The Danger of Drumpf

On Monday, December 19, the Electoral College will convene to vote for our next president. Although it would be a dramatic, unprecedented and frightening action, I support the Electoral College selecting someone other than Trump as president.

I believe that the United States is strong enough to survive a Trump presidency. I also do not have fears that the US will turn into Nazi Germany under a Trump administration. But there are several rational reasons why Trump will likely cause severe damage to the US and to the world:

1. The Iran Nuclear Deal. Trump has stated that he would tear up the Iran deal if elected president. Without the deal, there is nothing to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, short of the US attacking them militarily. Trump said that he would re-impose sanctions on Iran but sanctions did not prevent Iran from moving their nuclear program forward in the past. Iran was simply willing to give up the program in order to end the sanctions. Sanctions, like war, would mostly affect the citizens of Iran--many of whom are kind, peace-loving people who have no ill will toward the United States. Many Iranians know more about our country and our politics than our own citizens do. Those people will suffer most under sanctions or in war with the leadership of the Iranian government hardly be affected. I think that it would be naive to think that there are not people in our government that want to go to war with Iran. It would mean billions more for war profiteers.
2. The environment. Trump has expressed support for the Keystone XL pipeline and he is
   personally invested in the project, as well as the Dakota Access Pipeline. Both of these

   

   Oil Pipeline Spill in the Town of Mayflower, AR

   pipelines threaten the drinking water for millions of people, at a time when there are already millions of people who do not have access to clean drinking water. There is lead contamination in the water in Flint, MI; coal ash contaminates the drinking water for residents in states surrounding the Appalachian Mountains; coal cleaning chemicals have contaminated drinking water in South Carolina and Kentucky; and other oil pipelines have contaminated drinking water all over the country where, "since 1986 pipeline accidents have killed more than 500 people, injured over 4,000 and cost nearly seven billion dollars in property damages." Does Trump not understand that such catastrophes really hit working people hard when they have to buy bottled water for all of their needs? Perhaps he simply does not care.
3. Homeland Security. For all of Trump's tough talk about defeating ISIS and Islamic extremism around the world, he has not been attending daily briefings by intelligence advisers. Trump famously said that he knew more about ISIS than the generals. He may actually believe that and many of his supporters may also believe it. I am skeptical. With Trump having no diplomatic experience and no foreign policy experience, there has probably never been a president-elect that needs daily intelligence briefings more.
4. The Vultures. Paul "the Vulture" Singer made his first killing when he bought Owens-Corning.

   

   Asbestosis, anyone?
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asbestosis

   The company was going down due to lawsuits filed against it from hundreds of thousands of people whom it had made sick with asbestosis. Singer was able to buy the company cheap. Then he slowed down the legal cases so that the victims would accept a paltry settlement or die with no compensation at all. Paul Singer made millions off the deaths of those people, then turned his sights to foreign countries. He began buying up the debt of impoverished countries. Tens of billions of dollars of debt had been forgiven to allow the countries to provide drinking water and medicine to their citizens. But now Singer is demanding full payment. Paul Singer's greed for billions is going to kill millions of people all over the world. President Obama and the US State Department had blocked Singer's actions with a court injunction. It is unlikely that Trump would try to block Singer or any of the other vultures from feeding off the corpses of poor countries. After all, Trump made his first killing by hiring illegal Polish construction workers to demolish his building, before building Trump Tower. The workers were not given safety equipment and likely also died of asbestosis.

I could go on and on about Trump but I think those few bullet points are quite enough to consider an Electoral College intervention as a possible remedy. I would love to have a wild, non-politician, unorthodox president to blow the whole political system up. I would just want that person to be rational, intelligent and competent with a good sense of fairness. I don't see any of that in Trump.

If you agree, contact the electors before December 19th and let them know your thoughts.

~R. Charan Pagan
information systems technologist, musician, writer, filmmaker
Los Angeles, CA 90017
http://www.reclaimingourbirthright.blogspot.com/

A Possible Triple Trexit

Surprisingly, the press has not called the efforts to unseat Trump a possible "Triple Trexit"

The Takeaway

I'm going to start with the takeaway before I get into the weeds with all this recount and Electoral College business: my guess is that if Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump told people to get mad about our broken election system and to demand that politicians address the problems with it, millions of people would go out and protest for the cause. If Sean Hannity or Rachel Maddow said that people should protest and demand an election system that is fair, accurate and transparent, millions of their sycophant viewers would comply. But politicians and pundits do not want a fair, accurate and transparent election system. It seems that we are stuck with a broken election system and a political system that cannot serve the citizens of the country because we haven't learned that the issues that politicians try to avoid are the very issues that would make dramatic improvements to the strength of our democracy and our country. Instead, we are told to protest about the Affordable Care Act or gun control issues. People comply while our election system is incapable of producing candidates that are worth voting for. If we had candidates worth voting for, they wouldn't be passing laws that need to be defended. They would be passing laws and instituting policies on which nearly everyone would agree. If politicians passed a law to end the practice of gerrymandering, do you know a single person that would protest such a change? It is past time that we stop taking our direction from politicians and political pundits and instead identify an agenda that serves citizens and democracy, rather than politicians and political parties.

