Nihilistic Republicans - The New Stalinists and Maoists?

The debating regarding raising the national debt ceiling to avoid a default of our nation and the downgrading of our federal bonds is heading towards a mutual destructive clash.

Ignoring President Obama's self-mutilating offerings tot he negotiation table, Republican House Speaker John Boehner continued to demand that balancing the national budget must be on the back of the poor and middle class, so as to give the rich even bigger share of national wealth.  The Republican's insistence not to increase revenue and their refusal of the deal were purely not only unsustainable but insane.  One has to wonder if the Republican leadership has lost their mental soundness.

They have chosen to employ a scorch earth policy.  Being principled is to be respected but being nihilistic ideologue only labels themselves as unfit to govern.

Anyone to govern must have a deliberate and balanced mind while the Republican leaders are anything but.

According to Fox News, Boehner said that "I would prefer to have a bipartisan approach to solve this problem. If that's not possible, I and my Republican colleagues in the House are prepared to move on their own ... today."

He perhaps has forgotten that he only chairs half of one of the three branches of the governmental bodies of the Unites States of America.  Time for him to dictates has not arrived yet.

Given historical lessons, let's hope that would never happen.

Their chosen nihilistic approaches have many predecessors such as Lenin, Stalin or Mao, who insisted that he had the truth, scientific truth while dealing social-economic issues, and hell-bent to wreck havoc to achieve their ideological gain.  When they have become so maniacal, they really ought to be striped of power to govern.

There is place in society for nihilists to voice their protests but not to govern.  Their brand of so called governing is nothing but destruction.

Haven't Americans suffered enough?

Enough is enough.


Ravens © Matthew Felix Sun

Republicans Goal - Taxing the Poor To Fatten the Rich

Our country on all levels - federal, state, county and city - is in such dire financial state and it is inconceivable that the Republican leaders, particularly those with Tea Party bend, would choose to refuse to close tax loops (amounting to tax increase for the rich, according to their argument), while demanding steep cut for the middle class and the poor.  By their argument, that deep cut would amount to taxing the middle class and the poor.

There we go again, let's tax the have-nots so the have can have more.

This is beyond sickening.  Republicans have proofed that they are not fit to govern.  Whoever voted them into offices must answer for their own conscious.  This is a moral issue.  What the Republicans and Tea Party members demand - to balance the budget by taxing the middle class and the poor alone - is immoral.

This insistence of taxing the poor to fatten the rich affects people on multiple levels.  Take two great public institutions in California for example.  California State University (CS) just passed a 12% increase of tuition while in the same meeting the trustees also approved a salary for the incoming president of CSU's San Diego campus that's about $100,000 higher than his predecessor. San Francisco Chronicle reported that:

Despite Gov. Jerry Brown's urging them not to: "I fear your approach to compensation is setting a pattern for public service that we cannot afford," Brown wrote to Carter. "The assumption is that you cannot find a qualified man or woman to lead the university unless paid twice that of the chief justice of the United States. I reject that notion."

Elliot Hirshman, the new San Diego campus president, will earn $400,000 compared with $299,435 earned by his predecessor, Stephen Weber.

In voting for the raise, Carter said it was pointless to oppose it because Hirshman was promised that salary and has already begun working at the campus. Carter also appointed a panel to study how CSU selects and compensates its presidents.  

Well, may we ask who had promised his such salary?

A few days later, University of California (UC) approved a 9.6% increase of fees and tuition.  According to San Francisco Chronicle,

University of California regents voted Thursday to raise tuition by 9.6 percent - on top of an 8 percent increase already approved for this fall - over the objections of students who said they'll drown in debt.

At the same meeting in San Francisco, the regents also gave large pay raises to three executives, including two who are paid from state funds.

This fall, undergraduate tuition for California residents will rise to $12,192, more than 18 percent higher than last year's $10,302 - a level that prompted violent student protests. With a mandatory campus fee that averages $1,026, a year at UC now costs $13,218 before room and board.

That's more than twice what it cost in 2005. 

Again, while the UC system is becoming less competitive, UC approved big salary increases for three high-ranking executives:

Marye Anne Fox, chancellor of UC San Diego, said rising fees for graduate students make UC less competitive.

