Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Honesty and Ethics Deficit
By
Molly the Robin
My name is Molly and I am an American robin. I learned to think by seeing myself in car door mirrors. I am a mother who has had several broods of hatchlings. A fellow wrote about my story in Animal Park. He only got half the story right as most people do. I use public school libraries which are often closed. I usually find windows or openings into schools. I only have to perch on a tree or bush or deck to watch television news where most Americans get their information is hardly worth the trouble most of the time.
Your society and politicians have either abandoned or neglected honesty and ethics to such a degree your honesty and ethical deficit is far greater than your national budget and debt deficits. Your two most recent wars-Vietnam and Iraq were based on falsehoods and there were no political sanctions or legal repercussions for such dishonesty, such as impeachment and removal from office or even removal of pensions and government subsidies. The embedded political parties have no intention of utilizing such measures. Impeachment and removal from office have been utilized so seldom in 250 years one might think that the American politician is among the most honorable, honest and effective elected officials the world as ever seen, making them a model for the world to follow. Your free press, especially television news, gives the same view and impression. How fortunate for your politicians, unfortunately, it is a disaster for the American people. Change is everywhere, except for the "official political class" and all other political parties are false and have no legitimacy.
Think of democrats and republicans as your employees. Two employees who waste your company's time, often spend money needlessly and wastefully and occasionally do their jobs well. What do you do? You fire them and replace them with people who know your concerns and accomplish their jobs effectively and efficiently. Find other political parties and create other political parties who are not mired in the agendas of lobbyists. The status quo has been failure, which your television networks dare not mention, for their game is profit, not in informing you of the information required to make informed decisions about your elected officials.
Your society uses such things as the credit report as a substitute for honesty, job skills, character when several of the people who founded the country were either heavily in debt or bankrupt and their honesty and ethics far surpasses those today with excellent credit reports who created the recent economic meltdown and causing the financial bailout by the political class who probably had more to lose financially on Wall Street than the average American.
Abandoning ethics and honesty is like setting sail on a boat with a severe leak and expecting to survive an ocean voyage without a major mishap.
The superstructure of institutions whose foundation is power and money without honesty and ethics will undoubtedly collapse through its own corruption and incompetence which are the products of an honesty and ethics deficit.
We birds learned this so I don't understand why you upright worms can't learn it. Some things are really hard to learn and maintain- your is honesty and ethical conduct-especially in your political and educational systems. Parenting too has this gap-the honesty and ethical gap for there is no insistence on honesty or ethics.
Well, I'll be flying over to a wooded area near the park where we reside. Hopefully, your kind won't cut it all down this summer for some financially profitable development project. I believe in profit without too much destruction of our home, which is planet earth.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Spendthrift Government
By
Molly the Robin
There is endless talk and miniscule reporting on national health care today. Your government is the largest in the world because it spends the most money, yet your embedded Democrats and Republicans cannot figure out a cost-effective and humane way to provide health care for all of its citizens. It means they really do not want to provide it or they are incapable of doing so. In either case the embedded political parties have shown their mismanagement of the economy and the budget for at least two generations culminating in the latest financial bailout of the greedy and corrupt financial system-yet few people have been held criminally liable. Why oh why? Is it because the corruption is embedded so deeply? The debt and deficit your government runs up only make the citizenry poorer while the government elites and the institutions and industries they favor all do quite well at the expense of the country.
When the two entrenched political parties went to war in Iraq they did not calculate the costs which now soar into the trillions of dollars adding future health care costs of the soldiers. The maimed Iraqis undoubtedly have dubious health care future.
Chronically unsuccessful workers are either fired or removed from their jobs, except in the political arena where round the clock financial and managerial mayhem are immune from change. A wall of impunity and immunity has been erected to protect them and their parties. It is a wall made up of laws, regulations and most importantly a complicit and mutually beneficial way to govern to protect them from competition. The free press generally is weak in criticizing them, for they are partners who need one another for their mutual benefit and profit. Favoritism has become an American pillar of political and economic life weaved into law.
Your Democrats and Republicans have built a wall of incompetence prohibiting other political parties from participating in your democracy. Allowing their incompetence to continue endangers the nation. A failed democracy from within causes the worst kind of abuses, for the people are mere mannequins.