What happened to the Founders' vision of the country?

The Recount/Audit

There are two last ditch efforts underway to prevent Trump from taking office. The first is a recount effort, initiated by Green Party presidential candidate, Jill Stein, in the states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. Jill Stein is leading this effort because 1) in order for someone to start a recount, they need to have "legal standing"--meaning that only someone who has suffered a tort due to the election process (one of the candidates) can demand a recount. And, 2) Hillary Clinton will not ask for a recount because the people who own her (Wall Street banks and CEOs of large corporations) do not care who the president is. Their interests will be served whether Trump is in the White House or Hillary is. Hillary is not going to rock the boat on behalf of her voters when her masters just want a peaceful transfer of power and limited disruption to business operations.

The states selected for recount were selected because the election results differed from the polls before the election and the exit polls. The votes in these states were never counted but were simply tabulated by optical ballot readers that are capable of error and can be programmed to deliver a specific result. It would be stupid to accept the election results when every metric available suggest that they may be in error and when the ballots were never actually counted by anybody.

The recount is not expected to change the results of the election for a number of reasons. In Wisconsin, a hand recount was requested but denied by the courts. So, the same ballots will be run through the same ballot scanners and if there is no significant variation in the vote totals, the results will likely be accepted as correct, even though the ballots have never been counted. There is no way of knowing--other than counting the ballots by hand--if the ballot scanners correctly tabulated the votes in the first place or in the "recount". In Pennsylvania, most of the precincts use electronic voting machines that do not produce a paper record at all. There will not really be any kind of a recount there because there is nothing to count. Basically, they'll ask the machine if it was correct on Election Day, press some buttons and the machine will likely spit out the same answer. There may be an audit of these voting machines as part of the recount effort and that could reveal malfunction or malfeasance.

The recount could change the election results under the following circumstances:

1. If an audit of the ballot scanners and/or voting machines is performed and it is revealed that tampering or hacking had taken place.
2. As I understand it, the ES&S M100 ballot scanners are in use in the states that are going to be recounted. When tested, these machines would give varying results when the same ballots were run through them. For this reason and others, the M100 was not certified to be used in the State of California (thank god). It is possible that the "recount" results could change due to machine error. Were that to occur, we would hopefully get a hand recount so that we would better know who the winner actually was.
3. If spoiled (rejected) ballots are reviewed and assigned to a candidate (when appropriate) it could overturn the Trump victory. This election, 3 million votes were rejected. Ballots can be rejected for legitimate reasons, such as if the voter had marked more than one choice for president, for instance. The machines can also be programmed to reject specific ballots with the intent to sway the election. Then there are semi-legitimate reasons for spoiled ballots. If there are stray marks on a ballot, it can be rejected but the same optical readers are sometimes used in other districts and configured to alert the voter when their ballot has been rejected. This allows the voter to cast a new ballot. In states that have Democratic Secretaries of State, the latter type of machine may be deployed in Republican districts while the former type is used in Democratic districts. In states with Republican Secretaries of State, the opposite is likely to be true. It's one of the ways that the political parties game the system and if some of these rejected ballots are valid and they are reviewed, the election results could change.
4. Provisional ballots are not always counted. The "recount" could include a review of hundreds of thousands of provisional ballots cast by legitimate voters who were removed from the voter rolls and/or hundreds of thousands more provisional ballots cast by people who did not have the ID required by new election laws in specific states, like Wisconsin. The spoiled and provisional ballots far outnumber the margin of Trump's victory in these states.

Electoral College Correction

The other effort underway to prevent Trump from occupying the White House is a campaign for the Electoral College to select another candidate. This is also not likely to occur but it is certainly a possibility and it could shake out two ways. The Electoral College is supposed to be a safety switch to prevent an unqualified and unfit person from becoming president. Donald Trump can easily be argued to be unfit and unqualified. In polls before the election, 62 percent of Americans responded that Trump was unfit to be president. And it would not require 270 electors to vote against Trump to select another president. If a handful electors decide to vote against him, or decide to award their state's electoral votes proportionally (rather than winner-take-all), then it could result in neither Trump nor Clinton having enough Electoral College votes to win the White House. In this instance, the House of Representatives would select the person to be the next president. John Kasich has been rumored to be the most likely compromise candidate.

The multitude of conflict of interest scandals and breaches of protocol by Trump in the past couple of weeks will make an Electoral College vote against him more probable. The questions raised by our dysfunctional election system and the restrictive voting rights laws could also be factors.

Of the possible outcomes (a recount giving Hillary Clinton victory, John Kasich being selected to be president by the Electoral College/House of Representatives or Trump remaining the president-elect), I would prefer to have Kasich as the next president. But that would set a new, scary and perhaps dangerous precedent: the Electoral College overturning the choice of the people. I believe that Trump is inexperienced and dangerous enough to take this dramatic action, but is he really? Is he dangerous enough to risk turning to the Electoral College to select a president for the country or turn the decision over to the House of Representatives, invalidating the election results? There is no way of knowing, other than letting Trump take the oath of office and seeing how things go--at which point it could be too late to ever rectify the situation. I'm not sure what the outcome will be but luckily, as an American, I am used to having no good options.


