Currently Highway to Hell By AC, DC Highway to Hell see related

Highway From Hell?

       The Sunday afternoon drive....the slow, leisurely, sightseeing drive...............taking the long way home!.........Does anybody ever really take the leisurely drive going to/from a place, nowadays? LOL! Thanx to the wonderful system of Interstate Highways, it is easy to get to one's destination in the most efficient and least amount of  time.....Might not one wonder if the Nation's 'Energy-Grid' should be as efficient and supply energy as quickly as the Interstate Highway System provides mobile travel?

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     BusterBrowne was thrilled to death to be driving with TheFlowerDoctor in his truck!........even at 70mph as the scenery quickly blurred into illusions......BB couldn't help  but notice that everywhere they traveled he saw wire lines in the horizon and was very puzzled. "FlowerDoctor, from the time we left the house, through the city, suburbs, countryside, farm fields and now even through the woods; why are all those wire lines everywhere we go?" TheFlowerDoctor was jamming to the sounds of Carlos Santana on the radio and wasn't really paying much attention to BB......."You've got to change your evil ways... Baby, before I stop loving you. You've got to change... baby. And every word that I say, it's true.... You've got me running and hiding all over town. You’ve got me sneaking and peeping and running you down....This can't go on...Lord knows you got to change... baby." After a very loud "Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!"  

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       TheFlowerDoctor turned to BB and apologized, "I am sorry, BB; you were saying something about the overhead wires? Well, those are the electrical wires that power America! And I am afraid to say the system is old and antiquated." BusterBrowne was shaking his head, "But, they are everywhere and they are so ugly!" TheFlowerDoctor turned the radio down and reminded BB, "If you think it looks bad now, remember that in the late 1800's, the electrical system was nothing but a menagerie of wires and lines everywhere. In  the early days of commercial use of electric power, transmission of electric power at the same voltage as used by lighting and mechanical loads restricted the distance  between generating plant and consumers..... In 1882 generation was with direct current, which could not easily be increased in voltage for long-distance transmission.  Different classes of loads – for example, lighting, fixed motors and traction (railway) systems – required different voltages, and so used different generators and circuits. Due  to this specialization of lines and because transmission was so inefficient that generators needed to be close by their loads, it seemed at the time that the industry would  develop into what is now known as a distributed generation system with large numbers of small generators located nearby their loads. The rapid industrialization in the 20th century made electrical transmission lines and grids a critical part of the economic infrastructure in most industrialized nations. Interconnection of local generation plants and small distribution networks was greatly spurred by the requirements of World War I, where large electrical generating plants were built by governments to provide power to munitions factories; later these plants were connected to supply civil load through long-distance transmission."

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      BusterBrowne's eyes were now following a flock of geese heading north and wondered out loud, "Well, if it is old, balkanized and too limited in its reach and needs an upgrade; why is it taking so long?" TheFlowerDoctor was equally frustrated, "It seems as if nobody wants to pay the enormous costs of restructuring the old system and the current grid is a series of independently operating regional grids – it can’t meet the needs of a nation whose economy would benefit substantially from the system optimization that comes with national interconnection. As evidenced by the absence of major transmission projects undertaken in North America over the past 10 to 15 years, utilities have found ways to increase the utilization of their existing facilities to meet increasing demands without adding significant high-voltage equipment. Without intervention, this trend is likely to continue. Pushing the system harder will undoubtedly increase reliability challenges. Special protection schemes may be relied on more to deal with particular challenges, but the system still will be less able to withstand unexpected contingencies. A smaller transmission margin for reliability makes the preservation of system reliability a harder job than it used to be. The system is being operated closer to the edge of reliability than it was just a few years ago. If nothing else changed, one could expect an increased frequency of large-scale events as compared to historical experience. One needs only to remember, (1) Northeast blackout on  November 9, 1965; (2) New York City blackout on July 13, 1977; (3) West Coast blackout on December 22, 1982; (4) West Coast blackout on July 2-3, 1996; (5) West  Coast blackout on August 10, 1996; (6) Ontario and U.S. North Central blackout on June 25, 1998; and (7) Northeast outages and disturbances in the summer of 1999....Its limitations and vulnerability to failure are also reported to cost the nation $80 billion to $188 billion per year in losses due to grid-related power outages and power  quality issues. And most critical to clean energy development, areas rich in renewable resources like solar, wind and geothermal are currently not well-served and thus have no ‘highway’ available to move power outputs to the markets where that power is needed."

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      MOONFLOWER chides in: "The key elements to grid modernization and expansion under the Repower America plan:

-----Combination of the best of high voltage AC & DC power lines: Using advanced, high voltage lines, we can efficiently move electricity across vast geographic distances with minimal losses and less vulnerability to failure. These power lines can be above ground, buried underground, under freeway medians – there are many options. Where new siting is required, it should minimize or mitigate impacts on sensitive wildlife habitats, ecosystems, and other natural resources.

-----Advanced Monitoring and Control: A unified national smart grid includes modern energy management tools that ensure the system operates smoothly. For example, smart-grid operators can capitalize on a wind power plant with ample wind in the Dakotas when they expect rising air conditioning use on a hot day in Miami. Or hydropower storage can be quickly dispatched if winds are expected to temporarily subside.

-----Demand Response and Management: A unified national smart grid will facilitate greater control of energy use by customers. That means utilities provide more information to businesses and individuals who can see their energy costs in real-time and make choices to lower their bills by adjusting their activities. This means less stress on the grid and lower electricity bills.

-----Time Zone Capitalization: Demand for electricity follows relatively predictable patterns throughout the day. With a unified national grid, energy can be dispatched and transmitted to meet demand across the country’s time zones. That means early evening winds off the Delaware coast could help power the grid to support air conditioning in California grocery stores on summer afternoons.

-----Broad geographic distribution of wind and solar – instantaneous and seasonal stabilization: A national grid, supported with storage technologies, helps to mitigate the intermittency of renewable energy sources like wind and solar PV. If the wind speeds decline in Pennsylvania, wind power is likely to still be available elsewhere, for example in Kansas or California. Seasonally, long days of sun in the summer and exceptionally strong winter wind in some regions complement each resource’s strengths.