Your Democrats and Republicans have built a costly and unnecessary military empire at the expense of the citizenry. Intricate and expensive military and national security strategies did not prevent the horrific day 9/11. The attack succeeded not because you spent too little on security, but because of incompetence on the part of your government. Now you are spending too much on security for little purpose against a tactic you call "war on terror". How do you have a war against a tactic by criminals?
As we birds together in the park to discuss our affairs all have a voice. We do not waste nor do we ignore or abuse our fellow creatures. Your great economy and country and natural abundance have been severely abused for a few at the expense of the many. You have no longer created a government of the people, by the people and for the people. You have created a government of the few, by the few and for the few. Fairness and justice and freedom still exist but they are relegated to smaller and smaller corners of your country.
We birds conduct our affairs fairly without favoritism. We sing our songs to praise our way of life every day.
By
Molly the Robin
There is endless talk and miniscule reporting on national health care today. Your government is the largest in the world because it spends the most money, yet your embedded Democrats and Republicans cannot figure out a cost-effective and humane way to provide health care for all of its citizens. It means they really do not want to provide it or they are incapable of doing so. In either case the embedded political parties have shown their mismanagement of the economy and the budget for at least two generations culminating in the latest financial bailout of the greedy and corrupt financial system-yet few people have been held criminally liable. Why oh why? Is it because the corruption is embedded so deeply? The debt and deficit your government runs up only make the citizenry poorer while the government elites and the institutions and industries they favor all do quite well at the expense of the country.
When the two entrenched political parties went to war in Iraq they did not calculate the costs which now soar into the trillions of dollars adding future health care costs of the soldiers. The maimed Iraqis undoubtedly have dubious health care future.
Chronically unsuccessful workers are either fired or removed from their jobs, except in the political arena where round the clock financial and managerial mayhem are immune from change. A wall of impunity and immunity has been erected to protect them and their parties. It is a wall made up of laws, regulations and most importantly a complicit and mutually beneficial way to govern to protect them from competition. The free press generally is weak in criticizing them, for they are partners who need one another for their mutual benefit and profit. Favoritism has become an American pillar of political and economic life weaved into law.
Your Democrats and Republicans have built a wall of incompetence prohibiting other political parties from participating in your democracy. Allowing their incompetence to continue endangers the nation. A failed democracy from within causes the worst kind of abuses, for the people are mere mannequins.
Your Democrats and Republicans have built a costly and unnecessary military empire at the expense of the citizenry. Intricate and expensive military and national security strategies did not prevent the horrific day 9/11. The attack succeeded not because you spent too little on security, but because of incompetence on the part of your government. Now you are spending too much on security for little purpose against a tactic you call "war on terror". How do you have a war against a tactic by criminals?
As we birds together in the park to discuss our affairs all have a voice. We do not waste nor do we ignore or abuse our fellow creatures. Your great economy and country and natural abundance have been severely abused for a few at the expense of the many. You have no longer created a government of the people, by the people and for the people. You have created a government of the few, by the few and for the few. Fairness and justice and freedom still exist but they are relegated to smaller and smaller corners of your country.
We birds conduct our affairs fairly without favoritism. We sing our songs to praise our way of life every day.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
"Why, the Government is merely.....a temporary servant....its function is to obey orders, not originate them." Mark Twain
"The mania for giving the Government power to meddle with the private affairs of cities or citizens is likely to cause endless trouble...." Mark Twain
Elephantiasis Government
By
Molly the Robin
My name is Molly and I am an American robin. I learned to think by seeing myself in car door mirrors. I am a mother who has had several broods of hatchlings. A fellow wrote about my story in Animal Park. He only got half the story right as most people do. I use public school libraries which are often closed. I usually find windows or openings into schools. I only have to perch on a tree or bush or deck to watch television news where most Americans get their information is hardly worth the trouble most of the time.
As your government escalates in size and budget the crises that occur in war and peace become larger and larger leading even a bird like me to conclude that your government through its actions and inactions is becoming a major problem itself from trade policies, budget and fiscal policies, financial and banking policies to fabrications of threats to justify invasions and finally total lack of accountability in wrong doing by elected political leaders by Congress and finally the citizenry of the country who apparently believe they are powerless or they are just apathetic.