If you support the campaign for the Electoral College to overturn Trump's victory, or if you oppose that action, you can send a message to the electors to let them know how you feel. If you support the recount effort to determine who actually won in the states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, go to Jill2016.com. We have until December 19th, when electors vote, to get this right.

Afterward

If you want to know all there is to know about elections in the United States, you need to follow two people: Greg Palast and Brad Friedman. The pair of journalists are the foremost experts in the country when it comes to voting laws and politicians' schemes to violate them. If you are listening to anyone else speak about election issues, then you are likely getting utter nonsense or, at best, you are getting unsubstantiated speculation for which there is little or no evidence. If you don't know what a caging list is, or a purge list, or what an overvote is, or what an undervote is, or if you don't know what Interstate Crosscheck is, or if you don't know what "fraction magic" is, then you are not aware of the multitude of ways that politicians try to steal elections and undermine YOUR vote. Both parties commit any election fixing they can get away with. Don't hold your breath waiting for a someone among them to encourage you to get involved with cleaning up our elections.

~R. Charan Pagan
information systems technologist, musician, writer, filmmaker
Los Angeles, CA 90017
http://www.reclaimingourbirthright.blogspot.com/

My Pussy or My Democracy

Trump, the Republicans' Trojan Horse

I don't have a pussy but, if I did have one, I think I would prefer someone grabbing it without my permission than to have someone actively working to undermine our democracy. I think that is a big part of what we saw with the Trump victory this week, when white women and even some minorities voted for Donald Trump in surprisingly large numbers. I cannot vote for someone that is actively working to undermine democracy. That was the main reason that I could not vote for Hillary Clinton.

As Americans, we hold democracy sacred. And while it is always tampered with and manipulated in every election, I believe that the revelations of the Clinton campaign's meddling in the elections and conspiring with the news media to elevate Trump and other "extremists" during the Republican Party primaries cemented the public's view of Hillary as being untrustworthy. But not just untrustworthy. She was caught attempting to undermine democracy with this and numerous other tactics. To every American, that should be sacrilege.

The media was largely asleep on the job when it came to the Trump campaign conspiring with the FBI to harm Clinton's campaign. But Trump being an "outsider" to politics would likely have gotten a pass on that, even if it were widely reported. There is something especially distasteful about a politician being placed in a position of power and then violating that sacred trust.

So we slayed the three-headed dragon that is neo-Liberalism, media collusion with political operatives and the Clinton cabal. And in doing so, we've unleashed a six-headed dragon upon the world. With no record of accomplishment or any indication of competence, Trump is a Trojan horse for the Republican Party. Trump's platform and plan for his first 100 days includes items that the Republicans have been trying to get passed for decades but have been unsuccessful. Most notably are proposals to build the Keystone XL pipeline, to further cut taxes on the wealthy and to repeal Obamacare.

Republican presidential candidates have not been able to win the popular vote since the 1980s. Let that sink in for a moment. At least two of the Republicans' three 'wins' since the '80s were the result of election tampering. A strategy for wealthy donors to superfund Republican candidates for state legislatures after the 2010 census resulted in more Republicans getting elected and therefore charged with re-drawing Congressional district maps. The maps were heavily gerrymandered to benefit Republicans in future Congressional House elections. In the past few elections, Republicans have won more seats in the House although the Democrats won more votes.

Constantly rebuked at the polls, the Republican Party scored big by having Trump run in their party and to win the nomination. Now, the Trump supporters that trust everything he says--even though he's been proven to be a compulsive liar--are eager to support the policies that they rejected repeatedly when proposed by Republican "insiders".

There are a some very good parts of Trump's platform too. Unfortunately, they would require Trump to convince members of Congress to slit their own throats, such as the plans to impose term limits on members of Congress, to close the revolving door between Congress and lobbying firms and to strengthen ethics rules for the legislature. Some of these things could get done through state conventions but I do not credit Trump with the intelligence to know that. Even if he figures it out, I don't see him spending the political capital on these efforts. If I am wrong and Trump actually accomplishes these things, it could potentially make his presidency a net positive change for the country, no matter how badly he may screw up everything else. I say this because, to my knowledge, these issues have never been part of a major party 's platform.

There are many reasons that I'm so skeptical of Trump's sincerity on these issues. They would be major benefits to the American people yet Trump has hardly spoken about them in any of the debates or on the campaign trail. That is strange for a candidate that considers himself a populist. You may also recall that Trump complained many times that the Republican primary was rigged against him when the Republican establishment tried every parliamentary tactic imaginable to bump Trump from the lead and knock him out of contention for the nomination. Trump had a legitimate complaint but, once he won the nomination, he declared that he no longer cared that the primary system is rigged. For those perceptive enough to hear that dog whistle, it was a clear statement to reassure the Republican and Democratic establishment that if he became president, he would not try to fix the election system that benefits the Republican/Democratic duopoly and steals democratic power from citizens. This does not sit well with me since I do still care about our elections not being fair, accurate and transparent. Trump knowing how undemocratic our election system is and not caring enough to try to fix it is a good clue as to where his loyalties actually lie.