-----Meters that spin both ways: A unified national smart grid not only provides power, it accepts power. It is analogous to uploads and downloads from the Internet. With a unified national smart grid, homes and businesses with solar panels on their roofs can act as a small utility company when they have surplus power, meaning they can sell it back into the system. And with plug-in vehicles in the near future, even stored energy in the cars’ batteries can be sold to the grid at optimal times when the price is high  and recharged when the price is low.

-----Energy Storage: A unified national smart grid must also include energy storage. This means a combination of central and distributed storage technologies, such as thermal (e.g. working fluids in solar thermal plants), chemical (e.g. batteries, hydrogen), mechanical (e.g. compressed air, hydropower), plug-in cars, or other storage media.  Some of these technologies are proven and have been in place for decades while others will enter the market at scale in the near-future, especially with policies in place that encourage commercialization."

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     The wonderful Sunday, slow, leisurely, sightseeing drive.....taking the long way home! BusterBrowne was enjoying every minute hanging out with FD and even had an inspiration! "Hey, FlowerDoctor; how about another tune! Let's listen to AC/DC and that song about the 'Energy Grid to Hell'!" TheFlowerDoctor burst out in laughter! "You are way too funny, BB! You mean, 'Highway to Hell'? And, YES! We can listen to the song if I can continue with our conversation." BB wasn't sure about the trade-off; but, wanted to rock n' roll.....FD continued "This country needs to modernize and expand the infrastructure for moving electricity from where it is generated to where it is needed through a unified national smart grid. Make that grid ‘smart’ so that it can monitor and balance the load, accommodate distributed energy from local areas and, in the near future, capitalize on a massive national fleet of clean plug-in cars. This new grid encompasses both the long-distance, high-voltage transmission lines and the lower voltage distribution systems that connect the power to customers. Updating our grid with advanced transmission will save money, increase reliability and protect consumers from outages, and make possible a clean electricity system. It will move renewable power from where it is generated to wherever it’s needed, whenever it’s needed. Just like the interstate highway system and railroads before it, investing in modernization of the grid will create thousands of jobs for American workers. A unified national smart grid will form the backbone and the entire skeleton of our modern electricity system, allowing us to efficiently carry large amounts of electricity over long distances in a network that is resistant to failure. It will allow us to connect solar power in Arizona with manufacturing centers in Ohio or allow us to use evening wind power on the East Coast to support late afternoon peak demand in Nevada."

     BusterBrowne and TheFlowerDoctor were jamming away....."No stop signs, speed limit, nobody’s gonna slow me down, Like a wheel, gonna spin it, Nobody’s gonna mess me round"....as they both loudly belted out: "I'm on a Highway to Hell"....BB, in an unusual fleeting moment of glee even told FD to continue with his story.  TheFlowerDoctor was more than eager to oblige, "The thing is BB; a unified national smart grid will also make it possible for households and businesses to manage electricity costs in real-time and sell electricity back to the grid from power generated at their homes or stored in their plug-in vehicles - a smart meter can spin both ways.     A 'smart grid' could integrate traditional and new energy sources and lead to greater efficiency. While the years to come will feature more of these power sources, one of the most potent weapons in the green energy arsenal is actually remarkably prosaic: efficiency. According to research sponsored by the U.S. Government, improving the efficiency of the national electricity grid by 5 percent would be the equivalent of eliminating the fuel use and carbon emissions of 53 million cars. For years environmentalists have been talking up the idea of a 'smart grid' -- an electricity distribution system that uses digital technology to eliminate waste and improve reliability -- as a way of achieving this. Advocates of a 'smart grid' also say that it would open up new markets for large and small scale alternative energy producers by decentralizing generation. It would give consumers the potential to have a much more complex relationship with their energy supplier, essentially, with a smart grid, traffic goes both ways. If you wanted to install some kind of micro-generation facility in your home, you could use it to sell to the grid and get money back. Using smart grid technology, your future home would be as likely to be powered by electricity from a neighbor's roof-top solar panel, or a biomass generator on the edge of town, as from a traditional power plant 50 or 100 miles away. Such a scheme would also use 'smart meters' to help consumers reduce their consumption by providing efficiency advice, as well as real-time price information and  even coordinating household devices to take advantage of cheaper, off-peak, power. With a 'smart meter' one wouldn't have to worry about those decisions, it would all be automated. Most of the technology exists to do this now. The issue is doing everything at a large enough scale, at an affordable price. It's a deployment issue."

     STARGAZER...........................thought........................................pondered...............................and finally replied: "Only through the national actions and global  cooperation... will the world sustain its economic recovery by addressing the imminent challenges posed by climate change, energy insecurity, growing freshwater scarcity,  deteriorating ecosystems, and above all, worsening global poverty."

Currently Screwed: The Undeclared War Against the Middle Class By Thom Hartmann see related

A 'DAY OF RECKONING for the DINOSAUR'

FD was a little upset at BB, "We always talk about how the neocons have their own agenda and would love to get rid of the middle class...Republican-linked  'think tanks' (really, neoconic ideology -tanks would be a better name) have been busy propagandizing on this issue by asserting that the automakers are handicapped by one problem--overpaid workers.....The problem is that managers and investors have been short on vision for the future for years, while sucking the lifeblood out of corporations like the Big 3 and refusing to fund upfront the pension promises they make, and then forcing concession after concession whenever the hard times hit (while  managers still get their fat cat bonuses and jet-pack perks). The union has at least won decent wages and benefits for auto workers--too bad workers across the rest of the country are fed constant misinformation (and intimidation) about unions by the walmartization of the economy (big corps can rake in profits and avoid taxes by whatever means, including the 'off-stating' state income tax shelter version of the federal income tax off shoring scam, but workers are encouraged to depend on the state for their health coverage). So people on the street are saying--why help those auto companies when their workers are getting too high wages, as much as $75 an hour? But it just isn’t true!" 