The final result is jerry-rigged government whose future for the citizenry is perpetually clouded and uncertain creating more hurdles and obstacles than pathways to freedom and justice. It is clear your citizenry need the freedom to solve their own problems. Government ought to ensure justice and fairness by eliminating and minimizing corruption and crimes and creating an environment for a prosperous economy. Your government wants to control more with its every failure.
The elected representatives of your two embedded political parties have discovered a perpetual piggy bank which they draw from creating an expensive and increasingly jerry-rigged and jerry-built government. This costly and debt ridden government edifice will fall and collapse, unfortunately, on the same citizenry that it claims to be for and benefit unless there is a course reversal.
There are ten of thousands of examples of the missteps of this government contraption your power and money hungry two entrenched and embedded political parties have created with the politicians they run for election. Justice and fairness are harder and harder to obtain for the citizenry. Dismantling this inefficient and often ineffective expensive contraption of your government is necessary and imperative which includes trillions of dollars in irresponsible and wasteful over spending making the American people poorer by misallocation of resources creating a less prosperous economy. Rebuilding it from the foundation, which is your Constitution, is necessary and imperative keeping in mind strengthening your Constitution so it will always be applied.
Who says there cannot be a peaceful revolution in government? The established politicians, their political machines, their minions in television news programming and prominent print news organizations always opt for the status quo in government for it benefits them to do so.
Mankind claims it has a brain and is smarter than we animals. Start by really proving it. Creating machines while destroying the earth and one another is not smarter than we so-called animals. Between the Vietnam War and the Iraq war your country's ethics vanished in its own black hole. Can you retrieve your ethics? That might well be a pivotal crux of human culture. As the elected politicians sidestep around problems and issues without solving them you the citizenry are bamboozled into quicksand.
I'll by flying off now. It is another great summer ahead. The trees and bushes are lush where I am. The sky is blue with scattered clouds that linger and cool the temperature as well as hide the sun. Your government ought to try to emulate the sun.
"The mania for giving the Government power to meddle with the private affairs of cities or citizens is likely to cause endless trouble...." Mark Twain
Elephantiasis Government
By
Molly the Robin
My name is Molly and I am an American robin. I learned to think by seeing myself in car door mirrors. I am a mother who has had several broods of hatchlings. A fellow wrote about my story in Animal Park. He only got half the story right as most people do. I use public school libraries which are often closed. I usually find windows or openings into schools. I only have to perch on a tree or bush or deck to watch television news where most Americans get their information is hardly worth the trouble most of the time.
As your government escalates in size and budget the crises that occur in war and peace become larger and larger leading even a bird like me to conclude that your government through its actions and inactions is becoming a major problem itself from trade policies, budget and fiscal policies, financial and banking policies to fabrications of threats to justify invasions and finally total lack of accountability in wrong doing by elected political leaders by Congress and finally the citizenry of the country who apparently believe they are powerless or they are just apathetic.
The final result is jerry-rigged government whose future for the citizenry is perpetually clouded and uncertain creating more hurdles and obstacles than pathways to freedom and justice. It is clear your citizenry need the freedom to solve their own problems. Government ought to ensure justice and fairness by eliminating and minimizing corruption and crimes and creating an environment for a prosperous economy. Your government wants to control more with its every failure.
The elected representatives of your two embedded political parties have discovered a perpetual piggy bank which they draw from creating an expensive and increasingly jerry-rigged and jerry-built government. This costly and debt ridden government edifice will fall and collapse, unfortunately, on the same citizenry that it claims to be for and benefit unless there is a course reversal.
There are ten of thousands of examples of the missteps of this government contraption your power and money hungry two entrenched and embedded political parties have created with the politicians they run for election. Justice and fairness are harder and harder to obtain for the citizenry. Dismantling this inefficient and often ineffective expensive contraption of your government is necessary and imperative which includes trillions of dollars in irresponsible and wasteful over spending making the American people poorer by misallocation of resources creating a less prosperous economy. Rebuilding it from the foundation, which is your Constitution, is necessary and imperative keeping in mind strengthening your Constitution so it will always be applied.
