Restoring American Democracy, Part I Introduction January 1, 2013

We Americans have accomplished much in our history.  We established the world's first true Democracy, we invented the light bulb, the telephone, recorded sound, the Airplane.  We were the first to harness electricity, mass produced the automobile,  made home computers a reality, and created the world wide web.  We liberated  Europe form the Nazis, the Pacific rim from imperial Japan, and Eastern Europe from the Soviet Union.  This is a very brief account of all the many great things our country has accomplished.  That being said, I  have one question.  Why do we have such a lousy government?   

We deserve better.

I started a series of blogs back in July titled "Intelligent Government, an Oxymoron?".  I used a question mark out of respect for the possibility that that is not always true, but really I should probably just drop the question mark.  As it stands, "Beam me up Scotty, there is no Intelligent Life Here".     I'd like to review  these blogs in the next few weeks and proceed from there with ideas that might work to fix the day to day idiocy of our government.

It seems like everyone is sitting and standing around watching how bad Washington has gotten, and EVERYONE agrees  it is not working, but nobody has any ideas to fix this mess.   Why not?  I assume most people feel  "you can't change the system", but I disagree.  We are still a Democracy, the power is still with the people if they seize it.   If the Czechs could have a Velvet Revolution with very little blood spilled to overthrow the authoritarian Communists, surely we can engage in some sort of exercise to remove the bad governing processes as they work now in order to have an efficient wise government .  We don't need an actual revolution because the bones of good government are already in place thanks to George Washington,  John Adams,  Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, Patrick Henry, and all the other brilliant founding fathers of our country.  What we need is a significant change.  A re-set to a government that works for the people, not for the money, not for the power and NOT for a political party.  

Many people who read this will say "impossible", to which I reply that it was also impossible for rebel colonies in the 1780's to throw out the most powerful army in the world at that time... but they did it anyway.

Murdered Six Year Olds

By Charles E. "Chuck" Marshall

     I've been avoiding the news about what happened in Connecticut on purpose.  First of all, the fact that it was mostly six and seven year old children makes me want to vomit.  Second of all,  I don't want to hear the media turn this into another circus;   "How could this have happened?" I don't know why it happened, and I pray for the victims' families., but I won't listen to the media dig for "reasons" for why it happened.   There is no logical "reason".  Why did the holocaust happen? Why did 9/11 happen? Why did Stalin purposely starve millions of his own people to death in the 1930's?   Why did Romans nail human beings, including the son of God to wooden crosses until they died of the pain?  There is Evil in the world, that's why it happened.

     What made this guy do it?  I'm sure none of us will ever really know, but I sincerely hope that he  (I can't recall, 'nor do I care what his name is) is rotting in hell right now and that he is enjoying his close encounter with Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, most of the Roman emperors, and all the other animals that have inhabited this planet in our history.  Who murders 6 year old children but those of such ilk ?  

     I already wrote a blog regarding the nut case that murdered the people in that theater in Colorado., so anyone who is curious as to my opinion on the "crime and punishment" of such people can read that blog,  I wrote it in July and it's titled "Movie Massacre in Colorado".  

   One big legitimate question remains that I feel compelled to address;  "Is there a way to avoid such an incident again?"  I know there is talk of more gun control, but I sincerely have my doubts such a strategy will work.  The country already has millions of such weapons out there on the loose, and nobody will be able to wrest those from the gun loving fanatics that own them.   I cannot relate to this passion for wielding weapons, but it is in the constitution and they are within their right.  The only thing I can think that might help is to arm schools and places of congregation so that any gunman... no matter how "mad" he is, will think twice before marching in to risk  getting his own head blown off before he finishes whatever it is his diseased mind seeks to accomplish.  ALSO, we need to start taking much more care of the mentally ill as far as diagnosis and incarceration.  If someone is showing signs of violence they need to be watched and they need to have restriction of movement, regardless of how "unfair" it may seem.  They cease to have the "right" to become integrated into society when they start fantasizing about murdering innocent people.  We owe it to our children.   We owe it to the 20 six and seven year old children that had their lives robbed from them in such a brutal, violent way.... and we owe it to their parents that now have a hole in their hearts and in their lives that will almost certainly never really heal.  