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     MOONFLOWER chides in: "For the record, the average wage of the unionized workers is $29 an hour (and that will go down for any new hires, which will after recent concessions come in at lower pay scales). That figure is derived from what the auto companies’ pay in wages, health, retirement and other benefits, and includes the cost of providing benefits to retirees. A report from the conservative Heritage Foundation, opposing the auto industry bailout, said that members of the United Auto Workers union 'earn $75 an hour in wages and benefits – almost triple the earnings of the average private sector worker.' Later in the report, it's phrased this way: 'The vast majority of UAW workers in Detroit today still earn $75 an hour.'

     The automakers say that the average wage earned by its unionized workers is about $29 per hour. So how does that climb to more than $70? Add in benefits: life insurance, health care, pension and so on. But not just the benefits that the current workers actually receive – after all, it's pretty rare for the value of a benefits package to  add up to more than wages paid, even with a really, really good health plan in place. What's causing the number to balloon is the cost of providing benefits to tens of thousands of retired auto workers and their surviving spouses. The automakers arrived at the $70+ figure by adding up all the costs associated with providing wages and benefits to current and retired workers and dividing the total by the number of hours worked by current employees. Labor Costs Aren't the Same as Wages Earned.

   --- The result is the per-hour labor cost to the automakers, which is very different from pay or wages or even wages and benefits earned by their workers. The average GM, Ford and Chrysler worker receives compensation – wages, bonuses, overtime and paid time off – of about $40 an hour. Add in benefits such as health insurance and pensions and you get to about $55. Another $15 or so in benefits to retirees (known as 'legacy costs' - retirement costs) brings the number to roughly $70.

   --- That last figure accounts for the biggest difference between labor costs of the Big Two and a Half and those of the 'transplants', as foreign carmakers with manufacturing facilities on U.S. soil are called. Ford, in material it submitted to Congress for hearings this month, estimated the 'transplants' legacy costs at about $3 per hour, a number  that has less to do with the level of benefits paid than it does with the fact that the transplants don't have many retirees yet!

   --- The Ford chart also estimates that, as a result of a historic 2007 labor agreement with the UAW, the legacy costs of the U.S. automakers are expected to fall – to about $3 per hour. That's because the deal calls for a new voluntary employee beneficiary association (or VEBA), a seldom-used 100-year-old tax loophole. A VEBA is a tax- exempt trust that can be used to fund almost any sort of employee benefit, but they are most commonly used to pay for health care expenses.

    --- In an innovative twist, the UAW and Detroit negotiated a VEBA to cover the health care expenses of retired autoworkers. Under the terms of the agreement, GM, Ford and Chrysler were to contribute $30 billion, $13 billion and $9 billion, respectively, to a trust fund to be managed by the union. The UAW would then use the income from the VEBA to cover retiree medical expenses. The agreement would protect retirees’ health care benefits in the event of company bankruptcy, while allowing the automakers to shed the bulk of their legacy costs.

    --- When the new agreement is fully implemented, which should happen in 2010, the U.S. automakers would still bear labor costs of about $9 per hour more than Toyota, but that’s far better than the current gap. The 2007 agreement also calls for a new two-tier wage structure and other concessions from workers."  

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      BusterBrowne was notorious for making tradeoffs, especially when it came to his meals! "Well, if the union workers have already made major concessions and they are not making $70/hour than what is the big deal? Why won't the Senate try to help them out?" TheFlowerDoctor, having followed the negotiations very intensively and having written many a blog about the lack of mid and long range planning on the Big 3's agenda (big SUV's, big trucks, low gas mileage and demising oil resources) was thinking out loud, "It is puzzling, BB; the auto workers are producers and they produce anything that management tells them to produce very efficiently. If they are asked to produce tanks and jeeps for wartime, they do! If they are asked to produce energy inefficient SUV's and monster trucks, they do! If they were asked to produce only cars and mass transit that reduce our dependency on oil, they would! If they were asked to produce cars that reduce global warming and to comply with our nation's environmental laws, they would! And if they were asked as a condition to receive the loan on the condition that the management team which drove these once-great manufacturers into the ground resign and be replaced with a team who understands the transportation needs of the 21st century....they would! But instead, the Senate said, we'll give you the loan only if the factory workers take a $20 an hour cut in wages, pension and health care. After giving BILLIONS to Wall Street hucksters and criminal investment bankers -- billions with no strings attached and, as we have since learned, no oversight whatsoever -- the Senate decided it is more important to BREAK a UNION, and more important to throw middle class wage earners into the ranks of the working poor than to prevent the total collapse of industrial America."

 

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     In a recent poll completed by Gallup, in the United States, in 2008, 59% approved of labor unions while 31% disapproved and 10% did not have an opinion. The Republican solution? Republicans are demanding the equivalent of Chapter 11 bankruptcy as a condition -- creditors (The extended auto business and how will they pay their workers? guess what? They WON'T) must accept 33 cents on the dollar they're owed, and workers must accept wages and benefits that match those of American workers in foreign-owned auto plants. Southern Republican are not particularly enamored with the UAW, which has steadfastly bankrolled Democrats who have taken on Republicans. But Republicans also know that the Big Three and their suppliers are spread out over the battle-ground states of Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, and Minnesota. Republicans don't dare give up these states or alienate their citizens At least two Republican senators support the automaker bailout — George Voinovich(R) of Ohio and Kit Bond(R) of Missouri............... Japanese, Korean, and German automakers are now building 18 auto assembly plants in the United States, none of which is unionized. Kentucky (Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell) already has Toyota's biggest auto assembly plant outside Japan. Tennessee (Senate Rep. Bob Corker(R), who came up with the 'chapter 11' bailout amendment) houses Nissan's North American headquarters. Corker's compromise -- which would force the UAW to match the wages of foreign, mostly non-unionized autoworkers in the South -- would essentially make the UAW irrelevant. Alabama (Senate Rep. Richard Shelby (R)) hosts MercedezBenz and several other foreign automakers. So there's no reason to suppose the good citizens of Kentucky, Tennessee, or Alabama are particularly excited at the prospect of handing over their taxpayer money to competing firms and their workforces....these foreign companies are subsidized by these southern states (yes, in the form of tax shelters and incentives) and the profits go OVERSEAS! More Brilliant Southern strategy! 