Who says there cannot be a peaceful revolution in government? The established politicians, their political machines, their minions in television news programming and prominent print news organizations always opt for the status quo in government for it benefits them to do so.
Mankind claims it has a brain and is smarter than we animals. Start by really proving it. Creating machines while destroying the earth and one another is not smarter than we so-called animals. Between the Vietnam War and the Iraq war your country's ethics vanished in its own black hole. Can you retrieve your ethics? That might well be a pivotal crux of human culture. As the elected politicians sidestep around problems and issues without solving them you the citizenry are bamboozled into quicksand.
I'll by flying off now. It is another great summer ahead. The trees and bushes are lush where I am. The sky is blue with scattered clouds that linger and cool the temperature as well as hide the sun. Your government ought to try to emulate the sun.
Saturday, June 13, 2009
JERRY-RIGGED AND JERRY-BUILT GOVERNMENT
BY
MOLLY THE ROBIN
My name is Molly and I am an American robin. I learned to think by seeing myself in car door mirrors. I am a mother who has had several broods of hatchlings. A fellow wrote about my story in Animal Park. He only got half the story right as most people do. I use public school libraries which are often closed. I usually find windows or openings into schools. I only have to perch on a tree or bush or deck to watch television news where most Americans get their information is hardly worth the trouble most of the time.
After flying over your country and studying and reading from public libraries articles and news stories it is abundantly clear that your government through Democrats and Republicans has jerry-rigged and jerry-built for over two two generations a government contraption of programs, agencies and departments that are essentially self-serving with minimal benefit to the majority of the citizenry despite trillions of dollars spent annually.
A classic example is the result of the Congress Online Project Study "E-mail Overload in Congress-Managing a Communications Crisis". Excuse after excuse is cited in the study why members of Congress cannot answer their emails from too many lobbyists sending emails to emails outside their districts. As a bird I could easily devise a system separating emails from individual constituents from everybody else. If members of Congress do not know their jobs, do not know who is their employer or do not care about their constituents the current situation is the result.
A conclusion of the Congress Online Project puts the burden on the citizen, just where it does not belong by stating, "Citizens must recognize that congressional offices are not and cannot be capable of responding electronically to every every American." It is not a question of whether members of Congress can respond electronically to every American, the question is, does every member of Congress have an obligation to answer electronically every individual constituent? Notice how every obligation and responsibility of the U.S. Congress and government in general is often deflected or ignored from checks and balances to responding to constituent emails!
In essence they are incapable of representing their constituents as technology advances and it can be said that they are not adequately representing their constituents. Members of Congress spend trillions of dollars annually, much of it on dubious projects, yet answering their constituent's (citizens and voters) emails are a major problem. Maybe members of Congress and their embedded political parties are the problem by not understanding their jobs through design or ignorance.
How would we birds and animals exist with such an unbalanced and overloaded system of government as yours? It is a beautiful day for flying over the trees and bushes and the blue sky is my canopy.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Financial Shortfall or Deficit or Meltdown Looming for Social Security and Medicare- More Chronic Failures of the Embedded Political Parties
By
Molly the Robin
My name is Molly and I am an American robin. I learned to think by seeing myself in car door mirrors. I am a mother who has had several broods of hatchlings. A fellow wrote about my story in Animal Park. He only got half the story right as most people do. I use public school libraries which are often closed. I usually find windows or openings into schools. I only have to perch on a tree or bush or deck to watch television news where most Americans get their information is hardly worth the trouble most of the time.
On and on it goes. Newspaper articles are abuzz about the shortage of funds available for so-called entitlement programs. (Your national security is as much an entitlement program considering the trillions of dollars allocated to it for many decades.) The financial and management problems continue to mount decade after decade. National debt soaring. National deficit soaring. Yet it is services and benefits to the citizenry that are the problem that need adjustments in cost cutting and greater restrictions.
But all other government functions and spending that often produce negligible results despite their enormous costs in both the military and civilian sectors does not need to be reduced substantially or at all.