In My Humble Opinion,

Chuck Marshall

Goo Goo Traitors and Why Mitt Romney Lost

OK< so Obama won the election., so what now?  I guess as a right leaning Independent it's not nearly as devastating to me as it is right now for all those Republicans out there., especially the "Tea Party" Republicans. There's actually a small movement to "secede" from the union going on here in Florida.  Secede?  Well, you're probably not going to get too far here since Florida voted for Obama... Duh!  Anyway, there's a similar movement in Texas.  Now, Texas is another story since at one point it was its own country and of course Texas voted for Romney.  What's my opinion of all this talk?   I think they're all a bunch of little babies and traitors,  and  today I dub them the the "goo-goo traitors".   Now is the time to stand behind our President and bid him well that he might fix the problems many of us felt  Romney was better capable of doing.  We should encourage bipartisanship from Congress and the President in the interest of our country.  The election is over, the people have spoken.

But anyway, enough about the "goo-goo traitors".  I want to elaborate a little bit about why I think Romney lost.  These are my "5 reasons why Mitt Romney lost"  the election.

1)  The 47% comment.  You can't insult nearly half the country referring to them as having a "victim mentality" and then expect to be voted their leader !  They're not that stupid !

2)  Over 70% of the Hispanic vote went to Obama.  That's truly pathetic.  There is absolutely no excuse for him to have done that bad with Hispanics except that he has a very miserable and ineffective campaign/marketing team.  Hispanics make up over 16% of the population,  and it's  my understanding the Romney campaign did little to pursue that vote.  Sad. On the same note, personally I noticed on the pop station I listen to (which would naturally have younger audience) that it was all Obama ads.... not one Romney ad.  I guess his "crack" team of marketers spent all his money on the Fox network, so he could effectively "preach to the choir".  Oh brother !

3)  The Republicans have let the Tea Party have too much say in their party and now they're suffering the consequences.  After the fiasco over the last two years people are afraid the Republicans are DE-volving instead of E-volving... which is appropriate since there is a substantial part of the Tea Party that is said to doubt Evolution.  I've heard some top Republicans mention they think Romney was too far to the middle !  The only reason he gave Obama a run for the money was because he was towards the middle.  If the Republicans had nominated Newt Gingrich or Rick Santorum as their candidate the election would have been such a laughingstock that the GOP would have never lived it down.  Seriously.

4)  Romney is very smart, hard working and I agree with a lot of his ideas but he just didn't excite people enough.  He was sometimes very good, but other times very dull.  He didn't close the deal with that frozen smile of his.  

5)  The Debates nearly saved him, but then the last two debates were ineffective and he let the President recover the fumble from the first debate.  Romney should have probably gone after the jugular in the third debate as it was obvious the President had been playing politics with the assassination of our Ambassador in Libya.  Maybe not such a horrible crime, but it was a breech in his defensive lines that could have been capitalized on.  When Romney had him pinned to the floor with a blatant lie, he let that lady from CNN steal his thunder as she tried to pull him off the President's throat.  That could have been the thrust that pierced Obama's shield, but he just wasn't sharp enough.  

In My Humble Opinion........

President Obama and the Benghazi Incident

There has been an enormous amount of interest paid to the the murder of our ambassador in Libya and how it played out last month.  I should say, at least an enormous of amount of interest paid by Fox !  The rest of the media seems detached from the entire thing, treating it like a curiosity more than a serious news story.  Why?

If you're not familiar, in a nutshell, what happened was this;  The week our ambassador to Libya and the three other men were killed on Sept. 11, 2012 it would appear that a lot more was known by the President and the state department than they cared to admit.   Emails leaked from someone to Reuters (not Fox !) showed that it was already clear the day of the attack (clear to the state department - which logically would clue in the White House) that this was a terrorist attack.  Rather than reveal the truth of the situation, The White House took the opportunity offered by the flair-up of riots and protests in Cairo, Egypt to imply that this wasn't a terrorist attack but another of the same empty-headed riots over some absurd video on You Tube.  They went so far as to have the President's press secretary announce that "there was no evidence this was a terrorist attack".  The President's ambassador to the UN clarified to all the Sunday morning news programs;  "We have no evidence that this was a terrorist attack".  The President himself spoke on late night talk shows and even before the United Nations., essentially the same story.  Not for a couple of weeks were they honest about the situation because it was becoming embarrassingly obvious that it was NOT a random riot over a video.  