So where are we headed in the next four years? It's really anybody's guess. Trump's positions turn 180 degrees at any moment so he may do the opposite of what he campaigned on. I think the most likely outcome is that the Republican Party wish list will get passed immediately and the policies that are actually populist will languish and be forgotten about. In a few years, Trump will give his last State of the Union Address and list his accomplishments as president: Tax cuts for the rich! Pipelines to benefit the rich! Deregulation to benefit Wall Street and polluters! Hopefully, fixing the VA will make that list but I'm not going to hold my breath on that.

~R. Charan Pagan
information systems technologist, musician, writer, filmmaker
Los Angeles, CA 90017
http://www.reclaimingourbirthright.blogspot.com/

Examining Donald Trump's Harebrained Schemes

Donald J. Trump (our next president?)

Donald Trump became the Republican nominee at their convention in Cleveland, OH this week. The convention had its controversies, scandals and surprises.

Unsurprisingly, Trump again proposed to build a wall on the border of Mexico and to deport all of the country's undocumented workers. And he again pledged to be tough on terrorism. These are two of Trump's most notable positions and two that can use very close examination...

I. BORDER WALL AND IMMIGRATION POLICY

Trump's idea to build a wall on the border of Mexico is a position tailor made for the ignorant. Although we do need to be able to control our border and know who is entering our country, there are many reasons why blaming illegal immigrants for our country's problems and proposing to build a wall and deport them is insane.

I'll list some of those reasons in a moment but the most bewildering aspect of proposing to build a giant wall on the border of Mexico is that it is an attempt to use a Stone Age solution to solve a modern problem. I'm surprised that nobody in the media has picked up on this. To me, it is akin to John F. Kennedy declaring that "we are going to the moon... by constructing a giant ladder!"

Trump may not know it but we are living in the Digital Age. A network of sensors, satellites and aerial drones would be far more effective at preventing unauthorized entry into our country than a wall. Such a  system could be implemented in much less time than it would take to build a wall. But Donald Trump lacks the vision to imagine things beyond the comprehension of a Neanderthal.

So why is Trump's policy on illegal immigration ignorant and ill-advised?

1.   Many illegal immigrants came to the United States because they were recruited by US companies, looking to hire cheap laborers. Cracking down on these companies would be the way to end the problem of Mexican workers crossing the border.

2.   Illegal border crossings is currently at net zero.

3.   NAFTA is partly responsible for the economic conditions in Mexico that have driven workers to the US. Our corrupt leaders colluded with the corrupt leaders of Mexico and the workers in both countries got the shaft. It does not make sense to blame the victims on the opposite side of the border instead of the politicians that passed the trade deal.

4.   Undocumented immigrants commit less crime than native born citizens. Even the oft vilified shooting of a woman in San Francisco by an illegal immigrant was most likely the result of an accidental firearm discharge and ricochet, for which Francisco Lopez Sanchez may not have even been responsible.

5.   Undocumented immigrants are likely to have a net positive effect on our economy.

6.   Without cheap immigrant labor picking fruits and vegetables and processing meat, many Americans would not be able to afford groceries. A nation-wide food shortage may also result, as when individual states have attempted to crack down on undocumented workers, millions of dollars of crops rotted in the fields with no-one to pick them.

7.   Only about half of illegal immigrants are Mexicans. Most of our country's illegal aliens did not sneak across our borders. They arrived by plane with a work, student or tourist visa. Then they over-stay their visas.

8.   A wall on the border of Mexico is highly unfeasible. The 1,200 mile border has about 500 miles of terrain so rugged that it would be inaccessible to work crews and equipment. Trump would be long out of office before construction of the wall could ever be completed.

9.   In an experiment, the previously-proposed border wall could be climbed over in less than 12 minutes. It took less than half that time to cut though it. And the wall could be tunneled under in about three minutes.

10. Undocumented workers do the worst jobs in the country for peanuts. Most US citizens would not do the jobs that immigrants do or they would demand much more money, which would make the products un-affordable for most people.

II. TORTURE

Trump criticizes George W. Bush for going into Iraq (although he didn't voice his objections until we were already there for a year). Trump has also stated that he would bring back waterboarding and other methods of torture. Personally, I would want a leader that is intelligent enough to connect the dots between the ill-advised invasion of Iraq and the torture that produced some of the flawed intelligence that got us into that war.

Trump's support for torture is another appeal to the ignorant because there is no evidence that torture produces useful information that cannot be obtained without it. Most experts proclaim that torture does not produce useful intelligence but other methods of extracting information do. CIA Director John Brennan admitted that torture tactics did not lead to the killing of Osama bin laden. The Useful information that was gathered leading to the killing of bin Laden was obtained before Hassan Ghul was waterboarded.

Trump is apparently willing to trade our security and our reputation for the self-aggrandizing purpose of appearing to be a "tough" leader. Why so many people are not as concerned about their leader being effective is anybody's guess.

In World War II, Nazis were proactive about finding methods of torturing and killing people that wouldn't emotionally scar their soldiers and operatives. What does it say about the United States that so many of our citizens and politicians clamor for more torture when it has been proven ineffective and it harms the people who torture others?