Now, it is certain that there ought to be at least two other political parties to help curtail government and focus government resources on its primary role utilizing prudence and fiscal responsibility. Unless the failure of the embedded political parties is not corrected the country will further decline, especially in government services that are essential.
Right now the government has created an empire it cannot afford but one which is often counterproductive for the maintenance of a country where life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is becoming a burden caused primarily by the embedded political parties who seldom get any blame or criticism for their massive failures and ineptitude in governance.
Can't your country establish at least one or two more political parties to help solve the country's problems? When someone in our world cannot solve a problem they are either fired or others come to their assistance. But your kind dribbles and fumbles along with the same embedded parties for far too long creating more and more intractable problems in government. On issues of war and peace the fumbling and bumbling costing trillions of debt and financial waste including countless human lives continues abated signals a nation gone adrift with rulers who have become adept at pandering and misleading with a generally compliant press. The rulers are not interested in freedom, for they are constantly limiting freedom in the name of security. Your rulers are interested in retaining and enlarging their power as well as access to wealth, often using government to dole out millions of dollars to favorite groups and industries at the expense of the people.
I'll be flying off now hoping you will build upon your democracy from a minimalist one to one that is closer to maximum democracy strengthening your checks and balances, not weakening them.
Sunday, May 03, 2009
TELEVISION NEWS SHIELDS GOVERNMENT=UNSCRUTINIZED or SCANTILY SCRUTINIZED TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS ANNUALLY AND UNEXAMINED LAWS
AND (REFORM YOUR MINIMALIST DEMOCRACY)
UNREGULATED GOVERNMENT AND GOVERNMENT MISMANAGEMENT UNREPORTED OR SUBSTANTIALLY UNDER-REPORTED BY THE MAINSTREAM TELEVISION MEDIA WHICH BENEFITS FINANCIALLY FROM THE EXISTING LAWS REGARDING THE CREATION OF TELEVISION NETWORKS.
EXAMPLES OF CENSORSHIP BY THE MAINSTREAM TELEVISION NETWORKS AND CABLE NEWS PROGRAMMING:
CENSORED: THE NUMBER OF VIETNAMESE CIVILIANS KILLED AND MAIMED IN ANOTHER OPTIONAL WAR BEGUN WITH LIES
CENSORED: MILLIONS OF IRAQI REFUGEES WHO HAVE FLED THEIR COUNTRY
CENSORED: THE NUMBER OF IRAQI CIVILIANS KILLED AND MAIMED IN A RECENT OPTIONAL WAR BEGUN WITH LIES
CENSORED: THE TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS LOST THROUGH WASTE, FRAUD AND ABUSE IN MILITARY AND CIVILIAN CONTRACTS
CENSORED: THE HARMFUL EFFECTS OF FINANCIAL MISMANAGEMENT ON THE U.S. ECONOMY AND THE AMERICAN CITIZENRY BY THE TWO MAJOR POLITICAL PARTIES-DEMOCRATS AND REPUBLICANS
CENSORED: THE WASTE IN EDUCATIONAL SPENDING IN THE U.S.A. WITH INSUFFICIENT ACCOUNTABILITY
CENSORED: THE INCREASING FINANCIAL DISASTER OF THE TWO PARTY SYSTEM ON THE COUNTRY WITH WOEFULLY INADEQUATE OR MEANINGLESS CHECKS AND BALANCES ON THE PARTIES OR WITHIN THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT
CENSORED: THE NUMBER OF ELECTIONS WHERE THE INCUMBENT IS RE-ELECTED WITH OR WITHOUT AN OPPONENT AT A 95% RATE
CENSORED: THE EXTENT AND HARMFUL EFFECTS OF THE MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL-CONGRESSIONAL COMPLEX ON THE AMERICAN ECONOMY
CENSORED: THE REASONS FOR LACK OF GOVERNMENT OVERSIGHT ON THE FINANCIAL INDUSTRY AND THE FINANCIAL BENEFICIARIES OF SUCH A POLICY
SOLUTIONS: 24/7 ACCOUNTABILITY OF LEGISLATIVE, EXECUTIVE AND JUDICIAL BRANCHES OF GOVERNMENT IN FINANCIAL AND POLICY AUDITS ON EFFECTIVENESS AND EFFICIENCY FOR THE AMERICAN PEOPLE USING THE EXISTING AND EXPANDED STRUCTURE OF THE GENERAL ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE REPORTING TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE.