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Currently Reading The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States By Alexander Keyssar see related

Who Owns YOUR Right to Vote?

     According to our general understanding of the right of universal suffrage, I have no objection……. but if it be the intention of the mover of the resolution to extend the right of suffrage (voting) to females and Negroes, I am against it. "All free white males over the age of twenty-one years," — I understand this language to be the measure of universal suffrage.........Delegate to the Indiana Constitutional Convention (1850)

     "Once a people begins to interfere with the voting qualification, one can be sure that sooner or later it will abolish it altogether. That is one of the most invariable rules of social behavior. The further the limit of voting rights is extended, the stronger is the need felt to spread them still wider, for after each new concession the forces of democracy are strengthened, and its demands increase with the augmented power. The ambition of those left below the qualifying limit increases in proportion to the number of those above it. Finally the exception becomes the rule; concessions follow one another without interruption, and there is no halting place until universal suffrage has been attained".....Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (1835)

     When the polls open on Election Day, every citizen over the age of 18 will be able to cast a vote. It is a right we take for granted, one that defines our nation as a democracy. But universal suffrage — letting everyone vote — did not appear overnight with the ratification of our Constitution. Two hundred years ago, you had to be white, male, and wealthy in order to vote, it would be a mistake, however, to view the expansion of the suffrage as either inevitable or peaceful. Although colonial Americans certainly believed in a free ballot, they also believed that the ballot ought to be restricted to men of property, whose wealth gave them a greater understanding of the needs of the society. The history of this franchise, although essential to the workings of democracy and the protection of individual rights, is a story of constant conflict.

     BusterBrowne was somewhat puzzled..."Hey, FlowerDoctor; I am not allowed to vote and I am certainly not as dumb as women and minorities. Why should dumb people be allowed to vote?" TheFlowerDoctor was just finishing his coffee and pancake breakfast and almost started choking, "Didn't Abraham Lincoln best describe democracy as 'government of the people, by the people, and for the people', If a government is to be 'by the people', it requires that the PEOPLE decide who shall be their leaders. Without free and fair elections, there can be no democratic society. The right to vote, therefore, is not only an important individual liberty; it is also a foundation stone of free government." BB was being very persistent "Yeah! What about those people in Harlem, NY; who didn't even know who was running and were confusing the issues? And what about this communist ACORN group...How can Mickey Mouse and the Dallas Cowboys vote and not me?" TheFlowerDoctor washed down his last pancake with a glass of orange juice and looked BB in the eyes..."During the last presidential debate the GOP presidential candidate said that ACORN was 'on the verge of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy.' .........Very serious charges!....Hmmmmmm! But the group, along with major news organizations, contends that in many states, laws require the submission of the registration forms — faulty or not. So, if the group is required to turn in the forms regardless, why the accusations? To understand why ACORN is getting so much flak, it’s important to understand how the group works. More than 13,000 individuals, employed by the organization, went out and collected voter registration forms, according to Acorns’ website. It’s likely that a few of these individuals falsified the forms now in question; in 2007, canvassers working for ACORN in Missouri and Washington state admitted falsifying voter registrations. But ACORN also says it hired anywhere from two to 20 employees per office to comb over the piles of forms for fraudulent submissions. Instead of discarding these forms (a policy that seems like it might save them legal troubles), the group flags them as problematic, fires the employee responsible, has a supervisor hand the forms in anyway, and encourages the state to prosecute the wayward ex-employee. ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, is a community-based organization that advocates for low and moderate-income families by working on neighborhood safety, voter registration, health care, affordable housing, and other social issues. ACORN has over 350,000 members and more than 850 neighborhood chapters in over 100 cities across the United States, as well as in Argentina, Canada, Mexico, and Peru. ACORN was founded in 1970. Acorns’ priorities have included: better housing and wages for the poor, more community development investment from banks and governments, and better public schools. ACORN pursues these goals through demonstration, negotiation, legislation, and voter participation....nobody is holding a gun to a newly registered voter to vote for a particular candidate...Now, BB; in my best Gomer Pyle imitation.....Surprise! Surprise! Surprise! That they would vote Democratic!" 

     MOONFLOWER chides in: "At a 1980 training session for 15,000 conservative preachers in Dallas — Radical Right Wing strategist Paul Weyrich proclaimed 'I don't want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of the people. They never have been from the beginning of our country and they are not now. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.'  There are two ways to win an election. One is to get a majority of voters to support you. The other is to prevent voters who oppose you from casting their votes. In the 27 years since Paul Weyrich's astonishingly candid admission, the radical right wing in America has developed an array of subtle and overt methods to suppress voter registration and turnout. The methods are targeted to constituencies most likely to oppose right-wing causes and candidates: low-income families, minorities, senior citizens and citizens for whom English is a second language.

Occasionally, attempts at voter suppression are illegal dirty tricks, such as the phone-jamming scheme carried out by Republican operatives against a Democratic phone bank in New Hampshire in 2004. Some voter suppression is unintentional, the result of applying or misapplying changes in voting laws. However, voter suppression today is overwhelmingly achieved through regulatory, legislative and administrative means, resulting in modern-day equivalents of poll taxes and literacy tests that kept Black voters from the ballot box in the Jim Crow era.

Couched in feel-good phrases such as 'voter security' and 'anti-voter fraud,' these measures limit voter registration, turn voters away from polling places, and cast doubt on the validity of ballots.  For example, stringent voter ID rules that require photo ID at the polls sound reasonable, until the estimated up to 12 percent of eligible voters who do not have a driver’s license are figured in. And while 'anti-fraud' measures sound good, in truth there is little evidence of organized voter fraud anywhere in the nation, while voter suppression tactics are varied and widespread:

---In Ohio, Secretary of State Ken Blackwell has implemented rules to carry out a new state elections law. Blackwell’s rules make it extremely difficult for small churches and other nonprofit organizations to hire and train voter registration workers—and they expose voter registration workers to felony charges for making mistakes.