Here are a few questions that I feel any person should get a reasonable answer to before they consider voting for Donald Trump:

1.   What happens to radical Islamic recruitment after Trump tortures Muslims and murders the families of terrorists?

2.   What happens to journalism, whistleblowing and oversight of government after Trump puts Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning in front of a firing squad and makes the media subservient to politicians?

3.   What happens to the millions of refugees from Alaska, Bangladesh and elsewhere who need to flee their homelands due to rising sea levels? Where are those people going to go and, can we deny them asylum in the United States considering that we are responsible for much of the environmental damage that is causing sea levels to rise? Trump has declared that he thinks climate change is a hoax, yet he wants to build a wall to protect one of his golf resorts from rising sea levels.

Donald Trump may be entertaining to watch and listen to at times but many of his ideas are poorly conceived and dangerous. Not to mention unconstitutional, offensive and ignorant.

Next week the Democrats are expected to nominate Hillary Clinton as their presidential candidate, arguably a worse choice to have in the White House. The 2016 general election is going to be strange, ugly and will likely culminate with the election of one of the worst presidents in modern times.

Perhaps it will result in the beneficial consequence of citizens closely examining our political system and electoral process that allowed two of the worst and least-liked contenders to vie for the highest office in the land. Perhaps one consequence of electing a President Clinton or Trump will be that people will become motivated to change our political process to prevent such catastrophes in the future. One can hope.

~R. Charan Pagan
information systems technologist, musician, writer, filmmaker
Los Angeles, CA 90017
http://www.reclaimingourbirthright.blogspot.com/

The Definitive Answer On Climate Change (Sort of)

Is climate change real, a hoax or a distraction from the real issues?

The definitive answer on climate change is that it is irrelevant. Here's why...

The first thing everyone should realize about climate change (or any other politically-charged issue) is that whatever your position is, it is likely not based on facts but on your emotions. There are studies that show that people have strong biases on political issues and that when discussing such issues, the emotional areas of the brain engage far more than the reasoning sectors. Not only that, but the brains of conservatives differ in physical structure from those of liberals. This suggests that our political beliefs are virtually hard wired and the beliefs of hyper-partisan thinkers will not be affected by facts. When contemplating political issues, people often begin with their belief or what they desire to be true, then they search for evidence to support their position (confirmation bias). This is the opposite of the scientific process but it is emotionally comforting.

I always found it odd that people would speak about political matters with such certainty when there is so much misinformation and contradictory information out there. The aforementioned psychological phenomenon explains why this occurs but issues like climate science is especially disturbing because the science is far beyond the understanding of the vast majority of us. That is where the misinformation campaigns are so brilliantly utilized. There are a lot of people that have a great deal to gain or lose from the consequences of this political issue. Nearly all politicians and pundits are likely to be personally invested in fossil fuel companies or green technology companies. Politicians get political contributions from these companies and pundits receive millions of dollars of ad revenues from them. So, anything you hear from either politicians or pundits should be thrown straight out the window.

How does salinity affect the
freezing point of water?

For instance, those who deny climate change [for the sake of brevity, when I mention "climate change" in this article, I will be referring to the human impact on the changing climate as opposed to the natural climate cycles of the Earth], will dismiss all of the science with a simple explanation that the lay person can understand. They may point out that the amount of ocean ice at the poles is increasing. But, when glaciers (fresh water) melt, they decrease the saline content of the oceans which allows it to re-freeze at higher temperatures. Any of us can test this at home by mixing table salt into some water and checking its freezing point, compared to water with less or no salt. Climate change deniers will also point out that increased snowfall is proof that the Earth is not warming. However, when temperatures rise, more moisture evaporates into the atmosphere and will eventually come down as precipitation (rain, snow, hail). These are third grade scientific facts but they don't keep politicians and pundits from using such faulty logic as arguments against climate change.

On the opposite side, people in support of climate change theories

Where is the scientific proof?

will point to hurricanes like Katrina and Sandy and claim that they are a result of climate change. This makes sense because hurricanes are caused by warm water temperatures. If the temperature of the oceans are rising, then hurricanes are going to be more numerous and powerful. But any connection between human activity and the super storms has never been proven by the science. And some climate scientists did not publicize data and communications that were not consistent with their findings that human activity is partly responsible for the current changes in the climate. Being secretive with the data has cast doubts on their credibility and on the credibility of the research and findings.

The simple truth is though, that the disaster of hurricane Katrina was caused by human activity related to fossil fuel consumption. The Mississippi River Gulf Outlet (MRGO) is a canal that was carved into Louisiana so that the oil ships would have a more direct route to the refineries, as opposed to using the winding Mississippi River. MRGO brought a surge of water, driven by the hurricane, from the Gulf directly into the city of New Orleans, causing much of the flooding and levee breaks. On top of that, the Louisiana shore line is receding at a rate of about a half mile per year, bringing the hurricane waters ever closer to the metropolises. The industry's own study determined that fossil fuel extraction activity is responsible for one third of the land loss.

There it is, the smoking gun at the feet of the fossil fuel industry and it has NOTHING to do with greenhouse gasses or the changing climate. About 1,800 people died as a result of Katrina and we the taxpayers footed most of the bill for the cleanup and reconstruction of New Orleans, subsidizing the profits of oil companies yet again. What issues were the left and the right fighting about at the time all that was going on?