MORE THOROUGH AND INCISIVE REPORTING BY THE NEWS MEDIA ON GOVERNMENT FAILURES AND SUCCESSES BY MERGING THE BEST PRINT REPORTING INTO TELEVISION NEWS PROGRAMMING.
EASING RESTRICTIONS ALLOWING OTHER POLITICAL PARTIES PARTICIPATION IN THE POLITICAL PROCESS ENDING THE WINNER TAKE ALL SAND BOX SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT WHEN ONE PARTY DOMINATES LEGISLATION. COMPROMISE CREATED THE CONSTITUTION, NOT THE DOMINATION OF THE POLITICAL PROCESS BY ONE GROUP OR POLITICAL PARTY.
LIMITING GOVERNMENT REVENUES AND SPENDING OF GOVERNMENT UTILIZING A COST-BENEFIT COMPONENT EMPHASIZING EFFICIENCY AND EFFECTIVENESS
OPEN ENDED SPIGOT OF GOVERNMENT SPENDING A FISCAL DISASTER. PAY ALL GOVERNMENT SALARIES BASED ON THE MEDIAN INCOME OF AMERICANS. GOVERNMENT SERVICE MEANS BEING A SERVANT TO THE PEOPLE WITH JOB SECURITY.
BALANCE THE NATIONAL BUDGET BY ENACTING A LAW TO DO SO.
PROFESSIONAL LOBBYISTS OUGHT TO BE PROHIBITED FROM MEETING WITH ELECTED REPRESENTATIVES. PERMANENTLY PROHIBIT ELECTED REPRESENTATIVES FROM WORKING AS LOBBYISTS WHEN THEY LEAVE GOVERNMENT SERVICE
EXECUTIVE BRANCH ALREADY HAS TERM LIMITS-WISELY INITIATED VOLUNTARILY BY PRESIDENT GEORGE WASHINGTON. ENACT TERM LIMITS INTO LAW FOR LEGISLATORS. FOR EXAMPLE, FIVE TERMS FOR MEMBERS OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES AND THREE TERMS FOR U.S. SENATE. LONGER TERMS SUCH AS 30 TO 40 OR MORE YEARS IS MORE LIKE ROYALTY OR MONARCHICAL FORM OF GOVERNMENT.
DEVISE NEW AND INNOVATIVE LAWS THAT STRENGTHEN THE FREEDOMS OF THE CITIZENRY AS WELL AS GREATER OVERSIGHT OVER GOVERNMENT. THE GREATEST DANGER TO FREEDOM IS GOVERNMENT AND EVERY STEP THAT GOVERNMENT TAKES THROUGH LAWS THAT RESTRICT FREEDOM OUGHT TO HAVE COMMENSURATE RESTRICTIONS AND LAWS ON GOVERNMENT FROM OVERSTEPPING ITS AUTHORITY ON THE CITIZENRY INCLUDING CRIMINAL PENALTIES AGAINST GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS.
MORE SOLUTIONS:
- THE UNITED STATES: JUST LEAVE THE WORLD ALONE
- USE DIPLOMACY, OBJECTIVE AND FAIR DIPLOMACY FOR ALL PARTIES
- BEFORE U.S. RESOURCES ARE UTILIZED OVERSEAS COUNTRIES OUGHT TO BE REQUIRED TO APPLY FOR ASSISTANCE IN DETAIL-ECONOMIC, HEALTH, INFRASTRUCTURE, EDUCATION AND PUBLIC, PRIVATE AND NON-PROFITS OUGHT TO BE INTEGRATED TO FULFILL THIS MISSION.
- IN CRIMINAL ACTS LIKE 9/11 LAW ENFORCEMENT WITH SPECIAL MILITARY FORCES SHOULD APPREHEND CRIMINALS, NOT INVASION OF ENTIRE COUNTRIES.
