A view from Lick Skillet by Gerald Largen

The big frou-fraw the last few days has been over the “WikiLeaks” of State Department cables.
This incident proves once again what so few seem to recognize: First, there are no secrets, government or otherwise, (if two people know it, sooner or later one is going to let it out) and second, everyone is placing too much reliance on computers and the Internet to do their business.
Diplomatic dispatches should be written on paper and transmitted by means of the diplomatic pouches sent back and forth constantly between the various embassies and the State Department.
If this were done, there could be no such leak as in the current imbroglio, where all the information was placed on a computer to which over a million people had access.
That is a disaster just waiting to happen.
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In regard to the Bush Tax Cuts compromise bill; everyone should recall the requirements of the U.S. Constitution, Article One, Section Seven, Subsection One, which says: “All bills for raising revenue shall originate in the house of representatives; but the senate may propose or concur with amendments as on other bills.” So why did this one originate in the Senate?
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Everybody is talking about creating new jobs. We would like for them to tell us just exactly what these jobs will consist of.
They will certainly not be jobs making anything because the USA just doesn’t make anything anymore.
The economics wise guys told us several years ago that we should redirect our focus — that anything that we wanted to buy could be manufactured more cheaply somewhere else other than in the USA, and that our future was not as a manufacturing economy, but as a service economy.
At that time, ours was the greatest manufacturing economy the world had ever known, but these experts said it couldn’t and shouldn’t be saved: They said we were to enter a world-wide or global economy and all would be well.
And so we have indeed killed our manufacturing economy and abandoned our basic premise of existence, i.e., American Independence from all the world.
And we have entered the global economy with a vengeance, but, to paraphrase what the playwright observed in titling his play some years ago, “A funny thing happened on the way to the Forum.”
In our case, “A funny thing happened on the way to the Future.”
We are no longer making anything, and instead are buying what we need from China or other cheap-labour venues.
And the services we were supposed to provide the world to make up for the loss of our manufacturing economy aren’t being bought by the rest of the world, and in fact we are buying many of these services from them.
So, here we are with all these willing hands, but unable to find employment to use those willing hands.
The Republicans promise that they will resolve this conundrum and soon everyone will have a high paying job.
But what will they be doing?
We have yet to hear the answer to that question.
And we must beg to be allowed a bit of skepticism as to the worth of this Republican promise of employment, since the only proposal we have heard as to how they think they are going to create all these millions of jobs is to keep the George W. Bush tax cuts on the income of the millionaires/billionaires who got us into this mess in the first place.
Now, consider this, and see if you don’t share just a small modicum of our skepticism.
Keeping the Bush tax cuts will mean that everyone will have the same tax rate next month as they have had for the past several years, yet to hear the Elephant people trumpeting their siren song, keeping the Bush tax cuts will mean a great increase in the number of jobs available for all Americans!
If those tax rates are the guarantor of more jobs in January, why did those identical tax rates not mean more jobs in November?
Almost no one else seems to see the disconnect between fact and fantasy involved here.
It just demonstrates that Hitler was right, and Stalin was right when each of them placed their trust in the efficacy of the Big Lie.
Some folks will believe anything, won’t they?
This Republican position once again shows how many supposedly rational people will continue to do exactly the same thing time after time, while confidently expecting a different result each time.
Truly this is insanity.
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We find it just a bit troubling, but also amusing, that our Republican friends are so grossly overestimating the consequences of the November election.
As usually happens in mid-term elections, the “outs” displaced the “ins,” but only in the House of Representatives.
Yet on a recent Meet the Press programme, the Senate Minority leader, Mitch McConnell, was sounding the huzzahs, with great braggadocio, just as though he was to be the new Majority Leader.
He was the Minority Leader before the November election, and he will have the very same position when the Senate re-assembles after the first of the year, if the Tea Party allows him to keep it.
The Republicans did have a very strong showing in the House, and their leader John Boehner will doubtless be the new Speaker, but even he, who is entitled to crow a little, commits the same egregious error of equating their victory to a mandate from the American People.
And he, Mitch, and most other Republicans, whether in office or not, proclaim that “The American People” said so and so, or “The American People” have such and such a position on various public issues as a result of the recent election.
Which is another demonstration of the “Big Lie” strategy.
Since “The American People” do not speak with one voice, we assume that these folks mean either that their segment of the population said so and so, or have such and such a position on issues, or else they mean that only their segment of the population counts, and that only their segment’s voice should be heard, or that only their segment’s positions should be considered.
Which ever they mean, it is demeaning to the rest of America, and a serious miscalculation of their own strength.
The truth of the matter, as shown by post-election analysis, is that it was a relatively small portion of the electorate who decided the November election.
The majority of those voting in November 2010 were the same folks as constituted the minority of those voting in November 2008, and it wouldn’t be an unsound proposition to expect that they will once again be the minority in November 2012.
It is deplorable, but none the less true, that a sizable segment of Democrats do not normally participate in mid-term elections.
Such groups as blacks, young folks, the economically disadvantaged, and Hispanics turn out for presidential elections, but not for congressional ones, which is a shame, and once again points up the proposition that we need more education in civics in the schools.
But, to return to our original thesis, “The American People” do not speak with one voice on virtually anything, because we don’t agree on virtually anything.
We used to agree on certain basic fundamentals, but we don’t anymore. One side says do while the other side says don’t, and one side says yes, while the other says no.
So, pay no attention to anyone who claims to tell you what “The American People” believe, want, or say.