Katrina is just one costly and deadly incident. Air pollution has been linked to numerous health problems, oil spills destroy fishing and tourism jobs, coal mining and natural gas fracturing poison peoples' drinking water and the U.S. military (the largest consumer of fossil fuels) commits atrocities and costs trillions of dollars attempting to secure our access to sources of oil around the world. Is that not enough proof that we should be looking for other sources of energy for our long-term energy needs?

But oh, there's more: we pay tax on a gallon of gas and the oil companies get subsidies for every gallon of gas they produce. Isn't that a redistribution of our wealth to the oil companies? Why is it that Republicans don't ever get upset about that? Or Democrats for that matter? They always seem to be fighting about something wholly inconsequential, of which evidence is scant and there are few trustworthy voices on either side of the debate.

We need to stop asking whether we want to side with Al Gore, green energy industries, and Solyndra subsidies or if we want to side with Exxon/Mobile, BP and OPEC, but rather whether we want to side with your fellow citizens instead of those other groups. That is where the division line lies and the climate change debate blurs the lines. If we looked at the issue with that frame of reference: what's actually good for us, and we stopped arguing about the issues that are good for them, the answers would be more clear.

~R. Charan Pagan
information systems technologist, musician, writer, filmmaker
Los Angeles, CA 90017
http://www.reclaimingourbirthright.blogspot.com/

1.     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drew_Westen#Political_bias_study
2.     http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/health/2012/09/03/conservatives-and-liberals-have-different-brains-studies-show/
3.     http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/02/brain-difference-democrats-republicans
4.     http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-political-brain/
5.     http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2003954/Nancy-Pelosis-wealth-grows-62--lawmakers-annual-form-release-reveals.html
6.     http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0510/36783.html
7.     http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/totals.php?ind=E01++
8.     http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/obama-fundraisers-ties-green-firms-federal-cash/story?id=14592626
9.     http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/14/us/politics/fossil-fuel-industry-opens-wallet-to-defeat-obama.html?_r=1&
10.   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_denial
11.   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seawater
12.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8QauSPK3Es
13.   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climatic_Research_Unit_email_controversy#Content_of_the_documents
14.   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississippi_River_%E2%80%93_Gulf_Outlet_Canal#Role_in_Hurricane_Katrina_disaster
15.   http://www.rense.com/general67/drown.htm
16.   http://www.epa.gov/region7/air/quality/health.htm
17.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrJlUVCe4VA
18.   http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/1/13/coal-pollution-miningwestvirginiamassey.html
19.   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_fracturing#Water
20.   http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/study-iraq-afghan-war-costs-to-top-4-trillion/2013/03/28/b82a5dce-97ed-11e2-814b-063623d80a60_story.html
21.   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline_and_diesel_usage_and_pricing#Countries_with_subsidised_gasoline

Identifying and Avoiding the Danger Ahead

Are we too distracted to know and understand the danger ahead?

Does anyone really think that our politicians suck because they;re too "liberal" or too "conservative"? Do you think that maybe it's because they're all beholden to interests other than yours or mine that their job performance is unsatisfactory?

I don't see many politicians I would call either liberal or conservative. If we had a liberal party it would be an anti-war party. And if we had a conservative party it would be fiscally responsible. Instead, we have Democrats and Republicans and just look at what they have accomplished over the past several years. It has not been pretty.

What is the best course of action?

If you are standing on a ship headed for an iceberg, does it matter whether you're on the port side or starboard side? Would you chain yourself to one side or would you rush the bridge, take control of the vessel and steer it clear of the danger? Understand that the primary danger ahead of us is not a mass of bad liberal ideas or bad conservative ideas. It is an iceberg of corruption, of plutocracy and of duopoly. If we cannot focus on avoiding that obstacle, or obliterating it, then we are sunk. Plain and simple.

We are not going to eliminate corruption by electing more Democrats or more Republicans. We are only going to eliminate it by addressing it ourselves, together. Politicians are not going to work to eliminate corruption. Most of them profit from it. Others enjoy the sense of power that comes from having the ability to take your tax dollars and hand them to their cronies.

Are we going to continue to tolerate the corruption or will we do something about it? Click here to read about how a 21st Century Continental Congress could be created to reform government and eliminate corruption. It would take a  lot of work but it would be successful. ...if we find the motivation to change the system to benefit us. Otherwise, we wait for the special interests, the plutocrats and the duopoly to wrangle over who gets our tax dollars and how much of it we get to keep. Why would you ever consider leaving such decisions in their hands?

~R. Charan Pagan
information systems technologist, musician, writer, filmmaker
Los Angeles, CA 90017
http://www.reclaimingourbirthright.blogspot.com/

Save Your Breath

United States Congress

Our whole political system is corrupt. And to fix it we need to address issues like Congress' salary. $155,500 - $223,500 a year for a part-time job that used to be voluntary and they have an 10% approval rating. Would you have a job if your employer had an 10% approval rating of your performance?

