Pippin Place

Musings About the Week in Politics

by Jerry Pippin
12:01 a.m. November 6, 2011- Just like a newsman, he dies on a Friday, traditionally a slow news day because people are getting ready for the weekend. Andy Rooney was 92 and has worked for CBS news since World War II. He has seen it all, heard it all and perhaps that was why his why his dry humor earned him a coveted spot on the number news magazine on TV for decades. Fortunately for us, other eyes, the eyes of regular people are catching on to the political tricksters and the banksters. Much of this column will be about the Occupy movement rather than Rooney but really they are the same; the populace needs to take what we are fed from official sources with a grain of salt.

First thing to talk about are the elections- I am wondering when we really have had a fair count of the votes. Jerry McGovern has a good idea- Every U.S. citizen 18 years of age or older who wishes to vote, gets to vote. Period. Those votes, on hand-marked paper ballots, will be counted publicly, by hand, on Election Night, at the precinct, in front of all observers and video cameras.

When the super committee recommends austerity for everyone but the wealthy and militarists that there will be large growth in the Occupy Movement. They need to find a way to get rid of the movement now or see us grow. So Many expect even more stealth type attacks that appear to come form the movement but are actually police, government and corporately inspired and originated.

One of the things that needs to come out of the occupy wall street movement was suggested by Jerry McGovern in Greeneville, South Carolina- Every U.S. citizen 18 years of age or older who wishes to vote, gets to vote. Period. Those votes, on hand-marked paper ballots, will be counted publicly, by hand, on Election Night, at the precinct, in front of all observers and video cameras.

We all know the elections are broken, get rid of the computers and go back to the old fashioned way, lets let the politicians earn their votes not steal them. Then there is for all clauses when we talk about the occupy wall street movement- Education for all? Remember Freedom depends on intelligent choices and at one time everyone had a right to an education or at least we thought we did. Now you only get a good education in the best neighborhoods and college level education only if you have lots of money or go deeply into debt paying back student loans. Then there is the health care issue- should all people be entitled to decent health care--why should it be reserved for only those who can afford to pay lots of money for it? There is a way that is simple and easy - simply expand the Veterans Hospital system to public health care facilities- offering non profit treatments, let the market forces react, they will either compete or go out of business. Medicare for all would be pretty easy to do and think of the amazing amount of money that would go into that system, there would be no danger of it going broke and it probably would even get cheaper because of the younger demographics.

Don't demand public health care but offer it in a serious way and let those who are millionaires because of high medical payments for their services and products simply get real in the market place and offer services at fair profit instead of what we have today.

As far as I can tell, the 99 per cent movement is not asking for handouts, they are asking for jobs. They want military spending brought into perspective. After all we have no warrior nation that is vowing to get the US. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute has some interesting statistics from 2010- US military percentage of GNP is 4.5, Russia has 4.1 and China has only 2.5 per cent spending for military- Israel leads the pack with Israel spending 6.3% ($16,000,000,000). But let's get back to spending is the US- The fact is that the United States spends 42.8% of the entire World's military spending.

But the picture is far worse than just a lot of money being given to the military industrial complex, we seem to have lost our moral compass- The President has had four people killed without any judicial presence. It was by executive order. Now the unthinkable has turned reality- authorities turning on the population- The occupy movement in Oakland saw the police in riot gear shooting tear gas canisters, rubber bullets and concussion grenades at the protesters that were exercising their First Amendment rights. Severe injuries occurred as well all know about the former Marine who was hurt severely with a head injury as a result of hostile action from the Oakland Police.

Scott Olson is still not out of danger and it is still not known if he will have a normal life or be severely injured for life or he might not even survive. This happened to a citizen by the police who are supposed to be protecting citizens from harm not causing the harm.

The major thing in my personal opinion that we need to re install in this country is accountability- the Judicial system and the law enforcement apparatus have morphed into being tools of the rich and powerful and justice for all is scoffed at by those who work every day in this system. They know that money and power is the only thing that counts, but should it be that way? Of course not and we can change it, it is really very simple- make sure voting is accurate and safe and then vote the bums out, and those in the media that give false, inaccurate information on a regular basis, just ignore them and let them go out of business - after all they are not doing the job any more. They are now just ..for the most part..public relations hacks..protecting a system that allowed them to do well and to hell with everyone else..it is all about two things, fairness and opportunity for everyone not just the blessed few.

Robert Reich's Blog: "The biggest question in America these days is how to revive the economy. The biggest question among activists now occupying Wall Street and dozens of other cities is how to strike back against the nation’s almost unprecedented concentration of income, wealth, and political power in the top 1 percent. The two questions are related."

The population is faced with a tragedy created by bankers and politicians in lockstep, allowing and abetting the speculation of real estate to the point that even with the wild crazy schemes of packaging the loans, no one could afford the payments on the principal and the only thing that happened did, real estate crashed and along with it the dashed belief by most mortgage holders that their ticket to wealth was their property which would continue to escalate in value and they could turn that into cash at any time. It was really a folly of the first degree and the commentary on it is not good, either everyone in the financial world is stupid or they knew it was a source of wealth that would one day evaporate and it did. Now FDIC is getting stuck with huge amounts of insured money that was developed originally so that never again would the banks go belly up, this time it might be the government that goes belly up ...and Washington politicians are reacting the way everyone thought they would, not facing real facts and cutting the heart out of what made America a great place to live, Medicare, Medicaid for the poor, and Social Security ultimately will be cut. The Democrats have agreed to it, only thing stopping it is the Republicans won't even raise taxes on the rich..even a little bit. 2012 may or may not be the end of the world as some say, but for sure it looks like 2012 will be the end for many not only here but around the world.

The question should be asked why would the wealthy, the bankers and those who benefited from the madness of speculative economy be without pain and yet the rest of us left to face financial ruin caused by the very people who conned us out of our money to buy over priced cars, houses, and all kinds of products and even worse to invest in securities for a safe and sound future that the sellers knew were phony baloney?

There is other good news out there-

"Occupy Chicago protesters interrupted Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker at a breakfast event Thursday hosted by the Union League Club of Chicago. Progress Illinois estimates that 70 of the breakfast guests were actually protesters, who use the now famous 'people's microphone' to express their dissent to Governor Walker's anti-union policies and to drown out the attempts by the governor to speak over them."

On October 9, a 27 year old Los Angeles woman started a Facebook Page on transferring your money out of Banks. Saturday, November 5 was the day. Was it successful, we probably will never know as the bankers will guard this more than the government guards UFO secrets- we can get an inkling of the dissatisfaction with major banks- the Credit Union Association says they have gained 650,000 new customers in the past four weeks. So I am ending this column on the good news, thanks to the Internet, we can now have movements started by regular people that will succeed over and over again. Don't worry, it is going to be a rough ride but in the end, we the regular people have the upper hand- after all the greedy, the fraud masters are rich because they have taken our money.