So, the interest in this is because it looks like the President and the state department were caught in a lie.  Not just one lie, but a whole series of lies.   Evidently they thought if they told the lie over and over often enough it would morph into the truth.   Now that the world knows it was an organized terrorist attack, the President and all his minions are of the attitude that they "just didn't know".  The President went so far as to express in his second debate with Mitt Romney that he DID call it a terrorist attack the day after the murders;  Sept. 12.  The reality is he referred to the horror of terrorism in reference to Sept. 11, 2001 not the events of the day preceding.  I guess he has taken lessons from his friend President Clinton that you can confuse enough people with word play and answers such as "It depends on what your definition of "is" is."  In this case, "I spoke the truth but you didn't know it at the time... only I knew it".  (Candy Crawford of CNN knew it too as she referred to it at the debate- undercutting Romney's line of questioning- I guess she read the President's mind- remarkable !).

Although Fox can be ridiculously slanted, this time this Independent (and I would imagine a lot of others) wants answers just as much as the Republicans that sit every night with rapt attention watching Bill O'Reilly and Shawn Hannity.  What was known by the President, the Secretary of State, the CIA and the FBI the week after the assassination and why weren't we told the truth?

Shame on the mainstream media for letting this one go, and shame on the President and all those that report to him for feeling entitled to not only withhold the truth but also to ignore repeated requests to ask questions about the incident.   Shame on Candy Crawford for undercutting Mitt Romney when he was insisting on the truth from the President.  With the exception of Fox, the major networks are not doing their job to find the truth no matter the possible political consequences of what they discover.  Even if it means sinking the President's chances for re-election.  The truth is the truth., blind folded, balanced and just.

In My Humble Opinion,

Chuck Marshall

A Letter to the Candidates

Loyal readers, in honor of tonight's political debate, I have a fantasy letter for Romney/Obama I wanted to share.   I am considering submitting it to the Orlando Sentinel as another guest column but figured I'd get some feedback first, so don't be shy with your opinion !   Thanks.

Dear Mr. President and Mr. Governor,

     I wanted to ask you both what your plans are for the national deficit ?   I hear lots of talk about the Middle East, the economy, entitlements, global warming, jobs,  abortion, he said, he didn't say,  they both said.... but I want to hear from you both about the biggest threat to our nation's future, the national deficit?  As you are both aware, we are in debt by $16 Trillion.   Neither of you really seems to have a plan.  Each of your parties are responsible for this debt.   Governor Romney, President Bush ran up a $10 Trillion of debt waging two wars and establishing Homeland Security but then he refused to raise one dime of taxes to pay for it all.   President Obama, you have increased the national debt by 40% in only 4 years, outpacing Mr. Bush's glaring irresponsibility by 20%.  The Republican controlled House of Representatives has refused to raise one penny of taxes (many of them because they signed a "pledge" not to raise taxes, ever, ever, never) and your Democratic companions in the Senate have never heard of a problem that couldn't be solved by spending money, a philosophy which you seem to agree with.  My money, our money, the nation's money.  So gentlemen, keeping in mind you have to get this plan past Congress, what is your plan?  

     The USA Titanic is headed towards an iceberg that is the United States National Deficit and you are very short on lifeboats.    Your passengers, the American public are largely oblivious to the looming danger but there is a vague sense of unease at the idea they are riding on a "so called" unsinkable economy.  Soon they could be set off in a panic as our economy's hull is punctured by the reality of an unprepared government.   Quickly  the icy cold waters of fiscal irresponsibility will pour into the steam engine of our economy.  It will be easier than ever to blame the groups that are truly responsible for not reacting to the iceberg on time.  Nobody reacted because the two parties were too busy arguing whether to pull hard to starboard or hard to port.  Please tell me of a believable plan that not only makes sense but can conceivably pass through both houses of Congress, whether they be Republican or Democratically controlled.  Please be that captain with the nerve and character and temerity to steer our ship simply to safety.