What about Congress members' budgets? Rand Paul recently returned $600,000 of his budget that he didn't spend. Last year it was $500,000. He should be applauded for such a feat! And if he can do that, why can't the rest of them trim their budgets?

Why aren't these things even being discussed?

Why do we allow Congress members to trade stocks related to legislation that they are debating? As soon as a Congressperson takes their oath of office, all of their stock trades should be frozen. And if they attempt to tip off others with inside information they should be punished harshly. Boehner owns stock in oil companies, Pelosi owns stock in Citibank. They all get rich and who were they serving with their decisions?

Does everything really have to involve a penis to be a scandal now?

Politicians often leave Congress and go to work for the businesses that they voted to provide or deny federal assistance to. Sometimes they go the other way. Doesn't this all seem a little bit too cozy to you?

If we can't all get behind these issues then we really are stupid and perhaps we should just give up.

~R. Charan Pagan
information systems technologist, musician, writer, filmmaker
Los Angeles, CA 90017
http://www.reclaimingourbirthright.blogspot.com/

Surveying Our Political Landscape

The US Political Landscape (a dramatization)

In my last blog post, Breaking Down the Political Equation, I recommended that we "stop marching into the voting booth to protect" politicians. I want to be clear that I am not suggesting that people stop voting. It is important for those of us that wish to be proactive to keep informed and vote for the person that best represents our individual ideals and values and whom we believe will best care for the country and the interests of its citizens. We citizens may not agree on the best candidates but it is important in a democracy that most of the citizens participate. I do however think it is foolish to believe that politicians will do anything to fix the country's problems. At least, not without being forced to by the electorate.

I often deride politicians for their corruption and poor governance but I will admit that I do admire some politicians--most of whom are unfortunately now out of government--for things that they have done either in their private lives and/or while serving. Not all of them are corrupt and incompetent. But as I survey the political landscape, I see numerous pitfalls that nearly ensure that every politician will be ineffective. I once saw an interview with a politician (I can't remember which one or on which show) who confided that in his first week of serving in the US Congress, his staff had put fundraising events on his agenda. This is our current political reality. Politicians need to raise thousands of dollars daily to fund their next political campaign. Any good-natured and virtuous person may enter government with the intention to change it for the better, but to remain in a position to attempt to positively affect the political system, they are beholden to those that will donate large amounts of money to their campaigns.

That leaves we citizens largely without representation in our own country. We have to clean up the money in politics in order to improve our country and the political system. But how do we do that?

1n 2006, Americans were fed up with Republican scandals and corruption became one of the top issues in the country. In that mid term election, voters elected Democrats who promised to clean up Washington. After winning majorities in both houses of Congress in that election, Democrats had the privilege of changing the rules of Congress. Although Democrats did pass the most strict ethics rules in modern times, the new rules left plenty of loopholes and opportunities for corruption. As often occurs in government, we ended up with half measures and very little change. In my opinion, Democrats fell far short of their clear mandate and to me it is a clear, current example that you cannot send politicians to fix a broken system. Especially when they profit from that broken system.

Voting out one batch of politicians to replace them with other politicians is not a viable solution to our problems. What would actually work is a large voting block of citizens drawing up the reforms we'd like to see in government and then demanding that Congress pass those reforms.

When we citizens unite behind a common cause, we could elect "citizen legislators". Each of these candidates could take an oath not to seek re-election, not to work for lobbying firms or other para-governmental agencies following their term and not to work in any industry or company affected by legislation that they have voted on while in elected office.

Without worrying about re-election, these citizen legislators would be capable of representing the citizens of the country without conflicts of interest. Sending just a few of these political operatives to Washington could actually have a reasonable impact if they stall every non-essential bill until members of Congress re-address the ethics rules and make changes that would satisfy the citizens they are supposed to represent.

Getting citizen legislators elected in a system that is awash in dirty money returns us to the campaign finance challenge. The group, Americans for Campaign Reform, purports that for as little as $6 per US citizen annually, we could fund elections and take special interest groups out of the equation. This seems to be a solution that is well worth looking into. Otherwise, we can only hold our breath and wait for politicians evolve into competent, ethical beings. And the system is rigged to ensure that never happens.

~R. Charan Pagan
information systems technologist, musician, writer, filmmaker
Los Angeles, CA 90017
http://www.reclaimingourbirthright.blogspot.com/

Breaking Down the Political Equation



*may not be mathematically accurate

The US political equation, like any other equation, has two sides. When things are not going well in the country, one or both sides of the political equation are out of whack. On one side, the citizens can become uninformed and/or apathetic and vote for incompetent politicians. On the other side, an incompetent government, elected by uninformed/apathetic citizens, will likely become corrupt and do things that harm the country.

I believe that every American would agree that both sides of the equation are out of whack. But which side of the equation are we spending most our effort trying to fix? From my perspective, we spend nearly 100% of our time trying to convince the citizens on the opposite side of the political spectrum to change their minds and vote for the greedy, corrupt and inept politicians that we prefer when compared to the other greedy, corrupt and inept politicians running. Meanwhile, on the opposite side of the equation, government has become so corrupt and dysfunctional that our country has been made a mess. Politicians insulate themselves from losing elections by taking money from special interests and by gerrymandering districts. They line their pockets by taking bribes and kickbacks and by taking advantage of their positions to do things that would land your or me in prison. Shouldn't we spend some effort attempting to fix the way government works? After all, how can you be upset with another citizen for voting for an awful politician who then passed a bad bill when they are almost all awful politicians and they are almost all bad bills?