---In Texas, Congressman John Carter has suggested implementing literacy tests and English-only ballots, despite the existence of a federal law requiring minority language ballots at the polls.

---In Florida in 2004, Governor Jeb Bush was forced to deactivate a list of purported felons who were to be blocked from voting when the news media discovered that the list included Black, but not Hispanic, voters and that many people on the list were actually eligible voters.

---In California this year, nonsensical requirements for matching new voter names to existing state databases (e.g., a 'Michael R. Neuman' would not match a 'Mike R. Neuman' at the same address) resulted in numerous voter registrations being rejected. Between January and June, 26,824 voter registration forms received by Los Angeles County alone were rejected because of these new restrictions.

---In New Mexico, the number of 'provisional ballots', which are mandated under new federal voting rules that went uncounted, exceeded the margin of victory in the presidential race in 2004.

---In Indiana, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Arizona, since the 2002 passage of the federal Help America Vote Act, state legislatures have passed new voter identification rules that would disenfranchise thousands of elderly and poor voters who do not have drivers' licenses or passports. Some of these measures have been blocked, but others are now in effect.

---In Ohio in 2004, precincts in predominantly low-income and minority neighborhoods were chronically understaffed and had fewer voting machines than higher-income precincts, resulting in long lines and uncounted numbers of voters leaving the polls before they had a chance to cast a vote.

The Radical Right strategy of turning out base supporters while suppressing the votes of its opponents has often been successful. Legislatures controlled by far-right conservatives now determine the voting laws and how redistricting is conducted in many states. Governors, secretaries of state, and other election officials, supported by the Radical Right, now administer many states’ elections. This report, by no means comprehensive, provides a brief overview of various suppression techniques so that citizens, community activists and the news media can recognize similar attempts as patterns of voter suppression emerge across the country.

     TheFlowerDoctor could sense that Buster Browne was still extremely confused, "Throughout American history people of the so-called better sort have feared mob rule; it is a theme that runs throughout the writings of the Founding generation. In different form today we find a version of it among those who would 'purify' the electoral process. Efforts to making voting registration easier, for example, are often attacked as inviting corruption into the process. The relaxation of literacy standards and the expansion of voting rights to citizens who do not speak or read English is hailed by some as a victory of democracy and attacked by others who fear that people with little knowledge of the issues can be manipulated by demagogues.......Yet the curious fact remains that for all that we have expanded the franchise, the percentage of Americans who vote in presidential and other elections is one of the lowest among industrialized nations. In the 2000 presidential campaign, for example, less than 50 percent of the eligible voters cast their ballots. Scholars differ on why this decline in voting has occurred from the high point of the late 19th century, when voting rates regularly ran at 85 percent or better of qualified voters. Some historians attribute the decline to the corresponding decline in the importance of political parties in the daily lives of the people. Others think that the growth of well-moneyed interest groups has led people to lose interest in elections fought primarily through television and newspaper advertisements. When non-voters are queried as to why they did not vote the answers range widely. There are those who did not think that their single vote would make a difference, and those who did not believe that the issues affected them, as well as those who just did not care — a sad commentary in light of the long historical movement toward universal suffrage in the United States."

     BusterBrowne was pacing the floor and seemed more on edge, more unsure of his earlier comments and in his usual manner to try and break the tension announced "Even if I can't vote in this election, I have a voice and a human right that can be heard in this house, FD;......and I VOTE FOR DINNER!" TheFlowerDoctor having just finished breakfast was thinking that BB was on the fast track...."Just remember, BB; the vote is a human right. It is seen as an American right. In a democracy there is nothing more fundamental than having the right to vote. There is a 'Voting Rights Act' and yet the right to vote is STILL NOT a fundamental right in our Constitution. The individual citizen has no federal constitutional right to vote for electors for the President of the United States unless and until the state legislature chooses a statewide election as the means to implement its power to appoint members of the Electoral College. Our voting system's foundation is built on the sand of states' rights and local control. We have fifty states, 3,141 counties and 7,800 different local election jurisdictions. All separate and unequal. The importance of the Voting Rights Act cannot be underestimated, not only for its success in getting Women, African-Americans, and other minority American citizens the ballot, but also because it effectively nationalized much of the right to vote. In a federal system, many functions of government are carried out by the states, functions that in other countries are managed by the national government. As noted above, voting was, and for the most part still is, controlled by state law. Until 1870, all requirements for voting were established by the states; in that year the Fifteenth Amendment supposedly precluded the states from denying the vote because of race. In subsequent amendments, the ballot was extended to women and to 18-year-olds, and the poll tax abolished. The Voting Rights Act went further, and in states with a clear pattern of discrimination, federal registrars took over the apparatus of registration and voting, ensuring that minorities would not be stopped from casting their votes. Some states still remain limited by the terms of this 1965 law, although day-to-day operation of the election machinery has for the most part been restored to state control. But while states still run the elections, they must now do so in the light of national standards and procedures.

     STARGAZER................thought............................pondered..............and finally replied: "Today a man owns a jackass worth fifty dollars and he is entitled to vote; but before the next election the jackass dies. The man in the meantime has become more experienced, his knowledge of the principles of government, and his acquaintance with mankind, are more extensive, and he is therefore better qualified to make a proper selection of rulers — but the jackass is dead and the man cannot vote. Now gentlemen, pray inform me, in whom is the right of suffrage? In the man or in the jackass?"

                               

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Currently Reading Obamanomics: How Bottom-Up Economic Prosperity Will Replace Trickle-Down Economics By John R. Talbott see related

Trickle Down? OR Bottom UP!!!