- MUSTER THE POLITICAL COURAGE TO UTILIZE IMPEACHMENT AND REMOVAL FROM OFFICE SO LESSONS CAN BE LEARNED FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS
- CONTINUAL LACK OF ACCOUNTABILITY IN GOVERNMENT PROMOTES FAILURE AND CORRUPTION
- TRUE ACCOUNTABILITY MEANS REMOVAL FROM ELECTED OR APPOINTED OFFICE, TRY IT, IT MIGHT DO YOUR INCREASINGLY MINIMALIST DEMOCRACY A WORLD OF GOOD
- MANDATE TELEVISION NETWORKS AND STATIONS BE AUCTIONED EVERY 25 YEARS
- LIMIT THE NUMBER OF TELEVISION STATIONS OWNED BY ONE CORPORATION.
By
If we ran a railroad like you run yours, that is Amtrak, we would have been out of business long ago. And we would have had a conscience not to deceive and misrepresent our actions to the people. We do not need the guarantee of a free press because everyone in our domain is usually scrupulously honest, sincere and fair. Dishonesty and deception is a rarity for us, not a commonplace occurrence visiting us every morning and night.
My name is Molly and I am an American robin. I learned to think by seeing myself in car door mirrors. I am a mother who has had several broods of hatchlings. A fellow wrote about my story in Animal Park. He only got half the story right as most people do. I use public school libraries which are often closed. I usually find windows or openings into schools. I only have to perch on a tree or bush or deck to watch television news where most Americans get their information is hardly worth the trouble most of the time.
In your era television news has created a News Shield by minimizing and often neglecting to report on the mismanagement, mistakes and gross inefficiencies of government protecting the political establishment because it is mutually financially beneficial to do so. The incomplete coverage of news protects elected officials by removing or limiting adverse facts and information becoming an asset and benefit to elected officials. As a result, television news is often Just Junks news.
As I fly across this country it is clear that the television news does not focus much on government spending. For instance, I read something in the library written by someone who calculated that it costs about $400,000 to maintain a private in Iraq or Afghanistan. Now somebody ought to figure out how much your foes are spending to maintain their lowest level fighter in the field. That's a story and what are the implications of such a story in warfare today.
Your species may think it is superior to us, but believe me you are not superior. The death and destruction you have wrought to your own kind as well as to our environment on this planet is ultimate negligence and ignorance.
I flew over Amtrak trains and they cost a lot of money to operate at a loss while the fares across country to other states is not competitive with air travel. Slow and costly government run trains in a free market-now that doesn't make sense.
The cost overruns in the military and even in the educational system go unexamined every day while the expenses keep spiraling upward and onward. Meanwhile the educational system is good in some places and very bad in other places. You've even got an expense Department of Education that can't seem to get it right, except their budget.
On and on government department after government department never scrutinized, never criticized, never held accountable for very much, if anything from health care to education. Where are the improvements, the efficiencies and effectiveness in foreign and domestic policies?
Well, there is talk of change in every election, but the change never benefits the American people substantially, only marginally at times. Mostly, things get more expensive and worse.
The greatest asset your elected politicians have is the apathy of their constituency and the Junk News on television day after day avoiding the financial scrutiny of the national government, one might think they are partners in a great financial scheme that is very profitable for them.
You can't say you have a lawless society, but you can say you have obedient, compliant, subservient, obsequious elected members of Congress who are "wrapped around the party's little finger" and "under the party's thumb" who pass suspect laws. A country of the people, by the people and for the people has been supplanted by a country "of the party, by the party and for the party". The two monopoly parties that is. Freedom is contained in two often politically mischievous parties who have little accountability and some elected members do not even have an opponent, for they "run" unopposed called a non-election election.
I'll be flying off now, but it sure appears that your government's policies and outcomes are often expensive failures which were passed into law without the elected representatives even reading the laws. They just usually follow the orders of their party leaders and vote on laws they do not read.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
535 members of Congress and the Constitution
by
Molly the Robin
Applying the Constitution seems to be very difficult, for many of you have different ideas about what the Constitution actually says. Does it mean that freedom of speech can be restricted by "caging", a practice where police separate by fences peaceful protesters from those who need to observe the protests? Do regulations on freedoms restrict those freedoms? A good rule of thumb is that any restriction on the people ought to be made upon the government authorities as a check and balance.