Even a good bill that has the potential to become a beneficial law can be loaded with earmarks that rob taxpayers to fund politicians' pet projects. A politician that votes against the bill can be blamed for its failure to pass in the next campaign. Or, if they vote for it, they will be blamed for helping to pass a bill with wasteful earmarks. It is a no-win scenario for them and for us.

In 2010, TEA Party Republicans introduced a bill that would ban earmarks. Failing to get adequate support from Democrats or fellow Republicans, the bill failed. But what if we citizens demanded that a ban on earmarks be passed? That any politician that voted against the ban would be voted out of office in the next election? We could get this critical change made. And with a ban on earmarks, every politician could better be evaluated by their voting record without opposition to (or support of) earmarks to confuse the intention of their vote. It would make it much easier for voters to understand what policies their representatives honestly support and which they oppose.

How would you reform government?

There are other Congressional rules that need to be addressed to get government to function properly: reforming the filibuster, strengthening the rules regarding gifts from lobbyists and closing the revolving door between Congress and lobbying firms. Those few changes would have an incredible impact on improving the government.

If thinking of politics as a two-sided equation doesn't really cement things in for you--that our fight is with government and not with each other--then consider this: as an American, I would lay down my life to protect your right to worship and to express your faith--or any other expression--in every way that the First Amendment protects, or to protect your right to vote. I would lay down my life to protect your right to bear arms or to have access to a fair judicial system, should it be required. I would lay down my life to protect your right to have your tax dollars fairly collected, wisely spent and well-accounted for. Shouldn't that be more important than whether we see exactly eye-to-eye on matters of abortion or gun rights or what tax rates should be? I would hope that every American has the same devotion because, if we do, that should bond us like brothers and sisters. Then we can together look at the things that are wrong with the government and correct them. When thinking of those rights that we most cherish, who is the greater risk to them, your neighbor or the government?

If reforming the government sounds too daunting, imagine this: we force all of the money (or at least the dirty money) out of elections. That eliminates most of the corruption. Then, we re-draft the ethics rules of Congress. That eliminates the rest of corruption and eliminates the gridlock, horrible bills, wasteful spending and poor judgment. We get it done with oversight and accountability. I know that it isn't going to be just that easy. It is going to be a lot of work. And it means we all work together to watch what government is doing and keep it in line. But because the work is going to be hard, does it mean that we shouldn't be doing it? Is there one person anywhere who would argue that our efforts are better spent fighting about issues we will never resolve rather than addressing issues we can actually fix?

Click here to read my idea for how we begin to take on such an endeavor. There may be many ways of getting it accomplished. We just need to find the best solution and see it though. I refuse to believe that the status quo is the best we can do. That we can only play the politicians' game. A game that only serves to keep them in power and subjugate citizens to their will. A game that denies us our birthright: a country of our own.

I promise afterward that everyone can go back to fighting like the Hatfields & the McCoys. At least the government wont' be robbing you, molesting you and poisoning you all at the same time. We look at the Middle East and express disbelief at the unresolved conflicts there. But they have real issues over there! Our problems are so minor. We have just need to redirect our efforts.

This message may never get through to the hyper-partisans. Like telling a Bears fan that the Giants are the greatest team ever. But this will make sense to a lot of Americans who, I believe, will soon be the new voting majority.

This is where the Republicans have really failed in the 2012 election. They could have nominated Ron Paul for President. Ron Paul had a chance to beat Obama but even if he lost the election, I think this message of unity and government reform would really carry with Ron Paul supporters. I think it would appeal to large factions of the Tea Party and the Occupy movement as well. And any other pragmatic activists that don't care to classify themselves as any of the above. And, I suspect, a lot of dis-affected Republicans and a lot of fed-up Democrats. All over the country, that's a lot of people and the Republican Party could have positioned itself to be the standard bearer for that group. But it's not too late for them. It may not be too late for the Democrats either. Whichever party embraces the concept of direct democratic action to reform government, and is most cooperative in helping We the People achieve that new directive, will emerge as the stronger party. Realistically, I don't see either party giving up control so that their game can be better scrutinized and refereed. But aren't they supposed to be serving us, rather than the other way around? They have flipped the game and we still haven't caught on.

If you can't see that the government side of the equation is more seriously askew than our side, and more easily-correctable, then I suggest you reexamine your math, science, history, perceptive attributes, sense of reality, etc. The student that wants access to safe, available abortions isn't selling out your future for campaign cash. The NRA supporter that wants to own an arsenal of guns isn't bargaining with corporations and industry to poison our air and water and to protect their own wealth. Politicians are doing these things. When will we stop marching to the voting booth to defend them from other politicians involved in the same schemes? When will we find the courage and conviction to take them on? Can we get control of government any other way?

~R. Charan Pagan
information systems technologist, musician, writer, filmmaker
Los Angeles, CA 90017
http://www.reclaimingourbirthright.blogspot.com/