      Remember the 'good old days'?....You know, when the cost of gasoline would go up (inexplicably) and we would wait a few days or so and the price would go back down with some vague/whiney explanation from the oil companies that there was a 'flare up at a refinery in Texas, a gasoline tanker had a flat tire, two Nigerian guys had a argument in a jungle, someone spilled some gasoline out of their lawnmower, the dollar fell'....WHATEVER! Now at least the oil companies are being more upfront..... TheFlowerDoctor was informed on Monday to fill up his gas tank 5 days before Hurricane Ike would make landfall in Texas as gas would surely go up! Sure enough, true to their word; TheFlowerDoctor had just filled up his gas tank at 8:00pm, Friday night on his way to the grocery store.....Just one hour later as his passed the gas station on his way home, FD noticed that the gas that he had just paid $3.97/gallon was now $4.37/gallon!............NEWSFLASH! The gasoline was already THERE! The hundreds of gasoline trucks were already filled with refined gas and out on the road! Why did gas go up to $5.50/gallon in Kentucky and $4.50/gallon in Florida? The refined gas facilities were bulging with gas (one would think)...so how does the costs of the closing of the refineries due to Hurricane Ike get passed on to the consumer so fast???  

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     BusterBrowne, as usual; was quietly napping on the back porch. Upon hearing FD come in the house with a few bags of groceries; he yawned, stretched and casually asked what was for dinner! TheFlowerDoctor was thinking about the $65.00 that he just put into his gas tank and was looking at the grocery bill. "You know, BB; with the cost of living going up and our declining wages, our purchasing power ain't what it use to be! You may have to go out and find a job." BusterBrowne was somewhat startled "You know that I am handicapped and semi-retired and besides; didn't John McCain just assure us that the economy was very sound?" FD just shook his head and sighed, "I don't think that the 'old school' (Ronald Reagan) 'Trickle Down economics' is working out very well, unless of course; you consider the use of $700 billion of our tax dollars for bailing out Failing corporations as a part of the 'trickle down theory' " BB was obviously flustered, "You know I wasn't even born yet! I don't know anything about this Bedtime for Bonzo guy! What the heck is Tickle Down economics?" TheFlowerDoctor was rolling on the floor with laughter, "Not, tickle down...Trickle-down economics is the economic-political argument that the increases in the wealth of the rich are good for the poor because some of such additional wealth will eventually trickle down to the middle class and to the poor. The theory states that if the top income earners invest more into the business infrastructure and equity markets, it will in turn lead to more goods at lower prices, and create more jobs for middle and lower class individuals....Welcome to Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania...The jobs disappear overseas, unemployment continues to rise, the cities rot, the infrastructure decays, the small towns are falling apart, the rate of high school dropouts and teen pregnancies continue to rise, poverty increases, the middle class is dwindling, gasoline and consumer goods continue to rise, healthcare is unaffordable, the poor get poorer and yet???... We continue to believe and wait for the corporations and the wealthy to trickle down on us a little bit?...That my friend is the best kept joke of the 21st century!"   

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     BusterBrowne was very puzzled, "So what was the point of this 'tickle down' economics and why isn't it working? TheFlowerDoctor laughed very loudly this time "As Ronald Reagan would say 'there ya go again, BB'.....it's TRICKLE-DOWN economics!..Today 'trickle-down economics' is most closely identified with the economic policies known as Reaganomics or supply-side economics. Originally, there was a great deal of support for tax reform; Reagan repeatedly cut taxes overall by modest amounts, but dramatically changed the income tax system, cutting the marginal tax rates on the highest-income tax bracket of joint-filed couples from 70% to 28%. In order to spur business, Bill Clinton lowered taxes for the wealthiest percentile by 2.6%. In the early days of 2001 George W. Bush lowered taxes again for the wealthy by 4%. To this day, the capital gains tax rate is currently an all-time low at 15%. A major feature of these policies was the reduction of tax rates on capital gains, corporate income, and higher individual incomes, along with the reduction or elimination of various excise taxes....One of the major flaws in this policy was that it did absolutely nothing about loopholes and tax shelters (private sector and public sector) and that very substantial and relevant taxes are thus evaded." 

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     MOONFLOWER chides in: Whoever the next president is in January will face a record number of economic problems. Barack Obama, who has just begun a 17-day tour of the U.S. to promote his detailed economic program, would be well advised to keep his economic message simple and easily understandable:

 

1. Make America Financially Stronger

 

Bill Clinton and Bob Rubin were able to turn around a country in deficit and leave George W. Bush with a $236 billion annual operating surplus in 2000. Bush has turned that annual budget surplus into a forecasted deficit of nearly $396 billion for 2008 and has doubled the country's total debt to over $10 trillion. Obama is against John McCain's plan to extend the Bush tax cuts to the wealthiest 10% of the country, a plan that under Bush meant a $2 trillion windfall to the wealthiest of Americans. Obama has said that all of his programs must be revenue neutral, that is they must all be paid for in advance, and that it is a priority of his administration to return the country's financial position to one of strength and stability. As a result, the U.S. dollar should strengthen considerably under an Obama administration as government deficits are often funded with newly printed money, the primary cause of inflation and currency weakness.

 

2. Return Stability to Global Banking System

 

The country came closer than many people realized to a full fledged financial collapse this winter as many U.S. investment banks and commercial banks could not have continued in operation without hundreds of billions of loans from the federal government. The eighth-largest bank in England had a run on its deposits and was taken over by the Bank of England. What was the primary cause of the mortgage and housing meltdown? The financial industry lobbied our government to remove most regulation of their operations and then proceeded to lend crazy amounts of money to buy homes at even crazier price levels. Obama has told Wall Street that the gig is up, that the days of no regulation are over. His plan will require government supervision of hedge funds, banks, and investment banks; he will stop predatory lending; he will increase capital and margin requirements to take damaging debt leverage out of the system; and he will demand that banks and corporations become much more transparent and accountable in their reporting and in their operations.

 

       

3. End Corporate Lobbying

 

Name a problem in America and there is a corporate lobbying effort fighting against any needed reform. Healthcare costs -- the HMO lobby, the housing crash -- the mortgage banking lobby, high food and commodity prices -- hedge fund lobbyists, the global financial crisis -- Wall Street and commercial banking lobbyists, high oil prices -- energy company lobbyists, global warming -- the coal lobby, and unaffordable high drug prices -- the pharmaceutical lobby. Obama has not taken any money from corporate interests or lobbyists and is making it a priority of his administration to end corporate lobbying in Washington. Will all of our problems be solved if we get rid of lobbyists? Maybe not, but at least we can then have an intelligent discussion about possible solutions to our most pressing problems in which our elected representatives work to help average Americans instead of to enrich corporate America.  