"We're starting to lose students," she told the regents.

Other chancellors reported cutting academic programs, losing faculty and raising class size.
The regents also gave raises to three executives.

Patrick Lenz, a UC system vice president, will earn a base salary of $300,000 from taxpayer funds, a $27,500 increase.

Santiago Muñoz, an associate vice president, got a 24.1 percent raise, from $201,400 to $250,000. Taxpayers pay 40 percent of his salary.

Mark Laret, who runs the UCSF Medical Center, will get a base salary of $935,000, a $195,300 raise, and a retention bonus of $1 million over four years. It's paid from medical center revenue. 

Again and again, this scenarios play out from east coast to the west cost, from Alaska to Florida.  More and more, many of the Republicans demand, Democrats demur, and the masses accept this unsustainable and unholy thinking that we can and ought to balance our budget, pay off our debt by squeezing the middle class and the poor, ever more tightly.

Again, we must remind people, that if the Republicans insists on any revenue growth is a tax increase, then any service spending cut is also a tax increase, only not on the rich, but on the poor.

Those Republicans ought be ashamed of themselves.  They also have no business of governing.

However, this is a country knows no shame and shaming them would not produce anything worthy.


Swamp © Matthew Felix Sun

The State of Minnesota

The State of Minnesota has closed its parks and museums due to the budget standoff between their political leaders of two major parties.

The closing of many offices also affects many people's life, particularly the poor.  The effect can be devastating to the affected and deserve our utmost sympathy.

However, one of the stories reported by CBS and Associated Press, supposed to earn our sympathy and support was a woman named Sonya Mills.  The story went:

In the absence of talks, the shutdown was rippling into the lives of people like Sonya Mills, a 39-year-old mother of eight facing the loss of about $3,600 a month in state child care subsidies. Until the government closure, Mills had been focused on recovering from a May 22 tornado that displaced her from a rented home in Minneapolis. Now she's adding a new problem to her list.

I am sure that she life has become very difficult to cope with and her children deserve our compassion.  However, the number of children she has raised my eyebrows.  Eight!

I can understand that responsible people with two, three or even four children, could be able to feed, cloth, house and educate them under normal circumstances and might fall to victim of economic downturn.  But for someone who collects $3,600/month governmental support with eight children, it is quite absurd.  It is doubtful that her needs of financial support was due to the economic downturn.  She could be use as an example to show what is not sustainable and should not be condoned.  Using her case as example to show how "regular" folks' life being affected by Minnesota's shutdown was an ill choice.

Parenthood is not a by-product of sex.  It should be a carefully planned and prepared responsibility.

Bring a child into the world is not a contribution to the society.  Considering the over-population issue, one can argue it is the opposite.  We should encourage responsible parenthood. 

Considering the resources average American consumes, we should be even more on guard for bringing more children into the world unprovided for.

It is highly ironic that we attack China for make great sacrifice to reduce the population, therefore the demand on the fragile earth.  It's time for a reality check.

Ever Lowering Expectations

After eight years of George W. Bush's assault on not only civil liberty but English language as well, it was reasonably hopeful that we were entering a new era with vast improvement in both fronts.

Well, there were changes for sure and some improvement but not nearly enough.

Not only Guantánamo detention camp is still in full operation, but the assault on English language has changed from mangled words to ignoring the rules of grammar and deliberate twist meanings of phrases.

Obama's biggest offense to date is still his most infamous arm wrestling with the phrase "too... to..." and I wonder if the new generation would ever understand how to use this phrase correctly after his ghastly incorrect way to describe faulting banks in need of bailing out as "too big to fail".

New, a new offense, minor one, admittedly.

Associated Press reported that Obama says he would resign if he were Weiner. San Francisco Chronicle detailed his comments:

President Barack Obama, increasing pressure on Rep. Anthony Weiner to quit, said Monday that "I can tell you that if it was me, I would resign."