All the restrictions on Constitutional rights and all spending issues emanate primarily from 535 members of Congress. If the country is in financial trouble or disarray it is those 535 members of Congress who are responsible and accountable. If the country's policies, foreign and domestic fail, the accountable body of government is Congress, for they have the purse strings of all branches of government. Your Congress through its spending powers can begin and end wars, begin and end government departments and begin and end the mountain of waste and inefficiency in government.
Failure and success of your country ultimately resides in your Congress, those 535 members. Failure and success of the country is their true legacy. The costs of Health care and Social Security are unsustainable, but why? From my reading in libraries, if your members of Congress had simply established an account for each of these benefits since the 1960s there would be sufficient funds for these programs. But your members of Congress decided long ago to spend money gained from these programs for the general fund adding it to the pool of available funds for government salaries and budgets for all those other optional departments of government. Your members of Congress will have caused the financial shortfalls in Health care and Social Security in the near future by apparently not doing their jobs and failing in their oaths of office.
An effective and resourceful U.S. Congress might have and, in my view as a bird, could have created a basic universal health care system with the vast sums expended on health care by the government. Instead, it became primarily a profit center for insurance companies and a burden for private companies as well as incurring hundreds of billions of dollars of waste and corruption within the U.S. health care system. It is as if the Congress has no responsibility once laws and regulations are in place to review them, a mark of irresponsibility and a substandard work ethic as well as a lack of ethics in providing the best and most effective government for the American people.
When will members of Congress of both political parties-republicans and democrats be called to account to balance the national budget and allocate resources for their financial obligations to the citizens of the country? How much mismanagement and waste can a government sustain before there is a financial collapse system endangering all the citizenry of the country?
Our flock has greater diversity of participation in our governing lives than your Congress and we can address failure easily while you flounder and wallow in it for long periods seemingly unable to make beneficial and constructive change.
by
Molly the Robin
Applying the Constitution seems to be very difficult, for many of you have different ideas about what the Constitution actually says. Does it mean that freedom of speech can be restricted by "caging", a practice where police separate by fences peaceful protesters from those who need to observe the protests? Do regulations on freedoms restrict those freedoms? A good rule of thumb is that any restriction on the people ought to be made upon the government authorities as a check and balance.
All the restrictions on Constitutional rights and all spending issues emanate primarily from 535 members of Congress. If the country is in financial trouble or disarray it is those 535 members of Congress who are responsible and accountable. If the country's policies, foreign and domestic fail, the accountable body of government is Congress, for they have the purse strings of all branches of government. Your Congress through its spending powers can begin and end wars, begin and end government departments and begin and end the mountain of waste and inefficiency in government.
Failure and success of your country ultimately resides in your Congress, those 535 members. Failure and success of the country is their true legacy. The costs of Health care and Social Security are unsustainable, but why? From my reading in libraries, if your members of Congress had simply established an account for each of these benefits since the 1960s there would be sufficient funds for these programs. But your members of Congress decided long ago to spend money gained from these programs for the general fund adding it to the pool of available funds for government salaries and budgets for all those other optional departments of government. Your members of Congress will have caused the financial shortfalls in Health care and Social Security in the near future by apparently not doing their jobs and failing in their oaths of office.
An effective and resourceful U.S. Congress might have and, in my view as a bird, could have created a basic universal health care system with the vast sums expended on health care by the government. Instead, it became primarily a profit center for insurance companies and a burden for private companies as well as incurring hundreds of billions of dollars of waste and corruption within the U.S. health care system. It is as if the Congress has no responsibility once laws and regulations are in place to review them, a mark of irresponsibility and a substandard work ethic as well as a lack of ethics in providing the best and most effective government for the American people.
When will members of Congress of both political parties-republicans and democrats be called to account to balance the national budget and allocate resources for their financial obligations to the citizens of the country? How much mismanagement and waste can a government sustain before there is a financial collapse system endangering all the citizenry of the country?
Our flock has greater diversity of participation in our governing lives than your Congress and we can address failure easily while you flounder and wallow in it for long periods seemingly unable to make beneficial and constructive change.