4. Say No to Vested Interests                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          Wouldn't it be great to see government agencies and Cabinet posts staffed by people who took their duties seriously. A Department of Labor that didn't support union-busting, for example. Or an Environmental Protection Agency dedicated to protecting the environment, rather than corporate pollution privileges. Appointing regulatory department heads who were not former lobbyists for the industry that they have vested interests in. Allow the regulators to actually regulate and back them up with the proper law enforcement channels to enforce the rules and regulations. Such a change may be revolutionary, but; is it wise to allow the fox to watch over the chicken coup?                     

 

         

5. Provide Economic Opportunity to All

 

Obama believes that a country cannot be prosperous and grow unless all of its citizens are engaged and working. People have to know that hard work and education will be rewarded. They have to believe that their government is looking out for their best interests. Obama's plan to improve economic opportunity for all. He wants to maintain an inheritance tax on our wealthiest citizens that others have fought to end, he wishes to introduce universal preschool education to give poorer children the same opportunities at early learning as their richer classmates, he wants to improve our public education system and encourage college education for all, and he wants to make sure that all artificial barriers to personal advancement are eliminated in the workplace. Obama wants to return America to a time when hard work was rewarded by increasing the minimum wage, providing health care benefits to all, not just the healthy and wealthy, extending unemployment benefits to the needy, reducing unemployment by creating new job opportunities and by strengthening the foundation of our retirement programs so no elderly person has to worry about making the rent payment ever again. 

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TheFlowerDoctor thought about a statistic that he recently read "Do you know that the lower/middle class gains from the 1960's through 90’s were replaced by a drop in union work from 35% to about 9% in the last 7-8 years? Here is the typical 'Economics 101' argument: Let's suppose we had a $10 minimum wage. Making labor more expensive makes substitutes for that labor cheaper. Now labor is too expensive and evil, and cheaper technology is on its way to replace you. Business owners can afford less labor at higher prices, and one of two things will happen. People will be laid off and/or prices of consumer goods will rise. A single mother may be better able to support her child on $10/hour, but she's better off making her current wage than none at all.....OUCH! The constant small business/big business/corporate threat! Certainly with that mindset will we welcome going back to the days of serfdom and kingdoms!!! Reagan put deregulated markets at the center of the political and economic agenda. Obama wants 'economic justice' to be the guiding light. Reagan said markets work best. Obama preaches fairness. Since Reagan's election, wealth has become extraordinarily concentrated among the top 1 percent of the country, and the social safety net has been progressively dismantled. Obama promises to reverse that tide."

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Currently Listening The Way I Should By Iris DeMent Wasteland of the Free see related

Wasteland of the FREE???

Living in the wasteland of the free...

We got preachers dealing in politics and diamond mines
and their speech is growing increasingly unkind
They say they are Christ's disciples
but they don't look like Jesus to me
and it feels like I am living in the wasteland of the free

We got politicians running races on corporate cash
Now don't tell me they don't turn around and kiss them peoples' ass
You may call me old-fashioned
but that don't fit my picture of a true democracy
and it feels like I am living in the wasteland of the free

We got CEO's making two hundred times the workers' pay
but they'll fight like hell against raising the minimum wage
and If you don't like it, mister, they'll ship your job
to some third-world country 'cross the sea
and it feels like I am living in the wasteland of the free

Living in the wasteland of the free
where the poor have now become the enemy
Let's blame our troubles on the weak ones
Sounds like some kind of Hitler remedy
Living in the wasteland of the free

We got little kids with guns fighting inner city wars
So what do we do, we put these little kids behind prison doors
and we call ourselves the advanced civilization
that sounds like crap to me
and it feels like I am living in the wasteland of the free

We got high-school kids running 'round in Calvin Klein and Guess
who cannot pass a sixth-grade reading test
but if you ask them, they can tell you
the name of every crotch on MTV
and it feels like I am living in the wasteland of the free

We kill for oil, then we throw a party when we win
Some guy refuses to fight, and we call that the sin
but he's standing up for what he believes in
and that seems pretty damned American to me
and it feels like I am living in the wasteland of the free

Living in the wasteland of the free
where the poor have now become the enemy
Let's blame our troubles on the weak ones
Sounds like some kind of Hitler remedy
Living in the wasteland of the free

While we sit gloating in our greatness
justice is sinking to the bottom of the sea
Living in the wasteland of the free
Living in the wasteland of the free
Living in the wasteland of the free

         Conviction and Courage....America has become of nation of 'whiners' and not in the sense of Phil Graham's (John McCain's chief economic advisor) to whom Obama replied in his acceptance speech..."And when one of his chief advisers, the man who wrote his economic plan, was talking about the anxieties that Americans are feeling, he said that we were just suffering from a mental recession and that we've become, and I quote, 'a nation of whiners.'  A nation of whiners? Tell that to the proud auto workers at a Michigan plant who, after they found out it was closing, kept showing up every day and working as hard as ever, because they knew there were people who counted on the brakes that they made. Tell that to the military families who shoulder their burdens silently as they watch their loved ones leave for their third, or fourth, or fifth tour of duty. These are not whiners. They work hard, and they give back, and they keep going without complaint. These are the Americans I know"......

      Conviction and Courage! Iris Dement, a 37-year-old singer/songwriter born in Arkansas and raised in California, is amongst the best within this small group of musicians. Dement cites Loretta Lynn, Merle Haggard, Jimmie Rodgers, and the Carter Family as some of her principal musical influences. In 1996, after two critically-acclaimed CDs ( Infamous Angel and the intensely personal My Life), Dement released The Way I Should, an album containing "Wasteland of the Free" a blunt indictment of the right-wing political and social agenda dominating in the US. The five-minute song denounces religious and political hypocrisy and corruption, government and corporate attacks on workers' wages, the great and growing gap between rich and poor, and the imprisonment of tens of thousands of unemployed and poverty-stricken American youth. "Wasteland" derides those claiming the US to be an "advanced civilization" and describes government and media scapegoating of the poor as a "Hitler solution". The song also attacks US foreign policy declaring: "We kill for oil then we throw a party when we win/Some guy refuses to fight and we call that a sin". It concludes: "While we sit gloating in our greatness/Justice is sinking to the bottom of the sea/And it feels like I'm living in the wasteland of the free."