I was once again incredulous.  I asked a friend of mine, who graduated from the exalted University of California, Berkeley with English degree and was told that though grammatically speaking, President Obama was wrong.  He should have said "if it were me".  But, according to my friend, that the correct way has been seen as literal, mannered and bookish and colloquially, people usually say it the way President Obama did, the grammatically incorrect way.

I was flabbergasted.  I think there is a debate in the nation regarding the lowered expectation brew generations of lower achievers.

One would hope that a president would have set up a better example.  Is it his hope that by speaking folks' language, therefore, more people would choose him to have beer with?

It is quite disappointing and disconcerting.

The assault on civil liberty and English language has continued.

By the way, happy Flag Day.  Or is it Flagellation Day?

Circumcision, Female genital mutilation and Abortion

This is getting weirder.  The progressive San Francisco residents are to vote on a measure to make it a misdemeanor to perform circumcision on a male under the age of 18 within the city. Anyone who ignored the ban would face a $1,000 fine and a year in jail.


CBS News reported that:

Circumcision should be outlawed because "it's excruciatingly painful and permanently damaging surgery that's forced on men when they're at their weakest and most vulnerable," a leading proponent of the ban, 59-year-old Lloyd Schofeld, told Reuters.

Since circumcision is a ritual practice for Jews and Muslims, some legal experts say such a ban might prove an unconstitutional infringement of religious freedom, Time reported. But others say religions don't get a "free pass."

People argue against male circumcision like to link it to the female genital mutilation which is more universally condemned in the US.

However, I cannot see male circumcision as on the same level as female genital mutilation, because there are some benefits, however small, of male circumcision in preventing STD and HIV infection, while female genital mutilation does not offer any such benefits and the purpose of female genital mutilation was male control, rather than a covenants between men and creators.

According to World Health Organization (WHO),

Female genital mutilation (FGM) comprises all procedures that involve partial or total removal of the external female genitalia, or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons.
The practice is mostly carried out by traditional circumcisers, who often play other central roles in communities, such as attending childbirths. Increasingly, however, FGM is being performed by health care providers.

FGM is recognized internationally as a violation of the human rights of girls and women. It reflects deep-rooted inequality between the sexes, and constitutes an extreme form of discrimination against women. It is nearly always carried out on minors and is a violation of the rights of children. The practice also violates a person's rights to health, security and physical integrity, the right to be free from torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, and the right to life when the procedure results in death.

CBS continued that

The American Academy of Pediatricians says the procedure cuts both ways. In its official policy statement on circumcision - issued in 1999 and reaffirmed in 2005 - the academy said the procedure has potential health benefits, including reduced risk bladder infections and transmission of HIV/AIDs and other sexually transmitted diseases.

But the academy said there were potential downsides to the procedure, pointing to anecdotal reports that circumcision can reduce men's sexual sensation and clear evidence that it can be painful and lead to complications like bleeding and infections - and in rare instances, to partial or complete amputation of the penis.

Given the pros and cons, the academy says "the procedure is not essential to the child's current well-being" and that "parents should determine what is in the best interest of the child."

Care2.com reported that "Jewish groups are objecting to the fact that ritual circumcision of men under the age of 18 would be made illegal, despite the fact that it is, in the words of these San Francisco-area Jewish organizations, "of fundamental importance in the Jewish tradition." Male circumcision is also an important practice in Islam, although it is not compulsory."


Because of the inconclusiveness regarding the benefits of male circumcision and because of the cultural and religious tradition which doesn't involve the repression of a group people, it is hard to argue that government needs to step in the decide for caring parents.

In fact, the arguments the proponents of the male circumcision ban employed were very similar to those abortion opponents.

It is hard to believe that the very progressive San Franciscans would approve government to tell women that they should not have abortion, yet, many of them are poised to enforce a similar ban in the very spirit.


CBS News Image

Notre Dame University's Quixotic Fight

San Francisco Chronicle recently reported that Notre Dame alone among schools on China goods ban:

Notre Dame's campus bookstore sells "Fighting Irish" lettermen jackets, "ND" license plate frames and stadium cups picturing the school's leprechaun mascot. Not for sale: anything made in China. 

Ten years after adopting the policy, Notre Dame remains the only major U.S. university that forbids license holders such as Adidas to put the school logo on any product from China, according to groups that track college merchandising.

