of misplaced priorities in all that buzz. Misplaced priorities often reside in the same persons as ignorance and misinformation.
Then there was the report of a $120 million contract for a major league baseball player. Initial offerings to sign outstanding prospects for the NFL now run into the multi-millions. And so it goes in the sports world, sort of like Wall Street.
One does hear some complaints about the outrageous ticket prices for major league baseball, and other professional sports. Then there are comments about $10 hot dogs and $9 beer at these events. No longer can the father in the average working family attend these games, much less take his boy to the park.
It does beg the question: “Have they no shame?”
A current controversy on “revenue sharing” between billionaire owners in the NFL and their millionaire players is shameful. Their ticket prices are sky high, and they are gouging those who love the sport. They are also gouging the rest of us who watch on television, because there is a pass-through of added costs to us. The public has little sympathy for either party.
If we had our way we would reduce and cap salaries and regulate what the owners can charge the public. But then, that would be “big government,” wouldn’t it? Well, maybe there is another way. What is it?
But collegiate sports at the top levels are also competing for recognition in the “shame” category. Most of the money to support university sports must come from private sources. Universities manipulate their ticket sales so as to require contributions to purchase tickets, or they may package tickets for certain games in bundles to require purchases for less popular games. They withhold gate sales for empty seats to avoid spoiling their premium deals. Is all that necessary?
In such an environment, students are a liability. They don’t pay much for tickets, but they quickly become discontent if there aren’t at least a certain number of seats kept back for them. But what it was supposed to be all about – student sports?
Yet the “shame game” of misplaced priorities and shady practices is not confined to the sports world. It is easy to find predatory practices and shady dealings in the business world. When university athletics became a business, it inherited such. These often clash with the idealistic purity, but suspected favoritism and shady dealings suspected operant in such regulatory agencies as the NCAA or BCS.
Last week CBS’ 60 Minutes featured the relocation of companies’ headquarters to foreign countries with low tax rates on profits. Switzerland and Ireland were prominently mentioned. Several major companies, considered American, are paying no taxes as a result of this practice, and others are paying little because they are given tax breaks and subsidized by our government. These and others have also moved factories abroad to find cheap labor.
American jobs are being shipped out, foreign goods shipped in, and our tax base and currency are being undermined. Is there no shame in the business world?
Corporations are “citizens,” our republican Supreme Court says, and they have the right to “unlimited free speech” (meaning buying elections or sponsoring the tea party). Then should not corporations also have some requirements or duty of loyalty and patriotism? Have they no shame about that? Should corporate tax-dodgers abroad be able to buy elections here in the country they abandoned?
The tax-cutters and budget-hackers are busy now, wantonly hacking away at services to people, educational and cultural spending, regulation of safety and food supplies, research, food stamps, and other benefits to the poor -- while continuing to give tax breaks to business and the wealthy. Those who prosper most are given more, while the worker class recession victims are required to suffer more.
Have we no shame?
Dr. Edwin E. Vineyard, AKA The Militant Moderate
That was not an easy question to field. Perhaps it would be correct to say, “Apparently not to them.” Or, one might have correctly have said, “Probably not to the majority of their daily readers in Oklahoma.” One might add, “It’s okay with fans that a coach makes 25 times as much as a faculty member.”
Admittedly, there is the shame of misplaced priorities in all that buzz. Misplaced priorities often reside in the same persons as ignorance and misinformation.
Then there was the report of a $120 million contract for a major league baseball player. Initial offerings to sign outstanding prospects for the NFL now run into the multi-millions. And so it goes in the sports world, sort of like Wall Street.
One does hear some complaints about the outrageous ticket prices for major league baseball, and other professional sports. Then there are comments about $10 hot dogs and $9 beer at these events. No longer can the father in the average working family attend these games, much less take his boy to the park.
It does beg the question: “Have they no shame?”
A current controversy on “revenue sharing” between billionaire owners in the NFL and their millionaire players is shameful. Their ticket prices are sky high, and they are gouging those who love the sport. They are also gouging the rest of us who watch on television, because there is a pass-through of added costs to us. The public has little sympathy for either party.
If we had our way we would reduce and cap salaries and regulate what the owners can charge the public. But then, that would be “big government,” wouldn’t it? Well, maybe there is another way. What is it?
But collegiate sports at the top levels are also competing for recognition in the “shame” category. Most of the money to support university sports must come from private sources. Universities manipulate their ticket sales so as to require contributions to purchase tickets, or they may package tickets for certain games in bundles to require purchases for less popular games. They withhold gate sales for empty seats to avoid spoiling their premium deals. Is all that necessary?
In such an environment, students are a liability. They don’t pay much for tickets, but they quickly become discontent if there aren’t at least a certain number of seats kept back for them. But what it was supposed to be all about – student sports?
Yet the “shame game” of misplaced priorities and shady practices is not confined to the sports world. It is easy to find predatory practices and shady dealings in the business world. When university athletics became a business, it inherited such. These often clash with the idealistic purity, but suspected favoritism and shady dealings suspected operant in such regulatory agencies as the NCAA or BCS.
Last week CBS’ 60 Minutes featured the relocation of companies’ headquarters to foreign countries with low tax rates on profits. Switzerland and Ireland were prominently mentioned. Several major companies, considered American, are paying no taxes as a result of this practice, and others are paying little because they are given tax breaks and subsidized by our government. These and others have also moved factories abroad to find cheap labor.
American jobs are being shipped out, foreign goods shipped in, and our tax base and currency are being undermined. Is there no shame in the business world?
Corporations are “citizens,” our republican Supreme Court says, and they have the right to “unlimited free speech” (meaning buying elections or sponsoring the tea party). Then should not corporations also have some requirements or duty of loyalty and patriotism? Have they no shame about that? Should corporate tax-dodgers abroad be able to buy elections here in the country they abandoned?
The tax-cutters and budget-hackers are busy now, wantonly hacking away at services to people, educational and cultural spending, regulation of safety and food supplies, research, food stamps, and other benefits to the poor -- while continuing to give tax breaks to business and the wealthy. Those who prosper most are given more, while the worker class recession victims are required to suffer more.
Have we no shame?
Dr. Edwin E. Vineyard, AKA The Militant Moderate