     Naturally, conservative radio programmers and DJs would not play the song, and the album was poorly received by most of those critics associated with the recording industry in Nashville. A year later, in 1997, the song so inflamed Republican State Senator John Grant of Florida that he used it as a pretext to secure government support for a $US103,000 cut in annual state funding to WMNF-FM, a community radio station in that state. Grant cited Dement's song and two others--one by Robert Earl Keen, another by Dan Bern--as the pretext for cuts representing almost 17 percent of the station's budget. In a crude, but nonetheless instructive example of how governments censor small independent stations, Grant, citing extracts from "Wasteland of the Free", claimed the station was broadcasting adult content and therefore not eligible for funding. He suggested that if the station changed its programming he might be willing to change his position.The station's management who immediately told listeners about Grant's "offer" rejected this. This produced an outpouring of anger against the senator and support for the station. An emergency one-day fund drive saw listeners donate $120,000 to the station. Grant responded by claiming credit for the support and told station management that all they had to do was work harder and raise the $103,000 shortfall each year. It was only after hundreds of protest letters and widespread local media publicity that the Florida state legislature agreed to restore funding but only at three-quarters of the previous allocation.

Conviction and Courage! "Wasteland of the Free" still has a tremendous ability to provoke serious reflection and discussion about social and political life, not just in America, but around the world. Evidence of this, and a growing understanding amongst sections of the population that something is fundamentally wrong with society, is shown in a series of e-mail exchanges about the song on a Iris Dement discussion group in early February. In a debate over the song's relative strengths, or weaknesses, a Canadian writer described "Wasteland" as a "damning indictment of unbridled capitalism, corporate and public greed. The Hitler metaphor was pretty strident stuff and came as a bit of shock, but makes sense: the ends justify the means." An American correspondent rejected assertions that the song "lacked balance" and said it told "the truth of what goes on in the States."

A letter from a disgruntled concert-goer denounced Dement as "a selfish, non-thinking socialist of the 1960's sort" and said he would never purchase her CDs or attend her concerts again. "It's easy to have all that America provides as long as you don't have to contribute anything, especially your life. She made references to 'them' and 'the other side', intimating about people with religious beliefs and who have conservative economic values. I am not a member of any church, Christian Coalition, or anything even remotely connected. "I came away disheartened by what I had thought was a remarkably talented person. In music yes. In thought, character, honesty and loyalty--NO. She was divisive and certainly deserves no credit for her poor performance.

"In case you want to know. I'm 52 years old, served in Vietnam and Thailand in 1966-67. Believed that and still do that communism is a despotic system. Sure you think I'm an old right-wing crank. Part of that Hilary inspired 'conspiracy'. Was starting to believe that the Country was, after many long years, coming together again. What I heard from Iris was divisive, revisionist, and in all, of poor taste."

This letter produced a rash of thoughtful comments, including the following: "I don't know that it's so much a song about 'left wing good/right wing bad' but a song of tremendous frustration with the world. I think it is simply lack of empathy, honesty and justice in our culture that has Iris angry and it makes me angry and frustrated, too. It is, at its heart, a song about how we need to think about solving problems, not blaming people or 'spinning' them in a way that supports some other agenda."

Conviction and Courage! Other readers commented on Dement's courage and conviction and confirmed the song's observations about the profound problems confronting youth in America. "My boyfriend is a NYC inner city school teacher and from what he says and from what I have seen, the song rings true. I really like the song and admire Iris for being so forthright," another writer said.

Two interesting letters were posted by former Vietnam veterans. The first explained: "Strangely enough I also served in Vietnam and Thailand '63-'65 and my opinions on Iris do not mirror our original contributor on this subject. "Show me a folk singer who isn't left wing and it would truly surprise me (the exception might be Burl Ives who when asked by the McCarthy committee if he'd identify subversives said 'sure' and named almost everybody associated with folk music). A folk singer's job is in some respects to point out shortcomings in our society."

The last letter said: "I am new to this list, but not new to listening to Iris. I discovered her several years ago when I heard 'Our Town' on the closing episode of 'Northern Exposure'. I was the first person in Baton Rouge (when I lived there) to get a copy of her 'The Way I Should'. I am a retired Army Officer and Vietnam Vet and I find great irony in her songs. I am not in the least offended. IT'S THE TRUTH! All great folk artists have taken their licks for publicly expressing their opinions... sometimes the truth is a bitter pill. To this end... Right On Iris!!"

Conviction and courage! Last year in an interview with the World Socialist Web Site Iris Dement explained that "Wasteland of the Free" was a difficult song to perform because it was so direct. "But I can't keep quiet about these things," she added. "I don't have all the answers but if my songs make people think more deeply and figure out solutions that I'm not able to, then this is what it's for. If people get upset and it forces them to stop and think, then the song has done the job."

Three years since the release of "Wasteland of the Free", the song is doing its job--forcing people to confront the social ills produced by the profit system, compelling them to critically contrast government and media platitudes about democracy and freedom with social reality. The discussion and questioning provoked by this and similar songs continue in spite of the efforts of Senator John Grant and other big business politicians.

Read the words again! Go back to the top of the page and read the words AGAIN!........CONVICTION and COURAGE! Tell me that you don't agree with the points that Iris is trying to make! Do the words bother you? WASTELAND of the FREE? Tell me more! When we try to start banning music for it's ideals, much like the Republican candidate for vice-president who is in the process of banning books in Alaska, firing people who don't agree with her, lying about 'earmarks'...............and, who frankly; the Republican Party is trying to hold back from the press, because of her inexperience in the national scene.........we try to ban Iris Dement? She is just a lowly folk singer.....WHY SO SCARED???