Notre Dame prohibits the goods because China, the top source of U.S. imports, doesn't permit independent labor unions, according to a college policy document. The ban is attracting fresh attention from Washington lawmakers who say China has begun a renewed crackdown on dissidents.

"What Notre Dame is doing is very, very important," Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va. and chairman of the Appropriations Committee panel that oversees trade, said in an interview. "China is a particularly bad place to do outsourcing, and the American people are totally opposed to it."

While laudable, Notre Dame's policy may not do much to change a country's practices, according to Susan Aaronson, a professor of international trade at George Washington University in Washington. By staking out its own approach, Notre Dame loses the impact of many universities putting collective pressure on suppliers, she said.

"You have to have enough demanders of good labor protections," Aaronson, who writes about China and labor rights, said in an interview. Notre Dame's ban, she said, "is not a mistake, but it is likely to have little impact on behavior in China."

Sadly, I had agree that Notre Dame's ban itself, might not do much alone.  However, it should be an example for people to follow.  Anyone who uses an iPhone or an iPad ought to know the miserable working conditions the assembling line workers in Foxconn in China.

US and Americans are proud of our idealism and it will be up to every single one of us to demand our profit seeking companies to ensure the humane working conditions in factories working for our benefits.

Eternity - Four Seasons © Matthew Felix Sun

"Not Armageddon But One Crisis After Another" - David Alan Stockman

The economic situation in the US is still precarious and the debt ceiling debate did not generate the debate we truly need at this crucial juncture.  True, we need to rein in spending, but not (only) the entitlement programs, and spending on military, on big business subsidies and tax giving away to the rich.

Interestingly, an insider of Regan's administration, generally viewed as conservative and anti-tax wing, provided some insightful and pertinent solutions.  If only half of his proposal got seriously debated, this country would have a chance to correct its course.  But that is not going to happen soon.

San Francisco Chronicle reported that David Alan Stockman, director of the Office of Management and Budget in the Reagan administration, sat down to discuss the federal debt and the economy.  The summary of his analyses is:

I think we have an economy today that's on the edge of insolvency. We'll be dealing with an age of sacrifice, austerity and an age of pain. You have to stop pretending that we're in a normal business cycle.
The Republicans are just focusing on tax cuts while Democrats are defending their spending and they aren't willing to compromise. You're going to need to allow the Bush tax cuts to expire and, on top of that, find some new revenue sources. The Republican Party is being reckless in historic proportions, reckless to the extreme.
Obama's got to stop talking about taxing only the top 2 percent. Tax increases are going to have to include the middle class.

The politicians have had their head in the sand for so long about this issue that I really don't think they can compute reality anymore.
We need a drastic downsizing of our war machine, especially after they got Osama bin Laden. We should be rethinking whether we need an $800 billion defense budget. That's a vital part of the equation.

In a pure world, I think you could cut a lot of spending. There would be a way of getting back to a government where we do a social safety net on a means-tested basis, but that is never going to happen in this world.

Revenue is absolutely necessary, both as a practical matter and a matter of numbers. We should put a variable levy on imported oil at $100 (a barrel); whatever the price is coming in, you pay a levy to bring it to $100. We increase the power of the economy, both supply-side and demand-side, if we give investors a certainty of the price.

If we have a Tobin tax - a small tax on every transaction in this casino we used to call the stock market - we can easily generate $100 billion in revenue. We have a massive high-frequency churning in these markets today, and they're not accomplishing anything that's productive for the rejuvenation of the private economy.

We don't have entrepreneurial capitalism anymore, we have crony capitalism. We've had a tremendous reverse Robin Hood redistribution of income to the top. I don't think it's Armageddon. I think it's just one crisis after another.

Though I cannot say I agree with him point to point, most of his analyses are right on target and would lead to a fairer, more sustainable society.

He doesn't have nice things to say about the Democrats but he reserved most severe criticism on the Republicans.  Would they listen?  I'm not optimistic.  This country is heading towards precipice and it would be a miracle to stop the suicidal madness.

At Home © Matthew Felix Sun